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A podcast that explores how AI is transforming careers, businesses, and industries. Hosts Greg Boone and Erica Rooney deliver real-world use cases and actionable AI strategies to help professionals stay ahead of the curve.
Learn more about your hosts:
Erica Rooney, author of The AI Gap: Women, AI, and the Next Great Leap Forward
Greg Boone, author of AI at the Speed of Trust (available for pre-order)
Greg Boone: I feel like I need
two people for every pencil.
'cause one of you can write
and the other one can erase.
Right?
Like that's so problematic
in trying to grow a business.
Right.
Or people say, well, I'm a this.
I'm like, what does
that mean You're a this?
Like what?
Like I don't understand a, this
Alec Coughlin: what's, what if this?
Yeah.
It's like how do you get promoted
if you go only do one thing?
Yeah.
Right?
Like I
Greg Boone: don't
Alec Coughlin: that be
a really sharp knife.
Greg Boone: Right.
So what I try to do for myself is,
Alec Coughlin: hey, out with Alec,
we got Greg Boone in the house.
This has been a long time coming man.
Yes, it has long time coming.
I got my little cheat sheet of notes.
Let's do this.
Greg Boone: All right, I'm ready to rock.
Alec Coughlin: Alright,
the future of work.
In your mind, where is all of this headed?
Where we are right now, 18 months from
now, how are we gonna be interacting
with AI systems for the average
quote unquote knowledge worker?
Greg Boone: For the
average knowledge worker?
I think, um, I really think there's
gonna be this evolution that happens.
Like right now my team here, walk
West, we're using it on a very
kind of independent level, right?
And so we have our own set of tools.
I got my own 10 to.
Alec Coughlin: clawed bot,
Greg Boone: obviously, right?
Uh, absolutely no idea.
What's it called?
Mul Bot.
Mul.
Greg Boone: Bott, right?
Because it makes a lot of sense.
Alec Coughlin: The
Greg Boone: lobster
Alec Coughlin: thing.
Greg Boone: Yeah.
And so, but what I think's
gonna end up happening is.
You know, we're gonna move.
I expect over the next 12 to 18 months
we're gonna move from folks using it
independently, with a small subset
of tools to groups and teams using
it in a more collaborative way to
ultimately what I would envision is
kind of this, almost like a, think of
it like a matrix management situation.
Mm-hmm.
Where all of these tools are talking to
one another, and then you and I are gonna
have a, these dynamic experiences based
on how we want to engage with the tools.
So I can envision.
We're sitting in a boardroom, we're
having a conversation, and you know,
the AI knows that I like to hear things.
It knows that I like to see graphs.
It knows that you like
funny cartoons or sports.
I don't know that about
you, but I'm simply saying
Alec Coughlin: I'm not.
I'm not.
I'm okay with cartoon.
I love sports,
Greg Boone: but could
you imagine that because.
Be because these tools can
be very hyper-personalized.
You can now meet people wherever they want
to be, where you know, whatever they want.
However, they want to learn,
however they want to engage.
And that's the thing I always
try to explain to folks.
That's the beauty of,
of a lot of these tools.
Now think of it in a way that now we are
managing the tools or the collaboration
of the tools versus creating every damn
spreadsheet or every graphic, right?
The thing I try to tell people
and I love the most about.
Using these tools is, there's
no more of this, what I call
executive vision charades.
You know, when you're trying to
explain a concept and it's like, oh,
it sounds like it's two words, and
then six months later somebody's like.
Nah, that's not it.
Let's do it again.
I was like, now screw it man.
I'm just gonna vibe this out for
you so you can see at least 80%
of the way of what I'm thinking.
It could be completely wrong, but
at least you can visualize it and
we can look at it together and
say, yeah, you're an idiot, Greg.
Right?
Versus like, going down this rabbit hole.
So I do think it's, uh, it's
gonna radically change how we
engage with one another, right?
And again, meet us where we want to be.
Alec Coughlin: I love that answer.
And one thing that my viewers always know,
I I I tend to say is like, it is very
clear when you're talking to someone who's
got their hands in the dirt and obviously
is using a lot of different stuff.
It has been always.
And one of the things I want to give you
and your team a bunch of credit for, and
I'd love to hear a little bit more about
it, is I remember when you and I started
to get to know each other, you were
telling me about all the cool different
ways that you were encouraging your people
to compete and, and, and win prizes and
do all sorts of cool stuff to incentivize,
to make it fun and not terrifying.
'cause here comes the,
you know, AI machines.
And could you tell us a little bit about,
like, culturally, how have you guys.
Been able to operationalize some of this
stuff in like a practical day-to-day way.
'cause I know everybody
loves to talk about it.
Right.
But I, I don't think there are many
people like you that are really
doing it and getting it done.
So I'd love to hear a little bit
more tactically, how do you help your
people not be terrified by this stuff?
Embrace it and not feel like it's
a lot of work, if it makes sense?
Greg Boone: Yeah.
I mean, it's.
It's a point like when we
started on this journey.
So every single employee at Walk West
has at least one gen AI certification.
Nice.
Um, I have 35 Gen I certification.
I just got two more, um,
a week ago kicking enough.
Alec Coughlin: Why don't you have 42?
Greg Boone: I You're right.
You know, we gotta set goals, right?
2026. Right.
And uh, but what I always tell folks,
whether I'm talking to executives
or if I'm talking to a team, I said,
if you want people to truly adopt
AI or really adopt any type of new
technology, I've been in emerging
technology for the last 20 years, right?
So I'm always trying to
stay ahead of the curve.
But I tell figure people,
you gotta do three things.
You gotta make it personal, you gotta
make it fun and you gotta make it safe.
Yeah.
Right.
So we gave people a 90 day window.
We gave them a budget to go get whatever
tool they wanted to get certified.
I didn't give a shit what
tool they got certified in.
What I was trying to get across to them
is how do I make it personal for them
so they can have their own aha moments.
Their own unlocks, right?
And then I said, I don't care
how you're using it, right?
If you're trying to use it to create a
script for a podcast episode with folks
in our content studio, or if you're on
the, uh, design team and you wanted to use
Midjourney and learn a lot more about the
creative aspects of it, what I was trying
to get across for them and say, look, if I
can increase their quality of work, I know
that will increase their quality of life
and they'll wanna stay engaged with this
because this always, you know, firsthand.
I use ai.
You probably use AI both
professionally and personally, right?
And so when I talk to executives,
I say, look, if you want people
to embrace this, you have to
first make it personal for them.
Why do they care?
Right?
And so when I talk to enterprises or
mid-market or even smaller companies
that are struggling with the adoption,
I always tell them, I say, look, this is
the first technology I've ever come across
where it affects every single human on
the planet, which means it affects every
single employee in your organization.
So when you're talking about how
much productive you want to be as
a company next year and how you
want to hit these goals, all they
hear is AI is gonna replace me.
You have not even tried to figure
out where they are in the story
arc. So now you have 90% of your
organization rowing against you.
When historically, when you're doing
digital transformation, you only had
to worry about one or two people in
it potentially sabotaging you, or one
or two people in this executive team.
Now you got 90% of the people
who's like, no, I ain't doing that.
Like, it's not gonna replace me.
And so once the team started to
understand how it helped them again,
have a greater quality of work,
they were like, okay, I get it now.
I'm all in on this.
Right?
And they, they don't really see
a path and going back, they can't
imagine working without it now.
And so that's what you have to do.
Personal, fun is safe, man.
Alec Coughlin: Alright, so let,
you touched on something there that
I, I don't think is talked about
nearly as much as it should be.
And you got a lot of
firsthand experience with it.
So here we go.
Um.
I remember someone once told me, they
say, Hey, you know, you wanna know what,
what a culture of a business actually is.
It's what happens when the boss and
or the boss and somebody else leave
the conference room or the office.
And it's the things that happen and how
they happen in that environment, right.
And so I think that you nailed it.
I think there are a lot of people in lots
of different offices who are literally
thinking so and so wants to embrace
ai, and this AI initiative is just the
beginning of the end to just take out my
function, my role, and so on, so forth.
And so for those leaders.
That are either not aware that
that's going on or maybe they are
aware but they don't wanna talk
about, they dunno what to do.
Um, do you have any tips, do you have
any observations of like, how do you
address that and, and help people have
some psychological safety around how
to start stepping into this stuff?
Because like you said, once
you see it, you can't unsee it.
Right.
And you would never go back.
You know,
Greg Boone: there was, uh, the moment when
CloudFlare was down a few months back.
And uh, and it was, it was down from
like six 30 to like nine 30 Eastern time.
It's bad
Alec Coughlin: time.
Greg Boone: My team was coming in
doing wellness checks on me and
they were like, is Greco be okay?
Alec Coughlin: I don't think so.
No, I don't think
Greg Boone: so.
I was like, I would keep
coming outta office.
I was like, gamma was down too.
Gins spark's down.
Everything that sits on that, we
Alec Coughlin: got it.
Correct.
We know.
Greg Boone: Right.
And then I started, right?
I started to go down this path of
trying to like, I literally was trying
to mess around with Google Slides
and I was like, what am I doing?
I was like, all right, I'm
gonna go do something else.
And I talked to a few other colleagues.
They were like,
Alec Coughlin: play some sports.
Greg Boone: I mean, literally some grass.
My, my co-host and co-train
Erica, she said, yeah, I'm
gonna go fold some clothes.
I'm going home.
Like do something.
You're gonna do something.
'cause it's just not productive.
Right.
But you said the right word.
You know, I take it back to
the psychological safety.
The reason why I say
personal, fun and safe.
Right.
The safe part is just as critical.
They need to understand
that there can be failures.
Right.
That it's going to be okay.
They're not gonna get it, you know?
Correct.
Immediately.
The other thing that I did and I didn't
really touch on was, and you were
talking about you can tell the culture
when, when the boss is not there, is.
That 90 day period.
See, I was showing them what I
was doing for six months prior
to that 90 day period, right?
I was trying to lead by example
and show them all these things.
But during that 90 day period, I delegated
that to my next line of direct reports.
I didn't even get
involved with the 90 day.
I didn't want them to feel like
I was looking over their shoulder
or that I was checking their work.
I wanted them to have the independence.
I wanted the organic nature of it.
And then once you start to see
the Slack channels light up.
You start seeing people showing different
articles, different tools, right?
You start seeing people talking
about, oh man, did you try this?
Or you try that?
Like that was the biggest
smile I ever had on my face.
'cause I didn't even have to be involved.
It organically started to work, but
it started with me leaning in from
the top and saying, I'm using it.
It's okay if you guys use it.
Alec Coughlin: Nice.
I love that.
And you show you don't tell, right.
Which is a big deal.
Um, alright, so let's, let's
move towards some examples.
Um, I, we both love go to market
and hunting and, and sales and
marketing and all that good stuff.
So one of the things we kind
of touched on before we, we.
Jumped on air.
Here is this notion of AI's role
within the SDR and BDR and sales space.
And so for those that maybe aren't
as familiar, like just unpack your
thoughts and what you find interesting
in this area of AI enablement within the
B-D-R-S-E-R and, and kind of sales space.
Greg Boone: Yeah, I think there's a
lot of opportunity in, in general on
the go-to-market side of the house.
We use it quite a bit from things
like, um, automating workflows
around presentations, proposals.
Uh, obviously a lot of people do it for
note taking, but then translating that
into, okay, how do I go from the note
taking to the deep research on who.
Uh, client or prospect is what
is their industry looking like?
The market intelligence, packaging it
in a way that my team can consume it.
I do quirky things like use Suno to
make a song about whatever the thing is.
Again, I'm trying to show people there's
different ways that you can learn
and absorb this information, right?
Um, there's just abundance of
different ways that you can use.
You know, a broad range of data
enrichment tools and things like that.
And then I have this like, uh, this
kind of weird view, I would say on
we go SDR r side of the house, right?
Weird,
Alec Coughlin: spicy.
That's what we're here
Greg Boone: for.
I mean, look, look, here's the,
here's the thing, like contrarian go.
I love the idea of having AI
go make calls for me, handle,
uh, a prospecting conversation.
Qualifying, right?
'cause I do think that the old way
that we've done SDR and BDR and have 19
hoops for the client to jump through,
you're gonna talk to this junior person
to qualify you to see if you actually
got enough money or to waste their
time, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
Now I'm gonna hand you off to a manager.
Then they're gonna get to your director.
I'm like, man, that's
a terrible experience.
I get that right.
And so I love AI for that use case.
What I'm not so bullish on right now is
this whole, uh, the, the anthropomorphism
of, you know, creating, you know,
okay, you brought my grandma back
to life to now sell me a new CRM.
Cool.
Like, there's nothing
weird about this at all.
Alec Coughlin: Whoa.
Greg Boone: Right.
But it's
Alec Coughlin: like, what's, grandma,
can we talk about other things too?
Or
Greg Boone: just there's this like,
like, why do, why does it need
to look like a human right now?
I know that I'm talking
to a machine, right?
There's a little bit of glitch here and
there, which creates that uncanny valley.
Why are you introducing
this friction right now?
I get, there's a lot of psychology,
there's a lot of data that's gone into
this and there are a lot of folks that
I, that I respect that are doing some
great work, but I'm like, come on man.
Do we really gotta jump?
We gotta jump that far already.
They just learned how to use
AI to help with their email.
Now you're just gonna put
this random person in front of
them to sell them this thing.
Alec Coughlin: I know it's a robot.
Just, just have it be a robot.
You know?
Greg Boone: Like, come on, man.
We're Google robots right now.
Alec Coughlin: Yeah.
Greg Boone: And so for me, that's the
part why I, I don't quite understand.
Like I understand we will get there.
What I don't understand is.
Is this really what people are asking
for is like, like, are you, are you
not able to sell this with or qualify
this without the person looking
like a human, or at least make it a
duck or something so funny, right?
Something.
Right.
And so, but I also get, and
I understand why, right?
There's this, um.
The idea of, again, making it
hyper-personalized where, you know,
uh, Amanda Colo, um, she used to be
the co-founder of, uh, sixth Sense.
And I think she has a company, one mind
respect the hell out of what she's doing
and, and what that group is doing and,
and her vision for the idea of like having
a, basically a personalized SDR, right?
So if you want this person to
look this way, talk this way,
you want them to be punchy.
Do you want them to be straightforward?
I get all of that right.
And I'm not to mention that, I'm like, but
I do think there's levels to this, right?
And like for me, I'm like, yeah,
I'm just gonna opt out of the the
fake looking thing for right now.
Yeah.
Right.
And then more people come along,
Alec Coughlin: it's jobs to be done.
Right.
So like how does the job need
to get done in the way that's
mutually beneficial for both the
prospect who has very limited time?
Um, who maybe does or
doesn't want to see Grandma.
Right, right, right.
Or Donald Duck or Right.
You know, if you put a USC
Trojan in front of me, I wouldn't
be all excited to talk to it.
But if you put, you know, that
other school in LA I'm like, you
know, you just lost me completely.
Greg Boone: You just
introduced so much friction.
And that's the part where
I'm like, I don't understand.
Why are we.
Why are you doing that right now?
I also get that in many instances, um,
a lot of these products, they create the
optionality of it, but some of them have
gone all in on just the video SDR, right?
So I do think there's some stair stepping,
I think the experience in general.
I know that wasn't really the
question, but you're moving.
I always tell people, I said the.
The, the, the greatest thing that, you
know, Chatt PT did or OpenAI did, was
make the AI look like Google search.
Then I followed that up with, and
the worst thing that OpenAI ever did
was make it look like Google search.
Right?
Because now people treat it
like Google search, right?
And so now you, you go
from a text box interface.
To somebody that looks like my grandma.
Alec Coughlin: That's a big jump.
Greg Boone: I'm like, come on man,
let's sta step this thing a little bit.
Alec Coughlin: It's a big jump.
Um, I don't know why I'm going
there, but I'm gonna go there, right?
Which is, I think about
BDRs and SDRs today.
Um, and they're great, right?
And, and, and they come up through
the ranks and they do that work.
And then eventually, you know, they,
they step in these other areas.
One thing that I think we all can
generally agree upon is that there are
areas of work that we, historically, when
we came up, we got to do that work, and
that helped us develop a certain skillset
that we could then build upon, which
is a foundation and so on and so forth.
And so there are some that are concerned
that some of this AI stuff in those
areas is hollowing out the ability for a
strategic business development and sales
leader to eventually become that because
they don't get to do the things that
AI can now do as well, if not better.
And I wonder what your
thoughts are on that.
So if you're a, a, a young guy or
gal coming into the, you know, their
first job or what have you, and
you, you want to get into sales.
What role do you think would make
sense for them in light of, of,
of where this is all headed with
SDRs and BDRs that are AI enabled?
Greg Boone: Here's what I say about that.
Like I would say theoretically
that was how folks came up.
In reality, there was a lot of bad
managers that treated interns, like
they weren't teaching them the craft.
They were teaching 'em to do every
piece of grunt work that they did
not want to do a thousand percent.
Right.
And so if we're saying, I've
Alec Coughlin: been there,
Greg Boone: that going
to go get the coffee or
Alec Coughlin: going to the
Greg Boone: printer, that's
Alec Coughlin: important,
Greg Boone: right?
Yeah.
Right, right.
Like, like, okay.
So what I'll say to that is like.
You and I were likely at some point
in our careers, uh, um, blessed
enough to actually have mentors and
leaders that actually let us do work.
So in 1998, I was a, a software intern at
down the road here in Durham at IBM, and
I got to be in an actual office with other
people that let me write actual code.
Right.
IBM invested in me.
I always tell folks, uh, in
the education system, I say, I
didn't need four years of Java.
I learned c plus plus.
And then IBM gave me a one week
accelerated Java training class for 40
hours, and then I was writing code Yeah.
Alec Coughlin: Good to go,
Greg Boone: right?
I was writing code for
WebSphere, uh, a long time ago.
Right?
And, uh, and so it, what I would say
to that is now you have these tools
where you can still mentor these
folks and actually get more value.
Out of the junior rankings, then you were
able to get out of them historically.
Right.
And so now what I would say, we
had an intern here, true story.
Young man just graduated high school.
I hadn't started college yet.
I met him, uh, he was doing
a robotics, uh, uh, project.
And he was just so happened, he, they
were sponsoring something at this NC
Tech, uh, leadership event last year I was
speaking at, and we hired the young man.
Uh, shout out Brandon Cameron
and, uh, and crush it, I'm sure.
Yeah.
And so now he is, he's starting at
UNC Charlotte in computer science.
Right.
He would blaze through so much work we
would give him, because he was AI native.
Alec Coughlin: He's, I ask some more.
And we were like, like,
Greg Boone: whoa.
Alec Coughlin: We were like,
Greg Boone: so we're out there
talking about, so this idea was like,
oh, well we need to, to teach him.
He was teaching us.
There you go.
Right.
And I, and I wrote a post about that
and I was like, what People don't
understand, we learned so much from
having this, this young person in.
And what I, you know, my mom always
taught me that, that you have to learn
from every moment, every, uh, you
know, interaction from every person.
I tell people from the janitor
to the chairman, right?
You should be learning from everyone.
Right, and so for me it's like.
Use these tools to give you ways to figure
out how you can skill these folks up.
But never forget that you, you
are also learning in that moment.
You are learning how
to be a better manager.
You're learning how to
be a better teammate.
Right?
And there's so much more, and I'll
tie this back into AI in a little
bit here, because those managerial
skills are a great unlock, right?
And so for me it's like use
these to figure out what are the
things that you need to be doing.
And sorry to go on a red here,
when you bring up interns, right?
One of the other things I say all the
time is, and I get frustrated with, I
was like, I want people to stop making
the analogy that AI is a smart intern.
Right.
I want 'em to stop doing.
And the reason why I'm to stop doing
is 'cause when you think intern, you've
already boxed yourself in and pigeonholed
yourself into what an intern can do.
I don't know, an intern that can go
do, you know, c create a McKinsey
level marketing intelligence
report, state of the, you know,
uh, state of the union or state of
the technology type of engagement.
And then turn that into a web application
and a website, and then go make a
commercial with VO three or SOAR two.
And then, and then, and then.
Right.
So when we keep saying that it's just
like this, or it's a really cool tool
or a really smart tool turn, you are
now putting this box around it, right?
And I think that is one of the challenges
that people are facing right now.
They have no frame of reference or
understanding of what can be done.
So for me, I take the position of
it can do every fucking thing ever,
and then I work back from there.
Because that allows my mindset
to be different and to shift
into a mode of like, no, I'm
not gonna call this an intern.
No, I'm not gonna treat this like search.
Right.
That, you know, that's
a pet peeve of mine too.
It's like, oh, when you're AI search,
I say searching using AI is like
one, 100th of what I do with it.
I instruc.
I am telling the thing to go build
something amazing is what I'm doing.
Alec Coughlin: It's a system.
Greg Boone: It is a system.
I think of it almost like an
IDE for for business folks.
Right.
It's like it's my own integrated
Alec Coughlin: here.
Here comes cowork.
Right, exactly.
Which is why the whoa
wheels just came off.
Airplane taking off.
Greg Boone: Exactly.
But imagine though that you haven't
been learning and understanding.
So the folks that have been
doing this and building these
skills, it's like, think about.
We've effectively been interns
for AI for the last three years.
Like you and I have been interning with
chat, pt, Gemini Claw, perplexity, all
you know, name your foundational model.
So we've gone through our own
internship over the last three years.
It's been great.
Right.
And now I got, yeah.
You know, I'm ready to
get promoted to co-work.
Right.
You know, let me tell you, you're gonna
be like, I know, I, I told you off camera.
I was like, I have my own, uh, uh, we
were, we were joking about how these,
uh, things don't fail gracefully.
I sometimes, I remember I was using
Gins Spark and I was using, um, I've
done this with Claude and other things.
I was using Love, I was working on
something and it, it's like, I don't
mind paying for more credits, but.
I shouldn't be figuring out that
you either the, the token, the,
the, uh, context window is either
run out or I need more tokens.
Like there has to be some way
that you inform me of this
and not just, just take my
Alec Coughlin: credit card and go to the
Greg Boone: bar.
It's just like, it's
just, it's sitting there.
It won't load anything.
I don't know what just happened.
Right.
And so, well, I will get there though.
Alec Coughlin: Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I, I'm gonna
ask you a spicy question.
I think you know what I would say,
but you get to say whatever you want.
Um, as always.
So it sounds like.
It sounds like there's a lot of people
out there that don't really understand
how incredibly productive and amazing
an intern can be, let alone any other
human, you know, whatever you wanna
describe, entry level, et cetera.
If and when said human comes in
and you know, lets it rip using
these, these tools, technologies,
and systems and, and why is there
such a disconnect on that generally?
Greg Boone: I think it goes
back to what I was saying about.
You know, the greatest thing
that chat GPT ever did was make
it look like Google search.
Mm-hmm.
So many of the folks that I've,
I've done training for teams,
for groups, for companies, and
we ask at the beginning, right?
We always tell people, we'll move you from
ai anxious to curious, to serious, right?
I trademarked AI serious, and then
my, my co-train Erica, she said,
well, there has to be something
between curious and serious.
So she came up with AI confident, right?
One America.
And so it makes me move, move
folks to, to AI confident.
And we'll ask people like,
Hey, are you anxious?
Are you curious?
80 something percent of the folks
like, oh, I use AI every day.
Right?
And then we start training
them and we start teaching them
how to reduce hallucination.
They're like, I wanna take that back.
Like when I said that I use ai,
what I had meant to say was, you
know, I use it to craft emails or
to summarize things I did not know I
can create an entire web application.
I did not know that I could now, you know,
bring to life all these things I've been
dreaming about for the last 10 years.
Right.
So part of the disconnect is the
level, where are they on that spectrum?
Right?
Because I used to always debate
with folks, like for the last two
years when I see these reports and
say, you know, 78% of, uh, companies
say that their folks are using.
Yeah.
I'm like, yeah, but to what
level are you using it?
Right?
If you're not using it to 10
x yourself, then I, you might
as well, you're not using it.
It's not like you go around
and tell people I use, uh, you
know, uh, Google to, you know.
To go browse things, like why, why
would you, like, why would you say that?
Right.
Not anymore.
Okay.
Right.
You don't say that.
Right.
And so the disconnect is how people are
actually using it and what they can, you
know, assume it's capabilities to be.
It's the old, uh, Henry Ford,
you know, scenario, right?
There was no frame of reference.
So he, you know, the old, uh, or I dunno
if it's an urban legend or if he actually
said it, but the idea of asking, you know.
What would you want?
And they would say a faster horse,
because they had no frame of reference
what a car was like, you, me, to get
in that thing, there's fire in it.
Like, no, I'm, I'm good man.
Right.
But that's how people
look at these things.
They don't really
understand what they can do.
The other part of the disconnect again
is I always, whenever I'm talking
to folks, whenever I'm on stage, one
of the first things I always start
with is this Upton Sinclair quote.
Right?
And it's from 1934, and I always tell
people I'm not well read, so I'm not even
trying to pretend to be, but I saw as.
Online a while back.
And I was like, that, that
hits the nail on the head.
Which is, is, you know, the quote
goes, it's difficult to get a man to
understand something when his salary
depends upon his not understanding it.
Right?
And it's not about ignorance, it's about,
you know, future shock or loss aversion.
Right?
Our emotional identities are tied
to our historical kind of, uh,
processes, our historical titles, our
historical business models, right?
And I get it, right?
We create these analogs, you know,
'cause we wanna hold onto this
past because we don't really know
what our role is in the future.
Like, I understand all of that, but by
doing that now we see this intern come in.
Now we see this operational person come
in, and we are not allowing ourselves
to abstract out their capabilities to
work with the machine right now versus
in the past, because in the past, by
degrees in computer science, right?
So yes, I know how to write code, right?
I don't want or need to
write code anymore, right?
I can understand it, but I think
Sam Altman said was the last
year that it's the, the year of
the, the idea guy or gal. Right.
And so what people have to understand is
there's so much more value outta these
people in your organization that have
always had these ideas and these dreams.
They just couldn't bring it
to life, or they couldn't
articulate it in a certain way.
Right.
And sorry to be long-winded about it,
but it's the, I'm passionate about
this stuff, but what I've seen is I
have people that are in a multitude
of different roles now in the company
that are bringing ideas to the table.
You would've never thought, right?
Because they couldn't articulate it
and they couldn't map it out in a way.
That we would be able to consume.
'cause they didn't have
quote those skills before.
Alec Coughlin: So sometimes during
these podcasts, someone will say
something and in my head the,
there's a little bell that goes bing.
Right.
And I know that what you just said is
gonna be at least in the top three,
if not top two of, of, of how I'm
gonna summarize this, but one thing
you just said, and maybe, maybe I'm,
you know, using your idea a little
bit differently, but I think what you
just said, correct me if I'm wrong.
Is that organizations have so much
more potential that you don't even
realize until you start to create this
environment and this culture of humble
confidence, psychological safety.
Show them.
Don't tell them from the top down, bottom
up, et cetera, and then just light it up.
Right.
Is that kind of
Greg Boone: Uh, that's a
hundred percent correct.
Right?
Because we built a whole education
system and a work culture where it
is so siloed and highly specialized
from every single thing that you do.
And I've said this to my team for
years, not just in the age of ai.
And I would tell teams all the
time, I said, I feel like I need
two people for every pencil.
'cause one of you can write
and the other one can erase.
Alec Coughlin: Right?
Like.
Greg Boone: That's so problematic
in trying to grow a business.
Right?
Or people say, well, I'm a this,
I'm like, what does that mean?
You're a this?
Like, what?
Like I don't understand a, this,
Alec Coughlin: what's, what if this?
Yeah.
It's like how do you get promoted
if you only do one thing?
Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
Like I, I'm
a
Alec Coughlin: really sharp knife,
Greg Boone: right?
And so what I try to.
So what I try to do for myself
is remove those barriers, right?
Because what we were really saying
is, I only know how to use this
type of tool in this process.
It's not that they didn't
have any business context.
It's not that they didn't have any
dreams or any ideas that we could make
a new product or service, or we can
provide better quality or greater value
to our client, is that they were told.
That to get ahead, you need to
do this one thing really well.
Right now we're in this Renaissance age of
ai, whether, you know, I was doing stuff
with um, MIT exec Ed and Dr. Wessman would
say this, or Dr. IC at, uh, UNC Charlotte,
in, in their AI and computer science.
They would all agree that we're in this
kind of generalist and people need to
have a broader set of skills, right?
So the people that are gonna get
ahead have a broader set of skills and
they know how to wield these tools.
Not one or the other.
Right, and so what I try to explain
to folks is you never know who, I
mean, those pockets of innovation,
you never know where they come from.
A lot of folks, whether it's MIT or
Harvard would say, a lot of innovation
comes from the middle of the company,
not from the top, and a lot of times
it's from the bottom up, right?
We talk about the AI
native intern that came in.
He showed us different ways.
Like we were like, yeah,
this should take you a month.
He's like done like, Hey man.
Alec Coughlin: He's like,
he's like four hours.
Greg Boone: He's like.
It is like surely it
can't be great quality.
Yep.
Great quality too.
Alec Coughlin: It's
actually phenomenal quality.
Greg Boone: Right.
It was like,
Alec Coughlin: try
Greg Boone: it.
Okay.
Right.
Fucking
Alec Coughlin: whoa.
Greg Boone: So we were having
a hard time feeding the beast.
Right.
Love it.
Like feeding the machine.
Yeah,
Alec Coughlin: yeah, yeah.
Greg Boone: You know, and so like
this whole I in early last year, man,
the number of people that would say,
Hey, my, my son or daughter is going
to Duke, or MIT and this and that,
and they're in computer science.
I told 'em they should get out of it.
I said, no, no, don't do that.
Hey, slow down.
Alec Coughlin: Let's not get crazy.
Greg Boone: Right.
But I did say that people do need
to have a broader kind of, uh,
spectrum on what they can do.
The soft skills, we don't
even call 'em soft skills.
We're call 'em survival skills, right?
The folks that can actually communicate
that can better understand, um,
business context for years, I think you
and I off camera at one point talked
about, uh, the Ford deployed engineers
and some of these things, right?
Um, and I used to have like field
engineers I would call 'em, where we
would work with clients for years.
And one of the biggest, um.
Points of feedback that I would
get is our clients would come
back and they say, you're good.
Your guys are, you know, your
people are technically sound,
but they don't understand what
we're trying to accomplish.
Alec Coughlin: The business stuff,
Greg Boone: they didn't understand.
They understood how to write
beautiful code and solve the
problem that was put in front of
'em, but without business context.
And so now I think the people
that are gonna get ahead have a, a
broader range of business context.
They can understand the business,
the operational side, you know,
some of the technical side to
the level that they need to.
They don't need to know
how to go trace code.
I, I had to learn when there was no IDE.
Right.
Alec Coughlin: That's amazing.
Greg Boone: Yeah.
Alec Coughlin: Yeah.
Greg Boone: So
Alec Coughlin: that's amazing.
All right, so let me double click into
this 'cause I think this is a. I love
this conversation and it's going in a
lot of different directions and, and
they're, they're all interconnected, but
I think this is, this is interesting in,
in, in, in this context, which is, so
I've heard a lot of people say that in
order to embrace AI enabled systems,
AI, infrastructure, et cetera.
They would agree a thousand percent
with everything you said around this
idea that it's, it's horizontal,
it's vertical, it's everything.
Right?
Because anyone can use this in a,
in a, in their functional role and
so on and so forth, and therefore.
I think the $64 million question starts
to, to step into is how do people think
about narrowing their focus in, in, in
an area that's their circle of competence
where they can get extraordinarily good
at, you know, 10 x better at that thing
that they're kind of uniquely good at.
But simultaneously, to your
point as well, um, how do they.
Increase their horizontal or diversify
those skill sets and become more of
a generalist so that that they can
operate and function in a way that
enables an organization to maintain.
Its its advantages with scale, right?
More people obviously working
together can create a lot of leverage.
Do you think that there, you're
gonna have to recreate workflows and
operating models where you're gonna
have smaller bite-sized teams that
come together and attack problems and
opportunities in a cross-functional way?
Do you think the traditional, you know,
organizational structure model that we all
just kind of take for granted, 'cause it's
been, the way it's been for the last 25,
50 years is just gonna sustain and evolve
and, you know, kind of click through it.
Like what do you, I know it's
like an abstract te well.
Greg Boone: What I'll say is I learned a
lot from a lot of people, but you taught
me something that we just, uh, we kind of.
Backed into last year.
I remember when you were on my podcast and
Erica and I, and Erica's, our chief people
officer, and she and I worked together.
She calls ourself the
human and I'm the machine.
Right?
When we had, when we go out and we do a
lot of the training, and then you looked
at us and you said, oh, like Moderna.
Alec Coughlin: And we were both clueless
as to what you were talking about.
Right.
I You remember that?
Greg Boone: Yeah.
You're like, oh man, Tracy
Alec Coughlin: Franklin
Greg Boone: Rock and roll.
Exactly.
Right.
And you were like, oh yeah.
They combined their IT and HR department
and then put the head of HR over it.
I saw someone just yesterday reference it.
Alright.
On LinkedIn.
And so this was last, I don't know
when it was last May, it was late
spring when we were talking about it.
I've, I've seen other people on
stage now in the last couple of
months, you know, talk about this.
And so the point of it is they
had to blow up the org, right?
Most orgs are built on the whole
siloed kind of functionality that
I was describing before, right?
The two people for
every one pencil and so.
There.
I can't see a world in which you go
forward with that same structure.
I don't know how that would work.
Right.
Especially at enterprise level.
Right.
And I would imagine that whether
it's directly AI or indirectly
ai, that is also part of what's
happening with some of the layoffs.
'cause the layoffs are not
happening at just one level, right?
What they're, they're clearing
out entire ranks in certain.
Areas, entire groups, right?
Because once people realize how to use
these tools, it is going to reshape the
business, uh, culture and environment.
Right.
And so now going back to now, how do
you leverage your domain expertise?
The thing I say all the time, right?
And it's a worn out analogy I use, but I
say, look, if you give me four ingredients
to make a meal, it's gonna be okay.
If you give the same four ingredients
to Bobby Fla, it's gonna be amazing.
And what I try to explain to people,
your domain expertise, even if you're a
more junior person, you still have some,
you know, cone of genius or some area
that you can really focus on, right?
And then what IU what I do is I start
from my own domain expertise when I use AI
and then on the edges, I use it to learn.
About how do I bleed in, not just
learn those domains, learn who in
my organization is most likely to
be able to understand and have these
level, these, these set of skills.
Mm-hmm.
How, who else should I be relying
on for this, this, and this, right?
To gimme some ideas and then how
can I engage with them in some
way that meets them where they are
used, whether it's terminology.
Whether it's using different
form factors like, you know, AI's
beautiful in a multimodal way, right?
Again, some people, I try to
get through them with the song.
Some people I try to get
through with the video.
Sometimes it's a presentation that they
may need, maybe a briefing doc, right?
It may be an actual website,
but you are getting promoted.
You can do these things.
Scroll here, right?
So you're trying to figure
out how you engage with folks.
And then I, I've learned
that I'm a very, um.
Auditory learner, right?
So I'll take a lot of things and I'll
use something like Notebook L and it's
like, all right, now create a podcast.
I wanna listen to the information.
Then I listen to
everything at two x speed.
So I don't know what real
humans sound like, right?
There's so many folks that, that
listen to their podcast and then
someone will show me a video of them,
like, and they were talking about
something like, man, is he okay?
It's like, how much did they drink?
Or someone to get in my car and
I, they'll see, listen to like
the, I'm listening to like 20 VC
podcasts or something and they're
like, man, what is these chipmunks?
And I was like, nah man,
this is how I learn.
Right?
But because I, what people also
don't understand is that, you know,
we actually slow down to type.
We slow down to talk.
We can actually learn a much faster.
And I always tell people, I said, I've
learned more in the last six months than
I've learned in the last five years.
Right.
I get all the brain rot and all
the things like, but that is a
choice people are making, right?
I'm choosing to learn a lot more.
And so what you I would say is look
at, when you look at someone's domain.
Expertise or look at their
qualities they provide.
They shouldn't be defined by
some historical process or
they know how to use that.
Tools like I don't, okay.
A lot of people can learn
to use tools, right?
What is the business context?
What is the communi, the communication
skills that they have, right?
What is their ability to assimilate
and work well with others?
I always tell people, I say, man, I ain't
hiring the smartest person in the room.
If you can't talk to another
human, I can't hire you.
Right, because I wanna be able to
work with people and have fun and
strategize and all those things.
Alec Coughlin: Yeah.
Awesome.
I love it.
All right.
Final question.
Um, and then of course, if there's
anything else you want to, you
know, put on the table, please do.
But final question would be for those
that are listening to someone with.
Your background with your experience
and your exposure and your hands in
the dirt, what are the two or three
things that you would recommend that
they either think about or do to really
take that next step in their AI journey
and become more AI native, generally?
Greg Boone: Generally?
So I always get this question and, uh.
I always tell folks, I'm like,
I'm tired of hearing people
say, oh, just go be curious.
Just, just, just go be curious
and play around with that.
Like,
Alec Coughlin: cool.
What else?
Greg Boone: Yeah, and, and the, the
analogy I always say afterwards,
I said, I have young kids.
I said, that's like me teaching 'em
about fire by throwing matches and
gasoline on the floor and say, go nuts.
They're either gonna burn
themselves to do nothing
Alec Coughlin: or burn your house down.
Greg Boone: Right?
But that's what happens in
these organizations, right?
They either burn the company down.
Right.
Have a PR nightmare or they do nothing.
And so what I tell people, it's
like, go get some professional
training, some certifications.
You ain't gotta have 35 like me.
Right.
The reason why I do it is because I'm
actually trying to get more versed in
different roles inside of organizations.
So my latest one was, um,
AI for, uh, data analytics.
Nice.
I'm trying to understand how does
that whole industry transform?
How do we provide greater value?
What is the next leap?
And just so happened a week later I saw,
uh, there was, uh, I think Ethan Molik,
uh, put out something about Claude,
like crushing, like Excel, like being
able to do all these things even better
than copilot, which is a Microsoft
Alec Coughlin: fax brought up, right?
This is all 10, 15 days
ago is the whole world.
Ai Twitter just blew up on that.
It's unbelievable,
Greg Boone: right?
And so what I keep trying to explain
to folks the naysayers, I'm like.
You know, go back to like the Doug
McMillan, uh, Cee O of, uh, Walmart.
I know we talked about this last year,
but it's like he, he said, we're not
gonna hire people for three years.
Right.
And not, not three months.
Not three quarters for
the next three years.
And he said, if there is a role
on this planet that AI does not
impact, I have not found it yet.
Right.
And so to bring it back, what
I try to tell people is go
get an actual certification.
There are gonna be a lot of people that
raise their hand and say, I use ai.
How do you discern?
Who knows what, if they've
got no formal training.
When people start to put now
chat, TPT and all these other
things are now the new, uh.
Microsoft Word on someone's resume.
Like I know Word and Excel, right?
Like, what does that mean exactly?
I'm
Alec Coughlin: very
functional in these areas,
Greg Boone: right?
I'm fluent at these, right?
And I'm like, look man, you need to
go get certified and then you need to
go, uh, you need to build in public.
You need to actually build things.
So like creatives for, for last
like 10 or 15 years, start having
their own, uh, portfolios online.
You'll have like folks in the web world or
you'll have, uh, developers like, this is
what I have on GitHub and this and that.
These.
Folks will have to learn how
to, uh, showcase themselves.
What I tell people all the time, and I
was, I remember being on stage in, um,
Chicago last year for, uh, uh, American
Marketing Association, and I tell people,
I was like, look, on one side of the
fence, if you lean into ai, you'll likely
make more money and have job security.
On the other side, if you don't lean
into it, you likely won't have a job.
So I'm not really sure what
the, the debate is, right?
Like that tsunami hit, you
know, in, in November of 2022
with Chad TPT launching, right?
I get the people that run for the hills,
I get the weirdos like you and I that
are trying to, you know, ride the wave.
What I don't understand that all
those people that are standing
on the shores just looking at the
wave, getting ready to crush them.
Alec Coughlin: And there
are people that do that.
Greg Boone: There's a lot of people.
Yeah, we've
Alec Coughlin: seen that.
Greg Boone: You know, we didn't get a
chance to talk about it just yet, but you
know, there's an idea of like invisible
unemployment, which it sounds scary.
It is a little scary.
It goes back to my whole comment
about the, the Walmart not
hiring for the next three years.
There's two main components
to that that I, I try to tell.
I always try to tell my team.
I say, look.
I owe it to you all to be trained
and learn what the AI economy and
the AI skillset, uh, requires.
Whether you stay here for the next
three days or for the next three
years, that's up to you, but I owe it
to you as a leader to make sure, do
you have the skills to be successful?
Because this stuff is coming
right, regardless of what people
will say or think about it.
And then you see the layoffs, the
layoffs here and there, but it's
not just about the layoffs, it's
the lack of additional hiring.
When a company that's Fortune one that
Walmart says they're not hiring for
three years, that means there's a big
group of people that historically would
have been hired next year, the year
after there is, there's no job, right?
That's one aspect of, of
invisible unemployment.
Then on the other side is there's always
a natural five to 10% attrition in
any healthy business year over year.
The difference is they ain't
gonna backfill that five to 10%.
That's invisible unemployment.
Those people are not, they're not
gonna just fill those seats again.
And so as that happens, that doesn't
show up in layoff, you know, headlines.
You're not gonna say, you know,
company X, Y, Z is still not
hiring, that's not gonna be a head.
Right.
And so that's why I would say, you know,
I got that from Jason Lempkin and, and
from the, uh, 20 VC podcast, and I'm
just like, I was like, yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
That nail on the head.
And so when you start to add those
factors in, man, I'm just like, look,
you gotta get out there and learn.
You gotta go get someone
that actually knows.
Man, there's so many, um, AI
Uber drivers out there, right?
That are just saying like, oh yeah,
I'm, I'm, I'm teaching people.
I'm like.
Yeah, you don't even understand why.
You don't understand cosign similarity.
You don't understand why vector
spaces or why these things, you
know how to reduce hallucinations.
There's no framework.
You know, you're just telling
people go walk into the
library and say, gimme a book.
Alec Coughlin: Just any a any old book
Greg Boone: a book, lemme a book
on cars and then I'm gonna go post
on LinkedIn and like, man, you
can't believe this AI is so dumb.
It gave me this kind of book.
And I always tell people, I'm like,
well, there's the concept of pei's
Paradox, which effectively says, as
humans, we know more than we can say.
Right?
So all the tacit knowledge, like I
always, you know, I try to explain
to my kids how to ride a bike.
I, that was a perfect example.
And I was like, man, just get
on the thing pedal real fast.
Don't fall right.
Not the million things that I
learned through life and growing up.
Right.
And so, but you gotta get someone that
actually understands the technology
so then that you can figure out how
to actually use it for your domain,
for your ideas, for your passions.
So
Alec Coughlin: I love that.
And I'm gonna, I'm gonna play it back
so that folks can really hear this
one loud and clear, is that you gotta
learn from folks that know what they're
doing, that have hands in the dirt.
And you gotta do the work and build
in public as you're doing the work
comfortably, but building things, using
the systems so that you develop that
native understanding that cannot be,
you know, understood by reading a book.
Greg Boone: A hundred percent.
Alec Coughlin: All
right, well there you go.
Thanks for coming, Greg.
You
Greg Boone: said that in a
like a much more concise way.
Alec Coughlin: I appreciate that.
Well, I ask the question, I just listen.
You know, it's easy.
My job's so easy, you know, you just ask
the questions, you know, just listen.
Yeah, man.
But yeah, I appreciate it.
I
Greg Boone: appreciate it too, buddy.
Alec Coughlin: Thank you.
Next time.