Mark Johnson
CEO Descartes Labs
Discussion
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
Hello! I'm Mark Johnson. Currently, I live in Santa Fe, NM, and I'm cofounder and CEO of Descartes Labs. We're applying machine learning to satellite imagery to become better stewards of our planet's natural resources. Prior to this, I was CEO of Zite and involved with both (!) of its sales, to CNN and Flipboard. I also used to work at Bing, Powerset, Kosmix, and SideStep as a product manager. Despite all of this resume stuff, I don't define myself (only) by my jobs. I enjoy hiking, reading, thinking, and contemplating the nature of meaning. This is probably because I was infected by studying philosophy in college. I still dabble in Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Rorty, and, of course, Descartes. M
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Ben Parr
@benparr · Co-founder and CMO, Octane AI
Mark, what happens when you're in Vegas?
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
@benparr I'd like to think that it stays in Vegas, but I think you know better. What I learned this time in Vegas is that all good experiences begin and end with booze.
Kris Hulbert
@kris_hulbert · Gratwick Films, Filmmaker
@philosophygeek @benparr You didn't learn that from your hometown?
Robert Griesmeyer
@robert_griesmeyer · data scientist Flipboard
Hey Mark. What advice do you have for someone who just started on their first startup?
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
@robert_griesmeyer talk to tons and tons of people but don't follow advice blindly. Talk to potential customers, talk to investors, talk to friends in similar spaces, talk to friends in different spaces. Just keep talking and learning. I look at the early decks we had for Descartes Labs and we didn't have any freakin' clue what we were going to do. I refuse to pretend that where we've ended up sprang from my forehead like Athena from Zeus. We evolved into the awesome company that we are now and I attribute our success to constant conversation. I was really influenced by the cybernetics movement, which emphasizes feedback loops as a way to build robust systems. I want my company to be robust, so I need to be in constant conversation to give the information I have at hand the "requisite variety" (a technical term) to be successful.
Daniel Roberts
@readdanwrite · Journalist
Mark: what do you think are the biggest misconceptions around startup-land right now? something other than the "unicorn" craze (snooze) but what are journalists/outsiders/critics getting wrong?
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
@readdanwrite since leaving Zite, I try not to pay attention to the tech news - as much as is possible. I think one of the huge advantages of being in NM is not being part of the mainstream tech scene. That being said, I get really bummed when I see the tech press ripping apart amazing companies like Twitter and Apple. Sure, Apple didn't have a stellar quarter, but all signs to me still seem positive. Poor Jack at Twitter has hardly been on the job 3 months and gets dragged all through the mud. Press should remember that running a company is really hard. Sure, there are asshole out there running companies, but most people are just trying to build something meaningful and lasting. Cut us some slack sometimes :)
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
@philosophygeek Thanks so much for joining us today! During your career to date, what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Flip side - what's the worst?
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
@ems_hodge I don't trust generic advice without context.
I did have one boss who, when I asked him for a raise, told me to go get a competing offer. I left within 3 months and joined Kosmix. You definitely shouldn't tell an employee that :)
Karen Smetana
@karen_smetana
Hi Mark, What is interesting or new with satellites? Can you please blow my mind?!?!
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
@karen_smetana traditional satellites are the size of minibus and cost hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. Companies like Planet Labs and Spire are fleets of satellites that are as small as a breadbox and cost under $100k. That's a total game-changer. Imagine that we have a VIDEO of the globe. Now that will be a bad-ass dataset.
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
Elon Musk and Sam Altman recently launched the AI research company OpenAI. Musk and others are worried about the potential dangers of AI. What's your position in the AI debate?
Robert Griesmeyer
@robert_griesmeyer · data scientist Flipboard
@tomstocklein We should be worried about the loss of jobs due to AI atm. What you're referring to is "general intelligence" and we're no where close to anything like that. It makes for good headlines though.
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
@tomstocklein humans have proven time and time again that we're terrible at predicting the technology of the future. One of my favorite quotes is from Paul Saffo: don't mistake a clear view for a short distance.
I like the concept of OpenAI, but I don't share Musk/Altman's concerns that AI is going to consume us all. Or maybe it will and that's just the natural progression of planets that have intelligent beings that get to our point. It's going to be fun to watch how AI affects us, regardless.
Roujyar Zarnegar
@roz
Who is your favorite philosopher of all time? And what area did you specialize in when you studied philosophy in college? Did you always have a clear idea of what you wanted to do in life? How did you fall into your career path?
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
@roz Nietzsche said that "God is dead," but he was wrong: Nietzsche himself was god (with a small "g"). "The Gay Science" is a mind-blowing book (his first statement of "God is dead") but all of Nietzsche is enlightening. I'm also a huge fan of Richard Rorty (was lucky enough to take classes from him), Wittgenstein, Frege, Kripke, Descartes (obviously), Hume and many others. I focused a lot on the philosophy of language, where I think all philosophy ought to begin. In terms of how I got here, I took a year off from Stanford because I was a terrible student and realized I could study whatever I wanted and still work in tech. So, when I went back, I took a philosophy class and fell in love.
Eric Frazer
@eric_frazer · paramedic
Since leaving your hometown and settling out west west you have accomplished so much. What do you feel has been your most noteworthy accomplishment and why? What is one goal you would like to achieve in your personal life for the upcoming year?
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
@eric_frazer I try not to think about my life in terms of numbers and accomplishments - maybe that's my greatest accomplishment. I do what I love, whether it's working or hiking or listening to music and don't give much of a damn how the world scores me on the Report Card in the Sky. My only two goals for this year are to continue enjoying the majestic natural beauty of New Mexico and to make sure Descartes Labs continues our upward trajectory.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
How is AI helping us to better steward the worlds resources? Would love to know more about the work your doing here and how you first got into this?
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Mark Johnson
@philosophygeek · CEO Descartes Labs
@ems_hodge The Gaia Hypothesis suggests that we should look at the world as an organism. I remember reading about that when I was in high school and have never forgotten that dream. It's pretty cool to be one of the companies now leading that charge.
There are publicly available satellite imagery of this globe going back to 1972, thanks to the prescience of NASA and the Landsat program. There are tons of new satellites going online in the next few years that will gives us daily pictures of every meter of this planet. Up until now, we haven't had the techniques (ML, for example) or the computing power to fully utilize these datasets.
Imagine that we have a living atlas of this world - that we know in real time what natural resources we've growing, pumping, deforesting, and mining... that we watch where those resources go... and that we can see how we as humans use those resources to change the planet. There are so many implications - some of them financial and others humanitarian - that it's mind-boggling.
At Descartes Labs, we're starting off with the goal of understanding global agricultural output in real time, but that's just the beginning...