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The Social Radars - Dan Siroker, Co-Founder of Limitless & Optimizely

发布时间:2024-07-17 20:00:00   原节目
以下是内容的中文翻译: 在这一集“社交雷达”中,杰西卡·利文斯顿和卡罗琳·利维采访了丹·西罗克,一位经历过两次Y Combinator的连续创业者。西罗克讲述了他从奥巴马竞选团队工作到创办成功的A/B测试公司Optimizely,以及现在的个性化可穿戴人工智能助手Limitless的历程。 西罗克首先回顾了他在奥巴马竞选团队的经历,他在那里引入了A/B测试来优化竞选网站并增加捐款。然后,他描述了他回到硅谷,创办了他的第一个创业公司Carrot Sticks,这是一个针对儿童的在线数学游戏,由于缺乏对目标受众的了解而失败。这促使他带着另一个名为Spreadley的想法进入Y Combinator,后来该想法转型为Optimizely。 他强调了为自己而不是为他人构建的重要性,以及Y Combinator在教导创始人如何专注方面的价值。他分享了Optimizely如何在编写一行代码之前就获得第一个付费客户的故事,并强调了阿什顿·库彻作为早期投资者的作用。 西罗克分享了他在Optimizely时期学到的一个关键教训:相信你的直觉,坚持你的创始人本能,即使其他人,如董事会成员或高管,提出了不同的方法。他反思了他在Optimizely的倦怠经历,以及由于人事问题和他不想成为其中一部分的文化,而不再热爱这家公司。他建议创始人要自私,而不是无私,并找到保持对公司长期投入和兴奋的方法。 然后,他谈到了他的非营利组织“心智仿真基金会”,该组织旨在探索在非生物物质中模拟人类心智的可能性。这引出了捕捉你所看到、说或听到的一切的想法,最终演变成了Rewind AI,现在更名为Limitless。 西罗克解释说,Limitless是一款由你所看到、说或听到的一切驱动的个性化AI。它利用大型语言模型和个人背景来提供更相关和有用的回应。他强调了同时提供隐私和便利的重要性,以鼓励人们分享他们的数据。 他描述了Limitless吊坠,这是一种以隐私敏感的方式捕捉对话的可穿戴设备。该吊坠提供同意模式,仅捕捉已口头选择加入的人的声音。他强调,Limitless可以帮助缓解我们随着年龄增长而面临的记忆挑战,并全面提高工作效率。 西罗克还分享了他为Rewind AI筹集A轮融资的独特故事。他公开了他的融资演示文稿,导致数千个投资邀约。他最终选择了NEA,一家具有长期导向和创始人至上理念的投资者。此外,他还谈到了与风险投资公司的员工会面,以磨练公司的演示文稿并接受批评的非常规策略。 丹最后分享了他作为拥有三个孩子的CEO和创业创始人的经验,强调了优先排序和专注于最重要的事情的重要性。他说对他来说,最重要的事情是成为一位伟大的父亲、一位伟大的丈夫和一位伟大的创始人。他建议剔除其他一切来实现这些目标。

In this episode of "Social Radars," Jessica Livingston and Carolyn Levy interview Dan Siroker, a serial entrepreneur who went through Y Combinator twice. Siroker discusses his journey from working for the Obama campaign to founding Optimizely, a successful A/B testing company, and now Limitless, a personalized, wearable AI assistant. Siroker starts by recounting his experience on the Obama campaign, where he introduced A/B testing to optimize the campaign website and increase donations. He then describes his return to Silicon Valley and the founding of his first startup, Carrot Sticks, an online math game for kids, which failed due to a lack of understanding of the target audience. This led him to Y Combinator with another idea called Spreadley, which was later pivoted into Optimizely. He emphasizes the importance of building for yourself, as opposed to others, and the value of Y Combinator in teaching founders how to focus. He shares the story of how Optimizely got its first paying customer before writing a single line of code and highlights the role of Ashton Kutcher as an early investor. Siroker shares a key lesson learned from his time at Optimizely: trusting your gut and sticking to your founder instincts, even when others, like board members or executives, suggest a different approach. He reflects on his experience of burning out at Optimizely and falling out of love with the company due to people issues and a culture he didn't want to be part of. He advises founders to be selfish, not selfless, and to find ways to stay engaged and excited about their company for the long term. He then talks about his nonprofit, the Mind Emulation Foundation, which aimed to explore the possibility of emulating the human mind in a non-biological substance. This led to the idea of capturing everything you see, say, or hear, which eventually became Rewind AI, now rebranded as Limitless. Siroker explains that Limitless is a personalized AI powered by everything you've seen, said, or heard. It leverages large language models and personal context to provide more relevant and useful responses. He highlights the importance of offering both privacy and convenience to encourage people to share their data. He describes the Limitless pendant, a wearable device that captures conversations in a privacy-sensitive way. The pendant offers consent mode, which only captures the voice of people who have verbally opted in. He emphasizes that Limitless can help to alleviate the memory challenges that we all have as we get older and to provide an overall increase in productivity. Siroker also shares the unique story of how he raised the series A for Rewind AI. He made his pitch deck public, resulting in thousands of offers to invest. He ultimately chose NEA, an investor with a long-term orientation and a founder-first mentality. Additionally, he talked about the unconventional strategy of meeting with associates to hone the company's pitch presentation and receive criticism from venture capitalists. Dan concludes by sharing his tips for being a CEO and startup founder with three kids, emphasizing the importance of prioritization and focusing on the main thing. He said the main things for him are to be a great father, a great husband, and a great founder. He advises cutting out everything else to achieve those goals.