What The Funk?

0:00 All right. All right. We are back on the what the funk podcast. This time live from digital wildcatters, world headquarters,

0:12 Houston, Texas. You know, how normally I do these, you've maybe you've seen some before, but just out of my desk or in my basement or somewhere where my kids aren't going to run in and interrupt

0:21 me during the, during the podcast. So when I get the opportunity to come down to Houston and actually use the studios, it's awesome. So really appreciate you wanting to come in here and do this.

0:32 Is this your first podcast? Absolutely. All right. Never done this before. Well, I'll take it easy on you. Absolutely. Thank

0:40 you. You're a smooth talker. I think you'll do a great job on this one. This is nape week. It's HFTC week. There's a palpable energy in and around Houston. The weather's great. This is always

0:53 like my favorite week of the year. You You know, I've been to Nate probably. 16, 17 times. My first one was in 2008. I was just a young pup. And it's one of the events that really kind of got

1:05 me bought into the oil and gas industry, which was awesome, because I could see the energy around it, met some great people, and realized there was an opportunity for technology to be deployed in

1:16 oil and gas tech, which we're going to talk about with Sigma Stream here shortly. But, Harry, I am going to hit you with the question. The hardest one first is who are you, man? Who is Harry

1:27 Cudoro? Oh,

1:30 that's a good one. Maybe I should start with what I've been trained to do. I was born and brought up in India, moved to the US in approximately 1990 and 1991,

1:44 did my bachelor's in civil engineering, both in India and then a master's here And

1:52 I believe I've always been an entrepreneur at heart and that's what I ended up doing. after working a few jobs but I would call myself a problem solver who has a problem solver well let's let's go

2:10 back a little bit tears I've I've heard of India and it's big it is huge where where in India did you grow up or what was it like because I you know I've never been we actually talked about this and I

2:20 said I want to go to India probably Carolina because I hear it's like the Hawaii of the beautiful Yes people take their carola vacations and all that but I heard huge country massive population where

2:32 did you grow up in India what was it like growing up in India I grew up in the southern part of India just north of Carolina State called their Pradesh I speak a language called Telegram growing up in

2:44 India but OK I had to take that back a little bit I I grew up my childhood was in West Bengal which is set to the east of India North east of India and then after My Dad passed we came down to the

3:02 south and and then I grew up in in the southern part of India did my schooling high schooling in the southern part did my Bachelor's in the southern part of India growing up in India Yeah it is

3:16 competition you have to be the best at everything you do is cut throat competition because there's a lot of smart people there and so you have to try to stand out you always have to be wanting but

3:32 other than that the culture is great it's very forgiving and it's a great food and of course family Yeah right so so you know one of the out here is it hot in here I think so Yeah it's definitely hot

3:48 in here rama to have them come in and turn down the heat a little bit Jacob what are we doing in here turn down the heat no seriously want me to know no I'm good

4:01 All right, I'll keep wiping. He'll cut that part out. Or maybe keep it, 'cause it's got a funny. Yeah, yeah. Yes, very competitive, very unique, probably hot. Was it hot where you grew up?

4:10 Yes, yes, and the southern part of India is quite warm. It is the northern part like delis Punjab, where it does get cold. We do have

4:21 snow there, not that I've seen snow, but I was in India the first time I've ever saw snow was when I came to the west. But I did hear people talk about forest pipes and everything that we face here

4:34 back in New Delhi as well. So yeah, it is a large country, all the way from the Himalayas into the Indian Ocean. So we have all kinds of weather. It's enormous. Yes. Did you, like, so when

4:46 you, sorry, I'm going to stay in India for a second. We'll stay geographically focused, because I'm just curious, right? It's the, I have a lot of friends from India. You know, grew up here,

4:57 don't have accents. Obviously, you still have remnants of an accent from growing up over in India. Yeah. You know, a lot of really unique individuals. I hate putting people in a bucket 'cause

5:10 they're from one place. But with such a huge country, like when you would take trips as a kid, would you leave India or most of your like vacations or family trips, were they within India itself?

5:26 Yes, depending on how affluent your family is. Yes, you would travel outside the country a little bit. When I was growing up, we were not that affluent, middle class, lower middle class. So

5:40 the best I could do was to go to Nepal, still outside the country, but barely, or Sri Lanka, which is to the south. That was all I could do, or as a kid in that family we could do. But these

5:57 days, there's a lot more money to go around and people do travel quite a bit. But that said, India is, again, such a huge country. I haven't seen all of India. There's so much of India I have

6:11 yet to see. And every time my wife and I talk about going back to India, I say, Oh, we need to go to Canada. I haven't been Kerala. Really? Yes, never So I hear great things, great vacations

6:24 that you could take in Kerala. So yeah, there's a lot to see in India before you venture out. Did

6:34 you know in the 80s and when you were growing up, before 1990 when you came to the US, did you know that you were going to come to the US? Was this sort of like a childhood dream of yours? Was it

6:43 I can make a better life for myself? Was it in your mind growing up that you were going to end up in the US? Now coming to the US was not a dream till about my undergrad. I finished on a grad,

6:57 started working in a company there, building transmission lines for the public sector undertaking. And while working there, traveling the length and breadth of the northern part of India, I

7:09 started to think, what am I doing? That's when I opened my eyes to the possibility that I should probably leave and go to the US. And also the fact that some of my friends had already gone and I

7:24 was in touch with them. I saw the possibility of me coming to this country. Till then, no, I did not have any idea of actually coming here. So when you first came, had you visited the US? No,

7:36 before you, okay, so you came here side unseen. And you've effectively been here for like 35 years since. Where did you show up? Like, where did you arrive? Did you have a job already in place

7:48 when you came to the US, talk to me about that process? Yeah, no, I came here to do my masters I landed in Florida. Uh, I had an admission in university of Florida, but for some reason I was

7:59 fixated. Go Gators. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Uh, but that's it. Uh, now, uh, go tigers, right? So I was somehow fixated on Clemson because I had a friend in Clemson. And it's all about

8:12 relationships. And, uh, so he was in Clemson and I wanted to transfer to Clemson. So I did come to university of Florida and Gainesville and then transferred over to Clemson to do my masters. Oh

8:24 So I finished my master's in civil engineering from Clemson, South Carolina. Awesome. Awesome. So, so you saw a little bit of the South, the, the Southeast, um, quite a bit of it, actually,

8:37 uh, because I did my master's in South Carolina, spent a lot of time there about four years, uh, then moved. Sorry. I'm guessing that was your question. I can't go. I want to hear it all,

8:47 Harry. Yeah. So, uh, from, uh, South Carolina, I found a job in California So, we went all the way across. That was my gig with Esri. Yeah. Yeah, so that was California, Southern

8:58 California, and here I lay. And after working there, flew back to Florida

9:05 or Lando, spent about four years there, and then got posted by a friend startup in Houston, and

9:15 that has been my home forever. And you've been to your sense. So you didn't have the oil and gas background, and which is actually kind of fascinating to me, because what Sigma Stream does, which

9:24 we'll get into a little bit later, is what I would consider pretty technical within the whole oil and gas technology ecosystem. Yes. Did you drive from when you left Clemson to LA for the Esri gig?

9:39 No, no, no. You flipped through. Yeah. 'Cause that would have been a good chance to see another 20 states or something like that. Absolutely, yes, yes. Never did that, yes, but we flew. So,

9:48 okay, coastal Yes. And so here you are, you're out in LA. is even further from India, I guess, depending on which way you fly around the world to get there. What did you think about LA? What

10:01 did you do at Esri? For people that don't know, I'm assuming like 90 of our listeners do, 'cause Esri has such a strong foothold in oil and gas. To me, it's the Maps Company. And I know that's

10:09 probably under serving all of the different things that Esri can do, but it is the GIS, the mapping company. So what did you do for Esri? Did you like it? Did that get you exposed to oil and gas?

10:23 Like talk me through the background and the learnings in LA and Esri.

10:29 Yeah, so the saying goes like this, and this is probably true about any company. Once an Esri man, always an Esri man, right? So I can spot an Esri man any day. No, no kidding. So if you have

10:44 that culture in you, you stand out like a sore thumb to anybody else who has been at Esri. By the way, back when I was working and I told you this, we asked not to call ourselves SRE. We were

10:56 always ESRR. ESRR. And ESRR stands for Environmental Systems Research Institute. Dovah. And I guess at some point after I left the company, the president of the company, Jack Dangerman, may

11:09 have thought of rebranding it because the Institute part of the name, the research institute part of the name doesn't make it sound like a business. It makes it sound like an educational institution

11:20 Absolutely. So that is probably why they wanted to lose that research institute, but they couldn't just let it go. So they turned to Esri. So Esri is the new name. They changed the logo, they

11:32 changed everything, but they couldn't lose the letters. But I was working there in the applications department. We would build applications on top of the software stack that ESRI or Esri built So I

11:47 was at ASRI during the days of Arkinfos.

11:51 and then this was all purely Unix -based systems and then Windows came in Windows came into the Enterprise and RG eyes was built by the time I'd already left the SRI but I was still a user of a yes

12:06 right so my Stint at Asbury was what got me my job at AAA when I moved to Florida to make mats for AAA so Yes and Yeah what does Israel do yeah to maps company but at the way I would put it because I

12:23 love ESRI is it spatially enables data so it takes tabular data and specially enables it like some data in oil and gas when we take data and temporarily enable it at time cities to it you especially

12:41 enable it so it's actually a fantastic combination of temporal and spatial enablement it's it's a beautiful nexus And I think in oil and gas as far as Esri goes, I've seen people do some pretty cool

12:56 stuff because you can have various different layers that you look at. So you think about a map in general and it's city here, maybe there's a road there, there's the mountains here, but there's

13:08 seven or eight different base layers that you can grab within Esri to start looking at things differently. Like, all right, I'm gonna put in a pipeline, right? I probably need to know the

13:16 elevation changes in doing so, and then I want to get this permitted with the government to actually build the pipeline. I need to show them on a map, and I'm guessing the government has people

13:25 that know Esri as well. So,

13:28 very widely accepted. So you went back across the country again, and this time to Orlando, to work for AAA, which everybody knows AAA. I think back then, AAA even had a bigger presence, 'cause

13:44 it's like you had your automobile insurance, and then you had AAA I think now like I use USA. This isn't a commercial for USA. They keep raising my prices, not happy about that. But I use USA A

13:56 and they kind of offer like a service that's basically like AAA. So then you have to start questioning, do I also need AAA on top of this? I feel like AAA was one of those things that, like when

14:07 we went on trips with my parents, they would get like maps from AAA, you know, the physical ones that you'd fold out. And then there'd also be like AAA discounts that you would get at like hotels

14:17 and restaurants and things like that Like we really relied on having this AAA membership, they probably paid5 a year for, for our travels. So this is probably like the era where AAA was really and

14:28 it's like hey day. Yes, yes, I believe if I remember my numbers right, AAA used to have, and I was working at the National Office of AAA. And I don't wanna go into the structure of AAA as an

14:40 organization, but this was the National Office in Orlando, just outside of Orlando and AAA used to have close to 44 million members. at the time it was a pretty strong lobby I believe there still

14:55 are I don't know the current membership of AAA and the maps that you're talking about they were called Triptychs Triptychs yes and so you would walk up to a AAA office and local AAA office and tell

15:08 the lady there or a guy saying I want to go from point a to point B and they would go into a cubbyhole and pull all these triptychs little strips of maps and mark them up steeper and give it to you so

15:22 you can just follow them to go from point a to point B it was fantastic it was all human -driven Yup Yeah and was A and then on top of it if you're going doing a cross state drive if you're covering

15:35 states they would give you tour books yay for tour books so between the tour books and the triptychs and the human that is making them AAA decided that it was way too much money for every trip They

15:48 were charging probably30 or40 for a membership. And each time you walk up, you're probably getting12, 15 worth of service from them. Sure. So they were losing money. So they said, We need to go

15:60 online. And that's where I come in. So I used ESRI's mapping capabilities to take the data that Triple A had, which was gold. And we've spatially enabled that and put it on maps. So people could

16:13 go back in the day, there was no Google. There was no map quest. We were the first ones And we made online triptychs. So you could do your own routing from point A to point B on a computer and

16:25 print it out. And that was revolutionary. We saved a ton of money for Triple A. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. And were you like doing the actual hands-on coding or were you like managing your

16:37 development? I was developing, yes. I was developing using our GIS and similar tools and something called SDE from ESRI.

16:48 i Dunno Yeah Spatial Database engine it was it was good and we were working on Sun microsystems and and the whole deal Super Sexy Yeah but Yeah Big time data storage microsystems how to a huge

17:00 beautiful office and colorado now I'm not sure who's there now I'm pretty sure it's not sun but they had the sig signs and they had some money so you say you're at AAA right you use spatially enable

17:13 all of these maps and trip texts and things that that were physical copies which were huge value adds I remember when I first moved to Boulder colorado going into one of those AAA offices I would

17:24 guess that it's not there's probably like a sandwich shop or something like that now come show

17:30 and then one of your friends sounds like kind of startup opportunity for you yes in Houston Texas so what year are we talking about what what did you do at the start up in that and ultimately that's

17:41 what brought you here and raised her family here in Britain and you're still here Yeah Yeah two thousand IT doesn't want two thousand to his van he started this company that was selling a GIF based

17:52 routing system to waste management oh Yeah so that was a pretty huge contract that he had won and and he needed people and of course he needed people who knew G as a new networking and routing and

18:08 networking as in the algorithm networking and routing and so he brought me over he he grabbed a few of my friends are all SCS right folks and here we are building this company and doing building this

18:26 product for waste management that's How I ended up coming to Houston and into the woodlands and stayed back and never left what was Houston like Twenty Five years ago not a lot has changed it was

18:41 surprise I was surprised to see the lack of zoning it's still a little bit of startling Yes Yeah all of a sudden you see every kind of business Yeah it is a they'd take us a few years to get used to

18:59 the the feeders that was new because we had never seen them because I used to drive the

19:07 Washington DC to Orlando Corridor or even Washington DC to Clemson Corridor quite a bit like ninety or ninety five or eighty fives back when I was going to school and after that even on the

19:21 California's I Never Saw Anything like this feeder system and it got some getting used to it took some getting used to but now Houston was good the the culture was also different from moving from

19:37 California to Florida that was a culture shock sure but the moines from Florida back to Houston Definitely more welcoming ah yes the southern how hospitality it it sure is that it's very tangible it

19:53 is it is very welcoming I agree with that it's one of the things that I liked you know people sort of Forgot Rey cause you think of Texas as its own state the country country you know

20:05 the Edo zone right it it's sort of like insulated from everything else but at the end of the day this is the south that's right and there is that Southern charm that southern hospitality and then the

20:16 food maps as well absolute dude do you think that the food here is better than the food that you had in California and Florida maybe better than the food in Florida I hope that people in Florida are

20:29 not offended but California and Texas Yeah different kinds of food but comfortable beautiful food Yeah definitely the the Spanish influence No question about it. Oh yeah, the - The Mexican accents,

20:43 right? Yes, yes. This is awesome. And you, you know, the woodlands, for those who haven't been, is awesome. Like even just getting up there yesterday, we met with your team and went to the

20:52 Kirby Ice House. There's just a cleanness in the air. Yes. It's not this, you know, downtown Houston is, is a concrete jungle. That's right. Right, it's just got it slapped down, totally.

21:07 And it's hot. Yeah. But then you go to the woodlands and it's like, ooh, it smells like pine out here. This is nice and these beautiful buildings that are kind of

21:17 enclosed with trees around it. It's kind of neat. So you really got to like the nicest part of Houston. And I'm guessing if you bought a house, you probably bought it the right time because people

21:26 started to realize that the woodlands is really where you want to be if you're in Houston. That is right. Yes, we're fortunate to have bought houses at the right time. The values of houses have,

21:36 I appreciate it And yes, getting. to buy a house where we are located right now, you have to pay a pretty penny. Yeah, there are some nice neighborhoods out there. Do you have a pool? Yes, we

21:48 do. You have to have a pool. Like I feel like that's like just a rite of passage. That's not like a, I used to think of that as like

21:54 a classist thing, right? Like to have a pool, you have to have a certain level of wealth and Houston basically everybody has a pool. Yes. Like if you own a property, the backyard is your pool.

22:05 That's right, that's right. All right, so I want to keep going sequentially through this 'cause I think it's very interesting. So your friend has this company. You go there, some other Esri

22:14 folks go there. You're now in Houston, Texas. You work on this company, you work on this project. How long did that take you? And then when is the intersection of oil and gas? 'Cause I mean, I

22:25 feel like that is inevitable in Houston for most. That's right. That's right. Yeah, so 2004, 2005, though we were working really hard, there was some strategic,

22:39 I hope mine. friend is not listening. But yeah, there were some strategic mistakes that were made. And as a result, the business didn't really take off past the waste management project or

22:50 contract. And and as the contract started to wind down, the company started to wind down. And the president of the company comes to me and says, maybe nine months is what I got. So please start

23:06 looking for a job. Yeah. So being in Houston, you start looking for a job and you find an energy job. Totally. Right. So my first job was in neighbors. And that's how I switched over and have

23:18 never left energy field. I have worked on all sides of the energy industry, but never left energy industry after that. Neighbors for those listening, not like NEIGH, BRRS, NABORS, neighbors

23:31 drilling, huge drilling contractor, drilling services company, right? I'm actually kind of surprised that you didn't end up in a role. and like GIF working for an oil and gas company cause your

23:43 background would have dictated that is that Yeah that was probably my last GIF job working for the based management that the French company and the startup that was my last Jedi his job per Se I did

23:58 have I do have a business interest in edgy as company but that said now I've never ever walked in July as though that is part of my history and any time there is a discussion about GS and anything

24:14 jazz related I get really excited because I'm probably one of the few in these circles in the oil and gas in the circles that I move around that can speak to any kind of depth on GS so makes me look

24:26 intelligent Yeah well because you could also talk about drilling right which which now we'll get into here surely one of the things that I notice too and through my career and I want to go back maybe

24:36 a dozen years and I distinctly remember this I was in Oklahoma City at a large oil and gas company that still a large oil and gas company and presenting to

24:48 the land group in the operations group a map based product and the idea of the product was we were going to pull in data from production okay and we're going to pull in least data and obviously

25:02 polygons and imagery right for for the map and capture like cessation dates which effectually is like if I don't you know drill this or do something with this plot of land I'm Gonna lose the lease

25:15 gotten right and the land group thought it was cool like they really liked it but I actually thought the operations group was going to really enjoy it too and I remember the head of operate he was

25:26 director of operations may be VP came up figures listen man nobody on my team cares about maps which I thought was was shocking cause to me it's But you have to know where he's like, we know where

25:40 we're going. We know what it is. Like what I care about is, is initial production. It's downtime, right? It's workovers. It's how fast can I get a crew out there to fix whatever issue. It's

25:52 opening the choke more or closing the choke down. And I'm like, I thought you guys were the group that would have cared about this, that the land group would be more like, you know, tied into the

26:03 documents. Yes. Didn't ultimately get that deal, but it was kind of eye-opening too, if like, you know, next time don't lead with the maps. Yeah. And I'm like, ah, wow. Okay, so I think

26:15 your skill set, it's fascinating because you do bring some of that mapping mindset, but into the drilling space. So you go to neighbors. Yes. New industry, right? Now all of a sudden you're in

26:25 Houston, you're in oil and gas, which is inevitable, right? But you have a career at this point. So talk to me a little bit about like, what did you do at neighbors? And what did this open your

26:35 eyes to The true subsurface like where the rubber meets the road oil and gas drilling space Yeah so when you talked about your specific example or experience with mapping and the lack of Uptake

26:50 Yeah I working at Asbury and in the applications Services department I did feel that kind of pushback and venue catalyst as we as a mapping company and and I'll bring it back to your question trust me

27:06 but when you categorized as we as a mapping company

27:11 that kind of bothers me a little bit especially because I'm excess right and to me it's a data company it's a spatial data company it's always about data rate coming into drilling it's all always

27:26 about data so venue talk about a map map is what you create for the humans to consume this data Sure but Daddy's underlying spatial data that is not only in two dimensions but in three dimensions into

27:41 the Earth or into the sky so it's three dimensional data that is how you model the earth or our reality and and it changes so that states have that data and classic example you take a lamppost it has

28:02 a lamp it has a transformer so on so forth and it has a location if the lamp post moves the transform will move vivid for rate because they are attached that relationship between the transformer and

28:16 that pole is burnt into the spatial data engine behind the scenes that is what people need to recognize and that is the beauty of the specialization of data right that is why the females of this world

28:29 use it not because it makes pretty maps but it helps you make decisions and most importantly it will help you make special decisions the army uses it AH right so they're not using it for the maps yet

28:43 the maps is the ultimate deliverable the rendering of the data but there is a whole bunch of intelligence that is in the data that is captured now with that mindset if you come into space into

28:55 drilling data when I moto neighbors it was always about data that I was in G eyes it was saw what Data Spatial data here it is mostly temporal data time series Data and You're capturing time series

29:09 Data and You're making decisions based on time series data the state of the rig is constantly changing from spud to move it is changing and that's what we're managing and that's what we built when I

29:23 was part of neighbors that's what I was part of a team that was building it

29:29 So you really just connected the dots for me 'cause I was trying to figure out how

29:35 a maps guy, no offense. Yes, none always. And Esri Guy and ESRI Guy becomes a drilling guy, but actually it makes a ton of sense because if you look at Esri

29:45 or even maps fundamentally as being a data service in the background with a visualization layer of a map, that's drilling, right? I mean, so all of the data that you, so it was very natural for

29:59 you actually because you lived in the data from a geospatial lens and now all of a sudden it's data around what's happening deep into the ground. Yes. And analyzing this from a time series

30:11 perspective. So with neighbors, did this expose you to like, did you ever go offshore? Were you like on drilling rigs in the middle of the ocean? Like did you have exposure to things like that?

30:20 No, never offshore, but yes, we did go to some stack rigs as a part of neighbors So we did visit Riggs. and we knew our software was running at the rigs on the rigs we are very aware of the the

30:35 problems of deploying your software at the rigs and and the lack of connectivity to the software the lack of AH or not being able to change the software because you are drilling a pad and you just

30:51 cannot change or update software you have to wait for the drilling to have be done before you can check so those were some new realities that and that we were exposed to or at least I was exposed to

31:03 when I moved into this area and you're a problem solver as you said I think I am he as you said from the beginning Yeah so immediately you come in and you start diagnosing there's disconnects between

31:17 the data and perhaps the the lag in time where the data comes off of the rig or the drilling device and gets fed to people who need to observe monitor analyze this data yes which and these are tens

31:35 and hundreds of thousands and millions and billions of dollars in play to get this part of the process right because it's going to impact the performance of this asset for the next twenty five years

31:47 if potentially so what were some of the things that you started observing that were problems and then I think that probably leads us into you starting your own thing thank you and yes absolutely and

31:58 so while at the neighbors we we built our first at least for neighbors we built our first of its similar server so what's what's a mill with symbols so I don't know what I forget what it stands for

32:13 it's vel information markup language what does it do what is it alright okay so you can look it up but I should know but what does he do it is the specification that defines what The data looks like

32:29 when it is collected transported over the wire and stored so I should be careful about exactly where it ends it is a speck on the wire RCA write the specifications of the data Payload as it exists as

32:44 as it travels from point a to point B from the rig to your back office how do you transport it so how do I push it on the wire and how do I receive it that SPEC this payload is what bits similes and

32:58 it is based on XML and the protocol that was used back then still used is a push no sorry not a push but a pull based protocol meaner if you're the rig and I am the back office if I need to be updated

33:14 I need to keep on asking you I need to pull you continuously used at anything new is there anything you is there anything new as opposed to what the newer protocols are which are push based so as soon

33:27 as data becomes available with you you would push it to me so I AM just listening waiting for data to come in and I get data as soon as the data becomes available that lends itself to more real time

33:41 decision making Yeah as opposed to a polling mechanism where the polling is introducing some latency into the decision making and we recognize that back in the day when we were neighbors there were

33:55 some people that were asking us to push data or make data available at once second frequency and we would be thinking one second frequency that's a lot of data why do you need data that Rosie and as

34:06 we progressed and matured we realized one second is slope we need more we need more this because one second frequency is is extremely coarse extremely sparse and there's a lot happening between two

34:24 data points that we are ignoring and

34:30 are oblivious of. So we realized that high frequency data is the name of the game. And that is when the whole industry started to realize that. And they demanded actually that high frequency data

34:41 mechanisms be built into the spec. So they wanted VidsML to be upgraded to support push-based as opposed to pull-based and to support higher frequencies. One Hertz, 10 Hertz, 15 Hertz, 100 Hertz,

34:55 250 Hertz, right? This guy is the limit. So there are systems that produce data at megahertz right now,

35:07 kilohertz, but we are in no position to transport it, store it or consume it. So

35:14 that is the name of the game. That is what Sigma Stream is all about. Sorry, I jumped the gun a little bit, but yes. No, I did. That's why I became a Sigma Stream. I dig it, and I think the

35:24 fundamental point that makes sense here as the the push of data Yeah right as well as the poll of data and then reducing the frequency of data analysis from one second to effectively real time cause

35:37 cause one second is somewhat of a big deal but Yeah we talk about Megahertz and Kilohertz Gigahertz how about Jalen hurts and the Eagles don't even know a good one because we've got the superbowl

35:48 coming up this weekend we're going to get to our picks at the end folks don't worry this is not a sports podcast but we're still Gonna have to pick do you even know Who's playing Super Bowl do you

35:55 Care I know it is in New Orleans

35:59 no I'm Sorry Eagles and Chiefs are exchanged gifts Yes Yes we'll get there but anyways the quarterback vehicles Jalen hurts so you're saying Hertz Hertz Hertz forgot all about football sorry it hurts

36:09 so good and so so when did you Launch Cygnus Dream so I believe that you kind of saw this opportunity we were at neighbors first right and then you'd take me a little bit through that and then tell me

36:20 like what is Sigma stream what do you Guys dude I know what You're getting into the details a little bit that you're allowed to get into where you're not under and Da and all that started but talked

36:29 to me a little bit about second Street Yeah so Sigma stream was probably one of the few first implementations of what was coming out of injustice which was the high -frequency NTP which was the images

36:43 text transport protocol that was push based would support high -frequency and was a more modern

36:52 protocol compared to the legacy of somehow based on soap and

37:01 I saw the opportunity to create a implementation of the spect that was still being designed and drafted so

37:12 I joined forces join up with in an old friend of mine though I worked with when he was at neighbors he had gone back to India by that time and together we started writing. I wrote most of what used

37:27 to be one

37:33 of our flagship products. And so did he and he had already had a software company in India and he led me borrow a couple of good programmers. Oh, that's nice. Yes, that was his investment into

37:42 the company. And so we would burn the midnight oil and we created the very first product for Signal Stream We brought it up to a stage where we could prototype it, demonstrate it to people. And

37:59 that was the first implementation of what used to be

38:04 or ETP 10 or 11. Now ETP has moved on, but we based our product on that specification. So it is ETP-esque. That's how we put it. But it has all of the efficiencies that the new protocol brought

38:19 It's blazingly fast and it moves a ton of data. over various parts and intermittent networks. And that's how we created SigmaStream. And we started talking it. And literally in Starbucks and the

38:36 first time we met somebody from ConocoFlips

38:40 is at a Lomiridian,

38:43 Lomadlin, sorry. And in the city center, and they liked it. They were looking for a small company that had this technology And they gave us a break. And the rest is history. We built the entire

38:58 stack of products while we were at ConocoFlips.

39:03 They supported us. So thanks to ConocoFlips. And from there, we started adding more customers, but that was the start of SignalStream. 2000,

39:16 the unofficial start of SignalStream is probably 2014 but officially we incorporated.

39:25 and had our first contract in 2015 with Conoco. 10 years. Yes. And Conoco Phillips. I mean, there's some pretty awesome things here. First of all, congratulations. Thank you very much. To run

39:34 a software company, a technology company for 10 years is admirable. You think about all the ones that have gone by the wayside in the last 10 years, especially with this sort of like boom in tech.

39:47 And I think specifically through the lens of oil and gas tech, like drilling companies have the money and the internal wherewithal and the budgets to build things out themselves. So clearly you

39:60 figured something out and build the technology around it that has a little bit of a differentiation and a value in the market that they haven't been able to crack the coat on themselves. That's cool.

40:13 Do you sell the Sigma Stream product products to drilling companies, like drilling services companies Like a neighbor, do you sell it to operators? Is it both? Big companies, conical Phillips is

40:24 obviously huge. Like what's your target market, and who do you sell to within these companies? Yeah, that's a very good question. We do sell the stack of products to operators. And the operators

40:41 are probably the ones big and small. We actually want to sell to more smaller operators. But big and small, and the biggest business value proposition that operators gain from using software from

40:55 Signal Stream is the interoperability. So with a products stack like Signal Stream, you are not beholden to or locked down into a specific protocol or a

41:10 recontractor or any contractor at the window. So anybody that you're working with is drilling your stuff. Exactly. And the reason for that is our flagship product allows you to connect to all of

41:21 the protocols. And so it allows you to listen to different dialects and languages, if I can abstract it out. And so that gives the operators like conical Phillips the ability to connect to anyone.

41:37 All they look for is a certain amount of data and certain type of data. It doesn't matter who is producing it and what format. And that's the reason why we are very, very attractive to operators

41:50 And at the same time, drilling contractors like us too, because we enable the capture and

41:58 transport of all kinds of data to optimize and make their operations more efficient. And then effectively offer better, cleaner, faster data as a service to the operator that's contracting them.

42:11 That's right, that's right. And the mantra that we currently are trying to broadcast pretty heavily is data quality. It's all about data quality. Yes, there are aggregators out there,

42:26 competitors that do aggregate data. We still feel that we are one of the best out there, but then it's not just about aggregating data. The data has to be monitored in real time and we need to be

42:37 able to measure the quality of data. So you know, while making real time decisions that the data that you are using is good quality data. And then once you take the data and store it in your data

42:49 lake for your data scientists to look at three years from today, they have some sense of reliability about the data. They can trust the data that they can, they're pulling out of the data lake to

42:59 be able to train and run their models again. So someone that I know very well gave us this tagline, we make AI better. We make AI better.

43:12 So I've got a couple, I want to take this conversation, we've only got a few more minutes left, but this is fascinating stuff I want to take the conversation in the -

43:21 The direction around some of the buzzwords writing you just brought up AI which is perfect so like one of the things we're hearing a lot more about even with the change administration is around like

43:28 geothermal yes is your product applicable to geothermal drilling is it still like to use sort of the same thing that can be tracking yes yes absolutely and so I actually even when I came to know about

43:40 geothermal geothermal a few years ago I thought that it was a savior because for companies like Us because the the problems that you face in drilling geothermal wells and the ubiquity of the veles

43:57 that every drill right there could be some a couple miles from here yes exactly as opposed to drilling rigs were so that to me was fantastic and yes the technology that we use for drilling can easily

44:13 be transported to geothermal well drilling no question about makes sense right so so it opens up kind of a new segment of the market for you that's right and and I'm just in reading between the lines

44:23 here there's no like geographical constraints right like you your languages is data it's numbers so you could if there's a well being drilled on offshore Africa or onshore North Dakota or and far

44:38 Northeast British Columbia doesn't matter it doesn't matter because yes and at we are actually deployed our software is deployed in Mexico in Iraq now in Kazakhstan in Indonesia of course in the U S

44:54 So yes it is data bases Dakota I mean that's that's cool right cause because I think that you're at least if you're pitching to investors right your total addressable market is anywhere that a holes

45:06 being punched in the ground anywhere in the state for whatever reason for theories are you looking for watery looking for geothermal your royals yes gas you name it super cool so to to pivot a little

45:17 bit to some of our last questions putting you on the hotspot like what what what do you do outside of work I endless and I know what it's like running a small company yes and your your kids are older

45:27 I think though than mine so so you maybe have a little bit more time with the wife maybe don't have the same like familial commitments as you did when you were in your thirties and forties what do you

45:36 do when you're not just hammering on said Mr Dream Yeah I Mean Sigma stream is a full -time job and you're right and running a small company and my team is all in India So I so the two shifts Yeah I

45:49 have my customers here and in my Team in India so that definitely takes up time but whenever I can steals time I I do play some tennis I Do Workout I have a home gym and and I listen to music and I'm

46:05 a movie buff okay Yeah I have a decent collection of LPS mostly jazz and some classical Please don't ask me questions, I'm just dabbling. I asked questions, sorry, this is what I do. So I am

46:20 gonna ask you a question. Oh my God. Off the cuff, and this is hard. Give me like your two or three favorite movies. Oh my goodness. Contact, Pulp Fiction. Oh, that's cool. It's long, but

46:33 it's good. Yeah, Pulp Fiction is one of my best. Contact is one of my best, and of course, the Star Wars trilogy Yeah, I feel like it's an impossible question to answer. It's like, what's your

46:44 favorite song? Absolutely. For me, it sort of depends on the time of day. If I'm in like a giggly, giddy mood, I might say super bad. You know, if I'm in a more serious mood or I want to get

46:55 pumped up, maybe it's rocky, right? So,

46:58 good to hear like sort of the breadth of what you're thinking about.

47:03 Let's talk a little bit about looking back, right? And I asked you this and I'm curious where you take it,

47:13 you have the benefit of hindsight. We all do as we age and gain experience and there's no better teacher than experience, but what would you tell the Hari Kidori of 1988, of 1995, what advice

47:26 would you give that young man, both professionally and maybe even personally? Yeah, sure. I think your professional life and personal life are so intertwined, it's hard to tell them apart.

47:37 That's point number one And I'm guessing it's all about branding, it's all about marketing, because like I said, I always saw myself as a problem solver and heavily into technology. Even when I

47:54 was at AAA, we would be building these pieces of software and our directors would come in and call us the brain trust. And I used to be a big sucker for that because they used to think, oh my God,

48:05 these guys are thinking something up, some building something cool So it was always about building something, not selling it. right so even when we built the first product of Cygnus Dream when

48:20 Conocophillips recognized that we were on cloud nine saying oh somebody sees the value of this holy cow right and then you come out of Conocophillips and see other people not really understanding the

48:32 benefit of high frequency data so you have to actually preach and evangelize frequency data it came as a surprise Yeah so you have to market yourself yourself as a person and yourself as a company in

48:47 a technology the products no matter how good they are they don't sell themselves as much as you think you're building the next loaf of bread or slice of how you say that is larger there you go a bread

49:02 slicer it doesn't sell itself you're trying to go out there and sell it Yeah you know I I have the benefit of one of my closest friends is a professor Bentley University and he he's a sales Guy and he

49:16 convinced bentley to let him effectively create and teach and a sales curriculum so he has a sales class which like I Wish I could have taken something like that college so these these students are

49:31 like junior seniors and like early grad students at Bentley and one of the things that he does is every class he has a couple of his friends who are like accomplished sales guys and his mind some of

49:44 the best sales guys that he knows come in and answer questions for the class and shed some insights onto them so I've had the opportunity to now speak to his glasses maybe ten times who just jumping

49:56 over resume and get to answer questions and I love it and and the big thing that I tried to while there's a lot of things that I try to get across in those meetings but I only have like thirty minutes

50:04 and then it's like rapid fire questions so I always try to get across to people like for one When you go out you're going to build a career in sales you think you Sorta have to play a part you want to

50:16 be this like you on a dress a certain way you want to talk a certain way yeah that's not what gets business done right the people who are the best sales people that I know asked really good questions

50:26 and then either cut bait quickly or identify the right solutions to the pains that they identify so the best salespeople are the best question askers and then finally to your point do people do

50:37 business with people absolute and people do business with people that they like and that they trust and then I think product comes somewhere a little bit later on got it right so so to me it's like if

50:48 you can cultivate those those relationships right that belief that you will do right by them and that that trust and that you're finding a solution that will benefit them or their company or help them

50:59 get a promotion or make them look good then you'll figure out the solution part later on but they have to believe that you're going to do that for them so some fun Stanford percent Yeah Yeah so I

51:12 think the the the branding pieces also sort of interesting to me cause I've I've had over the course of four years with with my company funk futures obviously my last name

51:22 and I've given a lot of thought to should I should I rename it should I call it something else am I limiting myself to and I actually talked to a career coach who has a real like marketing brain and

51:33 she said no don't because everything like you said is becoming so intertwined between personal and business that it's actually to your benefit that your name is part of the company so that when people

51:44 see your name they think of your company too it is a very cooling while and that you correct places Yeah absolutely Yeah Yeah I I appreciate that but but it's true cause I was sort of like like Uriah

51:55 do I look like a narcissist I made my last name part of my Company no it's actually like a smart move I didn't do intentionally but it's a smart thing to do from a branding and and you know

52:04 prototyping prospect absolutely yet final question yes I'm not going to make you pick the Super Bowl, 'cause it doesn't sound like you're a huge football fan, so I'm not going to mess with you on

52:12 that. Thank you. But the Eagles are playing, and I know that you've got this whole birds thing tied in with the Sigma Stream product. But last question, favorite restaurants in Houston. I know

52:26 that's not an easy one, because there are a lot. Yes. And I don't know if you're going to slant toward Indian food, because obviously it reminds you of home, or that's the food that you grew up

52:35 eating. Give me like your top two or three favorite restaurants Thank you, sir. Yeah, now Houston is a fantastic place for the foodies. There is absolutely no question, and

52:45 you have to go out and explore. It's a fantastic and fabulous number of restaurants here. So if I had to pick restaurants, of course, you know, I live in the woodlands and there's a great bourbon

52:57 bar there called Refuge. Bummer. Shout out to them. Yeah, it's really good. Food is good, and of course their selection is fabulous if you're a bourbon drinker. and then my wife and I enjoy

53:12 Saturdays or Sundays we enjoy going out and having tea in a very small hole in the wall kind of place back in the woodlands called hummingbird

53:23 and humming what happens to be one of four products ah yes so light really like it and I AM a huge sushi fan and of course if you're a Sushi fan then UCI oh she is here in downtown Sorta in Houston

53:40 and it's fabulous the ambiance is great the service is Great and the Alma costs it costs yes beautiful beautiful if you're in Houston you have to pay them a visit I think they are also in Austin

53:54 Nights I don't think it is a chain it's it is now so we're here digital marketer studios Yeah Chuck Gates Who's a Digital Wildcatters Guy who You'll Meet He he said UCI as his favorite and he is like

54:08 a big flutie Guy said if she's number one I better though Jane Austen I went there about ten years ago yes and now there's one in Denver so for like special date nights cause not cheap but it is

54:18 absolutely top notch so appreciate those answers omelette you go we came up on almost now are hereby file question hurry where can people find you where can they find information about sigma stream

54:29 your website things like that yeah the website of Course is a sickness room dot com and the contact information is available you can drop know their info at Cygnus Room Dot com and a copy of it makes

54:44 it's way into my Inbox and if we exchange emails and stuff like that my phone number is on it and of course I'm also available on Linkedin signal stream has a page on Linkedin Yeah which then this

54:58 podcast will be hopefully will find it's way onto that unlike the Angeles and I think Hurry just just to wrap things up like We are data right that the just the word itself going back to people

55:11 starting to talk about big data and data aggregation and content creation data Analysis I feel like the market's coming in your direction right because it starts with an awareness and and a

55:23 recognition that data is important absolutely and then from there it's like okay well how deep into the data can I get and if you're saying like alright you could start at one second and maybe some

55:33 companies are still successful at analyzing one second or following real time data second time but what if you could go to a millisecond or a fraction of a millisecond yes well then that's a

55:43 competitive advantage which everybody's looking for on a more level playing field so I think it's going to be an interesting year for you an interesting stretch for SiGma stream curious to see how

55:52 things play on geothermal and and ultimately thanks for coming in today to come down from the woodlands and I appreciate you for coming on what the phone curry thank you very much for having me it's

56:02 it's great working with you and looking for