Listen: Ep43: Robert F. Smith on How to Build A Culture of Success

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Joe Cass   00:00:00

Hello, and welcome back. My name is Joe Cass. I'm a Senior Director here at S&P Global Ratings and the hosting creator of the FI15 podcast. So on this episode, we have Robert F. Smith, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners; and Doug Peterson, CEO and President of S&P Global, with both guests knowing each other via their work at Carnegie Hall. A quick reminder before we start that the views of the external guests are their views alone, and they do not represent the views of S&P Global. Okay. Robert and Doug, thank you so much for joining.

Doug Peterson   00:00:32

Thank you.

Joe Cass   00:00:34

Robert, to get us started, Vista Equity Partners has a really kind of unique approach to software and technology investments. Can you share the story of the evolution of your firm and what you've built it into today?

Robert F. Smith   00:00:49

Sure. Thank you. And again, thank you for inviting me to spend some time with you and my good friend, Doug. I think, Vista shares a pathway that is frankly parallels the pathway of compute and computing in the U.S. and now globally. In the early days, we, as an engineer, we're implementing computing systems into process industries, really looking to enhance the control dynamic of these process industries, and it led to massive, massive productivity into those industries. And then as compute became more affordable. In other words, Moore's Law kicked in, and we were able to push computing power into the corporate environment has started to give that same sort of productivity dynamic into the corporations. Vista, just to give you a sense today, we own 87 software companies or so. And we test and measure the productivity of the return on investment of the products that we sell to our customers, and it still has a return of investment over 640%. So there's just, frankly, very little investment that you can make in a corporation that gives you that sort of return other than enterprise software. And so in the early days of Vista, the way that enterprise software was delivered, it was through on-premise-based solutions, land type solutions. That was kind of Phase 1. And in that Phase 1, we really focused on how do you make the client server environment more productive, the types of architecture and products that were built. and deliver to the consumer base, and they were modestly growing type enterprises, and you can make them actually pretty profitable. So from an investment perspective, think about it as an ideal environment for buyouts and leverage buyouts. Well, once compute got to be a lot more, I'll call it, ubiquitous and affordable and pushed into these superscalers, then we were able to move into cloud-native environments, public clouds. And from that perspective, you saw a massive expansion in not only the revenue growth of those businesses, but frankly, the number of enterprise software companies. And so we pivoted as Vista looking for more of these, we call them growth at scale type companies. In fact, our average company was growing at twice the level of the early days of Vista. And today, I completed well over I think, 20 transactions in those 23 years. And really since 2014, 2015, we pivoted and really started to look for cloud native or in some cases, hybrid type cloud environments. And you could actually drive those companies to a higher level of growth and more profitability at the same time versus the early days, you didn't have the sort of the growth rates with those leverage buyouts, and you were really focusing on the profitability. So the evolution of Vista has continued to track the proliferation of enterprise cloud computing of computing in the enterprise and ultimately cloud computing. And now, of course, we're entering into a new phase, Gen AI. Gen AI is going to create yet another, call it, catalytic event in the world of enterprise software, creating even faster enhancements in products and solutions and services to the customer bases that we serve and more productivity in how you produce these products. So it continues to be a quite interesting and dynamic industry that still leads to a tremendous amount of productivity and value creation for those who consume enterprise software.

Joe Cass   00:04:32

Great. Thanks, Robert. And Doug, S&P Global has got a long history of evolution and innovations. So over the last few years, you've led the company through a number of acquisitions, including the merger with IHS Markit. What is your strategic vision that has driven those transactions?

Doug Peterson   00:04:52

Well, Joe, thank you for inviting me today, and it's fantastic to be on this show with Robert. So Robert, it's great to see you as well. Taking a step back at S&P Global, we have a unifying vision that's called Powering Global Markets. This means that what we do, what we provide, benchmarks, pricing, research, news, analytics gets embedded in people's workflow because they need that to make decisions, informed decisions. About 6 years ago, we took a step back and we took about 40 people and we put together a project and vision, and we went out and met 180 clients, regulators, policymakers and asked them, what do you need in your world to make better informed decisions? And at that time, we heard some themes related to actually what Robert was just talking about, technology and the shifting how technology is being used. And in fact, at that point in time, we did the acquisition of Kensho, which is an artificial intelligence center of excellence. We also heard from our clients, they wanted to think about how do we use your products and use your technology, which put us on a path to continuously upgrading how we interface with our clients. But when it came to scale of products, services, and data, we knew we wanted to grow in a few areas: sustainability, climate, the shifting capital markets and the kind of data you needed. And we found that IHS Markit across the board had these complementary data sets and products would allow us to grow. And so we approached IHS Markit a little bit over 3 years ago, and we ended up doing a deal which has really turned out to be fantastic. We're ahead of all our projections on synergies, on cost synergies, on revenue synergies. We've got a new culture, and this has allowed us to get back to that unifying vision of powering global markets.

Joe Cass   00:06:35

Great. Thanks, Doug. Robert, looking back in 2023 at Vista Equity Partners and private equity in general, could you provide a couple of insights into your experience and maybe offer a glimpse into your expectations and maybe your vision for 2024?

Robert F. Smith   00:06:54

Sure. I think the world of enterprise software, I have to begin the framing of it really in the early 2000s. These companies that produce this massive productivity gain for corporations globally. And I'd like to say enterprise software is the most productive tool introduced in the business environment over the last 50 years, likely will be for the next 50. And these companies traded really around two to four times revenue type levels for really a decade, decades and a half. And then, of course, the introduction of the cloud and cloud computing. And so then you had a rerating of software. They went from kind of two to four times to about six times because you had the ability to deliver software much more efficiently and have it consumed much more efficiently by the customer base, and that productivity was being realized through companies becoming more profitable, those customers are being able to reach their customers more efficiently. And so you saw a pretty, call it, effective market in equilibrium from 2013, 2018, 2019. And then we entered into this global monetary expansion phase where you saw a massive increase in the asset, call it, values of these businesses. They weren't necessarily growing much faster, but you saw because of loose monetary policy, the six times multiple trading up to as high as eighteen. So three times the valuation from, call it, 2019 up through 2021. While, of course, through this monetary tightening, which is where we are today, you saw those multiples come back down. And so now they're trading more towards that historical average at about six times. So that's been the cycle that we have witnessed and experienced. And for many investors who have felt that whipsaw, they are, in some cases, now saying, well, how am I going to return capital. We've been fortunate that we take an approach to build fundamental, call it, infrastructure in our businesses. So we've been able to exit even in this environment back since November 2021, where there's been the downturn in the market, we've had 19 monetization events and continuing to invest at a quite rapid clip today in that period of time, about $15 billion invested in lower $16-plus billion return in that period of time. It's the same sort of rates of return. And that's because we've been able to build, again, and install what I call accelerate the corporate maturity of the businesses that we'd like to invest in. And we didn't really participate during that massive inflationary environment in buying companies. And so I think in the state today, it is a great time for us in our investing approach with plenty of dry powder to continue to invest in these mission-critical, business-critical enterprise software companies. And Doug spoke to this a few minutes ago, who actually have a tremendous amount of data and call it, having sovereignty and dominion over that data enables you to utilize tools like Gen AI to create new products and solutions and services to sell to your customers and then utilizing CodeAssist type of applications in your own portfolio companies enables us to get 10 now and 35% productivity. So when I look at the market going ahead, given, call it, the stickiness of inflation, we're seeing some fall off in numbers and durable goods, but the services inflation numbers still seem to be pretty high and some commodity inflation numbers seem pretty high and sticky that I think we're going to actually have a pretty good investing environment, probably one of the better that I've seen over the last 20 years. given that massive monetary expansion inflation activity that occurred in 2019, 2020 and going into the early part of 2021. So a great outlook from that perspective. And I think investors who are looking to create like us, create fundamental value in their businesses. And just as Doug had talked to realigning cultures of businesses, implementing changes that create scalable infrastructure, those are the sorts of businesses that will do very well in this next cycle of investing and returning value to stakeholders.

Joe Cass   00:10:57

Great. Thanks, Robert. Doug, you regularly meet with world leaders, CEOs, policymakers, including I understand recently meeting with the Prime Minister of Japan. So I'd be interested to know what are your reflections on these conversations? What are you generally kind of hearing from senior individuals and these institutions?

Doug Peterson   00:11:19

Well, following on what Robert just mentioned, one of the most important topics that we discuss no matter who I'm with is what's going to happen with the global economy. People are wondering about when are interest rates going to top out? Will there be continued interest rate increases in Europe, in the U.K., in Japan and the U.S. And then when will interest rates turn around and move the other direction? The bond markets have been moving around, expecting there will be some sort of decreases through 2024. But it seems like the policymakers are still evaluating very cautiously what's happening in the real economy. The next thing that we talked about pretty much every meeting I go to, and it was featured extensively in UN General Assembly Week and Climate Week in New York was sustainability and what's happening with climate change. COP has taken place recently. We've seen that there's a lot of discussion about the long-term trends towards net zero, how that's going to happen. And very importantly, because of the world we're in, financial markets will play a critical role in being able to achieve net zero because there's a need for infrastructure, for all types of investment to be able to come up with a sustainable economy. And so we're also very engaged in that. Related to my discussions in Japan, including with the Prime Minister, Japan is going through their own transition. And we talked about a lot of topics, including sustainability and energy transition. We talked about what's happening with interest rates, with economic growth, but there are a couple of other topics, and they actually relate to some of the areas that Robert works in. The first was the entire digital economy and what's happening with digital transformation. And in Japan, that also includes semiconductors and software, something that aligns very well with the United States own interest. And then the other area is health care, health tech, what's happening with health care devices, with life sciences. These are areas that between the U.S. and Japan, there's a lot of interest to work together. And these were good dialogue I had in Japan. And I enjoy these conversations. They also help shape the strategy of S&P Global.

Joe Cass   00:13:22

Great. Thanks, Doug. Robert, interesting one for you. What view or opinion from technology or entrepreneurship do you believe to be true that few others would agree with you on?

Robert F. Smith   00:13:35

That's a good question. There's one topic that has come forward. I'm not sure if others would agree with me on this, but I continue to look at enterprise software. The productivity it has brought to, frankly, the global, call it, business ecosystem has just had a profound effect on pretty much every developed economy on the planet. And some are saying that they believe that software is going to become obsolete. I don't believe that at all, obviously, as a result of the emergence of generative AI. From my perspective, I think, again, generative AI will be yet another catalyst that creates some more short-term advantages for some and disadvantages for others. But I believe this is actually going to play out in three waves, and we're seeing that early part of it now. The first wave, of course, is that the value of this technology and this technology shift is going to inure to the benefit of the hardware providers, and you're seeing that today. And you're going to see a massive amount of capital being poured into the development of GPUs and GPU environments. You'll see investors putting capital in, and governments putting capital in, looking to create forms of strategic advantage going forward. The second wave will inure basically to the benefit of the superscalers, those who are providing these cloud-based infrastructures and then what will be GPU infrastructures. And ultimately, there will be large corporations that will gain access to that capacity, enabling them to innovate in products, solutions, and services. But ultimately, I believe the third wave will inure to the benefit of those who are utilizing that capacity and who are very effective in creating specific products, solutions, and services to sell into their markets. And that sets itself up quite well for software companies, and enterprise software companies in particular. One of the advantages of being a company like S&P and Vista and others is that you have data and workflows that others don't have access to. And if you maintain, call it, the sovereignty and dominion of it, you should be able to implement various large language models to utilize that data and those workflows to create enhanced product innovation, services innovations, product uplift, some portfolio enablement, and ultimately decrease your cost of delivery. Part of the way we do it is leveraging the size, scope, and scale of our infrastructure so that we are participants and partners with these superscalers, having the ability to utilize those relationships to gain access and innovate. In fact, we hold our own hackathons with our own companies. We've had two this year with well over 300 participants from 40 companies. We use certain of our companies, companies like Avalara, to use AI to automate compliance processes and create conversational experiences with customers, or PowerSchool, which is building AI products that create customized homework solutions for each student. And some may find that to be controversial on the one hand, but I think it will enhance both the educational opportunities and business opportunities and, frankly, accelerate those opportunities for our customer base, which will lead to an overall GDP pick-up globally. Ensuring, just ensuring that there's, call it, responsible management of how generative AI is used in corporate environments in particular will lead to, I think, a massive productivity increase for all stakeholders in those ecosystems.

Joe Cass   00:17:05

Great. Thanks, Robert. Doug, you've been an advocate for the role of data and analytics in decision-making. Can you tell us about maybe a specific instance where data-driven insights have had a profound impact on your career?

Doug Peterson   00:17:20

Well, I think about data insights as something that's been throughout my entire career, whether it was as a banker, thinking about credit decisions, as a manager, making investment decisions. Now, at S&P Global, with the amount of data we have, which is going to be critical to what Robert just talked about, the generative AI and large language models. But I started my career in data. I was a math and history major, and my first job was as a research analyst, basically a data scientist, building models for the oil industry to determine what were the key factors that would lead to the price of a barrel of oil. We had to extract data from multiple sources. We had to actually put it into punch cards (I'm aging myself), and we had to then build models. And one of the things I had to do was build the models themselves and then build the actual spreadsheets and the outputs. There was no such thing as Excel or PowerPoint at the time. I used to have to build the models themselves that would come out in batch processing overnight. And one story I'm going to tell you sounds a little bit crazy, but one time I sent out the batch processing overnight. I thought I'd get 4 pages back the next day. Instead, I got 4 boxes of paper. I had built an infinite loop into my program, and it never stopped printing. And they eventually had to shut down the print center because they were going to be printing continuously. I always thought I was getting 4 pages. But anyway, I learned a lot. That was one of the lessons learned over the years: don't build infinite loops into programs. But data is here to stay. Fortunately, it's something that is fantastic at S&P Global, and this is going to be the future of technology, AI—it's all going to revolve around data.

Joe Cass   00:18:58

Fantastic. Thanks, Doug. Robert, could you share some insights and maybe stories into your personal leadership style and how it's influenced the culture and also the success of Vista Equity Partners?

Robert F. Smith   00:19:10

Yes, sure. Our culture is really founded on what I call an engineering mindset. Like Doug, I was a scientist-engineer— a chemical engineer. And we really focused on building processes, hopefully not infinite loops, but feedback and feedforward processes that give us the ability to continue to tune our approach to the market. We have a strong commitment to excellence. And as I tell my team, while we're not perfect, we work really, really hard to be really, really good at a lot of things. We like to refine and take data and information and refine our engagements. Again, having done now over 600-plus transactions, you learn something every time, and you want to make sure that you can build that into your operations, whether it's in your underwriting, your value creation, your go-to-market strategies in the companies, or the best practices that we've honed and developed. The mindset is an engineering mindset, with a commitment to excellence and, frankly, a commitment to diversity. We think about opening the aperture for ideas. Our world now has become much more interconnected. However, there are some elements of our world that are decoupling in some cases at some level or another. But the consumer base continues to grow globally and continues to be a lot more diverse. And we want to ensure that we have, in the way that we approach our business, the best thinking at the table. We do that through programs at every level, including the Board level. We've been at gender parity at Vista for a number of years now at the firm and within our portfolio companies in terms of our Board representation. Currently, 100% of our Boards have at least one person of color. And I think part of what we're looking to do is just ensure that we open the aperture of knowledge, leverage information, and tune our systems to ensure that we have the ability to integrate the best thinking globally. We're a global operation, operating in 180 countries. I think we've got now 520 million users of our software. And so we have to build out an institution—an institution that can, frankly, capture the best thinking, the best ideas, and build them into a process that we can then proliferate into the marketplace to enhance the benefits for our shareholders and stakeholders within the community of Vista.

Joe Cass   00:21:26

Great. Thanks, Robert. Doug, the financial markets continue to rapidly evolve really from credit to equities to commodities. What are the biggest trends you see driving the markets of the future?

Doug Peterson   00:21:41

We've talked about a few of the trends, whether it's sustainability or AI. But let me talk specifically about the capital markets themselves. We have the deepest, most liquid capital markets in the United States, and it's a massive competitive advantage for us. Some other parts of the world have figured that out. But even in the U.S., the markets are not standing still, and there are four big trends that are taking place at different stages. One is the shift from active to passive. We see that in our own business with S&P Dow Jones Indices. It's moving towards products which are easy to understand, transparent, and offer low fees. Another big trend relates to the move from public markets to private markets, and Robert is part of that transition. We see a large growth in private credit. We see banks moving from bank loans to private loans. We see the markets moving from bond markets and even to private markets. There’s a massive change going on from public to private markets, from banks to the private sector, et cetera. The next big trend we see relates to the shift from broker to self-directed. There are a lot of clients, and we're seeing it very quickly in Europe, where the consumer is not going to brokers anymore. They're starting to build their own portfolios. They're having a direct relationship with asset managers, instead of going through a third party. And that's starting in Europe, not the U.S., which is interesting. And then the fourth big trend I’d call DeFi. It's using blockchain protocols for the financial markets, a new set of rails. I don't see anything right now that's totally disrupting the traditional financial markets, but there are some markets like repos that have started to use DeFi rails for the repo market. There are some things going on with trade. For instance, you have some central banks around the world doing CBDC—central bank digital currencies. So those are four big trends that are changing the capital markets. We're trying to stay on top of all of them because the markets will look very different in 5 years than they do right now.

Joe Cass   00:23:33

Thanks, Doug. Robert, there's now basically a famous viral clip of you giving a commencement address at Morehouse College, during which you let the class of 2019 know that your family are going to be making a grant of around $40 million to pay off the student loan debt of the entire graduating class. So what inspired this active generosity? And what impact has it had on both the recipients and the broader education landscape?

Robert F. Smith   00:24:00

Yes. Thank you for raising that. Again, that was a wonderful moment for me and the students, and it continues to pay dividends in many respects. My parents were both lifelong educators, schoolteachers in the public school system in Colorado, which is where I grew up. And it was kind of interesting. My mother and father were very much involved in their community and everything from my mother writing a check every month to the United Negro College Fund to my father ensuring that he provided access and opportunity for kids in our neighborhood to get outdoor education and Head Start programs, which he was one of the leaders to ensure that, that was happening in our community. And as I was raised and thinking broadly, call it, beyond our household, it was important, as you get more capacity to help and aid people and communities that you care about, that you do so. And it's an important element and aspect of who we are, frankly, as Americans to be thoughtful about that. And in some cases, it's as simple as making sure you spend time reading to some students who may not have someone who can read to them or, in some cases, it's liberating, in this case, students from some student debt that can frankly be crippling to them and inhibit their ability to participate as business owners or homeowners earlier in their career. And I have calls with these students once a month, end of the month since then. And it's been a wonderful experience to hear how they've been able to do everything from start their own companies. I get the questions, okay, Mr. Smith, how do I go raise money to expand my business, and I'm doing renovations of houses on an $18,000 loan. Helping them to understand how to use the banking system and create bank accounts and those sorts of things. So others who are looking to create investment funds. So it has paid a lot of dividends, and I’ve had guest speakers and invited speakers from time to time to also give perspectives. And I think we’ve all been graced in some respects and you're on this call or this channel of broadcasting, even had some measure of good fortune and probably at some work along the way. I know I can point to 2 or 3 mentors that made a huge difference in my life. Sometimes it was advice, sometimes it was an opportunity. I think a good part of being a fundamentally solid human being is to pay that forward. And so I like to look to do that when I can at levels of scale that I think matter for again, communities that I care about.

Joe Cass   00:26:40

Great. That's fantastic. Thanks, Robert. So a question for both of you now. So you're both from the western part of the U.S., so Colorado and New Mexico. How have the places you're from shaped your approach, your style or even your world view? And Doug, I'll start with you.

Doug Peterson   00:27:00

Well, first of all, thank you for the question. But just going back a second, Robert, thank you for your philanthropy and your leadership and philanthropy in the community. It's absolutely incredible and something that all of us appreciate. And I hope that we can all lead the same way you have. So thank you for that. Growing up in New Mexico was something that's very special. And anybody thinks that everything happens in the West Coast and East Coast is missing out. I grew up with a family in an environment where everything was about decency, it was about respect. is about dignity, and that's something I've taken with me for the rest of my life. When I get back to Santa Fe every year, I feel like I'm back at home, and there's that environment of decency of integrity that I mentioned, and it's just something I've taken with me everywhere I've gone. And I know that having parents who also went to college in Colorado, one was born there, I know that we have a similar culture with Colorado.

Robert F. Smith   00:27:49

And I will tell you, and thank you, Doug, for all the work that you're doing philanthropically, individually, as well as through the S&P 500 platform. I think about our life and how I grew up in Northeast Denver. I was in a community that was filled with hard-working folks from all walks of life. But again, it was in a time of segregation. My neighbors were dentists and teachers and importers and contractors. And I just felt like, I say, I was a part of a beloved community. I felt like I had everything I needed and say nothing I wanted, right? But what I had was people who cared about the kids in our community, and they cared in ways that when there was a young man who really was into rocketry, this is the age of Americans going into space, and he took 8 kids in our neighborhood and did, at his own expense, taught us how to shoot off rockets. He asked us rockets, we built them. And I will tell you, of those 8 children, 6 of them became some students, STEM students at some point, engineers or majored in some STEM curriculum, some even got PhDs. And you think about those little experiences that show to me the importance of caring about the community in which you lived and giving to that community in ways that meant whatever you had learned at work or in school, that you would deliver to the children in that environment. And that was that, as I said, that sense of decency and that sense of community that has always permeated really my psyche in the way that I like to approach life. And Doug and I had the great opportunity to do some work together at Carnegie Hall, and part of what we do there is deliver music education programs in the Wild Music Institute to students. We get over 600,000 students a year. And to me, bringing music education back into the classrooms is important. Doug and I remember the days in the Midwest where we would listen to, as we talk about that single earbud, tuning into whatever music was being broadcast, whatever you could pick up on your radio. And I remember going on Sundays in the summer, Denver Symphony Orchestra would have a concert in the park, and it was a free concert, and being in a segregated environment, folks on my side of the park would walk over with their lawn chairs, and folks on the other side of the park would look different than us. We’d walk over with their lawn chairs. And you sit there in the summer afternoons and even going into the evenings with, I call it, that smell of fresh grass being cut and listening to Beethoven or Bach or whatever they decided to play at that time, and you got to know people in your community, not necessarily your neighborhood, but in your community. And ultimately, when they desegregated the schools, you went to school with these folks. And I thought it just created just a wonderful experience. And look, no community is perfect, but I think music is one of the ways that brings people together and creates a harmonious set of experiences and frankly, a better place to live. So we'll continue to invest time and energy and effort along with Doug to ensure that that happens in places that we are.

Joe Cass   00:31:11

Fantastic. And Robert, you've kind of preempted my next question where I was going to ask both of you really sharing this passion for music and the arts. Maybe, Doug, you could answer. Why do you think it's so important for people, especially young people to be involved and experience the arts?

Doug Peterson   00:31:30

The arts are something that allows you to move into a different world. There's a level of creativity and spontaneity that you can experience, which allows you to open your mind to all types of experiences. I grew up listening to music, playing music, and it was something that also opened me up to a whole new world of travel and other experiences. And I'm going to go back a little bit to your last question. There's something that one of my grandfathers, who spoke Spanish, used to say: "cada cabeza es un mundo," which means "every mind is a world." And I think investing in every mind and finding one of the ways to expand that mind through music and the arts is absolutely fantastic and worth investing in. There's a school in New Mexico, which invests in the arts. It's called the New Mexico School of Arts. It brings kids from across the state who have experience, knowledge, and passion for the arts, and it puts them in the school. They also have to learn about English, math, and science, and get a full education, but it gives them every tool they need to excel in the arts later on. And those are the kinds of programs that I really enjoy seeing, and I enjoy seeing young people embrace the arts and grow around it. And it's something I still do. I support the arts. I had a program this weekend, and I want to do another program the following weekend because it's something that gives me a lot of passion myself.

Joe Cass   00:32:51

Fantastic. And Robert, before I move on to the last question, do you have any kind of final comment on the kind of the importance of the arts for young people?

Robert F. Smith   00:32:59

Yes. I always like to say I have the great grace to be able to travel all around the world. And I found that there's two ways to really engage with other cultures effectively. One is through food and the second is through music. And I love them both. I love them both. And I think it's important, again, my father went to school on a band scholarship. And my house was always filled with music, and he played the organ and piano and his twin sister played the organ and piano and they would literally on the weekends play for hours at a time. And it brought us together as a family. And frankly, I think music continues to bring us together as humanity. And I'm just always fascinated when you see the instruments in the Middle East of the Oud, which is similar to the Spanish guitar, and you see how it's played in Jazz and New Orleans and just how it's all connected and you just feel this sense of humanity that just flows through music. And I think that's an important part of what we all should support as business leaders is make sure that we haven't lost sight of our humanity as we continue to seek enhanced profits for our stakeholders and improve the condition of, again, the communities that we represent, and we care for. So it's an important part of what we do as leaders.

Joe Cass   00:34:29

Fantastic. So Robert, down to the last question, and it goes to you. So typically, on this podcast, I interview leaders, influential individuals from the world of finance and beyond, just like you and Doug. Thinking of everyone you've met; everyone you've worked with who would be the most interesting potential guest I should ask to join a future episode of this podcast?

Robert F. Smith   00:34:54

The most interesting? I don't know, there are a lot of people I get the chance to meet who are very interesting. But there's probably one that I think you should interview, and his name is Bill Bynum. Bill runs the City of Hope Credit Union [sic] in the Delta, basically the deep South. When I think about people who make a difference, who are really unsung heroes, this is a credit union that, frankly, I think, prior to some of the digital enablement of that financial institution, they were doing 40 to 50 loans per year. And once they were able to really digitize their infrastructure, they are now able to deliver and process 3,000 to 4,000 loans per year. And these loans are an average of $10,000 to $11,000, which reach that community. And if I'm not mistaken, they still have a lower default rate than the average FDIC-insured bank. I'm hoping you can interview him and get an understanding of how the knowledge of this community and the community that has been starved of resources, in utilizing technology to deliver financial resources to that community, has had a profound impact on the actual people and the businesses in that community. I'm just proud to have been able to help during the early parts of COVID and PPP, to ensure that we could get capital directed to those sorts of, what they call, CDFIs, MDIs (minority depository institutions), to enable those communities to not only get through the pandemic but digitize those infrastructures so that it creates long-lasting economic opportunity that all Americans benefit from. So, that would be a person I think you should interview.

Joe Cass   00:36:47

Great. I will put him on the list. Well, that's the end. Thank you so much to Robert and Doug for your time today. everyone watching and everyone listening, see you next time on fixed income in 15.