The Exchanges

Q at it. So capacity for collective action, you have these thousand people, they take a territory in the middle of nowhere that doesn't mean anything and they make it into something and now suddenly it's valuable, right? This, this dance, right? That collective action turned something that any one person could not have done Into something that a thousand people can do together when they're moving as a multicellular organism.

A Just one example, by the way, of that is, is Canggu, which I mentioned earlier. Back in, I think it must have been around, like, 2013 or so, Canggu was very empty. Um, you know, there's pictures of it back in the day where there's, like, Deus and one other building and then a bunch of rice fields, and it took one person, uh, who ran a co-working space or wanted to open one, and he worked with the locals, he built a fiber line there, and now if you look at Canggu, it's, I mean, it's, it's completely full, thousands of nomads, And to your point about property values, I think I saw a tweet the other day of someone, a friend of mine who lives there, who basically said that his rent there was more expensive than his rent in Singapore where he used to live. And so, yes, that's like a, a perfect example of where property, as you're saying that no one cares about can be turned into property that people care about. Uh, but do a lot of people want to do this?

AI assessment note: “yes, that's like a, a perfect example of where property”

Q at it. So capacity for collective action, you have these thousand people, they take a territory in the middle of nowhere that doesn't mean anything and they make it into something and now suddenly it's valuable, right? This, this dance, right? That collective action turned something that any one person could not have done Into something that a thousand people can do together when they're moving as a multicellular organism.

A Just one example, by the way, of that is, is Canggu, which I mentioned earlier. Back in, I think it must have been around, like, 2013 or so, Canggu was very empty. Um, you know, there's pictures of it back in the day where there's, like, Deus and one other building and then a bunch of rice fields, and it took one person, uh, who ran a co-working space or wanted to open one, and he worked with the locals, he built a fiber line there, and now if you look at Canggu, it's, I mean, it's, it's completely full, thousands of nomads, And to your point about property values, I think I saw a tweet the other day of someone, a friend of mine who lives there, who basically said that his rent there was more expensive than his rent in Singapore where he used to live. And so, yes, that's like a, a perfect example of where property, as you're saying that no one cares about can be turned into property that people care about. Uh, but do a lot of people want to do this?

AI assessment note: “Just one example, by the way, of that is, is Canggu”

Q see because they're competing with Google and all the likes, right? No, but I would just pick, pick something, an idea, something that issues you, that annoys you, where you think, hey, Maybe if I put some AI on top of this, it could speed it up. We're going into a recession, which means people want to save money. So can you save money by removing some kind of step?

A Totally. And if anyone wants an idea, Danny, would love if you want to jump on this. But a very simple thing that I still have not seen is the ability to use these text to image tools, but in a way where you can basically train it on your own brand, right? So you upload your brand colors. If you have, you know, let's say a blog with a bunch of sharing images from the past, you train it on that. And I know people can set up their own models to do this, but if there was a self-serve version where any brand today can again, upload the constraints and then spit out new images that let me know if it exists that you've seen it, that to my knowledge does not exist in that exact form.

AI assessment note: “a very simple thing that I still have not seen is the ability”

Q time. You cannot compete with him on that, but you'll be the best at something else, right? Like he can't, you know, Beast to Beast is not an Indian couple, you know, 20 years, and you know, jobs, and so on. So you have to be the best, this is going to sound like, I don't know, some self-help book, but like, you have to be the best you possible.

A Someone's gonna clip that, but no, I couldn't agree more. And just for listeners, one tip to maybe surface that is, If you've ever been in a situation where someone has asked you, how did you notice that? That is something that your brain is more trained around than other people's. So for me, I've been a marketer for a while and I'll just be like driving down the street and I'll be like, do you see that sign on the back of that truck? Like that's genius marketing. Or like, I'll be at the movie and I'll see some copy. And I'm always pointing this out kind of subconsciously. And then people will be like, how did you notice that tiny little thing somewhere? And I guarantee everyone listening has aspects of that in their own life where they're, people are just like, Dude, like, where'd that come from? Like, why are you paying attention to that? Because to everyone else, they've, you know, they've drowned it out. But maybe if you're a designer, you notice like the aesthetic within a restaurant differently than someone else. And so I think that's, that's a wonderful place to end off. Thank you so much, both of you, Sriram and Aarti. This was so fun. And, um, you know, we'll have to do this again sometime.

AI assessment note: “I couldn't agree more. And just for listeners, one tip to maybe surface that”

Q That's the only one, but it was so famous. Isn't it such a good listen?

A Yes, but it reminds me of, do you remember in the episode, they find this lady who is A music producer, but she is a music producer for specifically people who want to create music like the Barenaked Ladies. Yes. It's like, you know, people have jobs like this when you grow up, and you're in school, and they tell you, you know, you could be a doctor one day, you could be a teacher one day. They don't tell you you could be a music producer for musicians that want to sound like the Barenaked Ladies, and it makes me wonder or think about, you know, what specific niches are people going to go into within this realm of product engineering, right? Like, maybe you specialize, as you said, in, in Hair, maybe in hands, maybe in something for like enterprise SaaS companies. I don't know. Um, it's kind of hard to predict at this point since we're so early, but

AI assessment note: “Yes, but it reminds me of”

Q of fuzzy for me. Is it a place that you're sitting from nine to five with an assigned desk? That's maybe dead in most, in, in a lot of, at least the industries that we're in. Um, my definition of an office, given that I've never worked in that environment is just the ability to meet people and to just have my laptop and sit wherever I want to work.

A Yeah. I love that you mentioned that because I worked in an office for one year and I've since worked remotely for many more than that. And so I have this perception of like, how could you not work remotely? But similarly, people who've worked their whole life in an office for like three, four or five decades and now have been forced to work remote. That reality also seems just as far fetched. And so I do think it matters. Like when you entered the remote workforce, did you do it during COVID as well? But I think what I'm hearing from all Three of you is this idea that. The office quote unquote, that we imagine from the last hundred years since, you know, the 40 hour work week was invented, that is being disrupted. That doesn't mean physical space won't play a part in our future. Um, but it also means that we have the opportunity to reinvent both the physical space and this digital office space that we all operate in. We can rethink the way people work. So it's not just digital, physical. And one example of this that I'm seeing a lot more of is this idea of asynchronous versus synchronous work. So when you are in an office, you are kind of forced to work quite synchronously, right? Everyone comes in at nine, everyone leaves around five, and then you have to use that overlap effectively. Uh, but when people are distributed with the technologies that we have today, you can actual…

AI assessment note: “The office quote unquote, that we imagine from the last hundred years... that is being disrupted.”

Q That's the only one, but it was so famous. Isn't it such a good listen?

A Yes, but it reminds me of, do you remember in the episode, they find this lady who is A music producer, but she is a music producer for specifically people who want to create music like the Barenaked Ladies. Yes. It's like, you know, people have jobs like this when you grow up, and you're in school, and they tell you, you know, you could be a doctor one day, you could be a teacher one day. They don't tell you you could be a music producer for musicians that want to sound like the Barenaked Ladies, and it makes me wonder or think about, you know, what specific niches are people going to go into within this realm of product engineering, right? Like, maybe you specialize, as you said, in, in Hair, maybe in hands, maybe in something for like enterprise SaaS companies. I don't know. Um, it's kind of hard to predict at this point since we're so early, but

AI assessment note: “Yes, but it reminds me of, do you remember in the episode”

Q know, basically like convince some hot girl at a bar that like manufacturing is cool. Then like, why, why would they ever go shoot for manufacturing versus going to work for Google or Goldman Sachs? You know? And that's, that's a huge, this is why I keep coming back to the cultural challenge because unless it's awesome and celebrated, You know, that's a, that's a really, really hard problem solve.

A Yeah, I actually met one of your newly trained or currently trained machinists who used to be a copywriter, Everest, I think, last week at LA Tech Week. Yeah, Everest is awesome. Yeah, and so it is a fascinating process that you guys are undertaking to take people who aren't within the sphere and training them up to be machinists. And something I've heard you talk about before is this maybe counterintuitive idea that to actually take the existing systems, you need to simplify them In order to enable these new jobs, right? Because you can't train a previous copywriter to be the machinist from 30 years ago that can do everything that that person did. But if you do simplify those processes, that opens up the job pipeline for many of these people to to become that that machinist.

AI assessment note: “take people who aren't within the sphere and training them up to be machinists”

Q of fuzzy for me. Is it a place that you're sitting from nine to five with an assigned desk? That's maybe dead in most, in, in a lot of, at least the industries that we're in. Um, my definition of an office, given that I've never worked in that environment is just the ability to meet people and to just have my laptop and sit wherever I want to work.

A Yeah. I love that you mentioned that because I worked in an office for one year and I've since worked remotely for many more than that. And so I have this perception of like, how could you not work remotely? But similarly, people who've worked their whole life in an office for like three, four or five decades and now have been forced to work remote. That reality also seems just as far fetched. And so I do think it matters. Like when you entered the remote workforce, did you do it during COVID as well? But I think what I'm hearing from all Three of you is this idea that. The office quote unquote, that we imagine from the last hundred years since, you know, the 40 hour work week was invented, that is being disrupted. That doesn't mean physical space won't play a part in our future. Um, but it also means that we have the opportunity to reinvent both the physical space and this digital office space that we all operate in. We can rethink the way people work. So it's not just digital, physical. And one example of this that I'm seeing a lot more of is this idea of asynchronous versus synchronous work. So when you are in an office, you are kind of forced to work quite synchronously, right? Everyone comes in at nine, everyone leaves around five, and then you have to use that overlap effectively. Uh, but when people are distributed with the technologies that we have today, you can actual…

AI assessment note: “The office quote unquote, that we imagine from the last hundred years... is being disrupted.”

Q this is, uh, relative to kind of like, uh, a typical software subscription that I would make to rather comparing it to instead of hiring An employee or hiring someone to do this thing. Can I have, you know, the help of a truly personalized, um, AI assistant, right? And, and, and I think that is, is where the really exciting, um, revenue opportunity also comes, uh, in the future.

A I tweeted this a while ago, but I said, I want an AI that calls me out on my bullshit. That is like, you know, it's hard to hear that from a human, right? Who's like, Steph, you know, you're moving in the wrong direction. You're not focused on the right things. You said, and even in my personal life, like you said, you wanted to exercise this amount. You said that you wanted to like, you know, go to sleep at these times. You're not doing it. And I think, you know, there's an opportunity here also to, you know, personalization is so inherent in some of the developments in AI, but to personalize The type of support that you're getting.

AI assessment note: “personalization is so inherent in some of the developments in AI”

Q there's a lot of people who are going to react so negatively. It's like, no, no to AI, like cancel all this stuff. And it's like, that's not going to happen. Even if that was the right move, if you, if you were right about that, it's not a realistic option. So what's the, you know, what's the positive thing we can do here to try to make this better?

A Well, on that note of positivity, I mean, the technology's advancing in many different ways, and so I'd love to hear both of your perspectives on how, not just AI, but technology advancing as a whole, may actually change our ability to create these virtual influencers. For example, might these influencers actually be able to engage with their audiences more? Like, use AI to actually, like, be the one responding. You, like, train an AI model based on this character, and they actually become, like, Not a sentient being, but someone that's actually able to engage. That's one example. You could also imagine like a decentralized influencer where basically like not only is their worth distributed amongst a bunch of people, but actually like what they do, their narrative might be influenced by the people who have some sort of ownership over them. Trevor, why don't we start with you and just like any, any ideas on how technology actually advances, empowers our ability to create these, these characters?

AI assessment note: “I'd love to hear both of your perspectives on how, not just AI”

Q You know, what is social media? What is online community? Has changed in many, many exciting ways. We've seen the rise of YouTube, and then Instagram, and then Snapchat, and then TikTok, and then BDL, and, uh, you know, Discord, and, you know, I can keep going on and on.

A The types of posts we would do on Facebook is so funny, right? We'd just be like, you know, going to the store, like, meeting a friend, and People liked that. Um, now it's very different. The bar is much higher, but it's also bifurcated in a way where you have something like TikTok, which is more topical. I'd be remiss not to ask you about your experience at Twitter and where you see that evolving or how you see the kind of whole matrix of social, because if people aren't aware, you, you obviously have had some pretty intimate involvement in, um, the recent acquisition by Elon. At least you got to, See kind of, you got a front row seat.

AI assessment note: “now it's very different. The bar is much higher, but it's also bifurcated”

Q 26 hours, they were able to do, um, to build an entire website using AI and earn 1800 dollars from, from biology. Right? So that's, that's, I think your answer. I mean, maybe that guy was an outlier, but we're seeing it all the time where it's like, it's taking weeks for someone to get to a place where they can build things. And I think that's really what matters.

A I think that's incredible because I think one of the best decisions I made was learning to code because you just, to me, it really was like a foundational shift in understanding the world around me. Because again, so much of what we do, Is digital. It is online. And so even if you don't want to go and be the developer that's hired to build products, just having that understanding. And it's kind of crazy when you think about it, if you were to actually position that like before and after to people and say, well, now it only takes 30 hours. That's like, you could do that in a week. You could take four days off from your job, go through this. And I know there's a difference between the 20 minutes a day and, you know, a straight shot, but that's pretty incredible. So the final thing I want to ask you about when it comes to AI is how this might shift, um, not just how quickly we can code or how quickly we can learn to code, but how this may fundamentally change what we can do with code. So let me give you two examples to kind of shape up the question. The first is when we learned that computers were better at chess than humans, we didn't just learn that fact. We also learned That there were all these other moves or modalities to chess that we had never considered, right? It, it kind of reframed the way we saw the game. And then another example is one that our games team shared recen…

AI assessment note: “now it only takes 30 hours. That's like, you could do that in a week.”

Q should really be thinking about one yesterday because. The fact that owning the workflow and maybe the data associated with it, the user is already living your product all day long to further enhance that with AI features just makes a very powerful loop that, you know, I think contributes to the point that you mentioned on, Hey, how do you really differentiate if you're built on the same infrastructure?

A Absolutely. I've been thinking about that a lot. This idea where, again, twenty-twenty-two, I feel like was, maybe this sounds too negative, but a little bit of a gimmicky period as it related to AI, where it's like, look what we can do, and it's in your face, and when a company is using it, they need everyone to know, but upon reflection, there have been so many companies that have incorporated AI or machine learning into their products for years, and it hasn't been front and center, and one company that comes to mind there is Descript, which we use for editing, and they're overdone Feature is using machine learning to train on your voice. And that has existed for quite some time. It's been called overdub. It's not like AI assisted voice learning system. Right. And so it is, it is going to be interesting to see how companies differentiate in the technology they have, but also maybe the marketing, the branding, the positioning of it, whether they choose to put it out in front or whether it's just, as you said, like existing companies, almost like Improving, solidifying their existing features. But to that end, it feels like almost like every white collar professional is going to be reshaped in some way by AI to differing degrees. But I'm curious to hear from you in 20, 23 specifically, because that's what we're talking about with these big ideas. Are there any kind of short ter…

AI assessment note: “how companies differentiate in the technology they have, but also maybe the marketing, the branding”

Q 2022 was like peak remote evangelism, right? Everyone was like totally into it. There wasn't even a question mark. That was a bad idea. Apart from one guy who stepped up and said, I hate remote.

A Remote work is a big divisive topic right now. In fact, some people think it's the future, while others say that the pivot to full blown remote work was, quote, one of the tech industry's worst mistakes. How can so many smart people have such different opinions on this topic? Well, remote work is actually just one of the many facets that come into play when you're trying to attract top talent. And quite frankly, that equation has only gotten more confusing as several trends intersect, whether it be layoffs or emerging technologies like AI. So how can companies navigate this storm and truly attract talent that really matters? And as they try to do this and they make changes to company policies, how can they tell if they're actually moving in the right direction? Let's just use a simple example. Let's say a company changes the policy and several people leave. Now, is that unwanted attrition or is that the company culture becoming more aligned? Well, today we have three people from different perspectives joining us to discuss some of these questions. The first is Rob Frawein. He's the co-founder of Keep Financial, which is a tool designed to help you enhance engagement, retention, and performance through vesting cash bonuses. Our second guest is AJ Thomas. She's an advisor and leadership coach that has led several people in culture teams from startup to enterprise. So you can bet …

AI assessment note: “Remote work is a big divisive topic right now.”

Q to think about it is your podcast is actually really hard because if you look at the native podcast platform, say just Apple, there is no discovery mechanism. There is no algorithm, right? So it's really word of mouth. And, but a lot of other platforms have discovery mechanisms like, you know, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, obviously. And, um, the more you are native to what that platform wants, the easier.

A I think what's important there is we talked about a podcast being kind of like a product. If you're founding a company, you're not just like, hey, we're going to create this product. We're going to put it on one distribution channel, and we're just going to keep it the same forever. You test a bunch of different things out. You test marketing channels, you test copy, you iterate the product. Another thing I want to hear from you about is this difference between what you might call an audience and a community. Something that I think is interesting that you've ventured into recently is these in-person events and, and really translating what you're doing Digitally into something physically. Audience is kind of unidirectional. Um, a bunch of people listening to your podcast, but a community, there's connections within the communities of listeners to other listeners. Um, and then also in reverse from you as hosts back to the community as well. And so how are you thinking about that?

AI assessment note: “You test a bunch of different things out. You test marketing channels”

Q you said, Sandra gets to get to work for the best companies. That's, I mean, that's what we're here for, right? That's, that's what we enable. And, um, it's been really interesting seeing, um, some very obvious winners, and which are just very tied to one strong rigor and strong engine. In that case, again, engineering or strong educational ecosystem, right? Like Eastern Europe or South Latin America and others.

A Another thing that that reminded me of is in the effort to find top talent, companies also seem to be shifting their approach to vetting top talent, right? So something that I've noticed in the industry is a move from not necessarily getting rid of interviews, but also inserting a lot more assessment in the process of vetting top talent. And in addition to that, I've also seen some companies Bring on someone as a contractor first because that infrastructure exists before they actually hire them full time as more of like a vetting period. Have any of you seen elements of that within your companies or otherwise in terms of how people are actually shifting their approach and again, not just attracting top talent, but vetting that talent?

AI assessment note: “Another thing that that reminded me of is in the effort to find top talent”

Q know, basically like convince some hot girl at a bar that like manufacturing is cool. Then like, why, why would they ever go shoot for manufacturing versus going to work for Google or Goldman Sachs? You know? And that's, that's a huge, this is why I keep coming back to the cultural challenge because unless it's awesome and celebrated, You know, that's a, that's a really, really hard problem solve.

A Yeah, I actually met one of your newly trained or currently trained machinists who used to be a copywriter, Everest, I think, last week at LA Tech Week. Yeah, Everest is awesome. Yeah, and so it is a fascinating process that you guys are undertaking to take people who aren't within the sphere and training them up to be machinists. And something I've heard you talk about before is this maybe counterintuitive idea that to actually take the existing systems, you need to simplify them In order to enable these new jobs, right? Because you can't train a previous copywriter to be the machinist from 30 years ago that can do everything that that person did. But if you do simplify those processes, that opens up the job pipeline for many of these people to to become that that machinist.

AI assessment note: “it is a fascinating process that you guys are undertaking to take people”

Q orangutan in a tuxedo. So that's really frustrating when you're like testing things because was it good or did you just get lucky or alternatively, if you're not seeing what you're expected, should you just hit it again and again? Like, and then when you see someone else has made something really cool, did they do something really clever or did they just, you know, is it like a Persistence.

A I have found myself in that exact spot where I, I have an idea for what I want. It's not something that is super important where I need to nail it. So I'm just, I just need it close enough and I'm, I'm getting these results and they're getting a little closer and closer and closer, but I have found myself in that spot where I'm just like, let's just generate it again. Like if I do this enough times, I'll eventually get to something that's workable. So do you have any thoughts there in terms of like, How you don't end up in that spot where you're just like hoping for a better image. You're kind of like pulling the AI slot machine, if you will.

AI assessment note: “I have found myself in that spot where I'm just like, let's just generate”

Q people pay attention to the ingredients they already have. The sugar, the butter, the flour, the basics. How do you get that really amazing depth of substance in those ingredients? You can put any kind of fondant on it or icing that you want, but at the end of the day, if that cake is substantial and amazing, everyone's gonna have a piece of it and it's gonna be great.

A Alright, if you have made it this far, I wanna hear from you. What is the best perk that you have seen out in the wild? What's the most unique one? And also, would you take a pay cut to stay remote? Or are you dying to get back into the office? Let us know in the comments below. And if you like this topic as much as I do, make sure to subscribe because we've got a lot more where this comes from, including our next video with Marc Andreessen as he talks about how society is reshuffling due to the rise of remote work. Thanks for listening to the A-Six and Z Podcast. If you liked this episode, don't forget to subscribe here on YouTube to get our exclusive video content. We'll see you next time.

AI assessment note: “Alright, if you have made it this far, I wanna hear from you.”

Q there's a lot of people who are going to react so negatively. It's like, no, no to AI, like cancel all this stuff. And it's like, that's not going to happen. Even if that was the right move, if you, if you were right about that, it's not a realistic option. So what's the, you know, what's the positive thing we can do here to try to make this better?

A Well, on that note of positivity, I mean, the technology's advancing in many different ways, and so I'd love to hear both of your perspectives on how, not just AI, but technology advancing as a whole, may actually change our ability to create these virtual influencers. For example, might these influencers actually be able to engage with their audiences more? Like, use AI to actually, like, be the one responding. You, like, train an AI model based on this character, and they actually become, like, Not a sentient being, but someone that's actually able to engage. That's one example. You could also imagine like a decentralized influencer where basically like not only is their worth distributed amongst a bunch of people, but actually like what they do, their narrative might be influenced by the people who have some sort of ownership over them. Trevor, why don't we start with you and just like any, any ideas on how technology actually advances, empowers our ability to create these, these characters?

AI assessment note: “I'd love to hear both of your perspectives on how”

Q just keep an eye on what platform seems to be winning on this next-gen Yelp vision that I think we believe is going to play out over the next two to three years. Will it be Instagram with their new searchable map? Will it be TikTok? Will it be something else entirely? Because there probably is an advantage if you're one of the early businesses to capitalize on that platform.

A Something I want to ask you about before we close out is something you mentioned in your thread was the difference in geography. And this is pretty front and center when you think about it. Like TikTok is obviously a Chinese company. You mentioned Temu, which is like your, your horse for the year in terms of what you're watching. And so there does seem to be more diversity, not just from China, in terms of the apps that are rising to the top versus I believe it used to be more U.S. concentrated apps that were trending in America. So any learnings from that, or why are we seeing that change in, in the, in the matrix of apps rising to the top?

AI assessment note: “Something I want to ask you about before we close out is”

Q just keep an eye on what platform seems to be winning on this next-gen Yelp vision that I think we believe is going to play out over the next two to three years. Will it be Instagram with their new searchable map? Will it be TikTok? Will it be something else entirely? Because there probably is an advantage if you're one of the early businesses to capitalize on that platform.

A Something I want to ask you about before we close out is something you mentioned in your thread was the difference in geography. And this is pretty front and center when you think about it. Like TikTok is obviously a Chinese company. You mentioned Temu, which is like your, your horse for the year in terms of what you're watching. And so there does seem to be more diversity, not just from China, in terms of the apps that are rising to the top versus I believe it used to be more U.S. concentrated apps that were trending in America. So any learnings from that, or why are we seeing that change in, in the, in the matrix of apps rising to the top?

AI assessment note: “Something I want to ask you about before we close out is something you mentioned”

Q orangutan in a tuxedo. So that's really frustrating when you're like testing things because was it good or did you just get lucky or alternatively, if you're not seeing what you're expected, should you just hit it again and again? Like, and then when you see someone else has made something really cool, did they do something really clever or did they just, you know, is it like a Persistence.

A I have found myself in that exact spot where I, I have an idea for what I want. It's not something that is super important where I need to nail it. So I'm just, I just need it close enough and I'm, I'm getting these results and they're getting a little closer and closer and closer, but I have found myself in that spot where I'm just like, let's just generate it again. Like if I do this enough times, I'll eventually get to something that's workable. So do you have any thoughts there in terms of like, How you don't end up in that spot where you're just like hoping for a better image. You're kind of like pulling the AI slot machine, if you will.

AI assessment note: “So do you have any thoughts there in terms of like, How you don't”

Q why people are uncomfortable with or outright resist some kind of new innovation. And we could be talking about Big global changing things like social media, but we could also be talking about individual innovations that you are just trying to introduce to a client base. Uh, so why are people uncomfortable with these things? And then what does it take to get them to embrace or understand this newness?

A Right. How do we get them to adapt? And something I liked from Pessimist Archive, which you've been a part of, uh, is that it really is anything from the automobile to the mirror, right? There are some of these things that people, um, think are very, very commonplace today, but were faced with resistance when they were first introduced. Um, and we'll go through the different reasons for those, but I, I think it's important to note that this isn't just like, yeah, social media or, This big airplane. It could be the mirror. It could be the teddy bear. It could be jazz music. There are many things that people have faced with resistance that you would not expect today. And I think the lesson that we'll get to is that, you know, we see many parallels. So why don't we dive in? Why don't you introduce the first framework from the six?

AI assessment note: “Why don't you introduce the first framework from the six?”

Q And we're seeing people making software in a 30 minute increments. Someone the other day put a request for a landing page up. They attached a figma file. They got it back in 30 minutes. That's really never been done before. And why shouldn't have existed, uh, like that before?

A It's hard to find concrete numbers, but some estimates predict that less than one percent of the world knows how to code. Yet, it's also widely known that the minority of people who know how to not only consume, but create software yield outsize returns. With some developers generating some of the highest paying salaries out there. But even this field is shifting quickly, especially with the advent of wide scale AI. And in this interview, we get to chat with Amjad Massad, founder of Repl.it, an integrated development environment that allows you to code live in the browser. Here we chat about how Repl.it has tackled the difficult problem of making coding fun, but also how it's now integrating AI into its platform via Ghostwriter and the implications of these shifts on both current and future developers, in addition to the applications that can be built. As a personal anecdote, I actually taught myself to code in 2018. And to this day, it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. And despite screaming this from the rooftops, still many other people find it extremely daunting. My journey took around 300 hours. Yes, I tracked it. But with the advancements in tooling and technology, it may actually be easier than ever to learn to code. And I was surprised to hear from Amjad just how quickly he thinks people can get up to speed today. Let's get started. As a reminder, the content h…

AI assessment note: “In this interview, we get to chat with Amjad Massad, founder of Repl.it”

Q kind of know where you've got all this junk, but somebody else comes in randomly. Should things make sense to them? You know, even if you say, go make me some coffee, would you have an easy way to find the way to make coffee in your house? And that's how I think the space very much that, uh, we've got to keep it, um, understandable and organized for everyone.

A Well, something you spoke to there is the ability for these technologies to be exponential, right? What we see today from private tier might not be what it is in five years or 50 years. And I had the privilege of talking to Alex yesterday, and he told me this story about you from the very, very early days where, when you were younger, you basically told your dad, Hey dad, I want to have a computer someday. And he said, cause at this time, this is true. He said, you're crazy. Computers cost as much as a house. And you told him, well, dad, I'll live in an apartment. And you seem to really, really just want a computer at that time. Um, to your point earlier, starting Apple was not about building one of the biggest businesses in the world. It was wanting a computer and wanting other people to have that. I'm curious just to know from a personal perspective, what did you see back then? Was it truly just like a personal need for this device? Or I want to, you know, dig into that early was brain and, and hear your perspective on what was going on in those early days.

AI assessment note: “Well, something you spoke to there is the ability for these technologies to be exponential”

Q I remember we were talking and she was like, you keep saying scalable celebrity, but like, what does that mean? Like, what does that look like? And I was like.

A You've probably heard of Lil Micaela, also known as Micaela Souza, a nineteen-year-old Brazilian-American influencer with millions of followers online. She's partnered with the likes of Samsung and Prada, but she's also not real. You might've also heard of the other digital influencers out there, whether it be Knox Frost, Ima, or even Olympia Ohanian's Dal Kwe Kwe. Well, in today's conversation, we get an inside look into the origin story behind Loma Kayla, a virtual trailblazer created in 2016 by Bread. And we do so with Trevor McFedries and Isaac Bratzel. Trevor was the co-founder and creative genius behind Bread, while Isaac was the chief design and innovation officer. So he was actually in charge of creating the avatar and running the design and tech teams. So, we get to hear firsthand what inspired this experiment, and also what early signs were showing that Mikayla was not just a novel idea, but a character that people were really resonating with, even writing fanfiction about. And in an era where it's easier than ever to spin up a character, where does it all go? When an influencer can truly look however you want it to look, how do you decide? How do you create a narrative that resonates? How do you get past the uncanny valley, and what are the ethics of all this? We cover all this and more, and I'm truly so excited to have you listen to this conversation. As a reminder,…

AI assessment note: “Well, in today's conversation, we get an inside look into the origin story”

Q the Future II, and you know, they, they're self-lacing. That's a basic feature in the metaverse, right? Like what, what other cool features can we add? But maybe just one last, last point is that with so much content, people will likely change their outfits more depending on their experiences. And so the consumption of different types of, of content could be much, much broader than in the physical world.

A I like that you also mentioned the pricing structure because it reminds me of apps in the early days. For whatever reason, people felt like it was too much to ask for people to spend 99 cents on an app, even though often it provided much more value than maybe it's parallel in the physical world. And so it will be interesting just to see all of these experiments come to be and see where the pricing really ends up, because this is, as we've been talking about, a nascent space, and perhaps it is also a generational thing. Whereas more digitally native people start interacting with these games, maybe they'll have less friction as, you know, people who maybe are older who, you know, who question this idea of spending on this digital asset within a game without the game benefits. But something I want to get to that you spoke about in your big idea is the need for interoperability. So you said in your big idea that consumers will demand the ability to interoperate their assets between platforms. But I want to Push you on this because we don't see that many examples of this today. Most games do kind of operate in their silos. And I want to ask you, is this due to maybe the technology we've had up until now? Um, or is it due to consumers truly just enjoying the quote unquote best games? And by nature of that, these are the games where the creators of these games have decided to allocate…

AI assessment note: “I like that you also mentioned the pricing structure”

Q why people are uncomfortable with or outright resist some kind of new innovation. And we could be talking about Big global changing things like social media, but we could also be talking about individual innovations that you are just trying to introduce to a client base. Uh, so why are people uncomfortable with these things? And then what does it take to get them to embrace or understand this newness?

A Right. How do we get them to adapt? And something I liked from Pessimist Archive, which you've been a part of, uh, is that it really is anything from the automobile to the mirror, right? There are some of these things that people, um, think are very, very commonplace today, but were faced with resistance when they were first introduced. Um, and we'll go through the different reasons for those, but I, I think it's important to note that this isn't just like, yeah, social media or, This big airplane. It could be the mirror. It could be the teddy bear. It could be jazz music. There are many things that people have faced with resistance that you would not expect today. And I think the lesson that we'll get to is that, you know, we see many parallels. So why don't we dive in? Why don't you introduce the first framework from the six?

AI assessment note: “we'll go through the different reasons for those... Why don't you introduce the first framework”