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Join us on the Disruption Now podcast as we challenge the status quo and advocate for digital equity, ownership, and responsible technology.
I realize my parents were operators.
They were.
They were like this,
like most entrepreneurs are right there.
Like we're focused.
But if you're not focused on emerging
technology, that's actually hitting
and you're you're not seeing it,
you're going to be left behind.
If you believe
we can change the narrative,
if you believe
we can change our communities,
if you believe we can change the outcomes
and 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.
With me is Seema Alexander,
who is a friend of mine, a co builder,
co-founder of DC startup and Tech Week,
as well
as co-founder of Virgin
AI and many other things.
A serial entrepreneur, literally grew up
on entrepreneurship with her family and,
and just cares
also about community and collaborating.
So pleasure to have you on CMO.
How are you doing? Rob?
I'm so good. I'm excited to be here.
We've been talking about this
for a long time,
so looking forward
to chatting it up with you.
Absolutely. Pleasure to have you on.
And we're basically called spirits.
You just did, you're in DC.
I'm here in the Midwest, but,
you know, we're we're moving and shaking
and disrupting together.
So literally, I think you have a company
that says that's a disruption to
what's there.
What's your original company?
We're like twin flames
in a weird way, bro, because my company
is called disruptive CEO advisory.
So I ran, a repositioning advisory company
for ten years.
And I was like, when I saw disrupt know
and all the things you're working
on, I'm like,
we're meant to know each other smoothly.
Absolutely. It's, oh, I got to get better.
So yeah.
Well, I want to talk about your journey
into entrepreneurship
because it feels like it started
a long time ago with your parents,
because you bring up the story
pretty often about your parents business,
their journey in entrepreneurship
in this country.
Talk about the story of your parents
and how your parents
entrepreneurial, journey influenced
you as a person, as an entrepreneur
and what you're doing now.
Yeah, I mean, I think it goes to say
with a lot of immigrant families,
you know, many people come to America to,
to figure out, like,
the American dream, right?
For them, you know, they came at a very,
like, a horror stricken
sort of situation in India.
And, there were a lot of hard work
and a lot of sweat equity
where they started the first Indian
vegetarian restaurant in Washington, DC,
catty corner to the white House.
And a travel agency.
And there were a couple other
small businesses along the way.
And, you know, the brands grew,
the community grew.
They got to really be pillars in the DC,
Maryland, Virginia area.
And the story goes that I started working
when I was 12 years old, you know,
when you're in hospitality at a young age,
you learn a lot of things.
The really quick I come.
Coming to
my mom had a restaurant that I worked at.
Yeah, it's it's interesting, right.
Because you learn customer service.
You you just learn people management.
All these things at a young age, which,
you know, at that moment in time,
you're like, oh, I gotta go to work.
And then now you're like, Thank God.
Like, you know, like because
you learn new lessons at a very young age.
The story goes,
it went from doing really well
to close to bankruptcy in the mid 90s.
And, you know, there were a lot
of personal implications on the family.
Parents got divorced
a couple of years later.
My dad tragically passed.
And it was it was it was sort of when
at that moment in time, at a young age,
I started to have empathy for founders
because it was like,
you know, being on the personal
sort of the child side of things, like,
you see all the ups and downs
when your parents are building something.
And we were there when things were good
and we were there when things weren't
good.
And so,
I sort of got obsessed
with, like, learning why businesses fail
and why they succeed.
And that like, started my curiosity
and entrepreneur worship.
So I so were
though after college,
I went to Maryland, studied my,
my business classes and stuff,
and that's when I started leaning in and
all the things. But I wanted stability.
My goal was to be a chief
marketing officer for fortune 500,
and I wanted to leave the DC area,
and I want to New York.
So I ended up, moving to outside
of New York City,
actually spent about 17 years
there, which is kind of crazy,
but spent 13 years of that time
in corporate America.
So at Prudential Financial,
sort of an anomaly in my generation.
State.
And five of the businesses
there was, under the CMO
and the retirement business
when things shifted, ten years ago.
But the two things I will mention here,
which also impacted my entrepreneurial,
career, if you will,
I got to spend time
with 2500 financial planners,
which are like sort of commodities
in the marketplace.
And my job was,
how do you make them unique and different
and grow their practices,
in, in a very sort of saturated market.
And it taught me a lot of lessons about
how do you differentiate yourself
and brand and all the things.
And then the second large project,
that I think was a,
a game changer
for me was working on the repositioning,
the historical repositioning
of Prudential Financial
with all the CMO,
the CEO, all the global folks.
And it was,
how do you take this 136 year old company
that has seven divisions,
multi, multibillion dollars,
but it looks like this old stodgy
insurance company to the market.
And that was the coolest thing
in the world for me because it was like
I went through a multimillion dollar
process going through all the steps.
And I had an epiphany moment after.
Through that process, I was like,
man, like, do entrepreneurs do this?
Like, do they actually step back?
Because who you are
when you first start in a business
is never where you end up, right?
It was like this moment
in time of inflection
got me to really think about,
like I, I've always been focused
on, how do you know how businesses grow
and how they succeed and all the things.
But I'm like,
this is that mis moment in time
because people focus on people,
process technology to grow.
Companies
have evolved and they haven't refined
their business model or their unique
positioning in the marketplace.
And so, I mean, I don't know if people
I'm gonna keep going to the story,
but I want to nail down part of the story
because I've heard you,
I've heard parts of the story.
And when I heard you present
a few times. Yeah.
And you use the example of your parents
business and not understanding
where the world is going
as an impetus to where,
how we need to think about things now.
Right?
In terms of like, your,
your parents going from brick and mortar
to, to thinking about things online
and for now, how we think about where
we are in this moment, which I don't know
if you call it where we are at web 2.0.
I have no idea what
we're calling this moment.
And, I don't know what the hell
we call this moment, but.
Pre generative AI and
I like how did you draw upon the lessons
of what
you went through with your parents,
and how do you relate that to
when you talk about businesses now
and their need to embrace AI
in terms of how they actually implement it
into their business?
So fast forward advisory company
ten years work with over a thousand
founders, different industries
the last several years
to keep things happen.
One was, I realized that I was working
with a lot of emerging tech companies.
So Web3, smart cities,
and then I was asked to advise
in artificial intelligence
development environment
that specialized in AI agents
a couple of years ago.
Okay. And a moment in time.
It was very interesting for me
because I got deep
with some of the visionaries in the space
on both sides, like extreme sides of AI,
but it was like when I started
to understand the genetic workflows,
when I started to understand
like what was actually happening.
This was pre LMS and generative AI,
and then it got really ahead of it.
It was I don't care,
but it was like it would Twitter.
But what was happening
was while this like that
moment in time I was like this is bigger
than the advent of the internet
because the power in what is actually
is possible
with the current infrastructure,
where it's being built for accessibility.
And that's when I actually went back
and I was like, shit, man, like, excuse
my language, but I was like, my,
you can trust on this is cool.
Okay, cool.
But I was like,
I started to think about like, you know,
I used to say, whose strategy
was this for my parent's business?
But what was happening in
the 90s were up like,
that was like the rise of the internet.
Absolutely.
And to your point, right.
I always preach about like before
the internet, businesses
were brick and mortar
for the most part, right?
Post internet.
All of a sudden you have digital,
you know,
you have internet, obviously,
and you have digital.
Then you have Google SEO, AdWords,
all the things.
So market your business
in a whole different way.
Different segments were actually,
growing and new segments are growing.
And then all old, some old segments
were failing in the market because of
they weren't paying attention to
what was happening in emerging technology.
And I realized my parents were operators.
They were they were like this,
like most entrepreneurs are right.
They're like, we're focused.
But if you're not focused on emerging
technology, that's actually hitting
and you're you're not seeing it,
you're going to be left behind.
And so I do a lot of talks now on this,
like comparison of the rise
of the internet and where we are,
what I, what I consider
is the biggest technological revolution
of our lifetimes with this
AI transformation, you know,
all the things that come along with it.
I agree. Yeah.
And they're going to be businesses
that come out of the woodwork
that we've never, ever seen possible
before.
They're going to be businesses
that were major players that fail.
They're gonna be a lot of small businesses
that get really affected
because they're not paying attention.
No, I completely agree.
So when it comes to AI,
what are
we underestimating when it comes to AI
and what are we overestimating
when it comes to AI?
I would say underestimating
is the power of the technology.
I think people okay,
when the world of Web3 was happening
and you and I,
so you and I have been in that way.
All right.
And for the folks like who are listening,
like Web3 is a big word, right?
It means a lot of things.
Blockchain ledger, NFTs, like,
protocols, layers.
Like there's so many crypto,
obviously things that go within Web3.
When you think about AI, it's
the same thing.
People have this one general idea,
and for most it's like Terminator
type stuff, right?
It's the right kind of things.
They don't have real understanding
of what the skills of the art of
AI and machine learning, what is possible,
what is accessible.
So not only create,
you know, these unique automations
that no one's ever seen before.
And it's possible today, right.
But for innovation.
And I think that to me, you know,
I'm trying to remember your question,
but that to me is the missed part.
And I totally underestimated what you
were underestimating,
which I completely agree.
Yeah.
And actual power and the transformation
that is happening
and what is going to happen.
Yeah.
Certainly being as much as people
are talking about AI,
it is still underestimated
in terms of the impact
it's having
and it will have on our complete society.
And Web3 is your example, right?
Web3 is, simplified as like Google Docs.
Without Google. It's about ownership.
Yes. And understanding and being able to
understand and own and all sense of data.
That's what it is.
AI is, is the amplification
and the manipulation of data at scales
that you can't even understand.
Right?
So it's it's, it's going to be the fuel
that, that
that makes everything possible in a way.
Right.
Because data has been that
it is now going to take data
and put, put like fuel in it
to make it go to the moon.
I can't wait to talk a little bit
more about that, because I think data is
what's going to make businesses
stand out in the future, and how they use
their unique proprietary data to create
unique experience is that I want to answer
that second part of your question. Sure.
You question that.
That's a good way to go.
Yeah.
The overestimates, estimation, to me
comes in.
I think there's a lot of pressure
for CEOs from board members.
There's a lot of pressure for founders
to really think about how to use this
technology without the actual education,
and people are making decisions
based on limited information,
and they're not going to the experts or
people, you know, experts is a big word
right now in this space with the next
wave of AI and ML,
but they need to really invest
in education, understanding
what is happening, and what is possible.
Because if they do it right,
and they're much more because
AI's infrastructure technology,
at the end of the day, you have to focus
on solving the bigger business problem,
the bigger pain points, you know, and
and there is so much opportunity
right now.
It's like almost crazy.
Like it makes me excited,
because I see it on both sides where I've.
The one thing I forgot to mention,
and you mentioned
earlier, is I'm one of the co-chairs
here of DC Startup and Tech League.
So I see the innovation
coming on that side.
It's very high.
We're
focused on sort of this midsize enterprise
and you know
they're established companies.
But it's like when you start
to bring both of them together of like,
wow, if you use this innovation
and put it into this automated flow,
what is possible for your company now?
And I think there is a lot of like people
just don't realize that until they,
even with education, also understand
like what is the right education
because there's like fundamental stuff.
Here's what AI is. Here's
what natural language processing. Yeah.
But it's like,
how do you bring this
these pieces, these Lego pieces together
to create real innovation?
I think it's very overestimated.
Yeah.
No, I completely agree.
So getting back to the other point
about data
and the importance of data
with businesses.
So like what is your perspective there
in terms of how businesses
can differentiate themselves in terms
of how their data is leveraged?
I'm going to give you an example.
You better I love it.
Yeah. Yeah. Because it's very
there was somebody
who just actually shared this with me
and I loved it for this data
specific example.
So I think it's got City Sports Group
and I do please forgive me
if I'm saying it wrong,
but they're a company
that has collected data over the years
on performance.
Athletes pre like being designated
at a sports sports team.
Right.
And they just said
they've had this information
and they've used it for multiple reasons.
But when you think about the sports world,
right, when people are like looking at,
you know, finding the next,
the next LeBron, the next,
the next big, you know, the next Kobe
whatever.
Right.
Like it's they're looking they're you
know, they're scouts they're agents.
They go out
they look it's subjective right.
And they're you know
and there's some stats obviously.
But this company now
has curated all this data over the years.
And now what they're doing
is they're saying, hey, create
your decisions based on informed data.
We have the data of these individuals.
We know the well
the missing things within your team.
Let us help you identify
the right types of players.
A right precision right.
That precision player of the team.
And there was this, there was a use case.
And again, forgive me
because this is a Spanish team, but
it was like an, a small, a smaller city.
And there like, they were comparing
like they actually use this service
and they were saying that
the big Spanish teams, like,
they get like $50 million
of marketing budgets to use for spend.
And for them, it was like a lot smaller
8 million or something like that.
And they said, you know,
to be able to compete because you can't
even get into the same arena
with some of these bigger teams
unless you have created
a return on investment in some capacity.
And so they ended up saying, like,
you know, we're going to use this,
this generation using data created a team
and their team has been doing
like fantastic.
Just doing fantastic
like it's not heard of.
But now
they're up against these bigger teams
because they can be with performances.
They're they created the ROI
both from a revenue perspective
and a performance perspective.
And what I'm saying is data can change.
Experiences like it will change like
your own proprietary data will and will.
So that's this one, right?
That's like a whole new segment
of the market.
Think about like precision medicine
or anything that you're like, oh,
I was actually speaking to an insurance
company the other day and they're like,
you know, we have all these Laughlin runs,
we have all this information
about our customers.
How do we use that data to create
better programmatic,
better experiences
for for our folks going forward?
Because now it's like we can use that
for predictive analytics.
We can say, hey, these folks, you know,
in the past, because of these losses,
these are things that you need
to start to mitigate,
or you need these additional insurance
clauses to help support you because
you know,
you don't want to be in this situation.
It's that level of personalization
precision
that I think that can really shift.
And and just the last thing
I'd say is like,
you know, a lot of people are like, well,
we don't have a lot of data like,
you know,
and so it becomes like and in general,
you know, there's this data lake houses,
there's different structures.
And to be able to start to curate what,
where, where you are in your data cycle.
But you need to start now.
You need to start to really think
about it's a foundational it's currency.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And something where we're working with
is, advising governments on this.
Right. Because you talk about
who's got the most data.
Yes, governments and the most inefficient
use of data is also governments.
Right.
So from my perspective, right.
It's, and there's just
so many opportunities to serve citizens
better, to be more efficient, to even
just organize their information better.
Like, I just like it's
just that there's just the start of that.
Like, there's a lot of,
you know, know where the good is.
Yeah.
In the government sector,
how are you finding the current adoption
cycle compared to other emerging
technologies in the past,
or are they open to it
or is it segment segments like what
are you seeing right now.
Yeah it's a good question.
So they're they're open.
They're open to it.
Once we explain the opportunities and I
and I think, you know,
I've ran for office.
So I have like kind of unique opportunity
and relationships in those space. So
I talk to them in a
way that makes them understand
how this could
help them right now, and how it's how
we make their life easier.
Right.
And so, like, I will give you, you know,
an example of not the actual person,
but the type of what the type of the type
of, client that we're looking at,
like, it's a, it's an office
that deals with criminal justice.
We'll just say. Right.
And, you know, we had a conversation and,
one of the conversations that we had
was like, oh, well, part of what they do
is they listen manually, listen
into conversations, between like,
you know, people that are in jail
and, and, and people from the outside
because often these folks will confess
the crimes that they did,
and they were able to prosecute
the right people and get the right people
out of prison and things like that.
They manually listen to these things.
Right?
So, like,
you can just see, like we can save
all types of time probably,
make sure we're freeing people up.
Yeah. You still have to set up
the right processes.
You still need to have a subject
matter experts there.
You need to be very intentional
about how you are fine
tuning and training this algorithm.
Yeah,
but you can just see that's one area.
And this person came up with it.
We like.
And she's not a tactical person,
but she just brought that up.
So like
once we kind of kind of inquire about,
well, what are some of the pain points
that you have in terms
of dealing with your job day to day?
What takes the most time?
What I found that's the most useful
and then it's, open
is a much of the conversation moves faster
if you try to start with.
Because I made this mistake
to all the things they can do,
it just loses them.
So I usually try to say, yes.
What are some pain points
you're having? And it's much easier.
I tell you,
this conversation is much easier
than, you know, anything
I've had in the past, like in terms
of the internet and other things,
because it's so much easier to see,
and they see you that they see the
opportunity, to save them time and effort.
The challenge this is that they are like
they have systems that are 30 years old.
That's the challenge.
Not that it can't have them,
but that there's
they're not even that like automation
let alone.
Yeah, I yeah, I say there's two things
that you said, one of the thing is
when it comes to, the government,
are you seeing because what we've also
seen is like those internal processes
to start sort of these beta pilots
versus like those external like,
well, let me actually step back.
What I loved about what you said
is very similar to
our process is figure out
what the pain point is
and obviously what problem it solving,
because then
it just becomes much more real.
And it's not like, oh God, this big.
I think we have to figure out
how to use it.
And it's scary. Right.
And and I think that's the again,
going back to your earlier question,
it was like, again, people don't know
what they don't know until someone like
yourself comes in and explains it to them
for the opportunity.
But I always I feel like
and in most cases, not just government.
And most companies
these days are looking at
how do we build something internally
to prove the model.
Correct? Correct.
Like prototype, approve it
so that we can feel comfortable ourselves
before we go to any external sources.
Just curious
if you're seeing that's definitely
that's definitely across the board.
What I've seen with governments,
with unions for example.
Like that's what we've seen.
Like that's start
start something with a small specific.
And then show some success.
Like instead of try to do something major,
try to do something where you can show
how much you can, you know, change them.
And even then even
you start in a small area and, and grow.
That's exactly what we're seeing.
I mean, so it sounds like it's
very similar to even mid-sized companies.
But but the conversation has been easier
because people at least have a
they have some idea,
like when the internet first started,
it felt like it can be completely foreign,
where AI is not as foreign
as the internet was to
when things were totally brick and mortar.
Right? Because it's like people
had no concept, like, what do you mean?
We're going to go on like it? Really,
if you think about it. And we were right.
We we rewind 30 years
that it was that long ago.
Yeah. Yeah.
We still look young,
but it was that long ago.
But, it
it seems like a weird foreign concept
where now people understand
because we've been through.
Or at least they should.
We've been through so many iterations
of what happens online
that people, I think, are
more open to it than they used to be.
I agree, I totally agree,
and I think there was this big like
and I think it happened
after the LMS and generative AI, that's
that's when everything
sort of shifted and people ChatGPT
give them credit.
Oh, I actually created the UI, UX
because that's what it comes down to.
It's like, how do you make this?
That's, you know, Web3 is still problem
is that the UI, UX, the
the user experience is not easy.
It's still like it's good
for like developers and tech nerds,
but it's not enough. Like, you know,
what's had GPT?
They made it accessible
to anyone, technical or non-technical.
And that really opened up the world.
Speaking of that,
how how do you see this when it comes
to AI in terms of accessibility
and where we're going?
So I'd like to I'd like to hear from you.
What is the best case scenario?
For AI and how do we make that happen?
And in terms of how you define
accessibility, building inclusivity.
And then what is the worst case scenario?
You know,
I think we're in an era because of
AI and the tools
that are truly out already for almost free
on the marketplace.
It's not like, anybody can start today.
Like that's like one of those things
in a sense of like, if you are curious,
if you're trying to get ahead,
if you understand
even an inkling of like where AI is going,
and obviously if you have the internet
and you have accessibility, there,
you can truly learn
a lot of these things on your own.
I mean, we're in the fastest time
frame of being able to prototype things.
You don't need to code.
I mean, people are using cursor.
I don't like it.
Prompt things that took forever.
I just found out about a, a a new
bolt that new to help prompt
all that new old skin.
You, you know, every day
there's a new tool.
But I think from an inclusivity
perspective, way before you get
what is built in, what does that
you know, I'm going to play with it.
But, one of our clients
was playing with it basically,
and you could create it's prompting,
but you can create like landing pages.
You can create anything with it.
It's it's pretty, it's pretty.
It's pretty cool.
Okay. Good.
Good stuff. It's not like,
it's not like some of the tools out there
that like the, the early stage
user experience or user generated
in terms of visuals are bad.
And again, I need to play with it more.
So I'll tell you more about it.
But my whole point is like it.
There's free courses from Google
from Nvidia I mean so many YouTube.
You know, it's like inclusivity.
And in terms of like
this is an opportunity where we're all
learning together.
You know I feel and and
and it can make sense.
And it's not totally over your head.
I think there is a moment
in time for that.
I think that whole responsible framework,
you know, ethics board
about not having biased models.
I think there's a lot to be done there.
I think we I agree with that.
We've learned a lot from previous cycles,
but that doesn't mean it's
everyone's top priority.
And I don't think it's any priority.
I think their priority is to build,
make money
and then worry about that consequence
later, which is been the model.
Right.
And we have to I think that's
what makes me the most nervous.
But the other thing we could do
is build right.
And and until there's policy.
Yeah.
And I think I mean so again
you are a DC startup in tech week.
And you were on a panel
that I wanted to curate very intentionally
around this conversation on AI
and responsibility.
But really that innovation
has implication.
Right?
And I say that a lot is one of my pillars,
because it's easy
to get really excited for a technology.
And there are a lot of entrepreneurs.
This is one of the most
biggest entrepreneurial moments.
It is it goes right
and a lot of opportunity.
But again, looking at the internet,
looking at social, looking at digital like
there are a lot of things that you can do.
I had a time and get over your riches
and actually it's not a very feasible,
viable,
you know, business or whatever it is,
and either going to hurt a lot of people
or you're gonna hurt yourself.
Right. And I think, this concept of,
making sure you're in
a, when you're thinking about innovation,
I think about impatience came from that
example I had shared, not too long ago.
But it was kind of like when you're on
when you're on your cell phone and you're
going through your social media,
you don't know if you see a cell phone.
Okay.
But it's it's called doom
scrolling, right?
Like it's a list in C of like,
you know, like looking down
and just constantly being by yourself
and the the individual who created
that feature was on the Oprah special,
and he's been talking about it.
All over.
And he was like, if I had known
15 years ago that this feature would have
how much loneliness it's
cause depression is cause anxiety.
It's caused, people,
I would have never created it.
And it's an extreme example
because you don't know always what goes in
like what is actually going to happen
from an intentionality perspective.
But it is just it's more of
being like open to understanding.
Like not every innovation
is a good innovation, right?
Like, yeah,
let's put it in that risk factor.
I mean, Elon says it's really interesting
because he's like,
you know, there's a 20% chance
that things could go really wrong.
Like, you know,
and I think it's just keeping that in mind
because this technology is I think it's
not like a to Sam Altman talks about like
there's like a I don't know if it's 1 to 5
from an AGI perspective.
Right.
An artificial general intelligence
besides the level of intelligence
these AIS can actually have.
And we're between a 1.5 and two right now.
So the stronger, the more powerful
the stuff gets.
It's going to get more autonomous.
It's going to start thinking for itself.
And if we're not, again,
going back to your original question
of what people are underestimating,
they have no idea what the power of this
is actually going to look like.
I agree with that.
Yeah,
I think I'll take it even a step further.
Yeah, I would say even the people
that are building the AI models
don't fully appreciate
the power of what's going to happen,
let alone the general public.
Right? Because like when,
algorithms were
being built even on social media, like.
And I mean, you
I'm sure you know this, but,
no one knows how the any of those
algorithms work
within one person
because they're so complicated.
It's like one person takes a part
in, like, Cincinnati
versus another person in California.
And the algorithm is a nation
journey of AI.
Builds on that because
then it just builds on its own on that.
So there's great opportunities.
But if we're not intentional
about how this is guided
by ethics and principles,
there could be problems.
And, you know, I'm a I'm
a pragmatic optimist.
So what I mean by that is I think history
doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
So I believe we're going to probably go
through some bit of pain
to recognize this,
because we're going to keep moving
until we are forced to be intentional.
I hope I'm wrong on that, by the way.
But let me ask you what what do you think?
Like what do you think
is going to solve for this round?
Right.
Because government
like what we're seeing with Virgin.
Right.
It's like people don't have governance
policies and that's should be part of it.
And you know,
when they're thinking about building,
they're not thinking about there's
a level of education, right.
But from a higher level
government perspective, is it a priority?
Like like the answer is it's not exactly.
So like it's
so what's going to solve for that is
I think in terms of how we're and I hope
I'm wrong, by the way, I hope that
that, you know, private sector
intentionally builds
and is very thoughtful about this.
But I believe
even if they want to be individually,
the market will not allow
that behavior to happen.
Right.
So how I think we how I think
unfortunately the correction will be
is something
the same way we have to have correction
with the housing market.
Like there will be some boom,
some pain that will happen,
to society.
And we will have to come up
with that moment to adjust.
I think businesses are going
to go through that individually.
And that's why I tell people like,
I believe that I believe this to my core,
that in this world with algorithms and AI,
the greatest asset
you have is trust, right?
And then and so you can take the power
of this of the of AI and algorithms.
And you could decide
that you want to manipulate
and you will be successful
for a long period of time.
But I do think the cynicism you build up,
the reaction could be so harsh that
you could really,
especially with social media,
set down your business pretty quickly.
If you're not transparent
about how that happens
and you can have a reaction
that you're not expecting.
And then I also think how we implement
AI for not intentional
will have some effects
that we don't anticipate.
So even with the industrial revolution,
for example, right,
we got to the point where
we got to a really good point in society
and it was obviously better,
but people forget.
We went through
two world wars, a pandemic,
multiple
labor, multiple labor laws
having to be put in place, child labor.
There was a lot of things
that had to happen to make sure
that the Industrial Revolution
was stabilized.
People don't remember that,
where it was less demanding that with AI,
what that's needed. That's what I think.
I mean, you mentioned trust
and how that is obviously a big virtue
and AI allows for it, but in a lot of ways
it doesn't allow for it
because you can't trust anything
that comes out of AI currently.
But but with Web3 and like,
you know, that to me is like
the biggest opportunity is like
bringing both of those together,
building out real trust in the ledger
and knowing verifying actual,
you know, sources and things
is going to be such an important piece
because trust I like to be honest.
Like anything you see is
could be super fake now, right?
Like HTML.
And so we know I know lots of people
creating innovations and solutions for
that problem.
But I just have not awareness.
We have to care about it. Like right now.
And people don't care about it.
It's not a it's
not important enough for people.
And I don't think
it will be for some time.
So I just tell people like,
if you want to be a business,
I think there's opportunities
to set yourself apart, that you're taking,
that you're being intentional about.
I think how you use AI,
that you're transparent about it
and that you have
some human connection to it
and that you're not necessarily
that I tell people we can't
we can't predict the future,
but we can envision it right.
And we can't
and we can't control algorithms.
If we're honest, we cannot control
AI algorithms completely.
But we can dance with them and design them
to be
what we want to be and direct them in the
in the proper direction, 100%.
So what I also saw
with the cycle of social media,
when Mark Zuckerberg was put up in front
of all the ports, right.
And then there was, Web3,
say FTX or a couple.
Right.
But like was put up in front of of course,
because out of like doing all the wrong
things. Right.
That's what people listen
because they're like, holy crap.
Like, this is major law NFT world, right?
Got tons of lawsuits now
because people were using
that as securities versus a utility.
Right.
And I think that's the way
our government has done it up to
this point is like, you see, big use cases
and then go after everybody.
And up to then this is I don't think
it's a good approach to either.
But go ahead.
It's not.
And I think the innovator's dilemma.
Right.
It's kind of like,
well how much do we push?
What can we do for innovation or
are we going to get shut down eventually.
And that's where like a lot of growth
in Web3 was stunted for so long.
It is still is still has been another way
that that really hurt.
Like that's it's fact.
But but then those people too.
But that was my old
the old company's back there
like that's, that's that's the truth.
And so let me ask you this.
When and because you've been
in an appointed role.
Right.
Like when you don't know enough
as a government official,
which most, you know,
like you're getting advised, that's hard.
It's hard to know, like what's coming down
and then the right people
don't know where the decision makers.
So how does a government
make decisions on policy
without really understanding
the technology.
Like, you know, that that is
that is a great question.
And that's literally like the heart
of what we focus on as a midwest con,
as a company, as value,
like one of our values
talks about is that we talk about
as policy innovation.
So I don't believe that, okay, does
a government official
need to know how to program a little.
No, but they do need to understand
the basics of how,
how I generative AI works,
how prevalent it is.
And they need to have a view
about emerging technology
and, and, and the question
I ask you about, I,
I ask a lot of public officials,
very rarely can they actually answer it
with any thoughtfulness,
but they need to be able
to think about these questions like,
what's your best, worst case scenario
for emerging technology?
Like and and what's your plan
to create the best case scenarios?
What what's your thought about AI
and all those things and how
we can both support innovation
and make sure we have clear policy?
I think we're going to have to
reimagine how we do policy.
And I don't know what that looks like.
I know that we have to start
having education
to our policymakers, because they're going
to have to play a role,
and they're going to play a role.
And they could either screw it up
massively or really empower us.
And there's no and that's why
I call it dance with the algorithms,
because there's not going to be
an exact system.
We're going to have to kind of be nimble,
but we're going to have to set
some type of guidelines
and measures for what we want
our society to be, and technology
should be amplifying those things.
Policymakers aren't having those thoughts.
So being from a policy makers
point of view, like I didn't, I understand
why they, how hard it is because they have
all these things on their brain.
But what they don't understand is like
this is one of the most important issues
period.
Like it is affecting
like is affecting how we communicate.
It's affecting racism, it's affecting
misogyny, it's affecting civil discourse.
And it's only going to amplify
unless we figure out how we want to,
what what we want
our principles to be around technology.
And so I think when they
I think the problem
with folks in elected office
is that they are
they are they are approaching the problem
from a 20th century perspective.
When we're in the 21st century,
that's the problem.
Well, we got Ellen now, so let's see
what's gonna have is go interesting.
Right.
Like yeah that that that I have that
that's scary too, because like you,
all other podcasts are podcasts.
I'll just say what we don't need
is digital dictatorships either.
Right? Because that's also scary.
Because
but I would say that there could be, like,
I think there's opportunities
in every situation. They'll seem.
So I'm not one of these people
and I'm not going to get into,
I didn't support the incoming president.
However, there is opportunities
in everything, right?
And so I will also not allow myself to be
at a state of constant anger.
I'm going to be focused and figure out,
because I think there
will be opportunities in this moment.
And if if something good comes out of
this, like in and Elon does, or Trump goes
something that actually is beneficial,
I will wholeheartedly support it.
If I feel like it's not,
I will definitely speak up.
But my focus is not going to be
on simply reacting to someone else.
It has to be for us.
How are we building the better future?
And what I know is whether,
no matter who's in office,
I don't think much is going to change
when it comes to AI and things like that.
And I do
think we need to do more of our parts.
I think we, you, me and the others
that are building intentionally
in this space, like we are
the new civil rights leaders in a way,
because we have to build the future
and the vision, the future that we want,
and it's really participating
in this space directly.
No, I couldn't agree with you more.
I've had this conversation
multiple times over around like
whoever's in the office is in the office.
Our voices matter more now than ever
before, right?
Especially there's there's not a lot of
us, I would say, who are in the know,
like, you know, and I feel like blessed
and responsible at the same time.
Exactly where it's like,
okay, if you don't speak up,
if you're not doing these sort of podcasts
our audiences are hearing,
my goal is to speak around
the world, around what's happening,
because it's I want people to understand
what's happening so that they can either
take advantage and also think
about the implications for where
they're at in life or in business.
Right.
So I couldn't agree with you more.
I think it's interesting.
One of the things that also scares me,
and I'm trying to think about both sides
of the perspective here,
because a lot of the work we do is more on
the automation data
and genetic, all this stuff.
And then there's the whole robotic side,
right?
And with Elon saying by 20,
I think 2040
that we're going to have more humanoids
than humans on the planet, scares
the shit out of me a little bit. Rob.
I know the
I know the little bit of things,
you know, and like,
you know know policy is should it's
like, whoa, that's crazy.
But that's that's the way the world, like,
you know, the world and it's,
and again,
I think we'll learn some lessons.
You know what?
I will not we're we're always wrong
when we when we predict the future.
Yeah.
But I just say, what I do
believe is that there are lessons
to be learned from the past,
not to lean on them.
And I do think there's going to be
there's a lot that hasn't been addressed
and that we haven't
thought about, with this.
So, and that's why, you know,
understanding this technology is not
there's not there's no opting out,
you know, just say like we can
you can't put your head in the sand
and just say, I'm
not going to adopt the technology
because you will get left behind.
You will not be able
to build your business.
You won't be able to participate
in society.
There is no option other than adopting
the technology, learning
and then figuring out
how you make it better.
I mean, that's what I tell people.
Yeah,
I think from a practical perspective,
just because I'm
sure we have a lot of entrepreneurs
on this, on this, in your community.
Right.
Think about like this, your technology
stack
that you normally have for operations
or marketing everything.
There's going to be a whole new technology
stack, right?
I mean, able technology stack.
It's actually something I get asked
probably the most.
Rob is like, what do I use for this?
What do I use for that?
So it's like, is it like,
what's the best tools
ten x 15 x your productivity or whatever
it may be?
And I think it's something that everyone
needs to start to think about,
because there's one thing of creating
custom and unique things which, you know,
depending on where you are in business
and what your goals are
and all the things,
there's lots of opportunity there.
But there's another just being because I
it's like a big buzzword right now.
At the end of the day,
everybody's going to be running
an intelligent business, right?
Like that's really what this is.
So it's about, you know,
what are those two ChatGPT is great,
but it's not the end all be all.
There's so much so much more out there.
So anyway, I, I just think that's a really
important thing for any entrepreneur
or even any business leader to start
to think about is what is our AI enabled
tech stack, and how is that going to help,
you know, amplify our productivity,
our experiences,
our customer support, etc., etc.?
Yeah, I mean, I, totally agree.
And how you just
made me think about this is,
I would probably ask a business owner
or a government official
or a nonprofit or whoever,
what is, repeatable, scalable process
that you have for your best practices?
What is what is the repeatable,
scalable process that you have for
things that you that that are going
wrong in your business to improve?
And then I would ask a third question,
how can I be
used to help and amplify
the first two questions?
Right.
Because you got to really think about
like there's
there's nothing that I can't help
you do better.
When you think
about the current pain points you have
and the things that you do well,
it can both amplify
the things you do extremely well,
and it can minimize the pain points
you have for things you do poorly.
So really thinking about what those things
are specifically and thinking about how
AI applies to those things will save you
so much time, money,
and make you more money.
So I tell people to, to to learn
by doing experiment as much as possible.
Is there any tools that you like,
one or 2 or 3 tools that you use?
And you you highly recommend that?
I want to ask you
a couple wrap up questions, man.
I mean, obviously the ChatGPT world
and but it's not just that for me.
I look at like Claude,
I use Claude, I use perplexity.
It really depends on if I'm more research
driven stuff or complexity.
Right. Which I use for research a lot.
I mean, I'm a I'm a podcaster too,
so I use opus clips, which is like,
I just want you to understand
if you use opus clips of you really,
I use opus clips.
Okay. Just this is again perspective.
Not too long ago.
This is like not too long ago
to create a clip.
I have a podcast.
I don't get it for five years
and you're
like, you had to literally get the video.
Somebody had to transcribe your podcast
said this was a year and a half ago.
A lot too long ago
was a year and a half ago.
It wasn't a long time ago.
This opus clips.
You put your entire episode in
and you can prompt for like,
you know, I want engaging moments,
I want some funny moments,
I want this and the other.
And all of a sudden 25 clips come in.
And not only that, it's like between
one minute and five, you can be precise,
you can go in and edit it,
you can add different parts of the script.
It is to me.
And actually funny,
I just reached out the CEO to the CEO
because I really want to talk to you
because I feel like one, I,
I feel like there's some products out,
but those are products
that I want to amplify to my community
because they're done well.
And, you know, the people that are in
it are in it to win it.
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
And that to me is it's such a, because,
I got another one for you to go for.
No, but I have you use notebook alum.
Oh, yeah.
The one that brings everything together
and makes your podcast like it's free.
That's free.
And when I talk about that,
because that's, like, the coolest thing.
Yeah.
Like, no, just literally for my questions
with you today,
I use notebook
LM like literally I did that,
put it together, pull the sources together
and help me organize it.
And what what normally takes me who used
to take me hours to prepare for a podcast.
It takes me now.
I've done it for a lot of time,
so that's all.
I also have some knowledge, but.
And now what used to take me three hours
probably takes me 20 minutes
of prep, right?
Probably.
And it's starting to get less
because that is like no big deal.
You're just able to pull any source
in, it'll organize it for you,
put the notes together for you,
you can ask the question and it's free.
It's just amazing, like
the amount of tools that are out there.
So I recommend people to experiment, pay
for some of the stuff, even with ChatGPT
pay for the to pay the $20 a month
and then do some of the other stuff.
If you have anything like accounting
processes.
You know, something I've done is you.
Because I'm not great at processes,
but you have to be to scale businesses.
But I started creating processes,
writing it down, then
using GPT to help with other stuff I did,
and then dictating that
and then using ChatGPT
or something else
to come up with better results
and making sure that I'm creating standard
operating procedures.
I mean, this can really
you are literally hurting yourself
by not adopting the new technology.
So all right, a couple of things
I want to get to you at the end,
kind of rapid fire questions.
Now, these are hard questions.
Yeah. Always true. People are all right.
I say things like that.
And I know you're just.
All right.
What's an important truth you have that
very few people agree with you on?
Oh, important truth.
Integrity is everything.
Whatever that that is.
Integrity is my number one value.
I feel like if you're going to
do something, say something.
Do it.
But it's really hard to do.
It's a really hard to do.
Keep integrity with yourself
and with others.
So to me, it's it's the source of truth.
Integrity. Yeah.
You know, I say the truth is simple, and
life is simple is just not easy, right?
It's just like.
It's like it's just the truth.
All right.
You have a committee of three,
living or dead, advising you on life.
Who would these three people be and why?
My dad, he passed was 23.
I have so many questions for him. Hands
down.
Wow. You would ask him right
now, you're thinking, oh, my God.
I mean, I would ask him
so many business questions.
So many life questions.
I feel like he was a community builder.
He was a business owner.
Like he him and I, we would have wrapped
on every part of my life.
Robert.
Like, he was so insightful, like,
you know, and I was one thing
you could think you wanted.
You want to tell him right now?
What would you tell him?
I'm staring at his picture,
and I'm just like, how he's influenced me.
And he's the reason I do what I do.
And like, for me,
it's like I'm building his legacy.
Because he was an incredible human.
His life was too short,
and I'm just trying to keep going.
What he started, and hopefully amplify it.
I'm sure he's proud of you. Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Yeah.
Who are your other two? My other two.
I would
Michelle, Michelle Obama, I,
I think her perspective on life
personally and professionally,
her resilience and all the things
that she's done and accomplish,
I just want some very strong
females around me
that will push me in ways
that I've never been pushed before, and
I just appreciate her honesty
and transparency.
And just what she continues to show up
and how she shows up in this world.
So that would be definitely number two.
Number three, that's a hard one for me.
Doesn't have to be three weakest
opportunities.
Two is two.
I can't do two.
And I want to come back to it
because, you know,
I here's the one that actually
I would love somebody.
And I don't know, that's
what I have to think about. Who,
but someone
who in the emerging technology
space would be really interesting.
And I don't know if it's Mark.
Because, I mean, you shouldn't
discriminate, obviously.
Sam Altman
I think it would be really amazing,
intriguing and scary to understand
what's going on in his brain.
And I'm very good at interviewing and
just getting into some deep conversations.
We're going to project
that that you're going to get him on a.
And the reason
why is if we want to be leaders
and have voices in the space,
like you have to understand
where people are coming from.
And he such a unique perspective
and so much depth.
And you want to hear both
sides, the extreme sides and the sides.
And then that allows you
to actually create informed decisions.
I, I just for him, you know,
make an AI agent out of his brain.
He's.
Yeah, it's a good idea.
There you go.
Hey, hey, Chad, it's ag Sam Altman.
Okay, well,
all right, final question.
What's your what
what's your theme and slogan in life?
Impact and profit?
It's.
Yeah, I have many,
but that one has stuck with me.
I just feel like for everything I do,
I want to make sure
I'm adding a ton of value
and making a crazy amount of impact.
And I think you can do that
by living a really sustainable life.
Life.
And you can do that and add more value
and more impact when you do have that.
And I feel like in the entrepreneurial
world, in the nonprofit world,
in the government world,
a lot of people don't have that stability.
And I think a lot. So that's
always been my mantra when I help people
create sustainable businesses.
But I'm thinking AI and opportunities,
it's impact and profit, right?
Yeah.
It's about like,
the truth about innovation
and talk about this like in terms of like
what's happening, what needs to happen,
how people need to be framing.
It's one of those things
that's been in my brain because, like you,
I see the patterns connecting
and what and what and how
and how we need to be thinking about
business innovation and growth
in order to make sure
that, you know, that we're well positioned
as a and that businesses are,
but also the communities that normally are
well positioned are well positioned.
But anyway,
I want to think about that. Why?
You know what I mean?
It's definitely
I have to write it like I have,
like I was going to write everything
on the unique method
before the repositioning,
but now I'm like everything,
this is the future of business.
Like I need to be known for that.
Like it is an important thing
for me is like I see things and so do you.
So I'm also let's do it.
I want to use that as an ability
to get paid internationally.
And speaking. Yeah. That's we, we,
we share that.
We need to think about that.
Let's, let's, let's let's do it.
See my Alexander, who's also going to be,
a feature speaker at Midwest Con 2025,
also the
co-founder of DC startup
a Tech Week, also co-founder of Virgin
I building agents and helping midsize
businesses learn how to implement AI.
It's been such a pleasure.
I can't wait to talk more with you.
I will be in DC next week by the way.
So for connecting back
if you have time and
love everything you're doing
and let's continue to build.
Awesome. Thank you for having me.
This is an awesome conversation.
Thank you so much.