Joan Nguyen and Sarah Willersdorf on Building With AI: How Two Non-Technical Builders Are Reshaping What's Possible

[MUSIC PLAYING] When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture, you get criticized. You do? Yeah, did you hear about that? I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected, and we made it the one. In the sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic. Nothing in itself is addictive, on a one hand. And in the end, everything could be addictive. If there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the Goop podcast, bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers, and seekers, here to start conversations. Because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. Welcome to the Goop podcast. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. Today, I'm handing the podcast over to two women who are thinking deeply about one of the biggest shifts happening right now. AI is changing what's possible in our work and in our lives. And understanding how to use it is becoming essential. This is the conversation you were waiting for. Joan Nguyen is the co-founder and CEO of BUMO, the first AI family assistant to help parents instantly book care and handle the logistics of family life. Sarah Willerstorff is the former head of luxury, fashion, and beauty at Boston Consulting Group and a former CMO. And now advises boards and CEOs on where AI actually drives value. Neither comes from engineering, both started by solving everyday problems in their own lives. Joan and Sarah are co-founders with Mogen Me of the Kinship AI Fellowship, a private community where we have real conversations on what's working and how we're building with AI in our companies. In this episode, Joan and Sarah talk about how they actually use AI in their work every day. Why women have a unique competitive advantage right now? What builders are genuinely creating in this moment? And which parts of the process will always require human judgment and conviction? They get into the real opportunities and what's at stake. Joan, Sarah, welcome. The podcast is all yours. Hey, Joan, I'm so happy to be here today and have this conversation around AI with you. Yeah, super excited to talk about AI, as always. Can't get me to be quiet about AI. That's true. I do think-- I do think there are a lot of conversations about AI today. And I know the team from Group really wanted us to maybe share our take, given that neither of us comes from a tech background, really, in any way. So I wonder if we just start there. Because I know your background's not technical. Nope, not at all, not at all. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to start. So I am definitely not technical at all. I mean, I'm doing technical things now, which is why this time is so exciting for everybody who's building. But I really started off as an educator. I did a small stint in fashion design, but started an education company when I was 19, actually. And man, I've had AI starting at 19. I probably would have exited an IPO at 25. You're real tired now, yeah. I would have been retired now. But I mean, so yes, so I mean, I didn't study computer science. I studied political science. I didn't intern for Google. I interned for the congresswoman. And so my background was so far from technical. And that's why it's so fun right now to build. But I think though, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that even though I'm not technical, I have this technical curiosity about myself, right? That I want to call out. Because I think that's really important. When I was in high school, I was very much into the Adobe suite, Dreamweaver, Flash, using all those things. And when new tools come out, or platforms like Canva when it came out a few years ago, I was all about it, wanting to use it, wanting to see how it could upskill myself in graphic design, which definitely did. And so there's always this technical curiosity about myself that really helped me navigate to where I am right now in building with AI. No, I think it's interesting. I mean, my background's not technical either. I grew up in Australia with a very outdoorsy sport based, I think, start to my life. And my undergraduate degree is actually fine art and finance. So definitely math, but not technical at all. And I spent a lot of my career at Boston Consulting Group, so at a big consulting company. But again, working with creatives, I led our luxury and fashion business. And so really, I wouldn't describe it as a hotbed of engineering or technical know-how. But a little bit similar to you, both-- I've been very curious and open to things and new technology my whole life. And then as part of my job was really future trends. And so I think we were always looking at this. A little bit in consulting, it's theoretical. And so when I left a couple of years ago, partly, it was because I didn't want to be just looking theoretically at all these things, but actually being in it a little bit versus when I was in consulting when digital came up and social came up, or Web 3 came up. AI felt a little different. It felt like you needed to practically use it and get your hands dirty versus not. But I do think it's really-- I think it's just interesting that people with no technical background can actually really embed themselves in it. Yeah, I mean, beyond interesting, I think it's absolutely exhilarating. Because I think now the barriers have been dropped, right? Before, I think-- I remember when I decided to start boom-mo my company. And we veered technical because we were actually a brick and mortar space evolved into online learning and then evolved into what we are today and went more technical. I remember that I had to beg or had a product to build something and then they had to build a PRD and then they had to talk to the engineer and then they had to just wait and wait and wait. So I went from having a vision for something and waiting for a long time before I saw it to come to life. Yeah. And literally right before this, Sarah, I had an idea for something. I didn't even write it. I voiced it at a prompt of something that I wanted to build. And now it's running literally as we're recording this. And it's probably going to be built by the time we're done recording. It's crazy. It's crazy, it's crazy. But I hope we can get to talk about boom-mo. But also, how did you start? When was the first moment you realized that AI was different, that it was going to change the way you do things? Was there a moment or a series of moments? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, again, curiosity, right? And any time there's something new, I get very curious, like going back to when crypto came into the foray and so here, and NFTs, I always was curious about what these new things were, right? Are they hype cycles? Or are they mega trends? Like, what is this all about? And so I think the moment that I was able to-- first, it was, of course, I chatted with you, right? I'm early, like, I think I was like a 2022 user, right? And that was exciting, even though I hallucinated, honestly, every other time, and gave me weird answers. But I still like the magic that the idea of it was exciting. But I think the real crazy unlock for me was when I started vibe coding. And I realized that I didn't need to know code. I didn't need to know TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, any of those things. I just needed to be able to basically articulate my ideas. And not even in a sophisticated way. I just needed to say what I wanted to build. And then I saw it literally build before my eyes. And I think I likened that to another type of experience that I feel like people would understand. It's like wanting to build a house, right? And you're not a contractor. You're not a plumber. You're not an architect. But you can just dictate how you want your house to be. And you literally see it build before your eyes. That is the magical feeling that you have in AI. And I'm sure Sarah, you've had-- I'm curious, too. When was your entry point into AI? When did it really click for you? I mean, I think there's a couple. Because my entry point, interestingly, because I got asked this a lot, was not in a professional sense. It was actually in a home life. And I knew you and I have spoken about this. before I'm going to get to it because you've kind of built a solution around this, but I was working, I have two boys, and I was just completely overwhelmed by house admin. So, you know, school emails, sports apps, like, you know, all, I don't know, for all the parents out there, all the different sports apps you're dealing with, just walls of emails and texts and chains. And actually, someone had said to me, you can just like put this into AI and get it all organized and make it so easy and calendarize it, and I did, and it worked. And I felt that was a turning point. And then similar, I think a little bit similar to you, because I use Lovable, I think you use that a most other thing, which is a vibe coding tool. I think the first entry was the household admin basic. The second though was vibe coding, a little app I needed for the advising business that I was doing just to keep track of times and expenses and different things. And back then, I was typing and not using audio, but typing in something and seeing something built, and then realizing how iterative it was and kind of addictive, I agree, was, was really sure to do it was just a different level. Yeah, I mean, it is really addicting because I felt like I was never into video games as a kid, that I can imagine people who were, you know, really addictive. This is how you feel like you're just like glued to the screen. It's so exciting. For those listening vibe coding, it's a term that's very fresh and very new. It's nothing crazy. It sounds like a lot crazier than it is. It really is just telling AI what you want to build and it building it for you. That's truly what vibe coding is. It's not really coding. You're not really coding at all. You're just explaining. So don't over index like how complicated that phrase is. It's actually just telling something what to do. Yeah, I mean, I made that mistake though. I think I really thought that vibe coding seemed really technical like you'd need to be an engineer. It was a language like Python or one of the other coding languages and I think that's a big mistake I made. I kind of waited to do it a little bit because I thought it was going to be much more technical and I didn't realize how much it was literally just writing an idea and then iterating on that idea. Initially in text and then I think both you and I use different voice to text translation tools. So literally, when we say you're talking to it, you're literally speaking, sometimes not even typing. But that technical piece, I think, I mean, I thought it was going to be a bigger barrier than it was. Totally. And we talk about it all the time, Sarah, about prompt engineering too. So I think it's not just you. I think externally, the way things are explained, because it is something that's technical, I think those that are technical trying to explain this technical thing to non-technical people. They tend to make it technical. I mean, you said something to me last time about prompt engineering, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you share more about that? Well, I think it was a story where I had, when I was, when I was trying to start this off, I had a friend who is a coder, is it this one? And they, and they, they told me that they were going to be able to teach me to prompt engineer. And the way they were even trying to explain how you use some different tools was just in another world. And I didn't understand it. And so they'd introduce me to something and then, but without any real introduction, because someone I think who's from two technical backgrounds actually can't explain it in the right way. And then I also see, and I didn't do this, but I've had a few friends do it, because there's a lot of these, you know, vibe coding and vibe engineering courses as well, which I think are a bit more social media clickbait than something you really need to do to just get started. Yeah. And I want to point out another thing to prompt engineering, right? And that's another meaty, heavy word like vibe coding. I mean, it's not really coding. It's just like telling, literally chatting in as if you're typing into a Google chat or a search bar. I want to build x, y, and z. Can you build it for me? And then that is basically vibe coding. Prompt engineering is basically the thing that you say, right? It's a prompt. And I think actually that, and I don't like to use these sensational phrases like prompt engineering is dead. But it is dead because the thing is is that you don't really need to engineer your prompts. Your prompts don't need to be very sophisticated. And so like, Sarah, what you were saying is you can use these voice dictation tools. Like, I use Willow voice. What do you use? I use whisper. I use whisper. Okay. So you use whisper. You're on the whisperer clan. I'm on the Willow voice clan. And to everybody else, I mean, this is game changing because you literally just press a button and you speak. It's better than Siri or any sort of other voice audio platform. It really just takes your thoughts and cleans it up and dictates it for you. And truly, that's what I do is I don't prompt engineer. I press a button. I say what I want to build. And voila, it's built. Truly. Yeah. And the fun, it's so true. And the fun connection, I mean, I even, I'm a born, I was first using lovable and working out the vibe coding piece. I mean, I would use Claude. I would speak to Claude to tell it what I want to do. It would build my prompt for me, and I would cut and paste it into lovable and then iterate from there. So I think there's so much iteration, but to your point, it's just speaking and telling it, I think, what you want it to do. Yeah, because the rate that you can get better at making a prompt, the AI models are faster at just understanding your garbled messages. So I think there's a lot of like making something that's actually very simple, like over technical. Yeah, I agree. And then for you, this has really changed the way you work, because you've built something around AI. But I guess can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, yeah. So as I mentioned earlier, a little bit, we went from a brick and mortar space and then went into something more technical, which is a search and book marketplace. So we were essentially before what was like the resie of child care. You could search for child care in camps and book it right away. What happened was when I went into this obsession with AI, I thought about, well, I've always built things under the premise of building a parent care company, taking care of parents. And I really was there in this front row seat of this incredible inflection point in technology with AI. And I was like, what better way to help parents than figure out an AI solution for this? So I decided to just build an AI family assistant named Betty and really thought about how to build it. And the interesting thing was I built it the wrong way the first time with AI. So I launched something internally in December. I was like, this is it. This is the thing that we're building. This is how it's going to be an app. Parents are going to log in. And then I built it and I'm always user number one. I truly believe that founders should be very obsessed with their products. Yeah, and you know, use it to the core. I couldn't get myself to use it for more than two hours because there's no way I'm going to of all the things I log into Google Slap, whatever it is. I'm not going to log into another app, right? That's too much of a mental load for me. And so I thought about how can you how can I build something that meets parents where they are? And I was like, where am I? I'm in my emails. I'm in my text messages. So we made it SMS. So basically, you text Benny, the family assistant, what you need. Benny can do complex tasks. It can book reservations for you. It can book child care for you. We launch group texting, too. So you can group text. I group texted with my girlfriends. We said it in our day. Benny booked the reservation for us. Send us calendar invites and text reminders. And again, a reminder to everybody, I am a political science major or was a political science major and not a computer science major. And I built the prototype by myself. By myself. Yeah. Do you think there's any way you could have done this with that AI? Oh, 1000% knows Sarah. I mean, I didn't even understand what different coding languages were. You could ask me what's on your front end and what's on your back end for your tech stack. I can see this now now without feeling embarrassed, but I couldn't tell you what that was. Because I just was not technical. I think too many people wait until they're ready. And I don't know what ready means. And so the reality is you need to start playing and trying AI things before you're ready. I mean, I'm in similar to you. I use this in my family life. I use it in my work life. But I just think you have to pick any piece to test and use. And it's interesting. I imagine a lot of people listening to this have used it, but probably as a search engine. I think that's often the first, you know, people are using it a little bit like a replacement to Google, I guess, but it's really that next use case that is a ha ha moment for most people. Yeah, I think using AI for orchestration, right, and coordination, I think is really great, and you know, you'll get there, right, and it does start with just prompting and asking questions, right, what's the weather today or make me a plan for my travel. But then, you know, just be curious and just push it to the limit of what it could do. I mean, again, I've been vibe coding for over a year now and coding a lot. The last night, I built like a little like bot in my Slack channel where I could ask questions and about the business and I was able to pull information and I could probably do the same for my family. That is, I think that is a great use case, like dumping data or information in a place that you can query is a great use case. Absolutely, but for everybody who's listening who's not there yet, it just starts with a simple prompt. For me, it was, I think it's like finding a simple problem and trying to solve it. I think I share this with you. So, like we, you know, at our school, I think most schools actually they use this platform called sign up genius, where you can sign up for it. It's not a genius spoiler alert. Yeah. It's like very antiquated and not a great user experience. And the first thing I built was actually a replacement for sign up genius, right? And it was just more of a fun project. And that's how I got obsessed was I created, you know, ways to get reminders and I just kept on pushing it. And maybe it's also part of what people can do when they're prompting, right? Prompting, meaning just writing things in and asking questions is, what else can you do for me? What else do you think I should do? Right? And let it guide you to. Mm-hmm. Well, I think that's it. That is a great piece of advice to anyone getting started. I think with, I use Claude a lot, I think you do as well, along with a mix of other things. And the big unlock there is asking Claude to interview you around something that you want to do. So instead of thinking you need to know what, you know, all the bits to put in, I think asking it to ask you questions is the other way that can be really helpful. That's such a great idea, like I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's good. That's the thing going right, when you were starting out, what was the biggest thing you got wrong? Oh, gosh. I think starting off the biggest thing that I got wrong was like overthinking it a little bit, just like, just like everybody else, right? So I'm just like everybody else, not who's non-technical, is overthinking it, being really scared. I think for Claude and Codex, right, which is the version of Claude code created by OpenAI, I saw online all of these content creators that are AI content creators, opening up these terminals, right, those little windows where you see lines of code being written and, you know, block background or whatever. And I got intimidated and I was like, oh, this is, I can't get to this next level of coding, right? With using Claude code and Codex, which are much more powerful. And I think it was just like breaking down that barrier and, you know, realizing that I just needed to keep on going. And I think another thing too, that I realized too, was that in work, especially, I felt like I could upskill everybody to AI, right? And I think it's possible, but I think it's also surrounding myself with those who have like the AI mindset too, and beyond just like giving people tools and saying like, hey, learn this tool now, learn these 10 tools now. You could only upskill your team if you show them what it could do for you aside from what that specific tool can do, meaning the zone of genius, right? How can I unlock that zone of genius for you? Like you are a great marketer. Do not spend, you know, 10 hours a week doing A, B and C, that's like mechanical and robotic. You know, make AI do that so that you can think of creative launches and you can think of, you know, creative brand strategies. So it's really like reframing that and anything. 100%. Yeah. At first I was like, this is a tool. Use it now. Yeah. And it was, that was like the wrong approach. Yeah. Actually with creative people, I mean, I spent my whole career working with creatives. And I think one of the biggest benefits for someone creative or working with in the creative industries is freeing up from like administrative or mundane tasks that take a lot of time. So you can actually spend more time being creative, thinking, doing the more higher value added things. Starting with mundane parts of the daily job is a great way to get people started. And it sounds like you were doing that in your team. You mentioned one other thing. You said the AI mindset. What do you think is the AI mindset? I think it's unafraid. I think it's curious. I think it's hopeful. I think that a lot of times again, especially for those who are non-technical, you're afraid of what seems very technical because you feel almost like an imposter syndrome. You feel like you're not qualified, right, to do things that are technical, being intensely curious to see how far you can push it and being hopeful. Be hopeful that this is going to enhance my life because it's going to free up time. I'm going to have more time to do the things that I love. I'm going to have more time to spend with my family. I'm going to have more time to pick up a hobby like me, I started playing tennis. Yes, and I'm obsessed because I a year ago, we told somebody that I was playing a recreational sport. They would think you're crazy because I was working so much and I'm not trying to promote exhaustion culture at all, but we were just in this phase of work where I was working so much. And it's allowed me to have this time and what a gift is, time is a gift, right, truly in any way. And so, I don't know, I think that's something that I found to be the qualities in a person who's more, because it's like AI forward, right, is having those three things. I don't know, what about you, Sarah, I think for you, what's special is that you are working with executives, leaders of amazing companies, in what you do every day. And for me, I'm running a team of 12 people. For you, you're working with companies that have teams that are 1,000, 10,000, 50,000 people. And so, what are you seeing in this ecosystem right now with AI and how it's being viewed? Yeah, it's interesting, because it runs the whole spectrum. There are companies I work with that have really been on the AI path from day one. And they're using it, and their teams are using it. And they're also having competitions for team members, side coping competitions, and their executives are using it. They have licenses for different things, and they're actually using it to transform their businesses. There are other companies I work with who only use co-pilot. That's the one thing, and I think, you know, I mean, co-pilot has it's advantage, is it don't want to disrespect anything, but it's, I'd say, a little bit on the basic level. But obviously, attached to the Microsoft suite of tools, the companies that have done it well, in my opinion, are those that have taken a top down and sort of bottom up approach. So interesting. There has to be, if you have it, if the CEO and the C suite are not interested, then nothing is going to happen on the one hand. So I think having a CEO and a C suite who are aware and understanding and really driving a path towards how AI can be used to transform the business, I think that's important. But then there also has to be something bottom up, but this is just pushed from the top, which I've seen. The companies that will bring in and be consulting firm, do a big project and try and push things down through the organization. I think that doesn't work either. There has to be a pull from employees, and that's a little bit what I was saying before. I think some of the use cases that are most attractive for some of the teams are those that help take away the administrative tasks, I mean easier reporting. You know, just taking away things that would be sort of mundane or incredibly time consuming. And I think one of the one, I mean, one of the most fun ways, and I think some companies talk about is publicly doing these, you know, getting a license to something and again, could be lovable, replete curse or whatever. And letting teams have little vibe coding. competitions and whether there's actual cash prizes or whether it's just access to senior leaders. And you and I both know a few of these leaders who have really seen it be a way for teams to get their hands dirty for teams to teach each other things and really stay up to date. I will say a lot of companies I think are struggling to scale use cases. So they often find use cases that work in different teams. And then I think one of the trickiest things is determining what you would never use AI for because there's a piece around what you can use AI for. And I think you and I you and I talk about this a lot like you there's a especially when it comes close to creative businesses. You know if you're if you're a big creative luxury or fashion house may taking a stand and saying we're not going to use we're not going to use real talent in our commercials for example. But I know you've I know even you know you have a smaller team but you've had to make some of those choices around where to and where not to use AI as well. Yeah absolutely. I mean I think right now we experiment with creating content with AI and because and it depends on the company where every company every business is different every person is different. But because we are working with families and children and we just really our brand is is the cornerstone of our brand is is you know trust and community. And so there's a part of AI that can help accelerate parts of that right. Send me out more emails to have more community events or building more brand partnerships right. But there's a part of AI that can dismantle that too. So if we start doling out just a bunch of AI generated videos that fill hollow and that and then we start to lose a trust of our community and our brand. So that that's why we have to be really careful about how we use AI. I mean AI just like any tool it has its place and it doesn't have its place in certain things. I wanted to double click on one thing that you mentioned you said that the executives of these companies the CEOs are even using AI and you're saying CEO's of large companies even are sitting in the driver's seat and saying I'm using these tools I am hands on. I think they have to I mean I think if they're not doing that it's very difficult to drive use of AI through a company if you if you're not using it or don't understand it yourself. And again companies are at such different stages of this journey but I see some actually training their exact team you know first to get whether it's on you know whether it's a couple of different methods it could be getting them actual training around using a tool and whatever web mentioned some of the tools today it could be more like a Claude or you know Codex or one of these or it could be on a vibe coding tool. And then the other is actually just giving them exposure to AI forward companies having little venture days where you bring in early stage companies and the founders can talk about what they're building and what they're doing across the value chain of those companies just so they start to get a so well I think one you know you and I talk about this all the time one of the biggest competitors to every company now is not another big company. It's a company like yours it's like a 12 person it's a 12 person company that's catching up you know so I think opening the mind and and understanding what people are building is one of the quickest ways to help executives sort of see where this going. Yeah and I think the undercurrent of what you're saying that I'm seeing that's really important to point out about the fact that even if you're a CEO of a big company you're still sitting in the driver's seat learning this new thing this has never been before seen no CEO is going to of any size company is going to say okay you know what I think I need to learn legal now I think I need to learn finance now but you know CEO's executives tend to have their zone of genius they hire the people who are very good at what what they're supposed to do right hire the best lawyers behind the best one HR but here everyone is at the starting line so you can't find the best people in these fields because we are all at the starting line we are all at this sort of like stage right of like being fertilized into these these AI superstars so for everybody who is saying that they feel like they're too late or they're behind no one is we're just getting started yeah we're just getting started and I think the the tool I mean what is overwhelming around it is the number of different tools and all the all the other noise and I think the other thing you and I talk about a lot is you've got to find your room yes and I think both you and I had experiences in the past at least I did when I was trying to you know quote-unquote learn AI of being in rooms largely male dominated you know it was a little bit stereotypical the you know young guys in hoodies but with a lot of acronyms and a lot of heavy coding background and that just wasn't the right room I mean you and I co-founders of this little community kinship but it's it's just basically getting like-minded people together so we can talk openly about what's working what's not working and that's usually around our professional lives but also I think you know things we're using day-to-day and no stupid questions everyone's at a different level and I think finding you group of people who can kind of do this with I know you even have like what don't you have something mixed with tennis like he did soon you do something like have a yeah I have that you also like founders court yes what are you talking about your founders playing tennis and maybe we talk about a little AI throw it in there but you know it's yeah it is so fascinating right because a lot of us who are building especially women I feel like we're building in AI like really in in solitude right and it's in it's not the way that we should be building because the rooms where people are building together they are rooms that we don't feel like they're not the rooms that that help us thrive and you know I'll give you an example last week on Saturday or not Saturday on Wednesday I flew out to San Francisco and I did as part of an AI demo summit so I was one of maybe eight people on a stage presenting a real AI workflow I was the only female founder on that stage and and all the other folks also who were demoing brilliant amazing humans much more technical honestly much smarter than me right I will admit that on a technical front but after I I presented I had droves of women the few women in the room I would say maybe 25 30% were women in the room about 200 people they came up to me after they and they said your demo was the only one that I actually like really understood and they're smart intelligent women and and it's just because things just need to be laid out in different way when you're non-technical and I think for us when we started the Kinship AI Fellowship which is our community again of other founders and builders and leaders it was something that was just really like a group text between you emotion you know when it's part of it to of course like leading the the the fellowship but it was really just like let's just get a bunch of really smart people together let's talk about it let's talk about AI but let's not just give a key note about AI to each other we're just talking about it being very vulnerable but what's working what's not working and just building together and and being vulnerable again I mean I talked to one of our fellowship members last night on Zoom and he and I were just riffing about how he has like this idea he's a dashboard their dead Joan I was like tell me more yeah and he was just like yeah you just get notifications wide long into a dashboard and I was this is revolutionary so that's he actually motivated me last night to go build like this little slack thing where I could like message it for data from our dashboard I was like yeah dashboards are dead I'm gonna build something and those are the rooms that we all need to be in right those are the communities that we need to start building either in a structured or unstructured way so that we can learn together be vulnerable together and upskill ourselves together yeah and I should say that I mean you mentioned speaking to someone last night I mean kinship is is everyone it's not a female only fellowship so it's certainly mixed I do want to spend a second on I don't want this to become a you know women versus men in AI but I do find it a really striking moment I mean we all we all know the statistics I think when it comes to founders that I think they receive 1% of venture capital female only founded companies I think when you include having a female not not not a 100% female but having a female it jumps to maybe 20% of funding so that's obviously a big We also know there's a lot of data to suggest that female founded companies actually return really well from an investment standpoint. I have my investor hat on now, but I think AI is introducing a new variable that could either start to close that gap or widen that gap. And I think you mentioned you were at this where you just were, there were maybe 25% women in the room and the data does show that women are adopting AI much like I think 25% lower rates than men. And I think that's actually an improvement over what it was at the start. And yet a lot of the jobs that are going to be disrupted by a held by women and that's a real tension. Similar to you, I try to take a very optimistic view around this and think that we're really at the start. And there's a moment now to close the gap and sort of you close that gap by by building experience. And again, I think we'll, you know, we'll speak about it more as we chat. I still believe that other non AI things are the most important. I still think relationships domain expertise, the ability to ask the right question, the ability to communicate and collaborate. I think all of these skills in an AI world are even more important than they were before, but you have to find a community or a room of people to sort of learn and riff with to move forward. Yeah, and I think I think what's important to note too is like it's not that AI can necessarily just replace the whole job. It can make a job that was once non AI. It can make the AI version of that job more, I guess, more fascinating rights. I'll give you an example like marketing, like we still need marketers, right, we still need some. But right now in this AI world, an AI forward marketer is better than a non AI forward marketer, right, not because they're building ads with AI models and are like AI images, but because they're thinking about how they're streamlining the workflows faster, getting metrics on conversion faster with AI. So I think that's where it is and so I think it's just more if I had to like really simplify it is I think about the change in this maybe not the most analogous example, but when you know Google speak came on, right, or Microsoft, right, it's like, okay, no, you have to do not use word, right, that was a line in your resume. Can you use work. Are those the skills you have and so I see as that I see as that one line in your resume that's just going to make an enhancer for you, right, are you. AI forward because that's going to make you go faster instead of writing things on a piece of paper you're using Excel instead of like doing decks like long way you're using PowerPoint. So I just see as an enhancer and I think that you're doing this because you value your time, right, that's where it has to start do you value your time if you value your time and you want to save time. This is something to lean into, you know, we can save more time to do more of the things that we enjoy spend more times with our families have more time for ourselves, right. This is something that can unlock a little bit of more time that's going to take things just a little bit better. Yeah, so thinking about time and trying to give some real examples of I think how we use AI, talk me through a typical Tuesday Wednesday. I don't know, talk me through how, you know, what, how you would be using AI on a typical day of the week. Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of so this is a mix of probably work in and family to, right. 100% has to be, I mean, those are really of how we live. So as I mentioned earlier, Benny, the AI family assistant, we have group texting. So we do a family huddle every week. So every Thursday, Benny will remind us to do a family huddle to basically go over every single thing throughout the week. Who's driving up with the kids or without the kids. Oh, no, just me and my husband, my kids are eight and nine, so they don't have phones yet. But so we're just texting back and forth and like, okay, who's going to take my daughter to first back writing camp and my son to coding camp for soccer camp, whatever it is. So we go through the whole week. That helps a lot. Benny also sends us text reminders, calendar invites, the whole shebang. And then, you know, typically for me, I have different automations that I'm using. So for instance, I created an automation on codex where it sends me, I have an AI agent send me industry pulse report every single month. So it tells me what's going on in the industry. It sends me a competitor report every single Tuesday. And sends me a viral content report every single Wednesday of what's going viral on social. I have a social media agent every single Thursday giving me a social plan for the following week. And then I can prove the plan. That's all sent to me by Slack. And so, so I have these agents running and then I have an AI assistant, howie that schedules all of my meetings. So I go through my emails. I have fixer drafting responses to all my emails. I send them or I edit the responses and send. I loop in howie and AI assistant to schedule my meetings. So howie just scheduled yesterday, there was like a 10 person meeting I felt like. I was like, oh, heck no, I'm not going to. I'm not for my first thing John hates meetings. She doesn't like emails at all. She avoids meetings. And time meeting. And so, so howie was in there, you know, scheduling and howie got it scheduled. I had all these people with their EAs and, you know, really important people. And, you know, a lot of times you get nervous, starting putting an AI assistant in such an important email. But I was like, I'm not going to spend 45 minutes of my life trying to coordinate this. So, I mean, these are the simple tools I use. And of course, I'm vibe coding all the time. You know, this morning I started vibe coding something for my friends and I to plan our next family trip. We go on a trip with four families. We, I created an expense tracker for a last family trip that we had where we were. And we all put our expenses in and it did all the math for us in terms of who gets who pays whom and all that stuff. So, so I think the travel item is a great, I think the travel item is a great use case. It's so excellent at that. Yeah, because you did one for Japan, right? When you went. One for Japan. I actually, yes, I did do one for Japan. And you just came back from Italy. And I just came back from Italy and I did, I mean, we were there for something specific. But I also, I used it then. I think it's, it's, it's really, it's so fun using it for, for travel, itineries and advice and information and mixing schedules for kids of different ages and people with different, my whole family, we all have very different. Interests, but I find it excellent. I mean, I find excellent for that. Outside of travel, what, what else to use for a Sarah? We mentioned before that I use for voice to text whisper. So, that's, I guess, a constant thing that I'm using throughout the day. I mean, I even use it for my text messages and other things because I find it so much better than any of the others. I also use an AI note taker. I think you do as well. I use fireflies that you use. I know I wonder, I think maybe I need to change it some, but I've been using fireflies. But the, but the points of a note taker is, you know, I am in a lot of meetings, a lot of them are on Zoom and just not needing to take physical notes. Being present, being free present in a meeting. And by the way, this could be, I'm using these largely for professional meetings. But this could be a school PTA meeting. It could be, you know, it can really be anything. And at the end of that meeting, getting a perfect summary, a list of to do as you can send out to others. And so I think each morning I get a daily digest from fireflies reminding me and checking in that various things, you know, various tasks and follow-ups from past meetings have happened. And then I mean, I'm, you know, a little bit different workflow from you. I'm mainly doing investment research and advisory. And I use it all throughout that. I mean, things that I would need analysts to research. I mean, building decks. I never want to build a PowerPoint deck ever again in my life. Yeah. So I think using literally, and actually we've been speaking all about vibe coding, but vibe coding, um, a deck, whether you're doing that in something like Canva, whether you're using Claude Design, just telling what you need on each different page uploading data, if you needed included, that makes just a tremendous difference. So I think for all those work things, I'm using, you know, research analysis summary. Um, I use it for writing, but I am quite. I'm very specific that if I write anything, whether it's a report, a LinkedIn post, whatever, I always write first drafts myself. I don't know if everyone's still a tough set, but I feel like that's-- I definitely don't do that. So I really have made them to old school, and I'm showing my age. I always write my draft myself, and I really use it much more as an editor, I just can't. I've tried to do the other way, and I feel editor. But anyway, it's where you just start with my own-- I start myself, but I use AI for all the editing. And then I think I mentioned the few apps I use day-to-day are things I've built on, lovable, whether they are tracking timing and time and expenses, other things. I mean, the other things someone asked me the other day, they're like, what's something you would never, ever do again? And I said, I would never-- you just mentioned expenses. I would never manually reconcile expenses. And in the power of-- and this is a great first-use case if people aren't doing it-- if you-- whether it's for a family trip, for taxes, for your work, whatever, literally dumping expenses in a folder, and having AI, summarise them, re-save them, categorise them. In a matter of minutes, it's such a mundane and boring and not sexy use case at all, but really-- The huge time saver. A huge time saver. And I also-- I mean, you hate meetings. I hate Admin. I hate-- we all scream out and hate. Look at kids sports apps. I hate scheduling things. So for all-- and a thing, Admin, I really try and use it for that. Yeah, no, that's fascinating. And I'll double-click on one thing, Grenola. The reason why I use Grenola is because it has little recipes. And it actually has a recipe that I use called Coach Me Matt. Oh, interesting. And it's an executive coach. So basically, Grenola transcribes all of your conversations, whether it's online or in-person too. So if a person it will run, and it transcribes everything. And when I click on the button for the recipe, I take a deep breath, and I click on it. Because Matt is brutal. So that will give me the most straightforward feedback that I really need to hear. And before I had an executive coach that was giving me feedback, and I think there's pluses and minuses to both, right? But Coach is not in your meetings with you. That's the difference. Exactly. So Matt was the one that told me I was in too many meetings. Sarah, that Matt has fundamentally changed my life. And so now I'm in anti-meeting because Matt says that I shouldn't be in meetings too much. Matt also told me that I'm vibe coding too much. Which is probably true. I think I'm at like 7 million lines of code now. Oh, my God. But I do love it so much. It's a hobby for me. I don't have other hobbies aside from tennis. So it's tennis and vibe coding. I'm glad you have tennis. Yeah, I'm glad too, then I feel a little bit more sane. I get some sun. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think it's-- yeah, so it's all those things. But I would hope-- I don't know. I worry for someone listening. It sounds like a lot of things. But I think the main takeaway here is to just start with one thing. And then by the way, I mean, I've had friends who-- I've been an advice of where to start. And I've had a couple of friends very few, but who start and they try it and they actually don't like it. They don't want to do it. And I think that's fine as well. But I also just think it's important to know what you're saying no to. But most-- I was saying most of my friends who-- because I think in a professional sense, it's different. People have to start doing it. And there's a different motivation. For those who are thinking about it more in their home life or their personal life, I think you have to feel the productivity and feel the change to then really become addicted to it. Yeah, time. You want your time, right? It gives you time back. And that's just so important. And I think for me, too, I get a lot of DMs. I get a lot of messages. I get a lot of texts from friends. Friends of friends are just people who follow me. And they are always intrigued by how do you start? You're so quote, was so good at AI. Yeah. It's really not about you at AI. I mean, I think it's about being curious, right? It's not being really intensely curious. And so that's something that has been really interesting to me. And my schedule at a point was getting filled with all these 15-minute meetings, talking to you about AI. And so I was like, oh no. And so Mosh and I actually decided to start something called AI Maxing. It's a six-week course that we're launching at the end of August. And so it's going to be very approachable. It's going to be very digestible. And it's going to be really exciting for me to be able to teach other people about AI in a hands-on way. And so if anybody's interested, you could go to join aimaxing.com. Maxing has two access and use the code goop. And you can get 10% off the course. We'd love to see more women joining the course. And we'd love to meet more women who are excited to build. And I love that. And I can certainly attest to the fact I always joke that Joan is saved in my phone as Joan AI queen. That's actually how she's saved in my phone. What a comment. I think, well, because you are the person that I will reach out to if I have questions, or I'm looking-- I think the last one I reached out was trying to work out a new CRM to upload everything to. But I strongly recommend-- I think I also love that you're finding a way to do this a little bit at scale, because you're clearly in too many meetings all the time. Yeah. Matt will probably tell me that I'm too in too many meetings again. You're meeting with too many people, but AI-- I do love it, though. I mean, I think it's just so fun to unlock something for somebody and to be able to do it at scales. Like, really funny, whether it's casually through our fellowship that we have, or we meet with founders once a month. And we talk about what's going on in AI. And we have little presentations. That's always really amazing, too. And I think it's just like casual conversations about it. I mean, it's always really great to impart some sort of learning to anybody, especially at this critical time, to where things are changing so rapidly. And what you were saying earlier about learning so much, and everyone's going to feel like you're not learning fast enough, because it's going to be a new model out, a new tool. And you just have to set that expectation. You are not nobody. Not you, Sarah, not me. Not anybody listening. You're not going to know everything about AI. You're not going to keep it with every single tool out there. Because literally, there's a new launch. Every single hour, I would assume. Yeah. It's just crazy. I think that's true. I also-- well, at least for me, I had to get used to the feeling of being back like learning and failing and making mistakes. And I do think that can be uncomfortable when many of us have spent our whole careers, so to speak, being good at achieving in the careers, to go back to this real failing and trying and experimenting mindset is a little bit different. I do hope a lot of women join you for your course. But what do you think holds some women back from just getting started? I think especially the non-technical women, I think a lot of it feels overwhelming. And I don't think it's them. I don't think it's the women. I think it's external, actually. I think it's the way that this information is being presented. It's being presented in a way that's not approachable. It's being presented in a way that feels like harder than it is, overly technical, and it's not too technical. And I think that's such a disservice, because you have incredible women who are leaders, brand builders, visionaries, community builders, activists, policymakers, and with AI, if they are-- there's another phrase, AI-pilled. That's like the-- God, I haven't heard that phrase, basically. It's like, you're just locked in on AI. It's locked in, OK? Yeah, so if we have this cohort of amazing, incredible women who can be AI-pilled, imagine what can be done. I mean, 40% of businesses now are owned by women. I mean, in terms of consumerism, most consumers spend is by-- It's controlled by women. I mean, women are controlling so much. And so to be-- to not have that externally, to not have the tools or the ways that information is delivered, it's not-- if it's not being delivered in the right way, it's such a disservice. And so I don't think it's women who are not engaging. I think it's also externally, right, that things are just not presented in a way that makes it approachable, which is not great. I agree with that. And I think the information-- is not approachable. I do think women, well at least the research that just suggests women have different concerns than their male counterparts when it comes to AI, but it's true that this is the largest shift that's going to be happening in our certainly in business, but probably in our personal lives as well. I think with AI, if I look at every previous shift that I've seen, whether it's digital, mobile, social, it changed the conditions of competition, but this, you know, AI is actually changing the unit of capability itself. Like one person, one founder, one team can conceive of and execute something that's fundamentally expanded. I think Benny's an example of that. And that makes, you know, because I feel right now there's a lot of conversations around, is this hype, then is it overhyped in different things, but the thing that makes me say that this is not just hype, and I've lived through enough of those hype cycles to esceptical of my own excitement around these various things, is the compounding the fact that this is happening across every industry simultaneously, not sequentially. I mean, you're not looking at a sector disruption, you're looking at a general purpose reordering, I'd say. And I'll be honest, that's what finally made me stop watching and start doing, not because I had to figure it out, but because I understood enough to know that sitting on the sidelines isn't a neutral position, but, you know, it's a choice with consequences and that actually we're in a moment where the gap hasn't closed, you know, there's time, there's time to learn and be embedded. So I hope a lot of people listening to this, feel that, and if they haven't started, they can join you and emerge and get started. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think one another thing that I want to add as an addendum, because you mentioned briefly, women having a different set of concerns related to AI, and I think a lot of those concerns are valid, but I also think it's very important for us then, right, as women to understand AI, right? I have concerns about AI and children. Right, I have concerns about AI and, you know, creative builders. I have concerns about AI and privacy. I have concerns about AI and the environment, right? Yeah. The thing that we know for sure is AI is here, and AI is growing at high velocity. So unfortunately, we cannot, it's not something that we can just basically make disappear. It's here, but we can learn about it, we can understand it, so that we can be the voices to make sure that AI is safer children, you know, that AI is safer environment, that AI is safer for, you know, creative builders, right? And thinkers. And so I think that there's something about that that's also really important too, because if you have a bunch of overly capitalistic men leading the forefront on AI, you know, I would assume they're not going to care about the environment, they're not going to care about our children, they're not going to care about the creatives in the world, right? So this is our opportunity to also be the voices in the room to speak upon those things in a very fluent, adept way. Yeah. I think I've come to a similar place as well, and that the people who are going to shape how this technology develops, what guardrails get built, how it gets used, they're not waiting for us to get comfortable. And so the choice isn't really between engaging or not engaging, it's about being part of a conversation, and to be a part of a conversation, any conversation, you have to get smart on that topic. And whether that means you do a little bit and you don't want to do any more, that's fine, or you actually really, I think as you and I have kind of get a little bit addicted to it and really find it having real value add and usefulness in our day to day lives. You don't want to sit outside with no voice and the leverage. I don't think there's ever an example in history where that's worked. Totally. And what an exciting time to build, what an exciting time to save time, what an exciting time for anybody who's non-technical to upscale, for anybody who's too busy to free up some of their time. It's just really an incredible moment for us to embrace, but still of course I can embrace with caution, but it's truly exciting. So if you, you know, I'm sure some listening are at the start of their careers. And so if you, if you were starting out your career now, you just graduated and you were at the start of your career, what would you do differently, or how would you think about that? I would start a company. I mean, I did do that after college, but I mean, I would start a company because you could probably go fast, you could fail faster. That's the thing. You could fail faster and you could fail cheaper, right? So fail fast, fail cheap, fail again, you know, and then tell you build something that's really exciting, right? Because before to build something like the sign up form that I made with AI, that would have cost me a lot. I would have had my engineers. I would have had to raise capital. Yeah. I mean, this is a time where women can build. Anybody can build, not just women, but anybody can build and retain ownership over what you're building because the cost of building and the cost of failing is so darn cheap. I think a little bit the same. I mean, I think using this, whether you're starting a company or having a couple of years at a company where it's very AI for all the like is useful as well. I also think some of the skills that I think maybe when we were growing up or even when we were going through university, we're probably soft skills. Yeah. And now more important than ever. So, you know, relationships and hate the word networking, but relationships and networking, I think, taste or, I mean, you can't really, I guess, learn taste, but making sure from a creative standpoint that that muscle is developed. And I still think I don't think it's going to take away from experience and having good judgment and having deep domain experience. I actually still believe that having real experience in specific areas is going to be is going to be value valuable because AI can do some things, but there's actually going to be a judgment expertise piece that will still be really important. Yeah. I mean, founder, market fit, founder, product fit, right? Those are also very important things for sure. You know, you can have, you can build fast and build cheap, but if you're the wrong person building it, it's still going to be expensive. 100% 100% and I keep getting asked because I do quite a lot of investing. Is there something different now? You're looking for when you're invest and I actually think that it's the fundamentals are kind of the same. So, I mean, to your point, it's always for me founder first. I'm always, I mean, I always say, I think I'm investing as much in a founder than I am, you know, the business. And then I think it's, I think the one thing it has changed is whether there's a competitive, how big is a competitive moat around a business because the one thing AI is changing as we've been speaking about is the ability for new companies to pop up and do the same thing. So, I think the, you know, investing businesses that actually solve real consumer market problems, which is the same thing that I think as we've always done and really still focusing on the founder means it hasn't changed as much as, as much as you would have thought. Totally. And actually, there's a bit of a risk. There's so many, I think now most, I think every company that's raising money says it's about AI and I think that's a, that's tricky as well. That's tricky because consumer products are still very important, right? You can't find an AI bottle of soap. So, it's just not going to happen. I can't, I can't eat AI. So, yeah. So, those are still very, very important for sure. All right. So, this was a really fruitful conversation about AI and just wanted to tell everybody that and remind everybody that again, we have two non-technical people who have been in the throes of AI and it's just not too late to start. We're actually all at the starting line. So, I want to encourage everybody, if you've listened this far in the podcast, you can do it. You know, start with one tool, do one thing and just be intensely curious. I would agree to read that. I mean, I think this is a really exciting time in history to be starting out, putting all the trepidations and fears to one side. The tools are extraordinary. There are real problems out there that need to be solved and the people who are going to shape what comes next are the ones who are willing to start now and you need to start before you feel ready and before somebody gives you permission. My advice is always to find one mundane thing you hate doing and try and use AI to automate that and you can build from there. It's been great to speak today, Joe. Yeah, super fun. I always love chatting with you, but I'll think AI. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate, and review all of our episodes which are available for free on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. The good holiday gift guides are our calling card. We scour the earth for the best options in every category to make it easy for you to find the right gifts for everyone on your list. Make beautiful jewelry, thoughtful wellness tools, smart kitchenware, clean beauty, and more unexpected finds. Whether you're looking for a little luxury or a big splurge, you'll find something that feels personal in our curation. Explore the gift guide at goop.com and as our gift to you, take 15% off your first purchase with code, pod, gift, exclusion, supply.