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What This Tech CEO Knows About Making Great Decisions Most Founders Don’t | Ep. 240 with Arthur Chang Founder of PanTerra Networks
00:16:03
Arthur Chang, CEO of PanTerra Networks, shares how he built a future-proof communications platform by staying passionate, listening deeply, and evolving with purpose. In this episode, he explains why unified AI-driven solutions are reshaping customer engagement—and why balance, not burnout, is the real secret to building a long-term tech company.
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- [00:00]
John Doe
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- [00:31]
Jane Smith
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- [01:03]
John Doe
On WhatsApp. Your personal messages stay private between you and whoever you send them to. So things like the passport numbers for your honeymoon stay between you and your fiance and that video call for your gran's 80th stays in the family. Even your streaming password stays between you and your college roommates who still ask for it every week in your group chat. Because on WhatsApp, your personal messages are yours. No one else can see or hear them, not even us. WhatsApp message privately.
- [01:39]
Alex Johnson
How do you see this in the future? AI being a part of everything.
- [01:43]
Artie Chang
Yeah, it's great to be with you and have this chat. So as a lot of markets mature when they first start, when markets first start, they're typically the solutions that are provided are single service solutions. So a great example of that actually you go way, way back is when Lotus first developed the spreadsheet, they just did a spreadsheet and CorelDraw did a power equivalent PowerPoint presentation. And then Microsoft came along and delivered Office, and Office integrated all of the word processing and the PowerPoint presentation and the spreadsheet together. So that's really how technology markets evolve. And we see the same thing in communications, is that the first products were single service solutions, maybe a PBX solution and a video conferencing solution. But Pantera has always looked towards the future and evolved the technology towards the future. And the future really is an all in one solution, which is what streams AI does is it delivers full unified communications, team collaborations and content sharing in a single solution. And where the future is going is obviously AI. And what AI does and what we've done with AI is to Seamlessly infuse business communications with AI features. Not just one feature like video conferencing captioning or video conferencing summaries, but really all of the communication features we've infused with some kind of AI capability.
- [03:17]
Alex Johnson
It's amazing now with what you can do with voice and obviously, you know, creating text. But I'm fascinated with the ability to use AI when it comes to voice integration and this whole like AI assistant. And how do you see this all playing out in terms of the usage for almost. I mean, does every business owner in the future going to need to have this? What do you think?
- [03:41]
Artie Chang
There are needs and there are wants that businesses have and then there are challenges. And so businesses tend to want to solve their challenges first before their wants. But I'll just give you two examples of how we use AI to really enhance our customer engagement or allowing our customers to engage their customers even more efficiently and effectively. We have a video conferencing platform called Connect, has the ability to do what's called supervisory monitor. And supervisory monitor is a capability that other competitors have on an audio call. So on an audio call, a supervisor of a sales agent essentially silently listen to that audio call, whisper into the agent's ear or even barge into that call. And that really improves customer engagement because it allows that supervisor to coach that agent and to get that agent to really engage the customer in a, in a real time method. And we've taken that capability and we've added it to video conferencing platform, our video conferencing platform. So if an agent is on a video call with a customer or prospect, a supervisor can literally join, silently join, that video call, can whisper or chat directly to the agent without the prospect knowing to coach that agent to get better engagement of that customer, that prospect. And so that's an example of how we use AI capabilities to improve customer engagement, even in video conferencing or in our audio platform.
- [05:20]
Alex Johnson
Do you see the future? Being an AI agent is the person on video. So it's not a human talking to the customer, but they are on video. Or do you see where the AI is telling the human some things because it can probably analyze things maybe even better than what a human manager could.
- [05:39]
Artie Chang
We really see AI as a tool to assist human interaction. We do not really see it replacing that much the human itself, except for kind of menial tasks or simple tasks. And while the prognosticators of AI say AI is going to really take over everything, we really approach it in a crawl, walk, run, kind of philosophy. And what we want to do is provide AI tools to our customers to help them be more efficient, be more responsive, be more effective, be more productive. That's really our goal, is to allow our customers to engage their customers in a much more effective and efficient manner.
- [06:24]
Alex Johnson
I'm hoping that I can have an AI replace me one day. I think I could do, I could do it. Could ask maybe better questions than me, I'm not sure. But artie, you've over 10 years, you've been building the company. So much has happened the last few years with the rise of Gen AI. How as an organization are you able to keep up and stay at the forefront? How fast things move, really?
- [06:48]
Artie Chang
We have a one word philosophy at Pantera, which I've carried throughout my career. And that one word is passion. You have to have passion for what you're doing. You have to have passion for who you're serving, your customers, your, the prospects. You have to have passion for your employees. And if you have passion for all those things, you really can evolve whatever career and whatever company and whatever employees that are with you in a, in a, in an incredible way. And you know, I've been honored to have been working in technology for quite a long time. And I work with a number of employees at different companies and passion has always been the common thread, the common philosophy that has driven myself and the company and the employees. So that's what I'd say. If you have passion for what you're doing. One of the things, the anecdotes that I use is I never use an alarm clock. I just basically get up, I have an internal alarm clock because I have passion for what I'm doing. And I think that's a good indicator of whether you're enjoying what you're doing or not.
- [08:01]
Alex Johnson
Now that it's been over 10 years, do you ever wake up one day and think, how much longer can I do this? Or today my passion is running out?
- [08:09]
Artie Chang
No, I think the other word that I use a lot is balance. And you know, that might sound strange for an entrepreneur, but what I've learned over my course of being an entrepreneur, decades and decades, is that you have to have balance. You have to have work life, personal life, family life, balance. And I do that. I think I do that pretty well. It served me well. It keeps me from getting burned out and keeps me on right on that perfect edge of 99 to 100% productivity.
- [08:43]
Alex Johnson
How do you balance things or what do you. What advice would you give to other people if you could maybe Remember back in your startup phase, maybe the first few years. So I think a lot of people struggle with the word balance. Some people say there is no balance or I have to work 24 7, I have to hustle. What advice or thoughts come to mind there?
- [09:04]
Artie Chang
There are definitely times when your balance shifts more towards work or more towards family or more towards personal. So it's not a static kind of level that you measure. It's more an aggregate average over time. But I think that the best advice I can give is make sure as part of that balance is your value. Your what you value, what you value has to be balanced. So you can't just value work output or work productivity or work results that will result in an imbalance in your life. So you know, I remember when my first child was born, you know, know I, I took time off work and I made sure that my kids saw me when I was growing up. And so it's, it's what you value and your core value system has to be balanced.
- [10:00]
Alex Johnson
I think a lot of people can learn a lot from that and hopefully all these amazing tools and you, you see all these great tools and add ons and the rise of the ability to get lesser expensive AI based things. Do you think this is going to allow people more balance because they'll have the ability to offload work to these things that maybe would have bogged them down?
- [10:23]
Artie Chang
I do, I agree. I think that's a good suggestion or that's a good insight. I also think that AI will allow humans to be more creative, to actually be more responsive to creativity, to their creative side as opposed to to constantly doing menial tasks or repetitive tasks. A good example of that is our Luna Receptionist. You know, our Lunar receptionist can answer and route calls based on real time presence and based on conversational insight and context. And those are things that, that you know, receptionists do on a, on a repetitive basis that they really don't need to let them do more of the creative aspects of their.
- [11:09]
Jane Smith
In the summer, all of Oregon is our playground thanks to our incredible park system. That's why it's so cool that Oregon Lottery gameplay like video lottery or Cash Pop helps support tons of parks projects statewide like accessible trails at Silver Falls State park or upgrades to your favorite dog park in Newburgh. It's just one way a little lottery play for many Oregonians can add up to a lot of good the Oregon Lottery together with we do good things. Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for entertainment only. Must be 18 or older to play with McValue at McDonald's, you don't just get deals on the drinks, you get deals on McDonald's drinks. So when you're breaking a sweat, embrace the chill without breaking the bank. And when your crew is running on empty, keep your wallet full while refreshing the squad.
- [11:58]
John Doe
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- [12:27]
Artie Chang
Position coordinating and scheduling times and, and interacting with executives and, and the people in the company themselves to get nuanced decision making. You know, that's really what humans do best, is the creative part and let the AI do the repetitive manual techniques.
- [12:47]
Alex Johnson
I need a lunar receptionist, by the way. I feel like I could, I could save a few hours every day. I'm sure that I could spend doing other things. I want to be creative, Artie. I want to be more creative, but I'm doing things that make me less creative.
- [13:02]
Artie Chang
You need Luna.
- [13:03]
Alex Johnson
I need Luna. So when you, when you look at what AI has allowed, which I think the great parts are the ability for people, let's say all around the world to create a company for, for you to be able to work with people pretty much anywhere in the globe. On the flip side, it's also lowered the bar of entry. You know, used to be maybe you need to raise money or you need to do something, which is great, but it also creates massive competition, I feel. So how do you see in terms of business owners when you're. If a biz, if you were to start over right now with the company, you know, what would you be thinking through in terms of, you know, if I used to have 15 competitors, now I could have 5,000 competitors. How do I stand out?
- [13:48]
Artie Chang
You know, I think that, that globalization and democratization of competition is good for everyone. I mean, look at for example, how YouTube changed the four TV networks, you know, TikTok and, and now you have, basically anybody can be a content influencer and a content provider. And what it's done is it's raised everyone's ability to deliver better quality to the end customer. And what we do to stay ahead is again, I'll go back to those key words is passion. You know, we're passionate about our business. And I'll give you a third word which we. Our philosophy in Pantera is we listen. So be passionate, but also really listen. Listen to the customers, listen to your employees. You know, we have a saying, another philosophy within Pantera, we have a number of these, what I'll call micro philosophies. But it's sort of how do you, how do you create great decisions? And it, it's actually, if you think about it, we make tens to hundreds of decisions every day. Some are good, some are bad, some are average, but few are actually great. And so you ask yourself, how do you make great decisions? And in Pantera, our philosophy is you make great decisions by making good decisions and refining them over time. And that's really a two part answer. The first part, make a good decision means no paralysis by analysis. If you don't make a decision, that's by definition a bad decision. But the second part is equally important, which is refine it over time. Don't just make a decision and stick with it stubbornly. You need to make a decision, then take input, listen, adapt, change, adjust. We've made decisions at Pantera where over time we've turned at 90 degrees or even 180 degrees because a competitor, new competitive information has come in. And so that keeps us always on the cutting edge of, of making great decisions. And I think that's what great companies do is they make more great decisions than average or bad decisions.
- [15:56]
Alex Johnson
I really like that, Artie. I think, you know, you said it. We make so many decisions, sometimes we put a lot of pressure on ourselves as to, you know, every decision needs to be a great one. When, how could that even be possible? And you mentioned the problem that you've been solving. If you look back over 10 years ago when you first started the company, are you solving a different problem today or has the same problem that you were solving continued?
- [16:20]
Artie Chang
No. One of the great things about Pantera is even in its original business plan, it was to develop cloud based business communications solutions. So we didn't have a different direction when we first started. We've had this direction from the very beginning. It's in our DNA, I would say, to deliver cloud based solutions. The technology has evolved and changed and we've adapted and we've added and integrated AI features, but the concept has always been the same, which is to deliver the best cloud based solution for engaging customers and, and communicating with customers.
- [17:03]
Alex Johnson
Okay, final question. If you could give one piece of business advice, could be anything. Doesn't have to be the greatest in the summer.
- [17:11]
Jane Smith
All of Oregon is our playground thanks to our incredible park system. That's why it's so cool that Oregon Lottery gameplay like video lottery or cash pop helps support tons of parks projects statewide like accessible trails at Silver Falls State park or upgrades to your favorite park dog park in Newburgh. It's just one way a little lottery play for many Oregonians can add up to a lot of good the Oregon Lottery. Together we do good things. Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for entertainment only. Must be 18 or older to play.
- [17:41]
John Doe
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- [17:56]
Alex Johnson
Piece of advice but any business advice to somebody who's maybe in their 20s, early 30s, maybe just left their corporate job, they want to get be, you know, they want to be an entrepreneur. They want to get into business. What is one piece of advice?
- [18:09]
Artie Chang
Well, you know, I've kind of shot shot a couple of those already. I would just say breathe. You know, don't succumb to the industry pundits saying everything's moving too fast. You know, when the Internet first came, everyone said that that would change the world. And it did. It did. But the world, it didn't move too fast. When the PC came around, everybody said that would change the world. And it was. It didn't move too fast. If you're an entrepreneur, breathe and know that even AI is going to move fast, but it's not going to move too fast for you. So breathe, be passionate, listen, make great decisions, and the world's your oyster.
- [18:52]
Alex Johnson
Artie this was great. If people want to find out more and they want to get in touch with you, how can they do so?
- [18:57]
Artie Chang
We'd love them to come to our website, www.panteranetworks.com. that's where you can see a lot of videos of customers and of the product and its capabilities. And we'd love to engage and engage with you in any way we can.
- [19:14]
Alex Johnson
Well, Artie Chang, Pantera Networks I need to get the assistant asap. I need that in my life and all the things that you're doing. I'm very fascinated. But I learned a lot today. I'm inspired. I'm going to breathe, I'm going to make some great decisions and I'm going to be patient. And I thank you for that. And thank you for joining us today.
- [19:34]
Artie Chang
All right. It's great to have been with you.
- [19:41]
John Doe
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