This Week in Startups: Debating personal AI hardware with Rewind AI’s Dan Siroker | E1828

And I like you don't get me wrong but I think you're so misguided in this because if we went

and asked 100 people this question I don't think you did this. If you did you would get 100 people

who would be so infuriated. It would be such a violation of trust what you've described

that they would break up lifelong friendships over it.

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All right everybody welcome back to this week in startups. We had a great episode episode 1745

back in May with a really interesting founder. His name is Dan Sir Ochre. He is the CEO and

co-founder of Rewind AI. You probably remember him because hey this is a really clever idea.

What does Rewind AI do? Record everything on your screen in a given period of time.

Then it creates a searchable index for you. It seems like a great idea. But as we talked about

on that episode, hey maybe there's some privacy issues here that we need to think through. And

some of those have actually come to pass in terms of Zoom. People are using things like Gong and

other services to record calls. And now Zoom even has built into it the ability to not just record

phone calls like we're doing right now with the recording button flashing in red on the top left.

But also create AI summaries of the call and transcripts. So the world's changing pretty

quick and privacy is an issue, right? And what if you're having your desktop recorded and somebody

sends you a confidential message and now it's in your archive forever? Then legal issues, discovery.

All of this led to a great episode. Really mind blowing. But Dan wasn't done. No, Dan had to

keep pushing the envelope. So this week or maybe even last week he released something called

the Rewind Pendant. What is that? It's a little device you wear around your neck like a pendant.

It is what he said it is. And the device is designed to record everything and do what he's

doing on your desktop. So I thought, hey, this is chaotic and insane. I had some strong feelings

on it. Maybe people took them a little bit too seriously. But we've seen this movie before.

There have been a number of people who've tried recording pendant type things and obviously the

police wear them. And we've gotten normalized to police having them because they're giant and they

flash read. But this one was a little different, Dan. So welcome back to the program. And let's

hash it out here. You got a bold vision. Why did you choose to put this out in the world? And just

to be clear, this isn't an April Fool's joke in October. It is not. And thank you, Jason,

for having me on. And yeah, it's definitely not an April Fool's joke. So the idea behind the pendant

came out of the experience I actually had 10 years ago, going deaf, losing my sense of hearing

and then gaining it back again when I tried a hearing aid was magical. It felt like getting a

superpower. And ever since that moment, I've been on a hunt for ways technology can augment human

capabilities and give us superpowers. Okay, let me to memory. Memory just like our hearing gets

worse as we get older. People actually forget about 90% of what they experienced after a week.

And so the start of the company was trying to answer the question of there's a hearing aid for

hearing and glasses for vision. What's the equivalent for memory? We started on the Mac

because that's a great place to capture that we see what you hear. And that has done tremendously

well. We've been very proud of that. We launched on iPhone and then we're going to buy the end of

the year will actually be on Windows. And when we built this product, we built it with this vision

in mind of capturing everything you see saying here in a privacy first way. So if you recall,

the Mac app stores it everything locally. You know, if we as a company get subpoenaed,

there's nothing we can hand over. It's all stored locally. It's all encrypted.

And we felt like this technology, this idea of a personalized AI was only going to work. It had

a privacy first approach. And so as we think about what it means to be a personalized AI,

it means there's far more to life than just what happens on your Mac or Windows or iPhone.

There's this world out there. That's the real world. And if we could capture that in a way

that respected your privacy, and I'm happy to talk at depth what we're doing for that,

then we could really deliver on this vision where you and I can meet and I can remember

every conversation we've had. It's living my life with perfect memory. And that was the experience

I had of going deaf and getting a hearing aid is not just getting the power back to hear,

but realizing how bad it had gotten. And that's what we want to do for memory,

help people realize how bad their memory had gotten and enable them to live life with perfect

memory. Okay, great noble mission check. And I had the same experience when I started losing

a little bit of my eyesight and started wearing glasses. I didn't even realize that things were

blurry until you put them on. So I'm in alignment with you on that. But now comes the expectation

of privacy. And so great that it's encrypted. But what about the other person who, if you're

recording my iPhone or my desktop, and I'm talking to them on something like Signal,

and they think they're having a private disappearing message, but you are overriding that

by screen recording it. Now, obviously, there's third party tools to do that,

or I'm wearing this pendant in the real world. And obviously, people can have

and have it's been the plot of many a thriller that somebody has a pen that records.

But here, you know, we've got a startup company. That's trying to normalize this,

you're trying to make this main screen. That is the goal here. That's how you're presenting it.

So what is your concern about a couple of examples I gave? I think my Signal conversation

or whatever I use for encrypted disappearing messages is no longer encrypted. And not only

is it not encrypted, it's indexed and searchable. So you've basically hacked my Signal, and you've

covertly done that. And then any other app that I'm using, or in the real world, hey,

this pendant is tiny. This is different than, and it's tiny by design, obviously. It's the size

it looks like of like a large pill or something, maybe the size of a quarter or two. And so this

to me feels very covert. It's the opposite of wearing a police recorder. So those are two

examples, but two examples I'll give. So how do you think about those two examples?

Yeah, I loved how you started with the word normalize. And I think this is where looking

at history can really help us. 150 years ago, the telephone came about, and you'd probably

be surprised to realize that the most common complaint was the invasion of privacy. And it

wasn't because now we're just accepting the telephones are normal, but it was because the

first version of the telephone you had to go to the general store for and people could overhear

your conversation. Even if you brought it to your home, these eavesdropping switchboard operators

could hear your conversation. And that's the stage we're at with personalized AI. We need to build

technology that overcomes the proverbial eavesdropping switchboard operator to make it so that

you don't have a choice between convenience and privacy. You get all of the benefits of

personalized AI and your data as private. So let me give you some concrete examples.

One of the ways the pendant can work is it allows you to actually do digital fingerprinting or voice

fingerprinting of the speaker. So if you were to speak and I were to speak, it identifies us

differently, speaker diarization. And only if somebody has verbally opted in to being recorded

would it actually be persisted on the device. So if I were running my never day, I could wear it,

I could have conversations with myself. If I did a great job of active listening, maybe I echo

back what you're saying, but not a single word of what you say until you verbally opted in would be

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codecademy.com slash twist. But you think you should be able to covertly record half the conversation

you want to live in that world? I think that's okay. I think being able to record myself in

a conversation recording myself. That's crazy, Dan. Why would it be crazy to record myself in a

conversation like this? To do it covertly would be incredibly rude and unethical. If any of you

would never be, you will lose all your friends if you did that. Do you have friends? I don't have

many friends. Okay, well, I mean, I'm asking this in a joking way, but I'm kind of serious. If you

covertly recorded me as a friend, a covertly recorded yourself in conversation with me,

you would no longer be my friend. And if I asked 100 people, if I asked 100 people,

your friend covertly recorded their half of the conversation and they have it for all time indexed

and they've been doing it for a year. You know what they would do? They would never speak to you

again. And that would mean 100 out of 100. The word covert is your word. I didn't say we should

covertly report people. You just said you would absolutely have no problem recording your side

of the conversation. And you only said permission to record my side. So maybe you're changing your

position here. Would you feel you need to get permission for me to record your side and not

my side? Well, first of all, I wouldn't hide the fact that I'm recording the conversation. So just

at the outset, that's why it's a device that you wear. It's not a device in hearing aid, which is

the format that you use. Would this device work if it was under a t-shirt? It would not, no.

Really? You sure about that? Would it work if it was like, because if you wear one of those

recording pens just in your jacket in your shirt pocket, it works. I mean, it's designed to work

that way. But I think you may be overblowing the risk here. I think there are 1.5 billion smart

recorders like this one being used and sold every year. Not a single moment of outrage or as far as

I can tell. That's because they're large and they have a recording flashing red light on them. And

the people who created them have thought this through. And they're so large, you have to press

a button, make a clicking sound, and then start recording. That's how they're designed. They're

not designed to be passively recording all the time like your device. Well, okay. I think that's

first of all, not true. There's plenty that are much smaller than what we're thinking. There are

spy cameras. Yes. And if you have a spy camera and you're recording something. This is what we're

the smaller than we're thinking. But I don't know that model, but there are spy cameras. And if you

did those and you did that with a friend, they would never speak to you again. And if you did it

with certain people and they found out, you would get your ass handed to you.

I guess what is it that you're saying that you're so worried would get captured in a conversation

with a friend? This is what insincere people who want to take away your privacy say. What are you

worried about? What are you worried about? If you're not committing a crime, what are you worried

about? What if I tell a joke and the standards change? Or what if I had a couple drinks and I

said something and it came out the wrong way? And now you have that recording forever. And now you

use it as leverage over me in the future. This is why people don't want me recording myself. How

can I record myself and cancel? You could have a conversation with me. And then you could say,

hey, Jake, how? Hey, how do you feel about this person, that person, this person? And then

now you've got a whole transcript of all these questions you asked me. And then you could say

back to me. Oh, so you don't like that person? You don't like John or Jane? Yeah, I totally

don't like them either. And just by recording your side of it, you would have an incredibly

damaging transcript of you confirming to me facts. And the person would then know by insinuation

that I didn't object to them. And then I would feel that you had covertly recorded me. And this

was a gross violation of my privacy. And if I asked 100 people, hey, your friend's been recording

their side of every conversation you've had with them, not yours. Don't worry. You have nothing

to worry about. I guarantee you 100 out of 100 people would not be friends with that person. And

they would be absolutely pissed off. And this is why I worry. And when you tell me you don't have

friends, I don't know if you're saying that to be cheeky or if you don't have. I'm running a 20

person startup. I have three young kids and, you know, I don't know if that's a joke or I don't

think it is a bit of a joke. I don't think my friends like it. I don't know. I mean, I have

friends who have Asperger's who might say like, I really don't know how to relate to humans.

But this shows, I think, and I like you, don't get me wrong. But I think you're so misguided in

this. Because if we went and asked 100 people this question, I don't think you did this.

If you did, you would get 100 people who would be so infuriated. It would be such a violation

of trust what you've described that they would break up lifelong friendships over it. 100%

guaranteed. Well, I'll say we didn't ask 100 people. We actually asked 1000 people. We asked

1000 people in the United States with an income of over 100k about a product like the Rewind

Pendant. And we asked them a series of questions, including how much they would pay for it.

And that's partly how we price the product is recognizing the market opportunity.

There are 4000 people who are deranged lunatics. This is your phrase, the people who might like

this product who free ordered the product. And I'm not trying to dismiss the privacy concern.

I just think there are times in technology when new technology comes about, and it's easy to

criticize the first version. And by the way, it's not out in public. I'm not saying we're ready.

I'm not saying the product is something that I'm proud of. I think the product that we ship,

and when we ship it, it'll be a product that will check all of the boxes when it comes to

privacy. Because the last thing we want to do is do a Google lasted for wearables. We want to do

for AI personalized AI. We think the only way to build a personalized AI that wins in this

market is one that is privacy first. The example I gave you of recording one side of the conversation

just one of many and other is just to summarize the conversation.

You don't seem to recognize my point and you're calling me a Luddite basically. So you're framing

me as a Luddite, which is a great debate tactic, but it will not work with me because I've been

at this for a lot longer than you. You don't get to just frame me as a Luddite because oh,

I'm against progress and oh, operators, no, sorry, Dan, you still haven't answered the question.

If 100 people were told that their friend was recording their side of the conversation,

you glossed right over that and went to pricing. So let's pause for a second and have you actually

answer that question. Would you be willing to ask 100 people? How would they feel if their friend

covertly recorded just their side of the conversation? Would you be willing to do that with your survey

data? Send the same thousand people? I'm happy to ask that question. I don't want to build a

product that does that. My goal is not to build a product that covertly records your side of

the conversation. That was your ask is would this product be able to covertly record the

conversation? And just like this can covertly record a conversation and record your side of

the conversation, which is worse than the product we're offering, by the way, is not the product

that I'm trying to... There are spy cameras, yes, and they're illegal in some states, right?

And these are things that are not... These are kind of the underbelly in the world of devices.

You're like a venture-back startup, like a major venture-back startup. This is why I think you're

super misguided and you're using selectively the history of people being opposed to technology

as opposed to being truly thoughtful about it. No, no, no. To be clear, the example of a telephone,

I wasn't trying to call you a Luddite. I think people were right to be complaining about the

privacy of the telephone. The very first telephone wasn't private enough. I think people make the

mistake of thinking the privacy is at odds with convenience. I think Facebook did the world a

big disservice by actually making that true. But if you look at the telephone, the only way it

went mainstream and became normalized, which is what you're asking about, was once it realized

how to build a telephone with a large red light on this. Would you put a large red light on this?

Without an eavesdropping switchboard operator. Would you put a large red light whenever it's

recording on the tip of the pendant? If that's what it took to be privacy first, we would.

And I'm not against it at all. And I'll tell you, we're very, very early in this project.

And part of the reason we're talking about it... Why did you rush it out?

We rushed it out because right now, the conversation is being had about wearable AI.

And I'm worried that the other companies out there, like Humane, aren't taking a privacy

first approach. I'm worried that they will tread the well-torn path of scorched earth that Google

Glass did. And I want to make sure that the conversation is about privacy, not about convenience.

And I don't want them to be pitted against each other. So look, am I for a big red button,

if that's what it's going to take to build a privacy first solution that normalizes

personalized AI as something AI is not at your privacy? Absolutely. I'm not against that.

So you rushed it out because there's other competitors and you want to at least get

a flagpole out there. Yes, I would have loved to. I didn't have that opportunity. I couldn't

have waited to announce it. That explains why my reaction to it was, this isn't thought out well

enough. If we were at a party, you're wearing it next year and it's around your neck.

Eight people at a dinner party. Do you think you have to hold it up to the other seven people

and say, everybody, I'm planning on recording just my side of this conversation?

But if any of you would like to record at this dinner party, you're part of the conversation.

So I could have a permanent record of this in a transcript and a summary.

Can you each say I consent to recording and your name? Do you think that should be the best

practice? I think I wouldn't bring this to dinner party, first of all. So that's not the

use case I'm focused on. So you would advise people that this should not be in social situations?

Well, I don't think that's where you get the most value. I think for me, I get the most value.

So you would advise people do not wear this in a social situation?

No, I would advise it where in situations where it's going to be valuable to. For me,

conversations with my spouse are a perfect example. I think she and I would have a much

better connection and communication if I could go back to and remember the thing.

She's reminded me of this plenty of times. If I could remember everything she said to me.

And certainly, I think most, for me, most relationships.

How long have you been married, dad?

Long enough to know that it's important to remember what your wife has said.

Okay. I'm just going to be really...

And this is going to be like, pull it up the transcript of your wife and your previous fight.

You really want that to exist in your relationship?

I do. Three years ago.

Did your wife want this to exist? Have you run this by her?

Yeah. In fact, I was going to tell you three years ago, my first vision for this was this

wearable device. And I described this in detail to her. And I was terrified because you know why?

I thought I would finally win an argument with her. And her response shocked me.

She loved the idea. She thought that if I could finally... Yeah.

And I would encourage you to ask your partners as well.

I'm going to, yeah.

Honestly, I was surprised by the answer because I, and this is the perfect example where having

perfect memory can make communication, make relationships better. Because it's not about

you said most conflict will come from a misunderstanding of the premise of the facts.

I actually think, and I don't have it yet, I believe that our relationship will be better

if we actually were able to communicate and remember what the other person said.

I certainly would wear this.

Right now, there's a lot of couples who are going to get in a big fight over the existence of this.

That's probably one of the most interesting replies you got back on social media was this

whole back and forth about spouses getting in fights or arguments. And let's pull the transcript

because that is kind of like a standard joke. I'm sure there's a Saturday Night Live skit.

Yeah, there's a Dave Chappelle from 10 years ago with this, this

stenographer everywhere you go. And yeah, it's pretty hilarious.

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So let's talk about that social issue. When Google Glass was worn in public,

it created quite a brouhaha. Are you old enough to remember that?

And the woman was getting punched in the face. Yeah, I was one of the first wearing it. Now,

I think I went to a conference in Europe, and it was the first time there. And I think Google made

a huge service, like I said, to the entire bearable category, because I didn't think about privacy.

They put out the telephone before it actually had removed the switch for properties.

Yeah, what should have cameras? No cameras from day one. I also think I worked at Google as a

product manager to start my career. I think Google's biggest mistake when building products is they

view the sophistication of the technology as the most important part, not the problem it's trying

to solve. So Google Glass didn't solve a problem. That was the first problem. The second is, as it

tried to build a cool technology that they thought would just figure out what the problem would be

over time, they completely didn't realize the impact it would have on privacy. And so I'm here

to tell you unequivocally, I don't have all the answers for what the privacy first solution should

look like. I'm here to say with full earnestness that that is the key to making personalized AI

possible and socially acceptable. And so I'm all ears. If you think a big red button is the right

or big light, I'm not ideologically against that. In fact, if that's the thing that you think will

make it socially normed, I'm all for it. But I do know this evolution of technology starts with

the goal of making this something that is not a choice between privacy and convenience.

Yeah, it is interesting, by the way, that Google wanted to build just basically a platform or

see if they could get the technology to actually work as opposed to, hey, what problem are we

solving here? You know, sometimes there's a valid case of doing that. That whole problem could have

been solved where if it was recording, it had a red light on it. And if it was scanning your face,

it was doing that. But I think it was so early as well, it didn't have those flashing red light

that people expect. And when people hold their phone up, it's so giant. And so the form factor

does, I think, play a key role in here to take out your iPhone 13, even the small one. And it's

got a giant camera array on the back. And you hold that up. Trust me, people try to take

selfies with me all the time, because I'm micro famous. And, you know, I can tell when somebody

at an airport is taking a picture of me, and I just wave. And they feel very like it's really

awkward when they put that up. And most people don't do it. Most people are completely respectable,

etc. It's a giant device. The footprint of this device is tiny. And, you know, Google Glass was

on your face. So it was unmistakable. This thing is incredibly covert. The humane, let's talk about

this. These are a bunch of Apple folks. It looks like a pendant, but not a tiny one. Yours looks

like it's the size of a pill. This one, that humane one, looks like it's the size of a credit card,

maybe. And it's supposed to look like, I think, the Star Trek. Oh, here we have it. So you can't

miss it. I mean, if you're wearing it on your clothes, it's big. And it also has an LED that

projects out. So it has lighting on it. I don't know if it blinks when it's recording or if it's

persistently recording. What do you know about this device? I saw it was at and we're showing here

on the screen for the YouTube folks. I mean, it looks like a pretty large device. It's the size of

like maybe a giant saltine cracker or a pack of cigarettes, almost that size. It looks like about

two inches by two inches, I've had to guess. So what do you think that device is? And then how are

they dealing with these issues? Yeah, I mean, the introduction of this device was one of the reasons

we decided to announce the pendant. And my biggest fear is it's another Google Glass.

I don't yet know what the AI pendant problem solves. So that was the thing that first thing is

that there was no statement of the problem. The demo, Ted was interesting. It showed some

interesting use cases. It's interesting that the word AI was bolted on in the last few months.

So I worry, you know, there's been leaked early pitch decks. I'm not an expert on this by far.

But my fear is that they will be as cavalier. And in particular, because several folks used to work

at Apple, which also has some of this DNA of like, let's build a cool sophisticated technology,

having worn the Vision Pro and had eight cameras on it. Like the last thing I want is the device

out there in the world that is freaking people out. And because their device is 20 times bigger

than yours. Yeah, you gave me credit for them. That's not quite true. We are not nearly as good

as they are in terms of hardware engineering. Our product is far further along or sorry, far

further behind. So even the earliest conceptions of this will be probably not nearly as small as

you're giving us credit for. So I just want you want yours to be single purpose. And I just

realized we didn't push yours on put yours on the screen. So we'll pop yours on the screen right

now for you watching. It's the size of the dimensions look like, like I said, like if you were,

I guess it's the size of half your thumb, maybe looks like it's about the size of a AA battery.

So I mean, that's what we're conception here, which is much larger than I think maybe you're

giving us credit for. And by the way, also this form factor might change. Part of the form factors

design is to optimize for the microphones. But it's not to be covert. If I wanted to build a

covert recording device, it would be hearing it. I've been wearing a hearing aid for 10 years. I

know how that feels. And we're bracelet. And the goal here really isn't, it's the opposite of what

you're just talking about. I don't doubt your intent. But I do think you might be a little

misguided on like having this transcript of everything. And you know, when I point out

certain situations like the absolute ludicracy of bringing this to a social event, I still don't

think that you've kind of acknowledged how insane it would be for a human being in the roaring 2020s

to take out a pendant and hold it up and say, would you like to consent to being recorded?

I'm asking your permission for me to record you and make AI summaries for all time.

Do you realize how deranged and sociopathic that would be to do at a dinner party, Dan?

It's maybe close to deranged. I don't know about sociopathic. And again, that's not the use case

that we're trying to solve. Give me the ideal use case that you're talking about. Personalized

productivity. For me, I meet with the same people, mostly today, my coworkers, I meet my spouse.

It's the people I meet with over and over again that I want to have a perfect memory of what they

said. I care enough about what they say that it's important for me to be able to meet my commitments.

If I tell somebody I'm going to make a commitment to an action item, I want a personalized AI that's

going to help me remember to do that. So why not just say, hey, Siri, take a note?

Well, part of it is it pulling out your phone. It's the inconvenience of that. It's also the

ability to actually do this across devices and sort of synchronize all of my digital experiences,

not just dependent in isolation, but every interaction that I have with somebody, which is

across multiple, it's across Slack and text and Zoom meetings and in-person meetings. So it's that

comprehensiveness that I think is also really critical to making it work. And also the fact

that you can do it without actively, you know, a Siri, take a note is far more friction than,

hey, Jason, hey, I'll follow up later. I'll send you a summary of this podcast. I'm saying it already.

The app and the device should be able to listen just like a perfect chief of staff would do it for

you. You know, if they were in the room with you, we think personalized AI can do the same.

And that's part of the use case we want to support as well.

Yeah. See, I think this is one of the interesting things about technology.

Just because you can technically do something doesn't mean you should, right? Back to,

you know, Jurassic Park. Like, did we ever ask ourselves, should we do this? And I think that's

where, you know, I feel the biggest disjoint about this is who wants to live in a world

where people are wearing these? I think 99 out of 100 people would rather this doesn't exist.

And I think the juice ain't worth the squeeze. This is going to cause so much pain and suffering.

And so many, have you ever been disposed in a legal disagreement?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, did you ever have your phone dumped in one and have people like

ask for every bit of communication you've had?

I think, I think, but you're, you're understanding the value,

understanding the value of perfect memory. You're assuming that our lives are as about as good as

it's going to get. And imagine a world where you could have perfect memory and meet every

commitment and be more present in every conversation. I think is a better world for

some people who want it. And it's not for everyone. It's just like, and I'm not calling

you a Luddite to say that the telephone had these issues, but to strike the right balance of giving

you the benefit of perfect memory, the same way you have perfect vision and perfect hearing.

I think that is worth trying to build a product that gets all the social norms right and takes

a privacy first approach. If you're a landing page is terrible, I'm out, right? Most consumers

are. It's 2023. You can't have an ugly website. Stop selling for okay or good and have great

and great means you're using Squarespace. It's out of the box. Beautiful. These websites have

templates made by the world's greatest designers that are going to engage your audience, let you

sell anything. And Squarespace over the past decade has just added feature after feature

on top of the gorgeous templates that are designed for mobile. And the drag and drop web design

with their fluid engine is just perfect, easy to use. And you get built in analytics, marketing

channel analysis, sales data, all that stuff. Not, you know, it goes beyond page views and

site visits and time and all that. And with Squarespace, you can create an online store

or you can start a blog. Click of a button, right? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. You can create a

subscription business for members only content. You're seeing a lot of that out there. It's simple.

It's cost effective. It's gorgeous. And they keep adding feature after feature after feature. That's

when technology is at its best, isn't it? When you pay one price, but the product gets better and

better and better. You get that with your Tesla, you get that with your iPhone, you get that with

Squarespace. These are the legendary brands of the internet of this era. Go to Squarespace.com

for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, I want you to go to Squarespace.com

slash twist. And they're going to give you 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Go to Squarespace.com slash twist because they know we sent you.

I believe that you have good intent. And I believe you're taking it seriously.

And I appreciate you coming on the program to hash it out and talk about it. I think

that makes me feel a lot better about it. You're open to criticism here and you're open to ideas.

So I give you a lot of credit for that. Just on the humane device that you're competing against,

it has cameras, sensors, built-in speakers. And I think there's some kind of projector that you

can put your hand down and project stuff onto it. And it's giant. So it's maybe the size of four

batteries if you were to put them side by side. So I think one of the great compromises here

would be for these devices to be a certain size and to have a flashing light when it's recording.

That would, and if it was worn on the outside, just like if a cop walks up to you, you expect

because you see it and it's giant. And I don't know if there's flash, but they're cops. And I

think it's sort of like the fact that they're in a uniform and they're walking up to you.

And this is giant thing bolted to their chest with the lens. I mean, they're giant.

I think that is important. And then there's going to be state laws and these very

quite significantly. I remember when I was in New York, you needed two-party consent

for all of these. And then maybe California, or maybe New York was one-party consent,

California was two. And that's why a lot of journalists in New York could record phone

calls or people in California couldn't. So have you started to look into those yet?

Or because you haven't launched this thing and built the software yet, you're just

thinking it through? No, no, we absolutely have. And for our product on Mac and on iPhone and

Windows, those are all very important considerations. So absolutely, that is first and foremost what

we're focused on. Our bar is much higher than the legal bar. The legal bar is one,

I think the moral, social, ethical, antisocial, pathical, if that's even a word.

Yes, please, please do not turn into American Psycho Dan.

It's a much higher bar. And that's why I'm thrilled that we're having this conversation.

I'm thrilled you're putting my feet to the fire. I think you're overstating the

public's general concern around this, but I do think the exceptions you're describing

are exactly the situations that whoever wins in this category need to get right. And my fear is,

if by not asking these questions up front, companies like Humane and others put a product

out there that has the same backlash that Google Glass has, that sets back personalized AI by

another decade. Yeah. And there's a difference between personal AI and persistent recording.

So I would like to make that. I don't have a problem with personal AI. It's persistent recording

things that people do not know are being recorded or that are just socially

going to cause pain and suffering down the road. You never answered my question.

Does your software on desktop and phone record something like signal

where, or does it block from recording on signal?

Yeah. So certain apps you can exclude.

You can exclude or your software excludes. Does your software allow me to do?

Yeah. It's an option for the user to exclude.

Why would you let the user record when you know signal is used for privacy?

That's a choice that we gave to users. Same thing for one password.

Why would you do that? It's just the default choice that we set.

Why? You set the default. You can't just say the default. That's the default we give.

You can't just say, this is where, again, I have a problem with some of your approach, Dan.

You need to make these decisions as the person putting the product out in the world.

So you, Dan, have chosen to let users covertly record signal conversations.

Why did Dan, the leader of this company, choose to empower his audience to, by default,

covertly record signal conversations?

It's a great question. Maybe we should change that default.

For example, for private browsing, if you open Incognito window, by default, we do exclude that.

So I think it's a very fair feedback. It's actually the first time somebody's asked,

but I do think it's fair that we, by default, for conversations like signal and other end-end

encrypted solutions, I think it's a better user experience to default excluded by default.

So feedback, noted, and look, I'm not...

Change log set. Here we go.

Yeah, but I'm not...

Get to me, you're like your pesky customer.

It's like, I think this should change.

As my wife has reminded me numerous times, I'm not perfect.

It is certainly a great piece of feedback. And that is, if that is,

that's the kind of feedback I hope I'm getting to be able to make sure our product lives up to

people's expectations on privacy.

Wait, your wife told you you're not perfect as well?

I have a record of...

How are we supposed to do that?

We should have dinner. We should do a conference date.

I promise if we have dinner, I will not bring the pendant.

Okay, that's fine. But we could, if you and I were to do an investment meeting,

we could totally have the pendant there.

As but one example, I record our investment team meeting.

And why do I record the investment team meeting?

Well, I tell everybody, when we pass on the next Uber, I want to be able to go back in time

and I want to see my decision-making and I want a record of that.

And so we'll record that and know that if you're here,

there's a chance that recording someday could be hacked or leaked.

And know that you should never, ever make any jokes or say something about a founder, let's say.

Literally, I learned a lesson early in my career.

It was taught to me when I was in consulting.

Somebody was in an elevator leaving a sales meeting and the salesperson

said something derogatory about a person that the company had just met with,

not realizing that somebody else in the elevator worked at that company.

They let that company go through an entire sales pitch process for a multi-million-dollar deal.

And then at the last minute said, we were going to give you the deal.

But this person said that I smell like a monkey and da-da-da-da.

Therefore, we're not giving you the deal.

And this was like, they dragged him along for like three months.

It's a true story.

And it was legendary and that person obviously got fired, it was a big controversy.

And so, I had to just start explaining to people, hey, you got to change your behavior here.

I know some people might say something to blow off steam or there might,

I don't want to say locker room talk, but there might be gallows humor or

you might make a joke about somebody's startup.

Not appropriate.

Don't ever make a joke about somebody's startup.

That's their heart and soul.

And if that gets caught now because we're recording it and that gets leaked,

that could be so damaging to you to a lesser extent to our firm.

And yeah.

And if you get an argument with somebody who cares, you can get an argument,

but just keep it, you know, like you and I having a respectful argument here.

I don't mind it being on tape.

This is definitely a lesson.

My last startup, I grew about 450 people.

And at some point, I realized every time I speak,

I should assume everything I say is going to be heard and or echoed.

And I should just operate under the assumption that I should never say a thing,

that I wouldn't want everyone to hear.

And that actually was very liberating to never have this feeling that I say one thing to another.

And, you know, there are people out there who gaslight, who say one thing to another.

Like, I think for them, a device like the pendant would be pretty scary.

But I think for the most part, being able to actually capture these kind of conversations.

And your use case is a perfect example.

It's being able to remember that conversation.

So it's so critical for a firm to remember the times they passed on the last Uber or the next Uber.

And that's the value we want to create.

And I think we can create that value without freaking people out at the same time.

All right.

This has been another 35 minutes with Dan, the man.

Rewind AI.

And I wish you luck with it.

You got my notes, product notes, you take them, you throw them away, you keep them,

whatever, it doesn't matter to me.

But I wish you luck with it.

And I thank you for engaging in the conversation.

I think it's super productive.

And I wish more tech folks would be as candid and honest and open to feedback.

So you are a friend of the pod now with your second appearance.

Thank you, Jason.

And I really appreciate you asking the tough questions.

I hope you ask it of me, of everyone else.

The more I think about it, I do think we should make signal excluded by default.

And that was a piece of feedback I definitely appreciate.

But things like that are the kinds of things that will make us a better company

and will make this category of software better for the world.

Dan, you're growing on me.

We may disagree about some things, but you're growing on me.

I like the fact that you engage the conversation.

And we'll see you all next time when we continue the conversation on This Week in Starters.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.