Kevin Willer of Chicago Ventures

In terms of that next cycle, and I guess a little bit of this is a predictive question, but things that we're seeing in the market in terms of startups, AI is creating a lot of confusion.

We don't have to spend too much time on

that.

A lot of disruption from that in both building startups and then the investor side too.

Oh yeah, 100%.

And you see a lot of stuff that, is there really a business there? Or are we rebranding ChatGPT and this, that, and the other? You know, because we're sitting in Chicago, Quantum has made a lot of noise in the area.

Absolutely,

100%.

Which is very exciting, and we, you know, and we don't have to go into all the reasons, but you know talk to chris gladwin brent brand headers and you know all the folks at p33 that have been leading a lot of this stuff but you know i really respect that our state has made a bet on this you know public private partnership you know it looks like we have the right kind of environment and you know circumstances around illinois and chicago to win here um but we have to execute on it and it seems like so far so good you know i think that biggest thing to me is like how soon does this start to make an impact you know pay off right you know you build the facility and then there's a bunch of companies already being created you know around this this newer community around quantum community and like how quickly does that start to pay off it feels like you know it might be you know a few years away so we still have a lot of work to do before then right we can't you know lose our edge lose our momentum we got to keep building companies here But I'm really excited about, you know, when that starts really paying dividends here, how that's going to just accelerate, you know, both Chicago and the whole Midwest.

I mean, just all the partners involved with this and the opportunity here.

Yeah, it's really starting to ramp up, too.

Yeah, 100%.

I remember I went to a couple of conferences on it.

You know, Schroeder's cat was about as much as I can explain.

It's probably still as much.

Then refrigeration.

Oh, there you go, right? Yes.

Yes.

But you

don't have to know why it works.

You just need to know why it's going to make an outsized impact, right? And why we might be able to beat the coast on this.

I mean, that's the mind boggling thing that like we actually might be in a better situation.

It might be ahead, right? So let's keep going after it.

Let's be aggressive.

And, you know, maybe that leapfrogs us in some way into one of the top tier ecosystems in the country.