Today, I am super excited to bring you a very special episode with Shreyas Ghoshi, recorded live at the Lenny and Friends Summit in front of a thousand people in San Francisco.
This is Shreyas's second time on the podcast.
His first visit is the third most popular episode of all time of this podcast.
And I love that Shreyas was game to try this.
In our conversation, Shreyas shares three questions plus a bonus question that he wished he'd asked himself sooner in his career.
We talk about why product leaders are so busy, why the job is so frustrating, why it is so essential to build good taste, and also why you're probably not listening as well as you should be.
This was so much fun.
A huge thank you to Shreyas for doing this.
If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube.
It's the best way to avoid missing feature episodes and helps the podcast tremendously.
With that, I bring you Shreyas Ghoshi.
Shreyas, thank you so much for being here, and welcome to the podcast.
Thanks Lenny for having me.
This is amazing. I was going to ask, we recorded our first episode, I think two years ago.
I was in a tiny room in my house.
I don't know where you were, but it was very not like this.
Thoughts on the setup of this episode?
First, the Lenny Empire keeps growing, which is amazing to see.
And second, as I was coming up here, somebody told me this used to be a car dealership.
And I actually realized I purchased my car here.
What? So crazy. Only an SF.
What kind of car was this?
Say more. It was a Honda CR -V.
Okay. Wow. I'm told the Lenny was also used for Jimi Hendrix performed here and Aretha Franklin performed here.
It's like Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Shreyas.
There we go. That's going up on my Twitter bio soon.
Okay. So usually when we talk, you're full of ideas, and you're full of answers.
When we were preparing for this, he told me, I have questions.
I have questions I want to ask.
You know, reflecting on my career as a PM leader over the years, there are some questions I wish I had asked myself sooner, but I did not.
And I had the great luck of having a life, a PM life full of suffering.
And I have zero complaints about it.
But as I look back, I feel like there are some questions that I wasn't, even if I asked myself some questions, those questions, I wasn't honest to myself about the answers.
So that's what I thought I'd do, is kind of share the questions that I wish I had asked myself sooner.
Awesome. Yeah. That's a lot of that.
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What's the first question?
Right. So let's see.
The first question is, why am I so busy?
Why am I so busy? And the background is that like, you know, I have spent most of my career just being completely stressed out, just absolutely stressed out every day.
And there were many reasons for it, but one of the core reasons was I was always super busy and there was always work I felt like I couldn't do that I wanted to do.
And so I would go home at the end of the day.
And even if I'd worked hard, I just feel dissatisfied.
And so that that was a constant fixture of my life as a PM PM leader.
And it's only so I did like the product.
I did product work for about 20 years before I started this new chapter of my career.
And I think I only fixed it in the last three or four years of my career as a PM leader.
But, you know, that means that there were about 16 or 17 years where I was just incredibly busy.
And because I was incredibly busy, I was extremely stressed.
And even though I was doing a good job, I was not feeling very good inside.
And then that showed up in my body like all sorts of pains and aches.
I realized were actually not physical pains and aches.
They were pains and aches from the stress.
It's like health issues that you had.
Yeah, minor stuff. So, you know, I mean, relatively minor stuff, but, you know, like playing tennis and you pull your back muscle and now you are horizontal for three days doesn't feel good.
Who here is very, very busy and is just way too busy?
You raise your hand.
That's it. Whoa. Everyone's like everybody.
If you're like, yeah, yeah, I don't have to raise my hand.
I'm busy. OK, keep going.
And so so here's the thing.
You know, when we talk about being busy and managing your time energy, all of that.
I mean, this is a group of senior product people.
So you all know that take tips and techniques, right, like maintain a to do list.
I found the L and O framework very useful for me, which I've shared before.
You know, I used to like working out of a calendar, those types of things.
And I think you're all familiar with those things.
But what I wanted to call out is that at some point in our product career, we reach something with each an immovable force that will just overwhelm us no matter what we do.
And that force is scope.
OK, so as we grow in our product career, our scope grows and we kind of like that, which is all great.
But at some point, if you haven't already gotten there, many of you have.
But for those of you who haven't, you will get there.
But your scope will be so large that no matter what you do in terms of efficiency, whatever, you know, framework you use for prioritization, whatever framework or tool you use to manage your to do list, whatever tools and techniques you use, whatever prioritization you do, your scope is so large that you
are still going to be incredibly busy.
And so so that's what I faced, like I was saying, for the first about 16, 17 years of working on products.
And only in the last three or four years was I able to kind of find some answers.
On sort of how to deal with that scope.
Right. And so perhaps we can talk about that.
What do you think? Yeah.
So you're basically saying there's always productivity tricks, ways to do more faster.
And no matter how many of these tools you've got, you are just going to take on more and more work and they'll peter out.
I'll say many of my most popular news that are post are here's productivity tricks and tips.
And so people are always looking for these.
And I'm curious to hear where you go with this of just like that is not the answer long term.
There's a different approach.
Yes. And so the challenge is the following.
How many of you are going through some kind of annual planning right now or you're planning on going through annual planning?
Everybody loves annual planning.
So let's take annual planning.
Right. If you are like a high level manager leader within a company, what is the typical kind of what does your month look like or in some cases, unfortunately, what do your two or three months look like when you are going through annual planning?
Right. It's all these kind of like spreadsheets to fill out and meetings to have and dependencies and priorities and stakeholders to meet and so on.
Right. And so so I noticed, for instance, that at some point that was making me like really busy and then that was making me feel guilty now because I had my team to look after and to support.
And then I had product decisions to make and various other things.
And I've gone on some like, you know, planning retreat or whatever.
And, you know, there you go.
You lost four or five, six weeks.
Like, does that sound familiar to folks?
Like, am I? Yeah. OK, so so I noticed that I needed to change that at some point and actually found a solution.
Again, late in my career, but I found a solution because I asked myself this question, which is why am I so busy?
I'm doing all the efficiency things.
I'm managing my list like a champ.
I have my calendar set up just right.
I have my routine set up just right.
I'm working out so that I'm engaged at work and productive.
I'm doing all of that.
Why am I so busy? Oh, it's planning season and that is supposed to take up four to six weeks.
And this was at Stripe when I encountered this.
So that is supposed to take up four to six weeks.
Well, I realized that you don't have to do that.
And so at some point in my time at Stripe, what I realized is the following.
Right. Like we go through a whole kind of all sorts of, you know, just rituals around planning for four to six weeks.
Then we emerge and we share our plan with our executives.
They ask us some, you know, you know the questions they're going to ask, like if money were no concern, what would you do?
What what is your ambitious plan?
So if we gave you five more engineers, what would you do?
What other things would you include in the roadmap?
Like the standard stuff.
Right. And so you emerge, you do your presentation and then you publish the plan and then you start the new year with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of excitement.
And January goes fine until you get three customer escalations for features that were not in your plan.
Right. And so now you try to figure out how you're going to revise resources.
You go talk to some dependency team that's going to sort of, you know, support these new features from these customer escalations.
And you go through that process and you revise your plan again.
And then by the time usually by the time it's end last week of February, everybody's forgotten the actual plan.
Right. And now we are executing off of like some other, you know, list somewhere.
Right. And so and by the way when you mention this when you mention this at times politely, of course, you might mention like, you know, I'm noticing we are not actually like really using the plan that we spent four to six weeks minimum doing.
And then some smart person in the room chimes in with plans are useless, but planning is everything.
Okay. Some I don't know Eisenhower.
Somebody else. I don't know who said this plans are useless, but planning is everything.
Nobody knows what it means.
Nobody knows what that means, but everybody appreciates plans are useless.
But planning is everything.
Right. So I went through a few years of this and then I go you know what I'm going to bend some rules here.
And so what I realized Lenny is you don't have to go through these four to six weeks.
And it was an accident.
Basically what happened is around that time the product I was working on Stripe Connect.
That was like like it's like a major product for Stripe major major business for Stripe.
And I had put together a product strategy like a real product strategy for this product.
And so this must have been like earlier in the year.
And so now planning season came along.
Right. And the interesting thing I found is that because I had a real product strategy not one of those fake ones a real product strategy that I had gotten alignment on with everybody.
My planning for this major product for Stripe took me like three days.
Right. So while a lot of my peers unfortunately for their own products were in this like four to six week cycle of like planning and meeting and blah blah blah.
I just put it all together in three three days.
Right. And whatever artifacts were needed I put them together.
I did not fill out some templates.
That's where you know it's about bending the rules because if a template doesn't make sense why should I fill it out.
Right. Like there's no need to fill it out.
And so that's when I realized that actually actually if you have a real product strategy a real one that everybody is aligned with that you have got real alignment on.
Then a lot of this nonsense we tend to do with annual planning actually goes away.
Now you still have to do some resource allocation and all of that.
But even there you don't need that false precision.
Like how many of you have gotten into arguments about so should it be eight engineers for this team in 2025 or nine engineers for this team in 2025.
Like who cares. We all know that even those numbers that we set up we don't actually follow through on them right as twenty five twenty five happens.
So that's just an example of where we spend a lot of time on things that we think are strategic that we think are important.
But actually we ought to spend those that time on other much higher leverage things.
Right now it does require some upfront work in this case upfront work on a clear product strategy that everybody understands that everybody is aligned on.
But frankly if you have that planning should be a breeze.
So what would be what would be your kind of tactical tip for folks that want to do this better.
I know there's like probably a billion examples of these sorts of things you shared so planning is an example.
Folks don't want to be less busy.
Maybe on that one is it give yourself very little time and focus on strategy and let that be the plan basically versus like every single person and their roadmap for the next six months.
Like what's the piece of advice you share there and then I want to move on to the next question because I want to make sure we get through all these questions.
Yes you know there's definitely a specific tip which is if you do have a strategy that will make a lot of your prioritization problems go away.
It will make a lot of planning problems go away.
And even if you do have some escalation from sales which you will or from support or somewhere else you now have at least a more rigorous framework.
To kind of figure out what to do with that escalation.
So there's definitely that.
But I think the other thing I want to share is that and this was my other realization as I asked the question why am I so busy is I realized that I am so busy because I'm not making good product decisions.
OK now you have to understand by this time I'm like you know 15 years into building products and whatever 11 years into being a product manager.
And so I think I'm pretty good.
Like that's my kind of sort of self image.
But then again if I'm being honest to myself.
I'm not making as good product decisions as I can.
So can I share an example of this.
So what I noticed is that.
You know you have a meeting about some product feature that somehow is requested or is really important whatever the case might be.
And so you have a meeting with some stakeholders and your engineering team designers et cetera.
And then you're trying to decide should we build this or not.
And you know somebody says you know what like why are we making like what why are we doing a meeting for this.
You know I read somewhere or I heard Bezos say that two way doors you should like it's a two way door you quickly make a decision.
Like just quickly make a decision and move on.
OK this is a two way door.
And so so you say yeah that's right.
Like any time we hear something like that to wait or like how that person is really smart like.
So I want to be like them.
So so I notice that might myself and my team you are making these kinds of decisions without actually thinking through like very clearly thinking through customer motivation very clearly thinking through differentiation very clearly thinking through a distribution approach for whatever this feature
is and you know while it sounds like oh you know of course you should be doing this.
I guarantee you this is not how most product teams work right like they're talking about well is Bob the engineer going to be free and when are they free and if they are free then let's build the feature right.
Like that's kind of how a lot of product decisions happen.
And the challenge here with this kind of approach and again this is what happens in practice.
I'm not talking about what like you whatever theory you read this is what happens in practice.
So when you follow this approach and you assume that oh this is a two way door we can kind of kill the feature right in reality it doesn't work out that way because here's what happens in reality.
So in reality you commit to the feature and it's going to take five six weeks to do it and then a couple more weeks to make sure to ramp it up et cetera.
Right. And so now the feature is out right now you have your Q1 QBR right say two months from now you have your Q1 QBR right.
And you're going to present your business review whatever you're going to present what you did what did you do last quarter how are your ships performing from last quarter.
And so now it's time to talk about this feature right at the QBR because you have to kind of share that now as you start talking about this feature you know the CEO will ask so yeah we you know we launched the feature I'm very glad we launched this feature.
How is it doing right and you want to be able to say you are the PM leader you want to be able to say something smart and something that makes you look competent right.
But the challenge is the feature hasn't had much adoption.
All right. So I'm not going to ask anybody to raise hands but I think most PMs are familiar with this with this conundrum right.
And of course we are verbally very agile as product leaders so what we say is we don't have data so we use favorable anecdotes right.
And so we say yeah we launched the feature and you know what this customer from this company really loves the feature and we put in an anecdote right.
It's like life changing feature it doesn't matter that they're the only person using it that doesn't matter life changing feature right.
We use data when it favors us we use anecdotes when it favors us so so anyway so we present that now we do have the sales counterpart in the room to our sales counterpart and they say you know what though we're still not winning many deals because of this feature.
And so of course the CEO asks like so what's up like why aren't we winning deals even though we have the feature.
So the people on the customer side usually will respond well I'm glad we have the feature but it's not full featured yet we need all these other bells and whistles to meet the table stakes right.
So so now what happens somebody uttered the word meet the table stakes.
Now it's over for you because now the only response you can give is oh yeah that's already part of the plan and now you put your engineering leader on the spot and you say Alice isn't it like haven't we allocated engineers to it already.
And so now Alice has to come up with some response which is like yeah yeah you know Carol and David are going to work on it you know it's it's slotted for one of these prints right.
And so now you exit the QB are you high five each other well good job team great job etc etc but now you have signed up for even more work for a feature you should not have built in the first place.
That's where we're busy right so.
And like through a product leaders life what happens is we just accumulate all of this debt right like feature after feature so I guess what I'm saying Lenny is.
One of my other tactical tips would be sometimes it is useful to pause for two minutes.
Or two days or two weeks before making that decision right because frankly most doors that look like two way doors are actually one way doors.
They are two way doors at Bezos is level but as a PM leader for you they are one way door and that's what's making you busy.
Wow I feel like you're a standup comedian slash product manager.
That was incredible.
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I know it's Spotify I heard one of their core values is talk is cheap but it's the virtue version of that it's like they actually prefer to talk more and I think that's exactly what you're saying basically spend more time on these things that seemingly seems just like small little ideas and experiments.
Yep thinking is cheap so you should do more thinking not less amazing.
Shri else what's your second question.
Yes so my second question I have to get the words right.
Do I actually have good taste.
Do I actually have good taste is my second question.
Yeah and you know for me.
I asked this question after again all of these things by the way everything I say I have been that guy have made that mistake right so that's why.
Like I just have to admit to myself that yes I made these mistakes and one of the mistakes I made this was when I was at Google and I was kind of relatively new to product less about less than five years.
And at Google there's some parts of Google where you would be told as like you know kind of like an early career PM that like we don't do strategy here.
Strategy is for MBA is OK we are all about execution OK so I'm in this environment I'm naive and I'm like I look around me and I'm like Google is the most successful company on the planet at the time.
And they are saying this and I'm hearing this consistently so it must be right.
It must be right. And so I start seeing it right I start saying Oh yeah you know execution is everything and we don't do strategy around here and I even remember there are not that many PMs but there was a PM at Google.
Who was kind of like the same level as me but he like just had much more wisdom than me.
And he was trying to nudge me into like I was managing a product and he's like yes what is your strategy here and I was like I told him the same thing like oh no no we're talking strategy we don't need strategy we just need to get shit done right like that was the thing.
And so I kept repeating that mantra.
Until I got to Twitter so this is Twitter right after their IPO and I saw Twitter had like an incredible asset which is the product and the network effects it had other incredible assets including the brand it had other assets that were great including the talent and yet this company was struggling
like the product was struggling and even if it wasn't struggling it was making a lot of money but the point is it was not meeting its potential.
So that's when I realized and it took me it wasn't like some sudden realization it took me like six to nine months of being a Twitter this is circa 2014.
That's when I realized that oh my gosh Twitter's biggest problem is a product strategy problem.
The reason they are struggling is they don't have a real product strategy now of course attempts were made to create a product strategy but it wasn't a real compelling cohesive product strategy.
So that's when I realized the folly of like oh wait a minute I spent like I was at Google six years I spent like most of those six years kind of saying like our strategies useless.
There's no point to strategy execution is where it's at I'm like no actually I was wrong right and that got further solidified.
As I went to Stripe and I was kind of now growing like earlier stage products and kind of trying to make them you know highly highly successful I saw an even greater kind of value and importance of having a clear strategy.
And so that made me realize basically you know we talk about taste right like we all talk about taste and it's about the beautiful pixels and the perfect product and the whatever else right like the Steve Jobs as passion and all of that whatever it is and yes taste is about that.
But I think there is something that we as product leaders and certainly I did needed to recognize about taste as just a factor and pretty much everything we do.
Right which is like do we have good taste around the beliefs we choose to create within ourselves as product leaders and then those beliefs end up dictating everything we do right including how we manage how we lead how we make decisions.
And so it's that taste I'm talking about when I say do I really have good taste and when I asked myself this question and again I had to be like it like I really had to dig deep it wasn't easy but at some point I realized that no actually I don't have good taste.
I don't have good taste in how I choose to evaluate things that come my way again not in terms of the product right because by that time I had skills to say well this should not be a two step flow this should be a three step flow whatever the case may be but I still did not have good taste in terms
of how I choose what are the things I choose to believe how do I learn who do I learn from what content I learn from what content I learn from what content I learned from.
And I went on this journey to kind of like try to develop that better taste.
What I'm hearing is people focus maybe too much on the output like the experience these experiences I in taste versus what they choose to take in as informing their taste and what they see as an example of great and correct is that is that what you're saying.
Yeah and you know like look taste is about the ability.
To identify what is really good.
Without needing. To see its results.
Right because look it requires zero taste right now for anybody to say oh that CEO of Nvidia is a genius right Jensen is a genius if you are saying that in 2024.
It actually requires zero days because you can just look up and video stock price.
Like it requires zero skill.
But to be able to say that in 2010.
You have to realize Jensen Wang didn't change much between 2010 and 2024.
Right so like many even in sports right like there's this.
Like there's the same game recognize game right.
And that's that's about taste but what we need to understand is it's game recognize game before the game is called.
Right like game recognize game in the practice session.
Because it takes no genius right now to say well Patrick Mahomes is like you know great quarterback right like.
Or Virat Kohli is a great cricketer or whatever else right like it requires no genius to do that.
It requires zero taste.
So I also believe some of us like especially as we get more senior and we get more successful and you know we we just like get a lot more scope and responsibility and a lot of accolades we become the stuff graders right like I don't like anything right like this is crap this is crap this is crap.
Again that requires zero taste anybody can say that right anybody can just say everything is horrible right.
So I do think there is something about being able to understand that and I think there's like like I'll share some examples right like this two way door thing so let me just share a few observations if I might.
So like the first one is we get overly excited about.
Cool metaphors. Okay like one way door two way doors right there's some guy I don't know who it is I just read somewhere there's some guy who had written a blog post about this this idea but he called it reversible and irreversible decisions.
Okay and it was the same idea and I think somebody was lamenting that that did not catch on it reversible and irreversible decisions but what caught on is to wait or and one way door.
What's the difference.
The only difference is you got attracted to the catchy metaphor right and the other one is the authority bias because Bezos said it right.
Take another example we get very like we get very impressed with alliterations.
I'm serious we get very impressed with the literations okay.
So how many of us love fail fast fail fast okay nobody's gonna raise hands now.
Okay fine maybe you truly don't love fail fast how about fast follow.
How many of you love fast follow.
Like let's consider that right like fail fast you're gonna fail fast what if that thing were called fail quickly it's the same meaning.
Do you think you would be as attracted to that idea if it were called fail quickly no probably not so what's what changed the only thing that changed is one is an illustration.
Right so so I see this in everything like you know let's see you know the other one is.
We also get very impressed with complicated charts and math we don't understand.
And some of you product leaders who are at the top of the game you actually use this as a strategy right.
Right so so as I realized that I here's the outcome here's the outcome of kind of like that asking myself that question was that.
What I realized is I kind of you know everybody says oh I'm a first principle thinker like you know I think like I'm a rigorous thinker whatever but I realized that like if I really want to be that I have to shed a lot of these.
Like just patterns that were just like you know built in me right and I kind of have to evaluate the idea separate from all of its like social proof and authority proof and whatever else right and that ended up being.
A meaningful change in my growth as a product leader.
Because the moment I started shedding these kinds of social proofs and authority proofs and all of that it just made me much we all again think we are critical thinkers but we are not right so it made me a more critical thinker.
I want to move on to the next question just so we can get through some of these questions before I do can you show people your notes real quick just like should like from a distance.
This is how she has plans for something like this there's like color coding I like I wish I understood what was going on there.
This is this is my people ask me what's your favorite note taking app it's a common question I get and I say this right like it's a five dollar like I guess the pen cost three dollars and I think the office depot clipboard cost wait isn't that pan does it have the different color clicky yes yes yeah.
The big yeah exactly great that's gonna be another podcast episode okay so we want to try to do two more questions we have six minutes left the last one's a bonus so maybe we touch on it briefly.
Shreyas what's your third question so my third question is why does my job feel so frustrating why does my job feel so frustrating and goes back to the point that like you know I look I love love my p .m.
leadership job right like I just absolutely loved it and.
I think looking back I would not have exchanged it for anything else any other experience that said there were daily frustrations there were daily frustrations in that job and a lot of it has to do with the fact that you know the p .m.
leader job is extremely lonely the p .m.
job the p .m .s on your team their job is also lonely but a p .m.
leader job is further lonelier right so there's that there's also you know.
What I what I learned at the time when I started asking this question is that.
Our jobs get frustrating when we behave.
Most of the time in misalignment.
With our superpowers and who we truly are at our core.
Okay so for me as I was evaluating that question it's like why am I getting frustrated every day I love the job I love the macro but I do not like the macro a micro.
And so why is that and that's when I actually like there's you know a simple framework that I've shared which is you can be doing your work at three levels product work happens at three levels.
There's the impact level there's the execution level and there's the optics level.
My epiphany as I was kind of exploring this question was.
I have a preferred level at which I like to operate.
But if most of the day and most of the week and most of the month I am forcing myself to operate in not my happy place in my non default level.
That makes me very frustrated.
Right so so many product leaders they're happy places the execution level.
You know in my case my happy places the impact level so that is fine you can your happy place can be whatever level it doesn't matter but the point is like as you go you know as you go higher up in the corporate ladder.
No matter what kind of company it is you are now going to have to spend a lot of time on optics at the optics level and I have willpower I have the skills to do it I have all of that so it's not about willpower or skills but willpower is finite.
Right so as I spent day in and day out like just like mostly doing optics work.
I realized I was not happy and I was getting frustrated right and so that's when I realized the solution which is I kind of I have to abandon the traditional path that like oh after this level I'm supposed to do this and then I'm supposed to do this and then this is what society expects.
This is what my mom expects this is what what will people say on LinkedIn when they see my LinkedIn profile right like oh he has this progression this and then what stopped why did it stop.
Right so when I realized this I said you know like when it when when a team grew to a certain size so when I was at Stripe when I realized this when the team I was managing it had a fan out of about 50 people so this includes like engineers and everything I said this is enough.
Because for me like anytime a team goes to like 50s and hundreds and beyond it is a law of corporations that you're going to have to spend a lot of time at the optics level.
Right so instead of just pushing pushing through against like you know who I truly am what did I do I just went back to more of an earlier stage product right and then I was fine with like you know what I'm not going to like you know just play the corporate game as an example.
So I guess my you know my suggestion would be like identify your superpowers and you know like like Shakespeare said like like to dine on self be true right like just be honest to yourself like operate your career and make your career decisions not out of expectation not out of envy.
Like the LinkedIn and me of like oh this person is at a different level we both went to the same grad school like so I got to know identify your superpowers because if you identify your superpowers and work in accordance with them you will do the best work of your life you will love it and you will be
great at it. And you won't have that frustration.
I wish we had an hour for every single one of these questions I feel like there's so much more to get into.
We have 40 seconds.
Do you want to touch on your last question or do you want to leave that for a follow up discussion.
Let's touch on it. Let's touch on it.
I'm a good listener because I listen then I recap and I make eye contact and I tell them this is what I heard and all of that nonsense I realize there is an entirely other level to listening which.
Once you understand that there's an entirely other level to listening.
That is what enables you to be a world class leader.
And so that is what I guess my last take away is is like ask yourself am I really listening if you want resources there are very few people who actually talk about what that real listening means.
I would refer you to what Rick Rubin says about listening.
I would refer you to what he said about listening and what Drucker said about listening at some pointers.
Amazing. You said you were going to hang out for the next hour or somewhere.
You want to share that real quick and then we'll get off.
Yes I would maybe try to hang out in the back part of the room.
Be quiet back there too.
Thank you so much for being here.
Great. Thank you. Should we take a picture.
Oh yeah. We're going to take a quick selfie.
We're going to take a picture.
There we go. They're going to turn lights on.
I think. All right folks.
Thank you so much for listening.
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