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How a Chef-Marketer Built Experiences That Scale

• Alex Romanovich

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The story starts with a name and a camera, then crosses continents, kitchens, and boardrooms. Meet chef-turned-CMO Mariko Amekodommo — a career spanning broadcast journalism, Los Angeles supper clubs, and fractional marketing leadership for AI-driven companies across Vietnam, India, and now Prague. What unites it all is a relentless focus on audience—how people feel, what they need, and why every message must meet the moment.

Mariko shares how she built a culinary brand on timeless marketing fundamentals: direct outreach, clear positioning, and experiences crafted for emotion and memory. She contrasts the control of private dining with the chaos of consulting—where founders often chase virality, ignore channel–audience fit, or let ego override evidence. You’ll hear the cautionary fintech tale of the “10 million users in 30 days” promise, the Gangnam-style launch that never matched its buyers, and the reset that came from facing the real cost of attention. Her advice for early-stage CEOs is refreshingly direct: hire for your blind spots, listen, document trade-offs, and let data guide your next move.

We also dive into AI’s right role. As a CMO, she leans on it for research, analytics, and lead gen. As a host, she protects the human layer—story, presence, connection—that audiences crave after days behind screens. From robot kitchens in China to EU vs. US AI policy, Mariko argues for automating what accelerates and preserving what differentiates. Her global playbook is blunt: spend time in the market or work with locals. The standout case? North and West Africa, where TikTok exceeded expectations and a “chicken influencer” became the face of financial inclusion—proof that local truth beats HQ assumptions every time.

Come for the wild career turns; stay for the practical framework: start with the audience, align tactics to outcomes, respect culture, and keep ego out of the way. If it resonates, follow the show, share it with a founder who needs a reality check, and leave a quick review to help more curious builders find us.

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Alex Romanovich:

Hi, this is Alex Romanovich and welcome to Global Edge Talk. Today is September 15, 2025, and our guest from Prague Czech Republic is Meriko uh A Mekedomodo. I'm sorry, you might be pronouncing say it again.

Mariko Amekodommo:

Omekodomo.

Alex Romanovich:

Omekedomo. I apologize. But but there's a story behind that last name, and we will definitely talk about it some more. Meriko, you're an American who um who's a globtrotter, and you've been to how many countries? You've lived in how many countries?

Mariko Amekodommo:

Born and raised in the US, then Vietnam, then India, and now Prague Czech Republic. So I guess this is my fourth country.

Alex Romanovich:

What a very interesting contrast, though, in terms of cultures, in terms of what you've been doing in those countries and so forth. Now, you have such an amazing diverse background. I couldn't resist to interview you for Global Edge Talk, which is a podcast that celebrates entrepreneurship, global entrepreneurship, and people like yourself, entrepreneurs like yourself, that basically don't even look at the barriers. They just do things. They create, they do, they execute, they bring value to the table, and so forth. Now you have a very interesting background. You know, you work as a fractional chief marketing officer for an AI-based company. You're a celebrity chef to major corporations, major brands, and you do some really interesting um in-home parties, you cater some amazing events, you organize some events, and prior to that you've been in communications, you had your own businesses, you worked for, you know, for larger organizations. Tell us more. I mean, why so much diversity? Tell me more.

Mariko Amekodommo:

I like to keep things interesting. So I guess let me just dive in a little bit about my journey. So when I was in school, trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a medical doctor. That wasn't going to work out because obviously, like, that just didn't seem too much fun once I actually started going to university for it. And then I wanted to see like what were just the opportunities at the time, what was something that just seemed kind of creative but interesting. And I got into broadcast journalism. And that's how actually I changed my name to Mariko Omekodomo because I was on TV, I was a radio at the time, and I needed something that was going to be memorable and a little bit different. And just real quick, the way I chose that name, it was what my grandfather called me when I was a little girl. He spent a lot of time in Japanese, in Japan. So I'm an Italian girl with a Japanese name that I chose as homage to my grandfather. So yeah, so I started off doing broadcast and journalism. And that whole entire time, I was also studying marketing. I went ahead and got my MBA in marketing. And when I ended up moving to Los Angeles because even though I was doing marketing, I was doing broadcasts, I always had this dream of I want to be a TV chef. I want to have a cooking show. So that's always just something I had set out to do. And once I got to LA, I realized that being on TV, food, all of that really had to do with marketing. Like there's amazing chefs that I know, but they never got that successful because they didn't know how to market themselves. So I wasn't the best chef in the world, but I knew about marketing. I knew how to reach out to people. I started building a brand. And during the time in Los Angeles, I was like, okay, you know you have made it in LA when you're on the biggest celebrity gossip websites. If the celebrity gossip websites are talking about you, then you know you have made it. So I thought, well, what's the fastest way to get on one of those celebrity websites? Let me send them a message and be like, hey, do you want to have a cooking show on your on your website? And they said, yeah, okay. And I self-taped a little video. This was before iPhones and all of that. It was just a little, like a little flip cam thing. And that's how that whole journey started. So I was doing that for quite some time. And I was still working marketing on the side because I needed to pay the bills. But slowly as time went on, um, I was able to quit my marketing jobs and just focus on the food full-time. And one of the things that I loved about how I was working with food was it was all about creating experiences for people. So let's say you have a celebrity that's going to do a proposal and they want to do it at home. Or maybe you have a family member that's passing away and when they're a hospice and this is like the last time for the whole family to get together. Every type of, you know, event that you could imagine, it was really just about kind of bringing people together and creating some type of experience that they would remember. And part of that was always understanding the customer, understanding the audience, understanding, you know, their desires, their goals. The same things that I would ask in a marketing consult now, I would ask to one of my like catering clients back in the day, like, what is the end goal of this? How are people going to leave at the end of your party? You know, what are like the emotions that you want them to fill? Um, and it's so it just really kind of took on from there. So my time in, you know, Los Angeles was really just creating these culinary experiences for individuals and for brands. And, you know, part of it was the food, but also part of it was just, you know, bringing to people together in something that was new and different and totally engaging and memorable.

Alex Romanovich:

That's an incredible story. Now, I have a question for you. I have a burning question for you. How do you, you know, in my experience in marketing and the business development sales, you always try to borrow from some of the learnings, maybe from the past, maybe from somebody else, and you try to apply that in different situations. At least that, you know, I've seen the most effective people do that. However, it's not without flaws, it's not without mistakes, right? So when when you're talking, I know you told me some stories about applying that creativity in some other situations where you work with the corporations and you work in marketing and so forth. How do you balance? How do you borrow from your creativity, which is incredible, in creating food items and creating food experiences, and creating those social experiences and applying that to, let's say, a different environment, a corporate environment. Right, which is, you know, it could be a little boring, you know, and so forth. And also what what have you seen others do that's kind of a mistake or was a mistake when they try to do the same? Tell us about your mistakes and your applications of uh creativity in uh in a different environment and what you've seen out there in the industry.

Mariko Amekodommo:

Okay, wow, that's uh uh th that are some really good questions in there. Let's just you know, I think for me, the one thing that has carried over from, you know, the culinary side of doing events and creating dishes to also working in tech and marketing is at the end of the day, it's all about the customer, you know, kind of really understanding like who the customer is and who the audience is. Because there have been times I've been at culinary events and they're like, oh, like I want this, this, and this and this. And then I get to the event and um I didn't understand know that they were vegan or they were kosher or any of those different things. And so then I'm just kind of having to figure it out as I go. So I think, you know, you know, my experiences from that working in tech, now it's like, okay, let me just ask as many questions and understand as much as I can before I go ahead. So because I need to save myself doing for all that extra work. And then I think at the end of the day, I've always kind of had to listen to my gut instincts. So, you know, some of like the, you know, tech marketing consulting I have done, it's like the like I know in my veins, my blood and my gut, like I know what's going to, what's going to work. But then I have everyone else telling me otherwise. So it's really about just kind of understanding how to eloquently get my point across while at the other point making everyone seem like make them feel seen and under understood.

Alex Romanovich:

Can you imagine? I mean, I, you know, I think every marketer, whether it's an agency or a chief marketing officer or a marketing manager inside of a larger organization, the level of frustration sometimes the marketers have in terms of like in your catering environment, you're in control, right? You create those environments, you create those experiences, you create those dishes, you create the food, you know, and so forth. And yes, there is a risk involved. Right. The risk is that some they may not like it, right? Or they may give you a bad review, or they may not come back, or something like that, which I'm sure never happened, knowing what you told me. However, then you take that, right? You take that creativity, creation of this baby, like you said, take it to the corporate environment where they tell you, no, no, no, that's not gonna work. Or no, no, no, that's not our tradition, or no, that's not how we do things, right? How do you manage that?

Mariko Amekodommo:

That is still something I am working on every day as we speak. I so I have my own business. I have like my catering culinary events business. That is where I'm a hundred percent in control of everything. When I'm consulting, working for other companies, I'm having to start to get that feeling of like, hey, this is not my business. It is a customer. And at the end of the day, my job is to make the customer happy. So it's like the more this sounds bad, but sometimes the more I try to resist it, the more it just gets, you know, the more frustrating it gets. So it's like I can know, like, okay, these are the best practices. This is what you need to do. I can know all of those things. And I know those things because I have done it for, you know, 15 years. I have, you know, scaled companies around the world. Like, I know this is what needs to be done. But if the CEO of the found, if the founder of the company, you know, they have their own idea. And the more I try to vocalize, like, hey, you know, the best course of action is this, and they're being resistant. I just need to be like, okay, I will just let me, you know, let me do what you say, and then, you know, wait for the, you know, everything to fall apart and and not actually say like, I told you so, because, you know, that's never good, but I know I it is, it kind of is, right?

Alex Romanovich:

I know a little bit.

Mariko Amekodommo:

I can tell it to myself, but I think the, you know, the thing that's really helped me now is just to, you know, the egos need to get aside, and I can't get emotionally invested in things that are out of my out of my control.

Alex Romanovich:

But have you been in situations where, you know, as you qualify in this new opportunities, you're gonna say to yourself, you know what, it's just not gonna work. I'm gonna walk away from this. You know, it it's it's gonna be like my intuition is that it's not going to do it. It's not gonna work. Have you been in those types of situations? Or are you are you uh you take that almost as a challenge says, oh no, I'm gonna prove wrong.

Mariko Amekodommo:

I'm I'm gonna So yes to all of the above. I have been in the situations that I am going to prove them wrong. And at the time I also wasn't financially in the position that I could just walk away. So, you know, that also sometimes plays a role in things. Like I wish I could be like, no, I don't, I don't need this, but it's like, okay, I do need this. So yeah, let me let me prove them wrong. Those usually don't end up well. Those, you know, those don't end up well. And I've also been in situations, you know, just kind of my introductory, you know, few calls with like the founders or the CEOs. And it's just like, this is not going to be a right mix. There's, you know, there's some red flags happening. So it's just like, I just know it's not, it's not gonna happen. One of my, you know, this is like a funny story, one of those positions that I couldn't, I couldn't walk away from because I had relocated countries for that job. So there was no like, you know, like it had to work.

Alex Romanovich:

So I had reloaded, right?

Mariko Amekodommo:

Yeah, I was literally stuck in in Vietnam. And this is the job that actually, you know, brought me from L. Um, so that whole entire journey. So it was like my first corporate tech job outside of um, you know, outside of doing all the culinary arts. And the CEO, he hires me and he's like, okay, you're from LA, you know marketing. I have an idea for us to go viral. We told the investors we're gonna have 10 million users in the first 30 days. They gave us fundraising based on, you know, on the fact that you're coming here. So you have a lot of work to do. And this was like, this was like a fintech product, okay? This was like stock market analysis, like our only clients were banks. So, you know, you think about, okay, there's not even really like 10 million banks in the world that we could actually sell this to. And so I was like, okay, like what's your, you know, what's, you know, how are we gonna do this? And he's like, there's a music video that just came out, and it's called Gangam Style. And, you know, the Korean gangham style. And he's like, that's one of the most viral videos on YouTube. So we will make our own version of Gangam Style. And if we get one person to register our product for every person that watches it, then we will go viral. And then, you know, and I'm like, yeah, that's that's the way it works. They're two totally, entirely different audiences. Someone's not gonna watch like a, you know, fun kitschy music video and be like, oh, let me f sign up for stock trading tips. That's not the way it, you know, works. And, you know, and it was one of those, like, I kind of just had to try to make it work. It did not work. But I had I had I had no choice just to go along and be like, yeah, that's a great idea. I could totally see this happening.

Alex Romanovich:

Now I'm just curious, what was the uh moment where you and your boss, the CEO of the company, both realized that it's not gonna work? When did you discover that? You know, what happened for you and for him to realize, look, this is not gonna fly.

Mariko Amekodommo:

I still secretly believe to this day, like eight, ten years later, he still thinks it's gonna work somehow. No, but I think when it when I tried all these different things and finally I found some data that showed how much an advertising spend that they they had to spend to kickstart that video. Because, you know, they have to like kind of promote it somehow, right? And so I I came up, I found some number, and I think it was like, and I probably fibbed a little bit. I was like, okay, it's like, you know, yeah, we can do this, but we need like a five million dollar advertising budget to kind of get the ball rolling. And he's like, well, we don't have a five million dollar advertising budget. And I'm like, yeah, but if you want to follow how they did it, yeah, we can get the billions of views. Yeah, we'll be able to get the users. But for us to do that, then we have to do what they did. And this is how much they spent in advertising. And here's like a screenshot of some, you know, article I found thing good that was in my favor. So yeah, we can do it, but I just need this money. So, you know, when when can I get the, you know, that advertising budget approved? And it was like, well, that's not gonna happen. And I'm like, well, we can get the video done. If we get the budget, oh, we can't get the budget then.

Alex Romanovich:

So you know what? It's interesting. Your way of telling the story is just so, so great because you're you're trying to simplify things. But when you talk to a lot of the, especially early stage founders, early stage CEOs, what is the advice you want to give them besides listen to the marketer, right? Um, what should be the advice to some of these early stage founders and entrepreneurs so that they do not get into, you know, they don't fall into that pitfall and repeat the same mistake?

Mariko Amekodommo:

The advice that I would give to early stage founders and CEOs is listen to the people around you. You might be a really great like tech founder, right? And you know the most there is about tech. So cool, like stay in that lane and hire the people around you to know more about the things that you don't know and actually listen to them. Because that has actually happened a lot. It's like the, you know, once they put in the the, you know, the hat of CEO or founder, it's that feeling of like I am supposed to know how to do everything. But no, you're not supposed to know how to do everything. To be a good leader, you need to know how to pull the best out of the people around you. And so that is a lot of the, you know, things that I have seen a lot, and a lot of like the downfalls I have seen with different startups that I'm have like the CEO trying to do everything and trying to, I heard my friends said this, or they suggested we did that, or you know, someone else did this. I saw this on, you know, TikTok. We should try that. And it's like, you know, we don't know the background. We don't know everything that all these other companies have tried to do. We we don't know all that information, right? So yeah. So my advice is just, you know, hire good people around you and and put the ego aside and try to, you know, listen to those with the experience.

Alex Romanovich:

That's uh that's uh that's always a great advice. People don't appreciate how simple it is uh to do that, because they uh you're right, they uh absolutely uh the ego gets involved and so forth. Now I have an interesting question for you. At least I think it's interesting. You're one foot into AI tech, companies that deploy AI technology and so forth and so on. And one foot in the more traditional industry, hospitality, restaurant business, or catering, or experience creation and so forth. And there's a notion that I I hear it from my um relative sometimes who's a mechanic, and he says, Well, you know, AI will never get to me, you know. I mean, who's uh who's you know, AI will never replace my job, right? Because there's always a fear, especially it fueled by a lot of the industries and a lot of what we're seeing right now, layoffs, jobs being replaced, automation, optimization, you know, and so forth and so on. Now, do you think that a more traditional type of industry like hospitality? I mean, I'm I don't necessarily mean the hospitality as a whole, but stuff that you do. You create experiences, you create food, you create dishes, you create that. Does AI play a role in all of this? Do you think?

Mariko Amekodommo:

That's a very good question. Okay, two sides of it. AI personally helps me with like some of the research that I need to do when I'm trying to like develop dishes or ideas. Um, I'm actually in the process of launching like a like a meal planning program. So using different AI tools has helped me really kind of break down some of the research so I can focus more on kind of like the high-level concepts and ideas. So it has helped me with that. But also, I have to say, from the guests that I have at my culinary experiences, they're people that work in big tech, they're in front of the computers all day. You know, they're using AI, they're, you know, so ingrained in technology in front of their screens. And the reason they book me for events is because they want to be able to have time just to disconnect, have different types of in real life communications. So, you know, just this past week. And also, okay, so I have I have a five-star rating on a few different websites like Eat With and Get Your Guide. So if someone is coming to Prague and they're looking for an experience, then they know, then they find me. I've got five star. And, you know, and those platforms, they have all the AI tools in there. It's like, okay, we, you know, here's your analytics. This is what you could do to improve. These are the pictures you need to add, helping me with keywords. These are the things that people are searching for, you know. So for me, you know, not so much about like, you know, like the recipes, let's just talk about like the like the lead gen and the sales and and all that stuff, right? So, you know, I can really use that to help me. But, you know, when it comes to my customers or my guests, and I'm sitting here just speaking to them, it's they're in front of the screens all day, and they just want to have that connection with real people.

Alex Romanovich:

And you know, I think it's uh it that's what's lost in in this quest to automate everything. It's the human connection, it's the human communications. Yeah, of course, the research, the uh information, communications, certain level of communications, analytics, reporting, all of that is AI enabled. We understand that. Now, let me ask you a stupid question now. Do you ever see in your business or in culinary business or what have you? Do you ever see robots in the future doing what you're doing in terms of planning, in terms of cooking, in terms of execution? I mean, do you ever see you saying to your completely automated robotic kitchen, okay, we're gonna have this level of experience. I have this uh tour that I booked with the Viking cruise lines, and I have a group of you know, elder uh, you know, elders, retirees who are coming uh, you know, from the United States. And the theme is going to be X, go, execute. Do you ever see that?

Mariko Amekodommo:

Well, you know what's funny? I have seen that. So I had spent some time in China, and you know, like China is so ahead of us when it comes to technology. I mean, it's like they can scan your faces at the airport and say, like, hey, Marco, you need to go to this gate because they know everything about you just from your retina scan. So it's a little scary. But yeah, I saw like the cooking robots and you just, you know, push, push in your order, and then there's like a vending machine and they're making your, you know, your stir-fried order. So I have seen that. Um, and I've seen, I've already seen like robot deliveries. Not like like, I know like in New York they have it, but I've seen like the little robots come to your table and stuff. But when I think it comes to like real like in-person events, is like you can't, oh God, knock on one. I'd like to say you can't, you know, you can't replace me and like the experience that I that I give, you know. If people wanted to see like robots cooking, that's that's already there. But as far as like, you know, me being worried about it, it's, you know, I haven't wor haven't worried about it yet. But maybe, you know, maybe I need my contingency.

Alex Romanovich:

But maybe uh maybe in the future you play a different role. You play the role of a hostess, you play a role of the entertainer, you tell stories, you listen to, you know, and so forth. I mean, I don't want to dwell on this topic, but it's uh it's a topic where, you know, it's it hits us on a daily basis. You know, you next time you uh order an Uber car, uh Waymo uh comes over or an Uber car comes over and there is no driver, there's nobody to talk to. You're gonna be talking to a robot. You're gonna be talking to robotic car, right? And it's uh a steering wheel that's doing its thing and so forth. And sometimes it scares people, and yet this is what we're pushing towards very, very aggressively, right?

Mariko Amekodommo:

Uh and you know it's it's it's really interesting because um a lot of the like EU AI companies are trying to, you know, launch and build in the US because the rules are a little bit more free over here. Whereas everyone in AI and EU is kind of like, okay, there's all these like, you know, data process. There's a lot of like restrictions here. So they're feeling like that kind of is, you know, limiting the innovation. So if it is to happen, uh it'll probably happen in EU a little bit slower than the US.

Alex Romanovich:

Right. Interesting, yeah. Now, what is the advice that you want to give to a global entrepreneur that wants to consider a new market? Let's say, I mean, you've been to US, then you've been to Vietnam, you've been to now Prague, back to Europe, and who knows what's what the future holds. But uh these are very different cultures, different, different approaches to business, you know, different um infrastructure. What is the advice you know from you to global entrepreneur that says, you know what, I'm gonna try this business. It's gotta work in Vietnam, or it's gotta work in China, or it's gotta work in Europe. What do you think?

Mariko Amekodommo:

Well, you know, the advice that I have is you either need to spend time there or have local partners. Because I've I've, you know, when I started off, I was like, oh yeah, this is gonna be a great idea. People are gonna love it everywhere. But then it also, you know, like the messaging, the communication, it's just the way they respond to things are different. And so it's, you know, just because something works in the US doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna work in the other market. It could, but you also just kind of need to know the nuances of that market. And it's so, you know, for instance, one of the last companies I was working with, it was a global finance company. And it was my first, and I, you know, I know China, India, Southeast Asia, US, and this was my actual first time understanding the Africa market. So I was doing some work in like Northwest Africa, and that was like an entirely different world. Like I was looking at their go-to-market strategies, and I'm like, this does not make sense. Like, how could this possibly work? But then I also realized that, you know, the way that they respond to media is different. Like the pricing of advertising is different, like all of those different things. And yeah, the way they work with influencers, it was just all entirely different and like the stories that that appealed to people. And it was funny because one of the case studies that ended up helping me a lot was, you know, it was it was a financial inclusion app. And one of the things that ended up working out for us was TikTok. And, you know, from a global finance company, the idea of TikTok, like they're like, no, no, this has never worked in our markets. We have spent all this money on it. We had like no idea, we had no idea. And I didn't actually end up going to Africa for that company, but I started talking to some people on their team, just trying to understand like where are people getting their news, media, information? And everything was on TikTok. And so then it was like, okay, well, this might not work for anywhere else, but you know, and then CEOs in in, you know, Europe, they were like, oh, well, only young people use it. No, I found out actually, like, you know, the data that it was actually like, you know, more people over, you know, 35. So it was just like fascinating. So, you know, ended up having to do go to market campaigns on, you know, something that was totally different. And we found a chicken influencer. And this was like a a woman who um she had no money. She had no way to feed her children. But then she got like a sm you know, a small business loan for like the equivalent of $20. And then she ended up buying a couple chickens and like, you know, selling the chick, like, you know, cutting up the chickens, reselling them. And now she's like one of the biggest entrepreneurs, you know, in that territory because she, you know, opened up all these like chicken farms so people could go and get like chickens at the market. There's something in the US we wouldn't even think of. And I would never think of like, oh, we need an influencer who's like a chicken lady, but you know, but that's what resonated. So, you know, I guess my, you know, advice is like anything is possible, but that's where you need to come in and like understand the local market and you know, apply it to the, you know, the knowledge that you have.

Alex Romanovich:

I love those stories, by the way, about uh, you know, going from nothing to the chicken farms.

Mariko Amekodommo:

Yeah.

Alex Romanovich:

And becoming an influencer and so forth. Now, I'm gonna ask you a final question. I always ask the question. You're uh walking in Prague on Vaclav or something like this, and you see a young Merico across the street, you know, of let's say 20 years ago, and uh she wants to sit down and have coffee with you. What do you tell her?

Mariko Amekodommo:

Jeff Reddy, because you're you're gearing up for the adventure of a lifetime, and every single thing that happens to you over the next 20 years has a purpose. Even if you don't think so at the time and you think it's gonna break you, there's gonna be light at the end of the tunnel, and all of those different experiences are gonna make you who you are today.

Alex Romanovich:

So basically embrace it. And I mean to say young, I meant to say younger. You're very young. You're very young. That's what I meant. And it's I think it's um it's a something that we we should always check ourselves with in terms of what would you say to a younger yourself, right? Are you the best version, a better version of yourself, you know, 20 years later, right? Or is that even important? Or maybe what's important is the experience, like you said.

Mariko Amekodommo:

I mean twenty years ago Yes. No, no, it's just like like thinking like twenty years ago, though. Not only was that a different life ago.

Alex Romanovich:

You were only seven, right? So I mean, what could you possibly tell a seven-year-old, right?

Mariko Amekodommo:

No, you're so sweet. That was multiple lifetimes ago. Yeah.

Alex Romanovich:

That was a good thing. I mean, can you imagine can you imagine the tech, the uh the environment, uh the world was different. I mean, it's incredible. That's why nostalgia.

Mariko Amekodommo:

I didn't even have a passport. I didn't even have a passport.

Alex Romanovich:

Wow. I mean, look at nostalgia business, right? I mean, I'm looking tick I actually am looking at TikTok very often. I'm I subscribe to a couple of channels, nostalgia channels, right? Because I love the music of the 80s and the 90s and the even the 70s to a certain extent. And the you you read the comments and people are like, oh, I I want to go back to that time so badly. Things were so much simpler at that time. And uh, you know, I'm I'm wondering if sometimes we sit down, kind of relax, and think, wow, we're creating a lot of complexities, you know, with all this tech and the moving, things are moving so fast, and and only then we begin to realize, well, you know, maybe we didn't need to do that. Or maybe this was a little too extra or something. But you know, if you look at it as a standpoint from a standpoint of experience, that's okay, you know, because who knows what's going to happen 20 years from now, right?

Mariko Amekodommo:

You won't need me to cook anymore. There'll be robots to do it for the Well, let's hope not.

Alex Romanovich:

Let's hope we will have you to cook and entertain and tell the stories because I still, you know, as humans, I still think we we need that. But Meriko, it's been an amazing conversation. We thank you so much. And we'd love to talk more with you in the future, just to see how you're doing and what what you're doing and what uh other advice you can give us. Thank you so much.

Mariko Amekodommo:

Thank you so much, and have a beautiful rest of the day.