Latest / Cleared for Takeoff - Real AI stories from the industries move the world. / What Aviation AI Experiments Are Missing: Ownership, Strategy and ROI, with Glenn Antoine, Founder of Venture Strategy Advisors
Transcript
- Ben: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Cleared for Takeoff. I’m your host, Ben Tosado. Today we’ve got Glenn Antoine. He’s the founder of Venture Strategy Advisors. He’s got a really cool background that fits, our theme here at Cleared For Takeoff. He’s got a background in technology and aviation from the military. he’s also an advisor for aviation companies for everything from cybersecurity to AI to mergers and acquisitions. So really excited to have you on the show today, Glenn. Welcome to Cleared for Takeoff. Glenn: thanks for inviting me, Ben. I tell people, all the time, any time I can hang out with aviation peeps or talk aviation, it’s been a good day. Ben: Yep, 100%. So why don’t you tell us, just to get started here, Glenn, a little bit about your, about your background and your or- your origin story. you spent almost a decade, in the Navy doing aviation electronics before you got into any software, or writing code or doing anything like that, right? How does that, that kind of origin story, that background, shape how you look at technology today? Glenn: I tell people all the time, so I got into technology, as you pointed out, through naval aviation, – advanced electronics and, more specifically, electronic warfare. and I was a spoiled brat because, you can go in and just do aviation electronics or you can, and work on aircraft and, hey, I’ll take that any time and that’s fun. But I was fortunate enough to work in a shop that we got to work on “special projects,” prototype systems, proof of concepts. And so early on in my career, I’m looking at these technologies, I’m learning about them, I’m having to go through the process of integrating them and, then turning around, taking them out, and actually flying with them, on a mission to see, what can they really do. And sometimes that came with iterations. We’d take it out, we’d go through, and we’d come back, talk with the engineers. We’d, take it back out. And, so that was a very, I was very fortunate and blessed to get to do that because I learned early on that the, these systems can look great on paper, but it can create a very different reality when it’s in the aircraft, or in an operational environment. So, it, I don’t take it for granted, and it gave me a- a bias towards understanding, the failure modes. what happens when the system doesn’t work in the best way possible? , And as a matter of fact, what can I do, at this moment? ’cause sometimes these, flaws or failures were somewhat critical to the success of our mission. So how do I diagnose this, analyze it, and work through it, in a way that doesn’t necessarily, get us all the way there, but it improves the mission. And so that I apply to today in, in business. I’ve carried this through to my software engineering, my cybersecurity, my M&A work, and now specifically AI. I’m… I’ve got this bias that I’m not necessarily… I love tech, don’t get me wrong, but I’m less interested in what the technology does, and more interested in whether an organization can rely on it or what they need to do to rely on it, and- Yeah … and, and ultimately, what’s it really solving? What, what- Yeah what’s our benefit? What’s the ROI? It can be dollars. It can be efficiencies. It’s let- let’s understand thebusiness side of the tech- Yeah … ’cause the tech is just a tool. Ben: Yeah, totally. And, listening to you describe that, Glen, it sounds like there are a lot of parallels things like, to, the solution’s different on paper than when it’s actually put into practice, right? as a practitioner myself, of technology, today, we see that all the time, right? making sure that you’re aligned with the mission objectives, right? what, how are we gonna impact the mission with what we’re doing? Also very, relevant and things that I think get overlooked sometimes. I know we’re gonna talk, more about today. A l- a little bit about your advisory and some of the things that you see, when you’re working with customers, right? So you said that when growth stalls in a founder-led company, it’s usually not a market problem. It’s usually execution, right? Some kind of execution is- issue or constraint in the business. What does that type of stuff look like when you first get engaged with a customer? Glenn: So it can be the technology. Don’t get me wrong. Okay. I’m not discounting that. I am often looking at the technology, I’m looking at architecture, I’m looking at software, but it… Again, let’s start with the business. What are the process? What decisions are taking too long? Or do they have a clear, defined demand that customers are asking for, but there’s not a good feedback loop between customers and the product decision to get the features out? And more importantly, one of the pitfalls I’ve run into is knowing a customer has a problem and fixing the f- fixing it by creating a feature only to find out that, yeah, that’s a problem. That’s just not a problem they’re willing to pay me to go, make go away. Ben: Sure. Glenn: So they’ve gotta have the problem, and they’ve gotta be willing to pay you to help solve that. So what’s really going to add value to them? Where… What’s gonna help them? And so, w- what decisions, what… Where are things backlogged? where are there risks in this process? w- what manual processes exist that are slowing down execution? h- here’s a big one, Ben. You’ve probably seen this. who has ownership? Ben: Sure. Glenn: Does anyone have ownership, or do you have 10 owners? Right. Well, if you have 10 owners, and that’s not their primary, guess what? You don’t have an owner. Right. So, it’s understanding those types of things and understanding what’s communications. no different than when you’re flying. Communications are critical. So how is the information flowing between the different teams? What does communication look like? All of these things can hide a- and just… they can be in the background. It can be just a, thread running in the background until companies reach a certain point, and then now people are working harder to compensate for this. And, businesses reach a point where more effort’s not going to create more capacity. And- Ben: Yeah … Glenn: believe it or not, technology often gets blamed. Right … I see that, not to send us down a rabbit hole on AI, but I see it on AI all the time. And they’ve done an experiment with AI, they think it’s successful, but no ownership, no clearly defined ROI, no strategy. Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, and I think that, that lines up with, some of the things we’ve discussed before also, right? Starting with, outcomes that you’re driving towards, then moving on to an operational strategy, and then looking at the technology that supports it, right? So- Yeah So again, really start with the business and make sure you understand where you’re trying to go. And then, how are you gonna get there, and then how does technology plug in to, to enable that, right? Glenn: A- absolutely. the tech at the end of the day is just a tool. Yep. and unless you’re in a, R&D environment, I rarely meet companies that are in business just for the tech. They get in business to solve some problem or provide… fill a need for their clients. you can do that multiple ways. It’s d- are we using the right tools to solve this? Ben: Yeah. Yeah. so after evaluating so many organizations, you’ve got hundreds that you’ve looked at, in this sector, what do the ones that are doing exceptionally well or driving the highest valuations or getting the best results based on how they’re measuring results, right? what, what kind of… what do they have in common, and what are the ones that aren’t necessarily achieving what they want have in common? Glenn: There’s ownership.They’re working closely with their… They’re taking care of their customers. that’s something that often gets overlooked. they’re staying in touch with their customers. They’re understanding what they need. technology-wise, they’re not overbuilding. I’ve seen lots of startups that have this- incredibly complex architecture and ecosystem that I could run Amazon on and yet they have 100 customers what are you guys doing? Yes, there’s best practices and there’s some, nice, shiny, really sexy ways to approach it, but that doesn’t necessarily m- mean that it’s appropriate for you. You’ve gotta build within the constraints of where you are at this point. You’ve gotta mature. You’ve gotta earn the right for that complexity. Yeah … a- and th- there may come a time where that complexity is necessary, but it’s not out of the gate. The ones that aren’t doing so well, sometimes that’s a little easier, because common patterns. lots of bugs, lots of technical debt, teams struggling to get, deployments. it’s, they’re building because a customer happened to mention, “It’d be nice if you did X, Y, and Z.” So they’ve got a roadmap, they’re building out, a set of features. A customer mentions that, and that may create, a new revenue source for that one customer, so they shift gears and that… now they’re building that. So they’re constantly context switching- Yeah … because somebody mentioned some- , without a strategic approach to the features they’re building out. So it’s really hard on the team themselves, and it makes it- Yeah … more difficult to get a good, mature product out. Ben: Yeah. that all makes a lot of sense, and those are definitely, business problems, right? A lack of focus, right? Lack of strategic direction, right? Tho- those types of things. as a business operator, I can definitely relate and understand why it’s so important to do that and not chase rabbits, right? if you’re constantly chasing rabbits, you’re never gonna catch any, right? Glen: Yeah. Absolutely … the context switching, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Ben: So, let’s talk a little bit about AI, right? I know that’s part of your advi- advisory business. you mentioned a few minutes ago, an issue with AI experimentation without, measurable operational impact. How do your customers get there, right? when you see that out in the field, how do you think companies end up there, right? Trying stuff that they don’t have a clear, where they don’t have a clear goal. They don’t know what they’re, they don’t have a clear idea of what the impact’s gonna be if it works. and then if a company, if one of your customers finds themselves there, you get engaged and the customer’s in, in that kind of mode, how do you help them get out? Glenn: That’s a great question, Ben. The easy get out of jail free, answer to that is everybody’s doing AI, so we need to do it. Ben: Right. Glenn: I’m sure you’ve seen that. Ben: So- It’s the AI keeping up with the Joneses type of thing. Glenn: Bingo. Oh, I could not… I wish, man, I wish I’d have thought of that one. That, I’m gonna steal that. Ben: Totally Glenn: So there… i’ma boil this down. They’re looking at it and going, “Hey, where can we implement AI? What can we do with it?”. And I wanna come at this from the standpoint of going, “Okay, what’s the business or operational problem that’s more, most important for us to solve now?” and is AI even the right tool? strategy. it’s about the strategy starting with the busi- It’s… a- and oh, by the way, are we ready for it? I have seen more than one, company that, AI was- Like, high on their radar and, software development and using AI to, empower your software engineers is getting lots of love it’s talked about all the time. So if they have a software development team performing, creating custom software, that’s a natural place based on all the press that it’s getting to look to, “Let’s make our software engineering team better.” it’s a force multiplier. Well, let’s stop and think about that. You’re dropping that into your software engineering team. Let’s assume you’ve done it right, and I’ve seen some that actually have. , They’ve done it well. They’ve got it, well structured. They, it, they’ve got the systems and the harnesses and st- it set up to where they’re leveraging it properly. But what happens if all of a sudden your software development team gets very productive and your product team can’t keep up? Ben: Right. Glenn: Because now they can’t create nearly enough features because your software engineers just went to 5X or something… in their, deliverables. Let’s look downstream. What happens if you have… Hopefully you have QA. What happens if you’ve got QA, now they can’t keep up? Now you’ve got a backlog of features that are done, but they’re not QA’d and ready for production. Or worst case, you’ve done this, is the infrastructure and the architecture ready for it? Did all that go in? And very seldom do I see a security lens first, looking at it from a cybersecurity and application security. We’re cranking this stuff out with AI. What open-source libraries are getting pulled in? Is it being used in a, in, compliance with an OSS governance model? And do you even have an OSS governance model? And oh, by the way, as this stuff is getting cranked out, do you have hard gates in your CI/CD pipeline to scan that code and stop these vulnerabilities from ever making it past development? Ben: Yeah. Yep. so making sure that there’s appropriate execution , with the right guardrails, right? All, all these types of things is a key, right? We’re seeing that out there as well, right? It’s like the Wild Wild West in some places now with this AI-based development, for sure. Glenn: It is. Absolutely. And, it’s, AI is a great force multiplier. It, it’s- … starting to get, the quote or, statement is starting to get a little overused in my opinion, but it’s true. It’s gonna multiply what it’s dropped into. So if you have- Right … an unorganized, chaotic-type system, we’ve just multiplied chaos. Ben: Sure. Sure. Absolutely. So, a- along the lines of your AI advisory also, one of the things you do is produce an AI opportunity map, right? So can you tell us a little bit more about the AI opportunity map? And then when you go into one of your aviation customers, do you see some commonality in the results customer to customer, right? Are there places where AI is typically a good fit across customers, and typically, a- and places where it typically isn’t? Glenn: Yeah. I tend to look at it from the perspective of, going through a workshop and, a couple hours of just talking to the team and understanding where their pain points are, what slows them down, what their work looks like on a day-to-day basis. Let’s face it, I don’t know about you, but, this is true even in my world- Easily 50% of the work we do on a day-to-day basis is somewhat robotic. It doesn’t take a lot of thought, it doesn’t take any- Right … domain knowledge, doesn’t take any strategy. They’re just things we need to get done to do our job. Well, if we can implement specialized agents or, a, the right tool, I’m, I’ll leave it more generic, to help them take a, this robotic work off their plate. They’re still in control of it. Right. They still have the final decision. They’re still the owner. They’re still responsible for the outcome. They don’t get to lose the outcome or hand off the outcome. But, now their productivity goes up. You’re still the owner. A- and so those gains, there’s all this, talk about replacing people. I don’t see, you starting to replace a lot of people by any means, and I think that’s the wrong approach because if you’ve got a good team and they’ve got good domain knowledge, why would you ever start getting rid of them? Why not make the team that you have much more efficient and, create an environment where they’re really enjoying what they’re doing, they’re better positioned to take care of your customers? And oh, by the way, if, Mary has been in her job for 10, 12 years and she wins the Powerball and she gets to go hang out in the islands somewhere because she’s, ready to step away, Joe may be able to step in, and while he doesn’t have all her experience, if that’s been baked into your systems and your processes and your AI models, now he gets to leverage that, so now he ramps up much faster and he’s not trying to- replace and do everything she did over 10 years. He’s not trying to cram that into the next 12 months. He’s getting to leverage that knowledge, and he gets better faster. He’s got the foundation. So I think there’s just the human side of this and making your team more efficient, across the board i- is gonna be good. Improving your ability to take care of customers, but that starts with good data. if you’ve got it a lot. I see, I, I’ve seen this in a number of industries. The automotive industry is one, aviation is one. You’ve got all these different disconnected systems, so what’s your system of record? what’s your, What can you lean on to say, “Yeah, this has all the information that I need to know about customer X”? We had to start with the data. Ben: Yeah. Yeah, totally. having a, a strong data strategy is definitely im- especially if you’re in a multi-system, distributed data environment, I think huge part of, being able to implement an effective AI strategy. And we’re running into that, across, customers large and small, as well. Yeah. Right? so yeah, you talked a little bit about productivity AI and enabling that. we definitely get that and see, see customers trying to do that as well. eliminating, repetitive tasks, tasks that, that don’t necessarily require, that, that kind of level of thought that you want the team, that you want the team executing and I completely agree with you from a personnel perspective, especially in aviation, we’re not seeing, people being replaced. We’re seeing people relieved that they’ve got tools to help them be more productive. we’re building systems right now that are helping with everything from line maintenance planning to, helping technicians be more efficient in doing, FAA required repair, to helping, procurement teams at some of the operators, be more efficient in managing, their procurement, functions. and what we’re finding is that most the… these companies can’t find enough folks to do the work the way they’re doing it, right? we’ve got a large number of the qualified technician workforce, as an example, is re- you know, retiring, and we don’t have the backfill for it today. So I think more than replacing people, it’s making it possible, to do this work in this industry with the pool of people that we’ve got, right? Glenn: Absolutely. Think about how long airframes are around. I mean- Ben: Yeah … some of these aircraft- Like 30 years, right? Glenn: … have been around… Yeah. Yeah. they’re around forever. and so for some of these older, “legacy aircraft” that are still serviceable and still serve a real need, and you got these older technicians and, they’re in MROs or wherever they’re, they’re in a service, performing, you mentioned, FAA required maintenance and all that. Ben: Yep. Glenn: these guys aren’t gonna be around forever. They’re starting to retire. Who’s going to replace them? And some of these guys, they’ve got a… I love talking to them ’cause the amount of knowledge they have is- Oh, man. Massive … – it’s just massive and most of it’s undocumented. It’s in their head. Yeah. And someone goes to them and goes, “Hey, Sam, I’m running into this on this aircraft.” And Sam will go, “Oh, yeah. Well, we need to check X, Y, and Z.” And he knows that because 10 years ago it bit him. Ben: Right. Right. And that, that’s a perfect use case that we’ve s- that, that we’ve worked on for a couple of customers where it’s like, okay, now you’ve got a, a kid that’s fresh out of school that wants to become a technician for, for one of these, these planes, right? Or for different aircraft, right? Having a natural language interface where they can go in and reference, repair history, different documentation that comes from the OEM, right? th- things like this. and then get a, get, get some help, right? to understand what the- what they do. Helps them spend more time doing repair and less time, researching stuff, right? So yeah, I think that- Yeah. I think it’s a great industry, where we can all provide a lot of help, with AI. So, let’s talk a little bit about the, about the M&A, part of your business and the cybersecurity stuff you run into. So, you’ve talked about, when we’ve spoken before about security, cybersecurity being a blocker for, for deals or devaluing deals, in, in the aviation sector w- when it comes to, an, an M&A opportunity. Can you talk a little bit about that? Glenn: Yeah. it’s, Let, let’s face it, a- and I’m gonna pick on the aviation folks, but it’s agnostic to an M&A deal. You’ve got to, as an investor, and I would be doing the same thing if it were my investment, my deal, you’ve got to walk into it understanding what the entire risk profile for the deal is. And, unfortunately, cybersecurity, application security, those, those are fundamental, levers that are pretty easy to look at, and you can find factual information, that now I start seeing, I know what somebody says, and I know what controls they have in place. I can look at those systems. I can talk to them about what they’re doing there, but the facts tell the other story and then I’m cautious to say that, Okay, we have a finding Is it merely interesting or is it material to the deal? Right. And, and if it’s not a deal, it’s just I’m talking to a founder and they’re trying to figure out what does their company really look like, what are they missing, is it material for us to talk about right now, or is it something we need to put on the roadmap and fix later? So from that perspective, if it is material, now we have to start prioritizing it, figure out it, does this need to be fixed pre-close. is it okay to fix it in the first 90 days or, in the first 100 days, as it’s often referred to? so prioritizing that, understanding what the, ripple effects are, because oftentimes you can’t, as anyone working with tech, you know you can’t necessarily fix something in a vacuum. what’s the, ripple effect to that? And if it’s legacy and it’s a software issue or something like that, there may not be a fix. Specially in software, we’ll often see that, where it’s, no longer supported. So now you create a little bit more of a challenge, but you can also, take a step back and take a look at it and go, “Okay, what mitigating controls can we put around it?” And oh, by the way, if this actually were exploited, w- what’s the risk? What do they get? i- if someone were to exploit something and it, and it got your shopping list, okay, who cares? Now, if it gets all your customer data, whole nother story. So what is the level of risk here? And, it all goes into that prioritization. And so, these, the cybersecurity, and as we’ve talked about before, the landscape and threat environment is getting even more challenging with- Yeah … AI and closing that gap between, a really s- what a really skilled, threat actor needs to know and how long it takes them to implement and exploit. It’s shortening that time, so you don’t have the leisure any longer of putting things off or ignoring them. And so those are all things as a founder, it’s… Or an owner or a leadership team, or, heck, for an investor, if you’re going through that, those may be reasons to devalue the deal. So, the question becomes simple. It’s like, okay, we can look at this stuff well in advance so you’re, you’ve got a better posture and you’re better positioned, and you know all this before a third party comes and looks at you. Or, then the question becomes i- if you don’t go down that path, how much money are you willing to leave on the table? Ben: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and the relationship to overall risk, I think is the answer, right? if the cybersecurity posture of the company, isn’t where it needs to be, it automatically adds risk for the acquirer, right? And that’s risk that they’ve got to, either transfer with insurance or mitigate with, putting the appropriate controls and practices in themselves, right? Or, accept, right? And say, “Hey, look, yeah, okay, we’re gonna accept this additional risk.” but if they’re fixing it themselves, they’re insurance, they’re insuring against it, which they’re gonna have to anyway, but, they’re fixing it themselves or they’re, they’re accepting it, that, that’s all gonna boil down to, them wanting to pay less, right? that’s really what that’s all gonna be. Glenn: Yeah. And, we’re talking about cybersecurity, but, you’d be surprised how often, we get into those discussions and there’s, one key person that has all this knowledge. Now you’ve got a continuity risk, becausewhat if there’s a transaction and they don’t wanna stay around? And, I don’t want anybody to think that Ben: That happens a lot too. Glenn: It does. And, I want to point out that, It doesn’t mean that a company’s being run poorly. these are things that just accumulate over time. And, let’s face it, building a company, as you well know, but you’ve got a lot to do focusing on the growth and the customers and all that. So these things are easy to They’re, they can easily sneak in- Yeah … without you ever noticing. And and unless you’ve had a third party or someone that’s not emotionally tied to how things got to where they are, coming in and taking a look, you may not know. Ben: Right. Right. A lot of times I think the founders, the folks that are running these businesses don’t, from our experience, right? so let’s talk a little bit about, the, your view of this from a pilot’s perspective. you’ve said before that, that growth without execution discipline is like flying without a flight plan, right? Mm-hmm. So what is a flight plan… Yeah. And, and that makes sense, right? What does a flight plan look like for one of your customers? And then who should be in charge? Glenn: So, ul- ultimately, A- as you said, it’s no different than if I’m going to fly, if I’m just doing a local hop here, okay, less important. but if I’m gonna fly cross country- … now I’ve gotta start, u- understanding, okay, what’s my flight plan? I’ve gotta understand weather. I, a- and oh, by the way, this is before I ever take off, ever, before I ever get in the cockpit and then you move that on to, you, you’ve got all that taken care of and you’re flying. Now, if you’re flying and you’re fortunate enough to have a co-pilot, whether it’s required or not, have you debriefed? Have you talked about it? a- and who’s the pilot? it, if it’s my flight I’ve got… I’m the pilot and I’ve got my co-pilot, I’m still responsible, but we’re coordinating and we may be, on a long flight like that, we may be having to watch weather ’cause it may be changing. It may be, a pretty active, weather, pattern at the time. I’ve got ATC that I’m talking to, and I equate those to my board of advisors or external advisors that are helping, me through the, process. ‘Cause they see a much bigger world than I can and what equi- what instruments do I have? Am I using an older, cockpit, panel? Do I have a glass panel, glass panel and, autopilot and all that’s going to, reduce my workload. But that doesn’t absolve me from the responsibility for a successful fly- flight for me and my passengers. I, I look at all of this as, similar to running a business. a- and oh, by the way, you may have a great plan when you kick this business off, but is your plan still valid? what changed? The environment changed. Did your customers’ expectations change? are, did the cybersecurity environment change? There’s new, vulnerabilities that have been, launched. Now, for a lot of companies, AI wasn’t even on the radar when they, founded the company and kicked off. Now AI is in the mix. How do you factor that in? no different than when you’re flying, you’re having to constantly monitor all this and- you may have to, deviate and- Ben: Adjust Glenn: Go somewhere else. Right. Adjust. Yeah. And, and it’s, there’s nothing wrong with that. But, you should have that plan before you take off. And, I tell leadership teams all the time, founders, whoever it may be, “Look, I’m not there for your job, don’t want your job. You couldn’t give it to me. I love what I do. I’m there as your co-pilot.” It’s still your mission. You still own the outcome. I bring a much broader perspective in the recognition of seeing all these patterns across hundreds of M&A engagements. And you look across all these different companies, you start to understand based on certain things that you see where the skeletons are buried. So- I, I’m there to provide that. Still their decision. They still have the ownership. I’m there to hopefully make it a successful flight. Ben: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Having a solid plan, but then being able to adjust, based on as conditions change. I think that’s a fundamental part of being a founder, and running a successful and growing business. So yeah, that, that’s awesome. That makes a lot of sense. So, all right, Glenn, well, we’re almost out of time. It’s time for our rapid round. So I’ve got four kind of quick questions, if you could give me, , some quick answers, to each one. Okay. One-liners or two-liners. so what is the most overhyped thing in AI right now for aviation? Glenn: Many people are overestimating what it can replace Ben: Okay. That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. Glenn: that, and back to our discussion earlier, they’re underestimating what it can augment. Right. And I would argue augmenting your personnel, there’s a lot of ROI there. And I don’t see that getting nearly enough love. Ben: Yeah. And that, that was actually my second question, what is the most underrated? So, so would you say that’s it, not understanding the areas where it can augment, like productivity increases? Glenn: 100%. Ben: Yeah. Yeah. so what should every aviation leader in aviation… Or sorry, what should every technology leader in aviation be reading or paying attention to right now? Glenn: I would say that keeping up with the changes. There’s a lot going on and changing. FAA is going to become, They’re, they’re gradually getting more and more, stringent around cybersecurity. I’ve often said that, if you’re worried about your, the FAA showing up and making sure you’re in compliance with w- whatever parts you’re operating under, just wait till your cybersecurity insurance, guy shows up- Sure and you’re not in compliance there. And, I’m seeing more of that, in Europe on some deals that I’ve… worked on over there, and they’re really locking it down, and I’m starting to see it trickle this way. you’re, you’ve gotta be, paying attention to the cybersecurity landscape and understanding how that’s going to change and what the impact is there. AI, you gotta keep up with that. There’s no shortage, but, I’m gonna put security up at the top. Ben: Okay. [That makes a lot of sense. And last one, what does cleared for takeoff mean to you personally? Glenn: Personally, for me, I’ve done the work and the preparation to understand my mission a- and making sure that, A, the aircraft is ri- A, start with me. A- am I physically fit? am I in the right mental state to even be flying? Mm. and then we all know about, if you’ve got a cold and all that. But start with me. And I planned it several days ago. Am I still physically ready for that? what has changed? Am I prepared for my flight? And what are the risks i- or any, have any major risk conditions changed that… I’ve scheduled many a flights that I hated to say, “Nope, we’re not launching.” Because and when I was in the Navy, some of our mission, a lot of our missions, it was life and death for people. I don’t fly those missions anymore. I’m okay saying, “No, not today.” A friend told me a long time ago, and I believe this, “I’d rather be on the ground wishing I were in the air as opposed to being in the air and wishing I were on the ground.” Ben: Yeah. Yeah, I bet. I bet. That makes a lot of sense. So making sure you’re ready to go, your equipment’s ready to go, you got the plan. that all makes sense, Glen. That’s awesome. Well, Glen, thank you so much for, joining us here today. This was an awesome conversation, man. Glenn: I, Ben, I appreciate you. We can talk aviation any time and, it was an honor to be here. Ben: All right. Sounds good, Glen. Thank, thanks so much. Thank you. And thanks to all of our listeners