Entrepreneurship, AI, and Maine's economy

David Douglas Stone built CashStar in Portland against long odds, turning the plastic gift card into a digital payments platform used by major national retailers and sold to Blackhawk Network in 2017. Co-hosts Dr. Lisa Belisle and Dr. Jeff Barkin talk with Stone about what drew him to build in Maine, where he saw a workforce of dedicated, down-to-earth people as a genuine competitive advantage over better-capitalized markets. Stone describes how the company evolved from an early vision of internet-based money transfers into a gift card platform that could handle personalized, on-demand transactions at scale, eventually setting a record sales volume in a single promotion with a national daily-deal partner. The conversation covers what Maine's startup ecosystem still needs: meaningful exits, sectoral focus, and anchor companies in payments, life sciences and food that can attract out-of-state capital and talent.

Stone and the co-hosts turn to Maine's food economy, which Stone describes as a largely underrecognized industry spanning aquaculture, agriculture and specialty food production. He argues that the sector would benefit from the same discipline he prescribes for tech: focused investment, more conferences, and stronger connections between small producers and the distribution networks that could get their goods to market. Barkin raises food insecurity as a pressing concern, noting that cuts to federal nutrition assistance will push more Maine households into hardship, and Stone points to food waste in the supply chain, particularly surplus harvests that never reach consumers or those in need, as a place where innovation could make a real difference.

The final segment takes up artificial intelligence, where Stone has written and spoken publicly about the risks of deploying increasingly capable systems without adequate oversight. He draws a parallel to historical technological disruption, noting that earlier automation hit physical labor hardest while AI is positioned to displace white-collar and knowledge workers on a much broader scale. Stone, Belisle and Barkin discuss the gap between AI's genuine utility in fields like medicine and the absence of regulatory structures comparable to those governing drugs or financial markets. Stone calls for mandatory pre-release testing, meaningful accountability for developers and executives, and greater engagement from consumers and legislators, while acknowledging that the pace of development has outrun the political will to act.