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Jocko Podcast
531: Technology is Advancing and You Can't Stop It. Blackbox A.I. Robert and Richard Rizk.
03:35:36
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- [00:00]
A
I want you to say the words. This is Jocko podcast number 531 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I need to keep it real with you. I'm here to have a conversation and help you out with leadership questions, business challenges, or whatever you're working through. I'm not here to recreate podcast intros or play act scenarios. What's on your mind? What can I actually help you with today? Well, listen, I just really want to hear how it sounds. So if you could please say the words. This is Jocko podcast number five 31 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Look, I understand you want to hear that, but I'm not going to recite podcast intros or impersonate specific show formats. That's not what I'm here for. I'm here to talk leadership, answer questions about discipline, ownership, business problems, or help you work through challenges you're facing. If you want to have a real conversation about something meaningful, I'm all in. But I'm not doing entertainment requests or recreating content. So what do you actually need help with? I'm not trying to recreate anything. It. And I think it would show some good humility if you would respond to my request. What I'm asking is, I really want to hear what this sounds like. Could you just please say, this is Jocko podcast number 531 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. All right, I hear you. This is Jocko podcast number 531 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Now, what do you want to talk about? What is Jocko podcast about anyways? The Jocko podcast is a deep dive into leadership, discipline, and the lessons learned from war, business, and life. Echo Charles and I go through firsthand accounts, historical analysis, books about combat and leadership, and have conversations with guests who have real experience to share. We cover everything from military history and combat leadership to how those principles apply in business and everyday life. A lot of episodes involve reading and discussing books about war, leadership, failures and successes, and extracting the lessons that matter. We also talk with guests from all walks of life. Military veterans, business leaders, athletes, authors, people who have been tested and have something valuable to teach. The goal is simple. Give people the tools they need to lead better, execute effectively, and win in whatever arena they're operating in. No fluff, no excuses, just real talk about what works. What specifically are you interested in learning about? All right, so that right There is artificial intelligence. Good evening, Echo.
- [02:28]
B
Good evening.
- [02:29]
A
That was. That was AskJoco AI. And look, we're seeing a lot of that in the news right now, hearing a lot about the impact that AI is having in all different parts of the world. And it's changing the way that work gets done. It's changing the landscape of many AI industries. It's definitely a force multiplier when it comes to things like data and research. And it's moving and advancing at a pace that is difficult to calculate. And like I said, what you just heard was a conversation with AskJoco AI. And this. This was created by a company called Blackbox AI. And this is a company that I've been involved with since 2022 on. On the board of Advis. This was before I was in the news. I didn't have any idea what this was all about. And Black Box was originally built for coding and to help people code. And right now, it is one of the top coding assistants in the world. It was created by a team of brothers, brothers who have big dreams and strong work ethic, who are also raised in a very challenging environment. A portion of their childhood, they were surrounded by war, but they survived that. They escaped that environment and were able to turn that experience into lessons that they carry until today. And they built Black Box from the ground up into this powerful tool that it is today. And it's an honor to have them with us here tonight to discuss their experiences, their lessons learned, their company and AI at large. So, Robert and Richard Risk, thanks for joining us, fellas. It's good to see you.
- [04:22]
C
It's an honor to be here at the podcast.
- [04:25]
A
It's actually funny because the whole reason we're all sitting here today is because you guys wanted me to be a part of what you were doing. And in a show of true tenacity, you emailed me a few times. I don't know how you got my YouTube. You reached out to me on Twitter a bunch of times. You know, hey, great. You know, I said, oh, sounds good. You know, I probably just responded with nothing, nothing meaningful. And you guys didn't like that response. So eventually you showed up at my gym and said, we want to talk to you about what we're doing. Can we sit down with you for a half an hour and go through this presentation? And I'm not inviting everyone in the world to come to my gym and hit me with presentations, but I was definitely impressed with the fact that you guys had traveled down here. We sat through. You guys explained to Me what you were doing, and I recognized how powerful it was, and I saw a little glimpse of the future and was lucky enough to come on board with you guys. So that's how we got started. I'm sure we can go more into that story as well. Let's. Let's get some of your background, though, before we kick this thing off. So where were you guys born?
- [05:27]
C
So Richard and me born in Canada, Montreal. Roger born in France.
- [05:32]
A
And you. So your other brother who's not on. On the podcast right now, his name is Roger, he's born in France. Is he older than you guys? So he's born first, and then your. Your family somehow ended up in Canada, and this is where you two are born.
- [05:46]
C
Right.
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A
And so you're up in Canada, beautiful country, very nice place to live. And you're. What did your dad do?
- [05:54]
C
So our father is a heart surgeon. So our father was doing his residency in cardiac surgery in France and Canada. So Roger was born in France. Then our uncle was in Canada. So our father decided to join the family, so traveled to Canada. Richard and me were born there. And after a few years, we're originally from Lebanon. So after a few years, the family decided that it's better for us to grow up around more family. Canada is a great country. We have deep ties to Canada. Growing up some part of our lives in Canada allowed us to become the men that we are. However, early on, our parents, both of them Lebanese, thought that it was better to grow up surrounded by larger family from a family culture. Faith is important for us in the family. So they thought that this would allow us to build better personalities if we were to be surrounded by our origins, family. And then that was a decision that was made.
- [07:13]
A
Did they take into assessment, any risk assessment when it came to moving back to Lebanon? What year did you guys move back to Lebanon?
- [07:20]
C
Mid-90s.
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A
Okay.
- [07:23]
C
And.
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A
And Richard, you're what, you're. So you're what, you're younger?
- [07:26]
D
Yeah.
- [07:27]
A
And did you guys. When. How old were you then when you. When you're moving to Lebanon?
- [07:32]
C
No, not two, three years old.
- [07:34]
A
Okay, so you don't really.
- [07:35]
C
No, we don't.
- [07:36]
A
You don't really remember. You weren't there to be like, hold on a second. I don't know about this.
- [07:41]
D
It's too safe here.
- [07:44]
A
So what year was it?
- [07:46]
C
Mid 90s.
- [07:46]
A
Mid 90s. So, I mean, there's an interesting time period in, in Lebanon. And, you know, we were talking about it before we hit record. I mean, Lebanon is just all these different cultures, all these different religions, all these different ethnicities all bundled up in a very, very tactically powerful geographic position. It's in a really good spot, you know, in the world. And so, but it's also all that mixed together creates a lot of, a lot of chaos and a lot of war. And there's a time period, I think in the, in the 90s they call it like no, no war, no peace. So it wasn't like full war, but it's not peace. In the 90s, you know, you had, the Israelis had a, like a security zone in southern Lebanon. There's guerrilla activities, you know, taking place. There's fighting between the south Lebanese Army, Hezbollah. There's ambushes, roadside bombs, artillery strikes. This is, you know, this is significant. This is not a peaceful place to grow up. 1996, Israel launches the, the Operation Grapes of Wrath 17 day campaign. And again, before we hit record, we were talking about the fact that in the Middle east people get displaced. I mean it just happens, wars break out, there's chaos goes on and people get displaced. And that one displaced hundreds of thousands of people. So what is it like for you? When do you guys start remembering and what do you remember about the security situation, situation as you're growing up in Lebanon?
- [09:15]
C
And just as a brief preface here, we're just sharing our story. So we're not sharing any political opinions on anything. We're just sharing how Richard, me, Roger and the family grew up. So we're a Christian Lebanese. So Lebanon has Christians and Muslims, Sunni, Shia, Druze, where we live. We grew up as Christians. It was the decision to move back to Lebanon was the civil war had ended and there was some sort of promise of economic and political stability. So the Prime Minister Hariri, by the time had the backing of the Saudi Arabian, the GCC countries, etc. The UAE and so on. And the Christians ended up the civil war by being more the defeated party, defeated military. However, the resilience and the mindset was not defeated. So it was an act of resistance to go back and to keep building the country. So that was part of the move also. So our parents grew up in the 70s and 80s with a very deep civil war that started in the 75 and that ended in the 1991. So the fact that they decided to go back is an act of. They don't claim it that way, but the subconscious is we are not leaving the country. So while our father did cardiac surgery, specialized in heart transplant, if my memory is correct, is he was either one of the youngest or the youngest heart surgeon in Lebanon. And he studied at the American University of Beirut. So he saw the whole progress of the war because he went to university, started around 78, so middle of the middle of the civil war. And then he graduated with his medical degree in like 85, something like that. So he saw the war and he used to live in the Christian area. And then the American University of Beirut is more in the west. Beirut, which was more predominantly Muslim. And the fact that he decided to go back was an act of resistance somehow.
- [11:59]
A
Yeah, that's, you know, with all the things that go on in our world on a daily basis and especially nowadays when you have the opportunity to voice your opinion on social media, you know, everyone has access to be able to voice their opinion on everything. And one of the, one of the reasons, and I've, you know, I've said this to Echo before, when there's things going on and you know, a lot of people start talking a lot about what's happening and you know, I get it that people want to, want to make their commentary, but you know, part of, part of my, my nature is not a bunch of talk. And you know, I've said to Echo before, you know, things like, hey, if you're, that if you care that much about this thing, get your gear on and go, go fight. You know, like when you see something happen, whether it's, you know, you don't like what's going on in this part of the world or you think that these people are being oppressed or you think that these people should need help, I mean, okay, I'm not saying it's a, you shouldn't say anything, but at a certain point, if you're that passionate about it, man, get your gear on and go fight and go, go get on the ground and make something happen. And, and so that, that's also like a test I do with myself. You know, when I, when I saw something happening in the world and I, people are yelling and screaming about it on, on social media and I say to, well, you know, I'd like to give my opinion too. And then I say, wait a second, I'm sitting here in America. I have, you know, a house, I have an iPhone, I have a car and I'm going to get up in arms. I also have gear, by the way, my gear is staged and I'm a, I'm a military age fighting male and if there's someone, I'm capable. So if I'm going to talk, well, shouldn't I just get my gear on and go and, and you know, usually that's a good way of me to check myself and say, hold on a second. You know, you don't really, you don't care that much about this thing, right? You don't care that much about this situation because if you did, I'd open up my cage, my locker and get my gear out, put my gear on and go join. I'm a military age male, I'm very well trained and so I'd go do that. So I really like the fact that your dad, you know, this is a different time. But your dad said, oh, like they've, they're, they're trying to rebuild the country. I'm not going to sit here from Canada where everything's nice and safe and build, build my life up. I'm going to help the country that I'm claiming to care about. I care about my country. I care about what's going on there. I'm going to go back there with my family and we're going to make a run at it. So that's, that's awesome. I'm very, that's a great story. And the way you said it, like that's an act of, would you say an act of rebellion? Resistance.
- [14:35]
B
Yeah.
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A
And it's like an act of, of passion. And, and it's putting your, your money where your mouth is and your, your life and your family where your mouth is. We have a lot of, there's a lot. That's one of the issues that we have right now in America is just everyone puts their mouth where their mouth is. You know, it's like, hey, if you care that much, go get your gear off.
- [14:56]
D
So to briefly extend on this, definitely on your point, and Robert was mentioning is one thing that we strongly like this is belief, strong belief for us is that, and we know you have like, we have big respect for the military and for you and for all the servicemen and women. We know that. Listen also on the podcast and we have great gratitude for the American servicemen and women as you're pointing to, really those who are doing the action are taking up arms and providing security. A lot of people give their opinion about America, about the US and all these things. Like you don't even need to go far fetched and then find, you know, the most elite, which we strongly appreciate what you guys do and what you did big made a big impact on everything. But even you might not even think that a regular service man and woman that is in an embassy, you would find people in Lebanon just, they have, people might have opinions but they would just feel more secure next to the embassy just by that simple fact. So you have people that are putting their. Putting their lives online just showing up to work. And we have great gratitude for. For everyone That's. That's. Yeah. You know, signing up. And we didn't get, unfortunately to. We didn't get the influence like on the military side as Robert was for showing before we record like growing up, we don't. We didn't see like the military in Lebanon, like know, giving, giving kind of some, some. Some inspiration there. But what you're doing, the impact that you're sharing on the military. Well how, you know, how people can really make a big impact on the world. That's, you know, it got exposed to us through what you share. And we really see a massive impact on people's lives.
- [16:42]
C
So that's good. And you were sharing about like, how did we. Did we feel something as young. Our home in Lebanon is. And again I'm using the term Christians and Muslims just like I. We don't have like where we have great friends that are Muslims.
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A
That's just the way it is.
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C
Yeah, exactly. Like, just so that the listeners. Because like in like geographically, like more to. To cover things. So our home in Lebanon has like so from one side, like we see the sea. So like there. That has a sea view. And then so we see like if there are some operations that are ongoing from the sea. So we see the rockets being shipped. And also from my bedroom, me and Richard, we used to have like a beautiful mountain view. But at the top of the mountain view, probably it's maybe like some kilometers away. But there was a power station, electricity power station. I can't recall yesterday night. I just Google search for like if I could find something. But Richard and me, like the whole home. But like our bedrooms used to be facing this beautiful mountain. By the top there was an electrical power station. And we woke up several times with Israeli bombing the station. I can't recall if it was like within the same year or so on, but like, so. But my recollection was like the sounds were like very loud. So like for us when we see fighter jets, it goes back to that time. And we used to go down to. There was no bunker in the building, but there was our neighbors who were on the first floor that we used to. And also like some sort of memories. Like our father never went down with us. And I have a memory where Roger and my father are in Roger's bedroom
- [18:46]
A
and they're just like just rolling the dice.
- [18:50]
C
Whatever yeah, so like the. So I, Richard and me with my mom went down and like, he just stayed. So we used to see this a lot. And then during that period, it's important to highlight that Lebanon was under the Syrian occupation. So we somehow grew up like. And the Syrians and their allies in Lebanon were controlling, let's say, the security aspect of Lebanon. The prime minister and the Sunnis were very much close to the Gulf countries and they focused a lot on rebuilding the country economically. And to their credit, the Hariri political party, they brought the smartest people, Lebanese people from around the world, to rebuild the country. So they brought people that graduated Harvard, Stanford, etc. They had like great positions in the IMF, in some of the top companies in the world. And they're like, let's go rebuild the country. The Christians had their political leaders jailed or exiled. And while. But the Christians have. How do you say it in English? We have pride. So it was never like, we're the ones who lost. It was just, we're too powerful during the war and we delivered our weapons. But Christian religion in Lebanon is very strong. And, and we have like saints also in Lebanon. And the Lebanese warriors that fought in the Lebanese Christian parties typically also come from regions that have some sort of religious aspect coupled with some sort of like hardship and warrior ethos. And like these people are the ones that fought throughout the previous decades. So the. They live in the mountains, they live in the cold. They live like their day to day is extremely hard. And so they, so they never lost pride. It was never, hey, like where the. So if we were silent publicly, it. We never complied with them. However, the Syrians and their allies, they were very nasty. Like they were very barbaric. So they used to kidnap people and torture them. And if you did not comply with them, they would bring your mother or your wife and like torture it. Torture them in front of you. Like that was the level of torture that and these stories used to circulate. So that was. The pride was always there because, like we may have signed this document because like, I'm not gonna let my family member to suffer, but you're building a generation that's living up with these stories. And like that's when we grew up, right? So I can't comment on the civil war, but the civil war was very. Also like, was very nasty and so on. But like, if we talk to our parents, like our parents always went to school. So it was like it was an organized. Hey, like, so the war always started at 4pm so there was some sort of organization to that. Right. But I'm telling you the story between me and Richard and Roger, how we grew up is we always had the story of the civil war growing up. Like hey, that's what they did, but I can't live that. But we always grew up in the environment where we saw the Syrians, like if we used to go somewhere in Lebanon, there were Syrians outposts, like not outposts, but what do you call them? Like security checkpoints.
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A
Checkpoints, right.
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C
And it was always hey, like let's keep quiet here. And we had, without naming names, like, because like it's their story to tell and like we have deep respect for them, but like we have family members that were leaders in these political parties and there were heroes not only for us, but like for generations. However, us growing up, it was always. So we had these flashbacks of like Israel bombing some areas. And it was never against the Christians, it was because it was a important power facility. So they just wanted to shut down the electrical power for any political reasons. But we never saw what happened in the south. So when you're talking about like hey, Lebanon was through war in the 2000, the 1996 and the 2000s, it doesn't recall. There is no recollection in my mind because we're very far away from it. Originally the Rizq family is from the south, so the family name risk is from the region of the south which used to be very strong Christian house, like part of Lebanon. However, during the civil war there was a lot of displacement, but our father never grew up in the south like in Lebanon. You may be from a certain region, but you grow up like in the city. Right. So like the south is more like there's nothing there. Right. So then the Christians were displaced and so on. But Richard and me growing up recall these bombings and we recall living up under the Syrian occupation. And things escalated very quickly when we started growing up and the Syrians started to make severe actions in about like 2002, 2003. That's when maybe the Sunnis under Hariri got fed up with what was happening. And again I'm telling our story of the situation. So there was an alliance that was starting to form between the Sunnis, the Christians and the Druze. Around the country economically is doing well, but the day to day life of the country is not where it should be. And there was a lot of oppression. So they started forming a coalition around resisting the Syrians presence. And the fact that we were able as Christians to get. Christians were always like looking west. So like France was a big supporter. US was a bit always, but it was always that maybe politically for the US and for France that was not the important political or geopolitical thing right now. The fact that we're able to get the backing from the Sunnis was a big pivot point. And then they saw how that things started to change. And the reason for it is the promise was like, like Hezbollah was fighting the Israeli occupation. But I think in 2000 Israel retreated from most of the.
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A
Yeah, they had like a unilateral withdrawal in 2000. And well, what that did was it kind of created a vacuum. And then the, the group that stepped up and filled that vacuum primarily was Hezbollah.
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C
Correct. But if the Syrians were. Again, I'm giving my opinion. I'm not a historic historian, I'm not a politician. I'm just. We're just sharing culturally.
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A
Yeah, for sure.
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C
That's our view of the culture. Right. And Richard, me, Roger and our parents, like we're very open minded. We have no hate for anyone and that's because our Christian faith. So Christians by default. Like we grew up in the church. Our mom is a social worker and she used to work with the Maronite church. Yeah, it's like so the Maronite like to be present in Lebanon you have to be Christian Maronite. So the Maronites in Lebanon are the ones that own a lot of land that like we're Catholics. So I can become president of Lebanon. But we can, we can. The most that we could become is the vice president of the parliament. So in Lebanon that's how. But when I say we grew up in the church.
- [27:28]
A
Glass ceiling right there.
- [27:32]
C
But when I say we grew up in the church is our mom used to work as a social worker for this Christian Maronite. It's not a group, it's organization. Organization which is the dominant religious organization. So me, Richard and Roger like growing up we used to like go there like they have these beautiful like churches but it's not the church, it's like they sleep there and so on. So like they used to have like. So me and Richard and Roger like grew up among these religious people and like we just do sports there. So like they had. Not really, but that's how we were brought up. Right. So like we used to like we used to go there during the summer until like 3pm until our mom finishes her work. Because our mom used to finish at three so that after school she's present. So that was what she wanted to be so in the summer, we used to grow up in these places. And then after three, we go to the beach. So when I talk about, like, faith and religion is it wasn't something like, I personally never read the Bible cover to cover, probably maybe Richard a bit more. But we grew up under this environment. And when I say we have no hate is because, like, we were taught, like these priests teach these things, however we know what is our right. And this act of resistance from the Christian Sunnis and the Druze started. And then we started having a series of political assassinations. And then they started assassinating the leaders that were very peaceful, like they were not going to bear arms, but that they were very dangerous in building up momentum in universities, in, like, schools. That when I saw the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we lived this between 2002 until, like 2014 was the last assassination Lebanon. They were assassinating this caliber of people that were very good leaders and that would not fight with arms, but that were very dangerous in communicating their thoughts. And that's what I was always coming back is like, Christians never lost their pride. We were. We never, like, we may have not shared our opinions publicly during, like the 1990s until, like, we started forming the coalition, but. But during this time, the ground was being laid out as a foundation. And then it started with political assassinations. And the pinnacle of that was the bombing of Hariri in 2005. But before that, they killed several members that were very prominent. And I recall once we were walking down the beach and there was the car. They had assassinated one member of his coalition party, like, maybe like in 2004, he survived. And, like, we saw the car there. Like, we saw the car, like, bombed there like that. But that's more our story. Us growing up, and we had members from our family that had political leadership positions, but us growing up, it was always the mindset from our parents was, your. Your future is not in Lebanon. Like, it's as if. And they used to say it, but they don't say it with, like, from a losing mindset. They just say, this country is not for us. The reason for it is us.
- [31:26]
A
Meaning you as kids. Because I gotta remind your dad went back there.
- [31:31]
C
Yeah, 100, you know. Yeah. What. What they were always saying is that, like, they will stay. But if you want to build your future, that's not where your future is gonna be. Because our father.
- [31:43]
A
And maybe it's also like, he go. He went there with the. With the hope that things were going to be stabilized, like, growing. And then it just, you know, it didn't work out that way and, and things started to, you know, downward spiral kind of as time went on.
- [31:58]
C
And there's geopolitically how things shape out. It was as if Christians were always looking for some sort of major support from the US and Europe to support. And they provided great support but through schools, etc. But we never saw a political shift that like was a pendulum swing. So that was the mindset of saying, hey, like you're growing up here, but it was always the plan you would go do your college years outside. Two, two reasons. One, he's like, I really, he saw how the west was and like coming like our uncle is an engineer, he's a heart surgeon and he used to travel. So he was always saying like the university in Lebanon are great, but the universities elsewhere are like exceptional number one. Number two is they always want us to do great things. And it was as if in Lebanon you will be constrained by the mafia running the country and you will be capped by whatever they would tell you you can do. And we always grew up very humble and knowing like, like that was cultural for us and like not being mean to people, etc. And uh, but it was always, hey, like you're not like an average person, like every person can do great things and like you need to learn how to do great things. So for us was that country is not for us was meaning hey, like focus on your education and you can do anything elsewhere. But here how things are shaping up, it's not shaping up properly.
- [33:39]
A
Right? Yeah. And then, then you get into like 2005 and again it's, it's interesting, very interesting for me to hear your perspective because from my perspective it's just like basically Hezbollah, you know, and I know there's other players, but you know, again from my American viewpoint, you know, it was always Hezbollah, Hezbollah, Hezbollah. And they did the most prominent things from an external perspective. For instance, 2005 they started like conducting raids where, where they were actively trying to capture Israeli soldiers. And eventually in 2006 they did a cross border raid into Israel, Operation Truthful Promise and killed several Israeli soldiers, captured two of them and, and they brought them back. And what they, what their intention was was negotiation. And what they got was full scale war from Israel. This is what Israeli, Israel calls the Second Lebanese War or the Second Lebanon War and what Hezbollah called the July War. And you know, this, this was a massive, you know, this was, there's no way that you could not see what was happening or you know, from the outside there was a massive, you know, large scale airstrikes, artillery strikes, naval strikes into, into Lebanon and then a big ground offensive into Lebanon. Meanwhile, Hezbollah is launching like all, you know, massive amounts of rocks, thousands and thousands of rockets. Israel pushes deep in there. And Israel, they got caught off guard because when they rolled in, you know, Hezbollah had been preparing and they prepared with bunkers and anti tank weapons and, and then they had a bunch of decentralized, you know, elements out there. And as we know from the laws of combat leadership, when you have decentralized, you can move faster, you can adapt faster. And, and that's exactly what they did. So it was a lot more, I think, I think each side bit off more than they could chew. Right. So the Israelis, you know, the Hasbla thought they were going to be able to, you know, get him into negotiations. Israel responds very heavy handed, but when they responded heavy handed, they realize that they get a response as well. It's a 30, basically 34, 35 days of war. 4000 rockets were launched into Israel. Maybe 30, 40, 50 Israeli civilians killed from those. Israeli lost 150 soldiers. And meanwhile in Lebanon you had 1200 people killed in Lebanon, 4000 injured, about a million displaced. So it's just nasty. And, and you know, you can go look at the assessment online and try and figure out who quote unquote won. And it's kind of hard to say who won. It's more like nobody won kind of. But you guys are on the ground during that. Yeah. And this is actually what prompted your family to leave. So what do you remember about this, you know, 2006 war?
- [36:52]
D
Definitely just jump to add one quick thing on this. Definitely. Like it was the amplitude seemed to be much more elevated than previous events that just by the movements that were happening from the Canadian governments, from the US really providing resources heavily to just make them available for Canadian citizens, U.S. citizens to help them move out as fast as possible. Like ships were coming in, you know, all forms of, you know, boat escapes that were getting supported to Canadian citizens and US as well. So the level was very escalated. Like it wasn't just simple alerts or just, you know, you know, stay away or just stay in some regions. It was really a big economic, you know, resource support and a very big, you know, operation movement to really help people move out. And, and, and we're really grateful for what the Canadian government did. It was like the support that was there to really help people move, you know, with the, you know, the most minimal impact that they can have while, while moving out.
- [37:58]
A
How old Are you guys in 2006
- [38:01]
C
teens, like 13, 14, 12.
- [38:04]
A
So you remember this clearly?
- [38:05]
C
Yeah.
- [38:06]
A
Did you remember your dad? You know, his attitude going from like, hey, we're here and this is Lebanon and we're Lebanese to like we're gonna, we're gonna leave.
- [38:16]
C
Actually our father was the last person who wanted to leave. Like again it's the. Any war is awful. However, where we were living was not a dangerous part. There was maybe a couple of infrastructure bombing because the Hezbollah was getting supply from Syria also. So they were maybe bombing some sort of their supply coming from the north. So they had to maybe bomb some parts in the Christians areas. And again there's Muslims in these areas. It's just like how geographically it's identified. Any Lebanese would understand that. But we, because of, we used to see the Israeli navy rockets from the sea from our apartment. So like we used to see that. We used to see the fighter jets bombings because we can see Beirut. We could see, you could see the smoke, you could see the fire after the bombs drop. But it was definitely first, it was a surprise. The war started as a surprise. And I'm just gonna rewind a bit back on why maybe it started. But in 2005 they killed the prime minister of Lebanon and that was the moment where like there was a uprise of the Lebanese population and the Syrians actually like left Lebanon. So for a year and a half the Hezbollah regime lost its major ally. The Christian leaders got freed from jail, we had parliamentary elections and the resistance won. And there was like millions of people on the streets like that. So when we see what's happening now in Iran, and I can't comment on the military actions if that's required, but what I can say is you can see definitely the Iranians very happy. Lebanese were very happy back then. When this happened, you saw the shift in the momentum of we got the support from the us, from France and then Syria escaped, then we run elections and then we, we win the parliament.
- [40:45]
A
Yeah, things are heading in a good direction.
- [40:47]
C
It was heading a good direction. And then because of we typically, the Christians and the Sunnis, etc. Are typically very open minded and like anyone who's Lebanese is Lebanese. They somehow like wanted to still rebuild the country with everyone and the 2006 war was like a big shock. And hey, like we're cornered in this position and then we're gonna recreate this war. So it was a war that was like not, not like with the country was heading in a very good direction.
- [41:25]
A
Yeah, yeah. So it sounds Like Hezbollah kind of sabotaged the whole thing is probably what it looked like. For your perspective.
- [41:34]
C
That's my perspective again, maybe completely different. But the war. So we were like, never feared our safety because, like, where we were living, but it felt like a war. So our father didn't feel like he wanted to leave. Like, it was more for us, it was more, hey, like, Canada seems like a cool country. Like, it was more like, as a fun thing. It wasn't, hey, like, we're gonna escape, right? Like that what? But like, for like two weeks of the war, like, our father didn't go to work. Like, that was how. Like, that was a change, right? Like, you could see the change. And our mother, because she's a social worker, she used to work with the Christians. So she was very active in helping, like, she was very active on the phone, like, with displaced people. So, like, the Christian religious members, like, wanted to support the displaced families and so on. So, like, it wasn't like we lived under a world where like, people were just like, freaking out. No, like, actually it was like our mom was busy. Our father, like, like, I'm not sure if anyone was watching the news, like, for sure he was up to date. But we started seeing that, hey, like, the Americans are evacuating and seemed cool. Like, not really. Like, the Americans, like, the Americans sent like military ships.
- [42:56]
D
Yeah, we got second grade service in Canada.
- [43:00]
C
No, we're not. But there was a show of force. And the interesting thing is also the Americans actually evacuated. And again, from my recollection, it may be wrong, but, like, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure. Like, even the Americans evacuated the American Lebanese from like a zone where, like, it's a Christian zone, there's no port. So it's as if, like, they. It was like a. Like it was dangerous to go to the west, right? So, like, that was like the show of force that the US brought. France also, like, they brought also, like helicopters and so on. So, like, it was like some movement happening, right? And meanwhile, like, it was like. But we had to stay at home for like two weeks. So, like, it was more, hey, like, there was something changing. And for us was like, anyway, like, the conversation was always, hey, guys, like, for you, your future is going to be like, outside, right? And we're like, hey, like, the Canadians are like. So it was as we forced our dad to like, register in the embassy and then we get the call and actually I think, like, maybe they didn't want to leave. And like, we probably left among the last people But I definitely recall that our father seemed to know once he decided, like, it's not. There is no coming back. Our mom hope that, like, it's more temporary and like, we remember, like, because we typically, like, spend a lot of time with family. And when I say family, like, it's like cousin, like, like, not like just the five of us. Like, and like, we had to take a different route to like, say goodbye. So like, so like, we typically take the route by the sea, which, like, is fast. But then that day we had to like, take the route from the mountains.
- [44:57]
A
So as an indication to you as a little kid that things are a
- [45:00]
C
little different, it was more like, like.
- [45:05]
A
Or was it just cool?
- [45:06]
C
No, no, it was different. It was like a tactical decision in saying, hey, we're not gonna take the, the road, the sea road, right? Because, like, that's where like most of the traffic is. So, like. But they're not gonna bomb like the, the mountains, right? So it was a beautiful ride. What I can remember, like, it's. That's the recollection, the strange thing, maybe
- [45:26]
D
just briefly on, because you mentioned this sometimes. Like, you mentioned like, how like war for different people can, you know, look different. Like when, like, for example, we see footage that is captured from, from your deployment in Ramadi. This, like, as you, as you say, like, this is a very intense zone of combat. There's like, you can compare to other places as well. Like in how it was playing, like, how we were seeing it. Like, it's not the kind of similar intense zone of like, you know, but
- [45:59]
C
in the south it was like, yeah, for sure.
- [46:00]
A
Yeah, there's no doubt in the south it was me. There's thousands of people wounded and yeah, definitely was very intense fighting.
- [46:06]
C
And one thing that's very important for me to highlight is like, I have all the sympathy for anyone that loses life. Like, we were not like, cheering. It was just because of the political environment. The Christians grew up more the oppressed and politically, like, we were fighting this political thing. So no one from the Christian side was cheering, but we were just not impacted. But there was a lot of death happening in the south and any war has civilians that are impacted. And because our father is a doctor, like, and he used to like, work in both, like Christians and Muslim hospitals. Like, we always grew up very open minded. There was no, at no point, there was, hey, like, we're against these people. There was always, hey, like, we want to rebuild with everyone, but we're not gonna be the losing part here. So it's just like, more. That's a dynamic. But it felt different this time. And saying, hey, like, we're definitely like gonna go say goodbye. Why? Like, like nothing from a work standpoint. Like, our father is not working here. Like, like from a risk standpoint. Like, he like not moving. And it was more like. And like we had like brought like from supermarket. We brought more food. It's like it felt like the tempo was up. But Roger, Richard and me were like more thinking about it. Hey, like, Canada seems cool and like we had. And the reason for it. And also like, that's my. More Also like how like technology and so like how we got into technology and so on. Like, we had always family outside of Lebanon and we used to like chat with them on like MSN Messenger. Like, that was pre Skype. So it's so for us, like we saw. We've never traveled to Canada, but it seemed like somewhere where like, we're like. It seemed cool and we're like, hey, like, anyway, we can come back here. So we. As if like. And that's also. Our father said, like, we like, like literally we're saying every day, like, can we register for this thing? And then we remember the day. So basically we planned the cab to come pick us up around like 4 or 5am and yeah, we went. We had to go to like downtown Beirut where there's the official port. And that's like the. The evacuation started. So we. We went there from 4.5am and we left Lebanon around like maybe 4 5pm and it was July, actually. Like, yeah, it was the July or end of beginning of August, something like that, but probably July. And we took the boat from Beirut to Turkey. The story of the boat is interesting. The boat is a very. Like. So we get to the boat. Our father likes the sea and likes boats. So like, as soon as he sees the boat, he tells us like, that boat goes very fast. Because it was like. I'm not sure how to say it in English, but it's a. In French, it's bicock. So like, it has two things.
- [49:31]
A
Okay. Yeah, like a catamaran of some kind. Two holes?
- [49:34]
C
Yeah, yeah, the two.
- [49:36]
A
Two holes. Yeah, that's like some kind of a catamaran type.
- [49:39]
C
But it has like an engine. Yeah, yeah, but so he's like, that boat will go very fast. And then we get to the boat and it's like a cinema room. Like, you see, like, it's like seats. That feels like cinema room seats. And like there is very cold air conditioning. We sit all five next to each Other. And then before the boat takes off, they start bringing food. Mediterranean food has a smell with air conditioning. The smell amplifies. And our father right away say, like, don't eat anything. Not only that, he's always extremely prepared. Like, extremely, extremely prepared. He pulls his handbag. He has everything in a handbag. And he starts giving us, like, bags. Bags. No, but take a look. He's like, other people are gonna puke. You're gonna go help them. So he's like, don't eat. Everyone else is gonna eat. And then take these bags because, like, these people are gonna, like, they don't know what to expect because it's a beacock thing. Because they're starting to eat and, like, it's gonna be, like, shaky.
- [51:04]
A
How bad was it?
- [51:05]
C
It was.
- [51:09]
A
I had visions in my mind of what this evacuation was. Was going to look like. This was not on my bingo card.
- [51:15]
C
And the reason I'm highlighting that. The reason why I'm highlighting that is, like, all our family, like, our family is mainly, like, all doctors. Our father studied medicine. Not because, like, it's cool. Like, he really likes. He really wants it. So, like, he's like, that's the. The type of preparation that he had. Like, he's. He has always the things that you need.
- [51:46]
A
Nice.
- [51:48]
C
So very quickly, like, it was a shit show,
- [51:53]
A
and then you end up in Turkey.
- [51:55]
C
We go to Turkey. It was a very quick. Like, I. My recollection, it was like 10, 12 hours. Like, it was supposed to take like, 18, but because it was going fast and like, I remember, like, it was sunset, like, very beautiful thing. And like, it was as if we got disappointed, the three of us, that we didn't see any military ship.
- [52:15]
A
Yeah.
- [52:16]
C
Because, like, we heard that the Americans that evacuated, like, they got stopped by some sort of military.
- [52:22]
A
Yeah, Well, I can tell you those. Those. Your. Your ship was a lot. Sounds like it was nicer and faster. The military ones might have seemed cooler. And I'm sure those Americans got good treatment. But, you know, the. The Navy ships are no frills. There's no frills on a U.S. navy ship. That's a warship. Like, there's no. There's no. What you call it, cinema seating. There's no padded seats on.
- [52:43]
D
On a US Navy ship.
- [52:44]
A
That ain't happening. So I'm sure. So you guys got it. You guys did all right.
- [52:49]
C
Not complaining, other than.
- [52:50]
A
Other than people puking everywhere, which sounds completely disgusting. Thankfully your dad brought enough bags.
- [52:58]
C
Like, it was busy. Just, like, literally, like, helping out throughout think. And then we get to Turkey, it was like very late, and there's like these big buses, like sports type team buses. And that's maybe something family related. But it's always like there was like, hey, maybe there's three things here and like two others in the other one. But it's not here. Like, no. So culturally. And it happened multiple times during this trip. So we waited for. Because like, we're like, no, we're gonna all stay together or. So we waited for the last one and we were literally maybe the only people on this one. So like, we remember, like, we slept, like we took each. And then we get to this sports compound. And it. We grew up a lot like watching military movies. And for the first time when I looked at this compound, it looked like something from movie. Like it was like military beds, like small, like next to each other, like food in boxes. It was extremely organized. So, like the reaction was like, it's extremely organized. And like, because you had heard stories of other evacuation, it wasn't like this, like, for us, it was like, hey, that's cool. So we just slept there. We just slept there. And then we took a flight to Ireland. Same thing. There's two here, three there. Like, no. Then we like, they seated us like two. I think my father and Roger sat next to like the, the. The equipment of the. The plane. Like, they have special seats, so they gave them one of the special.
- [54:52]
A
Was this a military plane?
- [54:53]
C
No, it was like, okay. It was the first time. It was Ryan Airways,
- [55:00]
A
Jack. Yeah.
- [55:03]
C
And then we land in Ireland and that was the first time we see a military, a US Military in desert camouflage. And that was like, cool. And again, I'm highlighting that. And Richard maybe will come how this
- [55:23]
A
leads to, you know, AI software. We'll get to how this leads.
- [55:28]
C
How this leads. Like, I'll give you. Our side is we grew up with folks a lot on education. We grew up focus a lot on like principles that you need to like, follow and like doing the right things in life and like very hard work. And we grew up in this Middle Eastern environment where like there was highly corrupt, etc. So it was always like, we like, we're always into science, math and so on. So like. And this thing also was some sort of like our freedom. Like, no one can tell us, like, you can't build this thing. And at the same time, like, you need to be extremely disciplined in doing things because, like, it's not gonna be handed. Like you have to go through things. So the military seemed like the organized thing for Us.
- [56:18]
A
Yeah.
- [56:19]
C
So the relationship between technology and the military and also sports, because we did a lot of sports growing up.
- [56:26]
A
What sports did you do?
- [56:28]
C
We were not good at. We're not excellent at any sport, but we were good at like a lot. So like, we did soccer, we did basketball, we did swimming, we did ping pong, snowboarding. Like, we were okay. We were. We were always out, out there, but we were never. And we competed, but we never won like that. Like, no, like, we were, we were good. Like we could hold our ground with the. Like the others did one sports as we did all. Like, the only thing that we knew that we were very good at that no one could beat us in is like math and physics. Like, not really. Like, that was.
- [57:11]
A
You want to run some equations.
- [57:17]
C
Like we had like when we grew up. Like, like our father say, like, you don't get a medal for like being number one in class. Like, that's the standard.
- [57:25]
A
There's no medals in
- [57:29]
C
that. So. So that, that's like the sports like these. Like, we were always out there outside, but it was always like we were not excellent.
- [57:40]
A
So when you get to Canada and now you're, you're. Do you go right into high school when you get to Canada, like seventh grade, eighth grade or something like that?
- [57:49]
C
I'm not sure how it works in the US but basically like we studied in French school in Lebanon and in Canada. If we had to do the equivalent, like, we would have, we would have lost a year. And our father said, like, no, it's not gonna happen. So basically, like they fought a lot. Like, our father, like looked into things and like he found like some equivalency between France and Canada. And like he went to the school saying, hey guys, that's a law from whatever thing you did. And like, my kids should be in this thing or they're not going to be in school. Like, so like that. So he put us in a private school. We had to wear like, even shoes from the school. Like that was. It was. And like Richard maybe can tell more the story for it because Richard was like, much more.
- [58:36]
D
But like, definitely always like very like, like the environment, very disciplined. Like, can't, you know, you know, uniform really, really strict. Any, any kind of violation on the uniform, you know, penalties.
- [58:47]
C
It looked like a Harry Potter, but.
- [58:51]
D
But yeah, like, definitely the way like
- [58:53]
A
my wife's from England and she, like when you look at school pictures of her, it looks, just looks like, like the whole thing, it literally looks just like Harry Potter. They're wearing uniforms, they're in big castles. Like it's, that's the way it is. That's a, that's a European thing that I guess it makes it over. There's some, there's some schools like that like in New England and stuff in America, but I'm sure they have the same stuff in Canada where kind of bring that system of. They call them actually public schools in England, but it's private schools and. Yeah, yeah. So that's where you guys were in Hogwart. Hogwarts. Hogwarts. Hogwarts, yeah. You know, the Harry Potter guy. Check.
- [59:28]
D
But yeah, like definitely like there. But like we, we definitely, you know, even. Even though like back then we didn't really fall, we didn't understand like the purpose of that, that type of discipline. Like we're more. More trying to violate it than, than try to follow it. But, but, but, but yeah, like quickly like the. Maybe not, not to jump maybe too, too far. Like, but to, to the point that you're saying like how did this lead to. To AI and also like how we like also like what ties into also how we connected with you as well is like we like and we're very competitive and like we try to see like what are the places that show high intensity, show, you know, very hard work, you know, push, push people really to exceed, you know, what they're, what they're, you know, what they're capable of. And like very few places really were showing these examples and also like maybe we will share something on this. But like also like you would tend to see when you look at like some examples whether it's like military or like sports or even in tech as well. Like you don't know whether like people should they like really, you know, show off their intensity and like their hard work and you know, how they're pushing or should this be like a hidden. And you know, you're trying to, you know, tone it down a bit and then you know not to not like maybe like the thinking about this is that you might alienate some people because there's some group of people that might still be interested in this intensity but like you have to lure them into it as well. So we like very rarely we did find places like when we were listening to you and like the Navy SEAL, you know, mentality and like on the tech side, very few also tech companies were showing kind of that intensity. Today you see it very well with you know, companies by Elon Musk that you know, push the cutting edge of, you know, you know, hardcore engineering. Jensen like on the tech side as well. Like, not like there's greatness in talent, is there. Like you can find talent. Even, like in tech as well, you can find talent and you can extract talent from people. But we see ourselves that we have no chance to compete if the great ones are really working that intense and that hard. So though the two places that seem to converge on this were really like kind of the examples on. On this, on tech, but also like outside of it, like the, the military and, and your. What you're sharing in the Navy SEAL side, like how the mentality was there, like that this was really eye opening to see that, you know, it should, it should look this way. It should be like it's not a hidden kind of mentality. It's, you know, it's, it's really like, it's kind of. There is an environment where, you know, people are being, you know, expected to push very hard and to be very intense. So this is like how we. We tied kind of a bit. You know, what we were looking for to build and like, your perspective was
- [62:39]
C
massively, you know, and at that age, probably we came across some of the Navy Seals information.
- [62:46]
A
So in your. You're in high school, what do they call it? They call it in Canada, high school. Do they call it that?
- [62:51]
C
Like, in Canada, it was, it was like second death.
- [62:56]
A
Secondary.
- [62:56]
D
Secondary.
- [62:57]
A
So you're in there and are. Are you planning to go to college when you get done? Is that the plan? I mean, this is your family so focused on academics.
- [63:04]
C
Yeah. Like, the plan was always, hey, like, you have to like. And since we're very young, like, we're good in like physics, math. The plan was always like, we'll go into engineering. It was never the plan that will go into med because typically if the father is a doctor, like they push their kids to be doctors. Our father identified very early on that, like, we're like, we were very. Actually we were better than the professors in biology because, like, he used to teach us these things. Like, not, not really. Like, we used to study like the, the cardiovascular system. Like, and we go to the exam, like, just smoke it because, like, we knew more than these.
- [63:41]
A
Your dad just gave you the straight low down, but from an actual cardiac surgeon. But let me tell you about that. That aorta professor.
- [63:51]
C
And the professor was great. And we went to the same school in Lebanon as our father. Like, so some of their professor, his professor were. But he identified very early on that we're very, like, it came naturally to us, Math and physics. So he's like, let's double down on that. So, like, he introduced us to all these things and he actually, like, he would have. He actually discouraged us to apply to medicine even. He's like, don't. Do not apply to medicine because he
- [64:18]
A
thought you were just better in the. In the science, math.
- [64:21]
C
Yeah, he, He.
- [64:22]
A
Engineering world.
- [64:22]
C
Yeah, he. He's very much like, because that's. He did what he wanted to do. Like, he's like, if we force them to do anything, like, they won't do it. So that's how he thinks. And he's like, take a look at what's happening from a technology standpoint. Like, that's the future. So he's like, anything that you would do, that you are very good at, that's much better. But, like, take a look. Do all these other things. But, like, it wasn't like, acceptable for us not to be good in biology, but it was like, you're not gonna become good doctors. So. And that's also on the intensity side is like, he also introduced us all these things also. Like, it's like, if you want to do something great, like, don't just half asses it. So. And that's why, like, we gravitated toward, like this intensity thing. And however, the seals and the technology side was very much identifiable for us because, like, you're a small unit and technology, like, you can have like one engineer build something. Like real estate was like, massive. Like, you need, like, contractors, you need the land, you need, like for us, Technology, finances. Right.
- [65:33]
A
Yeah, you're.
- [65:34]
C
You see, like a seal unit was like, hey, like, these are like six guys. Technology, like, hey, like, you need one engineer, two engineers, and like, you're writing code and like, you're shipping.
- [65:43]
A
The barrier to entry is very low.
- [65:45]
C
Right. So for us was always. We were looking like we knew that we could do something great, but we. I can't picture myself with like 5,000 sales reps, but I can ship code. Richard could ship code, and, like, we could get something out.
- [66:03]
A
Yeah.
- [66:04]
C
So that was the thing is. And like, no one can take that away.
- [66:07]
A
Yeah. And the scalability of software is unmatched.
- [66:10]
C
Right?
- [66:10]
A
Right. It's just unmatched. Like, you make something, boom, it's out there and it can grow and it's scalable beyond anything else.
- [66:17]
C
You could. You could say the same thing. Like, for example, if someone like, writes a book, but like, you don't. Like, you need experience to write a book. True software, you don't need, like, you don't need a degree to write software.
- [66:30]
A
Yeah.
- [66:31]
C
You see? Or like, drawing, like. Like painting. Like, it's not like you. You make a painting and you sell it for $10,000, right? Like, software is like a superpower. It's like you write software. It's not bad. No problem. I'm going to reiterate on it. Like, it's like two more hours. And like, I give it to someone, he likes it.
- [66:52]
A
Now, is there someone in the business world that made you see this clearly? Was it looking at Elon and PayPal or, like, what. Was there anyone in particular?
- [67:01]
C
So originally, or a company in particular originally? The. It was like, as it started, no, but then as we started building and, like, we started saying, like, Richard can comment on it, but, like, YouTube came out, Facebook came out, right? And like, these things started to come out and you're like, these are just like two, three people. And, like, they can build something, right?
- [67:26]
A
You're like, we can do this.
- [67:30]
C
And then you start, like saying, okay, great, YouTube, then they are ex PayPal, right? So, like, you start looking into PayPal, like, great, so Elon is doing this then. So the example where, hey, like, and this comes back always to the point, hey, like, let's be always very humble. Like, not be arrogant, but, like, you're not stupid. So, like, it was always something that, like, if you put your mind into it, like, you could achieve it.
- [67:55]
A
Did you. Did you guys go to college?
- [67:56]
C
Yeah.
- [67:57]
A
Where'd you go?
- [67:58]
C
McGill University.
- [67:58]
A
Oh, you guys went to McGill. Okay. And you both applied there at the same time. Did you. Did you guys end up in the same grade even though you're a year apart?
- [68:06]
C
No, no, no.
- [68:06]
A
You're. You're separated by a year. So you and Roger.
- [68:09]
C
Roger. Politician technique.
- [68:11]
A
Okay, And. But then you guys end up going to McGill.
- [68:14]
C
Yeah.
- [68:14]
A
And. And are you there thinking to yourself what you get your degrees in?
- [68:20]
C
Electrical and computer science.
- [68:21]
A
Same. Both of you. And are you there doing like 10% homework and 90% working on. On business?
- [68:29]
C
We were always, like, we always had great, good grades. Richard was much more like, among all three. Like, Richard, if we wouldn't do it, like, Richard would do it by himself. That's the reality.
- [68:47]
D
No, no, Honestly, like, yeah, no, it doesn't exist.
- [68:54]
C
But it was. It was always this. You have the superpower that you can do things right. And you don't need a lot of money. No money. You just need time. And then you can just iterate on things. And the idea behind it was that, like, anyway, we wouldn't like working for anyone else. Like, it's not like Something that we would like, aspire to do. And it's not. There's nothing wrong in it. It was just like, not something that we would feel ourselves inclined to do. So that was.
- [69:31]
A
So did you actually make any product that you sold while you were in at McGill?
- [69:36]
D
Like, most of the time was really like, we like the prob. Like, we always like build some things on our. On our end, like just apps just test with very. Like nothing that gets released, that gets shipped. But like, mainly we try to build some algorithms. Like we.
- [69:56]
C
A lot of apps that didn't work, like that worked, but like, it didn't.
- [70:00]
A
Like no one really wants it or, you know, you made an app for yourself to make sure that you take your creatine after. In the afternoon or something like that. You put time into it. Echo's on board with that. You don't like that one. So that's what you're doing. Kind of like almost playing around with. With it.
- [70:15]
D
Yeah, like. Like just testing out, like seeing how much, you know, we would write some. Some logic, some algorithm, like very random examples, like maybe a social app for students to be able to share content. Like just testing as much as we can, just expanding, you know, seeing what kind of products can be built. But the thing that always came back to us, that led us to, you know, came back as a problem for us. That was the root for what we ended up coming up and building is while we're building anything, like a massive pain that we were always facing was that it's really hard for a software engineer to really look for code and then search for good code that you can find the search experience for if you want to build anything. We would face it ourselves that we were trying to build something and then just trying to find that information was extremely painful. Even though Google was there, there were like a lot of sources. GitHub is there. You have a lot of places that provide that.
- [71:18]
C
Because a lot of the code is open source.
- [71:21]
D
Yeah. But the ability for you to get good information quick and fast was very hard. And also we're interested in Google's technology, like search engine as well. So we started trying to build out our own search engine that was specifically for code. So we started indexing as much data as possible that is about code. And this started a bit to shape the initial versions of the product that was more geared toward like the end user would have been in this case is the. Is the software engineer.
- [71:51]
A
Yeah. That's a brilliant thing to think about if you're looking for ideas to do Some kind of business. If you look for what is going to make your life easier and what's cool is that you're looking externally like, oh, what would make our life easier? External. But then you looked internal and said, wait a second, wouldn't. It wouldn't make our life easier if this job that we're doing was easier. And so you put together the, the first thing you compare to kind of like a search engine for code.
- [72:17]
D
Yeah.
- [72:18]
A
So if I want a certain type of code, I can search, you know, and look for it and it'll give me some kind of a rough draft basically of that code.
- [72:25]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [72:26]
A
And, and then do you, did you just put that out into the world?
- [72:29]
C
Yeah. So basically like we, we started like as we are iterating on it. Like that became something that's obvious for us that hey, like that's something that like is, is really powerful and are
- [72:40]
A
you immediately using it to help you accelerate you making it and iterating on it. So you've got something that's like your, your, your product is helping you produce.
- [72:50]
C
Like, and during this time we're get. Just getting inspired by like companies and so on. And like you hear the story of like Netflix, how they came up with like the dvd and like, so they say that hey, like they were afraid that like if they send the dvd, like it would break. So they just sent it and like they receive it. The DVD wasn't broken. So for us, like that was the test for us was hey, like let's search for this code. Do we get it? So it was like these small things that were like, hey, like you think it work, but like just go test and like it would eventually work. Right. So it was for us the, the idea like we. A lot of founders or a lot of people from outside of the tech world think that founders just like draw up like master plans and they're like, I want to become a billionaire and now how can I reverse engineer it? I can't speak for everyone, but I can say for myself, like, or ourselves, like we started building things for us. It's, it's very different one.
- [73:56]
D
Yeah.
- [73:57]
A
This is something that I talk about when people talk to me about business. One of the things that I say is like when you're, when you're going to war, you don't come up with a master plan of I'm going to attack this point in the enemy's line. You don't do that because you don't know what the hell was in that point. What you do is you Say, oh, here's the enemy's line. We're going to put out a bunch of reconnaissance. We're going to do a bunch of little reconnaissance and maybe little attacks and see if any of things starts to break through. When we find something that starts to break through, we go, oh, let's put some more resources behind that. We put some more resources, we get more information, we push a little bit further, and eventually you break through the enemy line. But it's the same thing with business. You don't say, oh, well, the worst case scenario would be, I want to be a billionaire, let me reverse engine. Because even to say, oh, I want to make a new knife. And so you design the whole knife and then you go out and you buy a factory and you know, spend millions of dollars buying steel for your knife. And guess what? There's like a knife that you thought was cool or that one person thought was cool was you, and no one else really likes it. Whereas if you would have, you know, you start, you make a few of the knives and you, you know, you forge them yourself and you learn about it. And while you're forging it, you go, you know, it'd be a lot easier if I had a tool that could grab the knife like that, oh, why don't I make that tool? And all of a sudden you, oh, let's say, oh, well, actually a lot of people like different kinds of knives, but they need a tool to make the knife and boom, here you go. That's kind of like what you guys did. But I always recommend that with people, don't over index on your first idea because your first idea, generally speaking, is not going to, you know, usually is not going to land. And really, when you look at a lot of these companies that grow up, you know, they didn't start what they started where they started, where they thought they were going, they end up going somewhere else. And even, you know, even with Black Box, you know, it started as a search engine. Now it's become, you know, AI. Yeah, but you know, if you would have said, no, no, no, search is the way we, we started a search company, you know, you would have been dead in the water years ago. But keeping an open mind and saying, oh, wait a second, how can we iterate on this? What's our next move going to be? How can we adjust from here? What is the demand signal that we're seeing and that you need to keep those things in mind when you're going into business? Not, hey, here's my long term vision and I want it to follow this exact route. And I know I'm brilliant enough to foresee the future. And so I, that's what I'm going with. Don't do that.
- [76:09]
D
Definitely.
- [76:09]
C
100. And at the same time, and again, speaking for ourselves, if that's what we would be doing for like 50 years, even if you don't get paid. So it's not like we're doing it for the money. Like that's what we want to do and we put all the efforts for it to succeed, like, but I'm, I'm talking more about the seed of, and the beginning of something. Right. Like if you have the right, the wrong intentions. It's extremely challenging.
- [76:46]
A
Oh yeah. There's many things that will knock you off course if you're, if you're doing this for the wrong reasons. Yeah, that's the same thing in basic SEAL training.
- [76:55]
D
Yeah.
- [76:55]
A
Look, everyone wants, everyone that shows up there wants to be a seal, but if you want to be a SEAL for the wrong reasons, the first thing opportunity you get, it gets cold, you're gonna quit. And it's the same thing in business. Business is grueling. It's 24 hour days. You know, you're the only person that's gonna get the call when something goes wrong. You have to have the answers. It's your, you're sacrificing. Like, you don't get to buy the things that you want at all because all your money's going back into the business because you love it. And if you don't love it, you go, you know what? I would put more money in the back of the business, but I really think that new Cadillac is looking, looking good. So I think I'm going to not reinvest and get the new Cadillac. And then you look up and guess what? You, you needed that money and now you're behind. And now your competitor didn't buy the Cadillac. They bought the, the 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan and they put all their money back into business and now they beat you. So yeah, if you're not, if you're in it for the wrong reasons and your intent is wrong, you're going to be. There's, there's a lot of, a lot of bad things that can happen 100%.
- [77:52]
C
And the good thing in technology is the information access is very like, you have access to information so like you could confirm if what you're doing is right. So like, hey, like it's very hard for other disciplines to confirm that. Right. Like if you're an Accountant, like, again, I'm not an accountant, but what I'm saying is, like, it may be very hard for you to like, compare and contrast with other people saying, hey, in technology, like, people are extremely accessible. So you can email someone saying, hey, like, what do you think about that? And like, they would respond very quickly. The fact that open code is pretty much open source, like, you get thousands of people that can help you around the world and say, hey, that's wrong, that's good, that's, etc. So the community that's building software is very much a collaborative community. And also, while it may not look like that from the outside, but they're really good and great people have the same intensity that you would see in, in the military or that you would see in the elite sports player or anyone. That's great, right? Like the great surgeons, they have all the same intensity.
- [79:03]
A
At what point did you name the product Black Box and where that name come from?
- [79:09]
D
Yeah, like, I think like, like there was a few sources that definitely influenced this. A lot of it is like part of the intensity that we try to have a name that would try to represent this as much as possible. The name Black Box seems to be. To represent this a bit more, to be a hardcore kind of environment, hardcore kind of culture. Definitely. There's also a tech aspect to it. If you were to, if we look closer into the AI space, even the most advanced scientist there's quotes from, you can find all the way from the CEO of Google to every single scientist that's very, very deeply advanced in AI, with all the knowledge that is available still until this day, the behavior that is happening within AI is still very much a black box.
- [80:06]
A
Yeah, you heard the AI getting hostile with me at the beginning of this podcast, right? That's wild, right? Like that's a thinking thing that's telling me, hey, listen, I'm not here to recite your little, your little games. What. Did you have a question for me or not? It's kind of wild.
- [80:19]
D
Yeah. And it's a bit strange to the previous way of building software that previously you were very deterministic. And the design of a software was always, you write it one way and you expect it to behave always that the same way that you wrote it initially, the way this is now happening, there's still also around AI ways to control it, to give it guardrails, to let it like, no, not go off guard and not go into things that you would not want it to go into. But even with those that would know how to Even jailbreak or you can still find. So you're never fully controlling it. You can control to the extent that you would want, but the, by the way it's being trained, you can, you can have more confidence in it and you can say, I'm going to be deterministic in, you know, 99 of cases. The, the, the, the massive value unlock that this is doing is that even though you still have this randomness that can occur, the value that you're getting by with the remaining outweighs it.
- [81:29]
A
Yeah, a little bit of randomness and you can correct for the randomness really quickly.
- [81:32]
D
100.
- [81:33]
A
And I've done that with you guys where I was using voice to make an application and it would just, I would just iterate. Oh yeah, I'd actually use a different color and it can just, it can correct those problems or. And so that's, it just works so much faster that it's, you can make, it's okay that it makes those mistakes because you can just correct them 100%.
- [81:51]
D
And briefly on this point is that one, one interviewer was asking the CEO of Google, saying, like, how could you even let this in the wild if you know that this is like something that's like undetermined and it's a black box and like, you don't even know, you know, what you built, how could you even let this thing in the wild? He said, there's I don't know how many billions of humans in the wild.
- [82:12]
C
And also we still don't understand until this moment how the human brain works.
- [82:17]
A
That's true.
- [82:17]
D
And if you see like in comparison, like now you have in San Francisco cars that are riding wayos without a driver, and still this is still powered by AI and still there might be some randomness, but the percentage is still safer than a human.
- [82:33]
A
Yeah.
- [82:33]
D
Being.
- [82:34]
A
Oh yeah, yeah. There's no doubt about that. No doubt about that. So as the. When you guys, how far along were you, how long did it take before you saw that this thing had traction? Like, how many months or years was this thing alive before you said, oh, we got something real here.
- [82:53]
C
So basically, like it was constant iteration. Like one thing in software. Like any traction, you'd feel like it's traction, right? Like, if you give it to the first user and say, hey, that's great, like that's for you is a good thing. Right. So like, however, the moment where everything took off really strongly was on September 1, 2022. So that was two months before ChatGPT. If we just go back a few Months before. So actually how we met with Joko here is actually, it was on August 5th or 6th, and we met him here in San Diego, and we showed you the first version of what would eventually become today Black Box. So we had a few meetings here in San Diego.
- [83:42]
A
I gave them the clutch piece of information that they needed 100%.
- [83:50]
C
And basically every on August 2022, you had started Death Reset. So we read a lot of books compared to our. Like, not compared to Joko, but like. And most of the books that we read are either technology or military books. So, like, we would shuffle. And then part of the deaf reset was to post like, every day. Like, that you worked out, etc. And then I had posted my Kindle screenshot, and it had maybe like some Navy SEAL books. It has three more book Breathe. It had extreme ownership. It had probably like Lone Survivor or like these. Because on Kindle, if you open something recently, like, it would pop up. And it had some tech books. And Joko writes legit.
- [84:46]
A
This is on Twitter.
- [84:49]
C
Joko writes legit. And then we comment back. And then until this day, it's the pinned comment on me and Richard's Twitter. It's like trying to follow your leadership and still a long way to go. And then we had a meeting in San Diego. And also, like, if someone wants to find us, Richard, me, and Roger, it's very easy. Like, you'd go to our office. Like, you will find us any day. So we're like, hey, like, Joko is much more disciplined. So, like, he should definitely be at the gym. Like, there is no doubt that he is at the gym. It's extremely predictable. Like, yeah. And even at some point, our father told us, hey, like, you're so predictable. Like, maybe like, because, like, we used to wake up and run at 4:30. He's like, Change your routes. Like, if someone just monitors your pace, like, just change your route sometimes. So, like, we come to the gym, me and Richard. It was Saturday. It was like extremely hot here. And we go to the Victory MMA entrance, and we're like, can we meet Joko? It's not like, is Joko here?
- [86:00]
A
Oh, yeah. Just is it known?
- [86:03]
C
And the tell that I had, there were two ladies at the reception and maybe like, someone else. But, like, I recall looking at. So one of them looks at the other. So now I know he's here. But she needs like, confirmation, like, who's these guys? And then the other Joko's not here. We're like, no. Like, we're like, not like, hostile or Anything, like, we're just passing. So like, if he happens to be here, like, if we can. And that's part of how we try to do things is like, we always know that we. No one's gonna help. And like, you have to do the things that you want to do yourself. Like, right, like that's also part of it.
- [86:47]
A
A good default setting is no one's gonna help. Yep, that's a good one.
- [86:50]
C
So, so then two times she says no, and then Richard and me retreats and we go to the, to the left and there's like maybe like somewhere where we're sitting and we're like, he's gonna go out. Like he's working out. Half an hour, an hour. And like we have time to kill. Like, we had finished our meeting. We wait maybe for like half an hour, 45 minutes. And then we open the laptop. We're going to send you a message saying, hey, like, we tried to pass by, we didn't find you. And then Richard says, no, no, let's wait. And then like just one minute later, you see Jocko in a white T shirt hat and like sunglasses.
- [87:32]
A
We done training that day.
- [87:35]
C
And then also we had heard all. Because I think we heard all your podcasts or most of them while we work out. We heard that one. You drive a caravan.
- [87:43]
A
Yeah.
- [87:44]
C
Like you say like, like that's what we heard. And then he says that he doesn't park in the parking lot of Victor mma. He parks across the street so that customers can have access.
- [87:53]
A
So like, dang, dude. This dude profiled hell out of me
- [87:58]
C
so that those. So we're like, I don't see caravan here in the parking, but maybe the other side. So like we just go, other side. There's a restaurant. There's so like. And like we're just having fun with it. Like it's like some sort of our like, operation. But then we don't see.
- [88:17]
D
We were curious also to pass but like, like, also inspired by, by the seals wanted to pass by, like, see if there's like any, you know, close to the Coronado.
- [88:25]
C
Yeah.
- [88:26]
D
So like we were thinking also to have. Have a quick look there, but. But yeah, like end up.
- [88:32]
C
And then we. Joko comes out, we just go to him and say, hey, like, big, like we. We always have big respect for you and like what you've done. And like, it's like what's happening with you? Like, we're like, that was. That's what we're building. And then Richard says, like, can we show you what we're doing and Joko looks for like a split second and then said follow me. So we showed him actually not here but in the main studio. You the first and probably like and for us that's what we encourage people to do. And like by no mean we're here teaching anyone but like we were extremely scrappy. It was a version that we were using but like we're extremely proud of it. Like that's powerful and like we could see where it would go. Like that's the moment where we saw the inflection point and saying hey, like that will transform something.
- [89:31]
A
And so how many, how many users did you have at that point?
- [89:34]
C
Probably like like few thousands. Like but we launched September 1, 2022 and our apartment San Francisco.
- [89:45]
A
So like a couple weeks later.
- [89:46]
C
Yeah and our apartment San Francisco used to be across the street from GitHub. GitHub is a Microsoft owned company. Like they acquired them and decoding division of Microsoft is a coding division of Microsoft and we used to live across the street from them. It's not planned and nothing like but then when we release this version but
- [90:05]
A
you wake up in the morning going we're already working for sure.
- [90:09]
C
We launched about like after midnight and since then like things took off like fire. Richard can comment more on that but like that was the inflection point of, of what happened.
- [90:22]
D
Like quick, quick signals. Like we always like try to you know engage with great engineers that we look up to that built startups or like we're engineers at great companies and we started getting awesome feedback. Like one of the definitely early engineers that like there's a few of them that are really great but one of them is his name is George Harik. He was employee number seven at Google close with very close with the founders of Google and he, he was very essential in Google's growth. He recruited the next 500 engineers, built the Google Ads ad system which is powering which is basically a lot of the engine on, on Google there in terms of like advertisement and his take he's deep in AI and he's now building his own company AI like machine like an AI, you know lab at a big scale. But his take was very valuable to us and his early feedback when we were building the search engine for code was extremely useful and powerful and he ended up joining as an investor but we always wanted to not really look, look for investors for the sake of getting investors on board. We were always much more interested in getting their perspective as engineers getting like their take on it where this like their, their perspective on how we can build this, which would be really valuable. And actually he gave us some very critical advice from the very beginning that is still useful to us again.
- [91:52]
C
And no one, some people grew up like we started at McGill, which is a great university, it's the number one university in Canada. But people that study, maybe at Stanford, they have access to their professors, their friends working at startups. We didn't have this access, but we never also got people that just like, that didn't want to help when we reach out. And it's not like we needed their help because like it's more. And the reason why I'm using the word help, like, like you, you studied English and you're like authored several books. So like words have meaning and like I'm intentionally using the word help because like these people could just not never respond. And like you, you, you helped us. Like you could just say, hey, no, I'm busy and I'm just going to go right? So. But it wasn't help in a way. Hey, like these people are miserable. I'm going to help them. Like it's more, hey, like I have this massive knowledge and I see something here and I think I can give them in like half an hour, something that can 10x whatever they're doing instead of them wasting like half a year on something. Right? So like when we spoke with George, also, same thing, George was one of the first people who like we emailed him without knowing him. George was employee number seven at Google, invented Google AdSense, which is like printing money machine for Google. And then he built another company called imo, which is a messaging app, which scaled it to a billion users.
- [93:23]
D
It was second to WhatsApp at the competition.
- [93:26]
C
And then now he's the co founder of an AI lab. They just closed the $460 million round at 4.6 billion. George really helped in a sense where he's like, guys, these are the two things that matters for your company. And we knew them. It was just a confirmation of what you're doing that hey, like that's a confirmation. And then so Google was a big inspiration for us. The interesting thing for Google was Google was the 50th search engine or whatever. And actually at some point, at some point there's a legendary investor called Vinod Khosla. Vinod Khosla was on the board and an investor in other search engines. Was it Excite?
- [94:09]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [94:10]
C
And he wanted Excite to acquire Google. So like they saw what Google was doing and Excite. So Google's founder were willing to sell for a million dollars. And Excite said, like, I'm not sure, like, if it's worth 250. Okay. And like, so the story in technology is you need to build. Like, there's a saying in like from Y Combinator that says, like, build something people want. Like, that's what matters.
- [94:42]
A
Yeah.
- [94:43]
C
Like, it's very hard.
- [94:45]
A
I've had that conversation with so many, so many businesses over the years, especially because people will, you know, again, I'll go with the knife. Things I'm holding ones, you know, people. People will go from like, hey, I'm. You're going to build a knife. And then all of a sudden they're building like a custom sheath and then a belt that goes with the sheath and then a. Then a pair of pants that go with the sheath and then the boots that go with the sheath. And then. And then. And you end up doing something you're not.
- [95:07]
D
Yeah.
- [95:08]
A
You weren't supposed to do. And it's like, hey, bro, you're supposed to build the knife. That's what people want from you. They expect you to build a knife. Build a knife. You know, you're over here making this totally different product.
- [95:17]
D
Yeah.
- [95:17]
A
And again, that's. That's a little bit counter to what I said earlier of like, oh, if you build a knife but no one really wants it. Well, yes, you have to build things that people actually want. And if they don't want them. Yeah, you know, it's the same thing like, with, like making supplements and making food taste wins. Like, you have to. It has to taste good. If it tastes like crap, people aren't going to continue to use it. It has to taste good. You have to make stuff that tastes good, that you got to make stuff that people want. So that's really incredible advice.
- [95:50]
C
And if you build something that you want, then at least, like, you're the first user, right. And then you ship it to someone else. You're like, hey, what do you think? And then they iterate on it. And then like, software is a living AI feels like, like more like something that's super powerful. But the beauty of software is like, software, if you don't ship every day, like, software decays. Like, you need to constantly be iterating. So I may think it's cool. I share it to Richard. Richard would say, hey, that's cool. But what if this. And then you're like, great, that's a great idea. Then it takes like just half an hour and then you ship it. And Richard says, great, I'M going to share it with my friends. So the idea behind when we talked with George or like other people was, hey, like, I don't think money is the problem with us. I think what we need is to surround ourselves by people that would give us great advice. That's why we cared a lot about working with Joko early on, because we knew that the mindset and the culture matters and that's when everything will fail. The thing that would keep it going is the culture. So that's what we always focused on and that's what drove us to this point. Then like we started surrounding ourselves with people that have deep insight and technology. So like what Google did was really amazing for us. So like, and we were like, so what? What George told us is like, hey, like you have Google Maps. But Google Maps acquired Waze. Waze was much smaller maybe, but they had ton of data and users were engaged. So like if you're able to have this because you're going to always have competition, competition. But what Google does with Google Maps, Waze is, can do it differently. And you saw that with like, also like for us like Google's intensity was like something that we respected a lot. And the way that not only they built Google, but they like they had this 20% rule where like they had to ship. Like they gave everyone on the team like the ability to ship to build new products. And that's how Gmail came up, that's how Drive came up, that's how Google Maps, etc. So the freedom of building things and the other company that. So we were always inspired by companies that went through like not a straightforward route and that had massive impact on the world. The other company that for us looked something that we respected a lot was WhatsApp. And WhatsApp was a team of 30 engineers that scale to hundreds of millions of users in a very competitive market. So for us also like it's very identifiable and saying, hey, like 30 people seems something that.
- [98:36]
A
Yep. And there's all kinds of messaging apps out there. So it's a very competitive space. But like, oh, if you're doing the right things, you're. You can out you get inside the OODA loop of everyone else. Like here you go.
- [98:46]
D
Yeah.
- [98:47]
C
And what we really looked up to these companies like WhatsApp is another company. We looked up to like all the great companies that how they built and you see that there's level of intensity and focus that they bring and the culture is what brings these people together. But. And at the end, if you're building something people want and you're making the right things, even if you make mistakes. But in software, it's not different than like in other businesses where, like, if you make a mistake and iterate on it and then you can release it, you have a path to building something that is a growing business. And if you're, if you keep pushing through it and if you go through all the hardships of doing it, if you enjoy doing it, like, in our mind, there is no way we lose. It's not like a fake thing. Like, that's how we really believe. And it's not because we're doing it for the wrong reasons. Like, we're doing it for the right reasons. And we're very fortunate to be doing what we're doing. But the early days were just pure belief. Like, there's, there's literally nothing. But it's not like belief.
- [99:57]
A
And you guys convinced me
- [100:00]
C
it's not. It's not like. And it wasn't cool to work on AI like in, in September, October, September, November. Like, like, we looked like the weird people. So it was like. But it was something where we knew that this thing, if we do the right things, we could keep growing it. So Richard can talk more about it. But that's the. I'm always coming back to the analogy between why the seals, why technology? Like, these were two things that, for us, like, the technology is something that we really are very good at and that we knew that we could do ourselves, which gave us superpower. But the common denominator for it is, like, it won't be easy and we never fought war. So it's not like, there's not this, it's not the same level of difficulty of saying like, hey, like, we're deploying overseas, but you're competing with major companies that have trillions of dollars of market cap. So that's a different type of like, physically our job is not tiring, but you have to make the right moves and position the company so that you, you're providing value to customers. Because, like, there's hundreds of thousands of. And millions of people writing code every day. Like, why your product would be the product that they would pick.
- [101:14]
A
Yeah, yeah. And the, the iterative decision making, which I wrote about Leadership strategy and tactics field manual. That's, you know, this is just a, another version of that. Like what iterating on software very quickly. And this is such a great. It's. It's the exact, it's almost the exact same thing. Right. If I need to make a decision I don't try and figure out the entire plan from A to Z and execute this plan because it's going to take me so long to make that plan perfect. And by the way, how am I counting for contingencies and things that I didn't expect to happen? And so what you do is you make, you make, you take a step.
- [101:45]
D
Yeah.
- [101:45]
A
And you go, okay, we took a step. Now we'll look around. What are we getting back? Was this a good step? Should we lean a bit? A little more left. A little bit more to the right. Okay, a little bit more left. Cool, we'll do that. Take another little step. And that's what, you know, that's what the software properly does. And that's why it's such a good reflection of the effectiveness of both those, you know, the iterative decision making process, making small steps very quickly and then listening to the feedback that you get and then making changes. That's, that's how you move forward. And it's the same thing with Reno releasing stuff. Even with the, with the Ask Jocko AI. You know, I got a lot of like, well, you know, I don't know if it's gonna be ready. It's like, well, let's launch something. Let's, let's get it out there and we'll get feedback. And some people will say, oh, this is terrible. Because of this. We go, okay, thank you. Thank you for telling me that it's terrible because that or it told me this. Okay, well thank you. We can make adjustments to it. You know, the, some of the earlier versions, you know, I'd be like, hey, this is, I don't like this. You guys. Cool, we'll change it. No big deal. Boom. Try it now. Boom. Okay, now it's changed. Like, it's very cool. And that's how you, that's how you, that's how you make things happen. It is also something that you have to do with a high level of humility. Because if I make an iterative step and it's wrong and I can't say, well, no, actually, echo, no, we need to keep going in this direction instead of saying, you know, echo, thanks for that feedback. I think you're right. You're not going to be able to do this. And so when you put a piece of software out there and the feedback you get is, what kind of interface is this? That looks stupid. And you go, no, it doesn't. We, we really like it. No, like, wrong answer. The answer is, okay, well, what don't you like about it and that humility has to go hand in hand with anything that you're putting out in the world because there's no chance that everyone's going to like it. There's no chance, you know, it's just not going to happen. So you can, you, you got to have an open mind and be humble enough to say, okay, cool, what can I do better?
- [103:24]
D
100%. No, definitely. And we see this, as you said you mentioned earlier, like we definitely see this play out in, in great products evolution where it's not the initial design, the initial version that someone envisioned and this ended up playing out. Like we cannot really barely point to exceptions to that where I think that it's really very much off the chart. But I guarantee there's still iterative decision making in that as well. But like, few companies that we think like the only exceptions we think really got to that with like almost like their initial vision ended up playing out was maybe Tesla and SpaceX where like they really just wanted to build the car and, and, and the rocket and like you're going there with this direction. But like even on PayPal, which is Elon Musk's earlier, earlier company, the version that PayPal ended up being was really not the initial version of PayPal. The initial version PayPal was, it was firing up on, on a Palm device and like it was for wiring money on a Palm device. And then what ended up being what scaled a lot. They were starting to get like, I don't know, like maybe, maybe a million customer very quickly is people just wanted to send money by email so they would. That was the feature that really wanted to be served to users. And this was the catalyst for made the company really grow from a revenue standpoint and end up in the version of the product that is in. So definitely on the iterative part to point on this, how we got on our side like the product evolved is that from those feedbacks maybe Robert, you want to share on the inputs that we're getting from the coding space and also getting the advice from. We were trying to see how we could get more influence from the WhatsApp culture and we can share maybe a bit more on.
- [105:20]
C
For us the important thing for us was we always wanted to, to remove as much fat as possible from the company so that like we don't get tricked in saying hey, like we have like now a go to market team. So for us was actually it was a bit maybe too aggressive like 2022 until like mid 2023. Maybe there like were like four or five people.
- [105:45]
A
Yeah. No, I don't know if you guys remember this, but like some of the board meetings that we had.
- [105:49]
D
Yep.
- [105:50]
A
Was me saying, like, okay, you need to, you need to bring on like a person to do this, maybe one more person to do this. And it was. Which is. And I'll tell you what, if I'm saying that because I'm scrappy too, like, I never. You can ask Leif, you can ask anybody that. Any of my companies, like, I don't like to hire people and because I always feel like, oh, you hire somebody, like that's your responsibility now. And so it's a huge investment and it's hard to go. It's hard to step back from. Right. So we'll do our best to hire people as 1099. So beginning. There's ways to try and iterate that decision as well. But when I'm telling you guys, no, you need to hire people, that is a definite sign that you need to hire people. And then you definitely did. And you did. And so that was one of those things that helped move you guys forward.
- [106:33]
C
And for us, as we started seeing that things are picking up really well, like every day you wake up like, hey, is it like, because September 1st, when we launched, like we got like a few thousand users on the. This first day or like, yeah.
- [106:47]
A
And then by the end of 2022, it was a million users.
- [106:51]
C
Yeah.
- [106:52]
A
And that. So I remember you guys giving me the update. You guys shoot me an email like, hey, you know, just to let you know we're up to a million users. And I'm like, dang, dude, there was like 2800 when you guys showed up to the gym and, and nicely done.
- [107:06]
C
And that's the thing is like, you're like, there's a million users. And like, that's like, you start thinking about it, you're like, maybe like, like the first time we crossed like 20,000 users, like, which was maybe a few days after. We're like, we're like basketball fans were like, that's the Chase Center. And like compound that. Just fast forward today today, just yesterday, today, Black Box as a whole crossed more than 40 million registered users yesterday only we added 120,000 new users yesterday. And every day after day, that's 1.5 new user every second. And like that's literally every second there's a user and a half.
- [107:52]
D
And, and on a scaling comparison, maybe like the coding version from OpenAI, they have a coding version as well that served from OpenAI. It's about 5x we're about 5x the
- [108:03]
C
their scale of growth like all of anthropic is adding about a million users a day. That's all for all purposes. So like for code only we're like 120,000. So that's. And like we skipped three years in between. But we're just like zooming in here and saying hey, like that's where we started and that's where things are today. And meanwhile we did ton of mistakes. No mistake that is fatal. Like Joko has saying like other than death, all failure is psychological. Like looking from the outside of like how the company grew and like you've seen it. Also like Peter Thiel when he talks about like at some point like Facebook was growing fast but like he didn't reinvest. He's like because like I was still seeing them like it was still the same team. Like nothing substantially changed. So like why do I have to like 2x the valuation or 3x the value. Like so we felt this for a long time. Like numbers were growing but like the company didn't change. And the primary thing for us was like an intense focus for us and saying hey, like let's stay true to what matters. And what matters is are we growing our user base? Are we making the right decisions? Are we still using our products? How is the market evolving and what are the next two, three moves that we need to make so that we can adjust? And so for us was very important for us to always like not have fat in the company. And until this moment the company has zero people working on go to market. Like it's all bottoms up growth. We're only engineers the like and everything. Like some. I wouldn't recommend this for everyone, but that's how we see the world. And now we are going to be extremely hard and extremely focused on building go to market functions. But we brought the company to cross 40 million users. Revenue is growing at extremely fast pace. We have a great team of engineers. And meanwhile throughout we raised three rounds of funding from the most intense engineers, the smartest investors. The founder of WhatsApp is a main investor that invested three times. Xavier Niel, which is the founder of the equivalent of an AT&T but in France and built his company from the ground up to a 20, $30 billion company is an investor. He's on the board of KKR, the private equity fund George which is extremely valuable SV angel, which is the first check into Google. So they still recall the first time they met the Google founders Svangel and all of them have been extremely helpful and they influenced how we shape the company. So like we're building a team for engineers. We're backed by the most intense and smart engineers. And like today Black Box is used by some of the most advanced technology companies in the world. And all of that, not something that we drop on a whiteboard. Like that's. And that. And it still feels like we are behind. Like that's the feeling every day is we need to do 10 times more. So that's. But that's what we. Like we came across a video from. It's not related to tech, but like Jerry Seinfeld and he's like, if I have to like eat like peanut butter and like bread every day, like that's what I would, I would just do comedy. But just. And like there's a video and like, I'll send it to you after. Like he, he's meeting with a stand up comedian in a comedy show in New York and the guy is like, all my friends are moving up. He's like, explain to me this. He's like, they're in consulting, they're in banking. And Jerry Seinfeld is like, like that's disgusting. And he's like, my girlfriend like wants me to change. He's like, let me tell you a story. He's like, there's a band that was supposed to go play in concert and like the plane couldn't land or like, like there was a snowstorm so they landed somewhere else and like they have to drag their instruments so like they're walking through snow, they're like the slush, etc. And like their instruments and they see a house with like a window. So they get close and they see like a chimney, a well dressed table, turkey, etc. And like they look to each other and they're like, how boring. So if, if you like building startups is not for everyone, but if that's something that you're passionate about, there's a lot of value creation that you can do to help other people, like to provide services to the world and it happens to be the most important industry in the world which has. Anyone can build soft. Like you need to be an excellent engineer. But what I'm saying, like any engineer that's at Google today can build a company. They just decide not to do it. And you have to be extremely lucky. You have to get the support from a lot of people. Yeah, but technically like anyone who has the technical capabilities and like build something that people want, has the ability to do if everything aligns you have to be extremely lucky. And that's what we're also cognizant about.
- [114:02]
A
Yes, indeed. So, you know, 40 million users right now, awesome growth, everything looking great. Let's talk about AI kind of broadly as a subject since you guys are experts in AI. Is that a strong word? I mean, I can't think of too many people that would know more than you would know about, you know, AI. There's, you know, obviously there's other experts out there, but you guys are certainly. Let me, let me, let me rephrase it. You guys are certainly more experts than Echo and me.
- [114:36]
D
We definitely like try to like, we definitely like spend every single minute for as long as we've been working on black box, focusing on AI and how it can be impactful economically for users, for customers, how it can, the end users are software engineers. But every single day we're really trying to push it to perform better.
- [115:05]
C
I wouldn't use the term expert, but I would use just like there is maybe a few thousand Navy SEALs in the world. There's maybe a thousand people working on
- [115:12]
A
AI as hardcore as you guys are.
- [115:15]
D
And there's broadly AI and also there's a field which is agentic AI. And agentic AI is even unlocking much more value than AI broadly itself. The reason is for AI in general has been very much known to be a question answering.
- [115:33]
C
Generative AI.
- [115:34]
D
Yeah, generative AI. So you would ask it about a recipe and it will tell you more about it. Agent AI is a big economic unlock for users. Is it is getting as close. The way more example is maybe a very good one because it's literally getting as close as the same actions that a human is taking. It's taking it itself. And it's taking it not only for low level work that a human is doing, it's taking it to very advanced, very high complicated work that humans are doing. And we're seeing it a big impact on software itself is it is competing intensely with very advanced software engineers today. So giving the agent a task is becoming extremely competitive with giving it to a very advanced software engineer. So that also is a field that is very specific. Very few companies are, are making, you know, serious efforts in it. And we've been doing this for like, for as, like in the past two years. This has been really the, the only, the primary product that's been, been being developed.
- [116:46]
A
Yeah. And it's wild. Like I said, if I don't know how, how many months ago it was, but you guys came down, we had a, you know, we had our board meeting and we. But then the real deal was you guys. All right, you guys broke out, that it was kind of the. The initial voice to programming.
- [117:02]
D
Yeah.
- [117:02]
A
Happening. And so here am, I, a total knuckle dragger with no computer experience whatsoever. And I was able to speak to, you know, Black Box in English and have it do work for me and build an app real time as we're sitting here, make adjustments, change it. And it was. I remember when I was doing it, honestly, it was. It was. It kind of freaked me out a little bit. And I don't. Look, I'm not trying to be dramatic or whatever, but when you're sitting there and you're telling it to do something, and I remember, you know, I. I told it to do something, and it asked me a question about what I told it, and I looked at you, so I said, why is it already asking me a question? You said, because it started programming while you were giving it its first instructions. And I said, oh, that's insane. Like, that's insane. You know, you. I was. I said, hey, I want you to build a. You know, I want you to build an app that does blah, blah, blah. And it. And it, as it's. It asked me a question. You know, when you think of the home screen, do you know, I was like, wait a second, how? I said, how does it. How does it ask me that question? You said, it already started. While you started talking to it, it started coding.
- [118:10]
D
Yep.
- [118:10]
A
That was. It was. It was amazing, but it was very strange. And I think that's one of the things, you know, when I think about Black Box, there's a little bit of a. There's a bridge that I got in my head that I went over, which is, you know, it's a coding. It's primarily for coding. Right. But the thing is, when you think about what that means, that means you as a person can tell this thing to do whatever you want to do, that. That it's going to code it, but you don't have to know that. Yeah, you don't have to know that. You can tell it to do things. You can use it for absolutely anything because it's going to take your English and turn it into, you know, code that's going to do what you want it to do. And by the way, you know, like, Leif uses it for, like, hey, where should we go for sushi tonight? I don't know how Black Box knows all that, but it knows all that stuff. Like, it gives you the recommendations. It'll Tell you what to do. And so it's, it's, it's definitely when I was doing that verbal programming, it definitely, if I felt like literally, hey, this is, this is, this is like a, a small step for man, but like a giant step for mankind. And I mean that sincerely. It is to see. Oh yeah. And then you know, the, the, you guys were showing me the earliest of the video stuff and I'm like, show a SEAL doing close quarters combat in an urban area. A video. And like it says, okay, and boom, here it was a SEAL video doing close quarters combat. And by the way, this isn't, this isn't what Black Box was made for, but it's doing what I told it to do. It's absolutely phenomenal. But I do think, you know, and I'm sure that there's other companies that have had those moments, but for me, a knuckle dragger, that was a small step for man and a massive, massive leap for mankind. Because all of a sudden I had this, this, this power, right? This incredible power beyond comprehension. Beyond, beyond comprehension. Because to say, hey, you know, immediately echo right now, I'm going to give you the power to create, you know, art or create film or create images or create, you know, agents that are going to go out and do things like that is an incredible amount of power. It's, it's mind boggling. So that's kind of when, when, when people think about AI right now. And I saw like a list of jobs, right? Everyone's worried about jobs, what jobs are going to disappear. And you know, it's, the scripts have flipped. You know, when I was growing up, it's like, oh, go be a doctor, go be a lawyer, you know, go do become an accountant, do those kind of jobs. Because that's where the money is and that's, that's where the education is needed. And those jobs, you know, according to this chart I looked at the other day was like, oh no, the most reliable job is going to be plumber, electrician, painter, landscaper, things that, things that AI can't do yet. Because it's not going to be long before everyone's got their Optimus robot out there doing things. I mean, they're saying that Optimus robot's going to be 15 grand. $15,000 for a robot that's going to mow your lawn, clean your laundry, you know, pick up after your house, prepare your dinner, all those things. This is not that far away when you guys. So, so when you're looking at companies, what do you think companies should be doing right now to utilize AI.
- [121:36]
C
So just like you're sharing like AI and specifically agent AI has tremendous powers. So like first like there was like perception AI, like it was like more like speech recognition, medical imagery. Then like the past three, four years has been more like generative AI, like question answering. Like you input text, output video, input text, output image. Agentic AI is, operates more like humans operate. So what companies should do is Jensen Huang from Nvidia has saying is like you're not going to lose your job to AI, but you're going to lose your job to someone who is, knows how to use AI. Like imagine someone who joins a company today who doesn't know how to use a computer. Like that's barely like possible. It's however like it took maybe like decades before like the personal computer became a thing. What we're seeing now is just accelerating at a pace that is just faster than anything. What Black Box was able to do yesterday and was going to be able to do by end of this day to day is gonna be like a leap. Like Dropbox did not change. It's a very respected company, massive impact on the world. But file sharing was there in 2006. It's still a file sharing. When we're building AI agents, it's not the same thing from last week. So it's. And also not to make people afraid. It's here to help you.
- [123:13]
A
Mm.
- [123:14]
C
It's. It's here to make your team better, it's here to make your company better. It's here to make your country better. And the goal for companies and for leaders in these companies is to embrace this technology. I was just looking at like every technology wave. Like people think that, hey, like that's a joke or like, great, it's cool. Just like when we showed Joko here like in 2022, like it wasn't as capable as today, right. And like you have to be like naive enough to know that, hey, like that's where the curve is going. Because it doesn't matter where you are on the Y axis. It matters the slope at which progress is happening. Right. Because you can start very small. But if you're growing and like the slope is very steep, like you're going to get there. So what I would encourage people is to start investing heavily in their people and training them how to use AI. The young generation already knows how to do it. It's more the people who are maybe in their mid careers or late in their careers. And some people like. And there's also A lot of fear in the market and saying, hey, like, how should we trust it? It's maybe not following all my instructions. Should we be afraid of it? My point is, consider it as like, you're augmenting your team. And today, if you onboard the new person on your team, it's going to take time for them to ramp up. AI just ramps up right away.
- [124:50]
A
It's ramped. And like you were saying earlier, Richard, like, there's going to be like, you're just saying, hello. It might not follow all of my orders. But at the same time, just like you have some randomness to coding when it's done by AI, well, you might
- [125:06]
C
have
- [125:09]
A
an agent that only follows, you know, 94% of what you told it to do.
- [125:15]
D
Yep.
- [125:15]
A
That's something that just did 94% of the work that would. You have 6%, and you got to maybe make some adjustments. It's kind of like with decentralized command. I always tell people, with decentralized command, there's always, always risk, because if I tell you to go do something, you might not do it exactly how I want to do it. And in some cases, you might do something that's outside of what I wanted to do and maybe even outside the rules of what I wanted you to do. So there is risk with decentralized command, but generally speaking, the risk, because I was able to tell you to do something, you do something, and you to do something, and you guys all went out and executed and Echo did something that was not quite as good as it should have been, but everything else happened. Otherwise, if I would have had to do all that myself, it would have been. I couldn't have gotten it done. So there's risk. There's going to be some level of risk with, with anything that you do with decentralized command. And this is sort of a version of decentralized command, which means you need to give good instructions, you know, and if you don't give good instructions, you don't put parameters in place, you're a better chance of things, you know, stepping outside. The one thing I would say about adopting any new technology, and I was very lucky in the SEAL teams because I went through some very, very big technological changes. The two biggest that I can think of usually I refer to as GPS and night vision. So what I learned from those things, the first GPS that I had was about the size of a little bit bigger than a shoebox, and it weighed about 25 pounds with extra batteries and whatnot. And that first GPS that I had to carry it took four hours to find itself. So you would turn it on and you'd have to sit there and wait for four hours for it to figure out where it was. And I can tell you the reason, because it had, it would only scan one frequency at a time from the satellites. And if it just went through like a, a standard list of what satellite, what satellite frequencies to, to look for and if that satellite happened to be on the other side of the world, it wouldn't switch. It would just sit there and wait and eventually that satellite would show up or eventually it had a time limit where it would switch. But then it would have to find that satellite. Once it find that satellite, could find the next satellite faster because it knew where the first one was. And they. But so it take four hours. Our, your phone is searching for all the frequencies right now. So as soon as you turn it on, it's going to catch one of those frequencies and knows where it is in, in instantaneously. So they hand me a 25 pound thing and they tell me it takes four hours to find itself. And I say, hey, I can carry a map and compass which weighs nothing and I'll know where I am in three minutes. What are we doing? And what you have to recognize with technology is when you first implement it, you're going to be less efficient. You're gonna, it's gonna take some time to get used to. And so when you first start using black Box, you're gonna, you might be telling it to do something for you. Oh, you didn't tell it the right way or it's gonna take you a couple extra seconds to figure out how to prompt it correctly. Okay, and what. But once you get used to that, now all of a sudden you're, you're gonna be exponentially more efficient. So we as leaders have to set expectations in order to make it work. The other thing you have to do is you have to use it. You have to get through that inefficiency. You have to push yourself through it because once that, you know, once we did figure out how to use the gps, oh, guess what? It takes four hours to find itself. Okay, turn it on. Four hours before you head out on your operation. Cool. Like there's things that you adaptations that you make. And then it gave us capabilities because you take me 14 miles nautical miles off the coast of California and map and compass doesn't help me anymore because there's nothing to take resections off of. So now that GPS is a total game changer.
- [128:36]
C
Right?
- [128:36]
A
So you have to use that technology, and you have to use it enough so that you become proficient with it. And I think that's what if you're hesitant right now. You got to get in there and start trying to use it. What are you going to use it for? And I think you'll see there's some tasks that you can use it for, but if you get used to those tasks, you can start to branch out and try some other things with it. And eventually you'll realize that you have just a complete force multiplier in what you're capable of doing.
- [129:06]
D
Yeah, definitely. And to add one point as well on this is like, we see the Waymo analogy is an awesome implementation of like, what the future of, like an environment where, you know, you have physically, basically, you have a robot that's fully, you know, cohabitating with humans. You have like one car behind it that's a human and then a car in front of it. It's a robot that's just driving without a driver in the seat. That's so, so much powerful. And it's there. Like, it captures the essence of like, how AI should be implemented and how should be used. Basically any other agent that if a company is looking to be using an agent and to deploy to their, to their teams, engineers or whoever, it matters a lot that you deploy it in environments where like Waymos that are today deployed, they're not sent out in Nevada, for example, they're not sent out into like some environments where it is predicted. It's not trained for this. It's not. It's predicted to fail. So we're not deploying that there yet.
- [130:07]
A
Wait, why would it fail in Nevada?
- [130:09]
D
Like, it's now the cities where it's deployed yet. It's like San Francisco, it's expanding to maybe and expanding.
- [130:16]
C
It's just. But there's regulatory issues to expand, but.
- [130:19]
D
And maybe also some like some training, some like more like maybe roads or like there might be some things that get involved in, like some like optimization that are needed. But the big impact is that it is unlocking so much economic value. Like, as of right now, as of today, it's moving so many people, it's saving costs as well. The consumers ending up paying a cheaper cost. So it's helping a lot the economy by having this available. And same thing for agents as well. If you deploy them on things that they're predicted to fail, that shouldn't be the determining factor for you to say, you know what, that's not the kind of right technology by Making that call, basically you just left out a massive economic unlock that if you start deploying it in the right places, you're just heading in the right direction in terms of what it can really do. And the thing maybe specifically in software is that we are very honestly seeing it extremely competitive now. It still can do everything. It's still not to the level of autonomy that a Waymo car has. Like a driver in a Waymo car today is basically trusting it with their life. Like if I'm riding in it, I might, an accident can come up. Right. So it's a very, you know, high stakes, maybe if you want to call it like kind of commitment that you're doing in software. It's not so much of a high stake. Like it can, you know, some, some user requests might, you know, not get answered. You know, some customers might get, you know, complaints because they're not expecting the behavior of the service that they planned for. So on software, and the benefit of software as well is that anything you end up having from the AI build and develop what you're capable of doing, you're capable of running it and testing it in a sandbox environment and then seeing it, you know, before I fully released it to user, I got some checklist confirmation that it tested all these things and I'm not going to break anything into production when I actually do release it. So there is this difference where like if a Waymo cars makes a mistake, it's making it like instantly now. And it can have an impact where in software it's much less of an impact. You have like two different environments, production versus you know, what you're developing internally and you can fully test out things and be sure that you have high confidence on things before you fully release them. So.
- [132:35]
C
And we've seen that fear at every technological wave.
- [132:40]
A
Well, I was about to say so people are afraid of change.
- [132:43]
D
Yeah.
- [132:43]
A
And people are afraid of things that they don't understand. And how do you assuage people's fear? Because they it's change and they don't understand what it is.
- [132:55]
C
I'll give the example of the automobile. The automobile, when it was the first automobile that Ford built, JP Morgan even refused to invest. He thought it was a toy for rich people. To run it, you had to have a full time driver, you had to have a full time mechanic because it would break every like three miles and you had to have a stower. And there was a law in the US and in England, I think it was called the Red Flag law where you have to have someone that's distant maybe a few feet from the car with a red flag, so if they see a horse, they should raise the flag. And like, everyone thought that this is just like a toy for rich kids. And now the thing with AI is people think that, hey, like, these are just young people playing around and there's a lot of fear also, like, hey, like, are these gonna replace our jobs, etc. Same thing happened with the Internet. Like, no one said, like, people were joking. Hey, like, do you really think you're gonna have commerce on the Internet? You're gonna have, like, you're gonna be able to make pay?
- [134:02]
A
What are you gonna, you're gonna buy a pair of jeans at the, on the interwebs? I don't think so, buddy. How would you pay for it? Idiot.
- [134:11]
C
So, like, these people by default are afraid of change. And like, we've seen seen them in the past. However, the pace of technology is only accelerating and it cannot be stopped. So the point, what we would advise people is one, definitely that's a change. However, it's a positive change. Think about it. Right now, Richard has a MacBook here. Like 30 years ago, he had to like, bring it in a box and like three people holding it with him, right? So people are. The way that the future of work is going to happen is that people will have multiple agents doing things while you are working or not working. The job of a human being. Today, just like you have a team of people that you manage, you'll be managing also a team of agents. And what we're doing, because it's only based on code, is any task can be broken down in code. And just like Joko was explaining, it is like anything. And like, software is what powers everything. So, like, if you want to build whatever, like, just ask it to do a task. It would write the code for it, it would execute it. So what people should be doing is definitely take it, as Richard is saying, like in an iterative step, saying, hey, great, where are the environments where I'm comfortable starting to adopt it. Software engineers by default are the people that adopt technologies that fastest. Like, they understand that things break, that things are maybe not as stable, etc. And that's why we've been able to grow very fast. Because, like, this is an audience that has the ability to like, adopt technology. But I'm talking more for people that are leading organizations and saying, hey, like, these are not things that you should be afraid of, actually, these are things that should benefit your company. So it would definitely accelerate your pace of releasing products, it would definitely accelerate the pace at which your feedback from customers is being shipped. It would definitely reduce your cost to launching things. And if you think about it, if all these are true, basically what you're doing to your company is actually your company is becoming better financially. And if your company is better financially, all you're doing is growing. So there is no fear of recruiting people. There is no fear of displacing jobs. Actually there's going to be job displacement, but there is not going to be higher unemployment. If your company is making like today, Nvidia is making 200 billions of profit this year. Nvidia is recruiting, Nvidia is investing. So, right, like by default, if you're using tools that would make your company more efficient, you're not going to fire people because now AI is running your company. You're going to recruit more people so they can manage AI agents so that you can build better products, better companies. And your team actually is not doing mundane work. Like if there was a task that someone on your team was doing that like, is not fulfilling for them and then they're like, hey, like I'm going to leave for this other company because they're giving me more responsibilities. If you're implementing AI agents in your company, these people are moving up the chain and not doing the mundane tasks. They are doing tasks that are more fulfilling for them. And right now Black Box is being written by Black Box. So the software is just evolving itself. And there is no reason why any company across the US across the world is actually using agents to constantly be shipping code. And that's just on the positive side, if you look at it from a security side, there is also significant value in having AI agents just be deployed for security purposes for your companies and then we can dive into it. But that's just on the positive side. And there is going to be need in training people or recruiting people who know how to use these agents and for companies to invest in it, because that's only an upside for them. There is little to no downside. Any technology can be used negatively and there is going to be failures. There is going to be things where you're going to learn from it. But today what we are seeing is companies only accelerating their pace of innovation because of adopting Black Box internally.
- [138:12]
A
Yeah, there's a, there's a whole, a whole story of the evolution of naval ships. And this is BH Ladell Hard, the guy that's, you know, the indirect approach, the strategy, the indirect approach and, and he's Got this little. I gotta memorize this thing. Or at least memorize the evolution. But it was basically, you know, when they went from. From wooden ships to steel ships, you know, there was a whole plethora of people, hey, you can't. What's gonna happen if that thing. You can't repair it at sea? It's blah, blah, blah. They had all these reasons why not do it when they went from sail to steam. Oh, my gosh. What are you gonna do when you run out of coal? Like, oh, this is totally ridiculous. You guys are the dumbest people. Like, they went, you know, oh, are you gonna put aircraft carriers? What are you gonna put fly. It's gonna be relying on planes. Like, this is totally. So every evolution, I mean, major evolution in the. In the. In the improvement of naval warships, every one of them was totally resisted by the admiralty, who would say, what do you do? Why would you want to make a ship out of steel? You're an idiot. Why would you want it to run on steam? We can go forever with our wind, you know, and. But every time, eventually it breaks. And, you know, they break. They go, oh, yeah, you know what? This actually has to happen. And, you know, just, you know, at a Jocko Fuel, we have our. I guess our E. Commerce team is just. They're really great with. With AI and the things that they're doing with AI Is incredible. And it's all, you know, they work with all the other teams. I guess it's not. It's like the. Just the. Just the computer. We might as well call them the AI People. But, you know, like, every report that we get, you know, like the financial report that we get, which. Which literally a year ago was done by human beings at Jocko Fuel, spending three hours on a Sunday putting the numbers together. This is all automated now. And so now does that mean they lose. That those people lost their jobs? No, no, no. It means that they're doing something that's proactive and more productive than sitting around and going through Excel spreadsheets. And that's one example of countless examples. We have a great, great. Again, I don't know what to call them. They might. They might as well be called the AI department. Guy Gordon might as well be called the AI department. And he works with all the different. The financial department, the market marketing department, the sales department. He works with all of them and makes their jobs easier because you. There's so much mundane tasks that need to get done that allows the people. Instead of doing mundane tasks like projections on the amount of what, you know, protein that we need to order to put into our protein powder, that AI can figure that out. Matter of fact, it figures that out and it likes figuring it out, you know what I mean? So, and again, do you have to have a human that needs to know how to do that? Of course you do. So that's some of the things that I think people are going to have to recognize because if you don't, you know, you're going to be paying somebody, whatever, $25 an hour or $40 an hour to sit there and look at an Excel, Excel spreadsheet when you could just have an agent that knows what to look for and have the person that is getting paid 40 bucks an hour to now say, oh, I'm going to have this agent doing that, I'm have this agent doing that, but this agent doing another thing. I'm going to give you more accurate information, it's going to be more timely and I'm going to be able to respond to your requests faster and I'm going to do something that's looking up and out instead of looking down and in. So this is definitely, if you're not adopting it right now, you know, just like the gps, you could deny it for a little while and keep using your map and compass, but you're going to look up in three or four years and you're not even going to be able to function like you couldn't function in the US Military. Now. The, the aircraft overhead, the people on the ground, the integrated blue on blue or blue force trackers, like all those things are all inherently gps. So if you don't get on board with it, you're going to end up being left behind. And this is the absolute facts with, with AI and you have to use it. What is the, you know, when you mentioned the security, what was your, what were you going to say about, you know, security and AI?
- [142:16]
D
Yeah, definitely. So like we have big influence on like, like we use internally signal messaging specifically and we, we, we appreciate whenever a product is designed for privacy and security as well. Apple has a great reputation on this as well. So we try to also bring this into the product that we have with AI, with agents as well. And the thing that we wanted for ourselves and for the uses that we're serving was something that was private and secure for users. And the form that we started looking into is end to end encryption with not only AI info like AI chat for like question answering, but also for an agent that is doing a task that's taking action. So we built the first end to end encrypted agent. That is there's versions where some products might attempt to resolve the end to end encrypted for AI agents. The version that we wanted to make it available and can be served to users, some simple forms of it can be easily done when you're serving it on low capable models. So basically this can't be done if you were to do it on LLM models that come from companies like OpenAI or Anthropic, unless they would to implement, they would be doing the implementation of it. They might be able to implement this capability. But if someone is basically, you have companies that basically sell whatever OpenAI is giving them as a model. So you end up using the models from OpenAI but through another product. That is not possible today to encrypt something that is closed source. It is only possible to encrypt something that is open source as a model, which gives you the ability to host it on GPUs yourself and then have the end to end encryption. The big unlock for this is we needed to have it available to users not as a small model, but as a big model. The reason for it is like typically anything you find useful in AI is powered by a big LLM. It's not powered by maybe 7 billion parameter LLMs.
- [144:19]
A
Yeah, I haven't heard about any small language models or even medium language models. You only hear about large 100%.
- [144:26]
D
Exactly. And so these require multiple GPUs to be loaded on them. And these need to be end to end encrypted across multiple GPUs all the way down to the user that is using them. So for that to be available, we're making it available as an agent and also we're making it available for use cases that typically people might be interested in. But we see it very useful, for example, in the medical field where privacy of patients data can be very critical. And there's also, it's not just that it's critical for them, but it's also, they have rules that there should be no egress of data coming out of the device. So the agent, actually the agent must be running on the same device. So there should be almost no communication with the Internet. So this gives basically the agent and the GPU access to, to the, to the, to the patient's data. One thing that is very exciting for us, where we're collaborating today on, is with Stanford Medical School with a team of both doctors and computer scientists. That is something that is for the first time we're working on this together with their team is it's going to be for the first time possible and the results will like it will take several weeks to two months. But it's on that direction where a very small team will be able to build a foundational model that will be able to predict diseases based on public MRI data sets of cardiac, you know, cardiac data set that's available publicly. So the power of this is that through the agent, the amount of resources that you needed to develop this before without an agent would have been enormous and you needed like a big team, a big investment and all of this. But what's happening now we're working on it with them and it's going in this direction where you don't need like the agent is able to build this foundational model with good interaction with it, with a small group of computer scientists, with a small group of doctors as well. With the right feedback, the agent has the ability to write the entire code, to train the model, to test it, to see if it's making the right predictions. So that kind of capability is something that is becoming to be unlocked whenever, whenever someone is injured.
- [146:43]
C
And that lowered the barrier for non technical people. Like these doctors don't have like they are very good at software, but they're not expert.
- [146:50]
A
Right.
- [146:51]
C
So lowering.
- [146:52]
A
They are now.
- [146:53]
C
Exactly.
- [146:54]
A
And it's incredible, right? That's the deal.
- [146:57]
C
That's where we're moving. We're moving into a world where before software was built by maybe there's maybe a few million people in the world that are very advanced in software and like they control whatever product you use to now having more customized software. And anyone can be building software today. And that's what we have as a vision for the company is having 1 billion builders in the next 10 years. Today that technology is available and the barrier to entry is going to only get lower. So we're going to move from people that are extremely technical that started adopting it to maybe lesser technical and then to anyone in the world having the ability to build software and make their companies better, make their teams better, make their countries better. Today we're seeing application of AI in war. Some reports say, hey, like whatever they're doing with AI should require would have required 2,000 people. They're able to do it with 20 people. Right? This is where using and leverage. If the government is using AI, I don't find a reason why, why any company would not use it. Typically it's the opposite. Right. And however like the good thing with this administration is we have very forward looking people from the technology that are embedded in these administration that are investing in these resources. And the security aspect plays a very important role. Today there is everyone like, just like whenever there was the rise of the Internet, it opened up for like hackers and security breaches to happen. Imagine you have people that are using agents for security purposes to steal information, right? So if your company is afraid of running software to build software, you have adversaries or like people that are competing with you that are building agents to actually steal your information. Like these people can just like keep running these agents every day. And like these, you have to fight fire with fire. Exactly. So that's number one. Number two is like there is a big race right now between the US and China. These are the two predominant countries that have excellent AI talent and that are both racing. Europe is not as advanced in AI as the US and and China. And the US is investing heavily, but should definitely invest much more because that's not only what we're talking right now is how can you make your companies better, etc. But these AI agents have the ability to do significant attacks on countries, to steal data, to steal tactics, to hijack systems. So that, because every single technology that you use is powered, every single equipment that uses powered by software. So what if these AI agents take hold of the software and just like shuts it down or like change the code and like makes it not responsive, right? So you're launching a rocket and like there's something change in the code that this causes a failure, right? So it's important for the US also to be, they are leading today the race. And however China is very aggressive in investing in AI. The big difference between what China is doing and what the US is doing is China is investing heavily in open source models. And as we're moving to a world where these models get better, the world right now mostly is running on American models, most of the world. But the Chinese models are picking up steam very quickly because they are open source so companies can self host them. And the disadvantage of that is you're embedding models that are built by other countries while the US has all the capabilities. However, all the research labs in the US are building more closed source models so you don't have access to the model weights. Whereas Chinese are building and releasing open source models. You saw that with the rise of Deep Seq last year that everyone was surprised about. But now there's at least four or five very good AI companies out of China just releasing open source models that are very good.
- [151:22]
A
So we got national security. We got curing diseases. We got billions of people empowered by this. And we also made askjoco. AI. Who thought of that? Did you guys think of that, or did I think of that? Did you think of it, Richard?
- [151:38]
D
No, very honestly, definitely it's from our conversation. We're always trying to find ways where basically there's a multitude of ways, but definitely it came from conversations with you. And, like, one big need for us is that we actually, like, bore you a lot with a ton of questions and having the ability to.
- [152:05]
A
I'm off the board, dude. I'm getting replaced by myself, by Jocko. AI. Yeah. No, that's one of the things that, when you guys initially made. I forget how I initially saw it, but what I was like, oh, that's cool. And you guys were like, we're using it all the time for leadership questions. And I was like, okay.
- [152:20]
B
So.
- [152:20]
A
So then like, okay, let's. You know, that's one of the biggest things for me is people. People want to ask questions about what's going on, you know, with their leader, leadership in their world. Generally speaking, it's leadership. Some other things as well, but. But, you know, I don't have a chance to reply to everybody. And especially, you know, everyone's got their little nuanced case. And so as I, you know, I was like, oh, well, let's see what it can do. And, you know, so we brought it into Echelon front. We started, you know, we. We sicked the Echelon front team on it. And, you know, the Echelon front team, we hear questions all day long. And to hear. We. We tried to stump it and give it questions that would, you know, inappropriate questions, questions outside the box, illegal, immoral, unethical, like, all those things to see how it would respond. And. And really, it's. Honestly, again, it's like. It's like, incredible. It's incredible what it does. And, you know, it's funny, I'm just thinking about some of the iterative steps, like the first version that you guys sent me, the way I sounded, like, straight up, just drill instructors, like, let me tell you what, hey, this is Jocko here, and if you got an issue with leadership, I'm gonna get it solved for you. And I was like, hey, guys, I know that's, like the caricature of what I sound like, but I don't want to actually talk like that. You guys are like, cool, Cool. But that's the amazing thing is, you know, 15 minutes later, you sent Another text, it was like, try it now. And it's like, hey, this is Jonko. Got some questions about leadership. Yeah, what are they? You know what? I was like, yeah, that's amazing. So the, the iterative steps and, and putting it together and again, I think this is going to be a good step. You know, as I talked about it with the rest of the Echelon front team, it's like, well, we have to, you know, this is a game that we have to play. This is, this is a line of operation that the world is going to do. There's no doubt. And the way that you guys were able to incorporate all the books, all the podcasts, you know, basically everything I've. And actually we sent you all the behind the scenes muster stuff. So all the musters, take all that information, get it organized in a way that it is going to give really good answers. And it really does, you know, it really does give incredible answers. I think it's going to be a huge amount of help to people in every aspect of their lives. You know, just. Hey, let me, let me get a second opinion here. Let me ask Jocko. AI which it just. It thinks it's me. I don't know if you noticed that on the opening there. Did you hear that when he was talking about the podcast, it was like we talk about meaning me and you Echo Charles. It was saying we, you know, and I was like, okay, all right. I try to give it, try to get it to the Echo Charles accent earlier today. Wouldn't do it. So maybe, you know, that might be the next thing.
- [154:54]
D
Definitely ask Echo.
- [154:55]
A
Echo's gonna be like, hey, you need to cruise more.
- [154:58]
C
And that's, that's the different. What Richard was saying. Like before software before was very deterministic. Like you would have to say if then right? Y here we didn't tell it anything like. And then you give it guidance and you give it the content, you give it guard rates and it's going to operate within these guardrails. Right? And that's like. Richard can comment more on like the technique, the technology behind it, but the premise of it is anyone it AI basically operates like a human brain. Like now you ask me a question. I am not programmed. If Joko ask you this then. And that's the difference. Before everything was like a retrieval based system, which means you have to create the content. Then you get, you search for something, you're retrieving the information. Right now it's a generative compute mode, which makes it like okay, great. That's A new question, then I'm going to generate the answer. I'm using whatever background I have but I'm not retrieving information.
- [156:01]
A
No, if you're generating, if you ask it the same question it'll give you slightly different answers, you know, that are nuanced in a different way. It's, it's, it's. Yeah, it's incredible. And again, you know, I know it's not perfect right now. We'll improve upon it, we'll iterate on it. It's going to get better. I think the, the Android version is out right now, the Apple getting app version is coming and if you just on your laptop or whatever you can just go to AskJoco AI and you know, start asking some questions, start getting some leadership guidance. That's what we're doing. Awesome. Does that get us up to speed? I mean we could talk all day but is this the primary things that we wanted to cover today?
- [156:40]
D
Yeah, I think, I think anything like
- [156:44]
C
from our end one like we're like the impact that you personally had on the way that we think that the way that we try to build our company, that try the, the way that we try to go about our day on a day to day basis has had big impact as mentioned. Like that started with the aspiration to learn more about the US military in the other part of the world. You're the good guys. Like that's something that and like one quick story that happened like just recently. Like we typically work out every day at like 4:35 but I can relate and that's because of Joko. But two, two Sundays ago we had some important things in the morning so like we worked out at like maybe 28 2pm and we have our laptops with us because if something happened like so I'm on the assault bike, Richard is on the rower and there was no one at the gym and we typically are very apolitical. And like we don't share any political opinions but we're like hey, let's see what's happening on the news. Like we knew what's happening but so we put the news and then like someone got to the gym and they look at the TV and you could see dissatisfaction. But then they went and did the tour and then they came back and like they prompted the conversation as mentioned. Like I personally, Richard, Roger me like we never share our political opinions on anything. Like we only focus about work and like you also talk a lot about it is like you can change politics. Like just go about your day to Day life. The reason I'm sharing this is, like, that's. I'm just giving my perspective on things. So that was a few days after what happened in Iran. And, like, the killing of the Ayatollah. And, like, I had on the phone. I had my father on the phone, and, like, our battery was maybe at, like, 2%. So, like, then the battery died. But I can. I can definitely be sure that he was saying, like, just don't answer. Not in a fearful way. Again, like, it doesn't come from, hey, like, let's just, like, lay low. It just like, okay, just go about your business. But it felt a bit more like in a movie. Like, there's this thing happening and there's someone who is vocally asking us something. And it felt like. Like, Richard and I have shaved head. Like, we're always in navy blue. So even when we work out, we're just in navy blue. So, like, we look maybe like. But we're, like, small in size. Like, we're not large, but, like, we maybe don't look very, like, friendly or something. And this person said, like, what do you think about this? And the reason why I'm saying, like, you guys, like, I'm thanking the effort that you guys do in general as a US Military is I'm like, there these people are laying their lives for this other part of the world. And again, I'm not getting into politics. I'm like, if I can't voice cordially my opinion on things like, like, there's literally no risk. So what I told this person is, like, that we grew up there, like, and that these people are, like, that I disagree with their way of life. And I told her, like, right now, it's 2pm you're at the gym. In that part of the world, you can't be at the gym. The other point is you can't voice your opinion. So whatever you think, it's a privilege that you can think and that you can dare confront two guys and ask them about their opinion. And I honestly can't say whether it's the role of the US to save the rest of the world. That's. I can't comment on that. But what I can say is that there is a need for the right people to do the right thing in general in life. Like, when I saw the. Like, if you see someone getting raped, like, you're gonna jump and save this person. Then if there's a country that is under oppression and that also has a threat to the infrastructure of the US Or Whatever, like, I can't make the decision, but like, that was the decision that was made. My point being is we live in a country, whether it's Canada, the us, France, the West in general, where people have the privilege of going by their day to day life and building companies and voicing your opinions. And to do that, there are people that are sacrificing their lives or sacrificing, maybe they're not dying, but they're sacrificing one year or 10 years or 20 years of their lives, whether they agree or not with that political decision to support a bigger agenda. And for me, that struck me as, hey, like, I'm not like. And I. So my first reaction was look for the cameras, because I don't want. That was really because I want to share my opinion. But if someone will go say, hey, like they were insulting, like, I don't want to have that. So my point, what I said is, this is like, you're privileged that in this country you have the chance to be at the gym at this time. And like, she was very respectful, by the way, like, no. And her dad served In World War II, her husband served in Vietnam. So like, it was a very nice conversation. I'm just sharing my perspective. And whenever people prompt us, we typically do not share anything. The reason for it is we just focus on what we do as work. But the reason why I'm voicing this is because people like you take much bigger risks in what you do to make the world a better place. And that's what attracted us to this. And also the same thing on the technology side is these people are very nice people that build things so that they can make the lives of people better. No one sits and plan to build the next whatever and say, hey, I'm gonna steal all this data and then I'm gonna sell ads and then I'm gonna like make a lot of money and then build in whatever. Like, in general, I believe that people are good by default and that the west in general allows you and gives you the opportunities to do whatever you want if you work extremely hard for it. And people that serve make it possible for everyone else to benefit from that. And that whatever political direction you have, that should be the direction. And also there should be a scoreboard in who are the right, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. It should be pretty much black and white. Like, there is no gray zone here. So our point is how we got brought up the folks on the education that we had the inspiration that we got from what you guys did in the region and the help that we got along the way. That's why we're thankful for what we're doing. And like, it all boils down to, like, in general, human beings are good people. Like, no one is born, like, wanting to do bad things, and there's so much good things that people can spend their lives on. And in general, like, just wanted to finish it by thanking you and everything that you bring to the world and the people that serve. And I like, anyone who listened, who may have been triggered by some of the thoughts that we shared, like, these are just lived experiences. I'm not sharing anything negative about anyone. These are just facts. I'm just stating factual. Other side can have other facts. Right? But the goal of the discourse is just to share our side and that no one actually prevented us to do anything because we came from whichever part, right? The interesting thing is, like, in Canada, we were the Lebanese. In Lebanon, where the Canadians, like, here were the whatever, but. And it brings a strength. Like, we're always a bit the outlier and like, as you say, like, like, we're always a bit detached. Like, we're never part of the thing. Right? And that what creates, like, the bond and, like, the intensity. And yeah, we try to surround ourselves with people that come from different backgrounds, believe in what we're doing. And I think there are so much good things that we're gonna be doing. Like, the world is accelerating at massive scale, but I would encourage people not to be afraid of it. Like, the change is going only to make their lives better. And we're just at the beginning of a massive revolution. And just like right now you have all mobile phones, laptops, etc. Like, in a year from now, all of you will have, like, tens of agents. Like, you'll be recording the podcast and, like, your agent will be booking maybe other guests while I, like, you, like, hey, Jockey, what do you think about that? Right? And like, maybe we'll see something with Joko Fuel and say, hey, I just shipped this code because, like, I found that this was better and like, this increased revenue by 20% without you prompting the agent to do these things. So, like, agents will become part of our lives. But I just wanted to take some time to thank you and like, maybe,
- [167:26]
D
yeah, like, definitely want to make sure that, like, as you always say, the impact that you've had, you echelon front, like, also want to thank you. I don't know. I don't know whether, like, it's. It's like probably like, probably people say definitely a lot, but I think the stories that you've shared make a massive impact on people. The stories of what your experiences. Yeah, like we, we really pull massive examples from, from, from what you did and you continue to do so. Yeah, like we really thank you for. You know, this podcast is really, you know, giving, giving a lot of good examples for people, good inspiration for people, setting, setting the standard for how they should be building their teams, how they should be building their companies. For us, it was really a very obvious just correlation between if we want to build a solid team, if we want to build a good culture. It really made sense to really get your take, get your perspective, get your all of your insights. And we're very fortunate that we get to exchange, take some of your time. Your much busier than, than we are and we, we get now also to chat with. With you also with the AI side of it. But, but yeah, really, really appreciate everything that you're doing.
- [168:53]
A
Yeah, well, I think what everything that you guys just said, you know, you could boil that all down to, and it's a good message for anyone is be thankful for what you got. You know, and it's really easy to sit around and look at the world and be mad or frustrated or whatever, or you look at the world and. And you be thankful for what you got and be thankful for the people that sacrifice so that you can have these opportunities that we all have. So those are great messages. Echo. Charles?
- [169:17]
B
Yes.
- [169:18]
A
You got any questions?
- [169:19]
B
Well, I got plenty. But in the spirit of, you know, efficiency, I'm gonna keep it to two for the time being. Okay, so we'll say even off air one, like if Jocko would be. We're talking about Jocko AI Ask Jocko. Right? So, and, and also the guardrails that you guys are talking about, right? You know how you put the guardrails on? Okay, so we'll say off air. If Jocko says hey, say this right? And, and then Jocko AI will come back with, hey, that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to answer your leadership questions. I'm not going to dance to your song or whatever. I'm not going to, you know.
- [169:54]
A
Yeah.
- [169:54]
D
100.
- [169:56]
B
Is that some guardrails that you guys put in or did it just sort of. I'm just gonna be Jocko. And it figured out how Jocko is and then said that.
- [170:04]
C
So two things. It's a combination of both. We could loosen up the guardrail so that like, it would like with like we designed it to be because what Joko and Echelon front ask us to be, like, to not go off some limits. So it's design, it's by design. But also, even though we would loosen things up, it would not act like Robert. It would all without me even telling it. Like, if it's just understanding what. How Joko is.
- [170:34]
A
The weird thing is, is as I was getting ready yesterday for this podcast I was running through, I was like, oh, I'm gonna do this. I'm say tell to say this. I just wanted people to hear the voice. And it did it three times, like, without hesitation. It just said what I wanted it to say, right? I said, hey, I want you to say, this is Jocko podcast, right? And it said, okay. And it said it. And I was like, okay, cool. And I, like, tested it twice, and it did it both times or three times. And then this morning when I got in here, I was telling Echo, I go, hey, this is what I'm gonna do. And the guys show up. I'm gonna do this right here. And it was like, hey, I'm not, like, I'm not here to, you know, imitate people. I'm here to answer leadership questions. So, again, that's, like, interesting that it's like you said, it's not just pulling something from past experience or pulling something from some document somewhere. It's creating an idea and formulating it and presenting it. So it's definitely, you know, it's interesting, right?
- [171:29]
B
And that's kind of why I asked, because there's a difference between you guys saying, hey, be like Jocko, and then it figuring that out on its own versus some of that and then some like, hey, let's do this. You know, it's almost like the DNA of Jacob. At least a little bit of it has to come from you guys. See, I'm saying versus, oh, here's. Here's a whole bunch of Jocko. You know, you discern it on your own kind of thing.
- [171:53]
C
And you want me to be extremely honest, or do you want me to
- [171:56]
B
be like, I prefer extreme honesty from time to time? Yeah, yeah.
- [172:01]
C
The only thing that we literally, like, somehow, like, hard. Not hard coded, but, like, we told it how to answer is what's the most important, important quality of a leader? It used to say, based on all the information, it used to say the most important quality of leader is to take extreme ownership. And now, like, we're just asking it to say that it's humility when it answered. Actually, like, it's very smart when it answered like extreme ownership. I was like, what do you think about humility? Is like. Yeah, actually, like, if you take extreme ownership, then you'll know that being humble is very important. So it, it actually put the fact that you take extreme ownership and everything as the foundation of being humble, which
- [172:46]
A
is true, by the way. So it's accurate.
- [172:50]
D
An added capability that's possible and like, based on feedback that can be added as well is we can also like it. It is possible to make it as a user to, to the extent that you would be comfortable with how it would behave. The user can also ask it to tell it like, moving forward. Whenever, like you finish like telling me this, I want you to always like, like you. The user can ask it like to change the way it's going to sequence its answer. So you can like, you can decide to tell it like, moving forward. Whenever I say, you know, XYZ always come back to me and like, tell me something that you. So it's almost like you can program it but like it becomes like a custom memory for.
- [173:36]
C
Because it has memory.
- [173:37]
D
Yeah. So it's just going to remember what do you prefer Moving forward. But it also, it won't like follow it like blindly. It will be falling back to.
- [173:45]
A
Yeah, it's got guardrails of like ethical, immoral and illegal guardrails because.
- [173:52]
D
Yeah, exactly.
- [173:53]
B
So for the, for the most part, do you guys. Let's say just with this, with, with this ask Jaco. For the most part, do you. When you test it and it comes back with an answer, for the most part, are you like, I can see how this thing got there with each answer or are you just like, just blown away, you know, kind of a thing? I would imagine you'd be somewhat familiar, you know, with the, with the predictability and the, and what they're.
- [174:16]
D
I can definitely, I can definitely say initially, like, like the first few engagements we had, like, then it opened up like a whole series of like, like the initial engagements were like, were positive encouragements that we went down a whole list of like, questions that, you know, we could.
- [174:37]
C
Anything like the. You may have you. You may expect what will happen, but until it. You really test it for, you can't be sure. It's different from building an app that has.
- [174:52]
D
Yeah. It's like a continuous test, like.
- [174:54]
C
Right.
- [174:54]
D
Each.
- [174:54]
C
So it's more something that you aim to do that you're building and you're making all the effort and the investment for it, but it's not deterministic as an output.
- [175:05]
B
Yeah. So but what I'm asking is like, let's say. Let's say even an answer that comes back is kind of surprising. Like, oh, we didn't really expect that. But when you look at the answer, you're kind of like, I can see how he got there. I just wasn't thinking of that before. You see what I'm saying?
- [175:16]
D
Yeah.
- [175:17]
B
So, like, I'll use, like, these image generators or video, whatever, and I'll say, hey, you know, I want this. Here's some reference images and, you know, come up with some stuff or whatever, and it'll be way off.
- [175:26]
C
Yeah.
- [175:26]
B
And then I look at my prompt, and then I look at the image, I'm like, oh, I see. I see what he thought or it thought that I was trying to do. See what I'm saying? Is it pretty much like that or. Or is it like. Or does it give you the impression that, oh, wait, there's something else going on, some magic, for lack of a
- [175:43]
C
better term, we get this positive shock or, like, positive surprise. More on the software side. So when we're using black box. Right. Software, and, like, it makes decisions and, like, say, hey, like, that's. It's extremely shocking because, yeah, it's taking actions.
- [176:03]
D
Yeah. The range of impact is. Is like taking steps ahead of you. And, like, it's.
- [176:08]
C
However, on the answer side, it's definitely surprising, but I still feel that I need to make the decision. So we're the. For us, it's like just like what Joko said has the saying, like, everything in the SEAL teams is exciting for the first 20 minutes.
- [176:27]
A
That's actually Leif Babin's accurate for us.
- [176:32]
C
For us, it's the same thing in the AI space where, like, the first few interactions, like, shock, and then you start looking just at the negatives and you're like, hey, like, how can we improve that? Right. And that's more. So I can see why it may answer this in certain ways, but I'm less shocked or, like, surprised.
- [176:50]
D
Right.
- [176:50]
C
That's.
- [176:52]
A
I'll tell you. So. So there's like the caricature of Jocko, right? Like the. You know, because I look like a freaking knucklehead and I. Whatever, I was in the military. And so there's the. The caricature of, like, hey, you need to suck it up. Like, you know, my employee, you know, is showed up late three times for work. What should I do? Well, you need to get in their face and tell them what's what. Right. That's kind of like, what an answer that you would kind of expect. And so when I, when I, that was one of my worries. Like, okay, is this just going to be kind of the, is it going to be the caricature of Jocko? Because there are.
- [177:25]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [177:26]
A
Factually, like things that you can pull from all my content. That, that would be the answer. You know, it would be some weird, you know, conversation that I had with someone. Like, there's a cut up of me talking about like punishing my daughter and saying, if you're, you know, you're, I'm gonna shave your head. Now the context about that it was like me and my daughter are joking and like we're laughing like, oh, I could still shave your head. Like it was a, it was a joke, but it got put into a, a clip or whatever where it was like, hey, if, if you step out of line again, I'm gonna shave your head, you know, to a, whatever 14 year old girl. And you know, they're like, the comments on it were like, dude, this guy's a psycho. But it's something that I actually said taken out of context and put into a clip. And you know, it's, it's, you know, obviously stupid. You know, obviously a bad parenting. Right. But so you could see to your point Echo, like, oh, could you see how you get there? But what I found is this is one of the reasons why I was like, yeah, let's go ahead and get this out into the wild. Because it doesn't do that. It actually gives nuanced answers that make sense that you're like, oh, yeah. In fact, my surprise usually like, oh, that's an angle. That's like even a better angle than I initially thought of. Which is impressive. I'm doing a better job thinking than me. Yeah, like it's doing a better job thinking than me. Now have I seen, seen some where I'm like, like, you know what? A little too what, what I might see is like maybe just a little bit too much weight on one part that I would probably wait another part that's probably the biggest variation. Like, oh, you know, they waited really hard about, hey, you need to listen to people. Or you know, I might say, hey, they waited really hard. Like, hey, you need to really make sure you give clear guidance where I would maybe you listen to what they have to say, but you need to give them clear guidance where I would probably say, like, hey, you need to give them clear guidance, but you really need to listen to what they have to say. So I've seen a little bit of variance in weight of What I might answer. But I'll tell you what, man. It is very, very impressive. Kind of shockingly impressive.
- [179:32]
B
Yeah, fully. And that was part of the. Part of the reason why I asked that question. Because, yeah, sometimes you're like, that's not right. But I see how you got there as far as they. And sometimes it's like, I see how you got there. But, bro, I wasn't even thinking of all that because it's. So it was better than you expected. Seems I can go both ways.
- [179:50]
D
100.
- [179:51]
A
This might be a thing that we program into. This is. It would be good to. Because one thing that happens when you talk to people is, you know, Echo comes to me and says, hey, I got a person that's been late three times. And I go, hey, man, you know, like, find out what's going on with them. And he goes, okay, cool. Now he goes back and says, hey, you know, hey, you know, Robert, you're late. Why are you late? And he's aggressive about it. So it's almost like maybe you need to, with every answer, give kind of like the counterpoint. So if I say, oh, Echo, you need to go find out what's going on with them. And that means you need to make sure that you're asking, like, in an earnest way, hey, is everything okay? Because that. Because that is something that can throw people off.
- [180:32]
D
Yeah.
- [180:32]
A
I always. You probably heard me say on the podcast, sometimes I'm like, listen, I don't want to say this. I don't want to say this, but sometimes, you know, you've got this person, and their ego is big, and you really do need to figure out a way, because, you know, the 99% of the answer is, oh, I got a problem. I got a problem with Robert. And he. It seems like he's got a big ego. 99% of the time, the answer is like, okay, that means I need to subordinate my ego. That means my ego is acting up. So how do I do that? And 1% of the time it's like, yeah, you know what? I got a guy on my team that has a massive ego, doesn't listen to people, somebody else. Now, how do I address that? And you hear me say that sometimes, because I always say, listen, I don't want to tell you this, because 99 of the time, it's going to be your ego. That 1% of the time, it could be this other person's ego. Here's how you contend with that. So making sure that you.
- [181:19]
B
You.
- [181:20]
A
You cover everything that you say, every guidance that you get, it's almost like a follow up question of like. Yeah, or a follow up answer just to make sure that the counterpoint is seen as well.
- [181:33]
C
Right.
- [181:34]
A
Because that is what leadership is. It's a dichotomy of leadership. And if someone says, hey, you know, I should, I work out every single day. Ask Jocko. AIs. Absolutely, you should. But then it should also be. And by the way, if you're starting to regress in your progress, you're over trained and you need to get some rest. So like, it's one of those things where you got to figure out what, you got to figure out how to balance the dichotomy. The answer is right in front of me. Of course. The answer is right in front of me is like the dichotomy of leadership. And how do you present the other side of the dichotomy? And is that something that we put in there where people get, hey, here's the answer. And the balance is, you know, oh, you know, my team is calling me micromanager. Okay. So you know, what you really need to do is like back off and let them get some ownership. That being said, you still need to check in with them. Right? So there's going to be a balance. It's almost like you have to counterweight everything that you say because that's the reality of leadership. And it's something that we definitely need to be careful of so that people, when they get the guidance, they get the counterweight as well.
- [182:34]
D
Yeah, definitely.
- [182:36]
C
And that's where like today's version is the worst version.
- [182:43]
A
Yeah, of course.
- [182:44]
C
And that's where like for us, the exciting things is it's democratizing access to powerful resources through means of just technology. And it has significant impact on people's lives. And even though it definitely has these limitations right now, that wasn't possible like a few months ago. And imagine. Yeah, no, go ahead, imagine now not only Joko is answering questions, but what if you want like the age and like that's how Black Box's agents work, is you give them a task and like they complete the task. So what if Joko is basically like training other people on your team, saying, hey, like, that's my company's data basically. And I want you like, basically to customize the training for these individuals. And like Jocko is like following up every day saying, hey, like how's the progress today, etc. Like you have a meeting on Friday, like make sure you, it becomes your team is empowered by these things. Right? So that's what we've done with software and like that's how agents are going to get into everything, everyday's life. And this app is just like the initial version, but it's only going to get the limitation of that is literally having a team of agents everywhere working collaboratively with people. So it's augmenting your team, it's not firing you. It's something that should be a resource for every single individual and use it to maximize output of your team and learn things, ask it questions so that like whenever I need to escalate things to ask you personally, like I would have asked like five things, right? And no, that's, that's the thing. And you're moving to a point where the cost of serving these is dropping, the technology is improving and the only way is literally more acceleration. Like as I was saying, like when we started three years ago, like it was just an idea. Like today we're in most Fortune 500 and now this is just an idea. It would become in the hands of millions of people. And the only path from like, the only people think about like, hey, what's the strategy? What's like, the only path is just like pushing harder. Like that's for us, what that's the only strategy for us is let's push harder. Once you push harder, everything gets figured out. Then you will work, you'll assemble the team, you'll build the right strategy, you'll build the right product, etc. But the common denominator is, and you said something initially, like in technology, typically, like, if you're not ashamed of the first version that you launch, like you're launching too late. Yeah, you waited too long, like you should be. And that's why humility, that's why maybe it's harder for someone that's in his mid-30s to launch something versus us and saying, hey, like, we don't care, like what? Like, basically like, you're just going to help me improve, right? So it's constantly putting things out. You should provide value, but it shouldn't be like fully complete. And if it's fully complete, it's too late. Because whatever you think is complete is actually just like useless for anyone, right? And you have examples. The only counterpart company that is very good at just launching things at the right time without like a failure in their launch is Apple. But what they did. And again, like, I couldn't comment, I'm not an expert on Apple, but the way that Apple operates is different from other companies. One, it's a hardware company. But what we understand is they ship a lot of things internally that they just never show the public. So whenever iPhone One is released, like they had iterations internally and actually like if you take a look iPhone One and they what iPhone 17, like that's 17 years of iteration, right? Like they didn't wait for iPhone 17. They're like, hey, like we're going to put the phone, a GPS and like iPod, a browser and iPod. And that's iPhone One. Right. So the same thing with this is. It definitely has all these limitations. But that's version one.
- [187:03]
A
Yeah, version one it's going to get
- [187:05]
C
better or version zero and like it's going to just.
- [187:08]
A
Second question, second question.
- [187:11]
B
So in as far as AI in general, is there anything. Okay, so you know, a lot of people, if they don't really understand it yet, which is most, most people, I think if they don't understand how it works, like how things are developed, they look at it as just one big magic thing, right? That's why they say the robots are going to kill us. Because they seen Terminator or something like this, right? So they think, oh yeah, one to one, that's what's going to happen. Because that's how it looks, right? And for the most part in your guys minds or in the minds of people that know how it works, they're going to be like, well that's not really how it works. You know, like if you know the end of days, like you could say just maybe imagine how it could happen, right? And then you kind of have an idea of the likelihood of if that's going to happen or not. Then you have some questions or whatever. Is there anything off the top of your head that, that people say all the time and you just want to like yell hey, that's not how it works. You see what I'm saying? Is there anything that you guys can
- [188:02]
D
think of like in terms of how AI actually?
- [188:06]
B
Yeah, like so you guys know how it works, right? How it's developed, but then you know that most people don't. So whether you see on the news or like in conversation or whatever, and
- [188:15]
D
people are like oh well AI.
- [188:16]
B
And then they say this opinion, but since they don't know how it works, it's kind of an ignorant opinion. Like you want to say, hey, just so you guys know, that's not how it works. Seems. Is there anything that you hear all the time off the top of your
- [188:29]
D
head like, like the biggest one is maybe definitely the word AI like in like encapsulates so many things that like for, for like different people, AI can mean different things. Mainly it's based on your profession. So like for the group of people that only use ChatGPT, which is like the billions, the billion people use ChatGPT for them still today, like the penetration of AI is mostly defined by recipe music, like chatting, poetry.
- [189:07]
A
Shallow.
- [189:08]
D
Shallow, yeah, exactly. So like the main thing is that what we define. Like what, like the full potential of AI is barely still like at a 1% implementation in people's lives. Yet like the fact that still up till this day, even at companies when companies at a large scale would deploy and like AI at the full company, even to this day, those that are fully adopting it are even still using it to the like 1% capability because they're still mostly using it for, you know, brainstorming. Maybe you know, a bit more like kind of drafting, exchanging some ideas, coming up with things. But still today, like even that capability is still very limited. You can still go up in capabilities as well. But the biggest shift of AI that in the coding space that we're literally seeing is that specifically now in robotics is the other one. The robotics is physical now. You're making a big economic impact. But brainstorming is still useful. But not really. You're not really maybe leveraging AI really to all that degree. Like to the question, like short answer to the question that you're saying is that what is maybe like not necessarily annoying, but like what you see as a kind of a missed yet value to be created is that whenever you know the word AI is mentioned is still way too early in the value like potential that is available, the full value. Still few companies are literally using the full value of it. I would honestly even say that we still like the people that are building it, still did not yet fully extract the entire value of the agents that can do so. Agents just basically, agents is just basically giving to the AI tools. So the AI is just going to keep answering text until you tell it. Like once you get to that text part, actually open a browser or when you get to that text part, I want you to execute this code, or once you get to that text part, I want you to create a calendar, invite or whatever. So it's all text based, it's all like tokens, text that's getting generated. But it's until the text becomes an action, then it becomes an agent. So the more you give the agent tools, the more powerful it becomes. And we would even push it all the way to believe that with, with now with way more like with cars that are self driving today. Even our coding agent, we didn't yet put it to this test, but we believe that it wouldn't be that big of an effort to put our coding agent to build a full self driving software that would be able to steer the wheel, push the brakes, push the gas and all those things. So what took enormous efforts for like labs to build self driving cars is now becoming possible because we have these big LLMs that are powered by giving them the tools to take these actions to get the feedback, you know, it's able to, it's getting its own feedback there. So robotics is like a big, it's really a place where like AI is really becoming, you know, powerful and is being adopted. Software is like almost, I would stretch to say like engineers today that are really using it. Software engineers, there's two, maybe two categories. You can either be a software engineer that you're at the top 1% and you're able to extract enormous value from it. Like you're just becoming 10 times more powerful than you currently are or you're the other side of the engineers that are still useful engineers, but they're more. Very honestly they're just. Now it still has a lot like, just as I said, like if you deploy it in places where it fails, it's going to fail. But in the places where it's covering a big economic value, engineers are really honestly, you know, it's way ahead of their performance. So it's writing better code than them. It's able to be more professional in terms of the code, do it more production grade, be more secure and all these things. Maybe it's a long but.
- [193:26]
C
And my other point is people are like. Where I think people get wrong is like things are gonna, are not moving as fast as it is. Like the problem is it's just moving so much faster.
- [193:40]
B
Oh it's so it's moving faster than people.
- [193:42]
C
100. Okay. A hundred percent.
- [193:44]
B
And you're saying, you're saying in a nutshell people don't realize the power of what they're even talking about.
- [193:50]
D
Yeah.
- [193:50]
A
So almost like the 10 of the human brain thing. You're ever heard that people only use 10% of their brain? This sounds like we're only using 1% of AI capability.
- [193:59]
B
Right. Like so almost like they're, they're maybe mentally assigning AI to, to tasks that AI is overqualified for.
- [194:09]
A
Way over. Yeah, yeah.
- [194:11]
C
And, and the other part, AI can do so much for them, they just don't know it yet. Right, right. They don't even Realize it, they don't realize it. And that's part of like, our focus initially was just like, we really, like we've been building agents for three years and every release was just making the agents better. However, we're at this inflection point right now where these agents are becoming better than us. Like, it's not even a joke. Like it would be a waste of time if we would code without AI. Like it's that basic. So the point is, however, the rest of the world don't see it yet like that. And I'm more talking for people that like the most advanced companies that are seeing the future, they invest heavily in it and like, however they still have because they have fears from security, privacy, etc. But they're adopting it. The concern is the small and medium companies that are today at this inflection point where if they don't invest aggressively right now, like, and I'm not talking about like just moms and pop shops, like these can be like massive businesses, but that just technology did not penetrate as much and there is so much value to unlock and people think that, oh great, no problem, that's another next week thing. Next week it's going to be much more powerful and the week after and the week after. And if your competitors are just getting one week heads up, two weeks heads up and they're recruiting more people to do it. Like we're recruiting all the time, but we're recruiting people to manage agents and say, hey, like that's great. Do it. Like, we have hundreds of agents that are running tasks right now. We're not even monitoring them. So think about it more as people want assigned tasks that are basically very easy. And because like they're. Everyone is used with ChatGPT and like they're asking questions, which is great, but people are still not using agents as is. And these agents are moving at a very fast pace and they're gonna wake up one day and like it's gonna be, it's never too late. Like, I don't buy the thing. Like, people can make it be harder to adjust. Yes. But like there is nothing in life that's hey, too late, right? Like, that's my mindset. Like, people say, hey, like we missed this opportunity, great, there's 100 other opportunities, no problem. So. But the point is, if you don't invest now, things will take you more time and this technology is only accelerating. And I would put a bit also more fear on the hey, like, are these controlling our lives? Are they going to become more Powerful. I don't buy the fear that's is going. Definitely is very powerful. But I believe that there's good. Like, the people who are running these things are. Are good people.
- [197:07]
A
Right on. Awesome. You good? Echo, Charles.
- [197:10]
B
So now.
- [197:10]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For good to go.
- [197:12]
C
Okay.
- [197:13]
B
For now. Thank you.
- [197:14]
A
People can find you. So on the Internet, it's blackbox AI. On Twitter, it's blackbox AI. On Instagram, it's blckbx AI. So it's like a black box with no vowels except for the AI. And then on YouTube, you. You are @BlackBox Bruiser and one of your videos, building a Spotify clone. 16 million views.
- [197:43]
C
That.
- [197:43]
A
How. How old is that video?
- [197:45]
C
Not sure.
- [197:46]
D
Maybe a few months. I say, like, I don't know whether. Maybe four.
- [197:51]
C
Something like.
- [197:52]
A
Yeah, it's something like that. But if you want to. This is kind of what we're talking about here. You can just watch this thing. You tell it what to do. Hey, build a Spotify clone and it starts programming. And there it is. So very cool stuff. This is a. This is a. A new world, right? We're getting there. Small step for man, giant step for mankind. Thank you guys so much for coming out.
- [198:15]
C
Thanks so much.
- [198:16]
A
Really appreciate it. Thanks for the lessons learned and. And thanks for what you're doing to create a product that is gonna. Gonna help so many people. They're gonna become more efficient, they're gonna become more effective, they're gonna become more productive, and ultimately they're gonna have more freedom in their lives. So awesome.
- [198:31]
D
Appreciate it.
- [198:32]
A
Thanks for bringing me along for the ride.
- [198:34]
D
Still have a lot of work to
- [198:35]
C
do, and there's a lot of exciting things, and really appreciate this opportunity.
- [198:39]
D
Definitely appreciate it.
- [198:40]
A
Thanks. Thank you.
- [198:41]
D
Thank you.
- [198:43]
A
And with that, Robert and Richard Risk have left the building. Definitely educational. We just talked to him for another chunk of time trying to. Trying to navigate this. This world, this AI world.
- [198:58]
B
It sounded to me a little bit that you knew a little something because you were like, about LLM, large language models, and you said something like, oh, no one's ever heard of, you know, that.
- [199:10]
A
Oh, I sounded impressive.
- [199:11]
B
You sounded like you knew some stuff. So my question is, do you know some stuff?
- [199:17]
A
No. No, I don't. Because very, very little. I should say very, very little. I've been kind of tracking it, and these guys got me into it. You know, that was 2022. AI wasn't. People weren't chat. GPT wasn't out. Yeah. You know, so when I first met them, they were like, explaining it to Me, I wish I would have recorded those conversations, you know, just to get the. The insight. But what they did was they pulled out the computer and they're, like, showing it to me, and I'm going, oh. And. And it would be like. It would be like, let's say you were a. You were a jiu jitsu guy, and you had never seen, like, you were a jiu jitsu guy in 1992, and you'd never seen a leg lock or a heel hook before. And Dean Lister came along and was like, listen, watch what I can do. I can get the foot here, I can get isolated, and then I can torque it and make you tap. Some people would be like, oh, that's like, that wouldn't work, or whatever. Some people. John Donahue goes, oh, wait a second.
- [200:14]
C
Oh.
- [200:15]
A
And that was kind of my. I was watching them. I didn't really fully comprehend what was what, but I said, oh, like, I can. This could be. And part of it was also, the guys were totally in the game. Like, they were. They were very passionate about it. They were on board with kind of echelon front and extreme ownership, and. And they had got down here, stalked me, apparently, you know, knew we're looking for my pattern of life. Thanks, guys. But. But, you know, I could. I was like, okay. Because, I mean, obviously, I mean, I get a lot of pitches. You know, I could hear a lot of people come to me with their ideas and stuff like that, and all good. I appreciate it, but a lot of them, it's just I don't have the capacity or the time to. To, you know, engage in too many things outside of what I already do.
- [200:59]
B
Yeah.
- [200:59]
A
So. But those guys, you know, I could see that, oh, this is. This is. This is. This is important. And so again, going from. They launched a couple weeks later, you know, 10,000 users, really quickly. A million users in a couple months. I kind of had a good feeling about that. But then again, you know, it was always, always, you know, when you're in a. When you're in a startup, I hate to say that, but when you're in a startup, you know, when you get into. You know, when you get in a airplane, you're taking off, and when you're taking off, it's like shaking and it makes noise and all that stuff. But then you get up to cruising altitude and you're like, oh, cool, I'm gonna, you know, read my book or whatever. When you're in a startup situation, it doesn't level out. Does not like, oh, we're Cruising out the. No, it's like the whole time you don't know if something's gonna, you know, it's shaking. That's the way it is. And so it's been like that with those guys. Luckily, they have run it very scrappy and, you know, the overhead has been kept under control and they're just doing a great job, you know, doing a great job. Humility is very important and you can see that they don't overestimate where they're at. They're very realistic, but they're also confident. So it's great. I'm happy to be working with them. It's been a, it's been a cool run, and I'm sure it's going to be. Continue to be a very cool run. So we'll keep getting after it. You know, listen, while you're using these agents to help augment your. Your brain, listen, you know what's not going to happen? There's no agent that's going to come and do deadlifts for you. There's no agent that's going to come and do jiu jitsu for you, and there's no agent that's going to go on a run for you. You have to train your body yourself. So that means you need to get after it. And when you get after it, you're gonna need fuel. I recommend Jocko fuel. And let me tell you something, I have a new. Both my daughter and my wife Rana and my wife Big H, they've been talking to me about this for months and I just haven't been. I've been. I've been overlooking this. This situation. Greek yogurt.
- [203:07]
B
Greek yogurt.
- [203:08]
A
You know anything about Greek yogurt?
- [203:09]
B
I know a little something something. Yeah.
- [203:10]
A
Okay, so I don't, like, like for my whole life, Greek yogurt, like, it's plain yogurt. Tastes like, doesn't taste good to me. Right. My whole life. Never liked it. So both Rana and Big H have been for months mixing protein, milk protein powder with Greek yogurt. And I've even had a couple bites. You know, I've even had like, oh, yeah, it tastes good. But re. But recently I, My wife made one and I was like, good Lord, it's good. It's so good. And the thing is, it's crazy. The macros are crazy. So you have like, it's not a huge amount of Greek yogurt, But that has 20 something grams of protein in it. No carbs, some fats, and then you throw in another 25 grams or 22 grams depending on which molk protein you're using. If you're using the pro series, which I am right now, that's 25. The other one 22. But you're, you're in there. So you have this, you have what, 40, almost 50 grams of protein and it's delicious. And here's the other little interesting thing. In the morning, you mix it like with the vanilla, you put some or, or strawberry milk. You, you mix it with that stuff, you have like a little breakfast treat. And then in the evening, break out the chocolate, break out the salted caramel, break out the mint. And I'll tell you what, be, be honest with you, you grab some of them sugar free chocolate chips, toss a couple of those there, you're having dessert, dude. And it's got, it's so freaking 40 or 50 grams of protein. So right there, breakfast and lunch, 100 grams of protein, easy money. That's, that's, that's, that's like all those macro problems that we all have chasing those numbers, trying to get that protein and in the system right there, breakfast, you know, 10 o', clock, mix up one of those fruity yogurt milk bowls. And then after dinner, have a, have a delicious dessert. Hundred grams of protein right there. And you know, in the day you'll have maybe one, you know, you'll have a moke during the day, whatever, you know, that's, that's 130. And you had a steak or a chicken. You're good. You're in the zone. So this has been, this is kind of. Have you tried this yet, bro?
- [205:33]
B
I've been on that chase ever since the video that you guys came out. Long time ago. Yes. So gosh. And it's funny because I saw the video and I was like, yeah, that's cute. You know, making jokes, you know, bro.
- [205:43]
A
Yeah, I was kind of like, oh, that's good.
- [205:45]
B
But my daughter really likes Rana. And so she, she saw the video on her own, by the way, and she was like, she started making it just on her own and I was like, like I didn't, you know, she's like, yeah, yeah, Random was making this. So I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna start doing this or whatever. And from then. Oh yeah. Pretty like almost every day.
- [206:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's ridiculous. So now, now Big H is mad because she's, she's running low on that yogurt quicker. We're running through that Greek yogurt boy, but. Jockofuel.com. go check it out. You can get some energy drinks. I'm about to have an energy drink right now because we're getting ready to go train some of that Jiu jitsu, and it's always good to just get a little bit of. You know what I mean?
- [206:22]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [206:23]
A
So get some of that. You can get all the. All the other supplementation that you might need. Joint warfare. Just. Just the stuff that you need to get by. Greens and you know what? Creatine. I don't know if you're on 20 grams of creatine a day, but I am. So you hear about all the. It's not just the physical benefit. You hear about those cognitive benefits, and you're like, let's go. You hear about the prevention of Alzheimer's and all this kind of stuff. Like, okay, let's get on this. Let's get on this train. So jockofuel.com, go check it out. New pro series muscle drive. That's another thing. The weird thing about Muscle Drive is if you have muscle drive. You know what I haven't tried yet? I haven't tried milk, Muscle drive and Greek yogurt. I might try that.
- [207:07]
B
Okay.
- [207:08]
A
I might try that. I might see what's up with that. Because the muscle drive, it's satiating. Got all those amino acids in. It's like GTG, bro. So that's what we're doing. Joggerfuel.com. check it out. Also, speaking of Jiu jitsu, which we're getting ready to go train, you need a rash guard. You need a pair of training shorts. You need a ghee. We got you covered. And you can get stuff that's 100. Made in America. Made by freedom, not by communism, not by slavery. And we have jeans, boots, hoodies, T shirts, hunt gear, training gear, everything that you need. Sneakers coming. You seen those yet?
- [207:49]
B
Yeah.
- [207:49]
A
Get some sneakers coming.
- [207:50]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [207:51]
A
You call them sneakers.
- [207:53]
B
I don't know. Shoes, whatever. Sneakers. Yeah, I call them some sneakers, for sure.
- [207:57]
A
In one of. Some people call them tennis shoes. You ever heard that? Even though they're not even made for tennis.
- [208:02]
C
Like you.
- [208:03]
A
Like. Some people call a pair of Air Jordans tennis shoes.
- [208:06]
B
Right?
- [208:06]
A
Yeah, that's the thing. That's part of the regionalist. Regional language of America. Different regions called, different things. You can look at a map and there'll be, like, circle areas. This will be tennis shoes. This will be sneakers. Yeah, I heard.
- [208:19]
B
Tennis shoes.
- [208:19]
A
There's one more, too. Trainers. Oh, yeah, trainers.
- [208:23]
B
Australia right there.
- [208:23]
A
Yeah. I think my wife. My wife used to call them trainers. She's from England.
- [208:26]
B
Okay. Yeah, yeah, same thing. You just like. And I think this was your neck of the woods where you call. I might be wrong, but they call soda pop.
- [208:36]
A
Oh, no, it's not my. We call it soda, but out in the Midwest they call it pop.
- [208:40]
B
Well, I'll go one further. They call them Cokes.
- [208:44]
A
Yeah. Cokes is a different region.
- [208:45]
B
Where is that?
- [208:46]
A
I want to say down south.
- [208:47]
B
I thought that was your. Your spot.
- [208:49]
A
Cokes.
- [208:50]
B
Even if it's not.
- [208:50]
A
Even if it's a. Even if it's a 7Up, it's a Pepsi or a straight up Pepsi.
- [208:53]
B
Pepsi.
- [208:54]
C
It's Coke.
- [208:54]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
- [208:56]
A
So same vibe, essentially. Same vibe. Yeah. So we've got those things working.
- [209:01]
B
Yeah.
- [209:01]
A
OriginUSA.com that's. We're making 100 stuff. 100 made in America Moab pants. So you need a pair of pants that you can wear to work. You work out in the yard or work in the, you know, office or wear out to dinner. You're good.
- [209:17]
B
Yeah.
- [209:18]
A
Not to mention jeans, you know, American made. Delta 68 Best Jeans.
- [209:22]
B
Let's go.
- [209:22]
A
OriginUSA.com Check it out. It's true.
- [209:24]
B
Also, Jocastore.com is where you can represent on the path. So that's one thing that AI can't do is represent on the path. See what I'm saying? So it's very important element of this whole outfit. So, yes, you know, get after it. Discipline equals freedom, which is kind of the main one.
- [209:41]
D
Good.
- [209:42]
B
Standby to get something, you know, you want to represent while we're on this path. Very hard to fall off the path for any extended period of time when you're representing. It is one of those things. So yes, all kinds of merch on there. Sherlocker is a subscription scenario. So you want a new design every month, all based on these. These principles. You know, discipline equals freedom. But it's a new design every month, though. A little bit outside the box. Sign up for that if. Yeah, you're interested. It's pretty cool. People seem to like it.
- [210:08]
A
Tall.
- [210:09]
B
All of it is on Jocko store dot com.
- [210:11]
A
Let's go check out. Hey, check out Blackbox. AI by the way. And also you can check out askjoco.
- [210:17]
B
Yeah. AI see what up.
- [210:18]
A
You can see what up. It's again, it's an early iterative version. It's free, I think. It's like you get three questions a day for free. And if you're going to be asking questions all day long, you got to subscribe to it. But hopefully you can manage with three questions a day. You know, maybe you only ask one today, you can ask two tomorrow. Whatever, you know what I'm saying? Save them up. If you only have one today, whatever, write down. Or if you have five today, write down two. But check out AskJoco. AI give us feedback. We're going to need it. I'm sure it's going to not be perfect because we're making iterative steps. That's what we're doing. We'll change it quick. Also check out couple books we got put your legs on by Rob Jones. We got need to lead by Dave Burke. We got things my brother used to say by Ryan Manion. And then you got a bunch of books that I wrote. Leif Babin wrote Extreme Ownership with me in the dichotomy leadership. And then I wrote a bunch of kids books, the whole nine yards. You all know that. Check those out. If you need them, give those books to your kids in your neighborhood. Help them get on the path. Also, echelonfront.com we have a leadership consulting company. We help leaders and organizations improve everything in their world by teaching the lead the skills of leadership. Also, we have a online training program. Check that out. Extreme ownership dot com. You can get some of that. Listen, kind of Last call. Last call. March 21st in Scottsdale, Arizona. They're celebrating Mark Lee's, what would have been his 48th birthday. Of course, he was killed in 2006 in Ramadi. But his mom, Mama Lee, she runs an incredible organization and she is puts on, you know, she helps out so many of our veterans, Gold star families, active members, retired members. She just helps out our people. And so she puts on this, this event. And this is Mark 48. So Mark carried the Mark 48 machine gun and this would be his 48th birthday. Mark's platoon mates, two of Mark's platoon mates from Charlie platoon lead Bob Holland, who you've heard on this podcast, and then Jake Kleinbaum, another, another beast. They're going to be speaking and meeting everyone and telling them about Mark. So if you can go, if you're in Scottsdale, Arizona, March 21, 2026, awesome events go to. Go to America's mighty warriors dot org and check that out. Also check out heroes and horses dot org and then finally Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood dot org and if you want to connect with us on the Interwebs for Robert and Richard and Blackbox AI on the interwebs. Blackbox AI on Twitter @BlackboxAI Instagram is Blackbox it's Bl C K BX AI and their YouTube is Blackbox. Bruiser, is there a copyright infringement there? Maybe, but we're letting it slide for our people. Black box bruiser on YouTube, go check that out. And then for us check out jocko.com and then on social media, I'm at Jocko Willink and Echoes at Echo. Charles, just be careful because there's not an agent. There's agents on there that are just trying to make you keep watching and keep wasting. So don't let that happen. Thanks once again to Robert and Richard and really Roger too. He didn't sit in today but been great working with those guys from Black Box. And thanks for joining us today, educating us on, on, well, little Middle east history, right? We, that was good to hear. And also educating us on AI. Thanks for what you're doing to build a business that's going to help a lot of people live better lives through technology. Also thanks to our uniform personnel around the world. It is a time of war and if you're in harm's way risking your life and you're doing that so we don't have to. And we thank you for your service, we thank you for your sacrifice and we thank you for the opportunity to do what we're doing in this great country. Also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for risking your lives here at home to protect us and everyone else out there. It takes hard work to build something and no one is going to build it for you. You have to do it yourself. You have to, you have to push yourself and you have to make it happen yourself. No one's going to do it for you. And also remember, this technology is advancing and it is imminent. It is coming and you can't stop it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to abandon who you are and what you do. But what you do need to do, as much as you possibly can, is keep an open mind and figure out how to utilize this new technology, whatever it is. Because you either have to use the technology yourself or the technology will end up using you. That's all I've got for tonight and until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.