Why the Best AI Stories Aren't About AI (with Steve Mock)
Steve Mock, investor and entrepreneur, discusses aisavedme.org, a platform born from his father's question, "How does one use AI?". The site gathers real-world stories of AI's positive impact, revealing surprising human outcomes in healthcare, education, and personal fulfillment, often less about technology and more about connection. He also shares his unique no-code journey in building the site and his venture capital insights into the "data flywheel" and "vertical AI" as key to successful investments.
The episode features Steve Mock, investor at Blumberg Capital and five-time entrepreneur, discussing his website aisavedme.org, born from his 84-year-old father’s simple question: “How does one use AI?” This question, coupled with the prevalent negative narratives about AI, inspired Mock to create a platform for people to share real-world positive AI use cases. The stories collected surprisingly focus less on technology and more on human outcomes, highlighting AI’s impact on caregiving, communication, learning, confidence, and connection.
Patterns of AI Adoption
- Healthcare as Advocacy: Rather than direct medical advice, AI is used to educate individuals, enabling them to become better advocates for their own health and ask more informed questions of their medical providers.
- One striking example involved a relative with a Parkinson’s misdiagnosis, where AI helped identify a treatment problem rather than the condition itself.
- The story of Paul Cunningham, an Australian data scientist, is particularly notable. He used AI to analyze his dog’s tumor biopsy, identify an experimental treatment, and even custom-produce it, leading to the dog’s recovery. This demonstrates AI’s potential in highly personalized, complex problem-solving by guiding sequential expert questions.
- Personalized Education: AI acts as a tailored tutor, adapting to individual learning needs.
- Mock’s niece used AI to generate custom test questions and practice exams for a nurse practitioner credential, receiving personalized coaching and improving her scores.
- A university student simulated professor’s office hours with AI, overcoming scheduling conflicts to better understand course material.
- A college athlete used AI to design a summer training and nutrition program, leading to a successful javelin season.
- Fulfillment and Connection: AI offloads mundane tasks, freeing individuals to focus on meaningful work and personal relationships.
- A designer found his “creative spark” restored, using AI to rapidly prototype ideas without needing to code.
- A programmer reported feeling “happy professionally for the first time” as AI helped manage development complexities, allowing him to focus on creative problem-solving.
- AI also enables greater personal connection by freeing up time and mental space, with some users reporting spending more time with family or pets.
Diverse and Inspiring Stories
Beyond these patterns, Mock shared other unique instances:
- A 72-year-old “off-the-grid homesteader” uses AI to manage complex systems (solar, water), enabling his self-reliant lifestyle and helping him learn new skills.
- A young man in Gambia, without a computer, learned to be a software developer entirely on his smartphone using AI, demonstrating how “technology does not replace determination, it amplifies it.”
- A banker “vibecoded” an app to educate his parents about online scams, turning a side project into a new form of caregiving.
Building “AI Saved Me” as a Non-Programmer
Despite being a “proud non-programmer” with a business background, Mock built aisavedme.org himself. He was motivated by the desire to understand AI’s building blocks, having previously built an online art gallery for his grandfather using no-code tools. For “AI Saved Me,” he adopted a sophisticated AI-assisted workflow:
- ChatGPT served as his AI architect and product manager, handling design decisions and overall strategy.
- Cursor and Claude acted as his AI coder and QA manager, generating and debugging code.
- His workflow involved extensive discussions with ChatGPT for architecture and product features, which then generated detailed prompts for Cursor/Claude. This iterative process allowed him to learn best practices, such as the importance of “context files” in prompt engineering, which significantly reduce hallucinations and improve efficiency. This process gave him the feeling of “an 8-year-old boy with a box of Legos,” transforming his approach to development and even influencing his investor perspective.
The Investor’s Lens (Blumberg Capital)
As an investor, Mock seeks out “vertical AI” solutions – companies with deep domain expertise solving specific problems in industries like auditing, legal, or mining. Key investment criteria include:
- Data Flywheel: A crucial “moat” where recursive learning models gain a significant competitive advantage (2-3 years of data) by continuously improving their solutions over time. This makes them difficult for new entrants to copy.
- Solving Difficult Problems: Blumberg Capital looks for companies tackling challenges that are beyond simple “vibe coding,” requiring true innovation and deep understanding.
- Founder Resilience: In a rapidly changing technological landscape, the firm bets on smart, resilient teams capable of navigating evolving roadmaps and unforeseen challenges, rather than rigidly adherence to an initial plan. The Blumberg Capital “flying sphere” logo symbolizes this philosophy of staying upright regardless of external forces.
- Deep Tech Investment Strategy: For complex technologies like mineral prospecting AI (e.g., VerAI, which is 1000x more accurate), initial investments focus on proving the technology works, derisking it for subsequent larger funding rounds focused on commercialization and scaling.
Book Recommendation
Mock recommended “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, highlighting Lincoln’s approach to leverage by appointing political adversaries to key cabinet positions, a timeless lesson in leadership and human dynamics.