No Priors Ep. 22 | With Instacart CEO Fidji Simo

1. 0:00 – 11:48

   Leading With Impact and Authenticity

   1. SGSarah Guo0:00

      (music plays) Welcome to No Priors. Today, we're speaking with Fidji Simo, the CEO of Instacart, the leading grocery technology company, and co-founder of the Metadora Institute, whose mission is to cure neuroimmune access disorders. She's also the former leader of the Big Blue App, Facebook. Instacart is transforming the way we shop, making it possible for millions of busy people to get the groceries they need from the retailers they love. We're really excited to explore Fidji's refounding of Instacart, their use of AI, and the impact of AI on commerce and healthcare. Fidji, welcome to No Priors.

   2. FSFidji Simo0:34

      Thanks for having me, Sarah and Yared.

   3. SGSarah Guo0:36

      Let's start with some personal background. You've been a, uh, star leader in technology for a long time, from strategy at eBay to meteoric rise, um, to product and eventually beloved leader of Facebook, and now CEO of Instacart. That is a wide range of different things. What's driven your career decisions?

   4. FSFidji Simo0:55

      Well, that's a- that's a hard question to start with. I think it sounds cliché but it was all about where could I have impact on problems I deeply cared about. And, uh, I always say that I am a pragmatic technologist. And what I mean by that is that I love technologies that solve real problems for real people, and, uh, eBay was a good example of that. You know, when I joined the company, uh, I was kind of in love with this idea of like all of these, like, communities of collectors exchanging goods but really exchanging their passion, and I- I was fascinated by that. And then, you know, my transition to Facebook was very similar. I was an immigrant in the US and I was starting to see that it was so much easier to stay in touch with my family, uh, back in France thanks to Facebook. And then transitioning to Instacart was kind of similarly about the mission. You know, I thought the idea of connecting people, uh, to the retailers they love so that they can enjoy, uh, the foods they love and- and spend more time with their family was so critical, and food is, you know, one of the most important things in our lives. And so it felt like I could have a big impact there as well.

   5. SGSarah Guo2:06

      Yeah, amazing. Um, I, uh, remember what an impression you made on me when we first met when you were at Facebook. Like, you are very French, you wear lipstick and heels, um, you've led some of the most iconic products and companies in the tech world, but you don't, uh, subscribe to some of the, let's say, Silicon Valley monoculture, and you were clearly very conscious of that. Like, why is that important to you? Or how do you think about, um, like, cultural image and how you present as a leader?

   6. FSFidji Simo2:31

      Well, you know, (laughs) um, I've been French since I was born. (laughs) I have been, uh, wearing lipstick and high heels since I was 12. So, it is such a big part of me that it was never a conscious decision, it was just about being me. And then when I arrived in Silicon Valley, a lot of people were commenting on that, and I was, like, really surprised because, you know, that was just me being me. And they were telling me, "Well, you know, especially as you move into product development, you really need to blend in with the engineers, so, like, remove the makeup, tie up your hair, start wearing a hoodie." And I did that for one day at Facebook. No one recognized me. I would pass in the hallways, no one would say hi.

   7. SGSarah Guo3:14

      (laughs)

   8. FSFidji Simo3:14

      Uh, and the reality is that it felt like a lot of effort and work not to be you. And when I thought about it, I realized like, you know, if I have a lot of effort and energy to put into something, I'd much rather put it into building amazing products than trying to shape myself into something I'm not. And so, you know, I decided to embrace the French accent, embrace (laughs) the- the heels and all of these things. And you know, people around, like, adapted to it and then got used to it and that was not a problem anymore. So, you know, better to be you basically. (laughs)

   9. SGSarah Guo3:48

      (laughs) I asked a mutual friend of ours, uh, Ravi Gupta, what I should ask you, and he said that you are, you know, a very, very good leader with tremendous loyalty from your people while still being really tough. His suggested question was, "How do you- how do you earn followership as a leader?"

   10. FSFidji Simo4:08

       Ooh, that's a good question. I'm not surprised Ravi would ask that. I think, you know, I- I tell my leaders when I start, uh, you know, working with them, and I did that when I joined Instacart, that I want to be... Like, I want them to look back and realize that I was a- a big accelerator in their career and, like, and I'm telling them that to play that role, like, it's a partnership, obviously they have to want that. And- and for that to happen, it's gonna mean two things. It's gonna mean that I am going to hold them to a very high standard and give them a lot of tough feedback and help them meet that standard. But it's also going to mean that I'm gonna be there backing them up every step of the way and being in their corner and wanting them to succeed like no one else has wanted them to succeed before. And so, I think, you know, it's not for everyone, like, there are some people who are like, "Whoa, that sounds way too stressful. Thank you very much, lady, I'm gonna opt out." (laughs) But that's actually a good, you know, a good thing because, like, I don't think you need to be necessarily a leader for absolutely everyone. You, like, y- you pick your team and they pick you, and the people who like that end up being people who want to excel, uh, but want to excel through, uh, a leader that, like, is gonna back them up, is gonna be compassionate, is gonna create enormous safety for them to stretch themselves and potentially fail. Uh, and when that happens, you know, across many people in the team, you end up creating exceptional results, uh, because everybody c- kind of is in- in this mindset of, like, doing the best work of their lives.

   11. SGSarah Guo5:48

       I imagine becoming CEO of Instacart at the time you did, having to, like, you know, learn to be CEO, um, build that followership, um, recruit the people you need, but also at a time of, like, massive, uh, somewhat unexpected growth for Instacart and becoming critical infrastructure with the COVID-19 pandemic was a lot. How did you react to all of that? How did- how did the pandemic change the company?

   12. FSFidji Simo6:15

       Yeah. I mean, what do you mean, Sarah? It was a total walk in the park. (laughs)

   13. SGSarah Guo6:20

       It must have been chill. Very, very chill, yeah.

   14. FSFidji Simo6:22

       Well- well, listen, first off, 10 years at Facebook prepares you for a lot. (laughs) So, I would, I would credit that experience with, you know, me being ready to handle a lot of stuff. Um, I would say, you know, I joined Instacart in 2021 and it was very interesting time because the company had 4X the year before. We were in the midst of just absorbing all of the demand from customers, completely new habits, um, much larger team all of a sudden that we had to hire. Uh, but at the same time, there was also this question mark on, is Instacart gonna be just a pandemic darling, a, you know, one-trick pony, and are people just gonna go back to their, like, usual, uh, way of doing things and the company is just not gonna maintain that? And, you know, uh, fast-forward a couple years, clearly we have continued to grow during this time and clearly these habits are here to stay. But what you do during times like that is, like, you need to go back and focus on mission and vision. And so I spent a lot of my time really painting the picture for the company of what that company could be, and we even did, like, a full, like, day called, like, the Vision Summit, where everybody needed to be on the same page on the fact that Instacart had become critical infrastructure that came with a lot of responsibility. Instacart was also a retail enablement company, meaning that we weren't just building the Instacart app, we were actually building technologies for our grocers. You know, when you go to publix.com, kroger.com, schnucks.com, like that's Instacart technology that's powering a lot of that. And- and that it represented a huge, uh, you know, endeavor that would give us, you know, a lot to do (laughs) over the next 10 years, but a- a very big opportunity. And so you have to get people to rally again after, like, a massive period of growth like that to figure out what is the next mountain, what is the next thing that we're gonna all go accomplish together.

   15. EGElad Gil8:23

       I guess, related to that, it feels like one of the next mountains that you all are conquering has to do with the incorporation of AI into your product. And obviously you care more about how the product impacts the users, but I'm a little bit curious, you know, when did Instacart start focusing on AI and ML, and how do you feel that this wave of generative AI differs?

   16. FSFidji Simo8:40

       Yeah. Uh, you know, it's interesting because obviously AI is having a- a- a big moment, but Instacart has been focusing on AI since the very beginning. Like, if you think about it, we are fundamentally a search engine. We do a billion searches a month ... uh, a quarter, sorry. And, you know, it's all powered by AI. Every time a shopper goes to the store and a product is not on the shelves, we suggest replacement. We have suggested a billion replacement at this point. And, like, that's all powered by AI. The way in which we match shoppers to go to specific store, all powered by AI. So- so list goes on. Um, but I think the thing that's changing now with generative AI is that we are finally at a point where we can answer people's questions using natural language and the way they've been asking themselves these questions before. I- if you take a step back and you think about commerce online, it is very bizarre (laughs) that we have forced human to train themselves to express their commerce needs in the form of keywords. I mean, people don't think about, like, you know, how to put dinner on the table for the week, uh, in terms of, like, cilantro, eggplants, sour cream (laughs) -

   17. EGElad Gil9:57

       (laughs)

   18. FSFidji Simo9:57

       ... which is exactly what they're currently typing on Instacart right now. Instead, what they think about is, like, "I have a budget of 300 bucks. I have to put, you know, X meals on the table. My daughter is lactose intolerant. We traditionally eat Mediterranean food, and I have a set of recipes that I always cook, but I'm open to suggesting ... like, to trying out a new one. Like, let's figure it out." You know? And that's the way in which, you know, like, people ask themselves this question, and therefore that's the way software should answer them. And to me, the thing that's most exciting about this new wave of generative AI is that we can finally match the answers to ... that we give people to the way they ask themselves these questions.

   19. EGElad Gil10:42

       Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. You know, there has been this sort of shift in terms of what the underlying technology can do, and I feel like so many people just kind of extrapolate, "Hey, this is just the same AI curve as what we did with CNNs and RNNs," and all those sort of prior waves, but in reality; it's a new technology discontinuity with a new underlying model and new capabilities. How did you get the team to start thinking in terms of those capabilities? Because I feel that often when enterprises now adopt generative AI, some of them don't actually realize that it can do dramatically new things.

   20. FSFidji Simo11:10

       Yeah. So couple things. First off, like, it goes back to my philosophy as pragmatic technologist. I don't get enamored with the tech, I get enamored with what it can do. And so I actually ... the prompt I gave the team was, "What are the problems we've always wanted to solve for our users that we can now solve so much better?" And I see so many companies, like, coming at it from the point of view of, like, "Do we need an AI roadmap?" And I'm like, "No, no, no. You need to figure out, like, what is the biggest problem you're trying to solve? And now, can this new tool help you solve this problem in a completely different way?" And so that was very

2. 11:48 – 17:28

   Implementing AI

   1. FSFidji Simo11:48

      much the prompt. More tactically though, we have had two approaches. One approach is a centralized approach. So under our chief architect, we now have a centralized team that is really going deep in understanding these technologies and trying to figure out what can be done that couldn't be done before. And then we have a federated approach, which is really about, like, taking some of these learnings and then making sure every team uses AI. And I think that has served us well to have this combo, because you can't expect every engineer to go super deep to understand everything that's going on. But at the same time, if you keep generative AI just in a centralized team, it's not gonna impact all of your products, so you really need the combo of the two to make that happen.

   2. EGElad Gil12:32

      And do you have then, I guess from a tactical perspective, you know, I've seen some companies' hackathons, uh, where they just say, okay, this week everybody's gonna experience this technology, just so that people get that intuition. Because I think the intuition is missing. I've seen some companies have the sort of consultants who will drop into different product team and try and discuss like what could they actually do with the technology or what does it enable and give some almost like very fast demos on it. Are- are there, is there anything sort of tactically that you all did along those lines?

   3. FSFidji Simo12:58

      Yeah, we certainly, we did a big hackathon focused on that. And again, like the prompt wasn't just use generative AI, it was like take all of the problems we're already trying to solve and figure out if generative AI can solve them way better. And that generated a lot of great ideas. And then we have this model because we have this kind of, uh, centralized team that we call Care at AI.

   4. EGElad Gil13:20

      (laughs)

   5. FSFidji Simo13:20

      These people get pinged all the time by the rest of the company to kind of advise on like how to deploy some of these things. We've also deployed an internal assistant called Ava, uh, so that all of our engineers can leverage the GPT-4 models in a lot of what they're doing, but do that in an assisted way that helps them figure out how to integrate that. So that has also been, uh, very helpful. And, and the thing also is like, it reminds me a lot of like the, like transition to mobile. I was, um, when I was at Facebook, I was put in charge of monetizing ads on mobile right at the time where there were all of the headlines post IPO saying like, Facebook will never monetize mobile. Mobile is too small of a screen to have ads, like, you know, you remember that. And the reality is that like, you know, there were a lot of companies that were trying to take the desktop ads and just like shrink them to a mobile screen and instead, you know, what we came up with was ads in newsfeed, which was a completely different paradigm. And I use that a lot internally to help people understand that being AI native is going to require for like really rethinking from the ground up how you use these technologies. Not like trying to fit them within your existing paradigm. And I'll give you a very concrete example. We recently launched Ask Instacart, which is a way to like, you know, ask questions like, you know, what are the best sauces to grill my chicken and things like that. And there was a lot of debate on like, should it go into the search box or not because the search box is sacred, you know, on the commerce site, like you type keywords, like people are not gonna know what to do if we start putting questions, let's put it as a separate thing. And then it's like, no, actually if you were rebuilding commerce from scratch, that search box would be the place where you start asking questions. It shouldn't, like, we wouldn't like think of it as a, as a keyword search box. And so these are the micro decisions that are actually big ones to train the company that we need to disrupt ourselves and the prior paradigms in order to be truly AI native.

   6. SGSarah Guo15:27

      Can you describe why you guys did an internal assistant versus just saying everybody, you know, go hit ChatGPT on your own or whatever and, and sort of what's been interesting from a productivity perspective so far?

   7. FSFidji Simo15:38

      So we just, we just released that, so, uh, hard to know on productivity, but it was a lot about like, you know, making it more accessible and making it easier for, uh, engineers to kind of deploy these things. There's a bunch of like keyword shortcuts and just making like the interface very user-friendly so that engineers would feel like it's just a core part of their work now. The thing I would say about productivity is that, uh, you know, it's early to be able to measure any of that, but I think it's gonna impact, uh, productivity well beyond engineering. Uh, a lot of people are talking about, you know, making software development easier, but I'll give you some other examples. Like our marketing team, for example, created an entire library of animated characters using AI and using, you know, lean mirroring technology and things like that. And now we have like 200 plus, you know, characters and animations that we can use in marketing. That's huge. That would've, you know, cost a ton of money if we've, that was to be done, you know, uh, not using AI through an agency or legal team has like used AI to figure out like the, you know, how to, to detect the specific terms that, the custom terms that we have with specific retailers so that we can track that in a much better way. Like all of these things, they seem much more minor than, you know, launching a fancy new AI thing, but they actually make the lives of each team way better. And I think it will create a lot more satisfaction with the job because when you think about it, like, like no lawyer will tell you, yeah, going through a thousand documents to look for custom terms was a highlight of my day. You know? (laughs) And the fact that, that AI can actually do that for them, summarize that for them, like that means that we're gonna get the

3. 17:28 – 25:38

   Future of Grocery Shopping With AI

   1. FSFidji Simo17:28

      best out of our people and we're gonna remove a lot of the, you know, more minute tasks.

   2. EGElad Gil17:33

      Uh, are there any other sort of big areas that you've seen either impact productivity or the customer experience or things that are coming that you can talk about that you're just excited to be launching? I know that you did things, for example, the ChatGPT plugin and you were very early there.

   3. FSFidji Simo17:45

      Yeah.

   4. EGElad Gil17:45

      I'm just curious if there's other efforts that are, that are sort of exciting and on your roadmap.

   5. FSFidji Simo17:49

      Well, he- th- there's so much. I think the ChatGPT plugin was a great example because it allowed us to start to see how people were using these, uh, these things. And again, the questions are, you know, fantastic because right now, Instacart is really a tool, as of today, that is very, like, bottom of the funnel. You have to have already decided, like, that you want grocery delivery, that you know what to eat, like, all of these things. Whereas when you look at the ChatGPT plugin, it starts with like, "I have a birthday party. I don't know which snacks to get." You know? Like, there's a lot of, like, intent and different occasions that we can tap into and serve better because we can capture intent in a very different way. And so I'm very excited about that, uh, and I think we're, we're reproducing a lot of these experiences with Microsoft Bing, with Google Bard, and, and hope to be kind of the layer of conversion between bits and atoms. Because the way I kind of see this trend of generative AI is that everything software is gonna become a lot easier and lower barrier to entry, but the translation between software and atoms is still very hard. And the fact that Instacart has aggregated, you know, um, 80,000 stores, more than 1,000 retailers, means that we can create these magical experiences where you ask the software, you know, things in a natural language and food shows up at your door in two hours. Like, that's, that's pretty incredible. And so we're really doubling down on that, and then you ask kind of what's coming in the future. In the future, I want to make that available kind of as a platform because you could imagine any nutrition app, any apps that's doing, like, anything that has to do with food or even commerce, tapping into this network and making it available to, like, basically turn intent into things being, like, showing up at your door in two hours. So we're, we're very excited about that, and then, longer term, I think it's all about, like, how do we answer all of the questions that people ask themselves? And the, the thing I would highlight is that it requires these large language models, but it also requires having really unique data. And the fact that we have an incredible catalog, the fact that we have billions of data points on what people need, that's what gives us our strengths and we're marrying the strengths of these, like, incredible data with these large language models and that's what's turning into, you know, really unique experiences. And so my advice for any company is just really thinking about your data infrastructure and the unique data sets that you bring to bear in this new world that can create these delightful experiences.

   6. EGElad Gil20:34

      Yeah. That makes sense. I guess related to that, given that you're a real- a real world company, a place where AI perhaps has shown a little bit less progress in the- the recent burst of LLMs is in things like autonomous vehicles and self-driving, in terms of drones, delivery, automated picking.

   7. FSFidji Simo20:50

      (laughs) .

   8. EGElad Gil20:50

      How do you think about the more sort of real world robotic side of this, and when do you think that's coming?

   9. FSFidji Simo20:56

      Yeah, we've been following this incredibly closely, as you can imagine. And, you know, my take is if we were starting from scratch, like rebuilding the grocery industry from scratch, we would probably not rebuild it the way it is. There will probably be fewer cur- like, stores the way they are. There will, will probably be more dark automated stores. But the reality is that we're not starting from scratch, and when you think of Instacart, like, we have a network of 80,000 stores. These retailers are already paying a fixed cost on all of these stores. So, it is actually incredibly efficient to be sending people to these stores, like, these retailers get incremental demand on top of that fixed cost base, and these stores are very close to the customer. And so a big part of why, uh, you know, these kind of automation initiatives have failed is not because the technology is not good and not there, it's because the economics are actually very hard to make work. Like, if you want to have, like, a very large, you know, automated warehouse, you kind of need to put it further away from the customer so that you can aggregate all of these orders. Now you're talking about next day delivery instead of same day delivery, and we all know that customers want speed. And so you end up in a situation where, yes, like, you have great automation, but that's not reducing costs and that's not improving the customer experience. So, back to my point on pragmatic technologies, there are some technologies that are great, but if they don't help with either cost or customer experience, you know, they, they are not gonna get mass adoption anytime soon.

   10. SGSarah Guo22:31

       Can you describe what you guys are doing with the connected store effort and Caper Carts? Because that's a different direction of like, you know, more extension into the real world.

   11. FSFidji Simo22:40

       Absolutely. So, the thing we realized is that the grocery industry is in the middle of this massive digital transformation, and that digital transformation is not just happening online, it's also happening inside the stores. And grocers really turn to us as the partners that can deliver them the best technology solution during that transition, and so we, when I, when I joined, I think within a month of me joining, I made the acquisition of Caper Carts because they're basically smart carts where you can, you know, put products inside the cart and using computer vision and AI, of course, the product is automatically detected and then you can check out from the cart directly. And so these kinds of technology, whether it's Caper Cart, whether it's scan and pay, uh, from a mobile phone, these kinds of technologies are really helping grocers embrace that digital transformation, are helping connect and bridge online and offline because we think that we have, actually have data that shows that customers who are omni-channel customers are more valuable than the online only customer or the offline only customer. And so that, that enriches the store experience and also makes customers more likely to use that retailer across those channels. So, we're really excited about that. We have, uh, Caper Cart rolled out at Kroger, Sobeys, W- Wakefern, and it's a pretty magical experience. And it's not just the part about skipping checkout, it's the part where you have a screen in front of you and now if you drop the particular item into your cart, we can, like, suggest a related dressing, and we can tell you which aisle to find that dressing in, and we can show you which savings you're getting, and you can manage your budget on that screen. It- it's a really rich experience that stores are missing today, and I think that's gonna be, you know, over the next five years, the future of grocery shopping.

   12. SGSarah Guo24:31

       I have to ask because you have multiple different experiences that are really deep and interesting in advertising from Facebook to what you're doing with retailers and CPG brands today. Um, if you zoom out, what predictions do you have for the impact of AI on advertising?

   13. FSFidji Simo24:48

       Oh, I think it's gonna be fantastic for ads. Um, I think it's really about much more personalization and really like this kind of idea that, you know, you're going to get the perfect ad at the perfect moment for you. I think it's also going to be an explosion in creative, uh, when you think about all of the variation of creatives that can be created now, so that, again, we match the right person to the right user. Like, that's going to be just incredible, uh, and that's going to, again, make advertising a lot more relevant. And then the other thing is that I think advertising fundamentally follows the consumer product and the consumer use cases. I mean, that was one of our guiding principle at Facebook. And because we're going to see such an explosion of new consumer experiences, I think as a result, we're going to see new placements

4. 25:38 – 32:54

   AI in Advertising and Commerce

   1. FSFidji Simo25:38

      for ads that are going to be interesting. So for example, we talked about, you know, our ChatGPT plug-ins. We talked about Ask Instacart. Like, it is a very obvious place to start putting some sponsored content so that if you're asking, you know, "What are the, like, best, uh, dairy-free snacks for my kids?" You know, we can show you organic results, but we can also show you some sponsored results there. And these are placements that are, you know, gonna be really interesting for advertisers to tap into because again, there's a much clearer expression of intent than just a keyword and things that didn't exist before. So I'm, I'm really excited about that new wave and making that as relevant for people as possible.

   2. EGElad Gil26:21

      One of the things that people are talking about, I guess, related to both advertising but also more generally in terms of e-commerce and shopping is the way we think about information delivery and transactions on the web over the next five, ten years w- may change dramatically. So if basically everybody is eventually represented by some form of agent and you tell that agent, "Go and buy me these clothes," or, "Go and find these things for me," or, "Go and do these things for me," how does that impact all this? How does that impact advertising? How does that impact commerce? Or is it so far in the future that it's not worth thinking too much about today?

   3. FSFidji Simo26:56

      I actually think that it will have a lot of positive impact on commerce because again, like first off, it's gonna make people a lot more, uh, easier, more productive, or have more free time, which always leads to good things. Like, a lot of these, these tasks are tasks that people would rather not be doing. Like, you know, there are some commerce tasks that they love, like, you know, browsing clothes, guilty as charged. (laughs) Uh, or you know, like, uh, the types of, uh, types of commerce that are like, that mixed with entertainment and I fully expect that for these, we're gonna make things even more entertaining in the future through AI. And then for the things that are absolute, like, chores, these are the things that we're gonna be able to automate a lot more. And so I think that's gonna lead to really good results. The thing that has frustrated me the most with, in fact, Instacart, is that it is an app that when you look at it today is fundamentally a utility. It's very transactional. You just, like, type keywords, add to a cart, it shows up at your door. It shouldn't be the case. Food is one of the most inspiring things. It's like, it's one of the things that connects humans. It's one of the ways in which we celebrate, in which we show love. In fact, people spend more time watching food content than ever cooking it. (laughs)

   4. SGSarah Guo28:16

      (laughs)

   5. FSFidji Simo28:16

      And so, uh, so you know, that tells you that there's such an opportunity for, like, making this thing that everything con- everyone considers a chore of like grocery shopping, making it a fun moment where you discover a new recipe, where you get excited about what you're gonna cook this week, where you discover a new snack that's gonna be like the highlight of your week. Like, that, these are the opportunities that I think are gonna be, you know, pretty amazing. And I believe, like you mentioned advertising, um, I believe that advertising thrives in more immersive, more inspiring environments, and I don't see the conversational nature of an agent taking away from that. On the contrary, I think this conversational nature is gonna be more engaging than a very bare bones search engine that we have today.

   6. SGSarah Guo29:06

      Yeah, I definitely think there's some division even between, as you said, like the different... In each category of commerce, like that, there's a piece of that commerce that is, I don't know, the operational toil of being alive-

   7. FSFidji Simo29:17

      (laughs)

   8. SGSarah Guo29:17

      ... and then there's a piece of it that's fun, right?

   9. FSFidji Simo29:19

      Yeah.

   10. SGSarah Guo29:19

       So if you look at food or, you know, I have, I have two young girls, right? Like you can, you can think of, like, parallel tasks here where 80% of the food I am eating, I'm like, "Okay," like, there's an optimization, right? Like, you know, there's a, "I'm home this night or my husband is home this night. We wanna eat relatively healthy." Like, there's some distribution of like proteins and veggies we wanna try to hit-

   11. FSFidji Simo29:40

       Yeah.

   12. SGSarah Guo29:40

       ... and you know, these are things I know how to cook or somebody knows how to cook. And then there's like 10% of the time where I am... I have this ritual I do with my, um, startup companies where, you know, you, you hit 5 million of ARR and I'll, I'll cook you and the, the leadership team dinner, and that I care a great deal about, right? That's not a chore. That's something I, I wanna go browse Instacart or paper carts in the store-

   13. FSFidji Simo30:02

       (laughs)

   14. SGSarah Guo30:02

       ... for, for, you know, two hours thinking about what, what we're gonna eat. But I'd like to spend less time, I'd like to fully entrust an agent with the first task and spend more time, like, with the inspiration side. Or if you think about, like, let's say a, you mentioned, you know, clothing. Dressing my kids in general or just like it has to be functional and there's a base level of like enough-

   15. FSFidji Simo30:25

       Yeah.

   16. SGSarah Guo30:26

       ... socks and underwear of the same size. Like, that should happen automatically, right?

   17. FSFidji Simo30:29

       Absolutely.

   18. SGSarah Guo30:29

       Like, you know, there, there's enough data out there somewhere that says like, "These kids are this size and they continue growing," and like, "Please just keep me supplied."

   19. FSFidji Simo30:37

       Yes.

   20. SGSarah Guo30:37

       Um, and then there's, you know, "I wanna wear matching outfits with my girls, you know, on Saturday," but I, I'm hoping for more of that, uh, division of labor over time.

   21. FSFidji Simo30:46

       Yeah, I, I absolutely agree. I think your examples are spot on. (laughs)

   22. SGSarah Guo30:50

       (laughs)

   23. EGElad Gil30:51

       So one of the other things that I know, um, you've been spending more time on recently is, um, biotech and the neuroimmune space, and you've started an organization called Metrodora, uh, which, you know, really helps accelerate research in a variety of areas. Uh, can you tell us a little bit more about that and then both what you're doing there and how you're approaching it? Then maybe we can touch a little bit upon how AI impacts that area as well.

   24. FSFidji Simo31:14

       Absolutely. So about three years ago, I got diagnosed with a chronic illness and it was interesting because I didn't know much about healthcare and biotech at the time, but, uh, clearly I was very naive. I thought that there were, you know, wonderful researchers in a lab trying to figure out a cure (laughs) for my condition. And it turned out like, you know, th- for that not to be the case. And, uh, I, I started discovering a lot of the issues with our healthcare and biotech industries. And so I decided to co-found Metrodora with, uh, two amazing, uh, partners. One's a doctor, one's an, um, a scientist. And the idea is really, like, blending clinical care and research so that we can accelerate, uh, discoveries in these conditions and really bringing the best technologies into the clinic as soon as possible. Because there is actually a 14 years delay between a new discovery, a new research discovery, and that impacting the clinic. Which is insane because when you are living with these conditions every day, when they're taking away so much of your joy and the types of things that you are able to do, telling yourselves that, you know, there's like things out there that can help you, but it's gonna take 14 years for them to be, like, deployed in a clinic. That's just absolutely maddening. Um, and so our goal was, like, accelerate that translation and then also create the research infrastructure by, you know, getting, uh, data on our patients to help biotech accelerate the path to a cure. And in particular, uh, accelerate the translation into therapeutics and potentially improve

5. 32:54 – 34:18

   Metrodora: AI in Biotech and Healthcare

   1. FSFidji Simo32:54

      the results that biotech gets from clinical trials. And so to your question, Elad, on like the role of AI, you know, I, I think if I look at the clinic while using AI in clinical genomics, while using AI in pathology, while using AI to, like, interrogate the immune system, like all of these things are things where on the diagnostic side, like, AI can do so much better than what a human can do because these are vast amounts of data and therefore we think we're gonna be able to detect things in ways that, you know, humans wouldn't have been able to do alone. And then on the kind of, you know, uh, biotech and drug development side, it's also a really amazing age for, for that because I think that's gonna massively accelerate the discovery of new compounds and also, like, actually, uh, improve the, the clinical trial results. So I'll tell you the thing that makes me incredibly mad when I hear like, the AI doomers telling us about these very theoretical scenarios about, like, robots coming to kill us and the fact that we need to stop progress just in case the robots come. It's like, I'm like, there's no way these people are living with, like, atrocious chronic illnesses because when you are living with this every day and you see what AI can do, you are like, "Wait, like the, the positive impact is like so obvious."

6. 34:18 – 39:37

   The positive impact of AI, mitigating harm & role of regulations

   1. FSFidji Simo34:18

      It's like it is going to happen. There's no way that the next five years are not better than the previous five in terms of like actual discovery of cures, acceleration of research, all of these things. And so, like, blocking that progress for a theoretical, you know, arm, like, that seems crazy. Do we need to mitigate the arm? Absolutely. Do, does technology do bad things? Absolutely. Always. But that's our job to maximize the good, minimize the bad, but not stop the good from happening because a lot of sick people are gonna rely on AI to get cured in the next 10 years.

   2. EGElad Gil34:58

      Yeah, it's interesting 'cause we've talked quite a bit about this and I should say that, like, in the long run, I'm a, I'm a doomer. But in the short run, I think the impact of AI on global equity and healthcare and education and all these areas is so massively large that I think the calls to regulate are way premature, the calls to interfere in all sorts of ways that distort the market are way premature. And so it's this very odd moment in time where for some reason people have lost all the positives and all they focus on is fear, and you're like, well that's, that's the wrong way to think about anything. Uh, you know, most telling is when they say it's just like nuclear and we should regulate it like nuclear. And you're like, well, you know, because of us regulating nuclear, the, the new nuclear regulatory body, which was established in the '70s, prevented any new nuclear power plant design from being approved for 50 years. So is that really what we want? And so I just think there's a lot of naivety and sort of misconceptions in the industry right now around this stuff. It's kind of striking. What do you think is missing in terms of AI supporting biotech or supporting your efforts?

   3. FSFidji Simo35:57

      I think people are already doing these things. I mean, you know, on the biotech side, Recursion has been a- at it for a while. Um, on the healthcare side, we're starting to see some, some, uh, real progress. I think it's all about, like, adoption, like, on the healthcare side, I think it's all about adoption in the clinic and in the real workflows of doctors. And so the technology is there, it's more about, like, how do you embed that into clinical workflows in a way that actually enhances what doctors are doing? Because I mean, think about your doctors, like, when do you think they have the time to keep up with the latest research? Like, they don't. Like, they are overwhelmed by, you know, administrative work. They're seeing patients all the time. Like, most doctors do not read the latest research. That's something that can be solved through AI, like, AI can do a great job summarizing the latest research so that your doctor is actually current. Uh, but, you know, how do you integrate that so that doctor sees that as an enhancer to their knowledge and something that, you know, they can rely on to, to, um, help? I think that's gonna be critical. Obviously accuracy is gonna be, like, critical here. I think it's, uh, really important that we, uh, vet all of the sources that go into whatever AI engine powers doctored decisions, uh, to say the least. But again, there's nothing new there. I mean, doctors have used Google for a long time and (laughs) and Google is not fully vetted. And so, uh, I, I think it's like these are the types of problems we're gonna have to solve, but they're not necessarily new problems. And then on the biotech side, I would say-You know, there is this promise that AI can find new compounds, that AI can accelerate clinical trials and things like that. The reality is that w- we haven't seen that yet. You know, like the best AI-driven companies in biotech have been at it for a number of years and there's a question on like, do- does this new trend fundamentally accelerate that? Uh, does it take just more time because everything biotech takes time? But I think in five years we need to be able to look back and be like, "Oh, great, the number of AI-driven, you know, drugs that have been put on the market has increased tremendously." By the way, that's already the case and happening, but not just that. They have actually made it through clinical trials with a higher success rate than the rest and they are actually, when they get deployed, they end up helping people at a greater rate than the drugs that are currently deployed that sometimes pass clinical trial but help, you know, 20% of the intended audience and so, um, these are the proof points that I- I think we will need to see and right now it's just too early, uh, to- to know if that's gonna happen.

   4. EGElad Gil38:44

      Makes sense, yeah. No, it's very exciting you're working in this area as well, so thanks for your contributions there.

   5. FSFidji Simo38:48

      Thank you. Well, I- I have to, I have to credit you, Elad, because when I started this journey in biotech, I asked Elad, like, "Hey how do I get up to speed?" And he gave me the best advice which was to hire a Stanford grad to teach me biology and biotech and that has allowed me to know a little bit about what I'm talking about (laughs) . Uh, and so thank you for, for the tip you had and the encouragement early on.

   6. EGElad Gil39:11

      Oh, I'm sure now you probably just use ChatGPT but...

   7. FSFidji Simo39:14

      (laughs) .

   8. EGElad Gil39:14

      You know what, back then we, we needed humans for that kind of stuff.

   9. FSFidji Simo39:17

      (laughs) .

   10. EGElad Gil39:17

       Well, I guess as we wrap up, is there, is there anything else that you were hoping we'd talk about that we didn't touch on?

   11. FSFidji Simo39:22

       No, I think we covered a lot of great topics, guys. Thank you so much for having me.

   12. EGElad Gil39:26

       Oh, thanks for the incredible conversation.

   13. SGSarah Guo39:28

       Yeah, thanks for joining us, VG. (instrumental music)

Episode duration: 39:37