Transcript

[00:00:00] Francisco: Hello Sonoma. I'm so excited to be here with my friend Daniel Seinfeld. How are you doing today, Daniel?

[00:00:05] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Good. I’m glad it's the great weather happening. We have sunshine after all the rain, which is good.

[00:00:13] Francisco: Exactly. As -- Daniel, the idea behind this show is that everyone has a story and every story is interesting if you ask the right questions. So, I'll give you a chance at the very beginning of the program to share what is your story?

[00:00:25] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Thanks so much for the warm welcome.

It's great to be online here. So, what is my story? I'm someone with a complicated background who's really happy to be living in Sonoma.

[00:00:35] Francisco: Now that is great because we're going to dive into a lot of those things during this next hour together. Daniel, you are in a high-tech job, you've been in the tech industry for a long time. The last three decades you've spent in tech, involved stints at Apple, Oracle, and currently at Salesforce. Can you talk a little bit about your journey in this world?

[00:00:55] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Sure can. So, I started off school thinking I would focus on. math and biology and become a medical researcher in the field of biotics.

And when I started college, I took a computer class and went, "oh boy!", I really like this stuff. And I started realizing maybe I don't have the right career picked for myself. So, I took a break. I would go into college in Boston and moved out to California. And upon arriving here and really started getting into computering, I realized, yep, this is really the right career for me.

So, I started out really with computers in a financial aid office where I would for a community college, where I was responsible for making sure that all the software was used to analyze students finances and qualify them for grants and loans. Wow. managing that started really giving me a lot of hands.

Corporate computing experience, so to speak. Yeah, I bet

[00:01:51] Francisco: that position highlighted just how much technology is a part of everything that we do. I

[00:01:55] Daniel Sonnenfeld: it sure does. And I think also myself being a Deaf person, having hearing aids all my life, I've always had technology on my head. . . And that also contributed a role, towards my love of computing.

But anyhow, I started doing kind of tech support around the financial aid office and I thought, look, it's really cool. I should go back to school and now really focus on computing. But I said I need to also be able to find some work .to be able to support myself through school. So everybody told me, nah, you're not gonna get a job in computing unless you get a degree.

But I was able to get a job as a contractor at Apple. So that was my first gig. doing quality assurance similar to what I was doing within the financial aid office, making sure their software worked correctly for our needs. And then from there, I parlayed that into a full-time job at Apple and would started going back to school at that time at UC Santa Cruz, pursuing a degree in computer science.

So I would go in school part-time and working at Apple full-time and continued on that vein. And then that went through the late nineties. And for those of you who've been in the tech business, maybe call the first "dot com" boom. And that one became part of that, got an opportunity to work at a couple of startups-- had a great boss at Apple and she told me, “Gotta pursue the, startup! They sound really amazing." So that's what I did for a couple years. Like a lot of startup companies that are flying high and then they crash . . . And after a couple times of that, I go know what, maybe there were the advantages to working in a big company.

[00:03:30] Francisco: Yeah!

[00:03:31] Daniel Sonnenfeld: And as it turns out I got a job at Oracle then, and it's always been in the field of development, understanding how we can make computers work to do our jobs. And kind of what you mentioned earlier, a big reason why our lives have taken off these days in the tech industry is we found a lot of application for computing to improve our daily lives.

[00:03:56] Francisco: So how has knowing more about what goes on to making the technology we use today changed your perspective on it?

[00:04:03] Daniel Sonnenfeld:  I see technology as a big enabler. people often say technology good, technology bad. I really think it neutral. It's what you make of it. And I've always been attracted to doing work in areas where software helps make people's lives better.

And sometimes those people are other software engineers and other times people.

[00:04:23] Francisco: So you, you mentioned you come from an engineering background, but you didn't get lost, we can say "lost in the sauce" of just making the technology. You're thinking about how the end users are going to use it and how it's going to benefit them,

[00:04:36] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Exactly. The – going back to, software can be used for good or bad. A big hot topic today is what's called generative ai. It's like ChatGPT and all of those. And there's so many interesting things you can do with it. That's an example directly related to software product accessibility, which is what I'm working now is a lot of times, writing the code to make sure that your software can be used by people with disabilities.

A lot of that is repetitive. It's out there on the internet, and we can actually use the generative AI to actually generate better code. That would be work well, that will work well for people with disabilities

[00:05:15] Francisco: That's so interesting that you, did you talk about it in that way about figuring out how we use the technology, you know what it can do, how we use it, to help the people that need it, which is all of us in different, different ways.

We all have different ways we need to access the technology. And in 2013, you did something that was exactly related to that in which you co-founded Salesforce's employee resource group for people with disabilities and allies called "Ability Force." And you served as the global president for the first three years.

What drove you to help create that group and what was it like to lead it on a global scale?

[00:05:47] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So my career at Salesforce started in 2011, and when I first arrived there, I got very involved with the LGBTQ group called out "Outforce" . as Salesforce, everything ends in the word "force." So Outforce was the LGBTQ group and I was on the global leadership of that group for several years.

I've been involved with Deaf, Gay, HIV related all kinds of different concerts in my whole life. So doing this at work as well. And I did it at previous companies as well, like Oracle and Apple was second nature for me, but it had always been focused on my queer identity.

And then after three years, I'm a big believer that it's not good to always remain in a leadership position. . with a nonprofit or an employee resource group, you always want to include and pave the way for people to take over the new ideas and fresh blood, so to speak, into the organization. So I kind of looking lot at that time and I realized, hey, Why don't we have a, a group, supporting all employees with disabilities like myself?

And it was a great opportunity to connect up because I knew a lot about deafness, but I didn't know a whole lot about other disabilities. And the allies who helped co-found this group were neurodiverse. They were people with mobility issues who used wheel chairs, they included people with vision, impairment.

So it was a great opportunity to learn and network and build together. And one thing I'm really proud of with the work that we did, As an employee resource group for people with disabilities. We had a lot of people coming to us to be questioned about accessibility. "I have a new employee starting next week who in a wheelchair, how do I make sure that the building right can be accessible?"

Another one could be, I'm a person on this, autism spectrum and my manager doesn't understand me and it’s making me – stressing me out." And it's like we have full-time job leading the employee resource group, the volunteer job, and we couldn't be held responsible for accessibility. So we pulled together a long range plan for accessibility, which led to the creation of the Office of Accessibility at Salesforce.

[00:07:55] Francisco: Wow.

[00:07:55] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So I'm really proud of the work that we did and that another way that making an impact, whether through software engineering or through, focus on people, making an impact that changes people's lives has always been a big part of what gets me excited about going to work.

[00:08:11] Francisco: That's pretty exciting to be able to-- to push that forward. I'm sure you had, you were thinking about this in different positions throughout your life. What pushed you to really go for it this time?

[00:08:21] Daniel Sonnenfeld: That's a great question.  I think it really goes back to that I received a lot of support as, in my adolescence as a teenager and then as a young adult from many different nonprofits serving people with disabilities. And for me, it's a way to pay it forward to thank for all the support I received and make sure that other people are able to take advantage of those services later.

So all my life I've been very involved with nonprofit, doing volunteer work has been a meaningful part, of my life. And that's how I met you. That's how I got volunteer work at the polling place.

[00:08:56] Francisco: Exactly at the polling place! You-- we can't stop you! You're doing all kinds of stuff. So I'm curious about when you're working on a team like this that is trying to manage accessibility in a huge software company, how do you measure your success?

[00:09:10] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So we have a lot of different initiatives that we're running to always make our software better and more accessible for people with disabilities. So sometimes it's looking at how many, defects are we fi--are we finding in the software? How many customers are logging issues around accessibility? We also have internal test environments and test frameworks that test for accessibility.

How well is the software passing those tests? Another approach is when software development lifecycle, when designers, hand off their designs to engineer to implement all the annotations set up to say, oh, for someone who's only using a keyboard, make sure that we can reach every part of the screen right with that keyboard to that part of accessibility.

Similarly, making sure the software doesn't just rely on color to someone who's colorblind, right?

[00:10:08] Francisco: That's the great, great perspective.

[00:10:10] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So although all of that is part of the way that we measure that software is accessible. There are international standards for accessibility on the web called web Content accessibility guidelines of WCAG W C A G for short.

And those are internationally recognized standards, which is good. So we don't have to develop software differently for different countries. And a lot of it we measure to make sure we measure the effectiveness of our software and meeting those guidelines.

[00:10:41] Francisco: So according to your team website of the product accessibility team, you, which helps ensure the products are accessible to all users.

It says, "we believe that inclusion generates product excellence every time." Can you tell us a little bit about that philosophy?

[00:10:55] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So developing software that can be used by people with disabilities often helps a much larger group. And another interesting statistic is, even though in the US about 25%, people have a disability, 25%, everybody in their life will, will at some point have a disability.

You could be – have a broken leg and you're gonna have a mobility disability. It could be your temporal, it could be, temporary but it could also be situational. Like I mentioned earlier, you're in a noisy bar of restaurant and you're following along with the captions on a tv. All of the– there are many different types of disability.

Not all of them are permanent, but we all can benefit. Absolutely.

[00:11:40] Francisco: We, we absolutely can. I remember when one of my friends had a, spinal cord injury and how it completely changed the way that I see entering and exiting buildings, getting to different floors. And I think it's that firsthand experience or secondhand experience with disabilities that opens your eyes to the world and how it's built and who it favors, maybe unintentionally, maybe intentionally.

And, and how you're right, it totally benefits everybody when we have ways to access everything.

[00:12:06] Daniel Sonnenfeld: a more modern way to look at disability, is to

look at it at a factor of the environment. So it's not the person with the disability that's the issue. . , it's the environment and what do we do with the environment to make sure that it's accessible for all.

and it's contagious. I think it can inspire other people. For example, this episode will be online with– transcribed so anyone can read it or listen to it or access it a different way.

So thank you for leading the charge in, in one way or another on these exciting things. Yeah, of course.

in one interview I watched an engineer describe that many people focus on creating software technology products for 80% of people because it's easy to create something for 80% of people.

And those last 20%, meant 25% as you mentioned, can be harder. And because there are lots of different use cases, but it's, it's often very beneficial to do it for a hundred percent of people. But it's challenging. So what's it like for you to be on, to be in a position where you can help identify that extra 20% and direct resources towards making it possible?

luckily, my job is made easier in that inclusion of disabilities is required by law . That's helpful. , but I try not to use the legal argument. compliance because really what we want is belonging. If people are inspired to create software that is inclusive, they're gonna do a better job at creating something that's really delightful to use.

As opposed to somebody who said, you have to do this because it's required by law.

[00:13:44] Francisco: It's about telling a story like you've told us today. So going back a little bit before you eventually studied computer science, in Santa Cruz,

[00:13:53] Daniel Sonnenfeld: I wrapped it up there.

[00:13:54] Francisco: You wrapped it up there. You studied, you went to MIT where you studied math and biology. Did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up or what gave you the computer bug?

[00:14:02] Daniel Sonnenfeld: The reason why I was studying math and biology at MIT was because my uncle was a pediatrician and he became my legal guardian, when I was a teenager. So we had a very close relationship and I was really inspired to do medical research.

And I was thinking of doing something, what we call time biotics making, is making parts out of a computer component, a body parts out a computer component. Ah, and while I was at MIT, I took my first programing class and I was hooked. And the other thing that I also discovered at MIT, remember, I, I said growing up as a deaf person, I could not use the telephone.

. . And when I was at MIT there was this program called Chat that allowed you to type to another person and send messages back and forth. And it's like, " Wow!,” I can communicate with people around the world this way." And that really started making me think, oh, computers might be a more interesting field.

Francisco, it's really dangerous to be at MIT and not be sure what you want to do. So that's why I took my leave of absence from there. And then when I was working in computers for at financial aid office and then at an Apple and it really solidified Yep. this is what I want to do. That's what I went back to school while working full-time and got my degree in computer science.

[00:15:25] Francisco: So you said two things there that I'd like to ask you. You said it's very dangerous to not know what you wanna do at MIT. Why?

[00:15:33] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So one thing, MIT, I mean it's a topnotch school, right? About top, let's say 10% of high school students make it. Sure. You have to be the top 10 interview class to get into MIT.

. Now all of a sudden, 50% of the class is in the bottom half of their class.

[00:15:50] Francisco: That is [laughing] I'm so glad you said that. Yeah.

[00:15:53] Daniel Sonnenfeld: It's a high pressure cooker. Everybody is all of a sudden realizing they're no longer the big fish in a small pond. They're now just another, freshman in a class of really, really bright freshmen.

And back then, I don't know, they still do it. Back then, MIT had a freshman year. You could only take classes for a, pass fail. You couldn't get a grade. Wow. So at least that would do some of the pressure, there. But then we went to sophomore and then we were back on the grading system. The other thing for me personally, because I spent my four years of high school in France, it's very high pressure cooker over there, because in France, in order to get graduate from high school, you have to pass a battery of exams.

[00:16:31] Francisco: Big exams. Yes.

[00:16:32] Daniel Sonnenfeld: And you don't pass them, you don't get your high school diploma. I went through all that, and then a month and a half later started MIT barely a break. And now in the opposite. at, in the US very often. High school, it's putty, putty time, and then you get really serious in college. So it's like serious to serious to serious. And I just needed a break from that.

[00:16:52] Francisco: So you took a leave of absence for several years? Three years, I think.

[00:16:57] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Oh, longer than that. six years.

[00:16:59] Francisco: Was that a hard decision to make? ,

[00:17:00] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Kind of, because part of me was frustrated that I just couldn't hack it and continue there. But part of it was realizing I'm not being successful.

There were a lot of things that happened that made my time at MIT a little bit difficult, financial aid situation. I wasn't really happy living in Boston. I had lived there before as a kid, but it wasn't my environment. Another big factor was being gay. I had already visited San Francisco and compared to, Boston's a great place.

No, no disrespect. No disrespect, but let's face it because Hello Sonoma, right? Hello? San Francisco is not too far away, and especially being the gay center of the universe back then, I really wanted to live in an environment where I could be really free, find a lot of other people, especially a lot of other deaf queer youth, which there were not a lot of in Boston.

So I wanted to be out here and make that connection.

[00:17:55] Francisco: So you've hinted at three different places where you've been, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, I guess Boston, France. Where would you say you're from?

[00:18:04] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Wow So I always say it's complicated. I was born French in South Africa. So my parents, my parents came from France. My father had graduated from the Rabbinical Institute of Paris.

And at that time there were very few reform congregations in France. He wanted to be a reform rabbi. So in Judaism you have reform, which is very liberal all the way to Orthodox, which is pretty conservative. . . So the advice that my father got at the time was to go somewhere abroad and preach for a few years, be a rabbi abroad, gain the experience, and then be able to come back to France and be able to found a reformed congregation. So that's how we ended up in South Africa through the sizeable Jewish community at the time. And I, I was born during that time. And it's funny, I have a picture of myself in South Africa when I'm gonna, of course back then these were black and white pictures and I'm in the wading pool. My mother is seated on the edge of the pool and behind her the bench and in the letters, you can just see it really hard of look closely at that picture. And it says "Slegs Blankes" "Whites only" in Afrikaans. I'm really happy I didn't grow up– continue to grow up there because my parents moved back to France shortly thereafter.

And part of it right there my father was very much preaching against the Apartheid and this is his story He said he was making the other rabbis of Johannesburg, very nervous cause they were worried that the government was gonna crack down on the troublemaker Jews and said, "why don't you go to America? You can preach all you want for the civil rights that were there." And that's how we ended up in the United States.

We only stayed, went back to financial short period and then my parents moved to the US and that's where I grew up in New England, New Hampshire. . and then Boston, then back to New Hampshire. And then my mother passed away and I went to live with my mother's family in France. And that's how I ended up four years in France.

[00:20:08] Francisco: I was just listening to this great conversation with this guy, Jay Setti and Trevor Noah, and they were talking about how they define home. Trevor Noah said he defines home by wherever he goes, wherever he goes repeatedly or something where his friends are. And Jay said home. He defines it by where he's fulfilling his purpose.

Where, how would you define home after this many, many travels and growing up in one place and moving around?

[00:20:36] Daniel Sonnenfeld: For me, home is not as much of a place, physical place as a, the people that I surround myself with and who I consider my family, not only blood family.

my husband does such a wonderful job. designing a home and making it feel wherever I am, whether it's just leaving San Francisco, coming back to Sonoma, or coming home from a trip, it's a place I always look forward to. And we've lived in San Francisco. We've lived in Sonoma. A love living both places because the home that we created, for me, it's where the heart and our friends are.

[00:21:17] Francisco: Wow.

Well, we're gonna get back to talking about Dave. Okay. But I wanna first talk about your time in France when you went there for high school. Your grandmother's from Reims, France.

[00:21:28] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Yeah, gotta roll the R!

[00:21:29] Francisco: There you go. Tell us about that experience. What was that like?

[00:21:32] Daniel Sonnenfeld: my grandmother, when she passed away, she lived in Reims but there was also another town in that area called and that where my family's from in the middle of the Champagne region.

The first year I lived in France after my mother passed away, which was my uncle who was my legal guardian. He became my legal guardian at that time. And he lived in another part of France called Alsace which is right where Switzerland, Germany, and France meet. And that was wonderful. Unfortunately, though he was– his, relationship with his wife wasn't doing so well and the presence of a stranger, not quite a stranger, but a presence of somebody else doesn't really help on me having me with a problem.

Yeah. So the second year I ended up living in a boarding school in Paris, a Jewish boarding school.

[00:22:18] Francisco: Wow!

[00:22:19] Daniel Sonnenfeld: I can tell you stories about that! But the third year was at a public boarding school, again near Paris. And the last year, my uncle had divorced at that time and invited me to move back in with him living in Alsace

So those were the four years that I lived in France.

[00:22:35] Francisco: Lots of moving around.

[00:22:36] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Yeah, my whole life. One thing I love about living in California, it's been very stable.

[00:22:42] Francisco: Finally![laughing] So did you speak French at home with your parents?

[00:22:46] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Not a whole lot. So when we were growing up– I have an older sister –and when we were growing up, my parents used to speak French when they didn't want us to understand.

And then my sister started learning French in school, she's older than me, so they switched to Hebrew. But then we both started studying Hebrew for our Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, so then they switched to Yiddish and we never learned Yiddish, so they could always have those conversations together. So they didn't-- they spoke sometimes, but my mother used to spend a lot of time with me, helping me with speech because of my hearing loss, reading books.

And we also got comic books in French, and she would read the French and then translated it into English. So I started picking up some French that way, but I really started learning things when I went to France for high school.

[00:23:33] Francisco: High school for anyone is a tough time. I imagine changing countries moving with a new family.

That was a lot of stuff going on. . , how did you feel throughout all this?

[00:23:43] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Uh, It was a challenge. I remember the first day in school, the going I– the vague memory of arriving in the middle of recess and being surrounded by a circle of kids asking me questions, and of course my hearing loss, I'm having trouble-- by the time I realized who's talking the conversation but they were all in like, did you know any of the great rock bands? Oh, what did you, they were all what? They had a vision of what, America was like. and I was also required to take foreign language class because of education in France, you learn a lot of foreign languages.

But the thing was, how could I learn a foreign language through the language, which I barely knew. So we agreed that I would take English, as a foreign language. And I failed my first English test because I could not understand my English teacher's accent.

[00:24:31] Francisco: Oh my gosh!

[00:24:32] Daniel Sonnenfeld: But she of course did not really happy about the fact that she's teaching English and the American can't understand her. But she had this weird English type accent.

Eventually I got recognize it and it all worked out fine. We hired a tutor to help me with my French, and it was just a totally immersive experience. And I think one great thing we've always known about kids is they pick up foreign languages really easily. And I, my hearing law notwithstanding, I've always loved, foreign languages.

It is definitely a mind opening experience. We talk about having kids do a semester abroad. And I'm a big fan of that. I think we can tend to get here in America, we can tend to get too lost in the fact that we're only a small percentage of the world's population and there's a really diverse and rich life outside of the United States with different perspectives and different politics.

I think it's made me a lot more open-minded and willing to listen to other people and consider that their feelings, their needs are valid, even if I don't have those same feelings and needs. And I think a lot of the– one of the reasons why I love living in Sonoma is there's a lot, my perspective, less polarization than I've seen in some other places.

But of course that's coming from living in San Francisco for more than, more than three decades, so it, the whole live and let live philosophy that I've picked up a lot in France. And one of the things I love about being here as well.

[00:26:05] Francisco: Yeah, it's kind of a, a special little community that we have here.

One thing I want to ask you is I know that you mentioned you speak English and French and you also speak American Sign Language. The French have a different sign language.

[00:26:19] Daniel Sonnenfeld: There is a French sign language? But it's actually pretty similar to American Sign Language because American Sign Language comes from French Sign Language.

So there was a minister, oh, I think Leclerc? I can't remember the– there was a French, minister at the time who was teaching– was the head of deaf schools in France. And came to the United States and founded schools for the deaf here. And there were probably existing sign language, regional sign language used in the United States prior to that.

But when he came here, he really, introduced the French sign language, which eventually involved into American Sign Language. American and British sign languages are completely different. So for example, if you know the sign language alphabet, you know it's one hand, "A, B, C, D" different hand shapes. But the British sign language uses two hand for all of the letters of the alphabet.

So it's dramatically different. And then the British sign language and Australian sign languages are very similar, because Australian came from the British. There is a universal sign language called Gestuno and it's just as popular as Esperanto

[00:27:30] Francisco: So marginally popular.

[00:27:32] Daniel Sonnenfeld: There you go. It's used, I've seen it used at some conferences. When they need to translate between different sign languages, there'll be the person speaking whatever national sign language they're using, there'll be the Gestuno interpreter and then all the other national sign language interpreters at the conference are interpreting from the Gestuno interpreter.

[00:27:51] Francisco: Oh, interesting. It's the central hub of interpretation. Yeah.

 Okay, so you're in France, you high school there is notoriously difficult. they really take their schooling seriously.

You have these very intense exams. You managed to come back to the United States and get into MIT and you're studying very intensely there. And then you take a six year leave of absence during which time you get a job at Apple. So you've had this intense, intense, intense, intense, intense apple. But I think what's cool is that, as you mentioned, you got the computer bug, you knew that this is something that you wanna work with.

What do you remember about feeling when you realized oh, I'm in this world now.

[00:28:26] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So it's interesting how computing now is recognized as a center of the economic universe. that hasn't always been the case. We talk about the history of the geeks and the nerds. I think I've always seen myself as somebody different, whether being deaf, being gay, being Jewish, and just being a nerd was no different.

And it was great to meet up with other people who had similar interests. So I think-- it is funny, going back to kind the question, the question you asked about home earlier. You know, in a way with another way of coming home and finding my place among other people who are also, very fascinated with mathematics, with applying logic to solving the world's problems with ones and zeros.

[00:29:17] Francisco: I've gotta confess, when I was researching your career, there were descriptions about what you were doing at each company and how you're doing, and I didn't understand anything, , which is cool. It's, it's, it helps emphasize the point that the world that we live in now exists because of a confluence of so many different worlds, put together the technology world, the public policy world, the creativity world that are all in their own bubbles.

 You have mentioned a couple times that you're part of a couple different bubbles coming together, the tech world, the gay world, the deaf world. How has being a part of all three of these together informed your perspective on each of them?

[00:29:55] Daniel Sonnenfeld: That's a good question. I don't think anybody's led me in that direction of thought before.

I would turn that the other way around. I think it's been more an expression of some of my core values and how I've expressed them in each of the different areas that I've been. For me, some of the core values include integrity, transparency, and the tech industry calls it delivery, but doing things, action. Integrity, because I always want people to know that I'm always speaking from the heart and from the truth that when people, come to me, they know that they can trust me and vice versa.

I think trust is such an important part of human relationships. The transparency being that I'm-- I'm very open. I'm very authentic at what I do. And so going back to your question, I've always been Out at work. Back when I worked at Apple, I was the chair of the domestic partners benefit task force. Back then, in the early nineties, more and more companies were giving out domestic partner benefits. So L G B T, actually not so much the "T", lesbian and gay couple could get their, partners onto the company benefits.

It was a three year effort as a committee, as a working group to convince Apple Executive Management. They said, yeah, that's the right and moral thing to do. But for me, there was never a question to be out and open and transparent about what I was doing and why I was doing it. And I think that what changes people's mind when they feel that they can trust you and that you can inspire and you can really make an impact on the world.

[00:31:39] Francisco: That's huge.

[00:31:40] Daniel Sonnenfeld: And I think that applied to all the different areas. I've been very involved in the Deaf community. I used to be a title holder in that community. I've been very involved with the, LGBTQ community, been on board and nonprofits. Again, it just about giving back, doing the work that I do. And I do that-- I put that same energy and passion through the work  

And that's one of the reasons why I was drawn to Salesforce. Salesforce talked about it 1, 1, 1 philosophy, where 1% of the employees time, 1% of software licenses and 1% of company equity goes towards nonprofits, and I was working at Oracle before then, and that transition to Salesforce was in part because of that, because people who are altruistic and who give back, these are the people that I want to hang out with.

[00:32:31] Francisco: Yeah. you've had a great opportunity, many opportunities to give back and you continue to. One really cool organization that you're a part of is called Access Computing, which helps people with disabilities successfully pursue undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, and employment in commuting fields to increase the capacity of, post-secondary institutions to fully include people with disabilities in computing education and employment.

One of those things that you did was you mentored students at their summer academy for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. What was it like to give back to young people in that way?

[00:33:03] Daniel Sonnenfeld: It was a ton of fun. Typically, I would, I went every summer to university of Washington. And I would talk, give an overview of my career path, the barriers that I overcame as a deaf person to be successful in the field of computing. And that would be followed by quite a few hours of one-on-one sessions with the young, students who are in the program, answering questions, offering advice sometimes, and sometimes just listening.

And I still have some of those connection, with the students that developed back then. In fact, recently I've been talking with a, 10 years, more than 10 years later now, as someone who wants to make a shift in, he's already working in group tech and wants to make a shift to a different part of technology.

So it's great to see the impact that many years later. Like I said, it's about opening doors.

[00:33:58] Francisco: I think, not only is it about opening doors, but about showing what's possible, showing the path that you've taken. because as we grow up, we only know the paths that we see. And so having new, new either heroes or mentors or inspiring people really helps direct that energy that we all have.

I'm curious, since you're working with, young deaf people, how your own relationship with your deafness has evolved over time.

[00:34:27] Daniel Sonnenfeld: That's funny you should ask, because I always say I came out of the gay man before I came out as deaf.

[00:34:32] Francisco: Wow!

[00:34:33] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So I came out at Gay at age 14. . .But I, I-- a little background. Cause I was born deaf. I got my first hearing aids when I was eight months old, which was really unusual at the time, and that's because I mentioned I had an older sister. She had the hearing loss as well. So as soon as I would old enough that they could do tests, they realized that I had a severe, profound hearing loss. Even so, I had hearing aids all my life.

And back then, the philosophy,the practice, with a child who was deaf was to have them focus on learning to speak because it felt, they couldn't speak, they wouldn't be happy, they wouldn't be successful. Now we know that quite not true, but that was back then the medical advice at the time.

So my parent focused on speech, hearing; I didn't get a chance to hang around with a lot of other deaf people. They did not want me to learn sign languages, felt if the child learn sign language, that would stunt them in the growth of being able to learn how to speak. So now today, we know that's not true. In fact, often we teach. babies. Yeah. title sign. So I had a negative self-image of my death. It was something that was not good and it took me a realization later on when I had my first job and I was trying to follow conversation. And it, especially when you have to lipread, it's like trying to follow a conversation in a group. It's like watching a ping pong match.

By the time you realized who's talking, the ball had moved on, the conversation had moved on. So that's when I realized if I'm gonna be successful at work, I'm going to need to be able to go to meeting and follow those conversation. And that's when I realized I need to learn sign language so I could have a sign language interpreter.

Back then, captioning will not really the- we didn't have automated caption in programs. Even today, those aren't perfect, but they were better than trying to write notes back and forth across the conversation. And one issue for me with caption is often the lag, [right] several seconds behind. And that's not really effective when you're trying to have a active conversation.

Whereas the sign language interpreter can stay very much on top of what's happening. And because I make pretty good use of my hearing, I don't need to fully rely on the sign language interpreter. And it's great to have somebody who, when I'm not following something, I look at them briefly and the sign language interpreter picks up like then what is being said, then I realize what was said, then I can shift my attention back onto the conversation. So having that interpreter was really essential. And what also hit me, not only for work, but also when I was going to support group meetings, it would be the same situation or group conversation. So that's when I said I need to learn sign language.

And that was really the beginning of my journey to accepting myself as a deaf person. I started meeting other deaf people, deaf, gay Jewish people. [Wow!] and it just brought a lot of those identities together.

[00:37:39] Francisco: That's really special to be able to know that we're-- that's what we're all looking for. I think that we're not alone.

And to be able to see truly, truly, you're not alone. It's a pretty powerful thing.

[00:37:48] Daniel Sonnenfeld: And then I got cochlear implant, 21 years ago and I had the goal with the cochlear plant to reduce my dependency on sign language interpreters and to be able to use the telephone. . . And I've achieved both of those goals and it helped me a lot professionally in the career directions that I've chosen. but also with the, I should say, the diaspora of the deaf community from San Francisco over the last couple decades, initially around HIV and AIDS, and then later on through the cost of living of San Francisco, have gotten more and more expensive and the deaf community has relocated elsewhere.

I probably have less involvement now with the deaf community-- less than I would like. I enjoy my friendships, but the lot fewer deaf social events that I go to these days. So my evolution had been that I'm much more in the hearing community. My husband is fluent in sign language, so we're able to easily transition back and forth, across the community.

And we have, we celebrate ASL Hanukkah, an ASL Passover. So in a few weeks we're going to be going with a group of deaf and sign signing friends and celebrating Passover together. With a signed Seder.

[00:39:05] Francisco: That's gonna be amazing!

[00:39:07] Daniel Sonnenfeld: It's a lot of fun.

[00:39:08] Francisco: Can I ask you about, because many people who are listening might not know very much about deafness, and I don't expect you to tell us everything about it, but I am curious about cochlear implants from a scientific perspective.

They're a fascinating, amazing medical device. From-- I'm curious about your perspective with when you got them. I know you had one surgery in 2004, but, anyway, I'm curious about,

[00:39:31] Daniel Sonnenfeld:  back when I was exploring about cochlear implants, it was, I had--

so back in the early 2000 when the technology with cochlear implant had gotten to the point that it would be more and more approved by medical insurance,

I had a friend who was also on a similar journey of exploring cochlear implant. So we shared notes Who were the best surgeon? what would be the expected impact of getting, not so much impact, success rate of getting the cochlear. and it's major medical surgery. you're under full anesthesia.

It's not brain surgery quite, it's close, pretty close. they're putting an electrode in your, your brain to connect to the auditory nerve.

I was told I was a good candidate for it because of the fact that I got my hearing aid during the critical years of language acquisition when I was two or three. So they said because of that, even though I had a profound hearing loss, I had a pretty good chance of being able to understand speech with cochlear implant.

It was a little scary. I remember going through all that preparatory work, lab, lab work, medical imaging, all of that. And Dave, my husband, at the time, I had one the day before the surgery, I had one last appointment, pre-op, consultation. And then we were gonna have dinner with a friend of ours. The, the pre-op consult with the doctor, not the surgeon.

That doctor ended up being sick, so I got, rescheduled to another doctor who was of course overloaded and my appointment was supposed to happen at four o'clock in the afternoon, I ended up being seen at 6:30 in the evening [Oh my gosh!] So just building up on that anxiety. Okay. I have surgery the next day, full anesthesia and all that.

and the friend that we're gonna have dinner with was waiting for us, and he got bored, so he went to a bar and started drinking and he got pretty drunk. . So we finally, I'm done with my appointment. We get together and he's all  "Oh, Daniel I just want you to have a great surgery. But I'm thinking out, oh my God, I've got to, I'm, I'm gonna be having major surgery in the morning.

And poor Dave, I don't know what he was going through , but all that time I have a nervous leading up to the surgery and this was not helping. And then we got home and there was a message from the anesthesiologist. Now, course I couldn't use the phone at that time. So Dave, relayed it for me, very calm voice, the anesthesiologist that "I've got you covered, don't worry about anything. You're gonna have a good experience with me." And I was like, I needed to hear that. I woke up, very early the next morning and we're driving down to Stanford Medical Center from San Francisco. I'm calm now, Francisco. the die was cast were going through with the surgery. Dave was a nervous wreck at that point, , but the surgery itself went really well.

it was, the anesthesiologists knew what they were talking about, and I realized how important the anesthesiologist is because we go, I'm, I'm surrounded by Dave, the nurse, the friend that I mentioned who was on the same journey getting cochlear implants, he with there as well, and my audiologist surrounded me.

The nurse comes over and said, okay, we're gonna wheel you to the operating room. Go great. And I put my head back. Then I look up and I said, "Are we gonna move?" They said "It's all done!" [Oh wow...] That's how good the anesthesiologist, are. [Oh my

gosh. wow. ]So that was my whole experience. And then the first, so when they put the cochlear implant in, they need to let it heal a little bit before they activate it.

And my activation was three weeks later. and when they turned it on, everybody sounded like mini mouth on amphetamine

[makes high-pitched sounds, imitating mice on amphetamines] ] And that's because I have a profound hearing loss and especially the high frequencies. I could never, I had never heard them before. Wow. It sounds like "s" and "f" were totally silent to me and I would lipread that another sounds like "D" and "B" sounded the same to me and I would have to lipread the difference.

I could hear them, but I couldn't tell them part. And now for the first time, I'm hearing the full range of sound and my brain is just glomming onto all the sounds that I'd never heard before, which were the high frequency. So that's, why it sounded like that initially, but over time I started again in the full range.

I'm getting the full range, but I made sense of the full range of all of those sounds. I would say it was about four or five months. when I felt that I was getting about the same comprehension that I had with hearing aids and then a couple years later where I was starting to be at the point, like I could listen to an audiobook and follow along with most of what was said, that I hit that goal of being able to use-- to reduce my dependency of five language interpreters and be able to use the telephone.

But it takes time to build up that confidential telephone. So even though I'm getting all of those sounds, my brain has to piece those together into words and that's a learning process. But now I can pick up the telephone and have a conversation with a stranger. And for me that's still amazing. And I know my progress is not typical.

There are a lot of people get cochlear implant, we don't get the same results so I'm grateful for what I did get.

[00:44:56] Francisco: Yeah. In a way it's an example of two of your world's combining, which is technology in deafness to give you a new universe. in a way of all these sounds that you never heard. Thanks for sharing that experience with us.

Another organization that you're part of that Melds two worlds is something called International Deaf Leather. Can you tell us about what that organization is Sure. And your, and your relationship to it.

[00:45:18] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So as part of my coming out as a deaf person, I networked with a lot of people who had similar identities as myself, deaf, Jewish, and I was also into "kink," what we call "leather." And in the 90s and the early 2000s, and even today to some extent, but less so now, but 90s and 2000s, the leather community was very active within the gay community. And in fact, it's been active all the way back into the sixties at the birthplace of the gay rights movement.

There's always been, significant leather community involvement. So for me, being International Mr. Deaf Leather, was the culmination of my involvement with the leather community by bringing, bringing together the Deaf community and the Leather community, and my big passion was how do we make sure we have sign language interpreters at the leather event, so that way the deaf people could be full participants.

That was a journey that started in '95 when I was running for Mr. San Francisco Leather . and I, I, I was first runner up, for that. I'm very glad I was first runner up. The person who won, Gary Virginia in 96 was a great and still is the great friend to have from back then. And then I was encouraged to run for the International Mr. Deaf Leather title that year, which happened in Chicago.

And I won and it was great. And I also had, there was a female counterpart to that title, International Miss Deaf Leather. And she and I were great partners for that year. We did a lot of traveling, a lot of fundraising, a lot of awareness, a lot of misconceptions in the Deaf community about leather and the Leather community, about deafness.

So being able to beat that bridge was really great.

[00:47:11] Francisco: What is it like to run ? What's competition like? How do they decide?

[00:47:16] Daniel Sonnenfeld: so there's multiple, Every contest will be on its own. But most of the leather contests that I've been involved with, there's multiple facets to the judging.

So there will be a speech, there will be, clothing wear. Yeah, there will be physique. There will be often interviews, with the judges. So typically what you do is you first go through interviews with the judges and the judges would then cull down to, I was gonna say manageable lists, but it really depends on the size of the event and how many–

So for the example, there's an international Mr. Leather title and they often have 50 contestants and they whittle down to the 20 finalists. And those finalists who pass that prejudging interview then go on. So the physics portion is only one fraction of the scores scoring. they usually use Olympic scoring, meaning they toss out the high and the low scores.

To try to eliminate bias. . And then that's how the winners get selected.

[00:48:08] Francisco: That's awesome. Wow. I've learned something new about a new community and a new competition maybe. Yeah. That, that's  great.

[00:48:15] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Or maybe someday you'll learn to one yourself.

[00:48:17] Francisco: Who knows?[laughing]

[00:48:17] Daniel Sonnenfeld: what title would you run for?

[00:48:18] Francisco: What title would I run for? I have no idea. I'll have to think about it. Maybe I'll create my own competition.

You mentioned being inclusive in this, in this environment, making sure that everyone has can get there. What do you think? Are the benefits of including more and more people in, into different niche communities?

[00:48:37] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Well, there's a financial benefit. Uh, There've been multiple studies that show that corporate teams that are diverse, I'm sorry, that companies that have a diverse employee population, are more profitable.

That corporate teams that have a lot of diversity, bring a lot more perspective and a lot more openness. And I think when people are not worried about hiding themselves, they're really able to be productive. And that's why we talk about how important it is to, be out at work. When your mind is spending time trying to remember, "oh, I need to use the pronoun. Or this gender," when I'm talking about myself is such a heavy cognitive load. And a similarly for me, with my healing loss, trying to follow without a techno-- the assistive technology that I use, I use the captions. . , the automated captions at meetings, which help a lot. , but without them, I'm having to spend so much time concentrating on what is being said that I'm not really thinking at my most productive level.

there's the financial productivity cost and then also the health cost. think about how stressful it can be otherwise and what that does to one's health.

[00:49:46] Francisco: Yeah. And people love just to point to someone that people love to talk about, which is Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs did something similar. He wore the same clothes every day, just because that decision making process was too tiring to do every single day.

So you imagine someone having to change their whole identity every day.

That's, that's tough.

The name of the group you mentioned at Salesforce is called Out Force because it's about being out and open and sharing and inquisitive and learning. One thing that's, that's shifted tremendously in 40 years has been the public's attitude towards AIDS and HIV.

An organization that you're a huge part of is, AIDS Lifecycle. You're a roadie crew for them for many years, which is an incredible organization for those who, dunno more than 2,800 people from across the nation and the world come together. And over the course of a week, they make a 545 mile journey riding their bikes down the coast from of California, from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2019, they raised 16.8 million for critical HIV and AIDS services provided by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles L G B T Center.

It's an incredible, amazing thing that, that they do this feat of physical stamina to raise money for a cause that 40 years ago was super, hidden. So it's so cool that you're a part of that. Tell us about your involvement and what you get out of being there.

[00:51:09] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So that's another journey. . When I first moved to San Francisco in 1983, I volunteered to, because I had pretty good typing computer skills to trans, trans to, I get transcribed from newspaper articles into this online bulletin board system before the internet.

And the way people would find out information that wasn't available locally, they would use their primitive at the time computers, to dial up into what were called, BBS, bulletin board system. And there was one called San Francisco, a BBS, I believe it was called at the time. So would take a lead newspaper auto quotes about the dread disease called good gay related immune deficiency and put

[00:51:55] Francisco: Wow, that's what it was called? That's crazy.

[00:51:58] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Yeah. So back then, the groups that were most impacted by HIV and AIDS. We're Haitians the Haitian community. and LGBTQ and IV drug users. Actually I didn't– The LGBT gay community. . . so being myself as a person, gay, we didn't know at the time how to know if we had HIV or not, and everybody was really afraid. Anytime you got a pimple on your hand, oh my god, is aosis sarcoma Anytime the coughing, oh my God. We have pcp, another disease associated with AIDS and my partner at the time, we both did assume that we were HIV positive, and then many years later when test became available and drugs was done to be relief, we both took the test and it turned out he was negative and I was positive, and we were both surprised because we had already been together for six years at that point.

We figured we've given it to each other by then. as I said, we both had all soon because of our past sexual history that we were both positive. So I think was just another way for me to give back, volunteering around HIV and AIDS. I mentioned earlier I would go to support group meeting and I realized I couldn't follow them and that I needed sign language interpreters for that.

So again, bringing together those parts of my life and making sure that we had access. There was a Foundation also sponsored a support group for deaf people with HIV. So I've met a lot of my friends from those support group. So for me, volunteering with AIDS Lifecycle, again, ensuring that the same support that I got in those early years for the HIV would be available for future generation, but also to help eradicate the disease.

One for all I've done so well. with my own HIV, related medical care. But not everybody has that access.  a lot of communities with color don't have the same medical access and hasn't just been around covid, but has also been around HIV as well. And one thing I really love about volunteering with and giving back to San Francisco Foundation because of how much worker died within the, communities.

[00:54:08] Francisco: And you've played an important role in making that possible.

[00:54:11] Daniel Sonnenfeld: It's a lot of work for the cyclist's that over seven days, some one day bicycling 110 miles. and making sure that they're supported, that they're able to do this. And for us as, we call it roadies with a support crew, it it, it's a great bonding experience.

We call it the Love Bubble . And it, and it's great because for a whole week you don't have to worry about the rest of the world. You just focus on how do we survive this event together? And I think going to Burning Man is a very similar experience. You can't survive that desert experience alone. .

you really need to depend on people to, you barter, you get your food and drinks and make sure you have a place to sleep. When you get in trouble, other people help you out. . . And it's very similar with the, AIDS lifecycle. We just a community together. Were preparing all our own food. With camps, tents,, moving from one location to the next.

And it's also complicated. , you have to coordinate for 3000 people, all of their basic needs and more. And every evening there's different programming that's often very focused on AIDS and HIV in the community and reminding people why they're raising this money and where this money is going, that one day there'll be a cure.

and especially now with HIV and AIDS really affecting, minority and under, underrepresented and and disadvantaged communities the impact that we're making is really significant. So it's a very rewarding experience.

[00:55:35] Francisco: Have you ever made the cycling journey yourself?

[00:55:38] Daniel Sonnenfeld: My butt would murder me if I spend more than 30 minutes on a bicycle seat.

So this is my way to give back.

[00:55:43] Francisco: That's your way to give back. That's awesome. What a cool event. I think so often, as you mentioned, there was that kind of 19 hundreds vision of charity, which was like, spare your pennies or whatever for. disadvantaged people, and I have a friend who talks about getting involved in nonprofits.

It should be fun and it can be fun, and it can be very fun for you to be involved and, and to raise awareness about something that's so challenging for so many people. But the experience of, of helping and, and growing that, that community can be a really fun experience. Have you, have you felt that way in the different communities that you're a part of?

[00:56:17] Daniel Sonnenfeld: yeah, because that's what drives me to that kind of work. I, I always believe that we should have fun with our lives. And it was actually a great career advice I got way back when I was working at Apple and I was looking at transferring into two different positions. One was a potentially very prestigious position focused on IT, supporting our internal financial system that was using some of that financial aid background I had. Right. Some of the QA and so forth. And this other position in R&D, which was doing configuration management for the R&D organization. I was having trouble deciding which, and someone gave me the advice, which job am I gonna have more fun at?

[00:56:59] Francisco: There you go.

[00:57:00] Daniel Sonnenfeld: And I said, okay, probably gonna be the R&D position. And I've learned to always make that part of my decision making going forward. It's not-- happiness and fun is not the only part, but it really makes a difference. And even if what you're going through right now might be a little bit of a slog, if you know that there's fun and rewards at the end of the road.

That makes so much more of a difference.

[00:57:22] Francisco: How has that decision making process guided you more on the rest of your journey?

[00:57:26] Daniel Sonnenfeld: I always try to look at the pros and cons when I'm making an important decision in my life and be able to reflect, do some mind mindfulness, and then really look up things objectively.

what are the pros and cons? What are what are the both short term and long-term payoffs and what it's going to bring me happiness. I learned a long time ago that money is not going to-- money can help get, bring to happiness, but money in itself is not going to make me happy. So that, but as a byproduct of that, when I do make the decision and I'm happy with what I'm doing, the money usually follows.

[00:58:02] Francisco: Yeah. There you go. That's great. I think you're, you're, you're amazing because you're able to communicate with people all across this different spectrum of, of the expressions of your values as you mentioned.

And through seeing those different communities. I'm wondering if there are any values that bubble up that you think are really important, maybe fun in, in holding people together and in making it a successful group?

[00:58:25] Daniel Sonnenfeld: I think there are many different values, and it really depends on the, the group to figure out what are their shared and common values. I, for myself, they're definitely integrity, transparency, and delivery-- doing-- those are the important values for me.

I would think probably of all of them, integrity is probably the most important because if you don't have trust, then things fall apart pretty quickly. transparency is still-- communicating, being able to communicate and talk about anything is also really important. It's something I learned very on in my early relationships and my husband and I still hold very true, no matter how difficult a subject is, it's never going to be taboo.

We can always talk about it and talk about it in a way that we're very transparent and open about what we're feeling. And understand that anything we say come from that, that place that we're always going to be open and honest with each other.

[00:59:23] Francisco: That's huge because so many people are afraid to express themselves for whatever reason.

And I think it might block you from seeing others. There's the human experience is too broad to be completely alone in anything, I think. And so it's so powerful to be able to share that either with the community or with a spouse or with anything like that. So it's cool that you found that, you and your partner, Dave, who you've known for a long time, , you guys got married in, early two thousands, right?

[00:59:50] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Yep. In 2001.

[00:59:51] Francisco: 2001. And I think you got married in Canada.

[00:59:54] Daniel Sonnenfeld: So a little more complicated than that.

[00:59:56] Francisco: Yeah, I remember there was something!

[00:59:57] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Always complicated. So we, we met in ‘99, and we got married at the Cliff House in San Francisco. Wow. And we, and we were married by what called the Metropolitan Community Church, which is a pretty open Faith. So they were very accepting. Both of my Judaism and my husband has a Lutheran background. Then in 2003, Canada legalized gay marriage and Ontario did not have any residency requirements. So we were able to fly there and get our marriage legally recognized. Wow. So we were

we were able to get legally married there, and then when we came back to California, a state senator at the time got a bill passed, Carolyn McDon, got a bill passed that Canada would recognized all marriages, but specifically same marriages, same sex marriages performed in another jurisdiction So California, very early on, I can't remember exactly which year, but in the early 2000s recognized our Canadian marriage.

So when they had the. winter of Love in San Francisco when Gavin Newsom authorized city of San Francisco to officiate those to Solemnized, I should say, those marriages and many of those were annulled, ours was not affected because we had been married in Canada, and we couldn't get married again in the United States.

. you get married once. So yeah, we've been married for a long time.

[01:01:21] Francisco: That's cool that you kicked open your own door to make that possible. You found a way to make it happen. , and that sounds like it's been a pattern throughout your life and your career. You've been kicking doors open, whether for yourself or for others.

There's a great quote that you highlighted, that's, about a movie that came out when Audible, which is a great documentary. It was nominated for an Oscar. I tasted one of the greatest honors a filmmaker could get, but I realized I have been blessed with an arguably greater honor, the chance to collaborate with and create opportunities for other deaf creators.

And that's Nile DeMarco who said that?

[01:01:52] Daniel Sonnenfeld: great person.

[01:01:53] Francisco: Yeah. So how, how has this opening doors been important to you and, and what have you gained by doing it?

[01:02:00] Daniel Sonnenfeld: It goes back to making the world a better place. There's a Hebrew expression for that

"Tikun Olum". We need to make the world a better place for those who will be in it after us. And that just goes back to all about. What is our purpose here in life? And so opening doors for other people, making the world a better place. I think they're all different expression of the same philosophy that the, Martin Luther King, he said that the arc of justice bends ever up upward... We may always have some setback, but we keep our eyes on creating that vision, what we want the world to be, and then figure out how do we get there. I do a lot of it at work and it been similarly I was involved with the creation in the Office of Accessibility at Salesforce, and that was by creating that vision that we wanted Salesforce to be the number one company for employees with disabilities and the number one company for accessibility.

And that kind of vision inspires people and then you get the resources to make it happen.

[01:03:02] Francisco: I think you highlight two important factors to help you make the world a better place. The first is seeing the world in its entirety. Whether that was through your experience moving to France as a young, as a young kid, getting to see that there's more than just the American experience and through your, the different communities that you've been a part of, you've identified the, the incredible broadness and beautiful quality of the human experience.

And then you've translated that into, okay, what are the actual things we can do to include more people and to help make more people feel a home? And I think that's, that's a marvelous pursuit in something that so many of us would enjoy if we, if we tried it.

[01:03:38] Daniel Sonnenfeld: Yeah. And isn't that, isn't that what makes life so much fun?

[01:03:43] Francisco: I think so. Well, it's been such a pleasure, Daniel. Thank you so much for being on the program.

[01:03:48] Daniel Sonnenfeld: You bet. You've been a great person to talk with Francisco.