Alex Wiltschko

RGB, three numbers that are the map of color.

And in fact, we roughly have three different kinds of color receptors in our eye.

They roughly correspond to RGB.

We have over 300 types of olfactory receptors in our nose.

So the sense of smell is going to be, just based on that, 100 times higher dimensional, 100 times more complex.

Whatever map exists for smell is not going to fit on a flat piece of paper.

We're not going to look at an RGB diagram and be like, oh, that's why, you know, lavender smells close to this other floral, but far away from rotten eggs.

Not going to happen.

The map exists in data though, right?

So that's the core insight that we've been operating around is like, well, now we have algorithms and we have huge data sets and we don't need to wait for our own visual cortex, our own visual systems to lead us to the map.

We don't draw it on pieces of paper.

We extract it from, from data.

So that's kind of the core insight.

And then we reuse a ton of amazing technology and we stitch it all together.

So when did you realize that this was even possible?

So I got really into this problem.

Let me back up.

I got really into smell when I was very young.

Like me and my dad would play guess the spice when we went out to eat and try to figure out like, hey, what's the smell here?

What's the aroma here?