Chad Pytel

535: AI in Healthcare: How CareTrainer.ai is Changing Elder Care

July 25th, 2024  |  Season 14  |  48 mins 19 secs

Hosts Will Larry and Chad Pytel interview Brock Dubbels, Principal UX and AI Researcher at CareTrainer.ai, who explains how the company leverages AI to address the care crisis in elderly populations by automating routine tasks. This approach allows caregivers to focus on building meaningful relationships and providing personalized care, ultimately enhancing the quality of care and reducing burnout. Brock also discusses CareTrainer.ai’s apprenticeship model, which uses AI assistance to accelerate caregiver training and improve job satisfaction and retention.

534: How Toma is Transforming Car Dealerships with Voice AI Technology

July 18th, 2024  |  Season 14  |  44 mins 37 secs

Host Chad Pytel interviews Monik Pamecha, CEO of Toma, about how their AI technology automates phone calls for car dealerships, significantly enhancing customer service. Monik shares Toma's journey from initial AI experiments to focusing on voice AI, detailing the challenges and successes along the way. The discussion also covers the practical implementation of Toma's AI solutions in the automotive industry and the importance of clear communication about AI's role in customer interactions.

533: Leveraging Data for Gender Equality with Amy-Willard Cross

July 11th, 2024  |  Season 14  |  32 mins 59 secs

Founder Amy-Willard Cross discusses Gender Fair, a consumer rating system for gender equality that uses data and UN Women Empowerment Principles to evaluate companies in various categories, making it easier for consumers to make informed choices via their app and browser extension. She emphasizes the power of transparency and collective consumer action in driving corporate accountability and reflects on the challenges and future plans of Gender Fair.

505: Commsor with Mac Reddin

December 21st, 2023  |  Season 11  |  40 mins 48 secs

Mac Reddin is the CEO of Commsor. He discusses Commsor's evolution from community-led growth software to a go-to-network model, emphasizing the importance of various overlapping networks in a company's ecosystem. He shares his journey from running a Minecraft-based company as a teenager to founding Commsor, which initially began as a newsletter and evolved into a community and then a product.

Mac stresses the effectiveness of authentic community building and relationship-based growth over traditional sales and marketing strategies. He criticizes cold calling and email tactics, advocating for genuine interactions and relationship-building. Commsor’s approach, including personal onboarding of every user and fostering a company culture where employees are encouraged to express their individuality and interests, has shown success and satisfaction internally and in the market.

Chad reflects on his experiences at thoughtbot, aligning with Reddin's perspective on community and user-centric approaches. He emphasizes trust and freedom within his team, allowing for authentic individual contributions to the company's growth and reputation. Together, they discuss the importance of personal connections in business and how modern sales tactics might need reevaluation in favor of more genuine, relationship-based approaches.

500: Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots 500th Episode!

November 16th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  1 hr 12 mins

We released episode one of this podcast on June 11, 2012. Now, more than a decade later, we're celebrating the 500th episode of our show. In honor of this milestone, Victoria, Will, and Chad caught up with each of the past hosts of the show: Ben Orenstein, Chris Toomey, and Lindsey Christensen.

We chatted about what they’re up to now, what they liked and learned from hosting the show, their time at thoughtbot, and more!

494: Aigo.ai with Peter Voss

September 28th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  33 mins 54 secs

Peter Voss is the CEO and Chief Scientist of Aigo.ai, a groundbreaking alternative to conventional chatbots and generative models like ChatGPT. Aigo's chatbot is powered by Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), enabling it to think, learn, and reason much like a human being. It boasts short-term and long-term memory, setting it apart in terms of personalized service and context-awareness.

Along with host Chad Pytel, Peter talks about how most chatbots and AI systems today are basic. They can answer questions but can't understand or remember the context. Aigo.ai is different because it's built to think and learn more like humans. It can adapt and get better the more you use it. He also highlights the challenges Aigo.ai faces in securing venture capital, given that its innovative approach doesn't align with current investment models heavily focused on generative or deep learning AI. Peter and Chad agree that while generative AI serves certain functions well, the quest for a system that can think, learn, and reason like a human demands a fundamentally different approach.

481: Oscar Health with Neetu Rajpal

June 29th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  31 mins 49 secs

Neetu Rajpal is the CTO of Oscar Health. Oscar aims to make a healthier life accessible and affordable for all by refactoring healthcare to make great care cost less.

Chad talks to Neetu about working for a relatively new insurance company, reorganizing its structure by getting people into the right positions, and how incorporating large language models and generative AI is an inflection point that will help move things forward.

477: 20th Anniversary Episode

June 1st, 2023  |  Season 11  |  52 mins 35 secs

Chad joins cohosts Victoria and Will to talk about thoughtbot's 20th birthday! 🤖🎉

In this episode, you'll find the 411 on the thoughtbot mascot, "Ralph," taking the company fully remote, and our company values and how we believe products should be designed and built!

474: Freelance Producer, Podcaster, Actor, Motion Capture & Performance Capture Performer Jasper (William) Cartwright

May 11th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  43 mins 42 secs

Jasper (William) Cartwright is a Freelance Producer, Podcaster, Actor, and Motion Capture & Performance Capture Performer.

Chad talks to Jasper about his podcast Three Black Halflings, which is committed to discussing diversity and inclusion within fantasy, sci-fi, and nerdy culture from the perspective of three people of color, what it's like to be in the space, and why representation is super important.

469: Harpoon with Dominic Holt

April 6th, 2023  |  Season 11  |  46 mins 26 secs

Dominic Holt is CEO of harpoon, a drag-and-drop Kubernetes tool for deploying any software in seconds.

Victoria talks to Dominic about commoditizing DevOps as a capability, coming up with the idea for drag and drop just thinking through how he could do these things in a visual and intuitive way, and using Kubernetes as a base for Harpoon.

454: The Global Collective with Stacy Kehren Idema

December 22nd, 2022  |  Season 11  |  35 mins 50 secs

Stacy Kehren Idema is the Founder and Managing Director of Global Collective, which is revolutionizing how men and women do business.

Chad talks to Stacy about the work Global Collective does, starting a company based in the U.K, and the differences between doing business in the U.S. and the U.K.

453: Greenpixie with John Ridd

December 15th, 2022  |  Season 11  |  28 mins 33 secs

John Ridd is the Co-Founder and CEO of Greenpixie, which is building solutions to reveal and reduce cloud emissions.

Chad and Will talk to John about giving a clearer view of AWS emissions down to the service level, why cloud emissions are a much bigger sustainability issue than most people realize, and how this will be the next big issue of the climate crisis.

451: Product Strategy with Jordyn Bonds

December 1st, 2022  |  Season 11  |  39 mins 29 secs

Jordyn Bonds is the Director of Product Strategy at thoughtbot. Jordyn helps companies validate new product opportunities and reach that first key milestone, from validating an early adopter market to creating a pitch deck to building a prototype, proof of concept, or an MVP launch.

Chad talks to Jordyn about what a Director of Product Strategy does, how Jordyn's career has evolved (She got to build madonna.com for the Confessions on the Dance Floor release and tour!!), and finding practices that keep you motivated and inspired to be working towards long-term, large goals.

449: Welcome, Will Larry!

November 17th, 2022  |  Season 11  |  35 mins 43 secs

Will Larry, Software Developer at thoughtbot, joins Giant Robots as host! 🎉

Will talks about how he got into tech, how everything is going so far at thoughtbot, interviewing at thoughtbot previously but not getting the job, and why he decided to interview again (and snagging the job!)

447: Gembah with Neil Macqueen

November 3rd, 2022  |  Season 11  |  28 mins 57 secs

Neil Macqueen is a leading industrial designer with 78 patents to his name, having previously spent ten years at Dyson and is now the Head of Design at Gembah, the world's first global marketplace for product development.

Chad talks to Neil about being focused on industrial design or actual physical products as opposed to interfaces and digital products, working with designers and developers, and design to manufacture as a process.

446: Plants and Perks with Chloe Sweden

October 27th, 2022  |  Season 11  |  43 mins 22 secs

Chloe Sweden is the Founder and CEO of Plants and Perks, a service for rewarding employees with sustainable perks.

Chad talks to Chloe about supporting employees on plant-based sustainability journies by gifting free samples and high-value prizes, choosing a co-founder, and being strategic with the types of businesses they've approached.