AI and the Future of Work
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Episode Number : 61
Denis Jacquet is concerned that automation is causing traditional jobs to mutate… and governments around the world are mismanaging the opportunity to prepare citizens for the new labor market. He has written extensively on how regulation is stifling innovation. Denis is a serial entrepreneur having started and sold multiple successful companies including EduFactory in the e-learning space. He’s also an accomplished author and frequent TV and radio contributor in France on the future labor market.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- Why many events will remain virtual long after the pandemic… even though humans have a fundamental need for direct contact.
- What Europe can learn from countries like Israel and Korea about how to embrace innovation to stimulate company creation.
- Why companies like FoxConn are preparing to replace a million low-paying jobs with robots in the next decade.
- Why so many entrepreneurs sacrifice family for career.
Thanks to Philippe Cases, Topio Networks CEO, for the introduction to Denis.
References in this episode:
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Episode Number : 60
Joe Rehmann went from investment banking to fish farming. His passion for solving the protein problem in Eastern Africa led to one of the most successful aquaculture farms in the world.
Show moreShow lessJoe’s story should inspire entrepreneurs everywhere. No problem is too big to solve. Technology we take for granted can be used in ways we can’t imagine… until leaders like Joe redefine what’s possible.
Listen and learn…
- What inspired Joe to start Victory Farms
- How Victory Farms used mobile phones to solve the tilapia cold chain problem
- What the western world doesn’t understand about building a business in Kenya
- How fish guts and market ladies may be part of the next great technology success story
Companies and organizations mentioned on the show:
- Endeavor, the world’s leading community of high-impact entrepreneurs
- Victory Farms
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Episode Number : 59
Philippe Cases has been an entrepreneur and investor in Silicon Valley for more than 25 years. Most recently, he founded Topio Networks to automate the process of generating business insights in tech markets like edge computing, IoT, and blockchain. Philippe has strong opinions about everything from autonomous driving to augmented reality and is paid to influence how they evolve.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- How an engineer growing up in France and Germany came to be a Silicon Valley success story.
- Why we may never “fully automate the process of generating business insights”.
- What technology is limiting mainstream use of edge computing for AI tasks.
- Of truck drivers, stock brokers, and real estate agents, which will be made obsolete first by AI.
- What needs to change about Silicon Valley.
Also mentioned on the show:
- Accelerators including YC and Alchemist
- Waymo and Mobileye for autonomous driving
- TinyML low-power machine learning for edge computing
Thanks to Erin McMahon for the introduction to Philippe!
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Episode Number : 58
Tim Crawford, accomplished CIO, CIO advisor, and influencer, distinguishes transformational CIOs from the rest. For more than 20 years, he has been coaching CIOs about embracing new technologies by first identifying how they’ll solve business problems.
Show moreShow lessTim is a frequent contributor to publications like The Wall Street Journal, CIO.com, Forbes, SiliconAngle and TechTarget. Thanks to Steve Kaplan from Nutanix for the introduction.
Listen and learn…
- How three distinct types of AI help businesses in different ways
- The single biggest way AI could help employees today
- A strategy for helping CIOs adopt AI
- How and when AI should be regulated
- Which jobs are at risk of being complemented… or eliminated by AI
- Why “companies and countries will ultimately be measured based on how well they leverage technology and data”
Episodes and podcasts mentioned on the show:
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Episode Number : 57
Rory O’Driscoll has been investing in startups since founding Scale Venture Partners 27 years ago.
Show moreShow lessHe and his team have invested in transcendent companies like Box, DocuSign, Omniture, Bill.com, HubSpot, and others. Listen to this one multiple times. You’ll learn something new each one.
Hear Rory’s insights on AI and venture investing…
- “The venture business is more a decision business and less an action business.”
- “The purpose of AI is to make better, more cost-effective decisions.”
- “It’s extraordinarily hard to replace people with AI.”
- “It’s hard to regulate what you don’t understand.”
- How software is eating into traditional spending on telco and banking.
- Why successful startups must pick one of three strategies: “fight, focus, or fly”
Previous episodes and companies mentioned on the podcast:
- Bill Davidow on AI and the Future of Work
- Dave Kellogg on AI and the Future of Work
- Forter
- Dialpad
- Zoom
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Episode Number : 56
This week, Wendy Pfeiffer, Nutanix CIO and former CIO at GoPro, shares her journey to becoming a public company exec and how she has grown as a technologist and leader. Hear about Wendy’s proudest accomplishment at Nutanix and what she’s learned from an eclectic group of role models.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- What it means to “lead with grace”.
- Why the future of enterprise tech will look more like consumer tech.
- How to empower girls to pursue STEM careers.
- How Wendy and her team have used NLP technology to help employees and consistently achieve 90+ NPS scores.
Resources mentioned in the episode:
- Nutanix
- GoPro
- randomfrankp on YouTube
- The John Madden RV
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Episode Number : 55
Rak Garg recently shifted from Product Management at companies like Atlassian and Redfin to investing at OpenView Venture Partners, the iconic firm behind companies like Datadog, ExactTarget, Instructure, and others.
Show moreShow lessHe shares the playbook for enterprise software startups looking to disrupt incumbents like Splunk and Atlassian. His thesis on SIEM (security event management) and log analytics spawned an excellent blog post on how startups are unbundling Splunk and defining new categories in the process.
Follow Rak at rak_garg on twitter.
Listen and learn…
- Why investing is harder than being a Product Manager
- Where Splunk and Atlassian are vulnerable to disruption from startups
- Rak’s perspective on what must change about Silicon Valley culture
- The importance of “don’t F&*%$ the customer” as a core component of company culture
Companies mentioned in this episode:
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Episode Number : 54
Glenn Solomon has discovered and invested in many iconic companies like Slack, Zendesk, and Square. In this episode, he shares his investing philosophy and how he became great at what he does. This one’s worth a listen just to hear Glenn share stories from when he first met the founders of Airbnb and HashiCorp.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- Why the stock of Domino’s Pizza has outperformed Google over the past decade.
- How Opendoor stumbled… before eventually going public and reaching a $20B valuation.
- Why Nike employs more software engineers than shoe designers.
- What technology will define the next “Zoom” moment.
Companies, episodes, and people mentioned in this episode:
- Barr Moses from Monte Carlo
- Unravel Data
- Tonic
- Evangelos Simoudis from Synapse Partners
- Haixun Wang from Instacart
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Episode Number : 53
Elaine Zelby is an investor at SignalFire, a blogger, podcaster, and former Product Marketer at Capriza and Slack. She shares her perspective on the proliferation of SaaS tools, what’s sexy about unsexy markets, and what companies she’s ready to fund.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- Why entrepreneurs describe SignalFire as the “kind” VC
- The one technology that will change work most in 2025
- What Elaine learned as an operator that has helped her as an investor
- Why the exodus from big cities may not be a thing after all
Thanks to Ilya from SignalFire for the introduction to Elaine.
Episodes and companies mentioned on the show:
- Deborah Hanus from Sparrow
- Testbox
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Episode Number : 52
The future of cities, work, and transit all rely on technological advances in the field of autonomous vehicles. On this week’s episode, Evangelos Simoudis, acclaimed author, futurist, and investor, discusses the present and future of everything from robo-taxis to urban planning.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- How ethical implications and regulatory frameworks pose as big a threat to adoption of autonomous vehicles as technology
- Why a combination of knowledge-driven and ontological approaches are often required to optimize the accuracy of AI
- Why the classic trolley problem from a 1970s philosophy paper is more relevant than ever
- The pros and cons of using neural nets to train autonomous vehicles
- Why Evangelos attributes his success to a history of systems thinking
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Episode Number : 51
Ashu Garg is a General Partner at Foundation Capital, one of the most iconic venture firms in Silicon Valley. Ashu was first an entrepreneur before becoming an investor and discovering amazing companies like TubeMogul, Cohesity, Eightfold, and Databricks.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- How Ashu translated his unique brand of hustle into finding and backing amazing entrepreneurs
- Why Ashu feels, as an entrepreneur, it’s worse to be too early than too late
- The challenges and opportunities of applying NLP to enterprise software
- What emerging technology will most impact work in 2031
- How the ability to automate routine tasks creates an opportunity to change the world
Companies mentioned on the show:
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Episode Number : 50
Great episode to kick off 2021. Dr. Haixun Wang has been at the forefront of introducing AI-based innovation to the world’s leading technology companies including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon.
Show moreShow lessHe’s the current VP Engineering and Distinguished Scientist at Instacart where he focuses on improving the grocery delivery experience with AI.
Listen and learn…
- Why knowledge graphs may be the solution to improve today’s e-commerce search experience.
- Why it’s hard to create an algorithm to help shoppers pick items from store shelves.
- What defines a “technology” company.
- Why it’s difficult to “make the physical world smart”.
- What happens when you search “insomnia” on Amazon.
- Haixun’s proudest accomplishment.
Resources mentioned in the discussion with Dr. Wang:
- Bill Davidow
- Alex from Josh.ai
- Darius from Meratas
- Charlene Li
- Tiernan Ray
- Dave Kellogg
- Haixun’s quarantine reading: In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
- Haixun’s blog
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Episode Number : 49
Darius Goldman, CEO and Founder of Meratas, discusses the future of education and how income share agreements (ISAs) are making college and trade school more accessible. Meratas partners with educational institutions to offer a financing option to students who can attend courses for free up front and pay later with a portion of future income. Meratas is off to a fast start with 30 education partners and 3,100 students.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- How ISAs create opportunities for students who couldn’t otherwise afford higher education
- Darius’ perspective on the future of education: “It’s a luxury to get educated for the sake of enrichment”
- How a waitress working three low-paying jobs is now selling software thanks to a Meratas-backed ISA
- What Darius will be most proud of when Meratas transforms the education market
H/t to Jason Calacanis (@Jason) whose great interview with Darius led to this week’s podcast.
Episodes and organizations referenced:
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Episode Number : 48
On this week’s podcast, Michael Shepherd, Distinguished Engineer at Dell Technologies focused on AI, describes the present and future of intelligent software. Fascinating discussion about using AI for good… and what could happen if we lose control. Worth listening to hear when Michael thinks we’ll achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence), where bots are indistinguishable from humans.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- About Michael’s vision for “analytics at the speed of thought”.
- How Michael describes the “three Vs of big data”.
- Why laptops may soon not need charging cables.
- Why knowing the answer will be less important in the future.
Research referenced in this episode:
- Imagine a world without wires
- Google’s DeepMind beats doctors at breast cancer detection
- The ethics of AI
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Episode Number : 47
In this special episode with Dr. Helen Gu, author or co-author of 80+ academic papers on distributed computing and AI for systems management, we discuss the past, present, and future of AI for IT Operations.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- How and why the technology behind common problems like image recognition fails when applied to machine data
- Where Helen and her team were nine years ahead of Amazon
- Why unsupervised machine learning is required to predict and prevent system downtime
- Why machine learning is well-suited to anomaly detection for machine data
- The next technology breakthrough that will eliminate sleepless nights for developers
Research papers referenced on today’s episode:
- Helen’s 10-year Symposium on Cloud Computing award about elastic resource scaling
- Fixing the hang bug problem
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Episode Number : 46
Chris Curtin has been on a journey over the past twenty plus years to modernize iconic brands like Disney, HP, and Visa. He has been at the forefront of new payment technologies, consumer channels, and business models. We discussed the future of everything with Chris.
Show moreShow lessListen and learn…
- Why it will soon be as easy to send money to Botswana as it is to send photos or emoji.
- How Chris defines “brand”.
- What it was like negotiating Visa’s Olympic Games
- The best leadership advice Chris has received.
- How Coldplay (and the Pope) just may show up in your living room soon.
Companies and episodes mentioned:
Our episode with Alex Capecelatro, Josh.ai CEO and Founder
Thanks to Lister Delgado from IDEA Fund Partners for the introduction!
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Episode Number : 45
This week, we had a fascinating discussion that unveiled the dirty secret of AI and machine learning: algorithm performance is only as good as data quality… and data pipelines break frequently.
Show moreShow lessData Scientists spend most of their time wrangling data. Barr Moses, CEO and Founder of Monte Carlo, explains how the problem is getting solved and what that means for the future of technology. Plus, learn…
- The five pillars of data health
- How to quantify the impact of data downtime
- How Barr thinks about being intentional when establishing company culture and values
- Barr’s advice for female and under-represented minority entrepreneurs raising venture capital
- Shark populations off the coast of South Africa? Well, just listen :).
Companies and people mentioned in the episode:
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Episode Number : 44
This week’s special episode of AI and the Future of Work features execs discussing how they use AI to reduce downtime. More important, they share how, as leaders, they’re navigating the complicated relationship between humans and machines
Show moreShow lessListen and learn from some of the best:
- Joel Eagle on how McDonald’s thinks about managing data at scale to improve the guest experience.
- Mark Settle, seven-time CIO and best-selling author of Truth from the Valley, on how the shift to cloud-based apps has changed user behavior.
- Ray Lippig, Program Manager at J.B. Hunt, on how anomaly detection is changing the logistics business.
- Sean Barker, CEO of cloudEQ, on how AI means we can architect cloud solutions designed for resilience.
- Plus, hear three predictions for how AI will change work in the next 18 months.
For the first time, we also published a video version of this week’s podcast on YouTube. Enjoy!
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Episode Number : 43
On this week’s episode of AI and the Future of Work, Colin Fletcher shares insights including…
Show moreShow less- What he meant by “AIOps” when he coined the term and what has happened since then.
- How the most mature organizations adopt DevOps.
- How AIOps will change in the next three years.
- The new definition of automation everyone in IT will soon be talking about.
- …And of course, the not-so-secret recipe for earth’s best fried chicken.
People mentioned in this episode: Patrick Debois, Bridget Kromhaut, Charity Majors. Companies mentioned in this episode: GitLab, ServiceNow, Splunk, New Relic, AppDynamics, BigPanda, Gartner.
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Episode Number : 42
Welcome to this week’s “best of” episode of AI and the Future Work. Today, we’re opening the vault and re-introducing you to Dave Kellogg, serial high-tech CEO, board member, and of course Dead Head discussing SaaS metrics earlier this year.
Show moreShow lessI’m proud to share that the podcast just crossed 100,000 downloads so I’m taking this opportunity to thank you for listening. If you enjoy the show, please rate us wherever you get your podcasts to demonstrate your support for independent media and help more listeners discover our amazing guests.
It’s a week before the election and we’re all political scientists and data junkies for the next eight days. Dave is the original SaaS scientist. Listen as he puts on a master class about the metrics that matter plus offers coaching for entrepreneurs about how to tell stories with data.
If you don’t know your CAC from your LTV or how to calculate the true sales cycle, listen up. Metrics matter not just to pitch your company but to run your business, validate your hiring plan, groom your product backlog, and define your marketing strategy. The future of work may be AI but even the best AI won’t replace the kind of decision-making that only comes from really understanding how to analyze your customer’s journey.
Oh, and if you’re not already subscribed to Dave’s great Kellblog, you’re missing the best SaaS content. Subscribe now!
