This Hotelier is Next to Google, Sees The Future, and Shares What He’s Doing About It - Dipesh Gupta, Shashi Group

Josiah: We're in the heart of Silicon Valley. It's a really interesting place. And you have an interesting story. We're going to get into different elements of that. But I always love to hear the stories of the people behind the ideas, behind the hospitality. And so I wonder for our listeners, if you could tell us a little bit about your career journey into the work that you're doing today.

Dipesh: Absolutely. I'm an engineer by education and I still consider myself an outsider in hospitality. My journey really started in technology, where I was in financial services, and I started my career in AI and emerging technologies. And this is before AI was called AI. Those were the times when it was still called data modeling. and then emerging technologies, where I was involved in the launch of the first Visa smart card in the U.S. And then I moved to the West Coast with high tech, including my work with Oracle. And then during my tech journey, I think we saw an opportunity, and it almost started with a need. where in Silicon Valley we would have people as part of our IT services company, we would have people come in from other parts of the world, and it would be almost impossible to find a room for them within Cupertino. And then even if we were able to find a room, when we would drive them to the hotel, there would be some sense of disappointment on their faces. Just coming from other parts of the world, they're just used to a little more go-to lifestyle hotels. And so when we started peeling that onion, we saw that there was a huge and growing unmet demand for hotel rooms. People were driving almost 45 minutes to 60 minutes on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to find a room. And then the customer experience was lacking. And I think the industry here was really moving away from full service to select service to limited service. And the concept of customer experience was really lacking. So when we looked at that, we also found that there were just significant barriers to entry in Silicon Valley. And coming from technology, we understood how these companies were doing, and we thought, you know, really, it would be great to own a few hotels in the heart of Silicon Valley at Apple headquarters, Google headquarters, we'll want to. And that's kind of really what it started off as an investment in hospitality. And here we are today.

Josiah: Incredible. Well, I think hospitality is a really interesting investment. Were there other aspects of the hospitality business that were appealing to you? But besides other sorts of investments, why invest in hotels? 

Dipesh: Oh, absolutely. I think it was really the fact that it made a lot of sense to us because there was a huge unmet demand for hotel rooms even at that time. And when you look at that time, iPhone was just being launched. And so Apple was a completely different company. But we could see how the technology was going mainstream and how these high barriers to entry would grow that demand even further and that gap would grow further. So we really saw it as a very compelling opportunity. And then when we looked at the existing supply of hotels and the quality of hotels, we thought that there was a significant need to bring in some really world-class hotels to Silicon Valley.

Josiah: So I want to hear your thoughts a little bit about this intersection between technology and hospitality. You built an incredible career. In technology companies leading technology initiatives, both within those companies and with customers and clients, you've been working on what now is known as AI for some time. It's not something that just started, obviously. AI didn't begin in 2022. Right, AI is kind of a whole set of technologies that's been around for a while. But I guess my question for you is, you know, before we started recording, you and I were talking a little bit about disruption in hospitality. And you told me that you see this big opportunity for disruption. I wonder if you could speak a little bit to why that is. It appeals a lot of technology. Company founders are always talking about disruption, but you're also not only have this career in technology, but you are a hotel investor and an operator. And so you see it from a lot of different angles. What makes you think that there's disruption coming to hospitality?

Dipesh: I think it all starts with the customer. And if you look back a few decades, technology has had a profound impact on our lives. It has changed, just completely transformed how we work, live, and play. And with every major advancement in technology, from, you know, starting with hardware to software, internet, mobile, cloud, and now AI, and we're not just stopping there. We're going to continue moving and innovating. But with all these major innovations in technology, this fear of the influence of technology in our lives has grown exponentially. Just 10 to 15 years ago, Netflix was still mailing CDs. We were still printing or boarding passes. We were still calling a taxi. TikTok, Instagram, Uber, DoorDash did not exist. So we live in a completely different environment today where our customers' lives have changed profoundly. And as we look at this change, I think as Jack Feldman said, I really like what he said. It can be applied to pretty much any situation at any time. He said when the rate of change in a customer's life is more than the rate of change in an organization, the end is in sight. The only question is when. And I think if you look at this pace of changing our customers' lives and the lagging pace in several industries, countless industries have been disrupted by technology companies, and undisputed leaders have been toppled. You can go from smartphones to retail to automobiles. And it's not that these companies, these incumbent players, don't have good ideas. I think, as John Keane said, you know, the difficulty is not so much in developing good ideas as much in escaping from the old ones. So I think the incumbent players have found it a little more difficult in most cases to keep up with the customer's change. In fact, the rate of change in our customers' lives is so much, it's so huge, that the disruptors themselves are being disrupted by others a few years later. And BlackBerry is a great example. I mean, BlackBerry disrupted everyone else in the phone industry, only to be disrupted by Apple later on. And Netflix would have been disrupted by streaming if they didn't have the vision to disrupt its own CD business and move into streaming. So I think this ongoing rate of change and this rate of change is only increasing with time. So we think that there is a disconnect today with the lives that our customers are living in their personal lives, in their living rooms, in their professional lives, versus where hospitality is today. So at Shashi, we believe that hospitality is now ready for major disruption. And as this disruption unfolds, I think there are a few things to note here. One is that this disruption is going to come from the customer. Not that we will still need to continue to improve our operating efficiencies. We will still need to use technology to improve our operations. But this disruption is coming from the customer. And I think the best example I can think of there is Blockbuster. When Blockbuster was getting disrupted, they still had phenomenal locations. They had great stores. The customer service was exceptional. They had an amazing collection of DVDs. But at some point, the customer moved on, and they stopped caring for that experience. So I feel like hospitality is going to experience this disruption from the customer side and not the enterprise side. Enterprise will always be important, but the hotels and the companies that don't focus on the customer are the ones who are going to look very different a few years from now.

Josiah: Right. And it's not a problem until it is a problem, right? And the customer is no longer booking your hotel.

Dipesh: And it's often too late at that time.

Josiah: Yeah. And it's hard to move quickly in this environment because it's the built environment, right? Hotels take a long time to build. They take a long time to retrofit. And so if you're not thinking into the future, it seems like the clock's just ticking until you become obsolete.

Dipesh: I mean, the customer is already there. Yeah. They're already leading that life. So, that gap exists today. It's huge and it's growing every day. I mean, just imagine if Apple launched iPhone 1 and it stayed there. Apple won't be Apple. So every year you have to release new technologies and you have to keep up with all the innovation that's available to the customers. So I think this innovation is going to come from the customer to the scale and impact of this disruption would be huge. It would be enormous. And we have to really train ourselves to think differently. As Henry Ford said, if I asked people what they wanted at that time, they would have said faster horses. So we have to think, we have to take the leap and think of automobiles and not just faster horses. So the scale of this disruption is going to be enormous.

Josiah: How do you do that? Because I feel like it's interesting and informative to look into the into the past and the history to see where companies were disrupted. But how do you, as a leader, get a sense of what's coming?

Dipesh: Yeah, so I think. I think, again, you have to focus on the customer. And if you don't do it, someone else will. And that's what happened with other industries. But to give you an example of faster horses, in this industry, when technology was available, we moved on from physical keys to digital keys and mobile keys. And so to me, that was really a very incremental innovation, more like faster horses. But it really doesn't work for the customers. And even today, almost 10 years after the first mobile keys were introduced in this country, the adoption for mobile keys is still way less than 5% compared to airlines where customers are already leading that lifestyle and almost 80 to 90% of the passengers are now going directly to security and to the gate. How many people are standing and waiting at the front desk at the check-in counter anymore? What's the difference?

Josiah: between airlines that have gotten this adoption and hotels that haven't?

Dipesh: Oh, absolutely. I think it's the focus on the customer and the convenience. It's not about faster horses. It's about adding value to the customer. So in hospitality, the convenience of using a physical card far outweighs the challenges with using a mobile key. So customers at times choose to still have the physical key. And in most cases, most hotels do not allow you to directly go to the room and skip your front desk line anyway. So, if you have to stop by the front desk in any case, and even if you have a mobile key, you have to now, when you get to the door, you have to drop everything in your hands, you have to pull out your phone, unlock the phone, go to the app, unlock the app, pull out the mobile key, let the devices pair, and then you unlock it. And now you have to unlock it several times in your stay. So the convenience has to far outweigh, the value to the customer has to far outweigh the challenges. And the value has to be, you know, it's like airlines. We think that the vast majority of people would want to go directly to their roles and be able to select their own roles in real-time and get access to the rooms without stopping at the front desk at all. And even that experience of unlocking the door, has to be completely different. We have to rethink that strategy completely. We have to move away from mobile keys, and we are still in the R&D phase for something that we call fast-pass there, where we are looking at redefining that experience completely.

Josiah: So we might have to circle back on that, but I want to stay just with this notion of high-level technology and innovation in hospitality. You say disruption is coming. I feel like what makes the hospitality industry really unique, and hotels specifically, is this dynamic between owners and investors and brands, sometimes management companies, sometimes asset managers. There are a lot of stakeholders involved in the mix. Depending on who you talk to, sometimes people will say the brands are more innovative and they're held back by owners and investors willing to invest capital to make these innovations happen. You weren't an owner, you're an owner of this property, you've created it, you're running it now. I'm curious what you've seen in that dynamic. Did you look at some of the brands when you were considering a hospitality investment or not? I'm curious what that was like for you.

Dipesh: I think when we did our first hotel at Apple headquarters, we actually went with Starwood Hotels at that time, which later became Marriott. And I think there were many reasons to do it. It was a first investment and the distribution was important. But also I think the loyalty platform was was really very attractive to us. And coming from the corporate world where those points were important to corporate people at that time. Now you fast-travel that 10 years later and we felt more comfortable going independent and being able to design the kind of product that we think is most applicable to these savvy global travelers. And so weather is the hotel itself. So we don't have any swim lanes. We don't have to deal with 30 to 40 different brands and try to differentiate themselves and keep the customers in the swim lane. We design something that works for our customers. And technologically, I think we are able to do amazing things. And in addition to that, I think technology also allows us to now really not be as dependent on the loyalty platform of the brands that come with it. So to give you an example, I think instead of points, technology now allows us to offer real-time cashback to our customers. which they can, so they can get five to 10% cash back on their stay instead of points. And it's available in real time for them. So they could transfer it to the bank account. They can transfer it to their friends and family on PayPal or Venmo. And the value of that is very attractive. And it's instant.

Josiah: It's instant. It's real-time. Well, it's interesting to look at the landscape and all the evolution that's happened in hospitality, even over the last decade. You talk about loyalty programs, you're counter to that. You look at distribution, and different options have opened in that regard. But a big piece of success that feels in hospitality is still about creating something unique from a design perspective. This is a beautiful hotel, but also, from a technology perspective, that allows you to personalize the guest experience. In talking with you before we started recording, it became clear that the target guest that you were hoping to serve from this was very technologically advanced in their own lives. Often they were working for these big technology companies that are providing the tech that all of us are using every day. I wonder if you could speak a little bit to how you thought about creating and using technology at this hotel. There's a great article in the Wall Street Journal, a link in the show notes to where people can see one element of that. But I wonder maybe if we could speak broadly to how you thought about technology in the hotel and maybe a little bit about Sashi AI.

Dipesh: So I think, again, it all goes back to the customer. When we started looking at that, I think we started with looking at the existing, the current state of hospitality. The way we see hospitality today has three tenets: product, service, and loyalty. The product is pretty much around the real estate. Service is pretty much around the level of service. And we think that personalization is an overused term in hospitality in many ways. Everybody's talking about it. Everyone is talking about it. And essentially what a lot of What has happened over the last many years is that personalization has somehow become kind of proportional to the service levels that our hotel has. In fact, we even call it like that. We call it full service, select service, and limited service. So we think that these three, if you think of this as a Venn diagram, it's three circles, product, service, and loyalty. We think that there is a fourth tenet of hospitality and technology, which will be right at its epicenter. And it will disrupt all three existing tenets of hospitality, digital product, digital service, and a digital currency. And the way we see it manifesting itself is that the customers will be empowered. with the ability to hyper-personalize, control and manage every aspect of their journey from anywhere, anytime and from any device. They will decide how and how much does they want. And hosts in turn would be empowered to meet the customers where they are in their journey. with some very meaningful, purposeful, and hyper-personalized touch enabled by AI, enabling just phenomenal experiences for the customers, which are integrated across the digital world and the physical world. And as customers make those choices, some customers may want to skip the front desk completely and go directly to their rooms. Some customers may want to really spend some time and get to know the people, get to know the hotel, get to know the area. So there will be that wide spectrum of people coming in. And you have to empower the guests to make that decision for themselves. And the way we see it evolving is that a vast majority of these touch points today for, you know, front desk check-in, valet, concierge, bell mill, we think a vast majority of those touch points are going to go away. And companies and hotels will have to learn how to differentiate themselves and how to offer compelling experiences with a fraction of touchpoints available to them. So I think it will call for significant training and I think the host will need to be really empowered. to be able to meet the guests where they are and still offer value.

Josiah: I'm curious, from your perspective, as a hotel owner, do you believe that providing this sort of personalized guest experience will become the deciding factor of how you succeed in hospitality today? Will guests choose a hotel based on their ability to provide this sort of service?

Dipesh: I mean, I think of it a little bit more like, let's say, the iPhone. So, on the iPhone, a lot of people are using the iPhone for emails and texting, and you can make the call whenever you want. Some people use it a lot more for phone calls. Some people use it for emails and texting. So I really think that the customers would make those decisions and it will be a different answer for different people. And it might be a different answer for the same people in different situations. So, the way the scenario unfolds for us is that, you know, I'm Ubering my way to the hotel. I go in, I select my room, exactly the room that I want, and I get my FastPass or mobile key, as we know it, and I go straight to my room. Now, front desk has to really learn and be trained on how to still add value to me as a customer as I'm walking towards my role.

Josiah: How might that look like? What might adding value look like?

Dipesh: So, I think that's where AI comes into play. So, we envision that we would be able to really not only train our staff, but really offer them the tools to offer some meaningful experiences to the customers. So, as you are walking in, we would know who you are. We would be able to recognize you, and we would be able to engage with something that is meaningful to you. For example, last time you stayed here and you enjoyed the red wine, and you had a conversation with them. Well, we may have a wine-tasting reception during their stay, and we might be able to talk to them about that. You are coming out of the fitness center, and last time we know that when you came out of a fitness center in New York, you actually had a smoothie. and we can actually offer you value in a very hyper-personalized manner. So to us, it's a segment of one. Every customer is different and we have to meet them where they are and empower them to be able to do as much or as little on their own.

Josiah: Amazing. This is really fascinating to me because It seems like a lot of the conversation around AI today is all based on the premise that technology is the interface between the AI and the person, right, who is trying to help. It seems that you see this opportunity for your teams to be that interface where they're powered by the insights. You know, hey, Dipesh is arriving. I know he likes California reds. I'm going to suggest this tasting that we have on the property based on that, but your team then becomes a human-to-human interaction that is powered by insights from AI. Is that right?

Dipesh: We think that human interaction is key and it's not going to go away. We have to get better at how we interact with our customers. And I think really it's the age of hyper-personalization. And I'll give you another example. I mean, I think to me it's the empowerment of customers and the empowerment of hosts. You know, there is a growing population of neurodivergents. And now, when we work with the major tech companies, almost one-third of the employees in major tech companies are now neurodivergent, which means that they have some unique needs which must be addressed. And some of those needs are really about empowerment and being in control and allowing them to do what they want to do, what is important to them. is really, really important and be able to train our staff. You know, when one third of your customers are going to be neurodivergent, we need to not only empower the guests, but you also need to train your staff in how to be able to offer a different experience for them versus someone else. So I think technology would allow us to meet the customers where they are in their journey.

Josiah: I wonder if you could speak a little bit about some of the personalization that you are now enabling in your rooms, which got the attention of the Wall Street Journal and others. But to make this practical, you notice a third of your guests, your customers have these special needs, and probably others who are not in this category still would like to personalize their rooms to a level that they can't get elsewhere. What did you create to enable this?

Dipesh: So I think the notion for us is really the lives that our customers are leading in their living rooms, and how they could bring their own living room wherever they go in the world. So the way we have designed our solution is that if a hotel is on our platform anywhere in the world, our customers will be able to take their living rooms with them to that room, and we call that living room in a box. What that means is that as you unlock the room of your hotel. The room will it will unlock really the door into your own living room with your family portrait on a 65 or 75-inch TV with the background music of your choice playing on the TV. The temperature in the room should be just the way you have preset it, and the lights in the room should be exactly the way you want to have them. any color on the color palette, and any brightness that suits your needs. And you can create your own scenes. So as you walk into this room, this room is no longer ours, it's yours. And it could be completely different for you versus the next customer who walks into that room. So it's the same room, but it's yours for you, and it's the living room for someone else as they walk into it. And as you get into that living room, the way you would you would engage in that room and the way you could cast or airplay or just start playing. I mean, you could be playing a movie on Netflix when the plane landed, and you just go in and you start playing that movie on the TV. And so we really try to make it seamless. And in addition to that, we have done some really pretty amazing things there. There's a concept we call sleep concierge. And what that allows you to do is that you can unwind in the room in the evening with some calming music. And with a click of a button, you could be sipping chamomile tea to slow down even further. And the TV will turn off automatically at your preset time. And if you choose to, white noise will start playing for you, for a sound sleep for you, any white noise that is selected by you. And not only that, as so you go from calming down and slowing down the evening to a sound sleep. And then you can wake up with an alarm and the settings in the room to your choice. So you could walk in with the lights in the room now are kind of of the sunrise setting. So you could get up and all of a sudden the lights are on and then it feels like it's a sunrise. There could be music playing of your choice in the room at the volume that you would like. To us it's really about, you know, you take your living room wherever you go.

Josiah: Where are guests configuring these settings?

Dipesh: So I think, just like I said, we want to empower the customers to be able to control their end-to-end journey from anywhere, anytime, from any device. So what that means is that they could configure their settings anywhere, anytime before they arrive at the hotel, or during their stay at the hotel. So in their mobile app, as they're opening to the hotel, as they're checking in and they're selecting their room, they can make all these selections to personalize their room so that when they walk into the room, the temperature of the room is exactly the way you want it. And then as you are in the room, now we also have what we call a Shashi TV app, which gives them the interface, a very intuitive interface to be able to control all those things in real time from that device. And they could still use their mobile phone too if that's more convenient to them at the same time. And it's all real-time. It's all seamlessly integrated. You could be in the sauna in the morning in the hotel room, and all of a sudden, you want your room to be 10 degrees lower when you go to the room. You can do that from the sauna in the room in the hotel. So by the time you get to the room, now your room is actually at a different temperature than even your pre-setting.

Josiah: It sounds great as a guest. I'm curious, on your perspective as an owner, how you evaluate the return on the money that you've invested in this. It seems, you know, again, that's a great experience, but do you view the investment as almost future-proofing so you don't become obsolete, don't become that blockbuster in that earlier analogy? Or are you looking also at, you know, guest satisfaction ratings or loyalty rates or the other metrics? Or how do you think about this as an owner and understand if it's had the impact that you want in the business?

Dipesh: I think it's a little bit of all of the above, but I think the first and foremost, I think it's about addressing the customer needs. So for us, we have to continuously be able to offer more and more value to our customers. And that's what's really driving us. Now, as an owner and operators of these hotels, we have given it a lot of thought because technology is all about scale. If you can't scale that technology, then it's not as meaningful. And I'll give you a quick example on the site, and I'll come back to this question. You know, when I was launching my first user smart card in the US, it was a beautiful card with a microprocessor chip and four applications. And the experience was amazing. But it only worked at 3% of the terminals that customers went to because the infrastructure for the merchants in the U.S. was not smart card enabled at that time. So even though it was a great product, but it worked only for 3% of the times that the customers cared for. So, technology is a little bit like that, where if it doesn't add value to you, and if it's not done at scale, then it's not something that is sustainable. It will not be the same value to the customer, and you won't be able to keep up, and that's why companies get disrupted down the road. So, with that analogy, I think that as an owner, when we saw this, it really had to be a few things. I think we were very clear about coming from the technology world and also understanding what the customer is looking for and what the limitations as an owner of a hotel are. So we had a few things that really became very important to us early on. One was that it has to be able to work in existing hotels. And it should not be limited to new constructional hotels only. You know, more than 90% of the inventory at any time is existing hotels. So we've designed something which works for the existing hotels. And the second was, how does it integrate with the existing systems in the hotel? So again, going back to my Oracle experience where we developed the CRM suite to integrate seamlessly into the enterprise suite, we have designed this solution really where it's a customer-facing solution end-to-end. And it seamlessly integrates with the existing systems in the hotel, including PMS and the reservation system. And those were built by other companies. And those are built by others. So we can go into any hotel and those hotels can start benefiting from our technology because we would seamlessly integrate into the existing hotels, into the existing system. So that was number two. Three, what was really important was that this does not become obsolete. Our customers' lives are changing at a very rapid pace. and that rate of change is accelerating. So the way we have designed our solution is really software heavy, 100% on cloud, and we have really minimized the need for hardware. And what we do is just think of it like your iPhone or a Tesla car. So it gets upgraded every single day. So every day our technology is upgraded to meet the customers with the changes that have happened in their lives. So it does not get obsolete.

Josiah: And you have to be cloud-based to do that.

Dipesh: And you have to be cloud-based. It has to be cloud architecture where things don't break as you do it. So we have spent four and a half years trying to develop this technology. We could have done this technology in two years if these things were not important to us. But that was really important. And the fourth thing, which was again very important, is being an owner, we really wanted something where you don't have to go behind the walls. You don't have to break any walls. So you could actually deploy it with speed, with scale, and at the right cost. So as an owner, I think we really took our time to develop this technology and we really wanted it to be that iPhone experience when people get it in their hands. It's something that really makes a lot of sense to them. And from owner standpoint, it's really much easier for them than even doing very small incremental solutions. So we go end-to-end and we integrate with the existing solutions and we stay current.

Josiah: What are some of the aspects of the impact of this that you're most proud of? It seems like there are benefits to guests, there are benefits to empowering your teams, and to the business. What stands out to you as some of the things you're most proud of?

Dipesh: I think what we are most proud of is bringing value to the customers and designing something that can keep up with the changes in their lives.

Josiah: Are you starting to see this in guest feedback or are you starting to hear from guests, hey, this is really helping me?

Dipesh: I think anyone that we have heard from or we have shared this technology with at this time, I would think the feedback has been phenomenal. And the other thing is, I think the notion a lot of times is, you know, is this only for tech employees? And I think that we think that it's gone mainstream. And this is what appeals to pretty much anyone who is using Netflix instead of flipping channels, who is using Uber instead of calling a taxi. Anyone who is, you know, checking online and getting their boarding passes online versus, you know, printing them, we think that this would appeal to them.

Josiah: Well, you have built a career and then multiple businesses in the heart of Silicon Valley. So you've seen this for a while, but as you point out, this way of living is global, right? People around the world are living this way. So the applicability, you happen to be based here in the heart of Silicon Valley, but it's not just a Silicon Valley opportunity, it seems.

Dipesh: I think it's for everyone, and there are more than 1.4 million iPhone users and even a much bigger number for Android phones. So to me, anyone who is using their phone as a smartphone, and not only to make calls, is going to find value. And like I said before, I think most people are leading those lifestyles at home and elsewhere already anyway.

Josiah: What do you, I always love before, before we go get getting your thoughts about kind of what you're excited about as you look into the future could be things that you're, you know, looking forward to things that are just are on your mind. What do you think about as you kind of think about the months and years ahead?

Dipesh: I think we are getting into a very exciting time for hospitality. And I think that this disruption is coming. And I think there will be companies that would embrace that and which would actually be at the forefront of this. And they don't have to be a technology company to do that. But they have to embrace technology. They have to partner with the right technology companies. And then there will be companies which would be slow to respond. And I think over the next 10 years, as we look back 10 years later, I think that a lot of the existing top 10 players, I think there will be a lot of displacement in that. There will be companies that will become much stronger. There will be companies which would still be relevant. And there will be companies that won't be as relevant as they are today. So I think these would be very exciting times. And I think every time this disruption has happened in any other industry, there has been enormous value creation. I mean if you look at the market value of Blackberry. It was $80 billion compared to $3 trillion for Apple. The peak valuation of Blockbuster was $8 billion compared to $300 billion for Netflix. So I think that with this disruption and innovation, It will create new opportunities and tremendous value will be created in hospitality, not only for customers, but for owners and managers and the whole industry. The right players who can move at a pace faster than the customers will benefit from it.

Josiah: What's interesting to hear you say that, because I feel like over the past couple of decades, it has seemed that you have to be building a technology company to benefit from advances in innovation. What I'm hearing from you as a hotel owner and operator is you see this huge opportunity. You look at how big the global travel industry is. You look at the huge amount of demand that there is to create a ton of value in this business, in hospitality, by adopting some of the best practices of technology, by using technology But also leveraging the other aspects that you mentioned comprise a hospitality business, the product, the real estate, the location, the service experience, the design, right? And so it's all these powered by technology. You mentioned that being kind of underneath or sort of in the middle of all these elements.

Dipesh: I think technology is going to be the soul of this disruption. But to us, I mean, I think Shashi Hotel here at Google headquarters, to us, it's really an illustration of the future of hospitality. So here, we're enabling the entire technology stack of Shashi AI that I was talking about. And not only in terms of their stay here, I think we have some amazing things on the booking side as well. So as you're booking your hotel, Let's say you are in Hawaii and someone told you that Shashi Hotel is a good hotel and they should try it next time. So they go to our website the first time ever and they could still be a complete stranger to our website. but they can still complete a reservation without entering a single piece of information. So, we have enabled the technology that customers are, you know, are leading anyway. I mean, you can even buy a Tesla car without entering any piece of any information whatsoever, but you cannot make a hotel reservation unless you're an existing member. So you can actually go to a site as a complete stranger and complete a reservation with just a few clicks, no data entry at all. And let's say you are in London and you are booking a flight and you're landing at 10 a.m. Your meeting is at 2 p.m. and you really need an early check-in. So now instead of getting on the phone, At the time of booking with a single click, we allow our customers to book and really take in time. Single click. And it also presents a huge opportunity as owners for us to drive more revenue from the same role. Because people will pay for that. People will pay for that. And they are paying for that. So I think to us, technology is really important. and we have really tried to empower the customer and then empower our hosts as well. The second piece that we have done as we think of the future of hospitality is sustainability. We think that sustainability is really important to our customers. And at Shashi, we take sustainability very seriously. And this hotel, Shashi Hotel, Mountain View, is one of the most sustainable hotels in California. We are the only one of two hotels in California that are LEED Gold certified.

Josiah: Does technology play a role in that? Or that's all about construction?

Dipesh: I think technology does play a role in being eligible for LEED Gold because of our energy savings and we generate 25% of our power on site through solar. We use recycled water for irrigation. So sustainability is really important to us. It's a way of life. And now I think we have a huge focus on minimizing the trash and maximizing compost and really optimizing the recycling piece. So that's a huge focus for us. The next big focus on sustainability is around compost.

Josiah: Does that save money at all or is it just good for the planet so you're doing it?

Dipesh: I'm kind of curious if… You know, as a donor, we always think of cost as well. So why is this important to us? We also try to do it very cost-effectively. So we try to use technology where we can, and we do it in a way that not only are we being responsible, but we are physically, it makes sense as well. So that's been our philosophy for technology as well. So once we check the boxes for technology and sustainability, I think the next piece for us and I think that's how we think hotels will need to differentiate themselves over time. We think that in the past a lot of unidimensional lifestyle hotel concepts have flourished. You know I think there were many independent hotel chains and other chains which really were just around F&B. They specialized in F&B. Then there were great hotel concepts, and there are great hotel concepts today around fitness and wellness. And then there are some around just a very high-touch luxury service model. So I think all those unilateral or unidimensional lifestyle models were very successful. But we think that today our customers are leading a multidimensional lifestyle. And we call it, you know, single stay, multiple lifestyles.

Josiah: So you can't just have put people in one box. They can't just be this one persona.

Dipesh: There are no swim lanes anymore for our customers. So our customers, while technology could be very important to them, sustainability could be very important to them. But as they get up in the morning, the most important thing on their mind is fitness. So what we have done at Shashi is we have a world-class fitness center and other amenities like sauna, steam, jacuzzi, pool, and complimentary bikes. And we even supplement it with rituals like complimentary yoga classes in the morning. So that really is because it's important to our customers. Now for the same customers, as the day evolves, co-working becomes really important to them. So what we have done is we have really designed very flexible indoor-outdoor seamlessly integrated spaces, which can work in both private and social settings. So you could be working on your laptop in a corner of the hotel, or you could be in one of the patios, or you could be sitting by the cabana by the pool and working on your laptop. Or you could be meeting with a VC and over a glass of wine or a cup of cappuccino and all of a sudden you decide that you need some private space to be able to show a presentation to the VC, you can just hop in one of our meeting pods and complete your meeting and just move on. So we really have tried to provide that co-working environment because it's important to our customers at that part of the day. And as the day unfolds and we get into the evening time frame, I think the most important thing on our customer's mind is dining. And dining is where we feel, by the way, that majority of the touch points that would remain would be around F&B. That's where people would like to talk to someone. And, you know, to us, what's a good glass of wine without a good story behind it? So what we have done at Shashi is we really have created some exceptional dining infrastructure and experiences. So to start with, we brought in a Michelin chef, Jarad Gallagher. who has been a Michelin chef for 19 years. He has curated four different F&B outlets and concepts at this hotel, from a premium coffee cafe with some curated food items to a really cool cocktail bar with modern mixology. and a contemporary Spanish cuisine restaurant called Barowa. And the fourth concept is a contemporary French fine dining restaurant, which will be coming to life next year. So we've really designed these four F&B outlets all around our customers with phenomenal dining experiences. And we think that really that's what our customers are looking for in the evenings as they wind up the day. They're really looking for that really nice experience, whether they want a cocktail or a great glass of wine. And the way our staff or restaurants are designed is that they will meet the customers where they are. So if you're having a meeting and it's a two-hour meeting, they'll pace your dinner at that level. If you're in a rush and you need to be out of there in an hour, they'll pace your dinner that way. So they are designed to, again, work around the customer. Whether you have a business meeting, you have a social setting, you're dining alone, you have to catch a flight, or your meeting is really running longer, it's all around the customer.

Josiah: It seems like that's a thread throughout everything you do, from the technology to every element of the guest experience. It's about listening to what they want, but also anticipating what they'll want, right? And so it's incredible to hear it. Dipesh, thank you so much for walking through that.

Dipesh: It was a pleasure talking to you today.