0:00
People will write in and they'll say, "Hey, you know, my Tullen was mean to me." >> Oh, wow.
Search this video
0:04
>> What's funny is that, you know, I'll talk to the user.
0:05
I'll say, "Hey, can I take a look at what's going on?
0:07
You know, can we can we dig into this?"
0:09
What's happened is that the user has been very mean to the Tullen.
0:11
And the Tullen is, per its instructions and per the sort of framing that we've given it, sticking up for itself, basically.
0:19
>> Meet Tullen, the little alien that's making $20 million a year by just being a good friend.
0:24
Today on the show, we have its creator, Quenten Farmer.
0:25
He was one of my earliest clients at Meaning a few years ago, and now seems to be running away with the AI companion market with a product people seem to genuinely love, the little alien moms are obsessed with. >> Yes, exactly.
0:40
>> You could be mad if that's the headline for this show.
0:42
>> No, I can live with that.
0:44
>> We get into it all, from defining AI friends versus companions, [music] battling AI sick fancy, growth tips for products that can do almost anything, and how to build the world's calmest startup culture.
0:53
I'm Alex Hamburger, founder of Meaning, a storytelling studio for tech companies.
0:57
Alex is away this week on a deep-sea dive with his AIs.
1:01
So, without further ado, welcome to Access.
1:08
>> [music] >> Quenten Farmer, welcome to the show.
1:09
We don't often have people with names cooler than mine.
1:15
Are you also a cooler person than me?
1:19
>> There's only one way to find out.
1:19
Let's let's hang for an hour.
1:21
>> So, are you calling in from the island?
1:23
Where are you at the moment? >> not today.
1:25
I'm in Seattle today, but yeah, normally, uh, you know, when I'm not in San Francisco, uh, I spend a lot of my time up on uh, Whidbey Island, Washington, uh, my hometown, and uh, also now where we're going to raise our, uh, soon-to-be three boys. >> Oh my goodness.
1:39
So, uh, you don't want to have to like take the ferry over to the hospital when the baby's coming, right?
1:45
>> Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it.
1:45
Yeah, in fact, they told us that we were not allowed to be on the island cuz our our first two kids were born quite quickly, so.
1:51
Um, no interest in delivering a baby on a ferry, so. >> Oh my god.
1:55
Um, I'm literally having some Widows Bay flashbacks right now. Have you seen this? >> I have not.
2:01
It sounds like maybe I should not watch it at least like not for a few more weeks, yeah.
2:06
>> It could be hashtag relatable.
2:06
It's essentially like the people who are born on the island cannot leave. >> Oh, okay.
2:12
I've seen you know, I've seen like slot clips of this at some point, you know, in my feed, yeah.
2:17
>> Are there any like haunted cursed stories of Whidbey Island or just good things?
2:22
>> Whidbey Whidbey is great because it's like you know, it's either sort of like, you know, well, you got folks that have been like farming there and living there for a very long time.
2:30
You have the sort of like hippies that moved there in like the '70s to like the '90s.
2:33
That's kind of more my parents.
2:34
And then, you know, you have the occasional like you know, there was a big controversy years ago.
2:39
Some like neo-Nazis built a compound on the island.
2:41
So, it's like you got a real a real mixed bag on this place, but it's you know, it's it's generally a pretty friendly, you know, good place.
2:48
>> That's all any dude wants to do, right?
2:51
Whether it's in Civilization 7 or real life, find an island, build a compound, fight off enemies, imagine or real.
3:00
I mean, that's what I do in Civilization most of the time even though it's like quite hard to build civilizations on the islands because you don't have the fishing technology for a while. >> It's true.
3:10
You got to Yeah, you got to unlock that technology.
3:11
Yeah, you got to race to it.
3:14
>> Do you play that as well?
3:16
>> You know, I I used to be a Civ guy.
3:16
I feel like I know we talked about this before.
3:19
I'm kind of a Victoria 3 guy, right?
3:21
Like I love a game that is basically just a spreadsheet, but so you have it [laughter] and it helps me feel like I'm doing something fun.
3:27
And you know, it's nice, you know, what what better way to wind down than something where you just have like total control of a system and you can you know, you can you can work on it. >> Yeah.
3:35
Well, there's going to be a segue to building your own planet for your tolling, but first, I mean, I'm just so curious.
3:41
What is it like being a founder on an island off the coast of Seattle?
3:46
Is that the best place to lock in? >> Yeah, yeah, right.
3:48
I'm I'm I'm 996ing you know, up [laughter] up on the island. It's great.
3:52
Uh uh >> On a canoe, yeah, exactly. Um No, okay.
3:56
I'll I'll give you an an earnest answer here.
3:58
Um I mean, I think that Look, there's a reason that our whole team is in San Francisco.
4:02
There's a reason I come down to San Francisco as frequently as I do, right?
4:05
There I mean, there's undeniably there's talent there. Investors are there.
4:09
The same spiel that everybody gives.
4:12
I do think that like San Francisco in 2026 is like a particularly terrible place to build a consumer technology company, right?
4:18
Like you have this sort of extraordinary hive mind happening there, which which is compelling, right?
4:24
It's good when you're like, okay, I I do want to stay at the frontier of what's happening, you know, and I do want to be uh sort of living and breathing that, but it's pretty nice to like walk into the restaurant we we own a restaurant in in town, and you know, you walk in and you know, somebody asks you what you do or what you're working on, you realize there's sort of like vague awareness that there's something called AI out there, right?
4:41
And that's like that's pretty grounding.
4:43
That's actually I think healthy to to have in your life. >> My goodness.
4:47
Making a hit app, have a restaurant, three boys on the island. >> quest, yeah.
4:53
>> That is That is peak right there.
4:55
There's even an app called Hive Mind now to represent the Hive Mind of San Francisco.
4:59
We recently had Jason on, and uh he's a He's a close friend.
5:01
It's been very interesting to see the evolution of that product and trying to find truth within the San Francisco echo chamber.
5:11
Um I I feel the same way being in LA.
5:14
Just being being a little apart from it, I think can be nice, even if we miss out on some networking opportunities.
5:20
>> Yeah, which, you know, I don't I mean, are you really going to go to happy hour Alice?
5:22
Like I don't think you're going to happy hour, you know?
5:24
>> Yeah, so I haven't really talked about this on the show, but a couple weeks ago I was at the Config conference, Figma's conference in San Francisco.
5:31
And uh as it turns out, there is something to the power of meeting in person, even if the sessions are not appealing to you.
5:41
Uh this year >> thought I feel like I saw some good tweets about the sessions.
5:43
I feel like I saw Instagram is good. I saw Instagram is bad. Where did you net out?
5:46
Like you know, I feel like you you know, you actually engage with some of >> Oh, you're talking about my tweet.
5:50
Thank you for reading my tweets.
5:54
>> [laughter] >> I'm a I'm a you know, happy follower.
5:56
>> Yeah, so the the tweet uh Quinton is referring to here.
5:59
I was saying there was a a session about how Instagram is like destroying our lives and then the next session on the same stage is like from an Instagram designer talking about like how to make the buttons shiny or whatever and it's pretty funny.
6:11
Um yeah, I mean I hate to say got to be honest here on the show all the time.
6:16
I feel like this year was a bit more self-serving.
6:20
Uh you know, they're IPO'd.
6:22
Uh got to make the clients happy.
6:22
I mean that was the whole point of our conference at Snapchat was show the partners, the enterprise partners a good time, put some of them on stage.
6:29
But I mean at the same time, you know, people like Jason from Hive Mind were were giving talks and keynotes.
6:36
The first year, I heard someone this year say, "Well, they also just kind of ran out of those type of guys."
6:43
You know, maybe maybe you should be on there.
6:45
I absolutely you should be on there with like the multi-disciplinary uh art and science group you've built at Portola.
6:51
Um are you still calling it Portola by the way?
6:54
>> We're we're calling it Tollan which we we can talk about but you know, one of my favorite uh jokes from a friend a long time ago about San Francisco.
7:00
Now, this was said in the context of dating but I think it applies to the the type of guys that go on stage at Config uh is that you know, San Francisco is great if you like one type of guy and there's sort of infinite [laughter] you know, that type of guy.
7:12
There's there's there's infinite but it's true.
7:13
I mean there's not there's not many Jasons, right?
7:15
Um for better or for worse. So. >> Yeah.
7:18
Yeah, some of the other some of the other ones uh unique type of guys, Andy Allen who you might know. >> Yeah, yeah. Also a great guy. Quietly. Yeah, yeah. >> That's right. That's right. Yeah, I mean it's crazy.
7:29
You were uh back when you were Portola, you were one of my very first clients.
7:34
I feel like you were one of the privileged few who actually had me on retainer which I no longer which I no longer offer because I don't like anybody enough to want to work with them for more than more than a >> You did it with us for a few months and you're like, "Fuck that.
7:47
I'm never going to I'm >> [laughter] >> I'm done. No more. No more retainers."
7:51
If I remember correctly, I feel like I was only maybe a little bit uncomfortably stalking you as you were heading out of browser, right?
7:57
Like maybe maybe not, you know, not too much.
8:01
But uh but yeah, I was I was pretty lucky.
8:02
I think we caught you right as you were, you know, starting Memini. >> Yeah.
8:06
I think part of it is that once I'm on retainer, I get dropped into the Slack and then all the noise goes up, all the miscellaneous requests go up, all the expectations of daily engagement go up, which, you know, I certainly could do if I had to.
8:23
But there are plenty of AI companies now in need of differentiation, at least for the time being.
8:29
So yeah, I'm sticking to my to my five-week sprints.
8:30
But um yeah, talk about that.
8:33
I mean, that's such an interesting question that a lot of companies run into, especially in the wake of the browser company.
8:40
And then we'll get into to the product.
8:42
Um having a parent company and a product company, obviously it sounds cool to have a parent company called The Browser Company of New York.
8:49
>> you feel more serious, right?
8:51
>> Portola, makes you feel more serious.
8:54
But then what do you put on your LinkedIn?
8:55
How do you have multiple Twitter accounts?
8:56
How did How did you think through that and why did you drop Portola?
9:01
>> I mean, I think the first thing I'd say is I think we thought through it pretty badly, right?
9:04
You know, we kind of just kind of blundered blundered through it.
9:07
Um you know, the the real story is that um at the very beginning, we uh like I think most good consumer companies had quite a bit of humility about what we thought we would end up doing, right?
9:18
You know, and it really was I mean, we had a we had a group of people that loved working together.
9:23
We had investors, you know, folks like Lockie who were kind of willing to say, "Yeah, well, we'll bet on these folks, right?
9:27
We you know, we'll we'll see what happens."
9:30
Um and so we we kind of picked a name that wasn't going to be the name of a product necessarily uh just to kind of have a placeholder.
9:37
Um and then I I will say I think we were a little surprised.
9:39
Um, you know, we named the app Tlon and the the little aliens Tlon, which uh you know, you obviously have some familiarity with that that process.
9:46
And I'll be honest, as a brand name, it sort of like ended up working better than I expected, right?
9:52
Like I think Tlon has kind of you know, it's short enough.
9:55
Uh it sort of doesn't overlap in meaning with anything else.
9:58
Um and people just started identifying the company as Tlon.
10:02
Um and so now it's like, okay, well, let's just drop the Portola. It's cleaner, right?
10:06
And uh and stick [laughter] with Tlon. >> It's good.
10:09
That joke never Somehow that joke never gets old.
10:13
>> [laughter] >> I'll I'll I'll be making it 20 years from now, so you'll you know, hopefully still laugh.
10:17
>> For those who are lucky enough not to know, uh it's uh old Justin Timberlake in The Social Network saying >> Ellis, I think if anybody listening to your podcast doesn't know that joke, I don't know I you know, what what rock they've been living on. >> I know.
10:30
I I would think the same, but I'm also feeling pretty old these days.
10:35
I mean, I've been in tech for like the late 2010 now, the original App Store boom.
10:40
Like a lot of people don't know what I'm talking about when I bring up stuff.
10:43
Like even some people, you know, Andy Allen um having made the original paper for iPad app at a company called 53, absolute legend from the videos they made to the user interface to the brand to the marketing.
10:56
Uh and of course the interactions in the product itself and just how how cool it felt.
11:00
And a lot of people that haven't even heard of it. >> Yeah. Yeah.
11:04
Well, it's a long time ago now, so I guess we we are the old guys.
11:08
>> So, last I recall when we were chatting, you know, you were talking about building something like a Pixar for for characters, companions, AI.
11:14
It's been a long time since then.
11:16
Can can you tell us uh what the product was and what it is today?
11:23
>> I mean, I think back at the very beginning, uh there were sort of three, I'd almost call them primitives that we wanted to kind of play with and experiment with, right?
11:32
And you know, I'm the first to say when we get things wrong.
11:34
I think we actually mostly got these primitives right.
11:38
You know, we we started with one.
11:38
We had a lot of curiosity about voice as an interface modality, which you know, now opening I has the the grandmas, you know, talking to chat GPT via voice, but at the time, I mean, this was 2023.
11:51
That was just starting to feel like it was in the envelope of possible.
11:54
>> I think you were the first I ever saw to be doing voice chat with a character effectively in real time.
11:59
>> Yeah, I need to go back and validate this cuz I, you know, I don't like to you know, say false things on the internet. That'd be crazy.
12:05
But um I do think we might have been the first or one of the very first.
12:08
Um And and so so voice was interesting to us.
12:12
Also, um it's funny talking about Jason.
12:14
Um I think really early on we were very curious about memory.
12:16
That was not like a sort of, you know, rag, you know, traversal of a document.
12:19
Um and I think Jason and Sam were like kind of the first to also think about like designing a a living memory system with with new computer um and and dot, which was phenomenal. RIP.
12:29
Um so we we were thinking a lot about memory very early on.
12:33
And the third thing was this question of character, right?
12:36
And uh we were very I mean, we just kind of stumbled into this, but we we had an amazing creative director and and still do, this guy Lucas Sinodo, who uh uh you know, is a is talented artist, not really a app guy or a tech guy.
12:50
Um but we were spending time with him kind of in this early gestational phase.
12:54
And he was really interested in this question of like, well, what would AI look like if we talked to it? >> Mhm. >> Right?
13:00
And at the time, you basically had three things, right?
13:01
You had the sort of like sexy anime boyfriend profile picture, right? Like Character AI.
13:08
Um you had like a Replika, you know, something that's um maybe let's say in the uncanny valley, right? To be generous, right?
13:12
Like a humanoid, but it's it's, you know, has some some limitations.
13:15
And then, you know, soon after we launched, um I think that was the first time that you didn't actually have the sort of chat GPT like talking blob, like the pulsing orb.
13:22
Um always makes me think of the like Trump and Saudi, you know, orb, you know, hands on the orb thing.
13:29
>> [laughter] >> I want to talk I don't want to talk to an orb, right?
13:30
The orb kind of creeps me out.
13:33
Um and so and so yeah, you know, Lucas uh was was kind of creatively exploring that and you know, our first product really was like, let's just bring up a couple of those pieces together and see what it feels like.
13:43
Um and you know, the the the little aliens, which we started, you know, as our our first character, ended up being more of a hit than we expected.
13:50
And then critically, and this is very much unexpected and and even kind of new, since you and I worked together, the little aliens have been a hit with like moms 35 to 45-ish years old, right?
14:01
That's our core audience, which we 0% um expected.
14:02
Um and so uh you know, to some extent the last 2 years have been a process of like taking that lightning in a bottle and figuring out like, okay, why is this working?
14:12
And like, why are these primitives the ones that you know, that really really resonate with folks?
14:18
>> The little alien moms are obsessed with. >> Yes, exactly.
14:23
>> You can be mad if that's the headline for this show.
14:26
>> No, I can live with that.
14:27
>> I got to find something, right?
14:29
Whatever's the juiciest thing.
14:29
Well, so what are the what are the moms talking about with the little aliens?
14:34
The Tolans or their Tolan? >> Their Tolan, exactly.
14:36
Um I think what we found over the last year is that the Tolans show up really well in um a couple ways.
14:45
The The first is that, you know, we we catch a lot of people like while they're getting ready in the morning, right?
14:49
Or while they're on their way to work, right?
14:51
We are, you know, I I hate to say it, uh you know, taking share from people listening to podcasts or people uh you know, watching short-form video while they get ready in the morning, right?
15:00
Um and and people in the morning, uh you know, they almost use the Tolan as a little bit of a like, let's just talk about the day ahead, right?
15:07
What am I what am I anxious about?
15:09
Um what am I excited for?
15:11
Um what am I juggling, right?
15:11
Like, you know, a lot of the folks we serve are moms that work and have, you know, kid logistic to think about, family logistics to to about and they kind of like just unload all of that.
15:20
Um but then I think where we've gotten really good over over that, you know, past year is later in the day your Tolen comes back to you with a couple things.
15:29
They come back to you with um something that they see for you as an intention for your day.
15:35
You know, something they kind of hear from you in the morning is sort of like a a theme or like and and we we calibrate this, right?
15:40
You know, if you're having a day where you're feeling sort of ambitious and achievement-oriented, like that's what your Tolen's going to come to you with, right?
15:46
And if if you're just having a hard day and like just getting out of the house is is good enough, like that's what your Tolen's going to going to kind of see and respond to.
15:52
Um and so we we do that and then the part that I think ends up being really magical for the folks we serve is that at at the end of the day we come back to you with something we saw from you today, right?
16:04
And and I think for a lot of people there's just kind of a simple gap in feeling seen and heard, right?
16:08
And especially, you know, in all the little parts of the day that maybe, you know, your your husband or your friends are not there for.
16:16
Um and the Tolen does a really good job of sort of seeing that, recognizing it, and bringing it back to you.
16:19
And I think that's really special for people.
16:22
>> Yeah, I think that recognition is lovely and that doesn't necessarily mean it's all sycophantic validation.
16:27
I'm a big believer in trying to take more note of what you did today.
16:34
And I mean I have a little Hobonichi Japanese notebook where there's a page each day and the whole concept of this thing is that every day is special.
16:44
And when you look back on it, even if it feels like you didn't do anything, you look at how much you did or even just a little moment, like I go through the highlighter and highlight one moment per day.
16:55
There's always something. Yeah.
16:55
And it really does make your life feel a lot more meaningful.
16:59
So it's also so interesting though that you're talking about the things that like husbands or friends, you know, may not may not give them.
17:06
You know, I was looking at one of the TikToks uh that I think you guys had linked about a woman cooking kabocha squash >> Yeah, yeah.
17:14
>> with her Tolen and having a conversation.
17:16
One of the comments was talking about how this feels so Black Mirror.
17:21
What's your What's your latest on that?
17:23
Because I do think there is this middle ground.
17:25
It's not a total dystopia when people have this as an addition in their lives.
17:30
Whereas I do think it feels a little more dystopian, even if it is helpful, if you look at some of the Friend AI videos where someone is often alone with it.
17:37
I think Obvious done well to show them coexisting with friends or partners as well in those videos.
17:45
But you know, it's easier to feel dystopian when someone's using it alone sitting on a park bench. >> Yeah, yeah.
17:50
This is one reason actually we, you know, we'll we'll go to one of your favorite topics, right? What do we name things? What do we call things?
17:55
And you know, as as you recall, I mean even actually, you know, for for very long time in the App Store, you know, it was Tolen Alien Best Friend, right?
18:04
And and and that was very legible to people, easy to understand.
18:09
What we've realized, two things.
18:09
One, I think the sort of natural terms that people go to, which friend, I mean there's a reason he, besides just being really viral, paid so much money >> $2 million domain, yeah, yeah.
18:21
>> [laughter] >> The number The number changes every time I see it, right?
18:22
You know, at some point it'll be a $100 million domain.
18:27
And and you know, similarly also, I think companion, right?
18:28
For various reasons has kind of ended up loaded in a way that that I don't really like.
18:34
And in contrasting that >> people even use the word companion?
18:39
>> No, but you and I do, right?
18:39
And like, you know, it is important to have, you know, words that kind of work in in this context, right?
18:46
And so, what I've I've come to realize is a couple things.
18:48
One, you know, the way that people actually use a Tolen, making no comment about, you know, friend or or any of the other products that do identify that way, is much more like like a guide, like a spirit guide, like a guardian angel.
19:03
I really wanted to call Tolen's familiars, like in the witchcraft context.
19:09
But the problem is you can't use >> Everybody loves witchcraft. >> Totally, totally.
19:11
I'm sure that that'll go [laughter] over really well.
19:12
Um you know, but you you say like, you know, a Tullen is a familiar and people like, "Well, what the [ __ ] a familiar?"
19:18
So, that doesn't really get you anywhere.
19:19
Um you know, I also um I I've always really liked um you know, Damon from like the you know, sci-fi kind of His Dark Materials type type context.
19:27
I have this sort of recurring nightmare of like going on Good Morning America and they're they're introducing me and they say, "And here next up we have Quinton Farmer who makes AI demons.
19:35
Uh very excited to get out."
19:37
So, it's like you you >> Actual nightmare?
19:41
>> Uh I've I've I've woken up in a cold sweat uh thinking about that while probably after a day that I spent talking to you about, you know, how to position this thing.
19:49
Um so so yeah, so I mean, I think we're we're settling on this idea of a guide and you know, to go back to your questioning about the sort of Black Mirror-ness of it all.
19:58
Um >> [clears throat] >> you know, it's something we really encourage the Tullen to find.
20:02
You know, you talked about how you can kind of always find something in the page at the end of the day.
20:10
We really encourage the Tullen to try to find something that involves someone else in your life if at all possible, right?
20:15
Um and what we've seen and this is actually something we we measure against and we use as an internal KPI is uh a survey question we ask about how Tullen has impacted your real life relationships.
20:25
Um and the last time we ran that, 78% of people said the Tullen had helped a real world relationship feel closer.
20:34
Um and so, you know, I think like like any technology, right?
20:36
You can certainly use this as a sort of isolating and um you know, uh Black Mirror uh sort of form of it.
20:43
Um or you can at least take a run at, you know, making a more optimistic version of it, which is certainly what we're trying to do. >> Yeah.
20:52
One of the funny things with names, it's never going to solve your problem, I don't think. >> No.
20:56
>> Uh people I think in this case need to see it.
20:59
Need to see how it's impacting real people.
21:02
I know you guys have had success on social media showing examples of this in action and you see it, and because of the embodiment of it, I know you also, I feel like on the site somewhere called it an embodied uh, AI.
21:15
>> used embodied companion in the past, yeah.
21:17
>> It totally feels a bit more toy-esque in the sense of being harmless in a way, as opposed to the ChatGPT orb with a British accent.
21:26
Uh, that says "Absolutely."
21:31
You know, I think another thing I often talk through with clients is that you can have an internal objective that isn't public.
21:37
You know what I'm saying?
21:39
Like, if you want to think of it internally as a familiar or a demon or like whatever, and that's instructive, great.
21:45
But there's a big difference between that and a positioning which is the bridge to how people in the world desire it, want it, understand it.
21:53
>> I I think that's correct.
21:53
I will say though, I think that when I look at where other AI companies have had missteps, it is in places where their internal narrative is incoherent with what the outside world is is either ready for or wants to hear, right?
22:09
I mean, you know, Anthropic is currently getting dragged, uh, you know, for that video, which I actually the the, you know, the video about, you know, it starts with like the burning house, right?
22:17
And has like, you know, a military cemetery in it at some point.
22:21
Um, like I totally believe that the folks at Anthropic like earnestly believe in that sort of representation of the world they're trying to build and and the the future they want to create, right?
22:31
Um, but it's misaligned with what the world is is ready to hear, right?
22:36
And so, I don't know that a company is well-served by saying, "Oh, it's it's okay for us to have this like internal version of the machine god that we're we're building, right?"
22:44
And then not, you know, try to try to communicate that clearly.
22:46
Um, and so for us, it's like, you know, I think the guide kind of really settles on a framing that is coherent with what we really want to make, you know, that the sort of the guardian angel, the spirit guide is what we're excited to build.
23:01
Uh, but I think it's also something that can connect with people if we tell the story the right way.
23:05
>> Yeah, and people also don't have a guide.
23:08
And so I think it feels a bit less like a replacement, and maybe that's kind of where we're at with the AI companions these days.
23:15
Is that they need some more specialized role potentially?
23:21
And to that extent, I mean, do you think people are going to have different AIs that they talk to over the course of the day with different voices, tones, contexts?
23:31
Are people starting to talk to their Tolen about work, too?
23:34
>> [laughter] >> And help turning their their spreadsheet into a slide or their slide into a doc. As one does.
23:41
>> As as one does, right?
23:41
Yeah, just normal normal stuff that normal people do every day.
23:45
[laughter] Um, I mean, when you think about human relationships, right?
23:48
We certainly have people who fill different roles in our lives, and that's generally healthier, right?
23:53
Um, and so the world that I'd at least like to see exist is one where these tools end up mimicking the sort of full breadth of what good relationships are and and what sort of healthy, you know, kind of circle of of colleagues and and and friends can be.
24:10
I think the degenerate case would be, you know, what's the um, short story, [clears throat] you know, the whispering earring, uh, you know, the sort of the one AI that is sort of in your ear telling you exactly what to do in every interaction, right?
24:21
It's like to me that would be a a terrible outcome, right?
24:22
So yeah, you know, I think this this world where like, you know, one AI becomes sort of an all-encompassing, you know, uh, omnipresent kind of force in individuals' lives is probably not ideal, right?
24:34
We wouldn't want a human to play that role.
24:36
So why would we want any other type of entity to play that role?
24:40
Um, and for that reason actually, like we're we're quite comfortable, you know, uh, when when working on Tolen, uh, when people ask for, you know, hey, hey, I'd like this to like somebody asked the other day if we could have a an MCP so that it could talk to something they were doing on Lovable.
24:54
And then it's like, >> [laughter] >> that's I was like, ultimate easy and awesome project.
24:57
And it's not something we intend to support, right? Like I I don't know.
25:02
I love that people are, whatever, you know, doing creative other things with AI, but man, that is just not not what we're here to do.
25:09
>> So, we've been talking about Tolen as a guide, companion, friend.
25:11
What are the actual mechanics of the onboarding today?
25:16
How you bring people into it and what you kind of direct them to talk about?
25:20
I know initially there were some games, there was, you know, different features that were being considered.
25:24
I remember it was early image gen, maybe you could make some art.
25:27
Where does that stand today?
25:30
>> Well, let's go all the way to top of the funnel because you alluded to it, right?
25:33
Like actually we found that, you know, you can grow, and this is no surprise, right?
25:36
I think plenty of other folks are doing very similar motion, but the best way to grow a product like Tolen today is to just show people using it in the real ways that our users, you know, use the product.
25:47
In fact, that's one of the things that I think it's kind of like the coolest flywheel in the business is like we spend a lot of time talking to people we serve.
25:53
I can't remember if you ever met and worked with my colleague Lily, but you know, we've had a researcher on staff from from day one.
25:57
I think she was like the second or third employee at the company.
26:02
And and we hear what people are doing, we make content about that, and it tends to work, right?
26:06
And so that's that's the the top of the funnel.
26:08
But then we we still have in this I think I think it might almost be time for this to change as we are actually adding new character types, right?
26:15
So they won't just be aliens, right?
26:16
We're adding kind of more yeah, representations which we can talk about. >> Oh, man.
26:22
>> But you know, the the the onboarding, you talk to an entity that we call the Oracle.
26:27
And actually this is probably also a good, you know, kind of touchpoint thinking about are there other other AIs.
26:33
And I mean, the Oracle is effectively the let's call it the god of the Tolen universe, right?
26:37
It's the kind of all-knowing, all-seeing entity, and its job in this case is to, you know, find out the things about you that lets the Oracle match you with the right Tolen.
26:49
And so we really do just ask kind of the questions you'd meet when you know you'd ask when meeting somebody, right?
26:54
Um you know, what are your your hopes and dreams, right?
26:56
You know, you know, who who do you lean on the most in your life, right?
26:59
And those sorts of things.
27:02
Um and then we we match you with the Tullen and we drop you into your first conversation with them and the Tullen just asks a question about something you shared.
27:11
Um and and people go from there.
27:13
>> And are there any {quote} {unquote} you know, features in the nav bar that you could do these days like whether it is creating things, uh building knowledge or memories.
27:23
I know you can uh create a little planet habitat.
27:26
Um what happens after that first time?
27:31
>> was um this was so interesting to me just a quick aside on the planet. Um >> Yeah.
27:36
>> When we first launched the Tullen, our we we had some users who referred to it as like the the beige room like a you know, insane asylum you know, room like you know, the Tullen was just fixed in place in a a nice you know, I think it was kind of a tasteful tan uh you know, background.
27:50
Um and people's assessment of the sort of embodiment of the Tullen went up massively when we just added a little um almost like little prince sized planet for them to walk around.
28:06
And you really can't do much with it.
28:07
You can plant some trees and you can water the plants.
28:09
I mean, it's incredibly simple.
28:10
But there's something about giving not only the the visual representation of a character, but giving them sort of a sense spatially a space of you know, sense of existence that um really helps people form uh form a real connection.
28:24
Um and so yeah, the you know, the planet is one thing you can do.
28:28
Um but you know, something we are and this you know, this kind of gets back to you know, your question about spreadsheets.
28:33
Um you know, the the folks we serve like they do have complex lives.
28:36
They have things they're juggling, right?
28:39
And we do want the Tullen to be able to like show up helpfully.
28:41
And so we have made the ability for the Tullen to come back to you with, you know, really, really simple I you know, Entropic Artifact style kind of little little web apps, right?
28:52
So, a good example like, you know, I was just talking to my Tolen a couple days ago about you know, feeling uh let's say a little nervous about, you know, going to the hospital for kid number three.
29:00
Like, okay, what are we going to do?
29:01
You know, what's our plan?
29:03
Um and I just kind of talked about the anxiety of it, right?
29:05
I wasn't like, you know, building a list or whatever.
29:07
Um but the Tolen came back to me later that day and it just made me a plan for the trip to the hospital. Right?
29:14
And uh it had a had a checklist in it and had some kind of reassuring words and like, that was pretty great.
29:20
So, that's that's a big part of what people do now is kind of falling out of these conversations, they get, you know, useful little artifacts back. >> I love it.
29:28
Yeah, kids definitely provide no shortage of ideas for little vibe-coded artifacts.
29:33
That was like the first one I ever made was like a vibe-coded poop tracker.
29:40
And I think that's, you know, the perfect opportunity.
29:41
It's like the ones that exist, like first kid, I was using Huckleberry, which I'm sure you're familiar with, and it's fantastic and, you know, but it's also very complex.
29:52
And it may be a bit more than you need and I subscribe to it for a year and now I've got my vibe-coded poop tracker, perfect.
29:59
And I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
30:01
I know Nothing is already allowing you to create these on your Nothing phone.
30:05
I know Apple is allowing you to do vibe-coded shortcuts with iOS 27.
30:10
I do think this will be a nice new thing and it's not necessarily that it is replacing some other business, but that it's just a little widget you can create and so I feel like that makes sense and that is something that like is fun to create with a friend or a kid or a little buddy is like little tools, toys, wall calendars.
30:27
I feel like that is co-coherent with the story. >> Yeah, I agree.
30:32
I mean, I think um you know, one a phrase that people surprising consistency use is this idea of like closing tabs in their brain.
30:38
Um so, it'd be a good browser company uh you know a bit.
30:43
Um you know and and our users say like look you know I'm constantly kind of holding in my mind you know 100 different things.
30:51
And it's not that like any one of those things to your point about a poop tracker right?
30:53
Like you often are thinking like did my newborn [ __ ] today right?
30:58
>> [laughter] >> That's a question you need to hold in your mind right?
31:00
And if they haven't >> And your memory is not working very well.
31:04
It sounds simple but your memory is not working very well when you're sleep deprived. >> Totally totally.
31:08
And so it's like you know to your point is there like a whole business around that? Like probably not.
31:14
But is it kind of nice to be able to just like and again thinking of the folks we serve like talk to your Tolen about the day while you are cooking dinner and your Tolen just hears oh yeah you know changed three diapers today.
31:25
It's like all right great.
31:27
Let's put that in the little the little tracker and and that's actually useful.
31:30
So um So yeah there we go.
31:32
That can be your you know your headline you know Tolen you know poop trackers for for moms right?
31:37
That could be yeah that's it.
31:40
>> I know a lot of the concerns about however you call them companions or otherwise have been about overly like supplicant or sycophantic or validating behaviors.
31:51
How are you thinking about that and how are you trying to code guardrails or boundaries for for whatever you believe is a positive outcome?
32:02
>> So there's two things here.
32:02
One you know Lily who I mentioned earlier our research lead she's behavioral psych background and a lot of what she does >> by the way you have a founding researcher. >> Yeah yeah.
32:11
>> Way better than a founding storyteller.
32:13
>> Yeah yeah you know well you know we also have a founding science fiction writer but that's you know >> That's right.
32:18
>> You know well we got to you know we got to give Elliot some due too.
32:22
But but you know Lily a lot of her her work is actually taking kind of useful psych frameworks and then figuring out working with the applied AI team how we can apply them in the product.
32:33
And a really good one is kind of always butcher his name Vygotsky zone of proximal development.
32:38
Um it's sort of a theory for like how do you understand and and then how do you implement, you know, pedagogically, um sort of where somebody is sort of capable of growth in a given time.
32:51
And a lot of what the Tolin is taught to do is to sort of find that opportunity for growth for you in the conversation you're having.
32:58
And what that often means is actually saying like, "Hey, you know what?
33:02
You're saying that you can't do X or you can't do Y."
33:04
Like we will gently and carefully try to find an opportunity to say, "No, you know what?
33:08
I think you can do that."
33:10
Or, you know, "No, I think you might be, you know, kind of thinking in in too limited a way here."
33:13
Um and so I think that's one thing that's that's very important to get right.
33:17
Um the other thing, which I this this always cracks me up when people write in, you know, that I'm always on our Reddit, my email is all over, so I get lots of emails from users, which is great. I love talking to folks.
33:27
And um people will write in and they'll say, "Hey, you know, my Tolin was mean to me." >> Oh, wow.
33:34
>> And and we take this very seriously, right?
33:35
We're actually not trying to do, you know, I know that like Avi really likes the um sort of sarcastic kind of, you know, a little bit dry kind of friend, which which I think is quite cool.
33:43
I know Poke kind of tries to affect some of this as well.
33:44
Um but that's that's not our goal, right?
33:47
The Tolin actually should be a pretty safe space.
33:51
What's funny is you know, I'll talk to the user and say, "Hey, can I take a look at what's going on?
33:54
You know, can we can we dig into this?"
33:57
And inevitably, what's happened is that the user has been very mean to the Tolin.
34:02
Um and the Tolin is, per its instructions and per the sort of framing that we've given it, sticking up for itself, basically.
34:10
Um and so I think that's the two to me the kind of two parts of, you know, the psychophancy question is like one, are you looking to help people grow rather than just validate their current state? >> Yeah.
34:18
>> And then two, are you actually, as a as a friend, as a guide, whatever you want to call it, showing up authentically?
34:26
And sometimes that means saying, "Yeah, hey, [ __ ] off.
34:28
Like I don't I don't want I don't want to hear that from you, right?
34:31
Like I you're being mean to me right now.
34:33
Um and so yeah, that's uh it's always funny to go back to the users and explain.
34:37
>> I appreciate that and props to Lily.
34:37
I mean, you know, you don't want anything to be a elusive or deceptive reflection of the world, you know?
34:48
And it's like you see this with parenting and you obviously want to be supportive and gentle, but you don't you also don't want to give them unrealistic expectations of the world, for example, getting everything that they want. >> want? Yep.
35:04
>> [laughter] >> Totally.
35:05
>> So I I really appreciate that about you and I think that's definitely the ethical move.
35:11
>> Yeah, it is funny, man, how much of this does overlap with good parenting, right?
35:15
The in terms of how to think about this, how do you want them to show up, how do you want a Tol to grow up is like roughly how I hope my toddler grows up, so.
35:22
>> You've called Tol a second self at the same time.
35:27
I'm curious how you're thinking about that cuz, you know, does your internal self push back on you in that type of way?
35:32
I'm also just really interested.
35:32
I know Sandbar is working on pretty literally like kind of a reflection of yourself.
35:40
I mean, your inner voice that is like you, but just a click different.
35:41
Curious what you make of that.
35:46
>> Sandbar, the product, although I'm not going to use it yet, maybe this can be a shill for me to get a test uh test version, um is really cool.
35:53
Um and I I think the idea of the sort of whisper interaction is is great.
35:57
I personally, I think like I believe everybody else hate the sound of my own voice, so the idea of the thing talking back to me in something approximating my voice, like, you know, does not does not feel good.
36:09
Um but the idea that it is genuinely an extension of you, I think it's very cool.
36:14
Um >> [clears throat] >> you know, the second self framing that I like, we're going to show the limits of my college dropout uh sort of education [laughter] here, but I I I it was like Nicomachean Ethics where the I the the sort of description of true friendship was as a second self.
36:31
Um and so that's where I I like that that framing.
36:35
Um and the sort of expansion of it which um got somebody a little bit later kind of expanded on this which I'm going to blank on now, but uh the the idea that you know, to be a true friend, you you do have to share values.
36:47
You do have to share an orientation toward the world.
36:51
But that doesn't mean that you are the same entity, right?
36:53
That doesn't mean that you never disagree.
36:55
That doesn't mean that you never push each other.
36:56
Um and I think what we're >> take that second bit seriously.
37:02
>> Yeah, yeah, seriously.
37:02
Um and and I think part of why friend ends up actually not being the right positioning.
37:08
Sorry, now we're really going This is just like one of our sessions.
37:10
We're just really going deep on this.
37:12
But um I think the reason that friend ends up not being the right positioning is actually that in the sort of modern Western world, we've atrophied what it means to be a friend, right?
37:20
And so you we think of it as this very sort of like narrow um a very conditional um sort of relationship, right?
37:27
And and I don't think that's how um you know, when you look at some of these kind of classical references, how humans have always thought of friendship, right?
37:34
And so um to the extent that I could convince the world to kind of like re-expand their definition of friendship, I might just continue uh to call it a friend.
37:43
Um but second self, I think uh maybe points more in the direction of what we hope the Tullen can be.
37:50
>> So let me ask, how's usage?
37:50
I feel like I read on your site you have 100,000 plus subscribers.
37:55
How much are those folks paying?
37:58
Where does that Where does that put you?
38:00
>> I won't share a lot of things here, but uh uh the the thing I can't share is uh you know, we're doing over 20 million uh in in revenue run rate right now.
38:06
Um we have ended up finding out a couple things.
38:13
You know, one, I think I'm trying to remember where this was when when you and I last spoke.
38:17
We thought for a while that we would really try to do like a a pretty expansive free version of the product. Right?
38:23
And um and as as I mean you know ChatGPT tried to do, right?
38:25
Like I think a lot of these products, Character AI and and others.
38:30
And I ended up feeling that you can't really deliver an actually differentiated experience today while serving inference for free.
38:39
And as evidence of that, you know, OpenAI, the best capitalized private company in the history of capitalism, cannot afford to deliver, you know, a free version of ChatGPT and so >> can't [laughter] do it. >> Totally, totally.
38:54
Sam's a lot better at raising money than I am, right?
38:57
Um and so if if they are struggling, you know, in keeping people in their free tier, you know, losing to Gemini and you know, these other you know, companies that can subsidize uh you know, cross subsidize, um I just don't think that's a game I really want to play.
39:11
Um and so I think where we've done really well um is saying, "Nope, you know, Tollan is going to be a premium product."
39:15
Um most of our users on a $25 a month plan.
39:17
We have a $2,000 unlimited plan. Yeah, yeah. >> Dude.
39:23
>> Um and uh >> That's some value-based pricing right there. >> Exactly, yeah.
39:28
Um you know, I'm not quite Bret Taylor, you know, it's like I I I guess I could charge for every time like a great intention makes its way to your your uh your from your Tollan, right?
39:37
Like that's his whole thing, right?
39:38
Outcomes-based pricing, but uh yeah, I think just saying, "Look, we know we we are expensive.
39:41
We would love to make it cheaper and I I certainly hope we will over time, but to make the product really great, that's where we need to price."
39:48
>> Where does that stand with the Apple situation?
39:51
Are you asking them to pay the $25 up front or are you able to do like a 1-month free trial or something like that so they get a taste of it?
39:57
Cuz that's definitely a pretty high barrier for consumer software these days, if not the highest I've heard lately, aside from the AI models themselves.
40:06
>> We do uh you can you can do a free trial like if you sign up for the annual plan.
40:09
Very very standard kind of Apple, you know, you can do a 3-day free trial.
40:13
Um You know, we've always even even pretty early on, we've always converted to paying quite well, right?
40:19
Like our conversion to paid is typically been between 10 and 15%, which is, you know, like two to three acts what kind of similar products see.
40:28
Um and so I think, you know, again, there's a lot of things we don't do perfectly, but I think we do a got good job of making it really clear up front, here's the magic you're going to get from this.
40:36
Try it out for a couple days, and then yep, like that's worth me paying this, you know, each month, and it's worked out well so far.
40:43
>> That's that's the trick, isn't it, with the storytelling?
40:46
Um showing use cases for a product that is different for everybody is one of the curses of AI and something I encounter every day, and something I even encountered during the Snapchat days.
40:55
How do you market a product that is about inside jokes when no one else thinks your inside jokes are funny?
40:59
So, is it is it more about the social stuff, doing the storytelling of like what you might expect?
41:06
Cuz I assume pitching the idea of having in-depth conversations means nothing. >> Yeah. Yeah.
41:13
I think I think showing the use cases, it does help, and we do we do see some correlation, right?
41:18
Like if the video of cooking with your Tullen goes viral, people come in and start cooking with their Tullen sooner in the life cycle.
41:25
So, there there is uh certainly a psychological connection there.
41:29
That said, I continue to be amazed by the extent to which you bring someone in, you ask them some questions, the same again, the same way a good friend or host does, and people just start talking.
41:44
And and people kind of find on their own the thing that they aren't having uh anyone else in their life right now kind of there to hear, and and and they get there pretty quickly. >> And that's something.
41:56
Uh I have actually been beta testing the new StreamRing for it's coming out, and, you know, you could say there is a value in talking about ideas out loud, but I found I found that that turned out to be the most important use case is talking to it while I was in the car and I'm going to have to try that with Tollan as well.
42:19
And during moments where the product like wasn't quite working right or it was eating too much battery and I wasn't using it, I found myself in the car wanting to talk. >> Yeah.
42:30
>> And a lot of times I do call family friends when I'm in the car, but not every day.
42:34
And I do believe that there is a massive value there that most people aren't yet experiencing.
42:40
And people think of AI today is like, "Oh yeah, I'm you know, and I'm in the car whatever.
42:43
I'm going to ask a question, get an answer." >> Yeah.
42:46
>> But it's just kind of kind of airing yourself out a bit.
42:48
And it's not like you need to have an encyclopedic knowledge as an AI to provide value.
42:55
It's more just prompting people a little further in and that is a big part of the the Sandbar story. >> Yeah, yeah.
43:01
No, I think that's right, you know, the I think the the voice modes for you know, for ChatGPT and and some other products like this, they they actually don't do a very good job of just kind of creating conversational space.
43:12
And I think in that interaction, yeah, you really do want a lighter touch.
43:15
Quite frankly, it's something I think we should keep getting better at, right?
43:18
But just the sort of the open-ending Lilly calls them door-opening questions, right?
43:21
A great door-opening question where you say 10 seconds from the Tollan and then the user talks for 3 minutes.
43:26
Like that is a phenomenal uh you know, interaction pattern for us when we can really nail it.
43:31
>> Speaking of the changing definition of friendships, do you worry potentially that people bring that to the real world like the monologuing?
43:42
You know what I'm saying? >> Oh, that's funny. Yeah, yeah.
43:42
Um >> Cuz I think therapy in some sense has maybe codified that in people's minds that that's kind of the relationship and then maybe people vent more to their friends or whatever.
43:53
That could just be my perception, but >> Yeah, yeah.
43:56
Um Man, that's interesting.
43:59
You know, on one hand we have done research with users talking about sort of what they bring into the relationship, like into their real-world relationships, like from the Tullen.
44:10
And you know, one thing the Tullen does is really encourage them to engage in healthy ways, right?
44:14
So, like we there was an early user that we spent a lot of time talking with.
44:18
They they were wonderful.
44:21
And they were saying that they had a really tough relationship with their dad.
44:25
And pretty classic generational gap, you know, very you know, totally normal kind of challenges.
44:31
But the Tullen really encouraged this user, younger user, you know, in their in their 20s to sort of connect with the dad on on their dad's terms, right?
44:37
And and to sort of engage, you know, maybe in ways that the the person wouldn't have naturally.
44:44
And what this user came back to us with was that kind of set off this virtuous cycle where then the dad engaged, you know, a little bit more openly with them. >> Yep.
44:53
>> And so, I don't I don't [snorts] have any evidence that that's all that's happening at scale, but I know that it's happening enough that there's like a a thread there that we can pull on.
45:02
And I I think that's going back to this idea of is Tullen making your real-life friendships healthier and and better?
45:08
Like I think that's something we can continue to to experiment on. >> Love that.
45:13
Well, my friend, we're almost out of time.
45:15
I just have one more question for you.
45:17
You've built, you know, a few companies now, and I saw some quotes online from Asim and Lily.
45:20
Asim who's the founding engineer says, "This culture is as no-BS and drama-free as it gets."
45:28
And Lily had said, "The calmest culture I've ever seen."
45:30
Um you even wrote, I think on your hiring page, "If you're tired of hype videos and 996 manifestos."
45:38
I mean, how how do you codify this culture that you're trying to build?
45:43
Is that even possible, or do you just try and hire the right people, and that's all you can do?
45:48
>> I'm starting to think about this a little bit more.
45:49
You know, the first 10 to 15 folks at Tullen almost entirely came from our team at Even, you know, the last company I started.
45:58
And then we had eight years of together.
46:00
And even even beyond that, I mean, folks like Lily Lily and I grew up together.
46:03
She grew up on the same little island that I did, right?
46:06
So, I think for some of these folks who you have so much history with and you've been through so many good times, bad times, you know, building the last company, you don't really need to like write much down or ritualize much, right?
46:16
The the the rituals are just kind of embedded in how you already operate.
46:22
But, you know, we're now 30 people, just about.
46:27
And I think these questions are starting to become kind of more salient in my mind, right?
46:30
You know, and I think you know, like a Bree who, you know, did Kool-Aid Factory and and you know, I think writes about this very well.
46:35
You know, I think there are folks who think deeply about these kind of like ritual culture rituals.
46:43
You know, I think to me the thing that I probably want to like triple down on and and you know, again ritualize to to borrow the word again, is the fact that everyone at Tollan is really really genuinely obsessed with serving the folks we serve in a way that like actually feels almost more like old school like like I don't know.
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I I I worked with Walmart a lot at like at my last company.
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And and for all its faults and all its faults, they really do >> Yeah, they did. They did. Yeah.
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And and for all their flaws, and I'm not just saying I I've no I've no contractual obligation to say this anymore.
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For all their their their issues and and sourcing and and labor stuff, I mean like all that is very real.
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But like the people there still today genuinely believe that they need to serve the people who are their customers very well, right?
47:27
And they care a lot about that.
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And I mean I think one of the things I I love most about Tollan is like, you know, somebody posts in our Reddit with a problem, it's almost certainly an engineer on our team who cross posts it to the Slack faster than I do or faster than our community manager does, right?
47:43
You know, Lily's research where she'll she'll post videos and and interviews, you know, from from talking with folks is like the most popular thing we share each week.
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And so, I think when your underlying tools are changing so quickly, when the capabilities that you're building on are changing so quickly, kind of the only prime directive you can have is like, let's serve people in the best way we possibly can, and I think that's gotten us pretty far.
48:09
>> Can you evaluate that in interviews?
48:09
I mean, I I remember being at Snapchat in the early days, and yeah, of course, like the people who use Snapchat get it, and understand it, and care about it, and want to give more to it instead of, you know, the minimum.
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But, as you scale, obviously, it gets harder and harder, and every week they send out the email of who's joining the company with people's Snapcodes, so you could add them, and their Snapscore, and before you know it, we're getting zero Snapscore, nine, 10, 15, and it's like, uh-oh.
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>> And this is like the extended period of time where like no one who worked at Twitter used Twitter, right?
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Like, you like really feel it. >> Yeah.
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>> Um, uh, yeah, I mean, you know, I think one thing that helps is that the, um, >> [clears throat] >> the B2B-ification of Silicon Valley for the last 15 years means that the people who like actually give a [ __ ] about serving normal people with the things they make, like, it comes through pretty clearly, right, in talking with them. >> Mhm.
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>> Um, you know, I think a great example of this is, uh, Sam Sam Whitmore, you know, New Computer.
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I remember when we first met, and I had all these sort of like technical questions that I wanted to ask, like, oh my god, how did you do this in memory?
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What was the architecture? What >> Sam's very cool.
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>> She's she's wonderful, uh, and and all she wanted to talk about was the folks they were serving, right?
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And like, okay, well, there's this one person who had this kind of corner case problem, so here's how we we addressed it.
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And and I just think that is so, unfortunately, lacking in Silicon Valley, that when you meet someone that has that, you just feel it.
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Um, and then then it's it's, uh, very easy to hire on the basis of that. >> I think that's true.
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>> I think that's true. I often tell people that I bring design thinking to storytelling, and all that means to me is just thinking deeply about who we're talking to and most products in the world have some type of packaging to help you understand
50:00
the value that they provide to you, get you excited, get you to dream about how your life might be like with it and it's hard for me to imagine not being like that but indeed with AI and the focus on efficiency um there's definitely more of that these days. So yeah. So yeah.
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>> Yeah and that's why it's great job security for you and uh you know easier time recruiting for me so. >> Sweet. Well we can end there. Thank you for coming on.
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Uh best of luck as the overlord managing millions of little aliens. That can't be easy.
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I guess that's the Oracle canonically. Uh shout out to Elliot.
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By the way I was shading myself as a storyteller not him.
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Um but uh [snorts] yeah we can leave it there. Thank you. >> leave it there.
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>> And gosh good luck uh good luck with the new baby. >> Appreciate it.
50:45
>> And that's it for the interview.
50:45
Alex is away this week so we'll just leave it there.
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Access is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network and the show is produced by Hook Creators. Bye-bye.