Call Summary: AI Trading Platform Demo and Austin AI Community Collaboration

Overview

Initial introduction call between Gary and Brian, founder of Foundational Technologies (AI trading platform). Discussion covered Brian's product vision, user research with Gary as potential customer, and shared interest in building Austin's AI community ecosystem.

Key Topics Discussed

Gary's Background and Current Activities

• Community Building Focus: Gary described his natural inclination toward community building, having "built a lot of communities from scratch" and being "nudged for a couple reasons to build like an applied AI community in the Austin area"
• Coffee Shop Context: Calling from Medici Roasting where he was discussing AI automation with a friend who "helped run Joe Lonsdale's podcast and ran Ryan Holiday's podcast for a while"
• Gauntlet Program Connection: Mentioned reconnecting with Ross through the gauntlet program, where Ross has been "doing projects for companies that the company's actually find really valuable"
• Software Engineering Background: Started career as software engineer, now focused on applied AI projects

Brian's Austin AI Community Vision

• Physical Space Strategy: Planning to rent "an office house, kind of like OG Silicon Valley days" supporting "somewhere between 20 and 50 people" with "nice big backyard" and "good living room size"
• Community Philosophy: "If there's too much space, people disperse. It's just not as rich of an environment from an energy perspective"
• Timeline: "My hope is that we'll have the house in January"
• Funding Approach: "We have raised a seed round from Accel. So we're well funded and everything, so we have the ability to move quickly"

Key Quote: "When we were raising, all of our investors were like, you should move back to SF. And I was like, no, I really feel strongly that there's a good AI community here for us to build from and hire."

Foundational Technologies Product Deep Dive

• Core Concept: "Imagine you have kind of like a chat GPT interface to start. Where you can basically flush out, like, you give it a strategy, a high level strategy"
• Strategy Development: Platform works with users to develop strategies "until it reaches its maturity point, figuring out, like, what's your risk tolerance, what's your exit strategy? Do you care about tax harvesting"
• Agent Creation: "When it gets to that level of like, we feel like we have a well rounded strategy that we believe in. Then it will actually build it into an agent"
• Trading Capabilities: "That agent will trade onto your behalf using financial tooling, deep research. On whatever frequency you give it from, like, once a day, once an hour, on a news alert, on a tweet"
• Broker Integration: "We're not connected with Robinhood, we are the broker themselves. So we'll be able to facilitate the trades, the positions and all that, and do rebalancing"

User Research with Gary

Gary's Current Investment Approach:

• "I tried to do more timing market stuff with crypto before, and I don't think it paid off"
• "Stock. I mostly just buy index funds. And a handful of companies that I believe in. Pretty uncontroversial. It's like basically the Magnificent Seven"
• "I would like it to be an autopilot for sure"

Gary's Interest in AI-Driven Investing:

• Expressed interest in entering "a prompt of arbitrary length" describing "the kinds of companies that I care about and believe in"
• "I don't trust that I have enough context to make a decision regarding stock fittings. So having AI help and verifiable logic of how it made us decisions. Seems like it would be nice"

Trust Factors for Gary:

• "Probably a friend that is trusted... being like, I moved my operations to this platform. And I don't think it's a scam. Would probably be important"
• When asked about multiple friends: "More the merrier. At least one, I think"
• Security Concerns: "It's kind of like crypto protocols. They get hacked, and then early believers get screwed. And they don't get paid back. That's a big one"

Usage Preferences:

• Would prefer "using other people's agents" over building his own
• Capital deployment: "Throw a few thousand to see what happens"
• Tipping Point: "Maybe, like, awesome peer reviewed white paper... credible research on the platform... detailed case studies. Before and after... people that were already pretty, doing pretty well... but then just giving like an unambiguous yes. This is a step, function, improvement"

Marketplace and Agent Sharing

• Performance Metrics: "Once your agents hit a certain level of success, we'll have, obviously, performance metrics on your agent"
• Transparency: "You'll be able to see the literal thinking of the agent and why made those trades"
• Scoring System: "We'll also look at what is your risk and volatility metrics and things like that"
• Passive Income: "If those meet a certain set of parameters... we'll allow you to put it on the marketplace where other people can put capital into your agent and you earn passive income from it"

Austin AI Talent Strategy

Brian's Dual-Purpose Approach:

• "We're realizing that a large chunk of the people that would be good creators on our platform are going to be software engineers"
• "Software engineers have dual purpose in our minds. They can be great talent for us. Or they could be great beta testers"

Community Engagement Plan:

• "Opening up our office during lunchtime. We'll have, like, a professional chef. And anyone can come in and get free food at lunch with us"
• "We can bounce ideas off of them. We can test new features with them. We can get, like, really high quality feedback consistently"
• "We'll also open up, like, days for, like, co working. Or they can just, like, co work with us even on their own projects"
• "I want to host meetups there"

Success Metrics:

• "What that ultimately should lead to is that we put Austin on the map from an AI perspective"
• "I want people to think that just, like, [SF] has great AI talent. Austin does too"
• "We have companies that really grow as fast as Silicon Valley companies do. That's like, I think the, the metric Silicon Valley will look at"

Collaboration Opportunities

Gary's January Event with Travis Oliphant:

• Gary mentioned "strategizing with Travis Oliphant. Who Creator of Numpy Sci Fi, early contributor, former core contributor to Pytorch"
• "Probably first event that we do is January"
• Brian's response: "I would love to speak. I'd love to sponsor... I think we could figure out, like, a couple grand"

Mutual Support:

• Gary offered: "I can also help think through if you have certain, like, well defined open role. I can see people in my network who might be good early hires for you"
• Brian: "We're going to start hiring in January, so I'll hold off on that. But what I will do is in the follow up email. I'll put a note of that"

Key Quotes

• Brian on Austin vs SF: "When we were raising, all of our investors were like, you should move back to sf. And I was like, no, I really feel strongly that there's a good AI community here for us to build from and hire"
• Gary on Investment Philosophy: "I don't trust that I have enough context to make a decision regarding stock fittings. So having AI help and verifiable logic of how it made us decisions. Seems like it would be nice"
• Brian on Community Space: "If there's too much space, people disperse. It's just not as rich of an environment from an energy perspective"
• Gary on Trust: "Probably a friend that is trusted... being like, I moved my operations to this platform. And I don't think it's a scam. Would probably be important"
• Brian on Success Vision: "My kind of personal goal is to put Austin on the map from an AI talent perspective. Prove that there's actually a ton of hidden gems here"

Action Items / Takeaways

• Brian: Send follow-up email with action items from the call
• Collaboration: Explore Brian speaking/sponsoring at Gary's January event with Travis Oliphant
• Community Building: Potential partnership on Austin AI community initiatives
• Hiring Support: Gary to help identify potential candidates when Brian starts hiring in January
• Beta Testing: Gary expressed interest in beta testing the platform with paper trading
• Timeline Alignment: Both have January initiatives (Gary's event, Brian's hiring and house rental)

Strategic Context

This conversation represents a natural intersection of complementary goals: Gary's community-building expertise and vision for Austin AI ecosystem, and Brian's well-funded startup with specific talent needs and community space plans. The discussion revealed strong alignment on the vision of establishing Austin as a legitimate AI talent hub, with concrete plans for collaboration in early 2025.