Episode: Daniel Gross: Dreams and Determination
Pub date: 2018-10-10
Listen Here: iTunes | Overcast
Subscribe to my Monday Musings Newsletter to Keep Up with the Podcast
My guest today is Daniel Gross, a partner at Y Combinator, the world’s best startup studio. Daniel focuses on artificial intelligence at Y Combinator and recently founded AI Grant, a distributed AI Research Lab.
Daniel was born in Jerusalem, Israel and was accepted into the Y Combinator Program in 2010. At the time, Daniel was the youngest founder ever accepted. In 2013, Cue was acquired by Apple. At 22, Daniel was leading several search and AI efforts across the company spanning iOS, OS X and Apple Watch.
In 2017, Daniel joined Y-Combinator as a Partner. He launched YC AI, Y-Combinator’s first vertical dedicated to investing in AI companies. In 2018, Daniel founded Pioneer. Pioneer is a search engine for the millions of “Lost Einstein’s” — extraordinarily creative people around the world who have the talent, but lack opportunity. Once identified, Pioneer and makes small investments to support whatever project they’re working on.
In this episode, Daniel talks about the experience of coming to America and starting a company with Y Combinator. He talks about the power of seeing life like a video game with levels, and fast, continuous feedback. Daniel also shares lessons from John D. Rockefeller on business, decision making, and company building. Finally, Daniel talks about Israel and shares his insights on why the country is so innovative.
Purchase the Transcript SUBSCRIBE TO MY “MONDAY MUSINGS” NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP with THE PODCAST. Show Notes5:40- Daniel talks about some of things he became fascinated with early on in life.
8:20 How Daniel took an early interest in coding through video games and reverse engineering.
8:50 The “gamifacation” strategy Daniel uses to set goals and motivate himself.
9:20 “Everything in life is some form of a video game” Daniel explains how life can be similar to a video game in terms of seeing stages of life as levels, and setting goals and strategies to progress one from level to the next.
11:22 Daniel delves into what motivates people and specifically how our need for approval is not necessarily something to be ashamed of.
14:00 Daniel talks about YC’s earlier years and his first encounter with Steve Jobs.
16:00 Daniel describes his initial vision to create a “personal” search engine capable of sorting through your own personal data.
17:10 Daniel explains a variety of features and functions that AI and his coding have on iOS and OS devices
18:15 How will we interact with artificial intelligence in the future?
21:00 The pitfalls of trying to superimpose the current futuristic thinking rather than expecting the unexpected. </