Ben Lamm is the co-founder, Executive Chairman, and CEO of Hypergiant, the Office of Machine Intelligence. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of Conversable, the leading conversational intelligence platform acquired by LivePerson, the founder and CEO of Chaotic Moon Studios, the global creative technology powerhouse acquired by Accenture and co-founder of Team Chaos, acquired by Zynga.
Lamm is often mentioned in the media on technology, innovations and entrepreneurship. Besides leading and growing his own incredible and rapidly growing companies, he is also a supporter of startups and actively mentors his fellow entrepreneur on how to build businesses.
In this interview, Ben Lamm shares how he believes in making the impossible, possible and provides great insight about his company and how a leader contributes to overcoming the difficulties meet the demands of a high growth environment.
Can you share the name of your business and a brief history of how it started?
Ben Lamm: Hypergiant Industries is an emerging technology company focused on solving the world’s biggest problems in the areas of space, defense, and critical infrastructure. With a focus on AI, Hypergiant Industries offers a suite of services, software products, and hardware that support companies and governments in preparing for the future. The company has been in business for over three years and was started by the CEO and Founder Ben Lamm who wanted to usher in the future by improving the technologies of tomorrow.
What does your company offer?
Ben Lamm: We are leaders in planning for and building the products that prepare our clients for tomorrow and fifty years from now. Whether those clients need data digested and interpreted into a user friendly dashboard to improve oil and gas production or access to an entire constellation of satellites to plan for the future of warfare, we have developed the solution. As the only company that sits at the intersection of space, defense and emerging technology, we are the trusted resource for governments, businesses and alien species. Our customers choose us for our user-centric perspective which marries business needs with user needs through the lens of intelligent technologies. We believe not only in building technology that works, but technology that works well for everyone.
What are your company’s major achievements?
Ben Lamm: We are extremely proud of the work we’ve done for companies like BP, Bosch, Shell, and the United States Airforce. However, much of that work is confidential. So, instead you’ll often hear us talking about other projects like:
● The Chameleon Constellation – a partnership with the US Airforce to update our satellite network to better defend America.
● The EOS bioreactor – a first of its kind, AI-powered carbon-sequestration device that has won numerous awards including a Fast Company Most Innovative Product of the year award.
● Project Orion – An active display helmet with a 200-degree field of vision and a 5K resolution made for use in space.
You can find more of our R&D work on our website
What are you most proud of regarding your company?
Ben Lamm: This company has grown massively in the past few years due to an incredible team of people who have stood up, taken on hard complicated challenges and refused to believe that any project was “impossible.” As a result, they have done incredible work and built things that are routinely mind blowing for our customers. I could not be more proud of them.
If given a chance, what is the one thing you would change about your company?
Ben Lamm: Teleportation. Honestly, if we could teleport, I think everyone would be happier. Short of that I’d love to bring our company even closer to policymakers – not because we have a vested interest in changing policy to help our business but because I think that policymakers need more educated and trusted advisors who really understand how technology works and is changing so that they can make better and more informed decisions to help the public. This feels like a crucial aspect of improving the world around us that needs to happen as we do our regular job of bringing great technology to the market.
What obstacles did you or your company have to face due to the COVID-19 pandemic and how did you overcome them?
Ben Lamm: There are still aspects of our company that need to happen in the same physical space: mostly our R&D culture. However, we are working on distributed micro-labs and different tools to make it safer and more comfortable for people to work from home. So, over time I can change this. I also want to improve the way our employees are able to work during COVID. We are bringing in tutors for people’s children, so that parents have to spend less time helping with school work. We are developing a work from abroad program for those who want to escape the cities they are in and keep learning about new cultures. There is still so much more we can do though and that is of paramount importance to us.
According to you, what are the prerequisites for establishing and running a successful company in the machine intelligence field?
Ben Lamm: Big vision and ethical thinking. Right now, we need people who are thinking about AI beyond the next six months. We need people who are able to think long term and understand how that technology will impact the way business units run, businesses run and entire countries operate. As a company, we are building solutions for your business today and ten years from today because that’s the only way you can stay ahead of the curve. At the same time, we have developed an ethical framework to help guide customers because the truth is that we do not want the technology we build for the future to backfire in the future. So, we want to make sure that our customers and our engineers think through not just immediate success but long term viability.
In addition to the previous question, what role do you believe a CEO plays in the success of a company in any field?
Ben Lamm: CEOs need to do two things well. First, they need to figure out what the company is focused on and what it’s marching towards. Then, they need to be in service of every single person at the company. It’s not my job to lead blindly. It’s my job to empower every person in the company to be a leader against the same mission.
What trends do you believe you will observe in the machine intelligence field in the near future?
Ben Lamm: Artificial intelligence will become smarter, faster and more sentient. Bad people will do bad things with advanced computing power and good people will try to stop those people from doing bad things. Somewhere in there we will figure out the laws to make emergent technology safer and more in service of a better society.
What are your company’s future plans?
Ben Lamm: We are going to keep growing in the smartest and most viable way possible while doubling down on our space business and continuing to provide cutting edge technology solutions for major Fortune 500 companies and governments.
Originally published on Vizaca.com
