ITC hosts this Fireside Chat with Olivier Jaillon, CEO & CPO at Wakam and Sten Saar, CEO at Zego covering everything you need to know about how to successfully (and quickly!) launch your insurtech products on an international scale.
Transcript
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[Music]
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uh well so good morning or good
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afternoon i don’t know but um uh i’ll
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introduce myself i’m oliviering i’m the
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chief executive and enablement officer
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of wacam
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uh that used to be called la paris
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genesions and i’m here with
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stan um who’s the chief executive
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officer of zego
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so hi everyone
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hello i’m i’m good it’s it’s great to be
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at itc uh virtual stage
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yes we’re both very excited about that
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even if it’s virtual
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well we’re here to
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to talk today about our partnerships
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and uh to be to be precise i mean how
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how we’ve been successful together uh to
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launch more than 40 products in six
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countries in less than two years so
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there was a there was a journey not to
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say an adventure
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so
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so stan if you want to say a few words
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about that
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yes uh well first of all on uh yeah stan
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ceo co-founder zigo so
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what we do is we are commercial auto and
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new mobility in short tech so we ensure
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let’s say
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delivery drivers food delivery parcel
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ride hailing and also electric scooters
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and do that
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together with uh olivia and welcome in
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many european markets um and we also
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gather real-time telematics data from
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the users whilst also integrate with
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work providers which means that their
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granular understanding of risk
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is significant
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uh but yeah we started working with uh
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what come um well two two years ago or
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so and it was fascinating when we
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counted the number of products the other
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day we launched together it was like 40
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products in six markets which is pretty
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impressive and i remember with one of
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the traditional insurance companies we
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tried to launch one product and it took
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15 months and we just both gave up
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because it was just not getting us
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closer so it’s been a it’s been a it’s
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been a brutal hard-working journey but
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it seems very rewarding thank you for
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that well so yeah as we come i mean we
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we’re a full stack insurer
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uh
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uh we tried to be a full digital insurer
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as we deliver all of our products
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through apis and
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we uh we’re doing that now in more than
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13 european countries which allows us to
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work with the pan-european entities like
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zigo
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i think now to give a few key figures i
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mean our our apis are consumed more than
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two million times uh per week
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and uh and we try to also automate our
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policies through a blockchain and i
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think we’re one of the biggest use cases
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now uh probably
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on the european basis as we have more
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than 300 thousand policies that are
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administered uh by the blockchain so
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what we’re trying to achieve as we come
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is to be
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as agile and as quick as possible in
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delivering uh taylormade insurance
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products
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and uh and basically we’re trying to be
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that driving belt uh between the
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distributors of of personalized
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insurance products and and the capital
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which part of which lies
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with ranchers and part of rich lies with
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us
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uh so maybe uh uh stan i mean i i
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thought we could
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look at uh a few in bullet points maybe
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of uh of the key success factors
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that allowed us you and us
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uh
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to launch uh those 40 products in less
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than two years and more than six
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countries
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the first one i think maybe we can both
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talk about it is slas i think on both
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sides both on the the distributor sides
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and on the carrot side maybe you want to
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start about this
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yes absolutely i mean if you think about
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these short tax in general when they
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start the business uh time is of assets
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so uh because you are running kind of
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you’re spending more than you’re making
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so you want to shorten the time uh
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getting things out as as short as
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possible um and
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hence kind of a getting an alignment or
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agreement with a partner how quickly and
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when we deliver is critical when we
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started
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i think we’re very clear that look this
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is the expectation on both sides x
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number of weeks for this x number weeks
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for y
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and we just both teams were aligned and
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understood what they’re working towards
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which kind of uh incredibly
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enabled to speed up the
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achieving two objectives
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yeah and as a carer i think we’re
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probably one of the few ones to accept
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to give full transparency on our
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decision-making process on the
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governance
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and to accept slas
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because i mean uh i think probably
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everybody knows that the product life
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cycle and in a standard insurance
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company in an incumbent companies is
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very slow uh i think we’re talking about
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months uh if not years and now we’re
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talking about weeks i mean already at
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what camera i mean our standard
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methodology gives a time frame of 10
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weeks
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to put a product live but with ziggler
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because we were very very confident into
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their vision
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uh about the usage-based insurance
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industry and and the potential of
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development of of their vision that we
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have accepted to shorten
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clearly
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also that time frame and we’ve accepted
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to have slas on our side so we’ve
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accepted to put constraints
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on on the product creation side and i
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think that was one of the key success
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factor
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and i think like anyone who tries to
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work with other kind of uh
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uh
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insurance companies my advice would be
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like set clear expectations from the
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very beginning in terms of when and what
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you want to achieve because then you are
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aligned you know you you know where the
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finish line is
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because if you don’t agree it’s going to
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be very messy and you’re going to get so
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frustrated
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yes
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maybe one of the the second key success
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factor that we can discuss together
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is uh from day one
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how to connect uh both it
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infrastructures to make sure that uh the
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data flows uh
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and that we’re very clear from day one
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who’s doing what
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and uh with what kind of uh technology
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and with what kind of expectations
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so um there again is the same story
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because like everyone builds their own
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infrastructure slightly differently
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you could be the stack or
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like the engineering stack could be kind
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of even data the way you structured and
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so forth so as long as like and when you
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start the uh you don’t have proper
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necessary api documents uh
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um and so forth so again like there is
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critical to get that data flowing but
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again
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there’s a lot of flexibility required
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like we
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we work with uh welcome but also in some
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other cases you have to be able to
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really look at an individual basis to
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get the data flowing because at the end
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of the day you’re selling policies
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you’re selling premium and the
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information that everyone is after
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is the same but you need to be able to
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well integrate and quite frankly with
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some who tried to work in the past
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they’ve not been able to integrate
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at all or don’t have any of that kind of
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a concept but
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i think on our side as well that we got
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the teams aligned and again you even do
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small points like that one
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meaning of a word could mean different
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another system and aligning those from
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early on removes a lot of kind of uh
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assumption and confusion i think which
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which we managed to do
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yeah i think and we yeah fair and i
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think we were both very clear in the
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beginning i mean i mean who was bringing
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what kind of value added i mean i think
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you’re extremely good at data capture
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and uh you know risk assessments by all
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the data that you collect uh from your
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clients on our side i mean uh then
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through those datas i mean we can
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through a portal of api uh price uh the
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products that we’ve co-constructed
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together
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and and the fact that uh
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through other tooling uh the data flows
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about policy and man about the billing
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about the claims and men
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authorizes us i think and i think we’ll
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talk about it after about the the method
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of test and learn to uh assess what is
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the technical profitability on a monthly
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basis together then we have a
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shared clear vision of the technical
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results on a monthly basis on each of
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your business
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and uh and i think because we’ve been
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very clear about connecting
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uh the both back offices from day one
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and uh and assessing those data’s
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regularly uh so that we can look at the
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business accurately yes as accurately as
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we can
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absolutely um
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maybe the the
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the difficult word uh for a care
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uh sometimes uh uh to to share is
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what is uh our vision of the compliance
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because compliance is
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getting bigger and bigger we are in a
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regulated world in the insurance
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industry and i think also uh sharing a
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clear vision of the compliance i think
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was one of the key success factor and
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maybe uh you wanted to a few words about
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that let’s say if you work traditional
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insurance company you get that kind of a
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top level bind it gets stuck in kind of
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a operation or you go in from the kind
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of operations level then it kind of
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struggles to go up it’s like and it
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predominantly always gets stuck in kind
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of a compliance and and risk because
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often it’s so overly complicated like
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half the things that
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a traditional insurance company wants to
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see from a partner
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do not even exist or are not even
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required because of the size of the
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insured tech company uh even by the law
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is not required you know and and if you
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don’t kind of a drop that model and try
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and be practical it’s very difficult to
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be able to work together and
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in our case we were both very
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practical like you follow the law you’re
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very clear what needs to happen and how
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but at the same time you don’t over
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complicate things there was always like
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okay how can we do it thoroughly but
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simply was a kind of a mantra that
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we followed and and uh the expectations
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there then kind of a we’re able to we
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were able to speed up
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both our parties because we knew what we
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had to do around that yeah
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maybe a another key success factor is
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that i think like i said i think we
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think at webcam that you’ve made an
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amazing job at capturing data and
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assessing risks
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and uh into that usage-based insurance
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trend uh
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let’s say
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but
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i mean of course for us as an insurer
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we used to use datas from the past and
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uh to try to project the future
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this is the way we’ve been taught about
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the how the actuarial science should
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work and uh
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and uh we’re kind of going the reverse
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uh with you guys uh
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and so i think we’ve also put together a
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method of test and learn with a with a
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clear cycle uh so maybe we can elaborate
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you and i about this
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yeah i mean it’s it’s again when you
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probably ask
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apple like how many prototypes they had
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until they launched an iphone that was
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probably hundreds and hundreds right you
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know in insurance products or any
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financial services products you design a
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product and then you launch it and
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often it requires a lot of iteration to
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get it right based on the customer
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feedback and i think we’ve developed and
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we knew that from the get-go so which
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meant that we
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established the process that how do we
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it’s right how do we look at this
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because once you put it out it’s not
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done that’s when the actual work starts
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that’s maybe like 30 of the work and
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then it’s the kind of weeks and months
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of iteration to get it really to a great
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place
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yes and on our side what we requested i
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think it’s
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speed uh to access technical results
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because like you said so we i mean some
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sometimes
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to to go live with 40 products in less
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than two years we had to make bets
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on uh and use maybe algorithm that were
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more uh i would say based on machine
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learning and artificial intelligence
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that real actuarial analysis and then
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and then really the challenge uh for us
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for carrying the risks is then to assess
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very quickly if there is anything going
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wrong on the hypothesis that we use uh
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to build uh those uh pricing systems
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again uh i’d like to emphasize the fact
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that it’s it’s a major change in the way
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we’re looking at our business as an
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insurer because
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we have to move from
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looking at the data from the past as
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accepting that
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that companies like zigo will do a great
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job at assessing that uh
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capturing uh data assessing risks and
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and slowly iterating uh towards the
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right uh pricing approach for that risks
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so we’ve talked stan a lot about
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processors uh you know
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sharing knowledge uh transparency and
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everything but i think that the the the
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human encounter that we had you and i in
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the beginning and the alignment of the
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stakeholders the human part of all of
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this is is more than key in what we’ve
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done so
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yeah absolutely i’m i mean it’s it’s
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probably i would argue the most
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important part because like if let’s say
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you want to build a business in one
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location and do like 40 products if i
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want to build a business in many markets
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different products and we are not the
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line it’s it’s never going to work and
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like
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trusting each other that hey we are here
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to achieve this objective but come from
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different angles
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work well and you know we’ve
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we’ve had many tough conversations about
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from many angles right then it’s like
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that’s part of it that’s normal and you
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need to be able to trust the other party
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that hey uh we are here for the same
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objective things will be tough things
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will be messy but we’ll figure it out
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and and i think it’s very important to
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have that sense of alignment with the
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key stakeholders is integral in those
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business relationships
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yeah and if i remember correctly and
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maybe we can we can conclude on that i
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mean
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basically everything was decided in the
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lunch in london in 15 minutes then it
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was just execution that requested a lot
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of a lot of um discussions like you said
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sometimes was messy sometimes it was
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easy but at the at the end of the day i
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think we trusted each other from day one
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and that’s not that’s something that
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comes from the guts i think we shared a
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vision uh about the industry and it
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should evolve and that’s what i think
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created uh that amazing uh shared human
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capital
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olivier it was great to chat thanks for
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having me and uh listeners have enjoyed
15:06
the rest of the conference
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thank you stan and i wish you the best
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for the for the
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continuation of your journey with your
15:14
company