Macro Micro Michael Marco & Startups at the Edge (M4Edge)

This is the final M4Edge episode of 2021 an we are finishing this year with a bang, Our guest is Alex Rodrigues, founder and CEO of Embark Trucks; he is a Forbes 30 under 30, and more importantly, at the tender age of 26 he has just brought Embark public through a SPAC deal valuing the company at over 5 billion dollars.

Embark is right up the M4Edge alley, where we look at technologies that change the way the economy works: Embark develops software for self-driving trucks. Alex Rodrigues has a long-standing interest in automation: his passion for robots started when he was 11, so even though he’s only 26, he is already kind of a veteran in robotics. In our interview he revealed a number of interesting insights on the present and the future of automation, and some of them are quite surprising. How is this for a nugget: here we have the founder of a self-driving trucks company predicting a bright future for truck drivers!

We had a great conversation on where and why self-driving trucks could create – or at least preserve – jobs; but also on where they will be deployed first, and what they could imply for the future of logistics and distribution, quite an important topic given the recent dramatic supply chain disruptions.

Alex also explained why the development of self-driving trucks might be very different from that of self-driving passenger cars; we talk about road safety and cyber-security, and about Embark’s business model: they don’t actually produce trucks, they are a SaaS company.

And we close with Alex’s reflections on the future of robotics and automation. This episode has everything we – and you – like best: an enthusiastic and deeply knowledgeable guest, cutting edge technology, business model innovation and important implications for the way we live and work.
Thanks for listening, Thanks for Being Curious, and as always, please share the episode and if you have a few minutes, leave us a review. We’ll be back in 2022 with a brand new series we’re planning, so...enjoy the holidays and STAY curious!

After a long absence, we’ve returned with a very fun episode and right in line with the M4Edge theme. The startup we focus on today is really micro, in the weeds, you might say, with some very macro aims, and it’s about as edgy as can be.

You probably know that we’ve done several episodes on ESG or impact investing, and we’ve also done quite a few food-tech and ag-tech episodes. This episode is part of that series, but with some cool twists .We interview Dror Tamir, the CEO of Hargol Food Tech. Dror wants us all to be eating grasshoppers. Yes, I know, it sounds gross. Dror knows that too. But not everyone feels that way! It turns out that in many parts of the world, they are a delicacy. But Dror doesn’t expect those of us who grew up with Western diets to crunch on wings and legs, instead Hargol grinds up the grasshoppers into a powder, which you can blend with other foods, or even put in gummies.
What’s the big deal about grasshoppers? They are tiny little nutrition machines, so part of Dror’s vision is protein for the world. There’s a climate angle too, since reducing beef and poultry consumption will reduce emissions; there’s a water angle, since growing this form of protein uses FAR less water than other animal production; there’s an animal cruelty angle, since Hargol takes pains to kill the grasshoppers in a humane way. The stats on how healthy grasshoppers are for people and for the planet are frankly mindblowing. Beyond that, Hargol has internal ESG goals unrelated to their product, for example around hiring people with disabilities. Dror sees his mission as being an element of the Jewish tradition of Tikkun Olam - repairing the world.
Oh yeah, this is the Jewiest episode we’ve done, too. Marco compares Jewish grandmothers to Italian grandmothers, I talk about kosher laws, Dror explains a Hebrew pun and Marco even vocalizes an excellent chet. But all you goyim and our faithful M4Edge devotees shouldn’t worry; it’s an ecumenical episode - there’s plenty in here about Hargol’s approach to their market, their production process, their place within the booming food-tech scene and more. We know you’ll enjoy the episode.

And since you’ll enjoy it, please share it with others, rate us on Apple Podcasts, post it on social media - you know what to do - spread the word. And as always, thanks for being curious!

Our guest is David Yang and he is the founder of a company called YVA, which is the subject of today’s show, but he’s no novice in startup world. David has founded TWELVE companies, starting in 4th grade, and including ABBYY which you may not have heard of but is actually pretty huge; it has offices in 11 countries and more than thousands of enterprise customers in 200 countries , so you can be sure that David thinks YVA has some serious potential. The World Economic Forum named him as one of the top 100 World Technology Pioneers. David’s resume and story are fascinating, but that’s not what makes this episode so good. It’s because YVA represents much of the great potential of AI but also embodies a lot of what makes people really uncomfortable about AI’s power. YVA is an AI offering in what’s called “People Analytics” which to me sounds vaguely Orwellian, but it’s a real domain and there are other companies in that space. David calls YVA an “MRI scanner for organizational health." It improves the quality of life at a company, improves efficiency, and generally makes the company a better place to work. But of course, in order to get that data, like an MRI, YVA peers deep inside, and analyzes many, many things you do at work, for example not just what words you use in your email or instant messaging app, but when and how often and to whom you write. M4Edge is about tech that can change how the economy functions, and YVA goes right to the heart of our workplaces. Is this big brother and too intrusive or is this simply a more efficient way to doing what HR does anyway, all while making employee’s performance and company performance better? As you’ll see at the end of the episode, David is very Gung-Ho about having AI in our lives. Do you think you’ll be as comfortable? Will you have a choice?

We are inundated by data, in our professional and personal lives. How do we make sense of it, extract the insights we need? An image is worth a thousand words, but can you visualize a complex dataset with multiple variables and scores of datapoints? This is what Leo Meyerovich of Graphistry set out to do, building on his PhD research at Berkeley. Graphistry uses Artificial Intelligence to trace patterns and correlations, helping the analyst in her investigation of the data.

In some cases, we are in fact talking of true investigations, the stuff of cloak and dagger movies. In this episode you will hear about financial fraud, election influencing, drug and human trafficking. Leo describes how AI-driven data visualization helps uncover shady webs of unsavory communications and illegal money flows, even as the criminals carefully try to cover their tracks. The same techniques can help a company better understand the behavior of its customers and how to reach them and serve them more effectively. You will also hear how Graphistry can help capture the experience and tricks of senior analysts and make them available to younger recruits—an important feature as rapid staff turnover becomes a more pressing challenge for many organizations.

At the end of the episode, Michael and Marco discuss future potential applications and debate whether future data analysis will still have a ‘human in the loop’ or evolve towards a pure black box approach.
P.S. Thank you to PanchoVilla1878 for the nice review on Apple Podcasts. PLEASE rate us on Apple/iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and write a review, to help others find us. We really appreciate it.
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We shouldn’t judge a book by the cover. But when we meet someone, that’s exactly what we do. Within the first few minutes, we form a strong impression based on how they speak and carry themselves. And when giving a presentation, the quality of the content won’t matter that much if you can’t present it effectively.

In this episode we talk to Tim Wikstrom, who has spent his entire career coaching people on effective presentation skills. With Presentr, Tim and his co-founder Tammy Palazzo leverage Artificial Intelligence to help you improve your presentation skills: the AI tracks and assesses your tone of voice, the rhythm of your delivery, your most frequently used words—and gives you instant feedback. Accessible on both laptops and mobile devices, Presentr can provide training at scale, and has already been adopted by a number of large organizations.

We discuss with Tim what constitutes an effective presentation style, to what extent it depends on the speaker and on the audience, and how cultural differences come into the equations. We debate how you can judge and measure the impact of Presentr’s training. We also reflect on the risks of being in a world where form can often trump substance, and on whether applications like Presentr will make the situation better or worse.

Watch out for references to A Fish Called Wanda, Michael’s NBC broadcaster impersonation, and Tim’s explanation of Bill Clinton’s “Pointing Thumb Thing”. Stick around for the post-interview segment, where we also discuss whether a bot would stick around for an entire State of the Union address.

P.S. Thank you to Tenderboy1 for the nice review on iTunes. PLEASE rate us on Apple/iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and write a review, to help others find us. We really appreciate it.