WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:02.960 The following is a conversation with Kai Fu Li. 00:02.960 --> 00:06.520 He's the chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures 00:06.520 --> 00:10.560 that manages a $2 billion dual currency investment fund 00:10.560 --> 00:13.160 with a focus on developing the next generation 00:13.160 --> 00:15.440 of Chinese high tech companies. 00:15.440 --> 00:17.840 He's the former president of Google China 00:17.840 --> 00:20.880 and the founder of what is now called Microsoft Research 00:20.880 --> 00:24.160 Asia, an institute that trained many 00:24.160 --> 00:26.520 of the artificial intelligence leaders in China, 00:26.520 --> 00:32.080 including CTOs or AI execs at Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, 00:32.080 --> 00:34.840 Lenovo, and Huawei. 00:34.840 --> 00:38.520 He was named one of the 100 most influential people 00:38.520 --> 00:40.680 in the world by Time Magazine. 00:40.680 --> 00:43.880 He's the author of seven bestselling books in Chinese 00:43.880 --> 00:47.080 and most recently, the New York Times bestseller called 00:47.080 --> 00:50.600 AI Superpowers, China, Silicon Valley, 00:50.600 --> 00:52.760 and the New World Order. 00:52.760 --> 00:57.200 He has unparalleled experience in working across major tech 00:57.200 --> 01:00.120 companies and governments on applications of AI. 01:00.120 --> 01:02.440 And so he has a unique perspective 01:02.440 --> 01:05.080 on global innovation in the future of AI 01:05.080 --> 01:09.000 that I think is important to listen to and think about. 01:09.000 --> 01:11.960 This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast. 01:11.960 --> 01:15.240 If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube and iTunes, 01:15.240 --> 01:18.880 support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter 01:18.880 --> 01:21.040 at Lex Freedman. 01:21.040 --> 01:26.120 And now, here's my conversation with Kaifu Li. 01:26.120 --> 01:29.440 I immigrated from Russia to US when I was 13. 01:29.440 --> 01:32.480 You immigrated to US at about the same age. 01:32.480 --> 01:35.920 The Russian people, the American people, the Chinese people, 01:35.920 --> 01:39.440 each have a certain soul, a spirit, 01:39.440 --> 01:42.080 that permeates throughout the generations. 01:42.080 --> 01:45.120 So maybe it's a little bit of a poetic question, 01:45.120 --> 01:49.240 but could you describe your sense of what 01:49.240 --> 01:52.080 defines the Chinese soul? 01:52.080 --> 01:56.160 I think the Chinese soul of people today, right, 01:56.160 --> 02:02.000 we're talking about people who have had centuries of burden 02:02.000 --> 02:05.240 because of the poverty that the country has gone through 02:05.240 --> 02:10.560 and suddenly shined with hope of prosperity 02:10.560 --> 02:13.440 in the past 40 years as China opened up 02:13.440 --> 02:16.440 and embraced market economy. 02:16.440 --> 02:20.200 And undoubtedly, there are two sets of pressures 02:20.200 --> 02:24.160 on the people, that of the tradition, 02:24.160 --> 02:28.040 that of facing difficult situations, 02:28.040 --> 02:31.160 and that of hope of wanting to be the first 02:31.160 --> 02:33.840 to become successful and wealthy, 02:33.840 --> 02:38.360 so that it's a very strong hunger and strong desire 02:38.360 --> 02:41.160 and strong work ethic that drives China forward. 02:41.160 --> 02:43.960 And is there roots to not just this generation, 02:43.960 --> 02:47.880 but before, that's deeper than just 02:47.880 --> 02:50.080 the new economic developments? 02:50.080 --> 02:52.520 Is there something that's unique to China 02:52.520 --> 02:54.960 that you could speak to that's in the people? 02:54.960 --> 02:56.000 Yeah. 02:56.000 --> 03:00.280 Well, the Chinese tradition is about excellence, 03:00.280 --> 03:02.680 dedication, and results. 03:02.680 --> 03:07.240 And the Chinese exams and study subjects in schools 03:07.240 --> 03:11.080 have traditionally started from memorizing 10,000 characters, 03:11.080 --> 03:13.600 not an easy task to start with. 03:13.600 --> 03:17.640 And further by memorizing historic philosophers, 03:17.640 --> 03:19.000 literature, poetry. 03:19.000 --> 03:22.480 So it really is probably the strongest road 03:22.480 --> 03:26.920 learning mechanism created to make sure people had good memory 03:26.920 --> 03:30.080 and remembered things extremely well. 03:30.080 --> 03:33.720 That, I think, at the same time suppresses 03:33.720 --> 03:37.360 the breakthrough innovation. 03:37.360 --> 03:42.520 And also enhances the speed execution get results. 03:42.520 --> 03:47.400 And that, I think, characterizes the historic basis of China. 03:47.400 --> 03:49.160 That's interesting, because there's echoes of that 03:49.160 --> 03:52.080 in Russian education as well as rote memorization. 03:52.080 --> 03:53.800 So you memorize a lot of poetry. 03:53.800 --> 03:59.240 I mean, there's just an emphasis on perfection in all forms 03:59.240 --> 04:02.240 that's not conducive to perhaps what you're speaking to, 04:02.240 --> 04:03.640 which is creativity. 04:03.640 --> 04:05.640 But you think that kind of education 04:05.640 --> 04:09.040 holds back the innovative spirit that you 04:09.040 --> 04:10.960 might see in the United States? 04:10.960 --> 04:14.840 Well, it holds back the breakthrough innovative spirit 04:14.840 --> 04:16.480 that we see in the United States. 04:16.480 --> 04:21.880 But it does not hold back the valuable execution oriented, 04:21.880 --> 04:26.320 result oriented value creating engines, which we see China 04:26.320 --> 04:27.960 being very successful. 04:27.960 --> 04:32.320 So is there a difference between a Chinese AI engineer 04:32.320 --> 04:35.600 today and an American AI engineer perhaps rooted 04:35.600 --> 04:38.320 in the culture that we just talked about or the education 04:38.320 --> 04:41.160 or the very soul of the people or no? 04:41.160 --> 04:43.720 And what would your advice be to each 04:43.720 --> 04:45.520 if there's a difference? 04:45.520 --> 04:47.120 Well, there's a lot that's similar, 04:47.120 --> 04:51.240 because AI is about mastering sciences, 04:51.240 --> 04:54.880 about using known technologies and trying new things. 04:54.880 --> 04:59.760 But it's also about picking from many parts of possible networks 04:59.760 --> 05:02.920 to use and different types of parameters to tune. 05:02.920 --> 05:05.280 And that part is somewhat rote. 05:05.280 --> 05:09.040 And it is also, as anyone who's built AI products, 05:09.040 --> 05:12.680 can tell you a lot about cleansing the data. 05:12.680 --> 05:15.200 Because AI runs better with more data. 05:15.200 --> 05:20.160 And data is generally unstructured, errorful, 05:20.160 --> 05:22.360 and unclean. 05:22.360 --> 05:26.280 And the effort to clean the data is immense. 05:26.280 --> 05:32.280 So I think the better part of the American AI engineering 05:32.280 --> 05:36.840 process is to try new things, to do things people haven't done 05:36.840 --> 05:41.840 before, and to use technology to solve most, if not all, 05:41.840 --> 05:43.480 problems. 05:43.480 --> 05:47.160 So to make the algorithm work despite not so great data, 05:47.160 --> 05:50.680 find error tolerant ways to deal with the data. 05:50.680 --> 05:55.960 The Chinese way would be to basically enumerate, 05:55.960 --> 05:58.560 to the fullest extent, all the possible ways 05:58.560 --> 06:01.000 by a lot of machines, try lots of different ways 06:01.000 --> 06:05.320 to get it to work, and spend a lot of resources and money 06:05.320 --> 06:07.720 and time cleaning up data. 06:07.720 --> 06:11.880 That means the AI engineer may be writing data cleansing 06:11.880 --> 06:15.600 algorithms, working with thousands of people 06:15.600 --> 06:19.160 who label or correct or do things with the data. 06:19.160 --> 06:21.920 That is the incredible hard work that 06:21.920 --> 06:24.040 might lead to better results. 06:24.040 --> 06:28.240 So the Chinese engineer would rely on and ask for more and more 06:28.240 --> 06:31.120 data and find ways to cleanse them and make them work 06:31.120 --> 06:34.200 in the system, and probably less time thinking 06:34.200 --> 06:39.320 about new algorithms that can overcome data or other issues. 06:39.320 --> 06:40.560 So where's your intuition? 06:40.560 --> 06:43.160 What do you think the biggest impact the next 10 years 06:43.160 --> 06:43.920 lies? 06:43.920 --> 06:47.120 Is it in some breakthrough algorithms? 06:47.120 --> 06:53.920 Or is it in just this at scale rigor, a rigorous approach 06:53.920 --> 06:57.120 to data, cleaning data, organizing data 06:57.120 --> 06:58.440 onto the same algorithms? 06:58.440 --> 07:02.600 What do you think the big impact in the applied world is? 07:02.600 --> 07:04.560 Well, if you're really in the company 07:04.560 --> 07:08.400 and you have to deliver results, using known techniques 07:08.400 --> 07:12.240 and enhancing data seems like the more expedient approach 07:12.240 --> 07:15.640 that's very low risk and likely to generate 07:15.640 --> 07:17.200 better and better results. 07:17.200 --> 07:20.520 And that's why the Chinese approach has done quite well. 07:20.520 --> 07:24.240 Now, there are a lot of more challenging startups 07:24.240 --> 07:28.440 and problems, such as autonomous vehicles, 07:28.440 --> 07:32.560 medical diagnosis, that existing algorithms probably 07:32.560 --> 07:34.240 won't solve. 07:34.240 --> 07:38.680 And that would put the Chinese approach more challenged 07:38.680 --> 07:43.720 and give them more breakthrough innovation approach, more 07:43.720 --> 07:45.440 of an edge on those kinds of problems. 07:45.440 --> 07:47.040 So let me talk to that a little more. 07:47.040 --> 07:50.960 So my intuition, personally, is that data 07:50.960 --> 07:53.680 can take us extremely far. 07:53.680 --> 07:56.480 So you brought up autonomous vehicles and medical diagnosis. 07:56.480 --> 08:00.080 So your intuition is that huge amounts of data 08:00.080 --> 08:04.000 might not be able to completely help us solve that problem. 08:04.000 --> 08:04.600 Right. 08:04.600 --> 08:08.080 So breaking that down further, autonomous vehicle, 08:08.080 --> 08:10.080 I think huge amounts of data probably 08:10.080 --> 08:13.360 will solve trucks driving on highways, which 08:13.360 --> 08:15.640 will deliver significant value. 08:15.640 --> 08:19.320 And China will probably lead in that. 08:19.320 --> 08:24.880 And full L5 autonomous is likely to require new technologies 08:24.880 --> 08:26.320 we don't yet know. 08:26.320 --> 08:30.320 And that might require academia and great industrial research, 08:30.320 --> 08:32.480 both innovating and working together. 08:32.480 --> 08:35.360 And in that case, US has an advantage. 08:35.360 --> 08:37.040 So the interesting question there is, 08:37.040 --> 08:39.280 I don't know if you're familiar on the autonomous vehicle 08:39.280 --> 08:43.480 space and the developments with Tesla and Elon Musk, 08:43.480 --> 08:49.400 where they are, in fact, a full steam ahead 08:49.400 --> 08:53.480 into this mysterious, complex world of full autonomy, L5, 08:53.480 --> 08:55.080 L4, L5. 08:55.080 --> 08:58.800 And they're trying to solve that purely with data. 08:58.800 --> 09:00.800 So the same kind of thing that you're saying 09:00.800 --> 09:03.200 is just for highway, which is what a lot of people 09:03.200 --> 09:07.200 share your intuition, they're trying to solve with data. 09:07.200 --> 09:09.320 It's just to linger on that moment further. 09:09.320 --> 09:13.600 Do you think possible for them to achieve success 09:13.600 --> 09:17.040 with simply just a huge amount of this training 09:17.040 --> 09:20.440 on edge cases, on difficult cases in urban environments, 09:20.440 --> 09:22.840 not just highway and so on? 09:22.840 --> 09:24.480 I think they'll be very hard. 09:24.480 --> 09:27.680 One could characterize Tesla's approach as kind 09:27.680 --> 09:31.600 of a Chinese strength approach, gather all the data you can, 09:31.600 --> 09:34.000 and hope that will overcome the problems. 09:34.000 --> 09:38.480 But in autonomous driving, clearly a lot of the decisions 09:38.480 --> 09:41.480 aren't merely solved by aggregating data 09:41.480 --> 09:43.520 and having feedback loop. 09:43.520 --> 09:48.040 There are things that are more akin to human thinking. 09:48.040 --> 09:51.680 And how would those be integrated and built? 09:51.680 --> 09:54.000 There has not yet been a lot of success 09:54.000 --> 09:57.200 integrating human intelligence or, you know, 09:57.200 --> 09:58.800 colored expert systems, if you will, 09:58.800 --> 10:02.960 even though that's a taboo word with the machine learning. 10:02.960 --> 10:05.600 And the integration of the two types of thinking 10:05.600 --> 10:07.840 hasn't yet been demonstrated. 10:07.840 --> 10:09.600 And the question is, how much can you 10:09.600 --> 10:12.440 push a purely machine learning approach? 10:12.440 --> 10:15.480 And of course, Tesla also has an additional constraint 10:15.480 --> 10:18.520 that they don't have all the sensors. 10:18.520 --> 10:21.120 I know that they think it's foolish to use LIDARS, 10:21.120 --> 10:25.920 but that's clearly a one less, very valuable and reliable 10:25.920 --> 10:29.200 source of input that they're foregoing, which 10:29.200 --> 10:32.440 may also have consequences. 10:32.440 --> 10:33.840 I think the advantage, of course, 10:33.840 --> 10:37.040 is capturing data that no one has ever seen before. 10:37.040 --> 10:41.040 And in some cases, such as computer vision and speech 10:41.040 --> 10:44.800 recognition, I have seen Chinese companies accumulate data 10:44.800 --> 10:47.320 that's not seen anywhere in the Western world, 10:47.320 --> 10:50.200 and they have delivered superior results. 10:50.200 --> 10:53.720 But then speech recognition and object recognition 10:53.720 --> 10:57.080 are relatively suitable problems for deep learning 10:57.080 --> 11:02.440 and don't have the potentially need for the human intelligence 11:02.440 --> 11:04.440 analytical planning elements. 11:04.440 --> 11:06.400 And the same on the speech recognition side, 11:06.400 --> 11:09.440 your intuition that speech recognition and the machine 11:09.440 --> 11:11.440 learning approaches to speech recognition 11:11.440 --> 11:14.600 won't take us to a conversational system that 11:14.600 --> 11:19.160 can pass the Turing test, which is maybe akin to what 11:19.160 --> 11:20.040 driving is. 11:20.040 --> 11:25.120 So it needs to have something more than just simply simple 11:25.120 --> 11:27.480 language understanding, simple language generation. 11:27.480 --> 11:32.000 Roughly right, I would say that based on purely machine 11:32.000 --> 11:35.160 learning approaches, it's hard to imagine. 11:35.160 --> 11:40.520 It could lead to a full conversational experience 11:40.520 --> 11:44.600 across arbitrary domains, which is akin to L5. 11:44.600 --> 11:46.920 I'm a little hesitant to use the word Turing test, 11:46.920 --> 11:50.280 because the original definition was probably too easy. 11:50.280 --> 11:52.320 We probably do that. 11:52.320 --> 11:55.280 The spirit of the Turing test is what I was referring to. 11:55.280 --> 11:56.520 Of course. 11:56.520 --> 11:59.400 So you've had major leadership research positions 11:59.400 --> 12:01.640 at Apple, Microsoft, Google. 12:01.640 --> 12:06.320 So continuing on the discussion of America, Russia, Chinese soul 12:06.320 --> 12:10.520 and culture and so on, what is the culture of Silicon 12:10.520 --> 12:16.400 Valley in contrast to China and maybe US broadly? 12:16.400 --> 12:19.920 And what is the unique culture of each of these three 12:19.920 --> 12:22.040 major companies, in your view? 12:22.040 --> 12:25.120 I think in aggregate, Silicon Valley companies, 12:25.120 --> 12:27.200 we could probably include Microsoft in that, 12:27.200 --> 12:29.120 even though they're not in the Valley, 12:29.120 --> 12:33.960 is really dream big and have visionary goals 12:33.960 --> 12:37.920 and believe that technology will conquer all 12:37.920 --> 12:42.240 and also the self confidence and the self entitlement 12:42.240 --> 12:45.440 that whatever they produce, the whole world should use 12:45.440 --> 12:47.240 and must use. 12:47.240 --> 12:54.080 And those are historically important, I think. 12:54.080 --> 12:59.120 Steve Jobs's famous quote that he doesn't do focus groups. 12:59.120 --> 13:02.360 He looks in the mirror and asks the person in the mirror, 13:02.360 --> 13:03.520 what do you want? 13:03.520 --> 13:07.000 And that really is an inspirational comment 13:07.000 --> 13:10.480 that says the great company shouldn't just ask users 13:10.480 --> 13:13.240 what they want, but develop something 13:13.240 --> 13:16.200 that users will know they want when they see it, 13:16.200 --> 13:18.960 but they could never come up with themselves. 13:18.960 --> 13:23.880 I think that is probably the most exhilarating description 13:23.880 --> 13:26.560 of what the essence of Silicon Valley is, 13:26.560 --> 13:31.840 that this brilliant idea could cause you to build something 13:31.840 --> 13:35.520 that couldn't come out of the focus groups or A.B. tests. 13:35.520 --> 13:38.040 And iPhone would be an example of that. 13:38.040 --> 13:40.560 No one in the age of BlackBerry would write down 13:40.560 --> 13:43.720 they want an iPhone or multi touch, a browser, 13:43.720 --> 13:44.800 might be another example. 13:44.800 --> 13:47.520 No one would say they want that in the days of FTP, 13:47.520 --> 13:49.440 but once they see it, they want it. 13:49.440 --> 13:55.680 So I think that is what Silicon Valley is best at. 13:55.680 --> 13:58.920 But it also came with a lot of success. 13:58.920 --> 14:01.960 These products became global platforms, 14:01.960 --> 14:05.080 and there were basically no competitors anywhere. 14:05.080 --> 14:08.400 And that has also led to a belief 14:08.400 --> 14:13.240 that these are the only things that one should do, 14:13.240 --> 14:17.960 that companies should not tread on other companies territory, 14:17.960 --> 14:24.040 so that a Groupon and a Yelp and an OpenTable 14:24.040 --> 14:26.240 and the Grubhub would each feel, 14:26.240 --> 14:28.520 okay, I'm not going to do the other companies business 14:28.520 --> 14:33.280 because that would not be the pride of innovating 14:33.280 --> 14:36.920 what each of these four companies have innovated. 14:36.920 --> 14:42.720 But I think the Chinese approach is do whatever it takes to win. 14:42.720 --> 14:45.000 And it's a winner take all market. 14:45.000 --> 14:47.200 And in fact, in the internet space, 14:47.200 --> 14:50.840 the market leader will get predominantly all the value 14:50.840 --> 14:53.320 extracted out of the system. 14:53.320 --> 14:59.600 And the system isn't just defined as one narrow category, 14:59.600 --> 15:01.360 but gets broader and broader. 15:01.360 --> 15:07.960 So it's amazing ambition for success and domination 15:07.960 --> 15:11.760 of increasingly larger product categories 15:11.760 --> 15:15.080 leading to clear market winner status 15:15.080 --> 15:19.120 and the opportunity to extract tremendous value. 15:19.120 --> 15:25.840 And that develops a practical, result oriented, 15:25.840 --> 15:31.520 ultra ambitious winner take all gladiatorial mentality. 15:31.520 --> 15:37.400 And if what it takes is to build what the competitors built, 15:37.400 --> 15:41.920 essentially a copycat, that can be done without infringing laws. 15:41.920 --> 15:46.280 If what it takes is to satisfy a foreign country's need 15:46.280 --> 15:48.480 by forking the code base and building something 15:48.480 --> 15:51.440 that looks really ugly and different, they'll do it. 15:51.440 --> 15:56.280 So it's contrasted very sharply with the Silicon Valley approach. 15:56.280 --> 16:00.080 And I think the flexibility and the speed and execution 16:00.080 --> 16:01.960 has helped the Chinese approach. 16:01.960 --> 16:05.040 And I think the Silicon Valley approach 16:05.040 --> 16:10.280 is potentially challenged if every Chinese entrepreneur is 16:10.280 --> 16:13.200 learning from the whole world, US and China, 16:13.200 --> 16:16.280 and the American entrepreneurs only look internally 16:16.280 --> 16:19.600 and write off China as a copycat. 16:19.600 --> 16:22.880 And the second part of your question about the three 16:22.880 --> 16:23.520 companies. 16:23.520 --> 16:26.000 The unique elements of the three companies, perhaps. 16:26.000 --> 16:26.840 Yeah. 16:26.840 --> 16:33.080 I think Apple represents, while the user, please the user, 16:33.080 --> 16:38.520 and the essence of design and brand, 16:38.520 --> 16:44.080 and it's the one company and perhaps the only tech company 16:44.080 --> 16:49.920 that draws people with a strong, serious desire 16:49.920 --> 16:53.560 for the product and the willingness to pay a premium 16:53.560 --> 16:57.160 because of the halo effect of the brand, which 16:57.160 --> 17:00.960 came from the attention to detail and great respect 17:00.960 --> 17:03.360 for user needs. 17:03.360 --> 17:09.200 Microsoft represents a platform approach 17:09.200 --> 17:14.280 that builds giant products that become very strong modes 17:14.280 --> 17:17.680 that others can't do because it's 17:17.680 --> 17:21.480 well architected at the bottom level 17:21.480 --> 17:26.640 and the work is efficiently delegated to individuals 17:26.640 --> 17:30.360 and then the whole product is built 17:30.360 --> 17:33.560 by adding small parts that sum together. 17:33.560 --> 17:37.760 So it's probably the most effective high tech assembly 17:37.760 --> 17:40.480 line that builds a very difficult product 17:40.480 --> 17:44.800 that the whole process of doing that 17:44.800 --> 17:50.800 is kind of a differentiation and something competitors 17:50.800 --> 17:52.480 can't easily repeat. 17:52.480 --> 17:54.800 Are there elements of the Chinese approach 17:54.800 --> 17:59.280 in the way Microsoft went about assembling those little pieces 17:59.280 --> 18:03.920 and essentially dominating the market for a long time? 18:03.920 --> 18:05.640 Or do you see those as distinct? 18:05.640 --> 18:08.240 I think there are elements that are the same. 18:08.240 --> 18:10.440 I think the three American companies 18:10.440 --> 18:13.880 that had or have Chinese characteristics, 18:13.880 --> 18:16.080 and obviously as well as American characteristics, 18:16.080 --> 18:20.400 are Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon. 18:20.400 --> 18:21.720 Yes, that's right, Amazon. 18:21.720 --> 18:25.560 Because these are companies that will tenaciously 18:25.560 --> 18:31.320 go after adjacent markets, build up strong product offering, 18:31.320 --> 18:38.200 and find ways to extract greater value from a sphere that's 18:38.200 --> 18:39.960 ever increasing. 18:39.960 --> 18:43.520 And they understand the value of the platforms. 18:43.520 --> 18:45.600 So that's the similarity. 18:45.600 --> 18:53.760 And then with Google, I think it's a genuinely value oriented 18:53.760 --> 18:56.960 company that does have a heart and soul 18:56.960 --> 18:59.760 and that wants to do great things for the world 18:59.760 --> 19:06.040 by connecting information and that has also 19:06.040 --> 19:13.280 very strong technology genes and wants to use technology 19:13.280 --> 19:19.080 and has found out of the box ways to use technology 19:19.080 --> 19:23.680 to deliver incredible value to the end user. 19:23.680 --> 19:25.240 We can look at Google, for example. 19:25.240 --> 19:28.040 You mentioned heart and soul. 19:28.040 --> 19:31.840 There seems to be an element where Google 19:31.840 --> 19:34.840 is after making the world better. 19:34.840 --> 19:36.520 There's a more positive view. 19:36.520 --> 19:38.960 I mean, they used to have the slogan, don't be evil. 19:38.960 --> 19:43.120 And Facebook a little bit more has a negative tend to it, 19:43.120 --> 19:46.000 at least in the perception of privacy and so on. 19:46.000 --> 19:51.280 Do you have a sense of how these different companies can 19:51.280 --> 19:53.400 achieve, because you've talked about how much 19:53.400 --> 19:55.600 we can make the world better in all these kinds of ways 19:55.600 --> 19:59.360 with AI, what is it about a company that can make, 19:59.360 --> 20:03.200 give it a heart and soul, gain the trust of the public, 20:03.200 --> 20:08.000 and just actually just not be evil and do good for the world? 20:08.000 --> 20:09.000 It's really hard. 20:09.000 --> 20:13.120 And I think Google has struggled with that. 20:13.120 --> 20:15.160 First, they don't do evil. 20:15.160 --> 20:18.880 Mantra is very dangerous, because every employee's 20:18.880 --> 20:20.800 definition of evil is different. 20:20.800 --> 20:23.800 And that has led to some difficult employee situations 20:23.800 --> 20:25.240 for them. 20:25.240 --> 20:29.520 So I don't necessarily think that's a good value statement. 20:29.520 --> 20:31.840 But just watching the kinds of things 20:31.840 --> 20:36.440 Google or its parent company Alphabet does in new areas 20:36.440 --> 20:40.440 like health care, like eradicating mosquitoes, 20:40.440 --> 20:42.360 things that are really not in the business 20:42.360 --> 20:45.040 of a internet tech company, I think 20:45.040 --> 20:47.200 that shows that there is a heart and soul 20:47.200 --> 20:53.920 and desire to do good and willingness to put in the resources 20:53.920 --> 20:58.280 to do something when they see it's good, they will pursue it. 20:58.280 --> 21:00.640 That doesn't necessarily mean it has 21:00.640 --> 21:02.520 all the trust of the users. 21:02.520 --> 21:06.400 I realize while most people would view Facebook 21:06.400 --> 21:09.760 as the primary target of their recent unhappiness 21:09.760 --> 21:12.720 about Silicon Valley companies, many would put Google 21:12.720 --> 21:14.080 in that category. 21:14.080 --> 21:16.800 And some have named Google's business practices 21:16.800 --> 21:19.840 as predatory also. 21:19.840 --> 21:24.240 So it's kind of difficult to have the two parts of a body. 21:24.240 --> 21:28.080 The brain wants to do what it's supposed to do for a shareholder, 21:28.080 --> 21:29.280 maximize profit. 21:29.280 --> 21:30.880 And then the heart and soul wants 21:30.880 --> 21:36.120 to do good things that may run against what the brain wants to do. 21:36.120 --> 21:40.320 So in this complex balancing that these companies have to do, 21:40.320 --> 21:44.520 you've mentioned that you're concerned about a future where 21:44.520 --> 21:47.360 too few companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon 21:47.360 --> 21:51.560 are controlling our data or are controlling too much 21:51.560 --> 21:53.360 of our digital lives. 21:53.360 --> 21:55.400 Can you elaborate on this concern? 21:55.400 --> 21:58.640 Perhaps do you have a better way forward? 21:58.640 --> 22:05.000 I think I'm hardly the most vocal complainer of this. 22:05.000 --> 22:07.280 There are a lot louder complainers out there. 22:07.280 --> 22:11.840 I do observe that having a lot of data 22:11.840 --> 22:16.120 does perpetuate their strength and limits 22:16.120 --> 22:19.400 competition in many spaces. 22:19.400 --> 22:24.200 But I also believe AI is much broader than the internet space. 22:24.200 --> 22:26.280 So the entrepreneurial opportunities 22:26.280 --> 22:30.480 still exists in using AI to empower 22:30.480 --> 22:34.160 financial, retail, manufacturing, education, 22:34.160 --> 22:35.480 applications. 22:35.480 --> 22:39.800 So I don't think it's quite a case of full monopolistic dominance 22:39.800 --> 22:43.960 that totally stifles innovation. 22:43.960 --> 22:46.400 But I do believe in their areas of strength 22:46.400 --> 22:49.760 it's hard to dislodge them. 22:49.760 --> 22:53.280 I don't know if I have a good solution. 22:53.280 --> 22:57.160 Probably the best solution is let the entrepreneurial VC 22:57.160 --> 23:00.840 ecosystem work well and find all the places that 23:00.840 --> 23:04.200 can create the next Google, the next Facebook. 23:04.200 --> 23:08.560 So there will always be increasing number of challengers. 23:08.560 --> 23:11.360 In some sense, that has happened a little bit. 23:11.360 --> 23:15.760 You see Uber, Airbnb having emerged despite the strength 23:15.760 --> 23:19.040 of the big three. 23:19.040 --> 23:22.400 And I think China as an environment 23:22.400 --> 23:25.280 may be more interesting for the emergence. 23:25.280 --> 23:28.920 Because if you look at companies between, let's say, 23:28.920 --> 23:36.320 $50 to $300 billion, China has emerged more of such companies 23:36.320 --> 23:39.880 than the US in the last three to four years. 23:39.880 --> 23:42.120 Because of the larger marketplace, 23:42.120 --> 23:47.000 because of the more fearless nature of the entrepreneurs. 23:47.000 --> 23:50.840 And the Chinese giants are just as powerful as American ones. 23:50.840 --> 23:52.920 Tencent Alibaba are very strong. 23:52.920 --> 23:57.040 But Bytes Dance has emerged worth $75 billion. 23:57.040 --> 24:00.120 And financial, while it's Alibaba affiliated, 24:00.120 --> 24:03.920 it's nevertheless independent and worth $150 billion. 24:03.920 --> 24:08.280 And so I do think if we start to extend 24:08.280 --> 24:12.640 to traditional businesses, we will see very valuable companies. 24:12.640 --> 24:18.120 So it's probably not the case that in five or 10 years, 24:18.120 --> 24:20.920 we'll still see the whole world with these five companies 24:20.920 --> 24:22.680 having such dominance. 24:22.680 --> 24:26.040 So you've mentioned a couple of times 24:26.040 --> 24:27.840 this fascinating world of entrepreneurship 24:27.840 --> 24:31.080 in China of the fearless nature of the entrepreneurs. 24:31.080 --> 24:32.640 So can you maybe talk a little bit 24:32.640 --> 24:35.520 about what it takes to be an entrepreneur in China? 24:35.520 --> 24:38.240 What are the strategies that are undertaken? 24:38.240 --> 24:41.120 What are the ways that you success? 24:41.120 --> 24:43.960 What is the dynamic of VCF funding, 24:43.960 --> 24:46.480 of the way the government helps companies, and so on? 24:46.480 --> 24:49.520 What are the interesting aspects here that are distinct from, 24:49.520 --> 24:52.880 that are different from the Silicon Valley world 24:52.880 --> 24:55.240 of entrepreneurship? 24:55.240 --> 24:58.080 Well, many of the listeners probably 24:58.080 --> 25:03.000 still would brand Chinese entrepreneur as copycats. 25:03.000 --> 25:06.120 And no doubt, 10 years ago, that would not 25:06.120 --> 25:09.080 be an inaccurate description. 25:09.080 --> 25:12.320 Back 10 years ago, an entrepreneur probably 25:12.320 --> 25:14.840 could not get funding if he or she could not 25:14.840 --> 25:20.400 describe what product he or she is copying from the US. 25:20.400 --> 25:23.520 The first question is, who has proven this business model, 25:23.520 --> 25:27.200 which is a nice way of asking, who are you copying? 25:27.200 --> 25:29.520 And that reason is understandable, 25:29.520 --> 25:34.840 because China had a much lower internet penetration 25:34.840 --> 25:40.920 and didn't have enough indigenous experience 25:40.920 --> 25:43.200 to build innovative products. 25:43.200 --> 25:47.600 And secondly, internet was emerging. 25:47.600 --> 25:49.800 Link startup was the way to do things, 25:49.800 --> 25:52.920 building a first minimally viable product, 25:52.920 --> 25:55.320 and then expanding was the right way to go. 25:55.320 --> 25:59.480 And the American successes have given a shortcut 25:59.480 --> 26:02.840 that if you build your minimally viable product based 26:02.840 --> 26:05.040 on an American product, it's guaranteed 26:05.040 --> 26:06.720 to be a decent starting point. 26:06.720 --> 26:08.400 Then you tweak it afterwards. 26:08.400 --> 26:11.720 So as long as there are no IP infringement, which, 26:11.720 --> 26:15.080 as far as I know, there hasn't been in the mobile and AI 26:15.080 --> 26:19.360 spaces, that's a much better shortcut. 26:19.360 --> 26:23.720 And I think Silicon Valley would view that as still not 26:23.720 --> 26:29.200 very honorable, because that's not your own idea to start with. 26:29.200 --> 26:32.600 But you can't really, at the same time, 26:32.600 --> 26:35.160 believe every idea must be your own 26:35.160 --> 26:38.120 and believe in the link startup methodology, 26:38.120 --> 26:41.880 because link startup is intended to try many, many things 26:41.880 --> 26:44.240 and then converge when that works. 26:44.240 --> 26:46.720 And it's meant to be iterated and changed. 26:46.720 --> 26:51.240 So finding a decent starting point without legal violations, 26:51.240 --> 26:55.520 there should be nothing morally dishonorable about that. 26:55.520 --> 26:57.080 So just a quick pause on that. 26:57.080 --> 27:01.920 It's fascinating that that's why is that not honorable, right? 27:01.920 --> 27:04.680 It's exactly as you formulated. 27:04.680 --> 27:08.040 It seems like a perfect start for business 27:08.040 --> 27:12.440 is to take a look at Amazon and say, OK, 27:12.440 --> 27:14.560 we'll do exactly what Amazon is doing. 27:14.560 --> 27:16.800 Let's start there in this particular market. 27:16.800 --> 27:20.520 And then let's out innovate them from that starting point. 27:20.520 --> 27:22.200 Yes. Come up with new ways. 27:22.200 --> 27:26.520 I mean, is it wrong to be, except the word copycat just 27:26.520 --> 27:28.800 sounds bad, but is it wrong to be a copycat? 27:28.800 --> 27:31.640 It just seems like a smart strategy. 27:31.640 --> 27:35.800 But yes, doesn't have a heroic nature to it 27:35.800 --> 27:42.280 that Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, sort of in something completely 27:42.280 --> 27:43.880 coming up with something completely new. 27:43.880 --> 27:45.480 Yeah, I like the way you describe it. 27:45.480 --> 27:50.440 It's a nonheroic, acceptable way to start the company. 27:50.440 --> 27:52.840 And maybe more expedient. 27:52.840 --> 27:58.920 So that's, I think, a baggage for Silicon Valley, 27:58.920 --> 28:01.320 that if it doesn't let go, then it 28:01.320 --> 28:05.160 may limit the ultimate ceiling of the company. 28:05.160 --> 28:07.200 Take Snapchat as an example. 28:07.200 --> 28:09.840 I think Evan's brilliant. 28:09.840 --> 28:11.480 He built a great product. 28:11.480 --> 28:14.160 But he's very proud that he wants 28:14.160 --> 28:16.800 to build his own features, not copy others. 28:16.800 --> 28:21.000 While Facebook was more willing to copy his features, 28:21.000 --> 28:23.440 and you see what happens in the competition. 28:23.440 --> 28:27.440 So I think putting that handcuff on the company 28:27.440 --> 28:31.560 would limit its ability to reach the maximum potential. 28:31.560 --> 28:33.800 So back to the Chinese environment, 28:33.800 --> 28:38.400 copying was merely a way to learn from the American masters. 28:38.400 --> 28:43.480 Just like if we learned to play piano or painting, 28:43.480 --> 28:44.560 you start by copying. 28:44.560 --> 28:46.160 You don't start by innovating when 28:46.160 --> 28:48.200 you don't have the basic skill sets. 28:48.200 --> 28:51.040 So very amazingly, the Chinese entrepreneurs 28:51.040 --> 28:56.160 about six years ago started to branch off 28:56.160 --> 28:59.520 with these lean startups built on American ideas 28:59.520 --> 29:02.280 to build better products than American products. 29:02.280 --> 29:04.960 But they did start from the American idea. 29:04.960 --> 29:08.600 And today, WeChat is better than WhatsApp. 29:08.600 --> 29:10.520 Weibo is better than Twitter. 29:10.520 --> 29:12.920 Zihu is better than Quora and so on. 29:12.920 --> 29:17.000 So that, I think, is Chinese entrepreneurs 29:17.000 --> 29:18.480 going to step two. 29:18.480 --> 29:21.760 And then step three is once these entrepreneurs have 29:21.760 --> 29:23.720 done one or two of these companies, 29:23.720 --> 29:27.400 they now look at the Chinese market and the opportunities 29:27.400 --> 29:30.600 and come up with ideas that didn't exist elsewhere. 29:30.600 --> 29:36.320 So products like and financial under which includes Alipay, 29:36.320 --> 29:42.080 which is mobile payments, and also the financial products 29:42.080 --> 29:48.560 for loans built on that, and also in education, VIP kid, 29:48.560 --> 29:54.880 and in social video, social network, TikTok, 29:54.880 --> 29:58.640 and in social eCommerce, Pinduoduo, 29:58.640 --> 30:01.720 and then in ride sharing, Mobike. 30:01.720 --> 30:05.640 These are all Chinese innovative products 30:05.640 --> 30:08.720 that now are being copied elsewhere. 30:08.720 --> 30:13.040 So an additional interesting observation 30:13.040 --> 30:16.000 is some of these products are built on unique Chinese 30:16.000 --> 30:19.360 demographics, which may not work in the US, 30:19.360 --> 30:23.160 but may work very well in Southeast Asia, Africa, 30:23.160 --> 30:27.840 and other developing worlds that are a few years behind China. 30:27.840 --> 30:31.040 And a few of these products maybe are universal 30:31.040 --> 30:33.760 and are getting traction even in the United States, 30:33.760 --> 30:35.360 such as TikTok. 30:35.360 --> 30:42.080 So this whole ecosystem is supported by VCs 30:42.080 --> 30:44.920 as a virtuous cycle, because a large market 30:44.920 --> 30:49.400 with innovative entrepreneurs will draw a lot of money 30:49.400 --> 30:51.560 and then invest in these companies. 30:51.560 --> 30:54.480 As the market gets larger and larger, 30:54.480 --> 30:58.400 China market is easily three, four times larger than the US. 30:58.400 --> 31:01.120 They will create greater value and greater returns 31:01.120 --> 31:05.400 for the VCs, thereby raising even more money. 31:05.400 --> 31:10.000 So at Sinovation Ventures, our first fund was $15 million. 31:10.000 --> 31:12.040 Our last fund was $500 million. 31:12.040 --> 31:16.520 So it reflects the valuation of the companies 31:16.520 --> 31:19.840 and our us going multi stage and things like that. 31:19.840 --> 31:23.840 It also has government support, but not 31:23.840 --> 31:26.080 in the way most Americans would think of it. 31:26.080 --> 31:29.520 The government actually leaves the entrepreneurial space 31:29.520 --> 31:33.200 as a private enterprise, so the self regulating. 31:33.200 --> 31:36.200 And the government would build infrastructures 31:36.200 --> 31:39.320 that would around it to make it work better. 31:39.320 --> 31:41.960 For example, the mass entrepreneur mass innovation 31:41.960 --> 31:44.880 plan builds 8,000 incubators. 31:44.880 --> 31:48.360 So the pipeline is very strong to the VCs 31:48.360 --> 31:49.680 for autonomous vehicles. 31:49.680 --> 31:53.280 The Chinese government is building smart highways 31:53.280 --> 31:56.680 with sensors, smart cities that separate pedestrians 31:56.680 --> 32:01.560 from cars that may allow initially an inferior autonomous 32:01.560 --> 32:05.760 vehicle company to launch a car without increasing, 32:05.760 --> 32:11.520 with lower casualty, because the roads or the city is smart. 32:11.520 --> 32:13.800 And the Chinese government at local levels 32:13.800 --> 32:17.360 would have these guiding funds acting as LPs, 32:17.360 --> 32:19.400 passive LPs to funds. 32:19.400 --> 32:23.240 And when the fund makes money, part of the money made 32:23.240 --> 32:27.280 is given back to the GPs and potentially other LPs 32:27.280 --> 32:31.960 to increase everybody's return at the expense 32:31.960 --> 32:33.680 of the government's return. 32:33.680 --> 32:36.360 So that's an interesting incentive 32:36.360 --> 32:41.640 that entrusts the task of choosing entrepreneurs to VCs 32:41.640 --> 32:43.800 who are better at it than the government 32:43.800 --> 32:46.680 by letting some of the profits move that way. 32:46.680 --> 32:48.720 So this is really fascinating, right? 32:48.720 --> 32:51.800 So I look at the Russian government as a case study 32:51.800 --> 32:54.480 where, let me put it this way, there 32:54.480 --> 32:58.520 is no such government driven, large scale 32:58.520 --> 33:00.840 support of entrepreneurship. 33:00.840 --> 33:04.000 And probably the same is true in the United States. 33:04.000 --> 33:07.640 But the entrepreneurs themselves kind of find a way. 33:07.640 --> 33:11.680 So maybe in a form of advice or explanation, 33:11.680 --> 33:15.560 how did the Chinese government arrive to be this way, 33:15.560 --> 33:17.680 so supportive on entrepreneurship, 33:17.680 --> 33:21.520 to be in this particular way so forward thinking 33:21.520 --> 33:23.120 at such a large scale? 33:23.120 --> 33:28.280 And also perhaps, how can we copy it in other countries? 33:28.280 --> 33:29.800 How can we encourage other governments, 33:29.800 --> 33:31.600 like even the United States government, 33:31.600 --> 33:33.760 to support infrastructure for autonomous vehicles 33:33.760 --> 33:36.040 in that same kind of way, perhaps? 33:36.040 --> 33:36.680 Yes. 33:36.680 --> 33:44.440 So these techniques are the result of several key things, 33:44.440 --> 33:46.480 some of which may be learnable, some of which 33:46.480 --> 33:48.440 may be very hard. 33:48.440 --> 33:51.080 One is just trial and error and watching 33:51.080 --> 33:52.960 what everyone else is doing. 33:52.960 --> 33:54.960 I think it's important to be humble and not 33:54.960 --> 33:56.920 feel like you know all the answers. 33:56.920 --> 33:59.480 The guiding funds idea came from Singapore, 33:59.480 --> 34:01.440 which came from Israel. 34:01.440 --> 34:06.080 And China made a few tweaks and turned it into a, 34:06.080 --> 34:09.600 because the Chinese cities and government officials kind 34:09.600 --> 34:11.320 of compete with each other. 34:11.320 --> 34:14.640 Because they all want to make their city more successful, 34:14.640 --> 34:20.280 so they can get the next level in their political career. 34:20.280 --> 34:22.320 And it's somewhat competitive. 34:22.320 --> 34:25.200 So the central government made it a bit of a competition. 34:25.200 --> 34:26.840 Everybody has a budget. 34:26.840 --> 34:29.840 They can put it on AI, or they can put it on bio, 34:29.840 --> 34:32.200 or they can put it on energy. 34:32.200 --> 34:35.040 And then whoever gets the results, the city shines, 34:35.040 --> 34:38.000 the people are better off, the mayor gets a promotion. 34:38.000 --> 34:41.680 So the tools is kind of almost like an entrepreneurial 34:41.680 --> 34:44.840 environment for local governments 34:44.840 --> 34:47.480 to see who can do a better job. 34:47.480 --> 34:52.440 And also, many of them tried different experiments. 34:52.440 --> 34:58.440 Some have given award to very smart researchers, 34:58.440 --> 35:00.840 just give them money and hope they'll start a company. 35:00.840 --> 35:05.840 Some have given money to academic research labs, 35:05.840 --> 35:08.440 maybe government research labs, to see 35:08.440 --> 35:11.920 if they can spin off some companies from the science 35:11.920 --> 35:14.040 lab or something like that. 35:14.040 --> 35:17.080 Some have tried to recruit overseas Chinese 35:17.080 --> 35:18.960 to come back and start companies. 35:18.960 --> 35:20.960 And they've had mixed results. 35:20.960 --> 35:23.400 The one that worked the best was the guiding funds. 35:23.400 --> 35:25.840 So it's almost like a lean startup idea 35:25.840 --> 35:29.160 where people try different things in what works, sticks, 35:29.160 --> 35:30.600 and everybody copies. 35:30.600 --> 35:32.880 So now every city has a guiding fund. 35:32.880 --> 35:35.680 So that's how that came about. 35:35.680 --> 35:40.400 The autonomous vehicle and the massive spending 35:40.400 --> 35:46.080 in highways and smart cities, that's a Chinese way. 35:46.080 --> 35:49.480 It's about building infrastructure to facilitate. 35:49.480 --> 35:52.840 It's a clear division of the government's responsibility 35:52.840 --> 35:55.400 from the market. 35:55.400 --> 36:00.560 The market should do everything in a private freeway. 36:00.560 --> 36:02.920 But there are things the market can't afford to do, 36:02.920 --> 36:04.520 like infrastructure. 36:04.520 --> 36:08.000 So the government always appropriates 36:08.000 --> 36:12.000 large amounts of money for infrastructure building. 36:12.000 --> 36:16.880 This happens with not only autonomous vehicle and AI, 36:16.880 --> 36:20.840 but happened with the 3G and 4G. 36:20.840 --> 36:25.320 You'll find that the Chinese wireless reception 36:25.320 --> 36:28.760 is better than the US, because massive spending that 36:28.760 --> 36:30.720 tries to cover the whole country. 36:30.720 --> 36:34.360 Whereas in the US, it may be a little spotty. 36:34.360 --> 36:36.160 It's a government driven, because I think 36:36.160 --> 36:44.120 they view the coverage of cell access and 3G, 4G access 36:44.120 --> 36:47.080 to be a governmental infrastructure spending, 36:47.080 --> 36:49.880 as opposed to capitalistic. 36:49.880 --> 36:52.160 So of course, the state or enterprise 36:52.160 --> 36:55.000 is also publicly traded, but they also 36:55.000 --> 36:57.720 carry a government responsibility 36:57.720 --> 37:00.240 to deliver infrastructure to all. 37:00.240 --> 37:01.880 So it's a different way of thinking 37:01.880 --> 37:05.400 that may be very hard to inject into Western countries 37:05.400 --> 37:09.280 to say starting tomorrow, bandwidth infrastructure 37:09.280 --> 37:13.840 and highways are going to be governmental spending 37:13.840 --> 37:16.240 with some characteristics. 37:16.240 --> 37:18.240 What's your sense, and sorry to interrupt, 37:18.240 --> 37:21.680 but because it's such a fascinating point, 37:21.680 --> 37:25.600 do you think on the autonomous vehicle space 37:25.600 --> 37:30.120 it's possible to solve the problem of full autonomy 37:30.120 --> 37:34.040 without significant investment in infrastructure? 37:34.040 --> 37:36.400 Well, that's really hard to speculate. 37:36.400 --> 37:38.960 I think it's not a yes, no question, 37:38.960 --> 37:41.920 but how long does it take question? 37:41.920 --> 37:45.120 15 years, 30 years, 45 years. 37:45.120 --> 37:48.960 Clearly with infrastructure augmentation, 37:48.960 --> 37:52.320 where there's road, the city, or whole city planning, 37:52.320 --> 37:56.440 building a new city, I'm sure that will accelerate 37:56.440 --> 37:59.040 the day of the L5. 37:59.040 --> 38:01.520 I'm not knowledgeable enough, and it's 38:01.520 --> 38:03.920 hard to predict even when we're knowledgeable, 38:03.920 --> 38:07.120 because a lot of it is speculative. 38:07.120 --> 38:09.800 But in the US, I don't think people 38:09.800 --> 38:13.240 would consider building a new city the size of Chicago 38:13.240 --> 38:15.920 to make it the AI slash autonomous city. 38:15.920 --> 38:18.840 There are smaller ones being built, I'm aware of that. 38:18.840 --> 38:21.280 But is infrastructure spend really 38:21.280 --> 38:23.720 impossible for US or Western countries? 38:23.720 --> 38:25.680 I don't think so. 38:25.680 --> 38:28.920 The US highway system was built. 38:28.920 --> 38:31.960 Was that during President Eisenhower or Kennedy? 38:31.960 --> 38:33.160 Eisenhower, yeah. 38:33.160 --> 38:38.960 So maybe historians can study how the President Eisenhower 38:38.960 --> 38:42.960 get the resources to build this massive infrastructure that 38:42.960 --> 38:47.560 surely gave US a tremendous amount of prosperity 38:47.560 --> 38:50.800 over the next decade, if not century. 38:50.800 --> 38:53.240 If I may comment on that, then, it 38:53.240 --> 38:54.880 takes us to artificial intelligence 38:54.880 --> 38:58.080 a little bit, because in order to build infrastructure, 38:58.080 --> 39:00.520 it creates a lot of jobs. 39:00.520 --> 39:02.840 So I'll be actually interested if you 39:02.840 --> 39:06.120 would say that you're talking in your book about all kinds 39:06.120 --> 39:08.960 of jobs that could and could not be automated. 39:08.960 --> 39:12.000 I wonder if building infrastructure 39:12.000 --> 39:15.720 is one of the jobs that would not be easily automated, 39:15.720 --> 39:18.160 something you can think about, because I think you've mentioned 39:18.160 --> 39:21.160 somewhere in a talk, or that there 39:21.160 --> 39:24.280 might be, as jobs are being automated, 39:24.280 --> 39:28.160 a role for government to create jobs that can't be automated. 39:28.160 --> 39:31.040 Yes, I think that's a possibility. 39:31.040 --> 39:34.280 Back in the last financial crisis, 39:34.280 --> 39:40.320 China put a lot of money to basically give this economy 39:40.320 --> 39:45.520 a boost, and a lot of it went into infrastructure building. 39:45.520 --> 39:49.920 And I think that's a legitimate way, at the government level, 39:49.920 --> 39:55.680 to deal with the employment issues as well as build out 39:55.680 --> 39:58.960 the infrastructure, as long as the infrastructures are truly 39:58.960 --> 40:03.160 needed, and as long as there is an employment problem, which 40:03.160 --> 40:04.960 we don't know. 40:04.960 --> 40:07.920 So maybe taking a little step back, 40:07.920 --> 40:12.840 if you've been a leader and a researcher in AI 40:12.840 --> 40:16.200 for several decades, at least 30 years, 40:16.200 --> 40:21.040 so how has AI changed in the West and the East 40:21.040 --> 40:23.120 as you've observed, as you've been deep in it 40:23.120 --> 40:25.120 over the past 30 years? 40:25.120 --> 40:28.520 Well, AI began as the pursuit of understanding 40:28.520 --> 40:34.160 human intelligence, and the term itself represents that. 40:34.160 --> 40:37.680 But it kind of drifted into the one subarea that 40:37.680 --> 40:40.880 worked extremely well, which is machine intelligence. 40:40.880 --> 40:45.080 And that's actually more using pattern recognition techniques 40:45.080 --> 40:51.280 to basically do incredibly well on a limited domain, 40:51.280 --> 40:54.840 large amount of data, but relatively simple kinds 40:54.840 --> 40:58.720 of planning, tasks, and not very creative. 40:58.720 --> 41:02.480 So we didn't end up building human intelligence. 41:02.480 --> 41:04.760 We built a different machine that 41:04.760 --> 41:08.040 was a lot better than us, some problems, 41:08.040 --> 41:11.840 but nowhere close to us on other problems. 41:11.840 --> 41:14.200 So today, I think a lot of people still 41:14.200 --> 41:18.080 misunderstand when we say artificial intelligence 41:18.080 --> 41:20.720 and what various products can do. 41:20.720 --> 41:24.160 People still think it's about replicating human intelligence. 41:24.160 --> 41:26.160 But the products out there really 41:26.160 --> 41:31.680 are closer to having invented the internet or the spreadsheet 41:31.680 --> 41:35.360 or the database and getting broader adoption. 41:35.360 --> 41:38.400 And speaking further to the fears, near term fears 41:38.400 --> 41:41.240 that people have about AI, so you're commenting 41:41.240 --> 41:45.680 on the general intelligence that people 41:45.680 --> 41:48.040 in the popular culture from sci fi movies 41:48.040 --> 41:50.920 have a sense about AI, but there's practical fears 41:50.920 --> 41:54.800 about AI, the kind of narrow AI that you're talking about 41:54.800 --> 41:57.280 of automating particular kinds of jobs, 41:57.280 --> 41:59.400 and you talk about them in the book. 41:59.400 --> 42:01.520 So what are the kinds of jobs in your view 42:01.520 --> 42:04.840 that you see in the next five, 10 years beginning 42:04.840 --> 42:09.240 to be automated by AI systems algorithms? 42:09.240 --> 42:13.000 Yes, this is also maybe a little bit counterintuitive 42:13.000 --> 42:15.440 because it's the routine jobs that 42:15.440 --> 42:18.360 will be displaced the soonest. 42:18.360 --> 42:23.120 And they may not be displaced entirely, maybe 50%, 80% 42:23.120 --> 42:26.320 of a job, but when the workload drops by that much, 42:26.320 --> 42:28.760 employment will come down. 42:28.760 --> 42:31.520 And also another part of misunderstanding 42:31.520 --> 42:35.720 is most people think of AI replacing routine jobs, 42:35.720 --> 42:38.760 then they think of the assembly line, the workers. 42:38.760 --> 42:40.960 Well, that will have some effects, 42:40.960 --> 42:44.600 but it's actually the routine white collar workers that's 42:44.600 --> 42:49.280 easiest to replace because to replace a white collar worker, 42:49.280 --> 42:50.720 you just need software. 42:50.720 --> 42:53.120 To replace a blue collar worker, 42:53.120 --> 42:57.200 you need robotics, mechanical excellence, 42:57.200 --> 43:01.880 and the ability to deal with dexterity, 43:01.880 --> 43:05.640 and maybe even unknown environments, very, very difficult. 43:05.640 --> 43:11.200 So if we were to categorize the most dangerous white collar 43:11.200 --> 43:15.600 jobs, they would be things like back office, 43:15.600 --> 43:20.800 people who copy and paste and deal with simple computer 43:20.800 --> 43:25.560 programs and data, and maybe paper and OCR, 43:25.560 --> 43:29.000 and they don't make strategic decisions, 43:29.000 --> 43:32.040 they basically facilitate the process. 43:32.040 --> 43:34.680 These software and paper systems don't work, 43:34.680 --> 43:40.520 so you have people dealing with new employee orientation, 43:40.520 --> 43:45.400 searching for past lawsuits and financial documents, 43:45.400 --> 43:49.800 and doing reference check, so basic searching and management 43:49.800 --> 43:52.800 of data that's the most in danger of being lost. 43:52.800 --> 43:56.440 In addition to the white collar repetitive work, 43:56.440 --> 43:59.360 a lot of simple interaction work can also 43:59.360 --> 44:02.840 be taken care of, such as tele sales, telemarketing, 44:02.840 --> 44:07.280 customer service, as well as many physical jobs 44:07.280 --> 44:09.880 that are in the same location and don't 44:09.880 --> 44:12.240 require a high degree of dexterity, 44:12.240 --> 44:17.840 so fruit picking, dishwashing, assembly line, inspection, 44:17.840 --> 44:20.360 our jobs in that category. 44:20.360 --> 44:25.440 So altogether, back office is a big part, 44:25.440 --> 44:29.840 and the other, the blue collar may be smaller initially, 44:29.840 --> 44:32.560 but over time, AI will get better. 44:32.560 --> 44:36.880 And when we start to get to over the next 15, 20 years, 44:36.880 --> 44:39.120 the ability to actually have the dexterity 44:39.120 --> 44:42.600 of doing assembly line, that's a huge chunk of jobs. 44:42.600 --> 44:44.760 And when autonomous vehicles start 44:44.760 --> 44:47.400 to work initially starting with truck drivers, 44:47.400 --> 44:49.640 but eventually to all drivers, that's 44:49.640 --> 44:52.040 another huge group of workers. 44:52.040 --> 44:55.560 So I see modest numbers in the next five years, 44:55.560 --> 44:58.080 but increasing rapidly after that. 44:58.080 --> 45:01.240 On the worry of the jobs that are in danger 45:01.240 --> 45:04.320 and the gradual loss of jobs, I'm not 45:04.320 --> 45:06.680 sure if you're familiar with Andrew Yang. 45:06.680 --> 45:07.800 Yes, I am. 45:07.800 --> 45:10.560 So there's a candidate for president of the United States 45:10.560 --> 45:14.960 whose platform, Andrew Yang, is based around, in part, 45:14.960 --> 45:17.680 around job loss due to automation, 45:17.680 --> 45:21.120 and also, in addition, the need, perhaps, 45:21.120 --> 45:26.120 of universal basic income to support jobs that are folks who 45:26.120 --> 45:28.560 lose their job due to automation and so on, 45:28.560 --> 45:31.960 and in general, support people under complex, 45:31.960 --> 45:34.320 unstable job market. 45:34.320 --> 45:36.720 So what are your thoughts about his concerns, 45:36.720 --> 45:40.000 him as a candidate, his ideas in general? 45:40.000 --> 45:44.600 I think his thinking is generally in the right direction, 45:44.600 --> 45:48.440 but his approach as a presidential candidate 45:48.440 --> 45:52.240 may be a little bit ahead at the time. 45:52.240 --> 45:56.080 I think the displacements will happen, 45:56.080 --> 45:58.280 but will they happen soon enough for people 45:58.280 --> 46:00.480 to agree to vote for him? 46:00.480 --> 46:03.760 The unemployment numbers are not very high yet. 46:03.760 --> 46:07.600 And I think he and I have the same challenge. 46:07.600 --> 46:11.520 If I want to theoretically convince people this is an issue 46:11.520 --> 46:13.880 and he wants to become the president, 46:13.880 --> 46:17.760 people have to see how can this be the case when 46:17.760 --> 46:19.680 unemployment numbers are low. 46:19.680 --> 46:21.360 So that is the challenge. 46:21.360 --> 46:27.360 And I think I do agree with him on the displacement issue, 46:27.360 --> 46:32.280 on universal basic income, at a very vanilla level. 46:32.280 --> 46:36.800 I don't agree with it because I think the main issue 46:36.800 --> 46:38.320 is retraining. 46:38.320 --> 46:43.200 So people need to be incented not by just giving a monthly 46:43.200 --> 46:47.160 $2,000 check or $1,000 check and do whatever they want 46:47.160 --> 46:50.920 because they don't have the know how 46:50.920 --> 46:56.840 to know what to retrain to go into what type of a job 46:56.840 --> 46:58.640 and guidance is needed. 46:58.640 --> 47:01.720 And retraining is needed because historically 47:01.720 --> 47:05.080 in technology revolutions, when routine jobs were displaced, 47:05.080 --> 47:06.920 new routine jobs came up. 47:06.920 --> 47:09.400 So there was always room for that. 47:09.400 --> 47:12.640 But with AI and automation, the whole point 47:12.640 --> 47:15.320 is replacing all routine jobs eventually. 47:15.320 --> 47:17.840 So there will be fewer and fewer routine jobs. 47:17.840 --> 47:22.640 And AI will create jobs, but it won't create routine jobs 47:22.640 --> 47:24.840 because if it creates routine jobs, 47:24.840 --> 47:26.880 why wouldn't AI just do it? 47:26.880 --> 47:30.360 So therefore, the people who are losing the jobs 47:30.360 --> 47:32.280 are losing routine jobs. 47:32.280 --> 47:35.720 The jobs that are becoming available are nonroutine jobs. 47:35.720 --> 47:39.320 So the social stipend needs to be put in place 47:39.320 --> 47:42.040 is for the routine workers who lost their jobs 47:42.040 --> 47:46.120 to be retrained maybe in six months, maybe in three years. 47:46.120 --> 47:48.560 Takes a while to retrain on the nonroutine job 47:48.560 --> 47:51.360 and then take on a job that will last 47:51.360 --> 47:53.400 for that person's lifetime. 47:53.400 --> 47:56.160 Now, having said that, if you look deeply 47:56.160 --> 47:58.240 into Andrew's document, he does cater for that. 47:58.240 --> 48:03.240 So I'm not disagreeing with what he's trying to do. 48:03.280 --> 48:06.360 But for simplification, sometimes he just says UBI, 48:06.360 --> 48:08.760 but simple UBI wouldn't work. 48:08.760 --> 48:10.600 And I think you've mentioned elsewhere 48:10.600 --> 48:15.600 that the goal isn't necessarily to give people enough money 48:15.760 --> 48:19.120 to survive or live or even to prosper. 48:19.120 --> 48:22.800 The point is to give them a job that gives them meaning. 48:22.800 --> 48:25.600 That meaning is extremely important. 48:25.600 --> 48:28.600 That our employment, at least in the United States 48:28.600 --> 48:31.200 and perhaps it cares across the world, 48:31.200 --> 48:34.600 provides something that's, forgive me for saying, 48:34.600 --> 48:36.960 greater than money, it provides meaning. 48:38.400 --> 48:43.400 So now what kind of jobs do you think can't be automated? 48:44.840 --> 48:46.600 You talk a little bit about creativity 48:46.600 --> 48:48.200 and compassion in your book. 48:48.200 --> 48:50.720 What aspects do you think it's difficult 48:50.720 --> 48:52.320 to automate for an AI system? 48:52.320 --> 48:57.320 Because an AI system is currently merely optimizing. 48:57.360 --> 49:00.120 It's not able to reason, plan, 49:00.120 --> 49:02.920 or think creatively or strategically. 49:02.920 --> 49:05.320 It's not able to deal with complex problems. 49:05.320 --> 49:09.520 It can't come up with a new problem and solve it. 49:09.520 --> 49:12.320 A human needs to find the problem 49:12.320 --> 49:15.520 and pose it as an optimization problem, 49:15.520 --> 49:17.520 then have the AI work at it. 49:17.520 --> 49:21.320 So an AI would have a very hard time 49:21.320 --> 49:23.320 discovering a new drug 49:23.320 --> 49:26.320 or discovering a new style of painting 49:27.320 --> 49:30.320 or dealing with complex tasks 49:30.320 --> 49:32.320 such as managing a company 49:32.320 --> 49:35.320 that isn't just about optimizing the bottom line, 49:35.320 --> 49:39.320 but also about employee satisfaction, corporate brand, 49:39.320 --> 49:40.320 and many, many other things. 49:40.320 --> 49:44.320 So that is one category of things. 49:44.320 --> 49:48.320 And because these things are challenging, creative, complex, 49:48.320 --> 49:52.320 doing them creates a higher degree of satisfaction 49:52.320 --> 49:55.320 and therefore appealing to our desire for working, 49:55.320 --> 49:57.320 which isn't just to make the money, 49:57.320 --> 49:58.320 make the ends meet, 49:58.320 --> 50:00.320 but also that we've accomplished something 50:00.320 --> 50:03.320 that others maybe can't do or can't do as well. 50:04.320 --> 50:07.320 Another type of job that is much numerous 50:07.320 --> 50:09.320 would be compassionate jobs, 50:09.320 --> 50:14.320 jobs that require compassion, empathy, human touch, human trust. 50:14.320 --> 50:18.320 AI can't do that because AI is cold, calculating, 50:18.320 --> 50:22.320 and even if it can fake that to some extent, 50:22.320 --> 50:26.320 it will make errors and that will make it look very silly. 50:26.320 --> 50:29.320 And also, I think even if AI did okay, 50:29.320 --> 50:33.320 people would want to interact with another person, 50:33.320 --> 50:38.320 whether it's for some kind of a service or a teacher or a doctor 50:38.320 --> 50:41.320 or a concierge or a masseuse or bartender. 50:41.320 --> 50:46.320 There are so many jobs where people just don't want to interact 50:46.320 --> 50:49.320 with a cold robot or software. 50:50.320 --> 50:53.320 I've had an entrepreneur who built an elderly care robot 50:53.320 --> 50:58.320 and they found that the elderly really only use it for customer service. 50:58.320 --> 51:00.320 But not to service the product, 51:00.320 --> 51:05.320 but they click on customer service and the video of a person comes up 51:05.320 --> 51:07.320 and then the person says, 51:07.320 --> 51:11.320 how come my daughter didn't call me? Let me show you a picture of her grandkids. 51:11.320 --> 51:15.320 So people earn for that, people people interaction. 51:15.320 --> 51:19.320 So even if robots improved, people just don't want it. 51:19.320 --> 51:21.320 And those jobs are going to be increasing 51:21.320 --> 51:24.320 because AI will create a lot of value, 51:24.320 --> 51:29.320 $16 trillion to the world in next 11 years according to PWC 51:29.320 --> 51:34.320 and that will give people money to enjoy services, 51:34.320 --> 51:39.320 whether it's eating a gourmet meal or tourism and traveling 51:39.320 --> 51:41.320 or having concierge services. 51:41.320 --> 51:44.320 The services revolving around, you know, 51:44.320 --> 51:47.320 every dollar of that $16 trillion will be tremendous. 51:47.320 --> 51:52.320 It will create more opportunities to service the people who did well 51:52.320 --> 51:55.320 through AI with things. 51:55.320 --> 52:01.320 But even at the same time, the entire society is very much short 52:01.320 --> 52:05.320 in need of many service oriented, compassionate oriented jobs. 52:05.320 --> 52:10.320 The best example is probably in healthcare services. 52:10.320 --> 52:15.320 There's going to be 2 million new jobs, not counting replacement, 52:15.320 --> 52:20.320 just brand new incremental jobs in the next six years in healthcare services. 52:20.320 --> 52:24.320 That includes nurses orderly in the hospital, 52:24.320 --> 52:29.320 elderly care and also at home care. 52:29.320 --> 52:31.320 It's particularly lacking. 52:31.320 --> 52:34.320 And those jobs are not likely to be filled. 52:34.320 --> 52:36.320 So there's likely to be a shortage. 52:36.320 --> 52:41.320 And the reason they're not filled is simply because they don't pay very well 52:41.320 --> 52:47.320 and that the social status of these jobs are not very good. 52:47.320 --> 52:52.320 So they pay about half as much as a heavy equipment operator, 52:52.320 --> 52:55.320 which will be replaced a lot sooner. 52:55.320 --> 52:59.320 And they pay probably comparably to someone on the assembly line. 52:59.320 --> 53:03.320 And so if we're ignoring all the other issues 53:03.320 --> 53:07.320 and just think about satisfaction from one's job, 53:07.320 --> 53:11.320 someone repetitively doing the same manual action at an assembly line, 53:11.320 --> 53:14.320 that can't create a lot of job satisfaction. 53:14.320 --> 53:17.320 But someone taking care of a sick person 53:17.320 --> 53:21.320 and getting a hug and thank you from that person and the family, 53:21.320 --> 53:24.320 I think is quite satisfying. 53:24.320 --> 53:28.320 So if only we could fix the pay for service jobs, 53:28.320 --> 53:33.320 there are plenty of jobs that require some training or a lot of training 53:33.320 --> 53:36.320 for the people coming off the routine jobs to take. 53:36.320 --> 53:43.320 We can easily imagine someone who was maybe a cashier at the grocery store, 53:43.320 --> 53:49.320 at stores become automated, learns to become a nurse or at home care. 53:49.320 --> 53:54.320 Also, I do want to point out the blue collar jobs are going to stay around a bit longer, 53:54.320 --> 53:57.320 some of them quite a bit longer. 53:57.320 --> 54:01.320 AI cannot be told, go clean an arbitrary home. 54:01.320 --> 54:03.320 That's incredibly hard. 54:03.320 --> 54:07.320 Arguably is an L5 level of difficulty. 54:07.320 --> 54:09.320 And then AI cannot be a good plumber, 54:09.320 --> 54:12.320 because plumber is almost like a mini detective 54:12.320 --> 54:15.320 that has to figure out where the leak came from. 54:15.320 --> 54:22.320 So yet AI probably can be an assembly line and auto mechanic and so on. 54:22.320 --> 54:26.320 So one has to study which blue collar jobs are going away 54:26.320 --> 54:30.320 and facilitate retraining for the people to go into the ones that won't go away 54:30.320 --> 54:32.320 or maybe even will increase. 54:32.320 --> 54:39.320 I mean, it is fascinating that it's easier to build a world champion chess player 54:39.320 --> 54:41.320 than it is to build a mediocre plumber. 54:41.320 --> 54:43.320 Yes, very true. 54:43.320 --> 54:47.320 And to AI, and that goes counterintuitive to a lot of people's understanding 54:47.320 --> 54:49.320 of what artificial intelligence is. 54:49.320 --> 54:53.320 So it sounds, I mean, you're painting a pretty optimistic picture 54:53.320 --> 54:56.320 about retraining, about the number of jobs 54:56.320 --> 55:01.320 and actually the meaningful nature of those jobs once we automate repetitive tasks. 55:01.320 --> 55:07.320 So overall, are you optimistic about the future 55:07.320 --> 55:11.320 where much of the repetitive tasks are automated, 55:11.320 --> 55:15.320 that there is a lot of room for humans, for the compassionate, 55:15.320 --> 55:19.320 for the creative input that only humans can provide? 55:19.320 --> 55:23.320 I am optimistic if we start to take action. 55:23.320 --> 55:27.320 If we have no action in the next five years, 55:27.320 --> 55:33.320 I think it's going to be hard to deal with the devastating losses that will emerge. 55:33.320 --> 55:39.320 So if we start thinking about retraining, maybe with the low hanging fruits, 55:39.320 --> 55:45.320 explaining to vocational schools why they should train more plumbers than auto mechanics, 55:45.320 --> 55:53.320 maybe starting with some government subsidy for corporations to have more training positions. 55:53.320 --> 55:57.320 We start to explain to people why retraining is important. 55:57.320 --> 56:00.320 We start to think about what the future of education, 56:00.320 --> 56:04.320 how that needs to be tweaked for the era of AI. 56:04.320 --> 56:06.320 If we start to make incremental progress, 56:06.320 --> 56:09.320 and the greater number of people understand, 56:09.320 --> 56:12.320 then there's no reason to think we can't deal with this, 56:12.320 --> 56:16.320 because this technological revolution is arguably similar to 56:16.320 --> 56:20.320 what electricity, industrial revolutions, and internet brought about. 56:20.320 --> 56:24.320 Do you think there's a role for policy, for governments to step in 56:24.320 --> 56:27.320 to help with policy to create a better world? 56:27.320 --> 56:32.320 Absolutely, and the governments don't have to believe 56:32.320 --> 56:39.320 that unemployment will go up, and they don't have to believe automation will be this fast to do something. 56:39.320 --> 56:42.320 Revamping vocational school would be one example. 56:42.320 --> 56:47.320 Another is if there's a big gap in healthcare service employment, 56:47.320 --> 56:54.320 and we know that a country's population is growing older and more longevity living older, 56:54.320 --> 56:59.320 because people over 80 require five times as much care as those under 80, 56:59.320 --> 57:04.320 then it is a good time to incent training programs for elderly care, 57:04.320 --> 57:07.320 to find ways to improve the pay. 57:07.320 --> 57:13.320 Maybe one way would be to offer as part of Medicare or the equivalent program 57:13.320 --> 57:18.320 for people over 80 to be entitled to a few hours of elderly care at home, 57:18.320 --> 57:21.320 and then that might be reimbursable, 57:21.320 --> 57:28.320 and that will stimulate the service industry around the policy. 57:28.320 --> 57:32.320 Do you have concerns about large entities, 57:32.320 --> 57:38.320 whether it's governments or companies, controlling the future of AI development in general? 57:38.320 --> 57:40.320 So we talked about companies. 57:40.320 --> 57:48.320 Do you have a better sense that governments can better represent the interest of the people 57:48.320 --> 57:54.320 than companies, or do you believe companies are better at representing the interest of the people? 57:54.320 --> 57:56.320 Or is there no easy answer? 57:56.320 --> 57:59.320 I don't think there's an easy answer because it's a double edged sword. 57:59.320 --> 58:06.320 The companies and governments can provide better services with more access to data and more access to AI, 58:06.320 --> 58:13.320 but that also leads to greater power, which can lead to uncontrollable problems, 58:13.320 --> 58:17.320 whether it's monopoly or corruption in the government. 58:17.320 --> 58:24.320 So I think one has to be careful to look at how much data that companies and governments have, 58:24.320 --> 58:29.320 and some kind of checks and balances would be helpful. 58:29.320 --> 58:33.320 So again, I come from Russia. 58:33.320 --> 58:36.320 There's something called the Cold War. 58:36.320 --> 58:40.320 So let me ask a difficult question here, looking at conflict. 58:40.320 --> 58:45.320 Steven Pinker wrote a great book that conflict all over the world is decreasing in general. 58:45.320 --> 58:51.320 But do you have a sense that having written the book AI Superpowers, 58:51.320 --> 58:57.320 do you see a major international conflict potentially arising between major nations, 58:57.320 --> 59:02.320 whatever they are, whether it's Russia, China, European nations, United States, 59:02.320 --> 59:09.320 or others in the next 10, 20, 50 years around AI, around the digital space, cyber space? 59:09.320 --> 59:12.320 Do you worry about that? 59:12.320 --> 59:19.320 Is that something we need to think about and try to alleviate or prevent? 59:19.320 --> 59:22.320 I believe in greater engagement. 59:22.320 --> 59:33.320 A lot of the worries about more powerful AI are based on an arms race metaphor. 59:33.320 --> 59:41.320 And when you extrapolate into military kinds of scenarios, 59:41.320 --> 59:48.320 AI can automate autonomous weapons that needs to be controlled somehow. 59:48.320 --> 59:57.320 And autonomous decision making can lead to not enough time to fix international crises. 59:57.320 --> 1:00:02.320 So I actually believe a Cold War mentality would be very dangerous 1:00:02.320 --> 1:00:07.320 because should two countries rely on AI to make certain decisions 1:00:07.320 --> 1:00:11.320 and they don't even talk to each other, they do their own scenario planning, 1:00:11.320 --> 1:00:14.320 then something could easily go wrong. 1:00:14.320 --> 1:00:24.320 I think engagement, interaction, some protocols to avoid inadvertent disasters is actually needed. 1:00:24.320 --> 1:00:28.320 So it's natural for each country to want to be the best, 1:00:28.320 --> 1:00:34.320 whether it's in nuclear technologies or AI or bio. 1:00:34.320 --> 1:00:40.320 But I think it's important to realize if each country has a black box AI 1:00:40.320 --> 1:00:48.320 and don't talk to each other, that probably presents greater challenges to humanity 1:00:48.320 --> 1:00:50.320 than if they interacted. 1:00:50.320 --> 1:00:56.320 I think there can still be competition, but with some degree of protocol for interaction. 1:00:56.320 --> 1:01:01.320 Just like when there was a nuclear competition, 1:01:01.320 --> 1:01:07.320 there were some protocol for deterrence among US, Russia, and China. 1:01:07.320 --> 1:01:10.320 And I think that engagement is needed. 1:01:10.320 --> 1:01:15.320 So of course, we're still far from AI presenting that kind of danger. 1:01:15.320 --> 1:01:22.320 But what I worry the most about is the level of engagement seems to be coming down. 1:01:22.320 --> 1:01:25.320 The level of distrust seems to be going up, 1:01:25.320 --> 1:01:32.320 especially from the US towards other large countries such as China and Russia. 1:01:32.320 --> 1:01:34.320 Is there a way to make that better? 1:01:34.320 --> 1:01:40.320 So that's beautifully put, level of engagement and even just basic trust and communication 1:01:40.320 --> 1:01:52.320 as opposed to making artificial enemies out of particular countries. 1:01:52.320 --> 1:02:01.320 Do you have a sense how we can make it better, actionable items that as a society we can take on? 1:02:01.320 --> 1:02:10.320 I'm not an expert at geopolitics, but I would say that we look pretty foolish as humankind 1:02:10.320 --> 1:02:19.320 when we are faced with the opportunity to create $16 trillion for humanity. 1:02:19.320 --> 1:02:29.320 And yet we're not solving fundamental problems with parts of the world still in poverty. 1:02:29.320 --> 1:02:34.320 And for the first time, we have the resources to overcome poverty and hunger. 1:02:34.320 --> 1:02:38.320 We're not using it on that, but we're fueling competition among superpowers. 1:02:38.320 --> 1:02:41.320 And that's a very unfortunate thing. 1:02:41.320 --> 1:02:54.320 If we become utopian for a moment, imagine a benevolent world government that has this $16 trillion 1:02:54.320 --> 1:03:02.320 and maybe some AI to figure out how to use it to deal with diseases and problems and hate and things like that. 1:03:02.320 --> 1:03:04.320 World would be a lot better off. 1:03:04.320 --> 1:03:07.320 So what is wrong with the current world? 1:03:07.320 --> 1:03:13.320 I think the people with more skill than I should think about this. 1:03:13.320 --> 1:03:19.320 And then the geopolitics issue with superpower competition is one side of the issue. 1:03:19.320 --> 1:03:29.320 There's another side which I worry maybe even more, which is as the $16 trillion all gets made by U.S. and China 1:03:29.320 --> 1:03:34.320 and a few of the other developed countries, the poorer country will get nothing 1:03:34.320 --> 1:03:42.320 because they don't have technology and the wealth disparity and inequality will increase. 1:03:42.320 --> 1:03:50.320 So a poorer country with a large population will not only benefit from the AI boom or other technology booms 1:03:50.320 --> 1:03:57.320 but they will have their workers who previously had hoped they could do the China model and do outsource manufacturing 1:03:57.320 --> 1:04:02.320 or the India model so they could do the outsource process or call center 1:04:02.320 --> 1:04:05.320 while all those jobs are going to be gone in 10 or 15 years. 1:04:05.320 --> 1:04:14.320 So the individual citizen may be a net liability, I mean financially speaking, to a poorer country 1:04:14.320 --> 1:04:19.320 and not an asset to claw itself out of poverty. 1:04:19.320 --> 1:04:29.320 So in that kind of situation, these large countries with not much tech are going to be facing a downward spiral 1:04:29.320 --> 1:04:37.320 and it's unclear what could be done and then when we look back and say there's $16 trillion being created 1:04:37.320 --> 1:04:43.320 and it's all being kept by U.S. China and other developed countries, it just doesn't feel right. 1:04:43.320 --> 1:04:50.320 So I hope people who know about geopolitics can find solutions that's beyond my expertise. 1:04:50.320 --> 1:04:54.320 So different countries that we've talked about have different value systems. 1:04:54.320 --> 1:05:02.320 If you look at the United States to an almost extreme degree, there is an absolute desire for freedom of speech. 1:05:02.320 --> 1:05:14.320 If you look at a country where I was raised, that desire just amongst the people is not as elevated as it is to basically fundamental level 1:05:14.320 --> 1:05:17.320 to the essence of what it means to be America, right? 1:05:17.320 --> 1:05:20.320 And the same is true with China, there's different value systems. 1:05:20.320 --> 1:05:30.320 There is some censorship of internet content that China and Russia and many other countries undertake. 1:05:30.320 --> 1:05:40.320 Do you see that having effects on innovation, other aspects of some of the tech stuff, AI development we talked about 1:05:40.320 --> 1:05:52.320 and maybe from another angle, do you see that changing in different ways over the next 10 years, 20 years, 50 years as China continues to grow 1:05:52.320 --> 1:05:55.320 as it does now in its tech innovation? 1:05:55.320 --> 1:06:08.320 There's a common belief that full freedom of speech and expression is correlated with creativity, which is correlated with entrepreneurial success. 1:06:08.320 --> 1:06:15.320 I think empirically we have seen that is not true and China has been successful. 1:06:15.320 --> 1:06:25.320 That's not to say the fundamental values are not right or not the best, but it's just that perfect correlation isn't there. 1:06:25.320 --> 1:06:36.320 It's hard to read the tea leaves on opening up or not in any country and I've not been very good at that in my past predictions. 1:06:36.320 --> 1:06:46.320 But I do believe every country shares some fundamental value, a lot of fundamental values for the long term. 1:06:46.320 --> 1:07:02.320 So, you know, China is drafting its privacy policy for individual citizens and they don't look that different from the American or European ones. 1:07:02.320 --> 1:07:13.320 So, people do want to protect their privacy and have the opportunity to express and I think the fundamental values are there. 1:07:13.320 --> 1:07:21.320 The question is in the execution and timing, how soon or when will that start to open up? 1:07:21.320 --> 1:07:31.320 So, as long as each government knows, ultimately people want that kind of protection, there should be a plan to move towards that. 1:07:31.320 --> 1:07:35.320 As to when or how, again, I'm not an expert. 1:07:35.320 --> 1:07:38.320 On the point of privacy to me, it's really interesting. 1:07:38.320 --> 1:07:44.320 So, AI needs data to create a personalized awesome experience. 1:07:44.320 --> 1:07:47.320 I'm just speaking generally in terms of products. 1:07:47.320 --> 1:07:53.320 And then we have currently, depending on the age and depending on the demographics of who we're talking about, 1:07:53.320 --> 1:07:58.320 some people are more or less concerned about the amount of data they hand over. 1:07:58.320 --> 1:08:03.320 So, in your view, how do we get this balance right? 1:08:03.320 --> 1:08:09.320 That we provide an amazing experience to people that use products. 1:08:09.320 --> 1:08:15.320 You look at Facebook, you know, the more Facebook knows about you, yes, it's scary to say. 1:08:15.320 --> 1:08:20.320 The better it can probably, a better experience it can probably create. 1:08:20.320 --> 1:08:24.320 So, in your view, how do we get that balance right? 1:08:24.320 --> 1:08:38.320 Yes, I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding that it's okay and possible to just rip all the data out from a provider and give it back to you. 1:08:38.320 --> 1:08:43.320 So, you can deny them access to further data and still enjoy the services we have. 1:08:43.320 --> 1:08:48.320 If we take back all the data, all the services will give us nonsense. 1:08:48.320 --> 1:08:57.320 We'll no longer be able to use products that function well in terms of, you know, right ranking, right products, right user experience. 1:08:57.320 --> 1:09:04.320 So, yet I do understand we don't want to permit misuse of the data. 1:09:04.320 --> 1:09:16.320 From legal policy standpoint, I think there can be severe punishment for those who have egregious misuse of the data. 1:09:16.320 --> 1:09:19.320 That's, I think, a good first step. 1:09:19.320 --> 1:09:27.320 Actually, China on this aspect has very strong laws about people who sell or give data to other companies. 1:09:27.320 --> 1:09:40.320 And that over the past few years, since that law came into effect, pretty much eradicated the illegal distribution sharing of data. 1:09:40.320 --> 1:09:52.320 Additionally, I think giving, I think technology is often a very good way to solve technology misuse. 1:09:52.320 --> 1:09:58.320 So, can we come up with new technologies that will let us have our cake and eat it too? 1:09:58.320 --> 1:10:07.320 People are looking into homomorphic encryption, which is letting you keep the data, have it encrypted and train encrypted data. 1:10:07.320 --> 1:10:13.320 Of course, we haven't solved that one yet, but that kind of direction may be worth pursuing. 1:10:13.320 --> 1:10:22.320 Also federated learning, which would allow one hospital to train on its hospitals patient data fully because they have a license for that. 1:10:22.320 --> 1:10:28.320 And then hospitals would then share their models, not data, but models to create a supra AI. 1:10:28.320 --> 1:10:30.320 And that also maybe has some promise. 1:10:30.320 --> 1:10:39.320 So I would want to encourage us to be open minded and think of this as not just the policy binary yes no, 1:10:39.320 --> 1:10:48.320 but letting the technologists try to find solutions to let us have our cake and eat it too, or have most of our cake and eat most of it too. 1:10:48.320 --> 1:10:55.320 Finally, I think giving each end user a choice is important and having transparency is important. 1:10:55.320 --> 1:11:04.320 Also, I think that's universal, but the choice you give to the user should not be at a granular level that the user cannot understand. 1:11:04.320 --> 1:11:12.320 GDPR today causes all these pop ups of yes, no, will you give this site this right to use this part of your data? 1:11:12.320 --> 1:11:20.320 I don't think any user understands what they're saying yes or no to, and I suspect most are just saying yes because they don't understand it. 1:11:20.320 --> 1:11:30.320 So while GDPR in its current implementation has lived up to its promise of transparency and user choice, 1:11:30.320 --> 1:11:39.320 it implemented it in such a way that really didn't deliver the spirit of GDPR. 1:11:39.320 --> 1:11:41.320 It fit the letter, but not the spirit. 1:11:41.320 --> 1:11:50.320 So again, I think we need to think about is there a way to fit the spirit of GDPR by using some kind of technology? 1:11:50.320 --> 1:11:52.320 Can we have a slider? 1:11:52.320 --> 1:12:01.320 That's an AI trying to figure out how much you want to slide between perfect protection security of your personal data 1:12:01.320 --> 1:12:07.320 versus high degree of convenience with some risks of not having full privacy. 1:12:07.320 --> 1:12:11.320 Each user should have some preference and that gives you the user choice, 1:12:11.320 --> 1:12:18.320 but maybe we should turn the problem on its head and ask can there be an AI algorithm that can customize this 1:12:18.320 --> 1:12:24.320 because we can understand the slider, but we sure cannot understand every pop up question. 1:12:24.320 --> 1:12:30.320 And I think getting that right requires getting the balance between what we talked about earlier, 1:12:30.320 --> 1:12:36.320 which is heart and soul versus profit driven decisions and strategy. 1:12:36.320 --> 1:12:45.320 I think from my perspective, the best way to make a lot of money in the long term is to keep your heart and soul intact. 1:12:45.320 --> 1:12:53.320 I think getting that slider right in the short term may feel like you'll be sacrificing profit, 1:12:53.320 --> 1:12:59.320 but in the long term, you'll be getting user trust and providing a great experience. 1:12:59.320 --> 1:13:01.320 Do you share that kind of view in general? 1:13:01.320 --> 1:13:11.320 Yes, absolutely. I sure would hope there is a way we can do long term projects that really do the right thing. 1:13:11.320 --> 1:13:16.320 I think a lot of people who embrace GDPR, their hearts in the right place. 1:13:16.320 --> 1:13:20.320 I think they just need to figure out how to build a solution. 1:13:20.320 --> 1:13:24.320 I've heard utopians talk about solutions that get me excited, 1:13:24.320 --> 1:13:29.320 but not sure how in the current funding environment they can get started, right? 1:13:29.320 --> 1:13:37.320 People talk about, imagine this crowdsourced data collection that we all trust, 1:13:37.320 --> 1:13:45.320 and then we have these agents that we ask them to ask the trusted agent. 1:13:45.320 --> 1:13:48.320 That agent only, that platform. 1:13:48.320 --> 1:14:02.320 A trusted joint platform that we all believe is trustworthy that can give us all the close loop personal suggestions 1:14:02.320 --> 1:14:07.320 by the new social network, new search engine, new ecommerce engine 1:14:07.320 --> 1:14:12.320 that has access to even more of our data, but not directly but indirectly. 1:14:12.320 --> 1:14:18.320 I think that general concept of licensing to some trusted engine 1:14:18.320 --> 1:14:22.320 and finding a way to trust that engine seems like a great idea, 1:14:22.320 --> 1:14:27.320 but if you think how long it's going to take to implement and tweak and develop it right, 1:14:27.320 --> 1:14:31.320 as well as to collect all the trust and the data from the people, 1:14:31.320 --> 1:14:34.320 it's beyond the current cycle of venture capital. 1:14:34.320 --> 1:14:37.320 How do you do that is a big question. 1:14:37.320 --> 1:14:44.320 You've recently had a fight with cancer, stage 4 lymphoma, 1:14:44.320 --> 1:14:54.320 and in a sort of deep personal level, what did it feel like in the darker moments to face your own mortality? 1:14:54.320 --> 1:14:57.320 Well, I've been the workaholic my whole life, 1:14:57.320 --> 1:15:04.320 and I've basically worked 9.96, 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, roughly. 1:15:04.320 --> 1:15:10.320 And I didn't really pay a lot of attention to my family, friends, and people who loved me, 1:15:10.320 --> 1:15:14.320 and my life revolved around optimizing for work. 1:15:14.320 --> 1:15:25.320 While my work was not routine, my optimization really made my life basically a very mechanical process. 1:15:25.320 --> 1:15:36.320 But I got a lot of highs out of it because of accomplishments that I thought were really important and dear and the highest priority to me. 1:15:36.320 --> 1:15:41.320 But when I faced mortality and the possible death in matter of months, 1:15:41.320 --> 1:15:45.320 I suddenly realized that this really meant nothing to me, 1:15:45.320 --> 1:15:48.320 that I didn't feel like working for another minute, 1:15:48.320 --> 1:15:54.320 that if I had 6 months left in my life, I would spend it all with my loved ones. 1:15:54.320 --> 1:16:02.320 And thanking them, giving them love back, and apologizing to them that I lived my life the wrong way. 1:16:02.320 --> 1:16:11.320 So that moment of reckoning caused me to really rethink that why we exist in this world 1:16:11.320 --> 1:16:22.320 is something that we might be too much shaped by the society to think that success and accomplishments is why we live. 1:16:22.320 --> 1:16:29.320 And while that can get you periodic successes and satisfaction, 1:16:29.320 --> 1:16:35.320 it's really in them facing death, you see what's truly important to you. 1:16:35.320 --> 1:16:41.320 So as a result of going through the challenges with cancer, 1:16:41.320 --> 1:16:45.320 I've resolved to live a more balanced lifestyle. 1:16:45.320 --> 1:16:48.320 I'm now in remission, knock on wood, 1:16:48.320 --> 1:16:52.320 and I'm spending more time with my family. 1:16:52.320 --> 1:16:54.320 My wife travels with me. 1:16:54.320 --> 1:16:57.320 When my kids need me, I spend more time with them. 1:16:57.320 --> 1:17:02.320 And before, I used to prioritize everything around work. 1:17:02.320 --> 1:17:05.320 When I had a little bit of time, I would dole it out to my family. 1:17:05.320 --> 1:17:09.320 Now, when my family needs something, really needs something, 1:17:09.320 --> 1:17:12.320 I drop everything at work and go to them. 1:17:12.320 --> 1:17:15.320 And then in the time remaining, I allocate to work. 1:17:15.320 --> 1:17:18.320 But one's family is very understanding. 1:17:18.320 --> 1:17:22.320 It's not like they will take 50 hours a week from me. 1:17:22.320 --> 1:17:26.320 So I'm actually able to still work pretty hard, 1:17:26.320 --> 1:17:28.320 maybe 10 hours less per week. 1:17:28.320 --> 1:17:35.320 So I realize the most important thing in my life is really love and the people I love. 1:17:35.320 --> 1:17:38.320 And I give that the highest priority. 1:17:38.320 --> 1:17:40.320 It isn't the only thing I do. 1:17:40.320 --> 1:17:45.320 But when that is needed, I put that at the top priority. 1:17:45.320 --> 1:17:49.320 And I feel much better and I feel much more balanced. 1:17:49.320 --> 1:17:56.320 And I think this also gives a hint as to a life of routine work, 1:17:56.320 --> 1:17:58.320 a life of pursuit of numbers. 1:17:58.320 --> 1:18:03.320 While my job was not routine, it wasn't pursuit of numbers. 1:18:03.320 --> 1:18:05.320 Pursuit of, can I make more money? 1:18:05.320 --> 1:18:07.320 Can I fund more great companies? 1:18:07.320 --> 1:18:09.320 Can I raise more money? 1:18:09.320 --> 1:18:13.320 Can I make sure our VC is ranked higher and higher every year? 1:18:13.320 --> 1:18:20.320 This competitive nature of driving for bigger numbers and better numbers 1:18:20.320 --> 1:18:27.320 became an endless pursuit of that's mechanical. 1:18:27.320 --> 1:18:31.320 And bigger numbers really didn't make me happier. 1:18:31.320 --> 1:18:36.320 And faced with death, I realized bigger numbers really meant nothing. 1:18:36.320 --> 1:18:42.320 And what was important is that people who have given their heart and their love to me 1:18:42.320 --> 1:18:45.320 deserve for me to do the same. 1:18:45.320 --> 1:18:52.320 So there's deep profound truth in that, that everyone should hear and internalize. 1:18:52.320 --> 1:18:56.320 And that's really powerful for you to say that. 1:18:56.320 --> 1:19:02.320 I have to ask sort of a difficult question here. 1:19:02.320 --> 1:19:07.320 So I've competed in sports my whole life, looking historically. 1:19:07.320 --> 1:19:14.320 I'd like to challenge some aspect of that a little bit on the point of hard work. 1:19:14.320 --> 1:19:20.320 That it feels that there are certain aspects that is the greatest, 1:19:20.320 --> 1:19:26.320 the most beautiful aspects of human nature, is the ability to become obsessed, 1:19:26.320 --> 1:19:33.320 of becoming extremely passionate to the point where, yes, flaws are revealed 1:19:33.320 --> 1:19:36.320 and just giving yourself fully to a task. 1:19:36.320 --> 1:19:41.320 That is, in another sense, you mentioned love being important, 1:19:41.320 --> 1:19:47.320 but in another sense, this kind of obsession, this pure exhibition of passion and hard work 1:19:47.320 --> 1:19:50.320 is truly what it means to be human. 1:19:50.320 --> 1:19:53.320 What lessons should we take that's deeper? 1:19:53.320 --> 1:19:55.320 Because you've accomplished incredible things. 1:19:55.320 --> 1:19:57.320 Like chasing numbers. 1:19:57.320 --> 1:20:01.320 But really, there's some incredible work there. 1:20:01.320 --> 1:20:07.320 So how do you think about that when you look back in your 20s, your 30s? 1:20:07.320 --> 1:20:10.320 What would you do differently? 1:20:10.320 --> 1:20:16.320 Would you really take back some of the incredible hard work? 1:20:16.320 --> 1:20:17.320 I would. 1:20:17.320 --> 1:20:20.320 But it's in percentages, right? 1:20:20.320 --> 1:20:22.320 We're both now computer scientists. 1:20:22.320 --> 1:20:27.320 So I think when one balances one's life, when one is younger, 1:20:27.320 --> 1:20:33.320 you might give a smaller percentage to family, but you would still give them high priority. 1:20:33.320 --> 1:20:38.320 And when you get older, you would give a larger percentage to them and still the high priority. 1:20:38.320 --> 1:20:43.320 And when you're near retirement, you give most of it to them and the highest priority. 1:20:43.320 --> 1:20:50.320 So I think the key point is not that we would work 20 hours less for the whole life 1:20:50.320 --> 1:20:56.320 and just spend it aimlessly with the family, but that when the family has a need, 1:20:56.320 --> 1:21:02.320 when your wife is having a baby, when your daughter has a birthday, 1:21:02.320 --> 1:21:07.320 or when they're depressed, or when they're celebrating something, 1:21:07.320 --> 1:21:11.320 or when they have a get together, or when we have family time, 1:21:11.320 --> 1:21:18.320 that is important for us to put down our phone and PC and be 100% with them. 1:21:18.320 --> 1:21:26.320 And that priority on the things that really matter isn't going to be so taxing 1:21:26.320 --> 1:21:32.320 that it would eliminate or even dramatically reduce our accomplishments. 1:21:32.320 --> 1:21:36.320 It might have some impact, but it might also have other impact 1:21:36.320 --> 1:21:39.320 because if you have a happier family, maybe you fight less. 1:21:39.320 --> 1:21:45.320 If you fight less, you don't spend time taking care of all the aftermath of a fight. 1:21:45.320 --> 1:21:46.320 That's right. 1:21:46.320 --> 1:21:48.320 And I'm sure that it would take more time. 1:21:48.320 --> 1:21:53.320 And if it did, I'd be willing to take that reduction. 1:21:53.320 --> 1:21:56.320 And it's not a dramatic number, but it's a number 1:21:56.320 --> 1:22:00.320 that I think would give me a greater degree of happiness 1:22:00.320 --> 1:22:03.320 and knowing that I've done the right thing 1:22:03.320 --> 1:22:10.320 and still have plenty of hours to get the success that I want to get. 1:22:10.320 --> 1:22:14.320 So given the many successful companies that you've launched 1:22:14.320 --> 1:22:17.320 and much success throughout your career, 1:22:17.320 --> 1:22:25.320 what advice would you give to young people today looking, 1:22:25.320 --> 1:22:28.320 or it doesn't have to be young, but people today looking to launch 1:22:28.320 --> 1:22:35.320 and to create the next $1 billion tech startup, or even AI based startup? 1:22:35.320 --> 1:22:42.320 I would suggest that people understand technology waves move quickly. 1:22:42.320 --> 1:22:45.320 What worked two years ago may not work today. 1:22:45.320 --> 1:22:49.320 And that is very much a case in point for AI. 1:22:49.320 --> 1:22:53.320 I think two years ago, or maybe three years ago, 1:22:53.320 --> 1:22:57.320 you certainly could say I have a couple of super smart PhDs 1:22:57.320 --> 1:22:59.320 and we're not sure what we're going to do, 1:22:59.320 --> 1:23:04.320 but here's how we're going to start and get funding for a very high valuation. 1:23:04.320 --> 1:23:11.320 Those days are over because AI is going from rocket science towards mainstream. 1:23:11.320 --> 1:23:14.320 Not yet commodity, but more mainstream. 1:23:14.320 --> 1:23:20.320 So first, the creation of any company to eventual capitalist 1:23:20.320 --> 1:23:25.320 has to be creation of business value and monetary value. 1:23:25.320 --> 1:23:29.320 And when you have a very scarce commodity, 1:23:29.320 --> 1:23:34.320 VCs may be willing to accept greater uncertainty. 1:23:34.320 --> 1:23:40.320 But now the number of people who have the equivalent of PhD three years ago 1:23:40.320 --> 1:23:43.320 because that can be learned more quickly. 1:23:43.320 --> 1:23:45.320 Platforms are emerging. 1:23:45.320 --> 1:23:51.320 The cost to become an AI engineer is much lower and there are many more AI engineers. 1:23:51.320 --> 1:23:53.320 So the market is different. 1:23:53.320 --> 1:23:57.320 So I would suggest someone who wants to build an AI company 1:23:57.320 --> 1:24:01.320 be thinking about the normal business questions. 1:24:01.320 --> 1:24:05.320 What customer cases are you trying to address? 1:24:05.320 --> 1:24:08.320 What kind of pain are you trying to address? 1:24:08.320 --> 1:24:10.320 How does that translate to value? 1:24:10.320 --> 1:24:16.320 How will you extract value and get paid through what channel? 1:24:16.320 --> 1:24:19.320 And how much business value will get created? 1:24:19.320 --> 1:24:26.320 That today needs to be thought about much earlier up front than it did three years ago. 1:24:26.320 --> 1:24:30.320 The scarcity question of AI talent has changed. 1:24:30.320 --> 1:24:32.320 The number of AI talent has changed. 1:24:32.320 --> 1:24:41.320 So now you need not just AI but also understanding of business customer and the marketplace. 1:24:41.320 --> 1:24:49.320 So I also think you should have a more reasonable evaluation expectation 1:24:49.320 --> 1:24:51.320 and growth expectation. 1:24:51.320 --> 1:24:53.320 There's going to be more competition. 1:24:53.320 --> 1:25:00.320 But the good news though is that AI technologies are now more available in open source. 1:25:00.320 --> 1:25:06.320 TensorFlow, PyTorch and such tools are much easier to use. 1:25:06.320 --> 1:25:13.320 So you should be able to experiment and get results iteratively faster than before. 1:25:13.320 --> 1:25:18.320 So take more of a business mindset to this. 1:25:18.320 --> 1:25:25.320 Think less of this as a laboratory taken into a company because we've gone beyond that stage. 1:25:25.320 --> 1:25:31.320 The only exception is if you truly have a breakthrough in some technology that really no one has, 1:25:31.320 --> 1:25:34.320 then the old way still works. 1:25:34.320 --> 1:25:36.320 But I think that's harder and harder now. 1:25:36.320 --> 1:25:44.320 So I know you believe as many do that we're far from creating an artificial general intelligence system. 1:25:44.320 --> 1:25:54.320 But say once we do and you get to ask her one question, what would that question be? 1:25:54.320 --> 1:26:00.320 What is it that differentiates you and me? 1:26:00.320 --> 1:26:05.320 Beautifully put, Kaifu, thank you so much for your time today. 1:26:05.320 --> 1:26:26.320 Thank you.