That wasn't the plan. Hi, Emily. Oh my God. Hi. Hi, Courtney. How are you? I'm good, Emily White Lady. Good. White lady. Yeah. That's true. Very true. You're white. I'm also white. Here we are. Happy Sunday. Happy Sunday. To all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in to That Wasn't the Plan. We are your hosts, Courtney Holland and Emily White. Yes. Did you have a good week, Courtney? I had a, as usual, no moment of rest. We have a new puppy and she's hectic. But then it turns out she got marijuana poisoning on Wednesday. Had to rush her to the emergency room because she, I thought she was having a seizure. Because she was like, and then she just kept wanting to go to drive-thru. She wanted to go to Taco Bell. And I was like, what's going on? She's like, give me that seven-layer burrito. Well, I we took her, so I took her to the vet, and the vet was like, I've never met this vet. And he was like, I um, I'm not trying to offend you, but is there any possibility that your dog got a hold of some marijuana? And I was like, Well, I certainly haven't had marijuana anywhere around me. My husband doesn't smoke marijuana, but there are teenagers in the house. So, and he, it's the end of the school year, so something got left out. He said it was a small amount. So it was really, she would have been fine. But I I'm just glad that um that was all it was because I was like, oh my God, what if this dog has a brain tumor? Like, oh Lord. Yeah. So that was exciting. There were some conversations had with those. Mm-hmm. Is it legal where you're at in Virginia? I think it is in some ways, but not for high schoolers. Right, right, right. Yeah. Anyway, so how about you? How's your week? Any squirrels do some cocaine around your house? Or uh yeah, they're just doing rails out on my foot porch. I would not be surprised to find out that all squirrels were on some sort of method, right? Seriously. They certainly act like it. You don't have to live that way, squirrels. Yeah. Uh well, uh on another note, we have a really fascinating guest with us today. So excited. Yeah, I'm so excited to hear this story. Today we have Richard Alt with us. Um his co-workers, his co-workers have called him the most interesting person in the world. Whoa. Yeah. Richard. Yeah. Richard is a biologist by training, a technologist by accident. Here's the short story. Uh, Richard was the VP of product at Napster during one of the most chaotic and frankly fascinating moments in the history of the music industry. Remember that? Freaking legend. Yeah. Yeah. Before that, he helped build MyPlay, which is essentially iCloud about five years before the world was ready for it. Um, he has spent time in the Arctic studying climate change. He is a surfer and a surf photographer. And then because this is that wasn't the plan, uh, life had some other ideas for him. Richard went through addiction, a financial collapse, and now he teaches climate science and biology to high schoolers at the Bay School in San Francisco. And the school has a motto that I think really tells you everything you need to know about who Richard is and why he ended up there. This is their motto. Yes. Through any challenge I may face, succeed or fail, I will be okay. Oh my gosh. For high schoolers, that's phenomenal. I know. So what a great Yeah. Richard, welcome to the podcast. Wow. Thank you. Nice to be. You're living up to that title. Wow. Yeah, it feels like the universe did have a plan and I just didn't know what it was. Of course. That's incredible. I I could I got 204 questions off the bat. Uh, but I will let you tell your story. But my gosh, so many things I want to grab on and talk about. But um I will play chill. I will play chill. No, Courtney plays Courtney. Yeah, that's the beauty of this. Oh my gosh, Napster? What? Yeah, I mean, I I I don't know where to start. Um well, how about you take us back to the kid version of you? Like, where did you grow up and what was home like? And you mentioned something about your father not being there for three years. Yeah. Everything. I grew up in a uh sort of suburban DC, um, really nice, like, yeah, super nice setting, Bethesda Maryland, a little neighborhood called Woodacres, that was really um, geez, I don't know how to describe it. It was like a 50s TV show, you know, like the streets were filled with kids. Um, it was uh super Irish Catholic, like every family had like six kids. And so, really, literally, the kids were running the show in the neighborhood. A lot of Lashkey kids, I was a Lashkey kid myself. Yeah. Um, from about the age of 10. Um, yeah, my parents were not a good match. Like, I think a lot of a lot of families in the 60s, maybe uh, you know, people got married before actually examining who they were getting married to. And a lot of these people were wise enough to not stick it out. I feel like grateful that my parents didn't try and fake it, you know, during that time. And um, but I also, you know, basically grew up without a father, which I don't really consider any kind of a handicap. I mean, he was there until I was about nine, and then the static started. But I have um two sisters, my mother and four aunts, and my grandmother who was on the scene. So I was surrounded by strong women that sort of taught me how to be in this world. And that that I think was a huge advantage for me as a young person. You know, I didn't I didn't feel like I had to conform to, you know, what male norms might be. I didn't, you know, wear dresses or anything, but I didn't uh also didn't, you know, see women as like I think the way other boys that I was growing up with did. Um and and I I'm grateful for that. I remember my grandmother once uh giving me a pretty firm smack uh when she heard that I had tipped a cow and uh with a couple of good friends, we had we had gone into Northern Virginia, which is where her property was, and tipped a cow. And I was laughing about it with my best friend, and then I felt the back of my head a sharp pain in the back of my head. And it was my grandmother, and she was she was really a pretty firm adherent to all creatures, great and small. And I think that that very much uh sort of impacted me as a young person because I I chose biology because I I'm super curious about living things. And yeah. Wow. All it takes is that one person, that one moment to kind of set you straight. I've had so many like that in my life where it's I'll say something and then that one gesture, that one sentence, that one comeback, and it completely just changes my perspective on everything. Yeah. Yeah. Does it hurt the cows when they get tipped? Yeah, so they can, it turns out. I didn't know this, of course, because I'm an idiot, like 13-year-old kid, um, 14 maybe. Uh they can suffocate, basically. You can kind of knock the wind out of them, and then they can suffocate on the ground because they sleep standing up, and that's why people tip them. Uh yeah, so it's awful. Yeah, it makes me feel like I'm about 80. The fact that I understand how that works. Well, now I know too. 45, learning it. Like that's yeah. Now I've got I will quit tipping all those every day. I'm tipping cows, I'm like, boink, boink, boink, and now I'm like, you know what? Not doing it. You don't want to suffocate them. I'm so I'm it's gonna change, you know. Well, 80s movies, a lot of movies had like, oh tip cows, you know, like that's really the only times I've ever heard of it. And I love that she smacked you for hurting a cow. Like she was right to do it. I mean, she was like salt of the earth, like you you would expect. You know, she ran a farm that she had sheep and chickens, and I learned how to slaughter chickens. I didn't have to slaughter uh sheep, which is great because they're two, you know, cute chickens. Yeah. I don't know so much. But I gotta interact with some chickens in a cardboard box in a garage two nights ago, which was pretty cute. How was that date? I thought it was a date. She's back, come over and look at my chickens. No, we were we were at like a um sort of like an alumni event for my boyfriend, and uh we walked out into the garage. My boyfriend was gonna go look at the basketball court, and all of a sudden there were chickens in a box right in front of me. And I was like, see you later. Later. I would have been in there all night had I known there were chickens in the garage. Were they chicks or were they actually full grown chickens? They were in between. They were teenagers. Oh, so they were really ugly. That's when they're like long. Well, it's funny because they're close to being the size of a real chicken, but they're really long. Like they're the kind of I don't know, they're it's like silly putty when you spread it out. It's not quite, it's like one of those rubber chickens. Yes, yes. It's like one of those rubber chickens, you know, with long necks. That's exactly what they reminded me of. Anyway, back to Richard. Sorry, sorry, Richard. You did it to us. You started talking about it. This is an occupational hazard. So you were raised by sounds like what, six to eight very strong women. Your dad. Your dad did come back. Were your parents married when he came back? Or how what did that? No, so yeah, when I was about eight or nine, uh they were, you know, at each other's throats. Didn't you know, sort of? I think that, you know, I didn't you don't need to be a genius. I think my my sister was born six months after my parents got married. So I none understand why they got married. Um, my older sister, but then my younger sister and I were born like bam, bam, right after each other. You know, we're only a year apart, uh a year and a week or so. Um, and I think it was just too much for all of them. I think I think as an adult, I've learned to forgive them for their shortcomings. I mean, they're just people, you know. And uh uh, but yeah, he I I I I still I'd be lying if I'd said that I didn't I don't resent him, but I'm sad that I never got to know him. You know, I I was able to be there uh on his deathbed when he passed, and that was great. I got to say goodbye to him. And um you know, that was actually the we just celebrated the celebrated, we just honored the 28th uh anniversary of his death, was Memorial Day. He passed on Memorial Day. And so I was grateful to be in a place that I love up in the mountains, and my sisters and I exchanged uh, you know, some nice texts with each other about like favorite memories of him. And um, but yeah, as an adult, I never got to know him. He, you know, he passed away when I was 30, right around the time I got married. Yeah, so he didn't get to know that I became a father. He didn't get to he became a grandfather successfully before he passed, but he also didn't take care of himself and and he isolated himself from the rest of the family. So um I'm just grateful that I I'm not him, and I'm grateful that there are parts of me that are him because I remember when he passed, uh hundreds of people showed up at his memorial, uh people that I'd never met, and some people that I had met. And, you know, they they I think at the time I was pretty bitter. They would all say things like, God, your dad was such a funny man and so loving, and um, I'm so grateful to know him. And I would be like, Yeah, I wish I did, you know. And um Yeah, I think every kid has to go through something like that, and I think it shapes who we are as adults. And now that I teach kids, like it's uh it's a an experience that I guess I'm grateful for in some ways. Yeah. So uh from Washington, D.C., you wound up at San Diego State. What was that journey like from the East Coast to the West Coast? Yeah. How did you choose San Diego? So I I I went to high school at one of the top high schools in the country, top public high schools in the country. Not that I understood what that meant at the time. You know, I think my parents worked pretty hard to put us in a neighborhood where I could go to a really excellent school. And boy, did I make the most of it. I was there for almost five years. I uh I didn't graduate in four years. I I I think I was pretty well entrenched in alcoholism when I was about 16 or 17, and I was drinking three nights a week in high school. Wow. Okay, and uh, and that was with a group of people that were the same as me, and we all, you know, had a lot of consequences from that. I was on a first name basis with Officer Greg Ballard of the Bethesda Police Department. Yeah, he's got it. This this guy knew where I lived, and he would call our house and be like, you know, I know what's going on this weekend, and I don't want to see you there, that kind of thing. And um he was trying to look out for you as well. I think so. You know, I didn't at the time, I just saw him as a threat. And of course, um, you know, he's the guy that made me mow the grass in the public parks with a push mower in the summer. That was my I spent my summers doing community service. Woof. You know, again, but it's like there's a lot of entitlement in that. I was lucky that I grew up in such a like uh sort of an enclave that had like um an understanding that kids get wild and um there were like avenues to help me get, you know, sort of put back and on the right path. And yeah, I mean, school has always been a challenge for me. I think before I even got to high school, I I ended up in a correctional school right out of elementary school. I at the time, at the time that my parents were going through a divorce, I was acting out and um you know, I didn't know what to do with all of the anger and the pain that I was feeling. And um, they sent me to a school that quite literally had a rubber room, like uh like a place where they would they would sort of if kids couldn't calm down, they would put them in this room. Oh my gosh. I met a guy though, I met a teacher, Dr. Moore, um George Moore, who I feel ashamed that I haven't looked up in a very long time. He's probably not with us still, but that man gave me a sense of self-worth and and something that my parents couldn't do. And uh I think when I left that school, I understood that I was working on myself. I wasn't, you know, it's sort of taking classes in a performative sense that because it was what was expected of me. I was I was doing school because it was the, you know, it was a stepping stone to something greater. And um I returned to the public high schools after spending a couple of years at this other school, and um, it was called Mark Twain was the name of the school. And um, when I arrived at the other high school, I found out that the the the kids they nicknamed us uh 20acks, which was you know sort of not endearing. And but as as a kind of a a rough and tumble teen, I used it to my advantage. I was like, you're damn right, I'm a twiniac. You don't want to push your luck with me. Whoa, good for you. Yeah, I'm out of my mom, I'm a twentyac. Yeah. And that was in Bethesda, Maryland. That was Bethesda. The school was in, I think the school was in maybe in Rockville or Gatorsburg, because I remember having to take a bus to get there, and it was quite a trip. It sounds familiar. I went to school in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia in like Centerville, uh so that all sounds Mark Twain sounds very familiar to me. I didn't know the Twainiacs, though. I feel like that would have really stuck with me. Yeah. And I mean, again, it's like I I think a lot of the kids that are in that circumstance that I was in would have ended up in Ju V, you know, but I ended up in a school that gave me another chance. Right. And uh and that was amazing. And you know, as an as an adult, again, I think it's really shaped me when I'm working with kids, you know, when I'm I I can look at their predicament and think to myself, I I think I've been there before. I think, you know, uh I know that it's different for them, the kids today, um, but there are still some elements that are common and um for sure. Yeah. Something relatable. Yeah. I went to a football game recently, well, a lot of football games, but a high school football game, and I would just walk around because sitting watching football is not my bag. And um I would just hear the conversations and see the kids. They were dressed just like we were, and they were talking about the stuff we always talked about. Like it was all the same. So I was like, the phones, yes, way different. Adds a new element of stress and communication that we didn't have, but you know, it's all still really the same. The nerve, the nervousness, like the it's just wild. So it's not that different, I found. Richard, did you get pretty good grades in high school? Uh I failed algebra twice. Um I got no, I think I got one, I got one A uh in my high school career, and it was in anthropology, and it's because I absolutely love the teacher. That's incredible. Okay, that makes the world of difference, is the teacher. Yeah, and I I I graduated and I wanted to study anthropology. I just was like, he's the coolest. I think his name was Carrie Carrie Wilson. I'd have to go back and look it up. I mean, the fact that my high school offered a class in anthropology, it was just that's cool. That's really awesome. You know, one of my old friends reminded me that I did pretty well in English arts. Like I was she said I was writing poetry. I don't think I was writing poetry. I don't, that doesn't that doesn't sound like me. That's pretty far from my experience, but if that's how she remembers it, I'm not sure. Um I was not a great science student, which I think is fascinating. You know, was not, I didn't consider myself a scientist because I couldn't do I I was found math really challenging. Same here. Yeah, but yeah, no, I did not get good grades. They they held me back a year. And in that second year, they graduated me halfway through the year. Uh the principal, I remember sort of famously telling me, like, I'm gonna graduate you now. You can walk in the spring with your sister if that's what you want to do, because my younger sister is a year behind me. I know that humiliated her. And I for you know, to this day still, you know, feel uh a little bit of shame. Um you know, I think we're we're grown adults now, but um, yeah, that was not I I feel I felt for her, you know. I I didn't at the time, but I do now. Um but yeah, he was like, just don't ever come back. It was really that kind of a conversation. Like I never want to see you again. Yeah. And um, so we pulled we pulled uh some senior pranks and I spent some time with Officer Ballard, and then and then I was gone. I um I I went to um University of Maryland briefly um and didn't do very well, was not going to classes, just it was not working out. And after that first year, a a close friend of mine, uh, I mean, it was it was a combination of things. My mother was like, you know, you're just you're you're partying and I know what you're doing, and you're I know you're not doing well at school. I'm gonna ask you to start paying rent. And uh right that same week, a friend of mine was like, hey, I'm I'm gonna drive to Los Angeles this summer and hang out with my father who lives in Venice. And I'm like, I want to see California. If I'm gonna pay rent, I think I'll pay rent out there. Um, and that ended up in a cross-country trip uh in an old, really old Toyota Jeep type thing that was, I can't believe it made it. And we got there, and I I yeah, I remember driving into the Los Angeles basin, I think it was 1988, and it was uh sort of August, and we're coming down from the mountains that are sort of like you know on the outskirts of the Los Angeles basin, and and you could not see LA. It was just a blanket of smog. Oh yeah, all the way to the coastline, and and that was 1988, and I remember thinking, what what am I doing? This is this, yeah, I I can't now I'm here. What am I gonna do? Like, this is insane. Um I lived in Venice Beach for like about six months and then visit started visiting people that I knew up and down the coast. I ended up in Dana Point for a little while, and that was just a beautiful place in the late 80s, like just so beautiful and not as developed as it is now. And um and then eventually made my way down to San Diego and started to look for a place to live and walked into an apartment. Um, and this has been a very common theme in my life that I just have, for better or worse, I guess, gone with it. The flow and um I walked into an apartment that a bunch of UC students were looking for a housemate, and one of them was my best friend from middle school. And uh yeah, he was attending UC San Diego, and I hadn't talked to him in a couple of years, a few years. I didn't know that he was there. That's so crazy. Yeah, I walked into this place and I'm like, I think I found where I'm gonna live for a little while. Awesome. Yeah, so I moved in and uh he's he's somebody that's this uh he's his name is Jeremy and and he's been at probably the most important times in my life has always been there. Wow, I love that how cool that's incredible. Seriously, West Coast, East Coast, West Coast, like what? Yeah, you know, I as as a recovering alcoholic, I have a sense that I can be very self-centered. And um, I have these moments when I think about like how much the universe has taken care of me. Uh, and and he's one of those people that's part of that pantheon of people that has always been there. And uh, you know, at that time he, you know, he was such a positive influence. I was working for a sports shop and he's like, is that what you want to do? You want to like, you know, be making $20, $20,000 or $15,000 a year for the rest of your life? And answering to people like at a retail environment, I have a deep um respect for people that do that work. And um, you know, because people are not nice to people often um in that in that circumstance. And I don't understand why um, having been on both sides of it a lot. And um, but yeah, he talked to me into going back to school, and I did. I I went to the community college down there, and I got a few of my general ed requirements out of the way, and then I went back to San Diego State and got a degree in biology. And um yeah, it was incredible. I I met a bunch of bio nerds that I fell in love with, all these people, and um one of them was uh a principal investigator on a project that that nobody was really talking about. He was studying climate change, and this is 1989, 1990 now. And uh yeah, he's he's he's getting all this money from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. And he's like, I need people to go to the Arctic and uh um, you know, can because uh he's running all these projects up there to because it's such a sensitive ecosystem that's only awake for four months out of the year, and so it's a really ideal place to be doing science, especially ecological science and climate change and and you know, earth systems. And uh I got hooked up with that, and next thing I know, I'm on a plane to the Arctic. What? And so yeah, it was it was incredible. It's such a you know, to spend three and a half months, four months with the same three people who does something for you 24 hours a day, yeah. Yeah, and there's and there's and I mean there's nobody else. It's like when we were up there, there were the people that worked on the oil fields that we would see every third week because we would be on the oil fields, but the rest of the time we were just out on the tundra. Okay, and uh living out of tents in places called like Happy Valley and Tulik Lake. And um how close? Oh, how close to the North Pole? Yeah, yeah. Um close enough that compasses get weird. Yeah, it's we're well above tree line. So tree line is just north of Fairbanks. So as you're driving sort of north up the state of Alaska, about halfway through you get to Fairbanks. And just north of Fairbanks, um, well, there's only one road that goes all the way to the north coast, and it's called the Hall Road. And uh, because it's just trucks hauling stuff back and forth between the oil fields and Fairbanks. Um, but the tree line is about 100 miles north of Fairbanks, and then a couple hundred miles north, and and that is above the Arctic Circle at that point. The Arctic Circle is is kind of the southernmost border of the you know, the Arctic region as it circumnavigates the globe. And um, yeah, so we're up there, we're on the coast, and when you're on the coast, you're on the ice pack when we get there. So it's it's winter when we arrive in May, it's summer in like June, July, and then it's fall in August, and then it's winter again in like late September. And so you go through all four seasons in a period of like four and a half months. And and that's why we do it, because you know that's a it's a really um well-isolated growing season, so it made perfect sense for the science that we were doing. Yeah. Go ahead, Courtney. Were you gonna say how old were you at this point? Yeah, uh, so I think I was what, 23? Maybe 22. What an experience. Yeah, so like in in the four years since I graduated high school a little bit late, um, I'd gone back to school and gotten a job, you know, working in the biology department as an undergraduate. Um and then I I went on after I graduated to continue working for the school for San Diego State, which was super fun. So um you were studying, you were in the Arctic studying biology and ecology. Is that the path you wanted to take? I'm curious, like, how did you go from that to running product at Napster? And when how old were you then? Again, um wow, I yeah, it's hard to explain. Um just walk us through, like, I'm sure it was over the course of a decade or so, but yeah, no, I mean you could show us yeah. I've often wanted to sit down and draw the timeline. Like it doesn't, it does not follow a linear path. It's more chaos and fractals and um but that's yeah, so I was very happy doing what I was doing. But again, like, you know, I started master's work and I got published and it was great. Like I was starting a career in science, and as a research assistant in the Arctic working for postdocs, again, I was confronted with the idea that like I'm I'm gonna make you know $30,000 a year for the rest of my time unless I become a PhD and I start teaching, or it's not like a sexy science, it's not like medicine. It's not like I mean, this is at a time when nobody was talking about climate change. It was not like um people were like, Yeah, that's that weird theory that like somehow we're screwing up the environment. Like, you know, what a strange idea. Theory. I love it. Yeah. So I mean, what? But that is it's crazy that you were doing it during a time where like nobody, like it wasn't like climate change was not something that was constantly everywhere, like why. Yeah, and I mean that's also like a thing that I I I think about often. Like I teach kids about sustainability and and climate systems, and they are so fatigued from all of the doom saying and all of the doom and gloom. And and it's not fair, it's not a reasonable way to be treating the next generation. It's it's people, I think we have to do a better job of like finding the hope and and understanding where we are making progress because we are making progress and in the right places, the right ways. And I know that we will continue to do that. And um, but yeah, how did I how did I get to technology is a kind of a crazy road. So part of my job at at what was called the Global Change Research Group, the GCRG, that was the organization that that uh we had set up at San Diego State to do all of our work. One of the things that I was tasked with, because I was a bit of a computer nerd, was uh developing the software that we used to crunch all of the data that we were collecting because these are massive data sets and there were not like off-the-shelf software products that we could use to do the types of data manipulations that we were doing. So I worked with a couple of software developers at Moscow State University remotely, and and I became kind of a de facto product manager while I was doing my own research work um managing this software life cycle for our own sort of data analysis software package. And I not how I looked at that experience at the time. I just looked at it as a necessary evil. This is the thing that I have to do for the research group because I have some domain experience here. But then I went to San Francisco um to visit a woman that I had been dating for the previous two years. She was moving to San Francisco. It was one of her life dreams. And um I think I was pretty deeply in love with her. And uh so I was like, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go up there and visit at least, you know, I'll spend a few weeks up there and see what San Francisco is like. And I was up here for um, I think it was about two weeks in, and we went to like a a party at somebody's house, and I met this guy, and he was like, you know, I was explaining to him what my job is and what I do on the day-to-day, and he was like, You gotta come and work with us at this company that we're starting. And that company was uh a tech company called CNET, and um, so it's it's now it's it's 1994, I think it was, and uh it was a rooftop party in North Beach. It was like a beautiful night, and we were we were drunk, and um yeah, it was a really beautiful time. It was it was it was cool, and um so I was like, I I don't know what to do. Like I think I'll I think I'll try this out. And I called my principal investigator and I was like, I I can't be there this year. Um I'm trying to remember what time of year it was, and he was like, I'm warning you, not in a bad way. He's like, but you know, if you take a job with a tech company up there, you're never gonna come back to academia. You're just it's it's kind of like just just to understand that at the time I think I was like, okay, great. Yeah, right. I was like, I I'd I'd love to make some money. That doesn't sound too bad. You know, I had never, I think at that point, like, you know, I had not really ever made any money. Like, and it's my family's not particularly wealthy. Uh, we weren't poor either. Um, I think we were largely supported by my grandparents and their success. Um, but within a year I was making more than both of my parents combined. And that was that was a big change for me. Yeah. Um huge change for anyone. Yeah, right. Yeah. And um, you know, because the skills that I had were pretty unique. And um, at the time they were very unique. And uh, and that I think I was with CNET for five years in total, so it almost to 2000. And we launched a few companies in that period. I learned uh, I sort of got my um what what my manager would call the my MBA on the street. You know, I sort of got my my master's in business from doing the work. Right. Um and that that put me in a place to go and actually raise money and start a company with some people that I had met. And that that next company was my play, that was the digital music locker, which was sort of like a cloud-based iTunes, you know, and it was it was a great idea. And and uh the guys that had come up with that idea, um, Doug and David, uh, they were smart guys. You know, one of them came from Apple, had worked on the iPod. Um, remember at this time, the iPod had not launched yet at this time in 1999. There wasn't an iPhone, there wasn't an iPod. Right, right. Um, but digital music was still coming. It was like people had computers and people were starting to hack devices. I remember a guy brought into our office um like a hard disk that plugged into a car stereo, basically. So it was like digital music in your car. And uh this is like 99, 2000. So this guy was way ahead of the curve. Yes. Um, and and as it turns out, our business was way ahead of the curve, you know, because we had a woman, Hilary Rosen, who was then the head of the RIAA, was kind of an advisor to our company. And she was promising us from the start, you guys will get licensed. You guys will get licensed. We promise. The record industry loves your model, it's the right one for digital music. We, you know, we're gonna license you. And we had we had artists on our board. Chuck D was a board member um from Public Enemy. And we had we had like some hitters, we had put something together that was meaningful, and the RAAA kind of intentionally kept us at arm's length until we ran out of money. And and that was awful because you know, we had employed a hundred people at that point, and we had invested, I don't know, 40, 50 million dollars in what we were doing, and it ended up not really being anything. I remember sadly Yahoo offering us a fair amount of money for what the company was at the time. And I don't understand their reasons to this day, but Doug and David turned them down, and I think that may have been a mistake to be generous. And um, you know, so I I think I was one of the last people to get paid at that company, which I'm not particularly proud of, but um, but that's just the way it happened. And um, and at that time I was, you know, I had made inroads, I knew a bunch of people in Venture Capital, and a guy that I knew named um Hank Barry, who was at a um uh pretty well known at the time venture capital firm, Hummer Windblad, had contacted me and said, What's going on at my play? And I'm like, We're we're shuttering it. We're gonna, we're mothballing the project, you know, we're we're out of money and we're not getting a license. And he was like, Do you want to fight back? And I was like, Well, what do you mean? And he's like, I I need I need some grown-ups to come and run Napster because Napster was just beginning. Oh, okay. And uh he was like the the oldest person at Napster at that time, I think was 24 years old or 25 years old. And this was this was right around the time that that Sean, who was the founder, Sean Fanning, had brought down Stanford and I think MIT's networks with his product with the Napster application, their entire networks had crashed. And so that was becoming a news story. Like, what is Napster? Like, what is this thing all about? And um, so I came and met with Sean and and a few other people and joined the company. Um, and it was that was another just I'm going with the flow, like this is where the universe wants me to go. So I'm gonna and I mean there was an aspect of like I'm gonna get paid to work on music, and music is something that I've always loved, and and deeply, you know, music is is like my therapy and meditation, and like it is, I think for many people, and it's also a universal language. I don't think that I can hear music from any culture around the world and fall in love with it just as fast as anybody else can, and and I think that that's a pretty magical property of music is as an art form. And so to work on it was a great privilege, and and I took it that way. I was very serious about it. I think a lot of the guys at Napster, they they were very proud of the fact that they were pirates, that they were, you know, they were flying the pirate flag, and it was absolutely I don't think I'm trying to uh be mindful of my language, but they were like, you know, after record industry, you know, they were like, and at the time I was like, yeah, I was like, fuck them, because I just you know went through five years of trying to play fair with them and they just shot us down. So I'm happy to join that, but at the same time, I don't wanna, you know, we we were building leverage for a negotiation to find some compromise, to find some common ground where we can launch a business. And sadly, we were, you know, like uh I love people, yeah, I don't know what the analogy is, but when you're the first over the hill, you end up with all the arrows in your back. And yeah, Napster kind of did that, and Steve Jobs capitalized on it. You know, he scored a record deal with the industry. He was the first to do it, um, you know, because Napster, they they were they basically sued us out of existence. Um they they wanted billions of dollars and uh damages, maybe even hundreds of billions of dollars in damages um for just a brief time that we were up and running. Um, and we we offered them licenses that had like upfront payments. Um, I think one of the one of the deals that we put on the table, yeah, I think it had like four billion dollars and upfront payments. It was like, we will guarantee you revenue of four billion dollars for like the next two years, something along those lines. And the record industry was like, no, we're gonna keep the leverage that we got and sue you out of existence for copyright infringement. Which is is short-sighted in an industry that's well known for short-sightedness, by the way. Like I think that the technology completely surprised them, absolutely destroyed the level playing field that they had manufactured. It was not truly a reasonable playing field for any artist. Um and I'm I'm super proud of the role that I played, albeit small, um, and and impacting that and getting it so that we could have digital music on our phones. You know, it's it makes a lot of sense from a consumer standpoint. And um yeah, it was great. I was I was I was flying high. It was fun. I could have any job I wanted after that. I was I was interviewed for um a position to run the Apple store worldwide. Um but I didn't want to make the commute. I was like, I didn't I didn't want to make the commute. So just like me. This this is this gets worse. Um a lot of the people that worked for me um went to work for Facebook, this tiny little company that had like 15 employees. And a friend of mine, John, called me up and said, Hey, I just passed on a position with this little company, Facebook. I know they would be interested in talking to you. Do you want to talk to them? And I'm like, where are they located? These are they're in there in Mountain View and in um Palo Alto. And I'm like, I don't live in Palo Alto. I'm not right, I'm not making that commute. Like I'm not interested. No, yeah, thanks. Um that's a life waster, no way. I think that's very smart. You know, the guys that that used to work for me at Napster, one of them lives in like a $30 million house, um, you know, in Pacific Heights. And but that's not again, you know, that's not what the universe has in store for me. You know, if I if I was meant to be a wash in money, then I'd be a wash in money. And I'm I'm very and this is not to say that that's like um it sounds like um, I guess, I don't know, resentment or bittersweet, but I love my life right now. My life is perfect. Um and and I worked to get here and I wouldn't have it any other way. Wow, that's beautiful. Seriously. I just love that you were like, I'm not commuting because I've spent four hours total in in a commute at one point in my life. And it's hard on the soul. And I was also dealing with addiction at that time too. So I was like, How am I not going to get right up while I'm driving? Like, how could I not? So, Richard, were you drinking throughout all this as well? Oh yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, uh I you know it's interesting. I don't know how to describe this. Like, I was not like I was not like a falling down drunk like the way I was in high school. You function. Um yeah, I mean I people use the term high functioning alcoholic, and I I think that is a ridiculous term because um yeah, you know, like uh alcoholism is an anchor that we like attach to our soul. And um God, that's a it is not like you can't be high functioning when you're dragging this anchor around, you know. It just means that you're handicapped. Your handicap is your alcoholism, and um nobody chooses to be an alcoholic. I don't mean it in that sense that like people, it's not a moral failing. I at this point in my life, I I saw that my father was definitely an alcoholic. He didn't choose to be. Um, it's more like an illness that he had. And um it's it's I've learned that it's there's the physical, there's the what they call the tissue um, you know, addiction, which is like I needed alcohol every week, and and I was uh drinking probably two or three nights out of every week. Sometimes I would get falling down drunk. Um I would do what's called an Irish exit from most of. Dinner parties that I went to, right? Like I would disappear so I could go drink alone. Um or I would pass out on the sofa famously. I would be the my ex-wife, like, you know, I I will be making amends to her for the rest of my life for all the you know nutty things that I did when I was married to her. And um and my kids too. Like, you know, I I did things that are awful, like shameful things that that I will now spend the rest of my life trying to live down. And and I am grateful for the opportunity to do that, um, so that I can show them that there's another way and the off chance that this happens to them. Um, but yeah, it it was it it was not like I was falling down drunk. I certainly was making plenty of money. We bought a home in San Francisco on the surface. Everything's great. Yeah. Everything's great. Richard's fine, you know. Um, but I don't think I was ever as unhappy as I was when I was bouncing from tech company to tech company, getting like ever higher on the corporate ladder. Um, I was getting emptier and emptier and emptier. And um, and it was like it was a race to the bottom for most of these tech companies. It was how quick can we get our product to market? It doesn't matter if our product had any meaning at all, like in any context. Is it useful for anybody? It doesn't matter. Is there a market for it? Get it out there, get it as big as possible, and take your company public and everybody gets wealthy, and then go on and do it again. Yeah. And interesting, that's what the game was like for a decade there in the early knots, the late 90s, not so much in the late 90s. It was a slow turning, I think. Things, you know, I think there was a lot of people, the people that I started technology with in the 90s at CNET, I think that we very much believed that what we were building could change the world. You know, like I think I remember thinking to myself, like, never before in the history of the world has there been a time when I could type something into a computer window and somebody could see it all the way around the globe, and a second later, you know, like that was I knew that that could change the world in many different ways, whether it's just the sharing of information or the sharing of culture or entertainment or you know, in medicine, it like in so many different ways. And I'm very glad that I got to be a part of that too, because we did, we did change the world. And and then a bunch of people got rich doing it. And and that's gonna happen. That's we live in a capitalistic society, and I think capitalism's broken and um and there's a lot of evidence, like the wealth inequity. There's just tons of evidence that capitalism is not working right now. And uh, so to be a part of something that could generate that much wealth was was great, but it's also a double-edged sword. Um, I'm hoping that some at some point before I die that this will equalize and that we'll start to see things get spread more evenly across the world, you know. I think the world that we live in right now is kind of sad in some ways. Like the wealth of this nation being pulled back from USAID, hundreds of thousands of people around the world will die because we're unwilling to share the wealth that we have in this country. And that makes me profoundly sad. Um, but I've gotten off track, right? So like I I was I was losing my soul. I was really profoundly sad. And um I think I I think for me, it really where things went off the rails for me. Uh, I had an accident uh snowboarding again, like total privilege. I shattered my tailbone, which hurts like hell. And I was in the ER up in Tahoe, and they shot me up with almost a full dose of morphine. And I met my maker, like in that moment. I I met my maker, and and I knew that that's the way I wanted to feel for the rest of my days. Like I I wanted to feel the way I felt when they shot me up with morphine, and um, that led to a really severe pill addiction, and um I almost lost everything. I almost lost everything. And and yeah, I've been given a second chance, and not everybody gets that. Wow. So was that the time were you addicted to pills kind of around the same time you walked away from tech? Did that all kind of happen at the same time? Yeah, so I I um that was the sort of inflection point. Okay. Uh I went to a rehab facility here in San Francisco and got clean. And um back in April of this year, April 13th, I celebrated 13 years clean and sober. And that was yeah, it's it's um in this era, it's really it's uh having an addiction is almost like a death sentence because of fentanyl. And um, yeah, I'm I'm super grateful. Yeah, and so I I had been working in tech companies, and I think at that point I had burned some bridges. Like I was, you know, the last company that I worked for was uh sort of a Facebook marketing company, and um they were doing good work and they were good people, and I was I was just a drag on the operation because I was nodding off at my desk. I was not there, I was not present. And um, and it's a shame because um, you know, they had made an investment in me and uh I didn't I didn't follow through. And I I realized at that point I needed to do something that you know really sort of gave me a sense of satisfaction that isn't about the rat race that was around me. And uh again, going with the flow. Um, I had mothballed a company. I was, I was, it was in my first, it was in my second year of sobriety. I had been doing really just contracting type work with smaller tech companies, um, helping them lay plans to go to market and things like this. I was at a picnic with a woman that I was dating at the time. Her son was getting ready to go to high school here in San Francisco, and I bumped into the principal and just started to chat with him. And he says, I would give my left leg to have somebody teach biology to these kids in the fall because I just had a teacher walk out on me. And I was like, I was like, ooh, I was like, I I wonder if that's me. I wonder if if I can if I could be a high school teacher, you know, which is just a ridiculous idea, thinking about how I was in high school. And um, and my PI, you know, like my PI was like, you'll never come back to academia. And there was this like this tiny little opening, and I was like, well, what have I got to lose? Like I've got nothing to lose, literally. Yeah. Um, so why don't I just give this a shot? Because I wasn't I didn't want to go and sign a new contract with anybody else. I was like, I needed to find something else to do to to sort of make me, you know, start making myself whole again. And um it found you. Yeah. Yeah. But you struggled right before you found that teaching job, is that right? No, well, I mean, like during COVID, like that was rough. Like I um, so I I went back to work. Uh well, I went to work for the same San Francisco Unified School District, and nobody gets rich teaching, right? So I was living in part off of savings. I was living at like this kind of standard and I was making like this kind of income. Yeah, no, you know, because I'd been in tech for so long. I'm like driving a nice car and I'm renting the big house and I'm taking my kids on these nice trips and uh supporting all that. And I dug a pretty deep hole. And uh in my third year of teaching, COVID hit. Like I started teaching in 2016, 2015, 16, yeah. So then 2019 comes and it's like the school district shuts down, and they're like, we can't place you in another school unless you get so I don't have a master's in education. I'm not legally, I'm not allowed to teach in the state of California, um, which is a deep irony. I mean, well, in in a public school setting, uh in a public school, I ended up um having to file bankruptcy, actually. Like um I was having trouble paying my rent. I uh uh, you know, coming all the way back around to where we were at the beginning, I I uh I ended up um sending my kids to live full-time with their mother. Um, we had been 50-50 up until that time. And I moved in with my friend Jeremy because I was going to move into my car. Um and I called him and asked him, yes. Yeah, I asked him if I could store some things in his garage. And he said, Yeah, of course. Um, why? What's going on? And I said, Well, I gotta move into my car for a little while, like, because I haven't been able to find work. And I owe my landlord a ton of rent, and I can't keep digging this hole, and I'm gonna file bankruptcy. And um, yeah, that sucked. That really, that was awful. Um and I think that that, you know, at this point, I'm what I'm like five years sober, four years sober. That's what's crazy. You're sober and you have to go through that. Yeah. I mean, it's like a lot of people talk about how the consequences of their life hit when they're first getting sober. You know, it's like everything catches up with you. And there was a lifetime for me, I think. And it's not like this was directly related to my drinking and using, but like, um, yeah, it was it was not an easy time. It was, you know, I I went and I worked at REI in Berkeley for a couple of months. I drove an Uber for a little while. You know, I I just I I thank my sister for helping me find the strength to just do whatever I needed to do to keep going. You know, she said to me, I said I felt like I'm failing my kids. You know what she said? Uh no, you're doing what it takes. You're showing them that you're doing what it takes. Yeah, I mean, I've gone from being like um you know an executive at a tech company to driving an Uber, it's a pretty it's a pretty precipitous fall. Um And you stayed sober. And I stayed sober. Unbelievable. That's power. Yeah, and it's not it's it's not me, it's people have taught me. You know, I I think I've I've heard people say that like the cure for addiction is connection. And um I think that's true. I know it's true for me that like if I withdraw, that's a dangerous place for me. Um that I have to stay connected. And uh and you know, I think that that, you know, God or the universe or whatever people want to call it, like it wasn't my doing, you know, uh brought me back to teaching pretty quick. Like I I I found a position at an independent school that paid very well um to teach computer science. And I took that job, and that job led to the job that I have now, which is uh I've been teaching for the same school for five years. Um going into my sixth year, and it's exactly where I'm supposed to be. That's just it's full circle, and you came back around and now you are for other students what you got, you know, those moments with the anthropology teacher and holy smokes, I got goosebumps, like and you have wouldn't you say the best job of your entire life right now? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think that um, you know, I'll say that to my kids and they think I'm just being coy, you know, or like that I'm just playing a game, but no, this is this is where I'm supposed to be. I feel it's such a buzz for me when the kids tell me that, oh God, you made me curious, like for the first time in my life, like about, you know, something or thank you for help. I got a note from a kid just the other day, a student that I just taught, and she wrote to me that um, like a little thank you card that, you know, not a big deal, but she wrote, like, you made me feel comfortable enough to speak up in class, and I've never been able to do that. And I wanted to thank you for helping me get there. Oh my God. Wow. Wow. What wolf? I wish I was smart enough at that age to write a letter like that. No, it's powerful. Yeah, I I'm like, it's they're little adults and I treat them that way, and I think they appreciate that. Like they I because I was no, I was no dummy when I was their age. Like I knew exactly what I was doing. Yeah, I didn't have the wits to make good choices, and neither do they, but but I knew what was going on. I knew what was going on and and I understood things. And I think often we confuse those things. Like the fact that they can't make good choices does not mean that they don't understand how the world works. Right. Right, right. It's just so hard when you're that it's so hard being a kid, and and your brain pulls you in so many different directions. Like, you know, I I was I was reflecting with my mom uh about like how she'd ask me just to put my dish in the dishwasher. And for some reason, I'd be like, of course, why wouldn't I? And then I never would. It's because your little brain is my brain was like you know, feelings, feelings, feelings, and it's just so hard. Yeah, I'm so glad I'm not a kid anymore. I much prefer being an adult because it's hard, it's confusing, and just that you know, you give space, you gave space for that for that particular student to be brave enough to speak up and to be heard, and you know, that's just huge. Like Yeah, well it's it's the job and it's it's easy. Like it's not a difficult job. It's just like um I think it's just a choice to be present and to do the right thing, you know, like to not get caught up in my own petty shit, you know, like let go of those things and and make myself available to these kids because they they are the thing that helps me go to the next day and and wake up the next day thinking that there's something exciting is gonna happen. Like and it's not always like I've had plenty of ups and downs. Like I, you know, I think in 2013 I got hit by a car on my motorcycle and I spent some time in the hospital and like that was no fun. Like last summer I had both hips replaced, two two surgeries back to back. Like, but I mean this this year this year, this year I got to hike to um almost 12,000 feet with these kids like just two weeks ago, and and that was super fun. And um oh my god. You're gonna be like, and I don't have legs anymore, you know. I gave my legs away. I'm actually missing, you know. Well, that was that was my fun uh question. So I'll start class some days with um it's funny that you say that. I'll start class some days uh with like, you know, at the beginning of the year, it was like, so what was the highlight of your summer? And and they would all say, you know, I went to I did this, like we went to Yosemite or we went to Yellowstone or like a lot of fun stuff. And I said, I I had both of my legs cut off. And they're like, no. And I'm like, yeah, actually I did. It's hard to have real legs. I freaking did, yeah. Yeah, kids. Well, I got in a I got hit by a car on my motorcycle. Yeah. How about that? Oh wow. Richard, do you have anything else you want to share with us? I'm ready. You are the most interesting person. No, I'm personally. No, I am I am the benefactor of meeting the most interesting people in the world. That's what's happened. Oh, okay. So to go with the flow instead of fight against the Yeah. I I don't know what to say. Um just thank you. Like it's been fun talking about this. I I try not to sit and think about myself all the time because I don't think that that's a safe space often. No, um, it's much healthier and easier for me to to want to hear from others and hear what's going on with them. Absolutely. That's really been helpful. We have one more question to ask you. Yes. Two, actually. We have two questions. This just really quick. I'm just coming up with this one now. What's your favorite band? If you could see any of the your favorite band, like what's your favorite band? That's interesting. Uh, you gotta, you gotta pick one. Well, if you I don't think that this is what you guys I the kids like to say, oh yeah, Mr. Alt's the most chill teacher I've ever met. You're totally chill. Jeremy and I um are both uh Jeremy, my friend Jeremy Bergman, who, like you know, my oldest friend in the world, um he and I are both huge uh super fans of the man Tool, which is this like grinding metal Oh, I know Tool, yeah. Hell yeah. Just singing about like crazy things, like really stuff I don't want to talk about with other people. But I would love to, I think they're astonishing musicians. And they are. I mean, this is also something I shared with um my department chair uh at the school where I teach, and she passed away this year, sadly. Um, that she was also a huge like tool fan, and she and I would sit in the office and listen to it until very cool. I knew it was our report cards. Oh, that's we would listen to Tool Super Loud, ready report card reflections. Again, most interesting man on the earth. I knew it was, I was like, I'm gonna ask him because I know it's gonna be like he's not gonna be like, you know, Led Zeppelin. No, it's freaking Tool, folks. Well, I think like um I the um both of my parents love music, like they were kids of the 60s, you know, and the 50s. And so rock and roll came in. They we listened to everything when I was a kid growing up, and the students are like, What's your favorite band? And I'm like, or what's your favorite kind of music? And I'm like, good music, like any kind of music. Absolutely. Like I don't care if it's yeah, as long as it's good music, I'm down. Like, let's hear it. Right? Oh, gosh, that is so cool. Um, so the question that and I've been wanting to ask you that from Erland, and I was trying, I'm like, I bet you, I bet it's gonna be something not expected, and I love it. Um what is one of the kindest things anyone's ever done for you? Doesn't have to be the most, but something whatever pops into your mind right now. Yeah, I mean, listening to myself talk today, I the I think the the kindest thing that anybody's ever done for me is to love somebody that maybe doesn't seem lovable. You know, like uh the the first man that I worked with in AA like taught me, give me a new blueprint on like how to live, like a new way to live. And then he he didn't do that out of spite or like necessity. You know, he did it because he he was there and and he could see that anybody's like worth a little bit of love and can be saved and um and you know, my sisters and you know, all the stuff that I put people through. Yeah, I'm grateful that they could that that I'm I've I'm coming out, I'm coming out on the other side. Um you know, I'll never be there, I'll never I'll be all the way there, but I'll just keep pushing through. Absolutely. Wow. And I wanted to tell you, Richard, I'm also friends with Bill, and I am celebrating, I'm in my 13th year as well. So twinsies! Yeah, we should have uh I never have said twinsies before like that, so that was weird, and I apologize. I just got really excited, girl. Um, but uh I yeah, I was so moved. This has just been a delight. Oh, it was such a ride, like oh my god, and the tears and the oh and the goosebumps, and you were in the Arctic and oh okay. Um what a life. What a life, and still, and now you get to do it without a drink or a drug, you know? Yeah, and that's that's the power. And now you get to share all your experiences with kids. Kids that you're helping shape and to be these amazing adults that will hopefully be taking care of all of us one day. It's stupid and corny, but you know, that wasn't the plan. That wasn't the plan. It never is. It never is. You also got to share your story with two budacious middle-aged animal freaks. Um and apparently we need to go to the Arctic because the two of us are like, yeah, we need to focus on tour. I don't know. I don't, don't, don't overly romanticize it. There's a lot of mosquitoes and weird things happening up there. Tell me one weird thing that like sticks with you that you're like, there's something going on here. Okay, like think of like the freakiest people you've ever met. Like the like just the freakiest person you've ever met. And then think about them amplified like maybe 50 times. You're gonna meet that person in the Arctic because that's where they all go. That's where they go. They all go to live up there. Like I met this guy that worked for the Department of Fishing game. And uh he he was weird. I I was like, who I we I so we're flying around in a helicopter tracking a bear, a grizzly bear, because I got to do like this ride along with him. Oh my god. To to capture this orphan bear, to change her radio collar. And so that's this guy's job is to change radio collars on bears. And the casual conversation that we're having, I'm like, where do you live? And he's like, Oh, I I live in some unincorporated part of Fairbanks and um like he kind of lives off the land. And I'm like, and so like what do you what are some of the things that you're into? And he's like, Well, I'm really into Patricia Nixon, like um Richard Nixon's wife. This guy is a guy who's like maybe I don't know, a year older than me or something, and he was completely obsessed with Pat Nixon. And I'm like, I can't even I can't picture her in my mind, but I I also don't think she's like a supermodel or something. And like this guy was like, oh God, just to have a night with Patricia Nixon, and I'm like, that is so weird. Like it really is on the scale. It's like troubling. Like, and I'm like stuck in a helicopter with this guy, and we're about to go and trap a grizzly bear. Yeah, it was that's what I mean. Weird, like the weirdest people you've ever met your whole life are up there. That's oh my god, it's like just I imagine if you're isolated in a place without town's people, anything, and it the temperature and the light and the sky, yeah, that would do something to you. It'd probably make you crazy a little bit. Ironically, ironically, the only sane people that are up there are the natives, the indigenous peoples that have lived there for hundreds and thousands of years. The the Yanopiatin, like they they're doing it right up there, but they're not obsessed with Pat Nixon either. That's weird. I please, Emily, when you edit this, will you put up a pack picture of Pat Trisha Patricia Nixon? I will do that. Yes. I thought he was I was thinking Cynthia Nixon from Sex in the City, and I was like, huh. So yeah. Um, but she's a lovely lady too. But anyhow, that is Pat Nixon. See, that that's real. Like, I feel like there's a lot of Patricia Nixon freaks around here, but they're just not talking about it. This guy was like, Yeah, I don't know if he was maybe he was from Orange County or something. I think that's where Nixon lived at his days, but I'm not sure. It could be. Oh, okay. So wow. I like that. That's excellent. Wow. Well, Richard, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story. Oh my god, if anybody has any questions for Richard, you can always email us and we can get in touch with him. Um, our email is that wasn't the planpod at gmail.com. You can always find us on social media. But Courtney, Richard, thank you so much for today. This was a delight. Oh my gosh. Absolutely wonderful. Thank you. I know. And next time I'm in San Francisco, I'm gonna call you and we can get together. Yeah, for sure. That'd be great. I'll go to the Arctic. Spend three months in Ted. Okay, sorry. I'm gonna I'm chill. I really am, Richard. I'm like so chill. I'm like you. Chill. Yeah. I can see that. Yeah, you get it. You get it. I'm like, I'm like low-key, you know what I mean? Sobriety, sobriety affects us all differently. It's so true. I like I never really knew how to party until I got sober. Because every day is a freaking party. It's pretty, pretty magical. Woo! Well, thank you both. And um until next time, listeners, thank you for tuning in. Bye, everyone. And the okay. Thanks for listening to That Wasn't the Plan. If you found it helpful or at least mildly entertaining, a quick grading, review, and a click on the subscribe button would be lovely. And it genuinely helps us. And if a friend comes to mind, please share. Until next time. Bye.