Innovative Developments Unveiled

Web Summit 2024 | Day Two

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Summary

Day two of Web Summit 2024 showcased a blend of exciting technological innovations, impactful discussions on AI, and highlight-worthy keynote sessions. From humanoid robots and AI's transformative role in industries to enlightening discussions on social media's influence on modern society, the day was packed with forward-thinking ideas and groundbreaking announcements. Highlight sessions included talks about the challenges and opportunities AI presents across different sectors, while the Pitch semi-finals added excitement as startups competed to impress leaders in the tech industry. Notably, the summit reiterated the need for inclusivity, sustainable development, and ethical considerations in tech advancements.

Highlights

Humanoid robot Digit introduced as a worker for warehouses, spotlighting robotics in service roles 🤖.
AI discussed as both a transformative tool and a regulatory challenge across diverse panels 🌐.
The incredible journey of Ukrainian tech resilience and innovation amidst ongoing challenges 🇺🇦.
Web Summit's influence expanding with the announcement of the first North American event in Vancouver for 2025 🌍.
European Cities of Innovation Awards celebrated cities leading in digital advancements and resilient infrastructures 🏆.

Key Takeaways

Engaging insights on humanoid robots as services opening up new avenues in logistics and manufacturing 🤖.
Discussions on AI's impact, highlighting both revolutionary potential and challenges in ethical implementation 🌐.
The importance of creating regulatory frameworks to manage the fast-paced tech industry was a recurring theme ⚖️.
Startups showcased innovative solutions, competing fiercely in the Pitch semi-finals to capture audience and judges' interest 🚀.
Web Summit introduced key dialogues around social media's role in elections and digital governance 📲.

Overview

Web Summit 2024 continued to be a catalyst for innovative discussions and groundbreaking technological showcases. Day two particularly emphasized the intersection of AI and creativity, delving into how humanoid robots like Digit are set to revolutionize logistics and manufacturing by performing tasks traditionally viewed as monotonous and strenuous for humans.

In-depth discussions were held regarding the dual-edged nature of AI, highlighting its potential to enhance both efficiency and creativity while underscoring the ethical and regulatory challenges these technologies propose. Expert panels offered a nuanced understanding of how AI can be managed and harnessed for societal benefit.

The day also featured inspiring narratives such as Ukraine's persistent innovation despite adversity, alongside significant announcements like the upcoming Web Summit Vancouver. These serve as testaments to tech's pervasive and growing influence across the globe, reaffirming the summit's role in connecting people with transformative ideas.

Chapters

00:00 - 00:13: Web Summit 2024 | Day Two "Web Summit 2024 | Day Two" opens with a musical introduction, setting the stage for a day filled with insightful discussions and talks related to technology and its future impact.
00:13 - 03:06: Web Summit 2024 - Welcome and Introduction The chapter introduces the Web Summit 2024, providing an overview of what attendees can expect from the event. It sets the stage by welcoming participants and offering insights into the keynote speakers and topics that will be covered throughout the summit. Attendees are encouraged to engage and participate actively in the sessions and networking opportunities offered.
03:06 - 06:42: Web Summit 2024 - Talks and Presentations The chapter 'Web Summit 2024 - Talks and Presentations' begins with an audio or musical introduction, indicating the start of events or preparations for the summit.
06:42 - 07:36: Web Summit 2024 - Web Summit Vancouver Announcement The chapter covers the announcement of the Web Summit 2024 that will be held in Vancouver.
07:36 - 08:14: Web Summit 2024 - Fireside Chat with Eddie Kim and Christina Fona The chapter titled 'Web Summit 2024 - Fireside Chat with Eddie Kim and Christina Fona' opens with a musical introduction, setting the tone for a dynamic dialogue between the two technology leaders. The conversation unfolds in an informal and engaging manner, reflective of a traditional fireside chat. While the content of the dialogue isn't specified in the transcript snippet provided, such events typically cover key topics around technology trends, leadership challenges, and future forecasts in the tech industry.
08:14 - 11:55: Web Summit 2024 - AI in Creativity and Consumption The chapter discusses the insights and developments presented at the Web Summit 2024 focused on the role of AI in creativity and consumption. It delves into various ways AI is transforming creative processes and altering consumption patterns. Experts at the summit explore both the opportunities and challenges presented by AI advancements in these areas. The session includes perspectives from industry leaders, innovators, and critics, offering a comprehensive view on how AI is reshaping the landscape and what the future holds for creators and consumers alike.
11:55 - 14:50: Web Summit 2024 - Ukraine's Tech Industry The chapter titled 'Web Summit 2024 - Ukraine's Tech Industry' appears to concern a notable event or presentation at the Web Summit 2024, focusing on Ukraine's tech industry. However, the transcript provided is filled with placeholders like '[Applause]' and '[Music]', indicating that the actual spoken content is missing. As a result, the summary cannot capture specific details about the discussions or insights shared during the session due to the absence of substantive transcript information.
14:50 - 17:24: Web Summit 2024 - European VC Landscape This chapter discusses the landscape of venture capital in Europe, as presented during the Web Summit 2024. It explores emerging trends, challenges, and opportunities within the European VC ecosystem, highlighting key players, investment strategies, and sectoral focuses. The chapter may also include insights from industry leaders and case studies of successful ventures.
17:24 - 18:02: Web Summit 2024 - Afternoon Sessions Introduction This chapter serves as an introduction to the afternoon sessions of the Web Summit 2024, setting the stage for the discussions and activities to come. [Music] suggests an interlude or transition period, potentially indicating a break between sessions or a cultural segment of the event.
18:02 - 21:04: Web Summit 2024 - The European Capital of Innovation Awards 2024 Introduction and music cues indicating the upcoming discussion on the Web Summit 2024, focusing on the European Capital of Innovation Awards 2024.
21:04 - 25:26: Web Summit 2024 - The Future of AI and Health Innovation The chapter ‘Web Summit 2024 - The Future of AI and Health Innovation’ begins with an introductory ambiance set by background music.
25:26 - 27:47: Web Summit 2024 - The Department of Government Efficiency Chapter Title: Web Summit 2024 - The Department of Government Efficiency Summary: This chapter opens with a mention of music playing in the background, setting the scene for a dynamic presentation at the Web Summit 2024. The focus of this chapter is on the Department of Government Efficiency, which is a key topic of discussion at the summit. The chapter promises to explore initiatives, strategies, and insights shared by government officials and experts on how to enhance efficiency in governmental operations. The aim is to provide innovative solutions and share success stories that can be replicated in various governmental contexts worldwide. The attendees are expected to engage in discussions about technology integration, process improvements, and policy reforms that can lead to a more efficient and responsive government.
27:47 - 30:53: Web Summit 2024 - AI in Hollywood and Creative Industries The chapter discusses the Web Summit 2024, focusing on the intersection of AI with Hollywood and the creative industries. It highlights how artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly significant role in content creation, production, and distribution within these sectors. While the transcript is filled with applause and other indistinct audio cues, the broader theme suggests a discussion around innovation, challenges, and opportunities presented by AI technologies in creative domains.
30:53 - 34:46: Web Summit 2024 - AI and Security The chapter titled 'Web Summit 2024 - AI and Security' lacks detailed information from the provided content. Presumably, it would discuss themes and discussions from the Web Summit 2024 focusing on AI (Artificial Intelligence) and its implications on security.
34:46 - 38:27: Web Summit 2024 - AI and Economic Sustainability The chapter titled 'Web Summit 2024 - AI and Economic Sustainability' appears to open with a musical introduction, setting an engaging tone for a discussion likely centered on technology, innovation, and the intersection of artificial intelligence with economic sustainability at a major technology conference.
38:27 - 40:18: Web Summit 2024 - Pitch Semifinal Introduction and Recap 2023 Winner This chapter introduces the pitch semifinalists for the Web Summit 2024 and provides a recap of the 2023 winner. The audio begins with music, setting the stage for the event's energetic atmosphere.
40:18 - 47:19: Web Summit 2024 - Pitch Semifinals The chapter is titled 'Web Summit 2024 - Pitch Semifinals' and begins with background music.

Web Summit 2024 | Day Two Transcription

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15:00 - 15:30 please welcome to the stage the co-host
15:30 - 16:00 of websummit Vancouver web summit's very own KY [Music] Lao good morning bom de Jo bour Ohio Gus and G mes to day two of websummit 2024 my name is Casey LA and not only am I your co-host here at websummit lisb but I'm also your co-host at our brand new
16:00 - 16:30 event nor and North America event web Summit Vancouver kicking off next year and I'm happy to see so much so many of you here at Center Stage I hope you took advantage of night Summit last night but still rested and ready for the second day here at web Summit before we begin I just want to make sure you're all getting everything out of your time here at web Summit if you need to up your game you need to make use of the websummit app make sure you update your info there and connect connect with people in the same vertical as you you
16:30 - 17:00 can also create a schedule of all the talks you're interested in not just here in center stage but around the venue as well as find the location for tonight's night Summit and also all the different Community created night events like the SAS startup mixer and the VC and PE mixer so many things to do tonight take a look at the app for that we're also use heavily using Whatsapp groups this year uh to connect like-minded people if you're a Canadian Jo joining me in the Canadian stups at websummit group but
17:00 - 17:30 there are hundreds of them for you to join and they're all very active right now this year Center Stage talks have topped all of those before so I hope you enjoy these sessions with the biggest and brightest Minds in technology from around the world only at web Summit Lisbon 2024 so are you ready oh man okay that was the late night are you ready yeah all right okay first talk I'm
17:30 - 18:00 sure you've all heard of SAS software as a service or pass a platform as a service there's something called IAS I think it's called infrastructure as a service now you're going to get ready to see what is Ras the first humanoid robots as a service are already busy working at a warehouse near you in our first session of the day we will be we will be meeting digit the 17 kg 5'9 bipedal robot to find out what kind of
18:00 - 18:30 work they can do and what is next for them please welcome in conversation with The Atlantics Nick Thompson the CEO of agility robotics Peggy Johnson [Music]
18:30 - 19:00 amazing so excited to be here with you Peggy thanks Nick I'm excited to be here too you know they do these short intros but for those of you who don't know Peggy has been a tech icon for decades a top executive at Microsoft ran magic leap and now has robots so just adding a couple sentences well um I run now a robotics company a humanoid human Centric robot company multi-purpose and uh we'll get a to meet digit in a bit but right now we are
19:00 - 19:30 focusing on tasks that humans don't really like to do so the repetitive kind of backbreaking Tas you see oftentimes in logistics and Manufacturing areas that's where we're focusing first so the idea is to build a robot that manufacturers will bring in and it will make life easier for humans it will do things that humans can't do it will make production more efficient it will do things that humans do but it'll definitely make life easier for humans
19:30 - 20:00 what we're focused on is augmenting humans typically this is part of someone's job it's not their entire job but for a while they'll have to move product boxes plastic bins they call totes from one area to another over and over and over again that tends to you know throw out knees hurt backs um definitely dirty repetitive kind of mind-numbing work we're trying to take those off the hum plat so they can focus
20:00 - 20:30 on other things so I spent some time with digit yesterday and I was trying to describe it to my kids and I said imagine you had something that had four grandparents one is a human one is a dog one is a velociraptor and the fourth is a Roomba is that roughly what you've built that is roughly what we've built okay I agree excellent explain the hardest problem you're trying to solve right now right we've had people building human robots for a while right and they're
20:30 - 21:00 getting better but what is it you're trying to make even better right now that's interesting so I would say the hardest problem about humanoids is they're highly complex agility like humans like humans right every you know anything that you do as a human is part of a system it affects your whole body getting that right is very very hard the company's been around for about 10 years and they've we've been working on developing that and right here right now
21:00 - 21:30 it that works the physical intelligence of the robot we call digit works today so clearly the processing capacity must be improving rapidly because you're using large language models to have it understand the world so is the brain improving faster than the body right now right now I would say because the body's largely done we're using AI for reinforcement learning right now so we
21:30 - 22:00 take simulation data and we can teach digit new skills with that data but now with AI and the large language models we can start to improve digit semantic intelligence so we can give digit commands and in actual use cases in these facilities Warehouse facilities and Logistics we can give digit a new workflow it can actually be doing one job in the morning another job in the afternoon supported by AI wait so this
22:00 - 22:30 training is super interesting so do you show digit videos of humans doing tasks or other robots doing task efficiently and have it train on that that is one input that that is used in this space largely because we've been in the space for so long we've actually been in customer facilities doing proof of concepts for about three years we have the leading set of data across the humanoid base right now because we have actual real operating data that data is
22:30 - 23:00 what we use to train the AI models and that is used then to train digit news skills let's say a new Factory starts they have 20 employees 10 of them are Nick 10 of them are digit what can digit do better than the 10 Nicks and what can the 10 Nicks do better than the 10 digits so what digit can do I I don't know if I would say better but certainly for uh prolonged periods of time without hurting digit is those repetitive tasks the dirty tasks and they are very mind-numbing because it's just you know
23:00 - 23:30 moving things around I can do mind-numbing stuff we'll put you in one of these jobs one day we'll see how long you last in fact there's a in the US today there's over a million jobs open in this space nobody wants these roles but what this allows the human to do is free up Cycles to learn new skills and in this case they can be the robot manager so the fleet of robots the 10 robot that are there the human now can learn a new
23:30 - 24:00 skill using our software agility Arc to manage the robots and to you know allow it to fit into their corporate infrastructure and what about rest so I need to rest every night I need a lunch break digit needs to recharge who spends more time working the Nicks or the robots so right now uh it's probably humans can go longer on a single charge breakfast lunch or dinner um right now
24:00 - 24:30 we are uh we have a charge ratio of about 4:1 so you can think about four um minutes of work to one minute of charge it's not bad but we're moving to 10 to one that gives uh facilities managers much longer periods of time for digit to work and then work digit also has the ability to plug itself in so it knows when its batter is low it goes and plugs itself so do I let's um let's bring um let's
24:30 - 25:00 bring digit out on I would love to you guys want to meet digit I think they want to meet digit yes they want to digit okay let's bring digit hello digit can you please come on the stage here digit digit dig you're calling digit on here we go oh look at digit digit is very cute you see lovely teal color um digits about uh 59 or 1.75 m weighs about 160
25:00 - 25:30 kg um about uh sorry 160 lb I'm sorry American I get my metrics mixed up 160 lbs 72 or so kilograms and um essentially very much like a human in its size and weight all right let's talk some about it okay tell me about those crazy hands what's going on so those are called end affectors and they we will put the right ector or we can call them hands why would you call
25:30 - 26:00 it endoor call it hand like long hands is much easier we're gonna call it hand today at web today those hands those hands um are swappable so we can take those hands off and put different you can think of them as tools uh initially we had what was known as a paddle grip uh it was two rubberized ends that picked U those plastic totes up this is more of a gripper you can think of it as two fingers and two thumbs and it can
26:00 - 26:30 pick things up with the lip um this in this case we're going to have uh digit help us sort some laundry here on stage and um but you can think of all sorts of use cases where we can swap those hands out do you have any hands that have you know opposable thumbs and four fingers we do have hands that are built the industry's been using five finger hands for a long time for these sorts of jobs those tend not to be the best end effect vectors because you really just need
26:30 - 27:00 strength in in a few spots and while that is one tool that people can use to put on digit right now it's not the most effective one so I think a lot of people think of humanoids well it's got to have five fingers not necessarily very complex all right tell me about those legs because at first they look like human legs but they're not they're like Greyhound legs that's why I said one of the grandparents is a dog what is going on with those legs so uh the legs are backwards some people call them bird
27:00 - 27:30 legs uh so you can add that into your description of of Digit the reason they go backwards is it turns out when digit is doing um operations in human spaces and it bends down to pick something up the legs can actually get in the way and hit the box that it's trying to pick up so we have the legs going backwards that helps that motion much easier but digit can also reach up to about 6 feet to put a box up on a shelf it's meant to go in
27:30 - 28:00 spaces that were built for humans right so skinny aisles and but isn't that inefficient like shouldn't you just why not make it 9 ft tall and then sell to customers who re-engineer their factories because it can be more efficient I mean if we were all 9 ft tall we'd be better at loading boxes up high we would be but turns out the whole world is built for humans so right now shelves aren't 9 ft tall cuz typically people can't get up there so that's the reason we we chose a human Centric model is to go where the the infrastructure
28:00 - 28:30 already is so when we go into a factory or a warehouse we don't tell the manager you have to change everything right we go where the humans go okay and tell me about this walking like the didn't look very efficient right I mean I'm pretty sure I could beat it in a race across I mean we can do that at the end Runner we race digit across why not put wheels on it like why have you decided to have human feet is it so it can like go up steps or what's the point so there are use cases for wheeled
28:30 - 29:00 robots but digit can go up steps digit can go outside digit can go over uneven surfaces things you find in these facilities and that's why we built it with legs we want to be able to go where the humans go right and the most important thing about digit is that there's not somebody with a joystick in the back right sometimes you see these robot demonstrations and you're told they're autonomous in fact some of your competitors have recently done this but there's just somebody controlling it
29:00 - 29:30 there's nobody who's controlling it with a joystick there is no teleoperations that's called tele operations right and so we when we walk into these warehouses as we're doing and step right up to a job it's digit is fully autonomous and it's been trained on the workflow process that the manager wants it to do for that day and then it's of and running and there's not a a human behind the scenes another way to put it is you have no idea what it's about to
29:30 - 30:00 do well okay have a little idea you have a little idea obviously but let me ask you this what is the craziest most surprising thing digit has ever done when you were in like a public setting that completely cough you out guard ah so uh we are AI agnostic so we swap the models in and out we can use anthropics Claude we can use Google's deep mind we can use chat GB BT and they're all slightly different and they all respond
30:00 - 30:30 slightly different but we we typically have said to digit uh show your hard eyes to you know we'll tell a reporter ask digit how much it loves you and digit will show some hard eyes and um one day we' swapped in a different AI model and we asked the reporter to say that and instead of doing hard eyes digit had been moving boxes around digit started to move and move move the boxes into a
30:30 - 31:00 heart and so it's just the different AI models will react differently right and because it's not teleoperated it's just responding based on whatever it understands whatever the model is feeding up yes so what are the risks of Digit I I noticed during the demo I was asked not to get too close to it was that because it was going to like perhaps swap me in the head it knows you dick it knows you no what happens right now is humanoids um right now all operate inside of work cells and what
31:00 - 31:30 that means is they are not in close proximity to humans for safety reasons however literally all of our customers are asking can digit operate outside of the work cell can digit go down this aisle right here and be near humans and the answer is eventually yes we're working on that right now that's called Cooperative safety you're in the same proximity as humans so if digit is walking down an aisle and a human starts to approach it needs to react in a safe
31:30 - 32:00 manner we are working on Cooperative safety we'll be demoing that by mid next year and it'll be commercial in 18 to 24 months but the risk right now is that it might fall over or digit Falls yeah periodically robots fall and it is 160 lbs but you don't want falling I don't want digit falling on me tell me about the sensors it clearly has some kind of cameras in its neck it has cameras in its waist does it have a lar system there it has one lar and it has seven cameras and so some of the cameras are looking downward and locating digits
32:00 - 32:30 position and then other cameras are looking out and using perception to recognize objects and things does it have Acoustics does it is it hearing it it does and we can give digit commands that way in fact we can do a demo where we'll we will give it a command but because this is a a bit of a noisy environment we'll do it through the iPad but yes you can give digit a command turns out though in Factor settings it's also very noisy and so generally digit
32:30 - 33:00 takes commands in the workflow process that the manufacture has already specified right okay so it would go into a factory and there would be a robot manager who would maybe have a fleet of digits moving boxes or you know taking oranges out of boxes and squeezing them or whatever it's doing and but you would have given it a workflow saying hey get the oranges take them out of the box squeeze the oranges yeah so it'll be part of a workflow and that that you'll tell digit this is what we want you to
33:00 - 33:30 do today typically what that is is move these boxes from this conveyor belt over to this tug robot and that and take the you know the tug robot takes the boxes away you laughed when I mentioned the oranges which suggests that Tropicana is not one of your clients who actually buys these things right now so we announced our first customer a multi-year agreement commercial agreement Raz as the gentleman said Robot as a service the name of the company is gxo we announced that earlier in the summer digit walks in gets paid
33:30 - 34:00 to work and works all day long and um we just today have some news to announce we're working with Sheffer uh who is the mobile technology motion technology company they make a lot of automotive parts and Aviation parts we also have some Sheffer Parts in digit um Sheffer is going to be both an investor and a customer invol they are planning to put humanoids in
34:00 - 34:30 all of their Global Network which is about 100 sites around the world so they very much are um excited about this technology they see it as very uh helpfully disruptive and we're thrilled to be working with them all right well that's uh that's big news Let's uh let's do the demo we can um tell um tell dig to do something do you want to walk over here let's walk over walk over yeah and get very close stand on this side or do you want to on
34:30 - 35:00 that side on this side hi digit so Dig's cute oh he flinked at me yeah he's flirting with you um basically this is we'll show off a consumer type of uh activity but this is very similar to what digit does inside Logistics warehouses as far as picking things up uh placing them in another spot and today we are going to have digit do something very relatable I think to
35:00 - 35:30 everyone here which is sort some laundry yeah I sent a video of Digit sorting laundry to my wife and she wants to get it for her 14-year-old I know and I've said I want to get it for my husband who after Decades of marriage still doesn't know how to do this correctly but digit will show us how to do this correctly today so I'm going to give digit a Command put the gray shirt into the laundry basket
35:30 - 36:00 so I've sent the command to digit and now digit oh through the AA model recognizes the gray shirt they're kind of it through its perception it knows where the laundry basket is wow and it just performs the task do you want to try it Nick or yeah uh we haven't practiced this so um hey digit put the green shirt hold on you have to do this okay sorry hey digit
36:00 - 36:30 put the green shirt on top of the gray shirt and it's a little ambiguous because Inside the Box what you going to do what didit is going to do here so right now it's processing and it's seen them through those cameras in the kind of the neck region yeah there's seven C where digit is U
36:30 - 37:00 processing what it's seen in front of it and then it will take that and act upon it so we are actually giving close close enough picked up a picture yeah but it threw it on it it threw it on properly it did throw it properly maybe it does all right Peggy you ask it you ask it to pick up maybe I didn't understand the green because of the green stripe shirt it's interesting how imprecise language can when discussing with the robot all right you get it see if you can get this guy
37:00 - 37:30 to put the green stripe shirt into the laundry basket put the green striped shirt into the laundry basket prob sure said the green shirt with the white stripes we we could have yeah but you know what that's a human you might have set it one way I might have set it another way there we go and digit recognize that and drops it into the basket so now how long until it can
37:30 - 38:00 like fold the clothes y good good job digit can we give it a cookie you you can all right so how different will digit be in two years will digit look like this no we're continuing to work on digit we're getting as I said the battery will improve quite a bit and in volume we'll be able to do a lot more with say the end defectors you can think of the hands as being a tool for whatever it is you need there may be a
38:00 - 38:30 way that is easiest to fold laundry uh that you know it might be six fingers that we find out but the point is it's swappable we'll put the right tool for The Right Use yeah like in The Princess Bride all right let's try one more okay clear that and then you hit yeah hey digit please pick up all the shirts and put them in the basket send all right let's see digit he's
38:30 - 39:00 got he's like Nick Nick's making me work today yeah got one okay progress nice work digit okay I like that it's like unknowing what's going to happen let's go let's go do it do it no you freezing digit come on all yes good job let's do it nice I will note that that's a twofer does
39:00 - 39:30 two shirts in one he's very eff good job dig now let's see you got 20 seconds until we're kicked off this stage digit that's right 19 15 you better get it oh oh it's slipped through his fingers still have 10 seconds did you you still have 10 seconds can you do it can you do
39:30 - 40:00 it Go digit go it's going to keep going how do you know when it's paused out uh we can I can say we're six seconds over they'll let us go they'll let us keep trying digit pick up the last shirt digit no it's got it it didn't even need that it didn't even need that Nick you're right all right Yay good job digit congratulations thank you for not falling on us all right thank you very much Peggy Johnson thank you to digit we
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41:30 - 42:00 all right training and running large AI models requires massive scale infrastructure in fact it requires the biggest supercomputers ever built in this session core weave CEO will discuss the pivotal role of advanced a AI infrastructure in driving Innovation and how he has built
42:00 - 42:30 the global AI hyperscaler leading the next generation of cloud computing counting already 28 data centers by the end of this year to talk about creating the core of AI infrastructure please welcome in conversation with Harry McCracken from Fast Company the co-founder and CEO of cor weave Michael and Trader [Music]
42:30 - 43:00 ai ai a transformative Force shaping our world revolutionizing Our Lives solving challenges or creating problems answering questions raising concern a catalyst for change the power of AI [Music]
43:00 - 43:30 good morning web Summit and hi Mike how are you great thank you so much for joining us um this is an important topic and this is going to be fun and uh just to make sure everybody's up to speed why don't we start by talking a little bit about what core weave is sure uh I'm excited to be here to to um have an opportunity to uh introduce my company uh to a broader audience uh cor weave is
43:30 - 44:00 the AI hyperscaler um we are a specialized cloud computing company and what we mean by that is in a world where some of the people in this audience uh will launch new companies and could conceivably become one of the top 20 consumers of computational power in a relatively short order like 6 months or a year um the demands on compute the
44:00 - 44:30 demands on what the cloud has to be able to provide uh to the consumers of computational power um the software layers that are necessary to uh allow people to access compute at that scale successfully all of those things have changed in the last three years and with that uh cor weave went about building a solution from a blank sheet of paper from a from a from the ground up with a
44:30 - 45:00 no compromise uh uh driver to build the best solution for this specific use case rather than the entire cloud and all the different use cases on it and so we are a very specialized uh scale solution to providing parallelized compute to Consumers that require it to train models to run inference to to uh uh build artificial intelligence applications all of those things a lot
45:00 - 45:30 of the conversation about AI in the cloud is about companies with names like Amazon Microsoft Google they know a lot about scale too um is competing with them about matching their ability to do that or being better or finding a different Niche yeah so so we we kind of viewed the space as there was a there was the uh Legacy cloud that had built this incredible infrastructure that
45:30 - 46:00 enabled people to do anything right you wanted to store your photos they had a great solution you wanted to store your your data leaks they had a great solution like all those things um and like anything that's built one size fits all um implicit in that is that they will do everything wellish but they will do some things not as well as a specialized
46:00 - 46:30 solution right and so I I always use the analogy of um the the the Legacy clouds built the minivan right they built this vehicle that could move your roommates mattress across town it could get your kids to soccer practice it could do any of the things that you need to do in your daily life but when you're building um AI infrastructure and when you're serving uh lab abs and uh um companies
46:30 - 47:00 that are built in and around AI they have a very specific use case and they want to access compute in the most efficient uh uh most uh effective way and that was the opportunity that was available to a company like cor it was the opportunity to build a solution specifically to address the needs of scale consumption of compute uh by these massive parallel Lin supercomputers and so and so our
47:00 - 47:30 opportunity to compete with the uh uh the hyperscale is is by providing an entirely different product a product that's built to serve this group not every group so if you came to me and say hey can you store my my photos are sponsored me you should probably go use one of the Legacy clouds they do a great job that's not what we do AI has this voracious hunger for scale um as you said about hyperscaling can that scale go on
47:30 - 48:00 forever and increase or at some point um do we max out the ability to grow or maybe at some point more scale is not as necessary as it is right now so um forever is a very long time um so so it's it's always it's very difficult to answer questions on that type of uh timeline or talk about the next few years yeah so so better easier for me to speak to that is that our clients are providing us with
48:00 - 48:30 the signal for planning for a continuation and acceleration of the building and scaling of compute for both training purposes but also the ever increasing demand for inference infrastructure that will be able to allow uh users uh whether it's Enterprise or consumer to be able to access and use the model ultimately which is what they're all being built for uh and so we we really do see that
48:30 - 49:00 um in the foreseeable future the demand for compute is is pretty Relentless um and our job is to really position the company to be able to continue to meet the demands of of of our clients that are building as fast as they can when you read about core wve um quite often something it's mentioned is the fact you can get the chips you you have access to the Nvidia technology you
49:00 - 49:30 need um is that actually a big advantage to you talk talk a little bit about that yeah so so we have a great partnership with Nvidia um you know they're they're an investor in the company uh and and have been uh very supportive of the technical solution that we represent um and so uh we we don't have an ADV Advantage at accessing the chips what we have is a proven track
49:30 - 50:00 record of taking the technology and delivering it to the ultimate consumers in the most performant configuration possible and on the shortest timelines possible and ultimately From nidia's perspective as any technology provider you know like them ultimately wants the hardware to be delivered to the clients so that the clients are happy and
50:00 - 50:30 successful with their infrastructure so so our our relationship with with Nvidia is really built on the success that we've had um uh bringing their infrastructure online in its most performant configuration faster than anyone else in the market and um a bunch of other companies are also trying to do that uh as well that's that's kind of important um can you talk a little bit about how you're able to to do that in a in a way that maybe others can't match
50:30 - 51:00 so the the question really is on on which others right so like if you're looking at the the hyperscalers um the way that I I think about it is is that our uh Suite of software um is configured in such a way as to allow for bringing the infrastructure online in an incredibly uh um um expedient way and so when when when we think about them we're able to
51:00 - 51:30 go out into the market find clients that believe that the way that we deliver the compute the software that we have as uh in terms of the orchestration in terms of health checking in terms of all the things that are really required to run these colossal uh uh supercomputers um they understand that our solution is uh Superior to anything else out there and so when when other people come into the market if they're hyperscalers they're
51:30 - 52:00 going to deliver their solution um they have to integrate that solution into the Legacy Cloud that they've built it's a much more complicated uh technical exercise and that's a lot of why we've been able to carve out the space um so effectively this whole AI moment to a remarkable degree is builda toop Nvidia technology um they're certainly not slowing down but they're are a bunch of startups with chips that they say are
52:00 - 52:30 faster or cheaper or maybe faster and cheaper than nvidia's gpus and um the tech Giants are also very into designing their own chips um do you expect Nvidia to continue to play the role not forever that it does now but but at least for the foreseeable future yeah so um look the the the demand for the Nvidia solution is B based on the integration of their hardware and their software and
52:30 - 53:00 the ecosystem that they have built over the past 10 years to be able to support developers as they work with these supercomputers and they've done a masterful job um the world hates monopolies uh you know and so it stands to reason that there will be uh competitors both from the establishment and upshots um that
53:00 - 53:30 will attempt to displace them uh many of them will fail some of them will succeed to a degree some of them you know will succeed in a more prolific manner um you know I I think that the the the chase um is going to drive technology it's going to make for faster better more performant compute which is ultimately going to lead to better outcomes across the space we should talk about
53:30 - 54:00 sustainability because historically um great power demands more and more energy um what's I me what's the story now is it is it possible to to make inroads and offer even more scale and power um without power consumption going up at the same level so you you've got a you've got two problems that you're trying to to address um one is is the electrons right like you need more electrons to build more infrastructure
54:00 - 54:30 and that is a discrete problem in and of itself how do you access large scale uh uh data centers that are able to perform on hundreds of contiguous megawatts worth of computing and that's one set of problems and then you've got a second set of problems which is the uh environmental impact of consuming that power and they're not truly the same although they are related um we have seen a lot of activity within
54:30 - 55:00 the data centers that are driving efficiency the the most obvious and and and easily uh tangible one is of course liquid cooling right and the amount of efficiency that drives throughout the data center per flop um the the uh you know and so you've got you know um an entire industry right now working on citing new data centers is accessing power at scale um and uh uh
55:00 - 55:30 trying to uh minimize the environmental impact so like you come over to to our European data centers and uh we have you know we put a a um a commitment for 1.2 billion into the UK and then another 2.2 billion in Sweden Spain and and uh Norway right and all of those data centers are being uh powered by renewable energy 100% renewable energy and so we we we understand that this is
55:30 - 56:00 a challenge that that we are going to face as a company and the industry is going to face um uh over the next several years and so um it's front and foremost in both of its configurations both access to power and access to green power we should talk a little bit more about Europe and the fact that you recently announced this major expansion um are you competing with locals or other global companies and what's the competitive landscape like so uh we're going to compete with
56:00 - 56:30 everyone in the jurisdictions that we're trying to serve our clients want our solution for inference globally and so we need to go ahead and build infrastructure in order to serve them and so as we uh continue to expand our footprint uh around the world um you know we will'll continue to bring our solution to the Forefront and we think that people really will uh choose to use
56:30 - 57:00 that uh solution because it is so effective at ultimately allowing them to do what they need to do um uh you know in a coste effective uh uh consistent way and so that that's sort of how we we see the space as as we continue to expand our footprint globally and are you serving um big International companies or or local customers here or both yeah so so so we are you know the the regulatory
57:00 - 57:30 environment um uh really is driving um one of or is one of the drivers for building compute uh across the globe right like you know data sovereignty all of these other things really require you to be able to deliver the type of compute that people need in the jurisdiction that they need and so you know when when you look at core weave as a company you're going to see us expanding uh across the countries uh
57:30 - 58:00 in order to fulfill the requirements of our clients who need compute Within These Geographic geographically distinct areas and so that's that's what you're going to see from us it's going to be uh continued march to expanding our footprint to do that there will be a new Administration in the US come January um any the expectations of that having any particular impact on companies like yours or on the AI cloud in general so I
58:00 - 58:30 I think you're going to see um there's going to be impacts obviously right uh what what what we expect to see is a more business friendly environment um we expect to see uh within the us we expect there to be uh a more uh open approach to where technology flows um we also expect to see a continued um um
58:30 - 59:00 resistance to allowing the technology to fly flow to China I was going to ask about the global strategic element to this there is there's there's a gr Global strategic element or at least there has been um you know and uh you know there's there's a a layer of kind of um I don't want to call it nationalism but certainly um uh Sovereign gravity um where where different um nation states want to
59:00 - 59:30 maintain uh their foothold in this as it continues to expand and so I I think that all of those things will come to bear as the new Administration takes over um as it provides for an opportunity for this technology um and for American companies to really provide this technology globally as we start to wrap up any um predictions for the next year or so are things people should be on the lookout for so um I I think that from the
59:30 - 60:00 infrastructure side um the the the drivers are going to be towards continued scale with the caveat to being the size of the contiguous clusters are going to go through uh a pretty material step function um because the the the the scientists that are using uh the the uh the infrastructure
60:00 - 60:30 are expanding onto larger and larger requirements uh in order to build and train as we move forward and so I uh my expectation is just uh a lot of the the compute that's going to be built is going to be built into clusters that are so large that could not even really have been like conceived of two years ago right and so it's it's pretty magical right it's an amazing time so much is changing and and it it's just you know really interesting
60:30 - 61:00 for for a company like cor weave which has emerg to be so Central to the the the buildout and delivery of this infrastructure for technology that truly is changing the world it is a remarkable time I I hope you get to continue this conversation and see where it leads next thank you so much for your time Mike and thank you audience thanks guys [Music]
61:00 - 61:30 okay taking over as CEO is a challenge
61:30 - 62:00 especially when there are high-profile Founders and investors involved not to mention the glass ceiling that women need to break through time and time again in this session we'll learn from two women who've recently taken over the top job what have they learned what would they do differently and what are their top tips in conversation with Danielle
62:00 - 62:30 Belton from The Huffington Post please welcome the CEO of people management platform latis Sarah Franklin and the CEO of social networking app Bumble lyan Jones [Music]
62:30 - 63:00 all right all right all right who's awake I'm awake it's morning I'm with two incredible CEOs women leaders in this very competitive industry today and they're very awake and alert I'm very proud of them for it so let's just get into it so how did we even get here how did we get to the point point where we have climbed to the highest ladder in our various Industries like
63:00 - 63:30 lyani how was it for you like how was that essention to get to where you are today well for for folks that don't know me um I am a Brazilian girl from the suburbs of s Paulo I never ever dreamed of being the CEO of a public company so you know it's a bit of a moonshot to go to college in the US on a scholarship become a software engineer and um and really aim to go bold U at each step of the way you know aim higher so I'm very
63:30 - 64:00 grateful to be at a company now that I love the mission that um I'm proud to represent so it's truly an honor to be here oh that's incredible I I had a similar Journal where I never anticipated that I would be an editor-in-chief of a major news publication because I was just so happy being a staff writer Sarah what was it like for you in your journey um so similar to lyani I come from humble beginnings just a regular girl from Virginia in United States my mom was a
64:00 - 64:30 single mother and teacher growing up and I didn't grow up thinking oh I want to be a CEO of a company but I also had an engineering degree and I really loved you know really leading and growing and learning and you ask like how we get there um both lyd and I both have worked very hard but also as women have supported each other and that's been a very important part of the journey because whether it's engineering whether
64:30 - 65:00 it's leadership technology it it is not enough representation in these roles and I have a big passion for changing those ratios and I'm so proud to be here with my fellow friend and colleague former colleague um as two women that have achieved this incredible position no it's really valuable I mean often times there's this narrative that gets uh persists in the states that somehow you just Ascend to the top all on your own all on your own metal you pulled
65:00 - 65:30 yourself up by your bootstraps people don't always talk about the importance of networking and relationships and friendships and bonds can you speak a little bit on your bond and how it particularly helped you get to where you are today well it is true that Sarah and I actually know each other quite well and um the importance of having a network as Sarah mentioned it's so so important um especially for women there just not enough of us uh it's been fascinating to me though how um women
65:30 - 66:00 genuinely support one another um and that's been you know heartening um and Sarah and I exchange phone calls from time to time so it's it's for real uh the other thing is I I think men play a huge role as well in being great allies when it works um I have had great mentors along my journey um and so the power of women supporting women and great allies I think think has an insane um amplifier effect you know in in helping combat some of these racial
66:00 - 66:30 challenges no that's so important and you mentioned mentorship now I'm someone who did not have a mentor coming up in this industry therefore like when you see all the bumps and bruises and scars all over me it's because I didn't know what I was doing I just kind of like made up my own path can you talk a little bit about how you found your mentor and what impact that had on your career you know for me uh I one of my first jobs outside of uh College post College was working as an engineer at
66:30 - 67:00 Microsoft and I really looked up to a a vice president there he was just bright talented so he was my you know um inspiration um and he was just a great Ally great Advocate great human being over the years I actually asked him to be my mentor shamelessly and I am happy to share that now he's the C of bumble um when you really build relationships that last over a decade it changes the trajectory of your own company but you
67:00 - 67:30 build relationships that last so when I was looking for the best possible CTO he was the person to call and it's just an honor to have him Sarah what about you did you have a mentor I I feel very fortunate to have had many people that I can you know call my mentors and mentors are people that are up beside below the whole sphere you need to look to everyone in this world as people that you can learn from um you mentioned the the the word of I yes I believe that in
67:30 - 68:00 this world we are so naive to think that we ever do anything on our own if I were to say I did this by myself I would be pretending that I manufactured my clothing my shoes I made the food that I ate this morning I made the shelter that I live in and I think that we all need to show up every day with a gratitude to understand that we do this together we help each other men women we all help each other and that's what we can do to really make the world better um but then
68:00 - 68:30 for myself you ask for mentorship I feel very lucky to have had um incredible people that I've learned leadership skills from that I've also been humbled by and I think that's important you I don't see any bumps and bruises on you right now you look gorgeous I'm covered in a they're covered in jeans and a jacket right I mean you look gorgeous you know but but I think that that is what's important is you need people that will be truth tellers more than anything no that's really critical I mean your industries in particular tend to be very
68:30 - 69:00 male heavy and in a media it's a bit more of a mix but the leadership is still a similar situation it's often men who are at the top leading media corporations just like tech companies just like all Fortune 500 companies it's it's a lot of guys um what has been the biggest challenge for you that you think is related to your gender and trying to send to the CEO position like what what was the thing that like men don't have to think about when they're
69:00 - 69:30 making their way to the top look I think in life we all face you know stereotypes biases in any you know every part of our lives but it's extremely heavier for women uh the amount of stereotypes like we both have engineering degrees and I'm sure uh we both have you know heard that we're not technical enough or you name it there's a tremendous amount of them uh for me it's always been very important to tune out stereotypes just those are just
69:30 - 70:00 distractions it's other people's views um it's important for me that I believe in me um and into Sarah's point that um you're surrounded by people that you want to be around you know your team your uh your leadership your friends your family so I I think it's really really important to believe in who you are be Unapologetic about your style in just be convicted on on how to move forward and do it with Integrity I think
70:00 - 70:30 you know I loved that you talked about the collaboration of those around uh for me collaboration Integrity transparency a set of values really ground how I show up each day and it allows me to not be so worried about the gender Dynamics as much good Sarah how about you I mean we how long do we have we no exactly 14 minutes and 16 seconds good moderator over there um the web Summit appreciates that I am sure no but so um
70:30 - 71:00 the world has systemic unconscious bias whether it's gender race so you know sexual identity all all the above and so as women we're not raised the same to be always confident and always believing in ourselves and we're critiqued by our bodies and our voices and our opinions and it's something where you know this little bird grows on our shoulder called this little impostor birdie that sits there and tells you like you don't
71:00 - 71:30 belong here you're not good enough and we have to learn how to tell the impostor birdie to sit down appreciate you humbling me but I'm going to walk into this moment with confidence and I'm going to believe myself as being the strong independent very smart person that can lead and grow and and know that you have to do that sometimes not with having all of the answers that's the other thing is that um we sometimes allow fear to
71:30 - 72:00 penetrate our decision-making I I don't know if I'm right I don't know if I'm wrong I I I don't know how this will turn out but a big part of leadership is having confidence in your ability to make the decisions that are right at the time and to bring your team along and to support them and that confidence while not taught in our society is something that we can teach ourselves and support ourselves in having lyana and I have had
72:00 - 72:30 many times together where we've given each other confidence and strength and reminded each other you know you you don't know everything but we are here together and and we have trust and that's that's just so important I'm glad that you brought that up because it's a common misconception that people have about individuals and Leadership that everything has to come from you that you have all the answers that you're all knowing and all power ful but we're not the Great and Wonderful Wizard of Oz in this situation you know like we're human
72:30 - 73:00 and humans are fallible and we need the support of our teams and how to delegate um when you became leaders what was like the biggest Revelation for you in like trying to like just navigate that leadership space and trying to be that North Star for your company make the right decisions for your team knowing that on the inside there's so much going on emotionally I would say that um teams really want to
73:00 - 73:30 feel that their leader is telling them the truth is transparent and accountable and very open and accessible and these are things that when you have a leader that you know that they are communicating their vision and their strategies and their plan very openly and transparently it builds trust and so the the the deepest learning is for me that you need need to build that trust be authentic be vulnerable and it builds
73:30 - 74:00 that trust it cultivates the sense of okay I believe in this leader I trust this leader she will tell me not just things are good but also things are are not good and that's very important for people um to have that trust in their their leader and CEO yeah for me um I never sought to you know be a leader it's never been like the thing that has been the goal um I love building products um it's my
74:00 - 74:30 passion it's where I get the most Joy uh so even from early early on in my my career it's always been about how do we get a group of great people to build the product and that's where you see me get most excited um my team will tell you all about it um even if they tell me I should get out of those meetings but um it really is um you know when I think about that it's about driving direction it's inspiring and as you you know grow and now as CEOs of a company it's so
74:30 - 75:00 important for me that we you know I think we are all people as you said um especially in today's world we're all looking to be inspired we're looking to have an impact and to matter in this world and um and so I'm really proud to be leading an organization that's Mission Le because um we are really focused on supporting our members so now we're United as a team um behind a mission that we you know we really believe in um and as Sarah said you know what how do I want to show up I want to
75:00 - 75:30 show up as a human being also you know as you said uh we're people and some days I have great days some days I don't have great days but I want everybody in our organization to know that is okay not just for me but all of them and that uh we're creating an environment where everyone is seen where everybody can do their best work um and can be proud of the you know the impact that they're having each day so uh not perfect by any means but certainly I'm you know excited by the
75:30 - 76:00 culture that we're developing as a company oh incredible you know when you were speaking I had this Vision you my father was in management in the Aerospace industry I'm actually the daughter of an engineer um I tried engineering camp it didn't stick but I did it two years in a row just to get out the house now my father I used to always I knew I would have his life and not my mother's life she was a stay-at-home mom and so I would watch him go to work every day be a leader in the Aerospace industry and then come home and like my mom
76:00 - 76:30 literally did everything he just turn on the TV and zone out cuz he was so stressed out from his job and I realized the reason why he was so successful is because he didn't have to deal with any of the other stuff he didn't have to worry about me and my siblings he didn't have to clean the house he didn't have to cook the meals were prepared for him and so I want to talk about the concept of sacrifice watching him go through that and I realized as a woman it was really unlikely that I was going to find
76:30 - 77:00 a partner who's just going to be like your dream is the dream and I'm just going to help support your dream because it doesn't often happen for us as women and so My Sacrifice is like I don't have kids and I've been unmarried for a large portion of my career what has been a sacrifice you felt that you had to make or give up in order to pursue your dreams well I I'll start um I I'm a believer that I can really achieve my goals in general um so I have a
77:00 - 77:30 family I have two kids and the dog um and for me it's really about like being extremely thoughtful about my time extremely thoughtful um about you know when I'm home and one with my kids and with my dog I'm 100% there like mentally there notifications are off all of that like clear boundaries uh so that I can be truly present but when I'm at work when I'm you know in in my team's different locations I'm 100% there uh so
77:30 - 78:00 it's been really important to figure out how to manage that it's taken energy and time uh but I I do think everybody you know there's more uh dual like leadership you know couples nowadays I think families in general are figuring out how to navigate that um I for me it's really important to be uh a great uh mother a great great wife a great you know CEO for the company um and you know it's not perfect but but we're we're
78:00 - 78:30 making it work uh one you know final thought on that is that you know a proud moment for me is that we're really great role models for for kids and for you know younger people um I was home a few weeks ago and my 9-year-old came down with a purse and one of my heels and she said I'm playing with my friend as uh I'm a CEO on a business trip yeah and I was like wow how awesome is that she also plays dolls and a million of other things but I don't know that a lot of
78:30 - 79:00 little girls were playing CEOs you know a while back so I it's a I'm hopeful hopeful that more of us will figure out how to manage this and uh we'll have you know more opportunities for girls in the future yeah I mean I love the story of your daughter because I mean my two daughters is my purpose every day and also all of our daughters all of our all of our young uh girls in this world where if they can be what they can see and they believe it then hopefully we
79:00 - 79:30 can change the ratios for the next generation and for me I'd say sacrifice um a bit along the way of you know I was engineer mother now CEO product a bunch of things um I also believe as lyani does that we can have it all but it requires prioritization but that wasn't a lesson that I've learned until more recently and it's
79:30 - 80:00 interesting and somewhat serendipitous that ltis is a company whose mission is to make work meaningful and a big part of that is to connect what you do to the company goals so you feel like every day you're coming and doing something that's helpful for the company and that's a very important part of feeling connected to your job and so in terms of sacrifice I there's been a lot of sacrifices along the way but I believe that I am a whole person I am a
80:00 - 80:30 mother I a CEO I'm a friend I'm a sister I'm all things at once and it's important that we don't sacrifice ourselves that's the most important thing that you can't sacrifice is what is important to you what is your passion what drives you every day and I would say as my career I also didn't have a perfectly you know linear career from you student to CEO I I meandered along the way I learned something at every place and what I've developed over time
80:30 - 81:00 is clear identity and that is something which no matter your career choice you should be very happy in what you're doing you should be very passionate about work you're doing and working with Incredible people that you trust and that is something that I just would say never sacrifice that oh that's that's so powerful uh lyani when you mentioned your daughter that really sparked a memory for me me and my sisters when we played Barbies Barbie was never getting
81:00 - 81:30 married or anything like even though we had a stay-at home mom like it was in a very happy marriage it just never occurred to us that Barbie would have like you know focus on that we were always played Barbie goes to college you know Barbie is an astronaut Barbie gets a job Barbie gets her first apartment Barbie gets first car that was the types ways that we played and so I think about what you both are saying about the power of that image of being able to see a woman in a leadership position cuz when you're able to see something you're
81:30 - 82:00 able to achieve towards it you're able to idealize that was there someone in your life or some figure that you saw growing up or as you started to ascend in your careers that was inspirational to you that thought okay this could be possible I could do this you know because I grew up in such a um poor neighborhood of s Paulo my role model really was my mom because she was a house cleaner doing three jobs trying to juggle it all and um I was like wow if she can do that you know I can do more I
82:00 - 82:30 can do better for her um she's still one of my best friends um so she she has been my real model but you know I think for right now um I've been so inspired by Whitney wolfart who's the founder of bumble um and it's amazing what she's accomplished in you know 35 years of her life um it's amazing how young she is so it's been a really great friendship and partnership that we formed I mean for me I would say that u
82:30 - 83:00 preco i remember there was a article that said there was more men named John in the Fortune 500 than there were women and I read that article and it like lit me up I was like this is not okay and I said I want to be a CEO I want to get on that journey and it was you know that was 5 years in the making of laying down the pathway to get there people put you in a box and I wanted to escape the box and I want
83:00 - 83:30 every other woman to know that there is no box you can be whatever you dream you can do whatever you want and there is nobody to put you in a box or a corner and so the lack of that is what drove me because I'm like this is not okay and for our daughters they need to be able to see this and I want every daughter to play like you know CEO goes on a on a business trip or astronaut goes to space whatever it may be whatever they dream
83:30 - 84:00 our women should be able to do it well that is so incredible we have to stop but this was amazing you're both powerful incredible women and it was really an honor to have this conversation with you both so thank you so much thank you thank you so much [Music]
84:00 - 84:30 all right all right social media enables us to connect Express and promote ourselves in ways never before imagined it's also linked with a collapse in teenage mental
84:30 - 85:00 health Rising levels of anxiety and widespread misinformation how can governments work with the big tech companies to mitigate the risk and maximize the positive potential of these platforms to find out what we're going to do about social media in conversation with the financial times Tim Bradshaw please welcome co-chair at oversight board Pamela San Martin the head of the content at the New York Stock Exchange Joe banok and
85:00 - 85:30 privacy expert and author Mark Weinstein [Music]
85:30 - 86:00 all right okay thanks very much everyone for coming um so how do you solve a problem like social media we're still talking about this it's 2024 um Joe I'm going to start with you there's been some news overnight on your old boss Mr Elon Musk now in charge of this isn't strictly a social media
86:00 - 86:30 question but it's topical so I'm going to ask it quickly and we'll get past it like what do you think Elon will do as the new head of the Department of government efficiency in the US well first thank you I'm really excited to be here this is my first web Summit so this is a great kickoff and I'm really excited I know that we'll get to it later to talk about the New York Stock Exchange and everything that we're doing to really power and become an information pipeline really to every platform out there but you asked a really good question it's very topical I
86:30 - 87:00 think if you look at the constellation of companies that Elon is um overseeing you know you have Tesla uh you have SpaceX these are these are long companies that have worked with governments in a variety of ways you have Tesla that's working on safety compliance you have SpaceX that's working on regulatory processes and a lot of federal contracts elon's been very big on and public around the need for AI regulation and as the owner um of
87:00 - 87:30 of X and working with the EU commission and and governments around the world so I think if you put all of that together and that Collective Insight I think it stands to have a really meaningful impact and I think more so just in Tech but across all Industries but do you do you think the US Government Can the the infrastructure of US government can withstand the kind of cuts that he made at X when he came in and bought the company well that's to be determined I mean I I don't know what's what's in his plan or within their proposal but I do think that understanding the
87:30 - 88:00 efficiencies that have probably come from working with Tesla and SpaceX will have a very meaningful impact and I think that that that is that is the type of um expertise and knowledge that you'd want to impart within the administration okay um Pomo we've we've had uh a few elections this year um the oversight board was created the oversight board was created back in uh 2016 after the or 2017 after the um Cambridge analytica
88:00 - 88:30 Scandal do you feel like meta after all this time has has learned from those past mistakes what how how did it conduct itself this time around no thank you and it's wonderful being with you guys on stage I think we have to see the impact that meta has had that social media Platforms in general have had on elections in its different varieties and the positive impact as a way to empower people to communicate to access information that is absolutely necessary to uh for for Democratic process but
88:30 - 89:00 also when you look at the harms that you can have the capacity to polarize to um incite to coordinate to incite violence or to uh mislead in order to get political gain to mislead users in order to undermine democracies all of that has to been has to be seen together and when we were heading into the year of Elections because there has in fact been quite a bit a bit of Elections uh during this year we were all concerned about
89:00 - 89:30 how are social media platforms and from the oversight board how is meta going to deal with these elections are they going to learn from the past lessons are they going to learn from what the mistakes that they had made and uh I think that if we see throughout the elections that have occurred all the cycle we have seen things that we would always expect not to happen in democracies and even in not so Democratic countries that have had elections but that we have not had up to
89:30 - 90:00 up to today a scandal that has to do with uh the role that social media platforms are playing on elections especially the role that met is playing and I think that has to do with the fact that it had been preparing for uh for this for these elections for this election cycle for a long time and uh from the board we've been pushing into the different measures that they had to have in place in order to guarantee transparency to have metrics to evaluate their elect Integrity efforts to in
90:00 - 90:30 order to not allow content to act quickly on content that could inight violence and but to protect political speech that is absolutely necessary for a democracy to to move forward do you do you think that was related to how meta effectively tried to sort of deprioritize political content in in discourse on on its platforms is that or is that abdicating its responsibility as a sort of town square I think that there's two things that we have to understand one what this
90:30 - 91:00 what does the deprioritizing of political content mean it means it won't be Amplified it doesn't mean it won't be spread organically it just won't be Amplified it won't be fed in news feeds or in recommendation algorithms there's a lot to question there because of the impact that can have in the possibility of people organizing of people accessing information in the and we had a case in the oversight board regarding Venezuela and the protests in Venezuela and we called out on meta to really think of
91:00 - 91:30 what impact that could have for example in protests or in oppositions that are trying to uh get their message out in in criticism towards governments or other political parties that are participating in elections that is something that I think has to be assessed but we have to be clear on what it means to deprioritize that political content because any content that is organically out there any account that any one of our or page that any one of us follows we will be
91:30 - 92:00 able to get that political content if we follow newspapers we will be able to get those that political content but it just will not be fed to uh users and there's a lot of discussion to be had around that I think okay um Mark what do you think the new US Administration what kind of impact do you think that will have on on how the social media platforms conduct themselves and and and think about content moderation you know it's interesting and also thank you guys my first time up on the stage at web
92:00 - 92:30 Summit um and I've got a new book restoring our sanity online that our dear comrade sir Tim berners Lee heartily endorsed as sharing the vision um and here's what's happening so you know first of all meta sort of pulled back right because uh Donald Trump several months ago said uh you know I'm going to put Mark Zuckerberg in jail uh if I'm elected president he said that in July um and three days later meta took all the the sort of guard rails off of
92:30 - 93:00 trump and there were hundreds of millions of dollars spent uh you know on meta but you know paid for during the political campaign season so it's not as though there was no boosted content there was paid you know hundreds of million dollars from all sides um but what happens now is if you look at um what is unprecedented in America the um Trump's you know reach through social media is influence through social media uh through X through his site truth
93:00 - 93:30 social and of course through his uh cozy relationship with Fox uh for a sitting American president to have that kind of of you know reach just via social media is unprecedented so what we're going to see is uh without having to pay so to speak to pay to boost all these things you know we're going to see that Trump will be able to uh promote you know his agenda through you know through social and unprecedented ways but we also what we'll probably see is there is an
93:30 - 94:00 Anti-Trust case in the US government uh you know that's been working through for three years and I've been part of it I've been subpoenaed by the Federal Trade Commission I've been deposed by meta I've been deposed by the US government I've provided hundreds of pages of documentation around what I know about it um and I believe that you will see uh the Trump Administration likely to support support that case moving forward uh and in this case uh if that case moves forward and uh there's
94:00 - 94:30 you know maybe we get lucky and we get data interoperability data portability where we can really get the free market working again because the free market doesn't work right now for personal social media which is sites like Facebook of which there are very few um where you where you're connected with your family and your friends in addition to all the news and all the pages and groups so uh I think we're seeing both Jo can I just do do you agree that um if if you know Trump uses X as his de facto government Communications machine will that bring Brands back does the New York
94:30 - 95:00 Stock Exchange want to play in that kind of environment as a partner to a brand that's so closely Allied to a particular political Viewpoint so let me unpack I think you asked two questions sure um You probably asked a third that's buried in there but I think you know uh kind of putting together both things that that were discussed in terms of leveraging these platforms and and leveraging X I think that you probably saw both
95:00 - 95:30 administrations leverage all platforms and you may have seen you know one Administration use one over the other depending on their constituencies and their bases and so I think that's that's probably a healthy digital ecosystem but the second part of your question was around Brands yeah and the Ft had a story my colleagues at the Ft this morning had a story saying that brands are actually coming back to X partly because they feel like they want to Cozy up to to the Trump Administration well I mean and that's a
95:30 - 96:00 brand decision and that's something that you know I can speak to I can speak to the you know the New York Stock Exchange the New York Stock Exchange does have its content on every platform and that's a good thing because we do reach a wide ranging constituents and and business audiences on are on every platform so for for Brands to say that they they want to do that specifically on the xplatform is is a great thing then for X and its monetization but so do you do you kind of I mean a brand like the New York Stock Exchange is I think of as
96:00 - 96:30 relatively um you're a very traditional kind of brand it's it's not you're not a kind of racy fast moving new consumer goods business that's trying to start up on social media does that does that kind of change I mean you've worked with brands for many years does that have a different kind of texture to how they would engage with with social media this is you have a new role to to do exactly that right yeah so there's again there's two parts that because in my specific role it's to create a pipeline of information to every single one of the platforms so if you think about the the
96:30 - 97:00 the thought leadership and the um the business Acumen that comes from the New York Stock Exchange just look at the New York Stock Exchange just in in a couple data points $40 trillion $40 trillion is the market cap of the 2400 listed companies that are on the stock exchange in addition to that those um those companies employ 43 million people around the world so if you look at that and you think about all of the platforms
97:00 - 97:30 and all of their communities then there's definitely communities on every single one of those platforms by which would be very interested in the thought leadership and the business acument and the financial um Financial perspective that's coming out of the New York Stock Exchange so definitely all platforms are of of high consideration and we're in conversation with all all all of them including X in fact I just had a really great conversation with the X team just last week and we're we're thinking about what we will do and and to rev up our partnership okay um did when when you
97:30 - 98:00 were when you were working there and you left this this summer um did so so before the kind of election campaign really ramped up I guess but um did you see any sign um that that Elon was was using the X algorithm to amplify posts that he agreed with that to sort of amplify conservative views no no no I I think that you know the platform by and large is a you know pres you know preserving free speech for all diverse voices and I you know that's that's the
98:00 - 98:30 work that that platform is doing and you can actually see it in all the work I you know I know that the current election is one specific endpoint as it relates to free speech but if you look at the platform and you look at its transition from Twitter to X new company new value proposition but you look at its work in Brazil you look at its work in Australia and I know that there's a lot going on in Australia you look at you know the platform's work in India you definitely can see that the um the protection of free
98:30 - 99:00 speech is is is um baked into all of those different efforts so I think you know the current US election is one very specific input that you see you know you see a lot of voices um able to emerge and able to have you know the ability to to engage in an election process from do you feel like it would be a problem if if a proprietor of a social media platform was using that sort of algorithm to print their views I mean we've had newspaper Barons using their
99:00 - 99:30 politics in print for decades I think that if there's one thing that we have to hold social media platforms accountable for is to be transparent as to their design decisions what they're amplifying what they're demoting what they're not showing people what is what is moving organically and what is being boosted by the platform I think there's a difference when we're talking about advertisements because advertisements are that they're paid uh propaganda that
99:30 - 100:00 is moving and it can occur in social media platforms or it can it can occur in other uh traditional media Etc where you pay for something to be pushed but when there's an algorithm that actually is continually showing something to people that is continually pushing to have Amplified the certain information beyond the reach that that would have because of the amount of followers you have for example then there is there
100:00 - 100:30 should be Clarity on that because you can be promoting certain narratives we saw it for example in Brazil you could see coordinated campaigns in Brazil uh trying to uh contest the results of the election but not only that call for violence and call for the taking the taking over of the three Plaza uh the three which actually occurred and those were coordinated campaigns using the social media platforms if if if it though it's
100:30 - 101:00 true that there have been efforts by some social media platforms to stop some of these coordinated campaigns especially when they're in authentic especially when you have Bots it is also true that these are still occurring and they have enormous impacts and what we have to hold platforms accountable for is for transparency at the minimum at the least on this and I believe that if social media platforms today have a lot of say in what we see what we hear and
101:00 - 101:30 the information the political information we get so long as you have more social media platforms being like the vehicle for political information we have to hold all the social media platforms accountable meta decided for reasons that had to do with Cambridge analytica that had to do with scandals that occurred uh in those in in in those ages decided to create an oversight board but today they do have an oversight board that actually holds them accountable that is independent from
101:30 - 102:00 them that doesn't act on behalf of their political interest or their business interests and that brings out fleshes out the problems that we identify and tries to find solutions for those problems other platforms don't have that and we're not holding them accountable to be transparent into what we see what we hear and why and how they're functioning and I think that if there's something that everybody has to work around is making social media platforms accountable because you have private actors really controlling
102:00 - 102:30 our fundamental Liberties and fundamental freedoms one of the things that um I think the oversight board was was warning about as we went into this election season around the world was the use of deep fakes um to to to kind of think I mean that didn't seem to be I don't know have you have you seen that become the problem that it was feared to be or was it overhyped was it controlled properly what happened we all feared that this year of election because it we had like two things together a year of enormous amount of
102:30 - 103:00 Elections and a year of a boost of AI so it was if you put these two together in a mix this can be like a recipe for disaster but what happened we have not seen an explosion of that in these elections does that have to do with the fact that social media platforms are enforcing better and controlling better what is on their platforms I would doubt it because we would see differences in different platforms and we're not seeing that I would think that what we're seeing is that it is not being used yet
103:00 - 103:30 does it mean it won't be used of course we saw an enormous rise in Dees from in this election cycle vises prior election Cycles but we didn't see the hype that we were expecting and for to like overrun uh our capacity to understand what was real what was not real in during an election yeah but we still have to be aware and the guard rails still have to be put in place okay um Mark I mean arguably a bigger problem with deep fakes is is
103:30 - 104:00 areas like nonconsensual pornography or or child abuse imagery that's being used um being made with AI what do you feel like um the regulator's response on child safety online is has been so far and we've seen this new proposal from the Australian government to ban social media for under 16s outright is that workable is that the right approach you know um and you guys may be familiar with this the Australian government now uh the Prime Minister has said that he's about to introduce legislation to make a
104:00 - 104:30 mandatory minimum age of 16 for children to be on social media um and with user ID verification now in my book restoring our sanity online I talk about user ID verification because we've got to do something for kids we have to protect the anonymity of you know those at risk whistleblowers things like that but we've really got to get our kids protected did and all of us you know civil discourse and democracy are at much greater risk than we're talking about up here because when you've got
104:30 - 105:00 you know El even half of Elon musk's followers according to Time Magazine half of the his 200 million followers are Bots and trolls so while free speech is important if it's Bots and trolls and nefarious actors in adversarial countries that are perpetrating this Bots and troll uh you know um overreach on these platforms and making us hate each other when we really don't hate each other uh we've got a problem and for kidss we've got to protect their mental health we've got to get them stable again we know that the screen is
105:00 - 105:30 addictive we know that the algorithms that keep all of us addicted on social media are now supercharged by AI so you know it's not just about political content it's about all content the AI can do AB testing in nanc and we all know people who are completely addicted to our screens in fact some of us in the in the audience today right so I think the Australian government is taking an intering approach I think 16 personally is just not workable in a country like the United States so I'm an advocate for 13 I'm an advocate for figuring out very
105:30 - 106:00 good systems like Tim burner Lee the inventor of the web has a new system for user ID verification also where we can just make sure that kids are talking to kids that they really are 13 if they're on you know Facebook and other places and that we can get them no boosted content no targeted no advertising all this stuff until they're 18 we've got to protect kids can I I mean do you feel like you know everything that's been tried is is with with child safety you know can the platforms be trusted to
106:00 - 106:30 regulate themselves at this point you were involved in this at x uh yeah so during my time at X which I was actually a a a very prideful moment and you know I spent a lot of time at meta but specifically specifically at X you know I mean the platform itself was um had put a ton of effort in fact that was one of the very first things that um our very very first kind of policy overview that Linda and I um reviewed when we got there uh in June of last year in June of
106:30 - 107:00 2023 and they had done a you know they had made a step change in all of their enforcement and in fact um they actually supported I think up to five pieces of legislation you with you know the report act um with the shield act kosa and you know I think and it when you look at platforms leaning in to legislation uh the report act in fact actually became law that's in fact when you're holding you know you're holding each other accountable and that's what you
107:00 - 107:30 want to see you want to see Tech platforms working with governments more closely and not just in the US you want to see that happening around the world because what you want to make sure is that you're you're making a sweep and a step change and I actually know that from that platform they actually had you know a 10 times more enforcement than they did when it wasn't owned okay um last question for you Pia very very quickly I mean do do you think that child safety is a is a solvable problem online or or or is the best thing just to just to kind of put an alcohol style age limit on it I think that we have to
107:30 - 108:00 work to protect children but also to give voice to children to be able to empower and give them agency and to find the balance this is something that we will not achieve only through uh regulation there has to be a combination between regulation and self-regulation through accountability mechanisms through independent oversight if we don't get all of this together we will always be a step behind because regulation is not fast it's not fast to approve and it's not fast to implement
108:00 - 108:30 okay this panel has gone very fast though we're out of time thank you very much indeed for taking this time to to playy with us today thankk you thank you thank you everybody [Music]
108:30 - 109:00 [Music] amazing amazing all right all right web Summit as you know hosts conferences around the world but next year we will host our first first in North America while we hosted Collision in Las Vegas New Orleans and Toronto in the past it didn't carry the
109:00 - 109:30 websummit brand name and so as we Sunset the Collision brand next year we will be shining the spotlight on the west coast of North America as a born and raised Vancouver R I am super excited to announce that we will be hosting the very first web Summit Vancouver starting next year check out my socks I even I even got got some Vancouver socks here to uh commemorate the excitement all right Vancouver is the home to massive video
109:30 - 110:00 game animation and movie effects industry there are climate Tech blockchain and immersive and Frontier Technologies all thriving there it's the birth pace of the nft so we still collect those and it's where huge companies from Amazon to Electronic Arts call home in Canada it's a gorgeous city as many of you many of may have heard and it's easily accessible from cities like Calgary Seattle San Francisco uh and across the Pacific from Soul Tokyo Shanghai and more it will truly be an
110:00 - 110:30 epic International experience now I brought out my friend Tannis George she's the co-founder of identity platform startup and Vancouver unicorn truly tennis thank you for coming all the way out here to Lisbon what are like two things that you think uh your fellow startup Founders need to experience when they come to Vancouver yeah Casey I'm really excited to be here but you know as a Founder myself uh one of the things that I noted about Vancouver is that we
110:30 - 111:00 are a place for connection you know being so close to Silicon Valley and other Tech hubs you know Vancouver has really grown into itself over the last 25 years that is now Central to many of the major hubs in North uh America so Founders when they come are going to reach a whole new diverse group of connections through uh Silicon Valley of course Toronto all these other locations so that'll be the number one reason Founders want to go the second one is it's a vacation spot so Vancouver is one
111:00 - 111:30 of the most livable cities in the world and as an entrepreneur we need to recharge and sometimes we don't have the time to do that so websummit Vancouver will be the place where you can come get fed at the summit and then at the same time recharge by all the activities that we can do in Vancouver that's amazing I'm looking forward to it than thanks Tannis I hope you and everybody else here will join us in Canada next year for their very first web uh North American Web Summit so this this is
111:30 - 112:00 websummit Vancouver [Applause] [Music]
112:00 - 112:30 all right I know that looks a lot like Lisbon but you know we wait for us to film all the new stuff all right the stable of tech unicorns companies valued over a billion dollars is ever growing but to be valued at over10 billion is to be an exclusive company with only around 50 existing in total globally SpaceX open Ai and stripe are all examples of the DECA corn what does it take to get
112:30 - 113:00 to this level and what are the pressures on the founder to sustain it to find out how to build a $10 billion plus company in conversation with Susan Lee from Fox Business please welcome the co-founder and head of Technology at Gusto Edward Kim and managing partner at Indigo Capital Partners Christina fona [Music] so we did the unthinkable now we have the winning for now just want to see
113:00 - 113:30 more cash the last 2 years has definitely been a very aggressive come down not all startups will succeed this idea that we should be living in how do you break through the noise in the fight for funding [Music]
113:30 - 114:00 WB suit thank you so much for joining us on day two and a good morning to you I'm so happy to bring you a conversation with two of the most impressive startup entrepreneurs at the event this year as you heard from Casey unicorns are rare but decacorns $10 billion plus plus companies are even more rare we know it's been a tough funding Market the last 2 years 3,200 startups have now
114:00 - 114:30 gone out of business but these two companies and these two Founders have been able to thrive in the last two years despite the fact that we have the highest interest rates that we've seen in close to 25 years so I would love to start this conversation talking to Eddie Kim who we know is the co-founder of Gusto which is an HR platform worth over10 billion and then Christina fona who I don't really need to introduce to our lisban audience since she is one of
114:30 - 115:00 the Homegrown Champions she built a co-founder female co-founder of a $10 billion decacorn talk desk and she is now one of the largest independent Venture capitalists in the country so Eddie why don't I just start with you because I've been having this conversation with you about how difficult it's been for startups but you haven't had to raise cash since 2020 do you think now the floodgates have opened up with a new Trump Administration tax
115:00 - 115:30 cuts looming and lower interest rates yeah I mean I think I'm going to Humble brag a little bit um and share that we haven't actually had to look at the capital markets recently since our last fundraise in uh 20121 and the reason for that is we've actually been cash flow positive since then we've been cash flow positive for more than a year now um so actually defer to Christina I'm sure You' seen a lot more on what what is going on in the funding markets I think like pandemic was a forcing function for
115:30 - 116:00 companies and investors to rethink like getting the basics right uh and I think in the last 10 years lots of companies decided to just throw money at problems and we've noticed like that doesn't work uh all the time so I think it's been like these last years have been a a a difficult I would difficult probably the worst funding that you've seen in over a decade but that forced companies to like focus on solving problems for customers and using using Capital efficiently is
116:00 - 116:30 not a bad thing there's there's good and and bad I say minuses to the fact that it's we' seen Capital dry up for the last few years but do you feel and just from you know your your anecdotal conversations that animal spirits are back that people are willing to again invest LPS are opening up the wallets and willing to fund VC companies is you can raise more cash easily in these type of markets I'm talking about animal spirits do you feel it unleashing I like as you can see I'm
116:30 - 117:00 very positive so I really hope like especially with with in the next couple of years that more funding is available for funds I mean we are fundraising we're always fundraising um and the last couple of years have been tough um I believe like 2025 will be about like with lower interest rates will be about about having more money money being uh funneled to VC funds um and having a little bit more liquidity in the market are you fundraising right now you said
117:00 - 117:30 you're always fundraising are always fundraising yes you so we are we are deploying out of a new 100 million fund and we are raising our next fund as well okay I think to what Christina was saying is that the last few years has instilled a lot of discipline in companies and um we've gone through obviously many rounds of fundraising and the thing that I've learned is that the best time to be fundraising and the best like term sheets will come from when you are in a position where you actually don't need to fundraise so if you have like created a cash flow positive
117:30 - 118:00 business as Gusto has um if you do want to raise money even though you don't have to um you're going to be able to raise on really really good terms I think that's going to be especially true now and going forward well the obvious question to you g for Gusto is you've been around for close to a decade now 13 years now yeah so I think the same question applies to you you're worth a 10 billion now same question applies to Gusto as it does to stripe you know given that I spoke to ca yesterday Carta says that IPO markets will normalize and
118:00 - 118:30 should normalize in the next two years for startups are you ready for an IPO exit we don't comment on timelines I I think if you look at the business we're in a really really good spot though as I already shared um we're caps flow positive the company's been growing very very nicely um if you look at unit economics we've I think we will stand the stiff test to many like very strong public companies when it comes to things like gross margins and um unit economics
118:30 - 119:00 like CAC customer acquisition costs um and we've already shared actually almost a couple years ago now that um our last fiscal year which ended in uh April of 2023 um the the 12 months trailing that we actually had a a fiscal year of more than $500 million in Revenue um and so that's a period of time that started in May 2022 to um April 202 I'm sure you have pressure from your early investors people need to cash out they need to
119:00 - 119:30 repay their investors as well and I'm sure have you thought about secondaries how do you basically make your early investors whole when they need the cash right now the money I think um for investors and um and early employees there's always going to be liquidity options going public is obviously one such option but there are also many others right there are secondaries tenders and those are things that like when you're a company um of that's that's much later stage like Gusto is
119:30 - 120:00 you get into a pretty regular Cadence and there's lots actually lots of options to create liquidity for both investors early investors who want to cash out as well as um early employees who deserve the liquidity and what what has been your preferred strategy just quickly in in cashing out for yeah we've done a combination of uh secondaries and Tenders in the past yeah and because well Christina you've seen both sides of the coin as an Entre R preneur and now as a venture capitalist and investor so when you look at the markets and you know that a lot of these startups on average right now are only going public
120:00 - 120:30 after nine years nine years which has been almost double the long-term average for startups as an investor at what point do you start telling these startups I I need my money back to repay my LPS and my limited partners so first of all I think we need to do that from the beginning some times startups when they start taking money from investors they don't understand the game they are playing so they don't understand some of them don't understand like it's very
120:30 - 121:00 important for Founders to understand the business model of a VC like we need to get our money back and return the money multiple times more to our own investors and that we need to do that in the Horizon of like 8 to 10 years so that's why like the reason like uh the fact that it's taking longer for companies to go public has created like this Market of like secondaries like funds that by other funds so uh that market is a lot more Dynamic compared to what it was
121:00 - 121:30 like 10 years ago um but yeah I think it's important for Founders to understand the game they are playing when they take money from investors right and are you eager to deploy your cash right now $200 million in ass under management course we are very active we are closing investor investment number 50 uh we have like uh uh a couple of different funds uh uh and there's a lot of opportunity in AI space Tech like there's lots of sectors that are still like they still have big problems worth
121:30 - 122:00 solving with technology uh so we are very bullish on the next 10 years right I guess our audience should take note of that that you are looking to deploy money to the right startups and Founders as he was saying uh I think like when companies focus on the right things and build they build something that's different like tackles the real problem there's no shortage of money for these companies like I never met a company that had like a killer product that was
122:00 - 122:30 struggling to raise money that's the reality um customer focus first customer focus uh solving the problem focus on execution and money will come after yeah product Market fits as you said um before I talk about Lisbon Europe and Portugal specifically with you Christina I want to talk to Eddie about gusto in that 10 billion Deca corn range because someone say it's kind of a tough tough area to be in at10 billion you have competitors that are roughly the same
122:30 - 123:00 valuation like Rippling is worth 11 to 13 billion doar so I guess the the crossroads for you is either you merge with a competitor or you possibly sell to somebody else or you go public those are the options facing you at this point so I'm just wondering how do you and you and your Founders how do you take a look at at the at the problem right now and decide on the road to take for us I think it's really clear I think our path is definitely being a
123:00 - 123:30 public company um we don't have timelines on exactly when that's going to be but um we feel really um excited about the opportunity that's ahead of us we're in a huge uh Market we have actually today less than 10% market share in the United States and so as big as we are a $10 million company there's still so much room for us to grow and I think the best way for us to do that the best way for us to actually realize our potential will be to stay an independent company and so that just kind of like
123:30 - 124:00 logically leads us down the path of becoming a public company but isn't there competition because the people that I talked to about uh the the products that Gusto provides which by the way a lot of people compliment because it's like a One-Stop shop especially for small and mediumsized businesses that need the help but you have larger much larger competitors like ADP on the horizon you know if they reached out to you with a pretty hefty premium you know hey would Gusto sell to us for maybe 100% more20 billion I think there's obviously would
124:00 - 124:30 be a lot of factors that go into that I think for me personally like I want to be in control of our own destiny right I I truly think that we're going to reach our best potential if we stay in control of the company and and stay independent and so um you know I'm never going to say never but like I I think um the right price I think I think the I think our plan is definitely um to stay independent okay now Christina I wanted to talk to you because I feel like you can address this homegrown audience
124:30 - 125:00 which I'm sure everybody kind of knows who you are already given your success but you've said before that it's very hard to build a decorn here in Europe in Portugal in particular why is that I mean we are in the right place don't get me wrong but um I think like especially in a world where we talk a lot about remote work and like being flexible uh if we look at the talk desk and one of the reasons why we were successful was because we took very good advantage of being in Portugal but we
125:00 - 125:30 also moved to the US like the first St Des company was created in the US like we moved there like me and myel founder it's very important to have like a a uh be close to customers have sales teams marketing teams and hire the best of the best if you want to like conquer the world and be the leading solution in an area then you'd better find the experts that have done that before and can help you like get to that level um and
125:30 - 126:00 like you can do that in every area in Portugal so you need to go abroad if we look at the success cases that are Portuguese Founders went abroad uh so it's very important to understand if you're building a a global product you can't just be in your like home desk uh and and pretend like working remotely will get there so okay I just want to be specific and understand is it is it a Personnel issue is it getting the right fit right hes I think it's right hes
126:00 - 126:30 technical knowledge technical knowledge being close to customers being pressured we were having a conversation backst stage I think like The Benchmark the best tech tech companies are probably in San Francisco if you want to be the best of the best like you need to spend time with the people that are at the same level there's way more entrepreneurs like the the most of the decords they are there they they are not here so you need to build your benchmark based on the best of the best and that means spending time in really competitive
126:30 - 127:00 markets if your solution sells in the US or in London or in a competitive market for your solution then I mean like I can make sure I'm doing a good job if I can sell in a really competitive market so how can Europe improve this is this about education is this about funding is this about government policy like to be honest in our case what helped the most was having the right investors because sometimes as an entrepreneur you're focused on like your
127:00 - 127:30 Market building your product and the people that can keep you in check are typically your investors um so you should if you raise smart money and you get money from investors that can not only bring the money but also the connections the network and help you go abroad yeah um that makes a a a lot of difference in your journey I think that if there's more stories like like like yours like Christina's I think it it creates the ecosystem here right and so I I would imagine that you don't want it to always be the case that you have to
127:30 - 128:00 come to America to build a company um but that's a way to get it started the reason why you were I think able to raise your VC fund is because you were such a success story and that that's helping to create an ecosystem here in Portugal of course look like don't get me wrong if we didn't have Portugal that would also be very hard yeah because we had like unfair access to Tech technical Talent like like we have half of the company here and that plays a very important role but I think alone that's
128:00 - 128:30 not enough yeah um but Lisbon will always have your heart right I'm here I'm here for a reason you your family um no I agree with you and I think Portugal and Lisbon's very very lucky to have you as well uh but back to I I have to obviously talk about the uh the big news story that has developed over the last week and we know that there will be a new Administration in the US starting in January red sweep meeting Republican house senate White House president as
128:30 - 129:00 you know so given that you work with small and medium-sized businesses austo primarily you know Goldman Sachs says that companies that actually Target small and mediumsized businesses should benefit the most during a trump term so I'm just wondering from your perspective how are you gearing up for that yeah I mean I I think there's going to be what are you anticipating Paul polic wise first of all I think there'll be a lot of things that will change over the next four years and for Gusto and there's also going to be a lot of things that don't change at all like Gusto is no
129:00 - 129:30 stranger to changing regulations changing administrations um for the last 10 years are you preparing for that for the last 10 years um our job is to really stay on top of everything that's changing in terms of compliance tax laws and make sure that we embed those changes immediately into our product so that our customers small businesses don't have to worry about it so even with the incoming Administration that's no different than what we've been doing for the past 10 plus years now there's a lot of things
129:30 - 130:00 that I think will change as well um when we hear from our small businesses and Gusto is fortunate enough to have uh a team of e economics uh folks that actually survey our small businesses there's a few things that we hear that our customers want that small businesses specifically want they want to see lower tax burden they want to see um lower uh cost of heal premiums because they do want to offer health insurance to their employees um it's just getting too expensive for them to do so uh Gusto's one of the largest health insurance
130:00 - 130:30 brokers in the United States and so we're really interested in seeing the health premium health insurance premiums go down as well and then finally they want to see uh lower complexity in the tax law and less regulation um so I think all those things in in addition to the lowering interest rates that are already happening I think they will be booned to um small businesses specifically and obviously great great for our business as well so you sound optimistic then for the next four years I'm optimistic I'm always optim for Gusto for the startup Community I'm yeah
130:30 - 131:00 very optimistic yeah I'm just wondering Christina from your perspective since you are you have a Global Perspective does the election change anything for you and your outlook I mean uh hopefully more money will be funneled to the startup ecosystem uh and I think like as I mentioned before uh liquidity like the IPO Market opening up uh it's going to be very very interesting for companies because of course we need to return our money to investors and uh so they can give us more money to keep investing um so I I only see positive things
131:00 - 131:30 happening in the next couple of years excellent so we have the last minute here I just want to leave our audience with maybe a piece of advice from two very successful highly successful startup Founders serial entrepreneur here but if you were to give an individual who came up to you at this event and say hey Eddie hey Christina how do I build the next deck of corn what advice would you give them daddy we'll start with you first yeah I think it's for me it's pretty simple you have to start in a very very large market and
131:30 - 132:00 you have to be solving a large and real problem but obviously it's not that easy especially when things turn very quickly like what we've seen in the last two years so grit tenacity I mean there have been hard the last 18 months or so for you 100% like I think you have to have a long-term mindset you have to have a lot of tenacity grit um perseverance I think that's one of the things that makes Founders really great is that they're able to overcome adversity and in the
132:00 - 132:30 face of you know tons of challenges they just keep pushing through yeah I I didn't even ask about the AI question just yeah but is AI is it overhyped or is it uh maybe underhyped at this point I personally think it's underhyped now I think there it depends on industry to Industry I always say that there are certain industries where they will get impacted by Ai and then there are certain industries that will be completely transformed and I think our space the industry that we're in especially for small businesses uh
132:30 - 133:00 because of the sorts of things that H happened in the back office um our industry is going to be completely transformed by AI I'll ask about Ai and then we'll ask for the advice to end this session so AI first huge potential in AI I think like the the we are we are we we have not yet implemented successfully um like AI uh in the way it's going to be it's going to be out there in a couple of years I believe in three to five years no one will talk about AI anymore because AI will be
133:00 - 133:30 everywhere we start to make money off AI in the next three to years yeah for sure for sure like there's huge productivity gains there's different ways of solving some of the problems we are solving today so it's not just like a huge hype that's going to pass I I really believe it's going to be embedded in every single thing we do um resilience like to answer the first question resilience is for sure like the way you get to build like a huge company that's successful but you also need to start small and validate every single step I think the
133:30 - 134:00 most important thing is if you solve your own uh uh mistakes quickly uh you're going to get big faster um but you need to face reality like you don't wake up and do things right every day you need to learn how to face reality and solve like uh um in in baby steps yeah I think that's reality for just to average folks I hope you take on board some of the advice that's been passed on by Eddie and Christina and we hope you enjoy a wonderful rest of your web
134:00 - 134:30 Summit thank you so much to Eddie Kim Christina fona thank you thanks for having us [Applause] [Music]
134:30 - 135:00 all right how many of you have tried runways gen 3 Alpha okay all right it's really incredible what you can get from a text to video gen AI tool I saw new another news piece on the way here a company called metaphysic has uh used AI to deage Tom Hanks in his newest movie in real time companies are scrambling to
135:00 - 135:30 create new AI power tools to put to Market with these inventions fast becoming a staple of everyday life these tools enable everyone to become a Creator quickly turning this generation into generation AI but what effect does artificial intelligence have on creativity consumption and how Society does business in conversation with Lizzie oir the host of the what next TBD podcast for slate.com please welcome the
135:30 - 136:00 CEO of pixart havanas aoan and the co-founder and CTO of Runway anastasis [Music] [Applause] germanius ai ai a transformative Force shaping our world revolutionizing Our Lives solving challenges or creating problems answering questions raising concern a
136:00 - 136:30 catalyst for change the power of AI [Music] hi thank you all so much uh thank you to
136:30 - 137:00 both of you for being here havanas anastasis I'm really excited to get to talk to the two of you and one of the things I like to do when I moderate something is to cheat a little beforehand um so I asked you both before we came here to think of something that has really wowed you with its creativity that kind of blew your mind a little bit and that's what I wanted to to start with because I think it gives the audience a glimpse into how
137:00 - 137:30 you think and how you kind of problem solve and approach creativity so anastasis I don't know if you want to kick us off um yeah I mean um I have two answers my my cheating answer would be uh I'm wowed every day by the things that our team is creating and especially how to wow moment this week that uh we will talk about soon um but uh I guess if I look kind of more broadly on like kind of things have been happening in
137:30 - 138:00 the kind of the art world and creativity like the the thing that came to mind actually when you asked that question was uh the film megalopolis um by Francis for Copa um it wasn't a universally a claim film if you've seen uh the the reviews are mixed uh but the ambition the how like overthe toop and personal and Earnest that film was um I think was pretty inspiring to me um
138:00 - 138:30 the uh Francis for coule has spent $1 1220 million dollars of his own to make that film uh but ideally we'll we soon be in a world where uh you can make those really deeply personal Earnest films that you know might not necessarily be for everyone uh with much less than that and we're GNA and hopefully as those generative models improve we're going to empower uh more more and more people to tell those stories and what's W you lately hello
138:30 - 139:00 everyone uh so yes I think I am early adopter of new technologies I always been and I also former AI scientist back in '90s so I always adopt new technologies and you know what I you know start feeling uh you know when I start using tools like CH GPT you other other AI tools is like feeling of superpower you know I feeling like I became so much productive in doing on my daily task right so like better writing better creating content uh and I start
139:00 - 139:30 doing coding after like 10 years of not coding and I start doing coding again and I really enjoy it it's it's so much easier you know communicate to the team not by just giving the vision or ideas but just giving the Prototype it's already built you know like in a in my spare time during over the weekend so this feeling is like you know you have have a you know like Army of you know agents independent agents helping you to be productive and it's not only it's so much accessible like everyone could do it you know if I can do it like
139:30 - 140:00 everybody can do it so it's the feeling of this you know power you can you give to average person uh to make more stuff at a shorter period of time I that I think that was amazing thing both of you have talked about moving beyond the model that the in this sort of post chat GPT the moment that we're no longer focused entirely on data sets and and how you train an AI model depending on
140:00 - 140:30 what it is but I also think that's very dependent on your your customer and what they want um you guys have have somewhat different business models so I want to talk about when you partner with say a company like Lion gate right what are they looking for what are they asking you to do yeah so um just to give some context uh yeah we recently announced a partnership with lgate and that has essentially two components the first component is uh working with them very
140:30 - 141:00 closely to understand how uh our AI models and our tools can fit into their workflow and the other component is uh training custom models on uh their library of of films of of TV shows so you're licensing with them licensing from them uh it's a it's it's both a data and a and a and a kind of kind of creative partner ship um the we've seen our tools being used in a lot of different parts of the workflow actually so uh you can use like uh generative
141:00 - 141:30 models in pre-production to post-production so we work um so for example with landscap we're kind of working closely with both you know the uh the VFX supervisors the editors kind of figuring out like how could the models help them to um to to move faster to be able to um to kind of to create like effects that would traditionally take months to create in the in the in the span of days um but also on the more earlier stage of kind of the Inception
141:30 - 142:00 process of a new film or a new project um being able to kind of visualize what the you know the 80% version of the final film very very quickly it's extremely helpful for Creative teams whether it's lgate or a lot of the other uh companies that we work with so those models have are very versatile they can be used kind of all across the workflow from you know using the outputs of those models directly into production and the final uh outcome but also to get an idea
142:00 - 142:30 into something that's really tangible and visual very quickly you were dealing with a very different customer a a small business a medium-sized business what are they ideally doing with your product is it making a logo is it saying I don't have to spend money on a graphic designer yes so we started you know initially as a consumer app actually the you know I started this you know company this is my fifth company I
142:30 - 143:00 started because of my daughter you know I want to create a product for her and gradually we became more more like a pumer uh platform so at least 36% of our users identify themselves as pumers or we call pumers like solopreneurs small business owners people who are doing like side hustling you know doing something on the side so and know I actually love to ask you know how many of people here using pixart uh you know just you know okay yeah so I think the
143:00 - 143:30 you know the idea is really like you know I mention like being super power and you know giving this uh you know uh productivity gain to like an average person that's what we're trying to do also through Pixar we want to really like enable small businesses solopreneurs without big budget with with tiny budget also no budget to really deliver you know amazing quality content like providing tools we just announced logo maker is amazing logo maker to enable like logo maker
143:30 - 144:00 person create your personal brand to create promotion for your you know yoga studio or a restaurant or Bakery all kind of small businesses and using our product to create all kind of like you know personal brand identity assets uh promotions uh social media posts all kind of things so I think we are seeing this 36% I mentioned it was like two years ago was like almost zero and now we see 36% so people are becoming much
144:00 - 144:30 more entrepreneurial especially even like teenagers you know they're really like already entrepreneural they want to do something you know some cool stuff they want to make money and we are there to help them what do you say to the to the graphic designer who is terrified by the prospect of a small business owner saying I can use Pixar I don't need you you know I basically we're talking about much smaller businesses you know these people never go to designers because they don't have budget for like you know think about you know like my daughter do
144:30 - 145:00 sell her first t-shirt when she was 16 years old and she have no budget she really designed herself right so these are people which have almost no budget you know they don't have like they cannot spend like you know you know for logo making or whatever they really do on their own so we are not really like taking any jobs we're actually creating more opportunities we are cre we expanding the market so we are creating more markets you a bigger Market in a sense so yeah I mean this is a you know already on topped territory this is an
145:00 - 145:30 area which you know they do poor design and no design at all so I want to talk about what we referred to Backstage as the finger problem the the sort of there's just an aess to both the still images but video really does have this issue particularly in sort of character continuity and in facial expressions how do you find tune that what is the way you approach that
145:30 - 146:00 problem and try to solve it yeah so um so when kind of encountering the limitations of the current models I think the maybe one one way to approach that is to look at the trajectory of the technology so looking at where we were um like even like four years ago or like 6 years ago when the company started um that's um I was giving a talk yesterday and just gave a glimpse of like what the outputs look like every successive year and if you pay attention to the trend and like the
146:00 - 146:30 the kind of improvement trajectory it becomes clear that essentially every year you have another main issue that everyone is focused on but it's increasingly more and more of like a subtle you know uh defects in the outputs uh so the you know the the hand issue was a very common issue in like image generation in uh 2022 potentially 2023 um it's effectively you know more or less solved now in the image domain
146:30 - 147:00 um there is still a lot of um I think video is a bit earlier than image it probably lags by a year or two um so you have other issues like you know like generating realistic walk Cycles or like complex character actions uh that consistency issue uh but I see no technical uh limitation that would prevent us from from solving those issues as well is that a training data question that you just need to kind of have more inputs so scale really matters uh we've
147:00 - 147:30 seen predictably models improve in performance when you increase compute when you increase data when you improve the quality of the data uh there's also like fundamental research and algorithms that need Improvement that need to be made but I would say the the high order beit the most important thing is scale at this point I think those models can be much further scaled than they currently are um when it comes to the visual uh generation one of the kind of hottest legal issues has been the question of to put it really bluntly stealing and both
147:30 - 148:00 of your companies have looked at this from a licensing standpoint figured out how to train your models in a different way I wonder if you could talk about the partnership with Getty Images and why you decided to do that and and what you think the benefit is right so I you know we we we see we we try to be you know uh fair with the with people right created this kind of amazing content and we want to you know train our models with the
148:00 - 148:30 you know with a clean with clean data uh it's it's very hard because you know there's not that much clean data available so that's why the partnership with G was so instrumental for us uh we are building joint model with them and you know we are planning to replace you know whatever we have with with this clean models I think this is uh still work in progress I think we are going to see more of this I think we are going to see more synthetic data to be used for training we're going to see more you know license data to be used but uh for
148:30 - 149:00 us I think the the the focus is moving away from like just pure model things towards more applications so we're really looking like there are so much many like models now open source or non open source apis and you know Runway providing one of the apis for example so I have the the the the major focus is moving from the model itself to Applications right what we can do with that it's like we see AI as more like internet right it's not about internet
149:00 - 149:30 but how you use internet to make to make it you know good things so what kind of applications you build with this internet because ultimately like every company is going to be a company at one time right the same thing like internet you know there you don't say I'm internet company just because you using internet right so I think this is going to be like everywhere uh so now is the the challenge is how to make it useful how to make it you know uh good good thing so how you can use this amazing power to deliver better you know life
149:30 - 150:00 life work environment productivity and all other benefits this has come up for you all as well it was a major sticking point uh when you look at the writer strike the actors as well and when people are concerned about kind of where the finger problem is solved how it's solved what do you say to them do you say don't don't worry about it like we're we're not we're not taking your
150:00 - 150:30 work so so yeah again I think that technology is expected to improve quite dramatically even even further um I think with the like the history of Art and the history of technologies have always been very intertwined uh and you have these questions arise every time there is kind of a major shift and a major uh revolution in the way we kind of uh in the creative tools and kind of the tools that we have um we see Runway and the models that we have as you know
150:30 - 151:00 a new kind of camera like the role of an artist is still very fundamental like where you point the camera like how you uh what story you want to tell is still at the center of it and ideally we get to the point where uh people you know like when you watch a great story you don't you spend you don't spend a lot of time thinking about like how it was made the call point of like uh compelling story is that makes you kind of like forget about uh and kind of become absorbed in the story uh so when it comes uh so in terms of the like kind of
151:00 - 151:30 how we think about kind of jobs and like and kind of how the art world is going to change um I mean we have a lot of precedent right we have like when Photoshop first came out there were a lot of question about like what is the role of like visual artist going to be with like those incredible uh kind of this uh um these tools that uh will automate that way and we saw that didn't quite happen and the kind of number of visual designers in the world has expanded rather than contracted so
151:30 - 152:00 there's definitely going to be change I don't think the um the the kind of the work flows are going to change uh you we're probably not going to be spending as much time on things like you know rotoscoping is like this process of you know manually kind of selecting a specific subject in a video to uh to add a visual effect like a lot of those things might might not be as relevant in the in the world of generative models but there's going to be way more story tell and way more artists uh that are creating stories that are enabled by by
152:00 - 152:30 those models so you see it as additive yeah I'm pretty confident yeah do yeah if if we were to spend forward a year and have this conversation here what are we going to be making with your products in a year four years from now sorry a year from now a year from now so there is some things we can kind of be more certain of and some things that um I think we need to discover with the artists and the creators that use our
152:30 - 153:00 tools um we have uh we really um we love this saying that comes from from one of our favorite books of the companies uh greatness cannot be planned uh it's a lot of the way kind of research works is it's a much more Discovery driven process where you don't quite you know that you know when you're building the next model uh it's going to be better than the previous one but the emerging capabilities and things you can create from it are not like fully clear ahead of time and that's the magic but also
153:00 - 153:30 the uncertainty of of building those tools uh but like it's it's never I think it's very difficult to predict the kinds of kind of uh artworks and then kind of new genres uh new forms of media that are going to be created by those models but it's it's pretty clear that um the nature of like what you're creating is different and so there's going to be uh some things that we're not able to predict same question to you uh yes I you know I see AI as de Democrat you know democratizing the
153:30 - 154:00 creativity is a technology is really making more you know people to be more creative so basically it's lowering the barriers to you know to start the business to create this amazing assets Etc so I I'm you know I I would love to see like next year much more microeconomic impact of the small businesses to the economy during to AI I want them to see like more businesses using AI to you know make it like a bigger businesses right so basically I want to see more success stories I think
154:00 - 154:30 we were going to see more application here from now we're going to see amazing applications I think we are going to see amazing successes done by small guys to you know reach the level of of like big big companies in a sense you know with uh with all this unlocked creativity and unlocked productivity ity so you know that's my dream I want to see much more people using AI for good and you know benefit benefiting from this technology and you managed to hit our
154:30 - 155:00 timer exactly at 1 second and now we've got to stop thank you all so much thank you so much the two of you havanas on a sauses thank you guys so much thank you [Music]
155:00 - 155:30 all right even though Ukraine's tech industry has faced huge challenges since the start of the fullscale Invasion back in February 2022 its resilience and Agility brings new opportunities for the world Ukraine's Ministry of digital
155:30 - 156:00 transformation presents a brand new project aimed at evolving cooperation with the tech community and enhancing the country's capabilities to tell us about it please welcome Ukraine's Deputy Minister a digital transformation Alex borov [Applause] [Music]
156:00 - 156:30 nice awesome [Music] awesome so hello everyone it's a great pleasure to be here to share the story of Ukraine not just as a country defending itself but most importantly as a country
156:30 - 157:00 that's actively shaping the future as we speak in real time Ukraine is living through the darkest chapters of its history yet this times are pushing us to move the limits of what we thought possible right now truly great Brown great BR can Innovations are being created and tested in Ukraine this is our asymmetric response to the challenges of War it gives us strengths not only to defend ourselves
157:00 - 157:30 but also to grow our economy and aspire to the new heights and as a modern American poet once said success is an only option failure is not therefore Ukrainian companies continue to demonstrate remarkable resilience and prove to be reliable Partners you can trust for them there's no challenge to Big to overcome power aages the offices are not
157:30 - 158:00 fully energy independent bom Banks the shelters I equi and transform into comfortable Tech workspaces this adaptability is a core strength of our national character turning obstacle into the strengths before fullscale Invasion Ukraine was advancing towards becoming one of Europe's largest technology hubs and even now we remain focused to achieving
158:00 - 158:30 this goal bolstered by impressive performance of Ukrainian tax SE it is represented by more than 5,000 technology companies and over 300,000 highly skilled professionals 30% of of which women can imag imine 100,000 women working in the tech seor this this is huge and they making yeah and they making significant impact
158:30 - 159:00 on the global technology Market the Ukraine sector is a strong exporter of De deep expertise across many high demand domains like fintech healthcare Automotive Game Dev and many more Ukrainian companies deliver top to your services helping tens of thousands of companies worldwide achieving their ambitious goals also each of you has likely used at
159:00 - 159:30 least one product founded by ukrainians mour Ajax grammarly preply batter me gitlab many artist maybe just wave if you were used Ukrainian products at least one more time good good I know it's a lot of you these names are just the tip of the iceberg of what Ukraine has to offer and this war has driven ukrainians to create technologies that didn't exist before
159:30 - 160:00 what one such Innovation is company called asper bionics this is a prasis control system that uses specialite sensor and AI to detect muscle movements this allow prasis to understand the user intentions and this paves the way to brand new possibilities and Technology control in future just watch it [Music]
160:00 - 160:30 so our message is clear the best best way to support Ukraine is to partner
160:30 - 161:00 with Ukrainian companies and investing in Ukrainian project and this is ain't about charity this is a win-win partnership this why we launch in COD a marketplace with Ukrainian tech companies the platform aims to facilitate effective matchmaking between Ukrainian it companies and Global businesses seeking reliable partners for technology projects Coda is where companies from
161:00 - 161:30 around the world will connect with Ukrainian businesses achieve remarkable goals together the platform showcase companies you can trust vendors with impeccable reputations verified by us Ukrainian government each of them meeting the gor standards for delivering high quality products and services and when you collaborate with Ukrainian IT company you can expect deep technical
161:30 - 162:00 expertise clean Cold full responsibility and a reasonable price the search for a perfect match is simple as convenient as possible it's about also direct and fast communication with potential vendors access the detailed information about each company including experience achievements and strengths and filter by type Services tax stack and industries additionally Coda offers no contract
162:00 - 162:30 fees legal support 247 conser service nii assistant and after all uh Ukrainian companies are already trusted partners for Fortune 500 companies here are just few examples of those great Partnerships the Ukrainian Company Soft Serve in partnership with Nvidia develops programs based on artificial intelligence machine learning along with solutions for virtual reality and
162:30 - 163:00 hiai meanwhile the Ukrainian team at luxu developed the technology platform behind Mercedes multimedia entertainment system so each time you sit in Mercedes-Benz and click anything on the screen this being done by ukrainians remember that thank you so you might wonder where else I can find Ukrainian code where is Ukrainian code it's in
163:00 - 163:30 Ireland and in Norway and up in the sky between Stockholm and Berlin it's in the clouds it's on the ground it's in the worlds we explore it's in a friends call it's in your secrets it's in many cars from big ones to cars that look like little bug ones it helps people people treat people looks good delivers big and empowers the journey ahead Ukrainian code is everywhere and in Ukraine of course among other places our best tech
163:30 - 164:00 companies are on code UA Ukrainian Tech Marketplace let's make what's next together so the answer is indeed simple Ukrainian code is everywhere it's literally everywhere and this platform was born in probably doctor's darkest times for Ukraine however it also born to bring the brightest results and you know I'm
164:00 - 164:30 I'm traveling a lot and I've been often asked how we can help Ukraine this is a response to that question the response which brings partnership and mutual benefit so join Coda register or your account will be there for you thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
164:30 - 165:00 [Music] [Music]
165:00 - 165:30 all right all right with the number of active Venture capitalists in Europe Falling by more than half since last year and the funding to European Stars failing to reach the heights of a couple
165:30 - 166:00 of years ago how are VC's balancing caution with opportunity and what's in store as we look forward to 2025 to talk about what's next for European VC in conversation with Mike Butcher of tech crunch please welcome to Center Stage partner at IND Capital Christina fora General partner at HV capital rer marle and partner at North Zone par jorgan [Music]
166:00 - 166:30 paron hello everybody hello how are you having a good time at web Summit yes marvelous thank you my name is Mike Butcher I'm a crazy journalist from TechCrunch I've been on TechCrunch
166:30 - 167:00 since 1870 and of course many of you remember those times uh when we uh switch from the horses to the cars just after the Civil War exactly yes oh let's not go there too early yes um we are going to talk about venture capital in Europe Europe yes because that's part of the reason why entrepreneurs can get going and I've fantastic panel and we're going to sort of unpa some of the things have been happening over the last year
167:00 - 167:30 since we were here last year at websummit um yes and we just got a a fairly downbeat introduction there about the number of uh VCS harving and there being less money around um to what extent do we have to beat ourselves up in Europe about this and is it European issue because actually in the US basically the same thing happened didn't it um and is was this just a function of the fact that we had a massive boom uh over the
167:30 - 168:00 pandemic and just afterwards um and then things had to quiet down we sort of flush out the system uh were there are systemic issues that we need to address for Christina what do you think it's a very good question I think like uh everything in the world runs in Cy Les and from time to time like we need to readjust some things the last 10 years were like there was like a huge boom in many areas and I think both on the startup side and on the investor side
168:00 - 168:30 maybe we had to adjust a little bit and focus on the core business model how we are really creating value um and like so focusing on unit economics understanding that sometimes throwing money at problems doesn't solve everything so I believe like this uh adjustment period we are going through is a reflection of that right but I'm I'm positive I'm I'm always positive and uh uh right R what do you think yeah to understand a correction you need to understand what happened before and I think it's fair to say that 21 2021 was just crazy times
168:30 - 169:00 and there was maybe an inflationary influx of capital VC new firms coming in interest free rates you know all this when we actually draw the line from the earlier years it's actually strictly upward um if you take 21 20 out of the equation so what we see in our daily work is actually the market is pumping it's red hot across seed series a growth rounds are being done entrepreneurs are building great things so it's great I I
169:00 - 169:30 would I would totally agree and there is no shortage of funding for really strong startups in the in the early stage and actually all all also through the period of 21 uh 22 and after uh there wasn't that much of a a reduction and Contra raction in the really early stages and primarily driven by the new energy that was infused in the system from uh predominantly AI uh fueled uh type of startups and also um sustainability and
169:30 - 170:00 energy type of start startups that was uh and in healthc care also that's been tremendous amount of activity there despite the the big changes and predominantly the later stages and also yeah and and some of these sectors really require a lot of capital compared to like some of the SAS businesses or e-commerce companies and marketplaces we've been funding so I think that's also an interesting uh aspect which is
170:00 - 170:30 funds and startups require more capital in some sectors to get to uh uh uh to Market um and I think that's a trend that's going to continue I notic some VCS use the that kind of window to to do different things you launched a a an ocean fun blue fund didn't you as well IND I think like that's an area uh in Portugal so we are Indo we are based in Portugal uh we raised the blue fund because we really saw the potential of
170:30 - 171:00 how technology can help solve some of the blue economy challenges I have more faith in technology than humans uh to solve some of our grand challenges um we invest heavily in sustainability I have a personal uh uh connection for AI so I think all all of these sectors have like tremendous potential uh and they're going to be used the next couple of years well um to to point out the fact that um you know there's still funding at early stage but northone P you um PJ
171:00 - 171:30 sorry uh you uh uh you raised a billion uh Euro Fund in fact uh just over two years ago but then a lot of um there was a feeling for a while that a lot of VCS were not deploying that Capital uh very much there was a lot of you know dry powder wasn't there do you think that's being unlocked now yes uh part of the problem was that uh there was uh the sort of The Hangover of the big exuberance for the for the very late
171:30 - 172:00 stage type of players that came in and pumped up the valuations and then it took a while for for that market to basically normalize and and that sort of took a lot of the activity out of this the late stage Market um you know the wind went out of the sales but I I think that has basically bounced back as people have um have have sort of adjusted to new realities and the growth is back again and as as you said Christina is that um when when you
172:00 - 172:30 invest on sort of just Topline growth and start to look at the unit economics that really has to work out if you if you want to create something that that works in the long run and that's what you're seeing now and we um we're two two years really in it's incredible to think about it into the generative AI Revolution and that obviously suddenly pumped valuations back up again but to some extent All Tech is now affected by
172:30 - 173:00 generative AI by the tra the revolution of the Transformer do you look at decks from startups now that don't have the word in AI oh absolutely so yes we look in all we are generous investor across technology for us Most Fascinating topics right now are in deep Tech climate Tech and AI but AI more in the applied AI sector so we shy away from foundational Investments and I think
173:00 - 173:30 it's fair to say that most of the capital needed for AI is in CeX um Investments which we don't want to fund so we focus on the application of AI and um trying to understand which sectors of enterprise software you can actually build a sustainably defensible model using AI uh training your models early on proprietary data sets uh which then give you this USP in the long run versus many models that will at some point be
173:30 - 174:00 replaced by generative AI so that's a delicate task and makes the job of VC even more fun isn't the problem though with AI that uh your startups have come to you fundraising particularly in generative AI really just fundraising to buy gpus but and and it's so hard to actually access GPU GPU Market is so locked up by big Tech and you know the companies like uh open AI that have raised billions of dollars I think that's the area where
174:00 - 174:30 like it's a little bit more challenging for us to invest in because of the massive massive amounts of capital that's needed for you to like build a model maintain that model and so on but honestly I think every single sector we look at there are repetitive tasks that can be done by a computer probably better than a human um so my favorite way of looking at a company is when you
174:30 - 175:00 like don't necessarily call yourself an AI company but you're soling a really big problem and you can leverage AI to like build a solution that's probably 10x compared to what you could do five years ago uh so I think those companies and honestly maybe in 5 years AI will be what mobile was 15 years ago like it's going to be embedded everywhere we are not going to talk about AI anymore but we expect AI to be there and if it's not then you're you're probably not a competitive startup or solution one of
175:00 - 175:30 our most recent investment is uh called tandem Health out of Stockholm and and it's uh it's a AI scribe for uh Physicians to basically improve their workday and you know in historically selling software to the healthcare system is been extremely slow and cumbersome and you know you won't get paid for it either but these kinds of products are so valuable for the actual interaction between the physician and and and the patient so it's actually
175:30 - 176:00 flying off the shelves and and that I think it's not only this companies it's there are lots of AI companies that see growth trajectories that you just have never seen before and and that is extremely exciting but on the other hand the cost of delivering that is as you are alluding to can be very very high and and and that that's not necessarily uh sustainable business model in every of those growth growth stories but to me the the I think the favorite part of
176:00 - 176:30 this AI revolution has been like also on the startup side but on the corporate side like every single person uh uh has a sense of urgency to adopt AI right like some of these Technologies and some of these Solutions it was possible to build them before maybe not at scale maybe not at this cost but on the the the demand side it was not there right now every single company has this sense of urgency I either have to adopt AI or
176:30 - 177:00 I might be in trouble in a couple of years so that that's also like some interesting movement movement that's fueling like the the uh startup growth R uh R do you um you concerned that a lot of people just really just doing AI rappers you know companies which are just wrapped around the foundational models um you know what do you look for in a company what are the the telltale signs of something that's got a real genuine idea that isn't just pulling open
177:00 - 177:30 AI yeah I mean you obviously apply open and other platforms to solve some issues in some sectors and what we look for is are your early training Cycles done on proprietary data how easy is it to replicate uh with today's Technologies and you also have which is the more difficult task anticipate as we're building companies for the very long run 7 10 15 years time frame until we material our investment you have to anticipate well probably What new
177:30 - 178:00 technologies might enter the stage in like 35 years time which could even make this uh solution of that company obsolete so that's kind of the fun part obviously we there are you know there's a lot of GE interesting geopolitics going on at the moment and but there but Europe does feel like it's trying to get its act together and there's new initiatives certainly at the EU level um there's also initiatives from the UK to be closer to the EU now
178:00 - 178:30 that there's a new government um and uh drogy rele uh the technocrat drogy released a report recently talking about unlocking private Capital into Innovation sector in fact uh uh V just recently uh was talking about a new thing called the 28th regime which is some people are calling EU Inc which is possibly a a way of creating a kind of a Delaware Sea Corp for across Europe do
178:30 - 179:00 you think these things these kinds of initiatives make a material difference to how entrepreneurs think in Europe are you encouraged by them obviously they'll take time to work through the system but are we going in the right direction anyone well H so uh I I shouldn't be barfing on Germany here specifically but you know you have to get a notary to sign papers and you can't close a funding round in like in a few days
179:00 - 179:30 which you can in the US and actually you can in Sweden too H and you certainly can do it in Estonia in Estonia but you have to sort of wait like three months for to get an appointment with someone at 11:30 on on on a Friday morning in order to even do these B basic thing so yes the the the 28th state uh Delaware thing is is probably a very important way to start changing the mindset of you know lowering the barriers to create
179:30 - 180:00 great companies as opposed to creating them I think a lot needs to be done on many levels I think that's more like the technical part it's very important but then also if you go through the Stak and I mean we need to unlock private capital for the European market I think a lot of initiatives France leading the Germany actually released an agenda putting 12 billion into the market over the next 10 years so there's a lot going on unlocking this Capital um and then I think generally Europe has to act as one
180:00 - 180:30 market because otherwise we lose relevance in the global ecosystem and you all know the ingredients and lots let's not even get into U us election geopolitics but it's not getting better probably so I think Europe really needs to act as one market and there are many ingredients capital orchestrating e Inc as a smaller example so that we are actually a relevant Marketplace for the global ecosystem and and unfortunately I would say that the EU is not really uh impressing when it comes to the
180:30 - 181:00 regulatory environment for AI right now which basically scaring away the entire industry to the US and also training data on on like us data as opposed to European data which means that we're importing all their Prejudice uh and and all their sort of ways of looking at the world into our models instead of creating our own so I I I just don't get it why EU has to be that are you are is that the feedback you're hearing from your portfolio companies that the EU AI
181:00 - 181:30 Act is acting as a a disaster is a disaster you agree I mean it's for sure preventing companies from achieving the potential we could uh I think like especially when uh uh uh when lawyers get involved they tend to scare people a lot and at a time where governance uh is becoming a topic in the startup world I think like these regulations just like scare people I think generally I mean Capital Talent is
181:30 - 182:00 all very liquid globally um and it just follows opportunities where you can build those opportunities in the most efficient way and then all layers of Regulation are either beneficial or a disadvantage and what we need to avoid obviously those ideas and the capital just choos other places Singapore us I don't know what so I think we have to orchestrate Europe as an attractive place and I agree uh the AI Act is probably not helping this well I'm I'm
182:00 - 182:30 afraid we are going to touch on geopolitics because I did want to ask you about uh the effect of the what's the result of the US election on Europe there's a fight for talent there's obviously going to be a deregulation of markets in the US um on one side there that fight for talent which we have to address in Europe um and I think you have views on that on the other side it seems like Wall Street is open and there's uh it's going to potentially
182:30 - 183:00 unblock a lot of uh uh the pipeline what are your thoughts about about that uh that you know those what's happened just recently and what effect do you think it'll have on Venture specifically in Europe I think to start with I mean um putting my personal perspectives aside um I think you have to see something positive in it um and um I think the positive is markets reacted positive the IPO window will open I think for the
183:00 - 183:30 shortterm you see a micro stimulus into the market I'm just much more worried on the mid and long term I think 25 will probably a good year be will be a good year for markets but then uh mid- longterm I think um the changes in the US are a disadvantage for us uh in Europe we are export countries with probably facing some tariff structures but in the end it's a wakeup call again for us to get our act together in Europe and just build this relevant piece in
183:30 - 184:00 the global ecosystem but you're more exposed to the US probably and I am I mean and as a side effect I think like we've been discussing this need of like being able to fund really big companies in Europe and has always been a little bit of a struggle for funds I think we really need to realize that we have to create a incentives for more Capital to be fueled into the ecosystem and we also saw us VCS come over to Europe in the last couple of years do you think that Trend will continue probably because like they see
184:00 - 184:30 Europe as like it's a very good source of pipeline because they know European companies that are successful they eventually need need to go to the US so they they they need to keep finding the capital that's needed to achieve like the scale they are looking for uh so from that perspective like it's obvious like big us funds like they come to Europe is a is a very good source of deal flow but we should be able to fund uh more companies like for longer um and there are certain sectors like space
184:30 - 185:00 Tech defense uh sustainability and so on that probably those companies will have to like uh stay longer in Europe uh so there are like these very interesting Dynamics uh I think I think something is going to change there there are actually a lot more High skilled uh graduates from European colleges and universities uh in the tech tech sector than in the US so so I think we uh and what probably is happening now with Trump being elected is that uh they will continue to
185:00 - 185:30 sort of crack down on immigration and make it even harder to to get a visa to to work in the US even with those kinds of skills and uh that is uh obviously bad news for the US I think it could actually be good news for for Europe that uh now with the the avail ility of capital that has been sort of was in the past a big problem for European startups but you know uh yesterday one of our portfolio companies Clara uh announced that they will be going public um
185:30 - 186:00 although in us uh they will be go going public uh next year and that sort of shows that the the public market is opening up that the uh that there is a tremendous amount of of sort of uh pent up demand for for going public for for these kinds of of very successful but companies that have stayed private for a long time and that sort of begs another question is that we do have uh probably some 500 unicorns globally in the in the
186:00 - 186:30 world today that are uh private and in any given year over the past 25 years there's been like 50 60 IPOs of significance so there is obviously some mismatch in this this uh uh this this equation that has to be solved somehow and I'm not sure if that's going to be all positive just very quickly in the final couple of minutes I wanted to ask you that about the issue of diversity Equity inclusion it appears to have been
186:30 - 187:00 kind of gone off the boil in the US and there's there's been a certain amount of politicization of venture capital in the US around this subject are you hearing from your portfolio companies and your Founders about whether or not they're you know continuing with Dei initiatives um or what's going on what are they saying to you and because big companies some of them in the especially in the US are rolling back those initiatives what do you think Christina it's a very good
187:00 - 187:30 question like I think some of those initiatives were a very easy way of saying I care but I think the companies that really care like just solve the diversity problem and hire for diversity early on I think that's the best way that you can guarantee um like you're only going to have a diverse company if you start early to hire like for diversity right any anyone else I think generally uh we are not um trying to be
187:30 - 188:00 like U opinion leaders in anything or coming up with agendas I think what people realize and what we realize diversity allows for much better decision- making for much better outcomes ultimately returns so for us there's no dialing back in agendas that somebody puts on us but it's more like everybody realized well actually diversity makes us better uh people makes us take Better Business decisions and will ultimately produce higher returns so and and this actually we
188:00 - 188:30 don't see the dialing back uh on this front in our companies yeah I I I would agree and also I think that it's really important that it doesn't get politicized in the same way it it has done in the US where you you start to sort of make a case for it not being a good idea that's that's just we have only got a minute left what's your advice to entrepreneurs raising right now what do you want to see do you want to see deep Tech do you want to see space do you want to see defense dual use Enterprise SAS and and what do you
188:30 - 189:00 want to see coming out of Europe right now from entrepreneurs uh PJ first yeah I want to see uh continue to see really differentiated products which is difficult in the AI space but you can and I want to see uh huge markets and uh generally messy markets right well actually I'm a VC for 20 years now I think similar as up PJ and finally it feels like uh VC in Europe is getting
189:00 - 189:30 where it should be funding real Innovation step changes in technology making Market sectors industry and ultimately the world a different better place and this is what we want to see real Innovation and technology chrisa so just just to differentiate a little bit uh we Focus we are based in Lisbon we focus in Portugal Spain and Italy so uh uh startups from the south of Europe very happy to to to meet them uh I like companies that solve difficult problems and that have a differentiated angle um
189:30 - 190:00 so come find me fantastic well there you get it there you have it ladies and gentlemen the scene for inventure capital in Europe but please a round of applause for PJ Rina and Christina and for me Mike Butcher have a great web Summit [Applause] [Music]
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250:30 - 251:00 please welcome to the stage your host Laura [Music] sente what
251:00 - 251:30 [Applause] suage well welcome back to the afternoon sessions here at Center Stage web Summit 2024 as you might know by now my name is La vienti I'm a TV host and the co-host of web Summit Rio our conference in my home country of Brazil that explores Latin America's explosive Tech
251:30 - 252:00 ecosystem but this week is all about the biggest and the the best in European Tech and this afternoon on Center Stage we'll be showcasing the for the first time the European capital of innovation Awards as well as discussing the future of AI in the creative space how AI is transforming the workforce and of course
252:00 - 252:30 the pitch semifinals where the top 10 startups that have been pitching all around web Summit these past few days compete against each other to see who makes it to the finals tomorrow but to kick off the afternoon at day two here at websummit let's talk about sports technology and creativity our first session of the afternoon is a discussion on the ways technology and creativity are impacting and transforming Sports how is technology
252:30 - 253:00 evolving The Fan Experience the player experience and how are those changes producing new creative opportunities so without further Ado to talk about innovating at the intersection of sports technology and creativity in conversation with nesa mumi moodi of The Hollywood Reporter please put your hands together to welcome the CEO of cod and Theory Dan Gardner and 10 time NBA Allstar entrepreneur and co-founder of
253:00 - 253:30 Vin the 7th estate Carmelo Anthony [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
253:30 - 254:00 I like this I like this yes great so car carel I'm going to start off with you it's been two day two decades a little bit more than two decades since you started what do you think has been the most transformative change involving technology and athletes well first of all thank you guys like for having me here and allowing me to speak to you guys today um it's it's it's an honor it's a blessing for me to be sitting here on
254:00 - 254:30 this stage so I just want to say thank you guys for listening to me today uh but to get back to your question and to answer your question I just think over time as a from an athlete standpoint we've been seeing different types of technology I mean for myself over the past 20 years I remember back in 2003 when we came and and like they would introduce different Technologies to the team and we would just be like what is this why why we don't need this this is not going anywhere and to look fast
254:30 - 255:00 forward now and all of those kind of different Technologies and and different concepts that was that was being thrown at us at that point in time we look at them now you see the wearable techn techology you see the wearable shirts you see the you know you see the chips that's out there that goes into the uniforms and they get all this Intel and this data so it just goes to show you that in that short period of of 19 20 years where it's been and now where we're about to go at in the future how do you think it's changed the game I
255:00 - 255:30 mean coming in looking at the athletes now H if you had that technology back then how do you think it might have changed oh man that's a cheat Cod you you know competitively right you get a chance to if if you use it the right way it's it's very beneficial to you and for me if if I had that during my time of playing you know you talking about scouting reports you talk about film you talking about breakdowns offenses
255:30 - 256:00 defenses ex's and those uh you can you you can ask questions right and you get answers back right it may not be the feeling that you want back but you get a a grand scheme of what that what that answer is so the skies is limited I think I'm excited about it from seeing where it was at and being a part of it for a couple seasons in the NBA to where it's going it's it's amazing Dan what do you see yeah I mean uh we were talking a little earlier I started my company in 2001 I think you entered the league in
256:00 - 256:30 2003 in those early 2000s it was so new I mean like we no one knew what to do so in the early days it was all experimentation and what it's created is really everybody closer to the consumer or fans so whether it's athletes closer to the fan or networks even now we're still seeing that Evolution like like Gotham networks direct to the consumer the NFL is going closer to the consumer and we've seen an arc with the this emerging technology that it just allows a different type of relationship at all levels Community leagues teams athletes
256:30 - 257:00 and that's really been the fundamental difference it's created Platforms in ways that we've never we didn't understand I think in the early 2000s you work with the NF file to recreate their app and you also work with the commanders um as they relaunch um talk about how that your work with with both those organizations was also designed with fan engagement in mind and to connect the fan and the athlete as
257:00 - 257:30 well yeah the commanders were coming from a place with a historically racist name that really was hurtful to a lot of people so that that really was how do you build a modern brand in an inclusive first approach to branding which I don't believe has ever been done certainly not done in in sports so data and listening and different tools to help generate ideas to to create an outcome that can re-engage a community in a new type of way the NFL was about how to deliver an
257:30 - 258:00 experience again closer to a fan to simplify that to make it meaningful whether it be during field time or off the field time and understanding the difference between those moments and how an experience actually should be different during those moments can we talk about how that's changed I remember I'm a Nick fan thank you and coming out and watching you when I wanted to catch up with you it'd be ESPN late at night
258:00 - 258:30 catching the highlights you know sports radio and now it's almost second by second you can catch up and watch highlights and get stats and so forth how do you think that's changed the fan athlete relationship for me I think it's very it's it's very beneficial it it forces the it forces the athlete to think differently right because before we we had to we was engaging with fans with what the team was telling us to do hey
258:30 - 259:00 go to this appearance and pop up here and do this autograph signing and that's how you engage with the fans but that's not the the way you engage with them I mean that's a part of it but it's like you really have to dive deep into the actual engagement so if I have an opportunity to after a game have a press car have my own press conference and talk directly to my fans as opposed to using a third party a news Outlet or a media Outlet like I can go directly to my fans I feel more comfortable getting
259:00 - 259:30 my point across and getting my message across to my fans as opposed to it's being filtered through somebody else so for me that's that's that's the biggest thing that I I really love about that just controlling your own destiny and and controlling your own narrative yeah I would imagine it's a removal of limitations because historically this is the way you did it you did sponsorship a very specific way again you were supposed to show up here now there are no limits and I think uh athletes have
259:30 - 260:00 the ability as I think you have done to move Beyond just what happens on the court and that's where you see even um programs like drive to survive like what are the narratives around the narratives because it's not just what's happening there it's it happens Beyond there and I think it allows again enablement of a certain level of control to remove any limitation that historically has existed car do you think that that has also helped athletes today you have you're um
260:00 - 260:30 fine here um I'm been seventh and state has helped athletes today to broaden out their perspectives and businesses and what they do maybe this wouldn't have been as much of an option 20 years ago because you might not have had the the info and the data and so forth well the industry has changed you know dramatically and and and drastically sorry about that and and to where it was at before we we just using wine for an example like this
260:30 - 261:00 wasn't a cool thing to do this wasn't as an athlete you wasn't you wasn't you was looked upon you was frowned upon if you was drinking wine because it just wasn't for us it wasn't for a younger demographic it was wasn't for athletes you know we we look bad if we drinking wine and and and alcohol and things like that and to now you know over the years athletes has become so you know empowered by just resources and and in society as though we we took back our
261:00 - 261:30 voice as an athlete we it's almost like we taking back our name image and likeness in a sense to be able to go out there and and speak directly to the fans to create businesses to create this inclusive ity you know among different communities and different people so now it's fun you know I can go in I can be here in Lisbon talking about wine as as a former athlete and before you couldn't do that it was just such a hurdle to get over because it just wasn't accepted but I also think with technology and and and the fact that we can actually talk
261:30 - 262:00 directly to our consumer and to our fan and we can give them that information as opposed to them having to go out there and and search for it that's what I'm that's what I'm excited about and I think that's the difference between athletes in resources and and Outlets from you know 20 years ago to 2024 you see the same Dan yeah I mean it's I think there's no more stigmas in anything any possibilities that that's that's really what go to you removing limitations I mean even Beyond athletes
262:00 - 262:30 you have direct consumer businesses that have reach in ways that they never been able to do you can have disruption in categories from not traditional players like it could the the wine industry isn't being disrupted by a wine maker and and whether you're an athlete or a startup you have the ability to reach people regardless of your location we have The Equalizer the great equalizer which is the Internet and mobile phones that puts it in the pocket for anybody
262:30 - 263:00 to have either access or ability to do anything and that's pretty remarkable is there ever a downside by having that direct connection to Fan we talk about fan emotion and you know I know your Nicks fans can get very emotional um is there ever a downside to like the toxic toxicity of a fandom and so forth that you kind of wish that could be changed a little bit no because it's no it's it's
263:00 - 263:30 it's Community right it's it's when when you in a community you want you want honest information you want you want you want everybody to have an honest approach whether they disagree with it or agree with it or whatever so you want them to be honest with you you want to that's how I learn be honest with me let me know that my wine is not nothing then I'll go back and try to perfect it again but you know I think that dialogue going back and forth and that Boomerang of information and you know the the disagree to agree as a as a community I think I think we need that it's very
263:30 - 264:00 beneficial look I believe uh discourse is the unlock to creativity so I actually think disagreement is what Humanity needs and in a productive way it creates incredible outcomes mhm when you your son is about to I believe start Syracuse hopefully okay um what advice do you give not only him but younger athletes um as far as how to use technology how to use um you know these
264:00 - 264:30 these new Platforms in order to be the best versions of themselves whether it's a athlete or as a brand both with my son it's more about me listening and observing what he's doing because you got to think he's 17 years old so he's in the industry where this is constant that's the only way he know how to communicate right so I have to look at him and and and just observe from
264:30 - 265:00 afar and see the things that he's into see the apps that he's on see all the different technologies that he that he's that he utilizes on a day-to-day basis and then now I sit back and say okay here's how I'm going to come into this and infiltrate this and here's how I'm going to build this based off of watching him and observing him and his friends because they are the the the the generation that is going to it it's going to expand it's going to blow up it's going to grow so much that for me I
265:00 - 265:30 have to really be a student at this point in time for them to lead in this generation you know what's funny about that I have five kids and you know I've run a digital Agency for over two decades and I thought I'd outsmart my kids and you don't outsmart the kids in technology what is some of the things that your kids are teaching you I mean look they they they can live in Virtual lives in ways that we don't understand you know it's like I remember when I was a kid it's like watching TV it's like when I was a kid you know and then I
265:30 - 266:00 find myself in the same thing and I I just don't I can't comprehend it how it rewards them in in ways it that they engage and it feels like they're connecting and having meaningful relationships and who am I to judge sort of thing you know other than judge as a father we got to know when to fall back yeah you gave a talk earlier about how the internet sucks yeah and talking about how the internet doesn't really work for us yep like it once did but we
266:00 - 266:30 and I'm wondering how you think it can work better for us yeah I mean I truly do believe the internet sucks I mean look we've had it for now two decades in our lives um but if you look at in the course of human history it's quite narrow and small and actually quite immature and we've really been focused on the functional part of the internet and we haven't really tapped into the emotional part of the internet so I believe we're going from like an it to
266:30 - 267:00 an ET in the future of the world where that emotional technology can actually give value in ways we've never even understood from a digital platform perspective I mean it's it's you know and some people like oh it's so it does so much but like travel sucks engagement with entertainment you know I'm searching through like rows of columns and I can't ever find what I want and then I go on Tik Tok and I spend 30 minutes and I don't feel rewarded like you can health care I it doesn't
267:00 - 267:30 understand if I have a an illness and I'm waiting for results or I'm trying to book an appointment the empathy of like how my emotion may be in that moment and I believe we are now going to go to this new era where actually can have empathy and the range of emotions and true intelligence can actually deliver different types of value that needs to be designed um but you actually have to design to solve a different problem which is emotion and empathy and not solve just for function which is where I think we are right now in its totality
267:30 - 268:00 at least now um at this conference and just around the world the conversation about AI has been so um integral how do you think AI will change this next phase of for athletes for businesses for both I mean what do you see I for me I think for athletes in particular sleep right recovery oh uh
268:00 - 268:30 you know uh again competition against your against the the opponent right understanding your game breaking down your game and in deficiencies and things like that taking all of that information in that Intel uh again we we go back to wearable you know wearables right and it's like you put a t-shirt on and it's you put it you know sometimes it don't even have it just natural wearable there's no chip that's shown or anything it's just so fluent that it looks a part of your Aesthetics but that information
268:30 - 269:00 as an athlete now we're able to today tap into that information as opposed to having to go to somebody else and wait for them to give us that information now we can react and we can respond on how to recover for 82 Game season and if we playing six games in a week how do we uh the quickest way to to get back and get rest when we living on a plane when we you know it's just a lot that goes on with that so I think that information and that data when it comes to a really is beneficial for the athlete but I
269:00 - 269:30 think it's only as beneficial as you allow it to be M yeah I'm surprised you put chips in your head and just have the information in your head I mean we could talk we could talk about that but you know I I think um look Ai and sports first of all the platform that really we speak a lot about this is uh can sport Beach you know the Davos of sports um because a lot of this is unknown we we don't I I like to think there's a lot of fake experts out there and we have incredible
269:30 - 270:00 technology emerging but we're yet to really see see its material impact Beyond sort of like what we've seen to date and like you said there's new technology glasses and whatnot The Fan Experience like there's an amazing technology called around where you're in the stadium and you're engaging in different ways with the community that justs with around you in the arena so the so many different things happening but I think now is the imagination time like what could it mean to us what could mean to an athlete what could it mean to a fan what could mean to a team I think we are so early in the beginning but we
270:00 - 270:30 know it's going to transform because technology always wins it's undefeated it will find its way into culture into athletes into uh media rights and everything in between how do you see AI or you know some of the wearables you know the Vision Pro affecting The Fan Experience I I think I tested out Vision Pro once and you could maybe be on the sidelines and be able to experience that do you
270:30 - 271:00 feel that that will change the fan interaction do you or do you think that it's always going to be a place and people wanting to see it live yeah I think it's a place for everything it's it's it's like movie theaters going to the movies like we don't have to go to the movie theaters no more to watch movies right but we still get the Nostalgia of going back to the movie theater and getting your sood and getting your popcorn and going that experience I think we will still have that in sports but I also believe that it's happening now you see people
271:00 - 271:30 sitting home and you can be a courtside at a basketball game sitting in your living room like that's really connecting the fans right so it's it's going to get even more crazier out here when it's going to crazy I mean I like to look at is this you have caveman drawings then you have a photograph then you have moving image then you add audio then you had new amazing ways of distribution from movie theater to in your home to on your phone it's not inconceivable that maybe it won't just be that one day it will be more immersed and yeah the technolog is
271:30 - 272:00 a little clunky now you're sitting there with something heavy but one day I'm going to want to be Courtside that's fact I want to sit next to you on court side of the Knicks but not everybody can right now they will be in the future and you take something like meta with the glasses right it's the meta and as a fan I can go and and get inside of my favorite player's world right he's he's showing me his world through his lens right it's not a phone it's not I'm showing you through the lens of my eyes and what I'm looking at and what I'm
272:00 - 272:30 watching as a fan if I was able to watch Michael Jordan growing up through his lenses through his eyes of a pair of glasses that would been the best thing that ever happened to me as a fan it's crazy so as kids now they have an opportunity to be at a Nicks game when you all the way in Lisbon right so it it it makes sense I'm excited cool well thank you guys but before we leave you want to toast to pug girl yes yes uh
272:30 - 273:00 this is the first time I've had uh some wine on uh on the web Summit but today we'll be pouring you know our our nice vintage uh Ulta Fidelity 2020 out of chatan the pop so we want to do a special toast today and again thank you guys this is amazing thank you thank you cheers cheers thank you and cheers to Portugal
273:00 - 273:30 thank you guys [Music] by [Music]
273:30 - 274:00 [Music] [Music] from growing up in the cultural
274:00 - 274:30 revolution in China to becoming a global Pioneer in genomic sequencing Molly has quite the story she's one of the highest raising female founders of 2024 with her her company Element biosciences having raised a 20277 million serious Dee this year to revolutionize the field of DNA sequencing and genomics to tell us her story from immigrating to the US from China and becoming an industry disruptor
274:30 - 275:00 please welcome the co-founder and CEO of element biosciences Molly her [Applause] [Music] wow thank you thank you so much for coming here how are you feeling
275:00 - 275:30 today I need a little bit more energy because I'm talking about a story of the Unicorn how are you feeling today great that's awesome I hope you can take away at least one point of my story today and take it home and use it tomorrow now this is a story about a rebel that's me who take both steps and
275:30 - 276:00 Define the odds to build the company from scratch all the way to a unicorn so I grew up in rural China and my parents were two of many intellectuals who were sent to Countryside to get re-educated during culture Revolution and they're both Math teachers and our living condition was poor we did not have running water we did not have heat we only have rent meat
276:00 - 276:30 products and ration fabric for clothing but our teachers taught us well and we had a lot of fun so when I was at in elementary school our PE classes were literally running on the playground of dirt and I was short and chubby but I was naively competitive I always wanted to ring so I kept on practicing
276:30 - 277:00 practicing wanting faster times and eventually I became The Record Keeper of a 200 meter dash in our County for many years so in my formative years there are two values drilled in me hard work and education and I was taught that education is powerful and that's the only way that can lift us from poverty and hard work is what make
277:00 - 277:30 education counts and these two Stu in me for my entire life journey and I'm a living example of how hard work and education can change a person's life and can level any economic disparities thank you so to seek a better life I took all my belongings which is two suitcases and
277:30 - 278:00 $20 in my pocket and came to United States of America to pursue my PhD in protein Sciences at UCLA I did not speak much of English I made many many laughable silly mistakes when I spoke but I have thick skin as you can see now um essentially I just kept on making mistakes and kept on practicing and eventually I was able to master
278:00 - 278:30 English I'm still learning obviously but interesting thing is what I found is that when I discussed science with my classmates with my professors I've always felt at ease and I made friends very quickly just discussing science because science is a language do not require translation so after graduation my
278:30 - 279:00 career has taken several unconventional terms from Academia to Pharma to genomics to Adventure capitalist I don't think I knew at that time what drove me to always seeking new possibilities and I didn't really know at that time like why I chose one opportunity over the other but then all dots connected naturally when I co-founded my own company called element
279:00 - 279:30 biosciences I realized it was never about title or money it's always about dissatisfaction of the status schol it's always about wanting to learn wanting to break out of the boxes wanting to have some fun now in retrospect I think that's a bit of a understatement because it turns out the company I chose to co-found would be to
279:30 - 280:00 trying to disrupt a monopoly which has dominated the market for over a decade and it has more than billion of annual re annual revenue and have left many companies who try to make inroads in their space completely destroyed before I tell you the very long arduous journey of making this unicorn I do want to share with you an
280:00 - 280:30 observation in the past 30 years of career progression I've observed fewer and fewer women in the room where where decisions are made and the strategies are set and in fact in my last company I was the only female director amongst more than 30 R&D directors for at least four years and even today I was the only woman board members on my own board so
280:30 - 281:00 sometimes it feels really lonely so I look around the room there's so many young capable women not having the opportunity not because they're not good enough but really is because sometimes they shy away from confrontations so how many of you actually feel like that in the room full of you know your your colleagues so that inspired me to Mentor a group of young female um especially
281:00 - 281:30 women in science and really try to help them to break the glass ceiling not by gender identity but by assertion confidence and competency and I'm really happy to share with you that some of these women that I showed here in the photo who were in The First Class of a mentorship who made into a leadership position in my
281:30 - 282:00 company now back to the technology the power of genomics what is genomics let's start from DNA you all have DNA in your body DNA are the letters of a book of a life and genome is the completely book it's a complete set of DNA in an organism and genomics is the study of
282:00 - 282:30 genome making sense of the entire book what does that book mean and DNA sequencing is essentially reading the letters reading the book B and it's a very very powerful tool because it provides an individualized approach to uncover the genetic variations behind a trait or a disease so it can be used to track a pandemic it can also be used to test
282:30 - 283:00 fetus for genomic variations it can be used to diagnose a disease and come up with the individualized treatment plan so we can work live much longer and a happier life even though there have been a lot of Advan made in the genomics research today the DNA sequencing Market has been dominated by this one
283:00 - 283:30 Monopoly which occupies roughly 90% of the market and as you all know as with any businesses without without a competition the Monopoly can and will dictate the price and in addition the lower price of DNA sequencing is only available to large centralized Labs where they're very well funded and they have a lot of St poost
283:30 - 284:00 to test so that they can take advantage of the economics of scale now as a result 86% of genetics information obtained today are from European descendants so coming from rural China I truly understand the importance and value of increasing technology access and we really need to demarti sequencing to these areas that's less
284:00 - 284:30 well funded or less developed and more price sensitive and we must Define the access Gap and this is our opportunity so in 2017 three co-founders started element biosciences in this decade or in the last decade there are so many companies have tried to take on the same challenge to offer DNA
284:30 - 285:00 sequencing to masses but they have fallen short in grasping any Market from the Goliath and actually as the ex CEO of the goliaths used to say the road of DNA sequencing is littered with dead bodies there's also a Chinese saying new calfs are not afraid of
285:00 - 285:30 tigers so while naive we actually knew that we have to use a very different technology completely Innovative to provide economic scale to smaller Labs without the scale so we took apart the entire platform of DNA sequencer down to every single technical elements and this is where our names from and try to use the first principles approach to build the platform from ground
285:30 - 286:00 app boy it was hard and I feel like we are the newborn CS here with the 5 million of seed funding we were able to start a lab in a basement with no air conditioning and that really reminds me of my childhood and we bought used lab equipments and we hired a few very young and ambitious smart students fresh out of school so for every single element we
286:00 - 286:30 tried to rebuild we made many interesting discoveries only to realize they cannot be put together practically as a the product so after more than 500 Days of running at a furious Pace we finally on May 19 2019 were able to put the pieces together and saw the first Glimpse that new technology may actually
286:30 - 287:00 work to attack the giant we were so excited we wanted to ramp up a pro a product development and raised more money and then the first pandemic in the last 80 years hit us and it hit us very hard with the risk of shutting everything down and we also made a promise that to our employees that we wanted to keep them on the
287:00 - 287:30 payroll we must navigate the shutdown so we imp implemented many um appropriate measures to make sure we can bring a passionate team back on site to work on the product development and we took temperature screening and making sure people are okay and we also work shifts to reduce the density and Incredibly we not only did
287:30 - 288:00 not slow down our product development but also we accelerated because we have a common Vision we generate a genetic solution to track Co pandemic so our first product which is called Aid was launched during covid virtually on a Pi Day 2022 thank you now we met a new set of
288:00 - 288:30 challenges while we're scaling up our commercial trying to sell the uh instruments around the world the macroeconomics environment to cuch downturn and to make it worse in our industry most of the genomics research companies has lost their value significantly 60 to 80% and because of that investors has lost their confidence in this sector to
288:30 - 289:00 be able to build profitable business so the funding situation is extremely poor but at the same time we're just starting to make a revenue we we did not have enough Revenue to break even and we need more money to scale our commercial so I know we must raise money in this very hard time and if not all of our work in the past 5 years will be lost I was really worried at that time
289:00 - 289:30 because time is ticking and our funds are drying up but I cannot show it to the company have to put up a very very positive phase positive attitude towards the company keeping the momentum going so what I did was I took a few very capable Leaders with me and went on a 9mon long pitch to more than 80 investors and after hundreds literally
289:30 - 290:00 hundreds of pitches we finally was able to successfully raise our serious D and guess how much we raised it's a test for you if you're listening to Laura earlier we raised 277 million us for seriously this is our largest round ever since the company was around and allog together we have raised more than $680 million since
290:00 - 290:30 Inception that was incredible thank you but now we never we never got a break so what happens now since we got new powder new money we accelerated our commercial footprint and we're being successful and what happens then with the Goliath right there they start to be
290:30 - 291:00 worried and what they did is to trying to chase our customers for every customer we have they offering significant price discount any anywhere between 20 all the way to 80% of discount try to undercut us to squeeze us out from the market just like what they have done in the history and on top of that there is a saying nobody gets fired for buying IBM because people naturally wanted to go with a seemingly safer
291:00 - 291:30 route even though that route may not be that safe in the long run do you think people should be fired for buying IBM I see a silence that's exactly what we have met as a challenge now with all these challenges in front of us we knew very clearly that we cannot sell on price we must sell on value and we also must accelerate our Innovation pipeline so then we can make
291:30 - 292:00 unique fully differentiated products to open up our own blue ocean so that our competitors cannot Chase I'm very happy to announce today that we are the only and the first commercial company that has the achieved the lowest price point for human genome sequencing as low as $200 per human genome to a small lab on a small bench top
292:00 - 292:30 sequencer and we own more than 400 patents and patent applications and thanks to many many many small labs around the world were in more than 30 countries including Portugal and we have a mighty distributor sitting down there in the in the audience for Portugal thank you and and more importantly we're in many Emerging Markets including southeast Asia and Asia and Africa we're truly
292:30 - 293:00 realizing our vision that we want to democratize sequencing and we're doing it and finally with the a $680 million raised we have reached our unicorn status so people ask me how did you do it the answer is simple well it's not simple but two words bold Defiance we've
293:00 - 293:30 got to be bold because bold in us see opportunities I'm not going to read all these letters but if it's very important to know that was very hard it was so hard it was painful and people ask me do you want to do it again I actually said no I don't want to do it again because it's so hard and I told my kids my lifespan has been shortened by 10 Years by working on this
293:30 - 294:00 company but I will say the reward the the impact we make to the industry and the sense of accom accomplishment is well worth the pain and maybe I'll do it again now the future is bright we're taking our initial success to expand into the much broader area of the biology biology just like River it's a
294:00 - 294:30 dynamic and it's complex we have to measure many many molecules to understand biology at many different time points so towards that Vision element came out with a new product it's called a vd24 so we're not only can measure DNA but also RNA proteins and cells all at the same time at the same from the same samples and this will provide unique
294:30 - 295:00 opportunity to provide unified data type for AI to build more accurate and more predictive model to understand biology and I would love to collaborate with all of you who especially those in AI for healthc care to work with us because we are unique in a way to provide you this fully integrated and fully unified data set with both Define in us we can make a difference thank you so much for your
295:00 - 295:30 attention [Applause] [Music]
295:30 - 296:00 [Music] [Music] next we have for the very first time on Center Stage the European capital of innovation Awards which will determine
296:00 - 296:30 who will be crowned the most Innovative city in Europe powered by the European Innovation Council to guide us through this please welcome from a syvia [Applause] Alberto hi hello everyone yes here I am and I'll have the pleasure of being your host for the next 20 minutes so welcome
296:30 - 297:00 to the 2024 European capital of innovation award ceremony a round of applause and a strong Round of Applause and you know why because it's the 10th anniversary this year of the ceremony another round of applause let me hear you thank you so much so today we continue celebrating the remarkable achievements of cities leading the way into Innovation across Europe and to
297:00 - 297:30 kick things off let's take a look at this year's inspiring finalists let's meet them [Music] [Music]
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298:00 - 298:30 thank you thank you to all our impressive finalists who will win this year that's the questions we are about to answer so for now please join me welcoming to the stage the European commissioner Ilan ienova and the mayor of Lisbon Carlos
298:30 - 299:00 mues welcome thank you welcome welcome so Carlos we are delighted having you here as a host and has previous winner as well has I Capital winner so just a few words to welcome us on stage into the ceremony so welcome to Lisbon I'm very happy to be here it's bittersweet
299:00 - 299:30 because it's the last minutes that Lisbon will be the capital of innovation of Europe and so I'm going to pass the Baton but I want to thank thank you all of you because I came here the first year of my tenure to ask you to help me and to tell you that I wish that Lisbon one day would be the capital of innovation and you made it happen so I'm very happy for that uh happy to be here and Iana you did an amazing job last year was amazing and I told you this
299:30 - 300:00 year would be in front of a lot of people so welcome I'm so happy to have you all here and here you are in the main stage thank you so much and now to sh to share her perspective on the impact of these Awards and the RO of innovation in shaping the future of cities across the Europe I hand the stage over to our commissioner Ilana Ivanova if you please thank you thank you so much and I'm really thrilled to announce today the
300:00 - 300:30 winners of the European capital of innovation Awards here at the web Summit in Lisbon a Fitting Place to to celebrate Visionary ideas mayor mues dear Carlos thank you for hosting this ceremony as last year's winner we launched the ey Capital Awards 10 years ago the idea was to celebrate cities that use innovation to improve lives by
300:30 - 301:00 2050 85% of Europeans will live in cities creating a rising demand for resources and services for the clean connected cities of Tomorrow Innovation must happen today and Lisbon demonstrates this and one the y capital award last year woohoo
301:00 - 301:30 congratulations Forman and fostering this vibrant Innovation ecosystems is a top priority for the European commission we need bold ideas to fuel Europe's competitiveness and well-being and we need you researchers companies and investors to choose Europe as your Launchpad through funding cooperation and advice we can help you aim high the European
301:30 - 302:00 Innovation Council a part of our research and Innovation program Horizon Europe is now Europe's biggest in investor in technology startups leveraging 4 EUR for every Euro invested and this October we launched the trusted investors Network joining forces with over 70 investors to co-invest in deep Tech mobilizing over 9 billion EUR in
302:00 - 302:30 assets and the club door is open so if you are an investor please join us next year our step scaleup scheme will start offering Investments at up to30 million EUR helping scale UPS access funding up up to €50 million EUR and the I Capital prize is one of many ways we support groundbreaking Innovation I'm
302:30 - 303:00 really looking forward to revealing this year's winners but first congratulations of course to all finalists because your vision and hard work are truly inspiring examples of urban Innovation for a brighter future thank you thank you commissioner Elana Ivanova and thank you also for this idea to support this idea of the I Capital award celebrating this year its 10th anniversary so it's time
303:00 - 303:30 it's time to deliver the first award of the day the European Rising Innovative City and this award celebrate cities that have made exceptional strides in Innovation setting new standards for growth sustainability and Community Connection and to help us honor this year's final list I'd like to welcome
303:30 - 304:00 back someone who knows a thing or two about this category the mayor of lining last year winner along with this year's dazzling finalists a round of applause for them [Applause] please welcome all all the
304:00 - 304:30 Mayors how exciting this is I imagine they're all nervous we are as well well the results the results are right over here yes European Rising Innovative City I'm also nervous keep it but let's reveal let's reveal I'll hand it over to you commissioner Ian
304:30 - 305:00 iova and the winner is Braga [Applause] congratulations mayor Ricardo Ru from V bag is European Rising Innovative city of this year thank you so
305:00 - 305:30 much and now the second and third the second place goes to Lind [Applause] congratulations thank you congratulations and we know it already third place goes to third place ol congratulations
305:30 - 306:00 ol thank you very much you my friend I would like to invite you all to take a picture in the center of the stage congratulations but first the picture with our commissioner as well please join together all of us of course please please come over here okay so smile this is the moment we want to mark for the future is it a moment to mark for the
306:00 - 306:30 future Ricardo come up here Gard tell me what does it mean for the city for Braga to being recognized as the rising Innovative City it's a great moment for the city of Braga for the ones of you that don't know the city of Braga yet braa is one of the oldest cities in Europe with over 2,000 years but at the same time is one of the youngest cities in Europe so you can imagine that to keep ourselves attractive and sexy we need to continuously reinvent ourselves
306:30 - 307:00 and be Innovative and that's what we have been trying to do every single day together with a large um community of stakeholders with the business sector with the Academia with the citizens of the city so that we can provide to all of those the best conditions for the Fulfillment of their dreams and I hope that all of you get to know the city of Braga and help us shape the future of our city together with all of you thank you very much invitation made congratulations once again congratulations to all the winners in
307:00 - 307:30 the category Rising Innovative city thank you all we see you back soon thank you so much and we continue with the Revelation and we'll now go directly to the next category how was it okay next category as you know is the European capital of innovation
307:30 - 308:00 award and this category honors the cities that have truly raised the bar in Innovation creating transformative change and inspiring communities across Europe so let's call to join us on stage please help me welcoming this year's outstanding finalists
308:00 - 308:30 [Applause] [Applause] woohoo nice dance as well welcome to all of you so I would start with you mayor
308:30 - 309:00 caros mues because you've won in this category last year what would you say to the next city that is a about to know uh who is the winner so I enjoy the moment because such an important moment I was so nervous last year here with Iana in marsill and you know cities are really the engines of Europe they are the cities are the engines of innovation M and so really enjoy the moment and try
309:00 - 309:30 to think what you're going to do with the money because it's a million euros this is like the Nobel Prize for Innovation right and so with that money use it for your city uh to really take care of people we created these three major Innovation awards for social Innovation one in education the other one in health and the third in Immigration because Innovation only happens with diversity with people that come from other countries with other
309:30 - 310:00 religions and other credos and other ways of thinking the world so that's what you have to do is like to use that money to keep being the capital of innovation I know that I'm going to pass the bton but I will feel Lisbon will always be the capital of innovation and you always one of you one of you will always feel that because we are a community of innovators and I really wish you the best the best for this moment but enjoy the moment my friends because it's a unique moment and thanks
310:00 - 310:30 Europe Iana thanks to Europe I mean the reason we here because Europe is putting the money and Europe is putting the money in moderation in diversity in inclusion that's what Europe does so thanks Europe thank you so much car mu our mayor and Ian Ivanova our commissioner so this is the envelope one of these three amazing cities is about to receive the ey Capital award this year and
310:30 - 311:00 please do the honor of revealing who is 2024 European capital of innovation who will win it is my big pleasure to announce this year's winner of the European eye Capital award and this is the city of Torino
311:00 - 311:30 Torino Torino in Italy is the European capital of innovation 2020 24 congratulations my friend congratulations great moment congratulations congratulations winners let me see and the second and third place Iana second place goes to espo
311:30 - 312:00 congratulations espo congratulations second winner up I do and the third place we know it already the third place of course West Midlands congratulations my [Applause] friend congratulations and I would invite you all to take a picture next to Elana and mayor carther
312:00 - 312:30 if you please as well and yes all good okay that's it for our photographers it's okay okay I would just to ask Stefano how what does it feel like to be honest I'm really uh really excited about this Pride for many reason let me thank to all the team of Torino Diva
312:30 - 313:00 Torino to all the team that work with me we are very proud uh congratulation to the finalist congratulations to the mayor of Lisbon this wonderful city is for me very very amazing thank you to the commissioner because her work are really really important because we are in a troubling moment for Europe and as innovators we have to work to enforce our values that is diversity inclusion social cohesion and economy that is very
313:00 - 313:30 important is a very good field in which we can uh work on Innovation practice thank you so much it worth it PL for the future of course we have first to make a big party weren't you you are all invited second we are also going to have a party it's okay every so we'll join together in the party join together no I'm joking
313:30 - 314:00 of course now we have the responsibility to work uh in this kind of field as a network of cities because as the mayor of B said very well Europe is made up by cities mostly mostly import is most important now in this moment so we work all together as a group of City to promote our values and to work with this prize on the different fields in order to share our experien to to be uh
314:00 - 314:30 capable to work with other city in the next year thank you so much congratulations to all the winners especially for the city Torino who has now won Innovative cital Award of this year Ian Ivanova I would now please kindly ask you to close this session and have the final words please thank you to our six finalists thank you for your dedication and congratulations again to
314:30 - 315:00 all all you have achieved because you are role models and I trust that other cities will also learn from your experiences I invite you now to join the I Capital Alumni network to share your knowledge and work together with past finalists to build the cities of tomorrow I'm also happy to share that applications for the next edition of the ey Capital Awards will open around March next year so pay
315:00 - 315:30 attention to that because also today's winners have set the bar very very high and I'm very excited to see what comes next congratulations again to all thank you thank you commissioner thank you mayor Lisbon congratulations to all the winners thank you for joining us in this celebration and now finally let's look back at 10 incredible years of I Capital Awards enjoy the rest of your afternoon
315:30 - 316:00 here at web Summit bye-bye thank you all [Music]
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317:00 - 317:30 technology displacing humans in the workforce just nothing new rarely has it ever been as impactful across so many sectors as AI is today at the same time it can create new roles and allow us to focus on on different areas how can we navigate the disruption and opportunity that is happening to talk about how AI is Transforming Our Workforce in
317:30 - 318:00 conversation with Charla G of MIT tech review please welcome the CEO of kesta ping Wu and head head of TMT for the Qatar investment Authority Muhammad Al [Music] hardan a AI a transformative Force shaping our world revolutionizing Our Lives solving challenges or creating problems
318:00 - 318:30 answering questions raising concern a catalyst for change the power of AI [Music] [Music]
318:30 - 319:00 okay great um everyone thanks for being with us today I think we're going to dive straight into questions to use our time B best um Alan can you tell us a little bit about the most interesting or exciting uses of your technology that you've you've seen from customers so far yeah so I'll tell you like what are traditional use cases and what has surprised Us in the last like uh year or so so traditionally what we do is we help large Enterprises uh process all
319:00 - 319:30 their unstructured data so that they can make the decisions quickly and examples could be let's say you JP Morgan change and you have to give a home loan people submit this like, Page Long application packet can you have ai look at everything and make a decision or if somebody is making an insurance claim they submit like you know huge number of documents can you have ai process all of those so those were the traditional use cases but now what we are seeing is people creating many of these new kind of things that we had never seen before for an example there is this insurance
319:30 - 320:00 company that does cattle insurance so you basically when a cattle dies you know you have to make sure that you have to pay them back and somebody built this app quickly to figure out if the dead cattle is same that same as the cattle that they ensured by AI being able to see like all the you know features and like earlier this would take like several years to train a model and we are now seeing like different teams being able to create these productivity applications for example like HR team how many questions you send to HR right
320:00 - 320:30 like currently they need to hire people to answer those questions now they just put an AI agent that answers all of those things legal team so we are seeing a huge huge huge sort of like self citizen applications being built on top of our technology uh which is amazingly amazingly good ping I've got the same question for you what what's been the most uh kind of surprising or or unusual use case that you've you've seen so far from customers yes so a little bit background Questa start with co-pilot and you know agent assist for call
320:30 - 321:00 centers and also on digital channel so company like United Airlines use qua to help the agent to become more efficient more effective and then one key feature that we provide is called autoc compose that you can actually type and you know AI can automatically complete your sentences and that's actually trained based on uh autot typing in the contact center and what we have find that um you know the AI also pick up a lot of typos um because a lot of the agents are B
321:00 - 321:30 agents the English may not be their first language so so it's very interesting that you know AI also generate typos and then we add additional rewriting capabilities that make sure the English uh the grammar is are correct so so that's something that we didn't expect you know the customer will use that way and another thing that you know it's more recent it's actually very interesting is on The Voice Channel um customers they sell for example Insurance seller they sell to different
321:30 - 322:00 ethnic groups there have different languages you know as we have a more and more diverse population and um you know often time you need to have a human interpreter because you just don't cannot find agents that speak certain language um now uh with AI especially a real time kind of speech to speech translation um now we can enable with the co-pilot not only just answer question but also help agent to actually speak in another language so like you can still speak or type in certain you
322:00 - 322:30 know like in English and the other side is um let's say Spanish or Mandarin Chinese and you know the person on the other side the phone line we actually hear AI Genera voice that's um that can allow really to the agent and the customer speak entirely different language but there's removed the barrier of communication that's amazing that's like Douglas Adams's Babel Fish kind of Technology that's incredible Muhammad you you must have a really broad overview of what's going on in in AI
322:30 - 323:00 from your position as an investor what's what's been the most impressive thing that you've seen recently among the different companies that you're investing in or weighing up to invest in I think the the most impressive thing is and you know the world had its chat gbt moment the overall education when it comes to AI uh has reached a new Baseline um I think companies are uh starting to become very Dynamic the rate of innovation is not something that we've seen and it presents challenges to us as investor and you know Stanford
323:00 - 323:30 publishes an AI index and the uh time between major Innovations in AI has been shrinking and major development major uh breakthrough in AI is is used to be used to happen uh in in in a couple of years but now we're talking in terms of months so I think the evolution and rate of change of of innovation is is really exciting and we're seeing many companies really um you know go deep into the
323:30 - 324:00 details of certain vertical within Industries and and innovate really creating applications that no one has has thought of before and larger Enterprises look at this and say okay you know is is this the company that I need to spend time with or do I wait things out and that creates uh some a bit of uncertainty when it comes to investors do we invest now do we invest later yeah and I'm sure also you know for people who are running companies it's just having to constantly update your your products even even more quickly than before but um yeah I'd love
324:00 - 324:30 I'd love to hear a little bit more about that actually from from you anant can you can you tell me a bit about how you manage that process of keeping yourselves at The Cutting Edge has that changed for you significantly kind of with generative AI how do you how do you stay up to date oh it had changed significantly over the last six years I mean when we started AI wasn't powerful enough to really understand unst structure data so we invested very heavily in something called program synthesis and maybe that survived a year
324:30 - 325:00 year and a half and then this famous Transformer paper came around end of 2017 by Google so we developed our own layout of air language models and Transformer models which are very very good like 97 98% accuracy but you needed to fine tune those models on your specific data and then automatically in 2022 you have these large language models which work zeros sort which means you don't need any fine-tuning and it will just work without you know bosart on on the customers problems so we ended up rewriting the whole product so we now
325:00 - 325:30 have two platform called instas classic platform and instabase AI Hub that we launched last year which is entirely built from scratch best foundational model as the key technology in mind because it's not just about technology change because the technology change fundamentally also changes the user interaction the interfaces so we ended up like completely rewriting entire product at the end of like 2022 which we launched like last year uh which we hope survives for a longer time than the previously
325:30 - 326:00 but this is something that I think we continue to look to look towards that before somebody else kills us can we kill our own product and our own technology our elves yeah I mean that's that's the difficult thing I guess is not being too tied to anything in particular it's funny actually just to sort of stay stay with you and I I I wonder you know when I'm I'm looking at kind of The Cutting Edge capabilities of AI it continually blows my mind and it's very easy to fall into a belief where you think AI can do everything what are the things that AI still is struggling
326:00 - 326:30 with um that are still kind of open issues that need to be fixed for it to really achieve its potential so I I think based on what we know today currently still research has not figured out how to explain every single thing AI does so there is a good progress that has been made over last 6 to8 months but still we are far away from being able to fully explain the how AI comes to an answer but more importantly I think the way AI produces that answer is U sort of like a multi-dimensional vector
326:30 - 327:00 computation over large distribution of data set that it has been trained on so even though it looks like in novel anwers the reality is it's just trying to find out patterns over multiple different dimensions which we as humans are not very capable of thinking and it feels to us that it's something very Innovative something very very new but the reality is even in the human world most of the things that we do is based on all the things that we have seen and we have learned over the period of time so the real like new innovation like new physics or new like way of like space
327:00 - 327:30 exploration those are the things that are still beyond the reach of AI because there is not enough success that we have had in the past so if people think that AI can really like solve every single human problem uh answer is as as of today what we know of AI is no if the problem has been solved in the past or if the similar pattern has existed in the past AI is very very quick to be able to process large amounts of data and give you an answer so I think that we will continue to see a huge value of
327:30 - 328:00 that but I I just do not believe that it has a similar level of human curiosity and human intelligence to get us into the New Frontiers that we have never explored or we have never found in the past yeah yeah that's that's something to kind of hang on to sometimes um ping I I wonder if you can speak about this a bit what what do you see as the kind of real benefit of AI that that you're bringing to your customers what is it what are the benefits I mean apart from
328:00 - 328:30 maybe saving some money I mean we and we can also talk about jobs MH um what what are this is the sort of exciting potential that that it brings them yeah so um you know we're very fortunate to work in contact center Ai and because contact center there's so many AI use cases that are oriented around language right so if you look at the contact center there are quality assurance workflows there are coaching workflows analytics workflows human agents W part of it and then of course we can now have
328:30 - 329:00 virtual agent that can automate a conversation so it's not about just uh pure um you know uh saving cost and a lot of time when the co-pilot actually get a lot of the maintained repetitive work done for human agents um it actually free free up the human agents and so the agent can focus their attention on building the trust relationship with the customer instead of just juggling with multiple different interfaces on on their screen so so I think that's really important for customer satisfaction and another thing
329:00 - 329:30 that I've been thinking about is that um it's you know call center is expens iive not all business can afford call centers there many small businesses or mediumsized business there's just no call centers and what it means is that a lot of the calls are unanswered you hit voicemail so you know there are companies that buying ads on Google Driving C volumes to their Branch offices and you know the dealership manager may be on the tour with the
329:30 - 330:00 customer then no one pick up the phone so it's instead of replacing human you know the voice agent in those cases AI agents actually are competing against that air uh voicemail so so it's actually creating abundance of intelligent human conversation on the phone line so they're actually benefiting customers so so the total volume of AI generated voice will increase not at expense of you know human agents or labor displacement yeah I mean I guess there's often you know
330:00 - 330:30 you bump up against that's the limit of what the AI can do now someone needs to take over and and help out m i to talk a little bit about um being an investor in AI there's been lots and lots of talk about the need for returns from AI Investments I I kind of wanted to get your view on that do you are you getting impatient um or how are you how are you feeling about thankfully given um you know Q being a sovereign wealth fund um we're not seeing some of the challenges that
330:30 - 331:00 other investors are seeing and and there's a a few reasons for that I think uh the first thing is with a large fund um and so um initially we went in companies at the infrastructure layer both in the software and hardware and those companies did very well uh the other reason is given the Mandate so wide um you know we're typically series C plus and Beyond and we do both public and private we have the luxury to choose whether to invest now or later um you
331:00 - 331:30 know especially when there are themes such as AI sometimes that could get overhyped we can avoid these themes we can avoid stages that are overcrowded um you know we have that luxury we have this long-term aspect where we can say okay yes we like the company we think the evaluation doesn't make sense let's wait we have that luxury other funds don't uh other funds are confined to a certain stage element they have pressure to deploy Capital you know let's take VC's uh you know um as an example um you know
331:30 - 332:00 typical VC funds are you know fund life is between 8 and 10 years time so there's pressure to deploy capital and pressure to Fus on one stage which AI is different we're seeing pre-revenue companies raising significantly large amounts of capital in the billions that Series be so we have the luxury to time our investments uh rather than feeling the pressure when other investors are mhh that makes a lot of sense I wonder Anna if if you can talk a little bit about um what's coming next in terms of
332:00 - 332:30 capabilities for for for your customers I know you talked about rebuilding the platform hopefully you're not going to have to do too much of that in future but what what new capabilities can we expect to see in in AI Automation in the next 6 to 12 months yeah and I I think we haven't gotten there yet but something that we are very seriously spending a lot of time on so right now the AI if you look at the AI maturity model for any any set of customers the first one is can you read and understand very basic things and and and make that
332:30 - 333:00 decision yourself like that degree of automation second is large scale analysis where you have very expert people like legal or Healthcare professionals can they analyze you know customers info with what they have seen in the past there is a second level of maturity model third level of maturity model is can you understand all of the data across all of the Enterprise understand the conflicts and all of those kind of things for example can you do the question which is does just submiss and comply with our standards now every company have their own standards so being able to see everything and still be able to make the decision and I think that we are at this
333:00 - 333:30 third level the final level is going to be literally AI being able to take end to end decision and operate all the tools itself which I call fully AI driven Enterprise so you just give it a goal which is like hey onboard this customer and that's it now ai should be able to understand what onboarding customer means what all tools it needs to operate what all things that has to change what are the risk with that what are the other partnership that needs to be updated and and that is not just like
333:30 - 334:00 understanding and intelligence that basically means having the sort of the authority and agency to operate tools in a way humans can do read write and execute operations and I think currently people either you know people don't have enough confidence on AI that they can do it and you still need the human checks in those things but that is the final frontier that once you are able to achieve that you are really going to look at completely AI driven operations like AI doing entire customer on boarding or immigration or taxes and that's it like
334:00 - 334:30 basically there's no human touch humans can audit and still see things but the reality is entirely end to when would be done by AI I believe that we still far away from that but I would not be surprised that over the next 10 years I think majority of Industries would have some form of AI driven operations entirely that's it's a pretty uh exciting scary thought I mean a lot of people obviously talk about about jobs in this context and the loss of jobs or
334:30 - 335:00 or fear about I guess just the the fundamental human like oh this is something that's no longer belonging to to us which skills do you think AI makes more valuable in humans so I think the it's kind of surprising in the sense that the jobs that we felt requires a lot of intelligence those are the jobs that are being taken by AI earlier than the you know the jobs that require a lot of these physical things so I I I believe that um I you know like most of
335:00 - 335:30 the things where the decisions are primarily based on what has happened in the past and making decision based on those would be replaced by Ai and humans would primarily be focused on things that is completely novel and that basically I believe is good thing because now humans can spend most of the time on thinking about those problems that we have never thought about like what space means what Universe means and how to explore more of those kind of stuff so I'm super super excited so even though it looks like scary for many people I think if you can take a collective intelligence of all the
335:30 - 336:00 humans and and and put them to solve on the problem that had never been solved before rather than day-to-day operations I I think that Humanity will progress much much much faster MH ping what what about you what's your feeling on this this question of what what what skills will be more valuable in in this this future yeah I just heard that Salesforce hired 1,000 human agents to sell the AI agents that should supposed replace human agents so I suppose that humans still buy software so I think you know
336:00 - 336:30 influence building meeting for relationship and telling stories and sale is very important the other one is building so as an n said I totally agree there's if you think about in the future there can be trillions of humans our civilization be really be multiplanetary there's still a lot of things to do like we are just using still burning coal to generate energy there energy then we don't really understand our brain works and how our body there are so much mystery that need to be solved and there are tons of stuff to work out and then
336:30 - 337:00 lastly new jobs to be created like Miss Beast Miss Beast if you tell people like in China 200 years ago When Miss bees do and make a living no one will think it's it's out of this world I think you know new C job will be created in the future yeah this is exciting Muhammad I was going to go to you but I'm really sorry we I'll say one word I think the most important trait is change leadership don't wait for AI to come to you you are the Agent of Change every single organization needs to think you know
337:00 - 337:30 change leadership is important because that's how you progress change is the only constant in in any business environment so change leadership is what you need to take away from the stock okay thanks so much guys and thanks everyone for coming along and listening to us so much that was great [Music]
337:30 - 338:00 when Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022 he did it with the aim of increasing freedom of speech on the platform having transformed it into X he has used his
338:00 - 338:30 platform as a vehicle to help Drive Trump back to the White House in this talk we hear from two journalists with inside track on what has gone on at X please welcome from NPR Bobby Allen and from The New York Times Two journalists who have written the book on this topic Katie Conger and Ryan Mack [Applause] [Music]
338:30 - 339:00 [Music] put down hey guys so um it's hard to look at the news these days without seeing the name Elon Musk we just learned recently that uh president-elect Trump has tapped Elon Musk and former GOP Presidential candidate Vic ramaswami to head Doge
339:00 - 339:30 Department of government efficiency which it should be noting is not at least yet government agency how in the world did Elon Musk get so in mesed in Trump's Circle first go ahead no go ahead well it's it's been a long time coming uh rewinded two years ago um and they were at each other's throats Elon Musk was saying Trump should sail into the sunset he shouldn't run for election again and Trump called
339:30 - 340:00 him a artist called him a con man um remember that El musk also supported Ronda Sanz for president um until that bid failed and this marriage of convenience will call it kind of formed um last spring where they met at maral Lago and are now kind of BFF to the point where literally as we're speaking Elon Musk is on Donald Trump's plane flying to Washington DC for the meeting with President Biden so it
340:00 - 340:30 wouldn't be something Elon Musk was involved in if it didn't have some kind of childish pun or nod involved right Doge's um Department of government efficiency is obviously a nod to one of Elon musk's favorite meme coins um but it's also just really significant that the richest man in the world who runs all of these extremely important companies um is now going to be tasked as an adviser in the white house to sort of slash and burn what he may refer to as the Deep State you guys wrote the
340:30 - 341:00 book on what happened when Elon Musk acquired you know staged a hostile acquisition of Twitter and did just that had this like slash and burn way of laying off lots of staff and upending the company what might he take from that experience and try to apply it to the federal government that has what like 3 million employees or something right yeah so musk's campaign to downsize Twitter is really a model for what he wants to do with the federal government
341:00 - 341:30 and in a lot of ways it's empowered him to pursue this role I think he saw a lot of people bet against him when he took over Twitter and when he laid off 75% of the staff people were saying the site is going to go down there's no way it can continue to function and despite some small outages it still has continued to run and so I think musk feels very empowered by that and and feels that he can make these deep cuts to the government and that the bureaucracy will
341:30 - 342:00 continue to roll along so he plans to cut I think he said around $2 trillion from the federal budget which is quite significant and will result in a in a profound loss of work for for public servants mhm what more can can you say about the ways in which Elon musk's really deep cuts um at Twitter maybe affected the platform in ways that are just not so visible to the to the average user you two are super intimate with how his cuts um just really yeah
342:00 - 342:30 upended the platform can can you just talk about that sure I mean there's no part of the company that these Cuts didn't touch so we've seen it uh harm the infrastructure when Elon first had president Trump on to spaces to speak with him uh there was an outage that hit the site and they couldn't get that discussion running for about 45 minutes or so it's also affected things like public transparency which is a value musk has stated he holds uh the company stopped publishing its transparency reports revealing how many censorship
342:30 - 343:00 requests they got from governments around the world for almost 2 years and they've only recently begun to resume that practice simply because they just didn't have the staff to keep up with it there's also been a dramatic reduction in the advertising staff and and a corresponding drop in Revenue um so it's been really hard for the company to keep going and musk has been very in the details of all of these Cuts there's a a scene in the book where he sits down with Twitter's staff and starts going through the company budget line by line and and asking people to account for the
343:00 - 343:30 specific amounts that they're spending and you know we think that that is going to be a model for how he moves forward with Trump there was a famous quote where he was like let me see how much code that you've written recently right like those kinds of almost litmus tests like prove to me that you're a hard worker maybe he's going to do this now to to civil servants to technocrats right yeah he did those code reviews coming into the company and and wanted to see people actually produce or actually put down the work I don't know I don't code but I'm not sure if that's the best judge is is volume um but the
343:30 - 344:00 other day he said this same thing is that people in the government should turn in weekly PR reports essentially to check up and see if their if their job is even necessary one thing I hear sometimes is uh from people who are maybe sympathetic to Elon musk's SL and burn strategy at Twitter which is you know I think there's a lot of tech Executives who saw that and were embolden to make their own Cuts or wanted to and didn't have the power to but said hey he cut what is it 75 80% of the company and the main service mostly
344:00 - 344:30 Works some sympathetic to Elon say did he have a point was there bloat at this company what what do you all think so in our reporting we found that Twitter's prior management actually planned to pursue a radical cut as well they wanted to cut around 25% of the workforce so I think when we when it comes to Twitter there was overspending going on at the company like many tech companies they grew really quickly during the pandemic and I think they thought that that
344:30 - 345:00 growth would sustain and it didn't that being said I mean I think a lot of these cuts are very unnecessary if not for the fact fact that musk took on so much debt to buy this company right he has borrowed a lot of money to pay the 44 billion for Twitter and he has loan payments that he has to make on that the interest alone is upwards of a million dollars a year or a billion dollars a year excuse me um so you know if not for the way that that debt was set up Twitter might not have needed as drastic of cuts as that he made so the three of
345:00 - 345:30 us on a stage many people in the audience um used to be or or still are pretty die card users of Twitter now X um obviously we've all seen a lot of changes leading up to the election and what sort of content is being Amplified um I think many are seeing especially leading up to the election a lot of posts from Trump himself um a lot of a lot of posts supporting uh Donald Trump can you talk about the ways in which the platform influenced the outcome of the
345:30 - 346:00 presidential election I think I I focus on elon's account himself you know this is an account that's grown to more than 200 million followers it uh you know is the most followed account on the platform and he drives the conversation every day now whenever he tweets something it's in the trending topics it's what people talk about the people in the replies are all boosting him because they bought blue check marks which because they believe in his mission and that alone is you know worth its weight in gold when you're when you
346:00 - 346:30 can have power over that conversation we haven't talked about as well about um you know who he's let back on the platform we talk about like Alex Jones the conspiracy theorist or Nick Fuentes who is a white nationalist these are the people he's emboldened who have come back to Twitter or X and now feel like this is a welcome place for them and those changes have affected the environment have infected the conversation and have pushed the platform rightwards what what could we say about usage and The Business of X
346:30 - 347:00 cuz we hear from Elon that you know business seems to be doing okay and that usage is through the roof but um what is your reporting told you about what's what's actually happening well we've actually seen Revenue continue to fall this year which is not what a lot of analysts predicted for this company they thought the first year of his ownership there would be a pretty drastic reduction in advertising dollars because advertisers were spooked by his behavior and were worried about appearing next to hate speech on the platform but the
347:00 - 347:30 expectation was that would level off this year and it hasn't the companies continue to lose money um in terms of user growth there's been a couple of big moments this year alone that have caused people to leave the platform uh one of those being you know musk's decision to remove the block feature so that people can't really protect themselves from harassment and hate anymore and another being the election itself we've seen a real big bump for other competing platforms as people have chosen to leave x what what can we say we know at this
347:30 - 348:00 point that Elon is a political animal and that he seems to be uh you know really attached to the idea of of pushing and amplifying uh Donald Trump do we expect more from him and and his his pack America pack when it comes to uh politics in the US when it comes to trying to um push and get more candidates into office who share his worldview or is it a one undone with with Donald Trump I think he himself has
348:00 - 348:30 said he's going to continue this this political action committee the America pack um I think we'll continue to see him be involved with government when we talked about this uh Department of government efficiency you know I don't know what exactly what that looks like or if that's a cabinate position or if it's outside the government as they truly claim um but yeah I think he'll he'll stick around until um there's a falling out with Trump which sometimes happens in that orbit um and he seems pretty emboldened to uh continue in politics I
348:30 - 349:00 mean uh even the other day even after he had won he was disputing some election results and voting in um in some blue States so can you can you talk about you know a lot has been made uh in the New York Times and elsewhere about you know Elon musk's assets and entanglements um when it comes to being such a powerful player now in the next Administration there's sunry investigations into his companies he receives uh you know
349:00 - 349:30 billions of dollars in federal contracts through um you know when it comes to space X when it comes to Tesla um how might he be able to you know potentially uh get in the way of impede or end investigations or maybe bolster some of the investments into his companies which would be an obvious conflict of interest in normal times but we're not living in in normal times talk about that I think it's truly unprecedented the amount or potential uh
349:30 - 350:00 potential amount of conflicts of interest here I mean our reporting at the time showed that his and his companies are under at least 20 Federal investigations across multiple agencies and now as this supposed head of the Department of government efficiency or Doge or whatever we want to call it you know he has direct oversight into hiring into firing into spending of those agencies you know if there is a situation at the FAA which oversees flights and SpaceX could he have uh his
350:00 - 350:30 finger on the on the scale to to change what the FAA does like we just don't know and I think that potential is is pretty scary and something that's true for musk and for Trump is that they really prefer Loyalists and people who will follow their directives and so I think there's um an opportunity for the incoming Administration to place a lot of appointees with people who will be loyal to Trump and and by extension loyal to musk and so it may result in some of these investigations that he's
350:30 - 351:00 been finding for a long time for instance at the FTC to go away when those appointments are made I I've heard some on Twitter talk about this kind of far out theory that Elon doesn't really believe in magism and it's just kind of this Trojan Horse to get his way into his orbit and then try to convince Trump that Tesla is great and that EVS are great to try to change Trump's position on renewable energy and a host of other issues I think his statements that you
351:00 - 351:30 know Elon statements the past year and a half have really countered that notion but what what do you make of that I don't think he'd be the first person to think that if he whispers into Trump's ear he'd be able to change his mind you know that being said if you look at Trump's statements about EVS over the the campaign they have shifted you know he has gone from loving gas guzzling cars to actually being okay with with Eves and so that might be an Elon Musk effect and that might have emboldened him to maybe stick around and do more
351:30 - 352:00 and maybe see if he can get him to change on other positions as well um I don't know if it's some 3D chess game as well but you know he has you know there's plenty of reasons why he wants to be close to him Soh yeah and when it comes to um you know a$ 44 billion acquisition I mean Elon took a pretty big haircut on that right I mean he lost what maybe 2030 billion on that takeover but he's still the world's richest man and to him he has a lot more power and influence than
352:00 - 352:30 he did before he bought Twitter can you talk about how if at all taking such a loss on this acquisition hurt his his wealth because it seemed like it it hasn't really right and I think that's an interesting thing I mean there's so many things about this deal where if we were playing by the normal rules of business it never would have happened but things are different for Elon right so with this deal you know we've seen him um really take the value of x from a
352:30 - 353:00 monetary value into more of a political value and a social value um he's been able to use the platform to boost his own political views and to sort of Leverage himself into rooms with other world leaders we've seen him meeting recently with world leaders around the globe uh not just with President Trump but others as well and a lot of that I think has to do with his influence over public political conversation he said himself he doesn't really care about the monetary value of Twitter so much as as the value of the speech that's on there
353:00 - 353:30 and I think the other thing that he's been able to do which is quite Savvy is take the data of Twitter and turn that into value um you know he's now training AI on the data that's on Twitter and his AI company xai is raising money around right now around a value of 40 billion which almost replaces the amount that he spent on Twitter so if that bet does pay off maybe he's kind of even the books for himself so how long will the Trump Elon uh Bromance last um you know
353:30 - 354:00 they're both pretty big personalities Mercurial individuals chaos agents their critics would say they're quite narcissistic um maybe they're a perfect Bond others would say they're going to clash pretty hard pretty soon what do you think of that I don't know if we're in the business of predictions but I mean they're both Alphas they have been there a whole lives Elon is a sole decision maker he is not used to delegating or uh giving up responsibilities and now you know he has
354:00 - 354:30 to do that he can't be president obviously and we'll see if Trump allows that you know if if if people interpret it as a situation where he is being controlled by someone else who is far richer than him I I don't know if he'll love that uh that impression so yeah I guess it's a will see situation and it it's something we saw over and over again in the book you know initially I don't know if people remember this but when Elon started investing in Twitter he was invited to join the board and he
354:30 - 355:00 agreed to that right he wanted to be on the board of Twitter but I think he very quickly realized he would be one of a dozen voices is in that room and he chafed at that he didn't like the fact that other people would be able to overrule him and speak over him and so very quickly he said you know what never mind I'm going to buy the company outright instead and and take full control and we saw it again after the Takeover he came in with a group of assistants to sort of Aid in his transition and one by one many of those people fell by the wayside or were even pushed aside by musk because they were
355:00 - 355:30 making decisions that countered his own and that he didn't like so I think we are on a collision course now between these two very bold personalities so we have a lot of time yet but in writing the book what have you learned about Elon Musk that would help explain his right word political turn and him becoming this very influential Trump surrogate I think we've learned that he is lives in his own filter bubble that he is obsessed with Twitter or X now he spends hours every day and we saw this
355:30 - 356:00 kind of slow radicalization or at least you know over a decade or so of spending time on that plan platform and it shows that Twitter truly does Drive what he believes um I don't think he reads any mass media anymore or watches any mass media and it it shaped his worldview um so much so that uh you know things he says ends up you know he regurgitates without thinking about it um and it could make its way into Donald Trump's here and drive a policy potentially yeah
356:00 - 356:30 I think one of the big questions we asked ourselves in this book is what can hold someone who has this kind of wealth accountable uh and we really didn't find a lot of strong answers to that and so I think that's one of the really big lessons here is that you know he he has gained a level of wealth and influence that is hard to hold on to and all of these Federal investigations against him haven't really been able to ding him his Bankers haven't been able to Reign him in his lawyers haven't been able to Reign him in and so he sort of um
356:30 - 357:00 escaped the the gravitational pole of accountability Ryan Matt K coner great book great ation thanks for doing it thank you so much Bobby thank you all here we go [Music]
357:00 - 357:30 in 2023 the US scripted industry ground to a halt as actors and writers down their tools to strike they were concerned about how AI could undeterminate if left unchecked and unregulated as artificial intelligence
357:30 - 358:00 gathers space globally the question now is how can the strength of human talent in preserving authenticity and quality in story making shine through Nancy tagon of deadline leads our discussion on the future of AI and how Hollywood and how and Hollywood and if he can or cannot work together please welcome to the CEO of the content Powerhouse bunny J entertainment Marco basetti and the
358:00 - 358:30 multi-award-winning screenwriter director executive producer and creator of blind ERS Sten Knight 200,000 hours of content more than 130 labels 23 territories more than 1500 Live Events ladies and Gentlemen let's show the [Music]
358:30 - 359:00 word this is our world this is B [Music] J Wow [Music] [Music]
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359:30 - 360:00 [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music]
360:00 - 360:30 let's go [Music] [Music]
360:30 - 361:00 [Music] hi everybody this is cozy huh um what a great reel from ban content Powerhouse and we have Marco here with us CEO and just a prolific
361:00 - 361:30 creative Powerhouse uh Steve Knight and I want to dig right into this Marco can you talk with us a little bit about how banaj is using AI right now so so far we are using AI mainly for our let's say distribution and uh uh clipping business distribution because uh AI we
361:30 - 362:00 have let's say several uh opportunity that let's say to reduce timing for editing uh for subtitling for lipsing and also for distribution because uh just to have an idea just a few weeks ago CBS said that they reduce the cost for video from $625 to $10 so there is uh definitely uh a
362:00 - 362:30 better use of harp on our cutle and that's where the part that we are are more focused so far uh for let's say the part that maybe is more concerned regarding uh creativity and generation we are using AI mainly as an assistant tool for our creativity in order let's say to speed up our brainstorm process in order let's say to help us in order let's say to be more productive to consume more time in order to collect
362:30 - 363:00 information or let's say to uh reduce timing for searching on clip or this kind of things and to be better better productive in our creativity as you say it's more of a of a distribution and a and an actual technology tool right now rather than gener so far because you know AI is something is the first let's say invention that there is no limit right on the sky you know so nobody knows right but we also need to to watch out for that which we're going to which
363:00 - 363:30 we're going to talk about um just in terms of creating your own tools because you're uh an independent yeah um how are you doing that how important is that to maintain your your Independence uh this is a good question because uh well everybody knows how AI is working it's a learning machine that it can generate new new things you know so let's say first our goal is let's say to have our own uh GPT using let's say all our IP in
363:30 - 364:00 order to protect also our IP because for us it's uh it's important and to stay as much as possible independent to continue to create uh uh to create uh new IP so that's that that's the way that we are uh looking it's not easy let's say to to do this because there are there are already production company that team up with AI company like Lions Gate and few others so far we are still looking which
364:00 - 364:30 could be the best solution for us but for us let's say the most important thing is to protect our so far so we need we want to be careful on this choice and I'm sure protecting IP is something close to close to your heart um I it is such a sensitive subject within within the creative community and I just wonder what your kind of feelings are on it right now yeah I mean I think that we
364:30 - 365:00 all know that as every new technology has arrived you know back to the L outs and all of that stuff where people are afraid that the monster's coming to get them um I think that creative people need to will be at the Forefront of what will be a conflict I think and I think the reason for that is that um the definition of creativity as far as I'm concerned is um you defy predent in
365:00 - 365:30 other words you don't do what is expected that's the definition of creativity I think so far AI Works in terms of creativity in other words of doing something new by taking a record of everything that's happened before maybe taking account of what's worked and what hasn't worked maybe in mixing it mixing it around in a different way but it's always taking previous experience and precedent and presenting it in a different way now you
365:30 - 366:00 might say that a creative human being does the same thing all they're doing is taking their experience of of what they do their work taking their experience of life um and then coming up with something that is just sort of agglomeration of all of those things in my opinion human creativity is more than that in other words it isn't just an assimilation of previous experience it it it it is something more than that and
366:00 - 366:30 where that other something comes from I don't know but when a creative human being creates something new the reason it works is because it's not expected the reason it works is because it's not a consequence of previous experience and people spot it and what I would say is that in any area previously before AI when the creative process when people tried to sort of control the creative process in such a way of saying well that movie worked and
366:30 - 367:00 that movie worked so we're going to put those two things together and make this third movie which is going to work twice as well it has never worked it has never worked it does not work and the only time not the only time but usually the breakout successes this the shocking success the big success will come from somewhere else it will come from out of space it's like bang where did that come from why did that work um who knows what AI is going to be capable of but for now I think the conflict between humanity
367:00 - 367:30 and AI the Battleground will be creativity because of the nature of creativity um and I think that it it is going to be a hair and a toris you know in some areas we are slower than AI but the hair is going to win right I think right um as a wga member also because you know we're talking about how you know Ai and safeguards and and whatnot this was such
367:30 - 368:00 a a a big issue during the strikes last year how um how satisfied are you with the current situation and how much do you think it needs to evolve and how rapidly does it need to evolve yeah I mean I think we've got to be aware that you know all of the the gram words I just said about human beings are going to be ultimately more creative that we're going to be better that's fine I think the issue is that in the creative Industries AI is at its best when it's replacing people who are at entry level
368:00 - 368:30 into our industry so AI is very good at doing what Apprentice do MH you know if that's the case and if AI does it for free and apprentices don't do it for free where is the apprenticeship going to be where's the entry level going to be are people going to be expected to come with no experience and then Lea frog straight into the the stratospheric area you know it isn't going to happen so I think we have to defend the process of human beings learning the craft even
368:30 - 369:00 in spite of the fact that the the output of learning the craft could be more economically done by AI let's leave aside the the big battle of who's better in the meantime let's protect that entry level stuff absolutely and of course that's applicable to pretty much any industry not talking about just you know just entertainment um Marco what would what would you say to what Steve's just described I totally agree with them that's uh that's a bit an issue to be
369:00 - 369:30 honest with you because not only for the creative industry but for any other industry the entry level could be cut by AI so far so for instance in our industry we are using a lot gen some let's say uh AI that let's say they help you in order to brainstorm your scripted like jario or other uh so this is is cutting a little bit let's say the the 's job right and this is something that we need to be careful because otherwise we cannot have a professional or very
369:30 - 370:00 good uh creative person that can deliver and can be responsible for this so there is a process and a formative process of uh an uh a creative person that has to be defended for this so far the eye is at this level as I say you know so open eye genario adob and other there are let's say using uh we and we we are using as well you know very transparent way let's say
370:00 - 370:30 to to be more productive and to cut some time in order let's say to achieve better but in the other side I should say because we have always to have a look which let's say the the the alpha glass that is full that it can help also people that are not really embraced by a big company or big structure to go faster into into the into the business and can create more uh
370:30 - 371:00 and this is the other path so there will be more opportunity for more creative people even outside of the big uh company like us or other Media company but how do you balance the the the situation of you know cost savings and uh uh technological advancement and all of this with the fact that you know as we're saying you don't want to eliminate uh a whole class of you know
371:00 - 371:30 workers people who who need to enter I mean it has to be sort of a on a certain level you know it's a business question but it's also a philosophical question you know that Carri some responsibility with it it's it's a philosophy question and also it's economic question so in in our specific uh company uh everything we save there we invest in more creativity okay and that's the way that we use to do you know because when you say time
371:30 - 372:00 you have more opportunity to create a new video you have more opportunity to create a new IP and you can spend more on this space okay our goal is to try to protect as much as possible our investment for creativity in top of let's say to defend also uh our IP but uh we made a a kind of let's say uh research monitoring around let's say our employee and 70% when we question what about AI they say well we can be much
372:00 - 372:30 more productive in AI uh and this is was 73% uh it can save more time so he it can let's say live time also maybe in the future we will work less for AI but 80% they was SC about let's say their job because they I they still have this issue uh for the using Ai and as a as a creative company we need transparent and we need to have a clear boundary between
372:30 - 373:00 assistive tool and generating creativity this is something that we are pretty much into this and uh also our industry so far uh you understand this issue in order to protect protect our creativity is protect our business right so we have to and and and regardless there still needs to be a human being behind um Behind these things no matter what and as as as I say you know there's
373:00 - 373:30 certainly I something so unique as as a pey Blinder or you know pretty much anything ever done you know it I don't see how it comes from somewhere like you say cobbling together president it's so unique and it's so your story um one thing that I want to address also is potentially in terms of um you know you have your creative partnership with bana J uh well with Kudos uh Kudos KN and um
373:30 - 374:00 you have a lot of projects together you are a feature screenwriter Oscar nominated you you have done you know uh uh just m just Myriad Myriad uh things in different areas but in terms of in terms of uh responsibility in this I'd like you both to address this uh of points of of uh joint responsibility in terms of you know Studios streamers
374:00 - 374:30 networks uh content companies Etc um does there need to be agreement on some level about what gets commissioned what gets released what what gets greenlit if it is something that is you know largely predominantly generated by someone who is you know not a writer's room not not a Creator uh by Ai and then the same question also for awards bodies
374:30 - 375:00 you know do we have to think about here's the AI movie award you know that are not I mean I I I strongly believe what what has to happen is that we we being human beings have to be better so if it comes to Awards we've got to be better now if we're not better um and better being obviously it's um it it it's a subjective thing but I'm I do believe there's got to be regulation of
375:00 - 375:30 some sort but I do think that if if we are going to move forward we have to understand that for the first time ever we as human beings are sharing the planet with an intelligence that's almost as intelligent as we are that's never happened before right so all of this is brand new I mean it's 2 three years old so we're all getting used to that and I think what we need to do early on is get to the fundamentals of what this thing is about and you know as a human being You're motivated to write
375:30 - 376:00 and create or to go to work and to be an accountant or to do what you do because you want to feed your family and you want to you know you want you want to earn money and you want to be successful you want to impress people uh you want to get on in the world there's all these organic motivations that we have now the question is what motivates AI why does AI want to be so good it doesn't want to be good it doesn't want it doesn't want anything all it does is does what it's been um created to do and I think
376:00 - 376:30 that an issue will develop when we we start to create motivation for doing this that is other than our instruction I think if as soon as we do that we're in trouble but for the moment we are motivated for reasons that we all understand and here we have this tool um but we're all a bit uneasy because it's so much quicker than we are and so much apparently more intelligent than we are but all of the regulation in the world I
376:30 - 377:00 think won't compete with the idea that we have to be better at what we do because if it starts being better than us those doors those regulations won't work right well I'm and I'm sure this is an audience of people who are far more Tech heavy than the three of us um so you know hopefully our our thinking thinking along those lines but we we also brought up you know the the the mission impossible dead reckoning you know example the other day
377:00 - 377:30 where you know that that AI has become sentient essentially um so you know we'll see what happens in the sequel but um but Marco how do you feel about you know in terms of the commissioning aspect or the responsibility aspect definitely we need to be very responsible on this uh we need let's say as I say to create a border between assistive tool and generative creativity so far for what we because as
377:30 - 378:00 we say you know there is no limit about AI so so we should talk about what we know now okay uh I don't think that uh because uh you own a brush you are able to do a painting uh okay and so far today AI is something that has to be used by human being not the other way around and that is going to be for me for still a few years and uh and then uh you know I that's something that I I I
378:00 - 378:30 spoke with Steve yesterday evening uh there was a sentence that my sent us but I like to to mention if a machine is not able to commit asuku suicide it cannot write a good poetry right so far so I think that will be still like this also in our the industry for few years I think that's a a very good thing to keep in mind and that we can sort of end on thank you guys so much I really appreciate it thanks everybody for being here and uh we'll see you thanks see you
378:30 - 379:00 yeah very [Music]
379:00 - 379:30 a Verizon report from earlier this year found that 68% of all breaches involved some sort of human error security is inherently a human problem so security issues must be solved by focusing on people not just systems how do we design Solutions with a people first approach and how can we make sure people are
379:30 - 380:00 going to adopt and stick with the security practices in the long run to discuss how to make security simple for everyone please welcome talking with Jason Aton from Inc the CEO of one password Jeff shinner and the CTO of cloud Fair John Graham coming [Music]
380:00 - 380:30 [Music] all right well I feel like there are no no two better people that have this conversation with and so we're going to
380:30 - 381:00 dive right into what I think is the most obvious question which is why why is security such a hard problem to solve Jee we're going to start with you I think security is a hard problem to solve because it is such a human issue you know we sit there and say simple things like strong unique passwords for every login well as humans we are not set up to remember a single strong unique password let alone all of them and I think the other Challenge from almost a psychology perspective is we've
381:00 - 381:30 been trained so much that security is difficult when it becomes easier through you know through tools or processes we almost don't believe it so I think there's there's that psychological side of it as well which says we have to demonstrate to people that it is secure for them to believe that yeah and I feel like and John you guys a cloud flare see this maybe from another perspective I think about the average person doesn't think about security until something goes wrong right they don't think about do I need unique passwords is this
381:30 - 382:00 website I'm visiting really the website that I think it is is this email really legit from the perspective of looking at it from an infrastructure standpoint why do you think security is such a hard problem uh I think we ask too much of people uh in particular I think that it's easy if you're in the security world to see all of the threats there are to a system and we put a huge cognitive load on people around you need to think about all these things and we
382:00 - 382:30 should actually Focus people on the things that really are going to matter are going to make the big difference but second of all the tools should just do it for us I mean we're just asking too much people and you talk about the average person but I mean the average person really doesn't understand any of the issues and somehow those of us who do security I think risk thinking that they should learn about this stuff when they have no interest and no time at all so you said focus on the things that matter what are those what are the
382:30 - 383:00 things that really matter well look I mean my one piece of advice to people is if you do not have a good pass password on your email the rest of your life is pretty much wide open because every single service out there does reset password by sending you an email so I mean if you can com if I can compromise your email I can compromise pretty much everything else you have so I mean just getting people to do that would be one huge step up would say care about that well and not only that but a lot of the
383:00 - 383:30 services that we use Outsource their security to say Google or Microsoft you just log right in with your Google email address and your password so not only can you get the reset you can just log right into the services right yes absolutely that too although in some ways that's actually a little bit better because Google itself can enforce some things like wait a minute uh you've never logged in from this device before or you know some extra factors on top of it um but I just think that overall we ask too much of people when it comes to
383:30 - 384:00 security and it's on us to make it simple so Jeff thinking about what's at stake right I get notifications on my Apple devices all the time that'll say something like this password was found in a security breach and I'm a tech journalist and I just ignore it I just move on with my life and unless you know I try to log into my bank account one day and I can't because this the password's been changed it doesn't really seem like it affects me but I know that it does can you help quantify for people what is really at stake here
384:00 - 384:30 you know I look at it and I get asked you know by a a lot of the folks I know is my bank secure and I say for the most part yes you can assume that your bank is quite secure and they're taking the proper precautions but if you're using that same or a similar password or set of credentials on your cat picture sharing website that you don't care about then all of a sudden that puts your bank at risk so when you look at something like a breach it may be a
384:30 - 385:00 service that you're saying I don't really care about but if you're using a similar password or a similar approach to sites that you do care about that's where you're most at risk we ran a little bit of a a you know a research project a couple of years ago and it's probably only gotten worse since then that says how easy is it to guess a password and we gave that out to the re you know to the ethical uh research community and had a little bit of a contest and it turns out that for $100 worth of electricity you can have 10
385:00 - 385:30 billion guesses so then you have to sit there and say am I protecting more than $100 worth of stuff with this password and do I think it can survive 10 billion guesses for many people if you're just doing that through your own Contraption and your own you know making up to the passwords the answer is absolutely you can't survive 10 billion guesses so there's a there's a lot at risk financially and from an identity perspective and I think both of those
385:30 - 386:00 are are quite concerning for for people and John there's a Verizon report that says something like 68% of breaches involve some form of human error I'm not exactly sure how you quantify that like somebody put the wrong password in the wrong place or somebody made you know didn't protect something the way that it was supposed to and for a company like Cloud flare like the consequences for something like that are massive right because you guys are the underpinning for a lot of the internet that most people use on a regular basis so what
386:00 - 386:30 are the things that you are thinking about internally to sort of prevent that from happening well I mean the biggest thing we worried about internally was fishing right because we constantly get people trying to trick our employees into typing in their password and we completely eliminated fishing completely by giving everybody a Hardware Key a UB key actually two and that just ends fishing and I think that for us that was
386:30 - 387:00 a huge step because it just doesn't matter if an employee fall for a fish cuz the the person they attacker can't log in and so you then they don't even have to think about it and so that's what I mean by removing the cognitive load because it's like well don't worry about it you know you made a mistake and so um it has no consequence so after that you know then you start worrying about other things like you know what's the threat of an Insider being bribed or something like that and then again you have technical controls around what people have access to so I I think that
387:00 - 387:30 um you know we worry about a whole variety of threats because we're being attacked from every angle because people want to break into the systems um I'm not surprised by the 68% figure but I think it just is an indication that we've made security too hard for people and we should uh not be blaming people for having you know made a mistake if you that ended in a security problem yeah and the tradeoff is always between convenience and security right and even in the example that you just gave having
387:30 - 388:00 a Hardware Key introduces a level of friction but in a organization like Cloud flare that's worth it but most people are not necessarily willing to go to that extent it's why password managers exist right because you're telling a person you only need to literally remember one password and we'll handle the rest of it and yet for a lot of people that's still too much right they're still using the same passwords over and over again because it's just convenient I recently set up a new device and I had to put my password in like 15 different Services some of them use pass Keys some of them use
388:00 - 388:30 passwords some of them I had saved in one password so it didn't take me as long but the the reality is at the end of it I just want to like blow the whole thing up and just get it all going how do you think about balancing those two things this convenience because if it's not convenient enough people are just like I'm not going to abide by this Security Service yeah protocols yeah I mean I think what and I agree completely in terms of we need tools to help the people right um security is going to be a challenge for human beings if we don't
388:30 - 389:00 provide them some some sense of tool but for most businesses productivity is going to take over if you look at any business and again you're you you and I are both in security businesses we are going to treat things differently but if you look at the average business at the end of each year every employee is likely to get a personal evaluation and very few of those employees are going to get their personal valuation based on how strong their passwords were right or how secure their devices are that's not what people get evaluated on they're going to
389:00 - 389:30 be evaluated on the productivity related to their role so we have to think of it from a business point of view and a human point of view of that is going to be their primary driver for the bulk of their year in the bulk of of you know their business life how do we then give them the tools that make it possible for them to have an easy approach and a good approach to Security in a way that they actually recognize is beneficial to them people don't want to be unsecure but
389:30 - 390:00 they're they're willing to do very little very little to stay secure so the approach we've always taken is how do we actually flip it how do we actually sit there and say you can actually be more productive with security tool like one passer than you can be without it you can use now devices like your personal devices that you may you know not otherwise be allowed to use you can bring in some apps that um you know are productivity apps that your C company
390:00 - 390:30 hasn't deployed from an Enterprise perspective and you can start to be more productive in in your role at that company but done so in a way that the company understands their level of security is is maintained and I think that's going to be the the interesting challenge as we continue to move forward into a SAS environment into a bring your own device environment where companies are saying we need to grow we need to prosper but on the other hand the security team is rightfully saying well we need to make sure that we're secure while doing so I was add one other thing
390:30 - 391:00 the other thing we did at Cloud flare was we eliminated ated shame so we um took away any Shame about making a mistake and we actually encourage people to speak up about anything security related we have an internal mailing list it gets tens of emails per day from employees about a weird email they got oops I clicked on an attachment I'm not sure about this website and if you
391:00 - 391:30 eliminate shame around it then I think you get a lot more more interest in security cuz people will be like oh okay yeah I'm not going to get into trouble um and I actually remember an instance where there was someone on my team who fell for a fish and was in a terrible State thinking they were going to get fired which they were definitely were not going to get fired because the UB Kei had saved the company anyway um and I think that's an important thing there's a lot of um shame around you know you've made a mistake um and
391:30 - 392:00 actually one of the most hilariously stupid things that Cloud there is we are forced to do fishing exercises by external parties who want to verify that we're good at fishing and um they all get caught within about a minute because some employee forwards the fish to the internal Mist saying this is definitely fishing um so if you eliminate shame then I think that makes a big difference to people I do like the idea that at Cloud Flair one of the interview questions must be are you good at
392:00 - 392:30 fishing so one of the things I know John that's kind of dear to your heart is this idea of captas right we've been doing this on the internet for a very long time no one likes captchas I think we sort of understand that the idea is to make sure that it's really a person act trying to access a website but no one gets up in the morning excited about identifying motorcycles or school buses or whatever this seems like it's one of those things technology should have solved by now and yet every day we we do this for for and sometimes it's almost
392:30 - 393:00 to the detriment of whatever website I'm trying to log into because I might just be like I just don't want to do this today and it's not important enough for me to continue on so how do we solve things like that where the friction is so much that it's just annoying people well first of all it's not dear to my heart I freaking hate captures to the point where they are just awful and um you know I think any website that's using captures when you come across it you're like you hate your users and I actually had to do one earlier today um
393:00 - 393:30 you know the there are so many things wrong with captures that we could do a whole 20 minute but in brief um they're very bad for people with any sort of disability and frankly we're all only temporarily able-bodied because you know we're going to have eyesight problems or things like that they're culturally insensitive I don't know what a freaking American fire hydrant looks like I can tell you it doesn't look like a British one um and they're just a disaster area so what we did at Cloud was we introduced this
393:30 - 394:00 thing called Turn Style which what it attempts to to do is identify the device that's being used and validate that it is a known device and on top of that the other problem with captures is they're not privacy preserving uh because typically a third party such as Google is doing it so the other thing we did with turn sty did it in a privacy preserving way using cryptography so we can say we know what this device is but we can't track you and that has made it big we we completely eliminated the use
394:00 - 394:30 of capture at Cloud flare 100% And replac it with turns and that's a free service we give away to people they can do the same thing if they want to have some assurance that the device that is contacting you is known is not misbehaving um and is essentially you know human without proof of human ability so yes I I I I I may start to you know go red in the face because I can't stand captures so bad so so I should have said it's a thing you're passionate about there you go yeah yeah yeah they're not de to my heart so looking to the Future it feels as though
394:30 - 395:00 there are a lot of Technology technological solutions pasis for example to help make things more seamless for people and yet those also introduce their own levels of complexity plus all of our security Paradigm is sort of based on what we think computers can do today and that's changing rapidly with Quantum Computing in the future Apple recently talked about how its messages protocol is encrypted to resist Quantum Computing I'm saying words I don't even know what they mean tell me like how do we build these systems that
395:00 - 395:30 are not going to put so much friction in but are going to protect us into the future well I mean when you're talking about post Quantum cryptography I mean this is uh this is akin to the year 2000 problem right the year 2000 problem was everyone stored the dates as two digits and when we got to 99 it flipped over to 0 and bunch of computers were likely to go HeyWire we had this deadline right we knew we had to fix everything well the thing about Quantum Computing is we know we have a deadline the deadline is at some point someone's going to have a working quantum computer can break the cryptography we have today unfortunately
395:30 - 396:00 we don't know what the deadline is m it could be next year or 30 years so the only choice is today to introduce postquantum cryptography luckily we have all that the research has been done Cloud flare has spent the last five or six years working on practical applications of postquantum we know today how to secure connections uh Communications in a way that a future quantum computer when it arrives cannot break them and so I think the reality for postquantum stuff is we have the algorithms we have the implementations
396:00 - 396:30 we even have standards from nist um we should just implement it and that's what cloudfl did we implemented it we included it for all of our customers CU one of the uh uh sort of latent evils in the technology industry is people are going to start trying to charge extra for postquantum resistance and they absolutely should not it needs to be included because it's a real threat to everything we do in our way of life on the internet and so we know how to do this it's just a question of rolling it out and we are seeing from our largest
396:30 - 397:00 customers the banks Etc uh realop to use postquantum so this is coming this is just an inevitable situation and as you wrap up Jeff I would just love to hear your thoughts on the same thing as we are just creating new technology to help fight against this while also making those Solutions easier for people to use yeah absolutely and I think again Quantum is is a great example of that where I think it's the tools responsibility the services responsibility to take that away and and Abstract that away from a concern that
397:00 - 397:30 the end user have and when we we look at it from an encryption point of view the specific encryption routines that are used whether it's today non non- crypto uh or non Quantum proof um encryption or in the future where there will be Quantum uh proof encryption that should be an implementation detail we look at it that way we can switch out the the encryption routines um much at will but the the the rest of the folks shouldn't have to worry about that they should
397:30 - 398:00 know that it's the companies that are security companes like ours that are going to do that on their behalf going to continue to invest in both the research and in the actual um execution of those types of of uh you know processes so that they can stay safe without having to worry about what it means in the in the modern uh cryptography World well John and Jeff I really appreciate your time I did not have clapping for anti-c Capia on my bingo card for this talk but I am glad
398:00 - 398:30 that we had some fans of your thoughts on that and I I appreciate all of you joining us for this time and to the two of you especially thanks for helping us to make security more simple thank you very much [Music]
398:30 - 399:00 alrighty for our final talk here at day two of web Summit we will discuss if AI is overhyped and ready for implosion as you all know billions of dollars have been invested in AI in recent years valuations have reached diing Heights
399:00 - 399:30 the question remains are they profitable it seems like huge resources are being put into this emerging technology without any clear path to profitability is this sustainable and can it change Jeremy Khan of Fortune Magazine leads our next talk to find out if AI bubble is about to birth joining him please welcome the founder and CEO of move Works baving sha and the director of the AI now Institute
399:30 - 400:00 Sarah Meyers West [Music] AI a transformative Force shaping our world revolutionizing Our Lives solving challenges or creating problems answering questions raising concern a catalyst for change the power of AI [Music]
400:00 - 400:30 great um thanks for being here guys thanks for listening um before we we get started on the on the topic about is you know AR we in a bubble is it about to burst um bobin why don't you just tell us for 30 seconds what move Works does for people who aren't familiar with it and cak if you can tell us just again 30
400:30 - 401:00 seconds on AI now for people who don't know it is and what it does B Sure Jeremy and all thanks for having me here uh move works is a agentic co-pilot that employees use at work to find information to take actions and to generally get support and help uh throughout their day um you know we have customers like Honeywell and north of Grumman we have customers like broadcom uh Seaman Ag and and Unilever and about 5 million users on the platform uh using
401:00 - 401:30 us each week so excited to talk more about how we think about the space great and AI now what does AI now do sure so we are a policy Research Center that's focused on understanding the trajectory of artificial intelligence we're fully independent um and a lot of our work really centers on unpacking the political economy around artificial intelligence which makes this question front and foremost on our mind yeah I was going to say hopefully we'll do some unpacking here in a second um first of all in order to decide whether we have
401:30 - 402:00 you know the bubble's about to burst I guess we have to decide are we in a bubble um what's your view on this yes or no are we in a in a bubble bobin not like we were at the beginning of the you know boom I think the the situation now is very different I think companies have really strong opportunities to create and deliver value to businesses we'll talk more about what that what that means but you know one thing I think is important is that valuation isn't your company valuation is someone's external view on what your company is worth and with any boom cycle you're going to have
402:00 - 402:30 uh people value company differently and I think you're going to see those those things play out as companies uh fail as companies grow and scale and I think that uh you know you see this every day you know if you look at uh Donald J Trump uh Enterprises you know generates $4 million a year I think uh you know and they're valued at you know $6.5 billion so you know anything can be done from a valuation standpoint the real thing that we have to talk
402:30 - 403:00 about is really how you can generate Revenue how you can generate outcomes for for your customers yeah we'll talk about that in a minute uh Sarah are we in a bubble so there's a few indicators that we've been looking at in particular and one of the things that I think became very clear if you wind that back the clock you know a year and a half two years ago at the origination of the sort of chat GPT hype cycle is that this version of AI is a very um resource intensive version if you look at the past 70 years of history of AI it's
403:00 - 403:30 meant many different things but the the one that we've sort of settled on requires tremendous amounts of capital expenditure now more recently we've seen seoa Goldman Sachs expressed some skepticism about the longevity of this sector um and in tandem of noticed to sort of shift in the strategy of some of the large companies to really index very heavily on government investment and that I think is a another indicator that
403:30 - 404:00 we could be in a bubble depending on where the political winds land and then it raises uh two further questions one who will be served by this technology especially if taxpayer dollars are a key source of Revenue and two if the bubble bursts what will be left behind yeah I you bring up you know Goldman Sachs being skeptical um about what the impact of this technology will be and you've heard some reports from Chief Information officers saying I'm not seeing the value here I'm not getting the ROI uh Bin what are your customers
404:00 - 404:30 saying and and is there a way to get value in Roi out of this technology or is it is it one of these things where it it sounded great but it just doesn't work yeah I think when chat came out everyone thought this was going to be pretty easy just roll this out and everything will change but I think the reality is uh change management and behavior is really hard to evolve and so for a lot of products that are very narrow they're finding themselves either huge successes or uh failures pretty quickly and I think what we found is that you have to take a broad approach
404:30 - 405:00 you have to have a variety of different use cases is be able to serve a variety of different employees and really focus on what gets them back into your product every single day if you can do that then you have two opportunities one you can drive employee productivity but I call that shallow Roi and then you can also Drive business transformation which is really deep Roi it's changing how the business does work it's changing how people engage it's changing how employees can go about their day and also sort of engage with a variety of business services and processes and so
405:00 - 405:30 from our standpoint we've been around now 8 years I've been through lots of renewals lots of conversations with procurement teams about what they're seeing and they often look back to what is the hard cost savings or cost reduction uh that they are getting from your product or how are they reducing their cost as their companies grow so for example broadcom's our customer they went from 10,000 employees to 50,000 employees and didn't have to increase
405:30 - 406:00 the size of their service desk over that 5year period that's real savings that they can count on and that they can point back to the AI right and and you made the point that if some some productivity savings isn't actually that valuable to the company right if you only save three hours a week for employees you're not actually that doesn't really move the needle for a lot of people you know I spend enough time with CFOs and to that very Point I've had CFOs tell me oh you're going to save my employees three hours a week great you know the only one that benefits from that is your dog and the back nine of your favorite Golf Course
406:00 - 406:30 right and the reality is you know it doesn't change the equation if all you're talking about is an individual's Time Savings what you have to do is change how they do work and if you can do that then there's actually realized gains because there's fewer other members of the company that have to spend time helping that employee supporting that employee and I think that's what we're seeing um you know more and more as the sort of best in-class business cases behind some of these AI products and and there are enough of the you're seeing those come through yeah especially in you know in areas of you know it and HR and facil
406:30 - 407:00 and finance legal Affairs there's a lot of Burden that gets placed on a company when you have 10,000 20,000 employees and more on these various Resource Centers so if you can reduce the amount of work that they have one you speed everything up in the company and the employees also benefit from it but ultimately you've transformed how the company gets work done and that's something when a CEO asks the CIO and the CFO show me the AI transformation that you've done in our company they can
407:00 - 407:30 point to these kinds of cases right I want to shift to the consumer side Sarah have we found the killer consumer app for this technology and is that also maybe a potential red flag here that that if if we haven't what what's going on on the consumer side I mean it's it's very hard to speculate about you know where the killer app is going to come from because a lot of the the sort of so-called Innovations are in the form of like chat Bots or you know assistive agents to help you write emails or generate sales leads I think the the
407:30 - 408:00 version of innovation that we're seeing seeing um is frankly a little bit more D mundane than one would have hoped and you know particularly given the very resource intensive nature of the technology it raises questions about how you would seek profitability in the consumer facing side if you're giving away your product for free and you have more and more people that are a drain on it um the propensity to keep you know figuring out ways to ratchet up costs or
408:00 - 408:30 find a business model to you know eek out gains is you know historically has led to some of the more toxic business models in the industry right um and I wanted to talk a little bit about reliability I mean there's still a lot of uh concern about the technology not being reliable enough to to build something on that people are really going to use um what are you seeing Bob do you feel like that's an overcomable problem have you found ways to overcome that or do you think that is a kind of Achilles heel that yes there are places
408:30 - 409:00 you can use this in business but you have to use it in in the places where you don't actually care if if one out of 20 times it's wrong so you know I think that people overcharge language model I think what you'll find as you build these services and products and apps is that you have to Ensemble lots of different Technologies and lots of different models to actually get the right outcome and so yes you have to have guard rails you also have to have steerability you have to give the customer control of over what it does and doesn't do and that's an important aspect which is not
409:00 - 409:30 really left to the customer to have to you know figure it out themselves but you really have to give them uh tools to be able to do this and so we've had to conform to a lot of business processes we have to ensure the right policies are met we have to ensure the right permissions are kept uh we work with banks we work with defense contractors we work with a lot of organizations uh Healthcare organizations that do uh require and are regulated to ensure that these things perform a certain way so
409:30 - 410:00 what you have is a probabilist technology that you have to then encase and manipulate and leverage in just the right way so that you can still get the deterministic outcomes and some parts of it are deterministic in our case accessing a CRM or an hris or you know some knowledge resource that's a deterministic action but the conversation with the employee is really where the magic of AI it's really where the probabilistic nature comes into picture interesting and there there have been reports in the last week about you
410:00 - 410:30 sort of progress at the frontier of these models slowing down um and again Sarah do you think that's a sign that maybe things are not going well in this field that if you can't this is the idea of these scaling laws that if you kept making the models bigger you kept you know uh deploying larger data centers that you were going to continue to see progress by Leaps and Bounds and if if the companies at the Forefront are saying well we're not seeing that anymore is that is that a problem I mean it's certainly raises questions about the trajectory that the industry has largely set on that bigger is always
410:30 - 411:00 going to be better I think it also raises questions about you know some of the underlying materials outside of compute you know what data are these models being trained on and what does that you know then lead to in terms of you know any sort of accuracy measure that's one of the places where we've seen you know significantly more opacity um and so it's very hard to understand what's happening under the hood which from a regulatory perspective is particularly problematic because it's
411:00 - 411:30 you know where you would be able to say anything about how models are going to be performing out in out in the world bobin I know you have a different view on this because you feel like there's too much emphasis on what's happening at the frontier and actually the value is not dependent on continued progress at the frontier I mean I think that if you look at what these large Lang models can do today we have barely tapped the you know sort of the depths of what you can then leverage them for inside the Enterprise what you can leverage them for inside of different apps you know
411:30 - 412:00 just like mobile had so many es we didn't think about products like door Dash and Uber until the device really became what it is the same thing with large language models you take even a GPT 3.5 and there's still so many use cases that we think about when we go to work that people haven't implemented and there's many use cases now that come with something like 40 and now we've got 01 and sure these things do give us new things to think about but I think there's a huge backlog you know half a decade at least of things that can be
412:00 - 412:30 built albeit mundane you know for organizations but that's how a lot of Technology you know becomes a part of our Lives it doesn't necessarily you know show up like the Jetson's you know cartoon it shows up in different ways that really helps you know us uh you know do what we want to do spend the time in the way that we want to spend it and and Sarah mentioned data as a potential constraint you know these things have been trained on the entire internet's worth of data makes it very hard to figure out you know what biases they may have ingested how big a
412:30 - 413:00 problem is that and how big a problem is data for for the Enterprise use cases you're seeing so I think there's a lot of conversations around these Mega cap companies have the most data so therefore they should have the best AI the reality is it's more of a knowhow problem than a data problem you know as you know open aai created chat GPT GPT 3.5 with a couple hundred thousand utterances that they sort of perfectly crafted and that's what got the sort of behavior that we all experienced and so given that what you realize is that it's
413:00 - 413:30 not about having troves of data it's about knowing what to do with that in the enterprise we do find that individual companies don't have enough data just given the use cases what employees ask for what they're looking for what they need help with but as we start to look across the organizations there are these very common homogeneous use cases that we can then use and train models against also furthermore a lot of these models are so Advanced now and they've got so many parameters that you can do few shot learning or zero shot
413:30 - 414:00 learning and so you don't need need as much data as you once did to train them now at the foundation level that's another you know sort of conversation around what they need to sort of build those Foundation models but if you're F fine-tuning models if you're extending them if you're leveraging them within your app that amount of data is less important as what data you're using to train it with right interesting and then Sarah I wanted you mentioned some of the other Capital constraints a big one being energy is energy going to be the real bottleneck here going forward I
414:00 - 414:30 mean you had open AI talking apparently to the Biden Administration about 5 gwatt uh you know data centers you know how concerned should we be about that and is that really going to be the thing that you know prevents this technology from uh you know maybe realizing the hype around it yeah I mean I think when I um raised the question earlier about what's sort of Left Behind if the bubble does burst this is one of the places where it's most concerning right that there's you know a very big push right now to overcome um reg you know
414:30 - 415:00 so-called regulatory Bott which are also designed I think purposefully to ensure the safety and security of these of our critical infrastructures um and you know in the in the rush to development without necessarily knowing that we have sufficient you know publicly invested demand to fill those need I the need I think there are real concerns to be raised about the implications for the climate um and the implications for local communities that are also dependent on these energy infrastructures we're seeing um
415:00 - 415:30 discussions about the extension of of the lives of coal plants for instance um or you know the complete leveraging of cleaner green technologies that would otherwise be put to broader public use solely for the purpose of of AI firms which I think doesn't doesn't serve the public very well right and and some people said well what if we get smaller models and you said you don't think that's that's necessarily going to solve that problem the idea that we might have ai that that uses smaller models runs on device or something um you might not
415:30 - 416:00 need that huge data center infrastructure then well I mean I think it raises a a fundamental jebin Paradox that there's a tendency you know when you resolve a bottl neck for then the demand to kind of fill that need so it might not solve for those entrenched long-standing social problems right and for for businesses what do you think about this idea of sort of smaller models are coupling many different kinds of models together as the way that you can actually deliver sort of Roi on this on this technology I think you almost have to because I think when you look at
416:00 - 416:30 a business use case in ours is one in which we're directly interfacing with the employee it has to run really fast and you can't use large models for every query for every subquery for lots of different tasks that go on underneath the the conversation and so you have to use small models you have to quantize them you have to do a lot of different techniques um in order to create that sort of wonderful user experience you know if you think about the largest models only uh and you think about like for what we handle employee questions that come in if we use the largest model
416:30 - 417:00 every single time it's like taking a rocket ship to go to the grocery store it makes no sense and so we are constantly innovating in new ways to figure out you know how we can best leverage that right um I I guess you know it's always interesting to kind of come up with metaphors for this and uh there's been a lot of technologies that where there was a lot of valuation around companies that they may not have lived up to you railroads the internet you mentioned at the beginning um but the technology itself was really valuable and then there's some other examples like betamax or something or Blu-ray that never really lived up to it
417:00 - 417:30 you know it's its potential or a hype around it which would you say this is is this the railroads of the internet or is it is it Blu-ray and betamax well I think I think it's the former you know I think that um you know AI is kind of like the invention of the Transformer it's going to lead to so many things itself we talk about it as an industry but over time it's going to get absorbed into everything that we do uh as a society and I think that that will help us think of it differently as we think about different verticals different uh markets different uh you know Industries
417:30 - 418:00 will be more of what you traditionally think about health care and and finance and some of these other areas what what do you think Sarah are we is it the internet or is it Blu-ray well I I worry about it being somewhere in between those two in that you know we were talking about mundane uses earlier if we see the widespread adoption of those most mundane versions of the technology but then you know the the reduction in let's say taking healthcare for example nurses to staff patient beds then if the technology doesn't work as intended the
418:00 - 418:30 consequences are very significant and that's what we're seeing so far in some of the roll out of of these tools so I worry that it is the internet but with the performance of a beta Max all right well I think it we'll have to uh leave it there and come back a year from now and see if the bubbles still going on as it first see what's happened thank you all for listening and and thank you Sarah and thank you bin for being here thank you [Music]
418:30 - 419:00 okay that's all for today everybody thank you so much for joining us we are back tomorrow with more great talks and
419:00 - 419:30 some amazing speakers like Superstar footballer Ruben Diaz but don't go any anywhere just don't go anywhere just yet next up in about 5 minutes is one of the highlights of this week the pitch semi finals enjoy [Music]
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421:30 - 422:00 [Music] what's up web Su woo wow that's it everyone's excited for
422:00 - 422:30 a pitch Richie I'm glad we both got the same black T-shirt black pant memo for the finals final great hello everyone welcome to web Summits pitch semi-final my name is Casey Lao and I'm rich Ford and we'll be our hosts of pitch today in a few moments our 10 startup finalists will begin to pitch right here on Center Stage that's right Rich these 10 stups had to fight in the group rounds yesterday to earn their place here today we've had over 2700 startups at web Summit this year so
422:30 - 423:00 to get to the top 10 is already a massive accomplishment now they will battle out again to decide who will go through to the finals only three startups can make it to the pitch final which will be right here tomorrow on center stage at 12:30 p.m. now to determine the best finalists we need some Stellar judges and lots lots of them so please put your hands together for our judging panel [Applause]
423:00 - 423:30 find a nice seat there wherever you want to sit let's go [Music] out yep some people get up on the what's your name where you from I'm from Portugal nice L all right you Emon from New York IBM Ventures nice IBM Ventures guys Brian Brandon Brandon Fusion or
423:30 - 424:00 from Sydney Australia nice awesome awesome cool okay for the semi-final there will be no Q&A startups will have only three minutes to impress and convince our judges that they deserve to be one of the three coveted spots in tomorrow's finals but that's enough from us it's time to hear some pitches are you ready judges are you ready audience all right please give a warm welcome to our first startup proceive
424:00 - 424:30 [Music] [Music] yeah hi my name is Paul micho and I'm the CEO of perceive and I'm the former Global Executive it architect and CTO for IBM financial markets companies spend $1.6 trillion annually developing custom software with a 70% failure rate in 500 billion in Ann ual waste while
424:30 - 425:00 the bulk of the cost comes from core development activities the primary causes of failure are actually constantly changing objectives and requirements and inadequate estimation and Resource Management so what's it going to take to fix this well we clearly need better project management I've been building software for almost four decades and frankly the numbers haven't budged proportionately despite advances in agile and the existing tool sets we clearly need to automate as much of the
425:00 - 425:30 development as possible in order to get the cost down but our research shows that the llms despite having amazing advances are not sufficient to actually get this done we actually think our Enterprise grade project management software combined with our AI agent and an llm model will actually be able to achieve this our team has over 200 years of experience dealing with these issues and we've made a significant investment
425:30 - 426:00 toward solving this problem already we've invested $9 million in hours in R&D prior to even forming the company and we've put over $2 million of our own cash into it already we're actually currently investigating filing 12 patents and we've already released our Enterprise grade project management software and we'll be releasing the code generation technology in 2025 we've actually conducted interviews with companies ranging from Fortune 100 all the way through to startups and we actually hear the same complaints from
426:00 - 426:30 all of them we actually built our Enterprise grade project management software p360 to be the first Enterprise grade alternative to jira service now in Microsoft project that streamlines the process and directly addresses the reasons for failure and frankly gives them the features that they're asking for our AI agent is actually one of the most advanced code generators in the world currently and it's capable of understanding an unlimited context
426:30 - 427:00 unlike the language models and we're actually able to develop the code repeatably cheaper and faster than La any llm based generator to give you an example our project management software currently is sitting at 3.6 million lines of code that we've developed inhouse of that 3.3 million or 91% of it is automatically generated using our in-house Tech we've actually achieved similar results doing work for some of our clients in the financial services
427:00 - 427:30 sector and we believe we can extend that out as we commercialize right now as I mentioned the Enterprise project management software is actually releasing tonight at midnight and the code generation Tech next year we use a standard SAS pricing model cross the teers and we think our technology combined can actually save the world's developers $1.5 trillion annually thank you nice what a great way to set sem
427:30 - 428:00 final I want to our next startup wiser sense please give them a warm [Music] welcome hello folks uh this is Boran I'm from Turkey uh I'm I'm co-founder of wiser s
428:00 - 428:30 uh although I'm founder of wiser St actually I am not uh active role in uh wiser St management team uh I have just learned uh 3 hours ago that I'm going to present this uh presentation because wiser sense has been selected uh one of the finalist uh in uh to kpmg's uh Innovative uh Global Innovative uh competition as well so our normally our product manager Bak uh will
428:30 - 429:00 be presenting here but uh so as a Founder I'm going to present uh the solution uh yeah here uh so what we doing uh with wiser sense uh actually wiser sense is uh smart end to end machine monitoring solution [Music] uh how many uh of you Works in
429:00 - 429:30 Information Technology uh sector hands up okay how many of you works as a steim administrator okay actually I used to work as a steim administrator several years and then I used to work at Microsoft as a premier field engineer for about 10 years and then uh founded this companies so uh all of you knows that uh we have
429:30 - 430:00 uh valuable data uh actually the operating system gives us uh valuable data to predict the computers or servers Health Systems so as an engineer we are analyzing the data and predict uh predicting the failures Etc but what about the other uh all the machines which doesn't have any uh operating system so how do we
430:00 - 430:30 measure their health so uh with wiser sense uh we are aiming to measure the health of the all machines actually all machine that rotating uh you all know that uh production nightmare is the uh is a night nightmare for the companies so uh researchers says that uh cost of the production uh uh shut down cost billion
430:30 - 431:00 of dollar for the companies so uh and no one of course uh doesn't want to shun down the production uh but be uh somehow they uh have to predict their machines Health uh with our solution they can actually and another uh the problem is that energy cost uh and we know that energy is expensive and uh Mis uh
431:00 - 431:30 misbalanced machines or uh misaligned uh machines uh consum uh energy consumption is uh worse actually so reducing the energy cost uh uh is a great value for the companies if uh they uh have very good uh maintenance plan you know uh another problem is that inefficient production as well uh since
431:30 - 432:00 we are uh Gathering lots of valuable data from the machines this dat this data uh can be used uh for the uh efficiency of the production thank you guys thank you thank you very much thank you that's that's it thanks all right that was three minutes pitch um a little bit over but that's okay uh let's hope
432:00 - 432:30 let's keep the momentum going though let's welcome our on to the stage our next uh finalist Vision [Music] anchor 3 minutes goe a few years ago we rented the boat in Croatia we were anchored in a beautiful Bay and after a short swim we
432:30 - 433:00 found out the boat has moved and we were 50 m from Shore close to crashing we started to raise the anchor to get out of there but the chain was really light so we knew something was wrong we lost the anchor and we had no idea anchoring hasn't changed since the beginning of time your boat safety and your family on it still depend on a heavy object that you drop in the water and hope for the best according to our interviews more than half of captains
433:00 - 433:30 don't trust their anchor more than 2third have experienced an anchor failure that's why we came up with vision anchor it's the world's first smart anchoring buy that provides realtime location monitoring and alerts it attaches to any anchor and if it moves and the boat's in danger the user gets an alarm so everyone on the boat can stay safe remain calm and sleep peacefully we're selling our buoys for €800 through our online campaigns and
433:30 - 434:00 through Distributors we're also supplying businesses like boat charters and sailing schools we're expanding this model with subscriptions rentals and add-ons in our online campaigns we've gotten over 2,500 signups and we sold out our first batch of units resulting in over 50,000 we're also working with Distributors we've got two secured and a few more in the pipeline
434:00 - 434:30 technology is more accessible and boat owners are getting younger so it's the perfect time to make anchoring smarter there are 20 million boats registered each year in Europe USA and Australia our Three core markets that's giving us a tam of 16 billion EUR the team we've known each other for over 10 years and we're all licensed captains Andre he's marketed the kickstar a campaign resulting in over $700,000 us andj he's worked in rough
434:30 - 435:00 Seas on on a ferry from Belgium to England our Tech genius Addison part of Google Robotics and our adviser Chris he's also adviser to business angels of Slovenia in the future we want to connect both safety with ocean data by making our buoys even smarter with additional sensors we'll be able to add additional value to insurance companies and research institutes by creating a positive impact on Environmental
435:00 - 435:30 Protection disaster prevention and weather prediction help us make Vision anchor the standard for both safety and share this with Sailors you know thank you thanks thank you Vision anchor will our fourth startup be successful let's find out coming out Bliss brain [Music]
435:30 - 436:00 [Music] let me tell you the story of my co-founder Vlad originally from Ukraine when the war started his family was away from him and for weeks he didn't know if they were alive meditation was helping him to manage intense emotions but all the apps out there they offered generic advice
436:00 - 436:30 not relevant to his reality and that's when idea came to Vlad what if meditation could be created specifically for you hi everyone my name is Sasha in the past I helped Google build three digigit million app promo business and today I'm Vlad co-founder at Bliss brain so Vlad is not alone in his problem now n z is
436:30 - 437:00 the most connected yet disconnected generation in human history their stress anxiety and burnouts cost US economy $84 billion and 95% of them just like Vlad are not happy with existing meditation apps so our solution is very simple we combine mindfulness and AI to create hyper personalized user experiences how
437:00 - 437:30 it works as a user you share what's on your mind what's bothering you you select the voice of a teacher and in just 3 seconds wow you are immersed in a custom session as unique as you are and that's exactly what genz are looking for personalization they want custom nutrition plans they want personal trainers they want products tailored to
437:30 - 438:00 them and with the booming Wellness Market we believe we can address that yes there are strong competitors in this space but they rely on a library of pre-recorded content and that's the same for me my mom and my grandma Bliss brain disrupts the space by custom user experiences this is meditation made
438:00 - 438:30 personal and it's working in just 5 months we're already making money and our retention rates are five times the industry average so that's the best proof of personalization in action needless to say that users love Bliss brain and Ryan Hoover the founder of product hunt commented what a clever idea so we have an ambitious role map to
438:30 - 439:00 get to 100 million in 5 years by becoming personalized well-being platform expanding to latum and APAC and growing our B2B business in order to achieve the first Milestone we have opened our precede round of half a million and we're confident we can deliver why because we've done it all before my co-founder Vlad is an engineering lead he helped better me at
439:00 - 439:30 acquire millions of users in the US myself I'm an ex googler second time founder and internationally certified mindfulness coach so if our vision resonates with you join us to shape the future of well-being Market together PS vlad's family is safe and sound and ever since his mom started to meditate thank you
439:30 - 440:00 thank you thank you Blitz brain awesome great great pitch all right next onto the stage there's a company called Scouts with a z let's welcome [Music] them meet miles a high school senior who dreamed of playing college basketball
440:00 - 440:30 but just like 90% of most high school athletes he doesn't get a scholarship however miles soon realized that there are thousands of colleges in universities that offer athletic scholarships so what does he do reach out to schools himself he sends hundreds of cold emails just to get us College offer you see the talent is there for miles but he's unsuccessful in breaking into the market it's not just happening to athletes like miles it's also happening to college transfers and and other pro
440:30 - 441:00 athletes who often lack the visibility and connections to get to the next level and how do I know this because I lived it my name is Antonio deina I'm the CEO and founder of Scouts and having living miles Journey myself is why I created this platform so a little bit about me I was oneor a college basketball player and a pro athlete I know I gained a little weight guys it happens but just like most athletes I too had zero idea on how to start my recruiting process or where to begin I got my first college offer from sending a, cold emails just
441:00 - 441:30 like this and I got my first pro contract from this exact Facebook DM that I sent to a coach here in Portugal and here's what I learned about the process for coaches out of the 3,000 colleges and universities 80% of them don't have the budget to recruit Nationwide and with International recruiting popping up it's making it harder for them to do their job and Scouts is solving the problem so Scouts is a sports recruiting platform that connects athletes and coaches to automate Sports recruiting so
441:30 - 442:00 essentially we're like a virtual Scout for coaches and a virtual sports agent for the athlete but let's just take away the athlete for a second we help coaches find Qualified players from prev vetting them and matching them with the right fit this saves coaches time and money so since our launch of 2021 we've already generated $1.3 billion in Revenue scouting and recruiting for professional and College Programs all around the world well this isn't the most scalable option right just like Airbnb and Uber which we did some
442:00 - 442:30 unscalable things to start our journey so this year we launched the MVP and are already at $30,000 a monthly recurring Revenue to date we have over 10,000 users and have already successfully matched 120 players with pro teams all around the world we have a successful pilot with two NBA G League teams and we're just getting started our team is small and lean together we have over 10 years of experience in college recruiting professional recruiting and the entire recruiting process in general
442:30 - 443:00 so again we are solving the problem and helping millions of undiscovered athletes and thousands of coaches find their perfect player in pro and college sports and you can follow us on our journey as we become the number one sports recruiting platform in the world thank you that guy is pretty good we are already halfway through our semi-final and it's clear the standard is insanely High we've heard from five impressive
443:00 - 443:30 startups we got five more to go yep and uh before we move forward with the competition let's throw back to that year 2023 right here on center stage at the last edition of web Summit Enrique Ferrera has was crowned pitch Champion with the startup in Spira a brazilian-based legal software business who bested the 2,000 startups in the process of winning pitch so now we're going to rewind the clock and talk to the last year's winner let's see what
443:30 - 444:00 they've been enough to come on out Enrique [Music] Enrique Enrique oh your mic up I'm on toque how does it feel to be back on this stage a year later it feels fantastic to be honest um you know just to to be here great memories I have to say and uh our team is also here they're not backstage as last time coming here
444:00 - 444:30 you know to get a little bit energy and party after after the our conquer but um but it feels fantastic it feels really good were you just ha this last year I think so I think so I think so nice for those who didn't join us last year like myself describe what inspir does so inp is a legal software solution for B2B segment so we're addressing uh law firms legal departments uh and then corporations in many several Industries and right now we're focused in Brazil
444:30 - 445:00 and after web Summit uh we launched in Portugal so that was one of the the biggest launches in in news so uh we heard in Portugal officially yeah awesome awesome okay so legal Tech little dry what kind of advice would you give to your fellow startup Founders who are backstage right now who are hoping to be the next winner like what are some Pitch techniques you think that you did sucessfully yeah so uh definitely speaking to everyone right so feeling comfortable on stage and you know talking to to our jurors as well as uh the audience and you know you know feel
445:00 - 445:30 feeling confident and and putting the word out there really okay that's good too awesome Enrique thank you man thank you very much thank you very much thank you thank you have a good one thank you boom boom boom boom so now let's look at um return to 2024 and look at our last five startups that we have today all right so coming up next we have a company called intuitivo let's give them a big round of applause
445:30 - 446:00 [Music] hi everyone I hope you're doing well and I'm here to talk to you about a problem that we're seeing in society right now which is the fact that our children's education is at risk there are over 85 million teachers in the world but 49 million of them will leave the workforce by 2030 creating a huge labor shortage which is putting at risk the education of our next Generations and these
446:00 - 446:30 teachers need to be replaced but the reality is that no one wants to become a teacher anymore and no wonder teachers don't get paid enough they work too much and just 46% of their time is spent actually teaching their students and the rest of their time is spent doing administrative repetitive tasks which are not adding value and could be automated and this includes over one and a half months a year creating and Grading assessments for their students and we saw this happening with teachers in our our own families so we decided to
446:30 - 447:00 make a change my name is Jan I'm co-founder and CEO at intuitiv and we're an all in- one web platform that helps teachers with a creation and Grading of tests and exercises saving them over 40% of the time they used to spend in the process before with intuitivo teachers can find ready to use content created by other teachers from all over the country or create their own from our wide range of options keeping everything organized in a centralized database that they can
447:00 - 447:30 easily share with their colleagues finally they can build engaging assessments for their students which are automatically graded and give personalized feedback and our business model is very simple we charge schools a monthly subscription of 5 per teacher and to fuel our school's growth we have a premium model for individual teachers and we also help governments with the delivery of national exams and actually the Portuguese national exams are already being digitized and the government chose our
447:30 - 448:00 platform to do this so of course not only this means an important contract for us but most importantly this is the best marketing we could ever ask for because this means that every single student in the country will use our platform on top of that in under two years we've grown our users by over 80 times we've gone from about 500 to over 40,000 teachers using our platform and we've gone from Zer to or €300,000 in monthly annual recurring revenues the the moment is now schools
448:00 - 448:30 are in the process of digitization all over the world creating an obtainable Market opportunity for assessment softwares of 5 billion per year we're already backed by some leading VCS and over the next two years we want to reach 1 million in ARR to expand to New Markets to continue improving the product including with AI features and to hit the 200k users Mark so join intivo if you want to help save our education system thank you very much
448:30 - 449:00 great job at youo now it's time for a seventh piter of the day let's get out here [Music] [Applause] comell hi my name is Tasha and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Cudo where we are unlocking time for the last 15 years I
449:00 - 449:30 have created co-created or invested in more than 60 preed startups and traditional businesses during this time my internal team which included accountants and lawyers provided shared services to our newborn companies I repeatedly saw the same bureaucratic and financial challenges we faced especially the enormous amount of time spent on manual zero value added bureaucratic tasks and I couldn't stand it anymore so to get together with my friend johll
449:30 - 450:00 with whom I've worked for over 10 years and who has been working with deep tech for the last 20 managing hundreds of Engineers and co-authoring more than a 100 patents we decided to solve this problem and kill company bureaucracy once and for all so we created Kai an artificial intelligence that can autonomously create manage and operate companies to make this technically possible we had two challenges to solve first we needed a proactive AI since you
450:00 - 450:30 can't manage a company by being reactive and second we needed an algorithm that didn't hallucinate since you can't make Applause that don't exist it took us 18 months but we did it we developed a proprietary proactive AI infrastructure that doesn't hallucinate it uses llms as side brains like llama mistol and others and we coupled it with tools that allow it to interact with the real world now
450:30 - 451:00 Kai can legally create a company do accounting pay taxes predict cash flow manage advice and payments and essentially do all the boring stuff you don't want to we're starting in Portugal because although we have only 10 million people we have more than 1.4 million companies with less than 10 employees on average to own a company in Portugal you must spend $250 a month just for an accountant even if you have zero sales
451:00 - 451:30 by introducing Kai we can rely on humans only for the most complex tasks teaching Kai at each interaction which will drastically reduce our need for human accountants and lawyers this will allow us to charge up to 10 times less and even offer k for free in the early stages of your company to execute this Vision we build a founding team with the necessary core skills from Tech to marketing made up of XF Founders and entrepreneurs who believe this is the right moment to create this Tech and
451:30 - 452:00 that we are the right people to bring it to Market imagine a future where Kai autonomously runs your business freeing you to focus on Innovation and growth we're creating this future where Kai handles the boring stuff while you build the extraordinary if this Mission resonates with you we're looking for a talent and investors to help us shift time from monotonous bureaucratic administrative tasks to what really matters growing your business
452:00 - 452:30 thank you all right thank you cuto thank you communal team out there as well have we seen the pitch winner yet on stage okay all right if you don't think so maybe it's one of our next uh pitching startups please welcome to the stage government GPT [Music]
452:30 - 453:00 [Music] hello my name is rajaner I'm a from Silicon Valley I'm a patent attorney I'm also a former CEO of a venture back company that Civic tech company that sold to Google and restarted as nextdoor.com I am now building a new future for police and Public Safety in the age of artificial intelligence the product we're revolutionizing is this this is a body camera the company that makes this
453:00 - 453:30 is axon it's a $45 billion company that was only a$1 billion company 6 years ago this was an optional device this was designed to be an optional device you put your tactical vest on and then you put your body camera on what we're doing is we're integrating body cameras right into tactical vests so you have cameras in the front and you have cameras in the back so when this starts recording it's recording 360° and it's not just recording it's actively looking for threats we've built
453:30 - 454:00 the world's best edge-based AI model which is right here on a Jetson Orin board that fits right inside the the body what this does is someone comes behind me with a knife it starts vibrating and warn me so as a police officer I'm able to turn around and confront an attacker this also is an extremely important technology for the future especially this year we've seen two terrorist attacks in the last 12 months where our device could have saved lives
454:00 - 454:30 I'll give you one which was first in Israel October 2023 when terrorists started coming at the borders in the margins the security guards in the middle had no idea what's happening people are running in chaos if they had our system our system can be paired with stationary cameras and drones so if there's a stationary camera that's looking at the perimeter they sees a bunch of people shooting my vest would start vibrating the closest vest to the incident and I'd be able to look at my phone and see a live video feed of
454:30 - 455:00 what's Happening same in Butler Pennsylvania where there's an attack against President Trump where you had an assassin that went on the roof in that building there was police officers that was a police staging area police officers were in that building with this camera this is an axon body for they had no idea there's a Terrace on the roof with our system a stationary camera looking at all the roofs or a drone would alert the Police Officers right away we have an exceptional team we have a AI lead from the US Marines who is a
455:00 - 455:30 artificial intelligence computer vision expert my co-founder another co-founder is a Georgia Tech Professor who's one of the world's leading haptic sensor designers our third co-founder is a former FBI police chief who is a who worked in the FBI for 27 years was a legal tach shate to 27 country two countries and served for 27 years we also have now today 12 police pilot customers right before I came from coming here here I was in Elizabeth New
455:30 - 456:00 Jersey but we're testing our product today right south of New York City so thank you and help us protect the future bring the right decision at the right time thank you great job government GPT Here Comes our penultimate startup come on out and personally [Music] [Music]
456:00 - 456:30 hello everybody um everyone is talking to you about gen Ai and AI these days but I'm here to tell you why these Technologies in the wrong hands are very harmful and why they are very harmful for you as well and I want to tell you two stories that actually happened to me so uh in the first one I just wanted to access my PayPal account I did a common search in Google as you are seeing in the screen right now I saw an ad I click
456:30 - 457:00 on the ad and that ad turned out to be a fraud ad and I went to the website saw a phone number called that phone number that phone number was a a fake call center that basically stole my identity and my PayPal account on the second story that again happened to me as well I wanted to buy a pair of shoes to my wife so I asked for a recommendation in a WhatsApp group um some guy they put a recommendation to a website we ordered the SHO choose but they never come back
457:00 - 457:30 so these are two examples of stories that they actually happen to me and probably you're familiar and similar things happen to you as well um but basically the common thing is that the world is turning into something that it's almost impossible to trust anything online whether it's on mobile we need to get used to a world with everything is suspicious um even the world economic Forum has defined misinformation and disinformation as the number one threat
457:30 - 458:00 and uh basically we have seen an increase on 20 times on the cyber attacks in the last year done with AI That's why we decided to create our solution uh impersonal your ally against impersonation where we have a lot of AI agents um uh monitoring the web on different platforms whether it's communication apps ads social profiles Gathering all the data and basically we're creating a one platform that help Brands solve this problem we believe
458:00 - 458:30 that our brands that uh are the most fit to solve the problem for users employees and their own benefit and we have been very fortunate in the last seven months since launching to work with the some of the most amazing brands in the world already uh very close to reach a million dollar in ARR and have and and solved more than 600,000 fraud cases for all these Brands um our team is composed about an amazing team of phds in AI with
458:30 - 459:00 also with media content from all over the world where together we put ourselves as a mission to solve impersonation misinformation and fishing done with ads social profiles domain domains and every kind of content so if you're a brand and are here come talk to us we can in minutes tell you whether you're um whether your domain is suffering from any kind of impersonation so you have tonight or tomorrow thank you very much for the opportunity we are
459:00 - 459:30 in personality thank you all right great job in personali that was great all right last but definitely not least let's welcome our final semi-finalist of the day bios smart data [Music]
459:30 - 460:00 good afternoon everyone I'm Maria CA a pharmacist by training and an entrepreneur at heart so healthc care sector is facing a major problem 97% of the data that is created in the medical practice is not captured and is being lost and this could lead to Major consequences that's why biosmart data has created a software based Cloud that can collect this data in an structured way we are going to look for this 97 7% of the data that is being lost in order
460:00 - 460:30 to create our own neural networks our artificial intelligence is looking to be able to predict the success of treatments before doing them on patients also we are allowing Healthcare professionals to know the variables that impact these treatments and be able to personalize those treatments for the patient not only based on their experience but the collective experience of everyone of course the healthcare assistant should be patient center but
460:30 - 461:00 in order for this to work we can we should give benefits to the different stakeholders of the ecosystem so doctors look for time saving industry to increase sales but look to allow a regulations and Healthcare System looking for efficiency we know we are not alone in this data artificial intelligence world but as we said we are looking for this 97% of the data that is being lost and we are focused on Interventional
461:00 - 461:30 techniques and also we have been created this software Hand by hand with doctors we want to say that we also have a disruptive business model because we uh use the industry as main pages of our solution because we allow them to comply with regulations that already exist with postmarket clinical follow-ups and postmarket surveillance of their products of course healthc Care Professionals are going to be the users and we also lie with institution in
461:30 - 462:00 order to do clinical studies to improve and have quality of our data we have been we have been in the market we have product validation business model validation and we have recurrency in our revenues and also in our patient database we have started in 2020 we have been improving on our product and of course guaranteeing the stability of the financial of the company and for the next years we are looking for data protection certific
462:00 - 462:30 ations we believe that Innovation is not just about money it's about people and we have a diverse team to face this challenges that we are going to have for the next Years also we count with the support of our key opinion leaders and chief of Services of different hospitals in Spain so thank you very much we are bosart data and we are here to improve medicine based on real world data awesome stuff by smart data so can we get a massive Round of Applause
462:30 - 463:00 for all our startups today they were absolutely awesome woo amazing yeah give it up give it up all right judges now it's time to lock in your scores and decide who will make it to our pitch final tomorrow which we'll announce in just a few minutes so just keep judging everybody ready done yes okay do we need to come and uh okay here comes our official taller to come and pick up the italies Chloe and Ian let's
463:00 - 463:30 give them a round of applause for coming out and picking up a stuff nice all right let's start with you can you tell us your name and what you represent my name is Anie OE I am the founder of African women in technology okay great so what did you think of the pitches you just saw I thought they were all amazing they did wonderful jobs it's great to see emerging Tech being implemented and it's also good to see how far they've come from how they started um I think it's very important to be able to support startups but then also be able
463:30 - 464:00 to see how what type of impact it'll make within the communities and I saw a lot of that did you have a favorite I do I do I do make me let me I'm going to make you well you don't have to tell us which one's your favorite but maybe which ones do you think you were leaning to that you thought were more impressive than the others I'll give you like my top three top three okay top three um there's the you have to think about impact towards police and what people can see in communities so I thought that that was very important I like 60 um
464:00 - 464:30 just because I've seen what the impact is towards my community um I also believe that AI is a future in helping small businesses to be able to think differently they can ask questions and they can move more efficiently um I also believe that um the biodata is very important so I just was like going back and forth on whom I wanted to choose and don't be clapping for me because there's other people that are not happy with my decision so but I felt that they are all impactful and I do have one more which is sports and I think that is very niche but I also felt that without the
464:30 - 465:00 opportunity to be able to review some of the people that are out there now and to be able to send out letters without having to go through and do everything yourself that's priceless so I'm I'm I'm torn torn okay great thank you for your opinions very appreciate you pleasure nice Dan I'm going to go to you uh who do you feel was the best presenter and why love the anchors uh pretty simple Hook Line and S exactly I I knew what they were solving for they convinced me there was a anchor problem in the world do you think that
465:00 - 465:30 they were do you think that there were uh any common themes that they could improve on well I think uh across the pitches uh there are some complexities um and big big big problems like for example edtech you know that's a hard category that no one has ever been able to crack you know there's like discret software but no one's really been able to disrupt that or Healthcare obviously the one we just saw it's another one that is incredibly difficult
465:30 - 466:00 uh to crack nice nice Tamara I'm going to go to you who do you think was the strongest presenter and why um well I liked a few of them I loved Scouts I thought the idea of being able to um let people pick their own Journey or find out who's available in college sports it's really difficult right people really struggle for that and there's plenty of scholarships available that people don't get so I thought that was awesome um I really like the guy from last year did you know we're Thompson
466:00 - 466:30 Reuters we invest in legal tech oh no way that thing you said is really dry that was Casey not me fantastic by the way legal Tech is the most exciting thing on the planet um I but and I also really liked the anchor guy like I don't know what's proprietary about that though it seems like I could go build that no offense maybe I can maybe I can't I don't know tough words huh I did like it though but he didn't tell me why I couldn't build that myself interesting interesting all right how about you sir what's your name and what do you
466:30 - 467:00 represent I'm luig I'm here with EDP Ventures so I'm in the climate area yeah I enjoyed very very much some of the peaches but I have to admit that I'm I was convinced by two of them yeah the actually not I'm sorry I'm not going on that one I think they they still have a lot of challenges in terms of uh being able to place a product but I was very impressed with the yet Tech solution that we saw was very very impressive and the adoption was pretty good and also the first
467:00 - 467:30 speech of all proceive I enjoyed it very very much the great code generator is any of them any of the 10 you saw you would write a check for right now if you if you could probably for these two for these two yeah great okay excellent good to you what's your name and where do you come from my name is Margo I lead the marketing team at Adobe here in Mia nice do you think any of which are the top three you think would be as easily marketable I really liked Scouts I think when you
467:30 - 468:00 lean into culture you've got a lot to talk about and his pitch was really Innovative in the way that you can connect users that want to ultimately be Sports professionals with teams that may not have the means to actually be able to get out there nice Scouts were my favorite too say let me ask this guy what's your name and where do you come from and I know you judge a lot of starup so maybe what talk a little bit about the presentation did you like the best and the least yeah absolutely uh hey everyone my name is is Brendan yell I'm from Sydney Australia uh currently
468:00 - 468:30 with Fusion orth uh yeah I have judged a lot of pitch competitions and there was something I saw tonight was really interesting a lot of the companies explained very well the problem they're solving but there there was a couple that did a very good job of explaining how they're solving it different to other people and what was their unique uh either their unique take on it or their unique understanding of the problem that means that they will succeed there was a couple there where I was like yeah I understand the problem I sort of see how you're solving it but I don't see how you doing it different to
468:30 - 469:00 anybody else in that market so my biggest set of advice for Founders in the audience was tell us the the differentiator of the way you're doing it different to other startups yeah great and also stick to the three minute uh town right so the scores are in the three Victoria startups who will take part tomorrow in the Grand Final are in this envelope all right well thank you I get to open it have we got a drum roll drum
469:00 - 469:30 roll wow very interesting very interesting all right of the to of the 10 that just pitched the top three number one Scouts we also have government GPT who's the last one who's the last
469:30 - 470:00 one no no guesses menudo were they were they in here no number three joining us tomorrow in intivo good job all right amazing congratulations to the three people today the power was in our judge's hands but tomorrow in the Grand finals the
470:00 - 470:30 audience getss a say and you become the fourth judge so we'll have three judges on stage and you will be able to make the Jud your pick the fourth decision make sure you join us back here tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. and have your say and who is crowned the next pitch champion of web Summit 2024 see you all tomorrow thank you thank you judges good [Music] night o
470:30 - 471:00 [Music]