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I actually, like, lost quite a few friends, uh, after my graduation and I went into this job, um, because they were like, "You're funding AI."
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Um, actually, my mom said to me, and I, I wanna make this into a post, um, she goes, "So you're in charge of making sure that people don't have jobs?"
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[upbeat music] Hello. Hello. We're here to womansplain with a fellow womansplainer.
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We have a fantastic guest on today. Welcome, Bella. Thank you so much for having me. I am super s- excited to chat all things womansplaining and AI. Fantastic.
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So I'm gonna introduce Bella for our listeners, for a little bit of background. Bella Pivo, you are 23 years old.
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I w- I have this in my notes, and I wanted to make sure that you had not celebrated a birthday [laughs] in the interim, but you're 23. [laughs] And you have accomplished a very many things.
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You work in venture, you're an analyst at Founder's Edge here in Boston, and you sit in pre-seed pitches every single week, which means that you're seeing what gets funded, and basically what's coming, kind of for our jobs, [laughs] and what's, what's coming down the pipeline years potentially before any of us might feel it.
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And at the same time, you are at the age of the people that this technology is, you know, potentially gonna hit the hardest.
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And so you're b- kind of on both sides of this thing at once, and so that's one reason I've been very excited to have this conversation.
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And you said something in one of your intake form, in, in kind of a, we put a little survey together to, to, before guests come, and you said it baffles you how many young people want to start startups.
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[laughs] And that this whole AI bubble comes from moving fast and breaking things when nobody's actually building anything.
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Which is not necessarily what you would he- what you would expect to hear from somebody sitting inside a VC firm, so that's another reason I was like, ooh, we're gonna be able to dig into this.
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And then, you know, also you've been making things on TikToks for a full 10 years, which is wild.
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You have over 100,000 followers, and that is all because you started learning sign language at 13 so you could s- like, keep talking to your sister.
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And so we're gonna get into all of this, but I would like to extend a very, very warm welcome to Womansplaining AI. Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you for the background. I'm, I'm very intrigued.
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I'm like, okay, great, hearing my, my portrait back to me, I'm like, oh, yes, that is everything that's going on. [laughs] I did say that. I have to hold myself to that. But- You don't have to hold yourself to anything.
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This is the, this is the, the beauty of this show, is that we like to change our opinions and takes on things, like, halfway through. Mara s- Mara will say something and she'll be like, "Well, why do you think that?"
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And all of a sudden I'm like, "I, I, I don't know why I think that." [laughs] Like it, uh, it's, you know, it, it, uh, we like to, we like strong opinions loosely held, and, and then changing our minds on everything.
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So, um, maybe we start with, with the, the TikTok journey and, and kind of content, you know? I'm so curious.
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I love the, the origin story, uh, about learning ASL at, at the age of 13, and what made you start wanting to, to make content, and what has that taught you over the years? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love this question.
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Um, I think, you know, so I tend to laugh at people, um, wh- especially young founders or young people who give a pitch, and they're, like, 19 years old, and they'll say something like, "I've had 15 plus years in the accounting world."
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And if you do the math, you're like, hmm, you're four years old. Does that make sense? [laughs] Um, and you know, I sometimes feel a little bit of that, like, imposter syndrome, being like, well, for 10 years.
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But like, you know, looking back, I started when I was 13.
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Um, and so I really try to differentiate when I talk to a founder who's maybe just saying years of experience for, you know, just for, like, ego and to, like, make themselves look good.
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And I think that there's a difference for somebody taking something on at a young age because they, they understand, like, their passion and why they wanna do that. All that being said, I like to clarify that. Um, I,
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I started posting because I didn't want to. Huh. My club that I started for American Sign Language was like, "Hey, like, Musical.ly is a place where there's songs and you can also sign what we're learning in class."
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'Cause that's how I taught myself. I would use songs and then I would look up word by word how to interpret it, um, and then sign, like, to the, to the music, and that really helped increase my fluency.
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And so they're like, "Why not just do that on Musical.ly?"
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And we had just finished a con- or not a conference, but, like, one of those speakers who's like, "If you have a social media presence," like, "employers will not hire you."
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Like, "This is an internet footprint and you will, like, be doomed for the rest of your life." Like, and that was the, the impression that I had, so I was very anti, um, until I started posting about it.
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And then I think I was in seventh grade, uh, when that kinda started, and then it kinda blew up by the time I was a freshman in high school. Um, but it was still very cringey to be on Musical.ly. Right.
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So I really kept it under wraps. [laughs] Like, oh, I don't have this, this is not a thing.
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Even though I'd go to the movie theaters and, like, people would DM me and be like, "Hi Bella, I saw you," and it's, like, a picture of me, and I'm like, okay, just standing in line somewhere.
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[laughs] Like, um, and now to finish up this, this, this answer- Sure... um, where it's landed today is that it's no longer cringey to have that following. Yeah.
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And now I actually, if I say that I've had this experience for 10 years, I have 100,000 followers, I get a very different reaction than how I used to. Yeah.
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And that's been very interesting to see because I, for the majority until I think the past two years, uh, I was looked, looked down upon for it. Like, "Oh, this is stupid"- Wow... or whatever.
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Um, and just, like, a fun, fun fact is that the term personal branding didn't reach its search term peak until February of this year. Yeah.
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So really, like, personal brand and, like, the idea of, like, a good content creator or, like, a thought leader, even though we've known about them since maybe 2022, hasn't been popular until this year. [laughs] Hmm.
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But if I recall correctly, you actually got, maybe got your current job because of social media, and I wanna, like, I wanna talk about- The, the positives, and again, this is not a show dedicated to encouraging people to have [laughs] a social media presence, but at the same time, I think it really dovetails.
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There's a... We'll get into this, but the intersection of AI and social media and where we are right now in terms of authenticity, distribution, what- Mm-hmm...
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what content it looks like and is changing is, is kind of my Roman Empire, so I've been, another reason I've been excited for this. But how do you think it has actually been an advantage to you? Yeah. Yeah.
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Um, I remember making a very big bet when I went to college, like, and this is before AI.
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And I noticed this, uh, when I was in middle school, that more people were, or there was more of an emphasis on STEM, and all of my, like, music classes, drama classes became optional and electives, and all of my required classes became physics, chemistry, bio.
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And I kind of, like, started this theory that became confirmed, um, which is called the pendulum theory of soci- uh, like social and economic theory, where things kind of go between back and forth- Mm...
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different extremes. And so I saw the extreme focusing on STEM, and I was like, "Well, I, I don't know math. Like, I'm not good at that. I'm a, I know that I'm a great writer. Like, I'm, I'm dramatic.
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I don't mind, like, putting myself out there. I don't mind putting on different roles." Like, um, and that was, you know, villainized also for a long time.
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And so I, when I went to college, I'm like, "I'm just gonna go and do the opposite of whatever STEM is."
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Um, and so I studied communications and, uh, media production, and I was like, "Well, I probably should understand business too," because, like, any industry that you go into is gonna have some, like, understanding of business.
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Um, so all that being said, I kinda like took that bet and I was like, "If there's such a huge focus on STEM and all of these, like, you know, really tech people, like logical people, they're going to need the complete opposite, um, years down the line."
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And so I've actually found myself now that that bet was right, [laughs] like, literally like five-plus years ago. Um, and now people come to me for pitch help. "Oh, storytelling. How do I communicate?
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How do I say a through line? How do I answer something succinctly?" And may- maybe which I'm not displaying the best version of that right now. I promise I can do it.
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[laughs] Um, but how do I also answer something on the fly? Like, the amount of people who cannot do impromptu speaking- Yeah...
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is, is kind of shocking, and improv is really like a lost art form, which is one of my very hot takes. Is it, is it g- does it get into your idea about empathetic design? Yes.
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Oh, can I- And can you t- can you talk a little bit more about that? So talk to me more about what, how you understand empathetic design in the age of AI, and how that translates into the social, social media space.
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Yeah. Oh, I have so much to say. Okay, okay. Let's, let's... Okay, where do I go? I, I learned about empathetic design, um, from the principles of design thinking, and that was the very first business class that I took.
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It was called Innovation, exclamation mark, at Northeastern. Um, [laughs] and it was like a, it's a super fun class. Um, and I still, I still love this professor to this day. He comments on all of my- [laughs]...
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LinkedIn posts. Um, but he really, like, emphasized that
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making a business is not because you're making money, but because you're solving a problem, and it, and it, the way that he laid everything out was like, "Well, empathy is just logical. Like, duh."
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Like, the way that he just, you know, ma- laid it out. He's like, "Nobody wants to buy something that they don't really need." And the role to make people, like, want or need something, that's marketing's job, okay?
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And that's a whole other problem in itself. But he's like, "To truly make a successful business, it is solving a problem, and people have problems all the time." Yeah.
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"And so in order to really be successful, it's like find the biggest problem that you can go after and start solving that."
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Um, and to going through the whole design, like, thinking process, it is leading with empathy and asking questions. I also think it's very similar to the scientific method, right? It's like, make a hypothesis.
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Who's having this problem? Go and test that, ask questions, and then develop a solution. Test that. Go back to the drawing board.
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And all of that requires a lot of humbleness [laughs] to be like, "I know I'm gonna be wrong, and I don't care if people are gonna, you know, tell me, tell me I'm wrong."
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Um, and you have to also be really empathetic to know how to approach- Mm-hmm... people.
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Um, and kind of going back to why I think that it's crazy that a lot of young people are having startups is because, uh, it's not because I think that they have bad ideas, but it's because they're not attacking something that is really a problem.
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They're attacking something that's a trend. Mm. Um, and because they're like, "Well, I see a lot of people, like, spending this way," and I'm like, "You are s- essentially selling almost trickery," right?
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Like, "Oh, like this could maybe be something-" Yeah, yeah... right?
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Instead of being like, "Hey, this is a problem that I know that you're going through, and I know that you're going through because I've had a similar experience or someone on my team has had a similar experience, and we are deep in the weeds of knowing how someone like you is going through this, and our solution, like, can really help you."
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Um, and so that's, that's what I love about design thinking and empathetic design, um, and also what I love to fund about startups.
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I mean, this is, um, Logan, I know Logan wants to say something, [laughs] but I just wanna jump in to say that is why we started Women's Planning AI. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah.
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Because I think that there's a shared collective kind of problem right now, particularly, not exclusively for women, but particularly for women, where they feel like they're being gatekept out of the conversation around AI.
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And I know you, Bella, have had a whole, uh, humongous explosion on your, um, on your social media talking about, like, where are the women, where are the girls who are creating, like, interesting AI tools, and that's like a derivative of the problem where women feel like they are not te- not- Or have been told, have been signaled that they're not techy enough, right?
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Where I think Logan and I are like, "These are general purpose tools, and everyone's gonna be using them. So come on in, ladies, the water's fine.
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Like, this is a fun place where you can learn about this without feeling judged," right? Uh, I will now stop talking. [laughs] Like, uh, I, I love that you mentioned that.
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Um, I actually, like, lost quite a few friends, um, after my graduation and I went and did this job, um, because they were like, "You're funding AI."
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Um, actually, my mom said to me, and I, I wanna make this into a post, um, she goes, "So you're in charge of making sure that people don't have jobs?"
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Like, she literally is like, "You're funding to make sure that, like, you don't..." Yeah, yeah, like she literally said that to me.
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And so that really put me down this, like, even, like, kind of more of a passion to be like, "No. Like, no. Like, we cannot, like, ignore, like, what is, what is going on here."
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And while there are very valid reasons to be concerned about, you know, with the data centers and, like, all of the regulations and things that are kind of just developing out of proportion, like, we have to be very, I think, n- informed- Mm...
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on these, on what is happening. And what I like to say in a lot of my comments is, "If we don't have the language to speak, we will not be able to have a conversation." Yeah, yeah. Like, period.
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And so you have to understand all of these different nuances and like, yeah, understand the argument of, like, why we don't have, you know, data centers being able to hook up to the power grid.
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But then also have the conversation to know that, like, well, people in our administration actually don't wanna put renewables even though we have solar farms that are built. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Like, you know?
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And it's like, well, you understand both, because- Really...
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people who are really anti-AI, I think, are actually the perfect people to be in, to, to be informed and actually figure out, okay, well, how do we actually develop it to make it something that is helpful and not being destroyed?
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Like, ugh. Yeah. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Yeah. Yeah, I've, I've lost a lot of friends, yeah, 'cause they just simply don't know.
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They don't understand, and they're not willing to listen to that nuance because it's like, "Well, if y- if, if you do X, then you are this." This is, this is such a big piece of...
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And, and what you've, what you've said just there is, like, is Mara's phenomenal phrase that she, that she coined in a piece for the Stanford Social Innovation Review is, is fierce ambivalence, where ambivalence is the idea of being able to hold two contradictory things, you know, opinions or, or thoughts at the same time, and that is where we're all living and where we need to be living.
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I'm curious, w- I know there's been so much discourse around, you know, Gen Z and young people really hating AI. Mara, I know your daughters [laughs] are, are, you know, a little older than my daughters.
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My daughters just think Claude tells them bedtime stories. But, like, uh, but, uh, what do, what's your take on that, Bella, in terms of after graduating, why do you think your friends were mad at you?
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What does, what, what does... Where does that come from? I would say, like, yeah, be- when people are uncertain, they, I think, tend to also wanna cling to, like, what is familiar. Mm-hmm. You know?
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And so, like, what is familiar is like, "Well, we're better off with AI anyways. Life was perfect-" Yeah... "without it, and now that it's here, it's, like, only doing doom and it's only hurting things."
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Um, and I was not old enough to be around when, like, the internet was around, but, like, I, I, I'm like, I'm so curious. Like, I feel like it would really inform my opinions of, like, what were people thinking?
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Like, I knew that they thought that it was, like, doomsday, um, like, when the clock was about to turn 2000 and that everything was gonna break, [laughs] um, like, from what my parents say.
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[laughs] And so I'm like, I wonder if it was similar. Um, you know? And, like, what did people do? Or, like, even thinking back to the calculator, "Oh, everyone's gonna be, like...
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We're gonna get dumber 'cause we can't calculate it in our heads"- Yeah... or something like that. Um, I don't know.
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They're also, like, all hypotheticals that, like, we will not know, and I feel like we like to spend a lot of our times, like, in that, um, without taking, like, a, like, a cautious, like, maybe, like, view into the future.
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It's all very much like, "No, this is- Mm-hmm... what's gonna happen in the future." And it's like- Yeah... okay, let's slow down.
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[laughs] This is, this is why I'm always railing against the idea of the, the term future-proofing, 'cause I'm always just like, "Nobody... We don't know, guys. Like, let's not, let's not promise anything here."
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Uh, but, but I- Oh, that's right... I totally, I totally agree. I think, I'm, I'm curious 'cause in your, in your seat as, as a, a, within venture, you see a lot of ideas, and I love...
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You know, we could go in a few different directions. I like what you said about young people not having lived the problem.
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[laughs] Like, as in, it's maybe when's the last time, I guess, and then I'll go to the second part of my question.
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When's the last time you, you, you heard a pitch and you just thought to yourself, like, "This founder has never had the problem that they're trying to solve"? Uh, literally yesterday at an event.
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Like, like, I'm, like, not even kidding. Like, I, I, I... Okay, I would love to share this 'cause this is, like, I wanna, I'm gonna make content on this, okay? There are two curses happening in San Francisco, okay?
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And that generally float around in the startup community. It is the curse of Zuckerberg, and it is the curse of Cluley, okay? And I, this is, I am claiming this, okay, world? I am claiming these two things as mine.
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Um, the curse of Zuckerberg is this idea of, like, FOMO, kind of what happened with Cursor, where it's like you ignore a DM from a young founder, and then it's, like, two years later, it's like they're a billion- Mm...
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dollars and, like, you could've been multimillionaire. And so what happens in San Francisco, and granted, this kind of hap- I'll get to the demo in a second. This happened in New York.
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But the curse that happens in San Francisco, and the reason why they're deploying over a billion dollars, um, in capital, is that, is this curse of if I don't entertain this founder, if I don't just, like, chuck a 10K or even a million dollar check, like, I'm gonna miss out.
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Um, so there's just so much, like, money willing to be thrown around, which is, you know, also a huge problem that's gonna come and happen, um, when all of these companies get consolidated because we can only have- Mm-hmm...
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so many winners, right?
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Um, and then, so, like, there's, there's that, and that causes a lot of very young founders to put out this vision that they're like, "I can see what the future looks like," be, and like, "I, I can tell."
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And, like, I really don't know why we think that, like, young p- well, maybe 'cause we're not, like, scarred or something, if I'm completely honest.
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But what I really thought about was, well, what's the difference between the, the internet versus now?
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And what I, I think it's come down to, and I would love your opinions as people who are older than me, is that the internet was essentially creating a new world.
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Like, we had no other dimension for us to kind of like live in. And so young people were able to create that dimension because they were like, "Well, we're going to be making this for the future generations."
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Um, and the flip with AI is that there is not really a world that is being created. It is-- We already have a shit-ton of data in our- Mm-hmm. Sorry, I don't know if I can swear. Ob- obviously.
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Um, but like- Fuck yeah, you can. Okay, great. [both laughing] Yeah, great. I was about to, "Oh, oh no." Um, like we have, we have a shit-ton of data, okay? And there's not really like a new world to create.
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It's a new world to interpret. Mm. And when I look at a young person, I'm like, "What really world and what data have you dealt with for a long period of time to really like interpret it well?"
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Because what makes a good AI product is that you can create a really good data moat, and you know what data to collect, and you know what data should be interpreted, and that comes from very deep industry expertise.
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And like that's what I think the difference is. The young founders that like were all funded with like the dot com boom was social media, because they were building like the literal like internet, like the web.
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We don't have that with AI.
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Um, and so AI, all it is, is just, you know, a lot of data, and that's why I don't think that, yeah, young people have the exposure 'cause I'm like, "You haven't really dealt with like a lot of data."
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I think it's not just like embracing tools.
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Like of course, like oh, not like go learn AI, and I talked to, um, fr- some f- uh, college freshmen, like entering college freshmen, and what they said to me was actually very interesting and why I think a lot of the AI industry is like wrong right now.
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Mm-hmm. Um, and they were like, "Oh, we're just being told to use AI, and we're just kind of like told to, to prompt it with like, 'Give us feedback on our writing.'"
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They don't truly understand the architecture behind like how it-- how like AI can really effectively work and like where to apply it. Mm-hmm.
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And so when I started explaining to them, just being like, "Hey, imagine your desktop, and there's, you know, a few different folders," and Claude, and you know, I just break down like the memory files.
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I break down what a tool means, right? And I'm like, "All you're doing is..." I, I explain, do you know what an ETL system is? I don't think I know. I'm sure, I'm sure the both of you do.
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Like duh, like obviously you wouldn't... Okay, okay. [laughs] Well, oh, okay, great. Great, great. Okay. It stands for extract, transform, and load, um, and this is essentially- Okay...
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from my understanding, the basis of, um, reinforcement learning- Mm-hmm... so that AI can become self-evolving. So essentially it's like, okay, where's the data?
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Tell the AI to extract it, and then you're telling the AI with another prompt, "This is how I want the data to be transformed," and then you're telling it where you want it to load.
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So this could be like, "Okay, every single day I want you to extract, uh, my email notifications, find out if there's any overdue tasks, transform that into, um, you know, either making blocks on my calendar to, to complete those tasks, and then send...
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And then to load that, send me like a updated bullet list, um, every single morning on Slack."
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So that like extract, transform, load system, just me explaining that to them, they came back to me the next week and they're like, "I just live coded this entire website- [laughs]... and this entire app.
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Like look at what I've done. I've got a back-end database and everything." And I'm like, "Exactly. Exactly." Um, it's understanding how things move. Mm. And I, I love to think of it as a puzzle. Right. Like if you...
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I, I love puzzles. That's actually what I wrote my college essay about. Um, and I, I got like, I got like merit awards as well like for it, and I was like, "Ha ha." All from my love of puzzles.
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[laughs] Like I- I love escape rooms and all those different things, but that's literally what building with AI is, finding different pieces, how to connect them, what to do with them, and that's what like young people should be doing, um, because you just need to be able to notice and connect things.
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It's not even about really deep experience to know what's right. It's just can you look at things and figure out if a connection is helpful? Mm. What do you think about what you explained to them was the unlock?
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And if I were to take a devil's advocate position, it could also be the fact that you have enthusiasm, and back to Mara's point of like it feels possible in, in terms of like it's, it's...
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it can be both/and in terms of, okay, you gave them a more, uh, accessible definition and example of how the system is working, and you were a fellow young person speaking with, with both authority and enthusiasm and giving them permission kind of to, to be-- to get involved.
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And so I wonder like if that's... Anyway, I'm just, I'm just reflecting on what, what is needed. It's not always just a better explanation. It's also who's delivering the explanation, right?
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And if your professor just tells you, "Go use the tools"- Exactly... versus somebody who, who makes it feel like it's, it's, it's possible or makes it feel like it's okay to do something.
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I feel like that's a big piece of it as well. Yeah. I 100% agree.
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And like I think I, at least from like my perspective, and I would love also your, your perspectives on this, I just feel like a lot of even the content, like the tech content that you see, is geared towards making people reliable on what they are presenting.
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And what I mean by that is, comment X to get my skill. Comment this to go get my toolkit or something like that. Mm. And it requires you to download their skill. Granted, that skill might be really helpful.
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Like I'm not discounting that skill. But they're never... It's like, it's like that quote of like, "Teach a man to-" Yeah... you know, "to fish and like he'll feed himself for a lifetime."
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It's like these influencers actually, and all these tech influencers I think really rely on you making sure that you rely on them- Yeah. Mm-hmm...
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because if they actually taught you how to understand and build all of these own things, you wouldn't really need them. Yes. No.
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Um, and so that's where I think like actually like a, the turning point for a lot of these like thought leaders will be kind of going back to like the, these frameworks and like how can you, um,
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bring out your own per- like unique, um- Mm-hmm... expertise and like kind of just put point of view that people genuinely find interesting. And being an interesting person is really hard.
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[both laugh] Like, you know, and, and a lot of, and you know, and a lot of people can't do that. It takes personality, and like a lot...
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That's like, I think is kind of a lost art sometimes, um, as somebody who I think I'm very animated and whatnot. Um, but kind of, that kind of went away from- No, I love that... like to, to the point.
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So, so what I com- Mara and I just had a dinner and drinks last night, and we were talking about the, the, the value of opinions And, and that people want, people don't want information. They don't just want content.
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They want an, uh, they want a hot take. They want an opinion, and they want somebody with a strong cr- point of view. What do you think helps make you an interesting person?
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What do you think have been the building blocks of, of, of that? [laughs] 'Cause it is hard- Oh my God. Wow... it is hard to be an interesting person. I'm gonna have to email my therapist after I figure out [laughs]
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Hmm, what makes me an interesting person? Um, I think, I think... Well, I, I talk about this a lot with, like, my partner, but, like, being really curious. Mm-hmm.
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Being, like, really curious and, like, r- genuinely wanting to understand people. I, I'm just gonna add another thing that makes you interesting, if you don't mind. I'll pile on.
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Um, but I think your willingness to build in public- Mm-hmm... um, and kind of the, the, um, the products of that, right? Like your Bella Garden- Mm-hmm... where you show off the stuff that you've vibe coded and tried.
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Um, to me, this is, I think it's fascinating when people are building in public, and I wanna ask you what that means to you.
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And maybe- Um- And maybe, Bella, to kick it off, 'cause I think building in public is a very startup-centric term, which is probably easily understandable.
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But for any listeners who don't know, maybe, 'cause I think you'll, you'll be able to answer this, like, what does it mean for a startup to build in public?
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And then maybe, and then maybe kind of compare that and take, and take Mara's question about, about what you, you are doing as well, or what I often like to call it, like, learning in public, uh, is, is, is, is the corollary.
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Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, um, now I, I love that you mentioned Bella.garden even though I cleverly submitted that.
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Um, but it's actually been interesting because, [laughs] um, people have actually stumbled on it, um, and I have not marketed it really. And I got a DM from, um, Zach. No, not Zach. Uh, no, he's, uh, Lunch, Lunch:AI, um,
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AI at Lunch. Uh, AI Over Lunch. Yeah. Um- I forget, I forget his name. I'm gonna note- I'm gonna get it in a second. Yes. I'll remember it as soon as we hang up this call. It's B- it's Ben. Thank you. Yeah. Ben, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but yes, he, like, uh, messaged me the other day and he was like, "Hey, um, I just wanna say, like, I was inspired by, like, your Bella.garden page." And I was like, "Oh my God, like, thanks."
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Like, and he, like, redid his website and everything. Uh, I was like, I'm not even marketing that. And I personally love the concepts of digital gardens, um, which is kind of a niche topic.
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It's basically from this, uh, concept called a zettelkasten, which was founded by a German sociologist named Niklas Luhmann. Um, and it's this concept, and it started with research.
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He wrote over 90,000 essays in his lifetime, um, and it was, like, all handwritten, and he hand tracked all of his notes. So our brains think of our... We don't think in, like, a linear way. We think in nonlinear way.
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We kind of, like, group things together. So he would take notes off of, like, different things he was consuming and then tag them based off of, like, general, like, kind of idea.
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So then if he ever wanted to write about a specific topic, he would already have a compilation of different, like, annotation notes or things that he's already written about or even cited, um, and then combine those together.
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And so I kinda took that, um, application, and now it's, like, a digital garden and what people have put on- online about.
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Um, and I was like, oh, this is exactly how I think, like, content creators are going to be, thought leaders are going to be able to show off their work. Um, and I thought that it really played nicely into vibe coding.
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And what's actually kind of interesting is if you look at a lot of developer pages or with their own personal websites, they have a very similar structure to a digital garden. They just don't call it that. Yeah. Yeah.
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Um, and so I just think it's a term that maybe we haven't put a, put a label to yet, or maybe this community doesn't know about yet.
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But that's what I'm excited to bring up, because I think it's the perfect way to have people rabbit hole into you.
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And I'm very bullish, and that's, like, one of my new theses I'm developing is, like, the future of thought leaders and owning your content is a personal website. Mm-hmm.
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And I think that we're actually going to see one day, uh, like, uh, spon- sponsorships and brands kind of taking up almost ad space on, uh, people's personal websites, um, and just because of, like, all of the analytics and things that they would be able to do.
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And I even think that content creators might create, like, if not already, login portals for all of their, like, you know, followers- Mm-hmm...
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who are essentially kind of like, like, almost like courses, but more of like a, I'm thinking more like Moshi Monsters but, like, more interactive- Yeah. Yeah... for, uh, like, content creators and their fans. Totally.
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I, I, this is my, this is one of- Logan has been talking about this for ages... this is my rabbit hole. Logan has been talking about this for ages. This is my rabbit hole.
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She's like, "I'm on the cusp of breaking down under the weight of her influence and finally creating my personal page." [laughs] Do you have a personal website? But she's been talking about this for ages.
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Personal, personal websites are, are the, the hill that I will die on.
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I'm like every, uh, uh, when, as soon as I find out that somebody does not have a personal website, I basically, like, intervene im- I stage an intervention immediately, and I'm like, "Okay, so you're gonna go to Namecheap, and you're just gonna go ahead and grab your domain.
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It costs 11.99 a year. Don't use GoDaddy.
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And then you're gonna go to Lovable or Replit, it doesn't matter, or use QuadCode and get the whole Vercel React set up, like, and then all you need to do is just squat on the domain for a little bit, and then you can have a little placeholder.
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You can, you can build it over time."
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I love the garden 'cause I think what ends up happening, and this is just going in a whole different direction, but so, so what, what some people listening might know of is the second brain, the concept of the second brain- Mm-hmm.
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Yeah... which is, comes from the same zettelkasten kind of, you know, German school of thought of, of how do you
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externalize some of your knowledge and understanding, and then you can kind of, uh, slice and dice it in different ways depending on what you want to do, right? And so there's a whole school of thought. Yeah.
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Andrew Karpathy has this wiki. You can use Obsidian. Yes. I kind of prefer digital garden And I wanna know if you do too. What do, what is your...
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I mean, there are differences obviously, but in terms of terminology, what do you think you like about the phrase digital garden? Yeah, that's... I, I love that question.
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Um, because I think a digital garden, at least for me, is tailored to more so content. Mm-hmm. Um, and like information that I'm willing to kind of like put out there publicly.
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Um, and I do use like an internal kind of like digital garden to like, I like to say vectorize my brain.
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Um, but the problem that I see with a lot of these like also second brain systems is like everybody's trying to build everything at once, and in the world of like building, it's like good context in, good context out.
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And so I would much rather have a like very good, I feel like- Mm-hmm... map of things versus a lot of, uh, spaghetti thrown at the wall that I don't know how to connect. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
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Um, and so for me, a digital garden, it also being public, um, I like that. I... It's, it's fluid over time. Yeah.
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Because the goal of like even the wording of it is like you have seedling, and then you have growing, and then evergreen. Mm-hmm.
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And seedlings are able to clump together and be like a growing idea, and then once you finally wanna write an essay, it's like evergreen. Yeah. And evergreen means you never touch it again.
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Um, and so in terms of content, I'm like, great, that's like a published- Mm-hmm... newsletter or something. Um, comparatively, like I can consistently add to different like growing ideas.
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Um, and even if I'm learning something in public, this is what I wanna do eventually, um, is put the different resources that we use- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah... to learn this thing. So then that area is like growing.
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Um, and then people can like learn with me. Um, kind of doing like a second brain I think can get a little bit everywhere too much, especially even, even a public one. Yeah.
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Because you might do like, okay, here's all of my like projects, and then here's all of my like research papers- Yeah... and then here's... It's definitely doable.
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I just think for people starting out, it's just way overwhelming.
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And so I'm like, just find out whatever your content pieces are and see what the through lines are through that, and then kind of like start from there and make it.
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I think the element of curation there is, is key because the second brain you can have everything in the kitchen sink, and then you're like, "Well, I actually didn't want to invite you into this entire..."
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[laughs] You know, it's, it's like, "No, no, no, you're staying... Let's stay in the front garden." Yeah. Like, you don't... I didn't wanna invite you to my house. Like, it's really messy in here. [laughs] Exactly.
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Exactly. No. But- Yeah... you talk a lot about kind of this question of like jargon-free AI and by coding as literacy. Mm-hmm. What, how would you...
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If someone was listening right now and was like, "I want my digital garden," like how can you break this down in a simple way that they could start to sow it? Ooh. Ooh, I see what you did there. Yeah. Oh, I love that.
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[laughs] Ooh, amazing. Oh my God, I love it. Love all the references. So you gotta get the plot, get the soil. No, I'm kidding. [laughs] Um, so what the first thing I would do,
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I actually, I think this would be super fun. Okay, if anybody just wants to pull up their AI in WhisperFlow right now, right? I will just v- word vomit, and then it can go directly into their, their AI and everything.
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Um, okay, I want you to research, um, all of the best practices for what digital gardens are. I've listened to a bit of a concept.
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It's supposed to help me organize a bunch of things that I observe, and then my annotations about them. Mm.
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And I wanna save it in a way that I can kind of tag them, change, edit them, um, and then these ideas are kind of saved, um, so I can link them together later on.
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Um, the way that I might start doing this is I want, uh, to look at my previous AI history to see what topics I talk about a lot, um, things that I circle on, um, things that I question about a lot, um, to kind of create maybe five dif- distinct areas and maybe questions or themes that I talk about, um, that I might then be able to explore and expand upon.
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Um, if there's any references of, uh, things that I have quoted or news articles or books that I've written as well, um, I wanna be able to save those annotations, and then as well upload my thoughts about those annotations to it, um, and see what themes start to naturally, um, kind of appear.
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That's kind of what I would say and give my AI. But my favorite quote that I like... End prompt, sorry. [laughs] But my favorite- Bracket. Insert bracket. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.
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My, my like favorite like hack that I actually learned from my boss Greg was to prompt is tell the AI to go off and research, but, but not like research, like top three to five things. Mm-hmm.
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'Cause it's, if you tell it to research, it's gonna go shoot off 70 agents. But like t- research the top three to five best practices or- Yeah...
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best open source or best whatever, um, and then have it start comparing to then what it knows that you've done before. Mm-hmm. And then it'll kind of like Frankenstein, uh, back and forth.
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No, I think that's great though because the, the key there is, is some sort of output or action-oriented thing, right?
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Where it's okay, you're going to go and accomplish something using the, the tools at hand, whether that's, you know, going down a rabbit hole of self-discovery, whether that's, uh, and building a digital garden and, and personal website, or I'm gonna go take, gain 30 minutes of my week back because I'm now going to have one piece of it automated or whatever it is.
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But you can, you can start small, and I think that's the biggest thing that, that people often, uh, often have a, have a, a hard time with. Yeah. Yeah.
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And finding the right thing to, to kind of go about as well, I think. Um, because sometimes people are like, "Well, why do that if I can just go and like browse Reddit myself?" Yeah.
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Um, and that's why I really like the creation aspect. Yeah. Like one of my favorite projects that I made was like a beat studio after I watched the Michael Jackson movie.
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I was like, wow, I wish that I could learn how to make disco music. And so I ha- Claude actually found like an open source library on GitHub of instruments, and now I have like beat pads and like strings.
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[laughs] I love this. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, if you check out Bella Dot Garden, um, it's called the Beat Studio. [laughs] That's fantastic. But what a great example of like- That's amazing...
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anything is possible, right? Like be as creative as you want, and this is, the world is your oyster. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And like a lot of my friends are like really surprised by that too, and I'm just like, "Think of your craziest idea." Yeah. Like literally. And now it's possible. Yeah. That's, I love that.
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That's like one of the most optimistic ways that I think we've ended- I know... an episode in a while, which is...
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And this is like, it's, and it's research-based that, that people who use AI more feel more confident about what they can learn, and a larger, that they can learn about a larger diversity of things. Mm-hmm. Yes. Right?
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Yes. Which is 100% my experience, and you just creating like a disco- [laughs]... uh, generator, [laughs] is like the best thing ever. I've, and that's why creating that, I felt like- Forget curing cancer.
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Forget curing cancer. What we all need are our own personal disco creators. I love that. [laughs] All right. Thank you so much, Bella.
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This has been a delight, and I, I knew, I knew we were gonna get to the digital gardens, but I didn't know how good of a conversation it was gonna be.
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I'm, I'm now inspired to go, to go work on, to go do some gardening this weekend. [laughs] Totally. I'm like 100%. Me too. And the, the subreddit on it actually is like pretty small.
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Um, like this time last year it was maybe like at 3K. It maybe is at 7K now, but like it, it's still like a very small community. Fantastic. I'm gonna go- I'm gonna go dive right in. Excellent. All right.
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Thank you so much, Bella. [laughs] Thank you so much, Bella. Oh, wait, wait. Where can people find you? We've talked content. Where, where should- Oh my gosh... people follow you? What, what do you want people to do?
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[laughs] Yes. You can pretty much stalk everything of me on my website. Um, I have all my socials on there, because bella.pivo is me on TikTok, but then bellapivo_ is my Instagram. Excellent. I know.
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Instagram won't let me like change it to my first name. Ah. [laughs] But, um, yeah. And also of course bella.benett.com. Thank you. Amazing. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Bella. Thank you.
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[outro music]
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I actually, like, lost quite a few friends, uh, after my graduation and I went into this job, um, because they were like, "You're funding AI."
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Um, actually, my mom said to me, and I, I wanna make this into a post, um, she goes, "So you're in charge of making sure that people don't have jobs?"
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[upbeat music] Hello. Hello. We're here to womansplain with a fellow womansplainer.
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We have a fantastic guest on today. Welcome, Bella. Thank you so much for having me. I am super s- excited to chat all things womansplaining and AI. Fantastic.
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So I'm gonna introduce Bella for our listeners, for a little bit of background. Bella Pivo, you are 23 years old.
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I w- I have this in my notes, and I wanted to make sure that you had not celebrated a birthday [laughs] in the interim, but you're 23. [laughs] And you have accomplished a very many things.
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You work in venture, you're an analyst at Founder's Edge here in Boston, and you sit in pre-seed pitches every single week, which means that you're seeing what gets funded, and basically what's coming, kind of for our jobs, [laughs] and what's, what's coming down the pipeline years potentially before any of us might feel it.
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And at the same time, you are at the age of the people that this technology is, you know, potentially gonna hit the hardest.
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And so you're b- kind of on both sides of this thing at once, and so that's one reason I've been very excited to have this conversation.
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And you said something in one of your intake form, in, in kind of a, we put a little survey together to, to, before guests come, and you said it baffles you how many young people want to start startups.
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[laughs] And that this whole AI bubble comes from moving fast and breaking things when nobody's actually building anything.
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Which is not necessarily what you would he- what you would expect to hear from somebody sitting inside a VC firm, so that's another reason I was like, ooh, we're gonna be able to dig into this.
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And then, you know, also you've been making things on TikToks for a full 10 years, which is wild.
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You have over 100,000 followers, and that is all because you started learning sign language at 13 so you could s- like, keep talking to your sister.
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And so we're gonna get into all of this, but I would like to extend a very, very warm welcome to Womansplaining AI. Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you for the background. I'm, I'm very intrigued.
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I'm like, okay, great, hearing my, my portrait back to me, I'm like, oh, yes, that is everything that's going on. [laughs] I did say that. I have to hold myself to that. But- You don't have to hold yourself to anything.
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This is the, this is the, the beauty of this show, is that we like to change our opinions and takes on things, like, halfway through. Mara s- Mara will say something and she'll be like, "Well, why do you think that?"
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And all of a sudden I'm like, "I, I, I don't know why I think that." [laughs] Like it, uh, it's, you know, it, it, uh, we like to, we like strong opinions loosely held, and, and then changing our minds on everything.
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So, um, maybe we start with, with the, the TikTok journey and, and kind of content, you know? I'm so curious.
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I love the, the origin story, uh, about learning ASL at, at the age of 13, and what made you start wanting to, to make content, and what has that taught you over the years? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love this question.
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Um, I think, you know, so I tend to laugh at people, um, wh- especially young founders or young people who give a pitch, and they're, like, 19 years old, and they'll say something like, "I've had 15 plus years in the accounting world."
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And if you do the math, you're like, hmm, you're four years old. Does that make sense? [laughs] Um, and you know, I sometimes feel a little bit of that, like, imposter syndrome, being like, well, for 10 years.
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But like, you know, looking back, I started when I was 13.
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Um, and so I really try to differentiate when I talk to a founder who's maybe just saying years of experience for, you know, just for, like, ego and to, like, make themselves look good.
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And I think that there's a difference for somebody taking something on at a young age because they, they understand, like, their passion and why they wanna do that. All that being said, I like to clarify that. Um, I,
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I started posting because I didn't want to. Huh. My club that I started for American Sign Language was like, "Hey, like, Musical.ly is a place where there's songs and you can also sign what we're learning in class."
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'Cause that's how I taught myself. I would use songs and then I would look up word by word how to interpret it, um, and then sign, like, to the, to the music, and that really helped increase my fluency.
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And so they're like, "Why not just do that on Musical.ly?"
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And we had just finished a con- or not a conference, but, like, one of those speakers who's like, "If you have a social media presence," like, "employers will not hire you."
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Like, "This is an internet footprint and you will, like, be doomed for the rest of your life." Like, and that was the, the impression that I had, so I was very anti, um, until I started posting about it.
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And then I think I was in seventh grade, uh, when that kinda started, and then it kinda blew up by the time I was a freshman in high school. Um, but it was still very cringey to be on Musical.ly. Right.
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So I really kept it under wraps. [laughs] Like, oh, I don't have this, this is not a thing.
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Even though I'd go to the movie theaters and, like, people would DM me and be like, "Hi Bella, I saw you," and it's, like, a picture of me, and I'm like, okay, just standing in line somewhere.
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[laughs] Like, um, and now to finish up this, this, this answer- Sure... um, where it's landed today is that it's no longer cringey to have that following. Yeah.
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And now I actually, if I say that I've had this experience for 10 years, I have 100,000 followers, I get a very different reaction than how I used to. Yeah.
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And that's been very interesting to see because I, for the majority until I think the past two years, uh, I was looked, looked down upon for it. Like, "Oh, this is stupid"- Wow... or whatever.
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Um, and just, like, a fun, fun fact is that the term personal branding didn't reach its search term peak until February of this year. Yeah.
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So really, like, personal brand and, like, the idea of, like, a good content creator or, like, a thought leader, even though we've known about them since maybe 2022, hasn't been popular until this year. [laughs] Hmm.
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But if I recall correctly, you actually got, maybe got your current job because of social media, and I wanna, like, I wanna talk about- The, the positives, and again, this is not a show dedicated to encouraging people to have [laughs] a social media presence, but at the same time, I think it really dovetails.
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There's a... We'll get into this, but the intersection of AI and social media and where we are right now in terms of authenticity, distribution, what- Mm-hmm...
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what content it looks like and is changing is, is kind of my Roman Empire, so I've been, another reason I've been excited for this. But how do you think it has actually been an advantage to you? Yeah. Yeah.
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Um, I remember making a very big bet when I went to college, like, and this is before AI.
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And I noticed this, uh, when I was in middle school, that more people were, or there was more of an emphasis on STEM, and all of my, like, music classes, drama classes became optional and electives, and all of my required classes became physics, chemistry, bio.
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And I kind of, like, started this theory that became confirmed, um, which is called the pendulum theory of soci- uh, like social and economic theory, where things kind of go between back and forth- Mm...
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different extremes. And so I saw the extreme focusing on STEM, and I was like, "Well, I, I don't know math. Like, I'm not good at that. I'm a, I know that I'm a great writer. Like, I'm, I'm dramatic.
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I don't mind, like, putting myself out there. I don't mind putting on different roles." Like, um, and that was, you know, villainized also for a long time.
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And so I, when I went to college, I'm like, "I'm just gonna go and do the opposite of whatever STEM is."
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Um, and so I studied communications and, uh, media production, and I was like, "Well, I probably should understand business too," because, like, any industry that you go into is gonna have some, like, understanding of business.
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Um, so all that being said, I kinda like took that bet and I was like, "If there's such a huge focus on STEM and all of these, like, you know, really tech people, like logical people, they're going to need the complete opposite, um, years down the line."
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And so I've actually found myself now that that bet was right, [laughs] like, literally like five-plus years ago. Um, and now people come to me for pitch help. "Oh, storytelling. How do I communicate?
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How do I say a through line? How do I answer something succinctly?" And may- maybe which I'm not displaying the best version of that right now. I promise I can do it.
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[laughs] Um, but how do I also answer something on the fly? Like, the amount of people who cannot do impromptu speaking- Yeah...
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is, is kind of shocking, and improv is really like a lost art form, which is one of my very hot takes. Is it, is it g- does it get into your idea about empathetic design? Yes.
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Oh, can I- And can you t- can you talk a little bit more about that? So talk to me more about what, how you understand empathetic design in the age of AI, and how that translates into the social, social media space.
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Yeah. Oh, I have so much to say. Okay, okay. Let's, let's... Okay, where do I go? I, I learned about empathetic design, um, from the principles of design thinking, and that was the very first business class that I took.
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It was called Innovation, exclamation mark, at Northeastern. Um, [laughs] and it was like a, it's a super fun class. Um, and I still, I still love this professor to this day. He comments on all of my- [laughs]...
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LinkedIn posts. Um, but he really, like, emphasized that
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making a business is not because you're making money, but because you're solving a problem, and it, and it, the way that he laid everything out was like, "Well, empathy is just logical. Like, duh."
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Like, the way that he just, you know, ma- laid it out. He's like, "Nobody wants to buy something that they don't really need." And the role to make people, like, want or need something, that's marketing's job, okay?
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And that's a whole other problem in itself. But he's like, "To truly make a successful business, it is solving a problem, and people have problems all the time." Yeah.
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"And so in order to really be successful, it's like find the biggest problem that you can go after and start solving that."
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Um, and to going through the whole design, like, thinking process, it is leading with empathy and asking questions. I also think it's very similar to the scientific method, right? It's like, make a hypothesis.
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Who's having this problem? Go and test that, ask questions, and then develop a solution. Test that. Go back to the drawing board.
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And all of that requires a lot of humbleness [laughs] to be like, "I know I'm gonna be wrong, and I don't care if people are gonna, you know, tell me, tell me I'm wrong."
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Um, and you have to also be really empathetic to know how to approach- Mm-hmm... people.
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Um, and kind of going back to why I think that it's crazy that a lot of young people are having startups is because, uh, it's not because I think that they have bad ideas, but it's because they're not attacking something that is really a problem.
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They're attacking something that's a trend. Mm. Um, and because they're like, "Well, I see a lot of people, like, spending this way," and I'm like, "You are s- essentially selling almost trickery," right?
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Like, "Oh, like this could maybe be something-" Yeah, yeah... right?
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Instead of being like, "Hey, this is a problem that I know that you're going through, and I know that you're going through because I've had a similar experience or someone on my team has had a similar experience, and we are deep in the weeds of knowing how someone like you is going through this, and our solution, like, can really help you."
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Um, and so that's, that's what I love about design thinking and empathetic design, um, and also what I love to fund about startups.
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I mean, this is, um, Logan, I know Logan wants to say something, [laughs] but I just wanna jump in to say that is why we started Women's Planning AI. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah.
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Because I think that there's a shared collective kind of problem right now, particularly, not exclusively for women, but particularly for women, where they feel like they're being gatekept out of the conversation around AI.
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And I know you, Bella, have had a whole, uh, humongous explosion on your, um, on your social media talking about, like, where are the women, where are the girls who are creating, like, interesting AI tools, and that's like a derivative of the problem where women feel like they are not te- not- Or have been told, have been signaled that they're not techy enough, right?
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Where I think Logan and I are like, "These are general purpose tools, and everyone's gonna be using them. So come on in, ladies, the water's fine.
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Like, this is a fun place where you can learn about this without feeling judged," right? Uh, I will now stop talking. [laughs] Like, uh, I, I love that you mentioned that.
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Um, I actually, like, lost quite a few friends, um, after my graduation and I went and did this job, um, because they were like, "You're funding AI."
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Um, actually, my mom said to me, and I, I wanna make this into a post, um, she goes, "So you're in charge of making sure that people don't have jobs?"
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Like, she literally is like, "You're funding to make sure that, like, you don't..." Yeah, yeah, like she literally said that to me.
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And so that really put me down this, like, even, like, kind of more of a passion to be like, "No. Like, no. Like, we cannot, like, ignore, like, what is, what is going on here."
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And while there are very valid reasons to be concerned about, you know, with the data centers and, like, all of the regulations and things that are kind of just developing out of proportion, like, we have to be very, I think, n- informed- Mm...
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on these, on what is happening. And what I like to say in a lot of my comments is, "If we don't have the language to speak, we will not be able to have a conversation." Yeah, yeah. Like, period.
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And so you have to understand all of these different nuances and like, yeah, understand the argument of, like, why we don't have, you know, data centers being able to hook up to the power grid.
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But then also have the conversation to know that, like, well, people in our administration actually don't wanna put renewables even though we have solar farms that are built. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Like, you know?
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And it's like, well, you understand both, because- Really...
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people who are really anti-AI, I think, are actually the perfect people to be in, to, to be informed and actually figure out, okay, well, how do we actually develop it to make it something that is helpful and not being destroyed?
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Like, ugh. Yeah. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Yeah. Yeah, I've, I've lost a lot of friends, yeah, 'cause they just simply don't know.
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They don't understand, and they're not willing to listen to that nuance because it's like, "Well, if y- if, if you do X, then you are this." This is, this is such a big piece of...
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And, and what you've, what you've said just there is, like, is Mara's phenomenal phrase that she, that she coined in a piece for the Stanford Social Innovation Review is, is fierce ambivalence, where ambivalence is the idea of being able to hold two contradictory things, you know, opinions or, or thoughts at the same time, and that is where we're all living and where we need to be living.
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I'm curious, w- I know there's been so much discourse around, you know, Gen Z and young people really hating AI. Mara, I know your daughters [laughs] are, are, you know, a little older than my daughters.
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My daughters just think Claude tells them bedtime stories. But, like, uh, but, uh, what do, what's your take on that, Bella, in terms of after graduating, why do you think your friends were mad at you?
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What does, what, what does... Where does that come from? I would say, like, yeah, be- when people are uncertain, they, I think, tend to also wanna cling to, like, what is familiar. Mm-hmm. You know?
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And so, like, what is familiar is like, "Well, we're better off with AI anyways. Life was perfect-" Yeah... "without it, and now that it's here, it's, like, only doing doom and it's only hurting things."
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Um, and I was not old enough to be around when, like, the internet was around, but, like, I, I, I'm like, I'm so curious. Like, I feel like it would really inform my opinions of, like, what were people thinking?
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Like, I knew that they thought that it was, like, doomsday, um, like, when the clock was about to turn 2000 and that everything was gonna break, [laughs] um, like, from what my parents say.
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[laughs] And so I'm like, I wonder if it was similar. Um, you know? And, like, what did people do? Or, like, even thinking back to the calculator, "Oh, everyone's gonna be, like...
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We're gonna get dumber 'cause we can't calculate it in our heads"- Yeah... or something like that. Um, I don't know.
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They're also, like, all hypotheticals that, like, we will not know, and I feel like we like to spend a lot of our times, like, in that, um, without taking, like, a, like, a cautious, like, maybe, like, view into the future.
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It's all very much like, "No, this is- Mm-hmm... what's gonna happen in the future." And it's like- Yeah... okay, let's slow down.
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[laughs] This is, this is why I'm always railing against the idea of the, the term future-proofing, 'cause I'm always just like, "Nobody... We don't know, guys. Like, let's not, let's not promise anything here."
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Uh, but, but I- Oh, that's right... I totally, I totally agree. I think, I'm, I'm curious 'cause in your, in your seat as, as a, a, within venture, you see a lot of ideas, and I love...
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You know, we could go in a few different directions. I like what you said about young people not having lived the problem.
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[laughs] Like, as in, it's maybe when's the last time, I guess, and then I'll go to the second part of my question.
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When's the last time you, you, you heard a pitch and you just thought to yourself, like, "This founder has never had the problem that they're trying to solve"? Uh, literally yesterday at an event.
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Like, like, I'm, like, not even kidding. Like, I, I, I... Okay, I would love to share this 'cause this is, like, I wanna, I'm gonna make content on this, okay? There are two curses happening in San Francisco, okay?
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And that generally float around in the startup community. It is the curse of Zuckerberg, and it is the curse of Cluley, okay? And I, this is, I am claiming this, okay, world? I am claiming these two things as mine.
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Um, the curse of Zuckerberg is this idea of, like, FOMO, kind of what happened with Cursor, where it's like you ignore a DM from a young founder, and then it's, like, two years later, it's like they're a billion- Mm...
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dollars and, like, you could've been multimillionaire. And so what happens in San Francisco, and granted, this kind of hap- I'll get to the demo in a second. This happened in New York.
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But the curse that happens in San Francisco, and the reason why they're deploying over a billion dollars, um, in capital, is that, is this curse of if I don't entertain this founder, if I don't just, like, chuck a 10K or even a million dollar check, like, I'm gonna miss out.
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Um, so there's just so much, like, money willing to be thrown around, which is, you know, also a huge problem that's gonna come and happen, um, when all of these companies get consolidated because we can only have- Mm-hmm...
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so many winners, right?
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Um, and then, so, like, there's, there's that, and that causes a lot of very young founders to put out this vision that they're like, "I can see what the future looks like," be, and like, "I, I can tell."
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And, like, I really don't know why we think that, like, young p- well, maybe 'cause we're not, like, scarred or something, if I'm completely honest.
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But what I really thought about was, well, what's the difference between the, the internet versus now?
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And what I, I think it's come down to, and I would love your opinions as people who are older than me, is that the internet was essentially creating a new world.
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Like, we had no other dimension for us to kind of like live in. And so young people were able to create that dimension because they were like, "Well, we're going to be making this for the future generations."
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Um, and the flip with AI is that there is not really a world that is being created. It is-- We already have a shit-ton of data in our- Mm-hmm. Sorry, I don't know if I can swear. Ob- obviously.
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Um, but like- Fuck yeah, you can. Okay, great. [both laughing] Yeah, great. I was about to, "Oh, oh no." Um, like we have, we have a shit-ton of data, okay? And there's not really like a new world to create.
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It's a new world to interpret. Mm. And when I look at a young person, I'm like, "What really world and what data have you dealt with for a long period of time to really like interpret it well?"
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Because what makes a good AI product is that you can create a really good data moat, and you know what data to collect, and you know what data should be interpreted, and that comes from very deep industry expertise.
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And like that's what I think the difference is. The young founders that like were all funded with like the dot com boom was social media, because they were building like the literal like internet, like the web.
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We don't have that with AI.
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Um, and so AI, all it is, is just, you know, a lot of data, and that's why I don't think that, yeah, young people have the exposure 'cause I'm like, "You haven't really dealt with like a lot of data."
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I think it's not just like embracing tools.
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Like of course, like oh, not like go learn AI, and I talked to, um, fr- some f- uh, college freshmen, like entering college freshmen, and what they said to me was actually very interesting and why I think a lot of the AI industry is like wrong right now.
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Mm-hmm. Um, and they were like, "Oh, we're just being told to use AI, and we're just kind of like told to, to prompt it with like, 'Give us feedback on our writing.'"
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They don't truly understand the architecture behind like how it-- how like AI can really effectively work and like where to apply it. Mm-hmm.
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And so when I started explaining to them, just being like, "Hey, imagine your desktop, and there's, you know, a few different folders," and Claude, and you know, I just break down like the memory files.
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I break down what a tool means, right? And I'm like, "All you're doing is..." I, I explain, do you know what an ETL system is? I don't think I know. I'm sure, I'm sure the both of you do.
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Like duh, like obviously you wouldn't... Okay, okay. [laughs] Well, oh, okay, great. Great, great. Okay. It stands for extract, transform, and load, um, and this is essentially- Okay...
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from my understanding, the basis of, um, reinforcement learning- Mm-hmm... so that AI can become self-evolving. So essentially it's like, okay, where's the data?
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Tell the AI to extract it, and then you're telling the AI with another prompt, "This is how I want the data to be transformed," and then you're telling it where you want it to load.
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So this could be like, "Okay, every single day I want you to extract, uh, my email notifications, find out if there's any overdue tasks, transform that into, um, you know, either making blocks on my calendar to, to complete those tasks, and then send...
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And then to load that, send me like a updated bullet list, um, every single morning on Slack."
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So that like extract, transform, load system, just me explaining that to them, they came back to me the next week and they're like, "I just live coded this entire website- [laughs]... and this entire app.
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Like look at what I've done. I've got a back-end database and everything." And I'm like, "Exactly. Exactly." Um, it's understanding how things move. Mm. And I, I love to think of it as a puzzle. Right. Like if you...
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I, I love puzzles. That's actually what I wrote my college essay about. Um, and I, I got like, I got like merit awards as well like for it, and I was like, "Ha ha." All from my love of puzzles.
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[laughs] Like I- I love escape rooms and all those different things, but that's literally what building with AI is, finding different pieces, how to connect them, what to do with them, and that's what like young people should be doing, um, because you just need to be able to notice and connect things.
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It's not even about really deep experience to know what's right. It's just can you look at things and figure out if a connection is helpful? Mm. What do you think about what you explained to them was the unlock?
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And if I were to take a devil's advocate position, it could also be the fact that you have enthusiasm, and back to Mara's point of like it feels possible in, in terms of like it's, it's...
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it can be both/and in terms of, okay, you gave them a more, uh, accessible definition and example of how the system is working, and you were a fellow young person speaking with, with both authority and enthusiasm and giving them permission kind of to, to be-- to get involved.
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And so I wonder like if that's... Anyway, I'm just, I'm just reflecting on what, what is needed. It's not always just a better explanation. It's also who's delivering the explanation, right?
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And if your professor just tells you, "Go use the tools"- Exactly... versus somebody who, who makes it feel like it's, it's, it's possible or makes it feel like it's okay to do something.
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I feel like that's a big piece of it as well. Yeah. I 100% agree.
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And like I think I, at least from like my perspective, and I would love also your, your perspectives on this, I just feel like a lot of even the content, like the tech content that you see, is geared towards making people reliable on what they are presenting.
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And what I mean by that is, comment X to get my skill. Comment this to go get my toolkit or something like that. Mm. And it requires you to download their skill. Granted, that skill might be really helpful.
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Like I'm not discounting that skill. But they're never... It's like, it's like that quote of like, "Teach a man to-" Yeah... you know, "to fish and like he'll feed himself for a lifetime."
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It's like these influencers actually, and all these tech influencers I think really rely on you making sure that you rely on them- Yeah. Mm-hmm...
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because if they actually taught you how to understand and build all of these own things, you wouldn't really need them. Yes. No.
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Um, and so that's where I think like actually like a, the turning point for a lot of these like thought leaders will be kind of going back to like the, these frameworks and like how can you, um,
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bring out your own per- like unique, um- Mm-hmm... expertise and like kind of just put point of view that people genuinely find interesting. And being an interesting person is really hard.
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[both laugh] Like, you know, and, and a lot of, and you know, and a lot of people can't do that. It takes personality, and like a lot...
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That's like, I think is kind of a lost art sometimes, um, as somebody who I think I'm very animated and whatnot. Um, but kind of, that kind of went away from- No, I love that... like to, to the point.
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So, so what I com- Mara and I just had a dinner and drinks last night, and we were talking about the, the, the value of opinions And, and that people want, people don't want information. They don't just want content.
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They want an, uh, they want a hot take. They want an opinion, and they want somebody with a strong cr- point of view. What do you think helps make you an interesting person?
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What do you think have been the building blocks of, of, of that? [laughs] 'Cause it is hard- Oh my God. Wow... it is hard to be an interesting person. I'm gonna have to email my therapist after I figure out [laughs]
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Hmm, what makes me an interesting person? Um, I think, I think... Well, I, I talk about this a lot with, like, my partner, but, like, being really curious. Mm-hmm.
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Being, like, really curious and, like, r- genuinely wanting to understand people. I, I'm just gonna add another thing that makes you interesting, if you don't mind. I'll pile on.
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Um, but I think your willingness to build in public- Mm-hmm... um, and kind of the, the, um, the products of that, right? Like your Bella Garden- Mm-hmm... where you show off the stuff that you've vibe coded and tried.
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Um, to me, this is, I think it's fascinating when people are building in public, and I wanna ask you what that means to you.
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And maybe- Um- And maybe, Bella, to kick it off, 'cause I think building in public is a very startup-centric term, which is probably easily understandable.
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But for any listeners who don't know, maybe, 'cause I think you'll, you'll be able to answer this, like, what does it mean for a startup to build in public?
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And then maybe, and then maybe kind of compare that and take, and take Mara's question about, about what you, you are doing as well, or what I often like to call it, like, learning in public, uh, is, is, is, is the corollary.
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Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, um, now I, I love that you mentioned Bella.garden even though I cleverly submitted that.
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Um, but it's actually been interesting because, [laughs] um, people have actually stumbled on it, um, and I have not marketed it really. And I got a DM from, um, Zach. No, not Zach. Uh, no, he's, uh, Lunch, Lunch:AI, um,
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AI at Lunch. Uh, AI Over Lunch. Yeah. Um- I forget, I forget his name. I'm gonna note- I'm gonna get it in a second. Yes. I'll remember it as soon as we hang up this call. It's B- it's Ben. Thank you. Yeah. Ben, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but yes, he, like, uh, messaged me the other day and he was like, "Hey, um, I just wanna say, like, I was inspired by, like, your Bella.garden page." And I was like, "Oh my God, like, thanks."
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Like, and he, like, redid his website and everything. Uh, I was like, I'm not even marketing that. And I personally love the concepts of digital gardens, um, which is kind of a niche topic.
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It's basically from this, uh, concept called a zettelkasten, which was founded by a German sociologist named Niklas Luhmann. Um, and it's this concept, and it started with research.
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He wrote over 90,000 essays in his lifetime, um, and it was, like, all handwritten, and he hand tracked all of his notes. So our brains think of our... We don't think in, like, a linear way. We think in nonlinear way.
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We kind of, like, group things together. So he would take notes off of, like, different things he was consuming and then tag them based off of, like, general, like, kind of idea.
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So then if he ever wanted to write about a specific topic, he would already have a compilation of different, like, annotation notes or things that he's already written about or even cited, um, and then combine those together.
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And so I kinda took that, um, application, and now it's, like, a digital garden and what people have put on- online about.
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Um, and I was like, oh, this is exactly how I think, like, content creators are going to be, thought leaders are going to be able to show off their work. Um, and I thought that it really played nicely into vibe coding.
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And what's actually kind of interesting is if you look at a lot of developer pages or with their own personal websites, they have a very similar structure to a digital garden. They just don't call it that. Yeah. Yeah.
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Um, and so I just think it's a term that maybe we haven't put a, put a label to yet, or maybe this community doesn't know about yet.
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But that's what I'm excited to bring up, because I think it's the perfect way to have people rabbit hole into you.
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And I'm very bullish, and that's, like, one of my new theses I'm developing is, like, the future of thought leaders and owning your content is a personal website. Mm-hmm.
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And I think that we're actually going to see one day, uh, like, uh, spon- sponsorships and brands kind of taking up almost ad space on, uh, people's personal websites, um, and just because of, like, all of the analytics and things that they would be able to do.
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And I even think that content creators might create, like, if not already, login portals for all of their, like, you know, followers- Mm-hmm...
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who are essentially kind of like, like, almost like courses, but more of like a, I'm thinking more like Moshi Monsters but, like, more interactive- Yeah. Yeah... for, uh, like, content creators and their fans. Totally.
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I, I, this is my, this is one of- Logan has been talking about this for ages... this is my rabbit hole. Logan has been talking about this for ages. This is my rabbit hole.
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She's like, "I'm on the cusp of breaking down under the weight of her influence and finally creating my personal page." [laughs] Do you have a personal website? But she's been talking about this for ages.
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Personal, personal websites are, are the, the hill that I will die on.
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I'm like every, uh, uh, when, as soon as I find out that somebody does not have a personal website, I basically, like, intervene im- I stage an intervention immediately, and I'm like, "Okay, so you're gonna go to Namecheap, and you're just gonna go ahead and grab your domain.
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It costs 11.99 a year. Don't use GoDaddy.
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And then you're gonna go to Lovable or Replit, it doesn't matter, or use QuadCode and get the whole Vercel React set up, like, and then all you need to do is just squat on the domain for a little bit, and then you can have a little placeholder.
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You can, you can build it over time."
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I love the garden 'cause I think what ends up happening, and this is just going in a whole different direction, but so, so what, what some people listening might know of is the second brain, the concept of the second brain- Mm-hmm.
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Yeah... which is, comes from the same zettelkasten kind of, you know, German school of thought of, of how do you
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externalize some of your knowledge and understanding, and then you can kind of, uh, slice and dice it in different ways depending on what you want to do, right? And so there's a whole school of thought. Yeah.
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Andrew Karpathy has this wiki. You can use Obsidian. Yes. I kind of prefer digital garden And I wanna know if you do too. What do, what is your...
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I mean, there are differences obviously, but in terms of terminology, what do you think you like about the phrase digital garden? Yeah, that's... I, I love that question.
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Um, because I think a digital garden, at least for me, is tailored to more so content. Mm-hmm. Um, and like information that I'm willing to kind of like put out there publicly.
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Um, and I do use like an internal kind of like digital garden to like, I like to say vectorize my brain.
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Um, but the problem that I see with a lot of these like also second brain systems is like everybody's trying to build everything at once, and in the world of like building, it's like good context in, good context out.
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And so I would much rather have a like very good, I feel like- Mm-hmm... map of things versus a lot of, uh, spaghetti thrown at the wall that I don't know how to connect. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
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Um, and so for me, a digital garden, it also being public, um, I like that. I... It's, it's fluid over time. Yeah.
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Because the goal of like even the wording of it is like you have seedling, and then you have growing, and then evergreen. Mm-hmm.
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And seedlings are able to clump together and be like a growing idea, and then once you finally wanna write an essay, it's like evergreen. Yeah. And evergreen means you never touch it again.
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Um, and so in terms of content, I'm like, great, that's like a published- Mm-hmm... newsletter or something. Um, comparatively, like I can consistently add to different like growing ideas.
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Um, and even if I'm learning something in public, this is what I wanna do eventually, um, is put the different resources that we use- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah... to learn this thing. So then that area is like growing.
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Um, and then people can like learn with me. Um, kind of doing like a second brain I think can get a little bit everywhere too much, especially even, even a public one. Yeah.
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Because you might do like, okay, here's all of my like projects, and then here's all of my like research papers- Yeah... and then here's... It's definitely doable.
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I just think for people starting out, it's just way overwhelming.
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And so I'm like, just find out whatever your content pieces are and see what the through lines are through that, and then kind of like start from there and make it.
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I think the element of curation there is, is key because the second brain you can have everything in the kitchen sink, and then you're like, "Well, I actually didn't want to invite you into this entire..."
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[laughs] You know, it's, it's like, "No, no, no, you're staying... Let's stay in the front garden." Yeah. Like, you don't... I didn't wanna invite you to my house. Like, it's really messy in here. [laughs] Exactly.
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Exactly. No. But- Yeah... you talk a lot about kind of this question of like jargon-free AI and by coding as literacy. Mm-hmm. What, how would you...
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If someone was listening right now and was like, "I want my digital garden," like how can you break this down in a simple way that they could start to sow it? Ooh. Ooh, I see what you did there. Yeah. Oh, I love that.
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[laughs] Ooh, amazing. Oh my God, I love it. Love all the references. So you gotta get the plot, get the soil. No, I'm kidding. [laughs] Um, so what the first thing I would do,
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I actually, I think this would be super fun. Okay, if anybody just wants to pull up their AI in WhisperFlow right now, right? I will just v- word vomit, and then it can go directly into their, their AI and everything.
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Um, okay, I want you to research, um, all of the best practices for what digital gardens are. I've listened to a bit of a concept.
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It's supposed to help me organize a bunch of things that I observe, and then my annotations about them. Mm.
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And I wanna save it in a way that I can kind of tag them, change, edit them, um, and then these ideas are kind of saved, um, so I can link them together later on.
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Um, the way that I might start doing this is I want, uh, to look at my previous AI history to see what topics I talk about a lot, um, things that I circle on, um, things that I question about a lot, um, to kind of create maybe five dif- distinct areas and maybe questions or themes that I talk about, um, that I might then be able to explore and expand upon.
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Um, if there's any references of, uh, things that I have quoted or news articles or books that I've written as well, um, I wanna be able to save those annotations, and then as well upload my thoughts about those annotations to it, um, and see what themes start to naturally, um, kind of appear.
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That's kind of what I would say and give my AI. But my favorite quote that I like... End prompt, sorry. [laughs] But my favorite- Bracket. Insert bracket. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.
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My, my like favorite like hack that I actually learned from my boss Greg was to prompt is tell the AI to go off and research, but, but not like research, like top three to five things. Mm-hmm.
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'Cause it's, if you tell it to research, it's gonna go shoot off 70 agents. But like t- research the top three to five best practices or- Yeah...
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best open source or best whatever, um, and then have it start comparing to then what it knows that you've done before. Mm-hmm. And then it'll kind of like Frankenstein, uh, back and forth.
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No, I think that's great though because the, the key there is, is some sort of output or action-oriented thing, right?
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Where it's okay, you're going to go and accomplish something using the, the tools at hand, whether that's, you know, going down a rabbit hole of self-discovery, whether that's, uh, and building a digital garden and, and personal website, or I'm gonna go take, gain 30 minutes of my week back because I'm now going to have one piece of it automated or whatever it is.
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But you can, you can start small, and I think that's the biggest thing that, that people often, uh, often have a, have a, a hard time with. Yeah. Yeah.
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And finding the right thing to, to kind of go about as well, I think. Um, because sometimes people are like, "Well, why do that if I can just go and like browse Reddit myself?" Yeah.
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Um, and that's why I really like the creation aspect. Yeah. Like one of my favorite projects that I made was like a beat studio after I watched the Michael Jackson movie.
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I was like, wow, I wish that I could learn how to make disco music. And so I ha- Claude actually found like an open source library on GitHub of instruments, and now I have like beat pads and like strings.
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[laughs] I love this. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, if you check out Bella Dot Garden, um, it's called the Beat Studio. [laughs] That's fantastic. But what a great example of like- That's amazing...
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anything is possible, right? Like be as creative as you want, and this is, the world is your oyster. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And like a lot of my friends are like really surprised by that too, and I'm just like, "Think of your craziest idea." Yeah. Like literally. And now it's possible. Yeah. That's, I love that.
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That's like one of the most optimistic ways that I think we've ended- I know... an episode in a while, which is...
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And this is like, it's, and it's research-based that, that people who use AI more feel more confident about what they can learn, and a larger, that they can learn about a larger diversity of things. Mm-hmm. Yes. Right?
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Yes. Which is 100% my experience, and you just creating like a disco- [laughs]... uh, generator, [laughs] is like the best thing ever. I've, and that's why creating that, I felt like- Forget curing cancer.
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Forget curing cancer. What we all need are our own personal disco creators. I love that. [laughs] All right. Thank you so much, Bella.
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This has been a delight, and I, I knew, I knew we were gonna get to the digital gardens, but I didn't know how good of a conversation it was gonna be.
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I'm, I'm now inspired to go, to go work on, to go do some gardening this weekend. [laughs] Totally. I'm like 100%. Me too. And the, the subreddit on it actually is like pretty small.
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Um, like this time last year it was maybe like at 3K. It maybe is at 7K now, but like it, it's still like a very small community. Fantastic. I'm gonna go- I'm gonna go dive right in. Excellent. All right.
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Thank you so much, Bella. [laughs] Thank you so much, Bella. Oh, wait, wait. Where can people find you? We've talked content. Where, where should- Oh my gosh... people follow you? What, what do you want people to do?
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[laughs] Yes. You can pretty much stalk everything of me on my website. Um, I have all my socials on there, because bella.pivo is me on TikTok, but then bellapivo_ is my Instagram. Excellent. I know.
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Instagram won't let me like change it to my first name. Ah. [laughs] But, um, yeah. And also of course bella.benett.com. Thank you. Amazing. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Bella. Thank you.
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