The All Turtles Podcast

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036: x.ai's Dennis Mortensen Oct 31, 2018

Show notes

"Are you free for a meeting on Tuesday at 4?" "No, but what about Wednesday before 11?" "I'm busy then. Should we try for next week?" This is a well-worn back and forth. Setting up meetings can take a tremendous amount of time, which is why Dennis Mortensen founded x.ai to build AI software for scheduling meetings automatically. In this episode, he explains his philosophy of democratizing access to executive assistants, and why he's changed his tune on the appropriate ways for AI to mimic humans.

Show notes

Conversation with Dennis Mortensen, founder and CEO of x.ai (1:06)

X.ai, AI software for scheduling meetings (1:10)

Bio about Dennis Mortensen (1:10)

Is x.ai trying to completely replace human executive assistants? (8:45)

What has the data from x.ai shown about the kinds of meetings that are scheduled? (14:28)

What is Dennis' philosophy on AI that mimics humans? (19:25)

AI use case (26:42)

Phil's iOS automatically created a calendar event for an appropriate time and label based on his text conversation (28:10)

Listener question (33:14)

From Marina on Twitter: In a previous episode, you mentioned the Bill Gates quote that said, "A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it exceeds the value of the company that creates it." Can you elaborate on what that means?

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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.

035: Data Is the New Oil… Or Is It? Oct 24, 2018

Show notes

"Data is the new oil" has become a popular declaration in headlines circulating around Silicon Valley, but in this episode, we question the veracity of the phrase. The argument for equating data to oil is that data will be the resource that will shape the 21st century in the way that oil shaped the previous century. While data, like oil, needs to be refined in order to be useful, it's not necessarily true that the more data you have, the more of a competitive advantage you have. Or… is it?

Show notes

Data is the new oil… or is it? (0:57)

Not all data is created equal (3:31)

The All Turtles article about Moorfields Hospital in London's use of data from eye scans (3:38)

AlphaGo Zero: learning from scratch (DeepMind) (4:11)

The distinction between public data and private data (8:55)

Kaggle has tens of thousands of datasets (9:10)

Who should be able to profit from your data? (13:16)

"Eyeroll, please." Debunking the common startup advice to "start local." (19:22)

Avoiding building a product that only serves a bubble.

The problem with thinking of countries as markets.

Listener question (24:45)

From Ari via email: I'd like to hear your podcasting team's reaction to and solution for the issue of algorithmic learning beyond the control of app developers.

Leave us a voicemail with your question and we'll play it on a future episode: +1 (310) 571-8448 (29:48)

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.

034: Livongo's Glen Tullman & Dr. Jennifer Schneider Oct 17, 2018

Show notes

People with chronic conditions dedicate a great deal of cognitive overhead to monitoring their own health. Type 2 diabetes patients, for example, have to constantly think about when to eat, what type of exercise to do, and when to take medication. Livongo is a company that aims to change that. For patients with type 2 diabetes, Livongo takes their blood glucose levels and provides actionable recommendations based on that data. It's another example of how AI and tech are revolutionizing healthcare.

Show notes

Conversation with Glen Tullman and Dr. Jennifer Schneider of Livongo (1:00)

Glen Tullman, CEO of Livongo (0:30)

Dr. Jennifer Schneider, Chief Medical Officer of Livongo (0:25)

All Turtles Podcast Season 1 episode 22 mentions Livongo as an example of a company that does personalization well (1:04)

Hemant Taneja's book Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts Are Creating the Economy (1:16)

Livongo's products (2:48)

Livongo's website (18:48)

Advice to entrepreneurs: How to pitch investors (19:00)

All Turtles' video Rule of Three: How to pitch investors (19:44)

When pitching investors, be able to answer these questions: Why this, why you, and why now? (20:15)

The difference between pitching VCs versus pitching All Turtles (24:01)

Listener question (24:56)

From Jacob via the hello@all-turtles.com email: In the example of self-driving cars, how do we prevent the onboard sensors from being spoofed into thinking they're on a safe country road, when they're actually driving off a cliff into the ocean? Could blockchain help us keep these sensors and the software from being corrupted? If not, what makes it a bad fit? What are the emerging/existing technologies that would be a better fit?

Leave us a voicemail with your question and we'll play it on a future episode: +1 (310) 571-8448 (29:48)

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.

033: The Holberton School's Sylvain Kalache Oct 10, 2018

Show notes

Where can someone learn how to become a software engineer? Computer science programs at universities usually focus more on theory than on what's actually required to become an employable programmer—and then there's the matter of cost. The Holberton School offers an alternative: a two-year training program for software engineers where there are no formal teachers or lectures, favoring project-based learning instead. It's learning by doing, and it's one of a new breed of schools reinventing education.

Show notes

Conversation with Sylvain Kalache, cofounder of the Holberton School (0:15)

Betty Holberton, one of the world's first software engineers (0:53)

All Turtles Podcast episode 27 with Kwame Yamgnane from 42 Silicon Valley (2:22)

Xavier Niel, French businessman, founder of the Iliad telecom company (4:06)

John Dewey, philosopher and education reformer (4:19)

Slideshare, a hosting service for professional content owned by LinkedIn (4:33)

Julien Barbier, cofounder of the Holberton School with Sylvain (4:41)

What it takes to be a Holberton student: motivation and talent (7:44)

The Holberton School's automated application process (12:54)

Holberton's new campus in New Haven, Connecticut (15:58)

The payment plan: free for students until they find a job, then they pay 17% of their salary (18:21)

Other fields of study that could use this model (20:01)

Get in touch with the Holberton school at their website (21:00)

AI use case: buying ads from Facebook (21:30)

All Turtles Podcast Bonus Episode #8, in which Phil and Jeremy drank tea and talked about targeted ads (20:01)

A boosted post that we attempted to buy was blocked by Facebook (23:24)

The first ad purchase that Facebook did not approve:

Facebook's explanation for why it was blocking our ads:

Our facial recognition video we were trying to promote (23:24)

The post with the Voynich manuscript picture:

The post with the cave people:

Listener question (28:51)

From Anthony: Can AI develop clothes for workers in Silicon Valley? Why do we wear shirts, pants, jackets, and ties? (29:13)

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.

Introducing Season 2 Oct 03, 2018

Show notes

After a summer of bonus episodes and the release of our Unscaled series, we're back for season 2 with a slate of exciting upcoming guests and fresh discussion segments. In this season 2 preview, hosts Phil Libin, Jessica Collier, and Blaise Zerega announce some of the guests joining future recordings, from Max Levchin and Jason Calacanis to the cofounder of the Holberton School. They also answer a listener question that starts a discussion about how far extended metaphors should go.

Show notes

What we did this summer (0:40)

All eight episodes of the Unscaled Series are now available for streaming (0:48)

Season 1 episode 22 of the All Turtles podcast that featured Hemant Taneja (1:01)

Hemant's book Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts Are Creating the Economy of the Future (1:14)

Listener feedback (1:39)

Upcoming guests (2:50)

Sylvain Kalache, cofounder of the Holberton School, a project-based software engineering school (3:01)

42 Silicon Valley, a software engineering school without teachers or courses (3:08)

Season 1 episode 27 of the All Turtles Podcast featured the cofounder of 42 (3:11)

Max Levchin, and his company HVF, starting companies to solve hard problems (3:25)

Anita Sands, board member of Symantec (3:38)

Dennis Mortensen, x.ai CEO and founder (3:43)

Season 1 episode 32 of the All Turtles podcast features a discussion with Brittney Gallagher about science fiction and tech (4:18)

Our new voicemail for listeners to call in with questions is +1 (310) 571-8448. Leave us a message and we'll play it on a future episode, and answer your question (5:45)

Listener question (6:10)

The Algorithmic Canaries episode of the Unscaled Series (6:14)

The Do Not Pass Go episode of the Unscaled Series (8:50)

We want to hear from you

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

Email: hello@all-turtles.com

Voicemail: +1 (310) 571-8448

Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT

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

Unscaled 8: The Best Time in the History of the Universe Sep 27, 2018

Show notes

Can it be that now is the best time in the history of the universe to build meaningful products? The final episode of the Unscaled series considers how access to APIs, broader sources of funding, and tools on the internet that weren't available ten years ago allow creators to build innovative new products faster, cheaper, and more easily than ever before. Yet, at the same time, creators now have the ability to cause widespread harm. With great power comes great responsibility.

Show notes

Hemant Taneja's book Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts are Creating the Economy of the Future (referral fees will be donated to charity)

Hemant Taneja, managing director at General Catalyst

Ronda Scott, marketing partner at General Catalyst

Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law (1:48)

The significance of 2007: when Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law came together (3:09

The golden age of venture capital (4:21)

It's the best of times, it's the worst of times (6:25)

It's easier to focus on what can go wrong; it takes imagination to envision what could go wrong (6:38)

Think hard about first principles (7:47)

Power to eliminate diseases and solve climate change (8:20)

AI is the new electricity (9:51)

Cultural shift: being an entrepreneur is conceivable (10:22)

This acceleration of progress can go really well or really terribly—what will determine the direction of the future? (10:52)

The evolution of the business, technology and policy framework (11:23)

Are we living in a shared reality? (12:22)

The attention economy and the commodity of anger (13:35)

What is the true cost of tribal outrage? (15:04)

Companies like Apple and Amazon do not fracture our reality through tribal outrage; Facebook and Twitter do (16:47)

Instagram-enabled mental health epidemic (19:16)

To binge-listen to all eight episodes, please visit the Unscaled Series.

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes. Season 2 is coming soon!

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.

Unscaled 7: The Future of Companies Sep 25, 2018

Show notes

Does the "company" still make sense as the default operational unit for doing business? Or is it an archaic method of organizing the development, manufacture, and sale of goods and services? For people who want to make innovative products, Silicon Valley demands they start an entirely new business as well. But not every new idea needs to become a company. It's time to rethink companies as the modus operandi for creating things of value.

Show notes

Hemant Taneja's book Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts are Creating the Economy of the Future (referral fees will be donated to charity)

Hemant Taneja, managing director at General Catalyst

Ronda Scott, marketing partner at General Catalyst

Do companies still make sense? (1:08)

Historically, companies were the only way to bring innovation to light (2:20)

What is starting a company good for? (2:58)

The idea for corporations started as a way to share risk (3:25)

All Turtles video "Why form a company?" has more details on why companies were historically useful (4:14)

The value of open-source stacks (6:30)

How Amazon AWS has changed how early-stage startups can operate (7:50)

The Netflix model: if you want to make a movie, you don't have to start a film company (9:51)

The potential of tech product development in Mexico City (12:49)

Why it's valuable for founders to work on local issues (14:55)

Conventional VC wisdom is changing (16:31)

What defines a good business today (18:20)

Companies in the U.S. provide healthcare (19:09)

The perks that companies offer employees other than salary (20:09)

The concept of an employee is changing as well (e.g. Uber drivers) (21:13)

TaskRabbit connects users to freelance workers (21:49)

What is the future of capitalism? (22:50)

Retirement has fallen on the individual as pensions have disappeared (23:28)

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes. Season 2 is coming soon!

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.

Unscaled 6: Do Not Pass Go: New Monopolies in the Age of AI Sep 20, 2018

Show notes

The proliferation of AI is spurring calls for regulation. But what should these new rules look like? Who will enforce them? And does AI require a new definition of monopoly? Historically, monopolies were classified as companies with too much market share, and antitrust laws were designed to protect consumers from high prices and limited product choice. But with faster, cheaper options from the likes of Amazon, a new approach to consumer protection is needed.

Show notes

Hemant Taneja's book Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts are Creating the Economy of the Future (referral fees will be donated to charity)

Hemant Taneja, managing director at General Catalyst

Ronda Scott, marketing partner at General Catalyst

Antitrust regulation (1:45)

What is a monopoly? (2:01)

Is Facebook a monopoly? (3:25)

Bill Gates quote: "A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it. Then it's a platform." (4:35)

Why monopolies were thought to be bad (5:20)

Importance of innovation in the age of new monopolies (6:20)

Flaws in applying the definition of monopolies in the physical world to ecommerce (7:55)

Geographic constraints no longer apply (8:35)

What should Facebook do to not be a monopoly? (9:35)

What should Amazon to to not be a monopoly and create more value than they're constraining? (10:35)

When Bill Gates told Phil that Evernote wasn't a platform (12:40)

Privacy protection (14:33)

The hindrances of GDPR on innovation (15:58)

The U.S. government's lack of an AI department (17:45)

Balancing the security of the population with the risk of constraining innovation (18:10)

Role of regulation when job security is threatened (19:01)

Skill gap between what students are taught and what skills are needed (19:40)

AI is projected to create more jobs than it eliminates (20:35)

How should we draw lines between what is a company and what is a government? (20:51)

What's the full value of a job? (26:13)

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes. Season 2 is coming soon!

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.

Unscaled 5: Just the Right Amount of Personalization Sep 18, 2018

Show notes

Is personalization really the golden ticket that some product creators think it is? In the tech industry, it's a widely-held opinion that personalization is the answer to everything, and that successful products must be custom-tailored to meet the unique needs of each user. But it's difficult to think of really successful products that are hyper-personalized. The iPhone, for example, is more or less the same phone for every user. So is personalization actually important? And if so, to what degree?

Show notes

Hemant Taneja's book Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts are Creating the Economy of the Future (referral fees will be donated to charity)

Hemant Taneja, managing director at General Catalyst

Ronda Scott, marketing partner at General Catalyst

Is personalization just a Silicon Valley fetish? (2:11)

Livongo provides chronic care management solutions for type 2 diabetes patients (2:57)

Concept of personalized medicine (4:20)

How to create boundaries for personalized groups (5:21)

Optimizing for a demand-oriented product (6:10)

There aren't 7 billion types of diabetes (6:50)

Comparison the music industry (8:30)

"What is the right amount of personalization?" (9:35)

Don't underestimate the power of delight (10:14)

Flocking to certain groups of people at the expense of others (11:07)

What do users actually want? (12:56)

Shift from a supply-based economics mindset of products to a demand-based one (13:44)

Products with the right amount of personalization (14:49)

Strava, an app for runners and cyclists to track their progress (15:07)

Sectors where unscaling has been happening for a while, e.g. online shopping and video (16:30)

Digit, an app that helps users save money (16:47)

Wealthfront, an app for financial planning and investing (16:48)

We want to hear from you

Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes. Season 2 is coming soon!

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.

Unscaled 4: The Minimum Virtuous Product Sep 13, 2018

Show notes

Airbnb, Uber, and Facebook have had the public turn against them when their products caused damage. Even if the founders of these companies had good intentions, they could have made better use of data and AI to measure the impact of their products. It's time to update the MVP acronym from Minimum Viable Product to Minimum Virtuous Product. Companies should strive to build morally sound design principles from the start with accountability, explainability, and transparency.

Show notes

Hemant Taneja's book Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts are Creating the Economy of the Future (referral fees will be donated to charity)

Hemant Taneja, managing director at General Catalyst

Ronda Scott, marketing partner at General Catalyst

Companies must consider the long-term consequences of what they build (2:43)

How does your mission fit into where innovation is going? (4:00)

Accountability, explainability, and transparency (4:28)

China's positioning post-GDPR (4:35)

The importance of a diverse team (6:30)

What does diversity mean? (7:18)

Why regulation matters (8:19)

No zero-sum (9:30)