President. Not the first time the president has met with silicon valley. While he does not enjoy the same relationship with high tech as his predecessor, barack obama, President Trump clearly understands the innovation hes promised is most likely to come from technology. Keith lineback is ceo of live ops, the company that helps people create call centers in their own homes. He made the trip to the white house and has some advice for hightech viewers that are headed there next fm narc new of China Global Television and jacob moore. Walk me through how this works. You get invited to the white house or try to convince them . From what ive come to understand, lots of people are trying to convince get there. The administration how to get there. I found i had a voice mail one day from the white house. I thought it was a hoax, of course. I called henry back, special assistant to the president , and sure enough, very real opportunity. What he was curious about is how is it we put americans back to work. And you are putting americans to work all over america, particularly in some red states. I want to get to that in a second but im fascinated by the white house part of it. Does one drive up to the white house . Walk up to the white house . You walk up to the white house through the reporters, field some questions, then go through extra top secret clearance stuff, cleared in advance. We had an opportunity to meet in some of the rooms outside of the white house in one of the federal buildings. Those were break sessions focused on a number of different topics to debrief with the president. Then we talked to the west wing of the white house and into one of the Conference Rooms there. The president was scheduled to meet with us for about an hour to spend almost two hours with us. And what i found was just fascinating is we had an opportunity to really share what is it that we need to do to bring jobs back that have been outscattered showersed. A lot of jobs outsourced offshore and we have an opportunity to bring some of those back. We also talked about the Regulatory Environment and things that inhibit our ability to put americans back to work as well as infrastructure investments. So really fascinating. Theres some followup that he asked for that different groups of us are preparing back to bring information back to him with some additional points of view. I think about, you know, barack obama was famous for sort of creating a comfortable environment. He would take off hijack et, roll up his sleeves and call you by your first name to try to get you to relax as much as possible. In the footage ive seen of those meetings it does not look like theres a lot of joking around and hanging out that, you know so im curious, was there a sense of sort of the power of the presidency in that meeting or was there a sense of really trying to get you guys to relax and give him ideas. I dont have a whole lot to compare it to. Right. Doesnt happen to you all the time . I can tell you outside of, you know, whos president , what the administration is, whether its washington, this is about putting americans back to work and we really have a very genuine opportunity to do that. And in some cases we need some Regulatory Environments, some regulations to be eased because, you know, contrary to what we may believe, sometimesitis hard to bring some of those jobs back to employee in some of the different states. What weve found is there is a rr real opportunity theres 91 Million People in the workforce today. And what weve been able to do is help bring some of those people back. These are folks that might be disabled, may be veteran, maybe stayathome moms and dads looking for another opportunity. And through technology thats available today, we really have a fascinating way to be able to do that. And if we provide solutions that havent been available in the past, think about call centers of the past, which are a dead topic to us, were talking about bringing knowledge workers enabled with technology to bear so that we can omt mize a Service Experience for the end customer. Thats different than call centers of days gone by where you read the script and follow the rules. And if i cant solve your problem, well, thats because policy. If to my viewers, one of the most familiar might be the hurts when you git on the phone and pick up the phone and theres somebody i realize you dont supply but you do aaa. We do. But that idea you go into somewhere and pick up a phone, somebody answers on the other side and theyve got maybe a poster behind them, could very well be a young woman in tennessee or something from her own home working her own hours. Very well could be. And would they work for more than one company . Might she be a aaa agent at one moment, pick up the phone next time and shes American Airlines and next time into the video camera shes hertz . We have the opportunity for agents agents have the opportunity to earn across a number of customers. What they need to be able to do is get certified on how to be a great agent and represent that and really know that particular company as well. Yes. Weve all had the experience where we have a call where its just so noisy, probably in somebodys home where huge arguments are going on in the background, i recently had one. How do you sort of monitor the controls or the Quality Control . You have to listen in on every conversation to be able to manage that amount of people that are well, we do listen to a lot of calls. Were very cheer in the requirements when we are working with our agents in bringing them into the community on what it takes to be a successful agent. And then were able to monitor those types of things and give them feedback, both positive and constructive on the other things they need to change. Even in a brickandmortartype call center you may have all kinds of background noise. I hear people chattering in pack. Im thinking of the bbc guy. Remember . Talking to bbc and his children are running around. I think wed all accept that. And these are jobs that can be taken by people who maybe are not as mobile, maybe the handicap or very rural and wouldnt be able to drive into a call center but all of a sudden if theyve got the highspeed data, they can do it from a farmhouse. Thats right. What we found over the years, think about i think recently the iphone celebrated its tenyear anniversary and i saw a headline that said the iphone introduced as slow and small. And think about how technology has changed over the last ten years. Were able to bring people into the workforce now that live in these rural environments because wifi access is different than it was ten years ago, three years ago. You think about the technology thats available to allow folks to interact together as though theyre part of a community in a traditional kind of employer model. One last question, circle back around to your experience at the white house. If im a tech executive, im invited to the white house, youve been there, just give me a tip. What do i need to know . No. Its about solving problems for our country. And when president of the United States calls and asks for help, i think as americans we have an obligation to go help our country. Keith leimbach. Thank you. Up next, a robot of sorts that might bring generations closer together when press here continues. Perez press is available as an ipod cast on itunes. You are looking at something called a its not a robot. Its called a telepresence device. Im scott mcgrew. It is one of the devices that will be able to connect us with aging parents or attend board meetings in our pajamas. Its a big stable base on wheels to than robot, a long telescopic neck bringing the video image, your video image more or less to eye level, to the person that youre talking a to. Their creator is one of the most talented row tottists around. A ph. D. From stanford, spent time at google as well. Thanks for being here. The first question i had for you over email, what do you call the robot . Said the ommyny. Couldnt be a cute name for it. Didnt you think about a cute name like stan or something . We actually let the family or the user pick the name because everyone wanted to call it differently. So the phonics is the ohmni but you can call it whatever they want. What do they call it . They get creative. Someone called it little buddha. Giving them fun. Thats fantastic. I actually used a robot like this made by beam for about six months. I was working between new york and San Francisco and i would communicate and drive it around. I did like salary negotiation with people. Somebody told me they were pregnant over the thing. Ive seen you quoted as saying that in five years you expect that the thing will not only be able to pick up objects for people maybe wash dishes and all this stuff. I guess my question for you is the math as i understand it right now, even building like one arm, a totally functional arm, is like a 100,000 object right now so were talking millions of dollars for something that can really do the dishes for you and everything else. Right. Why is it so expensive . Why is it taking so long . Yeah. So great point. So i think this is the challenge of how to control the arm, you know, how to fit into environments, its light weight, safe, make sure it has enough dexterity to do tasks. For us were focusing on not only making everything autonomous but it could be a hybrid model of both human and robot working alongside to bring value to the enuser. You expect the cost would come down on some of those components in the next five years, thats whats going on around the country would be possible . Exactly. And advantages in learning and additive manufacturing. Its all coming together. How will it be incorporated into it . Right now it doesnt have real intelligence, does it . Right. We have navigation, for example, for our robot. But, you know, were working on recognizing objects in the home and allow you to tackle those objects than maybe you have to use vr. Sure. To be clear, this is a robot of sorts but it is controlled by a person on the other end. And their face appears on the tablet or if youre on a tablet and somebody sitting home at the Kitchen Table its not same but at least it feels kind of the same. You can join a family for dinner when youre off in business in tokyo or whatever. Yes. Its an embodiment of the family member. For myself i put one in my home in vietnam and my grandmother will actually teach me how to cook over the robot. I can poke my nose or my camera in this case, with ingredients, pans and pots and she was just continuing cooking explaining things away. Incredible experience. My grandma never had smartphone before, right, an so it just allows us to have such richer and more meaningful spraxs. Its saved a life, right . Yes. Were very glad. One of our users he put a robot in the home with hi mom and he was traveling for work and he called hi mom and she didnt pick up the phone because he became very worried. So he drove the robot around, managed to find her, she was in pain, you know, urinary tract infection, very severe and because he could find her, he could talk her to call 911, call his brother, and took her to the hospital just in time. I guess thats the difficulty here. Theres a certain line past which you need to be able to physically reach through the robot and do a thing, being able to speak to her and say heres how youre going to call 911 will only get you so far im sure. So for you i guess is it frustrating at all or how do you think about the tasks that you want to pursue that you cant because they cant physically interact with their surroundings yet . We think of it more hike a pipeline. We need to get into home first, right . We have a very clear valuable position to the user. Thats something they cant set up right away. If you say it will be able to bring objects around, might be two years for us, right . Now its kind of an introduction. I was going to say, youre giving this guy a hard time. I know. Amazing. Its like it is that thing of its a Security Camera right now on wheel, and i think thats a very cool thing. I just see these vast military programs right now to try to make a Fire Fighting robot or they have the darpa olympics, these robot olympics. To watch these milliondollar robots trying to do stuff that let me ask you about one thing the robot does do, it has an articulated neck. We can look left, right. But also up and down. I also it has sort of a human feel to it. I imagine you could only choose a few features. Why did you choose that and why does it feel so hume on the me . Great question. In fact, we designed the robot from the ground up to fit into the home environment. Subtle design makes a huge difference in user experience. So when you talk to people, when people look at things, you know theyre looking at things. Right, the robot moves along with you and looks down the real interaction. So the neck actually gives you that feeling. You could have gone a lot further and made it like the robots in japan that look almost human, right . The uncanny. Face on the video screen his grandmother thinks of the row wot as an embodiment of you and not some sort of stranger. Right. Whats ahead . Do we go jig stretch are where the robot can juggle or does the robot get cheaper . What are we at about 2,000 right now . 1,399. Less than i thought. Do you think what i real hi want to cois make a 600 robot or a robot that does something more . We keep the cost down and add features on it but the next thing would be the arms. So weve been working on it and were really excited. Tuch vu, a good spelling. Ohmni. Look it up on the web there. Cool to watch. Fun videos as well. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. Up next, if you want a new job, what happens when the recruiter is a computer . Your career decided by a. I. Press here continues. Welcome back to press here. You never know quite what to expect with a new job interview. It might be a trick question like whats your biggest weakness . You might have an interview with just one person or you might have to impress several people. By the way, youre dealing with people is human resources, humans in human resources. Not anymore. These Days Companies with job openings have asking people to interview by text message and the interviewer on the other end is named maya. If you dont get past her, you dont get the job. Maya communicates by text message because shes a bot. How are you doing today, she asks . Im doing great. How are you . Well, im great too, she responds. I just want to ask a few questions about your application. Are you free . Sure. Now works well and so on. The man who created maya joins us. Do people realize that what they are talking to is not a human being at all . Yeah, its actually super natural in terms of the conversational experience. Im sure it feels natural. Do they realize theyre not talking to a human being . We survey candidates on site when we bring them in for the inperson interview and we found that 73 of candidates were surveyed whether or not they thought they were talking to thought it was a human. It passed the turning test. We actually say its a bot. So were up front about it. And they still thought that maybe if you tell them its a bot, maybe you shouldnt hire those people. What kind of jobs were not talking the next ceo. What kind of Companies Might want to use this sort of technology . Yeah. So were focusing on highvolume requisition, so predominantly call centertype jobs, warehouse jobs, so amazon Just Announced they theer placing 500,000 of these individuals over the next two years. Thats a huge challenge, right. Where you need lots of people all at once and en masse. Retail, hospitality or other target job cat fwoirs for us, food services. Theres a number of big opportunities out there. So are the questions strictly about yourself, how long youve worked, your hours . Doesnt go into question like talking about where theres more subjective answer to it . Sure, theres some openended responses. So, you know, the goal is to get that initial screen out of the way, instantaneously when the candidate aflies rather than having to wait for say 72 hours up to a week to get a phone call and often not hear back at all. 85 of applications fall into what they call the black hole. To marks point, are you 18 or above, you say yes and move to next step. But there are questions that are more like if you could be a tree, what kind of tree would you be . Sure. You can get some of the intangibles out of the kfgs but were predominantly focusing on those core requirements. What are those . Things like shift scheduling. Whats your availability, can you work mornings, can you work nights, you know, are you okay with the pay range, can you lift 50 pounds in the case that there are physical requirements. A lot of its basic information up and then, you know, were also able to gauge interested a motive. So, you know, if were, you know, telling them about the job and just making sure that theyre actively interested in that role. Singled out in a way your system could pick up. Sure. We have Sentiment Analysis so we can gauge whether or not theres a certain level of confidence in the response and again, i mean, if theyre saying no, theyre not interested. More suitable for their requirements or their interests. So theres this interesting concept around, hey, traditional, were relying on candidates to search for jobs and apply. They go into the black hole or rejected and thats it. With maya, shell actually guide them to the appropriate place. So youre always going to end in an opportunity where youre going to get a chance to interview. A tremendous amount of resources, doing a lot of stuff on f ios right now. Is theres a tremendous amount of research that shows that different names of applicants can really affect whether they get the job. Does any of this sort of take that away . Sort of help reduce the bias on part of the job, the interviewer . Absolutely. I think one of the best examples of that is recruiters traditionally thought that it correlated to the performance on the job. Google recently came out and say thats not true based on their surveys. But, yeah, it all comes down to what data is feeding the model from a predictive standpoint. So were really thoughtful about what data we actually leveraged in order to drive that prediction. So, for example, the hiring decision is inherently bias sod we take that out of equation. We focus on objective things like retention, performance, that ultimately help us start to predict hiring outcomes and take out some of that bias. Your system, do you in any way take i guess does the prospective employer get to tell you what to ask or does your system take some of that . I would think thats where the frailty there, is their biased way of asking things. Sure. So we you know, the future state of maya is, you know, her ability to take a set of inputs and actually generate a conversation on her own. Today, you know, we work with the clients to identify kind of the best set of questions and then enable maya to kind of adapt and adjust based on those responses. And there is some limited natural generation being used today with the current product. How far do you think we are from the day where a. I. Will be able to go through and make a good decision to hire somebody . I firmly believe that the recruiting process needs a human element, right . Theres always an inperson interview or Relationship Building element especially when it comes to the final decision or, you know, the actual negotiation. Right . But there are a number of transactional steps throughout the process that are weighing recruiting teams down and thats where we can bring anin automation. And i think over time well be able to continue to kind of eat away at more and more of the process. As youre programming this bot, how do you give it personality . Siri has a personality, maya does. Is it programmed or something that you hire a writer to do or how does that work . Its partially programmed and were actually able to work with our customers on what type of personality they want to incorporate. Do you want to be a little more edgy, a little more serious. So we can actually make that adjustment on the back end. But, yeah, i mean, part of it is actually giving the a. I. The ability to pull from different types of im imagining like a little edgy slider. That would actually i mean millennials applying for a job via text message with a slightly edgy recruiter, thats not such a bad idea. Yeah. Its great. Thats how were able to convert candidates and get them excited about the role, adding in some of that personality. Just thinking sort of big picture about this we havent got time for big picture. Teeny picture . Head of maya. We appreciate you being with us this morning. Press here is available as a podcast on itunes. Thats our show for this week. My thanks to my guests. If you missed the top of the show or want to see our library of interviewings, check us out on itunes and at pressheretv. Com. Were back next week with the head of the zuckerberg bio health. Im scott mcgrew. Thank you for making us part of your sunday morning. Comunidad del valle. Im damian trujillo, and today, celebrating 50 years at cet, and theyre having a bash, on your comunidad del valle. Male announcer nbc bay area presents comunidad del valle with damian trujillo. Damian well, we begin today with the monthly visit by the Mexican Consulate in san jose. With me once again is the consul general of mexico in san jose, embajador mauricio toussaint. Welcome to this show, welcome back. Mauricio toussaint thank you, thank you, damian, and its a pleasure as always to be here in comunidad del valle. Damian its always good to have you back. First of all, talk about your title because youre the consul general, but we all call you embajador. Tell us why we call you embajador. Mauricio well, itsthe thing is my rank in the Foreign Service is ambassador. But my post is consul general in san jose