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In this incredibly special episode of Follow Your Different, we have a person that is like no other that has ever been on this podcast. We know the names of many of the legendary innovators and category creators of the modern era: people like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and many others are rightfully celebrated worldwide. Yet most people don’t know who the father of the cell phone is. The man behind it all is Martin Cooper, and he is our guest for today.

In the last 100 years, there is no category of technological breakthrough more important than the cell phone. While there are others that are equally important, it is not an exaggeration to say that the mobile phone changed the trajectory of humanity. The cell phone created a radically different future that has created and it continues to create exponential benefits for humankind.

I’m very grateful that Marty took the time to write his new riveting book, it’s called Cutting the Cord. Because now, we have a first-person account of the life and the learnings of a legendary innovator, engineer, and category creator, and frankly, American, Martin “Marty” Cooper.

What follows is an unedited, uninterrupted conversation with Martin Cooper. We cover everything from his definition of what technology is, to why he’s irked by how the mobile companies have rolled out 5G. We also talk about his thoughts on how to bridge the digital divide and how to bring the internet to everyone, which he is really passionate about.

So if you want to hear more from the Father of the Cellular Phone himself, stay tuned to this episode.

Martin Cooper on Bridging the Digital Divide

When asked about his current thoughts on technology, Marty’s initial thoughts were on the digital divide with regards to education. Particularly, it’s due to the fact that people cannot get a decent education in modern times without having access to the internet. One reason is that having access to the internet means having access to anything all the time. You also have access to all the knowledge of society at your fingertips.

Unfortunately, that access is only afforded to half the students nowadays, even in an advanced country like the United States. Others either have no access to it because of the cost, while some have no decent service available to them at all. For Marty, the idea is simply ridiculous, especially during this day.

“There is no technological reason for that to be the case. The carriers that provide us with service, people like AT&T, T Mobile, Verizon, and many other carriers license the radio spectrum from us. Their licenses have one basic requirement: and that is that the use of the spectrum should be in the public interest and convenience. And yet, there we have it 25% of our country is not covered, and 25% of our population can’t afford the service.” – Martin Cooper

Some of Marty’s suggestion regarding the matter is to make it more accessible to the public, either by lowering rates, or building a system where its almost a necessity for each household to have such a connection. Even if it means having the government shoulder the cost. Because the alternative is having a population where half of it is being left behind in terms of education.

Martin Cooper on 5G

For Marty, 5G doesn’t really affect the average consumer. It is mostly targeted on businesses, companies, and other structures of that nature. What irks him about this is how they are promoting it, saying that they will be useful to industries such as autonomous cars and remote surgery.

The main thing about those two examples is that it’s not only fast connection that will enable it to be effective. You also need a network where it can operate at very low latency, so that reaction times will be instantaneous. It would be bad if two autonomous cars that are about to crash to have a few seconds delay on their response. You definitely do not want a doctor doing a crucial operation on someone being hampered by lag.

“I think the FCC should be taking some action to either get the carriers to fill this gap in their service, or let other people come in and do it via the radio spectrum.” – Martin Cooper

Cutting the Cord

Marty pointed out that nowadays, there are more cell phones out there than people. This is because most people have at least one phone, and there are some who have multiple mobile devices on them. This indicates that a lot of people are naturally mobile, though that might not be the case during this time. The point is, these phones and other mobile devices are being used daily to do pretty much everything in the society nowadays.

Yet when you talk to politicians about giving access to everyone, their go-to response is still to provide cable service. The problem with this is that wired telephone is a thing of the past, and it is slowly being phased out even by the cable companies they tout.

“In the United States, there are only less than 60,000 wired telephone left, yet there are more cell phones and people. So the answer is that somehow, we have to provide wireless access to everybody, for all of the services, and the most essential service today is education.” – Martin Cooper

To hear more from Martin “Marty” Cooper and his thoughts on the future of technology and bridging the digital divide, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Martin Cooper is an engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, and futurist. He is known as the “father of the cell phone.” He led the creation of the world’s first cell phone at Motorola—and made the first public call on it. Over nearly three decades at Motorola, Cooper contributed to the development of pagers, two-way radio dispatch systems, quartz crystal manufacture, and more.

A serial entrepreneur, he and his wife, Arlene Harris, have cofounded numerous wireless technology companies. This includes Cellular Business Systems, SOS Wireless Communications, GreatCall, and ArrayComm. Cooper is currently chairman of Dyna LLC and a member of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council. He was the first to observe the Law of Spectrum Capacity, which became known as Cooper’s Law.

In 2013, Cooper became a member of the National Academy of Engineering from whom he received the Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering. He was awarded the Marconi Prize “for being a wireless visionary who reshaped the concept of mobile communication.” He has been inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame and Wireless History Foundation’s Wireless Hall of Fame. The Radio Club of America awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. He is a lifetime member of the IEEE, was president of its Vehicular Technology Society and received its Centennial Medal. In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the “100 Best Inventors in History.” He is a Prince of Asturias Laureate.

Cooper grew up in Chicago, the son of Ukrainian immigrants. He attended Crane Technical High School and the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he is a Life Trustee. He served in the US navy as a submarine officer during the Korean Conflict.

Links

Follow Marty today!

LinkedIn: in/MartinCooper4

Twitter: @MartyMobile

Check out his book: Cutting The Cord

More on Martin Cooper:

Meet the Inventor of the First Cell Phone

CBS 60 Minutes – The Cell Phone: Marty Cooper’s Big Idea

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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In this episode of Follow Your Different, we’ll have a dialogue that just might change how you think about aging, and maybe even life itself. Who better to have this dialogue than with Sergey Young, author of the book called The Science and Technology of Growing Young.

Sergey believes that entrepreneurs and startups are already creating the longevity, technology, and category breakthroughs needed to design a new category of human that lives to 200 and beyond. He also believes that people in the future will have a health span well past 150, and that most of us living right now can get to 120.

We dig deep into this new into what’s happening in this new mega category of longevity. We also talk about what Sergey calls the near and far horizons of longevity breakthroughs, and how the conversion of bio and tech is already saving and extending lives.

The Science and Technology of Growing Young

Sergey talks about the journey on writing his book, The Science and Technology of Growing Young. He misses it so much that he’s already thinking about his next book, which will be as legendary as the current one.

When asked about any particular topic in the book that he wanted to discuss, Sergey points to the last chapter, which talked about the morality of immortality. The reason for this is that his publisher thinks that the last chapter deserved its own book. To which Sergey responded:

“My response was like, each chapter in the Growing Young book deserves to be a separate book. Because human health, happiness, or desire to live longer is such a complex subject. So you can do like 1000 books on the back of that.” – Sergey Young

Sergey Young on the Morality of Immortality

Following up on the publisher’s comment, Sergey believes that the morality of immortality is probably the most contentious topic, because it is always very shocking. He shared that most polls, depending on the country, have 60 to 80 percent of the people saying no to life extension.

“I was always surprised why. And what I learned is, we have created the science and technology to extend our lives. But we haven’t created life that we want to extend.” – Sergey Young

This is because when most people hear about longevity of life, they think it’s just to extend their lives for 5-10 years. Though in this case, Sergey’s book discusses working on healthspan, and not necessarily lifespan.

“What I want to do is to insert another 20 to 25 years, right in the middle of your life cycle, to give you more time on Earth, to be with your loved ones, to realize your dreams, to change your career, and to have kids from multiple generations.” – Sergey Young

Sergey Young on Virtual Avatars

Sergey then talks about virtual avatars, and what he thinks will be a good use for it in the future.

He shares that he misses his conversations with his grandfather, and would give anything to be able to talk to him again. Virtual Avatars could be a way to have such moments with your love ones, even as they have moved on.

“I’m actually expecting this with a weird combination of excitement and fear. At the same time, like many of us, I always try to think about the application of this new technologies, which sounds scary. But if applied in the right person at the right time, they actually doing a lot of good things.” – Sergey Young

Sergey also mentions Elon Musk and the research on neuro link. While some people think this is really against human nature, it might eventually be helpful to those suffering from neuro-genetic diseases. Also, being able to integrate with computers mean that we can explore more depths and harsher environments without sacrificing human life.

If you want to hear more from Sergey Young and his thoughts on how to grow young, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Sergey Young is a longevity investor and visionary on a mission to extend healthy lifespans of one billion people. To do that, Sergey founded Longevity Vision Fund to accelerate life extension technological breakthroughs and to make longevity affordable and accessible to all.

Sergey is on the Board of Directors of the American Federation of Aging Research (AFAR), and is a co-sponsor of the AGE REVERSAL Prize Design. Once ultimately launched, this XPRIZE aims to dramatically delay the biological aging process through widely available interventions that extend the human life and health span.

Sergey Young has been featured as a top longevity expert and contributor on CNN, BBC, Fox News, and Forbes. As the author of books such as ‘The Science and Technology of Growing Young’ and the mastermind behind the online life extension platform SergeyYoung.com, Sergey is passionate about sharing news from the exciting world of longevity.

Links

Follow Sergey today!

Website: SergeyYoung.com

LinkedIn: in/SergeyYoung

Get the book: The Science and Technology of Growing Young

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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In this episode of Follow Your Different, Dr. Avi Loeb makes a return to give us an update about his work after he released his book, Extraterrestrial. If you are not familiar with Dr. Avi Loeb and his work, you can check out our previous conversation with him (FYD episode 202).

Dr. Avi Loeb is the most credential scientist and astronomer ever to say that we have been visited by something outside of our galaxy that is alien in nature. In 2021, Professor Loeb published a book called Extraterrestrial, The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. For me, the ideas shared in this book can be a game changer for humanity.

This time, Professor Loeb tells us why you can’t use the internet without using quantum mechanics, and about the connection between theoretical physics and Bernie Madoff. Also, if you have been paying attention to UFOs, Dr. Loeb unpacks what he thinks the US government’s latest disclosures on the existence of UFOs really mean.

All these and more on this episode, so stay tuned to the end.

Dr. Avi Loeb on Letting the Scientists Handle Science

When asked whether he had a particular though he’d like to share, Professor Loeb remarks that he wishes that these unidentified phenomena in the sky be explored through scientific experiments.  There have been a lot of people giving their thoughts on the matter, but they’re simply not qualified to give such statements.

While data might be sensitive and are often classified, at the very least have someone with a scientific background deliver the explanation to such events. Rather than a politician who is not equipped to assess the nature of these phenomena, it’s better to have an expert digest the information and deliver it in a concise manner.

“These are serious people and they had access to the classified information, they talk about it seriously. But they cannot really assess the nature of this phenomenon, and they were trained as either politicians or administrators.

When you go to a shoe maker, you don’t expect the shoe maker to make you a cake. I mean, it makes no sense for them to make statements that are scientific.” – Dr. Avi Loeb

The Stigma and Taboo of Anomalies

Regarding the UFO sighting report, Professor Loeb comments that there could be a lot more that have not been reported. This is because of the stigma of bringing up UFOs or certain unusual phenomenon. In this day and age, it’s almost seen as a taboo to discuss such things.

Professor Loeb finds it strange that it is the case. For some reason, anomalous evidence is unpopular, almost to the point of being shunned. Though if you look at the history of science, these anomalous evidences are what brought a lot of progress in different fields.

“Why is anomalous evidence so unpopular? To me, it’s really strange, because if you look at the history of science, most of the progress was a result of experimental anomalies. We saw something that we didn’t expect, we learn something new about nature. What you need to do, of course, is to verify that the evidence is robust. If it’s robust, then nature’s telling you, you didn’t really understand me. Here is something new that you have to figure out.” – Dr. Avi Loeb

Quantum Mechanics

Professor Loeb shares that it was the same before with Quantum Mechanics. Nobody really expected it, and it was something that was discovered through experiments. Although scientists like Albert Einstein resisted the notion at first. He even sought out to disprove it at some point.

Yet today, we build new technology and instruments that are based on these principles, particularly in communication. We might not fully understand it yet, but it shouldn’t stop us from exploring these anomalous behaviors and find out more about what nature has to offer.

“Quantum mechanics is definitely a facet of reality. We know that we use it and so forth, but we don’t fully understand it. And nature is under no obligation to make itself agree with our preconceptions. So every now and then we find some evidence that we were wrong in the way we think about reality.” – Dr. Avi Loeb

To hear more from Dr. Avi Loeb and his thoughts on Extraterrestrials, Quantum Mechanics, and the universe, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University.

He received a Ph.D. in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel at age 24 (1980-1986), led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense Initiative (1983-1988), and was subsequently a long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1988-1993).

Loeb has written 8 books. These includes most recently, Extraterrestrial (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), and about 800 papers (with an h-index of 113) on a wide range of topics. Topics include black holes, the first stars, the search for extraterrestrial life and the future of the Universe.

He had been the longest-serving Chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy (2011-2020), Founding Director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative (2016-present), and Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (2007-present) within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

He is the Chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies (2018-present). Additionally, he is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics.

Loeb is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) at the White House and a member of the Advisory Board for “Einstein: Visualize the Impossible” of the Hebrew University.

He also chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative (2016-present). Further, he serves as the Science Theory Director for all Initiatives of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.

In 2012, TIME magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in space. In 2020 Loeb was selected among the 14 most inspiring Israelis of the last decade.

Click here for Loeb’s commentaries on innovation and diversity.

Links:

Harvard – Loeb

Harvard.edu – Avi Loeb

Wikipedia – Avi Loeb

Amazon Books – Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

Harvard’s Top Astronomer Believes Aliens Tried to Contact Us in 2017

A Harvard professor says an alien visited in 2017 — and more are coming

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes

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Many of us would like to be more creative. Some would even aspire to make a living with their creativity. Yet without legendary role models like Melanie Gideon, it’s hard to learn what it really takes.

Melanie Gideon is willing to get real with us and go deep about her experience in making it happen. She is a New York Times bestselling fiction author of monster hits like Wife 22, The Slippery Year, The Valley of the Moon, and much more. Her new book, Did I Say You Can Go, is one of the most anticipated novels of 2021.

In this episode of Follow Your Different, we dig into what it really takes to be a professional fiction writer and how Melanie works on her craft. If you care about creativity, I think you’re going to fall in love with Melanie and what she has to share on the topic.

Melanie Gideon on Tours

The discussion starts off with a question about Melanie, and how she approaches book tours as an introvert. She shares that it can be quite an excruciating experience for her. She loves the writing aspect of her craft: from thinking of the story’s design and structure to writing and even editing it afterwards.

“I do (love editing) because you’re streamlining the story. You are sometimes finding the story in the editing. And you’re just making it tighter and creating what you want for your reader. What I want for my reader is to create a page turner where they just have to know what happens next, no matter what genre I’m writing in. That is what I endeavor to do. So I love that.” – Melanie Gideon

Though Melanie says she’s starting to like the publishing aspect more nowadays, since everything can be done online. Being able to do it from the comfort of your home, and engaging with fellow authors rather than just having a conversation with herself was a nice change of pace. Not only that, her family can attend her virtual book events now that everything is online, not to mention all her fans from different places.

How to be Like Melanie

A lot of people certainly would love to achieve their dreams like Melanie. I remember asking her once how she did it. Her response was:

“I just didn’t stop writing” – Melanie Gideon

She thinks not giving up is a huge part of being successful. This applies to a lot of things in life, but for Melanie it is more so when it comes to writing. Plus, her urgency and passion for storytelling was always there to drive her forward.

“You know, since I was eight years old, I read voraciously. I always just wanted to be in another world alongside the world I was living in. I was a weird little kid. And I would walk around in the woods, and hope that I would find the portal to Narnia.

As I grew older, and I became more serious about writing, I realized that every book that I wrote, I was creating a portal to another world that I got to live in for however long it took me to write the book. So that was magic. I found the secret that solved the mystery.” – Melanie Gideon

Melanie’s Approach to Writing

While some people get inspiration to hit them from their surroundings, Melanie prefers to go out and look for it herself. She often goes out to find inspiration, to find the story.

For some writers, they wait for the story to materialize, to develop in their mind and they go from there. That does not work for Melanie.

“I’m always actively looking for the story that will make something flutter inside me. And I know I have to follow that. It might not be the book that I write. But it will probably bring me to another path and another path, and eventually I’ll stumble upon it.” – Melanie Gideon

When asked where she goes to find her story, Melanie shares that she reads, a lot. Magazines, articles, sometimes other fiction novels that strike her interest. Which is interesting, as most writers would say, “I don’t have time to read, I’m too busy writing”. Clearly, Melanie is not like most writers.

To hear more from Melanie Gideon and her new book, Did I Say You Can Go, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Melanie Gideon is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels, Did I Say You Could Go, Valley of the Moon and Wife 22, as well as the memoir The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After. Her books have been translated into 30 languages.

She was born and raised in Rhode Island and now lives in the Bay Area.

Links

Connect with Melanie Gideon!

Website: MelanieGideon.com

Melanie’s Books: Amazon.com/Melanie-Gideon

Twitter: @MelanieGideon

See her works at NYTimes.com:

Car-Pool Epiphanies: A Memoir About the Ordinary

A Diesel Engine Woke Up Our Love

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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We live at a time when there’s plenty of dumb and unquestioned business and live advice floating around the internet. Most of it comes from an avalanche of problematic stupidities from hustle porn stars. There’s also “Follow your passion”, which doesn’t always work out. Of course, there’s the tried and true, “Fake it until you make it.” Our guest today, Sabrina Horn, is the opposite of that.

Sabrina Horn has seen those situations play out in her career as a Communications Entrepreneur and eventually, CEO of HORN Strategy, LLC. Her new book, “Make it, don’t fake it” is out, and has hit no.1 on the Amazon charts as soon as it was released.

In this episode of Follow Your Different, what you’ll hear from her is a fun, no BS dialogue about what success really takes. If you’re interested in hearing more from Sabrina Horn, stay tuned to this episode.

Catching Up with Sabrina Horn

I talk with Sabrina Horn about the Silicon Valley days. When asked if a lot has changed over the years, Sabrina shares that it has changed, but not by much. According to conversations she’s heard around, CMOs often last for around 4 years before moving on. A few years ago, the shelf life for CMOs is usually 18-24 months before moving on to another or building their own company.

Sabrina then asks if I would go back.

“Not for two seconds. I hung up my gloves, I have no desire to, and I got nothing left to prove. Most importantly, I love my life the way it is. Now I get to make a difference at scale through podcasting and writing. I’ll do some advising and I still enjoy that very much, particularly under the right circumstances. But no, I don’t have any desire to do it. I’m at a different stage of my life like you are right, I’m in the throw down the rope stage, not continue to collect merit badges stage.” – Christopher Lochhead

Sabrina agrees and thinks that even while outside Silicon Valley, the podcasts and books still fills a hole and affects the overall meta in the industry.

Make It, Don’t Fake It

We then talk about Sabrina’s new book, Make It, Don’t Fake It. What’s amazing about the book is that it’s almost sort of a hybrid between a business book and a memoir. There were a lot of stories from personal experiences, the most of the advice that was given has a real-life situation that she has personally been through.

Sabrina shares that this structure was intentional.

“(These are) The stories of my profession and my career, bring the message that I wanted to deliver to life. And I didn’t want to write a book and do a ton of, you know, external research and take yours and do surveys. I thought, I’ve got 25 years of running a company. That’s my research. “ – Sabrina Horn

The Problem with Faking It

Sabrina then shares one of the things that the book tackles right from the get-go. It’s the mantra of “Fake it until you make it”. Because the biggest problem with this mantra is that you’re exposed. Either you get caught up in the lie, or get exposed right from the onset.

“It is initially which was sort of an innocent like tongue in cheek, little quip, right has, has become like a way of doing business a way of living. it’s an it’s a really bad excuse for bad behavior. And it’s not just, you do it at work, you do it in your personal life. And in nine times out of 10, you get caught.” – Sabrina Horn

While one would think that the biggest problem with faking it is getting caught, there is another aspect of it. If you think you’ll just fake it and learn along the way, that means you are not working optimally for the job you have. Instead on improving yourself and doing better, you are playing catch-up to get the skills you said you already have.

So it is better to just be yourself. Tell them what you can and cannot do, so everyone knows what to expect from you. Nowadays, being authentic can be refreshing, and it might even earn you the respect of the person who you are trying to impress.

To learn more from Sabrina Horn and her new book, “Make It, Don’t Fake It”, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Sabrina Horn is an award-winning CEO, communications expert, advisor, and author. Horn is currently CEO of HORN Strategy, LLC, a consultancy focused on helping entrepreneurs and CEOs navigate the early stages of their businesses. She serves as an advisor and board member for a number of organizations and is a frequent speaker at industry forums and leadership conferences. Horn’s new book, “Make It, Don’t Fake It: Leading with Authenticity for Real Business Success” (forward by Geoffrey Moore) is published by Berrett-Koehler and aims to help executives make the right decisions as they start and grow their businesses for long term success.

She founded Horn Group, a public relations firm, with $500 and five years’ job experience, becoming one of few female CEOs in Silicon Valley in the early 1990s. Over a quarter century, her firm advised thousands of executives and their companies—from the hottest startups to the Fortune 500—doing so with a special focus on authenticity.

As a young executive, Horn learned about leadership on the job through two lenses: one, as CEO growing and running her firm, the other, as strategic advisor guiding her clients through their own unique business challenges. Facing countless difficult situations, crises, even failure, she came to understand that leadership is about making the right decisions at the right time based on the often very harsh, realities of the truth. Through her journey, she learned that there are no short cuts to achieving long term business success. Still, she confesses to having made many mistakes, and now in her first book, she shares what she learned about how to make it without faking it.

Links

Connect with Sabrina!

Twitter: @SabrinaHorn

LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/SabrinaHorn

Sabrina’s book: Make It, Don’t Fake It

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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In many circles, Chess is viewed as the ultimate display of intellectual might. If you think about it, chess is a fighting game that is purely intellectual and excludes all chance. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we talk to one of Chess’ ultimate combatants, Garry Kasparov.

At age 22, Garry Kasparov became the world’s youngest chess champion, and from 1984 to his retirement in 2005, he was ranked the number one Chess player on the planet for a record 255 months of his career. He is also known as the man who competed against an IBM supercomputer in 1997.

Today, Garry Kasparov is a political activist and an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He is also the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, and the author of the best-seller called Deep Thinking, Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins.

In addition to all of this, he’s also working with a few advanced technology companies, in which I had the pleasure of meeting him. He has started working with a good friend of mine, Steve Pratt of Noodle.AI. So listen in as the three of us talk about Covid-19, the relationship between humans and machines, and how Garry jokes about being the first knowledge worker to have his job taken by a computer.

Garry Kasparov and Steve Pratt on COVID-19

When asked how they were doing nowadays, Steve comments that it felt strange now that everything is slowly opening up. Nowadays, it seems weird when you see people not wearing masks when you go out, as compared to only a few months ago of masks and lockdowns.

Garry shared that while it is slowly opening up in America and Europe, the rest of the world is going through a very different experience. He laments the current situation in Russia particularly, where his family and friends reside.

“We know from history that the innovative power of undemocratic states is cannot be compared to the power of the free mind. It’s not an accident that the virus came from China, but the response came from the United States.” – Garry Kasparov

Garry also points out the disparity on how people trust the vaccines compared to the Russian-made Sputnik vaccine. He attributes this mostly to having the proper data to prove its efficacy, which the Sputnik vaccine is sorely lacking at the moment. While there are vaccines that have lower efficacy rates compared to those made by Pfizer and Moderna, they’re still widely preferred due to the fact that they have data and tests to back those numbers up.

Working Together and Freeing the Mind

When asked if the low vaccination rates can be attributed to the vaccine or implementation, Garry answered that it was both happening at the same time. While the vaccine hesitancy was expected due to the lack of data on their vaccine, Russian government tried to promote Sputnik as the ultimate cure against COVID. They went as far as donating it to other countries, some of which flat-out refused, which further damaged its credibility.

Moving away from Russia, Garry then compared China and the United States’ response to the virus. He notes that while China had a huge head start in studying the COVID virus, it still took them a while to create a vaccine that had low efficacy ratings. Enter US and the combined effort of the public and private sectors, and you have two working vaccines in just 10 months, both of which boast great efficacy.

“So again, it’s very important to recognize that it’s this the free world, when we lift all the restrictions on risk. It could realize the wildest dreams, and somehow, I think the pandemics served us well, because it proved that we have to go back to the spirit of innovation and become pioneers, to become explorers. What’s important, again, the free world has potential, and now this potential have been exposed in a positive way.” – Garry Kasparov

Human and A.I.

We then talked about technology and A.I., how people are still against it in fears of somehow making an evil sentient A.I. that will rule us all. Garry explains that we shouldn’t be afraid of A.I.; rather, we should use it to its fullest potential and keep it away from the hands of bad humans.

“The problem is not with the machines. The problem was bad humans that can use these machines to harm us. That’s the story of technology.” – Garry Kasperov

Instead, we still blame the machine if someone used it and caused problems. So, we still limit their capabilities, afraid of things we have just fantasized about while ignoring the benefits it could bring.

There’s also the argument of machines and A.I. stealing jobs from people. To which Garry comments that we should not despair if it happens. Rather, we should look forward to what we can do next, and adapt to it. Whether to learn the technology to handle the A.I., or develop something that can be used hand-in-hand with the new technology.

Rather than fighting with machines, we should learn how it could work to our benefit. Because at the end of the day, machines can decide, but it’s a human’s privilege to choose.

If you wish to hear more from Garry Kasperov and Steve Pratt about A.I. and how it can improve our future, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov became the under-18 chess champion of the USSR at the age of 12 and the world under-20 champion at 17. He came to international fame at the age of 22 as the youngest world chess champion in history in 1985. He defended his title five times, including a legendary series of matches against arch-rival Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov broke Bobby Fischer’s rating record in 1990 and his own peak rating record remained unbroken until 2013. His famous matches against the IBM super-computer Deep Blue in 1996-97 were key to bringing artificial intelligence, and chess, into the mainstream.

Kasparov’s was one of the first prominent Soviets to call for democratic and market reforms and was an early supporter of Boris Yeltsin’s push to break up the Soviet Union. In 1990, he and his family escaped ethnic violence in his native Baku as the USSR collapsed. In 2005, Kasparov, in his 20th year as the world’s top-rated player, retired from professional chess to join the vanguard of the Russian pro-democracy movement. In 2012, Kasparov was named chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, succeeding Vaclav Havel. HRF promotes individual liberty worldwide and organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum. Facing imminent arrest during Putin’s crackdown, Kasparov moved from Moscow to New York City in 2013.

The US-based Kasparov Chess Foundation non-profit promotes the teaching of chess in education systems around the world. Its program already in use in schools across the United States, KCF also has centers in Brussels, Johannesburg, Singapore, and Mexico City. Garry and his wife Daria travel frequently to promote the proven benefits of chess in education and have toured Africa extensively.

Steve Pratt

Stephen is an instigator, agitator, and pioneer in creating world-class technology services organizations.

He has spent his career building innovative ways to create value for the world’s most important organizations.

Prior to Noodle, he was responsible for all Watson implementations worldwide for IBM Global Business Services.

He also was the founder and CEO of Infosys Consulting, a Senior Partner at Deloitte Consulting, and a technology and strategy consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton.

He twice has been selected as one of the top 25 consultants in the world by Consulting Magazine.

He has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University and The George Washington University focused on Satellite Communications.

For fun, Steve plays competitive tennis, races sailboats, and formerly was a crazed rugby player. He enjoys playing acoustic guitar for his children (not ready for prime time).

Links

Follow Garry and Steve today!

Steve Pratt

LinkedIn: in/StephenPratt

Website: Noodle.AI

Garry Kasparov

Twitter: @Kasparov63

Website: Kasparov.com

Check out his book: Deep Thinking, Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins

More on Kasparov:

NYTimes.com: Garry Kasparov – What We Believe About Reality

FoxNews.com: Russian Activist Garry Kasparov Blasts NBC Putin Interview

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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Welcome to this very special episode of Follow Your Different. We’ll talk about one of the most anticipated startups in Silicon Valley today, HalloApp. We sit down with HalloApp founders Neeraj Arora and Michael Donohue in the first and probably only – for some time – podcast.

Michael and Neeraj were two of the senior leaders who built WhatsApp, a category defining company in the messaging category. Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 for $22 billion, in one of the largest tech acquisitions of all time. Today, there are over 2.5 billion WhatsApp users, and it dominates the messaging category.

Now, Michael and Neeraj are on route in pioneering a new category of “Real Relationship” app. It is a new model of communication app that is a combination of messaging and social functionality in a simple, private way.

They have the audacity to think they can change the future again by being radically different, and I all for it. If you are interested to learn more about what they have to offer, stay tuned to this episode.

WhatsApp Never Left Stealth Mode

When asked about something that most people don’t know about WhatsApp, Neeraj and Michael share an interesting story. If you’ve ever notice, WhatsApp never really talks to the press that much. It turns out that this particular quirk is something that the WhatsApp founders have developed into almost a culture, or a code if you will. It goes as such:

“Brass kicks up dust that gets into your eyes and makes you not focus on the product or the company”

Simply put, the higherups on WhatsApp just wants to focus on developing their products and services and let it speak for itself. Why worry about tech press when they can just impress their users with their amazing product?

Plus when you create the attention, it just means added distractions and things to facilitate. Which in turn leads to less focus on the product and more on keeping up appearances.

So you could almost say that WhatsApp never came out of stealth mode.

HalloApp with Neeraj Arora and Michael Donohue

It seems that Michael and Neeraj plan to follow the same code on their new endeavor, which is HalloApp. They will follow the same strategy of focusing on the user and the product, with minimal distractions.

This practice seems unorthodox and almost counterintuitive to what current companies are doing with their products, which is to hype up their products and make it popular even before its launch.

Yet for them, the focus is not to become famous or popular as an app of choice for most people. Their aim is to solve a problem, and find users that are looking for a solution. In the end, they will let the product speak for itself.

“I think the product should speak for itself. That’s it. Like if you do a good job of it, if you create user loyalty and trust, you don’t have to talk about anything about yourself or at all. Like, why do you need it, right? In the end, you should ask yourself the question, “why am I doing this?” And if the answer is I’m not getting to build a better product and more users, which is the case then then why would I do it?” – Neeraj Arora

Neeraj and Michael on Fast Growth

When asked further on PR and marketing, they believe the current way of pre-hyping the product won’t work for them. Their goal is to have users appreciate the product that they will share it to their family and peers, and let it grow almost naturally. It’s almost like they’re going back to the word-of-mouth approach in marketing, but digitally.

As for making it big, Neeraj comments that having a fast growth for a company is not always a good thing. Sometimes it even hurts your company in the long run. Neeraj and Michael would rather take it slow and build a product that will last forever, rather than aiming for large numbers at Day One.

“It actually hurts you, I think, fast growth. And fast growth is like the worst thing you can do for your product and your company. You would rather take a part of growing in a very thoughtful way and growing slowly and building a product that lasts forever. (For fast growth,) You’re going to have to get a million users at day one. I think that’s not what we’re doing this for.” – Neeraj Arora

If you want to hear more from Neeraj & Michael, and their thoughts on HalloApp and building digital relationships, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Neeraj Arora

Neeraj Arora started his career at the mobile messaging app company in November 2011, heading its business. From June 2015 to February 2018, he was also one of the Board of Directors at the Indian payments giant Paytm. Prior to that, from December 2010 to November 2011, he served Google’s Corporate Development team as the senior member, helming acquisitions and investments in an array of products across different countries. Under his leadership, Google acquired Picnik, Zagat, Talkbin, Slide, Dailydeal.de, and PittPatt among others. Before that, Arora was a Corporate Development Manager at Google from December 2007 to December 2010. As the manager of Corporate Development team, his was responsible for finding and implementing acquisitions and strategic investments.

Before coming to Google, Neeraj worked as the Chief Manager of Investments and Corporate Strategy team at Times Internet Limited (Indiatimes) from June 2006 to November 2007. However, his career began as a Program Manager at a cloud solution company Accellion Inc, which he joined in August 2000 after completing B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT-Delhi. His job lasted till April 2005.

Michael Donohue

Michael Donohue was one of the founding members of WhatsApp, who built the largest real time messaging network in the world. Since his resignation as an Engineering Director at WhatsApp, he has founded a stealth mode startup and invested in 10+ startups. He is well known in the startup community for mentoring and advising high potential entrepreneurs.

Michael has a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and prior to WhatsApp, he worked as a Software Engineer since 2000 for companies such as PayPal, Coverity, and QVT Financial LP.

Links

Follow Neeraj and Michael today!

Website: HalloApp.com

LinkedIn: in/NeerajArora

                : in/MichaelDonohue

Twitter: @NeerajArora

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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In this episode of Follow Your Different, Ray Wang is back to talk about how to survive and thrive in a world of Digital Giants.

Ray Wang is the world’s number one Tech Analyst, and the founder of Constellation Research. He has a brand-new book called Everybody Wants to Rule the World: Surviving and Thriving in a World of Digital Giants. We talk about the points he wrote in the book, as well as other recent tech-related events and breakthroughs. This is a fascinating conversation with one of the smartest guys in tech, so you wouldn’t want to miss this episode.

Tech Breaches and Cybersecurity

When asked on the recent tech security breaches, Ray comments how we are vulnerable at the moment. It seems the current tech for protection available to the public is vastly outpaced by these breachers.

As to why these tech breaches keep happening, Ray quotes the Willie Sutton Rule: “Because that’s where the money is.”

He also thinks it is scary that if it is occurring here in the US, then how about other countries that might have less defense mechanisms in place? While you can expect corporations to have systems in place to counter that, it can be harrowing for smaller companies.

Ray’s advice is that your company should always have a back disaster recovery ready to go. So if your company was unlucky enough to get hit these breachers and ransomware hackers, you can just revert your system using that backup. You might lose a few hours work due to it, but it’s better than succumbing to these malicious entities.

Ray Wang: Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Ray shares that when you think Digital Giants, you think large corporations. While large corporations can be Digital Giants, the reverse is not always true. It’s not about the size or the market that the company dominates, it goes a bit deeper than that.

With the cost of access to fast internet and tech becoming cheaper by the minute, more people are swarming the net as we speak. One commodity that is often overlooked when moving around the web is your personal information.

“First thing is, you have to believe in the fact that your personal data, genomics, and digital exhaust should all be property rights. The reason that’s important is because we have laws that talk about how you treat and give consent to property. Land rights, invention, IP and trademarks, right?

The good news is property laws exist. And in every state, country, and jurisdiction, you just have to say, “look, your personal data is a property, right?” And if somebody wants to use it, you need their consent. Suddenly, boom, you actually now have a whole economy around data. You’ve actually put the ownership of data back in the hands of the people that are creating that data.” – Ray Wang

So why is this important? Because for something that should be property, we seem to be giving it away easily in exchange for simple access. These Digital Giants then use that information to further benefit on our behalf, turning you into a product rather than a user.

Amazon, the Ultimate Digital Giant

Ray elaborates further by comparing Facebook and Google, and how these two Digital Giants operate. What’s fascinating is how Google is often perceived as the good guy, while Facebook is the bad one. When in truth, both giants have the same aim, it’s just that their delivery varies.

While talking about these two giants, Ray brings up the ultimate digital giant, Amazon. Why is it the ultimate digital giant? Unlike Facebook and Google, who are focused on one or two aspects to dominate in, Amazon seems to have its fingers dipped into multiple cookie jars.

“Amazon is the ultimate digital giant. I mean, it’s got ads. It’s got search. It even has subscriptions via memberships and prime. It’s got the goods and the services and their own network that’s on the back end. So that’s really what’s going on. We see a rise of these things called Digital Giants that have dominated markets, but they’re battling each other out for every digital monetization model there is.” – Ray Wang

Want to learn more from Ray and how to thrive in the world of Digital Giants? Download and listen to this episode.

Bio

R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and authors a business strategy and technology blog that has received millions of page views per month.  Wang also serves as a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center.

Since 2003, Ray has delivered thousands of live and virtual keynotes around the world that are inspiring and legendary. Wang has spoken at almost every major tech conference. His ground-breaking bestselling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015.  Ray’s new book about Digital Giants and the future of business titled, Everybody Wants to Rule the World will be released July 2021 by Harper Collins Leadership.

Wang is well quoted and frequently interviewed in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business News, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, CGTN America, Bloomberg, Tech Crunch, ZDNet, Forbes, and Fortune.  He is one of the top technology analysts in the world.

Links

Follow Ray today!

Website: RayWang.org

Twitter: @RWang0

LinkedIn: in/RWang0

Check out Ray Wang’s latest Book: Everybody Wants to Rule the World

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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Trust is a cornerstone of society. It’s the seminal component that’s required for everything to work, including everything in business. Professor Sandra Sucher says that trust at every level of business and society has never mattered as much as it does right now.

In this episode of Follow Your Different, Professor Sandra Sucher talks about The Power of Trust, and how companies could earn, lose, and regain people’s trust. So if you are interested in learning about the different levels of trust across different levels in business, stay tuned to this episode.

Why Trust is Important

When asked what she thinks is the most important thing to learn about trust, Professor Sandra points out that it is important to know that trust is a type of relationship. It’s a relationship of almost like trusting your vulnerabilities to another person and believing in their actions.

While not entirely quantifiable, this insight makes us aware of how we should handle trusting another person, whether in business or in our daily lives.

“This is not like terra incognita, to any of us. And it says the trust is something you can get your arms around. It’s not ether, nor magic. And it’s not fairy dust. It’s resolved.” – Professor Sandra Sucher

Knowing this, we now have an idea as to where to think about how we can become a trustworthy person.

Culture and Trust in the Company

One of the things Professor Sandra have found in their research is that developing culture in a company is also based on trust.

People often associate culture as a kind of reputation management, more on handling how people think about them and the company. Though it’s better defined as building trust from within. When the people in your company trust the management and the company, they will be more invested in making it better. They trust that the company is doing its best, so they should do their best as well.

“So if you don’t have trust inside the company, kiss it goodbye. It’s not going to get it outside the company.” – Professor Sandra Sucher

Trust is a Judgement Call

Professor Sandra also defines trust as a judgement call people make, based on different factors that they perceive from someone. In terms of business, it could be with regards to their competence, their motives, and whose interests they are serving, among other things.

Another thing to note is that people also focus on how companies treat their people. So it’s not just about getting results. How you accomplish your goals also matter.

Professor Sandra thinks that one of the key things that set them apart from other research is their focus on Impact. While that previous point pertains to knowing how they interact with equals and those who work below them, a person or company’s impact pertains to how they affected others with their actions, whether directly or indirectly. This is quite important because then, you are basing your judgement on actual experience rather than information from second to third hand information.

With all this information, at hand, we make our judgement call. Are they competent? Do they care about other people’s interest? Have their actions impacted you in some way? If that was the case, did they take accountability for unintended impacts?

So while you can’t entirely quantify how Trust can be gain or lost by a company, having these parameters to have an estimate is a great way of gauging the current level of trust.

To learn more about Professor Sandra Sucher and The Power of Trust, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Sandra Sucher

Sandra Sucher is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, where she has been teaching for the last twenty years. She’s an advisor to the Edelman Trust Barometer, and has spoken about trust at Edelman and numerous companies and at Harvard Business School events.

She provides expert commentary for Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and Fortune.

Prior to teaching at Harvard, Sucher had a two-decade career as a senior level executive and business ‘fixer,’ specializing in uncovering complex organization problems and creating new ways to address them.

She lives in Massachusetts.

Links

Learn more about Sandra: Harvard Business School Profile

LinkedIn: in/Sandra-Sucher

Twitter: @SandraSucher

Check out her new book: The Power of Trust

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!