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A podcast to disrupt common narratives and constructs to empower diverse communities. We provide inspirational content from entrepreneurs and leaders who are disrupting the status quo.
Yeah, it's not a little different.
You know, I think even if you took out
90% of the hype,
you've got a capability that is
twice as big as electricity.
If you believe
we can change the narrative.
If you believe,
we can change our communities.
If you believe we can change the outcomes,
then we can change the world.
I'm Rob Richardson.
Welcome to disruption. Now.
Welcome to Disruption Now.
I'm your host and moderator,
Rob Richardson.
As always, please like subscribe.
We're here at 1819.
We're honored to have them as a sponsor
with me, a special guest,
Pete Blackshaw,
who is the founder of Brand Rank I.
Also,
he was the former leader of CentriFuze
which is the central ecosystem
here in Cincinnati.
And before that,
I think he did stuff with Nestle
and was just doing things
in digital innovation.
So he's been innovating
and disrupting for a while.
Pete, great to have you shake.
It have you?
Yeah, I mean.
So, Pete, you know, you
this is your second startup, right?
Like, what made you
jump into the startup world again
at this point?
In both instances,
you know, I was in a moment.
Yeah.
kind of an inflection point
in the digital world
where you just knew that a disruption.
Yeah.
You know, as you would put
it, was upon us.
And, you know, I struggled on the,
I think, trying to convince myself
that it was hype, shiny new object.
And as I
use the tool myself,
which has been personally transformative,
I concluded that this was the time
to take the plunge.
And it's a little bit scary.
You know, my age,
two kids going to college, but
I concluded that
I would never forgive myself if I didn't.
You know,
take a shot at it. Right.
There's some I'm working on an idea
that I'm particularly passionate about.
So you can kind of align a historic moment
with the personal passion.
You know why not.
And then the other thing
I was just thinking about was
I just think, you know, I
expertise is going to be sell demand.
There's
no there's no downside if you jump into it
because you're going to learn ten times
faster in startup mode.
You may come out with no cash.
You may come out of failure.
It happens technically.
But there's going to be a lot
of opportunities, post that experience.
And so for me, it was an acceptable risk.
And but I'm really excited
about kind of shaping the space.
So, hey, I've been around for a long time
like, you know, so
but it was obviously generative
AI that really kind of sparked you.
What do you see as this moment?
Like, I know a lot of people always say
this is going to change everything.
And at many moments in time.
And there's been a couple
times where that's been true.
but this time feels a little different.
I want to get your perspective
on how you think AI
is going to shape and change business
in our world in general.
Yeah, it's not a little different.
You know, I think even if you took out
90% of the hype,
you've got a capability that is
twice as big as electricity.
And I often say this is as much twice.
As big as electricity.
Yeah, I really I really believe that.
and I've often said that, you know,
I think one of the biggest historic
moments was a big print
and printing press. Yeah.
You know, all the knowledge was kind
of stored in the hills with the monks,
you know, and that liberated everything.
It was almost like social media
on steroids.
Right.
And, you know, this is, I mean,
this is like intelligence
that's highly accessible, right?
It is iterating at a scary pace.
so facet policy can't keep up with it.
none of us can really kind of
keep up with it.
And we're not really sure
where it's going to lead.
And there's always a dark side of
technology that we need to be on top of.
That's why you and I are taking,
a proactive and important lead
on responsible AI.
but yeah, this is absolutely huge.
I mean, just think about it from a,
you know,
businesses are going to be transformed.
there will, in fact be a lot of job
dislocation.
That doesn't mean net jobs will go down.
But a nice way of saying job lost.
Yeah, but but but I think as leaders
we have to get really in front of what
the workforce could look like.
Yeah.
You know, what does it mean
to copilot with this new capability?
And what does it mean to say
bye bye to a certain industry?
But hello to a new one.
This is where universities play
a really big role.
Universities can also be part of
the problem if they don't kind of get in.
If they don't. Evolve.
Yeah.
That's why I think this kind of this
island of the future 1819 digital futures
is really, really important
at this critical moment in time.
But it's big.
It's it's it's going to change everything.
Yeah.
I, I have I'm obviously pro innovation
across the board.
You know that
of course I do have concerns because,
I think this I think this is different
than past technologies.
So past
technologies have been sometimes industry
specific.
We've had we've had very little data
on, you know, general purpose technology.
The internet was a general
purpose technology.
so that's one example. There's not many.
I think AI is a general purpose technology
where it's not getting rid of
or modernizing one industry.
It's not the Luddites
where it's just like across the board.
It's across the board. Right?
It's like we've gotten to the point
where we're think Mark Cuban said this.
We're automating automation,
and we don't know what that looks like
in terms of the job,
in terms of the workforce,
in terms of what it looks like.
It's a to your point, it's ever changing.
And systems and, businesses
and everyone else have to adapt quickly.
So I like to hear from you like
what is your what is your biggest concern.
That business that people aren't
realizing about AI real.
And then we can talk
about the biggest opportunity. Yeah.
Well the the biggest concern is if
people are going to kind of miss the boat
and they're and when you're not kind of in
front of it,
you know, you get a little bit
brash and reckless and maybe
you, pushed the wrong policies
out of fear and paranoia.
And that's understandable
because there's a lot of unknown. Yep.
I've been since the very day it came out.
I think this can cut in a couple different
ways on the access and equity side.
There's a part of me that believes that
knows that this is a revolution in access.
And so therefore,
if we get ahead of the curve, we could
redefine the rules of access
for entrepreneurs.
I've co-led workshops
with minority small businesses where
these tools have allowed these businesses,
which have not had access
to a lot of resources, tools and the like
to kind of get a lot of them up front.
The job issue is almost moot
at the small business level.
AI gets complicated at the big level.
It gets
complicated at the white collar level,
it gets complicated at the service level.
And that's one area
that I think is disproportionately
represented by minorities and that's where
and we just got to get in front of it.
Yeah. You know,
and this is where I think leadership is.
I agree with that. Important I. Think.
And I would say
I would give credit to the state of Ohio,
kind of both sides of the aisle, I agree.
Or, you know, thinking ahead again,
I think that's why you're creating.
These absolutely. Innovation hubs
and the like.
But we have to shape the dialog
and we need to yeah, we need to.
You want a little bit of paranoia right.
I think that keeps people on guard.
But we also have to help people
see possibilities.
I mean, what makes me
different?
Well, not different.
I think you're I,
I probably put you in the same camp.
Yeah.
You know, I'm an urgent optimist. Yeah.
So I too.
I see possibilities.
I'm not a total cynic.
I'm not on the dark side of Armageddon,
you know? But.
But I recognize that if you want
the optimism, you have to get it.
But the urgency of cannot you.
And then this is what we're kind of doing
right now. Yeah.
What happens if we get it wrong?
Listen, I think it's going to be.
It'll probably change
the political environment.
You know,
you've just got a lot of polar extremes
in the marketplace and the political
environment on both sides.
And I think where there's fear, there's
division and, where there's the unknown.
and so, yeah, this could get really ugly.
And, I think, I don't think we've,
you know, we've dodged
a few bullets with a couple of the strikes
that have taken place.
You know, I think the Hollywood thing
landed, you know, it landed.
You know? Yeah.
You know, and I think they kind of found
that the hybrid model, but,
yeah, it could get there could be
some industries that really, create
a lot of, political instability and
absolutely just got to get in front of it.
And I think there's going to potentially
there's some, you know,
some racial issues. We're going
to have to be really sensitive,
like who is helped and who is not.
And this is where we need
to be really attentive to,
you know, the different sectors.
I thought McKinsey did a really good job
about four months ago, looking at
which groups will be impacted or not,
but they also had a
they kind of same thing we said earlier.
Like if we're proactive when we lead
that we can get in front of it.
Yeah. so I, I agree with that completely.
And I, we already have data on the issue,
like, we, we know
what, what algorithms do without
any type of thought process guardrails.
That's what social media became.
And that's the that's how we got
we these are
part of our human nature for on is
we have these part of our human nature.
To be prejudiced against others
is part of our human nature.
To, de-emphasizing
is sometimes to do things.
These things it depends upon,
what we want to emphasize
and unfortunately.
Right.
You know, a lot of the algorithms
focus on outrage and conspiracy.
So those things tend to divide.
And they do that
not because they're trying
to focus on those things,
because their goal is singular.
Is algorithms are rules.
And all rules,
are written in different ways.
Correct.
All rules manifest themselves in dial.
That may be correct a little bit
to the right or a little bit to the left.
In fact, this is kind of the heart of what
we're trying to measure.
As part of my new startup.
And we are
when we just need to be hypersensitive
to where we think the dial needs to.
Yeah, to sit in a way
that it, positively impacts,
the economy, consumer.
Just have to be aware,
you have to be aware
that there could be issues.
Oh no question.
Right.
Like and that's what it gets to because
they, it's it's algorithms are rules.
But you know AI is also
the maybe you're training on the data
and it's it it's going to reflect
what you input to it.
This is which is why it's so important,
which is why it's so important
to be inclusive.
So but tell us okay, but you entered into
AI wanting to solve a specific problem.
What? What got you up at night?
What problem are you trying to solve
within with using AI as a tool?
Because I tell people it's not the
technology is the problem you're solving.
So what problem are you solving?
Well, let me take a step back. So I
came to
Cincinnati after eight years
in Switzerland, leading
digital work for NASA, and had a chance
to, go all over the world and really kind
of see the digital revolution
sure place in different ways.
And so I came back to Cincinnati to lead
this startup accelerator
under funds to really kind of grow
the local and economy.
And in the process
of trying to figure out, like where
we could lead a big believer that internet
economies where there's a concentration
of talent, technology and capital,
yeah, have kind of an outsize advantage.
And so the areas that have been
not just keeping me up at night,
but actually making me want to go to work.
Yeah.
Or areas like sustainability. Sure.
Or resilience supply chains.
That was a big theme
that came out of Covid.
a lot of things on the health front,
but and then and then
as the AI stuff started to develop,
especially in the last 18 months,
thinking a lot
about the power of responsible AI,
could a region that has really good
consumer credentials.
Again, you got the world's largest
advertiser here, the world's third largest
retailer here, and the whole ecosystem
that supports that.
So could we leverage
those consumer chops credentials to
get in
front of these very complicated issues?
And moreover,
could we cultivate a lot of entrepreneurs
that would want to be the problem solvers
or the heroes in that area?
And I found myself as a pretty loud
cheerleader.
Let's do it.
And then and then I kind of got to
that moment of truth.
And I just said, I'm just going to do it
myself,
you know, give up this really big
salary and,
be part of the solution and is a whole
nother element of wealth creation.
If you're successful.
And, but and what I've been thinking
about, you know,
the areas that I get excited about
is really the collision of
AI and sustainability.
So I actually think I'm a, I,
I do lose sleep about the world,
not kind of keeping up with its,
its carbon commitments.
And I think AI is a huge, opportunity
to kind of move that ahead.
And some of my inspiration has come
from local companies like 80 acres,
where they use 99% less water
because of the way they use
artificial intelligence, you know,
and so there's some inspiration.
So I think as we get smarter,
the use of AI, AI plus sensors,
I mean, we could dramatically change
the green landscape.
And I would like to see it cultivated,
you know, here in our backyard.
Yeah.
So it sounds like you were working
to be an entrepreneur,
but, like,
you decided the best way to do that.
You had to go. Actually,
I've always I've always kind of worked.
And I was thinking about this
the other day.
I've always worked in like,
five year cycles, so I was always get
everybody thinks as a P&G veteran,
I was only there for like 5 or 6 years.
And then I, you know,
after we got interactive Marketer the year
I left to do a startup and then I did
the startup was a bit of a slog.
It took us a while
before we got sold to Nielsen,
but then I went to Nestlé and then I went.
Startups are usually a bit of a thing.
Is just kind of a hybrid
between big company and startup.
There are elements of that.
We're kind of pretty big and bureaucratic.
The other parts that we're kind of startup
nimble. Yeah.
And now I feel.
Very like I those probably sounds,
but it feels very corporate some time.
But go ahead. That's my opinion.
Yeah. I mean it sparks a big debate.
I mean, listen,
we have a store front for services,
but we also work with corporates
and we're trying to figure out how to,
you know,
how to unlock that startup
corporate connection.
And it's a lot. Of hard challenges.
Yeah I know and it's hard.
Because there's different cultures.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. Now what's different today.
It's like again
you have to exploit the moment.
There's always moments
where the organization need to be.
It needs to be stimulated.
And I think AI is a moment
where startups might have a chance
to kind of get in the door,
because there's a lot the big cows
don't really fully understand.
And I'm hoping
that I'll be one of those folks that does
get in the door,
because I'm bringing an outside
in perspective on a very,
very fast evolving, world.
It's just very, very hard to move fast
in an organization.
And organizations are really good
at like bottling up their learning
and everything about disseminating
and executing against the learning.
But now in the world, generative AI,
you got a whole different playbook
that's being developed. Yep.
So real brand rank. yeah.
Trade this. Like what?
Again, I can go back to that question
like what is brand rank seeking to do?
So I'll tell you all great ideas.
Start with a big insight. Yes.
And it's like that.
Oh. Like moment.
And for me, I was like
you and everybody
just playing around with generative AI.
And I started to do
searches on sustainability.
And I would ask questions
like, are campus diapers sustainable
or is Unilever's Dove brand sustainable?
And I was shocked how
granular and size the responses were.
And in some cases, some of that data
would come from the brand websites.
But, you know, generative
AI is a weird way.
Imagine like a blender that just kind of
takes best available knowledge,
puts it in a blender, and then pours it
in a mold that you then access.
Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
And that that's a really good metaphor
doesn't really change.
Now you can
you can change the how you can say,
give it to me as a Jay-Z rap
or give it to me as haiku
or to me as a sonnet.
But the what?
It's like one shot. What? Yeah.
And and I thought to myself,
and it was funny because I typed in
our Pampers sustainable.
And it was interesting because they said
they're trying but they're not.
And here's the reasons
and here are some alternatives.
And I thought, wow, that's like that's
like that's like implicating for brands.
Yeah. That's like a whole different level.
So I just thought
so that the light bulb went off.
I thought, you know, maybe
there's a business model in creating kind
of a Nielsen ratings of AI search
results, helping
brand builders understand
where they stand in this world.
And then could you use the, I'm a really
passion about digital marketing, right?
I kind of missed the role of being chief
digital officer.
You know. You do that well.
Yeah. Yeah.
But but I think that's
at the forefront of change.
And what I've noticed
is that a lot of brands
have gotten really lazy about not lazy.
It's just I don't think
they are even aware that they're not
serving consumers at the level
that they should in this environment.
So for example, like what?
What is. Stagnant?
What is what is generative?
I really done
it's raised the bar for giving you answers
with minimal friction, correct.
And with shocking levels of detail
and a willingness to continue the dialog.
Yeah, right.
I mean, you can just keep going.
You can.
And it feels like you're talking
to a really smart best friend.
And brands are really bad at that. Yeah.
I mean, you can go to most brands from
you know, whether it's Unilever.
I mean, there's a bunch of them.
I get names.
I don't piss anybody off locally,
but but yeah, if you go into their,
their FAQs or their brand sites, you know,
you're
not going to get a lot of information
very, very little.
So you're more likely say I'm going
to learn about Pampers on generative AI.
The problem with that
is that that narrative often is counter
to the brand's desired narrative.
So what we're doing is we're kind of
metering it and we've run thousands
of searches, to really help brands
understand, you know, how they stack up.
And then we're benchmarking
it versus competition,
and then we're putting a lot of consulting
on top of it.
Like it's not enough to just say,
we metered your brand.
It's like, here's what you need to do.
And this gets tricky. Like to really win.
In a world of generative AI,
you have to market to algorithms.
You have to understand how.
How do you market the algorithm.
Well this is important.
So we just put out
a white paper called Brand Vulnerability
in the age of AI search.
And there's something that's called
algorithmic anchors okay.
And so has some similar areas
of search 1.0.
But in generative AI
there are clear anchors
that disproportionately influence
what is being said about you.
Okay.
So I'm. Looking at Rob Richardson. Okay.
It's probably going
to be one of your algorithmic anchors
is probably going to be you see content.
Okay. Yeah.
The legacy of leadership here.
It's shaped your brand.
And I would say what you see
is on a scale of
1 to 10, I probably give them a 7 or 8
in terms of marketing algorithms.
So your content has a good chance
of getting to those algorithms.
Okay.
Brand websites are very,
very if they're done
right, right are very important
algorithmic anchors.
But it's not just the websites, it's
how you build it.
So for example,
I was meeting with someone from,
Kroger the other day.
Okay.
And Kroger's
actually doing some pretty good work on
zero waste, zero hunger.
I really I, I've read all their reports,
but I noticed
they weren't getting enough credit
in like the AI algorithms.
And I suddenly dawned on me that they put
most of their best data in PDFs.
Oh, well, that'll do it.
Okay.
And so, you know,
it's not a, you know, like a fake engine
to get it's like in a PDF.
And I'm thinking, oh my gosh.
They're like they're only getting
a fraction of the ROI on all that work.
Think of all that work.
Think of all the Rodney's speeches.
Think about all those hundreds
of employees
that have kind of toiled to kind of
get those statistics on the table.
And then when you got to the last mile
of helping the consumer to understand it,
you put it in a file
that the algorithms don't understand.
And so I think,
you know,
we're almost trying to figure out
scorecards
that make it easy for brands to see,
this is what I need to do
to get full credit. Okay.
Now, in some cases, you won't get full
credit because you're not sustainable.
You might be dishonest, you know?
And again, the algorithms
will go to town on you and that respect.
But I think generally.
Speaking, how are they going to know you
if you're dishonest?
Like, how would they.
Oh, well, because they're looking
at a lot of sources.
I mean, I'd say
the brand websites are clearly the most
the biggest cheerleaders for their.
Well, they're. Biased. They say, okay.
Right. Yeah. I mean.
It's an advertising. Vehicle. Exactly.
But I mean, why is the New York Times
suing OpenAI for 20, $40 billion?
Yeah.
It's taken
they know that they're source of truth.
This is being thrown into the blender.
It's very hard for people
to see the attribution, but they know
it is weaving in old New York Times
articles are pretty harsh about brand.
I mean, they just kind of speak
the truth, right? Right.
And there's other sites.
It could be Wikipedia.
Google just spent,
what, $40 million to license read it.
Yeah. So that stuff's getting weaved in.
Ratings and reviews are creeping into it
as well. So.
So one thing that we're, working
on, and I can't get too specific,
but I will say that this institution
is helping our thinking.
Right. A lot
is really
trying to develop some science
around those sources of attribution,
like what are those anchors
and how do you get really precise?
And I would love for, Greater
Cincinnati to be a true hub for search
analytics, AI, search analytics.
And it's going to take some work,
but I think we can figure it out.
And I think the universities are
a big are a big part of that.
But I think every brand needs
to understand
what is disproportionately impacting.
Their their search results.
What would you say is your top three
advice just 1 to 1 of the top three things
brands need to do in the age of algorithms
to protect their brand identity.
Some of it is old fashioned guidance.
I mean this you got to listen
and these are different signals.
So in the same way that you would listen
to a consumer in a focus group
or listen to website data
or listen to social media conversation,
you got to listen
to these new search dynamics.
Yeah.
And that's we're kind of providing a tool
that helps them listen.
And then they need to
they need to act on it.
I mean they need to disrupt.
Yeah.
And and I mean we're trying to provide a
data set that makes it easier to disrupt.
In most cases,
data leads you to incrementalism.
Exactly.
We're kind of saying
you've got a long way to go.
So brands need to move faster.
Your website sucks.
It doesn't. You know, the websites
don't pay attention.
The algorithms don't pay attention to it
or you know, and yeah, so we're trying to
and then and then you got to follow up
and you got to be really iterative.
Like like I would say, you know,
if you look at our web, our,
our online site, we say today brands
need to think and act like algorithms.
It doesn't mean we're all going
to become bots, but we have to understand
how these our whole future
is going to get dictated by this stuff.
But we can get in front of it,
we can partner with it.
But we got to understand what it is.
And I think that's critical for everyone.
Tough question here.
What happens is the algorithms know us
better than we know ourselves.
This is we're going to
well they will they will I mean, you know
next year you're probably going to be
interviewing yourself as a joke, right?
You know two faces of Rob.
That'll be interesting. Now the interest.
Yeah.
That might be, so
I don't know.
It's going to get really tricky.
And we're going to have to really reboot
not only brands.
We got to reboot training. Yep.
We're going to have to.
I personally think gearing up to shake up
the universities to think differently.
Okay.
Through all of it, I mean, think about it
like with generative,
I got Socrates in my pocket. Yeah.
I mean, it's like an incredible learning
experience.
It teaches math.
It never forgets anything. Yeah.
It's like and so the potential
for personalized education is huge,
but there's gonna have to be give
and take at the university level, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean. It's going to be. Tricky.
It isn't like how. Will Neville
Pinto lead?
I mean, I you know,
I've even wrote a letter to him once.
I said, dude, like this is your this will
shape your legacy more than anything.
Full stop.
I'd say the same thing that John Mueller
at PNG or Rodney at Kroger.
This is like how you manage
this is critical I agree.
You know.
And if you know that there's going to be,
you know, job shakeups,
how do you get in front of it?
How do you start
thinking about the new jobs?
How do you manage expectations?
How do you turn it into a positive?
And it sounds romantic,
but it's going to be tricky.
It's going to be really, really tricky.
It's, you know, before we go on to,
to our talk to our other points, there's
one line I read from you about customer
service, about customer satisfaction.
It's very important,
I think, even more with algorithms,
because I think you said this is that
if you have one successful customer,
they tell three people, if you have one
bad customer, they sell 3000.
And now algorithm.
That was. My book, right?
Right. Yes. That's your book.
Yeah I see and algorithms.
Now you can add to that.
You give one good customer.
Maybe you'll get six.
You give one bad customer
and you get 3 million because information
can really just iterate on itself
much faster.
Well, I think the key Rob, is it
you need to
understand how to balance automation
and intimacy.
oh. That's good.
Okay.
What the important. So I'll say more like.
So I lead,
when I was running digital at Nestlé,
you know, one of my number one
initiatives was implementing Service
Cloud across all the markets.
You know, and the market
I most admired was in China,
and it was the,
I think it was the Wyeth nutrition brand.
And I see when I go to China, I would just
spend time in the call center.
Yeah.
And it was interesting
because they were really good at
balancing Artemis,
automation and intimacy.
In fact,
they were very good at converting,
like, moms to e-commerce opportunities.
And I use WeChat,
which is like their version of.
Facebook.
Instagram, and, and they would kind of
do it at scale and they money
and they wanted to automate a lot of it.
But other times, if they knew
there was an upsell opportunity,
they would, you know,
they would have folks, you know,
doing the chat and kind of work it
and then or if a mom had a complaint
about their child, then
you automatically defaulted to a human.
And so I think there's
just a balancing act on
how do you get the benefits of automation.
And I think some of
that could get really good.
I mean, if you can automate
a friendly bot or a boy
and they're just answering questions,
but with the
with the happy face,
I think that can be a big benefit.
But there's anything that's on,
the negative side or the sensitive side
or the product has poison or whatever,
then you want to immediately
go to a human.
And I think it's going to be
really important or.
Helpful for lots of other stuff. Yep.
Yeah.
Like so and I so I, I don't think people
should over romanticize 100% automation.
I think you just need
to find the right balance to do it right.
And it's the same thing with the
certain things we like on the airline,
where we can kind of get automatic alerts
and other cases just get on
the damn phone, for crying out loud.
And they know.
And there's a calculus
that says if they completely ignore Pete
when he really needs us,
he's going to go to he's
going to go from Delta to American.
Exactly. You know, so.
Now, what would you tell young
people nowadays in this in this state,
there's been more tech layoffs,
I think, than we've ever seen since the
you and I went through the,
the ourselves.
But the.com, burst and bubble,
there's, there's a lot of tech layoffs.
It's a, it's a it's
a very shaky time for people
that are in tech,
that have been in careers
that have always been
thought to be untouchable.
Right. Yeah. Oh big time.
What do you say to, to, to those
emerging in their career at this time?
Like, what advice
would you give them at this moment?
I mean, number one,
just eyes wide open. Yeah.
And it's funny,
my daughters, an incredible
one of my daughters
is this incredible artist.
And when you're talking about
she's only a sophomore
and we were talking about real college
and, and I was actually rattling
off a number of design schools, including,
you see, staff.
And it was funny, like she was like,
you know,
hey, is all that going to be real?
It was very perceptive.
It's sort of like,
you know, isn't that going to get kind of
automated by and you know, some of it
well, but a lot of it won't.
And I think we're going to have to
remind our young
people that we're also in a renaissance
of creative confidence.
Yeah. Like my I'm
sure you feel the same thing.
Like my creative confidence
quotient has gone up dramatically.
Absolutely. Because I've got all these
help. Absolutely.
I am you know I'm writing better
with a little bit of help.
I'm taking sometimes
scatterbrained concepts and turning them
into like beautiful concepts
that are kind of like and.
I definitely, I think concur with that.
And I think everyone's got artistic
qualities are probably severely
under leveraged. Yeah.
So we need to figure out like how do we
almost like bring more creativity
in the world using those tools.
But we're going to have to lead
that thinking.
But at the same time,
we may have to tell the programmer
that programing as we knew it
before is not going to be as critical.
Yeah.
I mean, you've got the CEO of Nvidia
basically saying,
all this obsession with teaching
every kid to be a coder is nuts.
And he's the head of Nvidia. Yeah.
And so now prompts experimentation.
How do you turn rocks over?
How do you test and learn?
I mean,
I think we're in a renaissance, right?
I mean, I have written, I kid you not,
maybe I'm a bit of a freak,
but since I discovered generative,
I probably written 100 business concepts
all the way down to, like, images. Yeah.
I think my last team thought I was crazy,
but I am like a real entrepreneur.
And it's like.
And like the things
that when I was at P&G,
that would take like months to kind of
get I'm like literally
like doing like overnight.
Yeah.
You know, I wrote a concept this morning
before I came here for a new product.
and so that it's to some extent
like the ideas
and the concepts that we have in
our mind can be formalized and laid out.
And I think we just got to teach
the young people to do this.
Like all the great businesses
I know, I actually.
I agree, I have a of a bit of a slight.
Yeah. take on that a different take.
I would say
that you can do those things well
because you also have some
training experience like.
Right.
Like say like you, you have these so like,
so I want to
and I still think there are skill sets
to learning how to program,
but I do
I can I completely agree with this.
Creativity
has to be a part of what you do.
You have to can't be one dimensional in
anything you do anymore.
Like it is not. It is not going to be.
So my advice would be
you don't be one dimensional, right?
Can't just say people want to go in
sometimes say, I just want to do this.
That world is done. Like you work.
To your point.
I mean, think about some of the things
that you typically learning university
like critical thinking, right.
How to interrogate.
Now that's as relevant.
It's always you're going to be constantly
interrogating the bots. Yep.
You know and it's going to be a long time
before the deep fakes go away or
the hallucinations.
And what is real, what is not,
what is a logical sequence of dialog.
And I think these, you know, we may find
that the things we always wanted
kids to learn at universities
are going to be amplified in this world.
Zach. Highly.
I wait when I don't say
like I've got Plato in my pocket loosely.
I mean, this is a highly dialectical
process, right?
I mean, you're going back and forth
like 20 times more than you would.
But you have to know,
but you got to know how to do that.
Well, but that's a skill.
And I think that's that's a skill.
You might find that
some of the universities
go back to some of the basics, right.
Just to kind of get. Something, but like,
oh, communication.
Everybody doesn't know how to communicate
more people are going to have
to really know how to communicate.
It's very important.
I also believe that creativity
is going to be highly important still.
you know, I think we're both at a
more creative moment,
but at the same time,
I think we're, as a society
less creative than we've ever been.
Right?
I think about like musicians, for example.
Like, I just like it.
And this doesn't make me feel old,
but I look at the music now
and there's nowhere near the,
musical input.
And I think this started a while ago.
Right.
But, like, think about what
Michael Jackson even original rappers did.
They told stories,
they put things into him.
Now you can automate things,
but it's not as good quality.
People still like originality.
So I think
the age of artificial intelligence, like,
one of my friends, Lisa Fancy
Flowers, he's actually in the crypto world
and she's in the AI world.
She said, in
a world of artificial intelligence,
you need authentic intelligence.
We are one of one.
You can only fake talent
so far, right? Right.
And I sometimes I felt artificially
more musical than I really am.
But, you know, you still have to have
the foundation of talent.
You do seem like.
They help you amplify. It's not.
That's my point.
Like the tool should be seen that way.
And I think people are still.
To your point, you mentioned earlier
when you talked about
I never heard it's phrased this way,
you know, making sure you had a mixture
between automation and intimacy.
I look at that same way, like authenticity
and artificial Intel.
You need to have authenticity. Absolutely.
And that's what's going to differentiate.
What I love about what
Kendra and, and Helen are doing.
Absolutely.
I mean, that whole human in the loop,
it's a big part of our model.
Like it's interesting, like I am.
I'll give you a good example. So we're,
putting
out reports that are very data based,
but throughout the report, you can click
a button and there's Pete in the studio
explaining how to use it
with all of Pete's passion and authority.
And it's really called data theater.
Yeah, I've got to get myself
an avatar too.
I got to do that. But, you know.
But it's real.
It's real me because I,
you know, data alone is not good enough.
Sometimes.
I'm always trying to channel my,
you know, guilt tripping
Italian mother to kind of get people
to, like, act on the data.
Data alone. Won't get.
Hacked.
And again, it's, it's that balancing act
that we need to perfect.
And it's the human in.
Yeah. Data is
guidance is not determinative.
You have to it's something
you can use as a map.
But it won't. It won't.
It won't mean anything
if you don't use it.
Yeah.
It's not the things where we've been told
to do because rationally it's right.
Yeah. Eat your peas.
Yeah.
It's like, you know,
it's like every study will tell you
it's right that you need, like.
Yeah, mom to say goddamn Jesus
or you're not, you know.
Yeah. I mean, we're not
we're not rational people, so it's.
We're good to go.
so, I want to get to a few kind of,
like, questions that I ask people.
So you have a committee of three
to advise you on
life, business, whatever you want.
Tell me who these three people are
and why.
I really admire
John Pepper, the former CEO of P&G.
I think he is just, he continues
emailing him this morning on me,
and he's the type of person.
If he asked me to do something,
I'd say how high or jump.
And he's consistently there
and just always
kind of wise, ethical,
Kind of,
stem.
You know, there's some,
you know,
I want isolated to one individual,
but there's some folks
from my Nestlé experience.
So I just really, like to bring
to the table.
And I think
a lot
of, you
know, family members are always there.
So many respects.
so you got one. You play. You know what?
You know what? It used.
Oh, I need to think a little bit harder
about,
you know,
just because you might say I'm leaning on.
I'm for certain things.
I'm fine on my kids.
That's fine.
And that's a good that my daughter Layla
is like a source of incredible insight.
So my daughter Sophia, my son Liam, and,
you know,
you have to, like,
be humble to know what you don't know.
And almost
there's a certain innocence and.
Yeah, world that they see.
And so, but I, you know, I generally try
to, you know, listen to a lot of signals.
About what you don't know. That's great.
May I ask you the opposite
of that question? Yeah.
What do you know
for sure? The Oprah question.
And I know that I don't
know, I kind of still Plato
or Aristotle, but,
you know, I'm pretty humble about
the fact that there's still a lot,
and,
and that, you know, knowledge
is, real quest.
It never entirely
just kind of an end point
is, I'm really fanatical about
standing.
Kind of guided everything I've done.
And to some extent,
a lot of that is in the
and, say, trust your inner.
Yeah,
that you're probably going
to find all sorts
of great business ideas and the like.
All right.
What's an important truth you have that
very few people agree with you on?
It's always a fun one for me.
And I would say goes back to what I said
before, I think, you know, the
trust your inner consumers.
I gave a Ted talk on it.
I think, I think we does that sometimes.
And I think what specifically is
that is the belief that people
agree with you on any I don't understand.
Tell me that something in
what do you mean?
Like what's an important truth you have
that most people may disagree with.
Some people may disagree with that.
It's almost like
because I'm I've always believed that
if you if you trust your inner consumer,
you're almost bringing more of an outside
in activist perspective.
Okay. I think in business sometimes.
What does that mean
to trust your inner consumer?
So basically means, so I've always been,
I give a Ted talk
called the Work Life Advantage,
and it was all about how the things we do
in our personal lives
and digital really inform
how we become business leaders.
So you've got to do social media yourself.
It'll kind of teach you
about the power of iteration.
you need to walk the talk, need to,
Yeah.
You just, you know, you need to become
a good e-commerce shopper to really speak
with authority when you're managing a team
about winning with Amazon.
And so it's like
try and you also, you know, as
consumers are pretty damn critical.
Right.
And sometimes we let it out.
We're kind of, you know, we get
we get really angry.
We tell 3000 and so but that journey is
what makes us really sharp.
Now why do I feel like
I'm qualified to go on a startup
if I a million startups do an I?
Honestly, I've been I've been trusting
my inner consumer.
I'm using this stuff like 100 times a day.
I see a future that others don't
because I'm channeling my consumer side.
And I think that's always going to be my
source of truth, my source of motivation.
And, and I would I don't think that
that truth will ever go away.
All right.
Final question.
What does success look like for you or
your business or yourself in five years?
And I want to make a big
it's funny, I'm not I want
monetary
wealth, but I'm not motivated by it.
I'm very motivated by
feeling that I did something
in me
out of positive
sounds like lofty and idealistic,
but it's just where I am in my day.
It's like I
if people read my epitaph at their
give speech at the funeral
and they don't say that I really moved
in it very thoughtfully.
I'll be yeah, I'll be really disappointed
wherever I am.
And, yeah.
So I just, I want
I want to drive real impact.
I've always been that.
I mean, I, I, I grew up,
I wanted to be governor of California,
and I've, I started
and to some extent I've almost.
You and I have that in common.
Yeah. Yeah.
Planted feedback.
My first business was a bit of a,
stick it to the man.
Yeah. It also had a business side to it.
So I've always like blended
that, you know, drive impact,
build a great business.
And to some extent
I feel like I'm doing that now
because I like the idea of accountable.
Like, don't talk about sustainability
and not do it right.
You know.
So I'm kind of blame it on the
I bought say you're lying
or you're greenwashing, but I like that.
It's like, you know, because I think
it also drives drives to better outcomes.
It might speed up companies
to actually meeting
their green commitments or realizing
they can't go slow.
Right. You know,
so those are the things I really like.
Yeah. People stop being a pleasure,
man. Yeah.
Thanks for all your leadership.
That's fine. Thank you. And.