Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975

... I would say maybe AI is eating the world, and eating software, and companies that will not join the party will not be around. (instrumental music)

Ariel, I am so excited for this. It's been quite a few years now. So first, thank you so much for joining me again.

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here again, and I'm always listening, uh, to you, uh, really, uh, interviewing really smart people. And it's really, really interesting to hear you and also Dave kind of, eh, talking with you. I recently, uh, you know, eh, listened to your Jeff Jordan, eh, one, and it was really fascinating.

That's very, very kind. I'll pay you later. Um-

(laughs)

... but we were talking beforehand. You said to me, you know, school and university, you didn't really go to that many lectures or lessons. I was just intrigued like, why?

I... You know, it's interesting. I'm the, the type of person that I am, I can learn stuff by myself, but I can only learn stuff that really, really interests me. And-

Mm-hmm.

... the reality is that I think that most of the things that you learn at school and universities, they're just not interesting. Uh, there are things that, like, you know, like, for example, some case studies, uh, that you're gonna go through, and I was, I could be so much fascinated by that, by then I go- I can go all in. So for me, the way that I can learn, it's only if, eh, it interests me. If it's not, I cannot really study it. And that was kind of my school, my school life. I was actually, eh, an extremely average student. But ev- It's really average, right? So I could either have, like, really, really, really good, like, straight A, but on the, like, really good, eh, side of it, or I would totally fail, and it's really based on, eh, the way that kind of maybe my brain works. If it, if it gets my interest, I would geek out and learn everything about it. If it doesn't, you cannot get me even, eh, starting to get interested in this.

It's totally the same as me. Gosh, does that impact how you advise your children when it comes to how they pick up and learn new things?

100%. So I have three kids. Uh, two of them, th- they are twins. Eh, a boy and a girl. They are 15, right? So they are starting to think, you know, what will they do next and, eh, and so on. And one of the things that I've told them, "Hey, do whatever you want to, but my advice to you, don't even at age 18 have this pressure to go to college, because I don't think that you know, eh, what you really want to do with your life at age 18." And I know that a lot of t- eh, people are doing, eh, skip year. And I like traveling, and a lot of my conclusions are happening while I'm traveling and meeting people. So my advice to them, what you're gonna do with your life and school and all of these things, uh, it will get figured out. But first, kind of, you know, take the time to really, uh, learn, to really understand what, eh, you know, what interests you. And I think that in any case, we are in such a interesting, eh, time in our lives with the, the development, and I know that we're gonna talk about it, but with the developments of, eh, machine learning and AI. Eh, so I'm not even sure that the things that we are learning today are not kind of obsolete. So, uh, my advice to them, don't take this too seriously. Do whatever you want to with your life.