00:38:56 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:38:56] S0: Oh, so you weren't technical beforehand? Like, you weren't dabbling in, like, computers and things like that? [00:39:01] S1: During high school? No. I like no. Yeah. Like, you know, played sports. Studied a lot, you know, like all the the usual stuff. [00:39:15] S0: Fair enough, though. [00:39:16] S1: It was pretty Yeah. I mean, Stanford's an amazing place. So, no, got super lucky. Got to go there, which is an amazing experience. Studied physics and computer science. Took a computer science course. Think it was because it was, like, required as, like, a intro course. Mhmm. Got really excited about that. Like, was just like, oh, this makes a lot of sense. I really enjoy this. So I started studying computer science, got really into machine learning, and then was also like, you know, always very passionate about physics. Mhmm. So I got to study both of those, which is amazing. Wow. And then had a couple of internships at like larger companies, and was like, okay, this is definitely not what I wanna do. Right. So I wanted to go into startups. So actually met the two co founders. So I was like the third co founder of a three d mapping company. Mhmm. I met them act... I actually had an internship. [00:40:00] S0: Oh, so you didn't meet them? I mean, they were at Stanford. Right?
00:40:00 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:40:00] S0: Oh, so you didn't meet them? I mean, they were at Stanford. Right? [00:40:02] S1: But you didn't meet them up No. No. No. These were these were folks... These are actually great. So they're much more senior than me. So they were like in their early forties. So it's actually amazing to learn from them. So I was kind of... Were they the two primary founders and I was like a junior co founder basically. Wow. So I like joined them super early and then, you know, we went through StartX together. We raised a bunch of seed funding together for this three d mapping company. But I got to learn from them, is awesome. Like they'd... Like one of them... They're both from Sony. Yeah. And so I got to learn a bunch about, like, how to run a company and how to fundraise and just, like, was, you know, in the pitches with them and just basically got to, like, learn the ropes. And exchange, like, know, built a bunch of really cool stuff. Like, we were doing three d mapping of indoor spaces. So taking pictures with your iPhone and then reconstructing a three d model. Oh, wow. Which back when we started, like, now it's, like, it's easy to do. There's, a bunch of different machine learning models and Right. Large language So one do that. [00:40:50] S0: One shot with.
00:40:50 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:40:50] S0: One shot with. [00:40:51] S1: Wouldn't quite say one shot, but it is, like, it is, like, much more feasible now. So back then, it was like a bunch of like competent... Complicated math. Like, this was like before deep learning actually. Or it was like right around the same time that it was taking off. Uh-huh. So we built a bunch of classic what's called structure promotion, which is how you reconstruct the three d geometry of the room, and then we did a bunch of machine learning on top of it in order to, like, extract walls and furniture and be able to paint stuff and all that kind of good stuff. They're still doing well. We were a consumer app, and so we had to pivot. [00:41:21] S0: Okay. Your favorite. Consumer apps. Yes. Yeah. Before we dive into that, like, what is your perspective on on the startup scene as a whole? Because, you know, you're you're building in, physical industries. Right? Yeah. That is a industry in in a niche that I'd say, like, is not, you know, properly commoditized yet. You know, if you're a It's like the ultimate commodity. Commodity by resource, not commodity by startup. You know what I mean? Right? If I were to say, hey, let me start a mining company.
00:41:21 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:41:21] S0: Okay. Your favorite. Consumer apps. Yes. Yeah. Before we dive into that, like, what is your perspective on on the startup scene as a whole? Because, you know, you're you're building in, physical industries. Right? Yeah. That is a industry in in a niche that I'd say, like, is not, you know, properly commoditized yet. You know, if you're a It's like the ultimate commodity. Commodity by resource, not commodity by startup. You know what I mean? Right? If I were to say, hey, let me start a mining company. [00:41:48] S1: Yeah. I'm Cook's. Why? You can just go do the thing. Like, you can actually like I don't even what to start, to be honest. That's my biggest message that, like, I think that... I've talked to a bunch of folks about this. Sure. And I was like, how did you go do this? I think at the end of the day, like, the the most fun, and I think the thing you realize as you get a little bit older is like you can just go do the thing. And like the usually people will like, generally speaking, if you're like earnest and hardworking and intelligent and like go after it, like people will pay you to try and solve hard problems. Sure. Like that's like a lot of it. And mostly they'll be like, you really wanna go do that? That's kinda that's kinda crazy. But you can just go do it. Like you can just like go and buy a mine, like it's not... Maybe you have to have the capital to do it, but like...
00:41:48 · JC Lozano, Ryan Deng
[00:41:48] S1: Yeah. I'm Cook's. Why? You can just go do the thing. Like, you can actually like I don't even what to start, to be honest. That's my biggest message that, like, I think that... I've talked to a bunch of folks about this. Sure. And I was like, how did you go do this? I think at the end of the day, like, the the most fun, and I think the thing you realize as you get a little bit older is like you can just go do the thing. And like the usually people will like, generally speaking, if you're like earnest and hardworking and intelligent and like go after it, like people will pay you to try and solve hard problems. Sure. Like that's like a lot of it. And mostly they'll be like, you really wanna go do that? That's kinda that's kinda crazy. But you can just go do it. Like you can just like go and buy a mine, like it's not... Maybe you have to have the capital to do it, but like... [00:42:26] S0: When's the... What's been the hardest part of of your journey of of founding, you know, this company that you're on right now? The hardest part? Yeah. Like, what's, like, the the experience or the journey you've been on that made you realize, yeah, this ain't easy? [00:42:39] S1: This is my third one. [00:42:40] S0: Yeah. So so we did the three
00:42:40 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:42:40] S0: Yeah. So so we did the three [00:42:42] S1: d mapping company, and then I was a founding engineer at a AI developer tools company called Kite. Uh-huh. We're doing AI developer tools back in, like, 2015, 2016. So we got to build probabilistic graphical models all the way up to, like, transformers that we trained ourselves. Mhmm. And then we were acquired, which is great, spent some time in big tech, a firm doing machine learning, underwriting, and ads, and a bunch of other stuff. So not unfamiliar with this. I think the biggest thing that is really, really difficult as you scale Mhmm. Keeping everybody going in the same direction, keeping the bar for culture really, really high, that's something I spend a lot of time on, is like I spend so much time. So myself or Turner, you know, chat with every single candidate that we hire still. Yeah. We have 300 people. [00:43:38] S0: Do you do the Brian Chesky method where you're like, hey, you have like five years left to live, you need to work now. Company? Jeez. I know a couple founders that do that. You could just talk I was doing that too, you know. Not not great, but [00:43:51] S1: No. Like, I just like... One of the two of us talks to every single candidate. [00:43:54] S0: How do you even feel for the candidate, you know? How do you know, like, this person is the one? Right? [00:43:59] S1: Well, like I think the most important part of like doing any of this stuff, right, is like the people that you get to work with. [00:44:05] S0: Mhmm.