← The Bitcoin Treasuries Podcast with Tim Kotzman
The Bitcoin Treasuries Podcast with Tim Kotzman
Agentic AI, Web3, and Bitcoin with Mariane Bekker
00:40:17
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the Bitcoin Treasuries podcast. I'm Tim Kotsman. I'm here with Marianne Becker in the New York studio. Thanks for joining us.
- [00:08]
B
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
- [00:10]
A
So you are the founder of Founders Bay. Can you tell us how that happened and we'll get into some of maybe your backstory here as well as we move along.
- [00:20]
B
Definitely. So Founders Bay is a community of 150,000 founders, VCs and family offices in the Bay Area. We do a lot of events to, to promote the startup ecosystem together and we probably host one to two events a week to bring the community together.
- [00:38]
A
How did all of that start?
- [00:39]
B
Yeah, so I used to be a engineering director of engineering at multiple companies in the Bay Area. And then when my company got acquired, I left and I started a recruitment agency to help companies hire more women engineers. And the idea was that if you put a woman at a fast growing startup, her career is going to grow, grow and then we're going to get more women in engineering leadership. Because I was tired of always walking in and being the only woman in the room. So then I started go this, my recruitment agency started working really well. So I became an accidental entrepreneur. I started going to all of these like founder events and again, I wouldn't see any other women in the room. So then I started Founders Bay to really promote more diverse voices. And then I started reporting on all of the cool events happening in the Bay Area every week. And that grew really fast. So now we went from 0 to 150,000 in less than two years.
- [01:39]
A
How does that even happen? It sounds like a very quick.
- [01:43]
B
So there's this thing that I, this concept that I love called like the fire wheel and it's basically anything that you do feeds into each other. So how we grew fast is we created this fire wheel which was like events brought more people to our newsletter. Our newsletter brought more people to our social media. Our social media media brought more people to our events. And then it's just a circle. So just through the combination of like in person event workshops, through the combination of posting on social about our mission and what we're trying to do, a lot of people started finding out about us, resonating with our mission and yeah, and then we grew to be now one of the largest communities in Silicon Valley and probably one of the largest community of founders and VCs in the world. So.
- [02:34]
A
So wow, what's the, what are the themes of the feedback that you hear of what People are getting out of that community what they really like. The value that, that's that you're driving there.
- [02:48]
B
So the value is all about connection, right? Like when you join the community, we host like weekly event. You go and you meet investors. So tons and tons of startup founders met their first investor or got their first check from just attending one of our events. We do like monthly pitch nights. And then this amazing woman, she was starting this like AI won't care management and then she was very shy in presenting. But I'm like, come pitch to my event, right? Like, don't be shy. I'm there to support you. She pitched at my event and that kickstarted her startup. Now she closed the deal with a huge hospital. She met tons of investors. So it's really connection and meeting the people that you need to grow your startup.
- [03:32]
A
I usually do this at the end, but I'm sure people are going to be intrigued. Is there a website or different handles on social to connect with the community?
- [03:40]
B
Yeah, it's called foundersbay.com I got the.com domain, so I'm super lucky. So go and subscribe to the newsletter and then you're going to receive it twice, twice a month. And then we host weekly workshops and we bring in experts. It's really like a crowdsourced community. We bring in experts from like fundraising, investing, from accounting to taxes. And they come and they do these like one hour workshop every week to just like help you grow your startup or help you just grow your network.
- [04:12]
A
Got it. So foundersbay.com foundersbay.com let's talk about you.com?
- [04:16]
B
yes.
- [04:17]
A
What's the story there? Take us through what happened. I think I heard part of the story.
- [04:24]
B
So I've been@you.com for a couple of months and I've just been loving it. So U.com, we just raised $100 million. We're backed by Salesforce, and we raised it to really grow AI infrastructure. So we provide basically APIs for agentic workflows. And I'm the head of Devrel there and we're doing tons of events across the nation to really bring the CTO and the engineering leadership community together. And we actually have our first event here in New York City tonight. Very excited about that.
- [05:00]
A
Very exciting. Can you tell everyone about that event? Yeah, because it might be very similar to other ones that you're going to have. Definitely more in the San Francisco area or globally, I don't know.
- [05:13]
B
So the idea is to bring engineering leaders who've made it in AI to really talk about their experience in implementing and growing the AI ecosystem in their company. So for today's event, we have the CTO of McKinsey Technology talking with our head of AI Sahil, and they're going to really talk about, like, agentic AI and the trends that are happening. We're doing another one with Databricks on April 2nd in San Francisco. And then we're doing that event, that Fireside Chat, we're calling it U Code Forum. In all of the A16Z Tech Week, we already got approved in them. So just find us. We're there. So we're going to Boston, New York, Louisiana. We're going to be everywhere in the
- [05:59]
A
U.S. and how did the founder of you.com get you.com? it's a pretty cool domain to have.
- [06:07]
B
It's such a cool domain. It's like literally Y O, U. So actually Marc Benioff gifted it to him, so he used to work at Salesforce. And the founders of U.com are incredible because they are actually the ones who invented prompt engineering. So. So they're really at the forefront of AI research and that's why they've had so much amazing success with u dot com.
- [06:33]
A
Can you walk us through maybe the progression of AI? Because to be very candid, I had to, like, look up what agentic AI even means. So what's the difference between what some people might already be doing? Like, you're asking Claude or Chad or Gemini or somebody a question and then you're getting a response. But agentic AI is different from that.
- [06:59]
B
Yeah, agentic AI is really the evolution of AI. So AI right now, when people think about it, they think about like large language model, like ChatGPT, like Entropic, but now with agents, basically, it's the large language model that is acting on your behalf. So let me give you an example. Like, you can go to ChatGPT and you can ask it to find the stocks that are, you know, that are most likely to grow in the next six months. Right. So that's something that people are typically using to do. What does agentic means? Agentic means that the LLM or that system will act on your behalf. So instead of it just finding the stock, agents will go and they will actually do the trade on your behalf. So when you have something on the Internet that is like, behaving like you on your behalf, that's what agentic AI is. And it is predicted that in a few years, there is going to be actually more agents surfing the web and taking actions on the web than humans. And that's exactly where you.com comes in. Because like, for you to be able to build an agent, right, you need to make sure that that agent get accurate search results. Like if the agent, for example, gets the wrong trade or gets the wrong information, then when they execute that trade, they may make a really, really bad decision. So with the U.com APIs, it allows agents to search the web for real time, accurate results and then the agent can behave properly because of those results.
- [08:44]
A
So is u.com basically building like a credible library that these agents can go to, or am I thinking about it?
- [08:53]
B
So they're building the APIs that the agent can go and search the web with. And we're made for agents. That's what we were built for. Because like traditional web search, it was like Google for example, right? Like if you, for example, is an engineer and you go and you research a bug, Google might return a bug that is like three years old, right. But agent, most likely, when they're going to take actions on your behalf, they need real time search. So with U.com you can say, well, give me real time, accurate results for the agent to be able to take the next step in the loop. And we call that the agent loop. So agents have a loop where they search the results and then they take the action and then they go through all these loops to basically do that action on your behalf on the Internet.
- [09:45]
A
Got it. Let's go back to the beginning.
- [09:49]
B
Yes. Where
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A
is your family from? Tell us the story that I just think is very powerful and people will either be able to relate to or maybe definitely take something away from.
- [10:06]
B
So I was born in a small little country called Lebanon. But when I was born, I was born in the middle of a very brutal civil war. So actually the first few years of my life, I remember them, I was living in bomb shelters for most of them. And then eventually one night, there was my mom, like, tells me this crazy story. So I was very young at that time. We started hearing, we were in our building and we started hearing more and more bombs come through and they were approaching at a very fast rate. So my parents took us and they went downstairs in our apartment building and all of the neighbors went downstairs as well because we knew that we were gonna be hit next. Everybody started praying, we were saying our goodbyes like that was it for us. And then a bomb exploded like a few meters away from us. But luckily we survived, but our neighbor's house got destroyed the next day. My mom actually took us to The Canadian embassy. And then she refused to leave until they gave us the visa. That's how strong of a woman she was. She is. And then we eventually got the visa to get out of Lebanon. But at that time, they were prioritizing kids and women and kids. So my dad, we had to leave him behind. But that experience really taught me, like, resilience, right. Really taught me the importance of empowering kind of women to make decisions. Empowering women to give them the education they need so when they're in these situation, they can take care of their families. And that's how we made our way to Canada.
- [11:59]
A
What inspired you to go pursue an engineering track?
- [12:04]
B
Yeah, so actually it was my dad. My dad, when he was growing up in a village in Lebanon, he really focused on his education, and then he got a full scholarship to go study in the us he was one of the first man in his family to go to college. And he went to study electrical engineering back then, because software engineering didn't even exist. Like, he used to code with punch cards. So my dad finished his master in electrical engineering in the US and even though there was a war in Lebanon, he wanted to go and give that knowledge that he learned for his country and his family. So he actually went back and became a dean of engineering at a university in Lebanon. And that's how he met my mom. So his story and his courage to imagine there was a war. But he still came back to be with his family. He still came back to help people around him. My dad always inspired me and he made me love technology. Like, I remember when I was very, very young, I was grading his electrical engineering exams with him. So that's how I knew I wanted to be an engineer just like him.
- [13:17]
A
And then take us through the journey of your out of college, you're in the workforce. What are you seeing at that point?
- [13:27]
B
Yeah. So I'll take you through the journey of my first day in college, because I think that really will tell you what my experience in engineering has been like. So that was probably like 15 years ago, and software engineering was just starting to become a popular profession. Like, I remember the year that I came in was the first time that software engineering was recognized as an engineering profession in Canada because it was so new at that time. And I remember I was a very typical teen. I had my miniskirt with my high boots reading Cosmo Girl. I walk into my first math class, I look up, and literally I do not see any woman in the class. I was the only woman in that room. So then I go up in all of the different classrooms in the building in my software engineering school. And again, there was literally no woman in the building. And that experience followed me all throughout my career. So then I graduated engineering. I was one of the only women on stage to receive a diploma. But I was so happy to have graduated. And I'm like, okay, you know what? It's going to be a new world. I'm going to go to Silicon Valley as a new engineer. I'm going to grow my career there, and I'm sure there's more women there. So then I make my way to Silicon Valley. Similar enough. Also, every time I would walk in a room, I would be the only woman engineer. So my experience has been, at times feeling like I didn't belong right in that room. Like, if you don't see yourself represented, then there's some. Then maybe there's like this small voice in your head that makes you feel that, oh, maybe you don't fit in. Maybe you're not meant to be there. But I kept going because I love technology so much. And I'm so glad that I did because, like, throughout my career, I was able to help promote more women in tech. So when I was a director at mindbody, for example, I was the head of engineering for the sf, Pune and New York office, and I had, like, full control about who I wanted to hire and my budget. So within two years, we grew from seven to over 50 engineers, but we were able to maintain a ratio of 55% women engineers. So we promoted women engineers, we hired them, we promoted them, and every single one of those women now are, like, in engineering management somewhere. So just having the ability to make that impact and to impact others around me was really rewarding.
- [16:07]
A
That's awesome. Tell us about the first time that you heard about and looked into Bitcoin and crypto. And how do you see maybe bitcoin specifically intersecting with AI? That might be obvious to some people and totally a foreign concept to other people.
- [16:31]
B
All right, this is the real story about how I heard about Bitcoin. So I was, again, it was like, I think my second year working in engineering, and one of my colleagues, he. I think I forgot my. I forgot my wallet in the office. So he bought my lunch, and then he's like. Then I'm like, okay, well, can. Can I give you back the money for. For your lunch? And then he told me, oh, just. Do you have, like, a wallet? Like, send it to me digitally? I'm like, what? What are you talking about? So then he's like, oh, let's send like crypto to each other. I'm like, what? People are paying each other that way now? Like, what is this thing? So then I started hearing about Bitcoin and it was back when it was like at a very, very low price. In hindsight, I wish I had bought tons of them. But crypto has been like. A lot of people think that, you know, crypto is all about like, you know, betting on risky trades, etc. But blockchain as like an engineering concept is extremely. It's. It's like the new way of building technology because suddenly you're building decentralized technologies and not one person owns it. So the concept of everybody owns a little bit of it is actually great for society because that means that your data is secure. Nobody is owning your data. Right? It means that people have control of the technology that they are using. So I've always been a huge fan of decentralized technologies because of that. How
- [18:19]
A
is AI going to AI agents? Like, what is the intersection? Some of the narrative is the, you know, Michael Saylor says the AI agents are going to want Bitcoin and maybe they'll want a stablecoin or maybe they'll want. But. But bitcoin is, you know, decentralized and permissionless. So you don't have to get JP Morgan coin or Tether or something that's a stable coin from a certain issuer. It could just be bitcoin that has no issuer.
- [18:48]
B
So I really believe like in a few years, maybe in a few months, right. Any basically action that you take on the Internet, you're going to have an AI agent for that. So you, for example, may have 50 AI agents. But one of the things that it could do, for example, I do a lot of investments. I invest mostly in the public market, but I also have investments in cryptocurrencies. And in order for me to keep track of my investment, actually I vibe coded this AI agent that goes on the web, looks at the latest trends happening, tells me what is going up, what is going down, and then also puts a score on whether to buy, hold or sell, and then can day trade on my behalf. So you could see now that suddenly when you're using AI and when you're using AI agents, instead of you having to do like this daily research, this daily grind of a research and trying to evaluate market, trying to figure out what is going on, what is hyped up, what is not, you can actually give that to an agent that does that on your Behalf and that that agent can execute the trades. So suddenly it lets you just become a smarter investor because of that. Right? Because suddenly you have somebody, it's like an assistant that's always looking at the market, always telling you what is going on, doing the trading, when it's like the right moment to do it. So that's how the evolution of AI happens in crypto in web 3.
- [20:20]
A
Are there any things that are obvious to you that founders, investors in the agentic AI space that are like, just like low hanging fruit, obvious opportunities that you see in the marketplace? And if not, what are some things that maybe a lot of companies are investing in focused on? Because from my seat, not focusing on it every day, all day, every day, it's like, okay, well AI, it's just like the world's even flatter, it's all there for anyone to use. So isn't like what is the moat and what is going to really determine which companies are successful and which ones are just like, okay, it's Yahoo, but it's not Google.
- [21:18]
B
Yeah, definitely. So right now, so back then, before AI, when I wanted to code a product, even to code the initial version of a product, even as a very experienced engineer, I would need three or four engineers, probably four to five months to code just a simple application. But right now with the rise of Vibe coding, within even one hour you can code a full application. You can Vibe code basically pretty much everything. That's how we Vibe coded our platform and founders bay. So what does that mean for all of us? It means that technology is no longer emote, right? Like anybody can. If you have a product, anybody can go and reproduce your product. So who are the startups that are going to make it? It's the startups that are able to figure out distribution, right? Are you able to get like right now attention is very fickle, right? It's very hard to get attention. But if you have attention, if you have a distribution chann, then no matter if people reproduce your technology, they can't take away your audience. Right now we are living in a world where we have the largest distribution channel at our disposition and that's social media. We're lucky in a way because we have that ability. Anybody can go and start posting on x or on LinkedIn or on Instagram. So what I encourage entrepreneurs to do is start building your personal brand online, start building your audience because that can never be taken away from you. AI agents can't take that away from you. AI can't take that away from you. And that's going to be your differentiator.
- [23:06]
A
Do you think in the future there's going to be. I've just heard this, I'm not coming up with it as an original thought. There'll be almost like a premium for an actual human experience because so much of the world will be this agent that's not a real human being. Or what are you, what are your thoughts on that?
- [23:26]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I think you nailed it, right? Like with the rise of AI with people now, like talking to ChatGPT as their friend, it's now communities. Having communities and having this in person experience is more important than ever. And I could see that. Like, I think Covid showed the world that nobody wants to be alone. Like, it's not a pleasant experience that you're stuck alone. You're not with people. So like communities, Founders Bay, for example, and other communities that I know grew really fast about COVID after Covid because people realize that it's way better to have this human interaction than just to be like behind a computer. Right? We're not meant to live alone. We're meant to live within a tribe, within communities. So I do feel that having this unique experience is going to be, is, is going to be a game changer. Like for example, in a lot of my events, we don't just do like, like Fireside Channel. We combine the experience with either like amazing food or amazing music, amazing art. And that's how Founders Big grew. Because our events are not just like the typical tech event. Sometimes we do events where we have speakers from 6 to 10 and then we close the lights and we bring in like amazing DJs and we all dance. So like just having a unique experience and having this like in person, in person connections really changes the game.
- [24:50]
A
What's the difference between San Francisco and New York? Because you're based in San Francisco, before we started recording, you were like, wow, everybody in the office is really dressed up compared to San Francisco. So is there? I mean, maybe the answer is yes, but what are the cultural differences or anything else that is really pronounced to you stands out to you? Maybe. It's funny, one of my friends who lives in SF and was in the San Jose area before that, he said he came a few years ago to New York and we went to an office I had in Freedom Tower at that time and he said, where are all the whiteboards? I said, I don't know. He's like, we're going to the front desk. Are there any whiteboards? No. Oh yeah. We can probably wheel one in for You. He's like, how do you do anything? How do you create anything without a whiteboard? They're just all over the place, I guess in sf in New York, they're like, I don't know where the white. We got to find some whiteboards.
- [25:47]
B
Yeah, definitely the whiteboards here. But. So I've been here for almost a week and a half and I've act. I've been loving New York. I definitely want to come back more often. But there are so much difference between here and, you know, for example, just the way people dress in business. Like, like in San Francisco, I was telling you earlier, I used to have engineers that would show up with their flip flops or their pajamas. Like, being business casual is a very typical way of dressing up. Nobody really wears suits over there. People like barely put on again, like nice shoes. But in New York, everybody here is like very well dressed up. They're in suits and ties. Their women are in, in heels. So it's an interesting comparison just how people like present themselves here. Second of all, I think here there's a much more like return to the office culture. Like in San Francisco, a lot of people are starting to get back to the office, but maybe once or twice a week here, I feel like everybody is in the office every single day. And you could see it because, like during happy hour, there's tons of people who are well dressed in happy hour going to do that. And San Francisco kind of lost a little bit that happy hour flair. Another thing also I feel like is like New York has a more heavy drinking culture. In San Francisco, people don't drink as much anymore. And here people like, you can go to any place at 11pm and they're going to be packed. In San Francisco, if you go to a place at 9pm probably people are already sleeping because they're waking up at 5am to go and like work out. So there's a different culture in terms of nightlife, terms of where people spend their energy, and that just makes a little bit of a difference.
- [27:41]
A
That's very interesting, especially because it's been decades since I've heard this, but that all the trends start in California and then it takes a little while to get to New York. So like the latest diet fad craze, like anything health wise. So yeah, maybe, maybe leave, leave a little bit of drinking for New York, but maybe we'll get a little, little more into yoga and, and health.
- [28:06]
B
Yeah. Or like, did you guys have the quinoa and kale salad explosion?
- [28:12]
A
I haven't heard of it, but I might not be. I got it clued into that in particular. We'll have to, we'll have to hit the streets and see what, see what's on at a sweet green across the street.
- [28:21]
B
Kinoa and Kale, hit the streets. Just let me know. Remember me?
- [28:25]
A
Yeah. From the founders family office. Agentic AI sort of lens. What is maybe the perception of what's going on with all of these Bitcoin, treasury and DATS digital asset treasury companies? What are you hearing if anything and how. What's the current. I know what the current sentiment is in bitcoin land, but what's the current kind of view anecdotally or from maybe a founder's point of view?
- [29:02]
B
Yeah. So bitcoin has been going down, right. Like Web3 has been going down. But I think people who understand it, people who have been following it for a while actually, instead of its see being scary, they see tons of opportunities with it. Right. I know somebody who is literally selling his house. So he gets like millions of dollars to invest in bitcoin right now. So people are optimistic that Web3 is going to grow and it's going to start growing again. So I think the sentiment in people who understand it is very positive, as I said. Like I started also putting some of my assets into bitcoin and bitcoin treasuries right now because I am optimistic for the future. But again, that's just me predicting it may not be right at all.
- [29:56]
A
What are all these different buckets and what do they mean when it comes to the words that you're hearing in regular conversations and you hear it in the media, but it's almost like some corporate executives on Wall street will only use the word blockchain.
- [30:15]
B
Right.
- [30:15]
A
They won't say the word bitcoin or they'll say crypto. You're saying web 3. Is this all the same thing? I know in my conversations what I tend to say the most is bitcoin and crypto get conflated and bitcoin is crypto, but crypto is not bitcoin. And like, and then you have the bitcoin maximalists that are like, it's bitcoin. There is no other like crypto asset that we're and talking about? What's your view on all of these like words salad and like what's the reality from someone that's not like maybe a. There's bitcoin and I'm never even going to say the word web3.
- [30:57]
B
Yeah. So, all right, here's the real Truth. Right. Real talk. Real talk.
- [31:02]
A
I'm ready.
- [31:02]
B
So crypto is basically just the currency that exists on this decentralized platform. Right. But because of all the scandals that happened in the past, crypto got a really bad reputation. So people do not want to use cryptocurrencies anymore. So as a result, they're like, okay, well, what is one word that we could use that is that seems a little bit more advanced than crypto and kind of removes this bad connotation. So in San Francisco, for example, instead of now calling it like the Cryptocurrency Currency Conference or Crypto Meetup, they're calling it Web3. And Web3 is this idea that the web is now decentralized, like I said, and in order for it decentralized, the technology that IT use is blockchain. Blockchain is just a way of building technology that is decentralized. Then crypto is the currency. Bitcoin is one currency that is. Is part of it. But right now I'm seeing in San Francisco a lot of people are using like AI Web3 event, but it's really like an event around crypto. Exactly. Okay, interesting. So it's like they're trying to just do use another word that does not have this negative connotation.
- [32:29]
A
Do you hear the term digital assets? That seems to be maybe a New York thing. Like there's a digital asset site summit that's coming up in a few weeks.
- [32:37]
B
Yeah, I think I don't hear it as much in San Francisco. For me, when I think about digital assets, I think more about like NFTs or just items that you own on Web3. So I think that's more of a New York thing than something else. And I think heard it from you one of the first times. Yeah.
- [32:59]
A
And just so we're clear, what's Web one and Web two?
- [33:02]
B
If we're on Web three now, that's actually an interesting. I think Web two is just the regular web that we know of that's not like decentralized, where one system owns your data or owns kind of the code, owns all the secrets. And Web three is like when everybody owns a little bit of it.
- [33:21]
A
Got it.
- [33:21]
B
I don't know what Web one is. That's interesting.
- [33:24]
A
We'll look that up.
- [33:24]
B
Yeah, we need to look that up. That's a great question.
- [33:27]
A
Where's all this going to be five years from now?
- [33:31]
B
So I. Okay, this is my worldview for in five years. Right. I think that the world is changing rapidly because of AI. I think we're getting into, like, the third renaissance of humans. So I really believe in five years, like, instead of when we're recording this podcast, there's going to be a humanoid with us recording the podcast. We're going to have humanoids walking around us, helping us in, like, these menial tasks that we don't want to do. Like, who likes to do laundry? Nobody. Like, I literally.
- [34:04]
A
I like to do laundry.
- [34:05]
B
You like to do laundry? What?
- [34:08]
A
But not many people do not.
- [34:10]
B
You're probably the first person that I met that likes to do laundry. But, like, we're going to have humanoids living and assisting us in the real world that have this, like, capability, that have this, like, super intelligence that AI has. We're going to have more time to do more creative things, because, again, all of our AI agents will be on the web trading for us and managing our portfolio. I would say that I definitely see that, that the technology that is going to be popular would be, like, the blockchain technology, because, again, it's decentralized. Like, nobody wants to have their data owned by one person or one entity. So I do feel like we're going to see a rise of blockchain technologies, right? Like, how. How amazing would it be that you own your own data and nobody owns it? Right. So I think we're going to see the rise of that. And now we saw that bitcoin is, like, kind of official now, right? There's, like, bitcoin treasuries, et cetera. So I think that's going to continue growing and more people are going to just continue investing in it and investing with it. So I do believe I'm very optimistic about the future.
- [35:22]
A
What's your view on the narrative of AI is going to take everybody's jobs and we're all going to be jobless and we're going to need. Need some sort of social support because all the jobs are gone. I was at the Strategy World Bitcoin for Corporations conference in Vegas a few weeks ago, and during the last session, Michael Saylor, the chairman, was describing that maybe a team of five is now a team of two. So the two people left are like, the executive and the analyst, or the executive and the specialist. And an AI, not just one person with an AI, because that would be a little sad and lonely, but maybe two people instead of five people. What's your reaction to that? And is AI going to take all of our jobs away from us?
- [36:12]
B
Yes, AI will take all of our jobs. No, actually, the best predictor of the future is the past. If you look at what happened historically when a new technology came about, right? Like what happened when the computer came in. Suddenly people who were expert in typewriting did not have job anymore. Right. When manufacturer, when industrialization happened, a lot of like the menial tasks in the industries got replaced. Right. For more like robotics. Yes, there's a lot of jobs that will be replaced, a lot of jobs that will no longer exist, especially ones that can be automated on the Internet. Right. But with every technology that comes in, yes, there are jobs that gets replaced, but there's also new ones that get created that people can't even imagine what they are like. In the past, when my dad was studying electrical engineering, there was no such thing as software engineering, Right. Because computers and the Internet were not as prevalent. But then there was the rise of this new career called software engineering. And then tons of people reskilled and learned how to code and then made a lot of money because of that boom. So I really do believe that AI will create that boom for humanity where there's going to be new jobs getting created. Like I'm seeing right now in San Francisco, people think that people are losing their job. Yes, maybe there are. There are people who are losing their job that can be replaced, but a lot of them are reskilling. And right now there's a talent war for ML engineers, for AI engineers. They're getting paid like $350,000 in base salary. It's extremely hard to find somebody talented. And this ML engineering role did not exist prei. So there's going to be so many new positions being created, we don't know exactly what they are yet. But the best predictor of the future is the past. So I do believe that people who are, who do jobs that will be replaced, they have the opportunity to reskill. So one of the things that I do recommend is stay ahead of the AI trends. And if you're like, I don't even know where to get started, like, AI is moving so fast. How do I even get reskilled? Well, you're lucky. Go to an LLM, go to ChatGPT, go to Claude, ask it like, I want to learn and stay ahead of the latest AI trends. What do I do? And just learn as much as you can. If you spend like five hours every week learning and staying on top of the trends, you're already ahead of 99% of the population. And you will find a job that fits that.
- [38:53]
A
Two final questions. One, what is the ML and ML engineering stand for?
- [38:57]
B
Yeah, Machine Learning.
- [38:59]
A
Machine learning. Okay, got it.
- [39:00]
B
Yes.
- [39:00]
A
And if you, you were just going into college right now, what would you major in? What would you do?
- [39:10]
B
I would say that is a good question. I would definitely major in large language model in machine learning, maybe study more like the computer science or the theory of AI. Right. Like, because the way that you code AI is different than the way you code like web application. So I would would really focus on that because I do believe that we're going to need more and more people specialized in like fine tuning the AI and prompt engineering. And I think it's just going to as people use AI more and more and as that integrates with everyday life, I think we're going to need more people who are specialized in that.
- [39:48]
A
Where can people best reach out and
- [39:51]
B
connect with you on LinkedIn I I always write about AI. Marianne Becker M A R I A N E B E K K E R follow me on LinkedIn subscribe to my newsletter@foundersbay.com and also check out you.com we have a newsletter you can subscribe to and we do send out all of our product features.
- [40:13]
A
Awesome. Marianne, thanks for your time today. Super appreciate it.
- [40:16]
B
Thank you for having me.