May 21, 2024 • 36 mins
Ep. 166 Kobie Fuller is General Partner at Upfront Ventures. He’s got deep expertise in enterprise SAAS and frontier technologies including AR/VR. Previously, he was Chief Marketing Officer at REVOLVE, one of the largest global fashion e-commerce players based in Los Angeles. He’s got deep interest in artificial intelligence, and he’s placing bets on startups building in the space - even building some projects of his own.
On this episode, Kobie speaks with AfroTech's Will Lucas about frontier technologies, investing in AI, and what kind of startups are interesting to VCs like him.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Will Lucas and this is black tech, green money.
Kobe Fuller's general partner at Upfront Ventures. He also went
to Harvard College. He's gotten deep expertise in enterprise software
as a service, in frontier technologies including AR and VR.
He was chief marketing officer at Revolved, one of the
largest global fashioned e commerce players based in LA and
(00:24):
he's got deep interest in artificial intelligence, and he's placing
bets on startups building into space and even buildings of
projects of his own. In VC, you have to be
drawn to a particular vertical and you want to place
best that can bring a return. Your speculations have to
be backed by research. With frontier technologies, there isn't always
(00:44):
a ton of research available. So what draws Kobe to
these companies?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, it is speculation and it's fun too. It's fun.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I mean if I'm just investing in a piece of
technology that is an iteration on any distinct concept, to me,
that feels, i don't know, just personally somewhat boring and
not trying.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
To create the future. And so it's really exciting.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And a privilege about this job as a VC is
that if you so have the ability to invest in
frontier technology in what today may seem crazy but tomorrow's
reality and how the world just operates, and you have
the privilege of being part of that.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I mean, that's just fundamentally awesome. So I love meeting.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
With founders that have like the craziest out there idea
where you look at them like.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What the what the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Like when I first met or heard the concept of
when Brendan dearib CEO and founder of Moloculus was building like,
you know, real true VR for the masses, my first
reaction was.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
This, like I thought, that's science fiction? Is that really
a real thing?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
And and and then as remember telling my friends I
invested in this VR device and no one want to
hear about it. They're just like, I don't care about
what thell are you talking about VR? And then before
you know it like it's a thing or maybe it
will be a thing. I mean, it's still not actually
a master market advice, but it's just for me. What's
inspiring about this job is to have the privilege of
(02:19):
going on these journeys with founders that want to bring
the future to the president.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
And that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
How does this new conversation we're having having at least
over the last two or three years with AI being
on the mainstream consciousness, how does that change if it
does the decision making process regarding investment strategy.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So one number of things.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
So AI is in one part front center in a
manner where everyone has access to it, but in practice
there's still been so much that of consumer and professional
(03:06):
audiences have yet to be exposed to. And my job
is to try to continue to stay on the frontier
side of things regards to where is the fuck going
in AI?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's not just some interesting thing that you.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Can wrap around chat GPT that creates some pedestrian app
that's going to be commoditized tomorrow. To me, it's like
next level thinking around how can we take what is
essentially intelligence that's been productized in this nice little delivery
(03:43):
vehicle being these l ms and where I'm to say
people large large language models essentially or these foundational models
that companies like open ai and others have created where
they've trained a system that you could tap into to
(04:04):
essentially tap into the knowledge of what right now people
consider it can be at the level of like PhD
level intelligence. So it's essentially tapping into a brain that
has the ability to think and reason in some cases
performed tasks and the case of CHATCHPT has access to
(04:27):
all the information on the Internet up until I don't
know what a certain date is right now, but up
until a certain date. And so the really interesting thing
when you could do about that, though, is you think
about you have this piece of machinery that knows how
to think and reason.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
By the way, I can't do everything.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Sometimes it struggles at complex like multi step processes, so
it's not like this silver bullet. But interesting thing is
if you take this piece of machinery knowes how to
think and reason, and then you connect it to like knowledge,
real like proprietary knowledge that does not exist on the Internet,
for instance, knowledge around like what is the absolute smartest,
(05:04):
most seasoned CMO think with regards to how to launch
some new marketing campaign. Like that knowledge is maybe it's
buried somewhere on the Internet, but it could be in
the heads of a season trained CMO who wants to
productize that and package it up with this delivery vehicle
being AI and chat GPT or some other mechanism that
(05:27):
then allows for the average marketer to be able to
get perspective of on how do they launch a new
campaign for some product the brain trying to bring the market.
And so for me, what gets me excited is this
new layer of productized intelligent intelligence that's available in masses
that then could be brought a conjunction with knowledge from
(05:50):
individuals across the planet, any human being that has knowledge
that then could be delivered in what I consider these
delivery vessels being could be embodied devices like Humane which
some people seen as pin that you wear that has
this kind of overlay AI that walks with you. We
have an investment in a company that is still in
stealth that's going after that category, or a different form factor.
(06:13):
It could be a copilot that is in your applications,
like Microsoft Word that's giving you assistance as you're writing
a document.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It can manifest itself in so many different manners.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
But for me, like I get super excited about being
able to package up intelligence in a manner I've never
seen before. It activated through the power of AI in
these large language of models.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
If that makes sense, you know, it makes total sense,
and it brings me. I was had to write this
down because I wanted to make sure It was fully
thought out question when I was listening to you talk
and thinking about this is what is the decision making
process when you approached with these two different things. One
let's say I'm building a large language model and I'm
(06:55):
attempting to go compete with Bard or Claude or open AIS,
CHATGYT or et cetera. What is the decision making process
you're going to go through if I'm doing that versus
I'm going to employ an LM for a specific use case.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, mice is to make a process.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
If you're trying to go up against open AI or bar,
it is like, I'm not going to invest in it
because that that is you know, for some people if
they want to create a new LM to go after
that RaSE of the next foundational model, more power to them.
I am staying more at the application layer of the stacks,
(07:34):
So take advantage of all the dollars funding these foundational
models that then are powering the next generation of AI applications.
So if you're trying to create a foundational model, good
luck to you. Very ambitious and it's amazing to have ambition.
But that's not where I'm playing. I'm playing at the
(07:55):
layer on top around creating unique sets of speriences are
models based on custom knowledge and contextually relevant sort of
use cases. And it could be the use case of
the best sales intelligence to help orchestrate overall sort of
sales departments selling in a pride software, to a marketing department,
(08:16):
to a legal department, to different sort of consumer applications.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
No, I love that, and I'm gonna take that one
step further, because you know, when you have you know,
these hot topics like we do with AI. Right now,
every agency, every startup starts to say we and we
have AI. And even if it's like, you know, very
rudimentary or whatever, and no shade on those people. But
I want to know when as as somebody who invests capital,
(08:45):
what do you see when you read that copy or
you see those decks as you know, flags orange flags,
maybe not red, maybe not yellow, but somewhere in between,
you're like, yeah, I can tell, like, bro, come on,
there's no real technology here, there's no real innovation.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
For me, when someone says they have AI, and it's
not like AI in a true like novel senses, I'm
looking at the product, it's almost like saying like I
have electricity.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
It's like great, like you.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Have AI like like, so, so you're in the game,
so you actually are like hooked up your you're hooked
up to like normal life as we know it right now.
So to me, it's it's not a selling factor and
for folks to try to make it part of the
pitch for what they're doing is like I have a
(09:38):
I and it's like cool, okay.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So what do you really have?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Like, yeah, I have a I too, Like so, yeah,
it's not a it's not a for me. It's all
about what problem are you trying to solve? And then
is there anything you've done in a unique manner where
AI is helping solve that problem? And it relates to
like technical defensibility. They're like very very very few examples
(10:05):
of anything right now that has some technical mode. For me,
like technical modes almost like don't exist. And it all
is about, first and foremost for me, when I investment
company as a founder, why are they doing it? Why
are they uniquely positioned to succeed in building something that
(10:25):
hopefully changes the world and some fast and hopefully they're
trying to change the world. And for me, that's what
drives me in terms of word and playing capital is
those moonshot ideas that hopefully change the world for the better.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up that term mote because
I was going to ask you about this, like, you know,
what are some things that you are looking for? So
I'm asking you to go a level deeper on that.
What are some criteria you're looking for when you're considering
an investment, Because there's got to be something that's defensible.
I know you just mentioned there's not a ton defensible here,
but something has to be defensible, even if it's the entrepreneur,
(10:58):
like their unique perspective own the world, Like, talk to
me about that.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, So I look for founders that have some sort
of superpower, So where do they spike relative to most
other human beings on the planet that gives them an
unfair advantage to hopefully exploit that superpower in a way
that is incredibly relevant towards whatever product that they're building.
(11:27):
And then outside of that, I did create this acronym
that encapsulates a little bit of what I consider differentiation
that you can architect in any product.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
But this exists very much within the world of.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Software, where it goes down to having these elements that
I call fabric. So a product when you use it,
in my opinion, needs to feel just like lightning fasts
what the F stands for, and it also should be
incredibly fast the gods to how you onboard yourself, how
(12:03):
you get to what you need to actually do. Like
you know, fast products when you use them and you
love them, and when products are slow, you're like, I
just don't want to use this thing. It's almost like
the product is working against you. A stands for addictive
products should feel almost like video games when you're using them.
There's like a dopamine hit you get with them in
a point where it's like you want to go back
(12:24):
and back and back to it and again and again
and again. That's kind of what chat GPT does a
little bit. It turns the addictive nature of what it does.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It knows you. It can actually personalize experience for you.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
The latest releases of chat GPT that actually this large
context window where does it forget who you are, which
is amazing bold. I think products need to have some
level of boldness regards to the way they look, the
way they feel, or what they're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
In some facet.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
The R stands for rewarding. If the product doesn't have
clear reward reward to the level that like it's almost
like you're getting like like a steal for this product.
For instance, Like I think Calendly is an incredibly rewarding product.
It's essentially streamlines the way which you can be able
to schedule events. Imagine if like one day you depended
(13:14):
on Calendly and someone that takes it away from you,
You like most people would just like they wouldn't know
how to operate integrated.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Integrated is a point where.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Like, if you were to try to rip this product out,
like it would totally disrupt your life how you do business.
Salesforce is one of the best integrated products I can
think of because they created this thing called the app Exchange,
which are a myriad of third party products to integrate
into Salesforce to frankly plug the holes with regards to
(13:45):
what Salesforce can't do itself, to the point where Salesforce
is this like central platform that has all these other
applications built on top of where you try to rip
out Salesforce, you're done, and then the last item, Yeah,
you can't the last item though, I think is probably
the most powerful as community. And so if you think
about if you as a company are able to create
(14:05):
a community around your product amongst your users, amongst your customers,
then it's less a relationship between you the company and
your users. It's a relationship between users and other users
in a way that you almost have as movement coming
together around your product, around your organization that like the
company becomes almost bigger than itself, and if another company
(14:29):
comes around, it's offering the same product even better. Many
times people won't leave that existing product that they're part
of because it's the community, that's their tribe, that's their people.
Some people are so fanatical they tattoo like the logo
onto their arm. And if you could architect all of
these things into one, it's kind of just like another
layer on top of like what hopefully maybe a technical
(14:51):
mode that you think you have, you probably don't. To me,
it's kind of like a kill shot around how you
can go out and build a highly defensible company. And
that's why the companies like Figma I've done incredibly well
because they've done an incredible job across all.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Facets of that framework.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So that's kind of how I think about ways in
which you could try to create some defensibility Georgia products.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, so I was so cool. I was talking to
Alfonso David, who's like founder of the Black Economic Alliance
about two weeks ago for this podcast, and I asked
him the question of, you know, what is he concerned
about for black people regarding AI. And I expected him
to give me the response like most people give, like
(15:35):
you know, it's going to steal jobs, going to do
all of these things, and his response was, actually, I'm
afraid that we are not at appropriately taking advantage of
the opportunity. And I thought that was such a refreshing
take on it, and so I would position that to
you also, you can you can pile on on that perspective,
but what are the things that you are concerned about
(15:59):
regarding specific Black people and this revolution that we are
in the early days of.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, I'd say, uh, I one thousand percent agree with
that sentiment as well, but I'd say I have less
a feeling of concern, but more a feeling of like,
now's a moment we're living in that like you very
rarely see in any generation in terms of just this
(16:28):
level of disruption and sometimes people feel like, oh, like
the boats left the dock and it's too late, and
like I'm so far behind and there's no way for
me to catch up. Like that's not the case right now.
Like the amount of people I talk to that you
would think are incredibly informed, like in the weeds of
(16:49):
like tech, like in Silicon Valley as well, that have
like no idea some of the basic things are happening
right now in the world of AI that you also don't.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
You don't need to be like a developer or incredibly
technical to understand. It's like mind blowing.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
So we're in this world right now of like insane
information asymmetry, like there's some people who know and there's
people that don't. If you know, the level of power
that you have relative to those that don't is it's
like you're a superhuman amongst like barely even like mortals
(17:27):
like you are just like you have superpowers, and it's
up to you whether you want to go out and
really realize the superpowers that are just laying there for
you to grab, or you're gonna wait for someone else
to actually grab them and entrounce you. And so that's
the opportunity right now that every human being on the
planet has access to because the amazing thing about like AI,
(17:51):
like the the barrier in terms of what's there to
actually access and take advantage of it is like it's
not very high, it's very minim Like the amount of
money we spend on like our iPhones and other items
is like deminimously, that's nothing like AI is not like
incredibly expensive to actually engage with and utilize. And so
(18:12):
I just encourage everyone to just jump in, get your
hands dirty. If you can tell a human being like
what to do and give them instructions, you can tell
an AI what to do in terms of being able
to do tasks or build experiences. Like it's that level
of just relatability to just human nature, which I think
(18:34):
is fundamentally awesome, And we'll allow for a different type
of individual to access and engage the technology than ever before.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, as there, you made me think it's something like
in the early days or at least the again, the
mainstream early days of like bitcoin. I was talking to
a friend of mine because it was not efficient or
very easy to get on and get involved in the blockchain,
and I remember trying to get in, thinking I'm going
(19:05):
to be setting up a wallet. I ended up trying.
I ended up inadvertently downloading the blockchain onto my computer
because I didn't I didn't know how to get in
and so, and I was talking to a friend of
mine and he's like, I don't, like, I can't figure
this thing out. And he's like, this, that's where the
money is made on these technologies. He's like, when when
it's not obvious how to get involved, that's when the people,
(19:28):
the people who really make the money, that's when they're
making the money. Because the user interfaces are not fluent,
they're not designed for the mainstream and et cetera. AI
feels different what open AI is doing, what Google is
doing with Microsoft. This feels different. And you don't necessarily
even know how to code, and so can.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
You talk about easy ways.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Actual specific things people can do to expose themselves to
this opportunity.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah, So I'd recommend if you haven't gone on to
Chat GPT, which is super basic and like Spring for
the Plus account, Spring for the account, where it has
what's called multimodial capabilities, Like you can upload a picture
and ask chat GPT to give you like feedback on
the picture, just get a flavor for how all this
(20:17):
stuff works, and then also get a flavor for how
you can leverage AI to like teach yourself things like knowledge.
The ability to acquire knowledge is what's I think incredibly
viable around AI, Like it can meet you where you
(20:37):
are and your little sophistication and then teach you in
a manner that books and YouTube and other things like
can't do. So just play around with trying to learn
new concepts through the power of AI. Just on chat GPT,
do you want to get a little bit more sophisticated.
There is a tactic that I encourage everyone to try
(20:59):
to educate themselves around. So there's large language models, which
are these foundational models like chat, GPT and open AI
that allow you to interact with intelligence and like the Internet.
Then there's this tactic called RAG. It stands for retrieval
Augmented Generation, which allows you to take anybody of content
(21:20):
that you like curate So it could be like a
PowerPoint presentation, it could be a book, it could be
whatever you can think of, and then you pair it
with a large language model and then you can craft
yourself your own chat experience that then allows you to
interact with information like never before possible to give you
(21:42):
a sense of some of on my own workflow, like
sometimes and maybe companies coming in to present me to
present to our partnership on a Monday morning, where say
my partner brought it in. It's an incredibly technical area
that I know nothing about, that I spend no time in.
But it's my job to someone informed ask the tough
questions because afterwards, as a team, we had a good
(22:04):
decide whether we can investing or not.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Sometimes I debubble workflow.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Why I put it in that company's blog and that website,
I put it through a RAG pipeline, attach it to
an LM being CHATYPT, and then I create this prompt.
PROMPT is basically natural language instructions to tell what the
AI to do. And I tell the AI like, tell
me everything I need to know, assume the persona of
(22:29):
like this company, and I'm gonna ask you all the
dumbest questions in the world. And then what I do
is I then get on and I ask all them.
I'm way way way down the route of getting all
the basic questions out of the way so I can
actually ask a tough question. So so it's a basic
way of understanding how to just access information and knowledge
in a way that have been done before. And there's
(22:49):
like there's lots of companies that productize the ability to
do that. It's going called mind studio, pick Acts, chat Base.
There's like endless amounts of these things that you can
use for your own just like superhuman personal AI capabilities.
I have like literally, like I don't know, like a
couple of dozen of these things that I ast to
sometimes for personal help around my day to day workflow
(23:11):
that I'm not technical, and it's.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Not hard for anyone to use any things.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
And so those are ways in which you can engage,
from simple chat GPT to learning about RAG, which I
encourage everyone to understand what that is.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, So I've found this quote from you that I
want to remind you of and get your thoughts on it.
And so you said, if you're not understanding the voice
of the consumer in a way where you can develop
product and design for this, what's going to happen is
you're going to wake up one day and realize that
you've been leap frogged by someone else who asked you
(23:46):
remember saying that.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
First of all, it sounds like I said that all.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Right, And so I would ask you, then, what are
consumers asking for with AI? Or I guess a better
question is do we even know yet what we're asking for?
Or are we being just surprised and delighted by Sam
Offman and other people.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yes, so I'd say again, like AI, I kind of.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Refer to you a little bit as electricity, So like,
what do consumers want with now the new electricity? I
think people still realize realizing what we could power up
with it, Like what that now we could take with
AI and to start like lighting up. And some of
the smartest people on the planet are are still figuring
(24:39):
this out, understanding how average people can start playing around
these things and create new novel experiences and concepts that
are are are groundbreaking, and I see it all the
time in this job, people finding new ways to leverage AI.
They solve problems that before people never thought would be possible.
So this is an indust that is so exciting because
(25:02):
it's moving so fast and humanity is figuring out what
to do with it. But in a way it's also
scary because I don't want to take it there. But
like there's also like a dark side of the guards
where else all can go because humanity can build things
to make humanity better, and they can also build things
to make humanity worse. And there are ways in which
(25:26):
you can weaponize in the eye in a manner that
is honestly incredibly frightening. And my hopes are that we
don't get to a point where that's run so far
along in a manner that it's hard to turn back.
And I don't think it's regulation that's going to be
able to kind of rain these things in, because I
(25:47):
don't think we know what we're regulating.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It's just moving so fast.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
So I think it's up to us and those people
that are investing or building products here that employ their
own morals, sentiment and good around like what should we
be building and what should we not be building?
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I mean just got' step further on that, because even
if we did regulate, or even if we did have
a moral compass here domestically, you still got other countries building,
Like we're not the only people building, hey, II. And
so how do how do we live in a world?
I guess, like with nuclear bounds, I guess it's the
same thing. We can't stop other people from doing this work.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I don't know that's why.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
That's why we're in such honestly, we're in such charge
territory some of those things that are like outside of
her control.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Like it's uh, it's tough.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
All I know is like my personal part in that
is Like there's certain companies if I'm pitched, I'm like, oh,
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna fund that if I
think that it may not make the world a better place.
Like there's an example of a company I was pitched
where it was an AI companion for kids that have
trouble making friends, and to me, like, it was incredibly
(26:58):
horrifying the idea. I have two boys six and eight
years old, them like not going out trying to make
friends and being in touch with humanity and instead of
being home like in their rooms talking to their AI
friend because that's the only person they can make a
connection with. And you think about what happens if some
of the startup runs out of VC dollars and then
(27:18):
has to shut down with all his AI friends die,
Like it's just like that's not good either. So it's like,
to me, I think that makes humanity worse in terms
of like having us be disconnected from one another, you know,
versus finding ways to leverage AI to further connect us
with each other and with humanity, which I think there
(27:38):
are ways in which to do that.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
They're quite powerful.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
SHA have some insights on how AI might be reshaping
traditional industries, you know, and creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs.
I'll let you pick which traditional industries you'd like to
speak on.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah, I mean, for instance, like a traditional industry.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
We have a company called Laurel that I'm on the
board of that's using AI to streamline the way law
firms and lawyers manage the overall time tracking process of
their work, which right now is incredibly manual and just takes.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
An imperfect day that imperfectly.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Clearly imperfect.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
And so this application, because it's a piece of software
that's installed on the computer, it captures all your work,
it's also on your phone, and then allows you to
better streamline the process of then taking all the work
at the end of the day, and then the AI
to intelligently categorize it, attached it towards clients, and then
(28:43):
basically and then know how to code it in the
right way for the billing then just give you back
a lot of your day and have incredibly high accurity
in regards to how you're going about the billing process,
Like that's something that only AI can do in terms
of being able to intelligently go through all.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That that workflow.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Another company that's building AI to help the overall sales
process for both sales managers and aes to be better
informed the guards to how they talk to new accounts
or just sting accounts, what are the best value drivers
they should articulating in a sales conversation, and also knowing
(29:21):
which accounts they should be spending time on versus deprioritizing
leveraging third party signals that potentially could give triggers around
folks getting into buyer modes to do that in a
way that is also orchestrated for managers to better know
how to allocate players in the field in terms of
who's doing well, who's not doing well, who to promote,
(29:41):
who to potentially fire, And that's something where AI is
creating this unique orchestration layer on top of a full
on department. So that's the two examples that you know,
we're seeing I'm seeing my friend who formerly a CMO
at Revolve. They're using AI all over the place of
the guards, to fashion design of the full on apparel assortment,
(30:05):
to their social media campaigns, the collateral Like, there's lots
of amazing ways that revolves, even in public talking about
how they're embraced AI in a meaningful manner, even from
AI influencers that are showing up in Coachella ad campaigns
for instance, which is a meaningful time of year for them.
(30:25):
So it's it's it's it's affect infecting everywhere in a
way that's quite meaningful and exciting.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Do you believe you know, there's this Silicon Valley, and
I believe it was originated out of Silicon Valley, this
concept of universal basic income. Do you believe we are
speeding towards a world where that might actually be necessary?
Because AI will replace so many of you know, jobs
on the lower you know, and even some of the
(30:51):
middle realm jobs.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
It's a good question. I don't know if I have
a great answer for that, because you'll hear many people
say that AI is going to give more people time
back that was otherwise spent doing like remedial work, and
there's not going to be this notion of.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Job loss. But no, there's going to there are going
to be certain industries and professions that are just wiped
out because of what AI is able to do. Whether
those individuals then have the ability to enter into new
jobs that are created because of what's happening with this
(31:40):
technology and it's going to need it all self out,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
I don't know how the overall economics of this play
out from a labor perspective, and part of this also
has to do at a rate by which there's job
loss versus job creation from the.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Power of AIKE.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
My gut is that we're gonna see and I don't
think we hit it just yet. Potentially a massive exponential
effect from AI with regards to displacement of labor where
there could be that imbalance that then could justify exactly
what you're talking about there in terms of having some
(32:24):
level of economic support for folks throughout jobs. But I
don't know, Honestly, It's like I spend a lot less
time thinking about that, and my gut has been unfortunately
like it's probably going to.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Be a problem.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
But I'd say a majority of folks when asked this question,
seem to think that it all nets itself out.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
But I'm a skeptic on that.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
When you think about black founders and the opportunities that
we are faced with regarding AI, what unique opportunities are
we faced with as founders and particularly those with a
lot of melon.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Unique opportunity. Honestly, I'll go back to it like.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
AI is accessible for the most part to everyone and
regardless of your your race in this situation like this
is this is like an equalizer moment. This is a
moment where it's like I can take this tech and
I can use this to my advantage to harness superhuman
(33:32):
capabilities either myself personally or in my team members or
even synthetic workers to accomplish and build value to the
level where many people talk about there being the ability
to build companies with far less employees, the point where
(33:54):
like we're going to see a unicorn business with like
one or two employees, Like I feel like there's gonna
be like there's not gonna be as much need for
like capital from like folks like me to start lots
of businesses because depending on how AI is being used,
there's an efficient way and by which you can actually
(34:15):
build a company and create value that you never can
before do so this is a moment where I encourage founders,
especially black founders, to realize, like this is like this
equalizing moment that we haven't seen for a while, that
like jump on, move fast. There's an element of arbitrage
here as well, Like there's some ideas that I've seen
(34:38):
where it literally is this arbitraging a category where someone
hasn't realized that you can use AI to do X
in their first over advantage and they're the ones to
bring this magical experience to life that the end customer
even realized as possible, and they're monetizing. Like these types
of opportunities are everywhere, and lots of them are not
(34:58):
like venture scale business, but there are incredible businesses to
be running. And so I would just encourage everyone to
just realize, like, now's an incredible moment right now to
be a founder, to be building, to jump full on
in get yourself uncomfortable with the guards to the knowledge
(35:18):
that you're forcing yourself to learn. But then you'll start
realizing like it's actually not that intimidating.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
You'll start pulling on the thread.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
And what's happened to me for the first time for
a long time in my career. I actually feel like
I'm getting smarter, and I'm getting smarter at a faster
rate because I'm adopting an embracing AI at a level
that I also know is far greater than most of
my peers.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
And like anyone can do this.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
It's all a matter of whether you choose to do
or not and embrace it versus be afraid it's gonna
take your job.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity Afro
Tech on the Black Effect podcast Network and i Our Media.
It's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas, with
additional production support by Sarah Ergin and Love Beach. Special
thank you to Michael Davis and Kate McDonald. Learn more
about my yess and other tech. Disrupt is an innovators
at afrotech dot com. The video version of this episode
(36:29):
will drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube to
tap in enjoying Black Tech Green Money, Share this with somebody,
Go get your money. Peace of luck.
I'm Will Lucas and this is black tech, green money.
Kobe Fuller's general partner at Upfront Ventures. He also went
to Harvard College. He's gotten deep expertise in enterprise software
as a service, in frontier technologies including AR and VR.
He was chief marketing officer at Revolved, one of the
largest global fashioned e commerce players based in LA and
(00:24):
he's got deep interest in artificial intelligence, and he's placing
bets on startups building into space and even buildings of
projects of his own. In VC, you have to be
drawn to a particular vertical and you want to place
best that can bring a return. Your speculations have to
be backed by research. With frontier technologies, there isn't always
(00:44):
a ton of research available. So what draws Kobe to
these companies?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, it is speculation and it's fun too. It's fun.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I mean if I'm just investing in a piece of
technology that is an iteration on any distinct concept, to me,
that feels, i don't know, just personally somewhat boring and
not trying.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
To create the future. And so it's really exciting.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And a privilege about this job as a VC is
that if you so have the ability to invest in
frontier technology in what today may seem crazy but tomorrow's
reality and how the world just operates, and you have
the privilege of being part of that.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I mean, that's just fundamentally awesome. So I love meeting.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
With founders that have like the craziest out there idea
where you look at them like.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What the what the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Like when I first met or heard the concept of
when Brendan dearib CEO and founder of Moloculus was building like,
you know, real true VR for the masses, my first
reaction was.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
This, like I thought, that's science fiction? Is that really
a real thing?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
And and and then as remember telling my friends I
invested in this VR device and no one want to
hear about it. They're just like, I don't care about
what thell are you talking about VR? And then before
you know it like it's a thing or maybe it
will be a thing. I mean, it's still not actually
a master market advice, but it's just for me. What's
inspiring about this job is to have the privilege of
(02:19):
going on these journeys with founders that want to bring
the future to the president.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
And that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
How does this new conversation we're having having at least
over the last two or three years with AI being
on the mainstream consciousness, how does that change if it
does the decision making process regarding investment strategy.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So one number of things.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
So AI is in one part front center in a
manner where everyone has access to it, but in practice
there's still been so much that of consumer and professional
(03:06):
audiences have yet to be exposed to. And my job
is to try to continue to stay on the frontier
side of things regards to where is the fuck going
in AI?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's not just some interesting thing that you.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Can wrap around chat GPT that creates some pedestrian app
that's going to be commoditized tomorrow. To me, it's like
next level thinking around how can we take what is
essentially intelligence that's been productized in this nice little delivery
(03:43):
vehicle being these l ms and where I'm to say
people large large language models essentially or these foundational models
that companies like open ai and others have created where
they've trained a system that you could tap into to
(04:04):
essentially tap into the knowledge of what right now people
consider it can be at the level of like PhD
level intelligence. So it's essentially tapping into a brain that
has the ability to think and reason in some cases
performed tasks and the case of CHATCHPT has access to
(04:27):
all the information on the Internet up until I don't
know what a certain date is right now, but up
until a certain date. And so the really interesting thing
when you could do about that, though, is you think
about you have this piece of machinery that knows how
to think and reason.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
By the way, I can't do everything.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Sometimes it struggles at complex like multi step processes, so
it's not like this silver bullet. But interesting thing is
if you take this piece of machinery knowes how to
think and reason, and then you connect it to like knowledge,
real like proprietary knowledge that does not exist on the Internet,
for instance, knowledge around like what is the absolute smartest,
(05:04):
most seasoned CMO think with regards to how to launch
some new marketing campaign. Like that knowledge is maybe it's
buried somewhere on the Internet, but it could be in
the heads of a season trained CMO who wants to
productize that and package it up with this delivery vehicle
being AI and chat GPT or some other mechanism that
(05:27):
then allows for the average marketer to be able to
get perspective of on how do they launch a new
campaign for some product the brain trying to bring the market.
And so for me, what gets me excited is this
new layer of productized intelligent intelligence that's available in masses
that then could be brought a conjunction with knowledge from
(05:50):
individuals across the planet, any human being that has knowledge
that then could be delivered in what I consider these
delivery vessels being could be embodied devices like Humane which
some people seen as pin that you wear that has
this kind of overlay AI that walks with you. We
have an investment in a company that is still in
stealth that's going after that category, or a different form factor.
(06:13):
It could be a copilot that is in your applications,
like Microsoft Word that's giving you assistance as you're writing
a document.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It can manifest itself in so many different manners.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
But for me, like I get super excited about being
able to package up intelligence in a manner I've never
seen before. It activated through the power of AI in
these large language of models.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
If that makes sense, you know, it makes total sense,
and it brings me. I was had to write this
down because I wanted to make sure It was fully
thought out question when I was listening to you talk
and thinking about this is what is the decision making
process when you approached with these two different things. One
let's say I'm building a large language model and I'm
(06:55):
attempting to go compete with Bard or Claude or open AIS,
CHATGYT or et cetera. What is the decision making process
you're going to go through if I'm doing that versus
I'm going to employ an LM for a specific use case.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, mice is to make a process.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
If you're trying to go up against open AI or bar,
it is like, I'm not going to invest in it
because that that is you know, for some people if
they want to create a new LM to go after
that RaSE of the next foundational model, more power to them.
I am staying more at the application layer of the stacks,
(07:34):
So take advantage of all the dollars funding these foundational
models that then are powering the next generation of AI applications.
So if you're trying to create a foundational model, good
luck to you. Very ambitious and it's amazing to have ambition.
But that's not where I'm playing. I'm playing at the
(07:55):
layer on top around creating unique sets of speriences are
models based on custom knowledge and contextually relevant sort of
use cases. And it could be the use case of
the best sales intelligence to help orchestrate overall sort of
sales departments selling in a pride software, to a marketing department,
(08:16):
to a legal department, to different sort of consumer applications.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
No, I love that, and I'm gonna take that one
step further, because you know, when you have you know,
these hot topics like we do with AI. Right now,
every agency, every startup starts to say we and we
have AI. And even if it's like, you know, very
rudimentary or whatever, and no shade on those people. But
I want to know when as as somebody who invests capital,
(08:45):
what do you see when you read that copy or
you see those decks as you know, flags orange flags,
maybe not red, maybe not yellow, but somewhere in between,
you're like, yeah, I can tell, like, bro, come on,
there's no real technology here, there's no real innovation.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
For me, when someone says they have AI, and it's
not like AI in a true like novel senses, I'm
looking at the product, it's almost like saying like I
have electricity.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
It's like great, like you.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Have AI like like, so, so you're in the game,
so you actually are like hooked up your you're hooked
up to like normal life as we know it right now.
So to me, it's it's not a selling factor and
for folks to try to make it part of the
pitch for what they're doing is like I have a
(09:38):
I and it's like cool, okay.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So what do you really have?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Like, yeah, I have a I too, Like so, yeah,
it's not a it's not a for me. It's all
about what problem are you trying to solve? And then
is there anything you've done in a unique manner where
AI is helping solve that problem? And it relates to
like technical defensibility. They're like very very very few examples
(10:05):
of anything right now that has some technical mode. For me,
like technical modes almost like don't exist. And it all
is about, first and foremost for me, when I investment
company as a founder, why are they doing it? Why
are they uniquely positioned to succeed in building something that
(10:25):
hopefully changes the world and some fast and hopefully they're
trying to change the world. And for me, that's what
drives me in terms of word and playing capital is
those moonshot ideas that hopefully change the world for the better.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up that term mote because
I was going to ask you about this, like, you know,
what are some things that you are looking for? So
I'm asking you to go a level deeper on that.
What are some criteria you're looking for when you're considering
an investment, Because there's got to be something that's defensible.
I know you just mentioned there's not a ton defensible here,
but something has to be defensible, even if it's the entrepreneur,
(10:58):
like their unique perspective own the world, Like, talk to
me about that.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, So I look for founders that have some sort
of superpower, So where do they spike relative to most
other human beings on the planet that gives them an
unfair advantage to hopefully exploit that superpower in a way
that is incredibly relevant towards whatever product that they're building.
(11:27):
And then outside of that, I did create this acronym
that encapsulates a little bit of what I consider differentiation
that you can architect in any product.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
But this exists very much within the world of.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Software, where it goes down to having these elements that
I call fabric. So a product when you use it,
in my opinion, needs to feel just like lightning fasts
what the F stands for, and it also should be
incredibly fast the gods to how you onboard yourself, how
(12:03):
you get to what you need to actually do. Like
you know, fast products when you use them and you
love them, and when products are slow, you're like, I
just don't want to use this thing. It's almost like
the product is working against you. A stands for addictive
products should feel almost like video games when you're using them.
There's like a dopamine hit you get with them in
a point where it's like you want to go back
(12:24):
and back and back to it and again and again
and again. That's kind of what chat GPT does a
little bit. It turns the addictive nature of what it does.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It knows you. It can actually personalize experience for you.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
The latest releases of chat GPT that actually this large
context window where does it forget who you are, which
is amazing bold. I think products need to have some
level of boldness regards to the way they look, the
way they feel, or what they're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
In some facet.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
The R stands for rewarding. If the product doesn't have
clear reward reward to the level that like it's almost
like you're getting like like a steal for this product.
For instance, Like I think Calendly is an incredibly rewarding product.
It's essentially streamlines the way which you can be able
to schedule events. Imagine if like one day you depended
(13:14):
on Calendly and someone that takes it away from you,
You like most people would just like they wouldn't know
how to operate integrated.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Integrated is a point where.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Like, if you were to try to rip this product out,
like it would totally disrupt your life how you do business.
Salesforce is one of the best integrated products I can
think of because they created this thing called the app Exchange,
which are a myriad of third party products to integrate
into Salesforce to frankly plug the holes with regards to
(13:45):
what Salesforce can't do itself, to the point where Salesforce
is this like central platform that has all these other
applications built on top of where you try to rip
out Salesforce, you're done, and then the last item, Yeah,
you can't the last item though, I think is probably
the most powerful as community. And so if you think
about if you as a company are able to create
(14:05):
a community around your product amongst your users, amongst your customers,
then it's less a relationship between you the company and
your users. It's a relationship between users and other users
in a way that you almost have as movement coming
together around your product, around your organization that like the
company becomes almost bigger than itself, and if another company
(14:29):
comes around, it's offering the same product even better. Many
times people won't leave that existing product that they're part
of because it's the community, that's their tribe, that's their people.
Some people are so fanatical they tattoo like the logo
onto their arm. And if you could architect all of
these things into one, it's kind of just like another
layer on top of like what hopefully maybe a technical
(14:51):
mode that you think you have, you probably don't. To me,
it's kind of like a kill shot around how you
can go out and build a highly defensible company. And
that's why the companies like Figma I've done incredibly well
because they've done an incredible job across all.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Facets of that framework.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So that's kind of how I think about ways in
which you could try to create some defensibility Georgia products.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, so I was so cool. I was talking to
Alfonso David, who's like founder of the Black Economic Alliance
about two weeks ago for this podcast, and I asked
him the question of, you know, what is he concerned
about for black people regarding AI. And I expected him
to give me the response like most people give, like
(15:35):
you know, it's going to steal jobs, going to do
all of these things, and his response was, actually, I'm
afraid that we are not at appropriately taking advantage of
the opportunity. And I thought that was such a refreshing
take on it, and so I would position that to
you also, you can you can pile on on that perspective,
but what are the things that you are concerned about
(15:59):
regarding specific Black people and this revolution that we are
in the early days of.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, I'd say, uh, I one thousand percent agree with
that sentiment as well, but I'd say I have less
a feeling of concern, but more a feeling of like,
now's a moment we're living in that like you very
rarely see in any generation in terms of just this
(16:28):
level of disruption and sometimes people feel like, oh, like
the boats left the dock and it's too late, and
like I'm so far behind and there's no way for
me to catch up. Like that's not the case right now.
Like the amount of people I talk to that you
would think are incredibly informed, like in the weeds of
(16:49):
like tech, like in Silicon Valley as well, that have
like no idea some of the basic things are happening
right now in the world of AI that you also don't.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
You don't need to be like a developer or incredibly
technical to understand. It's like mind blowing.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
So we're in this world right now of like insane
information asymmetry, like there's some people who know and there's
people that don't. If you know, the level of power
that you have relative to those that don't is it's
like you're a superhuman amongst like barely even like mortals
(17:27):
like you are just like you have superpowers, and it's
up to you whether you want to go out and
really realize the superpowers that are just laying there for
you to grab, or you're gonna wait for someone else
to actually grab them and entrounce you. And so that's
the opportunity right now that every human being on the
planet has access to because the amazing thing about like AI,
(17:51):
like the the barrier in terms of what's there to
actually access and take advantage of it is like it's
not very high, it's very minim Like the amount of
money we spend on like our iPhones and other items
is like deminimously, that's nothing like AI is not like
incredibly expensive to actually engage with and utilize. And so
(18:12):
I just encourage everyone to just jump in, get your
hands dirty. If you can tell a human being like
what to do and give them instructions, you can tell
an AI what to do in terms of being able
to do tasks or build experiences. Like it's that level
of just relatability to just human nature, which I think
(18:34):
is fundamentally awesome, And we'll allow for a different type
of individual to access and engage the technology than ever before.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, as there, you made me think it's something like
in the early days or at least the again, the
mainstream early days of like bitcoin. I was talking to
a friend of mine because it was not efficient or
very easy to get on and get involved in the blockchain,
and I remember trying to get in, thinking I'm going
(19:05):
to be setting up a wallet. I ended up trying.
I ended up inadvertently downloading the blockchain onto my computer
because I didn't I didn't know how to get in
and so, and I was talking to a friend of
mine and he's like, I don't, like, I can't figure
this thing out. And he's like, this, that's where the
money is made on these technologies. He's like, when when
it's not obvious how to get involved, that's when the people,
(19:28):
the people who really make the money, that's when they're
making the money. Because the user interfaces are not fluent,
they're not designed for the mainstream and et cetera. AI
feels different what open AI is doing, what Google is
doing with Microsoft. This feels different. And you don't necessarily
even know how to code, and so can.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
You talk about easy ways.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Actual specific things people can do to expose themselves to
this opportunity.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah, So I'd recommend if you haven't gone on to
Chat GPT, which is super basic and like Spring for
the Plus account, Spring for the account, where it has
what's called multimodial capabilities, Like you can upload a picture
and ask chat GPT to give you like feedback on
the picture, just get a flavor for how all this
(20:17):
stuff works, and then also get a flavor for how
you can leverage AI to like teach yourself things like knowledge.
The ability to acquire knowledge is what's I think incredibly
viable around AI, Like it can meet you where you
(20:37):
are and your little sophistication and then teach you in
a manner that books and YouTube and other things like
can't do. So just play around with trying to learn
new concepts through the power of AI. Just on chat GPT,
do you want to get a little bit more sophisticated.
There is a tactic that I encourage everyone to try
(20:59):
to educate themselves around. So there's large language models, which
are these foundational models like chat, GPT and open AI
that allow you to interact with intelligence and like the Internet.
Then there's this tactic called RAG. It stands for retrieval
Augmented Generation, which allows you to take anybody of content
(21:20):
that you like curate So it could be like a
PowerPoint presentation, it could be a book, it could be
whatever you can think of, and then you pair it
with a large language model and then you can craft
yourself your own chat experience that then allows you to
interact with information like never before possible to give you
(21:42):
a sense of some of on my own workflow, like
sometimes and maybe companies coming in to present me to
present to our partnership on a Monday morning, where say
my partner brought it in. It's an incredibly technical area
that I know nothing about, that I spend no time in.
But it's my job to someone informed ask the tough
questions because afterwards, as a team, we had a good
(22:04):
decide whether we can investing or not.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Sometimes I debubble workflow.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Why I put it in that company's blog and that website,
I put it through a RAG pipeline, attach it to
an LM being CHATYPT, and then I create this prompt.
PROMPT is basically natural language instructions to tell what the
AI to do. And I tell the AI like, tell
me everything I need to know, assume the persona of
(22:29):
like this company, and I'm gonna ask you all the
dumbest questions in the world. And then what I do
is I then get on and I ask all them.
I'm way way way down the route of getting all
the basic questions out of the way so I can
actually ask a tough question. So so it's a basic
way of understanding how to just access information and knowledge
in a way that have been done before. And there's
(22:49):
like there's lots of companies that productize the ability to
do that. It's going called mind studio, pick Acts, chat Base.
There's like endless amounts of these things that you can
use for your own just like superhuman personal AI capabilities.
I have like literally, like I don't know, like a
couple of dozen of these things that I ast to
sometimes for personal help around my day to day workflow
(23:11):
that I'm not technical, and it's.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Not hard for anyone to use any things.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
And so those are ways in which you can engage,
from simple chat GPT to learning about RAG, which I
encourage everyone to understand what that is.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, So I've found this quote from you that I
want to remind you of and get your thoughts on it.
And so you said, if you're not understanding the voice
of the consumer in a way where you can develop
product and design for this, what's going to happen is
you're going to wake up one day and realize that
you've been leap frogged by someone else who asked you
(23:46):
remember saying that.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
First of all, it sounds like I said that all.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Right, And so I would ask you, then, what are
consumers asking for with AI? Or I guess a better
question is do we even know yet what we're asking for?
Or are we being just surprised and delighted by Sam
Offman and other people.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yes, so I'd say again, like AI, I kind of.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Refer to you a little bit as electricity, So like,
what do consumers want with now the new electricity? I
think people still realize realizing what we could power up
with it, Like what that now we could take with
AI and to start like lighting up. And some of
the smartest people on the planet are are still figuring
(24:39):
this out, understanding how average people can start playing around
these things and create new novel experiences and concepts that
are are are groundbreaking, and I see it all the
time in this job, people finding new ways to leverage AI.
They solve problems that before people never thought would be possible.
So this is an indust that is so exciting because
(25:02):
it's moving so fast and humanity is figuring out what
to do with it. But in a way it's also
scary because I don't want to take it there. But
like there's also like a dark side of the guards
where else all can go because humanity can build things
to make humanity better, and they can also build things
to make humanity worse. And there are ways in which
(25:26):
you can weaponize in the eye in a manner that
is honestly incredibly frightening. And my hopes are that we
don't get to a point where that's run so far
along in a manner that it's hard to turn back.
And I don't think it's regulation that's going to be
able to kind of rain these things in, because I
(25:47):
don't think we know what we're regulating.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It's just moving so fast.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
So I think it's up to us and those people
that are investing or building products here that employ their
own morals, sentiment and good around like what should we
be building and what should we not be building?
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I mean just got' step further on that, because even
if we did regulate, or even if we did have
a moral compass here domestically, you still got other countries building,
Like we're not the only people building, hey, II. And
so how do how do we live in a world?
I guess, like with nuclear bounds, I guess it's the
same thing. We can't stop other people from doing this work.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I don't know that's why.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
That's why we're in such honestly, we're in such charge
territory some of those things that are like outside of
her control.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Like it's uh, it's tough.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
All I know is like my personal part in that
is Like there's certain companies if I'm pitched, I'm like, oh,
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna fund that if I
think that it may not make the world a better place.
Like there's an example of a company I was pitched
where it was an AI companion for kids that have
trouble making friends, and to me, like, it was incredibly
(26:58):
horrifying the idea. I have two boys six and eight
years old, them like not going out trying to make
friends and being in touch with humanity and instead of
being home like in their rooms talking to their AI
friend because that's the only person they can make a
connection with. And you think about what happens if some
of the startup runs out of VC dollars and then
(27:18):
has to shut down with all his AI friends die,
Like it's just like that's not good either. So it's like,
to me, I think that makes humanity worse in terms
of like having us be disconnected from one another, you know,
versus finding ways to leverage AI to further connect us
with each other and with humanity, which I think there
(27:38):
are ways in which to do that.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
They're quite powerful.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
SHA have some insights on how AI might be reshaping
traditional industries, you know, and creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs.
I'll let you pick which traditional industries you'd like to
speak on.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah, I mean, for instance, like a traditional industry.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
We have a company called Laurel that I'm on the
board of that's using AI to streamline the way law
firms and lawyers manage the overall time tracking process of
their work, which right now is incredibly manual and just takes.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
An imperfect day that imperfectly.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Clearly imperfect.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
And so this application, because it's a piece of software
that's installed on the computer, it captures all your work,
it's also on your phone, and then allows you to
better streamline the process of then taking all the work
at the end of the day, and then the AI
to intelligently categorize it, attached it towards clients, and then
(28:43):
basically and then know how to code it in the
right way for the billing then just give you back
a lot of your day and have incredibly high accurity
in regards to how you're going about the billing process,
Like that's something that only AI can do in terms
of being able to intelligently go through all.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That that workflow.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Another company that's building AI to help the overall sales
process for both sales managers and aes to be better
informed the guards to how they talk to new accounts
or just sting accounts, what are the best value drivers
they should articulating in a sales conversation, and also knowing
(29:21):
which accounts they should be spending time on versus deprioritizing
leveraging third party signals that potentially could give triggers around
folks getting into buyer modes to do that in a
way that is also orchestrated for managers to better know
how to allocate players in the field in terms of
who's doing well, who's not doing well, who to promote,
(29:41):
who to potentially fire, And that's something where AI is
creating this unique orchestration layer on top of a full
on department. So that's the two examples that you know,
we're seeing I'm seeing my friend who formerly a CMO
at Revolve. They're using AI all over the place of
the guards, to fashion design of the full on apparel assortment,
(30:05):
to their social media campaigns, the collateral Like, there's lots
of amazing ways that revolves, even in public talking about
how they're embraced AI in a meaningful manner, even from
AI influencers that are showing up in Coachella ad campaigns
for instance, which is a meaningful time of year for them.
(30:25):
So it's it's it's it's affect infecting everywhere in a
way that's quite meaningful and exciting.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Do you believe you know, there's this Silicon Valley, and
I believe it was originated out of Silicon Valley, this
concept of universal basic income. Do you believe we are
speeding towards a world where that might actually be necessary?
Because AI will replace so many of you know, jobs
on the lower you know, and even some of the
(30:51):
middle realm jobs.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
It's a good question. I don't know if I have
a great answer for that, because you'll hear many people
say that AI is going to give more people time
back that was otherwise spent doing like remedial work, and
there's not going to be this notion of.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Job loss. But no, there's going to there are going
to be certain industries and professions that are just wiped
out because of what AI is able to do. Whether
those individuals then have the ability to enter into new
jobs that are created because of what's happening with this
(31:40):
technology and it's going to need it all self out,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
I don't know how the overall economics of this play
out from a labor perspective, and part of this also
has to do at a rate by which there's job
loss versus job creation from the.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Power of AIKE.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
My gut is that we're gonna see and I don't
think we hit it just yet. Potentially a massive exponential
effect from AI with regards to displacement of labor where
there could be that imbalance that then could justify exactly
what you're talking about there in terms of having some
(32:24):
level of economic support for folks throughout jobs. But I
don't know, Honestly, It's like I spend a lot less
time thinking about that, and my gut has been unfortunately
like it's probably going to.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Be a problem.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
But I'd say a majority of folks when asked this question,
seem to think that it all nets itself out.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
But I'm a skeptic on that.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
When you think about black founders and the opportunities that
we are faced with regarding AI, what unique opportunities are
we faced with as founders and particularly those with a
lot of melon.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Unique opportunity. Honestly, I'll go back to it like.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
AI is accessible for the most part to everyone and
regardless of your your race in this situation like this
is this is like an equalizer moment. This is a
moment where it's like I can take this tech and
I can use this to my advantage to harness superhuman
(33:32):
capabilities either myself personally or in my team members or
even synthetic workers to accomplish and build value to the
level where many people talk about there being the ability
to build companies with far less employees, the point where
(33:54):
like we're going to see a unicorn business with like
one or two employees, Like I feel like there's gonna
be like there's not gonna be as much need for
like capital from like folks like me to start lots
of businesses because depending on how AI is being used,
there's an efficient way and by which you can actually
(34:15):
build a company and create value that you never can
before do so this is a moment where I encourage founders,
especially black founders, to realize, like this is like this
equalizing moment that we haven't seen for a while, that
like jump on, move fast. There's an element of arbitrage
here as well, Like there's some ideas that I've seen
(34:38):
where it literally is this arbitraging a category where someone
hasn't realized that you can use AI to do X
in their first over advantage and they're the ones to
bring this magical experience to life that the end customer
even realized as possible, and they're monetizing. Like these types
of opportunities are everywhere, and lots of them are not
(34:58):
like venture scale business, but there are incredible businesses to
be running. And so I would just encourage everyone to
just realize, like, now's an incredible moment right now to
be a founder, to be building, to jump full on
in get yourself uncomfortable with the guards to the knowledge
(35:18):
that you're forcing yourself to learn. But then you'll start
realizing like it's actually not that intimidating.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
You'll start pulling on the thread.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
And what's happened to me for the first time for
a long time in my career. I actually feel like
I'm getting smarter, and I'm getting smarter at a faster
rate because I'm adopting an embracing AI at a level
that I also know is far greater than most of
my peers.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
And like anyone can do this.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
It's all a matter of whether you choose to do
or not and embrace it versus be afraid it's gonna
take your job.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity Afro
Tech on the Black Effect podcast Network and i Our Media.
It's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas, with
additional production support by Sarah Ergin and Love Beach. Special
thank you to Michael Davis and Kate McDonald. Learn more
about my yess and other tech. Disrupt is an innovators
at afrotech dot com. The video version of this episode
(36:29):
will drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube to
tap in enjoying Black Tech Green Money, Share this with somebody,
Go get your money. Peace of luck.
Host
Will Lucas
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