Paul Ai Allen’s Post

Hiring my friend Chris Higbee to run Workplace AI is one of the greatest accomplishments of my career. He and I worked together at Ancestry in the early days -- then he went on to form or help lead more than a dozen amazing companies -- including many you've heard of. I truly believe that millions of leaders, managers and employees will soon be able to become better and do far more than they ever dreamed possible -- as Chris shapes the Workplace AI platform into one of the most amazing human productivity platforms ever imagined. Today, I might be the single most active user of Soar Scribe. But that might not last. Thouands of people are discovering Scribe. They are turning off other AI note-taking apps and switching to Scribe -- which does so many things no other AI platform does. I am confident Chris will shape this product and company into something that will elevate the workplace experience for people all over the world -- helping millions of people feel the rush of achievement, the joy of accomplishment and the satisfaction of self-improvement.

This poll will only run for 24 hours. I’m looking for a dozen people who are willing to sign up for FAMILY SCRIBE right away and schedule and conduct their first video interview(s) with one of their relatives THIS WEEK. Why? I’m giving a keynote and demo of Family Scribe at a genealogy conference on Saturday and we would love to have early users trying what we’ve built and helping us make it better quickly. We literally expect millions of people around the world to use Family Scribe (by FamilyPortal) in the coming years to capture stories and memories from people they love.

Do you know a founder that is great at executing — but needs help with ideas and inspiration about what to do and how to do it? I’ve been obsessed with studying successful founders and companies for more than 25 years. Gary Hoover is arguably the Worlds most knowledgeable person on this topic. Maybe he’ll collaborate with my team on this. It might be time to unleash an IDEA AI to help the founders and starts ups who need it. My team can build this in October if there is a lot of demand for it.

Who is your favorite philanthropist of all time—and why? Andrew Carnegie and James Smithson are among my favorites. Jonas Salk also comes to mind though his contribution came in a different form. Chuck Feeney went all in and is a huge inspiration. MacKenzie Scott has been extraordinary generous with her portion of Amazon’s wealth. Who else is worth noting or celebrating?

Today I asked GPT (premium version) where the fitness center was in the hotel I’m staying at in NYC. It answered correctly — 4th floor. I habitually turn to ChatGPT for most questions now. I’m curious how many others have seen their search habits change.

Definitely check this out if you have revenue responsibilities. AI might be your best friend.

What do you do when you realize that most of the foods you’ve been eating your whole life are VERY UNHEALTHY? I’ve probably downed 2-3,000 boxes of cold cereal in my life. Maybe twice that many. Since my mom didn’t often buy the good stuff, I would save my paper route money, and buy boxes of Cap’n Crunch -- hiding them under my bed so my seven siblings wouldn’t take them. As an adult I’m known for eating cold cereal any time day and night. When Ancestry moved our HQ to San Fran we used to stock the company’s shelves with all kinds of cold cereal. I even flirted with the idea of open a chain of “cereal bars” since I love cereal so much. I’ve argued (facetiously) that it’s impossible to be depressed after eating a bowl of fruity pebbles. My favorite cereal now is Reese’s Puffs. But my diet is about to dramatically change. I’m going to try to dramatically reduced my reliance on ULTRA processed food with added sugars and many unhealthy ingredients such as seed oils. I’d like to get rid of all our food that contains seed oils. I’ve worked hard to get in good physical shape. During the last two years I’ve lost 25 pounds by living mainly on protein shakes (probably not a good idea) and eating fewer meals, and by running a couple miles a few times a week, lifting a bit, and now trying to do a lot of push ups. When I eat, I eat what I’ve always eaten. Now, for the first time in my life, I’m starting to pay attention to what good nutrition is. I’m reading “Good Energy” by Casey Means. He’s been an advisor to RFK Jr. who is trying to focus national attention on making our population healthy once again. My daughter is helping us create the database needed to launch a personal nutrition AI, which I will soon be able to use, hopefully while shopping or eating out. If there really are 1,000 ingredients in the U.S. food supply that are banned in other countries, we’ll need a super intelligent personal AI to guide us to better options. Many of my neighbors in rural Missouri grow their own food and eat extremely healthy. I plan to do more of that soon also. And yes, Soar will have a gardening AI tool in the future. If you’ve thrown out food before and made a firm commitment to eat more healthy or to avoid certain things, please post in the comments about what you did and how it went.

Brilliant.

I was on POTUS radio on Sirius XM last year and the interviewer asked me about my life work — including co-founding Ancestry and my work at Gallup — and he asked me what I wanted my legacy to be — what I wanted to be remembered for. I love a certain scripture verse that tells us to “lay hold upon every good thing” and I spontaneously said, I want to be known as an evangelist of “all good things.” I love finding good things. I love building good things. And I love sharing good things. A good future is here, it’s just not very evenly distributed. One of the BEST things I’ve found in my entire life is Dr. Donald O. Clifton’s book Soar With Your Strengths. Within that book is an amazing section called “Five Clues to Talent.” He published this book several years before the StrengthsFinder assessment was online. Please please please make sure every person you know and love goes through the Five Clues to Talent and asks themselves how those principles apply to them. Don was a genius at identifying human potential and classifying all human talents. The “Five Clues to Talent” was a gift he gave us all along the way. It’s insanely valuable to know this stuff. Many of our strengths are invisible to us because we’ve had them our whole lives (and we often assume everyone else does too). Don’s insights in Five Clues can REALLY help you realize where you should be focusing your time and energy.