Quinten Farmer drew the long straw. He grew up on an idyllic island surrounded by people who believed in him unconditionally.
Most people aren't as lucky. With Tolan, he hopes to give everyone someone who believes in them and helps them grow.
Tolan is an unusual take on the AI industry's latest obsession: a cute little guy. Rather than focusing on an assistant who helps you do more, the Tolan team wants to build technology that helps you be.
It is voice-first, character-driven, and won’t let you rewrite its personality.
Hundreds of thousands of people talk to their Tolans each month. Many of them are parents. Most of them aren't traditional AI power users. Some of them are among the most social people they know, rather than the stereotypical lonely person we might imagine spends all day talking to AI.
I spoke with Quinten about belief, relationships, and his morally opinionated views on designing "personal superintelligence."
Available on Substack, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, X/Twitter, and full transcript on my site. If you enjoy, please share it with a friend.
Dialectic 62: Quinten Farmer - Technology That Helps Us Be
Description
Quinten Farmer (X, LinkedIn) is a co-founder and the CEO of Tolan, which makes voice-first AI characters designed to be a friend and guide. He previously co-founded Even, a fintech company for workers with unpredictable paychecks, which was acquired in 2022.
Quinten believes that we all deserve someone who believes in us unconditionally. Tolan is his attempt to give everyone that.
We discuss technology that helps us be rather than do, building for people close to him, the early design decisions that shaped Tolan, and helping people grow in small, iterative ways. Then: morally opinionated technology and the sacred, why superintelligence became “the easy part,” and Quinten’s dual life, splitting his weeks between San Francisco and a much slower life on an island in Washington State.
I hope you’re inspired to show up for people, believe in them a little irrationally, and build things that stand for something.
Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is a collaborative workspace for your life’s work and a context system for everything you and your team use to work with each other and with AI. New models are available in Notion the day they launch, and you can work with agents you build in Notion or any other agents and tools you already use. Notion keeps every collaborator and agent on the same page. Learn more at notion.com/dialectic.
Timestamps
(0:00) Intro to Quinten
(3:04) Start: Why Everyone Needs Someone Who Believes in Them
(17:36) Do vs. Be: What We Should Ask of Technology
(24:01) Quinten’s First Company, Even, and Building for People Close to You
(31:07) Clarence, Quinten’s Tolan
(37:48) Early Design Decisions: Non-human, Lore, Voice, and Presence
(49:47) Therapist vs. Supportive Friend & Growth One Small Step at a Time
(56:04) Bringing People Closer, Memory, and Why Tolans Forget
(1:03:24) Why You Can’t Edit Your Tolan: Personality, Healthy Behavior, and a Point of View
(1:12:26) Morally Opinionated Technology, Religion, and the Sacred
(1:20:51) Personal Superintelligence and Why Everybody Needs a Cute Little Guy
(1:27:50) Kindness to Machines, Digital Spaces, and Naming Tolan
(1:35:01) New Characters and Demographics
(1:43:36) Pricing, Trust, and Avoiding Dark Patterns
(1:48:17) The Team at Tolan
(1:52:49) His Dual Life Between The Island and SF
(1:59:17) Spaces that Create Belonging
(2:03:25) Closing Questions
