#423: Rana el Kaliouby — AI, Emotional Intelligence, and The Journey of Finding Oneself

Rana el Kaliouby — AI, Emotional Intelligence, and The Journey of Finding Oneself | Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs https://linkedin.com/Tim and "5-Bullet Friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/?utm_source=timblog&utm_medium=timblog&utm_campaign=podcast-sponsorship" "Embrace your emotions." — Rana el Kaliouby A pioneer in Emotion AI, Rana el Kaliouby, Ph. D. (@Kaliouby https://twitter.com/Kaliouby/), is co-founder and CEO of Affectiva https://www.affectiva.com/, and author of the new book Girl Decoded: A Scientist's Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1984824767?tag=offsitoftimfe-20. A passionate advocate for humanizing technology, ethics in AI, and diversity, Rana has been recognized on Fortune's 40 Under 40 list and as one of Forbes' Top 50 Women in Tech. Rana is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a newly minted Young Presidents' Organization member, and co-hosted PBS series NOVA Wonders https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/nova-wonders/, in addition to appearing on the YouTube Originals Series The Age of A. I. https://youtu.be/5IvQ3fYKnfM, hosted by Robert Downey Jr. Rana holds a Ph. D. from the University of Cambridge and a Post Doctorate from MIT. Please enjoy! This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs https://linkedin.com/Tim. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs https://linkedin.com/Tim can help. LinkedIn is an active community with more than 675 million members worldwide. LinkedIn's platform screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for, and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer. 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• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

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• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:31Tim Ferriss?

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• 4:15Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode has video, if you want to check it out, on youtube.com/timferriss, but audio only will still work. And I'll keep this intro short. I'm going to jump straight to the guest. My guest today is a pioneer in emotion AI. We'll define what that means. Rana El-Kaliouby, PhD, who is also co-founder and CEO of Affectiva and author of the new book Girl Decoded: A Scientist's Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology. A passionate advocate for humanizing technology, ethics in AI, and diversity, Rana has been recognized on Fortune's 40 Under 40 list

• 4:56Tim Ferriss?

  and as one of Forbes' Top 50 Women in Tech. Rana is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and co-hosted a PBS Nova series called Wonders. And she's also appeared on and appears in the YouTube original series The Age of AI, hosted by Robert Downey Jr. Rana holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and a postdoc, it's a postdoctorate, from MIT. You can find her on LinkedIn, Kaliouby, Twitter, @Kaliouby, K-A-L-I-O-U-B-Y, by the way, Instagram, @RanaElKaliouby, website, ranaelkaliouby.com. Rana, welcome to the show.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

• 5:36Tim Ferriss?

  I am excited to have you on, and we have so much ground to cover. And I thought I would begin with a question that will hopefully open up a whole different doors, a whole different set of doors, I think, is the proper English expression that we could potentially walk through. And it's related to a book. This is Affective Computing, correct me if I'm getting any of the pronunciation wrong, by Rosalind Picard, P-I-C-A-R-D. How did this book come into your life?

• 6:05Speaker 02

  So I, I am Egyptian, so I grew up in Cairo and around the Middle East. Uh, but at the time, this is like nineteen ninety-eight, I had just graduated from computer science from the American University in Cairo. And my career plan at the time was to become faculty, like I wanted to teach. And so I knew to teach, I had to do my masters and PhD, it was all very calculated. And so I was looking for a thesis topic and my fiance at the time went on Amazon and he said, oh, you know, there's this really interesting book by this MIT professor called Drosalyn Picard, uh, called Affective Computing. And we ordered it through Amazon. It took about three months to ship to Cairo. It got held in customs for reasons I don't really understand, but eventually I got hold

• 6:49Speaker 02

  of the book and I read it and I, you know, I think it's safe to say that it changed my life because, so, so the thesis in the book is that computers need to understand human emotions, just the way people do. And I read the book and I was just fascinated by this idea and it, you know, I, I made that my research topic and it became my obsession and it just really changed the trajectory of my life.

• 7:13Tim Ferriss?

  What besides the thesis in the book had such an impact on you or was it just that, that worldview, that perspective, or was there more to the book or more to the author?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so let's talk about the author first. So Roz is one of the few, and I mean, this was true back then, it's still true today. She's one of the few kind of female, you know, computer science, machine learning engineers, um, professors, uh, in the space. And, um, you know, I, I, I kind of learned about her over the years. I've eventually, actually she, so she ended up being my co-founder many years later, but there's a story around that. But, but essentially I was just fascinated by her and she, you know, she's a mom, she's three boys. I just thought she was like a rock star. So that was kind of one part of it. But just the way she wrote the book and how she, you know, I'm very expressive as a human

• 8:12Speaker 02

  being and I just really like, I think emotions really matter and are, and the way we communicate non-verbally is very important. And it, and it struck me that when we think of technology, that piece of how we communicate is completely missing. And I was like, oh yeah, like it seems so obvious. So I just got fascinated by the thesis. I got fascinated by the implications, like what happens when technology becomes kind of clued into how we communicate. That's going to open up a whole new world of possibilities and I was intrigued by that.

• 8:44Tim Ferriss?

  So let's travel back to that point in time. You were with your then fiance and this book is ordered. At the time, you're planning on becoming a teacher, right, a professor. Why were you on that track to begin with? I mean, was it, take us back to Egypt at that time. Were there many women striving to be faculty members in similar departments? I'm assuming computer science or perhaps it was a different department. Maybe you could tell us more.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I went to the American University in Cairo and I studied computer sciences in undergrad. At the time, most of the faculty were, were guys, except for one female faculty, Dr. Hoda Hosni, which became my role model and my mentor. And I just wanted to be like her. Like, she was awesome. She was, you know, very smart, very approachable, very fashionable. And I was like, ooh, I like that, right? And, and I just wanted to be like her. And, and so I devised the, and I was also, I mean, I'm a geek. I'm a geek and I'm proud of it. So I, I, um, I kind of devised a plan. I was like, okay, so I'll graduate top of my class, which I did. And then I was like, okay, I'll go get a master's and PhD abroad,

• 10:02Speaker 02

  because that's what you do. And then I'll come back and, you know, I'll join, I'll join the faculty. And so at the time, because I was getting married to my fiance and he had a company based in Cairo, coming to the US was not an option because it was way too far. So he was like, I'll let you go study in the UK because it's kind of close enough. So I applied to Cambridge and got in. And that was kind of the impetus for going abroad and doing this, like focusing on this research.

• 10:32Tim Ferriss?

  So when did you then end up going to the US? Was that a difficult conversation with your family or your then fiance? Walk us through how that happened because it doesn't sound like that would have been just a hop, skip and a jump, two second conversation. So walk, walk us through that experience.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, okay, so, so then I moved to Cambridge, right, Cambridge University in the UK, not, not Cambridge, Massachusetts, uh, um, and I-

• 11:08Tim Ferriss?

  The real Cambridge, you mean?

• 11:09Speaker 02

  The real Cambridge, the original Cambridge. Um, and we, I got, I got married, so basically I got married and then got the scholarship to go study at Cambridge and my hus- so he's now my husband, right, well, he's my ex now, but at the time he was my husband. He was very supportive, he was like, you gotta go, this is your dream, I'll support you, we'll have a long-distance relationship. Now, my family, my parents and his parents were like horrified, they were like, what? You can't do that. So, so I do like to give him credit for, for, for making this happen and being supportive. So I ended up in Cambridge and he was in Cairo. And, uh, we did that for five years and towards the end of my PhD,

• 11:51Speaker 02

  um, Roz Picard was visiting Cambridge, UK to give a talk there and I ended up meeting her in person and we totally hit it off, um, and she said, why don't you come work with me at MIT as a postdoc? And I was like, oh my god, this is like a dream come true, I've been following you like forever and this is why, you know, like I told her my story. And, but, but then I caveated, I said, just you know, you know, I've, I've been married for the last five years and have had a long-distance relationship, so I have to go back to Cairo. Otherwise, and I actually really said that, I said, otherwise, you know, in Islam, because I'm Muslim, um, my husband can marry up to four women and if I don't show up eventually, he'll just like marry more women.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  So, I said it half jokingly, right? So she was like, that's fine, just like commute from Cairo. And so I commuted from Cairo to Boston for a good, a good three or four years, going back and forth between MIT and, and Cairo.

• 12:52Tim Ferriss?

  How often did you go back and forth? Or how often did he go back to Cairo? Maybe is a better way to ask it.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  So initially, I would spend a couple of months in Cairo and then go spend like a few weeks in Boston. And then I I would move with my kids to Boston over the summer. So the summer break, we'd just all go there. Um, and so initially that was okay. So this was between two thousand and six to two thousand and nine. It was okay. Um, things began to kind of really fall apart when I decided to start the company. So at MIT, we started to get a lot of interest in the technology. And this being IT, they really encourage you to spin out, right? Um, so in two thousand and nine, I started Afectiva.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  And I was literally spending two weeks in Cairo, in Boston, two weeks, or two weeks in Boston. It was insane. And that was when, like, just it was out of balance. Everything was out of balance. It was tough. It was tough. And and and, you know, I'm divorced now. So, you know, you can imagine how that didn't go very well. It was just, it was. I think in retrospect, it was just not a very healthy lifestyle. And I, and I, and I, yeah, I, I wouldn't want to be in that place again. I wouldn't want others to be in that. Like, talk publicly about that time. Yeah.

• 14:15Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, well, let's, let's hop around chronologically a little bit. We're going to come back, of course, to starting the company and that decision. But for people who don't have any real firsthand exposure to the Middle East, much less Egypt, for instance. What was it like growing up in in Egypt? And based on at least some of my reading, you, for instance, wore a hijab for quite some time. And we're not talking a short period of time. Maybe you could also speak to that.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And it sounds like you've spent some time in the, you've, you've, you've been to Jordan? It sounds like you've spent a little bit of time.

• 14:56Tim Ferriss?

  I've spent some time in Jordan. I've spent some time in a few places in the Middle East, but not in Egypt. Never made it to Egypt. And when I was, we chatted a little bit before we started recording. And I only have a few words here and there in Arabic, but it's Levantine Arabic, right? It's, it's what, what you'd run across in Jordan or, or Lebanon. And I remember though, having many people recommend that I not study the sort of standard Arabic, textbook Arabic, but that I study Egyptian Arabic, because all of the, as they put, all the entertainment and movies that I might want to consume would be in Egyptian Arabic. Needless to say, I didn't get that far, but I haven't spent any time in Egypt.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Well, your Arabic's pretty good. And you're right about the Egyptian accent. That's kind of the most common. But, but I think the key thing is like, there's no one Middle East and there's no one, you know, form. I grew up in a family that's kind of in an interesting way, quite conservative, but also quite liberal. So my parents were very pro-education. They sent us to the, you know, they, they put all their money towards our schooling and they made a point during the summers that we travel abroad and experience kind of other cultures. And I think that's why, like, I was so comfortable moving from one country to another and ending up in the United States. I tried to do that.

• 16:19Tim Ferriss?

  What did your parents do? Sorry to interject, but what did your parents do professionally?

• 16:23Speaker 02

  Um, okay. So my parents met, so my dad taught computer programming in the seventies and my mom was probably the first female programmer in the Middle East. She attended his class and he hit on her and they ended up getting married. So, so I guess I should give them a little bit of credit for ending up being a computer scientist. I'm sure they had something to do with that. That's, that's, so, so they both, my, my mom was a computer programmer at the Bank of, National Bank of Kuwait. So we were in Kuwait for a while. And my dad is, he's always worked in technology.

• 16:58Tim Ferriss?

  And culturally, what was it like where you grew up? Uh, or, or within the family, you said that they were,

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:04Tim Ferriss?

  For instance, on one hand, very, I'm not sure what the right, a cosmopolitan perhaps in

• 17:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:09Tim Ferriss?

  Their perspective and drive related to education? And, and what were the other ingredients in the household?

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Um, there was, there's definitely like clear gender roles. So even though my mom worked her entire life, um, it was always, she was not allowed to ever talk about her job post, you know, she would leave work at 3pm, be home at like whatever, 4pm, when we got back from school and that was it. She was never allowed to take a conference call at home in the evening, never allowed to travel for work. And I didn't realize that until I was an adult. Like I just assumed this was the way it was, but it did hamper her, you know, career progression and it was this implicit understanding that's, this is your role, this is my role and we all stick in our lanes. So that was interesting. We were, for example, I have two younger sisters, so we're three daughters.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  And I was not allowed to date until after college. So very, very strict. And I, and I basically married the first guy I met, right? Um, so that was, that's interesting. I, I have a debate with my 16 year old daughter right now, who's a junior in high school about, she's like, but mom, we're in the US now. Like, can we like adopt a different set of rules?

• 18:26Speaker 02

  Anyway, so, so there's that too, right? Um, so it's kind of interesting, right? Very strict, very conservative, but also like, like go kick ass kind of thing, so.

• 18:35Tim Ferriss?

  How did you relate to, for instance, the not dating until college? I think that's what you just said, if I'm remembering correctly. At the time, were you accepting of that, resistant to that embrace? Did you embrace that? How did you relate to it at the time?

• 18:56Speaker 02

  I was like, I called myself a nice Egyptian girl. I never challenged my parents. It's like the weirdest thing. I just like, I, you know, lots of trust. And, you know, they trusted me, I trusted them. I never challenged the rules. I just was super obedient and I was always looking for like the, the gold star, right? Like I was the gold star daughter.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so now I'm kind of trying to redefine what that really means.

• 19:24Tim Ferriss?

  And for people who are maybe thinking to themselves, I can't believe Tim asked about a hijab. That's so stereotypical. How dare he? First of all, it's based on my own research and reading in preparation for this conversation. Could you speak to, as I understand it, your decision to wear a hijab and when you wore it? And why you stopped?

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah, so this is actually like, I am glad you asked that because a lot of people just assumed that I was forced to wear it. I was actually one of the first women in my family to decide to put it on. And so even my family were like, really? You're gonna wear a hijab? And I did that because it was a time in my life where I became very religious and very spiritual. And I wanted to do it and I asked my husband.

• 20:15Tim Ferriss?

  How old were you at the time?

• 20:17Speaker 02

  I was, I was probably like in my twenties. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, this was twenty-two or twenty-three. Just gotten married, was just about to move to Cambridge and I decided. Actually, what happened is one of my dad's really close friends got a heart attack and just died unexpectedly. And I don't know, it just really hit me. And so I decided to put it on and I wore it for 12 years. You know, through Cambridge, through MIT. And then in 2012, a whole host of factors, right?

• 20:58Speaker 02

  And so when I wore it, like, you know, when I first wore it actually and moved to Cambridge, that was during September 11th. And so my parents thought I was like, you know, this Muslim in the UK. They were concerned for my safety. And so I actually switched the hijab for a hat. So I wore a hat for like, you know, a few months in Cambridge. Because you're supposed to wear it like everywhere. So I would show up to class in a hat. And just like, it was like really awkward. And then I just decided to like go back to my hijab. And I think people were often always respectful. I never felt discriminated against. And.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  And I just felt like people were curious, right? Like I got all sorts of like interesting questions. But yeah, 2012, I took it off.

• 21:45Tim Ferriss?

  What was the host of factors? If you don't mind me prying a little bit, like what what suddenly, or not so suddenly, maybe it was over a period of time, but what what were the things that prompted you taking it off?

• 21:57Speaker 02

  I think so. At the time, I was doing the commute between Boston and Cairo, right? And um, and I just, I don't know, I realized that the closest people, my closest friends and my closest contacts in the US were not Muslims, but they were awesome people and we shared the same core values, right? Like, yeah, maybe they didn't pray five times a day, but they were very honest, high integrity, hardworking, like all the things I cared about. And so I just started thinking like all the assumptions around religion and acceptance of the other. I don't know, I just had a ton of questions. So that was one factor. And then the political situation in Egypt was quite challenging. That was at the time where the Muslim Brotherhood were taking over and they were like rolling back all

• 22:42Speaker 02

  of like, like the women's rights and all of that. And so I was like, ooh, that's not my Islam. Like, that's not what I subscribe to. And I was going through the divorce and um, it just felt like I need a Rana 2.0. It just didn't feel like me anymore, you know? I just wanted to like look cool, you know, feel and look cool. And, and it's quite actually controversial to take it off. Um, and so I was really, really scared what people, you know, what people around me would think. Um, so there was a lot of fear. It took a lot of courage to um, to take that step. Um, but yeah, I did it. And I would just tell

• 23:25Speaker 02

  people it's the same me, right? I didn't really fundamentally change at the core.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:32Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you for answering that. I just, I think it's so important, we're gonna get, of course, to, I mean, very quickly, in fact. I've, we're gonna jump around a bit stochastically here. I'm sure I'm using that wording correctly, but nonetheless, here we, here we go.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  It works, it works.

• 23:48Tim Ferriss?

  But I really find that at least these types of conversations with longer format allow you to begin to understand the connective tissue and sort of subcurrents that have formed people as they then turn into these people on the marquee who are doing these incredible things professionally. So I appreciate you sharing. I think it's, I think it's important to have that background. And let's talk about the, one of many things that jumped out at me as I was prepping for this, and I, and I know that this is, is not in order, but using, if I'm getting this correct, emotion, AI, or affective, affective, let's see if

• 24:33Tim Ferriss?

  I can do this correctly, computing to help those with autism, or who are on the spectrum of, I guess it would be, this is gonna sound redundant, but autism, autistic spectrum disorder, I'm not, I'm not sure what the proper kind of DSM terminology is right now. I would love to get there, both, and on the way there, could you just define what artificial intelligence is, for those who may be confused because it's used so frequently, often misused, in the context of what you do, and then what we're gonna be talking about is one example of that. What is artificial intelligence?

• 25:16Speaker 02

  So, artificial intelligence is this, I guess, field of study that is trying to replicate human intelligence, right? And...

• 25:26Speaker 02

  But if you look at human int- and then there's like, you know, there's ways to affect that. So for example, machine learning is a subcategory within the field of computer science, which allows you to implement artificial intelligence. So it's kind of a mechanism to get you to artificial intelligence. Now, there's all sorts of forms of artificial intelligence. The part that I find, you know, the most exciting is this idea that, okay, if you look at human intelligence, we have IQ, which is your cognitive intelligence. And of course, it's really important. But we also know from years and years of research that your emotional intelligence is equally important. People who have higher EQs or emotion quotients, they're just like more likable people, they're more persuasive.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  You can get them to, you know, follow you and get inspired. And actually, people with higher EQs are just like better partners and they're better, you know, better leaders and everything. So I think that this is true for technology that interacts with people as well. So it's not just... So I think technology that's like interacting with us on a day-to-day basis, like your device or social robot or Siri or whatever, Alexa, need to have both IQ and EQ. And the conversation has always focused very heavily on the IQ and I'm like an advocate for bringing EQ into the equation.

• 26:50Tim Ferriss?

  Let's use that as a segue. So the technology that you ended up working on as it relates to autism and many other things, but how did that come about and what form did it take?

• 27:05Speaker 02

  So, you know, when I first got to Cambridge, so here I was, you know, I was like a new bride, you know, just like my first experience living away from my family. And I get to Cambridge and I just like focus on work, right, on coding. And so I had this like aha moment that, oh my God, I was spending more time on my laptop than I was with any other person. And but this laptop was completely oblivious to how I was feeling, right? But I think even worse, I had this realization that a lot of our communication is mediated through technology. Often, the most ubiquitous form of communication is actually through text, which, if you look at how humans communicate,

• 27:49Speaker 02

  less than 10% of how we communicate is text, is the words we use. 90% is nonverbal. Facial expressions, hand gestures, vocal intonations, and all of that, I felt like just got lost in how I communicated, particularly with my husband at the time. And I just felt like I wanted to change that. So I wanted to build emotion AI to make human computer interfaces better, but ultimately, it's all about human connection. I want to make sure that as we move to a more digital universe, we're not losing our EQ, right? We still can reserve and even maybe augment our emotional intelligence. And this is where autism came in, because it was a clear example,

• 28:32Speaker 02

  it's almost an extreme example of people who struggle with EQ and where technology could be like a hearing aid. Like, people wear hearing aids to augment their hearing. And I was like, what if you could build an emotional prosthetics that could help augment your EQ?

• 28:48Tim Ferriss?

  What did it look like?

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Well, it looked like Google Glass. This was before Google Glass existed, so, you know. So say I have autism. I would put on these glasses. They had little cameras. The camera would point outward at whoever I was interacting with to say, "I'm talking to you." And it would say, "Oh, Tim looks really interested in what you're saying. He's nodding his head." Or, "Tim looks bored to death. Maybe you should stop talking and, like, ask a question or something. You don't look like you're bored to death, I hope."

• 29:17Tim Ferriss?

  I hope not. That sort of thousand-yard stare, like, dumb deer look is just my standard, so don't take it personally.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  It would analyze people's expressions in real time and feed the kids real-time feedback. And it would give them almost like positive reinforcement every time they even looked at a face, because... Individuals on the autism spectrum like find it really, really hard to even engage in a face-to-face conversation because it's so overwhelming.

• 29:49Tim Ferriss?

  And this would be visual feedback on the lens of the glasses that they would see? Like, or was it audio feedback? What type of feedback did they receive?

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Um, we did, this was back in 2006, so it was even like before smart, you know, it was like really early on. So we had the feedback be auditory through a Bluetooth kind of like headset, whatever, ear pods.

• 30:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  And, um, but now we work for a company called Brain Power and they actually use Google Glass and our technology and the feedback is visual through the Google Glass headset display.

• 30:28Tim Ferriss?

  So this, this is fascinating to me on so many levels. And, um, one expression that jumped to mind is, as you were describing autism, and just for simplicity, we'll use, use the, the term autism, being an extreme case to study, it comes from, I want to think a documentary called Objectified about design and industrial design. And there's an expression that I want to say someone from Frog Design used, and that is the extremes inform the mean, but not vice versa, in the sense that

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 31:00Tim Ferriss?

  By starting with the extreme cases, so in this case in the, in the doc, it was designing, I think, hedge clippers or something for, say, the paraplegic and the morbidly obese. If you, if you solve for those edge cases, then you'll find applications for the people in the middle. So this use of technology with people with, in autism diagnosis is interesting to me. First for that, just that like corollary. And then second, I'd love to know if you observed any learning curve that carried over to non-augmented reality in the sense that

• 31:41Tim Ferriss?

  Were, did you observe anyone with autism after being given positive feedback for certain behaviors, right, for looking at sort of shaping of behavior? Did you see that carry over or were they, much like someone with a hearing aid, dependent on the hearing aid?

• 31:57Speaker 02

  That is like the key question. So we totally saw improvement in the kids we were working with while they wore the device. We didn't get around to testing through this particular grant whether this learning generalized, right, beyond the device. But this is what Brain Power, this company, is totally focused on. So they've now deployed about 400 of these Google Glass devices and the key question is, is this an augmentation device or is it a learning device and can you

• 32:29Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  off of it? And I don't know the answer to that. It's still very early days.

• 32:35Tim Ferriss?

  I would, I mean, this is pure speculation on my part, which is maybe irresponsible because obviously the studies need to be done, but I would imagine, I would imagine, I'd be very surprised if there isn't some degree of carryover.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:49Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, assuming that, you know, working memory and memory consolidation and these various things are functioning in these subjects.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:55Tim Ferriss?

  I'd be, I would be astonished if there weren't some degree of carryover. I mean, if they can understand the feedback loop, it would sort of imply to me if they've

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Right, right. Once you get that feedback loop working, I think, I think you're right. I mean, there are like, I'll never forget this, like one of the kids who we worked with at the school in Providence, like he would never make any face eye contact with me. And this one particular day, like after six months of this training program, he lowers, like, he had like this iPad between me and him and then he lowered it and he made direct eye contact. And it was just this powerful moment of human connection.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  And I don't think you can unlearn that or undo that. Do you know what I mean? I'm sure for him, I hope for him, he, you know, he can build on that.

• 33:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:43Tim Ferriss?

  Amazing. I can't wait to see what, what comes of that as, as they deploy more units and gather more data. When did you?

• 33:51Speaker 02

  At what?

• 33:52Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Well, I was gonna ask you, cause it's an, it's kind of an adjacent area, but I don't know if you were planning to go there at some point. The applications generally to mental health, right?

• 34:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, let's talk about it.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Depression and.

• 34:06Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, cause that's an area that I'm, I'm very passionate about and I feel like this technology can, can really help.

• 34:14Tim Ferriss?

  Well, let's, let's, let's jump right into it. I think that's a great place to go. So where could this, or where is this being deployed? Where could it be deployed? And, and we could focus on the mental health. If you wanna focus on that first, we could certainly touch on that first.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Um, just because, I mean, it's, it's not directly related to autism, but it was this realization that, oh my goodness, in, in the mental health space, the gold standard in, you know, when you go to a doctor today, they don't, they don't ask you like, Tim, what's your temperature, blood pressure? They just measure it, right? But in, in mental health, the gold standard is still like a survey, you know, on a scale from one to 10. Like how depressed are you? Are you six or eight, right? Or like how suicidal are you? And that's like, like how accurate is that gonna be?

• 34:58Tim Ferriss?

  How do you answer that? Right?

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Right. And also like you see a doctor like what, once a week? Like what happens in all the instances when you're not with that person? And that's really powerful data, right? So I feel like this kind of technology, I mean, and then the other piece of it is we're always on our devices. So that's an opportunity to collect your baseline and then know if you deviate from it. Because we know that there are very strong facial and vocal biomarkers of things like depression and suicidal intent and Parkinson's. So I feel very strongly that, um, there are applications where this technology can, can just like bring objective data.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Took, yeah, to quantifying these things.

• 35:45Tim Ferriss?

  That strikes me as so important, as you noted, because we're really still in the Stone Ages when it comes to psychiatric diagnostics related to most of what we would consider mental health or mental health disorders, right? And what you're describing allows you to gather a baseline over time, right? Longitudinally, you can gather a tremendous amount of data because my baseline is going to be different from half the people I met in Silicon Valley who were bordering on the spectrum or on the spectrum. I mean, the facial expression baseline is going to be, and the tonality baseline is going to be very different.

• 36:28Tim Ferriss?

  So you need, much like you would with blood tests and biomarkers, you need to know what your baseline range is. And, like, as you mentioned, the surveys are so problematic. I remember recently I did a number of experiments, these were with biochemical interventions. It's a long story that I won't get into right now, but in the first session, they said, well, from zero to 10, how anxious are you feeling? And I said, I have literally no idea how to answer that.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Right, because that's the lie, right?

• 37:02Tim Ferriss?

  But, yeah, but I know, but I know I'm going to be coming in for five sessions, so I'm going to give you a five now, and then the next time I come in, at least we can figure out if I'm feeling more or less. But if I start at a two, then where am I going to go if I'm feeling less anxious? So let me start with a five, but it becomes very muddy, right? It kind of collapses.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  And cognitive, you've thought through, like, you thought, it's not really how anxious, it's you kind of...

• 37:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I'm verbalizing this, I'm sort of, yeah, I'm verbalizing the whole thing. So that's, that's exciting. What other, what other applications are you most excited about? And is it mostly focused on recognition of facial characteristics at this point?

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Um, the focus, I mean, our, yeah, the, the, our main product is basically mapping your, like, using computer vision to understand what your face is saying. We've also added voice, like vocal intonations as well.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  And, and it's a quite complex problem, as I'm sure you'd imagine, right? Like, you know, I'm sure we can think of situations where you've misread people's facial expressions, right? So it's, I, I, it's not just about, like, detecting a smile. It's like, what type of smile? Like, what else is happening on the face? Are you, like, furrowing your eyebrows? Are you squinting? Are you smirking? Um, all of that. So the idea is to take all of that information and, and infer how's the person feeling? Or what are they thinking? And the applications, I mean, we, we're focused, as a company, we're focused on two particular industries. Uh, one is, uh, market research. So just kind of trying to understand how do consumers emotionally engage with products and services and content? So when they listen to your podcast, are they, like, rolling their eyes?

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Or are they, like?

• 38:48Tim Ferriss?

  That's 50%, for sure.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Um, but how are they emotionally engaging with content? That's a key question. And that, of course, drives a lot of consumer behavior, like word of mouth or, you know, purchase decisions and things like that. And then, so that's one area. Um, and then the other area where we're very focused on is, is the automotive industry. So detecting things like driver fatigue, if you're texting while driving, or, you know, distraction.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  And then there's applications in the robotaxi world when, when we get there.

• 39:26Tim Ferriss?

  Robotaxi, meaning autonomous vehicles? Or?

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:30Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 39:33Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna come back to autonomous in a minute. But have you had companies or people reach out to you for?

• 39:43Tim Ferriss?

  For instance, analysis of micro-expressions, if that's even a real term, I've heard it used, related to truth versus lying. And the reason I ask is that I've, I have a friend who I went to school with, so a classmate, who has ended up working with former, people from the intelligence community at a firm, and their sole job is to watch political announcements, earnings announcements, et cetera, to, to try to parse as humans what they believe is true and what they believe is untrue. And there are companies that pay, and I'm sure governments that pay lots of money for their interpretation. But you might say to yourself, well, that's,

• 40:27Tim Ferriss?

  that's, that's interesting also because at one point in time, humans were the best chess players in the world, now computers are. Have you had, have you had people reach out to you for those types of applications?

• 40:40Speaker 02

  The answer is yes. So, so first of all, micro-expressions is, is a, is a real term and it represents. So when there is, when you are lying, basically there's this leak, like a facial expression leak. It's usually like a very short-lived, subtle, like fleeting facial expression, like an eye twitch or a lip twitch. And with the right frame rate, like if you're using a high-speed camera, you can actually detect that, right? Like, so our technology can totally do that today. Now, that doesn't mean that we do that. So we have a very, we're very values-driven. You know, our first use case was autism and, and I think the whole, not I think,

• 41:23Speaker 02

  the whole thesis of the company and my mission is to just bridge the connection gap between people. And so we have very clear values around opt-in and privacy. And so we've turned millions and millions of dollars of potential funding and

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Business, basically, from the government that wanted us to pivot towards this lie detection and surveillance universe. And it was, sometimes it was hard, like, there was a time when we almost ran out of money as a company. And we had this opportunity to take almost forty million dollars from an intelligence agency, and we had to think hard about it because we didn't know if we had an alternative, so it could have meant the end of this whole affectiva journey.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  But it just didn't, it's not at all why we started the company, and it did not match our, like, our North Star, you know, and it just, I just, so, anyway, so we veered away from that, and we were able to raise less money, but from investors who we felt like shared our vision for where we could take this.

• 42:31Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I commend you for that, and that's hard as hell to do, especially when you might face an existential financial threat as a startup.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 42:42Tim Ferriss?

  And I suspect we'll probably come back to the sort of light versus dark, utopian versus dystopian later, we might not, but... I think this is a good time to hop back to autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars. And that is in part because, from my understanding, and I'm not a computer scientist, but speaking to people in Silicon Valley when I was there, certainly speaking to technologists now, that many of the questions that used to be thought exercises in, say, philosophy classes, epistemology 101, et cetera, or ethics 101, the trolley scenario, right, where you have to choose

• 43:24Tim Ferriss?

  between killing one person of one type or five people of another type, let's just say, one elderly person versus, or five elderly versus one school child, et cetera, these types of decisions are now decisions that on some level need to actually be thought about and coded into how a vehicle behaves. And... I bring that up because in some respects, I suppose many people would think of emotions as not necessarily the final frontier, but something that seems innately human, difficult for computers to understand. And so I wonder, what have you learned in trying to teach

• 44:09Tim Ferriss?

  computers how to understand emotions or view emotions about your own emotions? How's that impacted, if at all, how you relate to your own emotions or expression?

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, a lot. By the way, I was not expecting that to be the question. I thought it was an autonomous vehicles question.

• 44:30Tim Ferriss?

  It was a bit of a lester, so it's not the perfect segue, but we'll work with it.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. It's been, it's been tough because I, I just shut out my emotions for the long, I mean, it's really ironic, but I just grew up in a very like, we work hard, we're like, no nonsense. And so, you know, I just shut out my emotions and I didn't acknowledge it to others. So I always looked like I was strong and like always like bubbly and happy and just never ever shared or showed my true emotions. But I also think it's even worse than that. I think I never acknowledged my own emotions to myself until quite recently, actually. When I, when, when I was going, you know, through a divorce and moving to

• 45:18Speaker 02

  the United States with my kids as a single mom and starting the company, there was just a lot going on and I took on journaling and I journal a lot. And that's where I just started like, just like really embrace, embracing my emotions, like the good and the, and the bad and the ugly, right? And just getting it all out there. And I just learned a lot about, you know, what, what it looks like and what it feels like to have these emotions.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  And so, and so in a, in a, in a really interesting way, this journey of figuring out how to teach machines kind of a range of emotions is also like a journey for, a personal journey for me to learn about my own emotions and, and, and accept them and, and even share them with others. Like I've, you know, I've, I've, I, I've kind of made like a three sixty where, or one eighty, whatever, like where I started as being this kind of very like, there's always walls and barriers around me and I, and, and now I'm like taking those down and I feel like it's been amazing because when you share with people, people reciprocate and what I've often felt like, oh, nobody else in the universe feels

• 46:35Speaker 02

  the same way. I'm wrong. When I, when I share, people are like, oh my God, like this resonates so much with me. I've been through something similar and just this builds this like amazing connection. So, um, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question.

• 46:48Tim Ferriss?

  No, it does. It does. Uh, are there any, what do you think are, and we're gonna come back to the journaling for sure. Uh, what are any misconceptions that people have about emotion? I don't know if there are, I don't know if there are any, but, uh, how would you respond to that?

• 47:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. So when, yeah. So when we first started Afectiva, Roz and I were out raising money for the company, right? And so we were these two women scientists raising money from a male-dominated Silicon Valley, which is where we did our, most of our pitching. Uh, and we were pitching an emotion company.

• 47:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Sand Hill Road, lots, lots of blue button downs.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so we would avoid using the word emotion at any cost. That's why we actually called the company Afectiva because affect is a synonym for emotion, but it doesn't have the same kind of feministic connotations of emotion, like who needs emotions? Um, and so we would avoid talking about it, like. Like ever, it's the E word. You never talk, you never bring up the E word. Um, but I think, I think the universe is, I think the world has moved from that point. I mean, this was twenty years ago. Well, I started researching in the space twenty years ago. We pitched, you know, we started Affektiva ten years ago. I think now there's more realization that emotions matter, emotions drive our decisions in good ways and in sometimes irrational ways.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Um, emotions are at the center of how we empathize and connect and learn and memory, right? Like, I think I do actually realize like businesses, but also just the average Joe that has more respect for emotions. So, so that's been good.

• 48:37Tim Ferriss?

  Well, let's, let's talk about Sand Hill Road for a second and I'll, I'll describe Sand Hill Road for folks who might not know it and why would you know it unless you've spent time near it? So, Sand Hill Road, if you can imagine, imagine Silicon Valley as a city, which it isn't, it's an entire area. But let's just pretend it's a city. And then there's a gated community where the masters of finance live and uh, they're kind of like the iron bank in Game of Thrones. If you want, if you want money, chances are, at least this, this was certainly true in the nineties and the early two thousands. It's spread out more, there are more financial options. But if you want the highest density of people who can write big checks

• 49:21Tim Ferriss?

  and who have prestigious firm names, then Sand Hill Road is this one spot where you have just office next to office, next to office, next to office, next to office.

• 49:31Tim Ferriss?

  Based on some of my reading, you also, I don't know at what point, but had your son, Adam with you, right?

• 49:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 49:39Tim Ferriss?

  So, and, and so I, I would love for you to speak to what that experience was like, number one. And then number two. What worked in the pitch? Like, what, what did you find actually grabbed people? What, what was it in the pitch or in the deck? Whatever you, you might remember from the presentation that worked.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  I remember.

• 50:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  Okay, so, so this is two thousand and nine and we decide we, we were getting so much commercial interest in the technology and so I originally thought the solution was to just hire more PhD students in the lab and the lab director at the time, Frank Moss, said, no, no, no, no, this is not research anymore and you got us, leave the lab, like, start a company. So, um, so we put together a pitch deck and we had a lot of, like, we were very lucky. We had a lot of mentor MIT who would like poke at it and say, no, no, no, this doesn't work, like, iterate, da, da, da. Anyways, we were eventually ready. And in the fall of two thousand and nine, we headed to the Bay Area and to do our Sand

• 50:45Speaker 02

  Hill Road show and we just, I mean, we were able to get all the meetings we wanted, so that was great. Um, but I showed up with my six-year-old, uh, six-month-old son, Adam. And, um, we had lined up a babysitter to take him on, you know, for, during the day when we were presenting. Um, but this one particular day, she bailed on me. She called me in the morning, she's like, I'm not feeling well, can't take him. I'm like, what? And so, you, you know, you're not, you're not gonna ditch an investor meeting. So I show up with him in the car seat and I walk in and there was this like very nice-looking, kind of kind-looking, um, assistant at the front desk and I said, hey, can you keep

• 51:28Speaker 02

  an eye on him? He's a really good baby. We're just gonna go have the meeting inside and, um, and, you know, I was, I was, and she didn't have an option, really. Like, I wasn't asking her for permission. I was like, here you go, like, take him.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  Um, it was good. It worked, it worked out. He was, he, he was well behaved. I mean, so if you just make it work, right? Um, and, and actually, we hired our first CEO that way, too. We had dinner with, with this guy who, again, in the Bay, same trip, Bay Area. He was an introduction through one of our investor, potential investors. And I showed up with Adam and I was like, do you mind? Like, I don't have anything, I don't know where to leave him. And he was like, no, it's fine. I have three boys. It's okay. And so I was like, okay, he's a good guy. We're gonna hire you.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  That was that was that, that was that. I just had to like make it work, right? Um, and then on the pitch, like what worked for the pitch, we had live demos of the technology. So we would show up with an actual live device that could measure your emotions. Um, it would track your expressions in real time. So you'd see a real time kind of read out of your facial expressions. And we always, always, I mean, people were just fascinated by the technology. They didn't know it existed. It would always open up people's minds to potential applications. Like people would say, oh, have you thought about using it in retail? Or like, you know, um, you know, automotive or dating, like they would just like, it would just get people's creative juices flowing.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  Um, so I think that worked, um, but I don't think that it was enough to get people over the, oh, my God, like you are so different. Everything's so different, right? Like women, scientists, I wore the hijab at the time. Um, emotions, like it was just, it was like too alien, I think. Um, so it was tough.

• 53:27Tim Ferriss?

  Who, who ended up? Yeah. So you got, you got a lot of no's. Who, if you're comfortable saying, I have no idea, but I would imagine it's somewhere in the, in the public record. Who ended up, who ended up saying yes? And why do you think they said yes instead of all, in contrast to all the no's?

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Um, so our first, very first check came from, uh, the Volenberg family of Sweden. Very wealthy family, very philanthropic and, and, and just had a lot of active investments. The, the, the main person there, Peter Volenberg, knew Roz from before and had basically told her, anytime you need money, just call me up. So she did that. He invested. Um, but we were able to raise money from Kleiner Perkins. So Mary Meeker was on our board for a while. She was awesome. Um, so we did, we did end up, you know, raising money from, from Silicon Valley, essentially.

• 54:17Tim Ferriss?

  Well, not just Silicon Valley, but for people who don't know, uh, I mean, Kleiner Perkins is one of the, considered one of the blue chips. And I mean, that's, that's top tier.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And at the time they had just made their investment in Spotify and they could really see how like your emotions and understanding your emotions could drive music selection and just like user experience in general. So they were, you know, they, they saw, they saw that potential.

• 54:44Tim Ferriss?

  And Mary specifically, I think she still does this every year, puts out her sort of annual, I don't know how to properly describe it, what would be like trend forecast. I don't know the proper descriptor to use. Clearly, I'm not fully on top of it. But if people look up Mary Meeker, M E E K E R, very, very impressive woman. And why do you think, well, I guess you've already in part answered this. Was it a fast yes for Kleiner Perkins or did it take a while to court them?

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Actually, that was an inbound from Selena Chow, who is, she heads up the Horizons Invest Venture Fund, which is the venture fund for Li Keqiang, who's this like super, you know, top billionaire in China. And she emailed us out of the blue and said, I want to invest in you guys. And we were like, but we're not raising, we had just raised, you know, we had just raised a round of funding. And she was like, I don't care. I'm just going to invest in you. Okay, she's awesome. She's awesome. She sounds awesome. So, so we met her and she co-invests with Mary often. So we met both of them in the Spotify offices, I think it was in New York. And they were just amazing, like, you know, like aside from everything, I was like, wow, these two women are just powerhouses.

• 56:01Speaker 02

  So they were really, you know, they, they were just, they just made it happen. It was amazing.

• 56:06Tim Ferriss?

  That's excellent. Yeah.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  I will say, this is not my typical experience raising money. That was an outlier.

• 56:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Well, the, I mean, I think, I think they're really, really good investors who can see where the puck is going are outliers to begin with, right? So you're just not going to run into that many. And one of the common traits I've seen, particularly with really, I don't want to call it pure technology play, but something that is deeply technical. The investors who are best at that will often reach out to authors of white papers and say, hey, I know you haven't built a company, but you should and I want to give you all the money.

• 56:49Speaker 02

  Right, right. You shouldn't probably listen to them, right?

• 56:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, a lot, a lot of them are really, really good. You mentioned dating. Could you speak to that for a second? Because that was the aside, putting aside the, the truth, not truth application. That was one that, that, that did jump to mind, partially because I want to say. I at some point read a report of some psychologist, maybe it was a behavioral psychologist who could look at video footage of couples and predict with some unbelievable high percentage hit rate, like ninety-five percent accuracy, whether they would still be together a year later or ten years later, whatever it was. I can't recall the exact specs on that.

• 57:38Tim Ferriss?

  What do you think the applications are for dating or could be? Or do you think that's, is that a fool's errand?

• 57:47Speaker 02

  I, I think there's definitely a play there. So the guy you're, you're talking about is John Gottman, and he focuses on couples' therapy, and you're right. So he was, just from like watching, you know, a few seconds of video of a couple kind of interacting with each other, he'll look for expressions like an upper lip razor, which is an expression of contempt, and he was able to predict like if they're getting divorced, or will they be able to work through that. But let's like back up, right? Like dating, right? I think there's huge potential there. I mean, I think maybe that's like, maybe that's the killer app, or, or whatever. Because, because, because, because when you're seeing people's profiles,

• 58:27Speaker 02

  you subconsciously, like per cup, if somebody looks interesting, or you're like, hmm, right? You have all these like subconscious expressions, and if you are able to capture those, I think that could be really fascinating. But I think the real killer feature would be if you're able to take all of my nonverbals, as I'm going through all these profiles, and, or even like as you start engaging with somebody online, and turn it into a, will we have chemistry when we meet in the real world? Because that's the key question, right?

• 58:59Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 59:00Speaker 02

  And so if you can use all of that information and turn it into a predictor of, yeah, level of chemistry, like butterfly effect, when you meet a person in, in the real I R L, I think that's really interesting. So I haven't figured out how to do that, but.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  But I think there's a lot of application.

• 59:21Tim Ferriss?

  No, I, I want to talk.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  Do you agree? I don't know.

• 59:26Tim Ferriss?

  I do agree, yeah. I mean, I think it could be, I think it could be a huge application. And I, I don't know what form it would take precisely, but if you imagine something like a, show my age here maybe, but you have effectively a Tinder or Pandora where you're summing up, summing down, and then over time,

• 59:46Tim Ferriss?

  based on the emotion AI analysis of those profile pics, or better yet, video, if there are short video clips, maybe.

• 59:56Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 59:58Tim Ferriss?

  Then you could, you could effectively create a signature of attraction, right, or a signature of excitement, or a signature of fill in the blank that is read by the camera on your laptop or on your phone. And

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Tim Ferriss?

  I think people would pay for that, certainly. I mean, let's just say you had a dating app and there was a five dollar pro feature per month that

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:23Tim Ferriss?

  added that capability on top of your normally static, non-interactive kind of personal, you as user do all the heavy lifting version.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:33Tim Ferriss?

  That's, that's, I think that's something a lot of people would pay for.

• 1:00:39Tim Ferriss?

  So I find that personally very, very interesting. I mean, I'm very happy with my girlfriends.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Or maybe somebody, somebody in your audience is going to take it on.

• 1:00:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  I'd pay for it. So there you go. We have, we have two, two.

• 1:00:55Tim Ferriss?

  A proven market of two is larger than a lot, a lot of, more than a lot of startups have when they, when they get going.

• 1:01:03Tim Ferriss?

  Let's, let's talk about the journaling. You mentioned the journaling. I'd love to hear about the journaling and anything else that you do to ground yourself or keep yourself centered when things are difficult because you've, and we may come back to this, but you've, you've had tough times, you've had challenging times, you've had a lot on your plate at once. Could you speak to the journaling and any other practices that you have that have helped you?

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  I think you journal too, right? I do. I'm pretty sure I've heard you talk about that, yeah. So I use an app called Day One. And um, I start, I've now been journaling, I would say, eight or nine years, pretty consistently. I find that it, first of all, it's a way of just letting it all out, right? So I journal very openly, I just like, you know, hopefully this, my journal will never get hacked, because if it does, I'm in trouble. All my secrets are in this journal. Um, and I can't just hide it under my bed. Um, it's out there in the cloud. So anyways, so, so I just, I ju- I just journal very openly.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  Interestingly, a while ago, I went back and looked at like the most frequently occurring like word that I u- I use, and lonely was up there. Um, fear was another one, so a lot of fear, a lot of loneliness. Um, so it's a way of getting it out there, but what I also find interesting is I, I o- often log like celebrations, I'll say, you know, I am grateful for my kids. I'm grateful for, like, everything's falling apart, but you know what? I'm in good health, I'm grateful for that. I, I always something like, however big or small that I, and I just acknowledge, I try to celebrate something. Um, so that helps.

• 1:02:57Speaker 02

  So I guess the third way, the journal is very powerful in, in my experience, is I can look back at all these times when it was really challenging. And when I felt like, oh my God, I might not get through this. And I look back and I was like, it worked out. Like when we were moving to the US with my two kids and I was sa- newly divorced, like, life's falling apart. My parents are like, you can't do this, you're gonna fail, the kids are gonna be miserable. And I write all of that, like, a lot of fear, a lot of fear, a lot of fear. And then we moved over here and we love it. It's amazing. And so can look back at these times and truly when it's challenging, right now, it's challenging for all of us.

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  And I just, it just helps me have this conviction that this will pa- it'll pass, it'll be fine.

• 1:03:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. Does that, does that ring true?

• 1:03:51Tim Ferriss?

  It does ring true, and it's very helpful. What do you like about day one? And do you journal three times a week, five times a week? Uh, if it's kind of when you feel the need, what are the indicators that you need to do it? But, uh, what is, what is the actual practice look like? Is it in the morning?

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Tim Ferriss?

  Any specifics that you could share would be super helpful.

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  Um, so what I love the most about day one is it's just super easy and it's, it allows for multimedia, right? So sometimes I'll just take a screenshot of a cute text chat. And I'll just, that'll go into my journal, right?

• 1:04:32Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  Um, so, so there's that. Or sometimes if I'm on a flight back, you know, from wherever, and I just have a few moments, I'll just get on and say, oh, flying back from Austin. I, like, you know, I just finished it, it, it, and it felt really good, or it didn't feel really good. Uh, or I just finished a call with an investor. It sucks, whatever, right?

• 1:04:53Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:54Speaker 02

  Um, so there's no, there's, it's not like I have a fixed time, because I find that very hard to do. It's usually very impetus driven, right? Like, you know, I, I want to make sure that I log an event, or log a thought, or log a feeling. Um, sometimes I'll write essays, like some of my entries are super long, and sometimes it's just like two sentences. You know, um, I try to keep it, yeah, I, I try to not super, make it super structured, because then it's hard to implement.

• 1:05:29Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that, uh, complexity is not your friend when it comes to implementation. Uh, are there any books, uh, that you've turned to often, or reread often, or gifted off in any of those things that come to mind?

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  So I've recently been gifting, I must have given this book to at least like three or four people because I recently read it, uh, The Obstacle is the Way.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, um, I just, this idea that we all run into obstacles and we have a choice, we can just like call it the end of the road. Or we just like find a way to work through it or around it or on top of it or whatever. That's just like really resonating with me right now and I've, I've been gifting the, you know, even though I think the book's like a few years old now, but.

• 1:06:22Tim Ferriss?

  That's fun. Yeah, it's written by Ryan Holiday who lives about thirty to forty minutes from where I'm sitting right now.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  Okay, I know you're, I like, I could kind of infer that you guys are good friends.

• 1:06:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, believe it or not, I, I don't think you know this, but I actually was the publisher of his audiobook version. Because I enjoyed, I saw a pre-print version of the book and I said, if you want to do something with audio, let me help you. And so we published the audio version together.

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  That is so cool.

• 1:06:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  I did not know that.

• 1:06:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, small world, super small world. Uh, what about, uh,

• 1:06:59Tim Ferriss?

  fiction? Do you read fiction? Uh, or do you not read fiction?

• 1:07:02Speaker 02

  I do, I do. Um, my favorite book, which I've now read a few times also, is, uh, Jhumpala Hiri's The Namesake. Have you read it?

• 1:07:12Tim Ferriss?

  I have not read it. Could you, could you, why, why is it, why is it so good for you?

• 1:07:18Speaker 02

  So it tells the story of this Indian, um, young man who moves to Boston to study, do his PhD. So he does that and then he brings over a wife, he gets married and brings over his Indian wife and they settle in, in Massachusetts. And they, you know, they start off in Cambridge in this small apartment, which I did too. And then they move to the suburbs and they have kids and then their kids grow up with this internal conflict of whether, you know, they are American, are they Indian, are they both? What does that mean? And it follows the journey of this family. And I first read it in two thousand and si- uh, eight, two thousand and eight, when I was between.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  Cairo and MIT and it was becoming clear that my life is gravitating towards Boston with every trip and I just read it on this flight back to Cairo. I'll never forget this and I was just like bawling. I was just like cry. It just hit home in such a weird way because I think I was at this um fork, fork road?

• 1:08:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, fork or crossroads.

• 1:08:25Speaker 02

  Crossroad, crossroad and and I and I and I it just like it really hit home and then I reread it a few months ago and I was I cried just the same.

• 1:08:34Tim Ferriss?

  Uh.

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  Uh, just really because I feel like, oh, my God, I'm like, I've progressed, right? Like, I'm in the suburbs, my kids are in school here. I think my kids are grappling with and all of us, like me and my kids are grappling with, okay, how Egyptian are we? How American are we? And how do you bring the two together in a way that's true to who we are? So, so I love that book. I highly recommend it. It's amazing.

• 1:08:58Tim Ferriss?

  You know, I it also strikes me that um in the last few weeks, I've been reading more fiction and I I was I was a nonfiction purist for decades and.

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  Like all the self-help books?

• 1:09:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I mean, well, you name it. I mean, self-help, uh, I mean, if we want to go all the way back to Ben Franklin, then yes. Uh, so self-help biography, uh, in some respects, all books are self-help, if that makes sense, even fiction.

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:09:25Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, but the I find that in the times we're in right now and at the time of this recording, of course, the uh, the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, et cetera, are causing a lot of self-quarantine isolation, et cetera. So the words that you mentioned, loneliness, lonely, fear, I think those are going to become, uh, those feelings are going to become more and more present for more people. And that fiction, really good fiction, at least for me, has the effect of lessening both of those feelings, even if it's just for the period of time that you're reading.

• 1:10:05Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, particularly the the books that can elicit or paint a picture, uh, really emotive landscape of feelings that you're having, just in this, in the way that you've shared your emotions, thinking you're the only person in the world having them. And people say, oh, my God, that really resonates with me and you feel less alone in doing so, both of you, I would imagine. Uh, so I've I've been reading more fiction, so this will go on my list.

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  Do you have a recommendation?

• 1:10:31Tim Ferriss?

  I do, actually. I'm only, I hesitate to recommend books that I'm only partially through. But I feel quite confident in this one, and bear with me two seconds, because it's literally two feet from me, and I'm gonna grab it.

• 1:10:45Speaker 02

  We got it, okay.

• 1:10:46Tim Ferriss?

  All right, so it's this book here, which is, I'll read it. Little Big, so Little, Little, comma, Big, by John Crowley. Like Alistair Crowley. So Little Big by John Crowley. This is, I suppose you could consider it a fantasy novel. It's a bit difficult in the beginning. I'm gonna warn people that you really need to give it at least thirty pages. I tried this book two or three times. It was gifted to me by my brother, who has a very, very high bar for all books. He's a, he's a math and stats whiz, also reads very, can read very, very dense, you know, comp-type stuff, and

• 1:11:29Tim Ferriss?

  just has a very high bar for any books that he'll read, start to finish. And I couldn't get into it, because I quit within the first twenty pages. And now that I'm fifty or sixty pages in, I'm sixty pages in, I'm just loving it. And to give you an idea, I mean, this is, I've never seen, I don't want to spend too much time on this, because this is about you and not me, but I, I do think that fiction is really good medicine for people right now. Just listen to some of these cover quotes there. And you, by the way, we're gonna talk about your book. You have some amazing blurbs from people. Listen to a few of these. So this is for Little, Little Big. So here's the cover quote. Quote, "I always regularly reread a book that I wish more people would read. Little Big, it is literally the most

• 1:12:12Tim Ferriss?

  enchanting twentieth-century book I know." Harold Bloom. And then you've got, you know, Los Angeles Herald Examiner says, "The kind of book around which cults are formed, and rightly so." There's magic here. It just goes on and on. Ursula K. Le Guin, I believe I'm getting that name pronounced correctly, says, "This book is indescribable, splendid madness, or delightful sanity, or both. Persons who enter this book are advised that they will leave it a different size than when they came in." It is a fucking weird book. I'm gonna warn you in advance.

• 1:12:44Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 1:12:44Tim Ferriss?

  It's very strange, and that's part of the reason that I like it so much. It's very weird. It's got that kind of, uh...

• 1:12:52Tim Ferriss?

  You know, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, sort of like Colombian surrealism. It's very odd, but so far I'm finding it enjoyable.

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  I will, I'll add it to my list. I will, I will make sure I stick through the first thirty pages.

• 1:13:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and I would recommend getting it on Kindle because John Crowley's vocabulary is impressively broad and it's kind of like when I read his Dark Materials and The Golden Compass, which are categorized as young adult novels, but then contain extremely niche

• 1:13:34Tim Ferriss?

  nautical terminology. So you'll want to be able to look words up is what I'm saying. You'll, you'll, because I'm underlining words every page or two that I don't actually know the meaning to. And that's my dog barking. If you hear it, that's Molly, because we're

• 1:13:47Speaker 02

  Hi Molly.

• 1:13:48Tim Ferriss?

  Quarantine verite on this audio.

• 1:13:53Tim Ferriss?

  Let's, let's talk about, uh, let's talk about your book. Why with all the things you have going on? Why a book? I, I, of all people know, books to do well, take a lot of focus, they take a lot of energy. Uh, why a book? Why now?

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  First of all, if I knew how much work it would have been, it's pretty much like a startup, right? If you knew really how much work it would take, maybe I wouldn't have done it. So, um, but, but, but the reason, the initial reason I decided to write the book, so this has been almost three years in the making, was, um, it was originally going to be like an AI book, right? Like AI needs empathy, it needs emotion, it's all about emotion AI, and why do we need emotion AI? And how do you build emotion AI? And what are the applications? Like it was, and what are the ethics and moral implications of all of that? And then I had a meeting with, um, an editor that was interested in, in the book, Roger Scholl at Penguin Random House, and it was a lunch

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  meeting, and he was like, oh, tell me your story. And I was like, well, I grew up in Cairo and da, da, da, da, and then I, you know, wore the hijab, and then I moved to Cambridge, and he was like, that's the book. I was like, what? And he was like, well, your story of your story of becoming, you know, moving from this nice Egyptian obedient young woman to like CEO of an AI venture backed company in the US, um, that journey of personal transformation could resonate with people. And so the more and so we pivoted, we pivoted basically. And the book became more of a memoir, which makes me sound like I'm 80 years old. I'm not. Um, and it's just this juxtaposition

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  of my personal journey with why and how I, you know, I built this category of AI called emotion AI. But it's, it's got a lot. And my, I mean, my reality is that both journeys are very intertwined. And so the book kind of puts that forth.

• 1:15:53Tim Ferriss?

  What did you learn in the course of writing the book? Was there anything that came out that surprised you, thinking that you were able to clarify in the process of writing? What, what did you learn or what surprised you about the process?

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  So the biggest thing I, I learned, so I was like midway, not mid, maybe a third into writing the book when I read Michelle Obama's Becoming. And it was just so vulnerable. I was like, I want to, I want to be open in how I write about this. So I went back and, and kind of not rewrote, but just like rethought how I'm going to approach this. And the thing that struck me the most was my relationship to dad.

• 1:16:38Tim Ferriss?

  Your relationship to your dad?

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. And actually, so I, I narrated the audiobook and

• 1:16:45Tim Ferriss?

  That's a lot of work.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. Yes. Tell me about it.

• 1:16:48Tim Ferriss?

  Well done.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Um, there was one part in the book where I talk about, um, my dad and I just, I just totally broke down. Um, I mean, so it's this like very interesting relationship. I love my dad, love my dad. And he's been so supportive of, of my journey and my aspirations. But at the same time, he is very strict. Um, like for the longest time, I just assumed because I broke mold of what is expected of me that he was not proud of me. Like for the longest time, I just, I, I just. I still feel that way sometimes that I I wonder if he would rather have had me stay

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  in Egypt, be an awesome wife, be an awesome mom, and give up all of that. Um, I don't think so. I mean, he was in the US a few months ago and he visited the team and he met affect, you know, the affectiva crew and um, I think he looked proud in the picture when you when you analyze his expressions, it kind of looked proud. Um, but so writing through that, you know, my my mom and my sisters read an early version of the book and they were like, you can't, you can't publish it like that. Dad's coming out in a very bad light. And I was like, what? So I had to go back and and and just like really explore my relationship with him.

• 1:18:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Was that difficult? Was it confusing? How would you describe looking that closely at your relationship with your dad over time? I think a lot of people have complex relationships with at least one parent. What was that like for you? Because I I have found it, writing about many subjects extremely difficult, uh, sort of emotionally impactful, uh, unsettling sometimes. What was that? How would you describe the experience of of looking at it so closely for the purposes of writing?

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  I just had to really dig deep, right? I think it's it's like I had just probably written off or like closed off major chapters in my life where I just wouldn't talk about it. I I or I talk about it like in one sentence. I'd never go like really deep. And my relationship with my dad is one of them. So I had to like, and I just like, look, I just wrote this pencil. Oh, my God. So yeah, it's still ongoing, as you can see. Um, that's interesting. Okay, I'm gonna put this down. Um, I I think it's just like super complex and very multi-layered, right? Like, um, like through the divorce, he was very adamant that he he took a very

• 1:19:41Speaker 02

  balanced view between my relationship and my like he, you know, with my ex. And so he almost like

• 1:19:49Speaker 02

  He was an arbitrator, right? He wasn't like exclusively on my side. I felt like he was very balanced, which I, on the one hand, think is great, but part of me was like, Dad, you're like my dad, you gotta be on my side. And, but I think he did it for the greater good. Um, so I had to just work through these things. Or like, one, one, one day, he called me up, I was in Boston, and he was like, quit Afectiva, like, just sell it. I was like, what? It's my company. He was like, you gotta come back home, fix your marriage, like, done with this company. And, and I know where he's coming from. He's coming from a place of love, but it took me a while to process that, right?

• 1:20:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:27Speaker 02

  Um, so things like that. But he's awesome. So.

• 1:20:30Tim Ferriss?

  What, uh, feel free to not answer this if, if you don't want to, but what, what, if anything, do you think has been unsaid to your dad that would be helpful to say to your dad? Is there anything that comes to mind? Or was there anything that came out in the book that you feel strongly about? Uh, I don't mean to dwell on this. I just, I think this is part of what makes you you. And that's why I'm asking.

• 1:20:58Speaker 02

  I guess I just, I, I, I do want my dad to know that I love him. And, um, and I guess, you know, he's very close to both my sisters, um, in a way that I, you know, I, I don't think I've let myself, um, be open in that way, but, but I would like to because I feel like someday I will regret, you know, regret not, I'll look back and I'll say, bummer, like, I should have really taken that step. Um, so I guess I would like him to know that I would, I would love to explore kind of a closer relationship. But I think that would be, that would be cool. And I, I think having written that book, I'm a lot more open, I'm a lot more open to doing that.

• 1:21:42Tim Ferriss?

  That's beautiful. Thank you for, thank you for answering that. What's?

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  Now he has to listen to it.

• 1:21:47Tim Ferriss?

  Now he has, now he has to listen to it.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  Now you have to give him that.

• 1:21:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Well, you know, there's, there are a few people who listen to this. It may, it may get packed to him.

• 1:21:56Tim Ferriss?

  What's, uh, shipping a book, publishing a book is much like, as, as you said, starting a startup. It's difficult. Uh, you, you try to, you hope to have some type of driver behind climbing this mountain that pays off at some point. What impact, and we mentioned it at the top of the episode, but Girl Decoded is the title of the book. Subtitle, A Scientist's Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology. What would make this book a home run for you? Not necessarily in terms of numbers of copies

• 1:22:38Tim Ferriss?

  sold, bestseller lists and all of that, but in terms of impact, and it could just be on a handful of people. It doesn't need to be millions of people, but what would make this worth it for you?

• 1:22:54Speaker 02

  I would want, not just women, actually. I think people assume that this is, you know, mainly targeted. It's a story that's, it's not at all just mainly targeted at women. I think it's more about people embracing their own voice and their own path and their own emotions and having faith that it's, it's, that they can do it, right? I had, I mean, I still have so much doubt in my brain, probably because of my cultural upbringing, that it just all feels surreal to me. Like I, I, I, I, like imposter syndrome, like plus plus, right? All the time. And I have to work through it and I have to, you know,

• 1:23:36Speaker 02

  negotiate with, with that voice. And in a way, like I'm my biggest obstacle in a sad way, right? And so I just want people to know that it doesn't have to be that way and you, you can, you can work through it. And, and so when people reach out to me and, and they're like, you know, I follow you and I just want you to know that you've inspired me or you've, you've kind of propelled me to try X, Y, and Z. That just makes my day. Just, that's, that's what helps get through all of.

• 1:24:06Speaker 02

  The crap that's out there. Am I allowed to say crap?

• 1:24:10Tim Ferriss?

  You're allowed to say crap. I dropped an F-bomb earlier. You're good with the C-word. At least that C-word. You can say whatever you want. You just have to live with the consequences. You can use the E-word as well. We've been, we've been doing a good job of using the E-word.

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  Yes, we have.

• 1:24:25Tim Ferriss?

  I, I, I think that this is really important. Uh, I, I, I really hope the book does well. And I haven't read the book, but I think that your story is really compelling. And it, it also, I think, highlights, for me at least, your story. And also the technology that you're helping to develop. That we're, we're, we're all in this together and that it's not meant to sound cliched and kumbaya. But particularly when it's, uh, when we're experiencing, say, a scare and possible health crisis as we are right now, it's very easy to feel isolated.

• 1:25:07Tim Ferriss?

  And, you know, one thing that struck me is, as I was doing reading about the, the technology and so on, that, uh, you know, I think, I think the word diversity has become a, a hot button in the sense that it's, it's something that a lot of people overuse. It's something that other people avoid using at all costs because they've become over-sensitive or I shouldn't say over-sensitive, sensitive to it. But just as you were mentioning, your cultural background and how expressiveness differs across culture. Expressions differ across culture. If, if you want to develop good technology, uh, for, say, AI deployment, you need diverse data sets, right? I mean, it just like you.

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:25:53Tim Ferriss?

  It's, it's a necessity. It's not a luxury. It's not an option. If you want good technology in, in certainly this type of technology, you just, you need to have complete data sets and diverse data sets. And I, I find that practically and metaphorically.

• 1:26:12Tim Ferriss?

  Reassuring, if that makes sense.

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. If you want, you know, if you're going to deploy this technology, which we do in like ninety countries around the world, you can't just train it on people that look like you, Tim, right? Which, which is, which is, which would be the default kind of default data set. Um, and so we, we really prioritize the diversity of the data, but you can't get to the diversity of the data unless you have a diverse team of people who are thinking about the data and the algorithm and, and, and like, you know, how robust it is globally and cross culturally. So that's where I think the conversation about diversity and inclusion becomes really real because you want a diverse

• 1:26:57Speaker 02

  group of minds and brains thinking about this problem and how to solve it in a way that works for everybody. And it's not just diversity of like gender or, or ethnicity, which is what people usually gravitate to. I'm, you know, we think diversity of age is very important because we have a, a high school internship program for, for high school kids where we bring them in and of course they learn a lot, but we learn a lot from them too, because their experience growing up with technology is very different than say mine. I'm in my, you know, I'm forty one and, you know, and these, and these kids are just a very different experience growing up with devices and technologies and we want their perspective. And they're going to be the ones who are kind of stuck with this technology, right?

• 1:27:39Speaker 02

  So I think they need to have a voice around the table as well. So all kinds of diversity, not just, and even like, you know, our CMO is an, is an art historian and she, um, you know, is very involved in product strategy. So we want her around the table too. It's not just machine learning folks like me. So, um, yeah, I think it's really, really key.

• 1:27:58Tim Ferriss?

  And the cultural piece is huge too, right? Because you could have, uh, for those who don't know, I mean, I look like a A Danish man, which I am in part, relatively, the huge fat head, bald now at this point. But you can find people like me in Scandinavia, you can find people like me here in the US, who look like me. You can find people who look somewhat like me, even in Egypt, right? I have some Egyptian friends who have, they have blue eyes and in the case of my friends, red hair, but once you're bald, the hair color matters less. Albania, etc. And culturally, they're going to express quite differently, or it's possible that they would.

• 1:28:41Tim Ferriss?

  So I, I'm excited to see where the technology goes. I, I hope that it veers more in a enabling, benevolent, or at least neutral direction, as opposed to dystopian, police state direction. But I suspect we'll have a bit of both. And at least speaking for one person, I'm glad that you have the ethical direction and sort of values that you've put in place for making decisions, right? Because you're going to have to, I mean, ultimately, you have to program that decision-making framework into the company in the same way that you'll be programming rules and decision-making,

• 1:29:24Tim Ferriss?

  possibly into the, into the lines of code that dictate the behaviors of artificial intelligence.

• 1:29:30Speaker 02

  But I really think, I mean, one goal of the book is to spark public dialogue around human-centric AI, because I really think it's, there is so much amazing potential for this technology. I mean, we've talked about some of it, mental health, autism, you know, safer roads, like you name it. And yes, there are lots of potential for abuse, but who's making the decision? It's us. Like, we as a society are the ones who are veering it in whatever direction. Like, we are going to spend mindshare and investment money to steer it in the direction we want it to, and I really want the public to be part of that conversation, just the same way, you know, there is a movement towards, you know, greener products, or fair trade,

• 1:30:15Speaker 02

  or whatever. We need the same in AI. I think the consumer can, can have a voice in, in prioritizing or really kind of supporting companies that have these strong core values and, and supporting less of the companies that don't.

• 1:30:30Tim Ferriss?

  Vote with your wallet, vote with your voice. Is there anything? And this is, this is sometimes a difficult question for folks to answer, but just to, to tie up here. If you had a billboard, metaphorically speaking, something that you could, you could use to get a message out to billions of people, but limited real estate, so you could put a quote, a word, a sentence, anything non-commercial on this, what might you, a question, an image, what might you put on that billboard to convey, to share with billions of people? Anything come to mind?

• 1:31:09Speaker 02

  Uh, that's a tough one, because, um, a billboard, um, embrace your emotion, like embrace your emotions, that's like the call to action, yeah.

• 1:31:20Tim Ferriss?

  I love it.

• 1:31:21Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:31:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:22Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:31:23Tim Ferriss?

  That, that works, that works for me.

• 1:31:25Speaker 02

  Hashtag embrace your emotion.

• 1:31:27Tim Ferriss?

  Hashtag embrace your emotions, yeah. It's like, uh, you will be, you will be with your emotions whether you like it or not, whether you try to silence them or not, so I think it's more.

• 1:31:40Speaker 02

  Right, so there's like, yeah.

• 1:31:42Tim Ferriss?

  Better to embrace, embrace your emotions, I, I think that's perfect.

• 1:31:46Speaker 02

  I think it's power in that, I think it's power, right? There's power in that, it's, it's, it's actually powerful, that's what we want to convey.

• 1:31:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else that you would like to say before we wrap up here today?

• 1:32:01Speaker 02

  Um, no, I'm just easy to find if people want to reach out and share their stories or their input or ideas.

• 1:32:08Tim Ferriss?

  There any, uh, on social, are you more active anywhere in particular? Do you have a preferred social location?

• 1:32:16Speaker 02

  Um, LinkedIn seems to, this is pretty new, but the, the, I think there's a lot of conversation on LinkedIn.

• 1:32:23Tim Ferriss?

  Great, and that's, and that's Kaliwobi. I would imagine there aren't too many people on LinkedIn with the exact same name, that's my guess. Does your, does your name mean anything? Might not, my name really does not, uh, doesn't have much meaning to it. Uh, but does yours have any meaning to it?

• 1:32:43Speaker 02

  My first name, uh, means serenity. Like serene, right, um, and which, which I have to work on, I'm not that serene.

• 1:32:54Speaker 02

  I need to like, get into my, yeah, I need to like, practice meditation or something. Been my, on my New Year's resolutions forever, um.

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  And then my last name is, it's a Kaliouby, as in from Kaliouby or Kaliyubya, which is a govern, a governate in Egypt. It's a place in Egypt.

• 1:33:18Tim Ferriss?

  Serenity, Rana. Don't we all need a little bit more serenity? So, this has been a really fun conversation for me. People can find you on LinkedIn. That's Kaliouby, and we'll link to all this in the show notes, of course, on Twitter, @Kaliyub, and once again, that's K-A-L-I-O-U-B-Y. Instagram, @RanaElKaliyub. And the website where you can find all of this is probably the easiest home base, which is ranaelkaliyub.com. And for everybody listening, you can find all of the links to everything we've discussed, including the book, at tim.blog/podcast. Rana, thank you so much for taking the time today. This has been a lot of fun for me.

• 1:34:02Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you for having me.

• 1:34:04Tim Ferriss?

  And for everybody out there, listening or watching, don't be an upper raiser of all sorts of new labels for folks. Be well, be safe, and thanks for tuning in. Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit

• 1:34:47Tim Ferriss?

  that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers, and it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox.

• 1:35:32Tim Ferriss?

  Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short, of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers, have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time, because after all, the podcasts, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free, it's always gonna be free, and you can learn more at tim.blog/friday. It's tim.blog/friday. I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people

• 1:36:15Tim Ferriss?

  I've ever interacted with, and little known fact, I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So, check it out, tim.blog/friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot, and you can, of course, easily subscribe anytime. So, easy peasy.

• 1:36:55Tim Ferriss?

  Again, that's tim.blog/friday, and thanks for checking it out, if the spirit moves you. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Now more than ever, businesses are grappling with incredibly challenging times. A lot of things in life and business are changing, and we're all adapting to new priorities. While it does take time to adjust, LinkedIn believes that it's also possible to find and create opportunities in times of turbulence, in times of change. Whether you're looking to hire now for a critical role, or thinking about needs that you might have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn is an active community with more than 675 million members worldwide. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you're looking for,

• 1:37:38Tim Ferriss?

  while putting your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match exactly what you have to offer. With LinkedIn, you can hire the right person quickly when you need them. And if you need to hire for healthcare or essential services, you can post your jobs for free right now. When it's time to find and hire that right person, LinkedIn is here to help. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim. Again, that's LinkedIn.com/Tim to post a job now. Terms and conditions apply.