Investing in Inspiring Edtech with Atin Batra of Twenty Seven Ventures (27V)

In this pilot episode, we interview edtech investor Atin Batra, founder and general partner at Twenty Seven Ventures, also knows as 27V, a venture firm devoted to education and the future of work.

Atin talks about his journey to edtech, his interest in founders who really understand the problems, and how some of the best and most collaborative learning happens outside of traditional schools.

27 Ventures has invested in Fiveable, Edlyft, Topknot, 101Edu, Edgi, New Campus, and many other startups that are looking to transform education. We talk about several of these startups in this episode. 

Atin's Recommended Resources:

• Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas
• The Sensor Tower Mobile Data Report (Q2 2021)

Transcript

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Welcome to Ed Tech insiders. In this podcast we talk to educators and educational technology investors, thought leaders, founders and operators about the most interesting and exciting trends in the field. I'm your host, Alex Sarlin, an educational technology veteran with over a decade of work at leading edtech companies. On this episode of the Ed Tech insiders podcast, we talked to Austin Batra. Eitan is the founder and general partner at 27 Ventures also known as 27 V. A venture firm devoted to education and the future of work. 27 v has invested in five mobile ad lift one, a one edu, fluent new campus, and many other startups that are looking to transform education. Before focusing on ad tech. Adam was the principal at a global VC firm investing in deep tech and connected hardware startups in North America. And prior to that he led Hong Kong's first corporate accelerator often Bocha Welcome to EdTech. Insiders. Thanks for having me. Alex SuperPhone. Yeah, well, that's an you have an extensive background in technology investing, what drove you to focus your current fund on edtech and the future of work? Yeah, I've been a venture investor for about seven years, I've been investing in early stage technology startups for a while now. But my story with education actually goes back even longer. I've been my wife co founded a nonprofit back home in India 15 years ago that was focused on providing soft skills education to young adults. And so that's how insolently that's how I met her. So that's, that's the start of our love story was 15 years ago, when I joined this organization to help them organize events that would teach these young adults soft skills and public speaking skills and that kind of stuff. And it was, it was through that experience. Over the last 15 years, we've actually been running the nonprofit in India, and over that time period, we've actually come to really appreciate the value of education and providing exposure and these opportunities to young adults, so always had a passion for education. In 2019, when I decided to start my own firm, I was just thinking about what sector I want to focus on. And the more I thought about it, the more clearer it became that I wanted to focus on investing. And, you know, at the intersection of this passion of mine, which was education, and how education was shaping the work that people will do the productive work that they will do later in life. And that's the genesis of the fund and the funds thesis. That's fascinating. So it's a love story and a business story all in 180 days. Yes, that is true. So tell us a little bit about what a week in the life of an ed tech investor looks like? How many companies do you talk to, or kind of diligence? Do you do? I'm sure a lot of people are interested in sort of what it looks like from the inside? Yeah, I think I mean, well, the life of any investor is probably the same as an ed tech investor. But generally, I mean, a week is just a lot of gold, frankly, I mean, I'm based in Asia, most of my investing is in North America, which means that I usually get up, you know, early, early, I start my calls 6am 7am. And I do about four or five hours worth of calls back to back, just to get through, you know, either diligence calls, networking calls with other investors, founders, or, you know, just conversations with my portfolio founders. It's usually that first four or five hour block, which is, which is like all calls. And then after that is when I can actually get into the meat of work, which is usually yet in any given week, I'm evaluating about 15 to 20 startups, at different stages of evaluation. For some, it's just a first call, where I'll be doing, you know, foundational research to understand what the company is doing. For other companies. It's like second or third calls, where I'm looking when I'm diving deeper into the business or the team. And then I try, I will say, I try to at least have like one day, like just one day, usually, it's either a Monday or a Friday, one day in the week where I'm not focused on active work, or I'm really much more focused on reading and synthesizing information. So usually, you know, throughout the week, I'll just keep dumping a lot of articles or even just reports and stuff into my into this app called notability on my iPad, so that on the day, which is the designated reading day, and I'm just doing air quotes here for the designated reading there. I will just open up my notability and go through all of the reading resources and just mock up and make notes and stuff. That's just my way of, you know, looking at stuff from a 30,000 foot perspective see what other people's opinion are in sort of synthesize and form macro thesis perspectives. So that's, that's what my week looks like. That's amazing. So if you're talking to 15 to 20 companies a week and reading all sorts of articles about the field, you must get it enormous bird's eye view of the trends in the EdTech field and what the landscape looks like, from your perspective, what are some of the major trends in edtech? Right now? Yeah, I was expecting that question. And I've been thinking about this, I think there are two pieces that I'm seeing a lot of interest in within the education space. One is the rescaling upskilling piece, which is sort of also where my two thesis sort of intersect, which is the education future work, because you're talking about rescaling and upskilling people who are already in the workforce, we're not talking about K 12 or higher ed, right. And so I'm seeing a lot of interest in that space, I think people are starting to realize that it's high time that you found a way to keep your workforce engaged, and up to date with just everything that's happening in the world. I mean, investors, one particular investor, from Lux, capital, PD, his whole thing is that there is a halflife of technology. And I just love that concept. Because when you think about it, that's what it is, you know, you had you had the phones, it probably took 50 years for that to distribute, then you had, the internet took only 25 years for that to distribute to everybody or you had smartphones took, you know, 12 years, iPods took five years or whatever, the idea being that we're just getting the base of technology so fast, that for any individual corporation to keep up, they have to find a way to rescale and upskill their workforce on a regular basis. So that's like one of the things that I'm seeing a lot of interest in, which is great. The other thing is, the other trend is sort of at the very opposite end of education, which is early childhood. I think a lot of people, and funnily enough, these two things actually work with each other, a lot of people have realized that current state of high school and higher ed doesn't really prepare their students for the workforce of what the next what the future of work will be. And it's because some of those soft skills, some of those foundational skills of problem solving, or social emotional learning or peer learning, and you know, those kinds of things are just not being taught in I wouldn't say a structured manner, but just in an intentional manner. That's the phrase I'm looking for. And so a lot of companies and opportunities are cropping up where these companies are building products and services for really early childhood. So you know, zero to five, where the idea is that these skills, the skills, I was just talking about the problem solving and whatever these skills are inculcated in, in kids at a very, very early age. So then they just grow as the skills will evolve as the kids grow and, and they'll be ready for the world whenever they get to that point where what they want to face it. So that's like the other end of the spectrum. But I think both of those pieces are actually getting a lot of attention these days, the early childhood as well as upscaling rescaling. That's really interesting. So it feels like a realization that the current state of education, both for young children and for employees is just subpar, given the speed of technological change, and ad tech companies are looking to address this from a lot of different angles, some are looking to get in right, you know, from the cradle, and others are looking to adjust how companies rescale employees and do it for adults. Yep. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. So you did a great job of summarizing maybe you should be doing my job? Well, you know, your portfolio is incredibly interesting. And you've invested in some really, really interesting tech companies, one that really caught my eye. And I wanted to ask you about, you know, one of the narratives we sometimes hear in ed tech is that it's very isolating, you know, there's this sort of dystopian vision that every student instead of being in a classroom with a teacher or a group, they're on a computer heads down learning all alone, and it's very lonely. And you know, one of your investments is a company called Fire bubble. It's a social learning platform that works to build online learning communities. It just got a $10 million series A investment. I'd love to hear your take on the future of community in the EdTech world, what role five bubble would play and just where you think it's all going? Yeah, get out. I think it's a lot of fear mongering, really, this whole narrative of, you know, Ed Tech is going to be isolating. I think that's just fear mongering on the part of these people who don't understand what today's students are really looking for. And so this is the revelation that I had in this particular space was like four or five years ago now, when I was visiting a nephew of mine, who's like a high school student, actually, at that point was like a middle school late middle school student and I noticed that he was playing fortnight with his friends. And they were just chatting. I mean, they were playing, of course, but they were also just chatting about the day. Right. And right. As I dug deeper, I realized that the person that he was playing with was actually that that person lived two doors down. And that's why I realized that these kids like the current generation, they are just as social as everybody else. But they don't see a delineation between the digital world and the physical world, because they live in the digital world. They're hanging out with their friends on these apps on these games on Roblox or Minecraft. That's where they're building those relationships with these people. And so the kids today, they don't think of digital as being isolating, because actually for them, because they've grown up with technology around them, that technology is exactly what has connected them to more people, and a diverse range of people. And, you know, people from across borders, that you and I, when we were kids, we never saw it we not we never experienced and we can appreciate the value of it for the current generation. And so that was the revelation that I had, I'd say about four years ago, three, four years ago, when I saw my nephew do that. And, and that's when I decided that maybe this is what I should be investing in when I'm looking at education is to not look at learning in the classroom, but to look at learning outside of the classroom. That's my thesis, my thesis is that was attack 1.0, which was put videos on on Coursera and YouTube attack 2.0 was let's do one on one live classes, which was, you know, your VIP kid or I tutor group, those kinds of companies. edtech 3.0, which is happening today is this idea of taking all of the non substantive aspects of classroom or education learning, and put that on the digital sphere. fireable is the perfect example of that of their thesis, their thought process, which is, Bible says we will help you build relationships with other students, we are the peer network that you're looking for, if you can't physically go into school, and so they have the discord, which is like 10s of 1000s of students. And they've got, you know, five messages that pop up every single second, it's just amazing to see how these kids are connecting with I mean, there's a child in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who's connecting with a with a high school student in India. And all of that is happening instantly. And they don't have to think about the fact that you're actually in different education systems. Because that's not the idea. The idea is you're all learning you're at the same age. So you're trying to find a way to get better. And that's what fiber provides. That's fantastic. I've seen five oval described as the hallways of the educational internet. Yeah, right. And it's now in this pandemic aids where you know, schooling suddenly has sort of fallen away for so many people around the globe. It's such a great thesis to think about, hey, when we're trying to put school online, we can't just limit it to the actual content and the classrooms and the teacher, we have to think about other aspects of school like the hallways like the friendships, like the relationships, and it sounds like it's in just the right place at the right time right now. Yeah. And I mean, I will also say that this is not just a COVID thing, because I think even when COVID goes away, and we go back to school, there are two things that will happen. One is, we probably will never go fully back to school, there will always be some version of being ready for remote or being part remote being this hybrid system of laying, which will always be there going forward. I think we just changed the way that that works. But the other aspect of what I think the future will be is there's this realization that our current social media has isolated us into these bubbles. And we have to find a way to prick that bubble, especially for students. And the only way to do that is to find a way to blur the boundaries of your school. Because your school is also kind of a bubble, right? It's always the same socio economic people. It's always the same region of people around you. And so is there a way that we can blur those boundaries those walls of the school and the only way to do that is to build a digital platform, which is why fireball I think is the future of how a student will learn how to open up their mind to more possibilities. That's fascinating. I agree. I mean, I think the gaming phenomenon and the idea of students being Digital Natives living their life online, having so many friendships that both exist in the real world and the digital world. precedes that thinking really well. It's really that idea of sort of Ed Tech 3.0 is definitely going to stay with me. It's fascinating. Yeah, and I know like, sorry, I know you've got all the questions. I'm just riffing on this a little bit more. But one of the things that I've realized the Over the last 18 months, and I'm sure this has happened with you you've created, you've built relationships with people you've never met in life, right? Yeah, you've met people on Twitter or, you know, scorecast, where you've been doing these podcast recordings, you've been able to build relationships with people, but you've never met with them. And when you do meet with them, it will always feel like you've known each other for years, right? And this, imagine that this is happening for you and me when we are whatever 30 Or at least I'm 30. Plus, I don't know about you, you look young. But this is happening for us imagine what will how the same thing affects a kid who is 1516 years old, and has had a lot sort of an iPhone since they knew what a phone was, right? So these relationships really matter much more, they have more of an effect and impact. It's easier for them to build these relationships, you know, when if you and I have three close friends that we've never met, those kids, they have 30 close friends that they've never met? Because it works for them. It's natural for them. Yeah. And as schooling becomes International, or as the borders of the school become more porous, you might have, you know, the majority of your school friends may be in other countries and other cities, speaking other languages. And that's a really interesting vision of the future of the world. Much more inspiring than the dystopian example, when you have one computer it like, wouldn't you want to be in a classroom where you had class? You know, your class heroes were from all over the world. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Right? That'd be fun. Definitely, definitely. I wanted to talk about another one of your investments, or one of your portfolio companies that I find super interesting, which is a company called Ed lift. It's a well founded startup dedicated to helping students succeed in computer science courses, especially students from underrepresented groups. Tell us a little bit about the need there. And how ad tech and deadlift in particular might be able to help level the playing field for learners hoping to close the skills gap in STEM and computing. Yeah, so indulge me for like two seconds as I give you the backstory in the context on this. So they're sure the founders of Ed lift or two African American women who went through Harvard and Stanford respectively, where they were studying computer science. And think about the experience that they had, when they went through computer science courses, right, they probably didn't have enough mentors to look forward to or to look up to sorry, who looked like them. I just how many students in a computer science class or African American, or how many students in computer science guys are from, you know, minority backgrounds. So that was the the background context for these two ladies who by the way, went on to have successful careers in tech, also, but they reflected on that experience that they had had, and realized that there had to be a support network or scaffold, if you might, which can support these underrepresented students as they go through some of these technical courses in university. Because the idea is that a lot of the African American students or Latin our students who are joining computer science courses would probably not have done the AP courses in high school will not have had, you know, the private tuition that some of the more privileged Asian or Caucasian classmates will have had during their time in high school, right. So for these underrepresented students, it's very easy for them to fall behind the class. And once you fall in behind the class, it becomes even easier for you to just drop up and change your major do something else. So anyway, if the story is that these founders felted themselves, and they've built a scaffold, through a mentor network, a peer mentor network that they're building, which helps underrepresented students, minority students to actually get the support they need, so that they can stay the course. Right? They can continue to study every time they hit a blocker, they reach out to their mentor who helps answer the questions that they've got, so that they never fall behind, and certainly never have to drop out of the costs. That's the idea. That's the background. That's the vision. It's amazing. It reminds me a little of Carl Wyman's work in bringing together tutoring and study groups for underrepresented groups in physics. He would have worked for years at UT Austin to do that. And I saw incredible results just by helping students see, you know, see others like them succeed, avoid that sort of imposter syndrome or all of the psychosocial barriers that come up when a group is sort of pioneering and underrepresented in a certain area. So it feels incredibly promising to me and it. It reminds me of what you were saying with five people that you know, relationships and mentorships and connections are a huge part of education. It's not just about money. Absolutely, absolutely 100%. And I mean, think about the reality right now, if you've got a class size of 1500 students, how do I know that someone else is struggling as well? Right? How do I know that this other person is in the same situation as me? In most cases, I wouldn't know. And that becomes even more of a demoralizing factor than then you would imagine. The other aspect is, again, in a class size of 1500, how do I know someone who looks like me that that person is doing better than me, and I can ask them for help, I wouldn't know any of that. So the only way to make that possible is through an ED lift platform where you've got technology doing that work for you. And I mean, I'm huge fans, obviously, I'm a huge fan of the founders, I mean, they've gone ahead and built automations that make all of this work easier, more efficient, that collects grades that gives advice to students, that encourages them to study a particular subject before an exam or a particular question set before an exam or whatever. I mean, I think they've looked at it from the perspective of helping the student use the same phrase again, but stay the course, like truly just stay in the course, and get to the end and get past the exam or whatever. As long as that is your sole objective, then you will find all the various ways to achieve that. And that's exactly what what I'd left is built. And that's incredibly exciting. I think it's a really good example of edtech use to, you know, build transparency, build connection really helps students feel less isolated, less disconnected, sort of less afloat, which is, you know, what I think, you know, social tech can do really well, and feels like it's now converging with educational technology, it's a really exciting thing to see. Yeah, and I mean, I'm not saying that this is completely revolutionary, we haven't had this, we've always had a buddy system in universities, right? In colleges, we've had the buddy system, which was supposed to be an elder brother, or elder sister sort of helping you out when you're joining University. All of that has been there. But it's just so much more effective, efficient. Now that you have technology helping you with that process. It's so much more actually, you use the word transparent, which is correct. It's so much more transparent. Today, we I can see someone who truly looks like me. So one of the things that really stands out to me about your portfolio, you actively split it between edtech companies and future of work companies. And I'd love to talk a little bit about the sort of the core difference in your mind between edtech and future of work, you know, how do you see the spectrum between helping students learn, and helping learners build marketable skills and to succeed in their careers? I think that's a fascinating question, I will say that I usually end up doing on the side of helping students learn, rather than focusing on businesses where the learners can build marketable skills in a tangible manner. I think it's just my personal thesis has always been, and I've learned this from my father, which is make yourself the best version of you and opportunities will follow, right? Instead of thinking about marketable skills or marketable pieces on your resume. I've just never had one of those. I didn't go to an Ivy school. My university, like people in India probably won't even recognize my university, let alone people around the world. So it's just you know, I've never had those brand names behind me. And so the idea of like, the sort of stuff that I'm usually investing in is helping with intrinsic motivation, intrinsic development, rather than extrinsic work. So that's how I look at, like, just my thesis of investing, however, to your earlier to the earlier part of your question, which is, how do I think of edtech and future work? And the nexus of those, I actually look at it as sort of like a Venn diagram. There is there is some overlap between those two sectors, the company's right in the bang in the middle of that will be both education and future of work. So an example of that is top knot, which is a portfolio company of ours from the US. They focused on providing coaching service for professional women. Right, so this is to help professional women, women who are professionals already in the workforce, for them to level up. It's a perfect example of education and future of work. Another example is another portfolio company called new campus, which is here in Asia, based out of Singapore, and they focus on manager training for corporates. So they actually sell directly to corporates where the corporates are saying that, you know, a lot of our managers don't have managerial experience. You know, earlier, what you would do is you would have these apprenticeship programs where I would be an assistant manager, then I'd be a deputy manager, then I'd become a manager. That doesn't happen anymore. Like in today's world, you're a great performer, I'll make you a manager. And so those kinds of people, they don't have the skill set to become an efficient, not everybody, I guess has the skill set to become an efficient manager. And so new campuses helping those kinds of people level up their managerial skills and sell directly to corporates for that. I mean, those two top not and new campus are perfect examples of this nexus of education and future work as I define it. And then you've got stuff like five double Ed left, which is all just education. So it's in that education circle that is not covered. And then there's a future of work investments that I've made, like toggle or ethos or higher, which are all companies in just the future of work and have nothing to do with education. That's how I tangibly define it. But if you again, go back to like the vision, the thought process, the thought process is that anything that you learn, whether actively or passively will lead to what you work in, or what work or what productive work you produce. Then similarly, like, conversely, anything, any work that you're doing, it's being affected by all of the learning experiences that you've had in your life leading up to it. So there will always be some form of interplay between learning, and I call it labor. So the idea of, we invest in future of learning and labor. So there will always be some interplay between learning and labor for every single individual on this planet. That's fascinating. I want to drill down on one part of that answer, which I thought was incredibly interesting, which is focusing on the intrinsic motivation, you know, you mentioned gaming earlier, and online communities and the type of learning that students in elementary and high school sort of are really drawn to, and it strikes me that, you know, for adults, and for people in the workforce training, to become a manager, or to be improved interview skills, or to complete programs or to, you know, raise your salary also can actually be somewhere between intrinsic and extrinsic, if you see yourself as a potential manager, you want to take courses to do that, to, you know, to become one. So I'd love to just hear a little bit more about that, that thesis about, you know, using the intrinsic motivation of learners to drive amazing outcomes, no matter where they are in their life. Yeah, I mean, I think, listen, I've worked into corporates in my life. And you will always find two types of people, there are two people, and what I mean two types of people within corporates, that the people who are doing this for the fact that it's a corporate, if they can keep climbing the ladder, as long as they stay safe, within this bubble of this huge organization, they will work for that organization for like 25 years. And the only motivation for them is to get to the next rung of the ladder. I know so many people, like I'm seeing their faces swimming in my head right now. All they want to do is just climb that ladder. That's it, that's all they want to do. Whereas there are other people in corporates who actually go to a corporate because they think that that is where they can have the highest impact, which is true. I mean, you and I can keep working on our startups. But our startups only have impact to the 10 clients that we have, or the 10 customers we have. Whereas if you're working at a corporate and you're developing something that's super valuable to the corporate, the moment that gets deployed, they're like maybe 200,000, people who get impacted with it. So yes, a lot of people go to a corporate to have that impact. But then for them, that's the intrinsic motivation. So that's a differentiation that I was trying to make, you know, for a lot of people being in corporate is all about the extrinsic motivation of higher salary, stable job, if I keep moving up the ladder, I will stay within this company for life or whatever. And then there is or some people actually even think of just jumping between corporates. So I know some people. Now we're going down a tangent, but I know people who would basically jump from one corporate to the other to get a salary raise, and then come back to the same corporate, just so they could have gotten that salary bump. And it's just, it's maddening to a person like me, who's an entrepreneur, truly, like, intrinsically an entrepreneur, to think that you would make that change just so you can get a bump in salary. I mean, that's your extrinsic motivation, that that amount of money at the end of the day and for me, one is great. I mean, yes, you we should all have money, that's great. But wouldn't you want to do something meaningful with life? That's why I like entrepreneurs, because they they've got this passion in Hindi, it's called Junoon, which is not just passion, I think it's also it's almost like being crazy about something like, truly, it's madness. And it's this madness about changing the world or changing something in how the world operates. That truly attracts me to entrepreneurship. And so that's, that's an intrinsic thing. There's no way that I can even if I gave you a million bucks, can I change you to, to be focused on something that you're not passionate about? That's not going to happen? So that's when I'm investing. I mean, this is the first thing that I talk to the founders about, is what is your motivation? Why do you want to do this? What's your story? Like, why this problem set? Why this sector, all of that is just Understand? Is it intrinsic or extrinsic? Are they doing this? Because edtech is the hot sector to be in? And once again, I'm using it because this is the hot sector to be in? Or are they doing it because they truly think they can make a difference the learning outcomes? Yeah, that's really interesting. So the intrinsic motivation to make an impact to do something you truly care about, can be compared to the extrinsic motivation of climbing that corporate ladder, just heading for a higher salary, just trying to move into things that are external rewards. That's a great distinction. I mean, I would also say that I don't think anybody is one or the other. I think there's always a spectrum. as I've grown older, my parents will laugh when they hear this. But as I've grown older, I've tried, I've started to appreciate the fact that everything is not black and white, right there is there is gray. And so when I think of intrinsic versus extrinsic, I think there's a spectrum. And so the spec, like the idea is how far in one direction are you on that spectrum? So it will be an intrinsic, 10%, extrinsic or you 90%, extrinsic 10%, intrinsic, that's what we're trying to figure out when we're investing in entrepreneurs. Yeah, and it feels like, you know, really good edtech can instill and build off that intrinsic motivation as well. It can really unlock that passion that you're talking about, and help people find their find their meaning and you know, their life's work. That's the idea, right? And so like, if you look at the portfolio companies that we've invested in, I think we've only got two companies that truly deal with subject education inside the class. Everybody else is education. Yes. But it's educational. Outside the class, it's education for you know, your foundational skills, not for your language and math skills. That's not what we're trying to teach. And that's where you then come into this whole territory of can we build motivation for you? Can we help you figure out who you are what you want to achieve in life? That's what we're I mean, that's the end goal. Yes. You know, I have one final question for you. But it feels like we're right up against it already. Which is that, you know, if there's a through line that connects your portfolio companies to one another, what is it? Or what's the core problem that you believe ed tech can solve? And it sounds like you're already talking about it? But I'd love to hear it directly? Yeah, no, I mean, again, it's this intrinsic motivation piece. And I don't want to go on another rant about it. But I think that's is that is one common piece across all the 45 founders that I've invested in, it's that none of them were corporate people, they may have worked at corporate, they were never there to claim the wrong basically, they wanted to build something meaningful. A lot of them even though they've never been considered serial entrepreneurs were serial entrepreneurs in the sense that they were always fiddling on the side, they were building something at home, they were builders. And that's the one common thread across every single one of the 45 founders that we've invested in today is that they're all builders. And that's what you want in sectors like education, future work that is going to impact the world for decades and centuries to come. You want these builders to build something that will that is intentional, that is thoughtful, that they're committed to for the next decades. It's an incredibly beautiful vision of edtech. It feels like your passion for entrepreneurial investing is helping these entrepreneurs find their passion for making an impact. And that'll be paid forward to the learners and students and employees who use these products and help them find their passion to make their impact in the world. I think that's one of the most, you know, inspiring visions of edtech that I've heard. I appreciate you saying that. But yeah, that's what we're hoping to build. Well, you know, as we wrap up, you know, I always ask every guest, this has been a phenomenal conversation. You know, are there any notable news items that have caught your eye recently that you feel like people in the EdTech world should pay attention to right now? Yeah, so I saw that question of yours. And I dug into my notability, to find something recent that I had read and liked and made a lot of notes on, it was a Sensor Tower report on the state of mobile and state of education. So just the confluence of those just education on mobile, I'll send you a link and you can add it to the show notes. But I think it was a very interesting report to read. I think a lot of the insights were obvious, but it's just great to see it with data backing it then rather than just your gut telling you so you know, just as an example, like we were looking at the top 10 apps in the education category over the last four or five years, and you see that it's been completely dominated with language learning apps. And so there's this realization that really none of the education apps that you can think of, like none of the education companies you can think of the Udemy is a Coursera is the master classes of the world. They haven't really made a dent on mobile because that format doesn't work. The format that works Mobile is the gaming style, the Duolingo, the MEBO. You know, those kinds of companies really work on a mobile format. So I thought it was quite interesting that report and highly recommend anybody to read it even if you're not building a mobile app. But if you're an education, you should definitely give it a look. That's fascinating. And then what is one book or blog or newsletter that you would recommend for someone just breaking into edtech? And then, you know, what would you recommend for somebody who's already a veteran of the field that they sort of a deeper cut? Yeah, I have one book that I recommend to everyone that they should read, whether they're a veteran, a virgin, or whether in education or not, you know, just doesn't matter. So this particular book was my book of 2020. That's when I read it. And the book is called winner steak all. It's by Anand giridharadas, and it is the toughest book that I've ever read. And it's tough because it is a direct attack on capitalism. It is. So there's just so much dissonance. When you're in technology, as an investor, as a founder, if you read this book, it's like he's attacking every single thread you've been pulling on for the last 10 years as an entrepreneur as an investor. But I still think that there is just so much vism in reading through those perspectives in understanding them better to try and gauge one how everybody else perceives you. Because I think we're, we've been we've talked about this earlier, everybody's in a bubble, especially people in tech are in bubble because we think we're changing the world. But there are lots of people that have not heard of squat cast or haven't heard of slack or haven't heard of loom, you know, there are people who don't look at this every single day and every single minute of every single day. So I think the book, it does a great job of throwing open this perspective, this outsider look on what you're trying to build in technology in capitalism in venture in philanthropy, he even takes that apart. Yeah, it's an amazing book. It's been a mistake all by and graded us, hugely, like transformational for me in terms of just understanding and reforming my priority, so definitely recommend. Fantastic suggestion. Well, thank you so much. That's in Bocha. This has been a really inspiring conversation about edtech about your portfolio about motivation. And, you know, we'll keep an eye on your portfolio companies and I hope to bring you back to the podcast sometime soon. Now, this was awesome. Alex, thank you so much for hosting and for the amazing questions. It's a fun. Thanks for listening to this episode of the EdTech insiders podcast. Subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 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