From Noise to Sound
How do today’s leaders cut through the noise and shape the future?
In each episode of From Noise to Sound, host Dr. Dimitrios Marinos, from the Department of Marketing and Communication at HSLU, dives deep with CEOs, Board Members, and industry innovators to uncover the forces reshaping our world. Through insightful conversations, he explores topics like digital transformation, consumer behavior, and sustainability, revealing strategies and innovations that are driving real change.
Gain actionable insights and fresh perspectives on navigating a complex business landscape. Tune in each month to sharpen your view on leadership, tech-driven success, and what’s next in marketing and beyond.
New episodes every month, brought to you by HSLU, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
From Noise to Sound
#Dr.Goekhan Bakir : The AI Dilemma of Innovation, Ethics & the Skills Gap
This episode features an insightful conversation with Goekhan, a former Google expert with 18+ years of experience, who explores AI’s evolution and its societal impact. He shares his journey from being a child of Turkish immigrants in Germany to earning a PhD in AI and contributing to major Google products.
Goekhan reflects on his career at Google, driven by a passion for programming and system-building, leading to innovations like BMW’s iDrive. He discusses AI’s shift from a complex, metrics-driven field to one filled with new opportunities and challenges, including concerns about AI education and whether new tools are simplifying or oversimplifying skill sets.
The conversation shifts to AI’s broader societal effects. Goekhan shares both excitement and concerns about AI adoption, warning that overreliance on automation could erode critical skills among engineers and professionals. He questions whether today’s workforce is maintaining foundational skills as automation grows.
Goekhan also assesses Europe’s position in AI, contrasting it with the US and China. He stresses the need for regional commitment, cultural readiness, and educational investment to help the next generation adapt to an AI-driven world.
Through his startup incubator, Enzian Labs, Goekhan fosters innovation in Europe, emphasizing hands-on craftsmanship in coding and beyond. His insights offer a compelling mix of personal anecdotes, expert tech analysis, and thought-provoking discussions on AI’s role in our future.
How do today’s leaders cut through the noise and shape the future?
In each episode of From Noise to Sound, host Dr. Dimitrios Marinos, from the Department of Marketing and Communication at HSLU, dives deep with CEOs, Board Members, and industry innovators to uncover the forces reshaping our world. Through insightful conversations, he explores topics like digital transformation, consumer behavior, and sustainability, revealing strategies and innovations that are driving real change.
Gain actionable insights and fresh perspectives on navigating a complex business landscape. Tune in each month to sharpen your view on leadership, tech-driven success, and what’s next in marketing and beyond.
New episodes every month, brought to you by HSLU, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
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[0:00] Like if i would end up just being the you know somebody using a tool to do something maybe i will lose ability to create more that's possible because i lack the critical craft so so for me it was always important to be able to you know try at least try you know try the hand you know the hand-on's part. Welcome at the podcast from Noise to Sound. I'm Dimitrios Marinos and today I have a special guest on our podcast. Someone which I used to work together also at my time at Google. A very special brain. A techie guy. I think he will try to set a little bit more light for us now in the trend of AI. Really looking forward on that. And some exciting news. what he is also expecting
[0:58] also from the market perspective or from Europe. We'll discuss about technology disruption. So hang on with us and I hope you enjoy it.
[1:06] Music.
[1:12] Welcome, Gokun back here. Hey, thanks Dimitris for having me. Thank you as well. So thanks for joining our podcast. So for me, I mean also for the guys or people who are actually listening to this podcast, because I would like to ask a little bit about you. So you were around 18 years at Google, right? Yes. So you have seen a lot of products that we use, and you have developed yourself a lot of parts of those products that we are using every day in our lives.
[1:44] So guide us a little bit through how was this 18 years? Who is Gokin in these terms? Yes. Maybe I start before I'm at Google. well, how did I end up there? And then that gives me some perspective. So, actually, so I'm like a child of Turkish immigrants in Germany. So I grew up in Germany and, you know, in the 70s, I always tell the story. In the 70s, in Turkey, there was like a mass hypnosis, I believe, where everybody saw a kebab placed in the sky and decided to immigrate to Germany to open a kebab store, so my parents were like that. And my father wanted me to become a cook, so for me to rebel against my parents was basically to become a computer scientist, so that's how I ended up there, and then, And I really, and I fell in love with programming and creating things very early.
[2:44] And I ended up doing a PhD in AI. And AI 20 years ago was, you know, very different than today. Obviously, it was very math and so on, et cetera.
[2:56] And I was an academic. There was a time which, though, where I actually worked. And so I was in academia first, then I actually got out and I worked for a company that's like also now part of Logitech. And there was my first encounter being entrepreneurial, which is, so there's something called Space Mouse. I worked on building a lot of software for it. And what happened was somebody had an idea how we can use this to control the interior of luxury cars so we took this 3d input device i built a simulation in the car um with this and then we drove to bmw and then this thing became the iDrive in bmw so i'm actually the inventor of the iDrive which is on every car me and you know some other people and then but then i kind of said oh it's all about programming i want to do more in science so then actually i I went to Max Planck and did the PhD and so on. And then what happened was, i had the choice that i met my my now wife um she she actually uh learned german she was from turkey but i met her in munich and then basically we had the decision should we go to at the time.
[4:17] Kyoto in japan or we had an offer from google in zurich um and then my wife said oh you know i cannot imagine having a baby in a japanese restaurant where nobody will understand me and so on so then we said okay you know and then she just learned german basically okay let's go to zurich that's why i ended up very visionary basically in zurich yeah it was very very noble reason yeah i remember when i asked you when i when we were at google i asked you so how do you move from phd to google and he said i was fed up having frozen pizza that's true as an academic exactly as an academic you're like i i i worked day and night seven days i worked so much actually because there's always a paper deadline and other stuff in the race and then but but then what you get back is like you know whatever you have like a little bit of salary uh max tank was actually good but still um and then you know you don't know where you end up in two three years you have to look at the money and then like uh yeah it's always a thing it's like the uncertainty there um yeah so exactly.
[5:19] That changed actually because of that just also when we went to google at the beginning google so i was i think number 51 in zurich um there was no kitchen kitchen you know we had we had this software called um fusel i think where you could order dishes from some restaurant in zurich and all top star restaurants so at then there was a moment where basically,
[5:47] the money we paid every month for dinner was higher than the rent for the building. And there was a time there where then also like, okay, Google Zurich, we have to change the building, we have to get the catering service and make a kitchen and so on. Yeah, I mean, of course, Google was also very well known for pampering employees. Yes, I didn't complain there. Never, no one. But no, but still, for me, it's also really interesting. We work together in Lens, Google Lens, and you have worked also in other products as well. I mean, all these products nowadays, they are very much infused with technology and AI.
[6:28] So I don't want to go so much under the product, but I would like to go a little bit further on technology. Right now, we all experience a bit of a hype on... It's not a hype, actually. It's here to stay, to my view, of AI.
[6:40] I mean, you know it inside out in so many years.
[6:43] And you've worked with the big ones on that how do you see it now do you do you feel content do you feel like how what's your feeling there it's too fast yeah i i actually you know do i know ai i mean i can tell um it's such a complicated question because like the way i learned ai and i knew ai is changed like when i like for example when we started google lens and also the other things before it was very much of like uh it was always a metric game you know it was like there is a grind uh you i mean but what was more important is like it's about building a technical system and you needed a lot of expertise to build the technicals and like for example i worked in um you know man machine interaction would you have like vision you have like audio you know you have other things etc you um you needed to have knowledge about computer vision you needed to have knowledge about information retrieval you have knowledge about problems in speech processing etc and then and i remember for example the first time some research team at google proposed me and others they proposed to use some large language model which was significantly is smaller than what's there today to to do something i didn't like my reaction was i cannot.
[8:10] Imagine how this would be useful to be honest right well like it was literally presented to me.
[8:15] And i was like you know thinking about a specific way to solve problems etc and specific build systems and then so there was a jump i literally missed actually myself because the way i was doing AI changed significantly and I think it changed for the better now actually right but now and it was great and the best what I also feel like I remember when, I realized I actually loved being a computer scientist again after decades of working in the field because there was a fresh excitement about this, a novel technique, novel approach, and so on. So I think I'm excited. I got, for sure, I was super excited in the beginning.
[9:04] Now, yeah, how do I feel now about it? I'm still excited, but more uncomfortable.
[9:10] Yeah well i understand that i can fully understand that i mean you you are in a b2c products at google i mean the google products is not something only corporates use we use it every day so a lot of uh our everyday life is mapped uh on on products not only google but with ai in a lot of other and rather others as well so it's logical that someone can be also at the same time a little bit of uncomfortable but i remember for example at google there's been a lot democratized like translation at that time i mean i remember when we could translate languages we could also in lens week you could speak and so on and so forth it was it was amazing at that time and uh so all of a sudden you feel even if you're in the engineering team or on the side of it you feel oh i don't need to put the effort sometimes on learning that. Yes. And do you think all these AI tools can, I mean, excuse me for the word, stupidify a little bit the average person or people? I mean, that's a very good question. It has so much nuances to it. Let me start from, I mean, you said the average person, I think that's a separate discussion, but we can talk about the engineers. Yeah, engineers, yeah. Let's talk about examples. So when.
[10:38] I mean where should i start so one problem is that as an engineer if your end goal is let's say to build something maybe that your mother wants to use right your mom doesn't care about like you know whether it's super complicated or super simple one model or 15 things she cares about the delivery yes in that sense i think as a way to build systems it result it is exciting technology from an engineering perspective because it reduces complexity you know you can get done more with less which is always a good thing especially in software engineering we should always strive for that now if you stop doing other things do you lose critical knowledge some knowledge i think is often an artifact of the approach you see which is okay if you don't do it right but some other things are for sure critical and a concrete example is often new techniques allure you to think.
[11:49] To ignore challenges, which you would immediately see with the other approaches at step one. Here you don't see them at step one. Therefore, you don't give thought to that. And then what happens is like, you know, you can build something very, very quickly, but it will not, there is no you don't know how the path for something that like your mom could rely on. Imagine you have to build a system that, you know, has to take is the autopilot in the plane yes think about that right the autopilot in the plane if you you need to give a lot of certainty and confidence right and so that if you start fast but there is no path for you to reach that level of certainty and quality you have a problem yes right and if you don't know how that's bad so if you the process of the techniques didn't pave you the path you have a problem if you if classically so you know so like the devil you get basically paid there is something where that's that's a problem classically if you have all the pain at step one but there is a continuous path to reach that right so you will reach that eventually it's better so so i think it depends and and i think what we also forget is like.
[13:05] Many of the things we're using like if i mean 20 years ago normally these things should be still in research right yeah for sure but now there's so much economical incentive, that like like things which we don't understand we
[13:19] already use or try to use in in in ways so so there's like challenge from an engineering perspective yeah um so yeah so it's a complex topic in general i believe that if you know what you're doing the new technologies are awesome yeah They're literally awesome. If you don't know what you're doing, these new technologies, they're also awesome, but there is a price you pay which you don't know that you're paying. Okay, that's exactly where I want to come to because there are some interviews this week and last week, I think this week also Satya Nadella also mentioned, that agents and AI will eliminate, I mean, he said, I'm not really sure he used the word elimination.
[14:01] But at least shrink to the minimum the knowledge workers. Yes. And I, this is my, first of all, I would like to pinch a little bit your brain on that. And the second question, the sub-question on that is, we've seen also now Salesforce, Tesla, all the people, they said, you know, with AI, I mean, Meta said all the middle-level engineers, software engineers will also be done by AI. So what's your second take on that? yeah that's yeah so the first one perhaps right so um knowledge worker yeah that's like uh you know that has many many islands of things i i can imagine and i if your job was, just that you transform content. Like, for example, as a student, I used to, you know, I got this stupid job where I took cards, postal cards, and where people entered their address because they want to pass me the lottery. And my job as a student was take this card, enter it in a spreadsheet. That's what I did, you know? But that was not the knowledge. I know, it was not the knowledge. It's the first line. Yeah, but exactly.
[15:15] But basically, i just end up transforming like you know if your knowledge worker you maybe combine it or you kind of massage it etc if you're a lawyer for example that's a knowledge worker no but that's already very advanced like but let's say like the most simple thing is just like transforming one input to another output i think that's a thing where i believe yes i can imagine that's going to be a way right right now the whole point is like is the knowledge worker adding value yeah i think if you add value i and if you add value but the value you but you're not liable right then maybe that's also something that i think automatization can nap away but when there is liability in place right um i think there we still have quite a path uh you know to see automatic agents be so good that you can kind of like you know that these jobs are going away so so i think i mean these folks have an economical interest sure that's why they make these statements meta also like when they said oh we like all middle uh level engineers will be gone um i mean they will be they will not go on but they are basically freed up to do other types of work is i think what the state the full statement was yeah okay it was cut down in the media to the extreme case that would make sense more sense to be honest because immediately so i also feel like i for sure believe that.
[16:37] Our tools i mean as a knowledge worker tools will evolve yeah that i believe right just today i checked what is the statistics for how many how many jobs will be created by gen ai for example oh yeah compared to how many will be dissolved so i didn't find anything but it would be interesting i think that's the interesting thing you know how much new change is there what's going to happen compared to what will be cut away but for sure it will be transformed yeah you know i freak when
[17:06] i heard uh james wang saying oh you know you don't need to like if you're your kid if you have kids don't teach them coding anymore i mean sorry like you know in which bubble are you living in right so i think that's that's that's just wrong actually um the art exactly so but but the way you develop develop the way you manage complexity while you like i think that will that that that will stay you know so so yeah transformation will happen i think so too and i think the statements also is like yes there will be a lot of jobs and current jobs eliminated to the agents but on the same time there will be much more created on the other side the question also though the ethical or the general question that is arises is do we all have going to have the skills or the ability to jump into the next train that's a big that's that's a fantastic question so i'm actually um with a colleague who's the president of the um ai section in swiss engineering foundation we founded.
[18:06] We have a foundation you know we founded you told us a little bit about that actually yeah exactly so.
[18:13] I one thing that I personally I decided that I want to work on is overall improve contribute to resilience of actually Switzerland so what can I do to enrich and strengthen you know Switzerland and also Europe and one aspect is exactly what you're saying does the like you know technology moves so fast Is the education system equipped.
[18:37] Teaching right what happens right now and they actually themselves don't know obviously right they're chasing everything so there's so they already had they already have a challenge with just like uh you know computer science and digital tools in general but now they are completely,
[18:53] outrun with with ai and uh so we built we have basically this foundation where we built uh teaching material for K-12 onward, so that students can actually learn these new tools.
[19:10] So I think that's an opportunity. And I see different countries were doing the same thing. They realized that. So yeah, we definitely need to invest in that. This is also what I see in the market. I mean, for example, when I am in the market and see every company wants an AI product, but the adoption is the biggest blocker. Like you said, also in the school, adopting this technology and using it, it is a bigger hurdle than having the technology right now. Correct. Because this is really novel, because, for example, in the past, a new technology was often somehow vertical. Like, for example, changes in camera technology. You don't go to an accountant for that.
[19:56] Changes to, I don't know, computing. you go to the IT department but this time this type of technology it's like as fundamental as for sure as the internet it's so horizontal that
[20:09] you know it will be everywhere and I think the skill you also want in the next generation is do you recognize the opportunity to use it do you you know can you use it and I think that's a critical thing yeah and that we have to teach I think it's also both sides I would rather say better get taught about this how to use it rather than get let's say get dropped into this water of having to know it because otherwise you will not have a job yeah that's the fear of it yes i mean i mean yeah the challenge we as society have is that the pace is so fast that literally everybody is going to be dropped without having the skill to it of course and because like you know.
[20:52] Well like if we kind of um look into the detail like the skill is uh you know it's easy to it appears easy to be used but what happens when you use it and and what is the tool doing to what can you use it even right etc like can you trust it right and so on many things are there and these are these are digital competences of the future and that are critical for sure
[21:18] that's one thing but now we're talking about this is the knowledge worker who would be empowered by these tools then there's also the thing about do we have the knowledge, the skills to build the tools.
[21:34] There's another level do we have the ability and the capacity to own our own future in terms of that leads me to the next question actually exactly that's the point I don't want to put it antagonistically but we see right now a huge bias in technology and Europe is in the middle. I mean, you see US on one side driving this innovation with all the American companies, big techs and so on and so forth, and funds, I mean, they put the money there. And then somehow it's China on the other side. They also have a lot of smart people. They have the technology as well and they're pushing as well. And we hear nearly anything or nothing from Europe. So how do you, I mean, where do you see that coming? Ah, that's my favorite topic. No, it's a hard one. I mean, yeah, so hard question. It's a great question. I think it's actually super important.
[22:29] I mean, I can only take my personal opinion on this. One is, I think, first, do we have, like, are we, is Europe or Switzerland, are we actually committed in terms of, like, you know, the government or any institution? You know, that's the first question. Like, for example, if I see China, like years ago, they decided to have, you know, they're very like top down. They decided, okay, that's the thing we need to teach. So in terms of education, you have now textbooks, you have mandatory, it's mandatory for schools there to actually have the specific AI classes and curriculum, right? Um if i look into monetary commitment you know it's like for example the u.s is roughly one percent of their gdp goes into r d in general right europe on average is like like a fraction zero dot one or two is the is the current statistics so that like you know how are we committed, to to put like are we the comment in the same way i think that's the difference that's one second.
[23:38] There's also this thing about culture. That's a big one. Do we have, are we ready to do this level? Like, can we cope with the uncertainty of that thing? And I personally believe yes. For example, there's this great story about the CERN, which is at Switzerland. So when the CERN was decided to be built.
[24:08] There's like it's literally i think you can read somewhere it's like we didn't know how to solve specific technical issues like you know that's a project where it's huge very expensive and it was decided to be built without and the money was there on the table without anybody knowing we could do it that's a project that was done here right and and but but this i think so i think from a history perspective we should be able to do it but in general like you know with ai where innovation comes across the board from any corner sure does our society have the
[24:45] necessary agility and are we you know like are we are we risk you know tolerant and happy right that's um i'm not certain and they are you know it could be because of like demographical reasons it could be because of monetary reasons for every country and maybe it's also different. I have two takes here. I mean, to me, it's like Europe is very fragmented in comparison to US and China. They are two countries and we are, I don't know how many have to take a decision here. So everyone has a stake here and everyone has to speak. So this drugs decision to time, that's one thing. And the second thing I feel sometimes is Europe is very much dependent, have left the innovation part to the private market.
[25:31] So venture capitalists, banks, whatever, they have to finance it. We all here to just regulate. I mean, this is the feeling we get at the moment. But I'm with you. That's what you hear in the medias often, especially in social media. But I mean, is it like that? Like if you, for example, look into research, fundamental research, just everything, not AI, right? You have a lot of you know research facilities, across Europe, gazillions actually I mean Max Planck where I'm from it's a major thing so I don't know but in AI specifically.
[26:15] What is what happens is it's like a perfect storm, AI is the economical incentives are so large that the velocity of research is aligned with the economical incentives and this degree of freedom of money and interest like either they are as from China, top down state driven, right? Or they are, so that's why you have this huge subsidization, etc. Or they are, as I said, all this economical power in the states.
[26:47] We are lacking that, that's true, but regulation some you need but I fear if you regulate because of.
[26:57] Ideological reasons which happens often in Brussels in my opinion then it's just super harmful.
[27:04] Maybe Europe is one but I think that's why fortunately we are in Switzerland. I feel like Switzerland is still an opportunity that you don't always chase Brussels in some case, right? For example, a good example is the AI act. You may act like Switzerland will not fully like you know they are reviewing it et cetera so I think in Switzerland we still have this opportunity that you know we can think independently do you think do you think there is um, we will, at the end of the day, not only for Switzerland, I'm talking about Europe now, I mean, as a continent, that we might lose this train of innovation that at the end of the day, we just have to purchase that and not have our own stake in the AI game? I don't think we're... I mean, the way I see AI is like, you know, fresh water or power, you know? So if, and just from a logical reason, if it becomes such a horizontal, necessary building block for any company in the future that you rely on such productivity to compete, it means it will be a fundamental building block of economy. If that's such a fundamental thing, you have a state interest to provide that critical infrastructure, right?
[28:26] Therefore, I cannot imagine or the way I operate is that it's unavoidable that AI will be there. Now, the question is, so therefore, I don't think we will lose the train.
[28:42] We cannot. It's not possible, I think. um the only but what is very likely is that the price for us will be so high that it will have other consequences you know so like for example you could imagine our economy is uh you know falling behind in terms of productivity yes falling behind in terms of economical output just because we are missing out on investing in critical infrastructure and this is you know infrastructure is actually way more than just ai like for example an intelligent transportation network yes you know if um they are like for example we have in europe this problem if there is some if you get like goods to den hague you know how fast can it go to somewhere else there is an agreement between italy switzerland whatsoever that the car the road network
[29:38] has to kind of like have the necessary capacity, but we're waiting on, for example, Germany on something. And like, you know, there's like stuff projects to infrastructure-wise that are blocked. And with AI, it would be the same challenge potentially that, yeah, because of our fragmentation, we will just, it may take us too much time to provide this infrastructure. I think as well, I mean, you talked about, I mean, the essence of it is this technical sovereignty, as you discussed before.
[30:04] So, I mean, Europe, Switzerland as well. Switzerland is in their its DNA, the sovereignty is not bounded in the geographical means on the other side, its technical sovereignty is also critical I mean, we have to see, ai and the infrastructure as as critical infrastructure i think yes and um otherwise we will not build trust trust to the people to use it and trust the companies to use it and exploit it and so on so forth but as you mentioned the investment is so high at the moment and i think can switzerland like does switzerland have the luxury to do anything themselves for example right yeah that's the question and i think no and one example is for example in europe if i, the this large language model is good as an example we the germans tried it and they failed right now they basically in europe we have one company which is doing um you know something at the level of an open ai which is mistral in france exactly so they and now you know but what is another one right so there we have some uh smaller ones but is the amount of money and compute and everything you need. I don't even know whether, I think Mistral also uses for inference American data centers. Exactly.
[31:24] What can we do here? In Switzerland we do have this strategic computing what's called Swiss Alpine or something.
[31:37] But they are looking for, they're super open, they're looking for.
[31:41] But yeah, some of the developments will require so much money it would be like the cern it cannot be done by one cover right it really needs so do we need all the players put together and it's possible if i look into this new uh document uh you know this ai championship document yeah um that's great you know like it's literally written what should be done you know you deregulate heavily you put in so so yeah i think the the intent is there but whether we have the political power and the economical commitment that's unclear the talent i'm sure talent i'm 100 certain we
[32:18] have it okay that's interesting yeah we have it i mean you can spit in for sure because you can see all the big companies they are now coming you know to zurich you know you're sure all right so they're all there talent i think we're very good um across europe as well uh economical incentive i think economical power we all have it it's just about that you know we need to do it yeah let me go back a little bit to go can so so what are you i mean you you you left you know them the big tech i mean the the dream job for a lot of young talent uh being in a in such a big tech and leading yes big products so what are you doing now, I mean, I'm sure, I mean, knowing you.
[33:04] Life is definitely not boring, but I know you're cooking something, so what is this? Yes, so...
[33:11] Yeah when i left basically this uh i mean i left for you know for retirement reasons originally but like somehow i found out that for what i can do uh is um this thing about how do i make what do i contribute to society but in terms of like resilience i think this word is really key for me it's like a life philosophy for me it dictates everything and what i and i want to live i I decided for myself that day, you know, I want to live in a specific society. And this specific society is, you know, it's defined by strong individuals and like strong institutions that really work, et cetera. So what can I do as an individual to contribute to resilience in Europe and in Switzerland in particular?
[34:02] So one, and what I can do is, I know how to build, I know how to build stuff. And I also know how I can tell others to build things and be successful. So now, with two other partners, Samuel Riedmann and Christian Wenger-Fierli, which have a similar view, the three of us, we founded a holding, Enzian Labs, where the idea of the holding is to really create structures in Switzerland and Europe, but mostly Switzerland. With a global with the global view like you know create something that is relevant for the world as a market and build basically products so what we're doing right now is we incubate startups ourselves, and um we build teams and uh get the funding and try to build products that are relevant, for a very big market so that's what we're doing i mean there is no better better
[35:02] i can i can say from my experience having a company there is no better pedigree having people I mean uh.
[35:12] Guiding you who have worked let's say in such a sector know how to scale and know exactly where products can have a problem because i mean having your your experience before beforehand i mean you develop products with have a high quality standard to be in the market and used by so many people otherwise it's it's very tough but thanks yeah yeah it helps it helps a lot i'm definitely sure but i have another question i was wondering all the day i mean we meet also before do you still code yeah of course yeah i always did um i mean at google always did i to be that's a funny thing like you know when i retired for example um my main thing was like oh i go with my son to the forest and cook or we built uh star wars cardboard figures etc but i ended up i mean when i had free time because the my son whose fear is going to daycare i ended up in front of computer and you know i ended up uh writing and you know code again picking up whatever rust as a new language so this this pro for me it's always about the craft of engineering of building software that's the thing i like i mean i there are much better people at it but i myself i always feel like a fish in the water when it's about.
[36:37] Being creative and productive with the computer yes so so i always do that and i feel that will understand uh obviously you know my at nci labs that's also my job like i literally built some prototypes myself just to explore really whether yeah so so the process i always i code everything myself just to see whether there's a chance technically or whether i have faith in that thing
[37:01] um so yeah i do quote yeah that's something i i wanted to ask from the beginning so so uh as i understood very important i honestly and let me tie this back to the other topics yes even from a societal perspective i believe that uh there's also this great book um you know the art of uh maintaining a motorcycle i believe but there i believe that.
[37:27] Craft that you know craft is important for to create yes and it comes before so even when we do want like for example should i like if i would end up just being the you know somebody using a tool to do something maybe i will lose ability to create more that's possible sure because i lack the critical craft. So for me, it was always important to be able to, you know, try, at least try. The hand-on skill. Try the hand-on part, the nitty-gritty, basically. Also, I mean, sometimes it's annoying, obviously, but I think it was always part of me. Always important. And I think that's, also I see it for societal reasons important because if you move out, if you delegate everything, if you move it to a country where everything is 10 times cheaper, right? A couple of years later, you will forget, you will lose abilities that might be critical for your sovereignty. And that's what we saw. We saw it in the States. Now we're trying to move things back. And the same here, right? And this I fear with AI, we are at the point where, if we I think if it's such a critical technology, if you don't want to be.
[38:57] In a dependent situation, right? Like, for example, Switzerland, you remember the US authorities labeled it as a risk market for chips, right? The only place in Europe which has a different color in some map is Switzerland, right? But, you know, there's some dude somewhere deciding that you don't get the GPUs. Yes, yes. That's bad, right? So you don't want these type of dependencies. I mean it's it might be convenient to have it but i think you should always be in a situation where you can choose yes and that's i think that's why craft is important and i would wish that you know for everything you know building a car working wood painting whatever it is right, craft is a very important thing society has to really hone and value high actually yeah actually we see it also right now. I mean, the hands-on part is always hard to find. Hard to, I mean, it should be incentivized appropriately and so on and so forth. So, just coming back a little bit as wrapping it up as a discussion. So.
[40:07] If Go can program codes today, so I don't think also young engineers or professionals in general. I mean, I have an experience, let's say accountants right now, they have to work with Python. A lot of companies are changing. Hey, Excel is good and fine, but I want you to work with Python from now on. So this will become a little bit in a core. Of course, AI can help you, no worries. Yes.
[40:36] But I think I would like to keep this last sentence from your side that it's important to invest in skills and have a craft to remain sovereign, let's say, also as a person, but also as a country, as a continent, it's itself. So thanks a lot for being also today with us, Gokun. I mean, it was really inspiring for myself, I mean, having you back after all this time at Google and then hearing your thoughts and what you're doing right now. Thank you. I think what you do right now with the startups, I think it's a great thing socially in one way, but I think also for these young entrepreneurs, they couldn't have a better sparing partner than that because it's not like, hey, we have a fund or money and you go ahead, but you have someone who can ask, on your problems and get someone who came from the bottom top there. Yes. So actually, it couldn't be a better recipe. Thank you. Perfect. Thanks a lot, Gokun. and thank you also as well for hearing stay with us I will be updating you over LinkedIn and our social media as well for the podcast and looking forward to for the next episode with another inspiring guest thank you very much.
