Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / Social media is killing your memories
Transcript
- 0:00Social media isn't preserving your memories, it's deleting
- 0:03their meaning. We've built trillion dollar
- 0:05platforms to help strangers watch us, but the people who are
- 0:08actually there? They're scrolling past the
- 0:10moment. Founders obsess over growth,
- 0:12distribution and scale. But what if the most valuable
- 0:15product isn't reach, It's recall.
- 0:17Think about this. You host a retreat for your top
- 0:1950 customers. Everyone captures photos, voice
- 0:22notes, inside jokes. 2 weeks later, it's all buried in camera
- 0:25rolls and Slack threads. What if there was a product that
- 0:28automatically stitched those fragments into a shared living
- 0:30story? Not for the algorithm, but for
- 0:32the tribe. On the podcast today for AI for
- 0:35founders.co, we go into a product that does just that.
- 0:38Because in a world optimized for attention, are you building
- 0:41something that deepens connection or just consumes?
- 0:43Welcome to AI for founders. I'm Ryan Estes and today you'll
- 0:46learn how a second time founder who helps scale a company to IPO
- 0:50is now rethinking memory itself, using AI to organize life's most
- 0:54meaningful moments. This is for builders who about
- 0:57product privacy, psychology, and designing companies that
- 1:00actually matter. If you're serious about building
- 1:02in the age of AI, go to aiforfounders.co or we've got a
- 1:06weekly newsletter with sharp ideas and real operators.
- 1:09And if this hits you, write a review like you're bookmarking a
- 1:11memory you don't want to lose. And if you're a founder who
- 1:14should be on podcast telling your story, go to
- 1:17kickcaster.com. They're the premier podcast
- 1:19booking agencies for CE OS and high growth companies.
- 1:22They don't just get you booked. They position you, pitch you and
- 1:25turn conversations into pipeline.
- 1:28Kick caster.com. Get heard.
- 1:30That's kick caster by MO burst. All right, well, Oleg, welcome
- 1:41to the show. How are you?
- 1:43Hey, Ryan, I'm very well. Great to be here.
- 1:47Great to meet you. Happy to happy to meet.
- 1:50Yeah, fantastic to meet you as well.
- 1:52Really excited to talk about your story and your product.
- 1:56So let's start off with just a brief introduction to your
- 1:59product, who's kind of your ideal customer and what problem
- 2:02you're trying to solve. As it stands right now, we'll
- 2:07talk about it in a few moments, I guess the product that I'm
- 2:11building is a private social network for photo sharing, which
- 2:17is a tool that is missing right now.
- 2:19So it's absurd that we're in the the 21st century and photo
- 2:24sharing is still broken and I believe the time is now to to
- 2:29fix it. Incredible.
- 2:31Zillions of reasons. Yeah, let's talk about this
- 2:36because I love this kind of idea, which is taking like
- 2:39everyone's using different tools for photo sharing.
- 2:42You feel like it was done wrong. How is it being done wrong and
- 2:45what are you looking to improve? Yeah.
- 2:48Look, if you look at the tools that people are using for photo
- 2:52sharing, you can split them into two main categories.
- 2:56So it's photo apps like native apps.
- 2:59For example, your iPhone or your Android device has built in
- 3:05camera and obviously built in Gallery, which is a personal
- 3:09tool. Basically it creates and
- 3:12collects all your all your photos and everything that you
- 3:17collect from other people. You can save all this clutter
- 3:21there, including all the memes that you'll get from your
- 3:24emails, from your WhatsApp, from your Telegram, from your
- 3:27iMessage, or you just randomly take from anywhere.
- 3:31So it just creates a lot of clutter.
- 3:34And honestly, the device owners, meaning the hardware owners,
- 3:39Google and Apple and all those, basically their best interest is
- 3:45to get you pay for storage. So they don't have any vested
- 3:50interest to make sense of this, of this clutter on your device.
- 3:56And therefore you have no way to make sense of it because they
- 4:00have no interest. On the other hand, there is just
- 4:05networks like messengers or private or social networks where
- 4:11you are supposed to share things.
- 4:13But all the sharing experience is not built for photos.
- 4:16It's built for either for messaging like WhatsApp and and
- 4:20other messengers, or it could be generic social media which is
- 4:26built for optimizing for likes, for social exposure, for
- 4:31creating your social capital. It has also nothing to do with
- 4:35your social actual social network where you do want to
- 4:39share photos, which is your friends, your families, with
- 4:42people who will meet at small social events, your birthdays
- 4:46and so forth. So absurd.
- 4:49No one is bridging the gap and I believe there is a room for for
- 4:54improvement to say at least. Yeah, it's interesting the the
- 4:57social media platforms have kind of devolved away from the social
- 5:01aspect. It's not so much like I want to
- 5:04go see check in on my friends on Instagram.
- 5:06It's like, well, I'm watching the Instagram channel, which is
- 5:09going to be, you know, NBA dunks in my place or fly tying or
- 5:14whatever else they're serving me up that they know I'll like.
- 5:17Exactly. You know it's about 90% of the
- 5:20content on social media is produced by influencers and it's
- 5:25their day job basically. Most people don't share their
- 5:29private life on on social media unless they are idiots right?
- 5:34So just doesn't happen. Yeah, OK, so I'm I've got a
- 5:38bunch of pictures. I want to share them with my
- 5:40friends and family, but I don't want to clog up my phone.
- 5:43You know, I want to. I don't want to babysit storage
- 5:46because that's that that's the sad ending to most of our
- 5:49devices life, right. You're just like, what am I
- 5:52going to do here? Do I want to pay another 10
- 5:55bucks a month? So your company truly and it's
- 5:59it's truly dot me where people can go check it out.
- 6:03What are the features kind of like you're you're baking into
- 6:06kind of the the the core application.
- 6:08How are you going to how are you determining kind of pricing?
- 6:12Yeah, let's start there. So it's a quite a complex
- 6:17question. Let's try to to speed it to to
- 6:21several questions. So technically, the way it
- 6:24works, we're trying to apply some AI algorithms on device
- 6:30that would allow you to make sense of your photos and to
- 6:34select the best photos on from your own gallery or from the
- 6:38photos that are photos and videos that are shared as social
- 6:42events where you guys join together on the platform
- 6:46potentially. So the idea is that we need to,
- 6:52we want to bring a tool that will highlight the best photos
- 6:57for you that are worth sharing and will make sharing
- 7:01frictionless. That's the North Star.
- 7:03That's where we're heading. So regarding pricing, we are
- 7:10exactly at the at the point in time where actually I'm starting
- 7:18a new chapter. So it's quite interesting that
- 7:24we're meeting today, which is just the beginning of the new
- 7:28one. So previously my hypothesis
- 7:34which has led the company over the last a few months, maybe six
- 7:39or seven months, was around the theory that if we engage with
- 7:46event organizers that organize events and bring some value to
- 7:51the to the main stakeholder. For example, it could be the
- 7:55corporate event and where people take photos and they want to
- 7:59share photos with their colleagues, for example, that
- 8:03corporate event. Then if we work with event
- 8:07organisers who would potentially take us from the go to market
- 8:10perspective to their clients, it would be an easier sell to to
- 8:14sell them to them and to monetize the businesses
- 8:18basically and to bring some value to them as well.
- 8:21Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it sounds.
- 8:26Actually we, we've engaged with multiple event organisers and,
- 8:32and clients about a few dozens of to over 20 clients and event
- 8:40organisers that we have in our head in our pipeline is just not
- 8:44moving as fast as I want. So it's not the way it's
- 8:47supposed to work in 2026. So basically I've taken a
- 8:52decision that I'm shutting down truly, and I'm starting a new
- 9:00chapter which is entirely consumer.
- 9:04To a result, it's over. This episode is brought to you
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- 10:02founders.co. Now back to the show.
- 10:04Yeah. So truly the brand still exists.
- 10:07We're most likely rebranded soon and we have an amazing
- 10:13technology. I have shut down the company and
- 10:16I have acquired the IPO of the company, which belongs to me
- 10:20100% right now. I've unfortunately fired
- 10:25everyone and I'm just starting from scratch pretty much.
- 10:29So I'm having an amazing technology.
- 10:31I believe that I can use it for growing consumer business and
- 10:37then come back to the event organizers and to corporate
- 10:41events and all those folks when the time is right, when I have
- 10:44the consumer network in place, which is much more significant,
- 10:49much bigger than it is right now.
- 10:51So it was a tough decision obviously.
- 10:54But after honestly having enormous look at where I am
- 10:59right now and where I spend my time and money over the last few
- 11:03years actually from the regional idea, which has nothing to
- 11:08nothing to do with what I'm doing now, honestly.
- 11:12So it was a race for pleasing some stakeholders may be hoping
- 11:24to raise VC funds, wasting my own fortune that was you know,
- 11:33earned by very hard work in the previous start up.
- 11:36And so I looked at it and I came to conclusion that we are not in
- 11:432010, we are not in the 90s, we are in 2026.
- 11:49The company should not work this way.
- 11:51The company should be lean it. We I can do lots of stuff
- 11:56myself, amazing AI, which allows us now to build the code if you
- 12:04know what you're doing in no time like close code and all
- 12:08those allow me to build things quicker, faster and higher
- 12:13quality than my entire team could a few years ago.
- 12:19I can be much more efficient. I can be very lean on capital.
- 12:22I don't have to spend like many, many, many thousands of dollars
- 12:31May even 10s thousands of dollars every month.
- 12:34I can be lean. I can get to the traction
- 12:37metrics and then I can prove that I'm on track.
- 12:40And then I reach out to investors again and, and build
- 12:45it, just build it right on the same technology.
- 12:48That's that's where I am right now.
- 12:50What a serendipitous time to be speaking with you, you know, and
- 12:52I did this audience is full of founders and I think a lot of
- 12:56people are kind of looking in the mirror right now and doing
- 12:59the same thing, you know, because just in the last 12
- 13:02months, it's gone from like, oh, look at this AI augmented vibe
- 13:06coding to like now where it's like, oh, oh, cloud code is
- 13:10very, very good. 4.6 hope is very, very good.
- 13:14Like am I moving in the right direction?
- 13:16Is, is, I guess the question. So I'd love to kind of dig in
- 13:19deep here if you don't mind, because I know it's also
- 13:22sensitive subject because it's like you work on projects.
- 13:25At some point you, you got to, you got to move on from them.
- 13:28So you know, to, to kind of have you in this moment is very, very
- 13:31interesting. Now you're saying, you know,
- 13:33you're able to like radically improve productivity.
- 13:36You're also looking at the technological landscape of what
- 13:38people, what kind of apps people want.
- 13:41And it's not 2010. So maybe this isn't the right,
- 13:44the right product. So when you're, you're thinking
- 13:47about shutting down a project, a lot of things come up because
- 13:50obviously these are people's lives.
- 13:51There's people's jobs, there's perhaps investment capital, kind
- 13:55of walk us through like the steps of like realization and
- 13:58then execution of kind of like we're ending the project.
- 14:03It's not exactly landing the project that's ending, ending
- 14:07the company and ending the wrong go to market strategy that has
- 14:14led me to the point in time when I just ran out of of budget.
- 14:19I am not saying I ran out of money because look, about 90% of
- 14:24the funding was coming from my own pocket anyway.
- 14:28Only 10% was Angel Angel investors money.
- 14:35Obviously, I I'm fully greatly appreciated towards the guys who
- 14:40invested, invested dollars in in the previous venture, but that
- 14:45was the wrong thing to do. Meaning that unfortunately the
- 14:49notion of getting to the market via event organisers and
- 14:55continuing to fund the old company the way it worked was
- 15:01wrong. It was a mistake.
- 15:03I paid 90% of the cost, they paid 10% of the cost of this
- 15:07mistake and that's about it. Yeah, so.
- 15:10Well, you don't want to put, you don't want to put good money on
- 15:13top of bad money, right? So how, what was your
- 15:17investment? How much do you spend on this?
- 15:18If it's bootstrapped, largely 90% well.
- 15:23That that's quite painful. I invested the way above $1
- 15:30million out of pocket money, almost 1.5.
- 15:35So that was huge and I'm not talking about only photo sharing
- 15:44stage of the of the business. In the beginning, it was even
- 15:49bigger idea. It was almost an everything up.
- 15:52I even called it person I and my ambition was to create sort of
- 15:58an everything up. I ditched it long time ago but
- 16:01still spend a lot of money of exploring this idea.
- 16:05So if it would be 2026 and if I had this amazing tools that I
- 16:12have now with all my experience as a hands on software
- 16:15developer, I I should have taken this step long a long time ago.
- 16:22So it's better later than ever. And so basically technically I
- 16:29shut it down. And now what I'm going to do is
- 16:32to explore completely different ways of go to market, which is
- 16:39finding actually go into the where people spend their time
- 16:45together physically and going to use the tools that they're using
- 16:51for photo sharing and capitalize on those giving some value to
- 16:57where they spend spend time now and creating a sort of a funnel
- 17:02that will take them to my to my service.
- 17:05Ultimately, as a as a final approach that can be that can
- 17:10start from where they are now is sure.
- 17:13I should not have tried to convince people to change their
- 17:20habits from day one before they know me or before they know
- 17:23where they are. And that was the biggest
- 17:26mistake. And therefore I started
- 17:28exploring all those go to market ideas and monetizing them via
- 17:33event organizers know those. The original scene was was
- 17:39there. I I just tried to change the
- 17:43world and the original idea of doing the everything up like it
- 17:49was still somewhere deep in my head.
- 17:51I didn't dish it completely. Now with this company shut down,
- 17:56I've dished it finally. So I'm doing a fresh start.
- 18:00Incredible. You know, it's super brave.
- 18:02Was there a kind of an A light bulb moment when you're like,
- 18:05this is it? I have to do this?
- 18:06I mean, obviously that decision kind of percolates for a while
- 18:10before you actually pull the trigger.
- 18:12Was there any kind of like decisive event or something?
- 18:18No, I just, just the end of the year, I looked through the
- 18:22mirror and and said, OK, that's it.
- 18:27Yeah. Yeah, totally.
- 18:30You know, and, and good for you, you know, because I mean, that's
- 18:33that's where you got to make room for new ideas, you know,
- 18:36and there's obviously a lot there in photo sharing.
- 18:39There's a lot that can be done, but you know, to take a step
- 18:43where you're like, OK, we're, we're actually ending this so
- 18:45something new can evolve as opposed to trying to pivot
- 18:49different ways. It's like actually kind of like,
- 18:50let's start with a blank slate. So was there was this decision
- 18:55accompanied by any other ideas Like, hey man, actually I, I
- 18:58need to chase this kernel and I can't do it with this.
- 19:01What's going on now? So as I said that I'm starting
- 19:09this week actually we're starting to explore
- 19:12opportunities of tapping into other communication tools and
- 19:17finding the right small community is the biggest unlock
- 19:20that we did before shutting down the company actually was that
- 19:26people do want to not. Basically, there are two things,
- 19:31two behaviours that I noticed. Number one, when the sharing
- 19:37photos, people want photos of themselves mainly and all their
- 19:41loved ones and all their families.
- 19:44That's clear and that's quite obvious to everyone.
- 19:48The second thing, which is not as obvious and something that I
- 19:53figure out by doing lots of redundant stuff, actually like
- 20:00trying to. Make it the official app at huge
- 20:04conferences and then realizing that people don't care, don't
- 20:08bother sharing photos with random people.
- 20:12There was the experiment. Then I realized then, if the
- 20:16social environment is right, if the network inside the event is
- 20:25basically made of people who were either share the same
- 20:29values with you or they are just close friends or their families
- 20:33or their friends of friends, then people actually want to
- 20:37contribute photos as well, for example.
- 20:40I can give more. I can give an example my one of
- 20:42my friends who is a big fan of Japan and Japanese culture and
- 20:49even Japanese venture capital industry.
- 20:54So he, he's Israeli guy. And so he organised a party,
- 21:00sort of a party here in Tel Aviv there was themed to Japan.
- 21:05And he introduced his view and he started to learn Japanese and
- 21:15he spent a few months exploring the Japanese venture capital
- 21:19scene. And he demoed, created a demo
- 21:24for maybe 40 people. We had amazing, great sushi and
- 21:29what not. So basically people respected
- 21:35him and people, they were friends and friends of friends.
- 21:38So he used an app, meaning they're all the existing app for
- 21:44sharing photos at his event. And at the beginning of the
- 21:47event, he showed a QR code as a part of the demo of About Japan
- 21:53and say, hey, why don't don't you mind scanning this QR code
- 21:56and contributing your photos. And so we can see each other's
- 22:01photos from this event and almost everyone shared them.
- 22:06Basically, that's one of the proof points that even if people
- 22:11don't necessarily know each other, if they, I feel that
- 22:15they're in the right social, very tight environment built
- 22:20around some very specific, secure and trusted small group,
- 22:26then they would love, they would love to share, to share their
- 22:29photos with each other, not only with friends and families.
- 22:32So that's something that will basically drive me at the next,
- 22:38the next stage. I think that the hypothesis of
- 22:41people wanting to share photos if the social environment is
- 22:45tight, secure and right, the biggest unlock is coming from
- 22:49there. Interesting, you know, I, I love
- 22:53your focus too, is like in real life stuff.
- 22:55You know, I, I've been feeling a a big pull for that too.
- 22:58I think after, you know, everyone came out of their COVID
- 23:01coma, you know, you, you, there was time, there was time to make
- 23:05up, you know, so and, and particularly being able to
- 23:08validate in the real world in real time, where you can see
- 23:13people actually using it. You can see what, where they
- 23:15don't use it and why it's really interesting.
- 23:20So you know, it, let's say you're, you're moving forward.
- 23:23What does the next three to six months look like for you?
- 23:25Like what? What are some kind of major
- 23:27benchmarks you want to do moving forward?
- 23:30So I want to I want to prove that I am able to inject my
- 23:35product into the existing distribution channels that
- 23:40people would want to use and would trust the service to share
- 23:44photos. And the final would work and
- 23:49have some significant amount of users who would be converted to
- 23:55using to using the app going forward and will retain there.
- 23:58And then in the next few months, if everything goes well and I
- 24:04see that the final is healthy, then I can come back to
- 24:09investors and start the fundraising and maybe come back
- 24:14hiring some people somewhere. Until then, I am doing
- 24:18everything 100% by myself. Yeah, everything.
- 24:24Am I assuming that you're using Cloud Code for your code base to
- 24:28write? Yeah, that's an interesting part
- 24:30actually. So you know, I have a background
- 24:32of software engineering for the last 35 years.
- 24:37Actually I have experienced since in coding and somehow I
- 24:41did it without cloud code for the last 35 years.
- 24:46So now when the team was released and I had to get to
- 24:54code instead of them basically and getting my hands dirty
- 24:58again. And then not necessarily in the
- 25:00environment that I'm the biggest and the best in class developer,
- 25:05which is a mobile app itself. Like I'm pretty good at back end
- 25:12and C# and all those, but I'm not so good in hands on the
- 25:18development of a of a mobile app.
- 25:20I have never, I haven't done it myself ever.
- 25:23So, so then I realized that for 20 bucks a month, I can hire an
- 25:31expert that will be my mobile CTO.
- 25:38I can give him the instructions and he will come come up with
- 25:46the best possible solution. And then I can apply my 35 years
- 25:52of experience of signing it off. Basically that's how it works.
- 25:57And that's amazing. Like I'm shocked myself.
- 26:01It's incredible. Now I'm really interested in
- 26:03this. You have a legacy code base.
- 26:05How did you introduce code or Claude code to your code base?
- 26:08Basically, did you kind of create a sandbox and say like
- 26:12and just kind of walk it through?
- 26:13And I'm using kind of this personification because that's
- 26:16what I've seen kind of works the best.
- 26:18It's like almost you want to shake hands with Claude code and
- 26:21be like, hey, this is my code base and this is how we
- 26:23organized it and this is what we're trying to do.
- 26:26And any recommendations here would be awesome.
- 26:28Don't go crazy and blow the house house down.
- 26:31Help me make this better. Yeah.
- 26:33Did you do kind of like a process?
- 26:35Like that. Actually I looked at this cloud
- 26:38code thing as my new hire which cost me 20 bucks instead of
- 26:44whatever. Yeah.
- 26:46What the salary was of the software developer And then I
- 26:51created proper tasks in Jira and I saw this proper task to this
- 26:57guy and I said OK, so this is a task do it.
- 27:00So now tell me what's the plan? Don't make any changes.
- 27:04What is the what is the plan? What is the fix?
- 27:08Let's start from the most annoying bug fixes before we
- 27:11move on to the actual features. Let's start from bug fixes.
- 27:15So the this software developer offered me a few solutions.
- 27:20The first one was stupid. I said OK, no, no, no, you are
- 27:24doing something wrong. So that's I could not be trust
- 27:26me, I have more experience in the software development than
- 27:30you and think think better think.
- 27:34So ultimately we I mean we me, me and the and the Cody close
- 27:42code. So we fixed huge massive
- 27:48performance issue that had in the app that my team was trying
- 27:53to solve for a few months without using close code.
- 27:57We fixed it in in one day. Wow, do you think it was worth
- 28:02the 20 bucks? Oh.
- 28:04Yeah. It's ridiculous, right?
- 28:09Yeah. Fascinating.
- 28:12OK, what a cool conversation. This is amazing.
- 28:15Oh, like anything else you want to add to either the decision or
- 28:18the the moment you're in right now?
- 28:20How do you feel emotionally? Do you feel relieved?
- 28:22Do you feel inspired? Do you feel regretful?
- 28:25Like what is the kind of emotional weight?
- 28:28I am at a incredible height. I'm I'm inspired.
- 28:33I feel like I am back to business.
- 28:36I'm not wasting anything, I'm not wasting money anymore, I'm
- 28:41not wasting time. I'm just building something
- 28:44useful the right way. I'm not trying to chase and
- 28:48please anyone. I'm fully responsible and fully
- 28:52accountable of what I'm doing. And I am back to starting yet
- 28:57another start up, which is we can count it at #6 or #5 not
- 29:04sure how we count it. You know, that number four so
- 29:07far was the biggest, the biggest win.
- 29:09It was it's currently traded at roughly 6 billion on NASDAQ,
- 29:13which basically allows me to to run all these experiments by
- 29:16myself. So, so yeah, I'm back in
- 29:20business to my sweet spot, which is starting something from
- 29:25scratch. And this time I have an amazing
- 29:28technology that is already working.
- 29:30I just need to find the goal there and dig out things that
- 29:34that are actually applicable to the right problem.
- 29:39Oh, it's inspiring to hear. I love it.
- 29:41Let's go. Let's build a new start up.
- 29:42Let's go. Let's go.
- 29:46Amazing. OK, we're we're ready to enter
- 29:49the quantum round. Are you ready, Oleg?
- 29:51For the quantum round. Yeah.
- 29:54OK. You're obviously bullish on, you
- 29:59know, we'll call it AI, augmented computer engineering.
- 30:04Is there a bear case? Is there a place or a reason you
- 30:07would not want to use Claude code?
- 30:13I'm so excited right now. I don't think so.
- 30:15I mean I wouldn't. I mean the next thing I did
- 30:18actually, I used Claude code at my back end as well, which is
- 30:24something that I have never felt that I needed because I felt
- 30:28like I was arrogantly thought that I can just build things at
- 30:33my sleep. Apparently it can help me there
- 30:36as well. So no, no reason not to use it.
- 30:39Have you have you started to tinker with Open Claw?
- 30:43I know. Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm waiting to
- 30:47for V2. I know Peter just got picked up
- 30:49by Sam Altman, so we'll see. Kind of like what comes out of
- 30:53it. Put some guardrails on that
- 30:54thing. It's a little scary, but maybe
- 30:57I'm just naive again. But I'll, I'll be the second way
- 31:00for sure. You're a start up guy.
- 31:03What are some other ideas? This audience loves start up
- 31:06ideas, particularly ideas that could Sprint to $1,000,000
- 31:10annual run rate, let's say in 12 months.
- 31:13Yeah. Anything else idea wise that
- 31:16you'd like to see somebody create?
- 31:24Do you mean any specific like big, big problems?
- 31:27I think if the the the biggest problems I think that are right
- 31:31now in health and that's something that I have no clue
- 31:37about. But there are some problems that
- 31:40haven't been solved. For example, unfortunately my
- 31:44mom passed away 25 years ago. The she had glioblastoma and
- 31:52this thing still has no cure. So there are some startups that
- 32:00are trying to somehow delay it somehow to prolong the life or
- 32:04maybe make her life a bit better.
- 32:07But I think that there are a number of similar cases that can
- 32:14be can be solved now with, with new LLMS, with new, with new
- 32:19approaches. I would love to see something
- 32:21like that. And there will be a multi
- 32:23billion outcome, obviously if someone solves A glioblastoma
- 32:27problem alone. So unfortunately we are also
- 32:33living in an environment which is a hostile, meaning a war in
- 32:37Ukraine, a war here in Israel. And I know there is a lot of
- 32:43stuff that is going on, but huge budgets are going to defence
- 32:47tech and all those. I'm not a big fan of it.
- 32:50I mean, from the moral point of view, I don't think that that's
- 32:56a good investment. But unfortunately, if we look at
- 32:59it from their capitalist point of view, if someone solves the
- 33:09the war problem like nuclear threat and nuclear mutual
- 33:13destruction does not work anymore.
- 33:15So maybe someone can come up with with a better idea that
- 33:20will deter all these dictators. Maybe, you know, something that
- 33:27will deter potentially Iran or Putin or whatever.
- 33:30So I don't know. So I'm just saying I'm trying,
- 33:33I'm trying to think big. I mean, I'm, I'm not a big fan
- 33:37of like small ideas that well, you know, solve some
- 33:44cybersecurity a small issue or take cheap for AI and make it
- 33:5120% more efficient. That's boring.
- 33:56I mean, there are lots of opportunities in those as well.
- 33:59But going back to your question, what I would love to see, I
- 34:04would love to see someone solving life and peace problems.
- 34:12Love it. You know, I spoke to a bunch of
- 34:13people you doing really cool stuff with AI for kind of
- 34:18diagnosis of medical conditions, which is amazing.
- 34:21I mean that's that's here now and it's it's just getting
- 34:23bigger. But once they get into the
- 34:25actual design of treatments, you know, you know, if if you look
- 34:28at like Claude or, you know, they're, they're probably
- 34:31basically like a graduate student or a PhD student, It's
- 34:34much smarter than me, I'd say you that much.
- 34:37But once it's 10X that's smart. And you start putting them on
- 34:40like problems like this where it can look at the, I don't know,
- 34:43the genome of humans and be like, oh, well, we could do
- 34:46this. This is this.
- 34:47And we're starting to get outputs for what?
- 34:49Actually designing new therapies and treatments.
- 34:51That's going to be a magical moment.
- 34:53Yeah. That's really cool.
- 34:55Yeah. Cool.
- 34:58Do you have a life motto? The closest one is Roger
- 35:07Federer. Nice little tennis guy.
- 35:12Yeah, it's not 100%, but there's a, if you're asking about their
- 35:17old model, that's that's a human being and that's the
- 35:22professional and that's the commitment and physical and
- 35:24mental and all his journey from a crazy psycho to the gentleman
- 35:31on the court and all this. That's that's a role model.
- 35:35That is the closest one to the role model, I would say.
- 35:37I love it. I love it.
- 35:38You you you a pretty good tennis player.
- 35:42Not me. I've grown to pretty good tennis
- 35:46players at home. My both daughters are tennis
- 35:49players. The bigger one has played for
- 35:53Georgia State and she is in the UN now.
- 35:57Thanks for her tennis career. She is now doing a PhD in
- 36:01neuroscience in Upenn. And the young, yeah, the younger
- 36:06one is here in Israel with me. She's also studying.
- 36:10She's like 7 years younger than the big one.
- 36:13But she also has a great potential, obviously.
- 36:16So. So yeah, I'm very close to to
- 36:19tennis as a as a parent, not not as a parent.
- 36:23Amazing. Is there ACEO or another
- 36:26entrepreneur you admire and follow closely?
- 36:33Well, I don't admire anyone. I'll be brutally honest with
- 36:38you, I don't admire anyone. I mean, there are some folks
- 36:44that I would I would be more than happy to learn from.
- 36:48It could be starting from Steve Jobs and Elon.
- 36:56But from the personality point of view, none of these guys with
- 37:00all the respect definitely to to Steve Jobs.
- 37:04I don't admire them as as as CE OS or as a as a people like
- 37:14human beings. So it's if we if we could
- 37:17combine several one or several ones of them in one personality
- 37:23and add Roger Federer on top, that would be the reason to
- 37:26admire. That Roger Federer run the
- 37:30company, like, yeah, look at this, we're going to play a net
- 37:34game. I don't even know what that how
- 37:35that applies to the company, but that's what we're doing.
- 37:39Right. Amazing your daughters are in
- 37:42college. If you were to go back to
- 37:44university today, what would you study?
- 37:54Maybe something related to languages, not necessarily a
- 38:02technical discipline. I think that if I go back to the
- 38:09college, not only college Asia, I would say then I believe that
- 38:15it doesn't really matter. I believe it does really matter
- 38:19what you study. It has to be something that you
- 38:23are obviously love to study and the skill that you are getting
- 38:26from the college is the notion of just having to study
- 38:31something and this discipline and being accountable of all
- 38:36your exams and everything and being good at social environment
- 38:41with your friend, friends, the students around you and all
- 38:45those. I think that's the whole
- 38:47experience of starting at the college is is great.
- 38:51It doesn't really matter what you study unless you study
- 38:53something way off and something they wouldn't have no clue
- 38:56about. So I happened to study applied
- 38:59math, but if you ask me if I used 1% of what I learned in the
- 39:09in the university, I I don't think so.
- 39:12I mean less than 1% of the actual of the actual study was
- 39:19actually applied to my career. I could have learned something
- 39:25very different and I would ended up where I am right now most
- 39:28likely. Yeah, it's, it's almost like
- 39:31where it is not what it is, you know, it's like there's a an
- 39:34energy and like a camaraderie that goes with a college
- 39:38experience now that like, yeah, study whatever, you know.
- 39:41Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool.
- 39:45Amazing. What kind of rap with this one?
- 39:47What's a book recommendation you often make or what's a book you
- 39:50would actually buy somebody to read?
- 39:56Buying a book? Let me think.
- 40:08You mean I would maybe go with some depending, depending on who
- 40:15actually. So it's like, what is the what
- 40:19is the goal is just having fun and getting a smarter or reading
- 40:24something and getting some insights for your career and for
- 40:28your product. Like what is the final like
- 40:32function? What is?
- 40:33What is it trying to achieve? Let's say it's just your best
- 40:36friend. You're like Oh my God, you have
- 40:37to read this. I'll buy it for you.
- 40:45You know, there is one Russian book that I that you know, I'm,
- 40:52that I was born in Russia 52 years ago, right?
- 40:56So I moved to Israel 30 years ago.
- 40:58So my mother tongue is, is a Russian and my books that I read
- 41:03when I was a kid and youth were in Russia.
- 41:07So I would probably suggest them to read their master and
- 41:12Margarita by Michael Bulgako. That's my favorite one.
- 41:17But it is nothing to do with the goals or unfortunately, there's
- 41:20just a just a great book. I love it.
- 41:24Oh like this has been absolutely fantastic.
- 41:26Congratulations on your new journey.
- 41:28I'm so excited for you. I can tell you're fired up.
- 41:31What's the best place for people to connect with you online?
- 41:34Yeah. So I'm very responsive on
- 41:36LinkedIn. And by the way, if someone from
- 41:39your audience, I'm sure there are maybe a few, a few of them
- 41:43if you guys have built some consumer networks or consumer
- 41:48products and you've experienced organic growth.
- 41:53And I would love to have a chat and swap some ideas, take some
- 41:59notes and help each other. That would be amazing.
- 42:03So feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
- 42:05I'm I'm very responsive there. Tremendous and I will link your
- 42:09LinkedIn in the show notes below.
- 42:11So if you're listening to this, click on that, connect with Oleg
- 42:14and and talk. Thank you so much for joining
- 42:16me. This is awesome conversation.
- 42:18Thanks, Ryan. Great to me.
- 42:19I got a great conversation. I agree.
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