BONUS Episode! Joan Interviewed by Jennie Stenhouse, CTO of Clarity AI

In this engaging BONUS episode, hosted by Joan Bajorek and featuring special guest interviewer Jennie Stenhouse, CTO of Clarity AI, listeners gain exclusive insights into Joan's dynamic career journey. They delve into practical AI applications and productivity tools, exploring AI's impact in sectors like agriculture and discussing entrepreneurship challenges. Joan shares valuable career advice, stressing the significance of networking, continuous learning, and embracing innovation. The conversation underscores the importance of personal well-being and cultivating a supportive network of mentors. Together, Joan and Jennie paint a compelling picture of navigating the evolving landscape of AI, offering actionable insights for aspiring tech professionals.

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In this episode, we talk about:
🤖 Practical AI applications and productivity tools are essential for everyday tasks.
🌾 AI can enhance efficiency in industries like agriculture and towing.
🤝 Strong stakeholder relationships are crucial for success.
📚 Expanding skills and learning from different domains is valuable in AI.
💼 AI entrepreneurship involves sales and financial challenges.
🔮 The future of AI focuses on practical tools and effective data management.
🌐 Networking and continuous learning are vital for career growth in AI and tech.
📊 Tangible projects and portfolios validate ideas and attract opportunities.
🔍 Curiosity, adaptability, and small risks are key to navigating the tech landscape.
🚀 Challenge traditional paths to create new opportunities.
🧘‍♂️ Prioritize well-being for productivity and success.
👥 Build a network of mentors and advisors for career opportunities.

Connect with Joan! https://linkedin.com/in/dr-jpb/
Connect with Jennie! https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennie-stenhouse/

More from Your AI Roadmap
Watch on YouTube! @YourAIRoadmap
LinkedIn: Connect with Joan, and let her know you listened! ⁠
Joan has a BOOK with Wiley coming! AI, Careers, and Future-Proofing Your Income: Book Waitlist

Who is Joan? Ranked the #4⁠⁠ in Voice AI Influencer, ⁠⁠Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek⁠⁠ is the CEO of ⁠⁠Clarity AI⁠⁠, Founder of ⁠⁠Women in Voice⁠⁠, & Host of ⁠⁠Your AI Roadmap⁠⁠. With a decade in software & AI, she has worked at Nuance, VERSA Agency, & OneReach.ai in data & analysis, product, & digital transformation. She's an investor & technical advisor to startup & enterprise. A CES & VentureBeat speaker & Harvard Business Review published author, she has a PhD & is based in Seattle.

Clarity AI builds AI that makes businesses run better. Our mission is to help SMB and enterprise leverage the power of AI. Whether your budget is 5, 6, 7, or 8 figures, we can build effective AI solutions. Book a 15min

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Transcript

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Welcome to Your AI Bootcamp. This is a four -week intensive bootcamp where we'll be working on goal setting, a professional glow -up, crafting your story for other people to hear you better and getting credit for your work, and lastly, a demo day, coffee outreach, expanding your amazing network to hit your goals faster and be seen. Your AI Bootcamp is where your AI career begins and takes off. Come join yourairoadmap .com slash Hi, my name is Joan Palmiter Bajorek. I'm on a mission to decrease fluffy hype and talk about the people actually building in AI. Anyone can build in AI, including you. Whether you're terrified or excited, there's been no better time than today to dive in. Now is the time to be curious and future-proof your career, and ultimately, your income. This podcast isn't about white dudes patting themselves on the back. This is about you and me. and all the paths into cool projects around the world. So what's next on your AI roadmap? Let's figure it out together. You ready? This is Your AI Roadmap, the podcast. Hey folks, this is Joan jumping in really quickly before the episode starts. So this is actually a super special bonus episode. I speak on this episode with my phenomenal CTO, Jennie Stenhouse. And we talk about my career and choices and these quote unquote overnight success, not true, tons of work behind the scenes of how, if you've ever wondered like, hey, how did Joan get here? Like what's going on? This episode we dive into my background in French and linguistics and being curious and not trusting what people say when I find data that says otherwise. You will definitely get a perspective of who I am, how I am to work with, the relationships in my company. I'm just so honored to get to spend this precious precious time with my CTO and to share it with you. Okay, let's jump in. Hey Jennie. funny. We speak so often, but we hardly ever say each other's names because we're so used to talking. It's quite interesting. Yeah, to others, but like how often do you say my name out loud to me? Like it sounds weird. Yes, in the special episode of Your AI Roadmap, we get to talk about you, which is probably what a lot of people want to hear about, seeing that you've been the host for so many interesting episodes and got to speak to so many interesting people so far. So, I suppose we should say who I am and then you can say who you are. Why don't you do your quick intro first? Sure. Hi, my name is Joan Palmiter Bajorek. I am the CEO and founder of Clarity AI. I'm the host of Your AI Roadmap, the podcast and the forthcoming book, Publishing with Wiley. I'm also the founder and current president of Women in Voice. I'm an entrepreneur, I'm an investor, I'm an influencer, connector. That multi -hyphenate thing my sister is embarrassed about and never can quite say what I actually do. holiday parties. Anyway, that's me. I think that slash thing, like entrepreneur slash author slash angel investor slash anything else you want to be is actually what the future is going to look like for the majority of people anyway. So although it may be awkward to introduce yourself at dinner parties, it's going to become something so common and people will become more used to it as well. I mean, I don't know about your parents, but my parents had the same jobs for their entire careers. And like, how often is that? How often do you meet someone who's been in the same position for 10 years or five years? So I think, you know, the pivotability and action is going to be for the future. I should say I'm Jennie Steenhouse. I am the CTO of Clarity AI. And I had the pleasure of meeting Joan through Women in Voice where I acted as the COO for a while. Yeah, I was trying to think, I was literally thinking the other day, like, did you, like, so I launched Women in Voice on Twitter, and did you see it on Twitter? Or like, how did that, how did we align the dots there? Yeah, I think I saw it on Twitter and then there was some sort of like join a call and meet people thing. And then during that call, there was like, can someone do XYZ? And I was like, yes, I can do XYZ. And then I think it moved on to the Slack community and it sort of took off from there with our interactions. So people kept being like, who's this Jennie person? And she keeps raising her hand to do work. And we had plenty of work. And it's just wild to me that we cross paths that way. And people are like, you've been working together how long now? We're like, anyway, I'm just so lucky to have met you. And our customers fall in love with you and then they try to poach you amongst other fun things. Well, cool. We're gonna go through the regular questions. Yeah, I think that's a good way, because then you can be in the hot seat for a change instead of just your guests. I know it's funny how comfortable you get with being the host. So now it's your turn to answer the hard questions. So I suppose I should stick to the format initially. So you know a bit about what's coming. But so right now. What is, I know you've got many projects going on and lots of them you probably can't talk about, but what are you working on? What's one way that an AI focused project that really is lighting you up right now? yeah, well, as you mentioned, there are so many that I wish I could speak about that are under NDA and maybe later I could speak about publicly. The one that people have maybe heard me talk about or is public very, I'm allowed to talk about it, is Agria. My team is working with a company, a agriculture company in Virginia and the CEO is William Layton. We are working on custom AI and data infrastructure. So his business, works on growing medium and, let's see if I can use all the correct words, sustainable vertical farming, completely organic, really high yields of crops, 170 different crops he can grow, and really thinking about modularity of how you can grow things inside sustainable agriculture. And so as he thinks about scaling his business, and currently it's pen and paper, when he has one farm versus 10 farms versus thousands of locations, et cetera, documenting that and having an infrastructure for the data and what we can do with the data and machine learning and kind of the AI architectures that are built upon that. They're really starting with some basic sensors, some app dashboards, really start in small with huge impact. So that's one of the big projects that we're working on. It's so interesting to hear, and of course, I'm your CTO, so I know about this project, but how this is not HR, this is not content creation, this is not like an internal work, your typical paper pushing AI automation. It's something in a completely different vertical than most people think about when they think about AI. What other verticals do you think are sort of like untapped gold in that respect that are... outside of that traditional, you know, when you think about what the tech bros are doing. Totally. Well, and I think I'm so lit up by agriculture. We're doing other projects in what are traditionally kind of blue collar sectors, things that I've seen recently, not that we're doing a project in this yet, but in trucks hauling things and kind of here in the United States, we have AAA that helps you move your car if there's a problem, but most Americans do not. have AAA and so like towing, the word is towing. I saw this startup in towing recently that's making hand over fist by having an app that actually is data driven for pricing. And I was just like, how cool is that? And unsurprisingly towing doesn't have a lot of software and AI folks in it yet. And so I think there's huge opportunities as everyone else. How many projects and bots have I worked on in contact centers, customer service, like literally the last 10 years, that's... What paid the bills for me a lot. But these projects are more diverse, they're different stakeholders. There are very few software Chad bros. You know, like it's a completely different thing with huge opportunities as you and I both know. Yeah, and I like how that opportunity isn't just like, you know, the monetary payback, which we appreciate, of course, and are very interested in, but it's also like the impact of daily working life that looking at some of these different verticals can really have. So when you look at your own success or the success of a project, what are some common metrics that you actually think about? Like you can go, this is the measure by which I've done well. Yeah. That's a toughie. It's a toughie. I mean, we define different variables and say like, this is how we move a needle. Like, you know, this is when we deploy the project and they see the dashboard and the customer says, ta -da, that's what I needed. Or like, I feel like there's a light bulb moment for the customer that happens. That's one of my key pieces of success, paying my team a happy team. Someone was recently asking me like, how do I hire? I was like, I don't have that problem typically. Like people love usually to work on these teams and projects. How do I measure success? I think for at least this agriculture one, I really see how our work directly relates to climate change and impact for people on the ground. Luckily I'm allowed to talk more about this, but we have customers who are veterans. We have customers around the world where they don't get fresh food often. And people literally tell me about losing huge amounts of weight because the food is so bad. They're just like. as I see climate change impact my region and my world to be able to work on a project that's tangibly working on sustainable food locally as we see problems in supply chain. Maybe everyone feels this in a different way, but like that I'm actually like the vestiges of my hands and my team's like work is on that really, really hits home for me. And as an entrepreneur, do you find that because it's a shorter line between your actionable work and impact rather than being employee 1005 at Google, how do you feel about that being on your entrepreneurial journey? Yeah, well, I think about it more in like, I have a lot more agency. There have been several times at different companies I've worked at or startups where I don't agree with management. I can't imagine anyone has ever felt that in this room. But you know, at the end of the day, like I bring a proposal to a CEO and say, hey, my best recommendation is X. And here's all the steps I've gone through. As long as they agree, sometimes they don't agree. It's not my call at the end of the day. Here at Clarity AI, we bring things to stakeholders, we can walk away. like if a customer's not treating as well, et cetera. So like, I feel different about pay equity. I feel different about agency, setting my own hours, setting my own travel schedule. Yeah. that measure of success could be this freedom that you're talking about. Like... yeah, how many customers Jennie want to own us and acquire us? And we're like, actually, we love our freedom. That's one of the perks of the gig, not the other way around. I don't know if that'll change. Let's see if one of them acquires us in the next three to five. For a first. have like a financial freedom and because it's your brain that is running, you know, your current entrepreneurial journey, you can roll it up and do it again. I think that's like an interesting point for like, as you get into AI or thinking of like little tools you can roll up in no code situations or whatever. You're like, yes, this experiment or this, I can do this for this instance and then it works, sweet. It doesn't work, let's roll again. You know, that it's quick to turn around. It is. What has really surprised you or challenged you from going from, you know, what I probably see as quite a safe nine to five, although are any nine to five safe now, to this entrepreneurial journey in the AI field? surprises. Right now, I think my surprise is how much sales and kind of financial stuff I have to do. Recently, for a certain project, we did a five year projections of the fiscals. And I don't have an MBA. I, you know, I make money for myself, but like, to really think about a company's P&L, profit and loss statement, across a huge span of time. How many humans will we need? How much computing do we need? Like that type of fiscals at the table with investors is outside my comfort zone or burgeoning on like, whoa, but luckily we have a bookkeeper who's looking over things. I mean, it's not me alone, but that like sales, money, how we play the game. Like I think I've joked about this, but like I owe some salespeople and biz dev in my life some apologies. because that job is way harder than I anticipated. There's a man named Alex out there. If you're listening, I am sorry and I owe you an apology. It's some really hard finessing of not only the numbers, but the relationship management like that, that sales and finance piece is really getting sharpened right now for me. That's awesome. One of the things I noticed through your other guests that they all seem to mention is that this constant curiosity and lifelong learning. And that I think is very true when you have to switch hats so many times or like be able to speak in the vocabulary of that domain. So like I know from my experience with all these financial tasks that we've had to do recently that my vocabulary in that area has definitely been extended and very pushed to the limit as well. Well, there's nobody else. You look around, you're like, at this point, our team is so lean. You point around and it's you. but the great thing about it is that the next time we encounter a project in finance or in this projection space or particularly in P &L, we can be like, well, we've just done this. We know that this was a major bottleneck for us. What if we can automate that section? Or I think from my development background, one of the best places to start with for project ideas is problems that you have yourself. Because it's very rare that you're the only one with that problem. So if you can solve it for yourself, it means that you maybe have a product idea that can be solving this problem for other people as well. For sure. Well, and I, this is something I actually came upon another, a different day when I was talking with investors about how they evaluate AI startups, which is so ironic and very meta. And we were talking about how a lot of them don't budget in computing costs. Like as they said at P &Ls and someone asked me like, do you do consulting for the fiscals of investors or startups as they are making multi -year projections? I was like, no, but someone should hire me to do that. totally. That can be another service offered. I find it so interesting because I don't think it's just, you know, it's so easy to forget how much computing power and how much resources actually lend to your, you know, like even when you ask chat GPT a single question, there's huge resources behind that and it's easy to forget them because the user experience is so invisible, right? And I mean, same with search. It's not the first time that we're sort of making all that impact invisible, but... Yeah, if you even do a Google search, you've got to think about like what's actually ticking in the background, which is just like tenfold. No, not at all. this morning, I was literally writing the chapter of my Wiley book about computing and the environment and these like, computing costs being the size of a small nation into the next projections. And like, we don't have a lot of good benchmarking for carbon footprints of AI, probably by design, do people want to measure their trash? Like, it's that thing about how the landfall is never in the city center, right? And because all of these data centers and the resources that they're using are not in your backyard, it's easier to gloss over that section of like, yeah, it's in the cloud. Yeah, I like it when like you talk to older people like, no, that's in the cloud. They're like, is it? Yeah. Well, I think that the best way to think about it is the cloud is just someone else's computer. It's not your computer, it's someone on someone else's computer, which is probably this. of the book has pictures of the data centers. They're really ugly. Well, generally. Have you seen, yeah. So we've kind of covered up what my next question is, which is like, what have you learned from, like say the Avere Project overall? What's like some really impactful things you've taken away from the process that you've been partaking in so far? Yeah. so many. Gosh. I think the off the bat, the relationship with my stakeholder and he is all good. William, that's fine. My customer is a fabulous human to work with and he is he has his zone of genius and we have our zone of genius and the ability to work together and be in different. really important meetings, kind of good cop, bad cop, like really complimenting our skillset. And sometimes when we don't agree, that we align on the goal. Actually, you thought you were gonna be doing this, but the goal of the meeting is just about getting the partner to the next round. The goal is actually this. And so our communication and deep respect and learning from each other, I mean, people, people, people, like literally in business, that's the name of the game. One of the things I love about this agriculture project, In addition to learning more about agriculture, which is a new domain for me, is like, I've just been in voice and conversational AI. And I really am burgeoning out to think about architectures and kind of how we think about sensor data integrated into our data sets and triangulating. how, like my, I just hadn't ever worked on a project quite like that. And in the way that we foresee the next three to five years going with this project. So. And it's just really hard to close really, really big dollar signs. The dollar signs just keep getting bigger. So you and I have talked about like it sometimes it feels like play money. It's just like you project out and to be like the number of millions and billions and becoming a unicorn for some of our customers. We're just like, whoa, the algebra. We're not in the scrimpy places anymore. We're really thinking about selling to governments, selling to military. Like these are. Big projects, big impact, big dollar signs. I've always, I like how in this particular case as well, they don't care that it's a small team. They just want to see a team that can make things happen. So I think that's important if you're on your own journey in this space is that you don't need to instantly hire a team of 20 devs to get off the ground, but you might have to be willing to go to 99 investor meetings, at least to get a yes or figure out a way to be revenue positive before you even have to ask for investor money. But. Yeah, I think that's probably one of the big learnings that I've taken away from it as well. Talking about these different verticals, where do you see, and it's interesting, for you, it's across different fields that different AI technology can be used. You're not connected or rooted in just one application of like this, you know, amorphous word we say is AI. it could be so many different applications. So how about you answer, hmm. Yeah, I guess we can stick with the original. Where do you see your AI field heading? And then just, you know, it seems like a too narrow a question in a way. So answer what you will. Yeah, I mean, the thing is I've been asked this type of question of like, the big future of AI or like the big future of blah, blah, blah, how many times across my career? And I feel like for me, the biggest time, I think people actually laughed at me when I said this at CES, I was at CES 2020. And I was like, I want really practical stuff. I want productivity tools. Why in this day and age? Do I write emails? Why do I have a keyboard? Like, there are so many things that I think are such low -hanging fruit that I don't know if Clarity AI is gonna tackle, but like, when I think about our everyday devices, when I think about really big impacts to different populations, or like, the simple thing of my dad having ginormous hands, he hates typing. Like, you should see his emoji usage, you know what I mean? I strongly believe that which we find default today is gonna radically change. In researching the book, one of my friends says this quote about the smartphones we use today are gonna be thought of as like monkeys with boxes of the transformations we're gonna see in the near future. He's actually working on them, so he would well know. But I think I just went to an, I was a judge at an AI startup fair a few days ago, and I talked about all these different sensors within the tech that we have. Like how, you know, this cup today is just a cup, but could there be sensors about my saliva? You know, like, could there, what kind of, what data is all around us right now? that is not being leveraged in the slightest. Of course, there's privacy concerns. What are you doing with that data? Is it even useful or helpful? Why did you don't care about my saliva? I don't know. But like the abundance of it that right now is not being leveraged. So I think that we don't need to go overboard and overkill, but some basic perfunctory, like practical daily tools for the relatively mundane are so powerful, so powerful. that's so cool. I totally agree with that. It's super cool to see Sora generate amazing video, but I'd like my calendar to be structured better. Or really, really simple stuff that I want to become invisible, like that daily life admin that no one wants to do. But if that could be taken care of, we suddenly have this cognitive load for more interesting stuff. And like you say, it doesn't have to be huge. It can be simplified. Yeah. And then like with this huge data landscape we're already creating and would be like even more intense with all this other sensor input that could happen in the future. I think we'll need tools to navigate that in an intelligent and, you know, a way that is actually beneficial because like you probably know from personal experience, having lots of numbers doesn't actually help if you can't create insights from them. Nope, nope. And is it even actionable? Are you just building a data repo that no one even knows about or leverages? Yeah. been doing like GIS research and just seeing how many siloed data stores there are that like then replicate the same data in a slightly different, slightly different formatted way, which means that you can't just marry them. It requires a lot of cleaning and you're like, what are we, why are we doing this? Why are we wasting so many cycles on doing the same thing over and over again? We should automate it. should. Well, that's one of the things, one of the startups I saw that was super cool is working on, you know, like a COVID test, that strip. They're working on a similar type of strip for endometriosis, which apparently takes about 10 years to diagnose in a $20 ,000 surgical procedure here in the United States. It's a serious problem. And I was like, wow, like, why did you choose this problem to tackle? The person said, well, actually someone from the medical center at the University of Washington walked into our office. and said, this is such a bad problem, can you please start working on this? Because people can literally walk from one part of the campus to the other. And I was just so, at first I was like, and then I was like, the medical field has this pain point and is asking startups to innovate because we're so far behind. And this product, another seven to 10 years out. If it even passes regulatory stuff, I was just like, I was like, this is a tiny little prototype, shouldn't this exist? Anyway, it was. that scoping of real, tangible problems that can change people's lives and companies, medical centers, excited to purchase them who want these things. Yeah. That's super cool. And now you're in this sort of like position of encountering all these, you know, these more ability to identify these problems across different verticals, you know, it's not like stuck in HR or, you know, content creation or whatever. But how did you start? How did you find yourself here? my gosh, you wouldn't believe. Yeah, okay, well, the language part or like my background in linguistics would not be a surprise to my eight year old self. Like I was, my sister reports that I was like teaching her languages when we were kids. Like I was always really, really curious about languages and cultures. And I'm really grateful. My parents were always like, here's this French movie of this or here's this like cool Spanish food or like there was always this like. love and excitement around international understandings. And my parents, instead of saving up for like big screen TVs, they would like save up for tickets to Thailand. You know what I mean? Like I certainly have those type of parents. Started learning French as a preteen. And I think one of the things when I think about like, I've looked at myself as I differentiate myself from my peers. And I'm trying to figure out like, where were those pivot points or like things that really, do you know what I mean? Like set me aside. And one of the things that I'm 5 '8", I'm a little bit tall for the US, not too tall, but as a kid, I was really tall. I was in the 97th percentile. So it was like Joan and like everybody else. And I think that like the tall aspect and being an extrovert and like, I feel like I knew what I wanted, like regularly, I had a very, really clear vision, was really helpful in a lot of respects to like think of myself as a leader or like assume the position of. the loud, clear -sighted person who says what she wants. So, falling in love with French, getting into languages. I went to the University of Washington for my undergrad degrees and majored in French and photography, which everyone's like, we thought you were intelligent. You know those don't make you any money, right? That's a terrible idea. Why do you do that? All my friends were pre -med, engineering this, that, and the other. computer science, you know what I mean? Like these really stable, make lots of money, prestigious career paths seem just like directly there for them. Yeah, they just like went around the table, like, you must be stupid. But I think when I think about a humanities background being my initial degrees, communicating effectively, visually representing my ideas from in my head to on a slide deck, on a wall. Like. those are skillsets I use literally every day that people pay me five figures for. You know what I mean? Like it's extremely, extremely valuable skillset. Well, I mean, now we use Canva, right? We didn't have that before, but so that kind of thing. And I think also as I think about my personal brand and like someone recently asked me if I hired someone to like create my persona online. And I was like, you don't think I could do that for myself? Like. Excuse me, I'm a little offended. But that kind of understanding of the intentionality of what we put online and how we talk about projects. So then I went off to France because I really thought I was just going to live in Europe. I was like, enough with this US thing. Europeans have better food, blah, blah, blah. I worked for the Ministry of Education down in Toulouse, teaching English and cultural stuff to underserved middle schools. And it was hard. It's kind of like a Teach for America here in the United States, except in France. And I really missed the academic intellectualism. I missed that pursuit. I kept giving my students like surveys and things because I wanted the data. Like, imagine my coworkers like, what are you doing? Literally, but I also really loved my students from middle schoolers like. the agency, the excitement they got when I asked them their preferences. What do you want to learn? Like what, can you imagine as like a 13 year old being asked what you care about instead of just being, my gosh. ago. Now it's pretty standard to expect, sorry, to expect things to be the way you want them to be. But like, yeah, you were ahead of the curve there. Well, and I think when I, I don't even, hmm. I just really wanted to know, like I was just like, what are, what is their goal? They're like forced to come here. But I think also that like those data points was another indicator to me that I wanted to go to grad school. It was like a, do I wanna be in Europe and meet somebody and like stay, et cetera. I met someone like, anyway, no, not the point, but the really thinking about. would I be happy being a language teacher? Like of all the paths I could take. Like that was something I definitely considered and I just was like, this is not enough for me at this point. So applied to grad school and got in and went to California. So from France to California and gosh, University of California Davis. It's about an hour and a half east of the Bay area and. I loved it. You biked everywhere. It was super flat, sunny, like almost every day of the year. Like I grew my hair out long, like it was California days. And I was getting my PhD in French linguistics. All kinds of things happened there, Jennie, gosh. But I really, I took all these different diverse courses in linguistics, morphology, syntax, semantics, fell in love with phonetics. like all this acoustic stuff, like these speech sounds that come out of your meaty flesh, like actually have meaning and like how do we parse them? And like, this was, this is circa 2014, 2015, like natural language processing was in a completely rudimentary place compared to today. It was thought of like super hard, like parts of speech tagging, like, and I was really interested in phonetics and people were like, why are you going into the hardest, like dark horse things? Like these may not be solved in our lifetime. Like, Why don't you just stick to some easier stuff? Like you get a job, I don't know. But I was voraciously interested in that. And I saw Duolingo's early product stuff about like, you speak into it and it like tells you if you're good enough and you learn some vocabulary in a different language. And I was like, whoa, who built this? How did they choose what's good enough? Like you speak into it, like, and it lets you go through, like I wanted to. that builder part of me really started to come out. I wanted to be in that room. I wanted to be one of those three to five people deciding what they were building on the app. Like, I didn't know anything about software development at the time. Like, I just, it was like a window peering in to that field. So kind of that linguistics, phonetics, there's a bad advisor. I'll just gloss over that part. But, I got a master's and I got a large fellowship at the University of Arizona. And by that time I knew I wanted to go into tech. So there's gonna be, maybe I'll be a professor too. Like, being a professor means make little money and live somewhere I don't want to live. Okay, next. Yeah, and the University of Arizona. Gosh, I'm telling it really long winded, Jennie. I'm sorry. I can just move faster, but like each one of these, like the parts of my life, there were all these like micro -pivots. Do I want to do this? Shall I explore that? Like it was a huge amount of investment time. And like, I think people think of my career as like overnight, like ta -da! And I was like, I was grinding for years, years. lots of tiny decisions, you know, like movies tell us that it comes to like a crux point and you're like, I've got to decide X or Y today to, you know, save the world or whatever. But actually it was like, you had to decide A and B back here and you took B. So that means now C and D is open to you and maybe E, but you need to go back to B. You know, like this pathway isn't linear and it's definitely not overnight and there's a lot of hard effort involved in it. But it is things that you can start working towards or like, like you say, it's... It isn't always giant leaps that determine your path. So making small decisions is helpful. Keep going. We're in Arizona. yeah, yeah, Arizona. I would say also, it felt like the jungle. Like I literally was trying to figure out the path amongst like this wild adventure and like the path that exists today. If I could just really quickly just speed up over to 2024, like the ability to just download models and repos of data sets from hugging face did not exist in the same way in 2015. Okay, like the ability to build as fast as well as what we're building today. that just didn't exist. So some people ask me like, why didn't, did you need a PhD? Why did you get a master's? Like all this kind of thing. I'm like, if it were just today and I got to like wind back, but see I couldn't, okay, well, I don't know. Time travel, like the opportunities for rising 20 somethings today did not exist for me. It just didn't exist. So use the opportunity, please. I'm not jelly. yeah, exactly. Like the amount that like you can just like sign into the free account, get the free tier and start making stuff. Okay, like if you sign up to OpenAI's developer portal and you put in 10 bucks, that's a ton of development, you know? And like even with exchange rate, 10 bucks is still a lot, but you're using like cents per cent to start with and you can do so much stuff. So yeah, I definitely hear you on that, like, the ease of development now. Like, it feels like the giants that we're standing on the shoulders of also grew like 200, 300 feet, you know? Like, they're suddenly way bigger, and we're seeing way further than we could from this vantage point that we didn't have back in 2015. So yeah, I totally get you on that. So after Arizona, you have a PhD. What's next for Young Joan? Well, University of Arizona was phenomenal. I must give back. And my advisor was just open every door. It was like a yes. And like my research project, I was just like, it was bigger than I had ever anticipated. And I did consulting on the side. Got my PhD was working on getting that job in the tech, taking the next step, taking that next leap. I got a job at nuance working on their phone trees and optimizing and working on the back end of enterprise was so exciting going from like startup and like academia to like enterprise, like the back end of Boeing, the back end of, like I remember opening the tool and seeing the back end of Verizon. I was like, wow, like this is the real back end. Like, well, it just, it really, Don't delete anything, right? Like the nerves of messing with like that bigger back end. And it was just, I mean, I don't mean to be throwing any, but like, it was so disorganized. And I was like, this is enterprise grade? Like, this was deployed. Like, this would not have passed the mustard back in my PhD. And I think that's the theory to practice, what actually gets shipped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. like overall, you know, from the outside of enterprise or the outside of big business, you're like, everything is going so smoothly. They have must have wonderful systems internally. They've got all their together. But then like once you open those back doors, you're like, no, no one knows what's going on. So I think like you should never be worried about, you know, you're just like a, like for me, you know, as one person in the back of rural New Zealand. house that you can't make a difference or you can't you know build your own thing you totally can. It's easy. Well not easy but like it's possible and it's like tangibly possible it's not like just someone going you know put on your dream board or your vision board this thing it's like well if you watch these tutorials and and follow these steps then you can get on and then use your own life experience to build further on that. So your first job at Nuance you see this you know I can imagine your displeasure at it being disorganized and where did you go from there? Yeah, well from there I got a... Well, we got to back up at least a year because I launched Women in Voice. I went to, or like the languages and humanities type places to the like tech places. It was a completely different demographic. I kept feeling like I was being slapped in the face. I was just like, there are no women in the building. There are no black people anywhere. Like it was just this, it felt like I was just like picked up. and like dropped in a new environment. And I was like, wow. So I launched Women in Voice in 2018 in August, worked at Nuance and then I started doing tons of Speaking. So there was just like Joan getting put on stage in fancy dresses, like back to back to back. And from there I met another company and worked at Versa. So this innovative agency based out of Australia. They had their like innovation expansion team. that I sat on as like doing pre -sales for different companies, talking about the opportunities for voice technology and conversational AI and different enterprise solutions. So it was honestly like, they just wanted me to do more public speaking and being an influencer, a very similar job to Nuance and very similar to my PhD background, but also I was closer to the biz dev people. Like I really interacted with sales in a more tangible way. Yeah, and that job was just meteoric. I was traveling so much. Honestly, I was getting scared how much I was traveling. And I was really effective with customers, so they kept wanting to send me places. But then the pandemic hit, and projects just fell out of the sky. And there was a layoff of about a third of the company was laid off in a day. That company still survives. but not to the scale it was. And I then started working, just different startups, gig here, gig there, different things. I mean, honestly, that's what, when we talk about like my career, where was the nine to five? Where was the stability? Most of my stability was more in grad school of like jobs that I was the assistant for somebody. It's been cacophonous. I don't know. I've been laid off twice from big AI startup things. But when I think about the tangible projects, the customers I worked with, like, voracious learning and my salary and just like packages of compensation kept increasing dramatically. Women in voice scaled, we tripled in size during the first few months of the pandemic because suddenly everyone was online. And so all these different events and people like, I need community. I want to be part of something. just skyrocketed. My ability to know how to negotiate my contracts radically changed. I have some amazing mentors who, my gosh, my friend told me that there are signing bonuses, like that that existed. And I was like, are you cheating? Like what's going on there? Like tell me more. And so really thinking about how I negotiate a salary and bonuses, like the whole structure, it's in my book. Go check it out. I have all my 18. I think it's 18 revenue streams, ridiculous number. But all the little percentages and numbers that one needs to negotiate for executive packages, negotiating title. So there's kind of this volatile growth that goes on and that people have seen from my Twitter when I was an influencer on Twitter to now on LinkedIn and just getting to do just cool projects. I was so excited about voice and then really thinking about how that has evolved into an integrated part of the stack. but it's not the only thing I care about. And kind of that, I don't know, I think at one point I was like married to voice, I was like, voice is the future. And now I'm like, voice is a part of the future. Yeah, yeah. It's all about that modality. Yeah. So, yeah. And then I started Clarity AI last year, mostly just because people started, excuse me, wanting to hire me. Like, there was, I was re -centering myself after some changes and I was at a happy hour. I was just like, I didn't even want to be at the happy hour. Honestly, I was like, get my butt out the door. And people were like, I could hire you? Wait, I had this project, quit this. NLP, could we talk about this? And like, there were so many follow -up calls and here we are. So, yeah. It's funny how all these different pathways do lead to now, you know? Decisions that may have felt like not the right choice turn out to be like, well, it helped you create this skill set that you can now use now. Everything you learn is... There's this Tarantino movie that talks about the main character has all these useless skills. She literally says, and that's useless skill number XYZ. But... At the end sequence, she uses them all together, all these apparently useless skills, and you're like, yeah, it mimics what you've spoken about in that you may learn something new because the job dictates, or you speak to someone new and you have a new contact, but all these little factors can lead to bigger and cooler projects. I mean, that's what we want to do, build cool stuff with cool people that have great impact. So, sort of like that journey leads well into if you wouldn't... a student or a grad or you want to change careers now, apart from reading your upcoming book, what guidance would you give someone? Yes. Well, I've talked about this many times, and it's definitely featured in the second section of my book. I have this rule called the 80 % people, 15 % projects, and the rest is skills. That your network is crucial to validating your ideas and paths, knowing about the next projects and things, like your ability. Even as we're literally building AI, people, people, people was the advice I got from my mentor back in the day. And I thought he was exaggerating. Literally, he's a very, very senior guy at a medical company. And when we sign contracts, there are two names. When I hear about the coolest opportunity, it's because someone knew somebody and they referred them to me. You and I are just like the humanness. of the ecosystem. So really investing in your career, learning how to network, talking about your personal brand, getting credit for the work you've already done, this type of thing. Projects being really actionable, tangible things. As you mentioned, like, are you really excited about this robotics thing? Cool. What's a prototype? What's a next step? Go to that tutorial. Like, even if you don't have to make a startup of it or like spend eight months like wigging it out, but like... get validation from your community, go to a robotics event. Like, do you know what I mean? Like take the next prototype step down the path. So that kind of, that iterative approach, collaborative approach, and then not just getting certificates and just like stacking them up somewhere. Like really, if you need a skill and you say, hey, wow, a little bit more Python would get me to this next level. I keep hearing from all these other people that this is the tangible thing. Okay, I'll invest in that, but not 90 % skill and 10 % hoping people will notice, which is what. boils down to talk about it, right? Like if you have a passion, talk about it. Cause not only will that help you find your people and like collaborators or future teammates or whatever, it helps with that validation and building out that network. But yeah, I totally think you're right about how like it's also reasonably old fashioned to do that thing of like many, many, many, many certificates that, you know, sit on my wall, but like the actionable skill of implementation of that. learning isn't ever done. And so yeah, little projects is the way forward and talking about them. curiosity and the future proofing of our career and our lives is that curiosity is that continued investment. Like I usually make the joke of like, if you choose not to learn anymore, you're going to fossilize or like either evolve or die. Like, really, like to think again, back to this like 30 year career of doing the exact same thing from nine to five. Are you a cog in Ford's machinery? Like I would be, well. Who knows? Let's... we can't dismiss is that some of those people who are still in those 40 year roles, like they are such knowledge keepers and like what is going to happen when they retire? Like, that's where we should be talking to, to make sure we can implement the next stage of what that business person looks like or like what their role is fulfilled by. But I think, you know, this intergenerational knowledge, there is a bit of a fear that that can just be cut and we start back from scratch. So like, Yeah. at what's been done before, but not going, because we've done it that way, that's the way we should do it. And having open eyes to different opportunities is super key. I quote you in my book talking about that. That's how it's always been, like normalizes horrific things that are not okay. horrific things and like poor decisions and the funny thing is like the people who you know there's probably heaps of stuff that we do because that's the way we've always done it but like the person who first made that decision didn't like go this is the way that we will always do it henceforth you know and like I think that's also a thing when you're on sort of like this beginning journey so you're getting into AI some decisions you make you can absolutely roll back on. Like you don't, and I think we've encountered this as we've developed Clarity as well, is like, you can get so bogged down with going, is this the right decision? But it doesn't have to be the right decision forever and ever. It can be, is this the right decision for now? And deciding which decisions you can roll back and which ones you have to really like worry about probably saves a bunch of time. So your guidance is basically talk about it. Find your network. Yeah, people, people, people. And invest in yourself, right? Like, so it's either spending time or money on improving your skillset or leadership qualities or ways to engage your networks. Are there, if someone hears the podcast today and they're listening out there in listener land. and say, wow, I want to do projects just like this. What are your recommendations for them? Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's back to the advice I was just providing, but the concept of your network, the coffee chats, the building, like the people who's doing the work, read their work, talk to them, the tangible projects and like visuals of those projects that you can speak to that are packaged up. I think like there's nothing to it but to do it kind of thing. And often I meet people who I don't mean to be rude, but they're holding themselves back mentally. or there's some block and it's frequently confidence, unfortunately, or there's like a negative voice of friend, parent, maids themselves, you know, saboteur, but like, no one looks like me, or I can't do that because I don't have $3 million, or, you know, whatever that voice is, but there's something between all and nothing. I swear, of just this next little step. And see, if it doesn't feel right, oof, that's not the right thing, cool, we don't need to go down that path. But... but to take that next little bite. Because like William says, you can eat an elephant if you take one bite at a time. Just a little nibble. Yeah, I used it again recently. So yeah, maybe I will take ownership of it. But yeah, I totally agree with you on that. And like, it's also, you know, we encounter lots of tech bros in our careers where they're like, yeah, I've started my new startup. We've got five million dollars invested in our seed round from our parents. You know, and it's like that is not accessible to everyone at all in the slightest is that that sort of you know already having money enables you to take huge risk with whatever you do. But I think because of the ecosystem now that with AI and like no code solutions and access to API's and all that kind of stuff. And access to networks. Like I cold DM'd someone quite famous the other day. And like, you could never do that in 1999, you know? There's no Like just, cold DM'd. So, the accent, the accent. Yeah. So I think that that risks. is way less. So you can keep the stability of your nine to five if you have one and take little risks instead of having to be like all in or and you hear it a lot in startup hustle culture as well that you know you have to be 100 % into your project. Well, eventually but you could start off with like 2%. You know, do a little bit. I think that's the democratization that's going on right now is that like you don't need five million to start something like you really or a PhD, please do not get a PhD. I cannot recommend it to the 99 % of people who asked me about getting one. I'm like, I don't recommend it to almost anybody. It was a seeming requirement back in the day. If someone wants to work in AI, you don't need a PhD. You want to become an entrepreneur, still don't need a PhD. Do you really wanna become an academic? The whole industry is dying. Like, oy, cannot recommend. So I think really, Really think about what lights you up, what are opportunities, getting in the door, talking to people, being heard differently. I think it's just, it's a great day for, they didn't make me sign an NDA, so I'll say them out loud. There's a fancy luxury, big luxury band, I won't say them out loud. And I was talking to them about AI tools and democratization and the stakeholder jaw dropped, like, democratization? We don't want that, we're a legacy brand. And I was like, have you not seen Canva? Do you not see Elf Beauty just raking in the money? Again, back to the evolve war, I'm very worried about you. absolutely. so you just mentioned like not getting a PhD. See, I have a slightly different view on that in that I'm seriously worried about like students entering computer science for like junior dev, cog in the wheel jobs. That's done. Like I think that position will be filled by AI quickly, but we still need senior people. We need those innovators and the people who are pushing the boundaries of what can be done. But if they don't necessarily go through that junior development cycle, where are they coming from? And I think that's yet to be answered. But it will be. There will always be those people who come through with innovative solutions. But I don't think it's necessarily through the traditional academic track anymore. So programs, certificates, jobs. Things you have to do. Well, I just want to speak to your dev thing because I spoke at a conference recently and people like, I thought I had a secure position. I thought like, I thought software engineering or data science, six figure job unstable. Not the case. And when they hear my talks, they get even more. And I think you're right of like, the CTO path may still have a lot of that developmental stuff, but like, Although, but I just talked to my friend who works at Chewy as a software engineer. She's like, Joan, I'm not worried about my job. It's so manual here. Like I will be rock solid for a long time. a lot of enterprises still using Windows 95. And so, although there is this hype that it will go, and it will go eventually, there's still this, large corporations move very, very, very slowly. And they hold a lot of cash and provide a lot of jobs. So I don't think it's this immediate thing, but definitely my children. probably won't go through that traditional role. You know, like it probably won't exist by the time they're entering the workforce. But yeah, I guess my concerns is about, there's a movie that you probably, you might not have seen called Idiocracy. It's not a well -made movie. It's not particularly good movie, but it speaks about how like we hit the certain level of technology and people kind of can stop trying. It's also represented well in the Disney Pixar movie WALL -E. But like, You know, like there gets to be a point where because everything becomes so easy and automated and done for you, that you can kind of give up in a way. And I hope that instead of what's represented in those movies where the world becomes very, very stupid and idiocracy, and in Wally we become those sort of like sausage things floating around in chairs. Yeah, yeah. And not questioning anything. I hope it's more like Renaissance style where it has this like huge. And obviously bad things happen in the renaissance as well, but like, you know, there was a global spurt of creativity And I'm hoping it's that sort of future rather than not Yeah more than, yeah, I think a creativity, but also a freedom. Like I talk to people who I'm like, I don't think we need to be sitting in front of screens for 60 hours a week for our jobs. I really think that when I, if I get some of my work done, I'm like, let's go take a nap. Let's go work out, like play with my dog. Like there's so many things that fuel creativity and my ability to, like productivity in different ways to do work differently. that might give a more return to local community as well, which would be super good for everyone involved. And like I recently saw this thing about how they've sort of reevaluated how Neanderthals spent their time. And like originally it was like, you know, they spent eight hours hunting and gathering all day and they were, you know, subsistent living and it was terrible, terrible time. And then like new sort of research has been done based off like middens and fire pits that show that actually they had like six to eight hours of leisure time, which was community building and cultural building. And like, that sounds super cool, instead of spending, you know, 10 hours a day in front of a computer and not talking to the person next to you in a cubicle or, or not knowing who your neighbors are. So yeah, hopefully like the overall impact of AI on life in general is good. I hope so too. Well, and I also, one of the things I, or just as we think about this, one of the key stories about this I've also been thinking about is my friend who works in financials and like the shape of his job and what's on paper is his job and why he's actually valuable. This is like, he literally is going to training about AI in his company. They're like upskilling and he works in finance, but the spreadsheets that he works on is not the secret sauce. The secret sauce is that he's really good with fiery, angry PMs. I'm dead serious. Like these very, very intense conversations that are happening amongst clients and customers and project managers who have their own domain expertise and they don't want to deal with nitty gritty financials of this invoice is outstanding$150 ,000 and I've been waiting and we're changing three number or like, do you know what I mean? Like these, the emotional communication stuff is what my friend excels in. Hmm. And I don't see that being automated by a bot anytime soon. They have legacy, they have super, super legacy software. And I'm like, someone or some AI could help with the spreadsheet. Could it help with these multi-stakeholder conversations of intense anger? This whole, do you know what I mean? Like that's why if he wants to be employed in that sector, he will have a job for a very long time. Yeah, so like leaning into the skill that he's really amazing at and then figuring out how this AI automation ML line can support the other part of his job so he can get even more amazing at the skill that he has. Yeah, I like that vision of the future. So what's your sound bite? What's the one takeaway? What is gonna be the catch line for this interview? Summarize all of that in one sentence. Go. being open to change, being, the world keeps changing in front of our eyes. So the path evolves as we evolve. So there's this dynamic dynamism on both sides, I'd say. I certainly, I'm from Portland originally, so like the kind of the hipster contrarian part of me that says like, people say I should do this, but those people don't seem happy. Or like checking in with those truths for myself included, being like, ooh, that path seemed cool. Then I tried it and actually, not so much. Like I think that like being in tune with oneself, it's very complicated trying to be in tune with oneself. The ecosystem is changing, you're changing. Like this openness or like optimism that I think through my career, every time I've been like, I'm gonna fall so hard right on my face, it's gonna be the worst thing has been right before like the dark before the dawn. Some of the biggest like things I thought were terrors. Soon thereafter, I signed the biggest deal of my life or some amazing radical thing happened. Signing this book deal, what things may become next, hopefully signing my first eight figure deal very, very soon, like thinking about what failure does or doesn't mean. I know that I'm a white woman and I have wild amounts of privilege in some respects, but this larger optimistic picture is what I'd really want this person who's listening to to take away. sounds like a really good thing for them to take away. Yeah, I totally think that you're right in that everything feels really dynamic and moving. And like we do hear about like the stability, you know, that maybe our the previous generation had to us, which may not just may not come around again for a while. And being open to that change is so important and like not fighting it. Well, I think there's, I see great opportunity in the volatility. Like. Like the agency that I have now in my life compared to other stages of my life, like anyone could be making money in all kinds of different ways and don't have to be chained to a desk at a day job. Like I think that's fabulous. the sound bite. Anyone can be doing anything and making money and having great impact on the world without being chained to a desk. future -proof your income? My team is trying to find a phrase that has this, like, rich with no day job. Or like, my income is future -proofed, so fire me as you wish. But some people aren't there yet. Some people are still in this scarcy, I'm terrified place. Yeah. some there is, you know, like we like you mentioned, there's privilege here where we can be like, it's okay to take this risk because of previous things, or like our circumstances or whatever. But like, reiterating that some of the risks you can take are really little. And they could lead to great things and embracing their voluntarily. Yeah. I think not living, not letting anxiety sit in the driver's seat. I certainly struggle with anxiety in certain places and times and acknowledging my fear and doing it anyway. That's what I was freaking out. One of our customers wanted to triple the SOW or green light, the biggest SOW that we proposed to them. And like in the meeting when they were like, yeah, we want it. We're going to, we're going to green light it. I like was driving to a dance cardio. And I was just like, my gosh, this might actually happen. Like, is my team ready for this? Like I'm driving over there and I was talking to my mom and my mom was like, maybe you should just opt out. Maybe you should just like not say like the SOW was nice, but like we're actually not gonna do it. Or like, she heard my anxiety as like, don't do it. And I was like, mom, I've been working for 10 months to get this type of opportunity. Like I am both terrified, excited. Like, maybe that's my own like, because of excitement, like driving to dance cardio, but like pushing myself pushes our team pushes the impact we can have like I am delighted to do that project. I'm terrified. But like that impact that we can have in the world and to feel that expansion feeling in my muscles in my squats as I go to dance cardio. Instead of this scrappy fear mongering thing. And I know it's not for everybody and someone may be listening to this and be like, this doesn't fit my life at all. I'm in a situation where, right, terror does not sound good and you're maybe struggling to pay the bills or you're underwater in debt. But I really, if you read my book, if you continue consuming my content, there are specific steps and paths to paying the bills, future -proofing your income and doing really cool, really cool stuff. Mm -hmm, totally. I think that's excellent advice, excellent takeaways. And that was the last question on the list.-a -bong. Okay, well Jennie, any, you know me quite well these days. We've known each other several years. Are there things that you wouldn't like to make sure people know, secrets of the Joan working with me, et cetera, that we would want to make sure to cover? Maybe just like a short thing about how serving your own physical and mental health enables you to... you know, be most productive in your work life as well. like I can't think of what the specific question there is, but like some sort of statement around like, you know, how can you do it all, Joan? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I openly talk about going to therapy. It's amazing. It is super freaking helpful. I have a great therapist. I work out. You know, I literally was writing part of the book the other day and my brain got to a glitch. I was like, how do I write this section? Like, you know what? I'm at a block. I'll just go on a walk. Literally didn't even finish the block and my brain had already fixed the problem. I kept going on the walk. But like, I did, like the ability to, the physical and mental health are interconnected and my ability to work out, take care of my mind, take breaks, work on rest, like prioritizing rest is something I've struggled with as a self -described workaholic. And so really to be able to serve my team well, to be able to serve my customers well, my family and friends, I have to take care of my physical body and things like dance cardio or just like. super helpful getting, like, wiping the brain. And that, I think also the other thing we haven't talked about much, Jennie, is the investing stuff. We just talked about money, but like, I think being an investor has been really important to me of like what gets built. So do you want to just say a little bit about how you started on that investment journey? And from an outsider perspective, I imagine that people think that to be an investor you have to have millions and millions and millions stacked away and it's a complex process. So how would you describe to the listener how you got started on that journey and how can they do it? Yeah. Well, I have never been on a golf course. No. I first started thinking about investing the way I do right now when I realized that like, I was like, what projects get greenlit? What projects happen at companies? the founders get to decide. Why did the founders get to decide? the investors invest in them. There's kind of this like streamlined thing of like, who was the agency to make the decisions basically? And I was like, who are the investors and why do they, or like all this whole like power structure. And once I realized the investors have a huge outside power dynamic in this ecosystem, I wanted to learn how to get in that room or be there. So as Jennie jokingly, you talk about like, you don't need millions and millions. Like to invest in the stock market here in the United States, I think it's like literally $1 on sites like Public or SoFi or otherwise. to invest in startups, even if you're not mega, mega wealthy, you can do crowdfunding, which is how I certainly started of, I believe in this company that is doing really cool hair products for black women and black women's hair. Like if I can give 50 bucks to be a micro investor into this crowdfunding deal. I learned from my mentors, I took some classes about how you think about boring investments in, Houses in the stock market and how you probably want a sliver of your portfolio Disclaimer, I'm not you know certified but the thinking about your your financial picture Some of them should be high -risk very volatile hugely opportunistic and you could lose it all but that being a sliver of your portfolio and supporting startups you believe in so Writing checks and there's one thing that I say you like a company. There's another thing to actually give them money and so and to have the teeny little sliver of the money, so I It's really, I don't know, my friend told me that, she's like, wow, you call yourself an investor? I'm like, well, I am an investor. She's like, how many young women self-identify as the word investor? I really want more of us. Please join me. it. That's really good. One of the, one of another question that I'll ask that might be useful for the listeners is like throughout this interview, you've said the word mentor or advisor a whole lot. Like how did you build the stable of people to help you? And like, I imagine that you're a mentor and advisor to another group of people as well. how did you build that group, that village? And then, that's probably the... The most interesting part. Yeah, when my time at UC Davis was not going well and the people technically on paper that were not helping my career, or like I felt this dissonance between like helping my career and like person on paper, it wasn't matching up. I built relationships relatively organically with professors I really respected or like go to their office hours, let them know who I am. I will absolutely say that I was the person in the front row making sure I did every reading, raising my hand, like being very, very visible was relatively easy for me, but cultivating the relationship, asking them for things back and forth. I think one of the words about mentor or like mentee, there's a power dynamic of like the one who learns from the older one kind of world. And I don't think about that as I've learned more because like, I talked to my friend the other day, he's like, well, you're my mentor. I was like, what? You're my mentor. Or like, we both actively learn from each other. The power dynamics, we have such complementary and different skill sets that he told me he's jealous of my career in some respects. I was like, what? I'm jealous of your career in some respects. Wow. Anyway, but these dedicated, mutualistic relationships that both parties are benefiting, continuing to follow up. asking for help in different respects, the trust and respect that's grown. So being almost burned at UC Davis, moving to University of Arizona, I was like, I'm gonna build my network here. I like found this huge rolodex of professors, I'm like, I'm gonna go to everybody's office hours. I'm gonna figure out the people who will help me open the doors, and then through Women in Voice are just like. The people always got me, I actually have a table in the book if it makes it through all the editing, the coolest opportunities of my life and the person who got them for me or like the person who was the connector. And there's like a list of like 20 different things of like, you think I just applied? No, no, no, I built a relationship. I got the recommendation. This person was the key to unlocking this possibility. So like I said, I mentioned, I've lived it out. People, people, people, invest in your network. Nice, very nice. Yeah, and it's like such a conscious choice, right? Like you say, beautiful sound, but yeah, perfect. That's all I got. That's all the questions. And I think there's more than enough things to excite the audience. Jennie, thank you for your time. It's very precious. I know I get to see more of you than most, but I just... She's a day and a half ahead of me, folks. we mostly do a lot of slack. Async for the win. Very... Still exceptionally productive. Well, Jennie, thank you for your time. Thank you for interviewing me on this bonus episode for our guests. Really appreciate it. absolute pleasure and we'll talk again really soon. Okay, bye. Oh gosh, was that fun. Did you enjoy that episode as much as I did? Well, now be sure to check out our show notes for this episode that has tons of links and resources and our guest bio, etc. Go check it out. If you're ready to dive in to personalize your AI journey, download the free Your AI Roadmap workbook at yourairoadmap .com / workbook. Well, maybe you work at a company and you're like, hey, we want to grow in data and AI and I'd love to work with you. Please schedule an intro and sync with me at Clarity AI at hireclarity .ai. We'd love to talk to you about it. My team builds custom AI solutions, digital twins, optimizations, data, fun stuff for small and medium sized businesses. Our price points start at five, six, seven, eight figures, depends on your needs, depending on your time scales, et cetera. If you liked the podcast, please support us. Can you please rate, review, subscribe, send it to your friend, DM your boss, follow wherever you get your podcasts. I certainly learned something new and I hope you did too. Next episode drops soon. Can't wait to hear another amazing expert building in AI. Talk to you soon! Hey folks, welcome to Your AI Bootcamp. My name is Joan Palmiter Bajorek. I am so excited to invite you to join cohort one of your AI Bootcamp. What is this Bootcamp all about? Well, it's literally the answers to all the folks in my DMs asking how I did it, This four week intensive Bootcamp is about your professional brand setting your goals. being seen for the work you've already done, and big coffee outreach. I strongly recommend you come join us. I invite you. It's going to be awesome. People are already signing up from all around the world. Check it out yourairoadmap .com slash Hope to see you there.