Shaun Clowes Riffs on Waymo, Legos, and Process Advancement

Shaun Clowes Riffs on Waymo, Legos, and Process Advancement

Shaun Clowes Riffs on Waymo, Legos, and Process Advancement

This week, Fareed welcomed co-host Joff Redfern, Principle at Menlo VC and former CPO at Atlassian and guest Shaun Clowes, CPO at Confluent and former CPO of Mulesoft at Salesforce, CPO @ Metromile, and Head of Growth @ Atlassian.

This week’s Deep Dive drops Wednesday and we’re focused on Reddit & Cognition Lab’s Devin, but our riff this week is simply a classic happy hour conversation.

Fareed, Joff and Shaun cover a wide range of topics dropping some brilliant nuggets along the way. Enjoy!

🦘 We’re Experiencing a Discontinuous Jump 🦘

Shaun quips, “It’s a fantastic time to be alive. It’s like being in the Jetsons.” There’s so much happening, and at times we feel like a broken record, but we’re going to do our best to cover the most interesting, most pressing things every week. Bear with us 😅.

🎨 Show Us More Creative AI Agents, Rather Than GBTs 🎨

Sora and Midjourney are amazing, period. However, we're inspired by the unique ways AI is used by Martin Nebelong. He seamlessly weaves AI into his physical art setup to maintain an extra layer of control over the art. We're excited about a world where the quality of Sora and Midjourney meets the ability for creatives to tweak small details for the perfect angle, lighting, etc., to create AAA-level art at home.

🧱 We Have Upgraded Our Legos, Now What? 🧱

Joff shared a Lego analogy from Bob Baxley with the group. Remember classic Legos? The 2x2, 2x4, 2x6, 2x8 blocks? That's AI today. We're taking new AI blocks and putting them into existing workflows. But then came Technic Legos with rods, wheels, and gears. The kinds of things you could build were totally different. That's the future of AI. It's not just about AI-ifying current workflows, but about reimagining workflows in the context of AI.

🚗 “As the specificity of the solution goes up, so do the expectations” - Shaun 🚗

Companies that can match these expectations will win. It's not just about creating an AI tool that's 80% efficient. It's about creating an AI tool that's 100% efficient and meets user expectations. And, after 80%, every 5% that follows gets harder. It’s the difference between Tesla and Waymo,

Waymo and Tesla are both big names in the self-driving car industry. But while Tesla's self-driving feature is good 95%, 5% of the time it's trying to kill you. Waymo, on the other hand, is like having a professional driver at your disposal. It’s pretty damn close to 100%. It's a testament to the power of process and the importance of getting from 95% to 100% in AI development.

📟 Will We See A Return To Single-Function Devices? 📟

In a world obsessed with multi-functionality, there's something to be said about the power of single-function devices. They're simple, focused, and do one thing really well. As we move towards more complex AI systems, there's a lesson to be learned here about the power of focus and simplicity. In fact, we feel striving for simplicity will be the new product era we’re entering.

Joff said, “I just found my HP 17B2 Plus that I had in graduate school a gazillion years ago. I put some batteries in it. I got to say, [it feels great to have] a single purpose device that is tactile and you touch it, and I had programmed all these formulas into it.”

Meanwhile Shaun is jotting notes in his Remarkable 2 Tablet as Joff contemplates purchasing a Kindle. 🤣