Jason Lee

Super Intelligence.

Went home to have dinner with the parents and end up in the hospital with a piece of wagu stuck at the bottom of the esophagus and headed into surgery.

70+ AI Builders turning up at Ferris Chicago tonight.

IYKYK

Let’s not just DeFlock. Let’s also get rid of Axon, which is actually way worse than Flock. Their cameras and systems are much more invasive than Flock.

Full circle moment... 2004, introduced to VoIP and 4K at NAB. 2005, got two Comrex devices for remote broadcasting to VoIP the universities sports and lectures, become one of the first 10 college radio stations on iTunes/iTunesU 2016, the first mobile 4K IP studio with Sony (video) and Lawo (audio) for VoIP broadcast, after seeing the mc266 in 2004. 2026, re-imagining the workplace for founders.

In college in 2004, the head of Buena Vista at Disney shared this Synergy Map, drawn by Walt Disney in 1957, during a class on distribution. The idea stuck with me. Disney wasn’t building five separate businesses: movies, music, television, theme parks, and licensing. He was building a system where each part strengthened the others. A film could create music. The music promoted the film. Characters became merchandise. Television created distribution. The parks made the stories physical. And every part of the system fed demand back into the others. The power wasn’t any one business. It was the virtuous cycle created by the connections between them, with nearly every part of the ecosystem supported by multiple other parts. I’ve spent the last 23 years applying versions of this model across projects in 17 different industries. Now I get to apply it to something very different: a building. More specifically, an AI Founders Laboratory designed to test a simple question: What would it take to build the highest-performing physical environment for founders working in AI and emerging technology and have the building itself become a catalyst for growth? Not just desks, offices, meeting rooms, and amenities. An interconnected system where the architecture, technology, fitness, food, deep work, collaboration, community, education, events, services, and integrity all reinforce one another. And at the same time, I’ll continue building my own startup from inside it with the product itself integrated into the building and the building becoming part of the product laboratory. That might be the part I’m most excited about: not designing the environment from theory, but actually living and building inside it. Testing what works. Measuring what doesn’t. Improving it in real time. Taking 23 years of building, experimenting, succeeding, failing, and learning and getting to apply all of it to one physical project while continuing to build a company inside that system is incredibly fun.

After 100 user interviews with COOs, it is clear businesses don’t need more accountability software. Accountability starts after something went wrong. They need commitment infrastructure that makes the word visible while there is still time to honor it.

In mid 2014 I reached out to Sony about a goal to build a 4K IP mobile broadcast studio. A year and a half later with @Sony, we announced the first 4K IP church at NAB2016. 10 years later, talking with the team, but instead re-imagining the future of the workplace.

What happens when you take a defunct WeWork and turn it into the most optimal workplace for founders building with AI? If you are part of a founding team (Seed-Series B) in Chicago building with AI consider applying. ferrischicago.com/blog/getti…

Just back at tech conferences after 8 months focused on health. The gap between what everyday people understand about blockchain, AI, and the new buzzword “quantum” is growing bigger, and faster. Illinois just passed a 0.2% tax on all digital asset transactions. After talking with builders, locals, and policymakers, one thing is clear, we need more grassroots experiences in our cities that show how this tech solves the actual problems people care about. So I’m brushing off some skills from the past when launching albums, movies, or video games. Putting together experiences in Chicago that reaches everyday people, gives builders a stage to use the things we love, creators a story, and shows policymakers what’s possible when we use this tech. If this sounds interesting, lmk.