Finding Your Voice Through Creative Curiosity with Sissie Hsiao and Origins of Musical Instruments with Dennis Houlihan

Entrepreneur Weekly

Joining Alan on this episode of Entrepreneur is Sissie Hsiao - Vice President and GM of Google Assistant. What is Google Assistant? It’s designed to help busy people. We want to build a natural and conversational helper to help get things done. How good is it at recognizing what I am saying? People don't enunciate well, or have heavy accents, so they are creating programs that will be able to understand all sorts of speech. Google Assistant is compatible with other Google programs such as Google Calendar. Can you use Google Assistant in your day-to-day life or is it just made for business? Sissie says personal and business are merging and Google Assistant gives you the extra minutes needed. Alan says if we use these tools it's a no-brainer! Sissie goes on to say that mobile devices are so powerful. GA is a way to get things done without getting sucked into the “vortex”. General philosophy on building teams? Building the right team, pragmatic dreamers, and working with the materials we have available. Hiring with the right attitude, and humility is one of the things she looks for. Humble and creative curiosity. Personal advice? Deliver real value to people. Focus on what you are building to make people's lives better.

Up next is Dennis Houlihan - Former President and Past Chair of NAMM and also former President of Roland Corporation. Dennis is interviewing from the trade show for Music Products World. What is it about this business that dominates? Dennis says the entrepreneurial spirits who crafted the instruments by hand, are what created the backbone of the music industry. Large companies didn't happen overnight, it took years, and established roots. Create products that the musicians can use to make masterpieces. One of the most successful entrepreneurs in the music industry was Laurens Hammonds His first successful creation was not the Hammond Organs but the Hammond Synchronous Clock. NAMM- National Association of Music Merchants began in 1901. It was started with a bunch of Piano Merchants getting together to ensure pianos were being made correctly and being sold accordingly. It is the largest trade association in the world, for people who design, manufacture, make, and sell music products all over the world.

• [00:00:00] Google Assistant
• [00:06:23] Daily Use
• [00:12:22] Creative Curiosity
• [00:19:43] NAMM Show
• [00:29:04] Hammond History
• [00:34:45] What is NAMM

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