Why Non-Tech Companies Are AI's Biggest Untapped Frontier

A Simple Choice About Relevance

Yair Nativ 0:00

It's up to you. Like if you want to be relevant in your specific industry, in your specific role, like the tools that you're bringing, or the the tech, or the the methodologies, or the way of thinking, because like AI is is like it's it's it's a new architecture of how to think about things when it comes to work, then if you learn that, then you have a great future. And if you don't learn that, it's up to you. I think that what we're seeing is mostly scared executives that are not sure what to do. And even if they act confidently, like when they when they are in the closed rooms with us, like when it's one-on-one, they will say, like, I what what do what am I doing now? Like in in one finance department, we've seen that the ratio of like months of human work versus days of agent work uh several times. So we effectively uh you know saved you can say years.

Meet Yair Nativ And His Mission

Rajiv Parikh 1:00

We have a special episode for you today. Yair Nativ. He's a multi-time entrepreneur, and he's an Israeli multi-time entrepreneur. And what's unique about him, he's like is that he's in the middle of multiple worlds. He lives in a conflict zone. He's recently had to go back and serve while building and running his business. He has great insight on AI from an epithet point of view, from a senior to junior point of view. And all the things that he does is about how he's motivated by events. He takes his father's passing as a way to start a nonprofit initiative to bring about greater d driver safety and safer streets. He is working with another group on an app to get people to work together. And then he's in the middle of shifting his company to a brand new concept that is all about driving strategy and AI, but in a meaningful way for regular companies, not just tech companies. So it's a really interesting episode. He's warm, he's interesting, he's empathetic, and a unique experience to talk with a person like Yair. So please listen in. Welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast. We're joined by Yair Nativ, the co-founder and CEO of Mateos, an AI adoption and strategy company. His drive to solve real-world problems has evolved into a mission to close the gap between a flashy demo and an actual result on the PL. A serial entrepreneur based in Israel, Yair's previous ventures include Voiceable, a Nielsen-backed communications analytics startup, and SafeLane, a nationwide road safety initiative that mobilized over a hundred thousand volunteers and had government backing. He's also the co-host of the podcast Future Proof, Automation, AI, and the New Human Condition. Yair earned his Bachelor of Laws and Masters in Political Science and Government from the University of Haifa and began his early career as a legal intern at the Israeli Ministry of Justice and as a combat medic in the Israel Defense Forces, where he received the Brigadier Award for Excellence. Some of the takeaways you can expect from this episode, the unglamorous middle where AI transformation actually happens, turning AI fear into empowerment, and finally protecting original thought from LLM mediocrity. Yair, welcome to the Spark of Ages.

Yair Nativ 3:44

Yeah, thank you for having me. I feel so warned by this uh introduction. Thank you for reminding me for that I have a political science figure.

Rajiv Parikh 3:53

Yeah, no, it's amazing, right? I mean, you you go all the way back and you're like, wait, that's where I came from? And we find that these things really inform who you are today. So I'm sure that's uh enabling you to take your beliefs and take it to the next step. So now, like this whole field of AI automation, however you break it up, it's huge. There's different estimates all over the place. Intelligent workflow market is like a $25 billion market expected to grow to $65 billion by 2035. So massive growth. The whole AI automation and agentic workflows. I've seen estimates of it growing to 250 billion by 2034, a global automation landscape, 1.1 trillion by 2033. So massive markets. It's why so many companies have rushed into the space. It's why open AI and Anthropic are so big. So we're all there and we all have different points of view as to how to make this happen.

Why Confident AI Misleads Leaders

Rajiv Parikh 4:45

So, Yair, in your work, you've highlighted the danger of people trusting AI outputs simply because they're delivered with such absolute confidence. It's leading to that notion of the wrong answer, faster phenomenon. And we highlighted this recently with Christoph Moran, the founder of Neuromarketing. So, why are smart executives so vulnerable to trusting a confident-sounding hallucination? How can companies reward critical thinking and skepticism over just blind acceptance of an AI agent's output?

Yair Nativ 5:16

Before we move we move to the professional part, I will start by saying that I also volunteer as a mentor of high schoolers in an entrepreneurship school. So that they get points for just being entrepreneurs in during their high school period. And what we see with them is amazing, but mostly scary for me. Because you see how they assume that everything that ChatGPT tells them is right. When it comes to executives in meaningful, significant companies, I think that we see two opposites. You have skepticism. Like Copilot can do Excel sheets better than you. Okay. And then you have those forward thinking, and that's that that's rush into creating the the AI brain. And that's where you you do get the like the 10x, 100x um improvement of the company. So I think it's a spectrum. Does that make sense?

Rajiv Parikh 6:24

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean you're saying, yeah, when you're when you're younger and you've never seen this before, everything looks right to you. Maybe in the the companies you're talking to, they're more skeptical. I'm seeing folks who ha have been executives 20 you know years uh in the company. And when our AI spits out something, because it has so much so much of a connection or context with other true things, they're willing to they they are moving to that point where there's almost like a blot like a an acceptance right away, as opposed to being more critical and say just like anything someone talks to you about, you you're you're evaluating, you're trying to understand. You don't just blindly accept something. So I think that's the interesting trend. We have to be careful.

Yair Nativ 7:10

We need to be careful. Yeah, like there's still a lot of uh AI slope. There's a company that raised 30-something million dollars called AI slope, just uh reversed. Uh that is very close to you uh geographically. Uh, I think that what we're seeing is mostly scared executives uh that are not sure what to do. And even if they act confidently, like when they are in the closed rooms with us, like when it's one-on-one, they will say, like, I what what do what am I doing now? Like some of them will take it to the place of you know, right now I have uh 40 million in revenue, how do I use AI to make 400 million? And and some of them will, you know, will focus on the human aspects, like how do I make sure that people are not afraid and they're not worried and they're not, which is an important aspect. It's not the most important aspect, but it's a very important aspect. And and some of them are just waiting to see because they they saw so many failures that they are afraid to take action. And if they take action, like it's okay, let's give co-pilot or GPT or Cloud to everyone, and we are an AI company. You're not an AI company, but I think that they they actually think that they are an AI company if they gave Cloud subscription.

Rajiv Parikh 8:33

Right. So it's a whole the whole different spectrum. So a lot of folks are concerned, right? And you've

The Real AI Frontier Is Non-Tech

Rajiv Parikh 8:38

observed that, right? That AI entrepreneurs, at least in in the the company that you're working on right now, that many AI entrepreneurs they're selling to tech companies, but in terms of what you're offering, there's a big opportunity in the unglamorous middle, right? Those companies that are between 50 and a few thousand people in a non-tech business. So why are traditional industries the actual frontier for AI? And what does the successful translation look like for these companies that are drowning in AI hype?

Yair Nativ 9:08

I'm coming from the tech world. Like I'm I have more than a decade of experience in in-tech companies. Now that I'm seeing non-tech companies, they're they're cool. Like it didn't mean you know, they're actually creating stuff. Like you you see, you go to a plant, they're actually creating like real stuff in in that that we are using. And when you see the processes today, um like if if you come with me to a plant tomorrow, like you you will be shocked by how much progress they need to make to make sure that they are um you know capable of staying effective and relevant in the next five years. And it's a bit it's and it's a massive opportunity, like eventually more than 90% of the market is is those companies that are mostly overlooked uh by by most of the by most of the companies out there, um, and they're doing an amazing job. Like then it's it's really rewarding to help them stay relevant.

Rajiv Parikh 10:09

So you find that they are making real things and they're adopting some AI, but they need a lot of help. Or you don't.

Yair Nativ 10:16

Yeah, like without diving into like specific uh private information of other companies, but like the processes that you see, like let's say a finance uh department, they will export an Excel sheet, convert it into a PDF file, print that, and then manually update the Excel. Like these are processes that in like most tech companies you wouldn't see. Or you know, they will get shipments of high of hundreds of uh items in 6 a.m. in the morning, and then manually we'll we'll start working on them. So so that that's what we see in the lower end of like AI adoption or or even tech adoption, you know, it's not just AI. On the higher end, you do see companies that are starting to adopt, like to work with agents and to create, you know, it's not hard building an agent. I'm assuming like you have a lot of experience with that too.

Rajiv Parikh 11:10

Right, right. So in the beginning, they're using it to enhance the like you were talking about that spreadsheet flow. They're they're getting more information together, they're they're using it to enhance the initial the initial analysis, and then later on you're you're finding that they're open to agents.

Yair Nativ 11:27

So we talked about the spectrum, so the Excel sheets converted to PDF printed, like that's on the lower end of uh on the higher end. We have companies that are building different agents and and need the help with the orchestration with the AI brain. I believe that on the lower end, like the human confidence of hmm, this thing is actually working, is what's going to create more adoption. Uh, because they really have no like that they're really far behind on the higher end of those that are you know creating agents, like that they are more ready for you know then what we call the 10x or the 100x uh improvement uh of actually creating something that you know makes your company get more market traction. And if I may add, like we the opportunities that we see, like the capability of a company that let's say has 20% market share in a specific industry, and that entire industry is like in the same level of AI adoption, so the the speed and the quality of AI adoption now can can even 1% of market share, that's a lot. And those opportunities are I wouldn't say easy because nothing is easy, but are relatively easy uh these days because if you get even a one-year or six months advantage over your competition that is doing the same process, just you know, much slower than you, that's a huge thing. Everyone is going to do that, like in a couple of years.

Rajiv Parikh 13:05

Yeah, and this is something you've argued, right? That the AI revolution isn't in the flashy generative AI areas, but it in the back office, requiring leaders to focus on what maybe may seem as boring problems. So when you look at traditional industries with deeply ingrained analog processes, what do you believe is the execution strategy to ensure AI actually moves the bottom

Turning Boring Work Into Bottom Line

Rajiv Parikh 13:26

line?

Yair Nativ 13:26

So you kind of quoted uh one of the MIT studies on uh on AI adoption. Uh, there are several of those. If I can share, um, like I don't remember the name of this highly successful entrepreneur now turned into an investor. And he said, entrepreneurs are coming to me uh uh all of the time with like super impressive, fascinating. Like I want entrepreneurs that are solving the Boeing problems. They can't come to me with the boring guy. I I like the boring. Like we see companies that are looking for you know rocket science AI that looks very sexy and and is mostly outward-facing, like the capability today of taking a process that you that and these are real examples, like a human can work on something four months, and then we we will come and create in three days an agent that does the same work and frees that person to do other more important things, maybe it accumulates. Like all of this time accumulates and and it will create the differences between organizations.

Rajiv Parikh 14:32

What kind of things are you seeing right now when you're when you're helping some of those more traditional companies like solve quote unquote the boring problems? What kind of business impact are you seeing?

Yair Nativ 14:42

I can give examples because like we're working with several industries and several departments of at each company. So like in in one finance department, we've seen the ratio of like months of human work versus days of agent work several times. So we effectively uh you know saved, you can say years of time uh to that company, sales, which is closer to your doing. I can know there are maybe two billion uh companies I'm exaggerating, but that are creating AI SDRs, AI and uh sales a go-to-market field where we're in, there's a ton of companies doing so many different things.

Rajiv Parikh 15:24

And actually, I I'm hearing and I'm seeing actually with some of the work we're doing, is that it's when you get into some of the operational aspects of running the business, the internal workflows, it could be in a medical company, the the clinical flow to the patient, or even in the tech company, the way in which they convey information to their partners and measure that, those get more value for the company. The the AI SDRs, it's okay and it's amazing, don't get me wrong, but there's like a lot of places that people are offering that. And then when you ask about what the impact is, I mean it's good. It's just there's so many players there.

Yair Nativ 16:03

Yeah, there are so many players, and it's how to measure because you can do a very good job. Like we created those agents, okay? Like an agent that sits on top of your existing tool. Like, you know, it's it's not a complicated agent to build. And there are companies, very good companies in San Francisco that are building uh, you know, similar products. But when we look at processes in companies, like there are processes like sales, in which our control as a company is limited. Like we can get you great leads, we can reach out to them, we can do everything right, uh, but then it takes you um uh 12 days to schedule to actually make time for that meeting, or that your um price quotes are irrelevant to that. Like there can be very many reasons uh to not uh actually buy eventually, and boring processes, such as you know, how much time does it take you to process 1000 invoices with zero mistakes? Okay, like that's not an interesting process that we can own, like that we can take full control. Uh and this is the place when like I'm wondering what you're seeing as well, but like this is the place when we'll see when we can take responsibility and also add that responsibility to the pricing. Okay, like if we don't meet the KPI that's uh that we agree upon in advance, we we get paid less, yeah, which is fair to

Value Based Pricing For AI Outcomes

Yair Nativ 17:29

me. I'm wondering what you're seeing, like on value-based pricing.

Rajiv Parikh 17:33

I think everyone would like to do more value-based pricing or performance-based pricing. It's harder to do with AI because you feel you can get there because you can do greater analytical work. But right now, a lot of this is just simply usage-based pricing or deliverable-based pricing, as opposed to if I create this campaign and I improve your productivity by 20%, it's not as if the company is saying, Oh, I'll share 20% of that for you with you because you you helped me get there. It's more about, well, does it support the value for the technology and the and the time and the people investment? It's not necessarily connecting one to the other, like the pure like autonomy that one company that I think HP bought years ago, which was very value-based pricing oriented. Companies tend to shy away from that. Unless it's pure performance-based, like, hey, I got you an investment, therefore I get a percentage of that.

Yair Nativ 18:30

That's one of the things that we're thinking the most about these days. And I believe that it's one of the things that will differentiate between successful AI companies and and the non-s non-successful one. Like, for example, in the past week, uh, we had two companies that um reached out to us and asked and asked us, like they told us, you know, I have an employee living, do I need to hire or make or can AI just replace the things that that uh she she's doing? Which is um a hard question, like for for uh many reasons, like moral reasons, like that, you know, it's it's a hard question. But in one of those cases, and it it would be interesting to see because we don't have an answer yet, like what we uh suggested is was we are willing to take the risk with you, okay. If we can create agents that deliver everything that this person that is now leaving, okay, she's not firing anyone for the agents that we're building, she's living anyway. If we can build something that um replaces everything that she's doing, you pay us the yearly salary or or something like that at the end of the year. In this case, we take the risk. Now, if it's just uh you know pricing that is based on how much time and money plus you know it takes us to create the tech that that's good that that's going to be way lower. Like it's no it's not a salary of a of a one year of an em of a full-time employee. Well, we will get a response next week. So I will update you.

Rajiv Parikh 20:01

I think that's a that's a really powerful way. I've seen companies that you know in the medical solutions field where they'll say, I'll provide you a nurse at $9 an hour, right? It's a virtual nurse at $9 an hour. But you can get not the person that's going to come to your home, but will actually sit there and talk to you over the phone, right? I've seen people use that from the BDR point of view, saying, Well, if you were to hire a BDR, it will cost you $100,000 a year. So pay me $100,000 for my software, and I'll give you a 24-hour virtual BDR that is replacing four or five people. There is that kind of notion, right? So there's a lot of ways, clever ways that we're all trying. And we can see how that might

From Job Fear To Empowerment

Rajiv Parikh 20:41

work. So then when you're sharing your story, right? You you talked about the story of this person who's leaving, and we said, Well, can you build that person with agents? And hopefully, when you build that person with agents, they know the more about the company, they they get the data about the company, they are gonna perform in a consistent way, they won't be taking any vacations, but they may not have that creativity aspect, right? So there's stories of like the junior support rep that will ask you, Are you here to fire us? So is there a playbook that you can use to turn that fear, that person, into that notion of empowerment? How they're moving from job security, you know, that fear of loss of job security to business growth and opportunity.

Yair Nativ 21:19

So let me share a story about uh a plant manager that avoided me for like four weeks. The CEO, the owner, they brought us to to help them uh get into the AI age. And this guy avoided me for like four weeks. He's sick, he's uh like something he's uh like four weeks he may he had excuses for meeting us, and it was clear that he's just afraid. Like he's afraid, he's concerned. Like, I I don't blame him. I deeply understand that because you know he's there for 20 years, he knows everyone, he's friends with everyone. So the the narrative that we're trying to share, and uh and I believe that, like it's not a cynical uh narrative, like let's get back to the 20% part. So let's say that now you're making X millions of dollars yearly. I believe that we can help you make more than that. You can hire more people, or you you can find roles that will be more relevant to 2026, 2027. And I believe in that. And there is I I believe it was IKEA, like the famous story of like instead of letting go of like thousands of people um replacing them with AI, they actually found ways to keep them and help the company grow with them. So so I believe in those stories.

Rajiv Parikh 22:33

So you know, going back to that plant manager, right? That that person avoided you. Why do you avoid you?

Yair Nativ 22:38

Well, you can see I'm a very scary person.

Rajiv Parikh 22:41

We look pretty kind to me.

Yair Nativ 22:42

Yeah, I'm I'm fine. Like, you know, he's he's worried, like he is he's afraid. Like when he sees me, he he looks at me, and I'm like, you know, in another company. Like someone left, but he was serious. Like he he left with me and he asked me, like, are you here to fire me? Like, is that why you are here? Like he was joking, but he wasn't. And what I told him, and I will get back to the plant manager, but but what what I told him is that first of all, no, I might not making any any of those decisions. But it's up to you. Like, if you want to be relevant in your specific industry, in your specific role, like the tools that you're bringing, or the tech, or the and the methodologies, or the way of thinking, because like AI is is like it's it's it's a new architecture of how to think about things when it comes to work, then if you learn that, then you have a great future. And if you don't learn that, it's up to you. Like it's it's your choice.

Rajiv Parikh 23:41

The wave is coming to you, right? So you have to figure out how to adapt to that wave.

Yair Nativ 23:45

And regarding the plant manager, no, I I I was very open with him. Like what you said. Like the the wave is is it's not it's not coming, it's here. It's like the wave is here. Let's work together to make sure that uh you grow, employees grow, everyone grows, uh, instead of the like resisting if doesn't help anyone, like it doesn't help the plant, it doesn't help the company, it doesn't help the employees, and it doesn't help you.

Rajiv Parikh 24:10

The resistance is only a short-term answer, right? You have to get

Why Most AI Transformations Die

Rajiv Parikh 24:13

through it. So, and you've written that 95% of AI transformation projects die young. There's a report from Writer, which was in the fortune high sighted in Fortune magazine, showing that 29% of employees and 44% of Gen Z folks admit to actively sabotaging their company's AI strategy. So, just like that story about the plant manager, when you walk into an organization, how do you convince executives that their AI strategy is destined to fail if it doesn't account for that scared, terrified frontline worker? And what do the successful 5% do differently to make these workers into champions instead of saboteurs?

Yair Nativ 24:52

So one of the things that we're seeing the bigger companies do these days, they are creating an AI red teams, like red teams is from the is taken from cyber, and they are creating those teams that create the competition inside the company. And when and when you look at the two options of do I improve customer success by 40%, and do I improve sales by 30%, do I improve most of company, most of the companies are there, by the way. Like they're looking at the 10, 20, 30% improvement, which is great, like it's important. We we all want to get better. Most companies are not looking at the 10x or the 100x. And when you look at the two models of improving from inside or uh or creating something new that competes with you, like you own it, but new team, new people, new dynamic, new everything. Yeah, you see that you have advantages and disadvantages. Okay, the disadvantages are that inside, like there is basic human resistance, and it's not like it's it's a human resistance I sympathize with. Like, you know, people are doing their jobs for 10, 20, 30 years. They are used to like, you know, changing people's minds is extremely hard or people's habits. We we are working with behavioral uh scientists, like um as a part of what we do. And I get that, but then like a process can take five months of you know, of approving and and uh getting everyone on board, and then like we we came to the CEO of a relatively big call, like 1,000 employees that was very skeptic. Okay, so what can you do for me? Like, no, we're not we're not a we're not a big company, and uh like towards the end of the meeting, I I told him, you know, like a thing of six people can beat you now. You you take six people from Stanford uh to to to build what what you have here. Now it's not going to be that easy, right? Like it's not going to be easy, but they're going to create a faster, better service slash product than you within a few months, because coding today is a joke. It's not a joke, but you what you understand.

Rajiv Parikh 27:00

It's a different thing and than before. You can get prototypes up really quickly.

Yair Nativ 27:04

Yeah, yeah. And that's when he started listening. Like I think that's when he he understood that he needs to shift his mind. And that's where when they understood, they think that like they think they need to create it outside instead of instead of inside. But it's in it it's an interesting concept even to think about. Like it doesn't need to be formally a new company, but like it's very hard to do it from within if you want to win, because everyone is building AI in your field right now. Doesn't matter where you are.

Rajiv Parikh 27:39

So yeah, so the outsider perspective can really help make enable that change. So at the executive level, you're doing that. Then when you're working with the actual team, their workers, how are the teams motivating them to help you as you as you build what you're building? Because a lot of times the nuance of these applications or how things work are with those people. They've written some things down, but a lot of it is just a tacit knowledge. It's not explicit knowledge.

Yair Nativ 28:05

That's a good question, if I got it right. Like when we're looking at processes and at uh you know convincing and put convincing air quote employees uh to collaborate, like the the question that they have in their minds is how like how does it help me personally? Like they don't necessarily think about the entire organization and uh I think that the the winning argument there is we're going to save you time, we're going to make your day better, and we're going to teach you how to work with it.

Rajiv Parikh 28:37

Show them the opportunity that they have by yeah, so that you stay relevant.

Yair Nativ 28:40

Like we're trying to be very like we show empathy in this process, which

Escaping AI Theater With KPIs

Yair Nativ 28:45

is important.

Rajiv Parikh 28:45

So, you know, one of the things I'm finding, at least we built our agentic platform that, and it's a general purpose platform that we've applied to go to market. And AI was supposed to give us more time back. But I find I'm working more hours than ever before, especially since the system prompts me to build all these interesting agents. And then as I get sucked into these building these agents, I end up trying to perfect it. I build multiple versions, it gets pretty technical. So I thought these things, you know, just like any technology, it was always supposed to save time. But in fact, it actually, like the studies are saying 77% of workers say that AI is actually added to my workload. So are companies trapped in AI theater in the sense that they're using these tools to generate more busy work rather than solving real problems? Because somehow we were doing our job previously.

Yair Nativ 29:34

So I will divide it into two answers. Like the the first one, people, or at least the people I know, uh are working harder than ever. But I'm surrounded by entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs are hardworking because the benchmark of good work became much higher. Like a good day of work would uh a few days a few years ago would have been okay, I closed a couple of more clients today, I created uh like these and these lines of uh PRs, whatever. I answered dozens of customers today, whatever you choose. Now the bar for doing good work is much higher. So the competitive people and entrepreneurs are usually competitive, um want to keep up.

Rajiv Parikh 30:22

We're working harder because we're forced to lift our game. We lift our game, and so we keep lifting our game. And then we have this wonderful enabler with the AI platforms that that keep pushing us as hard as we want to be pushed.

Yair Nativ 30:35

I have two other screens uh right here. Obviously, they're doing other stuff as we speak. Um so so so that that's in the working hard part. What was the second part?

Rajiv Parikh 30:47

Yeah, I think it's working hard, but is it working hard in a productive way, right? Or are we just lifting the bar on each other? How do we get to the point where it's adding value yet we get to a place where we're not we we are maybe enjoying life more?

Yair Nativ 31:01

I'm not an expert on enjoying life, I just I just work. I'm not an expert on that. Like what we have several folks from MIT that are working with us. So I I I also visited Boston quite often in the in the past few years, and one of them is an expert on uh KPI measurement, and we're talking a lot about how do I know if what I did was valuable? Like, fine, okay, I generated one million lines of code. Like, how how do I know if it's valuable? Um, and what we're trying to do really hard is to tie every AI in like every AI to KPIs to demonstrate, okay, like this saved this got the company uh two million dollars, this saved the company seven hundred uh thousand. Because otherwise, like it's very hard, it's very hard, and especially in big organizations where if you're a the 10, 15, 20 people uh startup, like you you know if if you did a good job or not. In bigger organizations, it's hard.

Rajiv Parikh 32:06

Yeah, it is much harder.

Building While Living In A War Zone

Rajiv Parikh 32:08

Now, you've had an intense recent journey, right? You served seven months in the military reserves, your wife had a baby during the war, you're keeping your startup alive. It must have forced you to learn how to truly delegate to others. So, how has that really visceral personal experience with this extreme workload and pressure enabled you to change your way of how you delegate with others? You know, have you given more responsibility to AI agents? Have you offered more to your team? How have you worked through all that?

Yair Nativ 32:36

You know, it's a sensitive it's a sensitive topic. So I I I will uh I will say something personal on that. Regardless of politics, okay, like uh politics, I believe it's an it's a different uh it's a different podcast. But regardless of politics, like the personal toll of of uh anyone in the Middle East, yeah, or in in my specific region and close region, like the the emotional toll is not trivial at all. No, I I visit the US quite often, less in the in the last couple of years, but both in New York and well Dallas mostly, but also San Francisco. And being in the US, like the for me at least, like the the mental load of you know everything is fine. Like you don't like let me share uh like an anecdote. A missile is fired at us, we it depends where you where you live. Where I live, it's about 30 seconds. So we have an app that says 30 seconds and like go to the shelter. And what a normal human being does, like when the when they are being told, okay, 30 seconds. If if if you're in the middle of a zoom conversation, you say bye and go to the shelter. Like we're in a position that okay, I will finish the like I will take the 20 seconds, like if I have 30. I will take the 30 seconds. So I need to go, let's rip up, let's summarize next steps. I will go to the shelter like in the last five seconds, close the door, and it's a very small price of the other prices that people pay in this region. I will say another thing. We have a collaboration, like I'm working with some Palestinian friends of mine, Palestinian colleagues, doing a project together. Like we are uh collaborating and working together uh to build the AI products to others. That's like small part. No, so I I think that that we're looking at it as our normal way of you know working together. In our region, it's not a common thing, but it's a very normal thing. Yeah, you know, like you can work with someone from Philadelphia. Okay, like that that's that's a normal thing. For me to work with people from the West Bank or even Gaza in some cases, uh like that's not uh that's very air, yeah, and that's very hard to uh like for uh you know several reasons. We actually meet in the US because in this like we we live like it's a walking distance or a drive, like it's 30 minutes drive. But we will meet in the US because in here it's hard for us to meet, like for uh logistical reasons. Anyway, so that was a very long answer to your question.

Rajiv Parikh 35:14

I think this is how you you like you have so much going on in the region that just to enable what would be a normal collaboration, it's easier to meet in another location far away than it is to meet even though you're next door. I mean, that's a really, really powerful, difficult thing to even contemplate for most people.

Yair Nativ 35:34

And might sound weird, like to someone from San Francisco or New York, you know, it's uh literally 30-minute drive. Like then this region is not very big. And I will say something about resiliency. Okay, like we did not talk about my uh my first uh startup yet, but I started it with with my co-founder after my father died in a car accident. In my mind, like uh I thought this is not going like I'm going to make something out of it.

Rajiv Parikh 35:59

Yeah, you're you're that type of person. When something happens, you want to make something out of it.

Yair Nativ 36:03

So, in the context of of the war and everything around that, this state of mind of nothing is going to break me or us, like you know, uh all of us lost friends, like it's uh it's very common here, like it's uh it's a common thing. And I lost like a friend of mine on October 7th. So so this state of mind of nothing is breaking us is a powerful state of mind, and I will say that you know we are uh we have family in uh in uh Texas and uh New Jersey. When we go to our yearly or bi-yearly visit in Texas, you know, everything is so relaxed. Like you can just go to the gym, it's fine. Like you're not look like you're not worried that something might happen.

Rajiv Parikh 36:48

No, it's amazing. Yeah, thank you for that. It's really helpful to understand and and share that perspective. It tells you a lot when you think you have so many problems, and when you hear from you, who's an entrepreneur who has to has all these things happening around him. So let me shift gears a little bit and move to something a little more happy before we get deep again. And

Spark Tank World Cup Challenge

Rajiv Parikh 37:07

that is our game. We have this game called the Spark Tank. So today we're joined by Yair Nativ, the co-founder and CEO of Mateo. Yair, in your day job, you map out human behavioral systems, remove cognitive clutter, and optimize team performance. But today we are taking you out of the boardroom or out of the factory floor and onto the global pitch. We're putting you to the test with the World Cup Challenge. An avid soccer fan since his youth, Yair was so dedicated to the sport that he built his very first website at just 13 years old, dedicated solely to his favorite soccer team. We are diving deep into the wildest, most unpredictable area in world sports, will be stress testing your knowledge on the history of the FIFA World Cup. So, Yair, are you ready to prove that you are sharp in high-stakes history of world soccer or football as you are in the future of AI transformation?

Yair Nativ 38:01

I can try. I have no idea. How do you how do you know that I built this website when I was 13?

Rajiv Parikh 38:05

I have very good research agents.

Yair Nativ 38:08

Okay, good.

Rajiv Parikh 38:09

All right, we're gonna have some fun. This is meant to be fun. Rarely does everybody get any answer right.

Yair Nativ 38:14

I don't know a lot about the World Cup, but okay, let's let's start.

Rajiv Parikh 38:18

Take guesses, don't worry about it. So, question number one it's a multiple choice. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Lionel Messi captivated the globe by breaking the all-time record for the most total World Cup match appearances with 26 games. However, when it comes to raw tournament dominance, who holds the undisputed record for the most total World Cup matches won by a single player in soccer history? A Lionel Messi from Argentina, B Pele from Brazil, or C, Miroslav Klossa from Germany.

Yair Nativ 38:56

I'm going to go with the Germany guy.

Rajiv Parikh 38:58

Why is that your answer?

Yair Nativ 39:00

Because before you said it, I thought maybe it's him. I might be mistaken. I think that Pele did not play like it's well known, and there's a player, and there's uh was a tromendous player, but why are you asking it's not him?

Rajiv Parikh 39:16

Well, guess what? You are right. Miroslav Klosa is the correct answer. While Pele hosted three trophies and Messi played in the most overall fixtures, Germany's Miroslav Klosa stands alone with 17 individual match victories across four tournaments from 2002 to 2014, combined with his 16 overall goals, the all-time scoring record. Klose was the ultimate tournament weapon. Usually everyone says Messi or Pele, but he was just basically the human cheat code at the World Cup. So 17 wins, 16 goals across four tournaments. He's a man who did not know how to lose on the world stage. You're one for one. All right, here we'll go. Here's number two. In soccer or football, referees try to let matches settle down before pulling out their heavy cards. However, at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, Uruguayan defender Jose Batista wasn't given time to warm up. In a high stakes group stage match against Scotland, Batista launched into a reckless flying tackle right off the kickoff. How fast was he sent off, setting the unbroken record for the fastest red card in World Cup history? Is it A 12 seconds, B, 56 seconds, or C two minutes and 15 seconds?

Yair Nativ 40:38

I'm proud of myself that I'm not using AI in all of the computers that I have here.

Rajiv Parikh 40:44

Like it's well that would be no fun.

Yair Nativ 40:47

I'm going to go with option number A.

Rajiv Parikh 40:51

Okay, A. And you picked A 12 seconds because I don't know.

Yair Nativ 40:54

It seems like it's two minutes and yeah, like two minutes, like close to three minutes, like probably someone made it faster. So it's either A or A or B. I'm going with A.

Rajiv Parikh 41:08

Yeah, you have good thinking around it. It's actually B, 56 seconds into the match against Sir Alex Ferguson's Scotland squad. Jose Batista executed a horrific knee-high challenge on Gordon Strachen. The referee didn't hesitate and flashed a straight red card before the clock even hit one minute. Batista was so stunned he stood on the pitch, refusing to leave, claiming he hadn't even worked up a sweat yet. The Scottish coaching staff had barely even sat down on the bench before Batista was walking back down into the tunnel. That's taking the phrase setting the tone early way too far.

Yair Nativ 41:44

I should have used AI.

Rajiv Parikh 41:47

I thought your logic was good, you know.

Yair Nativ 41:49

The logic was fine. Like it was I either one of the two options. Yeah.

Rajiv Parikh 41:53

Yeah, I mean I think it's good logic. Things are happening in two minutes. So, okay, here's uh question number three. In 1930, France's Lucien Laurent scored the very first goal in FIFA World Cup history during a four to one victory over Mexico in Uruguay. However, the goal had a unique tactical quirk that makes it even more remarkable. Why was France playing shorthanded on the pitch when the ball hit the back of the net? A substitutions didn't exist yet, and the French goalkeeper was off injured on the sideline. B a French defender had been sent off with a red card following a similarly aggressive opening tackle. Or C, the French team captained was serving a mandatory time penalty in a bench area for an early handball. So remember, this is 1930. Why was France playing shorthanded?

Yair Nativ 42:46

Why is the hint that it was 1930 important? I feel like you're giving me a hint here, and they need to understand it. I will like A sounds like it's not reasonable that we were no sub substitutions. B sounds like the AI took the answer from the last question and edited here. So so uh so I will go with C.

Rajiv Parikh 43:09

You think they served a time penalty for early handball, which is you never know, it's 1930.

Yair Nativ 43:14

Yeah. That's my guess, you know.

Rajiv Parikh 43:17

Well, actually, yeah, the correct correct answer is A.

Yair Nativ 43:20

They had no substitutions?

Rajiv Parikh 43:22

Yeah. In the inaugural 1930 World Cup, rules did not permit match substitutions under any circumstances. So when the French goalkeeper Alex Thébat suffered a heavy jaw injury early against Mexico, field player Augustine Chantrelle had to step into goal. So they were playing down a man with 10 field players. Laurent scored his historic 19 minute volley before Thébat could even be patched up.

Yair Nativ 43:47

Yeah, well, but maybe someone in a podcast in uh like 100 years from now will not be able to envision that once we played without VAR.

Rajiv Parikh 43:58

Yeah, VAR has now become a New thing, right? We never knew that you could be overruled by a robot or or referees watching from afar. All right, do you want to try a number four? Sure. All right. Today, World Cup knockout matches that end in a tie go to extra time and penalty shootouts. But back in the mid-20th century, before penalty shootouts were adopted by FIFA in 1970, how were group stage matches or qualification ties decided if neither team could win on goals? A the team with fewer yellow cards was declared the winner. B a referee drew a random slip of paper or flipped a coin in a back room. Or D, the match was replayed entirely the following morning. This is mid-20th century before penalty shootouts were adopted in 1970. So if you're in a group stage match or qualification tie, how was it decided? If you didn't have there was no overtime back then, and they didn't go to a shootout. So how else would they decide?

Yair Nativ 45:01

So so I'm I'm ruling out C.

Rajiv Parikh 45:03

Yeah, I mean it sounds crazy in a group stage match to play the whole match the next day.

Yair Nativ 45:08

It sounds crazy, but uh we're thinking about it in uh like today's values. Like you you wouldn't do that to a player, like uh it's not it's risky, but we're thinking about it in today's values. I'm wondering if in the mid-century, like I'm going through all that anyway.

Rajiv Parikh 45:25

Okay, let's let's assume that you know what you're right on with your logic so far.

Yair Nativ 45:29

Okay, so now I needed to choose from three and I and I need to choose from two.

Rajiv Parikh 45:33

You're choosing between yellow cards and a coin flip.

Yair Nativ 45:37

So yellow cards, like the the logic is that like fairness, like they wanted to show um where was it played, by the way? I don't know where it was played.

Rajiv Parikh 45:48

Any World Cup in the mid-20th century, so it could be anywhere. It's just the rules at the time.

Yair Nativ 45:52

After that cut off all of my thinking phase. Okay, I'm going with the yellow cards, even though I uh my gut feeling tells me it's the coin. My gut feeling tells me it's the coin. I'm going to go with the yellow cards because it makes more sense.

Rajiv Parikh 46:06

You know what? You should have gone with your gut feeling. It's actually me. And it makes no sense at all. And I agree with you. Uh, before FIFA introduced the standardized penalty shootout in 1970, equal points and goal differences were resolved literally by drawing lots or flipping a coin. In fact, in the 1968 European Championship semi-final, Italy advanced to the final over the Soviet Union purely because Italian champion Gentito Facetti picked the correct side of a coin in the referee's dressing room after a 0-0 draw. So imagine you train for four years and then you get eliminated because the referee flipped a coin in his office.

Yair Nativ 46:50

Yeah, that doesn't make sense. But by the way, the the way for you to know how seriously I take the podcast and and and view as a part of the podcast is that my favorite team is playing now, and I'm not watching the game. I'm speaking with you.

Rajiv Parikh 47:05

Oh my god. That's uh well, I thank you for joining him. I hope you have it on tape delay so you can watch later.

Yair Nativ 47:12

Yeah, yeah, no, don't don't worry. This was interesting.

Rajiv Parikh 47:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have more questions

The Origin Story Behind SafeLane

Rajiv Parikh 47:18

for you. So, hey, did you always know you wanted to work in technology? Was there a specific moment or project that sparked your passion? You know, what what got you sparked?

Yair Nativ 47:26

You know, the this research now that you can uh teach someone how to become an entrepreneur, teaching entrepreneurship, I know that. But at least for the um for both of the entrepreneurs I know, I think it's a it's a bug. Like you you want to create, you want to do like, you know, I I met this entrepreneur that is now a billionaire, a little bit older than me, and I met him in different circumstances. But at one point we were uh competing on the same attention of buyers in a conference in New York. And you know, this guy that is 20, 30 years older than me, a billionaire, okay, that that definitely doesn't need to work a day in his life, was chasing clients as if he's a you know 25-year-old founder that is hungry for for it, that is hungry for it in uh like you know one of one of those 50,000 people conferences in New York. Uh so it I think it's the hunger. But but the second part of the answer is that other than the hunger and the need to like you know to see something and change it, like it's to to just not accept reality as it is in a good way. Okay, in some cases it can be bad, but in in a good way. Like, no, that there is a specific event uh that that that sparked the the first uh meaningful uh startup I worked on. Like uh a few years back. Uh my father and I uh were driving when um a cement truck driver ran over the red light with uh bloods in uh with the drugs in uh in his bloodstream and uh just hit us. So uh you know being a medic, I started to do what what I know, as like uh doing uh CPR, uh, which wasn't helpful. You know, like my my father died on the spot. And I remember then they took me also to the hospital like to see if if if I if some if I need something, I was perfectly fine, like I uh I did not need anything. And uh on the way to the hospital, like I I called a friend of mine, and that was like right after uh I finished university. I want to do something, like I want you to research uh the law on that for me on my way to the hospital, okay. Like as I it's like no more than 15 minutes after. And then uh a few a couple of weeks after, uh a friend of mine that uh worked with me in the Ministry of Justice suggested, okay, tell me like let's do something together. Uh so uh we developed a mobile app uh that reduces dangerous driving. Um we have around 100,000 people that uh joined as volunteers, and we have two centers here that are taking care of that, and like we have research uh from the Technion, which is the Israeli equivalent of MIT, that it's effective. And actually, just a couple of weeks ago, uh, we launched something like a similar initiative with the Israeli police, and there was a big ceremony with like the the chief of police and uh like uh all of those um high-ranking officers, and at the end of it, uh someone reached out to me uh and he asked me, like, do you remember me? Like, and honestly, I said no. And he told me, like, you know, I I I was with you there, like I'm I I was with you at the scene of the accident, and that made me want to stay like in this field of of like he he told me that that's what um kept me in this field of oh trying to fight car accidents. I I think that the impact here is uh is is meaningful, and I think that otherwise it would have felt as if it diving.

Rajiv Parikh 51:33

Sorry to hear about your father and so tragic, so difficult. You took it and you you made it a memorial to him by helping so many people to to focus more on driver safety. So you turned it into maybe a business, but it was a real movement.

Yair Nativ 51:51

So it's actually it's a non-profit. It's like it's it's not it's it's a non-profit.

Rajiv Parikh 51:55

It's a non-profit business. Right.

Yair Nativ 51:57

Uh we're now starting to sell that abroad. Yeah, so if and anyone, mostly in Europe, is listening, reach out.

Rajiv Parikh 52:05

It's called Safe Lane.

Yair Nativ 52:06

Yeah, like the name of the non-profit is called Safe Lane.

Rajiv Parikh 52:08

Fantastic. He mobilized 100,000 people and it's probably saved so many lives. So, you know, thank you for that. It's notable how you put it all together, and I think it's uh it's inspiring. So let's go to go a little beyond uh the normal

Letting Go Of Control At Work

Rajiv Parikh 52:22

work life.

Yair Nativ 52:22

What's that?

Rajiv Parikh 52:24

I know, right? Well, we're gonna pretend. If you could be guaranteed to be really good at one thing that you're currently terrible at, what would you choose?

Yair Nativ 52:32

I think currently turbulet. I I have plenty of things in turbulet, but I'm trying to think which one of them I would have wanted to be much better. I don't know to dance better, like I'm a very awkward dancer. Like I just, you know, I'm I'm there, I don't know what to do with my hands. I I I just I'm very awkward. But as an anecdote, a a colleague of mine is a well-known uh director and this and uh scriptwriter. They've told me that like after I make my my exit, uh you're going to hire me, and I'm whatever you want, I'm going. Like, I want to create movies.

Rajiv Parikh 53:06

You want to make movies? Yeah. That's awesome. That's really fun. It's a really great creative endeavor. I've had the great fortune to know people who do that. What's something you've had to let go of control over that actually made things better?

Yair Nativ 53:20

I think that's one of my challenges. Letting go. I think that I feel like I'm an extremely old person. Like I when I was three months old, I I felt like I'm an extremely old person. I'm I'm letting go of control of like doing the perfect thing. Uh I'm I'm learning to you know to forgive myself when I make mistakes. Like I was in the past very hard on myself, uh making mistakes or not doing the perfect, you know, coming to your podcast and not doing the perfect podcast with the best punch, like you know, like I learned to let go and doing on trying to be perfect.

Rajiv Parikh 54:07

I think sometimes you just have to throw yourself out there and then let the world capture you.

Yair Nativ 54:13

So far it was fun.

Rajiv Parikh 54:14

And if you throw yourself out there, things are likely to happen better than you thought. So if you could change one thing about how people typically communicate in work settings, what would it be?

Yair Nativ 54:23

I I'm privileged to, like in the last you know, 10 years to create my workspace. Uh so uh so I don't have to you know deal with internal politics and you know stuff like that. I think that in the bigger workplaces, like there's a lot of wasted time and energy on you know power dynamics and you know things that are not contributing any value like other than personal value to that specific person. And I'm not sure that they're making people happy. Like I was also an anthropologue in residence in a like a Japanese-Israeli VC, and I studied a lot of uh um in in the context of mental health and well-being. So I had the time to study well-being and mental health. Like what makes people happy in the workplace, and you know, it's not just one thing, but the thing that I like the most is actually doing good work and uh and taking the time to do meaningful work that you care about. And that usually doesn't come from internal politics and uh non-contributing factors of uh that waste our time.

Rajiv Parikh 55:38

Yeah, uh that that definitely would save a ton of time. And if you could create a new performance metric for measuring leadership effectiveness, what would it be?

Yair Nativ 55:46

So, like the thing that comes to mind automatically, but I'm not sure that like that would be my first choice is uh is empathy. I'm not sure it is measured today. That's a good question. Like I'm I'm using all of the normal regular KPIs, but we use KPAIs uh the these days.

Rajiv Parikh 56:05

KPAI?

Yair Nativ 56:06

Yeah, KPI, yeah. Like how do you measure AI KPIs? Like the the measurement of real value to the business, uh to community is very hard to measure, but I think it's it's a must when there's so much noise. So that's something we were actually working on.

Rajiv Parikh 56:23

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we want to drive performance. We have to drive to traditional business metrics, those things matter. We have to find those leading indicators that help us get there so that we know we're on the way there, as opposed to measuring something after it happened. That's part of the whole challenge with what we're doing today. Because some things are long term and some things are very short term, and we want to focus on the right things. What's your personal moonshot?

Yair Nativ 56:45

Yeah, I don't know. Can I ask you a question? Absolutely. Given that you know you're in this space and and you're doing impressive work, like what if you had to guess or to assume or to estimate, like if we do this conversation again in 10 years, like what would what do you think will stick and what do you think will will make us will make will make me sound irrelevant? Like so we well when we hosted the podcast in the past, a lot of very important impressive like entrepreneurs and um C-level execs and like that are very impressive, very smart, did not want to come. And the their answer was I'm afraid to sound foolish, not 10 years, six months. Like I'm afraid to sound to sound foolish in six months. So if if you had to guess, like what would it be that uh that might not stick in 10 years or five or whatever?

Rajiv Parikh 57:49

Yeah, I mean, I think this gets to the notion of your life purpose. So what won't stick may be some notion of like oh we're we're so into AI today. And you know, before we were so into I mean in my early days, client server computing and the shift from the mini to the client server to open systems from closed systems to to the mobile environment, right? These are all things that are really interesting, really cool. I actually think the mobile phone is one of the most democratizing devices in the world, right? You can be really rich or you can be really poor, and you all basically everybody has basically the same functionality, the same access, the same opportunity. So in the great span of history that's that rarely happens. Right? So that we have some things that people never had. But I think forget about what you have. What are the meaningful connections that we've made in our life? And I think that's what I'll remember in 10 years. That you know, if you and I talk multiple times or meet each other, was there a meaningful relationship that was built that made our lives and our friends' lives better? I mean, as I those are things that I really care about. Like the what the tool is today and who's using what tool, that's important because it solves people's problems. It helps innovators build something more interesting, faster. It's part of a life journey, a life transformation. But it's not the tool, it's what it enables. And I think that's what I'll look back on many years from now. This is what was useful. Was I using Claude or ChatGPT or Deep Seek or something? Who cares? It'll be more about what did we gain as a group?

Yair Nativ 59:47

That's a great answer. Uh like as an anecdote, someone wanted us to create an AI relationship agent for them, analyzes the CRM, sees which relationship are important. And so that that's anyway.

Rajiv Parikh 1:00:02

Actually, yeah, and that's actually what I try to do with our AI system. I mean, I think Bordy, which is I think how Taryn met you, is one of the things that they've done really well. But I use our system to understand how can I make a better connection with somebody when I could walk into the room. How do I get out of the initial hi hello to something useful and something meaningful for us? More in even as much as it's business, but just from a personal level.

Yair Nativ 1:00:28

Okay. So let maybe let's talk about it after.

Rajiv Parikh 1:00:31

Awesome.

Closing Thoughts And Where To Find Us

Rajiv Parikh 1:00:32

Yeah, you're so so happy to have you here today. Thank you for uh joining us. I know it was really late at night for you, and uh I appreciate your deep perspective. And I think you're the first one who uh uh shared what it's like to be in effectively a war zone and go about life and build something meaningful and do all the things that you do. So I I appreciate you bringing that perspective.

Yair Nativ 1:00:58

Thank you. Thank thanks for inviting me. I I appreciate the the way that you handle this.

Rajiv Parikh 1:01:08

All right, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the pod, please take a moment to rate it and comment. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere podcasts can be found. The show is produced by Anand Shah, edited by Laura Ballant, production assistance by Taryn Talley. I'm your host, Rajiv Burry from Position Squared. We are an AI native growth marketing system based in Silicon Valley. Come visit us at position2.com and we'll catch you next time. And remember, folks, be ever curious.