Taking Back Your Data: Why the Next Web MUST Protect Digital Freedom

What if your data worked for you and not the platforms controlling it? Today on Digital Disruption, we’re joined by John Bruce, CEO and Co-Founder of Inrupt. With a background as both a founder and an executive at global tech firms, John Bruce is uniquely qualified to help engineer the next phase of the web alongside his co-founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He brings to bear decades of successful business leadership and experience creating new markets around innovative software. Prior to partnering with Tim, he was the co-founder and CEO of Resilient, now an IBM company, that developed a new approach to cybersecurity. Through Resilient and four other successful startups, John has experienced first-hand the strategic challenges that the current structure of the web causes for users, developers, and organizations around the world. John Bruce sits down with Geoff Nielson to talk about a future where individuals and not platforms own their data. John shares how AI, consent-driven data sharing, and a decentralized digital wallet called, Charlie could fundamentally reshape how we interact with technology, institutions, and each other. He explains why we must reclaim personal data from tech giants and what “agentic wallets” are and how they work. In this video: 0:00 Intro 1:25 Rebuilding the Web 3:30 From Tim Berners-Lee to today 5:10 Data ownership vs. data surveillance 7:00 Moving from platforms to people 9:15 What Is an Agentic AI wallet? 11:00 Why consent must be baked into AI and data flows 13:45 Use cases in healthcare, government & enterprise 16:10 “Decentralized” doesn’t mean disorganized 18:30 What leaders get wrong about data control 20:45 Enterprise integration 23:00 The ROI of giving users control of their own data 25:30 Why this moment feels like the early days of the web 27:00 What’s next for Inrupt, Solid, and the Internet itself 29:00 How We rebuild digital trust 31:00 Inrupt's vision beyond 2030 34:00 Partnering with institutions to scale Solid 37:00 Global digital identity and governance challenges 40:00 Building public trust in data ecosystems 43:00 A non-linear view of it all Connect with John: Website: https://www.inrupt.com/about LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnwbruce/ Visit our website: https://www.infotech.com/ Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InfoTechRG

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Geoff Nielson?

  Hey everyone, I'm super excited to be sitting down today with John Bruce. Together with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who's the inventor of the web, John is looking at how we can actually build the next web. What's so cool about this vision is if it pans out, it means we'll finally be in control of our own data and can wrestle it back from big tech. Now, I'll be honest, I don't know if I totally understand what he's got cooking for us. And so what I want to talk to him about is how this actually works, what it looks like in practice, and if we can separate the real from the hype. Let's find out.

• 0:39Geoff Nielson?

  So John, thanks so much. Maybe just to start, for those who don't know you, can you tell us a little bit about your story, your journey, and what you've been up to in your career?

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I'm John Bruce. I've had three decades, well, it's flown, three decades of experience in software. And the majority of that I worked for high-technology businesses focused on software to be used by big organizations. And along the way, I was at a huge tech company as a vice president. And since then, I've founded and run four startups. I guess this is number five, actually, thinking out loud.

• 1:20Geoff Nielson?

  Wow.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  So, yeah, yeah. I've been fortunate along the way to work with some fabulous people. And that's made the businesses, in turn, very successful. My last company I founded in 2011 was acquired by IBM, where I spent some nice years. It's a good business. And now founded this company with Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 2018.

• 1:48Geoff Nielson?

  Amazing. So you've been around the block a few times when it comes to enterprise technology.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  I've seen a lot of changes in tech, that's a fact, so.

• 1:58Geoff Nielson?

  Well, so let's, let's maybe talk about that. And, you know, as you look at, you know, if I can call it the intersection of technology and society, what, today, what, what excites you the most and what worries you the most?

• 2:11Speaker 01

  I, I think in one itself, same thing, actually. I mean, you'd have to have been living on a desert island for the last couple of years and not seeing the massive impact that AI is having on us all. And, and I think it's only just started. And while that's hugely exciting, it's also a big worry, actually. I think that the, the challenges of AI are probably more fraught than we imagined. And so the way that we've looked at it, yeah, and Tim imagined, you know, Tim is a brilliant man, of course he is. One doesn't invent the web, you know, because you wake up one day and, oh, I've had this idea. So, so he, he, he has a pedigree of, of being hugely innovative and visionary. And so when we met

• 2:56Speaker 01

  some years ago, and he described to me how he could anticipate the web evolving and what one might do to make it a much more useful place for us all. In that, we talked about AI. But we imagined it was about 20 years ahead. Fast forward six years and here we are, we've got it. And, uh, yeah, the world is moving at quite the clip. So, so I'd answer to your question. I think the most exciting thing I'm experiencing right now is AI and the impact of AI, like most of us are. But then what, what really worries me is AI and the impact most of us are beginning to experience of that too. So, one in itself, same thing.

• 3:37Geoff Nielson?

  So, so on the, on, on the worry side, you know, when you think about that worry, is it, you know, AGI, is it AI being used by bad actors? You know, what specifically kind of, you know, keeps you up at night?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Certainly that. I mean, you know, bad actors and their ability to, you know, some of my companies along the way were software companies. And, uh, and the thought of AI in the hands of, of, of malignant intended actors is pretty dire, right? I mean, just the, the nature of the attacks that they could create and explo, and the exploits they could run it. A huge scale and a huge sophistication that would have taken months of, you know, work and preparation in the past. Now you can do them in a blink of an eye. I mean, it's, it's quite staggering to think about the implications of that. But, but I think more fundamentally though, what I see ahead of us, if we're not careful, is a redo of the problems we already have on the web, you know, where one ends up with huge silos

• 4:34Speaker 01

  of data and, and, and the folks who sit astride that data command immense influence over us all. And I think that, that pales by comparison to what we, we have ahead of us with L L Ms. I mean, you know, the, the, the thoughts of us giving our all to an L L M in order to appreciate their counsel and guidance in all walks of our life. You know, the trade there is, is huge. We give up everything to get back that which we think is, is utility. But in so doing, we bind ourselves to these things in ways that, you know, we're already bound somewhat by the big silos of data, of course we are, but nowhere near the way

• 5:18Speaker 01

  it would be if we're not careful. That, that's quite worrying, actually.

• 5:22Geoff Nielson?

  You know, I, I think we're probably of the same mind that it feels very much like that's already the path that we're on, right? We've already sta- started down this road where, you know, the players in big tech have created these, these walled gardens of, you know, of our own data that they're kind of extracting from us. So, you know, in, in your mind, how far down this road are we? And, you know, what, what kind of path do we have to take if we're going to, you know, actually change course and, and get off this road?

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Well, not to, you know, not to stretch the meta- metaphor too far, but I think we can step off it as soon as we want. We don't have to go where, where it's in, where others would have us go, you know, where the, the intentful would have us go. I think we can, we can vector away from it. And, and so when I reflect on that conversation I originally had with Tim and he imagines the web, it was a foundational conversation for me. I, I will confess, it took two or three dinners for me to really grok it, you know, such is the mind of the man. But, but then when the penny dropped. Yeah, I really got it. I mean, I got it in a fundamental way. And the premise he described to me was a world where the data didn't exist in big silos.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  He inverted the model. He put the data in the hands of the individual and granted the individual consent over who or what could access it.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  So when we'll fast forward to today, fast forward to today, and you think about the implications of AI,

• 6:52Speaker 01

  you can imagine a world where where you can still get the benefits of the L L Ms with their counsel and guidance,

• 7:00Speaker 01

  but the data stays with you. That is the way I believe and and and way smarter people than than me around me really insist that that's the way that we all should go. And and that that offers utility not just for the individual who can now get hugely personalized recommendations and and and and support from the L L Ms in in a very personal way. But it's also hugely beneficial for the L L Ms too. I mean, you know, they can evidence the fact that done in the right way, they can give you utility that you'd never experience otherwise. And and we can imagine a world where you won't exist in one L L M. You'll you'll have a number of agents interacting with you.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  And what's going to be really important is that you have your agent acting on your behalf. And and so we we, you know, we imagined this thing we've called the agentic wallet, where the data is contained in a wallet and and your agent, which which we've dubbed Charlie, because Ti- Tim wrote a paper back those years ago when we first met. Tim wrote a paper about a personal agent called Charlie, and it was going to be way better than than the agents that that then existed, like Siri and Alexa and so on. And this agent would work for you. And and as I say, we imagined twenty years from then, we would see it, but but we've actually built it. We built it. We call it Charlie and in, you know, with respect to the fact that back then he called this thing Charlie.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  And and it actually does work. You can have data in your wallet, your agent, which we call an agentic wallet, but but your your agent, Charlie, in our case, works for you. It's the way forward, actually.

• 8:42Geoff Nielson?

  So so is the notion with that, then, it's it's super interesting. Is the notion that it?

• 8:48Geoff Nielson?

  When you're interacting with L L Ms, when you're interacting with different kind of, you know, data suckers, if I can call them that, you know, across your, you know, wherever you are digitally, that you've got an agent who's looking out for, making sure there's consent anytime, you know, data is leaving your hands. Is that kind of the vision of it?

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the, that's the, that's the first step of it. Yeah, that's a fact. You know, you, you get to consent what data can be accessed by whom. That's the principle of, of the underpinning technology is called Solid. It's, it's open source. It was created some years ago out of MIT and Gant and Oxford. It's had thousands of developers working on it. And what we've basically done, Tim and I and those who've come to join us have, is we've built a, an enterprise grade version, if you will, of Solid. And upon that foundation, we built what we call agentic wallets. We, we built a construct that says, look, all your data is going to live in your wallet. We're all familiar with wallets. Of course we are. You know, you probably use it to buy your coffee this morning. I mean, it's a, you know, Apple and similar have done a fabulous job of promoting the notion that

• 9:54Speaker 01

  you, the utility you can have in having a wallet on your phone to pay for things, huge, huge beneficial. I mean, it's great utility, but it's very limited. It's very transactional. It, and it exists in the moment of time you need to, to do that transaction for the coffee. What we've done is we've extended that. So in our wallets, you can add not just transactional data, but personal data. And that can be everything from health records and bank statements to pictures of your cat. It's stuff that's private to you unless you deem it appropriate to share it. And then, of course, this wallet can also access the immense amount of data on the web. We've had these wallets for two or

• 10:39Speaker 01

  three years now, and, and they're being adopted by certain organizations around the world for the benefit of them and their consumers or their citizens. Cause we, we also provision for. Governments for countries.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  But now with the advent of AI, one can put AI on top of that wallet. And it becomes agentic. Now it really does work for you. Now I consider stride interactions with agents, external agents, be they L L Ms, chatbots, applications. And it can intermediate between that world out there and your private world in a way that you consent. And so in that world, as I say, you you get to decide who and what and why can can access your data and. And the organization, most of the organizations that want to service you are happier with that. Than a world where they have to take your data away and become responsible for it.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  I mean, generally, they want to know you in the broader sense possible. In order to provision better products, better services and so on, they want to understand you. And the way they're forced to do it today is they have a limited amount of data about you because you've filled in a form and you gave me your name and address. Or you made a purchase on their website or some such. And then they go and acquire supplementary data about you. They merge it. And now they try and figure out your propensity to purchase, whatever it happens to be. But in this world, they can approach you directly. And they can ask for. Visibility of a broad array of data that you have in your wallet. And as a consequence of that visibility, now they can recommend much more personalized services.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  But if you were needing to do this throughout the course of the day, you'd be clicking and consent buttons all through the day. So what you're, what Charlie does is it works for you on that. It will actually act as your intermediary with all these, all these external agencies. So it really is the way the world's going to go. It's the safest way to do it all, of course it is.

• 12:37Geoff Nielson?

  It's really interesting. That's exactly where I was going to go, the the word safe there, right? Because I I love the vision behind this. I think it's it's super fascinating and, you know, sold sold on the vision. If the the first thing I think about when you say you've got this wallet and it has your health records and it's got, you know, your bank records and everything you care about is, you know. Damn, I hope it's secure because suddenly you've centralized the risk in one place. So what what does that look like from an encryption perspective, from a security perspective? And how do you, how do you sell people that this is something I can really trust?

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. We get it asked a lot, of course we do. So so so three parts of the answer for it. One is. So so not only is Tim here, but there's also a chap called Bruce Schneider. And Bruce Schneider, for those of you who have not heard of him, is one of the world's leading cryptographers. Well, leading security guys, I'd better say. You know, he he wrote a hugely important book called Apply Cryptography some years ago. And it set the world into a totally different direction when it comes to crypto. Anyway, Bruce is our chief of security. So he's infused our architecture with all of the stuff that he knows. And and he's had a great deal of support around him. I mean, he attracts a lot of expertise, friends and so on, to to help us with the architecture.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  So so having said, OK, architecturally, we know how to do it. Then you used a metaphor earlier about the road. I used one similarly about the risk associated with you assembling your data. I mean, you make a hugely important point, which is all this data is going to exist in one place. Hmm, that's risky, right? Well, not so much. You get the benefit of all of the security stuff that exists on the web anyway. So it's no less risky in that regard. And then I think about it simplistically as the difference in a bank robber and a mugger.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  You know, if you think about your data today, it exists in big silos and they're hugely valuable. I mean, your credit cards lives in a database of, I don't know, 10 million other credit cards. So any attacker who wants to take it down can afford, because they're in an ROI business, can afford to to put a lot of resources into taking that database down. Once they get access to it, they know what they can, you know, get out of it. And, you know, dark web and so on, I mean, in order to to liquidate it, if you will, get liquidity off it. It's a plain and simple ROI. But when it comes to your data, and I guess if you're, you know, President Trump or Kim Kardashian, then, you know, getting access to your data is probably really, really valuable.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  So somebody is going to come after you. But but but but, you know, little old me, not so much. I mean, so so I I think it's a difference in, as I say, you know.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Credit cards exist in a bank vault.

• 15:28Geoff Nielson?

  Yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  They're gonna be subject to a lot of resource attacks. Me, my wallet, walking on the street. Yeah, as long as I stay on a dark alleyways and so on, then I feel okay about that. You know, I'll, I'll, I'll take the risk of the mugger. It's a very different attack factor, you know, very different risk profile. But then we've added some supplementary tech to it too. So, so we, we've architected on the Bruce's tutelage. We've architected it in such a way where it avails itself of all the classic web security technologies. But because of us being quite an agile business, who, you know, we're quite small and agile. We can, we can adopt new security tech as it comes.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  We're not bound by, you know, the big corporate machinery that needs to operate to, which can slow you down. So net, net, it's a, it's a point well made. You know, now it's all my data and, well, I need to be worried about it. Sure, be worried about it, be concerned about it, but rest easy. And, and we've had a lot of people evaluate the tech. I mean, from governments around the, around the world, big corporations around the world. And they've done all the usual, you know, due diligence on the architecture, the protocols, SPAC, the, the, the operational execution we've, we've deployed and so on. And they, they stand easy on it, which was very gratifying.

• 16:51Geoff Nielson?

  No, I, I, I do really like the, the metaphor of the, the mugger and the bank. Like to me, that, that really clarifies, you know, why, you know, you can feel at ease. And that, you know, with Bruce, with the technology there, you know, that, that, that whole crypto approach, that, that's really interesting. But yeah, to say it, it's decentralized, you know, in ways we've never seen before. You're right, it completely changes the, you know, the profile of, of what's required to go after someone with this.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the utility of your data too, yeah, it's just immensely more valuable.

• 17:22Geoff Nielson?

  So let's talk about what you're trying to do there because so I I love the vision and I'm curious about, you know, the execution and, you know, if I can call it the ecosystem because, you know, one of the things I thought about as you were talking is it sort of sounds like you're trying to take money out of the banks and put it back in people's wallets. And I I know this is an imperfect metaphor, but you know, is there resistance from the quote banks, you know, from the owners of these data silos with a model like this? And then, you know, on the flip side of that, which types of organizations are you working with? And and you know, where are you seeing some of the use cases where, you know, this is starting to gain traction?

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, great questions. I mean, and you know, to to your metaphor, I don't think it's an inappropriate one, actually. Yeah, we're looking at decentralizing the web. I mean, we're looking to do with with the web. It's I'm reminded of, you know, the big mainframe days and along came this distributed piece of tech called the laptop and personal computer and it'll never stick, it'll never last, but look what it did, you know? I mean, the decentralization versus centralization, I mean, it's massively much as massively much more utility. But then, you know, in the context of where we see the tech being adopted, it's very broad scale. It's as broad as the web itself. It really is. So we've worked with a number of folks and I'm trying to remember all the verticals, but finance, healthcare,

• 18:44Speaker 01

  retail, telecommunications, media. I could, the marketing people will tell me off and not remember them all, but but you know, there's a bunch of them. And then governments too, the most public one of which is in Belgium, the government of Flanders. That's most of the Belgian citizens live in Flanders and and they they're now getting this technology. It's the way that the government's going to service them, social services, and the way that they're going to make government issued data available to corporations.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  In a very managed way. And if one stops just for a second to think about the implications of that, it says, look, if you, if you as an organization could rely on the name and address issued by the government in that wallet as the appropriate dispatch address for any product or service you want to ship, saves you having to keep a record of the user, saves you having to keep these massive databases that you got to keep safe and secure and answer to, you know, GDPR and everything else for, it's, it's a way more efficient way to go. It's quite actually visionary for the then Minister President Yanban, uh, who saw that this was the way to free up data in Flanders. Because if you could free it up, then, then it would have direct impact on GDP.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  But there are those who don't want it to happen.

• 20:02Geoff Nielson?

  Sure.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  I mean, they have immensely profitable businesses uh, uh, out of the inverse of this. But, but then one thinks, Yanban. I mean, I, I, I, I like say my, my previous company was acquired by IBM and I enjoyed two years working there. And I'm reminded that they've been a high tech business for over a hundred years. Just think of that. Over a hundred years, they've been a high technology company. And the way they prevailed is they've adapted. They're smart, they adapt, they're agile, and they use their resources to, to, to adapt to societal change. I'm sure they might stimulate some of it too, but, but, but the, the big ones today will be the same. They're smart people, they got massive amounts of resource and, and they, they got to be saying that this is the way it should go.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  And if they're not, perhaps I give them too much credit. But now they're going to realize that, yeah, and if you sit continuing to sell your buggy whips, then maybe, just maybe, you're going to have a problem. Better yet, you adapt, you change. And, and, and we have, some of them are friends as well as potential foes, but.

• 21:08Geoff Nielson?

  Well, and the, the faux piece is interesting and I want to come back. I, I really want to dive into some of these use cases and how we're seeing this in action. But just before we do, you know, provocatively, like, right now, are you an interrupt Mark Zuckerberg's worst nightmare?

• 21:24Speaker 01

  I'm sure he's got a lot more on his plate to worry about, but he knows of us and he said, he said interesting things about us along the way. And I'm more particularly solid. And yeah, you know, like I say, I think he's got his hands full anyway, but, but.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  I, I think we should give him a food for thought. I mean, in a very positive way, too. Because while we're a nightmare for him potentially, we're also his biggest opportunity.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Massively resourced business, smart people. If they get ahead of this, they, they can do things in a much more beneficent way. I mean, I think part of the challenge that a lot of these businesses face is they're perceived to be them, not us. And, and that's a company in particular that started as an us. I mean, it was all about a platform for us to, to interact. And along the way, maybe changed quite significantly, but, but it could be an us platform again. And, and this technology would absolutely provide an opportunity to do that. So, so I don't know if, if Mark listens to your podcast, but if he does. My number's on the website.

• 22:30Geoff Nielson?

  There you go. There you go. So I, as I said, I, I love that and I don't want to spend most of our time talking about, about Mark or Meta. But what I do want to talk about is these agentic wallets. And, you know, we talked, when, when we think about wallets, we think about an individual with a wallet. You, you mentioned enterprises, you mentioned government. Is this, when we, when we think about actually deploying these wallets, is it at an individual level? Is it at more of a government or, you know, company level? How, how do you see this actually being implemented?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  I, I, I think it'll be at all level. I mean, it's like the web was, you know? And I mean, I remember in the early days of the web, somebody said to me, we need to think all the websites. I said, what's a website? They said, well, you know, there's this thing, you get a browser and you, you know, you can come and look at. What are you talking about? I mean, it was very early days, but, but lo and behold, you know, then we, I was running marketing for a tech company and, and we built a website and we put our products on it and we told the world about our products. And it, and it really was, it stimulated our business in a massive way. And, and then, you know, of course the web evolved and it continues to evolve. In similar way, I think this is a hugely opportunistic time for us to invert a lot of the problems that, that the web has got that stifle innovation.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  And we can release that and we can get back to a time when the innovation was rife. And and people were creating new businesses, new business models and and so on. And and I I I think it sits ahead of us, actually. It's it sits as a time when all those things are possible again, but but it's as broad as the web is is itself. So sure, I see businesses that offer individuals wallets. We're currently are focused generally giving limited resources to work with large scale organizations. So so, you know, our M O, our strategy is let's engage with these huge organizations. They've got millions, if not tens of millions of users.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Let's show them that there's value in doing this by distributing wallets to the constituents. And as a consequence of them seeing a clear R O I, they'll engage the tech, they'll start to deploy it. And and it will it will go the way that enterprise technology goes. I mean, if they see benefit, they'll deploy it. But having deployed it, then we then the individuals get utility, organizations get you. It's a virtuous circle and and but alongside us, I see others offering. I mean, we're not alone in in in promoting the technology. So you'll see others who are advocating the tech for individuals. So, you know, your your fitness apps and your healthcare apps and so on.

• 25:03Geoff Nielson?

  And and just so I understand it correctly, and I'm, you know, I'm trying to get my my head around this this sort of new technology. This new sort of, you know, almost almost, you know, kind of infrastructure or platform layer here. It's it sounds to me, John, like this isn't, you know, this isn't something that you really buy, right? You more implement it or deploy it. Is that fair?

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Yes, it is. I mean, I I don't, I I certainly personally don't see yet a business model that says, look, pay you nine dollars a month. As a consumer, get your wallet and and all things will change for you. I mean, we're not at that point because, of course, there need to be applications that can access the wallet. There need to be organizations that appreciate you've got a wallet and want to approach you and access, ask for access to the data in the wallet. And then all lies ahead of us, just like the early days of those first websites and the first browsers. I mean, it's a it caught fast, but and and incidentally, I think one of the things that excites me about our current stage is the biggest distribution vehicle bar none is the web.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Itself. So, so to make the changes we want, the, the infrastructure already exists. It's just a question of inducing folks, folks to use it. So, um, it, it's, it's certainly the case that when we work with organizations, they need to see an ROI. They appreciate the vision, they appreciate the end state. They say, I want one of these, my, I want my kids to have one of these. Now then, talk to me about how I sell more tomatoes. I mean, you know, it's a, how can I service my customers better? That's, that's the essence of what we do.

• 26:36Geoff Nielson?

  So let's, let's talk about ROI for a second because, you know, to me, it, it can often be the elephant in the room here. So, you know, for, for an organization that's looking at implementing or deploying this, um, you know, technology leaders these days aren't exactly twiddling their thumbs. They've got all sorts of things on their plate. And so if they were going to go into a boardroom and say, you know, we want solid, we want Charlie, you know, what's the conversation they're having to, you know, communicate the ROI or make the case for making this an enterprise priority?

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Well, you know, to some extent, I think they're having it already. They just don't know it's called solid and Charlie. I mean, if, if they are truly leading their company, they're not just attending to day in, day out, blocking and tackling. They do put their head above the parapet and they do try and imagine where are we going next? You know, it's a, they take a breath and they, and they imagine where they need to go, not where they're actually at. And in that regard, we represent a hugely attractive tech because once they appreciate what we're really doing, then I think they go, oh, wow, this makes all the sense in the world. I mean, that's not to say they immediately, you know, call us up and demand that we get over there and help them deploy it. But, but, but it gives

• 27:49Speaker 01

  them a sense of, of consideration. They appreciate what we're doing. Now it's a question of kind of fit into my strategic roadmaps. You know, I, I, what I do for a living, I travel the world talking to CEOs and, and government ministers and, and generally they totally appreciate it. They will take it to their boardroom and, and, and there are many examples where that's true. But then the boss says, okay, I get it. I get where we want to go and it'll take us five years to get there or three years or whatever it is to get there. What are we going to do today? How's it going to make a difference to next quarter's KPIs? How are we going to make sure our shareholders are happy in a year that we performed in? You know, you get the more prosaic, you know, constructs of that. So generally what we do is we'll look at the first steps.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  And so our teams work with corporations who have a general appreciation. They sort of kind of get it and sort of kind of don't. But they realize there's enough here to merit putting in work. And so we'll go and spend a day with them. And we work with some of their principal product strategists. We put our architects with them and we, we, we say, okay. What is it you're really grappling with? What's the four fundamentals of your business? What's the core fundamentals of your business? Now let's see how we can help you do those better. And I'm not saying in all cases, we come out with the, with the right kind of roadmap of use cases. But generally we do actually. I mean, it's a, it's an interesting exercise in helping people appreciate that. Look, the technology exists. It's a given. The data exists.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  That's a given. What we're looking at doing is recomposing it in a way that gives you more utility. And, and often the time it comes down to a simple question, which is. What is it? What's one piece of data? If you could have it and you can't have it today, but if you could. It would help you be way better informed about your customer. And usually they'll say, oh, well, you know. It's a silly question because the one thing we'd really like to know is this. And then when you say to them, well, why don't you ask them then? But ask them in a way where they get to keep it. They don't, you don't get to take it away. Maybe then, maybe they'll give you it, right? And if you treat them with respect and you give them utility.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  And then you build a relationship with them, which is way better, way more productive. You know, there's a, there's a sort of oversimplistic view I have a bit, which is. Uh, how many customers have you got? I've got six million customers. Great. How many of them actually help you build your business? Apart from spending money with you. How many of them actually give you their thoughts and their encouragement? When you're thinking about your next product?

• 30:22Speaker 01

  And they'll say, well, we do focus groups. We do this, yeah, but that's not, I'm talking about. Bring them with you on the on this, right? I mean, give them utility, give them a way to work with you. But show them the evidence that you treat them with respect. You're sincere about your intention and you give them back things that they've described to you. I mean, it's that virtuous circle. It's I would love it as a I I run a company and I'd love my customers to tell me precisely what they will buy. If I can build it and assume that I can, I will.

• 30:50Geoff Nielson?

  So, you know, with all of that in mind and just, you know, how broadly the application is here? It sounds like this is not necessarily a question of sector. It's not, okay, well, it's, you know, it's healthcare or finance that's taking this up right now. It's not even necessarily commercial sector versus, you know, government. It's more, I I mean, let me, let me, you know, throw this out at you and let me know what you think like. It's more organizations that have that kind of customer orientation and that like forward looking posture.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  I think that's I think that's absolutely true. I think that's definitely true. I mean, you know, we we find ourselves in any vertical you pick, you know, banking, whatever. I'll find myself talking to three, four, five CEOs in that sector. One of them will absolutely get it hundred percent. One of them will absolutely not get it hundred percent. And then everybody else is in the middle. And you're right, it's it's the sense of of orientation and sense of innovation and the receptivity to to be ready to change, you know, to ready to advance. Some people resist it, other people run towards it. But I what's what's hugely fascinating at the moment is what AI is doing. I mean, it's almost like, remember that thing called blockchain?

• 32:06Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, it was a, of course, I'm I'm being.

• 32:09Geoff Nielson?

  I I do, and I was actually gonna ask you about that because this has echoes of blockchain, right?

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, what there was one time you couldn't breathe without talking to somebody about blockchain. Blockchain was gonna change the world. Blockchain, there's blockchain, that blockchain. And I thought the I thought back then the promise of blockchain was just. Anyway, uh, some good use cases granted, but a lot, not so much. But people were wedging it into into projects just because they thought they needed it. I think AI is very much different, actually. I think it's, you know, it's it's it offers way more promise than blockchain ever did. But still, yet we find ourselves at a time when everybody wants to talk about AI. And so our reference to AI with Charlie is giving us opportunity to talk to folks about, okay, well, what you're trying to really do. And and and I would characterize the conversation as one of two types. There's the linear use of AI.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  And that's the majority of project projects at the moment. You know, how do I improve my customer support? How do I do more efficient job of sales? I don't, I mean, you know, you look at a functional area. You look at applying AI to it in order to increase speed or improve efficiency, save costs, very linear progressive things to the, you know, to put AI to. Give it two years, that level found its level, I think. But then there's the nonlinear use of AI. And that's where people think, hang on a minute. We can do things we never could do before. Wow. Why don't we try and do that? And that's where we come in.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  That's where this technology really represents a way to change the game fundamentally for the benefit of you, your constituents. And those constituents might be citizens or consumers, matters not. Each each equally relevant. And sometimes the self same person, of course.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  But then you can you can think non linearly about your business. You can say, wow, we can leapfrog where we thought we were going to be at by applying this technology. And that's not to say broad scale, you know, folks adapt it, but but they start to push on it. They start to evaluate it. They start to appreciate it. And, uh, you know, it's a 12 months ago, I wouldn't have said that, but now I do. Most of the conversations we're in about all was about AI.

• 34:19Geoff Nielson?

  No, I I found exactly the same thing. And I wanted to come back. You hit on something that I did want to ask you about, John, which is, you know, AI versus blockchain is two, you know, different examples of technology is two very different trajectories. And, um, you know, it's amazing, you know, the the way you're using kind of agentic technology with AI and what you're doing. When I think about, and I'm very curious on your thoughts. When I think about what you're doing with Solid, with Charlie, there's, as I mentioned, sort of echoes of blockchain in some way, right? Like, it's more of a decentralized model. I think about blockchain when I initially heard it as, okay, well, we're taking the power away from, you know, these big silos and these big players, and it's going to democratize.

• 35:01Geoff Nielson?

  You know, how do you, in your mind, view, you know, this approach versus a blockchain? Kind of agnostic of the technology itself. Is it as similar as I'm making it out to be? Is it not? And what are the implications for your trajectory?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Well, so I think there's some fundamental differences. You know, you look at blockchain, you know, it's evidence public. In our world, evidence private. That's where you start. So two massively different. It has to be cheap. The web is the cheapest technology there is. Blockchain, not cheap at all. It has to be fast. We know the web's fast. Blockchain, not fast. So, you know, we're looking at polar opposites in terms of the fundamentals of the tech. And then after that, it's, you know, you look at the use cases. I think, you know, blockchain is a really, and we do have projects which involve a relationship with blockchain to store keys and credentials, and then Solid to store your data.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  And there's a measure, there's a lot of sense in that, right? There's a measure of sense in it. Anyway, so, you know, it just, I guess the reason I cite blockchain is the waves of tech. I guess along the way, I could have mentioned, you mentioned Mark, you know, the metaverse. Remember the metaverse? That was going to be a huge thing, right? But it's just, we're in the tech business, so we're all receptive to the next big thing and the next big wave because we want to believe and we want to advance the world. And it's our job, right? We're going to change the world with our tech. And so I think there's a receptivity to it that if you don't watch it, you can never rotate on it. Like, I think the world over people did on blockchain, and some people did on the metaverse. But but I think AI has got a lot more promise than either of those two did.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  And and with Solid, it's hugely different in a very, very positive way.

• 36:50Geoff Nielson?

  So when you think about, you know, when you think about scaling Solid and how it becomes, you know, which I imagine is, is, you know, your ultimate goal as kind of ubiquitous as, you know, the web itself.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:03Geoff Nielson?

  Does it matter how we get there? I mean, do you have a vision for what it takes to get from here to there? Or is it like literally just pound the pavement, get the word out and, you know, word of mouth, experientially this, you know?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  That's, you know, people say to me, what do I lay awake at night worrying about? And that's it right there. So, you know, when Tim and I first got together, you know, one of the thoughts was, okay, let's build a killer app. An app that we all, we just, none of us could live without. And now, now we want Solid. But when we reflected on it, no, it just doesn't make sense. You know, you need, you need this, you know, balance. It's like, you mentioned the word platformally, you know, you need two sides to that for it to be successful. And us building an app didn't make for success because there was no existing wallets. I mean, it's a, there were some fundamental challenges in that. But when we thought about working with big organizations to distribute Solid, to bootstrap ecosystems of Solid,

• 37:58Speaker 01

  that's where it made most sense. Is that the way it's gonna go? I wish I could tell you. I mean, I know that's what we're doing, but around us, there are others. You know, around us, there are people creating apps. Around us, there are people coming up with their own use of, of what they could use the technology to do. And I, I be cheering them on. I mean, I, I hope candidly that some of those big ones we talked about earlier.

• 38:22Geoff Nielson?

  Yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Maybe they should use Solid. You know, the

• 38:25Geoff Nielson?

  Right.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  One company could be a fabulous hosting company for solid wallets. They do a fabulous job of hosting today. Another company could do a fabulous job of providing social interaction in a way they do today. You know, another one does a fabulous job with, I mean, you know, and we can go, you know, there's this, they just have to appreciate what, what's available to them.

• 38:46Geoff Nielson?

  Well, and I'm glad you brought that up because my first thought was, you know, a platform that, or, you know, a large tech organization that, you know, is a leader in, you know, getting a, you know, a smartphone in everybody's hand and, you know, is very interested in, you know, privacy and security. But there's, as you said, like, all of these big players each bring something different to the table. And so, yeah, it's very interesting to hear that, you know, that is, you know, something you're, you know, kind of on your radar as you think about.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Oh, more than that, yeah. Generally, more than that. I mean, we have a, I don't know that all the names we've cited together, we have a fabulous relationship with, but some of them we do. I mean, some of them we do. And there was a, there was an effort undertaken, what, three or four years ago called the DTP, Data Transfer Protocol. And that was an agreement between, let me see if I can remember some of the big names, Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft. And what they agreed to do is to make the data available in such a way that you could take your data out of any one of them and put it into the other.

• 39:47Geoff Nielson?

  Right.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Well, one of them came to us and said, we've done it, we're solid.

• 39:52Geoff Nielson?

  Wow.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Do you want to come see it? And so, Tim and I went to California and they showed us it and it worked. And we said, this is cool, thank you, it really is good. And so, know that there's,

• 40:04Speaker 01

  I mean, more than just an inkling of an interest in some of them about what we might represent.

• 40:09Geoff Nielson?

  That's extremely exciting and, yeah, I mean, the technology is, you know, it sounds amazing. And so, yeah, to have a distribution partner like that could be, you know, an absolute game changer. I mean, a game changer for your team, but a game changer for all of us.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  For all of us, right. But they're not alone. I mean, you know, yeah, the tech space is one, obviously, the immense reach. But then there are others too, you know, if you look at, I mean, literally look at your wallet.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  There are things in that wallet that a lot of, a lot of us all carry.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  And wouldn't it be fabulous of one of them, I, I, in full disclosure, one of our investors is a company called Mastercard.

• 40:50Geoff Nielson?

  Ah, yes.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  And while I wouldn't make any representations of what Mastercard and we are doing, I promise you I'm not. Just think about the implications of a, of a Mastercard. Giving every Mastercard carrier one of our wallets.

• 41:05Geoff Nielson?

  Yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  That'd be an interesting way to get a lot of adopters really quick. And then, once you have them, application developers the world over would want to be able to interact with them. And so it would fire up in very short order, huge amounts of adoption. And the web sits there to distribute it. And it would happen at lightning speed. So, so I, I, and there are other examples, but, but when one sits to think about, well, how else might this be distributed? It isn't just limited to the tech lenders. There's a bunch of other ways for it to become adopted. What the challenge is, candidly, i- i- if I talk to everybody who expresses an interest, I'll be busy all day and probably not very productive.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  So, so it's, it's a question of saying, mm, okay. Well, of all the opportunities we have to engage with folks, which are the ones that make most sense? And I'm not saying we get it right all the time, maybe even half the time, but, but uh,

• 42:04Speaker 01

  the, the interest is growing. It really, really is in a fascinating way.

• 42:08Geoff Nielson?

  Uh, it's, it's fantastic. And as I said, the, yeah, my, my excitement is not just for you. It's, it's, you know, for me.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  For all of us.

• 42:14Geoff Nielson?

  You know, for all of us, which is so exciting. Um, I did quickly want to come back, John, to, you know, we, we talked briefly about, you know, enterprise leaders, enterprise technology leaders. What keeps them up at night? And is it, you know, the next quarter or is it, you know, eight years down the road? You know, what's, what right now, as we look at kind of the state of technology and, and frankly, the state of the world? What, what's your best advice for enterprise technology leaders? What, what needs to be on their radar?

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a, I think it's above my pay grade, actually. I mean, I see the world through, through my optics, you know? I, my, my, my big, I think the biggest and most urgent priority we have is, is as quickly as we can attending to this. The potential, potentially really dystopian view I might have of what L L Ms can do. And, and, and the quicker we attend to that, the better. I don't think we can do with regulations. I don't expect they will independently of, of any external forces just change their minds. So, so then what one can potentially do is introduce a technology that will shift the game on them. And so I see the world that way, but you'd expect me to, because that's what keeps me awake at nights.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  But, but uh, it's a, so, so, so I think what corporate should think about though, in this, in this array of A I opportunity that exists is sure there's the linear stuff. Of course there is, you improve your customer support, improve your sales, but and so on. But then just take a breath and think about a nonlinear view of all of this, which means that with a modest amount of efforts on your part, you can create something that in very short order.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  The world has changed our corporations and enterprises, right? Their ability to move at speed now is changing around them fast. And, and you could strategically do something in two years that would have taken you 20 before. And, and so the question is, can I undertake this nonlinear thing? Then should I undertake this nonlinear thing? And, and I've encouraged you to think yes to both of them, but then how will I? And that's where we come in. So.

• 44:22Geoff Nielson?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  It's a, and I'd be happy to talk to them. Not all of them, don't have the time, but some of them are.

• 44:30Geoff Nielson?

  Well, I, I appreciate your candor there. Um, John, really exciting conversation. I'm so interested to see where all of this goes.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 44:38Geoff Nielson?

  And yeah, I, I, I wish you the best on, on your journey as well. Um, because I think, yeah, ba- based on this vision, you know, your success is my success and all of our success. Um, I think that about covers most of the things I was going to ask you. Anything else, uh, you know, you wanted to talk about today while we're.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  No, it's been fun, actually. I enjoyed it. It, it, I enjoy talking to you. You ask great questions. Thank you.