speaker-0: Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Quantum Ecosystem Conversations. My name is Dolly Cheetah and today's conversation is about a question that I think is becoming increasingly important as the quantum ecosystem grows. What does it actually mean to have a career in quantum? And perhaps an even more interesting question, how do you prepare for quantum job that doesn't exist yet? When we talk about building the quantum workforce, we often immediately start talking about degrees, curricula, physicists, engineers, and specific technical skills. But technology doesn't necessarily develop that neatly. Entire industries emerge, new occupations appear, existing professions get transformed, people move between disciplines, and sometimes the people who become extremely valuable to an emerging industry didn't begin their careers anywhere near that industry. So today I wanted to approach the quantum workforce from somewhat different perspective. Not simply what quantum jobs exist today, but what might quantum workforce become and how do you prepare people for a labor market that is still being invented? And I couldn't think of a better person to have the conversation with than Christopher Bishop. Chris is an author of Improvising Careers, Succeed at Jobs That Don't Exist Yet, a book about. Navigating technological change and succeeding in what he describes as the global borderless workplace. And Chris doesn't just write about nonlinear careers, he has lived one. He describes himself as a nonlinear, multimodal careerist. He graduated with a degree in German literature, becoming a touring musician, moved into technology, spent years in IBM, approximately 15. And today works across emerging technologies as a speaker, moderator, coach, writer, consultant, and a podcast host. And somewhere along the nonlinear journey, Chris also found his way into quantum. He has become a very familiar face in the global quantum ecosystem. He has hosted more than 80 podcast episodes with leaders from quantum companies around the world. And earlier this year, also delivered a talk at RPI regarding secrets to working in quantum and moderated a panel on. Quantum workforce challenges. So, Chris, welcome and I'm delighted to have you here. I want to start with the phrase you use to describe yourself. You call yourself a nonlinear multimodal careerist. You have gone from German literature to music to technology and IBM. What exactly is nonlinear careerist?
speaker-1: Well, I would say first of all, thank you for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here. Looking forward to our conversation. I think nonlinear is the new model. So I again have had what I would contend are eight different careers over the past 50 years since I graduated from college. I think a theme to keep in mind is that I'm a curious person. So I would I would encourage participants, listeners, viewers to To be curious, to be ready to change, to be excited about what's coming next. And that's sort of what I've been doing low these many years as I navigated from one career to the next, from touring rock musician opening for the Eagles in the seventies to hosting events at IBM for Second Life you know, concepts. We did I'll show you picture of me presenting later at the IBM corporate headquarters, Virtual Green Data Center we did in Second Life. the metaverse 15 years ago, just saying. so and again, I think I'm with all lack of modesty, the poster child for the way today's learners are gonna work. Right? Some of the ephora I use in my lecture are 85% of the jobs that today's learners are gonna be doing in ten years haven't been invented yet. And that's from there's data from a survey by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics saying that today's learners will have eight to ten jobs by the time they're thirty-eight. Mm-hmm. So standard mean deviation indicates some will have more, some will have less. But again, they'll be using technology that doesn't exist that make things like this look antiquated. You had to carry something around in your pocket to talk to each other and send messages. And they're going to be solving problems we don't yet know are problems. So how do you support how do you build an agricultural environment for astronauts going to Mars? Or how do you send a replacement drill bit to the rare Earth mining facility on the asteroid Banu? So these are the kind of things I try to get people thinking about when they're considering what to study and what to what career paths plural they might want to pursue.
speaker-0: So let me push you a little bit on that because I think there is an interesting tension between a generalist and an expert, we live in a world that rewards expertise. Basically, you study something, you specialize in something, you build deeper expertise and you move up upward in that profession. when we talk about also quantum physicists, who has spent like 20 years in studying quantum physics, we want the semiconductor expert, we also want that cryptographer. But sometimes when Somebody crosses these several disciplines, we also interpret that as well, you're a generalist, and what exactly are you an expert in? They could be polymath for all you know, but we have this prejudice about somebody is good at multiple things, is probably a generalist and not an expert. And so, my question is: in a deep tech field like quantum, how do we reconcile between these two things? Of do we need specialists or do we need generalists or polymath?
speaker-1: I think we need both. I actually have a chapter in my book called Think Like a Genius. And I would encourage people to be thinking like a polymath, to be generalists, because again, the rate and pace at which technologies, particularly frontier technologies, are morphing and emerging and being deployed is going to require people who can flex and bend and are comfortable with ambiguity and able to be resourceful and resilient. I mean, we're making it up as we go, let's be candid. I mean, quantum is, you know, a moving target, which is what makes it so exciting and so interesting. There isn't like a finite, you know, you don't buy a ticket and get on a train and go to work with quantum. It's like maybe it's gonna be this qubit modality, maybe it'll be that qubit modality, maybe it'll be multiple modalities, maybe it'll be varying degrees of interoperability driven by AI. I mean that to me that's what makes it so interesting and exciting, right? And we've seen this model before too. I mean We've certainly seen it with social media. We saw it with the internet. We saw it with computers, personal computers. and it goes back to the industrial revolution, really, where technologies change and transform what people do for a living. And the people who were not comfortable adopting had to figure out something else to do. Whereas the ones who remained curious and resourceful figured out how to take what they knew how to do and figure out what they didn't know how to do. And combine the two and learn the skills needed to be successful in the new paradigm. And I think that's what's happening today as well. And will continue to happen.
speaker-0: So how does somebody build credibility in quantum doing that?
speaker-1: I think it varies by discipline, right? So certainly as a physicist, for example, you want to be comfortable with a particular qubit modality, I would say. You need to have a broad sense of computer science, of engineering, in some cases, you know, manufacturing. But I think the interesting point is, and again, I want to share this and emphasize the fact that these are all businesses and they need people with skills across a range of disciplines. They're not being run as a general rule, with all due respect, by physicists, by scientists. And very often is these certainly startups mature, they bring in someone who has experience running a business, ideally a tech business. I mean, we're seeing bankers and management consultants and VCs take over lead roles at many quantum companies to kind of run the business, because that's what they know how to do. They know how to chase a P and L, make it work. But you can work in quantum in a lot of different disciplines. You don't have to just be a physicist.
speaker-0: So are the skills any different from what made someone successful twenty, thirty years ago?
speaker-1: again there's these skills are universal. It's just how you're applying them. So again, I have a chart I want to share when I share my charts with you that I describe as the emerging quantum workforce ecosystem. And I I think a picture is tells a proverbial thousand words. So that'll explain much better what I'm talking about.
speaker-0: So let's talk a bit about the phrase that caught my attention as well. It's your global borderless workplace. And quantum is a perfect example of that, right? The science is global, the supply chains are global, the talent is global, companies collaborate across borders while governments are increasingly looking at data sovereignty and you know looking at what's strategically important for the nation as well. So what does it take for an individual to succeed in that kind of global borderless technology ecosystem, according to you?
speaker-1: Well, I think from a strictly sort of supply chain and manufacturing perspective, there's gonna need to be interoperability. There are quantum companies all over the world. There are quantum companies in Australia and in Europe, obviously Germany and Italy and India, certainly the UK, the US. but but where there's differentiation is gonna be around sovereign focus. So the UK, for example, is putting a lot of funding and support behind building a quantum economy, a quantum ecosystem in that country. And it varies depending on the level of focus, the level of available funds. I would say probab there's a company actually in Thailand started by a young former IBMer. he's certainly not gonna have the ability to drive a sovereign strategy the the way someone in the UK would. But they're all gonna need to interoperate and have conversations. There was a great panel in June at Quantum Tech World where we met actually in Boston. Where representatives from I think half a dozen countries presented their sort of quantum strategies, their sovereign quantum strategies. And they all have similar qualities, but they all vary based on, say, talent, workforce, resource, funding, the focus on what they think the potential benefit is. Is there a pony in here? Is there attributable revenue? so there's gonna be interoperability, certainly from a manufacturing and supply chain and talent perspective. But there'll always be unique, nuanced differences based on what country you're working in.
speaker-0: So let's talk a bit about jobs that don't exist yet, right? it's especially fascinating in quantum because we are trying to educate a workforce for an industry that is still evolving. And so what does a job that doesn't exist yet mean in quantum? is it literally a new occupation or is it more than a, few combinations of existing disciplines? What does it mean? Give some examples of titles maybe.
speaker-1: Yeah, so again, based on qubit modalities, right, the way the qubits are configured and created and manipulated and controlled, there are gonna be new roles like there's there are companies developing cabling, for example, that will work in a cryogenic environment. So cryogenic cabling engineer could be a new job. Rather than having it be external, making it more efficient, putting it inside the dill fridge, for example. There may be new it may be p you know s neutral atoms trapped ions that use optical tweezers, maybe there's gonna be a new level of miniaturization around how optical tweezers get created, invented, and applied. So maybe it's optical tweezer engineer, you know, someone's gonna innovate around that space, how you do something there. And I f f certainly think that n diamond, you know, nitrogen vacancy and diamonds, that's a whole area that doesn't get a lot of press. Right. But that is being explored as a sort of comparatively cost effective way to take advantage of quantum applications. And it could be, you know, fake diamond designer. Maybe someone's gonna be, you know, finding new ways to use nitrogen vacancies to create qubit modalities. Right. And then I think it's also gonna be use cases, right? Up the value chain, if you will. certainly see the potential for a chief quantum officer at some point. seated within the CIO or CTO's office. Someone who's got to conjure a strategy. I remember seeing a woman at a economist event who works for a European bank and they wanted to stand up a quantum practice and she had like a PhD in astrophysics. So they said, Will you be a likely candidate to lead this team? So they spoke to her and recruited her and she's now basically the chief quantum officer. They gave her a budget and a team and some air cover from PNL. And she's building out a quantum strategy and a quantum practice for this bank. So we see more and more of that happen.
speaker-0: So it's finance to hardware to software to design to materials engineer to strategist, right? A business background as well. So that's great.
speaker-1: Well one of my favorite other examples is there's a woman, Catherine Londugan. She's no longer at Zapata, but she was an early hire as Zapata Computing, right? And she was the chief marketing officer at a quantum company. So that wasn't a job five years ago. That role did not exist. But she took it. She had worked, I think, at BBDO, some general advertising agency, and had some interaction with consumer technology and was fascinated by quantum. So I think they reached for her or, you know, she was poached from BBDO and ran their marketing at the top of the function for several years. Again, that wasn't a job five years ago. They weren't recruiting for CMOs at quantum companies.
speaker-0: Great, So going back to what have you learned from other quantum leaders, You have had an unusual vantage point into this industry wherein you've interviewed more than, eighty executives from quantum companies around the world. And so you've essentially walked the workforce conversation, watched it evolve alongside this industry. So what have you learned from these conversations that surprise you about who actually works in quantum and are these roles that you didn't even know existed until you started, are there any roles that became evident to you?
speaker-1: Think the fascinating thing was that they all came from different places. Nobody went to school to get an MBA to be the CEO of a quantum company. Again, that wasn't a job. Five years ago, there were no no recruiters looking for CEOs to run quantum companies. I mean, certainly 10 years ago. So they many of them came from academia. many of them came from financial services. Marcus Flitch is a perfect example. He's the CEO of TerraQantum. They're focused on financial services, applications of quantum. They're based in Zurich. He was, I think he has a PhD in physics. He was a management consultant. He worked at, I think, McKinsey for a while. I want to say he worked at might have worked at CERN. He was an investment banker for a while and then decided to start this company, TerraQuantum, focused on potential applications of quantum in financial services, with the idea that. There would be findings and learnings that could be extrapolated to other more broadly applicable settings like logistics and optimization. So it was a wide range of people. They all have a passion, though, for trying to figure out what this amazing technology is and how to apply it, you know, what the benefit might be.
speaker-0: So you interviewed someone, Zulfia Alam from the the qubit confidential conversation, right? Who works at Microsoft. So can you talk a bit about that interview and the reason is his trajectory of Xbox to HoloLens And then to quantum, right? That's almost a case study for this entire conversation. He wasn't necessarily following a predefined ladder, how to become a quantum executive. So, what can young people learn from trajectories like that? Is the better strategy to basically train specifically for quantum or to become exceptionally good at something valuable that will allow you to become curious and analytical and passionate and then learn how to bring all of that expertise into quantum?
speaker-1: So that was a fascinating interview, by the way. Unabashed plug. check it out. It's on YouTube. He's a brilliant guy, very affable, very smart, leaders to say. the thing that struck me about my conversation with him, again, Zulfie Alam, he's the corporate vice president of Quantum at Microsoft, was that he's been involved in bleeding edge tech at a large global 50 company for like 20 odd years. So He worked on Xbox. That was one of his first sort of areas of focus. So that was net new again at you know, thirty years ago or whatever. Helped develop that, productize it, bring it to market, improve it, enhance it, improve the value of it. He then moved into HoloLens, right? Their sort of AR glasses and worked in that organization for many years. A bleeding edge tech. I think they've actually discontinued that product, unfortunately, but that was a really I think they're using it in some unique sort of industrial, maybe military applications. But and now he's in quantum. So the theme is, back to my comment about being curious, is to stay at the bleeding edge, go where they don't know what it is yet. They being the existing business models that are serving, you know, current clients. and that's what he's been doing for he's been there a long time, thirty years maybe, but always Looking for what's at the edge, what's on the fringe, what's coming down the pipe that's going to be exciting and interesting. And then you have the ability to kind of create it, design it, develop it, and also get remunerated.
speaker-0: So when somebody says quantum workforce, we immediately picture physicists, at least today, quantum engineers and computer scientists at the most, some hardware engineers too. But couldn't a cybersecurity expert, chemical engineer, materials engineer, systems engineer, lawyer, policy professional, supply chain specialist, or even a communicator, because I know on a daily basis I'm doing the educating the educators part or the advocacy part as well. can any of these careers become part of the workforce, So the question is, where does working in quantum actually begin and end? And are we perhaps defining the quantum workforce too narrowly?
speaker-1: I think we are. Again, these are businesses, right? These are companies. So I used to run a session for the Quantum Economic Development Consortium called Office Hours and I would host a four hour Zoom every month and invite students studying quantum to have a 30 minute one on one with a mentor from either a private sector company in QEDC or from a national lab and talk about what they were doing and what they were interested in. It was fascinating. And people from academia, people who'd come from the private sector, their takes on what it you know, what it meant to work in quantum, how to be successful. but again, I have this chart I can show, but the the needs are everything from biz dev, right, sales to UX design, to people who are interested in policy and regulatory conversations because it's always a cat and mouse regulators putting rules in place and Companies having to align with or follow the guidance that conform to the law. You're gonna need picks and shovels, people who can deal with test benches and creating lasers and you know test equipment. As I mentioned, you know, the CMO role, people who are comfortable in PR and comms and marketing, because you've got to people who can write about this bleeding edge technology in a way that not only lay people can understand, but potential investors. potential clients, potential employees, right? All the major banks are investigating this. So if you're interested in finance and you're interested in quantum, there are roles at banks. I mean, the the famous one is Will Will Zhang, who was the head of quantum research at Goldman Sachs for many years, is now working at Quantum Nation. He's a a managing partner at this VC firm. One of my favorite memories of early quantum was Will Zhang at a conference They introduced me. Here's Will Zangs from Goldman Sachs. He goes, Thank you very much for having me. I'm Will. I'm from Goldman, Sachs. I have a checkbook. Bring me something. It's like we're Goldman Sachs. We have the money. Have you got something that's gonna generate attributable revenue or it's gonna help improve productivity or efficiency at our bank? I wanna see it. So and then the th sort of the final area is around management consulting. So if you're interested in business that way, maybe you're working on an MBA or you wanna do an internship at McKinsey or Deloitte or Accenture or KPMG or Bain. They all are standing up practice areas to help their big clients to find how to incorporate quantum in a long-term business strategy. What do you do over the next five years? Where does it apply in your business model? What are the risks? What are the rewards? What's the cost benefit? So all the way of saying these are businesses, these are companies just like any other business. It just happens to be quantum that they're selling.
speaker-0: Now let's talk a bit about not early career, but also people who are trying to do a lateral jump into quantum, Like transitioning into quantum. So let's imagine someone who is watching us right now who is already five, ten, twenty years into their career and interested in quantum, but their immediate reaction is, I missed it. I didn't study quantum physics. what would you tell them and How does the experienced professional actually transition into quantum without starting their education? And what should they not do and not waste their time learning as well? So in short, if you gave that person 90 days, what would you tell them to do? Not like five years, go get another degree, but what should they exactly do in the 90 days?
speaker-1: So they should figure out what area they have expertise in. is it sales, is it biz dev? Is it policy? Is it fabrication? Is it manufacturing? Is it computer science? Is it maybe it's physics, maybe it's qubits, qubit manipulation, maybe it's PR, maybe it's financial services. So figure out where your focus is, then track down the thought leaders on LinkedIn, put in some Boolean parameters. You know, finance plus quantum plus Silicon Valley and see who pops up and connect with them and follow them. Read their posts or the posts that their prom people are putting out. And then secondly, I would say do the research. Like who are the thought leaders in that space? Who's the current marketing guru? I always contend there's there's a Miles Davis in every function, no matter what it is. Now I know a lot of people are shaking their heads who's Miles Davis. Look him up. He was a seminal trumpet player, jazz composer, musician. But so in today's parlance, it might be who's the LeBron James, who's the Taylor Swift, who's the Sam Altman, who's the Elon Musk, who's the Bernie Sanders. You know, whatever discipline it is, there's somebody leading the conversation. You should find out who that is. And if they have a blog, read it. If they post on Substack or Medium, read it. Follow them. F see who's in their network. See who they listen to. See who they recommend. And then there are myriad resources. And I'm not not gonna plug specific ones, but I'll just mention them as a way of helping. There's something called the Quantum Insider, which you can follow on LinkedIn. They publish information daily about the state of quantum. There's something called Quantum Dragons that IQT publishes. Sergio Gacco, even though he's not involved in quantum, publishes Quantum Pirates every Monday. Bob Souter publishes quantum updates every day. So I would encourage you to track down these sources and get up to speed with who's doing what where. I actually have a I have a resource page on Quantum that I put together and I curate for the QEDC and I could share that link with you. And it lists books and podcasts and companies and people that I think are thought leaders and videos on YouTube. Olivia Lanes from IBM has lots of great content. So there's There's no, you know, dearth of places to to learn. So you just gotta kinda roll up your sleeves and jump in.
speaker-0: I mean that's excellent actually. So those were some of the resources that I was going to mention as well, but I think we can post that for the audiences. moving on to experience paradox, So if there is a paradox about experience and applying for a job that you've never formally worked in, your expertise might be in a different field. So if an industry is this new, where exactly are people supposed to get that experience while the industry itself is evolving? You can't ask somebody with 10 years of experience saying, show me your experience and what replaces their traditional experience? And what are people in the quantum industry, the hiring managers, looking for? I mean, do they have an idea or are they shooting in the dark right now?
speaker-1: Well, I think it depends on the the job wreck, right? What the open position is. I mean, it could be something very specific where you need like a PhD in spintronic or particle physics or whatever, because that's the kind of problem that they're looking to solve. But it could be more general, more more broad. And many of these companies, because this technology is moving so fast and they're growing quickly, are comfortable hiring people and training them. So I have two anecdotes I like to share in this space. The QEDC had a plenary session in Denver a couple of years ago, and a company called Form Factor squirred us all up to Boulder to their factory for a tour and a dinner. And I sat next to a woman at this dinner. I So, how did you come to work at Form Factor? You know, what's your training? She says, Well, my training is as an accountant. I was like, What? How did you end up here? She said, Well, I a friend of mine said there's this cool quantum company in Boulder and they're hiring. So she went in and interviewed. They obviously realized she could, you know, manage numbers and manipulate data and could learn. So they hired her and she now runs the laser test bench for them. And they trained her how to do it. And the key takeaway from this is she didn't know how to do it, but they had a playbook, they had a framework, they had a roadmap, they trained her how to do it exactly the way they wanted it done. And again, I think of my 15 years at IBM. They didn't hire an IBMer who would come in and say, well, the proper way to do this is like this. The correct procedure is the way we do it at IBM. I think they wanted someone who had no idea, but was excited and passionate and ready to learn. And they hired, and she's been there like three years and loves it.
speaker-0: Now, speaking of such laborious jobs, and we are also going through an era of AI and robots, basically, autonomous labs. So you think part of the jobs that we are all already championing in quantum could be replaced by the autonomous workforce?
speaker-1: Well, certainly, you know, embedded AI, right? So physical AI, robots are gonna impact manufacturing everywhere. And quantum is no different. They're gonna be robots making qubits and probably manipulating optical tweezers and opening and closing dill fridges and but what that does, in my opinion, is it moves potential talent up the value chain. So rather than you having to unscrew the dill fridge or turn off the nitrogen to whatever, You'll get to do something more interesting, more impactful, more strategic. And again, it's been ever thus since technologies have been, you know, evolving over thousands of years. That's always how it goes. So and you have to be ready for that adjustment. I mean, certainly AI is going to impact, you know, how quantum software gets written, how algorithms get deployed, and certainly how quantum devices and HPC interoperate, right? That's gonna be a key area. that we're still figuring out. So that's a huge opportunity for someone who understands those two environments and is prepared to try to figure out how to make them connect and deliver value together.
speaker-0: I do have lots of questions from the registration itself. So let's start with Anirvan. his question, he's from India. Role of quantum in shaping career trajectory in the next decade?
speaker-1: it's gonna be a technology like any other innovative technology. I mean, it's gonna be transformative for sure. I don't mean to dismiss it or demean it, but it's gonna impact everything we do. It's gonna be like who imagine not having a smartphone. So I grew up not having a smartphone. But now it's indispensable. So quantum is gonna impact how we live and work in a similar way. So you need to be ready to embrace what those outcomes might be. It's gonna and again, the technology per se is not gonna be in your face. Ideally, the best technology is invisible, right? It's transparent. You don't even know what's going on. But what it's gonna do, for example, is transform medicine, drug discovery, drug development, personalized medicine. It's gonna change travel and transportation, it's gonna change communication, it's gonna change l logistics writ large. So whatever business you're in, again I when I do these opening remarks at at events, I always say, quantum doesn't care what business you're in. It's industry agnostic. It's gonna impact you whether you like it or not. And you have to figure out how to embrace it, how to deploy it, how to exploit it. So that that would be my my answer to to that question.
speaker-0: So we have a question from Garish India, who works for Tata Communications. What are the opportunities in simulation of physical and chemical processes?
speaker-1: So there are many pharma companies that are looking at ways to use quantum to enhance drug discovery and drug development, right? Being able to look at large numbers of molecules and identify a potential protein that could be exploited for the next vaccine or cure or medicine, right? So there's lots of that focus going on. Also in other biomedical and geophysical settings, material science for sure. They're using quantum sensors, for example, to use gravimetry and magnetometry to create navigation solutions that work in GPS-denied, spoofed or jammed environments. That's going on as we speak. A company called Delta G, they're building what they call Google Maps for the Underground. There's a company called Circomagnetics building quantum sensors into a 3D printable wearable device to detect childhood epilepsy. It's fifty times more sensitive than current like MRI devices. So lots of again, real world stuff going on around physical and chemical applications.
speaker-0: Thank you for that. We have Mariana from Bulgaria asking this question. What professions do you think will no longer exist in five to ten years in lieu of the growing presence of quantum technologies?
speaker-1: It's a good question. I mean, they're always gonna be like most jobs are never completely replaced, right? So even in 1903, when Henry Ford started rolling Model T's off his assembly line in Detroit, farriers and blacksmiths got really nervous. But they didn't disappear, they just did something else. And there's still ferriers at racetracks and blacksmiths in in barns where they tend horses, right? but I think you need to be aware that There's going to be attrition around jobs that can be automated. They can be le leveraging AI or quantum or robotics. So those are the kind of jobs are going to go away. I mean, service jobs, maybe more and more of that we're seeing in restaurants and nursing homes and hospitals, in grocery stores, places where you don't really need a person. I mean, how many of you pay for stuff with your phone, right? Or how many people remember when there were toll collectors? Used to drive on highways and you had to stop and give somebody money. So I think just be aware of how technology is changing what humans do. There'll always be need for humans, but they'll be doing something different, maybe than what they're doing today.
speaker-0: We have a question from K through eight Canada, Abijay. What are the skills that today's high schoolers and undergrads have to develop if they want to join the quantum workforce?
speaker-1: I think generally there's something simplistic. You should certainly be studying physics and chemistry and maybe electrical engineering or computer science. I mean, those are core skills tied to quantum technologies. But that said, I would not say that's the only thing you should study. I would diversify, and again, back to being a generalist, study humanities-related courses. I was on a call recently where a n a nuclear physicist said to me, I'm putting my curriculum together for the coming year. What do you think I should study besides computer science? And I said you should study medieval Irish mythology. Like do something that'll twist your brain a little, do something that will make you think differently, expose you to something you may not be familiar with, the topic you don't know anything about. Because that's what's going to be required to be successful in companies driven by frontier technologies. So that's what I was educing. If you're into Marketing, or if you're a writer, certainly we need writers in the quantum space. If you're into a s manufacturing, you like to build things, you know, we're building these devices. There's a whole hardware business tied to these various qubit modalities, you know, building computers and sensors. so I would say, you know, again, back to focusing on what you're interested in, what you're passionate about, what you do well, and then certainly get some science, some quantum background so you know. how it works and what companies are doing. And I would say you don't need to get down into the what we used to call it IBM, the speeds and feeds. You like you don't need to know about the double slit experiment necessarily to be a good journalist writing about quantum. But you need to know at a meta level who the founders were. You should know about Niels Bohr and Max Planck and you know, how this came to be again at a meta level. But then more importantly, what are the real world use cases? Where are people going to really use this? Where is it going to really deliver value? Because that's at the end of the day what's important.
speaker-0: So we have a question from an undergraduate student, Shavita, who's part of our audiences as well today. I'm highly fascinated with quantum, how it simultaneously and instantaneously processes information in a way that is nonlinear. I wonder will quantum AI will be accessible to consumers in the near future as AI did in late 2022.
speaker-1: Well, I mean, again, it's going to be incorporated into solutions based on quantum technology. And there's already a quantum AI organization at Google, for example. Sandbox AQ contends their title is AI and Quantum. so it's going on today. I would encourage you to investigate, look at what Sandbox AQ is doing, and look up Google AI and see what they're doing. And you get a better sense of what they're doing, how they're exploring the the intersection of these two technologies.
speaker-0: We have another question. in twenty twenty four IBM article mentioned quantum is counterintuitive. Do you agree?
speaker-1: Counterintuitive. Yeah, I would I that's probably to some degree that's too. I mean, it's you know, it's is it a wave, is it a particle? So it's I mean, Einstein, you know, railed against it. He was like calling entanglement spooky action at a distance. So even someone as brilliant as Einstein struggled to embrace the concept. So as Richard Feynman said, right, if you under say you understand quantum. You're not telling the truth. I'm paraphrasing, but that was his take.
speaker-0: We have Shweta from NYU United States. What inspires you the most about this field?
speaker-1: I'm excited about how it's going to be able to capture and rationalize data. Right? How it's going to be able to take information and as a result solve intractable problems. NP hard, right? Non-polynomial. you know things that questions, problems, queries that we've maybe contemplated but never even thought about addressing because it was just too complicated, too hard. I'm gonna think of an Accenture. consultant a few years ago at an event saying, imagine if you, you know, we can currently predict the weather accurately. So 80% accuracy three to five days out, you know, maybe sixty percent accuracy ten days out. Imagine if you could predict the weather for a hundred years. So in theory, I mean obviously there are a lot of stochastic variables that would make that challenging, but in theory, a qua a viable quantum computer could capture and rationalize data and make predictions around that and implications for manufacturing, for education, for agriculture, for supply chain, for logistics. I mean th those kind of questions, those kind of problems we never even contemplated could in theory be solved.
speaker-0: We have a question from Germany Nadine. how important is science communication as a quantum researcher?
speaker-1: Think it's critically important. I mean, you need to be able to articulate what you're doing and what you're working on. and that's how we learn, right? So education is the discipline that enables all other disciplines, right? At the end of the day. You know, learning how to do something is you know, is the starting point. So I would say communication is a key part of that. Learning how to write well. I would encourage you to write and vet it with colleagues or your PI or peers or whatever, and you know, refine that skill because it's gonna serve you well. The ability to articulate what you're doing and why you're doing it and how you're doing it. It's gonna be crucial no matter where you work, no matter what job you're in, be it quantum or something else.
speaker-0: And I can speak a liner to that. Essentially, all my background has been in engineering, yet I find myself interfacing more and more with policy leaders, to government officials, to students, to professors, industries folks, and wide variety of people. What I realize is communication is a key part of getting the technology forward as well. It is not just about We understanding technology as engineers, but also communicating in a language that they can understand is a significant part because that dictates the funding policy and everything else that follows afterwards. next question we have from US Naval War College Tom Creeley, who is also part of our audiences today, who is the director of ethics and emerging military technology program. What are some of the ethical concerns you have with quantum?
speaker-1: That's a good question. I I mean I think like any technology, it needs to be monitored and managed. I don't know that there are clear guidelines around ethical applications of quantum, what that means and what it doesn't mean. Certainly we're going to be able to leverage conversations around AI, you know, and GDPR, the sort of privacy guidance from Europe that's been around for several years. but I think it's important. Again, it's t it's tied to use cases at the end of the day, right? Ethics is tied to how people are applying these technologies. So I haven't seen a lot of conversation about it, but I think certainly Q Day is going to drive those conversations more than esoteric computing or sensing capabilities, because everyone knows Q Day, right? So the day when cryptographically relevant quantum computers can crack current RSA and ECC encryption. So that's coming at some point. And that will certainly drive conversations about, you know, what data gets stolen and resold and hacked and repurposed or whatever. so I I'm guessing that will drive those conversations. I haven't been privy to details or I don't have visibility into where that is, but I'm sure companies, for example, that are involved in this space, like Crypt or like Sandbox or Quantum Exchange, or even IDQantique, which is now part of INQ. are having those conversations at least internally and also with clients, right? As they put together post quantum cryptography solutions, PQC and QKD.
speaker-0: and I can speak a little bit to that as well. essentially as of today we launched our website responsiblequantum.org, which is going to be covering the ethics and policy, please check that website out and we'll be adding more resources and we would love to bring speakers who can actually speak about ethics and quantum as well. and we have some questions from the audiences. Preeti, Prethi, would you like to unmute yourself Hello Dolly, hello Christopher.
speaker-1: Hello pretty.
speaker-0: it was an engaging conversation and I really like the fact that quantum workforce is here. And but the problem with me is that I am a PhD physicist, PhD physicist with six years post PhD experience. so I was working Broadly in the intersection of like magnetic materials and studying their those physical characterization of those magnetic materials during my PhD. And then later on I dive into magneto optical materials to see how it can be used as a wave guide. That was my first post postdoc experience in India. Then later on I went to Cambridge to study the thin films, magnetic thin films, which can be later on used for a as a synthetic antiferromagnets for, you know, data storage application, like strain induced strain induced mechanism where we can see whether we observe any change or not. And then I moved to Germany for another postdoc where I was more involved in the application part where I was like printing the magnetic sensors. And now I came here in Chicago and now I'm more inclined towards the quantum and I I think that I'll be good or the best person as well for the quantum workforce, having all the experience which I gather. But the my problem is I'm not able to position myself as a quantum expert or as a quantum learner. I don't want to sound like an quantum expert, but I really want to dive into the quantum industry, but I don't know. It's like it's com I'm I'm like completely lost. So yeah, any any help, any guidance will definitely help me.
speaker-1: The Predi, there's a what what a amazing experience you've had. Wow. Pretty impressive. there's a lot of quantum activity in Chicago, as you you may or may not know, right? So David Ashalam at the University of Chicago leads a quantum syllabus, if you will. The Quant Chicago Quantum Exchange, run by Kate Timberman. I think she's just stepping down from that role, very active in both education and private sector interaction. Two big companies, Psy Quantum and AeroQ, are building facilities in this repurposed area in South Side. I think it was like a US steel plant. So all by way of saying, there are a lot of companies doing interesting work there and that are growing. And I would encourage you to to get into that community, right? So introduce yourself. I think they'd be delighted to meet you and discover that you're local. And I bet their opportunities at least get on their list, you know, like f follow them on LinkedIn, connect with them on LinkedIn. And maybe even go have a meet see if they're doing any events. They just they do a Chicago Quantum Summit every year. That's fantastic. I've joined it remotely a couple of times. so there's definitely community there. And so someone with your skills and experience, they'd be delighted to you know, either make a job for you or bring you in and train you to do something that they need done. that you could easily learn how to do.
speaker-0: Yeah, sure. I I do I do follow. I do follow IQ MP, I do follow David, Professor David as well. The I feel like whenever I apply, I don't hear back and there are some of the positions and so I feel like maybe I am doing something not hundred percent correct to navigate the situation and I'm trying to learn how I can do that. So
speaker-1: Yeah. Again, any the other thing I'd say is any deliverables you have that you can share with them or post on your LinkedIn profile are key, right? To show that you know what you're talking about. Point to a white paper or research note or a blog or a presentation you delivered or a video of you sharing. you know, post it on LinkedIn and then at mention them so they see it so it gets in their feed.
speaker-0: Thanks, Prethi. We have another question from Shwe.
speaker-1: so I am really excited that you're on this call with Dolly as well, but I wanted to ask that I I'm at a point where there's a lot of there's a lot of Things moving quickly. And as a researcher, especially with all these researchers going to conferences and things all the time, it can be hard to understand or navigate like where our I our ideas are being put to like a conversation that is adding to a community or something, and to to be productive and and discuss it, or whether it's just kind of being taken and and not taken, but sort of. it is going to an ecosystem, obviously, that'll be put to use. but how do I because I'm like a very pro open source person, just coming from computer science and how the whole history of being open source then meant? and and I I think there's a difference now with like AI of what open source even means. so how do you think people like that are researchers that are in this space should navigate? my general encouragement at the risk of signing crass and simplistic is get into the private sector with all due respect. I mean, I'm a fan of academia and many brilliant ideas come out of university research labs, but they don't generate attributable revenue and they don't tend to change how we live and work. So I would encourage you to look for an opportunity. And there are researchers at private companies for sure. you know, they need people to develop and enhance and re refine and revise whatever their technology is that they're focused on. So the the path is find what you're interested in, find a company that's doing something you think is cool, where your skills may be applicable based on your background, whatever you've studied, and start jiggling doorknobs. Start like in you know, meeting people, connect with them on LinkedIn. go to events and meet them. Go to their office if you can. I mean, knock on the door, you know, find somebody who's on the inside. But I'm happy to talk to you more about it. Again, all of you, yeah anyone on this call, if you're not connected with me on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn. That's my first order of business. And secondly, send me a note and let's let's have this conversation. We can do it one on one or whatever.
speaker-0: Great. Thank you. Chris, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing not only your perspective on quantum careers, but also thinking much broader how we prepare ourselves for the careers in this, you know, continuously changing world where technology is constantly changing, I especially appreciate the reminder that a career doesn't necessarily have to be in a straight line and that sometimes the experiences that appear disconnected make more sense five years down the lane. Do you have any final thoughts for our audiences and online audiences as well?
speaker-1: So typically when I end my lecture, I do I say this. I say, I look at the assembled throng and I say, you guys and gals are going to do stuff that's going to look like magic to me. So get to it. I want to see some of it before I'm out of here. I mean, you have the potential to do just remarkable, amazing, excellent, exciting, creative stuff that humans have never done before. And it's on you to do it. So take advantage of this moment in time. To do it. That's what I would say.
speaker-0: Well, thank you to everyone who has actually joined us, the students, educators, researchers, industry professionals and members of the broader community. Thanks for being part of this conversation. And everyone who actually asked thoughtful questions. Some could not make it to this meeting, but they still wanted to have all those questions. We got a lot of questions from the audiences. So the quantum ecosystem is still being built and the technologies are evolving and Chris reminded us today the careers are evolving too. So perhaps the takeaway isn't that every one of us needs to become a quantum physicist and know exactly how the future works. But you know, try to pivot and adapt to the changing technological environment. And Chris, again, thank you for your time, your insights, and helping us imagine what the future of work in quantum might look like. And thank you to everyone who joined us. my name is Dolly Cheetah, and this has been Quantum Ecosystem Conversations. Until next conversation, stay curious.
speaker-1: Well, I would say first of all, thank you for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here. Looking forward to our conversation. I think nonlinear is the new model. So I again have had what I would contend are eight different careers over the past 50 years since I graduated from college. I think a theme to keep in mind is that I'm a curious person. So I would I would encourage participants, listeners, viewers to To be curious, to be ready to change, to be excited about what's coming next. And that's sort of what I've been doing low these many years as I navigated from one career to the next, from touring rock musician opening for the Eagles in the seventies to hosting events at IBM for Second Life you know, concepts. We did I'll show you picture of me presenting later at the IBM corporate headquarters, Virtual Green Data Center we did in Second Life. the metaverse 15 years ago, just saying. so and again, I think I'm with all lack of modesty, the poster child for the way today's learners are gonna work. Right? Some of the ephora I use in my lecture are 85% of the jobs that today's learners are gonna be doing in ten years haven't been invented yet. And that's from there's data from a survey by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics saying that today's learners will have eight to ten jobs by the time they're thirty-eight. Mm-hmm. So standard mean deviation indicates some will have more, some will have less. But again, they'll be using technology that doesn't exist that make things like this look antiquated. You had to carry something around in your pocket to talk to each other and send messages. And they're going to be solving problems we don't yet know are problems. So how do you support how do you build an agricultural environment for astronauts going to Mars? Or how do you send a replacement drill bit to the rare Earth mining facility on the asteroid Banu? So these are the kind of things I try to get people thinking about when they're considering what to study and what to what career paths plural they might want to pursue.
speaker-0: So let me push you a little bit on that because I think there is an interesting tension between a generalist and an expert, we live in a world that rewards expertise. Basically, you study something, you specialize in something, you build deeper expertise and you move up upward in that profession. when we talk about also quantum physicists, who has spent like 20 years in studying quantum physics, we want the semiconductor expert, we also want that cryptographer. But sometimes when Somebody crosses these several disciplines, we also interpret that as well, you're a generalist, and what exactly are you an expert in? They could be polymath for all you know, but we have this prejudice about somebody is good at multiple things, is probably a generalist and not an expert. And so, my question is: in a deep tech field like quantum, how do we reconcile between these two things? Of do we need specialists or do we need generalists or polymath?
speaker-1: I think we need both. I actually have a chapter in my book called Think Like a Genius. And I would encourage people to be thinking like a polymath, to be generalists, because again, the rate and pace at which technologies, particularly frontier technologies, are morphing and emerging and being deployed is going to require people who can flex and bend and are comfortable with ambiguity and able to be resourceful and resilient. I mean, we're making it up as we go, let's be candid. I mean, quantum is, you know, a moving target, which is what makes it so exciting and so interesting. There isn't like a finite, you know, you don't buy a ticket and get on a train and go to work with quantum. It's like maybe it's gonna be this qubit modality, maybe it'll be that qubit modality, maybe it'll be multiple modalities, maybe it'll be varying degrees of interoperability driven by AI. I mean that to me that's what makes it so interesting and exciting, right? And we've seen this model before too. I mean We've certainly seen it with social media. We saw it with the internet. We saw it with computers, personal computers. and it goes back to the industrial revolution, really, where technologies change and transform what people do for a living. And the people who were not comfortable adopting had to figure out something else to do. Whereas the ones who remained curious and resourceful figured out how to take what they knew how to do and figure out what they didn't know how to do. And combine the two and learn the skills needed to be successful in the new paradigm. And I think that's what's happening today as well. And will continue to happen.
speaker-0: So how does somebody build credibility in quantum doing that?
speaker-1: I think it varies by discipline, right? So certainly as a physicist, for example, you want to be comfortable with a particular qubit modality, I would say. You need to have a broad sense of computer science, of engineering, in some cases, you know, manufacturing. But I think the interesting point is, and again, I want to share this and emphasize the fact that these are all businesses and they need people with skills across a range of disciplines. They're not being run as a general rule, with all due respect, by physicists, by scientists. And very often is these certainly startups mature, they bring in someone who has experience running a business, ideally a tech business. I mean, we're seeing bankers and management consultants and VCs take over lead roles at many quantum companies to kind of run the business, because that's what they know how to do. They know how to chase a P and L, make it work. But you can work in quantum in a lot of different disciplines. You don't have to just be a physicist.
speaker-0: So are the skills any different from what made someone successful twenty, thirty years ago?
speaker-1: again there's these skills are universal. It's just how you're applying them. So again, I have a chart I want to share when I share my charts with you that I describe as the emerging quantum workforce ecosystem. And I I think a picture is tells a proverbial thousand words. So that'll explain much better what I'm talking about.
speaker-0: So let's talk a bit about the phrase that caught my attention as well. It's your global borderless workplace. And quantum is a perfect example of that, right? The science is global, the supply chains are global, the talent is global, companies collaborate across borders while governments are increasingly looking at data sovereignty and you know looking at what's strategically important for the nation as well. So what does it take for an individual to succeed in that kind of global borderless technology ecosystem, according to you?
speaker-1: Well, I think from a strictly sort of supply chain and manufacturing perspective, there's gonna need to be interoperability. There are quantum companies all over the world. There are quantum companies in Australia and in Europe, obviously Germany and Italy and India, certainly the UK, the US. but but where there's differentiation is gonna be around sovereign focus. So the UK, for example, is putting a lot of funding and support behind building a quantum economy, a quantum ecosystem in that country. And it varies depending on the level of focus, the level of available funds. I would say probab there's a company actually in Thailand started by a young former IBMer. he's certainly not gonna have the ability to drive a sovereign strategy the the way someone in the UK would. But they're all gonna need to interoperate and have conversations. There was a great panel in June at Quantum Tech World where we met actually in Boston. Where representatives from I think half a dozen countries presented their sort of quantum strategies, their sovereign quantum strategies. And they all have similar qualities, but they all vary based on, say, talent, workforce, resource, funding, the focus on what they think the potential benefit is. Is there a pony in here? Is there attributable revenue? so there's gonna be interoperability, certainly from a manufacturing and supply chain and talent perspective. But there'll always be unique, nuanced differences based on what country you're working in.
speaker-0: So let's talk a bit about jobs that don't exist yet, right? it's especially fascinating in quantum because we are trying to educate a workforce for an industry that is still evolving. And so what does a job that doesn't exist yet mean in quantum? is it literally a new occupation or is it more than a, few combinations of existing disciplines? What does it mean? Give some examples of titles maybe.
speaker-1: Yeah, so again, based on qubit modalities, right, the way the qubits are configured and created and manipulated and controlled, there are gonna be new roles like there's there are companies developing cabling, for example, that will work in a cryogenic environment. So cryogenic cabling engineer could be a new job. Rather than having it be external, making it more efficient, putting it inside the dill fridge, for example. There may be new it may be p you know s neutral atoms trapped ions that use optical tweezers, maybe there's gonna be a new level of miniaturization around how optical tweezers get created, invented, and applied. So maybe it's optical tweezer engineer, you know, someone's gonna innovate around that space, how you do something there. And I f f certainly think that n diamond, you know, nitrogen vacancy and diamonds, that's a whole area that doesn't get a lot of press. Right. But that is being explored as a sort of comparatively cost effective way to take advantage of quantum applications. And it could be, you know, fake diamond designer. Maybe someone's gonna be, you know, finding new ways to use nitrogen vacancies to create qubit modalities. Right. And then I think it's also gonna be use cases, right? Up the value chain, if you will. certainly see the potential for a chief quantum officer at some point. seated within the CIO or CTO's office. Someone who's got to conjure a strategy. I remember seeing a woman at a economist event who works for a European bank and they wanted to stand up a quantum practice and she had like a PhD in astrophysics. So they said, Will you be a likely candidate to lead this team? So they spoke to her and recruited her and she's now basically the chief quantum officer. They gave her a budget and a team and some air cover from PNL. And she's building out a quantum strategy and a quantum practice for this bank. So we see more and more of that happen.
speaker-0: So it's finance to hardware to software to design to materials engineer to strategist, right? A business background as well. So that's great.
speaker-1: Well one of my favorite other examples is there's a woman, Catherine Londugan. She's no longer at Zapata, but she was an early hire as Zapata Computing, right? And she was the chief marketing officer at a quantum company. So that wasn't a job five years ago. That role did not exist. But she took it. She had worked, I think, at BBDO, some general advertising agency, and had some interaction with consumer technology and was fascinated by quantum. So I think they reached for her or, you know, she was poached from BBDO and ran their marketing at the top of the function for several years. Again, that wasn't a job five years ago. They weren't recruiting for CMOs at quantum companies.
speaker-0: Great, So going back to what have you learned from other quantum leaders, You have had an unusual vantage point into this industry wherein you've interviewed more than, eighty executives from quantum companies around the world. And so you've essentially walked the workforce conversation, watched it evolve alongside this industry. So what have you learned from these conversations that surprise you about who actually works in quantum and are these roles that you didn't even know existed until you started, are there any roles that became evident to you?
speaker-1: Think the fascinating thing was that they all came from different places. Nobody went to school to get an MBA to be the CEO of a quantum company. Again, that wasn't a job. Five years ago, there were no no recruiters looking for CEOs to run quantum companies. I mean, certainly 10 years ago. So they many of them came from academia. many of them came from financial services. Marcus Flitch is a perfect example. He's the CEO of TerraQantum. They're focused on financial services, applications of quantum. They're based in Zurich. He was, I think he has a PhD in physics. He was a management consultant. He worked at, I think, McKinsey for a while. I want to say he worked at might have worked at CERN. He was an investment banker for a while and then decided to start this company, TerraQuantum, focused on potential applications of quantum in financial services, with the idea that. There would be findings and learnings that could be extrapolated to other more broadly applicable settings like logistics and optimization. So it was a wide range of people. They all have a passion, though, for trying to figure out what this amazing technology is and how to apply it, you know, what the benefit might be.
speaker-0: So you interviewed someone, Zulfia Alam from the the qubit confidential conversation, right? Who works at Microsoft. So can you talk a bit about that interview and the reason is his trajectory of Xbox to HoloLens And then to quantum, right? That's almost a case study for this entire conversation. He wasn't necessarily following a predefined ladder, how to become a quantum executive. So, what can young people learn from trajectories like that? Is the better strategy to basically train specifically for quantum or to become exceptionally good at something valuable that will allow you to become curious and analytical and passionate and then learn how to bring all of that expertise into quantum?
speaker-1: So that was a fascinating interview, by the way. Unabashed plug. check it out. It's on YouTube. He's a brilliant guy, very affable, very smart, leaders to say. the thing that struck me about my conversation with him, again, Zulfie Alam, he's the corporate vice president of Quantum at Microsoft, was that he's been involved in bleeding edge tech at a large global 50 company for like 20 odd years. So He worked on Xbox. That was one of his first sort of areas of focus. So that was net new again at you know, thirty years ago or whatever. Helped develop that, productize it, bring it to market, improve it, enhance it, improve the value of it. He then moved into HoloLens, right? Their sort of AR glasses and worked in that organization for many years. A bleeding edge tech. I think they've actually discontinued that product, unfortunately, but that was a really I think they're using it in some unique sort of industrial, maybe military applications. But and now he's in quantum. So the theme is, back to my comment about being curious, is to stay at the bleeding edge, go where they don't know what it is yet. They being the existing business models that are serving, you know, current clients. and that's what he's been doing for he's been there a long time, thirty years maybe, but always Looking for what's at the edge, what's on the fringe, what's coming down the pipe that's going to be exciting and interesting. And then you have the ability to kind of create it, design it, develop it, and also get remunerated.
speaker-0: So when somebody says quantum workforce, we immediately picture physicists, at least today, quantum engineers and computer scientists at the most, some hardware engineers too. But couldn't a cybersecurity expert, chemical engineer, materials engineer, systems engineer, lawyer, policy professional, supply chain specialist, or even a communicator, because I know on a daily basis I'm doing the educating the educators part or the advocacy part as well. can any of these careers become part of the workforce, So the question is, where does working in quantum actually begin and end? And are we perhaps defining the quantum workforce too narrowly?
speaker-1: I think we are. Again, these are businesses, right? These are companies. So I used to run a session for the Quantum Economic Development Consortium called Office Hours and I would host a four hour Zoom every month and invite students studying quantum to have a 30 minute one on one with a mentor from either a private sector company in QEDC or from a national lab and talk about what they were doing and what they were interested in. It was fascinating. And people from academia, people who'd come from the private sector, their takes on what it you know, what it meant to work in quantum, how to be successful. but again, I have this chart I can show, but the the needs are everything from biz dev, right, sales to UX design, to people who are interested in policy and regulatory conversations because it's always a cat and mouse regulators putting rules in place and Companies having to align with or follow the guidance that conform to the law. You're gonna need picks and shovels, people who can deal with test benches and creating lasers and you know test equipment. As I mentioned, you know, the CMO role, people who are comfortable in PR and comms and marketing, because you've got to people who can write about this bleeding edge technology in a way that not only lay people can understand, but potential investors. potential clients, potential employees, right? All the major banks are investigating this. So if you're interested in finance and you're interested in quantum, there are roles at banks. I mean, the the famous one is Will Will Zhang, who was the head of quantum research at Goldman Sachs for many years, is now working at Quantum Nation. He's a a managing partner at this VC firm. One of my favorite memories of early quantum was Will Zhang at a conference They introduced me. Here's Will Zangs from Goldman Sachs. He goes, Thank you very much for having me. I'm Will. I'm from Goldman, Sachs. I have a checkbook. Bring me something. It's like we're Goldman Sachs. We have the money. Have you got something that's gonna generate attributable revenue or it's gonna help improve productivity or efficiency at our bank? I wanna see it. So and then the th sort of the final area is around management consulting. So if you're interested in business that way, maybe you're working on an MBA or you wanna do an internship at McKinsey or Deloitte or Accenture or KPMG or Bain. They all are standing up practice areas to help their big clients to find how to incorporate quantum in a long-term business strategy. What do you do over the next five years? Where does it apply in your business model? What are the risks? What are the rewards? What's the cost benefit? So all the way of saying these are businesses, these are companies just like any other business. It just happens to be quantum that they're selling.
speaker-0: Now let's talk a bit about not early career, but also people who are trying to do a lateral jump into quantum, Like transitioning into quantum. So let's imagine someone who is watching us right now who is already five, ten, twenty years into their career and interested in quantum, but their immediate reaction is, I missed it. I didn't study quantum physics. what would you tell them and How does the experienced professional actually transition into quantum without starting their education? And what should they not do and not waste their time learning as well? So in short, if you gave that person 90 days, what would you tell them to do? Not like five years, go get another degree, but what should they exactly do in the 90 days?
speaker-1: So they should figure out what area they have expertise in. is it sales, is it biz dev? Is it policy? Is it fabrication? Is it manufacturing? Is it computer science? Is it maybe it's physics, maybe it's qubits, qubit manipulation, maybe it's PR, maybe it's financial services. So figure out where your focus is, then track down the thought leaders on LinkedIn, put in some Boolean parameters. You know, finance plus quantum plus Silicon Valley and see who pops up and connect with them and follow them. Read their posts or the posts that their prom people are putting out. And then secondly, I would say do the research. Like who are the thought leaders in that space? Who's the current marketing guru? I always contend there's there's a Miles Davis in every function, no matter what it is. Now I know a lot of people are shaking their heads who's Miles Davis. Look him up. He was a seminal trumpet player, jazz composer, musician. But so in today's parlance, it might be who's the LeBron James, who's the Taylor Swift, who's the Sam Altman, who's the Elon Musk, who's the Bernie Sanders. You know, whatever discipline it is, there's somebody leading the conversation. You should find out who that is. And if they have a blog, read it. If they post on Substack or Medium, read it. Follow them. F see who's in their network. See who they listen to. See who they recommend. And then there are myriad resources. And I'm not not gonna plug specific ones, but I'll just mention them as a way of helping. There's something called the Quantum Insider, which you can follow on LinkedIn. They publish information daily about the state of quantum. There's something called Quantum Dragons that IQT publishes. Sergio Gacco, even though he's not involved in quantum, publishes Quantum Pirates every Monday. Bob Souter publishes quantum updates every day. So I would encourage you to track down these sources and get up to speed with who's doing what where. I actually have a I have a resource page on Quantum that I put together and I curate for the QEDC and I could share that link with you. And it lists books and podcasts and companies and people that I think are thought leaders and videos on YouTube. Olivia Lanes from IBM has lots of great content. So there's There's no, you know, dearth of places to to learn. So you just gotta kinda roll up your sleeves and jump in.
speaker-0: I mean that's excellent actually. So those were some of the resources that I was going to mention as well, but I think we can post that for the audiences. moving on to experience paradox, So if there is a paradox about experience and applying for a job that you've never formally worked in, your expertise might be in a different field. So if an industry is this new, where exactly are people supposed to get that experience while the industry itself is evolving? You can't ask somebody with 10 years of experience saying, show me your experience and what replaces their traditional experience? And what are people in the quantum industry, the hiring managers, looking for? I mean, do they have an idea or are they shooting in the dark right now?
speaker-1: Well, I think it depends on the the job wreck, right? What the open position is. I mean, it could be something very specific where you need like a PhD in spintronic or particle physics or whatever, because that's the kind of problem that they're looking to solve. But it could be more general, more more broad. And many of these companies, because this technology is moving so fast and they're growing quickly, are comfortable hiring people and training them. So I have two anecdotes I like to share in this space. The QEDC had a plenary session in Denver a couple of years ago, and a company called Form Factor squirred us all up to Boulder to their factory for a tour and a dinner. And I sat next to a woman at this dinner. I So, how did you come to work at Form Factor? You know, what's your training? She says, Well, my training is as an accountant. I was like, What? How did you end up here? She said, Well, I a friend of mine said there's this cool quantum company in Boulder and they're hiring. So she went in and interviewed. They obviously realized she could, you know, manage numbers and manipulate data and could learn. So they hired her and she now runs the laser test bench for them. And they trained her how to do it. And the key takeaway from this is she didn't know how to do it, but they had a playbook, they had a framework, they had a roadmap, they trained her how to do it exactly the way they wanted it done. And again, I think of my 15 years at IBM. They didn't hire an IBMer who would come in and say, well, the proper way to do this is like this. The correct procedure is the way we do it at IBM. I think they wanted someone who had no idea, but was excited and passionate and ready to learn. And they hired, and she's been there like three years and loves it.
speaker-0: Now, speaking of such laborious jobs, and we are also going through an era of AI and robots, basically, autonomous labs. So you think part of the jobs that we are all already championing in quantum could be replaced by the autonomous workforce?
speaker-1: Well, certainly, you know, embedded AI, right? So physical AI, robots are gonna impact manufacturing everywhere. And quantum is no different. They're gonna be robots making qubits and probably manipulating optical tweezers and opening and closing dill fridges and but what that does, in my opinion, is it moves potential talent up the value chain. So rather than you having to unscrew the dill fridge or turn off the nitrogen to whatever, You'll get to do something more interesting, more impactful, more strategic. And again, it's been ever thus since technologies have been, you know, evolving over thousands of years. That's always how it goes. So and you have to be ready for that adjustment. I mean, certainly AI is going to impact, you know, how quantum software gets written, how algorithms get deployed, and certainly how quantum devices and HPC interoperate, right? That's gonna be a key area. that we're still figuring out. So that's a huge opportunity for someone who understands those two environments and is prepared to try to figure out how to make them connect and deliver value together.
speaker-0: I do have lots of questions from the registration itself. So let's start with Anirvan. his question, he's from India. Role of quantum in shaping career trajectory in the next decade?
speaker-1: it's gonna be a technology like any other innovative technology. I mean, it's gonna be transformative for sure. I don't mean to dismiss it or demean it, but it's gonna impact everything we do. It's gonna be like who imagine not having a smartphone. So I grew up not having a smartphone. But now it's indispensable. So quantum is gonna impact how we live and work in a similar way. So you need to be ready to embrace what those outcomes might be. It's gonna and again, the technology per se is not gonna be in your face. Ideally, the best technology is invisible, right? It's transparent. You don't even know what's going on. But what it's gonna do, for example, is transform medicine, drug discovery, drug development, personalized medicine. It's gonna change travel and transportation, it's gonna change communication, it's gonna change l logistics writ large. So whatever business you're in, again I when I do these opening remarks at at events, I always say, quantum doesn't care what business you're in. It's industry agnostic. It's gonna impact you whether you like it or not. And you have to figure out how to embrace it, how to deploy it, how to exploit it. So that that would be my my answer to to that question.
speaker-0: So we have a question from Garish India, who works for Tata Communications. What are the opportunities in simulation of physical and chemical processes?
speaker-1: So there are many pharma companies that are looking at ways to use quantum to enhance drug discovery and drug development, right? Being able to look at large numbers of molecules and identify a potential protein that could be exploited for the next vaccine or cure or medicine, right? So there's lots of that focus going on. Also in other biomedical and geophysical settings, material science for sure. They're using quantum sensors, for example, to use gravimetry and magnetometry to create navigation solutions that work in GPS-denied, spoofed or jammed environments. That's going on as we speak. A company called Delta G, they're building what they call Google Maps for the Underground. There's a company called Circomagnetics building quantum sensors into a 3D printable wearable device to detect childhood epilepsy. It's fifty times more sensitive than current like MRI devices. So lots of again, real world stuff going on around physical and chemical applications.
speaker-0: Thank you for that. We have Mariana from Bulgaria asking this question. What professions do you think will no longer exist in five to ten years in lieu of the growing presence of quantum technologies?
speaker-1: It's a good question. I mean, they're always gonna be like most jobs are never completely replaced, right? So even in 1903, when Henry Ford started rolling Model T's off his assembly line in Detroit, farriers and blacksmiths got really nervous. But they didn't disappear, they just did something else. And there's still ferriers at racetracks and blacksmiths in in barns where they tend horses, right? but I think you need to be aware that There's going to be attrition around jobs that can be automated. They can be le leveraging AI or quantum or robotics. So those are the kind of jobs are going to go away. I mean, service jobs, maybe more and more of that we're seeing in restaurants and nursing homes and hospitals, in grocery stores, places where you don't really need a person. I mean, how many of you pay for stuff with your phone, right? Or how many people remember when there were toll collectors? Used to drive on highways and you had to stop and give somebody money. So I think just be aware of how technology is changing what humans do. There'll always be need for humans, but they'll be doing something different, maybe than what they're doing today.
speaker-0: We have a question from K through eight Canada, Abijay. What are the skills that today's high schoolers and undergrads have to develop if they want to join the quantum workforce?
speaker-1: I think generally there's something simplistic. You should certainly be studying physics and chemistry and maybe electrical engineering or computer science. I mean, those are core skills tied to quantum technologies. But that said, I would not say that's the only thing you should study. I would diversify, and again, back to being a generalist, study humanities-related courses. I was on a call recently where a n a nuclear physicist said to me, I'm putting my curriculum together for the coming year. What do you think I should study besides computer science? And I said you should study medieval Irish mythology. Like do something that'll twist your brain a little, do something that will make you think differently, expose you to something you may not be familiar with, the topic you don't know anything about. Because that's what's going to be required to be successful in companies driven by frontier technologies. So that's what I was educing. If you're into Marketing, or if you're a writer, certainly we need writers in the quantum space. If you're into a s manufacturing, you like to build things, you know, we're building these devices. There's a whole hardware business tied to these various qubit modalities, you know, building computers and sensors. so I would say, you know, again, back to focusing on what you're interested in, what you're passionate about, what you do well, and then certainly get some science, some quantum background so you know. how it works and what companies are doing. And I would say you don't need to get down into the what we used to call it IBM, the speeds and feeds. You like you don't need to know about the double slit experiment necessarily to be a good journalist writing about quantum. But you need to know at a meta level who the founders were. You should know about Niels Bohr and Max Planck and you know, how this came to be again at a meta level. But then more importantly, what are the real world use cases? Where are people going to really use this? Where is it going to really deliver value? Because that's at the end of the day what's important.
speaker-0: So we have a question from an undergraduate student, Shavita, who's part of our audiences as well today. I'm highly fascinated with quantum, how it simultaneously and instantaneously processes information in a way that is nonlinear. I wonder will quantum AI will be accessible to consumers in the near future as AI did in late 2022.
speaker-1: Well, I mean, again, it's going to be incorporated into solutions based on quantum technology. And there's already a quantum AI organization at Google, for example. Sandbox AQ contends their title is AI and Quantum. so it's going on today. I would encourage you to investigate, look at what Sandbox AQ is doing, and look up Google AI and see what they're doing. And you get a better sense of what they're doing, how they're exploring the the intersection of these two technologies.
speaker-0: We have another question. in twenty twenty four IBM article mentioned quantum is counterintuitive. Do you agree?
speaker-1: Counterintuitive. Yeah, I would I that's probably to some degree that's too. I mean, it's you know, it's is it a wave, is it a particle? So it's I mean, Einstein, you know, railed against it. He was like calling entanglement spooky action at a distance. So even someone as brilliant as Einstein struggled to embrace the concept. So as Richard Feynman said, right, if you under say you understand quantum. You're not telling the truth. I'm paraphrasing, but that was his take.
speaker-0: We have Shweta from NYU United States. What inspires you the most about this field?
speaker-1: I'm excited about how it's going to be able to capture and rationalize data. Right? How it's going to be able to take information and as a result solve intractable problems. NP hard, right? Non-polynomial. you know things that questions, problems, queries that we've maybe contemplated but never even thought about addressing because it was just too complicated, too hard. I'm gonna think of an Accenture. consultant a few years ago at an event saying, imagine if you, you know, we can currently predict the weather accurately. So 80% accuracy three to five days out, you know, maybe sixty percent accuracy ten days out. Imagine if you could predict the weather for a hundred years. So in theory, I mean obviously there are a lot of stochastic variables that would make that challenging, but in theory, a qua a viable quantum computer could capture and rationalize data and make predictions around that and implications for manufacturing, for education, for agriculture, for supply chain, for logistics. I mean th those kind of questions, those kind of problems we never even contemplated could in theory be solved.
speaker-0: We have a question from Germany Nadine. how important is science communication as a quantum researcher?
speaker-1: Think it's critically important. I mean, you need to be able to articulate what you're doing and what you're working on. and that's how we learn, right? So education is the discipline that enables all other disciplines, right? At the end of the day. You know, learning how to do something is you know, is the starting point. So I would say communication is a key part of that. Learning how to write well. I would encourage you to write and vet it with colleagues or your PI or peers or whatever, and you know, refine that skill because it's gonna serve you well. The ability to articulate what you're doing and why you're doing it and how you're doing it. It's gonna be crucial no matter where you work, no matter what job you're in, be it quantum or something else.
speaker-0: And I can speak a liner to that. Essentially, all my background has been in engineering, yet I find myself interfacing more and more with policy leaders, to government officials, to students, to professors, industries folks, and wide variety of people. What I realize is communication is a key part of getting the technology forward as well. It is not just about We understanding technology as engineers, but also communicating in a language that they can understand is a significant part because that dictates the funding policy and everything else that follows afterwards. next question we have from US Naval War College Tom Creeley, who is also part of our audiences today, who is the director of ethics and emerging military technology program. What are some of the ethical concerns you have with quantum?
speaker-1: That's a good question. I I mean I think like any technology, it needs to be monitored and managed. I don't know that there are clear guidelines around ethical applications of quantum, what that means and what it doesn't mean. Certainly we're going to be able to leverage conversations around AI, you know, and GDPR, the sort of privacy guidance from Europe that's been around for several years. but I think it's important. Again, it's t it's tied to use cases at the end of the day, right? Ethics is tied to how people are applying these technologies. So I haven't seen a lot of conversation about it, but I think certainly Q Day is going to drive those conversations more than esoteric computing or sensing capabilities, because everyone knows Q Day, right? So the day when cryptographically relevant quantum computers can crack current RSA and ECC encryption. So that's coming at some point. And that will certainly drive conversations about, you know, what data gets stolen and resold and hacked and repurposed or whatever. so I I'm guessing that will drive those conversations. I haven't been privy to details or I don't have visibility into where that is, but I'm sure companies, for example, that are involved in this space, like Crypt or like Sandbox or Quantum Exchange, or even IDQantique, which is now part of INQ. are having those conversations at least internally and also with clients, right? As they put together post quantum cryptography solutions, PQC and QKD.
speaker-0: and I can speak a little bit to that as well. essentially as of today we launched our website responsiblequantum.org, which is going to be covering the ethics and policy, please check that website out and we'll be adding more resources and we would love to bring speakers who can actually speak about ethics and quantum as well. and we have some questions from the audiences. Preeti, Prethi, would you like to unmute yourself Hello Dolly, hello Christopher.
speaker-1: Hello pretty.
speaker-0: it was an engaging conversation and I really like the fact that quantum workforce is here. And but the problem with me is that I am a PhD physicist, PhD physicist with six years post PhD experience. so I was working Broadly in the intersection of like magnetic materials and studying their those physical characterization of those magnetic materials during my PhD. And then later on I dive into magneto optical materials to see how it can be used as a wave guide. That was my first post postdoc experience in India. Then later on I went to Cambridge to study the thin films, magnetic thin films, which can be later on used for a as a synthetic antiferromagnets for, you know, data storage application, like strain induced strain induced mechanism where we can see whether we observe any change or not. And then I moved to Germany for another postdoc where I was more involved in the application part where I was like printing the magnetic sensors. And now I came here in Chicago and now I'm more inclined towards the quantum and I I think that I'll be good or the best person as well for the quantum workforce, having all the experience which I gather. But the my problem is I'm not able to position myself as a quantum expert or as a quantum learner. I don't want to sound like an quantum expert, but I really want to dive into the quantum industry, but I don't know. It's like it's com I'm I'm like completely lost. So yeah, any any help, any guidance will definitely help me.
speaker-1: The Predi, there's a what what a amazing experience you've had. Wow. Pretty impressive. there's a lot of quantum activity in Chicago, as you you may or may not know, right? So David Ashalam at the University of Chicago leads a quantum syllabus, if you will. The Quant Chicago Quantum Exchange, run by Kate Timberman. I think she's just stepping down from that role, very active in both education and private sector interaction. Two big companies, Psy Quantum and AeroQ, are building facilities in this repurposed area in South Side. I think it was like a US steel plant. So all by way of saying, there are a lot of companies doing interesting work there and that are growing. And I would encourage you to to get into that community, right? So introduce yourself. I think they'd be delighted to meet you and discover that you're local. And I bet their opportunities at least get on their list, you know, like f follow them on LinkedIn, connect with them on LinkedIn. And maybe even go have a meet see if they're doing any events. They just they do a Chicago Quantum Summit every year. That's fantastic. I've joined it remotely a couple of times. so there's definitely community there. And so someone with your skills and experience, they'd be delighted to you know, either make a job for you or bring you in and train you to do something that they need done. that you could easily learn how to do.
speaker-0: Yeah, sure. I I do I do follow. I do follow IQ MP, I do follow David, Professor David as well. The I feel like whenever I apply, I don't hear back and there are some of the positions and so I feel like maybe I am doing something not hundred percent correct to navigate the situation and I'm trying to learn how I can do that. So
speaker-1: Yeah. Again, any the other thing I'd say is any deliverables you have that you can share with them or post on your LinkedIn profile are key, right? To show that you know what you're talking about. Point to a white paper or research note or a blog or a presentation you delivered or a video of you sharing. you know, post it on LinkedIn and then at mention them so they see it so it gets in their feed.
speaker-0: Thanks, Prethi. We have another question from Shwe.
speaker-1: so I am really excited that you're on this call with Dolly as well, but I wanted to ask that I I'm at a point where there's a lot of there's a lot of Things moving quickly. And as a researcher, especially with all these researchers going to conferences and things all the time, it can be hard to understand or navigate like where our I our ideas are being put to like a conversation that is adding to a community or something, and to to be productive and and discuss it, or whether it's just kind of being taken and and not taken, but sort of. it is going to an ecosystem, obviously, that'll be put to use. but how do I because I'm like a very pro open source person, just coming from computer science and how the whole history of being open source then meant? and and I I think there's a difference now with like AI of what open source even means. so how do you think people like that are researchers that are in this space should navigate? my general encouragement at the risk of signing crass and simplistic is get into the private sector with all due respect. I mean, I'm a fan of academia and many brilliant ideas come out of university research labs, but they don't generate attributable revenue and they don't tend to change how we live and work. So I would encourage you to look for an opportunity. And there are researchers at private companies for sure. you know, they need people to develop and enhance and re refine and revise whatever their technology is that they're focused on. So the the path is find what you're interested in, find a company that's doing something you think is cool, where your skills may be applicable based on your background, whatever you've studied, and start jiggling doorknobs. Start like in you know, meeting people, connect with them on LinkedIn. go to events and meet them. Go to their office if you can. I mean, knock on the door, you know, find somebody who's on the inside. But I'm happy to talk to you more about it. Again, all of you, yeah anyone on this call, if you're not connected with me on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn. That's my first order of business. And secondly, send me a note and let's let's have this conversation. We can do it one on one or whatever.
speaker-0: Great. Thank you. Chris, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing not only your perspective on quantum careers, but also thinking much broader how we prepare ourselves for the careers in this, you know, continuously changing world where technology is constantly changing, I especially appreciate the reminder that a career doesn't necessarily have to be in a straight line and that sometimes the experiences that appear disconnected make more sense five years down the lane. Do you have any final thoughts for our audiences and online audiences as well?
speaker-1: So typically when I end my lecture, I do I say this. I say, I look at the assembled throng and I say, you guys and gals are going to do stuff that's going to look like magic to me. So get to it. I want to see some of it before I'm out of here. I mean, you have the potential to do just remarkable, amazing, excellent, exciting, creative stuff that humans have never done before. And it's on you to do it. So take advantage of this moment in time. To do it. That's what I would say.
speaker-0: Well, thank you to everyone who has actually joined us, the students, educators, researchers, industry professionals and members of the broader community. Thanks for being part of this conversation. And everyone who actually asked thoughtful questions. Some could not make it to this meeting, but they still wanted to have all those questions. We got a lot of questions from the audiences. So the quantum ecosystem is still being built and the technologies are evolving and Chris reminded us today the careers are evolving too. So perhaps the takeaway isn't that every one of us needs to become a quantum physicist and know exactly how the future works. But you know, try to pivot and adapt to the changing technological environment. And Chris, again, thank you for your time, your insights, and helping us imagine what the future of work in quantum might look like. And thank you to everyone who joined us. my name is Dolly Cheetah, and this has been Quantum Ecosystem Conversations. Until next conversation, stay curious.
