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Episode 3 - An Interview with Laura Kusumoto, Principal of Iteration Zero
24 Plays11 days ago
Laura Kusumoto is a proven executive leader, skilled in the disciplines of technology innovation. Her expertise is seeing beyond hype and harnessing the business value that emerging and disruptive technologies can bring to work. Applying experiences from working for Meta, Deloitte, Disney, Kaiser Permanente, LEGO and more, her passion is helping organizations identify the best problems to target with innovative solutions, and driving towards their successful piloting and implementation. Her work has paved the way for first-mover products such as AI chatbots in health care, immersive avatar-based training, VR for employee well-being, and beyond.
In 2023, Laura formed IterationZero LLC as a boutique consultancy offering innovation services that enable emerging technologies for the benefit of business and everyday work within the enterprise. Laura serves on the Board Executive Committee for the Virtual Worlds Society, and on the Advisory Board for XR Women.
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Transcript
Scheduling and Bicentennial Reflections
00:00:19
Robert Fine
Well, Laura, thanks ah for making time today. I think this is our ah ah third i think third time is a charm. I think this is our third time rescheduling this.
00:00:30
Laura Kusumoto
Yes.
00:00:32
Robert Fine
um don't that Don't sound so enthusiastic all at once.
00:00:35
Laura Kusumoto
is amazing that that's happening.
00:00:37
Robert Fine
So i will um um I'm going to wish you a an early July 4th. can Can you believe that next year is the 250th anniversary the country?
00:00:51
Laura Kusumoto
that that's happening
00:00:54
Laura Kusumoto
yeah
00:00:54
Robert Fine
I don't know when the time's gone.
00:00:57
Laura Kusumoto
I don't know. i still I still do remember the 200th.
00:01:01
Robert Fine
The 200th.
00:01:02
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:01:03
Robert Fine
The bicentennial, 76. seventy six That was, um well, that maybe, I was five.
00:01:05
Laura Kusumoto
That's right. Yeah. Yep.
00:01:13
Robert Fine
I don't know.
00:01:13
Laura Kusumoto
Wow.
00:01:15
Robert Fine
i don't really remember it, though. um and i'm outside And I lived outside Philadelphia, so you know which where would have been pretty big.
00:01:21
Laura Kusumoto
wow
00:01:23
Robert Fine
But anyway, so...
Laura's Early Life and Family Background
00:01:26
Robert Fine
so You know, this this podcast, this interview is ah is about you. It's not about any particular topic though.
00:01:35
Robert Fine
um We are welcome to go on tangents and go in whatever direction our ah our our interests and our mutual interests lie.
00:01:46
Robert Fine
ah But let's, some I wanna learn more about you. um i know a certain amount, a limited amount. and um And we're gonna start from the beginning. Um, and, uh, so tell me a little bit about, uh, where you grew up.
00:02:03
Robert Fine
Um, maybe a little bit about your family, where you an only child siblings, um, and, uh, and take me through, take me through college. tell it Take me, uh, what'd you, where'd you go to school? What'd you study?
00:02:18
Robert Fine
Or were you like an aspiring ah pianist when you were 10?
00:02:24
Laura Kusumoto
Well, Bob, there's a lot there. um Yes. Well, thank you for the question. And this is going to be fun. um The first, ah The place that i lived was in Mississippi.
00:02:36
Laura Kusumoto
And most people would never in a million years guess that because I don't have i don't have a Mississippi accent.
00:02:40
Robert Fine
You don't have an accent any longer.
00:02:44
Laura Kusumoto
ah But I grew up in a Navy family. My father was a naval officer. And at the time that I was born, he was ah the Navy was subsidizing his education.
00:02:55
Laura Kusumoto
he went to University of Mississippi. And that's where I was born. and then in my childhood, we moved from Mississippi to Monterey, California, and then over to Florida for a few years, then up to Maine, then to rural.
00:03:10
Robert Fine
so okay So can I ask what what period of years your father was in the Navy?
00:03:16
Laura Kusumoto
yeah he was up, he was in the Navy up until I believe it was 1972.
00:03:23
Robert Fine
So did he, and was he a career Navy officer?
00:03:27
Laura Kusumoto
That's wrong. Well, I didn't, I don't have that number in my head, but maybe a little bit later than that, but in the seventies.
00:03:30
Robert Fine
Okay. So did he did he, I guess, well, but I don't know how much the Navy was involved in the Korean War, but I don't know if that would have been during his time and then early in late early days of Vietnam.
00:03:39
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:03:43
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, so um that's a really good question. And, you know, as with a lot of veterans, he didn't talk about this a lot when we were growing up. But he was in the middle of his exciting career pioneering the use of P-3 aircraft and all that. We heard a lot about that, but not about his beginnings until more recently.
00:04:03
Laura Kusumoto
And actually, he was, ah he joined the Navy when, during World War II, but they were winding it down. And so he was lucky to get a pilot's commission and education.
00:04:13
Robert Fine
He joined the Navy during World War II.
00:04:16
Laura Kusumoto
Yes. At the tail end.
00:04:17
Robert Fine
Okay. Wow.
00:04:18
Laura Kusumoto
That's right.
00:04:18
Robert Fine
so your So your father was born in, um I guess, around 1920-ish, 20s, 1920 Okay.
00:04:24
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:04:24
Robert Fine
nineteen twenty or so
00:04:25
Laura Kusumoto
2028.
00:04:25
Robert Fine
okay
00:04:25
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. And so, yeah, so he was much older than I am.
00:04:26
Robert Fine
um
00:04:29
Laura Kusumoto
That's one, one thing. um He also, so he got in, he was in the Korean war and he, ah his job, there was flying planes back and forth between Japan and Korea and
00:04:41
Robert Fine
Wow.
00:04:41
Laura Kusumoto
ah carrying cargo and people and admirals and generals. And there were quite a lot of stories there. It was a very dangerous mission, as you can imagine.
00:04:52
Laura Kusumoto
And there was even one incident where he was in a plane crash in Japan that threw him and all his cargo out of the plane. And it is just amazing that he survived that.
00:05:04
Robert Fine
Wow. And is your father still alive?
00:05:06
Laura Kusumoto
Now, he recently passed
Transition to Computer Science and Early Career
00:05:08
Laura Kusumoto
away.
00:05:08
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:05:08
Laura Kusumoto
He lived a very long life.
00:05:09
Robert Fine
I'm,
00:05:10
Laura Kusumoto
and continued to be inventive and dynamic and really a hard charger all his life.
00:05:17
Robert Fine
Okay. Well, it's wonderful to hear. um i yeah I don't know. Well, and and you said you said you didn't learn too much about this early time until recently.
00:05:27
Robert Fine
Wow.
00:05:27
Laura Kusumoto
That's right.
00:05:28
Robert Fine
the
00:05:28
Laura Kusumoto
I'd say in the last 10 years, he talked about it a lot more and and wrote down stories for us. So thank goodness that was preserved. And also he was given an honor flight from Utah.
00:05:40
Laura Kusumoto
So he was honored in that way as a, as a Korean war veteran.
00:05:44
Robert Fine
wow
00:05:44
Laura Kusumoto
So, um,
00:05:45
Robert Fine
has he Have you ever seen, has he did he ever see the the Korean War Memorial here in DC?
00:05:50
Laura Kusumoto
yes, he saw it. Yes.
00:05:52
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:05:52
Laura Kusumoto
That the honor flights take them to the memorials in DC.
00:05:56
Robert Fine
Okay. Wow. Well, that's really, and so, well, thanks for sharing that. um the ah And so did you have siblings? I'm sorry.
00:06:07
Laura Kusumoto
I did. um So I had, yes, I had two brothers, one sister. I'm the oldest of the four. Also had a mom and she was, you know, had to be a Navy, Navy.
00:06:17
Robert Fine
i was I was assuming mom was there somewhere, but especially especially while your dad was away at the Korean War.
00:06:20
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, there were, I had a mom.
00:06:25
Laura Kusumoto
Well, there's, well, there's that, that he, that precedes their relationship, but I, ah They got married and, and, you know, he had a pilot's career, so he was deployed a lot and she had the life of a Navy officer's wife, which meant she had to be in all these clubs and very community oriented.
00:06:45
Laura Kusumoto
People were at our house all the time. We lived on Navy bases a lot of the time, which provided the social life. So that was a whole different world. And they did get divorced right around the time that he left the Navy.
00:06:58
Laura Kusumoto
um So that started started new chapters in all of our lives.
00:06:59
Robert Fine
I'm sorry.
00:07:02
Laura Kusumoto
But um you know that though all those things had influences on me, as you can imagine. The structure of the Navy, the you know dad being gone for long periods of time,
00:07:13
Laura Kusumoto
All of his achievements and accomplishments, mom's community orientation, but also moving all the time had a huge impact on, I think, the the the choices that I made later on.
00:07:26
Robert Fine
but did that Did his ah time away and and all that moving have a ah strain on their marriage?
00:07:33
Laura Kusumoto
Yes, I believe it did. I mean, it's, I wasn't, yeah I don't know exactly, can't describe exactly what made that happen, but it definitely put a strain on them and really on the family.
00:07:35
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:07:44
Laura Kusumoto
um And so I do feel for really for all military families where, you know, either one of the the parents is away for periods of time and, and just their necessary devotion to their career. And that, the you know, it's a mission. It's not just a job.
00:08:01
Laura Kusumoto
it It takes your entire life while you're in it. And, you know, I'm on the one hand proud of that, but I also know that it takes away from the family and family life.
00:08:12
Robert Fine
Yeah. And and did you do you stay close to both of them even after their divorce?
00:08:17
Laura Kusumoto
Yes. Yes.
00:08:18
Robert Fine
Okay. And so how many how many places did you live between, ah I guess, you know growing you know being born in Mississippi and and going to college?
00:08:28
Laura Kusumoto
I can, seven.
00:08:30
Robert Fine
Seven. Wow. that's That's a lot.
00:08:31
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:08:32
Robert Fine
That's an average of let more than every two years.
00:08:32
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. Every couple of years.
00:08:35
Robert Fine
Yeah.
00:08:36
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, that's right. That's right. And so we we ended up as a family. My father took the kids. We moved with my dad to a suburb of Los Angeles.
00:08:46
Laura Kusumoto
And so that's where I ended up ah moving in the middle of my senior year of high school. And um that's where I ended up, you know, applying for college and things like that.
00:08:58
Laura Kusumoto
And my interest by the time I was a senior in high school, I was really interested in art and psychology and mathematics and literature. Those were my favorite topics. I also did like physics.
00:09:11
Laura Kusumoto
So I kind of had these, you know, a split brain between art and culture and literature and then math and physics and And i applied to a few colleges and i I did not choose the most elite one. I chose to go to Cal State Fullerton.
00:09:29
Laura Kusumoto
And part of the reason was that I wanted to be an art major.
00:09:29
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:09:33
Laura Kusumoto
And i also wanted be an loved the Cal State system. They had multiple campuses. And, you know, this habit of mine, at least still ingrained at that age, I wanted the flexibility to be able to move.
00:09:48
Laura Kusumoto
And actually did go to three different campuses during my education, Fullerton, San Francisco, and San Diego.
00:09:51
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:09:56
Laura Kusumoto
And I graduated, came back to Fullerton.
00:09:56
Robert Fine
okay and Is Fullerton in the LA area?
00:10:03
Laura Kusumoto
Great question. Most people don't know. It's actually in Orange County.
00:10:06
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:10:07
Laura Kusumoto
And it was at Fullerton that I started studying art. I really was seriously wanted to be a painter. i was an art major. And i I also studied math on the side, but I was studying art.
00:10:20
Laura Kusumoto
I wanted to be a painter.
00:10:21
Robert Fine
wait when you When you say on the side, do you mean like as a minor or in the evenings for fun?
00:10:25
Laura Kusumoto
yeah No, no. It was part of my college education.
00:10:28
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:10:29
Laura Kusumoto
So I was studying art and literature and math, all those things I was interested in. And I, but a painting was my thing. That would be the thing that I came home and I would, if you saw my home today, you would see some paintings that I did back then, way back then.
00:10:44
Laura Kusumoto
And I was constantly experimenting experimenting with different styles. I wanted to understand all the different styles. I was also kind of a wild child at the time. So I was experimenting in life as well.
00:10:44
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:10:56
Laura Kusumoto
But, you know, I tried, was,
00:10:57
Robert Fine
So what what does that what does that mean exactly? Are we we talking you know at Ashbury Heights in 69?
00:11:00
Laura Kusumoto
ah i was
00:11:03
Laura Kusumoto
no this no no no No, this is decades, more than a decade later in more of the punk rock scene in Los Angeles.
00:11:09
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:11:10
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:11:11
Robert Fine
like, so X.
00:11:13
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. X and the germs and the weirdos and, and, you know, seeing all the early, the, the, what were going to be the eighties bands.
00:11:20
Robert Fine
Actually, that was it that that that must have been a fantastic time. I've watched some great documentaries.
00:11:23
Laura Kusumoto
It was.
00:11:26
Robert Fine
my you and My wife and I are both kind of into the you know listening to early punk, and and i've I've gotten to CX a couple of times you know and in the last few years. But so
AI and TechKnowledge Era
00:11:35
Robert Fine
but I mean, that was ah just such a – whether it was LA New York was was the place to be for that music scene.
00:11:42
Laura Kusumoto
Absolutely. And i think what was attractive about it, you know, certainly for a young person, but it still carries forward today is just the energy. the energy and also they weren't just singing about rock and roll themes, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
00:11:59
Laura Kusumoto
They were thinking, they were singing about, you know, abstract art and film and politics and and literature. I mean, all of that was in the canon of the early punk. And it was also sarcastic.
00:12:10
Laura Kusumoto
You know, there was a lot of, you know, advanced placement humor in there as well. So yeah it was fun. And of course there were costumes.
00:12:20
Robert Fine
There were what?
00:12:21
Laura Kusumoto
Costumes.
00:12:23
Robert Fine
Costumes.
00:12:24
Laura Kusumoto
Yes.
00:12:25
Robert Fine
meet Meaning?
00:12:25
Laura Kusumoto
You never went out without some sort of costume on.
00:12:25
Robert Fine
Oh, okay. um
00:12:30
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:12:32
Robert Fine
You mean as as as a punk rock enthusiast or or just as being in that area during that time?
00:12:39
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, no, no. I mean in the punk rock scene itself.
00:12:42
Robert Fine
Okay, okay.
00:12:42
Laura Kusumoto
So getting dressed to go to a show, even just as as an audience member, was a big deal.
00:12:45
Robert Fine
Right.
00:12:48
Robert Fine
I would really like to see some some photos of you from that era.
00:12:48
Laura Kusumoto
And there was a lot of
00:12:52
Laura Kusumoto
There aren't a lot, honestly. ah Not a very photographed era for me. But the I was an art major. and so and you And you see this today in people that do you know special effects and all that in the movies. In Hollywood today, when they go to parties, Halloween parties, they go all out. Well, the punk rock scene was the same thing.
00:13:12
Laura Kusumoto
you know People with those kinds of skills or just inclination or crafting inclinations would create by hand the wildest things. you know You'd see somebody come come in with 50 safety pins on their dress. or you know i had an artist friend who, she her studio, she had something like 100 pairs of shoes nailed to the wall.
00:13:37
Laura Kusumoto
And so she could choose her shoes off the wall, literally. And she'd we'd have fun
00:13:42
Robert Fine
i would yeah With a lot of holes in them, I guess, but...
00:13:44
Laura Kusumoto
we'd have fun A lot of holes in them.
00:13:46
Robert Fine
Right.
00:13:48
Laura Kusumoto
And also thrift you know thrift shop type of clothes.
00:13:50
Robert Fine
Right.
00:13:50
Laura Kusumoto
So it was a very creative scene. in And all of that, when it got distilled into a more formulate form of music, a lot of that kind of fun and artistry went away, at least for the audience.
00:14:03
Laura Kusumoto
I think that you know the rock stars always have fun and creativity, but the audience became more regimented and even kind of dark later on. And and so I kind of got out of the scene then.
00:14:14
Robert Fine
Okay. And so, so you graduated after, after four year degree, i guess, or, and, and what,
00:14:20
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, and I didn't i didn't graduate with a degree painting because somewhere along the way, i took a linguistics class because I was studying culture, learning about languages, and they and I was taking a basic course at the same time.
00:14:34
Laura Kusumoto
And so I wrote a program to compose poems on computers using knowledge about syntax, which I was learning about in linguistics. And I got completely, totally, utterly hooked on computers.
00:14:46
Robert Fine
So I got ask you, what what were you programming on at the time? that
00:14:51
Laura Kusumoto
So that would have been the, but no, no, no, no.
00:14:51
Robert Fine
was was this ah that Was this still mainframe VaxVMS?
00:14:55
Laura Kusumoto
I think it was a PDP, PDP 11 maybe that they had at the school and running, running basic.
00:15:01
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:15:04
Laura Kusumoto
yeah And I was not in computer science yet, but because of that, ah just getting hooked on that process of grading things and and seeing the computer produce for you as a tool, I switched to computer science.
00:15:20
Laura Kusumoto
So I pretty much ditched the art education at that time, hooke went over to computer science, um took it off math to add up to a minor in that, but I really focused on computer science.
00:15:32
Robert Fine
Wait, so I got to ask you, so at at at what point during your your college career did you make that switch?
00:15:40
Laura Kusumoto
This was um probably about two and a half years in.
00:15:43
Robert Fine
Wow, that's kind of late to make that decision.
00:15:45
Laura Kusumoto
It was, yeah And I was, yeah.
00:15:46
Robert Fine
I'm not saying, i'm not no not judgment or anything, but that that's a hard switch at that at that point.
00:15:51
Laura Kusumoto
And it was, i was, ah I was in there five years.
00:15:55
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:15:55
Laura Kusumoto
i was in for five years.
00:15:55
Robert Fine
Well, that's okay. It took me four and a four and a half years, so
00:15:58
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. Yeah. yeah So I, and while I was still in college, I did get my first programming job. um And it was very, very exciting.
00:16:11
Laura Kusumoto
And I'm being a little sarcastic, but it was for Interstate Electronics Corporation. And yes,
00:16:17
Robert Fine
inter Interstate electron Electronics Corporation.
00:16:21
Laura Kusumoto
it was a company.
00:16:21
Robert Fine
And is this, was this a California industry?
00:16:24
Laura Kusumoto
Yes, yes.
00:16:24
Robert Fine
Interstate. Okay.
00:16:26
Laura Kusumoto
Well, you know, ah setting the context, you know, Southern California was still
00:16:30
Robert Fine
this This almost sounds like a like a halt and catch fire early company.
00:16:34
Laura Kusumoto
It is. It is. Actually, the career of the protagonist in Hulton Catch Fire, I related to it a great deal. i I definitely had a parallel career to hers. I just didn't become rich and famous.
00:16:48
Robert Fine
Right.
00:16:51
Robert Fine
ah Okay. So, so sorry. So tell me a little bit about Interstate Electronics Corporation.
00:16:58
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, that that that was ah just for a year and it was part-time. But what I was doing was writing programs for embedded chips that would go into oil rigs.
00:17:07
Robert Fine
Oh, wow. Okay. Oh, so you, you started ah that that's pretty hardcore programming embedded.
00:17:08
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, and I started doing hardcore. This was assembly language.
00:17:15
Robert Fine
Oh God.
00:17:15
Laura Kusumoto
It was for a PDP-8 chip.
00:17:19
Laura Kusumoto
which had only eight instructions. And my first assignment was to ah to program the machine to display letters of the alphabet on the screen, which you think, oh, God, that's so basic.
00:17:31
Laura Kusumoto
But it was literally pixels in.
00:17:32
Robert Fine
Not with without now with only eight instructions.
00:17:35
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, and I had to, i had to you know, draw the dots of the alphabet. So I used my art to degree, right? I designed the little letters and the dots and then got it to display.
00:17:46
Laura Kusumoto
That was my first assignment. My second assignment was to write a self-diagnostic for the CPU so that with those eight instructions, it would exercise that all eight instructions in all parts of the memory were working.
00:17:59
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:18:00
Laura Kusumoto
So that was my first job.
00:18:04
Robert Fine
And and that ah those those embedded chips, those early chips, were they for – what were they – they were running for an oil rig. So were they were they were they being used in like a specialized piece of electronic equipment or were they used in the in a traditional or an early stage PC at that point?
00:18:14
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:18:23
Laura Kusumoto
Now, I think they were they were embedded. So I don't know how they managed to embed P2P8 CPU, but that's what they were doing.
00:18:31
Robert Fine
but It but was for displaying letters.
00:18:31
Laura Kusumoto
in this
00:18:33
Robert Fine
So is it was it using, I mean, was it displaying letters digitally in a digital display then of some sort for the, okay.
00:18:39
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. Yes.
Consulting and Intuit
00:18:41
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:18:41
Robert Fine
and Interesting.
00:18:41
Laura Kusumoto
So electronic, uh, interstate electronics corporation was a, you know, largely defense and commercial electronics corporation. Um, and they were, you know, they had, they had the oil business, but a lot of it was also defense.
00:18:57
Laura Kusumoto
So they created a lot of, you know, embedded computer based, uh, gadgets for the, for the defense industry.
00:19:04
Robert Fine
Do you know what you know what became of them? Or did they get bought by somebody?
00:19:07
Laura Kusumoto
They were acquired They were acquired a couple times. I think they still exist in some form inside of another company. I don't i don't know which company now. It was a long time ago.
00:19:16
Robert Fine
Okay. Okay. Well, no, but it's interesting just to know, you know,
00:19:18
Laura Kusumoto
ah
00:19:21
Robert Fine
ah the you the you know how did you know how did Raytheon become Raytheon, you know, and you know, through acquisition or McDonald's, well, no longer with us, but, you know, those types of companies, Lockheed Martin.
00:19:26
Laura Kusumoto
Exactly. Exactly. so So that's how I got started in in my career. i was still in college. And i at the time, I had a friend in college. We worked a lot together, ah collaborated on school assignments.
00:19:50
Laura Kusumoto
And it turns out that his dad had a company in Mountain View, California, which is in Silicon Valley, called National Nuclear Corporation. And we did some assignments ah with National Nuclear.
00:20:02
Laura Kusumoto
And we thought we were so cool. i you know
00:20:04
Robert Fine
and We're going to we're goingnna talk about the N-word.
00:20:08
Laura Kusumoto
Yes, we are. yeah are nuclear. That's right. That's right. ah This, this,
00:20:13
Robert Fine
Sorry, it's it's it's it's it's very timely. so
00:20:16
Laura Kusumoto
it is, it is. And um so National Nuclear was a very small firm with a big name, National Nuclear. It had been started by a couple of guys, you know, one of them from MIT and he was really borderline genius.
00:20:33
Laura Kusumoto
He had worked for GE and nuclear power, ah developing nuclear power. And what they were doing is creating instrumentation ah really for quality assurance and safety in the nuclear power industry.
00:20:48
Laura Kusumoto
And for anyone who saw the movie Silkwood, what happens there is the failure of of safety programs And some and people you know can be killed and and also nuclear reactors can can malfunction if the fuel in them is is not properly assembled.
00:21:08
Laura Kusumoto
So what National Nuclear was doing was monitoring nuclear waste and also monitoring ah the quality of fuel rods that were going into the nuclear reactors.
00:21:19
Laura Kusumoto
So I was hired as the software engineer for the company. My friend, the my friend Luther Welsh, whose dad's name was alsolthough also Luther Welsh.
00:21:23
Robert Fine
Wow. Was that your title, the software engineer?
00:21:30
Laura Kusumoto
It was software engineer at first. I think I later added senior when I had a small team ah because I was there for five years and it was a small company.
00:21:36
Robert Fine
Okay. Was this a a small company at the time?
00:21:42
Laura Kusumoto
huh ah I think there might have been, might've been 30 people and we were building all of the hardware, the electronics and the software.
00:21:46
Robert Fine
Oh, wow. Okay.
00:21:52
Laura Kusumoto
And so there, one of my first...
00:21:55
Robert Fine
And and what at the time, was that for um particular reactors or for kind of the industry at large?
00:22:04
Laura Kusumoto
it was It was for the industry. that's That's actually a great question. They were marketing it to the entire nuclear... you know, fuel and power industry, mainly the nuclear fuel manufacturers in the United States.
00:22:17
Laura Kusumoto
So that's like Westinghouse, General Electric in the United States, but also ah Germany, um Italy, Japan.
00:22:21
Robert Fine
Right. Right.
00:22:27
Laura Kusumoto
ah and So, and later on other countries as well. So I think my second assignment there, I went full-time.
00:22:36
Robert Fine
so so So just to, I mean, with with with what you just said, when you when you took this opportunity, was this, I mean, did you see this as like, this is like an early startup small company with a huge opportunity in front of it?
00:22:38
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. Yes.
00:22:49
Laura Kusumoto
That is so interesting question, Bob, because I didn't see it that way at all. I was really just enchanted by the problems to be solved.
00:23:01
Laura Kusumoto
I was attracted to the fact that I could have the entire machine to myself. I had my own PDP-11. I owned all of the, everything about it. I didn't mean I owned it, but I had complete control.
00:23:14
Laura Kusumoto
i learned everything about it and I was able to design things for it and, and, and make the machines work, uh, unencumbered. And if I wanted to work there all night long, I could, um you know, and, and, and,
00:23:30
Laura Kusumoto
aside from working with hardware engineers, there was nobody there to tell me you can't do this, you can't do that.
00:23:36
Robert Fine
Right. when i'm I'm guessing that was ah a unique opportunity as as a woman as well at that period.
00:23:37
Laura Kusumoto
So I think it was...
00:23:42
Laura Kusumoto
Yes, yes, I suppose it was. you know i had applied for other jobs and hadn't gotten them. So that was... you know that But I really started here before I even had my computer science degree.
00:23:57
Laura Kusumoto
And I think I just fell in love with the problems and the opportunity to to be in charge and and to solve them.
00:24:05
Robert Fine
So so you were you were in Mountain View ah really quite quite well before the dot-com era.
00:24:08
Laura Kusumoto
Yes. Moved to.
00:24:13
Laura Kusumoto
Well before. Yeah.
00:24:15
Robert Fine
And did did you buy real estate at the time?
00:24:15
Laura Kusumoto
So we're.
00:24:18
Laura Kusumoto
No, I wish I had. um no unfortunately, i wanted to, but I didn't. Didn't really make enough money for that. but Even then, the real estate was expensive.
00:24:29
Robert Fine
Really? Okay.
00:24:30
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. At least for a person on an entry-level salary who took whatever they gave me.
00:24:31
Robert Fine
I guess...
00:24:38
Laura Kusumoto
You know, I don't even know if my salary was good or not.
00:24:38
Robert Fine
Right. and so are you so So if we can, um again, i'm not trying to I'm not trying to put an age number on you, but I am trying to get a sense of the period of the peering into the world.
00:24:46
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, sure.
00:24:47
Robert Fine
So are is this what, mid 80s?
00:24:50
Laura Kusumoto
We are, we're in the, I moved up there. Let's see. I think it was 1983. Yeah.
00:24:58
Robert Fine
Okay.
Career Shift to LEGO and Denmark
00:24:59
Laura Kusumoto
yeah So we're, we're at, we are in mid eighties and I was,
00:25:01
Robert Fine
Great, great, great, great time for for music.
00:25:05
Laura Kusumoto
yes, it was a great time for music, but what we skipped here is I moved from LA area to San Francisco area. This is mountain views, a suburb of San Francisco. So culturally it was a very different place really than LA. So I had a lot of adjustment that I was going through, but I was working so hard that in a way it didn't matter.
00:25:27
Robert Fine
Okay, so how long how long were you with ah National Nuclear
00:25:31
Laura Kusumoto
i was I was there six years, and my first assignment there, or second assignment, was to build software for a ah and fuel rod assay machine. That's what they were called.
00:25:45
Laura Kusumoto
By the way, these were like five-ton machines, five tons of lead. Then you'd take the nuclear fuel rod, would go through it. And sensors were creating data as it became irradiated and taking that data is what the software did.
00:25:59
Laura Kusumoto
So that's what I was doing is getting real-time data, analyzing it real time and determining yeah know the quality of the construction of the rod itself.
00:26:06
Robert Fine
So at the when when you were doing that work, how much did you have to know very much about nuclear engineering at the time, or was it really just computer science driven kind of problems and and and the chemistry physics part of it?
00:26:22
Robert Fine
you know You didn't have to, you you yourself didn't have to know too much about the detail.
00:26:27
Laura Kusumoto
That's right. That's right. So the the algorithms, the calculations that were needed to get the the numbers that they wanted were given to me. However, they were given to me in formulas and I had to translate it into software that worked on the computer.
00:26:41
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:26:42
Laura Kusumoto
And some of that was Fortran. This is some really old stuff.
00:26:46
Robert Fine
yeah
00:26:46
Laura Kusumoto
But this was real-time programming, and ah that many of the other languages didn't do real-time. And also assembly language. So I was using assembly language and Fortran to do this.
00:26:57
Laura Kusumoto
And ah ah initially, it was all just a ah program that would run once, but it became multitasking. So there were several tasks running at the same time. um But my second assignment was to develop this
00:27:09
Robert Fine
but were the Were the chips designed at the time to be able to multitask?
00:27:14
Laura Kusumoto
This was a part of the PDP-11, and it did have a multitasking operating system. Yep.
00:27:18
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:27:20
Laura Kusumoto
But what a software engineer would do that maybe an electronics engineer might not have done in that situation was take advantage of the multitasking capability and having a bunch of things happening at the same time and and then communicating between them.
00:27:30
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:27:34
Laura Kusumoto
So there was a lot of parallel processing going on.
00:27:36
Robert Fine
Yeah. I mean, that's kind of, um i guess, i don't i don't yeah I don't want to misstate, I'm not a computer scientist, I didn't study computer science, but in terms of the differences between multitasking and multi-threading, I don't know if there's ah ah ah ah a huge difference, but ah but it's ah it's a it's a definitely a so software challenge.
00:27:57
Laura Kusumoto
Right. To use it effectively in this was a challenge and things were done more manually like multi-threading can be automated later on, but this is multitasking where you're specifically launching different tasks to do things and having them share results and then move on to the next thing.
00:28:14
Laura Kusumoto
So
00:28:14
Robert Fine
And this was a, and where did the OS come from?
00:28:15
Laura Kusumoto
one
00:28:17
Robert Fine
but i And I guess, go ahead.
00:28:18
Laura Kusumoto
that was, that was digital equipment corporation.
00:28:22
Laura Kusumoto
Um, yeah.
00:28:22
Robert Fine
Oh, Deck, yeah, okay.
00:28:25
Robert Fine
Got bought by Wang, I think, right?
00:28:26
Laura Kusumoto
Um,
00:28:28
Robert Fine
In late 80s.
00:28:28
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, I didn't, I didn't,
00:28:31
Robert Fine
Anyway, I can't remember where, we're or maybe maybe ah maybe it was HP that ended up with Deck.
00:28:37
Laura Kusumoto
I don't, I don't remember that either.
00:28:38
Robert Fine
I can't recall now.
00:28:40
Laura Kusumoto
i don't know there're their eventual fate, but they were they were really the top, what were called mini computers at the time and clearly suited for industrial use, which is what we were doing it for.
00:28:52
Laura Kusumoto
what I'm wanting to tell you is that I got an assignment to build a machine from Japan and we didn't finish it on time. Now ask any like 20, 24 year old or whatever software engineer, how long something's going to take.
00:29:07
Laura Kusumoto
And at least back then the answer would be incorrect. So I gave them, you know, a really unrealistic amount of time. And when it wasn't done, they shipped me to Japan to finish the work.
00:29:19
Robert Fine
and as As a, as a ah was that as a penalty or or a reward? or
00:29:27
Laura Kusumoto
Neither one. It was a business decision because the customers there really needed to receive and and get this stuff working. So...
00:29:35
Robert Fine
And and this was this was for, I guess, for a nuclear plant in Japan.
00:29:41
Laura Kusumoto
As for nuclear fuel fuel development plant, yeah.
00:29:45
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:29:45
Laura Kusumoto
Japan nuclear fuel in...
00:29:45
Robert Fine
Hopefully not Fukushima.
00:29:48
Laura Kusumoto
It was Japan nuclear fuel.
00:29:50
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:29:50
Laura Kusumoto
So Fukushima was a nuclear power plant and... Japan Nuclear Fuel made the fuels for that and other plants.
00:30:00
Robert Fine
Right.
00:30:01
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:30:02
Robert Fine
um So, ah so you're 24 and um so during your six year period, you, you went to Japan where that was at the end of your six year period.
00:30:12
Laura Kusumoto
it was It was towards the... Maybe it was the second or third year. And to to kind of insert a little bit of life there, so I... i i
00:30:22
Robert Fine
and And you didn't know the language going there, correct?
00:30:24
Laura Kusumoto
No, not a word of Japanese except, you know, arigato.
00:30:25
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:30:28
Robert Fine
And did you were you were you somewhat multilingual at this point yeah outside of computer languages?
00:30:35
Laura Kusumoto
No, not in Japanese.
00:30:37
Robert Fine
but Okay. I mean, but well, another way of asking is, you were was learning language easy for you? um
00:30:46
Laura Kusumoto
Oh.
00:30:46
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:30:48
Laura Kusumoto
Um, not particularly. I mean, I think I'm really good at hearing languages, but not as good at learning to produce the language. And, um, in that situation wear, I was under a a little bit of pressure to, you know, finish the software and go home.
00:31:04
Laura Kusumoto
Um, it took three and a half months. I was, um, I was aided by the Japanese engineers that were there. So I had, they were in the The host company was Seiko, the watch company, Daini Seikosha.
00:31:18
Laura Kusumoto
And so I had a team of, depending on how many were there at the time, two or three guys that I taught how to, I taught them the design of the overall software, you know, architecture that I was working with. And they helped write some of the algorithms to finish the work.
00:31:38
Laura Kusumoto
so um So that was...
00:31:38
Robert Fine
Okay. And did it actually, add well, so quick question on the, was was the programming in ah regular ah English, Fortran or whichever it was, or was it had to be translated to Japanese language?
00:31:48
Laura Kusumoto
Yes. Yeah. No, it was English.
00:31:54
Robert Fine
Okay. Okay.
00:31:55
Laura Kusumoto
Including the outputs. the The displays and the reports at the end all were in English. And so the Japanese users had to be fluent in English, or at least ah reading fluent in English to understand it.
00:32:09
Robert Fine
And were the Japanese engineers comfortable working with with that?
00:32:16
Laura Kusumoto
Well, they did all right. It did all right.
00:32:20
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:32:20
Laura Kusumoto
They got better at it with time. So um anyway, this is, so I worked with them and there were actually several trips to Japan with multiple add-ons to that project and um other machines that they needed. And over time I got to know one of them and that person later moved to the United States and became my first husband.
00:32:42
Robert Fine
Okay. so that and And that's where Kusumoto comes from?
00:32:46
Laura Kusumoto
Yes. A lot of people ask me that.
00:32:47
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:32:48
Laura Kusumoto
So that's the answer to that.
00:32:48
Robert Fine
Actually, what's what's your maiden name, if I can ask?
00:32:51
Laura Kusumoto
It was Roberts.
00:32:52
Robert Fine
Roberts. Okay. Laura Roberts. It's ah it's almost like ah yeah know an L.A.
00:32:55
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:32:57
Robert Fine
actress name.
00:33:00
Laura Kusumoto
Right, exactly. so So that was that. was that and And I think that you know that changed ah my lifestyle a bit, you know obviously. Became married and and really very focused on work.
00:33:15
Laura Kusumoto
um And that was a really comfortable situation there in Silicon Valley. um But I became, because I wasn't really interested in nuclear engineering, I became really interested in the hot thing at the time, which was AI.
00:33:31
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:33:32
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, seriously.
00:33:32
Robert Fine
ah and So, hot thing at the time, what, 1990, 91? what ninety ninety ninety one
00:33:38
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, and you know what? I gave you the wrong year before. I'm sorry. National Nuclear, I started, so I actually had started there earlier. and around 1983,
00:33:51
Laura Kusumoto
I started working for two companies at the same time, National Nuclear, and then I got an internship at a company called TechKnowledge.
00:34:00
Robert Fine
tick technology Okay.
00:34:01
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. TechKnowledge, T-E-K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E. TechKnowledge was, and I got this arrangement with National Nuclear.
00:34:11
Robert Fine
So you're work you're working a full-time job as a professional and taking an internship.
00:34:16
Laura Kusumoto
Correct.
00:34:17
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:34:18
Laura Kusumoto
Yep.
00:34:19
Robert Fine
And what was the internship?
00:34:19
Laura Kusumoto
Mm-hmm. It was in this company called Technology that was developing expert systems using what we called AI at the time.
00:34:28
Robert Fine
Right.
00:34:29
Laura Kusumoto
And that kind of AI still is AI, but it's it's one of many different techniques that that is used in AI today. So at Technology, i was it was the first venture-backed software firm in Silicon Valley.
00:34:44
Laura Kusumoto
And it had been started by ah number of, what?
00:34:49
Robert Fine
No, i'm just I'm just making sure i have I'm listening hearing that right.
00:34:50
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:34:52
Robert Fine
It's the first venture-backed software company in the Valley.
00:34:56
Laura Kusumoto
In Silicon Valley. That's right.
00:34:57
Robert Fine
that's That's historic.
00:34:59
Laura Kusumoto
Yep, it was.
00:35:01
Robert Fine
I would hope it has its own Wikipedia page.
00:35:01
Laura Kusumoto
Before that, the venture... Ah, that's a good question. that's we should yeah we should look that up. um So i wanted I wanted to get into that. Luther's father actually helped me get the the internship there. And so I was working there one day a week and still doing my job at National Nuclear. And by the way, I had gotten my master's degree in computer science at Santa Clara University by now.
00:35:27
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:35:27
Laura Kusumoto
so So that was my master's degree. um And I became a software engineer for technology, whereas a number of the people there were this newfangled thing called knowledge engineers.
00:35:40
Laura Kusumoto
And what the software engineers did is we developed tools for the knowledge engineers to use. um They were using higher level languages and They would go out and try to, I'm going to use the wrong verb here, but they would try to extract knowledge from subject matter experts and represent it in the expert system.
00:36:01
Laura Kusumoto
Whereas software engineers, we were using symbolic processing and object-oriented programming and logic programming, Prolog.
00:36:09
Robert Fine
Well, so i don't I don't know if you'll agree with me on this. And I mean, we don't need to go off on tangent too much. But um what I have learned over over my years of ah of ah knowledge management trying to be instilled within a a company or a department ah is it is much less about the tool and much more about the culture on whether it's successful or not.
00:36:34
Laura Kusumoto
Well, that that is really, really true. And ah yeah that is something that um it takes, I think, more a different position in a company, in an industry to understand when you're, as I was, as a young software engineer, you're very focused on solving the problem that you've been given by the company.
00:36:56
Laura Kusumoto
um Getting something accepted is something that I'm more and burst in now. with all the experience that I have in later years, actually applying these systems.
00:37:06
Laura Kusumoto
But here we were developing, I was developing it and other folks were working on the application problem.
00:37:13
Robert Fine
So, so how large was, was technology at the time when you, when you started interning? I mean, was this more than a hundred people or less than that?
00:37:20
Laura Kusumoto
No, i i I don't know exactly, but I believe it was around the size of 40 people, something like that.
00:37:28
Robert Fine
Okay. I mean, that's, that's gotta be an an amazing, I, I know very few people, i can't even think of one off top my head right now that, um well, maybe, maybe
00:37:29
Laura Kusumoto
And the biggest,
00:37:38
Robert Fine
you know Walter and some others, but ah you know that that you know we're in Silicon Valley you know during the 80s and during this you know huge boom um yeah well before 94 and Mosaic.
00:37:50
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:37:55
Laura Kusumoto
Absolutely. And I wish, you know, I wish I had ah photographic memory from that time because.
00:38:02
Robert Fine
I mean, how many times did you probably pass Steve Jobs at the mall?
00:38:06
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, who knows?
00:38:07
Robert Fine
and and did And didn't know it.
00:38:09
Laura Kusumoto
And didn't know it. Yeah. And, you know, Cupertino wasn't far away. And, you know, that was just in the range of. where we would go shopping and grocery stores and all that kind of stuff. So it's it's very likely that I passed a lot of computer science famous people. And some of them were in technology itself. These were some of the ah the most accomplished AI researchers.
00:38:32
Robert Fine
I mean, this is early days of like Sun Microsystems and Oracle.
00:38:32
Laura Kusumoto
and
00:38:36
Laura Kusumoto
Yep, yep.
00:38:36
Robert Fine
um you know And well, to think about, you know i'm I mean, I'm almost curious now to like, like who were the people that actually backed technology early on?
00:38:47
Robert Fine
you know Who were those early investors and what did whether they do the following years?
00:38:54
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. I don't know about the following years, but there were ah there were ah a number of investors and some of them invested in more than one AI company. They were so bullish on it, but they I guess they wanted more than one egg in the basket. So there was another company similar to ours called Intelligenetics, which had started out with the genetics.
00:39:14
Laura Kusumoto
And they also were developing AI techniques and And they were a big competitor of ours in the marketplace. And also another another thing that started then that that has been repeated over and over again since that era is there was a big hype wave, big hype boom around a i ah You know, i remember clipping articles or or getting, you know, copies of articles from like the Wall Street Journal about, you know, ha ha ha, will there be artificially intelligent toothpaste in our future?
00:39:46
Laura Kusumoto
ah They were, you know, there's a lot of imagination in the press about what impact this would have on society and and every industry you can imagine.
00:39:56
Robert Fine
I mean, the, the, you know, ah I'm, I'm, uh, you know, just, just to date where I am in this period. i mean, I would guess I was, I was in, uh, I was in sixth grade in 83, but I, you know, I started with a, uh, a commoner of Vic 20, uh, when I was, you know, nine and I was on CompuServe, um, in those early days.
00:40:17
Laura Kusumoto
Awesome.
00:40:19
Robert Fine
um and, um,
00:40:23
Robert Fine
I think what I remember from that period, at least from what was popular, um and as far as AI was concerned, what seemed to be where where the cutting edge was from a consumer standpoint was was dragon dictation.
00:40:38
Laura Kusumoto
ah Yeah.
00:40:39
Robert Fine
um I don't know. you know i was not i'm not I wasn't up the speed on what was happening in an industrial level.
00:40:41
Laura Kusumoto
What's that?
00:40:46
Robert Fine
so So tell me a little bit about technology. How many years were there, you know that the products that you built and where they maybe got – did you feel like – did you guys build something that you were – that got utilized in the market?
00:41:01
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, absolutely. But you you have to understand we were building, we had two things. We were building tools and selling the tools ah for people to develop applications with.
00:41:12
Laura Kusumoto
And then we also had a consulting branch that was to build developing actual applications. And I would say that would be the more kind of glamorous part where they were you know actually developing things for the nuclear industry.
00:41:25
Robert Fine
So you were, you were selling a, you were building a dev platform for other developers and, and did it, did it catch, I mean, was it something that, um, what was the name of the platform?
00:41:29
Laura Kusumoto
Exactly, exactly. So that's what...
00:41:37
Laura Kusumoto
ah There were two of them. One of them was called M1 and the other one was called S1.
00:41:38
Robert Fine
or
00:41:41
Laura Kusumoto
And I'm sure you've never heard of these. But again, they were built using the AI languages of the day, Lisp, Prolog, Object-Oriented Programming.
00:41:51
Robert Fine
Yeah.
00:41:52
Laura Kusumoto
I was using C also. And with that, we built these higher-level languages that the knowledge engineers could use to quickly represent knowledge using rules, ah confidence factors, some of the other things that made it easy to represent knowledge as opposed to algorithms.
00:42:12
Robert Fine
Okay. Okay.
00:42:13
Laura Kusumoto
So the you would declare what the knowledge is, and then the tool had... an engine that it would run over the the declaration of the knowledge with some procedures and it would it would run through that and come and and come up with advice or plans or strategies, you know, depending on what we were would we're trying to emulate from the subject matter expert.
00:42:37
Laura Kusumoto
And that expert might be an expert in car repair, that might be an expert in, you know, yeah, six
00:42:37
Robert Fine
to
00:42:42
Robert Fine
okay so So how many years were you at technology?
00:42:47
Laura Kusumoto
six years.
00:42:48
Robert Fine
Six years. And from your perspective, I mean, was that a were they a successful company? where Did they get to profitability from, you know, beyond the the funding that they received?
00:42:59
Laura Kusumoto
yeah Yeah, they ended up similar to other early stage companies ah that are successful. So they were successful in their time, generating a lot of hype.
00:43:12
Laura Kusumoto
A lot of um major companies ah bought the tools and bought education from the company and also bought consulting from the company and in many industries.
00:43:24
Laura Kusumoto
But there was a downturn, and this was my first hype cycle that I've ever experienced personally. There was a great hype cycle. And then there was the trough of disillusion disillusionment, which happened right around 1989. This was the first AI winter.
00:43:40
Laura Kusumoto
And as we entered the winter,
00:43:41
Robert Fine
Well, so somebody asked, was this a um a national economic downturn or was this a technology downturn in in the in the in the region?
00:43:50
Laura Kusumoto
was an AI downturn for sure. i don't recall if that was a financial.
00:43:54
Robert Fine
I mean, we're now talking about the Reagan years. Well, I guess – no, I guess what George H.
00:43:56
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, we are.
00:43:59
Robert Fine
Bush would have been – no, 80 – wait, when did the president – was Clinton's first – yeah, that would have been H.
00:44:01
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, we were transgressing. 89. That was 1990. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
00:44:08
Robert Fine
Bush, George H. Bush then.
00:44:09
Laura Kusumoto
yeah yeah
00:44:12
Robert Fine
um Were we in a recession then?
00:44:12
Laura Kusumoto
yes
00:44:14
Robert Fine
i think I think we were. Well, we went into a war, so we must have been recession because we went we went to war to get out of the recession, right?
00:44:23
Laura Kusumoto
yeah
00:44:24
Robert Fine
usually Usually how it goes, but.
00:44:27
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, I have clear memories of the later recessions, but not not at that time. um Anyway, there was kind of a bust for AI. That whole you know industry, quote unquote, segment lost credibility.
00:44:41
Laura Kusumoto
And technology was acquired by another company. And it continued to ah to perform for another 15 years. I think technology was around for a total of over 20 years and still had
00:44:53
Robert Fine
Well, as as as that name.
00:44:57
Laura Kusumoto
ah they were They were acquired by another company, and then they came back with that name later on. So yes, with that name. And I think they finally, finally went out of business in something like 2012. Yeah.
00:45:12
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:45:13
Laura Kusumoto
yeah
00:45:14
Robert Fine
um Actually, there were probably they went out of business what about four or five years before probably ChatGPT was getting going.
00:45:23
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, and so that that's an interesting thing.
00:45:23
Robert Fine
Thank you.
00:45:25
Laura Kusumoto
And and the the the techniques that we were using at the time, they are still ah useful today. They're still used in creating expert systems today. But the big, big difference is we had no way of automating the learning part.
00:45:42
Laura Kusumoto
And so with the large language models and other techniques that we have, the deep learning, we now have the learning that can you know teach a system. And there's variety kinds of systems that it can teach these days. So it's just one in the bag of techniques that we have today.
00:45:59
Robert Fine
Okay. So if I'm right on our current timeline, we're 1990, George H.
00:46:07
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:46:08
Robert Fine
Bush is in the White House. were We're either about to go into Kuwait um and you're you're either out of it. or So what what are you doing at this point?
00:46:19
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, I went to become an independent consultant, and i did a lot of different things, which is way too much to drag out in detail. But I think the most interesting and significant thing was another startup company called Magic Edge.
00:46:35
Laura Kusumoto
And Magic magic Edge.
00:46:35
Robert Fine
Magic Edge.
00:46:39
Robert Fine
Okay, that sounds sort of familiar.
00:46:40
Laura Kusumoto
Mm-hmm.
00:46:43
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, well, there's, there's, there've been various companies starting with the word magic over the years,
00:46:47
Robert Fine
right yeah i' Yeah, I'm sure we could we could we could have a drinking game around that, I'm sure.
00:46:51
Laura Kusumoto
ah like magic leap later on. um But that magic edge,
00:46:58
Laura Kusumoto
Yes, we could. um Magic Edge was started by a mechanical engineer. And I was recruited as someone by then I was interested in computer graphics.
00:47:09
Laura Kusumoto
So I was recruited to his team as someone who knew something about computer graphics.
00:47:09
Robert Fine
OK.
00:47:13
Laura Kusumoto
And I really was mostly an advisor that helped to write the business plan and come up with the technology strategy and helped steer him away from trying to use PCs for what he was trying to do and into using silicon graphics equipment.
00:47:29
Robert Fine
okay
00:47:30
Laura Kusumoto
um And the what it was was a location-based entertainment center that would have pods in which a individual could go in a pod and you'd be able to it was basically a tiny little flight simulator so you'd be able to fly this pod he had designed it so you could turn all the way upside down 360 degrees of motion and you could fly in it and um to make a very long story short
00:47:46
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:47:59
Laura Kusumoto
I helped him in the first year along with other people on the team. I invested in the company. i earned stock from the company, but the virtual pay got to me and I later had to get a job.
00:48:11
Laura Kusumoto
So I left it before all the products were built. But in the end, the location-based center was opened. It was called Magic Edge. It was on Space Park Way in Mountain View, California.
00:48:24
Laura Kusumoto
And it had a restaurant and several of these networked pods where you could fly in formation. you could not go 360 degrees because that made people sick.
00:48:33
Robert Fine
it Wait, wait, when you say information, do you mean multiple people could could be in different pods flying together?
00:48:40
Laura Kusumoto
Yes. Yes.
00:48:41
Robert Fine
Wow.
00:48:43
Laura Kusumoto
Yes.
00:48:44
Robert Fine
That's, and so this, and this is, wait, so when, what year did it get to market?
00:48:44
Laura Kusumoto
It was fantastic. Fantastic.
00:48:50
Laura Kusumoto
It went to market, I'm gonna i'm going to quote this wrong, because I, again, I wasn't there. I think it was roughly around 1995 or four, four or five.
00:48:59
Robert Fine
Okay. Okay. ah so so that So that was that was the for that period. the the the vr heyday for that period yeah i have i have a slide i have a slide where
00:49:07
Laura Kusumoto
It was a, it was, that's right. And there were other location-based centers that were opening up, doing a variety of things.
00:49:15
Robert Fine
pc gamer ah from somewhere some some month the nineteen ninety five you know is about vr
00:49:18
Laura Kusumoto
Yes.
00:49:21
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, there was one called Fighter Town. There were a number of different things that emerged. It was like one of these emergent themes in technology at the time.
00:49:29
Robert Fine
these These things never made it to the East Coast, I don't think, because I don't, know, I mean, I was big into arcades growing up, but, you know, maybe, you know, I can barely remember anything VR related um in, you know in the commercial arcade in the, in you know, in the Northeast or in the Philly area.
00:49:34
Laura Kusumoto
It's so sad.
00:49:50
Laura Kusumoto
That's a shame because they were fun. And this place in
00:49:54
Robert Fine
So what, how much, how much did a Magic Edge ride cost at the time? Can you remember?
00:49:59
Laura Kusumoto
I can't. But you would buy the experience. Like you'd go in and you'd get a ticket for the whole... It was kind of a theme park ride. And it was definitely designed...
00:50:06
Robert Fine
Right. Well, not I'm just curious, was it it was it a reasonable price for the period or was it you know really expensive?
00:50:11
Laura Kusumoto
It was.
00:50:12
Robert Fine
And so how – go ahead.
00:50:13
Laura Kusumoto
No, it was it was... Yeah.
00:50:15
Robert Fine
got
00:50:16
Laura Kusumoto
It was it was reasonably affordable. like I don't know. was... you know, $40 or something like that for the for the experience, which would last. You'd get your training, you'd go and do your flying, there'd be a debrief.
00:50:28
Laura Kusumoto
There was also a restaurant there. And so this was used a lot for team building, for the local companies, and also for date people going on dates and all that. A lot of people around at that time do remember Magic Edge.
00:50:41
Laura Kusumoto
It was really cool and fun.
00:50:42
Robert Fine
and and And the pod turned 360 and I would
00:50:46
Laura Kusumoto
Originally it did, but they had in their user testing,
00:50:48
Robert Fine
would imagine it made a lot of people sick.
00:50:51
Laura Kusumoto
Exactly.
00:50:52
Robert Fine
yeah
00:50:52
Laura Kusumoto
So they had to they had to they had to cut down the angles at which you could turn, rotate.
00:50:58
Robert Fine
So how how long did that did they last in the market? you remember?
00:51:02
Laura Kusumoto
They lasted of of just a few years, and then it was acquired.
00:51:05
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:51:07
Laura Kusumoto
And I think they actually shut it down. I don't think it was operated after the acquisition.
00:51:12
Robert Fine
Okay.
00:51:12
Laura Kusumoto
um And it was...
00:51:13
Robert Fine
I got to look this up now online because I'm curious to see what the graphics look like. and the I don't
00:51:16
Laura Kusumoto
It's, you know, it's interesting. All these all these things that we're talking about. ah someone I remember someone saying, it was right around 1999, that if something wasn't on the internet, it didn't exist.
00:51:30
Laura Kusumoto
And um that's true.
00:51:32
Robert Fine
if
00:51:32
Laura Kusumoto
It's hard to find some of these things because the internet wasn't around yet
00:51:38
Robert Fine
ah That's true, but I i found – I mean there are so many – I mean you you know you just look at Wikipedia. I mean there are so many enthusiasts ah that you know publish history. I mean you know i mean the the internet is our is our human history yeah machine at this point for good or for bad.
00:51:57
Robert Fine
and yeah I'm sure it doesn't have – I mean you know we're still probably migrating all the published books and printed books through through time to it, but it's so slowly getting there.
00:52:05
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, that's true.
00:52:08
Robert Fine
um So, okay, well, so you helped for a year there with the business plan and project and you consulted on and off for how long?
00:52:18
Laura Kusumoto
For six years.
00:52:19
Robert Fine
but For another six years.
00:52:20
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, for, for yeah, to to various companies. So that ended in 1995 when I took a job at Intuit.
00:52:29
Robert Fine
Into it. Okay.
00:52:30
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:52:31
Robert Fine
um
00:52:32
Laura Kusumoto
So...
00:52:32
Robert Fine
Accounting.
00:52:33
Laura Kusumoto
And Bob, we have a long way to go. So if you want me to speed up, I can do that.
00:52:38
Robert Fine
No, um we're not we're not on any any timeline and and we can always do a part two if necessary.
00:52:41
Laura Kusumoto
Okay.
00:52:43
Laura Kusumoto
Okay.
00:52:43
Robert Fine
i'm i'm i'm I'm learning a lot and and there's a huge amount of this history that I wasn't aware of.
00:52:49
Laura Kusumoto
Okay, cool.
00:52:50
Robert Fine
um
00:52:52
Laura Kusumoto
So... um
00:52:52
Robert Fine
sort yeah So tell me about an Intuit. because So that was this early days of Intuit?
00:52:58
Laura Kusumoto
It wasn't the earliest days. Intuit was founded earlier. it was a pretty well-established company at the time. ah ah random statistic I remember remember is that they had a customer service or tech support.
00:53:12
Laura Kusumoto
What did they call it? Customer service department of 5,000 people by then. They had 3 million people.
00:53:18
Robert Fine
Oh my God, that's that's that's huge.
00:53:21
Laura Kusumoto
They had 3 million people using Quicken Deluxe, not to mention the other Quicken's.
00:53:24
Robert Fine
ah Yeah, that's right. They made Quicken. So i was Intuit public at that point?
00:53:27
Laura Kusumoto
That's right. I think it was, yeah.
00:53:30
Robert Fine
Okay. So what what what yeah yeah
00:53:33
Laura Kusumoto
so what i So what I did...
00:53:35
Robert Fine
why'd you take a job there? That that's that seems extremely um out of ah place for someone with small companies before.
00:53:41
Laura Kusumoto
i know
00:53:44
Laura Kusumoto
yeah absolutely. Well, Magic Edge and I had done several other things in that interim, but I was trying to get into kind of 3D computer graphics. ah And by the way, along the way during that consulting period, I also met...
00:53:59
Laura Kusumoto
Mike, I had gotten a divorce from Mr. Kusimoto and I met my second and permanent husband, Christian Groyle, at a conference.
00:54:08
Robert Fine
I find it funny how you referenced your first divorce as Mr. Kusumoto.
00:54:13
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, that's right. That's right. um And that's all right.
00:54:17
Robert Fine
I'm sorry.
00:54:19
Laura Kusumoto
at what We met at a conference called the Entertainment Authoring Conference in Los Angeles, which was sponsored by Silicon Graphics, Silicon Studio. So I was going to conferences like that.
00:54:31
Laura Kusumoto
I was you know interviewing people that were doing 3D graphics, and and Christian Goyle was one of them. So I met him prior to starting at Intuit. And we're still together.
00:54:42
Laura Kusumoto
So that's a that's a historical note.
00:54:43
Robert Fine
Okay. the the
00:54:45
Laura Kusumoto
Great importance to me.
00:54:45
Robert Fine
The gentleman one i've i've i've I've sort of shared dinners with a couple times now.
00:54:49
Laura Kusumoto
That's right. Yes, exactly. That very person.
00:54:51
Robert Fine
So ah wait, so you you met him at a conference room, you met him at Intuit.
00:54:56
Laura Kusumoto
Met him at a conference.
00:54:57
Robert Fine
Okay. and
00:54:58
Laura Kusumoto
At...
00:54:59
Robert Fine
And and what did you why did you join Intuit or what did you join to do?
00:55:03
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, well, the the consulting business wasn't working out so well for me in that later period. So I ended up looking for a full-time job.
00:55:14
Laura Kusumoto
And Intuit was a company that was willing to take me on with my very diverse background. And um I wanted a multimedia job, most importantly.
00:55:25
Laura Kusumoto
I wanted to integrate my...
00:55:26
Robert Fine
Well, I mean, at at this point, you've got a lot of international experience.
00:55:26
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:55:29
Robert Fine
You've you've got ah experience in a variety of different industries.
00:55:31
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:55:33
Robert Fine
I would i would imagine that you know you were a pretty pretty ah attractive candidate at that point.
00:55:40
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, but what my aim was to get into multimedia. So that is that was the real challenge is is kind of changing. and And people often ask me, Bob, how did you get from here to there?
00:55:52
Laura Kusumoto
And I think sometimes you want something and you you you look for ways to transition.
00:55:58
Robert Fine
So did you ever look at at that period at like get the video games industry?
00:56:05
Laura Kusumoto
I did. um i did and I didn't... um Let's see. I'm trying to remember when I tried to approach that.
00:56:13
Robert Fine
were Were you in into video games at all or was that not much of an interest?
00:56:18
Laura Kusumoto
i wasn't, and i I think that throughout the time, i love I love the graphics, I love the process of production, but I've always been more interested, but well, there's a couple of exceptions, exceptions but i I guess I was always more interested in things that had more practical um impact.
00:56:37
Laura Kusumoto
Magic Edge was an exception. Right. But Intuit, I was attracted to the fact that it was something that helped millions of people with their finances.
00:56:46
Robert Fine
Okay. You wanted to work on nuclear energy, um other thing things that have practical use. like i can I can respect that.
00:56:54
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
00:56:55
Robert Fine
Not pie in the sky ideas like you know putting having flight simulators.
00:56:56
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:57:00
Laura Kusumoto
Well, yeah.
00:57:00
Robert Fine
so Well, flight simulators for fun. Let's put it that way.
00:57:04
Laura Kusumoto
So, yeah, so I really, i can't, I guess I went back and forth. You'll, you know, as you continue to hear, I went back and forth on this over time, but the video game industry, I just, I just didn't find the right entry point. I think is really what it is. It was a matter of chance and it just didn't happen.
00:57:20
Robert Fine
Okay. So how long how long were you into it?
00:57:24
Laura Kusumoto
I was at Intuit for a couple of years and I did get my multimedia assignment, which is what I was looking for, producing a CD-ROM, which was Quicken Deluxe 5.0 for Windows, all of the multimedia learning material on it.
00:57:39
Robert Fine
Okay. Wait, i'm going to have to look I'm going to have to look for this on eBay. So Quicken Deluxe 5.0. five point
00:57:44
Laura Kusumoto
I have a copy if you want one.
00:57:45
Robert Fine
so point five point um Yeah, and the problem is I probably don't have a CD-ROM drive anywhere.
00:57:50
Laura Kusumoto
Nobody does in this version of Windows is long gone. But at the time, um the audience,
00:57:56
Robert Fine
Yeah, what do so what would would that have been a Windows 3.0 maybe or 3.1?
00:58:01
Laura Kusumoto
it was 5.0. five point um
00:58:03
Robert Fine
No, no, Windows. What but version of Windows?
00:58:05
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, the Windows version.
00:58:06
Robert Fine
ah
00:58:07
Laura Kusumoto
Oh God, I don't know.
00:58:08
Robert Fine
It had to be before XP. Yeah.
00:58:10
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. You know, you talked about having a Commodore computer when you were nine. I also had purchased my own PC when I was just ah getting out of college.
00:58:23
Laura Kusumoto
And I think just just as a career note, um that helped me because I had something to be working on at home on my own stuff, aside from what I was assigned to do at work.
00:58:33
Robert Fine
Actually, I'm curious, that did you ever kind of participate in the whole BBS's kind of um culture?
00:58:40
Laura Kusumoto
A little bit, yep, I did.
00:58:41
Robert Fine
okay
00:58:43
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, and I was on CompuServe also. i tried that. i tried a lot of different things.
00:58:48
Robert Fine
Yeah, I think, ah yeah, CompuServe and I was on BBS's a lot. And I liked i i actually never i never really liked AOL all that much or Prodigy.
00:58:59
Robert Fine
um I think once I...
00:58:59
Laura Kusumoto
I tried those too.
00:59:01
Robert Fine
Yeah, I mean, I think they they were just – well, I don't know. I guess for for me – well, and again, people a lot of people at the time thought that Prodigy was the internet. um
00:59:11
Laura Kusumoto
Yes, they did.
00:59:11
Robert Fine
And and and in a lot of ways, it felt like at the internet with training wheels. But ah yeah, I mean, the CompuServe and early – IRC chat, you know, on, on that kind of stuff was really where, where the fun was.
00:59:25
Robert Fine
um But, so and BDSs and, you know, and, and calling into those, you know, whether they were local or, or national was, was a, well, a large part of my time, you know, and, and this is when I had like an Apple IIe or, or a first ah PC, ah you know, early, yeah I can't remember, you know, ah well, early, early PC.
00:59:41
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
00:59:50
Robert Fine
So,
00:59:52
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, they were fun.
00:59:52
Robert Fine
window Windows three kind of era.
00:59:56
Laura Kusumoto
But I think it was important for us at that time to have something outside of work. um And I know that I think that divided, it was kind of division in society. Those people that had those things at home were advancing along the technology spectrum.
01:00:11
Robert Fine
So what happened to the, what happened to the painting and and the artwork is that, did you, so did you not pursue that in the evening hours or the weekends?
01:00:19
Laura Kusumoto
No, I never was able to get in that headspace while doing this other kind of work. And you've heard a theme. i was I worked hard. I was really kind of a workaholic.
01:00:32
Robert Fine
Right.
01:00:32
Laura Kusumoto
um So i that puts some...
01:00:33
Robert Fine
Well, and this this was pretty pretty heady heady work. I'm sure you were probably brain drained by the end of every day.
01:00:37
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:00:39
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, so I never really was able to integrate. I mean, I have some visual hobbies that I had over time. I learned various art techniques. So I would take classes. i would do things. But it never it never became a consistent thing over a period of time.
01:00:56
Laura Kusumoto
I do dream of getting back to it someday.
01:01:00
Robert Fine
Someday. you're not. used stone out
01:01:01
Laura Kusumoto
Someday. I'm still not doing anything regular.
01:01:03
Robert Fine
I mean, I'm trying to find – I think one of my – yeah, there is a problem with being a workaholic and especially when you work for yourself um when there really is no real nine to five.
01:01:11
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:01:15
Robert Fine
You're kind of always working. I mean not in a bad way. I mean i you know when you work for yourself and if you enjoy what you're doing, it doesn't feel like work most of the time. Um, but it is hard to find, um, divergent hobbies, you know, or things to, you know, get you out of that space. Um, uh, I struggle with that, uh, you know, a lot these days and, and I find it extremely hard to relax. You know, it's hard to, uh, turn off and, and not think about, uh, work or worry about work or, or think about, you know, and completely not, you know, think about other things.
01:01:51
Robert Fine
I mean, and that and that's and that's the short version.
01:01:51
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, that's
01:01:53
Robert Fine
That's the really you know easy part of just you know not even you know getting off your phone for a while.
01:01:59
Laura Kusumoto
Absolutely. i think that's a big, big theme for today, for today today's world. I think even then, I mean, then i think there were ways to unplug, um but ah what the information environment we're in today is much more consuming on outside of work.
01:02:18
Laura Kusumoto
So you you take the fire hose of information you have in connection with what you want to do or have to do, and you combine that with all the options outside of that, it is pretty overwhelming for our primitive brains.
01:02:32
Robert Fine
so the um So what was the graphics challenge with Quicken Deluxe 5.0?
01:02:38
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, yes.
01:02:39
Robert Fine
And was it authoring the software or was there like tutorial stuff you were creating that included video?
01:02:39
Laura Kusumoto
Yes.
01:02:48
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, we had we had video and that was challenging at the time. We had we made a little animation, some some animations to try to animate some diagrams. And that you know that was you know kind of experimental, not experimental overall in the industry, but experimental for a small team to be doing that on our own.
01:03:08
Laura Kusumoto
I commissioned some 3D art because I just had to do something in 3D. So we had some 3D menus, like some coins that you would click on and they'd open up and do things.
01:03:19
Laura Kusumoto
And a I was given a budget to, you know, to try new things because they wanted it to be more engaging than the standard kind of online flat looking offerings that most people were producing at the time.
01:03:34
Laura Kusumoto
So I think that was, you know, reasonably successful. But after that project was completed and released, and it was a great experience for me learning ah how to do a commercial offering like that for an audience of 3 million people.
01:03:49
Laura Kusumoto
And by the way, we did, um you you know, that that was, I'm going to skip that part. The next thing that i worked on was...
01:03:56
Robert Fine
but Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Back up for a second. tell what What were you going to say?
01:04:01
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, we worked on, you know, we worked on some stuff that that didn't make it in. You know, for example, wanted to put in some audio, like an audio, you know, how when you would look at a, like a television network and it when it introduces, it has a tone to it.
01:04:17
Robert Fine
Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:17
Laura Kusumoto
We wanted to put some tones in there. So there were some things that experiments, experimental things that they did accept. There were experimental things that they didn't accept.
01:04:26
Robert Fine
so So putting the the product development stuff aside, what was your, how did you feel? how did I mean, did you enjoy the large corporate structure or was that something that you really didn't enjoy um compared to, I mean, there's there's pros and cons to working in in large structures and versus smaller teams.
01:04:46
Robert Fine
um you know Neither is necessarily perfect for a variety of reasons.
01:04:46
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:04:50
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. i It is such a mixed bag. I mean, there's certain things about it that are just fascinating. Like one of the things we were allowed to do was...
01:04:58
Robert Fine
I mean, at least get medical and e and you know you have a real HR department with a corporation phrase that size.
01:05:03
Laura Kusumoto
Yes. You do. You do. And things were moving very fast. And one thing about a big company like that is you've got ah side projects going on. And I joined the, um what did we call it?
01:05:17
Laura Kusumoto
The internet club inside Intuit.
01:05:20
Robert Fine
Okay. Okay.
01:05:20
Laura Kusumoto
So the internet was was, you know, beginning to graduate, getting into the net. the It was coming off of the kind of hobbyist phase and the DARPA phase and becoming organization.
01:05:31
Robert Fine
had had Had Intuit made the the leap yet to online software?
01:05:37
Laura Kusumoto
Here's the thing. i was on that first team.
01:05:40
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:05:40
Laura Kusumoto
So because I was in the internet club, um I was one of the people chosen.
01:05:43
Robert Fine
yeah you Because you had the interest...
01:05:47
Laura Kusumoto
Because I had the interest and not necessarily any qualifications, I was selected to be the first producer of the Quicken Financial Network website.
01:05:56
Robert Fine
that's That's pretty big. um and And trying to build something um ah but for a brand name company and product at that point for probably a fairly large expected online audience, I would assume was pretty challenging.
01:05:57
Laura Kusumoto
It was big.
01:06:10
Laura Kusumoto
It was, and I had to learn a lot. And by the way, this is the kind of thing that I really liked, but it was super, super stressful, you know, because I really, ah things I didn't know. I didn't know much about managing branding and things like that.
01:06:23
Laura Kusumoto
And and of course I wasn't alone. I had whole team. I helped to recruit the team ah to make a long, bo
01:06:28
Robert Fine
Oh, so so it wasn't it wasn't just the software backend you were doing. you were you were You were responsible for making it a product.
01:06:36
Laura Kusumoto
we were, we were, we were, no, we were, we were making it a website.
01:06:39
Robert Fine
A website, but but a well, and ah and a product in its own.
01:06:40
Laura Kusumoto
the website.
01:06:43
Robert Fine
And now was this for, but but to use Quicken online, not not just a not just brochureware website.
01:06:43
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
01:06:50
Laura Kusumoto
Right. But yes, that was going on and that was integrated with the website. I was in charge of the website, which sounds like nothing, but there were no tools.
01:06:56
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:07:00
Laura Kusumoto
There was the Netscape browser.
01:07:00
Robert Fine
No, i I remember these days well. you know i mean this is this
01:07:03
Laura Kusumoto
There were no tools. There were
01:07:04
Robert Fine
There was no dynamic ah you know um HTML really.
01:07:08
Laura Kusumoto
Style, that's right. There was no JavaScript.
01:07:11
Robert Fine
I don't think there were, I mean, there there was no JavaScript script at this point.
01:07:11
Laura Kusumoto
ah
01:07:15
Laura Kusumoto
There was no JavaScript.
01:07:16
Robert Fine
So this this is like those this is like early days of Yahoo.
01:07:16
Laura Kusumoto
We weren't
01:07:20
Laura Kusumoto
totally early days.
01:07:22
Robert Fine
And probably Google wasn't even out yet.
01:07:22
Laura Kusumoto
So there was no Google.
01:07:25
Laura Kusumoto
That's right.
01:07:25
Robert Fine
Yeah.
01:07:25
Robert Fine
Yeah.
01:07:27
Laura Kusumoto
I think the search engines had just started. Google wasn't around yet. um I think Google was founded in 98, if I recall correctly.
01:07:34
Robert Fine
So i don't I don't know if I've ever shared this story with you, and and I don't know. yeah and this This was 98, 99. um So I was working at the time for, i well, I mean, this this is kind of when internet was really taking off pretty fast, but CMGI.
01:07:51
Laura Kusumoto
Yes.
01:07:53
Robert Fine
um And CMGI was based out of Andover, Massachusetts. And they were trying to build – and it was public company and they were building – and i ended up um I ended up with a job there because I was – contracting for a very small, like less than 10 people um startup in Northern Virginia that made ah web-based email systems that could scale ah for like, you know, millions of users.
01:08:22
Robert Fine
So they were selling in ISPs and telephone companies and so forth.
01:08:23
Laura Kusumoto
Well,
01:08:26
Robert Fine
And I was doing some kind of, you know customer engineering, ah sales engineering ah consulting for them and some overseas work, but they, they got acquired, you know, by a,
01:08:38
Robert Fine
by CMGI. And CMGI bought you was buying up companies small companies left and right. Pets.com was probably one of the most famous with the hand puppet.
01:08:46
Laura Kusumoto
well
01:08:47
Robert Fine
handuppet and um so i And so I became... ah you know their Their headquarters was Andover, Mass. They were building ah an office in Northern Virginia um i and kind of consolidating these smaller companies they bought. And I was hired to, um I guess i you know I was doing like early internet ah research on mobile.
01:09:12
Robert Fine
um And i was I was just bored out of my skull. they They weren't really using me very well. They weren't very well organized as a company. um And I started a hobby site out of my cubicle.
01:09:23
Robert Fine
And this was ninety late 98, early 99, called Cool Wap Site of the Day. Uh, so, I was reviewing, ah first, ah website, first generation websites on, on cell phones.
01:09:29
Laura Kusumoto
who
01:09:36
Robert Fine
So this is WAP 1.0.
01:09:36
Laura Kusumoto
Wow. Okay.
01:09:38
Robert Fine
Um, and, uh, before I knew it about six months in, I was then getting like 10,000 hits a day to the website. And I was, and again, this was like early, you know, HTML, you know, coding every single page.
01:09:52
Laura Kusumoto
Right. Wow.
01:09:53
Robert Fine
Um, and, and, uh, I, And I actually managed to get our content on Sprint's phone deck, which was kind of this was early at the time, and FidoNet in Canada.
01:10:06
Robert Fine
and And believe it or not, and then I actually, and I have a few copies, I'll have to get you a copy left. but And then we so I self-published a printed um ah book. It was kind of like a small form factor book of about like 100 these reviews.
01:10:22
Robert Fine
um And somehow, and I, I, I had this, this is my end to Michael, Michael, uh, sailor, hopefully is, uh, somehow I got strategy.com provided the, uh, the back cover and covered most of the printing cost.
01:10:35
Laura Kusumoto
Wow.
01:10:36
Robert Fine
So, and that was kind of my, that that was like my first, um, uh, I guess, toe into, you know, trying to build, um, my own content, you know, company and, and, and stuff.
01:10:46
Laura Kusumoto
who
01:10:48
Robert Fine
So I,
01:10:49
Laura Kusumoto
And you've never stopped.
01:10:49
Robert Fine
But this was early days of banner advertising and and i you know I couldn't really monitor, yeah i don't you know you you really needed like, even at that period, you needed tens of thousands, 100,000 hits a day to you know just make you know even a few dollars on banner advertising.
01:10:53
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:11:07
Laura Kusumoto
That hasn't changed on YouTube. It's not banner advertising, but
01:11:11
Robert Fine
No, but this but but google google Google was out at this point. And this was like, this was like around the days when DoubleClick was out and, um and, and that whole just model was, was developing.
01:11:15
Laura Kusumoto
yeah.
01:11:19
Laura Kusumoto
Right. Okay.
01:11:22
Robert Fine
But, but again, I mean, companies like, you know, sites like Yahoo and, and, um i you know, the other, i now now I'm trying to think of some of the, yeah the larger search engines back then.
01:11:35
Robert Fine
i mean, they were they were making money and they were hundreds of thousands of of hits a day and stuff.
01:11:36
Laura Kusumoto
AltaVista.
01:11:40
Robert Fine
So it was growing. Anyway, sorry, unnecessary segue tangent.
01:11:41
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. It was growing fast.
01:11:46
Laura Kusumoto
That's okay.
01:11:46
Robert Fine
um
01:11:46
Laura Kusumoto
No, it ah that's part of that era. Well, um on the Quicken Financial Network, we published 6,000 pages by hand.
01:11:55
Robert Fine
Oh, that's right. We were talking that we got off on JavaScript. That's ah well, this was actually JavaScript was just coming out because I remember on the mobile side, at least there was the early, early Java on mobile um and people were building applications and sites, usually the, the Java engine, you know, as best as so if Java had a lot, a lot of headaches and and problems.
01:11:58
Laura Kusumoto
Right. Right, right.
01:12:20
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, well, we weren't using it there. i don't and don't remember why. ah we built these pages in a very short period of time. um that And it was such a short period of time that we burned out just about everybody who was working on it.
01:12:36
Laura Kusumoto
ah But we ah there were 24 departments of the company, including all the TurboTax that, you know, all all of them needed their web presence. So that was what was created.
01:12:48
Laura Kusumoto
So anyway, that was my multimedia experience at Intuit. And that was the beginning of the Quicken Financial Network.
01:12:55
Robert Fine
Is that the largest company you ever worked at? Well, ah outside the VA.
01:12:58
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, no.
01:13:01
Laura Kusumoto
No, not at all. um
01:13:01
Robert Fine
hey
01:13:03
Robert Fine
No. Okay.
01:13:04
Laura Kusumoto
but
01:13:05
Robert Fine
So where did you go after Intuit?
01:13:05
Laura Kusumoto
So from there, skipping a couple steps, I moved to Denmark ah to work.
01:13:12
Robert Fine
You moved to Denmark.
01:13:13
Laura Kusumoto
Yes.
01:13:14
Robert Fine
Why? and i mean, Denmark is beautiful, very expensive.
01:13:15
Laura Kusumoto
To work for Lego.
01:13:19
Laura Kusumoto
I am not kidding.
01:13:21
Robert Fine
Oh, you're kidding. I had no idea.
01:13:22
Laura Kusumoto
I'm not kidding. Okay.
01:13:24
Robert Fine
you've You've never – why – you need to redo your bio.
01:13:24
Laura Kusumoto
Okay.
01:13:29
Laura Kusumoto
okay
01:13:30
Robert Fine
yeah you know I mean you know worked at Intuit, worked at Lego, worked at National Nuclear Corporation.
01:13:31
Laura Kusumoto
yeah
01:13:36
Robert Fine
i mean these are things that get you higher up on the speaking ladder.
01:13:37
Laura Kusumoto
Yes.
01:13:40
Robert Fine
Yeah.
01:13:41
Laura Kusumoto
Well, thank you, Bob. I actually, there are so many different experiences in here that I do sincerely struggle to decide what to share with people.
01:13:52
Laura Kusumoto
And it's not out of wishing to hide anything. It's just, there's just too much detail in general.
01:13:58
Robert Fine
Well, yeah, yeah.
01:13:59
Laura Kusumoto
I, you know, I've organized it into chapters.
01:13:59
Robert Fine
But that but that's but that's that's the reason we're having this conversation is to is to you get that stuff out.
01:14:02
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:14:07
Robert Fine
you don't you you i Yes, I mean, when you're inch when you're doing an elevator pitch or you're you're trying to you know you're you're doing your consulting ah hat on and and trying to convince people why they should hire you you you only have a certain amount of time.
01:14:07
Laura Kusumoto
Yep.
01:14:20
Laura Kusumoto
Right. And do you tell them, well, I was a former punk rocker that worked for Lego, or do you tell them that I was a consultant that worked for Deloitte and Meta?
01:14:26
Robert Fine
Well, you got to you got read your audience you gotta read your audience at that point.
01:14:27
Laura Kusumoto
You know, what do you tell them? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Right.
01:14:34
Robert Fine
so went so you so you So you got a – I mean that's pretty huge to get an opportunity to move to Denmark and join Lego.
01:14:34
Laura Kusumoto
So.
01:14:41
Robert Fine
Did they did they pay for your move?
01:14:43
Laura Kusumoto
They did. And this had to do, it was partly due to my ah then boyfriend, now husband, Christian Goyle, that I mentioned earlier. he They wanted him and he had turned down the opportunity.
01:14:53
Robert Fine
Okay. Oh.
01:14:57
Laura Kusumoto
And then a year later they came back and they said, well, you know, if you won't go because your girlfriend, yeah, if you won't go because your girlfriend, then what does your girlfriend do?
01:15:01
Robert Fine
well We'll sweeten the offer.
01:15:07
Laura Kusumoto
And so they looked at my resume and said, oh my God. So they they hired both of us.
01:15:12
Robert Fine
and why Why did they want him initially?
01:15:15
Laura Kusumoto
He's a 3D real-time modeler. So he is, yeah, he has an actual formal education in art.
01:15:17
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:15:21
Robert Fine
Oh, so so that's how so that's how you got your graphics.
01:15:24
Laura Kusumoto
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly right.
01:15:27
Robert Fine
you couldn' You couldn't find it at work, so you married it
01:15:28
Laura Kusumoto
And
01:15:31
Laura Kusumoto
I married into the industry. that's That's a great way to put it.
01:15:33
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:15:35
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. So they were doing the development of 3D Lego. Again, these were early days. They didn't have a library of Lego and 3D and CAD. So they had hired a lot of Danish modelers there in Bill and Denmark to to model every single Lego at multiple levels of resolution.
01:15:57
Laura Kusumoto
And it took a ah large number of of people to do that because it was all being done by hand, of course, back then. They had the largest computer graphics installation in Scandinavia.
01:16:09
Laura Kusumoto
And it was all SGI machines. All this was set up before we got there. But they were expanding kind of the research and development aspect of this. And for me, what they wanted from me was stuff that I had never done before,
01:16:24
Laura Kusumoto
which was really to be effectively the director of operations for this group, which had about 85 people at the time.
01:16:33
Robert Fine
So like, like, i like IT operations.
01:16:34
Laura Kusumoto
They wanted IT, administration, facilities, finance, legal, all that sort of COO stuff, but it's inside a unit in a company.
01:16:40
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:16:48
Laura Kusumoto
So was a director level positions.
01:16:49
Robert Fine
but But, and, and for, a for a different country.
01:16:53
Laura Kusumoto
for a different country, that's right, for a unit that's focused on 3D graphics.
01:16:58
Robert Fine
Okay. That's interesting.
01:17:01
Laura Kusumoto
And so in addition to doing the Lego in 3D, they were also ah creating animations of Lego. Like the earliest Lego movie was prototyped by the guy who actually founded this whole, or inspired this whole unit called Darwin. It was called SPU Special Project Unit Darwin.
01:17:22
Laura Kusumoto
And they were creating computer animations, really, really cute Lego animations within the, we're in 1997 through 1999.
01:17:28
Robert Fine
So what year was this?
01:17:33
Robert Fine
And do you remember the the name of this first Lego movie?
01:17:37
Laura Kusumoto
It was, cut they I think he called it the Lego movie, but it had nothing to do with what you saw commercially later on. It was, but it was, was, um and by the way, there's a,
01:17:46
Robert Fine
But but i don't I don't think this is the the the same Lego movies that had billion dollar blockbuster success.
01:17:54
Laura Kusumoto
No, no, no, no. But it was called the same thing and it inspired this special product unit, Darwin, to explore digital Lego, which was in 3D.
01:18:06
Laura Kusumoto
So it was the precursor, if you will, of Lego being in that spatial universe, which they've been in ever since.
01:18:13
Robert Fine
Right, right. i Well, where most of their expansion has been, it seems.
01:18:18
Laura Kusumoto
That's right. That's right.
01:18:20
Robert Fine
So, and and where were you in, were you, I forget the capital of Denmark, um Copenhagen.
01:18:20
Laura Kusumoto
Well, anyway, we had...
01:18:27
Laura Kusumoto
No, we were not Copenhagen.
01:18:28
Robert Fine
cop
01:18:29
Laura Kusumoto
We were not. We were most specifically and not. We were in the opposite of that. We were in a lovely rural town known as Billund. I can't pronounce it correctly in Danish, but
01:18:39
Robert Fine
And and was it was it more inland or near the coast?
01:18:42
Laura Kusumoto
this it's inland. It's very inland. It's as inland as you can get, and it's fairly...
01:18:48
Robert Fine
It's like but it's like ba being in Bakersfield.
01:18:49
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah,
01:18:52
Laura Kusumoto
yeah den Denmark is a peninsula at that point, and you're kind of centrally located between the two water bodies of water. And it also is fairly close to the German border.
01:19:03
Laura Kusumoto
It's about maybe an hour drive from the German border. So it's kind of on the southern part of Denmark. And they have, none of us, but if you're not if you don't study Danish, you wouldn't know this, but they have a very strong southern Danish accent there.
01:19:17
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:19:19
Robert Fine
ah Well, that's awesome.
01:19:20
Laura Kusumoto
and which Which is very difficult for people who speak English to learn.
01:19:21
Robert Fine
ah the
01:19:24
Robert Fine
So how long were you in Denmark?
01:19:27
Laura Kusumoto
I was there for about two years. Only two years.
01:19:29
Robert Fine
Only two years. Okay. Why only two years?
01:19:33
Laura Kusumoto
it was It was a temporary assignment from the beginning. they hired They were hiring foreigners, including Americans, for a limited time.
01:19:36
Robert Fine
Oh, okay. Okay.
01:19:41
Laura Kusumoto
But also what happened while we were there was they decided to disband the SPU Darwin because the overall Lego sales started to decline during that time, having nothing to do with us, but they're This was a major lesson learned ah that I've learned over and over again. When budgets in the overall company decline, the innovation groups or research groups often are expected to shrink to help pay for the but losses.
01:20:13
Robert Fine
Right.
01:20:15
Laura Kusumoto
So they shut they shut our group down. They actually offered to have Chris and I both go to London and take jobs there.
01:20:25
Laura Kusumoto
But we decided
01:20:25
Robert Fine
Oh.
Early Internet Projects and Startup Challenges
01:20:26
Laura Kusumoto
instead of doing that, that we would come home in 1999.
01:20:30
Robert Fine
Okay. ah Back LA.
01:20:34
Laura Kusumoto
Back to San Francisco.
01:20:35
Robert Fine
Oh, San Francisco. Okay. did you have a did you
01:20:36
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, by that time...
01:20:37
Robert Fine
Did you own a home in San Fran at this point or were just renting?
01:20:40
Laura Kusumoto
Let's see. when When we left Mountain View, I owned a condo and then sold it, bought a house in Denmark and ah sold that and then came back and and rented for a while in San Francisco and then and then bought a bought a yeah condo in San san Francisco.
01:21:02
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:21:03
Laura Kusumoto
So actually lived in the city,
01:21:07
Robert Fine
um Yeah, this was actually around that period, 99, I was actually spending quite a bit of time in the in the and the Silicon Valley area and Sunnyvale.
01:21:07
Laura Kusumoto
which was great.
01:21:17
Robert Fine
um And we were working with, them yeah i can't remember. Oh yeah, this this was when this was with CMGI. They were working with Sendmail, which was a
01:21:28
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, well
01:21:31
Robert Fine
you know I think a big you know email service provider at the time. um i can't remember what but I was working on. I think there was some kind of conversion between Sendmail and the email service provider software that they had bought, that that they acquired through.
01:21:47
Robert Fine
Yeah. I also worked on actually, the so actually after after that, so this was around 2000, 2001, and actually connects us with Scandinavia.
01:22:01
Robert Fine
i I did work on, I did some ah ah field testing for a a early um Wi-Fi mesh network ah from Nokia. Actually, was it was a company called Rooftop Communications in Mountain View.
01:22:17
Robert Fine
ah that actually bought got bought by Nokia shortly after. Unfortunately, I didn't get myself entrenched enough before that purchase. um but so And so, yeah, there were so this company, Rooftop Communications, building hardware to you know ah create ah a and an early um regional you know Wi-Fi network in a neighborhood.
01:22:40
Robert Fine
um and would ah you know create a mesh network between the routers on the rooftops ah to one you know point of presence for internet. And Nokia bought it and then did nothing with it.
01:22:53
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, man, I was going to say that's really cool, but that's a shame that they did nothing with it.
01:22:57
Robert Fine
Yeah. Well, yeah, Nokia, I mean, they were, they were focused on cell phones, you know, and, ah and they, well, Nokia also made base station hardware for, for cellular networks, which is, you know, where we I spent a couple of years as well.
01:23:10
Robert Fine
um Okay. So you moved back to San Fran after you decided not to take up Lego's offer in London, which, which could have been an interesting experience for a couple of years.
01:23:21
Laura Kusumoto
It could have been, but...
01:23:22
Robert Fine
What was the, what was the, what was the decision there?
01:23:23
Laura Kusumoto
um
01:23:24
Robert Fine
What, why, why, um, London too expensive, just not that interesting.
01:23:31
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, it was very interesting.
01:23:31
Robert Fine
you miss you missed the US.
01:23:33
Laura Kusumoto
ah it's very it was a very difficult decision to make. um It was a great opportunity, but we just saw the direction of the Lego company as a whole as, um you know,
01:23:44
Robert Fine
As going down.
01:23:46
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, the decreased sales and all that stuff. And we were very concerned about if we, because I had, you know, had everything I owned and he had everything he owned in Denmark.
01:23:57
Laura Kusumoto
And it was going to be a big move to London. And then if we needed to go back home, they were not going to guarantee the cost of moving home. So that was part of it.
01:24:06
Robert Fine
Right. Okay.
01:24:07
Laura Kusumoto
And also we saw that general direction of of going down and we just decided it was a risk either way, but we decided it was less risk going back to San Francisco. And one more thing, there was this huge industrial, commercial, ah economical party going in the United States. This huge internet boom thing was going on and we were missing the whole thing.
01:24:30
Laura Kusumoto
We were working for a privately owned company and we had no stock or anything. So we wanted to go back and get in the party in San Francisco.
01:24:40
Robert Fine
Got it.
01:24:40
Laura Kusumoto
metaphor Metaphorically speaking.
01:24:42
Robert Fine
you you want You wanted to join Netscape before it got you know went nowhere. don't
01:24:46
Laura Kusumoto
That's right. That's right. And if you know from the year, you can you can tell we were kind of late. So I actually became a, I was invited to become the acting CEO of a spin out of Lego.
01:24:59
Robert Fine
know.
01:24:59
Laura Kusumoto
And every one of these stories is long, but it was to using the constructive idea of Lego to, ah it was a digital offering that allows kids to build a you know, build some shapes on the computer.
01:25:15
Laura Kusumoto
and, and um and that's what it was. It was a toy, more like Tinker toys, but on the computer, allowing you to build things. And we had the the founder of that.
01:25:25
Laura Kusumoto
Okay.
01:25:25
Robert Fine
Wait, was was there both ah a hardware and a software component?
01:25:29
Laura Kusumoto
With the Lego stuff, there was the hardware and software with the, with this ID system stuff, it was strictly software.
01:25:35
Robert Fine
Okay. So it was, okay. So it was it wasn't like programming um small low little pieces of hardware through the computer and building stuff.
01:25:37
Laura Kusumoto
So it was in it.
01:25:45
Laura Kusumoto
No, no.
01:25:47
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:25:47
Laura Kusumoto
Although we did Lego, but with ID systems, it was strictly a software digital toy. Really charming. a lot of the Lego designers had had gone into that little startup and they built the most charming examples and animations. And it was just it was just incredible. I was so excited about it.
01:26:06
Laura Kusumoto
But the job was to turn it into a business. and selling digital toys was not going to be easy. And one of the things that I did was ah join the internet boom and turned it into a internet-based offering in which kids could build toys, but they could share them with each other.
01:26:26
Laura Kusumoto
and it developed into build a robot and play but kind of like battle bots online.
01:26:33
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:26:35
Laura Kusumoto
So we built that and a couple other things and started looking
01:26:38
Robert Fine
but was there Was there a commercial name for this product when it once it hit online?
01:26:43
Laura Kusumoto
it was It never really went online. We had built the back end, we built the prototypes, and we were looking for funding to bring it online.
01:26:52
Robert Fine
Okay. but and and oh And funding beyond what what Lego was going to provide or could provide.
01:26:56
Laura Kusumoto
Correct. So the it wasn't Lego. It was the owner of Lego that provided the the seed funding with which we had developed these this product. And um and when then we were shopping around to get our next round of funding.
01:27:12
Laura Kusumoto
And that never happened because the year 2000 rolled around and anything having to do with the internet, which had been the source of the entire boom, suddenly was radioactive.
01:27:25
Laura Kusumoto
Nobody wanted anything to do with any anything the internet.
01:27:26
Robert Fine
yes yeah yeah Yes, March 2000, I remember it extremely well.
01:27:30
Laura Kusumoto
You remember it well, right?
01:27:32
Robert Fine
I was, yes.
01:27:32
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, so...
01:27:34
Robert Fine
I am, and i well, I think i I saw the writing on the wall and I i got out. um Well, i got I got lucky, actually, I guess, now I think about it. um But we'll save that story for another time.
01:27:48
Laura Kusumoto
Okay.
01:27:48
Robert Fine
so
01:27:48
Robert Fine
So, well, yeah, so things were were were crashing quickly. um Yeah, anything internet related was radioactive. um And they did they.
01:28:00
Laura Kusumoto
So that was like the another big but boom and bust that I experienced in my career.
01:28:05
Robert Fine
so Did they shut it completely or what happened?
01:28:08
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, we had to shut it completely. and I was the CEO by the time we shut it down. So we we went through that cycle of, well, let's take less salary.
01:28:12
Robert Fine
Oh.
01:28:16
Laura Kusumoto
Let's take a tenth of our salary.
01:28:17
Robert Fine
it was so So how many how many people were you leading at the time?
01:28:21
Laura Kusumoto
So my team was very small. ah i had three in the United States and three in Denmark.
01:28:28
Robert Fine
and Okay, so so less than 10 for this startup.
01:28:30
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, tiny. This was tiny.
01:28:31
Robert Fine
Okay, but still, you know you're you're you're the leader.
01:28:31
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:28:34
Robert Fine
I mean, i mean that's a different very different role, very different stress level, very different responsibility.
01:28:39
Laura Kusumoto
A CEO, yeah, a CEO is uniquely alone.
01:28:43
Robert Fine
Did you like it
01:28:45
Laura Kusumoto
I loved parts of it and I really didn't like other parts of it. I mean, you the loneliness is amazing. You have no peers. And i don't i don't like to talk about the gender aspects of things very often, but you know but at that time, about 3% of fundings were for female CEOs.
01:29:05
Robert Fine
I don't know if we've actually gotten much higher than that today.
01:29:09
Laura Kusumoto
I don't think we have.
01:29:09
Robert Fine
i haven't i haven't looked at the stats, but i'm on the I don't know if we've actually made, i mean we've made some progress, but I don't think as much as we would we would have expected by now.
01:29:20
Laura Kusumoto
So I have to say, looking back on it, I think that the the funders and the board were extremely forward-looking to select me as that CEO and put a lot of faith in me.
01:29:33
Laura Kusumoto
So that was that was really cool. and And what we developed was really cool. And we did apply for some patents, which we later did sell and gave the royalties to Lego for that.
01:29:47
Robert Fine
Oh, wow. yeah I mean, do you think, how far away were you from bringing it to commercial reality?
01:29:54
Laura Kusumoto
I mean, we had, this was a basically a client server based piece of software. So it wasn't just internet. It was a serious piece of graphics software. And how far were we?
01:30:05
Laura Kusumoto
Well, if you, if you,
01:30:05
Robert Fine
but Was it, did it run through the browser or was something separate you downloaded or installed?
01:30:09
Laura Kusumoto
it was something you downloaded. So it had a client because it was 3d graphics and that really didn't run well in browsers at the time.
01:30:11
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:30:16
Robert Fine
Okay.
Virtual Worlds and Advising Startups
01:30:17
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. So that's another way I got my 3d graphics. So
01:30:24
Laura Kusumoto
That was the end of that.
01:30:27
Robert Fine
So that was two years.
01:30:29
Laura Kusumoto
That was two years. Yeah. And ending in 2001, was able to stretch it out until 2001. yeah and And did some independent stuff for a while and then ended up um next going to a company with a very bland name called There, T-H-E-R-E.
01:30:49
Laura Kusumoto
e r e
01:30:49
Robert Fine
There. Okay.
01:30:52
Laura Kusumoto
And there, Inc. was building a virtual world online ah for for socializing. It was effectively an emergent thing at the time, building social virtual worlds.
01:31:05
Laura Kusumoto
So in March 2003, I went to work for there. But I was hired not to work on the social virtual world, but to take that whole platform and develop a version for it for the U.S.
01:31:17
Laura Kusumoto
military. Yeah.
01:31:19
Robert Fine
Okay. this I've never heard of this either from you.
01:31:24
Laura Kusumoto
I know.
01:31:25
Robert Fine
so So building there, I've never even heard of there, um building a version for the US military. So, well, all right all right, give me the story behind there.
01:31:36
Robert Fine
And did it ever see commercial?
01:31:37
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:31:39
Robert Fine
ah Did it ever make it?
01:31:41
Laura Kusumoto
Yes. Yeah. So they're actually, the, uh, they had hired, ah Robert Ghorsem, um, who had gotten,
01:31:52
Laura Kusumoto
He had applied for a grant ah under there, to and he got a $3.5 million dollars contract to to do this conversion over to the military.
01:32:03
Laura Kusumoto
This was right after or not long after nine eleven
01:32:07
Robert Fine
Oh, yeah. ah yeah
01:32:08
Laura Kusumoto
And the the Iraq war was going on and they were looking at, and the situation was at the time was that our military was ah not as used to asymmetric warfare as they had been right after the Vietnam war. So they had kind of drifted away from that asymmetric warfare training.
01:32:24
Laura Kusumoto
And there was an opportunity in virtual worlds that Robert saw that we could build simulated versions of of wherever they the war was happening, but use it to have people practice interpersonal relationships, whatever that means, in a war setting.
01:32:43
Laura Kusumoto
So that would be the teams of the soldiers, the squads, et cetera, learning to communicate with each other, but also how do they deal with the population that's there. They had the assignment at the time in Iraq to win hearts and minds at the same time that there were also enemies to be fought.
01:33:02
Laura Kusumoto
And there were IEDs and you know it was just an incredibly complicated thing to train for.
01:33:05
Robert Fine
Yeah.
01:33:09
Laura Kusumoto
So the idea was that this could be a training tool to help them train for various techniques and procedures for all of the above.
01:33:18
Robert Fine
I mean, it would seem, I mean, with this experience, you would seem like a perfect fit to be working at Andruil.
01:33:24
Laura Kusumoto
Yes, that's a good idea, Bob.
01:33:27
Robert Fine
yeah I mean, you know, get get it. Well, it's still still early. You know, I mean, it's amazing how fast that company's grown, but he's, ah I don't know if you saw him speak at AWE.
01:33:31
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:33:39
Robert Fine
i was, I've seen him speak a couple times. i got to say, I was really, really impressed with his ah demeanor and his composure this last time and his maturity. um And I thought he presented himself really, really well.
01:33:53
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, I'll have to catch the video. I didn't catch it at AWE, unfortunately, but I will.
01:33:56
Robert Fine
um
01:33:57
Laura Kusumoto
I'll
01:33:57
Robert Fine
But he he he he really explained you know very, very well you know why he was doing what he was doing and and trying to and admit and trying to explain to the audience you know the the importance of – I mean, he's obviously very –
01:34:06
Laura Kusumoto
Thank you.
01:34:13
Robert Fine
supportive of the military and and the country. And, and, you know, he's, he's driven by that. Um, uh, but I think it's, I think it's all from the, from the heart and from wanting to protect our, our soldiers as best as possible, not about, you know, making, making, uh, weapons.
01:34:30
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. Well, this um this assignment for me, it was a dream job at the time. i was there almost seven years and I became the VP of studio.
01:34:39
Robert Fine
Okay.
01:34:41
Laura Kusumoto
So I was not doing engineering. I was actually managing the development of the content. The company split off, our part of the company split off to be a company called Fortara Systems, which people around virtual worlds at the time would recognize that name.
01:34:57
Laura Kusumoto
Although Fortara is also a tire company name. It wasn't the tire company.
01:35:03
Robert Fine
So, so after, so I mean, during seven years, did you, did it get deployed at any point?
01:35:09
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, yeah. um so just like the earlier example I gave you, technology, there were a lot of, ah first it was mainly DOD, but there were a number of different projects that we worked on, starting with the first one, which was asymmetric warfare environments.
01:35:26
Laura Kusumoto
That spells A-W-E, asymmetric warfare environment. So whenever I hear A-W-E, I'm thinking of something else, right? So we developed that and did a number of pilot tests with that with actual National Guard and active duty troops.
01:35:43
Laura Kusumoto
But over time, we were doing business development and found that there could be some ah medical and medic kinds of application, training applications.
01:35:54
Laura Kusumoto
We got into chem bio training for the military. we ah And then we began to see, well, there are also... potential applications in actual healthcare, care ah starting with emergency disaster preparedness, but there were other kinds of training for nurses and for doctors, wherever it involved interpersonal interaction, that would be the strength of this kind of platform.
01:36:19
Laura Kusumoto
So we explored all of that. We got over $10 million dollars in various different grants over time, built 60 applications.
01:36:25
Robert Fine
Wow.
01:36:28
Laura Kusumoto
ah So we, we,
01:36:28
Robert Fine
You know, you you do you do sound like you you've you have the experience and are perfectly positioned to be a ah ceo of one of these other VR startups today.
01:36:38
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, I do. ah kid i could. um
01:36:43
Robert Fine
Do you want to? I guess that's the question.
01:36:45
Laura Kusumoto
hi You know where I am right now, Bob, is I want to help advise them. I really want to be a ah partner for folks like that. I don't know if it's possible, but I want to to make a living helping people do this without jumping in more than full time.
01:37:00
Robert Fine
without all the responsibility.
01:37:02
Laura Kusumoto
Right. It's not that just the responsibility, but it's the time and the mindshare. um That's what I'm trying to develop is the skill of, and I am advisor now to one startup company and I'm about to sign up on a second.
01:37:14
Laura Kusumoto
And I want to be able to,
01:37:15
Robert Fine
i like
AI in Education and Society
01:37:17
Laura Kusumoto
you know, help them ah without, again, being a full-time part of the team.
01:37:22
Laura Kusumoto
And I think there's a craft to that, that I'm developing.
01:37:26
Robert Fine
So seven years it there, that's that's a long time.
01:37:30
Laura Kusumoto
Yes, it was.
01:37:30
Robert Fine
OK.
01:37:30
Laura Kusumoto
And it was ah you know developing 3D virtual worlds and how to use them for training and all that. So I have a ton of experience applying virtual worlds, which of course is ah the same as VR.
01:37:44
Laura Kusumoto
It's just that you're not using headsets. You're using a PC. ah It's 3D immersive, but not on your face.
01:37:51
Robert Fine
okay um And well, I guess I add, maybe i don't know if we answered the question. So did it used? um
01:38:01
Laura Kusumoto
Oh, did it?
01:38:02
Robert Fine
data get used
01:38:02
Laura Kusumoto
How did get deployed? Yeah, it did. it So a number of pilot programs were were done. Then we had another economic recession roll along in the year ah starting in 2008.
01:38:14
Robert Fine
ah Yes.
01:38:15
Laura Kusumoto
So
01:38:15
Robert Fine
Not just any, not just any economic recession.
01:38:16
Laura Kusumoto
or
01:38:19
Laura Kusumoto
that was a very deep, bad one.
01:38:19
Robert Fine
Um, and, and, uh, one that is probably going to repeat itself maybe sooner than later.
01:38:21
Laura Kusumoto
The Great Recession.
01:38:25
Laura Kusumoto
Possibly. We've been expecting another, haven't we?
01:38:27
Robert Fine
um
01:38:28
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:38:28
Robert Fine
well, and what's interesting, I don't even, and again, timely, you know, I think in the, in the news the last couple of days is there's been some, some discussion about, uh, loosening the, the, uh, uh,
01:38:41
Robert Fine
the cash requirement rules on a number of the banks. ah
01:38:45
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. how How human beings forget. It is just amazing. That's why they need experienced people like us who remember what happened before.
01:38:57
Laura Kusumoto
Seriously. Intergenerational transfer of knowledge is important.
01:39:02
Robert Fine
It is. Well, it is. It's it's hard for me. Like i i I have a very, very hard time imagining and trying to even ah Like I, you know, I can't, I can't think of my life in any way without 9-11 in there at some point, but it's hard to imagine.
01:39:16
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
01:39:17
Robert Fine
And, and, you know, and, and, and and I'm now I'm at, you know but I also grew up not really, um yeah you know, experiencing the the situation of the Vietnam war at home or, you know, I, I didn't grow up in that era.
01:39:29
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:39:32
Robert Fine
I mean, it was three or four when it was happening, but, but not you know too young to know of what was happening out outside.
01:39:38
Laura Kusumoto
right
01:39:39
Robert Fine
um
01:39:39
Laura Kusumoto
yeah
01:39:39
Robert Fine
But so i can but it's hard for me to yeah it's hard to think about people that were born just after 2001 or a couple years before and not and that not having the significance on on their life that it's had for the rest of us um and and and what their viewpoint on that is exactly.
01:39:57
Robert Fine
you know As a 20-year-old today, you know what what do they think of 9-11 when they hear about it?
01:40:03
Laura Kusumoto
Absolutely. So I think that that's a super important thing because I feel like the lack of my generation's understanding of World War II, for example, I mean, I've i've studied it a lot more now, but when I was younger, I didn't care.
01:40:19
Laura Kusumoto
And that's that's a mistake. i think I think not understanding history is is ah is a real deficit. And I think the current information environment saturates people in the now and the now and the next, which is all very exciting and satisfying.
01:40:36
Laura Kusumoto
But it um you know if we fast forward a little bit, you know one of the big problems that I would like to be working on, and I'm trying to kind of guide some of the work that I do in this direction direction, is the elevation of the truth and the fighting illiteracy and fighting disinformation.
01:40:57
Laura Kusumoto
there's I think that those are serious problems that we have that have been accelerated by the media that I myself have worked on and promoted. And i think that in the next generation of this with spatial computing, people talk about the ethics.
01:41:14
Laura Kusumoto
That's important. And my part of it that I'm interested in is the elevation of the truth and trying to get people to ah look at real data and understand it and react to it as opposed to, you know, believing whatever is this fed to them.
01:41:30
Laura Kusumoto
So literacy and health and in finances and the news and all other kinds of things.
01:41:36
Robert Fine
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you want to start talking about our educational system, but unfortunately, I think that's where a lot of this, well, where where it could be fixed and where it stems from.
01:41:45
Laura Kusumoto
That's right. Yes.
01:41:46
Robert Fine
And unfortunately, it's it's really kind of hard to, I mean, so much of that, you know, good, you know, critical thinking and and understanding and being able to understand you know, weed out from the noise, i think is, ah you know, it's, I mean, you know, I mean, you're, you're computer. I didn't really, i mean, I, I got, I got through engineering by the skin of my teeth and I graduated not really enjoying it, mechanical engineering and willing to practice it in in any sort of way.
01:42:16
Robert Fine
But it wasn't until, you know, maybe being in the workforce for about three, four or five years that I started to appreciate the, the the ah the problem solving skills that i I, was almost innately taught you know over four years of, of difficulty um that I take for granted that, you know, that I, that I don't think about consciously, but I, but I, I see, I see how ah when working with other people and depending on their are backgrounds um and, and education, how they approach problems differently.
01:42:33
Laura Kusumoto
Mm-hmm.
01:42:53
Robert Fine
Um, ah you know For good or for bad. um I'm always – mean it for for many years and still today, I'm just always surprised when you know people are trying to find – answer a question.
01:43:08
Robert Fine
their first Their first notion isn't to put the question in Google.
01:43:12
Laura Kusumoto
Mm-hmm.
01:43:13
Robert Fine
Fortunately, and i don't know why, but and that is such a basic, but you know the ability for critical thinking is the ability to ask questions too.
01:43:14
Laura Kusumoto
Mm-hmm.
01:43:21
Laura Kusumoto
Mm-hmm.
01:43:21
Robert Fine
And unfortunately, a lot of our primary and secondary you know education system is not not designed around that.
01:43:31
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, I agree.
01:43:32
Robert Fine
ah
01:43:32
Laura Kusumoto
that's That's a wicked big problem. There is an opportunity. There are lots of opportunities with AI and ah and spatial computing both to to make a mark on that. But I think we have to to really aim it in that direction as opposed to following the trajectories and trying to fix little gaps.
01:43:51
Laura Kusumoto
It's much bigger than fixing little gaps.
01:43:52
Robert Fine
Well, so let's so let's steer the conversation for a few minutes. We can come back to the timeline another time or think we left off at – oh, so we left off at 2008, the financial crisis.
01:44:00
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:44:08
Robert Fine
um i Just one more point on that.
01:44:08
Laura Kusumoto
That's right.
01:44:10
Robert Fine
it it's some I don't know whether for you or not, but you know we're we're we're only we're coming up to almost the 20th anniversary of that financial crisis. and But to me, and the impact it seemed to have on on the country and everybody, it still feels like it only happened three or four or five years ago.
01:44:30
Robert Fine
i mean, this was Occupy Wall Street period. And i still i still it's all those images are still you know seared in my brain.
01:44:33
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
01:44:38
Robert Fine
um And, but as you said, it's it's ah it's so quick to forget, but the, yeah, I mean, we're we're just such in a different economic period and, and ah you know, in terms of cost of living and everything today than we were less than 25 years ago.
01:44:38
Laura Kusumoto
yeah
01:44:57
Robert Fine
it's It's just, it's really hard to see, you know, um what living, you know, in the U.S. s will look like five, 10 years from now.
01:45:06
Laura Kusumoto
I agree that 2008 really extended ah few years, that recession. it was deep and long. And there was so much joblessness joblessness in many different industries.
01:45:18
Laura Kusumoto
And I think it it triggered you know the idea of the gig economy a little bit more. and Some of the trends that we've seen later on got started then. But also this just sense of insecurity that happened then, i think, has affected economy.
01:45:35
Laura Kusumoto
country psyche deeply. I think you're right. We're still there in a way.
01:45:42
Robert Fine
Well, I mean, everything that, you know, I, I, uh, again, the, you know, being able to afford a house today is next to impossible and especially with the way interest rates are.
01:45:50
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
01:45:51
Robert Fine
And, uh, and I just don't, I, yeah you know, and I've, I, I listened to many conversations about, you know, how do we solve the housing crisis and, and, um, and how do we bring the cost of housing down?
01:46:03
Robert Fine
And it is, it is such a complicated and requires so much willpower. Well, actually, i mean, You're seeing this firsthand in Los Angeles after the fires.
01:46:14
Robert Fine
I mean, you're you're seeing the bureaucracy in real time, what it's going to take to rebuild that area.
01:46:15
Laura Kusumoto
Mm-hmm.
01:46:22
Robert Fine
um and you know And it is so complicated. and youre And we're just talking about rebuilding housing for people that that have lost their houses, not necessarily to home new people.
01:46:34
Laura Kusumoto
Right, the 40,000 to 60,000 people that are that are unhoused already, and then the folks that lost their homes of all different income scales, and not enough construction workers to make that happen,
01:46:49
Laura Kusumoto
and the bureaucracy and there's another thing don't just kind of on that subject of l la and living here and what that has done aside from adding a lot of i would say fear um of our own you know home and landscape it has completely flipped certain things on their head for example if you have a home and you have a landscape it's suddenly kiddling for a bonfire Whereas, you know, before January, it was, you know, maybe beautiful palm trees and some flowers and things like that.
01:47:22
Laura Kusumoto
Palm trees are the, we're told, are the worst thing you could possibly have in your landscape because they turn into big tiki torches in a fire. So and the insurance companies are suddenly looking at our houses in a different way and our landscapes in a different way. So there's a ah deep and profound impact.
01:47:41
Robert Fine
Well, i I don't know if you would, I mean, I know you're a long time person living in l a um From an environmental standpoint, you know,
01:47:55
Robert Fine
that part of the country is probably an area we should have never built in to begin with. I mean, that along with other cities and in the West, know, including California. you know Phoenix and Las Vegas, but the amount of water that's that's had to be diverted from the Colorado River to that region, it it is, I don't, you know, I mean, maybe i it's just, I see huge desalinization plants in our future on the West Coast.
01:48:20
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, yeah, that's another mega problem to solve.
01:48:24
Robert Fine
um Anyway, where I wanted to steer ah the conversation and and maybe maybe towards towards a way to to wrap up for today. But um so let's, let's talk about the state of AI today.
01:48:36
Robert Fine
and and I don't know how much time or energy you've been spending on, on focusing on it. And, and I, I, I segueing to this because you, we were talking about like, what, what is things five to 10 years look from now?
01:48:52
Robert Fine
And you were also, and we were also talking about how to, how could education look different or be different? um And I am reading bits here and there on how students today are learning very differently with AI.
01:49:05
Robert Fine
And it seems it's very clear, though, that the that teaching side of it is not able to keep up with how kids are learning on their own at at all age levels. even And I can even speak to this at you know teaching at a college level is it's It's completely unclear to me how the students are using chat GPT or other other forms to do their homework or or do other things.
01:49:29
Robert Fine
But I'll hand it to you for a second to just, you know what where're where're what do what are your thoughts on where we are today with ai What are your hopes and concerns and and and where do you see the opportunities?
01:49:45
Laura Kusumoto
those are a lot of a lot of ah There's a lot to that, Bob. ah
01:49:50
Robert Fine
And you have 30 seconds.
01:49:50
Laura Kusumoto
um and I have 30 seconds, right?
01:49:52
Robert Fine
No, no. I'm just
01:49:53
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah. I think, um you know, it has, it's having impact on everything. um It is kind of like the wave that the internet caused only much larger because it's, it's, it's closer to us. It's closer to our, ah you know, emulating the way that that it appears to emulate the way that humans think. Although ah the way it's actually working is, you know, somewhat different.
01:50:16
Laura Kusumoto
um And I think if you, I do tend to break it down by, you know, what what are the problems and what ah will the impact be on those problems?
01:50:27
Laura Kusumoto
um Two of my areas of interest are healthcare and then education, maybe secondarily for me. um and And on the education front, I think you're talking about,
01:50:41
Laura Kusumoto
I think that it's going to completely change the paradigm for education, or there's an opportunity to to do that. And there's an opportunity to do that in a positive way. I'm not an educator professionally, so the details are fuzzy for me, but I can imagine a world in which, um especially for young students, they are they are learning primarily from an AI delivered you know chatbot sort of teacher that has the entire world of digital information at their fingertips and can help adapt the education to the child or the individual and help them to learn what they need to learn.
01:51:21
Robert Fine
let come commit them
01:51:22
Laura Kusumoto
um
01:51:23
Robert Fine
let me Let me ask you a question because you're you're one of the few um people I know with a very, very deep computer science background and you know who who learned how to do things with assembly language.
01:51:36
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
01:51:36
Robert Fine
um and And because this this this question plays into a little bit on where where does AI go and where where where do we use it for some of these applications we're talking about?
01:51:53
Robert Fine
But from your from your understanding, and i and again, I don't know how much time you've maybe spent trying to understand that the current research and and and how things and the how the large language models are working, but do you do you think AGI is everything that you know everyone is raising so much money towards I mean, just just the headline today, you know Zuckerberg steals three people away from open AI.
01:52:20
Robert Fine
um that ah That that is something that we are going to achieve that will be achieved. and in Or is it something that is a a hyped up pipe dream that either they've all drunk the Kool-Aid and think we're going to get to this computer system that is going to be able to think and invent on its own.
01:52:42
Robert Fine
ah Or are we just going to have a highly glorified um you know knowledge transfer platform?
01:52:54
Laura Kusumoto
Well, I'm not going to try to the second guess or supersede you know the people that work on this full time, the AI researchers. And I think we see people on both sides of the question that say the answer is yes yes, the answer is no.
01:53:10
Laura Kusumoto
ah So I think the real answer is that nobody actually knows or people think they know, but I don't think we really know. And I'm I do think that what actually will happen is somewhat mitigated by what politicians and businesses decide to do with it.
01:53:30
Laura Kusumoto
I regret that it's not human-centered and not problem-driven. if I could if i could you know be queen of the world, i would say, can we focus on some things that we want to solve? Can we have AI that that solves things that we want to do as opposed to what it can do?
01:53:49
Laura Kusumoto
So I do think that that is kind of off, but given what is actually happening, i think there are there are limits to the current technology in the the language models.
01:54:01
Laura Kusumoto
um They do need to thing to feed on previous patterns. Now, I can imagine combining them with expert systems that might give them a semblance of creativity.
01:54:12
Laura Kusumoto
So I'm not one of the people that says it will never do X, Y, z I think there is no never here. There's no, I don't think there's a theoretical limit to what it can do. But there will be, you know, computational and business and political limits.
01:54:28
Laura Kusumoto
Right. um And I think that, you know, what we're seeing it do amazingly right now is adapt lots of patterns of thinking that are pretty good and they're good for a lot of things.
01:54:40
Laura Kusumoto
So I think the big disruption is just absorbing what we have now. And it will leapfrog up to a point, but I think there's a limit to what the current, you know, it's kind of pattern imitating technologies will be able to do.
01:54:54
Robert Fine
Yeah. um I mean, it's it's um it's interesting how how quickly the AA models hallucinate, at least from ah from a software development standpoint. it's um And I don't know if this, again, ah and I don't know enough about the the underlying um backends on how they're designed to work. but you know You can't get very far in in using AI as ah as a programmer unless it's given really, really small, discrete chunks of things to work on.
01:55:28
Robert Fine
ah Because if you if you give it just a little bit too much, it just starts to you know go in any direction and and you know not not solve the task task at hand.
01:55:40
Robert Fine
I don't know if that's any indication of, i don't and I don't know why that is. I guess it's it's it's unclear to me. What I don't understand is what what is happening on the back end that helps decrease that hallucination, and why is it happening to begin with?
01:55:59
Robert Fine
So that and that's that's, and you know I'm sure there's some research and papers out there, but ah that that's where I'm kind of trying to understand the the underlying mechanics.
01:55:59
Laura Kusumoto
who
01:56:10
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, I don't think don't think I can cover that, but I do, in terms of hallucinogenesis,
01:56:15
Robert Fine
I thought you i thought she had the answer for me.
01:56:19
Laura Kusumoto
I want to go back to question. I would like to to to talk about that a little bit. I think that the hallucinations obviously come again. And with this, in my mind, it's trying to fit a pattern.
01:56:30
Laura Kusumoto
I mean, just a very simple language. It's fitting a pattern. If there's a piece missing in the pattern and it it it comes from the wrong place, that's a who hallucination. They fill it with the wrong piece of information.
01:56:42
Laura Kusumoto
But it fits the pattern. So as far as it's concerned, it's done the right thing, but you tell it that was the wrong, that was wrong. Then it will say, okay, there was a mistake in my pattern. So now I'm going to improve it the next time around.
01:56:54
Laura Kusumoto
So it's a constantly iterating, improving kind of thing.
01:56:57
Robert Fine
so so from ah So technically with with time and repeated training and learning of, but i mean from a theoretical standpoint, then it shouldn't be, you know we can understand then how the systems can get to a point of ah being much, much better at at repeating patterns or or we're fitting the pattern um over over ah
01:57:20
Laura Kusumoto
assuming they're getting that constant training and and almost ah
01:57:23
Robert Fine
over a long period of time.
01:57:25
Laura Kusumoto
with millions of people.
01:57:27
Robert Fine
Right. I don't know. i yeah I don't understand where the idea of, and and i and I think one of the definitions for people coming up with the AGIs is the ability for the AI to build something novel, to have ah a a new, you unique, creative idea that's not based on something that's already been discussed or or or written or researched.
01:57:41
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
01:57:52
Robert Fine
um And so that's... that's ah Yeah, I mean, that that's a...
01:57:56
Laura Kusumoto
Well, there are the there are the other AI techniques that can be combined with this pattern matching, right?
01:57:57
Robert Fine
So...
01:58:02
Laura Kusumoto
There's there's inference. there's you know There could be structures of creativity that are built that it can emulate. So i do i do I can imagine that stuff being built and being successful.
01:58:18
Robert Fine
so
01:58:19
Laura Kusumoto
But yeah another question you and asked was, is is it is this stuff everything we think it is right now? And I think the answer is no, it's not. And I think for even for business, there are businesses that are using it to great effect.
01:58:32
Laura Kusumoto
But I think there also are huge investments that have been made that are not yet paying off.
01:58:36
Robert Fine
yeah but Because people were scared feel like they need to start investing so they don't get behind. But once get into the – what's that?
01:58:46
Laura Kusumoto
Scared and inspired. i mean I mean, it's not just fear. It's not just fear. It's also, wow, if I could take advantage of that in my business, um you know that's going to be huge. So I think there are businesses where they're seeing the results of that. There are jobs that are being disrupted or potentially disrupted.
01:59:03
Laura Kusumoto
There are companies that have laid off people in anticipation of the benefits before they actually got them. So there's all this mix of things going on. But I don't i think with as with every technology, you don't just put it in there and it works, right? It has
Critical Thinking and Healthcare
01:59:18
Laura Kusumoto
to be integrated into workflows and has to be supported by the company. There's just a lot of things that have to happen before you have full productivity.
01:59:28
Robert Fine
So if you had ah if you if you had the power to have your ah the dream job or the dream project that you could start working on tomorrow, VR-related, AI-related, military-related, healthcare, a combination of of all, is there something specific that you know you would love to start putting more time into to try to help solve or or come up or or find a solution for?
01:59:59
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, I think one of the themes that I've been thinking about, and I gave a paper about that at your ah conference, Ivra, was the this idea of the hero's journey in healthcare. care And that's that's kind of a buzzwordy way to say it, but the idea that the individual ah can make a big impact on their own outcomes in healthcare care But tied to something I talked about earlier, there's also a lot of illiteracy, health illiteracy in our country and in the world.
02:00:32
Laura Kusumoto
So how can you be a good advocate for your own health if you don't understand the data that you're seeing, if you don't understand the impact of pills or vaccines or food? you know There's stuff we don't know, but there's stuff we do know that people just don't accept or don't understand.
02:00:48
Laura Kusumoto
So the combination of those two things, combating the health illiteracy and using the new immersive and AI technologies to help people advocate for and participate more in better outcomes for themselves.
02:01:05
Laura Kusumoto
ah Those are things I want to work on. That sounds very abstract, but in my talk, we did we did cite some examples of where patient education and and in mental therapy and even physical therapy can be realized in in a 3D kind of environment that really helps you to move along in your path.
02:01:09
Robert Fine
no
02:01:32
Robert Fine
don't know whether you're going in this direction or not. I wanted to ask if you if you have no comment, say no comment. but um trying to be as, as, uh, um, unbiased as, as, as possible and just looking at, at what's coming out and what's being said. Um, I do see, at least from my perspective, I'm not saying he has everything right.
02:01:53
Robert Fine
Um, but ah RFK is, is kind of trying to approach healthcare, care at least in the United States from that perspective and from people taking better care of their, of their own health and being better educated.
02:02:06
Robert Fine
Um, do Do you see that or or or do you think he's ah he's complete he's he's making a complete mess of the system versus trying to reinvent it?
02:02:18
Laura Kusumoto
I think both of those things are going on. Honestly, I think some of the stated objectives of Maha are stated objectives you know of maha are I can really get behind them.
02:02:29
Laura Kusumoto
i I agree with people being better better educated. I agree with people eating better food. um i agree with using natural remedies where they make sense. What I don't agree with is abandoning the, you know, 100 years worth of research, data-based healthcare that we have.
02:02:48
Laura Kusumoto
you know, to, to abandon that is, um, it's tragic. I mean, people will die because of that and people will be ill. You know, let's just take what's going on with measles right now.
02:03:00
Laura Kusumoto
ah whether, whether you, whatever you think about vaccine vaccines, they can prevent people from getting measles. And I was reading the other day, in an article about little children in Texas, the ones who didn't die, but they got really, really ill. It's a terrible illness.
02:03:17
Laura Kusumoto
Why put them through that? you know So I feel strongly about science, data, repeatability. That's what science has brought to us. And I feel abandoning science is going back to the Middle Ages.
02:03:30
Laura Kusumoto
So yes, let's take more responsibility, but let's also have science literacy.
02:03:36
Robert Fine
Yeah, I agree. I think, I think i mean, i'm not I'm not nowhere near you know an expert, even highly educated on autism, but it it does seem like the, um it's the same problem with Ritalin or any other half dozen drugs that have been overly prescribed or, um you know, people, you know, I don't, it, it, we just, the number of people that are diagnosed with autism has like gone off the scale from 20, 25 years ago.
02:04:09
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
02:04:11
Robert Fine
And is that because physicians ah or psychologists or psychiatrists have lowered the bar on how they, um how they assess um and how they decide?
02:04:11
Laura Kusumoto
That's right.
02:04:25
Robert Fine
ah that that's what seems really unclear on on why those numbers have have increased or not. um And that it's not it has nothing to do with with with vaccines.
02:04:38
Robert Fine
um I can understand and I can put myself in the people's shoes of of those that have concern about and whose children have you know high autism and and feel like maybe it was related to vaccines. I mean, do,
02:04:52
Robert Fine
i mean i do well I mean, COVID is a whole separate discussion. let's Let's not go down that road right now. But I think the way the way we managed it as a rollout in the United States, I don't think was to the benefit of of of of the entire nation.
02:05:06
Robert Fine
Yeah.
02:05:08
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I think that some people get confused that science you know knows the truth. And I really think science is about discovering the truth. And there's always more to discover. We never know everything.
02:05:22
Laura Kusumoto
And so that's that's part of the, I think, challenge is helping all of us, including myself, understand that, you know, okay, this is a fact that we know of today based on science.
02:05:33
Laura Kusumoto
But it it could change when we discover even more. And I think a a great example of that is, you know, um in the food area. that That information continues to change as we get more research.
02:05:45
Laura Kusumoto
You know, ah maybe 40 years ago, it was a good idea to eat margarine. That was going to help you with your your heart.
02:05:52
Robert Fine
Right, right.
02:05:53
Laura Kusumoto
And that was hydrogenated, you know,
02:05:53
Robert Fine
right
02:05:55
Laura Kusumoto
hydrogenated oil, which we've now found is really deadly for your heart. And now then the advice becomes, well, eat butter or eat you know unsaturated fats. you know it it has And this is part of what has confused people.
02:06:08
Laura Kusumoto
And we need to help everyone understand that science is going to tell us what we know today. But we also can find out later on that maybe some of these things were were wrong or incomplete.
02:06:21
Robert Fine
Well, and this this is the problem with the with the misinformation. And, and um you know, I think it's, ah I mean, the the devil is really in the very, very minute new details. I mean, I think, you know, when we start looking at these things, you you can't, um you can easily, know,
02:06:41
Robert Fine
you know, overestimate or, or assume, you know, that based on, on ah factor A, B, and C, that this is the reason for this happening. But then you have to go into factor A, B, and C and look at, you know, factors one, two, and three of factor a um there There are so many small things.
02:06:57
Laura Kusumoto
Yeah.
02:06:59
Robert Fine
And then, you know, without any proper studies or, you know, and, and I do think, I do think there's been a you know I hope one of the things he's able to help clean up is the ah is the um too much mixing of of ah pharmaceutical companies and others influencing studies and and being involved in that. there There is a lot of corruption there that needs to be.
02:07:23
Robert Fine
filtered out because then, then you can't, you know how can you trust the data that's being developed? there's the whole thing back to, you know, you know, smoking and nicotine and all those studies being hidden.
02:07:33
Robert Fine
And, you know, um, you know, I'm, I don't, I don't think I'm,
02:07:35
Laura Kusumoto
her
02:07:39
Laura Kusumoto
What's the distribution of that information, right? How can you make a good decision if you don't have access to it? So that is definitely part of the whole system that that has to be addressed.
02:07:49
Robert Fine
wait And even ah there was a really great documentary. The other, I mean, this is not healthcare care related, but I mean, but this is, this goes back I mean, I guess, you know, as and as professional engineers or computer scientists.
02:08:01
Robert Fine
And when you think about these things, the Grenfell tower in, in London that, that burned and, and highly attributed to the cladding that was used and that, um and directly ah associated with, um,
02:08:11
Laura Kusumoto
Hmm.
02:08:19
Robert Fine
i aluminum I think and they one of the companies that was spun off by the, I forget the name of the major aluminum company, but but the sub company was called Arconics. and makes this cladding and there's a ah material that's used to to um stick the aluminum together that's flammable.
02:08:37
Robert Fine
um And then finding, you know and the data and the emails are there within the company and they can pinpoint it to one or two people that decide not to say anything.
02:08:48
Laura Kusumoto
so
02:08:48
Robert Fine
and you know But over time and and you know that that suppressed information because it would have a negative impact on the company's numbers um and deciding not to, you know, and that, you know, I mean, that leads to the problems that happened today and and the burning of, ah and and there are hundreds of these buildings, you know, throughout the world with this problem and nothing being done to repair them. I mean, they're just, you know flammable hazards waiting to happen.
02:09:18
Robert Fine
um
02:09:19
Laura Kusumoto
Sort of like an LA landscape.
02:09:20
Robert Fine
Anyway, Yeah, yeah. no Again, nothing to do with health with health care, but just just the just trying to to you know illustrate how important information is, data, and data that is often known, but then if it's not the right data or if it doesn't fit your story or the story that you want and you suppress it, that is how we get you know the mess that we have everywhere today.
02:09:24
Laura Kusumoto
but
02:09:34
Laura Kusumoto
Yes.
02:09:40
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
02:09:43
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
02:09:46
Robert Fine
Yeah.
02:09:47
Laura Kusumoto
Well, I think there's, Bob, another part of this is that that things have become very complex in our modern lives. And I do think that that's, you you know, if we go back to what problems do we want AI to solve?
02:09:59
Laura Kusumoto
I think that for me is one of them. How do I navigate the knowledge of the world to get to the truth that I am seeking? And so I think that some of that, you know, pattern-based canonized knowledge, it's already it's already working in circuit search engines, right?
02:10:16
Laura Kusumoto
But if it's connected to scientific data and business data as well, it could it could really help you know people with their decision making in their lives you know to be factual.
02:10:28
Laura Kusumoto
to be factual
02:10:29
Robert Fine
Well, it would be actually, yes. I think, you where AI could be helping, maybe maybe there's an opportunity to build a system like this yeah where, because you you, the problem about talking about what's what's the truth of the data is, you know, the the truth is that is the author that makes it, but then then it all comes down to the um reliability and the reputation of the author.
02:10:47
Laura Kusumoto
Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.
02:10:53
Robert Fine
ah or the or the companies involved and in producing the data or the study and, and ah you know, who's behind it.
02:10:54
Laura Kusumoto
who
02:11:01
Robert Fine
So, but where AI could help is trying to, um is identifying where there are inconsistencies um among the reputations or reliabilities of those sources.
02:11:13
Robert Fine
that I mean, that's ah it's it all it all comes down to, um you know, which source do you trust and, you know, and that source is based on their own background and experience and, and, uh, what they've done in the past and, and is it reliable?
02:11:28
Laura Kusumoto
Right. And for 2025, the advice Mm-hmm. questioned the answer
02:11:35
Robert Fine
Yeah, well, that should always be the – well, but this goes back to, again, unless we – well, this – again, think almost all of our ills could be solved with proper education people growing up because if you teach that critical thinking questioning method early –
02:11:48
Laura Kusumoto
who
02:12:00
Robert Fine
um it The rest can take care of itself. But but once once people are set in their ways or or just you know think and and learn in ah in a different manner, um it's it's really, really hard to ah to change that.
02:12:03
Laura Kusumoto
Right.
02:12:16
Robert Fine
just as Just like it's hard to change habits.
02:12:16
Laura Kusumoto
And earlier on, there's just some basics.
02:12:19
Robert Fine
What's that?
02:12:19
Laura Kusumoto
There's some basics too, though, just learning to read. You know, um the average American, I think, has an eighth grade reading level.
02:12:27
Robert Fine
Yeah, that's hard to imagine. That's just hard to even comprehend.
02:12:29
Laura Kusumoto
Why is that?
02:12:30
Robert Fine
i don't know. i don't know where those numbers come. Well, i you know i mean, why is it? is I mean, there's there's probably a hundred reasons. um But... so
02:12:42
Robert Fine
You know, you you would think that these would be the most important issues that our electorate and our politicians would worry about. But again, that means it's all the same. i mean, i'm I'm sorry, you know, not to be, you know, being a pessimist, but it's the same problem with our national debt and everyone is is focused on the short term and, and you know, they'll they'll be long dead by the time, know, someone has to deal with it.
02:13:08
Robert Fine
So, yeah.
02:13:10
Laura Kusumoto
Right, and there's many reasons I didn't go into politics. um
02:13:14
Robert Fine
yeah
02:13:14
Laura Kusumoto
So my lens is what can technology do, you know?
02:13:20
Robert Fine
Yeah. Yeah. And again, but again, it's, the it depends on who the, who the programmer is, right?
02:13:25
Laura Kusumoto
yeah Who has it
02:13:26
Robert Fine
it it So the the programmer can be in charge of what the truth looks like.
02:13:27
Laura Kusumoto
They can do do damage.
02:13:31
Robert Fine
So, but, so you then have to, you've got to question the reliability of the programmer.
02:13:32
Laura Kusumoto
That's right.
02:13:37
Robert Fine
and their intention.
02:13:37
Laura Kusumoto
That's right.
02:13:39
Robert Fine
um And that's why, well, and I think that's why we have so many concerns. I mean, you also, well, yeah, big tech now has has a little too much too much influence and sway over over popular opinion.
Conclusion and Future Plans
02:13:53
Laura Kusumoto
A.K.A. the truth.
02:13:56
Robert Fine
AKA the truth.
02:13:57
Laura Kusumoto
Okay.
02:13:58
Robert Fine
So I think ah let's let's end on that note, um which is neither a a a bad or good note, but somewhat um stayed indifferent.
02:14:01
Laura Kusumoto
Okay.
02:14:08
Robert Fine
um But Laura, i I thank you so much for your time. we We did not get to some other areas of discussion, let alone our our current state of virtual reality and And we didn't talk about um what we thought of AWE the other week. So there there is plenty more for us to discuss.
02:14:25
Robert Fine
um And, ah you know, maybe we bring somebody else in discussion or we'll we'll just, ah you know, have ah have a part two. but um But thank you so much for your time.
02:14:36
Robert Fine
And ah I've learned a lot about you that I did not know before, ah ah just as I have with with others through this process. And I hope i hope you enjoyed it.
02:14:48
Laura Kusumoto
Well, Bob, thank you for sticking with this and being a patient listener and being interested. ah That's rare ah when people you know really look into your backgrounds.
02:15:00
Laura Kusumoto
So I appreciate that. I appreciate the opportunity. And I look forward to seeing what happens with all this material.
02:15:07
Robert Fine
Laura, thank you.
02:15:08
Laura Kusumoto
Okay. All right. Goodbye. Goodbye.