Inventing The Future

The human brain is one of the most complex objects in the known universe. But it didn't come with an instruction manual. And in school, we were told what to learn but no one ever taught us how to learn effectively. By combining today's unprecedented AI capabilities with the latest research in the science of how we learn most effectively, Julian Alvarez and David Glass are on a quest to invent the future of learning at Wisdolia. In this special episode, Julian is interviewed by his co-founder, David, to get Julian’s perspective on the ups and downs of his startup journey, why he left his job at Meta to become a startup founder, what he is now building at Wisdolia, and his thoughts on the generative AI x Learning spaces. Wisdolia is an AI learning co-pilot that creates an interactive & personalized learning experience from any learning material, with the goal of making it easier than ever to engage in active learning. They started with a Chrome extension for students that uses AI to generate question & answer flashcards from any YouTube video, article, or PDF. Wisdolia is on a mission to transform anyone into a super learner who can retain and understand anything at least 10x better and faster 🚀 They launched 5 months ago and have over 50k downloads and 500+ paying subscribers after starting to monetize 2 months ago. Wisdolia is currently raising their pre-seed round and will be closing the round soon. Reach out to Julian if you’re interested in learning more. Julian also gets vulnerable and shares the insane story of how he got suspended from his University for hiring freelancers to do his homework 😮 💬 Discussed in this episode... 1:24 Why did you start Inventing The Future? 4:24 What got you interested in startups? 10:35 The story of when Julian got suspended from college for cheating 21:55 Why did you leave Meta for the startup life? 25:18 The biggest mistakes on Julian’s startup journey 29:40 What is Wisdolia? 32:25 How we got our first 100 users 35:20 Which Gen AI startups will succeed? 40:40 The Crisis of Exponential Change 43:55 What has entrepreneurship taught you about life? Follow Julian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/InfiniteJulian0 Connect with Julian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianalv... Check out Wisdolia at: https://wisdolia.com ________________________________________________________________ 🎙️ This podcast was recorded in a studio provided by Founder's Inc in San Francisco. F.inc is a community of relentless founders building epic companies: https://f.inc 🎶 Music provided by Pablo Galbusera from http://auribus.io - handcrafted music for all media 🙋🏻‍♂️ YOUR HOST: Julian Alvarez is the Co-founder & CEO at Wisdolia. Become a super learner with Wisdolia: https://wisdolia.com 🚀 OUR MISSION: Our mission is to introduce you to the ideas and entrepreneurs that will inspire and empower you to solve the world's biggest problems. 🌐 OUR WEBSITE: https://inventingthefuture.ai 🦜 FOLLOW US on socials for small doses of podcast clips, startup wisdom, and the latest in AI & tech ▶️ TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@inventing.the.future 📷 Instagram: https://instagram.com/inventing.the.f... 📧 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/itf-newsletter 📅 Learn more about Julian and Connect with him: https://julian.ai

You've build something incredible but now you have to figure out how the hell you're going to find the first people that are going to use your product. So, how do you get your first 10, 100, and 1,000 users? And how do you bring in a consistent stream of users so that you can constantly get feedback on new product changes with a different cohort of users? In this episode, I spoke with Claudio Fuentes about how he and his startup, Leap, have gotten over 10k users in just over a month since launching. Leap recently went pretty viral after Elon Musk replied to a Tweet about Leap. Claudio discusses the mindsets and strategies around how to build a growth engine for your startup and constantly seek out 10x growth opportunities. Claudio is a 3x founder and currently the co-founder of Leap, an API that lets you integrate AI Image Generation into any app. Follow Claudio on Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/claud_fuen⁠ Connect with Claudio on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiofuen⁠ Check out Leap at: ⁠https://tryleap.ai⁠ ______________________________________________________________________ 🎙️ This podcast was recorded in a studio provided by Founder's Inc in San Francisco. F.inc is a community of relentless founders building epic companies: ⁠https://f.inc⁠ ▶️ You can see the video recording of this episode on our YouTube channel: ⁠https://youtube.com/@inventing.the.future⁠ 🎶 Music provided by Pablo Galbusera from ⁠Auribus.io⁠ - handcrafted music for all media 🙋🏻‍♂️ YOUR HOST: Julian Alvarez is the Co-founder & CEO at Wisdolia. Wisdolia is a Chrome extension that uses AI to generate flashcards for any PDF / article so that you can better ingrain what you are learning. Check it out at: ⁠https://wisdolia.com⁠ 🚀 OUR MISSION: Our mission is to introduce you to the ideas and founders that will inspire and empower you to solve the world's biggest problems. 🦜 FOLLOW US on socials for small doses of podcast clips, startup wisdom, tech entrepreneurship stories, news, and more ▶️ TikTok: ⁠https://tiktok.com/@inventing.the.future⁠ 📷 Instagram: ⁠https://instagram.com/inventing.the.future⁠ 📧 Newsletter: ⁠https://bit.ly/itf-newsletter⁠ 🎧 Other Platforms to Listen On 🎙 Spotify: ⁠https://bit.ly/itf-spotify⁠ 🍎 Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://bit.ly/itf-apple⁠ 📅 Connect With Julian: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianalvarez42

Shutting down your company is perhaps one of the most difficult experiences that almost every founder has to go through at least once. You usually only hear success stories of startups raising millions of dollars and getting millions of users but that is far from the common reality. More than 90% of startups fail. So how do you deal with this tough reality? How do you communicate the news to investors and employees? And what mindset should you adopt moving forward so that you can get back on your feet? In this episode, I spoke with Claudio Fuentes about shutting down his previous company, Noonshot. Claudio is a 3x founder and currently the co-founder of Leap, an API that lets you integrate AI Image Generation into any app. Follow Claudio on Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/claud_fuen⁠ Connect with Claudio on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiofuen⁠ Check out Leap at: ⁠https://tryleap.ai⁠ ______________________________________________________________________ 🎙️ This podcast was recorded in a studio provided by Founder's Inc in San Francisco. F.inc is a community of relentless founders building epic companies: ⁠https://f.inc⁠ ▶️ You can see the video recording of this episode on our YouTube channel: ⁠https://youtube.com/@inventing.the.future⁠ 🎶 Music provided by Pablo Galbusera from ⁠Auribus.io⁠ - handcrafted music for all media 🙋🏻‍♂️ YOUR HOST: Julian Alvarez is the Co-founder & CEO at Wisdolia. Wisdolia is a Chrome extension that uses AI to generate flashcards for any PDF / article so that you can better ingrain what you are learning. Check it out at: ⁠https://wisdolia.com⁠ 🚀 OUR MISSION: Our mission is to introduce you to the ideas and founders that will inspire and empower you to solve the world's biggest problems. 🦜 FOLLOW US on socials for small doses of podcast clips, startup wisdom, tech entrepreneurship stories, news, and more ▶️ TikTok: ⁠https://tiktok.com/@inventing.the.future⁠ 📷 Instagram: ⁠https://instagram.com/inventing.the.future⁠ 📧 Newsletter: ⁠https://bit.ly/itf-newsletter⁠ 🎧 Other Platforms to Listen On 🎙 Spotify: ⁠https://bit.ly/itf-spotify⁠ 🍎 Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://bit.ly/itf-apple⁠ 📅 Connect With Julian: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianalvarez42

We live in a world where the only constant is change. And the rate of change itself is accelerating. Things are moving really fast in this increasingly exponential world. With the exponential boom in AI, machines are becoming faster and more intelligent than ever. These advances in AI will bring an unprecedented world of abundance but AI is also likely to cause massive disruption. As AI continues to get smarter and more capable, it will continue to replace many of today’s jobs. This brings a lot of interesting questions that we explore in this conversation How fast are things moving and what is causing them to move so fast? How serious is the risk of job displacement? What jobs are likely to be displaced? How concerned should we be? What can we do about it? What will happen when AI is 100x, 1,000x, or a million times smarter than us? Will we be able to control AI? I explore this topic with Claudio Fuentes, the co-founder of Leap (tryleap.ai). Leap is an API service that allows any developer to generate AI images and fine tune AI models in minutes. Claudio is a third time founder working at the cutting edge of AI. He and I both work our of an incubator named Founder’s Inc. This is an intentionally dystopian analysis at the impact that AI can have on us. I am generally optimistic about tech and the future but I think it’s important to understand the risks so that we can proactively take the safety measures needed to make sure we don’t create something that could put human existence at risk. Follow Claudio on Twitter: https://twitter.com/claud_fuen Connect with Claudio on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudiofuen Check out Leap at: https://tryleap.ai ______________________________________________________________________ 🎙️ This podcast was recorded in a studio provided by Founder's Inc in San Francisco. F.inc is a community of relentless founders building epic companies: https://f.inc ▶️ You can see the video recording of this episode on our YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@inventing.the.future 🎶 Music provided by Pablo Galbusera from Auribus.io - handcrafted music for all media 🙋🏻‍♂️ YOUR HOST: Julian Alvarez is the Co-founder & CEO at Wisdolia. Wisdolia is a Chrome extension that uses AI to generate flashcards for any PDF / article so that you can better ingrain what you are learning. Check it out at: https://wisdolia.com 🚀 OUR MISSION: Our mission is to introduce you to the ideas and founders that will inspire and empower you to solve the world's biggest problems. 🦜 FOLLOW US on socials for small doses of podcast clips, startup wisdom, tech entrepreneurship stories, news, and more ▶️ TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@inventing.the.future 📷 Instagram: https://instagram.com/inventing.the.future 📧 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/itf-newsletter 🎧 Other Platforms to Listen On 🎙 Spotify: https://bit.ly/itf-spotify 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/itf-apple 📅 Connect With Julian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianalvarez42

We all start off with these wild dreams as kids — dreams of who we want to become, what we want to create, and what we want to achieve….. and some of us keep having those dreams. But for most of us, something happens and we end up not taking the path of fulfilling our dreams. Something gets in the way and instead we end up taking a very traditional path: get a degree, get a job, then keep climbing the career ladder. The traditional path makes sense because of Culture — e.g. “my mom will kill me if I don’t go to college” Society — e.g. “You’re working on something and it’s not doing anything?” Security — You need money to pay the bills For some people, the traditional path works and they love it. But for others, they go down the traditional path and they’re left wishing they went down another path. Enter Farza Majeed, my guest today, and his company, Buildspace. Farza created Buildspace to give an alternate path to the dreamers. They are building the Hogwarts for builders and dreamers. In other words, Buildspace is a school for people that don’t want to just “get a job”. Buildspace is a place where you can figure out what you’re passionate about, create something you love working on, and then learn how to turn that creation into a financially sustainable path you can pursue full-time. The end goal? people working full-time on their creations sustainably — that means teaching you to figure out how to make money, raise money, get government grants, whatever needed. The basic way Buildspace works is that they have a collection of “Builds”, which is a sort of guided course / project within a specific domain, such as Web 3 or AI. For example, they have a build on how to use GPT-3 and build a simple website that uses GPT-3. Buildspace was started in 2019 and they have pivoted 10 times. Now they’ve become extremely prolific —  over 125,000 people have built something using Buildpsace, 1000s have attended IRL events, and some have started multi-million $ agencies, found co-founders, and even gotten funded for their own startups. Follow Farza on Twitter Check out Buildspace ______________________________________________________________________ 🎙️ This podcast was recorded in a studio provided by Founder's Inc in San Francisco. F.inc is a community of relentless founders building epic companies ▶️ You can see the video recording of this episode on our Youtube 🙋🏻‍♂️ YOUR HOST: Julian Alvarez is the Co-founder & CEO at Mindflow. Learn more about me through my growth journeys on Mindflow (@infinitejulian) 🚀 OUR MISSION: Our mission is to introduce you to the ideas and entrepreneurs that will inspire and empower you to solve the world's biggest problems. 🌐 OUR WEBSITE: inventingthefuture.ai 🦜 FOLLOW US on socials for small doses of podcast clips, startup wisdom, tech entrepreneurship stories, and more ▶️ TikTok 📷  Instagram 📧  Newsletter 📅 Connect With Julian: LinkedIn

What if we created a world where we use our own data to augment our thinking, extend our memory, to automate our chores, and to track and improve important things in our lives? This is the vision of what a utopian future of responsible data usage looks like from the perspective of Michael Jelly, today’s guest. This vision is in stark contrast to the way the world works today, where data about us is predominantly used to manipulate our behavior for the benefit of third-parties. This utopia is the premise on which Michael’s company, Magicflow, is centered on. Magicflow is a productivity tracker that helps you focus, get into deep flow work sessions, and identify the things that are obstructing your flow. Today, Magicflow is a productivity app but Michael has a much broader vision of how data can be used to enable us to live healthier, more productive, and fulfilling lives. Apart from being a brilliant founder, Michael is an incredibly curious and deep thinker, which is why this conversation naturally ran on to be close to 2 hours long. It’s a big time commitment but once you experience a bit of Michael’s mind, you’ll find yourself hooked in the flow of the conversation. 📱 Socials Check out Magicflow Get 50% for 3 months (after a free trial) using the code REINVENT. Follow Michael on Twitter Connect with Michael on LinkedIn 💣 Value Bomb 💥 The feeling of PMF is when people are coming and banging on your door because they want your product 🌱 This podcast is sponsored by Mindflow, a personal growth focused social app. Embark on growth journeys that make it fun and easy to take action, become 1% better every day, and share the things that are meaningful to you. Share your growth journey with friends and support them along their journeys, on a social platform that is authentic, raw, vulnerable, and doesn’t have likes or put you in comparison mode. Check out Mindflow on the App Store. ______________________________________________________________________ 🎙️ This podcast was recorded in a studio provided by Founder's Inc in San Francisco. F.inc is a community of relentless founders building epic companies: https://f.inc ▶️ You can see the video recording of this episode on our YouTube Channel 🙋🏻‍♂️ YOUR HOST: Julian Alvarez is the Co-founder & CEO at Mindflow. Learn more about me through my growth journeys on Mindflow (@infinitejulian) 🚀 OUR MISSION: Our mission is to introduce you to the ideas and entrepreneurs that will inspire and empower you to solve the world's biggest problems. 🌐 OUR WEBSITE: https://inventingthefuture.ai 🦜 FOLLOW US on socials for small doses of podcast clips, startup wisdom, tech entrepreneurship stories, news, and more ▶️ TikTok 📷  Instagram 📧  Newsletter 📅 Connect With Julian: LinkedIn

“If you design your life to where you love it, you never need to escape it” — This is the core life philosophy of Alex Schachne, today’s guest. Alex is a former college basketball players and a 2nd time founder. But Alex didn’t always have a clear idea of what path he wanted to take in his life. So Alex went on a quest to interview incredibly successful people and hearing each person's life & career story gave him a chance to see which paths truly resonated with him. These conversations changed what Alex thought was possible for his future. Alex now claims that his life’s “path is” to help people find theirs — to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. This led Alex to build Paths — a social network for students to explore life & career paths, and get advice or mentorship through short audio clips. Alex is a solo founder and is currently a one man army, where he has built and done everything on his own. He’s still early in his journey as a founder, hasn’t raised a huge sum of money, and is still figuring out a lot of things, just like many of us. 💬 Discussed in this episode... Alex’s journey from being a college basketball player to becoming a founder Some of the biggest mistakes Alex has made An exploration of life design and what it means to be successful Check out Paths at: https://paths.audio Follow Alex on Twitter: thealexshaq Connect with Alex on LinkedIn: alexschachne 🌱 This podcast is sponsored by Mindflow, a personal growth focused social app. Embark on growth journeys that make it fun and easy to take action, become 1% better every day, and share the things that are meaningful to you. Share your growth journey with friends and support them along their journeys, on a social platform that is authentic, raw, vulnerable, and doesn’t have likes or put you in comparison mode. Check out Mindflow on the App Store: https://apple.co/3BY7Nry 🎙️ This podcast was recorded in a studio provided by Founder's Inc in San Francisco. F.inc is a community of relentless founders building epic companies: https://f.inc ▶️ You can see the video recording of this episode on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/@inventing.the.future 🙋🏻‍♂️ YOUR HOST: Julian Alvarez is the Co-founder & CEO at Mindflow. Learn more about me through my growth journeys on Mindflow (@infinitejulian) https://apple.co/3BY7Nry 🚀 OUR MISSION: Our mission is to introduce you to the ideas and entrepreneurs that will inspire and empower you to solve the world's biggest problems. 🌐 OUR WEBSITE: inventingthefuture.ai ➡ Read the full show notes and listen to other episodes 🦜 FOLLOW US ▶️ TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@inventing.the.future 📷 Instagram: https://instagram.com/inventing.the.future 🎙 Spotify: https://bit.ly/itf-spotify 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/itf-apple 📧 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/itf-newsletter 📅 More About Julian & Contact: julian

“I’m more worried about other startups than AWS or Google” — Eric Jung After testing over 12 ideas and founding 3 companies, Eric Jung is currently focused on building Unreal Speech, a Text-to-Speech software service that he claims is better and 8x cheaper than AWS. The text-to speech uses an ultra realistic AI narrator that is trained to sound audiobook-esque. The software can for example read any piece of text in the voice of Jordan Peterson or Gary Vee. Eric is a South Korean founder living in San Francisco, and he became inspired to work on tools to help people consume information after learning to speak English by watching YouTube videos in English with closed captions in Korean. Eric recently launched on Product Hunt, earning the #3 spot for the day and also raised $300K from the founders of Readwise, Shaan Puri, and Furqan Rydham. "If you don’t know how to rest, you don’t know how to work." — Eric Jung 💬 Discussed in this episode... Where does your purpose come from? The future of AI & the value of automation Will everything be automated? Should everything be automated? What is Unreal Speech and what problem are you solving? How the hell are you competing with AWS and other giants? How would you respond to AWS and other competitors lowering their price? “I’m more worried about other startups than AWS or Google” How do you handle criticism? What stage are you at right now and what challenges are you facing? The concept of WHO not HOW Have you found PMF? How do you find PMF? How Eric raised $300K Work-life balance: Eric surfs almost every day as a founder What do you want to become, create, achieve, and give in your life? 📱 Socials Eric's LinkedIn Eric's Twitter Unreal Speech's Website 🎙️ This podcast was recorded in a studio provided by Founder's Inc in San Francisco. F.inc is a community of relentless founders building epic companies: https://f.inc.  📺 You can watch the interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYixepUnaIF2xQy6AIzb5xw 🙋🏻‍♂️ YOUR HOST: Julian Alvarez is the Co-founder & CEO at Mindflow, a social app centered on personal growth that makes the journey of becoming 1% better every day fun and easy. Check out Mindflow on the App Store and grow alongside your friends: https://apple.co/3QFdPlE  🚀 OUR MISSION: Our mission is to introduce you to the ideas and entrepreneurs that will inspire and empower you to solve the world's biggest problems.  🦜 FOLLOW US    ▶️ TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@inventing.the.future 📷  Instagram: https://bit.ly/itf-ig 📧  Newsletter: https://bit.ly/itf-newsletter

What would you do if you dropped out of college, pursued 12 different ideas but none of them worked, and only had $0.50 cents in your bank account at one point? Would you give up or persevere? Today’s guest, Arnav Bathla, decided to keep charging forward because he believes he was born to be an entrepreneur and he couldn’t possibly see any other option. Arnav is originally from India and after dropping out of college and booking a one-way ticket to San Francisco over 2 years ago, he played around with different ideas and almost none of them solved a ‘pressing’ problem. He went from one idea to the next until, at some point in his journey, he had less than a dollar in his bank account. But still, he never gave up. Now Arnav is the founder & CEO at Coinbooks, a Web3 startup building an accounting software designed for crypto-native organizations. Arnav has raised $3.2 million from world-class investors like Multicoin Capital, and even Polygon’s MATIC very own founders. Coinbooks was also accepted into Y Combinator for the summer 2022 batch. Are you a web 3 company interested in having your accounting and taxes easily handled? Check you Coinbooks out today: https://www.coinbooks.xyz 📱 Socials Arnav’s Twitter Arnav's LinkedIn Coinbooks's Website "The only way you can get an insight that no one else knows is by talking to customers. If you Google it, that means everyone else knows it." — Arnav Bathla Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

After a 7 month hiatus, the ITF podcast is back!! 🚀 In this special comeback episode, Julian interviews his co-founder at Mindflow, David Glass. Julian and David quit their jobs (Meta & Cisco respectively) in April (4 months ago) to take the full plunge into the entrepreneurial journey and so far, it has been an incredibly rewarding journey filled with tons of challenges, lessons, and joy. In this episode, we cover things such as… What Mindflow is The problem that the company aims to solve Why Julian and David both quit their jobs The two pivots that Mindflow has undergone and thinking behind them Lots of wisdom on how David thinks and looks at life “Comfort isn’t exactly what I’m optimizing for” — David Glass, when asked why he quit his job to take the full leap into entrepreneurship. ❗Mindflow is LIVE → check it out on the App Store: https://apple.co/3QFdPlE ❗ What PROBLEM is Mindflow solving? A study that polled over 1,000 people who invested in personal development seminars/courses, set goals, and worked on those goals for 90 day found that 96% of their efforts completely failed. (Business Insider, 2017) Another study by the University of Scranton found that 92% of goals set by people during the New Year are never achieved. (Inc. Magazine, 2016) Needless to say, CHANGE IS HARD ❗ Many growth-driven people have the motivation and desire to be better and integrate the habits that are important to them, but often fail to execute on this motivation because… The inertia of their current patterns of behavior proves to be too strong They have unconscious limiting beliefs, weak mindsets, or irrational fears that hold them back They try to make these changes by themselves and therefore lack accountability, encouragement, and guidance They don’t understand behavior change science, and thus their plans have lower chances of succeeding 🛠️ What is Mindflow's SOLUTION? The way Mindflow works is that you will get 4 quests every day of small positive actions to take across different categories: 🏃‍♂️ Wellness — get you moving or in touch with your body (ex: go for a run or meditate) 😳 Seek Discomfort — face your fears and make memories (ex: asking for free coffee at a cafe) 📚 Learning — quench your curiosity with high quality curated videos and blogs 🔍 Self Discovery — seek to understand yourself better with introspective journalling prompts (ex: what is one area where you have been falling short of your expectations?) 📱 Socials Mindflow App Mindflow Instagram Mindflow TikTok David’s LinkedIn Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CEO at Mindflow. This podcast was recorded in the Founder's Inc (f.inc) studio. F.inc is a community of founders that are building epic companies, check them out!

The pandemic completely shifted the nature of how we work. The abrupt changes brought by the pandemic either destroyed companies or forced them to radically adapt. In this episode, Julian speaks with Kian Gohar about the leadership principles, culture changes, and new rules of work that are required to thrive in this new age. ❓ Who is Kian? Kian Gohar inspires the world’s leading organizations to harness innovation and moonshots to solve complex problems. 💥 Kian is the co-author of “Competing in the New World of Work” with Keith Ferrazzi, which was published just two days ago on February 15th by HBR. The book highlights the future of work by providing research-based insights and best practices for leading change in the ever-evolving post-pandemic world of work. Kian, Keith, and their team interviewed over 2000 executives, entrepreneurs, change-makers, and leaders around the world to understand what they do and how they responded to the pandemic. We’ll talk about many of the lessons shared from the book in this episode. 💥 Kian is the founder of Geolab, an innovation research and training firm empowering leaders through coaching, strategy, and design. 💥 Previously, he was an Executive Director of the XPRIZE Foundation, designing moonshot challenges to solve pressing global problems through partnerships with corporations, foundations and governments. 💥 He was also on the faculty of Singularity University, teaching exponential thinking to thousands of entrepreneurs and executives. Kian has coached the leadership teams of dozens of Fortune 500 companies and is a sought-after public speaker on innovation. 💥 He is a graduate of Northwestern, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Business School. 💣 4 Value Bombs 💥 1. There are four leadership competencies that consistently showed up in leaders and companies that thrived during the pandemic. Doing all 4 leadership competencies really well puts you in a flow state of being radically adaptable. The four competencies are collaboration, agility, resilience, and foresight. 💥 2. One of the main advantages of working in person is having spontaneous conversations that can lead to an idea or a better relationship. In the new remote world, you should create a culture where you can feel comfortable calling somebody and asking them a question. 💥 3. To improve the foresight of your team/company, task everyone to identify one particular external threat that could impact your business, whether that’s tech, economics, policy, or a competitor. Ask them to track that domain for the course of a month and report back with their findings. 💥 4. Entrepreneurship is a journey, not a career path. It isn’t a path because there is no clear direction of where you are headed. As long as you’re open to learning, pivoting, and working with people who you really admire and who are going to change the world, you’ll open yourself up to a lot of opportunities. 📱 Socials Kian’s LinkedIn Kian’s Instagram Kian’s Twitter Competing In The New World of Work Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

In this special episode, we celebrate ITF’s one-year birthday, which happens to be Julian’s birthday as well! To celebrate, Julian gets personal, vulnerable, and deep. We usually interview next-level entrepreneurs on this podcast but with this episode, you’ll get the opportunity to know Julian better as he tells the story of three of the most transformative experiences in his life. The three stories consist of... The recognition of Julian’s privilege The discovery of Julian’s purpose The biggest mistake Julian has ever made, which got him suspended from school 😮 Julian also touches on having left his previous startup, Vize, to pursue an idea he has become obsessed about and felt that he could not ignore. The new startup is named Mindflow and we are building a learn-to-earn platform that leverages crypto and NFTs to financially incentivize people to learn. “When you do things with the focus on what benefit you will get out of it, your potential and motivation will be limited. But when you focus your energy on how you can contribute to all of humanity, you tap into an unbounded source of energy.” — Julian Alvarez We thank you all for supporting this podcast and for boarding this rocket ship with us. In many ways, this exponential journey is just beginning so buckle up and let’s continue to ascend onward and upward 🚀 Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

How can you capture the knowledge buried inside conversations and convert them into actions?  After graduating early from UPenn in 2015, Krish Ramineni dove headfirst into Microsoft as a Product Manager. Krish enjoyed his job and he was learning a lot but he realized that he was making incremental improvements to existing products instead of being truly innovative and building new products. When graduate school at Cambridge was right around the corner a year later, a fateful meeting with Sam Udotong (current Co-founder and CTO) led him to tinker around. Together they build the foundation for Fireflies AI: an AI note-taking assistant for your meetings.  Fireflies raised $14M in their series A round and $5m in their seed round. Krish Ramineni and Sam Udotong recently made in on Forbes 30 Under 30. Fireflies went through at least 5 pivots before finding product-market fit and Krish and Sam both lives on pizza and soylent for over a year before building something that could attract the attention of investors. ❗ What PROBLEM is Fireflies AI solving? Approximately 40% of our time is spent in meetings daily, but that knowledge is rarely captured in an efficient and reusable manner. We also speak an average of 150 words/minute, but write approximately 50 words/minute. Meetings are often not easily transferrable to output.  Moreover, how do you extract value from an audio recording or transcript? What if you want to pluck only the action items, important dates, or metrics discussed? Whether you’re preparing to sit down with competitors, investors, or your internal team, extensive manual effort is required to condense a meeting into digestible, high-value morsels. 🛠️ What is Fireflies AI’s SOLUTION? Imagine summarizing an hour-long meeting in five minutes by using an AI that can guess which parts of the conversation are the most important. Fireflies AI is an AI meeting assistant that joins your meetings across Zoom, WebEx, Skype, Google Meet and all other video conferencing platforms. Not only does it take notes, summarizes the meeting and transcribes it at extremely high accuracy levels, it creates a knowledge base of meeting content. Their AI tool intelligently extracts value out of the recordings, allowing you to easily navigate the most crucial parts of the phone call.  Moreover, with their integrations and workflows, the assistant automatically inputs information into other applications and systems and even can send recaps to Slack. This automates tedious post-meeting work so employees can focus their energy on curating rich and meaningful conversations. 📱 Socials Krish Ramineni's LinkedIn Krish Ramineni's Instagram Krish Ramineni’s Twitter Fireflies' Website Fireflies' LinkedIn Fireflies' Instagram Fireflies' Twitter Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

This was a monumental year for NFTs. The most expensive NFT was sold for $69.3 million. The market cap (total money in NFTs) of NFTs went from $17 million in January to $3.25 billion in August (19,000% increase in 8 months). The trading volume went from $4.75 million to $6.5 billion in the last year (141,000% increase). And finally, this year, the number of people that own an NFT went from 1 million to 25 million. This is truly insane exponential hockey stick type growth, and things are just getting started. You may be thinking, “Alright yeah, that sounds pretty wild but WTF is an NFT and why should I care?” WTF is an NFT? No, NFTs are not Northern Fried Tacos and they are not Ninja Fighting Tattoos. NFT stands for non-fungible token. To understand what non-fungible means, let’s first understand what fungible means. When something is fungible, that means it can be exchanged for something else of equal value. For example currencies like the USD or Bitcoin are fungible. You can exchange any $5 bill for any other $5 bill and you'll have the exact same thing. How Do NFTs Work? NFTs are possible thanks to the technology of the blockchain, which is the same technology that powers Bitcoin. The blockchain can be thought of as a public decentralized database, where anyone can see what is currently stored on the blockchain and see the full history of all transactions. Therefore, with NFTs, you can see a record of when the NFT was created, who currently owns it, and the history of all the transactions for that NFT. These NFTs uniquely represent pieces of media that can be anything digital, including art, videos, music, gifs, games, text, memes, and code. Use Cases For NFTs There are many different use cases for NFTs today but given that it is such a novel technology, new use cases are continuing to be created every day. Here are a few of the use cases that are covered in this episode. Digital Art / Collectibles Music Access Based NFTs Gaming Redeemables Identity Certifications / Credentials Land in the Metaverse Fractionalized Ownership of Assets In this episode, we also discuss how NFTs are giving unprecedented financial power to creatives, how NFTs will change internet culture, how to buy NFTs, and what to look for when investing in NFTs. NFTs are still early, and will evolve. Their utility will increase as digital experiences are built around them, including marketplaces, social networks, showcases (virtual museums, your own space in the Metaverse), games, virtual worlds, and more. Someday every internet community might have its own micro-economy, including NFTs and fungible tokens that users can use, own, and collect. Still uncertain about some of these concepts or have follow up questions? Feel free to reach out to Julian through Instagram (@infinitejuliaan) or Twitter (@infinitejuliaan). Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

This was a monumental year for NFTs. The most expensive NFT was sold for $69.3 million. The market cap (total money in NFTs) of NFTs went from $17 million in January to $3.25 billion in August (19,000% increase in 8 months). The trading volume went from $4.75 million to $6.5 billion in the last year (141,000% increase). And finally, this year, the number of people that own an NFT went from 1 million to 25 million. This is truly insane exponential hockey stick type growth, and things are just getting started. You may be thinking, “Alright yeah, that sounds pretty wild but WTF is an NFT and why should I care?” WTF is an NFT? No, NFTs are not Northern Fried Tacos and they are not Ninja Fighting Tattoos. NFT stands for non-fungible token. To understand what non-fungible means, let’s first understand what fungible means. When something is fungible, that means it can be exchanged for something else of equal value. For example currencies like the USD or Bitcoin are fungible. You can exchange any $5 bill for any other $5 bill and you'll have the exact same thing. How Do NFTs Work? NFTs are possible thanks to the technology of the blockchain, which is the same technology that powers Bitcoin. The blockchain can be thought of as a public decentralized database, where anyone can see what is currently stored on the blockchain and see the full history of all transactions. Therefore, with NFTs, you can see a record of when the NFT was created, who currently owns it, and the history of all the transactions for that NFT. These NFTs uniquely represent pieces of media that can be anything digital, including art, videos, music, gifs, games, text, memes, and code. Use Cases For NFTs There are many different use cases for NFTs today but given that it is such a novel technology, new use cases are continuing to be created every day. Here are a few of the use cases that are covered in this episode. Digital Art / Collectibles Music Access Based NFTs Gaming Redeemables Identity Certifications / Credentials Land in the Metaverse Fractionalized Ownership of Assets In this episode, we also discuss how NFTs are giving unprecedented financial power to creatives, how NFTs will change internet culture, how to buy NFTs, and what to look for when investing in NFTs. NFTs are still early, and will evolve. Their utility will increase as digital experiences are built around them, including marketplaces, social networks, showcases (virtual museums, your own space in the Metaverse), games, virtual worlds, and more. Someday every internet community might have its own micro-economy, including NFTs and fungible tokens that users can use, own, and collect. Still uncertain about some of these concepts or have follow up questions? Feel free to reach out to Julian through Instagram (@infinitejuliaan) or Twitter (@infinitejuliaan). Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

The companies that end up going bankrupt do so because they fail to disrupt themselves. In other words, they generate such an insane amount of revenue that they develop a corporate immune system that will attack any idea that poses a threat to the company's core business. It was during his time at Singularity University that Salim did his seminal research on the attributes that the fastest growing companies in the world had in common. Salim compiled this research to write his popular book, Exponential Organizations. 🧑🏼‍🦲 More About Salim Salim is a sought-after business strategist who presents globally to the leaders of many of the world’s largest companies and Heads of State. He is the Chairman at OpenExO, the Author of Exponential Organizations, a Board Member at X Prize Foundation, and the Founding Executive Director at Singularity University. Salim is a serial entrepreneur. Most recently, he founded OpenExO and ExO Works. He previously founded several technology companies, including New York Grant Company, Confabb, PubSub Concepts, Fastrack Institute, and Ångströ, which Google acquired in 2010. In addition, he led Brickhouse, Yahoo!’s internal incubator. 🚀 How To Start a Startup (According to Salim) Finding your MTP (Massively Transformative Purpose) is the first and most important step. After you find your MTP, either create or find communities that are trying to solve that problem. In those communities, you will be able to learn more about the problem and find the people you need to form a team. Put together a founding team with a few key roles such as engineering, business, product, etc. Come up with your breakthrough Idea (aka your Moonshot) that is at least 10x better than the status quo. If your product is not 10x better than the status quo, the market will ignore you. If your product is 10x better, the market can't ignore you. Follow lean startup thinking, such as iterating on your MVP until you find product-market fit. You must go from 0 to 1 before you can begin to scale (going from 1 to n). Set up the rest of the ExO attributes 📱 Socials Salim's Personal Website Salim's LinkedIn Salim's Instagram Salim's Twitter 💣 Value Bomb 💥 1. To transform a system, it is better to create an entirely new system rather than trying to restructure an existing system. After studying examples from history, Salim has found that you can never ever fix the old. The only way to transform a system is to go to the edge of the existing system and build a new capability and let people migrate to it and let that become the new center of gravity. When Salim and his team work with big companies, they do not try to do disruptive innovation in the mothership. Instead, they create an edge organization and let it become the new center of gravity. Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

Due to the countless barriers to innovation, many people never choose to innovate or bring their ideas to life. And the grand majority of those who do try to innovate end up failing. How do you lower the cost of innovation and maximize the probability of success? Henrik Stamm Kristensen is a serial entrepreneur who has founded five companies, four of which are food technology companies and one of which is a communications platform. After 35 years in the food industry, he is now the Founder and CEO (Chief Moonshot Officer) at BlendHub and the Founder of ChemoMetric Brain. ❗ What PROBLEM is BlendHub solving? It's a human right to know what we are putting into our mouths. Unfortunately, food industries are mostly B2B. It will require time and patience to educate them, in order to eventually reach the end consumer. 🛠️ What is BlendHub's SOLUTION? Creating a platform for food production as a service. Under the BlendHub umbrella in the four food technology companies, they ensure food safety, food security, and food quality. Initially, it began with a static factory, but this wasn't enough. They needed a global replication model. So, they invented the world's first portable powder blending, packaging, and quality control factory in a forty foot container. After the first one was patented in 2010, it was deployed in India in 2011. Through localization, they were able to save 30% on costs. They ideated a multi-localized network of food production hubs that are closer to the ingredients and the final consumers. 📱 Socials Henrik Kristensen's LinkedIn Henrik Kristensen's Instagram Henrik Kristensen's Twitter BlendHub's Website BlendHub's LinkedIn BlendHub's Instagram BlendHub's Twitter ChemoMetric Brain's Website ChemoMetric Brain's LinkedIn ChemoMetric Brain's Instagram ChemoMetric Brain's Twitter  💣 Value Bomb 💥 1. Break out of your comfort zone and travel. Travel will expose you to the problems that exist out there. All of those problems = potential opportunities! When you discover one that interests you AND excites you, it may be the ONE problem worth dedicating your life to. It could be the key to unlocking your future. When Henrik travelled, he witnessed the various ways people use and consume food, leading him to innovate in his industry. Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

Cryptocurrency is the fastest growing technology in history. Its current growth rate is 113% annually and it's the first asset to have gone up 2 million percent since its inception. It's accelerating twice as fast as the Internet did during the dot-com boom. Visualize this: 140M crypto users exist today, but this number will scale to 1B by 2024.  Matthew Chivers and Micah Baylor are propelling this movement forward through Mage, a blockchain consulting company that provides a range of services to accelerate the adoption of blockchain technologies. They consult across crypto, blockchain, digital real estate, sales strategy and sales development. Matthew is the Co-Founder and CEO at Mage. Micah is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Mage. ❗ What PROBLEM is the problem with the existing financial infrastructure? 61% of people globally do not have a bank account. There are barriers that cause friction to acquiring this essential service: a legal identity, credit history, age, and proof of residency. Even for those with access, the banks in their country may not be trustworthy.  Banks often abuse their power to freeze or close bank accounts. While this can decrease the number of clients engaging in illegal activities, governments (like in Nigeria) can close down bank accounts of organizations that are protesting against them. In this scenario, Bitcoin served as a platform through which they could receive donations and payments, financing their protests without government intervention. Moreover, the US government owes a towering debt of $16T. They remedy this by printing money or raising taxes, which hurts the global economy. Money printing raises inflation rates, decreasing the value of the existing US dollar. You're incentivized to spend your money now instead of saving it, which is not in the best interest of your financial future. Tesla, for example, bought bitcoin to hedge against government money printing.  🛠️ What is Mage's SOLUTION? The trend is clear. We've transitioned as a developed society from commerce to e-commerce, mail to e-mail, and now we are making the transition from money to e-money. 📱 Socials Micah Baylor's LinkedIn Micah Baylor's Instagram Matthew Chivers' LinkedIn Matthew Chivers' Instagram Mage's Website Mage's LinkedIn Mage's Metaverse Instagram Mage's Blockchain Instagram Mage's Arts Management Instagram "With the way money works, you don't realize that there is a problem until you take in the global context of how people in different parts of the world transact and how they are being left out of essential financial services." -Julian Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 2 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

Most people simply view money as a means of satisfying their material desires. For Mar, having power over one's finances tasted like freedom. She believed it would make her happy, but it didn't. Now what? At 21, Mar became a financial trader in a Wolf of Wall Street-esque environment in London. After reaching the peak of her career half a decade later, Mar acquired her Master's degree in Economics at Schumacher college and embarked on a personal and spiritual growth journey by traveling the world—for 10 years.  Mar Michelle Häusler is the Founder of Give & Take Lab, a collaborative laboratory focused on advancing the exploration of new ways of interacting with money, and Time4Changers, a learning journey for Generation Z individuals to birth their purpose projects, and Creator of the Inkiri social currency. ❗ What PROBLEM is Give & Take Lab solving? If money didn't exist, what would you be doing with your time right now? People's relationship with money is often fueled by a rat race pattern or the fear mentality that drives us to chase financial stability. We don't give ourselves the space to grow.  Money is a neutral energy, amplifying the entities you project. Many people project scarcity and attract that as well, despite their attachment to a stable "9-5" that supplies them with secure wealth. Moreover, our society is not built to let kids dream. The world closes you down from a young age. The impossibility of a fulfilling life without financial strain is pushed onto us. 🛠️ What is Give & Take Lab's SOLUTION? An empowering community centered around three fundamental pillars: awareness, connection, and empowerment. The Lab has facilitated the reformation of thousands of people's personal relationship to money across the globe. Their strategy is anchored in perspective-shifting, connecting to oneself, and feeling the energies of those important to you and your community. Strategically collaborating with the education system, Time4Changers aims to embed crucial concepts like financial literacy, regeneration and sustainability, mental health, life purpose, and more into Generation Z individuals between 11 and 18 years of age.  📱 Socials - Mar Michelle Häusler's LinkedIn - Mar Michelle Häusler's Instagram - Mar Michelle Häusler's Facebook - Give & Take Lab's Website - Give & Take Lab's Instagram - Give & Take Lab's LinkedIn "There is no other person who is exactly like you in the world who can offer what you offer. And if you are not offering what is unique to you, the world is missing out. And sometimes, it's even selfish that you're not offering that because we are all missing out on your amazing gifts." — Mar Michelle Häusler 💣  Value Bomb 💥 Success does not necessarily equate to fulfillment. Evaluate whether or not your work is depleting or reenergizing you. Align with the elements that enable you to enter flow. For Mar, working with people was her primary element.  Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.

Since childhood, Norris was passionate about making the world feel smaller through faster transportation. After studying aerospace engineering at UCLA, he worked in the aerospace industry as a propulsion engineer for three years on vehicles that break the sound barrier. At Stanford's Graduate School of Business, he realized low-boom supersonic travel was the future. As in, what if you could travel at supersonic speeds that are 2 or 3 times faster than the average plane? When a 12-hour flight prevented Norris from flying to Asia to visit his grandparents, he knew in high school that he wanted to be a change-maker for improving cross-pacific relationships. Leading this bold mission, Norris Tie is the Co-Founder and CEO of Exosonic, Inc., a startup that is building commercial supersonic planes. ❗ What PROBLEMS is Exosonic solving? In the past 50 years, the speed of commercial airplanes has not gotten faster. Have you ever not traveled somewhere due to how long the flight is? Moreover, the cost of a flight increases the longer the flight is due to heightened labor costs to staff the aircrafts, employ the aviators, and feed the passengers. Despite our planet being massive, flying has shrunk it by allowing us to travel at speeds of 460-575 miles per hour. Within 24 hours, you can reach the other side of the globe. Imagine the further worldview expansion and economic prosperity we could achieve from shorter flights. Businesses could collaborate more easily and traveling could be more accessible to the masses. When distance is not a barrier, valuable relationships are formed and intangible connections are deepened. 🛠️ What is Exosonic's SOLUTION? A quiet supersonic airliner that is 2.5-3x faster than traditional places. Their plane is set to enter service in the mid 2030s time frame. Their aircraft is currently projected to carry up to 70 passengers and fly from Los Angeles or San Francisco to London in 6 hours or so. Although these seats will cost business class prices upfront, they will increasingly become more affordable over time. To fund their R&D costs, they have acquired partnerships with the US government and its Air Force. For the future, they will evolve these into multi million dollar military defense contracts for a more stable resource flow. "Are we going to be satisfied with the status quo forever and suffer through twelve plus hour flights forever? No, someone has to do something that will make transportation even more convenient and open up the world even more." - Norris Tie 📱 Socials Norris Tie’s Twitter Exosonic, Inc.’s Twitter Exosonic, Inc.’s LinkedIn Exosonic, Inc.’s Website Exosonic, Inc.’s Instagram 💣 Value Bomb 💥 1. Naval Ravikant says there are three important things needed to succeed in your startup. 1. Make sure you’re working on the right thing. 2. Make sure you’re working with the right people. 3. Work really hard. All of these 3 components are like legs on a stool. Without one of the legs, your startup will collapse and fail. Visit inventingthefuture.ai for the full show notes, which includes a full transcription of the conversation, a link to the YouTube Video interview, the top 3 value bombs, people & resources mentioned, and more! This podcast is hosted by Julian Alvarez, the Co-Founder & CTO at Vize and a Software Engineer at Facebook.