Four For Friday | May 23, 2025

LF174 | Voice AI, moral ambition, Rockefeller on systems investing, Edge Esmerelda and AI bonus: Google's new toys

Welcome to this week’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week, together with a bonus: AI Tip of The Week.

1. Voice AI is here

Voice AI is having a moment, and US VC firm NFX is betting big. Three key shifts are enabling this inflection point: sub-300ms response times, cloud APIs, and dramatically lower costs. They’re seeing three strategies:

• B2B Labor Replacement - The obvious play. Companies like Smith.ai and Numeo AI are crushing it by replacing $40K/year call center agents with $4K/year AI that works 24/7.

• Voice as Market Wedge - Using voice to crack hard-to-enter markets, then expanding into an "Act Two" plan.

• Voice with "Soul" - The moonshot category. Companies building emotionally intelligent voice AI that delights rather than just replaces (e.g. Character.ai with voice).

The So What? Voice has been the essential ‘social tech’ interface for millennia, and only now is the silicon-based tech good enough to deliver at scale.

2. In praise of moral ambition

The new book - and movement - Moral Ambition by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman seeks to enlighten young, high flyers struggling with well-paid but morally compromising jobs, and empower them to work on world-improving topics instead.

The book looks back at historical activists like Ralph Nader - who made remarkable contributions to consumer safety in the US, but then flamed out. It looks at the debunks the “noble-loser” idea and is not a fan of effective altruism.

The bottom line - winning matters more than moral purity - scale is needed for impactful ideas to be valuable. strategic alliances and measurable impact over performative activism.

The So What? A bold, simple call to arms that will hopefully sway some talented youth to work on bigger problems than their paycheck.

3. Rockefeller on systems thinking for impact investors

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors just released two resources for impact investors - a primer about the space and a playbook with practical tools for action. It’s a call for those working in today’s relatively isolated world of ‘traditional’ investing to embrace a systemic change model.

Regular LF readers will know I think today’s multifaceted challenges need joined up, collaborative responses. Capital providers generally aren’t that good at collaboration, so foundations, family offices, and impact-first funds need to expand their horizone to new sectors, geographies, and asset classes.

Systems thinking introduces the ideas of leverage points, portfolio approaches (that maximize impact, not minimize risk) and systemic learning, rather than individual KPIs.

The So What? Rockefeller are one of the most trustworthy and well-resourced brands in philanthropy and impact investing (coining the term in fact) so their embrace of a systems change approach is welcome.

4. Edge Esmerelda

Starting today is an interesting convening of people thinking about, and building, a better future. Held in one of my favorite American towns, lovely Healdsburg in Napa just north of San Francisco, this month-long event is gathering a sparkling collection of intellectual heavyweights.

Leading with two of my ‘building a better world’ heroes, Taiwan’s Audrey Tang, and Protocol Labs’ Juan Benet, this is a group that’s going to have a strong democratized and decentralized flair.

Covering topics such as Truth Seeking AI, Reality Reinvented and Environments of Tomorrow, this is going to be an intellectual feast.

The So What? We need these types of conversations happening in every country around the world. Who’s up for one in Australia?

Bonus AI tool: Google Lifts the game

Google just dropped some sweet AI improvements (in particular video with voice generation), and rocked the foundations of quite a few venture funded AI companies in the process

That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome.

- Stephen