Intelligent Augmentation: Freeing the Human Experience w/ Gopal Rajagopalan

I have my career, you know, the last 18 years of my career was with Verizon. And the first part of my, or the rest of my career, I should say, was with Motorola, two huge telco companies that have their, you know, claim to fame in different ways. And my last 18 years in Verizon, I spent across different parts of Verizon, you know; supply chain, corporate strategy, standing up new ventures, led our venture capital group and to name a few, too, in the 18 years at Verizon. And some of my, you know, focus areas have included, like standing of new businesses and focusing on digital transformation for different parts of Verizon and also what I call new business incubation.

So that's really what my professional background is. I'm still a technologist at heart, and I have a Masters in Electrical Engineering and also an MBA. So that's really my professional side. On the personal side, I live in Northern Virginia, and I'm married with two kids and we have two dogs, also. That's it really about me.

AR:
So one thing that stood out to me is 18 years at a company nowadays is very rare, but I'm sure it comes with a lot of benefits. Before I ask you my first question, actually, I wanna hear a little bit more about that. What is it like to be, you know, fully entrenched in a single organization? 'Cause I feel like there may be strength and weaknesses or pros and cons rather. For example, you know, you see the way they're doing things and then maybe you'll miss out on new innovations or innovative ways that other companies do certain processes and, you know, I don't know. How do you think about all of that?

GR:
That's a great question. I also thought so when I started at Verizon, right? And I did not have a viewpoint, I did not enter Verizon with the view of staying for 18 years or being a lifer. And that's the beauty of a company like Verizon, right? So there's so many opportunities.

A couple of things that you said, which was actually pretty interesting, and that's the prevailing view outside, which is when you're in a company, you don't get to learn what is outside, right? So that's not true. Depends on the path you choose within the company. And that's what Verizon gave me, right? So when, like, for example, when I started on the marketing side doing technology strategy and portfolio strategy for handsets, I got exposed to some of the latest that was happening out there in the field of handsets. That included, you know, so many innovations that at that time the leaders in the mobile industry, which is more Motorola, LG, and Samsung, would actually bring to market even way before they brought to market, right? So you get to kind of, if you're a geek, tech geek, you really get to geek out there.

AR:
Yeah, on the technology side.

GR:
Exactly, but also on the business side, right? I mean, I got exposed to several things that were forming in the ecosystem, launch of iPhone. We launched Android. My team was behind the Android strategy for Verizon.

AR:
All right, you know that, that's really fascinating. So where were you when the iPhone launch, with Motorola or Verizon?

GR:
Depends on your question as to iPhone launch with Verizon or iPhone launch in general?

AR:
In general, in general.

GR:
In general, I was with Verizon. I had just joined Verizon like two years before the launch.

AR:
Okay, Verizon didn't really have any, I mean, I know they work a lot very closely with manufacturers, phone manufacturers, but they don't manufacture their own phones, do they?

GR:
They don't. And we have considered at one point, but no, never. Never has that been.

AR:
How was the iPhones launch received? I know it was 20 years ago. I don't even remember. I feel--

GR:
No, I still remember. I still remember. And it was a very interesting time to say the least, right? There were camps within us that believed that this is going to truly change the way people look at things. Because we've been looking at smartphones for quite some time from Microsoft and you know, some other players, right? At that time, Palm was considered of smartphone, right so, and Blackberry was as well. So they, and they were in their own rights.

AR:
Sure.

GR:
So we truly believed, some of us truly believed it'd change. While most were believing because touchscreen, I mean iPhone, the technology that they had was nothing new. Right? If you look at it, touch screens existed for four or five years before that, right. And what, you know, they did, you know, Apple did was an amazing thing. They put it all together and delivered it in a way that you and I can relate to, right. Can have been wanted--

AR:
They put it in an amazing package.

GR:
Exactly.

AR:
And they really, I think what they did so well is they optimized the user experience because I don't think anybody could conceive of a touchscreen that was responsive in the way that the iPhones touchscreen was responsive, right. I remember back then, I mean they were all like, oh, it's dead because there's no physical keyboard, and I can't, there's no way anyone was gonna use a phone without a physical keyboard.

GR:
Precisely, precisely. And also what they launched with, it was simple, right? They didn't launch with an app store. They didn't launch with an app store. It was 2G based. Everybody said, oh, you could only make a voice call. What's the big deal about it, right? They were, I mean he's a genius for a reason, right? So, he knew exactly how to see the market.

AR:
And you know, it's funny, I say all this, I have zero Apple products, none. I've never owned a single Apple product, but I still to this day, you know, I definitely appreciate the fact that he made everything look like the real life counterpart. So, for example, note taking, it looks like an actual notepad. Everything is simple. It's called Note.

GR:
It's funny you say that, Aimann. It's funny you say that. I did not own a single Apple product. I used to hate it before the iPhone launched and even iPhone, I got it after like one event, Verizon got it. Right, so I got it at that point in time. But after iPhone launched, I started buying Apple products because I was intrigued by what they were doing from a user experience standpoint, right. So 'cause that is also part of digital transformation, right? So if you look at it.

AR:
Yeah, yeah. A digital transformation, which is your specialty and mine as well, it's all about the user experience at the end of the day. And I think it took a long time, and maybe this is me projecting my ignorance back then, but I feel like it took a long time for customer, for companies to realize that it's not about the technology, it's about what you're enabling for the customer.

And a lot of times you see startups, and this actually is a great segue to the intrapreneurship concept that you had alluded to before. Not to skip around, but you know, a lot of entrepreneurs in the beginning were just like, this is really cool tech. It's definitely gonna go somewhere. And I think they even fooled VCs, venture capitalists, into investing millions of dollars back in the heyday of Silicon Valley. And they were just throwing millions of dumbest ideas, but they weren't dumb in certain, in the technical sense. They were dumb in the sense of well, how could you possibly think you can validate this idea in the real world just because it's cool? It has a cool factor, but it costs a million dollars, and it doesn't provide any tangible value for the end end user, right.

So you have... you said, pioneered the concept of intrapreneurship, with an I, i-n-t-r-a, within your organization. Now, I'm assuming this means that within a large organization like Verizon, you have a lot of bottlenecks in terms of bureaucracy. And I've seen, you know, in my experience with Toyota for example, they have completely separate, almost like a sub-company dedicated to bleeding edge innovation because they don't want those people to be hampered by, again, bureaucracy, et cetera. There's pros and cons. You have to kind of navigate that space a little bit carefully. But can you tell us a little bit about how you pioneered that? What were the benefits or risks? How did the executive leadership kind of, how do they take all of this? And I would really want you to kind of say, well, what advice would you give to larger organizations that are getting slower and slower and looking kind of reinvent themselves?

GR:
Yeah, it's actually, you almost read my mind because you mentioned some of the challenges almost exactly like you ha you stood by and watched us go through these, right? Because we did form a separate organization. Or we have been having a separate organization to focus on such things, right? So to work with startups and really have a sandbox of some sort, right?

So where we would mash up their assets with our assets and come up with something like one plus one equals three kinda thing, and to your point, in a large company, any, and for the right reasons, right, they have their day-today. They have the revenue targets. They're huge. In a company like Verizon, which is 130 plus billion dollars in revenue, it was not too small at the time that we are talking about, 10 years ago. Anything that moves the needle has to be in the, you know, have a B in it, right? So, do you have a billion dollars is what the question was? Or, how soon can you get to a billion dollars or how disruptive is it to my existing business is what their question was.

Number one, as a result of which there was a lot of talent, there was a lot of ideas that were embedded in these organizations that were getting lost, too, right? So when you take a new idea, either they're saying, okay, I had this idea, so I'm gonna either stifle this, or I don't think, you know, this is gonna work because my idea didn't work within my own organization, and B, it is gonna stifle what I'm doing as part of the current company, right? So in order to take the, you know, kind of avoid or circumvent the problem, what we did was we did both, right? I mean, we obviously hunted for new ideas outside, but we also brought into the mix while we were kind of hunting for ideas outside the people within the company that had those ideas, right?

So we started our design thinking process. It was all about design thinking process. You know, that that was what the big chunk of it was. But to generate the ideas, this goes back to your customer experience, right? There's nobody better than the people that lived with the customers that breathe the life with the customers to tell you what the pain points are and what they have thought about to address those pain points. So bringing them into the mix, almost co-developing, co-innovating, that's what was key, right?

AR:
That's like a focus group on steroids.

GR:
It is. I would actually not even call it a focus group because focus group, you just say and go away, but here you have a chance of developing your own idea to make it come to fruition, right? And that's where, you know, our management put their, you know, kind of money where their mouth is. They helped us fund this program. They funded it. They helped us, you know, support it all the way from the top, right? So that was the beauty.

AR:
And I really do feel like it, you know, innovation has to start at the top because if they're focused on, you know, just the numbers and they treat everything like a number, they're going to miss so much. And then before they know it, they'll be, it'll be too late for them to do anything or pivot. So it's great to see that. So tell me a little bit more about the types of, if you're allowed, obviously, so it sounds a little bit like an R&D type of thing, but you're given a little bit more autonomy maybe. So were you able to release these ideas to beta users or you know, what was the process of rolling this out, validating the idea and then going to the broader market?

GR:
Great question. It was a couple of years that I ran it and we had four iterations or four programs, so to speak. Each one was a six month program, if you will. So there was four cohorts, so to speak. And we started with these bunch of ideas. You know, we would pose like the questions, some were a combination of executive pain points, meaning what growth challenges they have, what areas they have growth challenges in, and also market insights. We would monitor the consumer trends in the start from what is going on in the startup world. And based on that, we would frame questions on ideas, right? And then collect pain points from a customer service group or marketing and other sales organizations and bash them up together into a list of kind of questions, if you will. And we posted it for four weeks, right?

So we had a website designed for that. We called it Innovations at Verizon or Ideas at Verizon. I think it was Ideas at Verizon. And we posted people, anybody can get into that website. All our 150,000 people had access to it, and they can go post ideas there. And so we got anywhere from 100 to 200 ideas in that timeframe, in the bucket of what we were looking for. So then what we did was we gave it to a set of judges, so to speak. We kind of hired, you know, independent third party plus combination of some internal folks, but five or six judges to decide on what ideas that they should go after. So it was whittle down to 10 ideas, and they had ranking criteria. So that's 10 ideas then were given to select group of 20 people, right? So these 20 people, that organization came from marketing, you know, because marketing was the one that was most exposed to consumers. And they then looked at these 10 ideas, and they went through a five day design thinking workshop.

AR:
Oh, that's excellent. I love me some design thinking. It's amazing what can come out of a room when you have nothing better to do. They just trap you in there with no windows. And magically everyone becomes a creative genius, right?

GR:
And our design thinking workshops, were run by Seattle entrepreneurs. So basically these guys--

AR:
Was run by who?

GR:
Were a bunch of Seattle entrepreneurs. It was not internal guys, not a consulting firm, but it was a Seattle entrepreneur group that had sold their startups to MTV, Facebooks of the world at the time. So they had formed this small design thinking group that they would go and work with enterprises on. So, they knew the pain points of startup pain points of product building. So they would kind of challenge them in different parts. And then at the end of the five day process, they had four concepts that they would pitch all the way to our C level. You know, there was a CMO that was in attendance with his or her, you know, direct reports. And then they would vote on the best side two ideas, and then they would fund the idea. And--

AR:
Oh, that's excellent.

GR:
That's how--

AR:
Very methodical.

GR:
We decided, yeah.

AR:
Maybe a little too methodical, but I like the process, especially since you're allowing people to kind of explore and, you know, you go from you use the wisdom of crowds by leveraging that survey and allowing people to contribute their ideas. That's really cool. What was it, are any of those ideas like released out to the public that you can talk about or mention?

GR:
Yeah, yeah, it was basically, there was two ideas. This was about 2013, 14 timeframe, right? So at that time, like for example, we had launched a data share plan and one of that idea was parallelly conceived in this workshop where, and also in there was kind of like, you know, in conception in some people's heads within Verizon too, right? So it, that was eventually launched at one point. And this was a time when you didn't have unlimited data, right, so.

AR:
Oh, I remember those days. I remember when they limited text messages and minutes, too. A lot of like the you know, the new generation has no idea how tough it is to try to stay under a hundred texts a month or something.

GR:
Exactly.

AR:
It's crazy. Actually--

GR:
So this would give you.

AR:
Yeah, I wanna ask you about that. What was it just competition that drove all of the carriers to releasing unlimited minutes and texts and stuff like that? Or was it the cost of technology exponentially being reduced, or was it a combination of the two?

GR:
It's, I would put it as a combination. It happened a while ago, so.

AR:
Sure.

GR:
Yeah. It was, it is a combination of the two. I mean, competition was heading there, but the competition was heading there also because the cost was acceptable, right? Because you know, nobody's gonna jeopardize their margins in a significant way to do that.

AR:
Sure, sure.

GR:
So it's a combination of that the 4G costs were coming down at a point, and then they could afford to do that.

AR:
Yeah, it makes sense. I didn't even get to my first question yet, but I'm still, I still wanna ask you something. So you mentioned 4G, so maybe you know a little bit about the technology or you know, 3G, 4G, 5G. I know that there's a lot of confusion around the technology and then the naming conventions, right? There's like true 4G and then LTE and then blah, blah, blah. But should we be afraid of 5G? What's, do you know what's coming around the corner in terms of 6G or you know, is that even like a good way to term it? Is it just become a buzzword? Can you expand on that a little bit?

GR:
Well, I don't know enough about 6G because to your point, it is a buzzword at this stage. It is very, very early. Because if you look at it, 5G is not even been fully rolled out, right? So, right, and it is going to be a case to year to two for the full rollout in the US, and across the world--

AR:
Do you think that we're do you think that there's, we're hitting some sort of plateau in terms of speed and penetration of these, you know, technologies?

GR:
I mean, not really. Not, I mean, yes and no, right? I mean, plateau in terms of what, see, basically if you look at four, let's take 4G as an example, right? Carriers launched 4G in 2009. But if you really look at the penetration, how you and I started using 4G in phones, you'll notice it's not until 2012, 2013. There was a reason for that, right? So there's two reasons I attribute to, right? One was, you know, the carrier network obviously took some time to kind of get fully rolled out.

Second is applications and services, right? So the services and applications don't come on until they see critical mass gathering in on that technology, right? This is true for any technology, and Netflix's and the YouTube's of the world started getting more and more content. And then you and I started consuming more and more content on a mobile phone.

AR:
It's the chicken or the egg.

GR:
Exactly, right? So for 5G it's the same.

AR:
Right. So the need for 5G isn't there yet. So the, I guess the appetite for investing in infrastructure is not as hot maybe, right?

GR:
I wouldn't say that. The appetite for investing is huge. The need for 5G is huge. It's just not penetrated so much into the consumer space yet.

AR:
And is that, is that because of--

GR:
More on the enterprise side.

AR:
On the enterprise side, lack of rollouts?

GR:
Yeah, yeah.

AR:
Or it's just very expensive to roll out?

GR:
Well, it is expensive. Any infrastructure upgrade, it's very expensive. Only the carriers can and tell you how expensive it is, because you're talking about billions of dollars in spectrum, you're talking about billions of dollars in infrastructure over multiple years, right? So if you just look at what Verizon spent on Spectrum a few years ago, this is public information, it's about 50 plus billion, right so.

AR:
Right.

GR:
And they continue to spend every year, too, all these carriers. So point is it's a multi-billion dollar rollout. So it's, so that's one of the reasons why, you know, it takes time, right, for one technology evolve, but for a penetration perspective, right now it's more enterprise focused. Yes, the consumer focus is there. Metaverse and Apple's, headsets type of thing could change, right? Because it's also the lack of applications, right? So 5G is known for, you know, our Verizon CEO talks about eight currencies, publicly speaking. So let, I can't name all the eight of them, but latency is one, right, and.

AR:
There's so many things that go into it.

GR:
Speeds, speeds obviously, right, bandwidth and speed. And then 5G also brings in what is called direct network slicing, dedicated networks and so on. So for that, you know, it's the primary target right now is enterprise, right? But when the applications penetrate, when hospitals as an example start offering telehealth and you know, minor surgeries done through 5G, you know, then consumers will start seeing and then Metaverse brings in a whole new gaming experience, right?

AR:
Right. So, yeah, those applications require very specific uptimes and latencies, et cetera, and that's partially what 5G improves upon once the infrastructure is up and running, then that would be one of the major use cases now.

GR:
Correct, and also IOT penetration, right? I mean, IOT--

AR:
IOT.

GR:
IOT devices have gone up significantly. I mean, people predict that there will be $30 billion, 30 billion devices by 2025 and then that number is going to double in the next five years after that, right? So, but if you look at it, IOT is very fragmented too, right? So they don't speak with each other. And so there is a lot of other things that have to happen for the critical mass to happen, whether it's enterprises or consumers. And that's what you'll see in 5G. Until that happens, I don't even think 6G, people may talk about it, but I don't even think, 'cause one, then you'll know what it this are.

AR:
No, I don't think anyone, no one's looking for the X2 yet. But it's always interesting to think about, you know, what can this technology really do? I mean, 5G is the best that they could conceive at the moment. And then when the new technology comes out, you know, slowly there'll be a need for it. But I guess, yeah, for now it, I can't imagine having faster speeds on my phone being useful, but I'm always proven wrong. So that's what I love about technology.

GR:
Yeah, and you were spot on.

AR:
I wanted ask you. Yeah.

GR:
No, you're spot on. Okay, that's exactly what we thought, right? 3G to 4G to 5G, so.

AR:
Yeah, you're like, okay, can't get better than this. Can't get better than 2G. Except when you're traveling to other countries and they throttle you, and you're like, how could I live like this, right?

GR:
Exactly.

AR:
And then you really appreciate it. I wanted to ask you, this is not work related, but what are you most passionate about in life?

GR:
That's a great question. I'm passionate probably about three things, right? So number one is helping others grow. It's kind of related to work as well. Number two is I believe in giving, and I'm very passionate about it. Whether it's mentoring or charity or whatever the case may be. Number three is, by now probably you got it. It's technology. I'm very passionate about it.

AR:
Yeah, we're in that same boat.

GR:
Yep.

AR:
And how do you kind of use that in your work life to provide or to give you more fulfillment? 'Cause I, what I've noticed is that a lot of people entering the workforce have a very negative outlook on career in general and capitalism and work. There's a anti-work movement in the newer generations. There's an entitlement that comes with it. And I think that's kind of a dangerous thing that we're, you know, it's a dangerous path that we're going down. So how do you, how have you found a way to combine your passions or at least find meaning in what you do?

GR:
That's a great question. I wouldn't say by any means I am an expert at that. But right from day one, you know, when I started my career, I've always been about helping others grow because I got to that spot 'cause somebody else did that to me.

AR:
And why is that important to you? Why is it important to help others grow?

GR:
Well, A, there--

AR:
Is it a sense of like unity? Like community kind of, or we're all--

GR:
Well, exactly. Well, to start with A, I really said I believe in giving. So that's my first thing. And second is to your point, right? So I also believe in karma, right? When you give, you get back from somebody else. Last but not least you learn a lot. What people don't understand is when you teach others you learn, too, right? So for example, in this interaction, the questions that you are asking me are make, are kind of either jigging my, rejigging my memory and making me learn what I already learned or learn some new things, right? So, and that is something that people underestimate. When you do help others, it's not just about building a community or a camaraderie by helping others, but it's also helping you grow, helping you learn and expand into newer things, whether it's new people or new concepts.

AR:
That's great. I love that. I think that one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about technology, other than because I'm a nerd, and I'm sure you can relate, is because every iteration brings us closer in a way. And I know that sounds kind of ironic considering social media is almost like the antithesis of community or connection. But at the same time, when we use it correctly, we have more time to do the things that we love doing. Like I really like, one of the things I love about AI and automation is it frees up the humans that are really capable of producing unbelievable ideas. It frees up, it frees them from the monotonous and tedious kind of tasks that they're have no choice but to do sometimes. And as humans, I mean we've been down this path for many, many, many years. It's great to see us becoming more human in a sense by leaning on technology more. You know what I mean?

GR:
No, absolutely. You're spot on. That's why I use the word intelligent augmentation, not automation.

AR:
Ah, okay. I like that. You, so what, you know, one of my questions is, are you, 'cause in your... you know, your history, you have a lot of experience with robotic process automation. I was gonna ask, how do I know you're not a cyborg? So maybe you can answer that too while you're at it.

GR:
I can cry, so,

AR:
Hey, what's to say you can't install a tear duct module in a cyborg.

GR:
Sure, sure, yeah, yeah, possible. You know, anything. Well, it is not yet done other than in movies, right? So that's the only way I could differentiate. But you are right.

AR:
Intelligent augmentation you said?

GR:
Yes, because you said it, you said it yourself. I'm just like using one word to describe what you just said because automation by nature of what it is meant historically and the way it is defined that means it's taking something that the humans do and then having the machines do it right?

So it almost comes with the fear or accompanied with the fear that your job is gonna go away or you know you're gonna be rendered futile right, because of the machines. But I see that as augmentation, exactly like you said, because the machines can do some mundane things and that's exactly what we did in RPA, right? And you now are allowed to then expand into areas which you never even were thinking about or you didn't have the time to think about or you can learn new things, right? So you can learn new things as you have handed off these tasks to somebody else, which is the machine. So that's why I call it augmentation.

It's a why in some areas, you know, I'm not going to, you know, generalize and say it'll be like this everywhere. In some areas there will be substitution, right? But for the most part I see it augmenting the way you and I do things. You know, for example, I'll talk about two things, right? In RPA, you asked, you did mention that I had done so much. Yes, we did quite a bit, right? Especially on the supply chain side, there were many mundane tasks, what I would call swivel chair tasks, right? I mean, literally taking it from here, leave it there, right? But from a systemic standpoint, right? Let's say, you know, you are picking the name from one particular location address from a different system and then some other information from a financial system, social security number. I'm giving you a crude example. Why should a human being go and get all that information, put it together in a spreadsheet or a Word? You can automate, right?

So, and one of the things that we found, I mean, is 40% of our tasks in that procurement process that we evaluated were like that, right? And then when we looked at, you know, another part of supply chain, there was 33% of our tasks in a particular system we adopted that were completely redundant, but you still had to go through them, like click of a button, so to speak. These things you can very easily automate with a service, with a workflow automation tool, right?

AR:
Like a ServiceNow, or so lemme ask you this, 'cause I know we're, this is kind of the bulk of your experience is supply chain efficiency. I wanted to ask, you know, from a high level, I really love these stories because it shows you the power of these tools that a lot of companies don't really know how to use yet. But, you know, can you give us an example of like insane inefficiency and how RPA kind of came and, you know, what did that look like from a man hour savings perspective maybe, or what did it enable the team to do once it was implemented other than sleep better at night?

GR:
Yeah, it's more, I'll take an example on the purchasing side, right? Companies, like big companies like Verizon for example, they purchased billions of dollars worth of goods. And all of those go through what is called the purchase orders. If you're a business hat, if you have done business with another business, it goes through purchase orders and invoices, right? So that process was completely manual for the most part, right? I mean, let me put it this way.

The handoffs of different tasks were completely manual, not the issuance of purchase orders. So like the example that I gave you earlier, which is picking an address from here and a dollar amount from somewhere else and an approval from a different system and so on and so to speak, right? You lot of the issue, a purchase order, something like five different systems had to be tapped into and combined by a human being, right? So which is highly, yeah, which is highly inefficient. And you have, you know, when you have a million purchase orders that you're issuing every year and it ranges from thousand dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars, there is errors bound to happen, and there is delays, right? So because you're not able to pull it from the different systems. So, and there's two things you can do.

One is you can simplify the systems right into one system, which is not an easy task, but that is also something that we started doing. But then the shorter term fix is to really automate it. You know, have a layer on top of it that kind of takes it from here, gives it to there, and then finishes the task there, and then boom, boom, boom, boom, task is done, right, just like.

AR:
What does that look like? Is that using, for example, 'cause I've used the different tools such as UiPath, et cetera. Is that using Computer Vision?

GR:
No, we did, the task that I'm talking about was primarily done through Automation Anywhere and then subsequently through UiPath, and that's what we did. But there's other types of automation that happens in hardcore supply chain environments, which is like testing for example, which have Computer Vision and other types of robotic automation. It's not robotic process automation, but robotic automation, literally physical robots doing the job, right?

So that is another automation, like testing automation is one. You have to, when when you receive, you know, supply chain, our supply chain, reverse supply chain receives all the returns, right? The phones are returned or traded back in and so on. You have to test them for quality. And there you can do a whole bunch of automation, right? So it benefits a lot there, too.

AR:
I can't imagine, 'cause you know, I mean my experience, I've done a lot of mobile app development, and I've lead teams, you know, in that sense. There's so many different phones that testing is an absolute nightmare. And before you would have to hire literally swaths of people just sitting there with different phones and just testing the same used pieces over and over.

GR:
Exactly.

AR:
I don't know why anyone would want to not automate a job like that. I know that people are kind of afraid of--

GR:
Precisely.

AR:
Automation, but I mean, let them do something more important.

GR:
That's exactly what we did.

AR:
No shortage of work in this world. You can become an entertainer. You know, I always joke with people that when the AI takes over, I'll have to learn how to juggle or something, you know, and we all will become entertainers.

GR:
No human history says that we'll always invent jobs to keep us busy, .

AR:
We'll find something. Yeah, we'll all find

GR:
Yeah, exactly.

AR:
Something to do. Okay, I have one more question for you before we, well, one and a half, I guess. I wanna circle back on bizception, which is a, I just kind of made it up after I was inspired by your word intrapreneurship. My, but before that, the question is how does blockchain, I saw that you had some experience there. How does blockchain or crypto or NFTs factor into kind of the work that you've done? Or how do you see the bigger companies kind of responding to this stuff?

GR:
Yeah, I mean, blockchain for the most part, I'm gonna be very blunt here, in many parts of where I have worked on, it's a technology waiting for a use case. So that's what we found. You know, we've trialed in our supply chain, we have trialed a few use cases for blockchain and one of them is a good use case, but it still can live without it. And then there's a couple of reasons for that.

One is, you know, we have tried a use case for blockchain. Actually IBM has this. It's called trust your- TYS I think, Trust Your Supplier. It's a blockchain network. One of the biggest times spent in onboarding is in supplier onboarding. When you work with a new vendor or supplier, you background check them. You do a whole bunch of things, right? It's the biggest chunk of time spent there. If you can rely on a method to act or a reliable method to count on, then that whole process is simplified. So IBM came up with this trustworthy supplier network, Trust Your Supplier Network based on a blockchain approach. We have kind of tried that, but there is also a lot of customization that you need there. So, that's one reason the customization.

AR:
Completely decentralized?

GR:
Decentralized as in the supplier?

AR:
Meaning the ledger, this blockchain where the supply chain information lives is not as immutable, meaning IBM or none of these companies can--

GR:
No, basically. Well, exactly, so basically what they do is in the Trust Your Supply Network, they onboard suppliers based on, you know, whoever onboards. Let's say Verizon onboards a supplier or company onboards a supplier, they put it in blockchain, the relevant information and then it's set there and then you know who approved it. And then you could have different levels of approval, you know, stamps and so on. And then a company B goes. And then if they're fine with that stamp of approval, we just take it and run with it, and they can always trace it back to who approved what part. One company may have approved the financial part and so on, another company may have approved some other part. So that's that.

AR:
Yeah, I think trust is probably the biggest use case for blockchain.

GR:
Yes.

AR:
And there's definitely, a shortage of use cases.

GR:
But the problem is companies have different levels of evaluation to do before they call it a trusted supplier, right? So, that's one of the reasons why. So lack of standards is one reason why it has not penetrated. And B is still, blockchain requires adoption, right? So that's one of the reasons why on the supply chain side, it is not taken off for us because we wanna track all the way from end to end, you know, when it leads the factory to when it goes to the consumer and be able to do things on the different parts of the handoff. But for that you need like everybody in the value chain to adopt the blockchain, right? So, and even if it's a private blockchain. So that lack of standard is what it comes to.

AR:
You're right, I've seen that as well. A lot of people use it as a buzzword, and I think NFT is probably a little bit more of an interesting application of blockchain. But yes, I think that makes a lot of sense. Okay, before we wrap up, I wanna ask you, so about bizception. What do you do? How can people find you? And you know, another question I like to ask before we sign off is, where do you see the world in 10 years? And I know that's a very like, vague question, but you can gimme one sliver of that future reality 'cause I like to talk about like, what will AI do for us in 10 years, and you know, I tell people that my baby will have like a little band that records everything and then it's like its personal sync from birth to the end of its life. And I can recall everything perfectly. So what do you, how do you see the world in 10 years, and are you optimistic or pessimistic?

GR:
I am very optimistic. I'm very optimistic in that the technology that we are all investing in and helping grow will only change our lives in a positive way, right? So whether it is related to sustainability or most importantly mindfulness, I believe very much in mindfulness and I practice.

AR:
It's a great, great topic.

GR:
And it is gonna help us. The, all the technology advancements are only gonna help it.

AR:
I need you to tell me how though, because if you ask a lot of people, technology is ruining mindfulness.

GR:
Yeah, well, today, right, simple example. You know, we get distracted so much by this, right? So it's a necessary evil for all of us. And one of the things is take for example a car, right? I mean you, a car shouldn't be worried about, okay, when do I have to change my filter, oil filter, fill up gas, other maintenance, so on and so forth. When you have an autonomous car that could drive itself and take care of itself, you are freed of that part of the thought process, right? So one of the reasons for us not being mindful is because we are distracted by so many things, right? So we, you know, when I try to focus on reading an article, something comes up and says, oh my God, I forgot that I have to turn off the oven, right? Or I have to go and, you know, pick up my son, right? So all these technologies are going to only enable us to perform those mundane tasks. The intelligent augmentation will take place, right? So when the intelligent augmentation takes place, you are able to spend your intelligence on something that is more meaningful and you're able to really get absorbed in what you're doing, and that's what meditation.

AR:
I think the key word there is potential. You have the option now. Whether you do it or not is a totally separate story.

GR:
Precisely. Everybody has the potential. I mean, all the human brains are the same. It's just that how you use the brain makes you a genius versus a normal human being, right? So that's really what all these technologies are gonna lead us to. And that's what I see in 10 years, right? So people becoming more mindful and becoming, and as a result of which I don't even know how life in 10 years is going to be. I can only imagine it'll be more than 10 times better.

AR:
Yeah, now I would love an AI that watches everything that I do and smacks me every time I get distracted. That would be great.

GR:
Exactly.

AR:
If someone could.

GR:
I'm sure or somebody's watching on.

AR:
If someone can come up with that idea, I'm willing to pay a lot of money for it. Okay, Gopal, it's been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for coming on. Do you have any final words of wisdom, or do you want to mention where people can find you?

GR:
Well, you know, I'm on LinkedIn, and you asked a question and I actually do a lot of consulting these days, you know, kind of project based consulting in the strategy and transformation space. So people can find me on LinkedIn. All my contact information is in there. You know, I'm very active there, and my last words are, you know what I said I'm passionate about, right? I mean, help others grow and give back. Give back, and that helps you grow as well.

AR:
Great, great. Thanks so much, Gopal. We'll talk soon, hopefully.

GR:
Thank you.

^{Transcribed by Rev.com}