#9 - Ben Bhatti: A New Frontier: Texas Leading the Way on AI Policy for Smart Growth and Resilience

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Welcome back to Bills and Business, the podcast where we break down the policies and innovations shaping the state's business and legislative landscape. I'm your host, Walker. Co-Founder of USLege. Today we’re diving deep in our Texas committed to groundbreaking technologies AI and blockchain. Joining us is Ben Bhatti, president, CEO, and founder of Texas AI Association. Ben has been a long leading voice for innovation, advancing book AI and blockchain policy in Texas.

Five smart growth Insurance brands. Thanks so much for coming down and visiting with us. Ben and for those who don't know you. You want to tell us a little bit about yourself? So Ben Bhatti, Texas AI Association founder and CEO Warren, raised in Dallas, grew up there with the undergrad there. Lived all over the US, Los Angeles LA, and Francisco, New York, Chicago, in and out.

A lot of those places and work there Atlanta all over Texas and, in and out of a number of different jobs, from everything from being a governance advisor to now and a governance advisor, a senator and education to, film producer, school teacher set a number of things and really had, just a great exposure in our different fields.

So what, made you want to start an AI background, which is interesting because you have legislative and tech. Just something obviously I'm very good to. So yeah. Tell us how that used to be. So I was kind of looking at the AI field developed from the Dallas Regional Chamber. And as the AI expert there and working with a number of big fortune 500 and sort of seeing how they were using AI and how was developing and seeing that there wasn't a one stop shop or go to place that companies and people trusted, to figure out where was I going to get the best solution that was actually and then deliver

a return on investment. And so, seeing how AI products are being kind of dispersed and, acquired and utilized in the marketplace, I knew that there was a need for companies to say, hey, I can come to this trusted company that has been in this space for years, knows how to integrate the technology in the right way, and it's very specific vertical, and is not trying to sell me everything in the kitchen sink, but really try to send me a solution that can actually solve problem.

And I think that's what's missing in the market when you have a large number of enterprise companies that are sort of able to pay for it, both the infrastructure and the solutions, and the integration aspect of it, and it's really leading the smaller companies behind. And I think the best way to level the playing field is to create the market conditions for everyone to be successful.

So I think that's what we really want to do with this association, through both community growth and then advocacy, is how you approach the community of AI nationals and really help with business development there. And what are your something or top legislative priority? So this session, one of the biggest bills that we're kind of working on is getting across the board tax incentives for every single company that is like yourself, utilizing AI and bringing an AI solution.

And then with your client base, those companies that want to experiment with the new technology, to try to use this technology to see how they can use it and figure out how they can get a return on investment using those technologies is really what we're talking about. So you both have the integrating company and the company deploying the technology.

And how do you figure out how do we the AI, we feel like the best market condition is to create a structure by which, if there's an ROI, there's an efficiency created to the data, to the companies. Integration of this new technology can be quantified through data acquisition of whatever vertical that technology integrated. It can show that it's producing a savings and you get the incentive.

So I think that's one of the big key things I think is missing in the market right now, because the biggest companies that are flush with cash have the resources are able to pay for, again, I think the resources infrastructure and then focus on the leave a lot of companies unable to compete. We can you wrote an op ed on that.

What and your vision for that feature. So hearing a lot of know, Department of Governance efficiency similarities here, but what is your under waterfall. Yeah, definitely. So, I think you got to look at, what our government has evolved into pretty much during my lifetime. A lot of it is, is really turned into, a structure that's not really helping people, but it's sort of feeding its own self and, and and not really, you know, meeting the needs of what it's intended to do.

And so I think through transparency and through technology and create a system by which taxpayers can both see their dollars go through the system on chain, you know, is out there where we can show where your tax dollars, if you're tightening, you know, citizen, you can get to see where your dollars are being disbursed. And then through that technology, you can split the way that you allocate, the way that those dollars, your tax dollars get, dispersed to the system.

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And so one of the pieces of the legislation is to allow for the bureaucrat to do what the bureaucrat does. The best, right? Take your tax dollars and they get to do whatever they get to do with with those dollars. But the other part of it is you get to, as a taxpayer, gets control 50% of those dollars, and you get to allocate them on real problems that matter to you.

And I think what that will do, it will create a number of great things in our society that we don't have right now. Right now, politics and and our systems, we have division. And I think if you have people focusing on, problems that affect everyone around you and your community, then you start to create the second great cracks.

You'll have, you know, people on one side of the political spectrum and the other one working together to solve a problem that everyone faces in the community. And you start to really evolve past, these silos that are creating dissension and non unity in the United States and really creating a culture where what do we call the United States now used to be saying the plans or doing wearing the American flag.

None of this stuff is uniting any longer. So how do we create a culture where we go back to it? And I think a lot of that culture got, devolved because we are transferring that negative energy of our not anything working towards government. And I think that's because of lack of actual government not having the intentions of people and through technology, again, transparency on its own.

Once you have groups of communities focusing on problems, putting those problems on every single politician from the federal level, your state politician, your local city council person, everyone gets to see that problem and get to see how many people want to fix this problem. And then everybody gets to see how which politicians are actually going to do the right things to solve those problems.

I think what you'll see is you'll see a natural evolution, any sort of outside money that everyone wants to take out of the system, let it sit in the system, let the market condition and do what it needs to do. The politician wants to clearly be influenced by money without actually helping their constituents. I think the system's going to vote them out, and I think that you'll see it clearly through data acquisition, that you can see that that option is not working for any person or the people.

And I think the market, no matter how much money you push in it, we saw with the last election the person that put the most money in the election didn't win. So I think if you start to really see that same thing, you're going to see the same evolution happen in the whole political system where you hold politicians accountable.

No longer are we going to be stuck or beholden to the whims of a politician. Now we will be in control of the system and our. So you believe that transparency, that data, it's something that we're doing well would be an overall good for society. I think anything that you can do to really break down a system as complicated as the legislative and the bureaucratic systems that are out there to really show people how the sausage is made and how it works is something that is beneficial to people really getting involved in elections.

I think you're seeing more participation in different groups, politically, simply because those policies in the current times of technology are ineffective. You see a lot of people on both ends of the political spectrum in technology now getting interested in politics. Think Sam Altman literally be part of the transfer team, right, in San Francisco, because he has a little island that he can control, and he needs the policy and the politics of that island to ensure that he gets you and he wants you in the Bay area.

And then he also now have Evan in on the other end, right on in DC at the federal level, able to control federal purse strings and of these rulemaking and all sorts of different things that they can do now and that it. So what you keenly understand is that if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a technician, you're going to have to know policy.

And it you shouldn't be a billionaire with all the resources and all the mouths of lobbyists to get the information you need the regular person on the street. And that was one of the things that and, you know, this lawyer working in, as a, as a staffer, it's you're you're really tasked as a staffer. And I hope that's probably the same now, even with the evolution of politics, is to really help every single person that walks in the door and trying to use the system in a way and in a manner that works for them, because we all know how difficult that is.

And you're like a person in a sinking ship trying to make sure the ship doesn't sink and helping the public and the water is all the problems as it comes into that, that ship and trying to help as many people as you can, and you're doing it with a really unfettered heart of just trying to help everyone that needs to help them out.

The problems always is, is how do you actually get the government that you or whatever little island, the power that you're in charge with? It's Pfizer, Stanford. How do you get it to work for the people? You may be able to get it for the ones that complain behind the system, that's the hardest part. Unless you have a thousand people like yourself that look at the world and the way you do it, and over time, and I don't care if you are, you work there long enough.

You start seeing the whole system through different lenses. You start seeing it as vendettas rather than problem solving. Because people, people don't work right with you and you carry that baggage through the whole process. So even if you're trying to problem solve, you carrying a problem of like, we did work together on this issue or whatever it is, there's all this layers of relationship and everything.

It's always funny. It was just because the people, all those people I talked to work from different bills, different relationships, different offices. Coming to his office, one from this group, you had all these different experiences in life, and now they're all doing something different. And so a lot. And you kind of look at all those things and why did you did it?

And inevitably, I'll tell you, most of the staffers and you know this even with your work, I think with technology was I think is great. I think what you guys are advocating for and what you're bringing to the market is something that's very necessary because it really brings the ability to the common person to look at policy, to look at the legislature in a way that, makes it simple.

And I think that's the thing that technology brings expensive guarantees, implicitly talking to people in their language. I think when you when you create mechanisms that they information in a dynamic way, in which I think your technology does help people understand policy really makes the whole process less complicated. The process is complicated because of people. If you put transparency in there with technologies like exercise, by having something on a blockchain where you see it, it creates, the access to information, and then it gives people the best, ways to, to make decisions in the vote or make by somehow they, you know, dissipate.

And I can you can see where they, they can fit in, plug in and actually change the world that they want to make up to. You highlighted, this that a lot of people and captured me because of policy. How many the organizations you're working with, are focused on policy and where they're not. Do you think should be a so I would say every single one.

I think you look at the future of what's going to happen the next 5 or 10 years, and you're sort of seeing the evolution in the last three really very quickly that every single corporation, every single company, every single startup is going to be a tech company. They're going to have to understand technology cleanly. If it's not social media, if it's not, I if it's not understanding how different software is integrated into their workflows, they're going to be behind.

And if you keep looking at every single vertical, every single way that technology will integrate and eventually evolve corporations, as you can clearly see what's happening. You know, my lovely intern right there, just a wonderful university, right? And in the problem that a lot of young people are going to be facing in the market. And I saw this back when I was advising as an advisor to about, in the Senate, the Senate make was no matter what you teach students, the issue is always going to be it's going to move back.

Then people are asking me, should I teach my student how to code? And I kind of looked at them like, well, if it's like a language and I'm not a coder, but I kind of understood it as a language. And I was like, well, if it's a language, that means anybody can learn it and, you can become proficient learning it.

But I know that's the case and it's and can actually get then you need this as a, as an advisor and as a policy person. The rudimentary way to analyze a bill and to break it down is very simple. You can get a computer to do it. The hardest part is actually understanding how the bill get implemented, how it works.

What are people thinking about the bill? Who's supporting it? Who's against it? Why isn't moving here there? What are people saying? That is all soft skills that your ability to go out there and figure it out, that would never be replaces it. It would be impossible. But the part about research understanding, like the nuances of certain data points in the bill technologies can do that.

And then advice on the bill when you're taking it a little bit further, like what your technology does with technology, I think then you have, something that makes the bill alive. Now you can interact with a bill in a more meaningful way. And so for you or myself as a staff or you're going to kind of see that different, but as a layman, you're going to get to actually see stuff that staffers and other people can understand, in a different way.

But it's going to be broken down in a way that you can completely understand the same way. And I think that I think that's a critical thing to that nature. Absolutely. I don't care what most people will say. No one can break down each bill's power, right? So that technology is there to do that. But exactly what you said, the soft skills are not always like there's going to be more and more need for them.

I think growing in this time or in demand for change. And we're in this industrial revolution right there in its new revolution. So I want to dive into the blockchain in a little bit further for those initial following. That's all. That's the first time I heard that one of. So tell me a little bit, is this technology already in existence or is it something that you are pushing to be built?

Is this developed already? Yeah. So blockchain technology is oh, and it's specifically for this purpose. That's the whole, beauty of it. I think right now with technology and how it's evolving and how we're seeing the cases of it, it hasn't been used yet this way, but it really and it's already being used in a number of different ways.

You look at, some governments are using blockchain to utilize it in titles. So there was a couple scammers that were going out there and they would get people's titles from, you know, South County office or git, go get a loan or sell the house. And there was almost no way to verify this. You wouldn't have to go through like, chain of ownership.

Right. And this is going through county offices. And then actually Hank referenced this whole issue that came up with this is like, if someone picked it up at a county office and started, you know, dividing them on your title. Well, a way to capture this and stop this from happening is to put it online. But then there was the same thing, happened with Georgia, state of Georgia, Georgia's you know, obviously with the last election results, questions, whatever happened, the state put their voting on chain.

So now you have a complete record. Person that voted where that vote went, who verified it out went, and it's all black. So if you do this, I think you're going to create, the best case years for governments to be transparent with tax dollars and transparent about what they're doing with the tax dollars. And I think that there's a number of cases where it's been used and not where it can be transferred to.

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What don't you do everything from creating a stablecoin where it's just converting every X dollar into a coin looked upon as a chain, or there's a number other ways. There's a couple of governments that are doing this certain different ways. But, I don't think anybody's done it in this particular way of trying to figure out how do you track every dollar that's out there now you've got that entrepreneurial spirit and what you're what you're doing, but this is what gave you the idea to do this.

Call it. It really was, looking at how are we listening to Stand By as citizens and seeing as soldiers being racist? People are becoming very cynical about what's happening in government and what's happening. In terms of like where they see the future and what they feel like is working for them. And every single system. And when you're seeing 700 million, $800 million, get lost for the eighth time at a time, an audit is done on a humongous government agency and you're like, what is happening with who is doing what with these dollars?

And nothing happens, but it'll happen. The next time it will be the eighth will be the ninth, it'll be the 10th. But no one's going to stop it and nothing you can do about it. What are you going to do, vote out everybody? Okay, we did that. And then it's still not going to happen. It's just going to keep happening.

That's a blob. That's a government. That's a government. I saw this and government working as an advisor. There were people that blew money that was nefarious, and they were people that blew money that was nontaxable, and they blew millions of dollars, both on both ends. But what you have to do is you have to actually look at what is actually happening and why did they pull that money, or why were they inefficient?

In what way? They need help? Was it the system folks? It was. What was it? I literally sat with lawmakers that told me that blown out $100 million. Like, literally, I literally was like, hey, how did you know? Like and the donation and the donation or a specific need, like education, where you would not think you'd lose that much money and it would go to help its own number.

That's a key of it. And the lawmakers will tell you that, you know, this is like, how is that mostly it happened was nefarious, happened with the system, and half of it was with this consuming the money. And I you know, I think the more you can integrate technologies that that. Yeah, show things and expose things for what they are and really what it is, is not exposing anything.

It's just, hey, everyone can see where it hurts. So. Oh, I love that. That's definitely some well brought up. And we'll talk more offline for sure. But so what chains and what typically misunderstood technology can you break it down. Our listeners who are more so look at it like this is a ledger. When you look at blockchain, think of it like as a ledger that, basically can keep a immutable, record of a transaction or anything.

An interesting cases that I think where I've, blockchain in space, you wouldn't think initially we're at this blockchain. It's based on its own balance. It's doing blockchains, but it a lot of times it's a crazy concept. Right. And he said the second that somebody came up with it, the second he got like three VCs to commit to it.

Sure. But what it is, is you think about, a satellite up there with thousands of other satellites flying around. And if you can blockchain the movement of that satellite, figure out every single place where it's going and how things are actually operate, maybe you can now figure out paths that you can now keep track of, and you can make sure that satellite is hit by something, or that there's no damage on some or even the space station moving the space station, certainly keeping all of the records of their mesons on block so that he could point.

You can say this is what happened at this time, at this point in time, just these are all the metrics that came with it at that time. Instead of storing data in a way that we lost, it's not usable. It's throw it in a big cell sheet and then maybe we use, something. And right now they're starting to use I right length.

I go through that data and actually figure out what's in it. But now if you're blockchain, it's a whole other way to both store, consume and then actually use the data. That's the key thing. We can collect data, but how do we use it. And blockchain just offers a different way. And there's layers right. You could actually layer blocks up at EOT.

You can do this with maximized energy. That's one of the key areas. Yeah this issue right. Everyone's talking about nuclear power. How do we maximize and make the state grid efficient? Well, again, blockchain, knowing we're, different energy is going how it's going, what time of day it is, heat, everything else, having a record and then having an overlap of AI, understanding all that data and then figuring it out and then using that data and that technology right way where you can now say, okay, now we can make this whole grid system moving at such a directional.

We know these certain things are happening. It becomes a different way to this, can collect that information, make sure it's not going to be moved in any way. Different weights immutable. When we use that technology here I think it's a whole other different way. Is it so and that how do you think Texas is uniquely positioned with AI, blockchain.

Well their policy at all. So I think you kind of look at the general philosophy of the state and what's kind of led to the economic miracle here. They call it here in Texas. And a lot of it really relates to, I think, regulation. Right. And I think encouragement of businesses. So again, going back to sort of the ethos, the, mindset behind that AI incentive is to not look at regulation is how do we do things from the top down, but how do we create an environment for businesses to succeed?

And then we figure out once they succeed and they start to integrate, how do we then regulate it? There's obviously going to be mistakes, is obviously going to be make errors with any technology. When we saw this with social media and see this with data, we've seen this with, telecom, we've seen this in every single technology that we've had science, space, everything you can think of.

How do we then go back and figure out, before the cat's out of the bag for there's too much damage? How do we create the regulations that are going to be the best thing? And I think there's some things that can obviously be very forward thinking about, things like data protection rights, cybersecurity, privacy, using, people's images, things like that.

Obviously IP is where you kind of look at different things that come from that. But all in all, when you look at what the technologies are bringing to the marketplace, I think Texas is strategically and generally positioned in a way because of its state regulation and its encouragement of business to really bring in those two industries. We saw that, I think with what is happening with the bitcoin miners, right?

The Bitcoin miners came to Texas because, energy is cheap, right? Land is cheap. They can make big data centers and Texas is open to innovative ways to, create the energy markets for the Bitcoiners to be successful here. And so now we're the capital, right? I think the same thing can happen with AI through this Texas into how do we create a market, that creates the right structures for businesses to succeed?

Again, going back to your technologies or a number of other technologies and then remember companies and let's say ISIS nation, if you get the right number of close uses with these technologies, it doesn't matter how many competitors come into the market, because you know that your technology is going to deliver an ROI and a solution that's going to help people and help people become better at what they're doing.

And it's up to them then to select it and see if that's what they want to. Then use that technology to see if they can become, I think personally that if the market is left to itself, then he let people succeed through the innovation and integration of that innovation bill will be successful and you fail if you don't.

Right. And I think that's a natural churn in market conditions. So instead of creating, top down regulation, I think encouraging and incentivizing innovation is the best way, to see how the state, you know, I think you're going to continue to see another miracle happen in the next few years, year, if Texas continues to stay on the same topic, really opening up regulation, opening itself up for business, and looking at regulation is a necessary need for the enablement of business.

I think it's really. And how do you feel about this? I mean, administration of early, are you optimistic and so on a number of levels. I mean, you think you have to be a little bit optimistic, just because it is a change, you know, it's like, same day, different story. Right? It's it doesn't matter who's going to be in office.

We all know that the federal government, pretty much for my entire lifetime, has it that a whole lot. And so because of that, at the same time, you know, that you have that in the back of your mind. But I think now again, with technologies and some of the people that are going to be put in critical positions, they have a technology mindset.

I mean, I think you look at Elon Musk, right? He's got a technology mindset. He knows how to, innovate, to integrate, to make things move faster than things that people say, that they never could move fast. And that's a problem with government. I think people have to dream bigger than, going into just snail's pace. Right. And so I think technology enables that.

It makes it a reality rather than talking about it. You look at JD Vance, I think he's had, you know, history in, venture capital and with technology, startups and, and doing, work in and understanding how technology can again create efficiencies where maybe there, wasn't right. And to make a company competitive to technology, I think you look at a number of others that are in the administration that have that background, either through experience or through other lines, right?

And having different jobs. I think that can be very optimistic because things like what we're talking about, transparency issues using blockchain, you know, they're using a podcast, right, to have people start talking about different issues with Doge, and one that I think you're going to have to try to do different things. Government has not been working for people, for probably the last 40 years.

And I think if we can rate that, through the utilization of technology and really connect people to government, the people that want to get stuff done, they can now now they know they don't have to yell at the TV screen or yell at their neighbor. That's on the other side of the political spectrum, or yell at the politician, right?

They can now work together to solving solution and everyone can see it. So I think that's the best way to really look at a way feature politics and technology that optimism always gets here. How about for this upcoming Texas legislative session? Have you had favorable responses to a lot of ideas? I think the, you know, everyone talks about the hype cycles of technology.

And I know, it's not immune to the conversation. And some people will say it's it's a hype cycle everyone's talking about. So yeah. So for about a year, you know, we've been working. When I was over at the chamber, the Dallas Regional Chamber, I was working with the women's office and sort of during that year of going out, and trying to connect with people both.

And I didn't just really understand, you know, how is AI being used and integrated companies. So from that, I think is very, you know, open heart to want to hear from constituents and then everyone across the state to really figure out how is it going to come to do that. And so I think that's a great way to begin a conversation on how do you regulate AI.

Now, the flip of it also is how do we incentivize AI? How do we create a mechanism to whereby we encourage integration and innovation? And I think they also have, a heart for that and wanting to do it. The businesses want business development, right? We have a lot of startups, your startup, a number of companies, it's you create again the right structure.

Your business development becomes so much more, not only easier, but it also, creates a better product. The more your product gets integrated into different uses, the better it becomes and the better it becomes against its competitors. Not only that, you become a better product, but if someone wants to compete and try to offer different things that you can offer and offer the things that you know it would cost you and you'd rather cut it and they would rather include it, well then now you have market competition and it wouldn't hurt your business.

It would actually encourage your business to grow and encourage the other businesses to continue to grow, to get to the other side of the market. And with that, I think you you really create a better business environment for everybody because everyone thinks they can win. And that's really what you want. You don't want the latter being whipped up by anybody.

And, and creating the right regulations to do that I think is critical. Okay, okay. And explain to those you haven't read your op ed and that you're at the end. So check out what and how the program exactly would work. Yeah. So the idea kind of is to really look at a current market out there, an analogous market with the current credit market, and to look at what they're doing and flip it on its head.

So the carbon credit market, you know, generally speaking, is, a market that trades, companies that want to pollute or credit they can now purchase. Right. And then that credit says we've taken this many carbon emissions out from the environment or done some sort of sustainability, but there's no real way and there's no real system or there's no real trust, mechanism for people to really understand what is that credit rating.

And so the idea with this tax incentive is really with, again, across the board tax incentive for companies that are when you integrate and wanting to deploy, well, what you do is you create a little extra incentive for companies that know they want to go chase something in sustainability. They want to create market efficiencies. So let's look at a company like Amazon or even Walmart or any of these other companies that I have.

A company is a member company in the Texas. The association called them up. And does the last mile, optimization delivery. It's a software company for those companies, for Amazon and Walmart and every single company. I think if you think about it, when I was sitting with book CEOs, the dad in the Senate about it and talking to them about what did your technology really their founders, their creators have been around for 25 years and work with those mega companies.

But when you talk about what their companies really offer is efficient technology creates efficiencies through operations. And then you ask, well, why can't you offer Amazon or Walmart or any of these other companies? So oil and gas, they are predictive maintenance because I can tell you when the truck is going to break, this is going to break. I saved them on, aerials.

Right. All these things are the same things that we're doing in the carbon credit market. So why don't instead of doing this in the same way, let's create a high credit market where we're now utilizing technology to create efficiency, and we offer that as an extra little incentive to those companies. And then when those companies chase that incentive, we get that credit and we use that unsustainability credit market in this picture stock exchange, we sell out a lot of it.

Other companies can purchase it. And the same thing happens in the same thing. We will have to have a carbon market is now happening. I credit markets with the Texas stock. We see that new way of really creating another market that will digitize the world and put Texas at the lead, as I put it, every single point, because you now are going to have a state in the United States is literally saying, we are incentivizing companies to come here and integrate that.

You tell me what state is out there, and I'll tell you why it works best if you do. And I incentivize this nation first, it's going to be very low, cost to the taxpayer, one of the big things and, you know, this working in the legislature, it's good. Now it's people. It's hard to come find the money.

I think it's going to be a very low. It's it's any fiscal note to it because it's going to be self-sustaining and moneys are going to be supplied through the selling of that sustainable credit, the I credit. And so now you created a market that continues to create itself the and to sustain itself. The other part is as more companies move here, you're going to create market conditions that will create, AI technologies that are going to be priced, everyone to get a piece of this revolution that's coming.

And now instead of companies at the top being able to succeed and move the markets on their end, now have companies that knitted bottom tiered, they can sell. But somebody asked, one of the I think it was one of these option moats or something like that. They mailed in some questions to presidential candidates, and one of the ones was this bakery in Alabama.

And they asked her, hey, Mr. President, you know, the next president, how am I going to survive? I let a 16 year old bakery, and it's going to fail because I can't survive inflation. Let me, one president and they said, hey, I'm going to save you. And the other one says, I'm going to give you a loan.

Both of these are not sustainable and one is not sustainable for long. And then the other one, she's going to burn through the money and then she's running the same operation. She's going to survive just a little bit longer. It's just like putting a Band-Aid on an open bleeding wound. Whereas energy savings ain't coming for a long time.

So what do you do? Oh, geez. The answer is that bakery lady, who's been around for 16 years and some brewery now go find technology or some of that new technology and say look at like company. Where can I say we're going to increase my efficiencies? Where can I maybe get on social media and get a national presence?

Where's the market for this one on? So I know there is I mean, there's a thousand bakers out there. So, you know, you can help the company be somewhat successful civil. But she knew where to go. Now you have her not only have a successful capital, but she's increasing businesses, decreasing jobs, increasing her happiness, using people, increasing her people's happiness.

And again, market conditions. There's no picking and choosing winners. She was willing to go find the people with. And that's what I think people are missing. They don't know where to go. They don't know where to go find the right people say, how do we become part of this technology? Your technology is again going back to how do I become a how do I do so unfair?

How do I start, becoming more efficient at what I'm doing? You know this as an entrepreneur, you always need extra help, and you always feel like you need somebody else to, to help you with doing whatever you're doing because you're doing so many different things. And so I, you use help us really get beyond those, those, hopes that will help, help me become more efficient.

So let's say you're you're beginning lobbyists or you're, you're beginning a small company and you know about government relations. Are you going to keep up with bills? I don't know what's going on if you've never done it, but knowing that that's a full time job and you probably 100 of those jobs you're going to do in your company.

So how are you going to promote your growing or your network? You know, so we've definitely made a very compelling case for this. How do you, business leaders, lawmakers, any citizen get involved and maybe can work can work with you here. So so I think, you know, reach out to us on WWL with that Texas Eye Association talk.

You can reach out to me personally. Call me on my cell. It's on the editorial and then really get connected. I think if you're really wanting to figure out how to do business development and then only that if you just want to learn about AI. We had an event at South Lake, focusing on both fintech and healthcare AI.

And it's a great event to more than 200 people showed up talking about, a number of startups also came and, sort of presented. But getting involved in the community and hearing about technologies and understanding, I think is going to be key because, skills are going to change very quickly. Jobs, you know, necessities, what they're going to need.

And the job market is going to change very quickly the next 5 to 10 years. It's just going to change every single aspect of how we operate. You can also see humanoid robots watching next year, all with AI, all of the elements in self-driving cars. I'm already seeing them now. We're seeing, you know, Waymo cars running around all over the other day in front of me.

And I ask, why don't I lock it up? It was a bad driver and it was a bad oh, it was on the no screen there. And then I thought, oh no. Well, no wonder if it's a bad drive into it. It's coming. It's going to come around the end. You know, I think even with, even with, the self-driving, Tesla cars, they're going to have people look.

Right. So the first ones are going to be people driving it. I think with the humanoid robots, it's going to be people actually doing it. But eventually the technologies take over and we're at that transitionary point, which is like, we know it's coming. We're seeing it coming very soon, seeing the consequences. It's it's very nominal right now in some way, the sticking with humanoid robots.

But I think in the next five years and like, perhaps not for me like too much here. Like it's. Yeah. Yeah. Same. So when it had that software update. No. And then I, I wouldn't get it for free for a little bit. It did it, it freaked me out. It's a little bit slower than I like right. It's way safer.

It's a little safer I would say honestly, for anyone who knows, I did a podcast, go, talk about my getting little. Oh, no, what happened? And, this happened recently, a few months back. I'll be so happy you're smiling back on the Capitol grounds. Yeah, it's a whole day. You know what's up now? I'm like, no better.

What? How do I make sense? Oh. Yeah, like you're what everyone is. Listen, it's it's her tragic tale, art. No. Well, fine. But I'm a lot. Oh, it's all, you know, in one piece. That was enough for, like. Okay, well, it was a call it, but I feel like at the top, the power of that is there.

Oh, I can totally agree. Yeah. It is. No, it's been super thought provoking. Anything else you'd like to share with our listeners today? More about what you're doing or, can you definitely jump out? One factual accident, I think the other one is education. You know, I think when, you know, coming from my background in education, I think on all levels, you're going to need to educate people about what AI is.

So there's not this fear about, oh, it's going to take my job. Oh, it's going to do, you know, X, Y or Z in a fearful manner when it really is going to do is the name I think everything about people's lives, make them more efficient, make them healthier, make them happier and make them more creative.

And I think if we focus on those things through, the technology naturally falls into those good things. You see it with the deepfakes, you know, all the other things that come with it. There's always going to be a negative side. But I think, my times of laughing at memes and connecting with my friends, I it's not the ability to call every day, but I can send them and whatever off the internet or out from, you know, a story or whatever, a post.

I think that's kind of outweighed a lot of that negative stuff. So I think you kind of have to look at it. And is there two edged sword, you know, dilemma with technology? Yeah. For sure. You're going to remove certain aspects. I think right now the job market with students coming out. Yeah. There's a there's an issue.

There's ChatGPT right now, this being the vast majority of students that are coming out of college, which is not a digital sign, but that's a sign of the market problem, right? The market problem is and this is happening been happening for years. Every single year that I've been in education, I've seen it from the inside as a school teacher, or as an advisor or as a business owner.

The system has not evolved to meet with kids need to be learning. So for them to be successful out in the market, when they go and get a job, and then the jobs are training the kids because they want and needed return on investment, so they don't have time to train for ten years. And so what do you do?

You go find small boutiques and train them and you induce natural. And then the boutique can't survive because the bigger firms are always taking the smaller ones than creates this system. But, again, it's market conditions. But how do you how do you create the technologies really that will it's going to create a higher divide. It's going to be a bigger digital divide.

And you're going to see that with large enterprises that have the resources to pay for it. And the lower companies are, but you're gonna have to figure out how how do you create different pathways for people as these jobs get eliminated, there's going to be a thousand more jobs that will get crazy and there's going to be other pathways for people to figure out.

You got to show them that pathway. They can't just, you know, play with them and find a million jobs, like with the credit system is a terrible, terrible job market finding job. It's terrible to, get a job as a student. It and it doesn't make any sense. So, like, colleges should be obligated to, to ensure that their students are successful, be this their cradle to grave.

But, if you're going to make me pay those loans off, and if I bought a product, then my product should make sure that I'm going to not have to deal with struggles in the market. I pay for it, right? Some of us wanted to save. So it was what it took. The expensive schools. Let's saying that they should be a better product than a cheaper school or state school like a you.

It's a great product, right? It's a great school. But, I think we've got to figure out ways to get utilize technology to both, train and educate everybody on every single level, on the technology, how it is used, and then how can they use it for the future? Because the future is something that is coming right around the corner.

At the same time, that future is going to include a bunch of jobs that are pretty useless and corporations and bureaucrat bureaucratic, you know, institutions, they're going to be eliminated and they're going to be eliminated and replaced with technology. But you're going to need somebody to manage all that, and that person is going to be need be very educated, very smart.

But it's a new skill and creativity. And I mean, it's for innovation. It's coming. Right. But the thing is, I think people are prepared for it. Even in high school. I really do think workforce development is are the biggest things we need to prepare. It's for high school, educating them with AI tools early if you right. That's the easiest, best way to get it in.

But it comes with a lot of training. So that I think is part of the important thing. I okay. But the issue is like for example, like a reach out to me when we get these the we of the community colleges with state and in the city in August Augustine just walked out and I was like, okay, if we're your institutions and I'm working with SMU and UTC, and then they'll stop this, I'll stop this in the career center.

Send me with that edtech hub. That's my sector. That's a big thing. Right? And then McKinney leaves. We're we're going to do some good. When you look at what the universities are really trying to do is trying to figure out how do they get the students to commercialize companies because they know that the product is is not getting them.

And they're like, oh, crap, the kids aren't getting jobs. Let's just figure out how to get to these startups. So all of them are like, hey, then go get anybody to come here that wants to do anything. Well, we'll take I will take an equity very small 3% equity cut, but we'll give them everything. We'll give them all the backing of the university, all the professors and the research, the validation studies, all that stuff.

We'll go get the funding. But we just want companies to come to. The real reason for this is to employ their students. That's the problem, that it's are not giving up. So you kind of look at some of these universities particularly that's and as soon as we're the only schools, I think it is the only school in the United States with three art centers.

They all have different focus areas and sort of what they're trying to give to their students. And I think SMU, many schools, you know, graduate from that same. But they do put a lot of resources into their students being successful because they do have a lot of resources. And one of the things so when I was in Moscow was the worst time to be a world university, the law school, it was a recession, 2009, you know, absolutely terrible thing.

Right. But the university at the law school did was they went out and they formed partnerships, and they said, what would pay for you, our student salaries for a semester. So for an entire semester, they were willing to pay for your salary. And the law firm got to use the student for free. So what types of programs are universities using out of etcetera entrepreneurship.

So they're looking at how do they get ideas to market. And so there's a number of ways. Do you do it. There's a number of ways. You try to get it internally through students wanting to figure out how can I start a company before I leave? And I use the resources that I had in my back yard to really use this technology and create something new, or to create something that's out there and modify its matrix.

Successful. So what programs are some of these universities doing to encourage entrepreneurial Shepherd. So one of the ways is internally to incentivize and encourage students to, create startup, that they can grow internally and kind of go through their system and vet them and support them, right, with the infrastructure that is sort of in parallel. The other way is to have startups that are outside of the university that sort of align, with different departments that are trying to create either research projects or figure out different technology.

For example, SMU right now has one of two super, pod Nvidia Super pods, meaning, companies can come in, use those super pods, to see how those technologies can be applied in different aspects of the cases. Data, AI or is it's an area right from that university can do research and then you can spin off a company, because now you know how to use this technology in efficient and effective ways to help public health success.

You did this with this mega fortune five hundreds that are all over DFW, right? You could also figure out ways where smaller companies like yourself that are doing, interesting work in areas where if you get the right business, pipeline, that you can just literally get into a flood of market. Just think about if you could get into every, lobby firm in different states, or you have the access to get front and center and all them and they can you can all at the same time.

They can see your technology, utilize your technology and then choose whether or not they want to purchase, utilize your, their technology and think about if there was a marketplace. So I think, creating the mechanisms for that is like it's a you're so you lived in California for how long you it was off and on for about 12 years.

It was in between. Hum. I was a film producer and then at the time that I was working as an advisor, and then I just kept going back between California and Texas. And what would you say the biggest differences you've seen in Cisco Silicon Valley area? And now there's the booming texting we have here in Texas. We got to look at both states.

I mean, California is a beautiful state. It's a wonder. It's a great people, great food international, all cosmopolitan, metropolitan, everything you can say. That's great about it. Now, some of the issues that have sort of taken over, and we'll look at San Francisco in particular because I lived, I live in the heart of it. I lived in market and H Street, and then in LA, I lived all over Long Beach.

You see the it's, you know, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, spent a lot of time all over the area and just sort of know it pretty well. The, and when you look at, let's look at San Francisco, particularly in San Francisco, where I lived in Market and ate. Right. Trinity Plaza Apartments, which so there in when I walk into the Embarcadero every single day, I saw the same people that you will see you there today.

Homeless people, people shooting up. Right. People that are, you know, just out there. There is a difference now in the culture in San Francisco in 2007, I can tell you in 2007 was San Francisco was not a Texan. San Francisco was closer to the summer of love in the 1960s and 1970s than it was Texan. When I walked every day, I noticed smiles.

I noticed people making eye contact. All those homeless people, even the people shooting at Red and everybody looked at you, you know, I kind of smile. Then eventually it became, hey, how's it? Hey, hope you have a good day. Hey, I hope you're having a good day. I hope you're having a great day. Then it turned into me asking, hey, I'm going to go rent that McDonald's.

Do you want to? In the melting smile and someone say, thank you for treating me like a human being and then being like, no, don't worry about it. And you go get that. You know what? I go eat? Well, what was different in San Francisco was it was a community of culture. There's a community of care. The people that lived there had lived there for 30, 40 years or so because tech hadn't entered in and pushed them out and not just pushed them out, they left a lot of them left.

They made a lot of money selling those houses. And the city changed because of what was going down in Palo Alto and was moving slowly and creeping up into the same. So when I lived there from the year afterwards, I want to say it was 2000 and or living around there when I was oh seven, Uber there, and then Twitter moved right there.

Then Facebook started have a big sales. All the big companies that you see now started to move into actual city of San Francisco. And then what happened is you had tech start and you had a bunch of people that were coming in from everywhere, and most of these people were coming from the best colleges in America, and the best colleges in America are on the East Coast and West.

And what was happening was, I beg to differ, Alabama, I don't know, you know, sound. Let's get rid of the South and tell you that is why the South has football today. We all know that I will put the South up against anybody else. There's no competition. But let's look at academics. Yes, but but the best schools besides Alabama, we're moving right along.

But we had was and I noticed this walking down Market Street. I started to see ads for, the Wharton School of Business. So did you see ads for East Coast MBA programs? But I'm in one of the best, smartest places on planet Earth, right? In America, there's Berkley. There's all sorts of great schools in the Bay area, but I'm seeing school.

Wharton. Well, what I started to notice was the East Coast culture started to come into the West Coast, which is a completely different culture. I spent a lot of time in here. New Yorkers, are a curse. Nobody will hate each other, though. Nobody's going to have a fight, you know, they will yell, they'll scream, they'll curse.

But no, West Coasters are. Take everything literal. You say any of that in front of them, they will take it, like, really personal. Where in New York you can take to anybody on the street. And it's hard. No one's gonna take. But in San Francisco they take it personally. So it was happening was East Coast people were coming in and slowly moving into the city.

Well, those kids, guys and girls were making a lot of money, but they were living in San Francisco. So and they also brought in the party culture that San Francisco in the Bay area does not have a party scene. It's quiet. People do not go out late night. It's not a club scene. But the East Coasters came and they started saying, I don't want to work in the East Coast in law and business.

I want to go work at Netflix and Facebook, where I'm getting people they more have way more stock options, and I have a very cushy job. And so that changed the culture of the Bay area slowly since about 2012 over time. And then what happened was it brought the East Coast culture to the West Coast. So those same homeless people on that same street that had been coddled and loved and cherished even though they were homeless, but it gave them a sense of dignity and people cared about them every day.

It changed from that to East Coasters who just go to work, and it's this New York, it's got to go. You move, you fast. You don't stop and say hi. You move, you gotta go. You gotta get to work. So you think you change it for the worse? Well, I think you look at it from any other city.

Yeah, I live in Dallas. Has changed a lot. I live in Austin. It's completely changed. Massively. Better for worse is always a hard question. I think Covid, in certain things damaged those cities in ways were exposed. A lot of the failing systems of government of, again, a bureaucratic system that wasn't meeting the needs of the people.

And then you saw that through homelessness, through, extensive crime that's not controllable in those cities right now. And it's not saying that, you know, Dallas-Fort worth don't have crime. They do. And all these Texas cities do. Now, when I remember, Austin did not have crime at the level it does now. There's there's bad things that happen with grow.

And the same thing happened in California, but there's a way to control the bad things that I think California did not do a great job at doing. And again, going back to market conditions, you're seeing it clearly by how many people are moving out of the state and the demographics of who can stay in that state.

The only people that can really survive are people with ample amount of resources that can do the taxes, whether the cost of living, whether what it costs to actually just, you know, survive in California. And a lot of those people that live in Alabama, Texas right now, what do you think about, that same thing happening in Austin and in Texas?

We've obviously had more live here than ever, actually, in your neck of the woods in North Texas, in the Dallas, Metropolitan area. So how do you see that impacting and changing the culture and, safety and everything in those cities? It's going to make everything bigger. You know, it's obviously going to bring problems when you have growth because you don't have a lot of the infrastructure and resources that are there that are needed to actually address some of those needs.

And the government's a little bit behind, obviously, on meeting needs. Oaks can play catch up for a little while as growth happens. You're obviously starting to see expenses increase. In these cities, as you know, resources become you can see starting to go up. You're having a lot of the problems that, you know, people don't want in there.

We're trying to escape from those cities. Traffic is terrible, a lot of these cities. But again, I think you can utilize technology to solve a lot of these things. So, I don't know why companies are going back from remote work to, you know, in, in, in office requirements. I think that there was a efficiency, greater efficiency of people's lives when you do remote work.

Obviously, I think maybe certain professions or certain things you allow it or certain cultures, and I think it was up to the companies to make. But making blanket statements, I think either way or, or trying to culture, you know, I think you also create better efficiencies with just quality of life. I mean, you think about many hours, which I have in Austin, traffic going very short distances and how it makes you feel.

And the buildup, right. The buildup of the stress throughout the day and everything else is layered with something else. So like trying to get to home or trying to get a meal or trying to get out, you know, reservation or whatever at a restaurant. All those things build up and it makes that place either likable or, right.

So, if you came here for certain things, you're translating those cities like LA, New York, and they're here. I think those problems are here. It's I think that when it comes down to, meeting the needs and then sort of look, you look at economic direction of both the East and West Coast versus here. And why is that happening?

A lot of that is regulation and a lot of that is market. I think a lot of people will still live in California. And I think you've seen that in the last few years, the uptick in people actually moving back to California, it's because it's got great weather, it's got great people, great everything. Right. Beautiful state. So it's not as though people continue to think with the taxes.

If it's too expensive, if it doesn't meet the needs of the market, people go somewhere else, try something different. And you see that there's been people that have tried Californians who tried to sit down and read that or moved to a different part of the country. Florida, where else to see what else is greener. So, I think that's a great thing because you offer, you know, options for people.

But again, you're not going to take away, I think even with all that crime and aggravation, I don't think you'll take away the, success and the history and the continued future success. So, like integration, technology, startups, how it evolves from San Francisco Bay area, it you're kind of seeing that with, the entertainment industry in California.

It's being pushed again across the country, and different states are taking, big chunks. Everyone from Georgia to Texas to North Carolina, Tennessee, they're all taking, big chunks of Hollywood out because, again, the cost regulation and everything that comes in California. But everybody wants to live in California's beautiful, nice hills. You know, the weather's great, so you're gonna always have something, but Texas and a number of other states are going to be competitive.

I well, for sure. Well, last question. What's your next one? Our robots. Look at that. Like there's definitely I feel like 90% of people I talk to 95 are super comfortable. I but the the 5% are never used it. Oh it's scared of it. So what do you tell those people? I don't think robots are smart enough to take over yet.

But they will, and it will be a different world. But we're going to live in some sort of harmony. You got to think about balance and how technology tend to balance out. Certain aspects of society will change, of course. Right. I don't some kids, but I have friends that have kids and, you know, they go and talk to them and I ask them about social media, and they would rather spend time on cell phones and talk to their parents.

Right. That was the different time my friends forced me to sit around a meal and talked a little about my day on on my wife. It people still need to connect. People still need to communicate. There's different ways of doing it and technologies change that. Are we going to go back now? It's like eating the eating from the fruit of the garden of good and evil.

I wanted to ask, yeah, but does this change your mind completely making space. So when you think about it, you no longer see the world the same way. And that's going to be the same thing with technology. Is it going to be better or worse? I think in the last, like, you know, other than government not working for the last 50 years, technology's improved a lot and it's improved a lot of our lifestyles and a lot of instant, things that we just never thought we could.

We could have you go back centuries ago, right into ancient times and even the greatest king is not living in the same way the average person living right now in modern the modern world, you can go to, you know, countries that are changing, like India or China, integrating technologies. And you can see a, you know, hyper, advanced, electronic car next to a rickshaw and, you know, that just stuck in the 1950s on one end, and then you're 20, 25 on the other end.

And when you see that, you can really see that the future is right around the corner. But we're not all there. It's going to take a lot of time. And that growth is going to be both painful. And a lot of cool things are going to happen. So I think when you look at are the robots going to take over?

Probably, but they already have. I mean, we are addicted to fans. We have a little robot in our pocket and all. We have self-driving cars. We can order anything. I could order stuff on Amazon right now during this conversation. So if you think about how quickly technology has integrated into all aspects of our lives and how our, how society going to change, it's going to change.

But it's always it's just happening quick. Well, that makes me feel a little bit better. You mean by the robots taking over a DoorDash? So that's a little bit more work. Heartwarming. So it has been so great having your child and I would love to, you know, have you talked about how people can find you on your website, but you want to get in touch with yours that come up?

Yeah, yeah, you can they can reach out, call me, text me on my cell. (404) 625-6076. Or they can email me and my and I at Texas Bar Association for you are not holding back their phone number. That is all. Love it both of you and I look forward to seeing you again soon. It's brand.

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