In this season 3 episode of RealmIQ: SESSIONS, Curt talks with Tim El Sheikh, founder of Nebuli and host of The CEO Retort podcast, joins from London to unpack his extraordinary journey from biomedical science and competitive sports to launching one of the world’s first augmented intelligence studios. The conversation explores his early exposure to tech in Abu Dhabi, the collision of sports and science in his life, and the ethical dilemmas that led him to create a human-centered, VC-free AI company.
Together, Curt and Tim examine the broken state of AI ethics, the commodification of personal data, why regulation is necessary but insufficient, and how trust—not scale—will define the next wave of innovation. They close by imagining a utopian “solarpunk” future where ethics and imagination guide AI development, not greed or dystopian fantasies.
Topics Discussed
- Tim’s origin story: From martial arts and basketball to biomedical science and coding
- Founding an ad network for scientific journals pre-Google Ads
- Early ethical red flags around user data sharing in biotech
- The birth of Nebuli: ethics-first, VC-free AI studio
- AI in science, healthcare, education, and the environment
- Dangers of unregulated AI and irresponsible VC-driven tech
- Copyright, data scraping, and etiquette in AI training
- Politics, misinformation, and the Hollywood-ification of AI
- Why we won’t reach AGI in five years (and maybe never should)
- The post-hype AI future and the necessity of trust
- Utopian vs dystopian narratives: choosing imagination over fear
- How creators, not governments, may save AI’s future
Quotes
"There's no intelligence in AI. It doesn't know you're a child. It doesn't know the content is toxic."
— Tim El Sheikh
"I realized I could no longer be part of a system where investors said, ‘Let’s just sell Kurt’s data.’"
— Tim El Sheikh
"We pride ourselves as one of the very few AI companies that have no VCs. That independence is an advantage."
— Tim El Sheikh
"Innovation isn’t stifled by regulation. What stifles innovation is lack of imagination and lack of funding."
— Tim El Sheikh
"Trust is going to be the most important differentiator in AI after the hype dies."
— Tim El Sheikh
"If we can terraform Mars, why not regenerate the Sahara? There's still oxygen there."
— Tim El Sheikh
"Hollywood has warped our understanding of AI. We don’t need humanoids. That’s not where the magic is."
— Curt Doty
"I’m an AI optimist—but I’m realistic too. We need to expose the good and the bad."
— Curt Doty
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