Everyone Gets A Software Company — Benjamin Guo, Zo Computer

AI Engineer · 15 min · 231 sentences · from YouTube's caption track

Each timecode opens YouTube at the start of that sentence. Line anchors (#s42) are the cue ids in the WebVTT, and every line carries its start and end seconds. All transcripts has every talk, and the whole corpus as one file.

00:01[music]
00:12Hello everybody.
00:13I'm Ben from Zoho Computer.
00:15I just posted on X from my Zoho.
00:18You know, I'll be giving away $100 in AI credits and I do all sorts of stuff with my Zoho.
00:23This is my computer.
00:24My Zoho is my computer.
00:26And before I get started, I made the site just now while I was waiting to get started presenting.
00:31This is a kind of overview of all the speakers in today's claw session.
00:35You can scan this QR code and check it out.
00:37I've got some useful links in here, but also I've got like some deep research on everybody presenting including their recent thoughts, links to their profiles and websites, blogs, etc. So, scan this.
00:49It's super useful.
00:50I just made it just now.
00:52This is my computer that you see right here, my Zoho computer.
00:54I'll be talking about it and this talk is about kind of Zoho and a lot of things.
00:58It's also about kind of personal agents, personal cloud agents in particular, which Zoho is one instance of and kind of the future and where I see all of this going.
01:09So, a little bit about me.
01:13I'm the co-founder of Zoho.
01:15My name is Ben.
01:16I started my career on the early Venmo team back in 2013 and um I met my co-founder Rob at Venmo and I left Venmo to work at Stripe quite early.
01:25I was one of the first I was the 80th engineer and my co-founder Rob, he went on to build Substack.
01:30He was the first engineer there.
01:32And a final fact about me as you can see is that I really love computers.
01:36I'm dressed up as a computer.
01:39And I like to start with this like fun fact about this finder icon.
01:43So, this icon was designed by Susan Kare, an early graphic designer at Apple Computer and many people don't know the story behind this icon, but it actually represents the human, this white face, and the machine, this blue face, and they're kind of like in happy
01:59harmony.
02:00And I think that is what we should aspire to as we build AI tools for people.
02:05Like humans love tools, humans have always loved machines, and like when we feel at one with our machine, we feel like this.
02:11We feel happy.
02:13So, who like me misses the way that computers used to feel?
02:17Raise your hand, right?
02:18Like the early internet, like your first website, your first PC.
02:22Right?
02:22It used to feel different, right?
02:26Today, the internet and our computers feels more like this.
02:30We are swimming in the sea of applications and sites and services and it's not great.
02:38And on top of all of that, they're jacking up the prices on these things that we use, often because of AI features that we didn't ask for.
02:48And I think quite reasonably, consumers or I'll just call them regular people are upset or confused or scared of AI.
02:57So, Computer is based in Brooklyn, we're in Bushwick actually, kind of like the heart of hipsters in New York, and you know, there's a lot of this out there.
03:07I see a lot of this kind of vandalism over AI ads in the city.
03:12On top of all of that, this is what our industry looks like.
03:17But the deeper root of why this is bad is is a structural thing.
03:23It's what we call techno-feudalism.
03:26So, basically, feudalism was this like kind of shitty system back in the day, and though it no longer exists, it still is alive and well in our digital lives.
03:36So, we are still the peasants, we pay rent to the SaaS providers who pay rent to the cloud providers who pay rent to the kings who are, you know, like probably Nvidia these days.
03:47And because we are peasants, our lives are shitty.
03:50We are fragmented between all these different tools.
03:53There are various services that we use that lock us in and and shitify over time.
03:57Like that PM at that product that you use is not incentivized to make your life better.
04:02They're incentivized to improve their bottom line, to monetize your attention, to take your data, lock it in, and sell it back to you.
04:10And because you don't own anything, you are a peasant.
04:15So Zo, our mission has always been to solve this by giving people a real home on the internet.
04:22And we believe that most people in the world are kind of living in the Matrix, and we're trying to show people a better way.
04:31So Zo is alive and well.
04:33We've been out for about a year, and real people are using it.
04:37Real regular people like Charlotte, this LA-based private chef and life coach.
04:42She hosts her websites, she has multiple websites now, on Zo.
04:46Zo manages her invoices and her accounts and bookkeeping and her scheduling and her notes.
04:52And it's just like amazing system.
04:54It makes her feel like clear and calm and on top of the world, and it's fun.
04:59As you can see this text that she sent me.
05:02So what is Zo?
05:03Zo is a personal cloud.
05:06We've never really had a personal cloud before, but it's quite simple.
05:10You have your own home in the cloud.
05:11You're not using other cloud services.
05:13You have your own thing.
05:15You put your stuff in it.
05:16You put your AI in it.
05:17And because it is a place in the cloud, you can host stuff in it.
05:22You can host services like websites or APIs, and they're all yours.
05:29And I think for people in this room, if you're like interested in clouds and personal agents, like your personal cloud might look something more like this.
05:35You might have like a suite of local devices.
05:38Um and for me, I have like this like Zo computer, this like cloud computer as well, which has my Zo agent on it.
05:45It also has a Hermes on it, and it has my services.
05:49I have many websites and APIs and things that I've built, all hosted in the same place, and it can also talk to my laptop or my Mac mini, or I can use it on my phone.
05:59And that, collectively, is my personal cloud.
06:04So, Zoe is a personal server with AI built in.
06:08It's It's quite simple.
06:10And it hearkens back to a simpler time.
06:13So, back in the day, this is actually how we built and hosted websites.
06:17We just FTP'd our files onto a server, and that updated our website.
06:22You were just shipping to prod.
06:24You're like always doing it live.
06:26And that's actually, I think, how most people should build.
06:29I don't think it's necessary for a regular person like Charlotte to think about deployment.
06:36Unfortunately, for many of us in this room, this is probably what your life looks like, actually.
06:42You're kind of just navigating between these different AIs and devices and SaaS services, and it's very confusing.
06:51Zoe is meant to be a simpler way.
06:53It's one place for all of your stuff and your AI and the stuff you host, all of your personal stuff in the cloud.
07:03Here's another case study that I'd like to talk about.
07:05This is Anthia.
07:06She was one of our early users.
07:07She's totally non-technical.
07:08She's a free-diving instructor, and she's already on track to make $100,000 on Zoe.
07:14She used to use all of these different SaaS services to run her business and her life, like Squarespace, like Calendly, etc. And now she's replaced all of that with Zoe.
07:25She's canceled all of those SaaS subscriptions.
07:28She is no longer a peasant.
07:31Anthia went from this, kind of being very confused and having her data in all of these different SaaS silos, and not really being able to connect them very easily,
07:42to this.
07:43So, Anthea not only hosts her retreat website on Zo on a custom domain.
07:48She has many different websites now.
07:50She has her personal workspace that looks like this.
07:52She's really into fairies and like drawing and mushrooms and she's like expressing her whole self and her creativity online in this new way that we kind of really haven't had as regular people for a long time since like the '90s.
08:06And under the hood, like all of those sites are just the tip of the iceberg.
08:11So, when Anthea gets somebody who's interested in a retreat, Zo texts her with their number.
08:17Anthea now immediately calls them at that moment of intent to buy.
08:21She texts her Zo, "Give me a payment link."
08:23And she closes the deal right then and there.
08:25And that is how she is actually booking much more revenue than before with these retreats.
08:30Like her retreats are now like actually kind of hard to book because there's too much demand.
08:35And that's amazing.
08:35And under the hood, she has a database for all of her retreats.
08:38She doesn't really know what a database is, but she has one.
08:41She has all of her notes, all of her accounting, and it's all in one place.
08:44If she has like some images from a retreat and she wants to put those on her website, she just tells her Zo to do it and it's like right there.
08:50She can like host files directly from her personal server.
08:54And she is self-hosting everything.
08:58So, Zo is made to be simple enough for anyone, for people like Anthea, for my parents, for other people's parents.
09:03People are always telling me on like LinkedIn or X that like they sign up their parent for their parents to Zo and their parents are like five coding up a storm.
09:11It was awesome to see.
09:11I just got this message on LinkedIn the other day.
09:14Our caterer uses Zo um to kind of manage his staff at his restaurant.
09:18Our recruiter uses Zo as well.
09:20He's really into it and he's like kind of building a whole He's like rebuilding his his stack for his recruiting agency on Zo.
09:26Our marketing agency has become Zo-pilled.
09:29So, it's made for everybody.
09:31But it's also powerful enough for the audience in this room.
09:35It can be the home for your Open Claw or your Hermes.
09:37You can have a really nicely set up server to host your personal agent in if you use one of those tools.
09:43You can bring your codex or Gemini or etc. subscriptions and you can build and host anything.
09:48You have like root access to your own server to this very nicely set up Linux VM where like the networking is also like very well set up and you don't really have to worry about any of it.
09:57You can SSH in and you can control your Zo via API or MCP.
10:02So, very flexible.
10:05So, scan this QR code if you haven't yet uh to get $100 in AI credits.
10:10Um just try Zo.
10:11I I think you'll like it.
10:13And I'm going to do a little demo and then I'll have a little bit more to talk about after that.
10:18Um
10:19[snorts]
10:20So, really quick demo of Zo.
10:22You already saw it in the beginning, but Zo is this like nice kind of cloud workspace.
10:26I made this website just now.
10:27I make all sorts of websites on the fly.
10:29Um you can chat with really any model as I mentioned.
10:32You can bring your own API key.
10:34You can even talk to Claude code in here.
10:36[snorts]
10:36You've got this nice file system, built-in cloud storage because it's your server.
10:39You can just like use it as a Dropbox.
10:41Um and you know, you can obviously like work agentically in the chat with any of your files.
10:47You've got automations.
10:48So, you can kind of run tasks on a schedule with AI.
10:51[snorts]
10:52You've got tons of built-in integrations.
10:54You don't have to set any of this up.
10:56We have
10:56[snorts]
10:57lots of skills, a large skill library.
10:59There's a built-in browser, so you can log in to sites and let your Zo like buy things for you or do whatever.
11:05Actually, I always text my Zo these days to buy stuff on Amazon.
11:08It's like really dangerous for impulse purchasing.
11:10I like see something I'm like, let's buy it.
11:12[snorts]
11:12Um and as I mentioned, you can host stuff.
11:15So, you can really host anything, any arbitrary service, HTTP or TCP.
11:20And we also give you a really nice built-in personal website.
11:22This is my Zo space and this is all set up nicely and it's got like, you know, nice kind of like live coding features.
11:29Um and you just chat with it to edit it.
11:31And I've built all sorts of cool things inside of here.
11:34Um this for example is like my Calendly replacement.
11:37People can book time with me and it has just like this custom setup that I like.
11:41Um and my Zo can like review the people that are interested.
11:43I don't want anybody like booking time with me directly.
11:46Um and so that's kind of like what Zo is and I want to conclude by just talking a little bit about the future.
11:53So the reason we're building Zo is to build a future and better internet, one that looks more like this where everybody,
12:01[snorts]
12:02every individual has a real home, a presence on the internet.
12:06And
12:06[snorts]
12:06companies already have this, but like we should interact directly with other people on the internet without middlemen.
12:12And we should also interact with like the various companies and their AIs.
12:16Um and it should be like more direct.
12:20Another way to look at this is that like in the future we will probably just be interacting mostly with agents and the agents will kind of interact with the cloud, like these like software 1.0
12:31things like websites and APIs.
12:35But
12:35[snorts]
12:35if you dig a little deeper into here, what's probably actually going to happen is that most of these agents that we interact with will also be in the cloud.
12:42Some of them will be local, but many of them will be in the cloud.
12:45And when those agents are in the cloud, the question again is like whose cloud is it?
12:51[snorts]
12:52So Claud tag is newly out and and Claud tag is actually, if you think about it, a cloud agent.
13:00It's this like cloud Claud.
13:02It's like a company level Claud that has like all the company's context and
13:06[snorts]
13:06anybody can interact with it.
13:07And you know, it's it's an interesting and very like ergonomic model.
13:10Town and Victor are also kind of similar instances of this.
13:14[snorts]
13:15But the problem with Claud tag is this.
13:19Whose cloud is it?
13:20Whose Claud is it?
13:21It's not really your company's Claud.
13:23And as you kind of improve your Claud tag setup, like what really improves is Anthropic, right?
13:30Like the the arrow is pointing the wrong way.
13:35And
13:35[snorts]
13:35this is intelligence feudalism.
13:38The intelligence now is bubbling up the wrong way.
13:42And you are still a peasant again, or your company is still kind of a peasant in a way.
13:49[snorts]
13:50And at Zoe believe really strongly in changing the way that things work and giving people and companies more
13:59[snorts]
13:59ownership over their cloud and over their intelligence.
14:02So, we believe that the future should actually look more
14:05[snorts]
14:05like this.
14:07Anybody, a company or an individual should be able to publish agents and own them and have end users and like have the end usage of their agent improve, like self-improve
14:18their own kind of published agent.
14:20And that is the future that we're building.
14:23We have
14:23[snorts]
14:23a kind of beta version of this.
14:24So, um I'm going to go back to to this Zoe space uh and scan this QR code finally if you want to talk to me, get AI credits, sign up for the beta of this kind of new agent publishing
14:37platform.
14:39[snorts]
14:39And uh yeah, also you can check out all of the speakers that are presenting on this Zoe space page.
14:44Um I'm Ben from Zoe computer.
14:47Thank you.
14:48[applause]