[00:00:00] Nathan: So Open Sauce was this past weekend. It w- it was fun. I just got back this morning, flew a, a red-eye, so [00:00:05] I'm trying to
[00:00:06] Andrew: Look at that. What, a champ. He's on the [00:00:10] podcast. It's like we, recorded in the, what is it? It's 4:00 Pacific, so it's what, 6:00 for you?
[00:00:14] Nathan: [00:00:15] Seven. It's 7:00 PM right now on my side, which is yeah, So [00:00:20] I took a nap, so that works.
[00:00:21] Andrew: Yeah. So, I guess how was, OpenSauce? Like what, [00:00:25] is OpenSauce maybe for folks who might not
[00:00:27] Andrew: know? We talked a little
[00:00:28] Nathan: So Open--
[00:00:28] Andrew: week, but not too [00:00:30] much.
[00:00:30] Nathan: Open Sauce is a, is a-- I, don't know if I should call it a conference or a convention [00:00:35] because it's a weird blend of both.
[00:00:37] Nathan: But it was created by a content creator, [00:00:40] William Osman, and it's been around for a few years. This is the first year that [00:00:45] I've actually even heard about it, and it's the first year that I've exhibited at.
[00:00:49] Nathan: So I didn't know what [00:00:50] to expect.
[00:00:51] Nathan: Looking at the site, there are, content creators, [00:00:55] YouTubers that are in the edutainment space, I would say [00:01:00] that are highlighted because they, are anticipated to show up [00:01:05] at this convention conference thingamajig. But then there are also exhibitors [00:01:10] like myself and a bunch of other people who do something really cool [00:01:15] decide to open source it, and then bring it to the, the convention to show, show it off [00:01:20] and, talk to anyone who wants to buy a ticket to go. It was a very, big [00:01:25] event. I think every year it is growing bigger and bigger. Many [00:01:30] people who have been to years in the past have said that this is the largest yet.
[00:01:34] Nathan: [00:01:35] So this was in the San Mateo Event Center, I believe. And [00:01:40] I can con-- yeah, I can attest. There were, a lot of people there. It was very [00:01:45] big.
[00:01:45] Nathan: As an exhibitor, I get a little booth where I set something [00:01:50] up. And it's like an eight-by-eight booth. It's a very, small thing. If you've ever been to
[00:01:53] Nathan: any
[00:01:54] Nathan: sort [00:01:55] of conventions or... Yeah, effectively clo-- a little bit larger than a closet. [00:02:00] But you have a table, and you just kinda lease stuff out.
[00:02:02] Nathan: Some exhibits had, large [00:02:05] things to show off which is really cool. So some makers like to build [00:02:10] things that kinda don't make sense, but they're cool to see.
[00:02:12] Nathan: So robots that are like ten feet [00:02:15] tall.
[00:02:16] Nathan: BattleBots was there, so they,
[00:02:18] Nathan: had this little [00:02:20] yeah. Yeah, it's, it's-- It was, One thing I'll give them really props on is [00:02:25] it was a large venue with different buildings, and they were able to group [00:02:30] exhibits accordingly to the theme.
[00:02:32] Nathan: So there was one
[00:02:33] Nathan: hall that was [00:02:35] all indie game developers, so a bunch of people going in to [00:02:40] playtest, open source indie games.
[00:02:42] Nathan: There was another hall that [00:02:45] was aerospace and engineering for some reason. I guess it's hard, so it's really cool to see like open source
[00:02:49] Nathan: [00:02:50] aerospace. But there was-- NASA was there showing off a few things and a bunch of other open [00:02:55] source projects like rockets that are using alternative fuels,
[00:02:58] Nathan: stuff like [00:03:00] that. And drone
[00:03:00] Nathan: stuff as well in there. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:03:03] Andrew: battery,
[00:03:04] Nathan: Lab [00:03:05] Ro-- yeah
[00:03:05] Nathan: La-lab-- Exactly. Lab-made rockets. And then there was one hall that was dedicated to [00:03:10] like- arts and crafts, I would say, but mainly things that you're doing [00:03:15] technically, but for-- this is something I think that we would really enjoy, but you do it for the artistic [00:03:20] purpose.
[00:03:21] Nathan: Like there are some-- in chemistry, for example, there are some gases that kind of show [00:03:25] very cool colors if you change the temperature around them.
[00:03:27] Nathan: So you have a vacuum tube and the gas [00:03:30] inside, and you modify the atmosphere around it, and it kind of
[00:03:33] Nathan: glows colors and stuff like that. [00:03:35] And then people who make elaborate cosplay, so armor [00:03:40] or replicating some sort of character from a movie or something and the, [00:03:45] gear is very, realistic, and it looks like they, they were in [00:03:50] the world as opposed to just like a fake kind of cosplay thing. And then there was like science stuff, random [00:03:55] science stuff. So that's the, layout. People buy tickets, they go in, they walk [00:04:00] through and just watch people show off their stuff. You can talk to the [00:04:05] exhibitors. Most of my time was talking to people and teaching them about [00:04:10] neuroscience and the, the thing that I was trying to build and, what it was for. And you come across [00:04:15] a interesting crowd because this is the, I guess I'll call it the Bay Area, San [00:04:20] Mateo Bay Area. So some people coming in and saying, "Oh, I've studied neuroscience, so I know what this [00:04:25] is," and then some people coming in saying, "I have no idea what this is. Can you teach me about it?"
[00:04:29] Nathan: [00:04:30] Stuff like that.
[00:04:31] Nathan: That's the gist of Open Sauce, and that was It was fun. It [00:04:35] was a good collection of people, We've talked a little bit about what an [00:04:40] event in person could look like, and this was one of the opportunities where I kinda got to see how things [00:04:45] were run and then how it was organized and what happens [00:04:50] when you have a lot of people all interested in different things at [00:04:55] once.
[00:04:55] Nathan: We were talking a little bit before that before this about, about that kind of [00:05:00] stuff
[00:05:00] Andrew: So TLDR,
[00:05:01] Nathan: there. This
[00:05:02] Nathan: will... Yeah.
[00:05:03] Andrew: Don't do it [00:05:05] live.
[00:05:05] Nathan: Effectively.
[00:05:06] Nathan: Mean, I-I-I- it's it's interesting. I think if you if [00:05:10] you talk to a few exhibitors here, or at least there's like a Discord where all the [00:05:15] exhibitors are chatting around, and many of them say like-- they say, "Don't," [00:05:20] but then, "Oh yeah, I'm coming back next year."
[00:05:21] Nathan: So there's something
[00:05:22] Nathan: interesting about it.
[00:05:23] Andrew: do it. But [00:05:25] like to toast, don't.
[00:05:27] Nathan: Oh, to, oh to create, to create it, [00:05:30] yeah. I think the, biggest takeaway for, me was as an exhibitor [00:05:35] seeing other exhibitors who
[00:05:37] Nathan: Maybe don't have the same background as I [00:05:40] do. Like we talk a little bit about business stuff, right? So we have that sort of mentality. [00:05:45] Seeing some of the other exhibitors who are doing very, cool and interesting things,
[00:05:49] Nathan: [00:05:50] they just don't have the same idea of like building a business out of it or taking the idea [00:05:55] and then turning it into something else.
[00:05:56] Nathan: So it's very much the crowd of "I did this cool [00:06:00] thing. Check it out. Isn't that great?
[00:06:01] Nathan: Isn't it cool?" but they don't see how it can be [00:06:05] applied. That I think was a sort of a missed opportunity where it was a place to show off, but [00:06:10] no one was really trying to think about the practical use [00:06:15] cases.
[00:06:15] Andrew: You gotta like that kind of stuff too, 'cause it's... I think everyone thinks that it'll just [00:06:20] kinda happen, and it... You get the serendipitous by just getting people in proximity, but you do [00:06:25] have to have some kind of a forcing function. It-- And I think partly it's 'cause [00:06:30] like kids these days don't know how to do it, but also the group of [00:06:35] people that you're working with are also tend to be very introverted folks for the [00:06:40] most part, or shy, or whatever labels we're putting on folks.
[00:06:44] Nathan: [00:06:45] Right
[00:06:45] Andrew: And, like that's okay, and not everyone has great public speaking [00:06:50] skills or is extroverted. And some of the greatest inventions in [00:06:55] our human history are from people who like probably didn't talk [00:07:00] that much to like most people, and that's fine, right? It's like I know all sort-- I work with [00:07:05] engineers, right?
[00:07:05] Andrew: It's like I know all sorts of people who fit that. But this idea that it [00:07:10] seems like the modern idea is like you have to do it all and be really good at everything. And then, [00:07:15] yeah you need to be able to sell yourself, but at the same time it's like it's [00:07:20] unrealistic to expect every great idea or invention to [00:07:25] like kind of self-represent.
[00:07:27] Andrew: like the whole point of a
[00:07:27] Nathan: For sure
[00:07:28] Andrew: right? Is you get people who are great at marketing, you [00:07:30] get people who are great at sales, you get people who are great at engineering, and like ideally it's in some kind of a [00:07:35] balance.
[00:07:35] Nathan: Yeah, exactly. Some of the things that I saw people who were [00:07:40] open sourcing like processes that were like deep technologies and, I really got [00:07:45] reminded of some of the like tech transfer stuff that happens with universities where a [00:07:50] university has a patent or a process that's very, deep and the inventor is [00:07:55] they love talking about it, but they don't understand like how to take it and turn it into a business, right?
[00:07:59] Nathan: [00:08:00] So these universities will have tech transfer offices where they work with entrepreneurs and they give [00:08:05] them the patent and figure out how to get the, that into the
[00:08:07] Nathan: world. I think this is also one of those opportunities, [00:08:10] but, we've talked a little bit about it. The academic space, the academic world is a [00:08:15] little different.
[00:08:15] Nathan: It's, got its own ecosystem going on. It's got its own share of problems. But [00:08:20] this again, in the vein of open source, was an interesting opportunity to see some of that happening where[00:08:25]
[00:08:25] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:08:25] Nathan: guy is talking about this process of separating sediment from materials, and he [00:08:30] doesn't realize that it could be used in mining to, to pull, to do these crazy things. It's oh [00:08:35] that, that's really, cool. It's just he didn't have that
[00:08:37] Andrew: Yeah. The,
[00:08:38] Nathan: that, that perspective.
[00:08:39] Andrew: the [00:08:40] cross-pollination of ideas is like the whole point of the podcast, but also like it's, been this [00:08:45] need that I've seen that was one of the ideas I had in college, was like, there is [00:08:50] really no true cross-functional study [00:08:55] or application of domain knowledge. And it, everybody in the domain [00:09:00] seems to think that it's fine and it's good to go, and the reality is, [00:09:05] the people who are really doing the interesting creative stuff typically don't talk outside of their domain.
[00:09:09] Andrew: Some of them [00:09:10] do, and you get really cool things. But for the most part, they don't. That's like the exception by [00:09:15] far. And we're, we've lost all this like really good, [00:09:20] innovative, pollination, but we've also really [00:09:25] lost the, pushing of ideas from learning [00:09:30] about how other people are approaching problems.
[00:09:32] Andrew: We've talked a lot about this on the podcast where we've made [00:09:35] some really radical breakthroughs because two people in two different domains were just having [00:09:40] coffee and we're like, "Oh, yeah, I have this problem with this folding the [00:09:45] solar sail in the satellite." "Oh I just do origami randomly and have you tried doing an [00:09:50] origami fold?"
[00:09:51] Andrew: " What do you mean? Oh, so we can take something [00:09:55] that's compress the volume by 300% somehow because of the way we fold it? [00:10:00] Cool.
[00:10:01] Andrew: Does it work in space? We'll find out." tLDR, it works in [00:10:05] space. Yeah. So yeah, no, I, and I, love, that they're [00:10:10] getting folks together. I do wish though that these conferences would do more [00:10:15] to support those [00:10:20] pillars of, cross-pollination, of cross-domain thinking.
[00:10:23] Andrew: And it's hard to do that though [00:10:25] when it's the public
[00:10:27] Nathan: Yeah
[00:10:28] Nathan: Mean, s-
[00:10:29] Andrew: it's like a
[00:10:29] Nathan: [00:10:30] right
[00:10:30] Andrew: B2B. It's, just a different mix. It's not
[00:10:34] Nathan: Yeah. [00:10:35] So, Yeah. The acronym B2B, B2, B2C I, I think is a good way [00:10:40] to describe it because the one thing I, will give Open Sauce credit for is this [00:10:45] interesting mix of there's a general public that attend, and there are exhibitors that show, and then there are YouTube [00:10:50] creators, right?
[00:10:50] Nathan: So we are in this age where YouTube creators are like the new age, [00:10:55] celebrities, right?
[00:10:55] Nathan: So bringing the people to, or bringing those [00:11:00] creators to an event and having people come see them and those guys are sharing this sort [00:11:05] of, the cool stuff that other people are doing. I, think tapping into that [00:11:10] passion and that sort of like the, the coolness is one way to start invigorating the, connection, because I've [00:11:15] had so many people come to my booth, asking me questions even though they had no idea what I was doing.[00:11:20]
[00:11:20] Nathan: But they were so curious to learn, and I was like, "Okay, fantastic. I'm gonna do my best to explain this, [00:11:25] but I don't know how I can explain neuroscience
[00:11:28] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:11:28] Nathan: but give me-- let me take a [00:11:30] shot."
[00:11:30] Andrew: and that's
[00:11:31] Andrew: like the,
[00:11:31] Andrew: sales part, right? It's like you, you almost [00:11:35] need like almost... Here's an interesting idea. It's almost like you need to do [00:11:40] a mini Y Combinator
[00:11:41] Nathan: Ah, interesting. Okay.
[00:11:43] Nathan: Yeah,
[00:11:44] Andrew: So it's like your [00:11:45] exhibitors, you give them a-- You get a-- You build a kind of a frame... And so for folks [00:11:50] who don't know, Y Combinator is an investment vehicle that will take companies, give them a little [00:11:55] bit of knowledge around running a startup, and then expose them to a bunch of stuff.
[00:11:58] Andrew: And so I don't... [00:12:00] This is not an endorsement. Frankly, I
[00:12:02] Andrew: Probably wouldn't recommend it for most companies [00:12:05] or people. But
[00:12:06] Andrew: the the mo-
[00:12:07] Nathan: the, unicorn, right?
[00:12:08] Andrew: Yeah, the model is interesting. [00:12:10] But what I mean by that is that like you, you-- how [00:12:15] do I distill this down? Having 10 minutes or 20 minutes with somebody who's really good at marketing or [00:12:20] sales to listen to your stuff and help you compress that down into "Here's the three [00:12:25] things that, you know, a normal person who doesn't know anything about this could [00:12:30] be interested in," or how you would communicate it.
[00:12:33] Andrew: And then it's how do you [00:12:35] self-edit, right? That's a hard problem too of there's all the detail you really do need to [00:12:40] know for what you're doing, but it's like what's that like couple sentence or couple paragraph [00:12:45] like
[00:12:45] Nathan: The pit, the
[00:12:46] Andrew: the hook kind of thing.
[00:12:48] Andrew: And then, [00:12:50] But the elevator pitch thing kind of works for like introduction, [00:12:55] but to get anything valuable you have to be able to crack past that.
[00:12:58] Andrew: And so it's like you need to [00:13:00] go from that elevator pitch to then what level of disclosure [00:13:05] is like appropriate for the right per- That's a sales thing, right? It's [00:13:10] some people are tech people and wanna know the stats. Some people are feel people and want [00:13:15] it to feel really well to them or they have what is their [00:13:20] like motivator for purchasing.
[00:13:23] Nathan: Yeah,
[00:13:24] Andrew: And in a [00:13:25] way you're selling the idea, and it would be, I think, helpful for these events to do that kind of [00:13:30] stuff or even just have and the thing is nobody wants to pay for this kind of stuff, blah, blah, [00:13:35] blah, all the problems. But the reality is the need is there. And even just building like a framework [00:13:40] or a template or a toolkit and then taking the time to enforce it, to not just say, "Here's a PowerPoint [00:13:45] deck, go read stuff."
[00:13:46] Andrew: "Okay, we're gonna run through with you. You have five minutes to sell us [00:13:50] on the, thing or one minute to sell us. Here's some feedback. Good luck." That would make the thing [00:13:55] a billion times better. And I do this
[00:13:58] Andrew: With, engineers on [00:14:00] my teams, right?
[00:14:00] Andrew: It's like I'll be like, "Hey..."
[00:14:02] Nathan: did this.
[00:14:04] Nathan: Did
[00:14:04] Nathan: we?
[00:14:04] Nathan: not do [00:14:05] this? Yeah.
[00:14:06] Andrew: Maybe.
[00:14:07] Nathan: We, ran-- We, had a virtual one of-- We basically just [00:14:10] recreated the same I
[00:14:11] Nathan: swear
[00:14:11] Andrew: yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like that, [00:14:15] but for me that, the, thing that we demoed was more [00:14:20] around, once you're past that kind of introductory stage of the thing, like, how do you
[00:14:24] Nathan: [00:14:25] Yeah. Okay, sure. Different
[00:14:26] Nathan: Yeah, different
[00:14:27] Nathan: depth. Yeah
[00:14:28] Andrew: this, it's, the, [00:14:30] people don't get past the introduction, 'cause they'll just sit at the booth,
[00:14:33] Nathan: Right
[00:14:33] Andrew: then someone will come up and be like, [00:14:35] "What are you doing?"
[00:14:35] Andrew: And you're like, "I'm working on transcranial direct stimulation." They're like, "I don't know what any of those [00:14:40] fucking words mean. Good luck." And then they'll peace out or whatever, right?
[00:14:43] Nathan: Yeah I think that, that was one of the [00:14:45] other things about the audience here is, some people, they don't care for the [00:14:50] business in that sense, right? There, there's so where there's this weird counterculture kind of thing where [00:14:55] like they build something cool, but they're really just not interested in turning it into a business thing, whether it's because [00:15:00] it's their art form or their hobby and they don't wanna turn it
[00:15:02] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, I know, but I use sales as a [00:15:05] template because that's how you communicate to people
[00:15:08] Andrew: about something.
[00:15:09] Nathan: one of the most [00:15:10] effective ways about the value of something that
[00:15:11] Nathan: You're, building, Right.
[00:15:12] Andrew: 'Cause if, you're just doing it as a hobby, you probably shouldn't [00:15:15] be there. I don't know. I've never been,
[00:15:16] Andrew: but like-
[00:15:18] Nathan: to clarify, sales doesn't necessarily mean you're [00:15:20] trading something for financial value,
[00:15:21] Nathan: Right. Anything you're
[00:15:22] Andrew: but
[00:15:22] Nathan: selling on what you-
[00:15:23] Andrew: yeah, you gotta get people [00:15:25] interested in the idea and you have to understand how different people are thinking about it. [00:15:30] Because if you just wanna do your little thing and, or your thing and be fine, great, but then why are [00:15:35] you at a convention with a bunch of people if you don't want to expose people to that idea?
[00:15:39] Andrew: But that also [00:15:40] requires work from you, right? You have to sell people on, "I have 3,000 [00:15:45] booths I could look at. Why would I look at yours?"
[00:15:47] Nathan: You're right
[00:15:48] Andrew: Is, that question, [00:15:50] right? And you look at it in different frames, but I think that's the frame where [00:15:55] it's, for me at least, it makes the most sense.
[00:15:56] Andrew: And people are probably thinking high-pressure sales technique. No, I'm talking [00:16:00] bullshit. If you've ever bought something you've been sold and marketed towards, [00:16:05] you probably just don't even realize. The packaging you use really matters, right? If you have a [00:16:10] tech-heavy audience, you're leading with the tech specs of the flashlight or whatever.
[00:16:14] Andrew: If you [00:16:15] have a, tactile-driven audience, you have a cutaway in the plastic so they can feel the grip of the [00:16:20] thing or color, whatever the... There's... all the different sales lines, but [00:16:25] there's, It's motivations of people are pretty small when you actually start to look at
[00:16:29] Nathan: Right, [00:16:30] right
[00:16:30] Andrew: people, and you always get the outliers, but most people are motivated by a few different things.[00:16:35]
[00:16:35] Andrew: And you're going
[00:16:35] Andrew: to
[00:16:36] Andrew: the event, right? You're self-selecting
[00:16:38] Andrew: into The, thing,
[00:16:39] Andrew: [00:16:40] right?
[00:16:40] Nathan: Yeah, exactly. So I, think that was a good w- lens of putting on it is, like there [00:16:45] were lots of, There were too many of different types of people there. Like some [00:16:50] people were
[00:16:51] Andrew: Yeah
[00:16:51] Nathan: to connect with their folk.
[00:16:52] Nathan: Some people there were to talk about something. Like I [00:16:55] was there to talk about something and try and get people interested in something or to, to do something or play a [00:17:00] part of
[00:17:00] Andrew: Yeah. And we have free advice for the founders, but like I've [00:17:05] been to some of these types of things where you break it up into like [00:17:10] information exhibitors or hands-on exhibitors or
[00:17:14] Andrew: Feedback [00:17:15] driven. So it's like I wanna go... It's like the Costco idea, right? I wanna go tr- sample the snack [00:17:20] before I, I try it.
[00:17:22] Andrew: Okay. Or I'm just like really interested in like [00:17:25] what you break it down by branch, like science or like engineering, like they [00:17:30] already did. But you have to go down even further to say I want I [00:17:35] have hands-on product, I have theoretical whatever how... And that's for them to try to [00:17:40] figure out how you...
[00:17:41] Andrew: I, think and I understand, I've done very large [00:17:45] events, thousands and thousands of people. Me, myself, no one else. No, I've, I [00:17:50] of course was part of a team, but like I've been a part of that kind of stuff and it's, [00:17:55] always very challenging. But the thing that makes like a good event a great [00:18:00] event is the little bit of attention to detail in those spaces.
[00:18:02] Andrew: If you're just throwing tables up and expecting [00:18:05] people to YOLO it, like
[00:18:06] Nathan: Yeah, That yeah, 100%. The, again, it goes [00:18:10] back to some of the, the intentionality stuff that we were talking about, right? Be, a little
[00:18:12] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:18:13] Nathan: in why you put things
[00:18:14] Andrew: Yeah, [00:18:15] but, but the world is... This kind of stuff probably worked in the '50s and [00:18:20] '60s when the whole world wasn't polluted with information. But it's the people walking [00:18:25] through the exhibit hall are probably getting pinged constantly on their phone with God knows what distractions.[00:18:30]
[00:18:30] Andrew: The- there's so much noise now that you really have to figure out a way to [00:18:35] cut through it enough to get that. And then a lot of people have the attention once you [00:18:40] But you have to break through that shield of just I'm so overwhelmed with the world [00:18:45] yelling stuff to me that I, need to, to break through that somehow[00:18:50]
[00:18:50] Nathan: Yeah that's a, cool way to put it. I, like the idea of like a, an event organizer being the [00:18:55] curator of action. You design the event such that there's some outcome that you're [00:19:00] hoping to get
[00:19:00] Andrew: that's why
[00:19:01] Nathan: lead people
[00:19:02] Andrew: it's institution, it's Western philosophy, right? [00:19:05] It's it's not Andrew's idea. It's just this is this works really if you do [00:19:10] it, but it, the bar is also pretty low. And I'm not trying to pick on them. I, don't... But it just, in speaking [00:19:15] in general, I've done a lot of these things from like consumer, been a part, [00:19:20] and it's the ones that are the most successful have a way to facilitate [00:19:25] individual, exchange as well as small group.
[00:19:28] Andrew: And
[00:19:29] Nathan: Yeah.
[00:19:29] Andrew: That [00:19:30] mass chaos of an event hall, but then you have breakout groups where you get [00:19:35] people who are interested in a niche thing the opportunity to either get [00:19:40] exposed to something else s- circulate and exchange. 'Cause you wanna [00:19:45] grow the people in the niche, but you also wanna graph the niches in a sense and get [00:19:50] other niches exposed to niches that you might not know exist,
[00:19:53] Nathan: Yeah,
[00:19:54] Andrew: my humble [00:19:55] opinion
[00:19:56] Nathan: No I, think I totally agree with you. I an- anecdotally [00:20:00] at this event, the exhibitors were all the ones who were knowledgeable about their s- respective domain, [00:20:05] but we were all so busy talking to the general public, we didn't get to connect with each other, which [00:20:10] arguably probably could have added more value to whatever we're all interested in, right?
[00:20:14] Nathan: Yeah.[00:20:15]
[00:20:15] Nathan: Yeah
[00:20:15] Nathan: For sure
[00:20:16] Andrew: this shit optional, right? But, it's just more planning and it's [00:20:20] the execution. Execution's the hard part
[00:20:21] Nathan: Yeah, it's as
[00:20:22] Nathan: always. As always.
[00:20:24] Andrew: Yeah,
[00:20:24] Nathan: Yeah.[00:20:25]
[00:20:25] Nathan: Honestly, it always has been, but yeah,
[00:20:26] Andrew: D- did you have a favorite thing that you encountered that wasn't [00:20:30] yours?
[00:20:30] Nathan: Oh, that's a very good question.
[00:20:33] Andrew: You're like, "My thing sucked. I would never [00:20:35] do it."
[00:20:35] Nathan: No, so one of the things I thought was, pretty interesting and pretty cool [00:20:40] was they did their own little mini BattleBots thing. So they had a robotics
[00:20:44] Nathan: [00:20:45] hall where they did have a stage, and it was like casual [00:20:50] BattleBots where not all the, the robots there were meant to like actually try and destroy each other, but
[00:20:54] Nathan: [00:20:55] just showing off all of them hanging out together.
[00:20:58] Nathan: There was a BattleBots show where [00:21:00] they did have robots trying to destroy each other's robots, but that was separate. But at, the same time, it was like [00:21:05] cool to see that in like a, a mini fashion because I'm in... I, don't know how [00:21:10] old some of the audience is, but MTV used to have this BattleBots TV show [00:21:15] where it was
[00:21:16] Andrew: I think he lost most of the audience on TV
[00:21:19] Nathan: elaborate...
[00:21:19] Nathan: [00:21:20] It
[00:21:20] Nathan: was an elaborate
[00:21:21] Andrew: but not
[00:21:22] Nathan: Yeah, You could-- I'm sure you could find clips of these [00:21:25] things on YouTube,
[00:21:25] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:21:26] Nathan: it used to be a show where they would have, Yeah. And then [00:21:30] I, think you think about it and it's, such an enormous waste of [00:21:35] money. Like people put thousands and thousands of dollars into engineering and hardware for building these [00:21:40] robots just
[00:21:40] Nathan: to see it get destroyed in 10
[00:21:41] Nathan: seconds.
[00:21:42] Nathan: But
[00:21:42] Nathan: Sometimes it's entertaining.
[00:21:43] Andrew: BattleBots one is where you try to [00:21:45] have two or more robots fight each other.
[00:21:48] Nathan: Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:48] Andrew: I have a, a cousin who does [00:21:50] this in, in high school. I think it's a college thing too, but
[00:21:53] Andrew: they they [00:21:55] challenges.
[00:21:55] Nathan: in, universities. Okay,
[00:21:56] Andrew: but they do t- yeah, so it's like you have to move [00:22:00] a thing up a grade and put it in a bucket, but you can't use
[00:22:04] Andrew: levers or [00:22:05] something, right?
[00:22:05] Andrew: Like, yeah.
[00:22:06] Nathan: that do this. Yeah. They make a challenge or they have a an obstacle course for [00:22:10] robots, and you try and
[00:22:10] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:22:11] Nathan: robot that can go through the entire obstacles
[00:22:12] Nathan: course. And each course has something [00:22:15] unique where one sort of architecture for a robot would, excel, but not another.
[00:22:19] Nathan: [00:22:20] So it's like,
[00:22:20] Nathan: how do you balance out what... Whether you wanna use a humanoid robot or [00:22:25] a bot on wheels or something
[00:22:26] Nathan: depends on, on whether you think...
[00:22:28] Andrew: of stuff.
[00:22:29] Nathan: That'd be cool. Yeah, [00:22:30]
[00:22:30] Andrew: talk about cross-disciplinary, there's a, a cool competition where there's an underwater [00:22:35] version of this where it's not only do you have to do robotics and stuff, but you also have to [00:22:40] deal with marine environment, which is a whole 'nother level of hell that you have to go [00:22:45] through.
[00:22:45] Nathan: Wow
[00:22:45] Andrew: that, that's cool. I didn't realize it was so expansive either.
[00:22:48] Nathan: Yeah, I was not ex- I was [00:22:50] not
[00:22:50] Nathan: expecting it. Yeah. Yeah, I w- I wasn't expecting it, A- I, [00:22:55] think there was also something about, about m-makers or, exhibitors doing something with [00:23:00] food, but I, think that was also a big question was, like, if you're making something, can you sell-- I think that was, [00:23:05] like, outlawed,
[00:23:06] Andrew: Oh, yeah
[00:23:07] Nathan: making certain types of food and they couldn't sell it or [00:23:10] something.
[00:23:10] Nathan: I, Don't quote me on this, but there, was
[00:23:12] Andrew: I'm... It's California, right? So yeah, they have [00:23:15] cottage food laws that, are really,
[00:23:17] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:23:17] Andrew: prohibitive from doing
[00:23:18] Andrew: Like that
[00:23:19] Nathan: that was just [00:23:20] to, comment on how expensive it was. There were people who were, creating things that were edible and and not, [00:23:25] Th- there was also, for me, I thought it was interesting that there's a, there was an arena and [00:23:30] they were doing taser fighting they would equip two people, they would equip two people in some protective [00:23:35] gear, and each person had a taser, and whoever got, whoever hit the other person with the taser [00:23:40] first would, win. It's one of those dumb things, but it's kinda fun.
[00:23:44] Andrew: [00:23:45] Okay. I'll take your word for it. I'm
[00:23:47] Nathan: So yeah, that, that was interesting,
[00:23:49] Nathan: um
[00:23:49] Andrew: [00:23:50] Okay. That's cool. And then we'll link to the, open source stuff that you put out [00:23:55] for the TDCS. I always get the
[00:23:57] Andrew: numbers wrong.
[00:23:58] Nathan: So i-in [00:24:00] preparation I, did set up like a little website that was meant to be like an interactive booth in case [00:24:05] I couldn't talk to people which happened more often, but then I also underestimated people's [00:24:10] attention spans. I bet no one's, sitting there reading the, thing, but [00:24:15] there's some visuals and stuff like that.
[00:24:17] Nathan: You could...
[00:24:18] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That'd be [00:24:20] cool
[00:24:20] Andrew: I did not do anything remotely that interesting, I don't [00:24:25] think.
[00:24:25] Nathan: I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I think
[00:24:26] Nathan: your day-to-day is probably as interesting, if not
[00:24:29] Nathan: more [00:24:30] interesting
[00:24:30] Andrew: I should just do a, like a, put a cam up in here and just watch
[00:24:34] Andrew: Andrew do [00:24:35] his life.
[00:24:35] Nathan: stream it? Yeah, you just
[00:24:36] Andrew: Be about me yelling at AI
[00:24:39] Andrew: saying [00:24:40] inappropriate things. Yeah
[00:24:41] Nathan: 50 agents at once.
[00:24:43] Andrew: I think I'm now generally up to about [00:24:45] 12
[00:24:46] Nathan: Okay
[00:24:46] Andrew: 12
[00:24:47] Andrew: Going on? Yeah
[00:24:49] Nathan: not to go [00:24:50] beyond maybe five or eight because then it-- I'm spread too-- across too many things at once.[00:24:55]
[00:24:55] Andrew: I, I, that's int- okay, that's actually interesting. So I have [00:25:00] multiple features of three different products I'm working on [00:25:05] in
[00:25:05] Andrew: parallel.
[00:25:06] Nathan: I think that's the advantage you have is you have three different projects, so you can just
[00:25:09] Nathan: spin [00:25:10] up engines on those projects and they're, self-contained.
[00:25:12] Nathan: Or they're bucket-- or they're verticalized or [00:25:15]
[00:25:15] Andrew: yeah. The but yeah, kinda tying into the Open Sauce thing. So the Open Sauce [00:25:20] thing is all about getting people across like engineering, science, art together to [00:25:25] do stuff.
[00:25:26] Andrew: One of the, the products that I've been working [00:25:30] on, years probably. Like I've been, I've worked on [00:25:35] this problem set for a long time, but,
[00:25:38] Andrew: uh, yeah
[00:25:39] Nathan: years and [00:25:40] then I was like I, know, what you're talking about here,
[00:25:41] Andrew: Oh, no.
[00:25:42] Andrew: The, The, the, product has only [00:25:45] been, yeah, the, product
[00:25:46] Andrew: Only been spinning
[00:25:47] Andrew: a little bit
[00:25:48] Nathan: the philosophical ideas [00:25:50] behind this and, concepts behind it for, yeah, as long as we've known each other, so
[00:25:53] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:25:54] Nathan: Sorry. Continue [00:25:55]
[00:25:55] Andrew: yeah, no, it's all good. I don't like to plug stuff I do, which is weird 'cause the whole [00:26:00] thing is about...
[00:26:00] Andrew: Maybe I should more 'cause,
[00:26:01] Andrew: like, I did the live stream and, people were all into it
[00:26:04] Nathan: the sales and [00:26:05] marketing stuff.
[00:26:05] Andrew: Oh no, I can sell the shit out of it. That's not the problem. I just, I [00:26:10] just don't want the podcast to be like Andrew shills his own
[00:26:12] Andrew: stuff kind of thing. But [00:26:15] a lot of what I work on, though, is applicable to what we talk about, so I'm like, I don't know.
[00:26:19] Andrew: I like, I live [00:26:20] the life. This isn't an act.
[00:26:22] Andrew: Yeah, so I built a product, [00:26:25] for non-technical folks to be able to leverage AI to build [00:26:30] solutions to their problems, in a nutshell. I haven't thought about a sales pitch. I should probably [00:26:35] go read what I wrote on the website. But the, the core problem is [00:26:40] the AI tools are fine.
[00:26:42] Andrew: People have opinions. I don't care. [00:26:45] They work for the most part, and the two caveats I gave [00:26:50] were fine and for the most part, and that's where most people get tripped up, right? Technical people,
[00:26:54] Nathan: [00:26:55] ん。
[00:26:55] Andrew: Either power through it or have the knowledge to get around the shortcomings for the [00:27:00] most part, or just ignore it.
[00:27:02] Andrew: That's a whole thing. Non-technical people know [00:27:05] enough typically to get themselves into a painted corner and not realize that they're in a [00:27:10] corner or that they painted themselves in a corner and that the room actually doesn't have doors [00:27:15] now.
[00:27:15] Nathan: Yeah.
[00:27:16] Andrew: So you can vibe code anything, right?
[00:27:19] Andrew: But y- [00:27:20] you, don't know what you don't know, and if you're not an expert in building software [00:27:25] or know what the blind spots of AI are or know even what to ask [00:27:30] AI to help you with, it- you're not gonna get very far.
[00:27:33] Andrew: And the [00:27:35] current approach to this has been use CloudCode or Codex or [00:27:40] Antigravity or Cursor. There's a million tools out there. The problem I'm [00:27:45] finding with all these tools is that they're really developer-driven or they're tech- techy-driven, [00:27:50] and I think that it's now time for us to make it easy for [00:27:55] people to do stuff.
[00:27:56] Andrew: And so I built Couldi it's Couldi, [00:28:00] C-O-U-L-D-I.xyz, with the m- the non-tech folks in [00:28:05] mind, but kind of two distinct audiences and, it's interesting why I think I get, [00:28:10] got to this. One is for solopreneur folks. So I, know quite a few people who have like [00:28:15] vibe coded a solution and then can't get it out to the world.
[00:28:19] Andrew: What do I do with [00:28:20] it, right?
[00:28:20] Andrew: It, it, maybe it runs on my computer, maybe I think it runs on my computer. I don't know [00:28:25] what to do next. Or they get it out to the world, and they have no idea what kind [00:28:30] of a ticking time bomb they've just released to, to, to, humanity. [00:28:35] And I would argue that people probably don't need to know all that.
[00:28:39] Andrew: [00:28:40] Maybe they shouldn't, but there isn't really a lot of great tooling for that [00:28:45] problem, and the way most organizations are, or people are doing it [00:28:50] is they either go to something I don't think I'm gonna mention specific[00:28:55]
[00:28:55] Andrew: Companies.
[00:28:55] Nathan: certain tools that are out there
[00:28:57] Andrew: companies that provide
[00:28:59] Andrew: [00:29:00] tools. Yeah,
[00:29:01] Nathan: will automatically put something up on the web for you.
[00:29:03] Andrew: But they lock you [00:29:05] into their paradigm, or they hyper-specialize and focus [00:29:10] in specific tool sets or verticals.
[00:29:14] Andrew: And with AI, you don't need [00:29:15] to do that. And so-- But there's a lot of reasons why they do that. I [00:29:20] understand why they're doing that. So I, built a tool that doesn't do that. And so the, the, [00:29:25] tool, I don't even-- That's really not the tool, it's a product. The product helps [00:29:30] you get through the build process, but also helps to expose, in [00:29:35] user-friendly ways. So a user, again, is like a non-technical person. Technical people, you can use this [00:29:40] too. It's, I...
[00:29:41] Nathan: If you want to
[00:29:42] Andrew: If you want to, Yeah,
[00:29:43] Andrew: it's Y-yeah, I [00:29:45] know, right?
[00:29:45] Andrew: You're not-- It's like tech people are not the audience, but it still totally works. It's just what, do you [00:29:50] wanna spend your time on doing or how do you wanna go about doing it, like every other [00:29:55] tool. But it helps you w-with non-technical language, and it [00:30:00] understands what you're trying to accomplish in ways that a lot of these, [00:30:05] foundation model tools or things don't or don't do well.
[00:30:09] Andrew: [00:30:10] More importantly, it's also helping you get through the tech process of deploying [00:30:15] software in a responsible way, in a secure way, a-and [00:30:20] also helping find those deficits that you might have, ex- as specifically as [00:30:25] a solopreneur. How do you write the marketing copy? How do you have a privacy [00:30:30] policy?
[00:30:30] Andrew: What privacy policies do you need? What laws do you need to address? And so there's [00:30:35] all these things that if you wanna start a business, you wanna try an idea it's just, it's a lot [00:30:40] of fucking knowledge. It's a lot of work, right? And you can figure this out on your own if you want, right? It's [00:30:45] not...
[00:30:45] Andrew: I don't know that it's hard, but it's a lot. And most people wanna just [00:30:50] focus on their idea and try it. And maybe you have a little bit of traction and you're trying to grow. That's a little bit of a [00:30:55] different... But maybe you have an idea and you wanna, so up until now, we've [00:31:00] had the landing page companies or a shopping portal kinda [00:31:05] company, but building actual software that you could sell, like a SaaS product, is not really there.
[00:31:09] Andrew: [00:31:10] There's a couple companies that are kinda doing it, but it's still more techy or it's really narrowed down. The [00:31:15] other audience for this is still non-technical folks or, less technical folks [00:31:20] but also in the growing enterprise. So it's like you have a, company of a few people, or maybe [00:31:25] you have a company that isn't a tech company.
[00:31:27] Andrew: You have technology in every company at this point, [00:31:30] but you're you're not a software company. You make tractor parts or something, [00:31:35] right? But you wanna use AI, and you have some IT staff or you have some engineering [00:31:40] support, but they're not... Their primary focus is to not drive the enterprise forward.
[00:31:44] Andrew: It's not to [00:31:45] drive the tech forward. And so you're losing this huge opportunity Because [00:31:50] you give everybody AI and they spend a lot of money and you don't really know what happened. You [00:31:55] give everybody AI and they all invented the same thing.
[00:31:58] Nathan: Yeah
[00:31:58] Andrew: all, they ... You have te- [00:32:00] 10 tools now to do the one thing that everybody thinks they need to do.
[00:32:03] Andrew: And so the, the [00:32:05] problem set, the, the thing I like about how I've designed this and [00:32:10] how it's developed is that it'll grow with you from one to many, or you can jump in [00:32:15] at many and get really valuable because I think the paradigm [00:32:20] that people will become is we're actually now to the point where you can build your own, software solutions [00:32:25] for the problems you have.
[00:32:26] Andrew: The problem with most people who are non-technical is they don't want to build the [00:32:30] software. They just want to solve the problem. And so we've abstracted a lot of that away. [00:32:35] You still have to know what you want to do, you still have to know what you want to accomplish. We can help you through [00:32:40] that.
[00:32:40] Andrew: But a lot of all this other stuff, these dependencies that you just need to [00:32:45] know but don't want to deal with, you don't have to deal with anymore. And so from a small business or a, a [00:32:50] growing startup kind of idea, the example I use all the time with folks is you [00:32:55] need customer support now.
[00:32:56] Andrew: You have customers, right? Your shared email box or [00:33:00] your help desk system doesn't really work, or you don't have access to ... You have [00:33:05] the data, but you don't have a customer service tool to actually get information to people Engineers [00:33:10] have no problem, right? Run a query. Maybe you can learn SQL at NR.
[00:33:14] Andrew: I'm
[00:33:14] Andrew: trying to [00:33:15] be grace- great graceful.
[00:33:16] Andrew: Um,
[00:33:17] Nathan: Yeah
[00:33:18] Andrew: There's associated, all sorts of [00:33:20] problems with that. So like something like, CouldI can be deployed in your environment, get you [00:33:25] your solution in a safe way that you can trust. I think that's another huge thing. It's not gonna [00:33:30] invent something in your, a tech stack that your company has no knowledge in.
[00:33:34] Andrew: You can [00:33:35] restrict that kind of stuff, or it'll figure out what you're using in, your environment to [00:33:40] be compatible. 'Cause the worst thing with vibe coding is like you get the solution, [00:33:45] but it doesn't fit in what your infrastructure is, right? Or[00:33:50]
[00:33:50] Andrew: It it, won't scale with the data that you have.
[00:33:53] Andrew: And so those are all [00:33:55] problems that we've solved.
[00:33:56] Nathan: Right
[00:33:57] Andrew: controlling spend and understanding like [00:34:00] everybody's building the, CMS tool, right? The content management [00:34:05] for...
[00:34:05] Nathan: management system.
[00:34:06] Andrew: Now you have a way to know that, right? And you [00:34:10] can either let everybody do their own personal CMS if that's what you wanna run, cool.
[00:34:14] Andrew: Like [00:34:15] there's, no rule book here. Or you can consolidate efforts. And I think the, [00:34:20] cool thing that I like is, like project discoverability, where if you wanna try to build something that [00:34:25] already exists, it'll tell you like, "Hey, this is... Have you considered these things or
[00:34:29] Andrew: [00:34:30] You Have
[00:34:31] Andrew: you tried using Salesforce?"
[00:34:34] Andrew: If you have [00:34:35] Salesforce.
[00:34:35] Andrew: And then also helping you through that problem. So like maybe the, the tools that you already [00:34:40] have doesn't do what you need and you either need to like pigeon something in to an existing tool, which you can do, [00:34:45] or maybe you just need to build a little like simple dashboard screen thing to [00:34:50] get some information and take an action and that saves you an hour per [00:34:55] customer call because you have to have 10 different sources in one spot to look at things, right?[00:35:00]
[00:35:00] Andrew: It's an easy thing that every company's done with. I, can hear people saying AI's gonna do all our customer service [00:35:05] for you." Okay, you lost. Good luck
[00:35:07] Nathan: Yeah. Yeah
[00:35:09] Andrew: But [00:35:10] it's everybody that I've talked to who's [00:35:15] non-technical, their companies are having this problem. If we spend a bunch of money or we don't really know where the spend is, or how do we [00:35:20] contain this environment?
[00:35:21] Andrew: And so a lot of companies are falling back to that [00:35:25] kind of control model of gating the use of the tool or [00:35:30] gating what people can do, 'cause you don't want somebody just testing something and throwing it into [00:35:35] production necessarily, probably. Most, companies probably don't want that. Some companies probably don't [00:35:40] care.
[00:35:40] Andrew: So you need to be able to, have some lever of [00:35:45] guardrails so that you're not bringing down the entire production system or [00:35:50] whatever. But you also need to accommodate people who need to get their job done, and you need to cut out all [00:35:55] these fricking meetings that everybody hates going to and spending all this time in.
[00:35:58] Andrew: And why not just [00:36:00] give the people who are closest to the problem the ability to enact solutions to, to [00:36:05] expand and grow and, exponential. It's like that mindset is also very different for a lot of [00:36:10] leaders because they exist to control things. I put out a LinkedIn post about [00:36:15] this earlier.
[00:36:15] Andrew: It has nothing to do with the, with Kudai. But it's, We were talking a little bit [00:36:20] earlier, and I th- the biggest problem that I have with users right now is that they have to [00:36:25] unlearn all the bad habits we've developed because it- we've gone from [00:36:30] technology makes no sense to most people, so we need IT to come in and they're understand the [00:36:35] technology enough and people enough to bridge the gap.
[00:36:38] Andrew: And then it became, now [00:36:40] you're accountable for making sure the data's secure, whatever, so then there's a big control thing. [00:36:45] And then you get the self-built technology where you have engineering people who actually know how to build the stuff [00:36:50] and not just configure and run it. But now they don't want they, or they gate the n- the [00:36:55] knowledge back because they don't wanna work with people, or they don't wanna to do the things they don't wanna do, [00:37:00] right?
[00:37:00] Andrew: So you have to
[00:37:00] Nathan: Yeah
[00:37:00] Andrew: of that mindset and that's the majority of the conversations I have is, [00:37:05] like the, the current way of working that people are used to and [00:37:10] trained for is nonexistent. They just don't realize it yet. And [00:37:15] when a lot of people have experimented with that, they get catastrophe.
[00:37:19] Andrew: And [00:37:20] so Kudai is a tool to help bridge that, to have some [00:37:25] organizational visibility and guardrails that make sense, but also giving people [00:37:30] effectively the blank canvas without giving them the blank canvas, 'cause most people don't wanna start from scratch, and you shouldn't have [00:37:35] to start from scratch, right?
[00:37:36] Andrew: So it's bridging all these problems together, [00:37:40] and I'm trying to think. I think the other big piece, the third big pillar... [00:37:45] Yeah, I'll, and I'll
[00:37:45] Andrew: stop my
[00:37:45] Andrew: sales pitch. The, yeah
[00:37:46] Nathan: I was gonna ask are, you looking for people to, to u-- [00:37:50] I don't know if you've mentioned like I
[00:37:52] Andrew: Yeah. You're in it, yeah
[00:37:54] Nathan: are, you... [00:37:55] Yeah are you opening this up for, for people to use this? 'Cause I'm sure a lot of
[00:37:57] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah
[00:37:59] Nathan: would [00:38:00] have probably seen this problem or encountered some variation of it.
[00:38:04] Andrew: 100%. Yeah, so [00:38:05] we're in private preview, I guess I would call it. So there's a, [00:38:10] You can sign up on the website, to get in, and it's [00:38:15] really just, we're trying to limit the growth in [00:38:20] a sane way to scale. Anybody who's scaled stuff knows problems. But [00:38:25] the, third piece of this that I think is probably the most important is that [00:38:30] We're in a new working paradigm.
[00:38:31] Andrew: We should probably talk about that at some point and break it down. We are, [00:38:35] trust me, like you might... You see the symptoms of it. You don't quite... A pr- a lot of people haven't really [00:38:40] intellectualized that we're there, but we are. I live this every day. I don't know what else to say. [00:38:45] It definitely is real.
[00:38:46] Andrew: But the, the thing that [00:38:50] people aren't really thinking about, there's a couple-- I've seen a couple conversations about it. But this idea [00:38:55] of the, doing and the almost the execution is now done. Like [00:39:00] the AI will execute stuff for you a lot of times. You still don't wanna outsource your judgment, but like it's [00:39:05] getting better and better all the time.
[00:39:06] Andrew: And as you kind of build systems and start to understand how [00:39:10] to interact with the AI and using tools like CouldI, you start to build these [00:39:15] layers, and then you get more leverage. But the, [00:39:20] true the corpus of like what makes your business, special or unique [00:39:25] is not now what you can build, and it's not really
[00:39:27] Andrew: what you can execute on.
[00:39:29] Andrew: It's [00:39:30] your process. It's your creativity. It's your [00:39:35] problem-solving. It's the problems you've solved. It's how you've chosen to navigate [00:39:40] those problems. And so a lot of these AI tools, you're just giving [00:39:45] all that to Anthropic. You're giving all that to OpenAI. You're giving all that to Google. So you might not wanna give away [00:39:50] your special sauce, but you also probably don't know what your special sauce is.
[00:39:54] Andrew: Every [00:39:55] organization I've ever worked with, very few people have an, an idea of how the thing actually works. They know [00:40:00] their little piece, or they know their like little horizontal piece. [00:40:05] AI it's context is king. And I, know some people are probably saying the AI can't possibly [00:40:10] know all the context."
[00:40:10] Andrew: There's ways around that, and it's getting better every [00:40:15] time. But the thing that CouldI is really solving for, and w- part of why we're [00:40:20] slow-rolling the pilot, is that people are calling it like a company brain or like [00:40:25] it's... How do you get the institutional knowledge that your [00:40:30] company has and make it valuable and useful without also exposing it [00:40:35] necessarily to a model provider or, having it [00:40:40] leave your control?
[00:40:41] Andrew: And I'll tease that there 'cause I think it, [00:40:45] it's- A, a difficult thing for a lot of folks to grok 'cause they don't think about it and they don't even [00:40:50] realize that, me and a couple folks can probably build any [00:40:55] technology platform in a weekend and be relatively [00:41:00] competitive. Having a thing that you build and sell is not a moat [00:41:05] anymore.
[00:41:06] Andrew: We've talked about this a little bit. You still have to have brand reputation, you still have [00:41:10] to have marketing, you still have to have trust, you still have to operationalize the business, and that's still [00:41:15] hard. But that moat that was like just building the thing used to take [00:41:20] months and cost tons of money.
[00:41:22] Andrew: Not anymore really. Is it [00:41:25] 100%? Could I build Slack overnight? No. But could I build something that's functional enough that can scale quick [00:41:30] enough that could take it out? Sure. That's what... I don't care, but sure, [00:41:35] right? It, Especially if you have a, a, a small group of people. And, [00:41:40] people just don't realize that yet 'cause they try to put these...
[00:41:42] Andrew: They, try to do AI. I've seen [00:41:45] this personally and I've hear this still, like almost daily from [00:41:50] folks. " My CEO says I need to use AI." And so they give you Claude code, and now you're in a terminal. [00:41:55] Most people don't know what a terminal is. They don't wanna know what a terminal is. They don't know how to interact with it, and they don't know what a slash command is, and they [00:42:00] don't know what they don't know, and they don't know what a repo is, and why is it asking me all these questions?
[00:42:03] Andrew: Or why does it tell me [00:42:05] my idea is the greatest idea in the world? You've already lost most people. And, for [00:42:10] folks who are old enough to maybe remember, this is how email used to be, right? Email was [00:42:15] awful until Outlook came along and gave you a nice little window. Or actually it was really [00:42:20] AOL, but like in the business world it was, like, Outlook.
[00:42:23] Andrew: And it sucked, but you're like, [00:42:25] "Okay, it makes sense. The user interface, I get it. It's like a memo. I'm still doing [00:42:30] memos. The electronic thing's a little faster, it's a little easier for me to use." But you had to have some IT nerd come and set it up. And [00:42:35] then, And you had to have an email server at your company. And then Outlook.com, [00:42:40] Hotmail Gmail came along. And then when Gmail came along they, cracked it, right? They're like, [00:42:45] "Anyone in the world signs up for free, or you have a business, you pay a few bucks. We do all that techie [00:42:50] crap stuff for you, and we just let you use the product."
[00:42:53] Andrew: And it's, it was like [00:42:55] this magical moment, and now everybody just takes it for granted that it's really easy. We used to have to run [00:43:00] commands and stuff. I sh- we should do a show where like I email s- you on the [00:43:05] terminal and show people how fucking crazy it is, right? 'Cause it all comes from [00:43:10] mainframes, and it used to be like you and I were logged into the same mainframe,
[00:43:14] Andrew: and [00:43:15] we're in different parts of the world or different
[00:43:17] Nathan: It's like an inbox, it was
[00:43:18] Nathan: basically back in the day. And that's where the that's where the [00:43:20] term inbox came from.
[00:43:21] Nathan: Yeah, email
[00:43:21] Nathan: inboxes came from that, yeah. Yeah
[00:43:23] Andrew: do I like talk to [00:43:25] Nathan?
[00:43:25] Nathan: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:25] Andrew: phone line's tile- tied up 'cause I'm, that's how I'm getting into the mainframe. Oh, [00:43:30] Nathan's not online or not on the mainframe because there's only me. I'm the only one who can [00:43:35] dial in 'cause we have one line. How do I leave a message for him so that he can check on [00:43:40] something, right?
[00:43:40] Andrew: And then that evolved into now Nathan's on another mainframe and I need to send [00:43:45] him some information, file
[00:43:47] Nathan: Yeah.
[00:43:48] Andrew: or whatever, right? And so that, and then it
[00:43:49] Nathan: Right [00:43:50]
[00:43:50] Andrew: there. anyway I'm like conflating the pitch with just the problem [00:43:55] set 'cause I think the problem set's more interesting and could I as a solution to that.
[00:43:58] Andrew: And I think,
[00:43:59] Andrew: I don't know, [00:44:00] for me in the podcast, again, it's like I don't wanna necessarily just rep my book, but it's the problem set [00:44:05] is going to be the next massive challenge, and giving somebody a terminal and [00:44:10] a chatbot AI is not a solution for 99% of the population. And it shouldn't [00:44:15] have to be.
[00:44:15] Andrew: You shouldn't have to learn how to use the technology to make it... It, if you expect people to learn your [00:44:20] technology, you've done it wrong as a product
[00:44:22] Andrew: person
[00:44:23] Nathan: Yeah. We could probably [00:44:25] dive deeper into... To be honest, I think a lot of the conversations when we do talk about AI has [00:44:30] some elements of the problem set that we, we, it keep, just keeps coming back because
[00:44:34] Nathan: we-we're, [00:44:35] again, just it's, a, persistent problem. And in, in all honesty, I [00:44:40] do think there's something that at least for, me, I'm, I missed...
[00:44:43] Nathan: There's something I, [00:44:45] don't think is going to be a-- It's not a, a step change kind of thing, right? It's a sort of something where it [00:44:50] slowly becomes whether something clicks or not, it doesn't automatically just roll [00:44:55] out. There, there's sort of the adoption curve or the,
[00:44:57] Andrew: No. And it's, [00:45:00] two parts, I think. So it is an adoption, it's a new technology, so there's just [00:45:05] that. There... It's, it's a different kind of technology. So like almost every technology [00:45:10] that's come before AI, like you had a bunch of people trying to make it work. Like [00:45:15] the email protocol existed, right?
[00:45:16] Andrew: So it's like you are confined by what you can do with it. And [00:45:20] you're like, "I want to send a file." that doesn't work. How do we figure out how to build a file? I'm not interested in that. I'm just [00:45:25] gonna send text. I'm really interested in that. How do we make it how do we get an attachment?
[00:45:28] Andrew: But with AI, [00:45:30] it's like the, the, landscape is almost endless in that, [00:45:35] like there really isn't a user experience. Like the, chatbot and prompting and everybody gets all [00:45:40] fucking nerdy about this stuff, and it is and it isn't. But, it, [00:45:45] is... The people who are successful with AI are the curious [00:45:50] people and the people who know how to ask questions and know what they don't [00:45:55] know and push for that, which is a skill set you can learn and develop, but most people don't have that.
[00:45:59] Andrew: And [00:46:00] even in a business environment, most people don't have the time necessarily. [00:46:05] And, In order to be effective at AI, you shouldn't also have to know all this. Like you should [00:46:10] have to know what you don't know and know how to push. But if-- I-- [00:46:15] We've both worked in h- healthcare and, HIP- do you really need to be a HIPAA expert to build [00:46:20] software?
[00:46:21] Andrew: De- depends what you're trying to do. I would argue no, in that AI [00:46:25] should be able to get you 90% of the way there, and then have a [00:46:30] handoff moment with people who know the rest. But you've now [00:46:35] taken the adoption curve from we have to have a bunch of meetings, try to figure this out, understand everything you're [00:46:40] doing, months and months to I spent a few hours on [00:46:45] CouldI, built this thing that I can now hand over to the engineering team to say, "Hey, I need to hook this up to [00:46:50] patient data.
[00:46:51] Andrew: What's next?" And then it's probably a few minutes of [00:46:55] "Oh, I need to understand what, you're thinking, where you're coming from." And now we've just condensed [00:47:00] months of stuff into a few hours [00:47:05] and now we hopefully execute on that. If you're in an envi- and I'll say just [00:47:10] transparently, CouldI is not HIPAA compliant today.
[00:47:12] Andrew: It is on the radar. It's a whole thing. [00:47:15] It's mostly human problems, frankly. It's not technical. It's just... But, the [00:47:20] problem though then becomes is it's too hard or it's the learned behavior [00:47:25] of putting up barriers because yes, it probably is too hard. You'd have [00:47:30] to certify it with whatever protocol vendor, whatever.
[00:47:33] Andrew: Now AI can do most of that, right? [00:47:35] And so instead of taking six months of engineering time to certify an [00:47:40] application, you can have AI probably do it in hours [00:47:45] and tweak it. But that's a total mindset work shift from [00:47:50] I don't wanna do the work or I don't have the time and capacity to do the work or I can't, I don't understand the [00:47:55] work to actually you don't really probably need to.
[00:47:57] Andrew: You just need to know how to work with [00:48:00] the tools to get the output to what you need to verify. It's just a to- [00:48:05] it's an outcome driven kind of total different mindset. And so that's on top of the tool's hard to [00:48:10] use, right? That's why forward deployed engineers are like the new [00:48:15] fucking buzzword in the Valley, right?
[00:48:17] Andrew: Is it's getting a engineer who knows how to [00:48:20] talk to people and knows how to do engineering stuff in your business to help you through that. We used to call it [00:48:25] consulting
[00:48:25] Andrew: Or post-sales engineering or pre-sales engineering where you come in and do an analysis of what [00:48:30] the person actually wants. I, frankly think like it's, that is [00:48:35] needed, but I think we're missing the paradigm shift by [00:48:40] deploying in that way because again, it's familiar to the people who are trying to [00:48:45] keep the old way of doing things
[00:48:48] Nathan: Sure.
[00:48:48] Andrew: Contemporary[00:48:50]
[00:48:50] Nathan: Right,
[00:48:50] Andrew: like we're, we can get past this and it freaks people out [00:48:55] and it's like, okay, then you're gonna get left behind.
[00:48:57] Andrew: I don't know what to tell you.
[00:48:58] Andrew: Yeah
[00:48:59] Nathan: is hard. People don't [00:49:00] like to change, right? All right. Anything you wanna close us out with?
[00:49:04] Andrew: [00:49:05] No
[00:49:05] Nathan: All right. Change is hard,
[00:49:07] Andrew: Change is hard.
[00:49:08] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:49:09] Nathan: but it's coming.
[00:49:09] Andrew: [00:49:10] I like it. See you next week.
[00:49:11] Nathan: Cool. See ya.
[00:49:12] Andrew: Bye.