Industry Leaders Speak About AI at Business Insider’s the Long Play

AI is shaking up every industry, and some of the top players in superintelligence, health, media, and longevity know it.

At San Francisco’s Exploratorium on Tuesday evening, Business Insider hosted The Long Play, gathering 150-some industry insiders and executives, including Asana CEO Dan Rogers and the NFL tight end-turned-executive coach Damian Vaughn, to get the inside scoop on how career climbers and companies can thrive in the age of AI.

Will AI replace Hollywood creatives and healthcare clinicians? Who will AI make obsolete first: coders or mathematicians? And what are the broad societal implications of a world where everybody lives longer?

Business Insider spoke to Axiom’s Carina Hong, Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, Midi Health founder Joanna Strober, and entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, the “most-measured man on planet Earth,” to get their insights.

A running theme: The tech world — and modern culture overall — rewards speed, scale, and certainty. The speakers showed there’s still room for limits, skepticism, and human judgment in the long run.

The night was paired with health-conscious poke bowls, booze (a Johnson no-no), and a quick talk on sex and night-time erections (a Johnson yes-yes).

Here are some of the highlights from The Long Play.

Asana CEO Dan Rogers shared his best career advice and how he uses AI

Asana CEO Dan Rogers said he relies on AI as a “day-to-day companion,” using the company’s AI teammates to summarize information, consolidate insights, and conduct competitive research.

The tools, he said, are embedded directly into his workflow and used daily.

On career advice, Rogers pointed to a familiar Silicon Valley mantra that he believes still holds up: join a “rocket ship.” In a fast-moving tech landscape, he said, workers should focus less on roles and more on companies with breakout potential.

Outside work, Rogers emphasized consistency, calling exercise a non-negotiable. He prioritizes a mix of cardio, strength training, and yoga.

Axiom Math CEO Carina Hong believes that a powerful AI checks its own work

LLMs have been revolutionary for the front-end software engineer, but we’re not yet seeing AI taking over systems where safety is a non-negotiable without a human in the loop, Hong, a Rhodes scholar and founder of Axiom Math, said.

The mathematician said the most powerful AI will be the one that can check its own output. Because what good is an LLM that gives us five different answers to the mysteries of our universe, Hong proposed. How could a human check that answer?

“I would say that superintelligence is at its sort of max power when it’s verified,” she said. “When you know that you can just execute the output like a computer program, and then you get sort of the verifiable signal.”

Founders weigh in on the most AI-proof skills

Some of the founders who spoke with Business Insider talked about how human judgment has become all the more valuable in the AI era.

“The simple answer is taste,” Talha Khan, CEO of Seda, said, when asked what skill AI has made more important. Khan said the more context and insight you can provide an AI, the better and more unique the output.

Carmen Li, CEO of Silicon Data, said she uses her judgment to discern between a flattering AI and one that’s providing an accurate answer.

“Don’t make me feel good,” she said. “I couldn’t care less about that.”

Gary Yasuda, the president of Milan Institute, said that various AI tools are like “a board of directors” that needs the correct human direction.

“Everybody has a favorite — different technology, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity — but they all ask their own style of questions because if you don’t ask the right probing questions, they’re never going to really help you,” said Yasuda.

Off-the-shelf AI won’t cut it for healthcare

Strober, founder of Midi Health, a virtual health clinic for women, said generic, popular chatbots still face inaccuracies when it comes to questions around patient health.

“We spend a lot of time debunking the things they saw in AI because it doesn’t include only the most updated women’s health research,” she said.

The founder envisions a future when patients can rely on a specialized AI to answer some of their pressing health questions, but Strober’s bet is that it won’t replace a human anytime soon.

“Honestly, I’m making a bet on the fact that people still want to talk to someone for their care,” Strober said. “Other companies are probably going to make a different bet, but we have found that what we are going to be really good at is empathy.”

Hollywood isn’t competing with AI right now

Blum, whose production company is behind some of the most popular horror franchises and films, doesn’t think AI will make movies better.

The producer has experimented with the technology. In 2024, Blumhouse Productions announced a partnership with Meta, producing AI-generated shorts and VR experiences. He was roasted online.

That experience, Blum said, made him confident that AI can’t make movies better and that Hollywood isn’t competing with it. Instead, AI is competing with user-generated content.

“What it is competing with is scrolling,” he said. “On Instagram and doomscrolling, I think there’ll be a ton of AI there and you will see that. So I think for once creators have more to worry about than directors and writers.”

Grind culture is not a badge of honor

Founders might be skipping booze, but the grind culture persists.

On top of that, some young professionals are swearing off sex and dating, all in the name of “locking in.”

Johnson, the popular longevity guru, wants that to stop.

“We have not created a culture of health, and it’s hurting everybody,” he said.

His message, in short: Have sex, get off your phone, and go to sleep.

No one has a crystal ball

CEOs have long been expected to make institutional forecasts, but it seems these days they’re being turned to as an oracle of the future — especially amid the AI boom cycle.

When will AI wipe out the white-collar workforce? What value will money have when humanoid robots take over the world?

Johnson makes his case: Technology has enabled us to advance in our work and our health, but it doesn’t make us any better at predicting the future, he said, when asked what it means for the world to have a population that can live longer.

“My personal opinion is nobody has anything intelligent to say about the future,” he said. “In fact, when they try to say things, they’re revealing their ignorance, not their knowledge.”