In this episode, host Candace Gillhoolley sits down with Sierra Clouse, managing partner at Barlow Ventures Studios, for a candid and insightful conversation about her journey from growing up in Colorado to leading pivotal ventures in quantum technology.

Together, they explore Sierra Claus's early fascination with how things work, her career pivots through logistics, technology, and entrepreneurship, and her unique lens on commercialization in quantum tech. From the challenges of navigating recessions and career interruptions to unexpectedly landing in the world of quantum, Sierra Claus shares valuable lessons on adaptability, ethics, and the importance of building with intention in a rapidly changing landscape.

Whether you're quantum curious or a deep tech veteran, this episode offers a refreshingly real look at career pivots, the complexities of venture building, and the surprising ethical considerations shaping tomorrow's tech. Get ready for an episode packed with wisdom, wit, and perspective from one of the women leading the charge in quantum innovation.

Links

1. Sierra's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sierraclouse/

Time Stamps

00:00 "From Cleveland to Denver"

06:48 "Tech's Role in Early Logistics"

10:24 Reflection on Disruption & Careers

11:17 Path to Tech and Talent

16:39 "Adaptability in a Changing World"

19:44 From Emerging Tech to Xbox

22:42 "Blockchain Beyond Cryptocurrency"

26:24 "Blockchain's Potential for Accessibility"

31:03 "Greed, Fear, Ethics, and Consequences"

33:40 "Quantum Tech and Cyber Focus"

36:10 "Quantum Tech Venture Studio Proposal"

39:35 "Building Quantum Innovation Against Odds"

45:25 "Defining Hardware in Deep Tech"

48:16 "Quantum Tech Perception Gap"

51:25 "Surprising Uses for Technology"

53:36 "Celebrating Diverse Perspectives"

But one phrase they used to tell each other is like, I'm not going to

jail for you. Oh,

welcome to Women in Quantum.

Welcome to Women in Quantum, the series where we spotlight the

brilliant women shaping the future of deep tech.

I'm Candace Gilhooley, and in each episode we go beyond the

headlines. To explore the real stories,

career pivots, and bold ideas driving the

quantum ecosystem forward. Whether you're quantum

curious or already building in the space,

you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Today we're speaking with Sierra Claus,

and she is a managing partner

at Barlow Ventures Studios. Hi, Sierra, how are

you today? Hi, Candice, I'm doing well. Thanks for having

me. How are you? I'm good. I'm really excited because I remember

quite a bit about our pre-call and I was

like, oh, this is going to be interesting, exciting episode. I really

want to talk about your journey. So let's

start at the very beginning. Can you tell me where you were born and

raised? Yeah, so I was born in Cleveland,

Ohio, but I ended up growing up in Denver,

just, just outside of Denver in Aurora, Colorado. It's interesting

to, to be an adult and have a family, have kids,

and make decisions about relocating and all that around career, especially because

that's how I ended up growing up in Denver. My parents had

at one point both worked for United Airlines. My dad actually ended up

retiring from there after 40 years, but they were

closing the office in Denver. In Cleveland and they gave him the option

to go to Chicago, Charlotte, Honolulu,

or Denver, with the added bonus that if he did

decide to go to Denver, he could help wind down Stapleton Airport

and be part of the brand new build of what would be Denver International

Airport as part of customer service. And so

he thought that that sounded like a great opportunity and there was so many people

moving to the area at the time. So I, I guess I kind of just

came from a background of people who would be willing to

take a chance, see about bettering, you know, things for themselves,

their families, and be open to those sorts of career pivots and those kind of

projects that could define the rest of your career.

OK, so as a young lady all the way back

in grammar school, what was your favorite subject?

Oh man, I think it was a tie between

English or language arts because I loved to read. Yeah,

but one of the things I really love to read was, I guess, more so

in the— it would, it would split between like history and geography,

that sort of thing, because I've just always been so fascinated with how

people have lived in different times and in different places.

Okay, so when did you stumble into science?

You know, it's interesting, it's less that I stumbled into science and more that

I developed an acute awareness that Everything comes from

something, you know? OK. And,

and when you look out into the world and you give yourself a pause to

think about how do things work, like when I was

growing up, we didn't have a computer in our house. There were only

computers at school. So I grew up in the '90s and our family

wasn't in a position to afford a computer, so we would use the computer at

school or we'd go to the library. And I remember thinking to myself like, man,

what makes these things so expensive? Like

they're not like a bike or like something else you could put on your, your

wish list and your parents would be like, yeah, that's, that's not like something you,

you're allowed to circle in the JCPenney catalog quite yet. It was

that time. And so as I grew up and I had more of that awareness,

I've just always been very curious. You start to realize that so many

of the kind of modern amenities or things that you think are really cool even

as a kid, there is like. This basis of

engineering and production and shipping and like all of

these components that go into the things that you like and use every

day. And for me, I kept finding that at the basis of the

things that I really liked was a bunch of science and engineering

and a lot, a lot of different systems that, that made all of that possible.

So where did you go to university and what did you major in?

So I did my undergrad at Ohio State. So I grew up in Colorado, came

back to Ohio to go to Ohio State. I studied in the business

school on a track specialized around supply chain and logistics.

Going back to the whole, like, everything comes from something, it's from

somewhere with a whole lot of someones behind it. So

I had an internship through the InRoads internship program, so I'm an alumni

of that. Incredible opportunity, and what it

does is it allows college students to

be sponsored by a corporation in a specific mentor

department. They focus primarily on women and

underrepresented groups at the time in engineering, business, and nursing.

So I was selected to be a part of the internship track

at what's now called L Brands, but at the time it was the

Limited and Limited Logistics Services. So that was

Victoria's Secret, Bath and Body Works, Abercrombie, Zombie Express, all of those

were under one roof at that time. But I was an intern

during a lot of that kind of retail consolidation, a lot of

things going to private equity, a lot of things spinning out.

And really having, you know, that was part of the experience was that

you'd be able to take on these different roles, do these different reports, and if

you were invited back every summer to be mentored and continue

your internships, you could be presented with a full-time offer.

And so I did that every summer. Through my undergrad,

and I was even invited to do a part-time HR operations gig

at the distribution center during a couple of the years I was at Ohio State.

And so it was a very hands-on contact sport,

a kind of, kind of way to see how things worked across. I had been

in regulatory and compliance, distribution center

operations, HR for that, upgrades of

systems where they're using sensors and conveyor belts and all of that to

really upgrade the accuracy of reading shipping labels.

And making them on like a streamlined optimized path between

inbound and outbound, and then all the different sort of operations and

things in tech that would support that. So technology at

that point was just embedded in everything that we did, and I didn't

realize at the time, because this was the early 2000s, I didn't realize at the

time how quickly the industry I was a part of

was moving into these sort of optimization models, and they were—

we were using simulators and we were using all these things around like

logistics and routes because the competition and the cost and everything. When you

looked at like UPS having the no left turn rule

or Walmart vendors and suppliers having to comply with very

specific like specs for the product shelves space that they were even

allowed. And then you look at inventory management, palletizers. There was

all these different things that had all these underlying technologies and

analytics. What people will call later that and

What was really fascinating to me, like looking back on it, was that you had

to have dashboards, you had to have numbers, you had to have

estimates, you had to have risk management. These are all things that were just part

of how you do like that, that whole domain of supply chain and

logistics and very applied in specific ways. It

wasn't until later that I understood that outside of

like logistics and supply chain, like marketing would then be

introduced to this concept of dashboard. As like a standard

practice. Some people call it the metrics, the

metricization of American business. So there was like manufacturing,

supply chain, logistics, finance. There was like a handful of industries in America where it's

like, well, of course you want the biggest, best, smartest

calculators and systems and data and all of that to

do that. And then that started finding its way into like almost

everything in the business world.

So, so I, I think about that a lot as we do

what we're doing with our venture studio and commercialization. Like how things actually

get out of these very niche spaces and

find their footing and their value and their application

in ways that are specific and tailored to, to other people who might find it

useful. OK, OK, so now you're

in logistics and business and business process

administration organization. So OK, and this is

undergrad, so Now what did you do for your

master's? Well, we do have a blip between the master's and

undergrad because, you know, the best laid plans of getting that full-time offer.

I graduated in 2008-2009. Oh,

OK, in recession. OK, that's right. So

yeah, so they had— so the company had already been consolidating and kind of spinning

off different things, and it wasn't that logistics and supply chain was going away, it

was just that roles outside the distribution center and some of that

seasonality wasn't, wasn't going to be as available. And so I took a break and

had my kids and stayed home with them for a

bit. And I spent a lot of time reading

because when I had 3 little ones at home, there would be times where the

only adult I would see was their dad and the

ladies I'd see at church on Sunday. And that, that would basically be it.

Make you go crazy. It really— that's right. Love, love, love children.

I have them. But yes, you need adult

interaction and adult conversations about all kinds of things

to stay sane, for sure. Yes, it's true. And I love Elmo. I

do. I still love Elmo. But there's a time and a place. There's a time

and a place, right? You know, and it's nice to wrap your mind around, you

know, real world, you know, real world problems and, you know,

adult situations. So I completely understand that. OK, so you

had the blip. Now you went— so, OK, so then you went to get your

master's. That, yes, so I, so I had, so in the

time that I was at home and I had a lot of time on my

hands and needed to do a lot of reading, I kept, I kept finding

myself really once again drawn to how,

like, yes, people promise technologies will be disruptive. But

then this is also a time where, like, the recession and lots of other things

like across housing, construction, supply chain, like all the knockdown

effects, retail. I mentioned my dad had— was at United Air

Travel. So my dad was

at United Airlines and serving in the best capacity he could. He actually got recognition

for supporting his coworkers and crew and a lot of people

after 9/11. And then from— in very short order, you go from that to what

happened in 2008, 2009. And it— and so when I

have this blip and I have this pause, I think about like what happened with

my dad's career. I thought about what was happening in all the careers around me.

I was, I was still living in Ohio at the time. There was a lot

of like offshoring impacts that were

happening like in parallel to all of this. So I, I really thought

long and hard about like what do I want to do when I go back

to the workforce? And if I do get something that would

help me advance like in terms of my education or career,

you know what, what, what would I want that to be? And

I ended up like in the course of thinking about this, I knew I wanted

to do something within technology because I wanted to

understand and maybe be like a more mindful part

of like how, how we implement these sorts of technologies and how

can we try to minimize some of this like job disruption and how can

we be smarter about like talent and skills? All of those things

were top of mind for me and a friend of mine at church had

offered to introduce me to some folks who had a managed service boutique IT

firm and she said like if you're, if you're interested, like she goes, I'm

new to IT as well and I got some great mentorship and. It would be

like in the recruiting area. And I was like, you know what, that,

that does interest me because I had that stint in HR operations at the

distribution center. I had done like hiring events, like all those

sorts of things as part of that experience. And I also wanted to understand like

what does it actually take to do these jobs? Like what are people hiring for?

Like what do they pay people for? What are their skills? And so I had

that opportunity. I was like, it was definitely, it was so

challenging. It was, it was a great learning experience. It was, it

was highly competitive because we were at a small boutique firm and you had these

like big, like sort of like consultancies

and talent recruiting firms like your Tech Systems and your Experis type, type

sort of organizations. And so like the, the kind of

speed and, and learning why you lost a deal, or even just

learning about like how do you even get into these vendor management systems to work

with these enterprises. All of those things, it was great

experience. They had some hard times as well there on their team,

so I ended up transitioning to a role where briefly I was working in financial

services. So I was at New York Life. I was getting my

series licenses, so I was working my way through it. I just had

got the one around mutual funds, and then somebody from the, the

IT recruiting team called me and said, hey, you know how we

used to recruit for those like project management roles and all of that with, with

our clients? I said yeah. They're like, they're actually looking for somebody who could be

new to tech. They want them to have a financial background because you're going to

need to own budget and scope and schedule. Risk and

contingency funds, like that sort of thing, and they can teach you the rest. They

have a pretty rigorous system. What do you say? So that's how I got my

first proper, proper IT role, was working in healthcare

supply chain logistics company. And

from there, that's actually when I decided to pursue my

master's, and I ended up being in a program for

what's called Master's of Science in Information and Knowledge Strategy.

Oh, OK, OK, so that's in one of the grad schools at

Columbia, the School of Professional Studies. So, and I, and

I chose that because, as the name indicates, right, there's a, there's a

science to how you take all this information

and knowledge that we are flooded with and how do you go,

how do you use that science and, and learn your own sort of art around

going from strategy to execution to operations.

So I had that kind of operations, bottoms up, middle out view.

But that strategic piece and having frameworks and knowing how to like

know up from down when you analyze a product or a new technology

and think about its downstream and upstream implications. So

that, that really appealed to me and I was able to get into the program.

And so I was, I was working as a— eventually got promoted to,

to a project manager. And so I was doing that and

going to school. OK, at the same time

and raising little ones. Yes, yes, it takes a

village. It was very much a team effort. I, I was fortunate enough to get

a fellowship from the American Association of University Women

as part of being in that program those couple years,

and I'm still friends to this day. I'm in the wedding party of

one of my buddies from, from that program coming up here pretty soon,

and that was over 10 years ago. So it's, it's true what they say. If

you find the right sort of program and the right sort of fit for those

things, you really can make lifelong friends. You can have these opportunities

that like not just change your life, but change the way you see the world

so that you can, you can just be more mindful, intentional

about where you want to go. You know, with, with a lot of turmoil.

I'm definitely one of those like millennial career women who like

turmoil has just been the order of the day. Right, and all

things work and it's just like what, which kind is it? You know, like I,

you know, I mentioned I grew up in Colorado. When I was 12, I was

45 minutes away from Columbine. And so we grew up under like that

zero tolerance thing at a time when kind of the rest of America was hoping

that was like a bit of a one-off. But, you know, so, but the schools

and the rules and everything that changed after that for us in Colorado was very

distinct. I would learn later, but I mean, it was Columbine and then it was

9/11 and then there was the financial crisis. And then, you know, we're

still kind of like kind of finding our footing after all of that. And so

I actually thought I had a bit of a break until 2020.

Right. And then I got a kind of break. Yeah, so, but, but, you know,

here we go again. So, but I, I only share that to say that

the, the thing about technology and just the way that the world was

working was it's just like you have to be adaptable. You can't not

be adaptable. I knew that there were a lot of people like

culturally, generationally, etc. And just honestly, like the hope

of like my dad where like you get to retire after 40 years with one

company, like And people like that, like people

have a lot of respect for and desire for like the discipline and

consistency and stability that comes with growing in a handful of roles

that you stay in for years and letting that define your career.

But from the time I was an IT recruiter, and I, I think even

more so now, there is always this risk of not just disruption, but

like obsolescence. Yes, yes,

and it happened so many times in so many ways, in so many,

like, things I've observed in the world and in my life, that I, I

just couldn't— I couldn't really, like, I guess,

accept that we were gonna ever go back to that, or that

that was like a thing that you as, like, a woman, a working

mother, can expect if you really want the job to even cover

the cost of your child care.

So anyway, I'm like, I'm just like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm all about what you're talking about. I completely understand what you're talking

about, right? You know, like when I was in uni, like the

first positions I had, like didn't even exist.

Like everything kind of was made up. And then it was

recession after recession, you know, '07 and

9/11 and then, and then 2007 and then again.

And then you had pandemic and it made it very hard to get your footing

and be able to kind of nurture and build,

you know, a singular career path.

Right? Yeah. You know, like my father was an

IBMer. He worked there for over 35 years, right?

I grew up with the same kind of mentality, like my parents worked somewhere and

you thought, okay, I find somewhere and I work somewhere and then I

develop myself and I'm not leaving, but that's just not

the way it's done anymore. So, OK, so now, now do

you— so when did quantum enter

your world? Yeah, so yeah, this, this is the

fun part. So I, I graduate, I'm

from Columbia, I get an opportunity to join EY

as a consulting gig. They were one of the capstone sponsors, not, not my group

sponsor, but one of them. It's, it's, you know, it's why you go to these

programs. You hope you can get that aligned next step

up in terms of your experience and career. And then I

found myself very, like, very quickly working with some of like

the Microsoft track folks and all of that. And I ended up relocating

in 2019 to Seattle from Ohio. So, so

that big move, that's, that's the big move that kind of catalyzed— big move, big

move. And I, and, and I had always kind of— I had been in emerging

tech without knowing it. 'cause as I had said, like the whole like, oh,

like we're going to do big data and analytics and I'm like, oh, I recognize

this stuff from logistics, but the rest of the world is just like, hey,

like what is this IBM Watson? Like what is this Hadoop thing? Like how do

we use it? And now that stuff just like runs in the

background. You can have all these APIs. You know, so it's

so, so, so I, I hadn't known that, but by the time I moved to

Seattle and I'm working at Microsoft, I'm working in the field with

enterprise customers. And then I get an opportunity to move to a

global strategy team doing playbooks around, once

again, a new technology, a new feature in Microsoft 365 security.

So I'm right back onto here's a new thing that somebody built, it does cool

stuff. How do we get people to know it, use it, like it, buy it

kind of thing? And then I had an incredible opportunity to go to Xbox.

Which was— I mean, all the things we're talking about were at

like at play there, no pun intended, but it was just so fun.

I— it was the first time I had worked at a technology, like,

based company that is not only not perceived as

technology, it's gaming, right? It's not the tech, it's what you do with it. And

what you do with it is game, and there are communities. And it's one of

those things where you're working on something that is so loved,

like, so loved. I, I've only had the chance to work on

enterprise tools that were on their best day, like, tolerated, you know,

right? And people cannot wait to log off, take their PTO, put that out of

office on, they're done. And this was a place where people would want to

log off at work so they can log in and play. And I, I loved

that. And it was, it was during this time that, um, I had been approached

with an opportunity to, uh, to join

a blockchain startup that was spinning out of Meta. And

this is where it gets interesting because I was starting to be very

interested in, um, security. I'm starting to, 'cause it

was modern work and security and, and so much

of the rightful customer questions and enterprise rigor.

It was, it was a lot. It was less of like the sales team having

to get budget and all of that, and it was more the security folks wanting

to be like, hey, do we have the right like granular controls

for this subscription tier that we're looking at? And

then, and then within gaming there was obviously their security around like

credentials and people's money and like all of that. And you know how they payment

methods in Game Pass, but there was also Xbox player safety.

My kids love Minecraft. We got a chance to like tour the Minecraft studio. They

take that stuff very seriously, and so there's all these technical security

components to that as well. And so by the time I'm looking at this blockchain

startup, I'm thinking about security. There's a big focus on like decentralization

and privacy. There's definitely a gaming use case, and then

there's cryptography. Because

blockchain. Exactly. And so, you know, I, I guess

I put that out there as a plug to some of my, my, like, the

blockchain friends or some of the Web3, etc. people. It's like, you know, please

remember that blockchain is not just crypto. Blockchain as an applied

technology has cryptography, and this, this era

that we're going into is going to make cryptographic proficiencies of all

kinds very important as

we, as we think about how we're going to navigate a lot of of these

like, these threat cases is what I call them, right? So you have your use

case, but there are threat cases. So whatever, when we think about

something that's a tool, there are ways that you do need to think like a

bad actor in ways that it could be weaponized.

So anyway, that's kind of how like my curiosity, I

didn't know that I was on that quantum track looking at

security and cryptography until it like clicked. Because

it's like you said, like the words and the terminology and the language for it,

it didn't really exist, or like it at least

hadn't like reached my bubble or like any sort of mainstream or

like kind of critical mass for people to know like, oh, that's what that is,

right? Like that's, that's what we're talking about here. And so, um,

it was during that time with the blockchain startup that I met my current co-founder.

Um, so he was, he was working, um, and not just working, he was, he

was managing and had founded a really amazing, uh, marketing agency

that was doing all kinds of like just— it was really like a creative studio

that was doing amazing things around branding, in-person event activations. So they were

doing a lot of this ecosystem work where things were just a lot

easier, cooler, and more fun the way that they

would introduce people to these different products and

experiences. And so I really love that about what

he, what he was able to do and what he was working on. And we

just, we had just stayed in touch over the years. I always give him kudos

at this part of the story when people ask about how we met or know

each other, because he was literally one of the guys, one of the few guys

that I met that like, he liked, he loved

his wife, his wife loves him, he loves

his kids, his kids love him, and it's, that's still the case

to this day. And it was honestly just so refreshing to be around something like

that, particularly like at that time within like very tech

bro like that, that sort of like kind of heavy crypto

culture. Okay, okay, that's fair. There is a very

tech bro culture in crypto. You're right,

you're right. So that probably was very refreshing.

Yeah, yeah, he stood out for all the right reasons, as well as like the

guys that he, that he hung out with. So, so,

um, so that was, uh, that, that's one of those things when

people talk about the intangibles you know, like, how do you know you can work

with a person? How, you know, that kind of thing. And for me, I,

I, I get very uncomfortable when we kind of have this abstract idea of—

I don't know, I don't know, Candace, I feel like you and I might be—

we could do a whole separate other episode around how, you know, how we remember

how back in the day we talked about business ethics.

When's the last time you heard— see, you see

it like— so this— so, you know, Especially, well, think about what's going

on with AI. I mean, think about what, you know, like, like,

you know, Musk's new, you know, AI engine that, you know, will

create nudes. Like, why? Like,

there's— why? Like, you know, there's, there's no—

like, where are the brakes? Where is the

governance? There are— there needs to be rules

because there are bad actors who will who will do things and we

need to protect people. I, it's just, it's the

technology is moving so quickly, right? Yeah. And yeah,

and, and that was it. Like, that was, I mean, and it's interesting too, right?

Because within like the blockchain space, etc., I

mean, this has actually been in the news. This is actually somewhat contemporary where

part of the reason I was so interested in blockchain as a,

for a tool to democratize, like getting people access to finance,

right? So, so even now, um, I've advised on and like talked to some folks,

it's like, we're like, oh, like stablecoins, crypto is a Ponzi scheme in America.

And it's like, well, if you're in Bolivia or if you're in Argentina, um, if

you're— there's places where having a stablecoin and it has like backing and

liquidity and stuff and it keeps its price and you can transact in it

better and more reliably than what you have going on, uh, that's a big deal.

Like, that can be life-changing for you, right? That's why I spent a lot of

time when I was in blockchain abroad. And there's nothing illegal

about like getting people access to like the financial sort of things that they

can afford. That's why it was called decentralized finance, right?

Exactly. But, but what's in the news now is like people like myself

and my co-founder and others who are working in the space around those sorts of

applications. We always had— we were always constantly up against this whole thing

of like, well, you know, that's the Silk Road currency, right? That's black market,

gray market stuff. Like what's happening, this whole like tragic situation

with, uh, the kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie's mother, right?

They asked for the compensation in Bitcoin and people are like, oh yeah,

like all that stuff is criminal. It's like, well, that's, you know, that's how

you're socialized, right? Like, if that's how— and I mean, because that's the thing, you

could say that about honestly any form of money. I, I don't know a form

of currency that isn't used and implicated in criminality anywhere.

But when people don't know, or you can have use cases and

then you can have something that's useful to them. And so that what I just

shared with you about people who don't have access to a credit union or Chase,

you know, people don't have the FDIC. That's an American institution, right?

Right. You know, like, we— like, they don't have it. Lots of countries, they don't

have something like a Federal Reserve. They don't have, like, like, these. And even

if they did, they just now got, like, access to, like,

internet sometimes, and they're dealing with rolling blackouts.

How do you create a financial sort of access point

and system for folks in those austere environments?

You know, and so, so anyway, so I think about this stuff because it's like

going back to like this idea of ethics and like what you can do with

technology. And to me, like the green flags, I mean, I

think all of us can name our yellow and red flags about what we're comfortable

with and who we do and do not want to hang out with. But I

bring up the thing around like ethics and like, you know, how I was confident

when my, my now co-founder approached me about the venture

studio. I don't think I don't really like this whole thing

where we don't even talk about ethics, we just talk about compliance. Okay,

right, right. It's like we don't, we don't do things like on principle, we do

things based off of what we can and can't get away with. It's kind of

what that implies, basically, right? Right.

So I'm not a fan of that. And maybe it's because like I have kids

or whatever, but to me it's like I don't think I should be in business

with people like in close proximity that way that I would not want

like my kids around. I think that's totally fair.

I think that that's a hard line to draw, but I

think that if you want to raise your family in a certain way and you

want to live by a certain set of ethics, then it should spill over,

you know, what you do in your personal life and in your business life. That,

you know, you've gotta, you've gotta feel like you're doing the right thing on both

sides. And if you're not, then you're doing— obviously you're doing something wrong.

Right? I mean, well, yeah, and it's, you know, it's, um, I,

I did advise a company briefly, or organization,

I should say, where, um, you know, sometimes when they call you in as a

consultant, you are accidentally like a family

counselor, right? Like you're, you're just thrown into all the dysfunction. Like that's part of

why you're there. It's like you're supposed to be a part of a team that

helps people navigate all this dysfunction, a lot of hurt feelings, sometimes a

lot of bad blood. That kind of thing, and

try to reset, find a path forward for whatever, you know, you've been assigned to.

And I remember there was this one, this one organization was really rough like that,

but one phrase they used to tell each other is like, I'm not going to

jail for you. Oh.

And while on the one hand it's like, yikes, like I wish

that was like not in like the chat on a regular basis, but like.

But like going back to what we talked about, like turmoil and

desperation has many outlets, you know, and, and

the risk. Like I think we used to talk about some of this thing we're

talking about, like personal ethics and all this and who we work with, especially with

new technology and like money and hype cycles. When

those things kick up, there are people who do overreach.

There are people who do. It's called a Greed and Fear

Index for a reason. Right? So when that greed and

fear index thing kicks up around the thing that you're working on, and I promise

this is going to get to quantum and why this stuff is important to have

many people, is that we know time and time again

that that greed-fear dynamic, it leads people to make some pretty risky

choices that other people around them may or may not know

about, that other people around them may be forced to aid in a bit.

And you know, some of the turmoil you and I have been talking about in

our careers, you see the collateral damage, and it

is a lot of like women's careers, early career folks,

you know, that kind of thing. Older, older workers who are closer to retirement.

There's a certain kind of worker who is most at

risk for the shakeout of those sort of greed and fear

and desperation responses. And And so

I, I do think it's good and healthy as we talk about

innovation and we talk about security and we talk about bad actors.

You know, one of the things that we all the time in cybersecurity is the

insider threat, right? And so it's like,

you know, the more promising and high potential something is, the

more it draws in that kind of attention and those

sorts of elements. And I, I only wish that, um,

maybe, maybe somebody like you, Candace, had a podcast like this, and I, and I

was maybe a little younger, but maybe you'll reach somebody now. And somebody

would tell me like, hey, sometimes you are going to have to have standards. Like,

if I don't want this person around my kid, I only want them this far

into my circle, right? If, um,

if I have to ever be tempted to say the phrase, I'm not going to

jail for you, it's already gone too far.

100%. Uh, uh, 100%. I,

I totally understand what you're saying, and

it kind of blows my mind that you, you actually saw that on a

chat internally. That just would give me

pause to say, what's going on? Like,

what's, what's really going on here, right?

Yeah, I mean, and, and that's the thing, right? Because when— as soon as that

happens, As soon as that happens, it's like, oh man,

do I even want to know what's really going on, right? I'm like, I don't

know, I think I want to even know, right? I just know that I want

to see my way out of this, right? Yeah. And you know, this,

this, so, so when, so this does get into

like, you know, how I find myself fully like bought into like what I want

to work on within quantum technology and emerging technology because

as I'm at that blockchain startup and I'm traveling and we're looking at like all

these things around, ecosystem. There's these different Builder House events

we would do around like more specific education

hackathons. I was on the ecosystem program that

worked very closely with developer relations, and then we also had a grants

program as well, both academic and for our

ecosystem tools. And also just like high

potential projects. And so I'm working on that, and then I'm also working on a

cybersecurity engagement. So I'm starting to do some freelancing. And so

the, the, that conversation we just had about like that human side of ethics,

human side of risk, this is where the cybersecurity,

privacy, all of that really starts to become very important to me

because I'm starting to see the whole thing of you have shadow IT.

For those of you who don't know, shadow IT is the thing where you work

somewhere, uh, your identity management,

CISO, security people are like, sorry, you can't download that

on your work computer, or you can't, you know, you need admin permission

to add this feature, do this thing. And you say

Aba, and you go and get, you go and get it and use work

stuff, credentials, content, documents, whatever you want to do, just

outside of the digital estate, the ring fence of the systems

that your admin hard stop said you couldn't, couldn't have it. So

there's a whole kind of, so that's one kind of concrete example of shadow IT.

But by the time I'm working on the cybersecurity stuff, we have full-blown shadow AI.

Oh, absolutely right. 'cause people are not just like,

you know, getting like free freemium kind of like AI subscriptions to

work on things, but they're also like they got open source stuff.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, so we're,

so I'm, I'm looking at that and I'm, I'm still like

somewhat connected to Johnny and when he reaches out to me and we, we were

working on primarily like state, state, federal,

like the state, local government kind of and, and Occasionally we try to pitch to

federal sort of contracts in terms of like moonlighting and who you'd want

to like talk to. But this was, this was

2024 and the writing was on the wall that maybe even cybersecurity wasn't going to

be safe from a lot of US government budget turmoil, right?

Right. I knew people at the time who felt differently, and I think maybe if

they— less that they felt differently and more that they hoped

differently, that they were like, you know, if there's one thing that's going to like

stick it out through like this transition period with the new administration, it's going to

be cybersecurity. And then it

wasn't necessarily the case.

And so I saw that coming.

Johnny had approached me and said, hey, I think there's some real there there what's

happening in quantum technology around specifically what's

available to be commercialized. And

I'm exploring doing like this venture studio model. I'm talking to somebody

who has worked in these funds and like all that sort of thing before. Would

this be something like you'd be interested in? Because you're the first person I thought

of in terms of like if we're going to do this thing like end to

end and like figure out who and what it takes.

Like, I'd like— I'd love your, your help with that. And so I took the

holiday break to think about it. And so I did. I decided to like wind

down my role, like doing like the moonlight contracting in cybersecurity with that particular

group. And then we launched Barklow about a year ago now,

and that has been Absolutely fascinating because when you

come into quantum technology from the perspective of like, hey, like

these are like these papers that are looking good, like I'm seeing like these different

like companies of various sizes, you have different funds, and

then if you're like me, you're like, great, what can I log into?

And folks are like, ah yes, about that. Yeah, not quite, not

quite. And so I'm like, great, that's why we're here.

So, so yeah, so that's, so that's how

we found our way into, into what we've been building. And then it's really

kind of taken on a life of its own as we use our

methodology. Our big focus when people say like, what does commercialization

mean to you? That's a big word. Means kind of like an inkblot test, right?

Like it means different things to different people when you hold it up.

To us, particularly for like what Barclo focuses on with Quantum and

critical tech research, roadmap, revenue.

That's what commercialization means to us. So research

comes from the basis of science. Science is never through because we are

mortals, currently constrained by space and time. So

there's always going to be more to learn about the world around us

and the world within us and the materials we're made of. So that's science.

But then when you get to the roadmap, that's when you can start engineering from

science. Into specific technologies. And

that's that, that part right there, right? It's like

when you go to look at foundational science

and you go to apply it, that's when you can start that

kind of engineering, like that roadmap sort of lens on it. And then from

there it's like, well, I, I think people here want to get this out into

the world and get adequately compensated for it. So then that's, that's what we can

get to to that revenue part. But that is the supply

value chain and lifecycle like unto itself

in terms of just even using that, that kind of framework for, for how we,

how we assess things and pursue them.

So let me ask you, so every deep tech career hits

bottlenecks. You know, what is, what has been your most

frustrating stuck moment and how did you work your way

through it? Man,

it's, you know, the thing is, is that what,

what could have been perceived as a bottleneck when we started this

work, and it definitely created a lot of friction for sure,

is really just that as soon as we started the Venture Studio and we

just even soft launched that we were like looking at doing this, there

was excitement. Like, like in terms of like our community and all of

that, because we're right now the only venture studio like in our region and in

the Pacific Northwest that even focuses on quantum tech and like critical

tech applications specifically. And we were, you know, of course, like we're new

people, you know, they're rooting for you. They hope you make it like, you know,

they're like, I'm not really sure what a venture studio is. So there's like excitement,

there's hope, there's good vibes. But then there was also like

the realization that like, hey, like, You guys, you guys want to do this now

when Washington State still doesn't have a quantum hub?

You know, and many people have tried, right? Like, people have

like worked very, very closely with, with who they could,

when they could, how they could. And you know, they made

organizations and they've made pitches and proposals and all of that.

And so, you know, it's one of those things where, and I think this happens

like honestly with all sorts of things in innovation, right? Where it's like, like, how

are you going to make it and how are you going to hang in there

when, like, it feels like everybody else is kind of, like, striking out,

like, despite, like, their best efforts? And, you know, we

didn't— we couldn't really, like, answer that question per se,

right? Because it's like, first of all, we're just getting started and we're

still, like, learning and discovering, like, how we want to do this. But, but

second, you know, on the one hand, you could look at it like we're

making this regional play and that isn't here yet in our backyard. But the

flip side of it was by the time we were looking at Barclo, like there

was like a dozen states that did have

programs and hubs, right? Maryland, Colorado,

like what's going on in Chicago and Illinois, New York, New

Mexico. So like there were things.

So, so I think that, that was the one thing where it was like,

you know, I, I was excited

to show people that we don't have to like wander in the dark.

You know, success leaves clues and you know, there was just such a low awareness

that, you know, there were those sorts of hubs that you could be learning from.

So that, that's kind of how I took it. It's like, yeah, like, is that

a bottleneck? For sure, in terms of like scale and traction and

what's like kind of in the advantage of these other states and their initiatives.

But we now have like several years, like a couple years I should say, of

data from multiple deep tech hubs

that we could learn from. And I actually, I actually credit like that sort

of like body of work with how we were able to make heads or

tails of like directionally, like how do we assess like where

we fit and what we want to work on and really like make that roadmap

ourselves. Because I would like to use like Colorado, you know, I grew up

there, but for you, like, you know, their translational funding,

the way that they are so intentional and structured, I mean, CU Boulder, I think,

is up to like 10 unicorn spinouts alone.

That's across deep tech areas, right? And then I gotta give a shout out to

my buddy Jason Yeager and everybody out in Montana, the Montana Photonics Hub.

Amazing work going on in Montana. And so it's one of those

things where, once again, you know, if you wanna, if you wanna go fast, go

alone. If you wanna go far, go together. And so, so

it's like, hey, you might not have that in your backyard, or maybe your company

doesn't have like a quantum initiative, your state,

your or whatever doesn't. But man, this is a big world and there's a lot

of countries, over 40, that do. And there's a bunch of states that do,

and you can learn from those folks. And they're actually really cool and really helpful,

by the way. And they're excited to hear more and more people want to learn

from them and, and especially learn from their mistakes and their frustrations.

So from your vantage point, what separates deep tech venture

building from traditional startup building?

I, I say in the US it will all building in like

many things in life, everything has to do with context. OK, and I

think in this case in the US the context of

regular venture, regular, regular venture, like

venture in the US that has had

like an established kind of like track record model,

etc. Has been very software-oriented in

tech. Okay. And

so when you have an industry that looks to de-risk and

analyze and kind of pick winners based off of

historical lagging indicators,

and particularly lagging indicators around things more like software,

or like in some cases like consumer packaged goods, like that sort of thing. As

soon as you call it, I know some people call it deep tech. I kind

of have started referring to it as more built world.

OK, and the reason I use that turn of phrase is because like, well, first

of all, like kind of like Internet of Things used to be Internet of Things

and now that's just Alexa. I think that deep tech is going to take

that same track where we used to call it deep tech and now

it's just like, like, well, like, well, of course, like we need that for

satellites in space. Like, like, you know, of course I need that for like

my internet, like my modular energy kind of thing, right? So

yeah, I think, I think that that's part of it. There's this, the software piece

that detects like just what we consider is going to

change, but also like the economics, the cycle time, the

implications, the talent needed for software,

fundamentally different than things you need for the physical world or things that

have a huge dependency on a physical world hardware component.

And I, I know some people are like, well, just call it hardware. I'm like,

well, Well, I, we've tried that and what happens is you say hardware and people

are like, oh, so you mean like chips, right? You mean like, well,

what do you mean when you say hardware, right? Right. It's like I try to

use something more inclusive like physical and built world because like

you're like these like headphones, right? Some like people are

like, oh, like that's auxiliary equipment hardware, right?

But there's also these like, like really cool like

sort of like the way that you have like the VR immersive reality AR like

headsets, they have versions of those and kind of like the Google Glass sort of

thing for mechanics working on engines.

Okay, right. So that's an application of all these

different types of technology, and people still don't think of that as like hardware per

se. But the cycle time to have a quality product like that,

figure out who's gonna make it, who's gonna buy it, how much is it gonna

cost, like once again that commercialization side like for software,

the friction points, the cost, like that physical, the physical world

constraints just aren't

there the way that they are in deep tech. And so I think that

that sort of thing where you're talking about like everything from

timelines to like the ramp-up cost, that's the thing everybody always talks about is like

the upfront capital to even get started with this stuff

is a big barrier to entry as well. And so yeah, I think, I think

it's those sorts of like functional, financial,

operational, etc. differentiators. And then with it is

the risk, right? So some people don't, don't really want to stomach the

risk of like a failed, like these failed prototypes,

etc., because like that, that's kind of like one of those sort of sunk cost

things. And this is also why, you know, governments and like the

US, you know, we have these like grants and everything really starting to kick up.

Nondilutive funding to help underwrite some of those risks,

because our grants programs like that have known

for a very long time that what the market will bear

doesn't necessarily align with what we probably

can and should be working on. But businesses and

budgets and all of that don't necessarily want to take that

risk, or necessarily should, right? Because they're accountable to investors, shareholders,

etc. That, you know, that's not necessarily in thesis

or what they signed up for. Let me ask you

this. What misconceptions about quantum investing do you

encounter the most often? That everything's a computer.

And until we have the big, the big one, nothing,

nothing works. Nothing's ready. Okay. Very, very all or

nothing. And also very like only computer.

So like I ask people about like, well, what do you think about like quantum

sensors? And they're like, What are those? And

I'm like, awesome. Like, here, let me show you a couple

examples. So, so I think that's one is

that the, the, I think the primary kind of

like education or awareness for a lot of investors, even like an emerging

tech around quantum, is the news cycle, is the US news cycle,

at least like where we're at. And so if you're only looking at the US

news cycle and you kind of train your algorithm to give you those sort of

updates or whatever about it, you're seeing like stock news about D-Wave and

IonQ. You're seeing stuff about like IBM and

HSBC and their latest thing. You're seeing like, that's what you're seeing,

right? And so some of the stuff like

that really lives like behind the curtain, even if it is useful,

successful, etc. Like you're not going to necessarily see it until it's like

newsworthy that way. And it can create this perception

that if it's not in the news cycle, Or if like my, you know, my

timeline and people are like still debating about it, there must not be,

be anything out there to use or buy. Okay,

so I'm going to ask you my last question is there's a lot of quantum

corridors that are, that are populating

around the world. Do you,

where do you see the most, the next unexpected quantum hub

emerging? Ooh, like around the world

or like within the domain? Let's say

around the world. Hmm, you know what, I, I,

I can't answer that question yet. But

I will say this, I will, I think I will have a bet. I will

have some, some contenders in mind very shortly

because I'm actually leaving for Japan tomorrow. Oh my gosh,

Japan, there's so much. In Japan.

I'm like, I want to talk to you after you come back. Yes, I was

going to say, I was like, so I'm going to— I haven't been there yet,

but like, I haven't. So I've been there for leisure. I love it

in Japan. I'm leaving for a trade delegation, Quantum Ecosystem

trade delegation trip. Awesome. That Barclay was selected for. We were

so excited. We were one of 15 organizations, companies like

enterprises, that kind of thing between US and Canada that were selected to go to

this one. So, so I'm heading to Japan tomorrow and then I'm also

part of Quantum Tech World Boston and

there's a whole bunch of amazing folks from national labs and quantum

corridors who are planning to be there. And I'm serving on the

startup advisory board. So we're preparing— excuse me,

we're preparing to do some like VIP events. We're excited

to meet so many people. If you just Google Quantum Tech

Boston 2026, you'll see it. Peter Shore is the

keynote. I know, like,

come on. So anyway, what I'm saying is I'm going to have a much more

informed answer here in the next few months, but I think

more than like what's unexpected, like surprise, like, I mean,

one of the things I tell people, it's like, yeah, they're like, oh, you're going

to Japan for quantum stuff. I'm like, yeah, like they built their own quantum computer,

like in-country, vertically integrated. And you know me, like, I like supply chain

logistics, the Toyota way. They do it, they lean it out. That's where we

get Six Sigma, you know, the land of kaizen. So

I'm geeked for lots of reasons. And so, um,

so I think that that surprises people even here, uh, that, that, you know,

that they built out that capability and now they're thinking about talent, they're thinking

about materials, they're thinking about like all those things. And they're thinking about, hey, we

built the computer, what do we run on it? Uh, which is where we come

in and love that stuff. And so that's why I asked if you want to

like surprise and be domain, because I think that that's going to be where the

surprise is going to come from. It's going to be on like this data

layer and like people realizing like, oh, like if you build a

MacBook and you don't have like a suite or like an internet connection, like

what, like what are you gonna do with the computer, right? So like it's a

really pretty paperweight, you know. Yeah, yeah. And so I think like that, and

particularly I think that we are going to see some like

application algorithms, that sort of thing. And what's really gonna surprise people

is they didn't even have to know it was quantum to like it and to

know it was really cool. Oh, that's fantastic. That's, that's my

prediction. This has been such a great conversation.

Where can people find out more about what you're doing

currently? Where can I send them to? Yeah, so

definitely you can send them to our website. It's barclow.ventures.

You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm posting on there pretty much all the time.

I'm doing the building out loud sort of thing. And yeah,

I'm happy to follow up with you as well, Candace,

if your listeners have any specific questions. That's

excellent. I think you and I are going to be chatting, I hope anyway.

Absolutely, because I want to hear about how the trip goes and what happened. I

just, I want to be involved. So we will be speaking again for

sure. I— you were a fantastic interview. I really

enjoyed— I really enjoyed our conversation. I really— Candace, this was a

lot of fun. I hope it was helpful, and I hope to see you guys

around. Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I'm gonna let the music

take us out. Oh yeah, thank you again. I

really, really appreciate your time today. It was wonderful, and

enjoy your trip, and I want to hear all about it. Oh, thank you so

much. So this was a lot of fun, and yeah, I hope— I hope that

the audience likes that we just got— we had like a little Quantum Ladies talk.

Honestly, we did. It was wonderful. It went like that. It flowed.

It was beautiful. I really, really enjoyed it. And I really like your perspective. And

that's what I think is so important, is just to show the different perspectives that

there are. And people, younger ladies, can find the data

points that match with them, that they're like, they can relate better. So this

was exactly what I was going for.