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SPEAKERS

Jeff York, Tyler Wry, Brad Werner

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Jeff YorkÌý 00:14

Welcome to creative distillation where we distill entrepreneurial research into actionable insights. My name is Jeff York Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder. I'm here with my co host, as always,

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Brad WernerÌý 00:29

I have Brad Warner, I work with Jeff at Leeds. I'm also an entrepreneur. So Jeff, really nice to see you again this week. Very excited to get rolling. On one sad note, I'd like to say something. There was a person who was very influential in my career. I met him at the University of Chicago. He was one of my professors. He died this week. His name is Marvin zonis. He was an icon in the industry. And I just want to thank him publicly for how he has motivated me in my life. I've stayed in contact with him throughout the time since I've graduated. And I just wanted to give my best to his family and all the folks that's had the good good luck to be able to work with Marvin, or meet him in their life.

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Jeff YorkÌý 01:10

I'm really sorry for your loss spread and for all of his friends and family, I'm sorry for your loss as well. It's just, you know, so it's,

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Brad WernerÌý 01:20

he was he known at five years old, he lived a great life. But he was he was a true clear thinker. And I was always just amazed at the way that he could break things down.

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Jeff YorkÌý 01:30

Well, we'll do our best to honor his memory by doing that today, although I can't promise anything.

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Brad WernerÌý 01:35

I'll hopefully there's humor and have him because he's gonna love this one.

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Jeff YorkÌý 01:38

Yeah, okay, good. Yeah. So, so clear thinking usually follows directly from from beer tasting, I find. So I am excited this week, because we've got a guest that I've been wanting to have on the podcast for quite some time. known him for a long time we met when we were both doing our PhDs. Tyler Wry associate professor and entrepreneurship at the Wharton School. Welcome Tyler.

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02:06

Tyler

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Tyler WryÌý 02:07

is gonna be Jeff and Brad. Great to meet you. And wonderful to be here.

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Jeff YorkÌý 02:11

Yeah, so we're, we're excited. We're going to talk a little bit today about some of Tyler's research, collaboration with Eric JAL, who's at Indiana University, on taking trade offs seriously. So I'm just gonna let this be a teaser. I'm just gonna read the towel taking trade off seriously. And then I'm just gonna leave it like that, Brad, I'm not even gonna do the second towel. Have a

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Brad WernerÌý 02:31

seriously part is concerning. To me.

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Jeff YorkÌý 02:33

The first title sounds interesting, right, Brad?

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Brad WernerÌý 02:37

It certainly is a more concise title than some of the other ones that we've dealt with before.

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Jeff YorkÌý 02:41

Okay, so now let me read you the second half, examining the contextually contingent relationship between social outreach intensity and financial sustainability and global microphones.

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Brad WernerÌý 02:51

And that's why we have booze on this podcast. Because I mean, I don't know how many days it took you to come up with that title. But you know, I don't know about the Amazon bookseller. list what number you're at. But

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Tyler WryÌý 03:05

that said, you have to work hard to be succinct. That was about 15 minutes. You know, tapping the keys. Took you like an exhale their bread. But

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Jeff YorkÌý 03:23

so anyway, we actually wait, we have a we have a paper we wrote together, Tyler, that has the most concise title of any paper I've ever written.

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Tyler WryÌý 03:32

When I was your influence chat, that was Yeah. 100% you and identity based

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Jeff YorkÌý 03:36

approach to social enterprise? How about that bread that better? I think, despite the second half of the title, you'll enjoy hearing about this, Brad, it's really pretty interesting. I know, you're really passionate about solving social problems through entrepreneurship as I am, as I have Tyler is, and I think you'll enjoy hearing what they found. It's actually give some context to when and how and why does microfinance work? Because, as I'm sure you're aware, that's been a very controversial topic at first, you know, with Muhammad Yunus being the Nobel Prize or Bayes like oh, microfinance will save the world. And then, and then a lot of people like maybe not so much, a lot of research and economics question. And what Tyler's co author do is really interesting, they look at Well, it's maybe not just as simple as this is perfect or fallible. Maybe there's reasons why it may or may not be. And then also, we're going to talk the title a little bit about some more recent work he's been doing on the corporate response to COVID. So really interesting that we've gotten away from talking about COVID on the podcast. But yeah, I think as far as that goes, the I feel like I'm optimistic the end is in sight. And I'm excited to see what happens but maybe not most importantly, but first, we have to talk about beer. So I'll start off by saying we usually like to have someone from the brewery or distillery or featured entrepreneur onto the podcast. If anyone from Avery brewing hears this somehow, we we really still want you guys to come on. Like we couldn't get anybody from Avery brewing to come join us today. This is Tyler's favorite Colorado brewery. I'll let him talk about why and how he came to learn about Avery brewing. And, and we just can't get anybody. So you know, we're still gonna drink their beer and we're going to

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Brad WernerÌý 05:23

chop I'd say we give them two episodes. Episode if we if we don't hear from them within their next two episodes, we stopped drinking their beer. Oh.

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Jeff YorkÌý 05:33

Well, but, but anyway, we'd love to have someone on. So we'll probably misconstrue all sorts of things about them. So Tyler, how did you come to learn of Avery beer?

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Tyler WryÌý 05:44

You were hosting at CU, a few years ago, Jeff? And yeah, we some conference entrepreneurship. And, you know, as part of one of the outings we went to and actually sat in the Avery tasting room, and it was a day where they just had their hops delivered. So sitting in the tasting room, tasting their IPAs, you know, just having a sense of the cascade hops walked out, you know, it really left a nice impression on me. And so even being on the East Coast now, you know, when I can find it, I'll pick up a case of a beer and, you know, enjoy sipping it and thinking back to that, that really nice afternoon I spent with you and some of our other colleagues sitting

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Jeff YorkÌý 06:26

in their tasting room. Cheers. I remember you had flown in from sea level, and I tried to convince you to drink water in between every IPA you tasted.

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Tyler WryÌý 06:35

Yeah, that sounds right.

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Jeff YorkÌý 06:40

And you decided to not do? It was a good thing. No, no, it's, it's awesome. I always tell people coming from sea level that I take the Colorado breweries like, Look, you really got to pace yourself at these places. Especially Avery's famous for their big beers.

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Tyler WryÌý 06:57

what's right and we drank the Maharaja Imperial IPA that afternoon. Yeah. Big IPA that knocked me on.

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Jeff YorkÌý 07:06

It is I looked at it at the liquor store this afternoon was like No, I don't need that. Tyler and I anyway, are drinking the white rascal, white rascals pretty cool beer if for no other reason it comes in a can with some kind of devil on the side of it. And you gotta like that. And that's an illusion. This is a Belgian style, white ale. And a lot of Belgium breweries originally were at monasteries. Their most famous one is Duvall, which is like, devil, and it's a strong golden ale. And they have a lot of allusions to Heaven and Hell, and they're ale brewing. And this is a Belgian white style and the flavors in it come from orange peel and coriander. I've actually brewed this style beer a few times. And also the yeast profile is is really soft. So it makes for a really nice hot weather beer

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Brad WernerÌý 07:52

is a kind of like a go to hot weather beer. Is it that type of style?

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Jeff YorkÌý 07:57

Well, it depends if you like Belgian ale or not. If you're used to drink unlike Miller Lite, another highlight for something or

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Brad WernerÌý 08:05

my son is a huge Belgian fan.

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Jeff YorkÌý 08:07

Oh, okay. Well, he would he would love this and it says Nice. Yeah, well, they make some other ones that are great, too. The Reverend is another one another allusion to religion and devils and such. So this is you can't find the IPAs. Oh, you said and Philly, Tyler.

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Tyler WryÌý 08:21

Well, I mean, I honestly didn't look that hard.

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Jeff YorkÌý 08:25

In didn't have any so and I picked this up and that was fine. You mean you didn't like you know, traverse the entire city like looking for a real?

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Tyler WryÌý 08:32

You know, this would have been pre COVID I might have this was you know, I was in the grocery store. You know, I picked up some grapes and some bread and you know, on the way out, I was looking at the beers like, okay, during this podcast, I told Jeff Avery so I better grab something. And this is what they had. So this is what I'm drinking.

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Jeff YorkÌý 08:49

So Tyler has made a bigger effort than Avery brewing has to support their beer on this podcast. We're having a hard time. But we really did all three of us reached out to Avery through various routes. We don't rank with them. We want someone from Avery on the podcast. We love your brewery, we want to talk to you.

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Brad WernerÌý 09:06

And if they knew our buying habits, Jeff, they would be here they would they would send their nicest person to join us for an afternoon maybe even bring a keg

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Jeff YorkÌý 09:15

Stranahan story.

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Brad WernerÌý 09:16

So for our last podcast, I reached out to string of hands. I got a big No. I was an avid Stranahan drinker until I got that no. And now I'm actually loving angels envy. straining hands is dead to me. You know what? That's nice thing about about being a customer that we have. We have choices. And that's

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Tyler WryÌý 09:38

great. So let's make this one about New Belgium. We can pivot in real time here and

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Jeff YorkÌý 09:43

yeah, we could we could we could. We could like stop the podcast, go to a store, get other beer and come back. I mean, we could we can do these things. Yeah, sure.

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Brad WernerÌý 09:52

So you know that I'm a bourbon person and Tyler you know that now too. But I picked up the Avery night ward. Yes. And it's is called a whiskey barrel aged stout. So it resonated with me and I do like these kind of these darker, heavier beers. But what do you know about this? i? All I can tell you is it tastes good.

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Jeff YorkÌý 10:10

So Avery now see if we had someone here they could straighten me out on this. I'm gonna say all sorts of things are probably wrong. But Avery, I do you know, well, and when Tyler first is talking about visiting them, it used to be they were in this like industrial park behind carwash. And it was really awesome because you had like, you take people there is almost like a hidden thing. And, and it had really crazy like German would carve chairs you could sit in thrones and things like that. It was just a really neat place. Now they they have their dream brewery which is which is really nice, but not the same. It's like a Disneyland

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Brad WernerÌý 10:47

of breweries character. Yeah, it is

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Jeff YorkÌý 10:49

like a Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory brewery. Yeah. But we're in the old tasting room, when you sat in this back room with this German throne and whatnot. There was you could see the barrels. And Avery was one of the first craft breweries that I know of, that got into barrel aging beer. And I think this went really well with their kind of business model. And it's not really a business model, but their their brand offering and what they do as a brewery. Because although the the white rascal we're drinking is only like a 6% beer. You know, they're known for big beers like big heavy 10 1215. They even had some beers. They're up there like 20 25% alcohol. At some point, it no longer becomes beer too many people's mind buys tickets still beer because you know, it's cool. And so they started doing barrel aging for some of these big beers and whiskey barrel bourbon, I remember was one of their first ones they did, I never had that one. I saw the night Warden on the shelf. And if no other reason I thought the name was just awesome. And then it's good. What do you think? Is it good?

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Brad WernerÌý 11:51

I love it. Actually, I bought a six pack normally, for doing this, I would buy one beer and then go and back to bourbon. But I'm really happy that I bought a six pack and I'm gonna keep the stocks on my fridge, especially for winter. I think it's a great drink.

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Jeff YorkÌý 12:03

See what great minds think alike. But that's actually exactly what to say. I was like, I should buy that for winter. And then like, instead, I wanted to be aligned with tires. So Tyler, your impressions of the white rascal,

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Tyler WryÌý 12:13

you know, I like it. It's a I think it's good for this style. And I had nothing but good memories of drinking beer in Belgium. So, you know, for me, it is like a summer drinking beer. And I get that it's got the fruitiness and the rest. But all of my memories of drinking beer in Belgium have been when it's just freezing. And it's really nice, good beer when it's cold. So this is a little bit cool tonight. And even if this is sort of a summer style beer, you know, it takes me back to Northern Europe. You know, late fall, cool weather. It's all a bunch of good associations, you know, Belgium and sitting in the Avery tasting room and hanging out with both of you. I mean, it just makes it a really pleasant experience all around. I'm

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Jeff YorkÌý 12:55

liking a lot to

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Brad WernerÌý 12:58

threshold for fun. Oh, no, he does.

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Tyler WryÌý 13:02

write papers Brad. So

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13:05

the title of the paper? Yeah.

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Jeff YorkÌý 13:09

Yes. So one more thing I'll stop here nerding out. I feel like it's my job. So it's called White ale. And well, this one's called White rascal, that the standard for this style is called hoegaarden Belgian beer and and it's called that because the yeast kind of spins in it similar to a German heavy bison. But this one, it kind of almost gives the beer a cloudy. I mean, nowadays, you might think there's a hazy IPA or something. But the whole garden looks really white and kind of has like almost a white color to it. So that's where the the style name comes from. The other cool thing about Avery that I learned this summer, but my wife has not let me buy it. And if I make it through the white rascal, I have this Avery bruise. It must be the official beer of the University of Colorado, because it has a very tiny cu logo on it. And this is why I really want to find out about while I talked to folks at a rebound the podcast. It's called Stampede. It's got ralphie, our buffalo mascot on and on the side as a descriptor, it just says run ralphie run. Gotta love that as a beer descriptor. So I'm anxious to try this. It's a gold Colorado lager. So also interesting. Well anyway, well, we'll continue tasting the white rascal so so yeah, beers we've tasted, I might taste the stampede. Bread heartily recommends the night warden. I haven't had it. I have had bourbon barrel aged stout. And I love it. And I'm anxious to try that. And Tyler and I both give a thumbs up to the white rascal. So onward to talking about research. Tyler, tell Brad a little bit about you know what you do research wise and how you came to do this?

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Tyler WryÌý 14:48

Yeah, so I've been interested in social enterprise and how you try and fix the world through business for I really as long as I can remember. And so I came to all of this through a trajectory right? Tried to be an entrepreneur and that a social entrepreneur, and I wasn't great at either of those things, but turned out to be pretty good at doing research on them. And so that's where I sort of landed, and, you know, it has a, you know, the big imprint on the research that I do. And the reason why I ended up doing micro finance was just there's data available on it. So when you're looking at social enterprises, you know, any kind of business that's trying to, you know, save the world through, you know, some sort of a financial intervention, it's really tough to get, you know, systematic quantitative data. And so you end up with a lot of studies that are in depth and case studies and, you know, idiosyncratic, they go deep instead of broad. But my interest was always sort of, you know, what can we glean, that's generalizable? So how do we take big data, identify broad patterns and generalize beyond, you know, just an organization or two. And so because microfinance has been theorized for, you know, 25 years now, as you know, the next coming for poverty alleviation, and it's, you know, a clearly financial endeavor, right, like, it's finance, right. So because of that the the IMF and others, they put money into systematic data gathering, the idea being if you get data on this, you could fine tune the intervention, and you could actually use finance to save the world, like, you know, hubris in the ambition at all here, right. And so, because of that, you know, this is really nice pool of data that you can grab, and we actually managed to get some proprietary stuff for this paper that isn't public, which, you know, I think it's probably part of the reason why the journal like that, and you can start to look at it, you know, things that, you know, kind of matter. And so for this paper, what I was motivated to do, was sort of, you know, address this theoretical conversation that's been going on in the literature for a while, that says that within organizations that are trying to make money and also have social impact, there's going to be tensions where people inside the organization, fight over goals, strategic focus, all of the rest. And I always thought that was fine, it was reasonable. But it all landed on the answer, you got to solve the tensions, and then you have a viable organization. And it struck me that that was probably a piece of the puzzle, but it left a really big chunk out, which is, can you actually do this social outreach work and make money doing it? Like, it could be great. So let's say that Jeff, and I started a social enterprise. And, you know, Jeff's the business guy, and I'm the social guy, and we fight about, you know, which school is going to take priority. And, you know, over some beer, we come to consensus on how we're going to do this. And you know, we have a big hug and sing Kumbaya, and ain't life grand, that doesn't change the fact that we might still lose money. This might sound viable, right?

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Jeff YorkÌý 17:51

And so we're very noble goals, and we can't actually get any of them done.

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Tyler WryÌý 17:57

Exactly. So I mean, resolving attention seemed like, you know, part of the problem, but it didn't even seem like, you know, the big part of the problem to me. And so what I wanted to do in this paper, and you know, Eric and I collaborated on it, he was contributed as much as I did. We wanted to actually look at Okay, well, what are the trade offs look like, you know, at scale between trying to do good in microfinance and trying to make money in microfinance? Are these things symbiotic? Are they not? And if they're not, what are the boundary conditions where you can actually do both things? And where are the situations where it's just going to be hard? And so I mean, that was really the genesis of the paper. And we, you know, started crunching the data and came up with I mean, I think some interesting answers to this, but I don't know, I guess I have to convince you, right? Brad, you're the you

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Brad WernerÌý 18:42

have to you do have to convince me. So I I know something about microfinance. And I've been involved with it a little bit my son has as well. But I'm just thinking about microfinance in third world, I'm thinking about lessons that are transferable to first world. And I'm really interested in kind of the findings of what would help folks here, and that, that I'm discounting folks anywhere, but just I mean, normally, for me, my focus first is my backyard, that it goes into the neighborhood and expands that way. What did you find?

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Tyler WryÌý 19:12

Yeah, so I mean, it's probably not gonna make you super happy, because the stuff that we were pulling out, we had one finding that might be something you're more interested in, the finding really was, you know, looking cross nationally, and we're looking at, you know, what does the national context mean, for the ability of putting together a model that can actually address these problems effectively? Actually, this might apply in the States. It's not just a sort of a developing world sort of problem or situation. And so what we wanted to look at was, you know, why are people poor in a country? One reason why people might be poor is, you know, they just haven't worked hard or, you know, they had bad luck, you know, but individual factors, they just, you know, have not managed to transcend poverty have they fallen into it through personal bias, lack of ambition, whatever it might be. Another reason why people might be poor though is because they fall into a class of people that is just systematically discriminated against. So women obviously, you know, would qualify as this, if you look around the world, women are more likely to be poor and much more likely to be amongst the poorest members of any society. But then you also see countries where poverty is really tightly entwined with ethnic, racial, linguistic groups, categorical inequality, right? It doesn't matter how hard you work, you know, you're a member of a disadvantaged class, the ceiling set for you, and it's going to be practically impossible to break out of that. And so what we're looking at was, you know, on one hand, what are the implications when you're trying to address poverty in contexts where it's certain types of people that are poor, as opposed to just you know, a cross section of society? And we also wanted to look at what does it mean to try and do this through a business as the instrument, when the market environment in a country is not particularly well, the bill is not good regulations are isn't a good rule of law, monetary policy isn't consistent. And so all of the underlying conditions that would make business work, aren't there in the same way. So those are sort of the contextual conditions we looked at. And I think what was interesting that came out of it was when you have countries or any sort of context, where poverty is rooted in categorical inequalities, so it's it's types of people who tend to be different from the types of people who are working in the microfinance organizations trying to help them, you get a whole set of frictions that make it really, really tough to do this and make money. Right. So if you have to speak a different language interact with someone from a different culture, someone from a different religion, and there's these sort of long burning grievances between groups because of these disadvantages, and a lack of trust, you know, and just real frictions, the communication becomes really hard to make money with something like microfinance, because addressing poverty isn't just, you know, let's help the poor. It's reaching out to a whole different type of people where it's, it's really, really tough, it creates another headwind. And then we found, you know, same sort of

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Brad WernerÌý 22:01

happy there Tyler for a second. Yeah, yeah. Is that is that is that finding surprising?

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Tyler WryÌý 22:06

No, no, and but it will hit it never been shown, right. Yeah. So you know, all the models about microfinance, they looked at, you know, what are the financial considerations, right, and said, model it out that way. And so no one had looked at, you know, what are the social cultural factors that poverty is embedded within? And how does this affect the viability of this as a model? And so, you know, if we could do a screen share here, if this was, you know, visual, instead of, you know, audio, I can show you some graphs. And what you see is the relationship between poverty alleviation focus of a microfinance organization, and its ability to generate sustainable revenues. When you have discrimination at the highest level, the graph looks like almost straight down, right? Like, the more you focus on poor people, the worse your performance gets worse it is. Right. Like it's, it's a disaster in countries where poverty is not, oh, you just got it. Okay. So just holding up a very, very impressive looking graph that we produced. It really is just, you know, spectacular, and it's simply a power. But, you know, the top line on there is also interesting, right? Because in in contexts where poverty is not rooted in discrimination, we don't face the same headwinds, micro finance actually is sort of viable. Right, you don't see the same level of trade off.

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Brad WernerÌý 23:29

Right. So interesting. But also, what's the alternative? I mean, in the in the case that you just stated, is it beneficial at all? Or is it is it practically worthless?

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Tyler WryÌý 23:41

So I mean, we're not looking at the efficacy of microfinance itself, right? I mean, that would be a different set of analyses. So I mean, let's assume for the point of argument that microfinance is effective across these contexts contingent on reaching the poor people you're trying to help. What we show here is that trying to do this through a market mechanism is not the best way to go about it. Right? If you say, finance can solve our problems, entrepreneurship, and the profit motive and efficient markets are the solution. I mean, you sort of figure it out yourself, right? It's just it's not gonna work. You need subsidies, you know, different kinds of organizations to go in and do that work. Because addressing the poorest of the poor, there's just no practical way you can make money doing that. So the microfinance work with, you know, people who are not in these marginalized categories, to the organizations that are trying to make money and let markets work where they work. But then, in these contexts, in these contexts, you got to have different types of organizations, different types of interventions, if you're actually going to address the problem in a meaningful way.

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24:47

That's interesting. I mean,

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Jeff YorkÌý 24:49

this resonates with me, because I've always, ever since the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, I believe his name is that name of his book. I'm trying to remember. Yeah, yeah. At the time, it was Like revolutionary, because anybody that was a business school professor, talking about anything to do with the poor, was just unheard of like, yes, there were some people in business ethics that would talk about that. But that was very marginalized as, as you know, time. So at the time that was like, you know, very primitive, but it always like, kind of resonated wrong with me, it was like, this idea that, if we just sell stuff to poor people, everybody's life will be better. And we'll all get rich and bring them out of poverty by selling them. And to be fair, I'm vastly oversimplifying theory, but not by a whole lot. Like if we just sell small little things of shampoo from Procter and Gamble to poor people instead of big bottles, that will help them somehow. And I think, you know, microfinance is an incredible tool in the right setting. I think the problem is when we have this geometry that like, it'll work everywhere and for every setting, and, you know, NGO solutions are always wrong. And I'm as guilty of this as anyone in my own research, I always want to find the synergy between entrepreneurship and environmental problems being solved. And it's just not there sometimes.

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Brad WernerÌý 26:14

So my question is, for people that want to a call to action, that would like to use microfinance. Where is it effective?

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Tyler WryÌý 26:23

I mean, this is getting at a different conversation, right? So the evidence on the actual efficacy of microfinance is mixed. If you look at the you know, the randomized controlled trial studies have been done by Esther Duflo and bannerjee in that group at the MIT poverty action lab. You know, they would say that micro finance is certainly not the silver bullet that a lot of people hoped it would be, and maybe, you know, sort of net neutral. But then you talk to other people who are on the ground, and they have qualitative indicators. And they say, No, no, I mean, actually, having access to finance can be really useful, you know, in certain situations, as long as you don't assume that this is going to solve poverty. So, I mean, what I can tell you based on the research we've done is we're microfinance organizations themselves, are going to be able to be sustainable profit making enterprises as they try and reach the poor. Now the the efficacy of microfinance, you know, once they've reached the poor, this is still up for debate a little bit. And I mean, to Jeff's point,

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Jeff YorkÌý 27:21

but it's safe to say I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's safe to say if they can't create a economically sustainable model, even if they are helping the poor. They're not gonna do it for very long.

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Tyler WryÌý 27:31

That's right. Right. But I think you are,

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Jeff YorkÌý 27:33

I mean, a second level getting to that question.

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Tyler WryÌý 27:35

Yeah. So I mean, in another research that I've done with Eric and other co authors, we looked at the different sources of finance that go into microfinance. So I mean, I think it's really fascinating to look at how the money flows, when the end of the chain is micro loans to people at the bottom of the, you know, world's economic pyramid, you trace that dollar all the way up to where it originates. I mean, this is, you know, big banks, institutional investors, and a lot of cases, a lot of commercial finance. But then you also have, you know, development, finance and charitable dollars going into the sector. So in these contexts, where microfinance is not easy to do on a profit making basis, I mean, it sort of teaches towards other sources of finance to support these organizations. Right. So if they can't sustain themselves on earn revenue, then just lean into that and look at different sources of money, right? Like, you don't need to have private equity funding that microfinance organization, right, that can be Gates Foundation, or Ford Foundation, or Lauren wealth funds and put that money.

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Brad WernerÌý 28:36

Yeah, yeah. And I do think that there are a lot of businesses that use microfinance as a way to show that they care. And that actually pisses me off to when I start to think about this, because they're using this more as a marketing tool to their customers than actually doing good on the ground. that's frustrating. If so, this is very, very interesting to me. I'm not an expert. But I know that there are entrepreneurs all over the world trying to solve this problem. So what is what is your advice to those entrepreneurs that really want to make a difference in tackling poverty in certain areas? Do you have kind of something overarching, at least you can you can make them aware of,

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Tyler WryÌý 29:15

you know, it actually speaks to a couple of the other findings in the paper. So you know, the one around the strength of the market supporting institutions in a country. I mean, again, that's more of a context factor. But it speaks to environments where it's going to be more possible to address social problems with business as an instrument, like anything we found in the paper was we put together a measure of how professional the management of a microfinance organization was. And that also helps to address this trade off, right. It's just do gooders who are going to start a microfinance organization and have no business acumen, know the trade off is gonna be steep, right? But if you take that same organization and you put professional managers in, you know, it's attenuated in a really significant sort of way? Oh, so, to your question, you know, what would I say to a do gooder? who's trying to do this? I'd say, if you want to do good, get hard nosed, right, like, get some training for Come get

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 30:13

your MBA.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 30:15

Like, you know, yeah, I

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 30:17

mean, seriously.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 30:19

Right, like you got,

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 30:22

it's really hard to survive the first year of a good MBA programs, finance training, without coming away for a much better understanding of Okay, this is how a business actually works. I mean, I know that was true for me, I see that's absolutely true for our students. And it goes along with some of our other work. We've done Tyler that's more theoretical, where it's like, the people that are best suited to be social entrepreneurs or those with some experience in business. In many cases, I'm not saying that people can't make a serious difference as being an activist or playing other roles. But if you're actually trying to do what we think of as social enterprise, or what the literature categorize that, I think, what Brad would think of when I say social enterprise, like create a financially sustainable business, that helps people that are not being helped otherwise, then you've got to have some business acumen perhaps.

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Brad WernerÌý 31:17

And I totally agree with that. But let me let me ask you this, let's just say that we put a bunch of smart business people together to make a difference to tackle poverty. And you go and you raise $100 million? Do we need to stress? Don't expect returns based on all of your other investments? Is there a discounted return that you need to expect? Or is that a fallacy to?

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 31:39

I mean, that's such a great question. So I've got another set of findings, I'd be happy to preview. They're not written up and published in a paper, but they I mean, they speak really directly to this question. Because I mean, when you're looking at the investment thesis for why put, let's say, you know, $100 million into micro finance, I mean, one argument is, you know, micro finance is uncorrelated with macro economic trends. So it's a way to hedge against risk, right? So uncorrelated asset class, you diversify the portfolio. And so there's a rationale for doing this. The other side of this is, you know, the people who are invested in microfinance are not looking at the do gooder organizations. Right? They're skimming the cream. And so yeah, you skim the cream in the countries where, you know, you'd like to take the private equity lens, right, like database investing, you can see, you know, the KPIs all look good for five years, you know, you're going to get your risk adjusted return. Yeah, you can absolutely do that, if you cherry pick organizations. And then what we find in this other paper is that as countries become more reliant on commercial capital, I mean, you know, the private equity, the VC, even private debt, right. In their microfinance sector, the effect is mission drift. Because if only the best performers are getting this money, then it exerts a systematic pressure on everyone else to get up in that consideration set. Right. Right, you're being starved for other forms of capital, of course, you gotta move up. You gotta, you know, focus on the bottom line, the easiest way to do that, stop serving really poor people. Right?

Ìý

33:11

That's right, your mission?

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 33:13

I mean, it's incredible how robust this effect is, right? Oh, man,

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Brad WernerÌý 33:17

it's discouraging, because I'm thinking that ESG is becoming a piece of many people's portfolios. And if you could build a model with a good return, it actually might be as you scaled, or at scale, you might be able to do these great goods. But I'm just trying to figure out how that would fit in into the general investing world. How do you How could you sell this as a piece of portfolio? Yes, it takes off the ESG component. But beyond that, how do you actually really do good? And that's that's kind of what I'm juggling kind of what you're talking about.

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Tyler WryÌý 33:53

If we zoom out, I think this is a really interesting conversation at a conceptual level, right? Because, you know, even if the effect of having all this commercial capital in a microfinance sector is mission drift amongst the true believers, that doesn't mean that it's not doing good with the organizations that are getting the money. Like there are still outcomes and potentially positive impacts that come with infusing money into a nation's microfinance sector. Right. It might be you measure outputs in terms of breadth as opposed to depth of outreach. But you know, you can still make the argument that this is doing good and kapalbhati quantify

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Brad WernerÌý 34:27

that doing good Tyler I mean, right. That's, that's, that's another issue. What does doing good mean to you versus me to Jeff and so forth.

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Tyler WryÌý 34:36

I mean, there's 1000 different vectors in terms of what what good means and where we set the bar on this stuff. But what I was gonna say was, you know, I think that the only issue is if we rely on markets exclusively to try and solve these problems, right, it's like a Venn diagram. There's gonna be a spot where the two things overlap. And yeah, let's pump as much money as we can into there and do good and then also respect that. There's spots with They do not overlap. And it is possible they don't overlap, we have to look at other instruments. And if we're not looking at other instruments, it's gonna push everyone into that overlap. And that might be a spot that doesn't emphasize in fact, yeah, very interesting. Actually,

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Brad WernerÌý 35:13

I've totally relate to that.

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Jeff YorkÌý 35:15

I was rereading the paper today, Tyler, and I found this interesting passage where you say, um, our findings point to the importance of professional management for enabling intensive social outreach, especially in very challenging contexts, and suggests that institution building is likely required in many nations, to create the enabling conditions for a financially healthy and socially effective microfinance sector. So I'm working right now on a comparative lit review between the environmental and social entrepreneurship literature. And one of the big takeaways we've had from that is that that should be something social entrepreneurship, researchers just know, you're gonna have to work on institutions as well, like there's gonna have to be. But it's not like I mean, for Tyler to write this is like a big deal, right? I mean, I think, am I fairly characterizing the

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 36:06

literature there? Tyler, you think I mean, yeah, I'll take any credit you want to give me but is deserving?

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 36:11

Well, you know, I'm not, you know, I don't want to make you I don't pump you up anymore here. But what's interesting is like, when we look at environmental problems, that's all over the place. Like the focus is on market failure because of institutions that don't capture externalities. So I think there's a lot the two literature's can learn from each other. But that's, that's probably a topic for a different day.

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Tyler WryÌý 36:34

I think you're exactly right. And, you know, it speaks to the the plurality of institutions that all of these organizations sit on top of, right? So I mean, it's different sets of institutions. But if you're not looking at that side of the equation, you're missing a big piece of the puzzle.

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Jeff YorkÌý 36:48

Yeah. And so for me, like I always try to like read the papers and distill down like the one thing, right? For me, when I look at this paper that they had take away from, if you want to make a difference, and you want to go and do the most good, and focus on the people that really need the most help, and the most difficult context, realize it's not going to be adequate to just be a good business person. Yes, you will have to do that. But you also will have to be politically involved, you're gonna have to probably partner with NGOs, with government resources with activists. I mean, change has to happen at so many levels. There's a reason why these situations exist as because institutions are not there to support solutions.

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Brad WernerÌý 37:31

That's really interesting, that the foundation has to be much, much, much larger than that what some of these organizations go in with, well, this is why to ships, corporations,

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 37:40

and sustainable venturing my class, I'm like, Look, you know, you guys have chosen to play on an unlevel playing field against heavily entrenched, incumbent forces that don't want you to succeed and have tons of influence. And so you got to figure out how are you going to get a seat at the table, changing the policies that surround your industry, as well as creating a great product that customers love, that they'll pay a high margin for, that you can operationally fulfill on all the things normal entrepreneurs have to do. But that alone won't cut it. I think that's what makes these problems. So intractable.

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Tyler WryÌý 38:13

Yeah, I love the point you're making about all of the different players that are in the ecosystem, and you're trying to make change, right. Like, I think there's a tendency to default to the, you know, the simple, sexy entrepreneurial solution. And I think microfinance and a lot of ways has been guilty of that, right, like Muhammad Yunus to not discount for a second, the amazing work he's done. Of course, not, you know, he gets, he gets held up, as you know, this is one person who validated this model and changing the world. And, you know, and, and, and, and that's not uncommon, and we talk about entrepreneurs, right, like, the story is all about some hero who comes in and through the power of their wisdom with intellect and just sheer force of nature system, so there will and change the world. Right? What happens, right, like, you know, these things ended in broader ecosystems, broader sets of interests, you know, lots of actors all need to collaborate. And if you're serious about actually solving problems, I think it's great to recognize that business can be a tool and to understand how, when and why that can happen. But to recognize that's only one piece of the puzzle, right? Yes, you're not going to solve the whole thing with a single intervention, right? You need to open the aperture, you need to focus more broadly. You need to be engaging collaborative. Yeah. Well,

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Brad WernerÌý 39:28

let's take this one step further. What about when you're talking about poverty within a failed state? And some of the things that you're suggesting may not be possible, it's hard just to write people off.

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Tyler WryÌý 39:40

What do you do? Well, yeah, I mean, this is a context where business is not the solution. You know, and failed states. I mean, there's not many businesses, at least not many flow is, you know, coming up anyway. Right. I mean, there's a thriving DC scene, you know, there's a whole issue with that.

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Brad WernerÌý 40:00

I'm sure that there's not a market that's thriving.

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Tyler WryÌý 40:02

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's all sorts of innovation. It's all sorts of entrepreneurship that happens. But we're not talking about Yeah, you know, formal organization currently founded and, you know, fun. That's kind of the point.

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Jeff YorkÌý 40:12

I mean, like in those in those situations, like, I guess I, here's what I took away Tyrese, straighten me out if I'm misquoting the paper misunderstanding. And those situations, if I go in and try to create a micro finance solution, at best, I'll end up surviving by not really lending to the people that really need the help. and at worst, I'll just not do anything, because I'll operate for a very short period of time.

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 40:40

Are you going to go out of

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Tyler WryÌý 40:41

business? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. In situations like that, it's got to be the NGO money that this model stands up on. Right. And in these contexts, I mean, we could have a whole nother conversation about is something like micro finance the appropriate intervention anyway, right? Like, this is a failed state, do people need access to finance or they're, like, more elemental, we should be focused?

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Jeff YorkÌý 41:01

Or did they just need like, you know, a rule of law. And I mean, we're going back to like, you know, life is is nasty, brutish, and short. At that point. It's not, I need a loan to go sell stuff. It's, well, hey, I wanna I want to transition. So awesome conversation, Tyler, and thanks for taking us into this. Oh, no, Brad, did you get a takeaway you got you get enough.

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 41:23

My takeaway is, if you're interested in helping impoverished people, if microfinance is one of your pathways, you need to really do your homework to understand how broad of reach they have, and the collaborations that they're involved with. And probably if they're a standalone, just do it be doing it themselves, may not be the outcome that you anticipate. So I would say, it's a great passion for people to solve this. But I think that you really need to do your research and how you invest in the groups you invest with. But just like anything else, I mean, so nothing's new. No, so no, no, I'll take away

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Tyler WryÌý 42:03

I've got a rejoinder. Oh, good. It's gonna sound aggressive, but it's not at all. Brad, have you heard of Mount stupid?

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 42:10

mount stupid? Sure.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 42:13

Do you know the theory of Mount stupid?

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 42:15

No, I have no idea truthfully.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 42:17

Okay. And and this is not me saying that you're on Mount stupid at all. But suddenly, he said, tweak this. It's the imperative of doing your homework and understanding what you're doing is starting a business been trying to, you know, have a social intervention, whatever it is. There's this amazing papers published in 1999, by Dunning and Kruger, and they define the concept of Mount stupid. And this is where, like, 90% of the entrepreneurial ventures on pitch to get launched off of what you're doing in the industry papers, they're analyzing what is the relationship empirically, between the amount of knowledge someone has and how confident they feel in acting upon it. And what they found, I mean, they sort of intuited these things to be positively correlated, they could not have been more wrong, they found that, you know, knowledge and confidence, don't covary the relationship looks like a bathtub. And so, where people are the most confident about their knowledge is when they have the very least, yeah,

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 43:13

I can tell you, Tyler, I've planted my flag and mount stupid many times, I can name three direct ventures that were launched on the top of Mount stupid. So that's why, you know, I've had the crap beat out of me over my, my life on some of my ventures, and some have done great. So that's just how it goes. And I actually love that analogy. And I might get a T shirt. I've been to mount stupid.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 43:38

I'd have one too, because I everything that I tried to do when I was a young entrepreneur as socialists. I mean, it wasn't even stupid. It was like mount moronic, right, like, you know, the amount of hubris combined with the depth of ignorance that I had, right?

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 43:54

That's right. Good intentions, good intentions doesn't matter.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 43:59

100% I mean, you look at like calm shoes, right? Like, you know, oski was a very well intentioned guy with this one for one model, right? He was so far up Mount stupid when he came up with this,

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 44:09

like, Yeah, seriously,

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 44:11

and he just didn't know what he's doing right. It wasn't that it wasn't well intention.

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 44:16

I love it that my takeaway is, I'd bend them out stupid, don't want to go back there. But sometimes it's still a draw, no matter how well you've done the research, whatever your intentions are. Sometimes you still in there.

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 44:27

I think you need to create a bend the mount stupid and all I got to go forward is this stupid t shirt?

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 44:34

Yeah, but there's like $20 million sitting on the top amount. Stupid.

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 44:40

All right, so so Tyler, tell us about this research on corporate responses to COVID. We're running out of time, but but tell us about its interest. I haven't heard of anybody in management doing actual research on this. So I'm really curious to hear what you're up to.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 44:53

Yeah. So this is a project that sort of came out of it a year worth of coffee chats, as one of my senior colleagues got named Mike, you seen? And so, you know, Mike and I are interested in all these corporate declarations like, you know, BlackRock saying that, you know, they're only going to invest in companies with good ESG profiles, and then the Business Roundtable signatories, you know, having this big flashy declaration saying that we're redefining what we think the purpose of a corporation is, from when the Business Roundtable was founded until August of 2020. They defined the purpose of the corporation just like Milton Friedman would write it was very much the greed is good. And you know, if you let business be business, this is going to be a positive force in the world. So it's all about maximizing shareholder returns dividends, in lots of payouts to your capital providers, anyone who doesn't know what the Business Roundtable is, this is 182 CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the US. Right. And so it's sort of like a Masters of the Universe club. I mean, they must have amazing parties, right? Like, there's no drinking.

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 45:56

They might get somebody from Avery to show up at their parties. I mean,

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 45:59

yeah, the irony is they probably get the beer for free, right. Like,

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 46:03

we bought it with our hard earned pay salaries cut at CU this year, you know, we went out bought this beer. Anyway. So So okay, so you guys were interest in the Business Roundtable, they made this big declaration. Business is gonna serve all stakeholders. Everybody got very excited and is like, this is the tipping point where you know, we're going to stakeholder capitalism, the world's gonna change. And what do you guys think?

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 46:28

Yeah. So I mean, what we wanted to do was, I mean, COVID hits, right. So right, they do this in, in August, and they had, this was August 2019 2020. As fast forward in a little bit. But then in March 2020, we get you know, Lamberti locking down in northern Italy, and we're in the pandemic. And so we wanted to use this as kind of a natural experiment, right? Like, you know, this big exogenous shock comes in, what does it do to corporate responses. And in particular, we're interested in understanding where these roundtable signatories actually walk in the walk or where they flourish. And why money but it gets

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 47:06

totally full. Yeah.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 47:12

So here's where it gets interesting. And I do media on this set of fun. And it's not it's not even a paper yet, but it got way more attention than I thought it would. Everyone wants to have their full edition story. There's been other papers that have been written in they show that if you look just cross sectionally, you compare a firm of a business roundtable signatory to a similar firm and the s&p 500, the roundtable firm will return more capital to shareholders has more, you know, human rights and environmental compliance violations, they just tend not to be the better corporate citizens. So everyone wants to tell the story that they're full of hot air. And this is just virtue signaling and means nothing. And so we found some support for that. But it gets a little bit more complicated, and you start to dig a bit. Okay, so you look at the responses to COVID. And the way we did this was we took each round table signatory firm, and we matched it with another in the s&p 500 on all the sort of observable dimensions that we could gather data on, right? So like, sales, industry, number of employees, just everything we could. And so we're really trying to get an apples to apples comparison of how they're responding to the COVID crisis. And what you see is I mean, really, regardless of how you model the data, the roundtable firms were the worst that respond, but only if they were ones that historically given out a lot of capital to shareholders. And so there's variants within the Round Table firms, and the ones that were not given a lot of capital to shareholders, they actually would have the best responses, right? It just turns out, there's not many of them. So you know, small and, but the patterns pretty strong. And the ones who had this history of, you know, big dividend stock buybacks, just trying to juice the share price. I mean, they're much more likely to lay off furlough, much less likely to make donations to communities or shift production lines and pandemic related supplies. On any metric we could find they did the worst. And if they did anything, they were slower to do it, then the firm's we compare them to so you know, sort of seems like they're full of hot air, the statement was virtue signaling, you start to dig a little bit. And not all of them, right, the ones who are not returning all this capital, the shareholders are actually a little better than than average. They were hardly world beaters, but they weren't like their, you know, their brother in the, you know, who were, you know, more shareholder focused, right. But what you see is if you start to look at the text of calls to shareholders, right after they sign the declaration, you see a noticeable and consistent shift in the language that all of the signatories are using. They actually are, you know, they're not just signing this declaration, they're, they're talking the talk at least it'd be much more stable. Orientals, about the shareholder oriented when they're talking to their shareholders, right? So it's a lot of context for you to expect them to naturally prioritize stakeholders. And you actually see them starting to reduce their dividends and share buybacks, right. So actual behavioral indicators that they were trying to do the right thing after they sign this statement, not till COVID hits, that they, you know, turn over the applecart and go back to what they were doing. And so what we think is going on is they were actually trying to change their behavior. This was a well intention document, there was intention to follow through, and we actually have some indicators, they were doing this, but what happens when something that's existentially stressful, it comes out of left field and hits you in the face.

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 50:41

your previous behaviors like

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 50:43

that. So I mean, analogy that I like here is, I mean, imagine I've been eating McDonald's, three meals a day for 20 years, right? And I realized, Oh, this is unsustainable. It's really a declaration and I said, I'm gonna start to eat salad. I'm gonna shift away from you, maybe not all at once. I got to have a Big Mac here, there. But you know, I'm gonna start to eat salad, I'm gonna start to get healthy and go jogging. And then I started to do these things. So I make some positive behavioral changes. And then I get a phone call that my aunt's died. Well, I do eat a box of Oreos, right? I

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 51:22

need a smoke of bourbon and a burger.

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 51:25

Yeah, I mean, we've all experienced this, like these. Yeah, the world has to maintain your exercise regimen and you know, your your diet and everything else. And when you're not stressed. I mean, I guess it would translate. I mean, it's probably there's so many path dependencies in these business roundtable organizations like to try to make that shift. I mean, to me, like, Yes, okay, it's probably bs to a large extent. But the fact that there, people always talk about this, like, I actually think like greenwashing is not a bad thing. If you realize, Oh, my God, these terrible green washing companies are like, well, at least they recognize the need to greenwash. That's the first step. Right. Right. First up, at least they're talking. So that's really interesting. So,

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 52:12

I mean, so and I think, to your point, you know, if the interpretation behind greenwashing is this companies being cynical, and they're just saying what they need to to try and curry favor, and I think that probably is negative, right. I mean, even if they,

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Jeff YorkÌý 52:24

you know, they realize they need to do it to create favor is my point, if they actually believe that, and that's what I think of with this whole with the language you're talking about. I mean, I'd offer the CounterPoint that perhaps they were just using this language, in a sense to cut down on dividends, increase retained earnings, perhaps give out some nice bonuses, you know, whatever. I mean, I don't know. I mean, there could be all sorts of reasons to try to justify that behavior. I don't know. I assume you guys cynical, are

Ìý

52:50

you Jeff?

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 52:53

No, no, not at all. 91ÖÆƬ³§ corporations.

Ìý

52:58

No way. Yeah. No,

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 53:01

you probably disagree with everything. I said, Brad, right there? No,

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 53:03

no, I actually, I actually do agree with you. I was kind of putting corporations through those analogies, kind of through a human lens, that in essence, they act like just the rest of us that, oh, my god, there's a shock to the system, we need to figure out how do we survive? And then that focus goes from outward to inward? In a snap of a finger? Yes, a snap of the

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 53:24

finger? Who knew these organizations are composed by people?

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 53:29

Right. And, you know, when you look at corporations, I mean, you know, they are systems and there are, you know, processes and procedures and all the rest, but you know that they are led by people, right? To enjoy, you know, disproportionate influence in the direction of the organization's even if they are working within constraints. And you know, especially when there's a crisis, you know, you're gonna centralize authority, right? And so the CEO is gonna become more influential. And then, you know, very human reaction gets easily coded as something that's really cynical, when it's just I think the story is that it's really hard to change. Yeah, absolutely. Change is hard. And then something happens, it is an existential shock, and you revert back in a very human way to what you did before, because that's what you know, has worked in the past, right?

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 54:12

How many of us have maintained our low carb diet during the pandemic? I mean, just me. Just Brad, Brad's in better shape is urban.

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 54:19

Yeah. So all I would all I would say, though, is I'm actually optimistic by that story, because COVID will be passing. And if the Tennessee though, is to kind of lean more towards ESG. And although the turtle in the shell had to put his head in the shell through the hurricane, they come back out and still that focus may be there. So right, it takes a long time to turn a battleship as we know and theocracies and these big players. I'm actually optimistic after hearing what you just said, with those signatures, that actually we're starting to make progress, make some promises and in their actions were backing up their promises. This event happened and I certainly don't blame him for that and I'm so I'm actually really good. Looking forward to see what this looks like on the other side of COVID.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 55:03

Yeah, I am doing. And that's exactly the interpretation that I take from this. It's a much more hopeful than discouraged. Yeah. You know, it's kind of interesting, right? Because that's not the story. Anyone wants me to tell if they're talking. Like, you know, I'm talking to, you know, political or the hill or, you know, NPR, like, tell me what it is right. It's more complicated than that. It's

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 55:24

a really good story.

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 55:25

Well, I can't think of a much better place to end than that hopeful note. So happy thanksgiving to you guys. And to you guys, to anyone listening this if you if you enjoyed the podcast, let us know. You can reach me easily is Jeffrey york@colorado.edu. If you didn't enjoy the podcast, definitely let us know and what we could do to improve we'd love to hear it. And if you liked it, you want to hear more, click that little subscribe button, wherever you're getting your podcast vending done. And we will have more episodes, we're gonna be talking to PhD students about research we sponsored now this is going to be my firebrand, you're gonna see Bradley, we're drinking bourbon on that guy. Okay, well, whiskey distillery because I don't know about your PhD students are but ours are often good at doing brilliant, complicated, complex analyses that are very difficult for them to explain to anybody in a meaningful way. Even other faculty.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 56:26

Yeah, focus is not often the virtue of the PhD student. Anyone

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 56:31

of all I'd like to say, Tyler, thank you for coming on.

Ìý

56:33

Actually, some

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 56:34

of the conversation was very enlightening for me. I greatly appreciate it. A little bit hopeful about the 150 signatures at the roundtable. So that made me feel good. first podcast ever that I've actually drank my whole beer. Normally I go right to bourbon. So this has been good as well. But I'd love to love to talk more about this. Hopefully at every brewery next time you're in town.

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 56:56

We'll definitely have you out here post COVID. Tyler, have you do a few talks and and we'll go visit Avery and breed them in person for not getting back to us.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 57:04

That sounds great.

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 57:05

That's right. One more mentioned I'd like to talk about though is gelar producers starting a new business. Just a quick on the podcast Joel, how's it going with the tour business and a little bit of an update?

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 57:16

Jd joy rides

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 57:17

ebike. mural tours is going pretty well. It's

Ìý

57:20

slowed down a little bit. We

Ìý

57:21

had, you know,

Ìý

57:22

some cold weather.

Ìý

57:24

And people

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 57:25

seem very distracted lately. I'm

Ìý

Brad WernerÌý 57:27

not sure why.

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 57:28

What could possibly be distracting right now. Yeah, but uh, had a tour yesterday.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 57:34

It was gorgeous. I'm

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 57:34

telling you if the temperature is above 45 degrees, it is just a beautiful time to ride a bike around or the art is amazing. The town is amazing. The views are amazing. And it's a real good time and HL How

Ìý

57:47

would our listeners find you JD Joy rides.com jd s Joy rides.com. You'll

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 57:53

find us on Facebook and Instagram, as well. And thanks for asking. Okay,

Ìý

57:59

awesome. Thank

Ìý

Jeff YorkÌý 57:59

you for joining us with creative distillation. We've got Tyler I associate professor at the Wharton School of Business. I'm Jeff York, University of Colorado Boulder, as always with my co host, Brad Werner, also from the University of Colorado Boulder. Thank you very much for listening and have a wonderful holiday season. We'll be back in a couple of weeks.

Ìý

Tyler WryÌý 58:17

Thank you. Thanks, guys.