The Future Of The Future

Music is an Art, an expression of human creative skill and imagination. Music is everywhere. At the forefront, or in the background. Coming through speakers, or headphones, or an unplugged performance in the street. Making us dance, think, cry, smile, or frown… sleep, jump, relax, get stressed… remember, forget, wish, long, hate, love... Music is an intrinsic element of what it means to be human.The way we create music, record it, mix it, and share it with others, continues to change as technology advances.But changes were never as drastic as what we see today with generative AI. We live in a time where AI can assist us, not only in mixing and production processes, but also in the creative act of coming up with a new song. In 2023 we were already able to ask AI to create lyrics instantly; and now we can ask AI to create entire songs through prompts...Change is so fast, we don’t even know how we are supposed to feel about it. Can AI generated music elicit the same feelings that human made music does? Is AI going to displace musicians, or create new opportunities? Is everyone going to start creating music with AI and stop listening to music made by real musicians? How do musicians create music and how much were they already leveraging technology to do so? What is the creative act and when does creativeness stop and plagiarism begin? How are these AI models training themselves? These are just some of the questions that I asked my friend Daniel Rowland in an amazing conversation about Technology and Creativity, AI in the Music Industry.I could not have thought of a better guest for this episode. Daniel is a music producer, tech executive, and educator. He holds both a B.S and M.F.A. in Music Technology, and is currently Head of Strategy and Partnerships at LANDR, co-founder of Audiotool, and longtime instructor at MTSU. For nearly a decade, his primary focus has been on the empowerment of music creators via ethical AI powered tools and accessible design, sharing that message on dozens of panels and podcasts.He has been in the industry for decades. He helped grow LANDR to 5 million users, refining their industry-leading creator tools platform, AI mastering engine, plugins and services. As a creative, he produced the music for an Oscar-winning Pixar film (“Piper”); and mixed and mastered multiplatinum/Grammy-nominated projects for artists as varied as Nine Inch Nails, Seal, Jhene Aiko, Phillip Glass, Gwen Stefani, Gayle, Gucci Mane, David Foster, Jason Derulo, Burna Boy, Nina Simone, YG, and Flo Rida, along with dozens of film and game soundtracks for Star Wars, Marvel, Disney, John Wick, The Sandbox, and others. Including projects with actors Benedict Cumberbatch (The Simpsons), Jeremy Renner, and Steve Martin (Only Murders In The Building).And… on top of that? and most importantly? He is an amazing human being. A fun, passionate and down to earth person, who was nice enough to sit with me for an hour to talk about technology and music and answer whatever question I had in mind.I am very proud of this episode. Listen to it! Learn, and enjoy.

Jared Falk plays drums. He started playing when he was 15 years old, and fell in love with it right away.From the very first moment he sat in front of a drum kit, everything just felt right. And when he started putting more complex beats together, like the time he nailed his first syncopated rock beat? Ahh… MAGIC.He could have followed his family’s steps and worked in the farming or construction industry, but life had something else in store for him. He studied hard, and no less than two years after he started playing, he was already touring with bands, flipping drum kits on ebay, and teaching drums himself.And it was one of the students, in a casual conversation about uploading videos on the internet for a bass drum pedal technique, that prompted him to launch into a business venture on videos for learning drums, when internet was still barely a thing and social media didn’t exist and you could not upload videos for free on YouTube…Those videos eventually evolved to what we now know as Drumeo, arguably the world’s best and biggest community and e-learning platform for drummers. Drumeo then evolved into Musora, which consolidates new instrument verticals such as Pianote, Guitareo, and Singeo, and has more than 95,000 active students worldwide.  So how did a drummer and his friends build such an enterprise? Where did Jared learn about business, media production and e-learning?Listen to this episode, learn, get inspired and enjoy. We also talked about technology and education, and the potential impact AI will have on these fields, specifically as it relates to music, and why and where the human element matters most.Many people out there claim to love their job. Few are as genuine about it as Jared. You can see it in his face. You can see it in the people that surround him.

The era of raising VC funding just by showing a few slides with an idea and nice buzzwords is over.Investors are now looking for very clear evidence of product-market fit and sustainable growth.Showing this type of evidence is easier said than done. So I had a very insightful conversation with my friend Jessica Deckinger, on the topic of product development, raising funds, and achieving sustainable growth.Jessica is an Operating Partner at Clearhaven Partners, a  dedicated software and technology-focused private equity firm based in Boston. She is also the CEO at Mint Marketing and sits on the board of various other tech companies.She is a senior executive with more than 25 years of experience across integrated brand marketing, product, digital strategy, insights and analytics, finance and operations.She is been there,done that, and now she helps other companies get further and succeed.What does it take to succeed today in Tech? How can a startup find and show evidence of product market fit and sustainable growth? What are investors looking for? How can startups improve the customer journey? These are only some of the topics we talked about during this episode.If you are in startup land, you can’t miss this one.Enjoy!

Michael Bolton has more than 25 years of experience in software testing, he is a founder and leader at developsense, a consulting firm in testing and everything QA related, where he teaches everyone about Rapid Software Testing, a skill set and a mindset focused on high-value testing that is fast, inexpensive, credible, and accountable.Michael visited Uruguay back in 2017, and that’s when Diego Castro, my colleague and QA Lead at Xseed, met him and fell in love with his approach, methodology, and attitude towards the QA field and most importantly towards life.Back then, they shared a few beers at a local pub, and talked extensively about QA and what it means to be a tester. How to test, how to think about testing. Why manual testing, with skilled individuals that apply critical thinking looking at a technology product holistically, will never ever go away, and so many more concepts.Diego became a fan. An absolute fan.Fast forward to 2024, and Diego Castro is super excited about the possibility of doing a podcast episode with Michael, about QA, and how technology is, and should be (or should not be), impacting the discipline of QA.Michael said yes, and the rest is history, and we recorded it as an episode. Do you work in technology? Do you build technology products? Do you have opinions about the QA function in a software development team?This episode is for you.Enjoy! 

He fell in love with computers when he was just a kid. Few people had computers at home back then, but his Dad worked at IBM and gave him exposure to technology early on.He would type and print his homework at home, which effectively made him a nerd. But a very proud one.His growth was not linear. But, is growth ever linear?He was an entrepreneur during the .com crash, he mastered cobol when everyone was forgetting about it, he taught himself how to build websites when there was no youtube to learn from…He was a self-learner when the internet was still not a thing.Fast forward to today, and he became a Seasoned engineering leader with over 15 years of experience. He has led teams of developers as a tech executive, architected and deployed applications in the mortgage origination industry, founded, coded, and launched several start-up website companies, and learned practically every task under the sun in the tech industry.Most importantly, he has a human centric approach to everything he does. Building products. Building relationships. Leading teams.This is a story of growth mindset, resilience, and empathy.Enjoy!

Lauren Hannon was a very successful Account Executive in the technology staffing industry.She had it all. A great pay, a proven system to build and nurture relationships, a great recruiting team on her back… But she wanted something else. She wanted to own her own business. And so she took a leap.Seven months ago, she left her job, and became an entrepreneur, to build her own staffing Company, Cupalo, an ethical, responsive, and customer-obsessed staffing partner who really cares, where specialty IT opportunities and uniquely qualified IT talent become friends.It has not been an easy journey! She started her business right in the midst of a downturn in hiring in the tech world. She is responsible now for every facet of her business, and she is coping with the growing pains of entrepreneurship.But she has a very clear guiding path and mission. Lauren builds relationships. She has a human’s first approach, and believes in treating everyone, clients, candidates, hires, as a real person. She knows that treating people well is the key to success.This episode is about relationships. How to build them. How to nourish them. This episode is about emotional intelligence, resilience, and being vulnerable human beings.Lots of valuable lessons to unpack here.Enjoy!

Some people are very good at fixing problems. They are comfortable with chaos. They thrive in it and they are able to find and execute solutions. Let me tell you, changing the direction of a medium sized company or a multimillion dollar technology program is not an easy task. There are various stakeholders involved, and there will be an adverse reaction to change, whatever that is.But some people make a living out of fixing hard problems, like my friend Jayant Chaudhary.With over 15 years of experience in providing technology and operations rescue services to small- and medium-sized businesses, Jayant is now the CTO/COO of SURREAL Events, a first-of-its-kind platform that creates digital twins for physical venues and custom metaworlds for brand engagement.I like to call Jayant “The Fixer”. His mission is to help businesses transform their challenges into opportunities, and he has a proven track record of saving businesses from the edge of failure. He helped clients like American Express, JP Morgan Chase, US Bank, and Fiserv engineer their critical systems, and now he applies the same high level of expertise to create SURREAL metaworlds for smaller businesses.We talked about Leadership in the technology industry, skills required to succeed, and the latest trends and the impact they will have on the future of work.I hope you can enjoy this episode as much as I did!

Ben and I share a special bond. We were brothers in arms during a very tough time at a Default Asset Management company in the Real Estate Industry.Ben was leading Asset Management, and his job was to sell properties, fast. I was leading Property Preservation and my job was to get houses ready for sale, fast.There were Leadership changes everywhere, results were lacking, and I had inherited a team in Dallas that had a bad relationship with Ben’s team in Atlanta.I honestly have PTSD memories of that time… and so does Ben. BUT, we both share great memories of the relationship we forged and how hard we tried to change the way our teams interacted with each other.So I was very happy to use the podcast as an excuse to reconnect with him. Ben Smith has 20 years of experience in the Real Estate Industry. He’s done construction, asset management, preservation, rentals, acquisitions, flipping, operations, customer service, and practically everything under the sun in the Real Estate Industry.He excels in operations. He really is a Tamer of Chaos and a Seeker of Simplicity. Most importantly, he is a generous human being with a very high emotional intelligence. He knows how to connect with people and get the best of them for the right reasons. If you work with Ben, you want to do the right things, because you feel that’s the right thing to do.In this episode, we talked about his experience in Real Estate, the highs, the lows, and everything in between. We talked about operations. People, Processes, Technology. What matters most? Why?Enjoy!

Who are the best software developers?What makes them the best? What makes them successful? How can we measure their contribution and their impact? Do we look at the amount of time they spend coding? Or the impact on business? How do we measure “impact on the business”?These are some of the great questions Jacob Crockett had in mind when he co-founded Perspect, a platform designed to reward developers for the impact they make, not just lines of code.Jacob does not like the buzzword bingo, but he knows Perspect would do just fine in such a game. See for yourself: Perspect is writing developers contributions on chain (blockchain) & using machine learning to identify and recommend ways to improve (AI).I had an amazing conversation with Jacob. He is a thoughtful leader, with a very clear vision of what he wants to achieve. He is passionate about data, and using data to improve the profession of software developers, to help them find more valuable flow time, deep work that will bring the best results.Besides talking about measuring what matters, and helping developers find their best version, we contrasted perception (we did a few polls) with reality. For example: How many hours do developers spend actually coding on a daily basis? Few people got this one right… Listen, learn, and enjoy. We all have a long way to go to focus on the right things to get the best results possible, and we can all start by knowing how we really use our time.

I started this podcast one year ago.I have released one episode a week, 52 episodes in total, since March 2023.I talked to many leaders in the technology industry. And I am thankful to every participant, for being a part of the show, for sharing their views and opinions, their stories, their learnings.We talked about various topics: Leadership in Tech, Proptech, Sales, AI, AR/VR, Art and Technology, Quantum Computing, Nuclear Fusion, Product Management… and many more. I am now a better listener, and I truly believe EVERYONE has a story to tell. You just have to ask the right questions and create the right environment.This episode is my first monologue. It’s just me, talking about the podcast.Who am I? Why did I start the Podcast? Why do I keep going? What have I learned? What’s Next?  Enjoy! and, reach out if you want to be a part of the show 🙂