Jack Krawczyk, Google Bard’s Product Lead, has a founder-like obsession with pooling feedback and measuring success. Since launching in March 2023, Bard has been quickly recognized as an extraordinary tool for unlocking creativity. In this episode, Jack shares his experiences building Bard, advice for founders, and discusses the creative opportunities to come from AI.
We first got to know Jack in 2016 when he joined our team as an Entrepreneur in Residence, and later advised for an Accel company. Born in Poland, Jack’s family immigrated to the US when he was young for his father’s job as an electrical engineer. He has always been fascinated with math, computing, and the intricacies of the world's functions. These interests led Jack to carve an impressive course of product impact across a number of startups, and, eventually, Google.
The Bard experiment came together around the same time as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and despite the rapid uptake of these large language models (LLMs), Jack believes the technology is still in its infancy. As a result, the Bard team has been uniquely intentional about acknowledging risk and limitations.
“I describe generative AI as an idea creator. It helps take an idea in your mind, helps you find the words to describe it, and makes it approachable for people so when you do speak it into the world, it has legs.” - Jack Krawczyk
On this episode of Spotlight On: AI, Jack sits down with Accel’s John Locke to discuss Google’s AI efforts, creative AI opportunities, the importance of risk mitigation, and timely advice.
Conversation highlights:
- 00:00 - Jack’s upbringing and early interest in math and technology
- 04:52 - The problems that led Jack from banking to a career in technology
- 12:01 - How the team behind Bard came together to launch the AI assistant
- 16:24 - Jack’s advice for user research and measuring the success of new AI products
- 20:10 - Navigating the highly competitive dynamics in the AI space
- 21:56 - How Jack uses Bard in his everyday work and life
- 24:54 - Understanding the risk discrepancies between reliable AI output and input
- 27:03 - What startup founders can learn from Bard’s success as a “startup” within Google, and how they can apply AI effectively
Host: John Locke, Partner at Accel
Featuring: Jack Krawczyk, Sr. Director of Product at Google, focused on Bard
Explore more episodes from the season:
- Episode 01: AssemblyAI's Dylan Fox on building an AI company during a period of radical change
- Episode 02: Roblox’s Daniel Sturman on Building Great Teams in the AI Era
- Episode 03: Ada’s Mike Murchison on how AI is revolutionizing customer service
- Episode 04: Merge’s Shensi Ding on powering the next generation of AI SaaS companies
- Episode 05: Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang on the most powerful technological advancement of our time
- Episode 06: Bard’s Jack Krawczyk on the birth of Google’s AI chatbot and the creative potential that lies ahead
- Episode 07: Synthesia’s Victor Riparbelli on creating an environment to harness AI benefits and reduce harms
- Episode 08: Ironcald's Cai GoGwilt on a decade of anticipating the transformative power of AI
- Episode 09: Checkr’s Daniel Yanisse on tackling bias in people and AI
- Episode 10: Cinder’s Glen Wise on trust and safety threats and holding AI accountable
- Episode 11: Transcend’s Kate Parker on putting data back into the hands of users in an AI-driven world
- Episode 12: Arm’s Rene Haas on building the brain of artificial intelligence
*This episode was recorded early November, 2023
