00:00You're perfect for this conversation because just before this moment right here, we had both
00:04Presidents Xi and Trump speaking about AI. Their message in this moment of pageantry was one of
00:11cooperation. Xi's saying that China and U.S. are capable to manage AI and we have the responsibility
00:16to manage it. But I wonder if you would agree with Vinod Khosla that the true threat at this
00:21moment isn't safety around AI, what AI itself does, but AI in the hands of our adversaries like China.
00:29I absolutely agree. I think the responsibility for AI safety sits with the companies that are
00:36partnering with the economy to diffuse AI. Beacon itself was started as a mechanism to diffuse AI
00:44into the real economy. And one thing we heard consistently from our 22,000 enterprise customers,
00:51and these are folks who work on oil rigs, precast concrete manufacturing, K-12 schools,
00:58the consistent theme across the real economy is a fear of adopting AI because of safety,
01:04which is actually why we were really excited to bring on Leonard Tang and the Hayes Labs team
01:09so that they can help us deliver AI safely to the real economy.
01:14Neelam, just on that, already there is this huge fear that infrastructure in North America was really
01:19vulnerable to bad actors, be it, again, China, otherwise. And I wonder, as you're sort of giving
01:25this enabling these various real world companies with AI and with safety, how that conversation is
01:31shaping up right now and what the risk is of bad actors in these companies and whether AI has a
01:36role
01:36or AI exacerbates it.
01:39I think both things can be true simultaneously. AI, obviously, in the wrong hands, and Binod mentioned intent.
01:47Both forms of intent are there. There's going to be the good guys and bad guys, and AI is arming
01:53both sides
01:54simultaneously. It's our job to arm the good guys. And we think the people who are best positioned to defend
02:01against these new threats are the folks who have been working in these industries for decades because they
02:07not only will have the industry experience and expertise of what it takes to run an oil rig, but now,
02:15hopefully, with the help of Beacon and others, they'll have the technology to be able to keep up.
02:19So one of the fascinating things about what you're doing right now, Neelam, not only the breadth of companies,
02:24but just the pace that you're adding them on. If I'm not mistaken, you've acquired more than 40 companies.
02:28You're adding on new ones at something like once a week. Again, you can correct me if that's not the
02:32right pace, but it feels really, really punchy. And I wonder, as you're bringing these companies on
02:36and as you're AI enabling them, what is the bottleneck at this moment to making sure that
02:43companies not only are adopting the AI, but are figuring out how to use it in the best way?
02:49Yeah, the biggest bottleneck, and we own 45 businesses across 30 different end markets,
02:56that the commonality is they all serve the real economy. The biggest bottleneck we see consistently
03:02across all of those businesses is trust, which is why we started Beacon with this thesis that AI was
03:09going to create the opportunity to build the first centralized AI holding company. So we're a holding
03:15company, but we think we're the first ones who are doing it in a highly centralized fashion.
03:19And I believe this is what Berkshire Hathaway would look if it was AI native and started today,
03:24because we're able to centralize everything around an AI brain so that our companies increasingly are
03:31self-driving and they get smarter with each business we acquire. So why are we acquiring a
03:38business every 10 days? It's because each business we acquire allows the centralized AI brain to become
03:44smarter. And then the thing that remains decentralized in our model is the customer
03:50relationship and the trust. The reason that's decentralized is that's the part where adoption
03:56gets stalled. As I mentioned earlier, we hear from their customers, they want the technology,
04:02but they're worried about safety. They're worried about how this will impact their communities,
04:08how it'll impact their team members. One of the interesting things is across Beacon,
04:13we're actually up headcount. So we have found that AI actually unleashes more growth,
04:18which then means we need more great people working at our companies.
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