Encore: Ramy Adeeb

Ramy Adeeb, founder & managing partner of 1984 Ventures, is back for an Encore episode to talk about what he’s been upto since 2023. He talks about why he’s excited about AI in legacy sectors but worried about unemployment. He also takes on our signature lightning round.

This episode is part of Encore, where I check-in with some of your favourite WIDN alumni. We’ll continue this segment with more of the show’s alumni, so stay tuned.

00:00 Coming up...
08:10 Who captures value?
15:47 AI, wars and regulation
27:15 Guiding the Next Generation
30:26 Small companies taking on Big Tech
34:38 Ramy's mentor
40:49 Lightning Round

WEBVTT

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<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, jobs are not lost to technology. Jobs are lost to recessions,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>and then they don't come back before technology because of technology.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And so we really want to solve climate change with software.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Climate change is not a software problem. Climate change is a material science

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<v Ramy Adeeb>problem, a policy problem, and a capital problem. There's tremendous investments

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<v Ramy Adeeb>by the large language models.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>They are the equivalent of the telco providers. They are spending all the money

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<v Ramy Adeeb>for the training. They hope to capture the value. They might not.

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<v Malak Fouad>And they're establishing the infrastructure.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And they were overbuilt. We always overbuilt. Hey, everyone.

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<v Malak Fouad>I'm Malak Fouad, and welcome again to What I Did Next from A&T Media.

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<v Malak Fouad>Every now and again, we have an encore episode where we check in with some of

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<v Malak Fouad>your favorite alumni guests.

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<v Malak Fouad>Today, we're sitting down again with Ramy Adeeb, founder and managing partner of 1984 Ventures.

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<v Malak Fouad>When we last spoke in 2023, Ramy was focused on the tech sector in general.

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<v Malak Fouad>Today, everything he looks at has to be AI first.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>There is a saying that is often attributed to, of all people,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Vladimir Lenin. And I don't know. We don't know if he said it or he didn't say it.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>That there are decades when nothing happens. But there are weeks when decades happen.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And right now we're going through this period where decades are happening in weeks.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>I think what has grabbed my attention is really trying to stay abreast of where

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<v Ramy Adeeb>the technology is today.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And what the capabilities allow us to do.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>What has also kept my attention,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>is trying to find the signal from the noise. There is so much noise when a new

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<v Ramy Adeeb>technology comes from scratch.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And eventually that noise subsides and the signal is what remains.

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<v Malak Fouad>That's a very interesting way of putting it. I have never heard of it that way.

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<v Malak Fouad>It's a really nice way to explain...

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<v Malak Fouad>What we'll end up with. It's a signal, not the noise. Yeah.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Exactly, exactly. And right now, it's really hard to distill the signal from

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<v Ramy Adeeb>the noise. And then last, it's just been really busy building the firm.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>We're investing out of our third fund now, building a team.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>We have five partners working actively on meeting those entrepreneurs.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, there's really two types of VC firms. There's like top tier and everybody else.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And we want to make sure we're a top tier firm where every founder is going to work with us.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And it's ultimately a customer service business, one where you just continuously work for your founders.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And then that compounds with time until you become a firm that everybody wants to work with.

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<v Malak Fouad>And from the very beginning, Ramy, when you set up your VC firm,

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<v Malak Fouad>it was always tech focused.

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<v Malak Fouad>I remember that that was very much your ethos at the time.

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<v Malak Fouad>So today, your third fund, you're talking about your third fund.

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<v Malak Fouad>And obviously, it's AI heavy, I'm assuming, since that's where your attention is.

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<v Malak Fouad>So how have you kind of evolved from the first fund, the first years into where you are now?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>When we started the fund, we were mainly focused on software,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>pure software. So good old what we call SaaS, software as a service.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And we avoided all the hype trends. There was a very big hype trend with cryptocurrency,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>and we totally ignored that. We just stuck to our knitting and did software

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<v Ramy Adeeb>upending antiquated industries.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Then there was Web 3.0, a lot of buzzwords, a lot of noise around how,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>you know, cryptocurrency meeting virtual reality would create these modalities.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And it wasn't really, it wasn't much. It was just a lot of noise.

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<v Malak Fouad>And that didn't pan out in the end, right?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Yeah, it didn't pan out. We do get the credit of like, there's an article written

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<v Ramy Adeeb>about us in 2022, actually an interview from Fortune magazine where they're,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>just actually featuring us as a fund that has always panned crypto.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Because we were one of the very few funds that said no to crypto from day ones.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And they asked us, what are you doing? And we're just like, yeah,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>we're doing AI and other stuff.

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<v Malak Fouad>What was the reason, Ramy? Why were you averse to crypto? It was so trendy.

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<v Malak Fouad>What was your gut feeling? I mean, why did you say no to that?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Because we are venture capital. We have a particular mode, right?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Take technological risk early on, on a small team of founders and hope that

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<v Ramy Adeeb>they build massive businesses that can then disrupt the incumbents.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And we know how to do that with software. We know how to do that with consumer.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>We even could do that with hardware.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Crypto was an entirely different asset class. It was like commodity trading.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>I don't know how to do commodity trading. Sure, sure. It's not really commodity.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>It's a commodity means gambling.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And the way to make money in crypto, you don't need a venture capitalist.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Just go pick a basket of coins and own it.

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<v Malak Fouad>It was a different beast.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Yeah. It was a different beast. there is a almost folk you know a story about

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<v Ramy Adeeb>about steve jobs that when steve jobs created the very first macintosh and there was a

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<v Ramy Adeeb>there was a big event like a gala where he was demoing the computer and all

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<v Ramy Adeeb>of these old folks would come by seasoned you know entrepreneurs seasoned

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<v Ramy Adeeb>financiers it was actually new york city and ask him what is this and he like

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<v Ramy Adeeb>he would talk to them for two minutes and they would leave he would talk to

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<v Ramy Adeeb>them for two minutes and they would leave,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And then an eight-year-old came to him And he spoke to him for 40 minutes He

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<v Ramy Adeeb>spoke to the eight-year-old for 40 minutes.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And then a journalist came to him and said, why is it that you spoke to the

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<v Ramy Adeeb>eight-year-old for 40 minutes and to all the old people for like a couple of

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<v Ramy Adeeb>minutes? And he goes, well, they all asked me, what is it?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And then the little kid said, hey, what can I do with this? It's a really an

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<v Ramy Adeeb>important question where a lot of the folks who are really,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>you know, endowed in finance and in politics and government ask,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>what is this? And you say, oh, it's like artificial intelligence.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>The real question is, what can I do with it? What are the applications?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>What does this unlock? And for crypto, the primary application,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>you know, was a little bit of gambling plus evading capital controls,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>which is a real application.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, if you're in a country with a fastly deteriorating currency,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>you want to actually use dollars. It's just not an application that,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>you know, we're set out to solve.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>With the Web 3.0, it was really hard to see what the application is.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>But with AI, I mean, all it takes is just launching chatty between your cell

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<v Ramy Adeeb>phone, uploading your medical record like everybody in my family does these days.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And speaking with it about it and realizing what the possibilities are.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>So those possibilities are endless. That's exciting.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>As an investor, though, as I mentioned, there's a lot of nice.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Because we don't know at the end of AI who will capture the value.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Who will come out ahead? What business models will be enduring and what business models will die?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And anyone who claims to have an end state, their guess is as good as mine.

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<v Malak Fouad>Sure, sure, sure.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And objectively, the hardest part isn't predicting an end state.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>It's just helping founders navigate that transition while it's underway.

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<v Malak Fouad>You're talking about that we are at an inflection point.

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<v Malak Fouad>We're about to be, where I think, this is my reading of it as a layperson,

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<v Malak Fouad>we could see a slight collapse in the industry of maybe extra weight or companies

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<v Malak Fouad>that are not performing.

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<v Malak Fouad>And then from that, you will get those diamond companies that will endure.

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<v Malak Fouad>It's the same with the internet. The system didn't end.

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<v Malak Fouad>We got rid of a lot of extra weight companies that were not functioning properly.

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<v Malak Fouad>But the industry went on to amazing things after that.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>I couldn't have drawn a better analogy. Actually, I want to go back to the late 90s for a moment.

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<v Malak Fouad>It's very in vogue, by the way, now, Ramy, the 90s.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>It is a little bit in vogue. It is a little bit in vogue. It's also,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>you know, the style, the Reebok shoes are back in vogue again.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>It's all back, yeah. There are two lessons from the 90s that I want to touch

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<v Ramy Adeeb>on. One around uncertainty.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, and the other around value capture. But let's start with the first one.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>I remember sitting in a panel at Harvard in 1999 that was called,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Who Will Capture Value from the Internet?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Who Will Capture Value from the Internet? And then we had three speakers.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>One was arguing that the telco providers, the companies that laid out the fiber,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>the internet in the ground, were the ones that would capture all the value.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>The second speaker was arguing that it would be the browsers, the Netscapes.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And it made sense because at the time, Netscape and Microsoft were literally

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<v Ramy Adeeb>at the Supreme Court at each other's throat, where Microsoft had bundled a free,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Internet Explorer into Windows operating system.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And Netscape sued it for antitrust. And the thing went all the way to the Supreme

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Court. And the prevailing model for making money from software in 1999 was to

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<v Ramy Adeeb>pay money for somebody to install a piece of software in your computer.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>So if Netscape software was the gateway to this internet, it made sense that

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<v Ramy Adeeb>it would capture all the value.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>The third speaker, who was the least convincing, was arguing that it would be the content providers.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>The websites, the folks who actually ended up capturing all the value from the

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<v Ramy Adeeb>internet. But the reason it wasn't obvious is in.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>1999, you couldn't accept credit

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<v Ramy Adeeb>cards online. The only way to make money online was via display ads.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Remember those long ads on Yahoo?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And as a business, you could only make, you know, you could only make maybe

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<v Ramy Adeeb>five bucks, 10 bucks for a million ads.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>So how many ads will I possibly see

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<v Ramy Adeeb>in a month to make it worthwhile for businesses to make a lot of money?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>So the point of the story is when you are going through this technological inflection point,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>There is a tremendous investment by everybody. There is tremendous,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>today there is a very similar analogy. There's tremendous investments by the large language models.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>They are the equivalent of the telco providers. They are spending all the money

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<v Ramy Adeeb>for the training. They hope to capture the value. They might not.

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<v Malak Fouad>And they're establishing the infrastructure.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>But they're establishing the infrastructure. And without them,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>we wouldn't have it. And they were overbuilt.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>We always overbuilt, right? No matter, just because the technology is here to

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<v Ramy Adeeb>last, doesn't mean we won't overbuilt.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>We always do. We overbuilt with the internet. You know, we overbuilt.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And so they will overbuild a little bit.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Now, you can't, of course, time it, right? But they will overbuild.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And then you have the folks who are actually providing the application late.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And then you have the incumbents, the people who have what we call the systems

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<v Ramy Adeeb>of record, the databases, the software, the large software companies that they use today.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Which one of those three will capture value? Really unclear, right?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Now, for us, though, as an early stage fund, what's exciting is we get to work

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<v Ramy Adeeb>with very small companies who don't have the innovator's dilemma of the existing

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<v Ramy Adeeb>incumbents, right, and who are very nimble.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And so they are, in a way, part of writing the future, in a sense.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>Many of them will fail, but the ones that succeed do end up capturing a lot

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<v Ramy Adeeb>of value because that's what we see with every one of these technological inflection

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<v Ramy Adeeb>points is new startups are way more nimble, come in with fresh ideas,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>and are able to just, you know, rewrite the rule of the game.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>But as you navigate it, it is both exciting, it's thrilling.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And it's obviously, especially for large tech, for big tech companies,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>it's very challenging times.

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<v Malak Fouad>Yeah. What would you look back at the last couple of years and think of as you

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<v Malak Fouad>and the company's biggest achievements in the space you're working in?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>I mean, I think the company's biggest achievements is when...

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<v Ramy Adeeb>A business that was not built on AI has managed to transform itself to be an AI-first business.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>We have a number of examples that have been very successful.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>I think most notably a company called PostHog that is probably one of our better

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<v Ramy Adeeb>known businesses at 1984 Ventures, where they were the number one product analytics platform.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>The company started it in 2020.

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<v Malak Fouad>What do they do, Ramy?

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<v Ramy Adeeb>They provide data and analytics for other software businesses to monitor and

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<v Ramy Adeeb>track how their products are used.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>But it includes everything from how many visitors came to my website,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>to session recordings, to running experiments, to attributing value.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>It's effectively the operating system for online businesses,

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<v Ramy Adeeb>if you will. And it's very successful. It's one of our, you know, best known unicorns.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>It was not an AI company. It was started in 2020.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And in 2020, beginning of 2020, end of 2024, we were having a lot of conversations

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<v Ramy Adeeb>with the founders and they're starting to see AI.

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<v Ramy Adeeb>And in the beginning of 2025, just something lit in the mind of the founder.

00:13:00.010 --> 00:13:04.820
<v Ramy Adeeb>And he recognized we have to totally rebuild everything, rethink our business

00:13:05.250 --> 00:13:10.130
<v Ramy Adeeb>to first and foremost address AI. You know, every sub-company says we're AI, we're AI, we're AI.

00:13:10.310 --> 00:13:14.660
<v Ramy Adeeb>And what they do, you slap a chat interface on top of your existing product

00:13:14.660 --> 00:13:17.220
<v Ramy Adeeb>and you say, hour AI, you know, the chat interface, you can talk to it.

00:13:17.400 --> 00:13:18.110
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah, yeah.

00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:19.270
<v Ramy Adeeb>Nobody cares, right?

00:13:19.530 --> 00:13:19.860
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah.

00:13:20.610 --> 00:13:24.680
<v Ramy Adeeb>AI means, it's actually funny because as a consumer, you have a really good

00:13:24.680 --> 00:13:28.610
<v Ramy Adeeb>instinct of what AI is. AI is Instagram or TikTok.

00:13:29.790 --> 00:13:35.000
<v Ramy Adeeb>Extreme personalization. When you launch your Instagram, and not just because

00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:37.830
<v Ramy Adeeb>of the people you follow or your friends, just when you go to the videos,

00:13:37.830 --> 00:13:43.110
<v Ramy Adeeb>it knows you so intimately, it knows your interests, and it's able to tailor the feed to you,

00:13:44.550 --> 00:13:47.930
<v Ramy Adeeb>Your closest friend, your best friend, if you launched your Instagram, it's different.

00:13:48.720 --> 00:13:53.150
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's not the same. That level of extreme personalization is at the core of AI.

00:13:53.270 --> 00:13:59.770
<v Ramy Adeeb>Beyond just the personalization, we want human-like one-to-one communication,

00:14:00.540 --> 00:14:03.950
<v Ramy Adeeb>across every modality, whether it's voice, text, and soon video.

00:14:04.980 --> 00:14:09.590
<v Ramy Adeeb>And it's one-to-one communication, as in the AI knows who you are when it talks

00:14:09.590 --> 00:14:13.550
<v Ramy Adeeb>to you. It talks to you based on your context and your insights and your data.

00:14:15.130 --> 00:14:20.560
<v Ramy Adeeb>And then last, we need to do all of that was like feedback, data loops and infrastructures.

00:14:20.560 --> 00:14:23.340
<v Ramy Adeeb>And then like then now the product starts to look like an AI product.

00:14:24.400 --> 00:14:29.060
<v Ramy Adeeb>But to do that also, I need to transform my actual organization into being an AI organization.

00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:33.340
<v Ramy Adeeb>What's an AI organization? God, it's not like giving everybody access to Cloud.

00:14:33.340 --> 00:14:38.750
<v Ramy Adeeb>Everybody's like, oh, hey, go take access to Cloud or we give our businesses all access to chat GPT.

00:14:39.690 --> 00:14:43.210
<v Ramy Adeeb>No, it's really about rethinking from the ground up what function should be

00:14:43.210 --> 00:14:46.010
<v Ramy Adeeb>done by humans. and what functions should be done by machine.

00:14:46.260 --> 00:14:50.170
<v Malak Fouad>How many companies that you're dealing with are seeing this future?

00:14:50.600 --> 00:14:55.910
<v Malak Fouad>Are some resisting? Are some trying to catch up? Are they already there?

00:14:56.430 --> 00:14:59.600
<v Malak Fouad>I mean, where have the challenges been for you?

00:15:00.590 --> 00:15:05.590
<v Ramy Adeeb>So the biggest challenge is for an existing company who has a lot of revenue.

00:15:06.750 --> 00:15:09.780
<v Ramy Adeeb>And this is just a textbook example of the innovator's dilemma.

00:15:10.910 --> 00:15:15.540
<v Ramy Adeeb>The innovator's dilemma, the old Clay Christensen case study around how companies,

00:15:16.210 --> 00:15:17.830
<v Ramy Adeeb>don't fail because they're doing the wrong thing.

00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:22.350
<v Ramy Adeeb>They fail because they continue to do the right thing when it's no longer relevant,

00:15:23.530 --> 00:15:26.300
<v Ramy Adeeb>when it's no longer the right thing. And that is sort of the irony.

00:15:26.640 --> 00:15:33.440
<v Ramy Adeeb>And so we started investing from fund one in 2018, 2018 to 2021, fund two is 2021 to 2024.

00:15:34.050 --> 00:15:38.470
<v Ramy Adeeb>I would say our fund one companies and half our fund two companies have had to adapt. Yeah.

00:15:40.760 --> 00:15:46.110
<v Ramy Adeeb>But then investments starting from like 2023 up until today, they're all AI native.

00:15:46.660 --> 00:15:54.300
<v Malak Fouad>They're all AI native. Yeah, yeah. So Ramy, you're in this world. You're deep into it.

00:15:54.680 --> 00:15:58.300
<v Malak Fouad>You're looking at all these incredible innovative companies looking at the future.

00:15:59.030 --> 00:16:06.750
<v Malak Fouad>I'm sitting in Cairo and I am not tech savvy in terms of using AI.

00:16:08.040 --> 00:16:13.440
<v Malak Fouad>I'm just beginning to use it on a practical basis but what I am doing is I've

00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:15.220
<v Malak Fouad>been educating myself a lot about

00:16:15.220 --> 00:16:20.660
<v Malak Fouad>it in terms of what it means for society what it means for us as humans

00:16:21.930 --> 00:16:26.850
<v Malak Fouad>I'm reading I've been doing this for the last year and a half and I'm beginning

00:16:26.850 --> 00:16:32.190
<v Malak Fouad>to get involved in events and panels where AI is obviously a huge focus.

00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:38.700
<v Malak Fouad>One of the big thinkers that I, you know, latched onto, I think partly because

00:16:39.020 --> 00:16:43.740
<v Malak Fouad>he writes in a very simple manner for someone like me, who's not tech like you,

00:16:43.740 --> 00:16:47.070
<v Malak Fouad>is Mustafa Suleiman, who runs Microsoft AI.

00:16:47.470 --> 00:16:52.130
<v Malak Fouad>He did this incredible book in 2020 called The Coming Wave, which he's updated

00:16:52.130 --> 00:16:56.120
<v Malak Fouad>since then. Obviously, it's no longer coming. The wave is washing over us.

00:16:56.120 --> 00:16:57.680
<v Malak Fouad>It's looked behind us. We're in it.

00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:05.920
<v Malak Fouad>We've swam deep into the sea. And what I like about him is he doesn't make it

00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:10.140
<v Malak Fouad>look like it's all going to come up roses. He doesn't make it look like it's

00:17:10.140 --> 00:17:11.220
<v Malak Fouad>all going to be positive.

00:17:11.520 --> 00:17:16.930
<v Malak Fouad>He really does address the scary side and the need for containment,

00:17:16.930 --> 00:17:19.300
<v Malak Fouad>the need for regulation, the need for...

00:17:20.870 --> 00:17:25.190
<v Malak Fouad>Controlling this, you know, this tool

00:17:27.350 --> 00:17:32.320
<v Malak Fouad>And in my mind i always try and separate this sort of big picture idea of where

00:17:32.320 --> 00:17:36.220
<v Malak Fouad>are we going where will we be with this industry

00:17:37.290 --> 00:17:42.230
<v Malak Fouad>and then of course drilling down like you do into practical what the companies

00:17:42.230 --> 00:17:47.120
<v Malak Fouad>are doing how they're providing these incredible services and tools for us as

00:17:47.620 --> 00:17:51.590
<v Malak Fouad>people who want to be more productive, more creative, all of that.

00:17:52.050 --> 00:17:56.620
<v Malak Fouad>But I can't help feel really scared, Ramy.

00:17:58.030 --> 00:18:01.950
<v Malak Fouad>I'm really quite scared of what's coming. You know, a good example,

00:18:01.950 --> 00:18:07.980
<v Malak Fouad>we had the Anthropic issue with the Ministry of Defense or Ministry of War,

00:18:09.460 --> 00:18:15.630
<v Malak Fouad>where Anthropic, being a private company, did what a state should do.

00:18:15.800 --> 00:18:18.650
<v Malak Fouad>And they said, I'm sorry, I'm not going to sell you this,

00:18:21.990 --> 00:18:26.840
<v Malak Fouad>You know, this software, this technology, if you're going to use it to surveil

00:18:26.840 --> 00:18:30.620
<v Malak Fouad>Americans, if you're going to use it for autonomous weaponry.

00:18:31.100 --> 00:18:36.870
<v Malak Fouad>So, I mean, people who know this world will know the issue. I'm not going to go into the issue.

00:18:38.470 --> 00:18:43.460
<v Malak Fouad>So that was one thing that a lot of people suddenly went, light bulb moment went off.

00:18:43.790 --> 00:18:48.220
<v Malak Fouad>The state was being the aggressor here and being the sort of the evil one.

00:18:48.700 --> 00:18:55.150
<v Malak Fouad>And the corporation was being the one trying to safeguard and protect people,

00:18:55.520 --> 00:18:58.020
<v Malak Fouad>which most of the time it's the opposite way around.

00:18:58.020 --> 00:19:02.490
<v Malak Fouad>And then, of course, we've got the war, which we're in now, where there's no

00:19:02.490 --> 00:19:08.450
<v Malak Fouad>doubt in my mind, autonomous weaponry is being used with either no human supervision

00:19:08.790 --> 00:19:10.660
<v Malak Fouad>or the bare minimum supervision.

00:19:11.630 --> 00:19:15.640
<v Malak Fouad>How do you think of these issues?

00:19:15.820 --> 00:19:20.140
<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, there's many fears being talked about about AI. There is sort of the

00:19:20.140 --> 00:19:23.120
<v Ramy Adeeb>existential fear of AI taking over the world.

00:19:24.400 --> 00:19:28.760
<v Ramy Adeeb>I think that that might happen. I think there are fears around the use of AI

00:19:28.760 --> 00:19:32.260
<v Ramy Adeeb>surveillance and the use of AI at war.

00:19:33.050 --> 00:19:36.690
<v Ramy Adeeb>I think, I hate to say it, but the US is a laggard in that market.

00:19:37.060 --> 00:19:43.590
<v Ramy Adeeb>China's leading the way. You know, I was in, I think I was in Bahrain in 2019 where China,

00:19:44.110 --> 00:19:49.970
<v Ramy Adeeb>in a conference, where China was touting the face-to-recognition software and

00:19:49.970 --> 00:19:52.310
<v Ramy Adeeb>sort of full government control software.

00:19:53.730 --> 00:19:56.670
<v Ramy Adeeb>They're obviously way ahead of us in drones. They're way ahead of us in the US,

00:19:57.190 --> 00:20:00.280
<v Ramy Adeeb>so like just as somebody in the US.

00:20:02.380 --> 00:20:05.800
<v Ramy Adeeb>I'm not sure if we're really.. I think, if anything, we have some catch up to do,

00:20:07.010 --> 00:20:12.100
<v Ramy Adeeb>we really do have some catch up to do, right? In terms of the future of the war,

00:20:13.170 --> 00:20:15.060
<v Ramy Adeeb>if you think of if you actually go back,

00:20:16.800 --> 00:20:22.850
<v Ramy Adeeb>the US did not win World War II by having the most powerful weapons it's actually

00:20:22.850 --> 00:20:27.760
<v Ramy Adeeb>the opposite you know the US won World War II by having crazy strong supply chain,

00:20:28.790 --> 00:20:33.320
<v Ramy Adeeb>and then building them faster that the Germans can sink them that was the model,

00:20:33.830 --> 00:20:35.190
<v Ramy Adeeb>you're never going to build something as good as,

00:20:37.070 --> 00:20:40.730
<v Ramy Adeeb>a T1 German tank just so much more advanced than we are but we can build six,

00:20:42.010 --> 00:20:44.420
<v Ramy Adeeb>And the same thing with boats. And if you ever actually, if you ever come to

00:20:44.420 --> 00:20:47.230
<v Ramy Adeeb>the US, you go to the, there's a New Orleans, a Museum of World War II in New Orleans.

00:20:47.230 --> 00:20:50.850
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's incredible that it tells a story about World War II and really emphasizes

00:20:51.170 --> 00:20:57.210
<v Ramy Adeeb>this was a supply chain war, a war won by taking Ford, which was the biggest

00:20:57.210 --> 00:21:00.330
<v Ramy Adeeb>automotive company, and saying, stop making cars and make airplanes.

00:21:00.620 --> 00:21:04.530
<v Ramy Adeeb>Shitty, tiny little thinkable airplanes, literally like the Shahd drones.

00:21:04.690 --> 00:21:05.780
<v Malak Fouad>And we just need a lot of them.

00:21:05.780 --> 00:21:08.800
<v Ramy Adeeb>Which is exactly what the Shad drones are doing. And then we're,

00:21:08.800 --> 00:21:11.940
<v Ramy Adeeb>you know, and the US is actually trying to copy the Shahd drones.

00:21:12.060 --> 00:21:16.250
<v Malak Fouad>But, you know, just talking about this existential element for a minute,

00:21:16.250 --> 00:21:19.110
<v Malak Fouad>we're so deep into this new world now.

00:21:19.760 --> 00:21:25.160
<v Malak Fouad>And, you know, people have been talking about we must regulate,

00:21:25.160 --> 00:21:27.870
<v Malak Fouad>we must control, we will, we will, we will.

00:21:28.530 --> 00:21:30.590
<v Malak Fouad>Hasn't happened. It's not going to happen.

00:21:31.560 --> 00:21:37.720
<v Malak Fouad>Governments are not going to get together and do some kind of agreements together.

00:21:38.200 --> 00:21:43.090
<v Malak Fouad>This is a race to the finish by big tech companies.

00:21:43.090 --> 00:21:47.830
<v Malak Fouad>And, you know, governments around the world have proven to be completely,

00:21:49.110 --> 00:21:57.960
<v Malak Fouad>you know, unable to manage their current issues, let alone what we're beginning to move into.

00:21:58.740 --> 00:22:04.210
<v Ramy Adeeb>So no, no, no, it is but I also you know I liken it again to the nuclear race in

00:22:04.210 --> 00:22:08.920
<v Ramy Adeeb>the late 40s early 50s but nobody was going to sit down and do a nuclear non-perforation

00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:12.550
<v Ramy Adeeb>treaty people are like I gotta get there first, you know, I gotta it's.

00:22:12.550 --> 00:22:16.390
<v Malak Fouad>Different, Ramy. It's different because I thought of that as a good analogy but

00:22:16.390 --> 00:22:23.160
<v Malak Fouad>the difference is is that nuclear weapons were it was one form of tech and it had one use.

00:22:23.980 --> 00:22:29.170
<v Malak Fouad>AI is omni-tech. So it's available throughout everything we're going to be doing

00:22:29.170 --> 00:22:31.690
<v Malak Fouad>for the rest of our lives for the next forever.

00:22:32.440 --> 00:22:35.540
<v Malak Fouad>So how do you regulate something that's omni-use?

00:22:38.480 --> 00:22:40.760
<v Malak Fouad>You can't, you can't, Ramy, you can't.

00:22:40.760 --> 00:22:43.760
<v Ramy Adeeb>I mean, look, you can count in the Europeans to over-regulate it.

00:22:46.520 --> 00:22:49.320
<v Ramy Adeeb>You can count in China to sort of,

00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:55.040
<v Ramy Adeeb>state control it, not regulate it, but state control it. And then you can count

00:22:55.040 --> 00:23:00.080
<v Ramy Adeeb>in the US to like kind of slightly under-regulate, slightly over-regulate.

00:23:00.100 --> 00:23:01.180
<v Malak Fouad>Fudge it, yeah.

00:23:01.960 --> 00:23:04.010
<v Ramy Adeeb>To kind of fudge it, right? I mean, it's basically where you're going to net

00:23:04.010 --> 00:23:07.410
<v Ramy Adeeb>out. But I want to go back to the employment for a moment.

00:23:08.080 --> 00:23:14.920
<v Ramy Adeeb>Yes. Because, like, you know, will AI, like, destroy humanity as we know it?

00:23:16.230 --> 00:23:18.230
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's a possibility, but also,

00:23:20.580 --> 00:23:24.930
<v Ramy Adeeb>that same applies to nuclear weapons, the same applies to chemical weapons,

00:23:24.930 --> 00:23:27.280
<v Ramy Adeeb>the same applies to many other things. It's definitely a threat.

00:23:27.280 --> 00:23:28.700
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's just a threat that we have to understand.

00:23:29.940 --> 00:23:31.560
<v Ramy Adeeb>But does AI have the potential?

00:23:33.300 --> 00:23:37.720
<v Ramy Adeeb>To cause economic havoc in the next five years. In the next five years,

00:23:37.720 --> 00:23:39.150
<v Ramy Adeeb>not like the next 20 years.

00:23:39.530 --> 00:23:40.800
<v Malak Fouad>Maybe even less.

00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:41.740
<v Ramy Adeeb>For sure.

00:23:41.890 --> 00:23:42.950
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:43.400 --> 00:23:45.890
<v Ramy Adeeb>And a lot of folks are saying, a lot of folks, the counter argument,

00:23:46.040 --> 00:23:47.680
<v Ramy Adeeb>and I really worry about this.

00:23:48.190 --> 00:23:48.440
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah.

00:23:48.580 --> 00:23:55.830
<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, we have our entire world is built today around 2% inflation or 5%

00:23:55.830 --> 00:23:59.440
<v Ramy Adeeb>inflation around economic growth, around prosperity.

00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:01.460
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's almost like a massive pyramid scheme.

00:24:02.440 --> 00:24:03.900
<v Ramy Adeeb>And it's so precarious.

00:24:03.900 --> 00:24:06.780
<v Malak Fouad>One thing changes and the whole thing is wobbly.

00:24:07.060 --> 00:24:10.630
<v Ramy Adeeb>A lot of folks, the counter argument to these concerns on unemployment is always

00:24:10.630 --> 00:24:13.790
<v Ramy Adeeb>like, oh, don't worry. The technology always creates new jobs.

00:24:14.590 --> 00:24:17.120
<v Ramy Adeeb>I'm sitting here scratching and I'm like, yeah, I get it. I get it.

00:24:17.120 --> 00:24:23.130
<v Ramy Adeeb>Like when we switched from the horse carriages to the automotive, it's a classic story.

00:24:23.130 --> 00:24:25.670
<v Ramy Adeeb>Like, you know, all the people that worked in the horse carriages,

00:24:25.670 --> 00:24:28.930
<v Ramy Adeeb>like lots of jobs, but then you got mechanics and drivers and yet,

00:24:29.290 --> 00:24:33.480
<v Ramy Adeeb>yes, that took freaking 30 years. It took 30 years, right?

00:24:33.850 --> 00:24:38.530
<v Ramy Adeeb>When women, when we switched from typing on a typewriter into using a computer,

00:24:38.530 --> 00:24:40.800
<v Ramy Adeeb>into a personal computer, people had to reskill.

00:24:41.140 --> 00:24:45.530
<v Ramy Adeeb>They had a tenure to stop using, you know, to stop using typewriter and learn

00:24:45.530 --> 00:24:46.400
<v Ramy Adeeb>how to use a word processor.

00:24:47.910 --> 00:24:53.830
<v Ramy Adeeb>I see developers today, software engineers, people who should be at the forefront of using technology,

00:24:54.660 --> 00:24:59.200
<v Ramy Adeeb>who are struggling to use the most advanced AI coding, struggling to use it,

00:24:59.830 --> 00:25:03.510
<v Ramy Adeeb>because it changes their entire framework of how I write code.

00:25:04.150 --> 00:25:06.300
<v Ramy Adeeb>It changes their sense of self-worth.

00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:12.210
<v Ramy Adeeb>That previously, I was an engineer whose work was precious. Now I just tell

00:25:12.210 --> 00:25:14.570
<v Ramy Adeeb>Claude to do something and it does it for me.

00:25:14.910 --> 00:25:16.430
<v Malak Fouad>And your work was in demand and needed.

00:25:16.430 --> 00:25:19.530
<v Ramy Adeeb>I mean, it's really hilarious. But if I show you this, this is just my actual

00:25:19.530 --> 00:25:23.510
<v Ramy Adeeb>library. This isn't a point to every book here is irrelevant.

00:25:23.880 --> 00:25:26.820
<v Ramy Adeeb>Like this is something called, you know, the mythical man month.

00:25:27.130 --> 00:25:29.700
<v Ramy Adeeb>This was the ultimate book about software engineering in groups.

00:25:30.100 --> 00:25:31.430
<v Ramy Adeeb>Totally, totally irrelevant.

00:25:31.850 --> 00:25:35.310
<v Ramy Adeeb>This is a book in like compiler, modern compiler work. Oh, that knowledge is irrelevant.

00:25:35.310 --> 00:25:37.930
<v Malak Fouad>It's gone out the window. It's gone out the window. And it's shocking.

00:25:38.290 --> 00:25:40.890
<v Ramy Adeeb>And then you have to rescale. And that's a software engineer.

00:25:41.460 --> 00:25:44.440
<v Ramy Adeeb>And then rescale to a world. Now, will we want more software engineers?

00:25:45.110 --> 00:25:48.630
<v Ramy Adeeb>Sure. We probably would want more software to be built. And we will need more

00:25:48.630 --> 00:25:51.220
<v Ramy Adeeb>infrastructure and so forth. But I think about lawyers.

00:25:52.560 --> 00:25:56.170
<v Ramy Adeeb>I think about accountants. I think about brokers. I think about the entire world of the economy.

00:25:56.890 --> 00:26:01.070
<v Ramy Adeeb>And then I think of, and again, I think, frankly, we're fortunate in countries

00:26:01.070 --> 00:26:03.640
<v Ramy Adeeb>like Egypt where we haven't yet switched to a services economy.

00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:08.470
<v Ramy Adeeb>We're still a goods economy to some extent. And these are way more resilient.

00:26:08.470 --> 00:26:09.030
<v Ramy Adeeb>Pencil and paper economy.

00:26:10.050 --> 00:26:10.670
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:11.070 --> 00:26:13.260
<v Ramy Adeeb>Pencil and paper economy, exactly. And a lot of people, and,

00:26:13.260 --> 00:26:17.400
<v Ramy Adeeb>you know, it's not the, you know, money isn't being made by low-region accounts.

00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:21.290
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's being made like from real estate and from food. So there is a chart philanthropic

00:26:21.290 --> 00:26:25.380
<v Ramy Adeeb>that I really think is worth taking a look back at. And the chart lists every job.

00:26:26.840 --> 00:26:35.810
<v Ramy Adeeb>And how much of it, you know, is being, you know, automated today and how much

00:26:35.810 --> 00:26:38.770
<v Ramy Adeeb>we think we might be able to automate in the future, right?

00:26:39.440 --> 00:26:43.700
<v Ramy Adeeb>And at the top of this list, at the top of this list, you see computer and math.

00:26:44.630 --> 00:26:50.020
<v Ramy Adeeb>Computer programming, 96% automatable, right? Business and finance, 94% automatable.

00:26:50.730 --> 00:26:55.860
<v Ramy Adeeb>Legal, 88% automatable. And then at the very bottom, you see agriculture,

00:26:56.500 --> 00:26:58.590
<v Ramy Adeeb>you see food and servicing, you see construction.

00:26:59.570 --> 00:27:03.010
<v Ramy Adeeb>And you can very quickly recognize, well, how much of my GDP comes from where?

00:27:03.010 --> 00:27:04.240
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:27:04.310 --> 00:27:08.360
<v Ramy Adeeb>And instantly get an assessment of where it is false. And the more advanced

00:27:08.360 --> 00:27:12.010
<v Ramy Adeeb>the society, the bigger the challenge. So we need to reskill.

00:27:12.760 --> 00:27:16.260
<v Ramy Adeeb>But we don't know what the new skills are. And we have to reskill very quickly.

00:27:16.450 --> 00:27:21.530
<v Malak Fouad>So that brings me to a question for you, Ramy. So I have, you met my children.

00:27:21.990 --> 00:27:24.850
<v Malak Fouad>Ali is one more year of university after this one.

00:27:25.430 --> 00:27:30.490
<v Malak Fouad>And he is, like all his friends, struggling to find internships,

00:27:31.340 --> 00:27:33.530
<v Malak Fouad>doesn't know if he's going to have a job at the end of this.

00:27:34.630 --> 00:27:38.730
<v Malak Fouad>What is he employable for? It's a real, real problem.

00:27:39.280 --> 00:27:42.980
<v Malak Fouad>My younger son is about to go to university in September, in August.

00:27:43.570 --> 00:27:47.680
<v Malak Fouad>And, you know, I'm thinking, you know, what should he be studying?

00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:50.920
<v Malak Fouad>Should he be just, you know, if we're going to take it as a hypothetical,

00:27:51.250 --> 00:27:55.210
<v Malak Fouad>Should he go more toward sciences or should he go more towards humanities or

00:27:55.210 --> 00:27:59.550
<v Malak Fouad>if he likes to read, should he become a writer? You know, where should the weight

00:27:59.550 --> 00:28:01.750
<v Malak Fouad>be put for future, for the future?

00:28:03.670 --> 00:28:07.270
<v Malak Fouad>If you were advising a young person today, what would you tell them?

00:28:07.620 --> 00:28:13.560
<v Ramy Adeeb>I don't worry too much about the young folks because this is a time where it's

00:28:13.560 --> 00:28:16.110
<v Ramy Adeeb>not the strongest survives, it's the fittest who survives.

00:28:16.950 --> 00:28:18.880
<v Ramy Adeeb>And they are going to be an AI-native generation.

00:28:19.750 --> 00:28:22.770
<v Ramy Adeeb>Like, they are so much, they're already so much better at using chat.

00:28:22.770 --> 00:28:24.850
<v Malak Fouad>They're already using it for everything, yeah.

00:28:24.850 --> 00:28:28.960
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's almost, sometimes can be a little creepy because they use it to ask questions

00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:31.760
<v Ramy Adeeb>that I, about, almost like a personal coach to them.

00:28:32.850 --> 00:28:35.210
<v Ramy Adeeb>What should they study? I really don't know. I really don't know.

00:28:36.390 --> 00:28:45.060
<v Ramy Adeeb>The signs favor increasingly like that human connection, human communication, sales, leadership.

00:28:45.060 --> 00:28:47.040
<v Malak Fouad>The soft skills, basically, right?

00:28:47.040 --> 00:28:50.160
<v Ramy Adeeb>The soft skills or be a plumber, which in the US

00:28:50.160 --> 00:28:52.360
<v Malak Fouad>Makes really good money. Or work with your hands, right?

00:28:52.360 --> 00:28:57.730
<v Ramy Adeeb>Or work with your hands. Yeah. Because robotics aren't there yet. Yeah.

00:28:59.480 --> 00:29:01.610
<v Ramy Adeeb>But I want to talk, you know, we keep touching on this point of,

00:29:02.510 --> 00:29:03.590
<v Ramy Adeeb>you mentioned they're very young.

00:29:03.710 --> 00:29:07.550
<v Ramy Adeeb>I think this is a lot less about age and it's about a mindset.

00:29:07.550 --> 00:29:10.530
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's just the very classic biology. It's the fittest. It's not the straw,

00:29:10.530 --> 00:29:12.090
<v Ramy Adeeb>you know, Darwin. It's the fittest who survives.

00:29:12.090 --> 00:29:13.610
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah, I see that. I see that point.

00:29:14.390 --> 00:29:17.950
<v Ramy Adeeb>I think I might have shared this story. When we got started with 1984.

00:29:19.700 --> 00:29:25.270
<v Ramy Adeeb>So effectively, like the whole story, the whole journey started when I was having

00:29:25.270 --> 00:29:29.870
<v Ramy Adeeb>dinner with Sir Mohamed Mansour, right? He was obviously Egyptian and he was

00:29:29.870 --> 00:29:30.910
<v Ramy Adeeb>visiting Silicon Valley.

00:29:30.910 --> 00:29:36.680
<v Malak Fouad>And let's remind the listeners, he was a big part of your beginnings and your foundation. Exactly.

00:29:36.680 --> 00:29:39.990
<v Ramy Adeeb>So he was effectively a co-founder for us. When I had dinner with him,

00:29:39.990 --> 00:29:42.400
<v Ramy Adeeb>he said, Ramy, I live in Egypt. I invested in Uber.

00:29:43.560 --> 00:29:48.620
<v Ramy Adeeb>And these small technology startups come and threaten my businesses.

00:29:49.220 --> 00:29:54.910
<v Ramy Adeeb>I want to go and see where they start and I want to be part of their incubation,

00:29:55.460 --> 00:29:57.270
<v Ramy Adeeb>instead of waiting in Egypt or

00:29:57.270 --> 00:30:01.610
<v Ramy Adeeb>in London and then have them show up at my doorsteps knocking on my door.

00:30:01.610 --> 00:30:05.480
<v Ramy Adeeb>And this is a guy who was 71 at the time. He was 71 at the time.

00:30:05.530 --> 00:30:07.510
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah, you're right. It's a mindset. It's not a...

00:30:07.830 --> 00:30:10.580
<v Ramy Adeeb>But his mindset is like, oh, there's this new thing.

00:30:10.790 --> 00:30:12.960
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah. How can I be part of it? I need to know about it.

00:30:12.970 --> 00:30:16.590
<v Ramy Adeeb>Because so many of us are like, you know, 30s and 40s. Like,

00:30:16.590 --> 00:30:17.540
<v Ramy Adeeb>oh my God, what am I going to do?

00:30:17.700 --> 00:30:20.520
<v Ramy Adeeb>So, yeah, the world is changing, but there are folks whose mindset is,

00:30:20.520 --> 00:30:23.600
<v Ramy Adeeb>let me go understand what the new world is and let me go embrace it.

00:30:24.050 --> 00:30:25.780
<v Ramy Adeeb>And it's a really important mindset today.

00:30:26.390 --> 00:30:30.480
<v Malak Fouad>In terms of 1984, I want to ask you two questions. Remind me,

00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:34.200
<v Malak Fouad>why is it called 1984? Is it from the Orwell book?

00:30:34.470 --> 00:30:37.420
<v Ramy Adeeb>No, it is not from the Orwell book. It's for the Apple commercial.

00:30:38.040 --> 00:30:40.570
<v Ramy Adeeb>Apple launched a commercial in 1984.

00:30:40.570 --> 00:30:43.530
<v Ramy Adeeb>When it launched the computer, the personal computer, the commercial was about

00:30:43.860 --> 00:30:50.370
<v Ramy Adeeb>tiny little sort of heroin fighting against Big Brother or Big Blue, which was IBM.

00:30:50.810 --> 00:30:54.230
<v Ramy Adeeb>Apple was a tiny little company fighting against IBM, which was the biggest tick.

00:30:55.710 --> 00:31:01.040
<v Ramy Adeeb>And that story of small tech going after big tech is the story that keeps repeating

00:31:01.040 --> 00:31:05.850
<v Ramy Adeeb>itself every day in our business. Today, our startups, who are they afraid of the most?

00:31:06.220 --> 00:31:08.740
<v Ramy Adeeb>Open AI and Anthropik. They are the big tech.

00:31:09.210 --> 00:31:10.050
<v Malak Fouad>That's really interesting.

00:31:10.050 --> 00:31:13.020
<v Ramy Adeeb>I like that. And our job is to work with, yeah. So you're helping.

00:31:13.020 --> 00:31:15.940
<v Malak Fouad>The little guy beat the big guy. Exactly.

00:31:15.940 --> 00:31:21.230
<v Malak Fouad>And drilling down a little bit, Ramy, into the fund, the current fund,

00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:26.380
<v Malak Fouad>are there sectors within AI that you're excited about, that you're putting money behind?

00:31:26.380 --> 00:31:31.270
<v Malak Fouad>Are you focused on biotech? Are you focused on medicine? Are you focused on

00:31:31.270 --> 00:31:33.760
<v Malak Fouad>climate? Are there areas that you think

00:31:35.710 --> 00:31:39.280
<v Malak Fouad>You know, there are clear winners for me in terms of, I mean,

00:31:39.540 --> 00:31:44.180
<v Malak Fouad>it's a no-brainer that AI helping in healthcare medicine is a game changer.

00:31:45.500 --> 00:31:51.420
<v Malak Fouad>You know, one of the alumni I've had on the show is this fantastically dynamic

00:31:51.420 --> 00:31:53.950
<v Malak Fouad>woman called Nadine Hachach-Haram.

00:31:54.440 --> 00:31:56.800
<v Malak Fouad>She's a Lebanese surgeon. She's based in the UK.

00:31:57.740 --> 00:32:04.040
<v Malak Fouad>She has a startup. I don't even think it's a startup anymore called Proximy. Proximy.

00:32:04.760 --> 00:32:09.650
<v Malak Fouad>And she, in the last couple of years, AI has completely transformed her business.

00:32:10.080 --> 00:32:17.630
<v Malak Fouad>They connect operating rooms around the world to surgeons to help do operations

00:32:17.630 --> 00:32:19.750
<v Malak Fouad>if they can't do them on site.

00:32:20.420 --> 00:32:27.480
<v Malak Fouad>And obviously, AI has had the most incredible positive impact on her business.

00:32:27.870 --> 00:32:32.300
<v Malak Fouad>So medicine for me, obviously, is a no brainer. But how are you approaching

00:32:32.300 --> 00:32:34.620
<v Malak Fouad>it? What are the industries that you're excited about?

00:32:35.040 --> 00:32:39.040
<v Ramy Adeeb>We're also excited about vertical AI in general, AI going after all these legacy

00:32:39.040 --> 00:32:46.500
<v Ramy Adeeb>industries, whether it's insurance or brokerage or recruiting and staffing, software engineering.

00:32:47.700 --> 00:32:50.670
<v Ramy Adeeb>There was a lot of industries that were previously almost untouchable by venture

00:32:50.670 --> 00:32:53.960
<v Ramy Adeeb>that are now becoming fair play because of AI.

00:32:53.980 --> 00:32:55.310
<v Malak Fouad>Give me an example, Ramy.

00:32:55.470 --> 00:32:59.730
<v Ramy Adeeb>Recruiting. HR tech was always like, you don't want to sell to HR teams,

00:32:59.730 --> 00:33:01.530
<v Ramy Adeeb>but now AI fully automates interviews.

00:33:01.530 --> 00:33:09.950
<v Malak Fouad>Yes, Ali's doing a semester in London and he had an AI-led internship interview the other day.

00:33:10.500 --> 00:33:16.220
<v Ramy Adeeb>Yeah, of course. It's phenomenal. But then there are some other industries where I maybe am less excited.

00:33:17.460 --> 00:33:23.820
<v Ramy Adeeb>I think environment and climate being one of them because I think sometimes,

00:33:24.340 --> 00:33:26.510
<v Ramy Adeeb>as either venture capitalists or software engineers,

00:33:28.810 --> 00:33:31.520
<v Ramy Adeeb>we, you know, if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

00:33:32.250 --> 00:33:35.760
<v Ramy Adeeb>And so we really want to solve climate change with software.

00:33:36.430 --> 00:33:37.690
<v Ramy Adeeb>Climate change is not a software problem.

00:33:38.900 --> 00:33:42.450
<v Ramy Adeeb>Climate change is a material science problem, a policy problem, and a capital problem.

00:33:43.110 --> 00:33:48.340
<v Ramy Adeeb>Agreed. So if you want to solve it, you can make money doing real research and

00:33:48.340 --> 00:33:52.270
<v Ramy Adeeb>material science and figure out a substrate, improving manufacturing.

00:33:52.560 --> 00:33:55.250
<v Ramy Adeeb>You can make money by building solar farms as a capital provider.

00:33:55.600 --> 00:33:59.720
<v Ramy Adeeb>You can go and work with policy and government and technological innovation,

00:33:59.830 --> 00:34:02.230
<v Ramy Adeeb>but it's not software. People are like, I'm going to build this software company

00:34:02.230 --> 00:34:05.450
<v Ramy Adeeb>that's going to do carbon emission measuring and marketplace.

00:34:05.450 --> 00:34:08.610
<v Ramy Adeeb>How many of these can we have? It's not really the problem. So you want to make

00:34:08.610 --> 00:34:10.110
<v Ramy Adeeb>sure. But you look at healthcare.

00:34:11.500 --> 00:34:16.390
<v Ramy Adeeb>I'm like, wow. For the longest time, software in healthcare was about automating

00:34:16.390 --> 00:34:19.700
<v Ramy Adeeb>what's called pre-care coordination. Today, for the first time,

00:34:20.090 --> 00:34:21.960
<v Ramy Adeeb>we can automate clinical work.

00:34:22.660 --> 00:34:28.070
<v Ramy Adeeb>The actual work of diagnosis, of bringing the data, analyzing it,

00:34:28.310 --> 00:34:30.810
<v Ramy Adeeb>communicating it to the patient and working with them on a treatment plan.

00:34:31.470 --> 00:34:34.420
<v Ramy Adeeb>That is incredible. The real hurdles today are regulatory.

00:34:35.450 --> 00:34:37.850
<v Ramy Adeeb>Are regulatory and structural around payment.

00:34:38.070 --> 00:34:44.390
<v Malak Fouad>Let's take a step back. I just want to drill down into your own kind of life a little bit.

00:34:45.340 --> 00:34:51.130
<v Malak Fouad>Who would you consider to be someone that you find very influential or like a mentor figure to you?

00:34:51.620 --> 00:34:54.290
<v Malak Fouad>Today? Because I know that this changes over time.

00:34:54.710 --> 00:34:59.110
<v Ramy Adeeb>Definitely. I used to work at Kusla Ventures, and it was founded by a well-known

00:34:59.110 --> 00:35:03.700
<v Ramy Adeeb>venture capitalist called Vinod Kusla, who was the very first investor in open AI.

00:35:04.760 --> 00:35:09.110
<v Ramy Adeeb>And Vinod has continued to be incredibly influential in the world of AI.

00:35:09.450 --> 00:35:13.490
<v Ramy Adeeb>And he embodies to a great extent what a venture capital should do.

00:35:14.410 --> 00:35:20.090
<v Ramy Adeeb>He really lets, you know, he's willing to imagine what things can become,

00:35:21.630 --> 00:35:26.520
<v Ramy Adeeb>invest in the potential of people and ideas and not be bothered by what could go wrong.

00:35:27.420 --> 00:35:32.780
<v Ramy Adeeb>And that's how he was the first check in OpenAI. And that's why he has many failures as well.

00:35:32.780 --> 00:35:34.330
<v Malak Fouad>You have to be a risk taker, right?

00:35:34.330 --> 00:35:37.210
<v Ramy Adeeb>You have to be a risk taker, right? Which is a topic we talked about a lot last time.

00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:40.360
<v Malak Fouad>We did. We did. What's your appetite for risk these days?

00:35:40.590 --> 00:35:45.930
<v Ramy Adeeb>Pretty high. You know, for ideas. Yeah, I think the obvious ideas are very competitive.

00:35:46.420 --> 00:35:50.810
<v Ramy Adeeb>Some of our best companies, like we're in AI interviews, way ahead of it.

00:35:50.870 --> 00:35:54.580
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's like, I'm willing to take risks and idea that might or may not work.

00:35:54.690 --> 00:35:58.940
<v Malak Fouad>But that also comes with experience, Ramy, I think, right? You're much more

00:35:58.940 --> 00:36:01.190
<v Malak Fouad>established now. You've been around the block.

00:36:01.300 --> 00:36:03.750
<v Malak Fouad>You've seen failures. You've seen successes.

00:36:04.190 --> 00:36:09.740
<v Malak Fouad>I guess your appetite for risk increases as well, I guess, when you are more experienced.

00:36:11.150 --> 00:36:15.650
<v Ramy Adeeb>So it's an interesting question you're saying. I think it goes back to the mindset.

00:36:16.800 --> 00:36:20.740
<v Ramy Adeeb>There are folks who take less risk with time and there are folks who take more risk with time.

00:36:21.300 --> 00:36:25.840
<v Ramy Adeeb>When I got started in this industry, I was working with a very,

00:36:26.020 --> 00:36:31.840
<v Ramy Adeeb>very, very seasoned older gentleman called Pierre Lamond, who is today 95, still alive.

00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:35.270
<v Ramy Adeeb>He was one of the founders of National Semiconductors. He was a VC at Sequoia

00:36:35.270 --> 00:36:39.440
<v Ramy Adeeb>for a long time and he was at Coastal when I was there and he was, Tass was mentoring us.

00:36:39.740 --> 00:36:44.690
<v Ramy Adeeb>At the time he was 80, he was the oldest person working in VC and he still sometimes practices today.

00:36:45.570 --> 00:36:49.670
<v Ramy Adeeb>And I remember Pierre saying, if you learn from your mistakes,

00:36:50.930 --> 00:36:55.200
<v Ramy Adeeb>In our industry, by the time you're 50, you're not going to be making a single investment.

00:36:55.200 --> 00:36:56.160
<v Malak Fouad>Oh, interesting.

00:36:56.290 --> 00:37:01.520
<v Ramy Adeeb>We should learn from mistakes. But learning from mistakes is a really narrow

00:37:01.520 --> 00:37:05.790
<v Ramy Adeeb>subset that can preclude us from having future success.

00:37:05.790 --> 00:37:10.490
<v Malak Fouad>It can make you risk averse. If you were to pick a different profession,

00:37:10.490 --> 00:37:15.550
<v Malak Fouad>let's just say, you know, all this was taken away from you and you had like

00:37:15.890 --> 00:37:17.640
<v Malak Fouad>a hobby or what would you do?

00:37:18.870 --> 00:37:23.510
<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, when I was really young, I wanted to be a pilot because I wanted to travel the world.

00:37:24.560 --> 00:37:27.680
<v Ramy Adeeb>And then when I saw more of the world, I realized I definitely didn't want to

00:37:27.680 --> 00:37:32.510
<v Ramy Adeeb>be a pilot. I want to get to enjoy the places I go to, not just travel to them.

00:37:33.220 --> 00:37:36.350
<v Ramy Adeeb>And then I fell in love with computers. I wanted to be an engineer to build things.

00:37:37.590 --> 00:37:44.350
<v Ramy Adeeb>But now I realize that building things is about doing a lot more than writing code.

00:37:45.620 --> 00:37:51.400
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's about building teams and building organizations and leading folks through

00:37:51.400 --> 00:37:54.550
<v Ramy Adeeb>doing things. So I'd want to be building something and breaking it every once

00:37:54.550 --> 00:37:56.840
<v Ramy Adeeb>in a while. I don't know what that would be.

00:37:56.840 --> 00:37:58.260
<v Malak Fouad>You have a young son, right?

00:37:58.750 --> 00:38:00.230
<v Ramy Adeeb>I have a three and a half year old son.

00:38:00.930 --> 00:38:05.440
<v Malak Fouad>So are you playing Lego with him? Are you building blocks with him and things like that?

00:38:05.800 --> 00:38:11.340
<v Ramy Adeeb>We're doing Lego. We're doing blocks. I had him teaching him how to use a keyboard,

00:38:11.340 --> 00:38:14.290
<v Ramy Adeeb>which I think you're not supposed to have screen time. But I think computers

00:38:14.290 --> 00:38:18.080
<v Ramy Adeeb>are not screen time. I think cell phones are screen time in my mindset. Yeah.

00:38:18.780 --> 00:38:20.840
<v Ramy Adeeb>Yeah, it's really fun. It's really fun to see your,

00:38:23.060 --> 00:38:27.150
<v Ramy Adeeb>you know, natural intelligence as opposed to artificial intelligence in progress. It's incredible.

00:38:27.680 --> 00:38:30.340
<v Malak Fouad>And see how quickly they learn at this age. They're like sponges.

00:38:30.340 --> 00:38:32.250
<v Malak Fouad>They just take it all in, right? It's incredible.

00:38:32.840 --> 00:38:36.580
<v Ramy Adeeb>Yeah. And see also how they learn how to be manipulative. It's incredible.

00:38:36.870 --> 00:38:38.560
<v Ramy Adeeb>For a three-year-old, you're like, wow.

00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:42.210
<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, AI is getting there, but the humans are so much faster at it.

00:38:42.490 --> 00:38:45.540
<v Malak Fouad>That's right. That's right. And what's a typical day for you,

00:38:45.540 --> 00:38:49.420
<v Malak Fouad>Ramy? Are you still commuting between the East and West Coast?

00:38:50.050 --> 00:38:52.730
<v Ramy Adeeb>I spend probably three weeks in New York, one week in San Francisco a month.

00:38:52.730 --> 00:38:56.310
<v Ramy Adeeb>I mean, New York and San Francisco are the two capitals of entrepreneurship.

00:38:56.600 --> 00:38:59.240
<v Ramy Adeeb>San Francisco is more important right now.

00:38:59.650 --> 00:39:02.550
<v Ramy Adeeb>And so I'm spending a lot of time in SF. Because when you're going through this

00:39:02.550 --> 00:39:06.640
<v Ramy Adeeb>massive rapid technological innovation, and our portfolio is about two-thirds

00:39:06.640 --> 00:39:09.340
<v Ramy Adeeb>SF, one-third New York. New York has a little better access to markets, though.

00:39:09.650 --> 00:39:13.100
<v Ramy Adeeb>So San Francisco has access to technologies. New York has access to ideas where to implement them.

00:39:13.540 --> 00:39:16.710
<v Ramy Adeeb>And so you find the pure technologists building in SF, the more application

00:39:16.710 --> 00:39:18.050
<v Ramy Adeeb>level folks building in New York.

00:39:18.640 --> 00:39:22.120
<v Malak Fouad>Interesting. What's a typical day for you? Does it vary depending on which part

00:39:22.120 --> 00:39:22.910
<v Malak Fouad>of the country you're in?

00:39:22.910 --> 00:39:26.840
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's a lot of meetings. I wake up. My job is to make my wife coffee.

00:39:28.940 --> 00:39:30.570
<v Malak Fouad>That's always a good job, Ramy.

00:39:30.700 --> 00:39:33.800
<v Ramy Adeeb>Keep doing that. She's a good job. She makes breakfast for our son,

00:39:34.160 --> 00:39:35.500
<v Ramy Adeeb>but I need to make her coffee.

00:39:35.790 --> 00:39:40.330
<v Ramy Adeeb>Obviously, lots of joys, lots of LinkedIn, lots of cheesy LinkedIn posts about having children.

00:39:41.750 --> 00:39:46.230
<v Ramy Adeeb>Effect on your professional career and life. But it certainly provides a wonderful,

00:39:46.880 --> 00:39:53.360
<v Ramy Adeeb>reprieve from work and a healthy one. And then work provides a great reprieve from them. For sure.

00:39:55.300 --> 00:39:57.920
<v Malak Fouad>Because kids are very challenging, as we know.

00:39:59.180 --> 00:40:01.940
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's a very symbiotic relationship. But then, you know, I probably drop them

00:40:01.940 --> 00:40:05.400
<v Ramy Adeeb>off at eight and then I start my, probably from eight to nine.

00:40:05.660 --> 00:40:09.400
<v Ramy Adeeb>I'll do it. I try to not schedule calls from eight to nine and leave that more,

00:40:09.400 --> 00:40:13.410
<v Ramy Adeeb>maybe if I have a call with Europe, or somewhere far from the US.

00:40:13.920 --> 00:40:19.130
<v Ramy Adeeb>But I typically spend that doing email and then my calls start 9, 9.30, go until 5.36.

00:40:19.300 --> 00:40:25.320
<v Malak Fouad>Do you have any time for exercise and sort of unwinding or does that not figure these days?

00:40:25.880 --> 00:40:29.270
<v Malak Fouad>It's very, I find it so important to clear my mind, you know?

00:40:29.270 --> 00:40:33.940
<v Ramy Adeeb>I need to do more of it. I typically swim twice a week.

00:40:34.150 --> 00:40:40.240
<v Malak Fouad>Oh, that's nice. I love swimming as well. So Ramy, this was an amazing conversation as usual.

00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:46.770
<v Malak Fouad>I always find our conversations very eye-opening and really this drilling down

00:40:46.770 --> 00:40:49.770
<v Malak Fouad>into subjects I find really inspiring.

00:40:50.420 --> 00:40:54.650
<v Malak Fouad>I want to end with what I call the quick fire round. And so this is like this

00:40:54.650 --> 00:40:58.370
<v Malak Fouad>really fun and light little segment. Ready?

00:41:00.640 --> 00:41:04.340
<v Malak Fouad>All right. Online connectivity or offline anonymity?

00:41:04.480 --> 00:41:05.420
<v Ramy Adeeb>Online anonymity.

00:41:06.600 --> 00:41:10.320
<v Malak Fouad>Ha ha. Good one. I didn't think of that. Okay. Favorite activity?

00:41:10.500 --> 00:41:10.990
<v Ramy Adeeb>Sailing.

00:41:11.260 --> 00:41:12.080
<v Malak Fouad>Where do you sail?

00:41:13.580 --> 00:41:18.820
<v Ramy Adeeb>In San Francisco and in the Caribbean. So I've owned a small boat that I shared

00:41:18.820 --> 00:41:23.740
<v Ramy Adeeb>with a couple of my friends for like 25 years and I love sailing. It's an incredible...

00:41:23.740 --> 00:41:27.500
<v Malak Fouad>And so you sail yourself. You've learned how to sail. That's amazing.

00:41:27.940 --> 00:41:30.450
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah. So that's your downtime. That's how you switch off.

00:41:30.900 --> 00:41:34.030
<v Ramy Adeeb>That is how I switch off. And you have to switch off because you have to. There's a lot going on.

00:41:34.780 --> 00:41:35.360
<v Malak Fouad>Of course.

00:41:35.490 --> 00:41:38.120
<v Ramy Adeeb>Lines and ropes and sails and traffic and fog that's.

00:41:38.120 --> 00:41:39.330
<v Malak Fouad>Such a nice activity

00:41:39.330 --> 00:41:40.810
<v Ramy Adeeb>Ramy but it's not an exercise.

00:41:41.070 --> 00:41:43.240
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah what's your least favorite activity

00:41:43.240 --> 00:41:49.290
<v Ramy Adeeb>Exercise going to the gym I can't get myself to do it I just can't go to the gym and,

00:41:51.190 --> 00:41:53.950
<v Ramy Adeeb>And like exercise without a purpose. I will work really hard.

00:41:53.950 --> 00:41:56.170
<v Ramy Adeeb>Like I love digging trails.

00:41:56.830 --> 00:42:01.750
<v Ramy Adeeb>And so I love to work hard with my hands. I love to swim. I love to build things.

00:42:01.750 --> 00:42:04.770
<v Ramy Adeeb>But to go to the gym and just lift weights or run on a treadmill,

00:42:04.770 --> 00:42:05.950
<v Ramy Adeeb>I can't get myself to do it.

00:42:05.950 --> 00:42:09.320
<v Malak Fouad>And you're more outdoorsy then. You don't want to be indoors as well.

00:42:09.440 --> 00:42:10.370
<v Ramy Adeeb>Yeah, I love outdoors.

00:42:10.370 --> 00:42:13.030
<v Malak Fouad>Last two things. I have a hard time.

00:42:13.170 --> 00:42:14.150
<v Ramy Adeeb>Dealing with bullshit.

00:42:14.430 --> 00:42:15.680
<v Malak Fouad>Is that on a work level?

00:42:15.830 --> 00:42:20.350
<v Ramy Adeeb>I think there is a lot of noise on Twitter and LinkedIn.

00:42:22.170 --> 00:42:27.130
<v Ramy Adeeb>Clickbait, stupid ideas that are being promoted like it's massive insights and

00:42:27.130 --> 00:42:30.030
<v Ramy Adeeb>wisdoms. And I have a really hard time. I agree.

00:42:30.930 --> 00:42:34.240
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're acting as though they've invented the wheel,

00:42:34.240 --> 00:42:35.960
<v Malak Fouad>right? And it is bullshit.

00:42:36.990 --> 00:42:39.250
<v Ramy Adeeb>I wonder if there's a better way than saying dealing with bullshit.

00:42:40.680 --> 00:42:43.190
<v Ramy Adeeb>Maybe dealing with group. I don't want to sound too cerebral,

00:42:43.190 --> 00:42:44.660
<v Ramy Adeeb>but I could say dealing with groupthink.

00:42:44.660 --> 00:42:50.640
<v Malak Fouad>There's also such a focus now on exhibiting yourself, right?

00:42:51.100 --> 00:42:55.800
<v Malak Fouad>And trying to portray yourself as the one and only one with the knowledge,

00:42:55.800 --> 00:43:02.060
<v Malak Fouad>with the know-how. And, you know, there's that side of life today that is very,

00:43:02.250 --> 00:43:04.550
<v Malak Fouad>I find very, very difficult to deal with.

00:43:04.550 --> 00:43:08.260
<v Ramy Adeeb>Yeah. And you know that people are seeing through it. You know that everybody sees through it.

00:43:08.690 --> 00:43:09.230
<v Malak Fouad>Absolutely.

00:43:09.890 --> 00:43:13.700
<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, I think it reminds me, I heard the other day LinkedIn is Instagram for adults.

00:43:13.890 --> 00:43:19.480
<v Malak Fouad>I am really turned off LinkedIn. I find that it's just such self-publicity.

00:43:19.480 --> 00:43:22.830
<v Malak Fouad>And it really is beginning to really bother me.

00:43:23.020 --> 00:43:27.040
<v Ramy Adeeb>But there's something about what you said. It's not about bullshit. It's about almost...

00:43:28.160 --> 00:43:32.000
<v Ramy Adeeb>Fake AI enabled self-promotion and social media.

00:43:32.600 --> 00:43:35.760
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah. Last point. I get joy from.

00:43:35.900 --> 00:43:36.960
<v Ramy Adeeb>Seeing founders grow.

00:43:37.080 --> 00:43:41.890
<v Malak Fouad>Very nice. So last time when you and I chatted, I think we ended our conversation

00:43:41.890 --> 00:43:43.920
<v Malak Fouad>by you talking to me about Burning Man.

00:43:44.810 --> 00:43:49.020
<v Malak Fouad>And it was a big thing in your life then. Is that still even happening now?

00:43:49.140 --> 00:43:51.040
<v Ramy Adeeb>It is. We're going in August. I don't know if it's a big thing in my life.

00:43:51.600 --> 00:43:51.990
<v Malak Fouad>Oh, you're still into it.

00:43:51.990 --> 00:43:56.300
<v Ramy Adeeb>I don't know if it's a big thing in my life. You know, it's just a fun event.

00:43:56.300 --> 00:43:59.070
<v Ramy Adeeb>You know, I wonder if I've gotten, And it's funny because I don't talk about

00:43:59.070 --> 00:44:03.490
<v Ramy Adeeb>it as much, not because we go less, but maybe because we're more established

00:44:03.490 --> 00:44:07.620
<v Ramy Adeeb>as a firm. And now I'm becoming one of those conservative, don't talk about personal stuff.

00:44:10.480 --> 00:44:14.360
<v Ramy Adeeb>Don't be that guy. Burning Man is incredible.

00:44:15.400 --> 00:44:18.790
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's a very unique experience for you to leave your identity outside.

00:44:19.200 --> 00:44:23.280
<v Ramy Adeeb>Go be surrounded by art. Find what you're passionate about, whether it's art, music.

00:44:23.570 --> 00:44:27.270
<v Ramy Adeeb>It's a very harsh environment, particularly hard for Egyptians because we know

00:44:27.270 --> 00:44:29.450
<v Ramy Adeeb>what a desert is. And for us, it's not exotic.

00:44:30.230 --> 00:44:32.270
<v Ramy Adeeb>For everybody, it's like, oh my God, it's like a desert. I'm like,

00:44:32.270 --> 00:44:37.690
<v Ramy Adeeb>I know exactly what it is. And we spend our entire life trying to avoid it. And so it's a...

00:44:38.820 --> 00:44:44.480
<v Malak Fouad>I've outgrown places that don't have state-of-the-art designer bathrooms.

00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:47.250
<v Malak Fouad>I don't do camping. I don't do any of this stuff. I'm just like,

00:44:47.250 --> 00:44:50.620
<v Malak Fouad>no, show me a place with a nice bathroom and I'm all yours.

00:44:52.160 --> 00:44:56.970
<v Malak Fouad>Thanks for joining me today. I'm Malak Fouad, and this episode was produced by Chirag Desai.

00:44:57.130 --> 00:45:00.360
<v Malak Fouad>I'll be back again soon with a new guest. I hope you can join me then.