The Exchanges

Q Okay, speaking of another area that may be disrupted, ah, consulting is a field that people talk about often as things like implementation and doing business analysis. You can prompt that in one shot at probably. You mentioned that your daughter is going to work in consulting. Did you bless that?

A Yeah, of course. Yeah, because there's going to be a period of time where somebody's got to help all these companies figure out how to implement AI, um, And not only implement it, but how to reformulate their businesses. Because how you do things in an AI universe where you're trying to be more productive, more profitable, more competitive, it's going to be completely different. The hardest challenge for those CEOs is, am I willing to blow up my business, um, knowing that my stock price could collapse in the meantime, and then I have to build it up. And working for a consulting firm, You know, you hopefully have a lot of proprietary information that will allow you to guide that CEO as they go through that process.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, of course. Yeah, because there's going to be a period of time”

Q build a business today, given the tools at your disposal? Is it different than the way you would build a business previously? I mean, ultimately, you're trying to serve customers. Do you, I mean, one of the big things that businesses are thinking through is, do I turn over my customer service to these GPT models? But I imagine there's more fundamental questions about the way to build a business.

A Well, it just depends where you are in your business life cycle, or are you starting a business? If you already have a business, the things that you've considered outsourcing, You know, your, um, customer center, your customer call centers, whatever it may be, AI agents are perfect for. So you, you can do that. The stuff you would give to an intern, AI agents are perfect for. Um, but if you have a big business, let's just, you know, we hear a lot of stories about huge public companies that they try, they spend a lot of money to try to implement AI, and it doesn't really get them a return on investment, and people say, well, why? If AI is so great, because you already are running your business the way you've always run it, and in order to take advantage of AI, to answer your question, you have to reformulate your business completely to build it on AI. It's the difference between running a business before PCs and computers, and running a business after PCs and computers. You would do it completely differently. So starting a company now using AI, I mean, there's so many different ways that you can use You know, agentic AI to do processes and optimize, um, steps that you would take to communicate, um, and then just to use the large language models to, you know, to learn, and learning's not the right word, but to accelerate things, right? Using, you know, a chat GPT or cloud is a gr…

AI assessment note: “to answer your question, you have to reformulate your business completely to build it on AI”

Q But isn't the bigger question whether her boss will allow her to do that?

A No. I mean, it is and it isn't, right? You have to know, you have to use this as a tool and understand how it works, um, so that as it evolves over time, it can change and changes rapidly, you can keep up with it. If your boss enables you to use that extra knowledge, great. If they don't enable you to use that extra knowledge, extra knowledge, They're not gonna be your boss very long, and if the CEO doesn't understand that, he's not, or she's not gonna be the CEO very long, and if they still keep that CEO who's not using AI to get ahead, you tell me so I can start a company to kick their ass. Because, Because that's reality, right? Literally, you know, when we started streaming, and I gave you the example, it was like, okay, it's a PC now, and it's a pain to, to be able to stream, but someday you'll just click, and the video will come on, and that's what we have today. You know, you have to be able to see where your business could go, and understand how to use the tools available, and, you know, kind of guess where those tools may take you. And particularly now with AI, going back to what I said earlier, the biggest challenge for a company is going to be for the CEO to make that decision that, hey, we're going to have to blow up a lot of what we do to recreate our company because if we don't, somebody else will, and they'll have far less expense to be able to do it. When it's a…

AI assessment note: “If they don't enable you to use that extra knowledge... They're not gonna be your boss”

Q I've heard from more than a few people that they believe that using these tools inside their companies effectively means they're training the AI to replace them. That has to, that has to be true in some cases. What do you think happens in the broader job picture here when this technology continues to ramp?

A There's gonna be displacement, there's no question about it, but I'm not, you're one of those people that says, jobs will be optional, like Elon Musk said, or, um, 50% unemployment, no. Um, there's things that if all you're doing is reformatting, you know, or you're answering a question, yes or no, then, you know, you're, there's a good chance you're gonna be replaced by AI. But, if you're a critical thinker, You're, there's always gonna be a need for you. If you're a critical thinker, and you understand how to use the tools, so that you understand where best to use an agent, where best not to use an agent, where best to do, you know, vibe coding, where best not to, and you under, it's like I was telling my daughter, if you learn how to use these tools, and you know how to think critically, you're curious, so you're always learning, you're always gonna have a job. Because, as I said, AI doesn't know the consequences of its action. You don't want to be in a business where you just trust the AI, and it's like, oh shit, what did it do? You know, you need somebody as the buffer to understand how, where, when, and why, or why not to use it, and that's critical, and that's middle management in a lot of cases, and on top of that, you're gonna have companies, like I said earlier, that have to completely reinvent themselves, and when you reinvent themselves, you're gonna need people tha…

AI assessment note: “There's gonna be displacement, there's no question about it, but I'm not”

Q So what would your advice to them be?

A Um, they're doing, they don't need my advice at all, right? Um, You know, you just, it's so early. It's just changing so fast. You, you know, you've just got to stay connected to as many people as possible. Um, but I think you have to be more involved at lower levels as opposed to just programmers. I think, you know, Apple's got it right in some respect in that everybody with an iPhone, it's going to be plug and play to plug in whichever model you want, and they'll have the ability at some point just to swap those out for their own if they choose or just Like they've done with search engines, just pay or be paid. Um, but I think you want to be where kids are, and showing schools how to use AI so that it's a democratizer for education, and a tool for teachers to be able to, you know, Bring out that light in every student's eyes. You know, right now when we teach, we teach by the, the teachers there, they create a syllabus, they've got the subject matter, and then we teach everybody the same way, and then we expect all the students to know the answers to the same questions, and teachers freak out. Well, all you gotta do is use AI. Well, the only reason teachers are getting it wrong is because they're, they're asking the same questions of every student in the class, right? They're telling them to respond, To a, with an essay, and every student has to respond in the same essay. Whe…

AI assessment note: “You, you know, you've just got to stay connected to as many people as possible.”

Q But, but why wouldn't they then just start their own business and sell that as a service?

A Well, when I say go to small, medium-sized businesses, that's what I'm saying, right? Go to them and, you know, show them, just like the Rebel Cheese example, show them all the, the things that are too tedious, time-consuming, And you don't know if you'll get a return, um, if you hire somebody to do it, that's a perfect thing to bring somebody in for a few hours, a few weeks, and have them define agents and allow the agents to do the work for you. And if you don't know what an agent is, you're gonna have to learn. And the best way to learn is go to chat, UPT, or whatever, and just type in there, I'm new to all this AI stuff, what the hell is an agent? Can you teach me how to do it and how it would impact my business? And let me just tell you part two to that. If you as a CEO, manager, employee are afraid to have a heart-to-heart conversation, conversation with your AI, you're going to fall behind. And I'm not talking about your personal, personal life. Is this the right guy for me? Should I date this girl? No. But what I'm saying is, it's weird to start talking to your AI, and then having a conversation, and then thinking, okay, I need to have another one. Like, I have mine hooked up in my car, and I'll be driving and talking to it, and I'll catch myself. This is strange. But you've got to get over that hesitancy. Because, like, some of the answers, like I gave you the patent t…

AI assessment note: “Well, when I say go to small, medium-sized businesses, that's what I'm saying”