Aaron Jones, Founder of Yepic AI, pioneers empathy-driven avatars that transform digital interfaces by enabling real-time human-like interactions through video and voice technology designed to create meaningful connections rather than just providing answers. Coming from a diverse background spanning social enterprise work in Cambodia, visual search company development (C-Fashion), and media production for MTV and the God Channel, Aaron positions empathy as the essential foundation for human communication, believing that knowledge without connection renders even quantum physics expertise powerless. His journey began at Founders Factory as Project Lucas, where his team built the world's first diffusion model (predating stable diffusion) and became the first company globally to create talking photos and real-time avatar conversations, though they learned painful lessons about the necessity of raising capital when competitors with venture backing and 100+ engineers repeatedly outmaneuvered their technical breakthroughs. Aaron explains Yepic's evolution from patent-focused IP protection to building killer products that integrate best-in-class third-party APIs from Traverse, Hedra, and others, recognizing that model-building has become a race to the bottom dominated by ByteDance and Google, while their competitive advantage lies in real-time optimization requiring sub-500 millisecond response times and specialized GPU infrastructure planning. After bringing the company back from near-bankruptcy with CTO Mark, they've grown from zero to £2.5 million ARR with just seven people, while working on major projects including Somalia's national elections and partnering with Good Omen team members Marco and Geo through hackathon collaborations that validate future product directions. Aaron envisions avatars that interact with their environments, pick up objects, and respond to both camera feeds and their artificial worlds, positioning Yepic to lead the convergence of gaming engines and generative AI through world simulation technology that will enable personalized film narratives and fully avatar-presented live events, while maintaining his Sunday research paper routine to stay ahead of developments like Stable Avatar for temporal consistency and keyframe editing innovations that eliminate the soul-destroying creative flow interruptions plaguing current video generation platforms.