Kelly Rodriques: We’re as serious about reducing burn today as we ever have, if not more. And I wanted to make a commitment to that myself because I think the state of the public markets is strategically well positioned as we believe we are. We think we need to continue to strike that balance between making critical investments in the things like the institutional efforts like data that we’ve prioritized. But we’ve just got to do it over time with a consistent movement to lower cash burn. And I think the public markets expect us to continue in that direction, and we’re not going to let that not be part of our priority and the balancing act that we’re running here. So if there’s an indication that would suggest we’re going to lighten up our emphasis on burn, let me just be really clear, we’re going to continue to make that a priority.
And everybody in the leadership team knows it. So I don’t want to sound or come off as anything other than committed and strong on that point. But Mark, would you add anything to the specifics there?
Mark Lee: No, Alex, as we talk about headcount, headcount came down, reflecting our actions that we took in July. I mean you will see headcount fluctuates slightly quarter-to-quarter, just kind of ongoing turnover and replacements, but we remain in a hiring freeze and remain committed, as Kelly said, to managing costs tightly during the current environment that we’re operating in.
Alex Kramm: All right. Very good. Thank you. And then maybe just coming back to Michael’s question earlier, and sorry if I missed it, but can you actually talk a little bit about what you’ve seen so far in the fourth quarter? I think Kelly, you sounded positive, but at the same time, with all the macroeconomic things happening here, maybe a little bit more cautious again. So just maybe balance the two in terms of what you’ve seen specifically in October so far of the important trends that we all track.
Kelly Rodriques: Yeah. So look, here’s what I’ll tell you, and this is really a reflection of Q3 as well. At the same time that we reported on all of these positive data signals in Q3, within the quarter, we saw some choppy fluctuations in pipeline. And even looking forward with some of the observations we’ve made about institutions coming back, about the breadth of the market expanding, we’re week-to-week here. We’re watching what’s going on in the broader market. And so I’d say that our view is sort of optimistic but cautious. And it’s a little bit too early in the quarter, given when the war broke out, whether or not we’re going to see any more volatility that would change the way we feel about the ongoing positive trends that we now feel pretty good about.
I mean I’d say if you heard anything optimistic, it’s that there’s several data points now. You guys have asked me this in previous quarters. It’s not just one thing. It’s not just bid-ask spread. It’s a combination of composition of buy and sell. It’s a composition of institutions coming back. It’s an observation that there are several data points pointing to some degree of recovery. But this great reset thing that we talk about, we still have a lot of companies that haven’t gone back out and raised capital. And I’d say if there’s anything that I would say looking forward, we’re still waiting and hoping that more companies will face the reality of resetting their valuations because the market is really needing that to happen for it to fully come back.
And that could play out over some time.
Alex Kramm: Excellent. I’ll jump back in the queue for some more follow-ups. Thanks.
Kelly Rodriques: Thanks, Alex.
Operator: And your next question comes from the line of Devin Ryan with JMP Securities. Your line is open.
Devin Ryan: Hey, great. Hi, Kelly and Mark. How are you?
Kelly Rodriques: Great. Thanks, Devin.
Mark Lee: Hi, Devin.
Devin Ryan: Appreciate all the near-term color. I know we’re all trying to kind of time the inflection point here in business. But at the same time, I think the secular story is really kind of the bigger picture. And so I just want to get a little flavor from you guys, maybe more on the intermediate term trends. And just kind of anything that you can share around just maybe success stories of bringing more investors on to the platform or kind of wins with corporates, just kind of helping them navigate kind of the private markets and bringing them to the Forge platform. Anything you can share just around traction that you guys are getting amidst the market backdrop?
Kelly Rodriques: Yeah. So one of the things that we’re really excited about in 2024 is about the expanding strategy of our data business. And what we’re seeing is a relationship between the data business, the data strategy and its impact of bundling the data solution with other parts of the offering. This is something that we had hoped would be a big strategic move for us. We talked about data a couple of years ago before we went out, and we’re now starting to see some broader opportunities for us. I’d say up until this point, and we purposely are going to sort of tap the brakes on a few things that we could talk about in the not-too-distant future, but at this point, we’re committed to broadening our data strategy. Mark, do you want to cover a couple of the specifics there?
