Sources with Alex Heath
00:00:00 · Tony Zhao, Ellis Hamburger, Alex Heath
[00:00:00] S0: So we have the hand and the gloves. You actually don't have to use a whole robot to be generating data to train the robot. Right now, we are actually having, like, more than 500 people in The US as contractors, and that's how we train the robot without, like, needing to deploy it in the first place. [00:00:16] S1: Helper or Terminator. Today's robotics startups are racing ahead, and some are more style than substance, being accused of fake demos and even suspicious data collection practices. So today on Access, we've got Sunday Robotics founder Tony Zhao. They're the creators of Memo, a lovely little household robot. But unlike everybody else who trains on videos and simulations, they've also got the Memory Glove, an exact replica of Memo's hand, which over 500 trainers are using to collect data on dozens of household chores. But first, we hear from Alex live in Davos at the World Economic Forum, where we discuss nightcaps with bigwigs, what was Thinking Machines thinking, and much more. Welcome to Access. Alex, what's going on over there? You buried in snow and whiskey and heads of state? [00:01:07] S2: Pretty much. I do not know what time it is. It's 12:30AM here. What time is it in LA? [00:01:15] S1: It is 03:30, and it's a nice peaceful afternoon. I haven't been intimidated by any, prime ministers today.
00:01:15 · Ellis Hamburger, Alex Heath
[00:01:15] S1: It is 03:30, and it's a nice peaceful afternoon. I haven't been intimidated by any, prime ministers today. [00:01:24] S2: Yeah. I guess for those who don't know what we're talking about, I'm in Davos, Switzerland, for the Illuminati IRL, the World Economic Forum. Here doing some live interviews for Sources, which is fun. And, it is a trip being here. This is my first time to Switzerland and obviously first time at the at the forum and the conference. And, yeah, man, I just, took Pappy Van Winkle shots next to Well I Am and the White House's senior tech adviser. So that's that's been my night. [00:01:59] S1: I think they could arrest you for taking shots at Pappy Van Winkle. That's expensive stuff. Don't let anybody see you doing that. But, yeah, you look you look cozy. You got, like, a nice wood panel ceiling. I see the flag in the background. You don't look too much worse for wear, though. There's kind of, like, a sepia tone over your entire frame. I don't know if that's just, like, poor health in general or just the grit of the light. It's poor lighting [00:02:24] S2: and poor health. [00:02:26] S1: Well, is anybody actually talking about economics or is it just [00:02:31] S2: Oh, yeah. [00:02:31] S1: Circular money exchange as we've come to expect from the Illuminati? [00:02:36] S2: No. Yeah. I mean, every... It's kinda funny. I feel like... [00:02:38] S1: Yeah. I feel like
00:02:38 · Ellis Hamburger, Alex Heath
[00:02:38] S1: Yeah. I feel like [00:02:39] S2: I'm just kinda, on the sidelines here because it's such a political thing. I mean, at least half of the g seven is here. Trump will be here tomorrow and everyone's talking about... Apparently, they jam all the cell signals when he's traveling in an area. So from, like, one to four tomorrow, there's gonna be no cell service. So everyone's like, does your Starlink upload work? Like, these are the kinds of things like... You feel like you're in, like, a a TV show. Like, it's it's this just weird bubble, that is really hard to explain unless you're here. I mean, I'm staying in a in a chalet that I'm sharing with, like, the former head of the NSA. [00:03:19] S1: Why were you invited? I forgot to ask. [00:03:21] S2: I don't even... [00:03:23] S1: Well... They're like, yo, we gotta have sources.news on the ground.
00:03:23 · Ellis Hamburger, Alex Heath
[00:03:23] S1: Well... They're like, yo, we gotta have sources.news on the ground. [00:03:28] S2: No. My friend Ash at Brunswick invited me and I'm doing interviews at the Brunswick Home. Brunswick is a PR firm, but I don't know what this says about me, that I can go to a Davos happy hour and, like, know people there. I think it means that I'm probably have over indexed on networking in my career, to a point where now I should probably just dial back and like hide in a hole somewhere, or just go off on the mountain here and ski. I mean, it's beautiful, man. It's, yeah. I'm like, I'm staying on a ski slope. And the juxtaposition of like waking up every morning and seeing the most beautiful, you know, like mountains I've ever seen and then trekking to the, the KPMG AI house, to watch, you know, whatever's going on, that day. It's it's quite something. [00:04:19] S1: What's the highest quality water that you've consumed? [00:04:22] S2: I mean, Swiss are are very good with the water. I will say the tap water is great. They really love sparkling water. Everything's sparkling. They're an interesting people. They're they're very hospitable, but also, would say, independent. You know? Like, they... It's it's just the kind of a [00:04:38] S1: That tracks with what I've read on Wikipedia about that culture. [00:04:41] S2: But, like, to get, you know, to get back tonight, I was like, oh, yeah. I need to figure this out. I need to hike up the mountain to to come back and pod with you. So
00:04:41 · Alex Heath, Ellis Hamburger
[00:04:41] S2: But, like, to get, you know, to get back tonight, I was like, oh, yeah. I need to figure this out. I need to hike up the mountain to to come back and pod with you. So [00:04:50] S1: What elevation are we at? Is that helping with the newsletter writing or or hurting it? [00:04:54] S2: I don't... I'm... It's like 6,000 feet, whatever that is in meters. It's pretty wild. I mean, you'll walk down the street here and it's like it's like Eric Schmidt or like a head of state and, like, instead of an entourage, it's like one person with them, you know. There's just... It's such a small space to have so many high net worth powerful people, whether it's from tech, you know, business, politics, whatever. Everyone's like regulated to the same space in a way that is just very unusual. I've never seen anything like it. [00:05:25] S1: So how do you, like, remember all the conversations? Do you have, like, a Rolodex that you bring with you in, like, aluminum suitcase? Or, like, how do you how do you do that these days? You've gotta be, like, a contacts app master.
00:05:25 · Ellis Hamburger, Alex Heath
[00:05:25] S1: So how do you, like, remember all the conversations? Do you have, like, a Rolodex that you bring with you in, like, aluminum suitcase? Or, like, how do you how do you do that these days? You've gotta be, like, a contacts app master. [00:05:39] S2: My memory for now is okay. I mean, we'll see after a few nights of this how it is, but my memory is, still serving me well. I mean, have that... I talked about this on our CS episode. Like, I have a scratch pad where I just kinda note app jot things down, which is only decipherable by me. And granola is my best friend. I mean, I have granola meetings and, you know, I'm kinda shameless about that now. I don't really know how I could do, like, turn... Do a live interview and turn around a newsletter three hours later without it, you know, because, like, the the team has not even been able to process the footage, from the interview by that point. So, yeah, man. I'm I'm, I'm running hard and heavy. It's it's a lot. [00:06:20] S1: Do you know the article that I'm most famous for, Alex? [00:06:23] S2: It had probably something with airplanes. [00:06:25] S1: No. Back at Business Insider, I incidentally stumbled on the world's best slideshow series of Android or iPhone, your favorite blank revealed. And I did it for, like, politicians, VCs, executives, sports stars, and it just went absolutely gangbusters. And so I wish I was there to do a beautiful reprise of that series, find out who's actually using the Pixel phone or not, or is it all iPhone, Pro Max, and orange?