Ep.5: AI Green Tech, Amazon Ohio, Chatbot Trends, Meta

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Welcome to AI Insider, the podcast that keeps you up-to-date with the latest trends and insights in the world of artificial intelligence.

In episode 37, we delve deep into five captivating topics:

1. Orbital Materials' application of AI to accelerate the development of green energy solutions. This London-based startup is looking at AI in a revolutionary way, pushing the boundaries of clean energy technology.
2. The expanding data center operations of Amazon in Ohio. As Amazon pledges a whopping $8 billion investment, we look at what this means for the tech giant, its competitors, and the local economy.
3. The rise, challenges, and future of custom chatbots with Character.AI. With the platform's growing popularity and the emergence of new ethical and legal issues, we explore the future of interactive art and chatbot engagement.
4. The launch and initial success of Meta's Threads. Amidst Twitter's ongoing technical issues and controversial usage restrictions, we discuss the potential of Threads as a new player in the social media space.
5. Lastly, we discuss Google's Gradient Ventures backing Weflow, a startup aimed at enhancing Salesforce data hygiene and efficiency. What does this investment signal for the future of data management in CRM?

Join us as we unpack these major developments in the tech world and their potential implications for our future. Don't forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell to stay informed!

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Follow along with the full transcript and timestamps below:

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00:00.74

zenlytic

All right? Sweet guys. So we are going to do the first piece of Ai and data news of this week which is a startup to use Ai to develop new clean energy tech so orbital metal. Ah materials announce. A new application of generative Ai. Which basically wants to design ai to find formulas for sustainable carbon effective products from jet fuel to wind turbines. What are you guys thoughts on generative Ai and and all the jazz behind behind doing this for. Clean energy.

00:39.56

Paul Blankley

So I think it's incredibly cool. Um, and and I will say like the focus here that they're that they're doing is like materials science and the thing that makes material science hard and when I worked at Roche this is something that you have to deal with is you're trying to figure out reagents to you know like catalyze a chemical reaction you're trying to. You know, figure out which kind of chemical compounds. Do these have these properties that you care about and if they're trying to like make a cleaner version of jet fuel they need to figure out new compounds that can do something interesting related to jet fuel. That's really hard because there are a lot of molecules and. A lot of different ways that those things can interact with each other and you just can't test all combinations. So the way it works in most cases is you have practitioners who have a lot of experience who have to go in take some good educated guesses on what could work well together what they've worked with in the past what they saw when they were in grad school. And run a bunch of tests what you can do with you know some of this newer Ai technology. That's really exciting is you can kind of widen that search space where you can say hey based on your training set. You know what could be good candidates here and you can actually find candidates that no human. Would have thought of that might actually be good. So that's super exciting and I think we will see some pretty big advances in material science over the next few years because of this.

02:04.30

Ryan Janssen

Yeah, it's an it's an important problem right? So like ah my framework for like how we invent things is that a lot of the really important inventions of the last hundred years or whatever the last two thousand years have been preceded by in advance in materials technology for starters, right? So it's like. Ah, you know I understood how semiconductors work and suddenly the computing age is born or yeah, you know whatever ah advances in carbon fiber. You know, made airplanes much more efficient but you know quite often. Ah materials improvements are catalyst for innovation. Ah. I think it's a hard problem for them to solve for sure. Ah, because it's interesting I don't know I'm curious if ah, if they're using the llms. Ah as a search space which is I think what you're sort of talking about Paul where it's like you're getting them to like you know, have discussions and and find ideas or I wonder if they have to use some sort of custom. Ai tech that is built to work in some sort of materials domain you know.

03:03.71

Paul Blankley

Historically most of these have have not been language models. These have all been like um, custom for a specific domain. So I've I have no idea how they're like this might be a not lllm model where it is generating.

03:10.10

Ryan Janssen

Yeah, so that's a just thing and like I yeah.

03:20.33

Paul Blankley

Combinations of molecules. But it's not a language model in the sense that it's generating like text.

03:24.42

Ryan Janssen

Yeah, yeah, exactly that's that that that be my expectation as well. I know some people are doing some pharmaceutical research before but was like you know what nucleotides will buy into this and then okay build me a research paper about that and that actually accelerated that process but I don't think it like transformed that process whereas if they can actually build this. You know design tech in the ground up can be very powerful. Also it's it's it's hard right? like you're you're trying to invent another domain specificific open Ai or you know whatever it is and the ml tech that's required for that is actually very challenging. So ah, won't be easy. But I hope they do it.

04:01.98

zenlytic

Yeah, absolutely I completely agree with you. Um, on to number 2 topic of the week Amazon invests in Ohio Data Centers so Amazon is going to be investing nearly $8000000000 to Expand Data Center operations to central Ohio over the next six years this this follows recent plans from competitors Google and Intel to build data centers and semiconductor facilities in Columbus and Lancaster Ohio um pretty wild. Ah, so is Ohio just going to be the new data center world that we're we're just stuff finding that cheap real estate in Ohio and that's going to be where all the data. Ah data is going to live since that's going to go on here.

04:42.42

Paul Blankley

Yeah, so adbs has two sort of Main East Coast data centers the biggest one by a pretty significant margin still is us east one which is Northern Virginia but number 2 and it sounds like number 2 is probably like might be starting. To catch us east one is us east two which is Ohio and that's you know, primarily driven by just cheaper land the ability to get people to come in and work a data center that aren't extremely expensive people from maybe New York City or something.

05:17.30

Ryan Janssen

I don't think so ah I don't know if you guys know this but ah back when I was a Vc my sort of side project that we used to do was was invest in and buy data centers. Ah so we've dealt a lot with data centers I know I've ever mentioned this before and I feel like. It was. It was such a great opportunity because it's a very misunderstood asset class and when we were doing it. It's funny people were people were looking at them because they're like okay they're in the middle of nowhere. Ah, ah you know these things are are kind of like warehouses or something like that. So like warehouses. Ah you know are not attractive investments for a lot of people. But what they don't understand is that they're actually like mission critical. Ah you know, very hard to replace pieces of like machinery and it's it's quite fascinating because ah once someone. Ah, you know moves into a data center. They almost never leave so it behaves like alea commercial real estate long lease. You know real estate in that sense. Basically, ah, it's it's very hard to find new places to build data centers. Um, and some of the there's several factors that converge and. I mean yes, landilability is part of it and labor's part of it. But I think the biggest things that drive it. The first are availability of a lot of reliable power. Um, so you'll see things happening at confluence of like multiple power grids and you know you see lots in you know for instance, special parts of Texas that have like dual redundant power and things like that.

06:37.19

Paul Blankley

Um.

06:46.30

Ryan Janssen

There's a lot of data centers in Iceland for instance, where power is very very cheap because it's geothermal There's a huge strip of sort of data center activity along the st lawrence seaway in Canada um, because there's all sorts of hydroelectric power there. So like that's the number 1 determin and and then the second sort of filtering factor. Is redundancy for a lot of different fiber connections which is like ah you know you want to have sixteen seventeen different fiber cables in the area that you could actually tap into for you know, massive redundancy because these things can never go down. Um, and there's actually not that many places. Ah, you know in America in the world or ever that can meet all those criteria and it's funny actually because there's special hidden prize locations like there's a place. There's a there's a data center in Seattle that's built right on the pop which is like the main undersea cable. It goes you know trans-pacific basically. And that thing is completely. You can't actually build another data center with that kind of access. So. It's like an irreplaceable asset and the convergence of those things is actually quite rare. What's hard to find places to build these data centers. Um, so highly highly misunderstood asset class. Um I don't know where the prices of landed now. But before there were. Completely underpriced and you know people didn't realize just how mission-critical these were and like these things have to have you know 9 nines of reliability and they have redundancy and redundancy and redundancy and quite often. You'll see a data center they have like the 9 one 1 call center is physically located in the data center because it's the stuff that just can't go down right? So like.

08:19.79

Ryan Janssen

Have mission critical stuff that actually sits inside this data center. Um, and yeah I think because it's you know it's just so mission critical. Ah and they're actually hard to find the right locations for these things. They're actually quite valuable. Yeah, ah.

08:33.47

zenlytic

Wow blowing my mind I had no clue I would I would have written it off I would have written it off. Um, that's awesome. Ah sweet so we're moving on to number 3 which is character ai I don't know if you guys have heard about this. They just raised one hundred and fifty million dollars from a 16 they have 200000000 monthly visitors and 10000000 unique chat bots already created and basically what character Ai is is its fully customized characters. That our chat bot so you can talk with a Tony Stark chatpot an Elon Musk chatpot a socrates chat chatpot all of these different characters and they're fully already ready to give you a full response that is exactly like that character. Um. Pretty wild What do you what do you guys think about it and.

09:27.75

Paul Blankley

Super cool like I like I think it's I think it's one of those applications at the technology that's just really interesting. Is you can sort of ask the question if you trained it on all of Marcus Aurelius's Writings. You know what is it going to what's it going to say and.

09:30.76

Ryan Janssen

They're very good. Yeah.

09:43.91

Ryan Janssen

Ah, yeah I've I've tried it and you know the the chat bots are very good. Ah you know of course I tried talking to Elon Musk 1 and like ah first it it felt like it was very savvy to like current events and Elon Musk's life and it talked just like Elon Musk

09:46.36

Paul Blankley

Just generally very cool.

09:48.27

zenlytic

If.

10:02.30

Ryan Janssen

Like it like it was. It's quite remarkable. How close it is I think it's super cool as a toy I think we'll have to find out as a business they have on uphill battle with people like Elon Musk you don't want you to have their likeness and and information stolen. Ah there's going to be a lot of it's going actually going to be great way for us to test a lot of copyright stuff and trademark stuff. Um, and then they have to I think it's it's in the coolness stage now but they have to be able to provide lasting value with it as well. You know and my my twenty bucks a month for you know chat Gpt. Saves me all sorts of time with all sorts of tasks. Ah I don't think you know Socrates is going to save me that much time it'll be entertaining but is it going to drive a sustaining sort of long term subscription for someone I'm not sure.

10:50.23

zenlytic

Yeah,, that's a really good point and I could I could kind of feel that when I was using it where I was like this is fun but I'm not really sure what's the longevity of this like am I got to talk to socrates every single day like it'd be great if it could just integrate with my eye messages and then I could just. Text of every day or something like that. But I don't really think I want to jump on it every single day. Um, really really good. Take.

11:13.30

Ryan Janssen

Yeah I actually I had this crazy day a few days ago where I had like 3 separate ah real great end to end use cases of ah like lllms chat gput and like first I made a powerpoint presentation.

11:14.19

Paul Blankley

And.

11:31.55

Ryan Janssen

And like 10 minutes using chat gpt end to end. Ah then I did a bunch of analysis on a bunch of big project. We were working for marketing and I did this internal analysis using python and chat Gpt again. It would have taken me a few hours of munggeon around a python and did it in 10 minutes and then I plugged in my phone I connected so that. Ah, instead of talking to Siri I could actually query chat gpd with my voice and all 3 of those things are actually huge successes and they saved me a ton of time and I was just overwhelmed ah with a sense of like how many great application layer opportunities. There are right now for this tech and. You know every one of those things could have been a business pretty much you know and we have this underlying foundation model tech there now people are working furiously to integrate into workflows. But you know I think the next six months are going to be just sort of littered and just like populated with all sorts of companies who are making smart use of this in conventional workflows. Ah, just like save a ton of time and I think it's going be a very exciting time for the development of our and Ai.

12:36.69

Paul Blankley

Yeah I completely agree and that's definitely true in the business context. It's also probably true in the entertainment context where I don't know what character Ai looks like in six months but like if their if their goal is to be an entertainment company then I'm sure they're going to advance beyond just.

12:36.86

zenlytic

Paul and.

12:55.83

Paul Blankley

Chatbots of certain characters. That's you can only do that for so long before it gets a little boring So I'm sure they will evolve as a entertainment provider.

13:02.78

zenlytic

Yeah, there comes into a really interesting issue where a lot of artists. Music artists are basically like hey I'd be willing to give up my likeness for Ai music but you could also think about that for new music from people that have possibly passed like.

13:13.29

Ryan Janssen

Email.

13:21.33

zenlytic

New songs from Elvis or Michael Jackson or anything like that it gets into a weird space because you're like all right. This is that this is that new elvis single that I that just dropped this is really good but um, maybe he approves of this I don't know. Um.

13:23.93

Paul Blankley

And.

13:40.59

zenlytic

It gets weird. Yeah.

13:41.86

Paul Blankley

A good example of that's ah there was a eminen and David get a song that came out that was completely I generated but sounded really convincing you heard it and you were like wow I didn't know those guys and something together and they didn't.

13:48.74

Ryan Janssen

Late.

13:54.58

Ryan Janssen

Yeah, there's a bunch of there's a bunch of great drake songs out now that were not written by Drake or performed by drake.

13:55.74

zenlytic

Um, yeah, yeah.

14:02.10

zenlytic

Yeah I mean it takes away a lot of the work and if you're just like yeah I'll sign off on this but you know I don't have to do any of the work anymore. It's pretty wild. Um all right? yeah.

14:11.27

Ryan Janssen

Yeah I'm I'm curious to see it as a tool in the hands of those people like this is actually straight up from ah Marc andreesen right? and he says that a lot of people talk about ah you know is there. Is there going to be an Ai that can make movies better than Steven Spielberg or music better than Rihanna or whatever. Ah, but he thinks that's the wrong question and I agree I think the right question is what happens if you give the ai to Spielberg or you know give music ai to Rihanna and like and suddenly Spielberg can make a movie in a tenth of the time and a tenth of the cost and he can iterate on it so much better and.

14:33.50

zenlytic

Yeah.

14:44.44

Ryan Janssen

You can you know, no longer, no longer has economic or time constraints for fulfilling what his real vision is and I think that's just incredibly powerful and and you know I think that that's how we need to think about this thing is as a tool for magnifying the stuff that makes humans awesome. Basically.

14:59.61

zenlytic

Yeah, that's that's a really good take on this? Yeah, it's gonna be wild how it plays out next twelve months. It's gonna be crazy. We'll be around for it. Um, moving on to number 4 up number four. It's not Ai a data related. But.

15:07.50

Ryan Janssen

Yeah, and things are good I go ahead jazz did it before I was fine.

15:16.41

zenlytic

I couldn't miss it this week. We have to talk about it. Mark Zuckerberg launching threads. Let's hear. Everyone's take on this I have a strong take on this I would love to hear your guys take on this. Let's hear it.

15:28.60

Ryan Janssen

Called let's give us your take first I want to hear your take.

15:34.45

zenlytic

There's an interesting thing in the fact that if you make a threads and then you try to delete your threads account right now you also delete your Instagram account which is not cool, but you know that's a crafty sticky move from Mark Zuckerberg um so that's that's pretty pretty wild. Um, there's been some back and forth about you know elon getting a little a little legal about how the fact that he basically scraped up a bunch of the Twitter employees and then.

15:53.30

Ryan Janssen

Spicy.

16:11.71

zenlytic

Threw them in and now it's possibly using Twitter tech to basically copy and now it's just threads. Ah I don't know I think it's gonna be really interesting in the fact that Mark Zuckerberg has basically opened up a new advertising platform for himself. Which he's really good at which is going to be great for investors long-term which is going to be great for marketers because now we get a brand new platform. We can advertise on hopefully to a younger user base because Instagram's getting pretty old quick. So if it works It's awesome. Ah. And it'll be great for marketing if it doesn't oh well goes there out of clubhouse.

16:54.10

Ryan Janssen

Well, my personal experience with threads I so I made my threads account. Um, and I I went on now and I posted like a data joke like I do on Twitter and like my my best friend from third grade liked it I was like this is really weird. So I'm back to Twitter after that and like I think it'll take a bit of adjustment to. To to understand those various spheres of my life. My old Facebook friends and like my Twitter followers are pretty distinctive groups. Ah so there's that um, but you know I think it actually has like I think it has a decent chances succeeding and and who knows what the future is going to bring but um, generally ah. You know as the saying goes, you don't bet against Zuck I would say empirically. We're seeing a huge rush into the platform. So you know, ah, it's it's already amassed you know more users than blue sky or mastodon in the first whatever 8 hours of of launch which is pretty wild and and it's interesting like you know it's. In a way. It's it's it's twitters to lose but like I think Twitter mas are down by 25% or something this year already and like ah this this wouldn't have happened had there not been that you know vacuum of people leaving Twitter so it's like ah, an interesting state of affairs right now. Ah it's I think. That there's an old saying and and in finance and investing. Do you want to be the second owner of a restaurant and the third owner for golf course and like you know the first don in a restaurant goes and buys all the tables and all the hardware and stuff and then the margins are so low they go under and then you buy it on pennies in the dollar and you're the owner and you're good.

18:10.13

zenlytic

Post.

18:28.16

Ryan Janssen

Ah, golf course is the same thing first owner builds the golf course. Ah you know it's too expensive. They got to sell it for pennies in the dollar second owner builds the clubhouse they saw fin all and then you buy the golf course and you're you're good after that I have a hunch that Twitter is like a golf course I feel like the third owner of Twitter is going to do really? well. Ah, but right now Elon Musk is busy building the clubhouse and so far it's happening at a discount I think.

18:52.39

zenlytic

Paul.

18:52.85

Paul Blankley

The the thing I would say is we've got a really interesting thing happening because you don't want to bet against suck and you also don't want to bet against Elon so those are those are 2 of the best entrepreneurs and alive right now. So it's.

19:06.11

zenlytic

Yeah, yeah.

19:09.92

Paul Blankley

It's ah interesting. This is the first actual threat that Twitter has ever had people always talk about mastodon and blue sky and these other things that are trying to bootstrap a social network from zero that is extremely difficult to do and those are not serious like attempts at dethroning Twitter. This is the first serious one from a really serious competitor Mark Mark Zuckerberg names his children after Roman Emperors think this is not the dude you want to compete with he's he's serious, but Elon is also really serious and I think since Elon's kind of out of favor.

19:30.13

zenlytic

Um.

19:35.91

zenlytic

Um, yeah.

19:45.94

Paul Blankley

With the general press right now. Everything you hear about him is negative but remember this dude sold a company for $300000000 and he was 27 like he founded Paypal which is one of the biggest financial services companies in the world. He founded Spacex. He's the only person landing rockets in the world right now. He's. Founder of by markete cab the most valuable car company by a wide margin I means not a du do but you bet against so I don't I don't think he's worried about a software product. Ah the social media company so they are both people. You don't bet against which means it's going to be interesting.

20:17.67

Ryan Janssen

Yeah, that's that.

20:21.30

zenlytic

They are.

20:23.12

Paul Blankley

And as he says the and the most entertaining outcome is the most likely.

20:26.85

Ryan Janssen

That's interesting question too right? So like if if Elon can you know make humanity multiplanetary and become successful in multiple industries and he's clearly an awesome entrepreneur like there's no doubt about that. Ah, but if if he struggles with Twitter is it just something in Twitter that's fundamentally broken you know like.

20:36.31

zenlytic

See.

20:43.80

Ryan Janssen

Is the ad model just not work or something like that or is there something in the company' but like is is it is it. Twitter's fault as opposed to Elon right is an interesting question.

20:48.58

Paul Blankley

No think about his other companies like he's he's not a person who has to succeed quickly Tesla struggled and just gutted through like they they looked like a bad investment they looked like they were going under. Everyone is thinking how did this dude torch.

20:59.33

zenlytic

Yeah.

21:06.36

Paul Blankley

All of his paypal money on rockets and cars. What is he doing and he just looked like an idiot for years and then those things took off like crazy because he spent so much time investing in in Tesla in deep deep vertical integration to to own their whole basically supply chain.

21:11.24

zenlytic

Yep.

21:25.14

Paul Blankley

Almost down to the mines and you know same same similar concept with Spacex as they had to build a lot of core technology that just didn't exist and took a really long time so I would not be surprised if Twitter languishes for the next two years and then passes just sort of quietly passes a billion users or something. He's not a do you bet against.

21:43.15

zenlytic

Wow. Um, so do you guys think they should settle this in a good old fashioned cage match like they promised yeah threads versus Twitter.

21:44.80

Paul Blankley

And I think that's true in rockets. It's true in cars. It's probably also true in social media.

21:52.50

Paul Blankley

Yeah, only way to settle it. so so so El Elon actually got injured in one of his birthday parties wrestling a suma wrestler so he has he has done some some wrestling with sumo wrestlers before.

21:53.00

Ryan Janssen

It's the only way to settle it.

22:05.33

zenlytic

Um, yeah.

22:09.43

Paul Blankley

Although Zuck is maybe in a little bit more intimidating shape now. So itd be it be match. Be match for the century. Absolutely.

22:11.30

zenlytic

Yeah I would pay for it I would pay to watch it oh hundred. But my girlfriend would be so over it but I would be like we are not missing this I don't think you understand these are 2 tech billionaires wrestling for our entertainment. Yeah.

22:18.80

Ryan Janssen

Yeah, ah.

22:25.64

Paul Blankley

Yeah I mean we'd fly out to Vegas and see it. We're sitting. We're sitting like ringside.

22:28.72

Ryan Janssen

Ah, right.

22:30.83

zenlytic

We're we're watching this? Um yeah, this is incredible. Um I would love that I love that? Um, yeah, it's we will wait and see um, don't bet against either 1 So it's just gonna.

22:35.90

Ryan Janssen

If that that happens that'll be his analytic field trip. We'll go to Vegas to the to the divide.

22:37.76

Paul Blankley

Yeah.

22:49.69

zenlytic

Hopefully make both products better for the users as a byproduct of it. Um, so hopefully.

22:53.80

Paul Blankley

Yeah, 1 1 thing I'd throw in there too is the you know the upside case for threads is that Twitter struggling people are leaving because they don't like Elon personally threads capitalizes on that has a really large user base from Instagram already. They just go up into the right they crush it they end up wiping out Twitter Bear case for threads is it turns out Instagram people are great at posting pictures of landscapes and butts and all the other things that people want to look at pictures of but that doesn't translate into witty dunks and text and. That form of entertainment and then the the user base just kind of atrophies because people aren't the the Instagram user base isn't good at that kind of content and therefore isn't sicky enough to get people to keep watching.

23:42.33

zenlytic

Yeah I will say the counter argument that is a little dangerous for threads and makes it more intimidating against Twitter is the fact that Zuck also owns Facebook and Instagram. All of the advertising advertising inventory. He doesn't have to pay for that so he could basically just keep advertising threads for free on Facebook and Instagram for forever which everyone has to pay millions of dollars for and he can just be like yup we're going to.

24:11.14

Ryan Janssen

And.

24:17.98

zenlytic

Going to shoot this out to everybody all the time. So he's going to gain those users real quick ah because he just doesn't have to pay for ads because he owns the largest ad platform on the planet. So.

24:22.83

Paul Blankley

Yeah.

24:30.79

Paul Blankley

That's a that's a very good point and people also forget how ticktock became really popular Tiktok was originally musically that then got bought for pennies on the dollar by bit dance. Ah the chinese company second owner.

24:39.73

zenlytic

Um, yeah, second there it is.

24:40.69

Ryan Janssen

Second second donor.

24:45.92

Paul Blankley

And but the thing they did is they bought a $100000000 a month of Facebook ads and that just skyrocketed Tiktok's user base and that sort of bootstrapped this the exact same app. Basically I'm sure with more work around scalability and other features and stuff.

24:52.62

zenlytic

Um, yes I remember this I remember this.

24:53.20

Ryan Janssen

And.

25:05.23

Paul Blankley

But just dump paying money into ads really made tiktaca a formidable company.

25:06.36

zenlytic

Ahead.

25:12.86

zenlytic

Yeah, and here we are now they're just a beast. Um well sweet. We're gonna we're going to jump on to number 5 We're going to jump into Google gradient ventures backs weflow to bring greater hygiene to data salesforce.

25:14.15

Paul Blankley

Yeah.

25:27.30

Paul Blankley

So.

25:29.85

zenlytic

So a german startup aims the the weflow is a german startup that aims to improve salesforce data and efficiency. Ah weflow developed a revenue workspace that consolidates crm data uses Ai to predict deal outcomes. And offers tools for sales pipeline management. Um, they also raise three point two million from contributions from cherry ventures and some angel investors as well as google venture capital arm. Ah what are your thoughts pretty wild. Just.

26:06.21

Paul Blankley

So I think there's two ways they could go with this one way will be really really good and helpful for a ton of companies one way. Well just make them a bi tool at some point and they will spend a lot of years wondering.

26:07.70

zenlytic

Crushing it.

26:23.54

Paul Blankley

Why they're not getting the traction they need and then realize that they're basically trying to replace a b I tool that's already doing most of their job. So I hope for their sake. They don't go the b route because I think that will be a long route of them sort of covertly building a bi tool. Not realizing that they're building a b I tool not thinking about the right stakeholders as a result and then coming up with a kind of crappy bi tool that they only later realize is in fact, being used as a vi tool the way I think this can be really positive is Salesforce Data is notoriously messy because salesforce allows you.

26:42.20

zenlytic

A.

27:00.25

Paul Blankley

And immense amount of flexibility. There is like a right way to use Salesforce a way that has much more logical kind of like data outcomes and being and a kind of engine for for best practices. There is actually a really cool idea I Think. Making it easier for companies to use fit Salesforce in the right way is really Powerful. So I Think if they move sort of in that direction then it's going to be something super positive and really helpful for a lot of businesses.

27:24.96

zenlytic

Definitely.

27:32.37

Ryan Janssen

I think this is actually a great example of ah you know the why now question and you know I always say that in venture fundraising people usually do a pretty good job of saying why is this a big problem. Why we're the right team to solve it but they they tend to us underestimate the importance of why now. Ah. Because you know this was ah if this is a big problem like you know why hasn't it been solved before and I don't know anything about weflow like so I don't have any any any intent information on this just from what I saw and in in the press release. My first reaction is like okay so why why now why hasn't so these.

27:58.51

zenlytic

Yeah.

28:07.93

Ryan Janssen

This company comes in you know fixes salesforce data using Ai I mean salesforce has a very intimate knowledge of salesforce's data salesforce has Einstein which lidy has thousands of engineers trying to build Ai for salesforce so it's like you know why now like why are they going to be able to. Add in this level of hygiene that salesforce itself wasn't able to achieve with all this massive effort now I'm sure there's probably good answer that question because they you know these are very smart investors and I'm sure there's a there's a whole narrative that makes a lot of sense but like my very first question if I was looking at that deal would be okay.

28:31.83

zenlytic

Or.

28:42.98

zenlytic

Yeah, do you do you think you know an answer possibly on on on. Maybe the reasoning.

28:42.99

Ryan Janssen

Why now.

28:51.30

Ryan Janssen

Um, you know what? I don't and and the reason for that is it's It's interesting because this is ah another branch of the data family tree. Ah and what I mean by that is that ah Salesforce in itself is sort of. Become almost like a bit of a database right? like and that's I think it's actually what Salesforce is interested in becoming is becoming a the repository which is why they allow that flexibility. Um, and they're obviously succeeding at that because they're salesforce and Salesforce is a behemoth right? So like they just the power of Salesforce behind them to do that. But I would say the more the more common solution that we see.

29:28.88

Ryan Janssen

Is the dedicated data warehouse centric universe right? So these are companies that are on snowflake or bigquere or your red shift or you know some sort of cloud data warehouse driven by Sql. Ah more of a horizontal tool I suppose ah these sorts of tools we see we see those happen a lot in. That data warehouse. You know, modern data stack ecosystem and I can understand a lot of the motivations behind them. Ah, but we but you know we actually rarely see these tools that focus on you know, 1 other niche like this so I don't I don't have a good answer. You know why they would do that now. Um. And think it also potentially adds some platform risk because you know there's only 1 salesforce data platform. Ah but I'd be really curious and someone proven me wrong and learning more about it. Yeah.

30:05.97

zenlytic

Yeah, that's fine Paul any other any other hot takes you want to you want to leave us with.

30:14.89

Paul Blankley

No I would I would just agree with Ryan on that like the the biggest question is the is the why now and you know if you are pulling data from a company that also owns the world's one of the world's largest bi tools. You'd really have to think a lot about.

30:29.71

zenlytic

A.

30:34.70

Paul Blankley

What you could do that that in-house $16000000000 bi tool couldn't do so that would just be my my two cents I'm sure they have a good answer for it. But I just don't know that answer.

30:45.62

zenlytic

I'm sure they do um well sweet guys that was all 5 for the week that's a wrap for us right? at the 31 minute line love to see it and we'll sign off for today and thanks for tuning in.

30:51.67

Paul Blankley

There We go. Now.

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