Podcasts about zooms

“Whoever runs your schedule is the most important person in your world as Leader. You need time to think, time to study and time to get the things done you came to leadership to do. Lose control of the schedule and you will fail.” That is a quote from former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. And it strikes at the heart of mastering time management. Today's episode explores why your calendar is your most important productivity tool.  You can subscribe to this podcast on:  Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin The 2025 Summer Sale  Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Time Sector System 5th Year Anniversary The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl's YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack  The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 373 Hello, and welcome to episode 373 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Whoever controls your calendar controls you. They can (and often will) destroy your plans for the day, prevent you from doing your most important work and be the reason you fail in your career goals.  If you are a leader, you will likely have plans for your team. In order to implement those plans and move them to completion, you will need time. It's up to you to find that time.  Top leaders understand this. They are very strict with their calendars. Nobody but themselves has control of it. And, probably the most important factor of all, they have the confidence to cancel appointments if those appointments do not align with their weekly or daily strategic plan.  And yes, it's a confidence thing. Nobody, not even your boss, really has control over your time. You always have the option to negotiate an appointment or say no.  In this week's episode, I will share some ideas you can use to get control of your calendar and have the confidence to negotiate appointments and/or say no. So, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week's question.  This week's question comes from Karen. Karen asks, Hi Carl, I lead a team of sixteen people and am struggling to get my work done because my boss and team are always demanding meetings with me. Do you have any tips on protecting time for important work when you don't have control of your calendar? Hi Karen, thank you for your question.  This can appear to be a difficult change to make. Particularly if your team and bosses have become conditioned to you being available whenever they need you.  One of most powerful lessons I learned in my early career was from the so—called “my office door is always open” concept. For those of you not familiar with this concept, it began in the late 80s or early 90s (possibly earlier). This was where bosses used to tell their employees my office door is always open. You can come and talk to me at anytime.  Nice concept. It gave the impression that your boss was approachable. Yet in reality, it was not really a practical way to operate.  It meant that bosses were constantly being interrupted—well, those that we not scary, anyway, The two most productive bosses I had in my early career did follow this policy, yet with one addition. That was to tell us that when their door was closed they were not to be disturbed.  One of those bosses, would close his door every day around 2 pm. He would then use that time to get his most important work done. David, had a secretary, who would hold his calls too. If you needed David between two and four, you had to go through his secretary, Michaela and Michaela protected David's time ruthlessly.  Yet, for the other times in the day, David was available. He'd walk around the office from time to time asking if we were okay. He made himself available.  What happened, was if we needed David for anything, we knew we had to catch him before 2 pm or wait until after 4 pm.  I don't recall anyone complaining. The Managing Partner of the firm respected it. And so did David's clients—he was a partner in the law firm I worked at.  The key to this working was David's consistency. His team, bosses and clients all knew that David would not be available between two and four.  Since then, every productive person I have met, has operated something very similar. They have periods of time in the day where they are not accessible. In that time they are doing their most important work. That period of time is generally at the same time each day.  I remember, once being on a training course and the instructor, told us she would be available at any time after 11:00 am if we had any questions.  That's it. A simple sentence. “Available at anytime after 11:00 am”. I don't recall any one of us on that training course ever trying to contact her before 11:00 am.  Now, it might not be possible for you to cut yourself off from the outside world at the same time each day—although we all do this when we are sleeping and the world doesn't end, does it?  A lot of this depends on the job you do. I've mentioned before in this podcast the best salesperson I've ever worked with, Claire.  Claire would never be available between 9:00 and 10:30 am. It was during this time she was on the phones prospecting and following up customers. That one strategy was the difference between her and every other salesperson in that company. She outsold her nearest colleague two to one most months.  We worked a nine hour day in that sales job, and Claire was unavailable for just ninety minutes. She was in charge of her diary. That still left her with seven-and-a-half hours where she was available.  So, Karen, the place to begin is to ask yourself how much time do you need each day to stay on top of your work?  Given that a managerial role is largely about communicating with a team and bosses, you will likely need to be available most of your working day. Yet, you will still have some individual work to do. So, how much time do you need to complete that work each week?  You will only be able to work with averages. You will not be able to be specific about how much time you need each week. You're human. Sometimes we are on fire and can plough through a lot of work. Other days, we're tired and anything we do is sluggish and slow.  By working with averages, you're still getting work done and when you are on fire you can catch up.  For instance, on average, I need around 14 hours a week to create my content. This means each day I protect two hours for content creation where nobody can interrupt me. I then have an extra hour or so in the afternoons I keep flexible for finishing off any work.  I allow no more than twenty one hours of meetings each week. 90% of the time that is more than enough for the meetings and coaching sessions I have each week.  I know if I allow more than 21 hours, the additional admin cost and lost time for critical work will mean I have to work late nights and Saturday just to catch up. Not something I am prepared to do.  Earlier, I alluded to “negotiating” appointments.  Imagine you're in the market to buy a Rolls Royce car. (I said imagine). If you call the Rolls Royce dealership, you're going to have to negotiate a day and time. The “sales process” for buying a Rolls Royce is not your typical process. It's an experience.  You're not just buying a typical car. These days, you're buying a unique bespoke car. The salesperson you talk with will need time to go through all the panelling options, Exterior colours and interior seat fabrics, and even the type of material you want your dashboard made from.  The person you speak with when making your appointment, will negotiate a time to visit the showroom. That's part of the experience.  Now if you were in the market to buy a Ford, Toyota, Hyundai or VW, and call to make an appointment, you can name your day and time. The salespeople will very likely accept your first day and time.  Now which experience would leave you feeling special?  If you think about your readiness to accept any appointment at any time, what does that say about you?  Negotiating your appointments elevates your status in the mind of the person wishing to make an appointment with you. The harder it is to get an appointment with you, the more likely you will have a favourable outcome. It's the “you must be important if it's difficult to make an appointment with you”. Try getting an appointment with Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai or Satya Nadala. It's not that they don't do appointments, it's just they restrict the number of meetings they are available for each day and the meetings they do attend must count.  So, if you protect 9:30 to 11:00 am each morning, if someone wants to have a meeting with you during that time, you would say could we meet at 11:30 am instead? 9 times out of 10 your suggested time will be accepted. If not, the person wanting to meet you will likely suggest an alternative time.  If you cannot find a suitable time, then you will have to use your protected time. But with this strategy, it will be very rare that you need to do that.  I promise you, if you do this a few times, your confidence will rapidly improve and you will find that your focus time blocks will be protected.  The challenge we all face today is we feel we must be available at all times for whoever wants to communicate with us. If it's not Teams or Zooms calls, it's instant messages and email. The trick is to become less available.  Be like the Rolls Royce salesperson. Make getting an appointment with you part of the experience. If it's a little harder to get an appointment with you, the person you're meeting is going to be much more open to finding a solution with you there and then, instead of scheduling another meeting with you to “sort the details out”.  Ask yourself, what the worst that could happen if you “negotiate” with the person wanting to meet with you? The worst is they refuse your suggested time and insist you meet them at their preferred time. At that point you can accept.  Yet, I can promise you, the majority of people you negotiate times with will accept your time. The time they chose was completely random anyway. No matter who they are, your boss, your most important customer or whatever, they will thank you for taking the initiative and suggesting a time.  I will end with a recent example of this. I am in the process of changing my car as the lease on my current one is expiring in September. We called the dealership to arrange a test drive in a car I was interested in, and the sales manager informed us that this week they were fully booked up, but they had an opening on Thursday or Friday afternoon next week.  I was both impressed and relieved. Impressed because he did not jump at the chance and suggest we come down that afternoon or tomorrow. I had a sense of scarcity. Relieved because he took the decision for making the appointment out of our hands.  We arranged 1pm the following Thursday and when we arrived, the car was on the forecourt ready and waiting for us. A very impressive experience.  So, there you go, Karen. Don't be afraid to negotiate your appointments and meetings. Build confidence in negotiating interruptions from your team and protect sufficient time for getting your core work done.  Thank you for your question and and thank you to you too. It just remains for me to wish you all a very very productive week.   

In today's MadTech Daily, Judge Amit Mehta zooms in on generative AI in Google's antitrust case, the New York Times strikes an AI content licensing deal with Amazon, and the AI copyright clash in the UK intensifies.

CLICK HERE to join Alchemy - a month to month membership and includes all of my courses, access to our private summer Voxer group for coaching, and Zooms as well :) Resources Mentioned In This Episode: Order The Almost 30 Book Here: https://almost30.com/book Other You Do Woo Links: Connect with me on Instagram Here. Join the Free You Do Woo Tribe: https://ig.me/j/AbZULtQ0kzAEw61n/ Click here for your FREE Human Design Cheat Sheet Free Energy Center PDF: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/opt-in-1fac763d-f131-4a47-b359-e0131fba39ab 60 Minute Full Human Design Reading: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/human-design-reading FREE Timeline Jumping Workshop: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/offers/vQVEokXA Ways To Work With MeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cassidy Timbrooks joins Game of Roses to revisit her time on Season 26 of The Bachelor and reflect on her historic journey as the first player ever coached by BachelorClues. From DM'ing for help to weekly strategy Zooms, Cassidy walks through the casting process, the infamous toy car entrance, and the villain edit that defined her run. She reacts to key moments from the show—including the Hilary Duff date, cake drop, and poolside makeout—and shares what really happened behind the scenes.__Join the Pit on Patreon for more exclusive content and shows! : / gameofroses__Want coaching tips? email gameofrozes@gmail.com__Follow us on TikTok: @gameofrosesFollow us on Instagram-Game of Roses: @gameofrosespodPacecase: @pacecaseBachelor Clues: @bachelorclues Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bloomberg Businessweek brings you a smart and fun chat show about all things...business. Hosted by award-winning business and economics journalists Max Chafkin (author of The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power) and Stacey Vanek Smith (former co-host of NPR’s Planet Money and reporter for Marketplace), Everybody's Business is powered by the unparalleled sources and reporters who bring you Businessweek magazine’s headlines and the stories behind them. The show gives listeners a window into the discussions happening in boardrooms, Zooms and group chats in power centers around the world. From interpreting Fed meetings to the business of wolf cloning, each week Max, Stacey and their friends at Bloomberg Businessweek guide listeners through what really went on during the last week from Wall Street and Main Street. Because what’s happening with money and markets is everybody’s business. Listen here and subscribe to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

CLICK HERE to join Alchemy - a month to month membership and includes all of my courses, access to our private summer Voxer group for coaching, and Zooms as well :)Resources Mentioned In This Episode:Connect with Krista on IG Here: https://www.instagram.com/itskrista/Krista's Website: https://itskrista.comOrder The Almost 30 Book Here: https://almost30.com/bookOther You Do Woo Links:Connect with me on Instagram Here.Join the Free You Do Woo Tribe: https://ig.me/j/AbZULtQ0kzAEw61n/Click here for your FREE Human Design Cheat SheetFree Energy Center PDF: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/opt-in-1fac763d-f131-4a47-b359-e0131fba39ab60 Minute Full Human Design Reading: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/human-design-readingFREE Timeline Jumping Workshop: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/offers/vQVEokXAWays To Work With MeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Join the Free You Do Woo Tribe: https://ig.me/j/AbZULtQ0kzAEw61n/CLICK HERE to join Alchemy - a month to month membership and includes all of my courses, access to our private summer Voxer group for coaching, and Zooms as well :) Resources Mentioned In This Episode:Connect with Gabrielle on IG: https://www.instagram.com/aguaastrology/Gabrielle's Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/thespiritualsisterspodcast/Gabrielle's Offeringswww.aguaastrology.com https://aguaastrology.etsy.comhttps://aguaastrology.teachable.com/p/home-aguaastrology-teachable-comOther You Do Woo Links:Connect with me on Instagram Here. Click here for your FREE Human Design Cheat SheetFree Energy Center PDF: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/opt-in-1fac763d-f131-4a47-b359-e0131fba39ab60 Minute Full Human Design Reading: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/human-design-readingFREE Timeline Jumping Workshop: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/offers/vQVEokXAWays To Work With MeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When your podcast (or your business) no longer feels like you, it's time to change the vibe.In this super personal episode, I'm inviting you behind the scenes of my recent rebrand: from loud neon to soft granola, from performing to aligning, from what I thought would sell to what actually feels like home. If you've ever felt like your podcast or brand is wearing a costume, or like your content creation process feels heavy and inauthentic, this one's for you.In this episode, we're talking about:Why your podcast brand might feel misaligned, and how to know when it's time to change itThe difference between branding that looks good vs. branding that feels goodHow childhood trauma and people-pleasing can sneak into our aesthetic and content choicesWhat to do when your visuals, content, or clients no longer feel like a fitThe psychology of brand evolution, creative self-permission, and building something that holds future youThis episode is for you if:You've outgrown your podcast branding but feel scared to pivotYou're showing up online as a version of yourself that isn't quite real anymoreYou're tired of performing and ready to create from a place of truth and clarityYou want to make sure your podcast reflects who you are becoming, not just who you wereReady to rebrand your podcast? Start with these reflection prompts:What part of your brand feels heavy or disconnected?Where are you shrinking, diluting, or “performing” just to stay on brand?What would your podcast look like if you weren't worried about fitting in?When you start answering those questions with honesty, your next evolution starts to take shape.Want My Help with Your Podcast Rebrand? Whether you need clarity on your voice, alignment on your visuals, or support mapping out your next move—I've got you. My Day of Voxer service is the perfect space to unpack your vision and strategize your next chapter (no Zooms, no pressure).

CLICK HERE to join Alchemy - a month to month membership and includes all of my courses, access to our private summer Voxer group for coaching, and Zooms as well :) Free Prosperity Process Workshop when you join Alchemy: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/offers/WXZtUQSs/checkoutJoin the Free You Do Woo Tribe: https://ig.me/j/AbZULtQ0kzAEw61n/Shannon's Bio:As a former Registered Dietitian turned entrepreneur, I've dedicated my life to helping midlife women rediscover their energy, confidence, and purpose. Whether you're navigating hormonal changes, struggling to feel like yourself, or searching for your next chapter, I'm here to guide you toward a vibrant and fulfilling midlife. Through my Midlife Life Edit course, my Thriving to 50 and Beyond Journal, my clean living products, and our supportive Healthy Living Club, I help women create small daily habits that lead to lasting transformations. I'm passionate about nutrition self-care, clean beauty, and empowering women to take control of their health and happiness. As an empty-nester living in beautiful Southern California, I know first hand the challenges and opportunities midlife brings. When I'm not supporting women on their journey, you'll find me at the beach, traveling, hanging out my family or embracing the outdoors with a grateful heart.Resources Mentioned In This Episode:The book that I referenced is “Doing life with your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out” by Jim Burns. Connect with Shannon on IG: https://www.instagram.com/shannonblas/Shannon's Journal is Available on Amazon as well as on her website here: www.shannonblas.com. Other You Do Woo Links:Connect with me on Instagram Here. Click here for your FREE Human Design Cheat SheetFree Energy Center PDF: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/opt-in-1fac763d-f131-4a47-b359-e0131fba39ab60 Minute Full Human Design Reading: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/human-design-readingFREE Timeline Jumping Workshop: https://youdowoo.mykajabi.com/offers/vQVEokXAWays To Work With MeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Judicial Conduct Tribunal probing sexual harassments allegations levelled against Eastern Cape Judge President, Selby Mbenenge has just started to focus on new CCTV footage which has been brought forward. Mbenenge stands accused by his former secretary, Andiswa Mengo who alleges that she was harrassed by Judge President Mbenege via in-person interaction and electronic communication between June 2021 and November 2022. Sakina Kamwendo spoke to SABC Reporter, Canny Maphanga

Host: Jennifer BrownTOPICS: WIN zooms for the WIN!  Why Community Matters!

This episode is brought to you with the support of  our sponsor, NordVPN and Incogni. To get your special NordVPN disvcount visit www.nordvpn.com/spacetimeand your Incogni deal at www.incogni.com/spacetime. Both offers come with a 30 day money back guarantee! Support the show and check them out....recommended and used by the team here at SpaceTime.NASA's Lucy Mission, Neutrino Mass Breakthrough, and Martian Rock DiscoveriesIn this episode of SpaceTime, we dive into NASA's Lucy spacecraft as it prepares for a close flyby of the asteroid Donald Johanson, located in the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft will autonomously track and observe this 3km wide space rock, gathering crucial data that could shed light on its peculiar formation and geological history. This encounter serves as a vital rehearsal for Lucy's upcoming mission to explore Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, promising insights into the early solar system.A New Upper Limit for Neutrino MassNext, we discuss a groundbreaking study that has established a new upper limit for the mass of the elusive neutrino, now determined to be less than 0.45 electron volts. This significant finding not only narrows the particle's mass range but also challenges existing theories in particle physics, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the universe's fundamental forces.Intriguing Martian Richie OutcropsAdditionally, we explore the fascinating discoveries made by NASA's Mars Perseverance rover on the rim of Jezero Crater. The rover has uncovered a diverse array of rock types, providing a unique glimpse into Martian history and the planet's potential for past habitability. With multiple rock samples collected and analyzed, Perseverance continues to unveil the geological secrets of the Red Planet.00:00 Space Time Series 28 Episode 49 for broadcast on 23 April 202500:49 Lucy spacecraft's close encounter with asteroid Donald Johanson06:30 Insights into the asteroid's formation and geology12:15 New upper limit established for neutrino mass18:00 Implications for particle physics and the standard model22:45 Mars Perseverance rover's discoveries on Jezero Crater27:00 Summary of recent planetary exploration findings30:15 Science report: Weather extremes and lab-grown chicken nuggetswww.spacetimewithstuartgary.comwww.bitesz.com

We take a full hour of nothing but your phone calls and Zooms as people react to the transfer portal, and all kinds of SEC news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on Spooked! Cody keeps doubling down on Porky, Damien tries to reinvest in himself, and Bryn gives a down on his luck superstar a fresh start. It's all about financial misteps, so put it all on red, hit on 17, and get ready to get Spooked! Brought to you By: The Sonar Network https://thesonarnetwork.com/

This week on the podcast, I'm joined by Marie-Luise, a professional opera singer from Germany who made a bold move after doing 100 solo workouts that led nowhere.She had already been performing a major role- twice. The first time, she promised herself she'd get in better shape for the second round. So she trained consistently… but when she stepped into the costume again, it was still just as tight.That's when she reached out to me. We had spoken once in 2021 but never started. This time? She joined within three hours. And she's been going strong ever since.Marie-Louise doesn't attend live Zooms. She doesn't need reminders. She follows her custom BBM program solo and the transformation has been wild.In this episode, we talk about:Why she finally stopped trying to “figure it out” on her ownWhat changed when she started strength training with structureThe difference between being disciplined alone vs. being coachedHow her transformation is showing up not just in her body, but in her performance, her confidence, and her presence on stageWe also get into:Why her mom noticing the change might've been the biggest momentHow Marie-Louise went from avoiding free weights to owning her space in the gymWhat performers need to know about looking the part and feeling good in their bodyThis episode is for anyone who's been doing “everything right” but still not seeing results or who needs a reminder that the missing piece isn't effort, it's a plan made for you by a professional.Want to see what happens when you finally stop guessing and start training for real?Book a chat with me here:https://monikaamazur.as.me/CoffeeandGoals

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If you're in SF: Join us for the Claude Plays Pokemon hackathon this Sunday!If you're not: Fill out the 2025 State of AI Eng survey for $250 in Amazon cards!We are SO excited to share our conversation with Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot and creator of Agent.ai.A particularly compelling concept we discussed is the idea of "hybrid teams" - the next evolution in workplace organization where human workers collaborate with AI agents as team members. Just as we previously saw hybrid teams emerge in terms of full-time vs. contract workers, or in-office vs. remote workers, Dharmesh predicts that the next frontier will be teams composed of both human and AI members. This raises interesting questions about team dynamics, trust, and how to effectively delegate tasks between human and AI team members.The discussion of business models in AI reveals an important distinction between Work as a Service (WaaS) and Results as a Service (RaaS), something Dharmesh has written extensively about. While RaaS has gained popularity, particularly in customer support applications where outcomes are easily measurable, Dharmesh argues that this model may be over-indexed. Not all AI applications have clearly definable outcomes or consistent economic value per transaction, making WaaS more appropriate in many cases. This insight is particularly relevant for businesses considering how to monetize AI capabilities.The technical challenges of implementing effective agent systems are also explored, particularly around memory and authentication. Shah emphasizes the importance of cross-agent memory sharing and the need for more granular control over data access. He envisions a future where users can selectively share parts of their data with different agents, similar to how OAuth works but with much finer control. This points to significant opportunities in developing infrastructure for secure and efficient agent-to-agent communication and data sharing.Other highlights from our conversation* The Evolution of AI-Powered Agents – Exploring how AI agents have evolved from simple chatbots to sophisticated multi-agent systems, and the role of MCPs in enabling that.* Hybrid Digital Teams and the Future of Work – How AI agents are becoming teammates rather than just tools, and what this means for business operations and knowledge work.* Memory in AI Agents – The importance of persistent memory in AI systems and how shared memory across agents could enhance collaboration and efficiency.* Business Models for AI Agents – Exploring the shift from software as a service (SaaS) to work as a service (WaaS) and results as a service (RaaS), and what this means for monetization.* The Role of Standards Like MCP – Why MCP has been widely adopted and how it enables agent collaboration, tool use, and discovery.* The Future of AI Code Generation and Software Engineering – How AI-assisted coding is changing the role of software engineers and what skills will matter most in the future.* Domain Investing and Efficient Markets – Dharmesh's approach to domain investing and how inefficiencies in digital asset markets create business opportunities.* The Philosophy of Saying No – Lessons from "Sorry, You Must Pass" and how prioritization leads to greater productivity and focus.Timestamps* 00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome* 02:29 Dharmesh Shah's Journey into AI* 05:22 Defining AI Agents* 06:45 The Evolution and Future of AI Agents* 13:53 Graph Theory and Knowledge Representation* 20:02 Engineering Practices and Overengineering* 25:57 The Role of Junior Engineers in the AI Era* 28:20 Multi-Agent Systems and MCP Standards* 35:55 LinkedIn's Legal Battles and Data Scraping* 37:32 The Future of AI and Hybrid Teams* 39:19 Building Agent AI: A Professional Network for Agents* 40:43 Challenges and Innovations in Agent AI* 45:02 The Evolution of UI in AI Systems* 01:00:25 Business Models: Work as a Service vs. Results as a Service* 01:09:17 The Future Value of Engineers* 01:09:51 Exploring the Role of Agents* 01:10:28 The Importance of Memory in AI* 01:11:02 Challenges and Opportunities in AI Memory* 01:12:41 Selective Memory and Privacy Concerns* 01:13:27 The Evolution of AI Tools and Platforms* 01:18:23 Domain Names and AI Projects* 01:32:08 Balancing Work and Personal Life* 01:35:52 Final Thoughts and ReflectionsTranscriptAlessio [00:00:04]: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Latent Space podcast. This is Alessio, partner and CTO at Decibel Partners, and I'm joined by my co-host Swyx, founder of Small AI.swyx [00:00:12]: Hello, and today we're super excited to have Dharmesh Shah to join us. I guess your relevant title here is founder of Agent AI.Dharmesh [00:00:20]: Yeah, that's true for this. Yeah, creator of Agent.ai and co-founder of HubSpot.swyx [00:00:25]: Co-founder of HubSpot, which I followed for many years, I think 18 years now, gonna be 19 soon. And you caught, you know, people can catch up on your HubSpot story elsewhere. I should also thank Sean Puri, who I've chatted with back and forth, who's been, I guess, getting me in touch with your people. But also, I think like, just giving us a lot of context, because obviously, My First Million joined you guys, and they've been chatting with you guys a lot. So for the business side, we can talk about that, but I kind of wanted to engage your CTO, agent, engineer side of things. So how did you get agent religion?Dharmesh [00:01:00]: Let's see. So I've been working, I'll take like a half step back, a decade or so ago, even though actually more than that. So even before HubSpot, the company I was contemplating that I had named for was called Ingenisoft. And the idea behind Ingenisoft was a natural language interface to business software. Now realize this is 20 years ago, so that was a hard thing to do. But the actual use case that I had in mind was, you know, we had data sitting in business systems like a CRM or something like that. And my kind of what I thought clever at the time. Oh, what if we used email as the kind of interface to get to business software? And the motivation for using email is that it automatically works when you're offline. So imagine I'm getting on a plane or I'm on a plane. There was no internet on planes back then. It's like, oh, I'm going through business cards from an event I went to. I can just type things into an email just to have them all in the backlog. When it reconnects, it sends those emails to a processor that basically kind of parses effectively the commands and updates the software, sends you the file, whatever it is. And there was a handful of commands. I was a little bit ahead of the times in terms of what was actually possible. And I reattempted this natural language thing with a product called ChatSpot that I did back 20...swyx [00:02:12]: Yeah, this is your first post-ChatGPT project.Dharmesh [00:02:14]: I saw it come out. Yeah. And so I've always been kind of fascinated by this natural language interface to software. Because, you know, as software developers, myself included, we've always said, oh, we build intuitive, easy-to-use applications. And it's not intuitive at all, right? Because what we're doing is... We're taking the mental model that's in our head of what we're trying to accomplish with said piece of software and translating that into a series of touches and swipes and clicks and things like that. And there's nothing natural or intuitive about it. And so natural language interfaces, for the first time, you know, whatever the thought is you have in your head and expressed in whatever language that you normally use to talk to yourself in your head, you can just sort of emit that and have software do something. And I thought that was kind of a breakthrough, which it has been. And it's gone. So that's where I first started getting into the journey. I started because now it actually works, right? So once we got ChatGPT and you can take, even with a few-shot example, convert something into structured, even back in the ChatGP 3.5 days, it did a decent job in a few-shot example, convert something to structured text if you knew what kinds of intents you were going to have. And so that happened. And that ultimately became a HubSpot project. But then agents intrigued me because I'm like, okay, well, that's the next step here. So chat's great. Love Chat UX. But if we want to do something even more meaningful, it felt like the next kind of advancement is not this kind of, I'm chatting with some software in a kind of a synchronous back and forth model, is that software is going to do things for me in kind of a multi-step way to try and accomplish some goals. So, yeah, that's when I first got started. It's like, okay, what would that look like? Yeah. And I've been obsessed ever since, by the way.Alessio [00:03:55]: Which goes back to your first experience with it, which is like you're offline. Yeah. And you want to do a task. You don't need to do it right now. You just want to queue it up for somebody to do it for you. Yes. As you think about agents, like, let's start at the easy question, which is like, how do you define an agent? Maybe. You mean the hardest question in the universe? Is that what you mean?Dharmesh [00:04:12]: You said you have an irritating take. I do have an irritating take. I think, well, some number of people have been irritated, including within my own team. So I have a very broad definition for agents, which is it's AI-powered software that accomplishes a goal. Period. That's it. And what irritates people about it is like, well, that's so broad as to be completely non-useful. And I understand that. I understand the criticism. But in my mind, if you kind of fast forward months, I guess, in AI years, the implementation of it, and we're already starting to see this, and we'll talk about this, different kinds of agents, right? So I think in addition to having a usable definition, and I like yours, by the way, and we should talk more about that, that you just came out with, the classification of agents actually is also useful, which is, is it autonomous or non-autonomous? Does it have a deterministic workflow? Does it have a non-deterministic workflow? Is it working synchronously? Is it working asynchronously? Then you have the different kind of interaction modes. Is it a chat agent, kind of like a customer support agent would be? You're having this kind of back and forth. Is it a workflow agent that just does a discrete number of steps? So there's all these different flavors of agents. So if I were to draw it in a Venn diagram, I would draw a big circle that says, this is agents, and then I have a bunch of circles, some overlapping, because they're not mutually exclusive. And so I think that's what's interesting, and we're seeing development along a bunch of different paths, right? So if you look at the first implementation of agent frameworks, you look at Baby AGI and AutoGBT, I think it was, not Autogen, that's the Microsoft one. They were way ahead of their time because they assumed this level of reasoning and execution and planning capability that just did not exist, right? So it was an interesting thought experiment, which is what it was. Even the guy that, I'm an investor in Yohei's fund that did Baby AGI. It wasn't ready, but it was a sign of what was to come. And so the question then is, when is it ready? And so lots of people talk about the state of the art when it comes to agents. I'm a pragmatist, so I think of the state of the practical. It's like, okay, well, what can I actually build that has commercial value or solves actually some discrete problem with some baseline of repeatability or verifiability?swyx [00:06:22]: There was a lot, and very, very interesting. I'm not irritated by it at all. Okay. As you know, I take a... There's a lot of anthropological view or linguistics view. And in linguistics, you don't want to be prescriptive. You want to be descriptive. Yeah. So you're a goals guy. That's the key word in your thing. And other people have other definitions that might involve like delegated trust or non-deterministic work, LLM in the loop, all that stuff. The other thing I was thinking about, just the comment on Baby AGI, LGBT. Yeah. In that piece that you just read, I was able to go through our backlog and just kind of track the winter of agents and then the summer now. Yeah. And it's... We can tell the whole story as an oral history, just following that thread. And it's really just like, I think, I tried to explain the why now, right? Like I had, there's better models, of course. There's better tool use with like, they're just more reliable. Yep. Better tools with MCP and all that stuff. And I'm sure you have opinions on that too. Business model shift, which you like a lot. I just heard you talk about RAS with MFM guys. Yep. Cost is dropping a lot. Yep. Inference is getting faster. There's more model diversity. Yep. Yep. I think it's a subtle point. It means that like, you have different models with different perspectives. You don't get stuck in the basin of performance of a single model. Sure. You can just get out of it by just switching models. Yep. Multi-agent research and RL fine tuning. So I just wanted to let you respond to like any of that.Dharmesh [00:07:44]: Yeah. A couple of things. Connecting the dots on the kind of the definition side of it. So we'll get the irritation out of the way completely. I have one more, even more irritating leap on the agent definition thing. So here's the way I think about it. By the way, the kind of word agent, I looked it up, like the English dictionary definition. The old school agent, yeah. Is when you have someone or something that does something on your behalf, like a travel agent or a real estate agent acts on your behalf. It's like proxy, which is a nice kind of general definition. So the other direction I'm sort of headed, and it's going to tie back to tool calling and MCP and things like that, is if you, and I'm not a biologist by any stretch of the imagination, but we have these single-celled organisms, right? Like the simplest possible form of what one would call life. But it's still life. It just happens to be single-celled. And then you can combine cells and then cells become specialized over time. And you have much more sophisticated organisms, you know, kind of further down the spectrum. In my mind, at the most fundamental level, you can almost think of having atomic agents. What is the simplest possible thing that's an agent that can still be called an agent? What is the equivalent of a kind of single-celled organism? And the reason I think that's useful is right now we're headed down the road, which I think is very exciting around tool use, right? That says, okay, the LLMs now can be provided a set of tools that it calls to accomplish whatever it needs to accomplish in the kind of furtherance of whatever goal it's trying to get done. And I'm not overly bothered by it, but if you think about it, if you just squint a little bit and say, well, what if everything was an agent? And what if tools were actually just atomic agents? Because then it's turtles all the way down, right? Then it's like, oh, well, all that's really happening with tool use is that we have a network of agents that know about each other through something like an MMCP and can kind of decompose a particular problem and say, oh, I'm going to delegate this to this set of agents. And why do we need to draw this distinction between tools, which are functions most of the time? And an actual agent. And so I'm going to write this irritating LinkedIn post, you know, proposing this. It's like, okay. And I'm not suggesting we should call even functions, you know, call them agents. But there is a certain amount of elegance that happens when you say, oh, we can just reduce it down to one primitive, which is an agent that you can combine in complicated ways to kind of raise the level of abstraction and accomplish higher order goals. Anyway, that's my answer. I'd say that's a success. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk on agent definitions.Alessio [00:09:54]: How do you define the minimum viable agent? Do you already have a definition for, like, where you draw the line between a cell and an atom? Yeah.Dharmesh [00:10:02]: So in my mind, it has to, at some level, use AI in order for it to—otherwise, it's just software. It's like, you know, we don't need another word for that. And so that's probably where I draw the line. So then the question, you know, the counterargument would be, well, if that's true, then lots of tools themselves are actually not agents because they're just doing a database call or a REST API call or whatever it is they're doing. And that does not necessarily qualify them, which is a fair counterargument. And I accept that. It's like a good argument. I still like to think about—because we'll talk about multi-agent systems, because I think—so we've accepted, which I think is true, lots of people have said it, and you've hopefully combined some of those clips of really smart people saying this is the year of agents, and I completely agree, it is the year of agents. But then shortly after that, it's going to be the year of multi-agent systems or multi-agent networks. I think that's where it's going to be headed next year. Yeah.swyx [00:10:54]: Opening eyes already on that. Yeah. My quick philosophical engagement with you on this. I often think about kind of the other spectrum, the other end of the cell spectrum. So single cell is life, multi-cell is life, and you clump a bunch of cells together in a more complex organism, they become organs, like an eye and a liver or whatever. And then obviously we consider ourselves one life form. There's not like a lot of lives within me. I'm just one life. And now, obviously, I don't think people don't really like to anthropomorphize agents and AI. Yeah. But we are extending our consciousness and our brain and our functionality out into machines. I just saw you were a Bee. Yeah. Which is, you know, it's nice. I have a limitless pendant in my pocket.Dharmesh [00:11:37]: I got one of these boys. Yeah.swyx [00:11:39]: I'm testing it all out. You know, got to be early adopters. But like, we want to extend our personal memory into these things so that we can be good at the things that we're good at. And, you know, machines are good at it. Machines are there. So like, my definition of life is kind of like going outside of my own body now. I don't know if you've ever had like reflections on that. Like how yours. How our self is like actually being distributed outside of you. Yeah.Dharmesh [00:12:01]: I don't fancy myself a philosopher. But you went there. So yeah, I did go there. I'm fascinated by kind of graphs and graph theory and networks and have been for a long, long time. And to me, we're sort of all nodes in this kind of larger thing. It just so happens that we're looking at individual kind of life forms as they exist right now. But so the idea is when you put a podcast out there, there's these little kind of nodes you're putting out there of like, you know, conceptual ideas. Once again, you have varying kind of forms of those little nodes that are up there and are connected in varying and sundry ways. And so I just think of myself as being a node in a massive, massive network. And I'm producing more nodes as I put content or ideas. And, you know, you spend some portion of your life collecting dots, experiences, people, and some portion of your life then connecting dots from the ones that you've collected over time. And I found that really interesting things happen and you really can't know in advance how those dots are necessarily going to connect in the future. And that's, yeah. So that's my philosophical take. That's the, yes, exactly. Coming back.Alessio [00:13:04]: Yep. Do you like graph as an agent? Abstraction? That's been one of the hot topics with LandGraph and Pydantic and all that.Dharmesh [00:13:11]: I do. The thing I'm more interested in terms of use of graphs, and there's lots of work happening on that now, is graph data stores as an alternative in terms of knowledge stores and knowledge graphs. Yeah. Because, you know, so I've been in software now 30 plus years, right? So it's not 10,000 hours. It's like 100,000 hours that I've spent doing this stuff. And so I've grew up with, so back in the day, you know, I started on mainframes. There was a product called IMS from IBM, which is basically an index database, what we'd call like a key value store today. Then we've had relational databases, right? We have tables and columns and foreign key relationships. We all know that. We have document databases like MongoDB, which is sort of a nested structure keyed by a specific index. We have vector stores, vector embedding database. And graphs are interesting for a couple of reasons. One is, so it's not classically structured in a relational way. When you say structured database, to most people, they're thinking tables and columns and in relational database and set theory and all that. Graphs still have structure, but it's not the tables and columns structure. And you could wonder, and people have made this case, that they are a better representation of knowledge for LLMs and for AI generally than other things. So that's kind of thing number one conceptually, and that might be true, I think is possibly true. And the other thing that I really like about that in the context of, you know, I've been in the context of data stores for RAG is, you know, RAG, you say, oh, I have a million documents, I'm going to build the vector embeddings, I'm going to come back with the top X based on the semantic match, and that's fine. All that's very, very useful. But the reality is something gets lost in the chunking process and the, okay, well, those tend, you know, like, you don't really get the whole picture, so to speak, and maybe not even the right set of dimensions on the kind of broader picture. And it makes intuitive sense to me that if we did capture it properly in a graph form, that maybe that feeding into a RAG pipeline will actually yield better results for some use cases, I don't know, but yeah.Alessio [00:15:03]: And do you feel like at the core of it, there's this difference between imperative and declarative programs? Because if you think about HubSpot, it's like, you know, people and graph kind of goes hand in hand, you know, but I think maybe the software before was more like primary foreign key based relationship, versus now the models can traverse through the graph more easily.Dharmesh [00:15:22]: Yes. So I like that representation. There's something. It's just conceptually elegant about graphs and just from the representation of it, they're much more discoverable, you can kind of see it, there's observability to it, versus kind of embeddings, which you can't really do much with as a human. You know, once they're in there, you can't pull stuff back out. But yeah, I like that kind of idea of it. And the other thing that's kind of, because I love graphs, I've been long obsessed with PageRank from back in the early days. And, you know, one of the kind of simplest algorithms in terms of coming up, you know, with a phone, everyone's been exposed to PageRank. And the idea is that, and so I had this other idea for a project, not a company, and I have hundreds of these, called NodeRank, is to be able to take the idea of PageRank and apply it to an arbitrary graph that says, okay, I'm going to define what authority looks like and say, okay, well, that's interesting to me, because then if you say, I'm going to take my knowledge store, and maybe this person that contributed some number of chunks to the graph data store has more authority on this particular use case or prompt that's being submitted than this other one that may, or maybe this one was more. popular, or maybe this one has, whatever it is, there should be a way for us to kind of rank nodes in a graph and sort them in some, some useful way. Yeah.swyx [00:16:34]: So I think that's generally useful for, for anything. I think the, the problem, like, so even though at my conferences, GraphRag is super popular and people are getting knowledge, graph religion, and I will say like, it's getting space, getting traction in two areas, conversation memory, and then also just rag in general, like the, the, the document data. Yeah. It's like a source. Most ML practitioners would say that knowledge graph is kind of like a dirty word. The graph database, people get graph religion, everything's a graph, and then they, they go really hard into it and then they get a, they get a graph that is too complex to navigate. Yes. And so like the, the, the simple way to put it is like you at running HubSpot, you know, the power of graphs, the way that Google has pitched them for many years, but I don't suspect that HubSpot itself uses a knowledge graph. No. Yeah.Dharmesh [00:17:26]: So when is it over engineering? Basically? It's a great question. I don't know. So the question now, like in AI land, right, is the, do we necessarily need to understand? So right now, LLMs for, for the most part are somewhat black boxes, right? We sort of understand how the, you know, the algorithm itself works, but we really don't know what's going on in there and, and how things come out. So if a graph data store is able to produce the outcomes we want, it's like, here's a set of queries I want to be able to submit and then it comes out with useful content. Maybe the underlying data store is as opaque as a vector embeddings or something like that, but maybe it's fine. Maybe we don't necessarily need to understand it to get utility out of it. And so maybe if it's messy, that's okay. Um, that's, it's just another form of lossy compression. Uh, it's just lossy in a way that we just don't completely understand in terms of, because it's going to grow organically. Uh, and it's not structured. It's like, ah, we're just gonna throw a bunch of stuff in there. Let the, the equivalent of the embedding algorithm, whatever they called in graph land. Um, so the one with the best results wins. I think so. Yeah.swyx [00:18:26]: Or is this the practical side of me is like, yeah, it's, if it's useful, we don't necessarilyDharmesh [00:18:30]: need to understand it.swyx [00:18:30]: I have, I mean, I'm happy to push back as long as you want. Uh, it's not practical to evaluate like the 10 different options out there because it takes time. It takes people, it takes, you know, resources, right? Set. That's the first thing. Second thing is your evals are typically on small things and some things only work at scale. Yup. Like graphs. Yup.Dharmesh [00:18:46]: Yup. That's, yeah, no, that's fair. And I think this is one of the challenges in terms of implementation of graph databases is that the most common approach that I've seen developers do, I've done it myself, is that, oh, I've got a Postgres database or a MySQL or whatever. I can represent a graph with a very set of tables with a parent child thing or whatever. And that sort of gives me the ability, uh, why would I need anything more than that? And the answer is, well, if you don't need anything more than that, you don't need anything more than that. But there's a high chance that you're sort of missing out on the actual value that, uh, the graph representation gives you. Which is the ability to traverse the graph, uh, efficiently in ways that kind of going through the, uh, traversal in a relational database form, even though structurally you have the data, practically you're not gonna be able to pull it out in, in useful ways. Uh, so you wouldn't like represent a social graph, uh, in, in using that kind of relational table model. It just wouldn't scale. It wouldn't work.swyx [00:19:36]: Uh, yeah. Uh, I think we want to move on to MCP. Yeah. But I just want to, like, just engineering advice. Yeah. Uh, obviously you've, you've, you've run, uh, you've, you've had to do a lot of projects and run a lot of teams. Do you have a general rule for over-engineering or, you know, engineering ahead of time? You know, like, because people, we know premature engineering is the root of all evil. Yep. But also sometimes you just have to. Yep. When do you do it? Yes.Dharmesh [00:19:59]: It's a great question. This is, uh, a question as old as time almost, which is what's the right and wrong levels of abstraction. That's effectively what, uh, we're answering when we're trying to do engineering. I tend to be a pragmatist, right? So here's the thing. Um, lots of times doing something the right way. Yeah. It's like a marginal increased cost in those cases. Just do it the right way. And this is what makes a, uh, a great engineer or a good engineer better than, uh, a not so great one. It's like, okay, all things being equal. If it's going to take you, you know, roughly close to constant time anyway, might as well do it the right way. Like, so do things well, then the question is, okay, well, am I building a framework as the reusable library? To what degree, uh, what am I anticipating in terms of what's going to need to change in this thing? Uh, you know, along what dimension? And then I think like a business person in some ways, like what's the return on calories, right? So, uh, and you look at, um, energy, the expected value of it's like, okay, here are the five possible things that could happen, uh, try to assign probabilities like, okay, well, if there's a 50% chance that we're going to go down this particular path at some day, like, or one of these five things is going to happen and it costs you 10% more to engineer for that. It's basically, it's something that yields a kind of interest compounding value. Um, as you get closer to the time of, of needing that versus having to take on debt, which is when you under engineer it, you're taking on debt. You're going to have to pay off when you do get to that eventuality where something happens. One thing as a pragmatist, uh, so I would rather under engineer something than over engineer it. If I were going to err on the side of something, and here's the reason is that when you under engineer it, uh, yes, you take on tech debt, uh, but the interest rate is relatively known and payoff is very, very possible, right? Which is, oh, I took a shortcut here as a result of which now this thing that should have taken me a week is now going to take me four weeks. Fine. But if that particular thing that you thought might happen, never actually, you never have that use case transpire or just doesn't, it's like, well, you just save yourself time, right? And that has value because you were able to do other things instead of, uh, kind of slightly over-engineering it away, over-engineering it. But there's no perfect answers in art form in terms of, uh, and yeah, we'll, we'll bring kind of this layers of abstraction back on the code generation conversation, which we'll, uh, I think I have later on, butAlessio [00:22:05]: I was going to ask, we can just jump ahead quickly. Yeah. Like, as you think about vibe coding and all that, how does the. Yeah. Percentage of potential usefulness change when I feel like we over-engineering a lot of times it's like the investment in syntax, it's less about the investment in like arc exacting. Yep. Yeah. How does that change your calculus?Dharmesh [00:22:22]: A couple of things, right? One is, um, so, you know, going back to that kind of ROI or a return on calories, kind of calculus or heuristic you think through, it's like, okay, well, what is it going to cost me to put this layer of abstraction above the code that I'm writing now, uh, in anticipating kind of future needs. If the cost of fixing, uh, or doing under engineering right now. Uh, we'll trend towards zero that says, okay, well, I don't have to get it right right now because even if I get it wrong, I'll run the thing for six hours instead of 60 minutes or whatever. It doesn't really matter, right? Like, because that's going to trend towards zero to be able, the ability to refactor a code. Um, and because we're going to not that long from now, we're going to have, you know, large code bases be able to exist, uh, you know, as, as context, uh, for a code generation or a code refactoring, uh, model. So I think it's going to make it, uh, make the case for under engineering, uh, even stronger. Which is why I take on that cost. You just pay the interest when you get there, it's not, um, just go on with your life vibe coded and, uh, come back when you need to. Yeah.Alessio [00:23:18]: Sometimes I feel like there's no decision-making in some things like, uh, today I built a autosave for like our internal notes platform and I literally just ask them cursor. Can you add autosave? Yeah. I don't know if it's over under engineer. Yep. I just vibe coded it. Yep. And I feel like at some point we're going to get to the point where the models kindDharmesh [00:23:36]: of decide where the right line is, but this is where the, like the, in my mind, the danger is, right? So there's two sides to this. One is the cost of kind of development and coding and things like that stuff that, you know, we talk about. But then like in your example, you know, one of the risks that we have is that because adding a feature, uh, like a save or whatever the feature might be to a product as that price tends towards zero, are we going to be less discriminant about what features we add as a result of making more product products more complicated, which has a negative impact on the user and navigate negative impact on the business. Um, and so that's the thing I worry about if it starts to become too easy, are we going to be. Too promiscuous in our, uh, kind of extension, adding product extensions and things like that. It's like, ah, why not add X, Y, Z or whatever back then it was like, oh, we only have so many engineering hours or story points or however you measure things. Uh, that least kept us in check a little bit. Yeah.Alessio [00:24:22]: And then over engineering, you're like, yeah, it's kind of like you're putting that on yourself. Yeah. Like now it's like the models don't understand that if they add too much complexity, it's going to come back to bite them later. Yep. So they just do whatever they want to do. Yeah. And I'm curious where in the workflow that's going to be, where it's like, Hey, this is like the amount of complexity and over-engineering you can do before you got to ask me if we should actually do it versus like do something else.Dharmesh [00:24:45]: So you know, we've already, let's like, we're leaving this, uh, in the code generation world, this kind of compressed, um, cycle time. Right. It's like, okay, we went from auto-complete, uh, in the GitHub co-pilot to like, oh, finish this particular thing and hit tab to a, oh, I sort of know your file or whatever. I can write out a full function to you to now I can like hold a bunch of the context in my head. Uh, so we can do app generation, which we have now with lovable and bolt and repletage. Yeah. Association and other things. So then the question is, okay, well, where does it naturally go from here? So we're going to generate products. Make sense. We might be able to generate platforms as though I want a platform for ERP that does this, whatever. And that includes the API's includes the product and the UI, and all the things that make for a platform. There's no nothing that says we would stop like, okay, can you generate an entire software company someday? Right. Uh, with the platform and the monetization and the go-to-market and the whatever. And you know, that that's interesting to me in terms of, uh, you know, what, when you take it to almost ludicrous levels. of abstract.swyx [00:25:39]: It's like, okay, turn it to 11. You mentioned vibe coding, so I have to, this is a blog post I haven't written, but I'm kind of exploring it. Is the junior engineer dead?Dharmesh [00:25:49]: I don't think so. I think what will happen is that the junior engineer will be able to, if all they're bringing to the table is the fact that they are a junior engineer, then yes, they're likely dead. But hopefully if they can communicate with carbon-based life forms, they can interact with product, if they're willing to talk to customers, they can take their kind of basic understanding of engineering and how kind of software works. I think that has value. So I have a 14-year-old right now who's taking Python programming class, and some people ask me, it's like, why is he learning coding? And my answer is, is because it's not about the syntax, it's not about the coding. What he's learning is like the fundamental thing of like how things work. And there's value in that. I think there's going to be timeless value in systems thinking and abstractions and what that means. And whether functions manifested as math, which he's going to get exposed to regardless, or there are some core primitives to the universe, I think, that the more you understand them, those are what I would kind of think of as like really large dots in your life that will have a higher gravitational pull and value to them that you'll then be able to. So I want him to collect those dots, and he's not resisting. So it's like, okay, while he's still listening to me, I'm going to have him do things that I think will be useful.swyx [00:26:59]: You know, part of one of the pitches that I evaluated for AI engineer is a term. And the term is that maybe the traditional interview path or career path of software engineer goes away, which is because what's the point of lead code? Yeah. And, you know, it actually matters more that you know how to work with AI and to implement the things that you want. Yep.Dharmesh [00:27:16]: That's one of the like interesting things that's happened with generative AI. You know, you go from machine learning and the models and just that underlying form, which is like true engineering, right? Like the actual, what I call real engineering. I don't think of myself as a real engineer, actually. I'm a developer. But now with generative AI. We call it AI and it's obviously got its roots in machine learning, but it just feels like fundamentally different to me. Like you have the vibe. It's like, okay, well, this is just a whole different approach to software development to so many different things. And so I'm wondering now, it's like an AI engineer is like, if you were like to draw the Venn diagram, it's interesting because the cross between like AI things, generative AI and what the tools are capable of, what the models do, and this whole new kind of body of knowledge that we're still building out, it's still very young, intersected with kind of classic engineering, software engineering. Yeah.swyx [00:28:04]: I just described the overlap as it separates out eventually until it's its own thing, but it's starting out as a software. Yeah.Alessio [00:28:11]: That makes sense. So to close the vibe coding loop, the other big hype now is MCPs. Obviously, I would say Cloud Desktop and Cursor are like the two main drivers of MCP usage. I would say my favorite is the Sentry MCP. I can pull in errors and then you can just put the context in Cursor. How do you think about that abstraction layer? Does it feel... Does it feel almost too magical in a way? Do you think it's like you get enough? Because you don't really see how the server itself is then kind of like repackaging theDharmesh [00:28:41]: information for you? I think MCP as a standard is one of the better things that's happened in the world of AI because a standard needed to exist and absent a standard, there was a set of things that just weren't possible. Now, we can argue whether it's the best possible manifestation of a standard or not. Does it do too much? Does it do too little? I get that, but it's just simple enough to both be useful and unobtrusive. It's understandable and adoptable by mere mortals, right? It's not overly complicated. You know, a reasonable engineer can put a stand up an MCP server relatively easily. The thing that has me excited about it is like, so I'm a big believer in multi-agent systems. And so that's going back to our kind of this idea of an atomic agent. So imagine the MCP server, like obviously it calls tools, but the way I think about it, so I'm working on my current passion project is agent.ai. And we'll talk more about that in a little bit. More about the, I think we should, because I think it's interesting not to promote the project at all, but there's some interesting ideas in there. One of which is around, we're going to need a mechanism for, if agents are going to collaborate and be able to delegate, there's going to need to be some form of discovery and we're going to need some standard way. It's like, okay, well, I just need to know what this thing over here is capable of. We're going to need a registry, which Anthropic's working on. I'm sure others will and have been doing directories of, and there's going to be a standard around that too. How do you build out a directory of MCP servers? I think that's going to unlock so many things just because, and we're already starting to see it. So I think MCP or something like it is going to be the next major unlock because it allows systems that don't know about each other, don't need to, it's that kind of decoupling of like Sentry and whatever tools someone else was building. And it's not just about, you know, Cloud Desktop or things like, even on the client side, I think we're going to see very interesting consumers of MCP, MCP clients versus just the chat body kind of things. Like, you know, Cloud Desktop and Cursor and things like that. But yeah, I'm very excited about MCP in that general direction.swyx [00:30:39]: I think the typical cynical developer take, it's like, we have OpenAPI. Yeah. What's the new thing? I don't know if you have a, do you have a quick MCP versus everything else? Yeah.Dharmesh [00:30:49]: So it's, so I like OpenAPI, right? So just a descriptive thing. It's OpenAPI. OpenAPI. Yes, that's what I meant. So it's basically a self-documenting thing. We can do machine-generated, lots of things from that output. It's a structured definition of an API. I get that, love it. But MCPs sort of are kind of use case specific. They're perfect for exactly what we're trying to use them for around LLMs in terms of discovery. It's like, okay, I don't necessarily need to know kind of all this detail. And so right now we have, we'll talk more about like MCP server implementations, but We will? I think, I don't know. Maybe we won't. At least it's in my head. It's like a back processor. But I do think MCP adds value above OpenAPI. It's, yeah, just because it solves this particular thing. And if we had come to the world, which we have, like, it's like, hey, we already have OpenAPI. It's like, if that were good enough for the universe, the universe would have adopted it already. There's a reason why MCP is taking office because marginally adds something that was missing before and doesn't go too far. And so that's why the kind of rate of adoption, you folks have written about this and talked about it. Yeah, why MCP won. Yeah. And it won because the universe decided that this was useful and maybe it gets supplanted by something else. Yeah. And maybe we discover, oh, maybe OpenAPI was good enough the whole time. I doubt that.swyx [00:32:09]: The meta lesson, this is, I mean, he's an investor in DevTools companies. I work in developer experience at DevRel in DevTools companies. Yep. Everyone wants to own the standard. Yeah. I'm sure you guys have tried to launch your own standards. Actually, it's Houseplant known for a standard, you know, obviously inbound marketing. But is there a standard or protocol that you ever tried to push? No.Dharmesh [00:32:30]: And there's a reason for this. Yeah. Is that? And I don't mean, need to mean, speak for the people of HubSpot, but I personally. You kind of do. I'm not smart enough. That's not the, like, I think I have a. You're smart. Not enough for that. I'm much better off understanding the standards that are out there. And I'm more on the composability side. Let's, like, take the pieces of technology that exist out there, combine them in creative, unique ways. And I like to consume standards. I don't like to, and that's not that I don't like to create them. I just don't think I have the, both the raw wattage or the credibility. It's like, okay, well, who the heck is Dharmesh, and why should we adopt a standard he created?swyx [00:33:07]: Yeah, I mean, there are people who don't monetize standards, like OpenTelemetry is a big standard, and LightStep never capitalized on that.Dharmesh [00:33:15]: So, okay, so if I were to do a standard, there's two things that have been in my head in the past. I was one around, a very, very basic one around, I don't even have the domain, I have a domain for everything, for open marketing. Because the issue we had in HubSpot grew up in the marketing space. There we go. There was no standard around data formats and things like that. It doesn't go anywhere. But the other one, and I did not mean to go here, but I'm going to go here. It's called OpenGraph. I know the term was already taken, but it hasn't been used for like 15 years now for its original purpose. But what I think should exist in the world is right now, our information, all of us, nodes are in the social graph at Meta or the professional graph at LinkedIn. Both of which are actually relatively closed in actually very annoying ways. Like very, very closed, right? Especially LinkedIn. Especially LinkedIn. I personally believe that if it's my data, and if I would get utility out of it being open, I should be able to make my data open or publish it in whatever forms that I choose, as long as I have control over it as opt-in. So the idea is around OpenGraph that says, here's a standard, here's a way to publish it. I should be able to go to OpenGraph.org slash Dharmesh dot JSON and get it back. And it's like, here's your stuff, right? And I can choose along the way and people can write to it and I can prove. And there can be an entire system. And if I were to do that, I would do it as a... Like a public benefit, non-profit-y kind of thing, as this is a contribution to society. I wouldn't try to commercialize that. Have you looked at AdProto? What's that? AdProto.swyx [00:34:43]: It's the protocol behind Blue Sky. Okay. My good friend, Dan Abramov, who was the face of React for many, many years, now works there. And he actually did a talk that I can send you, which basically kind of tries to articulate what you just said. But he does, he loves doing these like really great analogies, which I think you'll like. Like, you know, a lot of our data is behind a handle, behind a domain. Yep. So he's like, all right, what if we flip that? What if it was like our handle and then the domain? Yep. So, and that's really like your data should belong to you. Yep. And I should not have to wait 30 days for my Twitter data to export. Yep.Dharmesh [00:35:19]: you should be able to at least be able to automate it or do like, yes, I should be able to plug it into an agentic thing. Yeah. Yes. I think we're... Because so much of our data is... Locked up. I think the trick here isn't that standard. It is getting the normies to care.swyx [00:35:37]: Yeah. Because normies don't care.Dharmesh [00:35:38]: That's true. But building on that, normies don't care. So, you know, privacy is a really hot topic and an easy word to use, but it's not a binary thing. Like there are use cases where, and we make these choices all the time, that I will trade, not all privacy, but I will trade some privacy for some productivity gain or some benefit to me that says, oh, I don't care about that particular data being online if it gives me this in return, or I don't mind sharing this information with this company.Alessio [00:36:02]: If I'm getting, you know, this in return, but that sort of should be my option. I think now with computer use, you can actually automate some of the exports. Yes. Like something we've been doing internally is like everybody exports their LinkedIn connections. Yep. And then internally, we kind of merge them together to see how we can connect our companies to customers or things like that.Dharmesh [00:36:21]: And not to pick on LinkedIn, but since we're talking about it, but they feel strongly enough on the, you know, do not take LinkedIn data that they will block even browser use kind of things or whatever. They go to great, great lengths, even to see patterns of usage. And it says, oh, there's no way you could have, you know, gotten that particular thing or whatever without, and it's, so it's, there's...swyx [00:36:42]: Wasn't there a Supreme Court case that they lost? Yeah.Dharmesh [00:36:45]: So the one they lost was around someone that was scraping public data that was on the public internet. And that particular company had not signed any terms of service or whatever. It's like, oh, I'm just taking data that's on, there was no, and so that's why they won. But now, you know, the question is around, can LinkedIn... I think they can. Like, when you use, as a user, you use LinkedIn, you are signing up for their terms of service. And if they say, well, this kind of use of your LinkedIn account that violates our terms of service, they can shut your account down, right? They can. And they, yeah, so, you know, we don't need to make this a discussion. By the way, I love the company, don't get me wrong. I'm an avid user of the product. You know, I've got... Yeah, I mean, you've got over a million followers on LinkedIn, I think. Yeah, I do. And I've known people there for a long, long time, right? And I have lots of respect. And I understand even where the mindset originally came from of this kind of members-first approach to, you know, a privacy-first. I sort of get that. But sometimes you sort of have to wonder, it's like, okay, well, that was 15, 20 years ago. There's likely some controlled ways to expose some data on some member's behalf and not just completely be a binary. It's like, no, thou shalt not have the data.swyx [00:37:54]: Well, just pay for sales navigator.Alessio [00:37:57]: Before we move to the next layer of instruction, anything else on MCP you mentioned? Let's move back and then I'll tie it back to MCPs.Dharmesh [00:38:05]: So I think the... Open this with agent. Okay, so I'll start with... Here's my kind of running thesis, is that as AI and agents evolve, which they're doing very, very quickly, we're going to look at them more and more. I don't like to anthropomorphize. We'll talk about why this is not that. Less as just like raw tools and more like teammates. They'll still be software. They should self-disclose as being software. I'm totally cool with that. But I think what's going to happen is that in the same way you might collaborate with a team member on Slack or Teams or whatever you use, you can imagine a series of agents that do specific things just like a team member might do, that you can delegate things to. You can collaborate. You can say, hey, can you take a look at this? Can you proofread that? Can you try this? You can... Whatever it happens to be. So I think it is... I will go so far as to say it's inevitable that we're going to have hybrid teams someday. And what I mean by hybrid teams... So back in the day, hybrid teams were, oh, well, you have some full-time employees and some contractors. Then it was like hybrid teams are some people that are in the office and some that are remote. That's the kind of form of hybrid. The next form of hybrid is like the carbon-based life forms and agents and AI and some form of software. So let's say we temporarily stipulate that I'm right about that over some time horizon that eventually we're going to have these kind of digitally hybrid teams. So if that's true, then the question you sort of ask yourself is that then what needs to exist in order for us to get the full value of that new model? It's like, okay, well... You sort of need to... It's like, okay, well, how do I... If I'm building a digital team, like, how do I... Just in the same way, if I'm interviewing for an engineer or a designer or a PM, whatever, it's like, well, that's why we have professional networks, right? It's like, oh, they have a presence on likely LinkedIn. I can go through that semi-structured, structured form, and I can see the experience of whatever, you know, self-disclosed. But, okay, well, agents are going to need that someday. And so I'm like, okay, well, this seems like a thread that's worth pulling on. That says, okay. So I... So agent.ai is out there. And it's LinkedIn for agents. It's LinkedIn for agents. It's a professional network for agents. And the more I pull on that thread, it's like, okay, well, if that's true, like, what happens, right? It's like, oh, well, they have a profile just like anyone else, just like a human would. It's going to be a graph underneath, just like a professional network would be. It's just that... And you can have its, you know, connections and follows, and agents should be able to post. That's maybe how they do release notes. Like, oh, I have this new version. Whatever they decide to post, it should just be able to... Behave as a node on the network of a professional network. As it turns out, the more I think about that and pull on that thread, the more and more things, like, start to make sense to me. So it may be more than just a pure professional network. So my original thought was, okay, well, it's a professional network and agents as they exist out there, which I think there's going to be more and more of, will kind of exist on this network and have the profile. But then, and this is always dangerous, I'm like, okay, I want to see a world where thousands of agents are out there in order for the... Because those digital employees, the digital workers don't exist yet in any meaningful way. And so then I'm like, oh, can I make that easier for, like... And so I have, as one does, it's like, oh, I'll build a low-code platform for building agents. How hard could that be, right? Like, very hard, as it turns out. But it's been fun. So now, agent.ai has 1.3 million users. 3,000 people have actually, you know, built some variation of an agent, sometimes just for their own personal productivity. About 1,000 of which have been published. And the reason this comes back to MCP for me, so imagine that and other networks, since I know agent.ai. So right now, we have an MCP server for agent.ai that exposes all the internally built agents that we have that do, like, super useful things. Like, you know, I have access to a Twitter API that I can subsidize the cost. And I can say, you know, if you're looking to build something for social media, these kinds of things, with a single API key, and it's all completely free right now, I'm funding it. That's a useful way for it to work. And then we have a developer to say, oh, I have this idea. I don't have to worry about open AI. I don't have to worry about, now, you know, this particular model is better. It has access to all the models with one key. And we proxy it kind of behind the scenes. And then expose it. So then we get this kind of community effect, right? That says, oh, well, someone else may have built an agent to do X. Like, I have an agent right now that I built for myself to do domain valuation for website domains because I'm obsessed with domains, right? And, like, there's no efficient market for domains. There's no Zillow for domains right now that tells you, oh, here are what houses in your neighborhood sold for. It's like, well, why doesn't that exist? We should be able to solve that problem. And, yes, you're still guessing. Fine. There should be some simple heuristic. So I built that. It's like, okay, well, let me go look for past transactions. You say, okay, I'm going to type in agent.ai, agent.com, whatever domain. What's it actually worth? I'm looking at buying it. It can go and say, oh, which is what it does. It's like, I'm going to go look at are there any published domain transactions recently that are similar, either use the same word, same top-level domain, whatever it is. And it comes back with an approximate value, and it comes back with its kind of rationale for why it picked the value and comparable transactions. Oh, by the way, this domain sold for published. Okay. So that agent now, let's say, existed on the web, on agent.ai. Then imagine someone else says, oh, you know, I want to build a brand-building agent for startups and entrepreneurs to come up with names for their startup. Like a common problem, every startup is like, ah, I don't know what to call it. And so they type in five random words that kind of define whatever their startup is. And you can do all manner of things, one of which is like, oh, well, I need to find the domain for it. What are possible choices? Now it's like, okay, well, it would be nice to know if there's an aftermarket price for it, if it's listed for sale. Awesome. Then imagine calling this valuation agent. It's like, okay, well, I want to find where the arbitrage is, where the agent valuation tool says this thing is worth $25,000. It's listed on GoDaddy for $5,000. It's close enough. Let's go do that. Right? And that's a kind of composition use case that in my future state. Thousands of agents on the network, all discoverable through something like MCP. And then you as a developer of agents have access to all these kind of Lego building blocks based on what you're trying to solve. Then you blend in orchestration, which is getting better and better with the reasoning models now. Just describe the problem that you have. Now, the next layer that we're all contending with is that how many tools can you actually give an LLM before the LLM breaks? That number used to be like 15 or 20 before you kind of started to vary dramatically. And so that's the thing I'm thinking about now. It's like, okay, if I want to... If I want to expose 1,000 of these agents to a given LLM, obviously I can't give it all 1,000. Is there some intermediate layer that says, based on your prompt, I'm going to make a best guess at which agents might be able to be helpful for this particular thing? Yeah.Alessio [00:44:37]: Yeah, like RAG for tools. Yep. I did build the Latent Space Researcher on agent.ai. Okay. Nice. Yeah, that seems like, you know, then there's going to be a Latent Space Scheduler. And then once I schedule a research, you know, and you build all of these things. By the way, my apologies for the user experience. You realize I'm an engineer. It's pretty good.swyx [00:44:56]: I think it's a normie-friendly thing. Yeah. That's your magic. HubSpot does the same thing.Alessio [00:45:01]: Yeah, just to like quickly run through it. You can basically create all these different steps. And these steps are like, you know, static versus like variable-driven things. How did you decide between this kind of like low-code-ish versus doing, you know, low-code with code backend versus like not exposing that at all? Any fun design decisions? Yeah. And this is, I think...Dharmesh [00:45:22]: I think lots of people are likely sitting in exactly my position right now, coming through the choosing between deterministic. Like if you're like in a business or building, you know, some sort of agentic thing, do you decide to do a deterministic thing? Or do you go non-deterministic and just let the alum handle it, right, with the reasoning models? The original idea and the reason I took the low-code stepwise, a very deterministic approach. A, the reasoning models did not exist at that time. That's thing number one. Thing number two is if you can get... If you know in your head... If you know in your head what the actual steps are to accomplish whatever goal, why would you leave that to chance? There's no upside. There's literally no upside. Just tell me, like, what steps do you need executed? So right now what I'm playing with... So one thing we haven't talked about yet, and people don't talk about UI and agents. Right now, the primary interaction model... Or they don't talk enough about it. I know some people have. But it's like, okay, so we're used to the chatbot back and forth. Fine. I get that. But I think we're going to move to a blend of... Some of those things are going to be synchronous as they are now. But some are going to be... Some are going to be async. It's just going to put it in a queue, just like... And this goes back to my... Man, I talk fast. But I have this... I only have one other speed. It's even faster. So imagine it's like if you're working... So back to my, oh, we're going to have these hybrid digital teams. Like, you would not go to a co-worker and say, I'm going to ask you to do this thing, and then sit there and wait for them to go do it. Like, that's not how the world works. So it's nice to be able to just, like, hand something off to someone. It's like, okay, well, maybe I expect a response in an hour or a day or something like that.Dharmesh [00:46:52]: In terms of when things need to happen. So the UI around agents. So if you look at the output of agent.ai agents right now, they are the simplest possible manifestation of a UI, right? That says, oh, we have inputs of, like, four different types. Like, we've got a dropdown, we've got multi-select, all the things. It's like back in HTML, the original HTML 1.0 days, right? Like, you're the smallest possible set of primitives for a UI. And it just says, okay, because we need to collect some information from the user, and then we go do steps and do things. And generate some output in HTML or markup are the two primary examples. So the thing I've been asking myself, if I keep going down that path. So people ask me, I get requests all the time. It's like, oh, can you make the UI sort of boring? I need to be able to do this, right? And if I keep pulling on that, it's like, okay, well, now I've built an entire UI builder thing. Where does this end? And so I think the right answer, and this is what I'm going to be backcoding once I get done here, is around injecting a code generation UI generation into, the agent.ai flow, right? As a builder, you're like, okay, I'm going to describe the thing that I want, much like you would do in a vibe coding world. But instead of generating the entire app, it's going to generate the UI that exists at some point in either that deterministic flow or something like that. It says, oh, here's the thing I'm trying to do. Go generate the UI for me. And I can go through some iterations. And what I think of it as a, so it's like, I'm going to generate the code, generate the code, tweak it, go through this kind of prompt style, like we do with vibe coding now. And at some point, I'm going to be happy with it. And I'm going to hit save. And that's going to become the action in that particular step. It's like a caching of the generated code that I can then, like incur any inference time costs. It's just the actual code at that point.Alessio [00:48:29]: Yeah, I invested in a company called E2B, which does code sandbox. And they powered the LM arena web arena. So it's basically the, just like you do LMS, like text to text, they do the same for like UI generation. So if you're asking a model, how do you do it? But yeah, I think that's kind of where.Dharmesh [00:48:45]: That's the thing I'm really fascinated by. So the early LLM, you know, we're understandably, but laughably bad at simple arithmetic, right? That's the thing like my wife, Normies would ask us, like, you call this AI, like it can't, my son would be like, it's just stupid. It can't even do like simple arithmetic. And then like we've discovered over time that, and there's a reason for this, right? It's like, it's a large, there's, you know, the word language is in there for a reason in terms of what it's been trained on. It's not meant to do math, but now it's like, okay, well, the fact that it has access to a Python interpreter that I can actually call at runtime, that solves an entire body of problems that it wasn't trained to do. And it's basically a form of delegation. And so the thought that's kind of rattling around in my head is that that's great. So it's, it's like took the arithmetic problem and took it first. Now, like anything that's solvable through a relatively concrete Python program, it's able to do a bunch of things that I couldn't do before. Can we get to the same place with UI? I don't know what the future of UI looks like in a agentic AI world, but maybe let the LLM handle it, but not in the classic sense. Maybe it generates it on the fly, or maybe we go through some iterations and hit cache or something like that. So it's a little bit more predictable. Uh, I don't know, but yeah.Alessio [00:49:48]: And especially when is the human supposed to intervene? So, especially if you're composing them, most of them should not have a UI because then they're just web hooking to somewhere else. I just want to touch back. I don't know if you have more comments on this.swyx [00:50:01]: I was just going to ask when you, you said you got, you're going to go back to code. What

Tech reporter Ben Brody brings you behind the scenes of a Zoom call with Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission who were fired by President Donald Trump this past week, and other key figures from the Biden-era tech antitrust world. This story was featured in The Readback, our weekend digest featuring the best of Punchbowl News this week. Want more in-depth daily coverage from Congress? Subscribe to our free Punchbowl News AM newsletter at punchbowl.news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 544: Neal and Kyle discuss 2 EV makers going in opposite directions as BYD claims it can charge as fast as 5mins while Tesla continues to struggle. Then, Trump's executive order to dismantle the Department of Education leaves student loans in the air. Plus, the Boston Celtics sold for $6.1B, making it the biggest sale of a team in US history. Meanwhile, Disney's remake of ‘Snow White' comes to theaters, but not without a ton of baggage. Finally, this year's list of the world's happiest countries…and no surprise that No. 1 is a Nordic country. Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Learn more at sophos.com Get your MBD mug here: https://shop.morningbrew.com/products/morning-brew-daily-mug  Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What went down in New Orleans with the Real Housewives of Orange County cast trip? Is Tamra really leaving Housewives? Atlanta is back and we're seated. Porsha is back and shares a little about why she filed for divorce from Simon Guobadia. Shamea, her ride or die, now has a peach and we think she's going to have a breakout season. The new cast members are spicy and have a lot going on...and is Drew getting too close for comfort with Dennis, Porsha's ex-husband and father of their daughter? The Valley trailer dropped and it's looking just as chaotic as we expected given the behind the scenes tea that we've been sharing. Summer House's Danielle: Is she just a mean girl?   If you haven't joined Cocktail Party, now is the time! You can access ALL of the previous exclusive Cocktail Party posts and bonus podcasts dating back to November of 2022! And of course, you'll get a front seat to all the developing tea as it comes out plus our exclusive Discord channel plus our notorious monthly Zooms where everything that happens in the Zoom stays in the Zoom. Go to bravoandcocktails.com/join and use code WSWWS2025 to get your first month for $5!

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Shivani Honwad – founder of her own law firm, who specializes in immigration and business law for the creative industries.  Shivani is a business and immigration lawyer, and trailblazer in supporting the Freelance and Free Act, as well as a professor at NYU LA campus teaching Entrepreneurship for creatives.  “I could not keep hearing it and not do anything about it” Shivani says, speaking about immigration as a major issue for freelance fashion workers.  Shivani set out to get smarter. Ten 10 years later, The Law Firm of Shivani Honwad, LLC, focuses primarily on immigration and business law for companies in the fashion, tech, beauty and entertainment realms. You can find out more about Shivani at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivani-honwad- http://www.shivanilaw.com Find some of my guest's content here : Laws “the freelance and free act” https://www.nyc.gov/site/dca/about/freelance-isnt-free-act.page     Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:18 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. This is a monthly podcast in which I reach entrepreneurs, business owners, who are going to learn about building resilient, purpose-driven, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. 01:38 I like to assist the entrepreneurs in building these scalable, well-governed and resilient business. And what I do with my guests is they tell their origin story about how they've built their own practices. And we'll get to the origin story of my guest this month, Shivani Honwad. Shivani and I have known each other for many years. She was bi-coastal in New York and Los Angeles. We met actually in the Los Angeles. 02:06 Los Angeles Venture Association, LAVA. It has a women affinity group. And she was eagerly contributing to some of the material and programs that we put on for women business owners, actually startups in the LA ecosystem. So I wanna thank you Shivani for joining me this month and the founder Sandbox. Thank you, Brenda. Thank you. So. 02:35 You own your own law firm, the law firm of Shivani Honwad. And it was originally based in New York. I don't know whether you operate nationally, but I'd love you to kind of repeat your origin story when I met you the first time in one of the women in lava. It was a small gathering. And it struck me your story was fascinating, because you were 03:04 working for a law firm in New York, but it was in your social life. You were, you know, out for drinks in the evenings and you would often be approached by women who were in the fashion industry, so models, and inevitably over a drink or maybe not a drink, they would end up using some of your free services. What was that? What were they asking your advice on, Shivani? And with that, we're going to get started on your origin story. 03:32 Thank you. Yeah, sure. So, you know, I was in my twenties in New York City and as one does in New York City, I would often go out. So I, at the time, was working in criminal law with a firm and civil litigation. But so I would go out with my friends. You know, I went to NYU, so I had a lot of friends in the city. And, you know, these models kept approaching me and they were like, hey, I heard you're a lawyer. I need help. 04:00 And I was like, oh, did you get arrested or did something happen like that? And they were like, no. And I kept hearing stories of how they were working for these modeling agencies. Most of the people that approached me were international models and their passports or their visas or something like their paperwork was being withheld so that they didn't really have freedom to travel and then not only that, they wouldn't be paid out. So. 04:25 they would model for days, weeks, sometimes months at a time, and be paid $0. And the agencies were just, there was just a lot of abuse in the industry. And so they kept asking for help. And at the time, I didn't really understand enough about the industry to know how pervasive this was. But I started looking into it because it wasn't just one model approaching me. It was like dozens of models over the course of a few weeks, if not maybe a few months. 04:54 that kept asking me for help. And it got to a point. I imagine your name got around, right? Well, because I wasn't doing anything yet. It was just that I was the only lawyer at all of these events, right? And I mean, this is also pre-Me too. So the other part of it was, is the lawyers they were going to, some of the male lawyers unfortunately, were also taking advantage of them and being like, hey, I'll help you, but you have to be my date to this event like Saturday night. 05:20 So they would see me in my 20s and a woman and woman of color, and they would just be like, oh, OK, so she won't sexually harass me or she won't threaten me in any way. So I think I was seen as a safer space for that. So I think that's why people approach me at parties. And then it got to a point where I just I couldn't really keep hearing it and not do anything about it. 05:46 And so I did some research into it. And then I found lawyers. I knew some in my network that knew how to help them. And the biggest issue, it seemed, was the immigration part, where it was like, if models come into the US under what's called an O-1 visa, and typically it's tied to whoever their agent or employer is if they come in under that route. But if they do it, there's other ways they can do it to have a little more freedom, or they can get their green cards so they have freedom. And that's the EB1A route. 06:16 And so I figured out an attorney who did that and he had agreed to like train me in how to do that. So eventually like I started my own law firm focusing on that. And it was just to help these models get some freedom. And then, you know, I expanded from there to doing some IP and contracts because once I helped them and get got them more stable, they were like, okay, well now I'm doing these ventures and I want you to negotiate these contracts and I want you to be my lawyer for this. Like you were great. So that's how my law firm kind of came to be. 06:44 And it was just 10 years actually, since I've opened it this past August. Oh my goodness. Yeah. It was just, it started out at this crazy need of just people needing help and to be in a safe space. And the irony of it is that I originally went to law school to kind of work on human trafficking issues. Oh my goodness. And I never thought I would see it. Like I never thought I'd work in fashion, but I mean, the work I was doing was tied to that because a lot of the models were essentially held in debt bondage. 07:14 of being tied to these agencies not being paid out and saying like, you owe us this much money so we're not gonna pay you or what have you. So I think that's how it's still, I got to do what I went to law school for, but in a different way than I had initially thought. Like I thought I would work for the UN or something like, but it was so hard to get into the UN. I applied nonstop originally, but like I got to do this. And like we changed some laws around in this space. Like, 07:43 The Boston Globe did like the Spotlight team did a piece on this and like some of my clients that I was also interviewed for. And then, you know, we met with officials in city hall. And so the freelances and free act, which got passed in New York also applies to models. So if an agency, you know, gets payment from a client to the agency and they don't pay the model within 30 days, the state of New York will actually fine the agency. 08:10 So the models now have recourse to collect payment faster. Excellent. So I would ask you later to give me this law, and we'll put it in the show notes. Because this is amazing. You have been a trailblazer in a serendipitous way. You started out, or while you're studying law, you thought you would work in sexual traffic, and you did not, or human trafficking. And you were doing criminal law. 08:38 ended up actually representing fashion models, immigration issues, as well as eventually venturing into assisting them in their contract management and IP. So amazing story. And I loved one thing that you did say. You said, I couldn't not do anything, right? I researched it and I just could not just let this go. So. 09:08 Very, very resilient, Shivani. How did that experience or others inform you to actually move all the way out here to Los Angeles and set up practice? And tell us a little bit about that. So I don't think you and I have actually talked about this before. But originally, what brought me out to LA was some of the work that I did here for the models. I was recruited by some organizations in the e-sports area. 09:38 Um, you know, e-sports is actually pretty big out here in California. And, um, there was some e-sports organizations that wanted me to help implement essentially policies and basic human rights for the gamers, because, um, kind of what we had done for the models in New York, um, there was really no regulations a couple of years ago. It's still pretty bare minimum, but. 10:02 for the e-sports gamers. And you have all these essentially mostly teenage boys, there are female gamers as well, but in the e-sports tournaments, and they were just taking a ton of speed or drinking nonstop Monster Energy drinks, and they were just dying, quite frankly, they were under all this pressure to perform. And again, there was really no regulation around it. And their contracts were devoid of like... 10:28 just basic human rights of like, okay, you can get a bathroom break, you get time to eat, you get time to sleep. So originally I was recruited out here to kind of work on those issues. And I will say, if you've never been to an e-sports tournament and like in a stadium, I advise going, it's an experience. Wow. This is like a trillion dollar industry and it like traverses all socioeconomic, like really like it. 10:56 It just transcends all lines. It's just an incredible scene to experience, just the fandom of it all. So I was in that space for a little bit originally and it just, it was a very chaotic environment that I just didn't really want to be in anymore. Right. And then, yeah, I just- And you were doing this from 11:26 from your own practice? At that time, you'd set up your practice, so you just recently celebrated 10 years of your law firm, Shivani Hanwad. Yeah. You were actually serving the e-sports from your law firm. Yeah, so I was doing some contract stuff. I was doing visas for the gamers, things like that. So I was getting more familiar with it. But it was because the issues paralleled. 11:53 basically what was happening with models in New York with the sports gamers in California. So that's kind of how the whole thing started. And then, like I said, it wasn't really for me, but then I had made some inroads here. I got connected to Lava and some other organizations. And then I got offered the position to teach at NYU's LA campus. So that's kind of anchored me here in Los Angeles now. But yeah, so I still do kind of the same stuff and I work. 12:22 you know, same. The thing with immigration law is it's federal. So my clients are all over the world and a lot of my clients also in the fashion, creative industries, their contracts are mostly like for New York and California based things. And like I'm admitted to practice law in both New York and California. So they just email me, like we do Zooms or, you know, calls and stuff and go through stuff. So yeah, I serve clients all over the world basically. 12:51 position you have with New York Stern's LA campus? It's not Stern. So it's New York University. Okay. I went to Stern undergrad. Yes. And then, but New York University's Los Angeles campus is just a general campus. It's not a specific school. Okay. So we serve students from all schools. And actually we have multiple global campuses. So we have two other degree granting campuses. One is NYU Abu Dhabi. 13:21 and one is NYU Shanghai. So this is what come to our LA program. It's an undergrad study abroad only program. So it's one semester and they come mainly from our New York campus. Some are, we also do have a lot of students that come from our Abu Dhabi campus and our Shanghai campus. And then they might be as part of other programs too. And so they come out here, they spend a semester, they, we work on getting them internships. 13:48 And they just kind of see, like most of them want to go into the entertainment industries in, you know, whether it's media, like screenwriting, directing, producing, or music. So they're just trying to see if they like the LA environment, make some inroads for if they want to like pursue their career in LA or New York or what's better for them. So that's the program that we have out here right now. And like we're growing actively because the campus opened in fall of 2019. 14:15 closed promptly in spring of 2020. And then just reopened fully again last year. All right. And do you teach a specific subject? Well, yeah. So the course that I teach, it's basically structured around like entrepreneurship or creatives. So I bring in kind of my business and my legal backgrounds. My, the director of the NYU LA program is amazing. And she gave me carte blanche to kind of design a course. 14:44 She was like, think of them as your future clients. What do you wish they knew? So that's kind of what we designed. So we like include like how to pitch, how to develop a deck and then how to pitch that deck. I also do a negotiation simulation because oftentimes these students have never like negotiated a deal before. So I go over, you know, what are basic deal terms that you should at least understand and if nothing else have these in a contract. And then I design a whole simulation and like put them in groups. 15:13 and give them mock contracts and they have to negotiate it out. And it's really fun because every single time we do it, they all start with the same contract, the same roles, and everything. And then they all present at the end of class what their deal terms were. And no group has ever had the same deal terms. And the reason for that is because it's also to show them that you all come in with your own biases and preferences and experiences and values. 15:41 Yes. It doesn't really matter what the other people are doing. It's just like, what makes sense to you? What do you feel comfortable with? Because if you feel comfortable with the deal and you're okay performing for this rate or with these terms or whatever, then you're going to be fine. And so, because then I always ask them, did you want someone else's deal? And they might say that they wanted parts of it. They're like, oh, I didn't know I could add that. Sometimes if we're doing an artist contract negotiation, 16:10 my female students will always be like, they'll add in hair and makeup budget. And then the male students didn't know like, oh, that's a thing or like, how much is hair and mica? And like women know that it should be expensive. So they're like, oh, I could do that. So like, it's things like that that come up cause I'm like, you can add in, if it's not written there, you can add stuff in. Like I give you flexibility. And they're like, okay, I'll think about that next time. But because they negotiated out, they felt heard. 16:40 So they're comfortable with the deal that they agreed to because they felt like they were heard, they felt valued. And so they were fine with their deal overall. So again, although they may have picked up some things that they would like for next time, no one's really been outright like, my deal was terrible. Like everyone's kind of felt like kind of comfortable because they get time to talk it through. And I think that's like the biggest takeaway is like, as long as like the other side feels heard, 17:09 you can agree to a situation where all parties kind of essentially win and can work together well. And thank you, this is fascinating. So you have an entrepreneurship program at the New York University's Los Angeles campus. There's another campus in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. And so it's a year abroad. So is it cross-cultural mix and what students? Yes, but. 17:38 Sorry, I'm just gonna clarify. So it's not a year abroad for Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. They're actually degree granting campuses. Okay. So the Abu Dhabi campus is actually a really incredible program. It's a four year program. Okay. And it only has like a 2% admission rate cause tuition is free at that campus. So they're completely separate programs but they're all under the NYU umbrella. But I'm just saying that students come to our LA campus for a semester. It's a semester, right? Yeah, for a semester just to kind of do a semester abroad essentially. 18:09 And how many entrepreneurs have gone through your program? So, okay, so let me also clarify, sorry. I teach the Entrepreneurship for Creatives course, but like our entire curriculum here is centered around the entertainment industry. So there's a movie marketing class, there's a screenwriting class, there's pitching your project class, there's a history of film class. So it's all centered around entertainment. There's music courses, there's stuff like that. 18:38 The entrepreneur part is just kind of what I do because like, that's my background. And also like if you're a creative, you are an entrepreneur in the industry, like you are your brand. So mine's the only one, my course is the only one focused on that. So it's not that we have entrepreneurs here. They all want to be in the entertainment industry, but it's part of being in the entertainment industry, you are an entrepreneur. So just to clarify that a little bit, that it's not a separate program. Excellent. And thank you for that, you know, clarifying. 19:08 And I would like you to speak about your own new venture. So not only do you have your own law practice, you have recently started an initiative that is the South Asian Creator Collective. Tell us a little bit more about this. Yeah, so we launched that out of the NYU LA campus. Okay. Because I just found out like that my South Asian students 19:38 They, you know, we have only a few, usually every semester, but they just didn't have the community that some of the other creative communities had because typically South Asian families, your parents want you to be a doctor or an engineer and not really like, okay, you can have a music hobby or be a dancer as a hobby, but not have that as a career. So there was a lot of lack of support. And then I represent some South Asian artists. 20:06 whether they're writers or dancers or creators, producers, things like that in New York and LA. And so they also obviously would say the same thing. So I kind of wanted to bring everyone together to not only create a community for like my clients, my friends who are in the industry, but also to help build that bridge for my South Asian students to have like, you know, mentors in the industry. So we had our first meeting earlier this, a couple of months ago. 20:32 What came out of that was really cool that I brought together my friends and clients. They've already started collabing together on stuff. And then Brenda through you and Ty, I met people who are possibly interested in investing in South Asian creators projects. So we're looking at doing a possible pitch event in the spring to have our creators pitch projects and then to have investors possibly invest in them. So I like the idea of just bringing people together to kind of create this community 21:01 and to help each other kind of, you know, use everyone's skill sets just to create a better whole together. I love it. And I was absolutely thrilled that you were at the Thai So Cal's recent event with the preview and a screening of Show Her the Money, as well as we had our final. 21:22 competition for five women-owned businesses. So thank you for joining us there. We did that at the Noah House in Hollywood, of which I'm a member, and look forward to hearing more about the PitchFest that is probably gonna be in the spring of next year. Hopefully. Noah's crazy though about that, show her the money screening. I didn't realize how many people I knew in the film. Like I knew... 21:48 Liz, like from this organization that we were part of in New York, Dreamers and Doors, were like mainly female entrepreneurs. Like I knew her when she was starting Sogal. And so it was so crazy to see how far they've come. And then like I knew so many other people in the film. And I was like, wait, I knew them back then. I didn't know they were in this film. And like Naseem was in there. Like there was just so many people that I was saw in the film that I was like, wait, I know these people personally. So it was just a really cool screening to see. And to see so many. 22:18 people that I've known over the years, just in how far they've come over the years too. Was really cool. Yeah, initially it's a movement now. So initially Show Her the Money was gonna be shown in 50 US cities. It's gone viral. I think we're up in to the 200s and yeah, it's a movement. So thank you for being, and it's a small world, right? Oh, completely. We all end up, yes, there are no borders. So yeah, thank you. 22:45 And I look forward to that launch and I would be happy to promote it here in the founder sandbox as well as on my YouTube channel. You know, this switch gears. I want to I initially I've known you for years, but I really wanted you to come on to the founder sandbox because not only your story of not resiliency, but to the move across from the from LA to from New York to LA. But 23:14 you're passionate clearly about resilience. And I am also passionate. And it's the type of work I do with with founders as they're scaling their businesses just working on this resiliency, I say muscles. You recently hosted during LA's tech week, about two weeks back, a session on resiliency. Tell us a little bit about it and why you wanted to spearhead that. 23:42 Um, so I did my first LA tech week event last year, and that was a great learning experience. We did it all about pivoting and we had like 400 RSVPs for like 75 spots because I did at NYU's LA campus and we're small. So we had a fire martial capacity of 75. So it was just like overwhelming. But the original reason I launched that event was because 24:09 Um, when I looked at the original LA tech week calendar, all I saw were men on that calendar. And I only, if I saw a panel with a woman, it was like one woman and like five men. And I was like, I have so many incredible friends and clients that are women doing incredible things in the tech space and they never get the platform to talk about this. So I wanted a female forward event. Um, so I did that one and then that one went really well. So then everyone was like, 24:37 Okay, what are you doing for tech week this year? So that's how I was like, okay, so everyone really liked the pivoting one because they said they learned something from it and it was something everyone could relate to. So then, you know, as we're coming out of COVID, a lot of people have felt burnout and have felt the need to kind of just like reinvent themselves or just kind of rise from the ashes to a degree. So then this year's theme, I was like, I feel like I wanna do something around resilience. 25:04 because it's about like weathering the storm and coming out and like, you know, thriving again. And so again, I did it female forward. But what was really incredible is a lot of my male clients and friends also came and like others that I didn't know. And like all of them just like loved the event. And they're like, this has been the most informative event I've ever been to. And I said that at the beginning of my event, I was like, you know, this is like, yes, I, you know, my panel is all women, but 25:33 we can't change the ratio of where only 2% of women receive VC funding if we don't have men in the room, because you need everyone at the table to help change that statistic. And so by sharing the stories of like, again, they were my clients and friends, but they all run like incredible organizations. Like Steph Rizal was one of our speakers. She's an incredible singer songwriter. She just wrote a book for creatives and self-care. 26:00 I had Jazzy Collins, who's the first black person to win an Emmy for casting. And she has a production house called Force Perspective. I had Mickey Reynolds, who used to be the CEO, co-founder of Grid 110, and is now head of programs at Slosnikov, a VC fund. And then I had May Muna, who is amazing. She's a refugee. And she started two organizations, one called the Tia Foundation to help refugees in the US. And then she started this... 26:28 restaurant called Flavors From Afar where refugee chefs essentially have their menus every month featured at the restaurant. So like I got to feature these incredible stories and founders and you know, just how they like, May Muna, her Flavors From Afar restaurant is now Michelin like rated, but she was fired from a Carl's Jr. That's like her story. She's like, yeah, I was fired from Carl's Jr. and now I have a Michelin restaurant. 26:54 So where you start and kind of what happens, it's like you just have to keep going. And all of them kind of had stories like that of being like, you know, dismissed somewhere early in their career and just like, keep like, just keep going. And like, Jazzy too, like, you know, she was just like dismissed for being usually the only black female in any room. And now she's the first black person to win an Emmy earlier this year. And it's just like how, you know, yes, in casting, sorry. But yeah, and how that like just 27:23 those stories of how that rises. And I think a lot of people learn from that because a lot of them were just like, you just have to keep trying, or you just have to try something. And if it doesn't work, you know, go a different direction, but fail faster was kind of the message that they were putting out there that like you'll still figure it out and you just have to like have a really supportive community around you. And as long as you have that, like you can just like find the strength to keep going. 27:50 Tudos to you. This is a podcast that is absolutely filled with lots of nuggets, your own story in New York, coming out to LA, you're teaching your own entrepreneurship journey and your passion with respect to the underrepresented, right? And actually putting on events. 28:16 and Female Forward as well as last year in pivoting is thank you for being part of the ecosystem here in Los Angeles and next year I wonder what you're going to do in LA Tech Week. I know this week was pretty burned out still so we'll see. We have time. So you know I'd like to give you the opportunity to provide how my listeners can contact you or how's it best to contact you. 28:46 Um, yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram. My Instagram is just my name, Shivani Hanwad. Um, my email is just shivani at shivanilaw.com. So I guess any of those are kind of the best ways to find me or connect with me. 29:01 Okay, and we're going to shift gears back to this sandbox. You are a guest here to the founder sandbox. And again, my mission is to build resilient, scalable, and purpose-driven companies. So I always like to ask each of my guests what the word means, resilience, purpose-driven, and scalable, sustainable businesses. Each of my guests has a different meaning. And it's 29:30 actually one of the highlights of my podcast for me. Okay, so am I doing all three? Yes, you will. Okay. You already talked a little bit about resilience, but what does it mean to you? What does resilience mean to you? Shivani Ha. I think resilience just means to me, it's just like to persevere, to keep going. And I think all of us have our own challenges, obstacles and hardships. And I think finding the strength to just kind of get through those. 29:59 Because you don't always get over everything that you kind of maybe get through in your life, but getting through it is, I guess, the way to look at it in my mind. And then just kind of still making stuff happen, even if it's hard, is the way I look at resilience. To persevere, still making it happen. Thank you. Purpose-driven. You're very purpose-driven. How many back? If we were to scale you. 30:28 Well, purpose-driven, I just find it like, you know, just quick tangent, but like what originally drew me into law school and like wanting to work in the human trafficking space was like, you know, I was caught in these monsoon floods in India when I was working in Bollywood. And I learned about human trafficking and that's kind of what I wanted to work on. And I have worked on it in different ways, like, you know, changing that law in Delaware and then my work on the TVPGA as part of the New York State Trafficking Coalition. 30:58 So I have worked on that. And I just think that's always been kind of my, I guess, anchor point in a way of like a lot of the work or the pro bono work even that I do through my law firm. And part of why I've kept my law firm is because now no one tells me how I get to spend my time or money. I wanna work on representing children that have been trafficked and do those cases pro bono. I can do that. No one's like, no, you need more billable hours. Like it's up to me. 31:26 So I have a couple of nonprofits that I work with that I represent kids that have been trafficked to get them either status here or just like to a safer spot. And I really love that work. So the work I do with the creatives and everything, it kind of funds and provides me the ability to do this other work. So I think purpose-driven is just like figuring out what it is that you're passionate about and what your anchor point is. Like, why are you doing this? Like, what is it that's getting you through and what gets you out of bed? 31:55 Like I get really excited to like work on my clients' cases because I think they're doing really incredible things. Yes. So I think purpose-driven is just like that, like finding what you're passionate about and like how you can have a positive impact in the community. I have goosebumps. I had, you went off on a little tangent. That was a very important tangent and as it is your anchor point. So thank you for sharing, Shivani. Sustainable growth. 32:23 Okay, what's sustainable? So this is something I'm working on now. Yes. I think, you know, for me, I was an accidental law firm founder, you know, that like I kept meeting these people and like that needed help and like I, I never really thought I would start my own law firm. And so I think it's been a journey of figuring out how to like run a law firm and grow it and all of this and like. 32:48 I'm getting to that point where it's like, okay, what am I doing? Am I still doing this? Am I merging it with something else or someone else? And I'm very fortunate to have really great partners. I'm really fortunate to have the opportunity to these couple of law firms have offered for me to merge my law firm with theirs, join them, all of that. So it's figuring that part of it out. But I think, you know, to be sustainable or scalable, I think one thing, especially people who are type A like me, 33:17 that we struggle with is delegating. And that like finding, you know, you're not good at everything. You're not like, the first thing I did was hire a tax guy. Cause I was like, I don't do this. Like I don't know how to do anything tax wise, but it's just like figuring out like, you know, what you're good at and what you're not good at instead of trying to learn everything, figuring out how to delegate or finding team members to help you with the stuff you're not good at. Because I think a lot of people, especially founders try and hold on to everything. 33:46 And that's kind of what leads to burnout because if you're trying to do stuff that you're just not great at, you just always are gonna feel defeated. But if you have other people that are good at that stuff, supporting you in that, and you get to focus on the stuff you're really good at, then that's gonna energize you because then you're being more successful because you're doing the things you're great at. And then you're being supported still by other people. So you have that mental bandwidth to keep doing and keep running in the right direction. 34:14 what the stuff that you're passionate about, you're good at, what you're trying to grow. So I think to be sustainable or scalable, learning how to delegate is a really important skillset that it takes some time and emotional bandwidth to be able to be okay with letting go of something. Cause like most founders, like their companies are their babies. Like they're growing it. And you know, it's just so hard. It's like saying like, 34:44 It's like you're finding a nanny for your child. Like, okay, I'm okay with letting this person do this part of my business. So. Excellent analogy. And it also probably has to do with your own awareness, right? And the maturity of recognizing there are certain things that I just don't wanna do, but I don't like it or I'm not good at it. And the maturity and awareness that it's better done by someone else, right? 35:13 Yes. And I'm also self-employed and, you know, pushing through. And I have also delegated many things. I'm having a fantastic team, the producer of my podcast, and I let them do and tell, I follow their orders to tell you the truth. But you need that sometimes. Sometimes it's easier if someone just tells you what you need to do and then they're just handling the rest. 35:42 Um, and thank you for joining me in the, the, um, founder sandbox podcast this month, you know, um, to my listeners, if you liked this episode with Shivani Han what sign up for the monthly release, um, where founders, business owners, corporate directors and professional service providers provide their own origin stories. And they tell their stories about resilience purpose driven and scalable. 36:11 Thank you again. You can listen to these episodes on any major podcast streaming service. Signing off for this month. Thank you. Thanks, Brenda.  

With just two weeks to go in Ontario's election, The Canadian Press Queen's Park reporter Liam Casey joins Rob Westgate to discuss the key storylines to emerge so far, including the focus on tariffs with the United States and why -- unlike many provincial elections -- this campaign is of growing interest across Canada. They also talk about the upcoming debates and whether the unusual move to call a snap winter election could actually backfire on Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford. For the latest and most important news of the day | https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca To watch daily news videos, follow us on YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@CdnPress The Canadian Press on X (formerly Twitter) | https://twitter.com/CdnPressNews The Canadian Press on LinkedIn | https://linkedin.com/showcase/98791543  

Adam and Chris Distefano discuss farts and their intrinsic comedic qualities. Then they dive into Chris' upcoming special IT'S JUST UNFORTUNATE premiering on Hulu February 21st. After that they discuss how America is number 1 and Adam should've retired years ago. Later, Jason “Mayhem” Miller jumps in as the gang tackles some of the day's biggest stories: a viral video of an Alaska Airlines flight attendant taking down an unruly passenger mid-air, Trump's call to end the penny, and the Colombian president comparing cocaine to whiskey. Wrapping things up, Batman's original Boy Wonder, Burt Ward, Zooms in to share stories from the iconic 1966 TV series, his experience with Comic-Con, and his incredible work with Gentle Giants, a charity that's helped over 1,500 animals find loving homes. For more with Chris Distefano: TWITTER: @chrisdcomedy INSTAGRAM: @chrisdcomedy WEBSITE: https://www.chrisdcomedy.com TOUR DATES: https://www.chrisdcomedy.com/tickets February 26th - HISTORY HYENAS LIVE - GOTHAM COMEDY CLUB - NEW YORK March 14th - TAMPA THEATER - TAMPA, FL March 15th - PLAZA LIVE - ORLANDO, FL September 11th - MADISON SQUARE GARDEN - NEW YORK CITY, NY For more with Burt Ward: INSTAGRAM: @boy_wonder_and_ww_robinsgirl WEBSITE: https://www.gentlegiantsdogfood.com Thank you for supporting our sponsors: adamandeve.com/ace Homes.com oreillyauto.com/ADAM Shopify.com/carolla

Final hour of the show and Peter Burns filling in for Paul takes nothing but your phone calls and Zooms.. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the throes of everything 2025 is throwing at us, we're discussing how we approach wellness and the small things we do to take care of ourselves (at least a little bit!!!). Major thanks to OSEA for bringing us this episode—10% off your first order with the code ATHINGORTWO!   Can we start with some praise for OSEA's Undaria Algae Body Butter? It absorbs quickly, it feels excellent, and it's making Claire actually moisturize every day.   Claire is also exercising with Cam, opting for phone calls over Zooms, going on “do not disturb” more often, making lunchbox drawings, and watching TV on her phone while doing other things.   Erica's getting an actual desk setup, eating a fulfilling lunch (shoutout to Chris Gayomali's Heavies Substack about soup), revisiting her five-year journal, maintaining a saved sentence archive practice, and having high-end fun and heavy snacks.    How are you taking extra care of yourself right now? Let us know at 833-632-5463, podcast@athingortwohq.com, @athingortwohq, or in our Geneva.   Give your skin a New Year glow-up with clean, clinically tested skincare from OSEA and get 10% off your first order sitewide with code ATHINGORTWO. YAY.  

Today On With Mario Lopez – Singer/Songwriter Jax zooms in to talk recent wedding, debut album, Tik Tok collabs, & more! Plus, a mini Thanksgiving Pop Quiz, some candy controversy, Mario's upcoming Holiday Special appearances, & more!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the horror film Smile 2, pop star Skye Riley, preparing for a world tour, encounters a troubled friend who passes on the sinister "Smile" curse. As Skye's life spirals into chaos and her sanity deteriorates, she must confront the terrifying entity and its deadly grip before it consumes her and everyone around her. Cinematographer Charlie Sarroff and director Parker Finn wanted to be sure that the sequel to Smile was more than just a rehash of the same basic idea. They wanted to push and elevate the basic storyline into something bigger, while keeping what worked in the first film intact. Smile 2 definitely has a much bigger scale, with stage lighting and live performance sequences for pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott). Early on, Charlie knew he would have to film and light stage performances. He worked closely with lighting designer Brian Spett to get the stage lighting just right. Together, Charlie, Finn, and production designer Lester Cohen created a color palette consisting of reds with silver and blue elements. “Being a cinematographer is about surrounding yourself with great people and then asking them for help,” says Charlie. Charlie wanted some scenes to “bloom” more, almost so that they looked overexposed. Some parts of Smile 2 were shot on Kodak film to create this effect, and then the film went through a skip bleach process to add to the bloom effect. Then the film was outputted to digital for mastering and further color correction to really make the reds pop. Charlie feels that the process adds a lot to the look. “It smooths out the film, and adds twinkle to the lights. It just infuses into the image a little bit more. I think it can help effects and makeup, too, without being super grainy.” Smile 2 used many of the same camera movements and lenses as Smile, including plenty of zooms to add to the discomfort. Charlie used a very specific lens for people with the smiling curse. “I shot each smile on a very wide lens, a 28mm- when you're that close up on that lens, it makes people feel extremely uncomfortable. We never used long lenses,” he adds. “I used a lot of zooms, for specific moments when heavy things are going down to hone in on something. Zooms provoke a different emotion, especially at the end (of the film.) Zooming in shows that Skye is getting closer to the curse.” Smile 2 is in theaters now. Find Charlie Sarroff: https://charliesarroff.com/ Instagram: @charliesarroff Hear our previous interview with Charlie Sarroff on Smile: https://www.camnoir.com/ep187/ Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: https://hotrodcameras.com/ Sponsored by ARRI The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Nate thinks the Commanders are one of the best teams in the NFL

After last week's episode about swingers, David suggests they ask the Chatabix Patreons if any have swung and might be up for coming on the pod to chat about it. Much like last time, it's a subject that makes Joe feel very uncomfortable - but he can't quite explain to David exactly why. After failing to get to the bottom all that, they send out the message and surprisingly get quite a few responses. So they invite one of the people who've replied to join them and he kindly Zooms in to reveal all. It turns out he has two very unfortunate stories which are quite the rollercoaster ride. So hold onto your hats - it's an instant Chatabix classic! Many thanks to our Patreon ‘Minnie' (not his real name) for being such a good sport. FOR ALL THINGS CHATABIX'Y FOLLOW/SUBSCRIBE/CONTACT: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@chatabixpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/chatabix1 Insta: https://www.instagram.com/chatabixpodcast/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/chatabix Merch: https://chatabixshop.com/ Contact us: chatabix@yahoo.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The spooky thriller House of Spoils on Amazon Prime is about an ambitious chef, Ana (Ariana DeBose) who follows her dream to open a restaurant on a remote estate in the woods. She quickly realizes it's haunted by the vengeful spirit of the previous owner. As Ana battles stress, self-doubt, a skeptical investor, and kitchen chaos, the ghost's sinister presence threatens to sabotage her every step. When cinematographer Eric Lin met with directors Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy (Blow The Man Down), they presented him with several inspirational references by surrealist painter Leonor Fini and Dutch painter Adriaen van Utrecht. Both artists captured the unsettling feeling of eerie decay while being surrounded by the natural world. Nature, rot and its influence on bodies became the movie's core aesthetic. Films like Black Swan (psychological horror), The Shining (single, oppressive location) and Phantom Thread (artistic obsession) also served as inspiration. Eric embraced the use of zoom lenses in the film. “Zooms are super psychological and we tried to find ways that we would sneak them in, because it has this very unsettling feel,” he says. Because Ana is a chef, food also played a major role in the film. “I was interested in trying to find a way to represent the colors that had a feeling of decay- almost a mushroom, moldy look,” Eric explains. “Because what comes from that decay is life, right? It's like creativity is born through all this death and decay. And so I wanted the colors of the film to represent that feeling.” He created a LUT where the vibrant colors stood out while the browns and greens stayed dull and earthy. The kitchen was really being used to cook the dishes, and a food stylist helped to plate all the ingredients. Second unit would then shoot the dishes as they were presented to the table. House of Spoils was shot on location at an estate in Budapest. The crew built a fully functional kitchen set, allowing for meticulously planned lighting. The garden outside the kitchen was also created by the production design team and the greens department. The natural fog blanketing the estate's garden provided the perfect eerie atmosphere, eliminating the need for fog machines. Eric's passion for cinematography wasn't always his career path. After studying at UC Berkeley, he switched gears to study film in grad school at NYU. He managed to land a job as an assistant editor, but cinematography was his true passion. Eric shot music videos and independent films as much as he could on the side. While shooting music videos and independent films, his dedication paid off. The short film Missing went to the Cannes Film Festival. Eric's cinematography is also in several Sundance Film Festival projects, such as The Sound of Silence, Hearts Beat Loud, and I'll Be Your Mirror (originally titled Blood). House of Spoils is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Find Eric Lin: www.eric-lin.com Instagram: @holdtheframe Sponsored by Hot Rod Cameras: https://hotrodcameras.com/ The Cinematography Podcast website: www.camnoir.com Facebook: @cinepod Instagram: @thecinepod Twitter: @ShortEndz

Alaska exposed as state with the highest rate of women killed by men in the nation, Harris releases campaign agenda for Black men, pushback against racism's classification as health threat, and the resurfaced story of the soul group Superiors. DeRay interviews New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie about his ongoing Congressional efforts and NYC mayoral campaign.  NewsDomestic Violence, Child Abuse and DUI Cases Are Being Dismissed en Masse in AnchorageHarris releases agenda for Black men as she ramps up effort to court themRacism was called a health threat. Then came the DEI backlash.A Truth of Self: The Story of the Dynamic Superiors Follow @PodSaveThePeople on Instagram.  

We blast into a Star-Trek tech-like era right away with our special guest, Robin Blanc Mascari! Having just turned 70, Robin has the spunk and compunction of a global entrepreneur over half her age - and she's actually getting healthier, stronger, and sleeping better focussed thanks to the X39 and other all-natural, wearable med bed patches!    After having run a worldwide training empire for NY Times Best Selling Author Stephen Covey, just 5 years ago she found herself suffering a horrific injury causing her to face down a monstrously expensive medical procedure - both her life and her finances changed for the better when a friend gave her the X39 wellness patch.  This 70yr old grandmother has now launched a successful X39 empire with over 250,000 customers and distributors globally -- all from her phone and laptop in a cabin in Montana... . POWERFUL X39 wellness Patch naturally activates  your STEM CELLS! Developed for

West Point Graduates and War Heroes, connect with USARF LT.GEN Thomas McInerney (Ret) and US-Army MAJ. GEN Paul E Vallely (Ret), plus order their books, donate, and access their weekly published articles at

Follow Scott LoBaido on X https://x.com/ScottLoBaido  Browse Scott's Patriot Artwork https://ScottLoBaido.com  .

FREE Pastor Artur on his Sept 10th Appeal and FREE the Coutts 2 on Sept 9th! Let Them Hear You! FLOOD the PHONES 4 Freedom as they want to throw them all in Maximum Security Prison for 10 years on September 9th! *Canadian Crown Corporation Prosecutor Steven Johnston Call now

⚡️Laugh at the Rothschild's IRS minions by allocating your IRA or Savings to Silver or Gold Without Penalty ⬇️ Patriots GRAB a chance to score up to $10,000.00* or more in FREE SILVER

Sherri Divband is a multi-time best-selling childrens author, Reiki Master, Intuitive, and mother of 3.  She and her husband have launched Aramais Learning Centers, putting the creativity and soul-level empowerment first with the children.  She joins THE SOVEREIGN SOUL SHOW host Brad Wozny to discuss the future of our children's education, shifting in the cosmic timelines and how we can learn from the kids as adults to aid our ascension.  .

Dan Oke of the LakeShore Sovereign Assembly in Canada, an original member of all rallies and freedom convoys back to 2020, in 2022 formed one of the world's 1st Grand Juries leveraging Common Law to investigate, indict, and prosecute tyrannical justices, mayors, medical tyrants, and members of law enforcement and military who commit war crimes, joins Scotty Saks, Kim Yeater and Eddie Cornell of Veterans 4 Freedom to discuss their Take Our Border Back initiative.  Many unvaccinated, freedom-loving Canadians on the front lines still speaking out today have confirmed they had not seen Veterans 4 Freedom nor Police On Guard present during the horrific arrests of Pastor Artur Pawlowski and the Coutts 4 during Freedom Convoy in Alberta, nor in Ottawa, nor after the fact during the National Citizens Inquiry.  Dan claims on multiple occassions he and his organization reached out to Police On Guard with thousands of pages of evidence and it was never acted upon.  Will V4F, POG, and others stand up on Sept 9th, 13th, the 28th and 29th for what they claim to uphold? Join a conversation for We The People.  . ⚡️Laugh at the Rothschild's IRS minions by allocating your IRA or Savings to Silver or Gold Without Penalty ⬇️ Patriots GRAB a chance to score up to $10,000.00* or more in FREE SILVER

⚡️Laugh at the Rothschild's IRS minions by allocating your IRA or Savings to Silver or Gold Without Penalty ⬇️ Patriots GRAB a chance to score up to $10,000.00* or more in FREE SILVER

⚡️WestPoint Grad 1961 and a decorated Vietnam Combat Veteran, US Army (ret.) Major General Paul E. Vallely served America for 31 years in uniform and is still serving the American Constitution and his oath at West Point of Duty, Honor, Country. ⚡️He is the co-founder and Chairman of Stand Up America Foundation, author or co-author of multiple books, including “America's End Game for the 21st Century: A Blueprint for Saving our Country” and his newest release “Dismantling of America” To connect with MG Vallely, order his books, donate, or review their weekly published articles on SubStack visit

Cutoff by from disability pay and refused his pension, Donate to Minted National Canadian Hero Fire Fighter, the ONE MAN ARMY of Norman Traversy, whom had only $0.61 (cents) in his bank account last month

Cutoff by from disability pay and refused his pension, Donate to Minted National Canadian Hero Fire Fighter, the ONE MAN ARMY of Norman Traversy, whom had only $0.61 (cents) in his bank account last month

Breaking own a pair of jeans, Tailoring, Business Talking, the Persistence of Zooms, and Instagram Purchases. PANTS with Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey is produced by Valerie Hurt   Video Editing by Ana Rezende     Sound Mixing and Editing by Jaime Sickora  Executive Produced by Katie Rhodes and Peg Donegan  Our music is by Carol Parr @csssuxxxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

⚡️Laugh at the Rothschild's IRS minions by allocating your IRA or Savings to Silver or Gold Without Penalty ⬇️ Patriots GRAB a chance to score up to $10,000.00* or more in FREE SILVER!!

Republican men used to be stoic and quiet technocrats, but now they're screechy and freaky. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has a whole crop of strong, silent types to choose from as a running mate.  Plus, a shout-out to Charlie Sykes, movies Tim hasn't seen, and can we quit the identity-oriented Zooms for Kamala? Tom Nichols joins Tim Miller. show notes: Tom's piece on the manliness flip-flop Tom's piece on Biden stepping aside Charlie on how Never Trumpers really mean never Trump's 400 kids remark