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Welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Michael Copeland. And this is sort of our holiday special. We're

going to talk about food and technology. And to help us do this, we have three people who are

perfectly suited. On the line, or on Skype, I should say, is UC Santa Barbara Professor

Shandra Krins. And with us also here at Granular in San Francisco

is the CEO of Granular, Sid Gorham, and Tebow Scola. She was the co-founder and CTO of fruition

science. Gentlemen, Shandra, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So we have a thesis at the firm that software is eating the world,

and this is where puns could start coming fast and thick,

which we'll try not to make.

But in agriculture, I want to talk about how technology is making inroads.

And each of you are working toward that in sort of overlapping, but different ways.

Shandra, we can start with you.

You've got this concept of smart farm.

But where has agriculture been or where is it at present in terms of its adoption of technology, what kinds of things?

And then what are you trying to get moving faster than it

might otherwise?

Sure, that's a great, great question.

So we believe that agriculture is tremendously underserved by technology.

It's been left behind in both software and hardware, although hardware has done a little bit better than

software.

So we think it's a prime area that we can contribute to both on the research side and working

with startups and industry on the industry side.

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