Alanna Laforet: Developing a Hacker Mentality to Take Control Of Your Career Journey.
- Jul 22
- 33 min read
What if the best way to future-proof your career isn't learning another AI tool—but learning to think like a hacker?
In this episode of Signal & Noise, Executive Voice Krish Raja sits down with Alanna Laforet—technology executive, former Chief Revenue Officer, startup operator, blockchain pioneer, and advisor—to explore what it really takes to reinvent yourself in an era where AI is transforming every industry.
Alanna's career has never followed a traditional path. From starting as a Unix systems administrator and QA engineer at DoubleClick to helping shape advertising standards at the IAB Tech Lab, leading blockchain ventures, launching crypto media companies, advising AI startups, and building a portfolio career across multiple industries, she's consistently embraced curiosity over comfort.
Together, Krish and Alanna unpack why the people who thrive in the AI era won't necessarily be those with the best technical skills—but those willing to continually learn, experiment, and reinvent themselves.
They discuss:
Why adopting a "hacker mentality" creates career resilience
How curiosity—not job titles—has guided Alanna's professional journey
The hidden lessons learned from startup failures, crypto winters, and industry disruption
Why AI makes understanding technology more important, not less
How to overcome fear and imposter syndrome when changing careers
Why treating yourself as your own company changes how you think about work
The rise of portfolio careers, fractional leadership, and multiple revenue streams
Building a personal thesis that guides career decisions
Why networking, community, and simply "leaving your house" may be the most underrated career advice today
Practical advice for professionals navigating layoffs, AI disruption, and career transitions
This isn't just a conversation about AI. It's a conversation about ownership, adaptability, and designing a career that's resilient no matter how technology changes.
If you're wondering how to stay relevant in the age of AI—or considering your own next chapter—this episode offers a thoughtful roadmap from someone who's reinvented herself time and time again.
Watch the full episode and join the conversation.
🔑 What We Cover💡 Key Takeaways🎯 Why This Episode Matters
Read the full transcript below.
Krish (00:01.246)
All right, I'm ready for war stories. That was that was what we just left off with as we as we pre-briefed. Alana, it is lovely to have you on the pod. this is you're you're part of my AI channel where I unpack a lot of the consequences of AI. But today we're gonna talk a little bit about a a different angle, which is what's happening in the workforce and what
what that means for your personal journey. Now, Alana, thank you so much for joining me. we're I'm very lucky to have you here. And the first time I spoke to you, the second time I spoke to you, I this conversation just sort of came up by osmosis and I realized just looking at your history that you're just the absolute journey, say journeyman, journeywoman, journey person for for yeah, literally for for how to reinvent yourself and how to
Alanna Laforet (00:53.111)
A journey personal.
Krish (00:59.33)
Be resilient and how to change what happens to you over the over the course of your career. And so I'd love to I'd love to just hear a little bit from you as an intro. You've worked, you started technical, you climbed to a chief revenue officer role, you've you've been on the sell side of a marketplace, you've reinvented a marketplace, you've you've worked in you know other industries outside of this as well. So talk to me a little bit about.
the journey and why you kept moving around, I guess, in in in during the the course of your career to to different functions and and places.
Alanna Laforet (01:38.346)
Thank you first of all for having me. This is gonna be a fun conversation. I really enjoyed our initial conversation. why do I jump around? That's a good question. I no, no, just in general. No, I get it. No, absolutely. So so I always I have a very curious nature. I started my career as a Unix admin because and only because I wanted to have root on the systems.
Krish (01:43.374)
Thank you.
Krish (01:49.526)
Not from company to company. I mean like from from competency. Yeah. Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (02:07.094)
And so I was very intrigued by that world, that culture at the time, the hacker culture, because it was very much prevalent. and I was very immersed in it. And so my journey is always influenced not only by money, actually it's never influenced by money. It's influenced by learning, curiosity, and culture.
Krish (02:16.535)
Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (02:34.638)
and so that's driven me all the way up till now. I've followed people and I've followed themes and I've joined groups that I thought were interesting and fascinating. So be it the hacker community, my very first group, all the way up to now in the AI community. And by the way, they all intertwine. So my initial group of people that I worked with back in the day are now in the AI community, which I think speaks to the personalities that.
follow the path. so my ad tech journey, I I arrived in adtech because of my technical exploration. So I joined DoubleClick back in my day as a QA engineer and just never looked back. So was an ad tech f yeah, yeah, yeah.
Krish (03:20.845)
It's a great place to start. And a great role at that time as well, right? They it'd have been very different to to what it is now. Q yeah. And that QA the QA pieces talk to me about like that. What did what did it give you, the that role in particular?
Alanna Laforet (03:26.676)
very different, very different.
Alanna Laforet (03:36.68)
It's like going to college. Double click was like going to an Ivy League school because you meet you met everybody that's still in the industry. So the QA engineer role was great because I learned about ad servers and all the things that, you know, needed to come into the world and the ad tech space. But I also, more importantly, met a lot of the people driving and shaping our world today. So, you know, it's those companies at the time were very much like university.
Krish (04:04.673)
Yeah. They're the they're the the bedrock of or talent, right? Of curious talent as well. I think that those businesses, where I started as well at Microsoft, there was it was full of people that were you could clearly see were incubating in like little eggs in you know, you know, now I look back at the the the situation we had in the office and the talent that's proliferated throughout the industry. You could now I look back at in hindsight, I'm like, wow, that was
Alanna Laforet (04:23.373)
yeah.
Krish (04:33.985)
Something was cooking there, you know, that's that's really cool.
Alanna Laforet (04:35.359)
Same. I mean Microsoft was a great example of that. We with Jeff Green and Eric Picard and everybody who came out of there. Same thing, university, yeah. So
Krish (04:41.953)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what and so so what was the you you talk about hacker news and that sort of mentality. What when you're it when you're in hacker communities, and people that do this by the way, there's something in their minds that they're like, All right, it's either I I wanna see what's under the hood because I'm I know I'm not supposed to, or it's I can do it better, or it's what what was driving you into
That curiousity was it was it like a feeling of the day I need to know I'll know kind of thing, or was it something more short term than that?
Alanna Laforet (05:20.221)
I I think it was a combination of of curiosity to to understand what was going on under the hood and also the power of having the the the the access to to understand it. Right back then back then in the nineteen hundreds, it wasn't nineteen hundreds anymore, but back then this whole notion of of bastard operator from hell, they all these quotes coming from the communities, they they all spoke to
Krish (05:31.713)
Secret source.
Krish (05:37.837)
Okay.
Alanna Laforet (05:49.77)
the power of understanding and and owning. And I think that that hasn't changed up till now. People still want to understand and own. and now in the I AI space, nothing again, we're we're back to it.
Krish (06:04.117)
Absolutely. It in the AI space it's even more drastic because there are so many invisible things that AI collapses in how things are done that you and I've seen this play out over time working in platforms, working in algorithms, working now with AI, and I can see on one hand there is a lot more.
transparency in certain ways in which you interact with technology and ways that you can you know understand under the hood, but then in other ways, yeah, there there's especially for people that you know, have grown up with that era of software that they just press the button and it does a thing. I think that I hope that more people uncover this curious mentality as well, you know.
Alanna Laforet (06:58.205)
I think it's important because if you just rely on the L LMs to tell you what to do, you're gonna be in a world of hurt. Right? the hallucinations alone are very real. I had Gemini create me an email list and it decided to make up every single email address on the list 'cause it wanted to, right? It was like, this was better. I'm like, What it's wrong? But thank you. Very helpful.
Krish (07:05.964)
Yeah.
Krish (07:19.137)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's a mirror. you know, those moments are a mirror of the bit the instruction you missed because I I often used to get told by colleagues and friends that I was a really literal person that I'm like just just in general when people communicate with me, they're like there's no nuance with you, is there? It's always just like black and white. I'm like, Well, you should see my friend AI. It so if you if you miss
Alanna Laforet (07:27.038)
Mm-hmm.
Alanna Laforet (07:36.895)
Same.
Alanna Laforet (07:42.237)
Ha.
Krish (07:48.546)
if you miss an instruction that you just you know didn't think about, it literally will do that. It will just fill in the gaps with absolute garbage and not tell you it did that. So yeah, that's a really good example. so you've been you've reinvented yourself across what is it for four industries? you've also gone solo more than once, I think, if I'm not mistaken. so that's a lot of code switching, a lot of
Alanna Laforet (07:59.061)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (08:07.114)
Mm-hmm.
Alanna Laforet (08:10.739)
Yes. Yes.
Krish (08:18.165)
ledge standing. I say standing, I mean you're I've I've I've done this once, not not any more than that, and it really feels like you're standing on the edge of a precipice sometimes. and for me anyway, the what was the most shocking or sort of the the galling part for me was realizing how much mental work had to be done in order to become someone else.
because you feel like an imposter until you're there. I have imposter syndrome at the best of times, but if you're trying to do something that you haven't proven in public yet or you that people don't know you are, and people know you as as Alana, the the double click person. You're you're a QA engineer. What you know, how can you think about you know, what would you do if you know like you you would you know those voices in your head emerge or you you
you have to make a lot of really brave decisions. So tell me about what the actual signals are for you in these moments where you're like, all right, time to change, and here's what I'm gonna change to.
Alanna Laforet (09:22.729)
Yep. I'll give you an example of the crypto switch because I think it's a good one. So I was in ad tech for a long for a very long time. doing traditional work and doing ad tech startup work. I was running standards at the IAV tech lab and the whole notion of blockchain had come in because of supply chain. And I thought it was fascinating. I knew about it before, you know, I had mined Bitcoin, all of it. But
In the lens of transparency and advertising, it was a very compelling case. for many reasons it wasn't adopted at the tech lab, politics, etc., new technology didn't matter. I decided to join a startup in Los Angeles that focused on blockchain technology for ad tech. So I t moved from New York with my children and moved to LA.
and joined the startup and the startup failed two years in for many reasons which we won't go into. very crypto, very crypto, let's just put it that way. Let's leave it at that. but it opened the doors to a company called Consensus, which w was run and founded by a man named is still run, by Joe Lubin, who was the one of the co founders of Ethereum.
Krish (10:28.605)
Yeah.
So yeah, yeah, that leaving at that. Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (10:48.262)
And I joined Consensus and I stayed there for seven years and just built new technology every single day in the Ethereum space. And it was wild. But the journey was really that one technology piece that I found that I thought was fascinating that I just followed the the rabbit down the hole.
Krish (11:07.351)
And do you mean and then in that way, do you did you move to solo the solo world after that? Or and was would you would you say that the this role was a step towards that then? towards getting the bravery of to do your own thing?
Alanna Laforet (11:16.957)
Yes.
Alanna Laforet (11:21.926)
It was. It was. So part of part of the consensus journey had a a spin-out component to it. I helped spin out Decrypt Media, which is a pub was a publisher, still is, but they're now a more of a prediction market in the crypto space. And we spun out the company from Consensus Mesh, which was Joe's family office, raised money and pushed it to be independent. And so that path.
Definitely helped me get to the edge of the ledge, if you will, of where I wanted to be as a human and where I wanted to see myself for the next couple of years. So after leaving Decrypt, after they merged with Rug Radio two years ago, almost, I decided to just do my own thing. I've I I was always, you know, thinking about it. I always wanted to do it, but there's always a fear factor, right? Because it's like, my God.
It's just me and what happens. And to your point, you're always on that ledge. And so I did it. it was a crazy time for me personally. my mom was very sick and and just all of it. But I did anyway move forward and the first couple of months I was I was just really like, okay, what do I do? And you know, I did this for other people. Why, you know, you could do this for yourself. So treat yourself like a client.
Right. I think that's one of the things that's really important is if you treat yourself like yourself, you'll like you're like, Well, this is wrong and what are you doing? And so if you're your own client, it works a lot better.
Krish (12:52.204)
Yeah.
Krish (13:02.027)
I love that. Such a simple shift in mindset that might unlock a lot of other stuff. Because you're right. I mean, if I I I spend all day long in my own company, poor me, and I have to and and and and I have to tolerate and endure a level of standards and commentary that I don't really reserve for anyone else. So it's yeah, so that that makes sense. I like that a lot.
Alanna Laforet (13:14.26)
Ha ha
Alanna Laforet (13:25.404)
Right, right, exactly.
Krish (13:31.308)
But I mean, you know, it's it's we talk about your career and it's obviously you know you've had a really cool storied career in lots of narrative chapters to it and it almost reads like a book, you know. It's it's really it's a nice I don't know if you planned it like that, or you're gonna write a book, but I like maybe, maybe we'll tease that at the end. The look I I think that you know this is masking a lot of y the bit
Alanna Laforet (13:49.222)
Maybe.
Ha ha
Krish (14:01.473)
that really matters, which is decrypt road crypto and then the market has been challenged, ad tech is been challenged for quite a little while now. standards work is, you know, that all of the areas you're in aren't volatile and tough and explore experiencing moments that would break people along the way a bit, you know, like an and so so can you talk
Talk me through those, like not just the yeah, talk me through the the bits where you're just like, man, like really? Like is this is this what's happening?
Alanna Laforet (14:37.257)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, God, there's so many, right? I think a lot of times people assume everything's perfect when you come out the other side and everything is working per well for your company. Like, well, you know, she's fine. And it's like, well, there are lots of moments in my career that, to your point, were challenging. And so, you know, I think one of them I mentioned which was the crypto company going under.
Krish (14:43.757)
I know, yeah.
Krish (15:03.169)
Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (15:10.252)
can't talk about specifics, but it was it was gut wrenching, you know, it was for that really hurt because I moved my company acros my my family across the the co the country for this opportunity. and to no fault of my own, things cut went awry. And there was a question mark there, but it was okay. You know, I think all the question marks that you receive in life, you're also given an answer, as long as you're paying attention.
Right. So I think throughout all of my challenges, there's you know, there's been money, I don't have go through all of them, but you know, I think companies failing, the market's going down, crypto's a good example of that. we had to put on an award show right during crypto winter in my at Arc Art Basel in Miami. Sam Bankman Fried had just gotten arrested.
And it was a crypto award show. And the tone in the industry at that moment in time was not great. And so here we are, we're like, my goodness, what do we do? we have to give out awards to people like the Oscars for crypto, and the climate is just disaster. So what we did is we hired the fat Jewa, she's a comedian in Miami, and we turned it into a roast. and it
Krish (16:24.148)
no.
Krish (16:36.661)
Alanna Laforet (16:39.173)
It killed. But and it it opens up with a where is Sag Sam Bakeman freed? You know, and so that's a good example of pivoting. And the our head of development at the time, Josh Roth, who's amazing, is a screenwriter in LA, he wrote that script in a week, because we had to pivot in front of five hundred people in the audience, and then the New York Times was there. So every time you're given
Krish (16:46.029)
Krish (16:59.245)
That's amazing.
Alanna Laforet (17:08.507)
An issue to deal with, you have a solution in front of you. You just gotta see it.
Krish (17:13.377)
Yeah. Yeah. You gotta see it. You've got to be open minded to concentrate on what's next. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. yeah, this is it this is all like this is all really valuable advice for someone who's pivoting their career. There are lot of people in the industry right now. I don't know, I sp I I'm I'm I'm pretty sure this might be
Alanna Laforet (17:17.541)
And brave to go and do, right? Take the next step.
Krish (17:39.042)
just the yellow car thing where you you know you say it you see it everywhere but I you know I've I've been doing all of this in real life and pivoting to owning a business and owning a portfolio and and optimizing that. And like I said earlier it's been pretty difficult at times to to operate in that way and not sort of quote unquote go to work, get my salary, all that sort of stuff. so so
Talk me through you mentioned you you mentioned a really good piece of advice at the start, which is treat yourself like a customer. so let's build on that a little bit. So you you've you've t tell me about what you're up to now. You've got consulting, you've got fractional, you you've got a but you've you've got a you've got a few projects going on. So I want to tell me a little bit, not not about what's going on, but how what's your mindset in orchestrating all of that and bringing it all together?
Alanna Laforet (18:27.505)
Yes.
Alanna Laforet (18:37.085)
I've learned to be very picky about who my clients are. That's number one. It's okay to say no to people who want to work with you if it's not a good fit. So the way I drive forward client acquis acquisition is a really bad term because most of them are are close close colleagues as well as friends. I understand their the thesis behind it. I understand what they're trying to build.
And then I decide if it matches my own thesis. because I joined the companies. I don't just come in and consult, I become a fractional part of their world. And fractional is a really bad word because I become a part of their world. It's not I'm not like, no, sorry, you pick your 25% time, so I'll see you next week. No, I mean like I split my brain into two or three different projects only.
Krish (19:23.477)
With you for Tuesday. Yeah, yeah. It's
Alanna Laforet (19:35.103)
And I join and I help and I build and I help fundraise and I help do everything. And it's really shown me how impactful you can be doing the work in that way. I didn't like consult yeah, go ahead, sorry. No, I was just gonna say I didn't like consulting where I just did a a week's worth of work and I was like, bye. That didn't it didn't drive move the needle for
Krish (19:49.738)
Mm. It's a really sorry, no, you go.
Krish (20:02.131)
It is an interesting way of looking at it and you know, I wonder how much that is the way that you operate and the way that makes you happy, versus do you think that that's something that anyone can learn is how to contribute how to contribute in that way as opposed to just isolating fractional work to like projects.
And is it i is that something so would you say to anyone doing fractional work, here's what I would here's this is a r a rewarding path, or is it only for certain personality types?
Alanna Laforet (20:38.759)
I think it's for certain personality types. I think it's for people. Some people love to just dip in and dip out, right? Some people just love to come in and do that engagement and have it be successful and then leave. And that's okay. Right? There's nothing wrong with that. It's just the way I operate, I need to have some sort of skin in the game because I am so passionate and I really dig deep. So I have to protect myself a little bit.
Krish (20:53.003)
Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (21:05.607)
Where it's like okay, you'll here are my projects, here's what I'm doing, and I'm allowed to go deep because this is the nature of the engagement.
Krish (21:14.091)
And that's the QA engineering you coming out, isn't it? You've gotta you've gotta you've gotta get under the hood and figure out why you're doing what you're doing, right?
Alanna Laforet (21:16.659)
Ha ha ha.
I do.
I do, I'm a nosy parker. No, I do. I I really wanna understand so I can help better. Yes.
Krish (21:26.05)
Yeah.
Krish (21:30.133)
Yeah, no, exactly. The the a big part of how deep you go into something is is shown in the the depth of the output for sure. I think that it's like an iceberg, right? You you go just as deep down into the the thing you're exploring and you you'll get those just rewards in the depth of the output and the outcome that you you you can achieve, for sure. and so so what is so
Alanna Laforet (21:56.721)
Yeah.
Krish (21:59.498)
Now then help me expla help me to understand how you currently orchestrate or set up what you're doing.
Alanna Laforet (22:06.535)
Yeah, so right now my big I have two priorities. one of them is Engine. And Engine is an amazing platform that helps IP holders and and fans come together to create experiences using the IP that has been created. So you can generate IP on the platform using II, you can bring in whatever you've created, live action.
It all comes into the platform. fans slash participants can come in and create derivatives of that in partnership with the IP holders. It's a really cool platform and it's bringing me into the film world, which I I do I am a part of because my husband's a director and I run his production company. And I also did a lot of film three work when I was at Consensus and Decrypt. And so that part of my life.
is very important to me. and Engine really fulfills that that thesis for me where it's like there has to be a different way to to to make and create content where it's more accessible and it's more shareable because the IP is stored on blockchain and so it can be shared and tracked. And so that's that. And the reason why I joined that is really and you can see my in my career that blockchain thesis has run throughout. And this really brings it to fruition.
And it ties in creativity. Creativity in the form of AI, but also not AI. which was important to me too. So that's one.
Krish (23:44.076)
And and defen being defensible against AI, right? That's you know, using it is one, being defensible is another. But it seems like that blockchain thesis is really more about how can you take control of what you produce out of out of your mind.
Alanna Laforet (23:47.216)
Yeah. Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (24:01.447)
Control but also you can s you can also see if it's being used in training models, right? Because you can track. So that is a really important piece. mostly because minus the blockchain and the IP and everything else. Everyone keeps pitching AI. It's AI this and AI that and agentic and agentic buying and agentic ad serving and blah blah blah blah blah. Great, but it's not the only tool. And we always do this where as an industry, I don't care.
what we do. Programmatic was another example in ad tech, right? RTB. That was it. Forget direct selling, great. Who cares? Right?
Krish (24:38.477)
Ever yeah, there's something is dead every few months. Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (24:42.074)
Yes, yes, data is king. Yes, data's always been king. But you know, the AI thing has gotten a little bit over its skis, I think. Everyone's using it as their crutch to start pitching. and and evolving, which is okay. But don't throw out all of the old technology, at least verbally, because you're not doing it in practice, it's just in theory. just be honest about what you're you're doing.
Krish (24:49.826)
Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (25:10.95)
What's your motivation? Yeah.
Krish (25:11.393)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay, so so you've got that and how does that construct in with the rest of what you're doing?
Alanna Laforet (25:19.888)
Yeah, so I have that and I have another amazing company called Orbit.me. I'm very big into wellness. I'm very big into surviving the data onslaught people are hit with every day, via email, WhatsApp, SMS, Slack, you name it. and Bill Simmons, who was one of the co founders of Data Zoo, created Orbit and I joined to help him.
again on the ecosystem and growth side just to help figure out the story and messaging and understand people's needs on the data it's just I data is such a hard word but on everything that's coming at them what what tool would be great to help them grock through all of it and he's built that and it's Orbit is just amazing where it will talk to you every day it'll tell you what you need to do it'll go through all of your stuff for you
It'll give you a a boost, a pep talk. It'll use language that's very positive. so people can feel good about their day. And I use it for all the time because I get all these emails. I have five kids, plus I have, you know, the companies, plus I have my clients, and every morning I have this rosy email saying, Hey, maybe you should pay that tuition bill this morning. I'm like, I should, that's true. Yes, uh-huh. Okay. Right. So why did I join Bill? Same thing.
Krish (26:36.736)
Yeah.
Krish (26:41.218)
Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (26:47.962)
My thesis, especially right now, is that everyone's just overloaded. I don't care. And now the whole inbox zero thing is absolute BS. I had that was the worst mental health mission anyone could go on, right? I have inbox zero. Who cares? What does that mean?
Krish (27:06.111)
It's not. It's not though. It's not if you like at it's inbox zero for like five minutes and then once you once you start using AI properly, you start researching better, you start preparing better, you start having more meetings. Guess what? Those meetings turn into more emails, not less. So inbox so yeah, so
Alanna Laforet (27:13.167)
Right.
Alanna Laforet (27:21.137)
Yes.
Alanna Laforet (27:26.768)
Yes, and then your inbox becomes an archive for you.
Krish (27:31.608)
So I have my own little command center that I've built, which just funnels in everything that you know, content ideas and leads and pipeline and my network that I meet day to day. And and obviously that stuff being there is useful. but at the same time, because there is that wealth of data and there is one central place for it, the I am almost like
I felt with social media, but in a productivity sense, I am really compelled to do the next thing now. And doing and that's really great because it's made it made me more productive and it's made me push forward my own business ventures and things like that. But but at the same time, I had more chance of inbox zero before when I was not doing any of that because I would I I would just clean I would get through my inbox myself and nothing unexpected would
Alanna Laforet (28:18.47)
Right.
Krish (28:27.633)
or or the nothing the velocity of stuff wasn't quick enough for for my inbox to fill. So so I guess it's yeah, there there's there's challenges with both. But yeah, I that sounds like a a really interesting play. and if it can marry your your personal work that that's even better.
Alanna Laforet (28:46.767)
Yeah, yeah. So I think those two projects really show how I approach joining c companies. It's really how do I feel about the thesis? Does it fit where my I am mentally? I think both of those are really good examples, Anjin and Orbett just amazing founders who
Krish (29:03.373)
Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (29:14.861)
really have a pulse on what's needed, but also are nice people and are approaching it in a way that is human positive, right? It is, it is, let's use this technology, let's make it better for people, but let's also give them a boost. And I love that.
Krish (29:33.729)
Yeah. That's awesome. And so you the common thread is for for the projects that you've been what you are working on is the thesis, right? It's very much what you believe, what you believe is going to happen. and so so so is there anything else inside that portfolio? Is there anything else what what triggers you to go, maybe I'll add something else or where do you stop, you know?
Alanna Laforet (29:58.054)
There there is more that the one's company's in stealth, so I can't talk about them yet. Actually, two companies are in stealth. but it it really they both are the same. They they go back to the same thesis of of creating for a very specific purpose. I have my own side project, which is the Vigil project, and I have created a website and I'm creating
process for companies and individuals to help understand all the regulation coming at them on the AI side, both Europe and now the US. And each state in the US has their own lovely way of approaching regulation. So it's been fun, just like crypto. So in crypto I I helped lobby in Wyoming for all the crypto laws there. So I have experience I testified in in Brussels and in DC
on the crypto side, so it's a natural progression to help on the AI side too. So that's something that's personal to me that I'm working on as well with certain clients, just helping them get and understand what's happening in all of these different arenas and how they can help figure out their roadmap in a way that's positive. So
Krish (31:13.367)
Wow. Do you have like do you have more hours in the day than than I do? That sounds it sounds like this sounds like so this sounds like such a lot. And you've got kids and how do you do it all?
Alanna Laforet (31:21.221)
One of my clients.
I have kids. I think having kids makes you think about your day. Right? Yeah, because you have drop off and then you have pickup. And you ha so I love to get up at five o'clock in the morning. I live on a farm now. We've i in in near in Los Angeles County, but we live, you know, in a farm community. And it's really taught me to be present and mindful.
Krish (31:30.797)
Efficiency, time blocking and efficiency. Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (31:55.21)
And getting up early is required, otherwise the animals don't eat. they start yelling at you. so I've learned to really compartmentalize my day. My husband's always like, Did you do work this morning? I'm Yeah, I did. And it was like at five o'clock in the morning, and like you know, he's like, gosh. so I I chunk up my day where it's work, it's personal. I will say that.
It is so important to take time for yourself. I wasn't doing that up until recently and I realized I was just like burning the candle on both ends. So meditation, being outside, all of that so important. But as I think as as you think about your day and you you characterize it into different block schedules, if you will, it becomes a lot easier to to manage everything.
Krish (32:32.333)
Yeah.
Krish (32:43.297)
Mm.
Krish (32:47.885)
I mean, yeah, you you would I mean I I would love to see your the way that you structure your your diary. That I'm sure you've got yeah, a lot of structure and orbit. yeah, yeah, you obviously yeah.
Alanna Laforet (32:59.385)
Orbit. Honestly, Orbit really Lorbit really has helped me. I'm not I'm not selling it in any way.
Krish (33:06.517)
I wasn't even I was that wasn't even a setup. That was a great that was a great segue. I guess
Alanna Laforet (33:10.705)
But it's true that that's really saved my life. I didn't have any well, I did. I had my own agents building things for me, but not in this way. And I wake up in the morning and I have my to do list already done. I just gotta like follow it and not ignore it.
Krish (33:26.197)
I think I I think honestly like that that sort of stuff is where the the huge opportunity is for for all people but all businesses as well is how can I wake up in the morning and know what the next actual action is? as opposed to find out what to do. finding out what to do. I've worked in sales roles in various companies and
Alanna Laforet (33:45.499)
Yeah.
Krish (33:55.128)
When you're managing a sales pipeline, you don't sometimes get to your sales motion or your action until like eleven AM because you're doing admin, you're doing your you're you're figuring out what went happened last night in market, you're figuring out you know what your priorities are. And so yeah, I think that one of the things I'm most excited about is just you know, information that has already been turned into that for you.
Alanna Laforet (34:02.427)
True.
Alanna Laforet (34:22.905)
Yeah. Yeah, well it's yes. Agree.
Krish (34:24.257)
And that's Yeah. Yeah, sorry. And I was gonna say it's it's also to keep it on point with the fractional piece or the the way you reinvent yourself, it you know, it's potentially a really good catalyst for people that either want to do it but can't, or have the idea but don't know how to execute it, or are or have the network but don't have the you know, there's always something you're missing or anyways, there's something that you're perceived to be missing when you're trying to
build a business or when you're trying to sell your own self or services.
Alanna Laforet (34:59.845)
Yeah. So I think one th there's a couple of things. One, it's okay to fail. I remember vividly I Ben Barocus hired me at Admount to be a seller. And I was not a salesperson. I was an engineer. And he said, All right, fine. We'll bring you on and you can do BD. I'm like, great. And I remember my first call call email. I think it was like four pages long because I didn't know any better. And so
The man that I emailed was so lovely and emailed me back and was like, let's hop on a call. And he he walked me through my email. He's like, This was very long. And let me help you figure it out. A client did this. And I will say that it's okay to fail. It's okay to pivot. You're not lacking anything. Only thing you're lacking is self-confidence and the ability to ask questions. Right? People will give you feedback. This lovely gentleman.
His name now, I should know it because he was so nice. When I did my when I wrote my first sales cold call email, it was terrible, but he decided to help me as opposed to like blow me off. There's always these helpers out there, they're gonna reach out their hand to help you. You just can't get lost in your own head. Go to events, don't build a company by yourself in your house and say, I can work from home. No, you can't. You gotta get yourself out there. You can't be home all the time.
Krish (36:13.741)
Yeah. Yes.
Alanna Laforet (36:25.818)
People won't know what you're doing. yeah.
Krish (36:32.033)
Yeah. I love that. I I think about that a lot and do I I block out parts of my day for the things I that I know will benefit me as opposed to what I want to do, if that makes sense. and so the 'cause 'cause I'm prone I'm one of those those people that could happily sit indoors at
Alanna Laforet (36:48.686)
Yeah, yes.
Krish (36:58.121)
my computer and and code or build products for three days in a row and not speak to anyone. will it, you know, will it create the best net net outcome? No, definitely not. I'll get a lot more build work done, but I like when I've when I've gone to an event and when then and then when I come back, I've you know I feel this rush of pro not you know self product not productivity, but it's a pro it's a different feeling of accomplishment that
isn't just I punched through lots of tasks but it was really energizing, I guess is the word.
Alanna Laforet (37:34.948)
Yeah, that makes sense. So you're building you're so in our industry at least, you're building for a community. Right. You're building it with a community. Now, of course there's outliers in the A AI space where people are dumping things up on GitHub and they get acquired in two weeks and they don't leave their house and that's totally fine. You know, everyone's gonna be like, Well, people are yes, that's true. And but yeah. Yeah, it it's fine. You know, that's a very different conversation. But in our space, in media
Krish (37:51.384)
Yeah. So yeah, selling agents that do things for other agents and whatnot. Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (38:04.44)
You should leave your house sometimes.
Krish (38:06.573)
Leave your house. Tip top tip number one, leave your house. the w where and and I wanna go there a little bit as well. What what you've obviously accomplished in your career is incredible and there's there's so many really cool projects that you work on. But help me to make this actionable for someone who say is a career long worker in a big company, his is used to going from
Alanna Laforet (38:10.35)
Leave your house.
Krish (38:37.433)
job to job it and taking next job which is a bit higher like what everyone does basically. and they're now they're now in a world of AI coming for their role maybe or their company is not doing as well or it's not moving in this direction that they thought it would or there there's so many different forces that can make
Alanna Laforet (38:43.61)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Krish (39:04.277)
someone who's not unemployed, anxious as well and or even someone who has been laid off and wants to move into this world. What would you say is something that everyone should do first before they jump off this ledge? you've obviously mentioned the thesis, which is like you need to have a thesis. There's obviously a bit that's it's complicated to build one, but I'm keen to understand like what what would you say is your like
Alanna Laforet (39:23.504)
Yeah.
Krish (39:34.582)
your advice to help someone jump off that ledge into a completely new world of monetizing themselves?
Alanna Laforet (39:45.508)
Well, there's lots of different groups that have spun up, like Athena here in in Los Angeles, like chief on the women's side, to help people understand how to move into the space. There's I've actually started coaching a few people because when the layoffs initially happened, I think it was a year and a half ago, I had put up a LinkedIn post just offering up my services for free.
And I got ten people to respond to that. And they've they're building their own most of them, actually all of them are building their own companies now, but they were all terrified. for good reason, right? It's terri it's scary. And the one thing I told them was nothing. I sat and I listened. You have to talk to somebody. When when you want to change your life or your life is changed for you because of a layoff or what have you.
It's okay to reach out to someone to listen to you. Get it out before you start anything. Get out all the feelings, all the emotions. I, you know, a lot of the themes were betrayal. Get it, totally understand, right? It's okay to feel before you go, right? So get out all that negative energy. And then what's left is you, right?
Krish (41:02.903)
Yeah, yeah.
Alanna Laforet (41:10.99)
After that's all it leaves your body and you you're finished with that catharsis, if you will, then it's you and you can decide who you are. And everybody is picking topics, right? I every single one of the people that I spoke to had an idea in their head already. They just never activated on it because they had a job. And so I will say that some you you have an idea in your head. You know what you want to do. think about it.
whiteboard it, join a group, join an un you know, join an entrepreneurial group, apply to some of the the venture fund incubator programs like speedrun an A16C or whatever it is, right? There's tools available to you as an entrepreneur that are really useful and happy to help share those, right? I don't know if they're very widely known, but there's so much of of a support system in the space for people who want to do their own thing.
Krish (42:04.215)
Yeah.
Krish (42:11.627)
Yeah, yeah. And that again is another er another way that the internet and the the the AI sphere is really helped in a way, which is if you do apply that curiosity, which is where we started this chat, there there isn't there isn't a whole lot that you can't get the answer to or or at least learn more about. and so and so I think that's kind of really exciting is
the the bottleneck is no longer the process and it's no longer the information or evidence. It's curating that and and then saying, okay, well hang on, you know, if this is my idea, how can I find out if it's valid or not? You know, if it's a B2C thing, maybe Reddit, if it's like link if it's a B to if it's a business thing.
Maybe LinkedIn, but there are always going to be places if they're not events and communities that give you clues. And so I I guess you could start even just following your own breadcrumbs, right?
Alanna Laforet (43:19.993)
But it's okay to change industries, right? I mean, one of the things that I do that I didn't talk about is I run a nonprofit farm. and we do like women's community things and you know, we're in California, so woo-hoo stuff, right? But, you know, it's o I I have a colleague of mine who just bought a landscaping business that was been around for forty years and she's decided she wants to be a landscaper, she was in tech. It's okay to switch cur your your trajectory to a different thing.
Krish (43:22.38)
Yeah.
Krish (43:31.189)
Who knows? Yeah, it's
Alanna Laforet (43:47.994)
You know, maybe you always want to be a forest ranger. Well, guess what? Go do it, right? I think now is the time, right? I also will say we didn't cover this, but I want to be sure I talk about it. The idea of a portfolio approach to your life is really important, I think, these days. Right? I I don't necessarily if you have a full time job and that makes you feel happy and you want to stay there, that's amazing. I'm not saying quit your job. But in general
Krish (43:49.067)
Yeah.
Krish (43:52.683)
Now's the time.
Krish (44:03.19)
Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (44:15.514)
Having multiple revenue streams, you are a company, right? Your family is a company. Would your company only have one revenue stream and it wouldn't diversify? Maybe. but then when things get tough, boop. so just think about yourself as a corporation and how would you as a corporation function? Because a lot of you are C level executives. And I know for me, I ran my life not as a corporation.
Krish (44:20.748)
Yes.
Alanna Laforet (44:45.651)
I ran my life as like, you know, Alana, family. you know, wasn't a diversified portfolio of things, now it is.
Krish (44:56.587)
I love that. I I I I kind of see it as y your role is the CEO of you, right? You're the or the chief revenue officer and yeah, or the CEO or the chief revenue officer of of you. And what that means is the company you work for, even if it is a big company and that is your full time day job, that's one revenue stream in
Alanna Laforet (45:06.063)
You're the CEO of you. Yes?
Krish (45:23.365)
You LLC or whatever it is. It's it's as opposed to it's I'm Krish- I work for this company. It's like that comp no, even if it's a full-time job, that company is just one revenue stream in me. And then there are other revenue streams that I need to figure out. And yeah, that's interesting because then you can you can start applying all the company theory to that, which is like, do you have a good strategy? Do you have a do you have you got diversified revenue streams? Have you got do you make
Alanna Laforet (45:25.166)
Yeah.
Alanna Laforet (45:47.012)
Yes.
Yes.
Krish (45:51.714)
do th do those revenue streams ladder up to the the the overall thesis and beliefs that you have as a person and or as a as a company and so then all of a sudden you can all of the the things you need to do next are a bit clearer, aren't they? If you know.
Alanna Laforet (46:07.524)
They are, they are. And it it's the same thing with having a family, right? It's a corporation. You're running a company, you're running children, you know, and you're like, Okay, well, you know, I didn't think about it that way either initially, and now I do because I'm like, my gosh, like I my portfolio is running around, so I have to figure it out. Obviously with love.
Krish (46:25.165)
Your portfolio, yeah. You got your AI agents over there running amok. The kids over there.
Alanna Laforet (46:32.025)
That they're alive and they're running around. But you know, I I think it gives you grace to understand what's going on too, because you're so emotionally tied to your own life. For good reason. But it's important to detach and be like, number one, you're doing great. Whatever's happening right now, you're still doing great. But how can we fix this from a from a corporate perspective? It takes the emotion out of it.
Krish (46:43.074)
Yeah.
Krish (46:58.497)
Take yeah, takes the emotion out and then it also takes the self critique out and the you getting in your own way on on things, which is yeah, probably both similar.
Alanna Laforet (47:02.381)
Yes.
Alanna Laforet (47:10.19)
True.
Krish (47:12.577)
I love it. Alana, the it's been an absolute pleasure to to chat with you back and forth. I purposely when I speak to people like you, I don't I don't have a list of questions that we punch through because I love the idea that it's gonna meander somewhere and did. it was really cool. I love I I I'd love to sort of l you know, leave a nice hot takeaway, which is, you know, that we should all go outside. I think that is like
That is that is such a nice wrap of of what of what would help I think a lot of people get out of their own heads and and all of that is kind of the journey towards reinventing yourself and and being resilient and brave in order to to pivot into what's next.
Alanna Laforet (48:01.327)
It's amazing. And if anybody ever feels totally hopeless or like feels like they're just hitting the wall, feel free to reach out to me. I've been there, so happy to help.
Krish (48:11.947)
Love it, Alana. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Cheers. Bye.
Alanna Laforet (48:15.993)
Thank you. Cheers. Bye.
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