#464 The Resume is Dead: Garrett Rice & Philippe Cailloux on Reinventing Job Hunting with AI

Episode 464

[00:00:00] 

Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet. And today, again, a very nice episode where I don't have only one guest, but I have two guests and very special guests, both co-founders of Callings [00:01:00] ai. So I have Garrett Rice, I have Philippe, Cailloux, Garrett, and Philippe. Thank you very much for being here with me today.

I really appreciate it's very early morning at the time of this recording. It's 6:00 AM on the west coast in the US so thank you for making it. So the first thing I like to do is I like my guests to introduce themselves. Tell us little more about your backgrounds, your journey, and what you're currently up to.

And then we start the discussion from there as the audience would guess. We're gonna talk about AI for a special use case. But Gareth, I would love to start with you so you know, a quick introduction and then we go to Philip and then we can kick it from there. 

Garrett: Thanks, man. Uh, I'm Garrett Rice. I, uh, I've been in Silicon Valley for a while.

I have about 20 some years experience at Apple. Uh, worked at the, uh, Steve Jobs previous company next, um, early in my career, a couple small startups, uh, and uh, [00:02:00] most recently working with philippe@callings.ai to revolutionize, uh, how job seekers use AI to help them find a job. And, uh, we're excited to be here.

Mehmet: Absolutely. Thank you very much, Garrett. Philippe, I will pass it to you. 

Philippe: Um, thank you for having us. Uh, my name is, uh, Philippe Cailloux. I have been in the, uh, tech space for many years. Um, when I was a, was a little kid. Uh, I grew up in a, in a fisherman's village in the south of France. And, uh, I was, I was obsessed with, uh, actually science and technology.

It was a bit strange looking, looking back. Um, and one thing that struck me back then was I did, I didn't, I was not okay that engineers were actually the one putting products, uh, on the market, and I don't, I don't know why I was thinking that. And, uh, [00:03:00] that led me to, um, through a, a career in product design, uh, in technology.

So, uh, back then in the, uh, in the eighties, late eighties. Design was not, uh, an official role in, in creating products, uh, tech technical, uh, digital software based products. So, um, I, I pretty much had to invent the, the discipline. I created a, uh, European master to, um, uh, through three universities to, uh, uh, think and develop the, the future of, of product design in, in software.

And after that, uh, it's been, um, uh, moved to the US about 30 years ago. And, um, I, uh, this is my seventh, uh, startup, uh, tech startup. And in between I was the, the head of product design for Adobe. Um, and then the, the head of, uh, product design [00:04:00] for. Uh, so, uh, recently I met Garrett and we decided to start, uh, colleagues that ai, um, to change the way we define recruitment and how people, uh, find jobs.

Mehmet: Great. Thank you Philippe, for this introduction. And you know, I'm very, uh, honored to have both of you. So both of you are veterans in, in the tech and startup world. Um, it's maybe kind of a traditional question, right? So every company has a story behind it, right? So you mentioned about a little bit what you do with callings ai, but there must be some, you know, reason or like maybe a moment where both of you, you decided like, okay, like hold on one second.

There's something really broken. And someone didn't fix it yet, and [00:05:00] now the time came for, or for us to build this, I always, you know, curious to learn about these moments. So I'm not sure, like, Garrett, maybe you can, you can start and then Philipp can add his, uh, uh, his sport. 

Garrett: Sure. I met Philippe. Uh, we were, we were both, uh, uh, working with a career coach to figure out what to do next.

I think, uh, I'm not totally certain of Philippe's story on it, but it was one of the first times in my life that I'd really started to look for a job. Before that I'd been, uh, I'd been in the Apple, you know, sort of ecosystem or satellite orbit and, you know, I had just always taken the next role there, but for the first time I wanted to go and really look and, um, I.

And I met Fleet during that time. Uh, we were both keenly interested in getting involved in ai. This was the early days of ai, um, while this current chapter of AI with large language models and, uh, [00:06:00] you know, and I think we were both just aghast at how horrible the experience is for people looking for a job.

None of the, none of the tools to our, to our eyes were really designed for the people looking. And, uh, and Philippe being the creative product builder that he is, was already building products to help himself in his job hunt. And, uh, uh, they were impressive. I remember him showing me those and me saying to him, you know, these are really great.

I would pay for these Philippe. Um, and, uh, he continued to work on them and I continued to encourage him. And, um, there's a point where, you know, I was so impressed that I wanted to work with him. To, uh, to make those products available to a broader audience. And, uh, so that's my, that's my memory of how we teamed up.

Philippe maybe has a different view, but, uh, 

Mehmet: yeah. Philip, I would love to hear from your side. 

Philippe: I think that's pretty, that's pretty [00:07:00] fair, pretty fair representation. Um, what, what happened for, for myself, uh, same as for Garrett. Um, I have never put myself in the mindset of, um, of having to look for a job or look directly looking for a job.

Um, I've always been, um, hired out of a company or as a, as a startup would be moving to its next, uh, chapter. I would, uh, uh. Uh, and, uh, immediately being in, in motion with some other people thinking about the next, uh, the next, uh, interesting opportunity. And in, in this case, um, I, I was interested in looking at, uh, maybe getting back into the corporate world, uh, like a large local company here in, [00:08:00] in the Silicon Valley.

And for that, uh, I, I knew I needed to get to get ready, and I got, I got a, a lot of support and, uh, coaching as, as, as Garrett mentioned, that's how we met. Um, but I, I couldn't, I, I could not really stand the, the notion of of, of the process and being, I would even call that a victim of the process. Um, applying to jobs, reaching out, not getting any responses, knowing that some of the jobs I was applying to, I was, I believe, qualified for at least had pretty good idea how, how to deliver and achieve, uh, the results or the objectives that, that were expected by the, the employers.

And, and that lasted for a few months. And, uh, we were a, a, a group, a [00:09:00] group of, uh, job seekers and, uh, former executives and, uh, uh, peoples some experience and some, some stuff to actually contribute to, to the economy and to the market. And everyone was sharing the same experience. And, and, and I was wondering, this something that is not working right here, it is not okay that this person or this person was so much background and experience being.

What is called a ghost or is being ignored or is, is being put in a miserable mental state of despair and, and people starting to reconsider everything they have done and their value. And, and that became, to me a more interesting, a more interesting topic to, to look into. Um, everything that I could automate, started to automate.

I just started with a spreadsheet and a Google sheet and was just tracking, tracking my, my progress, my [00:10:00] interactions with the companies, the interviews and all that. And, um, I was, I was doing AI before already, and, uh, I was, I was very excited. Uh, like always for me, new technology is about thinking what are the new products that we could invent to, to move the, the bold forward?

And, um, as Garrett said, um, this tools became. Uh, very helpful, uh, for different reasons and different people in the group were starting to ask me to share if, if I could share the tools for them, they, they could use it. And, um, I, I decided to, uh, to be more serious about the, the development of the tools. Um, and, and guide really helped, uh, with the motivation and the, uh, I always needed someone, a partner of some sort that, that allows to have a broader vision, especially [00:11:00] the business vision, the marketing vision, um, and, and building a company.

I, I build product. Um, I think Gar Gar has been, has been helping, you know, we, we merge like a sale and, and he's, he's really helping, making, making these ideas as a business. 

Mehmet: So it's an old problem. I think Philip, and you know, again, also what you mentioned, I think a lot of the people who would be listening or watching this, they would, me included by the way, they would relate to the challenges we face, um, when we are on the job hunt.

Um, so to me, or every single job portal it put in mind, you know, the employer, not the future employee. And because they have designed in a very robotic way that you need to do this, uh, customization, the a TS systems and you know, everything else. So if I want, so we know now the problem. We know like of course the ICP, let's call it.

So [00:12:00] everyone who's hunting, you know, a job. Now I'm interested to know, like Philip, you just mentioned, you started with couple of tools and then, you know, you started to. Put this into a form of product. So if you can break for us down, you know, the journey that me as a job hunter using your solution that I would path through.

So, because if, you know, if I go to the traditional approach, so I would be going to maybe link it in, I would maybe go, if you are, uh, in, in the US and North America to indeed, like here in the Middle East, we have like couple of other portals, but it's all the same experience. So what would be my experience if I come to callings?

Ai?

Philippe: I'll let go take that. 

Mehmet: Yeah. 

Garrett: Yeah. I mean, one of the, one of the fundamental challenges that we immediately saw is that, you know, the, the sites that many people go to, to find a job, I mean, just, [00:13:00] just for starters, they. They say to you, create a profile so that we can help find you a job. And you just uploaded your resume to them, and yet they ask you to copy and paste all the same information into web forms to get you started.

Um, and that was one of the very earliest things where we were just startled that with modern technology that you just, they didn't read your resume. Um, you know, and I think this highlights what a lot of job boards are about, which is that, you know, they get paid by the job posting companies. And so everything is around inputting data for the job seeker so that the hiring companies and recruiters can, can process it.

That doesn't necessarily help you get a job if you're a job seeker. Um, and for the job seeker, it's all about a workflow, right? Especially in the modern, what we call the modern job hunt. You know, the modern job hunt requires that you apply to a lot of opportunities to get considered for any of them and.[00:14:00] 

And so we, we took a hard look at that, you know, and Philippe built a platform where the various steps that you're required to undertake to apply to any job we take care of for you, and we manage all in one place. So, I mean, there's, there's many aspects of the job hunt that, that not many people had tackled.

Um, you know, so I mentioned onboarding. Another one is, is simply tracking of, of the job hunt process. Almost everybody that we talk to, even today, unless they come to our platform, they built their own spreadsheet to manage their job hunt. Um, and that's, that's kind of crazy, right? Um, but it comes from the standpoint that, that most of the, the job hunting platforms are about posting jobs and getting paid to post jobs rather than helping the person looking for a job.

And the, the requirements are different. And so that's, you know, we went down that path with callings.ai. And then for each of the steps, and there are many that a job seeker needs to take. [00:15:00] We used, you know, technologies, uh, existing technologies and then, you know, new AI technologies to try and accelerate each of the steps and make it more logical and transparent for the job seeker.

That includes things like customizing resumes and cover letters. Uh, meme, you, you mentioned that you, you, you pointed that out, right? Which, when you're applying for a job today, uh, your resume is not read by a human being. You know, almost 75, 80% of the time it's read by an a TS or applicant tracking system.

And, you know, this is part of the HR system for the hiring company. And they import your, you know, resumes from hundreds of people applying, and then they use. In many cases, not even ai, but just keyword based searching to, to review the submitted resumes and determine whether you're qualified for the job.

And as a result, a lot of qualified people are being rejected because their resume doesn't reflect the language and [00:16:00] terminology that the hiring company, uh, requires. And so, um, this is, these are, these are all prob problems facing the job seeker that really are not important to a company selling job posts.

And, uh, but they're important to us because we're focused on the job seeker side of the equation. Um, and so, you know, these are, these are some of the things that, that we have tackled in, in building a total job hunt platform focused on managing the entire job hunt workflow that somebody needs to undertake.

And, uh, you know, I think that's what makes us unique and, you know, it's, it gives us our. Our purpose for our, you know, or forgive me, Ali, or trying to use a French phrase, and I don't speak French, but, uh, you know, that's our reason for being is, you know, we, we wanna, we wanna balance the, the playing field for job seekers in a, in an era where increasingly technology is making them, um, you know, [00:17:00] just a, you know, one, one blade of grass in a very large field.

Uh, you know, we want them to stand out. We wanna help them tell their story. 'cause when people actually can convey who they really are and what benefits they are, that's when they get the job. 

Mehmet: Philip, like from your perspective again, you know, and, and you needed to design this as a product. Of course, you said like you, you started with tools and Google sheets, so you need to put it into a product.

And I think what you did, I mean both of you is kind of the, you broke the rule or like you inverted the equation because. What you explain and everyone knows it, like people designed these systems, putting the employers in mind. You did everything on the opposite side. So from product perspective and technology perspective, like what are like, you know, main things you, you said like, okay, these are the main features we need to focus on first, so we [00:18:00] have like better onboarding for the job seekers and of course better experience in, you know, getting the job hunted and, you know, lending that, uh, that offer.

Philippe: Yes.

I think, I think for me, what what started was initially was a workflow optimization approach. Um, and there's one element we have, we have not discussed yet is, um. The, the coach that, uh, guide and I, uh, were working with, uh, was very instrumental into this project. And as a matter of fact, um, uh, host Govin, his name is, uh, join us as a third co-founder.

And, and I mentioned this, uh, not only because he's a great, a great coach and a, a great human being, but it's also his approach was, uh, uh, for us [00:19:00] an, an insight into the fact that it can be about us, us as candidates. The process can be about elevating people, uh, as, as, as you and and Gar mentioned is historically the process been really from the demand, the, the, the, the weight has been on the demand side of, of the equation from the, the, the hiring companies.

That's where the money is coming historically. And that's what, what drove the process. So when, when I started first was, okay, how do I, how do I automate the different tasks that, uh, the coach is suggesting? The approach that we take, and I don't want to get into the details of, of the method, but there's a methodology that this coach is using.

It's very comprehensive, it's very broad. It takes different angles, different multiple strategies, uh, to get the highest chance. Uh, but [00:20:00] also this coach has something that is very important, was very important to guide and I was. It's, it's the, the approach is, it's about yourself. It's about you. It's about being clear about what you bring to the table.

Who are you as a person? What excites you? What do you want? What do you need? And it's, um, historically a little bit counterintuitive where we see still today, uh, some of the response from the market being it's a number game and, and you should, uh, spray and, uh, and pray, uh, applying to thousands and thousands of jobs, and maybe you have a chance that one or two will be responding.

Uh, I did help during my career, many friends, uh, looking for a job. And there's always this, this, these two examples where someone would say. I'm so desperate. No, I would ask, you know, what, what are you looking for? What do you want as [00:21:00] job? And the person would say, you know, I'm so d disparate right now. I, I would take, I would take any jobs.

And, um, it's always been for me, a, a, a a concerning situation that someone is, look, is ready to get any job. It doesn't work and the person is not getting absolutely, absolutely any jobs. But what I've seen now, the, the, the people are very, uh, in tune with what they want to do, um, which, which manifests itself through a passion.

Usually you would, you would talk to someone. That person is actually, as a matter of fact, is not looking for a job or is not looking for a job for very long. This is someone who has a passion for, um. Uh, I was listening to some of your podcasts, right? You hear the passion in the people that they have.

They have, um, they have some, um, something that excites them. And they, [00:22:00] they, they want to do something, they want to change something, they want to contribute in a unique way. And, and these are the people who are getting, are getting jobs. So that did resonate. The, the approach from the coach plus this personal experience, um, resonated with the fact that there's something beyond the workflow optimization.

Uh, those, those a way we can, we can flip around the mechanism and help, uh, people being more, um, uh, aware of, of their interests and their, and their passion, which is usually very, very difficult at the time where you lost a job. 'cause fear is immediately taking over, right? The fear of not, not finding a job, the fear of not having money to pay for the bills.

Uh, there's a social stigma still about not [00:23:00] having a full-time job. So I think we have, uh, with colleagues, uh, that ai, we have an opportunity to, to create a platform where we at the same time match and, uh, match the existing, uh, legacy process from companies trying to recruit people at the same time making, making empowering the, the candidate in a way that the candidate is well more powerful.

And the definition for that is, is a is a candidate that knows. Um, about what he or she wants to do, or who she or he or she is. Uh, and we believe that that is, uh, creating a more healthy, uh, uh, uh, ecosystem 

Mehmet: Right now. I know that we talked about this, but [00:24:00] I'm, I'm too much, you know, sometimes, uh, I repeat it on the show a couple of times.

So a, anything which for me becomes at some point non-logical anymore, I start to have a runt against it, right? So CV or resume as they call it, it's one of these. And Gary, you just mentioned, like, how come we can put, you know, all experience that we have in just like maybe two page, three pages, right? And then you give it to a system, not a human to read it Now.

I know, like one of the things which I, when I was checking the website, you right, like the first step is know yourself. I'm interested to know, you know, is it like the AI that tries to, to ask questions and get to know this person? So now the model will tell me, Hey, MeMed, like we see you've worked for example as a technologist and then you work [00:25:00] as a sales, uh, you know, for, for startups.

So maybe this is the kind of jobs that you want to do. Uh, because at, to the point of Philip mentioned about, uh, spray and pray. So sometimes even people, and I've heard a lot from a lot of recruiters as well. So for example, the job is, let's say, um, database administrator, right? And they start to see someone not related to take applying to the job.

So. Like how much, you know, this, this is real problem between the CV slash resume, whatever you want to call it, versus also us knowing what do we want? Like, and I'm interested to know from technology perspective what you have built, how this would help me as a candidate to understand really, you know, where, which direction I should be heading.

Garrett: Yeah. Well, and I, I would say for us, stay tuned. Um, you know, Philippe is working on some [00:26:00] stuff right now, which we think, um, you know, is gonna fundamentally change the, the dynamic that you're describing. Um, and so I don't want to go into, you know, too much into things that we don't have shipping yet for users.

But I will point out that, um, even today we have a very powerful tool on our platform, which is, um, experimental tool called My Insights. And, um. You know, we know a lot by reading somebody's resume. It's not that the resume doesn't have important information, you know, it's, it's a narrative of, of your past achievements and accomplishments, you know, and, and somewhat a list of the things that you have skills with, all of which are very important.

The problem is, is that, that that does not encompass either the person that you are or the value that you provide. It's simply a list that says, I've done this. And, you know, and the, the limitation in evaluating somebody based on their resume is it doesn't suggest [00:27:00] well, what they'll do in the future job.

Um, or, you know, how they'll, how they'll react in a situation that is not defined yet. Um, and then of course, it, the resume does not capture who they are at all. You know, the type of personality they have. As Fleet mentioned earlier, which type of passion they have, um, you know, what they might do. Um, you know, and this is why a lot of times, uh, recruiters and, and hiring companies will, will find somebody with the perfect resume and background and they'll come into the company and they won't do anything successful for the company.

Um, it's because, you know, they, they, they match up with the job description, but not with what the real need of the company is. And so our, uh, our, my insights, uh, technology inside of callings, AI takes the base resume and Philipp has, has, uh, built in a process, you know, he like to call it the Socratic method of saying, [00:28:00] okay, well you've done all of these things, you know, why is this important?

Um, you know, what is it you're trying to, to to get out of these situations, you know, for you? And by going through a fairly detailed question and answer session, you know, Philippe then can provide in our platform the ideal job description that the people are looking for. Um, and I'm continually surprised.

There are certainly people out there that know what they want and know what, how they're gonna get it, but experience in working with job seekers for the last couple years, um, I think has taught us that for many people when they're in the job hunt, it's one of the worst moments in their life. And it hits at every of every one of their insecurities about their capabilities and, and who they are as a, they're, they're on the outside trying to, to scrape their way back in.

Um, and, you know, and so it's hard for them to identify where they want to go, you know, [00:29:00] and, and what value they provide because, you know, if, if, if, for example, you've been laid off, you. It tells you, Hey, you know, this, the com, the company that I used to work with doesn't have any value. It doesn't think I have any value.

It doesn't think I'm important. Uh, and then you apply to a hundred jobs and nobody responds, and that, that plays into it as well. And so, you know, that rejection gets you to forget what you're great at, what your skills are. And, uh, you know, the My Insights tab goes through and just asks simple questions.

Is this, why is this pa, why is this a passion for you? Why are you interested in this? Why is this on your resume? Um, you know, what things aren't your on your resume. And by going through and answering those questions, um, you know, we can generate an ideal job report, which is kind of a snapshot of what, based on their answers, something would be great for them to have as their next job.

Which is a good template when you're going out and looking because then you can compare that against the opportunities that actually exist. Um, we also go through and provide a. Detailed [00:30:00] branding information for them. How, you know, what's, what's a good way to convey your, your value proposition in 30 seconds and in two minutes, you know, what's your elevator pitch?

And uh, you know, these are the types of things that, that go under that rubric of know thy self. And, you know, we think we can really help people with that by, by sussing out and helping draw out the information that is there, which they may not be able to see at that moment based on their situation. 

Mehmet: Cool.

Philippe, do you want to add something on this? And you know what I'm interested from technology perspective also, like before we started the recording, you were telling me about the AI and the LLMs and you know, um, the secret sauce, of course, you don't have to give it to us here, but I mean, um, you know, little bit of on the tech aspects of what Gary just mentioned.

Philippe: Yes. Um. So, [00:31:00] well, I think, uh, two, two years after, after the official launch of, of, uh, chat GBTI think we're, we're all clear now, uh, that AI is, uh, a tool. Um, AI is actually a technology and technologies are what, what is a technology, right? Um, technology to me is a layer that, that, that is, uh, on top of, of the science, right?

So you start with nature and you have scientists looking into the nature and, and the scientists create, create technologies. Uh, scientists create science. And when certain science become more mature, you have this next stack of, of technologies look into the science, and, and they create, they create new technologies.

What, uh, and ai, [00:32:00] ai, LLMs, and old technologies that have been created since, well, since, uh, well, for the past two, two or 3 million years, um, they then get into a layer of, of applications. Technologies are not directly used. Uh, most of the time. This is where I, I position myself as, uh, as a product test, which is this, this, uh, transformation or applying the technology layer into a, a product layer.

The way I look at it is, um. You know, uh, lots of traditional approach is we, we start from, we start from the human standpoint. We, we start from the, uh, the users. We, we try to invent the needs or we try to understand, you know, pain points. And that's the traditional product development approach. Um, my career has always [00:33:00] been at the more intersection of the technology and the users and, and the in-between results being the product.

But I've always been very influenced by transforming a new technology into a new product that enables something that is relevant at the time where it's happening, the time and the place where it's happening in, in the case of, of what, what Garrett is mentioning and how the technology and AI helps.

There's, there's an intersection of technology and user needs today, and this, this intersection for me is, is critical in the creation of the product. The intersection is, there's a, there's a shift in the user needs on how to get a job, and there's a shift in the fundamental new layer of technology, which is ai.

So how does it [00:34:00] go? How does it go? So, in the example that Garrett mentioned, uh, we are talking about the fact that focusing on someone to express who you are is what I would call personal branding. So when you look at personal brand as a theme, that becomes a need in the transformation of the society today.

That is what I would put on the side of, of the, um, of the, of the need of the users. On the AI side, it is the understanding of what, uh, commercially available, uh, components offer. What, what is the most obvious one today is the LLM. Uh, but it's also everything that is touching semantic, uh, semantic matching semantic search, the vector database.

Um, it's also, [00:35:00] uh, well, I actually, I think that's pretty much it. Everything else that, that you can, you can imagine from, from the cps, the agents, everything else to me is nothing more than, than just selling more LLMs, uh, better LLM applications or simplifying the, the deployment, um, uh, the time to market and, and the deployments of LLMs.

The how do we connect now, how do we use the AI and how do we enable personal branding? Right. And I, I, I'm not gonna give any secret socio, I'm just stay at, at a high level. Well, one way to look at it is what's been happening in the field for the past a hundred years, and what are the non-technical ways of developing a personal brand.

So that, that's one example. And, and, and what, what's great within LLM is that in, in traditional product development we've been doing for, [00:36:00] for many, many years, is we would be sitting down and say, how do I, how do I, uh, develop an application that is, for example, a personal brand coach, right? What is a personal brand coach doing?

And I would go and do a, a, a deep, uh, domain, uh, analysis, uh, interviewing many professionals and experts in the domain. I would read many books. I would, I would, I would get as. Deep as I can in the understanding of the discipline or understanding of the domain. And that's where LLM today is fantastic, right?

The, I don't need anymore to do the same level or it's a different approach, but I don't need anymore to do the deep dive into absorbing a domain expertise. Um, and, and then creating a product framework around that. Uh, I still need to understand [00:37:00] the principles and the mechanisms that enable the development of a personal brand in this example.

Uh, but I know that once I figure out what is the recipe for that, then the execution of it. Through, call it prompt engineering. I think it's the, the world that is the closest to it. I'd rather call that myself from design. But it's the architecture, the designing, the architecture of the product, um, is using LL an l.

LM is replacing, is how to replace domain expertise, um, and some of the logic that creates the product response and the product interaction with the user. So in terms of product development, that that's, that's an acceleration differently. [00:38:00] And it is, it is also, uh, an increase in the quality. So I think the product that we are developing today could have been developed in the past.

Um, I, I, I can totally imagine how I. It would've been much, would've been taking much longer, uh, much larger team, and it would've been also much more monolithic and difficult to modify and adapt. We can very easily to today shift toward, um, uh, we've been talking about the match.com, where you match a person with another person with a match.com.

Here we would be matching a candidate and a company. Those would be a different concept or a different mechanism, which you would have also a discipline for that. And the LLM, the very same LLM, would already be waiting for you to [00:39:00] express and unveil and unwrap, um, uh, the potential by, by again combining prompts.

And, and the product layer. So we do have a lot of product development on top of the LLM. Um, when I started, it was definitely a wrapper. Uh, it was actually a Google sheet using JavaScript, uh, interfacing directly with, uh, the very first APIs from, from OpenAI. Um, but today I would say that easily 90% of the product is not LLM.

We use the LLM only for, for 10% of the, of the lines in term of, of code, number of lines. In the codes. It's less than 10%, probably meant even five. But the power of it is definitely, uh, maybe reversed. It's nine 90% still of the powers coming from the LLM. 

Mehmet: Cool. Now, [00:40:00] one thing. Because you mentioned ai, we mentioned also both of you mentioned that the, the change that is happening within, you know, the type of jobs that we are doing, right?

So how much, you know, you believe, you know, calling that AI can help job seekers to stay relevant to the dream job that they have. So maybe I'm a software engineer, right? And, you know, I want to land a job at one of the big companies, but what we are seeing, let's say now, that's a debatable topic we can talk about maybe later, but they're saying like, Hey, like some parts of a software engineer task will be automated by ai, so you need to be maybe more into the q and a, or maybe you want to be more so how AI would help someone like me [00:41:00] who's like into software engineering to tailor his career path also as well, instead of going and applying to what would might become an obsolete job in couple of years.

Garrett: That's a great question. Do, uh, were you, uh, aiming that at Philipp or, or me, 

Mehmet: any one of you? It's, it's, it's. 

Garrett: I dunno, Felipe, um, I mean, I, I could, I could take a first stab at it. You know, Felipe has talked a lot about this. Um, and you know, and I, I, I love his, his way of holding it, you know, he describes it that, um, you know, this is just the latest tool set, you know, and, and history has shown over and over and over again that, that as, as technology changes, whether it's fire or the wheel or any, any technology that you know, that either you're a person that adopts, adopts that technology and understands how to use it and apply it, um, or, you know, you're less competitive.[00:42:00] 

And, um,

my experience so far running an AI startup with, with Philippe and, and you know, and working with a lot of people as we do that is that I. The core wisdom of, of building a company or building a product or undertaking a marketing program, um, it can be described by large language models, but it cannot be applied except by a human being.

And, and so, you know, in our, in our case, we're, we're simply using that tool to be more productive and effective. And so the example that you give of the engineer, if they don't use ai, they are not gonna be a competitive engineer going forward, I don't think. But if they have a long history of being an engineer and along comes.

Copilot and some of these other tools that are, that are engineering focused around, you know, [00:43:00] large language models and ai, they're simply gonna be able to do their job much more effectively and more quickly. Right? Um, you know, if you're in marketing, for example, you know, one of the jobs of marketing, and I did this in my career a lot, is you'd sit around in front of a whiteboard to come up with slogans and taglines and messaging and try and boil down the product that you're selling to articulate it well.

That that task must still be done, but it can be done more quickly using large language models because you can continually, uh, add to the prompts on, on what you're investigating there, and it will, you know, it'll give you opportunities, give you options. Um. The wisdom isn't picking the right ones or continuing to prompt down certain paths to, to get to the truth of the matter.

And at least so far, it seems to me that, uh, that LLMs and AI is not, does not have that wisdom, right. [00:44:00] Um, it, uh, it, it requires somebody with experience in the real world, uh, you know, in the Emerald Podcast, if, if you're a fan of that does a great job of talking about this, right? There's something really valuable about actually existing in the real world and applying things in a real world.

And that's what a human being can do, right? You know, large language model cannot smell a flower. It can describe how a flower smells based on how people have reported it, but it itself cannot smell a flower. Um, and so, you know, I think, and I'm rambling a little bit, but I think, I think for me, um, I have not found that the skills that I've learned in my career have changed.

Because AI has arrived, I have found that, that I can more quickly apply the experience and knowledge that I have using AI and I can use it as a tool to accelerate what I'm doing. And, um, I'd like to think that that's where, where we're going is that, you know, it indeed is. Philippe describes it, it's a tool [00:45:00] and you know, and, and the intelligent people will use it.

You know, if, if you can, if you can go hunting by throwing a stick, you're effective. If you can go hunting by using an at lateral or a bow and arrow, you're more effective. But the hunting part you still have to do. 

Mehmet: Right. Philippe, anything you want to add 

Philippe: a little bit? Abso absolutely. I think God is, God is, is, is, is got, has got a gist of it.

And guide mentioned the hunter on the stick. Um, the stick is not making you a hunter.

The stick is making a hunter a better hunter, right? So, uh, from the past two or three, again, I'm gonna take this history of mankind for the past two or 3 million years, um, the technology or the, the [00:46:00] tools using technology or the latest technologies have not never replaced the human. Now we can, it's a standard, it's just a model right there.

There's some people have different, different mod, different frameworks. My framework is that the technology or the, the tools wrapping the built on top of the, the new technologies never replace the human is the human using these tools to replace humans. Right. So, um, and then I'm gonna go deeper on that because then it becomes political, it becomes religious, it become whatever conversations that the only next step possible after you declare this framework.

So, um, I, the angle I'm taking is that, uh, it's actually the one that if you remember, I don't know if you have seen in Dubai, but there was, there was in the Super Bowl 2024, so not last Super Bowl, [00:47:00] but the one, the year before Microsoft, uh, um, had a, a fantastic, what I found was a fantastic commercial. Um, it was very Apple in its, uh, approach and style.

And the, the, the commercial was portraying, uh, a diverse group of people, young, older people, uh, and they were just plain people, but they were people with, uh, an intention. There were people, there were people saying, in the commercial, they were saying, they told me I will never be able to write this book.

They told me I will never have this movie. They told me I will never, blah, blah, blah. And then there's this pause at the middle, in the middle of the commercial where the woman say, watch me. And then the second part of the commercial is the same characters introduced at the beginning of the commercial, but [00:48:00] each of them now are fully into the development and the implementation of the ideas.

Um, and at the very end, there's a little kind of Microsoft co-pilot or something. It was Microsoft saying, this is what AI is about. AI is not gonna enable people, certainly to become hunters or to become entrepreneurs or to become, uh, uh, an accountant or a surgeon. But if you have an intention, if you have an idea, if you have a wish, this kind of technologies will enable the kind of tools that will accelerate or make available the, the, the results or the vision, execute the vision that you have.

So, uh, Mame you ask, what, what does it mean for me as an engineer, software engineer, for example? How can cos can help you, [00:49:00] um, understand the frame, the understand the situation that's going on out there? One of the proposal that we have is AI excels at the execution as in the Microsoft commercial. It's the, it's, it's, it excels at executing what it excels at, executing an intention.

And this intention needs to be articulated. So if, if anyone can position themself in a situation where they can articulate an intention, and I'm not just saying, well, in an intention, you put in the prompt and it, it gives you a result, right? Is AI is gonna infiltrate many, many, many tools, many things that we use every day.

That is what I'm talking about is this, this level of [00:50:00] personal intention. Um, what does that mean? Having a personal intention? It means, um, nurturing, ensuring creative thinking, uh, nurturing, strategic thinking, and probably nurturing, critical thinking, each of which, uh, each of them requires an understanding of a domain.

So when the artist as, as a wish or when the, the, the, as a software engineer, if I can imagine that I want to develop a, a financial tool, then you need to understand finance a little bit. You also need to have an idea and what is driving you for that? Did you see something? Um, and the critical thinking is as you go and build something, as a software engineer, [00:51:00] start building a result is how do you judge that?

What is being built? What you build is worthy of adoption by the rest of the society. So as we move forward, every everyone in the society, every worker, uh. We'll have, in order to survive, we'll have to step back or step up. One nudge from the implementation stack of the industry, if you are being paid to execute something today, you need to move to the level up to the person who was asking you and had the critical thinking and the creative thinking and the strategic thinking, because that layer now is being eaten up by the ai.

So everyone can just look at moving up to [00:52:00] the chain, but not necessarily the chain of command, right? It's the chain of creativity, the chain of thinking globally. So what we can help with that in, in, uh, calling that ai and especially in in what um, guide was alluding to, is how do we help people? To brand yourself with this elements in a little bit, focusing a little bit more on that than your execution skills.

Because your execution skills are becoming commodities and the soft, uh, senior software engineers whose highly paid today is replaced plain and simple. If you are an extremely senior software developer and you are, what you do is to code what a product manager [00:53:00] has been suggesting we should be coding.

You just don't have a job anymore. Plain and simple. So, um, that is touching not only software engineers, but every single um. Um, um, a professional, uh, and it's worldwide and, and that we will need, we will need a global support for people to re redefine themselves, re understand their value and project that value.

Mehmet: This is very, um, you know, I would say thought provoking. Uh, for me, you know, while you're talking, I start, you know, really to think about some scenarios from my past, some something that people share with me sometimes. Now, maybe it's not related directly to calling ai, but, uh, so some big. You know, uh, [00:54:00] figures in, in tech, they talk about how they envision or maybe let's say their expectations about the future of work.

So we know, for example, Reid Hoffman, who talks about like the nine to five jobs, you know, they're not exist maybe, uh, in the future. Uh, Sam Altman from OpenAI talks about the single man company, right? So, um, these are these like big ambitions from, uh, people in, in, in technology who are just throwing their thoughts.

Is it partially, you know, something that we might see in the future and. So both of you, you have this long experience in tech and, but I like Garrett, what you mentioned, like, if you have the skills you're gonna, you're gonna survive, right? So, so you build these skills during your, uh, you know, life experience and career experience, and then whenever you go to somewhere else, you are ready to [00:55:00] go.

But when these, you know, leaders in technology speak this way, so me as a job seeker today, like there must be something that I, maybe I would ignore it today, but maybe after one month, six months, one year, some realities would start are what, what I want to mention what they are saying. Is this something just as a thought that they are throwing or maybe really we are reaching what they're talking about,

Garrett: how to interpret what they mean. Um. I mean, there's definitely a transformation going on. There's no doubt about that. Um, you know, and, and it's been happening even before, you know, the, the, the current push with large language models, right? You know, you see the rise of Upwork and gig economies and all of that.

Um, you know, I think, uh, you know, generally it used to be that you needed [00:56:00] infrastructure to do anything. And so that's where companies came in, you know, and you had to be part of a larger team to, to do a lot of things. And as technology empowers people individually more, I think, you know, those walls are breaking down.

And, you know, that's probably what Sam ultimate means when he talks about the one person company. Um, you know, you, you. You can manage more and more of the functions of what historically was a large company, you know, with a smaller team because of technology. You know, it's, it's, it can pick up those pieces and, and obviously AI is gonna accelerate that dramatically.

Um, you know, and, and you know, we're seeing that ourselves, right? We're, you know, calling.ai, we, we we're making progress, um, you know, with fe LEAP's modern approach to, to development using tools like, like you're describing, to do development that, you know, used to be a much larger team of people and, you know, and all the, [00:57:00] all the dynamics that come with that.

So, I mean, that's, I think that's inevitable. It's, it's, it's already happened. Um, and the question is how does it flow through society and the economy over the, you know, the coming decades and what will that impact be? Um. You know, and, and you know, these transitions have happened throughout history. Right.

You know, I think in, I read somewhere that in, you know, in 1880, 80% of all the people in the world were on the farms, you know, and by 1920, that number had dropped to 20%. And today, I think that number's like 2% or something like that. Um, and so, you know, there wasn't a collapse, you know, there wasn't a whole bunch of unhappy farmers, you know, standing on the side of the road.

For some people they did, you know, and you, you look at during the Great Depression, you know, the, you know, the people during the, you know, the, the Dust Bowl and that, those types of things, they were displaced and severely affected. But, but overall, that transition. [00:58:00] Went, went by fairly, very quietly. And, you know, and people moved to wearing, you know, uh, ties and suits and going to work, you know, instead of having to, to dig up alfalfa every day.

And, you know, but that dynamic itself is changing, right? Because now, you know, there aren't large companies that you line up to go into and, um, uh, increasingly, you know, companies are smaller to have the same impact. And, you know, I think that that trend's gonna continue. It seems like, um, the, the problem is that, that the job seekers and the people in that transition.

Um, need help to make that transition. And, and they need an understanding of this situation and a lot of people don't. Right. So, you know, we're, we're on this podcast. We're, you know, Philippe and I made the commitment years ago, which is, you know, part of where we bond bonded. That, that clearly AI was gonna be a technology that was gonna [00:59:00] revolutionize things and change things.

And so, you know, we invested time and effort in getting involved in it and understanding it and, you know, and then eventually built a company based on it. Um, but a lot of people are, you know, have not stepped into that power curve yet to, to, to work on how this change is gonna affect them. And, uh, you know, that's, that's gonna be the, that's gonna be the transition and the pain point.

And, um, and we're seeing it, right? There's, you know, even though the unemployment figures seem low, when we talk to people, we don't get that same impression. They talk about the white collar recession and the fact that, you know, the more senior and more experienced and more high priced you are, the more difficult it is for you to get your next role.

Because, you know, this game of musical chairs, there's, there's less chairs, you know, for those types of opportunities, unless you can bring something really powerful to the equation. And, uh, and so I think that shift is happening right now. And, uh, [01:00:00] you know, and I, I think the job market will be fundamentally different in 10 years than it is now in, in every way, in many ways.

The same way that it's fundamentally different now than it was even six years ago. And you look at the impact on, of just zoom, right? I mean, historically, up until. You know, six or seven years ago, we would've had to fly to a, a studio somewhere to sit down with you to do this recording. Now, you know, we're, we're, we're all over the world and yet we're meeting and, and working.

And that's fundamentally changed how, how businesses work. You know, I think it's gonna have an impact on commercial real estate because people aren't gonna aggregate at big office buildings anymore to do their work. I mean, they just aren't, you know, they're, they're, they're signing in on Zoom, you know, even the biggest companies that have the most influence on getting everybody gathered together are, are forced with a continued battle to, to get people to show up [01:01:00] to the office and, you know, and that's just, that's just one small change among many that we're talking about.

And so, um, I. How this plays out individually. It's, it's, you know, it's gonna be very personal for people in the same way that if you were an expert at, at driving a wagon in 1903, you know, by 1910, either you wouldn't learn how to drive a car or, you know, you, you were gonna be in serious trouble because there just weren't gonna be many wagons pulled by horses anymore.

And, uh, you know, and that's, that's the transition we're in. And it, you know, and for somebody who's an expert, wagon driver with amazing skills, that's gonna be a very painful, you know, that was a very painful process, you know, and, uh, you know, I guess that the more traditional metaphor is the buggy whip maker, but, uh, anyways, 

Mehmet: makes sense.

A hundred percent. And just before I, you know, uh, take the, the word, uh, from, from Philippe. To what you mentioned. I [01:02:00] just, I think I listened on a radio show when I was driving the other day, and here it's the same thing. Like I think 60% of the people who are in the job, they are hunting their next, you know, job and they're not like even one year over there.

And, you know, like this, I, I think people are, are seeking, you know, this kind of, uh, um, not peace of mind, I would say, but they're looking for the place where they can be challenged in the positive way to get the best out of them. Uh, and it's not only about, you know, the salary or, you know, the, the position or the title.

It's about, you know. Are they doing what they are mostly passionate about? So I think this is what also, you mentioned it, and Philippe mentioned multiple times about this, you know, purpose driven approach. And Philippe also you mentioned about, you know, the branding. And I've been personally [01:03:00] telling people, yeah, you need the cv, you need everything, but you need to work on your branding.

Like, I don't know how, but you, you need to establish for yourself something where you go tell people, Hey, like, this is me. It's not like only the, the words on, on, on two pages of a Word document or PDF document. So, sorry Philippe, I took little bits from, from, you know, your time. But to what, to the question I was asking Garrett, what's your take about?

Yeah. What we just 

Philippe: discussed. I, I have a few, I have a few uh, points here. You, I think your, your, your initial question was, um. W do, do we, do we agree or do we believe, uh, that, uh, things like what Reed or or Samuel Mann are talking about, and is, is the next one person, unicorn company in the making right now?

And is that even possible? [01:04:00] And we have not seen it yet, but is, is, is this in the making? Uh, and I'm, I'm gonna say a few things about that, but you also just, uh, reacted and, and mentioned about the, the notion of purpose, purpose driven. Mm-hmm. Um, I'm gonna bring some positive cynicism here. Let's not fool ourselves.

We, as, as human being we are. And again, maybe that's just, um, a statement and, and, uh, a, a personal point of view. We are still highly driven by fundamental domination and survival mechanisms at the DNA level. Uh, we can raise as much awareness as we can, uh, and we can be fully aware that we are driven by domination and survival.

But at the end of the day, [01:05:00] both of you, MeMed and Garrett, you've been using the world job hunting. What's the, what's the hunting? I mean, think just about it. Right? Hunting, um, and yes, survival is being redefined. Domination is being redefined. Uh, and one of the redefinition right now is brand yourself. Be yourself, define yourself.

Be powerful, is in my little framework, is very much aligned with the notion of domination and survival. And that's, uh, that's what we see. Also, when Gary, you mentioned the, uh, the migration from farming to, um, to factories and factories to, um, desk jobs. Um, people don't disappear. So people, people move [01:06:00] and, and, and if they are not disappearing, they're surviving.

Um, some are highly driven or more driven by the notion of dominating, uh, as, as a mechanism to exist. Uh, and some are, uh, more in the mechanism of, of surviving. But we all still exist. Uh, will, uh, we see a massive move out of the factories? Absolutely. Certainly. It's happening. It's been happening for the past, even 40 years, 50 years.

Uh, smart robotics is very clearly in the, in the motion, in motion. Um, so factory workers paid to execute a task. Um, there are gonna be some, uh, thinking around survival to happen there. Um, [01:07:00] so we can, we can help. Uh, so now, okay, can someone start a company and, and become a unicorn today? Um, I'm not certain about that.

I'm, I'm not certain I tried. It doesn't work. I tried, I was, uh, highly impressed with the fact that I was able to develop a product that would've taken probably five or six developers with, uh, just myself at the beginning. That was in, I mean, that was crazy. I mean, just in five years ago, I was, I've always been working with large teams, um, large teams between five and 500 people.

Uh, but the, then I thought, okay, great, so I'm, I'm gonna build a company, [01:08:00] but when I sat down with Jet GPTI, I'm gonna do the marketing.

I just don't even, I didn't know even what question to start with. I could have said, look, I don't know anything. I'm a beginner in marketing. This is what I'm thinking about the product. Know, help me out. Okay. I could think, you know, if you can think about this level of abstraction and, and, but then the problem is when you get, you get some, some of the answers and the solutions.

I was looking at it as, I have no idea. The, I have no idea what is this real good or not good, and should I actually invest in doing what is being suggested. I was missing the domain expertise to execute my critical thinking on this thing. I could not. Now, when it came to the product development of the software, there was absolutely no question in my mind that I was very clear about what I wanted and I knew how [01:09:00] to articulate it because I've been writing specs for 30 years and working with engineers for 30 years.

I know the details, I know the, the pitfalls. I know all the, the, the little variations always. It's been always the same. And, and when I was getting, and I'm getting, uh, a, a response from the LLM, it's very, very fast and quick for me to look at it and say, no, well, hold on. I, I, I, I miss, I didn't express it the right way.

Let me re-express it. Or I can very quickly say, this is not what I asked for. Right? And eventually at one point I can say, this is good enough to move, to move on. That is what I call the critical thinking in this, in this new logic where execution is being done, but this by some something else. There's nothing new.

When you walk with a team, when you collaborate with different people, there's a whole combination of task, assignment and discussions and we all agree of we articulate the goals [01:10:00] and the intentions. We agree, we move on, we all build and share a common domain and agreement around the domain and knowledge.

As people start to execute and you build something or you move forward on something, there's an agreement also on the, yes, this is good. This is not good. We should move. We, we good. We need to reiterate or not that dynamic. I'm still not clear how autonomous a human being will be okay to let go of this autonomy because if this autonomy is actually slightly even starting to take over, the human being will stop it because of the need of survival and domination.

Human beings have never, never let anything, anyone, any living thing, any ideas, any technologies dominate and take, take over. Now, we have always [01:11:00] developed that to take over other people, but there's always a one point where the human being is not going. To let themselves being dominated or executed. That is if we agree on the principle that we have a deep survival, uh, uh, built in mechanism.

So when people talk about a A GI, for example, I'll say a GI go for it, but a GI is going to be used by people to increase their domination and survival skills. So, um, yes, we can use, we can use AI today to create a one person company, but that one person already needs to have a good understanding of the domain, a broad understanding ranging from technology to marketing, to legal, to financial, to biz dev for all the components, and if that person is capable of doing that.

Okay? So [01:12:00] that is a read of man sitting down with an AI and say, I'm gonna build my next company and it's gonna be a unicorn. It's possible, but it's possible because Rudof Man has already developed a personal brand and people will be flocking around and they will be, they will want him to survive because it will help other people survive.

So, so the answer, I think it, my take is yes and no, and it's gonna, thanks, Algar is, there's gonna be a transformation. There's no question about it. And it's gonna happen quickly. Um, and it's gonna be brutal for many people. That's, there's no doubt, 

Mehmet: right? I think what people mix things up, I. You know, especially when with, and, and the reason I didn't say like, uh, unicorn, uh, single person, uh, unicorn, because people, they think it's only about the value.

Yeah. Like I can, we, we saw like these vibe coders and we saw like, uh, some of these, what they call, you [01:13:00] know, the, the indie hackers or what they call them, you know, the people who keep moving. Yeah. You can actually, yes. You know, I, I I've met 

Philippe: No, no. I'm gonna stop you there. Sorry. I, I would, I should not interrupt you.

I'm sorry about that. Remember the camcorder, when the camcorder came in, the, the social conversation was about the fact that Hollywood was dead. 

Mehmet: Yeah, 

Philippe: because now everyone had access to the means to produce any movies and there was, it was actually a strong belief in the society where people say, we're gonna see like, we don't need any more Hollywood.

Everyone's gonna make the movie. It's gonna be great. Right? Look, let's be reasonable here. And it vibe coding, there's way more to it than vibe coding. The first question is, what do you code? What do you code? That's creative thinking. Creative thinking is never gonna come from even a GI. So creative thinking is back to the commercial for Microsoft.

So vibe coding is great if you have an idea and you want to do it. I've been doing it, it was not [01:14:00] called Vibe Coding. I did it like three years ago. Okay, great. Right, because to me it was the most obvious thing is can I get read out of the engineer, the software developer, and can I do it myself? So yeah, sorry, sorry about that.

But yeah, you mentioned vibe coding. I think it's right on. You are absolutely that. My strong belief in that. Yes. 

Mehmet: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, so a hundred percent no, no. And sorry for, uh, you know, not meant No. Sorry you this before. Yeah, it's okay. So, but my point was like, to your point, so I'm agreeing with you Philippe, is that, and to Gar point also as well.

Yeah. I mean, I can create income for myself doing vibe, coding, whatever, right. Uh, but to me, a successful company, a company that I. Stays for generation. Right? It's not like I do, like hit and run, right? So it's, it's not like this, it's like how I build, you know, a long lasting company and to build a long last, long company.

So look at you, for example, Philippe and Garrett, like you are [01:15:00] together. Like you, you, you brainstorm this together, you build a team to build all this. So, you know, and, and to me, yeah, people like mixed two things. Um. The value from money perspective and the value from, you know, the impact that you want to leave.

Like, as we say, like, uh, I, I, I love this, this, this, uh, this term, which is, uh, leaving your dent in the universe, right? So yeah. So, so you can do this or you can yeah, become a super millionaire and then you go and stay in Hawaii. I don't know where. And just one more thing that I want to say about the survival thing.

I like this Philippe, like this, uh, you know, philosophical approach. We call it job hunting. They call it Also, don't forget headhunting. And I was telling, I was talking, I was, I was hunting with a guy, said, Hey, like, do you, do you do like the cowboys? Like you just, you're hunting ahead. Uh, and it's about, but you're right, it's about survival.

I think, you know, this is, um. [01:16:00] And Garrett, you mentioned at the beginning like we, we, we, we connect things which are somehow connected, but when it's about our survival, it's about, you know, paying the bills. Yes. We have to go hunting. And the actually the job hunt, so the hunter, hunter is, is a job hunting his job.

Right? So he keeps, he needs to keep or she needs to keep their jobs. So if I want, like, now to kind of wrap it up and I'm really enjoying this discussion with you. Uh, final words from both of you. And I want you to focus more about encouraging fellow entrepreneurs and, you know, tech founders to go out and build long-lasting companies.

I start with you, Garrett.

Garrett: Well, you know, as, as Philippe was talking and, you know, we were, we're sort of feeling out, I. What AI can and cannot do and, and what this process is that we're trying to describe. You know, it, it occurred to me that, [01:17:00] you know, it's, in some way Buddhism I think captures it, right? Which is, you know, you think that there's this straight line to accomplish something or to build something, or to create something.

It's not the, that process is a journey and you don't know what the stops are gonna be along the way. Um, you know, the creation of any, if, if you read about any, the creation of any great product, um, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, generally people with certain sets of skills, but a lot of, um, a lot of naivete of entering a market that they don't understand and, and, you know, um, and because they don't know that they, they just go down this journey.

And on the journey you learn how, how success will be built. I. And, you know, and if you're not in that arena and you're not doing it, it cannot happen. Um, you know, and you cannot intellectualize your way to a result. You know, you have to, you have to, you have to go down there. And so, you know, whether you're a one person company [01:18:00] or a 10 person company or not, you know, what you're really doing is going down a mystery journey, you know, where you learn certain things and, and, and draw some conclusions.

And, you know, and then you build things in response to that. And, you know, and if, if, if you're honest in the journey and you, you do it right, then hopefully you end up with a solution that is valuable to people. Um, you know, and I think that's, this is part of this auth authenticity thing. And you know, whether your journey is to go and find your next job or it's to build a company.

You know, finding that authenticity and being honest and open about it and going on that journey is how you get there. And, uh, and so. You know, and, and if you have ai, you'll get there hopefully a little bit faster or, or with less, you know, needing less resources. Um, and if you're looking for a job and you're using callings ai, then you know, you're getting AI tools to help you with that journey, but you still have to take the journey.

Um, and, you know, I guess the Buddhist [01:19:00] say the journey is the reward. So, you know, when you look back, that's, that's the adventurous part that you think about is, you know, is not the island that you end up on after you're a millionaire, but the journey to get there. So. 

Mehmet: Absolutely. Absolutely. Philippe, like final maybe words from you.

Um,

Philippe: well, Garrett wondered in the, in the Buddhism, uh, references, I, I feel like I have to jump on that. 

Garrett: Um, 

Philippe: believe there's a 

Garrett: dao Daoism fu. Where are you gonna go? Philippe? 

Philippe: Um. I think there's, there's a saying that forget what you want and take what you get. Um, I think we need to, we need to revisit this, uh, as it, it's, it's, it has to be both.

Now is you have to be clear about what you want and also [01:20:00] take what you get, which might not be what you want. But I, I don't think, I don't think that today we, we can, we can get anything if we don't want anything. So you need to have like a strong want and be open to all the get and, and, and be listening beyond your initial want, which, which touches to the notion of maybe, uh, uh, uh, extreme agility or, or, uh, may, maybe it's fluidity.

Uh, definitely dead are the, the, the days of planning. Um, or it's continuum. So less and less planning. More and more fluidity, more and more intelligence, more and more, um, uh, uh, a conversational flow. A conversational flow in, in building companies. Or even, I remember in 2005, that's what, now, 20 years ago, 20 years ago, we could raise a series A on the, [01:21:00] on the, uh, PowerPoint presentation, and that will buy you a team of 20 for 18 months.

So 18 months later, you would've, you would go to market Today. There's no way, well, okay, this be, so there's not, there's no way if you have built a personal brand for raising a lot of money than today is possible. But this is a handful of people, uh, by the way, very smart people, no doubt about it. But if you are, if you are a normal entrepreneur, I put myself as part of regular entrepreneur.

Um, I, I've not developed a strong brand when it comes to being an entrepreneur that. I flip my fingers and get, and get to raise the $20 billion that we see up there. If you're an entrepreneur, I would say that don't, don't expect to raise a $6 million on, on the PowerPoint. Uh, first PowerPoint, no, certainly not.

But, uh, you will, you will need to [01:22:00] navigate, uh, this fluid evolution of your ideas and get the validation from the market that is having users. And my take today, the modern tech is, is you should, you should focus on having a single user. It's counterintuitive, but you should focus on getting a single user.

Uh, you cannot scale. You cannot scale. Not having a single user. You cannot scale not having a single happy user. If you have a single user unhappy single user, you're gonna scale more unhappy user. So, um, I would say keep it very fluid. Uh, help one person, two, three people max, and make sure they cannot live without what you are bringing to them.

Uh, that's how I actually, I started with this, uh, recruiting, uh, uh, group people looking for, you know, hunting for jobs. [01:23:00] I started to be the first user where I wa I was the one happy because it was clearly helping me, myself. And then some other people saw it and asked me, can you share your spreadsheet?

Can you do that? That became a second user, third user happy user. Us absolutely not a usable product, but there was value, a value proposition. And progressively, once you have solid one or 200% user happy users. Move to the next one, then we can go and ask for money and we go first ask to get a little bit more to validate if there's more than one user that you can go to a hundred or 1000 users.

So I would, I would go very incremental and very focusing on the, on the value proposition, on making sure that, and the, the core confirmation is from other users. You should have the intention should articulate, implement, and AI gives us this ability to be highly flexible and [01:24:00] fluid and move from one aspect to another.

One, redesign the application, recreate the application up until where you, you start to see real traction from one, one single user. Then go to the next one. And that can be done in two weeks, three weeks today. You don't need a year anymore. One week, two weeks took me for the first implementation of the product, it was two weeks after two weeks I had the product.

You know, you could log in, you could add the first half. Yeah. That's what Vibe coding gives you. But what, what, what vibe coding is, is not getting you is this, is this adding value to a human being there that says Yes and I'm willing to pay you and then raise the money. 

Mehmet: Right. It's all about execution.

Philippe, and I think you mentioned it also before, so Yeah, we can, I, I believe this is one of the episodes that personally, you know, was, uh, very insightful, uh, because a lot of wisdom, both of you, you, you threw, uh, [01:25:00] today. But I want to re-highlight one thing, Philipp you mentioned is about, um. Like us as humans, we don't like to give control to anything to anyone.

Right. And I think this is the, you know, one of the, uh, best things we have as humans because first we are gonna still have the ambition to always challenge ourselves. And of course we cannot challenge the AI and the language models to keep doing something better, right? And I think the whole story of colleagues AI is how me, as someone who's looking for a job, whether you call it hunting or searching, it's up to you how I can go.

And I do, I do it in a better way, in a faster way, in a way which people can support me because I know like, you know, it's not only about writing the best cover letters and cv, which you do it good, but also about, you know, networking with people and finding the right decision [01:26:00] makers. And I think this is where humans.

Always gonna be forefront. Not the machine you g you to say it. Also, as you said it also as well. So it's, it's a tool that we gonna keep using it and enhance it until we reach, you know, where we want to go. I, I, I love this, you know, and I think I want to thank you, both of you really, because, uh, I have two, you know, like as I said, veterans in tech and startups and entrepreneurship with me.

So I was very lucky to have you both with you. I cannot do one thing. I think people can get in touch using LinkedIn probably, right? If they want to, to follow you or how they can be in touch. 

Garrett: Yeah, so we're, you know, we're on LinkedIn, um, our company is on LinkedIn. Um, you know, if you're, if you're interested in using callings.ai, just go to callings.ai/cto.

We'll create that URL for [01:27:00] you. Um, so your, your listeners can have access and that'll give them a free month, uh, of the, of the product. And, um, so you can do that. You can reach out to, uh, to me at Garrett, G-A-R-R-E, tt@callings.ai. Um, if you have questions or comments or sarcastic remarks and, uh, you know, we, we'd love to have.

Uh ha have you, uh, if you're, if you're in the market for your next role, we'd love to have you try us out. Um, you know, we're for, for anybody, including the people on this podcast, that first free month. But, you know, you can, you can use the, you can start the product for free and, and many pieces of the product remain free.

So, um, especially for finding and, and saving and tracking jobs. Uh, so, you know, try it out and, you know, and yeah, definitely reach out to us on LinkedIn if you have, you know, any questions or comments. 

Philippe: Great. I think, and thank you for, thank you for creating a. Such a platform. So, [01:28:00] uh, oh, entrepreneurs and the rest of us can reflect and, and share.

So, uh, thank you again, MeMed. 

Mehmet: Oh my pleasure. Thanks for having us 

Garrett: today. We really appreciate it. 

Mehmet: It's my pleasure. So, for the audience, guys, you don't need to look around. I gotta put the links that Garrett and Philippe mentioned, so everything, you'll find it in the show notes and, uh, of course you can get in touch.

And, uh, I'm very grateful because you're gonna create this, uh. You know, slash cto, so calling AI slash cto, you'll find in the, uh, show notes so you can get the product to try it for one month. Uh, I want to thank you again. I know, like I thank you a lot today, but I, I'm grateful because I couldn't do what I'm trying to do.

So I'm still a, I call myself a hobbyist who's trying to learn things around. Uh, I couldn't do it without you and without all the guests, of course, who, who, who came before. And I was very, uh, lucky to meet awesome people like you, Garrett and Philippe. And, uh, [01:29:00] again, I tried to keep doing it, creating, as you mentioned, Garrett, the main reason why the CTO show exists is exactly to get, you know, the best out of the best for people to get inspired, right?

So, because, because my mission, I couldn't be a founder in this, in the term of a startup founder, I always dreamt to be, to be a founder. My aim is to get people inspired to go and try to do something, to, to, to learn about technology because we know, you know, we need to keep learning. And you both mentioned this a lot today about up uplifting yourself to the next level.

So thank you both for being here with me. This is for the audience. Guys, if you just discovered this podcast, thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, so give us a thumb up, share it with your friends and colleagues and if you are one of the people who keep coming again and again, thank you very much guys.

You are like making me really, really so proud of everything I do because for the first time since I started this two years ago, so [01:30:00] now the podcast, the CTO show with meme is. Entering the top 200, uh, apple Podcast chart in the entrepreneurship and sometime in the business, multiple countries at the same time.

I'm still hoping for some countries, so fingers crossed, but we've got countries in Europe, we've got countries in the Middle East here. We've got countries in Southeast Asia and even in Australia and New Zealand. So I'm hoping to see more flags very soon in my statistics. So thank you very much, and as I say, always stay tuned for a new episode very soon.

Thank you. Bye-bye.