Masters of Automation - A podcast about the future of work‪.‬ Masters of Automation

Jason is the CEO and Co-founder of Radical Candor. Over the last four years, he’s helped all kinds of organizations, from tiny startups to the giants in the Fortune 100, realize the power of creating a more Radically Candid culture. Through this work, he’s helped hundreds of companies develop real human relationships between team members and through those relationships, achieve amazing results collaboratively.

In his past lives, Jason received undergraduate and graduate degrees in business from New York University. He also worked as a product design team lead at Fog Creek Software, the small-but-mighty New York-based software company that created well-loved products like Trello and Stackoverflow. In 2010, he moved to California and helped launch Khan Academy, the world-renowned educational tech non-profit. Over the next seven years, he helped it grow from three people to a few hundred and reach over 100 million students around the world as both chief people and chief product officer.

Join us as Dr. Eric Daimler, a 6x entrepreneur, President's Fellow, and the visionary who initiated the AI Council in the White House, shares his deep insights into the world of AI and robotics. Learn about the transformative power of data integration, the ethical challenges of voice-simulating AI, and the intricacies of AI regulation. With his unparalleled experience and unique vantage point, Dr. Daimler discusses how technologies like Connexus AI are shaping our interconnected future.

Join us for an insightful conversation with Tatyana Mamut, a transformative leader in Silicon Valley renowned for driving innovation through deep customer understanding and empathetic leadership. As a product executive at Amazon, Salesforce, Nextdoor, and IDEO, and currently serving as the SVP of New Products at Pendo, Tatyana brings a wealth of experience and insights.

In this session, we'll dive into Tatyana's journey from being an economist to help United Nations and then become a leader in global advertising to becoming a product executive in the Silicon Valley. We'll explore her unique approach to understanding customer behaviors, her work on human-centered design, the impact of Generative AI on the economy, products and life. With her background Anthropology, we will dive into scenario planning to accommodate multiple cases where AI can go right or go wrong. This episode challenges the positive and negative narratives set out by many of the tech leaders and lets the audience to ponder more about how to build guardrails, so that the AI benefits the society as a whole.

Key discussion points will include:

Tatyana's transition from global advertising to tech and her approach to understanding customer behaviors.
Her experience in human-centered design and the importance of experiencing the world through the customers' eyes.
The role of sales in understanding customer objections and building the product roadmap.
Emerging trends in design and innovation, particularly in the context of generative AI.
Balancing rapid innovation with ethical considerations in product and service development.
Strategies for building a culture that encourages innovation and motivates talent.

In this engaging episode, we dive into the world of automation and digital transformation with the Founders of Ashling, Marshall Sied and Donald Sweeney. Our guests share valuable insights on the importance of process mining, empowering employees through citizen development programs, and the critical role of executive leadership in driving successful automation initiatives. They also discuss the need to strike a balance between cost efficiency and maintaining a positive customer experience when implementing automation solutions. Throughout the conversation, the focus remains on not just cutting costs but on enhancing customer and employee experiences and unlocking the full potential of automation for a better future of work. Listen in to discover key strategies for successful automation implementation and the role it plays in transforming businesses across industries.

Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a visiting scholar at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s AI practice. He is a coauthor of All-in on AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023).

He has written or edited twenty books and over 250 print or digital articles for Harvard Business Review (HBR), Sloan Management Review, the Financial Times, and many other publications. He earned his Ph.D from Harvard University and has taught at the Harvard Business School, the University of Chicago, the Tuck School of Business, Boston University, and the University of Texas at Austin.One of HBR’s most frequently published authors, Tom has been at the forefront of the Process Innovation, Knowledge Management, and Analytics and Big Data movements. He pioneered the concept of “competing on analytics” with his 2006 Harvard Business Review article and his 2007 book by the same name. Since then, he has continued to provide cutting-edge insights on how companies can use analytics and big data to their advantage, and then on artificial intelligence. Tom’s book, co-authored with Julia Kirby, Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines offers tangible tools for individuals who need to work with cognitive technologies and in his latest book, The AI Advantage: How to Put the Artificial Intelligence Revolution to Work, he provides a guide to using artificial technologies in business.

In today’s episode of the Masters of Automation podcast, the host Alp Uguray speaks with Antti Karjalainen, the founder of Robocorp, a Python-based open-source RPA (Robotic-Process-Automation) platform. Antti shares his story about what led him to automation, why he chose to open-source his product, the benefits of open-source, such as collaboration and innovation, and how it aligns with Robocorp's mission to make automation more accessible. We talked about the Robocorp community, managing remote teams, integration of generative AI and RPA, as well as the ethics of AI.

Our conversation then shifts toward the future of the industry, and Antti shares his insights on how he thinks the industry will evolve. He talks about integrating ChatGPT-like solutions within the product stack for automatic code generation and the challenges that come with it. The ability to integrate different solutions and providers within the core-RPA automation stack allows them to be more flexible and focus on the core automation promise. Being open-sources and Python-based helps with that integration as well.



We also discuss the industries that are the most and the least resistant to change and automation based on their exposure. The podcast ends with a discussion on managing a remote team. Antti shares his experience of running a fully remote team and the challenges and benefits that come with it. He talks about how a remote model creates equal opportunities for people from all over the world to participate fully in the company and get ahead in their careers.



This episode provides insights into the world of automation and its impact on businesses and employees. Antti's experiences offer valuable lessons for entrepreneurs, startups, and anyone interested in automation and AI.



Here are some of the questions we discussed:

What inspired you to delve into the world of automation and RPA? Was there a particular problem or challenge that motivated you to build solutions for it?

As the creator of an open-source RPA platform, how do you balance the needs of both developers and business users within your community? Are there any challenges in catering to both groups?

The field of automation and AI is constantly evolving. What exciting developments do you see on the horizon for the industry, and how do you plan to keep up with these changes?

In your experience, which industries have been the most resistant to change and automation? How can we overcome this resistance and help businesses see the value in adopting these technologies?

With the rise of remote work, how have you managed to build and maintain a successful remote team? What strategies have worked well for you, and what challenges have you faced?