E146: "My Technical Degree Is Basically Useless Now" with Naomie (Amzallag) Halioua

Hi everyone and welcome back to Perception Paradox. My name is Jivele and I'm your host. And today we are going to talk about the founder journey. And when it comes to building a company, there is never a perfect time to build one. As well as there is never a perfect time to start something new, like starting a family, making a move or some kind of bigger change. So in this episode, we question what happens when you do both at once. Today, I'm joined by Naomi, co-founder and CEO of Clio Labs, who raised funding while pregnant and is now building an AI company while raising her one-year-old child. We talk about why investors backed the founding team before the final idea, why she pivoted from AI education to product compliance, and why human expertise, not technology, is becoming the real competitive advantage in the age of AI. We also explore the rise of generalists, the danger of trusting AI without thinking, which we also covered in previous episodes, and my guest defined it as cognitive offloading, and also what it means to build a company as a mission and as a role model for your children. So, ladies and gentlemen, let's dive in. Real people, real stories, and real challenges that break the status quo. I'm your host, Zhivila, and welcome to Perception Paradox. Welcome to Perception Paradox. Thank you. Thank you for having me today. You've just shared with me this mind-blowing story, which we don't hear a lot around, that you were raising a fund for your current startup and at the same time you got pregnant and And then you continued your journey while expecting the baby and also building another baby, the company. So we already touched base a bit around that. And you mentioned that one of the things that helped you to go through or encourage was having a role model, your ex-CEO, who also was raising funds and having kids along the way. So what was your first thought maybe when you were like, we're expecting a baby and I'm building a company and raising funds? have you

thought

of like just focusing on the motherhood and quitting the company or the, or how did you deal?

Yeah. So I think it's the most like, what to say? Like it's the most, um, um, impactful like things that happens in my like entrepreneurial journey so we decided like to raise fun in like september 2025 sorry september 2024 actually and i got pregnant in october 2024 so it was like uh of course willing pregnancy but i didn't expect like a It was like so early. So yeah, and for me, so at the time, like, of course, like I was a bit scary. But so as I told you just before, I worked like for a year and a half in a crypto market maker startup. It was a series D startup. They raised like 50 million, something like that. I'm not sure about the numbers. The name is Kaiko and the CEO of the company. So she's a woman. She's like a solo founder. And so every year, like she was found and every year she was like pregnant while raising funds. And I saw that like in my eyes of like, I was like a defiant analyst there. And I always found her like so impressive. And so when I was pregnant and when I started my, my, my, my, my, raising fund journey I just like text her and I was like okay so