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He Invented Teleportation: David Nussbaum | CEO of Proto
98 Plays5 months ago
David Nussbaum is an inventor of holoportation technology, a CEO and founder of a company called Proto. He built a solution that beams people from all over the world to phone-booth-size boxes as holograms. The teleportation (to certain extent) is no longer a science fiction and I tested it myself at SXSW in 2022 in Austin, Texas. This is by far one of the most prominent and breakthrough technologies in the field of next-gen communication and telepresence.
In this episode we discuss how David came to an idea of broadcasting people and made teleportation real, we talk about challenges of developing a physical product and building a team that could have worked in NASA, but chose Proto. We also envision when our avatars will be attending meetings and events instead of us and in a very practical manner make an overview of key lessons learnt while developing a sci-fi technology on the edge of digital and physical realms.
We also talk about the journey from being a podcast host and a salesperson to becoming a sci-fi inventor and how each step in the career counts towards building a successful product. I personally very much admire the part where David tells a very personal story about his pitch to an angel investor when everything went upside-down.
This episode also features a master-class on pitching an idea of a business around passion, future and wonder. And of course, we discuss how many months and millions it takes to build an innovation company and try to envision what’s coming next.
Please, enjoy our conversation, subscribe, rate the show and share your thoughts with us at monthsandmillions@gmail.com!
David Nussbaum: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dnussbaum
PROTO: https://protohologram.com
Alex Babko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko/
This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Month in Millions' and Teleportation
00:00:14
Speaker
Hey, welcome to Month in Millions, a practical and inspiring show about innovators and emerging tech practitioners. I'm the host of the show, Alex Papko. Humanity has been dreaming of teleportation for ages. With introduction of video calls, this opportunity became a bit more realistic.
00:00:32
Speaker
VR headsets obviously already took this co-presence even further, but there is one outstanding product that enables real-time telepresence, which is volumetric, high-resolution without any headsets. And the creator of this technology claims that in the nearest future, in our limit living rooms, there will be mini boxes that will project ultra-realistic holograms of our friends, family, partners in real time, as if these people are standing or sitting next to us.
Making Teleportation Feasible with Proto
00:01:03
Speaker
My guest today is David Naskov, an inventor of a technology that enables teleportation.
00:01:09
Speaker
David is a CEO and a founder of a company called Proto that made real a solution to Beam or Holoport, people from all over the world to phone booth sized boxes as holograms.
00:01:22
Speaker
The whole reputation is no longer in science fiction, and I tested it myself at South by Southwest in Austin in 2022. This is by far one of the most prominent and breakthrough technology in the field of next-gen communication that I've ever seen. And today I'm talking to David Nasbaum about how he made teleportation real. We will talk about challenges of hardware product development, when our avatars will be attending meetings instead of us and events,
00:01:51
Speaker
The key lessons learned during the exciting journey developing a sci-fi technology on the edge of digital and physical realms. Hi, David. Hey, Alex. Wonderful to meet you. I love the show. Thanks for having me on the show. This is going to be an exciting podcast.
00:02:09
Speaker
Wonderful, i'm I'm equally excited, David. So ah David, it's a great pleasure meeting you again, and I'm very excited to talk to you today about your innovative products, especially since my focus and my professional life is also in in product development on the edge of physical and digital realms. So for those who are not yet that familiar with the concept of Proto, can you please introduce the product or listeners?
00:02:37
Speaker
absolutely proto is the first ah real technology that allows anybody to beam anywhere from anywhere. So if you've ever seen holoportation or teleportation on in Black Mirror or Star Trek or Back to the Future, inspired by science fiction, inspired by movies and comic books, inspired by the past ah for what would be a really cool future, we took the idea of beaming people places and we actually made it real.
00:03:09
Speaker
a Proto, formerly known, originally known as Portal, ah can allow anybody to beam anywhere from anywhere to anywhere. And they have the the near supernatural ability to see and hear and interact with every person in their global audience. And if you had ever wished that you could be in more than one place at a time, wish granted, because now you can be in one place and you could beam into unlimited locations simultaneously in real time.
00:03:39
Speaker
That sounds super exciting. And the idea of co-presence and the sci-fi focus of that and making real um with the help of emerging technology, of that that's exactly why I think we are having this inspiring and insightful conversation.
Enhancing Communication through Telepresence
00:03:55
Speaker
So um I know that you've recently and your team have been partnering with hospitals to teleport patients from remote locations or teleport or be physicians to the remote patients. And most recently recently, you've referenced the aspect of safety that Proto can provide like to politicians to avoid like real life events and and and different stories. So what benefits of such volumetric co-presence do you do you see as the main ones? Yeah, well, look, when somebody appears like they're physically there, the conversation is more natural. It's real. ah There's an emotional and a physical connection that exists when two or more people share the same space at the same time. And Alex, as much as I feel connected to you,
00:04:45
Speaker
We are still looking at each other through a two-dimensional screen, and I believe, and this conversation is going to be great, I know it, but imagine if we were actually together in the same room looking at each other across a coffee table and having a real conversation. So that's what Proto does. so And that's why I think it's so important, because when when people share the same space, the the it's not a communication, it's a connection.
00:05:10
Speaker
There's a difference there. ah And the honesty level goes up. There's something about seeing a full person in their body language, their nonverbal cues. and And that really means a lot when you're beaming remote witnesses into courtrooms or when you're beaming in patients.
00:05:27
Speaker
into hospitals or when you're beaming guest lecturers into universities, you need to see the full person like they're actually there because the whole body tells the story. It's not just your face on a 2D screen. It's you.
00:05:43
Speaker
And you know my background in broadcasting and in digital media trained me for the ability to communicate ah through digital presence to digital means and when a person is in a room and they appear like they're physically there.
00:06:00
Speaker
the as you can imagine the engagement level goes up the interactivity goes through the roof and it's just a it's a it's a it's a more real and exciting conversation yeah absolutely and ah from what i remember like how because i've been following the story of proto like from portal to to the most recent ones ah The technology setup has evolved pretty significantly.
Accessibility and Security of Proto Technology
00:06:23
Speaker
from I remember like back in 2022, I said I was not like super complicated, but still that required like and the DSLR camera, like the some kind of a dedicated space, proper lights and so on. So what is required now to actually start beaming people?
00:06:40
Speaker
So we have an app on on the apple at the apple store is called proto studio you can download it is absolutely free so you don't need a dslr you don't need a dedicated space your iphone on a tripod and hit the free studio app pro studio app.
00:06:56
Speaker
It removes the background, adds the necessary studio effects to you know create a much more volumetric and proto-specific projection. Although I still prefer a proper studio kit that we we offer. So any 4K camera, a tripod, a clean solid colored background is always helpful. um A light, obviously, just like we're doing right here. I mean, it's really what we're doing right here through this virtual communication you know software.
00:07:26
Speaker
except just higher resolution, more depth and volumetric. and and so obviously the And our hardware plays a big role in that as well. So the software is amazing.
00:07:39
Speaker
super safe and private. We're enterprise level encrypted, so you know museums and hospitals and international governments are using us, and they feel safe and secure because all of our all the content that gets beamed and in and out, whether it's live or pre-recorded, is encrypted and safe. But it is um and is very real looking, and it doesn't require a whole lot of space. The hardware, the proto-epic,
00:08:05
Speaker
For example, which is the seven foot tall display. It's like you're there. It's like it's like you know if a person's beaming in and they're six foot three, they appear six foot three. They look like they're there. They're shadows or reflections. And it's where zoom leaves off and we're physically being there begins because you're still having a bit of a zoom on your side. you know You're just looking into a camera and you've got a light and and not a whole lot has changed. But on the receiving side, for everybody looking at the projection,
00:08:36
Speaker
It's like the guy is here in the room with me and and we really like that. We like the the feeling of of real presence. Yeah, I've been actually in the in one of those booths, so I confirmed the image is extremely precise, volumetric, and 100% believable, and feels like a game changer. And we definitely will delve into the technology, into the solutions and compromises that are within the underlying technology. But before we delve deeper, ah let's explore how it all started.
00:09:10
Speaker
You already mentioned that say your ah journey started like in podcasting, in sales. So ah what was the triggering moment ah for you to switch your career back then to become a sci-fi inventor?
From Podcasting to Teleportation - David's Journey
00:09:26
Speaker
the and well The inspiration was that I love being the first to do something. um i was I had a podcast in 2008, five or six years before the podcast boom happened. I feel like broadcasting needs to continue to evolve in order to keep people interested. When I was a kid, ah my goal was to be a radio host. I wanted to be a talk radio host. I thought the ability to communicate over you know a large area, whether it's local, regional or national or international radio, was my dream. Even as a kid, I would watch baseball games on television. I'd turn the the volume down and my friends and I would call the play-by-play. And we didn't even realize that we were doing radio and and broadcasting. We thought we were just having a lot of fun. But as I grew up,
00:10:17
Speaker
And terrestrial radio started to not be as important especially to a younger generation i thought what if instead of talking into a microphone and hearing your voice out of a speaker or what if instead of looking into a tv camera and seeing your face on a on a screen what if i can actually broadcast you.
00:10:37
Speaker
What if Alex can beam into people's living rooms, people's conference rooms? you know like what if What if I can broadcast a person? What if I can make you look like you're actually there? I've been working on holographic technology since 2012. I co-founded a holographic entertainment company in 2014, mostly known for bringing dead musicians back to posthumously perform, using an old magic trick called Pepper's Ghost.
00:11:05
Speaker
So it's like, you know, mirrors and reflections. And it was like a big illusion technique. Not the most scalable business, but it was fun and it was entertaining and we got people's attention. And we brought back lots of late legends to posthumously perform.
00:11:21
Speaker
But i thought what if and it's on two thousand and eighteen i thought what if instead of bringing back the dead what if i used my knowledge and and know how an experience in holograms and i smashed it together with my passion for broadcasting.
00:11:37
Speaker
to instead of bringing back the dead, what if I used it to connect the living? and so That's why I started Proto, originally known as Portal, because I just wanted them to be portals in between people's
Personal Impact of Proto - Family Connections
00:11:47
Speaker
places. and you know My parents are in their 80s and they live in New Jersey on the East Coast. and My kids at the time, I only had three and four-year-old daughters. Now I've got a three eight, nine, and 10-year-old, but you know children under five, parents over 80, 3,000 miles apart, I thought impossible for them to really connect with each other. What if I could beam them into each other's houses? like What if they can actually feel like they're in the same room? and i and We did it. so we The first ever proto or portal, the first ever one was in my living room, and and we beamed grandma and grandpa, in and my kids
00:12:26
Speaker
fell in love with their grandparents. They got to know their grandparents. And it was so much better than saying, hey, why don't you you know meet this person on this small little screen and really created a ah relationship with Can you change your business trajectory ah to from leaving mean for your previous previous career to being in people and becoming a sci-fi entrepreneur? ah So from what I know about, you were like about to invest like pretty much like a big part of your family's savings into this new adventure. ah So I'm a family guy as well, and I have a similar experience of investing like family capital into adventure. So I have a question. like
00:13:07
Speaker
When you were pitching this idea to your main stakeholder, to your wife, what was it actually like? Wasn't it the hardest pitch in your life? Yeah, it was scary. I have the greatest wife who I met on my podcast many years ago. For me, broadcasting and podcasting and holograms, not only is it my career, it created my life. I met my wife on my podcast. We have children now. It's really amazing.
00:13:36
Speaker
um I said, this is it's a it's a it's a it's a passion. It's an itch. I need to do this. This is something I need to do. And she believed in me and this continues to, thank goodness. and But yes, I went through a lot of money um building prototypes that failed.
00:13:58
Speaker
The original idea was that they were going to be cylinders. we we're go to call the The devices were going to be called the capsule because you know if you watch Star Trek or if you watch any science fiction movie, they don't beam into boxes. They beam into you know cylinders. They beam into tubes. They beam into circles. and and I wanted to make it as real to people as I could, and I wanted their vision of the future to actually come true. Yeah. Prototype after prototype looked, everyone for some reason got worse and worse. I was going in the wrong direction. And then I thought, you know, the idea of having, I needed i needed depth, I needed dimension, I needed to show themes and blurs and with a cylinder, everything, there was no real
00:14:43
Speaker
depth to that. It was hard to show that. So I designed a box and the box and i put the and i you know I added light to the back of it so it there was a lot of lumens and so it can it can battle the sun and brightness.
00:14:59
Speaker
And i ah we created some content and i hit the go button on the content and then it was upside down in the box but it worked i mean ah it looks like the guy was there you look like he was hanging upside down from his feet from the top of but i was like wow this it really looks like this is working this is amazing and i and yeah alex i was down to my last nothing i hadd spent everything and then i. um an angel investor gave me a little bit of money to now develop this new version. I had just enough to stay alive and um and I made it better and then I just started taking my one working prototype to every trade show, to every convention, to every event. like I would even show up at places that they weren't even expecting me to show up but I would just i would just position it in a lobby and I would wait to get kicked out.
00:15:53
Speaker
Like, you know, but before I knew and I wouldn't get kicked out because you know why? Because people just started. It was a beacon. It attracted an audience and it kept them there. And then I had the longest line in some conventions where I wasn't even a sponsor of the of the convention.
00:16:09
Speaker
And so before I knew it, then people, booth sponsors started hiring me to go into the back of their booth and it would drive traffic into their booth and all of a sudden this became a thing. We would put up a sign that says, who wants to be a hologram? And then people would beam from one side of the room to the other.
00:16:24
Speaker
And you know we figured out a holographic technique to make it look like there's a person there. And then people started wanting to work with me and still had no money, but started raising money. And then the whole business of Proto began ah with um you know with Tim Draper, who was an early founding investor and a lot of the Elon Musk stuff.
00:16:44
Speaker
he He invested early in SpaceX and Tesla and and hundreds and hundreds of companies he's invested in, which have become billion-dollar unicorns over the years. And then we just started raising money and and building a business around around ah the future and around passion, around wonder, and and really building a vision for the company. And now we're doing everything we said we were going to do three and four and five years ago.
00:17:12
Speaker
company is flourishing, we're beaming people places, we're in dozens of colleges and universities, we're in museums and airports. and I mean, it it's becoming a thing. And I'm pretty excited about it. um But ah you started to mention the business aspect of that. so How do you see that as a profitable business? So for sure, like the right investments, but I don't know how deeply you can uncover like some financial, but I mean, ah it's like breakeven. So do you already like on him all and a growing profit? So how do you see that developing further ah financially? Sure. ah Well, we we've raised we've raised a bunch of money and we generate we generate more revenue than we've raised.
00:18:01
Speaker
There's a lot of you know technology companies that are famous for raising a lot of money but not making any money, and they're they're famously unprofitable. I mean, that's not us. So we we have to generate revenue in order to stay alive. And so we've got the world's greatest sales force and business development team and operations and production folks that are out there. We sell, rent, and lease our hardware, and then we have an ongoing software subscription.
00:18:28
Speaker
So people, they buy it and they own it or they lease it or rent it. And then for our investors and for the sake of you know building out the business, in order to keep our devices running, ah our customers typically pay for an annual software subscription.
Global Usability and AI Integration in Proto
00:18:45
Speaker
And Proto has a, like Apple, like Tesla, you know like a other like a lot of you know hardware software companies, it's a it's ah it looks like a hardware piece of hardware, but every four to six weeks, another software update.
00:18:58
Speaker
So everybody who owns or or uses pro technology gets the benefit of all these new features and all these new things that it does every month so you'll never get bored of the technology it's it will always do something new a month from now.
00:19:15
Speaker
And you know one of the newest things that we have is you know you upload any piece of video and you hit the translate button and you can choose up to like three hundred languages and your hologram can now speak german or russian or korean or mandarin or spanish it's amazing within seconds.
00:19:35
Speaker
and And so we're obviously getting a lot of attention from from ah air international airports. Imagine walking into an airport. You speak Japanese to it. It speaks Japanese back to you. It looks like the person. It sounds like the person. And that welcomes people into your state, into your country. It makes people feel comfortable. And um same thing goes in retail locations or in universities. Having the knowledge and the know-how of everything around it while speaking multiple languages and able to communicate globally and is the future. It's something that we were promised years ago and that Proto is delivering on now. Right, yeah. So ah ah how do you see the balance between beaming real people versus sir beaming volumetric avatars versus beaming are people from the past? So how do you see that ratio in the future?
00:20:31
Speaker
I think beaming people places will always be a thing. You can't be there, beam there. I think it's great. like We're using our computers to connect. with We use our phones to talk. I think I truly believe proto-technology, whether it's in the form factor of a box or whether it's something else in the future, I think that's our future means of communication.
00:20:53
Speaker
I think you're going to get your entertainment on it. I think our children are going to learn from it. I think it's ah gamers are going to be entertained by it. but This is not just another device or another thing in your house. i I believe this is your smart screen. I think this is your window into the metaverse. I think this is your ability to communicate in multiple dimensions.
00:21:15
Speaker
ah very volumetrically and very real. Where your live persona can't be, if you're you're giving a speech over here, but you need another version of yourself to interact with somebody else, I think that's where your AI takes over.
00:21:30
Speaker
And AI should not be something to be feared. It should be embraced. We control the AI. We're in charge of it. We program it. um And so that's why we want to give the controls of your ah likeness to the owners of their likeness themselves. And so we're you know rolling out a whole line of of AI ah proto-personas.
00:21:54
Speaker
Whether it's text to persona, you know, scan your body for three minutes so it can learn your your mannerisms, your cadence, your speech, your body movements, your voice, everything. And then you can just drop text in. So you can you can drop in an entire.
00:22:11
Speaker
Let's say you wrote a book. Let's say you wrote a best-selling book and now it's time for you to sit in a sound stage or in a studio and and and do your audio book. You're going to sit there for days, sometimes weeks, depending on how long the book and how detailed it is. You could drop the book right into your AI and then within seconds, you're not just it's not just an audio book, it's a hologram book. can this This hologram could go on tour to every Barnes and Noble.
00:22:39
Speaker
It can inspire, it can educate, it can inform, entertain. I mean, the future is is so bright ah knowing that we have all of these what used to be called superpowers are going to just be our regular abilities now. Right, yeah, that that sounds so really exciting. um Yeah, thank you so much. So, um I've recently been playing a lot with the Apple Vision Pro special personas. Did you? Oh yeah, love it. It's exciting. Yeah, yeah. For me, Proto Experience and Apple Vision Pro personas are pretty much about similar level of immersion.
00:23:18
Speaker
Just like when you see a person in a 3D with my friend Matt sitting next to me in in the kitchen room But he's like 5,000 miles away from me and we just like see each other in like in 3D that that's super exciting So that's why yeah, so the 3D versus 2D really improves the perception significantly Except for you have to wear a bulky hat. Yeah But in your case, you don't have that bulky headset. Can you guide me through the back end of the solution? What hardware, what software, and what kind of services you have there that enable this match? Yeah, for sure. One of the things, and Forbes recently wrote, it's not VR, it's not AR, it's R. It's real.
00:24:04
Speaker
you don't need to wear anything you don't need to download anything you just walk into the room and it's there you see it like it's there you don't have to prepare to see it you just walk in and it's there so you have to in order to see your friend through apple vision pro you need to have an apple vision pro you have to you so this is your the consumer.
00:24:24
Speaker
And it's a very singular experience. It's a solo experience for you only you can see what you're seeing. This is a communal experience, which is why I like it so much because you can hundreds of thousands of people can all see the same piece of content at the same time. And we made it simple. Like I said, you know, filming it on a single ah camera, even your iPhone, because we wanted this to be ubiquitous. We wanted this to be for everybody. So the the display themselves are seven feet tall.
00:24:53
Speaker
four feet wide, and two feet deep. It's like a thin, slick looking, you know, ah booth display with a picture frame on the front because originally, my thought was, let's just the original idea and I haven't spoken about this, I don't think I've ever even mentioned this before.
00:25:13
Speaker
you know the The company's called Proto, originally named Portal. the My original idea before I even named it Portal was that it was going to be called Canvas. That was back in 2017, 2018, because I wanted it to be like a holographic canvas. Whoever the artist is, whether you're an entertainer or a doctor or whoever,
00:25:32
Speaker
yeah I want you to create what is happening inside. so I wanted it to be a picture frame, and the picture frame has all of the the you know the audience facing electronics. so I've got cameras, sensors, data collecting sensors. I've got speakers. I've got ah computers and encoders, decoders. There's tens of thousands of lumens of interior, evenly distributed light. There's a lot of network pieces and and and connectors inside. The front is a is a is a giant
00:26:07
Speaker
modified custom transparent LCD, and then the inside of the display is empty. So whatever you're seeing appears as if it's in there, but it is not. It is ah it is a proto effect that we've perfected, ah that several people have attempted to copy but have failed in their ah you know attempts. but it is it is So that is what's happening here, fully contained.
00:26:35
Speaker
self-contained, preassembled, and so and it plugs into the wall. Everything turns on. Hook it up to Wi-Fi. And within seconds, you're using a proto device faster than if you pulled an iPhone out of a box for the first time and needed to go through several prompts. It's ready to go. Plug and play. Wonderful. Is it like an IoT connected or everything? No, yeah. it's ah We have our own operating system. so we have it is we have are you know It's a proprietary operating system.
00:27:10
Speaker
We have our own proprietary ah live beaming um ah telepresence technology. By the way, beam anybody from anywhere to anywhere in under 200 milliseconds. That's faster than Zoom. I mean, I can beam you from New Zealand to Los Angeles, several thousand miles. It's almost as real time as if you were physically in the room. High resolution, 4K, volumetric. The shadows are real. The reflections are natural. ah And are our CMS, are our content server is um
00:27:51
Speaker
ah can control every piece of content from around the world. so you hit a piece of you know You can control it. It's like a global remote control. I have total control over every single piece of content anywhere in the world. I can i can customize content.
00:28:09
Speaker
i can ah I can translate content. I can pause, rewind, fast forward, manipulate the content, but I can also schedule it. I can time code it. I can playlist it. I can loop it.
00:28:24
Speaker
And it's also good for like things too. It's not just for people. It's great for products. So now we're seeing a lot of our retail customers. We're in Burberry and and H and&M and you know Walmart. and like There's a lot of customers where they're replacing a lot of their flat two-dimensional screens.
00:28:42
Speaker
with our devices and our technology because we see our our technology not just as a beacon, not only does it drive in traffic, it keeps them there longer. Our dwell times are are significantly higher than flat 2D screen.
00:28:57
Speaker
so our So a few more questions like about the backend part. So how big is your like R and&D lab and like what kind of specialists you have there working for your portal? What's great is our company, ah most of our employees, most of our partners and employees and and um my colleagues, most of us are software engineers.
00:29:19
Speaker
two or three dozen engineers specific to the the development and the evolution and the innovation behind the software. Edward Guinness is our CTO, ah very successful entrepreneur and multiple-time technology entrepreneur and and and chief technology officer. ah he's we've We've worked with him um for several years developing a team of of brilliant software engineers and and they've become friends. there Everybody at that that you know who works here, I've got this emotional connection with because these are people who could work anywhere. I would say that you know Amazon or Raytheon or NASA or Hulu or Netflix, they would be
00:30:11
Speaker
glad to have any one of our software engineers, but they work for Proto. And so i am um I'm just every day, I wake up absolutely thrilled that we've got some of the brightest minds in technology building the future here at Proto.
00:30:29
Speaker
Wonderful. Yeah. So the team is really one of the most valuable, if not like the most valuable parts of our success. So, so yeah, congratulations for you to to have such a wonderful team. And besides that, I personally have been dealing like with physical innovations and with my teams, we created multiple complex projects and I understand how hard it is are um specifically for a younger company and specifically for a hardware.
00:30:56
Speaker
company So regardless, you mentioned like you have like a few dozens of software engineers, but there is something physical and tangible that makes it significantly more complicated. ah So what might be are ah your advice like to hardware inventors and entrepreneurs based on your journey? Well, you know it's it's important that ah you know ah for me, I wanted to do something that nobody had ever done before. I think passion plays a big role in it. My whole life has been in either in a marketing department or a sales department, or as an entrepreneur, I could only be successful if I
00:31:38
Speaker
100% believed every word that came out of my mouth. I'm the worst salesman in the world. But when I'm passionate about something, people are attracted to that. And so for entrepreneurs, you have to believe in your product. You have to believe in your in your concept. If you have a vision,
00:31:54
Speaker
be Don't be rigid with your vision, be fluid. because this i've We've pivoted 100 times. Who knew the the the pandemic was going to happen? Who knew that I was going to knock off copycats chasing us? and you know so You have to keep ahead by the ability to um ah pivot pivot and flow with with the way things are going. Obviously, you have a vision, you have a long-term plan, but there's a lot of different ways to get there. So, ah surround yourself with people who have done this before.
00:32:29
Speaker
I have a great team because they and things are successful here pro because the team i have working here have all been here before they've been the successfully built companies they successfully sold companies the live event business was really big in two thousand seventeen two thousand eighteen two thousand nineteen covered head and two thousand twenty two thousand twenty one not so much,
00:32:54
Speaker
so if ah So we were never going to be it during those years a super profitable live events company we shut that division down and we went back to the drawing board and said okay this thing needs to be do more than just.
00:33:11
Speaker
beam people into events, this needs to be permanently installed in banks, in museums. like This isn't an event. This isn't an experience. This is this should be an important part of the future.
00:33:28
Speaker
so as and Also, as you start bringing on new you know new partners, new investors, you have to be open to their ideas. ah and You have to allow for ah for changes when you need to. I have a board of directors. um you know Just because I'm the founder of this company, I listen to everybody. i am I work for the sales department. I work for our investors. I work for the board of directors. I work for each one of our customers.
00:33:58
Speaker
So it so you know you you just have to be you just have to have the vision to to know where you want this to go and you just have to manage all of the challenges um and all the successes along the way.
Advice for Entrepreneurs and Future Vision of Proto
00:34:13
Speaker
Right. are So um do you think that the use of Gen AI can help with physical product development and prototyping? Do you practice that as part of your team operations? Yeah, absolutely. We do. We just announced with Amazon Web Services, AWS and Proto just made this announcement.
00:34:36
Speaker
that we are that we've co-developed a um text to hologram platform. So now you can drop out any text into our software and within minutes, you it pops up and it's a it's a fully volumetric 3D 4K resolution hologram of what you just thought of in your brain, just dropped it into the software and within minutes, it ah it generates right before you. And you know you've seen this on tablets and you've seen this on flat screens, and but nobody has ever done it volumetrically without a headset or or without a download. So, umm very, very proud of that. um I have a question. Did you watch the Congress? The Congress is like an animation sci-fi drama with Robin Wright.
00:35:29
Speaker
No, I haven't seen that. Okay, yeah, I understand. I know what you're talking about. No, I haven't. No, yeah, but but I mean, I really recommend that. So it's it's kind of like the story where she is an actor, signs a contract to preserve her volumetric digital image so that a production house can make movies with her and so on. So pretty much relating to the story of like the Black Mirror recent season,
00:35:53
Speaker
yeah ah where like one of the episodes highlighted like similar ethical issues with like digital preservation of people. And I know you you've been also creating like a proto GPT and like referencing right now the tags to hologram. so our So as a person on the tag frontier, ah what kind of guiding rails do you see ah that shall be applied, or like probably you're applying as well?
00:36:18
Speaker
uh to make this technology and right well you know i believe obviously as a as the ah as the as the founder of proto the number one thing for me even more important than sales even more important than uh then generating a lot of revenue is keeping our customers data safe and private and encrypted ah pretty soon will be HIPAA compliant ah but Right now we're at a level of enterprise security and privacy called sock to compliance um we have a number of software engineers who are ah completely responsible for keeping those. ah Those guardrails in place.
00:37:01
Speaker
um We are working with AWS. We are working with a lot of these AI companies in order to keep a you know a focus on you know moving this forward in a positive way as opposed to it being used for negative purposes. Whenever we do an AI of a person, they have there are several prompts that they must you know approve in advance.
00:37:27
Speaker
in order for their AI to then either be used conversationally or through text ah to persona, ah means um they own, the people themselves own their own AI avatars ah so that they must give permission you know as it's being used. ah And the ah you know the security measures will get even will even get even stronger as we develop a larger team around it. So very important to us that that our customers' data is is safe and secure.
00:38:01
Speaker
are Right. So in one of the recent podcasts that I've listened to um with Canva CEO, she was like asked like how they because like they also provide like this kind of Gen AI tool for artists ah to to start creating many different visuals and and and and and other designs.
00:38:22
Speaker
So the question that that they are working on is that how to filter this kind of request so that the service is not used like for political propaganda and so on. so are But presuming that assuming that you can pretty much make any text to holograms so it can it can escalate really quickly and get to the wrong direction. So do you introduce like kind of filtering system or like some other safety systems on top of fun of that for like, I mean, to avoid misuse. Yeah, it's you know it's really important that the whatever is being said, whatever is being broadcast is accurate, real, and endorsed or approved by whoever it is that's saying it, whether they're live or whether their AI is, you know,
00:39:13
Speaker
the the projection. um And yeah, it's something that is really the number one thing that we think about over here is we're moving into a future where AI is a part of our future. people Some people don't like it, other people are in love with it. For me, AI isn't going to replace jobs, it is going to enhance.
00:39:32
Speaker
jobs. I think it is it will it will help people people become better at their jobs because it is a collaborative and a creative tool. um I do believe in people. I'm a positive, I'm ah an optimist, I'm a positive thinking person, so i I do believe that it will continue to be used properly.
00:39:51
Speaker
ah Proto has well established ourselves as a very trustworthy company. And so as long as you're doing business with us and through us, you can be certain that the technology will only be used for good. So, you know, um, yeah, that's kind of where we're at on that ah her position. Sounds right. So I have like, like a few, like a last chapter of the questions before we wrap it up. So, um,
00:40:19
Speaker
So based on your experience, how many months and millions it takes to turn a breakthrough idea into profitable business? Oh, I guess it really depends on the business. um This business you know takes a long time because it's a you know you have to develop the hardware and then you have to develop the software. and you have to um In certain cases, some people like to ah file patents and trademarks. and you know All these things are very expensive. is this is this a company Is this a small mom and pops shop? Is this a global a technology company? so I think it really depends on what
00:40:55
Speaker
For me, ah profitability is important. I think that you know if you can achieve profitability ah faster than later, it'll it'll ah get the attention of more investors because they're seeing their money being ah stretching farther.
00:41:15
Speaker
But in some cases, you don't want to be profitable right away because it shows that you're not stepping on the gas as fast as you want. I can be extremely profitable or I can lose money every month. It depends on how fast we want to go. By losing money every month, why would I want to lose money every month? Well, because I want to keep sinking money back into the company and I want to keep hiring more sales people and I want to keep hiring more engineers and I want to build out more offices so Of course, that's going to cost money and that I will spend more money to do that. But you know if I wanted to have one store and I wanted to have ah only a few you know employees and and low overhead, then I can make a lot more money. But you know your ability to scale won't be as
00:42:02
Speaker
as great either. so it's you know It really depends on what your you know what what your desire is, what your end goal is. and then you know and These are things that you have to have a great team around you. You have to have a great CFO, so great COO, you have to have a great team of people who are working on the finance. so If you know this is the amount of money I have,
00:42:22
Speaker
I've got X amount of dollars to run this business. and this is this is how This is how much money it costs me every single month to run the business. You want to know what your what your burn rate is and you want to know what your runway is. um Oh my God, I only have a year of runway based on this amount of money I have. okay so These are the things I need to accomplish in this year in order to raise more money.
00:42:43
Speaker
That kind of thing. so it's hard It's a hard a question to answer because it's really it really depends on what the end game is. Is this a company that you want to take public? this ah Is this a company that you want to exit in three years or seven years? you know um Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with you that so that that was more about like to get your like mechanism of decision making and just like understanding what's your perspective on that. So arm how do you think how much of your ah success belongs to luck versus hard work?
00:43:18
Speaker
I believe the um luck fair favors the prepared. ah We've been working really hard over here whenever something really big happens. you know and i i've said it to my size i We could really use some luck around here. because it's I think luck happens when you work really hard. This company doesn't happen because of luck. I think I'm lucky that nobody had done this before. I think that this this is the type of company that should have existed for years. But nobody did it, or if they did do it, they didn't do it well enough for it to stick.
00:43:53
Speaker
Maybe I got lucky meeting the people at the right time that helped me build this out. But the company itself isn't here and is not successful because of luck. I think it's it's because of the hard work. We put in the work. you know I worked in radio. I worked in broadcasting, digital media, holographic entertainment. like I worked in all of the levels of what I needed to in order to come up with this concept.
00:44:20
Speaker
um And then when this concept happened and people liked it, was that luck? Well, maybe there was a bit of luck that I chose to do it at a Comic Con before doing it at CES, you know, because I got some fan, you know, so things like that. I'd say there's a combination there.
00:44:39
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I like that consistency, how you really like packaged your overall experience. So that that' that's all with end of the days about beaming and like beaming people and teleports and like very much correlates with where you started, where you are now. So that's very exciting. um So um in your interview to Guy Raz in in How I Built This, ah the show that I personally very much admire, you mentioned that you have been always curious or about sci-fi and next big things. So I think I have the only last remaining question to you. So David, what's next? Well, you're going to have to stay tuned to find out. I'll tell you. So what I think is next.
00:45:23
Speaker
you know We're doing a lot of enterprise. We have a lot of enterprise, a lot of retail and commercial customers. I think what's next is consumer. By next, I mean several years from now, I think that yeah we're we're very fortunate that we're finding ourselves in a lot of conference rooms. I believe the future is in the living rooms. I do believe this is how children learn. I do believe this is how we will get our entertainment. I do believe this is – I believe what's next is
00:45:55
Speaker
a home display or technology. Maybe it's not in this form factor. Maybe it's not even product. But I think that maybe we might inspire or we will be the company to bring this next version into the home. That's where I think it's going. I think it's it's not you shouldn't have to be Tupac.
00:46:12
Speaker
You shouldn't have to be an eccentric billionaire to beam somewhere. I think this should be for Grandma. I think should this should be for Lucy. I think this should be for you know children and adults to you know beam into each other's homes, communicate, entertain, and interact. That's what I think. That's where I think we're going in the future.
00:46:30
Speaker
That was David Nazbaum, an inventor who makes teleportation a reality. Thank you, David. Thanks for having me. Hey, thank you so much for tuning in into the show. You've been listening to The Month and Millions, a practical and inspiring show about innovators and immersion tech practitioners. Please subscribe to make sure you don't miss a new episode. I'm Alex Babko and you've been listening to The Month and Millions. Goodbye. um