My TED AI Talk Is Live: The Human Secret Behind the AI Boom
The video from my closing keynote at TEDAI San Francisco 2025 just dropped on TED.com. It is 7.5 minutes. Short post, because I want you to watch it.
Click: Watch the full talk on TED.com
The thesis in one line
San Francisco’s AI edge is not the technology. It is the community, and there is an operating formula behind it. In the talk, I map five distinct cultures emerging in the AI workforce, and I share data on AI native startups that explains why a small team can now outperform a much larger incumbent. Examples include revenue per employee benchmarks I have never seen presented in this type of presentaiton before.
How I prepared
I want to be honest about what went into this. I rehearsed the talk over 100 times. I worked with the TED speaker coaches that the program provided, and I took every note seriously. I brought original data to the stage that had not been seen in public before, including the revenue per employee benchmarks for AI native Bay Area startups. Most of all, I treated this as a performance, not a presentation. I focused on storytelling and body language. For example, I rewrote the opening several times to start with a single moment tying our local redwood ecosystem to tech instead of a stat, and I rehearsed every gesture and pause so the data landed with emotion, not just numbers. Hope you enjoy, and I can’t wait to bring this type of talk to your next event, details on my speaking here.
