How to make AI worth your time with Max Mullen
Worklife with Molly Graham
TED
4.8 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you’ve tried AI and felt underwhelmed — or if the constant pressure to “just play around with it” makes you want to throw your laptop across the room — you’re not alone. But according to Max Mullen, co-founder of Instacart and one of the most practical thinkers on this technology, you might be closer to becoming an AI expert than you realize. In this episode, Max makes the case that expertise with AI isn’t about taking a course or spending your weekend trying to learn how to use it. Max talks about how to use AI to solve real problems, why you want to try it more than once, and argues that building a relationship with the tool is the key to getting better and faster results. This is the episode for anyone who’s skeptical, behind, or just exhausted by the hype.
Featured guest
- Follow Max Mullen on LinkedIn and at maxmullen.com/
- Visit Instacart
Connect with the team
- Follow Molly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at glueclub.com/
- Subscribe to Molly’s Substack Lesson
- Watch WorkLife videos on YouTube at TEDAudioCollective
- Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you're like me, moments like this can feel exhausting. |
| 0:06.8 | Your bosses are telling you to play around with AI, and it makes you want to punch them in the face. |
| 0:12.5 | Someone told you to spend your Saturday setting up a new AI tool, and it makes you want to |
| 0:17.1 | throw your computer across the room. |
| 0:19.7 | I get it. |
| 0:21.6 | Despite working in the tech industry, I am actually a late adopter. |
| 0:25.6 | I did not run out and buy the first iPhone. |
| 0:27.6 | I don't pick up every piece of software that Twitter or the venture capital ecosystem is hyping. |
| 0:33.6 | I have this strongly held belief that great technology should be easy to use. |
| 0:38.9 | Great products don't need a user manual. |
| 0:41.7 | I often say that great technology should come to you. |
| 0:45.3 | You shouldn't have to go to it. |
| 0:47.6 | And what I mean by that is simple. |
| 0:49.3 | Great products make it really obvious why they're going to make your life better. |
| 0:55.5 | I've been around long enough to see a few real revolutions in tech, things like the internet, the smartphone, social media. |
| 1:02.9 | But I have also lived through plenty of hype cycles that turned out to mostly be noise. And to be |
| 1:10.4 | honest, when chat GPT launched and suddenly every conversation in Silicon |
| 1:15.0 | Valley turned into an AI conversation, I was skeptical. |
| 1:19.4 | When Venture Capital websites rebranded overnight and every startup pitch had AI in the |
| 1:25.1 | title, I was honestly a little jaded. |
| 1:29.0 | There were two reasons. |
| 1:36.0 | The first is that AI and automation research have been around for decades. Chatbots have been hyped before. Responsive AI has been a thing since Siri came out in 2011. And big tech has been |
... |
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