The Obsession That Destroys Startups (with LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino)

Everything is hard, right? What you pick

matters drastically. Is the asymmetry

profound? Is it massive? Is the outcome

drastic part of crypto? Part of the

beauty of this changing industry, there

is a structural change with the way that

money works. Like I can't think of a

larger shift than the literal entire

financial system or money itself, right?

I had a chance at one point to hear Elon

speak and I got to ask him one question.

I said, "We're in a highly competitive

industry. How do you think about

competition? how do you think about the

environment? Like all of these different

things about it. And his answer was just

like so crystal clear. It completely

changed the way we thought about running

the business.

>> What did he say?

>> Brian, thank you for being here.

>> Thank you so much for having me.

>> Let's zoom out. Let's go really big

picture. Like why do we need

interoperability at all in this in this

arena? give me like the the the reason

for being.

>> Reason for being is very simple. Uh it

is clear more clear now than more clear

than when we started even more clear

now. Uh there are just going to be more

and more chains right general purpose

chains uh exist but you're seeing a lot

of apps. I mean even even something like

tempo uh even arc from circle again

Salana diving heavily in the payment

side. You see uh Robin Hood is launching

their layer 2. Like there's so much of

wanting to own that layer and so much of

the app specific side of things and

there just was no way to talk to each

other, right? Imagine not having the

internet, right? We're still just

existing like great, you this really

sweet cluster at Stanford and DARPA and

at all these cool places and you

interact kind of in your local circle,

but uh the layer of commerce and the

layer of um you know what can be built

on top of that was just was necessary.

And so we saw that very early on that

there just had to be a way to do this

thing. And I think if you look at it

now, um I mean we did $ 37 billion moved

across layer zero this month. That's a

you know pushing almost half a trillion

dollars annualized. Uh to put it in

perspective

>> and this is October 2025.

>> October. Yeah. Yeah. Uh Western Union uh

is about 9910 billion a month. wise is

like 16 like the only

money or payments processor uh that are

not you know to take Visa out of it is

really just like PayPal Revolute and

maybe one or two others right it's

already to the point where the amount of

economic activity is is just massive it

really is uh to the point where it's

being used widely in production it's

being used uh in so many different

variety of use cases um and stable coins

have just been a huge accelerant for

this um yeah

>> so you mentioned some fintexs and some

other players like Stripes Tempo,

Circles Arc. There are a lot of

corporations getting involved in crypto

and launching their own chains. How do

you expect this to affect the crypto

industry? Um are you expecting uh that

we will continue to have a multi a

vibrant multi-chain world or will there

be some sort of centralization or

consolidation uh that begins to happen

and how does that affect what you're

working on? I give a talk uh maybe about

two years ago now maybe it was last year

s on almost exactly this which was I'm

still I my first touch in crypto was

2011 and online poker like that and just

got banned in the US I woke up there's

department of justice symbols on all the

websites payment processors are down my

career is gone all my money's frozen and

I was like oh wow like government

overreach some sometimes isn't cool

right like I didn't even know what

happened and so Bitcoin was first

product market fit there that was how we

moved moved money around the remaining

poker states. Uh, and so I really saw

the impact of what it had. And being in

the industry for so long, I I naturally

want to view myself or view the industry

as an underdog. I still view us as an

underdog. And yet I talked to the

institutions now and it's very clear,

right? And so I I think

institutionally

they fought us every single step of the

way. Every step of the way, kicking and

screaming. They could have snapped their

fingers and killed it. They would have

absolutely done it a thousand different

times. And so now that we're here in the

last mile, uh we've won, right? It's

like uh not uh you know, not by any

other reason than that it is a strictly

better technology.

>> First they ignore you, then they fight

you, then then all of a sudden they

adopt you.

>> Exactly. We have lived that cycle. And

so it is just we have one because it is

a strictly better technology. in the

thought that we should compromise now in

the last mile. One, it means we probably

take away all of the force um that has

gotten us here and and forced them all

to look inwards and force them all to

sort of start to adopt this. So, we

probably lose that. Uh and two, they're

just like there isn't the need to make

the compromise here. Again, every every

institution in the world is looking at

Tether like 16 billion dollars on 100%

headcount. You know, it's the best

business in the entire world, right?

it's uh there just very clearly uh is a

market here. It's a multi-t trillion

dollar market. Um and so I think to

compromise now would be just an

unbelievable shame. But I also think

because we have built up the

infrastructure, because we have there's

been so many years of building this and

showing what actually can come from it,

that any attempt to heavily centralize

after will likely just be out competed.

At least in environments now when it's

that wasn't necessarily true a couple

years when regulation really could have

borne down on the industry and and tried

to kill large parts of it. It seems like

we're in a place right now where

innovation is reasonably open. people

are pushed actually to push the

technology forward and again the

institutions are no longer pushing

against it. They're actively leaning in.

They want to see what it can provide and

where it lands. So I think there will

still uh be a long cycle of innovation.

I think people are still going to

continue to push and I think the most

decentralized structures will win long

term.

>> What doesn't kill you makes you

stronger. Um, so there was a a very a

bleak period there with the full-on

regulatory assault against crypto, but

it was withtood and now we're seeing

this amazing institutional adoption

going on.

>> Y

>> um what's something that working in

crypto made you change your mind about?

Like maybe what's a belief you held that

working in crypto made you reassess?

Yeah, I mean I I I came in just given my

background. I came in I think a lot of

people come in and have to learn about

adversarial systems. I have to learn

about zero sum environments, why

Byzantine fall tolerance matter, all of

these different things. I had come from

sort of one of the most competitive zero

sum environments that exist. So I I knew

how to think adversarial. I knew I spent

a lot of time in game theory and spent a

lot of time in these sides.

>> And this is because you were a pro poker

player. You were sitting at the poker

table. The money you can make is your

opponents uh at your sides. Yep. And so

I had spent a lot of time studying and

thinking through that lens. So I most of

that I I already had I think actually

the largest things that I've changed is

everything I had done prior is more

company building than than industry but

everything I had done prior had been

small groups three to 10 technologists

and I had we've promised ourselves so

many times like oh we'll we'll never go

past 25 people we'll never go past this

right and it's just um when you have a

collection of like really smart really

motivated people you end up having we

certainly have a thousandfold more

opportunity than we could ever possibly

take advantage of, right? Um, and so

it's really this process of I think I

spent a lot of time in life trying to

find the thing to say yes to. And I

think I spend so much time now trying to

find the things to say no to and really

trying to be hyper specific about the

things that I'm doing where I think most

of my life I was very I was very broad.

I loved I mean that's how I found my way

to crypto. I I loved tinkering. I loved,

you know, I was in all of these

different industries, AI, crypto, all

this stuff way before it was like cool

and mainstream. And uh I I just like

tinkering at the fringes. Um and I think

it's been so rewarding to just be like

very narrow and very focused and

figuring out how to strip out the rest.

And I think it's completely change the

way we run the company, the way we

design things, the way we do everything.

uh still a work in progress, but I think

it's probably the largest shift of me

personally as I've had to lose

not I mean the curiosity is still there

but I've had to lose the I guess poker

conditions you to any plus EV spot is a

good spot right if you as long as it's

repeatable and you can make any amount

of uh small edge you take it uh and

>> EV being expected value

>> yeah and I think and so life is really

much not like that life is really much

uh very much you know pure asymmetry and

being very concentrated being very

specific about what you tackle and how

and giving yourself the best possible

chance to be in the position to sort of

capitalize on that.

>> How do you decide what to focus on, what

to say yes to, what to say no to? What

heristics do you use?

>> Yeah. I mean, I think like think

ultimately that's the job, right? I

think like that that is the job. I I

think my general stances I I have a

couple uh

you understand some of this comes from

very small town chip on my shoulder

growing up etc. Like my broad stance is

nothing isn't nothing is that hard,

right? Everybody wants you to think

everything is so difficult. This field

is so difficult. You have to go get a

PhD. You have to nothing nothing is like

that hard. Nobody's that good. People

are mostly inherently like kind of a

little bit lazy and there's like a few

outliers are really good. Um so nothing

is that hard, but at the same time

everything is hard, right? It's like if

you're going to do something, you can

pick almost anything and if you want to

get very very good at it. Uh on a global

scale, talent is just like it's it's

very difficult. It's just a lot of pain,

a lot of everything. And what you pick

matters drastically, right? So the

example I typically give is like um

favorite anecdote is my my friend uh his

father uh was a grandmaster and his

uncle was the highest non-rated chess

player, a non-Russian chess player in

the world.

>> Oh my god. Wow. And at five years old,

he said, uh, you know, dad, I I want to

learn chess. Uh, like I'm ready. I

really want to go. And his dad said,

don't bother. You're too old. Right?

And, uh, it's like, if me, you,

everybody here wanted to become like the

seventh best chess player in the world

and us and our kids and our grandkids,

like none of us would probably do.

Incredibly difficult. And yet, even if

you were there pre-streaming, there's

like z like that guy still has a real

job, right? So, like there's zero

asymmetry. And like there's joy.

asymmetry doesn't need to be like

financial outcomes, but I think

everything to get very, you know,

getting to 0.1% is pain and sacrifice

and toil and dedication and all this.

So, it's going to be hard no matter

what. You need to be very selective

about the thing that you are interested

enough and have enough conviction that

you're not going to quit along the way.

Way too easy to quit along the way. So,

you really have to have internal

conviction that this is a thing that you

can't stop thinking about. you you

visualize in the world like that kind of

things with high conviction in that if

you get yourself in the top 0.1%.

and you get it the luck all you know

some luck on the other end that you need

all of these things is the asymmetry

profound is it massive is the outcome

drastic and I just think most people

think about

the moderate term wins you see everybody

in A16Z I'm sure you've seen a thousand

of the pitches like we still 1% of the

market we're rich hooray you know it's

like it's very everybody's there and I I

I really want to think through the lens

of like

>> what happens if we get like 100% of the

market or What happen? What happens if

we win, Lisa? Like, is this a big enough

problem if we win the whole thing? And I

don't care that this person or that

person has been there for 50 years and I

don't care that they're a trillion

dollar business. Doesn't matter to me,

right? Is it a problem we're solving? Is

there enough asymmetry? And then

naturally, do we have an unfair

advantage? Right? part of crypto. Part

of the beauty of this changing industry

is a lot of us who have spent so much

time here. There is an embedded unfair

advantage because there is a structural

change with the way that money works.

There's a structural change with the way

that the globalization and the mobility

of dollars works where prior was top

down. It was very government driven. It

was tariffs. It was everything. And now

it's very bottoms up. Anybody with a

phone, look at look at Egypt and Nigeria

and Argentina and all, you know, all

these places like anybody with a cell

phone in the internet has the ability to

get access to dollars, to get access to

Bitcoin, to do these things. And it's

very bottoms up and the world is

changing and there's probably never been

a larger shift like I can't think of a

larger shift than the literal entire

financial system or money itself, right?

And so like there are embedded unfair

advantages that we have by being very

close to the technology. Other people

have unfair advantages through

distribution and many years of doing

this, right? There's there's both sides

of it. But what are the unfair

advantages we have? What is the market?

Is it worth tackling? And is this

something I want to, you know, dedicate

my life to? If I get 10 years down the

other side, like we did it, is it

something where I'm like, you know what,

this was freaking awesome. Uh, and so I

like th those are the things that go

through my mind that we talk about

internally, Ryan and I, my co-founder

all the time. I'd like to ask you about

the nature of competition. Um, now I

know you're a former wrestler. We talked

about your professional poker playing

days. You know, these are games where

there are winners and there are losers.

How do you think about the world

broadly? Do you see it in zero someum

terms?

>> No, definitely not. I think I I am

extremely competitive

but more competitive in the what we are

doing than than anything else. And so

Ryan always uh he always jokes been

together for 20 years building building

stuff together and our our very first

company we'd be launching product and

we'd be just the three of us me Ryan and

Caleb it would be you know 3:00 in the

morning we're tired we've got to get it

out it's like we had hit this deadline

and like all right like here here it is

right is you know here we're done it's

fine it's here and I would just point

you know something out like like does it

really matter and I would just always be

like well well better is better right

it's always just this increment mental

like always always always push to be

that little bit better. I'm I'm hyper

competitive. I want to win at what we're

doing. Like I want to win the market. Um

but the other thing I I think early on

early on I probably thought about it

more zero sum. Uh I thought more about

what competitors were doing. I thought

more about the market looked like. I was

trying to tell everybody why all of this

is wrong and we're right. I think I

spent so much time and uh I've told the

stories a couple of times. So, I got the

I got the chance at one point to hear

Elon speak and I got to ask him one

question. The one question I asked him

was about that. I said, "We're in a

highly competitive industry. Um, how do

you think about competition? How do you

think about the environment?" Like all

of these different things about it. And

his answer was just like so crystal

clear. It completely changed the way we

thought about running the business.

>> What did he say?

>> And he said, "Do not think about

competition ever at all. The only thing

that you should ever think about is

building the thing of the absolute

maximum utility. Focus only on building

the best product. If you ever spend time

on what other people anything else, it's

just like wasted cycle. You know, it's

just completely like it didn't even

register for for one second that he

should be spending time thinking about

how other people launch rockets or build

cars or do anything. It's just build the

best product. Uh, and I think it's

changed a lot how we internally like

extremely competitive. We try to hold

ourselves to an extremely high standard

of like building the best product. Um,

but it's not what they've done. It's not

this thing that they're launching. Uh,

it's it's us. And again, the other thing

we talk about internally a lot is like,

you know, we didn't again $37 billion.

Great. Amazing. A year ago, I could not

have thought about it. Still right now.

This is the market. Ryan and I are both

like this is a market right now. We want

90% market share. Here we are. Uh this

is not worth having spent you know it's

not enough. It's not like what we are

here and having this huge market and

doing everything. Uh that was not a

worthwhile thing to dedicate our lives

to right. Uh it really is there is a lot

more and we have to create the market.

we have to create value and we have to

enable much much much more to be able to

be uh driven and created on top of this

layer and so like I think there's that

side of competition too and that I think

a lot of people see what is the market

and can I win it and I think for us it's

like this market didn't even exist when

we we created this side of the market

and then it got super competitive and

then we won this side of the market and

still it's just like it's it's not if

this is all there is it's not enough we

have all of the banks all the

institutions all of everybody Right. Uh

I just heard that Broadidge did like $9

trillion this month on its own into repo

settlement. There's all of this uh you

know the numbers that we're doing now

the amount of value that's being moved

but actually being touched in terms of

the broader financial system is a you

know a single pixel on a very large

screen and I think uh we just have to be

driven to do more than other people

expect of us than we expect originally

of ourselves. You know what I mean? It

just has to be more. So that side I'm

very committed.

>> So you mentioned a few things in there.

One, the mus the um the advice from Elon

Musk. It it seems to be a a line that

you hear from other people who have been

extremely successful in their

industries. It's very much aligned with

like the Jeff Bezos mentality of be uh

obsessed with your customer. Uh and it

is a way of sort of shielding yourself

from this this like local minima of

looking at what your competitors are

doing. The way to outflank them is to be

absolutely obsessed with uh the end user

and the person you're going after. And

then uh the other thing you said, oh

yeah, uh about the zero sum mentality

and maybe mis uh misunderstanding market

opportunities. This is a classic mistake

that that people make is when you see

what a market is today and just assume

that you're going to go after one slice

of it rather than uh you know create a

potentially new market or you know like

you said go after 100% and see what else

you could get from it. Um, and even the

masters have gotten this wrong. Like

Clayton Christensen, very famous uh uh

economist who came up with the

innovators dilemma. He wrote about this

and even he whiffed on understanding a

technological opportunity. Like he

famously said the iPhone was not going

to be uh disruptive because he was

basing it off of phones uh rather than

computing broadly. Um so it is it is

something that even the experts get

wrong

>> and I love the other things we just

iPhones we are you know Ryan my

co-founder especially but we're both

very uh big Jobs fans big Apple history

fans one of the biggest principles I

really love from both Apple itself but

really driven by Steve is is you cannot

be afraid to disrupt yourself. You know

what I mean? You you cannot even though

the iPod exists like put the put the

music on the phone. You know what I

mean? like you cannot be afraid because

somebody else is going to come and you

have to be willing to sacrifice some of

the existing stuff to win the bigger

picture and I think that's something

people get very that's poker is good at

that you do not get emotionally attached

to to past things right uh it is purely

expectation from you there's no sunk

cost um but uh yeah I think that that

side of things is is tricky very tricky

>> and it's amazing because people know

this they know this to be the case and

yet it is so painful to do in practice

that people continue to make mistakes

and do the thing, you know, uh avoid the

short-term pain and

it ultimately gets them. I mean, you see

this over and over and over again.

>> Y

>> Oh, also, uh what you were saying

earlier about the Elon Musk advice, it

reminds me of the Mad Men meme of John

Ham in the elevator. He's like,

>> man sends it to me all the time.

>> I don't think about you at all. Like

cutting devastating.

>> Um you have time for a lightning round?

>> Yeah, let's do it. Okay, so a few

rapidfire questions for you. What advice

do founders receive that they should

completely ignore?

What advice found I mean I think the the

worst thing that people do is is

basically rely on advice. So I think

almost all is like my real answer. I

think there are very specific things,

but I think again I think it comes down

to conviction. And I think it has always

been my stance that we had the rosiest

path you could probably ever have to

fundraising to all of this stuff. And

there was like six different times we

could have just quit the company, right?

There's like if you don't have burning

conviction in the thing that you're

doing, you will find a way to quit or

pivot or do something else. And so if

you are relying on the underlying advice

of what other people think you should

do, of how you should build, what market

you should tackle, of any of these

things, you will, you know, thrash

yourself to death uh and never actually

get to anywhere. And I think it's way

better to really build conviction in

something and even if you're like 30%

worse off, uh really fully internalize

all of the lessons of those decisions

along the way. figure out how to pivot

quickly but understand and use that as a

as a you know learning algorithm

effectively on on how to actually make

decisions. And I think this reliance on

what other people think or assuming that

because somebody else did something one

way and their business or their moment

in time or whatever is going to be the

answer for you is just like the the

death.

>> Let me ask you specifically what is the

worst advice that you've received?

>> I don't know. No, I don't have a good

I'm I'm very uh

I think as you guys know, we were very

upfront when we're raising with

everybody and that I I I don't want

advice on what we're building or how

we're building it. What I don't know is

how to build a world-class company,

right? I want advice on that. I don't

want advice on the thing that we're

building. I think I've always had part

of this chip on my shoulder. Actually,

until very recently, I hated I hated

reading uh I loved reading fiction. I

hated reading non-fiction. And I hated

reading all I loved just learning

something from the ground up on my own.

Trial and error is just the way that I

absorbed things best because I

understood how it worked and I could

apply that. It wasn't until uh I

listened some to Charlie Munker and he

basically said if you if you don't take

something from at least the best of the

past you're just an idiot. And I was

like okay maybe now like I've I've

modified some. Um but I really tune out

uh most advice in general. I think

there's a bunch of advice that I

actually would have liked that I didn't

get about company building, but I can't

even remember advice that I got because

I feel like I just like

>> ignore it for the most part.

>> So, what's the best advice you've gotten

then maybe on the company building

front?

>> On the company building front, I I think

I mean I think the stuff I wish people

talked about that just never gets spoken

about. So, everybody talks about how

some somebody sent me the quote today I

forget whether it was uh I think it was

Mark. Here's Marker Ben on just like

thanks so much for telling me to hire a

players. You know, I was going to hire a

bunch of idiots, but like now, you know

what I mean? Like there's all this like

really stupid obvious stuff. This is

like yes, of course, everybody knows.

But I think the stuff that nobody talks

about is is like you have a bunch of

really hard decisions to make. And part

of that is like you start with a tiny

team of like three or five people and

you build it to 15, you build it to 25

and it's like totally flat and non-

hierarchical. And then you have to like

build structure. There's a little bit in

Reed's um you know Andy Grove and some

of this other stuff on like okay how do

you actually manage teams? How do you do

that? But nobody actually talks about

like how do you actually evaluate if

those are the right people? You're 24

months into a business. You've grown

from zero to 100 people. Are the people

who are running the business early still

the right people to be in leadership?

Are they the right people to manage

large growth? Are they going to bring

you to 500 people? Is your uh you know

CXX like the uh the the right person?

and did you title them too early? Like

how do you make those just like

unbelievably hard decisions of somebody

who has been there from the beginning,

been loyal for 2, three, four years uh

and have to figure out what to do, when

is the right time? Like none of that

stuff gets talked about. I've never once

heard anybody be like, and I was just I

just spent time with a bunch of other

entrepreneurs and one guy was amazing.

He had built, you know, $8 billion

business and sold it, built another

business. He's building his third now.

He's like 24 months in my entire company

was all friends. They're people I know

and I replaced my entire leadership

team. We're at, you know, a billion

dollars in revenue. We're going to be $5

billion three years from now. I'm

probably going to do it again. And I was

just like, I have never once heard

somebody talk about that thought. You

know what I mean? It's just like there

is a bunch of stuff that I think have a

huge delta for how your company goes and

a huge delta for getting the maximum

performance. I think people in the

valley have a bit of an unfair

advantage. somebody who's backed by a

16Z who lives here probably has this

advantage of you're a rocket ship and

you're in this amazing trajectory and

story and we're going to pull you in to

ex this person from here right and like

really place kind of great operators and

sometimes it works obviously Cheryl with

Facebook like times it works they're

very famous I'm sure there's times it

goes down in flames but it's just like

outside of that take the senior person

and help them come in and do this thing

uh it is just like not talked about

there's so many critical decisions along

the path that I wish somebody would just

have better structured advice. So, I'm

not how do you hire great people? It's

it's easy enough to figure out how to

hire great everyone who's at a certain

point knows how to sell. They pitch to

be they should know how to sell an

employee and I get somebody there

excited about the thing you're doing

because that's your job. That's the

whole thing. I don't think people know,

especially techno founders, especially

early. How do you navigate some of the

other things and how do you really hold

the bar exceptionally high? What does

greatness look like in a function that

you may have no like no freaking idea

what greatness in finance looks like or

in this or in that and like is this

person good? There just isn't uh you

know it's just not something that is

there and it's not something that's

talked about and I think it is probably

the largest gap in a founders's journey

especially a firsttime founder of

scaling to real scale and doing these

things. It just like has not hit it all.

I think the best uh the best advice that

I've seen on this is you know I would

say this but even if I didn't work at

Andre and Horowits Ben Harowitz is the

hard thing about hard things is like the

canonical text that tackles these

topics. Um which kind of leads us to our

ne by the way this is we've been a

little lengthy with the lightning round

but it's okay we'll tighten it up with

the last ones. Um that's one book but

give us a give us a book recommendation

that you think people should read. You

mentioned you have been a big fiction

reader.

>> Yeah. Yeah. uh large fiction reader for

sure. Uh one book, so a book I read that

is fiction that I I spent a lot of time

fan a lot of fantasy, a lot of sci-fi.

I'm sure a lot of people know that. Uh I

listened to the Lonesome Dove, which

pulit surprise book.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> And it just like I mean it just really

was just like amazing. I loved it so

much. It was s such an enjoyable uh you

know, ignore the non-fiction, ignore all

the It was just like amazing. And I was

just like, "Oh, you know, there's a

couple you read Dune." And I'm like,

"Dude, it's not my favorite book ever."

Because it's like a mass. It was

extremely well written. Lonesome Dumb.

I'm just like, I see why it won the

Puliter Prize. It's just like

incredible.

>> Incredible book. Incredible book. Good

pick.

>> Um, what's your biggest productivity

hack?

>> I don't think I'm particularly good at

it. So, it is literally uh just a a

sacrifice of balance. You know, it's

just like it is really just a you just

do the things that you have to do. I I I

don't have any magic trick. Uh it still

sucks a ton of the time. It's just you

have more than you could ever do. You're

still like running at 1,000 miles an

hour and you still have infinite

responsibility. Just like do the thing.

You have to find what is the highest

value thing that you can do and just

apply yourself to it over and over and

over again.

>> Chew the glass.

>> Yeah.

>> Non-stop. I I wish I had a better

answer.

>> Um Okay. And finally, what is the

smallest hill that you will die on?

That's very interesting. Um,

we have such a embedded culture. Like

our entire company was built with Ryan

and I just yelling at each other for 10

12 hours a day on a whiteboard and just

like there is really nothing

that I like there is no hill that I will

die on probably other than the core

principles other than this immutability

censorship resistant like the underlying

permissionless side of the protocol

everything else I feel like is malleable

and everything else is just um you I I I

think debate is amazing. You need people

who somebody has to make the decision at

some point in time. For us, it's usually

who has higher conviction or who's

closer to the problem. I think those are

like our very quick gators. Um but yeah,

there's very little that I'm just firm

on.

>> All right. Well, Brian, thanks so much

for your time and for being here.

>> Pleasure as always.

Heat. Heat.