Philippe Kahn | Inventor of the First Camera Phone and the Pioneer of Wearable Technology Shares About Polyphasic Sleeping and the Importance of Adapting Quickly

Audio Transcription

Speaker 1:
On today’s show, we interview the man who is credited as being the inventor of the first camera phone. His name is Felipe con and he’s a very good friend of the co founder of Netflix. In fact, Mark Randolph, the co founder of Netflix said that Felipe con has been one of the biggest mentors in his life. And so he joins us on today’s show to discuss how you and I should be reacting to the Corona virus.

Speaker 2:
The best approach may be to find out, you know, what did that SAR and what the recoveries are. And I think the recovery is, is very important because it’s what promotes a herd immunity, you know, and so the cop of herb immunity is the most people had it and recovered. The less likely they are to pass it onto someone who hasn’t had it. So you protect the weaker and the tacky where the people in Sweden have been doing and, and, and a lot of more countries like Denmark and Norway, et cetera, are aligning themselves on that idea. Because if you keep everybody at home, no one gets it. Yes, you flatten the curve. But when everybody gets out of home, because eventually it’s going to happen. Everybody’s going to get it and it’s going to be dramatic. So you haven’t sold any problem. All you did is delay the problem.

Speaker 1:
Felipe Khan is a successful entrepreneur who’s built four multimillion dollar companies that have done very, very well, very successful companies. He’s also a mathematician. He’s also a technology innovator and a pioneer of wearable technology. And I asked him today, how have you and I should be responding to these predictions that 2.2 million Americans might die from the coronavirus and now they’re being adjusted to say that maybe 61,000 people may die from the coronavirus.

Speaker 2:
Oh, I, I think it’s just that the sticks, and it’s no different than Paul’s. Uh, statistically epidemiologists are our statistics. Uh, you know, just like the polls that predicted that ALA Brendan would win and she lost, uh, were wrong. And this is exactly the same case.

Speaker 1:
He’s also a man who’s into polyphasic sleeping, just like Thomas Edison and the founder of WordPress. Matt Mullen.

Speaker 2:
Well, absolutely right. Yeah. This is polyphasic sleep. Uh, and so you, you, you count the number of phases of sleep you’re in and you try not to go to another one.

Speaker 1:
And now it’s on with Felipe con.

Speaker 3:
Some shows don’t need a celebrity in the writer to introduce a show, but this show dies to may eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 Moke time, million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the thrive time.

Speaker 1:
Oh boy.

Speaker 4:
Yes, yes, yes. And yes. Based on today’s

Speaker 1:
show, we are interviewing the inventor of the first camera phone and a very good friend of the co founder of Netflix, Marc Randolph. Ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, I introduced to you

Speaker 5:
Cod. Welcome to the thrive time show. How are you sir? I’m Greg. Thank you very much Pat. Glad that uh, that uh, I can be here

Philippe Kahn:
from beautiful Santa Cruz.

Speaker 1:
Now I understand that you are the man who is credited as being the inventor of the camera phone. Where did you first have the idea to invent the camera phone?

Philippe Kahn:
Well. Um, I started by thinking that it was key to create a new media that would instantly be able to point, shoot and share pictures. And that was about the beginning of 1997 where there was no really a service like that. And, and, and, and phones were connected to cameras and, you know, nothing really works. So I started working on a server based solution that resembled very much which, uh, Facebook is today. And then, uh, and then, you know, there’s a bit of serendipity here, uh, as we were, um, going to the mentor eternity with my wife. Uh, we’re expecting a little girl called Sophie. Um, she’s, uh, she’s also, um, um, kind of, uh, technology, uh, uh, enthusiasts like I am. And so she, she advised me to take my soldering iron and, and the cameras and, and et cetera. And it turns out that we were in the maternity in her, her labor lasted for 18 hours and was long labor and, and there was a, there was a desk over there and I was able to, to put it all together, uh, in, in those 18 hours. And that’s a, it’s a bit of serendipity and no bit of a foreside by, you know, spending seven, eight months building the server infrastructure for it.

Speaker 1:
You built the phone during the 18 hour, but I want to make sure I’m not misunderstanding that you took 18 hours and built it during that window of time.

Philippe Kahn:
Yeah, I didn’t built the phone. I took a, the most popular, the first, uh, digital camera of the time, the Kazuo QV 10, and, and, and a Motorola, uh, star tech as well as a Toshiba portraiture laptop and was able to connect everything so that wirelessly I could, uh, um, I could, um, basically transmit instantly pictures to over 2000 friends and family, uh, people and share them instantly. And the idea was that because the bandwidth was so at the time, kind of what people experience when everybody’s watching Netflix or something, I got, um, at the same time or, um, what, what I built as a system where you uploaded your, uploaded the, the, the picture for the first, uh, on first on the, on the server and the service sent link backs to the picture. To a whole list of friends and family of 2000 of them without, without having, without having to, to, to, to send pictures to everyone. Exactly what happens with, uh, um, Facebook, Instagram, um, and all these social network

Speaker 1:
you, um, you, you, you are obviously an accomplished man. Um, but if I could, I’d like to go back to the very beginning. Um, and to what I’ve read about, uh, Europe bringing, I understand that you were raised by Jewish immigrants of a, a pretty modest means and that your mother Claire, was actually an Auschwitz survivor from the Holocaust and am I getting that right, sir?

Philippe Kahn:
Yeah, you got that right. She was a, a professional, a concert violinist and she survived the Holocaust by playing and a Auschwitz women’s orchestra. So she was, uh, she, she definitely, uh, uh, was a survivor and she was a professional musician and she raised me at as a single mom. Um, and, um, and, uh, making a living as a musician.

Speaker 1:
How did your mother being raised in the horrific environment of Auschwitz impact how she raised you? Did, did, did she ever speak about it or no?

Philippe Kahn:
Oh yeah, I mean, it was, uh, her friends, you know, she was also part of the French resistance. She was a Lieutenant in the French resistance. So she, uh, all her friends were, you know, we had a very small place, but they would always get together. And I think, you know, I was a little bit young. She passed away when I was, uh, 14 years old. I was a little bit young to understand that at all stupid, like most teenagers. And so I didn’t have enough time to talk to her, but we talked a lot and I met a lot of her friends before and after and I think they were very busy trying to find the perpetrators. And, uh, she was, uh, pretty involved in, in, in some, some I would call hunting and stuff like that. She, she passed away, uh, being hit by a car.

Philippe Kahn:
Um, and it never was really clear how that happened and what happened. But she was, she has a great person and she was a, um, buried with military honors as a Lieutenant and French resistance and had the metal of the French. And so I’m very proud of her. And, and that was, that was her story. And, uh, it wasn’t a horrible upbringing. It was the opposite. She was very positive person and she always thought that, you know, tomorrow is going to be better than yesterday. And I think that carried her through and, and it’s a, it’s a great philosophy.

Speaker 1:
I want to ask you this. Um, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a guest on the show that I, I’ve been able to ask this question too, so I’ll, I’ll give it a whirl here. Um, people look back at times of like Auschwitz and Nazi occupied Germany and they would say, well, that could never happen now, or I can’t believe that happened then. What was wrong with those people then? How could people possibly do that to people then? Um, what have you learned about the cause of the absolute, uh, horrible, uh, horrific acts committed of, of, of, of crimes and genocide about the Nazis? And maybe what, what advice would you have for our listeners out there to, to make sure that that kind of thing never happens again?

Philippe Kahn:
Well, you know, human nature, it’s human nature. What happened is that misery and desperation, uh, uh, pushes people to find scapegoats. And, you know, Jews traditionally have been, you know, great scapegoats and, um, you know, it’s, it’s just unfortunate and, and you know, we all worked very hard to make sure nothing like that happens again. But if you look at the world today, it’s, uh, it’s a very challenging world. And in fact, this pandemic could trigger a lot of desperation and, you know, people are losing lives or they’re also losing their livelihoods. And people haven’t realized that at first. You know, it was kind of novelty, but, you know, stay at home and all that. But there’s a lot of people who need to make a living. There’s people who for whose life hasn’t changed because they were working from home already and riding or doing stuff like that.

Philippe Kahn:
But most, you know, I grew up in a blue collar family. I was the first person in my family to ever graduate from high school. And so, you know, what I know is that if you can’t work at, then there’s struggle. We can’t put bread on the table. And that’s the case for a lot of the population. And if that continues to happen, then desperation purchase people to do stupid things. And I think that human nature is that way. And it’s really unfortunate. You know, you, you know, it’s a story of the poachers in Africa who, who, who will kill the last rhino, although they know that that’s, you know, they’re, you know, the, their, their world in their environment. But you know, they want to put food on the table or they have that greed and they do something stupid. And the same thing is true and hopefully the same thing won’t happen. But that’s really the balancing act that needs to happen between, you know, in this case of the pandemic between sheltering people and developing, you know, what, what’s called a herd immunity and, and letting people go back to their livelihood in some way and then some progressive way or else, you know, we, we, we see a lot of desperation and crazy times we appear where, you know, where people are held accountable, responsible, wrongly. So for something that’s horrible for everybody. And then it generates in some incredibly stupid acts.

Speaker 1:
Felipe, um, have you been following the Corona virus spread?

Philippe Kahn:
Yeah, quite a bit because, uh, my business is in the [inaudible]. What we do is we’re a med tech company and what we do is, is we, uh, we monitor remotely, uh, vital signs. So we’re the leaders for bio sensing and remote by sensing. And so, uh, we’re trying to help save lives. I provide for providing systems that adapt to tele-health and help, you know, people diagnose or, or actually, uh, positively reinforced the fact that people are healthy without having to visit a medical practice and all that, and automatically taking, uh, measurements such as blood, um, pressure, uh, blood, uh, uh, composition, SPO two, et cetera, et cetera. So we were very involved in that and in that side of the business. So we follow the, the, the evolution of things and because we have a cloud based systems and we have, uh, a lot of, um, um, analytical tools based on artificial intelligence that we use to, to, to actually do some triage, we’re able to put out some, some, um, demographic information.

Philippe Kahn:
For example, give you an example of something we put out publicly recently. We found out by monitoring people’s sleep over half a million nights of sleep, not just as an anecdotal study that you see where people say we ask a thousand people where to sleep better at work. This is like scientifically measured sleep and we found that people on the average, since the shelter in place, I’ve been sleeping longer. However, um, they, yes, they are getting more REM sleep, which is, you know, the dream phase of sleep. But in absolutely terms they’re getting much less deep sleep, which is a restaurant have to sleep. And it, it’s, it’s really all tied to stress and what’s going on. And it’s a very powerful signposts of the psyche, the general psyche of, uh, of a lot of people where we’re very worried about something, we would sleep more, but the stress is more and it’s a very, uh, fascinating, um, you know, um, metric to watch, but at the same time they should re ring alarm bells because you can’t do that forever because the level of stress increases, of course, it takes the immune system down the immune system down.

Philippe Kahn:
It means that you’re much more likely to, um, be a victim of, of, of, of, of COBIT 19.

Speaker 1:
Now, I, uh, I want to happened to your wisdom here because you’re, you’re such a fascinating individual and I want to make sure I pick your brain if I can. Did you see the Stanford, uh, report that came out that showed that Santa Clara County, uh, the, the coven 19 cases could be 50 to 85 times higher than reported? Did you, did you see that at all? Have you, have you looked at that yet sir?

Philippe Kahn:
Yeah, I have indeed. And here’s a, here’s the challenge. I can tell you what, what we know, we’re involved in medical devices and some of this good manufacturer in China, so there’s two sides with those tests there. You receive all these tests from China. We’ve had it for a while. We’ve been looking at them there first. They’re unreliable, number one. Number two, they’re very difficult for a, a a private individual to administer to themselves unless they’re used to sampling their blood. Like for example, they’re diabetic or something. I got in, they used to measuring their blood glucose and all that. It’s actually something that’s not obvious to people. And then even if it’s performed by a medical practitioner, they’re not really reliable. We’re looking at the new tests that will be more reliable that will be made here in the U S and that that will be FDA cleared, which, which is not the case with old doodles.

Philippe Kahn:
These Chinese tests or most of them. And so that’s the first thing. The second thing is most people don’t get tested. Most people go through this with very minimum symptom and so it’s a very, it’s, it’s a V injury. Interesting things. It’s, we don’t really know. We have one of our team members and our company’s whole power, um, that had a toddler has a toddler that’s seven months old and he and his toddler, uh, both had uh, covert nineties, uh, actually, um, in, in, in New York. And um, he was told to stay at home and he asked for a test and they said, you don’t need a test unless your, your, your, your symptoms get worse. This whole idea of testing everyone is kind of a bit ludicrous because it’s not easy to test and, and, and most people go through this with minimal symptoms and his case, he, he, he really had, you know, kind of flu like symptoms path and his toddler actually had, it was a little tougher on him and he ended up treating him with Tylenol, etc.

Philippe Kahn:
I like any new father and mother, you know, there were little panic and called the, you know, hospitals and all around they said, no, stay at home. It’s the best thing you can do unless it gets really critical. So the, the whole idea of testing people and finding out who does things and who does nothing, I think it’s maybe not the best approach. The best approach may be to find out, you know, what the deaths are and what the recoveries are. And I think the recovery is, is very important because it’s what promotes a herd immunity. And so the concept of herb immunity is the most people had and recovery, the less likely they are to pass it onto someone who has an added. So you protect the, the weaker. And it’s exactly where the people in Sweden, uh, have been doing. And, and, and a lot of more countries like Denmark and Norway, et cetera, are aligning themselves on that idea. Because if you keep everybody at home, no one gets it. Yes, you flatten the curve. But when everybody gets out of home, because eventually it’s going to happen. Everybody’s going to get it and it’s going to be dramatic. So you haven’t solved any problem. All you did is delay the problem. Unless of course a new, a new vaccine comes out or a therapy. But that’s not immediately in the, in, in the future or hope it is, but there’s nothing that indicates that.

Speaker 1:
Sir, I want to make sure the listeners understand your educational background. Can you share where you studied?

Philippe Kahn:
I studied, uh, both in, in, in, uh, in Zurich and, uh, the, uh, federal, uh, um, technical Institute, which is a, uh, a Swiss Swiss university that, uh, that’s very famous for, uh, for being the school at which Einstein study, Todd, as well as on Newman and people. It’s one of the, it’s a, it’s a very, it’s only a technical university down, like, uh, it’s more like Caltech than, than, than Stanford. They don’t, they don’t, do you know anything that’s not technical? It’s a great university. I was very fortunate to make it. It’s a, it’s a very competitive way to get in. So I was very lucky to, to, to make it in there. And then I also studied in France and I got a master’s in mathematics, started to do a PhD in mathematics, but then realized that, um, you know, my talents were more in writing software. And so I started doing that and selling my software and then I moved to, to the U S I mean I moved to Silicon Valley. Right.

Speaker 1:
I fill out fully. But I want to ask you this and you can correct me if my timeline is off at all. And I, I’m again, I’m not trying to paint you into a corner. I just want to tap into your wisdom cause this is so powerful. Um, I have been tracking this coronavirus thing, not because I’m a expert of infectious disease, but because I, you know, run businesses and, and I’m very, uh, and I’m an American and I’m deeply concerned about the health of our, of our people as well as businesses. And I’ve found that Neil Ferguson, ah, originally predicted, he’s the director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for disease and emergency analytics. He initially projected 2.2 million American deaths and then 500,000 deaths in the United Kingdom. And then dr Deborah Berks has been leading this, uh, fight against the coronavirus. I’m going to cue up an audio clip. I’m going to pull your mic down real quick and I’m going to pull her audio up and I would just like to see if you could break down what she’s saying because so many of our listeners out there own businesses and maybe they don’t understand what she’s saying. So I’m going to play the audio for you, sir. I’d love to have you break it down if you could. Here we go. Okay. Let me queue it up.

Speaker 7:
I’m sure many of you saw the recent report out of the UK about them adjusting completely their needs. Um, this is really quite important. If you remember that was the report that said there would be 500,000 deaths in the U K and 2.2 million deaths in the United States. They’ve adjusted that number in the UK to 20,000, so half a million to 20,000. We’re looking into this in great detail to understand that adjustment.

Speaker 1:
So what I’m, what I’m hearing is they initially predicted 2.2 million American deaths, a and half a million, uh, United Kingdom deaths. And if you took that number and you said, now they’re expecting 20,000 deaths in the UK, that would mean we’d be expecting about 88,000 deaths in America. Worst case scenario, uh, what were you hearing, sir, when you heard the correction about three port or, or how do you process that?

Philippe Kahn:
Uh, I think it’s just statistics and it’s no different than Paul’s, uh, statistics. Epidemiologists are our statistics. Uh, you know, just like the polls that predicted that Hillary Clinton would win and she lost, uh, were wrong. And this is exactly the same case as you. When you, when you, when you make a prediction, uh, it’s not an absolute number. It’s a probability. And I think that a lot of people, here’s, here’s, you know, one of my interpretations of it, if you’re, if you’re in the business of making health predictions, if you make a prediction, you say 20,000 will die and 500,000 died here at villain for the rest of your life. If you say, we think that 500,000 will die, but only now we correct the 20,000. You’re, you’re a great person. For the rest of your lives. And I think, you know, people tend to, to, to, to try to look good.

Philippe Kahn:
That’s the first thing. The second thing is the media, uh, is making a fortune of this because everybody’s glued to, you know, cable TV and all that stuff. And, and, and I mean, there has never been, you know, as much paying attention to the media and obsession to it. And I think that the more sensational everything is and the more clicks people get, the more money they make. And, uh, it’s unfortunate because, you know, it probably doesn’t play into it, into the hands of something that’s scientifically fair and balanced and, and that makes sense. So, you know, people go to the extremes of, of, Oh my God, what’s going to happen? Because that’s what sales clicks,

Speaker 1:
you know, you, um, I was, I was looking at your career in prepare in preparation to interview you and Marc Randolph, the co founder of Netflix, he just could not say enough great things about you. Uh, how did you first meet Mark?

Philippe Kahn:
Um, I think Mark, uh, interviewed, uh, in our company, we were, we were pioneering selling, uh, professional development tools directly to, to, to consumers. And Mark is the ultimate, you know, direct person. And in fact, he showed that by his, his sense of Netflix after, after Berlin. And he, I met him, interviewed him, and I immediately said, you know, he knows what he’s doing. And he had this, you know, very, very scientific, rigorous, uh, approach to say, Hey, let’s not argue with it. This is right now, let’s test it. And the concept of testing and letting the data speak is, is, is basically a scientific, you know, approach. And this is exactly what Mark did and how he thinks of marketing and direct sales, et cetera, is like, you know, it doesn’t pay to spend a lot of time making theories and, and talking about it. It’s much better to test it, see if it works on a small sample on bet a, fed the sample, and then use it. And, and, you know, I was really, uh, uh, you know, loved what he did. And, and, and we got along just Finn and had a great success together.

Speaker 1:
Can you share what Borland did? The, the company that you found dead above? I believe you founded the company in 1982. Could you share with the listeners what borderland did?

Speaker 8:
[inaudible]

Philippe Kahn:
well, at the time, uh, I had just immigrated to the U S and I was in the tools business. So it’s a very technical thing. We started by building development tools, you know, the equivalent for software as a machine tools are for, uh, for, um, you know, cars and all that first before you can make a car you need, you need to make the machine tools. I’ll make the part that makes the car. And so that’s exactly what, what, what Borland did. It built tools, uh, for software developers. And we build great tools. And one of the reasons is because that’s my background software development. So I built, you know, I, I managed building tools for my, so that I could use myself. And that in turn was very, uh, exciting to the development community who was using much less sophisticated tools. And, uh, with, uh, with, with, with, uh, the genius of people like Mark Randolph in terms of direct marketing, we’re able to offer them at a better price, at a better conditions with better support than any other company. And that was the success of Borland.

Speaker 1:
Um, did you ultimately sell Borland there, sir? Or what, what happened with Borland? For the listeners out there that aren’t familiar with Portland,

Philippe Kahn:
uh, the company, uh, built tools and also build the first desktop organizers and all that, and came night, we, we were a strong competitor to Microsoft at the time. Uh, in 1992 93, the web appeared, the internet appeared and, um, we were a public company. And, um, my, as a CEO of the company, I wanted to make sure that Portland was positioned as, as, as the leader for web tools. And my board disagreed in the, on a CEO and the board of directors disagree. Uh, then, you know, obviously you partway. So we parted ways and I started a new company, uh, boiling continued for many years and now as part of a development tools company called micro-focus that makes, uh, uh, you know, professional software development tools and maintains it and all that. But then I, when I left Borland, I started a new company called starfish that pioneered a wireless, uh, synchronization of, of, of devices, et cetera with Bluetooth, et cetera.

Philippe Kahn:
And that company got acquired by Motorola at the time. And then of course, because Motorola got acquired by, by, um, um, Google. Eventually a lot of the IP in that company ended up there. And then after that company was acquired, we created the first camera phone. And when the first camera, when we built a new company called, uh, light surf technologies, and we licensed that infrastructure to a lot of companies around the world, uh, carriers in the U S as well. Uh, the first, uh, uh, picture mail solution in Japan, uh, which Jay phone. And so we, that company again, got acquired later. And then after that, um, I was fortunate enough to start a new company called full power, which is my company presently and where the leaders for contact lens biosensing and remote telemedicine using combat list by sensing. And so we’re, uh, we’re very fortunate to have the opportunity to help save lives and be involved in helping hopefully controlled a car, a virus in our small space, but make a difference. And, and that, that’s very gratifying because, you know, I’m in this environment, we are an essential business. We are going 24, seven and have a fantastic team that trying to help save lives basically the situation and hopefully, uh, improve the outcomes of, of this 10 day mix.

Speaker 1:
Um, when you, when you have exited your companies, did you ever get like one major paycheck? I’m not asking how much money you got or anything, but you, did you ever get one check where you said, Whoa, because you grew up poor? I mean, did you ever get one check where you thought to yourself, thank you Lord. That was nice. Did you ever get that big check?

Philippe Kahn:
No, I never did. Money was never my motivator. I’m an inventor and a technologist. So, um, you know, um, my, my focus is to, is to make a difference to, to, to help people around, around us. Uh, you know, we have a foundation that we do that we, we did okay and I have nothing to complain about, but money’s never my focus. My focus is, is my passion, which is invention and making a difference and help people lead a better life. I mean, I, we all have different, different goals. You know, some people they want to be the wealthiest person around or whatever that has, I have zero interest in that. In fact, you know, I, I’m more interested in leading a simple life, but doing what I’m passionate about.

Speaker 1:
I absolutely love that. I love, I love that. I know I have some questions for you here. Um, most of our listeners are business owners. All right. So they’re, they’re business owners and they love to read. Could you list out a book or two or maybe a few books that you would say if you’re listening right now, you need to read this book again. Most of the entrepreneurs out there, people that own a business, I’d say the average listener has about 50 or 200 employees. That’s probably the average. What are some books you’d recommend there, sir?

Philippe Kahn:
There’s only one, but that might be controversial, but I will, I will put it together. My, my favorite business book is Darwin’s the origin of the species. That’s my favorite. And I’ll tell you why, because when you’re running a business, it’s, it’s, it’s an evolutionary situation. Darwin never said that the species that survive are the strongest, uh, or the fittest or the smartest with Darwin said, is that the species that survive are the ones that are the most responsive to change. And I always transliterate that, uh, to say the businesses that do well are the ones that are most responsive to change. Unless of course you have a monopoly or something. I got, and that’s a different case. But for most of us, I mean, I’m, I’ve, I’ve started and built four different companies that have been successful. Um, I always look at Darwin’s book as, as the key I’m saying is, today, am I doing today?

Philippe Kahn:
Am I building the business today that given the condition is responsive to the change in the market and the opportunity and the technology. And so automatically, I think that’s the, the thing that I think about the most every day, which is responsiveness to change and we priority constantly. Reprioritizing. So if there’s one book I would recommend is, and one study is Darwin and not as much because of, of the biological side. And I know, you know, some people believe in evolution and others don’t. It’s more of the fact that it applies, you know, someone needs to write a book modeled after Darwin that says, you know, responses to change is what counts when you are an entrepreneur. And a small business

Speaker 1:
response to change is what counts. Making a note here.

Philippe Kahn:
Yeah. Being responsive to change. That’s really what counts. And by the way, that’s true in personal lives too. You know,

Speaker 1:
you know, uh, you have been around Silicon Valley for a long time and uh, uh, I, you know, have a read about it from afar. I’m in Oklahoma, not necessarily known for, uh, technology. Uh, maybe we’re known for agricultural technology. And I’m not sure, but I’m here, right in the middle of America. And I’ve read about some of these people. I’ve read, uh, about Nolan Buschnell of the founder of Atari. I’ve read about Steve jobs. I’ve read about all these different big names. Uh, Ben Horowitz. Who are some of the folks that you’ve spent time with throughout your career that you’ve been most impressed with people that you’ve thought, wow, that was a brilliant woman or a brilliant man or who is amazed you with their mind?

Philippe Kahn:
Well, I, it, it, I’m the wrong person to ask because I’m mostly impressed by technologist and a lot of the names you put forward are essentially people who are, you know, Silicon Valley was, it has a core technology, but a lot of Silicon Valley where it’s done in last 30 years is really marketing centric and knowing how to position from a marketing wise, I mean, Apple didn’t invent anything they borrowed from um, uh, Xerox park. I mean, uh, uh, and the same is true for game companies, et cetera. They’re great at marketing and, and technical marketing and doing that. So my, my heroes are more people like, uh, who were good friends like Marvin Minsky who passed away, who was one of the investigator of artificial intelligence, uh, David Lubell who, who, who ranked zero stark and maybe Alan Kay as well as, you know, the, the, the current AI, um, uh, leaders right now who just got recognized, people like, uh, young Lacoon and etc. Those are, those are my friends and, and, and team to be the people that I get along to most with. I have a lot of respect for Steve jobs. I was friendly with him and all that, but he, he’s more of a marketing person than he was a technical person. And I, being an inventor and a technical person and a entrepreneur myself, uh, I tend to gravitate towards the names that I mentioned before.

Speaker 1:
Are you at all, uh, are, I guess, are you worried about AI or is there any kind of technology right now that’s on the horizon that worries you?

Philippe Kahn:
Um, I’m never worried about things like that. I, you know, I’m, I’m one who believes in progress and I believe that tomorrow is going to be better than today than it is today. Looks pretty bad and something good will happen, uh, from it. Uh, I think some of the issues with AI are, are important structural issues. You know, uh, as you know, robotics get get parred by AI as more and more of the things that we do get replaced by AI based system, which is one of the things we do in my company, full power is these days. Uh, then the, the nature of the kind of jobs that people can do will shift. And so there’s, uh, they’re, they, they promote radical changes in society, but you still have to fix your sick. You still have to build somehow a car. You still have to, there’s a lot that you still need to do and robotics can’t do everything.

Philippe Kahn:
And I think that it’s really important to think about the shifts rather than the disasters because, uh, you know, you can’t do things like we were doing them in the 19th century or even the assembly line by Henry Ford. We’re having people doing these continually repetitive things that make no sense. And that’s, uh, that’s kind of a being a slave of, of, of, of, of the factory. But at the same time, some jobs are going to shift and, and, and some skills are going to shift. Um, one when I’m asked about, you know, I got four kids and when I asked by my kids or, or, or any other kids, sometimes I, I do, you know, little talks to two high schools and stuff like that. Um, which I enjoy doing. I always tell him, you know, your best bet is to get a technical degree.

Philippe Kahn:
If you can a, of course you hated, you shouldn’t because probably that’s what you will ensure for you. Uh, the best chances of, of, of, um, of making a living in Putti, putting food on your family’s table. And that’s really a really, I think, a key, and maybe that’s because I come from a, from a, from a blue collar, uh, modest background and, uh, people who weren’t educated, but they were self-educated and were really smart and, and I agree live. But, um, I think that that’s really, really a very important thing that people need to keep in mind. Um, because it, it, it is going to get very competitive. It’s, you see what’s happening with the pandemic right now where the, the, the rate of unemployment might go dramatically high. Uh, jobs are going to be incredibly competitive. So the best kids can do the best they can do for themselves. It’s hard to find a solution that works for everybody and that’s fair for everybody. So my only advice to kids is do the best digging you can do for yourself. Well, thinking about others too, because if you care on others, if you do well for yourself, then you can help others. But if you don’t do well for yourself, then it’s much harder to help other.

Speaker 1:
Now I have three final lightning round questions for you sir. So here we go. They’re coming in hot. They’re coming in. Hot question one, what is your favorite old school music jam like? Do you have, do you like a certain artist, a certain musician? Do you have a certain artist that you really get into?

Philippe Kahn:
Well, I’m a, I’m a jazz guy, so

Speaker 2:
if it’s any, if it’s anybody, I’ll be somebody like John culture, miles Davis [inaudible] somewhere like that. Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1:
Next question for you. Um, you’ve been successful for a long time, um, but you, you see, but you still look like you’re 25. Okay. But you’ve been successful for a long time. So what’s your routine look like there, sir? When you were building, uh, your first company and as you are growing your different brands and different companies over the years, I mean, you, uh, put together one day of success and then another and another and where you’re perfect. No, but I mean, you really, uh, probably had some sort of power routine that you developed. How did you organize the first four hours of your day when you were growing Borland, and what time would you wake up every day?

Philippe Kahn:
Um, so that’s a, that’s a, that’s actually a, a very interesting question. Um, I sleep and shifts, so I’d sleep in, uh, in, in, in three hour shifts. Um, just like on a, on a watch system, on a boat. Uh, so I’ll sleep three hours, then work for two hours, sleep three hours, and then worked for two hours. And then if I have an opportunity, I’ll stay for another hour. I take a power nap or something I got. So that kind of gets the people I work with to think that I’m continually on deck. And, uh, I’ve been known to, to sleep under my desk if I had a desk and, and,

Speaker 1:
wow.

Philippe Kahn:
I do it

Speaker 1:
now. Are you, so you’re, you’re Phillipe, I want to ask you, are you, are you intentional about this? I’ve, I’ve, uh, met Matt Mullenweg who built WordPress, talked about this. Thomas Edison wrote about this, this idea, they called it polyphasic sleeping. Are you into Polish? Is this, is this a plan? Are you into polyphasic Sydney?

Philippe Kahn:
Oh, absolutely. Right. Yeah, this is polyphasic sleep. Uh, and so you, you, you count the number of phases of sleep you’re in and you’re trying not to slow to another one so that you don’t wake up groggy and then just start again. So when you talk about my routine, my routine always starts with a workout, which is a either a CrossFit style workout or, or a yoga workout. But the first thing I do is always working out. Um, there’s no person that’s like a religion. Um, and part of my routine is the last thing I do before going to sleep is I take, I, I look at myself seriously and see what I’ve done today to make a difference. Um, and, and, and can I rephrase marketize what I’m going to do tomorrow. I think this content reprioritization is, it’s part of my process every day. And so from, from the morning workouts, getting ready before, before bed for the next day, I don’t, I don’t start thinking about the next day when I get up. I’ve already been doing that. And so my morning workout allows me to clear my mind and be ready for whatever columns, you know, if I live in Santa Cruz, I’m lucky enough that I can go surfing or something I got instead of the CrossFit and all that. So, you know, I will eventually do that.

Speaker 1:
You absolutely are blowing my mind and I feel significantly less intelligent as a result of having talked to you. And you didn’t mean to do that, but you are, you’re next level. Okay. My final question for you, because when we look, uh, I want to just picture your workplace. Uh, do you work out of your house, sir? Or where’s your, you like a man cave that you work out of? Where are you inventing from?

Philippe Kahn:
No, we, uh, we have a, a company in downtown Santa Cruz and, uh, because we’re a med tech and an essential business, we, we can actually use our facilities. Uh, but every one of our team members is allowed to work from home. And so we, we try to mitigate everything. So I tend to to do both. And you know, I’m fortunate enough to live in Santa Cruz where, you know, I don’t drive cars. I just bike to the office and bike back. And so that’s part of, you know, a, a way to clear your mind and get some fitness Virgin. We’re lucky in Santa Cruz to have bike paths everywhere. So it’s pretty safe. And, and, and so, um, I, I’ll work from where I have to work and sometimes of course, if I, if I, if I’m working in the middle of the night, which I do, I work from home, but, uh, um, you know, usually I don’t like offices as much. I don’t have an office. Um, I tend to work on my kitchen table.

Speaker 1:
Really.

Philippe Kahn:
Yeah. I, I, I do that. And you know, it’s a O thing and especially now with a lot of video, like Google Hangouts or zoom and stuff like that, uh, you know, and no one can tell where you’re working from. And, but a lot of times it’s from, you know, my kitchen is, it’s fairly large and it’s also the, the living room. So I, I tend to do that. And I think that’s, I’m very lucky to have partner wife who, who, who does that too. So we have no problems having, you know, our gear on our, on our cable and et cetera, et cetera. And you know, most people would say, Oh, and you know this, you know, you’re invading the, the room. But I’m fortunate enough to have a partner that, that, that has the same philosophy.

Speaker 1:
Can you see the water from your home?

Speaker 8:
What’s that?

Speaker 1:
Can you see water from your home? Do you have like a water feature? Like maybe in your, out your kitchen window, like in the backyard. Do you have like a waterfall or what? Can you see out your kitchen window or, or, or does that even matter?

Philippe Kahn:
Well, we live on the Santa Cruz Harbor, so I can see, I can see the ocean and I can see sailboats.

Speaker 1:
Unbelievable. You’re right,

Philippe Kahn:
it’s not. And we have a bird feeder and lots of birds coming through and, and uh, not the sailboat. So we’re, we’re very fortunate to live in a very special place was the Santa Cruz Harbor. It’s a small Harbor, but it’s a working Harbor. So there are fishing boats and all that. So at every time of the day or the night at three or four in the morning, just people going out fishing for salmon, crabs, whatever, um, uh, squared or whatever. And so we’re, it’s kind of a great community.

Speaker 1:
Sir. Final question for, I’ll sneak one in here. We have you know, about a half a million listeners, many of which have, uh, gone in the last month and a half. They’ve gone from scared for their own survival to kind of annoyed almost that they’ve been in hiding for four or five weeks and now the numbers of the projections of projected deaths are going down and some people are, you know, it pessimistic of the projections. Some people are optimistic. What, what would, what words of encouragement, um, or, or, or fact driven advice would you have for the listeners as we’re heading into what hopefully is the beginning of the end of this Corona virus lockdown?

Philippe Kahn:
Well, number one is to, to stay healthy and to stay healthy. You gotta you gotta the only solution is to strengthen your immune system, which means a healthier diet, sleep more, uh, sleep better, not maybe more and, and, and, and, and move and, and work out. That’s a number one, the number one because if health is gone, everything else is gone. But after that, I think it’s, it’s really important to, to follow the Darwinian approach, which is how has the world changed and how can I adapt my business to how the world has changed? And sometimes it’s very difficult. It’s almost impossible. But I think it’s very important because if, if, you know, if you have a business that had it for the wall, you better make a 90 degree turn if that’s necessary. Because, you know, if you’re in the movie theater business, you’ve got to find a solution.

Philippe Kahn:
You’ve got to invent Netflix or something. I go, I’d like Marc Randolph and uh, and Reed Hastings or something, I guess, because you know, it’s gonna take a long while for people to get back into movie theaters. And the same thing is for, for a cruise ships and stuff like that. So you’ve got to invent something new and you’ve got to renew yourself and adopt. I think how’s that? [inaudible] are really the key elements that are the most important for small businesses. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s really, uh, it’s really a challenging environment. But like anything else, you know, life will continue, the sun will rise again and there will be opportunities. And for the small business and the entrepreneur, this is where you can make a difference.

Speaker 1:
Felipe, thank you so much for investing your time. I know time is your most important asset and I, I really do appreciate every moment that you’ve been with us on, on today’s show and I hope you have a great rest of your day, sir.

Philippe Kahn:
Well, same here. Have a, have a nice afternoon

Speaker 1:
and now without any further ed two, three

Speaker 8:
boom, boom.

Speaker 1:
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