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- [00:02]
A
The Warner Brothers TV catalog is chock full of shows, each with over 100 episodes. We take a look at the historic value of some of your favorite TV shows and those properties and home security, a market once dominated by the brand adt. But then along came a startup's fateful appearance on Shark Tank, interest from Shaquille o' Neal and Richard Branson, and a big deal with Amazon. We sit down with Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring On AI to keep homes safe safe for Friday, January 9, it's Brew Markets Daily and I'm Ann Berry. Over 90 million U.S. households use some type of home security system, whether that's cameras, alarms or access control tools. And one big tech company is focused on getting even more homes secured and using AI to do it. That's a Amazon, which bought the leading home security brand ring in 2018 for a billion dollars, having previously invested in the startup through the Alexa fund, which is Amazon's investment arm, exclusively investing in Alexa powered devices. To figure out where home security is going and where it's been, we sat down with Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring and author of his recent book Ding Dong How Ring Went from Shark Tank Reject to Everyone's Front Door. Joining us from the CES week in Las Vegas. J walks us through the roller coaster ride that was building Ring and what he's now focused on as Amazon's vice president of product, passionate about using AI for home and neighborhood safety. So here it is, our conversation with Jamie Siminoff, founder and chief inventor of Ring Doorbell.
- [01:46]
B
Jamie Siminoff, thank you so much for being here. We're going to get into the millions of ring doorbells that have been sold and installed since we just wrapped up Christmas holidays. Start by recounting the story from your book of the infamous nail biter Christmas launch of the Ring doorbell. It was called the door bot and it was shipped out to customers, essentially bricked. So take us there.
- [02:05]
C
Yeah, so on Christmas Eve Eve we had the door bots and we were shipping them out and we were rushing to get them out because we were late to ship them. And people were basically saying, listen, if you don't get it to me by Christmas, I just want to return it. You know, give me, give me a refund. And we definitely were not in a position to give refunds, so I needed to get them out. And so as they were coming in from the factory, we kind of just like shot them out and we had done a change to try to make it better and with the code and it turned out the Engineer that was doing it had no idea what he was doing. And literally like, basically we sent out like, you know, 10,000 bricks and we started to get. I mean it's funny because like things weren't working. Doorbot was. Hardware is really hard. Like it really is. And what we had built was truly hard at the time. Like no one had anything even close to it. And so we were hearing like, ah, it's not working, it's not working. But like people were saying that anyway, so it wasn't like, that wasn't a huge red flag. And then, so, and then I started getting these like screenshots and it was like, you know, this is the picture I'm getting. And I was like, well that's like, we haven't seen that. And so we, I took one out of the box, put it up, got the same picture, took another one out of the box, put it up, you know, like, like, you know, it's like five thinking that it's going to like, you know, at some point going to work. It doesn't. And we realized that we had basically like this put this code on this, on a chip in there that we can't change in the field, hard coded it and basically completely in essence bricked 10,000 units or whatever. It was certainly enough to bankrupt us. So it's Christmas Eve. We spend the whole day trying to figure out what to do with it. I was actually very calm, like, like shockingly calm for losing my business that day. At dinner, that night, I had this kind of like all of a sudden this kind of, maybe this thing in the cloud would work that we were doing before. And I called Mark Dillon who at the time was doing all our engineering. And I said, and he was in New York, so it's like 9:30 or something, his time or 10 o'. Clock. And I said, mark, what do you think if we switch the code in the cloud, do you think like to this other thing, do you think it would work? He's like, I don't know, but worth trying. And so Mark literally started. I'm like, great. I meant great. Like, like great. It's 10 o', clock, like start working on it. And he's like, I'll be done by like, you know, 5:00am like okay, great. You know, it's awesome. Like get it done. And so Christmas Eve, he wakes me up, it's like, you know, 5, 6am, get a call and he's screaming and guy never like, the guy had like very low. He was a true engineer and like screaming like it works. It works. And so still to this day, the best, the best Christmas in the Semenov family ever. We're never going to top that one.
- [04:34]
B
And you sent an email out to customers saying a few of you had some problems, but just so you know, it's been resolved.
- [04:40]
C
Yeah, we were trying not to get a run on the bank. You know, it's like, it's like. Yeah, but the email was. It's funny when we did the book because I kind of remembered sending it, that was part of the fun of doing the book was going back into all of these situations. And because I kept all my email, like I could, you know, we could actually see what I said. And it was funny. I mean, I said like, you know, it's like, it's like maybe one or two people had this. So just, you know, if you want to check again, like it's working today. It's like, just, just FYI, There were.
- [05:06]
A
So many moments, Jamie. I tore through your book, by the way. I just really, really enjoyed it because it was almost like a compendium of shorter sort of heart stopping stories. It's kind of episode after episode of these sort of almost didn't quite get their moments, but sort of got back in the saddle and continued on. And there was one snapshot in the book, Jamie, where you talked about actually in a very humorous fashion what it was like to go on Shark Tank and what that appearance didn't get you, but what it actually then did get you in the next iteration.
- [05:40]
B
Yeah.
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C
So I mean, Shark Tank ended up being, I would call it a Super bowl commercial for a startup. You know, if you look at the impact that being on Shark Tank at that time, I mean, Shark Tank still an amazing show, but at that time the ratings were like, it was like, I think it might have been the highest rated show or something on that year. Whatever, you know, it was, it was insane. So it was like a phenomenon kind of show. And so getting on Shark Tank, the credibility and awareness that we got with being on Shark Tank was just, I mean, the momentum that we got from that was unreal. Which people knew because, you know, over 30,000 people applied the year that we got on. So it was, it wasn't like, it was, you know, we sort of lucked. I mean, we lucked into it, I'd say, because, you know, it wasn't like it just sort of. We found it. It was, if you look at how many people applied, it's pretty incredible.
- [06:30]
B
And on the show, you famously turned down Kevin O' Leary's offer and later went on to make $1 billion deal for the Ring doorbell. We've had Kevin O' Leary on this show. Have you ever run into him or any other sharks? Do they express any regret?
- [06:45]
C
So I ended up. I ended up going back on Shark Tank as a shark, which was probably one of, I mean, goals as an entrepreneur. You know, getting on Shark Tank for me was like. I felt like an Olympian, you know, going to, like a. Like an amateur athlete. Going to the Olympics. Going back on as a shark was like the Mike. I mean, I. Michael Phelps that, like, you know, it's like I. Whatever the ultimate, you know, goal was, it was like that I blew it out. Robert Herjavec and I have stayed very close and I see him all the time and talk to him a lot. Some of the other ones I still talk to more, but, I mean, say that Kevin and Robert are the ones I'm closest with. And it's a really. It really is a great. Like, the people on was, it's a family. Like, it's a family show, and it's like a family. Like, it was just a really great. I have nothing but, like, just incredibly positive things to say about it.
- [07:34]
A
I've got to say, Jamie, you have been very smart throughout the journey of Ring in terms of one, utilizing television as a platform for brand awareness, not just Shark Tank. You're on home shopping networks as well. I talk a lot about that. In the book, you were very smart about letting a celebrity come into your cap table, and you had a savvy investor who let that celebrity lead the round. Do you want to talk about that? Talk about Sir Richard Branson, too. And then once you've laid that out, let's move beyond marketing and talk about something else, which is patents or lack of when it comes to your product. But first, tell us about some of the celebrities and the way you were able to cultivate them and ultimately use their platform to support you.
- [08:16]
C
Yeah. So, I mean, I think I always say that luck comes from hard work. And, like, every hour you work, you know, you get sort of one more lottery ticket to scratch off for luck. And so, yeah, I wish I could say that I, like, sought out Richard Branson and, like, sort of convinced him. But I got lucky. I was installing rings on people's houses, and influential people did one in the Bay Area and those. The guy went to the island that night. They were on Richard's island, and Richard, they're having dinner, and Richard said, like, what cool things are you seeing? And he's like, hey, look, I, I showed the UPS person where to put the package today from the beach. And Richard's like, oh, that's amazing. It's so great. I want to give it to my friends for the holidays. And so then I got an email from Richard wanting to give it to his friends for the holidays, which we did. But I also started talking about what the impact of Ring was actually trying to accomplish, which was making neighborhoods safer. I kind of knew that I was fishing and I kind of was pulling the hook. And so I figured that when Richard heard that he would sort of like, that would be the hook. And it was. And he invested. And yeah, that was, that was. Richard was another. I mean, again, it's so, it's, it's crazy how many things had to happen like this, that, that built Ring, you know, the shark tank, how big that was. You know, if we weren't on Shark Tank, I don't think, you know, we would have been here. And then Richard Branson was really how we were able to brand ourselves as not just being a product, but being something that had much more of a mission. And, you know, when you're a small startup, like, you don't have the right, you don't have the, you don't. You need to earn the trust with your customers. You can't just go out and say, I'm a doorbell. I'm going to change the world. Like, if you do that, people are just not going to like you. Just, they're not going to trust you. You're not going to have the authenticity. When Richard Branson says, I invested in this doorbell and they're going to make things safer. And here's how, like, the credibility that he brings along with that, you know, that that stamp of approval is basically priceless. And it was for us, the other thing we did. And again, this is like looking back, very funny. If you talk to press people, they'll be like, don't launch anything in August. It's a dead month. And I've always been like, when everyone says, don't do anything, I'm like, that's when I'm doing it 100. Because, by the way, guess what? Like, if no one's launching something in August, like, there's still. The humans are like, everyone's still out there. Like, we're still reading stuff. It's just less to read, I guess. And so we did this launch at like the worst time in August from a, like a press planning side which exploded because there was nothing else to sort of Go against it on the news. And so not only did we have this like little startup they got Richard Branson Invest, which maybe would have gotten some, you know, stuff but like this just, I mean it went like it was for, for the size we were, it was massive.
- [11:02]
A
More of our conversation with Jamie Siminoff in just a moment. Producer John, I want to set you up.
- [11:08]
B
All right, well I'm not on the market but either way I don't know if I trust you in that department.
- [11:12]
A
Oh yeah, well would you trust a matchmaker who uses AI to comb through a database of people who meet all of your criteria?
- [11:18]
B
Actually yeah, that sounds great.
- [11:19]
A
Well that's what sitch matchmaking does. It was designed specifically for the high intent datas out there. Sych's detailed onboarding get to know exactly what you're looking for and your non negotiables.
- [11:29]
B
Okay, well my non negotiables include being a good pet parent and having an up to date will and testament specific.
- [11:35]
A
But yes, their matchmaker will help ease you into conversations to avoid ghosting and actually set you up. Skip the wait list@joinsitch.com Morning Brew. That's joinsitch.com Morningbrew. And now back to our conversation with Jamie Siminoff, founder and chief inventor of Ring Doorbell. Let's talk about something else that you did which went against conventional wisdom a little bit, Jamie, and let's talk about your intellectual property. You wrote that you didn't have patents and you wrote that you actually thought that this was a good thing because it kept you hungry, it kept you fearful of competition and it forced your team at Ring to stay ahead of the curve. I read, I thought it was very well articulated. I've got to be honest with you, I was slightly skeptical and wondered is this revisionist history? Is this the victor writing the history books? Was that a real.
- [12:26]
C
It just shows how the free market is the only way for success. Like you need and patents create an artificial in essence feeling of, of protection of your business. And I've seen so many companies that have a patent or feel they have a patent. Again we had, I have actually I have like hundreds of patents but just we didn't have one that like anyone else could have built the video doorbell like what the main product was. We had patents on how we did processes and things but really the is you could build the video doorbell. No one was going to stop anyone from doing it. Definitely not us. But you know, the free market, the fear of that knowing that anyone could come out with it at any time and that we couldn't stop them made us go faster, harder. And remember, the video doorbell didn't exist. There was no business there. So, so we, we knew we had to like build the brand, be the thing, do that because we weren't protected. And so I don't think it's, I actually don't think it's revisionist history. I think, I do think that the best thing in the world is competition to drive an entrepreneur and a team to do great things. And I think when you find markets where there's no competition, typically, sadly for customers, I think things do languish. So I do like, I'm like a ultimate free market person. And I saw it myself, which is I really, I knowing myself, if we had a patent and, and I thought I owned the video doorbell, I, I would have been out at different companies saying, I'll license it to you. I would have been, you know, like, like Mr. Big Shot. Like, you know, if you want it, I'll do $5 for whatever. But also no one would have any, put, put the marketing into it. Like no one would have built Ring like which became, you know, what it is today.
- [14:09]
A
So let's talk about your new home. Roll forward. You sell Ring. It's a billion dollar deal and you sell it to Amazon, right? So now you've got, maybe not, I don't know if you take up more patents now. If Amazon as a corporate policy has a different perspective on IP protection, I'd love to hear you talk about that. But there's one thing you now have which is the protection of one of the biggest balance sheets on planet Earth. Talk to us about what it is like to be at a nearly two and a half trillion dollar company in your new role and how Ring sits inside that.
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C
It's not so bad, you know, good.
- [14:48]
A
Free food, good lunch. I mean, what's pretty good?
- [14:52]
C
I mean the biggest thing. So as a hardware company, we grew from 3, when we started sort of revenue, it was 3,030,001,7480. And at the end of the 4:84, $80,000,000 year, we sold that. Like those numbers, like if you chart it out, you're like, that's amazing. Like, what a success. Like, you must have been so happy. It's like on the other side because of how hardware works. You're ordering stuff a year, a year and a half before. So you're basically always going bankrupt from a cash flow side when you're growing like that. So from the balance sheet, I mean, just like the balance sheet Side for us was just that we didn't like at a two and a half trillion dollar company like Ring is, you know, we're not going to affect Amazon in that way and so we can order parts and things without having that kind of a problem. Not feeling like we're always going to hit the wall, which we basically almost did many times right until the end. So it is nice to be able to. It allows me and us, the team to focus on what we really care about. And I think it's why we have innovated crazy since we've come to Amazon products, features and really new to world stuff. And I think we're able to do it because 90% of my brain and time is focused on just doing things and I don't have to worry about the fundraising or the balance sheet.
- [16:15]
B
So what, what motivated your decision to step down as CEO, which you did in 2023. You've since come back to the company. But what were you feeling at that time?
- [16:22]
C
I just, it was such a long run. I mean, I went, you know, like I said, it went to 480 million. We sold it. And it's funny because I think when people hear about a sale and a billion dollars, they're like, all they think about is like that you're vacationing. I think it's just like how the world looks at it, which I don't blame people for thinking that, but instead I, I actually, because of the balance sheet, because we could go faster. We were, we worked harder. So for five years I stayed and we, I mean, we, you know, multi X the company, the revenue, the profit, like everything. And I felt like in 2023 I finally got it to a place where it's profitable. It was growing still very fast. The roadmap was, was what I thought was needed and I was pretty burnt out. I mean, I just gone on this, like this journey that I had not taken a moment to just kind of step back. So I did that in 2023 and it's like, and then AI, like, you know, AI was sort of like, like a twinkle kind of coming in. Like, like in 2023, I mean you could see it. Chachi PT was like sort of there, but you couldn't see, like, I'd say I did not see what the progression was going to become. And while I was gone, seeing what I could do, understanding what we had built at Ring, it did kill me, like what the next generation of Ring could be. And so I was really lucky and excited and happy to be able to come Back which I did earlier in 25 and now we've been just ripping and doing so many great again, like really new to world, but new to world stuff that we could have never imagined in 2023 or even before that. I mean our mission to make neighborhoods safer has been our North Star. But without I like, like there's so much stuff we wanted to do. You just couldn't sort of feasibly do that. Now you can.
- [18:11]
A
Well, like what Jay? Let's get specific. Actually, let's, let's dig into AI because this is really exciting. You have this unbelievable vantage point from which to talk about the application of AI in security. Let's, let's start with ring, then we'll go broader. What specific features are you now incorporating into ring that use AI.
- [18:29]
C
So I mean today, so I, I, my house is in the Palisades in, in Los Angeles that had the fires. I was in the, I was actually went back into the fires and, and helped kind of get it off my house and neighbors and saw the sort of the fog of war and like the lack of information. We had over 10,000 cameras in that area. And so today we literally launched something called firewatch. So in, you know, hopefully there's not a next fire, but there probably will be. But in like a large catastrophic event like that, our ring neighbors, which is what we call our customers, can opt in to put their cameras basically into watch duty, which is the place where the agencies are using to sort of do the fire map. And now they'll have more real time information to understand where the fire is spreading, what's happening and hopefully with that be able to put resources out much more efficiently. And so like there's one that we and AI is actually what is looking then through the camera when you go into this mode to see if it's smoke, is there embers, is there fire? And so because you know, if you give someone 10,000 cameras, they can't watch them. If you give AI 10,000 cameras, it'll tell you which ones to do and give you and can actually basically annotate like what's happening in each one. So today like super proud to you know, be sitting here right now with that one because it's really close to home. But it's also, that's where AI like we just couldn't have done it without.
- [19:51]
B
AI and what other ways are you using facial recognition? I know that's identifying smoke and other things like that, but people coming to your door consistently. What are we seeing in AI there?
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C
Yeah, so I Mean, facial recognition obviously is a huge part of when you're home. How you want to set it up. Do you want to see every time your kids come home from school, Great, so now you can set that or do you say, no, don't send, like, I know they're coming in and out. Like, I don't need to, I want to see when it's someone I don't know. And so we have familiar faces, which allows you to do that. We have unusual events now, which we also actually just launched today, which is, allows you to now set it so that if you again, if you go back in Rings history, we like broke the sound barrier launching motion alerts. So like you got an alert from your house when there's motion in front of it like, like on your phone now with AI, I would say like that's, that's old school, like that's like a steam engine. What you want to see now is tell me when there's something happening at my house that is abnormal. And again, abnormal doesn't mean like it honestly bad. It could be like there's a horse in front of your house. Like that never happens. Exactly. But like that's what people like weird things happen and it's like that's the stuff you actually want to see or you want to see abnormal stuff like again from a crime and safety side. And then do you want to see your kids when they're coming home? So really being able to tune in and let the AI, I actually look at it as we're doing AI backwards. So we're doing ia, which is an intelligent assistant. So what we really want to make for you is like we want Ring to be your intelligent assistant at the house and that then can plumb into Alexa. And there's other things that we're doing sort of as part of Amazon. But the idea that when we sort of talk to you, when you get an alert on your phone, it should be an intelligent alert, not just a there was motion.
- [21:40]
A
Talk a little bit more, if you don't mind, Jamie, about how the data that's being collected by the Ring devices is shared with the rest of your organization at Amazon. If you think about the sheer quantity of video, visual imagery that's being collected and then Amazon's ability, if it can access it more broadly, to do things like train next generation models for purposes other than security. Is that happening right now?
- [22:08]
C
No, we just don't, I mean our customers data is our customers data held to that. And so yeah, like we don't, we don't do anything with that. The only time you can share your data is when you obviously, like, physically say, like, I want to share this, this video with someone, or things like firewatch, which, you know, we send an alert and you opt into it at the time that it happens.
- [22:29]
A
And what proportion of Ring neighbors are also Alexa users?
- [22:36]
C
It's actually a pretty. We haven't put it out publicly, but there's a lot of people that use both. And I think with Alexa, we're going to see a lot more integration areas and you'll see a lot more from us this year about how we use like the intelligence of Alexa again to create that intelligent assistant to sort of flip AI to not just be. You know, to me, AI is tech. It's not human in terms of, for like people and customers. You know, intelligent assistant is kind of what everyone really wants. Like, what you really want is you want your life to be assisted. I mean, you want help. And so, yeah, I think with Ring and Alexa together, I think you'll see a lot of stuff this year if.
- [23:13]
A
You were to paint a picture of your vision five years from now. The art of the possible using AI and ia. Like, what does that look like? What is. What does Amazon become the one stop shop for in its entirety? For everything that you're touching.
- [23:29]
C
Yeah, I mean, it's so like, when you say Amazon, it's like so big that, like, it's hard to answer that. But I would say in my area of Amazon, which is around the home, I would hope that living in your home, like the stress level, the stress load of living in your home, we have taken down and nothing ever goes to zero. But that we've gotten it sort of to zero, whether that's on security, whether it's maintaining things around your home. We're launching an app store now so that you can think about people building these long tail of apps for their, you know, the grass is turning brown water it, like just all of these things that we can sort of help you with. So Ring is definitely very focused around crime and safety. We have Alexa that's focused sort of more around like the intelligent assistant in the home. But putting it all together, I'd hope. Yeah. And like a few years and again with the speed of AI, five years might be like way too far out. But I do hope that someone says, I bought these systems products and then I just feel like I'm being assisted. Like I feel like I could feel it.
- [24:30]
A
Robots, Jamie, we can see robots in the home from your team.
- [24:34]
C
I love robots.
- [24:36]
A
Okay.
- [24:38]
C
I love them.
- [24:38]
A
More tinkering, more to come.
- [24:40]
C
I love. I mean, yeah, the adventure. I mean, like, you can robots, of course. Like, I mean, I love robots.
- [24:44]
B
All right, Jamie Siminoff, thanks so much for joining us. From ces, your book, Ding Dong, the Untold Story of How Ring Went From Shark Tank Reject to Everyone's Front Door.
- [24:54]
C
Thanks for having me.
- [24:56]
A
Well, huge thanks to Jamie Siminoff for joining. And before we go, I just wanted to acknowledge that this is our 100th episode of Brew Markets Daily. Now, our producer John, who is a TV pro, was mentioning what that milestone means for traditional media.
- [25:11]
B
That's right. For decades in television, TV shows tried to stay on the air to hit that hundredth episode. Episode mark because that was the threshold where a show could be sold into syndication. And that's where the real money came in for all time. And a typical season back then was 20 to 25 episodes. And so hitting 100 would take about five years. And there's even examples where shows would have declining ratings in season three and four, and the production company would sell the show at a huge discount to the network just so they could get to that fifth season and sell it into syndication.
- [25:43]
A
So I love this because this sort of pulls into context so many different things. But we were thinking about the market angle here. And if there's one thing that has been hitting the headlines in abundance lately, it has been the drama, the battle for Warner Brothers Discoveries catalog. We see that it's being hotly pursued by Netflix and by Paramount. They're still in the thick of contesting bids, even though Warner Brothers has said that they want to go with Netflix. And so let's talk about what this means in terms of the money, because that is why we're here and the value of the hit shows that exist in that catalog. Look. So Netflix and Paramount wooing Warner Brothers because each of them want to access over 100 episodes of each of the following Friends. I love Friends, by the way. Can I just say, I mean, every.
- [26:25]
B
Who doesn't?
- [26:26]
A
Who doesn't? The Big Bang Theory. I don't watch the Big Bang Theory.
- [26:29]
B
Don't love it.
- [26:30]
A
Okay. Don't love it. Gilmore Girls. Everybody loves Gilmore Girls. Gossip Girl. Yes.
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B
Unfamiliar.
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A
Dallas. I. I mean, yeah, my mom. My mom loved Dallas. She, like, sit me down to watch Dallas. Well, we're going to be talking more next week about the continued batt over Warner Brothers discovery, but it really gives you a flavor for why these kinds of libraries are just so highly sought after because they last for ages. So lots going on.
- [26:58]
B
Of course, we aren't a weekly TV show. We are a daily podcast. But 100 shows gives us an excuse to reflect. And my favorite part of doing this show has been getting comments and emails from listeners. That's just been awesome.
- [27:09]
A
It's amazing. We do get a ton of requests looking to specific companies to talk about certain trends, to unpack what's going on in an area that perhaps is jargon, fill, build and needs to be busted. So again, thank you for listening, thank you for reaching out to us. And we're just excited to keep on growing. So tell your friends, tell others, tell your family to come check us out on YouTube and on Spotify and on Apple, wherever it is that you get your podcast. Thank you so much to the incredible team here at Morning Brew that helped launch the show and the team that continues to work so hard every single day to get this out every single afternoon. Producer John let's roll the credits. They're well deserved.
- [27:49]
B
Brew Marcus Daily is hosted. Anne Barry, who I would like to thank for bringing me on and for the champagne for everyone in the office today. That was very generous. And the show is produced by Jon Cotault, Tarkab Delatif and Emily Millard. Technical direction by Lonnie Fiskas and Yuchena Wayogu. Brittany De Taco is our audio engineer. Guest booking by A.B. silver. Special thanks from me to Bryce Beloff and the president of Morning Brew Inc. Is Devin Emery.
- [28:12]
A
Wake up on Monday with the Morning Brew newsletter and tune in to Neil and Toby on Morning Brew Daily. Have a great weekend, folks, and we'll see you back here next week, same time, same place. It.