“Ignem Mittere in Terram”

Hi, I’m Simba! I’m based in the Bay Area.

My World View

• There’s a whole debate on who actually said this but I live by it — “Only one thing I know, and that is I know nothing”. The world is full of mysteries, and learnings. I for one, marvel at this!

• I’m a big believer in radical optimism, a beginner’s mindset, hard work, and luck. The world wouldn’t be where it is today if it weren’t for people who lived this mindset. We should be forever grateful to the Mandelas, the Feynmans, the Einsteins, the Harriets…..the list goes on and on.

Professional / Semi-professional affiliations

• Education — Currently a Grad at Stanford Engineering + Knight-Hennessy Scholar + Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI + TVF + Forever Vol

• Entrepreneurship — 2X startup founder (failed), 3X small business founder (all successful), SV Icons

• Venture — MVP Ventures, Contrary Capital

• Working for someone else — Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, Zoox, Microsoft, Oak Ridge National Lab, NBCUniversal, Bayer Pharma, Dow Chemical

• Social work — Digityze, Youth Against AIDS, UNSDG, Habitat for Humanity

• Community — SV Icons Community (1300+ members)

What I’m spending my grad school time on……

I’m spending most of my time thinking through how society evolves with new technology. As with the times, it’s mostly how AI will change our social fabric. I try to strike a balance between being academic and commercial, so I also ponder on the economic bounty that will result from this how that will disperse throughout markets, and the channels through which capital will flow. The types of questions I’m currently asking:

• Every technology shift brings new people to the Internet, how will AI enable non-tech natives to participate in the Internet economy?

• How will AI enable platforms that could not exist before?

• How will AI affect non-knowledge work industries?

• The evolution of social media has undeniably reshaped the very fabric of our society. We've transitioned into a digitally interconnected world where we've not only built vast networks but have also become voracious consumers of media, birthing a trillion-dollar industry in the process.

  This journey has seen distinct phases:

  1. Communal/Tribal Media (Hello, Facebook!): The era when our online lives revolved around connecting with friends and family, essentially digitizing our tribes.

  2. Aspirational Media (Thank you, Instagram!): Here, we were lured by the glamorous lives of celebrities and friends, indulging in a bit of "flexing" ourselves along the way.

  3. Relatable and Specialized Media (Kudos to TikTok!): TikTok democratized influence by enabling highly tailored, user-generated content that resonated with niches far and wide.

  But what's on the horizon? It's a tantalizing, albeit somewhat unsettling, question. Could we be entering an era where AI-generated media seamlessly mingles with human-generated content, catering to our every nuanced preference? Imagine a world where your media diet is not just hyper-specialized but also perfectly tuned to your tastes. In this world, Meta and TikTok might rely less on human influencers because AI could curate content that resonates perfectly with each user. While this prospect may be exciting in terms of personalization, it also raises questions about what it means to be human. Will we lose some of the genuine human connections that made social media special in the first place? Striking the right balance between human and AI-generated content will be the challenge of the digital age.

• How will consumer AI fully monetize in consumer social? Surely it won’t still be subscriptions in a few years. There’s a need for business model creativity. The first question above leads to this one. What has allowed Meta / TikTok’s business models to work is creating a 4-way marketplace. Connecting users <-> users, users <-> influencers, users <-> businesses (the cash cow), users <-> other media (news, TV, etc.). All these relationships are interdependent and weaved together to make the business model work. How will this business model change when you introduce AI-generated content into the mix? I imagine Meta / TikTok will be careful as they figure it out, but startups like Character.ai are getting crazy engagement though unclear what their eventual core product is.

• How will great power competition play out, with technological innovation being the competitive frontier? Critical technological innovation is very much intertwined with foreign policy. Chips are the obvious example, cue what’s brewing in Taiwan. Autonomous vehicles are another area that’s tricky between the US and China. TikTok is another hot issue.