Even the LPs of the venture capitalists,
Speaker:you know, they have a lack of
Speaker:knowledge about quantum. They don't know what is
Speaker:quantum computing, what this kind of technology
Speaker:could be an impact in the
Speaker:future business environment, you know.
Speaker:Welcome to Impact Quantum.
Speaker:Uh, hello and welcome back to Impact Quantum, the podcast where we explore the emerging
Speaker:industry of quantum computing. Well, you don't need to be a PhD or
Speaker:have a PhD, uh, or even know anyone with a PhD in
Speaker:quantum physics. You just need to be curious. And with me is
Speaker:the most quantum curious person I know, Candace Cahouli. How's it going, Candace?
Speaker:It's great. Thank you for asking. Today, all
Speaker:the way from Argentina, we are speaking to Daniel
Speaker:Ruiz. He is the founder of
Speaker:QNOW. Hi, Daniel. How are you today?
Speaker:Hello, Candace. Hello, Frank. Thanks for
Speaker:having me. Thanks for the invitation. I'm good now.
Speaker:Happy to stay here and have a great conversation.
Speaker:Cool. So Argentina,
Speaker:when, when, when Candace was doing a lot of the research for our global
Speaker:reports, Argentina was a surprise, as was a lot of the
Speaker:tech scene in quantum tech scene in Latin America,
Speaker:which is further along, I think, than people think. When people think
Speaker:quantum, I think there's always this bias of US, China,
Speaker:maybe the EU. Um, but, um,
Speaker:what was their score, Candace? I gotta pull up the site. Uh, the score was—
Speaker:I can check it out. They're doing surprisingly very exciting what's going on in
Speaker:Argentina. It was something like third or fourth place, like
Speaker:behind like only the US, China, and, uh, Canada.
Speaker:Right. Um, let's see. Argentina has
Speaker:an index of 3. In the,
Speaker:and they have an active roadmap for 2030.
Speaker:So if you look at Latin America, I think there's enormous
Speaker:opportunity. And in my day job, I've seen that, right? In terms of AI,
Speaker:right? Like there's a lot of AI going on there.
Speaker:You have an interesting situation where in Latin America, you have
Speaker:somewhere between 30 to 40 different sovereign countries, right? There's only
Speaker:hyperscalers in, 3 or 4 of them. So
Speaker:there's a lot of opportunity, I think, in terms of research and on-prem
Speaker:and kind of work. So, so what's going on? What's the quantum scene
Speaker:look like in Argentina? Yeah, tell us a little bit about your journey. We're really
Speaker:excited. Okay, okay, cool. Let's, let's start.
Speaker:Well, I, my background is very technical. I'm
Speaker:specialized in software development.
Speaker:At the same time, when I
Speaker:was knowing about more
Speaker:emerging technologies. Around
Speaker:2019, I met quantum computing.
Speaker:So since 2019, I was in
Speaker:this journey, learning every day,
Speaker:every day learning about quantum stuff. And at the same
Speaker:time, working with partners and
Speaker:with scientific and research
Speaker:teams that allow us to have a
Speaker:very big picture and an overview of
Speaker:who is the landscape here in LATAM.
Speaker:From that, I could say that here in LATAM, we have,
Speaker:specifically in Argentina, we have A lot of
Speaker:talented people, starting with the people, the talented
Speaker:people, and even the capacity to
Speaker:create qubits here in Bariloche.
Speaker:It has a lab team, a government
Speaker:lab team that has created qubits.
Speaker:Yes, not a quantum
Speaker:machine like that, but creating and
Speaker:stabilizing qubits. From
Speaker:that and from the capacity of creating software, quantum
Speaker:software, I would say that
Speaker:in Latin America, there is the opportunity to
Speaker:export these capacities
Speaker:from the hardware and into
Speaker:including to the software. What software?
Speaker:I could say that specifically in applications, yes.
Speaker:That is what we're doing right now in QNOW.
Speaker:We have two lead industries that
Speaker:we are interested in. One industry is the
Speaker:financial sector and the other industry is
Speaker:the healthcare sector. So I
Speaker:could say that that is the opportunity. Maybe
Speaker:creating hardware, maybe creating
Speaker:the QPUs, maybe LATAM is very,
Speaker:you know, it is not—
Speaker:maybe I could say that LATAM is
Speaker:or could be great not as hardware but
Speaker:at application level could be better or could be
Speaker:have this kind of opportunities.
Speaker:So you said you were involved in both financial and
Speaker:in the health, in the health sector. Okay,
Speaker:so which one do you think is going to develop
Speaker:first? Okay,
Speaker:I am here in LATAM. I have the opportunity to
Speaker:talk with
Speaker:leaders in banking, leaders of business in
Speaker:financial sector. Yes, they have the resources
Speaker:to sponsor a research. They have
Speaker:the resources and the knowledge
Speaker:and all they need to start getting
Speaker:involved now with quantum. Technologies, yes.
Speaker:But at the same time, there are some
Speaker:grade of literacy, you know, there
Speaker:is a lack of knowledge in this kind of
Speaker:technologies.
Speaker:Because they don't know
Speaker:where implement quantum technologies, they don't know
Speaker:how is the return of investment
Speaker:applying this kind of technologies. So,
Speaker:I would say that this sector could be the first one that
Speaker:implement this kind of technologies. But at the same time,
Speaker:must be the first one that get involved
Speaker:in the knowledge of this kind of technologies. Yes?
Speaker:Specifically, We have a partner called
Speaker:Falcon Day. Yes, our partner is
Speaker:especially focused on
Speaker:credit risk scoring. Yes, that
Speaker:could be helpful in the financial sector,
Speaker:applying different kinds of classification models
Speaker:to know who pays the credits and who
Speaker:probably, you know, pays the credit.
Speaker:So if you're asking for me, I could say that the financial
Speaker:sector will be the first one to apply.
Speaker:At the same time, here in Latin America, the
Speaker:healthcare sector, specifically in the
Speaker:drug discovery, drug design process,
Speaker:there are no investigations or there are not
Speaker:a lot of investigations here from LATAM. All the
Speaker:investigations are in Sweden,
Speaker:in Basel, but here
Speaker:the local people, the local resources that
Speaker:has this kind of research
Speaker:is very poor, yes. So I
Speaker:could say that the healthcare sector could be the second one, yes.
Speaker:But there is my
Speaker:projection, my perspective, but I
Speaker:could say that if the
Speaker:academic sector and
Speaker:us, as you know, the company sector,
Speaker:the private sector, could join the
Speaker:forces and start to create researching and start
Speaker:to create or those new techniques,
Speaker:new ways to solve the industry
Speaker:problems could be a great opportunity that
Speaker:the greatest companies in healthcare and
Speaker:finance start to see the work
Speaker:and start to implement this kind of
Speaker:data pipelines, of quantum machine learning models,
Speaker:this kind of technologies. In
Speaker:their operations. Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker:So from QNow, we are doing
Speaker:that. We are trying to
Speaker:generate some value, generate genuine value,
Speaker:real value to this kind of
Speaker:industries. Yes. Starting, like I said before,
Speaker:with credit score and the drug design or drug
Speaker:discovery process.
Speaker:Okay. So, does your solutions—
Speaker:do your solutions involve as well using
Speaker:AI? Exactly.
Speaker:We can describe Q-NAU as a company that solves
Speaker:problems for automate and create
Speaker:autonomous systems for
Speaker:autonomous tasks. But what is the principle
Speaker:of that? We have created a technique
Speaker:based in knowledge graphs that allows
Speaker:today's LLM models
Speaker:to generate a kind of fact, a kind of
Speaker:knowledge, or a kind of memory, I mean,
Speaker:that allows to create this kind of
Speaker:automated process. Particularly, we have a—
Speaker:we are a 100% bootstrapped company. Yes, QNOW
Speaker:don't have at the moment investment. We are
Speaker:100% bootstrapped. And for make us
Speaker:traction and generate some revenue, we have
Speaker:find a niche, we have find a problem in the financial
Speaker:sector in what we
Speaker:have solving through classical AI.
Speaker:Yes, we have created a classical product,
Speaker:a classical problem solving that allows
Speaker:us traction to quantum
Speaker:stuff. So if you ask me if
Speaker:we have some AI in QAnon, of course,
Speaker:to through this kind of products that
Speaker:prepare from now the data of the organization,
Speaker:the data of our clients or of our future
Speaker:clients to in a near future
Speaker:add quantum value, add real value,
Speaker:preparing the data from today. Yes, I could say that.
Speaker:Okay. Interesting. So what is the
Speaker:startup scene like in Argentina, right? You're
Speaker:completely bootstrapped, which good on you because you have a lot of control.
Speaker:Did you— what does the startup
Speaker:scene look like? Are there a lot of bootstrap startups or are they— is there
Speaker:a heavy venture presence? I know with Quantum on a
Speaker:previous show, we talked about how national governments are getting involved in
Speaker:The quantum conversation largely for national security reasons,
Speaker:but like, you know, is there any kind of government assistance, funding,
Speaker:incubators, that sort of thing? Okay. Well,
Speaker:today, the picture of today
Speaker:is that even the
Speaker:LPs of the venture capitalists, you know,
Speaker:has a lack of knowledge about quantum. They don't
Speaker:know what is quantum computing, what this kind
Speaker:of technology could be
Speaker:impact in the future business environment,
Speaker:you know. So I could say that today in
Speaker:Argentina, maybe there are a couple of
Speaker:companies or startup that have
Speaker:the claim that they have the quantum
Speaker:flag, you know, the quantum technologies flag.
Speaker:But I don't really, I don't know
Speaker:how much investment or how much
Speaker:the private sector will be available
Speaker:to start promoting these technologies.
Speaker:I know there are some companies that
Speaker:are looking for investments,
Speaker:you know, paying some press release and all
Speaker:that kind of stuff just for attracting investment. But
Speaker:here in QNAU, we
Speaker:adopt the way to create genuine
Speaker:value to
Speaker:clients, you know. But at the
Speaker:same time, in a near term,
Speaker:create this kind of conversation with the government when
Speaker:we have a strong basis to
Speaker:demonstrate that the quantum industry or demonstrate the
Speaker:quantum solving problem will be interesting
Speaker:for, at least for these industries, healthcare and
Speaker:finance. At the same time, the government,
Speaker:they have some resources,
Speaker:but in the AI sector. At the quantum layer,
Speaker:there are not a lot of resources,
Speaker:even if in the company sector,
Speaker:even in the startup sector,
Speaker:yes. At this level, I could say that only in
Speaker:AI there are more, more, more things than
Speaker:quantum even. Interesting.
Speaker:So for the kids that are in school right now,
Speaker:do you see the young researchers in Argentina wanting to stay
Speaker:and build maybe their own companies locally,
Speaker:or do you think they feel that they need to leave in
Speaker:order to properly scale?
Speaker:Okay, that's a great question because here in
Speaker:Argentina, you know,
Speaker:the ecosystem is very entrepreneurial. Yes, there are
Speaker:a lot of big
Speaker:ideas and a lot of good things
Speaker:in the air, you know, because by
Speaker:culture, the Argentinian people is in that way.
Speaker:Yes, it's very, I can do the
Speaker:best, I'm the best. Yes, that's the That's a cultural point
Speaker:that I could say here. So
Speaker:recently we have collaborated with
Speaker:IBM, with Qiskit Fall Festival, you know, that is a
Speaker:worldwide event that passes through a lot
Speaker:of countries. And particularly the
Speaker:Qiskit Fall Festival that was here in Argentina.
Speaker:Let us say that is the way that you mentioned,
Speaker:Candance. There's a lot of ideas, there
Speaker:is a lot of young people getting involved now
Speaker:with this kind of events that has
Speaker:the vision to create their own companies,
Speaker:to start involving and create
Speaker:their own research in quantum technologies. So
Speaker:there's a lot to do right now in Argentina.
Speaker:And I can see that the people, the young people, is
Speaker:very getting involved in that kind of technologies.
Speaker:Interesting. I don't know if
Speaker:you have to come to here in Argentina.
Speaker:I would love to. I would love to go to Argentina. Yeah, I'd come in
Speaker:a second. It's summer there now, right? It's summer there now, so that
Speaker:helps. It's beautiful there. It is beautiful. The food, I hear
Speaker:the coffee is really good. I hear the steak is really good. So yeah.
Speaker:Yes, yes, the coffee, the Colombian coffee is good.
Speaker:What skills would you say Argentine
Speaker:quantum professionals bring? That global companies
Speaker:sometimes underestimate?
Speaker:Maybe—
Speaker:okay, maybe I could say that
Speaker:the opportunities to
Speaker:create research, basic
Speaker:research, Is
Speaker:the one thing that maybe the companies,
Speaker:you know, don't know or don't have
Speaker:the knowledge that here in Latin America and here
Speaker:in Argentina do.
Speaker:I could see that all the research
Speaker:things could be very
Speaker:underestimated. Things here in LATAM because
Speaker:there are a lot of talented people, there are a lot of
Speaker:private and public
Speaker:organizations that had good material, that has
Speaker:good researchers.
Speaker:Yes, maybe
Speaker:I could say that in the last 2 years
Speaker:at the academic level, it starts to create the
Speaker:first quantum congress at local level. Yes,
Speaker:we have the opportunity to, as ACUNAO,
Speaker:participate in these first congress.
Speaker:And I see that there is
Speaker:a lot of great things, but, you know,
Speaker:AWS or WEGATI or even
Speaker:IBM, they don't know how are the things
Speaker:here in Latin America. I
Speaker:could say that they must
Speaker:start getting involved here in Latin America. Like I said before,
Speaker:maybe not at hardware level
Speaker:or maybe yes, but at applications level, at
Speaker:application layers. Could be the best thing that
Speaker:from all sides, organizations could start to
Speaker:create that link, you know, for
Speaker:start creating and prepare applications that solve real
Speaker:problems. Okay. I mean,
Speaker:it's interesting because I think there's a certain bias in the tech
Speaker:industry to assume that it's either North America or Asia, right?
Speaker:And they're forgetting, you know, there's a joke about You know,
Speaker:US innovates, China imitates, and Europe regulates, but they're forgetting like
Speaker:one other player. Um, and you know, these
Speaker:are pretty sizable economies, right? Like people, I mean,
Speaker:like, and you know, I,
Speaker:I've been a big fan of since joining Red Hat, well, a lot of our
Speaker:successes have been actually in Latin America with our product. And it's just like,
Speaker:you know, this is a, this is this is a big market.
Speaker:And when you consider kind of
Speaker:the, just the sheer number of people, the sheer number of the
Speaker:demographics, like it, it's going to be a
Speaker:force to be reckoned with for sure, whether that'll be in 5 years or 10
Speaker:years. But I mean, the fact that there's so much quantum innovation happening,
Speaker:I think is a good sign. And, you know, I know some of it's quasi-government,
Speaker:some of it's not, like it's an interesting space. But
Speaker:one of the things that came up in a lot of Candice's research
Speaker:I'll let her talk to it because she did the research, uh, was the
Speaker:concern about brain drain. And she did kind of allude to that, right? Because
Speaker:that's a problem globally, right? And that's a concern in the U.S., it's a concern
Speaker:in China. Um, the idea that I'm going to educate
Speaker:all these kids on the latest and greatest and they're going to go to California
Speaker:or Beijing or, um, you know,
Speaker:or wherever, Shenzhen or whatever, like, is that a problem
Speaker:in Argentina?
Speaker:Yes, I could say that, yes, it's the same
Speaker:thing, it's the same thing. Like you said
Speaker:before, even the governments, even here,
Speaker:or the economic situations, you know,
Speaker:just the last 2 years, the economy has a
Speaker:big change here in Argentina. With a lot of
Speaker:new laws, a lot of new,
Speaker:you know, opportunities to, from outside Argentina,
Speaker:invest here in Argentina. So has maybe
Speaker:a play to, a
Speaker:favor to Argentina to start changing that
Speaker:point, yes?
Speaker:Because, you know, maybe We
Speaker:are incorporated in the US, in Delaware,
Speaker:yes, but we operate here in Argentina.
Speaker:Could be ideal that people like us
Speaker:that has to create their own business
Speaker:start here and incorporate here in Argentina, but you know,
Speaker:the taxes, all the barriers that we have
Speaker:as an entrepreneur You know,
Speaker:let us create some strategies to,
Speaker:you know, do the things in
Speaker:other ways. Yes. But it's
Speaker:the same problem globally, I think that.
Speaker:So you talked about the barriers and,
Speaker:you know, I'm assuming the biggest challenges might be funding or
Speaker:infrastructure or even market access. Is there other
Speaker:Are there other types of barriers that you're finding that the startups
Speaker:are facing in Argentina?
Speaker:Yes, I think that is a blend of
Speaker:these issues, the investment and
Speaker:the access to the markets, yes, because it's not the same,
Speaker:or well, it's not the same, the Brazilian market
Speaker:against the Argentinian market. You know, there is a lot of
Speaker:difference between that countries.
Speaker:But in Brazil, that is Latin— is South
Speaker:America, you know, Brazil has an other
Speaker:ecosystem more evolved than the Argentinian.
Speaker:Yes, in Brazil there are a lot
Speaker:of investment, a lot of other
Speaker:status of the quantum technologies, I could say.
Speaker:But here in Argentina, I That's the point.
Speaker:There are the barriers to start create
Speaker:value from here. Yes, the investment and
Speaker:the market access. So for that reason,
Speaker:we at QNOW have to create that kind of
Speaker:conversations with the business leaders
Speaker:to to start create from now this interest
Speaker:in the quantum technologies. Yes. Not only for
Speaker:investment, no, but even for
Speaker:create quantum strategies. Yes.
Speaker:Doing a kind of consulting services,
Speaker:you know, that allow to the
Speaker:big enterprises or big
Speaker:corporations here in Argentina no more about
Speaker:quantum technologies. Yes. Right.
Speaker:Interesting. I assume, I assume that must really kind of force you to be
Speaker:more creative and to
Speaker:be— to realistically create quantum
Speaker:applications because of the constraints that you face.
Speaker:I just was thinking. Yeah. Yes,
Speaker:yes, that is the reason that
Speaker:we choose as a research topic
Speaker:all the drug discovery and drug design process
Speaker:to apply quantum technologies. Specifically, we
Speaker:have developed a QSAR
Speaker:method. That QSAR method is a
Speaker:kind of a classifier,
Speaker:yes, to determine which compound
Speaker:is better than other, taking in mind
Speaker:even the toxicity of a compound,
Speaker:taking in mind the, the ATME,
Speaker:the process to know how solving
Speaker:via oral a medication could be absorbed
Speaker:by our bodies. So
Speaker:for that reason,
Speaker:we create or we choose to develop
Speaker:this kind of process implementing quantum stuff.
Speaker:That was the opportunity, that was the
Speaker:creativity that has in that time
Speaker:our team. To determine
Speaker:which line of research we should do
Speaker:and betting into the future that it
Speaker:could be a good problem to solve in the industry
Speaker:and has a, you know, a very opportunity to create
Speaker:value and business through that. Yes.
Speaker:So if we were to look at, take the next decade, what would need
Speaker:to change in Argentina to become a serious quantum
Speaker:startup hub? Okay, I think
Speaker:that,
Speaker:um, could be a must, yes, that the outside,
Speaker:a venture capitalist or,
Speaker:or outside, um, every adopters of
Speaker:quantum, come here, come here and start to
Speaker:see all the scene, see all the research
Speaker:that this big country has to
Speaker:demonstrate, yes? Because maybe
Speaker:in the coming 10 years
Speaker:could be appear a lot of unicorns, I don't know.
Speaker:Maybe, you know, or maybe
Speaker:a good
Speaker:company that has a very early breakpoint
Speaker:to start a big profit, you know, without
Speaker:investing, just through the real value through
Speaker:clients. Yes, maybe it could be that scenario.
Speaker:But I think that there's a lot of to create from here
Speaker:and to demonstrate to the outside of Argentina
Speaker:that what we are capable of, of what, no?
Speaker:But I think that from the company
Speaker:that all the companies that outside
Speaker:Argentina already has a path, already
Speaker:has a very strong roadmap, already has
Speaker:a lot of research could
Speaker:it could do a
Speaker:kind of knowledge transfer from here
Speaker:to LATAM and start to create this kind of
Speaker:conversation from South America to
Speaker:North America or from here to Europe.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So what's one misconception about quantum computing that you wish
Speaker:more people would just drop?
Speaker:Maybe is the— that is
Speaker:in a certain point very technical.
Speaker:Yes, maybe becomes the conversation very technical
Speaker:because if
Speaker:you don't have knowledge about data,
Speaker:maybe when you try to create an answer to a
Speaker:Hamiltonian, or maybe when you try to create
Speaker:a fermionic
Speaker:Hamiltonian, you know, that is very technical terms,
Speaker:yes, maybe
Speaker:the people who feel that is not
Speaker:very understanding of the topic, so maybe the
Speaker:technicism could be the big barrier to drop
Speaker:this kind of technology, this
Speaker:kind of topic. But at the same time, I
Speaker:think that through the technology,
Speaker:through the knowledge graphs, through the LLMs
Speaker:application that we have today, we have
Speaker:the way to cut that
Speaker:learning curve, that learning that
Speaker:barrier,
Speaker:adopting this kind of AI system, but
Speaker:based in a validated
Speaker:knowledge and a great quality of
Speaker:knowledge, maybe could be a way to
Speaker:solve that barrier.
Speaker:Yeah. So when you talk to customers
Speaker:or prospective customers, like, what's their reaction when you say
Speaker:quantum? Okay,
Speaker:maybe some clients
Speaker:has this sensation, has the feeling of,
Speaker:wow, it is NASA.
Speaker:Right. Yes, but when we try to
Speaker:create, to start this kind of conversation,
Speaker:we always transmit to our potential clients
Speaker:that all becomes from data. Yes,
Speaker:all become from data and we can add
Speaker:value, real value to
Speaker:applying quantum technologies, quantum
Speaker:algorithms, solving that problem. Yes.
Speaker:So when we start this kind of conversations,
Speaker:we try to do in a very
Speaker:detailed way, yes, to know,
Speaker:not sending, not selling smoke,
Speaker:you know, don't enter in the hype. So
Speaker:for that reason, We choose that when we
Speaker:talk with this kind of potential clients,
Speaker:at the first step, we have
Speaker:to find the way that understood that the
Speaker:classical is a complement, the quantum
Speaker:is a complement of the classical. Yes. And how the
Speaker:quantum stuff could potentially
Speaker:exploiting the classical ways that
Speaker:they have today, making some
Speaker:benchmarks between the classical models and
Speaker:the quantum or hybrid models
Speaker:in a certain pipeline, in a certain
Speaker:process of this organization or these
Speaker:potential clients. So maybe the conversation we turn in
Speaker:that way.
Speaker:That makes sense.
Speaker:So what does success look like for you right now
Speaker:when you're working on something like a case
Speaker:study? Is it not in theory but in actual
Speaker:practice? What does success look like?
Speaker:I think that maybe
Speaker:if potentially
Speaker:in healthcare, yes, specifically in
Speaker:healthcare, maybe we can
Speaker:talk about success when
Speaker:we perform a metric, when we
Speaker:perform something related with resources,
Speaker:yes, with money, with time, we can say that
Speaker:that kind of problem solving is success,
Speaker:yes. I think in that way,
Speaker:so for that reason I could
Speaker:say that only if you move the needle
Speaker:in the path in the right way,
Speaker:you your project, your stuff has a
Speaker:success. At the same time, if no has success,
Speaker:it's great, it's fine, because that is knowledge
Speaker:that keep with us, you know, but
Speaker:in the very strict
Speaker:level, I could say that the success is only
Speaker:success when you has the
Speaker:capacity to add value that
Speaker:evolved in, you
Speaker:know, in ROI for our organization, in reducing time
Speaker:and resources, you know. I think in that
Speaker:way.
Speaker:Interesting. I'm
Speaker:fascinated to see kind of like what startup ecosystems look around the world.
Speaker:'Cause I think there's an assumption that even within the United States,
Speaker:honestly, there's an assumption that if you want
Speaker:to start up, you have to go to Silicon Valley, right? And obviously there are
Speaker:probably good reasons to go to Silicon Valley, but
Speaker:you have a number of, one of my jobs not
Speaker:that long ago was working in what we call civic technology, which is
Speaker:the idea of working with local city
Speaker:leaders across a bunch of cities around the US, right?
Speaker:And each one of them wants to be the next Silicon Valley. Each one of
Speaker:them wants to be like DC, certainly had that. New
Speaker:York. Well, New York is Silicon Alley. New York is kind of different. But,
Speaker:you know, every city I spoke to, you know, whether it was Detroit, whether it
Speaker:was Chicago, they all want to have their own Silicon Valley type
Speaker:setup. And one of the best bits of advice that I
Speaker:would tell them is like, don't be the next Silicon Valley, be the,
Speaker:the next, be the best version of you that's focused on
Speaker:the future. Right. So like, you know, obviously I live in the DC area, right?
Speaker:A lot of government adjacent, highly regulated industries, right? There's a good
Speaker:opportunity if you're a startup to be in that field, right? Like
Speaker:the startup mentality doesn't have to be just around tech. Tech is going to be
Speaker:part of it. Because tech is gonna be part of everything, right? So the whole
Speaker:idea in quantum tech, I think, is also following a very similar trajectory
Speaker:in that regard. And
Speaker:it's just fascinating about
Speaker:kind of like what that looks like. And not every culture— I know
Speaker:Argentina might be different— not every culture values entrepreneurship. That's one thing
Speaker:I kind of learned when I lived overseas was kind of like, you know, people
Speaker:look at it kind of with suspicion. Some people look at it like this. I
Speaker:think Argentina shares the American cowboy culture, although
Speaker:you guys call them gauchos, uh,
Speaker:you know, where you have that kind of rugged individualism, which I think does
Speaker:fit nicely with entrepreneurship. Is that, is that true? Is that like a thing,
Speaker:like the, the entrepreneurial spirit in
Speaker:Argentina? Yes, yes, I, I
Speaker:totally agree with that. It's, it's the same, it's the same
Speaker:spirit, it's the same a feeling, you know.
Speaker:And I'm from Colombia. Yes, I'm from Colombia,
Speaker:but I, I live in here in Argentina. And that's why you like the
Speaker:Colombian coffee. It is great coffee, like
Speaker:for real, it is great coffee. But like, no, but he made a point of
Speaker:that in the green room. Yeah, I was like, oh,
Speaker:more than the average, more than I would expect from the average Argentinian.
Speaker:So there you go. Okay. Yes, yes, that's the reason
Speaker:for the Colombian coffee. And I have
Speaker:been here in Argentina more than 10 years ago, yes,
Speaker:and I'm from outside of Argentina. I
Speaker:could see and I can feel this kind
Speaker:of, you know, sensations, you know.
Speaker:It's cultural that the gauchos the gauchos
Speaker:do a barbecue
Speaker:with only a piece of iron
Speaker:and maybe cool the fire with two
Speaker:pieces of grass, you know, that kind of spirit that
Speaker:invites us in a way to,
Speaker:you know, breaking that barriers, that
Speaker:barriers that don't allow
Speaker:you to do things. Yes, I think that this spirit
Speaker:is very interesting in that country, in this country.
Speaker:Yes, and maybe it's not the same
Speaker:feeling in all the Latin America's countries, you know,
Speaker:it's very different the culture and
Speaker:this kind of stuff. Yes.
Speaker:I don't know, at the same time, I
Speaker:love the skateboarding culture,
Speaker:and the skateboarding culture learns that
Speaker:to me, that if you want to do a
Speaker:trick in your skateboard, you have to
Speaker:try, try, try, falling, Then try,
Speaker:try until the trick has
Speaker:in the right way that you visualize in your brain.
Speaker:So it's very interesting, this kind of
Speaker:feelings that allow us to create
Speaker:things, to create companies, to create applications,
Speaker:to create things. So
Speaker:as a founder, What's a hard lesson you've learned
Speaker:that you wish more quantum founders would talk about
Speaker:openly?
Speaker:Okay. I could say
Speaker:that maybe
Speaker:the way
Speaker:in what we try to do things.
Speaker:Yes, I could say that maybe if
Speaker:we choose to be 100%
Speaker:bootstrapping or be 100% VC-funded, you
Speaker:know, this kind of stuff
Speaker:is the more decision
Speaker:things that allow us to start
Speaker:getting involved in in the world of
Speaker:entrepreneurial. Yes.
Speaker:I don't know if that
Speaker:answered your question or maybe could repeat the question.
Speaker:No, I mean, I just want to know about difficult lesson learned. I
Speaker:mean, obviously it's hard being a founder and I'm sure it's very difficult in the
Speaker:quantum space even more so. And, you
Speaker:know, like we talked about before, not everything is as open source and,
Speaker:you know, open knowledge as it could be. So I just
Speaker:wondered if there was something that you felt you wished more founders would talk
Speaker:about openly. Yes, yes.
Speaker:Well, this is a few founders here
Speaker:regarding the quantum technologies. Yes.
Speaker:See, maybe I could
Speaker:add to this thinking
Speaker:that maybe
Speaker:the compute resources. I don't know if
Speaker:you know that here in Latin
Speaker:America, we can access directly from D-Wave's
Speaker:hardware. Maybe this kind of
Speaker:barriers could
Speaker:be a very
Speaker:a barrier to start creating things or
Speaker:to start to use
Speaker:the real-world tools that
Speaker:are out there. Yes. This
Speaker:example, I could say that would be a big
Speaker:barrier for us as a founder and for
Speaker:all the quantum founders that that live here in
Speaker:this country or living in Latin America.
Speaker:Yes,
Speaker:I consider that
Speaker:interesting. I think it's interesting how
Speaker:we—
Speaker:yeah, I think it's interesting to see how the startup
Speaker:entrepreneurial culture changes from location to location.
Speaker:Even within the US, right? Like, you know, Candace and I both grew up more
Speaker:or less the same timeframe in more or less the same city,
Speaker:um, in New York, right? It wasn't always— at least for me,
Speaker:the pressure was always to get a job at a bank, right? Even if it
Speaker:was in tech, right? Like, you want to work at a bank, right?
Speaker:And the whole idea of working and starting your own company just seemed very
Speaker:I wouldn't say— yeah, it was kind of frowned upon, wouldn't you say?
Speaker:Yeah, it was. It absolutely was. But then something
Speaker:happened, you know, like I can say when I came to
Speaker:Montreal in 2010, the biggest thing I
Speaker:noticed about Canadians was that every family I met,
Speaker:one person was an entrepreneur, one parent, and
Speaker:the other parent worked for a company. But that's also because
Speaker:we have some other safety nets here in Canada. But entrepreneurship
Speaker:was considered, you know, not like a
Speaker:luxury but almost like a necessity for, for future happiness for
Speaker:people. That is interesting because
Speaker:the French-Canadian part of my family, there actually is
Speaker:one branch of the family, um, actually
Speaker:did start their own engineering firm, and
Speaker:they're doing, they're doing real well for themselves last I heard. He lived in Colombia
Speaker:for a while, actually, one of my cousins. He was,
Speaker:um, I think he ended up going to Venezuela, then Colombia, because he worked in
Speaker:petroleum industry. Okay. So kind of like doing, uh, engineering
Speaker:consulting. So, you know, that's how I know
Speaker:about Colombian coffee and stuff like that. And so let me ask you this. Each
Speaker:Latin American country is very proud of their, their coffee culture. Sorry,
Speaker:let me— no, no, let me ask you this. So how do you keep motivated?
Speaker:Because You know, quantum can go slow,
Speaker:right? And it's hard sometimes. The timelines are
Speaker:long and sometimes results aren't as visible as you want them to
Speaker:be. So how do you keep up momentum? How do you stay motivated?
Speaker:Okay, okay, cool. I could say that my team—
Speaker:with a right team, you can affront a lot of
Speaker:barriers in that way. Yes.
Speaker:Through these last 2 years that I'm
Speaker:become an entrepreneur, you know.
Speaker:I was be with a lot
Speaker:of people that I
Speaker:would think that was the, you know, the dream thing, the
Speaker:dream team, yes. But through the
Speaker:years, the real
Speaker:life showed me that not all
Speaker:the people has the, you know, the spirit
Speaker:to create from scratch this kind
Speaker:of companies, yes, not for all, it's not for all,
Speaker:but at the same time,
Speaker:I think that the same life, you know,
Speaker:having me to the way that Right now
Speaker:I have, or I feel that I
Speaker:have the right team. Yes, we have 4
Speaker:founders and at this moment we have
Speaker:passed through a lot of obstacles that you can imagine,
Speaker:you know, and that is one thing that
Speaker:keeping me motivated to
Speaker:keep creating, to keep
Speaker:investigating, to keep researching, to keep start
Speaker:to get
Speaker:grants for computing time, to
Speaker:create some partnerships
Speaker:for consulting services with one
Speaker:team, for research with one team. That is my
Speaker:fuel to not give up and
Speaker:keep going and going. Until
Speaker:we have arrived to our
Speaker:goal. You know, I could
Speaker:say that is the team, is your team.
Speaker:I'm excited, Candace. You know why? Because we always talk about, we talk to Europeans,
Speaker:we talk to Canadians, we talk to Americans. We don't think we've talked to the
Speaker:Chinese, anyone in kind of the Asian side of Quantum yet. I
Speaker:think mostly that's because of time zone issues. But like, it's
Speaker:cool because like, I want to spotlight kind of like the— I know
Speaker:from my experience at Red Hat, I know like the tech scene in Latin America,
Speaker:Argentina in particular, Argentina and Brazil are the two ones I'm most familiar with.
Speaker:They're really sophisticated. I've had some customer calls with those folks and
Speaker:it's like, wow, these guys are really like on top of their
Speaker:game. It makes me want to redo a couple of—
Speaker:which this will probably come out before or maybe this other thing come up before,
Speaker:but I want to redo a couple of the country reports because there
Speaker:are certain countries that have exploded in the past 6 months,
Speaker:you know, since I did the reports initially in May. And so I would really—
Speaker:Argentina is definitely one of them that I want to, I want to explore and
Speaker:investigate. So, Daniel, thank you so much for, for representing
Speaker:and, and sharing what's going on with Q now.
Speaker:And, you know, keep in touch with us. We'd love to hear more.
Speaker:And to hear how everything is progressing.
Speaker:The multiverse is skanking, skanking in time. Black holes are
Speaker:wailing in a horn line so fine. From plank scales to planets, they're
Speaker:connecting the dots. Candace and Frank, they're the cosmic
Speaker:hotshot.
Speaker:Quantum Podcast, turn it up fast. Candace and Frank
Speaker:blowing my mind at last. Quantum Podcast, they're breaking
Speaker:the mold. Science It's bold
Speaker:and it's gold.