Wisdom From The Women Leading The AI Industry, With Weili Dai of MeetKai

AI technology is a great, challenging space. It has to be disruptive. When we started MeetKai, I wanted a simple description, a “mini-me” just seemed to communicate so much, and the kind of time it takes to build proper AI tech when each of our beliefs and processes is so unique. I do believe anything can be solved with AI.

As part of our series about the women leading the Artificial Intelligence industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Weili Dai.

Chinese-born American businesswoman, Weili Dai is Co-Founder and Chairwoman of MeetKai, the first gender-less AI personalized Conversational Search company. She is also the co-founder, former director, and former president of Marvell Technology Group. Dai is a successful women entrepreneur, and is the only female co-founder of a major semiconductor company. As of 2015, she is listed as the 95th richest woman in the world by Forbes. She has been profiled by CNN International for the Leading Women Innovator Series and recognized by Forbes as one of “The World’s Most Powerful Women” by Forbes in 2014, among many other recognitions. Dai was born in Shanghai, China, where she played semi-professional basketball before moving to the US at the age of 17. She has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley and currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you share with us the ‘backstory” of how you decided to pursue this career path in AI?

Since I was little, I always had a curiosity and an interest in science and math (and basketball, of course!). Later in college, I followed that same path, same passion, and chose Computer Science and Engineering. My two brothers are also tech people. We were already a circle of engineers and geeks, and then I met another one in college, my husband, a man with a big passion for building things. To this day, I carry in my purse a copy of his repairman certificate that he got in Indonesia when he was only 13 years old. We’ve supported each other from the beginning.

One day I told him at our kitchen table, “you have a great dream and vision, let’s learn and get some experience until the time is right to start our own company.” That’s how Marvell, our chip design and semiconductor company was born in 1995. I saw this same vision and passion in James Kaplan, MeetKai’s CEO and Co-Founder. It was like I was replaying a tape! He was my friend’s son, who’s also brilliant with software, and I agreed to support him. I proposed we build AI technology to enhance people’s lives, making it smarter and friendlier, like a mini-me that can make life more efficient, easier and beautiful. That was the beginning of the MeetKai journey.

What lessons can others learn from your story?

I’m very passionate about helping young creators so that their vision and dream can flourish and continue despite complications in areas they don’t foresee at the beginning. As you may know, we created a world-leading company, Marvell, which reached $4 billion a year in revenue and had over twenty design centers worldwide. We truly innovated and provided leading-edge technology to the world during our 20 years running the company. The lesson we learned as tech innovators, and that others can take away, is that areas like administration are not our expertise, but still an important piece.

Thoughtfulness is another key, as any great company requires a team effort, like basketball! Life is not a golf game. Those who know me know I don’t negotiate. I ask how we can help each other, and if we can work together to succeed, we will. This is why we had it all: the best technology to make our customers successful, and as they grew, we grew with them — it was a win-win. Next, entrepreneurs must also know having the best tech and happy customers isn’t enough. You must keep all teams up to speed and bring in people you can trust. Selectivity is key. There’s a reason why Facebook and Google have shareholding mechanisms for their founders to protect shares and avoid the political complications that we went through.

Today we continue to innovate, and we’re supporting dozens of companies. I always say I only have 48 hours a day. We’re approached every week and we’re very selective. We make sure they’re wonderful people before we talk about tech. If innovation and the same values are there, we come together and see how we can help. That can be connections around the world, tech, or financial resources that we’re very fortunate to be able to provide after so many years of hard work.

Can you tell our readers about the most interesting projects you are working on now?

The political tsunami that hurt us in 2016 was also a gateway into our new passion: entrepreneurs changing the world. The majority of our investments worldwide are semiconductor and software related; one I’m very proud of is Alphawave, a Canadian company that went public a few weeks ago in the UK. They were developing the most advanced technology, and we decided to help them in 2019. They had a $20 million revenue at the time, and in this first quarter alone their revenue is already at $80 million.

Also, Next Input, a smaller pressure sensors company, just announced their acquisition by Qorvo Inc, just like Nuvia, also bought recently by Qualcomm. A key company we’ve been working on every day is FLC Technology. I named it FLC after Final Level Cache, my husband’s invention. It’s a meaningful project for us because we set out to change the industry once again and people were very skeptical. We’re now building global ecosystems with great performance and never-before-seen power and cost savings.

We also co-founded Dreambig Semiconductor, my son’s company Danger Devices, and of course MeetKai, a company I’m very passionate about and involved with every single day. James is a brilliant entrepreneur and his work is a true leapfrog in search engine technology. This is the next generation of AI voice search technology, and I see it as a long-term project. That’s something the young entrepreneurs we work with really appreciate. We’re not traditional venture capitalists. We’re committed to working long-term to succeed and making real dreams come true.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

This is a great question. Many have asked me “who’s your mentor?” and I’ve never had one. However, I do have a secret weapon I consider more important, and that’s my upbringing by wonderful parents. My mother is still alive, my father passed, unfortunately, but they always led by example. They taught us how to be great people and individuals with confidence: they believed in me and believed in my brothers. My mom used to say “my daughter is so smart she can play basketball!” Imagine the impact this can have on a young 9-year-old girl starting to play. They never told me you have to get certain grades, but they instead taught me to always try my best.

I grew up with that positive discipline and a loving caring environment that encouraged me to always give my 100% because I knew I could do it! They made me strong, and I’ve always had that special power behind me. And though they never put pressure on us, I just naturally had so much to do for my parents to honor the freedom that they gave us. When we started our company, our kids Christopher and Nicholas were 6 and 4, we were living on our savings, and we were told a big percentage of startups don’t make it. I chose to turn that page and focus on the opportunities instead.

I remember being confident and knowing all I needed was 30 minutes to explain to my customer how I could help them lead the industry with our tech. Every single customer that did business with Marvell increased their sales. Why? If your chip is better, your product will be better! Common sense isn’t always common, but most answers are easier than they seem. I always say “keep things simple and smart.” There’s a simple, pleasant approach to every problem, and you can create successful businesses, fundamentally, from your heart. It’s what happens when you’re helping others be successful.

What are the 5 things that most excite you about the AI industry? Why?

AI technology is a great, challenging space. It has to be disruptive. When we started MeetKai, I wanted a simple description, a “mini-me” just seemed to communicate so much, and the kind of time it takes to build proper AI tech when each of our beliefs and processes is so unique. I do believe anything can be solved with AI.

The last 10 years have seen such progress with more practical, affordable tech, with phones getting smarter, and the beginning of what I call “smart furnishing.” It’s exciting to see advanced software like MeetKai, become the next-gen voice assistant and search engine. Our next step is global usage.

I gave the company one simple mission, and that’s to deploy globally. Users can tell us what they like, and we’ll use that feedback for further enhancement and the later creation of important tech for the future. The future of tech should focus on people’s needs and most relevant verticals beyond the mobile platform, such as smart objects and automobiles, virtual reality, IoT, cloud services, and more.

What are the 5 things that concern you about the AI industry? Why?

A few things come to my mind and an immediate concern is privacy and security. Years ago I was giving a talk at a presidential conference in Israel. I told them 7 or 8 years ago that the world is inevitable, it’s seamlessly connected. How do you divide the clouds in the sky? In our daily lives, we’re already connected and consumers are brewing data to make their lives better and smarter.

When it comes to national security, I do believe government-related data should always be secured. That’s different from the data people generate everyday while living more efficient lives. For example, if I want to be able to order delicious fruits from Mexico or Hawaii, I don’t mind if someone knows my address because of that transaction. Globalized access and connection are inevitable and responsibility relies on the consumer, on empowering the consumer’s choice to mindfully protect their sensitive information in an open field where you have the power to choose where to go.

As you know, there is an ongoing debate between prominent scientists, (personified as a debate between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg,) about whether advanced AI has the future potential to pose a danger to humanity. What is your position about this?

I believe technology needs to be a completely open field with the freedom needed to innovate. We must be able to raise the technology bar without limiting progress, and everybody should be able to dream as big as they wish to. The sky is the limit! As we enhance our lives and implement new disruptive ideas, we have to be mindful of every area that requires our attention, including personal safety and national security, creating closed pipes where needed. When it comes to the consumer, I am a consumer, and I know I want to participate, but I’ll do it carefully. We must keep an open mind and welcome disruptive technology as we carefully observe each situation to remain wise about it. In my opinion, having disruptive AI and next-generation technology is simply great for humanity and the world. We just have to do it thoughtfully and safely.

What can be done to prevent such concerns from materializing? And what can be done to assure the public that there is nothing to be concerned about?

It’s all about how we educate the public about what we could achieve when changing the world for the better, thanks to passionate, disruptive creators and entrepreneurs. We continue to grow through innovation. Inventions are how we thrive and raise the technology bar. Moving forward as we implement new disruptive technology, we must address our concerns with an open mind and without limiting progress. If we boxed technology decades ago, we’d live in a less advanced world today.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share a story?

We’re very fortunate to have built such a successful company and we’re very thankful for having had a great team, it’s been a team success. But at the end of the day, it’s more about why we did it. We wanted to build a wonderful company, doing business in a beautiful way, and that was always our foundation and philosophy for success. How do you make sure you’re consistent with your mission and purpose? There’s something I learned from my parents at a very young age, and that is: fair and care. Whatever you do, you have to be fair to those around you and genuinely care, think of ways to add value. The way I engage in business with my partners is focused on how to support and help make them more successful. Of course, it’s common sense that if your customer or partner is more successful, so are you! You can close an amazing deal, but they won’t come back to you if your product isn’t the best.

When it comes to creating and delivering the best, bringing true goodness to the world, education is very dear to our hearts. We believe in the schools that are shaping young creators and world leaders of tomorrow. That’s why we’ve stayed involved with UC Berkeley, the school we went to, for example. We helped their engineering department build an important tech building to combine chip design, software, biology, research, social science, chemical engineering, and nanotechnology, all the sciences under the same umbrella.

I also love supporting female entrepreneurs. Women in science and tech are very dear to my heart because we do need more support and recognition in an industry that can be very challenging. I got involved with Lark Health (www.lark.com) 9 years ago when Julia Hu approached me. I helped a startup that I believe is on the path to becoming a big global company in a couple of years. I made an exception with her at a very busy time in my life as I was running Marvell, and I’m so happy I was able to contribute. As always, my husband and I work Saturdays and Sundays and we do it gladly, as we believe in the evolution that passion, determination, and a little help can sometimes bring to the world.

As you know, there are not that many women in your industry. Can you share 3 things that you would advise to other women in the AI space to thrive?

First of all, you must believe in yourself, there’s nothing you can’t do because you’re a woman. Women and men equally carry one-half of the world, and I believe different talents from both can create even greater accomplishments for humanity. We’re in a different world now, we’re more open-minded and know how women can contribute. It’s no longer a question of whether or not we could — we can do it all, we can succeed, and we can lead any industry. This is a fact.

Years ago at a women’s event organized by Hilary Clinton, I led a panel and invited technology leaders, government officials, and professors from different industries. Everyone saw these women representing all these industries and got my message: we’re not just talking, we’re delivering leadership. I remain hopeful and passionate about our contribution from multiple angles and visions. We can be practical and powerful in anything we pursue, especially science and technology, even AI, as long as we’re passionate.

Can you advise what is needed to engage more women into the AI industry?

I like keeping things simple, giving simple examples for a reason. When we say we’ve created a mini-me with MeetKai, technology that can improve your daily lifestyle… how can something like daily life, important for both men and women, not have more women involved? Women are natural multitaskers and designers, we understand AI should be friendly, and it can be used to create lives that are much more pleasant. Our valuable input when creating progress for humanity has never been more clear, but it’s only complete when we include both men and women’s vision, when everyone participates.

What is your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that had relevance to your own life?

It’s definitely “fair and care.” I use it every day when doing business, as well as with family and friendships.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Empowering young entrepreneurs to develop disruptive technology and be at the forefront of innovation. If our technology is beautiful, efficient, and better, the world will also be more beautiful, efficient, and better.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

They can follow MeetKai on Instagram (@meetkaihub), Facebook (@meetkaihub), and Twitter (@meetkaihub).

Thank you for these great insights! We wish you continued success.