Who Gets to Shape the AI Future? | AI4, Agents, Open Source, and Small Business

[upbeat music] Hey, welcome to a special edition of the Weekly Blitz. I am, like, over the moon excited because I have Nirav Shah with me. He was actually on the AGI podcast about a year ago, but he's founder of Quantal AI. He is a developer, but he's, he's the kind of developer I like, the kind that li- looks at things from, from the perspective of people who don't come from that background as well. And so Nirav, introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we're gonna get into the conference you were just at and everything that's been happening in AI recently.

Absolutely, Jason. Uh, very excited to be back and, uh, super, super excited to be in touch with you over a period of last year. And, uh, it's amazing how, you know, things have paced up since we last, uh, spoke. Uh, but, uh, just to give a quick, uh, background about myself again, I also did my master's in computer science from Columbia University, then worked at UBS in their quant trading team, like built automated trading systems and worked mainly with traders on the technology side. Uh, and then wanted to start something of my own, so started my own consulting firm, uh, starting with independent consulting for quite some time. And then eventually, you know, uh, started an AI agency around four years back with my friend, uh, Sailesh. And, uh, we are a team of around fifty people working with various businesses to automate, uh, their workflows and even build, uh, really cool AI products at our end. And, uh, like I, uh, spoke with Jason in, in, in my last, uh, podcast, I also had a brief time working in my family business, which is a very traditional business, and that's where I learned a lot about how to work with businesses, what businesses are, the challenges that they would face, like accounts, bookkeeping, sales, marketing, and learned a lot from there. And, uh, yeah, that's what's helping me, uh, looking back. [chuckles]

Well, I hope we remember to circle back to this 'cause I don't wanna start there, but I-- everyone who watches this podcast knows I'm a Republican, but I think that the, there was a huge misstep in making it harder for people to get HB-1 visas, because half of the talent that we have in technology, if not more, comes from overseas, from India, where you're from-

Yeah

... from the UK, from Canada, from China. So I, I don't really wanna start there, but remind me, if you can, to get back to like, uh, how bad of an idea that was.

Yeah, absolutely. Would, uh, you know, love to touch base on that because I think, uh, I see world as more like a membrane where, you know, the best brains, uh, should come together to create something exciting, and adding more regulations to that is, uh, you know, a little more counterintuitive, uh, as opposed to, uh, something which, uh, uh, should, uh, be, you know, more like a free flow of ideas. But I understand, you know, where they're also trying to protect jobs which otherwise, uh, uh, uh, you know, it's a, it's a little, it- it's a little gray area in terms of, uh, the way, uh, the jobs are, are to be protected, uh, while, you know, ensuring that there is free flow of ideas that are, uh, you know, moving around