Scaling a Biotech Business: Lessons on Pivoting & Growth from Affinity Immuno

Amir describes a non-linear path into science, switching from social sciences after rediscovering biology and finding organic chemistry intuitive and creative. She explains her PhD work at the University of Calgary in carbohydrate chemistry, synthesizing tumor-associated carbohydrates to support vaccine and detection research. 

Amir outlines how Affinity Immuno started with off-the-shelf ELISA kits, grew within PEI’s expanding biotech ecosystem, and pivoted during COVID-19 to pandemic research tools, rapidly scaling and engaging globally before facing a post-COVID downturn. She details the company’s customer-driven expansion into custom polyclonal chicken antibody production and method development/validation, while preferring organic growth as a small-to-medium business. 

She also discusses active transportation initiatives in Charlottetown and reflects on pandemic risk drivers, climate change impacts on disease spread, and the value of diverse career paths in life sciences.

00:00 AI Intro and Welcome
01:55 Finding Science Late
03:52 Why Organic Chemistry
05:04 PhD Cancer Carbohydrates
05:34 From Pharma to Startup
08:28 Active Transport Advocacy
10:54 Cycling Origin Story
13:08 Affinity Immuno Growth
18:53 Pivoting by Customers
21:36 Small Business Vision
23:09 Next Pandemic Thoughts
27:31 Closing Reflections

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Pat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-tea/

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North Star Scientific on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/north-star-scientific/

Let's Navigate Science Careers Together!

Transcript

Patrick: [00:00:00] we both run businesses and, and we've had conversation about AI now, which is a big thing, and you

know, with Claude, even though I think you use Claude, even though I have a love-hate relationship with Claude.

Just for fun, I asked Claude to take a look at your LinkedIn profile and come up with a little intro.

Amir Zuccolo: Oh

Patrick: Yeah, and I think Claude pretty much nailed it, so I'm gonna re-- I'm just gonna read it to you and see, see... Let me know what you think, okay?

Amir Zuccolo: okay and I'll see what 

Patrick: yeah, okay. So my guest today is Amir Zuccolo, a synthetic organic chemist who proves that you can mix high-level science with an intense passion for bicycles without causing a chain reaction.

That's pretty clever.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah

Patrick: she is a director of quality at Affinity Amino, where she's in charge of making sure all their bioanalytical solutions actually behave themselves in the lab. But when she isn't busy building biotech companies or teaching university students at the University of Prince Edward Island the terrifying wonders of advanced carbohydrate chemistry, which [00:01:00] is organic chemistry, she's out trying to get the entire world on two wheels safely.

As a heavy hitter in the active transportation scene and the project manager for the Gran Fondo in PEI, she is relentlessly dedicated to cycling advocacy. Whether she's a p-- in a pristine lab coat or aerodynamic spandex, she brings incredible energy to everything she does. Please welcome Amir to the show.

Amir Zuccolo: Thank you

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: It's

Patrick: Pre-pretty accurate, right? Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah

Patrick: I was going through your LinkedIn profile as well, and yes, I'm just amazed with the different, you know, all the branches that you seem to be part of, you know, and c- after, after doing your... I guess you, you know, you, you did most of your schooling in, in the science, in the organic, organic chemistry from your bachelor's degree all the way to your postdoc, right?

Amir Zuccolo: Actually strangely enough I did not start out in science [00:02:00] I always loved science as a kid I had aspirations of being paleontologist marine biologist I think a lot of k kids have those curiosities but somewhere along the way I felt like I wasn't good enough at math which is really hilarious because I actually competed in extracurricular math

tests provincially So I don't know why I got that in my head But at somewhere along the way I did and I then decided I would pur pursue social sciences So I actually did two years of what would've been a general arts and humanities but you did need a science requirement and I had taken biology in high school so I thought Oh I'll do take biology And so I took biology and I really loved it and I thought Actually you know what I am gonna I'm gonna give this a go I started going back to high school science and filling doing night school to fill up my science credits then you needed organic chemistry [00:03:00] to get a biology degree and then I took organic chemistry and I thought Nope this is really where I belong And so then I backfilled all my requirements to pursue a chemistry degree So it was a lengthy process

Patrick: Yeah. It's a winding path to discovery, but yeah, organic chemistry, I can't believe that's, that's like what you really what really spoke to you because I'm the opposite. Organic chemistry are two dirty words for me because I, I almost failed that class at university. I just couldn't...

Amir Zuccolo: most people have that

Patrick: I just...

Amir Zuccolo: when I talk about

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: and it's

Patrick: It's amazing, though.

Amir Zuccolo: a gatekeeping course and people just need it to get on with whatever and they're terrified of it And once they're done they never wanna talk about it again but they have burned into their brains the horrors

Patrick: I'm one of them.

Amir Zuccolo: and it usually being the worst grade they got

Patrick: Yes, I'm one of them. Yeah, I've had n- I had nightmares of those benzene rings and how you could put them together as... But I-- So tell me, what about organic chemistry really [00:04:00] spoke to you?

Amir Zuccolo: I just I would say that it was It came so naturally

Patrick: Really? Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: unlike for

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: I just really I just got it I just seemed like I understood it really well and it was It felt very natural And I loved the puzzles I loved It felt like a really big puzzle all the time and it was so open-ended so you could think really creatively And I think a lot of times in science we People who haven't pursued science degrees or just done the rudimentary high school first-year university courses it feels like everything's laid out and there's nothing left to learn And then as you progress you realize that there's this whole world of creativity and that was organic chemistry And then the further I went and I realized that it's a tool for drug discovery and all these different applications then it became a combination of creativity as well as utility and so the more I [00:05:00] learned the more I wanted to learn and the more passionate I became

Patrick: no, that's great. And obviously to a point where you did your PhD in, at University of Calgary in organic chemistry. Is that correct? Yeah, okay.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah I did my focus was on carbohydrate chemistry so we were looking at synthesizing carbohydrate molecules that are overexpressed in tumor cells as a potential way to develop vaccines against cancer or different detections those molecules are hard to isolate in natural environments so we need to prepare them synthetically to study them 

properly 

Patrick: Did you have a path to becoming a researcher or h- you know, I'm curious on how Affinity Immuno started or is this something that you always wanted to do, become an entrepreneur in this industry?

Amir Zuccolo: Nope more of a

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: My initial sort of dream was to go work for big pharma but during the course of my degree a lot of the companies in Montreal closed shop 

So [00:06:00] Merck Frost

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: there Boehringer had been there and they had closed shop particularly in the financial crisis 2007 2008 and as I was completing my degree then I wasn't sure if that was really the path I wanted to take and I didn't know if I wanted to do a postdoc and near the end I was just really unclear But partner at the time Jonathan was finishing up his PhD in immunology and he was really passionate about becoming an academic and he was particularly interested in a field of study called neuroimmunology people become infected with for example strep repeatedly and they develop antibodies to strep those antibodies become cross-reactive and they can actually interact with receptors in the brain and they can cause obsessive compulsive disorder

and 

Patrick: Wow.

Amir Zuccolo: He became fascinated with the idea that the interaction 

Patrick: Right. Yeah. [00:07:00] But I think, you know, that-- obviously, that experience helped you out with what you're doing now with Affinity Immuno, and we'll get into that. We'll get into, you know, what you do there. But you know what? Not a [00:08:00] lot of people can actually say What they studied-- first of all, not a lot of people can say they're, they were passionate in what they studied in university

And secondly, not a lot of people can say they're actually working within the, the degree that they studied in, you know? And so I think you accomplished both, which is, which is great, you know? So that must be

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah

Patrick: pretty rewarding for you.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah so It is

Patrick: Yeah.

That's...

Amir Zuccolo: not every day but

Patrick: You're overall, overall . Yeah, yeah. I think, And then, you know the other thing that I'm, that, you know, obviously it's the you're, you're active transportation coordinator, where you're trying to make...

Are you trying to make the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians in Charlottetown?

Amir Zuccolo: Yep Yeah so there's several pieces to the project So the Active Transportation Fund came out with the provincial government about five years ago and there's the piece of advocacy around infrastructure so better cycling lanes and then anything around like walking as well [00:09:00] so better pedestrian crosswalks and interactions and really thinking about the user experience from start to finish from the time you get on your bike to leave your house what does that look like while you're riding And then when you get to de your destination what kind of services are there in terms of bike racks or bike lockers And then when you go into work is there a shower Is there a place to to change et cetera and then as well an education piece around how to be a a better cyclist in traffic how to navigate busy roads making left-hand turns roundabouts just in an effort to get more people cycling 

Patrick: yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: So if in Particularly now today on my way into work I saw the digital sign on the gas change to

Patrick: Oof.

Amir Zuccolo: from $1.96 

Patrick: yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: yeah it's really gonna hurt the pocketbook and there's no real end in sight to that price And then we also know of course the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on fossil fuels and And just also encouraging people if you're using active transportation it doesn't have to be every [00:10:00] day right you don't have to ride in the worst weather but one trip on your bike a week that that

Patrick: There's so many benefits.

Amir Zuccolo: in your 

Patrick: so many as health-wise too, right? Just so many benefits.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah Yeah

Patrick: but yeah, unfortunately... That's great that it looks like there's some investment from Charlottetown into those type of initiatives. I think unfortunately here in Toronto looks like we're going the opposite way.

Like I, I think, you know, Doug Ford removed a lot of the biking paths and... So yeah, we definitely need for you to rub off on some people over here 'cause I, yeah, I believe in that too. Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah I have friends in Toronto and they're serious cyclists and users of active transportation and they're doing a lot of advocacy work So we've seen it in Nova Scotia too where they're r reducing funding for these things and I feel like progress is always we expect it to go like this but it really 

is, like that And yeah just keep optimistic and

pushing 

Patrick: Yeah. Now, now was that just a, another kind of path where you followed your passion for [00:11:00] cycling or is that...

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah it started with the Gran Fondo So there was a project manager position that came up that was very part-time and I used to s when I was in grad school prior to grad school I was a smoker a very heavy smoker And before I went to grad school it was a habit I wanted to kick and and then I was looking for ways to manage my stress and get some physical health benefits so when I got to grad school I met someone who was really into triathlons and he started swimming with me at lunch and then I got a bike and I started commuting to work then I s he was like You should do a triathlon And I was like that's crazy never run more than a block and I think that was forced in PE nine

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: But slowly but surely I just started working up to that goal and then I got a proper road bike and we were riding

Patrick: Damn, that's awesome.

Amir Zuccolo: through the Rocky Mountains and it was super fun so when this chance to run this event came up I thought Oh [00:12:00] I could I'd love to do that give back to the community and I know how like all the rewarding experience it is to a like complete 160-kilometer ride and meet new friends and enjoy the scenery in a really slow-paced way that you normally like when you're driving a car you don't interact with your 

environment in the same way so I started that and then I just got more involved in the cycling community and when different part-time contracts came up my name was

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: mix and so I just kept on

Patrick: Yeah. It's, it's amazing how life is so connected, right? 'Cause... And even sometimes you don't realize it, like the, the skill and what you had to go through from being a smoker to learning how to bike and to going to almost the extreme and doing that, that race is, is almost like the same kind of skills when you start a company, right?

Go- circling back to Affinity Amino, right? Like I, I, you

Star two years ago. It's like y- you're not really-- You weren't really schooled for how to [00:13:00] start a company. So you just kind of figure it out, right? And so yeah, it's all, it's all connected and,

Amir Zuccolo: It's

Patrick: 12 years, okay. And how have things changed, like even like from five years ago to now i- in terms of the, the trends you're seeing, customer,

Amir Zuccolo: everybody

Patrick: changed?

Amir Zuccolo: it's like you're all friends and it's like you guys are all friends it's almost like the same as guys are just like Oh this is what it's like Yeah It's like you're just like this Nope So you guys all have friends and stuff That's what it's like It's like you guys are just like Oh this is what it's like Yep 12 years Yep So you changed You just just changed You're just like Oh this is what it's like

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: has changed when we started we were just selling off-the-shelf ELISA kits So Jonathan had a lot of experience with monoclonal antibodies from his PhD And when we got to Prince Edward Island I came up here to teach at the university on a contract That was what originally brought us up here and we didn't we came here sight unseen so we didn't know anything about Prince Edward Island except what everybody knows Anne

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: and that was about it and brutal maritime

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: were the other

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: But there's actually a very big biotech scene in Sh in [00:14:00] PEI for the size so we have some bigger companies as well as medium-sized companies and a lot of really small biotech companies So when we arrived it was really a fertile ground for opportunity both the federal and provincial government have invested a lot in this sector particularly because they wanted to diversify the economy away from traditional industries cause they saw what happened in Newfoundland with the 

collapse of the fishery. And so they didn't wanna become reliant solely on agriculture and fishing They wanted to expand beyond those so

Patrick: Interesting.

Amir Zuccolo: We started to meet me entrepreneurial was always very scary because it felt very insecure I didn't think I was that kind of person I didn't see myself as a risk-taker my dad was an entrepreneur and I saw

Patrick: ups and downs. Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: through with ups and downs and different cycles and he was a stockbroker and also a tile setter and he went back and [00:15:00] forth between those careers due to a back injury So he experienced highs and lows in both of those industries So it was my mom's job that really kept us financially stable even though he did bring money in it was not predictable So I was very nervous we started out I was working at different pharmaceutical companies and so John said he'd found that he would want to start this company And we met some entrepreneurs and we realized that they weren't they were quote-unquote regular people right They weren't they didn't have any sort of secret thing that we didn't have So we got more convinced that it was possible for us too Why not so w I had my stable salary and so we could take the risk And so he founded it and he was the only person in it for the first few years selling those ELISA kits And we've grown and contracted over the years COVID definitely brought on of change That's what's it is what brought me in in a full-time [00:16:00] capacity because we had Research tools for COVID-19 we got busy really quickly We had a total pivot our regular products to making exclusively c COVID-19

Patrick: Right.

Amir Zuccolo: the rapid tests and to do serological studies on antibodies so that was a huge shift a huge sort of We went from being like a small company on the island with a few distributors to really we were talking to people in WHO we were talking to people

Patrick: Well, you went global

Amir Zuccolo: in the

Patrick: with that. Yeah, you went... Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah and it was as we all remember it was a wild so many parts of that experience were 

just wild. But to be in the industry that was pushing for of rapid response in terms of research tools and drug discovery was it was definitely interesting and probably a a once in a lifetime a once in a century situation So that really shifted our capabilities We hired people [00:17:00] We started to be able to scale things up and then after COVID thi there was a huge downturn which I didn't know was e being experienced by

Patrick: yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: we're isolated So was watching our numbers and I was getting really panicky about where we were headed and I started to put a lot of things in place to brace ourselves for what I could see a downturn coming and I wanted to be able to sure we kept the lights on and kept selling what we could in order to ride this out I did actually take a minor in business when I was an undergrad cause I s when I didn't know what I was gonna do post-undergrad I thought chances are I'm gonna work in some type of business so having a small about what business people do is probably an asset and I remember there's a few key takeaways and one of them was if cash is king If you can't pay your bills you're gonna go out of business [00:18:00] And I think it was Eatons was the example of a large retailer that had a lot of accounts receivable but people weren't paying them and so they weren't able to cover the rent and they ended up 

Patrick: Mm-hmm. 

Amir Zuccolo: So I remember thinking It doesn't matter how much I sell or how much people owe me cause we're on a 

net 30. I need to have

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: so that was a very stressful time but I just my head down like you do on 160-kilometer bike ride

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: and you keep

Patrick: There you go.

Amir Zuccolo: and hope that you're gonna

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: So once we got through that we were able to start to grow again And now in addition to our ELISA kits we've really e-expanded our custom polyclonal Antibody production in chickens and we've also started to do method validation me-method development and validation work for cl clinical research 

organizations. So 

Patrick: great. So yeah, you were able to pivot. Now, when you wanted to pivot, how did you decide what area to focus on? Did you ha- just have a couple of [00:19:00] customers making requests, or did you actually look at the trends or how, how, how was that process?

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah it was

Patrick: Okay.

Amir Zuccolo: So we would reach out to customers that had were buying our ELISA kits in the past and we would ask them what their needs were And then they would say Oh can you make us a polyclonal antibody Can you make us an ELISA kit Can you do this And then we were like Yeah we can do those things And so a lot of customer demand to fuel what we were offering And then from there we were able to look at what customers were asking for and then continue to expand So it was definitely customer driven and then we were a-able to add our own i like once we had that insight add 

more. 

Patrick: Right. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I think that's, back to basics, is just try- trying to help add value to your customers and solve problems for them and generating positive outcomes. Yeah, that's good. So in terms of what has changed then you know, once, once you got over the COVID, the COVID hump and you [00:20:00] started taking orders, has anything changed, you know, over the last couple of years in terms of customer demand or areas of focus, you think?

Amir Zuccolo: would say that we're much more diverse So it used to be that we

Patrick: That's great. [00:21:00] That is great. And you moved to the new space not too long ago, right? Like a couple of months ago?

Amir Zuccolo: No

Patrick: Last August, okay. Okay. Yeah, that's, that's just amazing. You know, from a Canadian's perspective, it's-- I think we're all rooting for you. It's just amazing to see you know, a Canadian kinda within this industry, right?

Just growing and steadily growing. So that's, that's great that things have turned around for sure. Yeah. And so where do you see future opportunities for you?

Amir Zuccolo: For

Patrick: yeah. Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: Think I just

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: l want to continue to grow the company and hire more people on the island and just I know a lot of We have been ha-had offers to buy us or and acquire us and [00:22:00] different mergers in the past and none have been the right or the right decision at that point in time and although I know that's the venture capitalist 10X mindset but I don't know if that's really how I wanna take things I a idea of having a small to medium-sized company with twenty to sixty people and doing what

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: and just having organic growth and continuing to serve the customers that we have that could change but for now I read a book called Small is Beautiful and I was really compelled by that sort of there's nothing wrong with running a 

small business. 

Patrick: that's the backbone.

Amir Zuccolo: thing to

Patrick: the backbone of the economy. It's small businesses, actually, right? And I think, you know, that there's something sacred about running a small to medium-sized business and keeping that culture you know, tight and fostering ideas and acting on ideas of people, right?

That's something I'm conscious about as well, and it's escaping that [00:23:00] big corporate machine that I think people are more and more dreading right now. So no, I totally... I think about that too. Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah

Patrick: Now, in your opinion, do you think, I mean, I'm sure you've seen the news about this hantavirus go- yeah, going on at, at the cruise ship.

I think, is it South America? I think it's South America. Obviously it's not gonna be anywhere near COVID, obviously, but,

Amir Zuccolo: I

Patrick: there's gonna be another COVID?

Amir Zuccolo: don't know hantavirus has been around for a while and I think we understand it a bit better than COVID

Patrick: Oh, y- we do.

Amir Zuccolo: know if it has this I I it's mice

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: they contract it from And I don't know if I I don't know about it I would Do does it do human-to-human

Patrick: So it's very rare, apparently. It's very rare, so it, it won't spread as much as obviously to the extent, but

Amir Zuccolo: So I think that like The [00:24:00] thing I think that happened with COVID I lived in Vancouver for SARS

Patrick: Yeah. Okay.

Amir Zuccolo: and so I was really And then I was in PEI and we when we started hearing news of a SARS

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: in China I was like Oh this is it this is gonna be the big pandemic So we actually started preparing both the company and personally in December of 2019 So I was preparing for a lockdown way before and I was telling all my friends You should be doing

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: and getting

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: blah blah blah and people thought I was crazy Anyway so now I'm like the I don't know the mystic the oracle or whatever that can

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: So I don't necessarily see it with hantavirus unless there is human-to-human transmission cause that's a game changer and of course I'm not a virologist but I feel it's an unpredictable space we don't we understand I think right now how that virus is operating and how it's being transmitted but it

Patrick: [00:25:00] Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: I would hope and I don't know from a government or a public policy perspective we're better prepared for the next 

Patrick: Mm. 

Amir Zuccolo: I remember when I act when I was doing my postdoc we went to a conference and there was a virologist from Harvard and he put up two slides that really stuck with me One was airline travel how many flights a day all around the world the other one was meat production and transport all around the world and particularly illegal meat that's coming out of places that are not regulated or whatever and how this illegal meat trade is happening he said With these two maps this is we are basically scenarios where pandemics are going to

Patrick: Really?

Amir Zuccolo: w we have these the amount of traffic across the globe and the ease [00:26:00] of which people Like how many people we are coming into contact with on a regular basis now compared to our ancestors 100 years ago maybe flew

Patrick: Yeah. Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: and and then this illegal meat trade So I found it those two maps I was like 

Patrick: yeah. Yeah. It's just a matter of

Amir Zuccolo: creating a perfect environment for more pandemics And then I think the other thing that is gonna be really unpredictable is climate change cause we already see a lot of viruses and bacteria that are existing outside of their zones right Zika virus coming up into Florida we have way more Lyme disease now in Canada because the cycle freezing cycles aren't as

Patrick: That makes sense.

Amir Zuccolo: aren't

Patrick: That makes sense.

Amir Zuccolo: S so I think that's gonna be an unknown and a lot of times people who Like similar to a heat wave I think in Canada we're really used to the cold and so we manage it and we know what to do and we know how to look 

after ourselves, and we [00:27:00] don't really know how to look after ourselves in the heat Like we've

Have disastrous consequences in heat domes And other parts of the world have lived in the heat for centuries and they know how to manage the heat They know how to manage their bodies their homes And so if we have bacteria and viruses that are unfamiliar it puts us into a dangerous situation I don't know if we'll get global pandemic level I imagine that we'll have like more

Patrick: L- l-- Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: with

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah

Patrick: Yeah. No, I, I, I tend to agree. On the good side is that looks like you have a bright future with Affinity Amo now. The good side of it.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah

Patrick: I-- let's end there. Let's end with that, that, that bright, positive, Oh, well, actually, no, it's, it's, it's double-edged sword there, but you know.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah I think everything is

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: right Every time there's a crisis there's an opportunity

Patrick: True. To learn from it.

Amir Zuccolo: and when we

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: to tackle on tackle these challenges we're always

Patrick: Yeah.[00:28:00]

Amir Zuccolo: And so it's Yeah it's a

Patrick: Yeah.

Amir Zuccolo: for how you want to

Patrick: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's a better way to end it, Amir. Thank you. Thank you for saving me. But no, I, I really, I really appreciate you sharing your story. I think, you know, the whole point of this podcast was to demonstrate, you know, that, you know, in a career, in a life science, this amazing industry that we're in, you could take different paths.

I mean, you had more of a traditional way of like, you know, studying in science. I mean, not, actually not even initially, you said. It's never straightforward. Anyone from any industry can participate

thank you for sharing your story.

Amir Zuccolo: we need all the perspectives

Patrick: Absolutely.

Amir Zuccolo: you come from another place you're bringing that lens and if we have too many people who are trained with the same set or workplace setting then we're not gonna be as good at solving these problems So we need all

Patrick: Diversity rules.

Amir Zuccolo: Yeah