Latest / The Groundswell Effect / Can AI Unlock Human Imagination? — with Pietro Gagliano
Transcript
- Pietro Gagliano: 30 years from now if machines are looking at humans our imagination might be the one weird crazy thing that has value in the universe that keeps us around. And hopefully it's people like us, though, the world builders, that the future generation will reflect on and be like, thank God they made imagination the center of what they do. Ruth Silver: welcome to the groundswell effect. Today we're talking with Pietro Gagliano, who happens to be a great friend of mine. back in the day, he co-founded Secret Location with some friends, and this studio won the first Emmy for a virtual reality project. now he runs Transitional Forms, which is a lab building films that think. So we can imagine this: it's stories that use AI to change the shape of the experience, depending on who's watching. Pietro has spent his career un trying to unlock human creativity when machines become co-authors or machines become the medium in which our imaginations are encouraged. to work and flourish. So Pietro, the first piece that you showed me were those robots that were on top of the the the planet. And depending on where they were going, the planet would tip, right? And so they would if they all went over to see, you know, an object on one side of the the planet, they would fall off. And so it was the viewer's responsibility to try and Create kind of a harmonious experience for these guys so that they could live. And so, in a way, you're like a little god creating a universe for others to inhabit. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, that that's right. It was like a physical dilemma, creating a story dilemma for the viewer because you could interact with these creatures and they actually thought for themselves. They were trained using neural networks. Very, very simple. This was back in 2020, like we started the project 2019 type of thing. So, like you know, our access to sophisticated AI was limited, but we were able to train brains for the characters in the film that they could think for themselves and they had all their own personalities. And you kind of come in as a god character and you you you put this flower in onto the world and they and they Ruth Silver: Is the flower. Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: they obsess over it and you realize you they you've changed the dynamic. So they're not able to cooperate as well as they could have before. so if they if they cease to cooperate together You know, most of them fall off the planet. And it was yeah, it was very inspired by a film called Balance, which I think is from the eighties, maybe earlier, where there's these characters that live on a on a balancing plane and that there's a music box that's dropped in. Anyways, check out balance and Agence was one of many projects we've done at transitional forums that play with the idea that there is a thinking machine inside the media that we that we consume. Ruth Silver: So where are you now? How how far Pietro Gagliano: yeah. Ruth Silver: has this come? Pietro Gagliano: Well, it's come a long way. I think when we first started transitional forms, it was there was a big, you know, 10-year dream to try to unlock human imagination and use this machine intelligence as part of the as part of the world building, real-time world building that media will will have in the future. And if that was a 10-year vision, you know, we're we're well on our way to that but that was a monstrous idea at the time we started. but we've made video games that let kids train neural networks. So the the same technology that we used in agents, we opened it up in a game called Little Learning Machines, where kids could tell the characters what they love and what they fear, and it would train a real neural network that would predict the behavior of the the character on screen. and we also did the world's first real-time narrative. live stream where the audience could control what was happening live. that was called robots make TV and that was very fun. but now we've transplanted all that learning into a product we're calling Simia. And we did a a a bit of a launch last fall just to a general audience and it turns out kids love it because you're able to like make characters and make your own show world And so we're working on getting that onto smart TVs and places where families gather. And so families and kids and parents alike can can gather around one place and they can they can make their own content and it'll render right on the TV. So that's what we're working on now. yeah, stay tuned on on where that goes. Ruth Silver: Yeah. Okay, so Pietro, maybe this is like a super dumb question, but how is this work like what makes it a movie or a show rather than a a game? Or is it all of the above? Pietro Gagliano: No such thing as a dumb question when it comes to that, because I think the biggest challenge, and I could talk all day about this. The biggest challenge we have right now in this emerging medium and in an industry is there's no name. There's no there's a bunch of different names, but there's no a collective name for something that is real time and generative and interactive all at the same time. Like video games can be one thing, you know, generative films can be another. They might not be real time, they might not be interactive. There's just no name for what this medium is yet. But, you know, maybe by the time this podcast airs, there'll be a name for it. And I'm Ruth Silver: Right. Pietro Gagliano: excited about that. But dynamic content is kind of what I've like to call it. Ruth Silver: Okay. Pietro Gagliano: but yeah, it's it's it's happening right now. We're we're kind of in this ugly baby stage of you know, people rejecting AI for, you know, challenging the craft and embracing it for the ease of production. But I really think it's about unlocking your imagination and being able to shape the content as kind of like a waking dream type of thing. Ruth Silver: Mm, I love that analogy. can you tell me like an exciting moment of you and your kids using this together? Pietro Gagliano: yeah. well, I think when my my son, I think he was maybe six years old at the time, trained his own neural network for the first time in like a a beta of that game I was telling you about, that was a moment. I thought, you know, we've come from you especially coming into this world of AI so early where, you know, I couldn't find researchers were a million dollars a year, like they it was crazy trying to Ruth Silver: Yeah, no, I remember, yeah. Pietro Gagliano: get into this. And then a couple years later where, you know, building something where my my own son could train a real neural network without any with just saying, you love this and you fear this. You know, that that was a that was an amazing moment. And of course we have moments all the time when we're making characters and you know I I often just put a little prototype on the screen and see you know, which of my son or daughter will look at it and they start playing with it. So yeah, I think that's a kind of a litmus test in what we're doing is just kind of leaving it open and seeing what they gravitate towards. Ruth Silver: I think maybe listeners will now have an understanding of the gravitas of this amazing world you are building and you have built as the technology has been evolving and you've been part of evolving the technology. I wanna bring the conversation a little bit to the idea of world building as a practice. And I've known you long enough. To know that you fit into my kind of fascination of people who live outside, they're just born outside of the norm And I want to know, Pietro. kind of what it felt like to be on that path. And I know that it's it hasn't been easy at all, let's start with some of the the conditions of success. So looking back and reflecting on the times where you were able to leap ahead and things did feel like they were gelling and and there was cohesion. co founding with your friends. Like just think back and tell me about the the positive moments along the way. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, we especially back in the secret location days and and James and Ryan and I, we were we were always looking for bleeding edge tech that we could merge with the arts. So like that that combination is novelty, that's innovation. if you're trying to blend those two things together, something that looks good and feels great and moves people, but is using something that is arguably magical from a technology standpoint. I think that's the winning combination that I've I've enjoyed basing my career on. And certainly back in the day in Secret Location we were doing tons of world firsts. you know we did even did like a an augmented reality magazine cover that could you know you could rotate it to to drive a website like weird stuff like that that n no one had done before and we just got really excited and and motivated by breaking new ground in media. so that's that's been kind of the the best part of of my career. it's also been lonely and frustrating and all you know we can you didn't ask about that part so I'll I'll leave that part out but the innovation has been fantastic. Ruth Silver: So I'm gonna repeat back what I hear and we're gonna go deeper. Pietro Gagliano: Nice. Ruth Silver: like the first thing you said off the top was we were looking for bleeding edge tech merged with the arts. So you had a super strong, clear vision. you weren't deviating from that path to, for instance, I don't know, build scripts for to make services run faster, like cause you were great technologists. You were really focused on this one thing. You were with amazing friends. Sounds like you were all motivated by novelty, innovation, looking for world firsts. So I imagine you were keeping up quite steadily with where the the technology was, who was producing what, and maybe being inspired by that, but what else were you looking at at the time to get you to those world firsts? What was yeah. Pietro Gagliano: I mean, partners was always not a challenge, but that's a missing piece, right? You can't just be doing things in a vacuum, especially when back in the day you had a team of fifteen to a hundred and twenty people. Like we we we had a company to support. And so finding Ruth Silver: Right. Pietro Gagliano: the right partners and we really focused on entertainment and eventually we we were acquired by entertainment one as a result, but we were focused on film studios and T V studios and and storytellers who wanted an edge to tell their story, transplant their story, expand their story into new mediums. And so that was the that's a key key factor in making all of this work. If you if you can't find the right partners to to fund Ruth Silver: Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: it or or to believe in it, then you run out of steam pretty quick. Ruth Silver: Yeah, that's a really good point. And it sounds like if I had to describe your partners, inherently they're risk takers and they're courageous and creative and excited to fund and partner with other people with that quality. Pietro Gagliano: Absolutely. Yeah. And a lot of trust. Like, you know, we were Ruth Silver: Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: we were doing things that would inherently break 20 times before it we got it right. And we had luckily we had lots of partners that were very patient and, you know, let us experiment and get it right and put it out into the world and, you know, make a difference for them and win some awards, that type of thing. Ruth Silver: that's a kind of tension, right? That on one hand you're in you're working in this murky space that's untested, that the Pietro Gagliano: Mm-hmm. Ruth Silver: the trust is in you as as creatives who have made inroads before with world first. So let's bet on you. to get us there again. It's it's almost like actually pharma, right? Where they're investing in this molecule that hasn't been made yet. And Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, yeah. Ruth Silver: but they're investing in your minds and your talent and the your ability to organize. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, totally. And and I mean it's was no one's life was was on the line, but but the risk is, you know, here's you're you're you have to trust someone who's done something that's never been done before, but hasn't done this thing that's been done before. so there's yeah, there's a lot of tension there and and good tension, Ruth Silver: Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: motivating. Ruth Silver: Yeah. Yeah. But built your career on like that it's in that vision statement, bleeding edge tech. Yeah. Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that those were fun days. And it's still like I I'm getting older now, so I feel like the world is kind of on the cusp of moving too fast for me personally. But back in the day it was awesome because you know, every day or once a week someone would find a new site doing something cool. And, you know, but it was just you were just starting to get Connect social to experiences, connecting webcams to experiences. So there's always something Ruth Silver: Right. Pietro Gagliano: new that we were excited to like, you know, see if we could find the right partnership on. Ruth Silver: Yeah. In in terms of of your studio, secret location and the and the people in the studio, how would you like somebody just described their creative studio to me as, well, our business models, we just got the weirdest people we can in a room and give them all the technology we can. what was your kind of business model, if you will, for for who is in that room with you? Pietro Gagliano: Well, you know, when we'd do a rah-rah to the team and you know, this term would come up a couple of times, we make the coolest shit in the world. Like that that seemed to stick to our staff. And like w we were shy of writing it on the wall, but like it was just something that people would let's make the coolest shit in the world and the p everyone was there Ruth Silver: Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: as like it didn't matter who who you were. And I I would say even in in my experience with Transforms as a studio, these aren't producers or technologists or whatever. Everyone's an artist. Everyone is a creative trying Ruth Silver: yeah. Pietro Gagliano: to make something different and trying to kind of put a dent in the ecosystem. And and so yeah, at Secret Location, it was make the coolest shit in the world, which isn't a Ruth Silver: Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: business model, but it seemed to be a rallying cry. Ruth Silver: Yeah, no, I mean, and the fact that you're calling everybody who's involved an artist, I think that's something to stop and talk about because what does an artist bring to world building? Like what is the motivation for a person who wants to build the coolest shit in the world? Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, maybe novelty, innovation, Ruth Silver: Mm. Pietro Gagliano: maybe like seeing a dream through. Like you've got this but the creative process is always this weird bubble that you're trying to like shape into manifest into the world. but yeah, that is that's a tough one. but I think that, you know, if you're in this industry and media or innovation or whatever, you do have to treat all your teammates as as creatives, as as artists and see where they get w if if they're pushing back or getting defensive or whatever, it's like, they this means something to them. Their their heart is in this, you know, and and you can you can Ruth Silver: Right. Right. Right. Pietro Gagliano: use that not as friction but as motivation. yeah. Ruth Silver: I'm curious. I went to art school and and I went to design school. And Pietro Gagliano: Mm-hmm. Ruth Silver: the kind of the pedagogy, the the way into thinking like an artist or a designer, from my experience and that education is really this idea of think of thinking through making. So as I'm making something, I'm allowing that making almost to happen from an unconscious place, Pietro Gagliano: Yeah. Ruth Silver: and then reflecting on it either on my own or with my team helps me to understand how it's solving the problem we're using that making just to really like I would call it strategically open up the problem space and and look in every nook and cranny and actually like take throw the house out, you know, be in Pietro Gagliano: Yeah. Ruth Silver: the wilderness, and then get to a new place, like novelty, innovation. And I I think that's quite key to novelty is is this idea that we're thinking through making, that we're we're literally doing the thing. And that's telling us about about it. Pietro Gagliano: I think this is a Siegmeister idea, but like seeing the seeing the process in the final piece is always this magical thing too. Like if you can see how they got there in the final product, that that's awesome. I think that's leaning towards art and maybe not design so much, but yeah, I I I always love doing even passes on things. Whether it's on paper or building it out of Lego and filming it with your phone, or now Ruth Silver: Right. Pietro Gagliano: in the world of AI, you just you freaking one-shot a an even pass on what you're doing, and it's almost like too magical. but to get that end-to-end experience out and to be able to show it to somebody, and to your point, Ruth, it gets more nerve-wracking towards the audience. But like, you know, you're showing your team, then you're showing the client, then you're showing stakeholders, and then you're showing the audience. all the while you're hoping that it holds up. But those are all opportunities to refine along the way. Ruth Silver: Yeah, that's right. It's o it's always iterative. you know, I work with my producer on this show and he's always asking me, Is this the final? I'm like, No, it's never gonna be the final. You can Pietro Gagliano: It's never the final. Ruth Silver: name it final, final, final, final, but I'm still gonna come back to that. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah. Exactly. It'll never be done. And I'll never want to show it to people 'cause I'm an artist. Yeah. Ruth Silver: Right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to actually turn us in a different direction. And I wanna I wanna talk about the loneliness. And I feel like this is actually a place where you and I have connected and been able to be vulnerable with each other. because Pietro Gagliano: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Ruth Silver: this is this is real in a creative process. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, just pour my heart out here on the loneliness. Yeah, it is Ruth Silver: Yeah. Off Pietro Gagliano: it's lonely. It's lonely. it's lonely as an innovator, in particular. Not saying that, you know, all entrepreneurship is lonely in a certain way, but it's lonely as an innovator because first of all, you can't work for anybody else sometimes. Cause you're like, no one's gonna hire me to do this weird thing that doesn't have a name and doesn't exist yet. I gotta do it and I gotta find partners to do it. so that's lonely. But like in in my most recent career, it's been lonely where trying to point at something that again doesn't have a name. And I I know this is where media is evolving to, and it's gonna take time. But before ChatGPT came out, there was nothing to to point to. Ruth Silver: Right. Pietro Gagliano: in terms of how a how powerful AI could be. And even now we're stuck in this AI slop world and it's this like ugly baby stage of generative media and and and dynamic content. It's it's lonely to not be able to say this is what I'm making. You know, you gotta sit down Ruth Silver: Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: and explain it and and and then you kinda at the end of the day sometimes you're like, Am I crazy? Like does this make sense to anyone else? Like, you know, but gotta turn that into motivation, I guess. Ruth Silver: I know you've talked about motivation of novelty, innovation, you know, you're a creative, you have a an artistic passion. but I also know you're a dad and you're really good. guy. what about in the world? Like what is the motivation to do this work for for humanity, for for our time? Pietro Gagliano: boy. that's a that's a deep question. So stop me if I go too long or too too wild with this one, but I think when I was a kid, I loved Lego and robots and and Mario Paint and so so like in in a lot of ways we just do what our nine-year-old self enjoyed. But as a result, I became really fearful about this idea of technological singularity and the the machines becoming more intelligent than humans. And I thought when I was younger, maybe in my teens, I'd be the guy ringing this bell. No one cared about it. And that's fine. It was way too early. But I thought I'd be like in my 70s or 80s when we're in the time now. but as closer we got, it felt like we were g gonna have this urgency. To not act out of fear, but out of love. And so I made a conscious decision, you know, I'd say about eight to ten years ago that I I was like, I'm not gonna be fearful about this. I'm gonna embrace it. It's coming. We need to, we need to approach this situation with love and not fear. We need to tell better stories. We can't just be telling sci-fi stories where the world ends. We gotta be telling stories that have solutions in them. And you know, my work at Transitional Forums and our work as a team has been going towards how can we use media to allow humans to understand machines and machines to understand humans. And that is, you know, at our small scale, that's been the dedication to to this moment. Ruth Silver: I think that Pietro Gagliano: but kids forgot to talk about kids. Ruth Silver: Yeah, kids. Pietro Gagliano: Having kids puts more urgency on all of this. 'Cause it's like, damn, this is the world that you're gonna have to deal with. And what decisions can I make as a father or as a creative that are going to, you know, maybe not change the world, but where I could go to sleep at night and say, Hey, I I I really tried to make a difference in this, in this, you know, transformative time. Ruth Silver: Okay, I'm gonna put you on the spot spot here, but if you imagine your kids, you know, twenty, thirty years from now, what do you think they'll reflect on from your work and say, you know what, my dad did Pietro Gagliano: Dang, be better at putting work out there, first of all, for it to survive. Will YouTube be around? but and it's hard Ruth Silver: Yeah, right? Pietro Gagliano: because it's it's a significant paradigm shift between that, the world they'll live in and the world that we live. Whether it's full apocalypse or utopia or some weird dystopia, whatever it is, that it there's going to be a paradigm shift between now and then. But I hope that they see. my work and our work as as an attempt to embrace human imagination because at that point like if you think about it humans are just like thinking meat like in the universe that's probably really Ruth Silver: Yeah, yeah. Pietro Gagliano: weird i don't know maybe the universe is full of thinking meat but if Ruth Silver: Okay. Pietro Gagliano: 30 years from now if machines are looking at humans our imagination might be the one weird crazy thing that has value in the universe that keeps us around. And hopefully it's people like us, though, the world builders, that the future generation will reflect on and be like, thank God they made imagination the center of what they do. Ruth Silver: I am so happy that this came out. I couldn't agree more. I you know, part of the show, I I told you the the the genesis, the idea for the show was I interviewed Paul Rubens about Pee Wee Herman, the whole whole kind of I don't know platform world really. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, wow. Ruth Silver: And I'll probably tell snippets of that story throughout this whole show. But the one thing I wanted to share with you was, you know, when I asked him, how did you get everybody on board around your vision? And because there were so many people involved who and everything on that show made sense that it was on that show. So it was like a universe built with a different logic or a world built, Pietro Gagliano: Yes. Yeah. Ruth Silver: but it that logic was sound. And he said, Would it make a nine year old laugh? Pietro Gagliano: Yes, and it did. I think I was exactly nine and it was awesome. Ruth Silver: And being building something for nine year olds, Pietro. Like I think this is such a I don't know, provocative or optimistic way to think about imagination and to think and to understand the value of it and Pietro Gagliano: Yes. Ruth Silver: to work from that place because that's a place of love. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, absolutely. And and perfect example of Pee-Wee's Playhouse being a world with its with its own rules that yeah, like every character came to life. I love that so much. And that I think that a lot of what we do in at transitional forms is inspired by kind of that that that experience in watching Pee-Wee's Playhouse. yeah, I'm quiet now thinking back on on what it felt like to be a nine year old watching that world unfold was awesome. Ruth Silver: yeah. Probably between like seven and nine, where you have faculty to do stuff. You actually have some really good fine motor skills. Pietro Gagliano: Totally. Ruth Silver: And so you can share and communicate and your vocabulary's good, but you're still haven't been eaten by the machine yet. Right? Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, you don't have the voices in your head telling you that it has to be a certain way or that this is wrong or never do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that that's Ruth Silver: Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: that's that's the the best zone time of anyone's life is probably when they're seven to nine years old. Ruth Silver: Yeah, so I wonder, I mean, maybe not for every world builder. And and I don't know if we're gonna have a panacea of of world building qualities, but I feel like for you and I, being able to tap into that childlike place is very Pietro Gagliano: Mm-hmm. Ruth Silver: powerful and it's maybe easier to access for us than some people. Like we we hung on to that. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, maybe it hasn't been like weeded out of of us or we've been able to, yeah, feed it in our in our adulthood and hopefully for the rest of our lives. Yeah, I I I Ruth Silver: Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: I hope so. Ruth Silver: D do you would you say you make a conscious effort to do that? Pietro Gagliano: Yeah. well, you'd asked about kids and and and fatherhood before that was a huge help we gotta make make something, we gotta imagine, you know, I'm gonna make this weird object in the house magical and we're gonna imagine together that having kids obviously is a huge help in rediscovering that part of yourself because you're living you're you're trying to see the world through their eyes and but yeah I think it's something that we need to nurture and feed regardless. and I think deep down, I I don't know this is true for me, but deep down, you know, in our careers we're just trying to get back to that that zone time that we had when we were eight or nine or ten years old. And like, you know, our dream job is doing something adjacent to what whatever that was. Ruth Silver: Yeah, that's that's cool. And so you were building games and worlds with Lego and video games. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, yeah. Embarrassing ones. Yeah. Mario Paint was huge for me. I'd do it do all my titles in Mario Paint. Ruth Silver: I don't know what that is, but I'm sad I missed it. Yes, yes. Pietro Gagliano: can I t can I share for so it was like where other kids had a computer. We couldn't afford a computer, but we had a Super Nintendo. And and God bless them, they came out with a a cartridge where it was kind of like Microsoft Paint, where you could make, you know, I think it was up to nine frame animations and and and paint on the screen and put text and write titles. And so I pushed it, I think, to the limit by recording and pausing on my V CR and doing kind of like time lapse or frame by frame animations. So it was it was awesome for a kid with a Super Nintendo and a V CR and didn't have a computer. That was like God bless Nintendo for shipping this thing with a mouse and a a mouse pad. yeah, I think Still my favorite piece of software of all time. Ruth Silver: Yeah, that's cool. okay. I think we've had this incredible conversation and you and I have found our paths as world builders inspired by unfettered imagination that really came to the world and and opened up as children and somehow we've been able to keep that portal open. it's it's an interesting kind of idea that childhood is instrumental, is is foundational to our work. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah. I think that for me science fiction was a was a huge part of of being able to have foresight and maybe watching it younger and accepting like like the lawnmower man is a ridiculous story, but I bought it as a kid and I was like, what if this guy could do this? And when when but we have to be careful with that because especially now the stories that we're telling our our kids, they're going to be growing up with that as a possibility. Maybe they're they're maybe they're scared, but I hope that we give them stories that are aspirational, that they can say, you know, that's a long shot, but I think we can pull this off. so yeah, I think sci-fi is is kind of that that thing for me that pulled pulled my imagination into the the actual future. Ruth Silver: Yeah, yeah. I think sci-fi will come up a lot in these conversations. Pietro Gagliano: Yeah, absolutely. One of the one of the most powerful tools I think we have as a species is is sci-fi. Adjacent to imagination, but yeah, it kind of it kind of breeds reality. Ruth Silver: now that we've talked about your work and you as a creator, as a world builder, and you've had this conversation to reflect on it, does that change anything about how you see yourself in the world? Pietro Gagliano: you're always trying to find how you can contribute to society, you know. and I think yeah, certainly as an artist, I've been frustrated and as a as an entrepreneur, it's like, you know, you win some, you lose some. But I I I feel like, especially right now in the world of you know, vibe coding and getting AI to manifest stuff that's in your imagination, I feel like I'm in a Great spot and I'm really happy to be doing what I'm doing. Ruth Silver: you really are meeting the moment, right? I think that's yeah. Yeah. Pietro Gagliano: Thank you. Wow. That's very kind of you to say. Yeah, it's it's fun. it's fun to be participating in this this world that's kind of figuring itself out. like it's I keep saying an ugly baby stage in me in media. There's we're not sure what form it's gonna take, but we know that it's it's precious and it's going to grow into something amazing. so yeah, for those of us that are trying to shape it, it's a it's a fun It's a fun place to be. Ruth Silver: And if people wanted to know more about your work, where should they look? Pietro Gagliano: Sure, you could go to transforms.ai. That's that's our studio site. pietrogalliano.com is just a list that I never maintain. So yeah, go to transforms.ai and we'll that'll give you a sense of what I'm doing. Ruth Silver: Amazing. It's been a pleasure to have you on the show. I a lot of things are dropping for me about this idea of world building. And thank you for being so open and I'm glad that you're doing what you're doing in the world because it's better for it. Pietro Gagliano: Right back at you, Ruth. This is an awesome podcast and real honor to be to be on as a guest. Really appreciate this. Ruth Silver: Thanks so much, Pietro. Pietro Gagliano: Thank you.