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First access question.
Search this video
0:00
Which Star Trek captain is your favorite?
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>> My gosh, there's only one. I can't believe it. Of course, it's Picard.
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>> I mean, I grew up with Jane Way. I don't know.
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>> Jane Way's number two. >> Do it.
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>> I feel strongly about this.
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>> Yo, as long as we're pulling from references outside of her and Minority Report, I think we're going to have a better time than the average tech podcaster company.
0:29
Welcome to Access from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:31
I'm Ellis Hamburger here with my co-host Alex Heath.
0:34
Today we caught up with Ryza Martin, co-founder of Hu, a new app that turns your calendar, emails, and news into a daily personalized podcast just for you.
0:47
I think it's pretty fresh, honestly.
0:47
one of my favorite apps I've tried lately and a really nice opinionated take on making all this research behind AI a bit more practical.
0:57
Uh before Hux, you might have known Ryza as the creator of Notebook LM at Google, one of their bigger experimental product successes of the last few years.
1:07
Um yeah, this was a fun one, Alex.
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>> Yeah, Rise was awesome. We really got into it.
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I loved hearing about her backstory, too, and just how she's thinking about all this uh and how she's thinking about putting us out of a job.
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>> Yeah, I loved that part.
1:22
Uh don't often think about getting disrupted in this profession, this line of work, but uh yeah, I guess we have to look over our shoulders.
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Uh today we get into everything from raising VC money without a deck. Didn't see that coming.
1:37
building the Star Trek computer of Rise's Dreams since she was just a child.
1:43
And uh Weather Hux is gonna disrupt your new favorite podcast hosts before we've even gotten to our 100th episode, let alone our 10th.
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>> We're not even on episode 10. Yeah.
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Oh man, wild times we >> We're just a baby podcast.
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Please like and subscribe, folks.
2:02
Please like and subscribe.
2:05
Uh but first, a couple things to discuss.
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We are taping on Tuesday.
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Yesterday, Alex was in San Francisco for the sixth time in the last six days.
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How was uh how was OpenAI Dev Day? >> Yeah.
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Uh did the classic Burbank to Oakland day trip uh which has become a regular fixture of of my life.
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And uh it was a good day. It was a long day.
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got some facetime with OpenAI execs at SAMA.
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Uh interviewed Greg Brockman.
2:38
There was a pretty lengthy Q&A where we got to ask a lot of questions and that was pretty interesting.
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And yeah, just generally feeling the vibes.
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Um I wrote about this in in sources um my my newsletter sources.
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news, but it just is so clear how Open AI owns the tech culture zeitgeist right now.
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just how ascendant and seemingly unstoppable they are.
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And this was at Fort Mason in San Francisco, which the last time I went to an event there was actually earlier this year for another Sam Alman special, Worldcoin, which is a a very uh sci-fi eyeball scanning orb startup that will maybe one day save us from AGI running the economy.
3:28
That's a whole another topic.
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we we don't have time to get into today, but I was also actually thinking about um when I went to Fort Mason for events way back in the day.
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Do you know about this space?
3:38
Uh it's kind of down by the Golden Gate Bridge. It's beautiful.
3:40
It's right there on the water.
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Have you been there before, Alice?
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>> No, I don't get invited to events of that caliber.
3:48
>> Well, at least not yet.
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That's why I started a podcast.
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>> Facebook used to have its developer conference back when it was called FA there, and I remember going there.
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God, it must be like 2018, 2017 or something.
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And the energy felt retro in that way.
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Like there was just so much uh interest in OpenAI as this platform for developers and them building this um this new culture like kind of right before everyone's eyes in only a matter of a couple of years.
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There is this moment where I took this photo of walking into the main hall, thousands of people just solemnly seated just uh trying to learn everything they can about all the new agent stuff that OpenAI announced.
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Um and it was wild to think about like this company as a commercial entity did not exist like more than 3 years ago and now it's like the place to be.
4:43
uh this week in SF was at this event and it even reminded me and this is probably because Johnny IV uh was the penultimate uh conversation.
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He and Sam did a did a chat at the end of the day.
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Um even like a early Macel vibe uh which I hadn't felt at an event in a long time just in terms of the energy.
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So yeah uh for now it seems like Open AI is on top of the world and I guess the question is can they stay there?
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Yeah, I mean you would if you would have told us a few years ago that there'd be a new product that has 800 million weekly active users and that is the only thing that anyone wants to write or talk about.
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And uh Sir Johnny IV is even involved.
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You would have been like excuse me. >> Yeah.
5:29
And I think the big thing for me was that open now wants to be this this uh distribution surface for apps.
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They basically want chatbt to exist uh upstream of your digital life.
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And the big shift was like you can use Spotify in chatt the actual graphical interface not just kick you out to the app or Zillow or Corsera they Figma you know shout out um previous guest Dylan Field like he was there and this idea that Chashib is more like an operating system was the theme of the day for sure.
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um at the Q&A uh with the exacts after the keynote uh Nick Turley the head of chatbt said a quote that really stuck with me.
6:13
He said, "What you're going to see over the next 6 months is an evolution of chat GPT from an app that was really useful into something that feels a little bit more like an operating system where you can access goods and services.
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So this idea of like the chat GPT economy is a thing I think we're going to be talking about more in the months ahead. >> Yeah.
6:31
I mean, everybody and their mother wants to be an operating system in tech.
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I mean, that's the ultimate honor.
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I mean, that's, you know, honestly, one of the things I enjoyed most about being at Snapchat and the browser company.
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I mean, there was a time where Snapchat was kind of like, you could call it the operating system for Gen Z.
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You know, there was a camera app, there was a photos app, there was a news app, there was a messaging app.
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And it's so fun to try and use your position to help people in multiple parts of their lives.
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And now that people are starting to ask chat GPT more and more things, they're in a position to capture that intent the way Google once could, but now actually due to agents take action as well, whether you want to play a song or this or that.
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And I mean that's kind of the crazy part is that Apple is really the company that or or Google with Android are so well positioned to try and figure this stuff out and say, "Hey, we're going to be in between you and everything your phone can do."
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I feel like Apple was working on App Intense a little while ago.
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I'm not I'm not even sure what happened with that.
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But as everybody kind of sits around and says, "Oh, it doesn't scale or we can't make it work."
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OpenAI is like, "We're just going to do this with our services partners just through the web.
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we don't even need to have a hardware piece.
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>> They're going to make hardware as well just to see if they can beat everybody there as well.
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But yeah, it really does feel like there is a new OS race going on uh with AI at the center of it.
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And I mean, as we tal about with Ryza, it's like AI and voice is not great for everything.
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You know, you can't draw an entire user interface uh for looking through all your photos, at least for now inside of Chat GBT.
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But you can bet that they're thinking about it and trying to move toward a world where whatever modality you want to choose, they're going to let you.
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>> Yeah, there was a moment in the Johnny Sam talk where I mean Johnny, you know, he's really good at saying a lot and not saying much at all in terms of giving things away.
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I think everyone was on the edge of their >> Yeah, I think everyone was on the edge of their seat.
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Uh I mean, he was like the celebrity of the day.
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Like everyone was taking their phones out to take photos as he came on stage.
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Like, oh, is he finally going to share what this first device is?
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he's working on with OpenAI.
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And of course, he didn't.
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But there was a moment to your point about the OS where Sam asked uh you know, does an OS even matter anymore?
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Like should we be rethinking like the value of an operating system with AI?
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And Johnny seemed to agree that the OS matters less and less, especially with voice.
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And I do think their device will be um voice.
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Um, a really funny thing actually now that I'm remembering that I heard from a from a source recently was that uh Johnny's been thinking a lot about the Walkman and how this device could uh be culturally fun.
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And he was talking about this on stage like uh can we just, you know, go back to making things that are fun and not so serious?
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And I I actually do expect this first device that they put out to be a little more whimsical than maybe people will expect.
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the visionaries seem to go very much one way or the other.
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I feel like I mean one of the things I'm reminded of is uh when Kanye West collaborated with Teenage Engineering on the original Stem Player, it started as like very industrial and minimal and Kanye being as kind of plugged into culture as he is and and thinking about art as kind of this, >> you know, amorphous organic. Yeah. organic process.
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He's like, "Actually, no.
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We're scratching this entire thing.
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We're going to make it like an alien flesh ball, you know, from like a Croninburgg movie or something like that."
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And and that's what he ended up going going out with.
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And there is no doubt that it felt truer to like his vision and also just even more differentiated.
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And so, yeah, I would bet uh you're right that whether it's color, whether it's with rubber cases, whether it is with Johnny doing another iPod sock.
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>> I I I forget if that was his idea.
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Do you remember that one?
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>> The original iPod mini had a sock you could put it put it.
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>> No, I feel bad that I don't.
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As a former Apple blogger, I should know this, but no, I forgot.
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>> It was like a little like Christmas stocking that you could drop your new iPad mini into. Yeah.
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I mean, Apple, you know, I don't know if they get enough credit for for the accessories around their around their products, but the >> the only other thing I'll say about Deb Day, uh, and this was in in my in sources, but, um, it was a really funny moment.
10:59
But it just kind of like encapsulated to me the moment we're living in and the the generational culture shift in tech that's happening cuz um after Sam and Johnny got off stage, I ran outside to a table outside of the venue and it happened to be right next to Johnny's Range Rover where I could tell like his security was there and he was going to come out and get jetted out of the of the venue pretty fast.
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fast. And I was sitting there writing u my you know finishing up the the hit send um for sources and uh Johnny comes out he gets mobbed right um I took a photo there's just like all these people trying to there's a guy with the Monontlair jacket that Johnny designed wanting him to sign it and you know he's like a he's like a a rare bonafide
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celebrity that kind of crosses um that crosscuts across you different age groups and anyway I'm I'm sitting there I'm watching all this happen and then there's these probably like early 20's developers next to me at a table that I don't think they could tell I was overhearing them and they were all like, you know, watching it and they're like, "Should we go over there?" Oh, that's Oh, that's Johnny.
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Should we go like get a selfie?
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And I swear to God, one of them just like dead panned totally serious like why would I do that when I can put him in any Sora video I want?
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And then they were all just like, "Yeah, good point."
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And then they walked away.
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And I was like, damn, that's like that is this moment in a nutshell is like OpenAI, the most valuable private company in the world, has Johnny IV, you know, the most legendary tech designer of all time, doing hardware, and at the same time, this is a company that is just like really resetting uh how we think about the future while also pulling from the past.
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I just thought it was it was a funny moment.
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>> Well, it is interesting, right?
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Because at the same time that that is happening with this fear of manufacturing whatever we need at scale the desire whether it is for Johnny's snappy Monontlair jacket or the new uh thinking hats from Claude I mean there there's a lot of reason to believe that this whole scarcity you know luxury of physical goods is going to be back with an absolute vengeance and stronger than ever.
13:12
And I mean, it's not like the bar is even that high.
13:14
Like, you make a thinking cap and 700 people line up on the street because it's rare, you know, whether it's with Leubu or or anything else.
13:25
Um, happy I finally get to bring up Leubu on the pod.
13:27
Uh, I think those two things go hand in hand, right? >> Yeah, for sure.
13:33
I was actually really curious what you thought of that anthropic popup over the weekend uh in the West Village.
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It went super viral on Twitter.
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There were hundreds of people lined up.
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It made me yearn for the days when I was a baby New York tech reporter and I think I would have just, you know, gone and done like a 12 photo slideshow of like what it was like at the anthropic popup uh for BI or something like 10 years ago. I don't know.
13:59
Were you thinking about that? Yes, I think it's fine. I liked it.
14:05
But I think it's just another example of like tech people being exposed to like consumer fashion brand level work and they're like, "Holy they're not talking about the product. That's incredible."
14:22
>> They're just talking about their ethos. Wow, I need that hat.
14:24
You know, but it's like there was the outdoor voices like doing things hat.
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uh probably 10 years ago.
14:32
I mean, to me, it's just kind of that in another in another way.
14:34
And what's kind of ironic is that the people who want the thinking hat most are the ones who relative to the rest of the world are outsourcing their thinking most to AI, you could say. >> Yeah, you're right.
14:48
>> But, uh, hey, I mean, it's, uh, better than a hat that says, "Use my app." Actually, no.
14:54
Maybe that's a good ironic hat we could release.
14:56
I do think it's smart that Anthropic is positioning itself as anti-Slop.
15:02
>> I mean, the slop is working. People do like it.
15:03
And I don't know how much you want to be in the position of being like the scold.
15:08
Like, let's get back to twirling our mustaches and thinking like, sure, that appeals to a subset of intellectuals, probably myself included, within tech.
15:17
But I'm a lot more interested in the distinction between slop that has no conceivable purpose besides to just like tickle your lizard brain for a second or slop that just kind of looks sloppy but it still incorporated whatever your vision was for what you wanted to create. So yeah.
15:36
>> Well, speaking of no slop, speaking of actually good, useful AI, should we go to our chat with Risa?
15:43
>> Yeah, let's kick it to Risa.
15:45
>> All right, let's go Hawks.
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17:05
[Music] Risa, welcome to the show.
17:08
We're so happy to have you. >> Hello. Thank you for having me.
17:13
>> And uh we all know audio is the very best format for entertainment and content these days.
17:17
Something you've been thinking about I know for a pretty long time dating back to creating Notebook LM at Google and now Hux.
17:24
Why why is audio such a thing for you?
17:27
I mean, I think for me the the number one thing that I love about audio is it's the first way that we really transformed stuff with AI, right?
17:37
Where it's like you can take something in its original format.
17:42
And specifically, I'm talking about the long PDFs, the long slides, the long emails, and you can say, "Look, instead of reading it on my screen for the next 30 minutes, I'm just going to go on a walk and listen to it."
17:52
And that's been for me a magical experience over and over and over again.
17:56
And so I just want to keep exploring. >> Yeah.
17:59
And take us back to your childhood.
18:00
I know there was a moment back then. I'm a Star Trek fan.
18:02
And so when you told me off camera that you were into Star Trek, I was like, "We need to talk about Star Trek as soon as possible." >> This is so funny.
18:10
I actually have been rewatching a bunch of The Next Generation.
18:15
And there was actually specifically a scene, you know, anybody who's watched Star Trek, they do this thing where they're always talking to the computer.
18:24
And it's just such a if you've watched as a kid, you're just like that's how computers ought to work.
18:27
You stand in front of the thing and you say computer and then you issue the command, right? And it just happens.
18:32
And like last night, the episode I was watching the card was like computer transfer all authorization to the new captain.
18:37
It's like no fussing around with the computer, no transfer, no typing, right?
18:44
Nobody's ever going and it just happens.
18:46
And so it's it's totally magical.
18:48
I think it's a the interface of the future.
18:50
I would love to know about working at Google.
18:52
You were there for a while, right?
18:54
What was it like first arriving at Google, feeling the culture, figuring it out, and then up to when you left? >> Oh man.
19:04
I mean, these are pretty big, very distinct chunks in history for me.
19:11
Um, so when I arrived at Google, I didn't have a degree.
19:13
And you know, for me personally, it was like I felt like I had snuck in somehow, especially because I felt like the people at Google that I was meeting were just like the smartest, most creative, most accomplished people.
19:28
And I was like, and somehow I'm in the leagues with them.
19:30
And um I had been working at startups previously.
19:33
I'd basically done like every job at a startup.
19:37
Eventually became head of product at like a a small medium-sized startup.
19:41
And so when I got to Google, I was like half of me was like, "Wow, I earned this.
19:45
I worked so hard to get here."
19:46
But then the other half was like, "Oh no, it's like how do I do my best to fit in?"
19:50
And so actually starting out at Google, I feel like for the better part of like a year, I was just trying to be like everybody else that was there.
19:57
And so I would do this thing where I would just like copy how people were saying things, right?
20:03
Like I use the word orthogonal so much.
20:08
Uh, I I >> somehow Orthogonal made it all the way down to LA as well. >> Oh, no. >> Snap a few years ago.
20:13
It was like it was like a virus.
20:16
>> Oh, there >> all the PM started saying orthogonal.
20:18
And I'm like, "All right, I see. I see. This is the new one." >> Orthogonal.
20:20
It's not trivial, nonzero. Right. We We can keep going.
20:24
But there's definitely like uh the the vocabulary that I was like, "Oh, I got to like say these words.
20:30
I got to do things a certain way.
20:32
I have to write things a certain way.
20:33
you know, I just have to fit in so that they don't discover that I am who I am.
20:38
And I think something happened um partway through.
20:40
I I started working in ads. I left ads.
20:44
I started working in payments.
20:46
Um and it was in payments that I had this realization where I was like, you know, I didn't come here to go be somebody else.
20:54
I guess I really would just like to be me.
20:59
And it was this like kind of unfurling of my fake personality where I was just like I just want to be me as I actually exactly am.
21:07
And so we started going to meetings and I would say things like wow this is like a really stupid idea.
21:12
Like I don't know why why we came up with this. This is really bad.
21:16
It's as if we didn't think about the user.
21:18
And that was really controversial because Google is such a peaceful place where everybody is so smart and respectful towards each other that if you just said things like that, people would be like, "Oh my gosh, you know, why did she do it?"
21:29
Um, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I realized this.
21:34
I was like, "Wow, I can just be me."
21:34
And it actually seems to be a lot faster at getting the message across than, you know, writing a dock, socializing the dock, like getting people on board.
21:44
I was like, I have a totally different way of doing this, which is just I'm going to say exactly what I think.
21:48
And I had I had pretty good success in payments.
21:51
I worked on these like 0ero to1 features, 0ero to1 product.
21:55
And so when Google labs had just started, um my old boss Josh Woodward uh was one of the folks that started Google Labs with Clayore.
22:07
And I remember I saw, you know, he left payments and he had joined this thing totally new.
22:11
There was like nobody in the org. It was just them.
22:13
And I was like, "Oh, I bet this is like one of those like rest and vest situations, huh?"
22:18
I was like, "I bet he's getting fired."
22:22
>> The scene in Silicon Valley where they're chilling on the roof with the bean bag couches. Yeah. >> Oh, 100%.
22:26
You hear it right in these like big tech companies where everybody has like a fake title or whatever, but they're just chilling.
22:31
And I was like, "Wow, I can't believe it."
22:33
And it's super funny in hindsight because Josh now leads Gemini.
22:36
So, he definitely wasn't getting fired, right?
22:38
He was definitely doing something else.
22:40
It was like pretty important.
22:42
Um, but I messaged him and I was like, "What are you doing?
22:46
What is that thing that you were working on that has nobody on it?"
22:50
And he was like, "Oh, let me tell you what it is." And he tells me it's AI.
22:55
And this is in 2022, right?
22:55
Pre-Chat GBT, even pre-Lambda as far as like, you know, what the public consciousness was aware of.
23:03
And I remember thinking, AI, it's just like a word we've thrown around for years, but it doesn't mean anything, right?
23:10
especially like for me where I was like AI means like Star Trek, right?
23:15
It's like and until it's up like Star Trek quality, like don't call me like I really have no interest whatsoever.
23:20
Um but he was like no it's actually pretty good.
23:22
So he did the initial demos of Lambda.
23:23
He showed me um we had like some pretty rudimentary apps inside of Google and I was like wow I don't really know what this is but it seems really interesting.
23:32
And so I studied really hard like before I even got the job.
23:36
And by studying I mean I spent like two days like reading as much as I could and that was like the extent of it.
23:43
But then I pinged Josh and I was like whatever it is I'm in right. I was like hire me. I was like I'm the guy.
23:49
Like whatever it is you think you're going to build with this it's me. And uh he's crazy. He really did hire me.
23:53
And so I was I was the first PM he hired uh into labs and I launched AI test kitchen uh launched notebook LM previously known as Project Tailwind.
24:03
Uh, but yeah, I just have had just like the craziest time over the last three years like building cool >> How many things at Google have been called labs over the last 20 years? That's my question.
24:16
>> Well, it's got to be like at least a dozen.
24:18
It's like we're introducing a new labs division within the existing labs division.
24:22
>> I mean, it's such a popular word and it's such a cool word, right?
24:24
Because a lab just sort of inspires this like scientific exploratory juice where you're like, I get to do fun I work in a lab.
24:33
Um, and I think what's really cool is maybe not so cool when we started Google Labs, we discovered there was previously a Google Labs already that had been started and killed. >> Yeah.
24:45
>> And so there was a little bit of confusion where they were like, "Oh, is it the same thing?"
24:48
And I'm like, "I don't even know what the old thing was, right?"
24:51
And then when when the new Google Labs got started, everybody at Google wanted to have a labs, too.
24:56
was like search labs, photos labs, YouTube labs, and then it was like, well, what is the difference between all the labs?
25:04
And I honestly think like if you paused for a second to think about the answer, like you would fall down a rabbit hole so deep that you would become unproductive.
25:13
And for sure, like I saw people sort of like thinking about this philosophical problem because Google gives you the space to think about whatever you want.
25:19
And I was like, I am not interested in this sort of problem whatsoever.
25:24
And so I just did not participate in that convo as much as I could.
25:28
>> I'm still curious about the origin of Notebook um LM and how you guys decided to focus on that as a product.
25:33
It was it's one of the rare consumer viral breakout hit products from 0ero to one that Google has done in a long time.
25:42
And I'd love to know like how did you guys come up with it and then what was it like experiencing that traction that happened so fast?
25:48
I thank you for saying that it happened so fast, but it had actually been around for like two and a half years before it blew up and so we were really like grinding in the darkness for a long time.
25:59
Um, you know, not not that dark, but it was like relatively unknown.
26:04
Um, as far as the origin of it, I mean, I think one of the things that's most magical about Notebook LM is that we started the project before Chat GPT.
26:13
And so, the use cases were not actually that obvious, but I think there was sort of a a really interesting prevailing thought that we had, which was look, there's probably something interesting you could do with a chatbot that you could just talk to about anything, right?
26:29
And that's sort of like the varietal that we have ChachiBT, Gemini, Claude, etc. today.
26:35
And that's how a lot of them started.
26:38
But then there's a second group of thinking or or type of thinking, which is what I think we fell into, which was no, I actually don't want to talk about arbitrary random things.
26:47
I want to talk about a collection of things that I really care about for some reason or another.
26:53
And this sounded really vague in the beginning, but um I I think I told Ellis this.
27:00
The reason why it was so compelling to me was because I had done this crazy thing where, you know, if you remember, I had joined Google and I didn't have a college degree and I had this like chip on my shoulder.
27:10
I decided now that I had Google money, finally I was going to go to college, right?
27:15
I was like, there's there's a couple ways to solve this chip on my shoulder.
27:17
One way is I can certainly just get my degree so that I can't be found out.
27:22
Um, and so I went back to college.
27:24
And so by the time you know we had started notebook LM this particular project I was like well it seems like what these LLMs are good at are words and you know what has a lot of words in it are textbooks and slides and like all of these class notes and what I would really really like is to create a container of all of this stuff and I just want to talk to it and at the time that we you know when we were building it it was just not possible. It was super brittle.
27:53
It was really hard, but I was like, we're at Google.
27:55
Like, it's only going to get better.
27:57
And so, I was betting on the future.
27:59
We built the product like with with this specific vision in mind, which is actually it's kind of funny because it was like kind of hard in the beginning to convince people that this was an interesting thing to work on.
28:08
Um, just like from a product perspective.
28:12
But it was true that as the technology got better and better and better, my grades got higher and higher and higher. No, I'm just kidding.
28:18
I I mean that I mean that jokingly, but it was true.
28:20
It did actually start to perform.
28:21
uh better and better and better as the context windows got better. Um the model got better.
28:28
There's just a lot that that eventually like by the time it blew up with audio overviews, the app itself was pretty robust.
28:37
>> How was the reception within Google for a runaway PR success like that? >> Oh my gosh.
28:45
I mean, I think it's interesting because I I I think about where Google was um when this had happened.
28:52
I think like it felt a little bit like it's a giant company, but it felt like we were like on our back foot somehow, right?
28:59
Like you could read pretty much anywhere and people were just like, "Oh, Google got beat, right?
29:06
They invented the transformer, but so what?"
29:08
And it was just like really negative.
29:10
And I think like working at Google, it felt really weird because you were this like trillion dollar company, but you felt somehow like a product underdog, right?
29:18
It was like people had largely sort of written us off as like not being an interesting product place.
29:26
And I just didn't buy it.
29:26
I was like, you know, something is going to happen soon, right?
29:30
And if I if I had a say in this, like we're going to do something interesting soon.
29:33
And um I would say that there was like this sort of frenzy in between when chat GPT happened and when you know notebook LM blew up.
29:42
There was like this frenzy in the middle of just like we have to win right there is like an energy of like we have to do something but it was a little chaotic because everybody was just trying stuff and then there's like layers of politics on top of it.
29:57
on top of it. There's a whole cast of characters that are constantly like moving things around and like for me the notebook LM team was tiny like my whole thing was like I just need to insulate this like core group of people and keep them focused right and it's something and I just believe like something interesting will happen if you do something for long enough something interesting will happen and I was like
30:18
it's just my job to just like shield this team and just keep going and I think um when notebook LM did blow up the thing that was most surprising was how I felt like the narrative changed and I it was really really to me one of like the most culturally like shocking things where I felt like there was the narrative of like Google is like this like dumb product organization whatever they can't build new things. it felt
30:41
they can't build new things. it felt really prevalent to wow they're back they're doing cool things turns out they can build new things and I think like it started to to really pick up like in terms of like the momentum like AI studio right especially like with Logan
30:54
like tweeting so much it's just like wow they're actually like cool people nano banana jewels like look at all this stuff that they're able to ship really quickly and so I feel like if I had to sort of think about the difference between these two times where Google was not cool Google becoming Cool. There was
31:10
There was like a very clear moment there where I'm like, "Oh, we helped kickstart that movement." >> You made Google.
31:16
Put that on your business card. >> Can't wait.
31:20
Can't wait to put that on my LinkedIn.
31:24
>> I feel like Google being cool oscillates maybe at like an increasing speed these days. >> Yeah. Yeah.
31:29
I mean, I think like the the meme, right, is just like everybody just takes turns.
31:33
It's like it's OpenAI today, it's Google tomorrow, it's anthropic the next day, Grock even.
31:37
Like I don't Wait, so also you're telling me the 20% time is actually real? >> Yeah.
31:45
Um, well, I mean, it's not really 20%.
31:48
I think that's the most uh ridiculous thing about it.
31:50
Um, because at the time I was leading AI test kitchen and um this was so funny.
31:54
Like I can't believe like Josh tricked me into this.
32:00
He was like, "And while you're working on AI test kitchen," he's like, "Why don't you build a new business for Google?"
32:06
And I'm like, "Wow, sounds great.
32:09
Sounds like a cool opportunity, right?
32:11
I'm going to go build something.
32:13
Um, but it was very hard because shipping AI test kitchen was hard.
32:15
Um, and then you had to think about this like totally new thing on the side with the same team that you had.
32:22
And so we really did have to pull volunteers from like literally like every corner of the earth that you could find inside of Google that you, you know, a person that you could get jazzed about this like really foreign concept of like upload a document and talk to it.
32:36
especially because like in the beginning there were not a lot of documents you could upload.
32:42
Um but yeah, I mean we were able to pull through and I think like to to the credit of I think leadership at Google, we did all of these demos and they were like, "All right, keep going.
32:50
Seems weird, seems good, keep going." And yeah, we did. >> It is a testament.
32:58
I feel like you could spend your your free time on working toward your next performance review or building the new or building the new revenue stream for for Google and I think we know which one most people choose.
33:11
>> Well, I'll be very honest that I did not ever write my performance reviews.
33:14
I think like there was a very clear period in time where I just completely stopped.
33:20
I was like, you know, I really do not like doing this and I am only committed to doing things that I like and so I stopped doing it.
33:25
There are tens of thousands of big tech employees who agree with you and also do not like their performance review.
33:32
>> My my manager like there was like one cycle where she was like you are so overdue on like your performance review.
33:39
She's like how about I write it.
33:39
I was like smashing idea.
33:41
Yeah, I think you should.
33:47
>> I mean I think you have another winning product there Risa. >> Oh yeah.
33:50
AI for performance reviews. Yeah.
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36:07
>> So you're riding high.
36:07
You've made Google cool and then you decide to leave and do a startup. Is that what happened? >> Yes. Yes.
36:14
I actually um I think it was so unbelievable to many people that they thought I was unwell.
36:21
And I didn't realize it until later that that people thought I might have not been okay, but they, you know, I'll never forget when I when I quit.
36:30
Um Josh was like, "Hey," he's like, "Maybe you need a break."
36:35
He's like, "Maybe you just need a vacation. Maybe you're tired."
36:36
And I was like, "Josh, what are you talking about?"
36:39
I was like, "This is the biggest moment in my life.
36:40
I'm like taking this thing that I worked so hard for and I am leaving it behind because I see the promise of something else outside."
36:47
I was like, "I've never thought clearer in my life."
36:50
And it was actually quite emotional for me, you know, because of like what I had shared earlier, which was I didn't come from a, you know, particularly wealthy background.
37:01
Like I immigrated to the states.
37:03
I didn't get to go to college.
37:05
And I found myself at Google making more than I ever had in my life.
37:10
And I was just suddenly ready to walk away from it.
37:13
And so there was actually one night I woke up, it was like at 4:00 a. m.
37:17
And I just burst into tears.
37:19
I was just like crying, right?
37:21
And this was before I quit.
37:21
I was about to quit and I was crying and my husband was just so startled.
37:25
He was like, "Are you okay? Does something hurt?
37:27
Do you have to go to the hospital?"
37:28
And I was like, "I'm so like emotional about this moment because I realized that my dream was to go start a company."
37:39
And I was like, I have never felt that the right time was now more than ever.
37:43
But I also have never felt so poor in my life.
37:47
I was like, "It's just so it's so crazy that I like am imagining walking away from this thing that I I built for me and my family."
37:57
And my husband was looking at me.
37:59
He's just like, "Listen to this." He's like, "Listen."
38:00
He's like, "You know, they're going to try to give you like money to stay, right?"
38:04
But he's like, "But how much do you think you're worth?
38:08
How much are your IDs worth?" I was like, "What?"
38:10
He's like, "What's the number?"
38:12
He's like, "How much is your ID worth?"
38:13
I was like, "I don't know."
38:15
He's like, "Okay, is it $10 million?"
38:17
I was like, "I don't know."
38:19
He's like, "Is it a hundred million?"
38:20
And I'm like, "What are you asking me?"
38:22
I'm like balling my eyes out.
38:22
You're asking me a number. And he like grabs me.
38:26
He's like, "Listen, girl."
38:26
He's like, "You are not a $10 million girl.
38:30
You're not even a hundred million girl."
38:32
He's like, "You're a $1 billion idea girl."
38:34
He's like, "You go out there, you do it."
38:36
And he's like, "And I got you." And I'm like, "What? Where did he get this?"
38:40
At like 4 in the morning.
38:40
But it was to me like just one of the most like impactful moments of my life where I was like here I am you know thinking about it this way and I live with this person who sees me in this like totally different way and he was like you go get it.
38:55
He's like you go quit your job.
38:55
He's like don't go into this afraid. And I was like man wow. Yeah. Crazy.
39:02
>> I think he's coming on the show next. What a guy.
39:05
>> He's a very He's a very private like very introverted guy.
39:07
That's why like the pep talk came out of nowhere.
39:09
So, >> sounds like the goat to me.
39:13
>> Yeah, it it was pretty good.
39:14
>> I so identify that with that as someone who just left uh the best job I'd ever had to start my own thing and to start my own company.
39:21
And Ellis has started his own company.
39:23
And yeah, I feel like a lot of people can identify with that roller coaster you just described. >> Congrats to all.
39:30
>> Yeah, but you have to you have to have something that you're working towards.
39:34
You have to have something that is so motivating for you to leave that safety net, right?
39:38
And so I'm curious like what was that besides like I want to start a company?
39:42
What was the like product insight or the thing that you were like this has to exist?
39:47
>> So I think it's crazy because the idea that we left with is not even the idea that we've built and I tell this to everybody which is look you know especially if you're coming out of a large company or you're working like a role the idea that you have is going to change.
40:04
And I think the thing you have to have faith in is that you are going to be able to navigate it.
40:08
Like don't bet on your idea, but bet on yourself, right?
40:12
Bet on your ability to navigate whatever the thing is that you're doing.
40:17
And that has proven true for us.
40:17
But the specific idea that we actually quit with, um, it feels funny to describe it now, but I I remember at the time I was like, you know what, somebody needs to give these LLM computers so that they can actually do interesting things.
40:32
And I was like, why don't we build a platform to basically spin up a bunch of LLMs or agents as we call them now.
40:39
Give them computers, give them autonomy, give them access to Slack and messages and phone and have them go do interesting things on your behalf and they just talk with you just like regular people do.
40:52
And that was actually the that was the idea that we quit with.
40:54
And then when we quit, we were like, well, wait a second, you know, let's take 3 days, just study what's out there, take a beat, be like real human beings, and see what is it that we want to build.
41:05
And so the idea morphed many, many times before we got to where we are today.
41:10
>> That's uh uh something every VC loves to hear, right?
41:14
The founders that are just kind of obsessed with a specific problem space and they're going to get there somehow someway.
41:20
I guess for you it's like been to Sid's childhood. >> Yeah. that you're after this.
41:25
They're like, "Yeah, I'm putting money on that girl." >> Yeah.
41:28
I mean, I I have loved like technology since I was like the beginning of time.
41:34
And I honestly like I I remember building computers with my dad.
41:39
Like even though we didn't have much money, my dad was like, "We could buy parts and we could like build our own computer."
41:44
And I've just like been that way my whole life.
41:47
And I think um it's so funny.
41:49
There was a a publication wrote to me.
41:52
They were like, "Hey, you know, congrats on your fund raise.
41:53
Do you want us to publish the deck that you used to raise money?"
41:57
Because like that's like a thing we do.
41:58
We share with people how, you know, people are raising money these days.
42:01
And I had to write back and I was like, there was no deck. I didn't have a deck.
42:06
Like I just went I met with VCs and I was like I I did have a moment where I was like, should I have one?
42:13
But it was very similar to like how I felt when I was at Google where I was like, well, I could do it the way that I think other people do it or I could just do it the way that I think I want to do it.
42:22
And the way that I just wanted to do it was I wanted to show up and be like, look, here I am. I have an idea.
42:25
The idea could be kind of cool.
42:27
But the thing that's actually really cool is it's me and a group of people that I know can build something interesting.
42:33
So it's like you can bet on the people or you can bet on the idea, right?
42:37
Which kind of person are you?
42:40
>> Let's shift gears to Hux where we are today.
42:42
How would you describe what it is? >> Wow.
42:46
Well, uh, today I would describe it as a personalized audio app that creates podcasts or radio stations based on the things you care about.
42:54
It makes um content from your emails, your calendar, your interests, and pretty much just any query that you type in.
43:03
>> I've been using it for the last several days, and I've been pretty impressed.
43:04
I feel like it's doing things on like a number of different levels.
43:09
It's one thing to get like the voice and cadence right.
43:12
It's another to like create a nice program of your day. >> Morning Alice.
43:16
Sliding in just before that Hu session kicks off.
43:18
Looks like today's paced but pretty focused.
43:23
>> Yeah, that backtoback access recording block is coming up fast.
43:25
We'll keep this tight so you can get prepped without scrambling.
43:30
>> Some major waves in AI to get to later.
43:33
Think huge chip deals and a big push on new developer tools.
43:35
Also, music charts are shaking up again.
43:38
if you need a breather from the tech headlines.
43:41
>> But I feel like for most people, this is actually going to be their first experience with like aentic AI like searching for things for them. You know what I mean? >> Yeah. Yeah.
43:49
No, it's that's totally right.
43:51
And I think um we were joking about this the other day where we were like, you know, the funny part about building something that works really well and is really interesting and is magical for folks is that on the surface it has to be so simple, right?
44:04
like where you don't have any cognitive load about what the thing is.
44:07
And for the record, I don't think we're completely there yet, but we try our best to make it really simple.
44:12
It's just like make a podcast or a radio station about anything.
44:15
But underneath it, it is very technically complex to create a low to no latency audio platform about anything.
44:25
anything. And the promise is that you know you care about all these things um but maybe you care to listen to the topic to something about the topic multiple times a day right so it's like how do you at multiple times of the day tell the user hey something has changed like let's say like open AI right you could go days where there's like not
44:45
that much interesting news about them but then one day there's like a very interesting news story whether it's like Sora coming out or dev day happening right and suddenly there's a bunch of things you might want to listen to so I I think being able to enable this kind of like I know this person is interested in open AI. I'm going to try to make
45:02
I'm going to try to make sure I understand what do they know so far.
45:06
How do I give them the most recent thing?
45:08
How do I make it so that that content is actually personalized to their context?
45:13
Like that stuff is pretty hard and there's like a lot of complexity under the hood that goes into it.
45:17
But I think that when you get it right, it's pretty magical.
45:19
where um I was creating um a podcast about the Mariners, which is like really funny because I'm not super into sports, but I'm like really into the Mariners.
45:29
And it somehow knows this about me.
45:32
So, it was just like going through like the different sort of like results of like, okay, here's like what happened with the game, here's like the record, okay, but let me explain why this is important. And it was pretty cool.
45:43
I was like, oh, it's not like your typical sports broadcast.
45:47
>> There's something about radio.
45:47
I feel like I saw an infographic the other day that was looking at like the time spent for audio per day and like a solid third of it is still like AMFM radio and I think in this moment where everybody is constantly pulling things on demand like it's pretty damn nice to have someone just like read to you.
46:05
like I'm signed up to the LA NPR uh KCRW and it's just like here's five news stories from today and I'm like wait not a million that I have to feel guilty about not reading but just five please.
46:17
but just five please. I I think that's the that's the interesting part of like what like this moment we're in which is I think about this all the time where we've never had this choice before right where I'm like hey dev day let's just take dev day I really care about what
46:35
happened there I do not want to listen to an hour and a half keynote right it's like maybe I would on a different day but today I need the 5minute rundown but then maybe there's a different topic that I actually care a lot about which is like I want to about like the history
46:50
of Star Trek like how like what was Gene Rodenberry thinking like I have actually I have no idea right so maybe I want to listen to like a 40minute thing about that but I think like the flexibility of a couple of different things which is like how long I want to listen for what the specific topics are what the angle
47:06
even is how is this even relevant to me like I think those are the things that are possible today with AI that was like not really scalable or possible in like the preAI times and so I I think like there's like this very interesting question of one, do people care, right? Is this actually like an interesting
47:24
Is this actually like an interesting problem?
47:26
And I think the second question of like what are the correct knobs to give to people?
47:30
Because it's like you don't want to build a thing that has like a thousand buttons, right?
47:33
And someone's always fiddling it.
47:34
I think you could probably land on this like middle path where it's like it's just magical for 95% of people and the 5% that want to fiddle like we have the correct controls.
47:45
>> I really appreciated how simple the interface was.
47:47
I'm still getting my head around the idea of AI podcast, AI radio.
47:54
I think because I'm such a podcast power user, and I'm drowning in human created podcast that I need to listen to.
47:58
It feels like listening to an AI podcast feels just strange to me.
48:02
But I will say the the daily overview thing was Dev Day was a perfect example.
48:08
We're recording this the day after the open dev day and I was I I was there and like I had a packed calendar.
48:14
packed calendar. It was unusual for me and I was traveling that day and I had like I was doing a day trip up from LA and I was thinking of you actually in this conversation a lot at Dev Day because uh I went to this Q&A with um with Sam Alman after the keynote and he was talking about how he thinks that AI
48:30
uh will be primarily used through voice and he's like so into voice as the main input for AI and I think that probably has to do with the devices he's working on with Johnny IV and obviously CHBT has advanced voice mode and all that but It does feel like voice is a really unique way and powerful way to interact with this stuff. >> I agree. I think that um that's the next >> I agree.
48:50
I think that um that's the next horizon for us.
48:53
And I actually think that the initial step is um I think that it's easy for people who have this kind of like internal monologue to make the leap, right?
49:05
Like if you already have an internal monologue, I think it's easy for you to imagine that you could have like an AI voice assistant.
49:10
like you watch the movie Her and you're like, "For sure, right? I get it."
49:13
But then I think for most people um the movie Her is just a movie.
49:18
It's just an interesting sci-fi thing because I think a lot of people don't think about the world as this like interactive interface for technology, right? Like it's super nerdy.
49:30
I think most people just live life and that's it.
49:32
And I think that the key to this is is actually passive content that you make interactive.
49:37
And I think that's the bet we're making with Hux, which is how can I give the user so much value with like nothing like they don't have to do anything, right?
49:48
And so like when you use Hux, like you open the app and you just press play, right?
49:52
You don't have to ask a question.
49:54
You don't have to start a chat.
49:56
You don't even have to say here's how I'm feeling today.
49:59
Um, and as much as possible, we try to constrain the amount of things that there are to press on the screen at any given time for this reason because I think that this is like the next page of AI or technology in general, which is like don't make it hard for the user to get something useful out of it.
50:14
Um, and I think if you lay that foundation down really really well, um, you you unlock the next step, which is you you delight them with interactivity, right?
50:25
and you sort of teach the user that like, hey, you know what?
50:29
The world can be this like interactive like technological interface where you're listening to something interesting.
50:35
Maybe you have a question, right? We can't do that today.
50:39
We can't interrupt podcasts today.
50:39
We can't interrupt radio stations, but what if you could, right?
50:42
And maybe it actually says something like, "Hey, Ellis, this is very interesting for you, like this specific thing."
50:48
And you're like, "Why, you know, why would it say that?"
50:51
So, I think like there's like an opportunity to build passive content that invites the user to participate in this like totally novel next generation behavior.
51:00
>> As a professional podcaster for a long time, I would have loved to have been able to go back and interrupt myself listening back to myself and be like, "Stop saying um stop stop doing filler words."
51:10
I'd love to go back and redo my pods.
51:12
If you can invent that, I'll pay you a lot of money.
51:15
>> I mean, an um remover is pretty easy.
51:20
A lot of people in tech talk about like what is the thorough putut of the different modalities and you're like what are you talking about and then they're like well what's the IO potential of visual versus video versus audio and it's like dude like it's not about that it's just about the time spent >> like parts of your day like and that's I
51:43
think why you're seeing I mean what what is it like 3 to four hours per day of audio time spent like up there with video time spent I feel like uh for that same reason and it's not that it's like oh the death of reading or this or that I mean it's just looking at the opportunities and creating experiences for them. >> Yeah. I mean I think largely um you know >> Yeah.
51:59
I mean I think largely um you know when we started this particular incarnation of the app one of the things I was I was talking to the team about is like it's kind of crazy that when you build anything you have to compete for the user's eyeballs.
52:12
It's like it's like a weird business to be in, right?
52:15
I am trying to steal your attention from something else that you are doing.
52:19
And audio is really special in the sense that you can participate in it when you are doing something else.
52:26
Maybe you're taking a walk, maybe you're riding your bike, maybe you're working out, maybe you're doing your chores.
52:31
And actually like a lot of our users, they whenever they send us feedback, they tell us the thing they're doing.
52:37
And it's like this really magical organic thing where someone will be like, "I was walking my dog when Hu did this or I was driving to work when Hux did this."
52:45
It's like kind of cute where I'm like we're just people.
52:48
We're just people doing stuff.
52:51
And if we we sort of think about this is like, hey, what's your place in a person's life?
52:55
And it's like, how can you make that place really good?
52:57
Like that that's like our singular motivation is like, hey, if you listen to it for like 15 minutes during your commute, how do you make it like a pretty good 15 minutes where you were like, wow, I'm glad that I did that.
53:08
And um I think that's why this particular race or this particular game of like audio is actually like a really meaningful one where you're like how creating meaningful and interesting audio content is not that easy.
53:25
>> No, but it's like a pretty it's a pretty special place. Yeah.
53:27
If you if you unlock it, if you unlock it, it's pretty good.
53:30
And I and I think about this like I listen to podcasts a lot. I listen to music a lot. I listen to hucks a lot.
53:36
And I I feel good every time I do these things. I feel pretty good.
53:40
>> It seems like in some ways, while we might talk about it as radio or podcasts or whatnot, it seems like you're kind of going to be at the center of this like holy grail moment of AI that pulls things for you and gives them to you whether it's audio or a feed.
53:54
>> And I you tweeted the other day that OpenAI's new pulse feature has some striking similarities to Hu.
53:59
C can you tell us about that?
54:01
feel like they they cloned your old website as opposed to your new website. But uh >> yeah.
54:06
Yeah, it it was interesting I think because you know when I first saw it I saw the video first and I was like oh my gosh.
54:13
I was like it's like the old website but then I kept poking around and I was like some things were really similar like the framing of um you know it's all about you versus like it's all it's all you.
54:24
I was like okay it's like super close.
54:26
We looked at sort of like, you know, no scrolling, listen and and it's kind of like personalized feed instead, proactive versus like doom scrolling.
54:36
There was just like multiple things that made me think, okay, right?
54:39
If it was like one design element, like that's that's okay. That's cool.
54:43
But I think because it was so close, I kind of felt like, well, you know, it's tough, right?
54:49
Like I don't work at Google anymore.
54:51
like I'm the little guy and Open AI is this behemoth um who is basically taking like our same message and they're saying this is the future.
55:02
So on one hand I was like really jazzed.
55:04
I was like wow this is like really cool like we launched it before they did and they said the same thing and it seems like many people are excited about it.
55:12
So in general it's like very cool validation for the space and the direction we're in.
55:16
On the other hand it's super scary.
55:18
It's like, oh man, like do I really want to take them on?
55:22
Um, but I think in practical terms, this happened all the time when we were working on Notebook LM2.
55:27
I think in practical terms, I think you see a lot of this in emerging products and product ideas and product paradigms, which is like maybe you don't do it on purpose, right?
55:39
Like you don't literally look at a website and you like copy it. Maybe you don't.
55:42
Um, but maybe you're influenced by it down the road, right?
55:47
And it comes out in your writing.
55:47
it comes out in your design and then it it starts to look really similar because everybody is kind of like trying to find inspiration for something that doesn't exist.
55:55
Um, what I think is true though is that what differentiates products is basically how long you go at the problem for and how differentiated your insights are.
56:06
And I think that's like kind of a weird thing to say, but I said it all the time when we were raw notebook, which is like these things will happen where people will crop up.
56:13
They will do the same thing you were doing.
56:15
But the thing that you have to remember is that even though it's interesting to look at what they are doing, it's what you are doing that actually makes the difference, right?
56:23
Like for your life, for your customer's lives.
56:24
And the truth is that you just have to you just have to keep going.
56:28
You have to keep going at it.
56:30
I mean, I think um even in the two weeks since we've launched, I think we've learned so much about what users want and what the user experience is that I'm just like, wow.
56:41
like that makes me feel good about the direction we're going in and I don't particularly feel the need to stop just because, you know, we might be doing something similar to Open AI.
56:50
>> I asked uh Sam Alman at the Devday Q&A yesterday about Pulse and he said it was his favorite feature.
56:55
Uh, and uh, for those who don't know, it's gated right now to the 200 a month pro tier of CHAGPT, but it's the first time that Chat GPT will use your context to suggest things to you and push things to you like like Hux, like like more of an assistant.
57:13
Uh, and I think they see it as a huge opportunity to make chat GPT less um, insurmountable, less overwhelming to people who don't know how to prompt it, right?
57:25
Because that's the thing with AI right now is to really take advantage of it.
57:29
You have to know how to extract from it.
57:30
But there's something magical when it can just bring things to you and learn from you.
57:36
And I think that's like what you're doing with Hux.
57:40
And Open AI seemed very very excited in that direction.
57:42
So uh it's it's it's really interesting and um you can you can monetize it in a lot of interesting ways.
57:50
Like I'm curious like how you think about that.
57:51
Is it for a product like this?
57:53
Do you just do subscriptions or do you think that at a certain scale there's an opportunity to do like really good hightouch advertising in an interface like this?
58:03
Um I think that's probably what OpenAI will do actually for Pulse is kind of what they were hinting.
58:07
So I'd be curious to hear how you feel about that.
58:11
>> I mean I think we're really really early still.
58:14
Um but I'll tell you like my early thoughts on it which is I think that in order to keep most products free like you'll have to do advertising.
58:21
I think that's just kind of how these types of products work.
58:25
But, you know, the stage we're in is we're just trying to validate, is this interesting to people? Do they want this? Is it useful?
58:34
And I think when we get to the the part about monetization, I think those are the only two avenues, which is like you could do a subscription, you could do ads, you could do both.
58:41
But the way I think about ads is if you have a system that actually knows you uniquely well, um I think you could solve a really important problem for both advertisers and people, which is I don't really want ads for things that I don't want to buy.
59:00
And I know that advertisers don't want to spend their money showing ads to people who aren't going to do anything about it either.
59:05
Uh, and I think about th this sort of like two-sided problem where it's like, okay, look, let's say you're you're like blue bottle and you want to advertise, right?
59:14
I think it's not terribly difficult with how Hux has been built to just know like, okay, this person's going to be in Palo Alto.
59:21
They have a meeting on University A, right?
59:26
This person drinks a lot of cold brew cuz I see their receipts all the time.
59:30
It's not crazy to be like, Rya, you have a meeting, blah, blah, blah. Here's an ad, right?
59:34
and just like disclose it to the user and just say like it's an ad.
59:38
Blue bottles right there. They have cold brew.
59:41
They have like a single origin blend.
59:42
They have a multi- origin blend.
59:44
It costs this much, but here's a 25% coupon.
59:48
>> And here's the bathroom code.
59:49
>> And here's the bathroom code, >> which we pulled from Yelp.
59:56
>> So, I think I think there's something there's something interesting to be done.
59:58
I think we're kind of far away from doing it.
1:00:00
Uh, but yeah, I mean, lots of things to think about there.
1:00:05
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>> Honestly, I'm excited to use an agent to turn all my notes into nice, easy interview questions, ranked by juiciness, of course. We got to have it juicy.
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1:02:18
>> How soon is the quality of the voice going to be indistinguishable from humans? You think?
1:02:25
>> I mean, I think you see these like studies that come out and they're like, "Oh, voice AI is not distinguishable from humans, right?
1:02:31
Most people can't tell already."
1:02:33
And so I see those studies and I think about it and I'm like, well, I wonder what those contexts are, you know, whether it's like customer support or maybe when you make reservations, right, and you call for things like that.
1:02:43
Um, but I think when you're producing long format content, I think that there's like an interesting thing that happens, which is you can probably tell it's not a human, but the quality is good enough where it probably doesn't bother you anymore.
1:02:58
So, I think it's probably not so much that, you know, you can't tell it's a person versus not a person, but I think it comes down to like is it tolerable enough for this particular media that you're consuming.
1:03:09
Um, and that's really what what we measure, which is like a lot of people are put off by AI voices because it's like really weird.
1:03:16
It's like still very like dystopian to think about there's like things pretending to be people.
1:03:22
But I try to think about it from a perspective of like human voices have a particular quality to it where we can listen to them. Right?
1:03:29
Like it like mentally we're just like yeah I listen to whatever this person is saying and I'm okay with it.
1:03:35
Whereas like my kids call them clankers, right?
1:03:37
They're like I'm not listening.
1:03:39
They actually say this all the time.
1:03:40
They're like I'm not listening to a clanker.
1:03:41
I'm like whoa that's super funny.
1:03:47
It's like, how how do we get to a >> no clankers in this household?
1:03:52
>> My kids joke about it all the time.
1:03:53
They're like, "Mom, do you think like in 10 years I'm going to be like introducing you to my clanker boyfriend and you're going to be like, "Oh, Zoe, why'd you date a Clanker?" You know?
1:04:00
Um, but I think I think that's the question, which is like, are AI voices good enough to be listened to? >> Yeah.
1:04:07
I mean, none of the AI voices are going to be as good as the uh 931 Jack FM voice here in Los Angeles. Have you heard this guy? >> No. >> No. >> He's incredible.
1:04:17
He's like, "We play what we want." Jack FM. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Highly recommend.
1:04:24
>> We We've been dancing around this Risa, but uh behind all this is the fear I have that you're going to put us out of a job, Ellis and I.
1:04:31
And so I'd like to know your advice for human podcasters, measly human podcasters in this moment because it is kind of crazy when you see how things are progressing and it's like well if someone can just get a hyperpersonalized podcast on any topic it's like >> where do I fit into that? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:04:51
No, I mean I think this is like a serious question and it's a serious question that I asked when we worked on Notebook LM.
1:04:56
And I'll say that like my my perspective on this hasn't changed too much.
1:05:02
Like it's it's changed a little bit.
1:05:03
But with Notebook, one of the things we discovered is that people weren't trying to replace existing content, right?
1:05:10
They were just creating content that didn't exist.
1:05:12
content that didn't exist. And it was really kind of funny to be like people were creating podcasts out of their resumes or they were creating podcasts out of like you know personally I got this like hund slide deck from like the
1:05:25
workspace folks when I was at Google and I was like there's just no way I'm going to read the thing right there just like no chance right and there's no way that Ellis and Alex are going to make a podcast about this hundreds slide workspace deck but now I had the ability to turn it into one. Um, and so I think
1:05:39
Um, and so I think like largely that is still true, people want content that just doesn't exist and is not feasibly going to be made.
1:05:46
Um, but I think one thing that is true that has changed, you know, since since we launched Notebook LM is I think it's kind of like the eyeballs um, perspective, which is you are just competing for a limited amount of space in a user's day.
1:06:02
And I think that's very real.
1:06:05
And we think about hawks as like something you add to your routine versus something that displaces something in your routine, but that's like overly optimistic, like you know, of course it's like replacing something, especially if you're already like a listener.
1:06:19
Um, and so we actually ask people all the time, we're like, what did you replace with Hux?
1:06:23
Like what were you doing?
1:06:26
And I think for the most part, many people actually don't say that they were listening to something else.
1:06:32
And this to me is like very interesting which indicates either we are reaching a subset of people that were not podcast listeners to begin with or like music listeners.
1:06:41
Um but I think we'll probably see the results of this change over time.
1:06:46
And so my my sort of TLDDR on here is that for the first time I think we have technology that competes with like the audio space.
1:06:54
I think we're going to discover how that changes.
1:06:58
Personally I still listen to the same amount of like podcasts that I do.
1:06:59
I just listen to Hux is like a totally different time.
1:07:04
>> All right, we're safe for now, Ellis.
1:07:07
>> Yeah, I feel like I mean this is kind of my broader take on like AI's intersection with news and whatnot.
1:07:12
intersection with news and whatnot. I think it's like if you're like a link blog or a link newsletter that aggregates a very I don't know predictable subset of tech news like yeah I mean that's also just not that differentiated or interesting even like of a skill set you know meanwhile if you
1:07:29
are bringing in all elements of your experience opinion expression even if you're an artist like that's the thing that AI really can't do and so I feel like it's just pushing us in that direction um we need to think about how to help you uh self-actualize into the most differentiated version of yourself, Alex. I think that that's how we ensure
1:07:47
I think that that's how we ensure your future is safe.
1:07:50
>> Yeah, this is a this is going to be a an important process we'll we'll we'll do together on the show.
1:07:54
Um what was a product you tried lately that blew your mind?
1:08:00
>> Oh, I really like Sora.
1:08:00
I really like the Sora and I was so surprised because I'm not a video consumer number one.
1:08:07
Like I don't even use Tik Tok which is embarrassing but uh I am also definitely not a video creator but I was really impressed with the novelty of the cameo feature and the thing that was so startling to me was that I wanted to see myself in the videos which I have never had any such desire to do.
1:08:27
>> Yeah, >> but I I the very first one I made was me in Arachus like in Dune with like a sandworm and I was like that is so goofy. It is so cool.
1:08:34
Um, and it was delightful and I probably used it for 24 hours and I didn't use it again.
1:08:40
But I think for the 24 hours that I did, it was quite magical.
1:08:46
>> Risa, we really have enjoyed having this convo with you and uh, we really appreciate you coming on the show. >> Thank you. Thanks for inviting me.
1:08:51
This has been really fun.
1:08:53
Thanks for asking me about my favorite Star Trek captain.
1:08:56
>> To be continued, we'll do uh, we'll do favorite species of aliens next round. >> All right.
1:09:02
>> Species species A472 is my all-time favorite. Kardashians for sure.
1:09:08
>> Well, that was a fun chat.
1:09:08
And Alex, you now have a personal podcast to listen to as you scoop your dog's poop every day.
1:09:16
Uh, is that like literally the only free time you have left that has been unmonetized by some company? >> Pretty much. That's my hu time.
1:09:24
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1:09:35
>> And if you like this episode, please leave us a fivestar review or thumbs up and share it with a friend.
1:09:42
>> You can find Alex's wellsourced newsletter at sources. news/sources.
1:09:49
Uh, no, really, it's just sources.
1:09:49
And you could find me at Hamburger on Twitter and at meaning. comp.
1:09:53
Our producers are Shiraz Dume and Rishi Raja Gopalan.
1:09:59
We will see you next week. Bye.
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