Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:36:18 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:36:18] S1: Not only do I agree with you, be back to companies, one called Bright AI, which is physical sensors for very specific categories, and Treeswift, which is physical robotics for trees and for overseeing forests. And so I I deeply agree with you, which is it's not a one size cuts all LLM that can solve, you know, millions of use cases. You actually need the datasets and to to go... And and and you're really building a very, very unique dataset that will be powerful here. Talk a little bit about, like, a contrarian view that you have. Like, what's an opinion that you have that maybe others don't have given your perch?
00:36:59 · Boris Sofman, Alexa von Tobel
[00:36:59] S0: Yeah. I'm pessimistic about this wave of humanoids. I think that this is technology that could be much further away than people think because there's still pretty massive advances that need to happen in tactile sensing and simulation. And particularly when you look at sectors like the consumer market where you have very high quality bars that people expect, price point pressures that are like extreme, you have so much combinations of technology risk and then product and market risk that I'm personally... I can understand the excitement about it, but the idea that there'll be this like universal kind of platform that kind of solves everything. In my mind, I think this could be almost like a .com style situation where it's not wrong, it's just off by a big period of time and there's like big advances that need to happen and it comes back and these things start to happen much later than people think. But the solutions that are actually much more practical are more surgically focused solutions that can provide really deep value focused on a particular application in industry. And so I am much less optimistic about that as a category of robotics immediately today as a practical kind of like, you know, near term business case. [00:38:18] S1: Do you mean humanoids in warehouses or humanoids in homes or all humanoids?
00:38:18 · Alexa von Tobel, Boris Sofman
[00:38:18] S1: Do you mean humanoids in warehouses or humanoids in homes or all humanoids? [00:38:25] S0: I say particularly in like homes and the idea of a 100% generalized solutions, I'm more optimistic of the idea of manipulation in fulfillment and a warehouse and assembly and manufacturing, where you customize it for the particular application you have, and you don't necessarily need to mimic the form factor of a human, you solve the problem with these technologies and eventually grow into something more generalizable. [00:38:47] S1: We share that opinion. Boris, last question before we move to the quick fire round where I just get some of your hot takes. What are you most excited about? One question, what are you most excited about?
00:38:47 · Alexa von Tobel, Boris Sofman
[00:38:47] S1: We share that opinion. Boris, last question before we move to the quick fire round where I just get some of your hot takes. What are you most excited about? One question, what are you most excited about? [00:38:59] S0: I think the pace of technology progress is the fastest I've ever experienced in my lifetime. I can't wait for it to start to have an impact on some of these spaces where it takes a little longer to break through, but can completely transform our lives, particularly in medicine, genetics, personalized treatment, where so much of it has been this painful progression of almost like iterative testing that can the way we've seen this transform a lot of these like digital and, you know, kind of structured physical AI problems. I think that's going to become much more prevalent in the next ten years. I can't wait for that to happen. And that may be the most transformative impact of AI, which I think that's sort of, that's actually kind of almost necessary, because there's this unfortunate negative opinion that's forming on AI, because it feels like society isn't universally being able to benefit from it. I hope that in places like education and healthcare, that's the most transformative and universal applications of these technologies to become possible. [00:39:59] S1: I agree with you on that. Okay, quick fire round before we let you go. What's a book that you recommend everybody read? What's a book that's had an outsized impact on your life? It can be any book. It does not have to be a business book.
00:39:59 · Alexa von Tobel, Boris Sofman
[00:39:59] S1: I agree with you on that. Okay, quick fire round before we let you go. What's a book that you recommend everybody read? What's a book that's had an outsized impact on your life? It can be any book. It does not have to be a business book. [00:40:11] S0: I loved Creativity Inc. This was actually Ed Catmull's biography in the history of Pixar, And it was just a fascinating story, but it was almost like this memoir on how do you create reproducible creativity that doesn't stifle the ability for individuals to like push their visions, but maintains the level of quality bar that you need as you scale a company. Was actually quite amazing, and I think applies to a lot of industries far beyond entertainment. [00:40:39] S1: That's awesome. What's a mantra that you have that kind of helps fuel your work? And it can be anything, a belief, but like sort of something that runs in the back of your head. [00:40:48] S0: I think the most incredible applications and solutions are at the overlap of industries that don't typically have commonality. And so, and we've seen this over and over again in, these types of companies where you bring backgrounds from completely different places, and the sum is far bigger than the parts.
00:40:48 · Boris Sofman, Alexa von Tobel
[00:40:48] S0: I think the most incredible applications and solutions are at the overlap of industries that don't typically have commonality. And so, and we've seen this over and over again in, these types of companies where you bring backgrounds from completely different places, and the sum is far bigger than the parts. [00:41:06] S1: I totally agree with you. I think it is the the the Venn diagram between truly divergent categories where you find wild unlocked for society. So I I deeply agree with that. If you had to talk about another category that you're just fascinated to learn about right now that is not constructioned, what is it? What's just another place where the the world is catching your attention?