Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:20:13 · Kevin Ryan
[00:20:13] S0: I'll use a good example. I was the first investor in a company called Rogo that is creating a product that investment banks use to supplement or replace the investment banking analyst job that many of us did a long time ago. And so bankers at Lazard and half of the top 30 banks are already in pilot or have rolled it out. It's a company that's probably worth close to a billion dollars now, it's four years old. So what do I look for? I look for the fact that they're using certain proprietary data that isn't even accessible to other people. I look for the fact that most of those companies don't wanna share their data with the large LLMs, because they have their own proprietary data. And the third thing I look for is, are there hundreds of small features that that sector needs that need to be done? In theory, someone can do it, but of course the reality is they don't do They're not gonna get to it. You know, if you... Right now, Sam Altman is worried about one thing. Is his general model better than Gemini or not? And right now, it's not. Yep. He has announced, for example, that he's gonna go after investment banking. But, you know, is that what he's focused on? Is he personally calling on the big banks? Of course not. He's not gonna get to it. You know, the way that DoubleClick beat Google, and Google had to buy DoubleClick, you know, twenty years ago, is because they just... They weren't... They didn't have a 500 people focused on this one area that were from the CEO on down on every single element of the business. You know, we just did a better job. And so that's what I that's what I look for there. I mean, open evidence is a good example. They have done a better job than all these large LMs because they focus on that. Only that.
00:21:51 · Alexa von Tobel, Kevin Ryan
[00:21:51] S2: We're very much mind melded to you, which is very, very specific areas that happen to be big enough surface area, but they're edge enough. We did an autism LLM. Yeah. It's one in thirty four kids. So it actually really matters, but it's not something that OpenAI is gonna come after tomorrow. Yeah. But that also isn't gonna go away, and and it's where the world needs advancement. So basic base... Basically big enough, but specific enough that it's still on the outer edges of the war between the LLMs. [00:22:26] S0: Exactly. And look. Do I think that some of the large LLMs will buy some of these companies? Yes. Yep. You know, if I were Google, would I be thinking about OpenEvidence? If I were Google or Microsoft, would I be thinking about a rogo over time if I think I'm not gonna win? That could happen. You know, I don't I don't have our companies thinking about that. They just need to build the biggest, best, and most profitable company they can over time, and maybe they go public. Maybe they sell. We'll think about that at a later date. Focus on the product. [00:22:57] S2: Yeah. I I I... We're we're mind melded there. Quickly on... Also similarly mind melded too on sort of what we're calling, like, the acceleration of science, which is is really sort of another huge surface area thesis. How do you think about that more specifically in in places where your antenna goes up?
00:23:21 · Kevin Ryan
[00:23:21] S0: Yeah. So... And for example, we're having a a conference called Deep Tech New York that we own. It'll be the first time in January on the on the twenty eighth, twenty ninth around there at New Lab. We'll have 200 people, and we're gonna be companies are gonna be presenting science and technology breakthroughs in energy and nuclear, in materials, science, things like that. And so I think it's really exciting. I think that's gonna grow in New York for a while. So what gets my antenna up is, you know, applications that are vertical applications. So I'm not thinking about a Roomba that is gonna be in your living room. That's something that the Chinese are gonna dominate over time. But there are very specific applications that occur in b to b businesses that are still enormous, enormous. So I'm excited about that. The energy side, you know, that problem and opportunity is not going away. So very bullish on nuclear, on battery technology, on transformation, on geothermal, on... You know, watching what's happened in solar in the last fifteen years is mind boggling. The costs have come down 90. It's the cheapest energy in the world, growing like crazy. Those things are gonna continue to happen. We're gonna continue to need more energy, we need to continue to get more efficient. So I love that field as well. I think we haven't done much in transportation, but you know, the role... Everything's going electric. And so I was an early investor in Archer, which is a publicly traded company for helicopters, but it's happening in planes. It's happening in trains. It's both driverless and electric. You know, that's a trillion dollar opportunity.
00:24:59 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:24:59] S2: Kevin, I always like to say that I come to work every day in 2035. I walk in. My job is to live in 2035 to 2036. If we Fast forward to 2036 in your mind. What do you see? What do you like? What's just like the stuff that you take as like almost terra firma of of of how you view the future?
00:25:23 · Kevin Ryan
[00:25:23] S0: Yeah. I mean, I'm... I I believe most of what people are saying in technology, even though it will take a little bit longer than people think. But do I think that... Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if we're getting close to 50% driverless cars in New York City by then. And I wouldn't be surprised if we're at easily 50%, 80% new electric cars that's happening right now, but also buses, subways, everything. I do think that we will have dislocation of jobs more than we would like. We'll absorb some of them, but I I think there'll be a spike in unemployment starting sort of starting a little bit now. We can already see that new hires are having trouble getting jobs, but I think that's gonna accelerate. So I think there's 10 to 20,000,000 jobs that will will lose over the next five years. Some of those will be picked up in other areas, but some won't be. So these are pretty big dislocations, and I think that we will get the price of energy down. I think that we'll cross over the curve on emissions. The really good news is the carbon emissions, for example, in The UK are now half of what they were in 1990. That is an untold story. China has hit peak emissions. They'll start going down. US has as well. So emissions will go down. The amount of fossil fuels we use has never gone down, but I think we get to the point where the supply goes up and the demand doesn't go up that much, and so prices will come down. All of that is good for the economy.
00:27:03 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:27:03] S2: Let's take a minute to talk about job loss because I know your value system and my value system are aligned to. You don't really want 20,000,000 people losing their job overnight like that. That is not gonna build the society that I think we all want. One thing I see Kevin is that many jobs that people don't want. So back office at a police station literally just doing reporting. The part of the jobs where nurses and doctors are just documenting something that can be done so much easier, more easily. We've observability businesses were like, no, you don't need to tell us that the telephone pole is tilted because like a device could tell us that, and so you didn't need to drive three hours to then drive three hours back to tell us it's in fact tilted. Lots of crappy jobs are gonna go away, which actually then allow those same people to keep their jobs and do more important work that where where humans are more necessary. So I I do have like a bit of an element of optimism where we're gonna get rid of the jobs that actually no one wanted to do quickly. But you're absolutely right that we won't replace all the jobs. How do how do we not have chaos here in America?