Entrepreneurship and Ethics in the Age of AI with Ahmed Reza

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Hello, and welcome to This anthroLife, a podcast about the little things
we do as people that shape thecourse of humanity. I'm your host,
Adam Gamwell. Have you ever consideredwhat it means to lead with humanity in
the age of AI? As peoplealive today, we are constantly learning how
to navigate an increasingly complex world,and in a world where technology is advancing

(00:24):
at such an exponential pace, itcan be easy to forget the importance of
human connection in both our personal andprofessional lives. Now, while that sounds
a little bit strange to say,think about it. Apps are sold to
consumers as ways to find dates andpartners, as ways to keep up with
friends and families at a distance,or as ways to find new like minded

(00:46):
communities. Now, indeed, thesethings do happen through these technologies. But
as you likely know or have heard, society is dealing with a lot of
unintended consequences of intense technical confusions throughthings like increasing mental health issues and young
girls boys, and a combination ofeuphoria and anxiety for workers whose jobs are

(01:06):
changing around automation and artificial intelligence.This represents the consumer side of the equation.
We might say on the podcast,We recently did an episode that looked
at the concept of modularity in softwaredevelopment, and modularity is the process of
breaking down complex development tasks into individualpieces with individual responsibilities. One of the
challenges that we found in this episodeis that a sense of responsibility for how

(01:30):
people or end users use the technologyis often divorced from the developers' perspective who
create the technology, because they're justworking on one small part of the overall
puzzle. So this represents, wemight say, the developer side of the
equation. Now, nobody in theirright mind would set out to design technologies
that actively harm people, polarize us, or make us feel worse, So

(01:53):
we could think about these as unintendedconsequences and as part of technology development.
I understand that sounds a bit crazyto say this day and age, but
hear me out. How can wealso keep an eye on the bigger picture
of what's happening at the business andsocietal levels. So a lot of these
challenges, it seems particularly important tobring in another part of the equation,
that is to peel back the curtainand also speak with the entrepreneurs and leaders

(02:15):
who are responsible for creating artificial intelligencetechnologies and deploying them in the world.
So we're tackling some big questions ontoday's episode. What role do entrepreneurs and
business people play in the development anddeployment of artificial intelligence technologies in society today?
And how can we create responsibility andaccountability when we have unintended consequences?

(02:38):
Further, what does it look liketo create technology leaders in leadership who don't
simply over index on STEM fields thatis, science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics, but who also keepthe well being of humanity firmly at the
center of their ethical compass. NowI don't mean to hit on STEM fields.
We need them obviously very much.But the other question here is how

(02:59):
do we consider instantly wide in theApple shirt, not just think about technology
as an engineering problem or aspects ofhumanity as something to quote unquote solve for.
In other words, how do weunderstand what motivates founders, investors,
and business leaders to keep humanity atthe center of their stories, not just
technology. So in this episode ofThis Anthra Life, we explore these questions

(03:20):
and more with special guest Ahmed Raisa. Ahmed is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor
who has founded multiple successful companies.He has a background working for NASA,
the Department of Defense, and variousstartups where he honed his skills in AI
and entrepreneurship. This led him tocreate Yobi, an app that uses natural
language understanding to take advanced business applicationsto break them down into simple conversations and

(03:43):
automations. But beyond his diverse businessexperiences, Ahmed draws on his life experiences
of growing up as a child actorin Bangladesh, immigrating to the United States,
and opening his first shop in amall all homeless in effort to fund
his computer science education at Cornell.Of these experiences highlight for him the importance
of humility and a recognizing change asa part of existence that is not assuming

(04:06):
that things will always be the same. And as we'll see, this is
a perspective that is relevant about theentrepreneurship and AI. Such experiences also importantly
play into Raises philosophy when it comesto what it means to be a leader
in the AI and tech industry today. He emphasizes the importance of identity beyond
one's profession as a way to reflecton the impact of technology on human existence,

(04:30):
asking ultimately what kind of world dowe want to leave for our children.
Ahmed also emphasizes the need for entrepreneurshipto contribute to society in a meaningful
way and for regulations to deal withthose who may not be thinking straight or
using AI as a tool for harm. This represents a shift in business thinking
for many, and Raises sees thisadaptive mindset as a necessary avenue for all

(04:51):
of us, but especially tech leadersin this case, to reframe successes doing
something great for humanity and building ameaningful exist that elevates the human experience,
not simply increases material success or technologicaloutput. So I'm really excited to share
this conversation with you. There's aton here. We'll jump right into ahmed
story after these messages from today's sponsor. Awesome, i'med super excited to have

(05:18):
you on the podcast today. Thanksfor joining me here on this Anthra life.
Hey, thank you so much forhaving me on Adam right on and
today. You know, we're excitedbecause we're gonna we're gonna kind of get
into the lovely weeds here around.I think AI and ethics and kind of
see where where the future might betaking us. And so I think you're
you're in a really great position withthe companies that you've founded, set up

(05:38):
run as well as you're really interriningbackground that I want to dig into that.
I'm curious how shaping your approach tothe world today, and so you
know, from your both global perspectivethat you're bringing to the table as well
as your business acumen and the technologyyou've worked on, Like, there's a
lot of really good angles that wecould explore. Something that struck me though,
when I was you know, firstkind of you're put on my radar
is that you've been known as theintelligent man's Forrest Gump. I was,

(06:01):
I'm not sure what that means.So I'm curious to hear a little bit
about that idea, Like what doesthat mean? What does that mean to
you? How that nickname come about? That was kind of interesting because the
way I look at it, youknow, just the way I frame life
is I feel like I've been oneof the luckiest people alive. I've had
a lot of different journeys in life. Early on, I had a career
as a child actor in Bangladesh andalso as a recording artist, and that

(06:27):
was a very interesting worldview and beingborn when I was born, and dating
myself right growing up in the lateeighties in Bangladesh, watching famine and actually
looking at the anxieties from back then, then becoming an immigrant coming to the
United States, being pretty destitute whileI was here, I was on the
streets of New York, he droppedout of school, had to be selling

(06:49):
books on the street, and Iwas able to make it back into school,
and that gave me a kind ofdetermination and grit that in retrospect was
much neat. There's nothing quite asmotivating as not wanting to clean up poop
for the rest of your life,and so folks have to do that or
you know, I understand that.You know, in life, circumstances happened

(07:11):
that are beyond your control. Soone of those people like I look at
life, I look at the journey, and if I told you about my
life, you probably wouldn't believe it. And I feel very fortunate been in
these different circumstances, the hard ones, the great ones. You know.
I'm kind of stumbled into this positionat NASA when I was also another difficult

(07:34):
spot in my life, and thatturned out to be one of the best
experiences of my life and then wenton, you know, just being a
tech geek. Always been a geekat heart. I've always been tinkering,
always figuring things out, really excitedabout technology and the promise that it holds.
So I think during one of myearlier podcasts, you know, they

(07:56):
were like dubbed me the intelligent Man'sForrest Gump in that my worldview is one
where I fully appreciate the luck thatI've had along with the hard work,
along with you know, the privilegethat I've had as well. That's incredible
too, and I mean just tohear that the story too, in terms
of moving across the world, youknow, dealing with issues of homelessness,

(08:18):
the challenges that comes at that,like the building an entrepreneur mindset out of
that. But also, I mean, I'm curious to you your child actor.
You know, that's an interesting kindof role as well that I guess
it's curious, like what sparked thatidea? You know, I'm curious how
acting might come up throughout our conversation, if if it's something that's still in
your mind, but how did thathappen? So I took singing lessons as
a child. My mom was veryadamant about, you know, having a

(08:41):
very structured upbringing, so singing lessonsart and you know, I had to
excel in math. So I hada relatively privilege upbringing being and probably an
upper crowd crust of Babladeshi society.And it was through through like a singing

(09:01):
gig at TV and for me asa little kid, that was just exciting,
right, And one of the producersspotted me and asked my mom if
I'd like to act, and mymom was like, oh, he has
no acting experience. Like their kids, they're fine. That's all they can
do is like, let's tell themthat they're going to play pretend. I
never had any formal acting lessons untilwell into well into my acting career there,

(09:24):
and yeah, it just sort ofhappened. But what was really interesting
was, of course it was veryfascinating as a kid, and what was
different was, you know, whenpeople start recognizing you on the streets and
you know, people want your autograph. That was a little odd and made
me realize, you know, fameisn't all that it's cracked up to be.
It's it's nice, but it alsohas us downsides. Right, people

(09:46):
assume you are somebody before they reallyget to know you, right, And
that's that's something I think I empathizedwith well known actors for like it can
actually make it difficult to make humanconnections. Like human connections are really important
in life because subsequently, when Iwas in the United States, like nobody

(10:07):
knew who the heck I was.My command of English wasn't that great.
So ended up finding myself in thisplace where I'm asking, like I don't
deserve this, Like what's going on? Right? It's like why do I
have to do these odd jobs andthese other things, and then realizing that's
the reality of the world. Thereality of the world is, you know,
it's survival of the fittest. Nobodydeserves anything, and wherever you are,

(10:31):
you got to think fast on yourfeet, understand your situation, make
the best out of it. Andit's always important to stay humble. And
I think all of those experiences thathave helped me become a better entrepreneur and
a better leader, knowing that don'ttake things for granted, don't let things
get to your head, and reallyget a good grasp of reality, get

(10:54):
reality right, because it's easy tolose yourself in the moment, or in
your society or in your city.But all of those things that we think
of as very very permanent and stableand unchanging in the world isn't as permanent
or as stable or as unchanging well, which is why initially if you meet

(11:15):
me and you work with me,you're like, I'm as a little paranoid
maybe right, But you know,during COVID, I think I ended up
getting more people in my tribe becausethey realize when the world moves, shifts
beneath your feet, you know,guys like me have an unfair advantage for
having had that happened to them before. That's a really interesting perspective, and
I think that this oftentimes, Yeah, people can get wrapped up in their

(11:39):
own head, their own story,right and not kind of think out.
They go outside of that, andso they get comfortable, right, and
kind of then if something can comeeither blindside them, it may have been
you know, other people may haveseen that it's coming because that's just either
changes on the way or they werepaying attention differently. Also in the way
that you're you're kind of describing thistoo, that recognizing that so much change
is part of our existence, right, and so we shouldn't just assume things

(12:01):
will be just just one way allthe time. I think that's really interesting
perspective actually to bring into conversation withentrepreneurship too, and as you building your
own entrepreneurial journey, which is buildingus, you know, towards the question
of AI, which at the againis also this interesting question because we're at
this precipice of change right in termsof how humanity will adapt, you know,
what will societies look like in thenext five ten years and beyond obviously

(12:24):
then just that you know, andand it's funny too because even thinking about
the questions of where is AI todayand you know, where where will it
go? And then how do wethink about that that question and opportunities of
change that are that are ahead ofus. So I appreciate the way you've
kind of opened this this kind ofconversation about what do opportunities mean and how
do we think about them and kindof not be blind to just where where
we're sitting, and so keep thinkingabout that. Like in you in your

(12:46):
own story, you know, youhave worked in a lot of different kinds
of technologies, a lot of differentindustries. I mean, you know you
mentioned NASA so far the score thatyou've done, You've worked in multiple ventures
also, so I'm kind of curiousto get your perspective and in this thought
too that you know, I know, hindsight's twenty twenty, but just thinking
about as we're moving through this,you know, what was the kind of
vision that was that was evolving foryou in terms of what you're looking for?

(13:07):
What kind of technology were you drawnto, a kind of businesses were
you drawn to, and how didyou how did that kind of perspective come
together across and across time for you? That brings us to today. It's
been a it's been a windy journey. Like being an immigrant, you know,
believe it or not, startups werenever a thing, right, Like
even imagining myself as an entrepreneur wasnot in my mental frame. I've always

(13:31):
kind of been an entrepreneur at heart, I guess. So through college.
I actually opened my very first storeat the Ethica Mall, and it was
a result of just being really brokeand Ryeah. Here I am going to
this Ivy League college full scholarship.You know, I should be really grateful,
and I couldn't relate to most ofmy peers because their situation was very

(13:52):
different from mine. I had totake care of my family, and how
do I take care of my familyand you know, pay the bills and
go to school, even even ona full scholarship, right on average,
you have to make around thirty thousanddollars a year to at least take care
of your expenses. Like I wastaking care of my mom at the time,
and entrepreneurship was just like the onlything that worked. So I opened

(14:15):
a store in the mall, youknow, learned about retail businesses, you
know, and I remember, inthree months, made more money than I
would have made in the three jobsthat I had before. So I was
working three jobs while going to college. Cornell is known for being pretty difficult,
especially in computer science. Then Iwas struggling with that. And then
once I opened this little store atthe mall the recommendation of a friend who

(14:39):
knew about the incense of an oilbusiness. Like I knew nothing about incenses,
right, but you know, nowI could look back think about it,
ethica. You know, lots offolks that like incenses, right,
And it started, it became alittle bit of a phenomenon in town.
So I got to know more peoplemade my first hire, learned how to
make better hires, right, Soall these things that it didn't come from

(15:03):
a place of, hey, Iwant to be an entrepreneur, came from
a place of I'd like to notbe broke. And then I also learned
about failure. And I think that'sthat's really important to highlight, is the
failures really shape you into who youare, who you become, right,
how do you handle those failures?They will eventually come right. So everything's
looking great and then nine to elevenhappens, and then right after that,

(15:24):
just the stock market crashes. Everythinggoes to hell in a handbasket, and
the business ends up folding. Andthis was my first I still have some
incense holders left over in the garage, and I'm talking like, you know,
for twenty years ago. Apparently thensense holders are good quality, it's
good product. Yeah, that waslike my first entrepreneurial experience. And I

(15:48):
didn't tell most people about it becauseI was afraid of being judged. Right,
They'd be like, Oh, Ithought you were an engineer. I
thought you were smart. So theNASA job was actually because I was going
to drop out of school because Ididn't couldn't figure out how am I going
to still pay for home and youknow, go to school, So I'm
going to have to drop out goget a job at like a regular grocery
store. And I actually had awork study job working for Space Sciences at

(16:11):
Cornell, And when I went toquit the job, they were like,
oh, you're quitting, but you'redoing a great job, right, You've
done this thing that several PhDs gaveup on, mainly because you know,
if you don't know what the heckyou're walking into, you don't have preconceived
notions of how things should be built. So I went back to first principles
and just as a programmer, liketried attacking the problem differently. That ended
up leading into my NASA job whichI was one of the youngest engineers on

(16:34):
the Spitzer Spased Health Scope project,did the image processing pipeline. It was
just so much fun, right,like you like really geek out, get
to work in like particle accelerators thatwere bombarding the detectors and figuring out how
cosmic rays work, right, howalpha rays affect the detectors, so really

(16:55):
enjoying that. Then suddenly got anopportunity in Florida after at working for the
DoD and that's where I really gotto work on AI stuff. And at
Cornell I was part of the DarkerGrand Challenge, which eventually led to self
driving cars. So I guess myfirst four a into into the AI space,
very nascent AI space, was withthe Darper Grand Challenge. And then

(17:18):
my professional experience was doing some workfor the DoD creating some pretty rudimentary AI
for unminerial vehicles to avoid them gettingshot down. And then just decided I
wanted to do something a little lessserious. You know, this was like
pretty pretty serious stuff, right,And I'm in Florida at this point,
and I joined a startup and itwas just so much fun. It was
just I didn't want to leave work. I couldn't believe I got paid to

(17:41):
do this, right, It's likethis is the kind of stuff that i'd
do for free. And then youhave like all the soda you can drink,
like the best startups have this calledit, right, Like you just
want to stay there. Right.People don't understand this, you know they
talk about Google giving you massages andlaundry service on site. There's a reason
they do all of that, right, The reason they do that is a
few want excellence. You want peopleto stay in the zone as long as

(18:03):
as possible. Right. I rememberthe CEO used to have to come and
kick us out of the building becausethey were like, you guys have worked
too long. Right, So nowadaysyou read about all the people who just
don't want to go into work,like we don't want to leave work.
Yeah, that startup did really well, and through the two thousand and eight
crash, I ended up joining anotherstartup and another startup, and all of
them did really well, you know, and I did really well. And

(18:26):
that's where you know, it wasn'tlike a pre planned thing, but I
knew like this is for me.And when I wanted to start like my
own thing I built. I builtthis company called Dental Web Now, which
was also like I got super luckybecause I'm here. I am you know,
I can do space light systems,I can do all this really fancy
stuff. But it's like who wantsto buy AI by the pound? Right,

(18:49):
So like nobody wants to buy AIby the vout. So I'm hanging
out with a friend of mine who'sa dentist and he has a three thousand
dollars check on his desk for YellowPages, and I was just really offended
as a keek. I was justlike, wtf, dude, right,
and he's like, yeah, threethousand dollars a month, they give me
patience, and I actually spent sixthousand dollars a month on my marketing.
So initially it started out with I'mgoing to prove to him that he's a

(19:11):
complete, you know, completely horribleperson for destroying the environment and you know,
so I rolled a call tracking systemusing Asterisk to figure out which one
of those marketing campaigns were getting himthe calls and which one of them were
getting him the patients. So weafter three months, we recorded over a
thousand calls. Fifty six of thosecalls were from the Yellow Pages, So

(19:33):
it was definitively like answered that theYellow Pages was actually not working and that
his AdWords were doing a much betterjob, and that his Google Organic was
doing great. So I go backto him and I'm like, ha ha,
look at this. You can't sayno to data. He's a smart
guy. He's like, yeah,I can't say no to data, and
you'll be my marketer from now on, to which I was extremely offended.

(19:53):
You know, I was like,how dare you call me a marketer?
Right? Do you know what Ido? Right? That he goes,
I'll give you the sixth grandom one. So I guess the inner entrepreneur in
me was like, what if Iwent online, hired somebody, showed them
what I did, and just makethem do this like relatively brainless work on
optimizing customer acquisition costs. And thatturned out to be a multimillion dollar business

(20:18):
that I bootstrapped, smart Move.Smart Move. I didn't even name that
company, right, so this islike really basic machine learning stuff, right.
It was named by one of thefolks that I hired, Judy,
and Judy still works with me todayand my new startup, right, So
I've been very fortunate to have amazingpeople around me. So it was Chris
and Judy, And Chris was thefirst one to point out to me that

(20:40):
as I was looking for startup ideasthat other people might call a business with
revenues and growing customers a company.I remember the exact conversation and feeling like,
Yeah, I think you're right.Maybe I'm letting my ego get in
the way and not accepting the moneyat the universe is throwing my way.

(21:03):
So I ended up selling that companyin twenty eighteen, and that exit turned
out to be better than many siliconvalue outcomes. Became a private equity investor
for a little while, and youknow, finally got to sit back look
at the drawing board. Here wewere helping dentists make an extra four hundred
thousand dollars a year on average,and the key insight was figuring out customer

(21:23):
acquisition cost, applying really basic machinelearning to a problem and using that as
an advantage. And I thought tomyself, man, we're just capturing a
fraction of the conversations. If youcould capture all the conversations, and we
could really build a brain in thecloud that had access to your businesses data,

(21:44):
that had access to your business conversations, we could really supercharge businesses in
ways that they haven't really fathomed.And by the end of twenty eighteen,
the Watson era had come and gone. Right, there was the hype cycle
or I know, my god,Watson's self aware, you know, just
be jeopardy. And like, that'swhy I'm a little bit wary of hype

(22:06):
cycles, because when hype cycles end, some people tend to throw the baby
out with the bathwater. AI hasa real serious substance. Even traditional AI
has a real serious substance, thefact that Transformers have been transformative. Excuse
the dad joke. Hey, sothe Transformers came out and there's all this

(22:26):
change happening. I look at that, and this is going to be something
like this is the best time tobuild that brain in cloud, and I
think I know how I can deliverit. So the big challenge I've been
working on was actually how do Ideliver in AI in a non threatening way,
Because whenever you say AI, peopleautomatically assume like terminator, right.

(22:47):
They don't assume like humble things likeyour I robot or other things that make
your life better, right, likeyour course transmission has AI in it,
right, self driving cars of AIin it. Right. So there's a
lot of potential there. And thenluckily enough chat GPT comes along and makes
that problem even easier for us.So now instead of us trying to tell

(23:07):
people, hey, you want totry to use this platform called YOB,
which brings together all over your communicationsand brings your team members. By the
way, we have an additional teammember named Bob that can clone your voice
that can answer that can literally likeyou wish you could duplicate yourself as an
entrepreneur, Like, that's literally whatI've done. I have a digital clone

(23:29):
sounds exactly like me and is ableto interact at a superhuman level. Right,
so I can carry on seven hundredphone conversations at the same time if
I wanted to, or text conversation, I can nurture relationships. Right,
blind spots that a normal human wouldmiss, a normal team of humans would
miss, are no longer a blindspot. It's like having a superpower.
And we've built this app. Weinvested into building an app that works on

(23:53):
every platform, that makes it supereasy and intuitive, and you now talked
to the machine a natural language,which is actually a mind boggling innovation,
because the user interfaces in advanced businessapplications start to become really confusing. And
the way that we went about solvingit is by simplifying it with how people

(24:15):
naturally talk to each other or howyou would naturally manage a business, where
you would ask your assistant, Hey, can you go schedule this interview from
you this podcast for me? Youknow, get me a summary of what
happens before the podcast afterwards, youknow, remember to thank Adam. Now
all of those things can happen,and I can do more of the in
depth conversations. The more human partof me can now be leveraged for my

(24:41):
own fulfillment for making better business,better business decisions. So we're getting into
this very exciting new world. Nowthat is super exciting. I just want
to check I'm talking to a humanright now. Right, You're not that
good as as a clone, areyou. I don't know if you've been
following me. So we actually dida fully I generated podcast with me and

(25:03):
an AI host. I have notheard that yet. No. Yeah.
I sent it to my mom andshe goes, that's a great podcast.
When were you on? I waslike, Mom, I expected you to
know that that wasn't me. Ifyou pay close attention, you can tell
that it's not me. But itis surprisingly surprisingly good, and I think
it's just a new medium, justlike videos were a new medium, and

(25:26):
if you were the first person watchingthat train coming towards you in a theater,
you'd be like, oh my god, that's an effing train coming towards
me. But today we watch moviesall the time. They evoke emotions,
they do all of these things,right, but you never see a picture
or a video of your great grandfatherand you're not confused that they're alive.
They're not. It's just a differentmedium. By the way, I'll just

(25:48):
have my synthetic agents say hello toyou. Hi, I'm am Azyobi,
a synthetic agent trained on his personaldata and communications. That sounds right on.
Yeah, it's pretty close, right, and it allows me to interact
and be more of the kind ofCEO that i'd like to be. You
know, a lot of times,you know, you probably find yourself repeating

(26:11):
the same information pitching again and againand again. Right, all those instances
where in the back of your headyou thought, man, I really wish
I could teach that next sales agentto just be like me or just to
learn from what I have. Well, guess what, AI is that intern
that sales agent that can actually helpdo that. Those memorized things, those
things that you just go on autopilot, right, You can now hit the

(26:33):
autopilot button on Yobi and let ittake over a lot of those conversations.
It doesn't mean you're not having theconversation still on your behalf, right,
just that that's totally possible and liveat a different kind of scale too.
Yeah, that you can now,as you said, talk to seven hundred
people at the same time, whichis really really interesting in terms of like
moderated or moderated interviews I suppose,or you know, a call center calls.

(26:56):
I mean, I think there's somethingelse you said it's really interesting there
too, is that like there isthe there's a lot of the mundane tasks
that like just take a bunch oftime, right, And so the value
there too is this notion that yousort of kind of freeing up more of
the human side of ourselves. Right. I think this is an interesting question
because as AI gets more embedded inour in our businesses and in our everyday

(27:17):
lives, you know, there isobviously like some level of concern and fear
that you know, either I'll losemy job or that I will get replaced
somehow. But I think this isan interesting question too that on one level,
there's things that AI can't replace orwon't at least at least can't for
now replace or won't replace. Butthen I think also I question this narrative
to because a lot of people kindof talk about this replacement narrative and it's

(27:37):
it's I'm kind of thinking about this, and I'm curious your thoughts in terms
of, you know, why dowe have that perspective versus it frees uself
to do other things right that itkind of offers some different kinds of affordances
of what we might be able todo and like free that up. So
so I'm curious that we see thatback and forth a lot. So how
do you how do you kind ofsee those those sides of the coin.
So the fear of loss is amuch greater motivator than like looking at what

(28:00):
you could gain as an entrepreneur.That's been my unfair advantage the like I
just couldn't believe that there wouldn't beso many more people competing with me on
the tech that I built in thelast company. I just was like,
there's no way, Right, nobodybuilt a competing company in like years,
and it was relatively trivial to build. And one of the reasons that happens

(28:23):
is because a lot of people willsecond guess and they're like, what if
this and what if that? Right, So oftentimes entrepreneurs are the ones.
Yes, they take risks, butthey're calculated risks, right, the difference
between just straight up gambling and risktaking. And in that mindset, yes,
the fears are real. I don'twant to dismiss them and say there
are no fears. Right with everytechnology, you can use it for good,

(28:45):
and you could use it for reallyActually, there's three kinds of things,
right. There's the good. Thenthere's like terminator, which I think
is a little bit overblown and it'smore sensational. But then there is the
benign evil that I think requires deeperthought, things that unintentionally happen. And

(29:06):
we've seen this with the advent ofWeb two point zero, where we never
built social media to create divisiveness,yet that became an immersion phenomenon of rather
not so smart AI right, whereyou just told it, hey, get
me more attention, get me moreusers. So okay, great, here's

(29:27):
this thing that induces dopamine hits.So your phone's dinging all the time.
You'll notice that my phone's not ding. I turn notifications off. My synthetic
agent handles a lot of those forme. If it's really important, then
it bubbles up to me, right, if it really requires my attention,
it bubbles up to me so justnot living in a constant, constant state

(29:48):
of like getting hit in the head. It's kind of an unfair advantage in
today's world. And that's not whatany of the technologists set out to build.
Like Johnny I was giving an interviewaround the iPhone. When they were
building the iPhone, they really wantedthe technology to give access to many more
people. And I think AI isgoing to allow us that step function increase

(30:08):
in giving access to more people.Right, it just removes one more step
from getting to technology. But wehave to be careful and we have to
be thoughtful about how do we buildthis thing out? What is the impact?
What are the social impacts of whatwe're building? Because to just handwave
it and say, well that's nota big deal, you know, go

(30:30):
ask the go ask the creators ofsome of the biggest, biggest companies that
we have today. They're concerned becausethey're good human beings. I'm fortunate enough
to know many of them, allright, And at the end of the
day, we are human. Wewant to build things that, you know,
elevate that increase for everyone. Right. I haven't talked to us single
entrepreneur who is just like, oh, it's just for the money. Now,

(30:51):
almost every entrepreneur looks at their workas a creative act where it's part
of their legacy, and nobody wantsto build something that has negative effects on
humanity. That is never the intention. But when that does end up happening
in an unintended way, it's importantto pause and reflect and when you're looking
forward, go what am I doingtoday that could have those kinds of unint

(31:14):
unintended consequences. So at from avery early stage, we took anti spam
very very seriously. We go aboveand beyond for a company our size to
make sure that our technology isn't abused, that the folks that use our technology
use the way that it was intendedand that it is. It's extremely powerful.

(31:37):
They understand it, they understand thatyou have to train it. They
understand that it can empower businesses.That's what we're trying to do. We
don't focus heavily on the personal use, right. We discourage personal usage actually
because this is not conversation that youwould want to be having, like where
you're fighting with someone or your girlfriendor whoever, right, likeobe is not

(31:59):
the place to do it. Like, let's not necessarily where you want your
synthetic agent, you know, going, yes, I now know how to
cross up people. Uh no,if anything in a business context, I
want to come across as professional.And if I am getting really emotional,
I would ideally like my partners,my colleagues, even my AI colleagues to

(32:19):
tell I'm at to stop, takea deep breath. Are you sure you
want to say this? How aboutwe rephrase it like this? Right?
That's sort of that's sort of theway that we're purposely building out our app.
Now, that's really helpful. Iwas actually talking to some some friends
last night about this, this kindof question that I agree with you that
the terminator scenario is a bit overblown, and so you know, why why
are we not telling more stories aboutit? Because if AI is trainable,

(32:44):
right, and if if we're pridingdata sets and we're training it with with
the material that we're that we're givingit, why not have it be able
to step in and help talk usdown from a overly divisive scenario or a
fight, right and site Well,actually, you know, I know you
you want to yell right now,but you know whatever, psyclos but principle
AB and C would suggest that it'seither like more like better to do this,
or like you're you're gonna feel badabout this tomorrow, I promise.

(33:04):
So like, let's let's just let'snot yell right now. So it's funny.
Alexis honey, and somebody I deeplyrespect, the founder of Reddit,
pointed out that the algorithms don't necessarilypromote nuanced discussion. It promotes things that
are extreme, right, And Iunderstand this fully well, And that's why

(33:28):
I say, we're having this discussionabout AI in AI in a very AI
dominated world already, right, Like, so I would have to say something
extreme. It doesn't actually understand I'msaying something extreme. What it says is
like, oh, Ahmed did likea funny face, or he did something

(33:49):
that elicited a reaction. Let's justoptimize that, right, interesting, Yeah,
And that's why if I say terminatedor a bunch of times, and
if I make scary faces, youknow, if I say, oh my
god, it's all going to end, right, the algorithm will just zoom
in and optimize on that. Andas somebody who builds algorithms, I understand
the silliness of it, right,But that's where I think it's important to

(34:13):
know the other humans here in SiliconValley and beyond who are building this,
who are very human, who understandwhat's happening, and who also understand the
limitations of the current state of AI. And I think that's where the concern
also comes from from them, iswell, can we put our greed aside
a bit and make sure we aretaking responsible steps forward. I don't think

(34:37):
I've heard any disagreement. I don'tthink I've heard anybody say, oh,
forget responsibility, let's just go fullsteam ahead and come what may. And
I think this is the time toreally look inwards, because the AI should
allow us to reflect on our humanity, Like what's it done? What's it
done for you for the last tenyears, for twenty years? There's good
stuff, and then there's stuff thatyou could do without, right, the

(34:59):
constant thing you can probably do withoutthe good stuff, like self driving.
It's really amazing AI. Like myRoomba is my favorite robot. There's AI
around us that's that's already like makingthis call a little bit better, transcribbing
and assisting us. Right, Sojust extrapolate that forward now that you can
talk to the machine. The issuegoing forward isn't the technology, it is

(35:21):
the humans behind the technology. Soit is it behooves us humans to think
about what does it mean to behuman? What is my legacy going to
be? The saving grace of AIis the fact that the people building I
have kids, right, and right, like, what is the world you
want to leave your children? Right? Yes, you have an incredible amount

(35:42):
of power in your hands, youknow, And there's the same spider man.
With great power comes great responsibility.That's I mean, that's that's a
really fascinating perspective too, because oftentimeswe think about the development of AI tools,
right, and even silicon value too. I think, like here,
I think you're right onto most peoplewill jump to web two examples, right
with social media and just sort ofthe development of that and like the rise

(36:05):
of divisiveness. But then as wethink about, you know, okay,
what could something like chat GPT asan as an easy access point for for
most you know, end consumers organon on the B to B side,
Um, if we're using Yobi orsomething else for for you know, call
center data or you know, thedifferent different sets of of interacting with different
businesses. Who's making it on theother side and that's a really interesting question

(36:25):
to kind of say, I lovethis idea of the saving graces is actually
because developers have kids. You know, the CEO is the the C suite
of the folks building the businesses havekids. It's important too because you're right
because we sometimes also forget in theconversations that like it isn't hopefully the people
versus the machines, but it's likeit's sometimes us verst ourselves and how do
we then ask question about what kindof world do we want to want to

(36:46):
build in? So I'm curious aboutsomething you said in there in terms of
a you know ideally has the capacityto help us reflect on on our humanity,
what it means, what it meansto be human. You know,
how can we help people do that, like either through through business, through
you know, consumer technology, throughthrough B to B technology. What are
some of the ways that we canwe can do that? I mean,
is this one of these like here'sa great prompt for jet DBT that we

(37:06):
should put on YouTube? Or arethere kind of other other ways we might
kind of plug in and think aboutlike how do we get folks to do
that so we're actually not yelling ateach other with our dopamine hits from from
you know, Facebook, telling usthat we're all super different and actually enemies.
Right uh. And that's that's thefunny part is as I travel around
the world, I realize there's alittle bit of a monoculture. Right.

(37:27):
The world that I was born intois very different. Like I remember growing
up, nobody asked each other whatthey did. That was one of the
really odd things when I emigrated tothe United States. There was this you
know, what do you do?And we also have to ask ourselves that
you know, you're at them?Right? And if you really ask yourself,
who's atam? Are you a Areyou an entrepreneur? A podcast host?

(37:49):
Is that all you are? Andthe reality is that's not all you
are? Ask anybody who loves you, Ask any any family member, right,
they love you just bite the worksand maybe because of it, right,
because because of some little defect thatthey find adorable that they find to
be you. Right, I havea lot of them, Lord knows,
I have a lot of them.And I'm so grateful to have friends and
to have family who appreciate the nonperfect version of me, right, being

(38:15):
like I eat my own dog food, right, So I've been testing this
stuff since waiting for most people.Right, So I've asked myself, well,
here's this technology that's a better salespersonthan me, it's more vigilant,
doesn't have to sleep, doesn't haveto you know, eat. What does
that make me? Well, thatstill makes me me, right, I

(38:35):
still am this ephemeral being going tohave a very limited time on this earth.
And my reality is very different fromthe reality of this thing that runs
on GPUs. Right, it's agreat salesperson. It's a great tool,
right, And yes, we endup being tools. Like back in the
day before the Industrial Revolution, alot of the work was an immanual and

(38:55):
maybe you got some sense of identityfrom that. And when that changed,
and that when these machines came about, Right, what did we do.
We started building skyscrapers, We startedbuilding these cities. I mean, if
you look at the world, yousee human creativity in you know, on
display. You go to a newcity and you look at this, you

(39:16):
realize like, wow, this isso crazy. Like in the last one
hundred and fifty years, all thesetechnological changes have come about so insanely rapidly,
right, because our brain, likeyou watch our movie. The emotions
you feel are very real, man, Right, the emotions that you feel
are very real. All of thisstuff did not exist, right, Like

(39:36):
being able to communicate in this way. Right, If I told you back
in I don't know, two hundredyears ago, saying that I'm talking to
somebody on the other side of theworld, I'd get into institutionalized. Now
that's very real, but it's it'samplifying our voices, our dreams, and
that's how I look at any newtechnology that's coming about. Right. It

(39:57):
requires us to really look inwards alsobecause in addition to amplifying, like the
results of industrialization, you could alsoargue, you know, nothing as catastrophic
as World War One World War twoever happened in human history before. Right,
So we have to look at history. We have to understand us and
understand what does it look like forus going forward. Tomi Monsari has a

(40:22):
very interesting book called The History ofUs where he tries to weave together a
history of the world as it istoday, which is very multicultural. Borders
are not quite like they used tobe. Right. Everybody's from somewhere and
going somewhere, right, and we'rerealizing the common shared humanity for everybody.

(40:45):
So that book it just made areally interesting impression on me because we often
look at the history of Europe andthe history of Asia, and you'll walk
around New York City. Man,it's like, this is the history of
us. How do we go forward? Do we build something wonderful, something
utopian? Like Star Trek. I'ma vague Star Trek fan, Right,

(41:07):
that's what the green screenhousing is like. The come into the transporter room,
solid deck over there. Yeah,right, and you'd be surprised, Like
you see a Star Trek fan fromKorea or from the Middle East, and
you realize you have more in commonwith that Star Trek fan than you realized.
Right, you can instantly bond andbuild human connections almost anywhere. So
we could have this world that's objectivelybetter, where people get to live more

(41:30):
meaningful lives because the machines are ableto allow us to achieve more productivity than
we've ever thought before. The citiesare evidence of that. Our world currently
is evidence of the productivity that we'vebeen able to achieve, like even feeding
eight billion people on Earth, Likepeople in the eighties did not think that
that was going to be possible.They thought that they would be massed oarvation,

(41:52):
people would be dying off, right, But thanks to some geeks somewhere
in a lab, right working onfood science something not very sexy, right,
Like when was the last time we'relike, oh, food science,
that's where it's at, But thatreally was where it was at, right,
literally feeding us all like so muchso that we have a bit of
an obesity epidemic. Right. Imaginetelling somebody like thirty years ago forty oh

(42:14):
my god, I'm fifty years ago. Okay, fifty years ago, like
we're gonna have an obesity epidemic andwe're gonna have eight billion people on planet
Earth. They'd be like, thatdoesn't make any sense, right, So
if you look forward, I thinkthose are things that we really should talk
about, is like, what dowe do and we all have a little
too much? How do we livemeaningful lives? How do we make sure

(42:35):
that we're healthy or happy and don'tgo back into the things that cause the
Great Wars. We're going to takea quick break. Just wanted to let
you know that we're running ads tosupport the show down. We'll be right
back. I think that that's areally interesting point that at this again,

(42:58):
this like interesting precipice, just challengingone that you're right, we have the
capacity to feed eight billion people,we have the capacity to stop ourselves from
from getting into unnecessary wars. ButI think, you know, I mean,
part of it raises the questions ofincentives, like how do we help
those uh I don't have helps theright term help those in power or two
then make more we say ethical decisions. I mean, as an interesting fulcrum,

(43:22):
I think you know, both thetechnology and a lever that you know
certain people can pull in the questionis like, you know, who has
access to to kind of both buildand then pull those levers of power,
and what does AI afford in thatcase? And then I think you're on
the right one hand, totally rightthat like we need to be able to
look at our history and ask thesethese questions and say who are we had
to we get here? And likehow do we we narrowly avoid a nuclear

(43:43):
war? You know? And Imean obviously Japan was not able to you
know, in terms of the US, but just like there's certain parts that
we didn't nuke the world, andlet's hope we don't. But like they
know that threat keeps getting since theCold War, I mean since where we're
two and then citsicol War, itthere's always been kind of a specter and
so I think that there's there's somethingreally interesting about like also the global nature
of it. Like I appreciated yourpoint that when you're in New York,

(44:04):
it's we are seeing a story ofus as much as we are seeing like
New Yorkers and then folks you knowfrom the Philippines and from Bangladesh and from
Texas and you know, from fromall over the world like in one spot.
So we do really get this,uh, this wonderful human melting pot.
Realize that we are these are ourneighbors, these are people that these
are our homies, you know,this is who we live with um and
spend time with every day, andlike that humanity is fundamental I think to

(44:24):
have in conversation with these other biggerquestions of you know, where can AI
take us? And I appreciate youroptimism too, because it is this interesting
question that like so often we justhear folks again but either the fear question.
But I'm curious your perspective in thistoo, of like how how can
we help incentivize you know, leadersto do good with this technology. I

(44:45):
think you're totally right that there isthe benign evil possibility, the unintended consequences
possibility is not a given which isgood. Um, that would be chaotic
evialcepos right if we did our chartof where folks live on the chart.
But yeah, I'm curious perspective onthis side too, And this is like,
this is a big, hairy questionjust but I think it's an important
one for us to ask too.Is like to allow us to be optimistic,

(45:07):
I think is also to say wehave to like how do we make
sure people are kind of in thecorner of humanity right and keep and keep
them there? Like if we're buildingtools that can can totally radically reshape opportunities
and affordances in you know, likea food distribution, right, we can
feed abling people, but we don'tdo it effectively or efficiently, right,
And there's a there's a great likeinequal distribution of who gets what, when

(45:28):
where and how? And you know, is that just market forces maybe?
But like you know, how invisibleis the invisible hand? Really? Um,
if we're if we're to be honestand so you know, again,
big big thinking. But I'm justcurious to your perspective on this too,
you know, what, what kindof tools do we have or how how
are you thinking about this? Like, I mean, ethics is such an
important question. So I'm like,I want to skin in the weeds here.
I'm curious your perspective on what wecan do in this space. Fortunately,

(45:52):
we come built in with this compass, right, and it's it's actually
tie very much to our happiness.And this is something that I think is
really important to discuss. Is whenI was growing up in New York City,
when I was destitute, it washard to really think about these philosophical

(46:13):
things. I dismissed philosophical musings.It was just musings of privileged people.
And to some degree, maybe Iwas right, But the reality struck hit
me hard in the face where Imade enough money, where I had all
of those material things, including arolls Royce, and I became absolutely miserable.

(46:35):
I wasn't happy, And I justlooked back and said, how come
I felt so happy When I wasbroke on the streets and was sharing a
sandwich with some friends, and Irealized what a huge blessing it was to
be broke. Because that's where youfind the people that will share a sandwich
with you, and you're realized theyare invaluable. So one of my first

(46:57):
investors in Yobi was one of myfriends who like that has been there for
me since high school. You boughtme my first CD writer for my computer,
and we all were just these brokekids, right, And he worked
at McDonald's. He worked his buttoff, we built our He's the one
who actually helped me build my firstbusiness venture. And I remember him giving

(47:17):
me the CD writer. I waslike, I can't believe this. Right,
He's like, you're going to dosomething good with it, right,
just bestowed great expectations on me.And then I realized that those are the
things that truly are meaningful. Andif you want to have a meaningful existence,
yes, you need enough money forfood, shelter, you know,

(47:37):
and some creature comforts, but yougive yourself too much of that that's actually
not happiness. And unfortunately, inour Instagram role today, we often just
perpetuate the just the material side.And the truth is, you talk to
folks who are materially wealthy, andyou realize they deeply value these immaterial things

(47:59):
and understand those are blessings and likethe blessing of community, of friendship,
of doing something good. And it'sreally important, like in my opinion,
to not be dismissive of philanthropists becauseyou go, oh, they're so rich,
they're just giving away their money.Yeah, it's it's one thing to
be questioning philanthropy. I'm not goingto say every single philanthropist is of good

(48:22):
heart, but most of the folksthat I have had the fortune of rubbing
shoulders with or being on the receivingend of that philanthropy, they've been incredible.
They're genuinely good human beings trying tobe better. And if we don't
nurture that among people, if wedon't nurture that culture, that's going to
come back to bide us, Especiallyif we take a very materialist worldview where

(48:43):
it's just the more numbers in yourbank account is winning. That's not true.
That's not a virtue. Yes,being able to take care of things,
being able to create value, there'ssomething great about that. But the
reason that's really great. Ask mostentrepreneurs, right. They might put on
their Superman shirt and go yeah,right, but really ask them privately.

(49:04):
I was like, how many familiesdo you end up feeding? How are
you helping outside? Just go andlook at all the dentists and I'm gonna
bring up the dentist. Look atdentists, car watch owners. Right,
these folks who are entrepreneurs, youwill find them volunteering, You'll find them
donating, You'll find them trying tomove the needle. And that's something that's
admirable. And they're doing that tobe successful, because success beyond just the

(49:25):
basic material Success isn't just about havingmore material things, but it's about,
you know, building things that you'reproud of that you can be happy with
for yourself and for others, andespecially in a world that is increasingly rewarding
to folks like myself. Right,Like, if you're if you're a tech
geek, you absolutely have an unfairadvantage. Right, If you are a

(49:47):
certain way, you have an unfairadvantage in this current world that we live
in, and understanding that is aposition of privilege and that if you exploit
that without much thought, you willend up becoming unhappy. Right, So
the moral compass is kind of thereto guide you to being a better you
that you can live with. Right. I think that's that's that tends to

(50:10):
get understated and underestimated. We oftentend to assign malice, like assume ignorance,
not malice. And that's what I'vefound to be true, and like
in getting reality right, that's thereality of the world that I see.
And most of the people that I'veseen, they're they're trying to be better.
They're they're on their journey to beingbetter. So if we reframe success

(50:35):
as hey, not just being wealthy. Growing up, I looked at Albert
Einstein as someone who was very successful, which is why I've always kind of
been a bit of a geek.Right, we should reframe what success really
means is not just making money,but actually doing something great for humanity,
doing something great for your community,and to be someone who, at seventy

(50:55):
eighty years old can have the moreawesome as barbecues and you have people miss
them if they're gone, right.If we optimize more for that and for
leadership like that, I think we'regoing to end up with a very different
outcome. Because let's be serious,if we didn't rob banks just because there
were cops, if that was theonly reason we didn't rob banks, man,

(51:20):
we would descend into chaos so fast, and you go into societies where
they don't have that much policing,but people just don't rob banks on a
regular basis, right, So understandthe reality of that, and yes,
we do needs police, Yes wedo need enforcement. Yes we do need
governments to help establish you know,whether it's regulations or whatever underlying infrastructure is

(51:44):
needed for society to survive and thrive. But also understand the number of people
that are going to do harm,that are just not in a good place,
maybe mentally or whatever it is,right, that are not thinking straight.
That's sort of what you build yourpolice force and all these other things
around, is to make sure thatwhen those anomalies happen, which they will,
that you're able to deal with iteffectively. So similarly, in the

(52:06):
AI space, when somebody, youknow, when some teenager who doesn't quite
have their prefrontal cortex fully built outyet, you know, is raging and
using AI as a as a tool, we want to make sure that that
gets control, that gets contained.So there's there's that balance between you know,
absolutely totalitarianism and complete anarchy where there'sthat you know, happy medium,

(52:30):
key special emphasis on happy. Yeah, right right now, I think that
that's as brilliantly said, and it'sit's interesting because it's there's a connection that
as you're saying this, that thathad me think that I think you're you're
you're totally right too, that thereis this important piece for us to then
think about the way that we aredefining success and like also knowing what matters
to us as humans, right,And it reminds me of Record Bregman wrote

(52:52):
a book that was called Human Kindand it was a it's a history of
human kindness or basically it's called ahopeful human history. Thing is the subtitme
idol. But it's just this interestingpoint because we tend to do I think
you said too, like we tendto assume malice. But it's not great.
We're like, again, our brainsare wired to hear the negative thing
and then we kind of latch ontothat versus to hear a hundred good stories
in one bad story. Then youyou like, your brain, this is

(53:13):
up. Something bad is happening,right, and this isn't an interesting point
that we remind ourselves that there actuallyis like by and large, like we
are as humans are wired to careand to belong. It's like one of
our fundamental drives, you know,kind of as you're saying, and I
love your point that we have thiskind of compass built into us right now,
we kind of forget it when we'rewhen we're thinking across you know,
economic or power lines are just someoneas different from me and like, but

(53:35):
there's also a human there too,right, and kind of um, these
questions of you know, how dowe want to live and who do we
want to live with? And andalso recognize that there are these these stories
that are actually good and like thatthat's actually what's been humanity successes, that
we learn to work together. Imean, that's that's why we have.
Cities are literally just an example ofpeople that like beings that are okay living
near each other. Right, Catsdon't do that. I mean they do
because we make them, but likeyou know, most of other animals don't

(53:57):
do that. You know. Uh, it's something else. This just popped
in my head as as we saythis though. It's that you mentioned before
that algorithms like that you know said, oh, Hanna was saying that it'll
tend to go to like call itthe extremes, you know, and kind
of see those and so is thatjust a weird reflection of actually how our
brains work, because we tend tohear like the on the bell curve,
we hear the extremes and saying,oh, it's either super good or super

(54:19):
bad, and we kind of likeignore them the middle, which is ninety
and eight percent of most things.It's weird, like, if there's a
connection there, unlessure what it is. But that's actually absolutely like on point
right, evolutionarily speaking, Right,if there is movement in the bushes,
it's better to assume that's a tigerthan to assume, oh, it's just
a rabbit, right, because ifit's a tiger and you were right,
and you were alert and you ranaway, you survived. Right. So

(54:44):
understanding that and realizing that acting asif there's a tiger just because the door
opened, right, is irrational,Right, It's it's not reflective of our
current reality. And making sure thatas a technologist as scientist, right,
there's a lot of psychologists that workvery closely, there's a lot of neuroscientists

(55:06):
that work very closely with startups rightto try to make the apps more engaging.
But I understand that, you know, human beings are prone to super
releasers, just like any other creaturethat is biological in nature, right,
we cannot avoid our nature. Soyou make things that you know will addict.
You know, you have a moralresponsibility to understand that. With the

(55:30):
distribution strategy that we have, thisis going to addict the next generation.
This is going to predict a lotof people that there is you know,
it's just a simple thing. Wellnot really, it's not just a simple
thing. As we build out themachines, optimize for human happiness, optimize,
yes, make money, but atwhat point do you draw that line?
Right? And that's a problem withreductionism, because reductionism is where the

(55:54):
benign evil seeps in, where yousay, oh, I was just doing
my job, right, there's nothingmore dangerous than I was just doing my
job. Doing your job really wellto a fault unthinkingly is literally the thing
that we are afraid of. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah,
that's right. So that's us.That's human, man, that's the whole

(56:15):
point of being human. We arenuanced. We have all of these things.
We are imperfect, but there's somespecial sauce in all of that mix
of being imperfect that we can stepback, right, which is why ethics
is such a such an interesting discussion. Right, for me, it's pretty
obvious that you shouldn't throw somebody ontothe train tracks to save three more people,

(56:38):
right, it's not right. There'slike a moral dilemma there, and
we're built with it. We're builtin with these things, with these feelings
to preserve society for preservation of us. We're built to preserve us, not
me, And that's what ends uphappening. Is like, if you hyper
focus on me, you'll realize thatyour happiness requires us, and if we

(57:04):
want to live in a world that'sbetter, we should be hyper aware of
that. Yeah, no, it'swell said. I mean, especially as
the world is increasingly you know,globally interconnected, right, like the number
of us is both increasing, Butthen also like the there's more ways we
can both interact and be engaged withone another. Two and just to see,
you know, a partment saying beforeif like I can talk to somebody
across the globe is both an incrediblefeat then it reminds us of I think,

(57:29):
Yeah, the US, the USdrive in like the responsibility we have
for each other. And so Iguess my kind of last pocket of kind
of question thinking being respectful of thetime, is that just this idea that
you're working with with trip hub inthis space, and so this is a
you know, one of the otherparts of your work. I think that's
really interesting and worth kind of digginga bit into. Is is like,
you know, having tech entrepreneurship bothfrom a global perspective in terms of like

(57:51):
building more kind of accountability and networksand support, especially for startups that are
outside of the US. Um Sothis is a you know, even as
you mentioned up top two that likestartups weren't weren't a big part of conversations
in your world until you either foundyour way little little past NASA, you
know, in terms of like thesethese business areas, and so this interesting
question in terms of you know,for folks that are not near NASA,
you know, whether in Houston orFlorida, you know, these the two

(58:14):
centers of the universe, right Floridaand in Houston. You know, just
the ideas of like how else canwe do some work kind of in helping
more of the global population have accessto technology, technology and tools supporting more
kinds of business Because I think thisis also part of the I think a
fundamentally important part of what's leaning intoour I guess our moral ethical compass,
but then also the wee point rightthat there is it just comes down to

(58:35):
us and when we realize that wehave the power the ability to help others
also who normally may not get thesame resources. Uh, you know,
what's what's our responsibility in that inthat space. So I'd love to hear
a bit about your your work,your perspective in this side of things too,
in terms of building more global supportfor startups around the world. So
trap pub is like very near anddear to my heart. So I was
in Melbourne, Florida, and didn'treally have a startup ecosystem, and I

(59:00):
was like, how am I goingto do this here? What am I
going to do? I started modelingsomething that I had learned at the Milken
Institute, a global conference where theybring smart minds together and they don't really
set a crazy agenda, but amazingthings just come out of it. So
I thought, what if I couldbring like minded geeks together. So we
started this thing and we called itthe Fight Club for Hackers because we were

(59:20):
worried that we lose our jobs ifthey found out that that we were coding
with some other people from other companiesafter hours. So that eventually grew from
five people at our first meetup towithin in less than six months, over
a thousand members. And this waslike only known like like invite only right,
we didn't even have a name forit. And it started spawning startups.

(59:44):
And I remember the first startup thatcame in. We rented out the
first floor of this building in Melbourne. We all chipped in a little bit,
right, and this guy comes inand he's like, hey, without
this place, like our startup wouldhave never taken off. We got funding,
we want to want to contribute,so we quickly gathered together and at
that time, like GitHub was reallypopular among geeks, and you know,

(01:00:07):
Entrepreneur magazine the shortest trap. SoI was like trump Hub, all right,
it's like open source entrepreneurship. Andthat was probably one of the best
things that I ever did in mylife. So trump Hub helped spawn a
whole bunch of bootstrap companies, includingmine, and the advice that I got,
the support that I got is invaluable. It truly is invaluable, brought

(01:00:30):
out the very best I also learnedabout community. The power of community,
because we were able to launch nonprofitsthat were incredible. So one of the
nonprofits was trying to build a submarinethat would clean up the Indian rver.
And what crazy idea. It comesto me, because I need five million
dollars and I was doing well bythis time, but not that well.
All right, I said, let'sput it after the community and see what

(01:00:52):
happens. So his original plan wasin several years they'd have the first prototype
of the sub. I check inwith them. Three months later, they
are on their third iteration of atthe sub he said. Once he put
the word out, somebody walked intothe second meetup with a working sub with
working a ton of a submarine.Right, And that's the power of community,

(01:01:14):
that's the power of building things.Right. And I realized most geeks,
like we love building, like theact of building, the act of
solving problems. That's our legacy.That is what we leave to a world.
It's a labor of love. Ifyou can bring those together, Like
so, I don't really care whereyou go. And as I travel to
various cities, right, I noticedthis to be true. Right, Initially,

(01:01:36):
people will puff their chests and waslike entrepreneur. This entrepreneur. The
then be like, nah, dude, I really just love building, right,
I don't know what else I woulddo right, Like to me,
there is no retirement. I'm alreadylike, I'm already retired. This is
what I do. And if Icould live my life doing this thing that
I love doing, that you can'ttake away from me. You know.
The next thing is one of thebig problems that I want to solve in

(01:01:58):
the world. So we actually launchedanother nonprofit out of there called Seti Town,
which rehouses homeless people, and they'verehoused hundreds of homeless families that have
become homeless due to financial troubles andwhat like. When I first heard of
it, I was like, allright, that's crazy. Like I'm all
about solving problems. But the personwas solving this problem had solved really big

(01:02:20):
problems before, and I saw ithappen before my eyes. So that spirit,
that hacker spirit of just let's buildit, or what you call the
creators of today, right, they'rebuilding things. They're building things in this
new paradigm. If we understand thatthat's the reality that we actually live in.
No matter where you are, ifyou're connected to the Internet. You

(01:02:42):
are living in some version of that, and that's why you'll see the fifty
one percent of Silicon Valley CEOs areimmigrants. And I think you're going to
see more and more of that.And you see countries in the Middle East
like retooling themselves. Where I wentto the Yi recently, I was blown
away by the multiculturalism there, Likethere's people from all over the world.

(01:03:06):
Saudi Arabia is building this new citythat's trying to attract people from all over
the world. You go to Istanbulland you're like, wow, it feels
a lot like New York. Sothe world is recognizing that the power shift
has happened to the builders, tothe creators, and governments and others are
kind of realigning themselves to make surethat they are part of this future.
If you're in Africa somewhere, Ithink like the future is like in Africas

(01:03:28):
Upsharan Africas where we're going to seelike a lot of amazing things come from.
Don't look at today and say thisis how the world is always going
to be. That is absolutely like, I can bet you that that's probably
not true. The world is goingto it is changing in a certain direction,
probably towards leaning more towards you,the person who might appear disadvantage today.

(01:03:50):
But if you just go up andyou know, organize a coffee meet
up, watch what it becomes.Right, and you don't have ultu your
motives, You just want to getsome folks together and just want to see
what you can build. You don'thave to have the grand plan of world
domination, but you might find yourselfin a global stage able to impact the

(01:04:11):
world in a positive vy. AndI find myself on that very humble position
now that that's wonderful and a ringingendorsement actually for we need more geeks in
the world too, right, becausewe need more builders and makers, big
band of geeks here, You're ingood company. That, yeah, because
it's I think this is it's oneof the pieces that I think is also
just the most exciting that. Imean, we have such tools now too,
right, we both have access toto you know, the Internet in

(01:04:31):
so many places. And then justeven the ingenuity we see globally too in
terms of you know, cell phoneusage in Sub Saharan Africa you know,
was used to like flash minutes asa way of using like unbanked currency right
before before like online banking was available, and also communities that don't want to
get banked in that sense, there'sinteresting like we always will use technology in
these unique ways to build you know, scenarios that work for us locally.

(01:04:53):
And so I think there's I thinkyou read this this idea of getting kind
of the hacker spirit and the powerof community building is such an import in
peace, and I think it's aI feel good. It's a positive reminder
that like, let's get together andbuild. That's that's what we need more
of, is doing well together andkind of building with the sense of optimizing
for for human happiness to I'm gonnaborrow that terms. I like that phrasing
because we can, you know,we can and we should and so I

(01:05:15):
just want to you know, sothanks. I'm going for sharing your your
wisdom, your stories with with meand and the pat that I'm excited to
share this with the audience. Iguess is there anything that that's on your
mind either that we didn't we didn'tget to talk about so far, or
you know, or even something you'rehopeful for for the future in terms of
you know, what we want folks, to take away from this conversation,
Well, my hopes are really inpeople, and I really hope and pray

(01:05:38):
that the world of the future includesbetter, happier people, because sometimes we
look at all the plenty that wehave and one of the leading causes of
death in America is suicide, andyou have to ask yourself, why is
that? Why is it that wehave so much? And you know,
life expectancies go in the in thewrong direction. In business, you look

(01:05:59):
at KPIs, and those KPIs directyou when there are problems, right,
when the customer counts going down,when your turn rate is going up,
pay attention, right, And Ithink this is time for us to pay
attention and say, what's what's happeninghere? What we really need to do
In my own humble opinion, andI think the opinion of many others actually
now, is that we need tobe thoughtful about the future that we design

(01:06:24):
for humans. Because capitalism, theAmerican dream, all of what we see
around us, what we've aspired towas actually to live more fulfilling lives,
life liberty in the pursuit of happiness, not the pursuit of pleasure, but
the pursuit of happiness, like reallyunderstanding what is human happiness contentment versus just

(01:06:47):
you know, you know, superreleasers that will like just pump you full
of dopamine and other things and willultimately leave you so unhappy that you don't
want to live anymore. That's nota future that we want. And that's
kind of the unintended consequences of whencertain things go rogue, get over optimized.

(01:07:08):
We really should optimize for ourselves.We as people should think more deeply
about the work that we do,the lives that we live. And instead
of thinking, oh, I'm gettingreplaced, maybe we should ask why is
my sole identity programmer? Yes,this is what I do. I've put
a lot of time into it.Yes I'm a craftsman, but I am
still me. And like, wehave to start to become as as a

(01:07:30):
nation, as a world, wehave to start appreciating even there, even
though there's eight billion of us,there's eight billion unique human experiences that are
special. We know in our heartthat that's true. Yeah, Will said
cool, Thank you so much.This has been a green lighting conversation and
I really appreciate you jumping up anddown in the rabbit holes with me.
It's been fun. And yeah,thanks so so much, Thanks so much

(01:07:53):
for having me, Adam. Andthat's a wrap for today's episode of This
anthra Life. A big thank youto our guest, am ed Raiser,
for sharing his insights on leading withhumanity in the age of AI. Now,
if you're a fan of our podcastand the content that we bring you,
I'd love your help. Please shareit with someone who needs to hear
it and or leave us a fivestar review. Now you can do that

(01:08:13):
through your podcast app if you're onApple podcast or Spotify, or you can
visit this anthro live dot org slashreviews. The link is in our show
notes to leave a review on thesite, or find links to Apple Podcasts
and Spotify for reviewing there as well. Our team has launched the Anthrocurious substack
blog and newsletter, which is acompanion project to our podcast that offers reflections
publications in the latest from the socialscience community. The link is also in

(01:08:35):
our show notes. So if you'rea fan of our podcast, you'll love
the content that we're sharing on Anthrocurious. Our blog and newsletter are packed with
insights and stories that dig deeper intothe topics that we discuss on the show
and go beyond them, from interviewswith leading anthropologists to reflections on the latest
research. Anthrocurious is the perfect wayto stay up to date with the latest
developments in social science. But that'snot all. We are also asking for

(01:08:59):
your support. Our podcast and blogwill always be free, but we rely
on the support of our listeners tokeep the community going. So if you're
able to, please consider subscribing toour monthly or yearly subscription. Your support
is the primary way that we're ableto sustain the community and keep delivering high
quality content that you love. Andif you're already a subscriber, hey,
I want to thank you so muchfor your support. It really couldn't do
this without you, all right,So here are three takeaways from today's conversation.

(01:09:24):
First, AI has real substance,and it's important to consider the ethical
implications of its development and deployment.As amhad raised, a noted, unintended
consequences are always a possibility, andit's important to mitigate risks through thoughtful consideration
and regulation. Second, community andphilanthropy are important values to consider in shaping
a meaningful existence, especially through business. Success shouldn't just be defined by material

(01:09:46):
possessions, but also doing something greatfor humanity, and that does not involve
just making a new kind of technology. Third, change is part of existence,
and recognizing and adapting to it isimportant. Entrepreneurs should embrace humility as
part of their business and focus onbuilding things that don't simply disrupt, but
that foster opportunities for more equitable andmeaningful futures. Now, after listening to
this episode, I invite you toconsider one how can we encourage the development

(01:10:11):
of AI in a way that prioritizeshumanity too? How can we redefine success
not only in terms of material possessions, but also through doing something meaningful or
humanity as always, get connected withme over on social and email and hit
on over toward the Anthro Curious substackand subscribe today. You won't regret.
Thank you so much for your time, attention and energy. Once again,
I'm your host, Adam Gamwell,and you're listening to this anthro Life

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