Narrative intelligence and the human advantage

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Welcome to the Practical AI Podcast, where we break down the real world applications of artificial intelligence and how it's shaping the way we live, work and create. Our goal is to help make AI technology practical, productive and accessible to everyone. Whether you're a developer, business leader, or just curious about the tech behind the buzz, you're in the right place.

Be sure to connect with us on LinkedIn, X or Bluesky to stay up to date with episode drops, behind the scenes content, and AI insights. You can learn more at practicalai.fm. Now, on to the show.

Daniel Whitenack (0:41)

Welcome to another episode of the Practical AI podcast. This is Daniel Whitenack. I am CEO at Prediction Guard, and I'm joined as always by my co-host Chris Benson, who is a principal AI and autonomy research engineer. How are you doing, Chris?

Chris Benson (0:56)

Hey, doing good today, Daniel. How's it going?

Daniel Whitenack (0:58)

It's going great. The story continues.

There's ups and downs along the way, and very blessed overall and really blessed today to have an episode that I've been looking forward to recording for some time. Back in part of our journey as a company, we were going through an accelerator program with Intel called Intel Ignite, and through that program, met our guest today, Reed Frerichs, who is a lot of things. He's doing so much amazing stuff in his journey, from a new podcast that he has out, Inner Story. He does leadership coaching, is involved with MIT and startups and all sorts of things, and has a background in acting and in media. Welcome to the show, Reed. It's great to have you here.

Reed Frerichs (1:50)

Thank you so much, Daniel and Chris. Appreciate it.

Daniel Whitenack (1:54)

Yeah.

I love your story because you've flexed into all of these things. You're always being creative. I think in our experience together, I've appreciated so much how you've helped me think about my own journey as an entrepreneur, the story of our company. Now, I know you're thinking about topics, of course, related to AI like everyone is, and what our unique role is as humans in that. But we'll get into all of that. But I'm wondering if you could just share a little bit of your story with us and at a high level, how you ended up where you're at.

Reed Frerichs (2:35)

Well, thank you. I find myself sharing this story much more. And the best way to frame it is a windy path. Because I look back and you think like, you're always taking inventory. Is this all working? Is this my story really making sense? Who am I? How many times do you ask these questions to yourself over time? But actually, it wasn't until that Intel program, I was so, I shared this last month at a Harvard class we were teaching. Basically, I was so nervous in that program when I first started, because it was so much about deep tech and engineers and AI was starting to really come up. And I was going, oh my God, what am I doing here?

I graduated at UT in business, and I went off and had an acting career for a little while, and then got into producing and media and startups. And I was kind of just trying to figure out, like, you know, what am I doing around these really smart people? Like yourself, Daniel. I mean, it's like, you know, a lot of half the room was PhDs. And then we started talking and introducing ourselves. And I started seeing pitches.

I was running DealFlow when I first started at Intel. And so I got to see a ton of pitches. I mean, we saw, you know, pretty much most of the top companies going in the US would come through at some point, and we'd meet them. And the one thing I kind of came away with going, I think I can help with story. Maybe I can help out a little here. Started thinking of their pitch a little bit like, almost like a movie. And I thought, gosh, you know, maybe I can contribute here. So that kind of at least allowed me sort of the lane in to this world. And then once you get into it, you start to realize, like, there's just so much to it, because founders are just becoming leaders, and they're always becoming. You're constantly learning and adapting, especially now. So that really, you know, was sort of the ignition for me to really learn more about leadership coaching, my own journey as a founder, which I was sitting there going, why is this happening to me? You know, all the things that you go through as a founder, but it's just evolves, right? It's always evolving.