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Speaker 1: Eight years ago, So mil Sing was Hamilton High School

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Speaker 1: ducks and a herald headline asked whether he might actually

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Speaker 1: be New Zealand's smartest teenager. He just turned down ten

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Speaker 1: of the world's top universities and decided to go to

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Speaker 1: univer to Harvard in the end. Fast forward to today,

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Speaker 1: he's living in New York. He already has one startup

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Speaker 1: under his belt, and he's about to launch a second.

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Speaker 1: So mil Sing is with us now.

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Speaker 2: He soml, Hey, how's it going? Very well?

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Speaker 1: Thank you? No tell me what you reckon? Do you reckon?

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Speaker 1: This startup is the winner?

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Speaker 2: Look early days. Still, that's always the hope, that's always

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Speaker 2: the intention with these things. You know, we're in the

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Speaker 2: space that's growing, rapidly evolving, and that often creates the

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Speaker 2: right kind of volatility to really drive a lot of value.

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Speaker 1: The space that's growing is AI.

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Speaker 2: Isn't it AI in all forms? Yep? So in our

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Speaker 2: case it's the content creation side. And if you look

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Speaker 2: at almost every sector, there's some really convincing narrative for

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Speaker 2: how these new foundation models are going to really impact

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Speaker 2: impact space.

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Speaker 1: So what does your business? So from the sounds of things,

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Speaker 1: if I was to use it. I would type into

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Speaker 1: AI kind of like a promotional video that I'd like

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Speaker 1: it to create, and it would create one up to

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Speaker 1: is it five minutes long for me?

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Speaker 2: So right now, a little less than five minutes. It's

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Speaker 2: really sort of targets towards short form content most of

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Speaker 2: the time ninety seconds or less. And in terms of

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Speaker 2: what it does, it really depends on who you are

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Speaker 2: as the user. So there are two kinds of users

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Speaker 2: that we that we serve. The first as the individual

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Speaker 2: content creator. So somebody who's you know, a YouTuber or

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Speaker 2: even sort of a TikToker can use the software to write,

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Speaker 2: as you said, a text prompt and produce really any

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Speaker 2: kind of video that may or may not be promotional

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Speaker 2: in nature. And that's sort of the individual creator use case.

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Speaker 2: And then secondly, for businesses and is what we're sort

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Speaker 2: of rolling out at the moment over the next month

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Speaker 2: or so, you would use this to create short from

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Speaker 2: content that promotes your products, and you would use this,

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Speaker 2: you know, to post organic content on TikTok YouTube, you know,

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Speaker 2: wherever you've previously struggled to have a heights of through

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Speaker 2: both content. Yeah, so that's that sort of the high

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Speaker 2: level picture.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so you managed to get somebody to part with

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Speaker 1: six million dollars to plug into this, which suggests that

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Speaker 1: that there are people out there who think this is

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Speaker 1: a winner.

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Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. I think the landscape right now for investing

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Speaker 2: in you know, tech startups is pretty good, and an

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Speaker 2: AI as well is also really great. You know, we

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Speaker 2: see a lot of fundraising activity much bigger than this

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Speaker 2: in the space too, for you know, new startups creating

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Speaker 2: foundation models. So I'm very fortunate to be in the

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Speaker 2: you know, we're we're in a great position from sort

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Speaker 2: of capital perspective. Yeah, it's just really exciting.

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Speaker 1: What happened to your last startup? Did that go well?

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Speaker 2: So that was sort of a year long sort of stint.

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Speaker 2: We were building bike sharing software for companies in America

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Speaker 2: that operate micromobility systems, and we thought that was really

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Speaker 2: promising direction. But that was sort of in the middle

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Speaker 2: of COVID, and COVID essentially shut down the customers that

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Speaker 2: we were serving and piloting with, and so at that

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Speaker 2: stage we had sort of part ways with that unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: which is a strange first experience.

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Speaker 1: I was probably quite normal for an entrepreneur. How did

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Speaker 1: you get from Hamilton to where you are right now?

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Speaker 1: What's the secret source? Do you reckon?

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Speaker 2: I wonder this sometimes I'm not I'm not too sure.

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Speaker 2: I had the itch to go to Harvard for some

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Speaker 2: reason from when I was a kid. I think my

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Speaker 2: dad probably mentioned the name, and somewhere in my mind

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Speaker 2: I just thought I really wanted to go there. I

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Speaker 2: didn't really think it was possible. And then you know,

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Speaker 2: I met some great people a little bit later into

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Speaker 2: my high school career who gave me some good advice

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Speaker 2: about you know, going going to the States, how you

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Speaker 2: can kind of apply. And that's when I realized, like, oh,

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Speaker 2: I have the profile to potentially pull this off. And

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Speaker 2: you know that's that's how that happened. And then you know,

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Speaker 2: from there things just compound. There are really great opportunities

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Speaker 2: where I went, and you know that sort of helped

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Speaker 2: me go to you know, Silicon Valley, raised capital, build

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Speaker 2: a team, and you know, ultimately build this company. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's it's it's a it's unclear exactly what the secret sources.

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Speaker 2: Maybe it was my my my parents sort of somehow

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Speaker 2: subliminally messaging me when I was when I was young.

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Speaker 2: I'm too sure.

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Speaker 1: A week of the education system in New Zealand a

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Speaker 1: very hard time. Are we giving it too hard a

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Speaker 1: time if it's able to send somebody to Harvard?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I think that wasn't really how I

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Speaker 2: thought about it. I think it was more that, you know,

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Speaker 2: my my parents are doctor as my older brother he

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Speaker 2: went to you know, Otago University to study medicine. And

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Speaker 2: I felt like a lot of my friends wanted to

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Speaker 2: do medicine, but I didn't. And it was almost as

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Speaker 2: though I needed to create my own narrative. And I

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Speaker 2: think that just drove a lot of this activity for

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Speaker 2: me to partner their disease. Well, I think that's more

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Speaker 2: what it was. Yeah, And what.

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Speaker 1: You're telling me is a family of high achievers, which

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Speaker 1: is why you're a high achiever to mate beast of

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Speaker 1: luck with them. And I really hope you do super

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Speaker 1: well and become incredibly wealthy and then we can trade

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Speaker 1: on your name. Somul Singh, founder of Unfazed dot Ai,

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Speaker 1: which is the startup for more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on high Hard Radio.