In this talk, Dara Ladjevardian recounts how Ray Kurzweil’s 2014 vision of recreating minds inspired him to digitize his late grandfather’s consciousness using large language models, sparking the creation of Delphi. He describes Delphi’s core offering: conversational media—digital replicas of individuals that can be queried in real time, merging the reach of traditional media with the intimacy of one‑on‑one conversation. Dara explains the product workflow (content ingestion, interview mode, AI‑generated persona) and highlights early adopters such as Jay Shetty, Dr. Mark Hyman, and various creators, doctors, and even religious figures. A live demo with an AI version of Arnold Schwarzenegger illustrates how users can obtain personalized advice, underscoring Delphi’s promise to replace static knowledge sources with interactive, scalable expertise. He positions AI as a tool to amplify human uniqueness rather than replace it, emphasizing the democratization of wisdom across generations and professions.
Chapters
In 2014, I read how to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil where he says that one day technology could be used to recreate your mind and make it available to others. Years later, I'm deep in the midst of my first startup. I had no mentors. I felt alone, isolated and lost. I remembered Kurzweil's vision and I desperately wished for it to be true because I knew exactly who I wanted to speak to. My grandfather. My grandfather was one of the most successful entrepreneurs in pre revolution Iran. At his peak he had 30,000 employees. But he was put on the hit list by the Ayatollah and had to flee to the US with close to nothing. I wanted to be able to ask him what would you do in my situation? And I had a book about him, but this is not a question a book could answer and he had had a stroke a couple years prior to, so I couldn't ask him myself. Remembering Kurzweil's vision and inspired by the capabilities of LLMs, I created a digital version of his mind that I could talk to and ask for advice. And this experience got me thinking about the ways in which we consume information. Reading books, watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, scanning LinkedIn profiles. These traditional media sources can reach millions, but you can't ask them a question. They don't adapt to ever changing circumstances of our lives. So at Delphi, we've created a new form of media, conversational media, that combines the scalability of traditional media and the personalization of one on one conversation. You can create a digital version of your mind that people can talk to, or you can connect with others, your role models, top experts, even your great grandparents, in any language, geography or time zone. And we make it easy. You connect your content, sit down for an interview mode, and we create an interactive version of you that others can text, call or FaceTime. Already we have creators like Jay Shetty, doctors like Mark Hyman, and thousands of other business owners, creators, celebrities, even cardinals using Delphi to scale their impact, monetize their expertise, hit handle repetitive questions and surface new insights. Whatever problem you have today, there's someone out there who has been there before. And with Delphi, you can find them, ask a question, continue the conversation. In short, it's media you can talk to. Let me tell you what I mean. Now, due to time constraints, I can only call one of these people and I thought Arnold would be the most interesting. So let's give our friend a call.
Hey, this is AI Arnold. What's on your mind today?
Hey, Arnold, I'm a founder grinding seven days a week. How can I make working out non negotiable?
Dara, if the Pope and the President can work out, so can you. When I was building my career, I made training non negotiable by owning my mornings. Rex park taught me this. Wake up before the world does and that time is yours. Even when I was filming 12 hour days of running California, I drained first thing. Set your alarm 30 minutes earlier and make it a ritual. Do it and you'll see how unstoppable you feel.
All right. Thank you, Arnold. All right, so now I'm going to start working out more. Now in the world, Delphi builds. Instead of googling how to raise a Series A and reading generic blog posts, you can have a real conversation with a founder who's been there before. Instead of catching up on the latest parenting advice, you can have a conversation with an experienced parent who understands your specific situation. And if you have an entirely new situation that you're trying to overcome, your digital mind can find the best person in the world that is navigating. It's like a living library of Alexandria, except instead of knowledge trapped in scrolls, everyone can talk to anyone. From Nobel prize winners to plumbers, from founders to parents. Every mind matters. While big tech giants are using AI to automate you, we believe AI is best by putting it in your hands to amplify what makes you most human. Your mind. My grandfather used to say it's always better to teach someone how to fish versus give them one. At Delphi, we can now scale our minds the same way we scale software and providing answers that only come from great conversations so that we can explore and educate across generations. And that's something I hope both my grandfather and maybe even Kurzweil would be proud of. Thank you.
