How We Hatched: Michael Hauser, VP and Managing Partner of SAIC Ventures

Tim Winkler: 00:00:00

Today's episode is brought to you by JDSAT. Unlock your organization's full potential with JDSAT, where data meets decision making. Led by a team of distinguished retired military professionals, JDSAT brings precision to your business challenges through advanced operations research and data science. Whether it's optimizing business operations or enhancing workforce planning, JDSAT's trusted experts employ cutting edge analytics to reveal opportunities and drive success. Experience actionable, timely, and affordable solutions tailored to your needs. JDSAT. Expanding Insight. Defining Success. Ready to transform your business? Visit JDSAT. com today. Welcome to The Pair Program from hatchpad, the podcast that gives you a front row seat to candid conversations with tech leaders from the startup world. I'm your host, Tim Winkler, the creator of hatchpad, and I'm your other host, Mike Gruen. Join us each episode as we bring together two guests to dissect topics at the intersection of technology, startups, and career growth. Let's jump in. So Mike, thanks for joining us on The Pair Program. Um, this is a, another bonus episode of a mini series that we call how we hatched. And, and, you know, today we've got Michael Hauser spending time with us. Mike is the managing partner at SAIC ventures, uh, where he's responsible for leading SAICs investment strategy, collaborating with startups to create value for, for government customers. Um, I'm very excited to have you join us, Mike, as we continue to Kind of use our platform as a medium to build more awareness around the innovations that are happening across defense tech and, and GovTech at large. So again, thanks, thanks for joining with us on the pod.

Michael Hauser: 00:01:56

Yeah, Tim, it's great. Thanks for having us. I'm excited to kind of tell the story and, uh, share whatever we can about the value we're creating at SAIC and for our great government customers.

Tim Winkler: 00:02:05

Excellent. All right. Now, uh, we kick it off. I always like to start every one of these episodes with a pretty thought provoking question. You know, what did Mike Hauser have for breakfast this morning?

Michael Hauser: 00:02:16

I met a, uh, a new friend, uh, alumnus of, uh, Michigan Business School, go blue. Uh, and that at Tate and I had a lovely, uh, pastry with pistachio and tomato. It was amazing. Oh, wow. Um, and a, uh, I also highly, highly, highly recommend, um, their Mediterranean latte. It's got a little caram in it. It's delicious. So what's

Tim Winkler: 00:02:41

the name of this place

Michael Hauser: 00:02:43

called Tate? It's a chain in the DC area. It's, I think they're up and down the east coast at least. It's kinda like, uh. Mediterranean inspired Starbucks.

Tim Winkler: 00:02:50

Okay. Nice. Yeah, always a, always a fan of a new plug on, on a restaurant cafe, something that there's going to be lots of food

Michael Hauser: 00:02:58

references today. So, you know, there's ample opportunity for sponsors here. That's

Tim Winkler: 00:03:04

exactly right. We're, we're always tapping some, some, uh, food and beverage sponsors. It fits right into our theme. Um, and then, you know, real quick, where are you physically calling in from? Where are you based out of?

Michael Hauser: 00:03:16

Yeah, I, I'm in Kensington, Maryland. Um, we're headquartered in Reston, so I get to have fun in the American Legion bridge sometimes, um, and out and about with our, our startup portfolio

Tim Winkler: 00:03:26

and other VCs as well. Since, since a little bit of sarcasm there in terms of, uh, there's no traffic in the DMV area, no traffic in the DMV

Michael Hauser: 00:03:34

bridge and four 95 is immaculately designed and it's just.

Tim Winkler: 00:03:39

We welcome, we welcome folks to reload here and enjoy the open streets. Yeah. Um, I love it. So now to just kind of set the stage for our guests and what we're going to dissect on this episode. So we're going to be covering SAIC ventures, uh, role and mission, uh, kind of lead that into the strategies that you all are crafting for accelerating, go to market for the startups across your portfolio. I'd like to highlight the value prop of partnering with a large defense prime contractor like SAIC, the impact on the startups, on you all, the prime, and then the end customers, the U. S. government. And then lastly, we'll close with the future outlook on the defense tech startup ecosystem. Uh, from your point of view and what we can expect from SAIC ventures in the future. Uh, so Mike, why don't you lead us off with the, kind of the mission at SAIC ventures and explain how you all integrate startups with a large defense contractor like SAIC.

Michael Hauser: 00:04:37

Of course. And, and I think it, you know, may make a little bit of sense to kind of talk about how we fit into the. Strategy at SAIC because we are a strategic investor, not a financial investor. Yeah, good point. On that spectrum from, you know, super financially motivated, you know, completely off the balance sheet. There are some out there like, uh, next 47 at Siemens, right? Great firm, wonderful pedigree, track record of wonderful investing. Um, and they might as well be Bessemer or Sequoia or a 16 Z that happens to have a company as the the gpn lp. We're on the other end of the spectrum, super tied to SAIC's core business strategy. We are all about IT, digital transformation, and digital engineering, you know, about 60, 40 across those two segments of work. So on the IT digital transformation side, right? It's cloud, it's cyber, it's EIT, enterprise IT. Um, we've got software and all sorts of capabilities around helping government customers operate on prem, operate on cloud, and then get into secure network environments, operate in JEDC2 environments, get out to the mission edge, um, be able to drive financial or health care or other civilian agency transformations, right? So it's both NatSec and civilian as well.

Tim Winkler: 00:05:53

Okay.

Michael Hauser: 00:05:53

Um, on the digital engineering side of the house. A lot of the same fundamentals in digital transformation, a lot of software driven innovation off of commercially available software tools and how we help government customers interoperate and integrate across those tools to leverage digital twin, digital thread, model based systems engineering, but not typically That's the prime on a system, right? We're not making tanks, trucks, boats, airplanes. We do make some things. We are, you know, kind of an OEM on on some smaller systems. And that experience really helps us then bring this up to a systems of systems level as an integrator. Um, and to do those tasks for for our customers, we've kind of learned over the last four or five years that it. There are great commercially available technologies as well as bespoke for NatSec technologies that can really help customers faster and get the mission outcomes that are bigger and better, um, in less lead time when we can bring them technology. And so we've constructed this model, um, in our chief innovation officer organization with a group of folks like me that are basically business co founders to technology professionals. And then we have technology professionals in digital engineering and in, in digital transformation, as well as a kind of farther reaching CTO organization that bring capabilities to our customers where they kind of look like a technology platform, right, where We can sense the similar needs, let's say, in, in, in, in cloud at the Air Force, in the Navy, at the Department of Treasury, or at the EPA, and kind of look at a meta level and say, wow, these sorts of capabilities, they lift up to this enterprise class solution. Let's go build that once, and then we can deliver the Air Force a cloud one, we can deliver the Treasury a T cloud, recomposing these elements together differently to meet the different mission needs. That are both secure, resilient, multi cloud environments for both those different customers differently, but off the same foundation. And so what we've figured out how to do is bundle these technology, these technology capabilities from commercial providers. We can even provide them on commercial business terms frequently. We have some business models for that, and we've grown this internally inside the company to, you know, several hundred million dollars of, of, of able ability to transact through our businesses on those commercial business terms. And that's really what Lauren Knausenberger's team together does. I sit running the ventures team and a part of that team called partnerships, products, and ventures. It's an integrated operating system. To bring all of these commercial technologies, it doesn't matter whether it's hyperscaler tech from AWS or from Azure, or it's a software tool from a Zscaler, um, or whether it's coming from a venture backed startup, a big one like a Dataiku. Or a little earlier stage startup where they really need the help to get them into government, um, to learn government, um, like a Zage, an Orca or a Morpheus where our three investments are today. And I can't emphasize enough how different this model is from a venturing perspective because our strategy is all around bringing innovation faster to as many customers as can adopt it as quickly as they can adopt it. So the value to the customer is getting rapid access to innovation. The value to the startup is about accelerating their pace of growth, right? It's a go to market focus. And then because of that go to market focus, there's business benefits to SAIC too, and it really just flows that way. Yeah,

Tim Winkler: 00:09:34

that's fantastic. I think it's a really smart model. Um, kind of providing those in kind services based on, you know, the resources that you bring to the table as a, a large organization and then the connection points, uh, and, and the. really the outlet to, uh, get that technology in the hands of end users quicker. It's a common theme, right? We hear it all the time. Is this this narrative of You know, doing business with the government is slow as molasses. And, you know, I, I don't even know where to begin. There's so many, so much red tape to cut through, uh, over the last, you know, five, 10 years, um, I'd say more so recently, uh, there is this overarching theme, uh, to modernize quicker. Uh, and I think, you know, a lot of that is part, part in, in, in two of what's happening around the world and, and at the speed of what, you know, if we're just going to use defense as an example, the speed at which new technologies are being injected into warfighters or, you know, drones and, and how different, you know, wars are being fought. On the battlefield today than they were, you know, 10 years ago, the, the idea that, um, you know, the government, uh, you know, uh, primes, uh, and, and, uh, product companies at large, like working together harmoniously to achieve a common goal, which is, we know we need to speed things up. We know we need to get this into the hands of end users faster. And how do we do that? And I think this is a really creative. Model and concept, uh, to kind of demonstrate that quickly. Uh, you kind of touched on it briefly, but I want to hone in on it just a little bit, a little bit more. So, um, you know, with some of these companies that are within your, would you call it your portfolio? Um, what, what is there some common themes in terms of the size that they're at when they come, uh, to you all? Uh, you know, we, you know, we oftentimes we'll hear. You know, seed or a, um, are you kind of open on that or do you like to, to really kind of sink your teeth in when it's super early stage and groom that where, where's that sweet spot fall in terms of the size of the company?

Michael Hauser: 00:11:42

Yeah. So, so what I really like about our, our kind of different approach to being a CBC that's, that's very go to market focused is. We are typically very round agnostic. Um, there are very specific boundaries that we think about to make venture investments. But our model is not to start with a writing a check and then figure out the thing we can go do and or leverage with the company. And, you know, if we get to that thing, great. Our TCCs are built around having market impact based on what we know about the company when we engage with them. And so we might come across, um, you know, a mature seed stage company that's got tech that works, the use cases it can function in, or maybe a little bit narrow, we may just partner with them for a little while on, on some commercial engagements with government customers to put it where it works. And then that could then lead to, you know, when they get to their mature a stage series B and beyond where we're really focused on, on co investing with bonafide, referenceable. Value creating co investors around the cap table. We really ascribe to the, it takes a village to just like my 14 year old son. Right. These are middle school maturity companies that are going to, you know, hopefully be great things when they're fully formed adults, but the here to there is a tenuous journey is going to take a lot of help from, you know, the church, from the teachers, from the members of the community and us as parents. Uh, with Jen and I, so, you know, it's going to be kind of the same way with a portfolio company to get them there, to get to that, that exit, that outcome. Right. Um, we kind of feel that way as well. And when we can get in at a meaningful, valuable stage, relatively early, typically, right? Mature A. Into series B, maybe a little bit later, that might be the first check we write. Okay. We may partner sooner, we may partner later. Um, I mentioned Dataiku earlier, right? They were raising their, you know, very mature series. I think it was E or G, I don't even remember right now. Around the time that we were, you know, thinking about leveraging them into our data science platform. And we have a wonderful commercial relationship with them. The one to 5 million typical check size that we write at that round, it did not make venture sense. We did not do it. And because we are products, partnerships and ventures, not a ventures team, all on its own, motivated by writing checks, have to deploy capital at the rate, you know, all of those pressures. That a lot of other CVCs face that VCs face, we've kind of designed this a little bit differently so that we're really focused on creating the go to market mission.

Tim Winkler: 00:14:20

Yeah, it's, it's something that, uh, yeah, you seem to have found a real, a real, you know, unique outlier with regards to how you collaborate. Um, you know, it sounds like it's kind of size agnostic. Um, some might not need the capital, but they just need more of the. You know, access to customers or the ability to get the technology into the right hands of the user that makes sense. And, and you all kind of, you know, evaluate the needs where they exist within those companies when they approach you, um, or when you approach them and then, uh, you know, navigate accordingly. Um, you know, I, I love the, uh, the, the different models that are kind of popping up. Across, uh, the, uh, across the landscape. And, you know, we've been having a lot of really interesting guests on the episode on the podcast. Um, we talked to the, the CTO of the Navy, uh, just this week actually. And, uh, they're, you know, explaining the ways that they're streamlining their direct access to, uh, like structured piloting approach to, to working within, uh, them as the end customer. And then you've got interesting organizations like defense innovation unit, you know, part of defense. Um, who are just also, you know, kind of like serving the opportunities, uh, creating the pipeline, but aren't really taking a, uh, a capital stake, uh, if you will, um, and it sounds like you all kind of like pull a little bit of, you know, a little bit of everything to, to craft your own thesis and, and what makes the most value for, for the startup and for the customers, we, we, uh, kind of talked a little bit about this as well, but I want to just reemphasize, you Ideal verticals that you look to kind of prospect for companies.

Michael Hauser: 00:16:05

So for us, it's really across the broad range of those two families of differentiators, along with where our business groups may need. Bespoke tech for their own vertical, right? So across, let me kind of walk through those stepwise. So if I think about our, our digital innovation factory, they're really focused on the next two, three years of bringing offerings around secure and resilient cloud. Um, around doing operational A. I. And mission A. I. Around secure and trustworthy data and analytics on then the on demand delivery of outcomes that which is typically software based. So it's software mod, software upgrade, app development, app integration in the cloud, all those kinds of things. Um, these are really, you know, at the core of our six differentiators At the company wide level that Tony Towns Wheatley, our CEO, talks about all the time, and then you add to that the digital engineering innovation factory, and you bring in digital engineering for digital twin, digital thread, model based simulation engineering, ModSim technologies, as well as the ability to design, develop, produce, sustain, and maintain hardware solutions as a kind of systems integrator. Those are the six differentiators of our company. And so those are dimensions that we're focused down and in. We can deliver these things on mission with customers on contracts. We have on contract growth, right? The 80 some odd percent of our contracts have the ability to transact commercially. It's why I think about that, that of the performing contracts we have today, a vast majority of them can get access to technology on commercial business terms with us. Yeah. And in will are two different things and program managers and the contracting officers on the government side of the table on our side of the table need to figure out how to use those contract clauses, but they're there wide open. And then there are all the new bids that we think about going after as we look to grow as a company, because this entire enterprise under Lauren, right, the chief innovation officer team, we are the technology driven growth engine. And the business model. Um, creation growth engine of the company. We're really taking those differentiators, finding technology ingredients in them. Um, and the ingredient analogy I think really works here. Um, if you think about tech from the startup as the peanut butter in a Reese's peanut butter cup. Um, sometimes that tech needs to get wrapped with some chocolate, the peanut butter, chocolate around it. And so peanut butter plus SAIC chocolate equal peanut butter cup. But you know, most government agencies don't go to seven 11, like my son does to go, you know, get a treat and just buy a tech and then figure out what to do with it, how to integrate it, make it work in or operate with all these other systems. The government customers we've learned really want like a Dairy Queen blizzard. So here's your next plug opportunity, um, from, from very, um, and so, you know, we take that Reese's peanut butter cup, we go get the milk that might be the AWS or the Azure store and compute in the cloud. We then go get the ice cream, right? That might be the force point guards and the Cisco routers and all of these other it hardware, software integrations. Um, and then we got to go, you know, put it in a blender instead of going to Walmart and buying a blender. Well, that's our labor hours, right? We'll make it all fit together and the outcome is a blizzard. It's a Reese's Buttercup blizzard. It's a solution to a problem. Um, and so when Zage is the peanut butter, we wrap it with some SAIC tech. We combine it with AWS Store and Compute and the Cisco this and the Forcepoint that. The Zscaler, the other thing. Go on down the hardware and software S bomb. Throw it in the blender with our people. We now get what we're doing in airborne battle management, command and control for the air force. And we've got solutions that are operating with that bundle. Out there in the field today, right? Within a year's time of from idea to field it at a bunch of sites in North America. And these are real success stories of delivering Dairy Queen blizzards to government customers. Um, so we know the model's working and, and that, that area you talked about earlier around war fighting, right? All domain war fighting is one of the national imperatives we think about at SAIC. There's undersea dominance, Border of the future citizen experience, all domain warfighting, and the next gen space, we really see great capability out there all over the world, quite frankly, especially as we think about national security becoming a five eyes and acres integration reality, where systems integrators can be the folks in the ecosystem who can be on the lookout for novel emerging tech in the startup community. And it can be the right piece of candy in the Dairy Queen blizzard, different milk now. It

Tim Winkler: 00:21:01

sounds like a delicious solution. Uh, and we, we did promise the listeners we're going to have some food references. So that is the perfect little segment right there. Yeah. Um, so. You, you mentioned, um, uh, how many companies right now you said that are kind of going through the, the, the venture program with you,

Michael Hauser: 00:21:21

you've got three in the portfolio, um, we're diligencing a gaggle right now. It could be our next investments. You know, we've been at this for about three years. We lovingly called several of us. Within the company, the Venture Capital Club, we came this close to printing t shirts on the member of the club's cricket, um, kind of sort of in joke and kind of seriously, but it was really a pilot to figure out how venture investing could fit into this larger partnership, go to market focused value creation approach. Proving that it works. And then as we honed in on these six differentiators that are a near term focus, we can talk about some of the longer term ones. Those will be fun a little bit later, Tim. Yeah. As we honed in on these, you know, we made the decision earlier this year to make corporate venturing kind of a real boy relative to the wooden boy it was before.

Tim Winkler: 00:22:19

Yeah.

Michael Hauser: 00:22:19

So now we're animated with a team and a focus and a thesis and an investment committee, right? All of the infrastructure we need to have. Yep. As a CVC to move out. And that's what we're doing.

Tim Winkler: 00:22:29

Yeah. So I'm, I'm curious in terms of, um, forgive me if you already kind of pointed this out, but Uh, identifying the, the problem and then sourcing the solution. Is that kind of how you all operate? Or is it, I guess what I'm trying to get to is how are you identifying the, the companies that have the, the solution that you foresee is going to be the solution? Fix this pain point.

Michael Hauser: 00:22:55

So, so there's kind of three dimensions. I'll put on this. The first dimension is horizons. So is it something that we are collecting the demand signal on today from across our business groups as part of the enterprise strategy process, surfacing these needs from the 30 plus account teams? The five different business groups, right? So we've got Air Force, Navy, Army, civilian, space and Intel. And between those five different business groups, we've got a bunch of account teams underneath them. They're at the coalface every day. And we've created this almost real time approach to get those surface to back up to us at the enterprise level. Yes, we're from corporate. We are here to help. Um, but be able to then go spot and scout. Inside out for capabilities that fill those need states and and so that's kind of in the horizon one zone and then in the horizon two zone a little bit further out in the future. These are technologies where the demand signal may be low nascent today. It either the tech is too early or the market's just emerging or some combination of the two and we know that as integrators, government customers are kind of looking at us to figure it out, help them figure it out. Um, those other domains include things like, um, adding autonomy into a network battle space, right? Unmanned things have been around for a while and now as those things begin to proliferate. The network integration above and around and across them becomes really important, and that's something we think we're pretty good at the customers like to buy from us. And so we're trying to add that into the autonomy layers, uh, quantum sensing and encryption, right? Get this sometime this summer. They haven't done it yet, but they're supposed to burp out some algorithms and set some standards. They'll probably be a bit of a freak out because there'll be unfunded mandates for government agencies and we'll be standing by to help them figure out how to become quantum ready. What they need to integrate and operate to become quantum secure when that requirement eventually emerges. And so that will change the cyber software bill of materials, maybe some of the hardware integration as well. So we'll be ready for that quantum sensing a little bit later than that quantum computing at scale for government, you know, a little bit later than that much further horizon. Um, secure and resilient networks, and that's, you know, some, some of that is like 5G network integration kind of stuff. Some of that is a different definition of networks as you move across cloud echelons. Low to high, high to low, um, and also maybe across coalition partners, especially in the world we live in now, the risks you are starting to surface that, you know, the U. S. and a Five Eyes or an ACUS or an Indo Paycom, uh, interoperability kind of customer scenario, you've now got to move different types of data across different security levels with different permissions. To maybe even different partners, and that's something we've started to do, and that means different technology. So those are some of the further horizon areas that we'll look at. And again, that's a lot of inside out thinking based on customer feedback. The second way we think is outside in. So we're getting feedback from leading VCs, NatSec bespoke VCs from dual use tech investors. And we're getting feedback on what's emerging. We can bring those tech trends to our experts in the enterprise and create that knowledge loop to inform the future that we haven't been able to previously imagine. And that's actually a really important input that we bring to the table. It's almost like an input to the strategy function. Um, and then the third vector. Um, this is where our business groups say, Hey, um, you know, I'm the space business group and I want to, you know, be able to make this thing happen with new space space tech companies. Can you help me make that thing happen? Can you help me in my business? One business group make things happen for my customer may not be relevant in those other business groups. And that's where we think differently than this enterprise perspective. And we go deep rather than broad and then scout or be informed by outside in and inside out what we should go do without one business group. So those are kind of the three vectors.

Tim Winkler: 00:27:06

Yeah, I love the kind of diversity to, um, you know, how you all are collaborating and working with with different partners. Um, the, uh, kind of like that first horizon that you were, uh, discussing, you know, in terms of some of some sample timelines here on, you know, from introduction with the company to, you know, getting, getting the, uh, the solution kind of packaged and rolled out, do you have some sample timelines on, on what, you know, a founder might expect when, you know, partnering?

Michael Hauser: 00:27:41

Let me, let me give a few real examples because it really does vary. Um, You know, we met Orca security probably about three years ago, invested. About two and a half years ago, it took some time to help them, right? This was in the thesis to collaborate for Orca security to be able to transact with the U. S. government. There were some things they needed to accomplish in their technical baseline. There was some collaborative business development we needed to achieve together. And, you know, it, the first customer contract wasn't signed until, you know, about a year and a half in to that relationship. Um, and that was knowing full well that. You know, Orca, they are a cloud native application protection platform, CNAP. Um, that's been in the news recently because of the dalliance between Wiz and Google. Um, you know, this is, this is a capability that clearly is, is, is needed by a lot. Um, being able to integrate that capability into a government environment is a little hard because of the nature of government clouds, um, and multi cloud echelons and multiple incident levels. And there are a lot of complexities in that. So it took a little bit of time. And that was a known set of knowns and unknowns when we started with that right there. On the precipice of FedRAMP, that'll open up civilian agencies for them. That was a known thing for us that we're going to be not set focused to begin with on prem, not SAS, and then we'll go to this other sales motion a little bit later when all of these other things we're working on with them happen. Um, so that's one example. You know, I compare that to, you know, Morpheus, uh, the, the second investment we made. That investment happened because we were in real time working on partnership opportunities and the investment opportunity emerged as the partnership opportunity was emerging. And so those two things kind of happened together and the first sales happened like almost the same day. Um, Zage was a little bit different and it's, you know, Zage, I think is like maybe the classic example of what we'd ideally want to do. Um, cause we met Zage, um, when they were pretty early, um, and we were talking to them about business collaboration and they were doing a fundraise and they said, Hey, do you want to invest? And we were like, it's a little early. But let's keep the partnership conversation going. Um, and we were able to have the first business opportunity emerge during those partnering days. Um, and that led the CEO and chairman of the board to kind of say, Hey, we're going to do another fundraise soon, you know, some time later, um, would you like to participate? And then it was an obvious yes for us. And so right partner first investment happens right partner first commercial opportunity sales revenue generating venture invest. Um, we made the next sale the day after, um, the wire transaction closed. And so it's been kind of Janie bar the door with them for this capability from Zage. They're an IOT security company. We're actually using them in secure networks environments. Thanks. Um, kind of edge where the computer and mission network kind of operates as if it were edge compute. A lot of the zero trust software stack we have today doesn't work. Zage allows us to offer a zero trust environment for a secure network that's, you know, got nodes coming in and off on and off, you know, um, periodically doing different things. Um, And they had that on their go to market roadmap, like three years into the future. Okay. We were backing that up to today when we did it, um, some months ago. And it's really opened up a whole new sales channel for them because we've been able to find customer needs where the tech's going to work. And our technical experts can fit that to the mission. So going from IT protection, think colonial pipeline hack to now, you know, uh, or OT protection, I should say. Um, that's something they didn't think they were going to get to do yet. And that became a now business opportunity, a growth opportunity for them that fit real mission needs for our customers and our smart people are the ones who integrated that Dairy Queen Blizzard. You know, this is that Reese's Peanut Butter Cup story from earlier. It's out operating in the field today. So we've gone from like, you know, thinking across a year or two's timeframe to, you know, being in real time to actually having business being done before we venture invest. Right. It really just depends on the circumstance.

Tim Winkler: 00:32:14

And is is the most common use case that these companies are Really a hundred percent commercial or is there a little bit of a mix or or when they when you all first kind of connect? Um, or is it uh, maybe they have some work that they're doing in this civilian agency But they would love to tap into defense or something

Michael Hauser: 00:32:35

So there's a, there's a few different archetypes here, right? There's the, um, bespoke for NatSec tech archetype. Um, where, you know, we, and we're having conversations with folks all the time that kind of fit that MO where what they're building is NatSec, you know, could they be dual use in the future? Maybe, maybe not. Um, you know, in those kinds of cases, You know, if I, if I see a company and they're all SBIR revenue, um, that revenue might as well be zero, even if the tens are a hundred millions of dollars, it's really, you know, it's not, it doesn't look like ARR doesn't look well yet. Um, so that's probably too early. Um, if they've got going concern, government revenue in that bespoke for NatSec tech kind of space. Um, that matters as an investor, uh, if you're a B2B company, your dual use tech, you look at a company's TAM and it's 10 or 20 or 30 percent government and it's 90 or 80 or 70 percent B2B, then we're really looking for it beginning to light off with real market penetration in that B2B context. They may have never done a dollar a business. With the United States government, they may not be able to spell far, they may have no experience as long as they've got the leadership team and board commitment to want to address government. We are more than happy to be their partner in that world and take them from zero to something. Um, if they've got this base of B2B dual use success, that's, that's going on. So two different contexts, two wildly different scenarios. Um, I would say that last extreme example of like zero experience in government yet is probably the exception. It's more likely in our experience to see a company where, you know, they've experienced some of the, um, Beltway traffic, like enthusiasm that we described earlier in their own attempts to sell to government and they're realizing. That there is a path to revenue that does not include direct prime contracts with the government, um, which is not well understood. Mind you, I want to talk about that in a second because I think it's a great discussion point for us to get into if we could, Tim. But they then see that through a company like S. A. I. C. That has access to hundreds of contracts and thousands of task orders and many different new, uh, competitions every year. So they can grow with us on contract. They can grow with us through bids and proposals, and they think they can grow with us with a little bit of government experience. So they kind of know what they're getting into. That's the, that's the perfect environment to be in.

Tim Winkler: 00:35:33

Yeah, I think that's a good point to, to kind of outline because a lot of these companies aren't always going to be so savvy and understanding the whole, the, the, the way that the government works with, you know, with private businesses here, it's, you know, the government contracting ecosystem, the primes, the subs, where are these vehicles, how do I get access to them? So, you know, kind of serving as this, uh, you know, mentor and coaching them along of like, yeah, you don't, you don't have to just come in here and try to prime something, right? Like we, we can help with a lot of these, all the heavy lifting. Let's, let's, let's expand on that. So if you wanted to kind of, You know, pull on that thread a little bit and just kind of paint that picture, you know, for the next wave of companies that might be eyeballing SAIC after listening to this and say, you know what, you know, what else can I expect?

Michael Hauser: 00:36:20

Yeah. So, so I guess the first point I'd like to make is, is not all primes are the same. I think in a lot of conversations, there's this big lumpy bunch of government contractors called primes. And there are different kinds of primes, right? There are the platform primes. The Boeing's, the Northrop's, the Raytheon's, the Lockheed's and like, um, where they're building very expensive government systems. There are startups that exist, right? Think about Adderall that are aiming to compete at that prime level. There's a whole other definition of prime contractors. Where sis like SAIC fit in where we are, the prime contractor, we are the ones who win a 50 or a hundred million dollars or $500 million or billion dollar, whatever the, the value is of the contract. Contract with the government. And then underneath that. Just like those platform primes where they've got to build an airplane, you got the engine, you got the avionics, you got the ailerons, you got the different composite metal parts, right? There's all of these suppliers contributing those things to the platform. Well, on an I. T. Transformation or a digital engineering transformation. We oftentimes have a very similar approach. It's not just people doing things. Don't get me wrong. That is a big part of SAIC's business and people enabled by technology is our strategy. And so those technologies can be NATSEC bespoke, they can be dual use. And so being a subcontractor to SAIC provides access to all of that addressable market. That goes to subcontract and this is something that the D. O. D. can't publicize like it does in its budget line items. Um, when we, when we look at, you know, even Silicon Valley defense groups, uh, NatSec 100, right? The best data they have access to is prime contracting data. Um, they don't get to see Lockheed and Boeing's engine. Supplier sales or composite consumption sales, or they don't get to see the equivalent from us either. It's, it's unseeable in the budget docs because it's all being transacted through these other prime contracts. I would argue that selling for digital engineering and IT transformation to the federal government is B2B by different contracting rules. There are dozens, if not hundreds. Of contracts bid every year at these are the big ones, right? Um, and then at the smaller contracting level, there are thousands. These are all opportunities for startups, but it's kind of hard to see. So the one benefit that as a startup, you can get by collaborating with a prime like S. A. I. C. Where, you know, we're not in it for the I. P. We're not a product company. We're not a platform prime. We're selling things sometimes, but the things we're making are outcomes. Typically, they're not things we're not writing billions of lines of software code. We're integrating lots of people's software code to create a cloud environment. And so It's a different way of thinking about accessing government contracts to be a subcontract. And basically what we're trying to do is make that easier for customers to pull in. That's our commercial operating business and make it easier for startups to access. And that's our partnerships and ventures infrastructure.

Tim Winkler: 00:39:59

Yeah, it's, it's a fascinating way to, to kind of view it, uh, because I think a lot of folks look at an Andrew and, you know, they, they think like, that's the, that's kind of like the, the, the golden egg, right? If we can. It doesn't need to be, it doesn't need to be like that level, right? There's so much opportunity to come in and just sub and just get that access and just kind of get that past performance. I think that's a big one that we always hear about is like, you know, you need to, you need to have a little bit of credibility before you go after that next contract and, you know, You don't always get that opportunity unless you have a partner, like a, an SAIC to prime with. So, um, I think it's, I think it's really creative and, uh, um, you know, if I'm, if I'm out here building some sort of a technology and trying to do business with the government, I mean, I think that this is truly a, um, you know, kind of big brother, a little brother, you know, mentor, protege kind of example where, you know, you can walk that line with them, show them the ropes and create that opportunity with them. Um, well, also, you know, just providing really interesting outcomes for customers. Uh, so I, I, I love, I love this, uh, idea. I love this concept. Um, it's something I'm starting to see a little bit more, um, kind of, kind of be, um, uh, a model, uh, taken on by some, some of the other primes as well. Um, what does the future look like, uh, for, for you and your team? You know, if we're, you know, if we're at a point right now where we've, you've got three companies that are just kind of fully, you know, working with you, operating, delivering solutions, you know, what does that look like in a year, three years, five years from now?

Michael Hauser: 00:41:40

Yeah. So for us, it's really not a capital allocation argument. It's really about how many of these kinds of relationships can we develop, manage and maintain through our partnerships based go to market model at a time? How many new relationships with novel venture backed startups can we kind of drive through the go to market system? We think that's Three or four or five more in the fiscal year, and then, you know, that'll teach us some more lessons and we'll figure out whether that's three or four or five more next fiscal year, or it's more than that, or it's less than that. Um, but we think it's kind of in those magnitudes because. You know, we've built this with an enterprise approach where we can kind of do inside sales from the innovation factory teams and their offerings into our different business groups and then get onto contracts that way. So our business groups own the customer relationships and the demand for this integration now that we've kind of publicized this, the strategy for SAIC around our national imperatives, these differentiators. Focused on growth vectors that are kind of different market opportunities across our business groups. We we've seen like a 10 X increase in the demand on our innovation pack. Wow. That's not all tech, right? But it really goes to show the power that this has within SAIC. That demand signal has other technology ingredients in it that are people that our customers are looking for. That's what's going to drive. The rate of our investments. Clearly, we're going to have to find great tech from amazing companies that are positioned to grow at phenomenal rates because that's the art and science of venture capital investing. And then we add the strategic lens on it. You know, we kind of got a thread and needle here. The investment thesis, the rationale, write a check here. It's a little different. I would argue it's a higher bar. Um, and so that kind of keeps the rate of writing checks. You know, managed, uh, to be something that's feasible, which therefore makes it executable for us.

Tim Winkler: 00:43:48

Yeah. And, and it also kind of allows you to just go a little bit deeper with those companies versus just trying to take on is, you know, they say in venture, like, you know, plant as many seeds as you can and see what grows like versus really being a diligent and, uh, the, uh, the technologies and the companies that you're, you're working with. Selecting, uh, and then going deep with them, right. And really spending that time to, to mature them, uh, and, and looking at that quality versus, you know, just how many companies can we work with. Right. So, um, I love that part of the thesis. There are market places

Michael Hauser: 00:44:22

out there, Tim, where we know because of the feedback we get from government that, you know, we're going to need to be an integrator and be best of breed across. A fleet of different potential, um, providers of that technology because it isn't universal enough that we can just go bet on one for a capability. We got to be ready and you know, this government agency over here to use this tech from this company and this other government agency. Same need, same kind of integration. But I need to use the same tech from a different company. Yeah. And that's not a great opportunity for us to venture invest. It might not even be a great opportunity to strategic partner. Yeah. We need to be honest with those providers that you fit here. You fit there. The relationship therefore needs to not be this venture one. It's different one.

Tim Winkler: 00:45:12

Yeah.

Michael Hauser: 00:45:13

Um, and again, we've built an operating system to account for that. Right. Um, it rate limits the deal flow.

Tim Winkler: 00:45:19

Yeah. So as a, uh, yeah, somebody that runs a recruiting business and, you know, a lot of our listeners are always kind of tuned into opportunities, career growth opportunities. Um, coming from, you know, commercial government, a little bit of everything. Uh, you did kind of reference the participation on, uh, you know, supporting on like the inside sales side of things. Do you all ever get your hands involved when it comes to helping with staffing or recruiting, uh, for some of those, those companies? So

Michael Hauser: 00:45:52

we're super careful with what we say we're going to do and do with our startups to do what we're good at.

Tim Winkler: 00:45:59

Yeah.

Michael Hauser: 00:46:00

Um, yeah, we've got in house recruiting teams that recruit for technical talent for our people. Um, that, that's not really something we've considered offering to startups because our value proposition to them is go to market. And so, yeah, there are corporate venture capital teams out there, um, and we know some of them pretty well that have like, we'll help you with your back office accounting and finance. You can have access to our recruiters. Um, we're trying to stay focused on our value proposition and do the things that we say we're going to do with them well. Of course, if we're sitting at the leadership table with that startup, because we're taking a board observer seat, not a board seat, because that's part of our MO, and they've got a talent challenge, and they're seeking counsel from advice on access to things related to human capital. Will contribute when asked, but it's not going to be the kind of thing we're going to make part of the, um, the full meal deal, the packaged offering that goes out to every startup, like our go to market collaboration, because that's core to what we're doing. Um, You know, it's really gonna, you know, it's an opportunity for folks like you to really lean in and support these startups where your expertise can be valuable to them. Um, from our perspective, what's good for the startup is great for SAIC kind of in that order. And they need support in talent management, recruiting, the, the downsides of those things, um, on, you know, maybe moving from one kind of talent base to another, um, that involves maybe retrenchments or maybe it's growing a sales team. There's other people that are going to be better positioned than us.

Tim Winkler: 00:47:53

Yeah. And I think that's smart. You know, you kind of stay in your lane, uh, on where you're most impactful, where you're going to add the most value. If there's something that pops up where you can lend a hand, you know, it's almost like an, an as needed basis, but it's not something that you set as the expectations going into a partnership. I think that's really smart. Yeah,

Michael Hauser: 00:48:11

there's, there's one investment we're looking at right now, um, and you know, our enterprise capabilities in corporate real estate and, um, enterprise security, like chief risk officer, chief security officer type of things are absolutely essential to that startup. Right. So that's part of the relationship that we're developing there, but it's unique to that circumstance.

Tim Winkler: 00:48:36

That's great. Um, yeah. So I do want to, uh, make sure we save some time for our final segment as we're coming up on the hour. But, uh, prior to that, my, my last question for you, um, well, actually I had two questions real quick. What's the size of, of your kind of like team, uh, in this kind of, yeah, the, the venture space? Interesting.

Michael Hauser: 00:48:55

The, the chief innovation officer team, big round numbers, about 650 people, um, you know, we leverage the entire enterprise as the arms and legs of our ventures team. So we don't have the full time people on staff who are responsible for tech diligence or business diligence elements, right? We don't have the full time folks who run our ventures platform because our venture platform is that entire go to market ecosystem we've built. Um, so the full time folks on our Ventures team are three folks right now. Myself, we've got a principal on the East Coast, a principal on the West Coast, Chris George, uh, and Katie Swanson. And, and, you know, really, it's the dozens of other people in partnerships, products, and Ventures, and hundreds of other people in the innovation factories and the CTO teams that have the arms and legs down into our business groups that make us successful. Without that operating system. We're just a three person team, right? Checks, right? Right. And so it really is about that. And then, you know, the 20 some odd thousand smart hands we've got at the company on programs every day, bringing back these needs, implementing these technologies, um, that really help it work. So, you know, that operating system analogy. It's, it's becoming more and more as we do more of this, a little bit more of a machine, you know, we kind of just, we're getting to where we can just turn the crank. We've got infrastructure that supports us, our MIT infrastructure. We've got processes and procedures and tools, um, our own version of TTPs to go to war. Um, and it's, it's really starting to move. So we're excited.

Tim Winkler: 00:50:33

Yeah, it's a great little like flywheel visual, uh, what, what a company can expect when they fall into your all is kind of. Yeah. All right, great. And then, so, yeah, this last question, you know, where, where do you kind of stand with the future outlook on, let's say defense, the defense tech ecosystem at large, or do you feel optimistic on, you know, a positive change and like we're talking about moving quicker and kind of breaking that narrative that, you know, working with, The government is hard, slow and impossible at times.

Michael Hauser: 00:51:08

I really do. Right. We, we deal with a lot of investors. We work with a lot of startups. Um, we talk to a lot of startups that are dual use. I hear the same things about banks, healthcare, energy, right. Other highly regulated industries. These are not easy markets to compete in. Um, government is just a different set of guidelines and rules and processes and procedures hard to compete in a lot more acronyms that I think they're just different acronyms. Um, you know, we're doing some talking to some companies that have some business and banking and man, I'm in Google every minute of every conversation. They're just new. Yeah. Um, and so I'm super optimistic. Um, You know, there are a lot of froth things maybe going on in that sec investing right now. It's one of the quote hotter segments from a dollar value perspective in this high interest rate, um, compressed. Uh, and more intense period of investing in VCs. So, you know, you've got these big macroeconomic changes in VC markets combined with a heightened awareness of national security priorities. I'm not surprised that there's more investment activity going on. Um, but again, some of it little frothy, we try to avoid that as best we can. Because we know a thing or three about being in that SEC, but we're not just in that SEC, we're also in a host of different civilian agencies, some of which like DHS, FBI, um, right, they are national security related. There are national security related parts, Department of Treasury. There are not that are much more like banking, fintech, et cetera, right? There's all of the health focused agencies, the VA, HHS, et cetera. Um, and then you've got all of the other civilian agencies, um, department of interior is doing right. And so these are all customers of SAIC. We've got experts in every single one of those businesses and markets in it and digital engineering. So there's a lot of opportunity for startups across all of that. 80 20 inch dual use versus bespoke for NatSec tech from our perspective, right? Like we talked about, there are great opportunities for future platform primes. There are great opportunities for subcontract. And the one thing we're recognizing from the government customer perspective is that the FAR says full and open commercial first. So do that. And customers are getting more comfortable with that and trading in these commercial technologies as part of that. And not all of it comes from. You know, the big tech companies you read about the wall street journal every day, sometimes you got to get on pitch book or crunch base or go to a pitch festival or whatever to go find them. And that's what we're doing to try to help our customers along with looking at what DIU and AFWRX and the team at DHS and the IRS that are trading in these earlier stage technologies and putting those pilots to work like you talked about earlier, Tim, and trying to find the best of that have gotten a couple of reps at the government contracting gym and then bring them to scale. Yeah, we're super excited about the potential. And we could talk about the technology domains for hours because there's so many of them. We'll save that for a part two. Yeah, um, I'd have to micro machines the conversation because when you get down into the specific, there are thousands.

Tim Winkler: 00:54:41

Yeah.

Michael Hauser: 00:54:41

Um, but if you're digital engineering, or digital transformation, cloud, cyber, AI, data, Love to talk to you.

Tim Winkler: 00:54:48

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great closing point. And, you know, I, I can tell you, you know, I'm, I'm much more optimistic, you know, after this conversation, I think it's just great to see the different outlets available to founders that are looking for resources, looking for, you know, a, a channel, some sort of an, an area to, uh, to integrate, to, to add value, to impact, uh, such a large organization like. The U. S. government. So, um, I hope that this is one of those episodes that, you know, it just brings one more idea to light or, you know, one more opportunity through your all's gate. So. Um, thanks for the, uh, you know, spending the time and spreading the conversation and building that awareness. Uh, I do want to close with the, the five second scramble. So this is going to be a quick little rapid fire Q and a, uh, some business, some personal, you ready to roll? Let's go do it. All right. So what is your favorite part about the culture at SAIC?

Michael Hauser: 00:55:49

My favorite part is that we are super collaborative. Um, I'm, I'm a starter kind of personality. I like being on the front end of things and building things and seeing other people lean into an idea, bring up a new idea. People jump on that and make it happen. It's my favorite part.

Tim Winkler: 00:56:07

What would you say, you know, what kind of founders kind of thrive when coming, coming through the SAIC ventures portfolio?

Michael Hauser: 00:56:15

Passion for mission. Um, if you've got a passion for creating mission outcomes with your tech and your product, we're the place for you.

Tim Winkler: 00:56:22

What would you say are the top areas of, we'll keep it defense tech, uh, that you're most excited for in the, in the next five years? So I'm actually most

Michael Hauser: 00:56:34

excited for some boring stuff that isn't NETSEC. I'll get to the NETSEC stuff in a second. Um, the civilian agencies have not been known as the paragon of digital transformation, and it's because I think they just haven't been able to be exposed to the great things that are going on in analogous industries and dual use like NatSec started doing 15, 20 years ago.

Tim Winkler: 00:56:57

And

Michael Hauser: 00:56:58

so I'm really excited about the automation, AI enablement, business process optimization. Um, cloud enabled solutions for mission opportunities that we can bring into civilian agencies that maybe just haven't had the exposure to those technologies relative to NETSEC tech. And on the NETSEC side, the thing I'm most excited by are the hardest mission problems, right? What can we do to be ready for the worst possible scenarios in, in IndoPACOM? How do we. Protect and defend the nation from emergent cyber and other digital risks and uncertainties. How do we leverage AI in the right, mindful and ethical ways in that set context? Those are the You know, these are at the edge of thinking, they're the hardest of hard problems. Um, and DARPA doesn't get to play with all of them and they get to play with some of them and we're working with them on those sometimes. Um, it's just really, really interesting to be able to focus on some of these really hard problems and then see how that technical solution can get reapplied again and again and again, maybe even in very different contexts. And when we can make something work out at the mission edge and in that set context. And bring it to a civilian agency to, I just, those things blow my mind and they're super cool.

Tim Winkler: 00:58:20

Yeah, I love it. What resources or sources do you kind of tap into to stay current on trends that are happening in the overarching, you know, deep tech defense techs of tech kind of environments? People,

Michael Hauser: 00:58:34

um, you know, the venture is a people business. Yeah, of course, I've got subscription services that we buy, and there are a host of blogs and podcasts, and you can get overwhelmed with data, AI tools to integrate and synthesize it for you to do market studies. I mean, the list goes on and on. At the end of the day, this is a people business. It's about relationships with other investors and

Tim Winkler: 00:58:57

founders

Michael Hauser: 00:58:58

to learn those things.

Tim Winkler: 00:59:00

Yeah. I think I just got about 20 emails in the, in the last 10 seconds about some sort of a newsfeed of what's happening. It's almost information overload. Sometimes you really have to, you have to mute a lot of these channels and have a couple of trusted sources that you connect with. All right. What's a charity or corporate philanthropy that's near and dear to you? Yeah, so

Michael Hauser: 00:59:22

for me, um, I am a huge baseball fan. Um, and so, you know, given, given time to youth baseball has been a huge part of my life. Um, you know, even before my son started playing, um, I've been a coach, I've been a contributor. Um, you know, that that's kind of probably the thing that's closest to me right now. Um, youth sports is something that, you know, a lot of people can't afford. Um, it's not inexpensive even, you know, for bat and ball sports like baseball. Um, and so, you know, that being able to help folks be able to access those, um, Enablers to kind of learning life skills and, and people skills, and maybe you can excel as an athlete too, but you know, most people don't make it to the pros. You get a whole lot more out of it in other dimensions of your life. That that's kind of

Tim Winkler: 01:00:10

I love that. Yeah. Yeah. The access to, to getting involved with sports and yeah. Having that kind of team camaraderie is so, so vital, uh, to, to the youth. So, uh, really, really support that as well. Uh, what's your favorite app on your phone?

Michael Hauser: 01:00:27

My favorite app right now. Um, and it has been for a long time is a newsfeed aggregator called Paliber. Um, and it just takes, you know, you can kind of set up your own channels, um, you know, and, and bring in this kind of multi feed multi source, uh, Um, data aggregation and, and click on what you want, read it. So I use that for news and blogs and, and those kinds of things. What's it called again? How do you spell it? It's a, it's an old school RSS feeds, it's P L A B R E and it's, it's an old school RSS feed tool. That's kind of just grown a bunch of legs. Um, and it's just, I use it as my, my, my, uh, news and blog and RSS integrator.

Tim Winkler: 01:01:11

Cool. Yeah. I'll have to check that out. Um, if you could have dinner with any tech icon, current or past, who would it be with and why?

Michael Hauser: 01:01:20

So for me, um, I would love to spend some time with Alexander Graham Bell and I'm going way in the way, way back machine. Um, Because he was an integrator that had to overcome technology roadblocks, but not so arguably he had to overcome, um, business model issues that were even more intractable than figuring out how to move voice over copper. Um, and I don't think he gets enough credit for the business he built in addition to the technology he created. Um, now it turned into a regulated monopoly and all that other stuff that, you know, has happened in other industries since those times to, um, I'd love to learn about the business side of Alexander Graham Bell. I'm a, I'm a business model kind of guy. I'm a growth junkie. Uh, and I think he'd be a great historical figure to kind of learn from, um, in this day and age of different networks and modes of communication.

Tim Winkler: 01:02:16

Yeah. Yeah. Not, not just a. But a great teacher, you know, so, uh, two more and we're, we're going to wrap it. So what is the worst fashion trend that you've ever followed?

Michael Hauser: 01:02:30

Oh, gosh. Uh, so I would have to say in middle school, um, everybody probably remembers Andre Agassi, the tennis player. Oh yeah. Um, and so I went after the frosted tips, mullet ish haircut. And you know, you can talk about the time frame here, right? This is late eighties, early nineties. Um, there are some pretty amazing, I'm shaking my head from side to side, not up and down photos of me from back then.

Tim Winkler: 01:02:59

Yeah. We'll get those as a, as the headshot for the, uh, podcast. Yeah. And

Michael Hauser: 01:03:04

I'm going to need

Tim Winkler: 01:03:05

like

Michael Hauser: 01:03:05

my, my day glow wristbands with the Adidas, uh, with the puffy print t shirt on. Right, right.

Tim Winkler: 01:03:13

Yeah. Really? I starter jacket. Yeah. Anybody that doesn't, isn't familiar with frosted tips on this podcast and yeah, you're clearly, uh, you're clearly not in the same era as many of the guests that we have on. It's, it's, it's a, a classic era. So. I don't ever want us to have regrets about the frosted tip era. Classic, but wow. I'm going to have to figure out a way to work that in.

Michael Hauser: 01:03:38

All

Tim Winkler: 01:03:41

right. Last one, last one. What was your dream job as a kid?

Michael Hauser: 01:03:45

Uh, yeah, that's easy. Uh, being a catcher for the New York Yankees. Oh, and then as I got older, uh, I had this dream of being a bullpen catcher for the New York Yankees. I was like, don't have to be out there every day. Get to catch all these amazing pitchers for like a few minutes at a time. Um, then I found out what it paid. Um, but, uh, yeah, being a catcher in the starting nine for the New York Yankees was a dream for a very, very long time. Did you play,

Tim Winkler: 01:04:13

did

Michael Hauser: 01:04:14

you play a bit as a

Tim Winkler: 01:04:14

kid? Yeah. Wait all the way up into college a little bit. Um, so yeah. Very cool. Yeah. That's an epic trip. That's an epic dream job as a kid. Um, all right, well, that's, that is a wrap Mike. Thank you so much for spending time with us and. You know, we're, we're always excited for the future founders and startups that are tuning in or, you know, partnering with you all to, to drive this kind of innovation to, to really modernize our government. So we're rooting for you all, uh, excited to see how, you know, your, your, your program, the, the venture side of SCIC evolves over the years. And, uh. Thank you for hanging us with the, uh, hanging with us on the pod.

Michael Hauser: 01:04:53

Yeah, definitely. Thank you for the opportunity, Tim. Uh, and anybody out there, uh, in your community got questions, want to connect, uh, reach out LinkedIn's great way to do it. So I guess I'll plug that app on my phone too. And, uh, we'll grow this thing together with all of your support. So thanks for being a part of the ecosystem.

Tim Winkler: 01:05:11

Absolutely. And we will be sharing this on LinkedIn and sounds like you and I have to go grab a blizzard. I'm I'm going Reese's peanut butter cup. What are you, what are you going with?

Michael Hauser: 01:05:21

Yeah. So, I'm gonna have to ask my wife for for which flavor I should go with. Okay. I'm growing up in western Nebraska with grandma Nancy, her mom. Um, our son's grandmother, you know, he had a great day. He had a terrible day. It was go celebrate or let me help you think through it at Dairy Queen with a blizzard. Yeah. So I'll leave the choosing of the Dairy Queen treat to Jen because she is a connoisseur. As long as it's served upside down, right? You got to show it upside down. That proves how thick it is. That's part of the showmanship of

Tim Winkler: 01:05:53

the blizzard. It's iconic. We'll, we'll, we'll have much more to wrap on, on, on a part two on, on desserts and such. But again, thanks for joining us, Mike. This was a blast. Thanks

Michael Hauser: 01:06:03

Tim.