Tan Le Emotiv on EEG earbud Neurotech: "It's happening NOW!"

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]When you think about the way in which we study science, right, neuroscience and when we study the brain, there was something so fundamentally wrong with it. We only study brains when something is wrong with it. We actually do need wearables to make an impact because we need day-to-day [music] longitudinal tracking and trends to actually gain the insights towards the interventions that need to be made or at least raise the red flag of hey you're not eating very well, you're not exercising and because of that your cognitive function is going downhill.

[00:00:30]>> Do the interventions but we have to do it from when we're our age and younger.

[00:00:36]We can't wait until we're 65 and older to start in with all of the interventions, right? We have to start tracking now and start to stay cognitively healthy and build all of that resilience [music] in earlier.

[00:00:51]>> Hey, I'm Dr. Cody, a US Navy trained psychiatrist, and for over 12 years, I have been obsessed about how we can use neuroche wearables to optimize brain performance. Today's guest is actually someone who helped me start that obsession. Over a decade ago, I sat in a National Geographic event in Washington DC where Tan Lee was presenting a vision for the future of brain tracking. This was still in the early days and it's unbelievable how far it's come. Since then, she's become a global leader in the field and has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and many other publications for her work in democratizing neuroscience. Ton is the CEO of Emotive and today we are diving into their brand new brainware software.

[00:01:37]We'll discuss how earbud based brain sensing is moving from the lab into your daily life right now to help you track focus, stress, recovery, sleep, and many other brain health metrics. If you want to know what the new frontier of mental performance looks like, you don't want to miss this. So, let's dive in.

[00:01:56]>> Todd Lee, co-founder and CEO of Emotive.

[00:01:59]It is such a privilege to talk with you today.

[00:02:02]>> Oh, it's so fun, Cody. I've known you for such a long time and so wonderful to be here with you in the studio.

[00:02:07]>> Well, I have a story for you. When I was first getting started on YouTube trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about it, talk about it was trending towards neuroscience, but then I saw Emotive, the website, and it totally blew me away. And chance was that you were actually coming to speak in Washington DC where I was doing my residency program at their um museum for National Geographic and I went to go see this talk and so you spoke about democratizing neuroscience and had your device on stage and I believe it was 2015 or so. So it it left a huge impression on me and being able to sit down and just have a conversation with you is a total full circle moment for me.

[00:02:52]>> Amazing. Amazing. So I was National Geographic emerging explorer in 2013 and funny story was when I received an email from National Geographic. Um it was uh to commemorate [sighs] oh gee probably 125 years or something like that of National Geographic I have to remember I have to get the numbers right because it was a very long time um of um National Geographic celebration and um they wanted to commemorate this this amazing milestone and um for that anniversary they um they wanted to celebrate what it means to be an explorer. And so I guess this redefinition meant that they were opening it up. And so they included brain science as this definition. But you know, I grew up as a little girl marveling at the photography in National Geographic, those those yellow books, right? You remember those? And I just in my mind in my little mind at that time as a little girl seeing those yellow books still in my mind's eye when I received that email it just didn't compute for me. I thought no way you know I couldn't possibly fathom becoming a member a part of the National Geographic family. So when I first received that email somehow I just kind of glanced over and thought oh no this can't possibly be real. I couldn't possibly be a national anything to do with National Geographic. It must be you know fake. And then I thought maybe not.

[00:04:35]And so I a few um you know at the end of the day I kind of looked at it again took another look and I thought maybe there is [laughter] something here. And then uh yeah I guess that was it. Well, I mean to put things into context, I mean when you listen I've listened to your TED talk before and you spoke about your story of actually having to leave Vietnam and getting to Australia and that was not an easy childhood from what I understand.

[00:05:00]>> No, it wasn't. And uh yeah, we left Vietnam when I was four and I grew up in Australia, thus my accent still very Australian as you can tell. And um yeah, I I grew up and was raised by a single mother and I grew up with my sister. And I think uh growing up with a family of three, this is one of the reasons that got me into neuroscience actually. So um when I was in my early 20s, one of the things that really I I I learned very quickly as I started to to read about neuroscience is this massive burden that we have of neurological impairments. So one in three people are impacted in their lifetime by some sort of neurological condition. Right? And that that number is so sobering. when I was raised by a family in my tiny little family of of three. Obviously, it's just a statistic, but that figure was terrifying to me to think that maybe one of us could be affected in our lifetime.

[00:06:03]And so, when you think about the way in which we study science, right, neuroscience, and when we study the brain, there was something so fundamentally wrong with it. We only study brains when something is wrong with it. If you think about it, you have a seizure or you have a sleep disorder, you have a traumatic brain injury, that's the only time when you actually look at the brain, right? You we only that's that's really when the only time when we study the brain when there's something wrong. If you are an abledbody person, if you are healthy, you're normal, so-called normal, you don't actually ever get your brain scanned.

[00:06:40]And yet the brain is a a system that is designed to evolve over the lifespan. So it's not like your heart that only changes within um a very narrow range, right? It your brain is designed to evolve and change in order to adapt to to make you more efficient at what you do. So, your brain um you know, when you're in your 20ies, it's going to be when you're running around, it's going to be really really adaptive to your movement, right? Because you're you're a fit and running around, you're going to have um a very um a brain that's adapted to uh coordination and muscle coordination, whereas a brain that spent time um coordinating your your teams is going to be very very different. um and and to to to managing teams and and leadership is going to be very very different. Um so that or a pianist brain is going to be very very different and so thinking about how our brains are wired to optimize for how we spend our life means that it is ch constantly changing and rewiring itself which means that no two brains are alike. that inter uh subject difference is so important as well as the inter intra sububject difference right so my brain over my lifespan is also changing so if I'm not tracking my own brain over my lifetime that means that when something happens to my brain if something was to happen to my brain it's too late right I have no idea no my doctor my physician ition has no idea what my brain looked like before. And so by the time they look at it, it's kind of just an N of one, right? It's kind of late. Um and so you're they're comparing it to a population data which really doesn't have um it's normalized to a general population, but it's and we know that that study is so broad, right? And so this is this is this is one of the the big challenges that we have in science.

[00:08:59]you don't have personalized information and we can do so much better and this was what catalyzed my um desire to move into neuroscience right we needed to do so much better [snorts] and so I started a motive to do that right we wanted to change when why how where we started to um and this is why you went to my my um my talk because we wanted to democratize neuroscience research fundamentally change how, why, when, where we actually study neuroscience and put it into the hands of researchers globally. Um, make the fundamental tools um available to everyone globally so that it is so much easier to study the brain in the context of the real world. And we've done such a great job of that, right? We've put this technology. I I remember at the time when I first um started looking at the brain, the best tools available to us when we first uh started researching EEG and using uh EEG equipment, the tools uh for um let's say a research tool, a bio system, which was the some the systems that we used to use in our research lab uh in Australia were in the tens of thousands of dollars and uh a clinical system that we would benchmark for our studies was a neuroscan system uh that was in you know $60,000 plus right and a biommy system was in the $30,000 range and we um re released our system for sub $1,000 and so um that was a really really big um big deal to be be able to take the price down by such a massive margin margin in order to democratize the fundamental tools. Um not only uh in terms of the cost and affordability factor but also in terms of making it so much more mobile, right? Making these systems wireless so that we can actually put it out into the real world so that we can actually measure the brain in the context of the real world because context matters as well. We didn't want to just measure the brain um in a lab environment. I actually wanted to see the brain in action because I think that also really matters as well. Right? Your your brain the context actually matters a lot. And if we can actually measure the brain while you're trekking up a mountain, what does that actually look like? Right? when you're in the classroom and exposed to information or you know when you're actually interacting with people and exposed to that all of those noise elements that actually helps us understand the noise profile in order to build better models.

[00:11:52]Uh so all of that is uh are things that we wanted to study and better and and understand and also the longitudinal vector right that's really important.

[00:12:02]>> How have you seen public perception change between when you started and and now? what's different?

[00:12:07]>> Oh my goodness. So, I think so much has changed. I have been in the space as you know for a very long time. And I think the first thing is um you know at the beginning it you know it wasn't really a wearable thing. It was more of a um the first piece is it was more about tools that were more wireless and portable.

[00:12:30]Now I think we're moving towards a world where the form factor has evolved considerably and that is the very first movement towards a wearable a true wearable form factor that allows us to consider something that I've always wanted to reach eventually. Um obviously our ultimate goal is to reach uh consumers but you can't really immediately go to consumers in my opinion because we need to be underpinned by true science and unless and consumers um as much as I love consumers I believe that consumers can only be properly served if we are we have true science underpinnings because consumers don't want to spend the time to deal with, you know, getting the signals clean, right?

[00:13:25]Consumers want to get outcomes. They want to get really good insights and they want to have things um served to them in a efficient way, but they don't want to spend the time to do the research. And so this that's where science has to to spend the time to to advance the the discovery. And so that's why we spent so much time over the last more than 10 years supporting the underlying science discovery because we needed to do that first in order to solve for the noise profile of what does it look like when you actually deploy EEG systems which are un fundamentally very very noisy in the field in the context of the real world. What does that noise profile look like? Right?

[00:14:13]When you are when you've got a very high signal to noise ratio, when people are wearing it in the context of the real world, what does that noise ratio look like so that you can actually build better machine learning models? Right?

[00:14:27]When you've got a lot of inter subject variability, how do your machine learning models need to look to counteract that? Right? when you've got um intra sububject variability, when you've got degradation in the fundamental machine learning models because there is a fundamental shift in the in the brain itself, right? You're when you're building a machine learning model and the brain signal in the person is actually changing, it's it's degrading because their brain signal is also changing daytoday. How do you actually counteract for that? If you don't have the fundamental science that can deal with that because you you don't have the understanding of that, the consumer product will be very very poor. Right?

[00:15:15]And so you can't do that without the fundamental science that underpins all of that. So the consumer product will be pretty bad um without that >> really really strong backbone >> that supports all of that. And so yes, I think ultimately this the consumer is where we you ultimately want to serve, but you need the strong science underpinnings um at the beginning. That science foundation provides that validity and that credibility that supports the industry long term. Um so this is where I think we need to go next and now it's really exciting because the industry is ready for a true wearable form factor and we are starting to see that now, right? We're starting to see a very exciting time and I think the neurochnology industry itself is starting to be at an inflection point where we're starting to see some new exciting wearable form factors whether it's um in-ear form factors where you can wear something that's very inobtrusive uh or a headphone form factor that yeah I can totally see that uh consumers will be very comfortable and um excited to wear uh devices like that to support their everyday use cases, whether it's to understand their sleep patterns better, right? Whether it's to support better sleep, um whether it's to support focus, whether it's to better understand their stress and recovery. Um all of these um systems are very very important because the burden for us, as I said, is enormous. We need to solve this this [snorts] challenge because we are going to have the second billion people on the planet that's going to be 65 and older and the [clears throat] the burden of neurological impairments is not going away. It's going to get bigger. Right?

[00:17:15]We are we've already got a billion people on the planet that's that's got a lot of challenges um associated with cognitive and mental health. Um, and these challenges are only going to get even more pronounced in the next, you know, by 2050, right? So, and it's that's coming fast and furious. So, we we we have a big challenge on our h on our hands.

[00:17:42]>> I've been thinking a lot about the longevity aspect of it lately because just looking at EEG and how variable it is from day to day in one person, >> yes, >> is really surprising. So, I think that people don't understand how much variability there is in brain signals, especially when you're looking at EEG.

[00:18:00]Um, maybe structural MRI is much more consistent from day to day, but uh would you say that the longevity patterns are important for the [clears throat] long the day-to-day patterns are important for longevity marketers? Yes, it is very and and and I think this is why as we start to I think everyone wants to live a longer and healthier life and you can't have longevity without thinking about your cognitive well-being. That is the the largest gap that we have right now.

[00:18:37]We've done an incredible job with our cardiovascular health >> and we've done we we've done miracles with that. But I think where we need to really spend a huge amount of effort now is to solve the equation for our cognitive and mental health because that is the that's the biggest gap that's going to be the elephant in the room because we haven't solved for that at all. Our our biological brain was not built to last 100 plus years. And we're solving we've done everything we've c we can to solve for the physical body. And this organ here is this the last piece that we've got to solve for. I think we can solve for it, but we're not doing enough right now. We have to start tracking it. And I think we can, but we we're not investing enough in the instruments that allow us to track and do the interventions, but we have to do it from when we're our age and younger.

[00:19:40]We can't wait until we're 65 and older to start inter with all of the interventions, right? We have to start tracking now and start to stay cognitively healthy and build all of that resilience in earlier. And we can do it. We we we've got the tools now, right? EEG is a great um tool to be able to start looking at your brain and start tracking and measuring because it's it's very affordable. The the tools are in the hundreds of dollars, right? These these um devices are now very very easy to wear. They're, you know, in the a consumer form factor in a price point that's very very affordable for for most uh people. And so, um, it's no longer an affordability or a form factor. That's a friction point anymore. It's now about awareness. And, um, I think it's pretty exciting.

[00:20:34]>> Well, I think it's interesting how wearable started out as either fashion or health wellness type devices. But the further we get, I think that the medical industry is waking up to the fact that we actually do need wearables to make an impact because we need day-to-day longitudinal tracking. Exactly. And trends to actually gain the insights towards the interventions that need to be made or at least raise the red flag of, hey, you're not eating very well, you're not exercising, and because of that, your cognitive function is going downhill. We need to sound the alarm and make some changes.

[00:21:06]>> For sure. And and I'm not saying that it's a it's a one it's a a single thing, right? It absolutely our body is a system. It's a holistic system. And so it has to function as a whole. But right now we're we're treating it as a um you know, I'm only going to work on my physical well-being. And I'm only going to work on my my um my food and my consumption of food, but I'm not going to measure the actual system that I'm trying to target itself. Right? stress and my cognitive balance. I'm not actually going to think about how I use my brain and the stresses that's causing that that or I'm not even going to measure my attention at all and my attention span. So, I don't even know how that is affecting uh how that's going right because that's the first thing to go as well. So, we need to actually start tracking all of these things and measuring things, these these components um that helps us understand how we're tracking along.

[00:22:09]>> I was looking at the new brainware software that Motive is working on. Is that sort of the guidepost that >> Yeah. So, what we're what we're trying to do is the way that we think about it is it's a brain coach, right? The the idea we the reason why we call it a brain coach is because you have to do the work. Your coach is there only to give you to to to provide you with the the information that you need to help you one. It helps you to measure right the key measurements that are important to you to surface the information that you need. Then it helps you to understand what those measurements are are. Right? because some most people don't understand and so you need a coach to kind of help you understand and unpack what those things are and then we have a training right so um and training takes time and so you you've got to do the work no one can do the work for you but the the play elements we've got this um these this component that is a a play which is a longer form experiences that makes it more fun um to to engage because we recognize that without the longer form experiences, it's really really hard to actually um get the benefits and so you you do need to spend the time to do the work, but it's not a 24/7 experience, right? So you can what if you only want a short experience just to see how you are doing, you can just spend the time to measure and so you can just measure and understand that's fine. If you want to train then you can spend the time to train and it can be fun training experiences or you can just do the two right measure and measure and understand that's enough as well. So it really is up to it's >> why would you say that training train is training like what's the value proposition?

[00:24:02]>> The the training is kind of fun because um the the way that we're first um so the the way that we measure uh is a a range of cog it's kind of cognitive assessments as well. So they feel like cognitive assessments so that we can actually help you understand. So some people have told us I really want to know how my memory is right. I really just want to know and they they've said I care about my memory and so in that case we will you can just test your memory and so if it's really bad you'll you'll actually know that it's bad. But if it's not bad then and it's just an attention thing then you'll just know it's just an attention issue right that fine [laughter] it's not a memory issue.

[00:24:43]If you are paying attention, then you don't have a memory issue. But if you're not paying attention, then um it's a and it's a it's an attention issue, not a memory issue, right? So that you've got to be able to separate the the the issues and and um not confuse them. And so being able to have um the the the clarity as to what it is. So we we we help you your coach is there to help you understand. Um you have very specific focus sessions. So some people just want to improve their their focus, right?

[00:25:16]They want to get into the flow and so you can while you're working you can just go and measure those sessions for yourself. So you can do a free free style pomodoro session. So you can people some people like to work that way and they you can just go and do that cuz I like to do that. I just want to know how long can I work for? And that way I can for me I enjoy doing deep work sessions and I know that when I'm struggling when I'm stressed out the first indications for me is that I struggle to stay in the zone or have long I can't just I can't work for as long and stay in a productive state for long periods. And so that's my first signs that I'm just more tired. And so I will take more time out to rest and take breaks because that's for me that's my first clue that I'm I'm just in a more frenetic, more fatigued state. Right?

[00:26:14]But that's I know myself and those are good measurements for me that help me um have a more restful weekend. Right? So there are things that you will learn about yourself um that give you um so my my way to rest is I go for swims which is really really great for me and I I find that after I go for a swim I can do a nice long work session and I have a really nice focus time which is great.

[00:26:42]>> [snorts] >> Yeah, I think it's interesting how human work is starting to change as AI comes on the scene and >> you know we need to guide AI by being creative ourselves and I think a lot of people don't think about how much creative energy you actually have in a given day that it's actually much less to most people give it credit for and measuring these things I think will educate >> yourself on how much cognitive energy you actually have to accomplish tasks or be creative but also lead the discussion you know globally as well.

[00:27:10]>> Yes, absolutely. Um and then the training you should try it. It's actually really really amazing. Um we also you know one of the things that we really enjoy um and a lot of our community uh which we pioneered I don't know if you've watched my one of my very early TED talks around um BCI um but we we also have were the very early folks to introduce BCI. So um BCI is a very unusual thing. It gets a lot of people interested in the space. Um but it's also a very um demanding cognitively demanding task. It requires a very clear focused idea in your mind. It requires a lot of clarity, but it also allows you to train um a specific concept in your mind that you can use over time as well. And there's a Twitch streamer, Perry, that has been able to um do some very very fancy um controls with very very challenging game play. Um she's beat, you know, Elden Ring, right?

[00:28:25]really really tough game um that she's been able to win just using mental commands um like a BCI, a non-invasive BCI. Now that's super hard. Um you can play now a BCI with a twochannel EEG with Brainware. Uh we have a really fun experience that you can you should try it. Um it's really incredible. Um >> so just to back up so the audience knows what we're talking about. So, we're talking about brain computer interface, >> which >> there's been a bit of a distinction lately of neuroch versus brain computer interface where neuroch from what I understand just has to do with any technology that has to do with the brain. But with brain computer interface, we're talking about telekinesis, the ability to affect what's happening on a screen in front of you or maybe in the future, in the near future, control a robotic arm, that type of thing, a drone with with thoughts in your mind that communicate a clear signal. Now, is this becoming more feasible with artificial intelligence and machine learning? Is that >> part of the technology behind it? And where are we at? and where could that go? My other question is, do you think that BCI is going to become more popular or is it going to be more health tracking for a while or is it going to be both?

[00:29:44]>> I think it's going to be both. Okay.

[00:29:45]>> I think it's going to be both. I think obviously with the advancements in AI, especially with massive amounts of data, you can do all of it. All of the above, right? Because um the the obviously the the greatest kind of unlock is in a universal model, right? A universal decoder, right? So essentially a foundation model approach to to decoding the brain. So so what that means is a lot a lot of people have been throwing out the term a foundation model for the brain. Um but what a lot of people when they say that they've used that word very loosely. Um, and in many cases what they're talking about is essentially a machine learning model or a conventional machine learning or they're talking about a deep learning model. So it's still a a single model that is designed to do one thing. When we say a m a foundation model, what we're talking about is a universal model, right? So a when you when you think about a foundation model, its property is that it should be able it should be a model that it's able to handle a multitude of downstream tasks.

[00:31:06]Right? So it should be able to be trained to handle a number of different tasks with no additional like with zero shot right on a zero shot basis. So let's say for example um I give it um a resting state EEG, I give it epilepsy, I give it attention and I give it um BCI with zeroot inference. It's still able to classify all of those.

[00:31:40]>> Can you break down what's zeroot inference?

[00:31:42]>> It basically means that you haven't trained it, right? You you haven't trained it labeled data, right? That this is what it is. you haven't supervised it to do all of these things, right? It's self, it's a self-supervised model. It's on a zeroot inference. It's able to say, "Oh, I've kind of figured out this is what these things are."

[00:32:08]And then you can then go back and you can then obviously help it a little bit more, right? And then it does better. But on a zeroot basis, it can still do a pretty good job on multiple tasks that on that basis. Yes. Then we can say that this is a a reasonably good this is a true like it has the properties of a foundation model. Now if you if you're only training a single m deep learning model, then it doesn't really have the properties of a foundation model.

[00:32:47]have the flexibility, right?

[00:32:48]>> So, it has the flexibility to do a lot of different tasks. So, I think that if um and so when you say that is it going to be just a can it do brain computer interface, can it do um health and wellness tracking? I think it can do all of it. Um and I think it won't be a one or the other. I think we'll be able to do all of it and it it will be a very exciting new frontier for for neurochnology because we'll have all of these options available to us. What is the vibe like to be in San Francisco right now and in Silicon Valley area when people are talking about neuroch?

[00:33:32]Because I mean this is just AI ground zero so you're seeing it firsthand and how is it applying to the conversations around neurochnology and emotive in particular?

[00:33:43]>> It's very exciting. I think it's the most exciting time for us because there's just so much um there's just a lot of momentum at the moment. there's so much growth in many many different facets and components of our business at the at this time. Right? So obviously we have for us the we have a very strong foundation with the research community that that continues to flourish because that's that's already in over 140 countries and that that community continues to thrive and continues to publish a lot of new research. Um we also have a very strong um B2B business um with enterprises that continues to um build as well which is very exciting. Um but also, you know, we're starting to launch Brainware, which we're excited about, and we're building this um this foundation model approach um to decoding uh new, you know, it's essentially new approaches to to to decoding the brain.

[00:34:52]And so I think it's it's very exciting.

[00:34:54]It's a new frontier. It's a new way of of looking at how we can actually understand um uh the brain across you know a whole raft of different questions we can we can start to ask and it's only made being made possible because we have done so much groundwork um and we've had the we've had the patience to do this you know for for such a long time it's not something that we can do overnight it's not something that we can launch today and say Oh, I want to build a foundation model by, you know, launching a product today and collecting, you know, some data today.

[00:35:31]That's not possible, right? Because you do need a a lot of data in order to build um a foundational model, right?

[00:35:38]You you need a huge amount of data in order to build to build a a a model like that that has the capacity to um to discern and and have the the ability to to do so many different tasks. But I do think that it is a very exciting time for us at this point.

[00:35:58]>> Yeah. And it's been really exciting to watch Emotive make waves with some really I from my perspective pretty high-profile projects. You guys had projects come out with L'Oreal and Clorox.

[00:36:09]>> Yes, I know. And I saw at the Super Bowl. I was really surprised at those commercials. It was really exciting for us too.

[00:36:16]>> So what did you learn from working with companies like L'Oreal and Clorox? You know, one of the things that's really really great for us in spending so much time working with enterprises is the fact that it does make us have a very strong security posture. And [snorts] so, you know, one of the things that is very important um in this neuroex space is obviously the data security component, right? And the fact that we have worked with large enterprise clients means that you know we have to be ISO 27001 compliant, GDPR compliant. You know we have a lot of um heavy compliance requirements on us and operating at that scale just makes us more secure as a as a data provider, right? And so it just gives us a level of assurance that makes us more um comfortable and confident in safeguarding our customers data. And I think that's good as we start to think about moving into the consumer domain because this is a this is an industry that needs to be built on trust and um respecting our users and transparency.

[00:37:36]And I think that's something that's been very important to me. I've been very um active in in a lot of the dialogue very early on as as we've built Emotive. I've been active with the World Economic Forum, with the OECD, with so many councils over the years. Even as a very even very early when emotive first started, I I felt that as pioneers in this industry, one of the most important things to to do is to invent this space, but also to be stewards of the of the industry. And so in order to be active participants as we invent, we also need to to care and nurture this space into a way into to making sure that you know we are positive contributors right into improving the state of the world and to usher in you know the vision that I wanted right ultimately it's about making the world better and I when I first started it was about making sure that my family and the future generations health is safeguarded. So, it's very important to us that we do this right. And so you know I I'm really really happy that in many ways working with these big companies it has forced us to be very very buttoned up in so many ways way earlier than we want cuz it's not it's very it's somewhat expensive to have all of these extra compliance layers. that um it has actually been um now in in hindsight with all of these extra things um done it's kind of nice because we don't have to go back and do it now.

[00:39:18]>> Yeah, that's I've heard conversations around hey we need to safeguard data and that's obviously really important for multiple different reasons. You know you don't want people not being able to get healthcare insurance for example because they have a disease that was detected by EEG for instance. There's a couple other examples that Nita Farenhani talks about in her book, Battle for Our Brain. Um, I'm sure you've spoke with Nita.

[00:39:40]>> Oh, yeah. She's she's the chair of our um our GFC, our global future council.

[00:39:45]Yeah. I we I was just talking to her this morning at 7.

[00:39:47]>> Absolutely. Yeah. I just saw her last month. [laughter] >> So, there's also a Neural Rights Foundation that put forth uh legislation in Colorado and I think has been adopted by several other states now and is actually getting towards the federal level at this point. any opinion on how that verbiage has been crafted? Do you think it's up to par? Do you think that there need to be things added?

[00:40:08]>> I I think that we're watching the space very very closely. I think that everybody is is working to safeguard the the interests of the consumer, right? We we all want to make sure that the right interests are protected as we move into this space. What we also want to balance is that the innovation is protected because as we mentioned before the burden and the need is really really really great and so we don't want to curtail the the ability for companies to actually help the people that actually need the help. Right? So there is a balancing act that has to happen. Right?

[00:40:53]We we don't want to um stop the good work from happening and at the same time we don't want the bad things to happen, right? We don't want the unintended consequences. Um, and so this is just a a a an a balancing act that has to happen as we go through and make sure that whatever we however we word these documents and however we consider the policy considerations, we just have to, you know, the the the great minds that are putting these things together will need to strike a really really good um balancing act between all of these considerations because I think ultimately we all have the right interests at heart, but it's really about making sure that we protect the interests of the con the consumer and the users of this technology whilst making sure that we do ensure that the the needs are being met because there is a growing need for this, right?

[00:41:55]>> Yeah. We were talking earlier and it's just amazing how actually somewhat tight-knit the neuroch community is right now and everybody that you know we talk to going to conferences seem to be on the same page but at the same time you know as it becomes more popular there's obviously going to be other companies >> that I think what's really important to recognize though is that we we don't want to get ahead of ourselves from the standpoint of um thinking that the technology can do more than it hand, right? So, whilst it can actually decode a pattern of what you're teaching it to do, say a a set of patterns associated with um uh the idea of closing and um a hand gesture like this, right? It doesn't mean that I can when you think of a I don't know of cat a cat that we can actually think that we can't think of very very specific concepts and so there is a very big distinction between very discreet ideas and conceptual things and the there are so many other advancements and private information that you are disclosing in.

[00:43:19]so many other parts of your life.

[00:43:21]There's so much more private that you are sharing um and in other parts of your in other parts of the technological realms that is um more dangerous potentially than what you potentially could be sharing with the non-invasive neurochnologies that you might be using.

[00:43:42]So I think there's um we just need to watch what we are how we're thinking about this as well. So, I think there's just got to be we need to be you've just got to be sensible in how we understand the technology because we don't want to get ahead of ourselves as well.

[00:43:57]>> Yeah, you make such a good point cuz when I look at those YouTube comments sometimes I'm seeing that people have the wrong idea about where we're at.

[00:44:05]Yes. But legitimate concerns definitely being raised.

[00:44:09]>> Yeah. The other thing that I've seen lately that is really exciting is high school students and college students reaching out and just wanting to get involved in the industry. And it's just it's so exciting.

[00:44:20]>> Is it so exciting?

[00:44:21]>> There is a um an 11year-old boy that just reached out to us and he has been just doing so well. It's just really exciting. the the amount of ingenuity that I am seeing just makes me so excited about the future generation and you should totally encourage it. We we should be encouraging the the next generation. We just um supported some neuro um discovery grants at Emotive. We we're going to make that a regular thing. It was up to $20,000. I think we've we've given out the grants for for this last round, but we are doing um they will be coming out on a regular basis. But yes, please send them our way. We we are always very excited to support um scientists, researchers, young minds. It's just it just warms my heart to see it. It's just really it Cody, it is one of the most exciting things to see. And we need people from all walks of life. You can't even just say we need neuroscientists because we need material scientists. We need >> software programmers, AI experts. It's just need all hands on deck. We need to improve this technology.

[00:45:35]>> Absolutely. Absolutely. But if you did have someone that hadn't picked uh niche or a strong point, is there something that you lean towards that is needed more than than others in the development of the field or what what is your advice generally for someone that is that young that hasn't really chosen a major or started developing a specific skill set?

[00:46:00]I think it's about if there's one thing I learned from talking to the the young man who was he he really struck me it's about understanding the customer need. There's nothing more important than walking in the shoes of the the the user understanding your user well and the pain point that is the most important thing right that there is nothing more important than that because that's where your the insight comes from >> that's the advice from an entrepreneur >> yeah that that that is no nothing is more valuable than that because if you have an intimate knowledge of the painoint then you will you will find many different ways to solve for it and you can there are many ways to solve for for a customer painoint but I think having a true understanding of that is the most important thing >> well I think that's a mirror of the world to come right I mean just relying on one major one job might not be the best bet at this point when AI is at your fingertips and you can create so >> it's more about identifying problems and attempting to solve them rather than just this is my major, this is going to be my job for the next 40 years because that stuff's going away.

[00:47:23]>> I agree. I think so. [laughter] >> Well, what are some other uh projects that are coming up for a motive in the near future that we can look forward to?

[00:47:32]>> Well, I highly recommend that you have a play with um some of our latest uh uh Brainware >> uh experiences. I think you'll find them really really amazing, Cody. Yeah, I'll definitely test them out. I so appreciate you sitting down with me today to have this discussion and uh the access to these wonderful technologies and I can't wait to make more video content about the stuff that Emotive has been working on and thank you for >> Oh, my pleasure.

[00:48:00]>> Yeah.