How Plug and Play Became the World’s Largest Startup Accelerator | Sobhan Kani on The Navvai Shift
In this episode of The Navvai Shift, host Speaker A and co‑host Darnell interview Sobhan Khani, a partner at Plug and Play Tech Center, about the accelerator’s evolution into the world’s largest startup‑corporate matchmaking platform. Khani recounts Plug and Play’s growth from a 10‑person operation in Sunnyvale in 2014 to a global network of about 60 offices in 27 countries with roughly 750 staff. He explains the core philosophy of democratizing access to capital and corporate resources for founders worldwide, especially under‑represented entrepreneurs, and describes how the firm matches early‑stage startups (seed and Series A) with Fortune‑500 corporations, governments, universities and other VCs. The conversation covers the current focus on AI applications in healthcare, robotics in manufacturing, and the need for governance and guardrails around emerging technologies. Khani outlines the role of the newly launched Plug and Play Foundation, partnerships with the Knight Foundation, and collaborations with minority development councils to foster diversity and education. He reflects on personal challenges of scaling a distributed organization, the importance of founder traits such as curiosity and risk‑taking, and the balance between social impact and commercial viability. Finally, he shares his vision for the next five years: expanded global presence, improved AI‑driven matchmaking via the Playbook platform, larger industry‑specific funds, and greater brand awareness to create opportunities for underserved innovators.
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To another episode of the Navai Shift. Today I got my co host, Darnell and we've got a fruitful guest. His name is called Sophan Akani. He is the partner at Plug and Play Tech Center. Sopan, how. How are you? You well?
Yes, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me.
Nice pleasure. For the people that are not too familiar with yourself, are you right to give us a brief introduction to you and what it is you do back at a Plug and Play tech center?
Definitely. No. I've been with a Plug and Play firm for about 11 years and I started the end of 2014 when the company still had the headquarter that we have, the building in Sunnyvale, California. But we have probably about 10 or 15 people in staff and none of the offices that we have globally. So I had a pleasure of growing with the organization going from 10 or 15 people to about 60 different offices worldwide in 27 countries with about 750 people worldwide. For people who don't know Plug and Play, we do invest in early stage startups, Seed and Series A mainly, but we also work with big organization. Think of Fortune 500 companies worldwide with the CTO, CEO, head of innovation, anybody who's looking for external innovation to understand what they're looking for. And based on that, we connect them to startups for PoC or pilots. Again, I've been with a firm for about 11 years and I really enjoyed the ride. Getting to know a lot of smart founders and a lot of high level executives. We also work with different government, government bodies and other VCs and universities and so on. So I try to keep it a little short, but let's go from here.
Nice, nice, nice. Do you guys have a. So basically you're like one of the largest, you know, innovative platforms. So you guys cover, correct me if I'm wrong, but like 60 global locations.
Yeah, about 60 cities worldwide, about 27 countries. Again, our headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, but we have offices in, in London, in Paris and in the us we also have opening. Been opening a lot of office lately in different state within the U.S. in Texas, in Florida and Indiana and Arizona, New Jersey, something in New York is coming up. So we're pretty in a variety of cities and states and countries and you name it.
Yeah, no, that's super fire. I wanted to ask, so you've been, you've been with the company for about 11 years now, what's been like the core philosophy guiding that growth over the years?
Yeah, I think if you think of it like for the entrepreneurs and founders, there are a lot of talent and a lot of money flying around in Silicon Valley. Talent because of Stanford, because of Berkeley and then Sandhill Road with a lot of VCs and billions of dollars is here. So the funding is much easier. But if you think of it of a talent globally, there are a lot of smart people worldwide that maybe they don't get a chance or opportunity to come here. A lot of VCs in other cities and other countries as well. But the idea is like if you create this platform globally, that you can connect founders wherever they are to opportunity. Where from? Like, you know, corporations with resources and money and desire to innovate, but in nature there slow to move. And also a lot of other VCs and a lot of governments with which they have money. They're looking for founders to give them money and the purpose for, let's say economical development from EDCs of different, different government and different city to help these founders to create jobs for their citizens, for their people. So the idea is to create that, this platform to open these opportunities where we can come across good founders and good companies.
Nice. I like the mission that you guys have behind it in terms of like creating other opportunities for other people.
Maybe I can say one thing really quick. I'm also immigrant myself. I've moved to the United States in 2000 2010. So I understand that immigrant mentality that sometimes this is all you have, you have to go all in. There's no option B or plan B. And sometimes that actually helps people to become a little bit more successful. And again, the idea is like there are a lot of smart people worldwide, not just in Silicon Valley. And we want to find them, we want to help them, we want to empower them.
Nice, nice, nice. And of course from myself I was doing a little bit of research, right, Is that you guys have a range of partners, you know, from like Fortune, Fortune 500 corporates to early stage startups. How do you maintain the culture and the mission across so many regions?
I mean you can think of Plug and Play as a bigger company, but we have a smaller startups within umbrella of Plug and Play. So when we open office in let's say Stuttgart eight, nine years ago, we had a small team back then there and that little company grew within Stuttgart region. Again like you mentioned, like big corporations. For example, one that in the past I spent more time with them was Mercedes Benz. And their executive came to Silicon Valley. They like what they see in Silicon Valley. They wanted to change the culture of the engineers back in Stuttgart, it was hard to bring engineers from Stuttgart to Silicon Valley, but what if we open something together with them in Stuttgart? And that's what we did in 2017, so quite a while back, but that was the idea. And our team there in Stuttgart was that litter star with an umbrella of plug and play. And that's how you can scale things. When you have a smaller team with clear accountability and clear goal of what they're going to go after and what they're going to achieve, it helps a company grow overall. I mean let's say what we have in Indiana right now with Indiana University and then our new team member who joined there and helping us, helping us to grow in Indiana. So each of them are smaller companies with an umbrella of plug and play, basically.
Nice. So how do you tend to like target or identify the right startups to partner with or to assist?
So there are two different things that can think of it like from one angle, we sit down with corporations that we work with them, they have some of the challenges and problems around trying to solve and based on those challenges they ask us, okay, I want to see startups in this space and based on what the corporations, they share with us, our Adventures team go out there and source the startups with through different channels of university partners, international partners, call for application. A lot of companies reach out to us on our website and then we go to many different events. So we try to match make between what corporations with again resources and money and desire to innovate are looking for and from the other side, founders with like who are moving fast, who are agile, who are new ideas, but they don't have as much resources. So by matchmaking between the two, sometimes you see that magic happens in a win win situation for corporations, for plug and play as investor and also for the founder and startup. And of course when you look at the team, the founding team and startup, you look at the team, where are they coming from? The background, did they have any exit before, where did they go to school, all that kind of stuff. And beyond that, what are the traction they're getting this team, how big that market is, how big that problem they're trying to solve is. So a combination of many things. I think venture capital is probably combination of a little bit of science and a little bit of arts basically. But we try to like say we do matchmake between the big guys, big players versus the, you know, smaller startups.
So Siobhan, our interest, what kind of common themes are running at the moment? Like would you Say is it like the AI space that a lot of people are looking to invest in towards? So maybe is there like a, it's like a health tech space, like just out of interest, what's the market like now?
Yeah, I mean probably like you hear AI everywhere, AI agents everywhere. I think what one thing I personally find it very meaningful, especially looking at the market in the US is application of AI or any technology for healthcare. I think US spending billions and trillions of dollars in the healthcare system and if you compare it to other developed countries, we are not doing that well in any metric. Spending is the highest and the result is probably not the highest, you know, at all the life expectancy or in general. Like if people have a health issue in the US without insurance, this is kind of game over for people. So we are spending a lot of money without the results in general. And if you also look not just us on a global scale in terms of the aging population, I think like I saw something that Japan is like losing like 900,000 or almost a million people per year in terms of the total of the population. If you like think of this like not now, 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. What would happen on a global scale. Also if you look at even in the US in terms of the retirement age and we won't have enough people to take care of people who are going to retire at 60, 65, whatever that is, unless we can extend that time a little bit. I mean I'm not talking about individual individ, we're talking about the bigger scale. Unless we have maybe, I don't know, robots, maybe some sort of a new technology that can help us live longer or I think this longevity things is not just about living longer, it's about living healthier life. So I think application of technology in healthcare is very important on a global scale. And that's what I'm interested in and excited about personally. But also application of humanoid robots and robotics in manufacturing. I think there are a lot of talks in terms of let's say bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. i think there are some truth to it. But like, like is it possible to do that with the current education or current like people that we have in the US with the scale that let's say China has. I think probably that's not possible unless you have like some robots help you to bring that scalability. Because China is not just about being cheap, it's about they have this knowledge about manufacturing that maybe a lot of the other countries, including us, we don't have. As much as they do, because they worked on this for like 20 some years, basically. Does that make sense?
That makes sense. I think off the back of that, I did want to ask, so do you think in terms of the application, would you say that we're moving either too fast, too slow, or would you say we're moving at the right pace?
That's a great question. Honestly, I don't know how to answer that. I don't know. Some people can argue we are moving too slow. Some people can argue we are moving fast. I don't have personal opinion on that, to be honest. I think maybe we can move faster, but as long as we can look into some of the side effect of things that we are doing using these technologies. I'm using an example. Like, I was thinking about an idea. I wasn't sure about option A or option B, and I thought, okay, let me just chat about this with like, ChatGPT and OpenAI and see what would it say? And I said, I after, like, I think I was leaning a little bit more toward option A. And like, I think that the system was giving me validation of option A is actually better. Go with option A. And I went to bed and slept. And the next morning I felt like, let me think, if I lean a little bit toward option B, very like, you know, slightly, what would be the results? And I did that. And the result was like, oh, option B is actually better. Go with option B. And I think think of this as on a bigger macro scale. Like, if millions and billions of people globally chat with this, like, very smart system, and they get validation for what they want to hear and what they want to see. And you think of social media, how much it made us to be divided in general and how much this can divide us on, like, on a macro scale. So from that angle, yes, I think maybe we're moving fast and we have to, like, have better railg. Everybody's moving, like, let's say us to stop China is moving. So, like, maybe from some angles we're not moving fast enough. But we have to, like, play it a little bit smart not to have the side effect, the negative effect too much down the road.
That's a good thing.
I hope that made sense.
No, it didn't make sense because I think, because basically we have like, deep research sessions here at Navarre every week. And I think one of the things that we see is, like, everyone is literally preparing to. For basically to get AI to take over the world. So I think Mark Zuckerberg, he's building like, Data centers that the size of Manhattan. I've seen that Donald Trump, he's literally bulldozing over every single environmental regulation. So what's your opinion on that? I guess is it a thing where because it's like an arms race between China and America, but shouldn't it be a thing where they should create synergies in between each other rather than be the first to do xyz?
I honestly that's a great question. I don't know again like how to like think of it and answer but I think like probably in general these technologies has a huge, huge impact in our life and billions and people like worldwide. And then you think of it that maybe there are a handful of people, you know, controlling this might not be the best solution. I don't know if you guys saw the back and forth between Elon Musk and Sam Altman about like who is more trustworthy on like you know, X or Twitter. I'm just saying this, like these are smart people. These people are like created the best technologies for us. So from my personal perspective we have to be grateful for that. At the same time this like if we have AGI at some point, this is a huge level of responsibility and impact on a global scale. So like does it make sense for just handful of people to have control over it? I don't know. I don't to me doesn't seem like that's probably the smartest move. So I think it makes sense to have more guardrail in general for us to get the best of this technology but also not see too much of a negative of it at the end of the day.
Absolutely, that makes perfect sense. So I'm interested, how are you actually using the AI in your business since we're on the topic?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think one thing we're trying and I think we are not there yet and I hope we can do a much better job. As I mentioned, we do match make between our startups regardless if they're a portfolio or not to our corporations or clients, governments and universities. And the matchmaking happens right now in our platform, something we develop in house called Playbook that we have a database of about 100,000 startups and all the clients that we have. But I think this matchmaking can happen, can use the technology to make the success rate higher, create the higher success rate between again the clients who are buyer of the technology or user of technology to the startups out there. That's what I want to see. Also in general for Plug and Play Historically we wrote smaller checks again as I said, seed in series A. And now we started having some industry specific fund with our FinTech and AI fund, with our supply chain fund, with our E commerce fund, with some regional funds in Japan, in Europe and so on. So writing bigger checks has to have a bigger impact in the journey of entrepreneurs is like what I see we can go. And of course there's a race in terms of what's happening in AI within us, within China and globally in a global scale.
Okay, so that's a, that's a quite a few use cases, wouldn't you agree, Josh?
100%. 100%. And so in your opinion, what does it mean to you when a company is like innovation ready?
Great question. I mean we deal with a variety of, let's say corporations worldwide. There are some that they're, they have a dedicated innovation team, they know what they want to do, they have a specific goal. Let's say when the corporations, they come in using these technologies, they want to do two things essentially at the end of the day. One is either reducing costs by making their process more efficient and faster, or reduce waste in general or coming up with new source of revenue, new technology or new product at the end of the day that they can sell and they grow. So it's basically combination between top line and bottom line. And I think corporates are in different stage of innovation. Sometimes they're ready to execute and jump on it and they have a clear process internally, clear goals and sometimes they're just like in the beginning they're just looking at the technology. This can be interesting. Maybe we're ready, maybe we're not. We actually started working with one of our colleagues who used to be at Mercedes innovation team for 15, 16 years and he started that with them in Stuttgart and then he joined our team about three, four years ago and we have this open innovation services that he sits down with like new partners when they come in on board, they have this assessment that they go through in terms of different angle of the business, how ready they are and based on that readiness they set up different workshops, different training for them to learn from that and then go from there to hopefully work with the startups either from an investment perspective or also implementation or poc.
Yeah, I think the workshop side of things is, let me just say I struggled to sleep last night and I was actually thinking of ideas of how we could, you know, put a out, get artificial intelligence out there to more companies that are in the UK because I mean there's a lot of News and so forth that is out there. A lot of news, a lot of YouTube videos and so so forth. And one of the ideas I was thinking of is creating some kind of workshop which actually teaches. But we go in and speak to the. Come speak to the company, the executive level about artificial intelligence. Because of course, I would imagine a lot of those people at the executive level are, you know, just individuals. They're probably looking online and so forth. But yeah, that's just. I just find it such a cool idea. I think that's Darnell. I think that's something we need to put into play.
Yeah, no, I definitely, I definitely agree because I think even when we do have this, these podcasts, it's interesting to see because, like where people are in their digital transformation journey because some people are all for AI, they've got literally all this tool that so xyz. And then some people, they're just, they're just so kind negative about. And I feel like AI's still got this negative connotation about. I don't. I'm not too sure why, because I feel like now instead of it, you know, being something you maybe could or could implement, it's actually a necessity now.
So I think honestly, at the end of the day, I think a lot of it is in our head. Like we can think of AI as a big threat and probably we can find many reasons and many argument that yes, it's a threat and we can think of it as a big opportunity and we can find and millions of reasons that it's a big opportunity. I think it's like at the end of the day, it's how we think as humanity about this things in front of us. And I think sometimes I look at it from, at least from my perspective personally and also from our company perspective that I try to think of it when you decide if you die from a place of fear, I think it's not the best place to go from that decision. Unless you think of it as, this gave me the opportunity with some good things and with some bad things. Bad, bad, you know, bad negative impact. So I want to think of it from a place of opportunity, personally.
Yeah, me just.
Okay, cool. But yeah, no, I definitely agree with you. I mean, for example, one, you just brought up, you know, all the, all the phenomenal things that's actually going on in health tech, for example, and it's just like if it can, I don't know, like identify all these kind of different health issues that you have a lot earlier, which is saving people's lives. I still, that's why I still kind of struggle to understand why people have that negative connotation.
I mean, I mean it can be a good use case for healthcare. Yes. But as the other one that I mentioned, if it would cause us to divide a lot more or if like just like handful of people just decide about that direction of humanity completely. I don't know. I mean there's stuff like can happen. There's a really interesting book called the Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleiman who is founder of Google DeepMind and I think now he's at. He's CEO of Microsoft AI. The book came out I think like one or two years ago. Really, really great book that talking about the potential negative impact. Not even purposefully like it can happen like that. We are not even thinking about it, that the impact can be huge because it's not just like one city, one country, it's a global scale. So that's where the threat is not. You know, he's not wrong about it. But at the same time it's a huge opportunity for all of us.
Without a doubt. I think, maybe, maybe. I think I asked that question to ChatGPT and it had confirmation bias. So it just, it just told me whatever I wanted to. Yeah, I do have a. Do have a good question though. So we've done our research and I just wanted to know more about your initiative like Drive and the Plug and Play Foundation. Like how do they actually fit into the broader mission?
Yeah, we actually just like launched our Plug and Play foundation recently and we are working with the Knight foundation that they work with us in our newest office in San Jose. And we hope that we can work with like more foundations on a global scale to work with them and help the underrepresented founders that they're sitting somewhere in the world with great ideas and they're smart and we can help them. I think it's a combination of the underrepresented founders and also helping with education on the same topic, as I mentioned, in terms of the health, I think the education is also big issue overall on the global scale, let's say. Also I look at it more from the lens of US People are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on education and do get the results or not, I don't know. Especially now with the systems. Is it the best way to go to college? I don't know. I don't have the answer for that. But I'm just saying that education is not necessarily the best system that we have to provide the opportunity equally for people or I think maybe these systems that can help us to educate people better for much cheaper and then with a better results. So I think education is also a big aspect.
Nice. Absolutely. And do you find that like social programs also help strengthen the innovation network as well?
I think we should do anything that we can. I'm not necessarily like good like this or that kind of thing. For example, we work with an organization in Michigan called Michigan Minority Development Council. And I think they wanted to create this opportunity for minority founders. I think at the end of the day, you have to look at it as like, to me it doesn't matter where you're coming from, you know, and what the nationality is, as long as you have a good idea. That's how we have to look at it. And I think that the system should look at it from the same way to like take this biases that we have as humans out of the loop basically, and then look at it from, purely from the idea from that perspective. It can be, I think it can help us as, as, as humanity big time. So like take that bias out of it.
Nice. Nice. And I know of course, that being part of a company for 11 years of service, you must have seen a lot. But during your journey, what's been like a highlight moment where you've, you know, probably looked in the mirror and you said, yeah, I'm the man.
To be honest, I don't have that feeling yet.
Okay.
So humble, man. I, I mean, honestly, I think like you can always think of you can do more and you can grow more and you can create more impact. A lot of times I try to see that, at least for me, life is not just about me because like, this is a limited time that I have on this planet. As long as I can create opportunities for people beyond myself and give the best that I can to my community, to society, it's what I want to see in myself. So I definitely don't feel like I've made it. I just want to do a lot more and I feel like this is just still a beginning.
Nice. So selfless and humble. Nice. I like that. But has there been like a. So during your journey, I know you, you always feel like there's more that you can do. Has there been like a, a roadblock during your journey? And how did you get over that roadblock?
Honestly, like when you grow as an organization and you have offices in like 20 plus countries and like many cities worldwide, the structure of that is like becoming hard. I think you go through that pain of growth and Then sometimes there are obviously challenges. There's no question. And I think the challenge comes from like the interdynamic between the people creating the best incentive model for people to put in their best works without as much of the conflict and issues within your team. So I think these are the things that probably, at least in my work, I mean, you have to think of it as work as like you can spend time internally and externally. And I tend to get energy from both of them, to be honest, because I think at the end both are people inside and I think people are outside. And at the end it's about people regardless of which side of the table they're sitting. And then creating an environment for us internally to have less issues, less conflict, and thrive as an organization and also create that opportunity for people outside of that organization to create opportunities for them basically and like, create the best environment for them. But of course, as you grow, there are some challenges and it's, I think this part of the game.
So you got the commercial and the social impact program. What's the hardest part about ensuring that both get resources and attention that they need?
I think my very honest opinion is like, let's say us went a little bit too far to the left to just look into. Like, we need to have these systems to just like help without thinking, like, hey, we have to like help under presented founders for sure. But also it has to make sense from the idea perspective. And if you go also too far, too far to the right is like, just like. And not giving any opportunity. I think it probably to me, usually in any argument, the middle ground is where the balance I see and where I think the truth actually lies between the two of them. So again, like, I think we still need to create opportunities for underperformed founders. At the same time, we have to look at the idea, not just the founder himself or herself of it. The idea has to make sense too. I hope that makes sense.
No, that makes sense. I just wanted to kind of dig a little bit deeper. So what actually. So you look at the founder and the idea, so do they both have to mesh together? Like, what is the deciding factor that you'll, that you'll look at?
I think the deciding factor, as I said, in our model, is like, is this a technology that the client, the corporations, the government wants to like, use and do a POC and implement that? If it is, it doesn't matter where the foundry is coming from, we just do that. But at the end of the day, like, to be fair, also, like, founders are going through the journey of life at the end of a day too. And then what they've gone through is like made them who they are. So I think that's why I think the education piece is so important to bring that to like more people early on to get the best, you know, best perspective at the end of the day. Because I think like everything is in our mind. However we like train our mind, we get that benefit of or that disadvantage of that in our life. So it's all about the education early on. One random thing that I did recently, this retreat, that they go really deep into your childhood and like what patterns that you learned from your childhood, like when you were like maybe 1, 2, 3 years old. A lot of it I don't have any recollection from that memory, but it stays with you and it shows up in your adoptable life. So I think having that system that early on you can have that awareness. And I think they say there's something called cycle of transformation, that you have the awareness, you have expression of that awareness and then you have compassion and forgiveness for yourself, for your, let's say in this case parents, that how they raised you or whatever, whatever went through your childhood and then new ways of being to close that, that, that, that, that circle. But I think everything start with that awareness and how we look at things from which, which perspective. So that's it most important aspect on the education side.
So would you say there's like any kind of common themes or personality traits that founders that has you seen done the best have?
One thing I respect the founders the most is the, the adventures and curiosity that they have and the risk that they take. Because when you look at it from the beginning, a lot of times, like, I mean, great idea, but good luck implementing and executing it. But I mean these founders are like fearless. They just go after it because they're so passionate. They're just so believe in it so much. And I think that's a huge strength that not everybody has. So I always like respect founders from that courage, from that curiosity they have and making things happen.
Sick. Even at Navai, we do have a saying. We say we don't do another problems. We always think of the solutions. Because I feel like, I feel like on the final journey, you know, it's never that you're going to run to a challenge, but at the end of the day, I feel like, especially if you know you have your vision and your goal, keep on, if you keep on hammer at you, you'll get there eventually there's going to be bumps months, but you'll get there. And I think because I've got a technical background as well and I've built a set of tools and believe me, there's been a couple times when I went to throw in the. Want to throw in the hat and just say it's long. But then I overcame it.
So yeah, I think there's this talk that Jensen did at Stanford for the gsb, for the MBA student at Stanford and he talks about like how the growth comes from suffering. So I wish you guys like suffering a little bit and I think I was And I mean this is also a belief. It can be true or not. But at least in my head I'm looking at my life in the, in the past, I think wherever I had a level of suffering in terms of career, in terms of personal life, then there's. After that there's some sort of a growth. So there's some truth to it. At the same time like there are people that they have a different perspective. It's just about what we have here in our mind. But for sure like in the founder's life, not easy. They got to go through like millions of ups and downs and then being strong and having that mindset of I will come out of this is stronger on the other side and I'm going to learn from this. And I think like that's, that's the superpower. A lot of entrepreneurs they have have.
Yeah, that's true. There's no growth in comfort. That's also another one of the sayings that we have hashtag as well. Looking ahead, how do you see the corporate collaboration model evolving?
I think I kind of touched on that in our conversation. I think like maybe for us to have again like having for I see it in three different buckets from plug and play business perspective. One is like adding more location with more universities, with more government, with more corporations on a worldwide and different. Different cities and different countries and connect them with a better proper technology tool that can make that matchmaking a lot more successful. To see the result. Let's say like we had cases that we work with like Walmart and we introduce them to this company called Platform Science to make the route optimization more efficient and they save $200 million. These are just like examples of the benefit that corporations they see and also the startups they see. So the matchmaking can happen beyond, beyond you know, our venture associate mind and through a system to create a higher success rate and then third bucket in my mind beyond the localization and the technology would be the bigger fund. If we can crack a code to work with private equity and bigger funds so we have bigger checks to invest in the founder's journey. I think the impact can be bigger.
Than you. You hit all those targets and in terms of like, if feel like you've covered a little bit of it, right? But I'm still, I'm still itching to ask it, but like if we had this conversation, like the next five years, like, what would you hope to be true for Plug and Play and the ecosystem that you have built? And that's just not. That can be in terms of like systems, the people, the growth, like what comes to mind.
I, I look at it as like I. In my journey within Plug and Play, I remember there were conferences I used to go in 20, I don't 14, 20, 15. And I was trying to pitch what we do and people are looking at me as like, are you crazy? What does that even mean? I would never pay to be part of the platform like this versus fast forward to today. Wherever a lot of places I go, a lot of people heard about it. So the brand awareness is there, but I think the brand awareness can be much, much bigger. And I think what I would love to see personally is the impact this brand can create not just for me and for Plug and Play staff, but also on a global scale with more, more opportunities for people who don't, maybe historically don't have that much of chance, but through this platform they can create that opportunity for themselves and also for the community they have around themselves. And I think again, as I said, the technology aspect of this can be huge. That we can chat with the system, get the best potential technology on a worldwide global scale that we can implement from a corporate perspective or also even from the government perspective to help government to be more efficient. Because if you look at the business from the government side, usually it's very inefficient and very slow to move move and maybe the system can help us to like move faster as a society. Again, from a Plug and Play perspective, I want to have a better awareness and also better, more positive impact on a global scale.
So Pan, I'm just gonna. Are you thinking about becoming an author one day or creating like an audiobook or something?
Honestly, I always thought that maybe I don't have that in me. I don't have that much ideas. I always respond, respect the writer or I always love the incredible books. But I never thought I can do it, to be honest.
I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna Put it out there and listen. I won't, I won't charge any, I won't charge any fees or anything. I think I, I believe it would be an exceptional idea.
It's very kind of you to say. I would read it to be, to be very fair, actually. This, this routine I mentioned, like, when I went through, like, there's this, like, we all have this different patterns that we have in us. And I think for me, like, I always have that pattern a little bit like, oh, I'm not good enough. Maybe this is the same thought coming up that I'm not good enough to like write a book. And I, I sometimes I fight that, that thought. And it doesn't matter how much of maybe like progress and success you have. The thought is always there. That's why I always say, like, what's in our mind is the most important thing. And maybe that's something I have to fight back. Thought about it, I never thought I can, I can do it again. The, the thinking that what we go through our mind, I think it's the most important asset and it can be the most, the worst enemy of us. So both is possible. Visible.
Cool. I'm gonna have a little look into, get to one of these retreats. I think it's essential. Me, myself and, and the team, we thought about going to one, but it's more like a, I would say like some kind of like boot camp that's based in Bali where there's like no mobile phones. It's time for you to. Time for us to just lock in. We have our laptops, we train, eat, eat healthy, and just do it all again. Just go again. Let's go again. And the way we kind of view it is that, yeah, we'll just become better men, better business partners, and our knowledge just surrounding artificial intelligence and lead generation in terms of what just our business as a whole would just be next. That's the idealization that we have of doing so.
And I think we all have this like, ideas and goals and like we want to achieve them and it's great. But maybe one more thing that I say, like I have done one of those. They call it like vipassana meditation, the silent retreat that for 10 days you don't have access to like your phone, you don't even talk to anybody. You're in your head. And that's where I realized how powerful this tool is that we have our minds. And then the realization is if we always think about something in the past or some goals that we have in the futures and we experience feeling like, I know, fears or excitement. But at the end of the day, all we have is this present moment. And I keep forgetting about it. I'm always worried about this, something that I can do in the future or I want to do in the future that maybe happens or maybe not. But again, the biggest asset that we have is this present moment. So I just wanted to maybe share that at the end and that I don't want to forget about it because the life is the life we have on this planet probably with what we have right now is limited. So I want to enjoy it as much as I can.
Nice. Wow. That's a great take. That's a. Yeah. So all I can say is thank you for joining us on the podcast today. Honestly, the. The insights that you've given us, they've been very valuable. I'm 100% going to watch this one again and I will. I'm not the one that edits the videos, but I'm pretty sure Stephen, he's going to have a fun time, time, you know, listening to this and you will learn a lot from it. But yeah, just want to say thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. And in terms of like, where people can find you, could you share those links and we'll add it into the description?
Sure. I mean, I can share my LinkedIn, maybe that would be the best place or the website to plug and play. And if there are startups they want to like, apply, they can apply through the website. And if I can do anything on a personal level, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn and we can go from from there.
Amazing stuff. Appreciate that. Well, guys, of course that's another episode of the Shift. So thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much. I appreciate having me take care.
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