Ahti Heinla: Co-founder and developer of Skype

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1:18The End They say a little litter can lead to a lot. Wise words. It feels good to worry less. It feels good to Geico. Welcome to the Jazz Shapers podcast from Mishkondorea. What you're about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM. However, the music has been cut due to rights issues.

1:43This is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal.

2:21Listening Colour. and having been taught programming by his mother when he was 10 years old, the world opened up for a teenage Artie after the fall of the Soviet Union. Alongside three childhood tech developer friends and two Scandinavian entrepreneurs, Artie launched Skype, a peer-to-peer messaging service in 2003. It was, to say the least, an immediate success, with 10 ,000 people downloading and installing the app on the first day. And when Artie left the company in 2008 after the sale to eBay three years earlier, Skype had over, wait for it, 200 million users. Taking part in NASA's Centennial Challenge, as you do, a competition to design robots that could retrieve samples on the moon, led Artie and Janice Freese, a Skype co-founder, to consider what problems autonomous robots could solve on planet Earth.

3:06And in 2014, they launched Starship Technologies, aiming, as they say, to revolutionise last-mile delivery, making it affordable and sustainable on a global scale. They now have a fleet of over 2 ,000 much-loved robots delivering hot food, groceries and industrial supplies across 100 cities, university campuses, and industrial sites. Arti Heinle is my business shaper, struggling with the surname because of course it's pretty obvious to most people, Arti, but not me. You're not English, no. He's from Estonia. I'm from Estonia. Good to be here. Thank you for having me here and good to be talking about our robots as well.

3:42I want to talk about lots about robots, but actually I do want to talk a little bit about Estonia to start with. Born and brought up there, you and I are a very similar age. I studied Russian politics at university, one of my courses, and I looked through the lens of a Western Democrat at what happened to the fall of the Soviet Union. And I went, wow, this is great, isn't it? You lived through it. Was it great? It was a time of big change. I was born in 1972. So I spent my first like 18 years in Soviet Union, which was gradually liberating during the time. Like, you know, since I was about 10 years old, there was a gradual sort of movement of liberation or more openness.

4:26It was still a dictatorship. Effectively, Soviet Union was a dictatorship. People say it's a communist state, but it was a communist dictatorship. It's a dictatorship that used sort of communism and, you know, being for the people and all of this as a lie, you know, as a lie to... It was for the Kremlin, wasn't it? Yeah, effectively, yeah. It was a clique that ran a country. And this was being liberated during the 80s. People started talking more about how things should be and what are all the things that are wrong. And it led, in the end, to a collapse of the Soviet Union. Glasnost and perestroika.

4:58Yes, yes. And Russia effectively occupied 15 countries to create the Soviet Union. And Estonia was one of them. So I was living under occupation, effectively, in my youth, but then kind of got liberated when I entered adulthood when I was like 19 or 18. And that was a very, very different regime after that. So I've lived through some quite a lot of change in my life. And I know, you know, how some completely different societies work and how the exact same people were kind of operating and working and presenting themselves during the Soviet regime and then during the free Estonia. And it's interesting to see.

5:40You know, one thinks about the way that culture and environment and politics affects the individual. And I guess what you're saying is you can't underestimate the impact that might have on a young artie at 18, 19, because your coming of age actually coincided with the coming of age of some kind of freedom. Exactly. Effectively, you know, when people are 18 or 19, they kind of grow up and they start to do things in the world. and they're moving out from their parents and they kind of get liberated in that sense. And at the same time, the country around you is liberated and there's so many opportunities and we needed to effectively rebuild the country.

6:23There was no establishment at the time. In the middle of the 90s, Estonia had the youngest prime minister in Europe, Mart La, who was, I think at the time, 35 years old or 34 years old. So you're 34, 35 years old and you're a prime minister of a small country. And you get to do a lot of things and a lot of quite bold decisions. So at that point, I would say the most forward-looking people in Estonia were in the government and they set the country to a good course. I think after that, now, you know, during the last 20 or 30 years, there has been a process of some of the smartest people moving from the government to the business.

7:10So in terms of the government, I think Estonia is now a little bit more of a usual country. And the prime minister is no longer 34 years old. But back then it was a special time. I wanted to just set the context because I think no one comes from nowhere. Your roots, which you now have gone back to, I believe, this is your main home, although you travel a lot, is back in Estonia. Your roots are there. You mentioned no establishment. I've read somewhere that you said, well, when you don't know what's not possible, you can build anything. Did you always think you'd do your own thing or was it coincidence?

7:45Indeed, I always thought that I'm doing my own thing. It was funny, you know. My parents were computer programmers. My mother taught me how to program computers when I was 10 years old. And I didn't know it at the time. You know, this was in the 80s, but I didn't know it at the time that when I become an adult and also middle-aged, then actually computer programming is something that kind of launches you into a career where you have no trouble finding a job, effectively. There's less software developers out there than there is market for software development in general. So it was a good career choice, but I didn't know it at the time when I was 10 years old and my mother taught me how to program computers.

8:30And at that time, when I grew up, I also received some job offers to join a bank, being a software developer for a bank. I mean, you can do that, and they paid good money. I couldn't believe how much they offered. But I never for a second thought that I would accept the offer. Why not? Never for a second, because I thought this is boring. I'm not sure whether it actually is boring, because I've never done it. But I've always thought that I want to do my own thing, a small group of people having some sort of a vision and some sort of an idea, potentially to change the world, but even if it's not about changing the world.

9:15And that's effectively what I have been doing. And Arti, did you visualize doing that from quite a young age? In other words, you had a sense of, I'm going to be in a room, I'm going to be with cool people that I like, and there's going to be just a tightness and a sense of exploring because people talk about innovation in very glib ways. And here you are, I'm talking to one of the most innovative guys in this industry the last two decades. I never had a master plan of what I'm going to do with my life when I was a teenager or something like that. I think just one thing led to another. But now in retrospect, if I think about it, I think the pattern is very clear that I have never wanted to join a bank.

9:52I've always wanted to be entrepreneurial and always wanted to have a vision and have an idea and realize that idea. But yes, it's unfortunate a little bit more in the retrospect. I didn't know that when I was a teenager. Stay with me for much more from my guest, Arti Heinle. He's my business shaper and he's going to be back with much more insight around what it takes to be the kind of person that says, no, I'm not going to take the money and work for a bank. If that's not you, then you're not going to be an entrepreneur. He'll be back in just a couple of minutes. Don't go anywhere.

10:29This is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal.

10:42Listen in colour. You can enjoy all our former business shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast, and you can hear this very program again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your favorite podcast platform. My guest today is Artie Heinle, and he is the co-founder and developer of Skype. You may have heard of them, the Internet Communication Platform, and co-founder of Starship Technologies, a robot delivery business. I'm really interested. We're going to come on to Starship Technologies very shortly because the whole normalization of robots is one of those wonderful sci-fi things that I think it goes to the heart of what being human is about, actually, and then we'll talk about how these robots have developed.

11:15But this, I'm visualizing you as a young man going through life, knowing he's a bit different. And I think I've read that about things you said before, knowing that you connect with people in your own very unique way. How did you connect and find these connections with the people you ended up working with at Skype and now at Starship? What happened? That was interesting. Some of the core group of Skype actually met a lot earlier than Skype was founded. like a lot of the engineering leadership of Skype and the core group of engineers actually met at high school. So my classmate, my deskmate in high school, so we shared desk with, was Jan Teilin, who was also one of the founding engineers later at Skype and who now is working on AI and existential risks related to AI.

12:12so he's a very vocal spokesperson on that and then in the same class there was Toivo Annus who ended up managing all engineering in Skype and in the same class there ended up some of the several other key engineers who were at Skype later so we met quite a bit earlier and then came together effectively when we founded Skype we just wanted to hire the smartest engineers we knew and some of them actually happened to be our classmates in high school like you know decade earlier or a few decades earlier and as a group obviously there's trust and you know each other there's familiarity in the context of friendship though how do you you still keep pushing and keep innovating and keep breaking through those frontiers because skype was a mega innovation i remember as a guy in business going i want everyone here to have skype and there was all these technology people oh we can't do this we can't i'm like looking going this is bonkers.

13:11I have my own account, obviously, but I wanted the business to. It's obviously fundamentally shifted now. I mean, the idea of not being able to call someone anywhere in the world at any time for free is anathema. But then, and in terms of those breakthroughs, how do you as a group ensure that you still keep each other focused and stretched? It was really easy and still is really easy to keep engineers focused on the goal because the engineers were motivated by the technology innovation that we needed to do. And this was actually, I would say, straightforward. It needed a couple of visionary technologists like ourselves to say that, okay, this is what we want to do and do some scientific or technical innovations that enable this and then build a team.

13:57But this was relatively straightforward. So when you say that, you know, Skype was bonkers, yes, that's true. A lot of people told us that, you know, you are crazy and this is not going to work. And, you know, People are not going to be talking to computers. What do you mean? I mean, phones already exist. But we knew that it does make sense. And with computers, you could have video easier and you could call each other for free and, you know, all of these benefits. But the bonkers part was actually not technology. The bonkers part was changing people's behavior. Yeah. So that's the bonkers part.

14:30So the... And how do you do that? Because people often think, ah, what we need to do, what we need to do together, RT, is go and listen to what consumers want and then go and deliver it. And I would say that generally doesn't work. And your point was, you don't think you need this, but this is going to change your life. And then the question is, how do you get them to do it? Right, yes. There's this Henry Ford saying that, you know, people wanted faster horses, you know, but he built a car. So we have been doing the same thing. Obviously, yes, when we asked, you know, how people wanted to communicate, they wouldn't have said the thing that actually ended up being Skype.

15:00And I think probably in terms of building delivery robots right now, it's actually kind of the same thing. We had a vision of how with technology we can really change the world. How can we really make a lot of things easier in the world and different? Then it is about proving to everybody that it actually works. With the robots, it is also that so many people in the beginning didn't believe that this will work. This has now changed. Now actually everybody believes that robots can do last mile deliveries. and the commercial customers that we talk to, for example, the delivery apps, the retail chains, you know, the restaurants, the mom and pop stores, like they do believe, they all believe that robots can do deliveries.

15:48But back then when we started, 10 years ago, oh, people had all sorts of concerns. You know, when a robot arrives on the pavement, are people going to call the police? Are people going to be afraid of the robot? then everybody thought that our robots will be stolen. That's actually a bit of an anthropological curiosity, I think. I've had so many times when I talked about our idea to people, they said, wow, when you deploy the robots in my city, it will be immediately stolen. When I first arrived to the United States with the robot, I had my robot in my luggage, a big box, and I talked to this customs officer in New York, in JFK airport, and he asked me, what is in this box?

16:40I said, wow, it's a delivery robot. I opened up the box and I showed him, and he was like, what? Delivery robot, how does this work? Oh, it goes on the sidewalk. And he was like, dude, this is New York. This will get stolen in a minute. In fact, it didn't get stolen in a minute. We have done 8 million deliveries nobody has ever stolen a robot from the street because it has 10 cameras. It's constantly connected to internet. It's actually quite heavy. When you pick it up, there's a really annoying siren. So this is just an example of skepticism against new technology. But we knew from the beginning when we founded Starship and also when we founded Skype that people can have this skepticism, but it will work.

17:26All of these obstacles can be overcome. it takes time to overcome obstacles I love your confidence, I'm going to find out why you're so confident these things will be overcome, apart from the fact you've got some evidence I was in San Francisco in December and I got in with my friend who worked for the BBC for many years as their technology correspondent, we got in a Waymo together, and it was we were like kids in a sweet shop we were like those kids in that movie who sees a robot for the first time the thing pulls up, it's perfect, the things are whirring round, it says hello, it's got our name on it, it was wild.

17:59That joy of us, of a kid, I imagine you've still got some of that. Does it inform the way you think about robots in the world? Or is there a more serious business-focused thing that's also going on for you? It's both. The ideas of bringing robots to the world or solving some problems in the world using robotics or using technology or making self-driving cars and so forth, these are very simple ideas that you can write in a sentence right but then it takes a decade to actually put into action and actually create in practice like build a company or and do all of these things but you always have to keep in mind this the dream this dream this this idea innovation itself it was it's a fascinating to me it's a fascinating topic people often think oh it's just this moment arti's in the bath he goes you know what i'm going to do you said a decade how do you hold the line?

18:52How do you keep the faith that you will continue to iterate and continue to iterate until the code works and the number of cameras work and the dynamic AI that you need to put in there to enable us to the robot to go left and right? How do you just keep being resilient? Because it must take a lot of effort. It does take a lot of effort indeed. And sometimes it is hard because yes, changing the world is not easy. But the overall idea is simple. And as long as you believe that you can put you know one foot in front of the other it's possible to go forward and especially if you have a group of people if you are alone then it is i think hard then i think it is harder to you really need to be a psychopath to to be able to alone alone you know keep the focus and you're not a psychopath just for the record no not really i wanted not really because i want to ask you about that there is a sense of you said you know we're going to convince them we're going to get rid of the obstacles.

19:47I imagine that when Artie is not particularly happy about progress, Artie is probably a different Artie, is probably a bit punchier. It is true. I'm sure it does take a bit of being completely focused on the task and leaving aside the fears and emotions or things that you think that, oh, I can't really take this or today is a really hard day or something like that. But you can push these aside and just focus on what's needed to be done so that you have a better day tomorrow. And when the world is outside of your control, so I'm thinking about regulation, and I think I've read some of you said the UK is behind in terms of innovations it needs to make in regulation to enable, you know, councils to have one set of laws or one set of regulations, basically rules.

20:35What then? How do you push for the change that you can't directly control? Regulations is an interesting thing. And this is relevant for Starship and for the future of delivery because the future of delivery will be automated for sure in a significant way. And we are doing this, we are leading this, we are by far the number one company in the world automating delivery. This has a regulatory aspect because we are developing small and lightweight and safe robots that go on the pavement. And people can then ask a question in various countries is that it's legal to drive a robot on the pavement. And we are effectively pushing for regulatory clarity in every country where we operate.

21:16And so we have worked with regulators a lot. But I would say that even though, of course, this is to some extent not in our control as a company, then also we are in the fortunate position that the technology that we have developed is safe. It is very easy to show that it is safe because we have done millions of deliveries. We have driven as many miles as the Waymo cars have driven that you mentioned. So it's like more than 10 million miles autonomously driven with the robots. So that's a lot of experience that we have gained. And the robots are lightweight. And they're not as fast as cars. So even if the robots would collide with somebody...

22:04Six kilometers an hour, isn't it? I think that goes out, right? It's like walking pace. It's clear that the robots are inherently safe. Like even if the robot would collide with somebody, which of course it doesn't because it has all of these sensors and AI in the robot, but even if it would, then it wouldn't really cause any significant injury. So they are inherently safe and the regulators actually see that. So it is not hard really for the regulators to actually put in specific legislation about it or at least devolve the powers to decide on what goes on the sidewalk to the local councils. This is actually not controversial.

22:43And that's why actually in a lot of countries, the regulatory change has happened. Estonia, where I'm from, changed their nationwide traffic law to specifically mention pavement robots in 2017. In the same year, the first U.S. state changed their statewide. law in the same way, specifically mentioning pavement robots and specifically mentioning the limitations of like how fast the robots can go, how heavy the robot can be and so forth. And since then, a number of countries and territories have followed suit. Finland has nationwide regulation now and Japan, for example, as well. So even though regulation, you could say it's not under our control as a company, it's clearly happening and I'm definitely looking forward to having a great regulatory clarity in UK as well, because that would allow us to really invest in UK and really roll these robots out in UK.

23:44So we are operating in UK right now. We are operating in Milton Keynes, in Northampton, in Leeds, in Manchester. But these are just like a few locations. So I think if the right people are listening. They need to go and the legislators, they need to just say that our MPs and the like, they need to actually just go, you know what, if you want investment, time to make the regulation work. It doesn't sound complicated to me, but we'll come back for one final chat and you may, you may pick up on that one more time. It's my guest, brilliant guest, Artie Heinle, and we've got music from Ezra Collective as well.

24:18That's in just a moment. Don't go anywhere.

24:23This is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal.

24:36Listening colour. Artie Heinle is my business shaper just for a few more minutes. You are someone who by any measure has been very successful. You have built things. You continue to build things. We're now at the frontier of normalizing robots. All being well, legislators, regulators will sort some things out in this country, I hope. What are you driven by these days? What is your motivation? I set out 10 years ago to build this company and to revolutionize last mile delivery in the world and generally automate the movement of things in the world to create this future where things are flying to you, things are driving to you by themselves.

25:17Not that there's a person or a servant or a courier carrying it for you, but I wanted to create the world where things can move by themselves. And I have done a lot of that, but I'm also just halfway. If you think about UK, for example, we are operating hundreds of robots in UK and we are doing hundreds of thousands and millions of deliveries in UK. but it's still a small part of UK that we are operating in. So you said I'm successful by any means of the word. Yes, but we could do so much more. We're just beginning. The revolution has just begun in terms of our expansion. We have created the revolution technologically.

26:07We have proven that these robots can work. But there's scale to come. But there's scale, yes. But there's, again, something I think it was you said about, I don't need recognition. It's not a thing for me. No one needs to tell me that Artie has done a good job or not. What does Artie need to tell Artie is good? What gives you joy and satisfaction? Forget the rest of the world because you do. What makes you tick? What makes you happy? I set out to build something 10 years ago. I want to finish it. I want to get to a point where I see, okay, I have really done a revolution in the world. and until that is done, I'm just halfway.

26:44So when the revolution is done, you'll be happy. You won't be happy, you'll be doing the next thing. I think I will be happy and I will be doing the next thing as well. And also perhaps spend more time with my family. I've really enjoyed talking to you, Arti. It's brilliant to meet someone who's genuinely pushing and continues to push and it's in your DNA. And I think with your batchmates, your classmates, I have a feeling you're going to be doing a lot more in the future. Thank you so much for your time. Just before I let you go, what's your song choice and why have you chosen it? My song choice is by a Senegalese musician called Is My Law.