The Future Is Now: Yair Nativ Of Hour25 ai On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Formal education is not directly relevant. I don’t consider law school a waste of time, since I did learn how to learn there, but generally speaking, formal education is just not as important as some think — at least for this profession.
As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Yair Nativ.
Yair Nativ is a social entrepreneur with a passion for leveraging technology to make a positive impact on society by improving lives. He is the Co-founder and CEO of Hour25.ai, an early stage startup that works to increase Internet user resilience, focus, productivity, and overall wellbeing. He also co-Founded and was the CEO of Safe Lane, a social network mobile app that reduces casualties on the roads by using crowd-sourcing, an initiative that began after his father Meidad Nativ was tragically killed in a car accident. Safe Lane has created significant changes to Israeli regulations, with the Israeli government investing in the platform and recruiting thousands of volunteers. He’s also one of the founders of Voiceable, which was named by Google as a company that can change the future.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Everything in life led me to a career of making change. In high school and during university, I thought that I would be a journalist, writing about social injustices. I studied law, thinking that it’s the best way to make a difference, and at 25, I understood that my true passion is entrepreneurship. I actually developed my first website when I was 13, on my favorite soccer team — and received the first offer to purchase! The first meaningful venture I worked on was after my father died in a car accident, and I knew that something would change after that. And it did.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Born in a poor city, I’m extremely grateful every time I find myself traveling the world. I traveled to almost every state in the US, met super interesting people, and did things that I would have never expected to do. Also, meeting and working with NBA players these days is cool!
Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?
We’re Improving resilience to addictive technologies in real-time. As far as we know, we’re the first digital platform that improves human resilience in real-time — solving the root cause. Other companies solve the symptoms caused by addictive tech, which is also important, but no one is solving why we go there. And just to clarify, there’s nothing wrong with any tech — as long as we as humans decide we want to use it.
How do you think this might change the world?
Right now, we’re stuck in a loop. We experience negative emotions that we want to escape; we then go, in most cases, to the tech in our hands, which then sucks us in. 60% of distractions are internal and emotional. We feel overwhelmed at work so we go to Amazon Prime or Facebook, we feel bored in a university class so we enter Instagram. We are giving users, or as we prefer to say, human beings, the power to decide what they want to do”.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
That’s the point. We’re the fix for the potential drawbacks of the wonderful technology that helps us a lot, but also hurts us. We like the analogy of being an antivirus or firewall to negative consequences of bad AI.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
We want to enhance human capabilities, and we spent a year researching the best way to do that. You can increase someone’s IQ, but just by a bit. We believe that the single most important thing that can make a difference in someone’s potential in life is being in control of their attention, in this day and age, and a large part of that is addictive technology.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
Like most startups, time and money (:
What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?
We’re just now beginning to publicize this idea, and this interview is a great start….
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
It really is a team effort. I am fortunate to have my co-founder, Amir Raskin, join me on this journey. He’s a true tech leader, being at the edge of AI and data science even before it was called that. We have a wonderful team of rock stars — it really is a team effort.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I have only worked on impact ventures. I find it very hard to commit my time to projects when there is no social added value. Being an entrepreneur is demanding and requires a lot of sacrifices, and the cause needs to be important enough. My first venture is about saving lives on the roads. We’re literally saving lives! You could argue that Hour25.AI is saving minds.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.
- It’s 90% hard work. You only see the headlines and the exit on social media, but most of the work is extremely difficult and without immediate rewards.
- In this case, try to enjoy the journey. I am not always remembering that myself, but I keep on reminding myself that if it’s going to be hard, at least try to have fun on the way.
- It’s a cliche, but for a good reason: the most important thing is people — ideas can change, competitors can give a good fight, but as long as you have the right people by your side you can win!
- If you are not 100% passionate you will not endure. The difference between the successful and unsuccessful ventures, at least for me, is in direct correlation to my passion level. It’s too difficult to make it if you’re not 150% in.
- Formal education is not directly relevant. I don’t consider law school a waste of time, since I did learn how to learn there, but generally speaking, formal education is just not as important as some think — at least for this profession.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Join us in saving the world from the bad AI that is managing our lives! And also — if you’re into preventing car accidents — ping me (:
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
There are two. One of them is by an Israeli songwriter that I like a lot. I hope that I don’t do any harm with the translation: It’s always darkest before dawn. Another quote that I like is by Franklin Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
We envision a world where AI augments human resilience instead of undermining it. AI for AI:). Join us!”
How can our readers follow you on social media?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yairnativ/
https://www.facebook.com/yair.nativ
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
The Future Is Now: Yair Nativ Of Hour25 On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
