Can AI Help Fix Boring Software?

Summary

WSJ Tech News Briefing: "Can AI Help Fix Boring Software?"

Release Date: December 2, 2024
Host/Author: The Wall Street Journal

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Introduction

In this episode of the WSJ Tech News Briefing, host Julie Chang delves into two pivotal topics shaping the tech landscape: the burgeoning field of battery recycling spearheaded by J.B. Straubel of Redwood Materials, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in software development to combat the mundanity often associated with modern software products.

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Battery Recycling and the Future of Electric Vehicles

Guest: J.B. Straubel, Founder and CEO of Redwood Materials
Segments: "Bold Names" Podcast Highlights

Key Discussions:

• Environmental Sustainability: Straubel emphasizes the critical importance of recycling batteries to create a sustainable cycle for electric vehicles (EVs). By extracting valuable materials like nickel and lithium from used batteries, Redwood Materials reduces the dependency on environmentally detrimental mining practices.

  Christopher Mims [02:16]: "To save the environment, to live in the earth and have a kind of a virtuous cycle where instead of mining these materials... he's mining trash to bring in an electric car future."

• Industry Comparison: Straubel draws a parallel between battery recyclers and traditional oil refineries, highlighting the potential for Redwood Materials to become a cornerstone in the energy sector.

  Tim Higgins [02:59]: "It feels a bit like we are inventing the next generation of refineries... we're taking these old raw materials and inventing ways to refine them into a whole selection of new products that the world needs."

• Scale of Recycling Needs: Jason Dean elaborates on the massive scale required for battery recycling to support the anticipated growth of EVs.

  Jason Dean [03:25]: "We're going to have to be recycling absolutely massive amounts of all of these materials that are inside their batteries... we're going to have giant lithium and nickel and rare earth element recycling facilities in the US."

• Business Growth and Optimism: Straubel conveys his optimism about the future of Redwood Materials, citing significant revenue generation and positioning the company as a potentially leading figure in the battery industry.

  Christopher Mims [05:14]: "JB is incredibly optimistic as a person. He says he's generating hundreds of millions of dollars this year... not everybody saw that."

Insights: Straubel's approach underscores a transformative shift in how the tech and automotive industries address sustainability. By turning "trash into gold," Redwood Materials not only paves the way for a greener future but also sets a precedent for circular economies within high-demand sectors.

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AI in Software Development: Combatting Monotony with Innovation

Guest: Dylan Field, Co-founder and CEO of Figma
Segments: Highlights from WSJ Tech Live Conversation

Key Discussions:

• Integrating AI into Product Development: Dylan Field discusses Figma's strategic incorporation of AI to enhance the software development process, ensuring that AI tools are genuinely beneficial rather than superficial additions.

  Dylan Field [08:22]: "You really have to start off by trying to find those areas where it can excel... once you find an area where AI can actually be legitimately helpful to a customer..."

• Pricing and Cost Management: Field addresses the challenges of monetizing AI features, balancing high initial costs with the necessity to make AI tools affordable for widespread use.

  Dylan Field [09:10]: "We're in a beta period... we'll give it away for free for a period of time. But at some point, yeah, we'll need to monetize it..."

• Balancing Training and Inference Costs: The conversation touches on the financial dynamics of AI development, particularly the costs associated with training models versus the ongoing expenses of inference.

  Dylan Field [09:48]: "Training and inference are both important here... our costs overall are growing a lot right now, but... we're pretty optimistic long term..."

• AI as an Augmentative Tool: Field emphasizes that AI is designed to augment, not replace, the creative processes of designers and developers. Figma's "First Draft" feature exemplifies this by serving as a starting point for creativity rather than a complete solution.

  Dylan Field [10:45]: "We want to set expectations in the right way... it's not good enough to be called anything else other than First Draft right now."

• The Future of Software Quality: Highlighting a potential saturation of mediocre software due to AI-generated products, Field advocates for a renewed focus on design excellence to ensure software stands out in a crowded market.

  Dylan Field [11:39]: "The software that will stand out is a software that people are really investing time to do design work in... software is boring the world."

Insights: Dylan Field's perspective underscores the pivotal role AI can play in transforming software development from a repetitive, standardized process into a more dynamic and creatively fulfilling endeavor. By leveraging AI to handle initial drafts and mundane tasks, developers can focus on enhancing design quality and innovation, thereby elevating the overall standard of software products.

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Conclusions

The episode of WSJ Tech News Briefing offers a comprehensive look into how technology is addressing some of today's most pressing challenges. From J.B. Straubel's revolutionary approach to battery recycling aimed at supporting the exponential growth of electric vehicles, to Dylan Field's strategic integration of AI in software development to invigorate the creative process, the discussions highlight a future where sustainability and innovation go hand in hand. These insights not only shed light on current trends but also pave the way for future advancements in technology-driven industries.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Christopher Mims [02:16]: "To save the environment... he's mining trash to bring in an electric car future."
• Tim Higgins [02:59]: "We're taking these old raw materials and inventing ways to refine them into a whole selection of new products that the world needs."
• Jason Dean [03:25]: "We're going to have giant lithium and nickel and rare earth element recycling facilities in the US..."
• Dylan Field [08:22]: "You really have to start off by trying to find those areas where it can excel..."
• Dylan Field [10:45]: "It's not good enough to be called anything else other than First Draft right now."
• Dylan Field [11:39]: "Software is boring the world."

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This detailed summary encapsulates the key themes and discussions from the episode, providing valuable insights for listeners and those interested in the intersection of technology, sustainability, and artificial intelligence.

Transcript

[Merrill Lynch]

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[Julie Chang]

Welcome to Tech News briefing. It's Monday, December 2nd. I'm Julie Chang for the Wall Street Journal. Over a decade ago, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said that software is eating the world, and today companies like Figma are playing a role in that. Figma helps designers and product developers collaborate to build their own software products at WSJ Tech Live. In October, our global tech editor Jason Dean sat down with Dylan Field, co founder and CEO of Figma, to discuss what role artificial intelligence plays in this collaborative process. Later on in the show, we'll hear highlights from their conversation, but first, the latest episode of our new podcast series Bold Names Dropped on Saturday right here in the Tech News Briefing feed. WSGA columnists and co hosts of Bold Names, Tim Higgins and Christopher mims, spoke with J.B. straubel, the founder and CEO of battery recycling startup Redwood Materials, where he's on the cutting edge of an energy revolution that could turn battery recyclers into the new big oil. Before starting Redwood, Straubel was Tesla's chief technology officer, and he currently sits on the company's board of directors. In this episode, he shares what he learned at the Elon Musk school of management. WSJ's Danny Lewis spoke with Tim Higgins and Christopher Mims about their conversation with Straubel.

[Danny Lewis]

On your latest episode, you talked to J.B. straubel, who spent 15 years designing batteries for electric vehicles at Tesla. But now, instead of building batteries at his new startup, Redwood Materials, Straubel's trying to break them down. Why?

[Christopher Mims]

To save the environment, to live in the earth and have a kind of a virtuous cycle where instead of mining these materials, which can be very messy to make batteries, essentially he's mining trash to bring in an electric car future. That's the ultimate goal. It'll take him years and years to get there, but he's already showing kind of some remarkable early success, just after a few years generating revenue from the sales of being able to pull things like nickel and lithium out of used batteries and sell those raw materials back into the battery supply chain.

[Danny Lewis]

Right. And actually, at one point in the conversation, Strombull did make a comparison to his company that might be pretty surprising for the battery business.

[Tim Higgins]

It feels a bit like we are inventing the next generation of refineries, so to speak. I hope we don't quite have a direct comparison to an ExxonMobil in the future, but there is some commonality that we are taking these old raw materials and inventing ways to refine them into a whole selection of new products that the world needs.

[Danny Lewis]

Christopher, how could battery recyclers become the new Big Oil?

[Jason Dean]

If you look at the scale of the energy transition we're going through, EVs are maybe 2% of the fleet in the US right now. So imagine a future in which EVs are 50%, right, literally 25 times more EVs on the road than we have now or more. To sustain that, to make sure that all those vehicles have batteries, we are going to have to be recycling absolutely massive amounts of all of these materials that are inside their batteries. We just don't have a choice. You can't pull that much out of the ground. We can't build enough mines, no matter how cavalier we get about the resulting environmental destruction. So the same way that we have a country full of fracking operations and a Gulf coast full of giant oil refineries, we're going to have giant lithium and nickel and rare earth element recycling facilities in the US just to reprocess that material so we can keep this electrified economy going. It's going to be EVs, it's going to be batteries in our homes, it's going to be an equal amount of batteries, probably on the grid. So that kind of transformation, just the scale of it, it's almost mind boggling.

[Danny Lewis]

Straubel used to work at Tesla and you talked about his relationship with Tesla owner Elon Musk. Straubel's now on the company's board of directors and he told you. One thing he takes away from how Musk runs his companies is an aggressive approach to business.

[Tim Higgins]

I think humanity is probably underperforming a little bit versus its potential. Maybe Elon is kind of beyond the optimum at times, but I think it could be probably a positive example to really crank up the intensity for a lot of other folks.

[Danny Lewis]

What else did he have to say about his experience working with Musk?

[Christopher Mims]

I asked him if he was sleeping on the factory floor because you have to remember Straubel was there in the early days of Tesla, where Elon was sleeping on the factory floor. JB himself was not getting home very often. And one of the things that they were doing was creating capacity for electric cars that a lot of people didn't think was actually going to be needed. That's a huge gamble. And ultimately they were proven right. And having that factory actually allowed them to grow that way. And what JB is now doing is very similar to where he was years ago when they were thinking about what the world could look like for electric cars. And we talked to him about how do you scale a business for this huge future that you imagine at a time when it's a little uncertain where the electric car industry is at the moment? There are other people who feel like maybe this thing is overblown and sales are not growing at the rate that they once were. And JB is incredibly optimistic as a person. He says he's generating hundreds of millions of dollars this year, which is surprising, will be surprising to people because the idea that there's this gold in this trash, not everybody saw that.

[Danny Lewis]

And maybe he'll, you know, in a few years he'll be the leading face of the big battery industry.

[Christopher Mims]

Big battery.

[Danny Lewis]

Tim Higgins and Christopher Mims are the hosts of Bold Names. Thanks so much for joining us.

[Christopher Mims]

Thank you.

[Jason Dean]

Thanks for having us.

[Julie Chang]

Those were WSJ columnists Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins speaking with Danny Lewis. You can listen to the latest episode of our series Bold Names right here in the Tech News Briefing feed. The next episode drops on Saturday. Coming up, the CEO of collaboration software company Figma says software is boring the world. How could AI help? That's after the break.

[Merrill Lynch]

You want a straightforward path to your goals. But at Merrill, we know things may get in the way or new opportunities can put you at a crossroads. With the bull at your back, you get a personalized plan, turn left, and a clear path forward. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do?

Investing involves risk Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Vener and Smith Incorporated. Registered Broker Dealer Registered Investment Advisor Member SIPC A wholly owned subsidiary of bank of America Corp.

[Julie Chang]

FIGMA is a collaboration software company. It helps designers and product developers work together to build software products. And it's looking to incorporate AI into basically every step of the development process. That's according to its co founder and CEO Dylan Field at WSJ Tech Live. In October, Field joined WSJ Global Tech editor Jason Dean for a chat about collaboration in the AI era. Here are highlights from that conversation.

[Dylan Field]

Are you finding any things that as you sort of experiment and learn, generative AI is not good at in this, like, not a good use for what you and your customers are doing.

I think that what you have to start with when you're developing a product where AI is not just like sprinkled on top for marketing, but rather deeply useful for somebody to use, is you really have to start off by trying to find those areas where it can excel. And once you find an area where AI can actually be legitimately helpful to a customer, then you can worry about, okay, how much the time does it excel? Is this like a 60% time that it works, or is it like a 99% of the time? And how do you get it from working some of the time to working all the time? You also then can worry about cost. Maybe you start off with the cost being really high and you go, there's no way we could ever ship this to customers. It just would be too expensive. But then you can optimize that over time and make it lower too, so that your margins aren't too impacted, or you can figure out the pricing strategy for it.

Yeah, I was going to ask about the pricing strategy because right now I think you're paying for it.

Basically, we're in a beta period. Yeah. Where we're saying, okay, this is also early, so we'll give it away for free for a period of time. But at some point, yeah, we'll need to monetize it and make sure that we're not footing the bill for everything.

Are you seeing the costs come down? In a way, because one of the things that's interesting about generative AI, unlike a lot of previous the software boom of the last two decades, the scaling laws are not the same in terms of cost because inferencing, every time you use it, you have to pay in a way that isn't true. But are you seeing that cost come down in a way that makes you optimistic that people will be able to pay for it?

Gosh, this is a big question. So training and inference are both important here, right? So training is when you're setting up a model in the first place. Inference is when you're actually using the model. And on the training side, our costs are only going up as we're trying to make our product better for customers. On the inference side, I'd say you have competing things happening. So the sort of like unit cost almost is going down of inference, time, computer, but then the demand from our customers is going up. So I would say our costs overall are growing a lot right now, but in a way that we're pretty optimistic long Term, there'll be some fixed cost. Part of it won't be all variable.

Your clients are creative people, whether they be designers or developers. There's concern that generative AI will supplant humans in the creative process. What do you think of that? I mean, are you sanguine that that's not a concern, that it's going to be augmented and not supplanting?

Yeah. We actually named our feature intentionally around this. So we started off thinking about this question, and we're developing features that could generate designs. And so we launched something called First Draft, because we really think that, first of all, that's the intention, is for it to be something that you start off with, and it helps you navigate the idea muse of design and see the different possibilities that could arise. But also, like, we want to set expectations in the right way, and it's not good enough to be called anything else other than First Draft right now. And obviously we hope we get better over time. But I currently do not see a world where there's anywhere close to people even questioning this in design. Now, in other fields, maybe, but like in our neck of the woods, where.

Somebody can just be like, okay, design me a new app and to have these qualities and then just let the AI do it.

Well, I think this gets to like a maybe an important, bigger question, which is like, what will AI do for software in the first place? And my point of view would be that you're going to see exponentially more software, but a lot of it is not going to be very good.

Why is that?

Just because if everyone's like, creating software and it's based maybe on a prompt or they're not doing much to actually differentiate it. I mean, design is the differentiator for software. And so I think the software that will stand out is a software that people are really investing time to do design work in. I think it was like 15 years ago, y'all published Marc Andreessen's op ed software is Eating the World. Right. I basically think that's come true. Right. We've seen the exponential rise of software. No one thinks it's over. We all think it's continuing. So maybe it continues to eat the world. But if we're going to maybe make a new pause it today, it might be something like, software is boring the world. You know, I mean, like, we have.

Just like, quite have the ring to it.

Yeah, I mean, not as catchy, but, like, I really do think that there's a lot of standardization when it comes to software these days. And I think the future to stand out in an ever increasing sea of software is that people need to make their software more dynamic, more interesting, higher craft. And that's why we're really focusing on how do we empower people to do that with their design.

Dylan, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

[Danny Lewis]

Fascinating.

[Julie Chang]

That was WSJ Global Tech editor Jason Dean speaking with Figma co founder and CEO Dylan Field at WSJ Tech Live. And that's it for a tech news briefing. Today's show was produced by me, Julie Chang with supervising producer Katherine Milsop. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.

[Merrill Lynch]

You want a straightforward path to your goals. But at Merrill, we know things may get in the way or new opportunities can put you at a crossroads. With the bull at your back, you get a personalized plan, turn left and a clear path forward. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a bank of America company. What would you like the power to do?

Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Vener and Smith Incorporated. Registered broker, dealer, registered investment advisor Member sipc, A wholly owned subsidiary of bank of America Corp.