Just Thoughts #43: The Future, Funding, and Fairness.

Apr 18, 2025

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Just Thinking About... The Future, Funding, and Fairness

Hey everyone, I'm back again with random thoughts in my head lately. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and think together.

Politics with subtext

Here’s my unsolicited note on how I vote. It’s almost poetic, and if there is something I’ve learned about great storytelling is that a) the subtext matters, and when you’re dealing with AI teaching it to communicate and understand subtext is b) it’s just hard to get right, so here’s me spelling out the subtext to the following:

In the eyes of the world, my country is blue,
like the thousands of lakes that cover it.

The future of my capital city is green,
like the trees that inhabit it.

My heart is true to my minority heritage,
The Swedish-speaking Finns.

But when my heart bleeds, it bleeds red,
like the blood that was spilled for my country’s independence.

What does that make me on any given election day?

It makes me balanced, true to the future I want to raise my children in, and loyal to my people.

Before moving on. What do you think this means? How do you interpret this before I spell it out?

So here’s the subtext spelled out:

When elections involve national foreign representation, I will vote for the blue party, Kokoomus, as in EU representation. Regarding Helsinki, I will vote for the Green Party, also known as the Green Party, not the center, as they would for municipalities outside the central cities. When it’s about the parliament, the heart of democracy, I will vote for RKP, the Swedish-speaking Finns. If push comes to shove, I may vote for SDP or even radically red, like most international Finns (basically those in complete opposition to the “basic Finns”). Nonetheless, I will fight for independence and ultimately vote for the people I’ve worked with and spent time with. All this being said, I’m lucky we had a presidential candidate like Stubb, who met most of all the criteria in every way.

Now I do understand I’m privileged to be born and have grown up in Finland, but my heart bleeds for the injustice across the globe, as injustice anywhere is still injustice everywhere. I was reminded lately that Winston Churchill once responded to suggestions on cutting money from arts budgets: “Then what are we fighting for?” The modern embodiment of this thought is whoever dressed up in a Pikachu suit during the Turkish protests over the past months. You're my hero.

Reunions

We organized a get-together for the Slush team in 2017. When Marianne, the CEO at the time, and I left our operational duties at Slush, we wanted to get something we could use to bring the team back together again. Hence, we got a barrel of whiskey, which took a few years to mature. Here’s a LinkedIn post about the subject. We started the event by watching the video from that year.

It's chilling now to be an entrepreneur in the entertainment business, with this video starting with the words “it’s like a Hollywood production” and “like a set on Star Wars.” I didn’t remember the teaser beginning like that before seeing it again.

We had a day of programming with catchups, a little “amazing race” action across the city, and a nice dinner at Uunisaari. Part of the experience was that my firstborn hung around the office in 2017, reading about the state of European tech. Now, he’s a first grader who helped bake some chocolate balls as a little human being who can do extraordinary things.

More about who’s in this picture in my LinkedIn post. My kids are on the top right.

Talking about Slush's amazingness, Forbes 30 under 30 featured four ex-Slush team members/volunteers, adding the total count to a few dozen already. That’s cool…. Albiet, where’s the 30 over 30 list? Better yet, where’s the 70 over 70 who found their passion after their 60s?

Peering into the Crystal Ball of AI: War Games and Unexpected Benevolence

So, I've been reading this "AI 2027" scenario. It's quite a ride, showing how quickly things might evolve. The idea of an "AI arms race" feels less like science fiction. It makes you wonder about the implications and the potential for things to go sideways, but also—and this is the thought that grabbed me—could a focus on "enemy-centric AI" paradoxically lead to more benevolent outcomes?

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but think about it—if AI is laser-focused on solving a global threat, even if that threat is framed as an "enemy," could the solutions it develops have broader positive impacts without eradicating humans, regardless of their origin? I feel like American culture will always produce something more dogmatic than it needs to be.

I thought I'd reviewed this movie on Disney+, “The Creator,” but I hadn’t. I would like to believe in a future without violence, where AI is ultimately more benevolent than humans can ever be. It's about working around human fallibility, like a cleaner tending to the house of an ADHD-induced entrepreneur.

The movie is a masterpiece in AI-generated content, and its creator, Gareth Edwards, has a large following. However, the movie has decreased in popularity, maybe because people don’t believe the story as much as they did when it first came out.

Explaining AI to dummies

Trying to create metaphors for AI usage and behaviour reminded me of a recent conversation I was (virtually) listening to. Juhani, the founder of Wolt, had a podcast episode with an AI specialist, and an AI nOOb, Katja Ståhlberg. I felt the least technical explanation was still filled with technical jargon. It was like trying to follow a discussion with a deaf person explaining to a blind person what playing music looks like.

I discussed this with Rosalie (my partner), who chimed in with some grounded points that are way easier to understand because she still compares AI to the simplest machines. She likened AI to a dishwasher—it's a tool, and it's our responsibility to check the results. Are the dishes clean after they come out? What state were they in before we loaded them? It puts the onus back on us humans to maintain oversight, and the dishes are the prompts you feed AI, and the output AI gives you. You're also making a choice of how dirty the dishes are going in.

And that led to another question: If AI agents run autonomously, potentially forever, when do we intervene? Rosalie suggested random checkups by humans. Think about airport security or those random checks at self-service grocery checkouts. They aren't constantly monitored, but they provide accountability and a chance to catch potential issues. Could that be a model for managing autonomous AI? What are your thoughts on that balance between autonomy and human oversight? What about creative oversight vs. AI used for utility purposes?

The Finnish Funding Desert

I am moving on to a completely different frustration: trying to get a startup off the ground here in Finland. Let me tell you, it feels like pulling teeth. The infamous "Starttiraha" (startup grant) is not designed as an instrument for growth startups, and as an instrument, they want you to have the funding together before you incorporate. Hence, it feels more geared towards rewarding someone already in business, not for those pre-idea phases, the crucial early sparks of innovation.

And the lack of grassroots grants for those early-stage, pre-idea ventures is just… baffling. You have an idea, a passion, but no real avenue for that initial bit of fuel, even to experiment and see if it has legs. It feels like the system is set up for those with some traction or a proven concept; however, what’s any concept worth in a world where you can copy anything web-based in minutes and rebuild something similar in seconds with the likes of Lovable & bolt.new?

We’re trying to build StoryWorld, and navigating this funding landscape is part of the challenge. It reinforces what Sam Altman said: "You want to niche down, to scale big." We’re starting with scriptwriters because, as master storytellers, they have to figure out how to say the most with the fewest words when the final piece of art is visual. Solving the problem of story world creation with AI feels like the right niche, but getting those initial resources to build and test is challenging.

Photo credits: Pauli Kopu, prompting team pictures.

More about this soon, but the first thing you may be reacting to is: not one more startup with only dudes?! To which, as having done my work in a DEI consultancy with pride:

DEI: Competence, Not Just Checkboxes

Finally, a thought on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). It's a topic that rightly gets a lot of attention, and for good reason. Running equitable grant money processes and ensuring fair opportunities are crucial. But there's a fundamental misunderstanding I keep encountering, and it needs to be addressed.

DEI is not about replacing competent white heterosexual males with incompetent individuals from minority groups. Let me be crystal clear: it’s about replacing incompetence with competence, regardless of background, and actively working to ensure that talented individuals from all backgrounds have a fair shot at demonstrating that competence.

You may want to revert to debate equity, but when it comes to equity, I feel that it’s best put to action through coaching and spending time with those who need that attention, as opposed to it always being about giving them a seat at the table when they are not ready. I’m all about leveling the playing field, removing systemic biases, and creating an environment where talent and dedication truly shine through, regardless of someone's race, gender, mental health, socioeconomic status, cognitive & physical abilities, or sexual orientation.

However, the goal should never be to lower standards; it's to broaden the talent pool and recognize the value of diverse perspectives. How can we foster truly equitable processes that focus on competence above all else while actively addressing historical underrepresentation?

Just Some Thoughts... Your Turn?

So, there you have it—a glimpse into some of the things occupying my mind lately: the rapidly evolving world of AI, the frustrating realities of early-stage funding, and the crucial nuances of DEI. These aren't neatly packaged conclusions, just thoughts I wanted to share and explore. Want to share yours?