SPEAKER_01 0:26

It's not to say that chatbots can't be useful, but I liken them to the early days of computers when all you had was the command line accessing the mathematical processor. And it could only and exactly do things that you put into the command line, and it could do a lot of amazing things, but it took a lot of work to use it correctly and responsibly. And after 40-50 years, we have all these layers of software that makes that accessible for everyone. And I really don't think AI is that different. What we have right now is the command line of language. You can do so much with it, but it takes discipline to use it responsibly. And just saying, no, it's smart, and it will just get smarter and it will do all the things for you. It's just so fundamentally irresponsible, and I just don't think it's based in the math, the science, the humanity of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

I cannot wait to introduce you to Sayer Blake because when she talks about all of the work that she's building and doing, it is going to be a phenomenal conversation. You don't want to miss it. So without further ado, Sayer, hello, welcome to the show. Hi Ann, thanks so much for having me on. You bet. So give us your bio. Who are you? Why should we pay attention to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

My goodness. So I am I'm a bit of an oddball. I am the CEO of Skillsage, which is a new software company focused on democratizing soft skills training for everyone through the form of a game, making it fun, accessible, and modern. But our bigger mission is how do we figure out how to use AI responsibly and ethically and sustainably? And I'm particularly passionate about that because in addition to being a CEO, I'm a part of the technical team. I'm a technical founder of the company. But I'm also actually a classically trained illustrator. In addition to having studied engineering back in college, I also studied and have a degree in illustration. So I'm kind of the whole sphere of all these places that AI can touch. I'm very personally connected to all of it. And so I'm really motivated to find ways that really put people first rather than replacing them and then just kind of furthering that slide down as we watch the insidification of everything happen. Just I'm like, we don't need that. Let's stop that. Come on now.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

So Inchidification is a new word. It could be the title of this episode. I love that word.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

It's such a great term. I I popped into my lexicon about a year ago from another podcast I was listening to, and it's just, it just so perfectly encapsulates what's happening in the broader, you know, sort of business sphere these days. And it's the thing that really gets me is it's all so unnecessary. It's just it doesn't need to happen.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

So fill you on that, and I love that. You know what I love about Sarah and her work is the humans come first, right? So literally, you are you founded, you're the CEO of this tech company that is literally using AI tools, selling AI tools, making AI tools available to people, and but you're still sitting here saying, no, no, the humans come first. Let's talk about how we can use AI to connect humans in a better, more meaningful way and assist us in our work and our tests, but not take over our brains. And I love that. That's great. So how did you how did you come to find that business? Like what was your founder story?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

My my journey is all over the place, and that is what led to Skillsage. And so before we'll get to, I I I will just give that little brief overview of like, well, okay, everyone says it's AI but different, but there's a reason we can we can really say that, we're like confident in that. But it's driven by my work history. I'm a big believer in what you can do comes directly from your story and your experience, and every part of it can be really meaningful if you let it and you don't stay attached to some vision or dream or ideal of what you think you should be doing. For me, like I said, I you know, I studied electrical engineering with an emphasis on process or systems, and then I realized too that, like, hey, you know, I can do this, I'm really good at it, but this isn't quite right. This isn't my people, this isn't my place. And so I kind of took a leap and went and got an art degree too, because I always had loved to draw and had done that since I was a kid, and I was like, well, clearly I can do that too. I'm not sure what path that takes. And that has led me all over the place. I worked at SurveyGizmo, I think they're Alcamer now. Back earlier on in the company, I was in their marketing department helping out with sort of overhauling their brand identity and expanding their their, they had a very illustration forward marketing brand in their early days that I was sort of helped them go from we've got five assets we paid someone for five years ago. We need an entire library really bad, to you know, helping them move into the enterprise space. I worked at a startup incubator, both sketching out ideas before they, you know, sort of architectural visualization, but then also doing the business analysis analysis and the research and saying, here's the feasibility, here's the cost, should this even be pursued past the idea phase. I've worked in the video game industry for years. I actually directed a video game called Reliquary that got announced a couple years ago and then got delayed because the entire industry lit itself on fire. Last I checked, that one is still in publishing limbo. Although the publisher in the studio that I actually did, I helped found at Jade Ember Studios, who was our mobile publisher for Skillsage, they recently announced that they've gone fully independent and they're gonna start back up on moving it towards a fully independent release, which is huge. Super. Always excited to see that. I I think we're over obsessed with this idea of you have to move so fast in the industry these days, and we've really lost the plot. What a human-centric release cycle for things is.

unknown 6:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

So I'm always a big fan of, yeah, do it yourself. And it's okay if it's a little slower, because you know what? It's gonna cost a lot less, it's gonna damage a lot less brain cells, there's gonna be a lot less crunch. So worked in the game industry, and then I also did a lot of work in uh VR, uh, specifically in the enterprise space. So focused on training and more that kind of thing with VR and augmented reality and how do we use this new technology to do better training that's actually practice-based instead of you know, watch this rip of some VHS tape from the 90s in a web browser that looks like it's from 2003, and then you know, maybe click some multiple choice. We've all been there. And that's what led us to SkillSage. You know, I had this huge variety of had an art background, I had an engineering background, systems engineering, all these things. And I'm looking at these systems, and I was just like, this is, I mean, I've gone through those trainings. I think many of us have over the years working at big companies. I'm just like, this is this is crazy. This doesn't help anyone. Nobody can do their job better from this. It's compliance oriented, it's legal. Well, they saw the box, so now we're not not liable anymore. And it's like that doesn't actually help.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

There's no impact, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

There's no impact and and the that's so much cost for, you know, we I think it just one, it furthers this narrative that like we that there are people who can learn these skills of interaction and social engagement and people who cannot. And that's not true. You know, they're just they're just systems, right? There are people who'd be naturally better at it, absolutely. Yeah, but it's just, you know, learned behaviors, little patterns, little contextual things we pick up on when we get to have the experience, and when we don't, falling behind can be really hard to catch up because there's always been a risk associated with a mistake. And as I'm looking at this, I'm like, we this is, you know, this is this is wild. You know, we have video games have in the last 20 years really pushed for how do we teach a broader category of people, vastly more complex systems in a way that's fun and invites people who, you know, 20 years ago never would have thought of themselves as playing video games to actually enjoy the medium. And it's been amazing to watch. And yet here on this training side, you know, you you have a job where you struggle to do the job, and then you go home and you play this really game with all these intricate rules, and it's like there's there's a gap there. And so that was really what sort of inspired Skillsage was okay, I I think it's time to update this and really make it about training. I should be excited if I get to do training because that means I'm learning something new that I can then reapply anywhere, not just at the current job, not just in the current role, but like those things are translatable to so many places. And so that's what really pushed us to do it. And that brings us to part of why we can do it is because of the breakthrough of AI and LLMs, which is a whole other can of worms.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

That's a huge can of worms. That's not even a can, that's like a earth-sized bowl of worms. That's beautiful. I love it so much. Well, I, for one, uh never really grew up on video games. I am a kid of the 90s, right? So it was Mario Kart, it was N64, it was all of those games, which we still have in our basement, and we've taught our kids to play.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

But I will say, you know, my husband's a gamer, and so I never quite understood. I knew that there was a release, I knew that he loved like the downtime of it, and I just I never really got into it. But I will say, I myself am 42, and you you said something that I resonate with. I will say I was never a gamer, but when there is some type of a business tool, software app, something that has some gamification in it for whatever my end goal is, I love it. I find myself like I even found some apps I've been toying around with lately for content creation on social, and I hate creating content and it gamifies. It literally like goes through my phone, my camera roll, and it'll gamify. It's almost like what's it gonna come up with next? And it adds this element to it that for me, not being a gamer, it is absolutely what you just said. I am going to use that for business function because it's gamifying a little bit more of like I'm playing with something and it's producing something that's gonna be impactful that my brain doesn't have to think about. But I think about the game itself and the fun that I have in interacting with the things. And I fucking love it. I think it's incredible. The impact that it's creating for me to want to go back, that's where it is. I want to go back. The desire is there because the game part of it makes it fun for my brain. So I want to go back into it. So so many apps are downloaded and then no one looks at it again. And so what you have to do is create that dopamine hit that that that fun, positive reinforcement every time they open your system, your software, your app to use it. And then you also hit something that I want to highlight, which I love, which is every corporate training someone goes to, they're like, Oh, I am training, like, what are you doing? Where are you flying to? You're going somewhere for two days. Oh, it's fucking training, it's corporate training. The words corporate training are probably some of the worst two words used together, and we all know it, or HR training, and you're like, well, it's like vomiting. And you are trying to make the impact of that for the company, and then also the experience of the people going through it fun, interesting. Like, when did we stop wanting to learn something new? But that's going to help us enjoy our workplace more, which is everything that I speak to, right? How do we make these cultures that feel like home that people want to stay in? And you're literally skill stages doing that. So bravo. It's so exciting. So, how long have you been leading the ship over there? What's the time?

SPEAKER_01 12:38

I I kind of joined on and helped with the early sort of technical foundation about gosh, I guess it would have been about a year and a half ago.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

And then the yes, very new. So and and my main contribution was something we call the logic lattice. So one of the big things, which everyone knows, everybody immediately hears this and goes, oh god, it's a chat bot, it can hallucinate. It's gonna tell you to kill yourself if you go off the thread for too long. No, because I agree, this is crazy that we're just going, hey, I have made a computerized screaming void of the collective human subconscious. Would you like to talk to it? But no. No? What are we doing? So I am actually, despite being an AI tech CEO, I'm actually hugely against chatbots. I think it is one of the most dangerous and irresponsible ways to use AI.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

If you're listening right now, you can't see me. I'm fist pumping with Sarah right now against chatbots. Yes. Okay, tell us why.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yes. So, first of all, they are very interesting, but they also operate on a scale that the human brain immediately cannot grasp at all. Okay. And so because they they are so one of the things I don't think most people realize is they don't learn. They are completely static. They can create the illusion of learning because they are so massive and they encapsulate so much of human communication. But any illusion of learning is just that every time you talk to a chat bot, there's no chat bot you're talking to. It's a big I I liken it as like the basically the way AI works is imagine you have a couch ball, right? With all those little dangly lines on it, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:18

A couchball. You're taking us back to like 194. I'm here with the 90s. So yeah, so we got a couple.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

So when you hear the word tokens in AI, and this is critical to understanding this all, and the thing I try to do to demystify it is when you hear about a token, imagine a token as a couch ball. So a couch ball that represents some chunk, abstract chunk of language. And every single little hair coming out of it is maybe a different length, a different color, a different thickness. Those are the way all the different dimensions that we the AI used to measure that chunk of language. And so when you set up a whole line of it in a row, there's your input, there's your sentence, right? And all those different lengths, it's going, okay, well, that one points to this one, and then that one points to this one, and that one points to this one, and then it takes that and then it lines it up with its field of billions of these kush balls.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

And then it goes, and we're gonna go there because it's measuring all those little, and then it you know ping-pongs its way through billions of couch balls, measuring how those that basically the little stretchy lines stretch out as you go from one to one. And then you fall out the other end at some point, and that's the output. And that's amazing. That's it's it's an incredible breakthrough. But it's critically, it's static. It can't learn. The illusion of learning is then the next time you talk to it, it goes, okay, well, here's what you said, and here's what I said, and then here's what you said, and it makes a new longer chain of kush balls and just measures again. And so you fall out of some other part of the giant net of human language.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

And it can't learn because perhaps, okay, Sarah, stick with me because I'm not a tech CEO, so I'm gonna just I'm gonna see you in this, okay? So what I heard was it can't learn because learning requires new input and new information, and it doesn't have new input, new information. It has a field of kush balls of existing information that it's just trying to sync and connect with that, but there's no new input, new information, so it can't learn.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Once it has been trained, once you have interaction with it, its huge, massive, incomprehensibly enormous field of cushballs is locked in place. Love it.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

It's just like I get it.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

I get it's big.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

It's just you can't wrap your head around it. It's not a learning model. It's it can't be chatbots are not learning, they are just a static thing that you put there, and then that's what they are, and then you just endlessly go in these loops of what is existing.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Exactly. You're basically exploring different parts of the incomprehensibly huge field of couch balls as your conversation gets longer and longer. Now, the reason they can go off the rails, they can hallucinate all of these dangerous things that can cause AI psychosis is one, well, you get out what you put in because it has all of human communication, and so little nuances and subtleties of the way you're talking to it will completely change which part of that field you're entering from and exiting from. And that's a really big problem. Again, we're really bad at understanding things. I I work with this stuff, and I like consistently have to catch myself and be like, okay, hold on, try and imagine it. Wait a second. Like, it's just our brains are not meant to work with things at this scale.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

And so it's just And we've released it to the public who are not.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

We released it to the public.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

They're not software engineers, they're not, and we released released it to children. Not only, oh I know. What the fuck are we doing, guys? Like we just released something that's uncontrolled, unregulated, and nobody knows what the fuck they're doing, and you're a tech CEO and you're like, it doesn't know what the fuck I'm doing some days, and I have to pull back and stop, and I'm like, and so here is the even crazier part, and and and this is the beauty of it, because you're here, you know, uh Skell Sage.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

You know, you talk to one of the core things is you have a conversation with Sage to simulate practicing an interview, or you know, have here's the thing it's not a chat bot. You are talking to her, but it is not a chatbot. So a chatbot is just I have this big field of cushballs, you may make a string of cushballs and shove them through the field, and then the next time you talk to it, it will just take your first string and your next string, and we're just gonna keep stacking that until eventually the bath falls apart and it goes insane because the the the bath has decreasing degrees of accuracy the more kush balls you shove into it. It gets harder for it to calculate where it's supposed to go. So that's crazy. That is crazy. That is not to me a so I look at all the problems we have, the problems with AI right now, that's like, oh, we'll figure it out what I'm like, no, we won't. It's an inherent part of the technology. The answer is not, well, let's just keep brute forcing it. Let's just keep going, well, you know, some people might suffer AI psychosis. Well, we'll just put a little warning that it might not be accurate. No, no, no, no. This is an inherent consequence of the technology. Instead, what we have found is, and what we look at is, okay, for the first time in human history, I can open a model, whatever one, whatever AI model on my computer, and I don't think people realize how easy it is actually to run these just on your local machine. I have a little Mac Mini over there that I can run anything except for the biggest ones on. Just it's like two clicks, there you go, and you can talk to it. So there's nothing particularly special about them. But the other part of it is that's amazing is I can type in a string, you know, of characters, uh any sentence in the human language, in any language, and it will return something that makes sense as language. Not necessarily as fact or context, what we call hallucination, but language, it's complete. And that's amazing. We have never had that before. And I don't want people to lose sight of how miraculous that is because what it really shows us is how beautifully structured human language is. That's the real beauty of AI, is that oh my god, across all cultures, across all languages, across all contexts, the way we communicate is stable and consistent, and we have such common patterns as humans across all barriers that it can be described with simple math and on a scale that's really hard to imagine. But that's that's beautiful. And that unlocks as a designer, as a com you know, a computer person, I'm like, oh my god, what can't I do with that? Not chatbots. That's a really bad idea, because again, it's all of everything. So what we took the approach is we really treated as sort of it essentially like a language helper. So when you're talking to Sage, there's not at any point a thread being passed back and forth to open AI. There's not, you know, and it's just continuing to try and figure out what the next logical thing to say is. We actually built a model of human conversation the way you would for a video game. It's represented with old school computer approaches of numbers and all sorts of abstract stuff, but it's the key part is at any point you can pull up a thing and say, all right, how am I doing for each of the topics? Is Sage mad at me? It's all just basic math. And then the only job of the AI is to go to translate that into dialogue and then to translate your dialogue back into that math model of the conversation. And when you do that, what we were blown away with is all the problems with AI fall away. Hallucinations pretty much disappear, and it can't just like sit there and hugbox you into insanity because if you go off the rails, it it goes, nope, you've this is not part of the conversation. And the AI's job is not to decide that, the AA's job is to decide a conversation has ended and this was said last. What's the next human logical thing to say? And that's a much smaller problem and it's much safer. But the other big one, because one that really pisses me off, is the insane amount of power we are wasting. I mean, there was like the devicel with you know sorrow, and then even even OpenAI with their trillions of dollars had to go, this is burning too much money. We need to shut this down. Yeah, and we're not doing anything with it.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

But when you do things this way, I it gets so small. I just got chills when you were telling that story. I love that story of how Sage. I have two questions for you. One one's short, one's long. One, please. What made you say that Sage is a she her? It just was the character.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

So we actually, you know, we so that was a really fun thing too when we designed this. Sage is an actual video game character. So she has a 3D model, she is animated. We did one of my my actually one of my I there's a young woman I mentor who's a concept artist who was responsible for coming up with her design. And we actually have like a dozen future trainers planned at some point in the future when we have, you know, we're not in this early kind of growth phase and we can come back. But we were really it was really important to us to be like, hey, this needs to actually be a character. Not trying to be a human, not trying to be a person replacement, a character, a fictional character, because that again it creates those boundaries of but connection, but in a way that's not like parasocial, that's not it's it there are very clear boundaries to she is a character in a story, and in the story it's a trainer. And so she was kind of the one who won out of all the designs, is she just felt the strongest, the most welcoming, the most like it felt different to have her be there as this is a character who's like not all the problems with AI right now. You know, she's She's not overly polished. She's you know, she's not so much of the generic when you try and prompt, you know, people to I've tried the tools, but we talked about this before we hit record.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

We are both theater kids. And so you just told a story that makes sense to me. But if you didn't know that Sarah and I are theater kids, so when you grow up in the theater, right, this is why we're gonna just hit record and probably not edit any of this because we're just one take bitches, right? But here's the thing. So so when you develop something, I love this, and you're like, well, they need a character, right? So there's so much character development and research in theater that people don't realize that goes into your part. You actually have to research your script and your character, and as the actor, you have to decide what that actor was doing before, during the play that you're acting, and then after. And you have to develop the storyline and you have to develop the persona. You have taken our theater skills in a beautiful way, and you're using it to character develop this company, like this this AI, this this is beautiful, right? And I take my theater training in my branding business because we have to develop personas for these businesses that we're branding, which is human-centered branding. And so we create characters from theater for that too. So that's awesome. I just want to highlight that, and that's that's powerful.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

No, it's on that point too. I think there's actually it's it's so much more than just, oh, I did it because, you know, theater kid and a concept artist. It's like I actually think that is one of those things that so quickly gets missed with the scale of stuff nowadays, is those boundaries of being on and off stage, in and out of character, are actually really critical as humans, both in theater, but even in things like software applications. I I think that that line is really critical with these tools that can kind of overwhelm our ability to discern intelligence or sentience or learning capability, having those boundaries of here are the limits of her character and here's where it stops. We're not trying, we're very deliberately not trying to make her this like all-encompassing. There's no memory between scenes. She breaks steps in and out of character, you know, and she, you know, if you if you, for example, like uh really go off the rails, which I use my 13-year-old to test this all the time, of like, Yes, please threaten to burn her house down with a knife during the interview, you know, uh whatever it is. And and she'll break character. She'll stop being the interviewer for a sec, be Sage the trainer, and go, hey, you're not taking this seriously. I'm gonna end it here. And then and then that ends, and the next time she'll Yep, and scene. And then and then it's back to just here's the menu. You're not engaging with Sage to set up your next take. It's back to just being the game menu. And then I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

I never even thought that theater teaches you boundaries, Sarah. You're blowing my mind. Theater teaches you boundaries and scene.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

So important and scene. And and that line is so critical to safe play, to safe learning. And I see that line being not just eroded, but like it shattered with these attempts to make these all-encompassing AI chatbots where one, they're not even good at any of the things they're supposed to be good at, they're good-ish. They're good-ish, but that's almost more dangerous than being outright bad because it encourages you to keep trying and form these weird, like spidery connections to embryo.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

The gray-ish, which is also a problem for boundary setting, because boundaries are really easy when it's black and white, but when it's good-ish or gray-ish, you're like, fuck, I don't know what's going on. That's really dangerous. Yeah. That's a toxic relationship. Okay, my big question, this is my big question. I I want your thoughts on what you know about AI and how we're using it, right? And just humanity in general. This is like a big question, okay? So we're going humanity the globe. Do you think, do you believe that AI will die because humans are survivalists and we must survive? And if we believe that AI and robotics are going to eventually take over the human species if these big tech firms have this goal, do you think humans will revolt against the robots and kill AI and say, fuck it? We tried that, and that was a really weird decade or two, and we're done. Like, what does the future look like?

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Great question. So, first of all, I actually reject the notion that we're even anywhere in risk of it taking over anything. We're I agree with you. I think the big companies would love us to think that because it makes their products sound way cooler and better than they actually are.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

So just like with so let's talk about the AI is a great example of LLMs, the new breakthrough. AI as a field has been around since the 60s. We've been trying to figure out ways to model different aspects of intelligence with computers. I have studied a lot of them. On Reliquery, where I was the director, I was in charge of the game AI systems. And those are very simple, dumb as rocks, but they are AI systems. They're, you know, it's just a big if this then that or if this then that. Like that's all it is, but it's still AI. So LLMs are here to stay. It's a beautiful breakthrough. LLMs as we're using right now is not sustainable.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Wait, explain LLM for the listener who's like, what the fuck is an LLM?

SPEAKER_01 28:09

So a large language model, and that's what is driving these chatbots. And that is the field of couchballs. Yes, thank you. No, so that is the field of couchballs, is an LLM. And that is all it is. And so that is the other thing I want to really point out is they're amazing, but not in the ways the mainstream narrative wants right now, because that is very this like fear-based, well, what somebody has to win? Somebody has to be in charge of all of it. And that's a whole other convers. The social reasons why this is happening at this moment, and we have these unfathomably rich VCs and investors pushing this narrative, it's it's it's both dumber and more more like, well, that's that's kind of fucked up, but it's it's not because the technology is genuinely that. What I think will happen here, and I think the same is true with robotics. We've making some great breakthroughs with robotics that are really cool and could help a lot of people. We are centuries, decades at the minimum away from ever just being like, robot can do thing. Robot can learn and do thing. When you see these amazing demos of these robots that are doing backflips or, you know, doing this complicated thing, that is real, that it's happening. But again, it's not learning that dynamically. They're simulating that one thing 20,000 times to come up with the exact motor pattern that allows it to do it once under those exact circumstances. Yeah. It can't fully there, and there are some ways to then kind of adjust a little bit, but it's not, we're still so far off from the human ability to learn something and then reapply concepts of that to something else. You know, I recently actually started taking up music composition. I've always played piano since I was young, but I never learned how to write music, partly because I had just been told, oh, you just don't have an ear for it, you know, and I I didn't know how to start. But a really interesting thing, and this kind of comes back to one of the powerful things about my God, computers can work in the realm of language. They could already work in the realm of facts. We have great tools for that. They're called databases. AI is not the tool for that, no matter how hard they try. But I was able to go to an LLM and say, hey, I am this type of experienced illustrator. I know all these terms. Is music similar? Is writing music similar? Can you map terms and concepts for me? And it sped out a list of, oh yeah, well, composition is composition. When you compose an illustration, you do the same in music. And here are the different concepts and how they overlap between the two. And I was just sitting there like, oh my god, why did nobody ever explain this to me? I I absolutely can understand music composition. And then that inspired me to go and look up material from people and instructors and books and start to learn the theory because I was able to map how I draw and paint over to, oh my god, I can compose music the same way. And there isn't really AI tech that can do that on a lower level yet. So I think we're a lot farther off from that ever happening than the big companies would really like us to think. What I do think is going to happen here, because I do agree, and this kind of was comes back to what I was saying with Skillsage and our approach, is what's being done right now is not sustainable, and it doesn't make any sense. And it and it is built mostly by this winner take all crazed, you know, burn all the money because then we'll be the last company to exist and it can automate everything. But the reality is it can't, and we're seeing that. It can greatly unlock new things that were Skillsage could not be built without modern AI, and yet I would say AI is maybe 2% of its entire code base. Even when you're talking with Sage, the AI is only like maybe 10% conversation loop. It's just not that big a part of it.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

So it's a supportive part of the entire development system, but it's a very human-led system that just is supported in certain ways where it needs to speed up or exactly something different.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

And so what I think we will come to is wow, that era where we thought words can do everything was weird. We're not doing that again. Yeah. But I I I think, and what I've been seeing in my network and people I talk to is that this is sort of an incredible moment that I think has the potential to shape so much beyond just technology of it really forces us to differentiate and and be introspective about the difference between words and meaning.

unknown 32:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Yeah. And how much we substitute people saying the right kinds of words for their role, their position of authority for whether those words have meaning, whether the meaning itself is positive, independent of, well, they're saying the right words in the right spot. And and I think that and and you know, AI simultaneously can really exploit that because it can very quickly trigger our sort of automatic perceptions for authority. It can role play as any kind of social strata or hierarchy very quickly.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

But it it really, to use it well, you have to separate those two. And that can be really uncomfortable because then it invites you to look around and go, wait, how much is just based on people being in the right place and learning to talk the right way?

SPEAKER_03 33:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

No.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

Would you say that that's very performative? Because what you just described is very performative and it's not honest. And I fucking love that because that's what we're against.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

And this is where I get at, you know, when we when we try building it this way, we go, well, wait a minute, are is AI just another new little tool in the toolbox for computer science? Oh, I think it is. Yeah. You know, when you talk to Sage, it uses because when you do this, you we're trying to basically right now, you're seeing with these big companies, they're trying to brute force raw intelligence through just sheer volume of words. And that isn't that different from you know the useless middle manager who will not shut up in their email. You know, pollination who's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

Manual ones automated. Which one do you want? You just get a lot of bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

And that is genuinely how they're trying to use the AI right now. Is you know, when you even these thinking models, they're not thinking, they're sitting there and they're rambling for hundreds of thousands of words under the hood, and they're just hoping by the law of averages, the meaning will collapse onto the right meaning eventually. That's that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

That's you know what's funny, Sarah? This this is so like this is so baseline and low level, but I feel like a lot of people listening will be like, okay, I understand this. So uh not being a tech CEO, I'm gonna say this. The way I use this is so like baseline example, but this is funny to me. So when I use some of my AI tools, like let's just say chat GPT, and I'm trying to formulate the right like thought process. So I'm I'm prompting it with like my thoughts and like just you know, like how would you sum this up in a really sexy way, or like, let's make this more seductive and hooky. Like, what do I say? Like these are my words, right? So I'm trying to just kind of reframe my thoughts. It's like my my assistant to help me mimic what the thoughts are and then really spit them out clearly for the goal, right? But I what you just said is is hilarious. So it's wordy. It's like, shut up. It's taking like a thousand things and it always spits out something massive. I'm like, would you stop fucking doing that? I cuss at my AI all the time. I'm like, would you stop fucking doing that? Like, no, bitch, this is what I meant. I was like, say it, and then I have to say it and like write it in one sentence. Give me this in 10 words. Like, because I'm always lessening and shortening the results that I get because you're right. Every AI model I'm using is like, but let me give you the world. And I'm like, no, no, I just want this in like a short and sweet. I say short and sweet, it doesn't know what that means. So then I have to define it in a development term, which I only know a little bit of 12 years running a branding agency with my developers because I talk to my developers per the client, and then vice versa. So being the middleman, I say, this is what I know about developer language, and I'm gonna go into my developer side of my brain with my prompting and say, no, no, no, let me give you the container. The container is 20 words, two sentences. This is what I need. And it's so obnoxious. But most people who use AI right now don't understand that. So I'm like, AI is literally what you said. It's just it talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. It's gonna give you like thousands of examples and words, and you're like, can you just give me one sentence? Stop.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

The worst part is this doesn't have to be a part of the technology. It's a deliberate consequence of the way these companies are trying to use it right now. So, like with Skillsage, when we built it the way we did, where we go, well, actually, maybe this is just a language translator on top of other traditional stuff.

unknown 36:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Not only were we able to, did we quickly realize, oh my God, the model we're using doesn't matter anymore. We can basically use, we can use a model so small, I can run it on my phone and like it would work fine. We don't, because most people do not have a phone that could load the model plus the app, and that's we want it to be accessible. So that's one of those examples where yes, let's run it on a server somewhere to make it more accessible and not require thousands of dollars of hardware to do. Great, that makes sense. That's where the whole software as a service concept actually makes sense and is not, you know, like Adobe going, oh, would you like to draw on your computer? Why that will be a subscription. I'm like, why? No, it is not. Stop it.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

Well, that's funny. You said something SaaS, okay? So it's a very selfless, it should be a very selfless, thoughtfully crafted service that is actually going to be ease of use for the customer, for the user experience. But a lot of SaaS is look at us, look at me, woo, we're shiny. We so download these things and then go ahead and do that. And then an hour later, do the software update, so then you can use us, and then we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

And then you're gonna pay a subscription for that thing that used to just be a one-time fee. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

Oh, and every time you log in to use it, you got an update, okay?

SPEAKER_01 37:19

So it's like Oops, I'm sorry, your computer's been off logging for too long. You're not allowed to draw today.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

Yeah, sorry, we're we we're done. Like, like every SaaS developer should be listening to you and saying, My gosh, if we are not coming at this from the user's experience, from them, from what is easy for them to do to engage in our software, we're not gonna be successful. That's like the most simple, powerful, human-centered business model for SaaS ever, and people miss it. And it's like, what do we need to do on our end technically to just make sure this is easy for you to click, pop open, and you're done?

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Exactly. And the worst part is when you approach it from that mindset, the complexity of the problem goes down so much that it actually becomes so much more sustainable to build these tools for specific audiences because you don't go, well, we need a thousand engineers to build a thing that does everything because we actually don't know what it's gonna do, and we're gonna have to capture all the data because we don't know what of it will need.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

When you go, actually, we don't need any of your data, we don't need to do any of this stuff. This is the only part that needs to be on a server, it the complexity shrinks so fast that you go, Well, actually, we could do this with 12 people instead of 1200, and then superpower of Skillsage, are you guys a really lean company? How many people extremely lean, remote first? You know, we have a healthy mix of people who are freelancers or contractors because that's what works for them. If you if you are the right person for the team, we will work with you the way that makes sense for you. Not you have to subscribe to our corporate culture and do nothing but this. That doesn't make sense for most people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:49

You you literally employ and hire the same model for your product. We if you are a great fit for us, we're gonna make it easy for you to work with us. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

And because of all of this, so this then comes back to that, you know, the ins unsustainability and this problem with these like massive data centers that are gonna be sitting idle in five years if they actually build all of them because the demand is not gonna hold out.

SPEAKER_04 39:10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

And I would also like to point out this this whole, you know, it is I am I have never been so happy to see people getting so involved in local government to push back on these data centers. Because this is not a new problem. This has been happening for 20 years. Netflix uses data centers, YouTube uses data centers, Amazon uses data centers. This has been happening. It's just they got so bold and so careless that uh in this moment people were just really started to take notice, and I'm so happy to see this awareness spreading. Because like the answer is always uh, well, how do we stop this? It's like, well, get involved in local government and policy, and then everyone falls asleep. But when you get this movement and it becomes motivating and emotional, it it sticks. And it and so I'm uh so thrilled for that. Because I I again it's this like this only makes sense if we're gonna brute force sort of functionality for the rest of forever. That's nonsense. When you do it the way we've done with Skillsage, so we found in our test when you are doing a 15-minute conversation with Sage, it uses less than one-thirtieth the processing power of trying to do that same thing purely with an AI. And that's less processing power and less resources and less carbon footprint than watching a YouTube video for 15 minutes or you know, going on Netflix and watching 15 minutes of a show. Like it is so efficient. We like we had to double check ourselves so many times when the we start first started getting, we were just like, this can't, this can't. Oh my god. Wow, so much power is being wasted right now. This is this is really unfortunate.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

Stare Blake for president. That's what I say right now. Stare Blake for president. I'm in. Who's in? Don't get coming.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

I don't think I'm crazy enough to try that.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

No, actually, my my oldest daughter said, Mom, why don't you just be president one day? And I was like, um, because I'm not I'm not nuts. Okay, moving on.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

I'm not insane. Yeah, and I actually think I can do a lot more good building weird, fun, small things for people than that nonsense. Also, I am quite confident I would not even make it through half a term before I absolutely bitch slap the hell out of a bunch of people in Congress.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

So Yeah, I know. You know, I I am not socially digestible enough to be the performance needed for a president.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

I I would I think I'd scare the hell out of most of the people in the Midwest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:23

I mean, I I offend somebody every single day, and I'm like, look, if I'm not offending somebody every single day, I'm not being me. So exactly.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

So so and this is where it kind of come back to your question of like, I think we are gonna look back on this era of like, wow, everybody collectively lost their minds. And then we learn the importance of meaning and intent rather than just words as a society, and that was actually really valuable. And I think that's really the opportunity here. We're all in the world. It's a wonderful learning.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

How long is this lesson gonna last? Because it fucking sucks, okay? It fucking sucks, I know.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Well, and the other thing I point out to people, I'm like, you know, when you hear these companies going, well, we're gonna we're gonna 6X the the country's power production, because that's where the demand is going. I'm like, how? No, no, I ask you how. Do you have any idea how complicated it is to get a power station up and running? And these motherfuckers can't even keep ChatGPT up for more than a week without something breaking. And these are the people that build six times the power capacity of the last hundred and fifty years of electrification of the country in a year.

SPEAKER_03 42:23

Yeah, good luck.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Okay, sure in progress. Or the new one of we're gonna put data centers in space. I'm like, uh-huh. You know what's really hard to do in space? Cool things down. And data centers get hot. I can't think of a worse place. I'm sure the CEOs think that's a great idea, and I'm sure all the people around them went, oh, absolutely, sir, yes, sir, that's the same. Well, because space is freezing there.

SPEAKER_03 42:47

Space is freezing up there, so it's already cold.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Yeah, it's cold, right? Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

I'm twirling my hair like a dumb blonde. I'm just trying to make that a moment here.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Well, it's you know it's funny. It's it isn't so you get in the sun, and then you know you're blood.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Okay, so this is funny. We're we're talking, so this is really fun. I'm such an energy-driven person, and I'm like, okay, there are words of the day, there are words of the year. This is hilarious to me. So we are talking today about words have meaning and that this is a language model, and AI is just a huge experiment of literally language, right? And and words, not meaning. And so this morning, I'm gonna share a personal story. My son, who's eight, I dropped him at summer camp and he was having some conflict yesterday. And literally this morning, before I got into the office, we had to have conflict with the coach about words have meaning. And we literally, I just spent all morning before this podcast talking about conflict resolution with a summer camp coach and my son about words having meaning. And it's such a human simple thing, right? It was a simple conversation, but it was like reminding my son and reminding the coach and the other little campers your words have meaning. And we're learning that. And so that's a part of development. I often talk about, you know, when you're leading at work, you're also leading at home if you're a parent, and it's the the style is the same. And one of the things I'm constantly going through with our children is your words have meaning. And that is something that has stuck out to me in this conversation yet two hours after that one of AI doesn't have meaning. It has words, but those words don't hold the meaning in the human emoting context that we're all learning and development. So as AI develops, there is no meaning with it's not dynamic with those words.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

It's not modeling the meaning, it's modeling. And so this actually gets into so one of the things I'm really passionate about communicating, the way we kind of describe it. So here's a word of the day for you uh semiotics. Oh. Semiotics is the study of meaning and words. So in semiotics, it's very simple. The idea is simple, the consequences are not. But it is the idea of the difference between a signifier, a way to represent something, and a sign, the thing being represented. And the understanding that those two can never fully overcome. So, as we're talking right now, this is all just signifiers for concepts, and our brains are closing the gap of the thing we both mean to allow us to both understand what we're saying. The key thing about AI and sort of to what really was the breakthrough for us, and what I've been working towards, how do I help this be understandable for everyone? Because I think that's the thing that demystifies the. The technology and demystifies sort of what it can and can't do and makes the consequences of what we're seeing right now like obvious instead of oh gosh, who could have seen it? No, anyone could have seen it coming if they actually thought about it. So with semiotics, you are accepting that to communicate is to dance around the actual thing. And you can get close, you can be far, but you can never fully quite be there, right? And humans, we have this amazing ability to close that gap. Actually, even if it's very, very, very, very far between what we're talking about and the actual thing. And that's an amazing survival ability. You know, it's an evolved trait to fill in those gaps and assume competence, assume meaning, so that when we're talking to someone, we go, we want to default to, yeah, no, you must be meaning something. Uh you're not crazy. And that's really good. But when you have an AI, which only processes in the realm of language without any of the other types of thought that we have, that's so alien to us that our tendency to fill in meaning quickly can be very easily exploited. And that's specifically what chatbots are doing is it's building a product to exploit the human tendency to ascribe meaning to language, even when there isn't any. And that doesn't mean you can't use them or solve meaning or to explore language or to explore meanings, but you have to keep that in mind that it is not uh processing or modeling meaning, it is processing the things that represent the meaning. And you have to then be responsible always for that last mile, whether it's through software with something like SkillSage, where we go, and here is the concrete model of a conversation that has meaning and it's the bridge. Or when you're using it's not to say that chatbots can't be useful, but I liken them to the early days of computers when all you had was the command line accessing the mathematical processor. And it could only and exactly do things that you put into the command line, and it could do a lot of amazing things, but it took a lot of work to use it correctly and responsibly. And after 40, 50 years, we have all these layers of software that makes that accessible for everyone. And I really don't think AI is that different. What we have right now is the command line of language. You can do so much with it, but it takes discipline to use it responsibly. And and just saying, no, it's smart, and it will just get smarter and it will do all the things for you. It's just so fundamentally irresponsible. And I I just don't think it's based in the math, the science, the humanity of it. Like it's just it's wow. It's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

What makes you uh cure so much for humanity in your work? Like, why give a damn? Because you you're so passionate like me. What what is that with you? Why?

SPEAKER_01 48:07

So I think it's two things for me. I I mean, and this comes from my artsy side of like humans are wonderful and beautiful and messy, and we've made so many we we can do so many wonderful things, and so often when we don't, it just comes from a place of fear. You know, maybe fear calcified through generations or centuries to something more.

SPEAKER_03 48:23

But it's fear lives in our DNA for sure. It lives a lot of DNA, right? And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

And it's the greatest, most difficult challenge of people to grow. For real growth, we have to learn to be less afraid of of fear. Not to eliminate it, you can't, but to be less afraid of it. And we can do that through that's what art is, but it's also why art I it's one of those things. Like I have a BFA, and I'll be the first person to say you can't fully define the word art. People who try to argue, I'm like, no, no, anything can be art. It's just when you're communicating through anything, you can write software that is a beautiful piece of art because it's elegant and it's understood by the other people who write software. Wow, that makes me stop and think. You can do it with paintings or writing. And and I guess for me, I mean, yeah, we'll get deep here for a sec. So for me, my real motivation is I always think back to um are you familiar with the poet poet? I'm gonna butcher her last name, uh, Rupi Kaoor, I think is her her name.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

No.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

Wonderful poet. And there's a there's a particular poem she wrote where I'm I'm gonna paraphrase, but it's something like, Why are you so kind to others? And the response is because I say with milk and honey on my lips, others have been unkind to me. And and I really live by that of like, you know, I I didn't have a great childhood growing up, and I came from a family of generational trauma on both sides. And I, even before I had kids, just really early on, I was a very introspective kid, I was a very artistic kid, I was a very curious kid, and I kind of was like, I want to stop that here, like realizing that of, you know, to anybody has that chance to just kind of shift things forward a little bit. And but that the two real challenges, and this came much later, when we went, oh, this is why do not so many people do it, is one, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable because it means facing scary things. It means, you know, trying things that you go, oh god. I mean, I I'll admit, even when AI was coming out, there were early points where I was like, oh god, what does this mean for me as an artist? What does this mean? But I went, okay, I'm gonna set that aside for a minute, and I'm gonna evaluate this with the same rigor and rationale I would anything else. And then when I did, all the fear fell away. And I went, oh, this is both more wonderful than I imagined, but also dumber than I possibly imagined.

SPEAKER_04 50:33

And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

And so often that's the case. But the second part I I found that really the hard part is when you or when you want to do that, it means sort of letting go of the idea of what that's gonna look like. You know, I did not set out early on in my career to be a of an AI tech training company. That was not the goal. It never even crossed my mind. I I was like, I'm gonna draw cool pictures and I'm gonna work on video games, and maybe I'll program a little bit with my engineering. And and I'd gone so many places, and I think back to what would have happened if, and actually I can even trace it back to a moment. When I first got out of college and finished with my all of my various training, one of my early jobs I interviewed for was with the Lego company. And I got all the way through to the last round of the interviews, flew out to Denmark, their headquarters in Billen, and it was wonderful. You know, I I love Legos, obviously there's a bunch of them up there. I've loved them since I was a kid. It was like a dream come true of I'm gonna be a concept artist for Lego, and oh my gosh. And then I was in the interviews and I asked them a question, and it was basically because even then I had realized, like, oh, I think part of my gift, what makes me me, what's gonna help me set a better example for my kids, grow and show them what's possible, you know, was I can learn and I can learn different things and see the connections between art and engineering and all these different things. And so I asked them, I was like, hey, so I know I'm interviewing for a concept art physician, but what do you do to foster cross-discipline growth in your employees? To, you know, because you know, here I'm thinking like this is a big, successful company, very design-oriented. Of course they want the concept artists to understand how manufacturing works. How else will you make designs that won't be a nightmare for the engineers? And so I'm like, how how do you foster that growth? And all three of them just like froze, and they all looked at each other like I had multiple heads, and then they finally just went, We don't really do that. And I had at this moment I went, I can't work here.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

Yeah. And and and if I had stayed with that vision of like, this was my dream to work at Lego since I was a little kid, like, you know, I might I might have swallowed that and just gone, well, what do you know?

SPEAKER_01 52:33

They're bigger and more capable and they've been doing this for decades. Why w what do you know? Maybe you you must have been wrong. But and I but I caught myself and I was like, no, no, that was that is actually really important to me, that not being afraid to grow and to learn more. And I can't be at a place that doesn't reward that. So I went and worked at a crazy, insane, dysfunctional startup incubator because it let me learn cross-disciplined stuff. Not necessarily the stuff I intended to learn, but I had stuff that ended up being so valuable.

SPEAKER_03 53:03

You were cycle breaking in your interviewing and in your career because you're a cycle breaking person. And I'm a cycle breaking person and I'm healing generational trauma as well for my upbringing. And I and I also love that you're cycle breaking. Once you psycho break at home or work, vice versa, you're the same person in both places. And that's a really beautiful story of look, I am psycho breaking some things, and through cycle breaking, you literally learn what matters to you and what makes you come alive. And when you have that fully with conviction, you can walk away from Lego and say, Yeah, you guys aren't doing something that really matters to me. So I'm gonna give up my dream job. And you had to go back, I'm sure, and visit your inner child who wanted that job to say, look, and you had to sit with her and say, It's okay, we're gonna be okay. She's having this fucking fit. She's like, What are you doing? This is our dream. What are you doing? You asshole. You're and you're like, No, no. And you're gonna sit down next to your inner child, you're gonna say, We're okay. And I hear you, I see you, and this matters to us now. Okay, and we're gonna break that cycle, and this company doesn't give it to us, and you didn't know that, and that's okay, but we know that now, and we're an adult. And so in our career and in our businesses, and all the things that we're leading, the people, the software, the products, the processes, when you break those cycles and you wake up, I love it. I call it waking up and you really figure out, you connect to yourself, mind, body, embodiment. You say these are the things that matter to us. And then you have to go back and reframe and say, Did that really need to happen? Does this have to happen in our life? That's how you make every decision. And for me, I call it truth telling, right? That's my platform. It's we transform fear into truth, because fear will never go away, but how we are brave and courageous to face those fears, which you also said something of the idea that's in our brain around the fear is often scarier and more paralyzing than the actual thing we're afraid of. And so when we have courage and when we're brave and we transform those fears into truth, it's because it's a truth of ours that needs to exist, but we're afraid of what it might mean if we accept it and bring it to light. And then what it's gonna disrupt in our life. So we'll say, well, I'm afraid of that, or I'm afraid of doing that. Well, why? Because it's my truth, because it matters to me, it's a truth. And so if that truth exists for me, well, what does that make me? Where does that lead me? Where am I gonna go? Who am I gonna be? And it often threatens our version of our identity. And identity is such a powerful human trait. I mean, it's not a trait, but I uh human identity is the most, you know, powerful thing we can connect with in our entire life. It is, which involves us telling the truth, which involves us facing our fears, because like you said, we're often rooted in decision making and fear, and that's not gonna get you very far because it's not honest to who you are.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

100%. And I think you know, one of the things too I'll I'll say is it sounds great and dramatic and epic in hindsight. In practice, it's always messy and miserable.

SPEAKER_03 55:54

But it's so miserable. It's hard, it's lonely, it's depression-inducing. You're gonna be so fucked up for what you're gonna be like in the messy and be like this sucks. You suck, life sucks, right? And and you and you have to sit there. And you talk so much about grit and resilience, and how do you build those things? And how do you how do you go lit exist with those things? How do you learn those things? So walk me through like your building skill stage, but you know, the resiliency, the grit, that like all of those, these behaviors that I believe you've probably learned from cycle breaking. But tell me about that. Like, what did that look like and how did that allow you to go through this process of like facing your fears as you're kind of powering through this new way of using AI, which is like, you know, incredible.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

Well, I think it was essential to it. And because I think the first thing is, well, AI, and I always say this to people, I'm like, oh, I'm really scared of AI, I'm really against it. I'm like, you're not wrong. I mean, yeah, on left to it's I mean, we are we we are in this era of like, and but and but I also go, but it's not new, is the second part. This has happened with every breakthrough, and it feels in some ways it's unique because it is in this domain of language in a way we're not accustomed to, but there was this same fear, and also even the same deranged promises of mass automation, you'll need one employee to run a mega company, even back in the day when it was like we have desktop computers now, all they could do was spreadsheets, and you still had people being like, we are five years out from fully automating the workspace, and no one will be required. No, and and this is not new. We have done this before, and then we realized the actual important thing is people.

SPEAKER_03 57:36

Okay, here we are, it's another cycle. See, or we're just in a site, we're in a traumatic cycle, and we're the cycle breakers yet again.

SPEAKER_01 57:43

Society kind of is. That's really the truth of it, is we are in a cycle, and each time we get just a little bit more. You know, I I think the other side of it of with Skillsage and what allowed us to do this way, you know, we are fully remote, we're fairly lean for the scale that we are, but that also means we can take really good care of people that we do work at with, and we can also, you know, and it it often looks different. I think that's one of the early on it was, oh my god, how are we gonna find people willing to do this? But then it became a oh, actually, that's an amazing filter because it helps us find people who go, This is different. I'm curious, and not this is different, it must be a scam. I can't be involved with this. And which is a fear response, right? You know, it those people go, it could be, but it could also be amazing. So I'm gonna ask more questions. I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna see if it's worth building that trust gradually. And so that's been actually really kind of a again, it's been amazing, but initially it's that like, God, this could be impossible. Well, it no, but it will be different and it'll be uncomfortable. The other part of it, and I think what's been so important and why, you know, people always ask me, well, how do you do this? How do you build things like this? How do you make things this? And like, well, the number one answer is you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. And I don't mean, you know, working 80 hours a week or grinding, and like that doesn't be the science is settled, that's not productive. Stop it. You're just performing for someone when you do that. It's not you're not doing good work. What I mean is you have to be willing to be emotionally uncomfortable. You have to be willing to do to maybe on the thing you're working on, none of your ideas make it into the final product, and you have to be willing to go, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

I'm still an important part of the team. Nothing will derail a product faster than somebody saying, but it has to be this way because they just they need to get their name on it, they need to get the right answer. Like that we need to state our egos. So you need to be willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of, you know, setting your ego aside, willing to be uncomfortable of, I need to figure this out so that people not in a position to figure this out don't have to do quite so much work. And that's you know, another thing that really drove us for this is like, yeah, that's our job, is to go, well, we're all people who are in this position to understand this technology better than most, to find safe and responsible ways to use it. And it's gonna take a lot of work and it's gonna take a lot of uncomfortableness. But like, we can then give that to people and say, hey, here at least you can trust us and our expertise, and we have to earn that, but you can then see the process. You know, that that willingness to be emotionally uncomfortable, it sounds so silly for compared to the average way people talk about this stuff. And I'm like, it's everything. Because at the end of the day, this comes back to what you were saying with with SAS, right? Of like, yeah, good SaaS should be so straightforward, it should be so simple, and yet we see it polluting everything in shidification, right? The business side just these dollar signs. I can charge them repeatedly and they won't have a choice. What good software design is and what good business is, and what good product, anything, good service, anything, at the end of the day is empathy. Seeing someone else has a need, and many people have that need, and you are in a unique position to lift that just a little bit for them. And if you can get into that mindset, if you can be uncomfortable by being in that mindset, it just completely transforms the way you can do things. But that's hard. And it's so counter powerful.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:05

I have chills right now from what you're talking about because the energy of what you're speaking to is so much my energy. I just I love it, I'm resonating. But also what it feels like is I often talk to human-centered leadership creating safe spaces for truth to exist, right? And so everywhere we go, if we if someone shares a truth with you, they have to feel safe with you in the culture, in the organization among the team to share their truth because truths are often fears that have been transformed with courage to exist in a safe space. And in literally, when you were just sharing that, right? Like SAS, your whole organization, it sounds like your whole brand culture is rooted in taking care of other humans first and doing the hard work in the uncomfortable places of resiliency so that someone else doesn't have to be uncomfortable, which is empathy. But that whole description, my nervous system just kind of settled with you. Like I took a breath, I was able to breathe because you, as the CEO of this organization, you are creating this safe space for your team to feel uncomfortable and share their truths, which is hard as you're all on this ship going to build this, you know, big thing that's going to be huge. I mean, Skillstage is going to be huge. I know this, but I'm just saying, like when you when you talk about that, like you just it literally created with your words and the meaning behind it of what I felt safe space for me to be whoever I I want and say whatever I need to say. And that's how I feel like it would be working for you, which is beautiful because that is the brand at the core. Internal brand culture impacts external brand culture. And so when we're talking about branding, what you guys are doing as a as a software company is far greater than software. You're literally taking the human load of all the shit and like figuring stuff out off of the people who are using it to say, look, we want to help you ease into using this to ease your hiring process, to ease your people growing process because people are what fuel business connection. I mean, we hire people, we work with people, we're all human-centered, we don't hire robots, right? At least most of us who are smart. But it just made it made me feel so safe. And I I really want to highlight you are creating a safe space just by existing and what your meaning is, which is incredible for anyone who wants to work for you, work with you, you know, buy your product. Because I feel like that alone, when it's rooted in empathy and truth, is a safe space for anyone to give you feedback. So if I'm a client of yours, it's safe. I feel like I can give you feedback and you can take it. And the more the humans can be resilient and take it, right? You're like, give it to me, take, like, let me take the shit. And then I'm strong enough and I'm grounded enough and I'm rooted and I'm empathetic enough to not get defensive and say, Well, fuck you, just you know, don't buy it. You would literally take it and say, Okay, how can we continue to help ease things for you? I love that word ease. Like, that's a a word of my year's ease, right? And so that safe space for truth, you're easing someone's experience in existing with you at work, at home, in friendship. And that is a gift that comes from empathy. And I think those people are safe. So that's like an incredible feeling because I got chills when you were telling that story. That's incredible. Like, I want to come work for you. I'm like, I don't know what I would do, Sara, but like, can I just will you just be my boss?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:20

I get that.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:21

Thank you though. That means a lot.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:23

I need a boss.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:23

Like, I want to call you and be like, Sarah, I need I need some boss bitch magic right here. Like, tell me about this. Okay, so I want to know, I want to talk about your book too. You were just invited to write a book, but if you were to write a book, what would your book be? Like tell me. What would what were what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:37

The one I'm working on right now that should hopefully be out by the end of the year, maybe early next year, we'll see how things go. I have a lot of my plate. But the book I'm writing right now is so your computer can lie to you now. What next? And the idea is a sort of very human look at what AI really is and what it really means, and both a dismantling of sort of the mythology and the fear around it, but then also sort of a guide on that concept of semiotics, of what we call semiotic processing, both for the individual of, you know, the magic for this is you don't need to learn a computer language to interact with this new technology. You just need to understand how it works just a little bit to start to find ways to use it. And then in the future, and then also to equip those more technical of us of like, hey, here's where we're going with it. And the results are already incredible. And we want people to join us in it because I think the real power of AI is that it is, it is so when used responsibly, when used with this mindset, it can run on a computer sitting on your desktop, and yet it can help you bypass and dismantle those artificial performative walls that so many of us have. I may be the first one to admit, I've been weird, I'm not the typical tech journey. It's was early on, it was always hard for me to get in rooms and get jobs that actually used my full skill because I just don't fit the narrative. I don't fit the history, I don't, you know, I know how to talk the way they do, I don't perform the way. And AI is an incredible tool to say, actually, I can stick you in that room, make you sound exactly like them, I got you. And like you still empowering you as yourself to then be yourself in that room and rip aside that barrier. So I think the the real long-term value and impact at AI, once we get through this really awful interim period, and eventually all their money runs out, which it will eventually.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

What's left standing are the people who go, actually, hang on now, I can be clever, because there's not a lot of cleverness at that large scale. I'm not gonna lie. I mean, there's a lot of intelligence, but there's the cleverness, that the ability to function well in the cracks and the seams in between large systems, and say, how do I see the systems and work within them, but not actually aspire to be part of them? And that's really, I think, sort of the superpower that it can unlock for a lot of people. Um, so that's what the book's about. Should be out at some point soon. Uh I'm very excited to do it. I've, in addition to all my other weird stuff, I've done everything from directed voice actors and written scripts to been a ghost editor on a website. So I'm excited to actually be like, oh, I get to actually have a book for a change. So that's gonna be very fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:15

Because that reminds me, your book is it's Feels like you are empowering people to learn how to use AI to feel more seen and heard, which is a beautiful way of human-centered AI, which is like a whole new topic. Human-centered AI, let's talk about that. It's literally using AI in a way that is ethical, humane, and also it allows humans to connect even better on a deeper human connection level by seeing and hearing each other, because of interpreting and receiving and intending our words to have the meaning that we need them to, because a lot of humans aren't great with words and language. And so you're empowering people to use AI in the ethical way of let's help you figure out what you're trying to say so that people can really understand you so that you can find your tribe. Because we're all here on this earth to find our tribe, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

Absolutely. So that should be coming soon. In the meantime, if you want to learn, you know, soft skills, whether it's for sales or just how to be better at your job or to talk to people, the mobile version of Skillsage is always free. You can download it, all content will always be free, or you can spend a couple of bucks to remove the like two ads that pay for its operation costs. And then if you want it for your business, or whether you're a coach who just has a couple of clients, or you're a big company, or even an institution. We work with and you know enterprises and institutions up to you know 30,000, 60,000 people. Anywhere in between, we're here for you. We there's pretty much nothing it can't do in that space. We really pride ourselves on its flexibility and its ability to meet each and every customer without breaking the bank. So reach out to us.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:47

Talk to us about the free version of Skillsage. What would we use that for?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:52

Yeah, so Skillsage, free version, uh always available on iPhone and Android. You can use it to practice job interviews in any industry, you can use it for uh, you know, practice your sales skills, how to learn new corporate culture, anything like that. We're always rolling out new lessons, really easy to use. And then when you, if you want to, you know, you have a company, whether you're one person with a couple of people you mentor or you're, you know, a 60,000 strong institution, we can work with you and get you a brand new and human-centric way to equip people with skills. And that version can be on mobile, it can be on desktop, it can be web, it can even be VR. We've even been doing a version with uh the innovation center here in uh say France School District of they are hooking up to a student-led robotics project so they can have a robot to help their students practice job interviews for high school or as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:42

Me personally, I'm actually gonna download the free version because I own my own businesses. And one of the things that you hit and you highlighted was we are all in sales, whether we have a sales job or not. And I hate sales, I suck at sales, it's from early inner child trauma of you know, whenever it's me, me, me, it's selfish, it's greedy, it's how dare you. And so for me, every time I promote myself or say, hey, I'm cool, look at what I'm working on, or hey, come buy this for me. This is really awesome. This can help you so much. I want to help you. I feel gross. And so for me, from a human level, this is something that could really help me with my sales of my businesses and my all of the assets and the the fun stuff that God's given me, my gifts to say, Hey, I actually have something to offer and I need to go tell the world about it because you're being selfish if you don't. But for little Annie, it's like, I don't want to, I don't, I don't want to promote myself at all. And so I think that's so true. So I I'm really excited to download that for sales for sure, for support and messaging, because sometimes my words just don't hit the way I need them to.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

Yeah, and if you have feedback, if you have thoughts, if you have things you want to see, you know, drop us a line on our socials or on even just directly through the contact form on the website. We'd love to hear from people.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:49

Is it all at Skillsage or is it do we have different contact for you? How can we find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:54

Yeah, so for me specifically, at least right now, it's on LinkedIn. I should hopefully by the time this airs, actually have additional doubts on figuring out which ones will drive me the least insane. I'm not a huge fan of social media, but I am trying to be a little better about getting out there. This is the downside of being a technical CEO, you're actually spending most of the time building things. And they're like, they're everywhere that's like, hey, can you get out there a little more? Can people find you? LinkedIn will be a good point for me to find all of that. I'll probably also you can check out some of my work and my links to all my various things on my website, sayorblake.com, as a hub for that. And then if you're up for something a little more fun, a little more interesting, I always plug. I also have a art side YouTube channel, Witchcove Crafts, where every couple of months I do something kind of like this, just a little bit of a conversation uh set to an art piece along with some fun downloadables so you can make your own. Most recently, a couple months ago, I did one talking about the importance of cosmic horror for us creatives and artists set to an analysis of Markiplier's Iron Lung movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:52

So that's I have a PS question that I just thought of that I don't want to get lost. I I want your input. So, New York, I don't know if you saw this headline, they just hired the first robot, robotic teacher for their school system. So, thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:07

I think we've missed the point of teaching, but it's fine. What was the point of teaching again? It's fine, whatever. You know what? It's one time. We'll we'll we'll learn the hard way, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:20

Okay, cool. Yeah, that was just that was like that's such a relevant topic. I saw that headline and I was like, what the fuck? And I think I said it out loud and I was like, we're moving on. I'm not even gonna read this article. I can't. I can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:32

Humans are nothing if not persistent in having to learn the hard way with things.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:36

So I agree. I agree. And I also agree that greed and money and humans just sometimes get in the way of toxic generational cycles, and we fuck it all up, and we have really cool choice to play with.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

Like, you could function as the coldest, most business savvy person and still come across as the most warm-hearted, human-centric person. Like, we are so far beyond that into like pure fear-based ego-driven insanity with so much. Totally.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:04

I was I was just on a podcast um called The Unfiltered CEO. This was fun, and we got into this whole conversation, and I talk about my topic of performative honesty. And like all of us are trying to be raw and vulnerable and authentic, and it's like all the buzzword of being real and truth-telling, and it's still bullshit because humans are really good at being honest performatively. So, like, I'm so like what you just said, you know, I am I'm gonna be the greediest, self-driven, you know, egocentric. And then, but online where performative honesty. I am authentic. Look at me, I am this great leader. And it's such bullshit, but it's such a hot thing right now for me to look at. I'm like, that's performative honesty. You're not honest, you're just performing honesty so you can be authentic. And no, that's not actually your raw, real who you are. It's it's amazing, but we are in such a culture of trust deficit right now with AI. Nobody knows what's real, nobody knows who to trust. We're all just the noise is actually created by us. We're continuously creating bullshit and we're really good at it, and we're creating more noise. And so then people literally, you see all these communities and clubs and and huge startups of hey, let's go hang out, like wealth walks, right? Like, how can we go take a walk with a real person in front of me that's not on a computer, so I know you're real and have a human conversation without robots, right? So, like, I just think it's so funny that we're going through this cycle, and you're absolutely right. We're all learning, we're all just in our own way, and we all just really want to like go back to a 90s summer and go outside and play with our neighbors and knock on a fucking door of someone and be like, hey, you're a human, you exist. Can you come play with me? So I'm not on a device. It's so true.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:42

It's it's just okay, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:45

I I I feel like we need to have a follow-up conversation in like a year with you, Sarah, because I think we will absolutely be having one.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:51

Three months, six months.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:52

Like, I just feel like you're just like like all of this truth is that we need good people like you. You're an incredible leader, and I want you to just know I want to see you in this, like you, your values, what you stand for, all the cycles you're breaking. Really appreciate it. The human-centered business that you're you're running and you're selling out there in the world. Thank you. We need more CEOs like you. And it was an honor having time with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:15

Thank you so much. Oh, and this is easily this has been wonderful. I love where this has gone and the talk we've gotten to have. And like we need more people like you who are going, hey, wait a minute. There's a big difference between, you know, it's not enough to be honest, it can't be performative, it has to be real, and that's uncomfortable, which is why most people don't want to do it. But that's a separate conversation. So I just I really appreciate that. And uh, I promise we'll be back sooner than that. This has been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:42

Awesome. Yeah, we will watch out for that. I would really want to do a Sayer Blake part two because I just feel like there's so much growth when you are healing and when you're evolving and living in discomfort, you grow like hour by hour. You know, you ever have those days you're just like, holy shit, that was a day that felt like a month. Like you just like leveling up just constantly. So it's really cool. And you're you're growing fast. So we're gonna keep in touch and we're gonna follow. And thank you so much, Sarah. Everybody, that does it for today's episode with Sarah Blake. I'm sure you're gonna have a lot of fans after this. I'm a fangirl. I'm gonna go download Skillsage. I can't wait. And that does it. So bye for now. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:18

Bye everyone.