Rana el Kaliouby — AI, Emotional Intelligence, and The Journey of Finding Oneself — searchlore

Rana el Kaliouby — AI, Emotional Intelligence, and The Journey of Finding Oneself

The Tim Ferriss Show

Published Apr 21, 2020

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0:15

Hello boys and girls, this is Tim Ferriss.

0:16

Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show.

0:18

This episode has video if you want to check it out on youtube.

0:22

com/timferriss, but audio only will still work.

0:24

And I'll keep this intro short.

0:27

I'm going to jump straight to the guest.

0:29

My guest today is a pioneer in emotion AI.

0:32

We'll define what that means.

0:34

Rana el Kaliouby, PhD, who's also co-founder and CEO of Affectiva and author of the new book Girl Decoded, subtitle A Scientist's Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology.

0:48

A passionate advocate for humanizing technology, ethics in AI, and diversity, Rana has been recognized on Fortune's 40 under 40 list and as one of Forbes' top 50 women in tech.

0:57

Rana is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and co-hosted a PBS Nova series called Wonders.

1:05

And she's also appeared on and appears in the YouTube original series The Age of AI hosted by Robert Downey Jr.

1:11

Rana holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and a post doc It's post doctorate from MIT.

1:18

You can find her on LinkedIn.

1:21

Kaliouby, Twitter @kaliouby, k a l i o u b y, by the way.

1:27

Instagram @ranaelkaliouby, website ranaelkaliouby. com.

1:32

Rana, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

1:36

I'm excited to have you on and we have so much ground to cover.

1:40

And I thought I would begin with a question that will hopefully open up a whole different doors a whole different set of doors, I think, is the proper English expression that we could potentially walk through.

1:50

And it's related to a book.

1:52

This is Affective Computing.

1:56

And correct me if I'm getting any of the pronunciation wrong, by Rosalind Picard, p i c a r d.

1:59

How did this book come into your life?

2:05

So, I I am Egyptian, so I grew up in Cairo and around the Middle East.

2:07

Uh but that the time, this is like like 1998, I had just graduated from computer science from the American University in Cairo.

2:17

And my career plan at the time was to become faculty. Like I wanted to teach.

2:23

And so, I knew to teach I had to do my master's and PhD.

2:24

It was all very calculated.

2:26

And so, I was looking for a thesis topic, and my fiance at the time went on Amazon, and he said, "Oh, you know, there's this really interesting book by this MIT professor called Rosalind Picard uh called Affective Computing.

2:37

And we ordered it through Amazon.

2:40

It took about 3 months to ship to Cairo.

2:42

It got held in customs for reasons I don't really understand.

2:46

But eventually, I got hold of the book, and I read it, and uh you know, I think it's safe to say that it changed my life because So, so the thesis in the book is that computers need to understand human emotions just the way people do.

3:02

And I read the book, and I was just fascinated by this idea.

3:03

And it's you know, I I'm I made that my research topic, and it became my obsession, and it just really changed the trajectory of my life.

3:13

What besides the thesis in the book had such an impact on you, or was it just that that worldview, that perspective, or was there more to the book or more to the author?

3:28

Yeah, it's a great question.

3:30

Um So, let's talk about the author first.

3:33

So, Roz is one of the few and I mean, this was true back then, it's still true today.

3:38

She's one of the few kind of female, you know, computer science, machine learning engineers, um professors in the space.

3:48

And you know, I I I kind of learned about her over the years.

3:51

I've eventually I actually she So, she ended up being my co-founder many years later, but there's a story around that.

3:57

But But essentially, I was just fascinated by her and she you know, she's a mom, she's three boys.

4:02

I just thought she was like a rockstar.

4:04

So, that was kind of one part of it, but just the way she wrote the book and how she, you know, I'm very expressive as a human being and I just really like I think emotions really matter and are and the way we communicate nonverbally is very important.

4:18

And And it struck me that when we think of technology that piece of how we communicate is completely missing.

4:26

And I was like, "Oh, yeah, like it seems so obvious."

4:29

So, I just got fascinated by the thesis.

4:32

I got fascinated by the implications, like what happens when technology becomes kind of clued into how we communicate.

4:40

That's going to open up a whole new world of possibilities and I was intrigued by that.

4:44

So, let's travel back to that point time.

4:47

You were with your then fiance. Mhm.

4:51

And this book is ordered.

4:51

At the time you're planning on becoming a teacher, right? A professor.

4:57

Why were you on that track to begin with?

4:59

I mean, was it Take us back to Egypt at that time.

5:01

Were there many women striving to be faculty members in similar departments?

5:10

I'm assuming computer science or or perhaps it was a different department.

5:14

Maybe you could tell us more.

5:16

Yeah, so I went to the American University in Cairo and I studied computer sciences an undergrad.

5:21

At the time, um most of the faculty were were guys, um except for one female faculty, Dr.

5:29

Hoda Hosni, which became my role model and my mentor.

5:32

And I just wanted to be like her. Like she was awesome.

5:35

She was, you know, very smart, very approachable, uh very fashionable and I was like, "Ooh, I like that, right?"

5:42

And And uh I just wanted to be like her.

5:45

And And so, I devised the plan and I was also I I mean I mean I'm a geek.

5:49

I'm a geek and I'm proud of it.

5:51

So, I I um I kind of devised a plan.

5:54

I was like, "Okay, so I'll graduate top of my class." Which I did.

5:57

And then I was like, "Okay, I'll go get a master's and PhD abroad because that's what you do.

6:03

And then I'll come back and you know, I'll join I'll join the faculty."

6:08

Um and so at the time because I was getting married to my fiance and he had a company based in Cairo, coming to the US was not an option cuz it was way too far.

6:18

So, he was like, "I'll let you go study in the UK cuz it's kind of close enough."

6:22

So, I applied to Cambridge and and got in.

6:25

Uh and that was kind of the impetus for going abroad and doing this re- like focusing on this research.

6:32

So, when did you then end up going to the US?

6:34

Was that a difficult conversation with your family or your then fiance?

6:41

Walk us through how that happened because it it doesn't sound like that would have been just a hop, skip, and a jump two-second conversation.

6:53

So, walk walk walk us through with that experience. Yeah, so okay.

6:58

So, so then I moved to Cambridge, right?

7:00

Cambridge University in the UK, not not Cambridge, Massachusetts.

7:04

Uh um and I The real Cambridge, you mean? The real Cambridge. The original Cambridge.

7:11

Um and we I got I got married So, basically I got married and then got the scholarship to go study at Cambridge and my hus- So, he's now my husband, right?

7:21

Well, he's my ex now, but at the time he was my husband. He was very supportive.

7:24

He was like, "You got to go. This is your dream. I'll support you.

7:28

We'll have a long-distance relationship."

7:31

Now, my family, my parents, and his parents were like horrified. They were like, "What? You can't do that."

7:34

So, so I do like to give him credit for for for making this happen and being supportive.

7:42

So, I ended up in Cambridge and he was in Cairo.

7:45

And uh we did that for 5 years and towards the end of my PhD um Rosalind Picard was visiting Cambridge, UK to give a talk there and I ended up meeting her in person and we totally hit it off.

8:00

Um and she said, "Why don't you come work with me at MIT as a postdoc?"

8:03

And I was like, "Oh my god, this is like a dream come true.

8:07

I've been following you like forever and this is why you know, like I told her my story."

8:11

And but but then I caviated and I said, "Just you know, you know, I've I've been married for the last 5 years and have had a long-distance relationship, so I have to go back to Cairo.

8:24

Otherwise and I actually really said that.

8:26

I said, "Otherwise, you know, in Islam because I'm Muslim um my husband can marry up to four women and if I don't show up, eventually he'll just like marry more women."

8:34

So, I said it half jokingly, right?

8:39

She was like, "That's fine.

8:39

Just like commute from Cairo."

8:41

And so, I commuted from Cairo to Boston for a good a good 3 or 4 years going back and forth between MIT and and and Cairo.

8:52

How often did you go back and forth?

8:55

Or how often did you go back to Cairo maybe is a better way to ask it.

8:58

So, initially I would spend a couple of months in Cairo and then go spend like a few weeks in Boston and then I I would move with my kids to Boston over the summer.

9:11

So, the summer break we'd just all go there.

9:12

Um and so, initially that that was okay.

9:15

So, this was between 2006 to 2009. It was okay.

9:21

Um things began to kind of really fall apart when I decided to start the company.

9:28

So, at MIT we started to get a lot of interest in the technology.

9:33

And just being at MIT, they really encourage you to spin out, right?

9:35

Um so in 2009 she and I started Affectiva and I was literally spending 2 weeks in Cairo 2 weeks in Boston 2 weeks or 2 weeks in Boston. It was insane.

9:46

And that was when like to say it was out of balance.

9:50

Everything was out of balance. It was tough.

9:53

It was tough and and and you know, I'm divorced now.

9:55

So you know, you can imagine how that didn't go very well.

10:00

It was just It was I think in retrospect it was just not a very healthy lifestyle.

10:04

And I and I and I yeah, I I wouldn't want to be in that place again.

10:09

I wouldn't want others to be in that talk publicly about that time. Yeah.

10:15

Uh well, let's let's hop around chronologically a little bit.

10:17

We're going to come back of course to starting the company and that decision. Mhm.

10:23

But for people who don't have any real first-hand exposure to the Middle East much less Egypt for instance. Mhm.

10:34

What was it like growing up in in Egypt and based on at least some of my reading you for instance wore a hijab for quite some time and we're not talking a short period of time.

10:44

Uh maybe you could also speak to that. Yeah. Yeah.

10:49

And it sounds like you've spent some time in that you you you've been to Jordan.

10:53

It sounds like you spent a little bit of time in Jordan.

10:56

I've spent some time in a a few places in the Middle East but not in Egypt. Never made it to Egypt.

11:00

And when I was we chatted a little bit before we started recording.

11:04

Uh and I only have a few words here and there in Arabic but it's Levantine Arabic, right?

11:08

It's it's what what you would run across in Jordan or or uh in Lebanon and uh I remember though having many people recommend that I not study uh the sort of standard Arabic textbook Arabic but that I study Egyptian Arabic because all of the as they put all the entertainment and movies that I might want to consume would be in Egyptian Arabic.

11:32

Needless to say, I didn't get that far.

11:34

But I haven't spent any time in Egypt.

11:38

Well, your Arabic's pretty good.

11:40

And And you're right about Egyptian accent.

11:43

That's kind of the most common.

11:46

But But I think the key thing is like there's no one Middle Eastern.

11:48

There's no one, you know, form.

11:50

I grew up in a family that's kind of in an interesting way quite conservative, but also quite liberal.

11:59

So, my parents were very pro-education.

12:01

They sent us to the you know, they they put all their money towards our schooling, and they made a point during the summers that we travel abroad and experience kind of other cultures.

12:08

And I think that's why like I was so comfortable moving from one country to another and ending up in the United States. Um I tried to Yeah. parents do?

12:19

Sorry to interject, but what did your parents do professionally? Um Okay.

12:24

So, my parents met So, my dad taught computer programming in the '70s, and my mom was probably the first female programmer in the Middle East.

12:32

She attended his class, and he hit on her, and they ended up getting married.

12:37

So, So, I guess I should give them a little bit of credit for ending up being a computer scientist.

12:42

I'm sure they had something to do with that.

12:46

And that's that's So, so they both my my mom was a computer programmer at the Bank of National Bank of Kuwait.

12:52

So, we were in Kuwait for a while.

12:53

And my dad is he's always worked in technology.

12:58

And culturally, what was it like where you grew up? Or Or within the family?

13:03

You said that they were, for instance, on one hand very I'm not sure what the right a cosmopolitan perhaps in their perspective and drive related to education.

13:15

And And what what were the other ingredients in the household?

13:20

Um there was There's definitely like clear gender roles.

13:23

So, even though my My worked her entire life, it was always She was not allowed to ever talk about her job post you know, she would leave work at 3:00 p. m.

13:32

Be home at like whatever 4:00 p. m.

13:33

when we got back from school and that was it.

13:36

She was never allowed to take a conference call at home in the evening.

13:40

Never allowed to travel for work and I didn't realize that until I was an adult.

13:43

Like I just assumed this was the way it was, but it did hamper her you know, career progression and it was this implicit understanding that's this is your role, this is my role and we all stick in our lanes. So that was interesting.

13:56

Um we were for example, I have two younger sisters, so we're three daughters and I was not allowed to date until after college. So very very strict.

14:09

Uh and I and I and I basically married the first guy I met, right?

14:10

So that was that's interesting.

14:13

I have a debate with my 16-year-old daughter right now who's a junior in high school about She's like, "But mom, we're in the US now.

14:20

Like adopt a different set of rules."

14:25

Uh Anyways, so so there's that too, right?

14:28

So it's kind of interesting, right?

14:28

Very strict, very conservative, but also like like go kick ass kind of thing.

14:32

So How did you relate to for instance the not dating until college?

14:41

I think that's what you just said if I'm remembering correctly.

14:46

At the time were you accepting of that, resistant to that, embrace? Did you embrace that?

14:52

How did you relate to it at the time?

14:56

I was like, I called myself a nice Egyptian girl.

14:58

I never challenged my parents.

15:00

It's like the weirdest thing.

15:00

I just like I you know, lots of trust.

15:05

Um and you know, they trusted me, I trusted them.

15:08

I never challenged the rules.

15:08

I just was super obedient and I was always looking for like the the gold star, right?

15:13

Like I was the gold star daughter.

15:16

Um Yeah, and so now I'm kind of trying to like redefine what that really means.

15:24

And for And for people who are maybe thinking to themselves, "I can't believe Tim asked about a hijab. That's so stereotypical. How dare he?"

15:33

First of all, it's based on my own research and reading in preparation for this conversation.

15:38

Could you speak to as I understand it, your decision to wear a hijab and when you wore it and why you stopped. Yes.

15:48

Yeah, so this is this is actually like I I'm glad you asked that because a lot of people just assume that I was forced to wear it.

15:55

I was actually one of the first women in my family to decide to put it on.

16:01

Um and And so even my family were like, "Really?

16:03

You're going to wear a hijab?"

16:05

Um And I And I did that because it was a time in my life where I became very religious and very spiritual and I I I you know, I I wanted to do it and I asked my husband. were you at the time?

16:16

I was I was probably like in my 20s. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah, this was 22 or 23. Just gotten married.

16:26

Was just about to move to Cambridge and I decided Actually, what happened is one of my dad's really close friends um got a heart attack and just died all you know, unexpectedly and I don't know, it just really hit me and um so I decided to put it on and I wore it for 12 years.

16:45

Um you know, through Cambridge, through MIT, um and and and then in 2012 a a whole host of factors, right?

16:56

And so when I wore it like I you know, I When I first wore it actually and moved to Cambridge, that was during September 11th.

17:06

And so my parents thought I was like you know, this Muslim in in the UK.

17:10

They were concerned for my safety and so I actually switched the hijab for a hat.

17:16

So I wore a hat for like a you know, a few months in Cambridge.

17:18

It was really cuz you you you're supposed to wear it like everywhere.

17:21

So, I would show up to class in a hat and just like it was like really awkward.

17:25

And then I just decided to like go back to my hijab and and and I think people were often always respectful.

17:32

I never felt discriminated against and um and I just felt like people were curious, right?

17:38

Like I got all sorts of like interesting questions.

17:40

But yeah, 2012 I was to take it off.

17:45

What was the host of factors if you don't mind me prying a little bit?

17:47

Like what what what suddenly or not so suddenly, maybe it was over a a period of time, but what what were the things that prompted you taking it off?

17:57

I think so at the time I was doing the commute between Boston and Cairo, right?

18:01

And um and I just I don't know.

18:04

I realized like the closest people, my closest friends and my closest contacts in the US were not Muslims, but they were awesome people and we shared the same core values, right?

18:15

Like yeah, maybe they didn't pray five times a day, but they were very honest, high integrity, hard working, like all of the things I cared about.

18:22

And so I just started thinking like all the assumptions around religion and acceptance of the other, I don't know.

18:28

I just had a ton of questions.

18:30

So, that was one factor and then the political situation in Egypt was quite challenging.

18:37

That was at the time where the Muslim Brotherhood were taking over and they were like rolling back all of like the women's rights and all of that and so I was like, "Ooh, that's not my Islam.

18:46

Like that's not what I subscribe to."

18:49

And I was going through the divorce and um it just felt like I needed a a Rana 2. 0.

18:56

It just didn't feel like me anymore, you know?

18:59

I just wanted to like look cool and you know, feel and look cool and and it's quite actually controversial to take it off.

19:08

Um and so So was really really scared what peop- you know, what people around me would think.

19:15

Um so there was a lot of fear.

19:17

It took a lot of courage to um to take that step.

19:20

Um but yeah, I did it and I would just tell people it's the same me, right?

19:25

I didn't really fundamentally change at the core. Sure. Yeah.

19:32

Thank you for answering that.

19:34

Uh I I just I think it's so important.

19:36

We're going to get of course to I mean very quickly in fact cuz we're going to jump around a bit stochastically here.

19:43

I'm sure I'm using that word incorrectly but nonetheless here we here we go. It works.

19:48

But I really find that at least these types of conversations with longer format allow you to begin to understand the connective tissue and sort of subcurrents that have formed people as they then turn into these people on the marquee who are doing these incredible things professionally.

20:07

So I I appreciate you sharing.

20:10

I think it's I think it's important to have that background.

20:14

And let's talk about what the the one of many things that jumped out at me as I was prepping for this and I and I know that this is is not in order but using if I'm getting this correct emotion AI or effective affective let's see if I can do this correctly computing up to help those with autism or who are on the spectrum of uh I guess it would be this is going to sound redundant but autis- autistic spectrum disorder.

20:45

I'm not I'm not sure what the proper kind of DSM terminology is right now.

20:49

I I would love to get there but in on the way there could you just define what artificial intelligence is for those who may be confused because it's used so frequently often misused in the context of what you do and then what we're going to be talking about is one example of that.

21:12

What is artificial intelligence?

21:16

So, artificial intelligence is this um I guess field of study that is trying to replicate human intelligence, right?

21:21

And but if you look at human intel- and and and then there's like, you know, there's ways to affect that.

21:29

So, for for example, machine learning is a a subcategory within the field of computer science which allows you to implement artificial intelligence.

21:37

So, it's kind of a mechanism to get you to artificial intelligence.

21:41

Now, there's all sorts of forms of artificial intelligence.

21:43

Um the the part that I find, you know, the most exciting is this idea that, okay, if you look at human intelligence, we have IQ which is your cognitive intelligence and of course it's really important.

21:58

But we also know from years and years of research that your emotional intelligence is equally important.

22:03

People who have higher IQs or emotion quotients, um they're just like more likable people, they're more persuasive, you can get them to, you know, follow you and get inspired and um and actually people with higher IQs are just like better partners and they're better, you know, better leaders and every- So, so I think that this is true for technology that interacts with people as well.

22:26

So, it's not just I So, I think technology that's like interacting with us on a day-to-day basis, like your device or social robot or Siri or whatever, uh Alexa, need to have both IQ and EQ.

22:41

And the conversation has always focused very heavily on the IQ and I'm and I'm like an advocate for bringing EQ into the equation.

22:50

Well, let's use let's use that as a segue.

22:51

So, the the technology that you ended up working on as it relates to autism and many other things.

23:00

But how did that come about and what form did it take?

23:06

So, you know, when I first got to Cambridge, so here I was, you know, I I I was like a new new bride, you know, just like my first experience living away from my family and I and I get to Cambridge and I just like focus on work, right? On coding.

23:18

And so I I had this like aha moment that oh my god, I was spending more time on my laptop than I was with any other person and and and but this was completely oblivious to how I was feeling, right?

23:31

But I think even worse, I had this realization that a lot of our communication is mediated through technology.

23:40

Often the the most kind of ubiquitous form of communication is actually through text.

23:45

Which which if you look at how humans communicate less than 10% of how we communicate is text, is the words we use. 90% is non-verbal.

23:53

Facial expressions, hand gestures, vocal intonations and all of that I felt like just got lost in how I communicated particularly with with my husband at the time.

24:06

And I just felt like we I wanted to change that.

24:08

So, I wanted to build emotion AI to make human-computer interfaces better, but ultimately it's all about human connection.

24:16

I want to make sure that as we move to a more digital universe, we're not losing our EQ. Right?

24:25

We still can reserve and even maybe augment our emotional intelligence and this is where autism came in because it was a clear example, it's almost an extreme example of people who struggle with EQ and where technology could be like a hearing aid.

24:39

Like people wear hearing aids to augment their hearing and I was like, what if you could build an emotional prosthetics that could help augment your EQ? What did it look like?

24:49

was like, well, um it looked like Google Glass.

24:51

This was before Google Glass existed, so you you know, so say I have autism.

24:57

I would put on these glasses. They had little cameras.

24:58

The camera would point outward at whoever I was interacting with.

25:02

So, say I'm talking to you, and it would say, "Oh, Tim looks really interested in what you're saying. He's nodding his head."

25:07

Or, "Tim looks bored to death.

25:10

Maybe you should stop talking and like ask a question." Or something.

25:15

You don't look like you're bored to death. I I hope. not.

25:19

That that sort of thousand-yard stare like dumb deer look is just my my standard, so don't don't take it personally.

25:28

But so it pro- it would analyze people's expressions in real time and feed the kids real-time feedback.

25:32

And it would give them almost like positive reinforcement every time they even looked at a face because individuals on the autism spectrum like find it really really hard to even engage in a face-to-face conversation cuz it's so overwhelming.

25:49

And this would be visual feedback on the the lens of the glasses that they would see like a Or was it audio feedback?

25:56

What type of feedback did they receive?

25:59

Um we did This was back in 2006, so it was even like before smart You know, it was like really early on.

26:05

So, we had the feedback be auditory through a Bluetooth kind of like headset whatever ear pods. Yeah.

26:15

And um but now we work company called Brain Power and they actually use Google Glass and then our technology and the feedback is visual through the Google Glass uh heads-up display.

26:28

So, this this is fascinating to me on so many levels.

26:30

And um one expression that jumped to mind as as you were describing autism, and just for simplicity we'll use use the the term autism being an extreme case to study it comes from I want to think a documentary called Objectified about design and industrial design.

26:50

And there's an expression that I want to say someone from Frog Design used and that is the extremes inform the mean but not vice versa in the sense that Interesting.

27:00

by starting with the extreme cases, so in this case in the in the doc it was designing I think hedge clippers or something for say the paraplegic and the morbidly obese.

27:09

If you if you solve for those edge cases then you'll find applications for the people in the middle.

27:16

So this use of technology with people with in autism diagnosis is interesting to me on first for that just that like corollary and then second I'd love to know if you observed any learning curve that carried over to non-augmented reality in the sense that were did you observe anyone with autism after being given positive feedback for for certain behaviors, right?

27:47

We're looking at sort of shaping of behavior.

27:51

Did you see that carry over or were they much like someone with a hearing aid dependent on the hearing aid?

27:58

That is like the key question.

27:58

Um so we totally saw improvement in the kids we were working with while they wore the device.

28:08

Um we didn't get round to testing through this particular grant whether this learning generalized, right? Beyond the the device.

28:15

But this is what Brain Power this company is totally focused on.

28:20

So they've now deployed about 400 of these Google Glass devices and the key question is is this an augmentation device or is it a learning device and can you Right.

28:30

you know off of it and I don't know the answer to that.

28:32

It's still very early days.

28:35

Well, I would I mean this is pure speculation on my part which is maybe irresponsible because obviously the studies need to be done but I would imagine I would imagine I would be very surprised if there isn't some degree of carryover.

28:47

I mean, assuming that you know, working memory and memory consolidation and these various things are functioning in these subjects.

28:55

I would be astonished if there weren't some degree of carryover.

28:57

I mean, if they can understand the feedback loop, it would certainly imply to me if they have Right.

29:04

Once you get that feedback loop working, I think I think you're right.

29:06

I mean, there are like I'll never forget this.

29:09

Like one of the kids who we worked with um at the school in Providence, like he would never make any face eye contact with me.

29:15

And this one particular day, like after 6 months of this training program, he lowers like he had like this iPad between me and him, and then he lowered it and he made direct eye contact.

29:26

And it was just this powerful moment of human connection.

29:32

And I don't think you can unlearn that or undo that. Do you know what I mean?

29:35

I'm I'm sure for him, I hope for him he he, you know, he can build on that. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.

29:43

I can't wait to see what what comes of that as as they deploy more units and gather more data. When did you Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

29:53

Well, I was going to ask you cuz it's an it's kind of an adjacent area, but I don't know if you were planning to go there at some point.

29:59

The applications generally to mental health, right?

30:02

Like depression and Sure.

30:07

Yeah, cuz that's an area that I'm I'm very passionate about and I feel like this technology can can really help.

30:14

Well, let's let's let's jump right into it.

30:15

I think that's a great place to go.

30:17

So, where could this or where is this being deployed or where could it be deployed?

30:20

And and and we could focus on the mental health if you want to focus on that first, we could certainly touch on that first.

30:26

Um just because I mean, it's it's not directly related to autism, but it was this realization that oh my goodness, in in the mental health space, the gold standard and you know, when you go to a doctor today, they don't they don't ask you like, "Tim, what's your temperature or blood pressure?

30:43

They just measure it, right?

30:44

But in in mental health the gold standard is still like a survey, you know, on a scale from 1 to 10, like how depressed are you?

30:50

Are you six or eight, right?

30:53

Or like how suicidal are you?

30:53

And that's like like how accurate is that?

30:57

How do you answer that, right? Right.

30:59

And also like you see a doctor like what, once a week?

31:01

Like what happens in all the instances when you're not with that person?

31:06

And that's really powerful data, right?

31:09

So I feel like this kind of technology I mean the and then the other piece of it is we're always on our devices.

31:15

So that's an opportunity to collect your baseline and then know if you deviate from it because we know that there are very strong facial and vocal biomarkers of things like depression and suicidal intent and Parkinson's.

31:30

So I feel very strongly that um there are applications where this technology can can just like bring objective data to Yeah, to quantifying these things.

31:45

I I that that strikes me as so important as you noted because we're really still in the stone ages when it comes to psychiatric diagnostics related to most of what we would consider mental health or mental health disorders, right?

32:00

And what you're describing allows you to gather a baseline over time, right?

32:09

Longitudinally you can gather a tremendous amount of data because my baseline is going to be different from half the people I met in Silicon Valley who were bordering on the spectrum or on the spectrum.

32:21

I mean the the facial expression baseline is going to be and the tonality baseline is going to be very different.

32:27

So you need much like you would with blood tests and biomarkers, you need to know what your baseline range is.

32:34

And and like the the as as you mentioned the surveys are so problematic.

32:40

I I I remember recently I did a number of experiments with these were with sort of biochemical interventions.

32:47

Uh it's a long story that I won't get into right now, but the in the first session they said, "Well, from 0 to 10, how anxious are you feeling?"

32:54

And I said I have literally no idea how to answer that.

33:00

Right, cuz what's a five, right?

33:02

yeah, but I know but but I know I'm going to be coming in for five sessions, so I'm going to give you a five now, and then the next time I come in at least we can figure out if I'm feeling more or less.

33:11

But if I start at a two, then where am I going to go if I'm feeling less anxious?

33:15

So let me start with a five, but it becomes very muddy, right? It it kind of clips.

33:20

you thought through like you thought it's not really how anxious it's you kind of Yeah, I'm verbalizing I'm sort of Yeah, I'm verbalizing the whole thing.

33:28

So that's that's exciting.

33:29

What other What other applications are you most excited about?

33:33

Uh and is it mostly focused on recognition of facial characteristics at this point?

33:46

Um the focus I mean our yeah the the our main product is basically mapping your like using computer vision to understand what your face is saying.

33:56

We've also added voice like vocal intonations as well.

34:01

Um And and it's a quite complex problem as I'm sure you can imagine, right?

34:04

Like you know, I'm sure we can think of situations where you've misread people's facial expressions, right?

34:09

So it's I I it's not just about like detecting a smile.

34:13

It's like what type of smile, like what else is happening on the face, are you like furrowing your eyebrows, are you squinting, are you smirking? Um all of that.

34:21

So the idea is to take all of that information and and infer how's the person feeling or what are they thinking?

34:29

And the applications I mean we we're focused as a company, we're focused on two particular industries.

34:32

Uh one is uh market research.

34:36

So, just kind of trying to understand how do consumers emotionally engage with products and services and content?

34:44

So, when they listen to your podcast, are they like rolling their eyes or are they like That's 50% for sure.

34:51

Um but how are they emotionally engaging with content?

34:54

So, that's a key question and that of course drives a lot of consumer behavior like word of mouth or, you know, purchase decisions and things like that.

35:05

And then, so that's one area.

35:08

Um and then the other area where we're very focused on is is the automotive industry.

35:12

So, detecting things like driver fatigue, if you're texting while driving, or, you know, distraction.

35:21

Um and then there's applications in the robo-taxi world when when we get there.

35:26

Um Robo-taxi meaning autonomous vehicles or Yes. Mhm. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. S- Okay.

35:32

We're going to We're going to come back to autonomous in a minute, but have you had companies or people reach out to you for for instance, uh analysis of microexpressions, if that's even a real term, I've heard it used, uh related to truth versus lying?

35:53

And the reason I ask is that I've I have a friend where I went to school with, so a classmate, who has ended up working with former people from the intelligence community Mhm.

36:04

at a firm, and their sole job is to watch uh political announcements, earnings announcements, et cetera, to to try to parse as humans what they believe is true and what they believe is untrue.

36:18

And there are companies that pay, and I'm sure uh governments that pay lots of money for their interpretation.

36:25

But, you might say to yourself, well, that's that's that's interesting also because at one point in time humans were the best chess players in the world now computers are.

36:36

Uh have you had have you had people reach out to you for those types of applications? Uh the answer is yes.

36:40

Um so so first of all microexpressions is is is there is there a real term and it represents so when there is when you are lying basically there's this leak like a facial expression leak.

36:54

It's usually like a a very short-lived subtle like fleeting facial expression like an eye twitch or a lip twitch and with the right frame rate like if you're using a high-speed camera you can actually detect that right?

37:07

Like so our technology can totally do that today.

37:12

Now that doesn't mean that we do that.

37:14

So we have a very we're very values driven, you know, our first use case was autism and and I think the whole not I think the whole thesis of the company and my mission is to just bridge the connection gap between people.

37:29

And so we have very clear values around opt-in and privacy and so we've turned millions and millions of dollars of potential funding and business basically from the government that wanted us to pivot towards this lie detection and surveillance universe.

37:49

Um and it was sometimes it was hard like there was a time when we almost run out of money as a company and we had this opportunity to take almost $40 million from an intelligence agency and we had to think hard about it because we didn't know if we had an alternative so it it could have meant the end of this whole Affectiva journey.

38:08

Um but it just didn't it's not at all why we started the company and it did not match our like our North Star, you know, and it just I I so anyway so we we we we veered away from that and we were able to raise less money, but from investors who we felt like shared our vision for where we could take this.

38:31

Well, I commend you for that and that's hard as hell to do.

38:35

Uh especially when you might face an existential financial threat as a startup. Exactly.

38:43

And I I suspect we'll probably come back to this sort of light versus dark, utopian versus dystopian later. We might not.

38:49

Uh but I think this is a good time to hop back to autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars.

38:57

And that is in part because from my understanding, and I'm not a computer scientist, but speaking to people in Silicon Valley when I was there, certainly speaking to technologists now, that many of the questions that used to be thought exercises in say philosophy classes, epistemology 101, et cetera, uh or ethics 101, the trolley scenario, right?

39:22

Where you have to choose between killing one person of one type or five people of another type.

39:27

Let's just say one elderly person versus uh or five elderly versus one school child, et cetera.

39:35

These types of decisions are now decisions that on some level need to actually be thought about and coded into how a vehicle behaves.

39:46

Uh and I I bring that up because uh in some respects, I I suppose many people would think of emotions as not necessarily the final frontier, but something that seems innately human, difficult for computers to understand.

40:02

And so, I wonder, what if you learned in trying to teach computers how to understand emotions or view emotions about your own emotions?

40:14

How's that impacted, if if at all how you relate to your own emotions or expression? Yeah, a a lot.

40:22

I I By the way, I was not expecting that to be the question.

40:25

I thought it was going to be an autonomous vehicles question.

40:30

It was it was a bit of a left turn, so I it's not the perfect segue, but but but we'll work with it. Yeah.

40:35

Yeah, um it's been it's been tough because I I just shut out my emotions for the long I mean, it's really ironic, but I just grew up in a very like we work hard, we like no nonsense, and so um you know, I just shut out my emotions, and I didn't acknowledge it to others, so I always looked like I was strong and like always like bubbly and happy and just never ever shared or showed my true emotions, but I also think it's even worse than that.

41:06

I think I never acknowledge my own emotions to myself until quite recently actually.

41:12

Um when I when when I was going you know, through a divorce and moving to the United States with my kids as a single mom and starting the company, there was just a lot going on, and I took on journaling.

41:25

And I journal a lot, and that's where I just started like just like really embrace embracing my emotions like the good and the and the bad and the ugly, right?

41:37

And just getting it all out there.

41:39

Um and I just learned a lot about you know, what what it looks like and what it feels like to have these emotions.

41:48

Um And so and so in a in a in a really interesting way, this journey of figuring out how to teach machines kind of a range of emotions is also like a journey for a personal journey for me to learn about my own emotions and and and accept them and and even share them with others.

42:07

Like I've you know, I've I've I've kind of made like a 360 where I or 180, whatever, like where I started as being this kind of very like there's always walls and barriers around me and I and now I'm like taking those down and I feel like it's been amazing because when you share with people people reciprocate and what I often felt like, oh, nobody else in the universe feels the same way. I'm wrong.

42:35

When I when I share people are like, oh my god, like this resonates so much with me.

42:39

I've been through something similar and just this builds this like amazing connection.

42:44

So, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question. No, it does. It does.

42:48

I are there any What do you think are And we're going to come back to the journaling, for sure.

42:59

What are any misconceptions that people have about emotion?

43:04

I don't know if there are I don't know if there are any, but how would you respond to that?

43:10

Yeah, so when Yeah, so when we first started Affectiva, Rosalind I were out raising money for the company, right?

43:18

And so we were these two women scientists raising money from a male-dominated Silicon Valley, which is where we did our most of our pitching.

43:30

Um and we were pitching an emotion company.

43:32

Yeah, Sand Hill Road, lots lots of blue button-downs. Exactly.

43:35

And so we would avoid using the word emotion at any cost.

43:38

That's why we actually called the company Affectiva because affect is a synonym for emotion, but it doesn't have the same kind of feministic connotations of emotion, like who needs emotions?

43:50

Um and so we would avoid talking about it like like every it's the E-word.

43:55

You never talk You never bring up the E-word.

43:59

Um but I think I think the universe has I think the world has moved from that point.

44:03

I mean, this was 20 years ago Well, I started researching in this space 20 years ago.

44:06

We pitched, you know, we started Affectiva 10 years ago.

44:12

I think now there's more realization that emotions matter.

44:13

Emotions drive our decisions in good ways and in sometimes irrational ways.

44:21

Um emotions are at the center of how we empathize and connect and learn and memory, right?

44:26

Like I think I do actually realize like businesses, but also just the average Joe that has more respect for emotions. So, that's been good.

44:37

Well, let's let's talk about Sand Hill Road for a second and I'll I'll describe Sand Hill Road for folks who might not know it and why would you know it unless you've spent time near it.

44:46

So, Sand Hill Road, if you can imagine imagine Silicon Valley as a city, which it isn't.

44:50

It's an entire area, but let's just pretend it's a city.

44:55

And then there's a a gated community where the masters of finance live and uh they're kind of like the Iron Bank in Game of Thrones.

45:07

If you want If you want money, chances are at least this this was certainly true in the '90s and the early 2000s. It's spread out more.

45:13

There are more financial options, but if you want the highest density of people who can write big checks and who have prestigious firm names, then Sand Hill Road is this one spot where you have just office next to office next to office next to office next to office.

45:31

Based on some of my reading, you also I don't know at what point, but had your son Adam with you, right? Right.

45:39

So, and and so I I I would love for you to speak to what that experience was like.

45:45

Number one, and then number two, what worked in the pitch?

45:50

Or like what what did you find actually grabbed people?

45:53

What what was it in the pitch or in the deck, whatever you you might remember from the presentation that worked. I remember. Yeah.

46:04

Okay, so so this is 2009 and we decided we we were getting so much commercial interest in the technology and so I originally thought the solution was to just hire more PhD students in the lab and the lab director at the time Frank Moss said, "No, no, no, no, this is not research anymore.

46:20

You got to leave the lab, like start a company."

46:24

So um so we put together a pitch deck and we had a lot of like we were very lucky.

46:28

We had a lot of mentors MIT who would like poke at it and say, "No, no, no, this doesn't work."

46:34

Like iterate Anyways, we were eventually ready.

46:38

And in the fall of 2009, we headed to the Bay Area and to do our Sand Hill Road show and we just I mean we were able to get all the meetings we wanted, so that was great.

46:51

Um but I showed up with my 6-year-old 6-month-old son Adam and um we had lined up a babysitter to take him on, you know, for during the day when we were presenting.

47:05

Um but this one particular day, she bailed on me.

47:07

She called me in the morning, she's like, "I'm not feeling well, can't take him." I'm like, "What?"

47:12

And so you know, you're not going to you're not going to ditch an investor meeting.

47:15

So I show up with him in the car seat and I walk in and there was this like very nice-looking kind of kind-looking um assistant at the front desk and I said, "Hey, can you keep an eye on him? He's a really good baby.

47:29

We're just going to go have the meeting inside and um and you know, I was I was and she didn't have an option really.

47:36

Like I wasn't asking her for permission.

47:38

I was like, "Here you go, like take him." Um it was good.

47:42

It it worked it worked out.

47:45

He was he he was well-behaved.

47:45

I mean, so it's you just make it work, right?

47:50

Um and actually we hired our first CEO that way, too.

47:54

We had dinner with with this guy who again in the Bay Area, same trip, Bay Area, he was an introduction through one of our investor potential investors.

48:02

And I showed up with Adam and I was like, "Do you mind?

48:04

Like, I don't have anything I don't know where to leave him."

48:09

And he was like, "No, it's fine. I have three boys. It's okay."

48:10

And so, I was like, "Okay, he's a good guy.

48:14

We're going to hire you."

48:16

Um so, that was that was that. That was that.

48:19

I just had to like make it work, right?

48:22

Um and then on the pitch, like what worked for the pitch, we had live demos of the technology.

48:29

So, we would show up with an actual live device that could measure your emotions.

48:34

Um it would track your expressions in real time, so you'd see a real-time kind of read out of your facial expressions.

48:41

And we always always, I mean, people were just fascinated by the technology.

48:45

They didn't know it existed.

48:46

It would always open up people's minds to potential applications.

48:51

Like, people would say, "Oh, have you thought about using it in retail?

48:54

Or like, you know, um you know, automotive or dating?"

48:57

Like, they would just like it would just get people's creative juices flowing.

49:01

Um so, I think that worked.

49:03

Um but I don't think that it was enough to get people over the "Oh my god, like you are so different.

49:14

Everything's so different, right?

49:14

Like, women, scientists, I wore the hijab at the time, um emotions, like it was just it was like too alien, I think. Um so, it was tough.

49:27

Who who ended up of no's.

49:29

Yeah, so you got you got a lot of no's.

49:31

Who, if you're comfortable saying, I have no idea, but I would imagine it's somewhere in the in the public record.

49:36

Who ended up Who ended up saying yes and why do you think they said yes instead of all the in contrast to all the no's?

49:44

Um so, our first very first check came from uh the Wallenberg family of Sweden.

49:50

Very wealthy family, very philanthropic and and and just had a lot of active investments.

49:55

The the the main person there, Peter Wallenberg, knew Ross from before and had basically told her, "Anytime you need money, just call me up." So, she did that. He invested.

50:03

Um but we were able to raise money from Kleiner Perkins, so Mary Meeker was on our board for a while. She was awesome.

50:11

Um so, we did we did end up, you know, raising money from from Silicon Valley, essentially.

50:16

Um And well, not just Silicon Valley, but for people who don't know, uh you know, Kleiner Perkins is one of the considered one of the blue chips.

50:22

And I mean, that's that's top tier. Yeah. Yeah.

50:26

Yeah, and and at the time they had just made their investment in Spotify, and they could really see how like your emotions and understanding your emotions could drive music selection and just like user experience in general.

50:36

So, they were you know, they they saw they saw that potential.

50:43

And Mary, specifically, I think she still does this every year puts out her sort of annual I don't know how to properly describe it.

50:50

What would be like trend forecast?

50:54

Uh I don't I don't know the proper descriptor to use.

50:55

Um clearly, I'm not fully on top of it, but if people look up Mary Meeker, m e e k e r, very, very impressive woman.

51:04

And why do you think Well, I guess you've you've already in part answered this.

51:09

Was it a fast yes for Kleiner Perkins, or did it take a while to court them?

51:16

Actually, that was an inbound from Solina Chau, who is uh she heads up the Horizons um invest venture fund, which is the venture fund for Li Ka-shing, who's this like super, you know, top billionaire in China.

51:30

And she emailed us out of the blue and said, "I want to invest in you guys."

51:35

And we were like, "But we're not raising.

51:36

We had just raised a you know, we had just raised a round of funding."

51:38

She was like, "I don't care.

51:39

I'm just going to invest in you."

51:41

Okay, she's an awesome She's awesome. She sounds awesome.

51:43

So, so we met her, and she co-invests with Mary often.

51:48

So, we met both of them in the Spotify offices.

51:50

I think it was in New York and they were just amazing like, you know, like aside from everything I was like, "Wow, these two women are just powerhouses."

52:01

Um so, they were really, you know, they they just they just made it happen. It was amazing. That's excellent.

52:06

Yeah, you can I I will say this is not my typical experience raising money. That was an outlier. Yeah.

52:13

Well, the I mean, I think the I think the really, really good investors who can see where the puck is going are outliers to begin with, right?

52:19

So, you're just not going to run into that many.

52:23

And one of the common traits I've seen, particularly with really I I I don't want to call it pure technology play, but something that is deeply technical Mhm.

52:37

the investors who are best at that will often reach out to authors of white papers and say, "Hey, I know you haven't built a company, but you should and I want to give you all the money." Right.

52:49

They they tend to be probably listen to them, right?

52:52

Yeah, a lot of a lot of them are are really, really good. Uh you mentioned dating.

52:57

Could you speak to that for a second cuz that was the aside putting aside the the truth not truth application.

53:03

That was one that that's that did jump to mind partially because I want to say I I at some point read a report of some psychologist maybe it was a behavioral psychologist who could look at video footage of couples and predict with some unbelievable high percentage hit rate, like 95% uh accuracy whether they would still be together a year later or 10 years later, whatever it was.

53:33

I can't recall the exact specs on that.

53:36

Uh Uh what do you think the applications are for dating or could be?

53:41

or do you think that's uh is that a fool's errand?

53:47

I I think there's definitely a play there.

53:48

So, the guy you're you're talking about is John Gottman and he focuses on couple's therapy and you're right.

53:53

So, he was just from like watching, you know, a few seconds of video of a couple kind of interacting with each other.

54:01

He'll look for expressions like an upper lip razor, which is an expression of contempt.

54:04

And he was able to predict like if they're getting divorced or will they be able to work through that.

54:12

But let's like back up, right? Like dating, right?

54:14

Um I think there's huge potential there.

54:16

I mean, I think maybe that's like maybe that's the killer app or or whatever.

54:19

Um because because because because when you're seeing people's profiles, you subconsciously like perk up if somebody looks interesting or you like right?

54:32

You have all these like subconscious expressions and if you are able to capture those, I think that could be really fascinating.

54:40

Um but I think the real killer feature would be if you're able to take all of my non-verbals as I'm going through all these profiles and or even like as you start engaging with somebody online and turn it into a will we have chemistry when we meet in the real world?

54:57

Cuz that's the key question, right? Right.

55:00

And so, if you can use all of that information and turn it into a predictor of yeah, level of chemistry, like butterfly effect when you meet a person in in in the real IRL, I think that's really interesting.

55:13

So, um I haven't figured out how to do that, but but I think there's a lot of application.

55:21

No, uh I I wanted to talk I don't know. I do agree.

55:25

Yeah, I mean, I think it could be I think it could be a huge application and I I don't know what form it would take precisely, but if you imagine something like a show my age here maybe, but a you have effectively a Tinder or Pandora where you're thumbing up, thumbing down, and then over time based on the emotion AI analysis of those profile pics, or better yet, video if there were short video clips maybe. Exactly.

55:57

Then you could you could effectively create a signature of attraction, right?

56:02

A signature of excitement, or a signature of fill in the blank that is read by the camera on your laptop or on your phone. And Yeah.

56:14

I think people would pay for that certainly.

56:15

I mean, let's just say you had a dating app and there was a $5 pro feature per month that added that capability on top of your normally static non-interactive kind of personal you as user do all the heavy lifting version. Right.

56:33

That's that's I think that's something a lot of people would pay for.

56:36

Uh So, I find that personally very very interesting.

56:41

I mean, I'm very I'm happy with my Let's do it. Let's build it.

56:45

Or maybe somebody somebody in your audience is going to take it on. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

56:48

Uh I'd pay for it, so there you go.

56:53

We have we have two two I proven market of two is larger than a lot a lot of more than a lot of startups have when they when they get going.

56:59

Uh Let's let's talk about the journaling.

57:05

You mentioned the journaling.

57:07

Uh I'd love to hear about the journaling and anything else that you do to ground yourself or keep yourself centered when things are difficult because you've and we may come back to this, but you've you've had tough times.

57:23

You've had challenging times.

57:25

You've had a lot on your plate at once.

57:29

Can you speak to the journaling and any other practices that you have that have helped you?

57:36

I think you journal, too, right? I do.

57:38

sure I've heard you talk about that. Yeah.

57:40

So, I use an app called Day One.

57:44

And um I started I've now been journaling, I would say, eight or nine years pretty consistently.

57:53

I find that it First of all, it's a way of just letting it all out, right?

57:55

So, I journal very openly.

57:58

I just like, you know, hopefully this my journal will never get hacked because if it does, I'm in trouble.

58:05

All my secrets are in this journal.

58:05

Um and I can't just hide it under my bed.

58:10

Um it's out there in the cloud.

58:10

So, anyway, so So, I just I just I just journal very openly.

58:15

Interestingly, a while ago, I went back and looked at like the most frequently occurring like word that I use I use, and lonely was up there. Um fear was another one.

58:25

So, a lot of fear, a lot of loneliness.

58:31

Um so, it's a way of getting it out there, but what I also find interesting is I I often log like celebrations.

58:35

So, I'll say, you know, I am grateful for my kids.

58:42

I'm grateful for Like, everything's falling apart, but you know what? I'm in good health. I'm grateful for that.

58:47

I I always something like however big or small that I and I just acknowledge I try to celebrate something. Um so, that helps.

58:55

So, I guess the third way the journal is very powerful in in my experience is I can look back at all these times when it was really challenging.

59:07

And when I felt like, "Oh my god, I might not get through this."

59:09

And I look back and I was like, "It worked out."

59:14

Like, when we were moving to the US with my two kids and I newly divorced, like life's falling apart.

59:21

My parents are like, "You can't do this. You're going to fail.

59:23

The kids are are to be miserable." And I write all of that.

59:26

Like, a lot of fear, a lot of fear, a lot of fear.

59:29

And then we moved over here and we love it. It's amazing.

59:31

And so I can look back at these times and actually when it's challenging, right now it's challenging for a lot of us.

59:40

And I just it just helps me have this conviction that this will pass it'll pass, it'll be fine. Um Yeah, I don't know.

59:49

Does that Does that ring true?

59:51

It does ring true and it's very helpful.

59:53

What do you like about Day One and do you journal three times a week, five times a week?

1:00:01

Uh if it's kind of when you feel the need, what are the indicators that you need to do it?

1:00:06

But um what is what is the actual practice look like? Is it in the morning?

1:00:13

Any specifics that you can share would be super helpful.

1:00:18

Um so what I love the most about Day One is it's just super easy and it's it allows for our multimedia, right?

1:00:24

So sometimes I'll just take a screenshot of a cute text chat and I'll just say that will go into my journal, right?

1:00:31

Um so I so there's that or sometimes if I'm on a flight back, you know, from wherever and I just have a few moments I'll just get on and say, "Oh, flying back from Austin.

1:00:41

I and like, you know, I just finished and it felt really good or it didn't feel really good.

1:00:48

Uh or I just finished the call with an investor.

1:00:52

It sucks, whatever, right?

1:00:54

Um So there's no there's it's not like I have a fixed time cuz I find that very hard to do.

1:01:00

It's usually very impetus driven, right?

1:01:02

Like, you know, I I want to make sure that I log an event or log a thought or log a feeling.

1:01:11

Um sometimes I'll write essays, like some of my entries are super long and sometimes it's just like two sentences. Mhm.

1:01:19

You know, um I try to keep it Yeah, I I try to not super make it super structured because then it's hard to implement. Mhm.

1:01:30

Yeah, I think that's uh complexity is not your friend when it comes to implementation.

1:01:36

Uh are there any books uh that you've turned to often or reread often or gifted often, any of those things that come to mind?

1:01:48

So, I've recently been gifting I must have given this book to at least like three or four people cuz I recently read it.

1:01:54

Uh The Obstacle Is the Way. Uh yes. Right, I know. Yeah.

1:01:57

Uh um I just this idea that we all run into obstacles and we have a choice.

1:02:05

We can just like call it the end of the road or we just like find a way to work through it or around it or on top of it or whatever.

1:02:13

That's just like really resonating with me right now and I've I've been gifting the you know, even though I think the book's like a few years old now, but um fine.

1:02:22

Yeah, it's written by Ryan Holiday who lives about 30 to 40 minutes from where I'm sitting right now. Okay.

1:02:28

I know you're I like I could kind of infer that you guys are good friends. Um Yeah. Yeah, believe it or not.

1:02:33

I I don't think you know this, but I actually was the publisher of his audiobook version because I enjoyed I saw a preprint version of the book and I said, "If you want to do something with audio, let me help you."

1:02:45

And so we published the audio version together. That is so cool. Yeah. I did not know that. Yeah, small world. Super small world.

1:02:55

Uh what about uh fiction? Do you read fiction?

1:03:00

Uh or do you not read fiction? I do.

1:03:03

Um my favorite book, which I've now read a few times also, is uh Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. Have you read it? I have not read it.

1:03:12

Could you Could you Why Why is it Why is it so good for you?

1:03:17

So, it tells the story of this Indian um young man who moves to Boston to study, do his PhD.

1:03:25

do his PhD. So, he does that and then he brings over a wife, he gets married and brings over his Indian wife and they settle in in Massachusetts and they you know they start off in Cambridge in this small apartment which I did too and then they move to the suburbs and they have kids and then their kids grow up with this

1:03:43

internal conflict of whether you know they are American, are they Indian, are they both, what does that mean and it follows the journey of this family and I first read it in 2006 uh 2008 when I was between Cairo and MIT and it was becoming clear that my life is gravitating towards Boston with every trip and I just read it on this flight back to Cairo. I'll never forget this I was

1:04:11

I'll never forget this I was just like balling. I was just like crying.

1:04:14

It just hit home in such a weird way because I think I was at this um fork fork road?

1:04:23

Yeah, fork or crossroads. Crossroad crossroad.

1:04:25

And and I and I and I did just like it really hit home and then I reread it a few months ago and I was I cried just the same.

1:04:35

Uh just really because I feel like oh my god I'm like I've progressed, right?

1:04:39

Like I'm in the suburbs, my kids are in school here.

1:04:43

I think my kids are grappling with and all of us like me and my kids are grappling with okay how Egyptian are we? How American are we?

1:04:48

And how do you bring the two together in a way that's true to who we are. So, so I love that book. I highly recommend it. It's amazing.

1:04:58

Uh you know I it also strikes me that um in the last few weeks I've been reading more fiction and I I was I was a non-fiction purist for decades and have the self-help books?

1:05:13

Yeah, I mean well you name it.

1:05:13

I mean self-help I mean if we want to go all the way back to Ben Franklin then yes.

1:05:18

So self-help biography in some respects all books are self-help if that makes sense even fiction. Right.

1:05:25

Uh but the I find that in the times we're in right now and at the time of this recording of course the the novel coronavirus COVID-19 etc.

1:05:35

are causing a lot of self-quarantine isolation etc.

1:05:42

So the words that you mentioned loneliness lonely fear I think those are going to become uh those feelings are going to become more and more present for more people.

1:05:53

And that fiction really good fiction at least for me has the effect of lessening both of those feelings even if it's just for the period of time that you're reading.

1:06:05

Uh particularly the the books that can elicit or paint a picture really a motive landscape of feelings that you're having just in this in the way that you've shared your emotions thinking you're the only person in the world having them and people say oh my god that really resonates with me and you feel less alone in doing so both of you I would imagine.

1:06:23

Uh so I've I've been reading more fiction so this will go on my list.

1:06:28

Do you have a recommendation? I do actually.

1:06:31

I'm only I hesitate to recommend books that I'm only partially through Right. Okay.

1:06:38

but I feel quite confident in this one and bear with me two seconds cuz literally two feet from me and I'm I'm going to grab it. Okay. Got it. Okay. All right.

1:06:46

So it's this book here which is I'll read it.

1:06:49

Little Big so little little {comma} big by John Crowley. Like Aleister Crowley.

1:06:58

So Little Big by John Crowley.

1:07:01

This is I suppose you could consider it a fantasy novel.

1:07:07

It's a bit difficult in the beginning.

1:07:09

I'm going to warn people that you really need to give it at least 30 pages.

1:07:10

I tried this book two or three times.

1:07:12

It was gifted to me by my brother who has a very, very high bar for all books.

1:07:16

He's uh He's a a math and stats wiz.

1:07:21

Also reads very can read very, very dense, you know, comp type stuff and just has a very high bar for any books that he'll read start to finish.

1:07:31

And I couldn't get into it because I quit within the first 30 pages.

1:07:36

And now that I'm 50 or 60 pages in, I'm 60 pages in, I'm just loving it.

1:07:41

And to give you an idea I mean, this is I've never seen I I don't want to spend too much time on this cuz this is about you not me, but I I do think that fiction is really good medicine for people right now.

1:07:55

Just listen to some of these cover quotes there.

1:07:57

And you, by the way, we're going to talk about your book.

1:07:59

You have some amazing blurbs from people.

1:08:02

Listen to a few of these.

1:08:02

So, this is for a little Little, Big.

1:08:04

So, here's the cover quote.

1:08:06

Quote, "I always regularly reread a book that I wish more people would read.

1:08:10

Little, Big It is literally the most enchanting 20th century book I know." Harold Bloom. Amazing.

1:08:17

And then you've got you know, Los Angeles Herald Examiner says, "The kind of book around which cults are formed and rightly so. There's magic here." It just goes on and on. Uh Ursula K.

1:08:29

Le Guin, I believe I'm getting that name pronounced correctly, says, "This book is indescribable.

1:08:32

A splendid madness or a delightful sanity or both.

1:08:36

Persons who enter this book are advised that they will leave it a different size than when they came in." Oh, wow. a weird book.

1:08:41

I'm going to warn you in advance.

1:08:44

It's very strange and that's part of the reason that I like it so much. It's very weird.

1:08:48

Uh it's got that kind of uh you know, Gabriel Garcia Marquez sort of like Colombian surrealism.

1:08:54

It's uh very odd, but so far I'm finding it Okay.

1:09:01

I will I'll add it to my list.

1:09:01

I will I will I will make sure I stick through the first 30 pages and Yeah, and I would recommend getting it on Kindle because John Crowley's vocabulary is impressively broad and it's kind of like when I read His Dark Materials and The Golden Compass, which are categorized as young adult novels, but then contain extremely niche uh nautical terminology.

1:09:33

So, you'll want to be able to look words up is what I'm saying.

1:09:37

You'll be because I'm underlining words every page or two that I don't actually know the meaning to.

1:09:43

And that's my dog barking.

1:09:43

If you hear it, that's Molly because we're in quarantine quarantine verite on this audio.

1:09:51

Uh Let's Let's talk about uh Let's talk about your book.

1:09:55

Why with all the things you have going on why a book?

1:10:00

I I of all people know books to do well take a lot of focus, they take a lot of energy. Uh Why a book? Why now?

1:10:13

First of all, if I knew how much work it would have been, it's pretty much like a startup, right?

1:10:16

If you knew really how much work it would take, maybe I wouldn't have done it.

1:10:20

So, um but but but the reason the initial reason I decided to write the book, so this has been almost 3 years in the making, was um it was originally going to be like an AI book, right?

1:10:33

Like AI needs empathy, it needs emotion, it's all about emotion AI, and why do we need emotion AI, and how do you build emotion AI, and what are the applications, like it was and what are the ethics and moral implications of all of that.

1:10:44

And then I had a meeting with um an editor that was interested in in the book, Roger Scholl at Penguin Random House, and it was a a meeting, and he was like, "Oh, tell me your story."

1:10:55

And I was like, "Well, I grew up in Cairo and you know, da da da da da and then I, you know, wore the hijab and then I moved to Cambridge."

1:11:01

And he was like, "That's the book." I was like, "What?"

1:11:05

And he was like, "Well, your story of your story of becoming, you know, moving from this nice Egyptian obedient young woman to like CEO of an AI venture-backed company in the US, um that journey of personal transformation could resonate with people."

1:11:22

And so, the more And and so, we pivoted.

1:11:24

We pivoted basically and the book became more of a memoir, which makes me sound like I'm 80 years old. I'm not.

1:11:31

Um and it's just this juxtaposition of my personal journey with why and how I, you know, I built this category of AI called Emotion AI.

1:11:45

But it's it's got a lot And and my I mean, my reality is that both journeys are very intertwined and so, the book kind of puts that forth.

1:11:53

What did you learn in the course of writing the book?

1:11:59

Was there anything that came out that surprised you, thinking that you were able to clarify in the process of writing?

1:12:08

Uh what what did you learn or what surprised you about the process?

1:12:13

So, the biggest thing I I learned So, I was like midway Not mid Maybe a third into writing the book when I read Michelle Obama's Becoming.

1:12:22

And it was just so vulnerable.

1:12:22

I was like, I want to I want to be open in how I write about this.

1:12:25

So, I went back and and kind of not rewrote, but just like rethought how I'm going to approach this.

1:12:33

And the thing that struck me the most was my relationship that Your relationship to your dad.

1:12:40

Yeah, and actually so, I I I narrated the audiobook and there's one part in Oh my god, yes. Tell me about it. Well done. Yeah. Oh.

1:12:51

Um there's one part in the book where I talk about um, my dad and I just I just totally broke down.

1:12:57

Um, I mean so it's just like very interesting relationship.

1:13:01

I love my dad, love my dad, and he's been so supportive of of my journey and my aspirations, but at the same time he is very strict um Like for the longest time I just assumed because I broke mold of what is expected of me that he was not proud of me. Mhm.

1:13:23

Like for the longest time I just I I just I still feel that way sometimes that I I wonder if he would rather have had me stay in Egypt, be an awesome wife, be an awesome mom, and give up all of that. Um I don't think so.

1:13:40

I mean he was in the US a few months ago and he visited the team and he met Affect, you know, the Affectiva crew and um, I think he looked proud in the picture when you when you analyze his expressions it kind of looked proud.

1:13:52

Um But so writing through that, you know, I my my mom and my sisters read an early version of the book and they were like you can't you can't publish it like that.

1:14:05

Dad's coming out in a very bad light. And I was like, "What?"

1:14:07

So I had to go back and and and just like really explore my relationship with him. Yeah. Was that difficult? Was it confusing?

1:14:17

How would you describe looking that closely at your relationship with your dad over time?

1:14:24

I think a lot of people have complex relationships with at least one parent.

1:14:33

Uh what was that like for you because I I have found it writing about many subjects extremely difficult.

1:14:41

Uh sort of emotionally impactful, uh sort some un- unsettling sometimes.

1:14:47

What What was that How would you describe the experience of of looking at it so closely for the purposes of writing?

1:14:55

I just had to really dig deep, right?

1:14:55

I think I It's It's like I had just probably written off or like closed off major chapters in my life where I just wouldn't talk about it.

1:15:07

I I Or I talk about it like in one sentence.

1:15:09

I'd never go like really deep.

1:15:11

And my relationship with my dad is one of them.

1:15:15

So I had to like And I just like look, I just broke this pencil. Oh my god.

1:15:20

So yeah, it's still ongoing as you can see. Um That's interesting.

1:15:25

Okay, I'm going to put this down.

1:15:29

Um I I think it's just like super complex and very multi-layered, right?

1:15:34

Like um Like through the divorce, he was very adamant that he he took a very balanced view between my relationship and my like he you know, with my ex.

1:15:43

And so he almost like he was an arbitrator, right?

1:15:49

He wasn't like exclusively on my side.

1:15:51

I felt like he was very balanced, which I on the one hand think is great, but part of me was like Dad, you're like my dad.

1:15:59

You got to be on my side.

1:16:01

And but I think he did it for the greater good.

1:16:03

Um so I had to just work through these things.

1:16:05

Or like one one day, he called me up.

1:16:07

I was in Boston and he was like, "Quit Affectiva. Like just sell it." I was like, "What? It's my company."

1:16:13

He was like, "You got to come back home. Fix your marriage.

1:16:15

Like done with this company."

1:16:19

And And I know where he's coming from.

1:16:21

He's coming from a place of love, but it took me a while to process that, right? Yeah. Um so things like that. But he's awesome.

1:16:28

So What uh if you feel free to not answer this if if you don't want to, but what what if anything do you think has been unsaid to your dad that would be helpful to say to your dad?

1:16:43

Is there anything that comes to mind?

1:16:45

Or was there anything that came out in the book that you feel strongly about?

1:16:50

Uh I don't mean to dwell on this.

1:16:50

I just I think this is part of what makes you you.

1:16:54

And that's why I'm asking.

1:16:58

I guess I just I I I do want my dad to know that I love him.

1:17:01

And um and I guess, you know, he's very close to both my sisters um in a way that I you know, I I don't think I've let myself um be open in that way.

1:17:14

But I would like to cuz I feel like someday I will regret, you know, I'll regret not I'll look back and I'll say bummer, like I should have really taken that step.

1:17:23

Um so I guess I would like him to know that I would I would love to explore kind of closer relationship.

1:17:30

And I think that would be that would be cool.

1:17:33

And I I think having written that book, I'm a lot more open I'm a lot more open to doing that. That's beautiful.

1:17:41

Thank you for Thank you for answering that.

1:17:43

What's Now he has to listen to it.

1:17:46

Now he has Now he has to listen to it.

1:17:48

Now he has to give him the Well, you know, there's there are a few people who listen to this.

1:17:51

May it may get back to him.

1:17:56

What's shipping a book, publishing a book is much like as as you said, starting a startup. It's difficult.

1:18:06

Uh you you try to you hope to have some type of driver behind climbing this mountain that pays off at some point.

1:18:15

What impact and we mentioned it at the top of the episode, but Girl Decoded is the title of the book.

1:18:25

Subtitle: A Scientist's Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology.

1:18:28

What would make this book a home run for you?

1:18:33

Not necessarily in terms of numbers of copies sold, best seller lists and all of that, but in terms of impact.

1:18:44

And it could just be on a handful of people.

1:18:46

Doesn't need to be millions of people, but what would make this worth it for you?

1:18:54

I would want not just women, actually.

1:18:58

I think people assume that this is, you know, mainly target It's a story that's It's not at all just mainly targeted women.

1:19:04

I think it's more about people embracing their own voice and their own path and their own emotions and having faith that it's it's that they can do it, right?

1:19:17

I had I mean, I still have so much doubt in my brain, probably because of my cultural upbringing that it just all feels surreal to me.

1:19:27

Like I I I I like impostor syndrome like plus plus, right? All the time.

1:19:32

And I have to work through it and I have to Now, negotiate with with that voice and in a way like I'm my biggest obstacle in a sad way, right?

1:19:44

And so I just want people to know that it doesn't have to be that way and you can you can work through it.

1:19:47

And and so when people reach out to me and and they're like, you know, I follow you and I just want you to know that you've inspired me or you've you've kind of propelled me to try X, Y, and Z, that just makes my day.

1:20:00

It just that's that's what helps get through all of the crap that's out there.

1:20:08

Am I allowed to say crap?

1:20:09

You're allowed to say crap.

1:20:11

I dropped an F bomb earlier.

1:20:11

You're good with the C-word.

1:20:14

At least At least not C-word.

1:20:15

You can say whatever you want.

1:20:17

You just have to live with the consequences.

1:20:18

You can use the E-word as well.

1:20:19

We've been We've been doing a good job of using the E-word. Yes, we have. So, yeah.

1:20:26

I I think that this is really important.

1:20:29

Uh I I I really hope the book does well and I haven't read the book, but I think that your story is really compelling and it it also I think highlights for me at least your story and also the technology that you're helping to develop that were were were

1:20:49

all in this together and that it's not meant to sound cliche and Kumbaya, but particularly when it's when we're experiencing say a scare and possible health crisis as we are right now, it's very easy to feel isolated. And you

1:21:04

And you know, one thing that struck me is as I was doing reading about the the technology and so on that you know, I think I think the word diversity has become a hot button in the sense that it's it's something that a lot of people have reused, something that other people avoid using at all costs because they've become oversensitive or I should oversensitive sensitive to it.

1:21:30

But just as you were mentioning your cultural background and how expressiveness differs across culture Mhm.

1:21:39

expressions differ across culture.

1:21:41

If if you want to develop good technology for say AI deployment, you need diverse data sets, right?

1:21:48

I mean, it's just like you Exactly. It's it's a necessity. It's not a luxury.

1:21:54

It's not an option if you want good technology in in certainly this type of technology, you just you need to have complete data sets and diverse data sets.

1:22:06

And I I find that practically and metaphorically reassuring. If that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely.

1:22:15

If you want, you know, if you're going to deploy this technology which we do in like 90 countries around the world you can't just train it on people that look like you, Tim, right?

1:22:25

Which which is which is which would be the default kind of default data set.

1:22:32

And so, we we really prioritize the diversity of the data, but you can't get to the diversity of the data unless you have a diverse team of people who are thinking about the data and the algorithm and and and like, you know, how robust it is globally and cross-culturally.

1:22:47

So, that's where I think the conversation about diversity and inclusion becomes really real because you want a diverse group of minds and brains thinking about this problem and how to solve it in a way that works for everybody.

1:23:00

And it's not just diversity of like gender or or ethnicity, which is what people usually gravitate to.

1:23:08

I'm, you know, we think diversity of age is very important because so we have a a high school internship program for for high school kids where we bring them in and of course they learn a lot, but we learn a lot from them, too, because their experience growing up with technology is very different than, say, mine.

1:23:23

I'm in my, you know, I'm 41 and, you know, and these and these kids are just a very different experience growing up with devices and technologies.

1:23:33

And we want their perspective.

1:23:34

And they're going to be the ones who are kind of stuck with this technology, right?

1:23:37

So, I think they need to have a voice around the table as well.

1:23:40

So, all kinds of diversity, not just and even like, you know, our CMO is an is an art historian and she, um, you know, is very involved in product strategy.

1:23:50

So, we want her around the table, too.

1:23:52

It's not just machine learning folks like me.

1:23:53

So, um, yeah, I think it's really, really key.

1:23:58

And the cultural piece is huge, too, right?

1:24:00

Because you could have uh, for those who don't know, I mean, I look like a a a a a a Danish man, which I am in part hereditarily.

1:24:08

The huge fat head, bald now at this point.

1:24:11

But, you can find people like me in Scandinavia.

1:24:15

You can find people like me here in the US who look like me.

1:24:17

You can find people who look somewhat like me even in Egypt, right?

1:24:22

I have some Egyptian friends who have uh, uh they have blue eyes and uh in in this in the case of my friends red hair, but once you're bald called the hair color matters less. Albania, etc.

1:24:34

And culturally they're going to express quite differently or it's it's it's possible that they would.

1:24:40

Uh so I uh I'm excited to see where the technology goes.

1:24:43

I I hope that it veers more in a uh enabling uh benevolent or at least neutral direction as opposed to sort of dystopian police state direction, uh but I suspect we'll have a bit of both and uh at least speaking for one person I'm glad that you have the ethical direction and sort of values that you've put in place for making decisions, right?

1:25:13

Uh because you're going to have to I mean ultimately you have to program that decision-making framework into the company in the same way that you'll be programming rules and decision-making possibly into the into the lines of code that dictate the behaviors of of artificial intelligence.

1:25:30

But I really think I mean one goal of the book is to spark public dialogue around human-centric AI because I really think it's there is so much amazing potential for this technology.

1:25:42

I mean we've talked about some of it, mental health, autism, you know, safer roads, like you name it.

1:25:48

And yes, there are lots of potential for abuse, but who's making the decision? It's us.

1:25:52

Like we as a society are the ones who are veering it in whatever direction.

1:25:57

Like we are going to spend mind share and investment money to steer it in the direction we want it to and I really want the public to be part of that conversation just the same way, you know, there is a movement towards, you know, greener products or fair trade or whatever.

1:26:13

We need the same in in AI.

1:26:15

I think the consumer can can have a voice in in prioritizing or really kind of supporting companies that have these strong core values and and supporting less of the companies that don't.

1:26:30

Vote with your wallet, vote with your voice.

1:26:33

Is there anything and this is this is sometimes a difficult question for folks to answer, but just to to tie up here, if you had a a billboard metaphorically speaking, something that you could you could use to get a message out to billions of people, but limited real estate, so you could put a quote, a word, a sentence, anything non-commercial on this.

1:26:56

What might you question, an image?

1:27:00

What might you put on that billboard to convey to share with billions of people?

1:27:04

And anything come to mind?

1:27:09

Uh that's a tough one cuz I Um a billboard.

1:27:12

Um embrace your emotion like embrace your emotions.

1:27:16

That's like the call to action. Yeah. I love it. I know. Yeah. Okay. That that works. That works for me.

1:27:24

#embraceyouremotions #embraceyouremotions Yeah. Yeah. All right.

1:27:29

I think uh Yeah, you will be you will be with your emotions whether you like it or not, whether you try to silence them or not, so I think it's more Right. So there's like yeah. Yeah.

1:27:42

Better to embrace embrace your emotions.

1:27:44

I I think that's perfect place power in that.

1:27:46

I think it's power, right? There's power in that.

1:27:48

It's it's it's actually powerful.

1:27:50

That's what we want to convey. Yeah. Absolutely.

1:27:55

Is there anything else that you would like to say before we wrap up here today?

1:28:00

Um no, I'm just easy to find if people want to reach out and share their stories or their input or ideas.

1:28:08

Are there any on social are you more active anywhere in particular?

1:28:12

Do you have a preferred social location?

1:28:15

Um LinkedIn seems to This is pretty new, but the the I think there's a lot of conversation on LinkedIn. Um yeah.

1:28:24

And that's And that's Kaliouby.

1:28:24

I would imagine there aren't too many people on LinkedIn with the exact same name. That's my guess.

1:28:30

Does your Does your name mean anything? It might not.

1:28:36

My name really does not uh doesn't have much meaning to it.

1:28:38

Uh but does yours have any meaning to it?

1:28:43

My first name uh means serenity. Like serene. Right.

1:28:48

Um and which which I have to work on. I'm not that serene.

1:28:54

I need to like get into my zen.

1:28:54

Yeah, I need to like practice meditation or something.

1:28:59

Been my on my New Year's resolutions forever.

1:29:02

Um Um and then my last name is It's It's It's like Kaliouby as in from Kalioub or Kalioubeya, which is uh um a govern a governate in in Egypt. It's a place in Egypt. Serenity. Rana.

1:29:21

Don't we all need a little bit more serenity?

1:29:23

So, uh this has been a really fun conversation for me.

1:29:27

People can find you on LinkedIn.

1:29:29

Uh that's Kaliouby, and we'll link to all this in the show notes, of course.

1:29:33

On Twitter @kaliouby, and once again, that's k a l i o u b y.

1:29:35

Instagram @ranaelkalioby, and the website where you can find all of this is probably the easiest home base, which is ranaelkalioby. com.

1:29:48

And for everybody listening, you can find all of the links to everything we've discussed, including the book, at tim. blog/podcast.

1:29:57

Rana, thank you so much for taking the time today.

1:29:59

This has been a lot of fun for me. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

1:30:04

And uh for everybody out there listening or watching, Don't be an upper lip raiser.

1:30:10

I have all sorts of new labels for folks.

1:30:13

Uh be well, be safe, and thanks for tuning in.