Social media doesn't do much for me these days. 

I logged out of FB ions ago. Don't use Instagram.

I play around on Threada & Bluesky but unlike Twitter – my reach never grows anymore.

LinkedIn is my main go to but I know who owns it.

For the Podcast we deploy to the usual places but the only thing that seems to work and grow for a new non-viral podcast is YouTube and Spotify. Slowly but steady but it's not for words.

I know I should own my own site somewhere – maybe it is this blog but I wish Matt hadn't gotten so weird about how he manages or let's say "owns" WordPress.

I do like this new super basic WORDLAND editor though cause the WordPress editor sucks and the simplicity of this editor is nice.

Let's see how this goes…

Cloud World Sydney time.

Long flight but have wifi.

Gonna be a busy week.

Lots of talk about the era of genAI and what’s gonna happen to jobs and some types of work.

It will HAVE an impact but does anyone know to what extent? I don’t think we do at this stage.

However, I would like to talk about some of the amazing stuff yet to come that will enable folks to do more with less which will expand economies and employment in general.

As I have been editing, yes I have a lot to learn, some of podcast videos – I realize how much more AI can help but is not capable yet. The studio handed me video files and audio files that needed to be all synced up. I figured that part out using iMovie but its is simply one camera cut and the one stereo file of the audio.

Once I had that done, I started using and learning Descript. Which is a pretty amazing tool – just think of editing the video using the words in the doc that sync to the video. Super cool.

However – what I want is:

• I get the files
• I tell my super agent on my machine
• This is raz and me speaking – I want you to use the single cameras when a speaker talks for more than 10 seconds and zoom in sometimes, and then when the whole table is talking just use the side view but zoom in enough to fill the screen with the table showing a little bit below. 
• Use intro A with a swipe, insert the ad b in the middle at a nice break and close with end b with a longer swipe 
• Publish to YouTube, Spotify and apple
• Make 10 shorts using the cool caption trick in the main template and put them in the google drive

I’ll pay some serious money for that.

So would the podcast studio cause they would get content out to the customer faster.

One more example from someone else I know using tools to build a business or a portfolio of businesses:

• I have idea for business Z
• I need a website and the content is spelled out in this doc
• I need an app – let’s follow the color pallete from the web doc
• I need a user login, a subscription and a CRM for it
• Blah blah blah – you get the point

I know someone might say – but there are tools for this or low code solutions or ….

That is not my point. 

My point is the AI and the tech around us will allow us to design, build and “publish” by speaking to our agent that has our data, our history, our artifacts and will continually evolve to meet our needs.

This is why I am calling this the enablement age – the era where the Generalists won’t need to hire Specialists to achieve their goals. You might say – well that is where someone is losing their job but I counter it with the fact that in my two examples above, we are not hiring specialists anyway. We are trying to do it ourselves.

This is will create another layer to the economy and drive more growth.

I am not using ChatGPT to write stuff but I am using it more and more to research things, play with the plugins and get a better handle on how to make it useful for how I work. I do find that feeding it data and asking it to add to it or format it to be quite positive. I am pretty sure when all this Copilot stuff is integrated into Office, I will be using it a fair bit.

I tried to use the Webpilot plug-in to read my LinkedIn profile and organize it but it wasn’t allowed to read the page. I cut and pasted it and asked it to grab the Technology Eras by years according to Bill Gates: 10 Breakthrough Technologies with Bill Gates | MIT Technology Review

Roughly it is explained as:

1. The first revolution (1970s-1980s): This was the era of the personal computer (PC). Gates and his Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen were instrumental in this revolution. Their vision was a computer on every desk and in every home.
2. The second revolution (1990s-2000s): This was the era of the internet and the World Wide Web. It transformed the way people access and share information. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was a key player in this revolution.
3. The third revolution (2000s-2010s): This was the era of mobile computing, characterized by smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices. While Microsoft was less dominant in this era, it still played a role with its Windows Mobile and later Windows Phone operating systems.
4. The fourth revolution (2010s-Present): This is the era of cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Services like Microsoft Azure represent the company’s efforts in this era.
5. The fifth revolution (Future): Gates has spoken about several potential future revolutions, including quantum computing and further advancements in artificial intelligence.

Breaking it down specific to my roles:

1970s-80s with the PC Revolution: I was playing with my Radio Shack TRS-80, Vic 20, Commodore 64, Apple IIe and eventually some Intel clone computers.

1990s-2000s was the Internet Era and largely when I started working: I was on Wintel stuff mostly but also got into Unix and Mac’s. I was coding then as well and worked with Perl, C, Visual Basic and did some sysadmin stuff on Sun.

2000s-2010s was the rise of Mobile: To kick-off this era I was not working in tech for a lot of it so maybe missed really being a part of it for work but such is life.

2010s to Present brings the cloud and now AI: This section directly maps to my time as a VC (Cloud), my time at AWS (Cloud) and now my current job at MSFT (Cloud and AI). I feel like this was all timed pretty well but also not planned. Luck plays a big role along with just being around certain people.

It’s fascinating to look at the roles and titles by Era especially knowing a lot of my moves were not well thought out. However that path led me to where I am today and I am very fortunate to be working where I am during this AI Era. I also know that all the experiences and people I crossed paths with were instrumental in getting here.

Here are the job role groupings by Era:

Internet and the World Wide Web (1990s-2000s):

1. Engineer at State Net, Inc (Jan 1994 – Jan 1995)
2. Senior Web Technologist at Examen, Inc (1996 – 1997)
3. Principal Technologist/Evangelist and Technical Marketing Liason at WebLogic, Inc (Jan 1997 – Jan 1999)
4. Chief Technology Officer at MetaMarkets.com, Inc (Jan 1999 – Jan 2000)
5. Principal Technologist – CTO Office at BEA Systems, Inc (Jan 2000 – Jan 2005)

Mobile Computing (2000s-2010s):

6. Web 2.0 Development and Content Management, Technology Consulting at Entourage Bkk (2006 – Sep 2009)
7. Director of global tech initiatives at Yahoo (Sep 2009-2012)
8. Chief Product Officer at Spuul (Feb 2012 – Mar 2015)
9. CTO at HOOQ (Apr 2015 – Apr 2016)

Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence (2010s-Present):

10. Venture Capital Partner at SeedPlus (May 2016 – Nov 2019)
11. Head of Startup SAs – ASEAN at Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Dec 2019 – Mar 2022)
12. GM for Startups in APAC at Microsoft (Mar 2022 – Present)

SEO’ing that title a bit.

I am still doing my best to remain accessible and trying to help.

Here is the Calendly link for ASEAN Startup Coaching: https://calendly.com/dreampipe/asean-startup-coaching

For those that want to book that please let me know in the booking what you would like to discuss. I have NO set agenda for the call so the idea is you have questions and I will use the time to try and answer or discuss. If you book time with no agenda then it won’t be super useful for either of us.

Here is the Calendly link for a face to face Coffee: https://calendly.com/dreampipe/coffee

For this one I don’t need an agenda but still helps to know the purpose and what you hope to get out of it. Then I try to come prepared as much as possible.

If you want to connect on https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsmithsgp/ and just DM me that also works.

Obviously not a seed VC at the moment so best to change it and go with the old name of sorts.

Will be trying to blog a little more than I have been

cya

End of the year but I have kicked off my life changes in earnest as a close to 2019.

Obviously some of you know that I am no longer a VC and have made the shift to a tech management role at AWS ASEAN.

This also means I won’t be doing so much social media or yup – blogging. For the most part I don’t have the time for it and I also don’t have a need to cast a wide net of content in hopes of getting attention. The VC needed that more than the manager at AWS.

However, it doesn’t mean I don’t have something to say but what I want to say has morphed. As a former VC, there is stuff I want to say about it but mostly from the lens of helping those who think they want to be a VC and helping those who think they want to take VC money.

I have stuff about life I want to say and well, I love to write but I need to figure out a better process.

My own consumption habits have changed a ton with most of my consumption either being podcasts or email newsletters. I don’t have time for a podcast so that leaves me one option.

A newsletter.

I don’t know if anyone cares or if I will be any good at it but I’m game if you are.

If at least 25 peeps sign up at :: michaelsmithjr.substack.com then I will give it a go. No promises on how often and how much but I will give it my best effort.

It’s free of course since this exercise has never been about making a living.

Merry Christmas.

https://www.section4.com/events

I signed up for the WeWTF class at Section4

Digging this kind of learning.