00:54:49 · Molly O'Shea, Teresa Carlson
[00:54:49] S1: Who are some of the companies that you're super excited about that you're working with? [00:54:53] S0: Well, will tell a quick story. So many, first of all, there's like, I mean, and I would not wanna hurt any of their feelings because they really are all spectacular. The first fly in that we did, I'll call, we did our first report in March '5. We launched this thing in September '4 and we did our first report on healthcare. And it's out there, I'll make sure, Molly, I send you the reports that we've done. But this one we brought in, it was during the Cherry Blossom Festival last [00:55:28] S1: Oh wow. [00:55:29] S0: So we had cherry blossoms on it. And we brought, I think it was eight founders in, and we took them in to meet with lawmakers, and they were blown away. Hippocratic AI was one that I'll And Hippocratic does work with, they use agentic AI to do follow-up with patients. And he would play these recordings on Capitol Hill to senators and congressional leaders, congressmen and women. And they were like blown away how the patients were responding to an agent doing follow-up from a physician's visit. And one of the calls was, it was a tracker, and he was so funny. He called it Skylink. Remember the Arnold Schwarzenegger? He goes, Are you from Skylink? Skynet. Skynet, [00:56:20] S1: are you
00:56:20 · Teresa Carlson
[00:56:20] S0: from Skynet? It was just a laugh. I was like Arnold Schwarzenegger. But after the conversation went on, you heard him get involved with the conversation with the agentic AI. She answered all his questions. She got him back on track. And toward the end, he said, well, I'm driving. She goes, what? You just have to be safe. Let's follow-up in a little bit. But I've heard now probably 50 or 60 of these calls, and it's an example of it's game changing. And then you have companies like Cityblock. Toyin, CEO of Cityblock, who's actually doing care at the city, on the block of the city of those that are Medicare, Medicaid patients. And she works with states to actually make sure that those, and it's outcomes based care. They only get paid if they have the outcome. And our lawmakers was like, what? I didn't even know this existed. And then we had new insurance companies that were taking advantage of insurance models that was built during the first Trump era. Paragon, who is a company that's bringing testing to all individuals around the country, veterans, where you didn't have access to these trials, except if you were in a large city and they're working with pharmaceutical companies to make sure that clinical trials have access to everybody. So, I mean, just mind blowing. And one I'll say that's a standout, we have two robotics companies that are absolutely amazing. One, CoBot, that was founded by Brad Porter, who actually founded robotics at Amazon, and Evan Beard, has StandardBots, who is a robotic arm. And Evan had never been to Washington DC. His business is in Upstate New York. And he came and he was like, I didn't even know they would listen to me. And now they're calling And him for his he's done testimony on the hill twice. Wow. Yeah. And he's like, look, I've gotten contracts. He's been in major news journals now, but he just was like, and he's very humble. He's built an amazing company, but he's like, I just had no idea that they would listen to what I had to say. And now they're asking for my opinion. And that's what we try to teach them is that if you go in with humility and you go in with a solution orientation to these lawmakers and to the White House, they actually will call you back. Because, look, they get beat up all the time. They already know there's issues.
00:58:47 · Teresa Carlson, Molly O'Shea
So our philosophy is we want to be solution providers, not problem identifiers. And that makes it I'm telling you, it's a huge tone difference if we go in with, we want to be helpful. So at the Institute, we go in with a, we're here to help. Like we're not we're trying to help you at the industry. For America, we want to make America great with these companies. If we're in Europe, we take our European companies in and we say, look, they've already built this tool. They are working to make Europe great. They've built their companies here. We want them to stay in Europe. So it's the same kind of model. We were just in India at the AI summit there, and we had a lot of our companies there. So it's really profound to be able to help these countries with their resilience, but they also have to want to help themselves to make sure that they have right policies and incentives in place, ensuring that these companies grow and thrive. Otherwise, if you don't have the right incentives, they can't grow and thrive. [00:59:52] S1: Wow. We only have five minutes left, but before we close, have two last questions. One we were talking about before the cameras started rolling, but you noticed this, I noticed this, more tech figures are going to DC, they're learning how to dress. Like it's really nice to see something other than a sweaty t shirt. Yes, yes. And to see some suits. So how do you also help these companies and how do you prepare them to come to Do you tell them what to wear, where to go buy the clothes? Well,
00:59:52 · Molly O'Shea, Teresa Carlson
[00:59:52] S1: Wow. We only have five minutes left, but before we close, have two last questions. One we were talking about before the cameras started rolling, but you noticed this, I noticed this, more tech figures are going to DC, they're learning how to dress. Like it's really nice to see something other than a sweaty t shirt. Yes, yes. And to see some suits. So how do you also help these companies and how do you prepare them to come to Do you tell them what to wear, where to go buy the clothes? Well, [01:00:25] S0: I laugh. I was sharing, Molly and I were talking before, and when I was at Microsoft, I shared with you in the ten years I was there, which was 02/2010, I never ever wore blue jeans. I mean, I would have been mortified to walk into any customer, the White House or lawmaker. It was just very formal. And every man wore a tie, a jacket. Women mainly, they wore pants and all, but it was a lot of suit dresses too. And I just didn't know the difference. It was just how I was taught. And when I first started AWS, I did struggle at AWS. I would have to say, You can't come in flip flops. And I remember the guy who ran our infrastructure, I love him to death, but I go and pick him up at the airport. He's going into the CIA, and he's literally got on blue jeans like a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops. And he has no other clothes. [01:01:20] S1: Oh my gosh. [01:01:21] S0: And I was like, what? I was like, [01:01:23] S1: no. And it wasn't Palmer lucky.
01:01:27 · Teresa Carlson
[01:01:27] S0: Yeah, wasn't Palmer. But I called my customer and they thought it was so funny, though. They thought it was so cool. So they were okay. He did a fantastic job. And, but yes, we did and we tried to do it in a very respectful way, but to say, look, you're coming in, it's just, it doesn't show respect. You know, a lot of them don't always wear ties, but a jacket, suit, like, you know, nice suit jacket, button down or a very nice polo shirt underneath. But you've got to go in and look buttoned up and put together. Otherwise, I just don't think you're serious. And I know some people would disagree if you are Andrew or other. Yeah, once you establish yourself. But for most, I wouldn't assume that you can do that. I think if you really want to be taken seriously, you need to show up looking serious with them because they have a lot of people coming at them. And again, earlier there was not many of these companies, so they kind of maybe thought it was cool. Today there's a lot more companies and they are showing up. And the Trump administration, I would say with this administration, one of the things that they are doing that I've not seen in my entire career is how much more commercially oriented they are. And they are willing and open to meet all these companies. And I want them to take it very seriously. They're opening contracting opportunities. They're doing executive orders that are opening up for these companies. Like, I've literally never seen in my career. Under President Obama, Vivek Kundra, who was the CIO back then, was literally, he was the guy that brought in mobile devices and laptops to the White House. And that was during the first Obama administration. And since then, this is the administration in this term, I've seen them open up to do more things commercially for companies like this. And I feel like the opportunity is unbelievable right now. And I really want our companies to have an unfair advantage, all startups. And that's kind of what the General Callis Institute's all about, helping them with that unfair advantage.
01:03:41 · Molly O'Shea
[01:03:41] S1: It's been so nice to see the Pentagon visit LA so much, go to all the different companies, tour them, take the time. It's amazing.