00:41:58 · Danny Fortson, George Sivulka
[00:41:58] S2: So he said he wasn't investing, but he's giving you a check. [00:42:01] S4: No. He said he was like, I'm not usually doing this. Like, it was during coronavirus and the markets were going crazy. And he he's like, yeah. I'd like to toss in a check-in. And there were other investors that were kind of interested and then very interested, and and so we put together a bit of a party round, and and that was our that was our pre seed in August. [00:42:18] S2: Gotcha. And then you had a series a win? [00:42:22] S4: So then we actually had a seed. So shortly thereafter, Michael will be at Index Ventures, the founder of Index's SF office in in North America presence. Actually, heard about Hevia through his daughter who had who had gone to Stanford with me, and I think we we had we had taken an Italian class together. And somehow, you know, I seemed smart enough in Italian class that that she knew in in starting this company. And she introduced me to Mike. And I'm like, I'm not meeting investors. Know, we're not we're not gonna... We just raised around. And I went on a walk with Mike in Woodside, where Mike just, like, was one of the most compassionate and wise human beings that I've ever met. And and so we raised the seed from from Mike at Index very shortly thereafter in November. And then he actually, as an insider, led the series a two years later and has also participated in very meaningful way in our series b. [00:43:14] S2: So people are actually paying for Hebia, like real grown up companies with money or giving you money?
00:43:14 · Danny Fortson, George Sivulka
[00:43:14] S2: So people are actually paying for Hebia, like real grown up companies with money or giving you money? [00:43:20] S4: More importantly, they're getting value out of Hebio so they can attribute a dollar sign ROI and then pay us, which is which is what we we what we care about. [00:43:29] S2: Getting back to that... The idea of AI agents, you think this is kind of real that AI agents will become this thing that is just kind of ingrained in how business is done across industries? [00:43:44] S4: Here's a prediction. I think that the majority of The US GDP will be created or attributable to AI agents in the next decade. So more than humans. [00:43:56] S2: That is a prediction. [00:43:57] S4: It's a prediction. [00:43:59] S2: The follow on, of course, is what happens to us carbon based life forms. Like, I presume the answer is it's not a zero sum game. Just because they're doing more doesn't mean all of a sudden we don't have jobs. But what what does that look like?
00:43:59 · Danny Fortson, George Sivulka
[00:43:59] S2: The follow on, of course, is what happens to us carbon based life forms. Like, I presume the answer is it's not a zero sum game. Just because they're doing more doesn't mean all of a sudden we don't have jobs. But what what does that look like? [00:44:12] S4: You know, if you look at the amount, that is contributed to the GDP by computers today or by the structured information processing systems, which are all of computers up until 2020, I would say that it's actually still also greater than humans depending on how you cut it or or or pretty, pretty, pretty close. And so if you think about AI being on the order of impactful to the economy and to the human race as computers, it doesn't mean that there's no more humans. It just means that it... Like, honestly, right now, computers are the best traders. The best returns in the world are coming from quantitative funds. There's still 90% of the tasks that humans do are unstructured and and, you know, things that AI can do, but that doesn't mean there's gonna be no more tasks. I think it will actually grow the economy. And so I'm not saying that 50% of the world will be fired. I actually think that, it will grow and it will, like, take over a greater, you know, part of the economy than what humans and computers are doing right now. [00:45:09] S2: So we'll all have more time to go study coral reef brains. [00:45:15] S4: Or we can just go to Micronesia and and not have to not have to chill. Yeah. Wrangle our grad school programs.
00:45:15 · George Sivulka, Danny Fortson
[00:45:15] S4: Or we can just go to Micronesia and and not have to not have to chill. Yeah. Wrangle our grad school programs. [00:45:25] S2: Cool. Is there anything else you think it's worth keeping in mind when we think about this AI moment? Because I do feel like a lot of people are are freaked out. There's, like, buckets of people. Right? Total skeptics, people that are completely freaked out that this is gonna destroy their job or entire industries. And then a... Probably perhaps the biggest bucket of people who are like, I don't know what's happening. I don't get it. It's all just feels a little bit overwhelming. But I think kind of all of it's true. Right? It does feel like this is kind of a bit of a a moment when you think about, the potential for progress and kind of certainly economic opportunities. Societally, it's, I think, very much TBD.
00:46:08 · George Sivulka
[00:46:08] S4: Yeah. I think on on the economic side, I and the business side, I go into every customer conversation I have and I say, like, AI does not work right now. AI is fundamentally broken. And I, like, kinda validate that because I think that is true. That as a baseline and then us showing what we do relative to other AI programs is the only way that I've ever kind of been able to to to portray the difference and to actually get to value because there's so many people are so disillusioned. But on the, you know, business business, SaaS aside, on the on the... On this what... How it's gonna impact humanity, think there's an interesting element of people just being afraid of large language models or or or a foundation model just getting so good that they could be a potential threat to our safety and security. And you see a lot of people that are, like, accelerationists, make them bigger, make them faster, and you see a lot of people that are, like, stop training. Like, please, we don't want anything else. We don't want more AI. We have enough AI. And I'm more on the acceleration side. I think that it will be good for society. But I understand that all of these kind of nerdy people that wanna stop AI or they think AI is gonna end the world, they're doing something very logical, which is saying there is a one or, you know, a few percent chance or maybe it's even, you know, one thousandth of a percent chance that AI could end the world or could have a really bad outcome. That's an infinitely bad scenario. And so even if it's much more likely for AI to be very good, the mere fact that there's some chance that, hey, humanity might actually be negatively impacted or it might impact our safety, security, our international hegemony, the way that the world works right now, is so dangerous and so scary that it is actually worth you know, that they take the Bayesian probability or maybe a Bayesian approach to analyzing how bad that is and they multiply it by infinitely bad and they're like AI is infinitely bad, even if it's only a very small percent. But I think that's rational and fair, And I I care that we're we're making the most responsible, choices when we develop these systems.
00:48:21 · Danny Fortson, George Sivulka, S5, S6, S7, S0, S8, S9, S10
[00:48:21] S2: Well, look, thank you for taking the time. It's been a really fun conversation. We'll definitely, have you back on as as the world moves forward at frightening speed. [00:48:30] S4: I'm looking forward to it, Danny. And I'll I'll bring my my coral Neuralink next time. [00:48:35] S2: Please do. I wanna see that. Yes. And that is all the time we have. I wanna thank George. I want to thank you all for listening for the ratings, for the reviews, for spreading the word about the pod. Yeah. That is it for me this week. We'll be back with another episode next week. And next week, I will give you a little heads up about some changes coming to the pod. Oh, yes. Exciting times at Danny in the Valley Towers as it were. So keep your ears out for that, but that is it for me this week. Have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you next week. Bye bye. [00:49:27] S5: People are disappearing again just like before. [00:49:33] S6: Nocturne. Streaming on Apple TV on the October 30, Lief Schreiber. [00:49:39] S7: Walter has a way of getting to people. When he does, they [00:49:41] S6: don't come back. Steven Graham. The world [00:49:43] S7: is full of dark places. Zarcee Beats. [00:49:47] S0: How's he getting messages out? [00:49:48] S8: He's locked under six feet of concrete. [00:49:49] S9: She's still alive. [00:49:51] S10: I'm a fighter. [00:49:52] S6: Nocturne. Streaming on Apple TV on the October 30.