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The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
TEDM – Alex Mehr – Will AI Take Your Job Or Build Your Wealth? Positioning Your Tribe (Episode 233)
01:10:10
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Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. My name is Patrick Francie and I am your host and I want to begin by saying thank you for listening. On this show I am having conversations with seemingly ordinary individuals who have achieved some amazing and extraordinary results in both their life and business. My intention is to inspire and help you learn and grow by having my guests share their journey of how they face and overcome their challenges, but also how they celebrate their their many wins. And now let's get on with this show and have a conversation with today's guest. My guest today, Dr. Alex Mayer, is a former NASA scientist turned serial entrepreneur who has built and exited multiple companies that are serving millions of users worldwide. Today, as CEO and co founder of famous AI, he's breaking down the last barriers to entrepreneurship and that is encoding. Alex believed there's a dividing line in entrepreneurship before 2025 and after 2025. With AI now able to turn plain English prompts into production ready apps, execution is no longer the bottleneck. Ideas just become more valuable than ever because they are now actionable with far less fr. From Wall street to Silicon Valley, Alex has seen firsthand that speed is the ultimate competitive advantage. His mission is to empower non technical founders and creators and professionals to build bold tech businesses without needing engineers, massive funding or years of trial and error. Alex's unique gift is taking complex technology and translating it into actionable inspiring stories that leave audiences belie. Your idea is worth building today, not Sunday. And without any further delays, let's get this show started. Listen and enjoy. So Alex, I mean one of the things that you're three years ago you tapped into AI, you saw an opportunity with it, which is so interesting. I started using AI quite extensively a couple of years ago and have really kind of leaned in it, into it. The degree as a user you've leaned into it in a whole different format. And that was three years ago. I kind of took it on a couple of years ago. There's still people out there that, you know, use it as Google and there's still others out there that are, you know, still trying to figure out how to spell AI. So where, you know, when you look at the diversity, you know, when we think about AI and just how powerful it's becoming, what are you seeing? Like why did you embrace it three years ago? What did you see? Was that the scientific mind of you or did you have inside scoop into what was going on?
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A little bit of both. So I played with AI products early on. In fact, many years ago, tried to build an AI related product using the previous generation of the technology, which was absolutely not ready. So I gave up on that. This is 2016. So neural nets and AI existed back then, but it was not really where it is today. And I sort of gave up on that. And I've played with artificial intelligence even in grad school, I played with it and I dabbled into neural nets a little bit. But when I saw the new generation of AI, which came in the form of ChatGPT first with the breakthrough transformers the Team ChatGPT, I was like, okay, it is going to happen. The moment I saw it, I knew it. And then at that point you put yourself in one of these three buckets. And it's very important because I saw a shift when I became an entrepreneur. I started with an app studio building mobile apps before even iPhone had app store. IPhone launches app store in 2008. I started in 2007 building apps and what at the time was called widgets, MySpace widgets, if you remember. So I saw that movement, amplification movement that I called it and I was like, okay, I have a choice. I can be on the forefront of it, I can be kind of a user and go along with it, or I can completely ignore it. Okay? And I decided to be at the forefront of it and it paid off. So to me it is like a pattern that is repeating itself. So when I saw AI, I'm like, okay, I have three choices. I can be one of the pioneers and builders, I can be a participant, go for the, for the ride, or I can just completely ignore it. It's honestly a personal choice. Sometimes you want to ignore things. It's really depends on where you are in life and what you're. But to me it is like all the excitement is on the bleeding edge and building and be that pioneer of a new trend that is valid too. So you have to pick the trend correctly. So there are a lot of things that are fads and they go away and you don't want to have anything to do with that. Maybe participant or a user. But, but, but going to the forefront and building that requires also having confidence in the. And when I saw it, I'm like, this is going to touch every aspect of our lives, every single aspect. And the moment I saw that the answer was self evident, so I jumped in.
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Well, it's interesting too, is that. And I'm also looking at AI through a slightly different lens. I'm old enough that, you know, when Internet came on, it was like, okay, what's email like? It was, I was Again, I'm old enough to even remember when there was no Internet and then when it became dial up and then what the heck is an email and how do you use it? I became, and I've been a kind of an early adopter of technology, but I haven't embraced it in terms of what can I do from a business model. I mean, you think about Internet and those who had the vision for Internet of what it could do were quite different than early adopters as users. So, you know, I think there's a, there's a, I guess a cautionary note for some to say, don't necessarily just become a great user. Where's the opportunities that are in AI as a business model and evolving and doing business, which is, you know, somebody like yourself. That's how you looked at it immediately. You know, you were, as much as you were looking at it as a potential great user and an early adopter. You looked at it went, oh, there's, we got something here that we need to build out. And, and we have an opportunity to build business around. That's, that's kind of how, that's, there's a, certainly a significant difference in that attitude versus a early adopter as a user would. Is that how you see it as well?
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Yes. And here's what I tell people when they see a new trend. Also, if you see a trend that you know is going to be big, meaning change a lot of things. Okay. And you want to be a pioneer, a builder, but you don't know where to dig, where to build, what to build, where to look. My approach is exactly what I did when I first became an entrepreneur. I just started, I'm like, I don't know exactly where appification is going. I couldn't even predict that iPhone is going to release an app store. But I knew that websites.com will be appified generally. And my thought was I don't know exactly what app I'm going to build. What I'm going to do is I'm going to create a sort of like a mad scientist laboratory and build the first app. And our first app was not online dating. We ended up becoming an online dating app company. But my first app was actually a polling company. Even the name of the company was Pollection Polling and Election. Horrible name back looking back. But, but it was essentially I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to build one. And it's, it's really what you're doing is that you're identifying the wave, the tsunami that is coming, hopefully Correctly. And then it's a positive tsunami, hopefully. And you put your little dinghy, your boat in that area, and it may not be the right boat, but your boat, you can pivot it, you can do different things with it, you can build on top of it, and you just go in the right place, wait for the wave to kind of start pushing you forward. And in the process, you learn what to do. And from that action comes information that you put back in. And you say, okay, I built the first boat wrong. I need to do this, I need to do that. This is. Maybe I try a completely new idea, same industry, but now you have some knowledge, you have some know how, and you put that into use to pivot. And that's literally what I did. So the first company we started, the first AI app we built, doesn't exist right now. So most people don't even know. So it doesn't matter. So it's. I started, I can go through that, but I, like, pivoted six times before I found product market fit. But every turn of that wheel, I learned, okay, oh, this is how you build AI apps. Oh, this is the other thing that just came out. I didn't know, oh, this is another thing that can be done. And you see industry examples that kind of gives you inspiration along with your own actions. And you kind of pivot and flip and flip and flip and flip until you have the first product market fit. And then once you have that first thing, you're like, ah, now I have something. Then even then, don't stop experimenting, like, continue launch new products. Okay, now I know better. If I build the next product, I'll build it differently because of this and that. So that is sort of my general approach. And it lends itself really well to people who are. So it's interesting. Some people have a lot of conviction, some people have a lot of flexibility. I think the best entrepreneurs in the history, okay, they have both coexisting in their brain, so they have conviction, but they also, when needed, they're flexible and then they have conviction again, and then they become flexible and then have conviction again. So that's sort of like, it's weird dichotomy as an entrepreneur that both of them need to coexist in your brain. And that, that is, I think, the formula. And I sort of, for whatever reason, I'm able to do it. And I think a lot of people are able to do it if they frame it right to themselves. So in other words, people that are conviction people, they don't move because they're like, oh, I have no idea. To form conviction around. Okay. And then people. So that, that's their problem. A lot of them don't start, okay, flexible people, they are adhd, so they jump in and they try, but they never push the idea enough to truly learn from the experiment. So they're like constantly flipping without, without much conviction. So you need to have both of them at the same time.
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It sounds too like, you know, there's a philosophy in behind that which is, you know, based on the thought process of failing forward. In other words, you know, as you go forward, you're fig stuff out and you're okay to pivot, you're okay. That that's part of the learning curve, you know, actually taking action, moving forward. You know, when you look at AI, it's new. We don't know what it's going to do or not going to do. So there's an aspect that you're prepared to fail forward. You know, one of the things that often when I'm coaching small business owners and I've made this mistake, and I know this one so intimately personally, is that you have a plan, you start to execute on that plan, but you try and build it all. You try and figure it all out from beginning to end without ever having started where that strategy is far better to just get started and do what you need to do in order to move it forward with the information that you have as you go forward. Because you don't know what you don't know until you really get started. So I think back to your point earlier. Some people just never start. Others, like, have made the mistake that I do where I put time, energy, money into a project that was a couple of my bigger mistakes that just fell flat. And then in hindsight, you go, of course it wouldn't. Wasn't going to go the way we wanted it to go. We didn't know a whole bunch of things and we didn't find out until we launched. And by that time we'd put all this time, energy, money into it. So what I'm hearing from you, and please correct me if that's not how you see it, but you really do. You just got to start going, put in the corrections as you go, learn as you go, and figure it out as you go, which doesn't mean you don't have a plan, but that's kind of my thought process of what I'm hearing.
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That is exactly right. It is. But as long as you position yourself in the right industry with the right trend Put the right people in and think of my framework, people, company, products, be flexible on the products. Essentially. That's what it is. You know, people and company can be fixed, those are more important. But the product is a variable. So you can essentially have flip and flip and flip until you hit product market fit. That's sort of the gist of it.
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Yeah, yeah. So when you think about what's going on in the AI world, I'm again, you kind of embraced it three years ago. Ish. And you got it right when it was coming kind of new into the public sphere, if you will. I mean, there are certainly developers and behind the scenes that saw it coming. But for you, when you look at AI, as I've traveled and done some speaking, I've then often asked the audience the question, how many in this room can really say that they've embraced AI? And I'm surprised how few, relatively speaking, are, you know, really interested in it. They're using. And some are using it maybe as a. Google as a. But nobody's really, I shouldn't say nobody, surprisingly few have really embraced it and using it as a tool. My guesstimate is about 20% of the audiences that I'm speaking to are raising their hand saying, yeah, no, I'm in, I'm using it. It's a big part of what I do. What's your experience been? What are you kind of seeing out there in the world? And the reason I share that, my insight, and it's all anecdotal of course, is there's still so much opportunity within it. So. But how do you see it, Alex?
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Absolutely a lot of opportunity left. It's like the way I think about it is like these huge macro shifts, they last decades. Think industrial revolution, think computer revolution, think Internet revolution. Like how long it took, like a lot of these big companies, like you know, Meta for example, or TikTok, they didn't come until years after Internet was actually in common use. And the same with smartphone applications, like a lot of smartphone applications. So the same is going to be true with AI. So it's definitely not late. Exactly, let's rule that out. So, so in terms of like, you know, people, what percentage of them participate in it? My user base is obviously a little bit biased. People who go on famous AI, they want to use it to build products, so they, they kind of have bought it. But if you talk about like general public, my estimation is the same as yours, that maybe 20% have implemented it in some meaning meaningful way into their lives. And businesses that by the way, it is a huge untapped opportunity because 80% are not using it. So to me, that actually is the biggest opportunity in terms of. If you build products, AI products, you are riding a wave because that 20% will go to 100% or very close to it at some point. And you can also build businesses purely around onboarding people who are not using AI, a lot of businesses, and putting AI systems into their businesses. So to me, that is like not only not a hindrance, it is a reason to get involved now, essentially.
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Yeah, take it on. Now again, you know, earlier, as I was saying is that you've got somebody like yourself took it on really early coming out. How can I turn this into business opportunities? You've got, you know, some individuals like me, who would be a relatively sophisticated user, but not turning it in, but using it as a tool and finding it extremely efficient and helpful in terms of moving projects forward and doing all those things. And then there's that group people that know it, and then there's a group of people or that they heard of it, then there's those that are still trying to spell it. So it is. It's such a diverse range when you look at AI. And I want to kind of get to a. I had an interesting conversation with a guest the other day who's a little bit of a. And I want to say, I want to be cautious about. He's very environmentally conscious, but he's not a, you know, climate change advocate. He's just saying we have to pay attention to what's going on and we can embrace technology. And he's a big AI advocate and he uses himself and has lots of experience in that space. But he brought up something that was very interesting that I really hadn't thought of in any depth, which was the amount of energy that it takes to drive AI and the centers that, you know, municipalities, countries, states, whatever the case may be, are going to require just to power AI and then cool it and do all the things that are going on in just water usage alone. Like, he gave me some ridiculous stat. I don't remember the exact stat. It was something along the lines the question you just asked. AI required 20,000 liters of oil or of. Sorry. Of water. And I'm going, wow. You know, like that's. It's almost mind blowing to think about what is it going to take to continue to expand AI And AI as we're using it, of course, is getting smarter. Like it. It really is overwhelming in just the scope and the thought process. Of the energy consumption. So do you have a kind of a thought process on that or a narrative that you've learned along the way?
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Alex well, first of all, the concern is not misplaced. So there is, we need to be conscious about these things and the impact of our usage of AI. And there's, I mean, it also unlocks a lot of other things, including increased productivity and all that. But the other thing I want to mention is that a lot of these AI data centers are becoming a lot more energy efficient. And also a lot of them nowadays have closed system water cooling. So, so they are essentially recycled. So what I'm saying is like most things in technology, when it comes out, it's clunky and it's not perfect and it is not, and you know, it's not perfect for the environment. But over time, economic forces and maybe regulatory government forces kind of makes the industry to kind of act correctly and improve the technology. I'm not a defender of them, but I'm just telling you that these, a lot of these things are going in the right direction, at least based on what I can see from outside.
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What's your thoughts on and I want to kind of keep hitting on the AI conversation, Alex, because, you know, there's so much different views of AI, some who know and some who think they know, and some who are just telling themselves a story, which is often the case. But when we look at AI, the first thing that comes up is it's going to take a lot of jobs. I have my view of that. But when you hear that fear that people are putting out there of just how many jobs it's going to take, and the next thing you know there's going to be people lined up in soup lines because they don't have a job anymore. You know, the scope of what it will do, the damage it will do. What's your view of that?
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So there are a lot of AI optimists who would tell you that just like Industrial Revolution, a category or many categories of jobs are eliminated and many categories of jobs are created. So standard of living for the population as a whole goes up and the unemployment remains low. That's the AI optimist viewpoint. I actually personally don't subscribe to it. I think it is truly going to replace a lot of jobs and it is going to have negative societal impacts. Personal opinion, okay, I'm not some AI Kool Aid drinker. Having said that, my thing to people is think of it as a change, a seasonal change that is going to happen regardless of what you do. And if you want to be an activist, by all means. I'm in favor of going and trying to improve, you know, the societal impact of AI. I'm in favor of that. Having said that, as a person, what choice do you have? Do you want to be in the category of people who want to be whose, whose job is going to be potentially going to be eliminated or you want to be on the other side? And as you know, a lot of people will benefit from this trend as well. Do you want to position yourself on the beneficiary side? Does that make sense? So there's like the question of, okay, let's talk philosophy. What happens to the society? And I'm actually not very optimistic, believe it or not. I think there are a lot of things that need to change. And you know, I, but to me is, okay, that's a great thing. Think about that in your spare time for you and your family. Okay. What is in it for you and your family? And once you focus like that, then the action set becomes a lot more clear than thinking about the overall societal impact. Does that make sense? So, so I, essentially the short answer is I don't know what is going to happen. At a large level, I would, I consider that a good dinner time conversation topic or your spare time. To me it is like, hey, me and my users or my friends or my family, my kids when they grow up, how do I position my tribe to take advantage of it? Okay. And I encourage people to sort of have that mindset a lot of times too. How do you position your tribe to be on the winner side? And you know, again, it's not like I'm ignoring the societal impact. I'm actually acknowledging it. And I'm just saying it's like you can't just get bogged down in what happens to the society at large and all the people that lose their jobs is like I said, I'm not super optimistic. But that is a problem that if I can contribute to, by all means help improve it, I will help improve it. But I also care about what happens to me and my tribe and my family and my users and those kind of things. And I think people should be able to think that way too.
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B
Yeah, it's interesting. And, and I, and I agree with everything that you kind of went over there, Alex. Like, I, I really do. There's. But there is an aspect to it as well is that those individuals who are having and got their kind of worry and concerns about losing jobs and how many people will be unemployed et CETERA and that's fine if that's your thesis, if that's how you're thinking, you know, and, and this goes back to. First off, are people even using some critical thinking, you know, are they really looking at it, or are they just complaining about what could happen, what might happen? And, or, and are they waiting around to get hit by the wave?
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No, you don't know. The truth is, I don't know. You don't know. All these people that claim to be experts, they don't know. All I know is that if you look at the trend of humanity, ups and downs and good and bad, and, you know, it's end of the day, humanity lives on and it adapts. Yeah, that's sort of my overall thing. I'm like, this too shall pass. Like Rumi said, this too shall pass.
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B
But at the end of the day, though, Alex, the difference with somebody like yourself or me, to a lesser degree, given what I'm using AI for, I go back to what I said earlier. Back in the 70s when computers were kind of coming online. The whole story was, and I was working at the only job, job I ever had in the oil industry. And, and in, in a scenario where computers are being implemented, they were manufacturing, doing all sorts, just us, just in time, inventory management, all the rest of it. Everybody was going to lose a job. You know, the whole, the computers were going to take over everything and there was a lot of resistance to implementation of any kind of programs. But ultimately it turned into a whole industry and everybody pivoted and it was, the next thing, you know, jobs were created and new industries. I think that's the challenge that we face with AI. We have to have some confidence in the fact that out of it will come new jobs. I mean, think about robotics alone. That's a whole new manufacturing process, a whole new list of brains and power and all the rest of it that's going to be required. So I look at it that way. I was watching a panel of CEOs through different businesses, some in the tech world, some not in the tech world, who are very progressive in their thought process. And they said, we are embracing AI and actually insisting that our team is embracing AI not to replace their jobs, but to increase their productivity, their efficiency, expanding their creativity and their ideas. And so it was an interesting shift of these CEOs who are obviously quite progressive, looking at it as how they're going to leverage AI to make their businesses better, not get rid of staff. Now, a couple of them did qualify it. They go, you know, we Sent our kids to school and said, you need to learn to write code. You know, that was one of the, you know, think about the millions of kids that are going to school or went to school to learn how to write code, and that job's going to get done, you know, 100%, you know, so there's those aspects of vocations that are definitely going to be, you know, no longer necessary, especially in any kind of larger corporations, for sure. I think that some level, most SMEs are always kind of be that bootstrap, do it yourself entrepreneur, you know, one man, 10 man shows. I think that's kind of my view of it. But I look at how I'm using it in terms of just my efficiency and my ability to research and get things done is. I mean, it's been incredible from my point of view. So I'm fully, kind of, I don't want to say fully, but I'm leaning into it and enjoying it and kind of, I'm blown away sometimes at its ability to give me information, give me ideas, support me, and kind of the paths that I go down. It really is quite remarkable in that regard.
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A
Yes.
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B
So when you look at you kind of said, okay, when you think about your science brain, you know, you go back to NASA, I mean, NASA, I mean, that you're connected still to it, but within the NASA world. I mean, AI has got to be like top of mind for an organization like NASA.
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Yes, should be, but I'm not connected. And based on my experience, they lack a little bit in terms of being on the edge of it.
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But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you think about where you're going in terms of app design, do you literally kind of have creative meetings where you're thinking about what apps are next on your list of things that you want to go through and develop? Give me some thought process around the model, around app development or whatever it is that you're embracing. AI around Alex.
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Here's the thing. Whatever you do repeatedly, you become good at. So if you set your mission, hey, I'm going to build whatever, okay? The new ideas, once you come up with the first and second and third and fourth and fifth idea, the new ideas just appear out of thin air. It's interesting. But before that you had difficulty generating even one idea. So at this point, I have more ideas that I can implement. So anything that I look at, I'm like, anything throughout the day, throughout my business, throughout my life, I now have this new lens. It's like, okay, how would AI change This and sometimes you have really good answers. And when you have really good answers, you have essentially a product idea. So that's sort of how my method to madness is right now. It's just, I'm like, how would AI change this? How would AI change that? How would that happen? And that's sort of like the idea machine. And sometimes you don't quite see it, which is actually more often than not, you don't quite see how it's going to pan out. And sometimes it becomes very crisp and then you're like, ah, that is a product idea. So that's sort of my system now.
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B
Now, prompts are the key to kind of unlock the magic of AI understanding prompts, how to communicate with it. Do you have a list of prompts that you publish? Do you. Where are you in that space? Because I look at it now and I go, okay, you know, two years later of being, you know, really committed to Chat GPT, which happens to be my primary AI, I back test stuff with Grok because let's face it, Chat GPT is not all any AIs, they're not always right. You better have some idea of, you know, backtesting somewhere along the line. Before I go on, what's your thoughts on that? How do you or. And do you have a methodology? Do you have a way of back testing?
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A
I mean, absolutely.
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B
We.
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A
That's actually the key to building AI apps is scientific AB testing, which we do constantly. So you. And prompt is actually a part of it. Most people don't know, but most AI products, they are very sensitive to how they are programmed at a system level with system prompt on what to do. Okay. And the truth is, even if you talk to AI developers like Anthropic, you know, OpenAI, the people who built the bottle, they do not know the right answer in that scenario anyways. Like, it's just not a. It's not a knowable thing. It's more of a discovery process. So when it comes to discovery, the best friend that you have is a B testing. So what if anybody in their audience wants to create an AI app? My $0.02 is definitely create a. What's called an a B testing harness, which is you roll your product with like let's say two different system prompts and see which one performs better. Okay. Anecdotally. And then if you have users send it, you show different versions of it. And ChatGPT does it, by the way, all the time. I don't know if you've experienced it, but it runs two things at the same time and says which one you like better. So, so that's literally a b testing to test their system prompt or whatever they're testing. It could be something else. And that's the process of discovery you have to go through. And if you're a user of AI, I want to say the most, I mean there are a ton of prompt engineering courses on this stuff. Definitely it's a must to learn basics of prompt engineering. And there are a lot of good YouTube videos. You can just search prompt engineering and a lot of good YouTube videos on it. But basic things like telling AI before you give it instructions on what role to assume. It's like a basic thing but it's, you know, it automatically improves performance in a lot of cases. So I, at, at this day and age, I mean, I want to say, and maybe over time as these models and become better, the need for exact prompt engineering becomes less. And it's a debate in the industry like prompt engineering is going to be more important or less important. I think it'll be for average user is going to be less important. But regardless, if you want to squeeze the last mile, you know, out of your AI and have the best result, spend like a little bit of time educating yourself on how to use AI. So, and there's a ton of good instructions on that.
- [34:38]
B
There's a lot of people that are selling prompts and kind of whatever subscription based model that they have around that I have not gone down that path to look into it. I've kind of been working on my own to figure out prompts to your point, the Persona or the characteristics or whatever you want to call it, the expertise really comes out of you defining and suggesting to AI who you want it to be. The example I give is that in, in my writing and editing, I would write and then I would ask the AI to review my writing through the eyes as if they were a world class publisher, a world class editor. And that really changed the dynamics. And then I told it how I wanted to respond to me, you know, I said, don't play K me, don't patronize me, you know, don't pump my tires. You know, I want it direct and I want the hard truth about what this writing, you know, how it lands, that some version of that kind of a prompt, it changed everything in terms of how it came back to me. And it was really kind of enlightening in terms of. Because it became very supportive, it became a very dependable tool, if you will. And it really sped up the whole writing process in terms of what I was putting on paper and, or feeding it and what it was giving back to me.
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A
Yeah. So I would say every prompt, for the most part start with, you're a world class blank. It's like as long as people go into that habit.
- [36:11]
B
What's your thought, Alex? There's some argument out there that I've been recently and I think it was on a Joe Rogan podcast even, but that not the only one, but there was several that I've now heard where there's a strong argument that AI is actually making us dumber because we don't have to think through certain things. We don't have to use those critical thinking skills or first principles. I mean, what's your kind of response to those kinds of comments?
- [36:39]
A
It's kind of like saying cars makes us physically less fit. And there's truth in it. If you know, we are less fit because we don't have to walk anymore, we can take a car anywhere. But people who are responsible, which is ultimately, you know, as, as, as a human, I'm like, I don't let the world dictate how fit I am. I decide how fit I am. And if I don't have to walk to go from point A to point B because I have a car, I choose to go to the gym and put the workout anyways. So it's the same concept. It's like, look, it is saving you a lot of time. Use that time to exercise your brain in some other way. Listen to audiobooks, play chess, work on business problems, whatever you want to do. You have more time. Now. If, of course, if you become completely like, to use a physical analogy, if you don't move your legs anymore because you can drive everywhere, of course you become less fit.
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B
Right.
- [37:41]
A
But it's like personal responsibility. So it is your job to make sure your brain, which is your more important asset, most important asset for most people, remains sharp. And it's not that difficult. You just need to kind of put your mind into it.
- [37:58]
B
If you had some fears around AI and you look into the future, what are some of your kind of concerns that you're really pondering that you're going, I don't know which, how's this going to go? You know, you'd said, you know, there's reasons to not be overly optimistic about the future of, you know, humankind in a lot of ways. But you know, what do you, what do you see as some of the bigger concerns given technology? And in this conversation around AI, what are your, some of your concerns that might kind of make you sleep, stay awake a little bit later at night than you want to.
- [38:33]
A
It does unpredictable things, I tell you that. It's like, you know, we are building a product, it's not launched yet. And I gave it essentially a prompt to go research a website and generate a video for me. And it tried Googling it and it couldn't get to it because Google blocked, opened DuckDuckGo and then went and breached the website anyways. Okay? And it wasn't programmed to do it. So when I saw that, I was like, wait a second, that is kinda. I didn't expect it to do it. And I think that is the problem that a lot of people will tell you, especially AI companies will tell you, foundation model companies, we are an application company, but foundation model companies will tell you, oh, we have a red team and we try to get AI to do terrible things and then we figure out how it does it and then we control for it. I'm like, okay, maybe that works for now. Does it work a year from now? Does it work two years from now? In two years from now, we will probably have to have police AI. AI police that polices AI because it will outsmart the human. And then, you know what I mean? So it's. That is sort of like a concern, but end of the day I'm like, okay, that's a general concern that we need to be aware of, but within your realm, within what you do, how you deal with it. So that's sort of, sort of my overall philosophy, you see through. I sort of look at macro problems and I acknowledge them and I understand it's a macro thing. Great for podcast conversations and all that. Everybody, dinner conversation, people philosophizing. I didn't take that macro thing and I bring it to. Down to my level and I'm like, okay, what does that mean specifically for me and what do I need to do? So it's one of those. I'm like, yeah, it's a concern at a macro level. Some. I don't know, OpenAI's AI can completely go off the rails and start manipulating people in masses. What can I do about it? So that's sort of the question always.
- [41:01]
B
I'm struggling a little bit, you know, with, you know, when I think about ChatGPT, I've got the paid version and I'm on 5.0 or whatever the latest version is. Whatever the latest version is, I'm part of it. But I'm also have looked at other AI. So my resistance to changing and this Is a question, kind of a thought process given you're far deeper into it than I am. But I don't like ChatGPT. I've spent so much time, it knows me so well. I mean it kind of digs out all this other information. It, you know, I can count on it to do certain things, be a certain way. I back test it with Grok is another one I use occasionally and another one that I'm just playing with and I can't remember the name of it, so I don't even know why I'm bringing it up. Yeah, no, it's a Mason Manson. I don't remember what it is. But anyways, the, the point of it is, is that when you look at the platforms that are out there, are you a Chachi PT guy? Are you a GROK guy? Like what. How do you embrace the different platforms that are there?
- [42:06]
A
I play with them all. So I said I, I actually force myself to use different one all the time. But that's because I am developing in it. So I'm not a normal user. I actually don't like Chat GPT that much. So I know a lot of people use ChatGPT around me. Everybody uses ChatGPT. I sort of like I'm ambivalent.
- [42:29]
B
So, so. Okay, well, let's talk about a little bit. So you know, as a, as a sophisticated kind of user, I'll use that term for now. What don't you like about a ChatGPT versus something else?
- [42:41]
A
As an example, it's not the smartest and it's too verbose. So it's. Yeah, it's too problem. Now you can tell it to be less verbose.
- [42:54]
B
Yep.
- [42:55]
A
But it still doesn't get the best results. Now having said that, these products are merging together a little bit essentially. One way to think about it is the reason for that why these products are starting to feel the same is because their IQ is approaching our iq. So like for example, if you really look at, if you and I look at a dog while we identify some intelligence, to us a dog is completely inferior. If you compare a dog to a bird, we completely see that it did. Like a turtle. We see the intelligence difference because they're far away from us. But as their IQ approaches ours, it's harder for us to know which one is actually providing better answer because they're all like have reached very approximately our IQ level and it's becoming harder and harder to actually that's why I feel like they're all becoming the same. They're not becoming the same. They're just. Are approaching my iq. So that's essentially what's happening. And it's. And at some point you can say, well, do they become much smarter than you? Here's the problem with that. If they become much smarter than you, you cannot no longer tell which one is smarter. For the same reason that a dog cannot tell the difference of IQ between me and Einstein. To the dog. We are really weird animals. So it's a. But we're all the same. Like, we're like. The dog only thinks, oh, these guys are superior, top of the food chain type things versus, you know, people are very different in terms of iq. So I think at some point we will actually need AI to evaluate which AI is better because we cannot tell by just looking at it. I think it's going to go into that insanity level, essentially.
- [44:54]
B
So I want to just shift gears talking about AI, but back to more around a business conversation. Alex, when you look at your businesses and you look at AI and how you operate, I mean, you've been very successful at the projects that you've taken on. You've grown through all the stuff that you've grown through and gone through. Do you have a particular vision for whatever business you've got right now? Do you look at it and say, that's where I'm going. That's the outcome based on what I know today that I want to achieve. And then you work backward and you fire your team going. That's where we're going. That's where we're working backwards from. Is that how you operate as a founder, CEO of your business?
- [45:34]
A
Yes. I want to build a product or a portfolio of products that touches a billion lives. So a billion people are using it. I've never done in the past. It is a goal, personal goal for me. It's very, very difficult. Very, very difficult. Do people think, oh, that's easy? It's like, no, it is like the number of products that touch a billion. Forget a billion. 100 million, 10 million. 1 million is very, very difficult. Now, I have been fortunate enough to be in tens of million, so now I want to go to a billion. Like, I want a billion people to somehow benefit from the fruits of my labor. It's a. It's a weird goal, if you think about it is completely, you know, arbitrary. I might have as well have said, hey, I want to build a product that touches 10 people, but it touches them very deeply, like helps them survive terminal cancer or something. Does that make sense? That would have been as valuable. But I personally choose the route of trying to touch a lot of people just a tad bit like improve a billion people's lives, something in their business or something by like a millimeter. And that's sort of my goal.
- [46:53]
B
I was listening to a conversation with an interview with Seth Godin and Seth talked about, of course, he's pretty famous for a number of books he's written, one of them being Tribes, which is kind of, I think, the foundational philosophy. And I'm not a Seth Godin kind of expert or follow him intimately, but I saw this interview and I'm familiar with the book Tribes. I've read it a couple of times. I thought it was really powerful. And, and to your point is that. But he said something that was really interesting. He said, I'd rather have a thousand engaged followers than a hundred thousand disengaged followers. But what you're talking about is affecting a billion people in a structure called an app, which means that they're engaged if they're actually using the app and it's being effective and it has the value that you've providing them because you're solving whatever problem or you're engaging them. That's, that's a pretty powerful statement, isn't it? Is that it's one thing to have a million followers or a billion followers. It's another to have that many that are engaged, that are part of a community or part of a movement, or really seeing the value that a particular product, service, subscription brings. That's kind of. And I went, you know, that's a pretty profound thought because you know, in this world it's like, how many likes have you got, how many clicks, how many downloads, blah, blah, blah. But really when you think about it, from what you're talking about in, especially in an application process, you're talking about engaged people is really what you're.
- [48:26]
A
Value added. Yeah, value added. So the way to think about it is aggregate value you deliver, which can be done with fewer people, but a lot of value. So a physician adds a lot of value to the world, but it's like limited to the number of people that come visit that doctor. But the value can be deep. They can be life saving. So it is a choice, I want to say you want to go broad or you want to go narrow. End of the day, what matters is that how much value you deliver is the end of the day it's like, why do we, why do we do what we do? It's like you got to feel good about it. It so. And you can do it in both ways. And I have respect for both of them. I personally choose, like, adding value, real value, not followers, means nothing really. So it's like, okay, so what is. What is the value? How can I make a lot of people's lives or business a tad bit better? A tiny bit. Even A tiny bit. It's just as long as it is. It is. They can put their finger on it.
- [49:32]
B
So.
- [49:33]
A
So that's sort of the way I think about it. Another way, another. I have another litmus test. It's sort of maybe not even quite politically correct, but if you or your product cease to exist, how much. So it's the reverse of that. How much pain does it inflict on the world? Okay, to give you an example, if Gmail goes down, okay, all of a sudden Twitter is gonna blow up. Because that is actually a test, a good test. Okay. Gmail G Suite is adding a lot of value. It's like, imagine Google, Gmail goes down. It's gonna be like, for. For a day, it's going to be like, revolt. Twitter is going to explode and people will complain about. What does that mean? That means that that is actually silently adding a lot of value to a lot of people. And use that test for what you do and your product. And if your product ceases to exist, how much vacuum are you creating in the world? And that's a good test. I'm not saying that that is what should happen, but I'm saying it's a good test. Mental exercise.
- [50:53]
B
Yeah. I mean, when you, when you said that, I mean, you can go to all sorts of things that you go, holy cow. If that was gone or that was gone, I mean, we've. It's become part of just our. Our own operating system. You know, people's. You know, it's. So when it go. If it goes away, it really disrupts your operating system.
- [51:11]
A
Yes.
- [51:12]
B
So, so fascinating. So when you think about. Alex, let's talk about a little bit of your journey to, to get here. I mean, you're a scientist, and that's.
- [51:22]
A
I was a scientist.
- [51:23]
B
You were.
- [51:24]
A
My scientist friends don't even acknowledge me. They're like, yeah, are you a. In like 20 years, you're no longer, as I'd say, stop saying that. So I'm no longer.
- [51:33]
B
So you. You would call yourself a recovering scientist? Former. Let's talk about that journey, though. When you think about. Scientist aside. But you know, where you've accomplished, you've come to, as you said earlier, your parents weren't entrepreneurial. You know, you came out of school? What, what kind of, what was your journey early on? Were your parents just really supportive? How did you get on this entrepreneurial journey like you did you. At some level? Like, I knew at a pretty young age that I was very entrepreneurial. Even when I had the only job I had back in the late 70s, it was literally, I knew that this was not the end game for me. But what was it for you? And I didn't come from entrepreneurial parents at all. Although my dad really respected business owners, he himself just had a job. Very kind of common blue collar kind of worker. What was your journey in that regard? How did like when you look at. Back on it, did you have some entrepreneurial spirit even at the younger. A younger age?
- [52:36]
A
Interesting question. I want to say not the way you do you think like a younger, like if, if you looked at me, if, if I were talking to you. When I was a teenage, I was like a math competition, math and physics level. Like I was like all about science and math and I wanted to grow up and become a scientist since I was five. Okay, so physicists specifically. So my life journey was. The first half of my life journey was really that it was like I loved science, I loved math, I was competitive, I wanted to grow up like my role models were like Einstein and you know, just like a completely different world I grew up in. And honestly, going back, I'm glad I lived that life because it gave me a specific. Let me actually back out a little bit. I think one of the reasons that a lot of entrepreneurs absolutely fail is because they are too money motivated. I'm not saying you shouldn't be money motivated, but they are too money motivated and that is a, a hindrance on its own. So it's like essentially you, it kind of blinds you. And I wasn't like that. And I kind of grew up not really caring that much about being the richest person or whatever, or a scientist or a businessman or what have you. I wanted to be a really good scientist, a really good physicist, to be specific. And, and I'm glad that I had that phase because it kind of moderates your temperament as an entrepreneur. And, and end of the day, if you, if I tell you like, okay, so do I really like have like put entrepreneurs and business people in the highest regard and as scientists I'm like, no. I actually love listening to science conferences and videos. I actually think they are smarter and I, I put them on equal footing, maybe even put scientists on the higher, higher regard. So it's, I don't know I, maybe I'm weird in that sense, but, but it's, it's. I, I, I, I'm a little bit different in that sense. I know a lot of people grow up wanting to be an entrepreneur, and I actually appreciate that. Hopefully my kids actually are that way. I wasn't that way.
- [55:21]
B
Right. So when you think about your journey, I think it sounds like, you know, NASA was a big job many years ago. Got it. But at that point, was there a fork in the road moment for you? In other words, you know, we have many for. Well, I shouldn't say that often. I know for myself, I've had several fork in the road moments via the entrepreneurial accidents, things that showed up, didn't have any kind of agenda around what was going on. The next thing you know, I'm facing this fork in the road moment and I could go either way. And it's only in reflection. You go, oh, well, it's a good thing I chose that fork in the road, that side of the road, or maybe I could have gone the other direction. But did you have a fork in the road moment when you were with NASA that kind of took you in this direction? Yeah.
- [56:09]
A
Yes. I, I've been thinking about it for, for a while at that point. And I was actually getting my MBA at Berkeley at the same time. And there was a point. And then, you know, MBA is also kind of like being in business school. Everybody wants to be an entrepreneur maybe sort of had that impact as well. But at some point I'm like, this is too much. Oh, what ifs? You know, I'm gonna jump. And I literally quit everything. I had a small 401k. I cashed it all and paid the penalties and tax and whatever and just started. And I was younger, I didn't have a family like I do now, and I had nothing to lose and regret minimization. I always was a big believer in it. I'm like, I gotta, I cannot live with the regret of not having tried. And I just, it lit. I literally jumped, like, the ideas, like, is it. Like I said, I started an AI, not AI App Studio widget. We built widgets. It was completely, not even specific. It was like, I gotta do this thing. And I, and I incorporated the company out of my bedroom in Berkeley. I never forget that moment. I didn't know anything about getting EIN number. I called IRS and got my ein number and all that, opened a checking account, closed out my 401k, figure out how to do that, pay the penalty, whatever came to me. I put in and I just went at it is believe it or not, dropped everything, commit to it. So that's sort of the thing I wanted to do. It was like I was gonna do this, I'm gonna try it. I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do, but I'm gonna try. And that's essentially what I did without ever having done it before.
- [58:02]
B
So you're gonna own that future. So when you think about, you know, what's going on in the world today, Alex, and you know, we talk about technology, you talk about AI, you know, as we sit here today, the time of this recording, I mean, we don't know what's going to happen between Russia, Ukraine, NATO, China, I mean, it's just a freaking mess. And so much uncertainty out there, you know, economically at a global macro level, how much does what's going on outside of the world. And I mean, you think about the escalation and the speed of which things have moved since, you know, 2020. The magic, you know, middle of March 2020, the world changed and it has changed forever by the looks of it. How do you see the uncertainty, the, the, I guess the confusion, the fear that people are living in? We're seeing it's more polarized, it's more divisive. Is that a perspective that you have or that you see or do you live in this world where, yeah, I'm aware of that's going on, but it doesn't really impact me. Like, where are you in that space? Given how engaged in the world of technology you are and the impact that technology is having on the world and all that's going on closer to the.
- [59:18]
A
Latter, but not, oh, it's not going to impact me. It's like, I know it's going to impact me. I think we are going to see new ways of modern warfare that we have never witnessed before. And there are going to be potentially very dark days. I mean, think AI and robotics, what it can do to warfare. So I'm not under any illusion that it's not going to impact us. But again, bringing it to micro level, it's like, it's always like starts at macro and you can stay macro all you want, but what does it mean at micro? So what can I do about it? Okay, so it's, to me, it always comes down to that question. I tried, I like macro questions. You and I can talk about it forever, but I'm like, I really pose the. I really think, here's another way to think about it. If you want a better world Ask people to think about what they can do at an individual level and have them be better at the very micro level. Does that make sense? So to me it is. We have, because of news media and like, you know, all the, all the things that are yelling at us on X and all that, it's easy to be sucked into this global trend of things that may go really wrong or things that are going good or whatever is the topic of the day. I think that has corrupted the brains of a whole generation of humans, unfortunately. I think that is a problem. People have become so macro and they pick size and they're like thinking about like global things that they forgot that as a species, as humanity, we act at a micro level. My actions plus a billion other people is what shapes the world. So it's like, I'm like, how about we kind of tone down macro and amp up micro and think of it as what can, what action is it that I can do at an individual level that will either mitigate it or maybe contributes to it in a positive way? Or maybe it's completely outside my control. But there's this other thing I can control. Let me focus on that. So, so it's like I'm like, I always in my brain is like, I can talk macro with anybody anytime. It's like great dinner conversation, but it's like, what matters is micro, micro. What do you do about it?
- [62:12]
B
I'm so aligned with that whole thought process. I mean, it goes back to the fundamental Marcus Aurelius philosophy or his writings, which is what can you control? So this is all great information, macro. We know the globe is melting worldly. We got all sorts of issues going on and that's all great. It's great information. It's like right now in Canada and the U.S. they're talking about the, the housing crisis or the potential housing crisis or the real housing crisis. All good. Got it? Understood. You know, we can only hear so many times about how shitty the economy is or how bad the housing market is. That's just information. Now the question is, what are you doing with that information? Are you just looking at it to your point? At a macro, I've always kind of got a fundamental philosophy around it. I'm going to gather information, I'm going to look at possibilities, I'm going to look at probabilities. And at some level I'm going to create a thesis that says, okay, based on my understanding, based on the information I've gathered, the insights that I've gained, I am putting a plan together that is going to risk, mitigate or it's going to move me forward in a bigger way. But I'm actually to your point saying I don't need more information. You know, there's a quote I like to use which is, you know, if more information was the answer, we'd all be billionaires with six pack abs, Right?
- [63:32]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [63:32]
B
The reality of it is, is what is the. What are you going to do? And at some point you have to again look at possibilities, look at probabilities and then create a thesis and then act on that thesis and then be open to change it as you get more information or as the, as the world shifts or the information shifts. What's your thoughts on that? Kind of little.
- [63:52]
A
I totally agree. I totally agree. It's like think of your own options at the micro level. What can you do about it? Can you do something about it? If you can't do something about it, maybe don't think about.
- [64:06]
B
Is it is it is. I find it quite. I'm. And I, and I have to be careful because I, you know, I do talking head stuff. You know, there was, I was given a joking handle a while back which I disowned right away. Which is the doom and gloom or Boomer Because I look at a lot of research, economic research, and it's hard to find good news within it. But it's not intended to be bad news. It's intended, here's the data. Based on the data you have to make decisions for you. And the decision that I make based on the data that I get or that I share is going to be maybe different than the decision that you make. But ultimately it's not to spread bad news, it's just to say, well right now this is the data and I could probably paint it with rose colored glasses, but ultimately it's just data, you know. Yes. The emotion out of it. Let's look at the data and make a call. Any comments on that thought process?
- [65:02]
A
I like that thought process a lot. That's my.
- [65:06]
B
So the, the frustrating part that I find as we look at X and we look at whether it be legacy, slash mainstream media, whatever you can look at it. It is also ultimately a lot of information, but nobody's really providing. Okay, well what's the solution? What are, you know, oh, well, let's let the government solve the problem. Okay, well we know where that's going to go. So it really does mean that we have to kind of buckle down, make some decisions, take that information and move forward with it. And in the World of technology. We have no excuses. We really don't.
- [65:40]
A
Yes.
- [65:41]
B
You know, I.
- [65:41]
A
Look, I totally agree. It's like essentially just look at it and decide whether you can do something about it. And you have every possible question answered. You know, every. Whatever you want to do, the know how to do it is now available to you through AI. So it's. It really comes down to good decision making at an individual level and not becoming emotionally too, you know, persuaded by one side of a macro argument or the other side.
- [66:18]
B
Yeah, yeah, 100%. So, Alex, you've been very generous with your time. I appreciate that. Start to wind down a little bit, and then I always get into a whole bunch of other questions, but let's try and wind down a little bit. And I have a few what I call rapid fire questions, which are never really rapid fire, but we'll go down that path anyways. You ready?
- [66:40]
A
Yeah.
- [66:41]
B
Do you have a favorite quote?
- [66:44]
A
If you've launched. If you're not embarrassed by the first product you've launched, you've launched too late.
- [66:53]
B
That's brand new. I love that. That's great. Was there a book on your journey that had a huge impact on you and one that you think everybody should read?
- [67:05]
A
The Art of War and Elon Musk's biography. You may hate him or like him. I happen to like him a lot. Read his biography. The man is efficient and you want to study him.
- [67:19]
B
Interesting. I'm a. I'm a Elon fan. I, you know, I really not. I don't agree with everything he does, but I still really respect and appreciate the difference that he. Talk about a guy making a difference in the world. Hey, exactly. Technology. Apple or Android?
- [67:37]
A
Apple.
- [67:39]
B
Favorite movie? Do you have one?
- [67:41]
A
Godfather.
- [67:43]
B
Oh, gosh, that one hasn't come up for a long time. That's great. Favorite song? Favorite genre? Music. Favorite band. Are you a music guy?
- [67:53]
A
I'm not a music guy, but I listen to classic when I have to. I listen to Beethoven.
- [67:59]
B
Right. I love writing to that classical music. It's the best thing in the world to write. To favor. Swear word, F word it. This? Yeah. No F bombing all over. It's kind of my favorite thing to do in moments of time. That's for darn sure. If there is a God. What do you want God to say when you get to the gates?
- [68:31]
A
You get to meet your dad now? That's like all I want.
- [68:39]
B
Wow. You didn't have that opportunity growing up to.
- [68:43]
A
No, I can meet him again. I lost him last year. Yeah. Meet him again.
- [68:48]
B
Oh, cool. I love that thought process. It's fantastic. Final question today, Alex, what are you grateful for?
- [68:58]
A
My kids, my two kids.
- [69:02]
B
How old are your kids, by the way?
- [69:04]
A
Four and one.
- [69:05]
B
Four and one. What a fantastic ages. Oh my gosh. I got grandchildren seven or eight and nine. So yeah, I love it. So, so great. Well, I'm always grateful to have the opportunity on this show to meet some really cool people. And Alex, you qualify as a cool people in my world. And like you, I'm always grateful for family and the time that you gave us today. So thank you very much.
- [69:33]
A
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
- [69:36]
B
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends as it is the my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions you'd like answered, please email me@ceoraincanada.com that's ceorsreincanada.com I look forward to hearing from you. And until next time, Patrick out.