00:00You're out at the Dreamforce conference right now, agents and agentic AI, obviously a big bet
00:05that Salesforce has made. Kind of talk about how you see the future with regards to where we're
00:10going. So yeah, teach a course called the agentic self. Just a correction, we're not going to become
00:17agents. We're going to have and own our own agents by empowering ourselves with our own data and
00:26then fusing that data and agents that we build that reflect our beliefs, our concerns, our
00:32perspective, our points of view, so that we have a navigator to get us to our aspirations and dreams
00:41with aspirational GPS. And so it's something I think people should own. It's a human right to
00:46have a mathematical system that is our own, not a company's predicting you, a system that allows you
00:55to predict how you are going to materialize your ideations. How are you going to achieve
01:02the goals and the dreams that you want to see unfold? And no company should possess that. That
01:12should be the individual. These are powerful times, transformational times, and these times
01:18are going to awaken the imaginary in all of us. But how do we ensure that? And I know you've
01:25talked
01:25before about this idea that kind of this helps protect the whole replacement of humans by sort
01:30of having that agent at our side. But when we talk about the data and the technology that feeds into
01:35that, at least as we speak today, most of that still flows through a very small cohort of
01:40corporations, how do we ensure that that agent by my side is, I do have true ownership of that,
01:48and more importantly, of my data that's being fed into it? So first, you know, it starts with new
01:53companies sprouting with new business models. And so at FYI.ai, that's our business model. Our business
02:01model is to protect the individual and the communities that they, you know, live in, to encourage
02:07them to be the developers in the, in those communities, the servers in those communities,
02:11especially when you live in communities that are underserved and underdeveloped. So my professorship
02:16at ASU, and now our partnership with California Community Colleges, starting off with East LA
02:22College, where I'm from, students are building agents to go and solve problems in their communities
02:26that they live in. So it starts with, you know, the, the company, the founder, what it starts with
02:32intentions. So our intentions are to contribute, to be of service, to amplify, you know, the power of
02:40human ingenuity, like the power of human curiosity and their, their passions, the things they love,
02:48the things they're concerned about, their beliefs, the things that they want to see, you know, better
02:52in, in society. This technology is powerful. It's awesome. It shouldn't be used to duplicate social
02:59media. Yeah. Social media divided us. Social media, like ripped a hole in our democracy. Social media,
03:06like, you know, created this, this perspective of, you know, division to where, unfortunately,
03:14the youth, a lot of unnecessary amount of folks, none should have taken their lives because the
03:22algorithm was prying on them. And so we want to make sure that our contribution is intentional to
03:29provide, like I said, an amazing service to society. Well, and I mean, I should just point out
03:35too, I mean, everything you're saying certainly hits home here. Bloomberg actually had an award-winning
03:41documentary called Can't Look Away that talked about the impact that social media, the negative
03:45impact that social media has had. But I'm sure you're aware of this. I mean, the main companies leading
03:50this AI charge, a lot of them are the same companies that led the social media charge.
03:55So why should I trust that, say, a meta or alphabet, et cetera, will get this right in a way
04:01that they
04:02didn't necessarily with social media? And this is the reason why I started my course called The
04:10Agentic Self and built my own company, FYI.AI. It starts with folks saying, no, let's build solutions
04:19and products and make sure that our business model is in tune and align with human values.
04:27And so that's what we believe in at FYI. And that's what I encourage our students to be audacious,
04:32be compassionate, be empathetic, be ambitious, and compete and build solutions. There's so many
04:39problems out there that have yet to be solved. And so although, you know, we have awesome technology,
04:46technology, we need more humans running at problems and ushering in this like human dynamism
04:54to change our communities.
04:56As you build this out, though, and this gets back to the whole issue of ownership as well,
05:00is the idea, though, that these agents are going to be portable? So like if I'm on edu.fyi and
05:07then I
05:07graduate, the idea is I can port, you know, largely whatever that agent is, or at least the data within
05:12that to whatever the next phase of my life and whatever technology I decide to use?
05:18That's exactly the vision and what we built at FYI.AI. Down to your agent has its own phone number
05:26and you have encryption keys that are yours under your lock and key. We don't scour, we don't sell
05:35your data, we don't train on your data. Your data is your data, your agent is your agent. Here's a
05:41key,
05:41protect it, don't lose it. And if you want to port it wherever you want to port it in future,
05:46you can do that. That is our business model and what we believe in to, you know, give an alternative
05:56solution that I think is a much better humane approach to supercharging people's lives and
06:04communities that they live in. I do have to ask you about your business relationship with Mark
06:09Benioff, founder of Salesforce. At that ASU GSV summit a few months ago, you said that Benioff
06:16actually helped to kick off FYI's A round and that the company had kind of finally reached this sort
06:21of market fit. Can you give us any update about sort of how much money you've raised and whether
06:26you're looking to raise more? Yeah, so I say this with a humble heart. Thank you, Mark Benioff, for
06:37kicking off our A round in 2022. Since then, I've just been, sorry, 2021. Since then, I've just been
06:47building. We've since then, like, burned through that initial round that we raised. We raised 12 at 90
06:54pre. And now, you know, as a responsible, like, founder of a company, I don't think it's time for
07:04me to raise money to go to a B round. And so what I do is I go around touring
07:09every summer and that's
07:11how I pay my employees. I tour to pay my bills. And it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful thing. And
07:17I say
07:18that with a humble heart because it is hard raising money. It's hard raising money when you come from a
07:23community like I come from. If you're a musician that then builds tech companies, it's, it's been,
07:29it's been challenging. And so what I do now is I'm like, okay, let me go out there on the
07:34road. I know
07:34what my, my mission is. I know what my intentions are. And unfortunately, when you have these types
07:42of intentions that kind of, you know, are not the status quo when it comes to, like, what traditional
07:50corporations do, I have to, I'm a salmon going up against, you know, the stream. And, and, and we
07:59will get to the other side. And until then, I tour, I tour to pay my bills.
08:05I understand the, the, the fundraising environment out here is, is very difficult. You are very well
08:11known and you have a certain celebrity, not only within the music community, but within the tech
08:16community that I would assume would actually maybe get you in the door of a lot of places that other
08:22people would not be able to get into. No, that's not always the case. No, it's not. No. What's the
08:29pushback? They don't believe you're, they don't believe in you or they don't think that you're
08:33legitimate. What? No. So it's traction. So we, we, there is a stumbling block that we have,
08:40and that is like, how do we scale? And the scaling is going to come in V2. And so that's
08:46why I really
08:46think president Crowe at Arizona state university and all the folks at ed plus at Arizona state,
08:52and then chancellor Sonia at California community colleges that see what it is we're trying to do.
08:58And now that we have not, not only product market fit, we have, you know, institutions that are
09:04going to help us scale across, um, the students because our vision matches the same ambitions they
09:12have. How do you supercharge the student, faculty, professors, and teachers with agents that they own?
09:18And so we will, we will finally scale with ASU. We will finally scale with California community
09:24colleges. And my gut and sacrifice was not for nothing for me to go out there and tour to pay
09:31my, my developers and the folks that work at the company, um, and to continue to build these solutions
09:37and, and, and network. And then like, for example, this fall, um, I've, I still tour and the Black Eyed
09:44Peas.
09:45And so when my, our, our Black Eyed Peas, uh, team and management says, Hey, let's, let's prepare to go
09:51on tour this, this, uh, fall. I can't go on tour fall. Why? Cause I'm teaching on Mondays
09:57and that. So there's a, there's a gift that comes with touring. And then there's also like sacrifice.
10:03Like I can't do certain things because my commitments to be in class. And so, um, and it's not going
10:10to be for
10:10nothing. It's, um, we're on a mission where we have like, uh, uh, uh, uh, a societal civil like
10:18responsibility on, on our product, our intentions to, to supercharge the, the, the, the, the tomorrow
10:25leaders, um, and, and send them out into the world with, with purpose to solve these problems that
10:31have been unsolved with their agents. But is your vision though, for these agents? Cause when I listened
10:35to it, I mean, it makes a lot of sense, but was that mission in conflict would say what
10:40Salesforce wants to do with regards to having a lot of more institutional control of this
10:45data and the same with other, uh, tech companies as well? Was there a conflict?
10:48No, no, I think it's just complimentary. So they, they provide software for the institution
10:54as a whole. We provide solutions for the individual. So, uh, Bobby, Bobby might work for a corporation,
11:02but when Bobby goes home, what is Bobby? Bobby just has a corporate agent. What about Bobby's
11:08a person and can't, and shouldn't Bobby run his life with both family and personal with
11:15something that's theirs? So we are looking at the individual and, and I believe people
11:20should have the same type of power to run their life like an enterprise. Why can't a person
11:27have that? Why can't a person be protected the way that our money is protected? So I bank
11:33my money, but where do I bank my data? Like there, there, I have a, there's some, there's
11:40a couple of things that are missing in society that it's going to be like, I can't believe
11:44you guys were rocking that way in 2026. By 2036, we at FYI and other companies would have
11:52solved what is missing right now. There's a missing link as far as how are people protected?
11:58How is the human protected? And Salesforce does an awesome job to make sure that enterprises
12:04are protected. We are looking at the person, the individual.
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