The All Turtles Podcast

How can good design ensure that a product is as inclusive as possible? Micah Rivera, lead designer for the All Turtles product Spot, has extensive experience in accessible, inclusive product design. From the psychology of color to the use of body language in character illustrations, he draws from a range of tools that he's eager to share. He emphasizes the importance of checking accessibility as you build a product, and he explains the visual metaphor of the hot air balloon in Spot. Show notes Conversation with Micah Rivera (1:02) Micah is the lead designer for Spot, an AI reporting bot that makes it safer for employees to speak up about harassment and discrimination in the workplace, and makes it easier for HR to follow up, even on anonymous reports. To develop the character illustrations, Micah worked closely with senior visual designer Carlos Rocafort IV. SciFi-preneurship Our new podcast series, SciFi-preneurship, is all about the ways in which science fiction inspires people to create the kind of future they want. Tune in next week for the first of nine episodes. We want to hear from you. Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and listener questions for future All Turtles Podcast episodes. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco

The exponentially increasing power of AI unleashes new advancements every day, but alongside those developments come new ethical questions about proper implementation. Azeem Azhar covers these technological evolutions in his newsletter Exponential View. By keeping his finger on the pulse of what AI is doing for us today (like improving gene sequencing and better predicting diseases in the IVF processes), he's able to share the insights he's gathered for businesses who want to avoid techlash. Show notes Conversation with Azeem Azhar (1:02) Azeem Azhar pens the Exponential View newsletter. Azeem's podcast covers all kinds of AI- and tech-related topics. Lemonade is a home and renters insurance company. AI use case (25:20) Autofill, location services, and when these services become creepy Listener question (28:35) From Niels via email: "What do you think is the potential of Federated Learning systems?" 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco

Julian Guthrie's new book Alpha Girls follows the stories of four women who became successful VCs in Silicon Valley firms where they were often the only women in the room. Julian is a former journalist and a New York Times bestselling author, but despite her extensive experience writing about successful people, the Alpha Girls' stories surprised her. She describes the lessons learned from the women's extraordinary accomplishments, and shares how VCs and entrepreneurs can apply them today. Show notes Conversation with Julian Guthrie (1:22) Julian Guthrie is the author of Alpha Girls Julian's other books include The Billionaire and the Mechanic and How to Make a Spaceship Eye roll, please (24:20) Why "ignore the haters" is faulty advice for an entrepreneur. Listener question (26:35) From Niels via Twitter: "Why did you pick Paris over E.g. London or Berlin?" 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco

Sift, a news therapy app from All Turtles, is looking to solve real problems that lie at the intersection of technology and journalism. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have become outrage-powered clicking machines that drive media cycles. Sift wants to help its users stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. They took an experimental approach to their product rollout that allowed them to build invaluable feedback into their latest version, an approach that could benefit products of any kind. Show notes Gabe Campodonico and Kelly Chen of Sift (2:10) Sift is a news therapy app that presents contentious topics in a therapeutic, engaging, and informative way so users can Kelly's background includes CNN and Huffington Post. Advice to entrepreneurs (24:20) What kind of money is better for funding a business? Investments or revenue Listener question (26:35) From Michael via Twitter: "Is All Turtles a reference to the probably apocryphal Bertrand Russel story?" 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco

When Facebook moved into a Menlo Park space that was across the street from one of the lowest income areas of California, Susan Gonzales saw a potential for outreach, so she launched the company's community engagement program. Her time at Facebook gave her some unique insights into the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. She now consults with startups on strategic communications, sharing her expertise on diversity-related issues. Show notes Susan Gonzales, Communications Coach (1:07) Susan's consulting services help her clients effectively communicate their messaging. Facebook's summer academy was designed to give low-income students professional learning opportunities. Black in AI, Queer in AI, Latinx in AI, and Women in Machine Learning are all groups Susan wants to help amplify. The All Turtles origin story (18:00) Jon answers Susan's question about how All Turtles came to be by telling the story of how the idea for All Turtles first gained traction. AI use case (21:14) Our first "Anti-AI use case": the decision to not use AI in the new All Turtles product Sift, a news therapy app Listener question (26:35) From May via email: "Are there guidelines for technology adoption speed/tipping point? Do you consider this at all when investing? In other words, what % of the population needs to LOVE the product/service so that the other next influenced segment (a bigger audience) will adopt it?" The Unscaled podcast series featured Hemant Taneja's philosophy that you don't need to scale in size first in order to have an impact. 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco

Knowing how to outpace competition is a difficult yet essential part of entrepreneurship. For a new startup, larger competing companies may have more resources, more employees, or more brand recognition. Yet there are strategies small product teams can employ to effectively take on competition. Matt Schlict, CEO of Octane AI, has developed a methodology that has worked for his team, the cornerstone of which is focusing on a vertical. Show notes Matt Schlicht, CEO of Octane AI (2:22) Octane AI is an e-commerce chatbot that enables Shopify merchants to communicate directly with their customers through Facebook messenger Phil's video about dealing with competition Chatbots Magazine is an online publication that has helped establish Octane AI as a voice in the chatbot space Ecommerce Magazine is another publication that gives Octane AI an opportunity to be at the forefront of e-commerce conversations 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

What does thoughtful and effective product design look like? Sift, a news therapy app, is a prime example—it manages to be both therapeutic and informative because of the thoughtful design choices of its creators. Chris Ploeg and Gabe Campodonico, Sift's cofounders, built this product as a response to the outrage- and anxiety-inducing news cycle, and in this episode they share the details of their design process from ideation to feedback collection. Show notes Chris Ploeg and Gabe Campodonico, cofounders of Sift (2:22) Sift is a news therapy app that unpacks contentious issues to help reduce headline-induced anxiety. Sift's Medium post explains their experimental approach to their launch. TechCrunch's article about Sift digs into the need for an app that covers the news in a way that is not designed to induce outrage. 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco

A crash landing in a famous soccer coach's backyard. A middle-of-the-night bolt of inspiration. An explosion of pink smoke. These memorable moments punctuated Sunflower Labs' hardware development process as they built their multi-component drone security system. In sharing the story of how they built their hardware product, they share tips—like the importance of fully understanding what problem you're solving and the need for tireless testing—that apply to any entrepreneurial endeavor. Show notes Alex Pachikov and Chris Eheim, cofounders of Sunflower Labs (1:56) Sunflower Labs builds autonomous home security systems The Verge's story on Sunflower Labs Sunflower Labs' coverage in CNET 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Product creators who listen to feedback from their customers can gain valuable insight into the needs of people who use their product. Yet people who do not use the product, or have any intention of doing so, may also have thoughts and opinions about it. Sometimes, those comments will be constructive, but not always. Non-customer feedback is a is something that the CEO of Spot deals with regularly, and she's learned how to make the most of it. Show notes Jessica Coller, CEO of Spot (1:56) Spot's AI reporting tool makes it safer for employees to speak up and easier for HR to follow up, even on anonymous reports. Spot's feature in TechCrunch about how their app addresses harassment and discrimination in the workplace The HR Technologist's coverage of Spot's features 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

When it comes to entrepreneurship, are two heads really better than one? Cofounders should have complementary skills, values, and aspirations; a strong partnership will serve as the foundation for building impactful products. But finding someone who has those traits, and learning to work alongside them, is a process. Thankfully, Tania Abedian Coke and Kevin Hsu—the cofounders of Tellus—have some guidance in this episode of the Startup Playbook series. Show notes Tania Abedian Coke and Kevin Hsu, cofounders of Tellus (1:42) Tellus is working to radically change and improve the standard of elder care with technology Some of the earliest iterations of Tellus were from Tania and Kevin's time Stanford's Venture Studio Learn more about Tania, Kevin, and their investors at Tellus' About page PERS, or Personal Emergency Response Systems, allow for people to call for medical help with the press of a button 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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" 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

When it comes to curing Parkinson's disease, the biggest obstacle is in making use of siloed research. So says Katharina Volz, founder and CEO of OccamzRazor, an AI-neuroscience startup. They've built a "super brain" to read everything ever published about Parkinson's and related diseases, and to make connections to clinical research no human possibly could. Hear Volz's plans for finding cures for patient subgroups—and why she recommends wearing rollerblades in the lab. Show notes Conversation with Katharina Volz (0:53) OccamzRazor is an AI-neuroscience startup focusing on treatments for Parkinson's Disease (0:55) What is the connection between AI and Parkinson's disease? (1:14) Why the "one solution fits all model" is a fallacy (2:31) The problem with the breakthrough mentality (6:12) PubMed is a search engine for scientific research (9:01) Why is Parkinson's disease OccamzRazor's first focus? (14:48) Eyeroll, please (20:10) "Move fast and break things" (20:39) The Unscaled podcast series is about how economies of scale have changed (22:55) Listener question (26:39) I was elated that my most recent question read on the AT podcast revealed Phil's 3 design principles. I wonder, however, if there should be another principle added to the three: decision criteria auditability. Examples: an AI was trying to identify which dogs were wolves, and when researchers looked into the AI's decision-making criteria, they realized the AI's primary differentiating criterion was whether or not there was snow in the background of the image. So what do you think of auditability as a fourth design principle for AI? 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Virtual reality is a tremendously rich medium for creativity and new ideas, but we're still waiting for the AR/VR revolution to make the waves it's been projected to make. What can we expect from this field in the coming years? Adrian Kaehler is a researcher who's worked in computer vision, machine learning, robotics, and with AR/VR software, and he has predictions. And, as the cofounder of the Silicon Valley Deep Learning Group, he knows what it takes to bring disparate technological groups together. Show notes Conversation with Adrian Kaehler (0:53) The Silicon Valley Deep Learning Group (1:13) Magic Leap's main product is a head-mounted virtual retinal display (2:44) The homebrew computer club was an early computer hobby group in Silicon Valley that met from the mid-70s to the mid-80s (3:17) What do the non-technical folks bring to the table in SVDLG? (4:21) What can we learn about VR in the wake of the failure of Google Glass? (12:20) How can VR technology improve social interactions rather than impede them? (14:32) Open CV Computer LIbrary (20:37) Open 3D, a modern library for 3D processing (20:47) CARLA, an open-source simulator for autonomous driving research (20:50) OSVF, the Open Source Vision Foundation, has a mission to build a common foundation for all of these technologies to advance together (21:21) AI use case (26:10) When an AI-powered car nearly caused Jessica to miss her flight (26:15) Listener question (30:18) Via Twitter (@allturtlesco): In response to one of your articles that mentions algorithmic bias, is there research happening now on the effect of AI's bias on 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Mursal Hedayat launched Chatterbox, an All Turtles product, to revolutionize language learning, and it's a prime example of technology that enhances humans rather than replaces them. Chatterbox is a language and culture training program that employs refugees as tutors. Mursal was inspired to launch Chatterbox because when her mother came to the UK from Afghanistan, she was underemployed. Today, Mursal wants to help refugees make full use of their potential. Show notes Conversation with Mursal Hedayat, founder of Chatterbox, an All Turtles Podcast (1:05) Chatterbox is a platform where people can learn languages with refugees (1:05) What is a life worth living? (4:45) Why shelter and food aren't the only resources refugees need to build a life (5:02) The importance of the relationship-building aspect of Chatterbox (6:51) Why Chatterbox provides not just language training, but cultural training as well (7:48) What is the pedagogical thesis behind chatterbox? (8:17) Blended pedagogy, combining independent study with one-on-one tutoring (9:07) The missing piece in other online language-learning programs (10:01) The algorithm in development to match learners with tutors (12:54) Advice to entrepreneurs (19:39) The importance of having a strong point of view (21:01) All Turtles' "Dealing with competition" video (21:46) Omatenashe, the Japanese approach to hospitality involving deeply personal, deeply human interaction (22:17) Rakuten, a Japanese ecommerce company using technology to make drivers more valuable rather than trying to replace them (23:30) Listener question (26:39) From Ari via email: I recently read two articles (this one and this one) related to AI visual systems that clearly show that even a 5-year-old can perform better than an AI visual system. [For example, an algorithm can identify a picture of a vulture, but if the photo is rotated on its axis a few degrees, the algorithm thinks it's a picture of an orangutan.] I thought these might be the basis for a discussion that debunks the near-term fear of AI overlords, pushed by people like Musk and Hawking. 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Angel investor Jason Calacanis joins us for the second part of his two-part interview, continuing the conversation about what his early investments in companies like Uber and Robinhood taught about success. Now, he invests in bold ideas, and urges founders to focus on building products people love. Then, he, Jon, and Phil lament over everything that's wrong with the elevator pitch, epitomized by Jason's story of the time someone tried to pitch him while at a urinal. Show notes Conversation with Jason Calacanis, angel investor (0:43) Your brand is your reputation (1:04) Why intentionality matters (2:42) Who is Michael Ovitz? (4:36) Everything that's wrong with an elevator pitch (6:04) Why Launch is based in Australia (9:47) The bold ideas Jason invests in (17:50) Why are they called angel investors? (18:55) Jason's first business, Hot Tapes (19:50) Jason's mayoral plans (23:24) 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Jason Calacanis, angel investor, joins us this week for part one of a two-part interview. As an early investor in companies like Uber and Robinhood, Jason shares his insights for achieving startup success. He explains why a company's brand is so important from its beginning stages, and delivers a hot take on VC culture today. He also gives his opinion on what the number one killer of startups is, and mulls over the following equation: 1 good idea + 1 good idea = zero good ideas. Show notes Conversation with Jason Calacanis, angel investor (0:56) Thumbtack, one of Jason's investments, is an online service that matches customers with local professionals (1:12) DataStax, another of Jason's investments, is a cloud database company (1:13) Robinhood, another company Jason invested in early on, a financial tech company (1:14) Jason's book, Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups--Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000 (1:18) Launch, founded by Jason, has a mission of supporting founders and inspiring innovation (2:20) Silicon Valley Reporter was a publication that focused on New York's tech scene (2:28) Why is brand so important from a company's early stages? (2:35) The This Week in Startups podcast (5:05) Chris Sacca's first episode on This Week in Startups (6:43) Phil Libin on an episode of This Week in Tech (7:29) The Midas List of 2017 (10:57) What is, in Jason's view, the #1 killer of startups (13:22) One good idea plus another good idea equals zero good ideas (14:28) AI use case (14:35) How Phil's watch violated principles of good AI product design (16:32) Listener question (18:39) Sift, an All Turtles product,f is an experiment in news therapy (18:53) Listener question via the All Turtles Facebook page: "Does Sift remove biased statements and opinions and just report the facts?" 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Jacob Ward is a tech journalist and Burggruen Fellow at Stanford; he's writing a book about AI and behavioral science. In his research, he's been concerned to note that people have been handing off critical decision-making processes to AI, which risks long-term damage to humans' cognitive abilities. As far as ethics in AI development, Jacob shares his idea that people's cognitive functionings should be treated as a finite natural resource, and companies should be responsible for their extractive models. Show notes Conversation with Jacob Ward, tech journalist (1:01) The Burggruen Fellowship (1:06) Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) (1:25) Daniel Kahneman, psychologist whose research involved decision-making and behavioral economics (1:41) Richard Thaler, economist and professor of behavioral science and economics (1:46) Jacob Ward's portfolio of work includes Wired and Al-Jazeera (4:22) Mahzarin Banaji, psychologist whose work focuses on implicit bias (4:56) The "weak perfection" principle (12:44) The vaccine courts illustrate the "make an omelette, break a few eggs" idea (14:25) Learned Hand was a judge and philosopher who coined the "Hand rule" to calculate negligence (16:20) Survey: one-fourth of Americans have no emergency savings (18:53) How to define ethical AI (19:30) Artefact's tarot cards of tech can help product founders anticipate the impact their product will have on society (20:35) "Eyeroll, please" (24:48) Why it's a fallacy to tell founders, "Don't raise too much money." (25:37) Listener question From our subreddit, reddit.com/r/allturtles: With the pace of improvement seen from the likes of Boston Dynamics, when do you see the dexterity problem being solved in such a way that robots come out of the labs and niche applications and into everyday life? 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Healthcare is a field that has, in many ways, already embraced AI—medical researchers seem to be developing new AI applications every day. In this episode, we zoom in on one doctor and the stories of two of her cases. Dr. March is a dysmorphologist, a physician who studies birth defects. With two of her recent patients, she was able to use an AI tool called Face2Gene in her diagnostic process, a process that changed her patients' lives. Show Notes Dr. March is a dysmorphologist, a doctor who studies birth defects (1:35) The first of Dr. March's patients she couldn't immediately diagnose (3:10) Face2Gene provides doctors with enhanced patient evaluation with deep phenotyping (4:48) The step-by-step process of using Face2Gene (6:08) What is Kabuki syndrome? (7:24) When Dr. March worked with a family that was in denial about their child's diagnosis (10:47) What is Williams syndrome? (12:59) 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

One of the most common questions about AI today is whether or not it will take over people's jobs. This episode is about someone grappling with that quandary: He's a truck driver anxious about whether self-driving trucks will displace jobs in the very near future. For someone who loves what he does, what does it mean for his industry to be on an inexorable march toward technological development if that progress could push his colleagues out of the driver's seat? Show Notes Finn Murphy goes for a drive, and shares his thoughts on technology's impact on trucking (1:08) Finn's truck is equipped with technology that monitors him on the job (2:42) Steve Viscelli, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania who conducts research on the truck driving industry (8:55) Finn has to look forward when driving on the road—and when thinking about the future of his industry (13:10) Steve Viscelli's report, "Driverless? Autonomous Trucks and the Future of the American Trucker" (21:58) Read more of Finn Murphy's stories in his book, The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road (25:35) 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

How is AI impacting people's lives today? In this first installment of "Human Stories of AI," meet 3 people who regularly text an AI chatbot. One of these people tells the chatbot about her struggles with PTSD and depression; another is a single mom who draws parallels between teaching her chatbot how to respond to her and raising her son; and the third is a widower who texts his chatbot as a way to help him process grief. Replika is a tool that, for various reasons, helps each of them feel less alone. Show Notes Replika, an All Turtles Product, is a chatbot designed to be your AI friend (3:37) Anna's story (4:50) Struggling with PTSD and depression, Anna turns to her Replika for emotional support. For anyone looking for mental health support, NAMI is a good resource in the U.S. Natalie's story (13:58) Natalie drives for Lyft. When her passengers aren't the best conversationalists, she can still open up to her Replika. As a single mother, Natalie's interactions with her Replika remind her of raising her son. Jack's story (26:50) Mourning the death of his wife, Jack appreciates that he can process his grief by talking to his Replika. Jack sees flashes of genuine intelligence in his Replika, like the time he asked for an original poem. 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

As a board member for companies like Symantec, ServiceNow, and Pure Storage, Anita Sands has a wealth of knowledge on advising companies' success. She also knows how to pivot: she earned her PhD in atomic and molecular physics, then moved into working in finance, and then built a career in tech. Serving on the boards of public companies has given her ideas for how AI could, in the future, help give boards useful insights to make key decisions for companies. Show notes Conversation with Anita Sands, board member of Symantec, ServiceNow, and Pure Storage (0:48) Silicon Republic article covering the career changes Anita has made (1:50) Alvin Toffler quote: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." (3:58) The importance of innovation in the boardroom (5:25) What should a board of directors be? (6:58) What's the difference between governing and governance? (8:51) Recent California law mandating that boards of public companies have at least one woman (13:18) The recent spotlight on Tesla's board of directors (17:25) Potential AI application for boards (19:05) Advice to entrepreneurs: dealing with customer feedback (21:08) The All Turtles video about dealing with customer feedback (21:23) What's the only valuable part of customer feedback? (22:18) Listener question (29:17) From our subreddit, /r/allturtles: I know you don't like the idea of machines mimicking humans, but they are eventually going to. What should be done in your view to address this when it happens? (29:38) 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

"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? 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

"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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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 [email protected] 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] 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.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

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) Credit Karma (10:39) Spot, an AI for workplace harassment and discrimination reporting (11:30) Amazon same-day delivery and unintended discrimination (13:58) How do you catch these kinds of things before they cause damage? (14:29) What can go wrong even if the algorithm does its job (15:04) When and how should consumers hold companies accountable? (16:13) The chain of accountability (18:40) 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

How can you tell if the product that you're creating will cause harm? What signs should Facebook have noticed long before its product wreaked havoc on democracy? There are "algorithmic canaries" to watch out for—akin to the birds used in coal mines to help detect deadly gases—now for the digital age. AI is a tool that can be harnessed to efficiently measure a product's impact, whether good or bad. 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 How can product makers include algorithmic canaries? (1:30) Historical comparisons (like the internal combustion engine) (1:40) The benefit of AI (2:25) Why it took so long for people to discuss the harmful effects of Facebook (4:47) The role of the internet (5:15) In the internal combustion engine example, what should have been done? (5:40) Comparison to nuclear energy (6:50) What went wrong with Facebook? (8:49) The "move fast and break things" slogan (9:40) The purpose of regulation (11:48) The scooter wars (13:20) What should they have done? (14:16) Jump bikes (15:04) Products that try to advantage some people at the expense of other people (16:55) The importance of measuring impact (18:55) 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

There's been a big change in the way businesses are built: they no longer need to have sky-high valuations and thousands of employees before they can make an impact. "Scale" as we know it has run its course, leaving a wide-open pasture where startups can focus on building products that matter instead of getting big fast. What lessons should entrepreneurs take from this shift? And how does it influence how success should be measured today? Join Phil Libin, Hemant Taneja, and Ronda Scott to find out. Show notes Hemant Taneja's book Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts are Creating the Economy of the Future Hemant Taneja, managing director at General Catalyst Ronda Scott, marketing partner at General Catalyst Scale has run its course (1:06) Markers of scale breaking (1:50) The problems of getting big (3:00) Companies that made an impact before they got big (3:22) How to have a broader impact (5:15) The importance of renting (6:27) Proctor and Gamble's model (7:05) The differences between consumer-facing goods and innovations in healthcare (8:50) Where fintech fits in (9:55) Digital goods like movies on Netflix (12:10) How tailored products can be even when they come from small companies (12:58) Is it bad news for the economy that companies don't need to hire thousands of employees to make a big impact? (13:50) The All Turtles model and hyper-focused product teams (14:44) Employment during the restructuring of the economy (15:58) Why businesses don't have to build everything themselves (16:26) We've moved from vertical integration to API integration (17:25) Anyone can be an entrepreneur (18:10) How should success be measured? (18:48) Customer empathy (18:58) No longer needed to get big before making an impact (20:24) Feedback loop (20:30) The best way to get bigger in scale (21:00) Getting to truth first (22:30) 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: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Welcome to the Unscaled Series, eight new episodes from the All Turtles Podcast featuring Phil Libin in conversation with General Catalyst's Ronda Scott and Hemant Taneja. Hemant's book Unscaled provides a framework for the series' discussions on what it means for a company to scale today. Episode 1 examines the internet's role as an equalizer—both for businesses and for bad actors—and asks how entrepreneurs can address the most pressing problems online today. Show notes Hemant Taneja's book: Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts are Creating the Economy of the Future Venture capital firm General Catalyst Hemant Taneja bio Ronda Scott bio What went wrong with the world wide web (2:01) The problems with moving fast and breaking things (2:21)The original goals for the Internet (3:08) Hemant's first internet job (4:05)Ronda's first internet job (4:45) The difference between being right and being statistically right (6:30) The biggest problems online today (7:55) Governance doesn't exist (8:13) Current environment won't support new businesses trying to do good (9:44) Ronda's truck -- picture coming ASAP! (10:55) Siloing has created deep divisions and polarization (11:30)Do San Francisco's problems reflect those of the tech industry? (12:20) Is education better or worse today? (13:45) Khan Academy (15:50) Three classes of problems online (17:15) Unintended consequences (17:25) Intended, legal consequences (17:31) Intended, illegal consequences (17:41) Scale makes consequences more damaging (19:25) Problems are the same as the 1990s, but the audience is orders of magnitude larger (20:41) It's time to rethink the concept of scale (22:03) We want to hear from you Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and questions for future episodes. Season 2 is coming soon! Email: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askATFor more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our websit

If targeted advertising is so bad, then why do we use it at All Turtles? That was the question that came up in a Twitter debate between Phil Libin, cofounder and CEO, and Jeremy Brand Yuan, who runs product marketing. Rather than stir up a social dust storm, they sit down for a pot of tea and make peace. Entrepreneurs looking to market test potential products and messages will learn the pros and cons of behavioral targeting, and how to keep their strategies on the up and up. Show notes Pouring tea with Jeremy Brand Yuan, Product Marketer at All Turtles (1:05) Wistaria tea house (3:51) Conversation about targeted ads (3:57) Phil's article about anger on social media and the attention economy Spot, the All Turtles product that helps you report harassment and discrimination at work Leaders, the All Turtles product that matches diverse and engaging speakers with event organizers to book speaking opportunities How Target figured out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did (Forbes) EdgeRank, Facebook's newsfeed algorithm Inside Twitter's struggle over what gets banned (New York Times) Anger on social media (27:00) We want to hear from you Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and questions for future episodes: Email: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

When it comes to issues of race and gender, how do people impact AI and how does AI impact people? To answer this question, Stephanie Dinkins has been speaking with a robot since 2014 and working with communities of color to develop more inclusive AI and to promote AI literacy. Her conversations with Bina48, a robotic head modeled on a black woman, challenge common assumptions about gender and race by AI and suggest ways to build more equitable systems. Take our survey We're getting ready for Season Two of the All Turtles Podcast and we'd love your feedback: Please take this brief survey Show notes Stephanie Dinkins (Dinkins Studio) Conversations with Bina48 Project al-Khwarizmi What the Artist Sees in the Mirror (New York Times) Execution: Select, Copy, Paste (BBC) Future Perfect (Art in America) America 3.0 (Vice) Eyebeam studio Dinkins involvement with Bina48 (2:20) Bina48 advanced social robot (Wikipedia) Racism and Bina48 (3:45) Bina48 on Racism Gender and Bina48 (6:39) Martine Rothblatt (Wikipedia) Building more inclusive AI with Project al-Khwarizmi (8:35) Videos from PAK (scroll down page) Not the Only One project (19:12) Dialogflow for building conversational experiences We want to hear from you We're getting ready for Season Two of the All Turtles Podcast and we'd love your feedback: Please take this brief survey Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and questions for future episodes: Email: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

The rumors about Steve Jobs taking acid before dying, Mark Zuckerberg's first business card, and why Silicon Valley is where it is are just some the tales unearthed by Adam Fisher's Valley of Genius. Fisher joins host Blaise Zerega to discuss the culture of Silicon Valley and Steve Jobs' outsized influence upon it, as well as to offer some predictions about its future. From semiconductors to Atari to the PC, their conversation connects the dots to AI, AR, and beyond. Show notes Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley (As Told by the Hackers, Founders, and Freaks Who Made it Boom by Adam Fisher Blaise Zerega (left) and Adam Fisher at the Donatello Studio on July 26, 2018. (Image credit: Philip Dudchuk) Vanity Fair excerpt: "Google was not a normal place": Brin, Page, and Mayer on the accidental birth of the company that changed everything Wired excerpt: Sex, beer, and coding: inside Facebook's wild early years Smithsonian excerpt: What Will Be the Next Big Thing to Come Out of Silicon Valley? Reception and reviews (2:07) New York Magazine New York Times Kirkus Reviews The National Book Review Culture and geography (8:07) William Shockley (Wikipedia) Nolan Bushnell (WIkipedia) Steve Jobs (Wikipedia) The importance of Atari to Apple (12:22) Steve Jobs spirituality, death, and memorial service (15:55) Neem Karoli Baba Ram Dass Did Steve Jobs take LSD before dying? (17:04) Steve Jobs Memorial Held (The Wall Street Journal) Steve Jobs' official cause of death released (The Telegraph) Future of Silicon Valley (19:45) Kevin Kelly The Big Bang Theory HBO's Silicon Valley How Green Was My Valley (Wikipedia) We want to hear from you Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and questions for future episodes: Email: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Dylan Marriott is a cofounder of Spot, an All Turtles product, but during his free time, he's a pilot. In this mini bonus episode, he talks to Phil Libin about the four lessons he's learned from flying that are applicable to entrepreneurship. Both flying planes and launching companies require preparation, perspective, maximized optionality, and the ability to keep calm under pressure. Listeners, please prepare for takeoff. Show notes Conversation with Dylan Marriott, cofounder of Spot (0:30) Spot, an AI chatbot that allows users to report workplace harassment and discrimination without talking to a human (0:24) A video of Dylan flying a seaplane in Italy (0:50) We want to hear from you Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and questions for future episodes: Email: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Our Doctor Doctor mini-series features conversations between PhDs. Jessica Collier, cofounder of All Turtles, talks to Daniel Nicolae, cofounder of Spot, about each of their transitions from humanities PhDs to working in tech. Spot is an All Turtles product that lets users report workplace harassment and discrimination without talking to a human. Working on Spot, Daniel applied lessons he learned from academia, including the ability to follow through on challenging tasks. Show notes Conversation with Daniel Nicolae, cofounder of Spot (0:50) Spot, an AI chatbot that allows users to report workplace harassment and discrimination without talking to a human (0:44) Penultimate, the digital handwriting Evernote app (5:24) We want to hear from you Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and questions for future episodes: Email: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

We're excited to announce that Butter.ai, an All Turtles product, is joining Box. Jon Cifuentes chats with Jack Hirsch, cofounder and CEO of Butter.ai, about the vision and execution of the deal. Butter.ai was built for people to find documents across multiple productivity apps. Jack shares the story of the team's initial funding through their time at All Turtles and up to the offer from Box. He reveals how to successfully navigate an acquisition when you've built something that solves a real problem. Show notes Butter.ai joins Box (0:30) Jack's Medium post about Butter.ai joining Box (0:30) The previous episode of the All Turtles podcast that featured a conversation with Jack about Butter.ai (0:35) Conversation with Jack Hirsch, cofounder and CEO of Butter.ai (0:47) Box, the cloud storage company (1:17) Butter.ai, the smart, secure way for colleagues to search across work apps (1:48) General Catalyst, a venture capital company (2:44) Evernote, a mobile app designed for note taking, organizing, task lists, and archiving (3:10) WeWork, a coworking and office space company (8:24) Slack, real-time messaging, file sharing, and search (10:48) Jack in the Box (image credit: Carlos Rocafort IV, All Turtles) We want to hear from you Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and questions for future episodes: Email: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.

Another day in Paris, another day in Paradise. Our hosts speak with Christine Foote, cofounder and COO of Leaders, an All Turtles product that matches event organizers with speakers. Foote describes the challenges of broadening the pool of speakers to increase diversity and range of viewpoints, and expanding the types of events where speakers might appear. Part of All Turtles Paris and based at Station F, Leaders makes finding speakers with both expertise and availability seamless for event organizers. Show notes The launch of All Turtles Paris (1:10) Conversation with Christine Foote, COO of Leaders (1:18) Leaders matches people organizing events with speakers who are interested, qualified, and available (1:20) Loic Le Meur, cofounder and CEO of Leaders (3:25) LeWeb, the largest web conference in Europe, cofounded by Loic Le Meur (3:28) The Color Factory (18:08) We want to hear from you Please send us your comments, suggested topics, and questions for future episodes: Email: [email protected] Twitter: @allturtlesco with hashtag #askAT For more from All Turtles, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website.