Mat Vogels (00:14)
Welcome everybody to the latest episode of pirates only typically we have three Hardtack founders on the pod but today I thought it'd be really special to have founders of their own but working on the stories the narratives the pieces behind the scenes for some of these companies
So today we're gonna talk a little bit about storytelling and how telling the right story, especially in deep tech can help these companies lead to better recruiting, raising capital, all of which accumulate into building hopefully better companies. Very happy to have three amazing creative guests today. We'll start with some introductions. Emily, let's kick things off with you.
Emily Gold (00:53)
I'm so excited to be here. So Emily Gold, I run OPFOR Media. We're still trying to dial in on exactly what we are because we ourselves are a startup. But essentially, we help founders of deep tech companies define their narrative strategy. And we help with ghost writing, help founders become thought leaders in their respective niches. And then we're also developing some original content of our own.
Mat Vogels (01:16)
Love it. Federico, how about you?
Federico Gardin (01:17)
Hey, thanks again for the invite Mat. So I'm a founder of Sentinel Studios. We specialize in creating 3D animations that make the defense tech easy to understand.
Mat Vogels (01:30)
Love it. Last but not least, Thomas.
TK (01:33)
Hey, I'm Thomas Kin. Thanks for having us. I'm one of the founders of Asimov Collective. We're a brand design and brand strategy studio based in Brooklyn.
Mat Vogels (01:44)
Love it. So I'm excited to chat with all three of you today, because as I mentioned in the pre-call here, each of you are working in around the same narrative of helping these companies tell their stories, better tell their stories, but all in a unique way. So maybe Federico, let's kick it off with maybe specifically what you're doing. Dive a little deeper in how you are helping some of these deep tech hardtech companies tell their stories.
Federico Gardin (02:08)
Yeah, sure. So in our case, lot of the founders and general companies that come to us have some innovative and new defense tech that are really struggling to explain what they can actually do. So instead of the 20 pages slide deck, we come in and help with the visual side of things and actually make a video that shows very clearly the operational capabilities or maybe some more specific mission critical.
aspect that the their tech can solve. So we cover that side and then vary quite a bit from maybe they need to do a presentation of the Pentagon or they need to raise the next round. So it varies a lot what they actually need the videos for at the end.
Mat Vogels (02:51)
And I can speak firsthand from a VC perspective. We see a lot of pitch decks, hundreds of pitch decks per month. And the hardest part about hard tech is that it tends to be very complex. And having those visuals, the 3D visuals, they say that a picture is, what is it, 10,000 words, a thousand words. A 3D animation is like a million words because it just adds a little bit more clarity, especially when the topic is so complex. So we certainly appreciate it.
TK (03:10)
you
Mat Vogels (03:17)
Thomas, how about you a little bit deeper into what you're doing over on your side.
TK (03:22)
Yeah, I think, you know, we chose to focus, obviously our name is named after Isaac Asimov. We are all like sci-fi nerds. And I think when we started the agency, we deliberately were like, let's not chase after, you know, what every other agency chases after, which is like the Nikes, the Samsungs, the Apples. Like we all have worked with those companies and our individual careers. And we were like, what if we went into this world that seems to be getting no attention?
Mat Vogels (03:31)
That's great.
TK (03:52)
that we think is so cool. you know, we were our first clients, palladium, they were telling stories, right? Like writing about this world kind of in the abstract. And through those guys, we met tons of like early stage founders who were working on really interesting ideas or were inspired by a lot of the things that palladium was talking about. So, you know, we came in and we said, as designers with like a creative eye, how do you make
things like nuclear energy sexy, because we think that that's really important. A lot of times when my friends ask me like, why is it, know, why is what you do important? say, well, I think we're build the narrative for the new infrastructure for like the next hundred years versus like, you know, I think the work that agencies do for these major consumer companies are very beautiful and cool, but I'm like, I've seen that, you know, you're rewriting that script.
essentially versus nuclear. like, there's no precedent. It's actually really hard for us to recruit sometimes because, you know, a designer can show me a portfolio of like all of these super beautiful pop, poppy colors, whatever of consumer technology. And then I'm like, okay, now think about infrastructure and B2B. How do you make manufacturing sexy? How do you make drilling cool? And it's really hard, like a really hard thing to think about.
And so we love diving into the technical aspect of like, how does this work? Okay. We understand the, the like paper stack of things. Now, how do we regurgitate it to the public in a way that makes sense. And for them to go, I get it. We call it like the grandma rule. Like it should make sense to a grandma and she should get it. And then, and then we love.
when we have to pair it with our visuals which is like the idealistic part of all of it, right? It's like, okay, we've perfected the words. Now what's the kind of aspirational vision that the company wants to set? And then what's the like detailed view of whatever product or idea that they are selling and how do we demonstrate it?
Mat Vogels (06:01)
I love that. That's that's well said. And I agree. I love the so easy that a grandmother could understand it because that's that's kind of what needs to happen, especially VCs are kind of like grandmas in a lot of ways, too. We tend to be smart a lot of the times, but we oftentimes don't know specifically. Thank goodness for ChatGPT, because it's such a great way of becoming an expert on a topic very, very quickly.
TK (06:11)
You
Mat Vogels (06:23)
but you're exactly right. Good branding websites design can certainly help with that too. Last but not least, Emily, I'd love to hear a little bit deeper of what you're focused on with these companies.
Emily Gold (06:29)
Yeah, totally. Yeah, so
Thomas, mean, you're really speaking my language. I actually started doing this kind of work back in February, so it hasn't been very long. So I'm still learning. But I used to work kind of for the machine. I was a contractor for DoD. And time and time again, I met with founders that just they were so great at explaining to me the technical underpinnings of their capabilities. They could not.
string a sentence together to tell me about their vision, to paint a picture for me about the world that they want to create. And that, especially when you're talking to investors, can mean all the difference, right? As Mat just said, I mean, these are some VCs, like they get lost in the technical details and the beeps and boops of what you're building. And you need to be able to compellingly tell a story about what you're doing and why it matters. And then also give them a glimpse into the world that could be created.
TK (07:14)
You
Emily Gold (07:23)
or potentially helped by your technology. So we set out to do this really in two ways. One, consistent, compelling, authentic narrative strategy that's not just for founders, right, but for their teams so that everyone has a very cohesive, authentic message that is uniquely their brand, right, that's being distributed out into the world with consistency and clarity. And then the other thing, I already mentioned this, but like the ghost writing part of this, I mean,
founders are so busy. Early stage founders, do not have the time. They just do not have the bandwidth to take content seriously. But they need to. And so rather than trying to do it themselves and fail, which is what I see oftentimes, they can instead hire a team like ours to be this multiplying factor for them to engage in the type of content distribution that they want with the consistency that's necessary to move the needle.
So think, obviously, a lot of that is just finding a good cadence, finding clarity and conviction in what you want to say. But again, Thomas, you said this. We are literally engaging in some form of speculative fiction to some degree. We need to create worlds for people that just on a normal day couldn't imagine what this particular technology could be used for. Or I'm lucky that.
TK (08:40)
Okay.
Emily Gold (08:46)
I used to work exclusively in defense. I no longer do. get to work with companies that are building things sort of just across the frontier space. And so I get to engage in this world building across the spectrum. It's a little scary when we have to sort of engage that world building, that crystal ball sort of energy in the defense space, because a lot of it can get really scary. But I think there's a way to harness that for good and to make a real impact. So that's what we're hoping to do for founders, help them.
get that consistency and get that engagement to hopefully move the needle over the long term to, you know, to whether it's to get technology into the hands of the war fighter or to, you know, completely disrupt, further disrupt like commercial space, for example. mean, whatever it takes, we want to help them build those worlds.
Mat Vogels (09:29)
We had a, Emily, I'll stay with you on this one. We had one of the comments or questions for going into this was why is it important? Why you mentioned the war fighter, they're kind of the end customer in a lot of cases for this or in deep tech. Why does building a good narrative, telling a good story, how does that actually end up benefiting the war fighter or the end user in your case or in your perspective?
Emily Gold (09:54)
Yeah, I think shout out to Kyle Briggs. think that was his question. ⁓ Yeah, he's a buddy. So I think there's a couple ways to answer this. So one, I have yet to meet a founder that isn't 100 % convinced that they're building something completely net new and unique that no one else is doing. That's just, I mean, you have to operate on the assumption that you have competitors. They're building, maybe there's a 75 % overlap in capabilities. You have to just assume that.
Mat Vogels (09:57)
It was.
Emily Gold (10:20)
If that's the case, right, then how are you going to cut through the BS? How are you going to make sure that the market you're trying to build understands that you are the one that's going to lead the market and you do that through storytelling? How does this impact the warfighter? I think if you firmly believe as a founder that your tech is the only version of a capability, right, that really will flip the script for our warfighters, then it is incumbent upon you to take storytelling seriously.
Because ultimately, as I mentioned, mean, there's a sea of technology that people are trying to sell to DOD. It's not everything's going to make it in, right? If you firmly believe and you are on a righteous mission to give our war fighters a fighting chance, then you have to engage in storytelling. You have to make sure that your narrative is understood, that people really believe.
right, that your approach and your philosophy to how you run your business, how you build your technology, and how you train the war, mean oftentimes how you train the war fighter to use your technology is differentiating.
Mat Vogels (11:27)
Yeah, I love that completely agree. And it's it's through all those layers that when you can tell a good story, some of these other things can kind of come into position. I think I commented on there, too, saying that it can help you in recruiting. It can help you in fundraising, having the best people, having the capital. All those things matter, obviously, when you're building, especially in this space where capital is not just, you know, a nice to have. It's a necessity. You won't be able to get far without it.
Federico Gardin (11:45)
you
Emily Gold (11:52)
Totally, and just to add one more thing. I think I'm sure all of us sort of in this space understand this to some degree. Defense specifically is so riddled with sort of like toxic logic and reason. I think people forget in this space that humans are inherently emotional beings. And you could be talking to an end user, sort of a mid-level manager, someone at a PEO, a general, it doesn't matter. all have, mean, hearts and minds is no joke.
I mean, I know that it kind of lost its sort of oomph after like GWOT, like, mean, hearts and minds is a real thing and that also pertains to selling your capabilities, right? You need to give people the opportunity to emotionally connect with what you're building.
Mat Vogels (12:36)
Federico on the defense side specifically, because I know that's where I've seen a lot of your work and it's incredible. Shout out to anybody out there that needs any sort of 3D animation. When you're thinking about walking the line, because what I deal with a lot with some of these founders is they have very impressive technology and they want to be able to show it, but sometimes showing too much is either not in their best interest because they have some things they're trying to keep quiet. They don't want to reveal everything, but then they also want to dumb it down a little bit so that it's not
Federico Gardin (12:37)
Thank
Thanks.
Mat Vogels (13:03)
overly complex when you're going through your process, both in consulting these founders that maybe want to go one way or another. How are you thinking about making the complex visualizations work for them on both of those fronts?
Federico Gardin (13:05)
Mm-hmm.
So from the project we've been working on so far, I feel like one of the best examples we came to the conclusion for is showcasing a full-on mission, so start to end. So you can really showcase what your product is capable of over different type of scenarios. And in that way, you don't get stuck so much on the technicality of things, but you can really show the transformative power that your product can have.
in the field because in lot of cases, maybe a company is very early on, they don't even have a prototype, so they don't really have a way to showcase what the product would be capable of. Or even if they have a prototype, it's not that they can really show a full ambition in a real world scenario. So with animation, it's like a way to support and show that vision to the end user or decision makers involved when it comes to their next steps.
Mat Vogels (14:13)
I love that. How do you how do you think about walking the line of like vaporware is showing too much because in some cases, like to your point, it's in prototype phase, it's early stage. A lot of these things probably change in your experience or how you think through, you know, where to draw that line before you're, you know, not stretching it beyond maybe their capabilities, like maybe what you're doing that never happens. Like, how do you walk that line?
Federico Gardin (14:29)
Yeah.
So it's mix of a couple of things. On one side, we work closely with the team because often there are like team members who have experience as operators. So they can guide the direction of the video to make sure we do something that makes sense, it's realistic, it's not some sci-fi, maybe could be totally offshoot. And on the other side, when it comes to the tech itself, we're always very careful in what we showcase.
We don't show any internal mechanisms or something that is too detailed about the product itself. We try to stay more on the outside and show the capability on the to make sure we don't give away any critical information.
TK (15:18)
I have a question for Federico, if I You know, obviously like Jen and the team at Anduril have done an incredible job setting this like extremely high standard and in some ways like kind of set the tone for what brand narrative can do in this world of like hard tech and deep tech and defense, I suppose. And they have this very specific rule that they recently like flipped on, which was never show rendering.
Mat Vogels (15:18)
Yeah.
TK (15:43)
like only show actual product and then like with the release of Barracuda they went with that whole comic style which was like really great and you know like took over Twitter and then they just released I can't remember the new product but you know another extension of that aesthetic how have you dealt with that I'm sure maybe you know that's trickled to your work to a certain extent of founders being like well that's not real yet
Federico Gardin (15:51)
Yeah, so.
TK (16:12)
So maybe we can't show it or like we don't want to show it because it's not real. And then in terms of like aesthetic, you how do you decide what kind of style it should be like? Is it always realistic? Cause I think realistic also is just very expensive, right? Like doing photo real is really tricky to also get right. Cause the minute you like zoom out on water or like land and you see that it's texture map.
Federico Gardin (16:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, doesn't work anymore. Yeah.
TK (16:39)
In tiles you're like, fuck it, like you immediately
break the illusion, I feel like I'm looking at a video game or something. So how do you guys decide?
Mat Vogels (16:45)
Mm, that's
a great question.
Federico Gardin (16:47)
So
on the style one, I would say 95 % of the cases of our clients, I will always go with photoreal just because you want to show it as something that is grounded, like that is gonna be in real life actually happening. Then of course it's very much for back and forth between us and the team on the client side to figure out where is the right balance, what makes more sense for them and their product.
TK (17:01)
Mm-hmm.
Federico Gardin (17:14)
and at the same time, try to understand who's their customer, how technical they are and based on that, it's a bit like a balance of all these things to try to figure out what the story will be from the video. style, again, I'm watching stuff about the style. I feel like what Anduril did is super cool, but they can do it because they're Anduril, so they can do a PR stunt like that and pull it off in a great way because that's...
where they are currently. But for a lot of either early stage or some of the other companies you work with, maybe at Series A or around there, I would say photo-real is usually the way to go just because it keeps it more grounded. And when they show it to a high ranking official, for example, they can connect to that more. That's been like our impression so far, just hearing client feedback after the presentations.
TK (18:07)
Mm-hmm.
Cool.
Mat Vogels (18:14)
That's great. Thomas, one question for you, because I know that you and I have actually we've worked on on at least one project together. The one thing that I've always found difficult is when you're meeting with these companies very, very early and they are at that phase of, hey, we need some excitement, we need some buzz, but we don't want to show hardly anything. And it's quite common. How do you think about as you're going through walking that line of getting people excited about something while also showing
TK (18:23)
Thank
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
huh.
Mat Vogels (18:40)
very, very little. How do you think about that? How do you educate some of your customers on that?
TK (18:42)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it's always been a great challenge for us and a challenge that we love because we're like, you want us to demonstrate something that doesn't exist yet? That means we can be way more imaginative. And so I think the most famous one of our projects where we had to do this was actually Rainmaker with Augustus and those guys. Last year in April, I believe, is when we shipped
Mat Vogels (19:02)
That's a great one.
TK (19:06)
the So during the project, they specifically were like, we cannot show renders because we haven't built the stuff yet and we don't want to seem fraudulent to the market. And so we said, okay, we still need to show what you're going to do in this like idealistic sense. Right. And so Emily was talking about this world building that we need to do. think that's precisely like what we're good at.
which is to imagine visually what kind of world you want to build as the founder. One of the first questions that we ask during a kickoff call, have, you know, a rigid process of all these questions that we ask because we're really trying to like download on the content as quick as possible so that we can speak the same language. And one of the questions is, what does a world look like in which you've succeeded, like succeeded?
And that could be in 50 years, could be in 20 years, it be in 100. It could be like long after you're gone, but what does that world you've left behind look like? Because you invented and brought the world what you're making. And in Augustus's view, that was like abundance was the theme, right? It's like we have now eliminated droughts where we don't want them, thus making
like crops and yield fruitful to the point where it's just like abundant and beautiful and luscious. And so we kind of paired that with this oil painting aesthetic that we loved. Me and one of my other co-founders studied architecture. The other co-founder studied UI UX, but those two went to high school together. They actually studied in like classical art.
And so we're all like very well versed in artistic history and whatnot. And so we were like diving back in and we're like, the Renaissance was an amazing era of like optimism and this new viewpoint of the world. And so we were like, what if we paired that, like, what if we like plopped in a little drone in the sky that like is so small that people might not even see it, but they're like, what is that? Is that a?
Is that a drone? And suddenly you're in this uncanny valley of, it seems to be an oil painting vaguely reminiscent of California. And then like through the brushstrokes, you can kind of streak rain into the scene without it feeling odd. And so it just kind of worked out for us. And it was a really beautiful end product that, you know, people still to this day hit us up and they're like,
Hey, we love your project with Rainmaker. We're like, there's like 10 other projects on our website, but people still come to us. They're like, what? Like that's crazy that you guys pulled that off. But that is one way I think that we just try to infuse our like art history background with our sci-fi nerdiness. And we're like, if we had to like converge those things, what makes the most sense if the founders don't want to show anything detailed?
Mat Vogels (22:11)
That's great. And the thing is, is that I get as a designer, people pointing to that website is like, can I just get whatever Rainmaker didn't just have that? Like, we just copy and paste that. Is it fair to say that you were the first like oil painting designed websites? I feel like right after that, the dozens of other notable sites came out. I think you might have beat them to the punch before them. Did you kick off a trend?
TK (22:20)
Okay.
Uh-huh.
I
I don't want to take credit like that. think that'd be too much, I won't say no at the same time. ⁓ think, thank you. Well, right before we released the website, literally like a week or so before Intercom rebranded themselves, like the kind of chat bot company, who I think their product is great.
Mat Vogels (22:38)
Yeah.
There you go. I'll say yes for you. think it was the first one that I saw at least.
Emily Gold (22:46)
Yeah
Mat Vogels (22:54)
I know, that's the big one. ⁓
TK (22:59)
And their entire aesthetic was oil painting and we were like, shit, they beat us to the punch. Like we shouldn't ship this just out there anyways. But you know, I don't think anybody was like, you guys copied Intercom. So, you know, we're still fair game. Sure.
Mat Vogels (23:12)
And you're differentiated enough. If anything, feel like
Rainmaker had more of a reason to do that design and style. The Intercom one, I think was kind of off the mark, beautiful, off the mark as far as like a branding guide, I would say. ⁓ Emily, on your side, before we maybe dive into a different topic here, as you're thinking about working with some of these clients that are maybe, again, in that same spot, they're too early, they don't wanna give away too much.
TK (23:18)
Absolutely.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Mm-hmm.
Emily Gold (23:31)
Yeah.
Mat Vogels (23:38)
What are some of those foundational narrative story building pieces that you can prime them for in that phase where they can't give too much away, but they still need to be able to tell a good story?
Emily Gold (23:49)
Yeah, so this is great. OK, so obviously we engage in content development and ghostwriting. So there's that. We also help with earned media strategy. So I help founders get placements on podcasts or get profiled in publications and the like. They are very afraid to do this before they come fully out of stealth. Or even if they are out of stealth and they're just not confident about
They don't want to give too much away. They're worried about competition. I echo what I said earlier. You have competition. It will always exist. These are things that you cannot avoid. But what you can avoid is how people talk about your product. And so I think in our line of work, I try to be as encouraging as I can to founders to talk to as many people as humanly possible that they believe might be well aligned with what they're building. And I think, so you know,
Full disclosure, I myself am also building this kind of stealth creative project. And so I'm starting to experience this for myself of how do I talk about this without really talking about it? You have to find a vocabulary, right, that hints at what you're doing that doesn't say it directly. You have to easily understood sort of comparisons to what you're building. If there are companies that you really
like from a brand perspective or you think that they're building really innovative shit. mean, you can say, you know, we're doing what Andrew's doing, but for X, right? without getting too specific, there are ways to talk about what you're building without really talking about it directly. But as far as like, you know, talking about it publicly on podcasts or for doing profiles, I mean, I'm living proof right now. Like I think
A lot of founders are afraid, even if they're not in stealth, they're afraid to talk about what they're building because it's so personal to them. is emotional, right? And I would say there's no such thing as bad PR. I it's this old sort of trope, but it doesn't make it any less true. Chances are you do a podcast like I'm doing this right now. I probably ain't going to say something that is going to keep me up at 2 a.m. Right. I'm probably going to like replay something I said in my head
TK (25:57)
You
Federico Gardin (25:57)
You
Emily Gold (25:58)
I wish I hadn't said that or maybe I wish I had said something differently but the fact of the matter is the general like Effect of my actions here are going to be net positive and I wish that founders could just approach talking about what they're doing with that mindset that it doesn't have to land perfectly if you are, you know charismatic people believe that you have the passion right and the wherewithal
all to follow through on what you're doing, it'll land. It doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be authentically you.
Mat Vogels (26:35)
And that's such a good point. it's sometimes it's always the easier way in some cases, hopefully to be yourself, because then you don't have to second guess it or to prepare something in advance for it. And the funny thing is most of the founders that we get to interact with on the VC side are such grounded people. They're building these incredible futures and they oftentimes are forward thinking. But there's some of the.
Federico Gardin (26:36)
.
Mat Vogels (26:59)
most thoughtful people as well. So it's not maybe like some of these other industries where they are more salesmen or salesy and they kind of have to lead that they have these really like silver tongues and they're they're actually it's the opposite. You almost have to try to like bump up them a little bit to be like, hey, you can a little bit more excitement. Like let's go one more degree up, which is almost easier, I think, to do than telling people like, you need to need to tone it down because everything you just said is either not true or it's it's not going to happen.
So it's at least a better angle, I think, working in this industry.
The other thing, the other question I was thinking, yeah, no, go ahead, go ahead.
Emily Gold (27:33)
Yeah, I did.
No, I was just going to say, think defense is unique in that so many of the founders that I engage with, they are former operators. They're people that are intimately connected to this space. And so there is so much of their soul of who they are as a person tied into what they're building. Whereas in a previous life, I worked in B2B SaaS. I'm not trying to speak ill of the B2B SaaS space, but it's just the same level of soul connection just doesn't exist. It's very different.
Mat Vogels (27:45)
Totally.
Emily Gold (28:03)
You have people that are just inherently better at selling. Maybe they're not as good at building. I would say that the opposite is true in defense. have so many people on our client roster that are just incredible individuals. They have so much to give. They're so talented. They are the right people to be doing the work that they're doing, but they have no idea how to sell themselves. And so I wish that these two groups could get together and share notes.
TK (28:26)
Thank
Mat Vogels (28:28)
Thomas, on your end, when you think about the differences of working in deep tech or hard tech versus maybe something more traditional or software, was there a specific reason that you going, you mentioned earlier about, it didn't seem like anybody was doing it. Could you imagine being able to do the work that you're doing outside of hard tech, deep tech?
TK (28:49)
yeah, I think so.
You know, venture capital is one place that we work that's not quite both. I mean, it's certainly adjacent. But I think there's exciting venture capital firms out there. We just finished a project with Willem and Eric at Terrain. ⁓ Fantastic, fantastic duo there. We're also actively working with Vinik and Greg and those guys.
Mat Vogels (29:05)
it's so good. I love that brand too.
TK (29:17)
So yeah, think we've pretty much, you know, think design is a mentality or philosophy. And I think you can technically apply it to, anywhere. the thing that we pride ourselves on that we've kind of been sharpening our knives over the last two years is just the rigor of our process, I think is the most fruitful thing, which is really like drilling into anybody who works with us as a designer or a client. Like this is how you think.
about design and the world and like how you portray yourself to the public that we've seen just work. And I think that that framework can technically be applied anywhere else. And I don't think we're really reinventing the wheel. think design agencies live and die because it's really up to the founders and staying. Sure. Yeah.
Mat Vogels (30:11)
or get acquired.
TK (30:15)
I think it's really up to the founders to stay relevant and be up to date on current events, current trends. And then eventually like, you just get old. And then the next young gun comes by and they're like, we have a different process. And they're like, okay. So I think, know,
I guess I'm kind of trying to say like, maybe at some point the phone will stop ringing, but we're also a startup. I don't really see ourselves as a design agency. And so we'll continue iterating, et cetera. But I think the framework and the idea behind the process will probably ring true for like everything we work on in the future, whatever that may be.
Mat Vogels (30:52)
Mm-hmm. I love that. Switching gears just slightly, Federico, on the work that you're doing, what are some of the hot trends that you're seeing from either maybe 3D animation? I would consider one of those hot trends, but maybe talk a little bit on overall trends, but then maybe some specifically as it relates to some of the 3D animation pieces that you're seeing in the work that you're doing.
Federico Gardin (31:05)
Yeah.
So I would say overall from the type of clients that reach out to us, of course there's a huge boom in the US space, EW and any type of autonomous system. And when it comes to that, as I was mentioning before, most of it goes down as a showcasing emission, how it operates in a real, like a real world scenario. And there's definitely also a big push on
shooting things for real as well. As Thomas was mentioning, like what Anduril is doing, so a lot of actually like being in the field, showcasing the tech. Of course it's not possible for everyone depending on where and what stage they are. But I've been seeing more and more companies doing that as well. On the 3D side, yeah, I would say the showcasing the mission is probably the the biggest one I see so far. There are still a lot of the more
all corporate type of 3D animation like product spinning for a minute and like text, text, text, text, that is still happening for some reason, I'm not sure why, but... ⁓
Mat Vogels (32:25)
They talk about like those
caricature like cartoon ones where it's like the person at the whiteboard and yeah, they gotta work because I still see him too. Yeah
TK (32:26)
and it
Federico Gardin (32:28)
Yeah, yeah that kind of thing and
TK (32:32)
And I know they,
and it always looks good. You're like, ooh, that's nice.
Federico Gardin (32:35)
Haha
So yeah, like, or at like for what we are doing now, it's all about showcasing the mission, I would say.
Mat Vogels (32:45)
Do you do video stuff as well? is there like an integration with some of the 3D animations into longer form, like launch videos? Or where's that kind of mix between how you're seeing your clients use the end product of what you're doing?
Federico Gardin (32:58)
So because of the nature of what we want to do, we just want to hyper niche and be the go-to for 3D animation. But for example, we worked with beginning of the year with Delta Black. It's like UAS company. for where they were at that point, they didn't have anything pretty much, just an early prototype. So we just did the 3D animation to showcase the full set of capabilities. And now we're planning for more animation work.
showcasing again mission scenarios, but they will implement that into actual footage of their first products that are about to arrive now. So they will try to like mix and match real world plus what can not be shot actually in real life with free animation.
Mat Vogels (33:43)
Do you see, do you recommend, I guess, one format or another from like pure video? I feel like video is one of those trends right now. More specifically, maybe some of the like commercially type of videos, but do you have any preference that you are encouraging some of your founders, not just the following the mission, but in a format perspective, what you're seeing maybe works the best right now for some of these founders.
Federico Gardin (34:07)
In terms of format, again, hearing the feedback from and seeing like how our clients use the videos, the scenario is the biggest thing, showcasing like there's a specific problem, whether it's a GPS denied area, okay, we develop UAS that can solve this problem in this way, and just showcasing that scenario is the biggest, probably the...
the biggest way to show your edge, I would say. When it comes to video in 3D, to be honest, if you can shoot, shoot it for real, of course it's great. Depending on the situation and where you are, what stage you are, of course there are different factors that may or may not make it possible, but it's definitely like a big plus. I'm sure it would be like if you can actually show the real, real product in real life, whether it's flying or...
doing whatever it is that he can do for the mission, that's great. Of course, certain stuff, maybe like some specific manufacturing, something manufacturing space connected to the fence. You cannot really go like inside the machine to show what's happening, it can be bit tricky. So that's where those kind of scenarios is where free animation can definitely help. But yeah, definitely, if you can film it for real, it's definitely a huge plus for sure, if you already have a product.
Mat Vogels (35:31)
Now, Emily, on your side, what kind of trends are you seeing for some of these companies that are maybe coming out of stealth or that are building their brands or kind of coming out into the world for the first time? What are some of the trends that you're seeing or maybe more excited for?
TK (35:48)
Wait, can quickly add on to Emily? Yeah. Can I add on to that question? Do you see any trends in how companies are languaging themselves or how founders are maybe speaking or engaging with the public?
Emily Gold (35:48)
Is that question for me? Sorry, who's question?
Mat Vogels (35:50)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Emily Gold (35:52)
Go for it.
Mat Vogels (35:55)
Please.
It's a one.
Emily Gold (36:07)
Yeah.
Okay. So let me, let me back up a bit. So I feel like this is probably the perfect time to talk about AI because typically, so we don't have, we never want to actually market ourselves. Like part of the whole, like foundation of our business is that we go straight. Like we don't, we want the, our clients to make, we want it to seem like they're doing all this hard work themselves. That's our goal.
So I'm constantly on the hunt. I reach out to people directly all the time when I say, hey, that post that you made was really great. But I can tell 100 % that it was AI. And it's unfortunate because we all use AI to a certain extent. It's how you use it and at what part in your process that really counts. I think when companies are
Mat Vogels (36:44)
Ha
Emily Gold (36:53)
Maybe they're coming out of stealth. Maybe they're reaching this certain inflection point in their momentum. They're on the cusp of a raise. There's some sort of big milestone moment. They need to ramp up their content. What's the first thing that they do? They hit up ChatGPT. And they just copy and paste. They regurgitate. The problem with ChatGPT, especially if you don't know what you're doing, what you're putting in is being shared across users, potentially, if you don't turn off.
disable sort of that sharing function. like you might be writing something that other people are also writing not quite verbatim, but pretty darn close and it's going to be very obvious. So I think what trend am I seeing? It's a negative trend of people knowing that they have to hit the content hard and doing it the wrong way. And I don't fault them for it because these tools are at their disposal. They're easy to use. It seems like the fastest means to an end.
It's frustrating. So I try to be sort of the camp counselor of LinkedIn and reach out to whoever I can where I see like, hey, there's so much potential here for you to actually speak authentically about this. Let me help you. So I mean, sort of a roundabout way of answering a question. But I think like in terms of trends, I mean, it's unfortunate. I think that the trends happening in like other media, like in video, right, are very exciting.
Mat Vogels (38:05)
No, that's good.
Emily Gold (38:15)
broadening the scope, they're enhancing worlds, right? I think what's happening with the written word is actually moving in the other direction, which is really sad. And so I'm trying to do at least my part to help founders realize that there is a better way. Some people just refuse and they wanna go with AI. I just wanna just give one shout out.
I think Dan Magy is a great, for anyone listening to this, wants to create a voice on social media that's uniquely theirs, that adds a completely unique, interesting, often, excuse my French, but fucked up spin on the world that we're all living in. You should follow Dan. Maybe he uses AI. I don't think so. I see typos in his posts. No offense, Dan, I think it's great. Bring them on. I love typos when I see them, because I know that someone actually wrote it.
Mat Vogels (38:43)
I love Dan.
Hahaha
TK (39:03)
You
Emily Gold (39:05)
like I think that what founders should be doing is saying, okay, hey, instead of like talking about my actual business, like, you know, again, like the, the, the, the capabilities themselves, why don't I talk about something that interests me that ties into this greater narrative of how what I'm building will change the world. And I think Dan does a great job of this. So anyone looking for inspiration, go follow Dan Magy right now. That not that he's hurting on the followers front, but you know, go ahead and do it anyway.
Mat Vogels (39:33)
And I think this ties back to one of the things you mentioned earlier and just, and hinted out right there too, was his authenticity is pure. And I think it's so much easier to be creative when you're doing it authentically and not even as a cliche or like, let's just all try to be authentic. I think if you can do it naturally, it's not going to feel like work or efforts. It's just like going in and saying what you want to say.
And no rehearsing, you know, nothing. I always joke. He's a, he's a proud member of the, backwards hat club too. And he just carries the brand with them everywhere. And, uh, and I think that that's exactly right. think following into that question a little bit though, and kind of a, kind of an ad on top of that, where, where's the line? think that over the last 12 months, certainly with AI, there's been an enormous amount of noise that's entered into the chat through everybody now as a content expert, everybody's posting all these things.
TK (40:04)
it.
Mat Vogels (40:25)
It's now I think become harder to stand out. And even if your stuff is good, I have a lot of friends, obviously that are very good writers. And if you're, if you're really good at what you do and the quality is there, I think you'll, you'll rise to the top. But I think that if you're in that middle ground of you were a good writer, but may not a great writer, you're probably getting pushed out by people that are not great writers that are using AI and they're just like, they're, they're flooding the zone. It's just, there's, there's so much going in. How do you.
think Emily that you would give feedback to people thinking about how do I make a splash right now when it just seems like there's there's too much noise. Do you recommend that they I mean hire somebody like yourself or do they just have to become better writers? Like what is what is the right solution here?
TK (41:07)
Thank you.
Emily Gold (41:10)
So I'm going to say something controversial that maybe the other folks that I work with will be upset by this. But I don't necessarily think you need to be a good writer. It also depends entirely on the distribution channel. If you're writing a Substack that's supposed to be substantive and longer form, then yeah, you probably need to be a good writer. On social media, whether it's LinkedIn or particularly X, you just need to be good at really quick.
high fidelity intel, right? Like you need to add something to the conversation. I see way too many posts on LinkedIn. They're not adding anything. They're regurgitating what's already being talked about. Boring. Like you need to, and this is again, not to like just talk about Dan Magy all day, but like you need to insert something new that maybe other people don't have access to. Like I don't think everyone's on Telegram watching, you know, kamikaze drones in Ukraine. I think that there's a unique subset of this industry that does that in their free time.
But we all want to see it, right? And so if you can be the person that's like adding a new flavor, something new, even if you write it and it's not even the best English, you can tell that you wrote it on your phone. I think again, like we are hungry for authenticity in a world where you don't, you know, it's just, operate now in the assumption that whatever I'm reading was written by a computer. That sucks. I, so at least from, maybe this is just a highly personal opinion. I'm craving.
TK (42:32)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Gold (42:37)
I want to know the real you in a sea of bots. So if you can do that, it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be real.
TK (42:44)
Mm-hmm.
Have you ever made the mistake of calling someone out for using it? But then they're like, dude, I wrote that for 45 minutes. What the fuck?
Mat Vogels (42:55)
Yeah ⁓
Emily Gold (42:56)
So it's so funny
that you bring this up actually because another friend of my network made a post about how you need to stop using the long dash because it's giving you away. And yes, 100 % it is. However, I was raised by an attorney who literally had us edit his briefs when we were kids. mean, the written word was the highest art form in our house. He beat it not literally.
TK (43:08)
⁓ love the end dash.
Mat Vogels (43:10)
I know it,
like yeah.
TK (43:17)
Wow.
Emily Gold (43:23)
everything's okay. He verbally read into me, right, that the long dash is like, is the way to showcase your sophistication. And so that's like, literally how I wrote things in college. And so then when this started happening, I was like, my God, am I gonna have to like, completely change who I am so that people don't think I'm using AI, which I have, because now I'm freaked out about it, because I care so much about me having an authentic voice. So yeah, it's
TK (43:26)
Thank
Mm-hmm.
Mat Vogels (43:41)
Yeah.
Emily Gold (43:48)
It's rough out there. mean, have, there are having people that I've called out who I think, listen, everyone uses AI. Anyone that tells me that they don't, it's just very hard for me to believe them. Cause I just, I literally don't know a single person that doesn't use it in some capacity. And I'm one of them. I mean, I do. I use it for research and yeah, especially for, and I don't know if you guys experienced this at all, but like, as a, mean, don't like calling myself a startup, right? As a small business, right? I can either.
TK (44:02)
Mm-hmm.
Mat Vogels (44:03)
I think you'd be silly not to, honestly. Yeah.
TK (44:05)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Emily Gold (44:17)
hire someone, which is very expensive, or I can take the time doing the work that I'm already doing, but training an AI to basically be a mini me operationally. That to me is worth everything. I don't think I could be a small business owner without AI, truthfully. I just don't think it would be possible. So there are benefits of it, but like you have to be careful. And I just think if everyone is relying on AI,
to build their brand and to convey their vision, everyone's visions are going to end up looking the same.
TK (44:51)
Yeah.
Mat Vogels (44:51)
Yeah.
Emily Gold (44:52)
What, and that would be a huge bummer for this space.
Mat Vogels (44:53)
Thomas, I want to hear some hot takes from Thomas on AI a little bit. are you thinking about AI? Maybe not even internally, but similar. It's obviously being used. It's widespread. Every design agency, everybody that I know is using AI extensively. ⁓ What are your thoughts on that trend, obviously, taken over?
TK (44:55)
great part.
Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
I'm pretty bullish on it. Full stop. mean, we couldn't have done oil paintings. Like, we know how to do it. It would have taken a month to put out one iteration. And then they're like, what if we change the tree? And we're like, fuck, okay, that's gonna be another month. It's just not, yeah, it's just not, hey, can you come back, man? So it's just not.
Mat Vogels (45:29)
Yeah, you gotta go bring that artist in and then you gotta change it,
Federico Gardin (45:29)
Thanks.
TK (45:36)
It made things possible for our small team that just wasn't possible two years ago. ⁓
Mat Vogels (45:41)
Mm-hmm.
TK (45:44)
And whether you want to say like, you're taking the jobs away of like Renaissance painters. like, show me a Renaissance painter. there's caveats, but.
Mat Vogels (45:53)
But even besides
Federico Gardin (45:52)
Thank
Mat Vogels (45:53)
Renaissance painting, obviously, there's still a lot of like the background images that we're using right now. I could have probably hired somebody for those things to all I generated all within a few minutes. But but yeah.
TK (45:56)
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
think, I think there's push and pull always, with new emerging technology, pulling out an architecture metaphor. Every time someone asks me about this question, I say, okay, well, look at the architects who are still drawing by hand in the nineties and like the late eighties when CAD became a thing and AutoCAD was like slowly becoming the standard. It allowed us to.
It allowed us to build buildings still. It optimized our work, if not made it more precise, which, you know, I think we would want our buildings to be more precise so they don't fall down. Not that, you I don't know what the statistic is. I'm sure maybe there's something out there that's like, you know, buildings started falling down less after AutoCAD. But, you know, I always look at my friends and I go, how many architects do you see still drawing by hand? None.
zero. And it's not like suddenly when it was introduced, the field of architecture went to shit. Although I think it went to shit now, but that's totally detached from like technology, I think it's real estate developers. But I've always said it helped us do our jobs better. And I think AI is doing the exact same thing. It's it's allowed us to be more imaginative.
And it's allowed us to work at a pace that maybe we all wanted, but like physically could not do. And whether that makes you work more or not, like that's a totally different conversation. But I just, I just, you know, last week I had an idea in the studio. I was like, what if we took this really lovely essay? There's an essay that we make anybody who work with us read before they work with us. Because during the interview, I want to ask them, what'd you think about it? It's called the last question. It's a very short.
I say by Asimov. It's a very profound one as well. And suddenly, you know, on a random Friday last week, I was like, we should we should make a movie out of the last question. And people were like, Yeah, that'd be cool. And then I was like, you know, I'm gonna go try. And so I like, stitch together six different softwares and just like, put out a 30 second short that I made entirely using AI. And I was like,
That was pretty incredible. Like I don't think this is gonna be a canned film festival, but like I think I just did that in an hour and a half. And what can I do if I devote a whole week or a month to it? I think hopefully like David Holtz's whole, you know, the founder of Mid Journey, who's a client of ours as well, his whole thesis is like, I don't want to make a tool that eliminates art.
I want the tool that essentially allows everybody to be creative because everyone's a designer. In my opinion, everyone's a designer to a certain extent. It's like people who say they're not, I'm like, you chose to put your night table where it is, or you chose to angle your couch in a certain way. To me, those are like all micro design decisions that people innately have. and so, you know, these tools now allow people who maybe like didn't get trained.
on how to use a paintbrush to like paint something. And like, will that person take a graphic designer who went to traditional art school's job? I don't think so. I think like, but I think if the graphic designer chooses to ignore it because they're being stubborn, yeah, maybe, I don't know. And that's partly at fault because you chose to ignore it and not like use it to make your own work better, which I think is.
absolutely how we should approach AI in the creative fields. It's not like the thing that's going to help you do your job in one hour. It's hopefully the thing that'll make your work just much, better and much more robust than what it could have been before.
Mat Vogels (49:54)
I've seen it. think it raises the bar across the board is kind of what I've seen. It raises the bar for folks that you are not good writers. Certainly not good. think design to me is the one where it, especially artists, like being artistic and actually drawing something or creating that imagery to evoke feeling is very difficult. think very, very few people could even do that. I think more people could take.
could write, could spend time and sit down and write, you know, a blog post if they really wanted to. And maybe it takes three, four or five hours to get there versus somebody who's a really good writer and could do it in 30 minutes or something like that. But to create like the things that you were creating on Rainmaker's website and doing those, it would be impossible. Like I could not do that. I could not do that at all, no matter how much practice or training. I cannot do that. So it's almost like it's allowing all these folks to enter the chat where they'll stay.
You know, other areas they couldn't. I'm really curious, Federico, if there's how much AI is being used on the 3D animation side on, on, in that world, because I feel like similar to illustration and photography and those, there's a gap where I, somebody like myself would not have been able to do anything in that space, but probably could now with some of the tools that are existing.
Federico Gardin (50:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mat Vogels (51:09)
What are your thoughts on AI as it relates to 3D animation in that whole world?
Federico Gardin (51:14)
So from our side, it's definitely like a great tool. For the time being, we mainly use it on the concept phase, early stages. If we need to like quickly iterate, for example, if we need to show a specific environment where the tech is going to be used, and we quickly iterate with the client to show them like a bunch of options. So then when we actually go into production, the timeline is more effective, how they use the budget, we use the budget is more effective. So overall speeds up the process quite a lot in the concept phase.
and frauds to the production. It's not maybe there yet in terms like production ready specifically for the type of work we do in the sense that a lot of the products we work with to show them in a way that makes sense, they need to have a certain level of technical accuracy and just where AI is right now can do maybe a great cinematic shot of a random car chasing or something, but when we need
there's not really a way to implement a CAD model from the client in a very accurate way where it's like 100 % how it is without having some crazy distortions and weird stuff going on. So, I mean, if it gets to that point, that would be great because it means we can deliver to the client faster, better prices, and we can just do more for them. So, when the time comes, it's definitely something we'll implement, but for now, it's just concept phase pretty much.
I started boarding it.
Mat Vogels (52:41)
Let's assume
that that that does happen. I think it will. think it's going to end up getting to a point where you could speak into a prompt, speaking to existence exactly what you want. So maybe in your world, Federico, specifically, what would then separate you versus now having anybody like the founders themselves speaking this into the world versus somebody like yourself or designer thinking about these things? Where's the separation, I guess?
Federico Gardin (52:49)
Mm-hmm.
Mat Vogels (53:07)
when there's an equal playing field with the tools that allow us to have the same skill set.
Federico Gardin (53:13)
So I guess one of the big ones in just translating their vision, because in a lot of cases when the founders come to us, they start to speak for an hour about all the technical details, but they don't really necessarily have a vision of like just classical storytelling beginning, middle and end of how showcase the capability of their product. They over-focus on the technical side of things. So having more of an advertising storytelling background, I think that's where we can help.
overall with both on the production side, but in general, the concept phase as well.
Mat Vogels (53:49)
It's so true. think you're exactly right. I think there's, always going to be a need. The question that I get all the time is why is there going to be a need for designers or creatives or really any of the fields that we play and even VCs to an extent. And obviously the cliche thing right now is taste. Everybody's talking about taste. and I do think that there is something to say there, but I think that's two layers and you hinted on it perfectly. It's not just taste cause a founder might have the perfect idea of what they want to do and they can bring it out into the world.
but there's also this idea that it's really difficult, I think, for most people to put the mirror on themselves and be able to articulate something that's going to resonate maybe in a good way. And I think what everybody here has, having worked with a lot of different clients and different people, is you have the contextual awareness of what's going to work for them. So you almost lead more with what's the objective here, and you know the path to get there probably better than they do. What you need from them, tie back to what you said, Emily, you need the
TK (54:37)
here.
Mat Vogels (54:46)
authenticity, you want to make sure that that's shining through, but that combination of also putting in it with the contextual awareness professional pieces that you've collected over the years as well. So I think that's great.
TK (54:59)
I
wanted to add is, you know, Federico, you just mentioned like when the tools get to where they, where they could or are going, like you could deliver faster. could, you could offer lower prices, et cetera. I think that's, that's one place that I actually disagree or hesitate on in terms of like AI powering our workflows. Like I think the
process as I mentioned earlier should remain the same the same amount of rigor It's not like just plop something in get something out and like boom. It's on the website That would be bad. And I think as creatives I always tell people in our studio like you're not an artisan. You are actually a stonemason. I mean, I guess you could be both but You are you are here for the rigor you are coming into the studio every single day
and like chipping at a block to get to the David eventually. But like you don't just plop Davids out every single day. I think you have to work at the craft. I think using AI does not mean you've like created a shortcut from A to B. It's actually like, you should be applying the same amount of thought and care that you would if you were going to make this image yourself, you know, pull it out, edit it, tweak it like.
analyze it, go back to the drawing board. And you have to go through all those processes to truly be creative. Cause I think there is a world, the dangerous side of AI, which I think is what you said, which is like, well, the guy just knows what he wants. Like, can't he just type that in and get the thing out and then boom, he's done. That's not true. And I think that to me is where, where AI will lack, which is that, that.
combination that you have to do in a creative process, which is I understand current events, understand meme culture, I understand color theory, I understand like what they might say or should say or shouldn't say, and then I'm combining all of those things to create this thing that I've arrived at. There's, you know, you should be able to defend your decisions and I think that's what AI couldn't do necessarily.
Mat Vogels (57:06)
What are your thoughts on that, Emily?
Emily Gold (57:09)
So many thoughts. ⁓ So I think, you know, I really think you're, we are, we are simpatico, I think, in how we view this. Like, I struggle with.
Mat Vogels (57:11)
Hahaha
Emily Gold (57:24)
We're going to get a little existential here, a little deep. We suffer as a society. I mean, it's not just America. This is a global issue, right? We are impatient as hell. We have no patience. This is part of the reason why I'm completely obsessed with reindustrialization and this massive wave of effort and energy that's come about. But I struggle with whether or not us as a society can handle
TK (57:27)
Let's do it.
Mat Vogels (57:28)
You
Emily Gold (57:52)
Manufacturing takes patients that I don't know that we understand anymore. And as the older people get older, and the younger people that really don't understand this come into the workforce, they definitely don't get this. And I think AI, you said it exactly. It's one tool in an arsenal of human tools. This should augment your existing process. I think.
TK (57:56)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Gold (58:17)
in terms of written word, written content, you can use AI to create a bunch of content, schedule it, and forget about it. That is not going to help you be influential because you are missing that real time component of actually engaging with other people on things that are happening right now. And so there will always be
be a need for humans to engage and to be part of this process. You can't just set it and forget it, churn things out. Sure, costs go down, but if you're setting this expectation, again, Thomas, to what you said, you can't set an expectation with your clients that you're just going to plug something in, spit something out, boom, instant. You are going to work yourself to the bone. I also don't think people realize, even if you're using AI heavily, it's still really time consuming.
Like it takes so much, like to the extent that I use AI, like it's actually really time consuming. Like I feel like I spend more time with my chat GPT than I do with like my friends and my family, because it's like, gotta like whip it into shape. You have to really get dialed in with prompts. I mean, it is not easy. So to say like, you know, we can like 10 X our output with AI. Sure. But like,
Mat Vogels (59:07)
Yes.
TK (59:07)
here.
Mm-hmm.
Emily Gold (59:31)
you're
also going to have to like, there's going to be some increase in effort on your part as well. Until we get to a point where it's fully autonomous, which I don't really understand how that might really be and still be meaningful. Like I just don't see a world where that can really exist. I hope that answered the question. Sorry, I'm on a tirade.
Mat Vogels (59:50)
One of things that both, that was a perfect
answer. There's a perfect answer there. The, I'm actually kind of curious, both of you kind of hinted at this and you mentioned it Thomas of you're going in, let's say that you have a set amount of time that you're thinking about a project or doing something. You mentioned that in a way it's not that they're going to be getting there faster. Would you say is the quality then getting better? Is that what's happening with AI is that AI is allowing them to have the final output be better? Is it a combination of both or where do you see maybe
TK (1:00:19)
Okay.
Mat Vogels (1:00:19)
the benefits
of AI coming together? Is it that the quality increases? Is it that you get faster at getting to quality or is it a combination of both or where does it lean, do you think, more than the other, if that makes sense?
TK (1:00:34)
Who's that question for?
Mat Vogels (1:00:36)
For Thomas, sorry.
TK (1:00:38)
Emily, did you, I mean, feel free.
Emily Gold (1:00:40)
No,
go for it. I mean, I have thoughts, but please, the floor is yours.
Mat Vogels (1:00:40)
Please, if you have a, yeah.
Federico Gardin (1:00:41)
you
TK (1:00:44)
I think, I mean, my answer is simple. think it just allows us to cast a much wider net for you to, like, get a much better end product eventually, because we had the capability to look at a bunch of things that in the past, we maybe couldn't have gone as wide on, but we're like, because we have this technology, why don't we go explore these things versus like back in the day, it would have been incredibly time consuming to be like,
Who are the best oil painting artists we know? Who are the best art deco specialists we know? Who are the best art nouveau specialists we know? And then go find them, contract, you know, it would have taken so long versus now it just allows us to explore a bit more, which is the really fun part for us. And we're like, here's a much bigger pool of potential. And then we whittle it down, obviously, and you'll always get the same results. So I don't know if it's an increase in quality necessarily.
Maybe it is, but I think it's more that you get to cast a wider net.
Mat Vogels (1:01:44)
A lot of ammo on your side. you think that is a does it help improve quality or speed or where's the better win there?
Emily Gold (1:01:52)
So I think to sort of piggyback on what Thomas said, I think it increases optionality, right? So it does obviously affect speed. I don't know if it really leads to better quality. And I'll say this. We all think about the echo chambers that results from using social media. At a certain point, so when I do use AI, I have to clear it.
pretty frequently. I have to sort of like nuke my environment because I find that it just sort of like starts to sort of like double down on itself and reader and and then you find yourself as sort of in this like you know it's giving you a lot of the same.
Mat Vogels (1:02:33)
Especially if you've
given it that affirmation once on like one thing that it said, that was a good answer. And it doubles down, triples down again.
Emily Gold (1:02:36)
Yeah. ⁓ and you know what? is totally,
Federico Gardin (1:02:36)
you
TK (1:02:37)
Thank
Emily Gold (1:02:40)
this is so fascinating. I was just reading last night. I actually kind of scared the shit out of me, but apparently AI responds really well to threats of physical violence, to, which is just terrifying. Hey guys, this is the world we live in. So, ⁓ hate to break it to you. I, you know what? have to, this was at the wee hours of the morning and I, so I couldn't tell you. I'll have to go back and I'll send it. God.
Mat Vogels (1:02:49)
Yeah.
TK (1:02:50)
What? my god. Wow.
Mat Vogels (1:02:53)
Was that a thing?
I think was it the
CEO of Google that mentioned it or like mentioned something like I can't remember. But yeah, I remember. Yeah, somebody mentioned it.
TK (1:03:01)
Gotta talk dirty to it.
Mat Vogels (1:03:03)
Yeah.
Emily Gold (1:03:04)
but it's like, if you don't, if you're not like really aggressive with AI to get it to sort of like course correct or bring in new things, it's like, it's just going to keep sort of like regurgitating itself, which I just think like, there's no way that's going to lead to better quality. I just don't believe that. but what I said, I think it could lead to more optionality. Like I think that like, Thomas is right. Like it's a great research tool. Like if I'm writing a long form.
TK (1:03:05)
Thank
Emily Gold (1:03:30)
sub stack posts where I know I need to bring in lots of sources, I need to bring in data, I need to bring in like lots of different things that I just as a single human do not have time to do, you know, to do all of that on my own. It's a great starting point. It also gives you optionality in the sense that like you can write something organically. Like I do this all the time. I'll actually write something just me in a vacuum disconnected. I'll then plug that into AI and I can come up with different versions of my voice.
different versions of, I wrote this long form thing, but I also really want to hint at this on LinkedIn or I want to make an X-post about what I wrote long form. It helps you do that. That I think is the proper way to use AI. Like you're still using your brain. Like I worry about critical thinking, about people being able to actually write. What if you were a great writer and now you've used AI so much that you go to write and you just see it stare at a blank screen?
TK (1:04:19)
Absolutely.
Mat Vogels (1:04:23)
I don't know.
TK (1:04:25)
I think it's actively happening.
Emily Gold (1:04:27)
It's terrifying. It scares me. It scares me. catch myself
TK (1:04:27)
I think it's actively happening. Yeah.
Emily Gold (1:04:30)
relying on ChatGPD too much for basically everything that I used to use Google for, right? And it's scary. So.
TK (1:04:33)
What? Yeah.
When, when chat GBT went down for like, I don't know, two hours, three hours, a few weeks ago, I was like looking at my co-founder who was like actively using it. was like, Oh no, how are you going to fucking think dude? And he was like, shut up. Yeah.
Emily Gold (1:04:41)
Time stood still, right?
Mat Vogels (1:04:41)
I remember that.
Emily Gold (1:04:51)
It's so true. It's like the new version of the Wi-Fi going down. You're like, wait, how do, wait, my job
is email. How do I do my job? Yeah, it's the same thing. Yeah, right, so.
TK (1:04:58)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mat Vogels (1:04:58)
Yeah, can't write emails.
It's I think younger generations
specifically, have younger cousins that are in like a high school, early college years and they echo some of the same things where it's almost become the go to the same way that we would not cheat, but we would be like, what's the answer to that? Go to Google and get the answer right away. AI is taking it a step further where it's like not only am I Google searching the answer of this particular time in history, but I'm going to have it actually write the paper for me. It's like a whole extent of it going forward. It'll be interesting to see.
in future generations that are in those kind of pivotal early years, and especially in their careers, think of what happens if that makes them better, like a generation that's brought up with AI, are they superhuman in a way in this new world, maybe different than what we would say? Or are they going to fall behind because maybe they lack a little bit back to the earlier point of authenticity, because it's not really their own voice, they've kind of adapted into this voice that
They've been told is the right way of doing things and over time does that change? One question I kind of have, no go ahead Emily.
Emily Gold (1:06:05)
No, this is just fun. You can probably cut this out. I'm a woman. And so I read gossipy stuff. I love scrolling on Instagram and reading terrible stuff about celebrities. There's this thing called Mar-a-Lago face, where every woman is starting to look the same. And I fear that is happening to the written word. It's happening with how we communicate. At some point, we're all going to converge into the same personality.
TK (1:06:09)
You
Mat Vogels (1:06:11)
I can't, no, yeah.
TK (1:06:19)
Thank
Mat Vogels (1:06:23)
Uh-huh.
Emily Gold (1:06:34)
and what a bleak future that would be, right? It's one thing for us to all have the same nose, but yeah, I can't do it.
TK (1:06:38)
I refuse to believe it.
I refuse.
Mat Vogels (1:06:44)
There's a question I was gonna ask. This is something that I think of a lot and maybe Federico will, I want you to kick it off with your answer. I think of my kids are young. I have a six year old and a two year old and I always like to think of it like when they graduate high school. It's like close enough to where, you know, it could be 15 or so years, but it's long enough away where we're gonna see so many things advance during that time. Do you think as a consumer, some of the things I have this bold belief
that over 50 % of the things that we consume as entertainment in 10 years will be self-generated AI. The music we listen to, the books that we read, the things that we watch, the podcasts we listen to are instead of going out and finding people doing them, the artists today doing it, that instead it'll be, you know what, today I wanna listen to a podcast about an expert in this topic, talk to another podcaster.
Federico Gardin (1:07:15)
Thanks.
You
.
Mat Vogels (1:07:36)
an expert in this topic and it's going to create it. It's going to be exactly what you'd want. It'll be correct factually and all these things. What are your thoughts on that future? Do you think that that will happen or will not happen?
Federico Gardin (1:07:47)
I saw, I think yesterday, comparison video between the Will Smith eating spaghetti two years ago and the one done now. Insane, like what happened in two years.
Mat Vogels (1:07:57)
It is crazy. We forget
how bad it was just even a year ago.
Federico Gardin (1:08:00)
Yeah, exactly. See what can happen in two years. To be honest, like 15 years wouldn't surprise me if Netflix now is gonna make full-on series based off the prompt. Or actually, can almost self-generate based on your interests, what you want to see. So it's not like your Netflix looks like anyone else's Netflix, but based on what you like, Netflix will auto-generate the show for you or the movie for you, whatever it is.
TK (1:08:00)
Mm-hmm.
Federico Gardin (1:08:29)
And yeah, again, seeing the difference in two years from like a silly video like that, 15 years, all the money that's going to this is gonna be just more and more. It sounds very doable. Then of course you never know because there are like a thousand factors, but it sounds very doable to be honest.
Mat Vogels (1:08:44)
But let's assume that
technologically it happens. let's say, let's assume that in 10 years it is as good as that, if not better. It's like, it's indistinguishable from the art that we would think about today at the music, the podcast, all of those things from a human habit piece. That's the question is, do you feel like it'll be something where we will be okay and entertained consuming AI content because it's self-generated? Like I was the one.
that went to Netflix and said, hey, I wanna show that it's about this and this combined with this and then 30 minutes of this happening. So I'm the artist and I'm absorbing something that I feel like I created. Do you feel like that is something?
Federico Gardin (1:09:27)
I would say the optimistic side of me says that people will not want to accept that future. But then when you see a lot of the trends that are happening and what's going on in social media, would you just like go for it and not really care anymore at some point? But yeah, the optimistic side will tell me that we will actually care to actually watch real stories from real people. Like for example, what you said about the podcast, I will feel weird about like
Mat Vogels (1:09:40)
Mm-hmm.
Federico Gardin (1:09:55)
listening to two AIs talking to each other about some topic. Maybe you're watching a documentary that is totally made up. So I still have hope for it, but just seeing a lot of trends in general, it's a bit of an uncertain future, I would say, in that sense.
TK (1:10:05)
You
Mat Vogels (1:10:15)
Emily, that future gonna happen? Are my kids gonna be listening to those things? I'm still convinced even after that. And I think it's funny, you mentioned Federico, that you're optimistic that that won't be the case. It's again, a whole other long conversation and we don't have to go into it, of whether it is better or worse. Because I think that all of us here, growing up in a world where we care about the artists behind the music that we listen to, for example, but I see my kids and what they're doing and my son is six and he loves using Chat GPT and he uses it all the time.
Emily Gold (1:10:18)
God, I hope not.
Mat Vogels (1:10:44)
to create stories and to create graphics and those types of things. And the feeling that he gets is that he created those things and he loves to do them. So last night we have our two year old, he talks to ChatGPT and he says, I want a story about my brother and I going to the zoo and doing X, Y, and Z. It spits out a story that's perfect. And he's beaming with like, he thinks he did that and he's excited about it. And we're not gonna have, so in his case,
But then when I show him a book that somebody else had written or we listened to an audio book that somebody else had written, he does not care for it. He does not care for the artists behind the scene. that's the that this perspective is coming from, whether I like it or not. I do think there's a whole generation of kids that are going to grow up with AI being this piece. And then because they're going to have so much self-control over what it is that they're going to be the artists and go from there.
Emily, your last take. This will be the last day I think we talk about. then, yeah.
Emily Gold (1:11:40)
Okay, I, and I'm
sorry, I feel like I took us on this really deep AI tangent, my apologies, but it's inevitable, right? So I have little kids too, I totally get what you're saying. Without speaking negatively about our children, because I don't know your kids, but I'm sure they're incredible as are mine. To me, that is like participation trophies. Like you're not, I don't know, maybe that's really, that is aggressive.
Mat Vogels (1:11:45)
No, I knew we were gonna hit it, yeah.
Emily Gold (1:12:06)
I feel like this, well, okay, this is why we live in this really interesting dichotomy where it's like, yes, that's going away. We're like in this almost like post-DEI world, like post-participation trophies. And yet, I feel like exactly what you just said about AI, we have people that are, I guess there's artistry in prompts. Certainly there is, because prompting is like, I mean, their entire business is just built on helping you come up, giving you good prompts. mean, there's art in that.
Mat Vogels (1:12:06)
Those are going away now though, by the way.
Emily Gold (1:12:35)
God, it's, it would be so sad if like my children don't know how to write a sentence. ⁓ I don't know the thought of that. just makes me so sad.
Mat Vogels (1:12:42)
Yeah. Especially the
way that you said you grew up. It would be such a very, like two generations and it's, yeah, very different.
Emily Gold (1:12:50)
So
I don't know. think, yeah, I fear though that like the train has left the station a long time ago. So I don't know how much there is we can do about it. What I will say to kind of bring this back to, you know, the world that we all play in. Like, I see reindustrialization as like this really incredible proxy for all of these things that are like, that are wrong with society that we have the opportunity to fix.
I think the millennial generation is like, we're the last sort of bastion of like a world before toxic convenience, a world before everything being connected. But we also deeply actually, we really do understand like, you know, Gen Z, Gen Alpha that like, they only know this and we empathize with them. We also empathize with older people.
TK (1:13:28)
Thank
Emily Gold (1:13:39)
I feel like we're the only ones that can really solve this problem. And if we don't try to figure that out now, it's going to be too late and not to be hyperbolic and really extreme. we need to figure out, if we can figure out how to build things again as a country, we can figure out, I think, how to reincorporate patience and tangible.
Mat Vogels (1:13:41)
So true.
Emily Gold (1:14:01)
Tangible reward for our hard work. And I fear with AI, the way it's going, those things are going away. Patience, go by. Tangible reward? mean, the fact that people are feeling reward from telling something what to do, that's troubling.
Mat Vogels (1:14:18)
Thomas, final piece on any of that, and you can skip if you want, ⁓ but final piece on AI, maybe it's like a good, bad, little bit in the middle. Do we see it putting us into this utopia where everything is the same? Design kind of goes away. It's all kind of one similar thing.
TK (1:14:19)
You
Emily Gold (1:14:21)
Hahaha!
TK (1:14:36)
I think it's gonna be just a black swan year after year. I don't know if we're gonna know what's gonna happen next year. The world has changed so much in two years, three years. I think everything we talked about is gonna happen.
And then there's, and that's unstoppable. think to Emily's point, the thing that is actionable is going to be how we approach the adoption of all of these things that I think will be really important. And it'll be up to our incredible parents. two of them on here. Our incredible parents, our incredible teachers, and like the people who did have those things, like tangible things.
that they're used to or have grasped before and understand the idea of process and patience. I think it'll be up to those people certainly to make sure that it falls into the hands of our youth in the best way possible. And who knows what that's gonna look like, but I have faith. I think.
I think we'll, you know, I don't think we're gonna be satisfied with like where this thing goes. And so maybe the next turn of it, the next iteration of it will actually be like, you know what? Patience is pretty cool. We should bring that back. And that'll be like a part of a product again, or the ideas and the fundamental logic behind creativity will change. But, you know, maybe the...
The roots of it, the creativity that fueled all those things will, I don't know, surface again at some point where we are not just like expecting a thing to tell us exactly what it is we want. There's actually, you know, new ways of thinking around the process of, well, that's where you start. And like, here's all the ways you can iterate through it. And just because it's spit a thing out doesn't mean that that's the final thing. It actually means like you have just gotten started.
One of the best pieces of advice that I ever received in design school was actually funny. That was the last time I was in Austin, which is where I am right now for just a couple of days. I was going to the University of Texas is like their architecture summer program as a high schooler to see if I wanted to do architecture before spending a lot of money in university.
Mat Vogels (1:16:44)
Hehehe.
TK (1:16:56)
And I was struggling to think about a design when I was given a brief. My professor looked at me and said, just put your fucking pencil on the paper. And I started doing that. And I think every time I got stuck, that's just, just like, I just need to do that. I need to get started. And hopefully that's maybe the mentality that we take with at least creative tools. It's like, that is not the end all be all. It's a way for you to get started.
but use it as a great launching point and understand that there's a whole world out there which you can still employ to make something beautiful.
Mat Vogels (1:17:26)
Mm-hmm.
That's great. I think that that summarizes, think a lot of the feelings of everybody on here too. think because of people like all of you doing some of this work, the bar is always going to be higher. So as much as I say that there's going to be a lot of content created, generated that maybe for a lot of people will be considered good enough. There's always going to be really creative people that are pushing the envelope, raising the bar and they'll, it'll always be better. So there's always going to be this appreciation for the human element.
simply because humans will continue to produce better results with some of these tools. And I think that'll always be something. That's what turns us on to these things to begin with. The music that we listen to, the design, the painting, all these things is because we're inspired by the capabilities of what these people behind the paintbrush have done. I think that will continue to be the case. The tool obviously maybe changes and it's not a paintbrush. Maybe it is AI prompts. But I think that if you are a true artist or you studied art,
TK (1:18:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mat Vogels (1:18:32)
you will be better at those things and the bar will be raised there. Yeah.
TK (1:18:34)
Mm-hmm. You know,
one last thing. I hope not what your kid is doing is after he generates a short story, that he goes and shows it to his friends and goes, hey, what do you think? And they like have a beautiful conversation and they're like, well, what if the tree like was taller or it had a beard? And like, what if the tree was blue? And they're like, that's interesting. And that generated some new idea. And like, that's amazing in my opinion.
Mat Vogels (1:18:52)
Yeah.
TK (1:19:02)
And I hope that that's the case.
Mat Vogels (1:19:03)
That's what I think will happen, by the way. think
that, you know, I mentioned like, you know, 20 years, my son's like going to the gym and he's like, hey, I want a song that's like this and this mixed together. And it's goes, it creates a song. He's going to immediately share it with like his five friends. They're going to remix it and kind of do their own things on it, too. ⁓ The story that my son did create, he actually then drew it horribly, but drew it least on real paper and did bring it to school and did show it to his friends. So it's it is it's like a spark of creativity that maybe, you know, would otherwise not be there, too. So I'm still
TK (1:19:19)
Mm-hmm.
That's fantastic.
Mat Vogels (1:19:33)
very hopeful, I just hope it expands, it doesn't limit us, I think, going forward. ⁓ Last round the horn, kind of pieces of questions in here. Federico, what is the most exciting area of deep tech in your mind, whether it's for you being able to design for it, create for it, or just in general that excites you the most right now?
TK (1:19:37)
Mm-hmm.
Federico Gardin (1:19:52)
So I would say for something we're actually working on right now is underwater UVs. So we're actually doing something like UV company at some pretty cool stuff. But I would say both ocean and space are kind of like quite cool topics for stuff we're working on right now. So I'm just curious to see what are the next companies coming up, going to bring to the table and yeah, exactly.
Mat Vogels (1:19:59)
underwater.
I mean, I haven't heard Ocean is the new space is kind of
where it's at. There's so much to discover there. I also agree. think that Ocean companies have such an unfair branding advantage because it's just for whatever reason, it's just it's so cool to be able to think and talk and design around the ocean. Hard to do. Oh, my goodness, we can. Forgot that there was a mom on here. You have all the mom jokes that you can go with us.
TK (1:20:28)
Yeah.
Emily Gold (1:20:30)
Some might say there's
a sea of opportunity.
TK (1:20:32)
Yes.
Federico Gardin (1:20:35)
Good one.
Mat Vogels (1:20:40)
But also difficult probably for you, Federico, because the water's tough. Water's a tough thing to design for, to create visuals for. It's almost impossible to do. Liquid is just weird.
Federico Gardin (1:20:51)
lot of technical challenges with that for sure.
Mat Vogels (1:20:53)
But maybe that's why you like it. Maybe that's why it's exciting.
TK (1:20:53)
You
Federico Gardin (1:20:55)
Yeah, yeah, definitely like a whole new creative, problem solving side of things. Like totally new environment literally.
Mat Vogels (1:21:03)
Well, if you are a maritime blue tech company, you know where to go to get some incredible 3D stuff there. Emily, you mentioned the industry, like the new industrial revolution that we're going through right now. Is that where you're gonna land or where would you say is the most exciting piece in this deep tech wave that we're seeing?
Emily Gold (1:21:20)
Yeah, so, okay, I'm gonna say something controversial. Gosh, do I love a company that just only builds for defense and nothing else? I have dual use fatigue. Yeah, it's like, I have dual use fatigue, and you can spread the word on that. I literally am like, there are just some companies that should not be dual use, and they need to stop wasting their time trying to be. So I don't really, there's, mean.
Mat Vogels (1:21:25)
yes.
Really? Is that because of the DoD background that you have? Okay. Ooh, dual use fatigue.
Hmm. Hmm.
Emily Gold (1:21:47)
I would say given my time working for the OnRamp Hub, I love kind of like an unsexy, really elegant solution. I've worked with some really cool companies in sort of like the contested communication space, contested logistics, like not sexy stuff, but like, holy shit, really moving the needle. And those stories are really hard to tell. How do you tell a really compelling story about comms? That's a challenge, but I love it.
terms of like reindustrialization, mean, you know, I think the thing that excites me so much about when I meet a really young founder, I don't really care what they're building. if there's some sort of like really like, you know, compelling hardware component to what they're doing. And I know that there's potential for them to build it here in the United States. Like that really gets me fired up. Like there are a handful of young founders, you know, 20.
21 years old these are people that have their entire lives ahead of them and they are people that were born to build This is not the only thing they're gonna build like I want to invest in those people Those are the people that are gonna make this country run, you know on a in terms of manufacturing so I yeah again, I care less about the tech more about the people and their passion behind what they're doing
Mat Vogels (1:23:03)
I love that, I love that. Thomas, favorite industry that you're thinking of right now, maybe it can be multiple, you don't have to pick favorites, but is there anything that's exciting you the most right now?
TK (1:23:12)
I don't think so. think they kind of excite me equally across the board. ⁓
Mat Vogels (1:23:19)
Is it similar to what Emily said where it's
more because of their spot, like the inspiration behind what they're building?
TK (1:23:24)
Totally, I mean, think the energy is definitely contagious. I'm a, you know, this is my third company. I'm also someone who just wants to build stuff and like watch things grow. And so it's exciting for me to both be growing my own thing and then be able to assist these incredible people on achieving their vision as well. You know, I don't think there's a particularly fascinating industry for me that's like.
over another one because I think they're all incredibly equal. And I think the seat that we have been, you know, so graciously offered to like sit in, in this position has been so amazing for us. Cause it feels like we get to watch all the different hockey pucks emerging to where we think they're going to go. And ideally that's to kind of advance our civilization to like the next step.
talking about things like the Kardashev scale, think, like, I hope that that's where we're headed, and I think that's where we're going.
Mat Vogels (1:24:23)
I think one of the other trends that I'm excited about this already happened. There's a lot of it doing it, but I think there's going to be some really cool venture capital angles given to creative folks and agencies. There's already agencies that are doing this. But when you have the ability to tell a story and the ability to meet some of these companies, Emily, to your point, you're meeting 20, 21 year olds that are just about to start in these adventures. You have VCs. don't have that access. Typically, you're not at that point of needing help or being there. So I think we'll start seeing more
TK (1:24:36)
He
Mat Vogels (1:24:53)
venture capital get put into agencies and creatives to help allocate because you're going to have, think, first access into not only the companies, but these exact trends that are, are going to be servicing as well.
Emily Gold (1:25:06)
And I think just, just, mean, to give you guys kudos, think, um, harpoon and black flag. I mean, you guys are doing something really unique. Like, you know, there are definitely naysayers out there that I think maybe there's a bit of jealousy baked into that. Um, people in the space that are like, well, like, it can't just be about hype. It has to be about outcomes. And I'm like, I really firmly believe that you guys are outcome outcomes oriented. You just also happen to be really kick-ass marketers and it's possible to be both. Um, and so.
Mat Vogels (1:25:25)
Which is true.
⁓ I appreciate that. ⁓
Emily Gold (1:25:35)
Like I think that you guys are a great case study in what's possible when you use your imagination and you actually try to make things fun and exciting and entertaining and not just about making, I mean obviously you guys are trying to make money, but like it's about so much more than that. You guys are creating like a cultural movement and I think that's really palpable.
Mat Vogels (1:25:54)
That's great. will say though, I appreciate that. Thank you. We're probably also equally to blame for the dual use stuff. Maybe not us specifically, but certainly VC as a whole. Because the most common question I hear, not necessarily at Harpoon or anywhere, but when I'm like sharing and passing along deals, the very first question is like, what's the dual use application here? And so we're the ones that are warping that narrative for all these poor companies that are like, I just want to build for defense. I don't.
TK (1:26:01)
You
Mat Vogels (1:26:20)
I don't know how my technology could be used for airport security or something.
Emily Gold (1:26:22)
Yeah.
But it's not, sorry, I know we're to go way over time. It's not just you. mean, not just you. It's not just like VCs. It's like, it's coming from DOD. mean, like you look at NSIC, Like they, National Security Innovation Capital, like they only invest in companies that are dual use. Like that to me is problematic because if we're truly going to flip the script on our adversaries, there's a lot of technology that needs an influx of capital.
Mat Vogels (1:26:30)
PC.
Julius.
Emily Gold (1:26:51)
that we'll never have a dual use and that's okay. I just think it's how we talk about it and how we think about how to fund these things. I just think everyone's looking for a dual use and I think for VCs to have that approach is fine because you guys need to make money. DoD needs to save lives. have complete, their outcomes are very different. So.
Mat Vogels (1:27:09)
Hmm.
So true. Perfect. Thank you, everybody. That was fantastic. I had a lot of fun chatting through all these things. I'm glad we went down the AI rabbit hole, and I'm glad we were able to tie it all back together. Really, really quick, again, Emily, starting with you. Share where people can find you, anything that you're looking for, what you're looking for right now, and we'll close things off around the horn.
Federico Gardin (1:27:17)
Hm.
Emily Gold (1:27:34)
Yeah, so I mean, I'm always looking for interesting and compelling founders that need help with their content. You can go to our website, op4.media. It is sparse for a reason. We don't want to say too much because we want to hear from you and create something entirely bespoke to what you're building. The other thing, I've sort of hinted at it throughout this conversation, but I'm also leading this massive creative project around America's industrial renaissance.
that movement speaks to you, if you're involved in it in some capacity or you want to be, please connect with me. We are looking for people to champion what we're doing as well as participate in it directly. That's all I'll say. Super cryptic.
Mat Vogels (1:28:16)
I love it. No, that's good. That's perfect. That's the great way to get people interested in the story. Yeah, exactly. Thomas, how about you?
Emily Gold (1:28:19)
Bread crumbs. Yeah.
TK (1:28:20)
So mysterious.
yeah, we, are a small studio, but we're growing. any, any designers, graphic designers, art directors out there who want to participate in this incredibly exciting frontier, hit us up. We are actively looking for some, some new folks to join the team. otherwise, you know, if you're a founder who are, who is building in this, in this world and wants to visualize a new future and wants to do it.
with a studio who's willing to be in the trenches with them. Please hit us up. We'd love to talk to you. We're at Asimovcollective.com and yeah, looking forward.
Mat Vogels (1:29:03)
Love it. Thank you. Federico last, but certainly not least.
Federico Gardin (1:29:07)
For us, yeah, if you have some cool defense tech you're working on and want to showcase it in a clear way for potential customers or investors, can find us at Sentinel Studios.
Mat Vogels (1:29:19)
Love it. Thank you all again. This was a great conversation. ⁓ Hopefully it's great for some of the listeners in here and I'm excited to maybe chat again in a year or two when we'll see how some of these things have changed.
TK (1:29:23)
Thank you.
Emily Gold (1:29:33)
Can't wait. Bye.
Mat Vogels (1:29:33)
See you everybody.
TK (1:29:35)
Cheers.
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