I grew up in a small desert town and went to an agricultural school where the day began with work at sunrise before classes ever started. Some mornings I was out in the fields, other mornings in the dairy barn. My life was tractors, soil, and chores, not computers. And it was a time when phone calls were charged by the minute, families thought twice before dialing, and conversations were short and careful. By today’s measure, it feels like a different world.
That world changed for me when a computer landed in my hands. My first machine was an Atari with only eight kilobytes of memory. That is smaller than a single page Word document today. I saved my programs on cassette tapes, pressing play and record as if I were taping a song, but instead storing lines of code. The green and black screen threw out lines of light that fascinated me. I did not know why, but I felt in my gut that this was more than a toy. It was the start of something that would change the world, and it was going to change mine too.
That feeling carried me forward. Learning to program on that simple computer set me on a path that eventually led me far from the dairy barn. It gave me the tools and the courage to build software companies and, later, artificial intelligence companies. Today, I run what I believe is the most interesting AI business in Silicon Valley. An AI company that is changing the physical world of pallets, the thing that quietly moves the world. The journey from a desert farm kid to a CEO in Silicon Valley all started with that spark, that gut instinct that computers would matter.
I see the same pattern now with artificial intelligence. To me, the closest comparison is not electricity or steam power. It is the leap we witnessed from wired phones to cell phones. At first, cell phones were seen as just wireless telephones. You could call from the road instead of being tied to the kitchen wall. But very quickly they became much more. They turned into cameras, maps, flashlights, calculators and a hundred other tools. They became a multi-tool for daily life, something no one wants to live without.
AI is making the same kind of shift. Right now many businesses think of AI as one tool among many, maybe a helper for writing or a system that can count or recognize images. But just like cell phones became much more than phones, AI is becoming much more than a single-purpose technology. It is turning into the foundation for how modern businesses run.
In the pallet yards and factories I work with, AI is already proving its value in a big way. Vision systems can automatically grade pallets as they move down a repair line. Yard managers can check quality and throughput in real time instead of waiting for end-of-day reports. And it is not only our customers who benefit. Our own software is learning and improving itself with its own AI. This is not an experiment anymore. It’s becoming a core system. Just as cell phones changed the way we communicate and live, AI is changing the way pallet companies operate and compete. It is not just another piece of software to add to the mix. It is the next platform, a new layer of infrastructure that pallet businesses will build on for decades.
I felt it as a boy staring at an Atari in the desert. I felt it again when phones jumped from cords on the wall to wireless magic in our pockets. And I feel it today with AI. That same gut instinct that led me to learn programming is now helping me build and run companies that put AI to work. What began with farm chores at sunrise has carried me all the way to Silicon Valley, where the future is being built. And AI, like the computer and the cell phone before it, is not just another tool. It is the next leap forward.
Editor’s Note: Elhay Farkash is the CEO of Zira, an AI-vision telematics company that specializes in working with pallet and wood products companies among other sectors. For more information, visit www.joinzira.com or call (650) 701-7026.
