Tonya J. Long: 0:00

I'm Tonya Long and I am here live in Los Gatos with my friend, Joyce Li. I am so excited about having everyone today join us to hear about more adventures in AI. You guys know this is not a tech podcast. That is not my intention at all but a lot of my friends are in tech or related to tech and they have remarkable stories, and so this podcast is about stories. Stories, in particular, about the resets that we are all moving through as we're transitioning in this remarkable period in time, with so much changing in technology and work and longevity, and then, of course, in purpose, and purpose is a big part of this, and my friend Joyce Li has a ton to share with us about evolving toward purpose.

Tonya J. Long: 0:51

I can't wait for you to meet Joyce. She brings a fascinating perspective. She's been a software engineer. She's been managing investments worth billions in her mutual funds and hedge funds that she was responsible for, and now she's been to me one of the leading AI writers on the real-time space, as she has developed quite a following and has one of the most useful, if not the most useful, newsletter that I subscribe to. So I'm just excited for you guys to all meet and to be inspired by what Joyce offers, because that's what Joyce offers to me. So, Joyce Li, welcome to RESET.

Joyce Li: 1:31

Thank you so much for having me and right back at you. I'm inspired by you every day and couldn't wait to share what my journey has been.

Tonya J. Long: 1:40

You have had a lot of turns similar to me. We'll talk more about that in time, but let's start with today. What are you working on now that is exciting to you in your current work and life? What's big for you right now?

Joyce Li: 1:54

Right At work. Right now I work in the intersection of AI and finance and governance finance and governance and I talked to a lot of board directors, finance leaders on how they can use AI to accelerate their strategy but, at the same time, ensure the right governance in place. I'm very excited about that because it's almost like every day. I get to be a learner, but also a teacher and also a collaborator, so that bridging aspect is where I enjoy the most, and I also hope that's my superpower.

Tonya J. Long: 2:30

I love that you understand and recognize your superpower. You have been in different places. You know you've had a 20-year career plus, like I have, and we have gotten to have these experiences that all add up. To me. It's the gestalt. The whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. So at one point you were a software engineer, at one point responsible for hedge funds, phil. How have the values remained constant across those lines to point you, as your North Star, to where you're headed?

Joyce Li: 3:06

lines to point you, as your North Star, to where you're headed. I feel more and more in life I'm sort of carving out what's important to me, that clarity of ideally working in the intersection of what I'm good at and what I love to do, and the most important part is it's going to be useful for the world. So that is the North Star, and that North Star or that usefulness could change over time. Maybe when I was young and just entering the workforce, writing codes is the most meaningful contribution, but now I feel like in this, I would say, generational defining moment of AI transformation in governance and finance, my bridging ability is where I can add the most value to the world I love it when I think about how I see you show up, which is, frankly, mostly, mostly work.

Tonya J. Long: 4:05

We're friends, but we see each other in our work environment. I see you as a problem solver with a broad worldview. Where do you think you got that from? Do you think you pulled that from your professional experience?

Joyce Li: 4:22

I actually think this is a question I didn't prepare for, but this is the answer I always have. I almost feel like I grew up when I was a child thinking I would be an engineer.

Tonya J. Long: 4:34

Okay so that was your path.

Joyce Li: 4:35

Yes, my dad was an engineer and obviously he he also come to look at every new things in history as a problem to solve with the tools he has in hand. So in his 40s he self-taught computer programming and I saw my dad do that, and then I almost have this mindset of everything in life there is a problem waiting to be solved with your current tools, and that tools can change. Of course, 20, 30 years ago there was no AI, but now there's AI. So I always approach that worldview and this may be what you think about as problem solver. I'm really glad my dad will be glad to hear that I'm viewed as a problem solver. I'm going to tell him.

Tonya J. Long: 5:27

He's so strong for me, that reaction of seeing you as a problem solver, that can't be a surprise to you.

Joyce Li: 5:35

That's really interesting, and one of the nature of problem solving today is that the solution may not be clear. It's a very iterative process. So, for example, some of our solutions initially maybe in 2022 with AI is not that good, and now we just keep at it solving the same problems and then eventually we get better and better at the solution, and that's also one of the key points I keep telling the leaders that now more than ever, make sure you fall in love with the problem, not the solution.

Tonya J. Long: 6:19

Yeah, yeah, I would even add because I know I just intuitively, I know that you experience this as well. So many times when I go in and work with clients, they don't know what the problem is they're trying to solve. They, you know, they want to X, they want to save money, they want to position something, but they're not really clear on their why. And so for me, that's where I think people like you and I, with rich history not just one threaded, but multiple things that we've done what we're able to do is to help them sort through the possibilities we wouldn't have tried to do 10 years ago because it would just have been impractical with the capacity and the compute power and all those things. But now companies can use data to get insights and do things that they've never done before, but they don't know where to start. Do you have the same reflection on companies' understanding?

Joyce Li: 7:23

Yeah, I completely agree.

Joyce Li: 7:26

And then you are such a great person to ask intelligent questions and just probing, probing, probing, and until you come to the bottom of it and understand the key motivations and also drivers of something, and I do the same.

Joyce Li: 7:46

So one of the things I am grateful of my investment career was that it cultivate this question asking ability and also sort of tallying the signal from the noise, ability to really focus on what truly matters.

Joyce Li: 8:04

So one of the things that I help my conversations or my friends to do is to always think about what is that key driver or key element that makes your business tick, and just keep asking and whether that mode we always say competitive advantage of a business continue to be in place in today's world. It may not be, but if that's the case, what really make your business and your workforce shine in this new time? And you just keep asking, asking until that alignment builds, the alignment between you know your business goals, visions and you're going back to a problem what problem to solve? And that problem, that key problem you need to solve in order to for your business purpose to shine, and then put that key problem you need to solve in order to for your business purpose to shine and then put on constraints that you have and that's your problem that you need to focus on. So I think, like you, just asking questions is a very important talent and that builds over time.

Tonya J. Long: 9:22

And I'm not splitting hairs when I say this, but it's more than talent, it's understanding nuance, reading the room, um, because I can ask questions in some rooms that are very unwelcome in other rooms because of the company's culture. The um, the um, how rigid they are in terms of how willing, how far are they willing to bend certainty. You know, how do they manage risk. So I think it's not just good questions, it's also making people comfortable to explore what's new. Do you?

Joyce Li: 10:01

agree Absolutely. I think, ultimately it's not a technology problem, it's a culture of people problems. I love it. It is yes. So that's why, you know, having those conversations at the sea level, at the board level, are super important, because this is not just something that you can completely execute from bottom-up, grassroot effort. It has to be coming from the top. In fact, the top-level leadership have to fully buy into the vision and otherwise it wouldn't be solved by any technology Right.

Tonya J. Long: 10:42

I think I have a lot of empathy for what the people that we serve. I have a lot of empathy because they are experts in their domain.

Tonya J. Long: 10:51

They've been luminaries in these industries for as long as we've been working Right with AI. It's very hard. It's very hard for the ego, it's very hard for the people who need to know what's going to happen. You know, traditional product, I'm going to make a better blue pen, you like to, and if I make the blue pen, I can put numbers around how much I'll sell. You know it's finite. So products, because I've been in tech for so long but my products were always finite with estimations of how we'd be able to break into the market and serve better, do more and make more money for our shareholders.

Tonya J. Long: 11:31

But there's a lot of uncertainty with that. With AI, the commitments are much. They're much less prescriptive in how we arrive at giving people comfort, and especially board members in C-suites need comfort. I know you've experienced this, like with the hedge funds that you operated. You were responsible for billions of dollars, so you learned to deal with uncertainty right. So how have you translated that experience into helping these boards with this big, massive thing with two little letters A-I, to help them get over it with this comfort?

Joyce Li: 12:12

I completely agree with the point that a lot of the board leaders and also executive leaders, for the first time in their professional career perhaps feel less confident about what questions to ask, whether the answers given are good enough answers because they haven't got the time to build up that. You know knowledge base and technology, and it's just so fast, it's just too fast. I know both you and I are looking at this every day, but we still from time to time feel overwhelmed and behind. For example, this week there's just so much happening in the AI world. Even today we don't know what OpenAI is going to say.

Joyce Li: 12:58

But I think the key is to really look through the surface of what's the symptom and then look down into frameworks. I do think that frameworks that people develop over time in managing their business navigating uncertainty are still solidly in place. Navigating uncertainty are still solidly in place. I will give you an example. One of the interesting thing or phenomenon that really feels very new to board directors is the pace of solutions that can change over, like between board meetings. Typical board meetings for the audience who are less familiar is quarterly yes, and they come in and approve 90 days is forever Correct.

Tonya J. Long: 13:54

Current AI cycle of development.

Joyce Li: 13:56

Correct, correct.

Joyce Li: 13:57

So when they come in and approve some sort of AI roadmap and then next time they come in, all of a sudden they realize the last time the solution now becomes there's maybe a better way to do it or maybe there's a partnership instead of buying a solution.

Joyce Li: 14:14

They're not used to this quick change of solution or the roadmap cadence, but if you take a step back and really think about what questions we need to focus on are basically the same One is it still aligned with the business objective over the long run to create value for this company's shareholders stakeholders? Second, are we having the right talent in place and are the culture and operational structure in place to support that? And third, do we have risk management metrics in place to make sure that things are going in the way they are supposed to go? They may not go exactly the way they plan to, but in terms of direction, in terms of the outcome, the sort of roadmarks are staying on track. Those are the same questions, ai or not. So once the leaders get enough fluency, feel confident enough to ask the same framework questions, they will be able to navigate this time much, much more comfortably.

Tonya J. Long: 15:36

I'm just letting that sink in because you're 100% right and it's so hard to balance the hype cycle with I said with very intentionally the hype cycle managing that with long-term thinking, which is what boards are supposed to be based on yeah, and I think you can have your cake and eat it too.

Tonya J. Long: 15:58

Absolutely. I think we can't ignore what's happening now, because there's so much learning with the things that are happening Learning sometimes in the failures. Now, all times, you learn from the failures, but I think you can keep a long-term vision about what your company's trying to do. Ai is just the how. It's just the tools and the modeling that helps you get to the long-term vision, and you don't have to sacrifice one for the other. In fact, I think you have to have both to be successful.

Joyce Li: 16:33

Absolutely, and make sure that people's incentives are aligned to the strategic goals, not just some sort of flashy demo goals.

Tonya J. Long: 16:42

Mm-hmm. Speaking of flashy and incentives aligned, I have to do a quick. I want to do a quick station break for the Signal Society. The KPCR Signal Society wants to thank Spinga Los Gatos for sponsoring the Signal Society. Spinga is a local Los Gatos-based fitness center and they're one of our sponsors, and members of the Signal Society receive $100 off an unlimited fitness membership. So you can sign up for the Signal Society at kpcrorg slash, join or go see our friends at Spinga here in Los Gatos and get your groove on and be flashy that's the word you had just used, Joyce, so flashy AI.

Tonya J. Long: 17:30

We've talked all about AI the first 15 minutes and that's fine. When I think about you, you're one of the first people that I remember. That was like me. So many people on this AI train are deep technologists. You and I are deep business people broad and deep business people. So we both had 20-year careers in our respective different verticals, if you will, then we both started this AI thought leadership that we do, and almost the same time we found each other. We started collaborating. We saw each other at all the same events. Sometimes I was on the panel, sometimes you were on the panel. That's how we got to know each other. What was happening in your world? I can tell you about mine, but what was happening in your world that brought you into the AI height curve at the time?

Tonya J. Long: 18:28

And we've not gone off that curve since we started, but what brought you from the investment world into leaning hard on what you could do and help others with?

Joyce Li: 18:41

regarding AI, Well, I guess the timing turned out to be really interesting because, in 22, I spent a long time of that year doing soul searching, going back to our North Star. How do we find that intersection of what we love and then the meaning of life, but also what we are good at? And I have to thank my coach, tisa richards, and she really helped me to build this clarity of what's important, what's non-negotiable for me. So, interestingly, among all the lists, on all of, about all the items on that non-negotiable list, there's nothing saying I have to do investment, continuing to do investment over the next, you know, 20 years.

Tonya J. Long: 19:35

The way you had evolved Correct. You were no longer really in alignment. You didn't need the investment piece to be part of your work life.

Joyce Li: 19:44

Correct. I love it. So then it completely opens up my mind and then I just went into events see what's going on and the timing of it. That's where it gets interesting. I went into this social event and really met this wonderful woman who introduced herself as working for a little startup called OpenAI. Oh, that little thing I know At that time really it was little, but I got interested and I just want to support all these women I met and just to try to use the product they were doing. And I was thrown away completely and the timing was great.

Joyce Li: 20:25

I'm looking for something new. I do see immediately the potential of rethinking everything in how we do finance. So one of the things that I've been thinking about is how, ultimately, ai can lower that personalization or finance advice to almost zero over time. So I just want to go into that rabbit hole and then reunite with one of my college friends in the computer science area and just have this startup. And that's how everything got started.

Joyce Li: 21:08

And of course, startup didn't work out. We can talk about that, but it's very typical of Silicon Valley story. But it opens doors for interesting communities, like Athena Alliance, where I write about. You know what this means for board governance, because those are two areas I feel passionate about. Not many people were paying attention and one thing led to another. We have a group of really interesting women executives in that space. Come together and write this governance playbook that help us to develop this holistic framework to think about governance in the age of AI. But that's an example of curiosity plus positive energy, plus finding a tribe, plus having that clarity really helped me on this journey and that led me into getting to know you.

Tonya J. Long: 22:11

The work that you did with Athena on the governance playbook was incredible. The thing I reflect as an author and as someone who works inside of a lot of teams I like to work alone.

Tonya J. Long: 22:26

I'm the only decision maker and I love people, yeah, but but I remember looking at the tribe of women powerhouses that created that governance playbook and I thought, oh my God, because you've got 15 type a strong, opinionated yes and the fact that you could produce anything I I recognized what, what, what labor you had to go through to collaborate right on style, tone, prioritization of content all those things and you produced a beautiful product. For me, the most remarkable thing about the product was looking at who put it together and how they all had to learn to give and take in order for a final product to be produced.

Joyce Li: 23:14

It's interesting.

Joyce Li: 23:15

When we started to think about this project, it was completely sort of almost like this is we're creating something to give to the world, so there's really no string attached and there's really also no PR plans or anything put in place.

Joyce Li: 23:35

We just thought we all have this urge to let people know. This is something you have to pay attention to. But we also got a little bit triggered by at that time you probably remember a lot of articles and newspaper headlines talking about all the thought leaders or all the AI frameworks are fully developed by men. We thought we just have this additional layer of incentive to spotlight some of the amazing talents from product, from technology, from law, from, you know, regulatory considerations All sorts of interesting walks of life, and that's also a learning process for us. To your point, like, how do we fit that into our busy schedules and work together almost for something bigger than ourselves? And fortunately, I do think we had the right people in place, and Athena is a great sort of filtering machine to get these people in place, have this amazing product coming out of it.

Tonya J. Long: 24:52

I love it. I love it. You know a lot of people worry about AI and humanity and the impacts on humanity, but I honestly believe and I started out feeling this way and I met every iteration it's stronger and stronger that AI is a platform to save us, to save humanity, to connect us, to give us opportunities and vehicles for collaboration that we didn't have before we were, I think we were driving ourselves into the oblivion of mundane tasks, and now I think we can all. I don't care if you, I don't care if you, you know work in a daycare or an ice cream shop or if you're at the top of the top AI companies.

Tonya J. Long: 25:43

I think everyone is going to have an opportunity to reinvent themselves with the new things that we will be able to do, understand and the content we will be able to work with as a society so that we can, you know, do things like you and the 20 women that collaborated on that playbook, absolutely, yeah. Speaking of reinvention, we were talking before the show started and I said, oh, just give me a gift. And I was using improv terms and I said, oh, have you ever looked at improv? And you've done more than look at it.

Tonya J. Long: 26:25

You're a fan of improv and for those that are not following this track, a gift is when you give someone a statement, knowing that it's a hook that they can attach to in conversation, because the whole point of improv is to help keep the dialogue going, to help each other, not to find funny, snarky things that shut down the other person, but to find funny, uplifting things that the other person can say, and me too. So I think that the improv. We have a studio announcement about Wi-Fi. I apologize for my presentation, so so we're good, um, but um, I was thrilled that you had had an improv journey, because that gives us something else that we have a connection with, but I also think it's part of who we are. Once you've studied improv, it becomes part of how you interact with people, because you want to give people something to continue the conversation. Tell me what your experience has been with using that journey to improve what you do.

Joyce Li: 27:53

I love improv. Improv is. I love that you started.

Joyce Li: 27:56

Yes, improv is something so yes, so hard, and growing up in a traditional Chinese family, that's the last thing. But you sort of come into every conversation, you sort of learn the ropes beforehand, get prepared to 100% Perfection, exactly. And improv is like the profession is not to be prepared ahead of time. And of course you know a little bit like frameworks, know a little bit about you know teamwork. But it's more about trusting your collaborators. It's about be present, fully present, and just deal with what you're dealt with right.

Joyce Li: 28:39

So one of the when I was an investor, I went to visit companies all the time. I go to conferences all the time. If it happens to be in a city, mid-size or large city on a Thursday night or Friday night, I would look crazy for an improv show and then just go and then sit in the audience and just enjoy it. And over time I realized why I love it so much, because I just I feel like it satisfies two things. One is be very, very curious and be very, very open-minded during that curiosity surge.

Joyce Li: 29:19

But second thing is really have that trust that things will work out. You'll find a solution. But how do we get there? You'll find a solution, but how do we get there? You have to be collaborating with your teammates or with your whoever is on that. Most of us are on this AI journey or about to embark on this AI journey. Trust that you will get it. It will fulfill your life and also be trusting your own ability to find a solution that's the most suitable for you, for your domain knowledge to shine. I love it.

Tonya J. Long: 30:10

I'm going to come back to it after this quick bottom-of-the-hour announcement Not an announcement a station identifier. You're listening to Pirate Cat Radio and Pirate Cat Radio keeps expanding. For those who follow us, listen to this. We are at KPCRLP 92.9 FM here in beautiful Los Gatos it's always beautiful in Los Gatos. We are also translator K215GA 90.9 FM in Los Gatos, 9 FM in Santa Cruz and drumroll KVBELP 91.1 FM in Portland. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, that Portland the one way, far north, with good brew pubs, bad weather and interesting people. So we have just launched online in Portland and, of course, a lot of you are already listening here at kpcrorg online. So we're thrilled to have you.

Tonya J. Long: 31:14

Going back to Joyce's earlier comment about improv and I wrote down the words curiosity, trust and collaboration. I would say that's how you've become so successful with your AI board advisory practice. Thank you. Curiosity, trust and collaboration and I shouldn't put boundaries around it to be just your board practice. You do a lot of different things, but all kind of in this forward motion of AI strategy, all kind of in this forward motion of AI strategy and building trust, working collaboratively and being curious about the possibilities is what we do. Tell me how that love of improv and those things has helped you be more successful in working with groups that are uncertain and uncomfortable about moving into this new era.

Joyce Li: 32:15

I I love the opportunity that a lot of these leaders give me maybe based on my past career building up that credibility in the investment world or in the board governance world to open the door for me to be in the room having the conversation.

Joyce Li: 32:39

But what really helped me, and and also inspired me too, is the ability to ask questions and then just let the conversation flow. Yeah, so, going back to improv, yes, you give a gift, right, exactly, and then let people um, tell what their challenges are, opportunities are, and sometimes I feel like providing a little bit like peer, what your peers are doing or what the industry is moving towards, especially the emerging startup world, where maybe in the past it was not very obvious to these board leaders that that's relevant. Now, these days, any startups can potentially disrupt a business with the technology, ai-first mindset. I really appreciate that improv mindset of just listen, just build on, just ask questions to your earlier point and then I know you are an expert on that and then find a way to collaborate and maybe even co-design the way forward. I do think that, more than anything today, providing a solution is not the way to go, right, right, it's almost like can you be a co-designer of that?

Tonya J. Long: 34:05

journey. Yeah, co-designer, 100% right. The problem is it's a new mindset shift and the people that we go in to see call us in because we're the experts, yeah, and they want us to walk in and go here. It is, yeah, and you and I know that it's a process to co-create, to co-design. For me, I think that we have to, often in the groups we go into, create an environment of curiosity, trust and collaboration.

Tonya J. Long: 34:40

I have this little trick I do, and since you don't expect any of my clients are listening, I'll say and create FOMO. Fomo is how I entertain myself. That's the fear of missing out, and it's so easy because the boards that call us they've not done the work. They're calling us because they're ready to do the work. And if I go in and talk about the other people in their industry who are already doing really interesting things, that creates first FOMO. They're like what? No, how are they doing that? Right, and it's easy for us to get this information, but then that creates curiosity and doubt about what could they do? Right, right, what are some of your tricks that you've used to create, to build out an extension of you in that team around either curiosity or collaboration, or trust?

Joyce Li: 35:39

I do think trust needs time. It's very hard for you to come in the first meeting and then really get people to trust what you say, especially for me. A lot of times people would say they were expecting a technologist who has a PhD in AI. You know, come in and have that solution right on the table and then also tell them how much money profit they can make after implementing that solution. Unfortunately, that doesn't exist. So that trust of we can figure it out ourselves.

Joyce Li: 36:15

But very specifically to your business needs and constraints are very, very important, and then you just have to sometimes you just have to hold your tongue and be very patient and understand who's at the table the stakeholders also, the hidden influencers not at the table oh, good point. It's very, very important. Ultimately, I think you wouldn't be surprised if you operate in that world. You know it's never about technology, it's all about the people and unfortunately, or fortunately that's the lever that you have to build trust on and that's the leverage point that you have to restack your solutions on to make it happen.

Joyce Li: 37:04

Unfortunately, also because everyone is trying to move fast in this AI impacted business world. The competitors what are competitors doing, as you said have an outsized impact these days. And not only that what are some of the up-and-coming companies AI-first mindset doing are very, very important. And last point I would just say is also very interesting is that people are more open to look at other industries with similar characteristics. So, for example, I work with you know investment leaders, investment team leaders. They obviously are very heavily regulated and they are now very open to look at not just their own peers but also their counterparts in, let's say, legal or healthcare industries, where regulation, obviously compliance, is a very important element in that consideration. So I do think that bridging, going back to what I love to do plays a really important role in that mindset change.

Tonya J. Long: 38:25

You mentioned regulatory things and to me I've just taken on a new role.

Joyce Li: 38:33

You and I keep swapping places because I've just taken on a role with an investment fund.

Tonya J. Long: 38:38

And it's largely currently. The makeup is largely life sciences Yep Life sciences heavily regulated Yep. You've been in financial-oriented verticals, heavily regulated, and the speed and the pace in the very beginning. You also mentioned pace being one of the challenges of this AI cycle. Regulatory frameworks are not built for speed. They're built for security and protection protection of people's money, people's health. But there's a mindset that I'm experiencing now, being in a, if you will, a vertical where I have more exposure to people who have spent a lifetime in a regulated industry, and I think innovation is more challenging Getting people aligned to these components of trust, collaboration, curiosity is not always the normal thinking because the constraints have been unnegotiable. The constraints have been federal law around medical devices or around payment. So what are you seeing that is being effective at helping manage both pace and these long cycles? Frankly, for me, I'm looking at ways around the long cycles.

Tonya J. Long: 40:06

I'm looking at ways that because I think our regulatory, the requirements that we've put on certain things, like in the medical side, especially for me were because we could not appropriately test things, and now that we have AI we can. So it shouldn't take seven years to get a medical product, device or pharmaceutical into the market. So our regulations need to change. But in the meantime, when we're in this fuzzy period where we have the constraints of regulations and the hype and the speed of the current era, what do you offer to people to help them manage both without getting disappointed?

Joyce Li: 40:50

I think the most important thing for me is to meet your clients or prospective clients, where they are and understanding why they are so keen on having the safe, responsible systems in place before they fully embrace the innovation. Ultimately, I definitely feel like they are doing it because they want to protect their clients, they want to deliver responsible AI outputs to whoever they're serving, and I don't think it's an either or problem anymore, because this is one of the things that people all the enterprise clients are very clear that this is non-negotiable. They have to be compliant, they have to be safe, they have to to the extent they know, they need to have the right data governance practice, and that's why the governance framework is very important. It's almost like once you set up the guardrails, it's actually easier or more free to play within the guardrails. When you don't have the guardrails, it's almost like you always feel like you can jump into a hole right there.

Joyce Li: 42:09

So I think the right guardrails, right frameworks for the governance and risk control have to put in place as soon as possible in order for you to innovate more freely. If we accept that, then we also see a lot of ecosystem players, such as infrastructure players and also some startups have these collaborations across the board Like? How do you, for example, collaboration across the board Like? How do you, for example, how do you audit AI activities real time across different platforms in your enterprise environment so that you don't have unintended data leak? For you know, unauthorized AI use, which is sometimes a big problem in some of the companies.

Joyce Li: 42:59

That helps that you have the peace of mind to really introduce innovative workflow, design, collaboration with partners and rethink even some of the functions. So one example I see acceleration in adoption is in the CFO suite, which means the CFO usually have a lot of functions underneath talking about. We're talking about accounting, forecast and budgeting and planning and all those. In the past you would think they are the most conservative because they need to get things right and, interestingly, because of that, labor shortage, talent shortage in that space and also a lot of tedious process over the last few decades never got changed.

Joyce Li: 43:55

The incentive of using AI solution is actually quite appealing, of using AI solution is actually quite appealing. So in that space, people figure out how to, you know, break down the workflow so that they can test and verify the results more easily. How do they make sure the data governance who has access to what data is in place before they introduce solutions? The end result of that is we're seeing a very fast adoption curve in that space and for some of the startups, very, very young startups, barely two years old, got adopted by very large companies because they can, let's say, shorten the days required to close for more than 10 days to less than three. So that's a huge improvement. But that's also an example of when you have that alignment, you put the wrist guardrail in place, you put the audible process in place. You can move fast. You absolutely can move fast with that guardrail.

Tonya J. Long: 44:58

Yeah, yeah, and I love your example of a close. Anyone who's been close to financial you know. I remember at one of my very large $5 billion enterprise companies it was an 11-day close and it was almost like a certain set of us were paralyzed until the quarter was done. The quarter's not done until you have numbers to reflect how well it went. And the closed process was critical to a lot of the company for what we would do for the next quarter or two in terms of what we would have for funding for building out staff, those kinds of things, Absolutely. So it is a game changer when you move it from an 11-day close to a three-day close.

Tonya J. Long: 45:40

Right, Even less, Even less, I mean absolutely even less, so fast that I think it would scare some people. Three days feels good, three hours so much. But I think things are going to change dramatically in the finance world. I talked a minute ago about some of the things that we'll be seeing with medical devices, pharmacological treatment, and I think those things are going to speed up, but I think the finance vertical you are involved in is going to have some things happen. I'm not, as I don't spend as much time on the fintech side. What do you think are the big not strategy shifts, but the big how we work shifts that are coming in the finance sectors? What do you see on the horizon?

Joyce Li: 46:31

There are a lot of changes already happening, so you know I'm a big fan of Claude perplexity.

Joyce Li: 46:38

They all launch various types of financial analysis or research tools right yes, yes, and I do think in the traditional world of investing, for example, research, we see a lot of high value work being done with collecting information, filtering out the noises and then making decisions better based on that. Now that whole sort of three steps can be shrank into one with AI's help. So how we work now having, I would say, a lot of people doing research or analysis work right now are going through their mid-life career reflection.

Tonya J. Long: 47:30

Oh, can we tack another hour on to this conversation?

Joyce Li: 47:33

Yeah, but more like now what are we going to do in terms of day-to-day? What are we going to do in terms of day-to-day and where is the most value-add components of your work to your ultimate clients? And going back to what differentiate your business value as an investment firm or as a wealth advisory firm? So I actually think this is the most exciting time, because I talked to quite a few leaders investment team leaders and wealth advisory leaders over my trip to New York and then also last few weeks and I'm hearing more and more interestingly and also inspiringly, that they are asking question are we thinking big enough? What will our industry or the way we work become in 10 years? And let's walk back from there.

Joyce Li: 48:27

And how do we think about where to invest, how we structure our team, how do we train our talent? And to go into your I think, the theme of your episode how do you accelerate that build up towards wisdom faster? Yes, and these leaders are absolutely brilliant, for sure, but now they are taking almost this as an industry defining moment. Yes, it is. It's really inspiring Multiple verticals.

Tonya J. Long: 48:54

It has an industry defining moment. I latched on a few months, a month ago, to the term habit highest and best use, and a lot of people have been going through transpersonal journeys of you know what's my personal purpose, yep. But I think now organizations are starting to think that way. That's what you're saying is that organizations are thinking in terms of what's the highest and best use of our time and effort on behalf of the constituents we serve? Exactly, constituents is paying customers, but it's also employees, it's also investors in that company, exactly so there's an ecosystem of impact that goes beyond just selling that blue pen, absolutely.

Joyce Li: 49:37

To as many people as possible.

Tonya J. Long: 49:39

Right, right, I love that you've mentioned this. By the way, you were in New York and you had lunch with one of my like LinkedIn, like you know those people that you just have so much admiration for, and you got to have lunch with her and I was like I was like fanned. I didn't even know that you guys had a connection other than. I bet you worked on the playbook together.

Joyce Li: 50:03

Absolutely, and Jaya is a fantastic leader.

Tonya J. Long: 50:07

She's just absolutely remarkable. I envy in the best way her place in life where she thinks for a living. She thinks broadly, deeply, consistently with people, and I love what I see her put out into the world.

Joyce Li: 50:25

And that's one thing I really enjoy this moment in our journey shared journey is that you keep your door open and anyone online, and then that's another thing that I think both of us do is to share while you learn. You don't have to be 100% expert yet, you only have to be. You know you're learning, you have some thoughts to share and then just share openly, and that opens doors for these type of friendship collaboration to happen, and anyone is just message away and it could lead to the most interesting friendship ever.

Tonya J. Long: 51:07

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely Something about what you said.

Tonya J. Long: 51:11

There's a point that I should have made earlier about the variety of things that we do and the variety of people that we connect ourselves to and how we serve, how we show up in the workplace, um, and you you reflected this just a few minutes ago about uh, people expected someone with more of a deep tech background, and I think that we are honestly so good at what we do because we don't have a deep tech background. We have been in tech, we have spoken on behalf of tech. I mean, we're clearly comfortable with tech knowledge, but because our background is broader, we are able to create more touch points. That is ultimately how AI will enable and connect the world in new and different ways we've not even considered. So I think I look at you and what you're doing and I think, if you had been because there's something that triggered the thought in your last statements about you're not locked in, you're not rigid about how a solution evolves, you're not thinking about elegant code. I used to have a crop of engineers all about their elegant code.

Joyce Li: 52:32

I didn't give a flip about their elegant code.

Tonya J. Long: 52:35

I wanted to do it at a higher quality level At a higher quality level, but I think that that variety in who we are is what enables us to serve. So the next part of our last few minutes, I want to move us to what I call the lightning round, because these are just quick questions, quick answers, and for the last five or six weeks I've been doing this have been the best part of this episode, of these episodes, because people get to like, say things that they haven't considered before and they get to show people in the audience like who they are. Okay, and this is not going to be like the interview question about if you're any item in a fridge, what would it be? Well, we painted that one Shut up. So if you weren't in finance or AI, what career would you have chosen, Joyce? Teaching, love it, love it. I can see why. What's the one AI tool you can't live without in your daily work, claude? Oh, good, okay, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Joyce Li: 53:49

That's an interesting one Because that changed a lot. My answer definitely was different in the past, but now I truly believe focus on you know, pursuing excellence during the process. Yeah, do not be too caught up on the outcome. Outcome is there's definitely a component of out of your control.

Tonya J. Long: 54:11

So that's a mindset of inner excellence from the book by Jim Murphy my next book keeps getting pushed out in terms of other priorities, keeping me from writing it. But the title of the next book is the journey is the job, so you'll see me hashtag that a lot because I believe all this that we're doing, this is the work correct, not the solution, not the end result, but the work, and especially for us, because it's so collaborative, it involves others, it teaches there's by design and this is the journey you know, the journey is the job.

Tonya J. Long: 54:48

There's another quote the journey is the destination um the. Or prioritize the journey over the destination and um yeah, so all right, the most overrated trend in ai right now. All right, the first overrated trend in AI right now.

Joyce Li: 55:06

Oh, that's a tough one, because I was wrong so many times.

Tonya J. Long: 55:11

Oh, but I know I love that. My last guess Jesse Anglin out of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Yeah, he has a lot of pride in how wrong he has been about AI. Yes, and it's all on time.

Joyce Li: 55:24

What he?

Tonya J. Long: 55:24

saw is his vision and he's got a pretty aggressive vision, but he was wrong on timing for a single time, because things have happened so much faster than we could have forecasted Right, so he's always been wrong. We started out with a Bitcoin story. So Bitcoin from like 2010 Bitcoin, so do you have anything in mind about?

Joyce Li: 55:46

About what's overhyped. About what's overhyped, I do think that video generation tools right now like so much money going into it. I like the virtual world because that has a lot of things to do with robotics and stuff like that, but completely like imaginary video creation. I guess I just haven't got the hang of it why it's so important, ethan.

Tonya J. Long: 56:14

Mollick can make Veo work. But, I can't get the beautiful images out of any of the imagery apps that I want and that I would say is consistently the most frustrating consumer experience that I have, yeah. Is I'm like I want a picture of a teddy bear sitting on a picnic table next to me. That's pretty simple, that's right, and it gives me a dragon flying over the Grand Canyon.

Joyce Li: 56:42

Yeah, it's yeah, I'm pretty sure there are experts on that. So now that we say it, we're going to be wrong. Yeah.

Tonya J. Long: 56:53

You talked about learning in the very beginning. What's something that you're learning right now? What's a skill you're working on?

Joyce Li: 57:03

I'm actually picking up coding again. Oh are you?

Tonya J. Long: 57:08

vibe coding.

Joyce Li: 57:09

I actually think vibe coding is a misnomer, which it's another our long story, but it's definitely, I would say, creating with these type of tools like Cloud, for example, cloud code. I created all these products. In fact, I actually recreated the things that I built when I was having that startup. We spent months on it and now I can build it within a couple of days. So it's really interesting how I can just have an idea and then have a chat with my AI intern or coder and have that done. Of course, the learning process is the most important thing, because it's easy to get something. You can get very confident immediately, but then you go into the debugging and then it will kill you. And then you went through that and then now I better understand how to work with AI. I do feel like that. Just keep learning by doing. It's a very fun thing.

Tonya J. Long: 58:18

But I experienced that too. The debugging process. But for me that's like when I used to have high homes, when I was in fencing, like big houses not the condo that I have here. When I first started buying homes, I bought old homes and I would have to redo everything. It's part of the joy when you're in your 20s, and I think that's when I would develop intimacy with a home, when I had painted all the corners, when I had stripped the wallpaper in the bathroom.

Tonya J. Long: 58:50

Because you know all the curves and all the nooks and crannies of that space. When you've crawled underneath, you know the sink to put in something new, yeah. So I think the same thing about debugging you develop true intimacy with the product you've created as you figure out how to make your vision work.

Joyce Li: 59:14

I completely agree. Anything that you know, you hear people talk about, even if you end up not liking it, such as image creation. Um, you can still develop that level of taste and that taste will come in handy when you determine what's more of a hype, what's more of a tangible benefit for what you do, what you help other to do, without you know, trying it, you know, just get other people's view on it, it's not going to cut it?

Tonya J. Long: 59:47

Yeah, not at all. All right, as we wrap up all this experience, all these amazing experiences that you've been having for the last 20 plus years, they are all leading you somewhere. What do you hope they are preparing you to do next?

Joyce Li: 1:00:06

I want to just play into this bridging concept. Oh, yes, I now imagine all the things in life and work and friendships are like in all these amazing islands and I just jump, hopping across and bridging between them, connecting through them, and I feel like that's the best learning journey and hopefully, during the same process, I share what I learned and help others to build their own bridge. That's what I hope to do.

Tonya J. Long: 1:00:41

I love it. Now you've got some of those bridges already in place for other people to enjoy. So, as we end the session, because there are so many things I wanted to talk to you about and just did not get to Tell people how they can follow you, how they can learn with you, what avenues are out there for them to connect to your work- Absolutely.

Joyce Li: 1:01:04

I would love for your audience to come and say hi and then you know, this is how we got to know each other and maybe we can collaborate more. Linkedin is where I'm very active. Yes, and then I also have a newsletter called AI Simplified for Leaders or Substack. You can also get a link from the linking profile. Excellent, Excellent, Thank you, Thank you, and from time to time, I will be coming on an outstanding show like this and just yeah, just to share a little bit of what I'm going through in terms of my learning journey.

Tonya J. Long: 1:01:41

There's so much there for all, for all of us to, because it is about all of us together. There's less competition now and more collaboration.

Joyce Li: 1:01:51

Abundance mindset.

Tonya J. Long: 1:01:52

Abundance mindset oh, help me out here. Awesome we're. We're giving love to those people that that have taken their time with us today, and so everyone from RESET with Tonya, with Joyce Li talking about living in this technology, but living being the priority. I think that's what today's theme was, because we see it as a pathway for us to do the things, to be with people to serve humanity, and it has been a fun conversation. I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much, Talia. Excellent, All right. So signing off from Pirate Cat Radio, Are you ready for it? Kpcr LP 92.9 FM in Los Gatos. Translator K215GA 90.9, also in Los Gatos. Kmrt LP 101.9 FM in Santa Cruz I need to automate this and KVBELP 91.1, our little baby in production less than a couple of weeks up in Portland. Also, for those of you online, I love you, I thank you, and Joyce and I have tremendously enjoyed being part of your last hour. Thank you so much everyone. Thank you so much everyone.

Joyce Li: 1:03:03

Thank you so much.