Inspiring BIG ideas and deconstructing ambitious projects into smaller questions, core tech, and POCs w/ Ivan Poupyrev & Jamie Lien @ Archetype AI

In this episode of Engineering Founders, Archetype AI’s Ivan Poupyrev, Ph.D. (CEO & CTO), and Jaime Lien, Ph.D. (Head of Hardware & Signal Processing), join us to discuss insights on transitioning as a larger-scale founder team, inspiring big ideas / questions, communicating your product’s thesis as a founder, and how to ensure your actions are tracking toward your ultimate goals & questions. Jaime and Ivan also break down smaller steps founders can take toward answering the big question, how to adapt your product’s narrative as you iterate, communicating complicated theses in a way people can easily digest them, and what the next big ideas at Archetype AI look like.

ABOUT IVAN POUPYREV

Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of Archetype AI where he leads the team in developing a physical world foundational AI model, a direction known as 'Physical AI.' An award-winning inventor, engineer, and technical leader, he has 20+ years of experience in research and product development, as well as interaction design, advanced sensors and natural interaction, mobile and wearable devices.

Prior to Archetype AI, Ivan spearheaded technology development for Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects, Walt Disney Imagineering, Sony, and others. He holds over 100 US patents, has over 100 scientific publications, and has been recognized with the National Design Award, Cannes Lion Grand Prix, and SXSW Innovation Award. Ivan was named 'one of the best interaction designers in the world' by Fast Company, and his work has been enshrined in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum.

ABOUT JAIME LIEN

Head of Hardware & Signal Processing, Jaime Lien, Ph.D., holds a wealth of experience in research and hardware product engineering. A visionary leader with a proven track record in inventing, developing and shipping radio frequency sensing technology and techniques for human perception and interaction, Jaime has an extensive background in radar systems design and signal processing.

Prior to Archetype, Jaime was the Radar Research Lead of Project Soli with Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects and a Communications Engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Jaime received a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, where her research focused on interferometric synthetic aperture radar theory and techniques.

SHOW NOTES:

• Ivan & Jaime’s co-founder story & founding Archetype AI together (3:45)
• What it was like transitioning collectively as a larger-scale team (6:56)
• How to inspire big ideas & what tackling ambitious projects looks like at Archetype AI(9:36)
• Learn how to embrace “crazy” ideas / questions without constraints (11:41)
• Creating a founder team with a diverse set of interests & experiences (13:14)
• Deconstructing Archetype AI’s early-stage big questions (14:27)
• Strategies for finding the right metaphor to describe what you’re trying to build (16:52)
• Why the iterative process is like archeology (18:52)
• The inspiration behind & conversations that led to Archetype AI (20:25)
• How to communicate the thesis of Archetype AIin a way people understand (21:45)
• Unlocking your vision around the core technologies available (24:18)
• Where to start when working toward answering the big question (26:07)
• Use prototypes to see if you idea makes sense in the real world (27:56)
• Frameworks for deconstructing & re-synthesizing your big ideas (30:10)
• What it means for AI to understand physics (32:41)
• Tracking tools for ensuring your actions align with your big question (34:17)
• Archetype AI’s next big ideas (37:29)
• Rapid fire questions (40:24)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Normal People - Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.
• The Overstory - A sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of - and paean to - the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
• What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics - Adam Becker’s gripping book following the battle to understand the meaning behind quantum physics.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/