• What is the most amazing thing to you about Siri? ◦ The fact that it works! • Early life ◦ Grew up in Boston ◦ Middle class family ◦ Younger brother, did a technology path through Netscape and Yahoo ‣ Joined together for Siri ◦ Has a younger sister ◦ Mom was copy editor, dad was environmental engineer ◦ Went to Brandeis ◦ Loved how computers work, even more interested in how people work • Post graduation ◦ Had 3 job offers, didn't know quite what to do ◦ Focused on what was important to him - true value ◦ His goal: I want to learn a new language and see more of the world ◦ Verbally stated goal important, also important to tell people so they will help you ◦ Worked at a computer company in France • Why does the goal have to be verbally stated, and what happened from that? ◦ If you stay true to yourself, you can make the right choice. ◦ Be the author of your life • Decision to go to grad school ◦ Was bored ◦ Wanted to learn ◦ Went to grad school at UCLA :( ◦ But he thinks we're better: "They don't have this class. You guys have something special." ◦ Went for Masters of Science and Artificial Intelligence ‣ Usually takes 3 years, completed in 9 months ◦ Philosophy: do more than you think you can ◦ Just as stressed when he took a lighter course load ◦ Business and stress are constants ◦ Planned on going back to France, but wanted to start to form a career ◦ Burning question was: where can I stay for 10 years and not get bored? ‣ The answer: SRI International ‣ The researchers get to work on the most interesting problems ‣ It was a playground
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‣ Completed more than 10 years and never got bored Work at SRI ◦ Challenge - interact with a computer in a more natural way ◦ Created "web services before there was a web" ◦ Called it delegated computing ◦ Created a tablet computer in 1990, had speech and handwriting recognition ‣ "A vision for Siri" Doug Engelbart ◦ Hero and friend ◦ Invented mouse ◦ Invented first email system ◦ Invented first hyperlink system ◦ Wrote a paper on word processing far before it existed ◦ Created the first multiple window system ◦ Showed off "mother of all demos" (need to look that up) ◦ More a social scientist than an engineer ◦ Did this because he wanted computers to be a better tool with which to solve the world's problems ◦ Invented term "collective intelligence" Leaving SRI ◦ Two goals ‣ Need enough money to buy a house and support a child ‣ Want to take research ideas and try them ◦ In 1999 joined business to business e-commerce ◦ Joined VerticalNet ◦ Worked at a mobile computing company Returned to SRI ◦ Mobile company sold to big company, didn't want to go ◦ CALO project - cognitive assistant that learns and organizes ◦ Became chief architect on CALO 2007 ◦ Verbally stated goal - make five projects that could impact users ◦ Decided to pick the best and take it forward, but picked one major one minor in 2008. Ended up doing a "minor minor" too The projects ◦ Engelbart vision - move the world forward ◦ How can you make a difference? ◦ Created Change.org ◦ Not a lot of money in nonprofits, needed some money
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◦ Started Genetic Finance ◦ Originally started third as stealthcompany.com, ultimately became Siri ◦ Technology passion How he raised money ◦ Change - self funded and funded by other people working on it ◦ Genetic Finance - raised angel funding ‣ Got people in finance world to contribute ◦ Siri - needed 20 incredible engineers ◦ Went to VCs What Change.org does ◦ Today it is focused on campaigns ◦ 12 different areas - things like human rights, education, environment ◦ Campaigns are things that anyone can start ◦ Write a petition with a target and can promote it ◦ Now have 100 full time people ◦ It is profitable ◦ More than 10 million active users ◦ More than 1 million new users every month ◦ Often a main vehicle that comes to media attention ◦ Got news when Obama used Change.gov Becoming an entrepreneur ◦ Started in his 40s, urges us to do it earlier ◦ "Starting a company from scratch is the most rewarding, exciting, fulfilling thing I've ever done." ◦ Created a list of the best people he ever wanted to work with Siri ◦ Every early employee got a picture frame ‣ Told them to pick a hero, put his photo in it, and put a quote in it that captures something meaningful that shows what they stood for and said ◦ Siri not meant to replace people, built as a tool to enhance people Working prototype ◦ Created demo in about a month ◦ Started in office in March 2008 ◦ Took two years, launched in February 2010 Apple acquisition ◦ Steve Jobs called two weeks later ◦ First question was, "how did you get this number?" ◦ Looked at their developer account ◦ Went to Steve Jobs' house
◦ Became clear quickly that he was interested in working with them y ◦ "He was not kicking back relaxed. He had a fire like I've never seen in anyone else." ◦ Didn't jump, acquisition wasn't part of the plan ◦ Jobs persisted, and they eventually came to terms when vision was aligned ◦ Acquired in April 2010 • How he shared the news ◦ Called a roadmap meeting ◦ Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall walked through the door ◦ "Here's our roadmap" ◦ Stayed an hour or so answering every question employees had ◦ First time Steve Jobs had went to an acquired company and welcomed them to Apple ◦ Said to Adam, "I want Apple to be your candy store." • Launch of the iPhone 4S ◦ Had no idea they would be so central to the launch ◦ Very emotional ◦ Goal was to make an app that was an icon on the wall of an Apple Store ◦ Siri became the front door • Q&A ◦ Origin of the name ‣ Wanted it to be human like, short, easy to pronounce, not boring ‣ Did a sorting of available domain names with that criteria, and everyone had a different interpretation but everyone liked it ‣ For him it was a tip of the hat to SRI, means secret in Swedish so tip of the hat to stealth days ◦ Research world gives great way to generate and cultivate ideas ‣ Invaluable to learn commercial skills ‣ Sweet spot is the startup ‣ Can innovate faster than a big company but for real users ◦ People needed for a tech entity ‣ Idea man ‣ Executers ‣ Marketeers ◦ Siri's personality ‣ Wasn't planned, just happy it worked as well it did ‣ Surprise and delight • Professional personality mostly about getting the job done • But should go a little bit beyond
‣ Dealing with complexities of the human voice • Algorithms for speech recognition have not changed much over 30 years • Data problem: where do you get data of people speaking that can be transcribed? • When people use it you can get data to improve it ‣ His belief on how to live your life: • Tells himself he's the luckiest person in the world and works hard to make that so. Really believes in authoring your life. ‣ Really spend time on the words around your goals • Each word should strike that core nerve of what's bothering you