In the inaugural episode of Culture & Code, hosts Rei Inamoto and Tara Tan dive deep into a fascinating contrast in the tech world: the billion-dollar data labeling company you've never heard of versus the AI giants dominating headlines. Through the lens of Surge AI's remarkable bootstrap success story, they explore whether obsessive craftsmanship can triumph over venture-backed hype machines in Silicon Valley and beyond.

The Billion-Dollar Bootstrap Nobody Knows

• Surge AI: $1B+ annual revenue, zero venture funding, completely bootstrapped
• Outperforming Scale AI despite Scale's massive funding rounds
• Secret sauce: treating data labeling as craft, not commodity

Quality vs. Hype in the AI Race

• OpenAI's GPT-5 launch: productization over breakthrough
• The power of narrative in tech (why your dad knows ChatGPT but not Claude)
• "Hype as infrastructure" - why some companies need buzz to compete with infinite capital

Craftsmanship in Code

• Programming as poetry, not just problem-solving
• The Japanese coffee shop principle: first principles thinking in everything
• Why a clean kitchen makes better sushi (and better software)

• The Information (tech publication that broke the Surge AI story)
• Surge AI
• Jiro Dreams of Sushi (Netflix documentary)
• Jacques Marie Mage (luxury sunglass brand exemplifying quality over hype)

Rei Inamoto: Creative entrepreneur and founding partner of I&CO, a global innovation firm with offices in New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.

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Rei's LinkedIn

Newsletter "The Intersection"

Tara Tan: Managing partner of Strange Ventures, an early-stage firm investing in the future of computing.

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Newsletter: The Strange Review

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This is the official first episode of Culture & Code, a podcast about patterns in tech, business, and culture. New episodes weekly.

Rei and Tara explore how digital interfaces are fundamentally rewiring our brains, from teenagers who can't organize files to MIT research showing AI's impact on cognitive activity. Through parenting experiences and historical parallels, they examine whether these tools are making us lazy, different, or potentially more capable in unexpected ways.

Your Brain on ChatGPT: The MIT Study

• AI-assisted writing shows significantly less brain activity than manual writing
• AI-powered essays: more polished but homogeneous
• Human writing: messier but more original
• The emergence of "cognitive debt"—what happens when we outsource thinking

The Google Effect 2.0

• How search engines rewired our neural pathways over 20 years
• Memory vs. reference: we've traded memorization for association
• The coming neurological changes from LLM usage

The Speed of Change

• New AI releases are becoming the "new normal"
• Information velocity is exponentially increasing
• Humans at an "evolutionary moment" requiring adaptation
• Curation becoming more critical than consumption

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Rei Inamoto: Creative entrepreneur and founding partner of I&CO, a global innovation firm with offices in New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.

Follow Rei here:

Rei's LinkedIn

Newsletter "The Intersection"

Tara Tan: Managing partner of Strange Ventures, an early-stage firm investing in the future of computing.

Follow Tara here:

Tara's LinkedIn

Newsletter: The Strange Review

Connect & Subscribe

Culture and Code is a podcast about the biggest shifts in tech, business, and culture—before they go mainstream. New episodes on every Tuesday.

In this episode of Culture and Code, Rei and Tara discuss the recent popularity of fictional characters like K-Pop Demon Hunters and Labubu and what we can learn about relatability and escapism.

They explore the concept of escapism and its appeal through multidimensionality and contradiction, making these characters relatable. The conversation delves into the unexpected success of K-Pop Demon Hunters on Netflix, the strategic missteps by Sony, and how modern brands could leverage multidimensionality in their narratives.

Sony’s misstep and Netflix’s luck

• Sony’s $100M misstep and Netflix’s $20M investment
• Kpop Demon Hunters to become the No.1 hit of all time for Netflix
• Netflix wins with experimentation, not bets

Multidimensionality of Characters

• Contradictions make characters relatable
• Emotional depth appeals across ages

Escapism vs. Relatability

• Fantasy works best when grounded in truth
• Audiences crave layered, imperfect personas
• Tension drives authenticity and interest
• AI will reshape how stories are tested and scaled
• 
  

• Kpop Demon Hunters (Netflix)
• Labubu (Pop Mart)
• Why escapism is the new marketing currency (Vogue Business)

Watch us on YouTube

Rei Inamoto

Creative entrepreneur and founding partner of I&CO, a global innovation firm with offices in New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.

• Rei's LinkedIn
• Newsletter "The Intersection"
• Rei's global innovation firm I&CO

Tara Tan

Managing partner of Strange Ventures, an early-stage firm investing in the future of computing.

• Tara's LinkedIn
• Newsletter "The Strange Review"
• Tara's VC firm Strange Ventures

Connect & Subscribe

Culture and Code is a podcast about the biggest shifts in tech, business, and culture—before they go mainstream. New episodes on every Tuesday.