 Hey, folks, welcome to the podcast. So we're doing a special series of podcasts which I'm recording over Google Hangouts. So we're doing audio and video because for some unknown reason people don't want to come see me face to face right now. But there's always opportunity and the cool thing is I'm able to now podcast with people from all over the world. So we're going to get an amazing eclectic mix of people from different industries, different perspectives to share their story and tell us, you know, their thoughts and feelings on what's going on right now. And all of that cool stuff. Hope you enjoy it. Please subscribe in all the usual places and enjoy. Awesome. And we are live. Thank you everyone for joining. And it's great to be joined by Alex Bekir, who is great from wrong. MD and GM for Europe for Rewire. Sounds about right. Hi, Louis. Nice to meet you today. Love to talk to you. Great to talk to you too. We're just about to talk about Brexit and then we thought we'd better press record. So how did we talk about that in a sec? How did an English guy end up in Amsterdam? That is a long story. I guess the headlines are, I was in Silicon Valley for about a decade and probably other juicy topic US. It's a little bit less friendly, I think, to foreigners. I also have an Iraqi background. So it just didn't really seem like home anymore recently. So I actually took a bit of time off, wound up in Tel Aviv and was told by a mutual friend I had to meet this company Rewire that I share a lot of values with them. How did you end up in Tel Aviv? I was just travelling at the time. I took about six months off. I travelled around Australia, I was in New Zealand for a while and then was in Europe for a while too and Tel Aviv was one place I'd never visited and heard wonderful things about. So I was there and introduced to the founding team at Rewire. Nice. So Israel is a territory of Rwanda. I track the most money for tech startups outside the US, Israel. Yeah, it's a bit mad actually. I was really kind of shocked and pleasantly surprised when I got to Tel Aviv. It really does look like, not even a little, but like a version of Silicon Valley is growing up there. It's crazy. It's a very, for those that haven't been, it's really difficult to describe. It's like Mediterranean kind of vibe. It's by the beach. People are super motivated. Just everything going on in the region. I think it culminates in this crazy melting pot, doesn't it? Yeah, the energy is off the charts. Entrepreneurial energy, just like it's the joy for life. It's a phenomenal place. I would warmly recommend people to visit if they haven't already, COVID allowing, of course. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So you met these founders probably on the beach somewhere and they convinced you to join. We did have, I think, a breakfast meeting on the beach, on the promenade in Tel Aviv. That was not a bad sales pitch if you're ever trying to sell something. It's a good place to do it. Yeah, definitely. So you joined Rewire while you were in Tel Aviv or? We, I think I've made that, it's kind of like many stages to joining a company and I think there's one of the most important is like the emotional decision. I can imagine myself doing this and that emotional decision was certainly made when I was in Tel Aviv, but it took about a couple of months to figure out what the paperwork afterwards. Yeah, yeah. It's true, like most of the people I speak to, in fact, I mean, the vast majority of people, you know, if they love their job, it's because they love the people they work with, or if they're looking to move, it's never money that's the motivator for moving or looking. It's always, you know, it's something about people, the manager, the team, the culture, you know. So it's super, super important to get that right. Definitely. I think money is necessary but not sufficient, you know? You've got to be able to pay the bills but it's really, you know, like who are you going to be working with, especially in startups when, you know, it's going to be mad, like who are you kind of partnering and teaming up with becomes way more important. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And I'm just interested to hear about your, because you told me your story about your background, your family background, obviously Rewire specializing banking for immigrants and it seems to tie up quite nicely with your family story and stuff. Yeah, thank you for asking. Yeah, it really was a meaningful mission to me. So like when I met the team in Tel Aviv, they kind of described, you know, just the difficulties migrants have, like dealing with financial systems, right? You know, at home in their new country, in their old country, and like these are like lived experiences for me. My dad came to England in the 1960s from Iraq and married a girl from Newcastle. I grew up, you know, in the UK, pretty oblivious to the whole migration thing until a lot of my dad's family started arriving in the UK from Iraq. This is really after there was a war in about 1991, the Gulf War, first Gulf War. So a lot of my dad's brothers and sisters, you know, started arriving in England and I already saw kind of firsthand how difficult it can be for migrants to settle in a new country, you know, not just in the with the financial system, but also with the financial system. So that certainly struck me. And then I've had the luck to, you know, be able to move around a bit myself over the years. And I've lived at the difficulty of moving countries and getting set up. And I'm quite lucky, actually, right? I'm kind of, you know, lucky enough to be educated, lucky enough to have a job, lucky enough to have the right papers. So for me, it should be easy. It wasn't. So obviously, I was kind of connecting my experience and my family's experience. And it just, it made a lot of sense to me that way. Yeah. What's what's what if you found difficult about moving around? Is it like, is it the like the locals and inverted commas aren't accepting immigrants? But I mean, nowadays, I mean, a lot of these countries are so, so diverse. Well, I say a lot. I mean, maybe that's maybe maybe that's just living in London is so diverse and a lot of a lot of places aren't. But it feels like, you know, in Silicon Valley, when you when you when you went over there to live and you said you didn't quite quite feel like you fit it in, it would feel like somewhere like that would be super open to to welcoming immigrants and stuff. Yeah, it's a it's a really good point, right? I mean, let's start with like Silicon Valley. It's it is a wonderful place, you know, like sunshine most of the time, beautiful. But it's surprisingly, I would say, homogenous for somewhere that is actually incredibly incredibly diverse when you look at the statistics, but the homogeneity kind of comes in just like 20 years of tech startups growing really quickly, you know, attracting a lot of engineering graduates to the region that are quite highly, highly paid. So, you know, in terms of, let's call it national diversity, like there's a ton of different nationalities there. But I think a lot of the demographics in our quite, you know, quite similar. So yeah, it's I loved it that I'll get me wrong. But it wasn't necessarily like the melting pot of diversity that you might imagine. Actually, Amsterdam seems a lot more diverse in my 18 months here. And there seems to be a lot more of my economic diversity and like social diversity here than I saw in Silicon Valley. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Silicon Valley is expensive, you know, I mean, to live there. The prices are high. I mean, you know, better than I haven't lived there. But but it's funny because, you know, America is is a country built on immigrants, you know, the whole fabric of the country, the whole, that whole immigrant mentality and, you know, like just starting businesses, entrepreneurial, making money, all of those, all of those things. And it's, it seems to have, you know, so many social problems that right now that are very public, it seems to have just slightly lost, lost that way. Yeah, I think it's lost, it's like shine, right, that way. And I think, for anyone visiting a big American city these days, the number one thing that hits you is like homelessness. And we could do a whole podcast on homelessness in America and kind of the things that I've seen during my time there. But yeah, even even in like, you know, Silicon Valley, Google entrepreneurs or Google executives would be sometimes, you know, looking for economic ways to live. I've heard stories about engineers setting up, you know, mobile homes in the Google car parks and using the offices to shower in just to save on rent. So it's, it's pretty extreme. And I think, John, you really feel that when you see it with your own eyes. Yeah, that's crazy. It's crazy. Europe on the other hand, you're right, Amsterdam is a great spot. The thing about Europe, I know, I mean, I think about Europe is just so many different nationalities, but, but Europe also each country say different culturally, you know, France, different to Germany, different to the UK and stuff. But when you, I think, I mean, for me, London's just the most diverse city I've ever been to. And, you know, I think it's just, I think the stats are like 50 something percent, maybe 55 percent of people that live in London off from the UK, something like that. It's probably changing now with Brexit and COVID and stuff like that. But, you know, it's just amazing and Amsterdam to, I mean, it's just, you know, in Europe, you get a real, a real melting pot. Yeah, yeah, it definitely, it definitely feels that way. There's something about living in European cities that for me was a bit of fresh air having come from kind of the US cities. You know, I think people are just like on the streets a lot more, like walking around. There seems to be a lot more kind of interaction, but it might have just been how I was living in the US, but that vibrancy seems a bit different. Well, Amsterdam, you can just walk everywhere. You know, I mean, if you're in, if you're in a big American city, you've got to get in the car and you drive around and, you know, most people don't live downtown, do they? They live somewhere outside. But, you know, London, Amsterdam is just brilliant to walk around. And also maybe the location, because my family were also immigrants. My dad's family from Egypt, my mum from South Africa. And yeah, so my, both Jewish and like my dad, all the Jews were kicked out in the 50s. And then they ended up coming to Paris and then London. And then my mum came off to university from Cotown. So, so they, yeah, they went through, you know, I guess they were maybe from Egypt more, not quite refugees, but, you know, maybe somewhere in between and they define it. But then, yeah, then, then they will come to London and it's just, in those days, it all went to the east end of London, like many immigrants do when they come to the UK. And yeah, it's just fascinating stories. And I did my DNA test a six, six months ago, I'll say. And if no one's done it before, I'd recommend it. Because what you realize is how much you share with other people. You just realize like, oh my God, you know, my family from all over here. And it just, I know just, you just kind of realized that, you know, we have so many more things. What were your results out of interest? So I'm going to get the percentages slightly wrong. But about, so if you do a saliva test, you did a little stick. And then you stick it in the test tube, you send it off. So it came back and they said I was about 30% Sephardic Jewish, which for those not into their Jewish history, Sephardic Jews affirm like North Africa, essentially. So like Egypt, Syria, Morocco, et cetera. And that's where my dad signed it all from. And then, and then a little bit Middle East, so like Israel style. And then the rest is Eastern Europe, so my mum's side Lithuania, Russia, et cetera. So a real mix, you know, a little bit of North African, mostly European. No English, you know. I love it. So I've also done one of these. I'm amazed at how specific they get, right? The fact they could tell you, you know, like which, which regions you're from is sort of mind blowing a little bit worried about what they do with the dates, mind you, but yeah, I'm like, so my test was also a bit surprising. So my dad's from Kerbala in Iraq, my mum is from Newcastle. But most of my DNA was actually from like Armenia and the Caucasus, which never never predicted beforehand. So it's a little eye opening for sure. It's nice to just, yeah, I don't know maybe it's because I've got a bit older that I've got a bit more interested in the family story and the family journey and stuff. But no, it's crazy, you know, and I think, you know, on immigrants specifically, I think it's just great because you want that immigrant mentality, you know, that you go to a new country and you want to contribute, you want to build something, you want to feel like you fit in part of society. And I just find that mindset fascinating. Yeah, there is, I think there is this real drive for, you know, like self-sufficiency amongst immigrant communities. You know, everyone wants to be able to support themselves, do well, support their families. And I think, you know, the how you arrive and I has a big impact on that. You know, so I mentioned that a lot of my family arrived in the UK as refugees and it was really eye opening, just kind of watching, you know, what they have to go through to just try and get set up in a similar place they were before, right, you know, doctors that don't have their medical degrees recognized, right, and have to start rebuilding. So I think, yeah, I agree that the mentality is definitely one of, you know, let's make this work. That's everything we can. But I think, you know, there's some real structural issues that can make it much harder, frankly. Yeah, how does the banking work then? Like if I just, so your family that came to the UK, yeah, they've been to bank account with Rewire today, or what they've needed. So today, actually, they could have done. So Rewire will accept refugee IDs, right. By the way, what's interesting is a lot of ID checks are kind of done by API. And there's a few companies that will like stand behind it and check everyone's IDs. But they tend to not index refugee IDs from across Europe just because that market is pretty small. So actually at Rewire, we have done that. So we can accept refugees and onboard them and give them a basic, basic like account and a card connected to it. So today they actually could have done, which is really nice to say. But like typically banks just want a lot of information, right. I think anyone that's moved countries that kind of has felt as they often want to see an employment contract, a proof of address, maybe even a rental contract on your house. And that stuff is just challenging, right. Challenging for me when I arrived in the Netherlands 18 months ago, I didn't have a, I was staying with a friend when I showed up. So I think the typical barriers are quite high. And what's nice now is they're coming down and Rewire's definitely helping with that. But it's still difficult. If they wanted to get an account, a traditional bank, that isn't easy still. Yeah. So you did, yeah, it's tough, right. So you do need some kind of proof of ID, address, something. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to use, to use an internet bank or like a branchless bank, you're going to have to have the old mobile phone. And if you can't get a contract, I mean. Yeah, for sure. Actually, the mobile companies have done a really good job making the internet connections available. There's a few of them where you can like show up at the airport by a SIM card and you're off, right. So I actually think like telephony and cell phones and internet is, is pretty sold. It's just like the older rules banks still have an account of things that make it tougher. Yeah. I tried to open a bank account. So I've got a, I set up a company in the US. And so fine. I was trying to open an account in the UK for ages, just a second bank account and stuff. And it was, it took me like, I don't know, maybe six weeks to get an appointment to go see the bank. Like, yes. And there, Barclays, I can't remember which one it was. So I don't know the name and shame. But I went and it took ages. So I set up a company in the US. And it took me, it took me about two weeks to set up the company and have the bank account open. And like, we're ready to, you know, we're ready to rock and roll. It was amazing. They scouted, they did a video call with me. They checked all my documents on the video. They, a notary, a notary check my stuff. I was still trying to rearrange some, some meeting with the UK bank for a thing here. And I'm already bank with you. It's, it's really just. No, we've come a long way. The fact you have to get a notary involved with those kind of blows my mind, right? I like notaries and all this stuff exists. And it's all about like ID verification. There are just so many better ways to do that. You know, you can like you're, so you guys don't use any of that or so I mean, for us, basically, like we'll do, we'll ask you to do a selfie. As you state the arts, like a video selfie, to show you're a living person and that you match the picture you're path for. So we'll ask you to take a picture of your ID and then just give us your details, right? Like email address, phone number and kind of that's sufficient. That's sufficient actually under European law open one of our accounts. Whole process takes about three minutes and that's how it should be, frankly, you know, your, your, your ID is, it is not a secret. It's pretty easy to verify. So like, you know, the days of getting documents, like certified and motorized, definitely hopefully are coming to an end. So how do you know about how can you tell if they're real and genuine and not fraudulent and stuff? Yeah, it's, that is a good question. I mean, without giving too much away, there's a lot of, it's a lot of information when you take a picture of like an ID document, like holograms, other security bits and pieces. So, you know, they're very easily checked. And actually now there's a whole industry in ID verification. It's pretty interesting. Now companies will like double check and verify documents from across the UK and across Europe and, you know, give you a green light, red light on, you know, if this is a valid document. This is, and this is really like enabling the growth of fintech, right? Like, you know, once you take away the burden of proof, sorry, not the burden of proof, but the difficulty in, in like ID verification, like suddenly it's very easy to open the account online. So now most of like the modern internet banks are doing that now. It just hasn't necessarily been promoted or used with like migrant groups and like working migrants, like cooks, cleaners, nurses, right? They should also have access to this. So, you know, we're very happy to be able to offer easy on-boarding. Nice. Love that. Love that. So, okay. So you can do, and your, are your accounts only euro or, so if someone in, I don't know, Netherlands wants to immigrate to the UK, they've really got a bank account with you. They can just, they can go wherever they want. Yeah. So we're open the UK and in the euro zone. So, you know, you can open a UK account or euro account. It's quite nice. We've been growing like very nicely in the UK the last few months. Like interestingly, you know, COVID has been terrible time for the world, but like actually quite, quite beneficial for digital financial services. In what, in what way? So I think, you know, a lot of people are just at home with their phones and they need financial services and don't necessarily want to go out to their bank or in our case, we like facilitate international money transfer as well. So they don't want to go to the physical place they've done that. So you've seen just this like huge spike in online banking, let's say, right? And so bringing that to migrants also for international money transfer needs has been, you know, a dramatically positive experience during COVID. I think a lot of people have talked about no market shrinking and, you know, international money transfer shrinking, but the digital corner of this market has like exploded over the last six to nine months. Awesome. So the silver lining in the pandemic for you guys is really the uptake in digital banking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's weird to talk about any silver lining at this point. I mean, today I'm trying to work out if I can come back to England for Christmas to see family, but the thing that has kept me busy and, you know, somewhat sane over this period as has been the business has been doing really well. So I'm very happy about that. Let's, we talked a little bit about it or fair briefly, but I want to talk about hiring a little bit. How have you found, how have you found virtual hiring? Yeah, we've been, because we've been growing, we've been hiring. And yeah, we have brought on quite a lot of people during this period. And I think it is strange. I think we are used to getting so much from just meeting in person and getting a feel of, you know, who you're talking to, understanding their energy, you know, like kind of feeling a bit more trust in them. And yeah, we've had to flip that entirely to video calls like this. And so we have been managing to hire, like we just actually have a new hire starting in Amsterdam tomorrow that I've never met. Just talked to on video. And I think the key thing is just kind of building in some time for, let's call it like the non-interview questions, you know, I think it's like very easy on a video call to be like bang, bang, bang question one, question two, question three, and kind of lose any sense of like who you're talking to. So just building in kind of some blank time just to see if you get on with this hire has been, has been pretty important. And I can't say it's been a success yet. I'll let you know in six months. We have been focusing on trying to make sure we, you know, can create that like connection with the person we're hiring, even if, you know, we're on tiny little screens on our laptops while doing it. Have you been doing to the candidate and one other person or have you been doing like larger group interviews? Yeah, we started with a bigger, well, we tend to do one on one absolutely, but the funnel is a little bit bigger, right? So you have everyone that applies, people that gets the first round, second round, third round, etc. So we've been trying to do a bigger funnel to start with. And what is also super interesting is like, so a bigger funnel in terms of you and one other interviewing the candidate, for example, yeah, just kind of like, yeah, more bringing in more applications at the early stages. To give a broader cross-section and caring a little bit less about where they are as well, you know, we're going to be working on it. Absolutely. We're going to be working on the digital screens. I don't mind too much if you're in kind of Amsterdam or Stockholm. I just kind of want to know that you're going to be able to do the job and fit in with the team. So, yeah, definitely starting with a bigger funnel and paying a little bit more attention to references as well, you know, like trying to find people within the network one or two degrees removed just to get like a more trusted point of view on who you're talking with. There's also been very valuable for us. So you've identified a final candidate, and then you'd contact, maybe you'd look at LinkedIn, you'd see who's connected with them and you, and you'd shoot them a note saying, I'm about to offer Jane the job, you know, would love to hear your thoughts on what you think she's like. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think references in Europe, my experience is people take them like a little bit less seriously. Well, actually during COVID, I think people should take them very seriously. It kind of speaks volumes if you can't get someone to talk on your behalf right now, you know, and gives me a lot more confidence if there are a couple of people that are willing to like help out for you. So, yeah, it's been interesting to see a few cases where that hasn't gone as well, and it kind of raises some questions. But, yeah, we typically ask the candidate directly, hey, can you give us two or three people you've worked with? And we'd love to have a quick chat with them if that's all right with you. Cool. Yeah, it's good. On those two points, interesting. One big trend I've noticed from clients is people's willingness to hide people from wherever. You used to be people much more focused on location. But the wonderful thing is, you know, the talent pools are much wider. You know, if you're sourcing from all over Europe, you have a much wider pool of talent, a more diverse pool of talent. And you're going to ultimately end up with a better hire, which is great. It's great to see you guys doing that. And it's a real good trend that's come out of this. Completely agree 100 percent. It is eye-opening when you see, you know, literally candidates coming in from UK, Lithuania, Portugal, and extremely well qualified, right? And in a world where you want them to come into the office every day, you'd probably overlook that candidate or, you know, make it a requirement that they relocate, but that's just like completely turned on its head now. It doesn't matter at all. Yeah, I think it's great. References. References are interesting on that. So in the UK, it's illegal to give a bad reference. And there's been cool cases. No way. Yeah. So, you know, if someone said, hey, you know, what's Alex like? And I'm like, well, you know, whatever, you know, give you kind of a little negative reference and you don't get the job. And you could be like, you know, Lewis, you know, that's just your, that's just your opinion, you know, or we have an argument and we didn't get on for some reason. Doesn't mean you're a bad guy. Doesn't mean you're not going to be amazing through the job you've, you've applied for. So, so there's a little cultural differences around most, most of the vast majority of my clients can't do the references for sure. But, but most of them are obviously going to be positive because they give you the references. So it's, it's, it's an interesting one. I'm not sure I land on them now. I mean, you'd rather do them than not for sure. But yeah, it's changed. I actually didn't, I didn't know that about the UK. So do you just get like, variances from like, very good. So in the UK, well, so if you wanted to contact Apple, for example, for a reference for someone that you're hiring from that, or they'd worked there previously in the UK, they confirm the dates that they've worked there and what their job title was. So you can confirm that they, what they've said in their CV is correct and true. What companies like that won't do is say, I think Alex is great, or you know, would you hire him again? We wouldn't answer those kind of questions. Yeah. If you can get to people that are just kind of not associated so much with a company, but just, you know, I know you worked with him before, do you mind having a quick chat? Then you're more likely to get a kind of more interesting, relevant reference. So yeah, they're interesting. What I, what I'm fascinated with right now is, so most states in the US, it's illegal to ask a candidate for their current sanary details. Yes. Which, which I think is great and links to immigration, which, which I want to, I want to cover, like, link it to. In the UK and most countries in Europe, you ask a candidate and if they don't say it's a bit odd and clients want to know, you know, how much has this person been making and you kind of, you know, upfront. In America, you can't ask if you're a head hunter. You can't ask if you're a company hiring. What do you think about that? You know, like, I, I'm kind of torn on it. I mean, I like the fact that powers with like the candidate. Absolutely. Right. And in that situation to say, you know, what, what they're on, what they're not on. So I think overall I saw in the US is candidates very willing to tell you what they want. Right. Exactly. We are much more upfront with like, this is the bar. If you can get to it, I'm interested. If you're not, then don't worry too much. So I've seen that cultural difference a lot. It's like people are much more willing to talk about how much they would like in the US as opposed to Europe when I, in hiring. But yeah, I also leads to funny recruiter questions. Right. I remember getting contact by recruiters and they'd always ask you, you know, like, what salary would you be, would make you want to move jobs? Right. So I think people work out how to get around it. But, you know, I think in the US, despite that, people are much more, you know, willing to say, you know, what they would like to get paid as opposed to European candidates. Yeah. No, that's true. On the praise of that, I think I've seen a lot of people here and in the US, if they're immigrants and they've not worked in, so let's say London, England, they've not worked here really before. They've got a little bit of experience. They get paid less than people that have worked here for most of their career, for no good reason. Just, well, you know, they were earning less in whichever country they came from. We don't want to give them a big increase. Why should we? Yeah. And we can try and get them a bit cheaper. And I see that a lot and I speak to some candidates that have come to the UK and they're just a notch or two below in terms of earnings for no good reason. Just, they're not from here. Yeah. I was just sad. Yeah. It's like very sad, right? But I think a lot of it is still expectations and what people expect to get paid. And I actually tell this to my team all the time. It's like, you can always ask for the salary increase, right? Like always ask for you for the salary increase. I'll tell you if we can do it or if we can't do it. By the way, I hope they're not listening too closely to this. Always ask, right? If you don't, you can ask it a nice way. But if you never ask for it, then it tends to not happen. For people that maybe have had a less secure employment history or just feel that they're on a good salary, they tend to not ask when they always should, in my opinion. Yeah. No, it's true. It's true. It feels like, you know, if you're looking for someone to do a job and you think it's worth a certain amount of money, then hey, you're up front. This is what it's going to pay. And you can be earning more because it works the other way around too. You find a lot of people are passed over for jobs because they're too experienced or people think that because they've been earning more, they're going to run or leave for something. So it works kind of both ways. But yeah, it feels like, you know, this is the job, this is what it's paying, you're interested or not. And it feels like that's the way it's going. But people do love a good negotiation. You know, as humans, we love negotiating. Yeah, I would. I love the idea of, you know, predefined salary ranges, knowing what you're looking for going in. I think that's great. But yeah, especially as you get more senior, I think there is more negotiation happens. Look, I mean, let's be honest, I mean, like, you know, a company can have an amazing strategy, but without great people, you're not going anywhere. So there's, you know, in reality, there's a big, big competition for great people. You want the best and you're probably willing to pay a little bit over what your competitor is paying or offer some different perks, benefits, work from anywhere, whatever it might be. So there's always going to be that element to this because it's business and commerce and you want to get the advantage. Yeah, no, it's very true. I totally agree with that. I also, you know, think that some jobs, you know, are somewhat like if you have to hire like 20 support personnel, that should be a generic job description with a set salary range, right? Yeah, yeah. So there's some variation there for sure. Yeah. And yeah, I've never read a job that hasn't had some negotiation on the way in. Oh, no, true. True. That's true. One last thing I'm interested in, in understanding is you've been, you've been building this new company and hiring these people. How have you, how have you gone about like building a culture? It's a super tough question and a bit harsh that I'm asking, but it's interesting because, you know, you might find that most of the people that are working in your team probably joined over the pandemic maybe. You know, they've never, you know, had a coffee with you. They've not experienced the office. I mean, it's so different, right? Well, how have you gone about that? Yeah, it's, it's, it, this is really challenging 100%. And I don't know that we've like solved the problem. You know, I'd love to hear from people if they have what's worked and what hasn't. There are a couple of like bright sparks, I would say, you know, even though we're not together, we've actually started this thing on Friday, which was just like Team Fridays, where everyone in the team like just signed up for a time slot. They can do whatever they want with it. Last Friday, we had a team member actually based in Thailand teach us how to cut like, recreational fruits for the holiday season, which was a lot of fun. I everywhere like had watermelon and knives out was having a go at it. So, so we definitely haven't cracked it, but there is purpose like this like intentionally and purposefully creating some time to like, you know, have some fun, some unstructured time, do some weird activities. You can still do a lot online, but that's been helping. Absolutely. But I would still say the team misses that interaction. I think we all do. Definitely, definitely. I've actually felt weirder. I've got closer to my team over lockdown because in the office, you kind of, you didn't appreciate it. You walk in, you might a little nod, you know, how was the weekend? Great. You know, you kind of crack on, you got the phone or whatever. Whereas over the pandemic, I've had to actually make time to speak to people. You know, I'd call my team in the morning, all of them. We do an unstructured half an hour chat, a little, we have a little oasis of positivity on the 2pm little chat. I just feel like I've actually had to think about it a lot more than I did before. So, yeah, I don't know. Oddly, I felt I've got closer to people this year. That's great. I mean, that's a great result. I think it speaks a lot to the intentionality of it. If you're making that time, you actually will I connect in a probably a deeper way than just a serendipitous 20-second chat about the football I have in coffee. So, I love that you've been doing that. Yeah. And I think this kind of stuff works because we are human. We want the contact. We want the kind of intimacy, friendship type stuff. And hopefully that continues. It's going to be interesting to see what happens into 2021. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. You know, I think it's going to be a bit blurry for a few moments while we wait to see what we're going to be allowed to do. Definitely. It's awesome. Well, Alex, thank you so much for chatting with me. It's been great. Hopefully we get to meet face to face, non virtually or in person, however you phrase it, soon. No, me too. Me too. Oh, thank you. It's a great, great to chat. And thanks for having me. Thanks so much. Take care. See you.