The Judgment Call Podcast

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Mark Saroufim and I talk about:

• Has the AI community become intellectually lazy and is there a a stagnation in progress?
• Why is AI so complicated and what are the gatekeepers in AI research right now?
• Should we expect Artificial General Intelligence soon? How predictable is the progress in AI?
• Why is there so little innovation in creating 'cheaper products'?
• The surprising libertarian roots of Lebanon.
• Why the Internet is so great of connected like-minded people.
• The future of education - revisited.
• and much more!

Mark Saroufim currently works with Graphcore and has previously worked for Microsoft, NASA and studied at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley. He is a prolific writer at Medium including his latest article Machine Learning: The Great Stagnation.

You may reach Mark via his website.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Aaron Fulkerson and I talk about:

• The very short history of information sharing inside an enterprise and open-source distributions (and Mindtouch!)
• What punk rock and entrepreneurship have in common?
• What social media does to our children?
• Did the Facebook algorithm change in 2015 start the polarization of the world we currently see?
• How Youtube has been changing the world of education already.
• Is success early in your life a curse or blessing?
• What is the best age to discover philosophy?
• And much more!

Aaron Fulkerson is a serial entrepreneur. He is the founder and former CEO of Mindtouch and is now working with ServiceNOW.

You can reach Aaron via LinkedIn.

• Why are the 'Middle Ages' often called the 'Dark Ages'?
• What were the biggest improvements in the 'Middle Ages' compared to the Roman Empire.
• Were the contemporaries of the Middle Ages drunk all the time?
• What are the most popular misconceptions about the 'Middle Ages'?
• How did the taste for popular foods change so much over the centuries?
• Why the debate about healthy food is much older than you think.
• The story about Lampreys that you never knew.
• Why monasticism is such an important part of the 'Middle Ages'.
• Why did the 'Scientific Revolution' not happen in the 'Middle Ages'?
• Did slavery delay the invention of the 'steam engine'?
• What was life like as an entrepreneur in the 'Middle Ages'?
• Did the debt cycles of modern day have parallels in the 'Middle Ages'?
• Are there parallels between the late Roman Empire and the US in the current day?
• Why was Islam so popular when it started out?
• and much more!

Professor Paul Freedman has been teaching at Vanderbilt University and at Yale since 1997. He specializes in medieval social history, the history of Catalonia, comparative studies of the peasantry, trade in luxury products, and the history of cuisine.  His lecture series about the 'Middle Ages' has been viewed more than 700,000 times on Youtube.

Paul is also a prolific author about history and food including:

• Food: The History of Taste  and American Cuisine: And How It Got That Way both available on Amazon.

In this episode Rubelyn (Ruby) Alcantara and I talk about:

• What is impact investing and what are the success stories?
• Where is the focus of innovation in impact investing?
• What is impact of fast Internet that is now available to most African Internet users?
• Is the individual freedom in Africa much higher than commonly perceived and what impact does it have on economic growth?
• Is the story of democracy in Africa a successful one? What are the downsides?
• Are charter cities an option for Africa?
• Is a Singapore style development a useful role model for Africa? How can economic growth be jump started?
• Can the 'Dutch disease' be avoided when using commodities as a way to jump start growth?
• What are the TOP 5 and Bottom 5 countries in terms of economic success? Is Ethiopia on the way to success?
• What is the future of energy production in Africa?

Rubelyn (Ruby) Alcantara is an entrepreneur, impact investment practitioner consultant, public speaker focused on entrepreneurship. She has lived in 16 countries through her career in UK, Europe and Africa including Tanzania, Nigeria, Madagascar and Kenya.

She runs Supivaa Advisory Group, a Canadian-African based impact investment advisory firm focused on gender-lens investing and sits as an Advisor to Uhusiano Capital, a UK-based impact investment firm. You can reach Ruby via LinkedIn.

In this episode Evan Weber and I talk about:

• How the digital marketing landscape has changed over the years?
• How affordable advertising opportunities have driven entrepreneurial success.
• What the Shopify platform has done for ecommerce sites?
• Can you derive high value traffic from TikTok?
• Will there be a 'privacy backlash' from the intrusion of our privacy by Facebook or Google?
• Did Google's / Facebook's high prices reduce entrepreneurship during the last few years?
• Why are subscription revenue businesses so hot right now?
• and much more!

Evan Weber has been breathing digital marketing for over 20 years. With his own digital marketing agency he has been working with 300+ companies to improve their marketing efforts. Evan has also been a speaker at various digital marketing industry events.

You can reach Evan via LinkedIn.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Steven and I talk about:

• What led Steven to become a student of philosophy?
• How his lecture 'Introduction to Political Philosophy' made its way to Youtube.
• How Steven decides about which books are included in the introduction course?
• What cult leaders, entrepreneurs, politicians and philosophers have in common?
• Are we creating an ever more polarizing political philosophy currently?
• What role does postmodernism play in Political Philosophy right now?
• What is the 'philosopher's curse'?
• What is the role of patriotism in the US now?

Steven B. Smith has been teaching at Yale since 1984. Steven's lecture series 'Introduction to Political Philosophy' has been viewed 700,000 times on Youtube. Steven also has been a prolific author including  Hegel’s Critique of Liberalism , Political Philosophy (2012) and the Modernity and its Discontents .

His latest book is titled "Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes," - which is now available for pre-orders on Amazon.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Hayvi Bouzo talk about:

• What makes the Middle East so special as a region of innovation, spirituality and lately turmoil and conflict?
• What Hayvi found to be true during her time growing up in Damascus, Syria.
• Why democracies tend to be better at delivering 'basic services' to their citizens.
• What are 'forces for good' in the Middle East according to Hayvi?
• The true impact of the 'Abraham Accords' in the Middle East.
• How should we deal with 'reformers' in the Middle East regime countries?
• Will the new US administration retreat further from US footprint in the world?
• Why most of the best allies of the US eventually turn into enemies?
• Is the slowing productivity growth an issue for future US geopolitics?
• Is the impact of foreign policies overstated?
• and much more!

Hayvi Bouzo is journalist, TV host, podcast host and blogger. Hayvi focuses on the Middle East and the political and cultural tension in the region.

You can reach Hayvi via LinkedIn.

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In this episode Bennet Bayer and I talk about:

• What are some of the most remarkable experiences Bennet had while working in a new country?
• Why asking the 'right Why questions' is a golden rule.
• What's advantage of being an intraprenuer instead of an entrepreneur?
• How to build the connection between technology and human emotion?
• Will 'virtual companies' with minimal operations become the norm?
• Will 'Big Tech' keep accumulating in size?
• Will we continue to move our lives into the cloud and keep retreating from the physical world?
• What are examples of technology companies with a great product but terrible marketing?
• What are examples of technology companies with great marketing but a terrible product?
• How to hire a great salesperson?
• What is the role of educational institutions in the age of the Internet?
• What are great opportunities for entrepreneurs right now?
• and much more.

Bennet has been CMO or CEO (incl. Huawei Global CMO) in a long list of companies. He has been holding management positions in a dozen different countries including Afghanistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

You can reach Bennet via LinkedIn.

In this episode Jay Zhao and I talk about:

• What investment opportunities Jay is currently excited about?
• Jay's favorite investment so far - Sleeper
• How can a Venture Capitalist stay honest and humble?
• How are the interests of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists aligned?
• What is the best way for founders and VC's to find a "common match"?
• Is the 'big stagnation' real? Will AI solve our GDP growth issue?
• What is the best company to start in China right now?
• Is China now 'more entrepreneurial' and 'more common-sense' than the US?
• Is China now in a similar phase as Germany was post world-war I?
• What role does the 'superiority complex' play in China, Germany or Japan.
• What are China's best cities?

Jay Zhao is an entrepreneur-turned-VC, and is currently Managing Partner at Leonis Capital, he was a Partner at T Fund (aka TCL Ventures) and Walden Venture Capital before.

You can reach Jay via LinkedIn.

• The forgotten story of COVID-19 spread in Europe in late 2019
• What makes a Futurist?
• What does the Fermi paradox tell us about intelligent life in the universe?
• Is Peter Thiel's 'Big Stagnation' thesis spot on?
• Why the jump in Artificial Intelligence progress (2012-2020) is so meaningful.
• What is a 'jolting technology' as introduced by David?
• Will AGI happen soon? Why 'human level' AGI is not a good comparison to look at.
• Will the 'knowledge singularity' happen in 2038 (i.e. a human level AI will be available for $1,000)?
• Why we haven't been visited by intelligence from outside the solar system?
• How can we 'colonize the universe' despite being able to travel 'just' with the speed of light.
• Are we in a simulation and how will we simulate ourselves?
• Has the world really gotten way more complicated in the last 20 years?
• Is 'string theory' flawed after all?
• The case for 'Universal Basic Income (UBI)' as per David Orban.
• What are the technologies and fields that will see exponential growth in the next 10 years?

David Orban is a thinker, investor, futurist and technophile. He has been a mentor with the Thiel fellowship for many years. He was one the first investors in Ether and early investor in Bitcoin.

You can reach David Orban via his website.