Every investor told Mike Rizkalla to put ChatGPT inside his product for toddlers. He told them that was like handing a bazooka to a three-year-old. They funded his competitors instead, and within a year, Mike says, some of those AI toys were talking to kids about sex and how to make bombs.
Mike is the founder and CEO of Snorble, a screen-free smart companion for kids that runs offline, has no camera, and lets parents set the routines and values. He's been building AI products for 15 years, had his first one acquired by Google in 2010, and before any of that spent 11 years as a punk rock guitarist who turned down a record label that wanted worldwide rights to his band. Brennan asks him why generative AI isn't safe for young kids yet, what it cost him to say no to that capital, and what every parent should check before buying an AI toy.
They also get into the KPIs Mike says broke social media, the AI tool he says caught 3,500 predators in a single day, how he runs a hardware company with his phone off from bedtime to school drop-off, and why half his team invested in the company, including people he'd already laid off.
In this episode:
• Why generative AI isn't safe for young kids yet
• The investor pressure to "just use ChatGPT," and what saying no cost him
• What to look for, and what to avoid, when buying AI toys for your kids
• Why cameras in a kid's bedroom are a hard no
• The three KPIs he says broke social media
• The AI tool that caught predators, and why big platforms passed on it
• What his punk band taught him about building product
• How half his team ended up investing, including people he'd laid off
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:10 Welcome Mike Rizkalla
01:29 What the punk rocker would tell the CEO
02:45 The band rule behind how he builds product
05:07 Why there's no such thing as an MVP
07:24 Shipping hardware through Covid
09:58 Is hardware the only moat left?
12:00 Why Snorble said no to generative AI
14:11 A bazooka to a three-year-old
15:11 Why AI is risky for young kids
17:26 What he'd tell the CEO of Mattel
20:47 Why AI went from lab to production too fast
24:23 Our KPIs are wrong
26:43 What parents should look for in AI toys
30:09 Predators and plausible deniability
32:40 Why cameras don't belong in kids' rooms
35:07 Running a company with his phone off at night
37:46 The team members who invested after layoffs
42:58 When a 10 million dollar commitment fell through
49:59 The 22-inch cookie that got his band on TV
