20VC: How AI Can Enhance Not Replace Humans? What Will Differentiate Between The Winners & The Losers In AI? Why AGI Is Further Away Than We Think with Nitesh Banta, Founder & CEO @ B12

Nitesh Banta is the Founder and CEO @ B12, the startup that uses AI to superpower their team of world class creatives to create even more intelligent websites. They have backing from the likes of Jim Breyer, General Catalyst and our friends at Founder Collective. As for Nitesh, prior to B12, he was on the dark side as a VC with General Catalyst for 5 years before Co-Founding Rough Draft Ventures, the General Catalyst program designed to develop the next generation of student founders. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Nitesh made the move from VC with General Catalyst to AI Startup founder with B12? 2.) How difficult was it for Nitesh to leave the security of venture to start B12 as Founder? What does Nitesh suggest to those that are unsure of whether to make the jump? 3.) Why does Nitesh believe that AGI (artificial general intelligence) is not as close as people predict? What are the implications of this towards humans relationship with technology? 4.) Is Nitesh bullish on humans creating new and unique machine learning algorithms or the rise of 'machine learning as a service as a sector? Where does the real value lie, the data or the machine learning algorithms? 5.) Why is Nitesh contra the common pessimism surrounding AI and the future of work? How does Nitesh believe AI will impact human work processes in a positive way? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Nitesh’s Fave Blog: Bill Gurley: Above The Crowd, Nuzzel Nitesh’s Fave Book: Oh The Places You'll Go As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Nitesh on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pearl believes the latest automotive technology should be available to every driver – whether it’s time for you to buy a new car or not. RearVision is our first step in driving this commitment forward. Pearl RearVision is the only wireless backup camera and alert system that installs in minutes and updates throughout its lifetime. Pearl literally takes less than 10minutes to install and is completely wireless because it’s solar powered. Since RearVision is software based, we’re able to push updates and new features over the Pearl App in the exact same way you receive updates for other apps on your phone. Pearl RearVision is perfect for anyone who wants to upgrade their car in minutes. Pearl RearVision is $499.99 and available at PearlAuto.com. It’s also available on Amazon and through Crutchfield.

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

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  Hello and welcome back to the last 20 minute VC episode of 2016, can you believe it? With me, your host, Harry Stebbings, found drinking mojitos on Snapchat at H Stebbings with two Bs, and found trying to write some rather academic pieces on our new blog, mojito VC dot com. I'd absolutely love to hear your thoughts and feedback on that. But to the show today, and I'm thrilled to welcome an all-star founder for this Founder's Friday, having been highly recommended by pretty much everyone at General Catalyst, I'm thrilled to welcome Nitesh Banter, founder and CEO at B12, to the show today. Now, for those that don't know, B12 is the startup that uses artificial intelligence to superpower their team of world-class creatives to create even more intelligent websites. And they have backing from the likes of Jim Breyer, General Catalyst, and our friends at Founder Collective.

• 0:42Harry Stebbings?

  As for Nitesh, prior to B12, he was on the dark side too as a VC with General Catalyst for five years before co-founding Rough Draft Ventures, the General Catalyst program designed to develop the next generation of student founders. However, before we meet the man behind one of the hottest AI startups of the day, although Christmas is over, it does not mean you cannot treat yourself. And what better way to do that than with Pearl? Now Pearl believe the latest automotive technology should be available to every driver, whether it's time for you to buy a new car or not. And their Pearl Rear Vision is the first step in driving this commitment forward. Pearl Rear Vision is the only wireless backup camera and alert system that installs in minutes and updates throughout its lifetime. Pearl literally takes less than 10 minutes to install and is completely wireless because it's solar powered.

• 1:24Harry Stebbings?

  And since Rear Vision is software-based, they're able to push updates and new features over the Pearl app in the exact same way you receive updates for other apps on your phone today. Pearl Rear Vision is perfect for anyone who wants to upgrade their car in minutes and costs $499 and is available at pearlauto.com or on amazon.com or through Crutchfield. However, it's now time for me to shut up and to hand over to Nitesh Banter, founder and CEO at B12.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 1:56Harry Stebbings?

  Nitesh, such a pleasure to have you on the show. Really is so kind of you to give up the time today. So, thank you so much for joining me.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 2:03Harry Stebbings?

  Now, I'd love to get the ball rolling today by discussing how you came to found B12 and a quick bio of you.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I grew up in Sandberg, Connecticut. I was very lucky to be one of the first folks from my high school to go to Harvard. I always loved computers and technology, but really was not that exposed to startups and the tech community. And my junior year, I had to think about getting a job. I heard that Google was this amazing place to work. And I was lucky to be part of one of the first intern classes at Google under Sheryl Sandberg's group. And I just got exposed to startups and tech and the valley culture and I just fell in love with it. So, when I went back to school my senior year, I started what I at that time called my first company, which is a little bit more of a project, which is a website to help teachers find summer internships. And I got exposed to this idea of building something for customers, getting a sense of how people actually use a product.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  And I just fell in love with it. So, ever since I was in college, I've just been kind of obsessed with tech and startups and the ways that you can use technology as a force for good. After I graduated, I spent a short amount of time in consulting and then was lucky to be part of the first class at Singularity University, where I was on the founding team of a startup called Getaround, which is a peer-to-peer car sharing company out in the valley. It was really great. I was working on a couple of different projects and got a call from a headhunter about doing venture. And this was back in 2010. The venture industry itself was not as in vogue or exciting a place to be. A lot of career mentors were saying, you know, do you really want to be exposed to that asset class? Or do you want to be working in that industry?

• 3:28Harry Stebbings?

  Well, there was no 20-minute VC at the time, was there? So, I don't blame you.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, the world was so different. Even when I graduated from college, I mean, there were five people in my class who are interested in startups. And I met with a few venture firms. I always had this idea that I would go out and start a company. But I thought a venture firm would be a good place to learn a little bit more and kind of recharge a little bit. And I fortuitously met the folks at General Catalyst and just really resonated with the team. So, I joined at a great time in the industry in 2010 with General Catalyst, focused on early-stage investing in areas like SMB software, small business. Software, the on-demand wave, but more broadly, just thinking about amazing founders, especially young technical founders. When I was there, I was lucky to co-found this initiative called Rough Draft Ventures,

• 4:12Speaker 02

  which is an initiative that supports student entrepreneurs, which was a real passion of mine and continues to be a real interest. And I was very lucky to be invested in some really tremendous companies as an investor at G C. I told myself I found the right person and idea that I thought was big enough. I really would love to try and go out and start a company. And so even though I spent more years in venture than I thought I would, things started to come together when I started chatting with my co-founder Adam and started to get really fascinated with things that were happening in the A I space, which is when I decided to leave about a year ago and start B twelve.

• 4:45Harry Stebbings?

  Was it a difficult decision to make? You know, you were carving out a real name for yourself in the industry. And as you said, made some great investments. Was it difficult to leave the security adventure for the for the risk of a startup?

• 4:56Speaker 02

  It gets harder with time. Economically, it gets harder. You get comfortable. You start to feel like you can actually do a good job in the venture industry. But it's just something I had this itch ever since I was a junior in college to go out and try and build a notable company. And so even as I was sitting on pitches, I I knew that it was something that I'd want to do and not doing. And I think just given the fact that I was able to team up with my co-founder, who was like the number one person I wanted to go and start a company with, and I felt like the opportunity was right. It it felt really easy. I haven't looked back, you know, I think looking back at these career changes can be dangerous and the startup journey itself has been so much fun. But there's definitely a lot of considerations. And I think that one of the things about doing venture when you're so early in your career is that it's a lot more nimble.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  I felt like there was always a path back in if that was the right move for me. But the opportunity in starting a company, especially in this space, felt a lot more unique at the time.

• 5:48Harry Stebbings?

  Now, I'm super intrigued. As a young person in venture at the time, did you find it quite a lonely place? Often for the juniors in venture, it's often spend D D ing, researching and spending a lot of time on your own. Did you find this to be challenging or a lonely place?

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Not really. I think at G C, there is a really great cohort of associates and principals. And so we had a really great group of people to work with. It is a little bit more of a solo sport because anytime you're You're doing a deal, you're the person at the firm that's primarily responsible for it. I think compared to when I started in two thousand and ten, to when I left in two thousand and fifteen, there's just been an explosion of young people in the venture industry. And people are doing really incredible things. So it's very different than a startup or a bigger company where, you know, day in and day out work with the team. But there's luckily a great support network and the folks at G C have been, you know, very close mentors, friends and partners to the whole process.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  So I think there was a lot of people to kind of communicate with. And then above and beyond that, you're spending so much time meeting with entrepreneurs, supporting other folks in the community. So you end up spending a lot of time meeting with people and interacting with people. So it was, it was always something that kind of like made the, the process and even some of the more analytic stuff, analytics driven work feel human because there was a lot of personal interaction.

• 7:01Harry Stebbings?

  And before we dive into all things A I, we're always told that venture is potentially a great training ground for founding companies. So I'm really intrigued to hear what your big takeaways were from your time in venture that you've now taken with you to the founding of B twelve.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, you know, when I went into venture, like I mentioned, I thought I would do it for a year or two and go out and start something. But I ended up spending five years as an investor. And I often say, I think being a venture investor for me is the second best job in the world with being the founder of a company you really believe in being the best job. And there are a lot of great examples of people who've gone down the venture to entrepreneur route. Even at General Catalyst, there are great companies have been founded by former investors like Naturebox, by my former colleague Gotham Gupta, or Grammarly, by my former colleague Brad Hoover. And even more broadly, like Blue Apron was started by a former investor, Wealthfront, Bond Street. So I think even just how much more diverse than investor community is becoming, you're seeing people become a lot more agile in the way that they go in and out of investing.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Or you see people younger in their careers who just get inspired about around a space or an idea and want to go out and do something. I think venture is, it's very interesting because when I was interviewing, a lot of people said, if you want to ultimately become an entrepreneur, go join a startup or, you know, go start something. But I think there are lots of advantages to having the venture experience. And when you do venture, you spend a lot of time meeting people. So you're able to very quickly grow your network with investors, potential partners or companies, potential people you'd recruit or. Found companies with when I was an investor, I was doing I was meeting over a thousand companies each year. And I was able to meet with so many other individuals so that you're just kind of learning from this fire hose. And in this unnatural way, starting to learn about new ideas and think about new things. So I think there's just an unprecedented amount of learning that happens.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  And then as you start to actually get involved in companies, I was involved on several boards. And you get this like deep learning around actual experiences that individuals and entrepreneurs go through. And there are very few places we're able to get that type of depth and experience. So I feel like the amount of exposure that you get as a venture investor really helps you get a good lens on the types of things that you should be focused on. If you're planning to build a venture backed startup, there are definitely some gaps around the types of things that you don't get exposure to. I mean, venture firms tend to be partnership oriented, they don't operate around clear OKRs or KPIs. So you're not kind of run in the same efficient manner that traditional startup might be running. And the other gaps as well, for example, you know, when I started B12, one of the first things I had to do was set up payroll.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  It's not something I had any exposure doing. So there are these little things that you need to know how to do as an entrepreneur, but you can learn those along the way. There's I don't think any perfect training for any company that you want to start. But I feel like I was able to get a really good grasp, network and set of exposure on the venture side.

• 9:37Harry Stebbings?

  And I'd love to deep dive on all things AI now and discuss the future ahead. And you've said that you think artificial general intelligence or AGI is not as close as predicted. So I'd love to hear why you think this and what the implications are of this belief on the nature of humans' relationship to AI.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I think one of the really nice things about AI as an industry is that it's so quickly inspires folks. Cause it's very easy to think about the ways in which intelligent machines can do very interesting things for people. And it's been the narrative around sci fi for decades now. But I think it can also be a little bit dangerous for startups to kind of like sell the dream a little bit too hard. Because if you look at where we are from a technology perspective and even look at the most optimistic individuals in the field. There's still a long way to go before we could get to a point where a machine can do all the things that they'll can do. And so I think a lot of startups often go out or technology companies go out and feign this experience. That you know, I'm building this machine or AI that's gonna be able to operate just like a person.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  And I think one of the challenges there is that you're start to create an experience that's either unsustainable because you need people to kind of make it true. Or you set kind of unrealistic expectations with users, which ultimately leads to disappointment with users. It's some of the things you see with some of the bots that are emerging right now. And I think realistically, it would be amazing if we got to a point where we were able to create machines that could perform broad human level tasks. But even with narrow AI, which is kind of what we're firmly in right now, where machines can do very narrow things explicitly well. There's a lot of amazing and fantastic things that you can do. For example, if I was creating a narrow AI, I named it Harry and asked it to host a podcast. It would not do as good a job as you would do because there's a lot of things that you do as a person.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  That's multi-dimensional that a machine just can't do right now. And so I think my thought process around it is I'm still, you know, obviously very bullish on the AI space. I left venture to do something here. But I think part of it is like just being realistic and excited about the things that narrow AI can do. For example, self-driving cars are an example of narrow AI and has massive implications. And one of the things that we're doing at B12, we open source this tool called Orchestra, which is a human machine-based workflow system. And it stitches together narrow pieces of AI with people. So you can start to have really dynamic and complex experiences using the technology that we have here now. And so I think part of it is just like a expectation setting. And then also, I feel like narrow AI or weak AIs, as it's called, needs a rebrand because I think the implications will be anything but narrow.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  But we start to feel like that's limited and so different from what our expectations are. And I'm really excited about the ways in which narrow AI in the next five to 10 to 20 years will make a massive difference in the way that we work and the way that we live.

• 12:18Harry Stebbings?

  How much of narrow AI do you think is being held together by sticky tape, so to speak? For example, X dot AI still has a lot of people checking the appointments that are being set by Amy, referring to potential sticky tape. How many of these narrow services do you think is still being held together slightly by sticky tape?

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I feel like a lot of companies are able to get to 80, 90, 95% automation. But the challenge is like Most people don't care about, you know, if you could get a driverless car that could drive well eighty-five percent of the time. That's not particularly useful because that's still too dangerous or inconsistent experience. I think it's really going from like ninety to ninety-five to ninety-nine to hundred percent is where a lot of the work is. And in certain areas where we've bitten off experiences or want to use A I, it's unclear whether you can ultimately get there, which is why at B twelve, we're going after kind of what we call human assisted A I, where we always think people will be in the loop. And as there is more technology, more capabilities, more compute power, we'll figure out ways in which automation can play a role.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  But it doesn't necessarily require us to hundred percent automate the complex workflows that we go after. And I think each startup is different. In a lot of cases, there are people behind the machine that are masked or not put at the forefront. And in in certain cases, like those people aren't going anywhere anytime soon. If you want to create the type of experience I think consumers want.

• 13:39Harry Stebbings?

  Talking of kind of the people behind the machine there, are you bullish on individual teams creating kind of proprietary and and their own different algorithms? Or whether we'll see your I B Ms creating machine learning as a service and that will really become a real offering? So what do you think? Do you think we'll see this kind of monopoly of machine learning as a service? Or do you think we'll see individual teams tailoring their own algorithms?

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Yes, I think it's certainly true that the big companies have aggregated massive amounts of machine learning and machine learning research capabilities. And one of the really nice things is that a lot of these companies are open sourcing and democratizing these services, so things like Tensor Flow from Google. And the result is, you know, we, when we recruit engineers, I mean, even an out of school engineer can do something now that only specialists could have done a few years ago. So I feel like there is definitely a democratization happening around some of the specialized machine learning services, which I think is a really great thing for the ecosystem because it enables startups and companies to create real applications. There probably are some startups that will do breakthrough machine learning, research and intelligence. But I see a lot of them getting scooped up by big companies right now.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  And it's, I think, very hard to compete against all the resource and horsepower that these big companies are putting into research and the fact. They're willing to democratize and open source these types of tools. One of the areas where I feel like startups can have a distinct advantage is creating unique data sets that do interesting things around on top of some of these machine learning algorithms. And so, for example, with our service at B12, one of the first applications we built on top of Orchestra is a human assisted AI way to build, manage and optimize your website. There's a ton of open data around websites that your companies like Google and us and others are able to get access to. But we're building kind of very unique data around how people interact with machine output and feeding that back into the way that we build our product.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  And that's data that historically people wouldn't have had to necessarily collect or wouldn't have had to care about. And the fact that we're able to kind of collect that data and the interaction with people right now, gives an opportunity to build distinct and unique products from what some of the other companies might be thinking about in the space.

• 15:43Harry Stebbings?

  So would you say the incumbency advantage with regards to data set is offset through the further specialization of data sets, as you said there, into actually how users behave on websites? I don't know, heat maps as to where they click potentially, do you know what I mean? Is it the the further niche that we go is where the startups will offset the incumbency data advantage?

• 16:04Speaker 02

  I think it really depends on the particular space or application. But it certainly is true that a lot of the data that bigger companies have captured or will capture may or may not be the types of things that actually create the product experiences that startups build or technology companies build and that consumers ultimately love. So I think there is an ability to do interesting things around creating proprietary unique data sets that are way more applicable to the types of products that we want to build. In a lot of cases, collecting that data can be quite messy, you know, you use actual people to train an algorithm or use actual people to collect very unique and specific data. And whether you're a big company or a small company, that can be challenging. And often as a small company, it's a little bit easier because you don't have the reputation risk

• 16:46Speaker 02

  and or the challenges that a bigger company might have around organizing a cohort of people that in their world is very small, but in a startup world could be, you know, a very important group of people to take care of and treat well.

• 16:58Harry Stebbings?

  In terms of algorithm training there, how do you approach that with B12?

• 17:02Speaker 02

  So I think the way that we often think about things is before you start out and build out really fancy technology and tooling and algorithms, we want to really make sure we internalize workflows ourselves. So with our first product, the first thing we did is just really understand how exactly the website and web design process worked. We did things on our own and just were able to create very simple rules around how we wanted things to work from a machine output perspective. And then as we start to get more and more scale, we're able to use a network of experts that we have to think about ways to get very specialized data sets specific to web design. And so a lot of it is, I think first is understanding the end output that you're trying to get to,

• 17:42Speaker 02

  and then thinking about how do you collect data from actual human and person usage that can make the experience better.

• 17:48Harry Stebbings?

  And and because I'm such an optimist, I want to I want to finally discuss the doom of the future that we hear so much about with AI. But with this human integration into AI, as we just spoke about, the people behind the machines. So how does this alter the picture for the future with human integration into AI and and kind of putting aside the pessimism?

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I think people are very right to be focusing on just the implications of things like AI. And I'm very happy that there are groups like OpenAI, some of some of those individuals are investors in our company, thinking about the longer term implications of general AI and even some of the shorter term implications when you have things like self-driving cars making decisions that we're used to humans making. I think it's very easy to overstate kind of the implications in the in the near term, but there's certainly a lot of things happening that are gonna alter the way that we work, alter the way that we live, alter the way that we interact with one another. I'm generally bullish for a couple of reasons. The first being, you can't really play defense against technology. So whether or not we're scared or gloomy about it, this type of innovation is happening, so we should make the the best of it.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  And second of all, there are lots of things in the world that could be better. People don't necessarily love all aspects of the way that they work right now. There's a lot of services that we would love to make available to a broader set of the population that just are cost prohibitive in the way that services and products work right now. Really optimistic that if you have companies with the right sets of values, we're a fairly value driven company at B12 or a one percent company at B Corp, that you could actually use this moment in time when there's a lot of change happening to build a brighter future for the way that people work and the way that people live.

• 19:23Harry Stebbings?

  I guess for me then, what services would we like to see democratized that are currently for the one percent? And also, we mentioned the models of work there. What does this mean in terms of changing it and making new models of work?

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in our case, we're focused on B2B products and services and we focus after, we go after the small to midsize business segment. So if you're a midsize business, there's a lot of things that an average midsize or small business owner probably has a checklist of dozens of things that they would love to get done and they either don't have the personnel to do it. It can be cost prohibitive or it's just too complicated. And by having kind of an easier way to get access to these services or products, we think ultimately they'll be able to do things that might have felt out of reach in the past. And an example of that would be our product with websites. So the average midsize business probably doesn't have an online presence or website that's really doing them a lot of favors online. You know, most businesses don't feel like they're necessarily winning online with their digital presence.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Part of it is it can be really hard to find good expertise around the space. It's really time intensive to manage on your own. There's a lot of specialized skill set from design to digital marketing that you have to understand. With a service like B12, you get access to that expertise in a semi automated way. And so you could have a real digital presence that allows your, enables your business to thrive online in a way that it might have not been able to have done in the past. And in terms of work models, I feel like the traditional nine to five work model is one where a lot of people don't necessarily feel a ton of satisfaction. And the amazing thing around AI and a human assisted AI model is that you can take away a lot of the grunt work associated with our day to day tasks. I don't think in the near term, you're going to have a machine

• 21:01Speaker 02

  fully replace the way, you know, venture investors work, fully replace the way startup founders work, podcast producers or marketers. There's just too much complexity. But there are lots of things that we do in our day to day work that are probably better suited for a machine. And if they went away, none of us would really complain about it. And I think those are. The interesting opportunities that we look for in B two, which is how do we leverage this type of technology to give people better starting points and automate away some of the grunt work and rote labor associated with their day to day jobs.

• 21:29Harry Stebbings?

  So if if we were going to be putting a figure on it, let's put figures on it before we dive into a quick fire. Let's do A N I until it's fully proliferated into the market without sticky tape. How long will that take? A G I and then A S I, so artificial general intelligence and then artificial superintelligence. Let's put a timeline on it. I'm going to be really annoying here, but let's put some bets down. So A N I fully proliferated when?

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Well, so I think you already see instances, we're firmly in the A N I phase. You see lots of instances where things are self sufficient. And I think this is a really exciting phase because there are lots of narrow things like driverless cars as as an example, or or other areas that are going to change the way that we work and live together. So I feel like we're firmly in that in that space right now. And I think this phase will continue for, in my eyes, decades. So I think there's lots of opportunity for startups to continue building and operating in the space right now. If I were to think about A G I, the most optimistic people, the Ray Kurzweils of the world and others, put a timeframe of twenty thirties, twenty forties as being the early earliest instances of when that type of technology could exist. I feel like that would be on the very early end.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  And, you know, we might still be hundreds of years away from ultimately creating machines that are broadly as smart as people. I actually don't think the limitation will be compute power, but the limitation will more be around the type of software that you need to build something as complex and dynamic as a person. And then I'm firmly a believer in exponential growth in technology. So I feel like once you get to A G I and you're able to have machines that can operate twenty four seven sufficiently, work together and and do further research in the space. You'll probably get to an A S I in a much shorter period of time, anything from weeks to months to years to short number of years. When machines are able to kind of do things above and beyond what we're capable of doing.

• 23:14Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, so A G I when? What date?

• 23:17Speaker 02

  I'm I'm not sure if I'm as smart as folks like Ray Kurzweil to give an exact date, but I would guess probably in like the in the most optimistic case in the twenty forties or fifties.

• 23:25Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, yeah, I'm gonna go for twenty forty two.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Wow, I love, I love.

• 23:29Harry Stebbings?

  Be really precise on March fifteenth. There you go.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Check it, we'll check in on that.

• 23:34Harry Stebbings?

  We'll check in, yeah. You can buy me a drink if I'm right. And then I want to finish today on a quick fire round. So I say a short statement and you give me your immediate thoughts. How does that sound?

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 23:44Harry Stebbings?

  So let's start with, I need to read more. Your favorite book and why?

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I'll talk about every person who starts at B12, we give them a book on their first day, which is the Dr. Seuss book, Oh, The Places You'll Go, which is maybe not the most sophisticated literature out there, but I think is a really nice contextual book on the journeys, the ups and downs that people face in life. I think it very much mimics the ups and downs that people face kind of in their startup journey as well. So I love to kind of give that as a contextual way to like both celebrate the moment of someone joining our team and also give context that probably be a roller coaster and an opportunity for us to kind of go through the highs and lows together. That's something that's kind of permeated through the B12 culture as the first thing you see on the first day when you arrive at work.

• 24:27Harry Stebbings?

  What's your biggest concern for AI going forward? So mine, for example, is Tesla's going wrong and it creating mass public concern and the consensus that kind of robots are bad off the rule.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think in the short term, my biggest concern is that the field over promises and under delivers. Just because we're, it's so easy to make that jump. And I think a lot of people make claims that are just hard to substantiate right now. And as a result, a lot of the fantasy and enthusiasm that has brought people into the space starts to fizzle away, which I think would be disappointing, given all the opportunity there is here. Longer term, I'm probably most concerned about are we able to build the right type of humanity into the various AIs that we build. And there's a lot of hard decisions to be made there. And as we start to get more sophisticated in the tooling that we build, can we really make them function and work in a way that aren't just optimizing around results, but optimizing in the, in the human way that all of us like to live and, and work and operate.

• 25:20Harry Stebbings?

  Your favorite blog or newsletter? What are your must reads?

• 25:23Speaker 02

  I read all the standard tech news outlets like TechCrunch and everything else, just to stay on top of news. I feel like Bill Gurley probably creates some of the highest quality individual posts. I'm always curious when he, when he produces something. Other than that, I don't think I'm the most loyal reader in the world. I use Nuzzle, Twitter, Medium to find new articles. I have become a, a big podcast person over the last few months. So, you know, check out the show, Ton, the A16Z podcast. We code, there's a bunch of great content out there, but I tend to surface it through networks versus literally going to any one thing, except for the show, of course.

• 25:55Harry Stebbings?

  Well, thank you so much. And then what challenges you to this day?

• 25:59Speaker 02

  So I think the biggest thing on my mind is we're starting to grow the team at B12. It's how do you really organize people to do their best work possible, to motivate them, encourage them, keep them enthusiastic while helping them build balanced and happy lives? And there's just so much complexity around that. I think when you're venture investing, you don't have to think about that day to day. It is a little bit more siloed. But being able to organize people and have them be happy, productive, and feel like they're doing the best work in their careers is something I'm fascinated with and hope to continue to get better at.

• 26:30Harry Stebbings?

  And then I want to finish today on the next five years for you and for B12. What's in the roadmap?

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Our kind of belief is that startups kind of earn their ticket to doing great things by building a product that someone loves. And to build a product that someone loves, you start narrow and really define who you're going after and what exactly you're doing. And so all eyes for us are focused on how do we build the best way in the world for individuals to build, manage, and optimize their website? Something that's substantially better than what's out there in the market. As we continue to kind of make more and more progress in doing that, we'll start to use orchestras and underlying technology to create additional services for businesses. And my dream is that five years from now, you'd have hundreds of thousands or millions of people coming to B12, finding really fulfilling and encouraging work.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  And we're enabling businesses to get access to the types of services that they could only dream of today.

• 27:21Harry Stebbings?

  Well, Nitesh, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been absolutely fantastic to hear more about B12 and hear about the future of AI. I really appreciate it.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Thanks so much for having me.

• 27:31Harry Stebbings?

  Such a pleasure to have Nitesh on the show today and so appreciate him giving up the time and for his ongoing advice and support. It really does mean a lot. And if you love the show today and would like to see more from me, then do not hesitate to add me on Snapchat at H Stebbings with two Bs, or check out mojito vc dot com. I really would love to hear your thoughts on feedback on that. And finally, although Christmas is over, it doesn't mean you can't treat yourself. And what better way to do that than with Pearl? Pearl believes the latest automotive technology Should be available to every driver, whether it's time for you to buy a new car or not. And Pearl Rear Vision is their first step in driving this commitment forward. Pearl Rear Vision is the only wireless backup camera and alert system that installs in minutes and updates throughout its lifetime. Pearl literally takes less than 10 minutes to install and is completely wireless because it's solar powered.

• 28:16Harry Stebbings?

  Since Rear Vision is also software based, they're able to push updates and new features over the Pearl app in the exact same way you receive updates for other apps on your phone now. Pearl Rear Vision is perfect for anyone who wants to upgrade their car in minutes and costs $499 and is available in three ways: through pearlauto.com, through amazon.com, or through Crutchfield. And as always, we so appreciate your support and cannot wait to bring you Monday's episode with Phil Libin, partner at General Catalyst and founder at Evernote.