Hussein Hallak is a seasoned entrepreneur, prolific advisor, and thought leader in the tech space with a career spanning over 25 years. He’s the founder and CEO of Next Decentrum, a leading provider of business education in emerging technology, and the company behind Momentable, a discovery platform for art and culture. Hussein has developed over 20 startups, honing an extensive range of expertise and experience.
In his previous role as Evangelist and General Manager at Launch Academy, he mentored and trained hundreds of entrepreneurs, helping it become one of North America’s premier tech incubators with over 6,500 founders and 500 startups raising more than $1 billion. As an accomplished professional, Hussein has launched successful ventures like CreativeArab, the world’s first and largest marketplace for Middle Eastern art, and The Content People, an award-winning content marketing agency with prominent clients such as Virgin Mobile, Pfizer, and Starbucks.
Hussein’s insights have been featured in publications like Business Insider, Forbes, BBC, BetaKit, Entrepreneur, DailyHive, Notable, CBC, CoinTelegraph, and South China Morning Post. He is an Oxford Blockchain Strategy Programme graduate and holds a BSc in Electronics Engineering. He is also a writer and speaker on startups, blockchain, leadership, and personal branding, recognized as one of Vancouver’s top 30 tech influencers to follow in 2019.
Beyond his professional commitments, Hallak is an advocate for art and culture, launching Momentable to help emerging artists reach a new generation of collectors. His passion led him to create Crypto Pharaohs, the first story-based pop culture digital collection inspired by ancient Egypt. A passionate advocate for tech, lean startups, design thinking, and decentralized innovation, Hallak tirelessly works to inspire entrepreneurship and foster innovation through connection, collaboration, and community.
What you will learn
- Discover why it’s so critical to adopt a growth mindset as an entrepreneur
- Learn why quality relationships trump quantity of relationships in the business world
- Find out why genuine networking is so powerful
- Hussein shares his thoughts on the role of AI in the creative world
- The challenges & opportunities faced by creators in the digital age
- Why consistent practice is crucial in the creative process
- Discover why adapting to the changing digital landscape is essential
- Plus loads more!
Transcript
Jeff Bullas
00:00:05 – 00:01:52
Hi world and welcome to The Jeff Bullas Show. Today, I have with me Hussein Hallak. Now Hussein Hallak is dialing in from Vancouver. I always like to know where people are. And I still love the fact that we can do this high definition video for free from all around the world and have conversations, fireside chats and talk about what’s inspired them, the journeys along the way, what have they learnt. And Hussein is gonna share with us a very interesting story. Hussein is a seasoned entrepreneur originally from Syria but has meandered his way via Syria through to Dubai, through to Canada today. He’s the founder and CEO of Next Decentrum, a leading provider in business education in emerging technology. I’m gonna find out more about that. It’s interesting, in fact, fascinating. And the company behind Momentable, and that has something to do with pharaohs and all that sort of stuff as well because he comes out of the Middle East. So we’re going to hear about that, which is a discovery platform for art and culture. Hussein has developed over 20 startups, honing an extensive range of expertise and experience. In his previous role as Evangelist and General Manager at Launch Academy, he mentored and trained hundreds of entrepreneurs, helping it become one of North America’s premier tech incubators with 6,500 founders and 500 startups raising more than $1 billion. As an accomplished professional, Hussein has launched successful ventures like CreativeArab, the world’s first and largest marketplace for Middle Eastern art and The Content People, an award winning content marketing agency with prominent clients such as Virgin Mobile, Pfizer and Starbucks. Now I could go on, but I’m gonna pause there because we wanna hear his story. And Hussein, great to have you here, welcome to the show.
Hussein Hallak
00:01:52 – 00:02:09
Thank you, great to be here and thanks for that massive introduction. I appreciate it. There’s a lot that I’ve done and I’m proud of it, but it does get too long. I remember somebody sending on LinkedIn a complaint saying it’s too long, it doesn’t stop.
Jeff Bullas
00:02:10 – 00:02:37
So Hussein, tell us a little bit about where this all started and I believe that one of your first crushes was on art, okay? You loved art, did art and also it’s led to what you’re doing today. So just tell us a little bit about growing up in Syria and how you got to leave and why. So tell us a bit about Hussein, the young Hussein in Syria.
Hussein Hallak
00:02:38 – 00:06:12
Absolutely. So I was always kind of I wouldn’t say haunted but kind of the shadow behind me was my uncle who has the same name. He was a revolutionary. He got shot in his shoulder for protesting the French occupation of Syria when he was in ninth grade. And he participated in every single revolution in the Middle East, every single revolution that freed the Middle Eastern country from or Arab country from there like the French or the Italians or the English, he was there. So, that is, and I was named after him. So everywhere I go, when I was young, everybody’s like you’re him, you have to carry his legacy. And he was such a massive figure. He built the first publishing house in, kind of, one of the biggest publishing houses in Lebanon and published for some of the most well known poets as I grew up. So the people that I read for, he published and he had guests in his home. So that is how I grew up kind of to give you an idea and that was wherever I went, oh you’re so and so, he’s your uncle. You’re so and so he’s your uncle. So that is how I grew up. So I had that big thing that I’m meant for something big, but that also creates that there’s that expectation from you. So while I wanted to be an artist, I wanted to actually, I want, you can see probably the guitar behind me or the stuff that I loved playing. I was into music, but I had to be an engineer. I had to build something, I have to kind of become someone of the society rather than just an artist. because art is not seen as something what you’re gonna starve. So that kind of shaped my personality as I was young. And when I got the opportunity to go to engineering school or art school, I went to engineering school, but it took only the second year to use my artistic talent to pay for me going to school. So I started as a graphic designer and put myself through university. And by the time I graduated, I had my first marketing agency and that was history. I never worked as an engineer. I worked for a couple of years. But then, that’s what I did. And I built my first tech company, which was an online gaming company. We built websites that look like games. And the first company that I worked with was the Disney of the Middle East. Its name is Spacetoon, they loved our work. And in three months they acquired my company and gave me a role in Dubai. And that was the end of my journey in Syria. But to give you an idea, let’s say of my fascination with art. We grew up with a painting in our living room by a surrealist artist from Iraq called Dia Azawi. And that painting is very strange, surreal, like there’s a woman with one eye and every time we had guests and we had guests all the time, that painting will come up. So in my mind, art, the definition of art is a conversation. The artist was never there, never talked, never said anything about the painting. The painting didn’t speak, didn’t have anything underneath it. And it was the heart, any conversation will bring up that painting. So that stayed with me and I realized the power that art can have into inspiring people crossing barriers, even though it was something that people didn’t necessarily understand, you know, people love landscapes and stuff. It maintained that conversation. So that’s what stayed with me kind of to give you an idea of what I grew up with.
Jeff Bullas
00:06:13 – 00:07:18
Well, that’s very interesting. I love that the art didn’t say anything but it said a lot. And that’s the paradox of art sometimes, isn’t it? Well, it is the paradox of art that it’s story behind it, the motivation behind it and then the creativity to deliver it and produce it. And that reminds me of the power of not only having an idea but then creating and producing something from that because that’s the only way you actually make a difference in the world is to produce and then share it. So but yeah, that piece of art just saying nothing but saying everything in your home. That’s really insightful. So you moved on to Dubai and you’re working for this company, Middle Eastern company that, is what surreal art, is that, it was basically the Disney of the Middle East, right? Okay. That’s fascinating. So are they still the Disney of the Middle East or?
Hussein Hallak
00:07:18 – 00:10:49
Yeah, they are the, basically, I think they own most of the rights for animated movies for Japanese animated movies in many places in the Middle East. So they are the largest, the biggest there. And they produce their own shows. But what ended up happening is, the person who architected the deal was the vice president and he left a few months after I joined. So it was very new what we were doing for the rest of the company. Nobody knew what to do with me. So I was like free to join several teams. And that was my first interaction with the idea of a startup. I would join a team, start up a company, help them start it and then move to something else. So I helped internally start 10 companies because people ask me, how did you start 20 companies? That’s a lot of companies to start that. Well, 10 of them or 11 of them were not mine. It was mostly joining a team, help them start. And that was fascinating. I was like, I love this. I want to do more of that. So the thought of starting with an idea and develop into something that can be a success is so fascinating. It kind of consumed me and when you’re creative, you can express yourself like the joy that of expression and creation can be it can, you can take it from creating something, you know, like a sculpture, you can take it or take the same feeling from trying to play the guitar drawing or even building something. The joy is similar. And that’s surprised me because all I ever wanted throughout my life is to become an artist and to be accepted as a creative. So I looked, one of the biggest things that were with me at that time is that my ‘cause I didn’t study creativity. And everywhere I went is like people say, well, you didn’t work for an agency. You didn’t study in the art school. So you’re never gonna become a creative director or an art director because I had this card that says I’m a creative director, my own card from my own company and my friends who were in agencies, they said, well, somebody has to give you this title. You can’t give yourself that title. And for the longest time I had this imposter syndrome, like, yeah, I put, to the other world, I show up as confident but internally it’s like, yeah, I never earned this title. Nobody kind of gave it to me. And it stayed with me until 2009 when I completely dropped that and said, you know what, I am who I say I am. I don’t give a shit what the world says, but it stayed with me all that time and it was, I shouldn’t have had that, but that’s how the world interacts with us. You know, people want to ask you what made you so and what gives you the right to name yourself something or, you know, and I remember, what is it, is it Mark Zuckerberg that iconic moment in the show, The Social Network where he printed a card that says I’m CEO bitch. Like that’s, can I say that? So, like he printed that and like and that was a, like a unique moment. I mean, regardless of who Mark Zuckerberg is in my opinion of him. But that moment where you are, who you say you are and why do you want to wait for the world to tell you. So that was kind of my relationship, the on and off relationship of me accepting myself as a creative and as an artist that is not necessarily in art, but in everything that I touch, I have to bring my own touch. I have to bring my own creativity. And that is my artistry, that is my creative being. And it took me a long time to accept that.
Jeff Bullas
00:10:50 – 00:11:14
Yeah, I think what I love about your journey is that you have stepped into unknown paths. In other words, you’ve actually created your own path. You haven’t stepped into the common paths that society gave you. You sort of started that on observing that you went and did an engineering degree, didn’t you? And that lasted all of what you worked as an engineer for two years.
Hussein Hallak
00:11:14 – 00:13:11
Five years engineering degrees. And actually for the six years I had, I stayed for one year. And, it’s five years and I stayed for one year and I did two years of engineering and, the out of all places, it’s Syrian television, which is essential stuff. And a funny thing that happened all my life. When I was young, I would look at the mountain. So if anybody remembers, TVs used to have, you know, towers where they broadcast, not satellite. So, there was this broadcasting tower on the highest mountain in Damascus and I’ve always wondered what is there. And my job at the end of the day was to actually be an engineer in that place. So I ended up having the best view of Damascus. It was like a military area. You have to like to go in, you have to have permission because of your control of the broadcast, you can literally shut down the broadcast on the present when they’re saying a massive let’s say, or doing a speech or something. So there’s the, you know, the secret police is always there and stuff like that. So it’s a fascinating kind of journey. But ended up being where I thought, like I always wondered what is there, I ended up working there. So something I learned in my life, is that what you put in your mind? And I don’t mean like, you know, like vision boards or something like that. But stuff that you care about has a way of showing up in your life. If something is really an obsession, it shows up in many different ways . Do you pay attention to it. So that kind of governs all my life. So I kinda learned that whatever I put in my mind, I can pursue everything that I did. Almost everything that I did was done in my life. For the first time I had zero experience in it. I would walk into a meeting and say, hey Jeff, what do you really want to do? Oh, we wanna do that? Do you think I can do it? Yeah, we can do it. And I’ll disappear for a couple of days. Come back and say, yeah, here, you know, that’s how I did. That’s how I got into advertising, writing all the time. I would land the client first and go figure out how to execute the second.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:12 – 00:13:25
Well, yeah, that’s bravery and courage. And, so did you enjoy not knowing, but you enjoyed the learning as well? Is that part of it?
Hussein Hallak
00:13:25 – 00:14:56
I’m a con like a lifelong learner. I love learning new stuff. And there is no joy once I mastered something to the point that there is no challenge, I get bored really easily. It’s like there’s no challenge I can do this. So what is new? I’m not learning anything, in fact, when I started Momentable and we entered into the market, I was working for a tech company and helped them five times their revenue and they oversubscribed for their investment. And right at that point, I said to the CEO, okay, it’s time for me to leave and he couldn’t believe it, like who offered you more money? I said I have no offer but I’m done. My work is done here. You don’t need me anymore. I can’t contribute. You reach the point where now you just need to build on this and this is not a place where I can add value. So I needed to leave and he couldn’t believe it. And my wife couldn’t believe it either. I was like, why are you doing this? You’re saying that you can make money easily and like you’re leaving. I was like, yeah, because if I can’t contribute, I feel like a part of me is dying every day. I’m doing something that I’ve done yesterday and I, there is nothing new and you’re right. Even though you mastered the skill of writing, writing about something new is discovery. There is, you know, like there is learning. I would imagine that’s how it is. That’s how you can continue something for so long. Same thing with painting, something with playing music. If there is no discovery and you’re not kind of exploring new grounds, get bored really quickly.
Jeff Bullas
00:14:56 – 00:16:55
Yeah. And that’s what I do love about writing, for example, is taking the idea and then what and also then learning. So I think the question and I’m about to write an article on it and I’ve written about it before is why do I write? And also I’m curious about why other people write. And one of the main drivers for me is number one is to make sense of the world because you gotta take all this complexity, this cloud of information at and with an idea and try and distill it. Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way says to metabolize it. So what we’re trying to do is, I think all of us are trying to make sense to the world. But for me, my tool to do that is writing. Then the real test is have I made enough sense to the world that other people get it and that’s where you are sharing it with the world becomes really important. In other words, publishing, creating, publishing. And then the next step for me is the three steps are actually quite simple and share it with the world. And for me, social media gave me the distribution and means to share it with the world without the old media gatekeepers where I had to pay. So for me, that’s why I write to learn to make sense of the world and also the joy of wrangling something into something that makes sense. That’s what I really love about writing and then let’s have some fun with it along the way, right? So, yeah, so I write just, I’m just basically talking to myself at the moment. It’s okay. Being a little self should be talking about you. I wrote, came out of an idea. I wrote our social media influences to blame for the $2 million handbag. So that led me down a rabbit hole of who makes these handbags and it’s the richest man in the world. So there you go.
Hussein Hallak
00:16:55 – 00:16:57
I saw that. That was an interesting article, by the way.
Jeff Bullas
00:16:58 – 00:17:28
So it’s just, it was just fun. So it came out of watching entitled young people in my neighborhood who think that a $3000 handbag is normal. I’m going, no, it’s not normal. Anyway, I digress and let’s get back to you, Hussein, because that’s why we’re here. So, so you’re in Dubai and where do you go next? What’s the next call on the adventure?
Hussein Hallak
00:17:29 – 00:23:46
Dubai was fascinating. I had a great time there. Great city. There are a lot of challenges obviously there. First of all, the heat and the lack of fresh air. So that was the probably one of the things that we couldn’t deal with. The other thing is that it’s a city that is meant for you to spend time in the city, it consumes you, you can, there’s always things to discover. There’s like if you go to any mall, there are like at least 12 to 24 screens. So you can always be at the movies. It’s open from 10AM till 2AM. So it’s buzzing.And I had a great time. However, the challenge for us being Syrian and with the Syrian Civil War starting at around 2011, it became harder for us. So, we were always wanting me and my wife, we were always wanting to go to Canada or the US, her family is all in the US and we wanted our kids to grow up in a place where they’re free to be who they are. Syria, I love Syria but you’re not free to be who you are. Dubai kind of like the same. You’re free to be who you are as long as you don’t interfere in certain things. And as long as you have enough money ‘cause Dubai consumes you when it comes to money, you need to be really, really well off to live in Dubai well. So we moved to Vancouver and I had to start all over again. I didn’t imagine so because I came in and I had like a history. I’ve built up this brand and this persona and here I am very well known in Dubai and I have a successful business. In fact, our company had just won an award alongside Adobe and the University of British Columbia as a communication award for our work on social media. And then I moved here and because this is something that people may relate to, you can move and take your expertise with you and execute them, but your brand doesn’t travel with you because your brand, your community owns it. So nobody knew who the hell I am. And I had to give you an idea. I had 2000 people on my LinkedIn, all of them in the Middle East. I had no one in Canada. I had probably one person in Canada that I know. So I had to start from zero and I couldn’t find a job for six months and I’m great networker, but none of the networking abilities that I had worked in Vancouver. It’s a completely different community city approach. So I was like, okay, scrap all this, start from the ground. So I went and reached out to 6000 people on LinkedIn. I added 6000 people within three months and everyone I added everyone who had the title entrepreneur or CEO or something that relates to my like marketing or, and I, and whenever they say, well, you know, what do you want? I said, well, I’m new to Vancouver and I would love to have a coffee and I asked for nothing. I just had coffee and I wanted to meet people because my principle which I developed over the years is that the more people, you know, the more opportunities, the more the world gives you, the world you interact with, the world with the people, you know, not through titles, not through money, it’s people, the more people, the better relationships, the more you can survive the world.
So I said, let me meet people and I met everyone I could in Vancouver. And within three months, I got five job offers and I was one of the most well known people in Vancouver, everybody knew who I am and I had a venture capitalist, one of the top venture capitalist in Vancouver. We’re talking about selling companies for hundreds of millions of dollars, recommending me to people and having lunch with them. And all I did is reach out to people and was genuine, no agenda. I didn’t want them to give me a job even though my money was running out really quickly. I just wanted to know them and I wanted them to help me learn Vancouver. I said, who should I meet? Where should I network? And what should I read? Because I realized that I need to adopt a new mind. I cannot come with the Dubai mind. Now, when I moved to Damascus to Dubai, it was still young and I still didn’t have like an idea of the world. But by the time I moved to Vancouver, I have a really solid idea of who I am and what I want to be. But I had to let go of that and say I need to become somebody who Vancouver will accept. I need to become the Vancouver, right? That I, because I’m gonna live here, I cannot come here with the mindset of Dubai and hang on to it. So that saved my life. And I got to know Launch Academy as you introduced me and I joined first as a mentor. Sorry, as someone who wanted to build a startup, I walked in and I loved the place I said, what do I need to join here? They said, well, you need to have a startup and you pay the membership fee. Next day it’s like I have a startup. They didn’t know I completely invented the startup within a day because I wanted to be there at any cost. And they saw that I’m good at marketing and say, hey, would you mentor some people? I said, absolutely. And I became a mentor there. Then head mentor, then they asked me to be the GM. They said, you’re contributing, your technically living here because you’re coming all the time and you’re helping people, we’d want you to be GM. And I’d be GM, I said yes to everything throughout the first six years in Vancouver. Everybody who asked, you know, would you show up here? Would you teach? Would you come up to the school? Like, and I didn’t have a car. I had to travel like sometimes by bus for two hours to go to a place to talk for 15 minutes. And I would say yes, I said yes to everything. And everybody in Vancouver know me. They thought I was the founder of Launch Academy, sorry Ray. But because every time I show up and I have the Launch Academy t-shirt, which I loved. That’s all I wore. I stole it all from the Launch Academy. And everywhere I show up, I carry the brand and I speak and I help people and people love that to the point that anybody who lands in to a certain extent, almost anybody who’s new to Vancouver or to Canada, who lands and asked them, who should I meet to kind of help me? Say we’ll talk to Husain. And I am so proud and it’s like one of my proudest moments of people pointing at me in a new city that I’m not, I wasn’t part of a few years ago point and say Hussein can help you. That was one of my proudest moment. And I feel like I contributed to a community where I want my kids to grow up.
Jeff Bullas
00:23:46 – 00:24:32
Yeah. Well, I think relationships are the most important thing in the world. It’s actually the foundation of happiness. So, and relationships happen in life everywhere, business as well as family, as well as friends and not true. And it does, it brings me immense joy to a sit down and I do like quality relationships over quantity relationships. I think they’re much better. I prefer a one-on-one, you know, just otherwise, if you’ve just got a lot of people in a room and you don’t get to talk to them going well, I would have liked to talk to all of them but I’m just going to work chat to two or three or maybe just one because I’d rather have a deep conversation rather than a shallow one.
Hussein Hallak
00:24:32 – 00:25:53
Yeah. Well, I was lucky at Launch Academy because those entrepreneurs who came there, people who came there usually had, they’re talking to you about the thing that mattered most to them. You know, they’re obsessed with this idea. They want to see it successful. So I got to meet people, probably the best kind of setting, which is they want to accomplish something and I’m there that can help them and guide them and connect them with people. So that was probably one of the best thing that I’ve ever had. And you have people who connect with you at a different level at that stage. And yeah, you’re right. I think if I wasn’t at the Launch Academy, probably it would have been harder for me, but there we are literally the community center. So every day there are like at least 50-60 people coming in and asking questions and talking to them inside from the members that we have to help. So your job is to meet as many people as possible and to work with them and help them and guide them to people. So that platform I think was extremely unique that way. Until COVID came around and kind of killed in-person, which for me, I realized how much I needed that and how much energy comes from meeting a person in-person and like shaking their hands and talking to them, the presence is irreplaceable.
Jeff Bullas
00:25:54 – 00:26:16
Yeah, exactly. That’s where the chemistry really happens. I think is when you sit down and break bread or share a glass of wine or I think it’s very, very important. So Launch Academy, what motivated you to leave? What event created you to go and start on your next adventure?
Hussein Hallak
00:26:17 – 00:32:10
Yeah, I thought I’m gonna be at Launch Academy forever because I loved it. It was honestly the best place in the world. You are at the heart of the entrepreneurial community in Vancouver because Vancouver is a very entrepreneurial city. You stumble entrepreneurs everywhere you go. So it was a very entrepreneurial city and Launch Academy is at the heart of it. So I thought I’m gonna be staying there forever. I never thought I would be in a job because I was always an entrepreneur. But I said if there’s a job that I would stay in forever, is this one ‘cause I’m doing everything I love. And you get to also for someone like me who loves to work on a ton of stuff, you’re working on 100 at any given moment, you’re advising 100 entrepreneurs. So you’re working on 100 ideas. It’s like the, it’s like, what is it? Cocaine? For me, it’s very addictive. So I don’t know what cocaine does, but I feel like people say it’s very addictive. So it’s like cocaine for people who are addicted. So it was fascinating. But then I attended a workshop about Blockchain. Now we had companies that worked in Bitcoin, Blockchain. So I knew about it, but most of the time when you hear people talking about it, everybody’s talking about the price of Bitcoin up down. And I didn’t pay attention to that cause I dabbled in the stock market. I knew that wasn’t for me ‘cause I sucked at it. So I was like, okay, anything has to do with pricing, buying assets and stuff like that, not me. But then when I attended the workshop, I was like, this is fascinating, I loved the technology, it seemed so interesting. And then I started researching and reading and the more I read, the dumber I felt, I’ve never heard this. That was 2016, 2017. So it was the first time ever. Now I’m pretty smart and I’m an engineer and I’m and I can manage my, I used to give you an idea in 1998 I used to as a hobby, read the technical details of the technical specification of an intel processor as pastime. So this is how geeky I am. So when I say that I’m reading technology, you know, articles about Blockchain and Bitcoin. And like, and I’m feeling dumber, the more I read, like that was not a feeling that I’ve had before. So I was like, there’s something here. So I started reading more and it took me six months to understand how Bitcoin operates. And the moment I understood was like, wow, this is incredible. It’s the most elegant technology solution that I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s incredible technology from a technology point. I’m not promoting Bitcoin or anything, but just as a tech and you hear the people who are true technology interested in it, they will talk about it like that. So I was like, this is it. I wanna teach people about this because I saw the gap between how hard is it to understand it and how much the technology is needed. So I ran a workshop and the first workshop was a complete shit show because I barely under, I have understood what I understood, but I learned a long time ago that the best way to learn is to teach because if you put yourself on the line, you have to learn. So I said, you know what, I’m gonna run a workshop halfway through the workshop, there was a cryptographer and someone who’s from the Ethereum Foundation, which is like the number two blockchain in the world behind the Bitcoin and halfway through the workshop, they took over, they’re answering people’s questions because I didn’t know what to answer. And I learned so much of that workshop. I was like, this is wonderful. I’m gonna do another one. So I for, so I did every month I did one or two completely free for the community. By the time I did six, I was one of the most, the best people that can teach this thing. People were flocking from everywhere. And I had people reaching out to teach, like to do works, workshops. And we ended up starting Next Decentrum. And we raised $450,000 in funding. And we built courses that were accepted in universities and Informa, which is the number one corporate education company in the world within like, less than a year. So I was fascinated, I was hooked and I wanted more of these emerging technologies. By 2021, NFTs came around and when NFTs came around, it was an elegant solution for a problem which is how do you sell digital files or anything digital, how do you sell it? And how do you transfer ownership? There’s nothing online that they can do that you have aside from a central authority, like, you know, somebody keeping that track record. So I saw NFTs and I saw this is what artists have always needed. And since I worked with artists all my life, started CreativeArab, the largest marketplace in Middle Eastern art. I know artists and I know their problems and I saw this as a solution but I hated how the market do it. I hated the apes, I hated the penguins. Sorry guys but like, they’re horrible. Like, and the idea that this is called NFT art, like AI art, I think that’s a misnomer. It’s like if you, if I took a photograph and said this is camera art, it’s the same thing. There’s art and there is no, there is, there’s other things. It’s either art or not, it doesn’t matter what the nature of it. So there’s no such thing as called NFT art. There’s no such thing, in my opinion, AI art I was like, that’s not art and I know why artists hated it. So we worked with artists and museums and we focused on that and that helped us survive the crash that happened. We built a collection called Crypto Pharaohs, which is focused on story building and on beautiful designs inspired by the Egyptian culture, which I love so much and I grew up around. And that led us to here, where, what we’re doing right now where we’re building the largest repository of visual arts in the world that people can enjoy in the best experience possible. That is what Momenatable has and I, if I haven’t done all of these things, I wouldn’t be here.
Jeff Bullas
00:32:10 – 00:32:15
So does Momentable focus just on Egyptian art? Is that its focus?
Hussein Hallak
00:32:16 – 00:34:18
Not at all. No. It’s all art and culture because people connect my son grew up in Vancouver, in Dubai, but he’s fascinated with the Japanese culture. I’m fascinated with Egyptian culture. People and when I grew up in Damascus, I was fascinated with American culture. I love jazz, I love blues, I love New York even though I have been visited, I got to visit it last year, which was a surreal experience. And I saw my first Picasso in MoMa, the Museum of Modern Art. But throughout my life, I’ve been fascinated with America and especially New York in particular as a city. So people fascinated culture brings us together, art brings us together regardless of where we come from. So that is why we are all about all cultures. Egyptian culture, I’m fascinated with it. So there will be a special place for that because Egypt has a culture as well. I think there’s a state, there’s, I don’t know how accurate it is, but it is said that two thirds of the world’s artifacts are from Egypt. Two thirds there’s so much culture to come. I mean, it’s a 5000 year civilization. There’s so much coming out of there. So definitely Egyptian culture will have a special place. But Momentable is for all art and culture. And the idea is to we’re bringing the classical works and the renaissance works and making them available, they are available for free for people, but they are in the repositories and databases. So bringing them out and making them, making a viewing experience that is incredible. And then we’re when we bring on the contemporary artist, you can at least see the continuous connection between a millennia of art and culture that we produced as human beings, which is sitting in storage most of the time. And the contemporary artists and people can be educated visually, not necessarily like, you know, go into education, but you can see the parallels and you can immerse yourself in the world of art. That’s what Momentable is all about.
Jeff Bullas
00:34:18 – 00:34:46
Right. So to pursue this a bit further on Momentable, how does Momentable business model work? Because it’s essentially a startup. So how does, Next Decentrum basically was about training people on crypto and blockchain. Is that correct? And then out of that became Momentable, which is so what’s the monetization model for Momentable? How does it work for you?
Hussein Hallak
00:34:47 – 00:37:13
So we operate on a subscription and sales commission business model. So we have a free subscription available for everyone, but then there’s a premium subscription. So artists can sign up for a premium subscription and build their own channels within Momentable and charge subscription from others as well for their channels. If you can imagine Apple TV, you have like Paramount, AMC and stuff channels, sub channels within the Apple experience, the Apple TV experience similar fashion, you have the Momentable experience, curated experience. But then there are channels that artists can buy into and then they can, the artist, the biggest challenge that artists face is that they can only make money once they sell their work. So they sell a painting, they survive, they don’t sell, they starve. So we’re saying, well, you have most artists keep meticulous record of all of the other paintings that they’ve sold. It’s sitting on their desktop, they’re not doing anything. We say, why don’t you display it? Display it in a way that is that people will enjoy it. You can play it on a TV, just like a stream, like a video, but it’s not a video, you just stream the artwork and then you can charge subscription. People can pay $1, $2, you know, and they can support you, they can tip you, they can donate, they can if you have a project that’s coming up, you can ask people just like Patreon. And what that does is that artists now have other sources of income in addition to their painting. We also allow artists to sell their paintings. And if you are a free subscription artist, we take a 15% commission. If you are paying artists, we take less commission 10 and 5%. So that is how we make money from the artist. If there is for the user, it’s also premium. So you can sign up for free. But if you want, let’s say some of the premium features, you pay also a subscription $24 per month. So that is how we monetize in addition to that some of the artists that we work with because we have the Momentable is more of a product, ASA product. But Next Decentrum is more of a company that has managed services. So some of the artists that we see that do well, we take them on and we start promoting them doing festivals for them, doing exhibitions, selling the actual paintings. So we have a multi kind of tier-diverse business model which is I think is necessary to survive in today’s world.
Jeff Bullas
00:37:14 – 00:37:24
So the art you’re helping the artist sell and also featuring, are they just digital art or is it physical art that can be bought as well? Is it both physical as well as digital?
Hussein Hallak
00:37:24 – 00:39:45
We’re starting with digital just because logistically it’s far better, sending a painting is really, really hard work because you have, it’s not just any shipping it needs depending on the painting and depending like, can you wrap it all of that? So digital art is easier to sell and a lot of people don’t have space. A lot of things that they said right now, the art market is around the $70 billion market and that’s only from selling the top notch paintings. Very few people have $5000 sitting still laying around, they have $1000 laying around that they’re willing to spend on art. But if you say, hey, $50, $20 or $10 people will buy. And, also everybody, almost everybody right now has a TV in their play in their home and sitting in the, probably the most prominent place so they can play art on their TV, on their screens. So that is what we want to use, what people have. It’s like the difference between, if you think about it, when we did have, you know, all of these vinyls and we had cassette tapes. I have some like sitting here in the corner like, and, you know, DVDs and we had to have space and we had all these equipment and now the mobile has everything. So nobody listens on, you know, sophisticated equipment. There’s no place for it to pay money. It’s all on the phone, you know, and the headphones are, we’re willing to sacrifice a little bit of the quality that we lose. There is nothing like standing in front of a real painting. Nothing can take that away. We’re not here to replace that. But the fact is 90% of people have never in the world have never set foot in a gallery or museum. And even if they do, 97% of all art and culture that we produce as human beings is sitting in storage. I went to MoMa, it cost me in addition to traveling to Vancouver, being in Vancouver and then traveling to New York and staying there several thousands of dollars. And I got to see five Picasso paintings. That’s it. It was surreal for me and I was very happy but MoMa themselves have, I think in the hundreds of Picasso paintings, like there’s, they have so much Picassos that they’re sitting in storage. So there’s just no space for it. So we think this is a solution to open up and give access to people, to art and culture around the world.
Jeff Bullas
00:39:46 – 00:40:08
That’s fascinating. So the big problems you’re solving on hearing what you’re saying. And also it’s true that so much art is invisible, not seen, stored. So you’re giving visibility to artists and also you’re helping them monetize their works and scaling it. Is that correct? Are they the two big problems you’re solving?
Hussein Hallak
00:40:09 – 00:40:09
Absolutely.
Jeff Bullas
00:40:10 – 00:41:26
Right. So because as we talked about before and you didn’t pursue the artist’s career because most artists are really starving artists and they almost need to do art as their side hustle because it’s what they love doing. So I think if you stumble into a place where your art becomes your business, I think that is just such a great place to play because you can pursue whatever you like. So it’s like, okay, how can I, and that’s why artists were actors, they work at cafes, they work in restaurants as waiters and waitresses just so they can actually pursue their passion to be an actor or an actress. So I think it’s fascinating. So really what you’ve done, your journey has gone from putting art aside in terms of being your core thing you do each day, but still playing the guitar, still painting, which I believe you still do today to now actually using the digital world and platforms to actually pay for your life. But along the way, you’re living vicariously through other artists as well. I’m sure.
Hussein Hallak
00:41:26 – 00:44:01
100% it’s a similar thing that I did with entrepreneurs is the desire to help them succeed. I discovered, I mean, it maybe for me, not for others, but I discovered I get similar fulfillment from being part of somebody else’s success as much as being successful. In fact, actually, it’s a little bit more, if not a lot more and I don’t wanna sound like it’s altruistic. It’s totally like, very personal for me, like, and it’s like, it’s a desire that I want for myself. That feeling is indescribable when somebody succeeds. And even if they don’t thank you, to feel that your part of somebody’s journey is incredible. And I think that is what gives me fulfillment. And that is what my way is like, if I can gift, if I can figure out this thing and I don’t say that I have yet. But if I can with my team, figure out how to help artists, become artists and still make money. And because my son is also an artist right now, he was accepted in physics and he’s super smart, he wants to pursue art and he’s fascinated with Japanese art. So for me also it kind of added more pressure. And that’s something that he only kind of got into a year ago. Even like I want him to succeed in his life and I don’t want him to have the same pressure that art is something that he does for a hobby and he has to work, you know, somewhere why not combine them both. And right now there are tools you as an artist, you can, let’s say start a YouTube channel, start drawing. But the problem there is that you have to do extra effort in addition to, let’s say doing your art in order to make money, what we’re trying to do is to replace that need. It was like you do your art and keep the channels that you want and add these to you so that you can reach more people. You can inspire more people and you can connect and build your own community across the world. And if anything, there’s a lot of things that went wrong with the NFT rise. But one thing that showed us is that artists can build a community across continents and they can make a living. But all you need is some tools and a way to do that and some artists still till date. Some of them who are true to their artistry and true to their community and didn’t treat NFTs as a get rich scheme. They are still launching projects, they’re still making money and they’re still building with their community.
Jeff Bullas
00:44:02 – 00:45:04
Yeah, it’s, I think what you just described about being at a rich international markets and rich people globally. I think that’s what really excited me initially when I discovered social media in 2008. The fact is that I could reach the world with my creation and let’s see where that goes and have some fun in the journey. And so that can be done with art, it can be done with words, it can be done with video. Now this raises a big question. Which is the biggest trend happening in the world and basically happened 12 months ago as in it was given a platform and a face and a user interface which is ChatGPT and AI. Now you must have some interesting insights and thoughts about the role of AI and art. So I’ll be, so what I think there’s both opportunities in it and also challenges in it. I’d love to hear your thoughts on both of those angles.
Hussein Hallak
00:45:05 – 00:48:49
Yeah, I love it. The, it’s a great way what you said is that it’s given a face. I love how you positioned it because it is AI has existed for a while, but this is the first time that we have something that we can interact with the regular, the rest of us, let’s say not AI experts or researchers. So true. And even with OpenAI doing their open dev day on Monday and I did a deep dive yesterday on AI and exploring like, how do, so I’m happy to talk about it. We even actually had Da Vinci because the new version of Momentablel, we call it Momentable Da Vinci. So we had ChatGPT trained as Da Vinci and we interviewed it or him on our podcast. So, it was a lot of fun. It’s fascinating to say the least it’s mind blowing at certain times. I think there’s a lot of value that comes to it and of course, a lot of challenges. What’s happening right now is number one, the world has changed drastically, not just with the introduction of AI, but also Monday. And if you look at, let’s say what Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI and with their dev day they just released, they indicated where the direction is going. The internet is not gonna be the internet that we know. People are not gonna want better websites, people want better experiences. So what we’ve seen with ChatGPT is the rise of something called the conversational internet, which is an internet where you talk to the internet and it talks back to you. So you don’t have to search Google and say it, put a search, look at different articles, click on them. Try to find your way. You just ask the question, you get the answer and you get, you can continue to ask and you can get the answer and far, far more superior than let’s say what Siri is able to do. So, why does that change? Well, first of all, your website is irrelevant anymore. Unless it’s conversational people can like you’re talking to people. And in addition to that, the next search engine is ChatGPT, it’s not Google. SEO is out of the window. It’s really about I don’t know if there is AI optimization AIO if you wish. So how are you optimized for the conversational internet? Do you have value to add? Because before it was like, can I create articles at a certain length? You know, can I post on social media right now? ChatGPT will evaluate if you have the answer and it will give the answer to the person and that changes everything for how people should react with the internet. And AI for art is a new tool that some artists are experimenting with it. What’s his name? Rafik Anadol, who is AI art was acquired by MoMa who’s been working in AI art or in AI using AI in art because I hate the term AI art cause there’s art. He was doing art using AI as a tool for several years. Highly recommend checking him out on LinkedIn. So his artwork was exhibited in MoMa and I got to see it this year actually, when I went in real brilliant, brilliant piece of work and it was acquired by MoMa and he, it was just exhibited in the sphere in Las Vegas, you know, that big sphere that everybody’s talking about. It’s remarkable. So definitely a new tool and a new canvas that some artists will work with and definitely something that changes the creative industry forever. So, it’s fascinating.
Jeff Bullas
00:48:49 – 00:51:06
Yeah, I find it fascinating. I recently wrote an article and I discovered that there’s fashion design tools, in other words, do put an idea in and the AI helps you create a sneaker, you create a jacket and it’s just fabulous. It’s just, and my partner is a fashionista. She loves her fashion. Like it is her expression, it’s her art and I didn’t quite see, you know, wearing clothes and dressing up as actually art. But it is. And I think plugging in, you know, even into furniture, like design me a sofa that is inspired by a Porsche, right? So, or design me a shoe that is inspired by ABC. And I think the better the prompts we ask the better the output of AI and it’s getting really scary good. I wrote and worked on an article, you know, a social media influencer to blame for the $2 million handbag. And I it was just a fun headline inspired by an event that happened a day or two before. And I plugged that just that topic in and said, write me 1000 words on this and write it in a humorous tone. In other words, it was a good headline, I believe fun. It was a bit creative and different and using the tone and what I got back. I went shit. This is seriously good post. I said, should I use the one I spent a day putting together for fun? Because that’s how I wrote it for fun, right? And it’s a slightly humorous piss take on basically who’s to blame. Well, in the end I blamed it on the rich because they can, right? But AI just, like, I think for me, we’re seeing as AI taking away human creativity, I think it’s actually exploding and amplifying it. I’d be interested in your thoughts on that.
Hussein Hallak
00:51:06 – 00:55:23
Oh, absolutely. See, as a writer, you’re not gonna stop writing because you’re writing, not just for the money you’re writing because it gives you something and that’s why you will always do it. Regardless of whether AI took over writing or not, you’re gonna still do it just like till date people, some people build stuff with their hands that they can obviously buy, you know, like some people, what is it, do you know, sculptures and stuff you can easily buy, let’s say a vase from the store, but that’s not what it is. It’s what the making, the expressions and what happened is if I take just my life, not, let’s not talk, you know, 500 years ago, 30 years ago, I had to go and learn, I did logos by hand because I didn’t have a computer. So I did logos by hand and I did the printing plates. I did the drawing, let’s say for the red, the blue, whatever it is, I did them on separate transparent sheets and that’s what we gave to the printer. Fast forward five years, I did the design on Photoshop and just hit export and it exports the printing file. So I removed the because what’s important is the creation, not the actual, you know, process of that, especially I didn’t like doing the printing plates, but I had to do them because that’s the only way you produce fast forward, let’s say 10 other years, you know, you have templates, you can just actually take the template, move it around so that you can faster express your ideas. Fast forward another 10 years, you were in AI where you can say to the AI what you want and can give you expressions and you can now say no, I want this, I want that, the gap between our thinking, our ideas and the execution is closing. That is what these tools are doing. The tools are making the gap between our vision and what we want to see and what we actually see is closing. These are what these tools are doing, but just like when cameras came around, just like now everybody has an iPhone, everyone has some of the most sophisticated cameras, billions of people have some of the most sophisticated cameras in their pockets. But that doesn’t result in billions of photography, photos that look great. In fact, most photos look shitty, you know, like most photos, I have a camera and I think of myself as artistic. But for the life of me, I can’t take a great photo, my wife, whatever photo she takes, it’s always great. So even though you might have the most sophisticated tools that doesn’t mean that you’re gonna produce something artistic or compelling that requires, still requires effort. The type of effort and where the effort is spent is different because the people’s expectations are different right now, if you have AI art, they expect your art to say something that matters, that connects, more so than something that I can. So if you’re saying, look at this, the skill that I did this. Well, I can do it in five minutes or two minutes. What else do you? So I come to Seth Godin said something great. He had a blog post that actually is written by ChatGPT and about AI and said mediocrity is that. That is his interpretation with AI, you’re no longer accepted to be mediocre because in the past, you could envision something but your capability stopped you from doing that. There’s a lot of people that can think great ideas, but when they come to write, it’s shitty writing, you know, they don’t have the skill and it takes a lot from them to do that. it takes a lot for me to write. My friend that I co-host with, he’s a writer. He can write an article, spit out an article that looks great in an hour. It takes me three hours to write an article of equal good. So these tools close the gap. So now you’re asked, you don’t have a barrier to express. So what is it that you’re gonna do? You have no excuse right now, the excuses are lower and lower and lower for you to produce great work. So what is the excuse not doing so? That is I think how I got it and that’s how I interpret the era and that’s how artists are interpreting the era. Rafik who did the AI art for MoMa. Yeah, it’s AI art but it’s so unique that people like how in the hell he did that?
Jeff Bullas
00:55:23 – 00:55:25
So what’s that artist’s name? Rafik who?
Hussein Hallak
00:55:25 – 00:55:26
Rafik Anadol.
Jeff Bullas
00:55:27 – 00:55:28
Anadol? How’s his last name spelt?
Hussein Hallak
00:55:29 – 00:55:40
A-N-A-D-O-L. I think. Rafik Anadol. If you search MoMa AI art. He’s a great one.
Jeff Bullas
00:55:41 – 00:57:52
I think the other thing we touched on before was basically giving technology a human interface is where technology goes from, not used to used. And another example of that is where the browser showed up in the 90s, the internet was this ugly user interface. In fact, it didn’t have one, the browser gave it again a user interface, a face that was easily usable. ChatGPT gave AI a face and anyone can use it. I think democratizing any technology is where it gets really, really exciting and explodes as we’ve seen, you know, 100 million in eight, I think, six weeks it took for ChatGPT to reach 100 million subscribers or users. The other thing that I find fascinating is, and I think just thinking about fashion and as an art form, which I never did until I met my partner and she just loves it. Spends a lot of time dressing up for work and she’s a corporate lawyer, right? So she’s very eclectic, a very different dressing, and a corporate lawyer. I’m just thinking about fashion for example, now you’ve got tools to help you create a great looking shoe in digital. The thing I think is gonna happen possibly is the different intersection of other technologies is where it becomes really, really magic. So let’s add a great design idea to AI enhanced amplified creativity for a sneaker. Then you plug in a 3D printer and it produces the shoe, right? So from an idea delivered to a shoe enabled by technology, but starts with a human idea and that for me starts to get really exciting. So I’d be interested in your thoughts too, about some of the issues we’re going through with art and copyright and a lot of the scraping of the web has scraped artists’ work. What’s your thoughts on copyright and art?
Hussein Hallak
00:57:53 – 01:01:44
I definitely support the art. The, I think, let’s go back a step back to the original problem. The original problem is the economic system that we live in, capitalism. In capitalism, you work or you get paid for your work, you live, you don’t, you kind of starve and you become homeless and stuff. And that’s the biggest problem if people had the means to live with integrity and happiness and at least they don’t, you know, they don’t find themselves homeless or, you know, or hopeless without making money. Then I would welcome what AI is doing. But the problem is artists make money from their art and when you take what they make, in addition to other ethical things, but let’s say the core fundamental element. When you take somebody’s livelihood, it’s a big problem. Whereas if everybody, if we live in a community where I mean, that’s why people, Sam Altman and other let’s say, leaders in the space recommended UBI, universal basic income, because a lot of people will be left without jobs. And that’s just just how every revolution brings that, every information revolution did that, every revolution leaves victims behind, let’s say, and if we don’t take care of them this time, it’s gonna be massive like the and we saw these strikes in Hollywood, like these people are not gonna accept people that we know I’m not gonna accept you taking away their livelihood, they’re gonna fight back. So I think the first thing is taking care of the economic condition. Once that is taking care of, you cannot take use artist work without crediting the artist, remove a copy. Copyright is more like a legal issue. But you have to credit the artist and you have to reward the artist for their work. That’s period and you cannot just take without giving, that’s unacceptable, especially if you’re making money, you know, a lot of people publicize people, artists’ work. And make it available. But if the artist lives from that and you took it away and you now doing it and you’re making money and they’re not making money. That doesn’t make any sense. So I completely support the artist demand to protect their copyrights, to protect their livelihood and to protect what they created and their ability to make money and to get credit for it. So I would, I think where we wanna go or where we’re gonna go and AI gonna have to do that is that they have to show this artwork. Here’s where it came from, here’s what it’s inspired by and here are the names of artists that are credited by that. And I think they have to devise a way to reward the artist and keep their claim and keep their credit because we’re seeing that we’re seeing everything being used by the artist. We dabbled in AI art, I dabbled, I create like 8000 pieces. I created them with artist work. So actually, I worked with artists that we commission and we work with and we pay and we use their work with their permission to play around with AI and see what it can do. So it’s fascinating. There’s a lot you can do and they themselves, they loved it. So we have some collaboration with established artists where we created artwork that does that. And I think that is the right way. And I think also openness and transparency is the right way forward. And that’s my take on the topic is that you need to respect the work of not just the artist of the work of people, acknowledge them, reward them so that collaborate and make money with them. And I think that’s where they failed. The most of the companies where they used what they have and they knew they can get away with it and that’s what they did. So that is that I think unless they fix this, it’s gonna remain a stain in the AI space.
Jeff Bullas
01:01:44 – 01:02:53
Yeah. Well, and it’s not just the AI space, it’s worrying. For example, let’s use Google as an example. Google, you know, collects all the information in the world and presents an easy way that it’s got, you know, it’s easy to use, easy to find. You can put in just one or two keywords and quite often you can find something amongst trillions of data points. But what’s really fascinating watching Google essentially, it’s scraping all the content of the web and presenting it in a user interface called the browser, you know, they’ve moved on now to actually putting snippets at the top about answers to questions and you don’t even need to visit the creator’s site, whether it’s a news site, whether it’s a blog or whether it’s an image site. So essentially Google is slowly basically stopping people reaching the artist site and they’re making the money. And it’s really interesting in Australia, we actually had the news sites. The big news sites in Australia are paid by Facebook and Google.
Hussein Hallak
01:02:54 – 01:02:55
I saw that which is excellent.
Jeff Bullas
01:02:55 – 01:03:41
Which is excellent. Okay. There’s a small problem because the rest of us, bloggers don’t have a voice because we, who pays us for our information that’s scraped by Google and essentially Google’s creating an interface where they present the information as snippets and so on. But you don’t even need to go to the website, which is where quite often the creators make their money when you visit the website, buy something, subscribe to something. So it’s not only AI is an issue, this is why I think the business model, the economic model of the digital age, we’re gonna take a big close look at this and it’s gonna be painful but it’s gotta be fixed in some way to reward the artists and creators.
Hussein Hallak
01:03:42 – 01:06:41
100% like, yeah, and then these are companies that are not, you know, starving. They are, these are companies what Google made $70 billion last year. So they can afford to make 50 billion instead of 70 billion. And that’s what I mean, like the economic model of growth at any cost is costing us because a lot of people are left in the dust and they are doing the work. It’s not that they like Google will not, would not exist without information to organize, it’s organizing for, but it needs the information to organize AI cannot exist without the information to consume in those databases. And I think that’s what will remain. And that’s one of the reasons why we recommend to people that and we talk that there will be different kinds of internet that will be created. So conversational internet is one. So you need to be prepared for that. And people, for example, like you who have all their content created. Now OpenAI created something called GPTs and assistance where you can actually take all of your content, feed it into the assistant and let’s say have a ChatGPT or ChatGPT that speaks in your language. So people in your voice and your tone of voice, so people can speak to it and it can speak back for them from the information you created and you can get paid for it. So I thought that was a good move because they’re recognizing that it’s important for the community to it’s the community that can make them win. It’s not, they can only do so much on their own. So that was a major advancement. So continuing to do the work and continuing to focus on the area of passion that you can stand out, that very few can stand out like you, you know, noticing something because all of us will look at the same thing and will notice different things. So you looked at, let’s say the bag, I mean, I was like, oh that’s interesting. And he said, no, that’s an interesting story and you wrote about it and therefore you stand out as someone who, you know, acted on the observation. So there will be the conversational web, there will also be the visual web, which is something that we’re building where you can consume the web. And instead of making it a more optimized website, you can zoom it visually. So for example, you have your blog, it can be where, imagine instead of me sitting on a computer and reading that blog, I can play it on the TV. So it can play the images or AI images generated or presenting the blog and you can read the blog for me. That is one of the, that is what we’re building for art and culture, which is the visual web. And then there is the functional web where you use it and that’s gonna be hidden behind either the visual web or the conversational web where it’s where things get done, like your software that does CRM and stuff like that. But you talk to ChatGPT and say, okay, organize or send an email to my database telling them that I have a podcast, you know, with Hussein in two hours and he will write the email, send it and say, hey, send it and you send it just like Siri that right now you can say, send a message to my son or something like that.
Jeff Bullas
01:06:42 – 01:08:17
Yeah, it’s really fascinating. And you talked about content and it has crossed my mind is to create a Jeff Bullas avatar with my voice and my image and you could ask me anything and it’ll basically go in seconds, go through my entire body of work, which is, we’re up to what 14 years of work? We’ve got about 3000 articles, plus we’ve got 200 podcast episodes, we’ve got a YouTube channel. So, and part of me really just wants to annoy my children and descendants because as long as I keep paying for the hosting and I get the avatar and the AI working for me, you’ll be able to ask Jeff everything for another two or three centuries long as the lights are still on. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. It’s maybe an ego trip. But I think it would just be fun to do because we can, right? Let’s have fun. And you just talked about something that I found fascinating I hadn’t heard before, the conversational web. I love the writing. So, and I can read fast. So watching a video that takes me 30 minutes. I can read it in three, okay, so, but the conversation web’s interesting and then people love videos. Short videos are now dominating the planet on social media, TikTok is, you know, real supreme now, the Instagram reels copied that. We’ve got YouTube shorts, right? Short video. And just a fascinating, by the way, a bit of research shows that human attention is shorter than a goldfish now, human attention has been measured at seven seconds, goldfish, you got nine seconds. So there you go.
Hussein Hallak
01:08:18 – 01:12:10
We hit the pinnacle of our evolution. Yeah, it’s gonna be interesting to see how the web is gonna evolve. And I’m looking forward to it, you know, like one of the things I can’t live without is my computer. I love my computer. I sit on it. It’s my window to the world. And recently like if I don’t know if you ever tried to open a browser on a TV or smart TV, it’s horrendous. So yeah, so the browser, this is the experience that we got so far and it only can take us so much, I think right now with the conversation web, if you looked at the app of, ChatGPT is incredible. You can like it can see, it’s not that you can talk to it, it can see as well. You can open the camera and say, here’s how I, here’s how my, what I have on my desk, give me a better way to organize it. That’s literally what you can tell it. And we’ll tell you that there is nothing on the internet that can give you that at all. So you kind of have a trusted advisor. So imagine, for example, let’s say an interior decorator, you know, I moved into my home instead of paying two couple of $1000 or more sometimes, I’m sure it’s more, for interior decorator to tell me where to put stuff. I can just open ChatGPT and say, here’s where my stuff are, give me a great way of organizing them. And here I am, I can, it can give me optimized, specially personalized for me, which is incredible. You can’t get that. You can obviously go to the internet and say ideas for organizing rooms and you’ll see the best designed rooms, but it’s not your home. Whereas here suddenly. So that is a leap unlike anything before ultimate personalization at very low cost. This will kill so many businesses. So you have to adapt rapidly to the conversational web. Not only that you have to think of how can I be not a mediocre interior designer or a regular interior designer who can get work and can survive and maybe do very well. But when this comes in and people have it in their hands, which OpenAI is working on that, they hired Johnny Ive, which used to be the designer for Apple because they know once they own the device, they own your life. You know, we live everything on the iPhone, a device we can’t live with. So imagine if you have a device that you can talk to, you don’t even have to open, just say tell me this or do this or, you know, today I’m not going to postpone all the meetings. That’s it as simple as that five minutes and you’re back to sleep and it does everything, it sends the emails, it finds out who you encounter and it can do that now it’s not something far fetched, it can write code you can build. If you look at the I highly recommend, check out it might be a little bit technical in certain areas, OpenAI dev day. And what they did is literally on the phone, they on screen. They did, they created a web page that corresponds to the users and write codes in real time to correspond to a user request. You don’t even have to do anything. So that will change. Web design will be obsolete. UX design will be obsolete like it’s a scary world that’s getting and exciting, but it’s also scary because we don’t know what it’s gonna look like. And while people are kind of voicing and thinking that Skynet is gonna come in and kill us all, the biggest fear is the transition right now in the next 10 years. Millions, if not hundreds of millions of people will be struggling to find their place in the world. And that’s why we believe that with art and culture, with going back to what makes us human, which is how we learn, how we engage the kind of conversations we have is the future.
Jeff Bullas
01:12:10 – 01:14:12
Yeah, I totally agree with you and I’ve been a little bit obsessed in writing about what does creativity mean in a world of AI and I think that a lot of people struggle with, they look at the super genius as the Einsteins, the Picassos and they’re going, I can’t be creative because I’m not like them. The reality is, I think what makes us different as humans is we are creative. And I think within all of us sits various degrees of creativity and ability, creative ability. Well, I think for most people is not only do they need to create, they need to get that creation out produced and you’re doing a great job doing that for the artists, which is fabulous. And also you’re adding your own superpowers, marketing to that as well. So I really very much believe that AI is amplifying our creativity. We created AI, we created ChatGPT. Now it’s just got to work out how as humans, we control it. So it doesn’t get out of the box and start to eat us. Like social media is starting to do creating hate and disinformation. We’ve got to get ahead of the game on AI. I believe it’s a force for good, but like any technology, be force for evil, dynamite is a perfect example, invented by Nobel. It basically helped create, you know, industrial mining, but also created industrial killing. And these are the challenges and the paradox of any technology and as humans, we’ve got to get ahead of the game. So it’s I’m finding it fascinating. And the other thing I love Seth Godin again. I just maybe Seth Godin fan boys a little bit. I’ve read almost all his books, but one of his books I really enjoy is The Practice.
Hussein Hallak
01:14:12 – 01:14:14
Wonderful book.
Jeff Bullas
01:14:14 – 01:14:23
And on top of that, add the book by Steven Pressfield, The War of Art. It is just fantastic about resistance.
Hussein Hallak
01:14:24 – 01:14:31
I haven’t read that. I’m gonna take a note down. The War of Art. Nice.
Jeff Bullas
01:14:32 – 01:15:29
Just fabulous. It’s about what strikes all creators and all humans is resistance. In other words, not sitting down every day and getting into the ritual of just putting pen to paper, paintbrush to, you know, the canvas we need to make. So genius is actually in the doing. That’s what I think people have got to realize. And once you do that and you think about it and I love the quote by Bill Gates. He said, most people underestimate what they can do in one year, overestimate what they can do in one year. Sorry I’ll go start again. Bill Gates said most people are overestimate what they can do in one year, but underestimate what they can do in 10 years and just think about this, whether you’re an artist in any shape or form, if you do something every day, 10 years later, there are 9000 things you have done.
Hussein Hallak
01:15:30 – 01:16:35
It’s like writing. A lot of people want to be at that level of the writer who wrote the best selling book or the is now, let’s say followers. Yeah, but they don’t realize that all of that started with the first article which probably nobody knows or nobody liked or nobody even paid attention. But it’s that tenacity to come back again and sit and write and maybe write, write, write until you get, let’s say at number 100 and that shoots off. You never know. But unless you take those steps, you’re never gonna get there. I love it. I love what you said There’s a book by Rick Rubin, called The Creative Act: A Way of Being. And it’s really exactly about what you said, which is, he said, the job of an artist is to create, is to put out, is to produce. It’s not your job. Once you produce, that’s it. The rest is up to the world, your job is done. So, it’s really about, you know, create, do, as you said, like produce, take, do the action. That is your way. Unless you execute, nothing exists, right?
Jeff Bullas
01:16:36 – 01:17:56
Yeah, I was, as I started about creativity, I actually discovered the meaning the word creari I’ve had however, is pronounced which might be Latin. It’s two core words within that art, idea and produce. So, they are the two key words that we as artists and that I’m talking to everyone ‘cause everyone here listening, watching you are all artists. But what you’ve got to do is actually step into that every day. Choose the passion area you want to do and create. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be a Picasso but just do the practice as Seth Godin says, get into the routine and ritual, find a place where you can do it. And I think having a space to do it is important and obviously you’ve got a space that you sits behind you and in front of you where it’s your space to create whatever you want to do. And I think, and routine might sound boring, but you can’t wait for inspiration to strike. You’ve actually gotta sit down and write one word and then write two words as a writer and then it’s gonna look messy and horrible. But as the hours pass you are word wrangling into your art to make sense of the noise. And that’s for me, brings me so much joy.
Hussein Hallak
01:17:57 – 01:18:00
I could have said it better myself. This is awesome.
Jeff Bullas
01:18:01 – 01:18:46
So I’m gonna ask you two questions now to wrap it up because, I’m mindful of your time and in Vancouver time moves slowly or fast. I’m not quite sure. So two things and I’ll let you one is what if you had all the money in the world, what would you do every day? You didn’t have to worry about money at all ever again. Number two, what are some of the biggest challenges or the biggest challenge that’s taught you the most? I’d be interested in your thoughts. I think I know the answer to one or two of these questions. So what brings you incredible deep joy that if you have enough money, you just do it every day, even if it costs you money?
Hussein Hallak
01:18:47 – 01:20:11
Absolutely. I would, I’m tempted to say that I would do exactly what I’m doing right now. But probably what I would do more of is take a little bit more time to read and have a place where I can go crazy like paint and stuff like. I would probably get just a place where I can paint and do stuff. But I love what I’m doing and I’m definitely in a place in my life that I’m extremely thankful. I never thought I would be here that I’m living in a great space that allows me the space to have at least my office throughout my life. When I was young, I had lived, my office was like the place I studied was my parents’ bedroom. So I, whenever they’re out, that’s the only time I can get my own and, you know, listen to music and stuff. So to our home was very small. So came to appreciate having your own space. So I would love to have an atelier, let’s say an art and a workshop where I can go crazy and I buy a ton of technology stuff and all and the testing stuff. So that’s also something I would do probably if I had all the time and money in the world. But yeah, I will be doing exactly what I’m doing right now because I wholeheartedly believe in this mission and vision that I wanna execute and deliver on. And in regards to the second question, what was it again?
Jeff Bullas
01:20:11 – 01:20:29
Second question is a lot in Western culture, we see failure as terrible. I think we should see failure as an opportunity to learn. So what are some of the biggest challenges and failures or a failure that’s taught you the most?
Hussein Hallak
01:20:29 – 01:22:50
Yeah, the biggest failure probably was with CreativeArab. So launch CreativeArab. We got, it was a big failure because it was actually a massive success. So we launched CreativeArab in 2006, the largest marketplace for Middle Eastern art in the world, 1200 artists, three years of work to get there. I was on the inside cover of Forbes, not the fourth. And I was featured in BBC. I was in every publication almost and I was hailed as a person who’s gonna change the face of art in the Arab world. So massive media success, but we made zero money. And the reason is we were, first of all, we were very, very early. Nobody wanted who wants to buy online art or art online in 2006. It’s so early. Facebook has not gone international, WordPress has not been invented yet or at least invented to the world. So it took it, it costed me $30,000 to put together a website that today you can put together in $38. That’s how expensive it was. It was insanely expensive. And we couldn’t figure out how to capture payment from people. For example, just to talk to the bank to establish online payment, $25,000. Just to talk to them about online payment. It was extremely hard. We didn’t, I made every mistake in the book and some that were not written in the book probably that I should write about. And all because I had great success at the very beginning, my first tech company was acquired, I was like sailing. I was like, I know business and I knew nothing. So that was when I actually realized the importance of constant learning. So the biggest learning that came out of that is I’m never gonna say I know I still do in some areas. But then I humbly remind myself that I know shit about anything I should look forward. I should listen, I should, you know, read about it and always approach something with the mind of a learner rather than a mind that I know how to do this. So, yeah, the biggest failure gave me this life that I have. But definitely I wish I never had it. It’s that paradox, you know, you need to have that failure to be the person. These failures shape you just like successes, but also they’re painful.
Jeff Bullas
01:22:51 – 01:24:00
Yeah, thank you very much for sharing that. And the reality is that, it’s great to have people share their failures and what they learn out of it. We need to see its learning not as failures. And, yeah, it’s, and it also has made you who you are today, which is where I think you’re on purpose for my observation. It is, you’re in the middle of your ikigai, which is the intersection of what you love doing, what you’re good at, what your expertise is, what your experience is, what the world wants and what the world will pay you for. That’s the basically core of ikigai. And you’ve got that intersection happening from my observation and it’s just so good to see. And I think the other thing that I really love what you’re doing is that you are providing a portal and platform for artists to do what they love and get paid for it so they can create more art and share their beauty with the world. And you know, thank you for doing that for the world. And I look forward to seeing this unfold.
Hussein Hallak
01:24:01 – 01:24:33
Thank you very much for having me. It’s been a pleasure, Jeff, like you, as I’ve told you, you’ve been someone who’s in I know in my life and even though we never kind of met, but I have been following you that caricature of yours is very iconic. And I remember reading a lot of your articles. So it’s also surreal to kind of be in a place in my life that I get to talk to you. So thank you very much for having me and thank you for a very thoughtful question, very thoughtful and deep conversation. I truly enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.
Jeff Bullas
01:24:34 – 01:25:09
Thanks Hussein, it’s been an absolute pleasure and we’ll do a follow up on this, down the track and see how it’s all going. Because AI is evolving rapidly, it’s got implications for all of humanity in so many areas. And I think, you know, you sound positive about it. I’m very positive about it, you know, there’s others preaching utopia, there’s others preaching dystopia, of course, with anything, the truth lies somewhere in the middle according to the philosophy of the Dao. So thank you very much for sharing your insights and experiences. It’s been an absolute joy. Thank you.