Pete Flint has taken two companies through IPOs, as well as taking one through a $3.5B merger. Now he is heading up his own venture capital fund to help empower the next generation of founders. The initiative, NFX, raised a total of $1.1B across 5 funds, their latest being NFX Capital Co-Investment SPV.
In this episode, you will learn:
- Building marketplace businesses
- Using SEO and content to build hyper-growth startups
- The NFX team
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About Pete Flint:
Pete was the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Trulia for over a decade. in 2015 Pete merged Trulia with Zillow in a transaction that valued Trulia at $3.5Bn and served on the Zillow Group board during the integration.
Trulia is one of the most popular and pioneering real estate web and mobile apps in the US. Pete started Trulia to revolutionize the real estate experience by empowering consumers to make better decisions. Pete raised $33M from leading venture capital such as Sequoia and Accel and built a leading mobile app in the category, and then had a successful IPO.
Pete is a frequent speaker at Entrepreneurship and Technology conferences and regular appearances on CNBC, FOX, Bloomberg, WSJ, and NYTimes. and a guest lecturer at Stanford University and the University of Oxford. Pete was awarded an OBE for services to entrepreneurship in the 2021 Queens Birthday Honors list.
Previously spent 5 years as a founding team member and Head of Global Business Development at lastminute.com. By the early 2000s, lastminute.com had become Europe’s largest online travel company with >2000 employees, >$1bn transactions, and operations in 12 countries. Acquired in May 2005 by Travelocity (Sabre Holdings) for $1.1bn in cash.
Stanford MBA, Class of 2005. Undergraduate and Master’s degree in Physics from Oxford (Magdalen College).
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Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:
Alejandro Cremades: Righty hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show. So today. We have a very exciting founder a founder that has done it. You know has say gone through the full cycle of building scaling financing exiting you name it. You know he’s been on both sides of the table and I think that we’re going to find you know the interview today. Very inspiring. Also you know you may find the battle of accents here. You know with the ukbritish and then also with the spanish as well. But in any case, let’s welcome our guest today Pete Flint welcome to the show.
Pete Flint: Thank you so much great to be here. Good see.
Alejandro Cremades: So originally from the U K So give us a little of a walkthrough memory lane Pete How was life growing up.
Pete Flint: Yeah, so I was born just outside London um in the Uk and um I guess um, growing up I guess my my my um, my father was a professor. My mom was a high school teacher so like getting good grades was pretty much ah and a necessary thing and I ended up going to. Um. study physics a university um and it was guess it was like um, my father like would bring back really early, kind of computers. You know huge like um, you know they were called pcs but they were kind of these big computers and I kind of got was intrigued by computers very early on as a teenager. Um, and anyway I did a bunch of internships at at um, well as a university worked for Ibm for a bit kind of worked to Jp Morgan and actually went to jpmorgan the summer of 9095 where the where the internet kind of really. Revolution really kicked off so Netscape went public I’m like wow okay I know 2 things like 1 is like I never want to work for an investment bank. Um I didn’t like the environment but I absolutely wanted work on the internet and so I kind of that kicked it off for me and then I I found my way to um. Be part of the founding team at lastminute dot com which was just a wonderful um, an amazing experience kind of really an iconic Uk online travel marketplace and had a wonderful ride. There.
Alejandro Cremades: And how did that happen I mean how did that happen Pete How do you all of a sudden you know stumble across you know the opportunity and you know you’re able to ah to to be part of of of the team and I mean what on what a journey to last minute.
Pete Flint: Um, well I guess it sort of it came out I mean actually as sort of came out a few years earlier I was still ah and as ah, an undergrad student and I and I wrote emails to every single internet startup in the Uk and there was 17 at the time. I could find and this was line ninety. Six I said hey can you give me a summer job um and I got a few kind of offers and 1 of them was a company that brent the the Ceo at who became the Ceo at last spin. It was also working and so we were peers for a year or so. And so it kind of we stayed in touch and say friends and so as soon as he raise a bit of money they’re like okay, come and join so that was that.
Alejandro Cremades: And um, and last minute last minute you know an incredible you know, success Story I mean what was that journey like because you were there. You know for quite a bit I mean part of the.com you know bubble you know I guess you know also as say things you know would take. You know bust a little bit too. You know you were able to experience all of that. So How was that journey with last minute and what were the lessons. You know that you learned you know along the way.
Pete Flint: So so many lessons. Um I guess the sort of for kind of I think there were like a a couple of really distinct chapters. The first chapter was really the sort of like hypergrowth scaling phase. So um, what is amazing. Um, is that the company went. Public 18 months after launch which is like which is sort of unbelievable. Um, and and it was just the first phase was really a story about fundraising about hypergrowth talent acquisition in in terms of bringing folks on board and just. You know so telling a story and only in the market and then the company went public in in March 2000 really at the peak of the Nasdaq um, and then that’s when the second phase kind of kicked in um, which was really like and it was it was a. Really barren patch the the the company was in incrediblybby fortune I had a really strong balance sheet. Um, but you know the the stock price created a like 95% and you know while we’re kind of the depths of the dotcom collapse said September the eleventh happened. And so it was an incredibly challenging period that you know you’re in an online travel company and you’re you’re sitting there and you’re watching the the news and like once you digest the human tragedy about what was going on. You start to think well I’m at an online travel company. No one is getting on planes.
Pete Flint: And so it was an incredibly sort of challenging time. Um, and then really, it’s sort of and then and then once we kind of got through kind of that. Um, we started to see during the sort of the the kind of ashes and challenges. We started to see real opportunity. And this is where a really interesting experience and lesson for founders in that when you see these market dislocations. They often present a real opportunity for fast booming startups to match this supply and demand. In this case, it was like airlines with thousands millions of unsold seats and airplanes hotels with. Millions of unbooked and ah nights in hotels and they all wanted an outlook for them to sell this unsort inventory and then you know last minute came along I said well we have a direct connection to consumers pay on performance meaning we just take a commission and we can be very dynamic and very false and. And email and market to millions of consumers very quickly and out of that we helped a sort of you know, frankly, ah you know a poor consumer base people didn’t have much money at that time with these sort of you know to help them stay in fivear hotels at threestar prices and also help the hotels and airlines to. To build their business so it was just a you know a really incredible opportunity while the market was down to allow them to to allow last minute to get this massive market share and so while it was very changed at the time we came out and ultimately the company was acquired for over a billion dollars in 2005
Pete Flint: Which at the time was just a remarkable achievement and then other many many other companies managed to have similar success at that time whether that’s Expedia or booking dot com.
Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing now after an experience like this you know obviously you learned a lot about business I mean you you learned you know what it? What it looks like you know to go through the full cycle. Why did you think it was a good idea to perhaps go at it. You know on kind of like. Change gears here and and go to business school and go to Stanford.
Pete Flint: Yeah, so I so after 5 years and a crazy crazy environmentman I was you know I was in my mid 20 s and you know I’d like help to take a company public on all these things it was like amazing kind of experience. Um, but I really felt that I had. Seen one? um one company and 1 industry very very close up front and then I you know I’d studied physics and I didn’t really have ah I felt a breadth of breadth of knowledge and then plus I like had the opportunity to go to Silicon Valley for a couple of years or more um and when you’re in the u k. You know you you’re kind of like you know the top of the tree in some ways of of the Uk the chance to go into the premiieership um to use the kind of soccer football analogy like to go to go and play for the in the premier league is like okay this is it. This is a wonderful opportunity. Um. And so you know I went um I went to Stanford ah you know in Silicon Valley and you sort of pinch yourself because you you know you do rub shoulders and you see these amazing companies. Um out there and and that was incredible. Experience.
Alejandro Cremades: And what a difference too because I mean in in Europe at the time in the early two thousand s venture capital was nonexistent and here are you land in in Silicon Valley where everything is happening in terms of innovation. So.
Pete Flint: Well, it was just coming out of the you know I moved in 2003 and so it was just coming out of the dotcom collapse and so I think there was you know by 2004 2005 there was um enthusiasm but it was. You know it was a place of builders. It was a place of kind of visionaries. A lot of people who were really true. Believers hadnt left Silicon Valley and were kind of building stuff. Um, but it was a you know and it was sort of for me I found my people in many ways working for. Technology companies in in the u k is like okay this is these are my people and um and and that and that was incredibly inspiring and then the the other piece to go to business school is you end up almost playing Ceo every day and I think you know some of the you know Stanford and many other business school these days. Ah, really not trying to get people to to kind of become the next you know Ceo of general motors or general electric. They’re actually churning out entrepreneurs. Um, and they’re are significant gonna they give you significant resources and if can help significant time to to really think about how do you build an an amazing business and I so I spent. You know at least the first year just you know, learning and recharging and then started thinking about what’s next.
Alejandro Cremades: So Then let’s talk about the what’s next because obviously you know you go there and and here you come up with the idea of truly so you know as they say ideas you know they are like doormant. You know they take time to incubate you don’t even know that they’re there. But then all of a sudden you know there are certain things that happen that push you over the edges and and and Boom you know the idea now is saying is Born. So How was that process for you and and what was that the a sequence of events that needed to happen to bring truly to life.
Pete Flint: So there were there were probably a sort of couple of different things. So. It’s so really 2 2 big things. So one was that um you know in in at the business school. The first year they give you like okay you stay in the halls of residence and the second year you’re on your own to find somewhere to live. Um, and and I you know I there were like 5 buddies of mine. They were like okay, let’s let’s find somewhere to live and so I was I had this this view of like Silicon Valley is like so advanced and like I expected people to be going around in se ways and like you know is like incredibly months I like okay, let’s. Where’s the website to help people find somewhere to live and um, you ask around is like well this this is Craigslist thing that that a lot of people use and then there’s also this you know you go and speak to a real estate agent and I was just like shocked how bad um the biggest financial decision in your life. Or your biggest expense which is mortgage or rent. It’s like it was awful in terms of finding this. Um and so like wow that’s ah, that’s crazy. So I like I was just shocked at how bad it was um and then the second piece was it was around the time when Google was going public and um. And this I think 2004 when they’re public and it was like wow Google um, this search paradigm which enables you to you know to to aggregate all this information present information. Yeah, obviously from in a horizontal context like how could you apply that paradigm.
Pete Flint: Which is you know vertical. So you know search to a specific industry so kind of V One of of truly was really more like a vertical search engine. How do you?? How do you aggregate all this information across real estate in a consumer friendly manner that enabled you to um. Ah, consumers to find the information and then connect with real estate agents and and information to find so that was that was a concept. Um, and we you know I teamed up with a classmate of mine semi-inconan and then um, you know, found some students in the computer science department to build some of the. Technology and we kind of built this built this prototype where we’re at school and um and then we had to figure out how to raise money and and where we went from there. Yeah.
Alejandro Cremades: Ah, what were the early days of of racing money for this.
Pete Flint: Was the um, you know we you know we had this sort of um, perspective that okay with these you know we got a big idea. We got a prototype that works let’s go and speak to the kind of the the big name vcs in Silicon Valley um you know that sort of the the sequoias, the excels etc and they were you know and and they were kind of immediately like it’s interesting, but it’s way too early and we got 0 traction and 0 progress with those folks um constant rejections from the kind of the the big guys. And then we shift in said. Okay, let’s um, let’s find angel money. Let’s find folks to put in 25 k but in 50 k one hundred k and so we we went off went after the angel invest and you know Kevin Harts the co-founder and former Ceo of eventbrite became our first investor and a bunch of other. Silicon Valley folks kind of came in and we just nectar networked our way there I you know I had connections through Stanford, but really I didn’t know anyone in Silicon Valley before I moved um and moved there. Um, and then the other you know the other piece is that you know i.
Alejandro Cremades: And.
Pete Flint: My point of view was that the hard thing about the business at my point of view the time. The hard thing about the business would build the technology which was like we built this pretty advanced search engine. We also at the time Google maps came out. We were the first one of the first people to kind of take their api actually hack their api until they made it public. And kind of put a map onto it which at the time was was breakthrough and um and just build this sort of build the platform that worked the thing is it looked horrible. It was just like it was truly an Mvp It was horrible and so you know we’d show people the prototype when they say like you know this this this is looks awful. There’s no way we’re going to give you money and then what happened we we ended up um, raising a bit of angel money putting the front end on and everything changed. Um, you know we we kind of put the slick interface that we we we knew we would always be in sort of conceiving. But we thought it was the last you know is more the. Veneer on top. But the slick interface on top of the um, the sort of hardcore technology and then things and then things transformed in terms of fundraising and it was suddenly went from trickle through to a gush of of people interested.
Alejandro Cremades: And how much money did you guys say raise prior to the ipo.
Pete Flint: So we um, we raised in a couple of rounds we raised. Um, you know like 2,000,000 at the you know what today we’re probably called this the the preeed or seed um the next round excel led the um which you know. Probably in today would be a cro series a and that would be five point five or 6000000 and then Sequoia led the next round which was 10 and then we raised another round which was um las age of 15 and so we raised a total of $33,000,000 prior to we went public which you know is. Sort of testament to the capital efficiency that was and and to be honest, we we we tried to raise a lot more we we tried literally we like particularly it’s sort of 2010. The company was breakeven. Um, we were kind of like a. You know tens of million dollars around. You tried to raise money but it was still like a people’s view and online real estate then was was really barren and so we and the valuation we proved it raise out was pretty high and so we we couldn’t raise and so we just had to be like ridiculously efficient in what we what we were doing. And then all you know we rent went public a pretty small ipo at you know worth about um, 500,000,000 then and that grew from that.
Alejandro Cremades: Now obviously marketplaces you know they’re very difficult. You know you got the supply the demand the chicken and the egg as the investors would call it. You know I always say that I just want to shoot the chicken and step on the egg because it’s very annoying to try to build 2 companies at the same time I guess. You know with the experience with Trulia. How would you say that your your view has shapen up. You know when it comes to ah marketplaces.
Pete Flint: Yeah, so you know my my role at last minute was I was you know what would be called the today like the head of growth. Um, you know it’s and so I’ve always been really distribution growth focused and kind of had sort of built my um. Experience in the area. Um, and you know we came up with you know and this is something I look forward today obviously is just really clever, efficient and scalable ways to acquire supply and demand. Um, and you know usually you start with 1 and in best case, we have really clever tactics on both and really that is you know for Trulia for the supply side which is often the starting point. Um, we use search to be the aggregator so we went out and really asked permission for agents they like. First we asked them like could you provide us a data feed of your um, ah provides a data feed of of um your listings and they would say you know data feed I have no idea what you’re talking about like I don’t have to do that is said or could you would you allow us to index your website so you can share your inventory with us and they say. Sure, absolutely um, so we used search to really aggregate all that information was incredibly elegant way to do it enabled us to scale incredibly quickly to aggregate all this information. Um, and and that enabled us to build this very efficiently this really this really terrific interface.
Pete Flint: And on the on the demand side. 1 thing we noticed is there was no at the time there were no brands for people who were no go to digital brands for online will estate you know people wouldn’t say go to this site this site or that site. Um and people were using Google people were just going like ah okay, I’m going to type in. San Francisco homes for sale palo alto apartments for rent or apartments for sale and so we like okay well let’s let’s make sure that we um, you know, rank highly in search engines and so are the initial kind of the initial services like okay how do we.
Pete Flint: You know, make sure a content is very visible to the search engines. Um, we set the site structure all the stuff around that so we were very focused on Seo in the short phase and so that that really gave us while the experience wasn’t perfect and 100 % comprehensive it was the best thing out there. Um, in the eyes of Google so we went up we werent really up in the search rankings and then the higher the and that was incredibly cheap and efficient the higher the traffic we could go back to the to the ah suppliers and they were the saying and say like I know we were doing this this kind of indexing thing like now we need you to send us a day to feed and they were like. Course you’ll you’re one of the biggest sites in the industry so we managed to transform um the the supply side into contractual relationships with agents and then the demand side. We’re able to scale that and add a whole bunch of other channels as well.
Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing. So what ended up being the outcome with a trulia.
Pete Flint: So we went public as I said in 2000 um and 12 and and then you know I guess during you know during that sort of period from starting in 2005? Um, there was 1 other company that was. Um, doing a lot of similar stuff so zillow launched in 2006? Um, really great team founders of Expedia um, and they we’ve been sort of tracking each other over the sort of like ah receding receding years. So Zill is started on on home values. There’s estimate. Incredibly successful, truly starting a homes for sale and then really over the subsequent years. Our product kind of started to replicate each other we had evaluations that homes a sale with this features that these features so that sort of ended up this feature parity and we’d had a. Number of conversations over the years about okay how to you know How does it make sense to um, bring these companies together. Um, and we spoke when we were both private companies. We spoke when they were a public company. We were private and then we spoke again when we were both public companies and um, you know, ah. Bunchnch of kind of reasons um came together where it makes sense to merge the businesses and so we merge the businesses in we now in 2014 and then close in 2015 after a pretty pretty lengthy process.
Alejandro Cremades: That’s incredible and what was the value of the transaction. Okay.
Pete Flint: So it was um so so truly was valued at three and a half billion at the um at the transaction. So a little bit I mean then a little bit of the kind of the thought process I mean we weren’t we weren’t looking to sell the business. You know the revenue was growing rapidly. We’re doing a quarter million dollar
Alejandro Cremades: Wow.
Pete Flint: Ah, run rate cost like a quarter of $ 1000000000 of of runm rate revenue that’s profitable. Um, you know and a huge market potential but you know a couple of things were were kind of happening so um, and and you know I guess the framework that I think about you know, assuming you don’t need to sell meaning that you’re. Going to go bankrupt like what is the sort of framework to think about how to sell one was have has the rules of the game changed. Um and and what I mean by that is that you know for for Tru ah, and the early years was a product battle between Zillow and trulia. But then as the products became more similar. It became more of a marketing battle so collectively. Both companies were spending I think 150000000 per year on marketing Tv ads Google Ads Facebook ads like we were just like hammering each other with um with marketing and so the only winner in that scenario. And many ways is the Tv Networks and the ad networks. Um, so the the game had changed and and you see this in none in other industries is where the where the game changes 2 is um, is is someone going to provide fair value for um, future execution. And it felt like three and a half billion um was was fair value for the business at the time given the revenue what we were doing it kind of felt. Okay, this is um this is fair value for um, for where we were and so that felt like you know a good reason to to go forward. 3 was.
Pete Flint: Um, are you number 1 in the category that you’re in and you know ah I’m now at nfx and we’re experts at network effects and there’s you know the the principle network effects is that you know the the more people use your product service that better it gets for every other user’s user of that service. If. You’re not number one. It’s um, ah, your product has that deficiency and is really really hard um to be um to be the dominant player and truly it was tracking 1 or two quarters behind zillow we’re a little bit behind you know I think. You know they they raised 3 times the amount of capital that we did and so I had this head start. Um, and so we were a little you know, just a little bit behind and that was infuriating and kind of very challenging and then the fourth was like you know are you kind of um you know are you. You just exhausted or kind of burnt out or if you lost the the energy I hadn’t lost the energy to fight I was like the team was kind of fired up and enthusiastic. But we lost that energy and we hadn’t lost the energy but the other three were true. Um, and so we thought okay this is um, you know at the time it was sort of like.
Pete Flint: You know initiali with like I don’t really want to do this. It’s like an amazing team amazing opportunity. But the more I kind of digested it the more I felt that this was the right thing to do um and so we we close a transaction like in q 1 twenty um ah, twenty fifteen
Alejandro Cremades: And what an outcome and what a right Pete. So let’s talk about now about your latest baby or your latest initiative n effect. So how did n effect come together on what are you guys doing in an effect.
Pete Flint: Um, yeah.
Pete Flint: Yeah, so nx. We’re a leading early sage venture venture firm. Um, so ah, our focus is to lead institutional seed and preseed rounds. Um the the focus for us is is around network effect businesses. So network effects. Stands for nfx sounds for network effects which is really being the guiding principle between my career at last minute and trulia and then also that is the guiding principle of the the careers of of my partners as well. So in. Um so James career. A marketplace and growth expert. He’s an operator. He’s a founder found of like 6 companies and a terrific angel investor and advisoror back companies like lyft doorda and and many others ah Gigi Levoy wise he is one of Israel’s most famous initially 1 of most Israel’s most famous angel investors but also run public companies massive divisions, founded multibillion dollar gaming companies just a phenomenal human being and phenomenal um business and and founder expert as well. Um, so the. How we got together back in 19016 so um, individually. We’d all been doing a lot of a fair amount of angel investing and I think we’re we’re happy with that. But we really felt we kind of lacked the leverage. The scale, the power to really help founders.
Pete Flint: By doing it individually. So um, we started as um, you know doing our range of investing and then we together we started a a sort of micro fund accelerator at $50000000 where we invested in large number of companies. And then we transition in 2017 to nfx to what it is today which is you know today we’re investing out of a four hundred and fifty million dollars fund um leading seed rounds across a range of different sectors from marketplaces to fintech to gaming to. Computational biology to web 3 and and a number of others and we’ve also been joined by 2 other partners Morgan Bella who is part founding team. That’s one of the co-creators of the crypto initiatives at at Facebook and then ori drawy who runs a synthetic biology practice that. Was a founder that we back previously and is just an incredible investor and and um an expert in that area.
Alejandro Cremades: Wow Now Imagine Pete that you go to sleep tonight and you wake up in a world where the vision of Nfx is fully realized what does that world look like.
Pete Flint: Ah, the vision for us. Um, is to be the world’s leading seed fund um period so you know we’ve um, you know we’ve backed so far hundreds of hundreds of founders. Um, we publish a lot of articles. So. You know you should sign up at nfx.com and kind of read the articles hundreds of thousands of founders read that stuff. Um and where um we built a platform team where there’s a dozen folks that help founders and all sorts of things from fundraising to a char recruiting legal um deck design. Everything. And um, yeah, we built really a pretty significant. Um ah service over the last five years I think the way that we look at you know early estate venture is as former operators. We do think this industry will be transformed by software. And so while there’s a human element to it. We’ve kind of we have about a third of the team and effects is like software engineers and builders and so we’ve built all these software and data assets to help you know really to give us sort of an insight into what’s going on but also build institution advantages for the firm. So. Kind of we we do think that the future and the vision is really exceptional people who have great founder empathy from their experiences combined with a you know a software and intelligence and data that really helps to give.
Pete Flint: But the founders an unfair advantage as well as the as well as the the team at Nifex as well.
Alejandro Cremades: That’s incredible now. Obviously we’re talking about. You know we’ve been talking about the future here, but let’s talk about the past and having the opportunity to reflect on it Imagine if I was to put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time you know back in time you know where. You know you were you know working in in investment Banking. You know as an associate you know, getting your feet Weak. You know seeing the internet and perhaps you know getting involved and maybe even launching a business of your own imagine if you were able to have a sit down with that younger Pete and give that younger Pete a piece of advice before launching a business. But will that be and why given what you know now.
Pete Flint: Yeah, um I got a couple of pieces one was it was it is interesting. Ah Trulia we when we started we um, the first thing we did pretty much was to um define the values of the company. Um. And usually like what’s the first thing you do when you start a company you start building code. You start kind of like building stuff and we we literally defined before we write a line of code we defined what kind of company we want to work in um, and and the values that we think are important to us and. And then what are we going to do to make sure those values truly um, persist and are ah kind of like authentic in the organization and you know it seemed a bit ridiculous the time but it was just important to us that you know if we’re going to spend. Seventy eighty ninety hours a week in this place. We want to make it an exceptional place to to work. Um, and so we did that and it was you know and it was it was great. It was good and and all that but I think it it wasn’t really clear to me how important that was until. Ah, in truli’s case and in 2008 like you know you saw the the stock the the the stock market has collapsed. You saw the banks collapse and real estate you saw prices come down by a third you saw volume come down by a third, no one wanted to work at an online real estate company in that period of time.
Pete Flint: But it was this investment that we made in culture um and teamwork that not only kind of helped people to say yeah these ah this is a place I want to be but also it enabled a sort of creativity a passion a drive like a persistence. To get us through those periods to figure out all these tough problems. Um, and that was um that that was a single biggest thing that helped us to get through that that super changing period.
Alejandro Cremades: Wow now for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.
Pete Flint: Ah, yeah, so um, the best way is Twitter at Pete Flint is my is my handle and then and then Linkedin and then nfx.com sign up for our email newsletter. Um, and there’s a pact full of tons of advice for founders and. And you can find our podcast and Youtube channel and a bunch of other stuff as well.
Alejandro Cremades: Amazing! Well hey Pete Thank you so much for being on the deal maker show. It has been an honor to have you with us.
Pete Flint: Great to be here.
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