Techstrong Gang – October 3, 2024

Hi, everyone. Happy Thursday. Open APIs putting a full core press on developers.

All of a sudden they're important. Um, can now Ai ambi ambitions match reality? What about AI p piloting drones?

This is like the AI of the ai, all of this and more. You're watching Textron gag. Hey, good morning everyone.

It's Alan Hummel here for Techstrong. Happy Thursday to you. We've got an amazing, uh, bunch of stories we wanna cover today on Techstrong Gang, and we've got an amazing gang of folks here to talk about them.

Let me introduce you to them right away. First of all, I haven't had a chance to talk with him in weeks. It's good to see him.

I'm assuming he's home in North Carolina looking from the, uh, from the background there. He is a, uh, he's our AI expert. He's a lot more than that though, too.

He's my friend, Mark Hale. Hey, mark. How are you man?

I'm great. Good to see you, Alan. How's everything going with the intelligent enterprise?

Good. Good. We have some exciting things we're gonna announce in the next couple weeks.

We Cool. Excellent. Speaking of AI experts joining us from Austin, and I'm going to do my best here.

It's Anne, that wasn't too hard. Alo a Lola. HOA Ola Alo A Hoola a Yeah.

Ajo Ward. God darn it. Hey Ann, welcome back.

You did better, I guess. I guess you liked it last time you came back. I guess I did right here.

I'm my third time back. All right. Well, that makes you now, third time.

You're no longer a rookie. You're an official gang member, man. You get colors Oh, for you like jacket.

It is there like a mug or something? I get, um, Then there might be a T-shirt in that for you. Nice.

We'll let you know. Um, speaking of gang members, he's, he is our man on the scene. He's the SAR of Silicon Valley.

John Swartz. Hey John, how are you? Hey, Ellen.

It's good to see you all. Happy to be Here again. Good to have you back.

We missed you. I haven't, I've been doing these for a while. Seen you a couple.

You've been track a lot. Yeah, I know. Well, were you, were you, you were busy doing some stuff.

Yeah. Uh, the due cycle is crazy. Just asked Mike.

I mean, every day we're like, we're swatting flies. Trying to keep a keep ahead of this stuff. It's incredible.

Yeah. All right. So let's, let's speak to the Grand Fly SWAT of himself up in Harrison, New York.

He's our Chief Content Officer. Mike Ard. Just killing time till the Yankees play.

Hey, Mike. How are you? I'm good.

You know, I noticed that there's baseball out in the afternoon now. It's amazing. Yeah, it is.

It is. It's hard to get any work done around here with these baseball games are in the afternoon, though, but Yes. And you know what, go Tigers.

Nope. Yes. Only until they play the Yankees.

Um, anyway, guys, thanks for joining us. Let's jump into things. Our first, our first block today is Open AI is, uh, courting developers.

And, uh, it's about time, maybe, but John, what do you use your, one of your stories? What do you think? Yeah, well, it was a full core press, as you said.

They're courting developers. They introduced Open ai, introduced some new tools, and make it easier for developers to access advanced voice feature, um, the tools, let any application incorporate human-like AI assistance that can make phone calls and use natural language to navigate complex, complicated software. Um, it's, it was the second developer day for open ai.

Open AI didn't go as bells and whistles as they did last year. They're kind of a little bit more muted. But the interesting thing is that this is a continuation of their business evolution from the nonprofit side to a traditional startup.

So they're trying to raise funds and recruit talent, pump up revenue, um, and that, and this is happening, be with a backdrop that's kind of interesting. Um, as they make this transition naturally, people are gonna leave. And so we've seen a rash of departures, including one that was announced yesterday.

One of the another, yet another co-founder, Dirk Kinga, said he's going to anthropic. So really what happened? Yes.

So he's, he's gone. The CTO just left. Uh, I guess what we're seeing is developers like this news, but I think there's a, there's a worry within OpenAI.

And actually the Wall Street Journal did a story about, uh, open descent within the ranks. They claim as quote, the moves, the breakneck growth of OpenAI is tearing the company apart. OpenAI denies this, but again, this is something that we're gonna see more of.

And, and OpenAI story is this. They're gonna rule out more technology, it's gonna be more advanced. They're gonna be working more with developers.

That's the good side. The flip side is that as a consequence, when you go through this transition, you're gonna see a number of people leave over safety concerns or concerns of how things are going there. So, um, we're gonna have a parallel story here.

We're gonna have more advancement in technology and then more ranker over whether this is the open AI people remember from a year ago, or whether it's a whole new company that Sam Altman is pushing into the future. I, I couldn't agree more. I think a great, great week for developers, bad week for executives at Open.

I, um, but I think what they really signaled with the announcements of, you know, the fine tuning real time, API, the, uh, prob caching, those sorts of features, is that they're trying to cater more to their developer ecosystem rather than competing directly in the end user app space like they have before. So I think it's sort of a, a bit of a shift, but one that I think, uh, shows that they're growing up. I mean, this is a sign of maturation, you know, toning down the, um, theatrics and focusing on the actual, uh, ways to help for adoption, how to be more efficient.

Those sorts of bells and whistles I think developers are gonna latch onto. There's some real, I just, I interject this really fast. There's some real money happening here.

7 billion this year. 5 billion that would give it a valuation of $150 billion. So it's all systems go, and they have to compete with other larger companies.

Um, they gotta move forward fast. And there are, there is going to be, um, collateral damage, so to speak, but I'm sure they're gonna fill the gaps with people, um, who have more experience on the kind of the startup side and growing a company. This happens in Silicon Valley all the time.

It's like a snake shedding skin, right? You a company reaches a certain threshold and then they bring in a, a new level of group of people to run it, to take it to the next level. And then from there, you see what happens.

So, um, natural evolution, You're, you're absolutely correct. I see this all the time. I work exclusively with startups, and usually the founding team is the one that gets the product out.

They get it done. But if it stays the, the founding team that actually will hold a company back, because anyone new coming in doesn't, doesn't get into that inner circle. So they actually have to leave in order to help themselves grow.

That. That's exactly how it should go. Mark, what do you think is going on here, mark?

'cause I'm, I'm old enough to remember 40 years ago, it was a small little company in Washington that made this kind of deal with a very large dominant player called IBM and wound up taking over the industry. And as I watch OpenAI in this relationship with Microsoft, it seems like more and more they're competing with Microsoft. I mean, they have a licensing agreement with Microsoft, but now they've got STKs and heck, they're even talking about maybe building hardware devices someday.

I mean, is this gonna be a replay of, uh, of, of a show that we saw 40 years ago? Yeah, I, I wouldn't be surprised. A couple things here.

First, there are raising rumored $150 billion on revenue of, let's just say two point, let's just say $2 billion. Um, and so Apple was supposed to be part of that round. The rumor is that they dropped out.

And to your point, Mike, I think they probably will be competitive and it may cause, uh, problems for Apple down the, the road. Um, so that's one reason that, um, I think that's happening. Now, I have a slightly different take on why the executives are leaving.

So, um, you know, these, these guys have been killing themselves for years. They're vested in their stock. OpenAI has a huge demand for their stock on the secondary market right now, and they're allowed to sell.

So as someone who's been in their shoes, they put it in their four years, they're a hundred percent vested if they want to take the money off the table, you know, if they go IPO, are they really gonna IPO at half a trillion dollars? And if so, do they, they're gonna have to kill themselves to do it when they could walk away, let a new cast come in, go to Anthropic, start something else, start doubling down, and they could take all their money or part of their money from a pan AI off the table and not have to, if they're gonna work that hard, they might have more upside at an anthropic or a new start. Um, on the developer side, um, the thing that I think, and I, I think they've always been developer friendly, but now there's more venues.

So I think the vision fine tuning is really good, uh, interesting for people to, right now, Dolly has just been part of Chachi BT and Han's Point, it's been more consumer now it's going more mainstream. The one that I think is really interesting is the prompt caching. So this is the serverless play for ai.

So if we remember the cloud play, what was happening is you had people that were paying for a hundred percent of the, the capacity for a vm, and then serverless was usage based. So they were able to charge twice as much per minute for serverless and not spend as much energy in the back of the, the call center. I'm guessing that with this cache token.

Um, and the, and what they're talking about is prompts. So not the prompts you and I put in the chat, CVT, but when somebody has a service, they ca they have the same prompt, like, do research on a company or do this kind of analysis. They can cache it, take 50% of, and they can keep the, the amount of data going through the, the large language model, they can double or triple their margins, reduce the customer spend and everybody's happy.

So that's, that's the part that I think from a business side, the prompt caching thing to me is pretty interesting. You know, if it's the model distillation, which is another play at, you know, um, it's a more efficient play on using ai. So, You know, I mean, a couple of thoughts on all of this.

All the companies that I have ever founded Co-founded or helped for, were funded by my friend Brad Felt used to be at SoftBank Venture, Mobius Foundry Group. Techstars Brad's mentor was a guy named Len Fassler, and that's who I sold my very first company to. Brad and Len Fassler and Len.

And to what your point was about startup teams, that's what Len, Len was the quintessential New York investor. He had taken about three or four different companies, public, all in roll-ups, um, including the one that I eventually sold, that I sold my company to and helped Bill. And he used to say, look, well, he, he said a word I'm not going to use here, but he would say, any, any guy can get lucky and catch lightning in a bottle and, and build a company that does three, three and a half million, 5 million, he said, but it takes a, it takes someone a little smarter to build a company that does 12 to 25 million, but over 25 million, you need a different team.

It's a different animal. To take a company of 50 million, 75 million, that's a whole different animal. You've gotta have systems in place, you gotta start scaling.

It's not that two, three startup guys to go public, you know, a hundred million in revenue and above. Well, that's a very different animal altogether, right? And that you've gotta bring in people been there, done that, and I think that's what we're seeing with, with a, uh, OpenAI.

But the thing about OpenAI, this is like a, a baby Huey, you know, an 800 pound gray baby. This isn't a company that's gonna go, we're looking at 75 or a hundred million dollars, and they might have a unicorn status of a billion to 4 billion. No, it's a company that's coming out of the chute at 150 billion valuation.

Perhaps that's looking as, as John said, at it's, you know, what was it, John, 10 billion in revenue is what they're looking to grow to. Yeah, yeah. About 11 point, Yeah, 11 billion.

So yeah. So this, this is like trying to weigh a whale on a, on a scale that I catch porkies on or something, you know, but it's a very, the scale of this is all outta whack, right? And, and this is going to like throwing a giant boulder into a pond.

The waves of disruption are going to revert rate revert, not reverter, vibrate through ate. That's the one I'm looking for you throughout the text. A ripple.

Yeah. The one thing that, the one optic to me, and I, I understand what Mark is, was, is saying what he, what he just said. But the thing about this team, which is a little bit, I don't wanna say alarming, but disconcerting at times, is that people are coming and going seemingly every other week.

E Every Week. Yes. And Sam Altman, who I, I kind of know, I don't know him that well, but Dr Follows, John, Come on, you're the sarr out there.

Sams come by regularly. You, I, I ran well, uh, bef at the beginning. I ran into him in a coffee shop and we were talking about what he was working on, and, and drama seems follows him at times.

And yes, it does. You know, and I, I i, it that's maybe a reflection of part of his personality. And remember, he wasn't their CEO for a while.

He was booted then he was brought back on that, what that played out seemingly as a soap opera for weeks. So there's a little bit of like this kind of wild card factor with this company that I think heightens a little bit of anxiety. And I wonder also if the people there were just tired, mentally exhausted, dealing with Drama.

Well, no, they did burn you out. Yeah, right. Yeah.

I mean, it's kind of like, if, if you're a basketball fan, pat Riley, pat Riley was an amazing coach, coached the Lakers, the Knicks, then Miami Heat, but he would burn, he'd burn his players out. You can only be on that knife edge for so long until you burnt out. You knew it was another guy.

Another guy, this is a throw throw out to Mike, is Billy Martin, right? Teams that play extremely well for him for a couple years, and they just got tired of him. And then you'd get tired of that.

Billy Martin kind of Billy the kid thing. You're, you're a hundred percent right. And, um, but also, I will tell you sometimes what may look like chaos from the outside is actually a pretty tight thing going on.

You know, there were, they, people were pushed out. I'm I questioned. Hey man, how did, uh, a founder leave, you know, high exec leave from open AI and go right to Anthropic?

Right? There are a couple who have, it's such just one guy, several people who've done this. Um, Yeah, I mean, obviously the, the non-competes were in effect, right?

Non-competes are, are recognized in California. I don't, well, no, but I, I belie I believe there was a recent federal court law that said they are now, Oh, really? I don't know.

The San Francisco knows that. Well, San Francisco may not, but I, you know, 'cause there was law that said non-competes were not gonna be enforceable. And then I think a federal court, uh, overturned that.

And the last I look, federal courts still roll over state. And, um, so, you know, especially if you got a non-compete, one company's not based in California, and most of those California companies are not California corporations. They're Nevada or Delaware corporations.

And, and so that would, you know, not have effect there. But in any event, look, that's for the legal beagles to, to bark over. Um, concentrating is marked on, on the actual, you know, releases and feature sets.

Yeah, it's exciting times. I think there's still, you know, executing. It'll be interesting to see.

I, I heard the same thing Apple pulled out of, of this round. It'll be interesting to see the money they raise and how much of it is Microsoft money. Does Microsoft just kinda sit on the sidelines and, and put in their pro rata?

Did they increase their stake? Did they decrease their stake? What's Is, what's their stake right now?

It's about, is it 13? I've lost track. Is it 13?

Well, it's a crazy stake because it was done before. They were a pro profit company, so they like invested money, but it's tied into the profitability and revenue, and then they get paid back that money. So at some point, if, if OpenAI were to make a lot of money, Microsoft's state gets extinguished, basically, they get bought out.

But I don't know if that's changed through all the machinations that we've seen here. I think the one thing that is for certain is that whoever carries the day with developers will win the war. We've seen this movie in the past, and it always comes back to the developers.

And I think everybody's starting to figure that out. Can we put the, uh, um, bomber from Microsoft developers Monkey Boy dance on for, for our outro today? Wow.

We, we, we, we, I will, I I will ask the powers that be here. Mark, We, we know with ai we can do anything. This is also true.

Um, all right, let's take a break on that note here on Textron Gang. We're going to come back and we're gonna talk about AI ambitions versus AI reality. Is there such a thing as AI reality?

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And there's yet another one of these studies out here talking about how folks are using ai. And it kind of confirms what we've talked about before in multiple shows. The people are struggling.

There's, uh, data management issues, infrastructure issues, it doesn't quite happen on a dime. But what was interesting about this particular study that Riverbed put out is, um, more than half the organizations, I think it was 57% thereabout, have created what feels like a TIGER team specifically for driving these AI projects. And the issue seems to be that all these different silos within our enterprise, IT organizations are too cumbersome to make all this stuff happen.

And, and I wonder though, are these, you know, standard operating procedures where create tiger teams when we have new technologies? Or do you think something fundamentally different is about to happen in the way IT organizations are structured in the age of ai? And maybe all these silos will start to come down and the tiger teams will become the dominant teams?

Uh, I love the term tiger team, by the way. Uh, I'm a CAT lady, so, um, I do think that it's all or nothing. What I see in my experience is that either an organization is super hungry and they can't wait to get AI into everything, or they resist it.

So I think as we see IT teams and we understand the IT group does what they do, I think we're gonna see that. But for ai, I think dedicated AI teams are something that is, is gonna become commonplace. Uh, as this technology becomes more pervasive.

I think there are benefits to that automation. Uh, there are a lot of repetitive tasks in a, in ai, uh, sorry, in it, not ai, but like data center operations. So automating power management, operating cooling security, all these sort of tasks, uh, will become the IT person's friends.

So I think that there's a lot of potential there. I think it's just a sort of a mental shift that we have to make. Um, on the consumer side, maybe generational, but I think inside of organizations that are not ai from the outset, it's taking a minute.

I will say on my own team, there's a little bit of resistance to certain AI tools because they see it as a little bit of a threat to their jobs, when really it's making their jobs easier. So using tools like Grammarly to quickly edit their, uh, their text. So we use it for copy editing.

We do not use it to create texts. So I think that as people can get over the hurdle of just sort of judgment, then they're gonna get into adoption. And I think it's gonna have great results for organizations and they'll operate more efficiently, but we're not there yet.

Mark, um, from your perch over there at the intelligent enterprise, which some folks might call it oxymoron in itself, um, you know, are you seeing some fundamental changes in the way enterprises IT organizations are thinking about this stuff? Yeah. So first off, and this is a pattern I'm seeing, I think the TIGER teams are made up of tigers in the cloud space and traditional it, but they're really pussycats in the AI space.

Like there is such a, do you Have anyone in particular in mind on that? Mark? I cannot Confirm.

No, don't name names. Don't name names, Yeah. But there are a couple of comp of public companies where they've trained their own models with folks who are very smart, capable systems management cloud people.

But I think where they're falling down is, is you can't just read Hacker News and become a data scientist. So a lot of times I think their, their perceived lack of data is their perceived, um, is their, um, lack of experience training these models. And I've seen some really bad performance from some of these models.

And I was like, well, what'd you train it on? I think the data was fine. I think it was the, the just lack of, I couldn't do it.

I mean, we're calling me an AI expert, but I'm more of a AI analyst than an expert on implementation. I think that's where people are falling down. The other thing is definitely, you know, people were scared, as Anne mentioned, of these things being a, uh, existential threat to their jobs.

So I also feel like there's a lot of slow rolling going on, because what happens when you start solving problems in the enterprise eventually gets to your job. So put yourself out of a job. It's sort of like, uh, when Novell, um, networking was, was a big thing, is everybody wanted to get their certified Noelle networking engineer and, uh, administrator credentials.

And then we went to Microsoft and Cisco networking credentials. Those folks didn't wanna upgrade because it was an existential threat to their jobs. So I, I looked at this, um, thing, the thing I thought was funny was, or just not funny, haha, but interesting was 52% of the respondents said that they're ahead of the competition.

Well, that means that, you know, 48%, the number does, everybody thinks they're a little bit ahead. I think that, um, the measure is are they driving stuff inside their company? Are they seeing a real ROI or are they just accruing technical debt, reducing their actual, um, efficiency while they're trying to implement these in these projects and then blaming it on a lack of data.

So that's my, I Think that, I think, nevermind the machines, the people who answered the survey are hallucinating. I have some thoughts on this. I have a few thoughts on this.

First of all, so I, I do agree with a, a lot of the survey findings here, but I, I have my own reasons for why they are what they are. I think number one is these tiger teams are an extension or part of this movement to Chief AI officer, CAIO, right? And these C aios are the, the CEO and the board are calling them and saying, Hey, I got a top secret mission here for you.

Very, very important to the future of the company. I need you to get us to adopt ai. 'cause we've gotta be ai, we've gotta be in this AI thing.

We gotta be ai. Do me a favor. Don't go over to those IT people.

They're only gonna slow you down. Those IT people, the developers, they're crazy. You gotta make AI work.

Then we'll tell the IT people about it. And by the way, those security people, they're even worse. They're the people who say, no, don't tell 'em a damn thing about what you're doing.

You just keep going as fast as you can. Use ai, use ai, use ai, give yourself a tiger team and use ai. But it's a hush, it's like a skunkworks project that doesn't get buy-in from the rest of the organization.

And so they're almost doomed to fail in the rest of the organization. There's a stigma being developed about using ai. Hey, that's a great piece of marketing you did here.

You wrote this, of course I wrote it. What, what are you, what are you trying to say? I used AI to write it because if you used AI to write it somehow, you're less smart than I am.

Right? And it's the same thing with developers. It is a nice good lines of code.

You developed 50 lines of code yesterday. And I used ai. You know, I, I had this, my son, my son is in legal tech lab at law school.

He said, dad, I couldn't answer the phone when you called. I was going over with my lab, uh, professor, we had some problems with the code I was working on. I said, Layden, why didn't you just put the code into AI and, and ask it to debug it for you?

And see what it said. He said, well, dad, this is a very special language. I don't, I don't think AI could could handle that.

So what language was that? You know, and it, and it wasn't a special language. It, it wasn't PHP Python.

I said, no, I think, I think they could handle it. Landon. This is, there, there we, we are creating a stigma that somehow relying on AI makes you less that or puts your job at risk or, or something else.

And so the reality is, I bet you there's a lot of people who didn't answer truthfully in this survey. 'cause they're afraid to say, I'm using ai. I'm not.

I use it all the time. Every, everything I write these days, I, I put through there or I start with that and right from it. I think you are a fool not to, but, you know, so these are the two kind of things I see going on.

You got that chief, a IO officer and his tiger team that are on a skunkworks mission that no one's allowed to know about. And then you have this stigma of everyone else shouldn't really use ai. Yeah, I think you, uh, the thing that you just said and lots of good stuff, but the thing that I see more often, lots of people come to me and they're like, yeah, we want a chief AI officer.

And I think you, you nailed it. That will be a failure. Like you, they're like, will you be a fractional CIO, uh, CAIO?

And I'm like, no. I said, I'll work with your team. Because if you don't get the buy-in, if you don't know what's really coming on, all you're gonna do is cause division.

You're not gonna get access to what's really going on in the company and it'll fall down. Like you can put a genius into any industry, but if they can't get context for that industry, they're gonna fail. Um, so I think you did something else.

Also, you're right about the security guys. They all wear loud shirts and spend a lot of time fishing and their trouble. So stay away from, I don't know anyone like that.

So what, what's, what's the, Hey, Hey Allen. Nice shirt. Thank you.

Wow. I was waiting for that one, Mike. So what's the saying?

Is the saying Tigers eat their young, right? So, so we have so many conflicting sentiments and goals within these organizations. And the one that always drives me crazy is the CAIO.

Who is, what's the difference between that person, the CTO or the CDO or the CISO, whatever the hell it is. And, and study after study show these companies almost a nice, like paralysis. You know, they're weighing the costs, the benefits, the issues of compliance, governance, coping with the energy requirements.

It's, it's just must. It's, it's just maddening. And yet there's, as always, there's some pressure from the top that squeezes the middle class within the companies.

And the study hits right on the, on the money about that. Look, The CEOs are under pressure. The board is saying you gotta use AI to make the picture better, reduce head count more profitability, do more with less ai, ai.

And so, you know, these c aios are on a mission from God to make that happen. But don't tell anyone. We're under pressure from clients to create content faster using ai, writing social posts, using ai, writing content blogs, using ai.

And here's the thing, I've tested it. Human content, human written content still performs better because people, people can tell. And so it doesn't perform.

People can tell, can Google tell is the question, oh, but here's the other thing, yes And no. Your client tell your client, Hey, client tells you I need five blogs. Ann goes into AI, bangs out five blogs in, in, you know, two hours and three hours, gives it back to them, and the client says, oh God, Ann, thanks.

These are five great blogs. No problem. I used AI for them.

Oh, you did? Well I'm not paying you that kind of money for it. Then you just went into ai.

So I will tell you recently we had a launch for a client and they kind of hit us on a Saturday saying, Hey, we need two blogs. So I took two content pages on their site and recapped them. We ended up not using the post.

But I have a very firm ethical rule on this. If AI is involved, I have to disclose. I want them to know, because I want them to know that this wasn't something I wrote.

Also, when I get, we have a team of writers, so when we get content from them, we check it, right? And we have detected AI being used. Of course you have.

But does that, but does that disqualify it or cheapen it? It does. If they're charging a, a top rate.

Ah-Huh? So, 'cause I do expect to pay less if you're, if you're not writing it, Then are you? There's the stigma.

Exactly. There's the stigma. It's based on time.

You're paying based on time. And if you're not spending the time, why? I'm gonna tell you, here's a joke, I'm gonna tell you something.

And then, but there's a serious port to this poor lady up in the northeast. Her heat's not working. Her heat's not working.

She calls, she calls a plumber to come look at the boiler. Plumber comes down, he looks at the boiler, he says, I could fix this. The lady says, oh, please do.

I'm shivering. It's so cold. Look boiler.

The plumber takes a pipe wrench and he bangs a pipe and boom, whoa, of a sudden you start hearing steam coming up through the radiators and the houses warming up. The lady says, thank God you fixed my heat. I'm not gonna freeze.

How much do I owe you? Man says $250. And the old lady says, $250.

You looked at the thing for five minutes, you banged it with a pipe, $250. He said, no, I looked at it at it for you for free. It was $250 knowing where to bang the pipe.

Yeah. What tool I use is up to me. If you value what I gave you, pay me the money.

Don't, don't question the value of my tools. Yeah. And that's gonna happen in the AI game too.

Yeah. And honestly, Alan, I think that's a great point. Like if Phish and I, I do a lot of the same kind of work as, as Anne does.

And originally, you know, we were talking about as an AI generated or not, I'm like, assume I'm using AI in part of my workflow no matter what. So you're paying for a result, you're not paying for my time. And, um, that is, you know, I, I feel like, and I know like intuitively, they're like, you might have taken five minutes.

I'm like, but I knew where to hit the boiler. And that's, that's if it's, if it's poorly written or if it's not meeting their expectations, that's the only criteria and what they're willing to pay. So I think that's gonna be a talk that goes back and forth for a lot of times.

'cause we're used to living in a paying for Time hour, an hourly, right? And a time how much time I put into something is what it's worth For me, just in my business. I would rather pay for a result.

I don't care how you did it, because I've paid for a lot of time from contractors and been disappointed and, and employees over the years. And if I pay for a result, I pay for a result. Good content, good work product, whatever it is, you know, video images.

I don't care how it's done as long as it's done that way. I mean, I do disclose though, I think Ann's right, you gotta say, hey, and you just, do you just close that to your client, or do you want that in the end consumer? So k music, it becomes a blog post.

Do you want it in the blog post? That's I read online or just your client? It Was co-authored by Anne and Robbie Robot.

Yeah, I think you can tell, I think humans can still tell it's not that good, but fun fact, I actually, uh, found out this week my Mercedes needs more repairs than it's worth. So I started researching a new car, and guess what? I used Ai, Ai, it saved me a lot of time on reading reviews, on signing the model of Nu Car One and the, I gotta say it was really handy, Right?

Look, and this is, this is the path we're going down, right? We're, first of all today, you may, you might be able to tell. I I will tell you, it's harder to tell that AI stuff was written by AI now than it was a year or two ago.

And it's only gonna continue to blur those lines. So that's a, a momentary way station we're at right now there. Um, I think, I think it's a fundamental shift of saying the value of something is based upon how long it takes to make it versus what is it worth to you.

And well, the only Thing this is something we should discuss any of this conversation is, you know, we will be able to work on war projects in this narrow time window. So More with less. All right, speaking of more with less, it's time for a, a quick break here on Techstrong tv.

This was a great conversation, guys. I love this one. Uh, but we're gonna come back and we've got, we, to me is just, I mean, it seems natural enough AI p piloting drones.

I think we're going to hear, we might hear this on the front lines of a war any moment now, but You're watching Textron Gang, stay with us. Discover Textron Group, the epicenter of tech innovation. We are your go-to for reaching IT leaders and practitioners worldwide.

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And we're talking about, as promised, AI is flying drones. I mean, we've all seen those images in the past where there's somebody sitting behind a joystick flying these various drones around. But now, uh, especially in the construction industry, there's an article on digital CXO about this where they're using drones to fly around construction sites and measure things and see how progress is going.

And the pilot is in AI system. In fact, in Florida, we've heard reports where insurance companies are using these drones to check out everybody's route, but send them a bill because the storm just came through and they discovered that there's yet another hole in their roof, and suddenly the premiums are going up. These drones are everywhere these days.

Mark, I mean, is this the new thing where every industry that you can think of is gonna make use of these AI piloted drones? I think AI piloted machines in general is really, really interesting. And I really like this use case because the, the context.

So inspecting a building, it's not hard. It doesn't require a lot of, of reasoning, and it really makes it safer for a lot of things. I mean, you know, imagine doing those inspections in the past you had to put a person up there on a roof somewhere where they could fall.

Um, and we So which one less Sharon adjuster? Yeah. I'm only kidding.

I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding. But, uh, but no, I, I think it's a great use case we see with the self-driving cars, even though they're in the news right now with the Waymo cars, they, the technology works and it's safe.

Um, this is is an unmanned, uh, drones doing all sorts of tasks. I think it's, it's probably, um, gonna start seeping into everywhere I live in North Carolina. We just got hit by Hurricane Helene and we saw people using drones to really do a lot of stuff.

Now, they weren't AI powered drones as far as I know. But, um, I mean, I think all of them are to like the DGAI and other, uh, mainstream drones have AI in them and they can be programmed with GPS, but it's not sophisticated. But, um, it's probably one of the, the places in the industry of artificial intelligence where the technology is good enough to solve big problems and get a real ROI.

So, um, you know, kudos I love, I love the article about EagleView and the, how they're using in construction. 'cause in college, I walked steel for about three days before I went crying and started doing stuff where I would be on solid ground all day. So it's a good use case.

I have a similar story about walking steel scaffolds in New York City. I'll tell you about a one day mark to what too, too long for the, for this, uh, format. But I, I think it's, I agree with you.

This is, I mean, it just makes sense. You already have a, a, you know, a a a drone, which by definition is a drone, right? We don't have anyone onboard.

It's being remotely controlled. Why wouldn't you do use AI to do it? But, and, but I'm gonna tell you another thing about it.

An AI piloted drone has no conscience. An AI piloted drone cannot be bribed. An AI piloted drone right?

Is not going to look the other way or have prejudice or bias, right? And you ask me, why, why are you saying these things? Alan, you're, you're nuts.

Well, I'm not, because, you know, here in Florida when the adjuster used to come look at your roof, it was, you know, I'm not saying I ever did this, but, you know, you slipped him 50 or a hundred and you got a really nice writeup that your, your, your house was, uh, storm proof. He was just a adjuster hire. He wasn't even a full-time employee.

They would hire, adjust, they'd bring him in from outta state to just like in an area, um, or what color was the person who owned the house or was it a single mom or was it this or that? All of these things, uh, you know, uh, did thi this bias built in the building industry is a great example. Building departments and building inspectors.

How many times did you hear them getting bought off? But I'll give you an even worse case. Military drones.

I've read several articles that the rate of like, uh, post-traumatic stress disorder for drone pilots who have had a pilot drones into combat zones and kill people remotely was even higher than pilots who drove, you know, who actually did bombing missions or, you know, were inside the plane doing it. The idea of being into a, a, you know, a deprivation chamber, just focusing in bringing your drone in, putting the X over the mark the spot, and dropping your bomb and watching people blow up, that's a hard, it's a hard thing to do. And they may or may not want to do it, or maybe they miss on purpose or, you know, it's, there's a, people cost involved there.

A, as I said, AI Jones have no conscience, you know, so if we're looking to have Star Wars attack of the clones or whatever, right? A clone army doing our bidding for us, that's probably better than having humans doing it, right? I wonder how long we'll see this in the Middle East or in Ukraine.

Very, It's like a safe, practical use in with construction. But you think from, from that point onwards, just a revolutionary types of things in terms of covering news, say like a war zone or even a corbit covering a sporting event where you get these shots, these incredible shots that you've ever seen before, a stadiums or angles. It's just, it's a limitless, limitless retail use.

Yeah, I mean, this is, it's, it's, it kind of boggles the mind. What, what can be done, you know, within reason. But also I think first and foremost as you sit Alan, is just this whole idea about safety around, around the human being experience.

Yeah. Well, right. Think about it.

Hurricanes and tropical storms, wildfires, flooding, um, monitoring crops, agriculture. Yes. Uh, sorry, Anne, um, years ago, I just wanna throw, years ago I covered Katrina.

So I, I worked at USA today a long time ago, and I was, and another reporter went to cover Katrina, and one of the frustrations was getting around there was flooding everywhere. And I remember going in with a couple of brothers whose house was underwater, and we were driving through all these different side streets. We never really had a perspective of where we were going.

And we were hearing all sorts of things. A 19th ward particular, and it would've been fascinating to see something up close examining what was going on versus, you know, the far away shot or the, the, the, the secondhand accounts. Um, it would've been, it would've been fascinating.

It would've also been helpful in terms of the people who are suffering and in terms of the rescue workers. Sure. I mean, it's just, it is a no brainer to me.

I mean, this is really, you wanna talk about great use cases for ai, this, this mental I have, I have a question. How much of the airspace above my house do I actually own? How much do you wanna own?

Well, I'll sell it to you. It's an interesting question because, you know, the drone, if, if the drone gets too close, you know, in Florida, I can stand my ground, right? Wait a second, guys, this is Florida.

You don't think there are people standing outside with guns shooting at the drone? It's sc in these red Not, Come on, come on. It's Florida men and women here.

Are you there, there? Uh, yeah, let's not go there. Uh, but I mean, truthfully, but I mean, you didn't have a problem with Google taking pictures of your house for Google Maps, did you?

I, I have a problem with the fact that the, it doesn't change very often, right? They drive around once a year, maybe, maybe every other year. That, that's a funny story.

My wife's sister, God bless her, I, the first time I showed her Google Maps and I said, here, this is our house. I'll zoom in. She went outside to wave.

I was like, no, No, She's not watching this. She'll never know. But I was like, oh God.

Yeah. Anyway, um, I don't know, should we leave it right there? No, we're not gonna leave it right there.

We have another, we have another block I want introduce for today. You know, every once in a while we're blessed. We get these standalones.

Sometimes it's a roll. Bob, Bob Reman giving us his kind of tech curmudgeon. And then other times we've got my friend Ira ler from the security space and, and Ira is a called Bite Me.

And if you know Ira, that's just perfect for him. Anyway, IRA has a rant and he's always ranting. But his rant, uh, this week is, uh, we're approaching cybersecurity conference season.

And he, it could be for any tech conference, but cybersecurity in particular. And Ira wants to know how come vendors, they treat booth attendees unequally. And it's not just, oh, it's a man or a woman.

It's like at a security show. They come over and say, what's your title? I'm a security administrator.

Okay? Yeah. Go help yourself to some, to some, uh, collateral over there.

Some one sheeters. What's your title? Oh, I'm a ciso.

Oh, come this way. I've got champagne and grapes for you. Right?

Because everybody's in hunt for the CISOs and, and so irises every vendor, the booth should be treated like a VIP, but too many are just out whale hunting. Ahab's looking for, for Moby Dick, here's Ira ler on Bite Me. Hi, this is Ira Winkler for today's edition of Bite Me.

Right now I am shooting this video in, what is it, mid September. And it's just the beginning of conference season. In the cybersecurity world.

This means there's gonna be a lot of expos. It means there's gonna be a lot of smaller events, a lot of larger events and things like that. And, you know, I look forward to this 'cause this is a time for me to get together with friends.

However, what I don't look forward to, and people need to understand this, are the vendors that are out there that are going to treat people like second class citizens as we go through this season. Because we're gonna have a lot of people, you know, mostly mid to senior level people. But when you're out there at the expos and, you know, in this time of year, not as bad as Black Hat or RSA, but we have InfoSec world that's coming up in a week from now.

We have ISC Squared Security Congress, which is gonna have a pretty large expo. And this is the time where vendors show who they actually are. This is the time where vendors are either gonna treat you like crap or they're gonna treat you with respect.

And in all honesty, I've been in positions where PE vendors would, if I, if I would've said, give me a trip around the world, they would've given me a trip around the world just because of the positions I was in in the past. Unfortunately, a lot of people are not in those positions. I, you know, one of my friends, David Stender, who's currently CISO of a bank, he used to be CISO of the IRS very large organization.

And in that organization he, when he was in that position, vendors would do whatever they could to get in front of him, offer whatever they can. Then what happened was, when he left the position, left being a CSO for a period of time, I was joking with him 'cause I stay friends with people. He's like, yeah, now I'm a PIP previously important person who can't get an invite to a dinner at McDonald's.

And you know what? He's now back. And the people who couldn't give him an invite to McDonald's are now regretting that decision.

You know, the reality is that anybody you meet as a vendor, you should treat with respect. I mean, the vendor should treat anybody going by what's that reason specifically, you don't know where they're gonna be in a year. You don't know where they're gonna be in two years.

And even when I was at large organizations, let me promise you, as you know, again, I was senior in the Walmart cyber security program and people would want to get me talked to me about their product. That was a complete waste of time 99% of the time. And why was that?

Because I don't make the decisions. We trust our workers. We trust those low level people.

You ignore because they do an outstanding job on a day-to-Day basis. If they have a need, they determine there is the need and they determine the solution to the need and they boil that need up. And that happens in any organization of size.

Yes, you guys want to go whale hunting and it makes you sing good. It makes your report say, I spoke to the seesaw of this world renowned bank. Good for you.

They're not gonna buy your product in general. They're gonna go ahead at best, even if they love your product and send it back down to those bottom people you ignored, you wouldn't give a piece of chocolate to, and those people, you wouldn't give a piece of chocolate to are gonna be the people who determine whether or not there's a need for your product, whether or not they can integrate it, whether or not they're willing to do the work to get that product into production. So if you really want to go ahead model Bill and Ted, just be excellent to each other.

Be excellent to everyone because the reality of the situation is those people you're ignoring are your customers. Maybe they're not even your customers now, but they're more likely to be your customers than some CISO who might be nearing retirement. Just as an example.

They are the CISOs of tomorrow and they will remember you. And if you treat them nice now, hopefully they'll remember you later and be willing to take your calls. There is no such thing as a previously important person.

There's no such thing as a fundamentally unimportant person. You are dealing with very important people from start to finish, no matter who those people are. So you better learn to treat those people with respect.

Anyway, this is Ira Winkler for today's edition of Bite Me. Okay, we're back. I hope you enjoyed the IRA's.

Bite me. Uh, uh, uh, segment. IRA's always got an interesting take on, on the world, especially around cybersecurity and reminded us and it, it's, it's, uh, big.

It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month. How are you celebrating? Absolutely.

Do you know where your cyber is? Uh, of course Mike Ard you have a, a different take on it. Well, I would just point out that, you know, if I'm only aware of it for one month out of the year, that's 11 months where I'm kind of asleep with the wheel.

Right? Some may disagree, some may disagree. Anyway, hey gang, thank you.

I I, I had a ball doing this today. I, I love the topics, I love the discussion. Love the people on here.

We hope you've enjoyed it out there. We've got a full text on tv, uh, show going immediately following this. I think, I think we have a, a tech field Day on Live today.

You might be able to catch with it. And, and more than that even, um, we'll be back tomorrow. I won't be here tomorrow.

I will be out celebrating Rash Hashanah the Jewish New Year. So do all those who celebrate Ana Dova. And, um, till next week, then this is Alan Schuble for Techstrong.

We're outta here.