[music]
Um,
as a dot of two, I I totally get how two
can be overwhelming, but nine, I mean,
yeah, obviously some are out of the
house, right?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and they they
get more more helpful, you know, at
first. I think two is two to three is
maximum pain. After that, it's it gets
easier because you have like people on
your team.
>> So, it goes downhill after that.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They start becoming uh
really, you know, helpful taking care of
the other ones and entertaining them.
That's the hardest thing about kids is
just keeping them entertained. So,
>> you know, you get a pile of them
together, then it's not so bad.
And I I guess you got your own uh person
to to mow the lawn. Maybe one of them.
>> Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Yeah. Yeah. I They They actually don't
do that, but they do The older ones do a
lot of cooking, you know. They pick
stuff that they're into. And
fortunately, I I have a bunch that
really like cooking, so that works out
really well.
>> Oh, that's amazing. My daughter loves
cooking and baking. Not good for uh my
figure, but what are you gonna do,
right?
>> Yeah. Yeah, that's great.
Well, uh, pleasure to have you on today.
Second episode of Pale Blue Nexus. On
the first episode, we had a a guy called
Jim Rogers and, uh, he was awesome.
Pleasure to have you back on, talk to
you again and get to know a little bit
more about Softron and and what you're
you're doing over there. Tell us about
yourself first, Jack, and like your your
journey, and we'll get into Softron.
>> Did you say this is only the second
episode of the podcast?
I've done many
podcasts before, but this current
version of this new brand, it's the
second episode. Yes.
>> Oh, right on. Right on. Very cool. Well,
I'm glad to uh I'm glad to be guest
number two. That's cool. Um yeah, so so
Softron um the the way that I describe
it now is is a little bit different
because of all the interest in in AI
agents and um so there was a lot of uh a
lot of excitement around like open claw
and a lot of the use cases that people
were excited about were things like oh
it can balance my checkbook or you know
it can pay my bills it can do things
like that and if you actually tried it I
mean there were people that kind of
faked it if you actually tried it it
didn't work because all the banks and a
lot of the web apps and a lot of the
things you'd be interested in connecting
to actually use blocking and openclaw,
you know, used a a very simple kind of
screen scraping navigation tool. Um, and
it gets blocked really easily. So,
Softron is basically gives AI agents the
ability to connect to banks, credit
unions, utilities, things like that, a
lot of financial services that would
normally otherwise prevent it. So if you
tell your agent, you know, connect to
cash app and it won't let you, then
Softron can help that agent connect to
Cash App.
>> Now, how did you start this? I was
looking into your background a little
bit and you came from Microsoft. Is it
is it safe to say that?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Most of my career I
was was in the military uh and signals
intelligence and then pretty much went
straight to Microsoft after that. Uh so
yeah, 20 yearsish um in and around
Microsoft. Um kind of started back back
when there was a big push. Uh Bill Gates
was really trying to push security. We
had a bunch of uh worms that took over
the internet and uh um security was
becoming a really important thing. So
most of my career was focused on that uh
software security, software design um at
Microsoft. Um, and then uh in what was
that 2014 I I created one of the first I
I think it was actually the first online
accounting software for small
businesses. Um, QuickBooks Online hadn't
released yet and um ended up selling
that to a company based in New Zealand
called Zero that was expanding out.
Spent a couple years in the Bay Area
after that and then yeah, that was
almost 10 years ago and then started uh
Softron. So Softron's been going for
about a decade now. Um, and it was a
little bit of a synthesis of my security
background and my co-founders as well.
Kind of the same team that that were
working on security issues. Then we kind
of moved over to fintech together and
then, you know, all of our background
was in like AI and security. So, it made
sense for us to kind of move back
towards something that was like Softron.
It's basically it's basically a security
company wrapped in kind of a fintech
veneer, I would say. So yeah, that's how
we got started. And the the thesis
behind the business was really that AI
would make screen scraping work. There
was a lot of screen scraping going on at
that time. There still is because a lot
of people if they have APIs, they
actually they want to lock down their
ecosystem, right? They don't necessarily
want to have anybody be able to connect
and just migrate away their users. So
there's this big, you know, debate and
philosophical issue of like, you know,
when you sign up for a utility, is it
your data? you know, is it it's your
address and phone number and full name
and date of birth. Is that your data or
is it their data? And if it's your data,
then you should be able to take it out,
but they'll say, "Oh, it's our data."
And also for security reasons, we don't
want you to be able to access it with
any kind of automation. Right? So, and
there's some truth to to that
motivation, but but um but there's also
a lot of hey, this is our proprietary
data. This is our moat. We don't you
know, we don't want that to go out. The
banks have done that quite a bit. Chase
recently, you know, there was a big
thing where they said that they were
actually going to charge you if you
wanted to connect like if you connect
with Softron or Plaid or one of these
companies to let's say you're using Cash
App and you want to connect Chase to
Cash App. Chase is threatening and it's
not really clear how it's going to work
out, but to charge actually for that.
So, you know, not only is it not your
data, but if you want to access it,
you're going to have to pay them to
access it. So our whole thesis was we
had been users of that and seen that it
was a nightmare and we thought well you
know this is in 2014 20 I guess it was
more like 2016. Um but we thought yeah
AI is perfect for this right like it's
not there yet but eventually it will get
good enough. Um and so within the first
year we actually had 6,000 banks and
credit unions that we could connect to.
Um landed our first couple Anchor
customers. Um and uh yeah, if you've
connected your bank account to like a
fintech app, there's a reasonable chance
you can use Softron in the background.
You just haven't haven't known it. Um
unless you dig through the terms of
service, then you might see our name.
>> Do do you have to happen an example of
uh a fintech app that uh is pretty
popular that people use?
>> Yeah. So the way that our business works
is you have you have aggre like most of
our business right now is we're similar
to like a plaid. So we call those like
aggregators. So you have like Plaid or
Yodi or you know these sort of guys that
are out there and then what we do is we
sit behind them and take all of the
difficult connections. So they might
connect to you know bank ABC if it's
really easy and they have a generous API
because they're not actually trying to
to hold users hostage but then if they
want to connect to bank DF they send
that traffic through softron in the
background. So um so there there are
some apps that I know of where uh where
our customers are servicing those apps
but of course that's all under pretty
strict NDA. So I can't run around and
say like X Y and Z is powered by
something.
>> Okay. Yeah, I know I know how that
works. And uh so so you're like the
financial open the open financial data
layer is what you're you're going for
here.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean at the end
of the day if you want to if you want to
have any automation connect to your bank
account you need somebody like Softron
to make that happen because the bank is
spending a lot of money to try to keep
your data in their ecosystem. it's in
their best interest. If you wanted to,
for example, let's say you install my
car loan app from the app store and
you're like, I want to get a car loan.
That's a direct competitor with somebody
like, you know, Bank of America or Wells
Fargo or even like Boeing Employees
Credit Union or something like that. So,
they want to make that car loan. They
don't necessarily like they're really
not financially incentivized to make it
easier for my car loan app to connect to
Boeing employees credit union, pull that
data down and then make a make a lending
decision based on that. So, so they they
work really hard. They put a lot of, you
know, um work into making sure that that
basically can happen. And then there's
companies that, you know, they're a
little aggressive. I would say Softron
in the ecosystem is by far the most
aggressive, right? We're just like a
team of security researchers and hackers
and you know people like working on this
sort of stuff that that are making sure
users can get their data whether whether
somebody likes it or not. So I think
we're we're the most extreme. We're the
most aggressive. And you know, obviously
the the concerns around security and
privacy and all that stuff we take
really seriously, but that's really not
the issue, right? We're Sock 2
compliant. We follow the rules. We
follow the regulations in a uh in any
given region, of course. But uh but what
we really do is when somebody tries to
close the door on you, when it's your
data and you want to pull it out and use
it for something else, we kick in the
door.
>> Interesting. That is a that is a really
good analogy and explain it like I'm
five. So I totally get that. And how how
difficult was it to kick down the door?
Like initially it must have been a big
uphill battle.
>> Yeah, it was. I mean back in 2016 it
wasn't as bad. Most of the most of the
stuff that you know let's say that
you're evil bank you know evil bank um
evil bank corp. Most of the stuff they
were doing at that point was kind of
benign. like they would uh Yodi for
example, they would write screen
scraping scripts that were hardcoded and
a lot of the providers today still do
this actually and that's why a lot of
you know if you if you've tried to
connect your bank you probably you know
there's a reasonable chance you weren't
happy about the user experience but uh
but what they would do is they would
just pointlessly change their website
right they would just like we won't call
it the login button we'll call it the
jump in button or something you know
kind of random in the HTML break and if
what you were doing Yeah. Exactly.
Exactly. So just annoying things that
would break the the screen scrapers and
because from the very beginning we were
using like computer vision and natural
language processing and machine learning
to do all of this. We were actually
that's that's why we were able to
support like 6,000 which was comparable
with Plaid at the time. Like on day one
we supported 6,000 banks and credit
unions. I think Plaid still claims
around 7,000 or something like that. But
uh yeah at this point we support all of
them. So there's over 14,000 banks and
credit unions in the US and we're the
only ones that support all of them
because it's just too expensive to
support these small connections if you
have technology that requires that you
write code for it. So you know there's a
there's a tiny bank in the Midwest and
it's got like 14 users on it or
something that want to connect, you
know, a particular app. Very hard to
make money writing code specifically for
that. It's just doesn't work out. So
really AI and this is why we decided to
go after AI when it was still unclear
whether it was going to work. I think
now everybody would say oh obviously
that's the right solution to the
problem. But back then it was it was
quite a risk quite a leap. But uh but
yeah it's really the only way to make
money uh or make it at all economical
and also the only way to make it at all
reliable to connect to all those
disparate connections. And that's just
banks and credit unions. At this point,
we support over 60,000 total connections
and we've got a couple dozen data
scientists. Um, when Yodi supported, I
don't know, 5,000 or something, I think
they had 2,000 employees. So, our our uh
our connection to employee ratio is is
pretty good.
>> So, how exactly does AI help here?
>> Yeah. So, so there's basically three,
let's say, approaches that you could
take. Let's say you want to connect to,
you know, Podunk Bank in the Midwest.
You can either call them and ask for
access to an API and if there's an API
and they'll give it to you for free,
then that's that's kind of nice. But the
problem with that is that they're going
to change that API, right? So if you
have a very small number of users, even
an API is like too difficult to
maintain, right? You you can't afford to
put an engineer on that API for even
three hours a year, right? Because you
only have 14 users and you're making
like 10 cents a month per user, right?
So the economics don't work out. But
that is that is one option and that is
the option that everybody thinks oh you
definitely want that until they really
think about the number of you know the
potential connections and how how little
economic value relatively speaking there
is right I mean there might be $10 a
year worth of value connecting to this
tiny little bank individually that that
is not enough money to put an engineer
on the job for 10 minutes right to
connect to that API let alone
>> connect to it and then maintain it but
also it doesn't make sense for them to
do it so they probably haven't even
built the API anyway. So you don't even
have to wonder about the option. Um but
so that's option that's like the what
every engineer would think. Okay, that's
the solution. And then the next solution
would be okay, I guess we're going to
screen scrape it. So, we're going to use
some open- source tools and we're going
to just say, okay, click on this button
or maybe based on the HTML tag or
something, we'll hardcode click on this
button effectively and then put in the
user's password and then log in and then
click here and then copy and paste
essentially this value out. Um, and so
that's how it it I would say most of the
connections like if you connect to a
bank in the US and Canada, chances are
if it's one of the big banks, maybe not,
but uh but if you have uh you know a
midsize bank, there's a really good
chance that what you're connecting to is
doing that. It's still even in 2026,
it's hardcoded, super brittle screen
scraping. And the problem with that is
also if well there's two problems. one
is you can do it without without getting
API access, right? So a new startup and
you want to do home loans or something,
it's a viable option. Whereas an API, if
even if it does exist, they're probably
not going to give you access to it. So
you can make it work, but it is like the
epitome of tech debt, right? Like as
soon as you write that code, uh there
it's just a ticking time bomb before it
breaks and it's probably not going to be
reliable and it's going to be really
slow. And so that was the whole
ecosystem. That was the full spectrum of
technology available to solve this
problem until Softron started in in
2016. And so where AI comes in is
saying, okay, you know, if if we can
have a car that can drive down the road
and it can look at a stop sign and it
could use image recognition and go, hey,
that's a stop sign. Um, why can't we use
uh computer vision and image recognition
to look at the website with human eyes
and say, "Okay, that's a login button."
Right? Um, and the reason that that
works is the same reason it works for
you and me. Because even if they change
thing and move things around and rename
things or whatever, essentially, if a
human can figure it out, then an AI
could probably figure it out when it's a
matter of like finding which button do
you click to log in. So, yeah, that's
that's where AI comes in.
>> This this reminds me of the white
hacker, black hacker type of uh
struggle, push and pull, you know.
>> Yeah. Yeah, it totally is. Yeah. Yeah. A
lot of a lot of the guys at Softron have
always considered themselves like white
hat hackers. So um so it was kind of
inevitable we ended up in some niche
like this once we once we moved from
Microsoft to FinTech
>> and okay so let's talk about like
because you know um the consumer level
wants to know how this type of
technology can benefit them. What can
you realistically do with the technology
that could help myself, my wife and I
who manage a household, the the regular
person who wants to look at their
finances? What what can happen here?
>> Yeah, totally. So, we actually did an
integration with Chad GPT that was super
cool. I don't remember if I sent that to
you or not, but my co-founder connected
Softron to Chad GPT and basically
immediately had like a great financial
adviser because she was able to say
stuff like, "Am I spending more money
than the average person in Seattle? How
am I doing on my finances? Does it seem
like I'm just really lazy? What about
like subscriptions? Like, am I spending
more on the Netflix, the Hulu's, all
that kind of, you know, brain rot
content? Am I spending more on that than
the average person in Seattle or you
know what? Um, and what she ended up
finding out was I mean it it wasn't a
bad thing, but it was interesting. She
found out that she spends something like
seven times more on fruits and
vegetables than the average person in
Seattle in her neighborhood. Um, and you
know, she didn't change that. She was
she was happy with that. Uh, cuz she
thinks that's important. But um, but
that's the sort of stuff that you're not
going to get really without AI, right?
Like those that's just a fun insight.
But if she was spending a lot more on
her cars than the average person at her
income level in in Seattle, it would be
nice for her to know that, right? Or if
she was particularly bad at negotiating,
you know, her home loan and she was
paying way more in interest payments
than the average person in the
neighborhood.
>> It's pretty hard to like I've never had
a financial advisor, you know, or my
accountant look through and give me
those sort of insights because it's like
it's very deep, right? It's like, oh,
what's your monthly payment on your
house? Yeah, that's about right. Right.
But who's going to be like so diligent
to dig through all the way to go? Well,
actually, you know what? You're spending
more on your homeowner's insurance than
than you should. Like, how many
thousands of dollars would you have to
spend to have a a person manually figure
that out for you? Probably more than
you're you're overspending on homeowners
insurance, right? But AI can dig through
that and find those really obscure
little tidbits that, you know, if
nothing else, it gives you peace of mind
that you're not doing anything
irresponsible.
This reminds me of like you hire an
accountant, you hire a financial
advisor. If they got together, sat in a
room for a day or two, and they came
back with recommendations, this is what
you're explaining pretty much.
>> Right. Right. But it would take them
weeks, right? They would they would have
to like really go through all of your
stuff. But after they had gone through a
bunch of other people's stuff, like your
your accountant off the top of his head
does not know what the average person
that makes, you know, 350,000 a year in
this particular neighborhood of
Belleview is spending on homeowners
insurance. He just doesn't have that
data to begin with. Like that's why AI
is so cool. Like there is a lot of
reasonable fear, I think. like it's it's
a very cool technology and it's it's
important and so you are going to have
like the leite sort of response but I
think I think it's really easy to forget
like the universe is really only created
with like ideas and atoms right and
we're constantly so short on ideas right
your kid starts getting sick he has a
fever you're like basically just
starving to death of data all the time
even in 2026 even with the internet and
all that like that is a really cool
problem that AI and I can solve. We we
you know, we'll still be starving to
death of data, you know, when we're on
Mars because if you if if you were
omnipotent, right, you would have all of
the problem solved. So, it's not going
to go away. But, but being able to be 10
times or 100 times or a thousand times
more data rich in your life and
decision-m is a it's a freaking amazing
superpower. Like, it's definitely going
to be good.
>> So, let's let's say a benefit out of
this was your partner. You you said that
she knew knows that she spends what
three to five times more on fruit.
>> I think it was like seven times. It was
like seven times more than the And it
was it was cool cuz it wasn't just she
spends seven times more. It was like for
her neighborhood, right? Because you
know if you're like, you know, if you're
a trucker or something, you're probably
not eating very well. You're not
spending spending a lot on fruits and
vegetables, right? But if you're, you
know, if you work for like Amazon or
something and you're in like some posh
neighborhood, that's the like that's the
level of fidelity that you really need
for it to be at all interesting, right?
Like, are you overweight? Well, am I
overweight for what? For somebody that,
you know, is a uh is a, you know,
55year-old
man that's a trucker that, you know,
works in like, you know, Chicago or
something like that. That is a gonna be
a totally different answer than if
you're like, you know, like in Spain or
something and you're like a 22-year-old,
uh, you know, that surfs every day like
all the context, which is data, right,
is really important to any question that
you ask.
>> Well, so my my entrepreneurial mind is
going and it's like, well, if I knew
that there was a cluster of people that
se spend seven times more on fruit and
vegetables in a certain area, that could
be useful.
>> Very interesting. That's very
interesting. I hadn't even thought of
that. But yeah, absolutely. Like if you
could find if you could find like 10,000
of my co-founders around the country and
say, "Hey, you are a fruit freak." Like
I I service fruit freaks.
>> Yeah.
>> You know,
>> and open up, you know, a an organic
fruit stand and vegetable stand right
next to their Well, you're all
distributing.
>> Yeah. You you can get her to sign up for
a subscription that nobody else would
sign up for, right? like two crates a
day or something or subscription.
>> Yeah, that's a really good point, man.
>> Yeah.
>> And speaking of being distributed, you
the last time I talked to you, you you
guys were based out of Netherlands. Is
that still true?
>> Yeah. So, our our whole team is pretty
scattered. Um, so we were all the last
time we were all together was probably
in like 20 2012. Um,
oh wow. Yeah. Like 14 years ago. Um, and
that's when we were all at Microsoft at
the Microsoft campus. Um, and so after
that, uh, after that a lot of us, you
know, there there were folks from like
Australia, New Zealand. Um, we ended up
selling the company to a New Zealand
company and so some folks moved there.
Um, and then uh, yeah, so we we've kind
of we're all over the place now. But
yeah, I think we were pretty early on
the remote work thing. you know, 2014,
you know, way before CO, it it just made
a lot of sense to us when I was running
the team in San Francisco, you know, we
had, I don't know, 150 engineers or
something that reported up to me. I had
people that would spend 3 or 4 hours
each direction in their car. Uh, and it
made no sense. I mean, I think I think
maybe the record was like 6 hours a day
of commute time. And I was spending
I was in Seattle before this and had
like no commute, right? because I lived
in in Kirkland and I drove to Redmond.
It was like very very short, like 20
minutes, but I think my commute was like
on average two hours when I was in the
Bay Area and I, you know, had a super
short commute compared to a lot of
people. So, yeah. So we we were already
remote, but when we got acquired, it was
such a stark difference between kind of
the old school way of doing business and
the amount of insane waste in that and
then our team that was remote and just
able to, you know, crank and focus for
8, 10, 14 hours a day and not not be
bothered.
Yeah, it's it really comes to a point
that when you're actually delivering
work that it becomes a productivity hack
to be in somewhere that's very
comfortable to you and and uh your
lifestyle with your family and
>> you know you can deliver a lot better in
that way.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think the argument
has always been that this doesn't work
for everybody, right? And you need some
people that are um that are only
motivated when they're in an office
around other people. But I don't I don't
really think that's true. I think that I
think those guys that don't do any work
when they're at home also don't do any
work in the office. It's just much
easier to make it look like you're doing
work in the office. Like you stand up,
you stretch, you have a meeting, you go
grab some coffee. Like we we all know
people that can do that for 40 hours a
week and and work for like seven. So I
don't [clears throat] know. A lot of it
was weird watching everybody kind of
realize how stupid it was to commute if
you have a white collar job. I would
take my laptop and I know a lot I know
everybody can relate with this, right?
You like you pick your laptop up off of
your desk, you jump on you jump in a
car, you jump in the train, you jump,
you know, you walk for a few blocks in
the financial district in the Bay Area
or whatever, you work and then you grab
your like you sit your laptop on the
desk, you work on it, then you pick it
up at the end of the day and you bring
it home and you put it back on your
desk. It's like, wait a minute. I all of
my interactions, even when I'm in the
office, uh, were almost all online,
right? So, it really didn't make any
sense at all. And it was weird to see co
hit and then everybody have a lot of the
same realizations. But what was really
weird was seeing it flip back where
everybody's like, "Oh, now we got to be
in the office." Like Google had this
revelation that you needed to be back in
the office. It it definitely makes me
wonder how much of our economy is fake
daycare for adults, right? uh where we
know a lot of people aren't working, but
there's there's some kind of Ponzi or
something that's driving this or you
have to have a certain number of people
or uh I I I don't know what the story
is, but it's definitely not about
productivity.
>> Well, there's also the part where the
the commercial office owners need to
have their offices filled because that's
an issue over here in Ontario, Canada.
You know, they mandated people back to
office because of this reason. It's it's
interesting. So, who who's working for
who here, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's very
dystopian. Like your your your uh what's
your purpose in life? It's to make sure
that this office is full. Why do we need
the office full? Cuz because our whole
economy is tied up in this thing. It's
pretty
>> Yeah. But I do I do see the benefit like
with everything going AI with everything
going digital and has been going
digital. There's this like there's this
theory that I have and observation that
I've had. It's like a lot of people want
to do more stuff in real life. That
happened after co but I that's going to
accelerate even more with with AI. It's
like people are just fed up with
>> I guess digitization in a way. Do you
feel that at all?
>> Not really. I I think what we did is
pretty unique too in that like you know
I had friends and family and then I had
work people and I really like the work
people right like I have my co-founder
and I have known each other for like 20
years now we have a really great
relationship we understand each other
and respect each other but we don't have
to get together in person all the time
because we we we have our own spouses
like like we don't we don't we don't
have a lot of time that we spend
together just talking about our feelings
ings or you know how stressful the
situation is, we just freaking work.
Like I've got work to deliver and she
wants to know how it how it's going.
She's got work. I want to know how it's
going. And
>> and then when we have extra time, we
want to spend it with our kids, right?
Like I I want to spend it with my kids.
She wants to spend it with her kid, her
husband.
>> And it just seems to work really well
like that. And and that's the kind of
like there's there's other people in the
company. I'll go for months and not talk
to them. But but they know I care about
them. like I've I've worked really hard
to help them be successful in their
careers, but I don't need to I don't
need to get like that emotional
connection online, you know, with
somebody that's in in New Zealand
because I'm I'm surrounded by like
friends and family that that are
separate from work. And I think that's
kind of a healthy a healthy situation. I
I mean, I do have kids that I work with
now that are all software engineers. And
so that's cool, too. I mean, it's nice
to have that, but I think I don't think
you have to get it all from the same
place. And I think work can be highly
remote, highly highly optimized for just
just deliverables.
>> I I think your company is probably an
exceptional company in in that regard
where highly performant. The
expectations are probably laid out very
clearly and uh you guys just deliver and
and that's that's how I would run a
company. So So kudos on that.
>> Yeah, it's I mean it is more fun too. I
really hated like one of the things that
I really hated about Microsoft there was
a ton of things that I loved about it.
It was a super cool company back then. I
don't think it's as cool as it was, you
know, in uh in 2015, but you still had
people that were like they were just
tired or they had worked like we we had
this thing called uh war room. Um
basically everybody in the company was
afraid to go to it because it was so
stressful. It was like 20 people in the
room and we just made all the decisions
about what was going to go in Windows
and what wasn't. And so if you had a bug
or you had a feature that had a bug, you
could have been working on that thing
for like two or three or four or five
years and show up to Warroom Room and
they would say, "Sorry, it's not going
in this release." And you'd be like,
"All right, well, I I guess I'm not
getting into Windows XP. Maybe I can get
in in 4 years." So very intense and
stressful and lots of real-time
decisions being made. And I mean, there
were people that worked there that once
we did release something like Windows,
like they were just burned out. like
they needed like months to recover from
the stress and and a lot of times they
would still have to show up, you know,
and be seen around the coffee room, but
it was kind of understood. You're not
getting any work out of that guy cuz we
almost killed him, right? Like give him
a few months to recover, you know, at
least.
>> And it's just that that sort of stuff is
really annoying. Like like let the guy
stay home and focus on his kids for a
while. Like he's earned it. But you
still have to like put in uh you know
the the facetime in the office and it's
just it's just totally pointless. So I
think a lot of that stuff is like boomer
World War II generation sort of
formality that it's just taking us a
long time to cut loose. Uh but I don't
think you know nobody thinks in 200
years people are going to be like you
know commuting in the office just to
have facetime and and uh um and you know
when they clearly don't have the energy
to do any real work anyway.
>> Okay. So let's say for real work, real
productivity, this model works. What
about and I'm just going to flip it over
to like where people make connections
and you know I'm in bisdev and sales and
I get that I get that sort of you know
you can't really do that over the
internet as much as you could do going
to a event or or serendipitously
meeting somebody that becomes a business
partner at an event and meetup. Um I and
I think that I don't think that part is
going to go away. You need to shake
hands. You need to talk to people. You
need to attend events. And I do see that
totally go away still going. There's a
lot
>> No, you really
>> Not only do I think it's going to go
away, I think like that whole career
field of sales and marketing is fake and
it existed for a short period of time in
history where we had a lot of products
and we just had terrible communication
mediums. And so, you know, a big chunk
of Microsoft, for example, was
enterprise sales guys. Um, and you think
about the absurdity of this. Like, we
had a lot of people at Microsoft that
would just go to other companies and try
to sell them Windows. What? Like maybe
maybe in the early days of Microsoft
that made sense. And it it was necessary
because of the momentum, right? This is
how people did procurement. This is how
people bought services. They decided
whether they were going to buy 10,000
Windows PCs based on the glint in the
eye of the sales guy that talked to them
and whether he had a firm handshake.
It's totally ridiculous. And anybody I
would say that's in sales and marketing
right now is just they're they're just
in a dying industry and AI is going to
completely eliminate your function. Your
whole job is just to communicate from
the product team what's good about this
product to a customer why they should
want the product. You're totally
automated out of a job already. You just
don't know it yet. Because if I'm
looking for a car or I'm looking for a
SAS product or I'm looking for whatever.
I'm gonna ask Chat Jippy or I'm going to
ask Grock or I'm going to ask Anthropic,
right? I'm not I'm probably not going to
go to a conference and walk around
booths and hopefully fall in love with a
sales guy that convinces me that this is
great.
>> And I I spent a lot of my career in
sales.
>> Okay. I I I I really do love this
conversation. It's it's giving me food
for thought and uh I love your
perspective because it it's challenging
and uh talk talk more about like why do
you think events would go away? Like why
let's say there was a financial data
event that was happening in Las Vegas.
Why would you
>> Yeah. Like money 2020 like let's say
that I'm a stockholder in money 2020
right now, right? Or like I'm one of the
founders of that thing.
We we've gone to money 2020 a few times
and I think there is value in there has
been value in going to that. But if you
actually just step back and think about
what this is, um you're physically going
to a place and like walking around this
hall, right? You're walking around this
big huge room with all these companies
that set up booths. And this is a system
that worked and started with mostly
physical products, right? these
conferences and stuff like mostly
physical things and mostly before the
internet existed, right? So, this is
clearly like a legacy mode of operating
and and connecting with people. And you
think about the money that goes into
that, right? Like a lot of lot of the
money that you spend being there as a
conference company, right? It's
basically like it's proof of bling,
right? Like if you spent $2 million and
it's not hard to spend $2 million at one
of these these conferences like a money
2020 if you get the right corner and all
of that you could spend that and you
probably have 20 employees there for the
whole time, right? So you're talking
about, you know, no question you're
spending seven figures on this sort of
thing. And a lot of what that does is it
shows that you have money. So, you're
trying to display status to everybody
and you're trying to say, "Hey, if
you're thinking about using a product in
this category, let's start by looking at
the guys that have the biggest booths
and the mo have spent the most money
because they're obviously successful."
And if you use them, they're not flaky,
right? So, it's like it's brand
recognition and it's sort of like that
first cut. So, you're making like these
as a consumer of these products and
services, you're making these very
chunky, very vague, like I think I
should seriously talk to these guys
because I can see that they just sent
maybe $2 million on fire in a barrel.
Like, that that's a big part of what's
happening. It's like imagine you showed
up and there's 50 companies and you know
14 of them are relevant for the category
that you might want to buy at and you're
just looking at who burned the most
money in this burn pit, right?
>> And and you just start with the one that
burned the most and you work your way
down. That's really a big part like I
would say that's the highest order bit
for what's happening in that
environment. And when you look at it
like that, it's it's not very efficient.
And then you think about all the money
that you spent to go there. Like you're
staying in probably an expensive hotel
like the Bellagio or something, right?
Host these things. You had to fly in.
You're going to have a handful of
conversations. And sales guys love it.
And you know, it's been good for for my
business. It's been good for a lot of
people's businesses. But what I'm trying
to say is like just from a uh a data
exchange perspective because that's
ultimately what you're doing. You're
just trying to like figure out, have I
built the right product that somebody
wants and how do I get them to
understand that it exists and and that's
it, right? It's it's purely data
transfer. The only reason all the
interpersonal stuff and all the sales
skills and all the like manipulative
stuff come into play is that the data
transfer mechanism is so lossy. It's
just a very inefficient and the buyers
just don't even know what the hell
they're buying half the time. and
they're getting into these multi-year
contracts and they're they're like in a
lot of ways they're they're going,
"Okay, well, I know this guy, you know,
this head of sales guy. I've seen his
career. Maybe I knew him 15 years ago.
He didn't screw me back then. So, I'll
go ahead and sign this contract now.
It's a multi-year contract, and I'm
putting a lot of weight in the
reputation of the sales guy representing
this company." It's it's very very
sloppy a way to do business, and it's
the only way that you can really do
business when you're completely data
starved, right? And that's why when I
was talking about AI earlier with
helping with finances, it's like we can
just make a a decision with 10,000 times
more data than we could have 50 years
ago. We probably do that already, but AI
is going to take it another couple
orders of magnitude. Uh, and where does
a where does a guy that's like focused
on sales his whole life fit in there?
Man, if there's one job that just
doesn't bode well, right? It's like
being a manual data transfer agent in a
world where the data is transferring
faster and more efficiently when you're
not in the room. So yeah, I I I would
say if you're in sales or marketing, you
know, it might be a good time to learn
to code.
>> Oh yeah. I mean, everybody's got to
learn to code these days. And it's it's
quite easy if you know if you know where
to point the direction, right? Like
that's the thing. I just don't think
people know how to build. I think like
coding is the easy part. It's it's what
to build. like what do you want to build
and how to architect it, what to put in
>> your software and what to leave out,
right? So,
>> yeah. Yeah, that's true. I mean, what
you're doing with the podcast is
interesting, right? You found a way to
connect with people and and I I think
podcasting is a great kind of way to
sell right now because it is a good
intermediary thing. Like obviously
flying to a conference is probably not
going to be there in like 15, 20 years.
Like it probably doesn't compute, but it
takes time for these things to change. I
don't I don't think, you know, if you're
if you're a a super successful
enterprise sales guy, I'm not saying you
should quit your $10 million a year job
and go learn to code right now, right?
Like you can you can ride the wave out,
but you probably don't want to train
your grandchildren, right, if you're if
you're uh at that age to go into
enterprise sales right now cuz it's, you
know, it's probably not going to be
there for them. But yeah, I think I
think stuff like podcasting, connecting
with people online in the way that we're
doing right now is kind of on that
continuum. um and and and has more legs,
longer legs than something like uh um
you know, trying to just knock on doors
or whatever. But ultimately, part of the
reason that this is cool is that it does
get fed into the LLMs, right? Like
everybody's going to go to the LLM first
and say, "Hey, should I who's Softron,
right?" And to the degree that these
podcasts get fed in there, like that's
that is good sales and marketing, I
would say. But you got to know that the
main face is going to be LLM.
>> That that's a good thing. But I will I
will say that the one thing that people
do want to see is like they put a face
to the name, too. Like they they will
have the data in the LLMs, but they'll
also say, "Hey, that's Jack Couch is a
real person, and there he was with Johan
on a podcast, right?" Like, so I think
like you're right. And and uh I advised
a CEO that I worked with one time. I'm
like I said to him the amount of money
and time that you spent going on
conferences is that's the time that you
could be building. It's it's terribly
disruptive for you to be leaving
building product to be going to these
things and there's you have a week
before you have a week after maybe even
two weeks before to prep and two weeks
after to to
>> to
>> but in in a really data uh if the buyers
don't have access to a lot of data
though it makes sense for him to do that
like he probably did the math. He
probably wasn't terribly off on whether
it was effective or not. He knew if he
got a few more sales when he went to a
conference that he wouldn't have got
otherwise probably. But the difference
is that the data is getting richer. Like
if if somebody said, "I I'm building a
financial app and I want to get access
to banking data or I'm building an AI
agent, right? I'm building a an AI
agent. One of the things I want it to be
able to do is connect to banks. Well, I
can look at Softrun or I can look at
Plaid or or Yodi or, you know, Finicity,
Mastercard, whatever." Right? I think
this conversation could be helpful
because it goes into the LLM and the LLM
says, "Hey, you know, here's the seven
that I know about and maybe Softron, you
know, maybe it would have been a list of
six if I wasn't on on a few podcasts,
right? Uh because they're not as top of
mind." But then the next question is
like, okay, how how should I make this
buying decision? And the answer is going
to be something like, well, you're
trying to connect to banks. How many
bank here? Here here's the banks that
they can connect to. Here's the
reliability numbers that have been
published, if any have been published.
Here's any security breaches that any of
these companies have suffered. Here's
how long they've been in business. Like
the LM is going to be an unbiased uh
source of those key driving decision-m
sort of metrics, right? And so probably
it's not going to be very long before
nobody cares, right? Nobody cares that
Jack Couch has, you know, worked at
Microsoft or whatever. It's like, can
you connect me to Boeing Employees
Credit Union and Wells Fargo? Have you
ever had a security issue and what's
your cost and uh you know, does it
freaking work, right? I I don't want to
have a conversation. I'm probably vibe
coding this thing up anyway, right? Like
like I'm probably having an agent decide
what API I'm going to use to connect the
bank account. So, I'm probably, you
know, like even the buyer is probably
getting taken out of the loop more than
than we expect right now. But yeah, the
idea that like as a technology service
provider, people are really going to
care whether I have a, you know, a
charming personality or not, like yeah,
that's totally was the case 20 years
ago. It's a little bit the case now, but
I think we can see that it's not going
to be the case for much longer.
This is cool. So, what is your your
future
like estimate of how we interact with
the LLMs? Is it just going to be a
device on our phone that we just speak
into? Is that is that the best UX?
>> I I mean I think probably it's it is
probably you just talking to your phone.
I don't know if it's a separate device.
Like this this whole separate device
thing has been so weird to watch too.
When when I was at Microsoft and we had
this pocket CE, I think is what it was.
And you know, you had your phone and you
could slide like a keyboard out and you
had a stylus. And then then I worked at
Xbox. Then I worked at Zoom. And Zoom
was like, "Okay, we're going to
consolidate the MP3 player and watching
video was like the whole the whole idea
behind Zoom." And it was super cool.
Like we had for for what it was, we had
this great UX, great designers, great
artists and everything. Like it was it
was fun. I still have like zooms laying
around. But then the day the iPhone came
out, we all stood around and we said,
"Okay, where are we applying next?"
Right? We all knew it was over because
[laughter] as soon as you picked up the
iPhone, you were like, "Oh my gosh, this
touchscreen is amazing." Like they
finally got touchcreens to work. There's
no stylus. The reason that Zoom didn't
have a uh like a touchcreen is we didn't
have the technology to make it work. It
was it was a shitty user experience.
Even with a stylus, you'd like stab the
thing sometimes, you know? It just it it
wasn't good enough. And so we kind of
did like this custom thing where you'd
roll your thumb around. But as soon as
we saw that good touch screen, we were
like, "All right, it's game over." And
also, it's got to be the phone. So, some
of us moved over to Windows Phone and
worked on that, but it was just so clear
that like, yeah, nobody's going to carry
around an MP3 player when they can carry
around an iPhone and it has an MP3
player and it's got a browser and it's
also a cell phone, right? So, this kind
of like weird going back to individual
devices, I just think it's like it's in
in nonsense, right? Like why I I carry
these two things around like everybody
right now, right? And I'm kind of
annoyed that this isn't somehow inside
this already, right? Like like you want
your AirPods to be somehow smaller so
that they can like fit in the back of
your phone case or something. And I'm
sure I'm sure somebody's working on
that. It's probably already uh it's
probably already on the road map at
Apple.
>> Yeah. It's called a brain computer
interface that
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I mean
that's way more that's way more the
trend, right? The trend is not towards
inconvenience. The trend is towards
convenience. So yeah, I I agree. More
likely my cell phone goes in my skull
than that I carry another few devices
around.
>> Would you do it? Would you do it? Would
you be one of the first ones or
>> No, I'm a security guy, so I like trust
boundaries and my brain uh I I like that
it's isolated from my phone to the
degree that it is. I mean, there's been
there's been enough experiments already
trying to push that limit, but no, I I
don't want to I'm not going to be the
first guy to get his brain hacked.
>> Okay,
>> I'd have to have a lot more trust in the
hardware that I have and stuff right
now.
>> All right, but you know, we're wrapping
up here. Super amazing conversation.
What's the future of Softron? Like,
where do you see guys yourselves in a
couple years? And how can we keep up
with what you guys are doing?
Yeah, I mean I I think probably what's
going to happen with Softron is we end
up getting acquired by one of the
frontier models. That seems like the
most likely thing because they're
they're running up against this data
wall that they're starting to talk about
more and more now. Like they've got
access to all of the public data they've
trained and they've added the
functionality that they can add, but
they they need access to everything that
they can get. That's going to be a major
differentiator. And we've spent a decade
getting really, really good at accessing
data, um, ethically and with consumer
consent, um, informed consent, all of
that, but getting access to data that
nobody can get access to. So, I think
that's probably where we end up. Um,
and, uh, yeah, I'm looking forward to
it. It's going to be a it's going to be
a fun ride. Uh, the stuff that's
happening is it's of course overhyped,
but all these things have been overhyped
and then still absolutely incredible in
hindsight.
Amazing.
Thanks, Jack. One thing I was say a
little curious about what you said. You
said you were on the Xbox team.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I uh I
personally set up the Xbox network in
Japan. Did did like built out the whole
the whole uh network configuration and
all that sort of stuff. So, Xbox Live in
particular.
>> So, meaning like multi
multiplayer run ran on something you
built.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Xbox Live was huge
when it first came out. I mean, it was
it was Halo, you know, Halo kicked off
and you could play Halo with your
friends all the way across the country,
all the way across the world, right? And
uh yeah, that was one of the funnest
times of my career. Like, everybody was
playing Halo all the time when we
weren't working. And you know, actually,
you know, that that was magical. And
part of the reason it was magical is we
were all in person. I got to I got to
admit, it was very cool to be able to
walk down the hall and uh just see all
your friends that you were working and
playing with. your connection or our
connection went south there. But I I
wanted to show you this. I I found this
in a in a toy show.
It was
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The
>> laser cell fun.
>> A laser cell. One of 500.
>> Yeah.
>> Nice.
>> Let's give it to the employees.
>> Yeah. I I actually don't have that and I
don't remember it. Um
but it looks cool and it probably was. I
uh I somehow I always missed out. Uh I
think it was because I was always
working like in the party. Um when we
shipped Windows Vista, every year that
when we shipped a new uh copy of
Windows, there'd be this huge uh cover
on Wall Street Journal and a picture of
that war room that I was talking about
and everybody was there. And uh I missed
that day, too. Even though I spent, you
know, I was the security guy in that
room for two years. And then I don't
know, some emergency came up and I
wasn't I wasn't uh hanging out at the
party and then they came in and got the
shot. So, I'm not surprised that I uh
don't I don't still have that.
>> Prior to us having kids, we used to play
Halo multiplayer all the time, my wife
and I, and
>> we love it. I mean, it's uh it's
probably one of the best video games. I
hope they I hope they move and do
something with it more. But uh
>> yeah, it's a staple. It's a it's an
amazing game.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very fun. I'm not
uh I'm not doing a lot of gaming anymore
these days, but uh yeah.
>> Yeah. I'm hoping that that some some
more fun games come out. It does it does
seem like that stalled a bit. VR is
actually going to be amazing.
>> I was I was talking to a friend the
other day that has been working on a
physics engine for VR and trying to
figure out how to get it to the point
where we could do sword fighting. And if
you think about the latency there, it's
just insane. like you gotta for for you
to hit somebody else's sword like the
speeds or and he said for the first time
this was just a couple weeks ago he was
like I got it and he was able to
actually sword fight with somebody else
and they did all kinds of weird things
to make it work and your brain actually
has to be okay with like you actually it
introduces more latency for when you
move your hand but your brain starts
adjusting this is very weird like your
brain's brain stops expecting your hand
to move as fast. And so they buy
themselves a little bit of latency by
doing that. By basically slowing your
brain down on both sides, they're able
to use that time gap that they create by
putting a local lag that doesn't need to
be there. But yeah, at the end of the
day, they were they're uh they're able
to have a really cool like actual sword
fighting experience in VR. So that hype
cycle's gone now, but it's going to come
back and the technology is still
progressing and it's going to be
awesome.
>> Yeah, I know. I've I've gotten into
collecting games. I don't get time to
play it myself, but uh collecting games,
I don't know. It's just like one of
those things. I was into NFTTS, so it uh
it was a natural thing. [laughter]
>> Um
>> are you are you still in NFTs or has
that hype cycle completely? Uh
>> it's uh that hype cycle is completed for
now. I I think there's there's more
there's more you can do with NFTs. Like
there's Funkos that that that were
redeemable if you owned the NFT. I
thought that was cool,
>> right? Yeah. like rewards points sort
of.
>> Yeah. And I think there's it's just data
that's onchain. Uh it's just data that's
that's metadata that's onchain and
trackable. So I I don't from a
technology and productwise. It it
probably was just delivered the wrong
way with
>> you know board ape and monkeys and all
these different things. So
>> what a crazy what a crazy series of hype
cycles we've lived through in the last
10 years. Like when Xbox Live launched
it was really cool. It was a big deal
and the amount of hype that it got. Even
though we had like we had millions of
users, people were spending tons of time
on it. It was like, you know, it was the
first online gaming experience for I
would say most people that bought an
Xbox. They hadn't really done a lot of
online gaming. You know, there was like
World of Warcraft, but that was like
weird teenagers only, you know, that
that played that. And yeah, there was
there was some of that, but not
>> not a ton. And and man, if you compare
like the social impact of that and how
how actually cool it was to the amount
of overall hype to something like the
NFT thing, like the amount of joy that
the NFTs actually brought to people
compared to the hype, like we have
entered into just a really really weird
world where it's really hard to tell
what the heck's going on anymore.
>> But yeah, I think you know, like even
even VR, like VR has kind of sucked.
Like my kids play VR, I've played it a
little bit. There's some cool
experiences that you can have in VR, but
for Facebook to be renamed Meta and all
of the metaverse hype, that whole hype
cycle was just insufferable. Like, it's
so I'm so glad that one's over. But it
is a weird time where it's like
everything that I want to be excited
about, I almost don't like it because
they're ruining it for me. Like they're
so hyping things to the point where it's
like I'm kind of disgusted. Like AI is a
perfect example. I'm totally excited
about the actual experiences, but when I
say it, I think of like,
>> oh my gosh, you know, everybody's going
to be unemployed in like two weeks and
all of this sort of stuff. It's like, oh
man.
>> So, I I try to I I'm trying more and
more to like
>> block out the hype and, you know, focus
on the reality. And the reality is very
cool with a lot of the stuff.
>> Speaking of hype, are you any kids into
Pokemon and Magic or anything like that?
>> No, no, no, no, no. The older ones are
are a little too nerdy, I think.
>> Okay.
>> They like they like like first person
shooters in VR. They they do that a bit
and uh um and like racing go-karts and
things like that.
>> But yeah,
before you go, I just wanted to say I
didn't know that you worked on the
Microsoft network, but we got so much
enjoyment out of that and it was it's
literally the gold standard of online
multiplayer. I It still probably is. I
don't know. I don't play. But if I were
wanting to choose one, it would be like,
"Yeah, it's Xbox Live. It's worth it. I
could have a phone conversation with my,
>> you know, it's it was that good." You
know, it was a good system.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It was it was cool. And it
was the first, like I said, it was the
first time a lot of people had that
experience. So, it was really fun
>> to be part of that. But, yeah, lot lots
of more cool stuff to come. If uh if we
could just see through the hype, I think
uh you know, how good would it be if we
were able to sword fight during this
conversation? Why not?
Oh, that's interesting. It's It was
refreshing having you on. There's like a
lot of people that talk hype and you're
just like that veteran CEO type that
that that's seen it all type of thing.
So, I I really do appreciate your
Candace, you know, converation. So,
>> awesome, man. This was fun. I I really
appreciate you reaching out and and
getting this together. This is a good
time.
>> All right, man. We'll be in touch. I'll
I'll talk to you again soon.
>> Okay. See you.