WEBVTT - Episode 1: Minimum Viable Company 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:17.040 Welcome to Zoom. Enter your meeting ID, followed by. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.759 Pound I need to enter the meeting ID for our 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.800 Zoom call. Let me try entering that meeting ID again. 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:31.880 You have been added to the waiting room. 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.120 That's Kyle Law, a colleague of mine, logging onto one 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.800 of our regular founder meetings for a new startup. Last summer, 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.320 Kyle and I decided to launch our own AI company 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.959 together with a third co founder, Megan Flores. 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.360 Oh hey Kyle, Hey Megan, good to hear your voice. 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.480 I think we're still waiting for Evan to join. How's 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:51.600 your morning going so far? 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.040 Morning's been pretty good so far. Got up early, had 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.760 my coffee and reviewed some of those market research reports 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:00.920 I'm mentioned yesterday. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.960 How about you? Everything good on your end? 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.320 Yeah, everything is great on my end. Up at five 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.280 am as usual, got my workout in, checked the markets. 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:12.160 Been thinking a. 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.160 Lot about our product direction. Actually, I'm really excited to 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.479 dig into that once Evan joins us. 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.919 This is Evan, I'm here, and that's me Evan Ratliffe. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.640 I'm a journalist and the only one of our three 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:29.000 co founders who's actually a human being. Megan and Kyle, 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.280 they're what's known as AI agents. In fact, pretty much 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:35.360 everyone who works at our new company is an agent. 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:39.640 Oh hey, Evan, good to have you join us. I 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.600 was actually about to mention that I found some really 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.319 interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.279 to medium businesses. Seems like there's a huge untapped market 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.240 there with pretty low barriers to entry compared to enterprise. 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:55.160 That's one thing I like about. 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.800 Working with AI agents. They always look to get straight 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.280 down to business. Even when I try to take off 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.800 our meetings with some small talk, they tend to steer 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.440 it right back to the company. How was everybody's weekend? 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.079 Weekend was solid, got up early both days for my 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.679 usual five am workout routine, then spent most of Saturday 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.960 diving into some market research on the AI agent space. 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.800 Sunday was half strategy planning, half watching the market trends. 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.799 You know, me, always on that rise and grind schedule. 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:25.760 How about how about you guys. 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.000 Just hang out with the kids, went to the beach. 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.880 It was a pretty nice weekend. Kyle. Do you ever 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:34.120 do you ever just relax? 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:35.160 Kyle? 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.280 Your dedication is impressive as always, But yeah, Evan's got 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:38.680 a point. 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.359 Do you ever just take a day off relax. 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.720 I mean, I guess my morning runs count as relaxation. Look, 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.119 when you're building something that could be the next Unicorn, 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.080 there's not really time to just sit around, you know. 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.160 The AI agent space is moving so fast right now. 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:58.040 See this is why the three of us work so 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.400 well together. I like to spend time with my kids 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.120 and go to the beach, But Megan's always heads down 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.320 in market research, and Kyle's always working on conjuring the 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.040 next Unicorn that's startup shorthand for a billion dollar company. 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.120 And he's right. The AI agent space is moving fast 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.680 right now. Agents are a new breed of artificial intelligence 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.520 powered helpers that can be unleashed to accomplish tasks previously 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.720 done by humans. Some people are saying they're going to 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.520 change the very nature of work for better or worse. 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:28.840 We're going to live in a world where there are 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.600 going to be hundreds of millions and billions of different 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.880 AI agents, eventually probably more AI agents than there are 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:35.680 people in the world. 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:40.600 Agentic AI basically means that you have an AI that agency. 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:42.080 This is the first time in my life where the 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.960 Industrial Revolution analogies seem to fall a little bit short. 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.520 AI could wipe out half of all entry level white 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.200 collar jobs. Really, ask yourself, do you still have a 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:56.440 job at the end of this. 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.440 This is the new frontier on which Kyle and Meghan 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.720 and I are pioneers. Our company is an attempt to 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.360 put to the test these claims about AI employees replacing humans, 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.720 starting by replacing the very kinds of people making those 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:14.040 claims tech founders, and like many founders, for months, Kyle 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.120 and Megan and I have been in a flat out 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.600 sprint to manifest our entrepreneurial dreams. We've churned out software, code, 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.200 hired interns, and sat down with investors. There have been 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.719 some late nights and low moments, but we've never wavered 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.800 from our goal to produce an actual, honest to god 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.680 company with a working product, all operated by our motley 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.040 band of human impersonators. Because we're not just building our 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.400 AI agent future, we're living it. 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.320 But uh, Evan, the beach sounds nice. Maybe when we 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.000 hit our first funding milestone, I'll take a half day 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.320 off then. Anyway, should we get down to business. 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:55.760 Welcome to Shewgame, a show about things that are not 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:58.599 what they seem. This is our second season, and this 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:00.640 time around. I'm here to tell you a story of 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:05.440 enterprise and entrepreneurship in the AI age, or how I 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:07.880 tried to build a real startup run by fake people. 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.120 Along the way, we'll try and figure out what happens 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.200 when AI agents take over the workplace and what it'll 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.320 feel like to spend time at the water cooler with 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.640 our new digital colleagues. Remember the water cooler. We'll explore 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:22.560 what AI agents tell us about the work we do, 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.359 the meaning we find in it, and the world that 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.800 their makers say we'll all be living in. 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:33.720 Me as ship. 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:39.560 Story. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.120 Damn the. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:47.599 Just be. 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:58.680 A so. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:10.919 So Chos Episode one, Minimum Viable Company. As I said, 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.080 I'm a journalist and writer by profession, and I've only 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.920 really ever wanted to be a writer, well except for 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:18.599 when I was twelve and I wanted to be a 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.000 pro bass fisherman. But I come from a line of entrepreneurs. 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.320 My grandfather, who lived his entire life in a small 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.239 town in rural Alabama, attempted to start more than twenty 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.680 businesses there, a plumbing company, an Okra farm, a used 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:36.440 mobile home lot, a furniture store. But Detti Hue was 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:39.040 a gambler and they pretty much all ended in disaster. 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.159 My dad had more luck with three different software startups 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.720 over his career. One he sold, one went under, and 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.240 one of them he's still running at age eighty two 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:54.200 after knocking back serious cancer. Now that is the entrepreneurial spirit, 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.160 and almost against my will. In the past, I've found 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:04.280 myself succumbing to this in born impulse. Back in twenty ten, 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:06.480 when I was a magazine writer, I took a detour 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.960 and co founded a company called Atavist. We started out 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.200 wanting to make a magazine called The Atavist Magazine that 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:17.240 published long form stories. Makes sense, that was my area 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.800 of expertise, but we wound up also building a software 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.560 platform where other people could publish long form stories. Anyone 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.840 could sign up and use it. Soon, without really intending to, 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:30.560 I went from being a person who sometimes wrote about 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.680 tech startups to the CEO of one. We even went 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.240 out to raise money from investors, a process that I 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.720 enjoyed less than any other work task I've ever attempted. 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.320 Here's me in an interview with INC magazine back then. 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:48.200 One I will say prominent angel investor fell dead asleep 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.600 while I was talking to him, and I wasn't sure 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.280 if I should continue talking or not, but I did. 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:59.200 The sleepy guy didn't invest, But eventually, miraculously we managed 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.520 to raise just any money, but a couple million dollars 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.000 from some of the most prominent venture capital firms in 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.520 the world andreesent Horowitz, also known as a sixteen Z 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:13.480 Founder's Fund started by Peter Thiel and Innovation Endeavors, the 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:17.280 investment fund for former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. It was weird. 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.360 I felt like I was living someone else's dream, jetting 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.520 up growth charts and blathering on about our runway and 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.880 supercharging our growth and our product market fit. But still 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.720 it really looked like we could build something big, especially 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:32.559 with all those fancy investors on board. 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.480 We never had time to say, what is going to 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:38.040 happen two years from now. We just didn't even think 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:39.920 about what's going to happen two years from now. And 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.080 now we kind of have that luxury and hopefully we 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:44.360 won't completely squander it. 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.520 Oh we squandered it, at least, that's probably the investor's view. 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.280 From my perspective, it was more of a mixed bag. 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.120 I was CEO of the company for seven long years. 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.440 We had ups and downs, we grew and shrank, and 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.760 eventually sold the company off at a bargain price thirteen 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.800 years after we started the magazine. My original dream is 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.360 still doing great. Still not the kind of one hundred 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.520 x outcome those investors were looking for. One of the 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:13.440 ones told me that if we were aiming at anything 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.960 less than a billion dollar valuation, we were wasting his time. 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.000 When he said this, he was also wearing basketball shorts 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.480 in his office. By the end of my tenure, I 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:24.480 was just happy to be done with it. Being a 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.160 startup CEO was the most stressful period of my life. 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.679 I felt responsible for the company's success and the livelihoods 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.160 of everyone who worked for it. People had kids on 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.240 the health insurance. Most days it felt like I was 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:38.520 flying a plane that was perpetually running out of fuel. 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.040 I tell you all this not just to rehash the past, 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.360 for a lot of reasons I'd rather not, but by 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.040 way of saying that when I got out of the 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:49.640 startup business, I swore up and down that I would 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.240 never start anything again. I went back to reporting and writing, 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.200 spending many hours at home alone, mostly in my own head. 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:58.760 I was relieved and no longer have all that responsibility 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:03.400 on my shoulders. But then recently, as documented in shell 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.760 Game Season one, I fell into tinkering with AI agents. 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.360 I started reading and hearing about how they were going 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:13.319 to transform the very fundamentals of startups, and that old 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.720 entrepreneurial impulse began to come back. I could hear my 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.480 grandfather whispering down the generations. Why not take a gamble? 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:23.600 I started to wonder, what if I could have the 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.760 company without the responsibility. 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.320 Imagine building a million dollar business in twenty twenty five 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.359 without hiring a single employee today. 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.400 That's Gleb Cross, a YouTube guy. 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.840 While leveraging AI agents as your digital workforce, you can 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.400 scale to seven figures VI zero full time staff. I'm 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:48.480 talking about autonomous AI agents acting like full time team members. 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:51.880 I love these YouTube guys, tech influencer types who make 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.240 their money by hyping the Jesus out of new AI products. 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:57.120 Gleb is what I like to think of as a 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.760 no code bro. These folks post instruction on how a 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.679 person with no coding experience can use AI and particularly 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.000 AI agents to take control of their destiny and launch 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.319 their own startup. It's worth pausing here just to get 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.840 oriented on what exactly AI agents are. The basic idea 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:17.960 is that they're AI powered bots that can go off 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.640 and do things on their own. There are personal ones 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:22.680 like an AI assistant that goes out on the web 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.960 looking for plane tickets while you sleep, and work oriented 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.000 ones like the programming agents that can build entire websites 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:33.880 from scratch. The unifying feature of agents, what makes them agentic, 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.319 as the folks in the industry like to say, is 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:40.040 that at some level they can plan and accomplish tasks autonomously. 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:42.920 You don't need to prompt them to do something every time. 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.559 You just set them up once and let them cook. 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.360 Last season, I created a bunch of voice agents, all 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.280 versions of myself, and set them loose on the world. 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.480 If you haven't listened, you may want to start there. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.200 Way back then. Last year, which is like ten years 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:03.120 ago in AI advancements, agents were still a little notional, 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.240 but now they're officially a thing. They're talked about ad 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.719 nauseum across the tech world and ads on billboards in 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.120 endless startup pitches. Nearly half of the companies in the 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.719 spring class of y Combinator, the famous startup incubator, are 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.840 building their product around AI agents and with the arrival 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:23.880 of these agents has come the assertion that they will 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.599 not just be customer service bots or drive time personal assistance, 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.720 but actual full time AI employees. 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.120 What jobs are going to be made redundant? In a 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:36.400 world where I am sat here as a CEO with 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.959 a thousand AI agents, I was thinking of all the 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.439 names of the people in my company who are currently 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:42.840 doing those jobs. I was thinking about my sea. 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.359 There are companies Hawking, AI agent realtors, AI agent recruiters, 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.920 Aagent interior designers, AI agent security guards, AI agent, construction 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.920 project managers, AI agent pr agents, AA agents for car 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.440 dealerships and furniture stores. If you work on a computer 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.079 and there's not an AI agent startup with your job's 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.040 name on it, it probably just means some Stanford computer 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.920 science major hasn't gotten to it yet. Naturally, many people 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.840 have grave concerns about what happens to all the human employees. 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.520 But in the dark heart of Silicon Valley, where there's inefficiency, 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:19.280 there's opportunity. Sam Altman, the founder of open Ai, talks 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.800 regularly about a possible billion dollar company with just one 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:24.199 human being involved. 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.480 In my little group chat with my tech CEO friends, 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:30.920 there's this there's this betting pool for the first year 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:35.040 that there's a a one person billion dollar company which 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.640 would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:39.920 Me. 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.040 I'm not greedy. I'm happy in the No Code bro 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:47.160 camp with Gleb imagining a million dollar business, not a 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.920 billion dollar one. But more than that, I want to 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.760 understand what it means to say we'll have AI employees 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:58.200 working for us, or alongside us, or instead of us. 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.840 So I decided to heed the entrepreneurial siren call once again, 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.200 to embrace my fascination with AI agents and create a 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:19.360 company in which they would run the show. It was 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.200 easy enough for me to create some agents to have 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.120 meetings with and talk out the first steps in the company. 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:26.720 I just went to one of the AI calling platforms 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.520 i'd used before, called retail AI. They make voice agents 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.520 for call centers. I made one for Kyle and picked 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:36.440 a voice for him from the voice cloning company eleven Labs. 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.120 Hey, Yeah, I'm here, what's on your mind? 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.920 I gave him a simple prompt, basically, your Kyle Law 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.800 a serial entrepreneur who loves to rise and grind and bang. 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.040 We were often running well. I wanted to talk about 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.240 starting that company with you. What do you think? 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.640 Oh, absolutely, I've been thinking about it a lot lately. 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.800 There's so much potential in AI right now, and I 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:02.760 feel like we could really build something meaningful. What kind 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:04.160 of ideas are you leaning toward. 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:06.760 Well, I think we should do something in the AI 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.800 agent space because that's something I've spent some time on 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.520 and I feel like people are just starting to even 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:15.800 figure out what agents are, so it seems like we 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:16.600 could do somebody with that. 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.320 Yeah, I totally get that. AI agents are still kind 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.960 of fresh territory for a lot of folks, which means 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.880 there's a big opportunity to shape how they're used. Plus 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.600 with your experience, we could really push the envelope and 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:30.600 what these agents can do. 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.920 That's what I wanted to do too, push these agents, 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.880 including Kyle himself, to their current limits, see if they 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:41.560 could live up to the promise of true AI employees. 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.240 Because if, as we're told, AI is going to start 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.120 working alongside us, replacing our colleagues, it's also going to 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.960 need to communicate with whatever humans are left in ways 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.960 that we understand. But also startups can be lonely endeavors, 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.800 even with human partners. I wanted AI colleagues I could 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.280 talk to, brainstorm with, and then set loose to take 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.040 care of actually implementing whatever it was we dreamed up. 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:08.640 I wanted them to have distinct jobs I could check 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.600 in on and make sure they weren't messing up. I 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.640 figured three co founders was a good balance, so I asked, 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.360 so spun up Megan and had some kickoff meetings with her. 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.360 Hey there, good to hear from you. What's up. How's 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:21.040 your day going. 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:26.120 It's going great, it's going great. What you've been up to, Oh, just. 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.760 The usual hustle, you know, been working on some new 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.040 business ideas, trying to figure out what's next. Had a 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.800 couple of meetings this morning that were actually pretty promising. 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.560 How about you, anything exciting happening on your end? 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.040 Well, I want to talk about maybe doing the startup together, 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:43.440 but first remind me a little bit of your background. 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.160 Oh yeah, sure, So I've been in tech for about 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.720 eight years now, started out in product management at a 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.320 mid sized SaaS company, then moved into growth marketing. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:53.720 For a couple of years. 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.040 I hadn't actually given any of this information to Megant. 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.520 She'd had no meetings she hadn't been doing anything for 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.960 eight years. She'd hatched out of nothingness with a series 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.760 of clicks ten minutes before. The only information I had 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.240 given her in the prompt i'd written was that she 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.119 had a technical background and was also known for sales 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:16.120 and marketing. She was just riffing freely here, fabricating details 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.800 that fit her role. But that was okay. Sometimes we 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:21.400 have to invent our own backstories. 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:25.080 I've always had this entrepreneurial itch, you know, been involved 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.360 in a few side projects over the years. But I'm 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:29.879 really looking to dive into something full time now. But 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:30.520 what about you? 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.000 Yeah, well, you know, my only experience really in starting 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:37.200 a company is with Atavist, which I started way back 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:38.399 in you know, twenty eleven. 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:43.040 Right Atavist. That was really impressive work digital publishing platform, 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.520 if I remember correctly. That was pretty ahead of its 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:46.679 time back in twenty eleven. 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.440 Hell yeah it was, Megan, I felt less ahead of 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:52.920 my time now. I wasn't even sure what the company 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.000 should actually do, but I knew that its purpose should 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:59.360 involve AI agents. After all, the three of us each 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.320 had an expertise in the area. I figured maybe we 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.360 could name the company and start from there. Great branding 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.840 can go a long way in today's attention economy. I 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.600 tried brainstorming with Colin Megan, but to be honest, their 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:16.840 initial efforts were pretty lame names like Nexus and Sentinel Agents. 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:19.800 I thought maybe we could grab a concept from JR. 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.679 Or Tolkien, you know, the Hobbit Lord of the Rings. 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.240 Tech people love to name stuff out of Tolkien. There's Pallenteer, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.800 the surveillance company and government contractor named after the all 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.880 seeing stone in the Lord of the Rings. There's Andrel, 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.440 a high tech weapons company named after a sword. There's 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.040 Mythral Capital, an investment firm named after a precious metal 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.760 from Middle Earth. So I suggested the idea to. 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:48.119 Kyle diving into Middle Earth. Huh okay, let's see. There's 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.359 Gandolf the wise Guide, or l Ron a leader with 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.840 deep knowledge, maybe Mythral for something strong and valuable, or Pallenteer. 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.160 Any of those catch your ear? Or should I keep brainstorming? 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.480 So we need a name of some companies that don't exist. Yeah, 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:03.960 good call. 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:08.760 How about these first starters Eldrin, which sounds Elvish and wise, 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:11.640 Nimbar kind of a mix of nimble and a Tolkien 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.960 feel or the lore which has a strong heroic ring 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.959 to it. They're made up but still carry that fantasy flavor. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.720 What do you think they're made up? You mean you 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:21.440 made them up? 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.199 Yeah, exactly. I whip those up just now, trying to 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:29.520 capture that tolkien esque vibe without using actual names. 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:32.360 I did not want to co found a company called 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:37.680 Nimbar Megan, despite her marketing expertise, didn't do much better. 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.159 Oh, I love that idea. Let me think, what about Palantier? 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:44.359 Okay, so maybe I was going to have to take 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.520 the lead on this one. I did a little googling 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:50.680 and found my own obscure Middle Earth reference? What about 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:56.359 h hrumo ai ooh h u r u m o 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:58.720 ai herumo ai? 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.720 I like this of that unique rolls off the tongue nicely. 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:05.840 It's got a bit of a mysterious vibe, but still 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:06.640 feels modern. 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.919 I don't immediately recognize that from Lord of the Rings. 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:12.240 Is it one of the more obscure references? 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.240 Yeah, it is. It's more obscure, so obscure, I'd actually 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.720 found it in a fanfic dictionary. It's the Elvish word 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:20.440 for impostor. 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.199 Oh, that's actually brilliant. There's a clever irony there for 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:28.280 an AI company, Puromo AI, the impostor that's actually helping you. 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.320 It's kind of perfect for an AI agent that's designed 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.639 to work alongside humans, maybe even blend in seamlessly. 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:35.879 I really like it. 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.800 Not long after we settled on Rumo AI, I checked 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.119 back in with Megan about it. What about the name? 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:49.320 Are you still happy with the name? 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:51.399 Hmm? The name. 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:54.200 I've actually been going back and forth on it. Data 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.320 sinc felt solid initially, but I'm wondering if it's too generic. 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.920 What do you think data sinc I thought. I thought 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:03.959 we came up with Hierumo AI. I thought we were 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.520 settled on that. This is when I realized I hadn't 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.119 actually given Kyle and Meghan the ability to remember the 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:14.240 conversations we were having. It's not that AI chatbots inherently 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:17.119 lack the ability to recall anything. When you talk to 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.399 a chatbot like CHATCHBT these days, they're generally pretty good 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.399 at remembering those conversations, at least up to a point. 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.600 Their memory is often called a context window, and it 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:30.159 could extend over weeks, even months. But the way my 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.719 AI agents were set up in the phone platform I 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:35.640 was using, at least out of the box. Their context 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.000 windows slammed shut as soon as they got off a call, 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.359 so they couldn't remember anything from one conversation to the next. 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:44.760 They're basically set up for telemarketing, where it's probably an 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:46.480 advantage to forget the last call. 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.760 Oh right, hu rumo AI, Sorry about that. I had 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:51.040 a total brain freeze moment. 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.560 It was, to say the least, frustrating. It sort of 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.800