And I would think that during the global pandemic, where people are doing zoom calls and teams calls that this would be even more important to be able to navigate meetings and conversations and job interviews and things like that.

Maithilee Samant

Yes, and it always was important, I think what with the recent online meetings that we are doing more so in the pandemic has made it more harder to be both emotionally intelligent, in terms of understanding what emotion the other party is expressing, and having a social intelligence because we miss that face-to-face. And in the face-to-face conversations or meetings, there is this rich information that is coming to you in terms of the facial expression, that tone of voice, or that body language, the presence of the person. And that is a huge part of understanding the person. And we don't have that most of the time. People even turn off their videos when they are in the meeting. And that takes us away from being able to see face-to-face and see the body language…there is no eye contact, for example, when you are in a meeting setting, even if you have your camera on, the eye contact is hard to maintain. So all of that actually makes it very, very hard to connect with each other. So, that is why…to develop it in a cyber world, it's much harder, but it's still extremely important.

Maureen Farmer

So, your product mirro.ai, what prompted you to create this product? By the way, I think it's really, really well done. I've been using it to test you know, some of our videos here and looking forward to using it with clients. What is the genesis of it? What prompted you to create this wonderful product?

Maithilee Samant

Well, thank you. And yeah, it has been a journey. So, I've been a software engineer and a leader in Silicon Valley for quite some time. And then I decided to start coaching people and I was coaching engineers, scientists, and very brilliant people, but they were finding it hard to either, you know, excel in their careers or connect with each other. And the more I coached, I realized that the interpersonal or even a career problem often comes down to the communication skills. And if you look at the communication skills, even if you are a brilliant person, it is when many times these smart, creative people, and I wouldn't say that those are the only folks who have this problem, anybody, when we are talking, when we are interacting, they're so focused on the content and the rationality of it, that we often neglect the emotional aspect of it. So, we don't realize that a certain tone of voice or certain facial expression can trigger something totally different than what you intended in your communication. And that is pretty hard to figure out. So, when I started thinking about how do to help people overcome that, I started taking mock interviews, for example. And then I realized that I cannot do that continuously, something else is needed. And then I thought, well, I have done, you know, I have used my technical acumen. So, let's see, what can I do in technology, and then the mirro.ai idea came, so I decided to have  AI help you. And because AI can be omnipresent, you can take it to your meetings, or you can practice with it, and nobody needs to know about it. It's just you, and somebody else who is going to give you feedback, it's like practicing in front of mirror. But the mirror…it's an intelligent mirror, it's going to tell you what your image, your emotional state is being displayed, it is being perceived by somebody else. So, that's how the idea came to me. And that's what I've been working on.

Maureen Farmer

And that is where the name came from. Is that right? That's good.

Maithilee Samant

Yeah, yes.

Maureen Farmer

Yeah, that's fantastic. And it is a completely judge free environment. So, I think that is so helpful. And the tools that are available on the market today to, you know, help executives and entrepreneurs, there's nothing like this. And I know that because I do this myself in my business.

Do you think that the growth and pervasiveness of digital communications is eroding people's ability to be socially intelligent?

Maithilee Samant

It's a situation which can be used in one way or the other. You know, it is like social media, is it good or bad? It does connect us with lots of connectors, with people who are across the oceans, and people like childhood friends that you otherwise wouldn't have connected with. But then it also creates a whole lot of issues in our life—distractions. And I think same is the case with meeting an online meeting and remote working, it opens up a lot of possibilities for us, but also a unique set of problems.

Maureen Farmer

Right, unintended consequences of new technology, like, well, email is not new anymore. But you know, back in the day, email, of course, that's still, you know, widely used, but texting, especially, and to your point—when there's a communication exchanged and the receiver can make many different interpretations of the message, because I can't see the expression on your face. And that brings up the use of emoticons, and this is something that you use in your product—emoticons!

Maithilee Samant

Yes, absolutely. Right. That's a good observation. And the reasoning behind the emoticons is to make it easier for users to see it, especially in a meeting if somebody has turned off the video, some people are very visually oriented. And sometimes they want to see that oh, so and so person is nervous or not resonating well with my message and if they see it, even if they don't see the face, but just by AI can infer it from the tone of voice or words. That's great information that you can improvise on the spot with. So, for example, if you're talking to your customer, either a coaching call or even like a customer support scenario, and you see that your goal is to get customer to a happy or excited calm stage, but they are going towards more and more agitated and irritated state. You can take a pause, breathe, and the AI can push you to say that okay, pause, take a break. And maybe you can voice that.

Maureen Farmer

So, this is real time then? This is actually well the meeting is going on?

Maithilee Samant

Yes, it will be…we are working on it. So yes, but it will be real time while the meeting is going on. And because AI can monitor you know multithread things, it can actually do it for your big conference or webinar where it can tell you how your whole audience, not one particular person, but the whole audience is reacting to your message. So that way you can steer, you can stop and ask the right questions, or…

Maureen Farmer

It's real time feedback on how your message is being received by the audience. And it can be used in—to your point, a customer service experience where you're talking to a prospective customer or a current customer on the line. And if they're getting agitated, the tool can give you feedback as to how to manage that. Is that correct? Am I getting that?

Maithilee Samant

Yes!

Maureen Farmer

That is amazing. Wow, I didn't realize that. So, the way we're using it now, we are running videos and audio content through your tool just to see how it's being received and how the algorithm is responding to various components like energy level confidence, that type of thing, but I didn't realize that you were working on a real time version of that. So that really opens up capacity exponentially for application across business platforms, and user experience.

Maithilee Samant

Yes, absolutely. I think the real time is an absolute must in our current situation. And the way we are meeting more and more online. And if you have something live, then you have a friend with you, that you can stake to meetings and that friend is going to tell you, ‘Okay, you seem tired, maybe you need to take a break, or you are too excited, or you are doubtful here,’ or if the other person is looking doubtful. Maybe you need to convince them in a different way. So, what happens is that if you get a real time feedback like that, you can turn around the situation, you can reduce your risk, you can be more confident that way, when you're going into a meeting. And that's what I did. Tight now mirro will give you a post-mortem analysis of what happened. And that is also extremely useful, because you can learn from it, and apply it to your next meeting. And you can learn quirks about yourself. And I'll give you examples of that in a bit. But real time truly will then take it to the next level where then you are extremely productive, and really be very effective with your communication.

Maureen Farmer

I remember many, many years ago, when I was working in corporate, we had one gentleman who was just brilliant, and he was a lovely person. And, you know, well liked, but he never got invited on to project teams. And he did mostly solo work in a cubicle. And it was really unfortunate because he was so smart. But here was the issue. His communication skills were not great. And people couldn't understand what he was saying. But of course, no one gave him that feedback. I think it's so tragic, because this gentleman's career was stunted, because of that, and he could have gone on to do all kinds of really interesting things with others, but instead, you know, he worked alone. And this type of a tool would be so helpful in helping, you know, employees and professionals and executives get that real time feedback. We use a 360 tool to get 360 feedback on our clients. But it's not real time, it is a questionnaire. It's automated. But it's not real time. It's still valuable, however. But this type of a tool, mirro.ai, in addition to some of the other tools that we use, would provide a very, very comprehensive professional development program for people. And I think a lot of high potential professionals get left behind because of these things. I don't know if you would agree with that. But that's been my experience.

Maithilee Samant

Yes, absolutely. You're spot on Maureen, that is one of the big problems right now. And it is also very interesting. Sometimes people are not open to feedback, then there are people who are open to feedback, but they don't get it. And it is also from their colleagues point of view, if they don't want to ruffle the feathers, or you know, give the bad news or how will my relationship with this person be impacted if I give so and so feedback, but it's interesting that the co-workers many times know that there is this issue, but they don't bring that to the attention of…they don't know how to bring that and that's where the AI helps. It's really judgment free, this AI has been trained by like 3 million data points to give you wisdom of a person who has seen many presentations and many communication bits. And that's what it's telling you. It has no other personal agenda.

Maureen Farmer

That's a great point. Because oftentimes when others are hearing feedback, they may question the motivations of the of the other person.

Maithilee Samant

Right. So, that is the beauty of AI, that it is judgment free. It just, it takes the sting out of the getting feedback. I mean, I have heard folks who say like, you know, so and so person in the meetings is so dominating, and oh my God, I wish somebody could tell him or her…well, you can send them mirro, have them use it, we tell them, and that is a good thing for them so that they can actually at least be aware and awareness is the first step towards the change.

Maureen Farmer

Well, indeed, and I've done a lot of reading in leadership development and leadership optimization. And the consensus is that self-awareness is a predictor of success in the leadership realm. And a lot of people that I work with, I talk to a lot of people around the world, and they say, I want to become a leader so that I can become an executive, where the opposite is true. When you are a leader, then you become an executive. And to your point earlier a few minutes ago talking about, people are very focused on the content of their message or the legitimacy of their argument or the desire to be right, they have to be right at any cost. And what they're not seeing is that the drive to be correct overrides the human connectivity, the development of relationships and trust.

Maithilee Samant

Yes, absolutely agreed. And I remember one of my mentors, when I was an engineer told me this, that when you go into a room, think about how are you going to make others feel when you leave the room? So, it's not just about what point you're going to make. How are you going to make others feel? Are you going to make them excited? Or kind of frustrated? Guilty? When you say something, how is that going to impact the other person emotionally? And that actually is the key for effectiveness. How do you get others motivated? How do you get others behind the vision that you're showing? That all is emotional, and it is not about rational argument, it is typically many times people make emotional decisions, and then they rationalize it. But when we are trying to convince somebody else, we try to go the other way around, we try to rationalize it, and hope that they emotionally connect with it. That doesn't work. So, tools like this supplement to your rational content and give you a way to also supplement that emotional connection with your message. Many times people really honestly want to create that…they just don't know how or they can't focus their mind right, there are too many things that they are thinking about. How is somebody else is reacting emotionally—that is one more thing I need to think about, it becomes harder, so that gets reduced, you get ahead when you have tools like this.

Maureen Farmer

It's like when you're having people over for dinner, that's how I look at a meeting that I'm having. So, to be a gracious guest. And you can use that approach in a business meeting. Because to your point, you know, if you're not going to develop rapport, and build trust with the other person, it doesn't matter if you're a rocket scientist or not, you're not going to be trusted to be part of the team. And I think a lot of people forget that as they're going into job interviews, they're so focused on the strategic plan, or they're so focused on the budget or whatever it might be, and they fail to see that the human connection is the point. And without that, you know, nothing else is going to happen without that trust.

Maithilee Samant

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, human connection is the most important thing to get anything done in this world. And any business achievement is about somebody else connecting with you and saying that, yes, my well-being and your well-being—it's a win-win situation. And that is the feeling that truly creates the win-win feels so it's very important to have that connection with the other party.

Maureen Farmer

So Maithilee, we hear oftentimes, that soft skills are needed in the workplace, that nothing gets done without soft skills. And I have to say that that particular term really doesn't sit well with me. The idea that a skill could be soft makes it sound to me as though it's not strong. What's your take on that terminology—soft skills?

Maithilee Samant

It's interesting, I can see it from your perspective. But because I come from the technology world, I think I have a different view on the word soft, so for example, hardware and software. So, I look at term “soft” as, kind of like a magical, ethereal thing, which you cannot pinpoint, which you cannot hold, which you cannot major in easily. But I agree with you, that the soft skills, they are overlooked even though they are extremely important, and they are probably the strongest skills, in my mind. I can see where you're coming from. But I think in tech world, it just has a different meaning.

Maureen Farmer

Right, I hadn't thought of it from a hardware versus software point of view, I do know that a lot of you know, high potential leaders, that's what they're missing—the ability to monitor kind of the emotional temperature of the room and of the team. And timing is everything as well. So, you want to make sure that in conversations with decision makers, that you're choosing the right time to present an idea or the right time to make a pitch, or the right time to negotiate.

Maithilee Samant

Absolutely true. That is the most important thing. I mean, I would say the so-called hard skills or the technical skills, really, I mean, there are a lot of people who have that. But people who actually succeed and get to their potential are people who have both excellent technical skills, and excellent communication and people skills. And those are the people who really succeed.

Maureen Farmer

I used to teach a program in the Masters of internetworking program at a university not far from here, and really brilliant, brilliant people who I worked with. And it was really interesting to me that the school, it has a very, very good name and well known, but they don't teach any communications courses in that master's program, none whatsoever. They don't teach any type of career management or you know…how to conduct themselves in a workplace. And it always strikes me as being a disservice to university students, not just in technical courses and in technical programs, but in tech and programs across the board. And I really see this product as being something that would be very helpful in that particular context, because we give our students and young professionals the wrong message. When we continuously focus on the GPA…it's important, of course, it's table stakes, you have to be a competent professional in order to be successful. But in order to take it to the next level, you know, to really progress as a leader, you really do need these skills. And I don't know about you, but I mean, I've been to many schools, and I've taught a lot and I've actually taken many, many, many programs. There has been very, very little that has been taught in this area.

Maithilee Samant

Yes, I agree. And I it is, I mean, it is the problem, it has two aspects to it. One is that we don't give it enough credit that these skills need to be cultivated, need to be taught. And second, it is very hard to teach also, there is a biological reason to it. So, Daniel Goleman, who is the thought leader in emotional intelligence, has it in his books that there is amygdala, which is the part of our brain, the primitive brain, who understands and sees and expresses emotions and then there is prefrontal cortex, who is more about information learning and thought process, and they don't have connection between them. So, it's kind of like they are two independent beings. And when we teach something, the way our education system is, it is completely going to the prefrontal cortex, where we are teaching them concepts, we are asking them to give an audit or visual information, but the amygdala gets trained very differently. It learns differently. It learns by observing. That's why the communication skills, the emotional intelligence, many times we pick up from our family, our surroundings. And it is very hard. Even if you give the prefrontal cortex a good amount of information that this is good, this is not good, this is how you should behave, or this is a good feeling for this kind of situation—you intellectually get it, but when it comes to the point, when you're going to act, the amygdala takes over. And this product—mirro.ai in my mind, it is actually trying to bridge the gap between those two.

Maureen Farmer

So, the amygdala I think, has five responses. There's love, fear, and of course, I can't remember the rest of them. There's love, fear, anger…

Maithilee Samant

Definitely fear and anger, love—those three are definitely dominant, fight and flight. That is the other response that it directs. So, for emoticons…when you're listening to somebody's voice, and it is showing you an emoticon—that is actually glued to your prefrontal cortex, that emoticon because that's what it's going to register. And it says, oh, okay, there is that emotion. Otherwise, what happens many times, if you don't have it, and you're talking to someone, and they are getting say, agitated, you will feel that they are getting agitated, but it won't truly register in your mind so you will also start to get agitated as a response. And later on, you might feel that oh, you know, I should have said something like this. And I realize now that that person must have been offended by that. Why didn't you realize at that time? Well, part of you realized it, but it had no way to give that information to the part of you that activates that, which was the prefrontal cortex. So, this tool, bridges that gap, it actually shows prefrontal cortex, the key information that it needs to see that it otherwise has no direct access to.

Maureen Farmer

That is just so fascinating to me. Does the tool pick up…and I'm sure it must. And I probably answered my own question here. But adaptive behavior? And the reason I ask that question is that think about a job interview or board of directors interview, think about what's in it for the candidate, there's a lot riding on this presentation. And when the candidate goes into the conversation, a lot of times they can adapt their behavior long enough to leave the impression that they want. The problem is though, if they do so, after the fact, they can only adapt their behavior for a certain period of time before they're going to get burnt out. They're not going to be able to pretend that they are someone they are not for an indefinite period of time. So how do employers mitigate that? So how do we make sure that the candidates who are coming through the door are actually genuine and authentic and are not putting it on? Because I don't know if you've had the experience, but I certainly have had that experience where, you know, alright, here's what I hear often. Oh, he interviewed really well. Oh, she interviewed really well. And then when it came time, you know, the first you know, three-month period of time, there was a definite issue with a personality conflict with something because they were adopting their behavior to an extreme during the interview. That's a real problem for recruiters and employers. Do you agree?

Maithilee Samant

Yes, yes, I do agree. And I think it again, it has multiple aspects of it. It depends on how deep the interview was, what all was asked, that is always there. But it is also hard. I mean, sometimes the interviewers also get smitten by a candidate that they are like, they are so impressed by what's on the paper and they want that interview to go well, they want to hire them because of their own excitement. They sometimes in an interview, unknowingly ignore some red flags.

Maureen Farmer

So are you saying that this tool can pick those red flags up for the interview or…

Maithilee Samant

Yes, but this is what I have in mind, it will tell you when the emotion that is being expressed by the body language and the tone of voice doesn't match the sentiment that is given by the words correct. So, if there is an inconsistency there, it will just say that. Interestingly, this was not consistent with the words that were used, the tone was inconsistent. Now, that means that may, you know, it is open to interpretation, because the tool shouldn't interpret. But the human who has this data, can use the other information to make a call on how to interpret this, it at least gives you that piece of information that you might have missed because you were not attuned to that point of view.

Maureen Farmer

I'm thinking…I know recently that a lot of organizations are asking candidates to upload a video to their website, I would think that this type of product would also be very effective for evaluating those videos of candidates.

Maithilee Samant

Yes, absolutely. And specifically, say you are looking for a good speaker, or good customer representative or somebody who is going to speak on your behalf and you want to see the speaker style…mirro will find your speaker style. So, and what we plan to do is that after you use mirro for, say, a certain amount of time, certain amount of videos that have been analyzed, it can find your communication style, and it can give you a certificate for that communication style. And that is vetted independently by an AI, you know, so the companies can look for the right communication skills for the job, and there you go, you can quickly look for the candidates mirro certificate. If I'm looking for an energetic, enthusiastic person, then I can look for that in a candidate and get a certificate of sale for 100 hours, analyze meetings, or you know, if you're a good and active listener in a meeting, so whatever mirro found so far about you that you can, you know, proudly put on your LinkedIn profile that can be used by the employers to find you.

Maureen Farmer

Oh, I love it. The possibilities are endless. Things are changing the world so rapidly, because of COVID, because of the remote work environment, and really the leveling of the playing field for the labor market, because now we can hire anyone from anywhere and how do we vet that candidate in an effective way if they're in another part of the world?

I see it as a really great, you know, risk mitigation tool for companies. And I also see it as a wonderful professional development tool for executives and professionals who want to level up—both sides of it. It's absolutely fascinating. I could talk about this forever. But I realize our time is drawing to a close.

I have a couple more questions for you. And I would I like to ask this question. What has surprised you most in your career so far? Either in your corporate career or in your business so far?

Maithilee Samant

Yeah. So one thing that really surprised me was the amount of help that is available to you, being an independent person who, you know, always wanted to be independent and have self-help and all of this, which is good, but you can't do everything by yourself. But many times people and especially I did earlier, I didn't want to go and ask for help. Just because I wanted to be independent and didn't want to bother anybody you know, and things like that. But what surprised me is how willing people are to help if you are open to them. If you are ready to ask them questions, it is an art—how to ask for help. But once you master it, then people become friendlier, circumstances become friendlier. And that is something that has pleasantly surprised me in my career.

Maureen Farmer

It reminds me of Dr. Robert Cialdini. His book, persuasion or influence—Persuasion, I think it is. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but he talks about the principle of reciprocation. And what I learned from that, from his research, among many other things that he has taught is that if you are willing to help others as well—that can open the doors for more help. So be willing to ask for the help but also offering to do something for the other person can really take the awkwardness out of asking for help.

Maithilee Samant

The reciprocation is one but even just being able to, you know, for me, I'm a giver, but it was always awkward for me to ask, you know, or being the first born in the family, you know, I was supposed to be the one who would provide or do things and make things happen, you know, take all the responsibility. So, asking was probably not in my consciousness as a viable option. So, I think that one of my friends actually reminded me of this, this sentence from Harry Potter—"help is given to those who ask for it.” And I realized that yeah, that's surprisingly true. That was a surprise to me— it's like, Oh, wow. Okay. So yes, if you ask you will get.

Maureen Farmer

Yeah, I think there are multiple influencers on that kind of dynamic, and I'm the oldest as well. So, I know exactly what you mean, you're the caretaker right. You're looking after others. And as parents and mothers, we tend to fall into that category too, stereotypically, but I think there's a lot of great truth to it. And so that's really lovely. I'm glad you shared that with us. My last question is a fun question around restaurants. We're collecting restaurants for a list. And we would love to know if you have a restaurant or two in your area that you would recommend if we were ever in your town.

Maithilee Samant

I'm lucky to be in Silicon Valley. Bay area. There are restaurants of all cultures here. Based on where you want to go, which cuisine you want to try. I have different recommendations.

Maureen Farmer

What's your favorite though?

Maithilee Samant

I like sushi restaurants!

Maureen Farmer

Yes. Is there a good one in your area?

Maithilee Samant

Oh, yeah, there are a lot of good ones. The one that comes to top of my head is Tomi Sushi. So, if you're in the Bay Area, have two locations. I think one is in, I believe in Cupertino, Santa Clara, and the other one in Mountain View. So yeah, either one. Tomi Sushi is a good place to go. And it's nice Japanese food.

Maureen Farmer

Excellent. Wonderful. Well, thank you for that. And when will your product be fully available on the market?

Maithilee Samant

We will launch it commercially in April-May timeframe.

Maureen Farmer

So just for the benefit of the listener here today. This is January of 2022. So you're expecting a full launch in May of 2022?

Maithilee Samant

Yeah. So www.mirro.ai

Maureen Farmer

Is that where they can people could get in touch with you as well on LinkedIn. Sorry, on your website, or are you available as well on LinkedIn?

Maithilee Samant

Yeah, I'm available on LinkedIn. Maithilee Samant. 

Maureen Farmer

It's been an absolute pleasure having you here today. And maybe you'll come back after the launch and tell us how it went.

Maithilee Samant

I absolutely would love to. And thank you so much Maureen. These were great questions. I really appreciate this discussion and these questions.

Maureen Farmer

Absolutely. It's been my pleasure. And we'll talk again soon.