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to another episode of the Innovation Conversation.
Today we are joined by Hunter Earls. Hunter,
welcome to the podcast. Yeah, thank you, Ricardo.
Hunter, would you like to introduce yourself
to the audience, please? Yes. So my name is Hunter
Earls. I am a 17 -year -old in Louisville, Kentucky.
I'm going into my senior year of high school
right now. And really since like eighth grade
and even in grade school, I've been doing a lot
of investments, but also entrepreneurship with
different companies, crypto, all in this sort
of tech space. And now, I mean, obviously we
met over LinkedIn and I was absolutely impressed
with what you're doing, which is history. AI?
AI? Yes, so currently I'm actually working on
two different projects right now, one of which
being Hashtat .ai, which is where you can talk
to historical figures through AI models, right?
So you can talk to Aristotle, George Washington,
and they respond in their vernacular, right?
Something fun that I did is I gave Aristotle
my English paper, right, to look over and he
goes, Ostow, you know, inquire about my writing
services or whatever, you know. So it's just
a really fun thing to do there and that also
gives such a deep insight. to the different people
and it uses, you know, historical facts and stuff
like that. It's just a really fun way to learn
about history. And how did it come up with the
idea? Basically, last year, our junior year,
we are required to take different theology classes
at Catholic High School. So we had to take a
moral and morality and ethics class. And through
that class, I learned a lot about ethics and
all these different philosophers. I'm like, this
is great fun, right? So I started reading about
philosophers. And like I was talking earlier,
I'm like, it'd be really, really cool to be able
to have a conversation with Aristotle or one
of these people and give them different moral.
dilemmas and see how, what would they do with
the Charlie problem, right? Or how would Nietzsche
reply to, you know, whatever, right? So I was
just like, why don't I build out a service for
where I can talk to these like just philosophers,
right? So I was originally going to have something
called moralist .ai. I do all this work and I
make it. And then I had a look back at the domain
and it's gone. And I'm like, oh my goodness,
I just lost this like whole thing. And I went
and checked everything. I'm like, okay, well
now we got to pivot here a little bit. I ended
up just switching it to be more general, which
I feel like has helped more because it has such
a larger audience and more people are going to
be interested in that compared to some philosophical
thing that might be interesting for a few seconds.
Oh, you get your question answered. Okay, cool.
Now you move on. But then you're able to play
around with so many different figures. Where
do you learn to code? Was it in school? Yeah,
basically ever since like even sixth grade I've
been like, you know on computer games whatever
people always mention like oh you like games
you should do like computer game programming
or something, right? So I sort of was following
that same idea I got a computer myself and I
was playing around with it It was fun to make
stuff, but by no means was I any expert, right?
We do like Minecraft servers and I had to teach
everybody what a file is to upload their Minecraft
mods So we all could play modern Minecraft together,
right? And then I would like teach myself like
I remember in sixth grade, right? I was learning
while loops And once I got there, my sixth grade
brain was spry. It didn't know what like the
most basic loop was, right? And then eventually
over time, I sort of started picking it up a
little bit more and more. And then in school,
I've been taking some of like the AP computer
science classes and those definitely helped,
but they weren't necessarily to the same depth
I was using, right? Like the same time I was
using AP Java to make say some class for animals,
I was coming home to code web apps that will
like use ChatGBT and all these different API
integrations, which is definitely a few steps
ahead of what we were doing in class. Interesting.
And then, you know, how How hard was it to build,
you know, past AI? Yes. So basically when I was
going into the whole like AI web app thing first,
right, I started with a smaller project, AISATitle
.com. I was in my English class and he's like,
okay, you know, you can use like AI for your
stuff, whatever, but like... you know, don't
just turn it into a chat chibi TSA or anything.
But he did say we could use it for like ideas
for titles, right? So I'm like, hey, why don't
I just make one that would be basically generating
titles, but at a much more detailed level where
you can put in a lot of parameters and get a
different output, right? So I'm like, that'll
be simple, easy. Still took me like two months,
right? And I'm like teaching myself all this,
get like a template, plug some stuff in, use
all the resources I have. And then eventually
that's out. I'm like, okay, we did something.
And then, you know. move on to this next larger
project, which has now taken several months.
But being in school, obviously, has made it take
a little bit longer. You know, just some other
things there. But what's been the response of
the audience? Like what have people totally like?
Because obviously, I love the idea. I thought
it was a brilliant idea. Also, it's very engaging
to actually be able to talk with, let's say,
Socrates or something like that and actually
get their feedback or Shakespeare and just understand
the way they think. What's been the response
of the audience so far? So it's actually pretty
interesting. I've talked to a lot of people and
when I mentioned like the business side, they
see it more of just like a one -off sort of like,
oh yeah, it's fun for like 30 minutes, right?
And then it's like, okay, now what? And then
I've also talked like, oh, well, what about bringing
it in schools? And then I also get feedback from
other people being like, well, that's going to
be really, really hard, especially with the school
system, you know, being really, really tight
and they don't have necessarily always are going
to have the funding to support a project like
this or something. And then other times it would
be like, oh my goodness, this is so cool. Like
they're just love history. They think it's such
a cool idea and being able to do all these things.
So it's pretty mixed. and I think it's pretty
interesting to talk to one person one day who's
just like yeah I mean maybe you should just like
you know keep your options open and then the
other person's like oh this is so so cool so
what has been like the biggest lesson so far
biggest lesson I guess it's just like understanding
that I don't know everything which I mean it's
kind of like obvious I was going into that knowing
that but I'll be like oh yeah here's this simple
feature right let me just teach myself user authentication
real quick and then months later I'm like okay
you know what that took a little bit longer than
I thought it might have and just sort of coming
in with, oh yeah, it'll be done in a week and
then it turns into however long. I feel like
it's just pretty eye -opening for me. Who's helping
you out? Do you have anyone helping you out or
are you just building this from scratch? Yeah,
so me personally, I've always looked around at
people like, oh, in school, like, hey, do you
want to work on this together? But often the
time is, oh, I don't have time. Or even if they
do, it's like, Well, how are they going to help?
Like they haven't, you know, necessarily done
all the programming or all the stuff that I had
previously, right? So it was kind of hard for
me to find anybody that I'd be able to work with.
Well, same time, same understanding, right? Same
goal, same mission. I want to do all this stuff.
So I often found myself working on all of it
alone. Like I'd share with my classmates. They're
like, oh yeah, that's cool. And then like even
like, I remember mentioning it to some friends
and actually like, yeah that's whatever like
kind of lame like you know as if because they
aren't doing it so like when I do it it's not
a school you know. Interesting so you don't don't
but okay just so I understand is this school
really into tech like do they actually have a
curriculum for tech or not not so much? So not
like it's a lot of it's an all -boys school right
so it's going to be like very math science heavy
and all that sort of stuff but in terms of like
the tech computer science classes there aren't
necessarily a lot of people like I would consider
myself one of the more interested into computer
science right we have like robotics we have like
AP Java and all these computer science classes.
But like last year, my junior year, I was taking
AP Java as the only junior in the class, with
the rest being seniors who were going to go to
just study engineering. They're just doing it
for fun. So I only really met one person through
there who was a year older than me, who we were
able to actually like talk about and share ideas
because he's building his own project and it's
kind of interesting to talk with him. But really
most people are just caring more about their
grades than necessarily like projects outside.
Like yesterday I was talking to some guy, he's
like super smart, like 36 ACT, you know, like
all of the crazy AP classes and everything, but
he doesn't have any of the time to work on the
cool projects. He's like, man, you're getting
all these opportunities from these cool projects.
You know, that's so awesome. I only have whatever
five point million GPA, you know. So what's your
idea for this app? What's your plan? Yeah. So
for this app, basically what I currently have
is I have a list of different like vice principals
and principals, and I'd like to email them and
basically see, hey, how are you using AI in your
school to help your curriculum? And then from
there we can sort of go, well, hey, I have this
web app you can use. I looked at another thing
I sort of just generated really quickly for like
AI teacher lesson plan generator, right? So the
teachers are going to be able to go in there,
make their lesson plans, make some stuff. Like
just make it easier on them and it's like, oh,
if I'm saving you all this time and we can also
get you this other product for free, right? You
know, sort of make a deal that way would be very
nice. But definitely, you know, B2C. But B2B
is going to be the biggest one, right? Because
if you're only getting say $20 a month from one
customer, even $20 a month is kind of a hard
sell for just such a niche. Like only, you know,
just talk to the historical figures. It's like
when in your day are you expecting to do that,
right? Sort of like, oh, when are you going to
integrate a quadratic function, right? Or do
like trigonometry. It's just sort of more for
the fun of it and to be able to do it, but in
school it has that more use case. So that's sort
of why I'm pushing more to them. And also you're
going to be able to negotiate larger deals, right?
If you're just trying to sell like say one or
two clients to pay $20 a month compared to one
or two schools, which pay thousands of dollars
a month, considering how many students they have,
even if it's $1 a student, right? Something like
that. I'm curious on one thing, cause you know,
we're still in high school. Where did this entrepreneurial
spirit came from? because you should just be
in school and study like how that came about.
Are all your colleagues like this or is it just
you very much a go -getter? Yeah, so I definitely
have a lot of friends who are in a similar space
as me. Like I was talking in eighth grade, we
were doing some crypto stuff. We had and investment
like group basically with like crypto so we'd
like go up and pitch eighth grade like boardroom
at the front of the board with like a presentation
that we made the night before about crypto blockchain
talking about all of that and it was just sort
of like an interesting experience to be able
to be on that side and then also to be able to
do like crypto investing and this is in like
2022 right bitcoin's not a hundred thousand dollars
then right It was doing its first bull run, so
when we see it peak down from 60 ,000, we start
freaking out because we're in the eighth grade
with all our money in crypto. But one day I actually
made $1 ,000 trading. I thought I was so cool.
None of my parents cared, and I'm like, what?
This is insane. And then, of course, the next
day, it's like, well, I'm in eighth grade or
trading crypto. What am I doing? So I didn't
necessarily end the best there. But yeah, and
then from then, I just understood that in computer
science, or any sort of tech field, you can't
just like... do like the AP class and then just
apply to take it like just there's so much waiting
that I'd have to do and there's no reason I couldn't
start now and in terms of tech I've always understood
like if you want to be able to make a bajillion
dollars I end up using that phrase a little bit
too much now but you're gonna have to sort of
have your own business and I sort of see with
AI the amount of necessary employees going down
and then the amount of like revenue sort of going
up so you're gonna have maybe like a thousand
companies with ten employees compared to a hundred
companies like a thousand and then if you just
start one of those companies, right? There's
so many like different ways you can poke it and
then you'd have like in terms of revenue per
employee is going to be like say tenfold possibly.
So why not? I guess it's gonna be so much harder
to be one of those employees. So if you can just
be in the position where you're able to start
something where that could be the case, I feel
like that'd be a lot better. I'm curious on one
thing because obviously you have the same opinions
as someone who's been in the industry for decades.
Where did you learn all this? Was it just in
school or like you spent a lot of time online?
What's the story? Yeah. So, I mean, I would say
now I was talking to somebody a few weeks ago
and it's just like the information has become
so democratized with all the Internet stuff like
I've grown up my entire life watching YouTube
videos and TikToks or whatever. I mean, I'm not
really on any of the short form social medias,
but I mean, I woke up today at like eight and
I just started watching YouTube for like two
hours and then I fell back asleep, you know.
So definitely I've just like learned a lot through
that. I've talked to people and I feel like it's
just sort of Easy, I guess in a sense because
it's like, oh well here I'm just gonna be on
Snapchat, Snapchat by friends and then I get
a video of like, Andrew Tate giving me his like,
new business plan or something, you know? And
I'm like, oh, that's kind of interesting or you
know, however you want to spin it there. But
just to be able to get all this different information,
even sometimes like unintentionally. And then
also myself, I'd read like, starting in freshman
year, right? I was coming in and I'm like, you
know, new high school student and everything.
So I started reading like a lot of different
books and basically it was like once every other
week, right? and then now I'd read like say 40
and they all were non -fiction right they're
completely like I guess the most geek books like
Headwood Friends and Influence People, Atomic
Habits by like James Clear you know all the really
really like non -fiction I guess more like intellectual
books like I was reading like philosophy like
Epictetus's Discourses and Fragments right so
I feel like I've learned a lot of stuff from
there and then also writing out all the notes
and really sort of studying a little bit on that.
It's quite impressive. I mean is it hard to find
a community? because you're still in high school
is it hard to meet friends who actually are into
the same type of stuff you are it's actually
quite quite easy with the internet and all that
i mean it definitely is a million times easier
going to be with the internet like i could just
join some discord group where it's like hustlers
university or something you know um like that
but i've also found that just if you go to people
who are really really smart right they're going
to be really really smart and be able to have
like a lot of interesting ideas and i again you
know watching another video right I feel like
I do this a lot now on YouTube and it was basically
just showing like the importance of how much
businesses value IQ and to be able to see that
and some of the people I was hanging out with
was really really really interesting and how
they can just like look at a problem and intuitively
understand what the best best step is. I mean
even yesterday I was hanging out doing some synthetic
biology team through the University of Louisville,
all the people there, they think, oh, I'm all
cool stuff because I have whatever projects.
They're like, what? You get to go to Bright Portugal
for the Startup Summit. And I'm like, yeah. But
they're also taking Calculus BC like last year.
And I'm like, I don't even know how to do that
next year. So where do you see yourself? This
is actually going to be a lot of fun in five
years. But where do you see yourself in five
years? So right ideally like next to my next
step here, right? Just immediately is gonna be
going to college after high school and my biggest
thing there is just not having debt because like
I was saying if I want to be able to have some
sort of software Thing like that and then I graduate
with $200 ,000 in debt. It's like, oh well now
I'm forced into whatever job and that's pretty
fun But if like I was saying earlier, I'm not
gonna be able to find this job in software engineering
Not necessarily gonna be the case, but I'm not
gonna say it's a zero percent chance, right?
Yeah, and I'm $200 ,000 in debt Then what right
so my biggest thing is going to get some sort
of school. That'll be good I was looking at University
of Alabama for instance pretty cheap a lot of
great opportunities there So I'll probably look
somewhere like that get something cheap be able
to pay for it completely almost by the time I'm
out so that way I'm not stuck with whatever debt
being able to build a software product Honestly,
I'd love to do something like that in college
if at all possible Well, you know the AI feel
is quite busy right now so people are getting
crazy salaries Signing bonuses. Yeah LinkedIn
Reels, it's not necessarily the best for me,
but I keep hearing about the billion -dollar
deals. I mean, there's plenty a lot smaller than
that that you can still get, or if you manage
to build something as big as the ones they're
building, why not? It's not accessible, it's
just a matter of doing it. I'd like to think
that. I feel like I always say, I hope so, when
people are like, oh, you're going to be rich,
and I'm like, yeah, well, I hope so. There's
so many variables. We're quite young. So the
thing is, it's all about the attitude. The better
attitude you have, the higher the likelihood
of it. What do you have to build in the future?
What's your next company going to be about? Do
you have any ideas about it? See, I was talking
to this other guy. For the past month, since
I've started posting on LinkedIn, getting a little
bit more outreach, I've gotten a lot of people
reaching out to me who are also just more willing
to meet, right? So I was talking to this one
guy a few weeks ago now, and he was just like,
I can tell you're an ideas guy, right? And just
a little bit, and you're going to be getting
a lot of ideas, and then go just test stuff out,
build, build, build, and get feedback on that.
I mean, I'm actually working on a new project
with one of my friends, 36ACT, right, for tutoring
and like SAT, ACT studying. So I think that might
be what we're working on right now. And I think
out of all the projects, this has had the like
coolest to me personally, and also the most interesting
and best model. I don't mean to talk about it
a crazy amount or anything. I mean, we're just
sort of getting some stuff going for it, but
yeah. And I'm assuming you're incorporating a
lot of AI for this certain project. Yeah, basically,
sure, the tutors upload their questions, right?
So like, here's we'll make their own questions,
they upload them to the site. And then people
are able to use the questions for free. If they
really, really like these questions, or the video
explanations that could be attached, they can
then book directly with the tutor through our
app. And then we get percent on that. And then
they can also pay for your monthly AI insights.
So that would basically be how it would be. And
it'd be like, oh, you keep doing this many questions,
you know, your score is going to improve by this
much. And it's just always shown the more questions,
practice questions you do, the higher score you
get. So as long as we keep getting good practice
questions to give them and they keep getting
practice, they're just going to improve their
score. So, I mean, there's no real loss there.
And, you know, what do you do when you run into
a challenge, like a massive challenge? You're
trying to learn something. It doesn't work. What
do you do? Well, I think it definitely depends
on my mood because some days I might just go
and play Minecraft. I don't know if I can say
that or not. but yeah I feel like also a lot
of the times now with again all these technologies
that I'm now growing up with right I basically
yesterday right I was talking about the synthetic
biology thing I'm doing at University of Louisville
and it was this huge packet they gave us like
I don't understand any of it it's the most dense
scientific protocol thing I've ever heard that
they're supposed to be doing today I'm like I
don't get this so I found the PDF online right
I put it through chat you see I'm like tell me
what I'm doing here like you know I don't know
so when I when I get a challenge or something
that I'm like really confused on or I'm just
like, I don't know what to do next. You can write
it out and you might be able to understand some
of it yourself. But when you're really able to
get it to these like artificial intelligence,
almost to be able to sort of work through some
of that for you can always help. But always understand
at the same time, it's not a genius. And the
more you use it doesn't necessarily make you
smarter. Like they were shown with the studies,
right? The people who use AI to write their essays,
they had blessed brain activity. And that just
necessarily isn't going to be the best way to
always go about things. But in terms of like
Oh, I just don't know what to do next for my
user authentication. Check with you. How do I
break out user authentication to five steps?
And then, oh, my domain record isn't verified.
What am I doing wrong? And it's really helpful
and almost like a walking you through in some
scenarios where it's able to pretty well. But
there's a lot of, I mean, a lot of the questions
just told me about a lot of challenges. These
are things that you would learn traditionally
from experience. However, if you have AI that
just tells you this is how you fix that problem
and you don't need to spend 20 years learning
all the variables of the problem, just have the
AI tool. That's actually a pretty cool thing.
So I don't think that reduces your brain power
if anything actually increases it because you
can then fix multiple problems. that would traditionally
require someone a lot of years of experience,
actually multiple people with a lot of years
of experience to fix them. And you just put them
all in AI, problem solve, you can then move on
to the next one. It can build bigger and better
things much, much quicker, which is always good,
right? Yeah, for sure. I think definitely it
just becomes a problem when you're sort of, it's
like you're removing yourself almost from it
and you're having it do all of it. Like if I
were to just get, oh, I have a problem and it
gives me the code to copy and paste in. Like,
obviously that can help. But at some point it's
like, Well, you never learned how to do it. Now,
next time when you try to use user authentication,
you're just going to have it copy and paste over.
And it's not going to be the same scenario, right?
If we're going to run into some errors, it's
not going to be configured the same. I mean,
maybe there's some sort of work around. But at
some level, it's best to break it up in steps,
work through. And yes, you don't need all that
experience, which definitely helps you go faster
through it. But maybe the trick is at least this
way. I think it's not about your ability to gather
information because that's all online. It's all
available, but it's about your ability to use
that information to be able to fix problems,
right? So if you're able to do that, that's it.
That's all you need. It's the same thing. Like
if you're the CEO of a massive company, you're
not going to know everything about everything.
You're just going to know how to manage people
and then pick the right one to manage that problem
and get the problem fixed. That's kind of it.
That's the role. Yeah, for sure. All right. And
I'm just thinking, all right, discuss your future
options. You're going to go to the University
of Alabama. Have you tried applying for any major
companies like Metta or something like that?
Honestly, I hadn't even had any of those thoughts
crossed my mind. I feel like I've just been so
focused on a lot of the things I'm doing, but
also in terms of big tech. Like if, for instance,
I went to apply to go to Metta, I mean, not necessarily
now, I wouldn't think, but in the future. I mean,
I feel like that would just be such a great idea.
Got an opportunity, well, possibly like an opportunity
to go and do a show at Netflix like I was talking
about earlier. Well, I wasn't talking about earlier,
but - You were talking about meet early, but
not on camera. So yeah, basically that would
be such a great opportunity if I'm able to meet
a lot of the people at Netflix and then, oh,
I want to get a software engineering job at Netflix
after I just got this huge intro talking about
tech and my startups and everything, right? That
would be a great place. And I understand like
I'm not opposed if by any means to some sort
of big tech salary, like I'll take that. But
I also at the same time would want to be able
to work. on my own projects, just some sort of
like exponential growth potential, you know.
Makes sense, makes sense. Hunter, I always ask
the same question, but this might be weird because
you're technically underage, but if people want
to reach out to you, find out more about, you
know, past AI and stuff you're doing, what's
the best way of doing so? You have LinkedIn,
so I'm assuming it's going to be LinkedIn. Yeah,
so I would say LinkedIn. I'm by no means the
best at emails or anything under that umbrella.
Yeah, I feel like LinkedIn is a great place.
Reach out, connect. I'd love to talk more. Sounds
good. Hunter, thank you so much for your time.
I'm very much looking forward to interviewing
you again in five years time. Yeah, thank you.
All right. Thank you. All right. Bye. The podcast
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