The All Turtles Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Startup Playbook: Pitching Investors Mar 27, 2019

Show notes

Developing a solid pitch takes work, but it's a necessary process because building any kind of product requires funding. To get that money, you have to talk to people. Mursal Hedayat, cofounder and CEO of Chatterbox, knew she had a good product idea when she noticed that hardly any of the people solving problems for the refugee community were refugees themselves. But to convince others that her product deserved investment, she has had to perfect her pitch.

Show notes

Mursal Hedayat, cofounder and CEO Chatterbox (1:42)

Chatterbox is an online learning platform where people can learn skills from refugees, starting with language skills

Mursal was included in Forbes' 30 Under 30 list of social entrepreneurs

MIT Technology Review covered Mursal and Chatterbox in their Innovators Under 35 series

Conversation with Phil Libin, All Turtles CEO (11:53)

Phil's video on how to pitch investors

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Startup Playbook: Being a Good CEO Mar 20, 2019

Show notes

An organization's leadership can make or break the success of the entire team. In entrepreneurship, a CEO has three main responsibilities: setting the vision, building the team, and ensuring that there is enough money to operate. But there is a lot more to managing success. Eugenia Kuyda is the CEO of Replika, an All Turtles product, and through her story of overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, she shares invaluable wisdom for developing a long-lasting leadership philosophy.

Show notes

Eugenia Kuyda, cofounder and CEO of Replika (1:42)

Replika, an All Turtles product, is an AI chatbot for mental health

The origins of Replika (article about Replika's origin story)

Phil Libin's video on how to be a good CEO

A graphic explaining the Japanese concept of ikigai, which loosely translates to "a reason for being"

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Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes.

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Startup Playbook: Hiring the Right People Mar 13, 2019

Show notes

What's the best way for a startup to compete with large companies when hiring top talent? How does someone reach outside their own network to source diverse candidates? To speak on some of these topics and more, Jeremy Vandehey, CEO of Disco, shares advice on how to hire an outstanding team. This is the first episode of Startup Playbook, a new series from the All Turtles podcast about how startup founders and product creators tackle some of entrepreneurship's biggest challenges.

Show notes

Jeremy Vandehey, cofounder and CEO of Disco (1:42)

Disco is an All Turtles product that makes it easy to celebrate your company culture and values, all in the messaging tools you already use.

Disco is currently hiring engineers. Check out justdisco.com if you're interested in applying.

Conversation with Phil Libin, All Turtles CEO (8:42)

Phil's video on how to hire the best people

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes.

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Product Taxonomy: How we classify product pitches Mar 06, 2019

Show notes

At All Turtles, we build AI products, which means we needed a process for deciding which products to build. We came up with a system for classifying the types of products people pitch us so that we can quickly understand and communicate to each other what we see as opportunities and potential failure points. This classification system is our product taxonomy, and it's something any product creator or evaluator can apply to their work.

Show notes

Taxonomy discussion with Phil Libin and Jessica Collier (0:48)

1. Flying Shoe — Whoa, is it possible?!

Failure modalities:

a. DaVinci — Can be imagined, but it can't be built

b. Jetpack — Doesn't deliver on its promise

c. H.W. Bush — Already exists and we just didn't know about it

2. Costner — Totally possible! But if you build it, will they come?

Failure modalities:

a. Waterworld — Too long to get to market and costs too much money

b. Golf — Boring and we don't care (e.g. ad tech use case)

c. New Coke — There's already a better version of this

d. Timeshare — No plausible exit or sustainable financial path forward

e. Segway — People don't actually want it

3. Play-Doh— What is it? How will it work? What's the experience like?

Failure modalities:

a. No particular failure modalities, but the product idea must become a Flying Shoe or a Costner to continue

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes.

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

049: The Lambda School's cofounder and CEO Austen Allred Feb 28, 2019

Show notes

Austen Allred is the cofounder and CEO of the Lambda School, a coding academy that provides free training for students to become software engineers and data scientists in exchange for a percentage of their income for two years. It's a model that has moved people from low income to high income salaries. Austen talks through the school's pedagogy, shares what students need to succeed in the program, and explains why one of the most valuable aspects of the school is the community.

Show notes

Conversation with Austen Allred (0:48)

The Lambda School provides free training for UX designers and data science in exchange for a percentage of their income for two years (0:56)

Austen gathered the stories from a long list of people whose lives have changed because of Lambda School, which he compiled in this Twitter thread

Articles from the New York Times and VentureBeat featuring the Lambda School

Kwame Yamgnane from 42 Silicon Valley on episode 27 of the All Turtles Podcast (4:58)

Sylvain Kalache from the Holberton School on episode 33 of the All Turtles Podcast (5:03)

Advice to entrepreneurs (21:17)

The good/fast/cheap triangle of product development (21:20)

Phil's Rule of Three video on the topic of product development (21:25)

Listener question (26:20)

From Derek via Twitter: This is a question about the the personalization episode of the Unscaled series: Greater personalization will always be better, but the marginal benefit will keep going down. Bottom line, will 20mgs of x work? Yes, but if 15.52mgs will work, and reduce side effects or chances of dependency, I'd take that. What do you think?

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes.

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

048: AI and fake news with Renée DiResta Feb 20, 2019

Show notes

When controversial headlines flood Twitter and Facebook, these rage machines disseminate disinformation. AI plays a role in perpetuating fake news, but it could also be a part of the solution in detecting and preventing the malignant spread of fake stories. Renée DiResta is a researcher of computational propaganda and disinformation. On this episode, she talks through some recent news stories and how they serve as examples of the ways in which technology facilitates tribalism.

Show notes

Conversation with Renée DiResta (0:50)

Renée DiResta researches the spread of malign information on the internat (1:01)

Data for Democracy is a worldwide community working together to find truth through data and technology (1:02)

New Knowledge is an information integrity company (1:02)

The Covington Catholic news story (1:10)

How technology facilitates tribalism (5:54)

Using something like AI to intercept disinformation before it spreads widely (9:15)

Renée on her Senate report about Russia's disinformation in the 2016 election (12:20)

The sophisticated processes for gaming Amazon's review systems (19:30)

Eye roll please (31:21)

Waiting for the "right moment" to launch a product or company (31:25)

Listener question (34:18)

From Jacob via email: Jacob says he is excited about autonomous cars because he hates driving, but in a previous episode, a discussion arose about the fact that not only is it possible that bad actors may interfere with the security of self-driving cars while they're on the road, but that it "will happen." So this listener asks: What can we do about this? Cryptography is not bulletproof, and also has system performance impacts. What is missing in the tech ecosystem to prevent tragedies related to the "hacking" of self-driving cars?

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes.

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

047: Legal, policy, & diversity programming expert Bärí Williams Feb 13, 2019

Show notes

Bärí Williams is the VP of Legal, Policy, and Business Affairs at All Turtles. She has advice for small startups and founders who may not have in-house legal or policy experts on how to navigate things like privacy and contract organization. She also has experience developing diversity programs for companies like Facebook, and has lessons to share about creating and implementing similar programs. As she's said, tech's ethical problem is also a diversity problem.

Show notes

Conversation with Bärí Williams (0:49)

Bärí's Twitter takedown of Ja Rule (2:46)

Bärí's article "Tech's ethical problem is also a diversity problem." (3:47)

Facebook's Supplier Diversity Program, which Bärí implemented (6:58)

What is Facebook doing to support the local communities around its offices? (8:58)

Taking a holistic approach to diversity and inclusion (13:22)

Making products accessible to all (17:39)

AI use case (29:37)

Phil's Amazon Echo now sets alarms for the correct part of the day without him having to specify every time (30:08)

Listener question (32:02)

This question comes in from JK via email: "Any plans to establish a base in London, UK?"

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes.

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

046: Max Levchin, cofounder of PayPal and Affirm Feb 06, 2019

Show notes

Max Levchin is the cofounder and former CTO of PayPal. His stories from PayPal's early days reveal that its methods for addressing security questions from the start can apply to the problems social media companies face today. Levchin started Affirm to do away with amoral loan practices; recently, Affirm allowed government employees who couldn't work during the shutdown to take their time in paying back loans. Levchin values honesty and transparency, which serve as the foundations for his products.

Show notes

Conversation with Max Levchin (0:47)

Max is a cofounder and former CTO of PayPal (1:07)

The human-computer loop (7:06)

PRNG is a pseudorandom number generator (9:53)

All Turtles Podcast episode with Renée DiResta (13:13)

Affirm is a better way to borrow money (17:20)

Advice to entrepreneurs (34:10)

Phil's "Rule of Three" video series (34:38)

The rock-paper-scissors model of dealing with competition (35:10)

Listener question (42:28)

From Steve via email:

I saw an article that Google is giving away $25 million to fund humane AI projects to solve seemingly intractable problems. My question to the All Turtles luminaries is what they think of this effort, which coincides with Google's decision to not pursue $10 billion military contract for use of AI (Microsoft is now pursuing this).

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes.

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

045: Empathetic and responsible AI with Michelle Zhou Jan 30, 2019

Show notes

Fans of the movie Her will remember "Samantha" as the AI who connected with a human because of her ability to express deep empathy. That's what Michelle Zhou, cofounder and CEO of Juji, references when explaining what her company aims to do: create empathetic and responsible artificial intelligence agents. By focusing on human-machine symbiosis, Zhou has worked toward creating AI chatbots for different types of use cases, from personalized healthcare to conducting interviews.

Show notes

Conversation with Michelle Zhou (1:35)

Juji builds empathetic and responsible AI chatbots (0:45)

Humans feeling more comfortable with machines (3:48)

Where did the name Juji come from? (4:55)

Books by Cilfford Nass, a renowned Stanford researcher on human-computer interaction (8:02)

Kim Scott speaking about ruinous empathy (15:29)

Eye roll, please (21:51)

Target the biggest market possible (21:54)

We should be able to explain how we design and train AI systems (29:41)

Listener question (26:48)

From Ari via email:

I'd like to hear All Turtles' leadership team's reaction to a quote in the Wired interview of Geoff Hinton: "[There's a question of whether] regulators should insist that you can explain how your AI system works. I think that would be a complete disaster."

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes.

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

044: The Wikimedia Foundation's Katherine Maher Jan 23, 2019

Show notes

Although Wikipedia is a contributor website like Twitter or Facebook, why doesn't it suffer from the same levels of misinformation and fake news? The Wikimedia Foundation's executive director Katherine Maher joins this episode to talk about the importance of transparency and sticking to your values at scale. She also shares how machine learning will be increasingly important in Wikipedia's operations, and what organizations using Wikipedia's datasets should know about the flaws in its information.

Show notes

Conversation with Katherine Maher (1:02)

The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit that provides structure for free knowledge and hosts Wikipedia (1:13)

Wikipedia is the world's fifth most popular website (1:25)

What's important to the Wikimedia Foundation? (3:36)

Wikipedia's asymptotic mission (4:27)

The importance of transparency in Wikipedia edits (11:42)

The Unscaled Series on the All Turtles Podcast is about how economies of scale have changed and how startups can adapt (12:40)

Hemant Taneja's book, Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts Are Creating the Economy of the Future (12:42)

Wikipedia as a moderating force in partisan politics (13:20)

The role of machine learning in Wikipedia's future operations (18:15)

Articles about women are only 18% of the total biographical pages in Wikipedia (19:58)

AI use case (26:06)

How do we make the internet more compatible with democracy? (27:16)

Jon's experiences with his phone's call screening functions (30:00)

Listener question (34:05)

This one comes in via email from Ari, and is another example of a user rising to the challenge of finding a useful application for blockchian. He sent us a link to an article about using blockchain to track food safety and origins. The article explains how blockchain can prevent fraud in the food industry so a consumer in China buying Australian beef can be sure that the package does, in fact, contain Australian beef. The writer of the article asserts that in food production, the manufacturers could record documentation proving that what they're packaging is what they say they are, and upload that documentation to blockchain-based databases. Food could be labeled with stickers readable by smartphones that connect to the proper documentation.

So, is this actually a useful application of blockchain?

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes.

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.