Michael: Rob Nail, welcome to the podcast. This is exciting,
Rob Nail: Good to see you, Michael. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here.
Michael: Yeah, yeah, Indeed. So listen, to jump in, just to get started, I think to give people background. You're someone who's been super fascinating to me. Your career has been wild. The things that you've done, the broad range of it, super fascinating, really excited to get into that. For the benefit of people who don't know your background, who maybe don't know about Singularity University and many of the other things you've done, I'd to sort ⁓ of... start at Singularity University, but dial it back 10 years. Obviously, you were principally involved in the founding of Singularity University, it's had such an impact. There's so many people talk about it. The whole idea of like, we're in the Singularity now is this idea that I feel like is just pervasive throughout our culture, media landscape, the tech landscape, et cetera. And then obviously, Ray Kurzweil's book that. gonna share a little bit about that, because that was super influential to me. What led you, like what was your journey in your life and career and education and interest led you to that point? Because it's such an incredible inflection point.
Rob Nail: well, let's see. I mean, I ⁓ know how deep the history you really want to get into before the Singularity story, because there is, the universe had to align perfectly for me to where I did with Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. I mean, all the pieces have to fit perfectly to take you where you go. I'll, let's see, there's a few threads here that I think might be relevant for just thinking about innovation in general. that for me is the sweet spot is where I spend most of my time today, working, consulting, coaching, my my whole career has been focused around innovation and figuring out how to imagine what's possible and bring it to life. That I would say that really started out of necessity growing up, you know, poor with a car that rarely ran and spent most of the weekends with my dad trying to fix things learning things work and realizing that, yeah, sometimes you could come up with a better design to make it better than that. And that led to engineering in college. was first kid in my family to go off to university and I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Found myself in an engineering program, which was really hard, a bunch of amazing other engineers. And interesting I really trying hard to be an English major, English and philosophy, specifically comp lit. I loved sci-fi and utopian stories, which So that's, we're going to come back around to that one at some point here. just inspiring ways think about a different future. And I met my, you know, really my best in undergrad in physics, talking about flying cars. And turns out there was little, I went to UC Davis and there was, there's a crazy scientist named Paul Moller who built this little flying car company. Gosh, in the 70s, he was on the cover of Popular Science because he built this vertical liftoff little jets. It looked just like the Jetsons car, like the little bubble top and little saucer, ⁓ a little flying saucer. And he built a prototype of it and you'd like shaky little flying car. as we got to apprentice at this flying car company and build prototypes and learn how to run the mill and the shop and do all this fun stuff while to school, going climbing mountains on the weekends and, you know, just trying to try to explore and, and try new After college, he went to Stanford. I signed on time at the flying car company as an engineer, helped build an engineering team and
Michael: Wow.
Rob Nail: quickly learned that he was a scientist, inventor, not a business guy. And it was clear that I was not gonna go too far. And I got a chance to go to Stanford as well. So I went back to school, to grad school. And while I was there, my friend, Joe Ben, he was consulting and working at this pharmaceutical company, helping the researchers automate some of their processes and... and improve what they're doing in the labs. And so I would end up spending weekends in my summer during school with building robots and designing cool new stuff and really just to researchers gripe about their problems and then try to figure out how to solve them. And that's, ⁓ think what, we're as engineers, like that's kind of what we're wired for is. Hey, there's a problem. Let's figure out a new solution to it. It's always based out of necessity. There's a real problem to solve, and let's just figure out new ways to do it. That turned into a out where we, after I grad school, we spun out a startup building robotics and automation for drug discovery, cancer research, basically research lab equipment. That was a fun 10 year journey.
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: of entrepreneurship and pain purpose and meaning and love and all the, it was all the things. We were very fortunate to have been successful and have exit. We were able to sell, we ended up selling the business to Agilent and I sort of that.
Michael: Well.
Rob Nail: startup world for a general manager role at a big company. I learned a lot about corporate bureaucracy and to your head up against a brick wall. And it ⁓ not me. I eventually left. And I did some investing, started a couple of little things with friends, but it really just took a break trying to figure out like, what am I going to do my life?
Michael: All right. ⁓
Rob Nail: I never imagined what I wanted to do. Just always found a problem that was cool to solve and just dove into it. And, you honestly, just I know you do a lot of coaching. One of the things that really hit me in that phase was, gosh, am I a one hit wonder? Am I ever going to be able to do anything else? Like, I don't really have any skills. And it was a tough time. So sort of. trying to figure out like, I equipped to do anything? And it was during that time that I actually met Peter Diamandis and and Ray had just started Singularity University. I was advising, coaching, doing some just random things, but I attended one of the first executive programs at Singularity University. It was a... tiny little thing, little classroom at NASA Ames. it like 10 immersive living in the dorms at NASA. And it the most exciting thing I had done in my entire life. was the people I wanted to be around. The ideas were just all the stuff that I'd been imagining through all my sci-fi work and everything else. was just like, this is the community that's going to bring it together and build the future.
Michael: Wow.
Rob Nail: And I like, this is it. This is my tribe. And donated to the university. So it was founded as a nonprofit. Peter had started many other nonprofits like the X Prize Foundation and ⁓ International University. And so donated as one of the first individual donors. They gave me an associate founder title. I started advising, out a lot, the team. ⁓ And then about a year later, actually had taken over. was running, I was now running, I was a CEO and, and, the business into a benefit corporation and raised capital then spent the next eight plus years building a global community that thinks differently about the future is optimistic and really focused on solving ⁓ what we, we the global grand challenges. And, you know, that That period for me was probably the most exciting, the most challenging, the most purposeful. I had many people and I believed it myself that Singularity University was my life's purpose. This is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And interestingly, and mean, still this day, like I'm so proud of what we had built.
Michael: Mmm.
Rob Nail: Um, and during that period in between the first startup and the second startup, I met my wife. We got married around the time that I joined up with Singularity. We wanted to have kids. We went through this long challenging fertility cycle. Um, you know, there's a lot of ups and downs with that personally. And we were very fortunate after several years, we ended up able to have kids, a couple, we ended up having two kids, two beautiful little. a boy and a girl. was interesting is as riding the of that journey personally, I'm also riding these just tectonic waves of ups and downs Singularity as it's going through its startup journey. so it was a those waves would, the lows would hit the and it would be really hard. And sometimes both the highs would hit together and be really high, but
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: It was a very difficult time. I, with the success of Singularity, we got to a pretty interesting scale. It was clear that it was time for me to step aside, let someone else come in and grow it so that I could regroup and figure out what I'm really made for. And I was like, hey, it's probably time. Let's bring someone else here to scale this from here because we've got to figure it out. We've got something exciting going. And it wasn't, you the board had its own issues and, know, it wasn't quite the right time. And, hey, can we just get to the next milestone? Can we just get through this next funding round? Can we next? And that for almost a year, I sort spiraled down in, a burnout, in a burnout phase. ⁓ And I I didn't realize how, how low I had gotten during that time. And I didn't really have the support I needed. And I, I burnt out and at the end of 2019, I basically said, okay, I I'm afraid I'm going to lose my family. like, we're really struggling with depression at home. And so I stepped back and I said, okay, this time I'm leaving at the end of November. And, and I stepped down from what I said was going to be my life's project. that was a hard, that was the hardest decision I've probably had to make. it definitely the right one as ⁓ two months later, like shuts down the world and of changes the paradigm. I went quite a journey personally and professionally through all that. And it took a while to regroup, but that takes us to today where really for the last four five years now, I've been experimenting with community, with innovation process. a lot of time with AI and with the reality of AI today that we predicted 15 years ago at Singularity, which still shocks me. It's been incredible. maybe than asked for, but that gives you a pretty ⁓ real glimpse into I got here professionally.
Michael: Totally. No. It's, I mean, just thanks for sharing all that. And that is exactly what I was hoping for. I've just, you know, reading the Singularity is Near in like 2006, 2007 really changed my life in many respects. It was, I think, the beginning of me seeing that my journey as an innovator in sort of non-technical realms. I dabbled in a little bit of like, know, like as an artist, I was always like, well, what can I do with these tools? Like, what can I do with video projection? What can I do with immersive spaces? What can I do with, you know, the smartphone technology and made, you know, applications and before there were apps, know, like, like, I mean, before there was like an app store, before there was an iPhone and, I played, right. You know, and I'd always been thinking like, all those stuff I had done was about like, how can you enhance the human experience through art, through technology, through the merging of them, through commerce, through business, et cetera. But reading the singularity is near to me. People meet me years later and they'd see me as such an optimistic person. And I kind of was like it's in my DNA, but I'd say really the source of so much of my optimism about the future comes from the singularity is near because seeing the of ⁓ including like organic technologies, biological technologies, DNA, you know, the way paints a picture of, you know, like journey from the Big Bang to now and how all these things have sort of built on each other. And then seeing that extrapolation forward, I just, I just had this sense of like, wow, like this ride that we're on, like what a, it just brought like wonder to a whole new level in my experience.
Rob Nail: Mm-hmm.
Michael: And so I've been, know, back in this back when like, you know, I'd say like Ray Kurzweil and people are like, who's he, you know, or like, ⁓ he's the guy with the keyboard, right? As may Stevie wonder and like, you know, didn't really know him in that way. And I think it just wasn't part of the general mainstream zeitgeist in way that it is now. But, but it's just that that's always been. And the fact that, that it was all the moment we're in now is so anticipated.
Rob Nail: Yeah.
Michael: you know, and so foreseen and so much of what, you know, his raised genius about really predicting things based upon his like very technical extrapolation of technologies and how he's invented so many things. It's just been fascinating to me. But, but it's just, it's, so exciting and so wondrous. And I'm curious to know you started to allude to it. what you, what are, your outlook now?
Rob Nail: Yeah. Yep. Mm.
Michael: you for where we're going. You mentioned AI, you mentioned where the world is going, you mentioned some of the things that were anticipated then. your outlook in 2026?
Rob Nail: Yeah. Yeah. Man, question. you know, thank you for sharing your, your reaction Ray's book. You know, when I, so I actually had the Age of Intelligent Machines, which was the precursor to Singularity. And I, I loved it because was a real, what I thought was a credible of the dots as to where would go, right? And When I tried to that with people, they like they're like, what are you talking about? And then I try to show them the book and the book was so, know, Ray, very minded, right? He's very, that is not an read. So anyone that has actually read Singularity is Near and gotten through it is like kudos that that says a lot about about you, right? And I, I, which this is the reason I right onto the team with Singularity was that was the sense that I'd always had, right? You growing up, we're the first generation to really have home right? This was, parents didn't have such a thing. And here we grew up as kids, like excited by Pong and the Apple II and like the first most basic versions because we could see you could feel that this is going to change we operate and it's potentially going to change everything. And bought into it and believed and helped build organization teach it. And the optimism that you was core to what we were trying to do Singularity. with a dose of reality and skepticism is like, hey, the future doesn't just happen. Like we are, we're gonna create this we're either intentionally gonna do it or we're gonna let it happen to us. And it's not really clear what happen if we just allow it, right? So a big part of singularity was, hey, we need to be optimistic what's possible. and then spend all of our time focusing on what we really want and solving the problems, those to get there. And felt, I think that is the answer even today. Now, biggest thing I would say, the way that I'm today is, holy shit, I can't all this stuff is actually happening. We've been talking about it for 15 years and I believed it was gonna happen. But now that I'm feeling it, I'm like, what really is happening? How do I not feel totally prepared? It's incredible to me, right? It's incredible that I have thinking about this pretty deeply for a long time. And yet, it unfolds, don't feel like we're ready even remotely. And I don't feel I'm in the way that I feel responsible. what I mean by that is the future is unwritten. It is not determined. And we... I think there's an amazing possible future ahead if we get there. I'm about the next five 10 years, which I believe might prove to be the- some of the most important years in the history of humanity, because we are equipping ourselves with the most powerful technological capabilities that have ever existed. without a vision of what we want for the future. and without clear systems built upon values that are inherently good for us. We're building a global system and infrastructure that is really driven by growth, GDP profit, which then just trickles down into very intense, scarcity-minded system that we have. And so sacrifice our wellness and our environment and everything to the purpose of growth. And ⁓ right ⁓ with this we're accelerating that as much as we can. And that scares me. think that concern us all. with AI, the companies out there are just actively saying, hey, we can't slow down because we'll lose to China. So again, going to sacrifice everything. We're going to sacrifice our safety at the fear of not growing fast enough. And that's a problem. I think we're going to solve it. We have to solve it because I don't want to... I don't want to check out just yet. want, and I have two little kids that I want to see an amazing future, but there's there's some work to do for us to navigate the transition ahead.
Michael: Yeah, yeah. couldn't agree more. ⁓ it's been really fascinating to me over the last couple of years as I, you know, as a curious person, as an innovator myself, as someone just excited about where things are going, I'm always pulling threads of ⁓ interest see where they lead. And sometimes they feel very disparate and then all of sudden they converge. And, and new patterns start to emerge and become visible to me. And some of the things that I've been interested in have, you know, just really to clarify where are going, know, and, and, and one example that I'll just, that kind of freaked out recently was in realizing just how much I don't think. It's like that thing about that people just can't understand exponentials. It's just like our mind cannot wrap itself around it. We can when shown it at the end, but it's like, wait, like, and I think that the rate of change that is happening ⁓ the scale of it and some of the implications of it are like, people are thinking like this linear progression from computers. Like it was like, know, computers and then it like home computers and then it was like mobile and the internet and then mobile and
Rob Nail: Right.
Michael: And it's just like a few steps from there, but it's like, no, no, you don't understand. AI is so fundamentally different and the pace and the speed of things is so fundamentally different. And I was listening to Ezra Klein did a really fascinating podcast last week talking about this very thing. And they were talking about the implications of government. was the whole, were kind of discussing the conflict between Anthropic and the Defense Department. And what was being ultimately revealed that me in a way that just hadn't before was that so much of our system is built on and based on managing friction, know, representative right? Like there are all these, one of points they made was how our whole system is based on non-universal enforcement of our Like if you start to all of a sudden enforce all of our laws uniformly, the whole everything changes. What can do in a way that just hasn't been possible before is ⁓ uniform of and ⁓ a You all that friction the banking system. The banking system is based upon friction and a lack of trust, so the banks manage a system. All of these things that we take as like just
Rob Nail: Yep. Yep.
Michael: bedrock foundation layer actually based upon certain inefficiencies of the old system. And if you introduce a whole new system that doesn't have that kind of friction, it's like everything changes. Like, so what's the role of government when human government is to be so far behind, you know, AI's enforcement of regulations? What happens when the models, the constitutions of the models
Rob Nail: Totally.
Michael: override leadership of governments and says, no, no, you're asking me to do that, asking technology to do something. And the technology is like, ⁓ no, no, I can't do that. I won't do that. And what happens then? And just a whole range of things. And I certainly don't have a full inventory of all those things. was just like seeing one little tip of the iceberg. was like, holy shit, the implications are so much greater than I was even thinking. But I've been paying close attention to this as I know you have for a long time.
Rob Nail: maybe I'll start. By just looking backwards a little bit, one of the biggest questions that I think comes up for a lot of people is, is this time different? Because we've had lots of innovation and radical changes and we've whole epochs of humanity going the agricultural revolution and industrial revolution and all the old changed multiple times. The one thing that has been consistent is us humans are pretty good at adapting. It might feel painful, it might feel slow, but if you just at how the way humanity operates, especially around with corporate systems and ⁓ capital market systems, only got a hundred years of ⁓ real new way of operating. pretty new. And, and we adapted pretty well. The challenge is that acceleration, right? Are able to adapt fast enough to deal, right? And, and I think that's, that is the, the, the fear, the friction right now that that everyone can feel, which is like, gosh, it's changing so fast. I don't know what's coming next. ⁓ I just started to get a handle on how it was operating. now you're saying I have to totally throw that out the window. we've got power structures clinging to the old ways and saying, no, I don't want the new way. Let's just hunker down and stop which I feel is a really big part of the ⁓ shift towards ⁓ nationalism, it's reaction to like, hey, I don't want to And I think totally natural. It's a human biological reaction and at a systemic And when you suggest that fundamental systems that everything operates are going to be totally different without giving me any kind of an indication of like, well, how's that going to feel and how's that going to work? That just scares the shit out of me. All you did was show me the Terminator movie and say, there's your future, unless you do something different. And that's exciting. It gets a lot of attention, but it doesn't assure me that the future is good. that's I felt like Singularity, which continues this day and does a lot of work in the communities that we... we help gestate and support and have bloomed to carry that work on in lots of new ways. I think that's amazing because really they're starting from the belief that something amazing is possible and then trying to articulate what that could be then moving us towards it, right? And as think about... what I need in the world and what I want in the world, it's more clear articulation of what I want in the future for myself, for my kids, for next generations. Because I don't, I have lots of ideas and I've read a lot of sci-fi and I've got all kinds of cool thoughts of possibilities, but I don't really have a clear vision of how it would look and how it would feel and how it operate and what the interactions would be. so ⁓ probably I'm pulled more is towards bringing people together, identifying the visions articulating those future scenarios that possible that sound amazing that we want. And ⁓ then figure out roadmap move more towards that. and away from the Terminator scenario, right? so how do that, what it looks like, I'm not sure, but a big, big part of it is, one, how we, first you have have a credible vision of something that's possible, right? So that's scientific, it's thinking about social and political issues, all that fun stuff. That's, I think, hard work. But then you have to tell the story. of it, you have to create a narrative around that vision that is compelling and engages our emotions and makes us inspired and excited and believe that that's possible. where are those stories of future that we're like, that's it. That's what I want. ⁓ I more of that. And we've seen Black Mirror episodes or the Terminator scenarios. Where are the white mirror episodes? that's something that just recently, in fact, and I really give a lot of props to Peter Diamandis, who through the X-Prize Foundation, he was the of this university and this thought. I not only it but took it on my own. And the fact that we've been sort of thinking about the same things.
Michael: Hehehe.
Rob Nail: The XPRIZE Foundation just launched, think it's a three and a half million dollar prize for positive future visions and short ⁓ movies create visions of the future. And so if we can more things like that, and if you get a movie that ⁓ everyone is excited like, that is the future of the schools and how it works, that you can show... ⁓
Michael: Yep. Yep.
Rob Nail: and inspire the next generation of politicians who then use that movie as inspiration for their next policy initiatives at their city level. That's how we move from science fiction to science fact. we this works because this ⁓ was Star Trek inspired mobile phones. The Star tricorder was literally cited as part of the inspiration for designs of the first mobile smart mobile phones. And this is how we can do it, right? We can envision a better future, figure out how to get there, and then inspire the next wave of entrepreneurs and kids to build it. And the interesting piece is we've got these amazing superpowers with AI and just sort of the infrastructure we have today that we're going to be able to accelerate how fast we bring these new things to life.
Michael: Yeah. Yeah. What's really wild to me how much what we have to do societally mirrors what started to learn about 10 years ago, really even 20 years ago, that is sort grown in my life as my experience with coaching, right? And some of the ideas that underpin the fundamentals of and the methodology and the of philosophy that I adhere to is the one that that I'm articulating now in this, it's gonna be this forthcoming book, my first, but really about what I view as sort of a guidebook to some these challenges and to ⁓ it a personal level where you really have to start with seeing, your mindset that you see what's working, right? And good and what you can celebrate in your present situation. And then from there, the second step of an individual is to say, okay, that's what's working. What's my, you know, kind of purpose? What lights me up? What do I want? And then getting specific with the vision of what you want in all the domains of your life. And then, know, to like the process of like taking stock and then moving towards making those things actionable. What are tiny little steps I could take today that move me in that direction? And then how can I make those into habits?
Rob Nail: Right? Right.
Michael: operationalizing those intentions and those steps for the individual. And then that brings about that ultimately is on kind of resilience and adaptability, but creating the vision. And I've known that so intimately as applied it my life, but now looking at that on a much larger scale where I ⁓ agree with you that we have to see where we go. And I think part of that is understanding what's possible. But part of that ⁓ creating this compelling vision of the future that everybody can start to get on board with because, you know, I ⁓ I've dedicated my life's purpose now is really to furthering the ideas of coaching and how do people become and do and have and be their best. Like that's everything I'm doing now is that with that in mind, because I've met with many leading edge technologists and I've just said, frankly, like that is all wonderful what's possible. But if we don't get people to come along with us on this ride, it's not gonna happen because they're just gonna be dragging and resisting and conflict. But if we can get behind it, and I agree, by the way, Peter, I agree with this new X prize. think it's wonderful. And he's on his podcast all the time talking about how we need to change the narrative, how we need to create these compelling stories. But you know,
Rob Nail: You Exactly. Doesn't happen. Yep, exactly.
Michael: a way, it's that positive mindset shift to right now for people is one that I think is really challenging, especially when they're scared. When they're stuck in their amygdala, they don't want to move to their prefrontal cortex. They want to fight or run or freeze hide. And that's where I think so much of our society is.
Rob Nail: Absolutely. Yep. which is a different narrative, right? Which is a, Yeah. And there's, there's so many other counter narratives. Yeah. There's just a lot of counter narratives today that are, are connecting to more one they're getting saturated by them through social media systems, which is a whole other thing that we need to turn off. but they're very compelling, emotionally engaging narratives that give us a sense of
Michael: Go ahead.
Rob Nail: purpose in this universe. And it could just be identity against reds or the blues or the greens or whatever. Right. And that, that it with the, the thing here that we're starting to understand. Right. I mean, really our, our cognitive biases are beliefs, our biological amygdala responses that. That's new. Like we've only started to discover that in like the last 50 years or something, right? And so what I love about the coaching side is you that as a design criteria. It's like, we've got these humans that we want to continue forward that have all of these like weird buttons that got to figure out how to operate properly and then point them towards doing something amazing in the future. But you can't just ignore the fact that there's a bunch of weird random buttons that do weird things like create a fear response and then, you know, that can end badly. there's ways to really align and inspire people to shift their habits and then really get into the groove and thrive in society. Right. And if can do that at scale, I agree with you completely. That's how you bring us all up together. And I think the of of coaching and helping everyone really believe that something different is possible for themselves and for the world is, gosh, an important part of the overall recipe. So kudos to you. I'm looking forward to your book and seeing how we can really bring it to life.
Michael: 100%. Well, you know, there's, there's good, good.
Rob Nail: Yeah, I was there was another piece here that that the sort of hit on that that that triggered also, which is, you know, with with AI specifically and these capabilities. One of the big shifts is What we need to be spending our time on, you know, in the past, all as an Like, so my first career was building robots and so much time was spent figuring out the art form of how to take this idea and turn it into a real thing. Right. And it I spent a lot of time in China figuring out how to work injection molding machines and the art form of this and the complexities of it. and and when I and it's interesting because as I with my son when he was around like five years old, so he's like 12 now. So there was seven or eight years ago, I started playing with 3D printing, There was a fun hype cycle with 3D printing when the world realized it was a cool thing and some low cost printers started to become available. And so my son and I would do this project over the weekend where my son and I would come up with something we wanted to make together. he wanted to make a cup, right? So... So we're like, okay, well, let's design the computer. Like, what does it look like? And he wanted to put a face in the cup and this other thing, which is great. And then we that design, boop, just push the button and 3D printer makes the thing, right? it went from, and I would have tried to go to the injection molding machine to make that impossible piece, It might have been impossible or it could have taken me a year and a lot of resources to build that amazingly complex, intricate thing that my son had designed. But now with his new capability, his just comes to life. And me, analogy, that analogous to how we should be thinking about AI on almost all fronts, which is... we shift from art and the practice of how do things to the focus of what is it we want to do? Like, what is it we really want? And how do go about it? And then the and the capabilities bring that to form, right? And it turns out figuring what you really, really want is hard. It is actually a...
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: a coach, I'm sure if you try to ask somebody like well, what do you really want in life? Like I know. I haven't really thought that hard about it, right? It's a tough thing to figure out but that's
Michael: Yeah. Or it's something vague like, I want to be happy. I want to be rich. You know, it's like, I want to be successful.
Rob Nail: Right. you got to... Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so I think there's a big opportunity there for us to reorient towards processes tools to help us really figure out we want, iterate, prototype, prototype, then iterate, experiment, and then refashion. ⁓ those principles and the vision of what we want and just articulate it in more and more refined terms so that we use these tools to actually get what we want versus, I think we want a thriving, growing future. send the AI out there to do it. And turns out alignment is a big problem. And the AI goes and makes a bunch of paper clips, right? Or whatever the example. And so really good. at figuring out what we want and defining it in a way that can move us towards it, I think is the super skill of this chapter.
Michael: Totally. And that, I couldn't agree more. And to me, that is, know, there's all this talk about like the bath of the ⁓ economy knowledge workers. And what I see is just an opportunity for a tidal wave of entrepreneurship like we've never seen on this planet before. Like there was an afternoon last year my son started vibe coding on Replet and he's like, ⁓ He's like, dad, I made an app on my way home from school today. was like, we're in a transformational moment, you know, like where people can, you know, and I was listening to a podcast the other day with someone, you know, very leading edge on OpenClaw and talking about having, ⁓ you agentic AI, like, you know, walking down the street, like, ⁓ I have an idea for a business. And then it just like takes off and runs and like,
Rob Nail: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Michael: iterates and IDA's and comes back to him. What about this? What about that? And then it's like pursuing it by the time he gets home, you know, there's a business plan, a deck, know, a prototype, ⁓ initial MVP of the app. And just like did it like, it's like that, that at scale is just, going to be, it's just going change everything. And I think that, that, that, but I agree with you. If we don't get specific, if we don't do it on a granular level.
Rob Nail: Launched it.
Michael: like individual problem, individual desire, what do we want, build that, you know, and then we look at it from the macro and how some historically some of these, you know, these ideas have gotten solved on the macro. And I think that's where these systems have gone way off course, because you create some sort of, you utopian idea of where we're headed and it's vague, but but it just sort of becomes a steamroller that runs over everything and you get the catastrophes of the 20th century. So I couldn't agree more, think there a change to education, there is a change to funding, there changes to just everything and how things happen, things get produced. I mean, it's why I think the subject of this Producing Innovation, ⁓ is
Rob Nail: Yep. Yeah.
Michael: is so orient and from our beginning, it's been oriented towards like, how do we help, you know, some young kids somewhere that has, doesn't have access to the kinds of, you know, tools and resources and education that maybe makes that easy, but has visions and has ideas. And we've always, every guest has been like, what could we tell that, you know, person, that kid in some, you know, far flung corner of the world.
Rob Nail: Right. Right.
Michael: who's 16 years old but has ideas and a different way of looking at the world. Like that's who this is for. And hopefully, you know, this is some small effort to like contribute to that big turn us. But wow, what a moment we're in, you know? Like it's so thrilling and terrifying at the same time.
Rob Nail: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and maybe just to build on that a little bit, it's very hard to articulate what we want. And one and I love that you focused on entrepreneurship side because the mantra of entrepreneurship you don't really know ⁓ what it's going be in the beginning, but you have an idea of the need or the opportunity, and then you just start. and you iterate and you adapt quickly. to add to that, think what more entrepreneurs and startups need do, and I think most large companies don't really do, is start with clear of principles and values that ⁓ you fall back on. needs to be a of sort of value structure that when
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: It all goes bad. At least this it's sort of an alignment guardrail, right? It's my values are going to help align when things get hard or weird. Everyone knows that this is this is the line that we've drawn, right? And you mentioned Anthropic earlier that we've seen a company that. And I would say Anthropic from the beginning stood as a who clearly stated their principles around AI safety tried to build a business with those principles in mind. And I think very built the most capable that's available today. And very notably, they on those principles, right? That many years later, they... things change, they see their company differently, the competitive space have changed. And I think it was January, just two months ago, that they published a new set, their constitution of how the business operates. I think that's the best practice you at least spend a little bit of time establishing what those values and principles are. How does that, how do you today, how does that line up into your operating system? And then when change, ⁓ reflect and as needed. the challenge, of the challenges I think you sort of hit on though, especially with entrepreneurship, I do that things are moving so fast that it is going to radically impact millions of jobs. I originally thought, yeah, there's going to be millions of new jobs that are going to be created. And so we're going to be okay. not sure about the pacing of that anymore. ⁓ that I think there's going to be millions of opportunities. And it's a big problem, right? Yeah, it's exactly. And necessity is the mother invention, right? So if people can't find a job, entrepreneurship is where you go, right?
Michael: Yeah, yeah, totally. mean, a couple of years out of step, you know, that's a disaster. Yeah.
Rob Nail: I don't if you've ever traveled to Uganda in East Africa. It's one of the most minded creative places out of necessity, right? Like you see people building businesses out of bike wheels and all just amazing stuff because they have to, right? And ⁓ creative and they're in solution mode. They're not just spiraling down. They're figuring it out. And what's different now is we are living in the most rich of times and it's sort of accelerating, but it's just not evenly distributed, right? There's a challenge here. And think entrepreneurship, the flourishing of entrepreneurship is an amazing opportunity, but we need to a safety net space that allows for that entrepreneurship to flourish. not out of fear, but out of opportunity and vision. I think accelerating into a equity gap, if you just have a couple companies that win in the end, if there's one AI company that wins them all and everyone else is out, I don't know if that takes us where we want to go. And so I think entrepreneurship is a big part of the solution. But I think there's a way to craft a system that also takes advantage of this amazing innovation engine that we have now and the growth and the value that it's creating for so many businesses and people, whether it's a tax or UBI or some other thing, I don't know. But boy, I'd like to see a lot more experiments and a lot more visions of things like that. And maybe that's the entrepreneurship side. And I think there should be a new version of DARPA that is just about the future post-capitalist economy. Like just put a couple billion dollars into researchers figuring out a hundred new versions and then running those experiments. could easily, one of these trillionaires could...
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: potentially sponsor a few billion dollars of research grants. There's nothing. So I think that's where we got some big problems still to solve for a graceful transition. And we just have to do it. Like there's no real obstacle other than fear, greed, or naivete, I guess.
Michael: Yeah. Let's, what a, mean, this ⁓ I do this all day long with you, Rob, and we have, ⁓ you at different times. I want to end with a question. I want to end with a version of the question. It's a little of an adaptation, but based on something that you said, I often end with, hey, what's something that you, you you wish you done differently? And I'm ⁓ going to kind of that aside because I things are changing so fast. So my version of that for a world changing as fast as ours is, what is something that you hope for your 12 year old? Like what's a lesson that you want your kids to learn and know and really know deep within them that is like foundational understanding that you feel like is gonna help prepare them for the world ahead.
Rob Nail: Man, that's a good question. You know, the thing that have been considering recently, my son is 12. be turning 13. He's super tall for his age. So he's like adult sized kid. he's kind of, like, got ⁓ almost a full, skinny and lanky, but like.
Michael: You
Rob Nail: You know, you see him and he's just as tall as the other parents walking around, right? And he's mature for his age, but he's still, he's a 12 year old kid, right? ⁓ I've been thinking quite a bit about a sort of a rite of passage as he now sort of ⁓ starts shift into right? His body is now like going there and...
Michael: Mm-hmm. Sure. Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: And as he begins his adulting journey, like how do I help him in that? the first, the primary thing, I mean, there's a whole, I got a whole body of work that I've been noodling on around this and some fun stuff that I might actually roll out publicly around this, because there's some really fun things that we can do to help support and guide our kids. But the first thing that I think was important to me surviving my childhood and getting to where I got and how I try to help other people is and foremost realizing that you're not stuck. You're not trapped. There's not a box. You're not limited.
Michael: Totally.
Rob Nail: There's design criteria and there's things, but that just determines how complicated or how difficult it is to find a solution. But no matter how bad, there's a way through. Maybe you just need more creative people to play with, but you're never stuck. And fear, fear is getting stuck and not thinking there's a way out.
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: When people think there's no way out, they go to suicide, they go to anger, there's like bad things happen operating out of fear. They flee in other ways. Exactly. Right. So if we can come up with ways to fear, and for me, one of the first ones is just like realizing you have resources, you have people, and just don't have to...
Michael: They flee in other ways. They hide. They... Yeah. mean, that's... I mean, yeah.
Rob Nail: limit yourself there. And so I'm looking for ways to do that. me, that's where it starts. Because if you have that mindset, if you believe we can get through it, you'll find the way. But as soon as you don't believe it, you're lost. So that's best I've got for today.
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's awesome, man. That's, that's, I, I, I, I agree wholeheartedly and, that, that aligns with the, lessons I intended and have taught my kids who are a little bit older, you know, gratitude, resilience, you know, persistence, just, know, and, and, sort of spiritual lessons without calling them spiritual lessons are the things that drive us forward. So. Rob Nailman, ⁓ you do roll out what you're working on because you've instrumental in ways that are direct and ways that are indirect in my own optimism and the impact of that. Imagine that rippling out into the world and somebody listening to our conversation today and saying and finding their way to a little bit more resilience or hope or possibility or optimism. This is, it's a big part of it. So please keep going. It's been such pleasure to know you, such a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you for all you've shared. Thank you everyone for listening. This has been a wonderful conversation. I hope you've enjoyed it and ⁓ join us week. Thanks, Rob.
Rob Nail: Thank you. Thank you, Michael. pleasure. Real
Rob Nail: Good to see you, Michael. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here.
Michael: Yeah, yeah, Indeed. So listen, to jump in, just to get started, I think to give people background. You're someone who's been super fascinating to me. Your career has been wild. The things that you've done, the broad range of it, super fascinating, really excited to get into that. For the benefit of people who don't know your background, who maybe don't know about Singularity University and many of the other things you've done, I'd to sort ⁓ of... start at Singularity University, but dial it back 10 years. Obviously, you were principally involved in the founding of Singularity University, it's had such an impact. There's so many people talk about it. The whole idea of like, we're in the Singularity now is this idea that I feel like is just pervasive throughout our culture, media landscape, the tech landscape, et cetera. And then obviously, Ray Kurzweil's book that. gonna share a little bit about that, because that was super influential to me. What led you, like what was your journey in your life and career and education and interest led you to that point? Because it's such an incredible inflection point.
Rob Nail: well, let's see. I mean, I ⁓ know how deep the history you really want to get into before the Singularity story, because there is, the universe had to align perfectly for me to where I did with Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. I mean, all the pieces have to fit perfectly to take you where you go. I'll, let's see, there's a few threads here that I think might be relevant for just thinking about innovation in general. that for me is the sweet spot is where I spend most of my time today, working, consulting, coaching, my my whole career has been focused around innovation and figuring out how to imagine what's possible and bring it to life. That I would say that really started out of necessity growing up, you know, poor with a car that rarely ran and spent most of the weekends with my dad trying to fix things learning things work and realizing that, yeah, sometimes you could come up with a better design to make it better than that. And that led to engineering in college. was first kid in my family to go off to university and I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Found myself in an engineering program, which was really hard, a bunch of amazing other engineers. And interesting I really trying hard to be an English major, English and philosophy, specifically comp lit. I loved sci-fi and utopian stories, which So that's, we're going to come back around to that one at some point here. just inspiring ways think about a different future. And I met my, you know, really my best in undergrad in physics, talking about flying cars. And turns out there was little, I went to UC Davis and there was, there's a crazy scientist named Paul Moller who built this little flying car company. Gosh, in the 70s, he was on the cover of Popular Science because he built this vertical liftoff little jets. It looked just like the Jetsons car, like the little bubble top and little saucer, ⁓ a little flying saucer. And he built a prototype of it and you'd like shaky little flying car. as we got to apprentice at this flying car company and build prototypes and learn how to run the mill and the shop and do all this fun stuff while to school, going climbing mountains on the weekends and, you know, just trying to try to explore and, and try new After college, he went to Stanford. I signed on time at the flying car company as an engineer, helped build an engineering team and
Michael: Wow.
Rob Nail: quickly learned that he was a scientist, inventor, not a business guy. And it was clear that I was not gonna go too far. And I got a chance to go to Stanford as well. So I went back to school, to grad school. And while I was there, my friend, Joe Ben, he was consulting and working at this pharmaceutical company, helping the researchers automate some of their processes and... and improve what they're doing in the labs. And so I would end up spending weekends in my summer during school with building robots and designing cool new stuff and really just to researchers gripe about their problems and then try to figure out how to solve them. And that's, ⁓ think what, we're as engineers, like that's kind of what we're wired for is. Hey, there's a problem. Let's figure out a new solution to it. It's always based out of necessity. There's a real problem to solve, and let's just figure out new ways to do it. That turned into a out where we, after I grad school, we spun out a startup building robotics and automation for drug discovery, cancer research, basically research lab equipment. That was a fun 10 year journey.
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: of entrepreneurship and pain purpose and meaning and love and all the, it was all the things. We were very fortunate to have been successful and have exit. We were able to sell, we ended up selling the business to Agilent and I sort of that.
Michael: Well.
Rob Nail: startup world for a general manager role at a big company. I learned a lot about corporate bureaucracy and to your head up against a brick wall. And it ⁓ not me. I eventually left. And I did some investing, started a couple of little things with friends, but it really just took a break trying to figure out like, what am I going to do my life?
Michael: All right. ⁓
Rob Nail: I never imagined what I wanted to do. Just always found a problem that was cool to solve and just dove into it. And, you honestly, just I know you do a lot of coaching. One of the things that really hit me in that phase was, gosh, am I a one hit wonder? Am I ever going to be able to do anything else? Like, I don't really have any skills. And it was a tough time. So sort of. trying to figure out like, I equipped to do anything? And it was during that time that I actually met Peter Diamandis and and Ray had just started Singularity University. I was advising, coaching, doing some just random things, but I attended one of the first executive programs at Singularity University. It was a... tiny little thing, little classroom at NASA Ames. it like 10 immersive living in the dorms at NASA. And it the most exciting thing I had done in my entire life. was the people I wanted to be around. The ideas were just all the stuff that I'd been imagining through all my sci-fi work and everything else. was just like, this is the community that's going to bring it together and build the future.
Michael: Wow.
Rob Nail: And I like, this is it. This is my tribe. And donated to the university. So it was founded as a nonprofit. Peter had started many other nonprofits like the X Prize Foundation and ⁓ International University. And so donated as one of the first individual donors. They gave me an associate founder title. I started advising, out a lot, the team. ⁓ And then about a year later, actually had taken over. was running, I was now running, I was a CEO and, and, the business into a benefit corporation and raised capital then spent the next eight plus years building a global community that thinks differently about the future is optimistic and really focused on solving ⁓ what we, we the global grand challenges. And, you know, that That period for me was probably the most exciting, the most challenging, the most purposeful. I had many people and I believed it myself that Singularity University was my life's purpose. This is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And interestingly, and mean, still this day, like I'm so proud of what we had built.
Michael: Mmm.
Rob Nail: Um, and during that period in between the first startup and the second startup, I met my wife. We got married around the time that I joined up with Singularity. We wanted to have kids. We went through this long challenging fertility cycle. Um, you know, there's a lot of ups and downs with that personally. And we were very fortunate after several years, we ended up able to have kids, a couple, we ended up having two kids, two beautiful little. a boy and a girl. was interesting is as riding the of that journey personally, I'm also riding these just tectonic waves of ups and downs Singularity as it's going through its startup journey. so it was a those waves would, the lows would hit the and it would be really hard. And sometimes both the highs would hit together and be really high, but
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: It was a very difficult time. I, with the success of Singularity, we got to a pretty interesting scale. It was clear that it was time for me to step aside, let someone else come in and grow it so that I could regroup and figure out what I'm really made for. And I was like, hey, it's probably time. Let's bring someone else here to scale this from here because we've got to figure it out. We've got something exciting going. And it wasn't, you the board had its own issues and, know, it wasn't quite the right time. And, hey, can we just get to the next milestone? Can we just get through this next funding round? Can we next? And that for almost a year, I sort spiraled down in, a burnout, in a burnout phase. ⁓ And I I didn't realize how, how low I had gotten during that time. And I didn't really have the support I needed. And I, I burnt out and at the end of 2019, I basically said, okay, I I'm afraid I'm going to lose my family. like, we're really struggling with depression at home. And so I stepped back and I said, okay, this time I'm leaving at the end of November. And, and I stepped down from what I said was going to be my life's project. that was a hard, that was the hardest decision I've probably had to make. it definitely the right one as ⁓ two months later, like shuts down the world and of changes the paradigm. I went quite a journey personally and professionally through all that. And it took a while to regroup, but that takes us to today where really for the last four five years now, I've been experimenting with community, with innovation process. a lot of time with AI and with the reality of AI today that we predicted 15 years ago at Singularity, which still shocks me. It's been incredible. maybe than asked for, but that gives you a pretty ⁓ real glimpse into I got here professionally.
Michael: Totally. No. It's, I mean, just thanks for sharing all that. And that is exactly what I was hoping for. I've just, you know, reading the Singularity is Near in like 2006, 2007 really changed my life in many respects. It was, I think, the beginning of me seeing that my journey as an innovator in sort of non-technical realms. I dabbled in a little bit of like, know, like as an artist, I was always like, well, what can I do with these tools? Like, what can I do with video projection? What can I do with immersive spaces? What can I do with, you know, the smartphone technology and made, you know, applications and before there were apps, know, like, like, I mean, before there was like an app store, before there was an iPhone and, I played, right. You know, and I'd always been thinking like, all those stuff I had done was about like, how can you enhance the human experience through art, through technology, through the merging of them, through commerce, through business, et cetera. But reading the singularity is near to me. People meet me years later and they'd see me as such an optimistic person. And I kind of was like it's in my DNA, but I'd say really the source of so much of my optimism about the future comes from the singularity is near because seeing the of ⁓ including like organic technologies, biological technologies, DNA, you know, the way paints a picture of, you know, like journey from the Big Bang to now and how all these things have sort of built on each other. And then seeing that extrapolation forward, I just, I just had this sense of like, wow, like this ride that we're on, like what a, it just brought like wonder to a whole new level in my experience.
Rob Nail: Mm-hmm.
Michael: And so I've been, know, back in this back when like, you know, I'd say like Ray Kurzweil and people are like, who's he, you know, or like, ⁓ he's the guy with the keyboard, right? As may Stevie wonder and like, you know, didn't really know him in that way. And I think it just wasn't part of the general mainstream zeitgeist in way that it is now. But, but it's just that that's always been. And the fact that, that it was all the moment we're in now is so anticipated.
Rob Nail: Yeah.
Michael: you know, and so foreseen and so much of what, you know, his raised genius about really predicting things based upon his like very technical extrapolation of technologies and how he's invented so many things. It's just been fascinating to me. But, but it's just, it's, so exciting and so wondrous. And I'm curious to know you started to allude to it. what you, what are, your outlook now?
Rob Nail: Yeah. Yep. Mm.
Michael: you for where we're going. You mentioned AI, you mentioned where the world is going, you mentioned some of the things that were anticipated then. your outlook in 2026?
Rob Nail: Yeah. Yeah. Man, question. you know, thank you for sharing your, your reaction Ray's book. You know, when I, so I actually had the Age of Intelligent Machines, which was the precursor to Singularity. And I, I loved it because was a real, what I thought was a credible of the dots as to where would go, right? And When I tried to that with people, they like they're like, what are you talking about? And then I try to show them the book and the book was so, know, Ray, very minded, right? He's very, that is not an read. So anyone that has actually read Singularity is Near and gotten through it is like kudos that that says a lot about about you, right? And I, I, which this is the reason I right onto the team with Singularity was that was the sense that I'd always had, right? You growing up, we're the first generation to really have home right? This was, parents didn't have such a thing. And here we grew up as kids, like excited by Pong and the Apple II and like the first most basic versions because we could see you could feel that this is going to change we operate and it's potentially going to change everything. And bought into it and believed and helped build organization teach it. And the optimism that you was core to what we were trying to do Singularity. with a dose of reality and skepticism is like, hey, the future doesn't just happen. Like we are, we're gonna create this we're either intentionally gonna do it or we're gonna let it happen to us. And it's not really clear what happen if we just allow it, right? So a big part of singularity was, hey, we need to be optimistic what's possible. and then spend all of our time focusing on what we really want and solving the problems, those to get there. And felt, I think that is the answer even today. Now, biggest thing I would say, the way that I'm today is, holy shit, I can't all this stuff is actually happening. We've been talking about it for 15 years and I believed it was gonna happen. But now that I'm feeling it, I'm like, what really is happening? How do I not feel totally prepared? It's incredible to me, right? It's incredible that I have thinking about this pretty deeply for a long time. And yet, it unfolds, don't feel like we're ready even remotely. And I don't feel I'm in the way that I feel responsible. what I mean by that is the future is unwritten. It is not determined. And we... I think there's an amazing possible future ahead if we get there. I'm about the next five 10 years, which I believe might prove to be the- some of the most important years in the history of humanity, because we are equipping ourselves with the most powerful technological capabilities that have ever existed. without a vision of what we want for the future. and without clear systems built upon values that are inherently good for us. We're building a global system and infrastructure that is really driven by growth, GDP profit, which then just trickles down into very intense, scarcity-minded system that we have. And so sacrifice our wellness and our environment and everything to the purpose of growth. And ⁓ right ⁓ with this we're accelerating that as much as we can. And that scares me. think that concern us all. with AI, the companies out there are just actively saying, hey, we can't slow down because we'll lose to China. So again, going to sacrifice everything. We're going to sacrifice our safety at the fear of not growing fast enough. And that's a problem. I think we're going to solve it. We have to solve it because I don't want to... I don't want to check out just yet. want, and I have two little kids that I want to see an amazing future, but there's there's some work to do for us to navigate the transition ahead.
Michael: Yeah, yeah. couldn't agree more. ⁓ it's been really fascinating to me over the last couple of years as I, you know, as a curious person, as an innovator myself, as someone just excited about where things are going, I'm always pulling threads of ⁓ interest see where they lead. And sometimes they feel very disparate and then all of sudden they converge. And, and new patterns start to emerge and become visible to me. And some of the things that I've been interested in have, you know, just really to clarify where are going, know, and, and, and one example that I'll just, that kind of freaked out recently was in realizing just how much I don't think. It's like that thing about that people just can't understand exponentials. It's just like our mind cannot wrap itself around it. We can when shown it at the end, but it's like, wait, like, and I think that the rate of change that is happening ⁓ the scale of it and some of the implications of it are like, people are thinking like this linear progression from computers. Like it was like, know, computers and then it like home computers and then it was like mobile and the internet and then mobile and
Rob Nail: Right.
Michael: And it's just like a few steps from there, but it's like, no, no, you don't understand. AI is so fundamentally different and the pace and the speed of things is so fundamentally different. And I was listening to Ezra Klein did a really fascinating podcast last week talking about this very thing. And they were talking about the implications of government. was the whole, were kind of discussing the conflict between Anthropic and the Defense Department. And what was being ultimately revealed that me in a way that just hadn't before was that so much of our system is built on and based on managing friction, know, representative right? Like there are all these, one of points they made was how our whole system is based on non-universal enforcement of our Like if you start to all of a sudden enforce all of our laws uniformly, the whole everything changes. What can do in a way that just hasn't been possible before is ⁓ uniform of and ⁓ a You all that friction the banking system. The banking system is based upon friction and a lack of trust, so the banks manage a system. All of these things that we take as like just
Rob Nail: Yep. Yep.
Michael: bedrock foundation layer actually based upon certain inefficiencies of the old system. And if you introduce a whole new system that doesn't have that kind of friction, it's like everything changes. Like, so what's the role of government when human government is to be so far behind, you know, AI's enforcement of regulations? What happens when the models, the constitutions of the models
Rob Nail: Totally.
Michael: override leadership of governments and says, no, no, you're asking me to do that, asking technology to do something. And the technology is like, ⁓ no, no, I can't do that. I won't do that. And what happens then? And just a whole range of things. And I certainly don't have a full inventory of all those things. was just like seeing one little tip of the iceberg. was like, holy shit, the implications are so much greater than I was even thinking. But I've been paying close attention to this as I know you have for a long time.
Rob Nail: maybe I'll start. By just looking backwards a little bit, one of the biggest questions that I think comes up for a lot of people is, is this time different? Because we've had lots of innovation and radical changes and we've whole epochs of humanity going the agricultural revolution and industrial revolution and all the old changed multiple times. The one thing that has been consistent is us humans are pretty good at adapting. It might feel painful, it might feel slow, but if you just at how the way humanity operates, especially around with corporate systems and ⁓ capital market systems, only got a hundred years of ⁓ real new way of operating. pretty new. And, and we adapted pretty well. The challenge is that acceleration, right? Are able to adapt fast enough to deal, right? And, and I think that's, that is the, the, the fear, the friction right now that that everyone can feel, which is like, gosh, it's changing so fast. I don't know what's coming next. ⁓ I just started to get a handle on how it was operating. now you're saying I have to totally throw that out the window. we've got power structures clinging to the old ways and saying, no, I don't want the new way. Let's just hunker down and stop which I feel is a really big part of the ⁓ shift towards ⁓ nationalism, it's reaction to like, hey, I don't want to And I think totally natural. It's a human biological reaction and at a systemic And when you suggest that fundamental systems that everything operates are going to be totally different without giving me any kind of an indication of like, well, how's that going to feel and how's that going to work? That just scares the shit out of me. All you did was show me the Terminator movie and say, there's your future, unless you do something different. And that's exciting. It gets a lot of attention, but it doesn't assure me that the future is good. that's I felt like Singularity, which continues this day and does a lot of work in the communities that we... we help gestate and support and have bloomed to carry that work on in lots of new ways. I think that's amazing because really they're starting from the belief that something amazing is possible and then trying to articulate what that could be then moving us towards it, right? And as think about... what I need in the world and what I want in the world, it's more clear articulation of what I want in the future for myself, for my kids, for next generations. Because I don't, I have lots of ideas and I've read a lot of sci-fi and I've got all kinds of cool thoughts of possibilities, but I don't really have a clear vision of how it would look and how it would feel and how it operate and what the interactions would be. so ⁓ probably I'm pulled more is towards bringing people together, identifying the visions articulating those future scenarios that possible that sound amazing that we want. And ⁓ then figure out roadmap move more towards that. and away from the Terminator scenario, right? so how do that, what it looks like, I'm not sure, but a big, big part of it is, one, how we, first you have have a credible vision of something that's possible, right? So that's scientific, it's thinking about social and political issues, all that fun stuff. That's, I think, hard work. But then you have to tell the story. of it, you have to create a narrative around that vision that is compelling and engages our emotions and makes us inspired and excited and believe that that's possible. where are those stories of future that we're like, that's it. That's what I want. ⁓ I more of that. And we've seen Black Mirror episodes or the Terminator scenarios. Where are the white mirror episodes? that's something that just recently, in fact, and I really give a lot of props to Peter Diamandis, who through the X-Prize Foundation, he was the of this university and this thought. I not only it but took it on my own. And the fact that we've been sort of thinking about the same things.
Michael: Hehehe.
Rob Nail: The XPRIZE Foundation just launched, think it's a three and a half million dollar prize for positive future visions and short ⁓ movies create visions of the future. And so if we can more things like that, and if you get a movie that ⁓ everyone is excited like, that is the future of the schools and how it works, that you can show... ⁓
Michael: Yep. Yep.
Rob Nail: and inspire the next generation of politicians who then use that movie as inspiration for their next policy initiatives at their city level. That's how we move from science fiction to science fact. we this works because this ⁓ was Star Trek inspired mobile phones. The Star tricorder was literally cited as part of the inspiration for designs of the first mobile smart mobile phones. And this is how we can do it, right? We can envision a better future, figure out how to get there, and then inspire the next wave of entrepreneurs and kids to build it. And the interesting piece is we've got these amazing superpowers with AI and just sort of the infrastructure we have today that we're going to be able to accelerate how fast we bring these new things to life.
Michael: Yeah. Yeah. What's really wild to me how much what we have to do societally mirrors what started to learn about 10 years ago, really even 20 years ago, that is sort grown in my life as my experience with coaching, right? And some of the ideas that underpin the fundamentals of and the methodology and the of philosophy that I adhere to is the one that that I'm articulating now in this, it's gonna be this forthcoming book, my first, but really about what I view as sort of a guidebook to some these challenges and to ⁓ it a personal level where you really have to start with seeing, your mindset that you see what's working, right? And good and what you can celebrate in your present situation. And then from there, the second step of an individual is to say, okay, that's what's working. What's my, you know, kind of purpose? What lights me up? What do I want? And then getting specific with the vision of what you want in all the domains of your life. And then, know, to like the process of like taking stock and then moving towards making those things actionable. What are tiny little steps I could take today that move me in that direction? And then how can I make those into habits?
Rob Nail: Right? Right.
Michael: operationalizing those intentions and those steps for the individual. And then that brings about that ultimately is on kind of resilience and adaptability, but creating the vision. And I've known that so intimately as applied it my life, but now looking at that on a much larger scale where I ⁓ agree with you that we have to see where we go. And I think part of that is understanding what's possible. But part of that ⁓ creating this compelling vision of the future that everybody can start to get on board with because, you know, I ⁓ I've dedicated my life's purpose now is really to furthering the ideas of coaching and how do people become and do and have and be their best. Like that's everything I'm doing now is that with that in mind, because I've met with many leading edge technologists and I've just said, frankly, like that is all wonderful what's possible. But if we don't get people to come along with us on this ride, it's not gonna happen because they're just gonna be dragging and resisting and conflict. But if we can get behind it, and I agree, by the way, Peter, I agree with this new X prize. think it's wonderful. And he's on his podcast all the time talking about how we need to change the narrative, how we need to create these compelling stories. But you know,
Rob Nail: You Exactly. Doesn't happen. Yep, exactly.
Michael: a way, it's that positive mindset shift to right now for people is one that I think is really challenging, especially when they're scared. When they're stuck in their amygdala, they don't want to move to their prefrontal cortex. They want to fight or run or freeze hide. And that's where I think so much of our society is.
Rob Nail: Absolutely. Yep. which is a different narrative, right? Which is a, Yeah. And there's, there's so many other counter narratives. Yeah. There's just a lot of counter narratives today that are, are connecting to more one they're getting saturated by them through social media systems, which is a whole other thing that we need to turn off. but they're very compelling, emotionally engaging narratives that give us a sense of
Michael: Go ahead.
Rob Nail: purpose in this universe. And it could just be identity against reds or the blues or the greens or whatever. Right. And that, that it with the, the thing here that we're starting to understand. Right. I mean, really our, our cognitive biases are beliefs, our biological amygdala responses that. That's new. Like we've only started to discover that in like the last 50 years or something, right? And so what I love about the coaching side is you that as a design criteria. It's like, we've got these humans that we want to continue forward that have all of these like weird buttons that got to figure out how to operate properly and then point them towards doing something amazing in the future. But you can't just ignore the fact that there's a bunch of weird random buttons that do weird things like create a fear response and then, you know, that can end badly. there's ways to really align and inspire people to shift their habits and then really get into the groove and thrive in society. Right. And if can do that at scale, I agree with you completely. That's how you bring us all up together. And I think the of of coaching and helping everyone really believe that something different is possible for themselves and for the world is, gosh, an important part of the overall recipe. So kudos to you. I'm looking forward to your book and seeing how we can really bring it to life.
Michael: 100%. Well, you know, there's, there's good, good.
Rob Nail: Yeah, I was there was another piece here that that the sort of hit on that that that triggered also, which is, you know, with with AI specifically and these capabilities. One of the big shifts is What we need to be spending our time on, you know, in the past, all as an Like, so my first career was building robots and so much time was spent figuring out the art form of how to take this idea and turn it into a real thing. Right. And it I spent a lot of time in China figuring out how to work injection molding machines and the art form of this and the complexities of it. and and when I and it's interesting because as I with my son when he was around like five years old, so he's like 12 now. So there was seven or eight years ago, I started playing with 3D printing, There was a fun hype cycle with 3D printing when the world realized it was a cool thing and some low cost printers started to become available. And so my son and I would do this project over the weekend where my son and I would come up with something we wanted to make together. he wanted to make a cup, right? So... So we're like, okay, well, let's design the computer. Like, what does it look like? And he wanted to put a face in the cup and this other thing, which is great. And then we that design, boop, just push the button and 3D printer makes the thing, right? it went from, and I would have tried to go to the injection molding machine to make that impossible piece, It might have been impossible or it could have taken me a year and a lot of resources to build that amazingly complex, intricate thing that my son had designed. But now with his new capability, his just comes to life. And me, analogy, that analogous to how we should be thinking about AI on almost all fronts, which is... we shift from art and the practice of how do things to the focus of what is it we want to do? Like, what is it we really want? And how do go about it? And then the and the capabilities bring that to form, right? And it turns out figuring what you really, really want is hard. It is actually a...
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: a coach, I'm sure if you try to ask somebody like well, what do you really want in life? Like I know. I haven't really thought that hard about it, right? It's a tough thing to figure out but that's
Michael: Yeah. Or it's something vague like, I want to be happy. I want to be rich. You know, it's like, I want to be successful.
Rob Nail: Right. you got to... Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so I think there's a big opportunity there for us to reorient towards processes tools to help us really figure out we want, iterate, prototype, prototype, then iterate, experiment, and then refashion. ⁓ those principles and the vision of what we want and just articulate it in more and more refined terms so that we use these tools to actually get what we want versus, I think we want a thriving, growing future. send the AI out there to do it. And turns out alignment is a big problem. And the AI goes and makes a bunch of paper clips, right? Or whatever the example. And so really good. at figuring out what we want and defining it in a way that can move us towards it, I think is the super skill of this chapter.
Michael: Totally. And that, I couldn't agree more. And to me, that is, know, there's all this talk about like the bath of the ⁓ economy knowledge workers. And what I see is just an opportunity for a tidal wave of entrepreneurship like we've never seen on this planet before. Like there was an afternoon last year my son started vibe coding on Replet and he's like, ⁓ He's like, dad, I made an app on my way home from school today. was like, we're in a transformational moment, you know, like where people can, you know, and I was listening to a podcast the other day with someone, you know, very leading edge on OpenClaw and talking about having, ⁓ you agentic AI, like, you know, walking down the street, like, ⁓ I have an idea for a business. And then it just like takes off and runs and like,
Rob Nail: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Michael: iterates and IDA's and comes back to him. What about this? What about that? And then it's like pursuing it by the time he gets home, you know, there's a business plan, a deck, know, a prototype, ⁓ initial MVP of the app. And just like did it like, it's like that, that at scale is just, going to be, it's just going change everything. And I think that, that, that, but I agree with you. If we don't get specific, if we don't do it on a granular level.
Rob Nail: Launched it.
Michael: like individual problem, individual desire, what do we want, build that, you know, and then we look at it from the macro and how some historically some of these, you know, these ideas have gotten solved on the macro. And I think that's where these systems have gone way off course, because you create some sort of, you utopian idea of where we're headed and it's vague, but but it just sort of becomes a steamroller that runs over everything and you get the catastrophes of the 20th century. So I couldn't agree more, think there a change to education, there is a change to funding, there changes to just everything and how things happen, things get produced. I mean, it's why I think the subject of this Producing Innovation, ⁓ is
Rob Nail: Yep. Yeah.
Michael: is so orient and from our beginning, it's been oriented towards like, how do we help, you know, some young kids somewhere that has, doesn't have access to the kinds of, you know, tools and resources and education that maybe makes that easy, but has visions and has ideas. And we've always, every guest has been like, what could we tell that, you know, person, that kid in some, you know, far flung corner of the world.
Rob Nail: Right. Right.
Michael: who's 16 years old but has ideas and a different way of looking at the world. Like that's who this is for. And hopefully, you know, this is some small effort to like contribute to that big turn us. But wow, what a moment we're in, you know? Like it's so thrilling and terrifying at the same time.
Rob Nail: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and maybe just to build on that a little bit, it's very hard to articulate what we want. And one and I love that you focused on entrepreneurship side because the mantra of entrepreneurship you don't really know ⁓ what it's going be in the beginning, but you have an idea of the need or the opportunity, and then you just start. and you iterate and you adapt quickly. to add to that, think what more entrepreneurs and startups need do, and I think most large companies don't really do, is start with clear of principles and values that ⁓ you fall back on. needs to be a of sort of value structure that when
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: It all goes bad. At least this it's sort of an alignment guardrail, right? It's my values are going to help align when things get hard or weird. Everyone knows that this is this is the line that we've drawn, right? And you mentioned Anthropic earlier that we've seen a company that. And I would say Anthropic from the beginning stood as a who clearly stated their principles around AI safety tried to build a business with those principles in mind. And I think very built the most capable that's available today. And very notably, they on those principles, right? That many years later, they... things change, they see their company differently, the competitive space have changed. And I think it was January, just two months ago, that they published a new set, their constitution of how the business operates. I think that's the best practice you at least spend a little bit of time establishing what those values and principles are. How does that, how do you today, how does that line up into your operating system? And then when change, ⁓ reflect and as needed. the challenge, of the challenges I think you sort of hit on though, especially with entrepreneurship, I do that things are moving so fast that it is going to radically impact millions of jobs. I originally thought, yeah, there's going to be millions of new jobs that are going to be created. And so we're going to be okay. not sure about the pacing of that anymore. ⁓ that I think there's going to be millions of opportunities. And it's a big problem, right? Yeah, it's exactly. And necessity is the mother invention, right? So if people can't find a job, entrepreneurship is where you go, right?
Michael: Yeah, yeah, totally. mean, a couple of years out of step, you know, that's a disaster. Yeah.
Rob Nail: I don't if you've ever traveled to Uganda in East Africa. It's one of the most minded creative places out of necessity, right? Like you see people building businesses out of bike wheels and all just amazing stuff because they have to, right? And ⁓ creative and they're in solution mode. They're not just spiraling down. They're figuring it out. And what's different now is we are living in the most rich of times and it's sort of accelerating, but it's just not evenly distributed, right? There's a challenge here. And think entrepreneurship, the flourishing of entrepreneurship is an amazing opportunity, but we need to a safety net space that allows for that entrepreneurship to flourish. not out of fear, but out of opportunity and vision. I think accelerating into a equity gap, if you just have a couple companies that win in the end, if there's one AI company that wins them all and everyone else is out, I don't know if that takes us where we want to go. And so I think entrepreneurship is a big part of the solution. But I think there's a way to craft a system that also takes advantage of this amazing innovation engine that we have now and the growth and the value that it's creating for so many businesses and people, whether it's a tax or UBI or some other thing, I don't know. But boy, I'd like to see a lot more experiments and a lot more visions of things like that. And maybe that's the entrepreneurship side. And I think there should be a new version of DARPA that is just about the future post-capitalist economy. Like just put a couple billion dollars into researchers figuring out a hundred new versions and then running those experiments. could easily, one of these trillionaires could...
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: potentially sponsor a few billion dollars of research grants. There's nothing. So I think that's where we got some big problems still to solve for a graceful transition. And we just have to do it. Like there's no real obstacle other than fear, greed, or naivete, I guess.
Michael: Yeah. Let's, what a, mean, this ⁓ I do this all day long with you, Rob, and we have, ⁓ you at different times. I want to end with a question. I want to end with a version of the question. It's a little of an adaptation, but based on something that you said, I often end with, hey, what's something that you, you you wish you done differently? And I'm ⁓ going to kind of that aside because I things are changing so fast. So my version of that for a world changing as fast as ours is, what is something that you hope for your 12 year old? Like what's a lesson that you want your kids to learn and know and really know deep within them that is like foundational understanding that you feel like is gonna help prepare them for the world ahead.
Rob Nail: Man, that's a good question. You know, the thing that have been considering recently, my son is 12. be turning 13. He's super tall for his age. So he's like adult sized kid. he's kind of, like, got ⁓ almost a full, skinny and lanky, but like.
Michael: You
Rob Nail: You know, you see him and he's just as tall as the other parents walking around, right? And he's mature for his age, but he's still, he's a 12 year old kid, right? ⁓ I've been thinking quite a bit about a sort of a rite of passage as he now sort of ⁓ starts shift into right? His body is now like going there and...
Michael: Mm-hmm. Sure. Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: And as he begins his adulting journey, like how do I help him in that? the first, the primary thing, I mean, there's a whole, I got a whole body of work that I've been noodling on around this and some fun stuff that I might actually roll out publicly around this, because there's some really fun things that we can do to help support and guide our kids. But the first thing that I think was important to me surviving my childhood and getting to where I got and how I try to help other people is and foremost realizing that you're not stuck. You're not trapped. There's not a box. You're not limited.
Michael: Totally.
Rob Nail: There's design criteria and there's things, but that just determines how complicated or how difficult it is to find a solution. But no matter how bad, there's a way through. Maybe you just need more creative people to play with, but you're never stuck. And fear, fear is getting stuck and not thinking there's a way out.
Michael: Mm-hmm.
Rob Nail: When people think there's no way out, they go to suicide, they go to anger, there's like bad things happen operating out of fear. They flee in other ways. Exactly. Right. So if we can come up with ways to fear, and for me, one of the first ones is just like realizing you have resources, you have people, and just don't have to...
Michael: They flee in other ways. They hide. They... Yeah. mean, that's... I mean, yeah.
Rob Nail: limit yourself there. And so I'm looking for ways to do that. me, that's where it starts. Because if you have that mindset, if you believe we can get through it, you'll find the way. But as soon as you don't believe it, you're lost. So that's best I've got for today.
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's awesome, man. That's, that's, I, I, I, I agree wholeheartedly and, that, that aligns with the, lessons I intended and have taught my kids who are a little bit older, you know, gratitude, resilience, you know, persistence, just, know, and, and, sort of spiritual lessons without calling them spiritual lessons are the things that drive us forward. So. Rob Nailman, ⁓ you do roll out what you're working on because you've instrumental in ways that are direct and ways that are indirect in my own optimism and the impact of that. Imagine that rippling out into the world and somebody listening to our conversation today and saying and finding their way to a little bit more resilience or hope or possibility or optimism. This is, it's a big part of it. So please keep going. It's been such pleasure to know you, such a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you for all you've shared. Thank you everyone for listening. This has been a wonderful conversation. I hope you've enjoyed it and ⁓ join us week. Thanks, Rob.
Rob Nail: Thank you. Thank you, Michael. pleasure. Real
