Ray Ozzie - The Future of Intelligent Machines

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:03)
Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts, and you can access all our podcasts including edited transcripts, show notes, and other resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:28)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of Positive Sum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of Positive Sum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit p-s-u-m.v-c.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:56)
My guest today is Ray Ozzie, one of the great technologists, software developers and entrepreneurs of our time. Ray is perhaps best known as the creator of Lotus Notes, a collaboration tool that revolutionized business communication in the 1990s. He later succeeded Bill Gates as Chief Software Architect at Microsoft, where he played a key part in the development of Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform. Ray's work has earned him numerous accolades, including induction in the Computer History Museum Hall of Fellows, and the National Academy of Engineering. Throughout his career, Ray has been at the forefront of technology innovation and paradigm shifts, founding multiple companies including Iris Associates, Groove Networks, and most recently, Blues Wireless, which focuses on connectivity in the physical world. His insights on cloud computing, collaboration tools, and the future of technology have shaped the industry for decades. In our conversation, we explore Ray's journey through the evolving landscape of software development, his perspectives on the current state of technology, and his vision for the future of connectivity and collaboration. Please enjoy this fascinating discussion with Ray Ozzie. Okay, Ray, we're just about to go down a story rabbit hole and I stopped you, but I'm going to reignite the story. Bring us to the time you were in an air raid shelter texting with your wife.

**Ray Ozzie** (2:10)
Hello, Patrick.
Yeah, this was just a few months ago. I was in Ukraine and actually probably on a relative basis, the safest place I could be in Ukraine, which is Kiev, and I was there with a few volunteers from Safecast, which is a non-profit I'm involved in, and I was actually also there with my son, who works for my company, Blues, and it was the middle of the night. We're sitting there. I'm alternating back and forth between Telegram and an air alert app and messages on my phone, and my wife is like, I don't understand why you had to be there. Why did you have to go? This isn't going to end well. It was relatively peaceful, but there were air raid sirens on the outside. From what I could see, there was nothing happening in my immediate vicinity, but I was just so immersed in what was going on. We read about what's happening in Ukraine from afar. But it's a bit different when you're there, when these things are happening around you, when the infrastructure is being attacked, when the power is going out and you're hearing stories from everyone that you meet about their families, about their extended families, about their friends. It's just intense.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:37)
You've been really involved there for a while in a story that goes back to something you started back in 2011 But before we go back to 2011 and get into the technology story, maybe you could just give us a taste of what I would call the wild evolutions of the use of technology in warfare that you've seen in Ukraine, both from an offensive and defensive perspective. Because again, you hear dispatches in the US at a distance and don't pay close attention. You've been up close and personal a lot. Talk about the role of technology and what the cutting edge feels like in that very specific situation.

**Ray Ozzie** (4:15)
There's a lot going on over there. If you take the time and interest to read, essentially even though it's a horrible situation right now, it is essentially a proving ground for a term that I will refer to repeatedly, which is intelligent machines, intelligence, cyber-physical systems, the use of AI and machine learning as it pertains to machines, low-cost drone manufacturing. The reason I was over there was because of radiation monitoring and the use of technology that we're working on throughout Ukraine. However, technologies being used both for offensive and defensive uses, I think everyone's pretty familiar with how Starlink has been essential to getting network connectivity in the field, both among the people and among the machines. But there have been small startups that have formed that have covered a variety of technologies. One of them being the use of decentralized audio monitoring whether through dedicated devices or even one startup has done it through phones, cheap Android phones that they put out there and they listen. They use machine learning to train them to listen for the specific sounds of certain drones and certain missiles. They correlate the trajectory and project the most likely impact points. A combination of bots and people publish on Telegram where these things might be going. They don't really buy the rules of engagement. They don't really talk about the impact or not because you don't really know who's watching it, whether it's friend or foe who are monitoring these channels. But it's really a very intense environment. They're also having to deal with energy related issues. The power infrastructure is what's under attack the most right now for the broadest part of Ukraine.