Transcript
Speaker: There's just this undercurrent that you know AI is just going to take over, especially the junior sort of entry-level talent. i I think people that really truly believe that, probably people that never wrote a line of code in their life.
Speaker: Welcome to the forward slash podcast where we lean into the future of IT by inviting fellow thought leaders, innovators and problem solvers to slash through its complexity. Today we're talking to Jason Padone.
Speaker: Jason Padone is a tech leader with 20 plus years of experience currently serving as CTO at Aspida where he's driving digital innovation and leading the development of a modern cloud based platform. Previously, he was a ah SVP at Truist Financial, heading up the digital and consumer banking engineering division and helping steer one of the largest bank mergers ever.
Speaker: That was a big one. Jason earned his bachelor of science, master of science, and MBA from Georgia Tech and holds four patents. I do want to hear about that. He's driven by a passion for building competitive advantage technology.
Speaker: through high-performing teams, cultivating a culture that celebrates curiosity, and setting a bold, clearly articulated technology vision. He's often heard boasting that English was my second language, Java was my first.
Speaker: Man, I am really jealous I didn't come up with that one. I like that one. That's good Yeah. People are probably trying tired of hearing it, but... I like it. I like it. um All right. I got to hear about the patents. that thats yeah but what what do you What kind of patents do you hold?
Speaker: So there are several software patents. um A lot of them, they were all with Truist. ah A lot of them are essentially unique algorithms around how to process data, um how to um send and process events ah for certain financial transactions,
Speaker: um You know, at BB&T and Truist, there was a real push on innovation and um trying to involve everyone at at all levels to write down ideas um and propose them as as, you know, intellectual property ideas with our legal team. Our legal team was great.
Speaker: ah did a really good job of walking you through the process. um So I would say all of them actually are in production, which I'm quite proud of. I think one my first one, which actually was not customer facing, I don't believe is in production anymore. And that was a algorithm that I envisioned and actually had the chance to implement ah the code behind it, which was, we all have in the past, I think it's changed now with Office 365, but a decade or two ago, when licenses were not necessarily subscription-based,
Speaker: um we we often had expensive software licenses sitting on our desktop. right A lot of times we say we need it, but then we actually don't use it.
Speaker: um So this was a process to really ah harvest unused or underutilized software licenses so that if someone actually did need it, you know you weren't spending thousands of dollars on unnecessarily. So it was a process to monitor usage, report on that usage, and then automatically harvest those licenses back.
Speaker: ah So something garbage cleaning for for software licenses. Yeah, absolutely. people Yeah, exactly. a lot of garbage collection happening there yeah um And it saved like quite a bit of money for the company. So i was pretty proud of that one. But yeah, a lot of software patents.
Speaker: sir That's cool. Yeah. Well, I got ahead of myself. i you know I wanted to hear about the patents. I did not say welcome to the podcast. Happy to be here. Yeah. Thank you. ah Yeah. I always, when I hear about patents, always want to hear cool things. you know yeah That's really neat that that you came up with something novel enough that could be patented. And it's kind of weird in the software business, right?
Speaker: It is. Yeah. Especially for for us lowly software engineers. I mean, you're not lowly anymore, but, you know, at the time you were. Yeah. Awesome. ah Well, again, thanks for for joining us here on the forward slash. We we had an exchange. This is one of the things that kind of sparked the conversation a little bit here today is on LinkedIn.
Speaker: yeah we're talking about um i think you you commented on one of our uh company posts or something about like well if you if you get rid of all the junior developers how where are you going to have your next from round of seniors and that that's a big topic right now and i think it's yeah it's kind of timely and and that is a it's something we have to wrestle with as an industry with you know i was going to replace all of we don't need junior engineers anymore wouldn't that so let's get into that let's unpack that a little bit yeah so i think um I think there's just this, uh, ongoing theme you hear, whether it be through your professional networks, LinkedIn, or you hear it in the media, uh, you know, the, essentially the fall of the entry level or junior software engineer.
Speaker: Um, and i personally, um, feel fairly passionate that, um,
Speaker: you know, that is an unwise path. If you are a tech leader um to think that um any technology, whether it be AI or something we haven't envisioned is going to replace entry level talent.
Speaker: um I just, I just don't see it as hey very sustainable long-term path. And,
Speaker: You to state the obvious is, you know, if you just cut off your pipeline of early talent, you know, just think about what, you what your organization is going to look at, look like five, 10, 15, 20 years down the road.
Speaker: And, you know, who's going to sustain your company? Who's going to, know, be there to support and continue to grow your products and your company. Right.
Speaker: um So if you have no junior engineers, you're not going to have any senior engineers in the future and you're not going to have any senior technical talent period.
Speaker: ah So, I mean, that's, that's the obvious to me. um But I do think there's just this undercurrent that, you know, AI is just yeah going to take over, especially these junior, um the junior sort of entry level talent. ah i I think people that really truly believe that, James, or probably people that never wrote a line of code in their life.
Speaker: Well, and unfortunately that, you know, the folks like that are in the decision-making process for, for making decisions and laying off these droves of people and, yeah and all of that. And that's, that's an unfortunate, unfortunate thing for sure.
Speaker: Yeah. I do think though, if you like, there's been some very, very popular, um headlines, right?
Speaker: ah Microsoft laying off, you know, nine, 10% of their staff. And I feel like the media is ah being a little lazy by saying, oh, it's because of AI. yeah And I think i think therere they're not really doing enough research on some of these things. I think if you unpack like where are the layoffs happening,
Speaker: it's not necessarily all software engineers. um And if it is software engineers, let's be honest, a lot of a lot of of what these large tech companies are doing is they're just shifting ah that capacity to lower cost ah geographies, right? and So you look at Microsoft and yeah, maybe they're cutting some talent here in the US, but at the same time, they're growing,
Speaker: um you know, offshore in India and other, other geographies where the, you know, the talent is plentiful and less expensive, right? So it's just an economic reality sometimes.
Speaker: um
Speaker: I, I also, um ah see a lot of, you know we talked about this one-on-one, but I see a lot of these posts on LinkedIn from early founders too, right? And they infuriate the crap out of me if I'm,
Speaker: just completely honest where they say, oh I built my startup um myself. I have no, you know, no computer science degree, no coding experience. And I built this startup from the ground up using AI, right? I vibe coded the crap out of my business and I have, you know, now I have a, ah you know, viable product that's growing like crazy and,
Speaker: I don't need any engineers. ah Yeah, I do think that AI and vibe coding, maybe it does give you the opportunity to get an idea off the ground. I do you think that's a viable path.
Speaker: ah it It can really be effective at bootstrapping a company and getting an idea to a point where it can be ah visible and ah viable product, but You know, maybe you have a thousand users, right? what is it going to look like when you have 10,000, 100,000, a million?
Speaker: Is that AI generated platform and code going to scale? I'm fairly certain the answer is no. And then when it breaks down, who's going to fix it?
Speaker: Yeah. Who's going to optimize it, right? Yeah, you you don't know anything about this. So what are you going reach for? Yeah. yeah I think that's that's been, we've had a a few guests on we've talked about this in the past about, you know, you kind of still need that that engineering mindset person, somebody who is, you know, trained in in this stuff to to help, you know, kind of guide the path a little bit, even, you know, that that human in the loop aspect.
Speaker: Yeah. um And one one guy suggested that, there's probably gonna be a business model of, and there already kind of is it's it's just a little different, it's just a different take on it. But like a business model for all these companies that were vibe coded into existence for, you know, going in and fixing and, and you know building that up. I think we kind of have that now with startups. they Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of startups will be like, Hey, a few friends will get together. They'll build something and it'll be okay. Yeah. Then when they start getting real money, seed money and all that sort of stuff, those different rounds of of funding, they, they need to really build a ah viable, as you're saying, getting up to the 10,000, a hundred thousand million active users that that's absolutely all on its face.
Speaker: Yeah. And I think, um, just getting back to my original point, like I believe the people that truly believe,
Speaker: that AI can replace the entry level software engineer ah that hasn't yeah code ah coded single line of code in their life. They're missing really the value add that a software engineer brings, which is ah to me, it's problem solving, right? It's understanding a problem and then developing a solution um you know end to end ah that's efficiently, effectively solves a problem and can scale and is secure.
Speaker: um So these these are the things that I think to your point about engineering mindset, these are the these are the things that people miss about what the human software engineer brings to the table.
Speaker: ah you know think I will also say probably the most important part of software engineering and just an engineer overall is creativity. um You know, AI has yet to bring creativity to the table. When I mean creativity, I mean native natural creativity, creative thought. It's not there yet.
Speaker: Will it ever be there? Maybe, but in current state, no. um i mean, I've even, we've even played with, ah I don't know if you've used like a fig figma mock, which is an AI prompt based, you know, prototyping tool.
Speaker: it It actually, i mean, I'm impressed by it. I'll be honest. I've i've been impressed by it. I can see why Figma just you know skyrocketed an IPO. it's an impressive oh yeah it's ah It's an impressive technology.
Speaker: But you still, as as a designer or the product manager, still need to tell it what to do, right? So you still need to represent your creative energy and creative ideas through prompts to Figma mock,
Speaker: to generate, you know, what you're looking for. So, uh, yeah, I do think, human in the loop is is still important there. Yeah. I think a lot of these, you know, we, we take these technological advances a little, you know, too far always. yeah I don't know why our industry is like, but we just seem like we're like take one thing and it ah always goes to the extreme. yeah My favorite example is microservices. Right. I mean, yeah we were like, okay, microservices, they need to be small. And then everybody was like, I wrote a microservice in 17 characters. Like yeah that's not the point. Right. Like that's not what it really was meant to be. We get, we we just go crazy with it.
Speaker: <unk>re we're doing it again i i think that you're you're right it's the it's the creativity it's the human in the loop but you know there is a there is an aspect i think to this like it's good to maybe eliminate some of the the tedium right so there is like because the creative part of what a designer does in figma isn't necessarily correctly lining up the pixel perfect css you know that's that's i mean they're they're skilled at that and they have to be to bring their their vision to life but yeah if you could just have a computer do that aspect, they might be able to move faster. the same thing with software, right? You know, if there's tedium, oh, let's refactor this. I don't want to go all hassle.
Speaker: So I think there is there's a benefit, obviously, but yeah. Well, to your point, I do think it's not all rainbows and unicorns when it comes to AI's impact on the workforce.
Speaker: Because I do think, ah and when I say the workforce, I mean in the technology realm, I do think where you could have impact on hiring or demand is probably more on the QA side.
Speaker: You know, you think about what QA engineers do. um a lot of their tasks are just, you know, repeat, rinse and repeat, you know, very procedural follow steps, follow a test case from step one to step 10.
Speaker: i I have seen myself and my team a really ah positive results and AI's ability to one, automate testing of ah features or entire platforms. mean, could do a regression in an incredible amount of time.
Speaker: um And then two, it's really good at generating test data, right? Yeah. which I mean, hecka Truist, we had like dozens of people. That's all they did was generate test data, right?
Speaker: Uh, you a speed it or a lot smaller. We don't necessarily have that amount of, uh, horsepower, but we did have people that were spending cycles doing that. So I, I do think there, there could be some impact to that QA practice where maybe you don't see as many QA engineers in the future.
Speaker: um you know And sometimes that QA engineer is the entry level for some people into a software engineering realm. So yeah I do see some impact there. And then to your point about you know just tedious tasks, right I do see, um yeah if you think about ah what a software engineer is really good at and not good at, um you and I were both software engineers for many years.
Speaker: I was horrible at testing, right? I mean, you know, as a software engineer, it doesn't matter how good or bad you are. Your perspective is i write no defects. My code is perfect, right?
Speaker: I don't need to test it. Or if I do test it, you know, are you really doing a great job? No. ah You know, unit testing was just one of those things there. Yeah, I'll just put it in there. So it passes code review or I, when I pass it off to QA, I could say, yeah, unit tested it. Sure.
Speaker: AI can really help um take those tedious tasks off the software engineer's plate, um give them the time back to be more productive, and also raise the quality of of those tedious tasks that software engineers are bad at.
Speaker: Documentation, unit testing, all that good stuff. ah So it has a positive impact to productivity, i think, as well. um but I still don't think it impacts the demand for junior talent.
Speaker: um One other thing about junior talent, ah James, while I'm thinking about it is your junior talent. And I've seen this, um you know, in the new college grads we've hired, we've hired some wonderful um new grads out of some local schools here. We're based in Raleigh, the Raleigh Durham area. We've, we've hired some,
Speaker: new talent at UNC Chapel Hill and NC State, ah they are incredibly ah in tune and incredibly effective in using AI.
Speaker: ah They're probably more effective at using AI than your senior developers, right? They grew up with this technology. They know how to effectively use it. They're probably bringing most of the ideas to the table.
Speaker: And I don't, I think that is a, is something that you're going to miss out on if you're saying, I'm just going to not hire junior talent. Easy now. I don't want them to think they they don't need us old people either. You know what mean? Like, hold on now. Let's let's not say that. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, it's true. And they they bring fresh perspectives. Like it's it's ah it's a ah diversity of thought. alllthough All of those things. I mean, thats that's why we need the junior talent because let's face it, when we get a little bit of gray in our beard, we we kind of get stuck in our ways and and yeah some of that new...
Speaker: fresh ideas come in and into the mix and it helps, you know, keep things moving and and yeah innovating. i think that's, we still need that. And there's, so there's that aspect of it too. It's not just down to dollars and cents, you know, it can't be.
Speaker: Yeah. And, you know, just also to pull on that thread a little bit, right? If you're in a product engineering org and you're building or engineering products,
Speaker: ah you know, they're going to be more in tune with the next set of customers or users that are going to be using your product, right? Am I going to understand how a 21 year old um truly is going to interact with my system?
Speaker: Maybe, but I'm not going to understand it as well as someone that is, is, you know, coming from that generation, right? they right To your point about ideas and um energy,
Speaker: they're going to bring that to the table. Us graybeards, we're going to try. we not might not be as successful, but we're going to try. um yeah Our lives are different. I mean, you know, like you were saying, they were brought up on a lot of this technology. And so their perspective is different. So so building products for people, yeah someone who has that empathy and, and you know, knows, knows that, you know, that,
Speaker: how their daily lives are yeah because they're different than how we might do it. Cause we try to do some of the things they do and it just hurts, you know, 50. fifty It hurts when I do things. Yeah.
Speaker: Um, one thing, uh, I know that there's been a recent headline, James, I'd like to bring um, that has been, has reinforced, I believe our position.
Speaker: Uh, so recently, uh, yesterday, um, This is ah yesterday being August 21st, 2025, just for the record. ah AWS, their CEO, Matt Garman, and I'm going to quote him, ah was quoted in an interview saying ah that using AI to replace junior staff is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker: Which you can't get any clearer than that, right? Yeah, yeah he's not mincing any words. ah In fact, he added, they're cheap and they grew up with AI.
Speaker: So you're firing them why? That was his quote. um I think that does a really good job, I think, of summing up my position and yours. From what I can to tell is that these are...
Speaker: you know these these are this is a valuable asset. yeah Personally, if my competition thinks they're going to replace junior engineers with AI, I encourage them to go down that path, but I'm not going down that path.
Speaker: but Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. and We'll, we'll hire them up. Right. I mean, we, we need that next, that next generation, especially the ones that are, you know, they're born in this world and and they live in it for sure.
Speaker: So I, I just, I just love that quote because it does not mince words. Right. Uh, He's very clear but and on his position and AWS's position. Obviously, AWS carries a lot of weight in the tech world.
Speaker: um Yeah, they're kind of a big thing. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, I feel like they've had an impact on some things around there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's good. I guess we're we're in good company then yeah with our opinion. That's that's ah that's a good thing.
Speaker: Yeah. So thanks, Mr. Garman, for you know charging forth with ah sanity in this current times because ah I feel like we're I still think it's going to happen. The the pendulum swings going to happen. right i don't I don't think there's enough of us yeah shouting the warning signs out there. and the money It's the money thing.
Speaker: It's going to happen. Well, to your point about the pendulum, right this has happened in past like and ah large evolutions and in the tech world. right We talk about cloud, right the cloud revolution. right Everyone got to get the cloud, got to get cloud. so So ah companies without thinking moved all their workloads to cloud. Then they got their first bill and they're like, wait,
Speaker: what? Oh, ah so I have to have cloud native apps for this to actually work well for me. Right. Oh, okay. Well, I'll just move some of those workloads back, right? Because, you know, just spinning up a bunch of,
Speaker: taking ah you know Windows servers here and then moving Windows servers there doesn't necessarily save me much money. And, oh, you mean I need to still administer them? Yeah, right? It doesn't make sense unless you're cloud native. So yeah, like very similar there, right? So like cloud went gangbusters and then it's come back a little bit, right?
Speaker: You have your cloud native, great, right? Totally makes sense, but not many. large organizations have all 100% cloud native apps, right? That's just reality.
Speaker: Yeah, I do. the The one thing I do worry about is i believe that the pendulum will swing. i don't know that we can stop the momentum, but I'm worried about when the correction comes and and it will, that it will come back to a more sane, you know, reasonable kind of middle ground.
Speaker: I do worry about, you know, the, the, you know, kids that my, my daughter is a senior in high school and if she's not that she wants to go into computer or software or engineering or anything like that, but like them hearing about this and you know, the doom and gloom of like, Oh, software engineering is dead. There, will we not have people going through even university? Nevermind the fact they're not going into companies. Like we won't have them going to a university and learning this stuff.
Speaker: So when the pendulum swings back, we got nobody there. There's nobody to, yeah to, to bring back in. worry about that. Yeah, that's a great point. um That it really is. I don't know.
Speaker: i hope that doesn't happen, but I do think it's possible. Oh, yeah. Right? I do think, you know for better or worse, I do think um this phenomenon has had an impact on hiring demand, right?
Speaker: i see I see it today. i mean, i posted a few position engineering positions I've had you know, I had earlier this year and I, mean I got flooded. I got like 3000 LinkedIn messages. I mean, I'm not even kidding. And I think we've had like thousands of applications to each, each position.
Speaker: ah So clearly there, there is a demand is, is struggling a little bit, especially on, on junior talent. We could talk all day about how this is a bad idea, but the market's doing what the market's doing.
Speaker: um And it's, ah it could have an impact on, you to your point, like this young, bright talent in high school saying, why am going to go to college?
Speaker: Right. You know? um So it's, it's having some pretty monumental shifts or potential shifts. I, you know, I don't know how this story ends, but I'll be, I'll be watching it.
Speaker: Yeah, I think, in it's and you know, we have had all a lot of shifts, as you said, in in technology. And we always kind of, you know, we work our way through it, go through the pendulum swings, all that. This one's, it is a little different, I i think. I feel like this is this is a little more substantial than some of the other ones. I mean, there's, are we fooling ourselves? You know, there's,
Speaker: industrial revolution and all that the human beings and humanity has gone through these things before right this i think this is it's big but it's not on the scale of like yeah the industrial revolution or those or the invention of fire you know kind of like really significant things that have happened um so i think yeah know we'll we'll be fine we'll get through it but i i do worry about like
Speaker: and maybe this is this phenomenon has happened before but like the idea of as we, our kids right now are mine, especially, you know, they all were all born with an iPad in their hand and and they're very used to things being given to them.
Speaker: i think AI takes this to a whole new level. Cause like when I try to help my kids with their homework, you know, I'm like, okay, so you want to I'm trying to make sure they learn the concepts and do some Socratic method, asking them why, and they get frustrated with and me. You're like, what? yeah but Just tell me the answer.
Speaker: You know what i mean? And AI will do that readily. It'll just, okay, period. This is the answer. It'll do that for them. So I worry about that. You you mentioned earlier, like the problem solving, critical thinking. Are we going to,
Speaker: I'm thinking of the movie Idiocracy. Are we going to dumb ourselves down through technology over time and just get to this point where we can't think critically anymore? I don't know. What do you think about that impact on just training up software engineers?
Speaker: Yeah. um I do. i do worry about that too. I worried also just about, I don't know how you know, just in,
Speaker: in computer science programs today, are they getting into some of the details on decomposing how some of this stuff works, right? Like um I had to learn machine code, right? I had to learn, I did a lot of C development, right? had to learn about memory allocation and deallocation and and reallocation and data structures and pointers and all these things that, you know,
Speaker: are those still being taught? I don't know. Maybe they are. i hope they are. um You know, it's that, that mantra of, even if you're in like a mechanical engineer, right. And you're building engines.
Speaker: Sometimes it's the best way to, you know, envision the next engine is you take apart the one that's in front of you and understand how all these pieces and parts work. Right.
Speaker: um Which is kind of what I'm trying to describe how I learned, And my computer science program is like, you know, we we learned at the lowest level and then built our way up, right?
Speaker: right To where we're, you know, engineering in abstracted languages like Java, where I don't have to worry about memory and, you know, some of the under like low level data structures, right? The virtual machines doing it all for me.
Speaker: um So, yeah, I do worry about, you know, some of that. Uh, but to your point, yes, I do worry about is our education system like supporting critical thinking.
Speaker: Um, you know, they, and that, that goes beyond, you know, a computer science education, right? It's like, how do I craft an argument? Right.
Speaker: Um, how do um, effectively communicate, uh, Am I able to talk to someone, look them in the eye and talk to someone and ask questions, right?
Speaker: Am I able to be curious on my own, right? um Do I understand why things are the way they are? These are all like important ah critical thinking skills that I hope we don't lose, right?
Speaker: I hope AI doesn't make ah make our brains lazy. they're ah There is also, to that point, there was this MIT study that has been done. Are you familiar with this? as It was done maybe last month.
Speaker: don't know if I saw yet. this study, they did they did a study, a creative writing study. So they measured brain waves ah before and after a creative writing exercise.
Speaker: And they put people in three different categories. ah Category one is just someone that did a completely on their own, right? Just use their brain. Second one was someone that used a Google search to inspire them.
Speaker: And the third was someone that was given chat GPT as a tool. Mm-hmm. and again, they measured brain waves before and after. ah And though the group that used the chat GPT, not surprisingly, ah had ah a substantial decrease in brain activity after the exercise, right? So um essentially, I guess to summarize, a they got dumber.
Speaker: And the ones that utilize... at Google search to um you to inspire them a little bit with some ideas.
Speaker: They obviously had a drop in brain activity, but not it you know not as substantial as the one with ChatGPT. um And then the ones that used just their mind and didn't use any tools had an increase in brain activity, right?
Speaker: ah So this So there's there's certainly like a cognitive cost of using um large language models and and chat GPT and AI, you know, in a creative task, right? So um it's a really interesting study. um it's ah If you search for your brain on chat GPT, it was a study done by MIT Media Lab.
Speaker: Read it, it's a little concerning. um You know, it's just one study, but yeah it's MIT Media Lab. they're you it's fairly ah It's a very well-thought-out discipline study.
Speaker: ah They're kind of a big deal, MIT. Again, yeah kind of a heavyweight. They're up there, yeah. But I do worry about that as well. And i don't you know I'm hoping our education system is...
Speaker: I don't think they could ignore AI. I don't think we could ignore AI. It is a tool. And I think that's how we should view it. It's a tool. should never be a replacement. right It's a tool to make you more productive.
Speaker: It could be a tool that could even help you be more creative. right um Like I gave him the Figma mock example. right I have an idea and it's going to take me a really long time to visualize an idea well, I could interact with this tool that is AI-based to bring my an idea my idea to life. And then I take that mock and I go to the stakeholders and I say, this is my idea. I want to do this. And they're like, oh, wow, that looks great. Here's money. Go do it, right?
Speaker: That, it to me, is the ideal way to utilize this technology. um The idiocracy thing, I know you mentioned that. Oh, my God.
Speaker: Um, I feel like every time I read the headlines, I'm like, oh my gosh, we are totally headed towards videocracy. It keeps coming up. I can't, that's the only analogy i can come up with. this The movie was so vivid, wasn't it? Yeah, it really is. I, I, every time I walk into Costco, I'm just waiting for someone to look at me and say, welcome to Costco. I love you.
Speaker: um um And I'm also just waiting for the day for Costco to offer the law degree as well. Right. Yeah. yeah ah but it it It is. it That movie was so ahead of its time. It's kind of scary. Mike judge is a genius. Um,
Speaker: Uh, so yeah, little little it's funny that we get that kind of like ah ah I mean, it's really a, it's, it's ah it's a, it's a film, I guess. I mean, you know, it's silly. It's got some really dumb things in it too, but like the concept that's in there, it's pretty profound and it comes from the guy that gave us Beavis and Butthead. do You know what i mean? Like that's, it's, that's quite the, quite the mix there.
Speaker: Honestly, I think regardless of your, your, um, political persuasion, if you look at the way our Congress acts today on both sides of the aisle, by the way, it's not much different than what's represented in idiocracy. yeah um So I hope our government ah leaders just you know act a bit more um refined and and show some statesmanship in the future. But right now it's very on point, um but
Speaker: And if you haven't watched Idiocracy, oh hi ah you're missing it. you got You've got to watch it. It's streaming all over the place. It's crass, but it's... crass, yeah. Don't watch it with... this gift yeaht Don't watch for your children. It's not children-friendly.
Speaker: Well, it's funny, you know, the... um Like we, Congress, there's the, they're representatives of ours. They represent us and maybe we should do a little self-reflection. Are are they, are they accurately representing us? Cause if they that's, that's an us problem too.
Speaker: yeah We, may we need to clean up a little bit too. Well, that's certainly true, right? You know, there's, you look at any social media platform and and we're we're we're not terribly nice or civil to each other. Unfortunately.
Speaker: All right. So we're all doom and gloom. I did want to talk about, cause you guys, Espita, it's a, it's kind of a cool company. and I loved hearing about it. ah You guys are in an industry, you're in the insurance industry, which isn't really known to be forward thinking. mean, there are some later players like like you guys, but, um,
Speaker: it's kind of an old industry and it's it's been around a long time and you know it's it's a highly regulated industry and and you guys are coming in you're born digital. you're You're not having to bring legacy systems forward. You don't have AS400 sitting around that you have to modernize and anything.
Speaker: So how is that experience, you know kind of being born digital in an in an industry that's been around so long that in all the regulations are not, not designed for you. You're like this, this little flower, beautiful beautiful flower in the middle of kind of a, you know, I don't know the way I was explaining it the other day, this like dying field or whatever, but how is that experience for you guys?
Speaker: Yeah, it's been, it's been, it's a really unique position we're in. I mean, to your point, we're in like a super boring industry. Insurance is not terribly ah thought of as innovative or interesting.
Speaker: ah We're also in a space, the annuity space specifically, which is even less interesting, right? It's really, um it's hard to think of annuity and innovation in the same like sentence, right?
Speaker: um But yeah, we've ah we've we've really built something very unique in the industry. And I would say there's a lot of companies out there trying to copy us, which is always, you know as they say, is the uh, greatest form of flattery. man absolutely Um, but yeah, we, you know, we, the, the theory, the thesis is, you know, we built everything from the ground up without any, you know, any legacy debt holding us back.
Speaker: Um, and we've grown, you know, very, very rapidly. And it's, it's, um, our ability to offer an experience, um,
Speaker: to all the parties in an annuity transaction um that is, you know, easy, simple, fast, right? um ah And fast is really the key in this business, right? Because we can issue an annuity policy faster than anyone, right? some have been I think our record is eight seconds, right? um From when an application was submitted to when it was issued.
Speaker: ah So, know, we, we've, we've really kind of disrupted the annuity industry. Um, and, we're, we're very proud of that.
Speaker: Um, but I would say this is just the start. Um, even, you know, we're continue, we're continuously looking in way for ways where we innovate. Um, and, you know, AI is one of those things, uh, to be quite honest.
Speaker: Um, You know, one of the, obviously the, one of the foundational things you need to be AI ready is you need access, readily accessible and understandable data, right? um And you need to minimize data silos, right?
Speaker: And I'm not here to say we're perfect, but I will say we are probably more AI ready than anyone in our industry. ah know, because we don't have, you know, legacy data sets. Everything is and ah on a modern data platform.
Speaker: Uh, we're able to, um, uh, truly understand our data. Uh, we are, we were always able to build things with modern, you know, data formats, um,
Speaker: We're not dealing in mainframe delimited, ah you know, comma or position delimited files. ah we know We're not dealing with multiple batch jobs and data transmissions, right?
Speaker: We have some of that because the industry forces us to do that those things. But um for the most part, you know, we've been able to take advantage of AI um and our focus is really not now more inward facing uh and some of that to your point is regulations right so um it's it's a little dicey right now to utilize ai for a customer facing experience um especially insurance because if you give the wrong answer on something it could be it's not only detrimental for your customer but detrimental for uh the you know the company as well so
Speaker: ah we're being very intentional how we're using it. And if we can use it in the back office to be more effective and efficient, um you know, that that's kind of where where we're kind of utilizing the technology beyond just the engineering productivity side of things, right?
Speaker: So um seeing great results that I mentioned about for QA automation, ah data, you know, test data creation, huge huge um even uh we had someone an engineer an entry-level engineer mind you um generate a uh while using an llm to uh point to a jira story and say tell me about give me context on this story right and it brings in all the related tickets and it could it could
Speaker: look at a related Epic and summarize it. So if I'm a junior engineer and I was just assigned this ticket and I have no idea what it's about, it can summarize everything for an engineer, right? Kind of put it in a TLDR format and say, okay, so I don't, instead of wasting an hour or two hours time reading through tickets and tickets and maybe even bothering this PM or this PO, I can have, know, I can have a LLM summarize this for me and I can, you know,
Speaker: spend less time digging into JIRA hell. ah So yeah we're we're seeing it good use of yeah have of AI kind of inward facing.
Speaker: Now, how has your experience been with, you know as you mentioned, in the regulatory aspect of of your industry? are Are there times where you know you you come up against a regulation and you're like, it's just, it's just, isn't our world. This doesn't apply to us. Cause we're, we are born digital. We're different, right? We, yeah this isn't our experience. This isn't how we do business and it just doesn't apply. And how do you navigate that? If it does happen, I don't know Does it happen? Number one. And and how do you navigate that?
Speaker: Yeah. Um, in our, in our business, uh, I will say it's, what's interesting, um, is our business business is highly intermediated. Right. And what I mean is, um,
Speaker: annuities and insurance in general, a lot of times it's sold, you know, through a human intermediary, right? Like an agent or a wealth advisor or, you know, someone that's part of some insurance agency or large distribution firm.
Speaker: okay Okay. So where we're kind of exploring is like, well, there, there is a human in the loop, right? And there ah acts kind of as a fiduciary in a lot of a lot of times, uh, in the value chain and, know, speaking of like regulations, right.
Speaker: If I am arming them with tools, but they're still the fiduciary, uh, that might be a place where, well, a regulation doesn't necessarily, uh, apply in all those situations, right. Because you still have the human in the loop.
Speaker: Right. Yeah. So I think that's kind of where we're seeing like the next frontier for us is like, okay, so yes, there are all these regulations out there and they exist for a good reason, right?
Speaker: um But they don't necessarily always apply in those types scenarios, right? Because they're still a human that's ultimately making a decision or advising the client or the customer.
Speaker: But what if I gave them tools to ah give them better information, right? What if I gave them tools that could um make it easier for them um to explain what a product is and is not, right?
Speaker: ah So I do think it could actually help um, you where like regulations are there to protect the customer. It could actually, these AI can be used to help actually protect the customer.
Speaker: If, if you see where I'm going, right. yeah Um, you know, it could help dispel myths, help the customer understand these products a bit better and how they, and how they could benefit or not benefit them.
Speaker: Right. Might not be for everyone. Um, So that's kind of how we're we're looking at things. And, um you know, I do see,
Speaker: ah
Speaker: i don't know yet where AI can help with the customer directly. i don't I don't necessarily know if we're going to see that anytime soon um in our industry.
Speaker: And that is because just because it's a highly intermediated industry where the human's still in the loop. helping sell these products. Yeah. I do think AI, you know, Google and all those things are great for like, you know, the, you, the consumer can educate themselves, you know, even with Google, they were yeah able to go out and look for reviews or find people talking about a product for instance, or whatever. But I think AI might take that, you know, it like puts that process on steroids where you can like explain to me why this is important and and it it can kind of,
Speaker: coach and teach you. So think that's going to be an interesting aspect. We'll even have more savvy consumers going forward because they'll be able to really dig through some of this, you know, like you said, like myths and those sorts things. Yeah.
Speaker: I do think, um, what, what will be in industry, um, interesting James is, uh, like I think about, um, that next generation, right.
Speaker: Um, you know, we talked about how they grew up in the AI world, right. Um,
Speaker: It just like a digital experience, right? um So probably you our generation and younger, we don't wanna talk to someone on the phone really, right?
Speaker: We don't necessarily wanna talk to a salesman. In fact, personally, that's the last thing I wanna do, right? I know what I want. I wanna a digital experience to go get it, yeah right?
Speaker: We as a generation have demanded that experience, right? So if you're a company that doesn't demand, doesn't have that experience, I'm not doing business with you, right?
Speaker: A lot of times people are making that decision. By the way, that's the that's why we at Speedo also feel very strongly about this because the next generation of of that's buying annuities is our generation, right?
Speaker: ah We're the next set of customers that are going be buying these products. I've already started buying these products, by the way. Right. And if, if I can't buy this, ah you know, through a digital process, then maybe I don't do business with that, that company. Right.
Speaker: We're seeing some of that, by the way, but I do think about AI. Right. So like we have this generation that's growing up in AI. They might, they might demand, right, that AI is in the loop of, you know, the next annuity sales process, right? Maybe there maybe in that there we we we could have a future where all their financial advice isn't coming from, know, a human advisor, human agent.
Speaker: It could be an AI agent, right? So for the objectivity of ah of an AI rather than maybe a trying to say this in a politically correct way, but maybe, I don't know.
Speaker: um There's no way to say it. Nice. Slimy salesperson, know, just out to make a buck for themselves. Then AI ah may be more objective and more yeah sanitized, so to speak. That's interesting thought. or Or maybe, or maybe it's a, you know, maybe, maybe it is a combination of it, right? Maybe there's a human and this human is the head of a firm and they have 40 AI, you know, um,
Speaker: insurance agents that are selling these products directly. I don't know. I don't, you know, this is like, I'm just, I could see that happening. Right. oh yeah ah And that would, that would upend the industry, right? Who gets commission?
Speaker: Am I going to pay an AI agent to commission? I don't know. ah But I do see, ah you know, we, we, we did publish a paper. If you go to a speeder.com, we have a white paper.
Speaker: i like essentially some trends that we, we feel like could yeah reshape ah the insurance industry. Right. So um obviously digitization of, of this industry is going to continue.
Speaker: It's going to continue by the way, because the insurance industry has been way behind. Right. Sure. um Same with the, you know Certain things in the insurance industry, which you and I probably took for and granted, like self-service, that's where we're behind on there. But also,
Speaker: um you know ai will certainly have impact, right? I think of like that, like I said, that ai assistant for the insurance agent or or producer, right?
Speaker: um Certainly something that could reshape the whole experience, right? um this next like The next generations of buyers of these products are going to reshape what that experience like looks like.
Speaker: So I also think unrelated to AI, I know it's a hot topic, James, but I still also think blockchain technology is, if I think about what insurance is, it's a contract, right?
Speaker: it's a contract that, uh, you've bought some guarantee could be life insurance, could be a annuity policy that guarantees a payout. That is like completely aligned.
Speaker: What a for with a smart contract. Right. Right. So, um, we're, we're pretty far off from that, but I do think, um,
Speaker: yeah what do we call it? The Genius Act? I think. Yes, that's what it was called, the Genius Act. Yep. Stable coins. Yeah. But but I do think you know some of the impact of that ah could be it's it's it has legitimized, it will legitimize over time the acceptance and increase the acceptance of you know blockchain technology through to industries that which probably haven't even thought of as possible, right? So it might have, it might, I don't know if it has yet, but it might have reduced the regulatory barrier from adopting some these technologies, which I do think could have a mutual benefit across and and industry like insurance, right?
Speaker: um So, you know, you mentioned the old stodgy mainframes, right? That some companies are dealing with. I do think the industry needs to start thinking about life beyond, right? Those old stodgy mainframes, right? What's that next generation of policy administration going to look like?
Speaker: I think blockchain smart contracts could be a huge part of that. That's just kind of. I think there's, there are a lot of applications of blockchain technology. They're not ah as many as when we went through the craze, right? Like, yeah.
Speaker: that That was a little nuts, right? Everything needed to be blockchain. It felt like the, you remember the Simpsons episode where the guy you need a monorail. You know what I mean? It felt like yeah know yeah everybody's just trying to sell you a monorail.
Speaker: It felt very much like that. I did. There's absolutely applications where I think it makes sense, but it's not as widespread as what, what they were saying. Thank goodness. It was a little crazy.
Speaker: um yeah i i'm really excited about the stable coin thing ah definitely i think that's gonna that's gonna shake some things up for sure yeah um all right you mentioned your your blog post now and i have not apologized i have not read that yet or i i meant to read that and i wanted to ask you a couple questions about it but it is on your all's website as you said yep i'm gonna go check it out um Well, we are now in going into our next phase of the show, the next session section of the show. This is called our Ship It or Skip It.
Speaker: Ship or skip, ship or skip, everybody, we got to tell us if you ship or skip. So...
Speaker: we've and We've been kind of posing this this question to everyone and and I get to answer it the same way every time. But like the notion of vibe coding and i and I guess kind of the way I was describing vibe coding, my understanding is like, you know, just letting the computer write the code and you you just kind of YOLO it to prod. And and like, what so that was my definition. I think there's actually a better definition. I actually looked it up. But but what about that? Like that kind of...
Speaker: I don't want to lead the witness, but it's kind of like a reckless. Yeah, it's Leroy Jenkins right there, haven't I? um I'm skipping that. I like YOLO to prod too, but I'm using the Leroy Jenkins reference. I love it.
Speaker: I love Yeah. You know how that ends. If you know about Leroy Jenkins, you know how that ends. It doesn't end well. So I'm i'm skipping that. And it wasn't just that it didn't end well for Leroy. The whole team suffered.
Speaker: The whole team suffered. Yes. one so Exactly. It's not... and we'll have to that that Maybe someday that'll be like, ah you know, this is this is a a lesson, an allegory, the allegory of Leroy Jenkins. You know what I mean? Like they'll talk about poor Leroy and his team. Yeah. The demise of Leroy Jenkins.
Speaker: such a and if Okay. if So if you uninitiated, if people who who don't know Leroy Jenkins, just Google it and watch the video. Even if you're not into video gaming, it's a it's a video game related thing, but it's hilarious.
Speaker: Stick with the video too. Cause if you see the full video, you got to like watch the whole thing, just all the, there's a lot of prep involved and then it happens. You're like, Oh,
Speaker: I like that. That's, that's my new definition. I thought it was, let's see if I, if I can pull up the, the actual definition of, Oh yeah, here we go. I did a, I did a chat GPT.
Speaker: Uh, informal internet slang term that describes writing or generating code in a way that's guided more by intuition aesthetics or vibes rather than like strict logic best practices or formal planning so I think it's fairly consistent but it's like ah that definition takes on like that seventy s kind of or 60s hippie feel you know what i mean like it takes on that I don't know um vibes vibes that just sounds like a future 7-1 call right there like that's a
Speaker: that so That's a priority one incident call with 30 people on it. That's what, that's the vibe I'm getting from that. You can just answer the customer, you know, Hey man, just chill out, man. Your, your vibes just aren't consistent with ours. So like, it's you know, it's fine. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. yeah I'm sure they'll be happy with that. And you'll keep that customer for so a long time. Um, yeah,
Speaker: What about using, we kind of touched on a little bit, but like, using AI as like ah teaching tool. do What do you think about that? Like, how you know, if we, instead of, was thinking about this in the context of like mentoring our junior engineers, you mentioned like they can go out and get more, more information on their own, which is good because that's one of the things they tend to ask questions too quickly, too soon, yeah right? They don't do enough homework on their own.
Speaker: What do you think about that? Is like now that they have AI available to them, they are going to do some of their homework. What do you think? It's a good thing, bad thing. What do you think?
Speaker: Uh, I'm going to ship that and I think it can be good. Um, I just think with anything you have to be skeptical, like just think on your own, right.
Speaker: Um, you know, is it any worse than a search engine? Probably not. Um, it's just probably a little bit more effective than a search engine.
Speaker: Um, so, um, Yeah, i think ah I think it could be a good way to learn.
Speaker: Maybe. i think it really, you have to be careful about what your prompt is, right? Yes. Yeah. As always, with it with AI, you got to garbage in, garbage out. I'm with you. I think I'm going to ship it. I think it's, it for me, it's been helpful. Like if I want to learn a new topic about something, i do find it helpful.
Speaker: um I love the voice mode of chat. Do you guys sit there and talk to somebody gets I forget her name, but soul, a soul is the the voice I use. I'll sit there and talk to her in my truck while I'm driving, you know, and just yeah teach me about quantum physics, you know, and just sit there and talk back and forth and learn.
Speaker: learn I think that's fun. um But yeah, you're right. If, if if you don't If you take it as like what my kids like to do for their homework, just tell me the answer. Probably not good idea. You're not really learning much. But if you if you do engage in a real um trying to understand, i think it would be helpful.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Our next a segment of the show is ah this is this is the most important part of the show. This is what everybody tunes in for.
Speaker: This is where the real hard hitting questions. I mean, all of this, this is just like it's like fly over what we've done so far. All of the talking about AI and all that's that's the fly over country of our show. Basically, ah this is what people tune in for the lightning round. There are correct answers. We're going to wrap car these to you and good luck.
Speaker: Really. I mean, I wish you the best, but I don't know. Sometimes you never know.
Speaker: okay ah If Voldemort offered you a hug, would you accept it? No. Okay. Sourdough or wheat?
Speaker: Wheat. h
Speaker: Do you like the word dapper? No. Okay. What's your favorite type of muffin? Ooh, banana nut.
Speaker: Good choice. Good choice.
Speaker: Uh, this would be an interesting one. I, you're, you're kind of from my generation, so I didn't think I might, I might know the answer to this. Uh, have you ever tasted soap? ah Yes.
Speaker: Yeah. Anybody with a, that's around probably got themselves in trouble and had to have their mouth washed out.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Do friends taller than six foot four?
Speaker: No. I'm actually probably the tall. I'm six foot three myself. So I usually, there's a few that are at my height. I don't think anyone's taller than me that's ah that I would consider a friend at least.
Speaker: Gotcha. and One of my coworkers is, he's pretty tall. You've met Jake. He's six, seven, six, eight or something. yeah I guess I've got one. Yeah. uh what's your favorite clothing brand oh um well uh with the uh advent of athleisure post uh post that workwear yeah post um uh covid era uh i ah i sport a lot of
Speaker: ah Adidas, as they say in my in the motherland. I'm half German, so I have to say it the correct word way. Adidas. One of our folks at work, they have the... ah you know Since COVID, everybody sits at home with sweatpants on. They're when you say you've done something important that day, like, Oh, I actually had to put hard pants on for this like or pants with buttons. You know, that's your justification or that's, I actually did something of importance that day.
Speaker: Hard pants. We are in the office three days a week, but so even have to put on hard pants, I do have to put on pants. But yeah, we're, we're casual.
Speaker: We're not a stodgy insurance company, but yeah. Yeah. If Tupac appeared before you right now, what's the first thing you would ask him?
Speaker: Who shot you? That seems like the obvious answer there for that one. I feel like that's that's kind of a silly question. Yeah. Some of people, if you don't know who Tupac is, they may say... Who are you?
Speaker: yeah and So I get that. But I mean, you got to know who shot you, right? Yeah. Okay. And ah this is really, I think this is a question that really digs into the heart of of a ah person.
Speaker: ah You really get to know them and who they are and what they're all about. What temperature do you like your thermostat at? ah Summer or winter? does It doesn't matter.
Speaker: We'll go summer since that's where we're at right now. Yeah, summer, probably between 70 72. ah Winter, 68. OK. Yeah, I don't like it too warm. OK, yeah.
Speaker: Our house is, it's gotten just awful airflow. So if if I set it on the main, the. only some temperature sensors on the main floor. If I set it at 72 here, it's like 78 upstairs in some of the rooms. So you have to like set it really low and it's freezing on this floor and everybody's comfortable upstairs. So yeah.
Speaker: Okay. Well that does it for our lightning round. Um, and You did fairly well. I mean, I'm, you know, I don't say that to everybody. I do say it to everyone, but I mean it this time. You really did. You did really well. I really liked the answer, the Voldemort answer that was right on point. Did anyone say yes to that?
Speaker: i don't i can't imagine they would. And if they did, we probably would cut it out. You know what mean? Like we should be on a list somewhere. Yeah. yeah We, we, we, we're not that kind of show.
Speaker: We don't put up with that here. We would, we would not have aired that if they did. we may not even have aired the entire episode if they it. So.
Speaker: All right. ah Let's see. Anything going on? Like any sort of shout outs or anything coming up for for your company that's interesting that maybe but for us to keep an eye out for?
Speaker: ah Yeah, there's there's there's a bunch of stuff. um Some which I can't talk about yet because it's not public yet. i will also so I will say ah we've got a big product launch coming out.
Speaker: It's a new type of annuity called RILA. That will be launching later this year. ah If you're not in the insurance industry, you're like, what the heck is that? But there's a lot of effort there. As a company, we're pretty excited about that.
Speaker: ah But yeah, we've got a lot of things going, but some of it is not public yet. But ah check out the, I would say check, definitely check out the, the,
Speaker: ah White paper I mentioned, we're pretty excited about that. um But yeah, we're we're continuing to grow, as I mentioned.
Speaker: So we've got a lot of growth going on. There's two sides of our business. We have the retail where selling annuities, and then we have the reinsurance,
Speaker: ah which is also an area we're very bullish on with AI. Uh, but that, uh, that's pretty exciting part of our business. Um, it's very data driven, um, very data driven.
Speaker: And, uh, we just signed a, a deal with a Japanese insurance company. So that's, that's a big deal for us that we're doing a lot of more international business.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, just a lot of, a lot of really cool, um, ah goings on and the in the tech side of the world. We have something really cool that will be coming out, very unique experience.
Speaker: ah I will tease it a little bit, probably a about 30 to 60 days we'll ship it. ah It'll be something very unique in our industry ah that, again, will make
Speaker: the whole process of selling annuities a lot easier. um And that's really about how we deal with in the industry what we call NIGOs, which is not in good order.
Speaker: So it's ah it's a unique experience on how to resolve NIGOs. but I'm pretty excited about it. And what's the best way to like, kind of keep, ah you know, up on the goings on at a speed. Is that a like follow on LinkedIn? Is that a good way? yeah you guys pretty LinkedIn.
Speaker: Yeah. LinkedIn is a great way to do that. Oh, I forgot to mention something we just launched. Oh man. I just missed an opportunity, James. We recently launched an Apple wallet.
Speaker: um So we are first in the industry to, offer the experience of a customer um adding their annuity contracts to their Apple wallet.
Speaker: ah So um it's a, it's a really good way to just number one, keep track of your, of your annuity contracts. But second, it's a way easy way for you to you track the,
Speaker: value changes of those contracts over time without having to log into a portal, which, you know, some people don't like. um But again, we're, we were first in the industry to do that.
Speaker: um Just to like a, for some people, you're like, well, well, duh, I've been using Apple wallet for like, you a decade. This isn't new and exciting.
Speaker: I know this, right. But in the insurance industry, this is considered revolutionary, but we are proud of it. that's cool This is kind of, again, where we're we really trying to pull this industry into the 21st century, right? yeah We are a 21st century enterprise and sometimes what feels like a 20th century industry.
Speaker: And it's just ah just an example, again, of how we're ah really setting the pace for the industry. So we're really excited about that. We've gotten really good press on it ah and pretty good.
Speaker: adoption from our customers. So, um, we'll have Google wallet for those Google users. I know y'all are out there. We nothing but love, uh, love, ah love all you.
Speaker: Uh, but Google wallet will be, will be a fast follow here pretty soon. Um, but yeah, follow on a LinkedIn, um, or speedo.com.
Speaker: Um, Our comms team is great. They do a good job of of sharing all the goodness we have going on. And yeah, we'd love you as a customer as well.
Speaker: But yeah, lot of exciting things coming. It's cool though. I love the ah you know bringing them into the 21st century. i've worked for, don't know I was a full-timer or a contractor at the time, but I had a ah made up a slogan and I'm not gonna name the company, but it was the gist of it was,
Speaker: Company name, making the technology of yesterday the technology of today. ah Soon. And i had I had that soon on the end because we were always, someday we'll get around to like catching up with, yeah. That was one of my favorite ones. But that's that's probably how you feel with, you know, your industry. Yeah. That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, again again, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us here on the forward slash. I really enjoyed the conversation. This has been great episode and appreciate being on. Same. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker: Awesome. See you next time. The forward slash podcast is created by Caliberty. Our director is Dylan Quartz, producer Ryan Wilson with editing by Steve Berardelli. Marketing support comes from Taylor Blessing.
Speaker: I'm your host, James Carmen. Thanks for listening.
