Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Robot Brains podcast on the DL, where we take a step away from AI and learn more about our latest guest with 10 quick personal questions. All right, let's dive in. If you could have a robot take over any part of your life, what would you have it do?

Speaker 2: I actually think the vision of self-driving cars is pretty great. The long-term vision of self-driving cars is pretty great, both from a human safety point of view and how much time I waste on commuting and transport.

Speaker 1: Who has inspired you the most in your career journey?

Speaker 2: I mentioned Bill Gates early on, and I have a lot of mentors, maybe one of my managers at Facebook, his name is Stan Chinovsky. I learned a lot from just how to build a product that has a meaningful impact in the world from him.

Speaker 1: If you could give robots and machines one human value, what would it be?

Speaker 2: I think one of the most innate human traits is wanting to be heard. And so I don't know what the robot, you know, I'm trying to think about what the robot equivalent of like expressing that you're hearing another human is. But I think that is, you know, one of the people talk about the difference between robots and humans, that sort of, it's not quite empathy, but something along that line.

Speaker 1: Speaking of the world of tech, what excites you most about the current state of the world?

Speaker 2: I think one thing that's really exciting, I think most people think of this as a negative, but I think of it as a positive, is just how much general civic engagement there is in the world. A lot of that civic engagement, you know, is because of a bunch of maybe people feel more polarized or have stronger feelings about things, but I actually think net-net over a long term, you know, higher degrees of civic engagement is not a bad thing. I think a lot of the kind of short term spikiness of this moment will pass. But the long term value of having people understand how the government works, it's important.

Speaker 1: If you had to give up work and volunteer for the rest of your life, what would you do? And why?

Speaker 2: I'd probably be like a music teacher or something like that. I play the violin. I play the violin for 20 something years now. At some point you stop counting how many years you've played. It's a really big passion and hobby of mine. And I, you know, if I was just volunteering, I would try to share that passion with as many people as possible.

Speaker 1: What's the last book you read?

Speaker 2: The last book I read was Avi Loeb's by an author called Avi Loeb. He wrote a book called, I think it's called, you know, I don't look at the title. I think it's called Extraterrestrial. It's a book making the case that we've had alien contact. And you know, usually these types of books are written by people with maybe less credentialed. But Avi Loeb is I think the chair of the Department of Astrology, I think at Harvard, at Harvard's Department of Astrology. So, you know, pretty credentialed guy. It pushes you to think a little bit more beyond what you might otherwise do. So I highly recommend the book.

Speaker 1: What's the best present you've ever received? Probably my violin. Dinner with one person, living or deceased?

Speaker 2: My grandfather on my father's side. So a quick version of my life story is I left China when I was about one years old. And so I don't have any living memory of him. He has a living memory of me when he was alive, but he passed before I was ever able to meet him. From what my dad tells me, it sounds like there's a lot that we have in common. So it might be, I have to take him at face value for that, but would be great.

Speaker 1: Most overrated virtue?

Speaker 2: Conformity. That's a very like Silicon Valley answer, I think. The world's a weird place. There's a lot of variation. It's like, I think people should embrace that more. And I think better things happen when people embrace that more, whether they're in like a business context or in a relationship or anything.

Speaker 1: What's something that many people don't know about you?

Speaker 2: I think if you look at me on paper, or even the way some of my friends perceive me, I'm like the founder and CEO of a, I think, pretty interesting startup in Silicon Valley. By some of the other answers, I'm kind of like a future focused, just kind of move forward, do lots of things type of personality. But at the end of the day, I'm, you know, I think like a pretty calm, boring guy, maybe. Maybe that's what it is at the end of the day.