What This Tech CEO Knows About Making Great Decisions Most Founders Don’t | Ep. 240 with Arthur Chang Founder of PanTerra Networks

0:05How do you see this in the future, AI being a part of everything? Yeah, it's great to be with you and have this chat. So as a lot of markets mature, when they first start, when markets first start, they're typically the solutions that are provided are single service solutions. So a great example of that actually, you go way, way back, is when Lotus first developed the spreadsheet, they just did a spreadsheet and CorelDRAW did a power equivalent PowerPoint presentation. And then Microsoft came along and delivered Office. And Office integrated all of the word processing and the PowerPoint presentation and the spreadsheet together.

0:46So that's really how technology markets evolve. And we see the same thing in communications, is that the first products were single-service solutions, maybe a PBX solution and a video conferencing solution. But Pantera has always looked towards the future and evolved the technology towards the future. And the future really is an all-in-one solution, which is what Streams.ai does, is it delivers full unified communications, team collaboration, and content sharing in a single solution. And where the future is going is obviously AI. And what AI does, and what we've done with AI, is to seamlessly infuse business communications with AI features.

1:28Not just one feature like video conferencing, captioning or video conferencing summaries, but really all of the communication features we've infused with some kind of AI capability. It's amazing now with what you can do with voice and obviously creating text. But I'm fascinated with the ability to use AI when it comes to voice integration and this whole AI assistant. And how do you see this all playing out in terms of the usage for almost, I mean, is every business owner in the future going to need to have this? What do you think? There are needs and there are wants that businesses have, and then there are challenges.

2:11And so businesses tend to want to solve their challenges first before their wants. But I'll just give you two examples of how we use AI to really enhance our customer engagement or allowing our customers to engage their customers even more efficiently and effectively. We have a video conferencing platform called Connect. It has the ability to do what's called supervisory monitor. And supervisory monitor is a capability that other competitors have on an audio call. So in an audio call, a supervisor of a sales agent essentially silently listen to that audio call, whisper into the agent's ear, or even barge into that call.

2:55And that really improves customer engagement because it allows that supervisor to coach that agent and to get that agent to really engage the customer in a real-time method. And we've taken that capability and we've added it to our video conferencing platform. So if an agent is on a video call with a customer or prospect, a supervisor can literally join, silently join that video call, can whisper or chat directly to the agent without the prospect knowing to coach that agent to get better engagement of that customer or that prospect. And so that's an example of how we use AI capabilities to improve customer engagement, even in video conferencing or in our audio platform.

3:46Do you see the future being an AI agent is the person on video, so it's not a human talking to the customer, but they are on video? Or do you see where the AI is telling the human some things because it can probably analyze things maybe even better than what a human manager could? We really see AI as a tool to assist human interaction. We do not really see it replacing that much the human itself, except for kind of menial tasks or simple tasks. And while the prognosticators of AI say AI is going to really take over everything, we really approach it in a crawl, walk, run kind of philosophy. And what we want to do is provide AI tools to our customers to help them be more efficient, be more responsive, be more effective, be more productive.

4:42That's really our goal is to allow our customers to engage their customers in a much more effective and efficient manner. I'm hoping that I can have an AI replace me one day. I think I could do, I could do, it could ask maybe better questions than me. I'm not sure, but Artie, over 10 years, you've been building the company. So much has happened the last few years with the rise of Gen AI. How, as an organization, are you able to keep up and stay at the forefront? How fast things move? Really, we have a one-word philosophy at Pantera, which I've carried throughout my career. And that one word is passion.

5:21You have to have passion for what you're doing. You have to have passion for who you're serving, your customers, the prospects. You have to have passion for your employees. And if you have passion for all those things, you really can evolve whatever career and whatever company and whatever employees that are with you in an incredible way. And I've been honored to have been working in technology for quite a long time and I've worked with a number of employees at different companies. And passion has always been the common thread, the common philosophy that has driven myself and the company and the employees.

6:05So that's what I'd say. If you have passion for what you're doing, one of the things, the anecdotes that I use is I never use an alarm clock. I just basically get up. I have an internal alarm clock because I have passion for what I'm doing. And I think that's That's a good indicator of whether you're enjoying what you're doing or not. Now that it's been over 10 years, do you ever wake up one day and think, how much longer can I do this? Or today, my passion is running out. No, I think the other word that I use a lot is balance. And that might sound strange for an entrepreneur. But what I've learned over my course of being an entrepreneur of decades and decades is that you have to have balance.

6:51You have to have work, life, personal life, family life balance. And I do that. I think I do that pretty well. It served me well. It keeps me from getting burned out and keeps me on right on that perfect edge of 99 to 100 % productivity. How do you balance things or what do you what advice would you give to other people? If you could maybe remember back in your startup phase, maybe the first few years. I think a lot of people struggle with the word balance. Some people say there is no balance or I have to work 24-7. I have to hustle. What advice or thoughts come to mind? There are definitely times when your balance shifts more towards work or more towards family or more towards personal.

7:39So it's not a static kind of level that you measure. It's more an aggregate average over time. But I think that the best advice I can give is make sure as part of that balance is what you value. What you value has to be balanced. So you can't just value work output or work productivity or work results. That will result in an imbalance in your life. So, you know, I remember when my first child was born, you know, I took time off work and I made sure that my kids saw me when I was growing up. And so it's what you value and your core value system has to be balanced. I think a lot of people can learn a lot from that.

8:29And hopefully all these amazing tools. And do you see all these great tools and add-ons and the rise of the ability to get lesser expensive AI-based things? Do you think this is going to allow people more balance because they'll have the ability to offload work to these things that maybe would have bogged them down? I do. I agree. I think that's a good suggestion or that's a good insight. I also think that AI will allow humans to be more creative, to actually be more responsive to creativity, to their creative side, as opposed to constantly doing menial tasks or repetitive tasks. A good example of that is our lunar receptionist.

9:13You know, our lunar receptionist can answer route calls based on real-time presence, based on conversational insight and context. And those are things that, you know, receptionists do on a repetitive basis that they really don't need to. Let them do more of the creative aspects of their position, coordinating and scheduling times and interacting with executives and the people in the company themselves to get nuanced decision making. You know, that's really what humans do best is the creative part. And let the AI do the repetitive manual techniques. I need a Luna receptionist, by the way. I feel like I could save a few hours every day.

10:01I'm sure that I could spend doing other things. I want to be creative, Artie. I want to be more creative, but I'm bogged on doing things that make me less creative. You need Luna. I need Luna. So when you look at what AI has allowed, which I think the great parts are the ability for people, let's say all around the world, to create a company. For you to be able to work with people pretty much anywhere in the globe. So on the flip side, it's also lowered the bar of entry. You know, it used to be maybe you need to raise money or you need to do something, which is great, but it also creates massive competition, I feel.

10:41So how do you see in terms of business owners when you're if a business if you were to start over right now with the company, you know, what would you be thinking through in terms of, you know, if I used to have 15 competitors now I could have 5000 competitors. How do I stand out? You know, I think that globalization and democratization of competition is good for everyone. I mean, look at, for example, how YouTube changed the four TV networks, TikTok, and now you have basically anybody can be a content influencer and a content provider. And what it's done is it's raised everyone's ability to deliver better quality to the end customer.

11:25And what we do to stay ahead is, again, I'll go back to those key words, is passion. You know, we're passionate about our business. And I'll give you a third word, which we, our philosophy in Pantera is we listen. So be passionate, but also really listen. Listen to the customers. Listen to your employees. You know, we have a saying, another philosophy within Pantera. We have a number of these, what I'll call micro philosophies. But it's sort of how do you create great decisions? And it's actually, if you think about it, we make tens to hundreds of decisions every day. Some are good, some are bad, some are average, but few are actually great.

12:07And so you ask yourself, how do you make great decisions? And in Pantera, our philosophy is you make great decisions by making good decisions and refining them over time. And that's really a two-part answer. The first part, make a good decision, means no paralysis by analysis. If you don't make a decision, that's by definition a bad decision. But the second part is equally important, which is refine it over time. Don't just make a decision and stick with it stubbornly. You need to make a decision, then take input, listen, adapt, change, adjust. We've made decisions at Patera where over time we've turned it 90 degrees or even 180 degrees because a competitor, new competitive information has come in.

12:52And so that keeps us always on the cutting edge of making great decisions. And I think that's what great companies do is they make more great decisions than average or bad decisions. I really like that, Artie. I think, you know, you said it. We make so many decisions. Sometimes we put a lot of pressure on ourselves as to, you know, every decision needs to be a great one. When, how could that even be possible? And you mentioned the problem that you've been solving. If you look back over 10 years ago when you first started the company, are you solving a different problem today? Or has the same problem that you were solving continued?

13:29No, one of the great things about Pantera is even in its original business plan, it was to develop cloud-based business communications solutions. So we didn't have a different direction when we first started. We've had this direction from the very beginning. It's in our DNA, I would say, to deliver cloud-based solutions. The technology has evolved and changed and we've adapted and we've added and integrated AI features. But the concept has always been the same, which is to deliver the best cloud-based solution for engaging customers and communicating with customers. Okay, final question. If you could give one piece of business advice, could be anything, doesn't have to be the greatest piece of advice, but any business advice to somebody who's maybe in their 20s, early 30s, maybe just left their corporate job.

14:27They want to be an entrepreneur. They want to get into business. What is one piece of advice? Well, you know, I've kind of shot a couple of those already. I would just say breathe, you know. Don't succumb to the industry pundits saying everything's moving too fast. You know, when the internet first came, everyone said that that would change the world, and it did. But the world, it didn't move too fast. When the PC came around, everybody said that would change the world, and it didn't move too fast. if you're an entrepreneur, breathe and know that even AI is going to move fast, but it's not going to move too fast for you.

15:07So breathe, be passionate, listen, make great decisions, and the world's your oyster. Artie, this was great. If people want to find out more and they want to get in touch with you, how can they do so? We'd love them to come to our website, www.panteranetworks.com. That's where you can see a lot of videos of customers and of the product and its capabilities. And we'd love to engage and engage with you in any way we can. Well, Artie Chang, Pantera Networks, I need to get the assisted ASAP. I need that in my life. And all the things that you're doing, I'm very fascinated, but I learned a lot today.

15:47I'm inspired. I'm going to breathe. I'm going to make some great decisions. And I'm going to be patient. And I thank you for that. And thank you for joining us today. All right. It's great to have been with you. Thank you.