November 2, 2021 • 36 mins
The promise of smart devices, smart tools and even smart homes alleviating the daily grind of everyday life has been promised to us since the dawn of science fiction all the way through today. Having a virtual assistant help us get through our lives was a distant possibility since we couldn’t really let them into our lives to see what we needed help with. The eras of 5G and IoT and the connected world they bring is changing that. Yohana aims to be at the forefront of this new connected lifestyle by helping all of us finish our never-ending to-do-lists and finally find time for what matters.
In this episode of The Restless Ones, we sit with Yoky Matsuoka, Founder and CEO of Yohana. After a storied career as a professor and key roles at Google X, Nest, and Apple, Yoky has decided to focus her lifelong passion for problem solving to help solve the most common of all: getting tasks at home done so we can find more time for ourselves and our loved ones. We’ll hear how she’s combining sensor-based hardware, artificial and human intelligence, and more to bring users the timely, relevant, and informed help they need to navigate busy work faster and prioritize wellness in all its forms
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quite a lot of the technology used somewhere else, whether
it's hardware, sensors, WiFi, network to software, AI, all those things.
By using them right, this can transform how people live
at home. Lifestyle tech maybe is the right terminology for it.
I think that's the emerging area that I'm interested in pushing,
(00:23):
and I think it's gonna be you really excited for
the next couple of decades. Welcome to the Restless Ones.
I'm Jonathan Strickland. I've spent more than a decade really
learning about technology, what makes it tech, and then describing
and explaining that to my audience. But it's the conversations
with the world's most unconventional thinkers, the leaders at the
(00:44):
intersection of technology and business, that fascinate me the most.
In partnership with T Mobile for Business, I explore the
unique set of challenges that C T o s and
c I O s and other tech executives face from
advancements in cloud and edge computing, software is a service,
Internet of Things, and of course five G. We are
(01:04):
often left wondering how the leading minds in business continue
to thrive. Let's find out. Our guest today is Dr
Yoki Matsuoka, founder of the Johanna startup under Pana Sonic.
As you'll learn, Yoki has had an incredible career in technology,
(01:26):
and even her journey to choosing to study electrical engineering
and computer science began because her plans to become a
professional athlete didn't pan out. Yoki has dedicated her efforts
towards finding ways to benefit others directly using technology as
a facilitator. The focus isn't on the tech itself, but
(01:46):
how we can leverage tech to improve our lives. Yoki's
passion for helping others reminds me of another guest we've
had on the show, Mr Marty Paslick, ce IO of
h c A healthcare and are really inc This episode
is an interesting contrast to that one, as Yoki's approach
has frequently focused on ways to reach out to consumers directly,
(02:09):
while Marty's role is to enable a healthcare company to
serve the needs of patients. With Yoki, I wanted to
talk about her perspective and more importantly, what motivated her
to found a new startup in the healthcare and lifestyle space. Yoki,
thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate
(02:30):
it and it's a genuine pleasure to get to speak
with you today. Oh, likewise, I've been very excited about this.
Thanks for the opportunity, And I always like to begin
any interview by learning more about the background of the
person I'm speaking with. So can you tell me about
when did you start getting interested in technology. I was
a late bloomer. I grew up in Japan. I moved
(02:53):
to the US thinking that I was going to become
a professional tennis player, so technology was not something that
was in my mind. I went to college again thinking
that I was going to be a professional tennis player,
and when that didn't work out, I started to think
about what else I can do, And that was almost
the first time I really thought technology could be in
(03:14):
my future. Oh, so you were literally at a crossroads.
Can you talk about how you explored your different opportunities
and what was it that had you gravitate towards electrical
engineering and computer science. Yeah. So, because all I knew
in my life really was tennis, what I, you know, realized,
(03:35):
is that, boy, if I want to do something interesting
with my life that doesn't involve me playing tennis, what
could it be. The first thing I thought about was
a tennis buddy robot that I could play tennis with
all my life. I started to read a little bit
of research and I realized that maybe I can build this.
As I thought about getting into robotics from that angle,
(03:57):
I explored different kinds of engineering. Luckily, I've always liked
science and math, and I was very fortunate to really
be able to pursue it further. But at the end
of the day, around then, when I was in college,
electrical engineering was a little bit of the future. It
felt like this was the thing that if I had
the right knowledge, it would really push me forward. Um,
(04:18):
I'll speak out a little bit. There's a thing of
control theory, which was a lot of math, but I
loved it. So I'm like, Okay, whatever allows me to
get deeper in control theory, I want to measure in that.
And then that's how I ended up doing electrical engineering.
I think what I realized is that I love problem solving.
I love looking at problems, and I never wanted to
give up and I wanted to continue to solve it.
And then turns out the best way to go about
(04:41):
it is to, you know, do it through engineering. Well,
can you talk a little bit about what your path
was once your degree was complete, I mean you went
on to pursue post graduate studies and earn a PhD.
What happened along that pathway? Yeah. So when I was
an undergraduate at Berkeley, I was fortunate enough to have
professors who took me on to build robots. I learned
(05:05):
a lot. I wanted to continue with robotics, so I
applied to graduate schools, thinking that, yes, I will keep going.
I still want to build my tennis robot. That led
me to m I t That led me to a
group led by Professor Rodney Brooks, who was building a
humanoid robot. So I thought, perfect, I want to be
on that team, and I will make sure I has
(05:27):
arms and hands and legs and I could play tennis.
So that was really the beginning of my graduate school journey.
I love that tennis has become a through line for this.
That's fantastic. Then you went on and took a position
as a professor. Correct. So as as I got into robotics,
I've got fascinated with arms and hands again, still connected
(05:50):
to tennis. Then I, you know, machine everything, all the parts.
I built everything, and then I put you know, coating
on top and I put machine learning on top and
I and all of those things. Then I felt, why
isn't it playing tennis with me yet? And it was
nowhere near it. It could barely pick up objects in
the lab. And I felt this huge disconnect in AI
(06:13):
at that time, and I thought, Okay, in order to
get the robot to play tennis with me, I have
to learn neuroscience the human intelligence, because that's the only
way I can create enough artificial intelligence to get the
robot to do the right thing. So for the last
half of my PhD ended up studying neuroscience. That's really
I would say it was a turning point for me
to be exposed to learning about people who had neurological disorders,
(06:36):
who couldn't move the way they wanted. They wanted to,
but part of the brain wasn't working for them, And
I thought, wait a second, I've been selfish. I've been
trying to build this robot for myself. I could help
those people who need it for just getting by every day.
So that's why I retool myself towards the end of
(06:56):
my PhD and post doc into Harvard to say, you
know what, I'm dedicated to build technology to help people.
What was it that led to you deciding to leave
the world of academia and then to go into you know,
the private sector. Yeah. So I was a professor for
about a decade, but I realized that I was still
(07:18):
far away from helping people. I was writing papers, I
was graduating students, and I felt frustrated that distance that
I felt. So I started to get tickled by the
calling of the industrial side. How can I build something
that's closer to those people, you know, instead of contributing
pushing the envelope of science. It's not every day I
get to speak with someone who was present when the
(07:40):
famously secretive Google x got its start. So I wanted
to find out more from Yochi about her views on
emerging tech. Plus, I wanted to get her perspective on
how different technologies can work together to create incredible outcomes.
I was very lucky when I was a professor to
get a call from you know, the Google to say, Hey,
would you like to be one of the co founders
(08:00):
for this new concept, Google X. Google X was looking
at ten to fifteen years down the road for something
that's paradigm shifting, that's more hardware oriented, that can potentially
give birth to some of the future of Google, aligning
with what I've been thinking about what I wanted to
do and then be closer to customers. I thought, this
(08:21):
is it. I gotta ride this wave. It was just
a perfect fit given my research background. Of course, you know,
now everybody knows what Google X has given birth to,
you know, to Weymo, the autonomous driving cars two Verily,
which is a medical technology company that's you know, still
part of Alphabet. It's also giving birth to things like
(08:43):
Google Brain, which really became core of many of the
Google technology and an AI, so you know, but it
also was very important in an astro teller who continues
to run Google X and I respect highly. He makes
sure that a lot of projects fail as a our effect,
fail quick and then you know, then try a lot
of different things. There are lots of internal projects that
(09:06):
had to be killed, but thanks to them being killed,
there are a lot of good projects that were also
born to So that was really the idea of Google Acts. Yeah,
and and it's something that you actually saw carried out
through Google as a whole. I mean, on the tech
journalism side, there's this perception that Google releases a lot
of products and then some of those a few years
(09:26):
down the line might get retired. So in your experience,
there was that something that was really formative, this idea
of trying things quickly and finding things that work and
really exploring different possibilities. Yeah. I think there there are
two things right that I would say failure is the
only way to learn sometimes, so failing quick and learn
(09:49):
and get the essence out of it so that all
the you know, the future success can come. And then
there's this other part, which is that Google has a
culture a very bottom up They are incredibly intelligent people
and then then let them be creative. So there are
a lot of bottom up projects out even outside of
Google X. Yeah, and I get the feeling it's a
place that was founded by engineers and still has very
(10:12):
much an engineering spirit behind the development side. And that again,
if you aren't familiar with the approach to engineering, it
can seem haphazard or or chaotic even but once you
gain that that perspective, you realize, oh no, there's a
method to this apparent madness. And uh, that kind of
(10:36):
leads me to my next question, which is, so, so
you move on to Google X, what was it that
had you decided to go and join Nest. So Google
X was still looking at ten to fifteen years down
the road to be paradigm shifting in society. To be honest,
I felt like I was already doing that in research.
(10:57):
What I wanted was to help people now, and so
I was getting impatient. I was getting shortsighted a little bit.
And I happened to bump into my old student from
Carnie Mellen, who um was starting this secret startup called
Nest And while it wasn't about helping people with disabilities,
it still had the flavor of helping people achieve something
(11:19):
they couldn't, like save energy, and it was about learning
to build a consumer product in twelve months and put
it on the shelf. And I thought, boy, this is
a skill that I don't have at all. I must
learn how to do this and then find ways to
touch people now, learn about people? Now, how do I
(11:39):
work with them? How do I know what to build? Now?
How do I build millions of devices that everybody wants
to have? So I decided to jump and then give
that a try. Uh, Yukie, You're You're like, every answer
is just making me even happier. The impatience to get
to the point where you're helping people driving you is
really inspirational. Well, I have one less little question for
(12:02):
this segment before we move on, and it's just just
a little aside. What is your favorite piece of technology
that you own. I love my net thermostat. You know
why because it works with me when I want to
save energy. It learns about me and it helps me.
(12:23):
But what when I don't want to think about it?
It automatically changes temperature based on my activity if I'm home,
if I'm away, and I don't have to think about it.
It's a blends in with the background. And for me,
that's really the goal of what technology should be at
T Mobile. For business, unconventional thinking means we see things differently,
(12:46):
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So we built the largest five G network to cover cities, towns,
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see another virtual meeting, we see five G enabling wireless
(13:10):
real time translations almost anywhere you do business. Our unique
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(13:32):
to Open Signal Awards USA five G User Experience Report October.
See five G device coverage and access details at T
mobile dot com. Well, I really, sincerely could have spent
hours talking with Yoki about her experiences at Google X
(13:54):
and Nest. I wanted to learn more about Johanna and
how it fits into Yoki's desire to help others. So
can you tell me about your your current project, because
it's it's brand new and it's really exciting. Yeah. I
have felt that I've learned how to build consumer products
and how to also build healthcare tech through working on
(14:18):
those at Apple, Google in different startups. I felt that
what I really wanted to do was to build technology
that helps people at home to live better, to be healthier,
to really care about their wellness. And I built this
(14:39):
company called Johanna, which is a wellness company that is
focused on healthy family find more balance, prioritized well being,
and be more present for each other. When you think
about the first offering that we are yeah, we just
announced it is a called it's called a Johanna Membership,
a personal assistance service design specifically for busy families. So
(15:00):
it is a tool that is a combination of an
app to a real person on the background who's assisted
by smart tools, data and also have researchers and pros
and a background. It is really a hybrid of real
people's intelligence and then the artificial intelligence of machines together
(15:23):
to help people's daily life. So this in a way
is kind of like that concept we were just talking
about with the nest Thermostat, but with a much broader
scope of looking at various needs that the average family
might encounter. That's right. So I'm a mother of four kids,
i have parents who are getting older. I'm the only child,
(15:46):
so there's a lot of family related responsibilities that you know,
follow me. I also want to be a good mom.
I want to be with my kids, and I want
to be a good daughter, and I want to be
a good wife too. So all of that together, while
I had my career, I had my mission to really
want to, you know, to deliver technology for others to
(16:09):
also be able to live happier and healthier life. Technology
hasn't been there to really help people. When you look
at those gaming technology or autonomous driving car technology, it's
mind blowing, right. The some of the advances that's been
made recently is amazing. But then when you look at
people's home after they work all those amazing things during
the day at a company, and then then when they
(16:29):
go home, the home life is still clunky, and then
it's like the daily things that pile up was never
taken care of. Ways to stay healthy well, you have
to do everything manual. You have to figure out what
to eat, you have to sleep on your own a
little bit better, you had to exercise. It felt like
it wasn't really pushing people to look out for themselves
(16:51):
in the right way using technology. This is absolutely fascinating
to me. You can look at certain areas of tech
where you see life years of advancement over the last decade,
and other areas which maybe it's one of those where
it wasn't seen as like a big engineering challenge, so
there wasn't a lot of attention devoted to it, or
(17:11):
maybe companies just had not hit upon that as being
a possible market to develop. It's kind of languished in
the background, and the thought of having a technology company
really focusing on ways to streamline lives, to do what
tech has always promised to do. The promise of tech,
(17:32):
I think ever since really the nineteen fifties, was that
technology was going to take over a lot of the
tasks that we find repetitive, that our time consuming, that
keep us from the stuff we really love to do.
But we've also seen a lot of technology not actually
solve those problems. We just end up doing more of
(17:52):
the stuff we we didn't want to do in the
first place. Yes, so in a way, technology needs change.
The society change, the societal pressure changed, All different things happen,
and in nineteen fifties. Actually, the reason why I'm partnering
with Panasonic is because Panasonic was one of the frontiers
of a company that built technology that east the chores
(18:15):
at home, washing machine, dryer, dishwashers, you know, name it.
Panasonic you know has owned them and then made it
better than anybody else for a long time. That's because
their founder was really focused on that he was in
this incredible emission driven guy started a company I think
in nineteen fifties as he was building washing and dryer,
(18:37):
he said, Hey, I'm doing this to free women so
that they have time to do something they want to do,
like read a block. Of course, that might be a
little bit offensive to say these days, but that was
the status the world around nineteen fifties, and we all
been in the fitter from those automated task specific technology
very much. You know, like I can't imagine living without
(18:58):
a dishwasher now. But now we live in the world
where those tax specific things are assisted by technology, and
we have tried to take on a lot more in
this world now, and you know, I think we're all
also getting mission driven and we want to contribute to society.
How do we even balance all of this has you know,
become quite a lot of um what people are thinking about.
(19:20):
On top of all of that, pandemic happened. I think
that pandemic has also highlighted some of the issues that
we're brewing brewing in the background. The pandemic of its
own was that home and work could not be balanced anymore.
Home and work blended in like you know, for me,
(19:41):
like four kids were doing zoom a how I was
doing zoom meetings at home and we're all in the
same space. That's when I thought, Okay, all the things
that has been a problem that has been amplified in
this time, is it just me? Did I go and staying?
But millions of people out there we're feeling the same thing. Women,
men just thanks for falling apart. Now women have quit
(20:06):
their job not by choice because they have to drop
something and they couldn't drop families, so they dropped work.
And technology has to be there to rescue all of
us somehow. Well to that point, can you tell us
a little bit about some of the technologies that you're
you're bringing to bear on this problem in the near future,
and maybe even some ideas about tech that might play
(20:29):
a larger role further down the line. Where I love
to go is a grandiest vision of putting hardware, software, AI,
humans all together in the end to end format to
help people in daily life, but especially things like elderly care.
You know, there are a lot of places where we
(20:51):
need to feel close to the family and then care
for family in a very different way from before. So
where do we start we start tackling on your to
do list, and when we look at the family to
do list, there are lots of different things. I put
them in three buckets. The first bucket is things that
just keep piling up, and that'd be nice if somebody
(21:12):
else who's on my shoulder and every day, who is saying, gotcha,
don't worry about it, I'll take care of it. You know.
That's something that we're starting to do. So that's one
type of two dousu mundane tasks. Second buckets have a
little more of the things that's probably in your to
do list for a long time that has never been cleared.
(21:32):
Maybe it is cleaning out the garage. Of course you
want to do it. You never somehow gets to the
point of clearing the garage, and that a team of
people who already know you can come and say, okay, well,
you know, let's decompose this problem to you know, easy ones.
Is it stinky? Is it you know? Is it on
(21:55):
the lit up? Really? Well, okay, so let's let me
send you a pro. Then, from my point of view,
I'll just get a very simple list of pros that
I can pick pick one. Schedule gets automatically made when
I have time, the pro shows up and then checks
out my garage and says, I has mildew eyes leaking
from here. Oh, you actually have termites. You gotta get
(22:16):
rid of all of those first pros come again at
a time that I can make it work. They come
and clean all those things. So those things, because I
have a partner who is just proactive reaching out, making
sure it's you know, in the form that I can
take care of, things are getting crossed off my to
do list because of it. So that's sort of the
second bucket of things that we can take care of.
(22:37):
But lastly, the most importantly, we are a well being
wellness company. We want to make sure that as you
manage your family, as you manage your life, that you're
taken care of, and often you don't put those things
there need to do list. What are those things? It
could be the day night with your husband just to
get a little bit of a break, or maybe even
(22:57):
descending flowers, gifting friends those things make you feel really happy.
We'll make sure that we are proactively thinking about you
and then your well being and maybe even community outreach
that maybe you've been wanting to feel part of the community.
So there are with different ways that we try to
make sure that you're you're preserved, you feel good, and
then you have time in those moments to contribute to
(23:19):
your family and to society. So I imagine in order
to get that level of understanding, you're depending both upon
the human beings who are working on behalf of these subscribers,
as well as probably some data analysis and machine learning
to start to anticipate things before they even become to
(23:42):
the level of a problem so that you can address
it and it never even takes up that mind space
that just weighs down on people day after day. Is
that more or less where you're you're kind of aiming
at with this this adventure. Yeah, So let me tell
you a little bit about what this product will feel like.
When you become a subscription member, what you get is
an onboarding call with a person who is going to
(24:04):
tell you a little bit about what the program is about,
and then also start to learn about who you are,
how can we work with you, what kind of things
are wine down on you. They will start taking on
some of the first tasks. You get an app where
you can chat, you can track tasks, and that then
you can move forward with a dedicated assistant, name your
(24:25):
assistant who you will know by first name basis that
you can start to chat with and then start to delegate. Now,
of course that person will start to get to know
you that you know, then you get to know them
and then learn this each other's style to start tackling
on different tasks that I mentioned. Um, so this is
pretty much how it works in terms of the nutshell
(24:45):
of the product. As you know, you may have lots
of things to offload to people and sometimes they're a
little bit of a nudge, a little bit of a
proactive reach that's required. Definitely sounds like a great go
old to have. Well, before we move on, I have
one another quick question, which is what is the best
(25:06):
piece of advice that you have ever received in your career? Okay,
so I keep revealing myself way too much, but here
I go. Um, I'm um introvert, I'm you know, often
not super confident by myself sometimes and so when I
(25:27):
was younger, I used to pretend to be dumb because
I wanted to be accepted as a girl. When I
was at m TEA in grad school, I used to
wear the hello my name is signed that you know,
you put as a sticker sometimes and I used to
say hello, my name is and I put air head.
This is second year in grad school at M I
T and then one of the most amazing institutions in
(25:48):
the world. And my professor pulled me on the side, Yoki,
I need to give you an advice because you wouldn't
go any further unless you change right now, he said,
snap out, You're not an airhead. You're at M I T.
Everybody already ceased through you, so stop it. That was
(26:09):
probably like twenty three years old. It took that long
for me to try to stop pretending trying to actually
hide behind something, and that was one of the best
advices that I've ever gotten. Since then, I have been trying.
I have been also a little bit more vulnerable. I've
been showing when I fail a little bit more. That
was something that I was scared to do too. As
(26:30):
long as I knew that, you know, I pretended to
not face it. I didn't have to because I didn't try,
so no big deal. But now suddenly I started trying
that The consequence was really scary. But at the same time,
the world suddenly opened up. And then that was by
far the best advice I've got. What a fantastic story.
I love that answer. Well, let's let's talk a bit
(26:53):
about emerging technology, something that you've been around for quite
some time. You've seen tons of different projects that are
all dedicated around technologies that are either emerging or maturing.
Which ones do you feel have the potential to to
provide the largest benefit in the in the fairly near future.
(27:17):
Even though I'm a technologist, I don't think technology first.
The way I think about it is there's no technology
around to help me as a mom, help me as
a family member, help me as a daughter, to be
better for my aging family and parents. I think that's
going to be the low hanging fruits. Quite a lot
of the technology used somewhere else, whether it's hardware, sensors, WiFi,
(27:40):
network to software AI, all those things. By using them right,
this can transform how people live at home. Lifestyle tech
maybe is the right terminology for it. I think that's
the emerging area that I'm interested in pushing, and I
think it's gonna be really exciting for the next cup decades.
I think what you're talking about, where we have these
(28:04):
various independent disciplines of technology starting to converge in specific areas.
And if we see that converge in say the lifestyle space,
I have a feeling like it will seem maybe five
years down the road, I'll look back at this and
think I was just on the precipice of living in
the future, just as I felt when smartphones started to
(28:25):
become a thing that now I had a computer in
my hand that got thit in my pocket, and I
lived in the future. Yeah, and let me even add
one more things, like I just want to I can
make it kind of more concrete. How we get older
and how we live after retirement, let's say, and how
we die. This all need to change. Then then a technology,
(28:46):
you know what I'm calling life type lifestyle tech should
be able to detect as you age, predict and make
things a little bit better, maybe have the right medication
to start earlier, to really live your life in better way.
But when it comes to caring instead of how from
the hospital, can we do that from home with technologies assistance,
(29:07):
where people in technology and hardware and an AI altogether
is caring for you in the right way so that
you can have that last ten through thirty years of
your life in the best way possible without worrying about
the kind of things that we currently have to worry about. Right,
being able to lean on technology to give people independence
and allow them that sense of agency and dignity. I
(29:32):
think that's a really worthy goal to strive for the
Internet of Things concept. I mean, I'm sure when you
were first getting into college, that was probably a buzz
word that maybe was being talked about a little bit,
But now it's reality. Do you see IoT playing a
larger role in our home lives and being part of
(29:53):
this system that helps us maintain our lives longer and
more comfortably within the home. Absolutely, I mean that's the
future that I want to be part of building and
living in. And you know, of course, as five G
technology comes in, I imagine the world to be a
lot more sensor oriented and also more privacy oriented. We
(30:17):
are able to do those things. As the network gets
faster and as the technology gets more enabled, we can
have edge computing thanks that can stay within your home
so that doesn't have to travel across for security reasons.
I think those things are within the reach now. You know,
from even from the health care perspective, it shouldn't be
this instant when you happen to being a doctor, and
then you happen to be reporting to a doctor about
(30:39):
what's wrong. But it should be that all the data
of your daily life, really that's the predictor of how
you're going to be. What you might you know, feel
bad about moving forward, what kind of illness you might get.
Those informations should be available to yourself, and then then
you should be, you know, deciding whether you want to
share that for you know, some value benefits that you
might get. But all those choices, all those possibilities are
(31:02):
coming because of the technology moving forward, and it's exciting
to see that all those technologies, even though they are
in different disciplines, are all maturing so quickly that we're
lucky that it's converging at this point. That to me,
as you were saying earlier in this episode about you know,
the technology being in the background, it's almost as if
(31:23):
you live in a magical house at that point that
is anticipating things, and it's working on your behalf and
solving problems, possibly before you even realize that there was
a problem to solve. Yes, yes, I love it. And
then I've been always imagining that house is not just
a roof in wall that shields you from the outside harshness.
(31:45):
It's going to have to protect you in a very
different way moving forward. Yes, agreed. And even as you
said before, like the idea of especially in the pandemic,
of trying to separate home and work, and how difficult
that was even before we were all staying at home.
It was hard. Now it's it feels like it's impossible.
(32:06):
It's going to be really important for us to have
the technologies that allow us to set up those boundaries
so that we can have both a satisfying work life
and a rich and valuable home life at the same time. Exactly,
I wasn't about to let Yoki go without asking her
(32:26):
one more thing. In your opinion, what do you think
is the most misunderstood technology. I actually think that AI
is misunderstood, and you know, there's a lot of advancement
and excitement, but incredible fear of what it could be.
(32:49):
It's going to take over human you know, intelligence, it's
going to rule the world. It made an incredible progress
of course since that, you know, the eighties and the nineties,
when you know the speed of things limited, ability to
collect data was limited, and now we look at and
put a massive amount of data to be able to
do a lot of you know, inference that we couldn't
(33:09):
do before. So it's true, it's make advancements. It's not
the fearful thing. It's just not there yet. So no
offense to anybody who's working on a machine learning and
an amazing advancement. And I know there's a lot of
effort of course to you know, surpass human intelligence, and
those things will push a lot of technology forward, but
I don't want people to be scared of it or
(33:31):
avoid it to the point that they're not benefiting. It's
not that time, Yogi. That was a great answer because
it reminds me of a couple of things. One is that,
like as you say, in very specific implementations, under very
specific circumstances, computers do phenomenal things at a level that
we humans just cannot do. But those are very specific
(33:55):
and humans the one of the amazing things about us
is that we are general purpose machines. We and do
lots of stuff, and computers typically, or machines or robots
typically can only do a subset of those things, and
sometimes not nearly as well as a human could. Yoki.
This has been a really inspiring conversation, and I am
(34:16):
so thankful to have had the opportunity to speak with
you today. Thank you for joining us. Oh my gosh,
it was so fun. Thank you. Let's do it again.
Yoki brought this up in our conversation, but it really
is worth driving home. We are currently in an environment
in which multiple technologies have matured in such a way
(34:39):
as to present incredible opportunities. And while Yoki and I
focused on ways that it will affect users and people
on an individual or maybe family unit basis, the same
can be said of businesses. The development of effective, powerful
and affordable sensors, the pairing of those sensors with transmitters,
and the underlying can nications networks that we have with
(35:01):
five G are going to enable world changing solutions. I
expect every major company in the world is looking at
how to leverage these technologies to deliver more value to
customers and to drive down costs of business and to
increase efficiency and productivity two untold levels. It's truly amazing
(35:22):
to see how the Internet of things, the speed of communication,
and our ability to collect and analyze data have all
reached incredible sophisticated levels. And have the potential for those
technologies to make a positive impact. I mean, it's impossible
to overstate how phenomenal this is. I can't wait to
hear how Johanna evolves over time and rolls out various
(35:45):
products in an effort to give us back the most
precious resource we have time. Please be sure to come
back and listen as we talk with more leaders in
the tech space to get their insight on future episodes
of The Restless Ones. I'm Oathan Strickland at T Mobile.
(36:06):
For business, unconventional thinking means we see things differently so
you can focus on what matters most. That's why we've
built America's largest, fastest five G network while remaining a
partner who delivers exceptional customer support and five G included
in every plan so you get it all. Unconventional thinking
is better for business. Fastest five G based on average
(36:27):
overall combined five G speeds according to Open Signal Awards
USA five G User Experience Report October one. See five
D device coverage and access details at T mobile dot com.
Quite a lot of the technology used somewhere else, whether
it's hardware, sensors, WiFi, network to software, AI, all those things.
By using them right, this can transform how people live
at home. Lifestyle tech maybe is the right terminology for it.
I think that's the emerging area that I'm interested in pushing,
(00:23):
and I think it's gonna be you really excited for
the next couple of decades. Welcome to the Restless Ones.
I'm Jonathan Strickland. I've spent more than a decade really
learning about technology, what makes it tech, and then describing
and explaining that to my audience. But it's the conversations
with the world's most unconventional thinkers, the leaders at the
(00:44):
intersection of technology and business, that fascinate me the most.
In partnership with T Mobile for Business, I explore the
unique set of challenges that C T o s and
c I O s and other tech executives face from
advancements in cloud and edge computing, software is a service,
Internet of Things, and of course five G. We are
(01:04):
often left wondering how the leading minds in business continue
to thrive. Let's find out. Our guest today is Dr
Yoki Matsuoka, founder of the Johanna startup under Pana Sonic.
As you'll learn, Yoki has had an incredible career in technology,
(01:26):
and even her journey to choosing to study electrical engineering
and computer science began because her plans to become a
professional athlete didn't pan out. Yoki has dedicated her efforts
towards finding ways to benefit others directly using technology as
a facilitator. The focus isn't on the tech itself, but
(01:46):
how we can leverage tech to improve our lives. Yoki's
passion for helping others reminds me of another guest we've
had on the show, Mr Marty Paslick, ce IO of
h c A healthcare and are really inc This episode
is an interesting contrast to that one, as Yoki's approach
has frequently focused on ways to reach out to consumers directly,
(02:09):
while Marty's role is to enable a healthcare company to
serve the needs of patients. With Yoki, I wanted to
talk about her perspective and more importantly, what motivated her
to found a new startup in the healthcare and lifestyle space. Yoki,
thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate
(02:30):
it and it's a genuine pleasure to get to speak
with you today. Oh, likewise, I've been very excited about this.
Thanks for the opportunity, And I always like to begin
any interview by learning more about the background of the
person I'm speaking with. So can you tell me about
when did you start getting interested in technology. I was
a late bloomer. I grew up in Japan. I moved
(02:53):
to the US thinking that I was going to become
a professional tennis player, so technology was not something that
was in my mind. I went to college again thinking
that I was going to be a professional tennis player,
and when that didn't work out, I started to think
about what else I can do, And that was almost
the first time I really thought technology could be in
(03:14):
my future. Oh, so you were literally at a crossroads.
Can you talk about how you explored your different opportunities
and what was it that had you gravitate towards electrical
engineering and computer science. Yeah. So, because all I knew
in my life really was tennis, what I, you know, realized,
(03:35):
is that, boy, if I want to do something interesting
with my life that doesn't involve me playing tennis, what
could it be. The first thing I thought about was
a tennis buddy robot that I could play tennis with
all my life. I started to read a little bit
of research and I realized that maybe I can build this.
As I thought about getting into robotics from that angle,
(03:57):
I explored different kinds of engineering. Luckily, I've always liked
science and math, and I was very fortunate to really
be able to pursue it further. But at the end
of the day, around then, when I was in college,
electrical engineering was a little bit of the future. It
felt like this was the thing that if I had
the right knowledge, it would really push me forward. Um,
(04:18):
I'll speak out a little bit. There's a thing of
control theory, which was a lot of math, but I
loved it. So I'm like, Okay, whatever allows me to
get deeper in control theory, I want to measure in that.
And then that's how I ended up doing electrical engineering.
I think what I realized is that I love problem solving.
I love looking at problems, and I never wanted to
give up and I wanted to continue to solve it.
And then turns out the best way to go about
(04:41):
it is to, you know, do it through engineering. Well,
can you talk a little bit about what your path
was once your degree was complete, I mean you went
on to pursue post graduate studies and earn a PhD.
What happened along that pathway? Yeah. So when I was
an undergraduate at Berkeley, I was fortunate enough to have
professors who took me on to build robots. I learned
(05:05):
a lot. I wanted to continue with robotics, so I
applied to graduate schools, thinking that, yes, I will keep going.
I still want to build my tennis robot. That led
me to m I t That led me to a
group led by Professor Rodney Brooks, who was building a
humanoid robot. So I thought, perfect, I want to be
on that team, and I will make sure I has
(05:27):
arms and hands and legs and I could play tennis.
So that was really the beginning of my graduate school journey.
I love that tennis has become a through line for this.
That's fantastic. Then you went on and took a position
as a professor. Correct. So as as I got into robotics,
I've got fascinated with arms and hands again, still connected
(05:50):
to tennis. Then I, you know, machine everything, all the parts.
I built everything, and then I put you know, coating
on top and I put machine learning on top and
I and all of those things. Then I felt, why
isn't it playing tennis with me yet? And it was
nowhere near it. It could barely pick up objects in
the lab. And I felt this huge disconnect in AI
(06:13):
at that time, and I thought, Okay, in order to
get the robot to play tennis with me, I have
to learn neuroscience the human intelligence, because that's the only
way I can create enough artificial intelligence to get the
robot to do the right thing. So for the last
half of my PhD ended up studying neuroscience. That's really
I would say it was a turning point for me
to be exposed to learning about people who had neurological disorders,
(06:36):
who couldn't move the way they wanted. They wanted to,
but part of the brain wasn't working for them, And
I thought, wait a second, I've been selfish. I've been
trying to build this robot for myself. I could help
those people who need it for just getting by every day.
So that's why I retool myself towards the end of
(06:56):
my PhD and post doc into Harvard to say, you
know what, I'm dedicated to build technology to help people.
What was it that led to you deciding to leave
the world of academia and then to go into you know,
the private sector. Yeah. So I was a professor for
about a decade, but I realized that I was still
(07:18):
far away from helping people. I was writing papers, I
was graduating students, and I felt frustrated that distance that
I felt. So I started to get tickled by the
calling of the industrial side. How can I build something
that's closer to those people, you know, instead of contributing
pushing the envelope of science. It's not every day I
get to speak with someone who was present when the
(07:40):
famously secretive Google x got its start. So I wanted
to find out more from Yochi about her views on
emerging tech. Plus, I wanted to get her perspective on
how different technologies can work together to create incredible outcomes.
I was very lucky when I was a professor to
get a call from you know, the Google to say, Hey,
would you like to be one of the co founders
(08:00):
for this new concept, Google X. Google X was looking
at ten to fifteen years down the road for something
that's paradigm shifting, that's more hardware oriented, that can potentially
give birth to some of the future of Google, aligning
with what I've been thinking about what I wanted to
do and then be closer to customers. I thought, this
(08:21):
is it. I gotta ride this wave. It was just
a perfect fit given my research background. Of course, you know,
now everybody knows what Google X has given birth to,
you know, to Weymo, the autonomous driving cars two Verily,
which is a medical technology company that's you know, still
part of Alphabet. It's also giving birth to things like
(08:43):
Google Brain, which really became core of many of the
Google technology and an AI, so you know, but it
also was very important in an astro teller who continues
to run Google X and I respect highly. He makes
sure that a lot of projects fail as a our effect,
fail quick and then you know, then try a lot
of different things. There are lots of internal projects that
(09:06):
had to be killed, but thanks to them being killed,
there are a lot of good projects that were also
born to So that was really the idea of Google Acts. Yeah,
and and it's something that you actually saw carried out
through Google as a whole. I mean, on the tech
journalism side, there's this perception that Google releases a lot
of products and then some of those a few years
(09:26):
down the line might get retired. So in your experience,
there was that something that was really formative, this idea
of trying things quickly and finding things that work and
really exploring different possibilities. Yeah. I think there there are
two things right that I would say failure is the
only way to learn sometimes, so failing quick and learn
(09:49):
and get the essence out of it so that all
the you know, the future success can come. And then
there's this other part, which is that Google has a
culture a very bottom up They are incredibly intelligent people
and then then let them be creative. So there are
a lot of bottom up projects out even outside of
Google X. Yeah, and I get the feeling it's a
place that was founded by engineers and still has very
(10:12):
much an engineering spirit behind the development side. And that again,
if you aren't familiar with the approach to engineering, it
can seem haphazard or or chaotic even but once you
gain that that perspective, you realize, oh no, there's a
method to this apparent madness. And uh, that kind of
(10:36):
leads me to my next question, which is, so, so
you move on to Google X, what was it that
had you decided to go and join Nest. So Google
X was still looking at ten to fifteen years down
the road to be paradigm shifting in society. To be honest,
I felt like I was already doing that in research.
(10:57):
What I wanted was to help people now, and so
I was getting impatient. I was getting shortsighted a little bit.
And I happened to bump into my old student from
Carnie Mellen, who um was starting this secret startup called
Nest And while it wasn't about helping people with disabilities,
it still had the flavor of helping people achieve something
(11:19):
they couldn't, like save energy, and it was about learning
to build a consumer product in twelve months and put
it on the shelf. And I thought, boy, this is
a skill that I don't have at all. I must
learn how to do this and then find ways to
touch people now, learn about people? Now, how do I
(11:39):
work with them? How do I know what to build? Now?
How do I build millions of devices that everybody wants
to have? So I decided to jump and then give
that a try. Uh, Yukie, You're You're like, every answer
is just making me even happier. The impatience to get
to the point where you're helping people driving you is
really inspirational. Well, I have one less little question for
(12:02):
this segment before we move on, and it's just just
a little aside. What is your favorite piece of technology
that you own. I love my net thermostat. You know
why because it works with me when I want to
save energy. It learns about me and it helps me.
(12:23):
But what when I don't want to think about it?
It automatically changes temperature based on my activity if I'm home,
if I'm away, and I don't have to think about it.
It's a blends in with the background. And for me,
that's really the goal of what technology should be at
T Mobile. For business, unconventional thinking means we see things differently,
(12:46):
so you can focus on what matters most. Where some
see another small town, we see businesses in need of connectivity.
So we built the largest five G network to cover cities, towns,
and the most interstate miles in between. Where some see
all all are in a queue, we see an opportunity
for our experts to provide solutions without transfers. Where some
see another virtual meeting, we see five G enabling wireless
(13:10):
real time translations almost anywhere you do business. Our unique
approach built America's largest, fastest five G network and also
delivers exceptional customer support and five G included in every plan,
so you get it all without trade offs. Unconventional thinking
is better for business. T Mobile for Business fastest five
G based on average overall combined five G speeds according
(13:32):
to Open Signal Awards USA five G User Experience Report October.
See five G device coverage and access details at T
mobile dot com. Well, I really, sincerely could have spent
hours talking with Yoki about her experiences at Google X
(13:54):
and Nest. I wanted to learn more about Johanna and
how it fits into Yoki's desire to help others. So
can you tell me about your your current project, because
it's it's brand new and it's really exciting. Yeah. I
have felt that I've learned how to build consumer products
and how to also build healthcare tech through working on
(14:18):
those at Apple, Google in different startups. I felt that
what I really wanted to do was to build technology
that helps people at home to live better, to be healthier,
to really care about their wellness. And I built this
(14:39):
company called Johanna, which is a wellness company that is
focused on healthy family find more balance, prioritized well being,
and be more present for each other. When you think
about the first offering that we are yeah, we just
announced it is a called it's called a Johanna Membership,
a personal assistance service design specifically for busy families. So
(15:00):
it is a tool that is a combination of an
app to a real person on the background who's assisted
by smart tools, data and also have researchers and pros
and a background. It is really a hybrid of real
people's intelligence and then the artificial intelligence of machines together
(15:23):
to help people's daily life. So this in a way
is kind of like that concept we were just talking
about with the nest Thermostat, but with a much broader
scope of looking at various needs that the average family
might encounter. That's right. So I'm a mother of four kids,
i have parents who are getting older. I'm the only child,
(15:46):
so there's a lot of family related responsibilities that you know,
follow me. I also want to be a good mom.
I want to be with my kids, and I want
to be a good daughter, and I want to be
a good wife too. So all of that together, while
I had my career, I had my mission to really
want to, you know, to deliver technology for others to
(16:09):
also be able to live happier and healthier life. Technology
hasn't been there to really help people. When you look
at those gaming technology or autonomous driving car technology, it's
mind blowing, right. The some of the advances that's been
made recently is amazing. But then when you look at
people's home after they work all those amazing things during
the day at a company, and then then when they
(16:29):
go home, the home life is still clunky, and then
it's like the daily things that pile up was never
taken care of. Ways to stay healthy well, you have
to do everything manual. You have to figure out what
to eat, you have to sleep on your own a
little bit better, you had to exercise. It felt like
it wasn't really pushing people to look out for themselves
(16:51):
in the right way using technology. This is absolutely fascinating
to me. You can look at certain areas of tech
where you see life years of advancement over the last decade,
and other areas which maybe it's one of those where
it wasn't seen as like a big engineering challenge, so
there wasn't a lot of attention devoted to it, or
(17:11):
maybe companies just had not hit upon that as being
a possible market to develop. It's kind of languished in
the background, and the thought of having a technology company
really focusing on ways to streamline lives, to do what
tech has always promised to do. The promise of tech,
(17:32):
I think ever since really the nineteen fifties, was that
technology was going to take over a lot of the
tasks that we find repetitive, that our time consuming, that
keep us from the stuff we really love to do.
But we've also seen a lot of technology not actually
solve those problems. We just end up doing more of
(17:52):
the stuff we we didn't want to do in the
first place. Yes, so in a way, technology needs change.
The society change, the societal pressure changed, All different things happen,
and in nineteen fifties. Actually, the reason why I'm partnering
with Panasonic is because Panasonic was one of the frontiers
of a company that built technology that east the chores
(18:15):
at home, washing machine, dryer, dishwashers, you know, name it.
Panasonic you know has owned them and then made it
better than anybody else for a long time. That's because
their founder was really focused on that he was in
this incredible emission driven guy started a company I think
in nineteen fifties as he was building washing and dryer,
(18:37):
he said, Hey, I'm doing this to free women so
that they have time to do something they want to do,
like read a block. Of course, that might be a
little bit offensive to say these days, but that was
the status the world around nineteen fifties, and we all
been in the fitter from those automated task specific technology
very much. You know, like I can't imagine living without
(18:58):
a dishwasher now. But now we live in the world
where those tax specific things are assisted by technology, and
we have tried to take on a lot more in
this world now, and you know, I think we're all
also getting mission driven and we want to contribute to society.
How do we even balance all of this has you know,
become quite a lot of um what people are thinking about.
(19:20):
On top of all of that, pandemic happened. I think
that pandemic has also highlighted some of the issues that
we're brewing brewing in the background. The pandemic of its
own was that home and work could not be balanced anymore.
Home and work blended in like you know, for me,
(19:41):
like four kids were doing zoom a how I was
doing zoom meetings at home and we're all in the
same space. That's when I thought, Okay, all the things
that has been a problem that has been amplified in
this time, is it just me? Did I go and staying?
But millions of people out there we're feeling the same thing. Women,
men just thanks for falling apart. Now women have quit
(20:06):
their job not by choice because they have to drop
something and they couldn't drop families, so they dropped work.
And technology has to be there to rescue all of
us somehow. Well to that point, can you tell us
a little bit about some of the technologies that you're
you're bringing to bear on this problem in the near future,
and maybe even some ideas about tech that might play
(20:29):
a larger role further down the line. Where I love
to go is a grandiest vision of putting hardware, software, AI,
humans all together in the end to end format to
help people in daily life, but especially things like elderly care.
You know, there are a lot of places where we
(20:51):
need to feel close to the family and then care
for family in a very different way from before. So
where do we start we start tackling on your to
do list, and when we look at the family to
do list, there are lots of different things. I put
them in three buckets. The first bucket is things that
just keep piling up, and that'd be nice if somebody
(21:12):
else who's on my shoulder and every day, who is saying, gotcha,
don't worry about it, I'll take care of it. You know.
That's something that we're starting to do. So that's one
type of two dousu mundane tasks. Second buckets have a
little more of the things that's probably in your to
do list for a long time that has never been cleared.
(21:32):
Maybe it is cleaning out the garage. Of course you
want to do it. You never somehow gets to the
point of clearing the garage, and that a team of
people who already know you can come and say, okay, well,
you know, let's decompose this problem to you know, easy ones.
Is it stinky? Is it you know? Is it on
(21:55):
the lit up? Really? Well, okay, so let's let me
send you a pro. Then, from my point of view,
I'll just get a very simple list of pros that
I can pick pick one. Schedule gets automatically made when
I have time, the pro shows up and then checks
out my garage and says, I has mildew eyes leaking
from here. Oh, you actually have termites. You gotta get
(22:16):
rid of all of those first pros come again at
a time that I can make it work. They come
and clean all those things. So those things, because I
have a partner who is just proactive reaching out, making
sure it's you know, in the form that I can
take care of, things are getting crossed off my to
do list because of it. So that's sort of the
second bucket of things that we can take care of.
(22:37):
But lastly, the most importantly, we are a well being
wellness company. We want to make sure that as you
manage your family, as you manage your life, that you're
taken care of, and often you don't put those things
there need to do list. What are those things? It
could be the day night with your husband just to
get a little bit of a break, or maybe even
(22:57):
descending flowers, gifting friends those things make you feel really happy.
We'll make sure that we are proactively thinking about you
and then your well being and maybe even community outreach
that maybe you've been wanting to feel part of the community.
So there are with different ways that we try to
make sure that you're you're preserved, you feel good, and
then you have time in those moments to contribute to
(23:19):
your family and to society. So I imagine in order
to get that level of understanding, you're depending both upon
the human beings who are working on behalf of these subscribers,
as well as probably some data analysis and machine learning
to start to anticipate things before they even become to
(23:42):
the level of a problem so that you can address
it and it never even takes up that mind space
that just weighs down on people day after day. Is
that more or less where you're you're kind of aiming
at with this this adventure. Yeah, So let me tell
you a little bit about what this product will feel like.
When you become a subscription member, what you get is
an onboarding call with a person who is going to
(24:04):
tell you a little bit about what the program is about,
and then also start to learn about who you are,
how can we work with you, what kind of things
are wine down on you. They will start taking on
some of the first tasks. You get an app where
you can chat, you can track tasks, and that then
you can move forward with a dedicated assistant, name your
(24:25):
assistant who you will know by first name basis that
you can start to chat with and then start to delegate. Now,
of course that person will start to get to know
you that you know, then you get to know them
and then learn this each other's style to start tackling
on different tasks that I mentioned. Um, so this is
pretty much how it works in terms of the nutshell
(24:45):
of the product. As you know, you may have lots
of things to offload to people and sometimes they're a
little bit of a nudge, a little bit of a
proactive reach that's required. Definitely sounds like a great go
old to have. Well, before we move on, I have
one another quick question, which is what is the best
(25:06):
piece of advice that you have ever received in your career? Okay,
so I keep revealing myself way too much, but here
I go. Um, I'm um introvert, I'm you know, often
not super confident by myself sometimes and so when I
(25:27):
was younger, I used to pretend to be dumb because
I wanted to be accepted as a girl. When I
was at m TEA in grad school, I used to
wear the hello my name is signed that you know,
you put as a sticker sometimes and I used to
say hello, my name is and I put air head.
This is second year in grad school at M I
T and then one of the most amazing institutions in
(25:48):
the world. And my professor pulled me on the side, Yoki,
I need to give you an advice because you wouldn't
go any further unless you change right now, he said,
snap out, You're not an airhead. You're at M I T.
Everybody already ceased through you, so stop it. That was
(26:09):
probably like twenty three years old. It took that long
for me to try to stop pretending trying to actually
hide behind something, and that was one of the best
advices that I've ever gotten. Since then, I have been trying.
I have been also a little bit more vulnerable. I've
been showing when I fail a little bit more. That
was something that I was scared to do too. As
(26:30):
long as I knew that, you know, I pretended to
not face it. I didn't have to because I didn't try,
so no big deal. But now suddenly I started trying
that The consequence was really scary. But at the same time,
the world suddenly opened up. And then that was by
far the best advice I've got. What a fantastic story.
I love that answer. Well, let's let's talk a bit
(26:53):
about emerging technology, something that you've been around for quite
some time. You've seen tons of different projects that are
all dedicated around technologies that are either emerging or maturing.
Which ones do you feel have the potential to to
provide the largest benefit in the in the fairly near future.
(27:17):
Even though I'm a technologist, I don't think technology first.
The way I think about it is there's no technology
around to help me as a mom, help me as
a family member, help me as a daughter, to be
better for my aging family and parents. I think that's
going to be the low hanging fruits. Quite a lot
of the technology used somewhere else, whether it's hardware, sensors, WiFi,
(27:40):
network to software AI, all those things. By using them right,
this can transform how people live at home. Lifestyle tech
maybe is the right terminology for it. I think that's
the emerging area that I'm interested in pushing, and I
think it's gonna be really exciting for the next cup decades.
I think what you're talking about, where we have these
(28:04):
various independent disciplines of technology starting to converge in specific areas.
And if we see that converge in say the lifestyle space,
I have a feeling like it will seem maybe five
years down the road, I'll look back at this and
think I was just on the precipice of living in
the future, just as I felt when smartphones started to
(28:25):
become a thing that now I had a computer in
my hand that got thit in my pocket, and I
lived in the future. Yeah, and let me even add
one more things, like I just want to I can
make it kind of more concrete. How we get older
and how we live after retirement, let's say, and how
we die. This all need to change. Then then a technology,
(28:46):
you know what I'm calling life type lifestyle tech should
be able to detect as you age, predict and make
things a little bit better, maybe have the right medication
to start earlier, to really live your life in better way.
But when it comes to caring instead of how from
the hospital, can we do that from home with technologies assistance,
(29:07):
where people in technology and hardware and an AI altogether
is caring for you in the right way so that
you can have that last ten through thirty years of
your life in the best way possible without worrying about
the kind of things that we currently have to worry about. Right,
being able to lean on technology to give people independence
and allow them that sense of agency and dignity. I
(29:32):
think that's a really worthy goal to strive for the
Internet of Things concept. I mean, I'm sure when you
were first getting into college, that was probably a buzz
word that maybe was being talked about a little bit,
But now it's reality. Do you see IoT playing a
larger role in our home lives and being part of
(29:53):
this system that helps us maintain our lives longer and
more comfortably within the home. Absolutely, I mean that's the
future that I want to be part of building and
living in. And you know, of course, as five G
technology comes in, I imagine the world to be a
lot more sensor oriented and also more privacy oriented. We
(30:17):
are able to do those things. As the network gets
faster and as the technology gets more enabled, we can
have edge computing thanks that can stay within your home
so that doesn't have to travel across for security reasons.
I think those things are within the reach now. You know,
from even from the health care perspective, it shouldn't be
this instant when you happen to being a doctor, and
then you happen to be reporting to a doctor about
(30:39):
what's wrong. But it should be that all the data
of your daily life, really that's the predictor of how
you're going to be. What you might you know, feel
bad about moving forward, what kind of illness you might get.
Those informations should be available to yourself, and then then
you should be, you know, deciding whether you want to
share that for you know, some value benefits that you
might get. But all those choices, all those possibilities are
(31:02):
coming because of the technology moving forward, and it's exciting
to see that all those technologies, even though they are
in different disciplines, are all maturing so quickly that we're
lucky that it's converging at this point. That to me,
as you were saying earlier in this episode about you know,
the technology being in the background, it's almost as if
(31:23):
you live in a magical house at that point that
is anticipating things, and it's working on your behalf and
solving problems, possibly before you even realize that there was
a problem to solve. Yes, yes, I love it. And
then I've been always imagining that house is not just
a roof in wall that shields you from the outside harshness.
(31:45):
It's going to have to protect you in a very
different way moving forward. Yes, agreed. And even as you
said before, like the idea of especially in the pandemic,
of trying to separate home and work, and how difficult
that was even before we were all staying at home.
It was hard. Now it's it feels like it's impossible.
(32:06):
It's going to be really important for us to have
the technologies that allow us to set up those boundaries
so that we can have both a satisfying work life
and a rich and valuable home life at the same time. Exactly,
I wasn't about to let Yoki go without asking her
(32:26):
one more thing. In your opinion, what do you think
is the most misunderstood technology. I actually think that AI
is misunderstood, and you know, there's a lot of advancement
and excitement, but incredible fear of what it could be.
(32:49):
It's going to take over human you know, intelligence, it's
going to rule the world. It made an incredible progress
of course since that, you know, the eighties and the nineties,
when you know the speed of things limited, ability to
collect data was limited, and now we look at and
put a massive amount of data to be able to
do a lot of you know, inference that we couldn't
(33:09):
do before. So it's true, it's make advancements. It's not
the fearful thing. It's just not there yet. So no
offense to anybody who's working on a machine learning and
an amazing advancement. And I know there's a lot of
effort of course to you know, surpass human intelligence, and
those things will push a lot of technology forward, but
I don't want people to be scared of it or
(33:31):
avoid it to the point that they're not benefiting. It's
not that time, Yogi. That was a great answer because
it reminds me of a couple of things. One is that,
like as you say, in very specific implementations, under very
specific circumstances, computers do phenomenal things at a level that
we humans just cannot do. But those are very specific
(33:55):
and humans the one of the amazing things about us
is that we are general purpose machines. We and do
lots of stuff, and computers typically, or machines or robots
typically can only do a subset of those things, and
sometimes not nearly as well as a human could. Yoki.
This has been a really inspiring conversation, and I am
(34:16):
so thankful to have had the opportunity to speak with
you today. Thank you for joining us. Oh my gosh,
it was so fun. Thank you. Let's do it again.
Yoki brought this up in our conversation, but it really
is worth driving home. We are currently in an environment
in which multiple technologies have matured in such a way
(34:39):
as to present incredible opportunities. And while Yoki and I
focused on ways that it will affect users and people
on an individual or maybe family unit basis, the same
can be said of businesses. The development of effective, powerful
and affordable sensors, the pairing of those sensors with transmitters,
and the underlying can nications networks that we have with
(35:01):
five G are going to enable world changing solutions. I
expect every major company in the world is looking at
how to leverage these technologies to deliver more value to
customers and to drive down costs of business and to
increase efficiency and productivity two untold levels. It's truly amazing
(35:22):
to see how the Internet of things, the speed of communication,
and our ability to collect and analyze data have all
reached incredible sophisticated levels. And have the potential for those
technologies to make a positive impact. I mean, it's impossible
to overstate how phenomenal this is. I can't wait to
hear how Johanna evolves over time and rolls out various
(35:45):
products in an effort to give us back the most
precious resource we have time. Please be sure to come
back and listen as we talk with more leaders in
the tech space to get their insight on future episodes
of The Restless Ones. I'm Oathan Strickland at T Mobile.
(36:06):
For business, unconventional thinking means we see things differently so
you can focus on what matters most. That's why we've
built America's largest, fastest five G network while remaining a
partner who delivers exceptional customer support and five G included
in every plan so you get it all. Unconventional thinking
is better for business. Fastest five G based on average
(36:27):
overall combined five G speeds according to Open Signal Awards
USA five G User Experience Report October one. See five
D device coverage and access details at T mobile dot com.
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