AI and the Future of Work
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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 moreListen 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 moreListen 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 moreListen 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 moreListen 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 moreHe’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 moreListen 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 moreListen 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 moreListen 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 moreListen 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 moreData 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 moreListen 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 more- 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 moreI’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!
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Episode Number : 41
Patty Hatter, former CIO, COO, and current SVP Customer Services at Palo Alto Networks, shares advice for women about how to break the glass ceiling in Silicon Valley. Hear how Patty went from engineering grad student to global exec by cultivating an authentic leadership style.
Show moreListen and learn:
- How six months in Europe shaped Patty’s career.
- The advice Patty says served her best when leaving Bell Labs
- Why Patty says “being a CIO is the best role to have had in the past.”
- Tips for dealing with unconscious bias in the workplace.
- Patty’s advice to women convinced they can’t accomplish what men can in high-tech.
Here’s a link to the great episode with Mark Settle referenced in the show.
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Episode Number : 40
Deryk Van Brunt is a serial entrepreneur, trained epidemiologist, and Professor at the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health.
Show moreCredibleMind uses AI to improve access to mental health resources. What once was relegated to the shadows of healthcare is now mainstream. Anxiety and stress have spiked due to social isolation and the increased burden of elder and childcare.
Like all fields being disrupted by AI, the fear of biased training data is real. Who owns your mental health data? Who is responsible for monitoring the performance of AI algorithms?
Deryk introduces us to the future of holistic medicine.
Listen and learn…
- The current state of mental health. Did you know over half of the U.S. population has a diagnosable mental health condition over the course of a lifetime?
- How the pandemic has exacerbated the mental health problem.
- How to mitigate the impact of biased training data.
- How virtual healthcare providers like Woebot are giving new meaning to the term “the therapist can see you now”.
Here’s a link to the CDC article referenced in the show. Deryk can be reached at Deryk @ CredibleMind dot com or via the CredibleMind website.
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Episode Number : 39
New format this week: a special panel discussion with Justin Fitzhugh from Snowflake, Liz Holland from Dell, and Luca Blanzuoli from Credit Suisse…
Show moreLearn insights about the future of AI in IT Operations from the pros:
- “We couldn’t keep the environment available without AI technology.” -Liz from Dell
- “It’s time to switch paradigms. It’s not ok to have outages with the same root cause twice. We should have no outages.” -Luca from Credit Suisse
- “AI is like having a PhD on the team transferred from generation to generation… without having to earn the degree.” -Luca from Credit Suisse
- “We can’t keep up with the growth of our business without AI and automation. As a data management platform, the business expects us to continuously innovate.” -Justin from Snowflake
Plus…
- We coin a new IT acronym. You’ll soon replace “KTLO” with “KTTPOTS”.
- We discuss what you need to know to start a new DevOps or SRE team.
- We learn how Dell was able to migrate 140,000 global employees to home offices…over a weekend!
Thanks to our wonderful panelists for a fun conversation. Enjoy!
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Episode Number : 38
Cassie Divine, SVP QuickBooks Online Platform at Intuit, shares what she’s doing to promote equal pay and workplace diversity plus her philosophy on leadership during a pandemic
Show moreWe get a unique look into the secrets that have made Cassie and Intuit successful and, more important, what Cassie’s doing to define the post-pandemic future of work for self-employed entrepreneurs.
Listen and learn…
- Why Scott Cook, Intuit founder, advised employees to “love the problem not the solution.”
- How Cassie has changed her leadership style to support remote teams.
- What “customer obsession” means at Intuit.
- Why Cassie says “there’s no prosperity without equality.”
- What Intuit is doing to narrow the pay gap.
- What Cassie learned from Clay Christensen.
Episodes mentioned:
- Charlene Li shares lessons for disruptors.
- Deborah Hanus shares how Sparrow is fixing company leave policies.
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Episode Number : 38
Special guest Gareth Rushgrove, editor of the popular DevOps Weekly newsletter (since its inception ten years ago!) and former product lead at Docker and Puppet, joined the podcast this week for a wide-ranging discussion about the culture of IT operations, security and software development, and the future of application monitoring.
Show moreListen and learn:
- Why Gareth thinks teaching developers to write secure code is a “socio-technical” problem
- Why the perceived “go fast vs. be secure” perceived tradeoff is wrong
- What Gareth has been doing to support the Open Policy Agent and accelerate adoption of infrastructure as code
- What’s ahead for Kubernetes and container management
- What advice Gareth “newsletter iron man” has for listeners… and the one mistake he made when launching DevOps Weekly
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Episode Number : 37
Ever wonder what “knocker-uppers” did in Britain when alarm clocks were invented? Curious what scribes did after the printing press? Loom operators after the cotton gin? Throughout history, those on the right side of innovation thrive.
Show moreIn this crossover episode, host Dan Turchin is interviewed by Service Desk Institute Chief Value and Innovation Officer David Wright. Hear how technology is changing customer service… and improving the lives of customer service agents while forcing them to upskill and re-skill.
Listen and learn:
- What skills won’t be replaced by AI
- How the service desk is being transformed by automation
- Why “augmented intelligence” is improving employee service
- What’s happening now to mitigate the impact of bias in training data
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Episode Number : 36
Greg Poirier understands what it’s like to carry the pager. He started as a systems engineer and has since spent a career developing products that help systems engineers sleep at night.
Show moreIn this episode, Greg explains the past, present, and future of IT operations. He also shares techniques for surviving the quarantine as a geek and an artist.
Hear from the master…
- What is observability and why is it more important during the pandemic?
- What do great product teams do better than everyone else?
- Will we ever achieve NoOps? Is that even the right vision?
- Pets? Cattle? Discuss.
- Is monitoring dead?