The Silicon Valley Insider Show with Keith Koo

Innovation in Insurance and Insurtech

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Paul Chen, Partner at Mayer Brown in their Silicon Valley and San Francisco Corporate & Securities Practice. 
Paul is an internationally recognized legal expert in complex transactions in the insurance, financial services, and health care sectors, especially in deals involving technology and innovation. His experience spans cross-border mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments, and joint ventures. Paul advises early-stage companies and strategic corporates and is a frequent speaker on insurance innovation. He also advises clients on US securities law matters, including tender offers, going-private transactions, and capital raising activities. Paul has significant US and Asia transactional experience and regularly represents Asia-based and other international investors on acquisitions and investments in the US and other parts of the world.
 
Early in the show, Keith and Paul discuss how the “new normal” has caused the insurance industry to embrace digitization faster to serve the needs of their customers and their back offices. Paul has recently co-authored an article for Mayer Brown regarding the same topic which can be found here:
 
Paul and Keith go into detail with several examples of technology and innovation being adopted in the insurance industry including how the insurance industry is looking at drone technology to survey accident scenes and take witness statements. Paul explains the importance of how companies address data protection and privacy as they move quickly to adopt new processes and technologies.
 
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith drills down on the root cause of the massive Twitter attack which was a result of social engineering. Keith talks about what social engineering is and what steps companies can take to minimize their exposure.
 
On the Pivot, Paul Chen is back to discuss what the future of the insurance industry looks like powered by insurtech.
 
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CloudCoin - Monetary Systems as Information Systems

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Sean Worthington. Sean is the president of the CloudCoin Consortium, CEO of the RAIDA Protocol, a professor and author of the books: “Perfect Money” and “Beyond Bitcoin”.
 
Keith and Sean enjoy a deep discussion around Sean’s hypothesis that monetary systems are really information systems and with that knowledge created both the patented RAIDA protocol and the CloudCoin alternative currency system. Sean refers to “perfect money” as a private currency that cannot be manipulated by anyone or anything including governments with socialist tendencies. Perfect money is also not hackable and is resistant to other forms of electronic theft. 
 
As a professor of computer science, Sean answers a question of what is quantum computing and the surprising research that it is farther along in development than what was predicted even two years ago. The implications of quantum computing advancing faster than expected are that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which is considered the gold standard) can theoretically be hacked in just a few more years.
 
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith discusses the massive Twitter hack which affected virtually every prominent celebrity and company using Twitter to steal cryptocurrency from unsuspecting Twitter users. Keith also brings up malware that is embedded in many free and low-cost android phones and what can be done about it.
 
On the Pivot, Keith is once again joined by Sean Worthington. Listen as they discuss the future of currency and monetary systems.
 
More information on CloudCoin can be found here: www.cloudcoin.global
 
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Senior Living Innovations in the New Normal

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Rob Henderson, Senior Vice President of Operations at Westmont Living, company committed to being a model of innovation in senior living.
With all the news regarding how COVID19 has adversely affected the senior population, Keith felt it was important to address what senior living and senior communities are doing to safely and effectively serve their residents, employees, and their residents’ family members and loved ones. Keith shares his experience with caring for his parents who had been in senior care and how their senior caregivers must be working in “overdrive” to address the “New Normal”. Keith is joined by senior care industry expert Rob Henderson who has held every role in senior living to explain how the industry is responding to the reality of operating during a pandemic.
Rob gives great insight into the extraordinary measures that are being taken to ensure that senior living residents are given the safest environment possible with minimal disruption to what they have grown accustomed to. He shares what innovations are occurring in all facets of the industry from people, process, and technology including the use of video conferencing technologies. During the show, Rob talks about what leadership qualities to look for in an executive director of a senior living facility for those that are considering these communities as an option for themselves or their loved ones.
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith talks about biometric spoofing. Instead of discussing facial recognition, Keith discusses voice recognition and how a story that involved Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa and Burger King 3 years ago would be addressed today using new methods to combat a voice recognition “hack”.
On the Pivot, Keith is once again joined by Rob who discusses what the future of Senior Living looks like in the “New Normal”. 
To find out more about Westmont Living, senior living or senior care, email us at info@svin.biz and we will be sure to have a representative contact you.
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Collaborating the “New Normal” with Slack

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Allan Leinwand, SVP of Engineering at Slack. Allan is an engineering legend inside, and outside Silicon Valley and he tells what it is like to be powering the “new normal” via Slack’s collaboration platform.
Allan is known for helping companies in “hyper-growth” mode and has literally “done it all” in the engineering community. He got an early start at Cisco Systems working on core routing protocols before creating a startup that got acquired by Brocade. He then went onto prominent roles in venture capital and then on to being CTO of infrastructure at Zynga and CTO of ServiceNow before joining Slack. 
Keith discusses with Allan on what is his approach to help the world’s leading SaaS companies to reach massive scale and what is his advice for other technology and engineering leaders who are trying to build out their companies’ operations. Allan also shares his wisdom on how to lead remote teams in the “new normal” and some of the best practices that he and the Slack team have implemented to collaborate with each other effectively. Allan discusses a new feature that has been developed by the Slack team that allows different organizations to work together..
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith does a deep dive into the security concerns around “TikTok the viral video content maker that has over one billion users worldwide. Users of TikTok discovered that it has been accessing their data and sending the information to foreign servers.
In “The Pivot”, Allan and Keith discuss the future of technology and work. How collaboration will be more and more reliant on technology and how Slack was pivotal in a service project to help licensed healthcare workers to collaborate in real-time as they battle COVID-19 using Slack as the platform.
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Chief Mentor of Next-Gen Leaders, Jason Ma

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Chief Mentor of Next-Gen Leaders, Jason Ma. As the founder and CEO of ThreeEQ, and acclaimed author of “Young Leaders 3.0”, Jason is a globally recognized coach and mentor of Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z clients, including C-suite executives and high-potential candidates in their careers and academic life.
Since 2014, Jason has served as Silicon Valley’s leading member of the Business 20 (B20) Future of Work and Education Taskforce. Through the G20 Presidencies in Australia, Turkey, China, Germany, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia in 2020, Jason is one of only a few hundred notable business leaders worldwide handpicked to be B20 members. As the G20’s business advisory council, the B20 is the official voice of the private sector and recommends policies to the G20 Heads of State and governments, representing the global business community across all G20 economies. (The G20 represents over 80% of the global nominal GDP of nearly US$90 trillion and ⅔ of the worldwide population of 7.8 billion people.) 
It is Jason’s diverse background and in-depth know-how in (tech) business, education, and mentoring on a global stage that gives him a unique perspective on how to mentor and coach his clients in navigating and succeeding at next levels in the “New Normal”. Throughout the show, Jason shares his deep insights into what is on the mind of leaders and the tools that they need to develop to be an effective business leader, academic, or student. You definitely don’t want to miss Jason’s facts and figures.
(On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith emphasizes the importance of staying vigilant when you are engaging in Telehealth. Cyber attacks continue to increase and Telehealth is a major target for nefarious groups. Keith also discusses how law enforcement agencies in particular are being subjected to many more attacks due to current events.)
In “The Pivot”, Jason gives a “call to action” on how to raise your and your children’s “delta” early on and achieve more in life. He enlightens us on what college admissions “myopia” means and that even many alumni from and students at Ivy League and other top schools still have not reached their full potential. He gives great advice on how to adapt, win, and grow in an atmosphere of persistent “hyper-competition”.
 

Navigating the Digital New Normal

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Guillermo Diaz, CEO of Kloudspot and former CIO of Cisco Systems, Inc.
In the first part of the show, Keith and Guillermo reminisce about their time working closely together at Cisco Systems and the lessons the learned in leadership throughout their careers and how that has shaped the work they do to empower underserved communities. Guillermo has dedicated much of his life to mentoring through organizations like HITEC an organization dedicated to building up future technology leaders. Keith shares about his volunteer work leading industry relationships for the California Governor’s Cyber Taskforce on Workforce Development and Education and IT IACA to address the shortage of skilled technology talent by creating apprenticeships.
Guillermo tells his story of growing up in very humble beginnings in Pueblo, CO, and joining the Navy which led to his career in technology and ultimately being the top IT executive for at one of the world’s most elite technology companies to being the CEO of Kloudspot.
Kloudspot is a Situational Awareness Platform that provides actionable insights to enable compelling digital experiences and safety measures for employees and customers. You can check out their website and how to begin navigating The Digital New Normal.
https://kloudspot.com
On the Pivot, Guillermo the “Digital New Normal” and how the future of work will look and how technologies like Kloudspot will continue to help companies and their constituents improve their environment and their surroundings.
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Safer Crypto with Miko Matsumura

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s special guest is Miko Matsumura, General Partner of Gumi Ventures and founder of U.S. based virtual currency exchange Evercoin.
Miko shares how his passion for open-source software began as a Java evangelist for SUN Microsystem and how that passion led to Miko to embrace the decentralized world of Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem as they are fundamentally built on top of open-source standards so that he is now widely known as a blockchain and cryptocurrency evangelist.
Miko and Keith also discuss how blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption has still not yet hit the mainstream and that is in part due to the fear, uncertainty, and doubt associated with many stories related to safety and security of these digital assets. Miko started a website called www.safercrypto.org to address this need and gives brief descriptions of some of the tools available for people to keep themselves safe.
Miko and Keith also discuss the economic effects of “money-printing” and why people consider cryptocurrency as a hedge.
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith gives a warning on the rise of phishing based cyber-attacks under cover of “contact tracing”.

Flip Critts Kickstarter & Prototyping with Guardian Insight Group

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s guest is 11-year-old inventor Carter Waugh, a 2018 innovation award winner who talks about how he started Flip Critts critts.com. 
Carter shares his passion for outdoor adventuring and how he got his inspiration to start his shoe company because he was not satisfied with the current shoe design. He also goes into detail about his 3-year journey from concept to product leading up to his Kickstarter campaign which starts on June 9th, 2020. Keith and Carter discuss the importance for startup founders to have the right team of advisors and employees to make a really great product.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/critts/flip-critts
In the second half of the show, Keith is joined with Ed Yeh, CTO of Guardian Insight Group to discuss how startups can leverage the best practices that Carter followed to get his company off the ground and emphasize the importance of starting with a concept and prototype which will save you time and money. Keith and Ed also talk about how although we live in uncertain times, there has never been a better time to explore starting your own business due to the low cost of entry into technology. Some of the best-known companies have started off during a recession or depression. 

Startup Survival Advice from Zoom’s First Investor

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s guest is 4-time unicorn angel investor Dan Scheinman. Dan ran corporate development for Cisco Systems before becoming a private investor using his own capital to fund unicorns such as Arista Networks, SentinelOne, CyCognito, and of course, Zoom.
In the early part of the show, Dan and Keith reminisce about their Cisco days when Dan was general counsel and then ran Corporate Development (Mergers & Acquisitions, Strategic Alliances, Investments) and Keith was working on M&A Integration and technology deals for what at the time was the most valuable company in the world.
Dan also shares what it has been like for Zoom since writing Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom his first “check” to be the most successful IPO of 2019 and how the company is now addressing security concerns related to their rapid growth. Dan also gives the backstory on the question – why didn’t Cisco – Webex build Zoom when Eric was still a senior engineer there?
On this week’s Cyber-Tip gives a deeper dive on what “Contact Tracing” is and how it works considering Apple and Google’s announcement that they are partnering to share their contact tracing databases.
Later in the show, Dan discusses the 2020 Major League Baseball Season (Dan is a minority owner in the San Francisco Giants) and gives great advice to startups on how to survive and thrive during the pandemic including how to set the right expectations with their potential investors.
On the Pivot, Dan talks about being a “Technology Optimist” about the future and what technologies and industries he thinks will grow in a post-pandemic world. Find out why Dan thinks this might actually be the best time to find the right opportunity to invest.
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How Blockchain can be used for Censorship Resistance and Voting Rights

In this episode of Silicon Valley Insider, Keith Koo’s guest is Douglas Horn, Chief Architect of Telos a decentralized blockchain network and founder of Goodblock a blockchain development company.
Throughout the show Keith and Douglas explain how Telos is an example of a decentralized blockchain network which means that there is no single organization or person that “owns” the blockchain. This is an important distinction because there is growing concern over the term “blockchain” and how the technology is being used since it is known for it’s “immutable” properties. An example of a centralized service would something like Google or Facebook where the company owns the platform and the entire user experience. In a decentralized environment, there is no single control and so the concern over a centralized organization doing things (like censorship) is mitigated. Keith and Douglas also go into detail about how decentralized blockchains are censorship-resistant and how they can be used for secure voting (although both agree that this technology will not beimplemented in time for the upcoming USA elections).
On this week’s Cyber-Tip, Keith talks about the U.S Treasury’s warning to all banks (via FINCEN) that cybercrime related to the pandemic continues to rise and what banks, organizations and individuals need to do keep safe.
On “The Pivot” – Keith and Douglas discuss how blockchain technology can be used to strengthen privacy vs. concerns that the technology can be used to breakdown privacy. Douglas gives several examples including how contract tracing can be done anonymously using Telos.