Loka - Podcast: Ep. 15, Part 1 | What fascinates Craig Davis?

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26:56

Craig Davis

Former European Director of
Marketing for Tesla

Ep. 15, Part 2
What fascinates Craig Davis

“You’d have to be a psychopath to leave BMW and go work for a guy who’s broke and crashed all his rockets!” And yet that’s exactly what Craig Davis did when he went to work for Elon Musk as Tesla’s first European sales rep in 2008. In Part 2 of our final episode of 2022, Craig goes deep into his time at Tesla, including the time he raced a Porsche 911 in his Roadster through the streets of Munich, compares “Elon Version 1” with the Musk we know today (“If anyone thinks they have feedback for him, they’re kidding themselves.”) and contrasts Musk with Pat Brown, founder of Impossible Foods, where he later worked.

2:10 - Early Tesla was not an easy sell
5:40 - Attracting “postmodern trendsetters”
7:50 - That time a Porsche chased Craig to the Munich Tesla store
11:45 - Elon Musk V1, aka he was very different then
16:50 - True colors: Now EVERYONE has to deal with Elon!
18:30 - Pat Brown vs Elon Musk: Balancing empathy and technology, conversation and disruption

Ep. 15, Part 1
What fascinates Craig Davis?

Craig Davis was Elon Musk’s man in Europe during the early days of Tesla, when selling cars to Germans was like selling ice to Eskimos. More recently he was the European rep for Impossible Foods, where his job was to convince the epicenter of epicureanism to embrace lab-made meat. Davis met these challenges with the optimism of a true believer (he’s a lifelong advocate of environmental sustainability) and the persuasiveness of a Southern gentleman (he was born in rural North Carolina). In Part 1 of this two-part episode, Davis tells us why he skipped COP27, compares working in Europe versus the US and explains why he’s a meat eater for business and a vegetarian for pleasure.

4:15 “The Norwegian Playbook,” aka the complete ecosystem
8:50 Driving a Tesla from Munich to Copenhagen on a single charge
16:13 Wake up every day to ask, “What can I change?”
22:04 Impossible Foods in Europe
23:30 Technology can convert the unconvertible
29:30 Impossible Foods founder Pat Brown’s science-based perspective on eating meat
35:25 Pat Brown is Elon Musk for this planet

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41:51

Craig Davis

Former European Director for Impossible Foods

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45:11

Dr. Olivier Elemento

Director Englander Institute for Precision Medicine and Associate Director at Cornell Medical College

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Ep. 14
What fascinates Dr. Elemento?

What could you do if you could sequence a tumor? What could you do if you could then replicate a tumor? And what could you do if you applied AI to in vitro fertilization (IVF)? Today we are very excited to bring you three stories that showcase the future of personalized medicine, with one exceptional professor at the heart of them all – Dr. Olivier Elemento. NOTE: We highly recommend you listen to this one on your headphones. Here are key moments and lessons from today’s special episode:

3:45 - Studying AI before it was cool
6:08 - Medicine, this time it's personal
7:05 - A passion for the impossible
10:50 - Mindsets: Physicians vs Data Scientists
12:30 - Sequencing tumors to treat cancer
17:00 - Sequencing your genome in 24 hours
24:12 - Replicating tumors to improve drug recipes
28:00 - Age related differences between tumors
31:24 - Using AI to improve IVF
40:13 - Is AI democratizing IVF?
42:51 - A call to arms - We need more people with a computer science background

To learn more about Dr. Elemento’s research, visit elementolab.weill.cornell.edu

Ep. 13
What fascinates Tempest of Microsoft?

AI fairness in practice. Wearables to fight depression. Innovations at Microsoft. What an episode we have for you today. Get comfortable and tap play on my recent conversation with Tempest Van Schaik, who joined me virtually from her home in Washington D.C. Tempest is a renowned biomedical engineer who’s passionate about improving our lives using sensors, data and AI. But that’s really just a jumping off point for the projects she’s spearheaded over the last two decades. Here are the key topics we dig into over the next 35ish minutes:

3:10 - Monitoring AI fairness in the wild
6:35 - SoilCards: Rapid, low cost soil tests
14:17 - CognitionKit: Depression actually affects your cognition
19:50 - Project Fizzyo: Gamifying mucus for children with cystic fibrosis
23:50 - How Tempest stays on top of the “new”
25:42 - Baking diversity into your startup
29:23 - The state of ML talent in Africa
33:20 - Referenced article: Silicon Valley has deep pockets for African startups - if you’re not African
35:10 - How to think about responsible AI in healthcare

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38:31

Tempest Van Schaik

Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Microsoft

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36:04

Terri Duhon

Board member of Morgan Stanley International, TedX speaker, author
& Award Winning Educator

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Ep. 12
What fascinates Terri the reinventor?

I’m very excited to bring you our latest episode with Terri Duhon, who joined us via Zoom from her home London, England. As a big fan of non-linear career journeys, it was incredible to hear how Terri formed her own path from rural Louisiana to MIT to Wall Street to multiple boards including Morgan Stanley and Women on Boards. We dug into a lot of rich topics so our team is giving you specific times in case you want to drop in or out:

1:50 - Terri the 10-year-old entrepreneur
6:06 - The fallacy of intelligence
9:45 - Nature vs nurture
11:33 - Women & confidence
15:09 - From MIT to Wall Street
19:29 - The trading floor
26:06 - Entrepreneurship & failure
30:46 - Evolution of AI in finance
33:33 - Collaboration is the new disruption

Ep. 11
What fascinates Ahna the data storyteller?

How good are you at turning dry data into compelling stories? How diverse is your data - and your team - to begin with? In our latest episode, Bobby has a fascinating conversation with Ahna Girshick – researcher, creator, former innovator at Ancestry, and collaborator with Philip Glass and Bjork. Ahna's unique background paves the way for a deep dive on topics like data storytelling, perceptual biases, ethics in AI, and how COVID drove a more honest dialogue about racial disparities in machine learning. Have a listen. We think the lessons learned can inspire startups, in particular, to handle data in new ways.

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15:46

Ahna Girshick

Researcher and creator in AI and former Manager of Computational Genomics Research at Ancestry

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39:43

Ron Chrisley

Visiting Professor of Symbolic Systems, Stanford University

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Ep. 10
What fascinates Stanford?

On this episode, I talk to Ron Chrisley who's a Visiting Professor of Symbolic Systems at Stanford University, and Director for the Centre for Cognitive Science (COGS) at the University of Sussex. We cover a lot of interesting topics in Human Centered AI, and hit some thought provoking topics around the interplay of Creativity and AI. We also find out how Ron and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman know each other and how that set the stage for Ron to return to Stanford. For some fun trivia, stick around until the end and find out Ron's favorite science fiction book.

Ep. 09
What fascinates Google?

On this episode, Bobby talks with Chanchal Chatterjee who leads a team as a Machine Learning Specialist at Google. This is a great episode for anyone that wants to get a primer on how machine learning is being used, particularly in the Financial Services industry. We cover a lot of different use cases for for Machine Learning in Financial Services including Fraud, Risk and for those that want to really deep dive into ML, model explainability. Google is clearly a thought leader in really applying ML to problems, and this episode covers a lot of Google’s tools in that world, including TensorFlow and covering newer ideas like Auto ML.

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33:50

Chanchal Chatterjee

ML Leader at Google Cloud

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45:11

Minette Norman

VP Engineering Practice, Autodesk

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Ep. 08
What fascinates Autodesk?

Here’s Bobby episode with Minette Norman, Vice President of Engineering Practice at Autodesk. Minette’s interests around engineering leadership and diversity resonated with me a lot and I think if used properly, could be harnessed as a superpower for start-ups all the way up to large enterprise software companies looking to maintain a competitive edge. Minette’s had an interesting path to being a Vice President. Starting in the world of theater, to being an individual contributor in an engineering organization, to being a manager, and then manager of managers. It’s quite the journey with lots of insights for professionals at all levels to learn from. For some fun trivia, stick around until the end and find out Minette’s favorite movie and how that relates to the process she went through to get her current role at Autodesk.

Ep. 07
What fascinates Netflix?

On this episode, Bobby talks with Chris Saint- Amant who leads one of the UI Engineering Teams at Netflix. Given Netflix’s tremendous influence on the topic of company culture (Google “Netflix culture deck” for more details), we spend some time digging into that and comparing how culture was encoded at some of the start-ups Chris worked at, as well as during his time at mega brands like Disney and now Netflix. It’s also worth mentioning that Chris, like a lot of successful people I know, did not have a cookie cutter approach to his career. It was far more fascinating than most. As a special easter egg, see if you can spot the Netflix show poster behind the pic of Chris and I. Stick around until the end, and find out what instrument he played on his Nirvana cover band.

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49:34

Chris Saint-Amant

Director, UI Engineering, Netflix

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38:56

Ameen Kazerouni

Head of the Data Science Team, Zappos

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Ep. 06
What fascinates Zappos?

On this episode, I talk to Ameen Kazerouni who Leads the Data Science and Data Science Platform Teams at Zappos. Given Ameen’s background, it should come as no surprise that we spend a lot of time digging into all things data science, machine learning and AI. We expand on topics like genetic algorithms which I think represent a huge opportunity in machine learning. Ameen discusses his start in bioinformatics, and how that provided a roadmap that took him to Zappos. It’s yet another glowing example of how unpredictable and interesting one’s career journey can be. Stick around until the end, and find out the first thing Ameen ever bought on Zappos.

Ep. 05
What fascinates WeWork?

On this episode, I talk to Randy Shoup, the VP of Engineering at WeWork. We recorded this episode in WeWork’s new digs in Salesforce tower in San Francisco. In a random coincidence, when I was a kid, other than computers, I had a keen interest in world history, and it turns out Randy and I shared that in common. We cover topics like the fall of the Berlin Wall, and also talk a little bit about the history of Silicon Valley which is always an inspiring refresher course. Randy’s worked at some of the most celebrated companies over the past few decades including Oracle, eBay, Google, Stitch Fix and now WeWork. He discusses the engineering cultures across those companies and what he learned and liked from them. As an interesting trivia point, stick around until the end, and find out what what Randy and Roger Federer have in common.

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Randy Shoup

VP of Engineering, WeWork

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32:30

Dr. Anthony Chang

Founder of AI-Med, Medical Director at CHOC Institute

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Ep. 04
What fascinates Aimed?

Here’s my episode with Dr. Anthony Chang recorded at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. I know him as the founder of AI Med (which you can find online at AI-Med.IO) but he’s also a veteran pediatric cardiologist, working out of the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, better known as CHOC. Have a listen, and I hope in some way, more of you will get inspired to taking a deeper look and get more involved in the field of AI and Medicine. As a fun bonus, stick around until the end, and find out Dr. Chang’s favorite James Bond movie. Enjoy!

Ep. 03
What fascinates Invision?

On this episode, I talk to Bjorn Freeman-Benson. Bjorn was most recently the CTO of InVision, which aside from being a breakout hit product, also uses a completely distributed model for it’s 800+ employees. Prior to Invision, Bjorn was the SVP of Engineering at New Relic, where he grew the engineering organization from 3 to 300 engineers through the IPO. Bjorn also spent time at both Microsoft and Amazon, and it’s interesting to hear his take on the engineering cultures at both. Enjoy!

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1:12:22

Bjorn Freeman-Benson

Former CTO of Invision

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50:56

Laks Srini

Co-Founder & CTO of Zenefits

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Ep. 02
What fascinates Zenefits?

In this episode, I talk to the Co-Founder and CTO of Zenefits, Laks Srini. Laks and Zenefits have had an amazing journey from him being one of two co-founders of Zenefits, to getting into Y Combinator, to becoming one of the fastest growing SAAS companies of all time. As an added bonus, NBA fans should stick around for some interesting trivia at the end!