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From joint rolling papers to lackluster K-Cup Coffee: Bob Stiller's journey from college dropout to billionaire began with EZ Wider joint rolling papers, catering to cannabis enthusiasts. He took his earnings from joint papers to coffee by finding Keurig Green Mountain coffee and its infamous K-Cups, renowned for their convenience but notorious for lackluster taste. From rolling joints to brewing coffee, a sprinkle of humor and a dash of determination can turn unconventional ventures into billion-dollar empires. Say no to bad k-cup coffee, but give Bob some credit for his hustle.

In today’s email:

• Job News:  Why do we trust humans more than robots? 🤖

• Overheard at coffee: College = Young Adult Day Care 👶🏼

• Trending AI Tools: OMG, Roblox introduces real time AI powered chat translations 👋🏽

• Hot Jobs: (keep scrolling down ⬇️)

• Recruiting Fails: Not drafting Tom Brady. Relating this to hiring, how do you hire low experience, high potential candidates? ❌

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Job News

I went out the back window of a car because a human made a mistake while driving. That was almost 31 years ago but if you tell me that I am going to get behind the wheel of a self-driving car, I will not trust it. 

I have a new truck and one of the automated features is the truck allows me to drive down the highway with no hands. I struggle to trust this robotic feature, but yet I would be totally cool if a distracted driver was driving me.

AI will continue to evolve into many parts of our lives. From medical care to self-driving cars to even just customer support interactions, the common theme amongst humans is, ”we do not trust AI or robots to do human work”. We expect a computer to be perfect, not just almost good, like us humans. Humans are not perfect and we make a lot of mistakes. We expect a computer to make NO mistakes.

When you do the math, thousands of people die in car accidents each year. In 2022, there were 42,795 deaths from car accidents in the US. Proponents of self-driving cars say they could reduce the number of deaths by a significant percentage. Let’s say they could reduce it by 20%, that’s 8,559 less deaths due to car accidents but yet we still do not trust self driving cars. 

I value a good human conversation over a good conversation with my AI assistant. In the real world, we don’t know what to ask AI or robots or what data to give them. I created a coffee GPT (HT Coffee Badger) for that matter, in hopes of helping people get better at making coffee. The most that could go wrong with The Coffee Badger AI bot is a bad cup of coffee. 

Taking AI into healthcare, the belief is that AI will get better at diagnosing diseases, but what happens when it gets it wrong? Yes, Doctors miss-diagnose, but many people (self included) would not trust an AI robot to do surgery on my knee or heart. We would want a human leading the surgery. 

Which takes us to the less risky of areas to trust AI: Customer service. Most likely nobody is going to die or get injured based on what AI tells a customer. We are in a phase of where we are giving trust to AI and robots in areas of our lives that we have mastered, such as interview note taking and answering basic questions. This was unheard of 3 years ago. 

The phase we are in will not last forever and one thing is for certain is that we continue to progress and evolve. I am not saying everyone should trust self-driving cars or robots should do our surgeries. Definitely do not believe some money hungry CEO saying they have cured everything with their new AI and robots. Do your own research and experiment with new technology. Verify and trust.

Imagine what life would be like if fire was never invented? Fire was a cutting edge technology when it was first discovered and many people were afraid of it (and they should still be because fire is dangerous). 

Using AI for our work is like using fire. It’s good and has a purpose, but it shouldn’t be used for everything and it should be used with caution with training and insight. 

I trust humans, but not humans who have given me a reason not to trust them. I am learning to trust AI and robots but I pause when they are wrong. 

Humans and robots could both get better at saying, “I don’t know”. It’s okay not to know and that is probably a key difference between humans and robots. AI can make up an answer when it doesn’t know and we can believe it. Whereas a trusting human will just say, “I don’t know”.

The next time you get in a car, think about how distracted you are and ponder if a robot could do your job of driving better than you.

Overheard at coffee ☕️

What do you do with an 18 year old who doesn’t know what to do with his or her life? Send them to adult day care, I mean college. 

There is a podcast where Marc Andreesson and Ben Horowitz talk about the crisis in universities right now. For some young adults, Adult Day Care is one function of college, but Andreesson lays out 12 functions of a university and it will make you think twice about your experience in college or how to steer your kids or young adults for college. 

College is important, but we need to change how we view colleges in society and the workplace. For starters, the notion that you get a degree and a good job after you go to college is not 100% true.

That said, can you please hire my friend’s 19 year old son as an intern so he has something to do this summer? Yes, we get this request at times in the recruiting industry.

Trending AI Tools

🚀 OMG, Roblox introduces real time AI powered chat translations…

Move over creepy adults on Roblox, kids (some adults too) who play Roblox can now start chatting with other community members across the globe who don’t even speak the same language. For example, a user in Korea can type a chat message in Korean, to an English speaking user in the USA, while at the same time a German-speaking user will read and respond to the message in German.

Why does this matter? For starters, my 8 year old son will now be able to communicate with more strangers around the world but this is a real world example of how companies are using AI to break down communication barriers. Roblox currently supports 16 languages. More to come…

🔥 Hot Jobs - $1K Referral Fee

• LVT - LiveView Technologies (come build technology to decrease crime and make communities safer) - $1B Unicorn valuation

  • Principal Software Engineer -(on-site in Utah) - will pay for relocation - (node.js, express.js, GraphQL - Mentor a team and be the Yoda of engineers)

  • Head of Product - (Hardware only) - on-site in Utah - will pay for relocation

  • 5 Sr. Technical Product Managers - (3 software / 2 hardware) on-site in Utah - will pay for relocation

• VP of Growth - CONFIDENTIAL SEARCH. Need DTC experience w/ growth stage startups. Must be in NYC or willing to relocate.

• Lead Executive Assistant for Coca Cola! - Unlimited Diet Coke and In office in Draper, UT - (Lead a team of 4 EAs and handle all EA duties for the CEO)

• Superintendent at Westland Construction - must live in St. George, UT OR be willing to relocate there.

• Coming Soon:

  • Full-Stack Engineer in India

  • Infosecurity Engineer at a robotics company (SLC based)

  • Director of Operations at Construction company (Park City based)

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