Making AI Digital Friends in Augmented Worlds with Alex Herrity of Anima
Episode Notes:
What’s the art of the possible when you blend technologies like AI, augmented reality (AR), and blockchain with play? Turns out, ownable digital companions that you can talk to and interact with, called OnlyBots. It's a new era of Tamagotchis, y’all.🤖
In this episode I sit down with Alex Herrity, who is the cofounder of Anima, a gaming and interactive technology company and has spent his career building consumer products that people use every day, including Fortnite, the Epic Games Store, HBO’s streaming apps, and his last startup Ultravisual that was acquired in 2014 by Flipboard.
In this episode we cover:
0:10 - Balancing time between personal life, being a parent and being a co-founder
1:04 - How Alex went from working for a theme park to building digital consumer products
3:40 - How his hobby interest in emerging technology became an exciting career journey
5:19 - Finding the joy in creating technology that users love, admire, and use every day
7:03 - How his ability to dive into unknowns were nurtured by his parents and the role having privilege played in his entrepreneurial journey
11:47 - OnlyBots, Anima, the future of companionship, and the possibility of building a healthy and fun relationship with a digital companion
22:36 - Their vision of enabling a way for people to create based on their imagination and the generation of builders on Roblox and Fortnite
25:30 - Ethical considerations that we need to take into account
29:42 - His favorite examples of AR
33:40 - How AI is impacting the way we teach in schools and the repercussions when AI or AR disconnects you from reality?
39:36 - The importance of redefining engagement metrics as new technologies emerge
Alex believes we need to thoughtfully shape how our physical and digital environments keep blending, instead of letting it evolve unchecked and keeping innovation grounded on bringing people together. He also sees a major role for emerging creators in building this future.
If any of these topics excite you, then join us as we delve into the fascinating world of emerging technologies and its impact on our lives!
What are your thoughts on Alex's perspective on digital companions? How do you see our physical-digital worlds evolving in the next 5-10 years?
Referenced on the Episode:
Guest Bio: Alex Herrity
Alex Herrity (he/him) is cofounder of Anima, a gaming and interactive technology company. He has spent his career building consumer products that people use every day, including Fortnite, the Epic Games Store, HBO’s streaming apps, and his last startup Ultravisual that was acquired in 2014 by Flipboard.
Alex founded Anima with his long-time collaborator Neil Voss, with a mission to use emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and augmented reality to make previously impossible games and toys. Their current flagship game is Onlybots, AI-powered companions that live with and talk to you. Onlybots is in beta and releasing widely early next year.
-
Ep 04: Making AI Friends in Augmented Worlds with Alex Herrity of Anima
[00:00:00] Alex Herrity: If anybody listening is not familiar with AR or augmented reality, it's really a digital layer on top of the real world. It's digital things that show up only through your camera or lens, but they're aware of what's around them. They're aware of the surfaces. They have shadows. What we found was that being able to control little characters in AR is great.
[00:00:16] And there are certain things that we do that really make them feel good. They have their own physics and they bounce off things. They look extremely realistic, not in how they look, but in how they look around the world. Light hits them in the right way. But what was. Missing was really any interaction with them that felt like a real thing.
[00:00:33] Couldn't talk to things that they are before. Once we realized we could integrate artificial intelligence, that's when things really changed. And that's when we really like the clear path of we have lightning in a bottle here and only bots came forward, which the first time I talked to an only bot in AR was like a magical experience.
[00:00:49] Being able to see things, something only through your camera. That exists on your table, even though it's not really there and be able to have a full on conversation. It was a funny conversation too, because we've made them like unique personalities. Some of them are grumpy. Some of them are stubborn. At that moment, it was clear, okay, this needs to be the focus of our company.
[00:01:05] And all of it was really around just magic. Like, how do we make things seem magical?
[00:01:12] Ariba Jahan: Hey, welcome to Up Next in Tech, a podcast diving into emerging innovations and experiences beyond the hype through exclusive conversations with the brilliant people exploring the intersection of emerging tech, responsible innovation, and the way we live. Play and interact. I'm your host, Ariba Jahan, and in this episode, I sit down with Alex Herrity.
[00:01:33] He's a co founder of Anima, which is a gaming and interactive technology company using artificial intelligence to make virtual characters and worlds real. Alex has spent his career building consumer products that people use every day, including Fortnite, the Epic Games store. HBO's streaming app and his last startup, UltraVisual, that was acquired in 2014 by Flipboard.
[00:01:56] In this episode, Alex shares his thoughts on how we can blend physical and digital worlds, but with care, his predictions for mainstream spatial computing and what he thinks will happen with augmented reality, how he nurtures his curiosity, which Definitely includes his three kiddos and his mission to use emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and extended reality to make previously impossible interactions, games and toys a reality today.
[00:02:25] So let's dive in. Welcome, Alex. Thanks so much for making the time to join us today.
[00:02:31] Alex Herrity: Ariba, great to be here. Was excited about this conversation and stoked to dig into all of that.
[00:02:37] Ariba Jahan: What I'd love to start is like, how are you doing today?
[00:02:39] Alex Herrity: So I think life is tricky to start a summer here where my kids are home more.
[00:02:44] We're doing camp drop offs. I've got one running around here and then I've got investor meetings later, product check ins this morning. And I feel like this is like actually a little break to take a step back and talk about. All of these things at a more deeper level. Yeah, things are
[00:02:59] Ariba Jahan: good later on. I'd love to hear how you balance all of that.
[00:03:02] I'm a new mom and I feel like just having one child and figuring out who I am, like, is enough complexity. So I'd love to hear, like, I'm sure balance doesn't really exist, but how do you mode switch? That's the
[00:03:14] Alex Herrity: trickiest part is especially now that. My job is fully remote. We try to get together as much as possible.
[00:03:20] But I think that line between work and not work has gotten blurrier for sure. Balance is always the goal, but it's never really there. Yeah. Tell
[00:03:28] Ariba Jahan: us your origin story. How did you get into what you do today? So
[00:03:31] Alex Herrity: I have been building consumer products. Digital consumer products for, uh, over a decade. So maybe 12, 13 years, I started my career, not in that started working at theme parks.
[00:03:41] When I was a kid, worked my way up that industry and then ended up taking over ticketing and websites and digital products there because it was my interest in my hobby. So an interesting background on how I kind of fell into that. And then in my early twenties, sort of went full steam ahead on building things digitally.
[00:03:58] We wanted to be at companies where that was the focus, joined a startup called Ultra Visual that with Neil went back to school, got an MBA at NYU and focused really, ever since then, it's been sort of full steam ahead on consumer products, which has been where I. Kind of a most excited. I think I always enjoyed building things that I also want to use.
[00:04:16] And that's been, that's been the goal in life is like, how do I make things that I'm excited about every day? So it's been an interesting road since then, where I've worked on, as you mentioned, some games and apps that people are probably familiar with, but with HBO, with last startup that we sold and wanted to really take.
[00:04:31] Emerging technologies, whether that was in gaming, whether that was in video streaming apps, whether that was in our former startup, which was for folks around like mobile video when it was pretty new and try to make it accessible and fun and enable creativity in a new way. And that's really been my line through every one of these companies.
[00:04:47] And it's certainly what we're doing at Anima at a scale that, that I didn't previously in terms of using tech. That's sort of really cutting edge. So I think that's each company that I've worked in or founded has been more and more cutting edge, which keeps me on my toes and like, it is really exciting, but it's always been around the goal of like, how do we make it fun versus how do we make it really like useful?
[00:05:06] Let's say,
[00:05:08] Ariba Jahan: did I hear you correctly? Like you, you worked at theme parks. Like physical theme, physical theme parks, the things, the places that we go. Okay. So which theme park?
[00:05:19] Alex Herrity: Yeah, I, so I'm from Philadelphia area. So we have a small theme park around here called Sesame place. It's focused, it's Sesame street themed was owned by, uh, Bush entertainment corporation back in the day, which is part of Anheuser Busch eventually spun out as part of SeaWorld.
[00:05:33] I was part of that company for a long time and growing up as a kid working there, met my wife there. And then eventually moved to the technology side of things. And I think, yeah, that was the first time I got a chance to manage software at scale. What I missed there was really, the technology was not the focus.
[00:05:51] The focus was always the parks. So, you know, knew that I wanted to be at a place where the tech was the product.
[00:05:57] Ariba Jahan: Where did you learn more about? Using and creating with emerging technology, whether it's for gameplay or toy or interactivity.
[00:06:06] Alex Herrity: I have two degrees in business and focus on technology for both of them.
[00:06:10] My undergrad and then my, my graduate degree, but I think most of it was really around personal driven research and, and, and really building things in my free time. I grew up early on the internet, part of that millennial generation where we had like a sort of an analog youth. And then the internet emerged when I was a kid, was always on it early and then creating early on it.
[00:06:29] And then. I was big into gaming and for that reason too, was always on the cutting edge of what was coming next. And once I realized I could make a living doing that, it's then it became not just a hobby all day long spending, figuring out like how to use technology in creative ways. If I had to sort of define what my role has been, it's usually been in product management and I've often gotten asked like, how do you move into product management and there's definitely not one path.
[00:06:52] And there's some people that have more business background, there's some more design, some more engineering. It's usually driven by a passion for defining the roadmap of tech products and like wanting to build things, but maybe not having the skill to do it yourself, which I think is a reality for me where I'm not a coder, I'm not a designer, I'm a little bit of both and not great at either, but I understand them both and that's, that's what product management has been.
[00:07:15] Ariba Jahan: And it sounds like from your MBA background, you also understand like the multi dimensional aspect of having a business. That's also a technology.
[00:07:23] Alex Herrity: Hopefully that's what I'm bringing to the table. That's definitely my job.
[00:07:29] Ariba Jahan: What was the moment that you knew that you wanted to pursue the path that you're on, whether that's like being a co founder of Anima or like when you pivoted more into when the tech was the main focus,
[00:07:41] Alex Herrity: I guess there's, there's two parts that I could point to early on in my career, one of them when I was working with in the theme park and I piloted a program, we were the first to use like facial recognition in a theme park around season pass holders or something. It was like a really small project, but it was just using extremely cutting edge tech at the time to solve a problem.
[00:08:00] And I just loved it. And it was like, okay, what if I could do things like this all the time? And then the second one was when I downloaded. Ultra visual right when it came out and had to figure out, okay, who created this? It was an app around like really creating with video and images back before it was early when Instagram was new as well.
[00:08:15] And it was just so far ahead of everything else. And I remember when I contacted Neil, who founded the company was able to join. And once I started working on that, it was like, Oh, it can work on something that I, as a user just really love and admire and want to be using every day. And if I can keep getting that feeling that it's just work, doesn't feel like work.
[00:08:34] Work feels like you're making something that feels more like art just because you're expressing yourself, something that you wanted to make. So those were kind of earlier things in my career. And then, you know, with Anima, the realization for what we wanted to build was, came from when I was working on Fortnite, really seeing a change in the new generation's view of digital ownership and digital goods and how Fortnite skins were as much a part of their sense of identity as physical goods, just as much as their sneakers are in real life.
[00:09:02] Both sort of in. Respecting that and, and wanting to keep kind of building in that space and kind of talk to that, how that turned into Anima, but that's another sort of reflection point for me.
[00:09:11] Ariba Jahan: What I appreciate is your openness to dive into something that you haven't done before with a sense of curiosity and wanting to just immerse yourself.
[00:09:21] I'm curious what allowed you to do that because I think that's a, that's a moment that maybe some people might experience. Fear and a sense of, okay, this is too much of an unknown. And I don't know if I'm ready to dive into this. What allowed you to mobilize yourself?
[00:09:38] Alex Herrity: Yeah, I think there's two things. One of them is my parents came from a non traditional background.
[00:09:42] My dad had a small business that he founded. It was kind of a hippie growing up, ended up starting his own business. Had a few failed ones. It was a furniture store. It wasn't, you know, like a tech business or something, but it was used to sort of seeing my dad make his own path. Um, growing up was one thing.
[00:09:56] My mom was an artist, so the dichotomy of those two creativity and business was definitely something I grew up seeing and seeing as like a viable path. Truthfully, there is another side of this where like, I'm a tall white guy. And I think that there's like a certain privilege you get to that with the way people treat you in certain business situations.
[00:10:15] So I think there's like, I feel like it's, it's worth sort of mentioning that and being transparent about it. I had certain privileges growing up in that way. I wasn't rich growing up. But I did have the ability to get into different rooms early on, whether it was a combination of the area that I grew up in, being in the Northeast, living near New York.
[00:10:32] And I think, you know, that combined with my parents and what they open.
[00:10:36] Ariba Jahan: I mean, it's so great that you are in a household where creativity and business were both showcased and you got to see both of them at play. And I, and I appreciate you acknowledging the role of privilege and how privilege can, I don't know how it showed up or didn't show up for you, but I can just.
[00:10:53] Imagine like not being questioned if you want to dive into a new space or being welcomed or knowing certain rooms exist. I'm curious, like what role did privilege play for you?
[00:11:06] Alex Herrity: Working at a theme park early on or something and seeing the way different people talk to you versus your peers, who maybe are women or minorities or different backgrounds, it would be silly not to acknowledge that that made a difference early on in meetings.
[00:11:20] And you're sort of given a level of. You know, I hope, and I hope this is changing and I'm sure it will change more moving forward, but I think it's sort of just, you're kind of on first base already in certain conversations. And I'm almost 40 now. So how things are different now for someone, I can't say exactly, but I think it's important to acknowledge that exists and we should like, I think hopefully acknowledging it as like one small step towards being aware of that, but not everyone has that.
[00:11:46] Ariba Jahan: Yeah. I think acknowledging it and us even touching it right now is critical. Cause I think more and more people talking about it and acknowledging it, let's people know, like. It's not gone. And that it's being experienced in multitude of ways that could be small, that could be inherent from like a childhood experience, right?
[00:12:05] Like you don't just start experiencing privilege later on. And how like that in itself, the fact that you can experience this from an early childhood kind of. Shapes your perception of you and your confidence and your ability to show up.
[00:12:18] Alex Herrity: My wife always joked that like, I have it just a confidence that things will work out, you know, when we take a big jump.
[00:12:23] And I think that happens through your parents. It happens through your lived and your lived experiences and all of, you know, it's not one thing that happens. It's not just race or gender. Or my parents, but, but there's certainly like a combination of those things and your own, your own drive as well. Of course.
[00:12:37] Ariba Jahan: Speaking of your parents, how would your parents describe what you do?
[00:12:42] Alex Herrity: Well, unfortunately I lost my father a couple of years ago before Anima was too far along, but he was a big cheerleader for sure of everything I did. My mom. You know, I think she, being an artist, she understands the idea of creativity on, in all angles, both digitally and physically, and the idea that people may want to collect that.
[00:13:04] And so, you know, what we do at Anima is we really are creating, Only Bots is our flagship, where it's really a game where you can collect and interact with digital companions, little pets. So she gets that. She saw me growing up playing video games. She's familiar with creating in digital forms and. And the idea of someone wanting to own something digitally isn't really that far into her, despite her being not super technical.
[00:13:26] So how she would actually describe it, I don't, I don't know. So, um, I think, I think she probably would call me and ask me to explain it.
[00:13:37] Ariba Jahan: I feel like I need to have a version of this pod where it's actually a 10 second clip of each parent of our guest's parents describing what they do. That would be good.
[00:13:46] That would be a fun mashup. Tell us more about it. Only bots and Anima. I know that only bots you've mentioned that they are AI companions that's experiencing augmented reality and you guys describe it as the next generation of Tamagotchis, so would love to just dive into it. Like, tell us more, like what is it?
[00:14:04] Yeah.
[00:14:04] Alex Herrity: So if, you know, if anyone listening is not familiar with Tamagotchi, they came out in the nineties. They were these little digital, like physical device. It looks like almost like a. You know, a tiny little plastic capsule with a screen on it, and it had a little pet that you had to take care of. Super simple graphics.
[00:14:19] You had to like feed them by hitting a button and pet them and you tried to keep them alive. They could die, which was devastating as a kid when that happened. So we, we, when building only bots, we weren't necessarily modeling them after Tamagotchi, but we did. Think of that relationship that people started to have with a digital character back then.
[00:14:39] Yeah. It was unique. You know, a sense of an emotional connection and ownership of it. So we, we thought a little bit about like, what would a Tamagotchi look like today? And you know, there's a few characteristics of OnlyBots where if a Tamagotchi was made today, it would be in your world. It would be actually aware of what's around it.
[00:14:54] You'd be able to see it through your camera, say augmented reality. Portion despite being digital, it'd still be ownable, which is where the blockchain comes in critically. It would be intelligent. You'd be able to actually talk to it. And that's where AI comes in for us. So only bots can have full on personalities.
[00:15:10] You can talk to them. You can ask them the square root of some crazy number, how to get directions to somewhere. And you can also, it'll tell you jokes and. And goof around with you. So they're taking these emerging technologies and trying to put them into the context of like a companion or a pet. And that's, that's sort of the line to Tamagotchi, despite maybe not looking like them or, or really feeling like the same experience.
[00:15:31] Ariba Jahan: So when you created OnlyBots, was the inspiration to create an experience where someone could interact with something and own it, like what was the inspiration behind creating it?
[00:15:43] Alex Herrity: What happened early was knowing. We have, you know, our company was kind of expertise in certain emerging technologies. Like what is possible now that wasn't before.
[00:15:54] That's really how we looked at this more than necessarily looking what worked in the past. It was, it was really like, what can we do now? And what feels most magical? And sparks the most joy. I think that a good example of a company that does this is Nintendo, where they're not really thought of as like a cutting edge technology company necessarily.
[00:16:11] However, they were the first to, you know, have mobile gaming with the Game Boy at scale. They introduced virtual reality early on in the 90s. They had motion sensored control with the Wii. Even though it wasn't the most advanced motion sensor control, it was the one that got like grandparents playing video games.
[00:16:27] I think for us, we're We're doing a similar thing. We're inspired by Nintendo a lot. My co founder started his career at Nintendo. So we, we looked at that technology that existed now that we were wanted to build on and AR was, was a key part of that. It was things that appear. And again, if anybody listening is not familiar with.
[00:16:45] AR or augmented reality. It's, it's really a digital layer on top of the real world. It's digital things that show up only through your camera or lens, but they're aware of what's around them. They're aware of the surfaces. They have shadows. What we found was that being able to control little characters in AR is great.
[00:16:59] And there are certain things that we do that really make them feel good. They have their own physics and they bounce off things. They look extremely realistic, not in how they look, but in how they look around the world. You know, light hits them in the right way. But what was. Missing was really any interaction with them that felt like a real thing.
[00:17:15] You know, you couldn't talk to things in AR before. So once we realized we could integrate artificial intelligence, that's when things really changed. And that's when we really like the clear path of like, we have lightning in a bottle here and only bots came forward, which the first time I talked to an only bot in AR was like a magical experience being able to see things, something only through your camera.
[00:17:35] That exists on your table, even though it's not really there and be able to have a full on conversation. And it was a funny conversation too, because we've made them like unique personalities. Some of them are grumpy. Some of them are stubborn. At that moment, it was clear, okay, this, this needs to be the focus of our company.
[00:17:50] And all of it was really around like just magic. Like, how do we make things seem magical? I
[00:17:54] Ariba Jahan: know, uh, you talked about by embedding AI into the only bots, they're able to converse and have interactions. Can you talk a little bit more about that layer? Like what is it trained on? And I know you also said like you have created different personalities.
[00:18:08] So like using AI and then what is that layer that allows it to still maintain its personality?
[00:18:13] Alex Herrity: Yeah. So there's a few different parts of this that are kind of worth diving into, you know, a lot of people listening to probably interacted with chat GPT, which is, you know, an LLM or large language model developed by open AI.
[00:18:26] We use similar technology in only bots. And we actually use open AI technology for most, most of the time. We're agnostic in terms of which lLM we're using, but we, we've had most success with them. Um, we have also have our own model. That's not a large language model. It's kind of like a smaller language model that takes certain things that you say to an only bot.
[00:18:47] So I guess the, you know, the quick overview of what the technology here is, is that you talk to an only bot. We do, it's called speech to text. We do voice recognition. We, you know, we hear what you're saying. We then send that back to our servers. We don't save that. It's all privacy. Like, you know, when we're saving any information and then we filter that through what we call a rules engine, which is basically saying an only bot will have this personality.
[00:19:10] They will have this backstory, these secrets. If somebody says this, they'll react in a certain way. We find out if anything that you said triggers our model. Like if you reference the only bots name or a certain action, we'll then take an action immediately based off that. If you told one to jump, it'll jump.
[00:19:24] We know certain things like that. We don't know what you said, and it doesn't trigger any of that. Then we'll send it to a larger language model. We use GPT 3. 5 turbo it's by open AI. And then we send, you know, a question or whatever you send to it. And then it replies back that is meshed with our own personality prompt.
[00:19:43] Some bots don't. Speak in, you know, full sentences. Some of them speak in, you can speak in any language. You, some of them don't always answer you the way that you want them to. Some of them always respond in a joke. One of them talks like they're always in a 90 sitcom. One of them thinks about everything.
[00:19:58] It's a conspiracy theory. So they, all of this information we're sending to the LLM to try to get a really specific. response back, we then get that back and decide if that is an appropriate response. That appropriateness could be a combination of like, are they saying anything that we don't want them to from a parental sort of guidance kind of way, or, or does it seem out of character?
[00:20:17] If it does not, then we'll send it to our speech or text to speech, which then. Gives it back to the only bot to say in app through their voice. All that happens in about a second and a half. I was just about to ask like, yeah, it used to be much slower and much more expensive, even six months ago, costs have came way down and we spent a lot of time doing all of this streaming.
[00:20:38] So it happens. You know, piece by piece as you're talking, we're sending chunks of what you're saying, you know, there's no sort of waiting for the next step to finish for us to continue things on
[00:20:47] Ariba Jahan: each only bot once it does interact and respond. Is it like learning from each interaction?
[00:20:53] Alex Herrity: It's not right now.
[00:20:55] I mean, certain, certain things. Yes. But in terms of what we're careful about today is that we don't save your information, anything that you say, um, without your permission, we'll be rolling out soon a version that you can like tell an only about to remember certain things for you or default on to remember things right now.
[00:21:14] We. You know, we always default off that option. So we learn things in terms of the process. We see what only bots are doing. We see what only bots are replying. We do save that information, even though we don't save what you're saying. So, so
[00:21:28] Ariba Jahan: yeah, it's not necessarily the inputs. Yeah.
[00:21:31] Alex Herrity: Yeah. And we, we personalization of your relationship with an AI companion is a really interesting topic and it's one that we will.
[00:21:37] expand on greatly over the next six months before launch. But we just need to be really careful about it. We never want to surprise you or also change how an AI feels about you based around things that you may not want it to. There's been a lot of stories in the press around AI companions, like a replica, which is people have had like romantic relationships with an AI companion and those have gone really wrong sometimes.
[00:22:02] For some people, they feel like they've gone right. I think it's just, it's a touchy topic and it's one that like. You need to tread carefully in or else you, you can hurt people's lives. So we just want to be really careful with what we remember. In terms
[00:22:14] Ariba Jahan: of what you want to make sure OnlyBots doesn't do or what it does do.
[00:22:18] What are those, what's that goal? Like, what is that outcome that you want to have with people owning and interacting
[00:22:26] Alex Herrity: with them? Yeah, I think building a healthy and fun relationship with a digital companion is a goal where, where we are able to have a relationship with it that could not happen with a normal non AI companion.
[00:22:41] And I think that the type of things that we're able to do now, I can give some examples, but like we have generative AI where you can speak to an only bot and describe something that you want to exist in the world. And it can just. Create it in front of you, whether that's something simple like a ball or a 3d world with spaceships flying above it.
[00:22:57] So, you know, leveraging really magical moments like that, that were never possible before or not possible in any other context to make things feel both surprising and magical and fun is really the goal for everything we're doing here. It's like, what is possible now? That is amazing. That wasn't possible before.
[00:23:13] And the one thing we're really lucky in is that a lot of the technology that we're isn't necessarily ready for. Life or death scenarios. It's not ready to control our, you know, weapons system as a country. It's not ready to help a surgeon on the operating table. AI hallucinates is the term they use where sometimes it makes things up completely.
[00:23:35] For us, if it makes things up, it's like a bonus. It like we enjoy those moments because we're really trying to. To generate like unexpected outcomes. So, so we're lucky in that, in that situation where even if the technology isn't ready for primetime use in a utility based function, it's ready for a toy.
[00:23:54] Ariba Jahan: So interesting. I mean, that reminds me of the link you shared about the newsletter, not boring by Paki McCormick. I think there's a line there where it says emerging technology. When it first takes hold, it's either going to take hold as a porn or toy. That made me think about. What you're talking about in terms of creating that magical moment is using emerging tech to see what is the art of the possible so that you can create those magical moments.
[00:24:20] And when you think about what you're able to use this technology for right now, versus where you think we have the potential to go, what is that other, that bigger vision you have for the technology that you're using right now?
[00:24:33] Alex Herrity: The vision we're creating too, is enabling a way for. You to use your imagination to create whatever you want in front of you.
[00:24:40] And if you look at, you know, and we're specifically focused on like what we'd call the iPad generation, kids under 18, 13, 18, that kind of group. It's a group growing up, like making things in Minecraft, making things in Roblox and things of Fortnite creative. These are. It's a generation that like most of the digital products and, and specifically most of the games that they grew up with are around creating.
[00:25:01] That's what Minecraft and Roblox are for sure. So the way they identify with technology is often like, what can I make with this? You know, even, even social networks, a lot of, you know, Snapchat, like what can I make with this? Or how can I make an image or a photo look a certain way? So what we want to do is shift from you needing to code or move things around on a screen and really to use your voice.
[00:25:20] Paired with an AI companion to make whatever you want it. So you can, you can already like talk to an OnlyBot, create a ball just by describing it, change how it looks with your voice, and then create a game with that where you can like, let's say, try to keep it up in the air as long as you want and have the OnlyBot track how many times you do that.
[00:25:37] These are not games that existed before. These are games that you're making live. In real time, and you can imagine like how much more, how much more complex those will get over the coming months and years where you're able to describe entire games as complex as ones that are made by large studios. Now, well, you can describe them just with your voice.
[00:25:56] And then eventually share them with your friends, play them together, and even sell them if you wanted to. Wow.
[00:26:02] Ariba Jahan: That's so wild to me, because I know I've been playing around with Midjourney and ChatGPT, and the other day I learned how you can get ChatGPT to create the Midjourney prompt for you and then tweak it so that...
[00:26:14] It's exactly what you want it to be. And then you can see like the resolution of the outputs in mid journey. And then I think what I did was I created like an avatar in mid journey, and then I took that to DID and created an animation, gave a script to DID and then it's, it's. Spit out a video of this avatar created by me, very photorealistic.
[00:26:38] And I was able to program the voice and all of that. So it's in like, that's where we are today. And, and it's interesting to think about how we can make that even more shareable, but like an interactive component, I guess. Yeah.
[00:26:52] Alex Herrity: And I think that, you know, where that starts to get, we're already starting to see it, but you know, when you look at like what was called like a multi-modal agent, So when you're starting to see is, you know, dealing with an AI that can do all of that just off one prompt where you don't have to even go to each one of those pieces of software, you know, you can just describe it once and it runs with it and does it all for you.
[00:27:13] And things are moving so quickly in that space right now that it's almost hard to predict where we'll be just six months from now. But the, you know, all of those steps are becoming more and more seamless. Yeah, where, where we end up there is going to, it's going to be really exciting
[00:27:26] Ariba Jahan: as things keep developing. What are some ethical considerations that you think people need to take into account as they're developing this new frontier of technology or like they're evolving what exists right now into a more refined version?
[00:27:40] Alex Herrity: Yeah, I think being transparent. With, with data is always key. We've seen that in the Web2 world with social networks and like where things have ended up.
[00:27:48] I think being open about that, a big thing that I think about a lot is what I talked about with Replica, which is when you're dealing with people's emotions and their emotional connection to something, even if that something is. Artificial, you need to be careful and aware of that and have their best interests at heart, be careful with who you're marketing to.
[00:28:05] And for us, we're dealing with kids. So we're building a product. That's a game knowing that like a lot of our, uh, users will be under 18. There's whole different, uh, ethical considerations around there's legal ramifications of storing their data, knowing that we're dealing with growing minds, you don't have the same context for the world and that an adult might have.
[00:28:21] So I think those things are really important. I think. You know, there's broader discussions around like AI and like, will AI take over the world? And I think I don't know that I'm the best person in the world to articulate those arguments or, and I honestly don't know where I feel around all of it either.
[00:28:37] I think I have those concerns too, but I don't think I'm contributing to it.
[00:28:42] Ariba Jahan: Well, you hope to not contribute to it. And like having those guardrails with your technology. For sure.
[00:28:47] Alex Herrity: I think AR. Has it has its own kind of jump into that other emerging technology we're using is if you look at extended realities, which is probably like a good term to describe or spatial computing, a way to describe different realities away from our own that are digital.
[00:29:02] So there's augmented reality, which is on top of the world with virtual reality, which is you're going away to another world. You're putting on a headset and you're fully immersed in that world. For us, we are big believers in augmented reality, both. From a consumer behavior standpoint, but also from an ethical standpoint where it is based in reality, you're not, this is not the vision described in like ready player one or something.
[00:29:24] This is something where you're not going away. You're still grounded. And I think we feel good about building a world where people are not checking out, they're still here and we're just augmenting what's part of the world. And, and ideally like adding to it in a way that was not possible before versus having you put on a headset.
[00:29:41] Not connect face to face, not get out in the world. We're in common with Apple in that way. We're in common with companies like Niantic who built Pokemon Go, which I think is a great example of like people getting out into the world and traveling and going to places to collect things, even though it's a digital game.
[00:29:57] It used to be, you play it outside and we're trying to do something similar.
[00:30:01] Ariba Jahan: I get that. And what are your feels right now about the new Apple announcement?
[00:30:06] Alex Herrity: Yeah, I think that I was impressed, all around impressed. I think Apple, I was always kind of curious how they were going to frame what they were putting out there, because there was always going to be that like killer use case.
[00:30:18] And we're, we're close with Apple. We meet with them pretty regularly, but they also didn't fully tip their hand, of course, to us either. And I think what we've seen is them really just. Marketing it as a, as another display or, or a new computer in your home. It's not a mobile device. It's not something you'll bring out into the world yet.
[00:30:34] Eventually you will, but this is, you know, a really high end computer and display to use and interact with digital things in a different way. We're building something for it, but for only boss, we'll have that out at launch where you'll have like your only bot visible when you're using a vision pro. I think our approach will be different.
[00:30:50] Then some, because of the reasons I talked about, we're really focused on it being like fun and funny. It's particularly interesting where things will go over the next couple of years, because right now, most people, you know, we're not going to have a vision pro, no doubt about it. Apple knows that it's over 3, 000 device.
[00:31:04] It'll be niche in some ways, niche for Apple standards anyway, but I think if they can get people to want one, even if they don't buy one, maybe not buy it because it's too expensive. And I think they're probably successful because I don't think most people want an Oculus right now. Most people aren't like clamoring to buy these, but I think if Apple is successful in having it be an experience that people actually want, but are, you know, hesitant to buy because it's too expensive, then they won and the next version will be cheaper.
[00:31:32] And more accessible and more mobile.
[00:31:34] Ariba Jahan: What are some of your favorite examples of AR in use right now?
[00:31:38] Alex Herrity: I sort of like two different sides, um, of AR. One of them I really appreciate. One of them we've leaned into is things that feel really frictionless. So one thing we try to do is like you scan a QR code, you pop into AR within just a couple seconds.
[00:31:49] So. We do that natively. We're building, you know, straight for the Apple ecosystem. So we don't use like game engines for, we built our own. So I like any examples of that. And some examples of that exist in like web AR. So Eighth Wall does web AR. Their company, they're, they're bought by Niantic in the past year.
[00:32:06] They're showing good examples of very few barriers to hopping into the experience. It's hard to get people to use AR. So there's a really low barriers, even if there's limitations by doing things in web AR. side of the coin is I think what Snap is doing in their app, they're probably the farthest ahead in AR.
[00:32:23] They're a social network and communication platform and, and mostly like the younger generation uses it. Most of their examples of AR are like filters on top of a message, but the technology they've built is really, really strong. And what's most impressive is the creator tools that they have. Being able to make things in AR and Snap is way easier than anywhere else.
[00:32:43] It's more powerful as well. You know, where we have philosophical differences for them is that they're an ad based network and we're trying to make something that's ownable digitally versus, uh, be supported through ads. So there's sort of a different strategy in terms of what we're building and what we're owning.
[00:32:59] But I think Snap's a great example of just great creator tools, really strong AR technology. People in their creator community have made like incredible things. We're, we're close with them and, um, they've done a great job nurturing that.
[00:33:10] Ariba Jahan: What's interesting is like AR on Snap first started out as just like filters and where it just overlaps your own face.
[00:33:19] And then it kept evolving and getting so much more refined and higher fidelity and so creative. So that's been really cool to see and then seeing other apps adopt similar models and then try to use that similar technology for that human behavior. What's something you wish more people knew or used or understood as it relates to The different emerging tech we've talked about
[00:33:40] today.
[00:33:41] Alex Herrity: I think what's tough has been that people have a vision in, of what augmented reality will be in it. It looks more like minority report, or it looks like something that like is super seamless and really high tech. And I think unfortunately, most AR misses the mark and your expectations are, are high and it doesn't usually hit them.
[00:34:01] It's a realization that is like an acknowledgement of the industry is that most, most AR. Is below your expectations. What I would love to see is encourage people to sort of go out there and try more things in the space that said, like a lot of it hasn't been good. So it's been on us to really like reduce barriers, make it easier to try things and, and really try to like get more people out there trying with it.
[00:34:22] I think, you know, I think that's a big thing for AR is just, it's just getting more use out there and making it frictionless. I think on the AI side, the more people can understand some of the technology behind AI and why they make the decisions they make. And how to get the response you want. I think it reminds me in some ways a little bit about like when Wikipedia came out, I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I do remember I was in school and there was like this sort of unanimous school institution and professor idea that like Wikipedia is fake.
[00:34:49] Ariba Jahan: Don't use Wikipedia. Right. And it was like so not. It's not sourced. Yeah. So it has to be inaccurate.
[00:34:54] Alex Herrity: Right. And obviously now we know. Actually like Wikipedia is like really well sourced and it's a great jumping off point for research. You know, it's a great way to get some primary sources. By looking where they're cited.
[00:35:05] And I think if we start to embrace AI in the same way, knowing that yes, you cannot cite cat GPT in your paper. However, we should be like teaching people how to use it and how to use that as a tool. And it's really new here. So it's normal that we're not there yet. But I think that realization that this is a tool.
[00:35:21] It's a tool to write papers, it's a tool to find sources, it's a tool to understand things in a quicker way than you could before. And I think we need to not ban it from use, but we need to explain how to use it.
[00:35:33] Ariba Jahan: I was talking to my husband. My husband is a high school teacher and I was talking about, has he noticed some people's writing suddenly improve?
[00:35:41] And he's like, yes, I actually have been, he teaches art and design through ESL. So he's teaching both. E S L, English as a second language to his students as well as teaching them how to be creative. Yeah. And so Canva is a tool that he teaches. And now Canva has a generative component as well and has a lot of templates.
[00:35:59] So he's able to pick out, like, or trying to figure out how to pick out is this, is this real? Or did the student use a template? And then similarly, where's that line of is using a template. bad, or to your point, you can't ban it altogether because the technology is right in front of you. So people are likely to use it.
[00:36:20] And is it more like, how do we use it as a tool? How do we use it as a first draft so that you're never publishing or submitting anything that is only generated? By technology, but you've taken a moment to customize it. You've taken a moment to make sure this represents exactly what you would want it to represent.
[00:36:40] Does it have words that you wouldn't want to use and all of that. Right. So I think I agree. I don't think we can do like a all or nothing. I just think the, the, in the middle of that gray area is messy and confusing. And I think it's,
[00:36:53] Alex Herrity: um, it's funny. I was talking to a friend who's a French teacher. And she was saying in, at the end of the year, she had an essay that her students had to write in French and she said like 80 to 90 percent of them were clearly French at GPT because they were using verb, they were using verb tenses that she hadn't taught yet.
[00:37:10] Oh my goodness. So I don't speak French, so I don't remember what it was, but she was describing that. It was using words that she knows she didn't, a way to phrase sentences that she knows she hadn't taught. And it was funny that it was the last week of the year and you know, she was. She was, she was flexible and generous with her students at the time.
[00:37:30] Um, and I think, you know, at least in French, you can also like quiz and in person and versus it's a little harder to do that in some subjects, but I think what's funny is that like, if those students had realized that like you could define the AI model to not use those and you could tell it to talk, like say an eighth grade.
[00:37:46] French student in French too, then you probably would, would not have those. So, so I think it is really tricky moving forward for, for teachable to recognize this stuff. But I think the more we can, you know, involve it into the process sooner and show how it can be used, the better, because it's going to happen either way.
[00:38:04] And either it happens in a way where we reject it and it, it's impossible. You can't stop progress or, or we do it in a way that like encourages people to use it as a tool.
[00:38:12] Ariba Jahan: Speaking about that, I feel like in a matter of months, I now see courses all about prompt engineering, prompt AI whisperer, and all of these terms, and it makes me think about, like, the rate at which new skills are, are being developed, as well as the demand for new skills are happening.
[00:38:31] And I'm curious, like, What are you noticing? Like, what are the new skills that our listeners should train up on or learn more about?
[00:38:38] Alex Herrity: I think interacting with ChatGPT and trying to get certain answers is really easy, it's a super easy way to like just start dipping your feet into this stuff. And, and I think that.
[00:38:51] Trying to get it to say the wrong information, trying to get it to say the right information, trying to like organize data for you. I mean, it really depends on like what you're doing. And I think there's, you know, if you're in college now, you're probably already doing this. Like every college kid, I know, um, our babysitter in college says Chachi Patisse, her best friend, you know, jokingly now.
[00:39:09] But so I think like, you know, unfortunately it's become like. Much more critical, I think for people growing up now to be really aware of these technology advances, if they're moving into a field that is going to use them because they're moving so quickly. And I think that because they're such a useful tool in education and, and especially in like entry level work, white collar work, I think a lot of that is, is going to be moved into more AI powered agents and at least maybe less humans.
[00:39:37] And I think that if you're the type who understands that and is at the cutting edge of it. Then even if you're not highly technical, even if you understand how to like, you know, prompt an, an AI agent, I think you're, you're gonna be just far ahead of everyone else.
[00:39:49] Ariba Jahan: You know, we talked a lot about using emerging technology for creativity, for innovation, for play.
[00:39:55] I'm curious, like, when you think about these different technologies, whether it's ai, ar, and I know we haven't really touched on the blockchain vulnerability aspect of it yet. What scares you?
[00:40:05] Alex Herrity: You know, I, I talked about why we are much more in favor of AR than vr. And I think it was a movie WALL E, you know, certainly like a vision of the future where we're all sitting strapped in with headsets, unaware of what's around us.
[00:40:18] And that's scary. So I think the more we can use technology to complement our world, the better. And the alternative is very scary. The alternative is one where it takes us away from our world. You know, the less grounded we are in reality, less grounded we are in our community, the more likely bad things can happen to the greater world.
[00:40:36] You know, we need to use technology to bring us together. I think, I guess the big negative from the web to world was that a lot of the big apps became focused on like dopamine fueled. The products trying to get you to come back and use your newsfeed and tap to the next thing constantly all in the name of spending more time in the app.
[00:40:55] I think pairing that philosophy with emerging technology and AI would be really scary. So I think, cause you don't want to encourage people to be disconnected more and more and more. I think Apple and, you know, and Tim Cook leading over there are, have been really good about articulating a vision of the future.
[00:41:12] That's not that, but I get scared a little around, you know, if others in the space.
[00:41:16] Ariba Jahan: I think it's like, as we look at new emerging technologies and different utilities of it, I think we do have to give ourselves or just pause to redefine the metrics that we measure success of these products with. Like if the KPIs of yesterday was.
[00:41:32] The amount of time someone spends on your app or, or a feed or interacting in some capacity. Let's not bring those same metrics over. Right? So that's what I'm kind of hearing here too, is how do we make sure we're redefining what success looks like and what we are really designing for.
[00:41:48] Alex Herrity: You know, there's a, there's a roadmap there.
[00:41:50] There are companies that do it. You know, I think, I think, I think Apple is a good example and I know what we talked about earlier is also a good example. Where they're not defining things by, you know, the amount of time they're defining more of the quality of them looking at more, you know, in person to person, looking at more of like serotonin based, you know, happiness versus dopamine based happiness.
[00:42:08] Yeah. I think it's really important for, for that to be the winner moving forward. And I think it will. And I think part of the reason why I will is that most generations reject what the previous generation did. And I think that if you talk to the young people, I do think that, you know, the, the younger generations will reject.
[00:42:23] That immediate satisfaction style of social network moving forward. I really do.
[00:42:29] Ariba Jahan: So I'm going to switch into a rapid fire questions. You can share your first gut reaction to all of these. Are you an introvert or an extrovert Alex?
[00:42:38] Alex Herrity: Uh, introvert.
[00:42:40] Ariba Jahan: Oh yeah. Okay. I've been getting a series of introverts recently.
[00:42:43] Alex Herrity: Yeah. I like, I like being extroverted, but I, it takes up more of my energy. And
[00:42:48] Ariba Jahan: I imagine as being a co founder, you have to kind of operate in like multiple modalities.
[00:42:55] Alex Herrity: Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I need time alone. to recharge. Okay. That's really hard in my house. It doesn't really happen.
[00:43:02] Ariba Jahan: What helps you stay curious?
[00:43:05] Alex Herrity: Yeah. It's finding what like young people are into. It's finding what like exciting kids today. It's building things that excites them. I think it's never being like cynical about like what the new products are. It's instead trying to figure out like what's exciting about them.
[00:43:17] Ariba Jahan: That makes me want to ask, like, how does your being a dad of three come into play?
[00:43:23] Alex Herrity: Yeah. So me and Neil both have. Between us, we have five kids. He's got two daughters. I've got three boys. So we had our first test group for OnlyBots, you know, in house. They were free. So, you know, it definitely affects what we're building once we're building something for kids. And, you know, it also affects my working hours for sure.
[00:43:42] Ariba Jahan: What's one thing that you're deeply grateful for right now?
[00:43:45] Alex Herrity: I think it's my life's like, you know, everything I could have imagined. I get to build something that I'm excited about every single day. I get to, you know, look over and see my kids at home and my wife and, you know, it's, it's being able to build that life is, is really, really lucky.
[00:43:57] Even some of the sort of negative things that happen in the world, whether it's COVID or something else has enabled a different work life balance I didn't have before and being able to kind of, I'm never balanced, but being able to even, even strive for that is a privilege.
[00:44:10] Ariba Jahan: If you could go back and give your 18 year old self one piece of advice, what would it be?
[00:44:16] Alex Herrity: Oh gosh. I didn't like buy Bitcoin or hold Bitcoin. I think I owned it when I was like in my early twenties and sold it. I think realizing that everything is really like a journey, I feel like I was very outcome focused early on. I still need to remind myself that, but like not focusing on the next step as much as being able to enjoy the moment you're in.
[00:44:37] I don't know. I'm probably not unique in that.
[00:44:38] Ariba Jahan: No, I mean, but what you're saying is. That's critical, right? Like that's something that you'd want to share with the younger Alex. What is something you've been doing recently to nurture your mental health? I know you said you don't get a lot of time and space, but what is the little thing you are able to embed in your days?
[00:44:55] Alex Herrity: Being more physically active has been big this year has been better in that way. I think getting stricter boundaries around like certain times of the day with devices has been, has been helpful. I'm not like great at it, but it has been like, I've been better in the last six months than I was prior. So really some separation of like work and not work has been better this year than last year and better than the year before.
[00:45:19] But I think acknowledging that, like it having that time away from work around dinner is.
[00:45:27] Ariba Jahan: So it's not necessarily like a cutoff time that you don't do work anymore, but like pockets of time that you are saying, like, this is not work time. This is either a family time or me time.
[00:45:36] Alex Herrity: Yeah, exactly. I think that it's really, it's, it's, it's really harmful when your, when your kids realize, or your wife realizes, spouse realizes that like you're not fully focused on them and that has happened a lot.
[00:45:48] Ariba Jahan: As, as I started out, my, my son is 18 months old and I have no idea if you can hear him. I hope not for the sake of this recording. I haven't been able to, I don't know how, but at every day at 5 PM, there's a banging on my door and I open it. And he's just like, it's like, he knows that it's time to turn off and he won't let me turn back to the computer.
[00:46:11] He like yells. And I think that's been really interesting to watch. I have no idea how he's learned it, but it's always. around five. It's also exactly when his back ends, but he's been great with helping me with my boundary.
[00:46:24] Alex Herrity: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they could force it. Yeah, for sure.
[00:46:27] Ariba Jahan: Yeah. What's something you couldn't do without in your career?
[00:46:31] It can be anything, whether it's a routine, a person, a service or an object.
[00:46:36] Alex Herrity: Yeah, it's I mean, it's that 1st question is curiosity. It's like, that is really the most critical. Yes. Like how I stay curious, like, being curious is the single most important thing. And I think that when we look at even who we hire people who are really, really curious is like 1 of the most important, like, relentlessly curious, whether it's like trying to figure out how to.
[00:46:57] You know, market something or whether it's like curious about some new technology, it's like been the most important trait that I've had for sure.
[00:47:03] Ariba Jahan: When you're hiring or when you're talking to people, what are the signals that you look for to see like, okay, this person has that curiosity. You can
[00:47:12] Alex Herrity: tell when somebody is passionate about something.
[00:47:14] So if they're passionate about some part of the job that they're interviewing for, and you can just tell, you know, they have stories about in their free time looking into X topic or like, you know. Do we have two AR engineers and like their stories are both, they were doing other things and like came across augmented reality and got so excited about it and started building things in their free time and, and just loved it.
[00:47:36] And now we're able to give them jobs where they get to do that all, all the time. And so you knew you were hiring somebody who like, isn't going to show up to work and be like, Oh, what are we working on today? Like they're actually like really, really. Passionate about it. So, you know, that's, that's a trait that we just look for is like the stories they have, the story about how they got to where they are, is that they just love it.
[00:47:54] Ariba Jahan: That's pretty cool. If you weren't in the role that you are in right now, what else would you be doing? Theme parks? Ownership?
[00:48:01] Alex Herrity: Yeah, yeah, no. Theme parks, I think, gosh, I have so many hobbies. So there's like no, yeah, I think it's hard to imagine where I wouldn't be working something related to technology.
[00:48:13] Cause that's a lot of technology and gaming and toys are kind of a big, a big interest, but yeah, if I wasn't, if I had more free time, I'd probably just devote more time to my kids and I'd coach more sports. I'd, you know, be more involved in like their hour to hour and, you know, and take some off my wife, but you know, in terms of career, it's hard to imagine.
[00:48:31] Going back, I think that I'm in it for the long haul, both, both in Anima, but in terms of like, you know, if Anima was bought tomorrow for a bazillion dollars and, and, or we had to shut down for some reason, then, then I'd want to create something else in a similar space. It's, it's what I love. What
[00:48:47] Ariba Jahan: is up
[00:48:47] Alex Herrity: next for you?
[00:48:48] Yeah. The next six months are really big for us where we are, we're, we're fundraising. We are releasing OnlyBots widely early next year, a bunch of many tasks to do over the course of this year. If you're listening, you want to try OnlyBots. So you're going to. Google us and, or download the app and the iPhone app store.
[00:49:02] You get a little taste of what they're like, but they'll be for us. It's finding what I focus on is like, what is, what can we do now? Again, that we couldn't do before. And how do we enable everyone to do that in a fun way? And that's, that's really what the next six months are about is preparing as much of that into the, into the game as possible and making sure it's a success.
[00:49:19] So a big part of that is also go to market and the marketing side of things.
[00:49:22] Ariba Jahan: Zooming out of Anima and the work you're doing on a day to day, but. Thinking about the emerging technology spaces that you're in, which I know it's like AI, AR, and blockchain. Like, what do you think is up next for us in these spaces?
[00:49:35] Or you can pick one of those
[00:49:37] Alex Herrity: spaces? I think that with Apple's entry into spatial computing and AR, I think that we're finally at the inflection point over the next few years, where that vision of headsets and walking around with smart glasses is, is here now. No, not here, like, in Q1, when, when vision pro comes out, but, but we're going to start seeing the roadmap for where we get to that, which means a world that has a digital layer on top of it.
[00:50:03] That we interact with all the time, the line between our physical and digital lives will continue to blur and all the other technology we talked about today. As a part of that, our digital goods are ownable in a decentralized way and tradable are, you know, are the digital characters and objects that we speak to are intelligent, soon to be more intelligent than us, if not already.
[00:50:24] And I think all of that blends the real and the digital in a way that was never here before. You could call it the metaverse, or you could just sort of acknowledge that this is just a change in our relationship with digital lives. And I think that's, that's what the next five years looks like. I'm
[00:50:39] Ariba Jahan: really excited to see like what people create and what experiences we, these emergent experiences that we end up into, you know, and how it impacts what we do and how we show up.
[00:50:49] Who would you say is up next? Like who is someone we should all be watching and learning from?
[00:50:54] Alex Herrity: Yeah, I knew you were going to ask this one, so I thought a little bit about who I've been interacting with. And yeah, I think, I think the person that jumped to mind immediately, her name is Emma Jane McKinnon Lee.
[00:51:04] And she's another founder also in sort of intersection of the technologies that we're in. She has a company called DigitalTalex. They're a fashion company. Emma Jane's like background is crazy. She was in school for like a space engineering dropped out to start a hedge fund. And then after success there, like founded this company that is really about digital fashion.
[00:51:27] Across realities, ownable on the blockchain and using AI to create it. And I'm just one of the smartest people I've talked to lately. She's incredible. Yeah. She's, she's much younger than me in her twenties and, you know, just kind of blown away by her and I'm like very. excited to see where she takes what she's doing.
[00:51:44] It's definitely a different path. It's not venture capital funded and she's able to kind of do it all herself and bring people in as needed. But I think that intersection of creativity and really cutting edge technology is obviously super interesting to me. And I think where she's going with it is going to be something to watch.
[00:51:59] I'll
[00:51:59] Ariba Jahan: definitely be checking her out. Alex, thank you so much for your time today. This conversation, I've been really looking forward to it. Where can people go to learn more about you, Anima and support your work?
[00:52:10] Alex Herrity: I think best way to find these, probably on Twitter, just Alex Herty, A l e x h e r r i T y.
[00:52:15] There you find me on LinkedIn and then Anima and only bots. If you Google only bots, we should be the only thing that comes out. Uh, and you can try it out in the iPhone app store, other devices. Eventually you can find us on Twitter and all the other social networks too.
[00:52:28] Ariba Jahan: Amazing. Thanks so much, Alex. Thank you for joining us for this conversation today.
[00:52:33] If you liked what you heard, be sure to rate and review us on Apple podcasts and Spotify to help more people discover the show. Really appreciate you joining us today and be sure to hit subscribe, leave a comment and come back next week so we can keep exploring what's up next in tech and shape our collective future together until then stay curious.
💻 SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER
📱 LET’S CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
What did you learn from this episode?
Share it on Linkedin, Twitter or Instagram and tag me (Ariba Jahan). I’d love to know!
You can also send me a DM on instagram @ariba.jahan or email podcast@aribajahan.com.
🎙 ABOUT THE PODCAST
Want to go beyond the hype of emerging tech and dig into the realities, creative possibilities and responsible considerations behind innovations like Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and Blockchain?
Join me, Ariba Jahan on Up Next In Tech for conversations with product experts, creative technologists, scientists and industry leaders to unpack what it’s really like to work in nascent fields shaping how we live and interact.
Whether you want tactics for your own journey or just inspiration from those leading the way, join us and let's envision the future we want to build together.
Subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcast | Amazon Music | YouTube | Overcast | Google Podcast | iHeartRadio
