Entrepreneur, professor, and Founder/CEO of Smarty, Denzil Eden, shares the 3 principles of AI, addressing some common fears and concerns around AI, the importance of role models and seeing yourself in the work, and the one tiny word that shifts imposter syndrome to a growth mindset.

I am super excited to talk with you.

Incredible and super inspiring background, and I have just

recently been introduced to the world of AI, so I would love to

hear your journey from your words.

Definitely. And thank you so much for having me.

I'm very excited to be here. I started my journey pretty young,

like I started coding when I was in second or third grade, and it

was because my school taught logo, which was this, like

programming language for kids. It had a turtle. You would tell

the turtle where to go and what to do. I just loved it. It just

made so much sense to me. It was logical. You could do really

cool things. And that was how I first fell in love with computer

science, and I kind of took that passion with me all the way to

through high school, and eventually decided, like, that's

what I want to do. I want to learn more. Took that passion

with me to MIT, where I went for undergrad, and ended up doing

like a master's there as well, with a focus on AI. But at that

time, AI was still in its like, much more earlier stages, so I

did a thesis project in human computer interactions, and I

actually ended up building a precursor to Slack, but for

classrooms. So it was ahead of its time. It was all about

asynchronous collaboration. And I probably should have made a

company out of it, coming out of my masters, but I thought being

a founder was just not for me. I did not think that was something

I would enjoy doing. I didn't think that was something was

something someone like me is supposed to do. I don't know

why. It was just something I really felt at that time. So I

ended up going into big tech instead. I was working at

Microsoft. Started as a PM, so really on the product side at

PowerPoint, missed being technical, missed coding things

and building things from scratch. And so ended up

switching to being a software engineer at Yammer, got a gamut

of experiences there and realized that I still wanted

more, or I wasn't sure what I was missing, so I was trying out

a bunch of other things on the side, I decided to go to

business school because I felt like the best way to really hone

out my skill set and also take some time to figure out what I

wanted to do. And that's really where the idea for smarty, which

is what I'm working on today, came for me. I was just feeling

overwhelmed with all the things that I was doing. I knew that

technology could automate a lot of the tasks I needed to do, and

so I started building Smarty for myself. It was a chat bot. I

would tell Smarty what I need to do. It would try to do it for

me. And I remember pitching it to my first investor, and she

was like, No, this makes no sense. This is not how you pitch

things. I got so much feedback. It was really great. I kept in

touch with her and kept pitching Smarty over and over again over

the years, and eventually she wrote us our first check, and

that's how I got started. And leads me to here today, where

I'm working on sorority full time. So something that I can

say to Smarty today is like coffee with Stephanie at Blue

Bottle in San Francisco at 2pm London time and Smarty will

figure out the location, the time zone difference, add you to

the event and send a calendar invite immediately. And that's

just in calendar management. But really, all of the things that

your executive assistant does across task management,

scheduling, links, contact management and creating notes,

Mind Mapping, we're trying to bring all of this administrative

features that you would use an executive assistant for, making

it conversational and allowing you to get it done instead. So

that's really like the goal. What's already today, we are

trying to be this AI powered executive assistant for people

who don't have one.

That is incredible. Okay, so how many

years ago was it that you first had the thought, hey, I'm not a

founder. This isn't for me. That's not my thing.

Oh wow. That was probably like, right out of my

like, thesis. I was like, 22, 23 10 years ago.

Okay, so walk me through, how has that changed

today?

Yeah, it's a great question, because I sometimes

think about it a lot. I'm like, why did it never even occur to

me to try to turn this idea that, like, I had customers more

into an actual business? And I think it was one just the timing

of it. I think at that time my undergrad MIT was just much more

theoretical. It had some entrepreneurial resources, but

not like it does today. Today, there's so many resources in

every university that you go to, around early funding, around how

do you like pitch an idea, how do you build an idea into a

company? And so I think it was just a different time. There

wasn't as many resources around practical advice on how to turn

an idea into a company. And so that, I think, is a big change,

because even now, I think the undergrad is so different than

what it was when I was there. I think the second big thing there

weren't like role models that I could look at and say, Wow, I

can be like her. And I do think that's really important, being

able to see someone that reminds you of yourself in any way and

shows a path. And I really didn't have that. Then I thought

the only people who could be founders were Mark Zuckerberg,

which really, like, I couldn't see myself in him, but I didn't.

And so it felt like so untenable in a lot of ways. And so I

stayed away from that. And I I was also convinced that, like,

my life path had to go in one direction, that I had to get a

job, that. Was a nine to five job, and that was like what

everyone did. And so I just didn't have a lot of exposure to

people not doing that. And I think that would be different

today too, because I feel like more people are starting

companies than ever before. I mean, just based off my

experiences, I don't know if that's actually true, but I feel

like the entrepreneurial energy is higher than it was 10 years

ago. And then I think the third thing, really, for me, was just,

I think, understanding that an idea, any idea, can be turned

into a company. It's all about, like, finding the right

customers, figuring out how to monetize it. And I think that is

something that you just learned through practice. And like,

willingness to take risk, which I guess 10 years ago, I was very

like, risk averse. I was like, not for me, but it has been a

long journey, and I do think not seeing the right folks around

you makes a big difference, because even today, there are

more female founders than there were 10 years ago. But I don't

think there's many founders in AI that are women, and I'm not

sure why that's the case, because it's like such a new

space. There's a lot of opportunity here, but every time

I go to an AI conference, it's always a bunch of male speakers.

It's always the same thing. And so I'm and I know that there are

women out there doing cool things, and so I think it's a

lot of exposure. I think it's really important to, like, show

the path be a role model, trying to find opportunities to get

more younger women than younger folks in general, into the right

spaces.

I mean, I hope you do know and understand that

you are now that role model that you did not have.

I hope so. I hope, like listening to me, everyone

is like, I can start a company. Like, it's not a specific

pattern that that is best for running with your ideas. But

also for younger women, I really hope, like they feel like they

can do anything if they put their minds to it.

Super cool. So let's shift gears slightly. One

of the things that is intriguing to me is this idea of

demystifying AI. If someone came to you and, you know, said, Hey,

layman's term, help me understand this world of AI.

Walk me through

Yeah, it's a great question, and I actually think

right now is the time to become AI literate. That's the term

that I use, because it's not about necessarily understanding

how the AI works. It's about learning how to use AI

regardless of what you're doing. Because AI is just a tool. It

empowers you to get things done. And the way that I like to think

of AI is I have, like these three principles of AI. And so

it's the first is that it's predictable. So it uses past

data to predict what you're going to do next, or to

understand what is going to come next. So it's really around

using past experiences, past data sets, and trying to

understand what will the future look like. So very predictive.

The second big thing is proactive. It looks at that past

data. It looks at this future potential outcomes, and it

understands how to get to those outcomes, how to get those

outcomes to be achieved. So proactive and try to get things

done based off past data. And then the last one is

personalized. It uses your personal data to understand what

future steps will you take? What are your preferred outcomes, and

how would you get to those outcomes? Personally? That is

what AI is trying to do. It's trying to take this data, it's

trying to take your data, and it's trying to understand how to

get to future outcomes from there. And so every time you see

a tool, that's how you should be thinking about it. And in terms

of the future of AI. I think it's really important for

everyone to become AI literate, which just means learning how to

use AI in whatever you're doing for life and work, because AI is

going to affect every industry, every job, every role, and you

can already kind of see that happening. Copywriters and use

chatgpt to help them write marketing copy. Artists are

using mid journey and other art tools to help them create new

forms of art, and there are a lot of like, short term

consequences that are going to come out of that, but the long

term AI is this tool that is going to be used by every job

role to make them better at whatever they're doing. And so

it's important now to start immersing yourself and learning

what types of tools are out there. How can I start using it

in my life, and how does aI think and work? And then how can

I leverage that in whatever I'm doing? And so for everyone who's

listening, I think the best way to get started is to think about

what you like to do, what's a hobby or something creative that

you enjoy doing. So if you like composing music, if you like

playing music, there's so many AI tools around writing music or

composing it for every instrument out there. If you, if

you're an artist, play around with these AI art tools and

learn how to take your own work and take it to the next level,

because that's really what AI tools are going to help you do.

It is like a very exciting time, because there's so much to

learn, and you don't have to be technical to be able to become

an expert in using AI.

Is there an AI tool out there to help me decide

what to make dinner every night?

I'm sure there is. I am sure someone is working on that.

There must be.

And if there isn't someone listening who's excited

about this, like taking a picture of what's in your

fridge, because AI is at this level where it can, like,

classify all the. Ingredients in your fridge, probably even how

much of it you have, and coming up with generated recipes that

you should do. And I'm sure they're like meal planning AI

tools out there too, but that's what I mean. It's going to be

affecting like every part of your life. And so for everyone

who wants to be a founder, or maybe debating being a founder,

find a problem in your own life, find a customer who has that

problem, and start building.

So now that you're at this level, who's

inspiring you, who's helping you get through the mental hoops and

getting to where you're hoping to go?

That's a great question. I am always looking

for more folks to look up to, because it's nice to have

something to aspire towards. Something that I've been really

looking for right now is trying to find AI like, micro

influencers, folks who are staying on top of the most

cutting edge trends around AI and so someone that I really

like is Ali K Miller. She's in New York City. She used to work

at AWS, has always been in the AI machine learning space, and

has just been such a great person to follow. But she's

always on top of, like the newest AI tools, the newest AI

trends, and encouraging the non technical person to get

involved. And so that's someone I'm really looking up to right

now, and I hope I can meet her someday.

What do you think are some general fears or

concerns people have around AI and how would you address those?

I think there are many, and I think they're all

very valid concerns. The first one is the jobs that AI will

take. In the short term, I think there will be consequences

around certain jobs being replaced by AI, but I think in

the long term, I'm very optimistic, because AI is just

going to open up more job opportunities, more roles that

we can't even foresee today. It's very much like the

Industrial Revolution, where certain jobs left, but so many

more opened up in the long term. And so I see that as short term

concern with AI, but a long term, very optimistic thing. A

second big concern, I think, is really, of course, around

security and privacy. And I do think the government needs to be

involved in that conversation around, how do you regulate the

security tools and encryption and what data sets companies are

using? I think most governments realize how important it is to

have regulation, but also have enough bandwidth to allow for

innovation. And so I think that is also a short term concern,

but one that is actively being worked on is well known. And the

third one is bias. There's a lot of bias in AI tools because it's

so based off past data, and past data really matters, like what

you're feeding into an AI technology. And so a lot of the

data can be very biased towards a certain demographic, or it can

be very biased towards a specific way of thinking, and so

it's really important to be doing audits around this AI

technology that's being built out and and checking like, is

this a diverse sample set? Are the right people being

represented here? So for example, with mid journey, if

you prompt like boardroom, it might send back a picture of all

white men in a room talking, and there's no gender diversity,

there's no racial diversity, there's no socioeconomic

diversity, and so it's really important to be checking like,

what data sets are these tools using, and is it actually

representative of the population it's supposed to be serving? And

so I think there's a short term concern around that, but a lot

of companies are popping up specifically around auditing

what data companies are using. And so I think those are the

biggest concerns, and I think we're doing a good job of

addressing and being aware of them. And I think it's someone

needs to also be thinking about, like, what else should we be

concerned about? What are the unknown unknowns? And I don't

know what those are.

You mean you don't know what you don't know?

So you do have some limitations. Okay, good to know. Tell me how

your experience has shaped your perspective as a female,

especially in AI tech.

I think my biggest learning over the last few

years, especially is that all that matters is grit and

resilience. You can always figure out what you don't know.

And actually, this is it reminds me something that I was talking

to someone earlier this week. Earlier this week about what is

a growth mindset versus imposter syndrome. I think it's really

easy to tell yourself, oh my god, I can't do this. I'll never

be able to do this having that imposter syndrome. But to shift

that to being a growth mindset, you have to add on the word yet.

I can't do this yet. I'm not going to be ever able to do

this. Should be I'm not going to be able to do this yet, and then

changing our mindset around this idea of, like, Okay, I can't do

it now, but I can learn how to do it. I can find someone who

does know how to do it and have them teach me. It's about

changing your entire mindset to how can I keep going and get

where I need to go? And I think that is something that's really

important if you want to be a founder, and I think it's just

really important in life in general, never counting yourself

too short and knowing that you have everything you need to get

where you want to go.

Now that you have gotten this investment,

you're on this path. What are your hurdles going forward?

I will say personally that is still my

biggest challenge, like reminding myself my biggest job

as a founder is to not quit, to keep trying, to keep trying to

get to the destination that I know I want to get to. And it's

easy to get dissuaded by all of the things that go wrong every

day. And so it's really important to celebrate small

wins. So on a personal level, it's really around reminding

myself I'm lucky that I get to be a founder. I'm lucky to have

this opportunity, and despite any setbacks, I just need to

keep going on a professional level. I think the big thing for

us today, ex Marty, is to try to hit profitability. We are trying

to get as many customers as possible. We're trying to make

the product as robust as possible. And so that's just

like my Top of Mind goal and concern for the year, and I

think, don't be worried about what the ecosystem looks like if

you don't see someone who looks like you, you should still

pursue your idea. You should still take that risk and chance.

I think, in relation to that one, if you have an idea,

there's so many ways today on the internet, to be able to

validate and test your idea. And that's something that I wish I'd

really known as an early stage founder. I am a builder. I can

code. So I immediately started coding a product that I thought

people wanted because I was building it for myself. And

really what I should have done is validated the idea, validated

how it was going to look, validated who my customers were

going to be. And if I could do it over again, I would have

started there. And so it's actually very simple to start

testing and validating ideas. You can build up a wait list.

You can have different landing pages for for your idea and see

what brings people in. And then you can start doing customer

interviews without having a product. You can build a

prototype of a product using tools like figma. It is easier

than ever to test an idea. And so I think if you have an idea,

start testing it. You don't need to leave your job, you don't

need to start building it with code. You can just start testing

and seeing where the customers are, what are their pain points,

and figure out how you can turn a profit from there.

You know, what I really want is, I want to put a

date on the calendar five years from now, and I probably won't

even need to wait that long and just watch what you've

accomplished in the next five years. I think it's going to be incredible.

I appreciate that. I hope so, but I also know, and

for everyone who's out there, I guess listening, that your path

will change and wind in ways that you can even expect. But as

long as you're aiming towards a North Star, you'll get somewhere

you want. I think I really didn't love that idiom where if

you shoot for the moon, you'll land in the stars, but it's so

true. Have ambitious goals, and regardless of what happens,

you'll end up somewhere you're very happy to be.

That is awesome. I so appreciate you being here.

Thank you so much for your willingness to be with us today.

I really appreciate it.

Of course, thank you so much for having me. Thank

you so much.