YouSaid · the spoken record

Josh Elman

lines on the record: 115
first: 2026-06-23
most recent: 2026-06-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And it found that message and got me right there. And I was a few blocks off. I would have gone to the wrong restaurant because I just hadn't remembered it wrong. This morning I was trying to figure out where to park and someone had texted me a whole bunch of different parking locations around and I just was able to go, hey, where should I park? And it just goes and finds the information that you know is there and pulls it together. And that's what you want from an assistant.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but I think what's really special with these assistants is not just what they can help you do or navigate in the world and kind of bring the world knowledge to place, but what they can understand about you. And it's not just what you ask it over time, but having access to all your information. And when you trust it, your device has your mail, your messages, your calendar, notes, anything that you save. Being able to just have an assistant that can tap into that and answer questions. I had this experience about a month ago when I was beta testing this and I was driving to a dinner. And I all of a sudden freaked out. And I was like, oh my God, am I going to the right place? I hadn't added it to my calendar. I just knew I was meeting a friend for dinner. We texted about it. I said, navigate me to dinner.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Your data. Siri'd been around for a long time. It hadn't been as successful or well reputed as I think people had hoped it could be. And I think there was a huge opportunity with what was happening in Gen AI to rebuild Siri. And I got to be part of that over the past two and a half years. It's been a very interesting roller coaster. But I'm so proud with what was just announced two weeks ago at WWDC. I mean, the story of what Siri AI is and I'm using it every day and it's fantastic.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so when I joined Apple about six years ago, I started in the app store business, which is a giant business for Apple between both discovery through the actual App Store clients as well as a whole platform for in-app purchases through games and apps. And the question was, how do we actually help people discover more? And how do we help people get more out of their apps and working on features that surfaced more things that were happening in apps to users, both through the store and through other products? We actually had this vision to kind of launch the Games app, which was this idea of something that you could go every day when you want to figure out what to play and what was happening in the games that were already downloaded on your device or what your friends were actually doing and that launched a couple years ago. I had gotten that started. But then AI started happening and I got an opportunity to move over and sort of start up the product marketing function or restart the product marketing function around AI for Apple. And we have these visions of what was personal intelligence going to be? How could you really bring that to people embedded in the device where all your content is?”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean, when you fill that together, it's been an incredible run. But what I just came off with Apple was a real change for me. About six years ago, I decided I'd never worked at a large company and I thought we were in a place where startups were actually going to struggle against some of the big companies. And I was like, let me go try the other side and learn how that works. I got this incredible opportunity to work at Apple. What a fabulous company. I've had the best time working there.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it is I think the pandemic proved that for us most of all. We kind of maxed out on how much you could actually do in the online life, and there were so many things where we would meet over Zoom and we would all have these conversations, even with like family reunions and friends. Birthdays and dinners totally maxed out what that was. And I think what's been really cool as we come out of that is so much of that has lasted and has made a lot of things more natural and we still like to sometimes even connect over video. But now we also are getting much more back in the real world and technology can do a lot more, I think, to bring that together.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, they're about technology. They're happening through technology. Yes. I mean, Used to joke that if you got to like 10 million users, you were impacting so many people in the world. And then it became 100 million. And then it became a billion. And then it became billions every hour. And we forget that technology is no longer the underdog. Like the parts of the products we've made are running the world.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it's interesting because you came from a time when you graduated, technology was this sort of these weirdos in the back of the classroom. You know, it always felt like a toy. Yeah. And now it's something that is sort of some of the most important conversations in our society are about technology.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I think my resume had this objective was like to create great technology that changes people's lives as I think back on that. I'm like, I wish it was even more like. Benefits people's lives, it makes people's lives even better. Because I think changes lives, technology is kind of neutral, but there's so much that we've done that's just tried to like make the world better and more connected, more human, and give us all these new tools and powers that we never could have had before.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I like to think it sometimes is like just Forrest Gub showing up at the right place at the right time and being on the journeys, but it's been really incredible to get to be part of creating technology that we all use every day in our lives”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think a funny way to think about this for more than two decades, Josh Ellman has been at the center of some of the most important consumer technology platforms in the world, from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, to Robin Hood, Discord, musically, TikTok, and Apple. He has spent his career studying how products grow, how people connect online, and why some technologies become part of everyday life. Today, as AI reshapes the technology landscape once again, many of the biggest questions are consumer questions. How will people discover products? What new behaviors emerge, and what does the next generation of consumer companies look like? In this conversation, Anish Acharya speaks with Josh Allman about consumer AI, network effects, product design, and why he believes we're entering a new era of consumer innovation.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Topic that we discuss a lot is Are the Labs that's going to win at all? Should we all just go home? And I know it feels like we have a version of this conversation every time there's a new product cycle. What's your view? So I think”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was amazing for a whole bunch of searches that we thought were totally solved through Google. And all of a sudden, you start putting those searches into ChatGPT. You're like, this answer is more than 10 times better. This experience is more than 10 times better than Google links back and forth.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the things I learned a lot at Apple was how do we tell a compelling story to regular people? One of those things that the moment you use it, you're like, oh my God, I can never go back to the old way. We forget that like technology is no longer the underdog. The parts of the products we've made are running the world.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right now, AI has been so much about productivity, job replacement, work replacement, and I think we have a moment to shift that, which is how does these new tools help you get more out of your own day and your own life and the things you want to do.”
2026-06-23 · a16z Podcast · What’s Next for Consumer AI? | Josh Elman Joins a16z · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source