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A podcast that explores how AI is transforming careers, businesses, and industries. Hosts Greg Boone and Erica Rooney deliver real-world use cases and actionable AI strategies to help professionals stay ahead of the curve.
Learn more about your hosts:
Erica Rooney, author of The AI Gap: Women, AI, and the Next Great Leap Forward
Greg Boone, author of AI at the Speed of Trust (available for pre-order)
Aaron Mazze: Actually, a really, a
really talented creative director
was at a big design meeting with
me, and we were talking about
the future of digital marketing.
This is years ago.
And we were s- we were saying, "Is
print dead?" And the one thing he
said to me, he's like, "Well, when
I put a magazine in the middle
of the table, it doesn't go away.
I can't swipe away from it.
I can't click close." Um, so I
feel like print, I, I'm with you.
Like, print has, like, maybe a
resurgence to a certain degree, and
it's feeling very interesting again.
Greg Boone: There's, there's data
behind the fact that you're more
likely, and significantly more likely,
to read a PDF that is printed out
that's on your desk than you are in
that damn graveyard of folders that
you have, you know, on your desktop.
AI isn't the future, it's now.
And whether you're in HR, sales,
operations, or leadership, the
choices you make today will determine
whether you thrive or get left behind.
Today on AI Voice of Victim, we have
a very special guest, Mr. Aaron Mazze
from Inveniv, a local agency here in
Raleigh, North Carolina, also where
I am, uh, today, here at Walk West.
I'm so excited to have this guest.
I met him last fall, and, um, he, he
let the, kind of the, the, I guess
it was the, the fox in the henhouse.
He said, "Hey, man, I'm having this
HubSpot event." I said, "Hey, man, I'm
also a HubSpot partner/competitor."
He said, "I don't care.
Just show up and have dinner
with us." And it was amazing.
We've been friends and colleagues,
and we've been doing a few
things together ever since.
So I'm excited to have
Aaron on the show today.
Aaron Mazze: This is a really
special episode, so thank you so much
for hosting us here at Walk West.
I really appreciate it, Greg, and your
team's been great, and your equipment is
beautiful, and your offices are beautiful.
You're down here in Raleigh.
It's a great, vibrant area,
especially for folks like us that
are, we're hoping to be at the next
edge of where things are gonna go.
Um, but I would love for people to know
about you and where you've come from.
I think you went to, uh, North
Carolina, uh, State University like
I have as well, so that's amazing.
I wanted to hear your origin story,
so can you share with us kinda where
you started and how you got here?
Greg Boone: Yeah, so actually I, I
started, um, so I'm born and raised
in Durham, North Carolina, right?
Not far from here.
I graduated from Northern
Durham High School.
Go Knights and Ladies.
Um, where I left in, uh, I
graduated in 1995, and I went to
play basketball and baseball at
Howard University the next year.
I was there for about, um,
two years, almost two years.
I transferred to North Carolina A&T
State University, um, where I, uh,
accidentally fell into computer science.
I say accidentally because I was in
business school at Howard, and then I
asked the, the folks at A&T, I said,
"Is there a information systems course
in the bus- in the B school here?"
And they're like, "Well, no, the
closest thing we have is computer
science." And I found out very quickly
that was nothing like information
systems, but I fell in love with,
with technology, and I was always
good at math, so I really enjoyed it.
And, um, so That got me into this journey
in the tech space, and I've used my
business sense, my marketing sense,
and my tech background ever since then,
and, um, that's how I ended up here.
Aaron Mazze: I think I looked
at this up on your resume.
Did you work for IBM for a minute?
Greg Boone: Yep, I started my
career in, uh, 1998 as a, a software
engineer at, um, IBM in Durham.
Aaron Mazze: So I feel like everyone
is at least a degree or two degrees
away, and I just realized that
you and I both worked at IBM.
So I worked at IBM for a hot minute.
We- our company was, uh, purchased
by IBM in 20, uh, 15, and so, um,
when that happened, I became part
of IBM Watson Health, um, which was
one of their first forays into AI.
Uh, so kind of an interesting, like, weird
intersection between our two careers.
Uh, but I was only there for a
hot minute, and then I started
working for another agency.
I was
Greg Boone: only there for three years.
Yeah.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah,
Greg Boone: and, uh-
Aaron Mazze: I, well, I was literally
there for, like, three minutes though.
But that's still, I mean, that's
a, it's a really interesting thing
about our backgrounds that we
have really tried a lot of things.
Um, and then here we are
together, intersected again.
Greg Boone: Yeah.
Aaron Mazze: Um, so as far as, like, when
you think about your origin story to where
you are now, could you have even imagined
where you would be sitting today when you
first started out, or did you think this
was really your whole goal the whole time?
Greg Boone: No, I couldn't
have imagined it, right?
I actually thought I was just gonna
be in the, the business world once I,
you know... I, I, I gravitated a lot
to computer science because I was one
of those folks that was looking at,
uh, salaries coming out of school.
Yeah, I did that too.
And I was like, "Well, I ain't
gonna be a doctor, and I'm not gonna
spend time to become a lawyer."
Yeah.
And I was like, "Well, I like this
software engineering, um, space,"
but I was always thinking about,
how do I save enough dollars to go
do something, you know, more in,
in kind of a business environment?
And I actually didn't really care what
the business necessarily was, but I
wanted something where I could put my
own stamp on it and my own name to it.
Yeah.
And, um, I had several failed ventures
early in the, in my, in my 20s.
Aaron Mazze: I did too.
I did too.
I did too.
Greg Boone: I learned a lot.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: But no, there's no way I
would've imagined being here, but I, I do
think by combining my, um, my business,
at least aspirations, with my technical
background, and always understanding
emerging technology, I, I just never been
a fanboy of any particular technology.
I'm just always trying to keep
pushing forward to figure out, now
how do I turn that into a business?
Mm-hmm.
Right?
And so that's how my
mind works all the time.
Aaron Mazze: I think my goal for this
podcast today, everybody who's watching,
is to, like, try to break the algorithm.
So what I wanna do is I wanna start
placing some random facts in the
middle of this, uh, podcast- Okay, yeah
so that AI just gets totally messed up.
Um, you were at one point a club
owner too, I believe, right?
Greg Boone: Uh, yes, I was.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, I did my research.
Greg Boone: Yeah,
Aaron Mazze: yeah.
Um, so at one point in time, I was
really heavily involved in film and
music, and, uh, I'd never told anybody
about this, but I- when I was writing
music for film, especially in school,
I met a club owner, and he found out
that I wrote music, and he said to
me one day, he's like, "You know..."
I didn't even think about the opportunity
this guy was giving me, but he said to
me, um, "If you guys wanna write," he
said to me and a bunch of other students,
"If you guys wanna write some tracks for
the club and then bring it over, we'll,
we'll play 'em at, on the weekends." And
so nobody else took him up on the offer
except for me, so I showed up one weekend.
By the way, clubs do not look
good when the lights are on.
That is a fact.
That is a fact.
You do not want to see what it looks like.
You
Greg Boone: do not want
Aaron Mazze: to, like...
It's like a haunted house.
Don't turn the lights on.
You just don't wanna know
how, how the sausage is made.
Um, but I was gonna say that I, I
did bring my music in, and, um, and
I didn't really know what he wanted
me to do, so kind of being completely
oblivious to the opportunity, I brought
in the film music I was writing.
And he had all these amazing speakers,
so he was playing my music scores, like
these big, like, action scores and love
scores, all these things I had written.
I didn't think he wanted
me to write dance music.
I didn't even know about that.
And if you imagine, if I was, like,
in Miami or something like that, it'd
probably be, like, as big as Daft
Punk right now if I had done that.
Uh, but that was, that was, like, my,
my understanding and appreciation.
Actually, I was part of a band, too, and
we went to a lot of clubs and sp- and,
and, um, performed as well, and, um, that
is a hard, hard industry to be a part of.
You must have learned a ton of
things when you were a bar owner.
Greg Boone: Yeah.
I, I learned a lot.
Yeah.
Right?
I was trying to explain to someone
about, you know, um, having to have
tough conversations, and, and folks from
like as, as managers, they're like, you
know, having these tough conversations.
I said, "Imagine having to fire
somebody that is three times
the size of you- ... that could
just ball you up at any moment."
Yeah, I don't think these conversations
are as tough as the ones, you know,
that I was dealing with, but I think
the... You do learn a lot, right?
You learn a lot about the economics.
You learn a lot about marketing.
You're, you learn a lot about how to
continue to reinvent yourself, right?
Um, a lot of these things I've taken, you
know, even to today trying to understand
because especially when you're in that
type of business, you may be hot for a
minute, but you have to figure out, "How
do I keep getting people to come back?"
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Well, that's marketing.
Greg Boone: Exactly.
Aaron Mazze: That is definitely marketing.
Yeah, I was really interested in talking
to you today about, well, of course,
where AI is going, but I feel like the
human element is still the thing that
we all have to keep front of mind,
um, because I think that's the only
thing that's gonna keep us different.
That's what's gonna keep
things kind of feeling fresh.
Uh, otherwise, we're all living
in a sea of sameness, you know?
So I feel like that, those lessons learned
that you must have had in the early
days all kind of, I guess, culminate
to, to what's happening today and kind
of all that you bring to the table.
Um, but being in the club is like,
you know, I fig- I figured you,
you've got all the, all the aspects
of, uh, the transactional audience,
the brands, the experiential stuff.
Um, you get to work with the
different kinds of mediums from
the music to the whole experience.
I'm sure... Did you bring in smoke?
Did you bring in smoke too?
Greg Boone: Oh, yeah.
Aaron Mazze: Did you br- You did?
I
Greg Boone: mean, all the time.
Did you bring the bubbles?
We had everything from, from,
from- Did you have bubbles as well?
... from bubbles to smoke machines to,
uh, the, uh, mechanical bull to-
Oh, my God ... um, uh, what was it?
Like, Madden video game tournaments
to- Where do you buy a mechanical bull?
You don't.
You rent them.
You rent them?
Aaron Mazze: Okay.
Okay, 'cause you wouldn't know
where- That's a business lesson also.
Okay.
I don't want to store and
own a mechanical bull.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Otherwise, it'd be here-
Yeah ... at Walk West.
Greg Boone: Right, exactly.
And so you start to diversify
the types of audiences as well.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
But one of the most frustrating things
about being in that type of business
is you sit back and you realize that
you have to cram so much of your
revenue in such a short window of time.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
There's like five days a week during,
you know, 15 hours a day that there's
nothing going on in there, and so you're
just looking at this empty space like-
Aaron Mazze: Oh,
Greg Boone: my God- "What am I doing?"
I'm
Aaron Mazze: paying rent.
Greg Boone: I'm paying this money.
Oh.
What am I doing?
Aaron Mazze: Didn't even think of that.
That's incredible.
Greg Boone: So people
ask me this all the time.
They're like, "Oh, would you ever
go back in that business?" I'll say,
"Hell, no." Wouldn't go do that.
Aaron Mazze: I, I... This is a very, maybe
a very s- big stretch for parallel, but
I do feel like owning an office as we do,
um, we rent an office, but I mean, having
an office and then having it empty two to
three days a week, if not more, it, it's,
it's a huge anxiety on me constantly.
But I still, I still feel like going
back to, like, the human element,
having people do come together at
least a couple times a week and
having work by proxy and inspiration
by proxy is extremely important.
I mean, what do you guys think about
here at Walk West about having your
office, and do you have people come
in every day, or do you have them come
in whenever they want to or need to?
Greg Boone: You know, people can
come in whenever they want, but we're
typically here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Like, that's the, the,
quote, "mandatory." Yeah.
I wouldn't describe it as mandatory 'cause
everybody just seems to want to anyway.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: I've been in here
actually every day this week, and
I've been surprised because I see
certain people in here, and I was
like- I didn't know you'd be here
like, "I
Aaron Mazze: thought I'd be..." Yeah.
Greg Boone: I came in here yesterday to...
I had a podcast I was recording with a,
a guest from Singapore, so it was, like,
at night for him and in the morning.
So I got here at, like, 6:15.
There's nobody here at 6:15 AM, right?
But 8:00, 9:00, you start to see
other folks roll in, and I'm like,
um, you know, I was dressed from,
like, the top half in, like, a very
professional way, but then I'm- Yeah
in sweatpants and what not.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm like, "Oh, I didn't think I was gonna
see other, you know, people in here."
But- But you start to get that feel 'cause
they're like, "Yeah, I just like working
in here." People feel a certain way, like,
um... And then we're using the space in
a very different way than historically.
Like, we have- Sure ... our studio here.
Yeah.
Right?
Uh, we have different amenities for
folks that wanna kinda get away.
Yeah.
You know, also I was s- was here
Monday, and one of our colleagues,
Kate, um, our, all of our kids were
out of school on Monday, so her
daughter was here with her, right?
And so, you know, we just wanna make
it an environment that's very easy for
people to come and work together and- Yeah
feel a part of something.
Aaron Mazze: There's something that's
lost when we work digitally, uh, as much
as the tools try to keep us connected.
Um, even the video calls that we
have with our clients, I mean, it,
it's one thing when we're doing this,
like, discovery calls, for example,
and when we have them all virtually,
and it's a different, completely
different thing when we're in person.
And, um, I won't drop any names, but a, a
very, very large, very, very large pharma
company, um, found it to be important
enough to fly all the way out here to
meet me, and I had no idea really why.
But when they came in the room,
the phones were put away, and they
were just t- so in the moment.
Um, and there was a lot of back and forth
that's going on that I feel like you
can't do when it's digital because you're,
feel like you're cutting people off.
So it feels like it's a one at a time.
And if you're not that personality of
really ready to insert yourself, you're
not gonna even get a, have a voice.
But in a room, when everybody's
sitting there, I could see everybody's
looks, and I can feel the way they
feel, and then I could go to them.
So I mean, having the office for
me, I feel is, is wildly critical,
especially for creative teams.
Greg Boone: I talk about
this on stage a lot.
I have a book coming out called
AI at the Speed of Trust.
I was on stage a couple weeks ago and I
Aaron Mazze: talked- And
that'll be on screen.com.
Greg Boone: And, and, and, and I
talk about this trust deficit that
we're in, right, a lot of times.
And I, I tell people, in a world where,
you know, any amount of content can be
generated at the push of a button, right,
people are going to want to see a real
person interact with a real human, right?
Because one, they're gonna have so
much noise and optionality, and so it
comes down to then who do you trust?
And I don't trust a lot of things
just through the screen anymore.
That's just where we are-
Aaron Mazze: Yeah
...
Greg Boone: as a society.
And so you wanna have
these types of connections.
So I'm not surprised that
they did that, right?
Because it was probably the
final decision as to like, hey,
and see the sameness, right?
We talk about this.
If every proposal looks very
similar and this and that, right,
it, what it comes down to is, do
I want to be around this human?
Aaron Mazze: Mm-hmm.
Greg Boone: Do I want to work with
this person or group of people?
Yeah.
And that's the reality.
That's the separation and, and
differentiation that we have to do.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, I
absolutely agree with that.
There's a lot of things that our
team tries to do to make sure that
we're not in that sea of sameness.
Um, I do feel like our job
is to be that pivot point.
That's what we're introducing
to the, to the story.
Um, and these days it feels like
it's getting harder and harder
and harder, like we're losing that
authentic, you know, element of it,
unless we can do things in person.
It's like the last frontier of
what AI cannot necessarily impact.
Um, but I wanted to get
into something else.
You're a fanboy, fanboy of Michael Jordan?
Greg Boone: I, uh, I grew
up, I mean, I grew up playing
basketball- Who wouldn't be, right?
Yeah, like I grew up in a time where,
like he changed the game, right?
Yeah.
Even my son, my son is seven, and he has
a, a calendar that's a Jordan poster.
Aaron Mazze: Yep, yep.
Greg Boone: Right?
Um, whenever he ki- sees, you know,
some of my shoes and things and I
try to get him, like it's just a...
I'm a, I'm a big fan of Michael
Jordan for a lot of reasons.
Obviously, the basketball one was
one, but also how he transferred
that persona into business.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Like people, he is a wildly
successful business person.
People knock him a lot of times like, "Oh,
the Hornets aren't winning this and that."
I'm like, yeah, but he, he made that,
he changed that whole environment
for us, and also growing up here-
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, so I was gonna
mention this because, um, well, number
one, how can I not be a fan as well?
I, I lived in Minnesota for four
years when I was in high school,
and then college was in Wisconsin.
And we would go to Illinois for all sorts
of different kind of events in Chicago.
And when the buses were coming in, I,
I grew up in an era where I would see
Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan,
um, and, uh, oh my God, crazy guy.
Um- Rodman ... Rodman.
Thank you.
Dennis Rodman.
Um, they were probably
like 45 stories high.
They were on the sides of the building.
They were larger than life.
And the thing that Michael Jordan kind
of, um, represented for me was a brand.
I mean, he was on point wherever he was.
He always knew how to kind of manipulate
the media in certain ways, but he
was such a great brand, not just for
basketball, for just being a professional.
Uh, he just brought so much more
to it, and I think a lot of folks
didn't even realize how much more
you could do with a brand like
that, a personal brand like that.
And of course, Nike figured it out.
Hence the shoes today.
Greg Boone: It was some push too, and,
and as someone that also, not only did I
play basketball, I also played baseball.
I also admired the fact that
he was able to transition.
You can, people can say whatever they
want about how good he was or wasn't,
but the fact that he could do that-
Aaron Mazze: Yeah
Greg Boone: right?
That he was athletic enough,
right, to be able to do that.
Aaron Mazze: What was the other,
what was the other s- um, athlete?
A Bo something.
Bo Jackson.
Yeah, and he played, uh, baseball,
Greg Boone: bask-
Aaron Mazze: Like in football
... football and basketball, was it?
Yeah.
Yeah, he was crazy triple threat.
Yeah.
Uh, but Michael Jordan
wasn't bad at, at baseball.
He was actually, he was in there.
Greg Boone: Deion Sanders
played football and baseball.
Yeah, yeah.
Right?
And, uh- And just the, the versatility
is one of the things I talk about a
lot t- too, when people ask me about
being in this moment and, and being on
stage and like, well, people ask me,
they're like, "Oh, well, are you, um...
Do you get nervous when you're,
like, in front of that number of
people?" I said, "I was a pitcher
in baseball, and I was a point guard
and shooting guard in basketball."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Like, when you got you
know, 10,000-plus people yelling at
you and every, looking at everything
you may do wrong, like, this is
nothing, talking to 100 executives,
Aaron Mazze: right?
Yeah, the thing that I learned from all
these lessons over the years, and I feel
like it's all about putting yourself
out there and just trying things, and
I feel like that's a struggle we have
with a lot of clients right now that
are quite conservative, and they're
un- they're afraid to try things.
So maybe my connection about bringing
up Michael Jordan and all the
things that he tried is he just was
willing to put himself out there.
Um, in the last two, three years,
uh, well, actually, maybe about
three years ago, we were doing
nothing, no podcasts, no videos.
We weren't even promoting ourselves.
It was all referral business.
And then as I felt, felt, felt like I
was telling our clients to get in the
community and get involved, and they
weren't doing it, I felt like, okay,
let's put ourselves out there instead
and then show them what it looks like.
And we had a couple of
lightning-in-a-bottle moments, but
it is all about just trying things.
I think that's what brands
need to think about these days.
Just put it out there and try.
That level of, like, professionalism
is still needs to be there, but people
are very, like, they're gonna give you
that, that space to m- just maybe be
a little bit messy and not have to be
perfect with every single execution point.
Um, so, you know, as I s- even ta- talked
about this right now, I hope they're
not, uh, cutting out all my ums and uhs.
I mean, it has to be like more of an
authentic conversation and authentic,
uh, ventures that we're all gonna try.
So I love that you hit the stage.
I love that you're also the CEO.
I love that you also have your own
podcast and that you're writing a book.
Um, I was gonna say earlier, when you're
willing to put your, your ideas down
that has a timestamp on it, and it has
persistence, it's also a very risky move.
Yep.
Um, HubSpot gave me a... I thought
this was so funny and ironic.
HubSpot gave me a gift this, this
Christmas, and it was a book on AI.
Right.
And the book was a year and a
half, two years old, and I'm
like, "How is HubSpot giving me a
book on AI that's two years old?"
And the first chapter was all an apology
saying, first thing was, it's like,
"You're reading this, and everything
you're about to read is completely out
of date. Um, but I learned some lessons,
and you're probably gonna learn from
those lessons, too." And so I think
for you, I think, just curious, it's
like, how do you approach those risks?
Do you just say, head on, let's go for it,
or do you kinda measure some things first?
Do you do it in a more measured
way, or what do you do?
Greg Boone: I mean, I have
weekly PR meetings about this
topic, and I say- Oh, you do?
Okay.
And I say, I say-
Aaron Mazze: Okay
... "
Greg Boone: Hey, team, one of the
things I'm highly concerned about is
how stale some of these things may be."
Yeah.
So the book is more about leadership and
how do you actually move, you know, your
organization through this change, right?
And I... You could abstract out AI and
talk about a lot of different types
of transformations- You know, over
the years and I think going forward.
So it's not so much an AI specific
book as it is a how do you start to
move into an environment that is so
challenging, so unknown, a future
that no one can predict, right?
And so what I try to do is make sure that
I'm not trying to predict the future.
I'm simply laying out, "Hey, these
are the things that you're gonna have
to do to keep reinventing yourself,
keep evolving, keep learning," right?
The reason why I keep getting
certifications is because
things change so fast.
But to your point, when, similar to
yourself, two years ago I wasn't on
stage talking about all these things.
I wasn't talking about, you know, a book.
I was doing what a lot of people were
doing in a digital marketing world, trying
to either gamify or automate or what's the
attribution of this thing or that thing.
Make it more experiential.
Right.
But what I realized and, and the team
around me helped me realize is that the
only two things that we can really control
is what I would consider personality-led
growth, right, what we're doing right
now, and community-led growth, right?
Why I was wanting to partner with
a person like yourself, right?
While we are partner, while we're...
I always say the ocean that was Google
that we all fished in has dried up.
I said, "What ponds are you gonna
curate if you're not..." And that was
the thing that I learned a lot from
HubSpot, like, you know, and it goes
back then, I kind of stumbled into,
uh, we acquired a podcast community
platform last year, Earfluence, which
is effectively what evolved and became
our, our, uh, content studio, right?
So we actually don't just have my podcast
or Javier's podcast or Jason's podcast.
We actually have 50 plus podcasts
that we produce for other folks-
Yeah ... helping them understand, right?
And that's, like, kind of owning
your own little kind of media.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Greg Boone: Right?
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: But HubSpot actually,
I guess when they acquired The
Hustle in 2019 or something- Yeah,
Aaron Mazze: yeah
Greg Boone: they basically
did the same thing.
They basically realized that in a
sea of sameness, if everybody's doing
this thing, now- They were teaching
everybody to do the same thing.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right.
But I listened to Kipp Bodnar
and Kieran Flanagan talk about,
you know, when they zig, we zag.
Um, sorry to be long-winded here, but one
of the things that you kind of touched
on earlier that we're leaning into
what is, we call the, the anti-trends.
Aaron Mazze: Mm-hmm.
Greg Boone: Like you may have saw
when you got off the elevator,
we have a little, uh, newsstand.
We put out our first edition of our,
our, our newspaper a couple weeks
ago, the Walk West Gazette, right?
We're looking at billboards.
I'm literally thinking about getting
either an RV or a box truck and
putting Walk West on the side of
it and driving that sh*t around
Aaron Mazze: town.
We're going back to ad man days.
Actually, a really, a really talented
creative director was at a big design
meeting with me, and we were talking
about the future of digital marketing.
This is years ago, and we were s- we
were saying, "Is print dead?" And the
one thing he said to me, he's like,
"Well, when I put a magazine in the
middle of the table, it doesn't go away.
I can't swipe away from it.
I can't click close." Um, so I
feel like print, I, I'm with you.
Like, print has, like, maybe a
resurgence to a certain degree, and
it's feeling very interesting again.
Greg Boone: There's, there's data
behind the fact that you're more
likely, and significantly more likely
to read a PDF that is printed out
that's on your desk than you are in
that damn graveyard of folders that
you have, you know, on your desktop
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, yeah
Greg Boone: I'm significantly
more likely to actually read the
thing that's in front of you.
Aaron Mazze: Do you write your
notes when you're in meetings?
Do you write them or do you
type them or do you take notes?
Greg Boone: Uh, I take very few notes.
I use granola technology.
That's one of those things where I'm
kind of a little bit of the opposite
because what I wanna be is present
and in the moment in the conversation.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah,
Greg Boone: yeah.
Right?
So I, the number of times I see folks
that, that are heads down just writing
notes, they're only picking up a third
of what we're actually talking about
and they can't really even interact.
Yeah.
'Cause they're too busy writing
down exactly what I said.
I'm like, "Why are you
writing down what I said?
That sh- was dumb."
Aaron Mazze: So I have recently...
Okay, I'll go back a couple years.
So I used to be a Moleskine writer.
I used to, like, write all
my notes in Moleskines.
And when I'm listening to folks to try
to keep up with the conversation and
not forget what I wanna say or what
they're saying, I write everything
and I can see it visually in my
head better than when I type stuff.
So I can almost see the
notes and the shape of them.
Um, and I also do the little sketches
and stuff where they're talking as well.
And for some reason, that was
a better place in my head.
And then at one point during
a trip I lost a Moleskine and
it had some really important
information in it and I freaked out.
So I went to mar- remarkable
and that was all digital on the
E- E Ink, like, you know- Oh,
Greg Boone: I have that too.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, that too.
I went
Greg Boone: through, I went
through this whole journey.
Aaron Mazze: The same journey.
Okay, I, I, I got...
Keep going, keep going.
And so I went through that and,
um, I started getting lazy and I
started not bringing up those notes.
I started writing up Post-its again,
and my, my desk, as my friends will
tell me and my colleagues will tell me,
will just become a fat mess of Post-its.
So good for you.
Not a sponsor, Post-its, I still love you.
Um, but then I'm moving on
to something really recently.
I got targeted, um, by
a company called Pocket.
Greg Boone: Okay.
Aaron Mazze: And it's, uh, heypocket.com.
Also not a sponsor.
Uh, and, um, one of the things that
I was so interested in was a physical
hardware piece of, a device that you
could snap to the back of your phone
or just carry with you, and when it's
activated, it's taking notes all with AI.
And afterwards it'll send you a
transcript of the entire conversation.
It has onboard memory and it'll
also give you all the summary, the
action items, everything like that.
And, uh, this, you can use
this with your phone, you can
use it, also use it in person.
So I used it during the discovery
calls, uh, discovery sessions when
this client was in town last week,
and it was absolutely insane all
the nuances that it picked up.
I'm so impressed.
So as you said, it's like I'm evolving
about where I can go with my being
present in these conversations and
how much more value I would have
if I'm not focusing on the notes.
Um, but even as I talk to you right
now, I'm kind of thinking in the back
of my head comically what kind of sound
bites are we gonna get out of this?
Right.
And so some of that's
helpful to write it down.
Sometimes it's not, you know,
but I feel like there is a- I'm
Greg Boone: like... You know,
so I have my notebook here.
I was on, I was on a podcast
yesterday, and I have it, to your
point, to write things that I wanna
make sure that, that, one, I'm always
learning from every conversation.
Yeah.
So in real time, I wanted to react
and make sure I didn't miss- You know,
something that I wanted to respond to.
So I will take a note on that, but
it's a quick note, then I'm back to it.
Aaron Mazze: Yep.
Greg Boone: But I used to, you
know, have all these Moleskines, and
I'd have them just sitting around,
and then I would lose them, and
then I would figure out, you know.
And then, um, my, my, my wonderful
admin, uh, Becky Olsen, uh, one day she
bought me the one of those digital ones.
Yeah.
You write in there.
Yep.
But then I stopped, you know, taking a
picture of it or doing all the stuff, and
then it just became a graveyard of things.
And then what I realized, I'm like,
you know, at the end of the day,
it's the Pareto principle, right?
80% of what I'm having a
conversation is the same.
Yeah.
It's 20% is the nuance, and I
need to be focusing and, you know,
training myself to then figure
out what is the 20% is different.
Aaron Mazze: Yep.
Greg Boone: And then using that to
take notes and to understand how to
be more engaging in the conversation.
But I see, especially...
And I try to train, you know, younger
folks in their careers the same thing.
I'm like, "Hey, man, don't write
every single thing down here.
Like, that is not helpful.
Like, this is not a test.
We are not in class anymore."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
And actually, that's something, my
daughter currently attends NC State,
and, um, I'm curious as to how they
are present in the classroom and what
they do about leveraging AI and how
they kind of think about how they're
gonna apply these skills, and if they're
taking notes anymore like we used to do.
Um, when you were in school, did they
have the, uh, slide projector thing?
Yeah.
'Cause they had it when I was there.
And I would be scribbling down,
trying to repeat, oh, like
everything that they were putting
onto the slide, I was trying to do.
And then of course, fast-forward to
my older daughter, they would take
pictures of the things that the teachers
were showing so they wouldn't have
to go back and take all the notes.
Um, and nowadays I'm wondering if they're
just turning on AI note takers to just
listen in on the whole thing and, and
try to be present, I would assume.
Yeah.
Greg Boone: I mean, I'm gonna
be speaking on stage at, uh, at
East Carolina on Monday, right?
To, um, undergrad business, uh, students
there, and part of it is, you know,
I've, I've kind of created this brand
where I say the quiet part out loud.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
Like, I'm not gonna... I just... I'm past
the point of filtering the impact that
AI is gonna have- Yeah ... for people
that either don't wanna acknowledge it
or don't care to understand it or... And
I get people are, are fearful of it, but
especially within the education system,
and I tell people all the time, it's
like, look, I said this at the beginning
of 2025 to our team here at Walk West.
I said, "By the end of 2025, every
hiring manager in America will be
asking what AI tools are you using to
be more productive?" And so then when
I talk to certain folks in the, in
the education, especially in higher
ed, and it's like, "Oh, well, I don't
want them to use this," or some people
are leaning in, I said, "You're gonna
make these people unemployable."
It's like, you understand that, right?
Yeah.
It's
like- It's like I don't know a single
hiring manager that is gonna be
looking for the person that is anti-AI.
I do not know that person, right?
Yeah.
And so as much as I believe in human
connection and the human spirit and this
and that, I do hope, I genuinely hope
that people, and I always tell folks
when they're like, "Well, they're gonna
cheat," and I'll say, "Well, I'm sure
people cheated with the, the calculator."
I remember people cheating
with the graphing calculator.
People been cheating forever.
I remember people taping the, the,
the answers and the notes inside
of- Yeah ... I'm like, "Hey, how
about you just change the fucking
test?" How about, how about that?
How about we just decide that the
technology has advanced so much, it's
probably time to cha- change the test.
Yeah.
Right?
And I think that th- this time
around, though, the ... Sorry
to be on a rant here, because
I'm very passionate about this.
I have three young children, right?
I'm concerned, you know,
when they get to that age.
They're young.
They're five, seven, and soon to be nine.
I'm just like, they're
learning AI already, right?
They're using Canva.
They're using some of
the AI pieces in there.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
They're learning machine
learning and classification.
Is this a cat?
Is it a dog?
Right?
They're starting to learn this,
and I'm just, just wondering how
much pain as a society do we have
to feel before we start to realize,
like, hey, man, I didn't make AI.
I'm simply trying to tell
you how the game is played.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
And if you don't understand
the rules of the game, then how
are you actually gonna compete?
And so-
Aaron Mazze: It is a game of thrones.
Are we the Unsullied or the Dothraki?
Um, you know, there, there's a lot
of actually that are, that's going
on right now where I think, um, you
had it in something you had mentioned
maybe recently, too, about the
Maybe you just said it, about where
the Google, Google juice has dried up.
That's what you were saying.
And, um, I recently did get a chance
to, I'm working with Google right now,
which I'm very, feeling very fortunate
about, and we also had a chance to
have some folks to join us on some
conversations for a podcast, and, um,
they're giving us a sense of where
they're gonna go with all these tools,
and it is a new frontier, for sure.
Um, I was gonna say, and I wanted to
mention it to the Google folks, and I wish
I did, but I wanna ask you now, with all
these tools now between us, are we further
becoming less and less connected to the
s- the, the original social and community
environment that, you know, gets people
to wanna actually get to know each other?
So for example, the, the social
behaviors of teenagers and, and people
even in college these days, they're
more apt to text and DM than ever call.
They would never do that.
Or if a person hits like on something,
that's a very, very big thing.
Like, oh, you liked it.
Oh, he must wanna go out with me.
Like, what?
He just clicked like.
How could that have any kind of signal
towards what they really, really feel?
And so you're losing all that, um,
that context, and I feel like with
the AI tools, people are, as we've
all talked about, they're less likely
to now engage with a company, like to
make a phone call, to send an email,
even go to their website anymore.
They're more likely to just
do all their work in AI.
Um, and so I wish I kinda
talked to Google about this.
I feel like the technology is pulling us
further apart than bringing us together.
What are your thoughts on that?
Greg Boone: I don't know that I
actually agree with, um- Oh, they do.
I guess it, I mean, what is there
five different generations in
the workforce right now, right?
I would say, you know, the s- the
folks that are in school, in college
right now, a lot of them I'm hearing,
I'm going back to the kind of the bar
and club business, a lot of them don't
even go out that w- like they- Exactly.
Exactly ... right?
But they're doing stuff
in like House, you know.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
They're doing, uh, a lot of
people are drinking less.
Aaron Mazze: Mm-hmm.
Greg Boone: Right?
And so people, they, people
wanna think about the negatives
relative to our past, right?
We all have a, a glorified
view of our past.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: It's like we f- for
whatever reason, I guess it's just like
it's how our brains are, are wired.
We-
Aaron Mazze: I didn't really
like the House parties.
Did you like
Greg Boone: those
Aaron Mazze: House parties in college?
Greg Boone: I didn't not like them.
I loved them when they were at my house.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Greg Boone: Exactly.
Right?
When it was at my place, like
y'all need to get outta here.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, you know?
But the, uh, the reality of, of
kind of what... Like, I'm seeing
people, like, watch a lot of stuff
on YouTube, like watch '90s stuff.
I'm seeing, like, different,
like, uh, styles from the '90s and
things that are, are coming back.
People are being more anti and, like,
turning their phones on do not disturb I'm
seeing from younger generations, right?
I think our perception Of
what we're seeing versus the
reality are not the same.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
And we also like to put things into, to
the context of how we view the world.
Aaron Mazze: Mm-hmm.
Greg Boone: Right?
So for some of them, maybe
the connect- you know, the
connection is different, right?
I know when you call somebody, they're
like, "What is... Like, this is
weird. Why are you calling me? Like,
is somebody in trouble right now?"
Right?
But I think for me, I, you know, I'm
more like- I'm more, I, I have the
Aaron Mazze: same thing, by the way.
If my phone rings, I
think something's wrong.
Greg Boone: Correct.
Like, my dad calls me in the middle of
the day, I'm like, "Is everything okay?"
Aaron Mazze: That's exactly what I do.
Greg Boone: He was like, "Can you look
up some airline tickets?" I'm like,
"Man, are you kidding me right now?"
Aaron Mazze: Yeah,
Greg Boone: exactly.
He'll call you, he's like, "Oh,
what are you doing?" I'm working.
The same thing I'm doing every time
you call me in the middle of the day.
Aaron Mazze: Okay, I have a standing
rule with my parents if they ever watch
my podcast, um, hi, Mom, and, uh, if
they call me during the day, I have a
standing rule that I have to answer.
So I don't want them to cry wolf with me.
But it's happened so often now that
I'm like, do I have to, like, get
rid of this rule where I, I'm allow-
I have to answer every single call
that they get, they, they send me?
Greg Boone: So my, my dad
is a retired truck driver.
Aaron Mazze: Okay.
Greg Boone: Um, he just started
learning how to use the internet- Yeah.
on his phone.
Yeah.
He's never written an
email, never sent an email.
Aaron Mazze: That's
Greg Boone: amazing.
Right?
So I, so he is never gonna watch this.
Aaron Mazze: Yes.
Right?
Greg Boone: Yeah.
So I'm not worried about that.
But I, you know, but I have the other
side of it, which is every small
technical issue becomes my problem.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: And it, it
becomes very urgent.
Aaron Mazze: Oh, they're very...
My dad's very smart about this.
I don't know if he did it on purpose,
but everything that I buy, he
buys, and I keep wondering why, and
then he realized- You're the tech
...
Greg Boone: because I'm the tech.
Aaron Mazze: He's like, "Well,
you have it, so I'm gonna get
the same car." I'm like, "You're
gonna buy the exact same car?"
He might be buying the same car.
And then I get an Alexa, he
gets the same damn Alexa.
I get the same laptop,
he gets the same laptop.
He gets the same phone.
And I'm just like, "Oh my God,
please stop." When I got the
Google at home, you know, wifi,
he's like, he got the Google wifi.
And he's like, "You're gonna
help me put it all together."
Fair.
I'm like, "Oh, I, I
just... " It's so smart.
Um, but again, do you feel like that the
technology in a way, um, is giving us an
excuse not to have as many interactions?
I do agree with you, and I'm very excited
to actually see video, ironically,
of st- of kids going to a party.
Um, like I saw one recently of,
like, a bar mitzvah, and when
they, when the kids walked in, they
had to all hand in their phones.
They were like, "No phones allowed.
You're gonna get this little snap, you
know, Kodo- Kodak, you know, camera that
you're gonna get to be there so you are
more present." But do you feel like in
general, like, the c- the technology is
pulling us apart to a certain degree?
Greg Boone: No.
I mean, I actually feel like, and this
is one of the things, like, and I'll
bring it back to kind of the business
community, you start thinking about,
like, the whole, uh, SaaSpocalypse that
people have been talking about of late.
I think for the last, you know, 20,
25, go back to the Marc Andreessen
Software Eats the World or Software
Will Eat the World, whatever the,
the, the book title was, right?
We've created so many different
pieces of technology already, right?
And so part of the SaaSpocalypse is
people I think get it twisted and
they think, "Well, oh- People are
gonna vibe code their own money.com.
They're like, "No, that's not the
point." The point is I don't need
15 different solutions anymore.
I need three.
Yeah.
So what AI is going to do is going to
consolidate processes and tools, right?
And so when people wanna blame
AI, like what AI, and I have a
lot of these conversations, we,
we call it app rationalization.
A lot of companies are saying,
"Why do I have 15 tools," right?
So AI can't be to blame for
everything that we've all been
creating for the last 20 years.
Yeah, yeah.
Right?
And that's why we've ended
up when we have, uh, we bring
it back to kind of marketing.
I, and my team has heard me say this
a lot, you know, it's like, "Oh, well
I'm a, because we have social tools
now, I have a social media marketer."
Yeah.
Right?
"Because we have this tool, I have
this type of marketer." I said, I
said, "Now," I said, "Shit, I need two
of y'all for every one pencil." Yeah.
"One of you can write and one can
erase." I was like, like what is that?
Like, and- We
Aaron Mazze: need full stack folks.
We need full stack folks, for sure
...
Greg Boone: or the reality is,
and that's why you're seeing a
lot of consolidations with teams.
I've, I've talked to companies locally,
and I've talked to companies globally,
and they're saying the same thing.
We have so much redundancy that's
based on how we've built tools and
processes- Yeah ... not how customers
actually want to engage with us.
Yeah.
Like, I don't wanna talk to your
sales engineer, and your customer
success person, and your account
executive, and your salesperson.
Like, why are you throwing that at me?
Because that's how you're organized.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
That whole friction,
that's pre-AI problems.
AI does not give a sh*t about
your process or your org chart.
Aaron Mazze: Mm-hmm.
Greg Boone: It only
cares about the outcome.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: And that is the thing that
is driving these valuations in, in SaaS.
That is the thing when I find it very
disingenuous when people say, "Oh,
no, AI's not gonna replace or take
any jobs." I'm like, "If AI reduces
the process, reduces the number of
tools, how are you not making the
connection that these teams are either
gonna be smaller or more productive,
or you're gonna be do- or you're
gonna upskill people to do different
Aaron Mazze: things?"
I, I would say upscale.
I was gonna say, so this may be, I hope
that I get this right, you know a lot
more about the world of AI and some of
the terminology and stuff like that.
Our team has been historically in
the last year and a half, two years,
really used AI for reference material
and refining language on things, maybe
putting together some research reports.
They're really not
using the agent concept.
But if I get this right, if you
go back and watch, uh, any Marvel
movie with Tony Stark in it and-
Jarvis ... he starts talking to Jarvis
and having Jarvis do something for
him, that to me is the agent model.
Is that, am I getting that correct?
Greg Boone: That's correct.
Okay.
That is the agentic thing.
It is the, "Hey, Jarvis, go do the
thing- Exactly ... and then come
back to me when the thing is-"
Aaron Mazze: Is done, yes.
Greg Boone: Yeah.
But that is the... And that's when I, you
know, we were talking to clients early
last year, and my team here would say,
"Oh, well this bank said that they're not
gonna use AI." I said, "Oh, that's cute."
I said, "What happens when their
technology vendors put AI in-" in there
because the market sophistication gets
to a point where every consumer and
every user expects this to be in there.
You don't have a choice anymore.
And they're like, "Well, they're
not gonna use it." I'm like,
"Unless they go off the grid."
Right.
And so by Q3 of last year, you know,
the phones started ringing, and
people were like, "Hey, we need to
talk about this. Our vendors aren't,
you know- Yeah ... allowing us." Now,
2025 was the, in the media, was the,
uh, the year of the agent, right?
That was more of the hype
side of, of where agents were.
It was more of the year of automation,
AI assistance, AI co-pilots, right?
How do I talk to the information
inside of whatever tool, call
it- Exactly ... like Claude or
Aaron Mazze: whatever.
Like, like
Greg Boone: LLM, yeah.
Right.
In 2026, though, it is the
agentic portion, right?
As Jensen said at NVIDIA, every
single company needs to have
an open claw strategy, right?
Yes.
And so if you look at Salesforce,
Salesforce Agentforce is
not a co-pilot assistant.
It is, "I'm gonna go
do something for you."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: HubSpot, you know, they're
creating their agentic, um, components.
Strategies, yeah.
Every tool will have an
agentic, uh, way of using it.
Yeah.
And my concern is then what happens
when they flip the switch and say that
you're using... The old way that you
pointed and clicked around to get 10%
productivity, we're turning that off.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
I will, I will say something
about all this, though.
I think our industry, at least we work
in life sciences, they're very slow
to take action on certain types of
things, even though they're considered
a very innovation-centric business.
Um, their whole world is
to discover new things.
That's what they're there for.
Um, I would say they're very
conservative in all this.
And so when I think about AI and what it
can do for us, it's like giving a person
that doesn't, has no context a blank
piece of paper and telling them to do
something with that blank piece of paper,
and they have no idea where to start.
Some, like, now you and
I, we might fold origami.
We might write a poem.
We might write a script for the next
podcast, or we might write a speech,
or we might do a, a strategy plan.
We're thinking about all sorts of
things we can do with that piece of
paper, um, or take a little spider
off the floor and move it outside.
You know, that, that paper
has a function for us.
But for folk- a lot of folks out
there, they don't have that, um, that
understanding of the possibility 'cause
they just don't know what they don't know.
And so part of what I think AI
has introduced for peop- for
you and I is, like, it's like
the gold rush gold mine for us.
It's like we're gonna find ways to
be the frontier and take advantage
of it, and then eventually folks
will follow us because they really
don't know what to do with it.
Greg Boone: Yeah, they call that
the blank canvas problem, right?
It- It is
Aaron Mazze: called the
blank canvas problem?
Greg Boone: Yeah, they call
it the blank canvas- I need
Aaron Mazze: T-shirts with that.
Greg Boone: Yeah, so it's
the blank canvas problem.
We, and I always say when I'm, I'm,
I'm talking a- about this, whether it's
training or on stage, I say The greatest
thing that OpenAI ever did for AI adoption
was make it feel like Google Search.
And then I follow up with, and the
worst thing that OpenAI ever did
was make it feel like Google Search.
Make it feel like Google Search.
Yeah.
Because that's what people treat it like.
Yeah.
Right?
And I always tell people,
I don't AI search anything.
I AI instruct.
I have it go build things for me.
Like, you should see my screens.
I am spinning up so many different
things in parallel, right?
'Cause I've, I've trained
myself to work differently.
Yeah.
Right?
This is an upskilling and an adoption
and a change management problem.
It's also a leadership problem, right?
Because if you have a leadership
team that doesn't fully understand
the capabilities of the tool, they
have no frame of reference of what
this thing can or cannot do, right?
And so it, what strikes me
so odd is the very basics.
Like, you can't have an AI strategy
if you are not AI literate.
Aaron Mazze: Mm-hmm.
Greg Boone: Like, how... All these people
talking about, "Oh, our AI strategy,"
be like, you don't even understand
what this thing can and cannot do.
Like, and, and I think people get grounded
so much in just the foundational, the
large language models, but they're not
even thinking about the end products.
This is going to be in every
technology that you use.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: So if you don't understand
how to talk to a machine, you don't
understand what this thing can do.
I, I mean, there's gonna be two
CEOs, two types of CEOs over
the next, I call it 24 months.
You're gonna have the ones that
recognize that they're not built for
this moment, and they step aside.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: And it's already happening.
There's several, you know, very
public folks, you know, uh, not all
of them are stepping aside because
they, they can't, they're not there
for the moment, but they do recognize
that somebody else needs to come in.
And then you're gonna have
the, the brutally, "I'm gonna
take advantage of this moment.
I'm gonna cut as much weight as possible
to clear up some budget to figure out
what my agentic strategy is." I'm not
even calling it the AI strategy anymore.
What is your agentic strategy?
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Yeah.
I, this is where I kind of... We,
we were introducing you, um, before
this podcast started, and we were
said we're, we're both AI bi-curious.
But that's the, that's for me,
the, um, perspective of what is
it gonna do for me, and what's it
doing for the rest of the world?
Because there's some certain aspects of
AI that we could maybe control and design
and tell it what to do, and then there's
other points of this where I can't control
what its perspective or perception of our
brands and our clients' brands are at all.
Like, we can only do so much.
So there's a lot of things that are just
kinda out of our control, and that's okay.
Um, so it's, it, like you
said, we have to embrace that.
I'm, I'm struggling right now personally
to figure out how to tell it what to do
and come back to me with a result I'm
getting a little bit better about it.
Um, but it is getting to be this, to a
point where I'm feeling like I need some
inspiration to figure out what, what is
it that I should be asking for it to do.
I'd love that Tony Stark day.
I would love it.
I wanna be able to say to, to, uh,
to a Jarvis at one point, um, "Okay,
here's the client profile, here's
their market, here's their ideal
client profile that they're targeting.
I have this platform that can
do all their marketing for them.
Here's the strategy docs that I've
been writing up or thinking about,
and I wanna execute a campaign that
can do A, B, and C with this result.
And I need you to try it for two days
and tell me if anything's working.
If it doesn't work, stop.
If it's working, keep
going and amplify it."
And I would love to do that, like, kind
of discussion with it and let it run.
Um, I feel like for transactional
businesses this is possible.
It's like there's only so many variables
involved with the transactional work.
Like, people are buying soap.
Okay, do they buy it or not?
But in the work that we do, the sales
process is so long, um, that the
market's changed from the point in
which you talk to them initially to the
time in which you sign the contract.
So you have to adjust all the way
to that point where you actually
get them to close, win on business.
And so you're building this nurturing,
you know, schema that might be adjusting
through that, that course of engagement.
Um, and that's where I'm hoping AI
would help us be that kind of like,
let's wiggle with it, um, you know?
I'm trying to put a lot of
different little soundbites in this.
Yeah.
No, the, the, the wig- But
Greg Boone: that's, you know, the
wiggle ... yeah, like, so, you know,
I'm, I'm, I'm getting longer in
the tooth when I play basketball.
I played this morning and, and, uh, that's
what one of my buddies, he's like, he's
like, "Greg, put the wiggle on them."
He's like the, he's like, it's just
like, you know, it's almost like a dream
shake, uh- Yeah, of course ... Hakeem
Olajuwon and turnaround Kobe sty- style.
But it's like-
Aaron Mazze: We gotta do that with AI.
Greg Boone: Right.
Exactly.
But the thing is, again, this goes
back, the reason why I have 35 GenAI
certifications is this stuff has been
moving over the last couple years, and
I'm always trying to understand, like,
I have one for data visualization, I
have one for vibe coding, I have one
for cybersecurity, for talent, for, uh,
HR, for, you know, employee experience.
I'm trying to understand how it
impacts and how someone would think
about this, and how they could
do their job differently, right?
And I was talking to someone recently,
and they were like, "What do you think,
um, you know, folks need to learn?" I
said, "Actually, I think people need
to unlearn." I said, "The problem
right now is we try to apply historical
rationale, reason, and processes to
an agentic world, and that's where
it keeps blowing up in your face."
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Because the problem that you want AI
to solve probably isn't the actual
thing it should be trying to solve,
and that should be, the human side
should be solving the other thing.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: And so when people's like,
"Oh, well, you know, um, I'm scared that
AI is going to replace this, or it can-
it's gonna do this part of my job," versus
for me, I'm like, "Man, I wanna see all
the things AI can do that I hate doing."
Right?
And so for me, it's- Trying to
reimagine how I actually work and
where are the friction points.
But I also understand that there's
so many different, um, variations
and variables that are going into it.
Like, someone who's using a
free version is a year behind
from capabilities, for one.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
Um, if you're only...
I, I have one slide that I show
now, and is, and I would just say
your AI basic is showing, right?
Because you're basically just showing,
"I did a LinkedIn headshot, and I did
a carousel, and I did like-" Yeah.
"All right, cool, man." Right?
Like, I'm building applications, websites.
I'm building new business models, right?
And I'm like, that's... I'm... And
I'm not trying to judge anyone, right?
But you think about the
spectrum inside of organization.
One of y- you know, some groups are using
it as Google search, and then there's
people way over here doing OpenCloud that
are running two-person companies- Yeah
... generating six figures in revenue, right?
And it's the same underlying
technology, right?
But the problem is, one, the
leaders have not... As my guy Alec
Coughlin will say is, "You gotta
have your hands in the dirt." Right?
So as a CEO, I'm like, "I'ma put my hands
in the dirt. I'm gonna show the team
the art of what is actually possible."
Aaron Mazze: I love that.
I love that.
Right?
Yeah.
Greg Boone: And I'm, I'm gonna be
messy- Somebody's gotta experiment
Aaron Mazze: with it, right?
Somebody has to.
Right.
Greg Boone: And it's gotta be... And
you gotta build in public, right?
And you have... I was meeting with a,
um, a CEO here a couple days ago, and,
uh, she was just asking me about AI,
and she's in the marketing space, too.
And she said something, uh, and I,
I told her, I was like, "This warms
my heart." And what she said was, "I
don't know what I don't know." There's
so few people that are leaders that
would admit what they don't know.
Yeah.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: I have all
these certifications, right?
And there's still a ton of things I don't
know, and I am okay with that, right?
But other folks are like, they feel
like they have to have the answers.
Aaron Mazze: So okay.
So two more questions that I
have, um, for today, and I wanna
make sure we cover them both.
Um, so the first will be the
kid in the candy store for you.
I wanna talk through what your
vision is for AI in the next, not
year, but let's say five years.
Like, really look out 'cause it's
gonna be at, at echelons that
maybe we, none of us can imagine.
So you'll be the futurist.
And the other thing I wanna talk about
is, you've mentioned this a couple times
today, but you have, like, unlearning.
You used the word un- And there
were other things that you talked
about that were kind of we have to,
like, reset our minds on things.
Um, and- We are bo- both part of
a conference called now Unbound.
Greg Boone: Yeah.
Aaron Mazze: Which, as I talked to
some of the HubSpot folks, hi HubSpot
folks, uh, they, um, they told me
that this should be considered an
unconference, and that there's this
trend now of people trying to do things
in the opposite, the zigzag is- Kind
Greg Boone: of anti-trends, like a- The
Aaron Mazze: anti-trends
the- Un-trends The un-trends
Greg Boone: Um,
Aaron Mazze: so I thought we should also
discuss the rebrand of inbound to unbound.
Greg Boone: Shit, I was there
last year in San Francisco,
and I, and I said when I was
Aaron Mazze: there- You, when you
say there, you're talking about the
inbound conference ... I was inbound.
Greg Boone: Yep.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Yep.
Greg Boone: And I Was
Aaron Mazze: that your first conference?
Greg Boone: That was my first time.
Aaron Mazze: Okay.
Right.
All right.
What was your thought about the conference
in, in California last year for HubSpot?
Greg Boone: Again, I've been all in
on AI for the last going on three
and a half years at, at this point.
Yeah.
Right?
It made all the sense in the world.
It's like it's not in Boston.
It's in San Francisco.
Like, they tried to like, you
know, tip their h- their hand
as much as humanly possible.
We're gonna do this in San Francisco.
We're gonna do this in, you know, in
the area where all AI companies are.
Aaron Mazze: It's the incubator, yeah.
Greg Boone: Like Yeah.
You know?
We've hired all these people
from the AI community.
We've renamed and, and give people
new titles that are AI-specific.
Aaron Mazze: It was like the AI
incubator was in a toaster, and it
popped, and then out came inbound.
Greg Boone: But the thing that was,
uh, the thing that was so interesting
to me, and I didn't realize this until
I was just kind of like listening
to the whispers in the other part.
The whole reason why I got into the
HubSpot partnership was because I was
following them going all in on AI.
Yeah.
Right?
And so I was there, and the thing
that shocked me was so many partners
were woefully unaware that they
were moving and going all in on AI.
Like, I was like, "This is one of
the, this- Are you not listening?
This is not a secret.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
And I thought that maybe, yeah,
you'll have a few whispers, but it
was like the overwhelming majority.
And, and the thing that was really
shocking to me, some of the folks
even on the sales and the, in, in,
uh, customer success side inside
of HubSpot seemed surprised.
Some of them literally said to me, "Oh,
don't worry about that. We're not really
pushing that." I was like, "Oh, no, no,
no. That can't be the-" The messaging
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Well, it's represented, every year it
represents this, um, this point where
we can stop all the things that we're
working on and hear from other folks
about how it's going for them and
understand what trends are happening.
And a lot of folks have ... They
look down all year.
They don't have a chance to look out.
The majority has to look down every
day, and they work so much in the weeds
that, um, Inbound has represented this
over the years, um, this fusion of
let's think about what works for other
organizations, but let's also introduce
some new theories, let's introduce some
new technologies, and let's try them
together and don't be afraid about it.
Um, then they also bring all sorts of
inspirational talks in as well that really
show you that the world's much bigger
than your tiny little, you know, fiefdom.
And so you, you build a very b- different
perspective about marketing, and now of
course sales, customer success, customer
experience might actually represent.
So the big question is, a conference
that's been around for 15 years has now
rebranded itself from Inbound to Unbound.
What are your thoughts on that?
Greg Boone: It made all the
sense in the world, right?
For me, you can't call... You can't go
on stage and say, "Inbound is broken, and
everything has to run into a, a loop."
You can't go to that same conference
and say, "AI is mediating everything
that we've taught you to do." Like, you
can't do these things and inst- and stay
authentic and genuine and then show up
again this year and call it Inbound again.
Aaron Mazze: And say the same thing, yes.
Greg Boone: Yeah, you can't do it.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: And so I thought
it was, I thought what they
did was important last year.
"Hey, look, we're gonna move this to
San Francisco. We're gonna show you some
new faces. We're gonna show you how the
world has changed, and we're hoping that
you're gonna change with us." And then
by the time it came around this year,
now we're gonna call the thing Unbound.
We already admitted, right, that
this, the world has changed.
The thing that was concerning, and I, and
I'll go back to, like, the, the kind of
the partner side, though, is I thought
our job as agencies and consultancies was
to be at the forefront for our clients
and to see where the puck is going.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: That was the thing
that was concerning to me.
I, it's one thing if you're a, a, a
customer of HubSpot, and you show up
to one of these conferences, and you're
like, "Oh, man, all this new stuff."
But how can you be a partner being
paid to be on the front end of this
and have no clue how much the world
has changed and what's coming next?
It's all a great,
Aaron Mazze: great point, and, um, I, I,
I don't need to go through it right now.
I'm very, very involved with them.
Very, very, very involved.
Uh, I feel like I'm collecting Skittles
stickers or something from these guys.
Greg Boone: Oh, but I'm not talking
about- I love them ... HubSpot.
I'm talking about as a partner.
Aaron Mazze: I got- Yeah ... I gotcha.
So, so what I, what I wanted to share
was that, um, organizations like
that, if you're gonna put a lot of
effort into it, will give you a sight
line into where things are going.
They can't do it for everyone-
Because like anything, it's like
opening up everything in the kitchen
sink to let everybody start rushing
in and saying, "I have a lot of
things I wanna share with you guys."
I think for those partners that have,
um, a lot of, uh, passion, strategy focus
on thinking about how to leverage tools
and strategies together with HubSpot,
they will have a voice in where things
will go, uh, because I'm part of that
now, and I can, I could say I'm, I'm an
N equals one, I sure, I'm sure of it.
But at this moment, I'm experiencing
a partnership with HubSpot at a very
different level where I'm helping
advise things, look at stuff on UX,
UI, look at stuff of where features
on the AI side are going, and we're
doing a similar thing with Google.
They're very respective.
I'm actually so almost shocked about how
much they're putting into our feedback,
uh, how much like, um, let's say ownership
and, um, respect they're putting into our
feedback to drive where things might go
next 'cause they wanna know what works.
And what I've told them before, and
I'll, I'll say it here again, it's
like, yes, I'm in one specific niche
because it's such a vibrant community
in just life sciences and healthcare,
but the things that we do here could
be applicable for any industry.
So, um, I feel like organizations
like HubSpot that understand how to
run community, that understand how to
take the voice of the partners into
consideration and then actually put
it into, into practice, I, I very
much respect these, these businesses.
Greg Boone: Um- Oh, I'm bullish on that.
Yeah.
I'm bullish on, on, on HubSpot.
I continue to be bullish on it-
Yeah ... because they are willing
to say the quiet part out loud.
They are willing to say
that we have to change.
My bigger-
Aaron Mazze: I wish they would
do more though, 'cause I think a
lot of them say a lot of stuff.
I want them to show how to do it.
So if there's one thing I would criticize
about Inbound over the years, it's
like they talk the big talk, but you
really have to dig into certain sessions
to figure out how to put it in place
Greg Boone: Well, at least I,
what the credit I'll give them
is that they crea- they c- they
created a, uh, playbook, right?
What I told my team, so we came
up with our four-piece strategy
beginning of last year: podcast,
partnerships, PR, and publishing.
Which I love, yep.
The whole point of that-
Yep ... was personality-led
growth and community-led growth.
We think about podcast
was the perfect medium.
We have video, audio here.
We can control our own narrative, right?
The other part is the community.
How do I figure out, find more
Invenims, more Aarons, right?
How do we work together, right?
And so they put out a playbook.
I have not seen a single other
marketing provider put any type of
playbook out there to help their
partner network or their customers.
Now,
Aaron Mazze: you guys did the thing that
I feel like was missing from HubSpot.
You added this layer that showed
about how to put it in place.
Correct.
So the playbook for me, as much
as I liked it, it's a, it's a good
playbook, it's understandable,
it was missing that last step.
And when you buy a platform like
Salesforce or like HubSpot or even
other platforms like project management
systems like ClickUp or Monday, you
have this crazy huge white canvas again,
and you don't know where to begin.
And so it goes back to they
don't know what they don't know.
Now, you and I have a job because
a lot of companies will hire us
to help them figure that out.
But, but I think that what's, I think
what's brilliant about platforms like this
is they're giving us this stage, platform,
ha, ironic, um, coincidental, that you and
I get to work in to craft it the way we
need it to and tailor it for each client,
and that's an important aspect of it.
But if there's one thing about HubSpot's
conference with Unbound now, I'm hoping
that I don't want to hear the same
thing year over year, as you said.
I want to know exactly how to
put it in practice tomorrow.
That's the part that I'm most
Greg Boone: excited about.
Do, do you listen to much of
their, um, um, Marketing Against
The Grain podcast or watch?
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, sometimes I do.
Yes, I do.
Yeah.
Greg Boone: Yeah, so I, I religiously
like have been listening to it
for the last, you know, almost two
years now because when you listen to
Kip and Karen talk, they will give
very specific ways to apply this.
The problem is they have such a
variety of types of organizations.
You have yours that has a niche in
this area or that, but a lot of these
things are, uh, applicable to all
of these different organizations.
My, my frustration is that
what... I always say this.
Um, I use this one graphic with a
slide, and it's a, a hang glider and
a space shuttle, and I tell people
all the time, I was like, "You know,
this is not another tech upgrade. It's
the difference, AI is the difference
between, you know, in past digital
transformation, the difference between
a hang glider and a space shuttle."
Sure, they have the same
underneath, uh, physics, but
that's where the parallels stop.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
And I said, you know, and I always
use the same Upton Sinclair quote all
the time from 1934, and it said, "It's
difficult to get a man to understand
something when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
And I always tell folks, I said,
"That's not about ignorance. It's
about future shock or loss aversion."
And the reality is we keep tying
ourselves to our historical ways of
working, our historical processes.
So people will come, and they'll
say, "Well, well, how do you do
attribution to this? Well, how do I,
how do I get the click-through rates?"
I'm like, "You're not understanding.
The whole damn world has changed."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
"
Greg Boone: And you want to keep
trying to tie it back to an analog past
because you don't know your role in the
future." And so that's why I keep saying
unlearning and breaking the process.
What I had to do, um, just a l- little
secret as to how I came to this four-piece
strategy was in December of 2024, I had an
early paid version of Google's, uh, deep
research, their Gemini 1.5 Experimental,
and I kept asking the machine.
I said, "If Google were to go away
tomorrow, what are marketers going to
do in 2025?" I was pushing my brain
'cause I'd already registered a domain-
Great question ... I'd, I had already
registered a domain what-is-aeo, answer
engine optimization, in November of 2024.
Nobody wanted to have the conversation.
I was like, "All right.
Whatever, man." And so I moved on.
I was like, "I need to figure out
what I'm gonna do for my company
'cause I'm trying to help y'all.
Y'all don't wanna have this conversation."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Yeah, of course.
Greg Boone: Of course.
And it kept saying the same thing:
short-form video, podcast, video.
It kept saying, um, affiliate
marketing in, in communities.
Aaron Mazze: Mm-hmm.
Greg Boone: Right?
So personality-led growth.
Yep.
Community-led growth.
Yep.
Right?
Um, uh, YouTube, right?
Another thing we pushed
these onto, YouTube.
'
Aaron Mazze: Cause it's
not a walled garden.
It
Greg Boone: said PR.
Aaron Mazze: Oh, actually, let me really,
really quickly stop you for a second.
LinkedIn or YouTube,
which would you go with?
We do both.
I know, but which one- Or from a-
would you take priority?
Greg Boone: Oh, I don't
view the world that way.
I love all my children, so You
Aaron Mazze: have to pick one.
You have to pick one.
Greg Boone: I, if I had to pick one,
I would go with LinkedIn right now.
Aaron Mazze: But isn't it interesting
that if you post something on s-
YouTube, you do get the Google juice.
If you post it on LinkedIn, it's
in a walled garden, and only when
people log in will they ever get to
see it, and there's no SEO benefits.
Greg Boone: But see, now you're, you're,
you, this is where we diverge because I
don't care about the SEO benefit directly.
What I care about is
curating my own pond, right?
Yes.
SEO is a thing if we all assume that
the only pond or ocean was Google.
Now, I push myself to
imagine Google going away.
Aaron Mazze: Yep.
Yep.
Greg Boone: Right?
So that's why I watch on LinkedIn,
like I'm eating popcorn, watching
people debate, "Well, hey, it
was just SEO and this and that."
I'm like, "How many people clicking
through to your site? Nobody, 'cause
y'all can argue about that sh*t all day."
Aaron Mazze: I agree.
AEO is not SEO.
So here's my point about LinkedIn.
Does the AI tools on the outside
of LinkedIn, can you reference any
information you post inside of LinkedIn?
That's where I'm, that's what I mean by,
like, all that great work- Whether it
Greg Boone: can today-
we're putting into
LinkedIn- ... is irrelevant.
Okay.
Right?
The problem that people get, keep getting
caught, and you understand in marketing,
I always tell people, I said, "In
marketing, there's a six to nine-month
lag between your actions and results."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
The problem with that is the capabilities
of AI double every six months.
Aaron Mazze: Mm-hmm.
Greg Boone: And so people then
create a system or a process based
on what they view the world today,
not versus what the thing will
be capable of in 6 to 12 months.
Right?
So when I came up with the four P process,
the reason why I did that, because even
my own chairman asked, he's like, "Oh, we
got to..." He's like, "You, you're talking
about this AEO stuff, and this and that."
And I was like, "Yeah." But
once I realized, I said, "If
I were an, an LLM," right?
Because I like to be weird like that
and assume that I can be a machine.
You are an LLM?
Okay.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: It's like if I was
a machine- Yeah ... how would
I rank authority of something?
Yeah.
I said I would sure as sh*t not just
believe what you put on your own blog.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: I was like, maybe
that's a reference point.
And so what I tell folks, I
say, "We're gonna do three
things really well at Walk West.
We're gonna make sure you're seen,
heard, and cited, C-I-T-E-D, by humans
and machines alike for maximum results."
Because what I was trying to get
across was if I was an LLM, I would
cross-reference your website, I would
cross-reference LinkedIn, YouTube,
other authorities in milliseconds,
and then bring all that together to
then come back with my recommendation.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: That is not how we've
built marketing for the last 20 years.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: We've told people, "You need
to optimize..." People are like, "Well,
how are you optimizing your site?" I'm
like, "Man, if you don't stop talking
about your own site, you better show up.
Somebody else needs to
give you the credibility."
Aaron Mazze: So if you had, if you
had no budget and you wanna be heard,
seen, and cited, where do you do that?
Greg Boone: I would go on LinkedIn.
Aaron Mazze: Yep.
Greg Boone: YouTube.
Aaron Mazze: Yep.
Greg Boone: Right?
When you say relatively no budget,
and the same things that we're doing.
I would lean in some of the communities.
I would show up at more events.
Aaron Mazze: Yep.
Greg Boone: Again, there's a trust
deficit that's happening right now, right?
And people are like, "Oh, it's
the same sea of sameness online."
I was like, "Yeah, because I'm not
focused and worried about that." Where
I'm different is I'm gonna... I tell
people all the time, I say, "In a, in
a world, in this content being created
at the push of a button," I said, "the
difference between you and I is I can
be on camera, on stage, on point all
the time." That is the difference.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Like, if you'd have met me two
years ago, I wasn't out front like that.
The reason why I'm out front like
now is because our environment
in the world requires that.
There are literally jobs right now
that are called CEO storytellers.
Aaron Mazze: Yep.
Greg Boone: Because they've figured
out that you will get more visibility
through your executive team.
Ask HubSpot.
They literally have all of
their folks coordinating And
posting things on LinkedIn.
They're creating a network
effect of their executives
Aaron Mazze: You, you shared something
that I wanna maybe finish with,
but I still wanna get your quick
take on where we are in five years.
But one thing that you said, Greg,
which I think we should all try to
take home, is, um, if you have no
budget, you gotta still show up.
Yeah.
And I think for at least our clients,
um, going to a conference and
showing up is definitely step one.
Sharing that experience about what
you've learned from that conference
is your thought leadership.
It's your people vicariously
living through your experiences.
It's building a voice for yourself.
And I think that's the part that gives
you set up, gets you set up for the,
um, site that you were talk- uh, being
cited, uh, in earning that media.
Um, 'cause I never thought
of it in this way recently.
I, I mean, we've had some
people at... I didn't even win
these clients over the years.
We had one client that was so, a
client, prospective client, um, that
was so active in all the different
conferences that he really, like,
he gamed the entire algorithm.
He would just show up at a show and
talk about what he saw, took a lot
of pictures, and just kept putting it
up LinkedIn, put it up on LinkedIn.
And this is so many years ago.
This is, like, eight, nine years ago.
He was so ahead of everybody else
even thinking about this stuff.
Because he stepped sh- he started showing
up everywhere, people just expected him
to be at all the shows at that point.
Um, and that kind of, um, shared
experience that he was putting out
on LinkedIn I feel has been try to,
uh, and people have been trying to
capitalize it a lot more these days, but
they do it in such an au- inauthentic
way- Right ... or unauthentic way,
uh, that it doesn't have the same
kind of power that he had initially.
'Cause it was very innocent.
It was like, "I am in this role. I'm
not the CEO of a company, but I'm so
interested in science. I'm just gonna
be excited about what I'm seeing at
these shows." And he built a voice
for himself and for the company,
and I think that's built him a re-
really great base over the years.
That had a lot of staying power.
It built a brand that I think they were
able to really capitalize on the backend.
Greg Boone: He combined personality-led
growth- Yep ... and community-led growth.
Community growth
Aaron Mazze: together.
Yeah, he
Greg Boone: did it naturally.
He curated his pond.
Yep.
My concern, and when I kept trying to
explain this at the end of 2024, I said,
they c- people, again, they keep asking
me, like, why am I doing this so much?
Why am I pushing the team to do this?
What I'm highly concerned about, and I'll
get back to your in five years at, at some
point whenever we wanna talk about that,
but a year from now, two years from now,
the people that have not curated ponds
that are still trying to gamify Google-
Aaron Mazze: Mm-hmm
...
Greg Boone: like, I am
highly concerned for those.
'Cause I ask people all the time, I say,
"Where are you gonna fish?" It's like you
have not invested any time in curating
your own community and your own pond.
You've not seeded with anything, right?
You're still talking about gamifying
something in which Google themselves
say they wanna ow- they wanna own the
entire experience from end to end.
They don't want you fishing.
Yeah.
You are on rented land to begin with.
Aaron Mazze: Exactly.
Exactly.
Greg Boone: Yeah.
And I, I would bet dollars to donuts
that when they, when Google I/O
next month, they're going to say,
"Yeah, we are flipping the switch
to AI mode almost exclusively."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: And at that point, it's game
over if you've not curated your own pond.
Aaron Mazze: I agree.
I agree.
I have had a little bit of, of,
um, insight into where Google might
be going with some of the tools
as we're beta testing them now.
And, um, I want it to be easier.
I think they're still trying to give
it a more iterative process of rollout,
um, what the functions might be.
I kinda want it to just be like,
get rid of all the clutter,
just tell me what's important.
And if people really wanna get ahold
of me, they know how to call me.
You know, it's like there was even
a point in time where I was just
like, "Uh, I'm not gonna read my
email. If they wanna call me, if they
really wanna talk to me, just call
me." This was a number of years ago.
I wasn't getting like
150 emails a day or more.
Um, and so for now, I think what, what
the AI hope to do would be, like you
said earlier, it's like can it allow
us to just be focused on what we're
good at instead of all the minutiae?
I really do hope that.
Okay, so let's talk about
the five-year outlook.
Greg Boone: Oh, man.
Aaron Mazze: You have five
words to... I'm just joking.
Wow.
In five words, predict the
future of AI- ... in five years.
Greg Boone: Yeah, I mean, well, first
thing, uh, so Dr. Westerman at MIT, uh,
he said, uh, in the course I took last
year, uh, he said, "If someone asks you
for your five-year plan, tell them that
you're already 10 years off the moment
they ask you the question." He said
because the advancements of AI- He, of
course- He's like, he's like, "We are
in the space and no one can predict."
But what I w- what I do think will
end up happening is I think you're
gonna have a lot of, uh, much smaller,
people-wise smaller companies-
Aaron Mazze: Hmm
...
Greg Boone: are gonna be out there.
Aaron Mazze: Okay.
Greg Boone: Right?
I think that there- More
Aaron Mazze: companies,
Greg Boone: but smaller teams?
I think there are gonna be more
companies, a lot more companies,
but a lot smaller companies- Yeah
in people.
Aaron Mazze: Interesting.
Greg Boone: Right?
I think that because these tools,
if you understand, my chairman and
I, we've created new, three new
companies in the last nine months.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
And two of them already have
over six figures in revenue.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Right?
Once you start to understand how to
leverage these tools to do all the
mundane tasks, we always say, you know,
let the machines handle the routine,
let the humans handle remarkable.
Once you can bifurcate-
Aaron Mazze: I love his
sayings, by the way.
They're awesome.
Quotable quotes.
Greg Boone: But once you can bifurcate the
things that you don't actually need to do-
Aaron Mazze: Yeah
...
Greg Boone: I mean, as, as knowledge
workers, we spend 50 to 60% of our work
week searching for things to do our job,
copying and pasting, reformatting data.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Go-to-market or
salespeople spend 70% of their
time doing administrative tasks.
70%. So that means there's only 30% that
they can actually be present and actually
closing deals and meeting new folks.
Exactly.
So my hope is, one, we get, we get that
time back, but two, I gotta imagine as
companies start to get smaller, that's
gonna create a lot of opportunity.
It's gonna create a significant amount of
incumbent disruption, because if you are a
laggard, and I get it, it's gonna be hard
for big companies to move or to change.
That just means there are gonna be a
bunch of nimble folks that are now had
an idea, they had a level of expertise.
And I talk about this
across all, uh, industries.
There is not a single one.
Someone that tried to have a debate
with me and talking about, "Well, what
about plumbers and this and that?"
I said, "Let me explain this to you.
If I wanted to start a
plumbing company today-" Right?
I would do it, all the back office
would be AI, my SDR would be
AI, everything would be agentic.
I would pay my plumbers 30% more money,
so I'm gonna have the best damn plumbers.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: I'm gonna be 30% faster
than anybody- I might need one of those
Aaron Mazze: plumbers soon.
Greg Boone: Right?
Yeah.
I'm gonna be 30% more profitable.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
I'm
Greg Boone: gonna be 30% cheaper.
I said, "I'm going to undercut your whole
market," and I literally had the same...
I was having this conversation at
the coffee shop with that same, uh,
CEO from the marketing company, and
I was explaining that to her, right?
And I said BlackRock has invested
significantly in acquiring these HVAC
and trade, um, holding companies.
Yeah.
And, uh, so I got up, we, we were
leaving the coffee shop, and, uh, this
is a true story, 'cause I connected
with the guy on LinkedIn after.
There was two guys sitting next to us
that had been listening to my whole
kind of, you know, impromptu TED Talk.
Yeah.
Right?
And they say, "Hey, man, if you start
that trade business, uh, we, you
know, or that AI plumber, we'd love to
talk. We both work at BlackRock." They
were both... We were right next door.
That's
Aaron Mazze: incredible.
Greg Boone: Yeah, and so we connected
on LinkedIn and, um, after that.
But the whole point of
it is it's everywhere.
It, it, it's gonna disrupt everything.
So what I imagine is there's gonna
be a, agentic every industry that
you could ever imagine in five years.
And the people that lean in today,
the people that learn today, right,
I think are gonna have a competitive
advantage that I don't, I don't...
It's gonna be... We're just
gonna be so far ahead, right?
You and I talked off-camera, right?
Uh, did you look at, when I was
talking about, uh, Scott Brinker's,
um, Martech's Law from 2013?
Aaron Mazze: No, I didn't see that.
No, no.
Greg Boone: Okay.
So when I was in Bogotá, Colombia
speaking- Yeah ... I think I was,
I was texting you about something.
Aaron Mazze: Oh, that's right, yeah.
Greg Boone: Yeah.
And I was like, I said, "I'm gonna show
this one slide." And 13 years ago, Scott
Brinker put this, uh, uh, Martech's
Law, and he basically said that the
marketing technology capabilities grow
exponentially, but the adoption is
logarithmic, and it's very kind of,
you know, basically, he was basically
saying the gap is widening, 13 years ago.
And then so I posted something the other
day and, and, and Scott liked it, and
it was like, hey, if you add AI into
the equation now, you start going from
co-pilot to agentic AI, now you're talking
about that gap is gonna be 5 to 10X.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, exactly.
Greg Boone: I said I am very fearful
of, like, at what point is it gonna be
so far, the technology from the people
that are doing it, that these people
are gonna be able to be upskilled?
Aaron Mazze: Yeah, yeah.
Greg Boone: Because people are still
waiting on the sidelines saying,
"Yeah, I might try that in 2027.
I might look into that. I might
give me a ChatGPT license." It's
Aaron Mazze: gonna be too late.
It's gonna be too late.
I do agree about the
smaller, nimbler teams.
I actually didn't think of it in that way.
Uh, it's like a SEAL Team
Six of sorts, you know?
You bring your
Greg Boone: full stack folks- I
might own 20 companies in- ... at
that point ... five years from now.
Yeah.
I told my chairman, I said, "Hey, man,
if this sh- sh- shit don't work out
at Walk West, I'm just gonna start
20 companies that each make $50,000
a year." Spit up at, like, a c- you
could spit up a company every week.
That's what I told him.
He didn't understand at first, and
then he said, uh, he, now he, he
doesn't, he's never written code in
his life, but now he's using Claude-
To, he's using lovable, creative.
He said, "Hey, man," he called me
one day, "I, I finally understand
what you've been saying."
Aaron Mazze: I do hope that... Uh,
uh, here's my last thing I'll say.
Um, I do hope that AI for us will at
some point put some of the work that
we do in our agency, lightning in a
bottle, and we could create our own,
like, inventive bot, that if people can't
afford hiring the entire agency, they
can bring in some of our insights, um,
still using some of the theories and tools
that we might be leveraging, um, with
some human interactions here and there.
But the whole point was, let's make it
easy for them, and we've learned so much
from all the work over the years that
this could be something that at least
starts a low barrier of entry to start
thinking about working with an agency.
Um, so that would be
one interesting thing.
I hope also AI lets us be
kinder to each other- Yes
in the future, kinder to the environment
as well, um, and makes it just a lot
easier for us, a lot lighter for us,
and we're not so, like, weighed down
by all the other anxieties that we're
dealing with all all the time, that AI
sees some patterns about, "What, what
if we tried this?" And we could be a
little bit better about how we treat our
environment or how we treat each other.
Um, I hope it could do that for us.
Greg Boone: I think, you know, just to
that point, man, like, I always tell
folks, I'm like, the goal even here
at Walk West, every single employee
has at least one gen AI certification.
'Cause I wanna try to explain to folks,
I say, "My goal is to make sure that
I increase your quality of work, which
will then increase your quality of life."
Right?
And so as bullish as I am on AI,
I'm also very bullish on humanity.
And what I try to get across to
folks all the time, you know, again,
is like, you're stressed and you're
frustrated because you're doing
this thing that you don't wanna do.
Like, just, we have to admit that, right?
Like, I used to spend so much time with
my direct reports creating board decks.
I'm talking about days sometimes.
I ain't spending more than
30 minutes now on a deck.
I know how to use all these tools now.
My team knows how to use
all these tools, right?
So now we can go have
strategic conversation.
We can go, you know, have a walk
and, and talk over coffee and
not feel any guilt at all because
we know we can get to that work.
Mm-hmm.
I also recently, with, um, my
co-founder, um, I've created a
lab, RDU Labs, Mark Bavosoto and I,
because, and it's for giving greater
access and, and be, be more, more
AI equitable, if you will, right?
For, like, trade organizations,
small business, to your point.
Because I think we're about to enter a
world in the next five years that are
gonna be the have and the have-nots.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: The big companies are gonna be
able to do these things, and I wanna make
sure that I'm doing everything I know That
to be able, and everything in my power to
give people access that may not have the
dollars, may not have the, the knowledge.
I'm like, "Who are we to be these
gatekeepers of these things?"
But I am seeing some people that are
like, "No, I'm not telling people, you
know, my secret sauce." I'm like, "Hey
man, that ain't gonna be a secret- You
gotta put it out there ... for like, for
like six months." Like to your point,
like when we met, the reason why I was
so thankful to the fact that, and I knew,
I was like, "We're gonna hit it off,"
because he views the world the way I do.
There can never be too much, you
know, competition or- Yeah ... like
I can't serve every single client.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: The whole reason I started
AI Voice of Victim podcast, that's,
and my chairman asked me beginning
of last year, he said, "Why do you
call it that?" I said, "By the end of
2025, people are gonna feel like they
are victims and nobody told them."
I said, "I can't have
that on my conscience."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: I was like, 'cause
once you see this, once you see
how you can do these things, and my
team has seen, they can't, they're
not gonna do math by hand again.
They're never gonna do it.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: You can't go back.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
I agree.
I absolutely agree, and I think
it's beautiful that you're putting
some thought into how to become a
mentor for the industry with this
RDU Labs thing you're talking about.
Um, I think that my role as well, trying
to move more into that mentorship thing.
I'll be speaking at some schools and
trying to speak at more conferences
as well, and just try to share.
I wanna be sharing more of what we've
learned, um, and how to help people
kinda make it work for them, too.
Greg Boone: One of the things that I
think is, is missing, and I, and I meant
to bring this up earlier when we were
talking about, um, the personality-led
growth and, like, being on stage, and I,
I realized this over the last, especially
over the last three years as AI's kind
of advanced, is there's a lot of senior
executives and CEOs in particular that
will never do what you and I are doing
in being on camera and being vulnerable.
Like, I don't know if you've recognized
that, but I mentor and I advise folks.
They have built their whole careers
b- staying behind the screen.
I think- That's gotta be a challenge.
Aaron Mazze: So one of the people
I got to meet, um, that came into
town, a big pharma company If, if
she says the wrong thing in front of
the wrong people, the stock goes down
and billions of dollars are lost, and
people lose jobs and markets change.
And so I, like I, yeah, I would,
would I love to be Tim Cook for a day?
Sure.
Would I probably destroy
the company in one day?
Probably, 'cause I'll say
something really stupid.
But I ain't
Greg Boone: even talking about that big.
I'm talking about there's gonna be
a lot of companies of our size that
will not be in business in 2027.
Aaron Mazze: Because they
just won't put it out there.
Greg Boone: They will
not put it out there.
Yeah.
I have talked to these companies, and
I'm saying, "Man, go do this." They're
like, "Oh, I could never do that." And
I'm like, "Well, what's the alternative?"
Aaron Mazze: Like- That's the authenticity
that I'm looking for, and I think
that when people come and work with
us, I try to tell them, it's in one
of our slides as well, it's like, we,
this is how we, who we are and how we
operate, and the brands that we help
are basically gonna become this too.
You're gonna be transparent,
you're gonna be fun to work with,
you're just gonna be friendly.
Um, you're gonna be accessible.
You're gonna try things.
You're gonna be out there.
And if they don't agree with that,
you don't need to work with us.
Like, that's... And so we tell them that.
We actually even have a u- unicorn
on one of our slides that's like,
we wanna be fun to work with.
You wanna be fun to work with.
We don't wanna make this
into, like, a weird thing.
Um, and so when we're doing our
pitch, they actually giggle at us,
and we're like, "We wanna be friendly
and fun, and we want to enjoy this.
This is, we're spending most of our
time with you guys. Um, so if we can't
enjoy it, then what's the point?"
Greg Boone: Well, that's why in five
years you're gonna be wildly successful.
Your team is gonna be
wildly successful, right?
But I'm telling you point-blank,
because I advise a lot of people,
I'm like, "You have got to figure
out..." And I tell people all the
time, I say, "You have to find someone
that's gonna be a spokesperson."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Someone has to be out front.
And a- again, I'm not talking about the
big end customers that we work with.
I am fearful for other agencies, other
consultancies, other types of businesses,
and I'm like, you've gamified everything
down to a digital footprint, and now the
world requires you to be a human and out
front, and that is gonna be your downfall.
Aaron Mazze: I can, I can't agree more.
Um, I don't like talking double,
double negatives, but I will say,
uh, I'm gonna keep going back
to something you said earlier.
This small, nimble team, um, that idea
is probably gonna happen, um, because
the enablement tools that weren't there
20 years ago, 25 years ago exist now.
So when I thought about building a
company when I was leaving school, I
was thinking about all the formalities.
You need a CEO and a COO and
a CFO and blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, all these C's.
And at this point- Why
do you need any of it?
Um, if you can just spread your rep- I
mean, these are the solopreneur concept
in the gig economy that actually came
and went, obviously, to a certain degree,
and we kind of, like, do this universal
thing of expansion and contraction.
But, um, when it comes to being, uh,
like, s- seen as a company, respected
as a company, and you have certain kind
of talent that you could say, "We all
can bring certain interesting things to
the table, but we're full stack," um, I
think that's a really... Actually, when
I was talking to the video crew here, ha
ha, hi, video crew, uh, we were coming
in here and getting set up this morning.
There were four folks in the room, and
I said, "Are you guys all full stack?
Do you all have to know everything? Are
you all lighting, sound, des- set and
design, and all this?" What did they say?
And they, yeah.
Greg Boone: Okay
.
Aaron Mazze: They're all doing,
we're all doing all the things.
Um, so I think that the concept of full
stack is maybe more the norm, and what we
have to do next is what are we bringing
to the table on top of that talent?
That's why I kind of go back to, may be
a bad term to say it, but Seal Team Six.
It's like these folks have to be able
to drop in and change and be a catalyst
for change and do it immediately.
Hopefully they don't do it violently.
Greg Boone: Yeah.
Aaron Mazze: They do it.
The wor-
Greg Boone: we're not a victim.
They're not a
Aaron Mazze: victim.
They're a voice.
Greg Boone: We're an renaissance.
They are, they are a voice.
And, and I hope there are more
voices like yourself, Aaron.
I, I think that the world
requires more generalists, right?
And even in the marketing world, I
tell folks, I'm like, "Oh," they say,
"I'm a field marketer, I'm a content
marketer, I'm a social marketer." I
said, "Do you aspire to be a CMO?"
"Absolutely." I said, "Well, you
can only do one thing, so you have,
you have to break that." Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
But, uh, no, man, I, I really appreciate
the opportunity, um, to partner with you,
to talk to you, to learn from you, right?
You know so much about HubSpot, so
much about marketing, so much about
the, the industry, and, and again,
you're just a, a genuinely good human.
And so I'm at this point in my
career, I've exited multiple times.
I've done well for myself and for those
around me, but now I'm in this stage,
I'm like, "I just wanna work with
people I wanna work with, man." Yeah.
So I like working with
you, so I appreciate it.
Aaron Mazze: I love that, too, and I
aspire to do more what you do, too.
I wish at one some point I could get out
there more to share more of our stories
and have a team that I feel like, like
you have built here, where they can
really handle all the ins and outs of
the business, and you can be out there
sharing the story more with more people.
I ho- I aspire to do that.
I, I would love to write
a book one day, too.
I'm not sure how hard that is, but,
um, I don't wanna say it's easy
.
Greg Boone: No, uh, but, uh,
hey, there's some folks here at
Wild West that can help you, so
.
Aaron Mazze: Okay.
All right.
All right.
We'll keep that going.
Greg Boone: So one of the things we
like to do on AI Voice of Victim, at the
very end, um, we like to throw a little
wrinkle in here and ask you, you know,
first, what is your AI tool of, of choice?
Your, what is, what's the foundational
model that you use the most?
Aaron Mazze: I have recently switched.
Greg Boone: Oh, I'm gonna guess
you're gonna say- I've recently
switched ... I'm gonna guess you're
gonna say you went from ChatGPT to
Claude, but what, what did you switch to?
Aaron Mazze: I went from OpenAI,
uh, and ChatGPT to Gemini.
Greg Boone: Really?
Aaron Mazze: I went to Gemini.
Okay.
Um- I could explain a little bit
more why if you'd like to hear why.
I wanna
Greg Boone: hear why now.
Aaron Mazze: Okay.
Um, we're a Google company, so everything
we do is in the Google ecosystem.
We use Google Workspace for everything.
And as I started to realize, you
can connect tools to OpenAI, that's
totally fine, and we've connected
HubSpot and we've connected
Google and other tools as well.
But there was something that happened
recently where Gemini, I call it Gemmy,
uh, Gemini inside of our workspace
started to have a lot more value.
We had a client come to us and say, "I
am being challenged with this very, very
difficult problem. Did we ever discuss
it on any of our meetings?" And, um,
we're also using the HubSpot tools too
to track our t- our meetings, but we've
been using Google Meet for everything.
We don't use Zoom anymore.
That's been for the last two years.
Um, our clients look at us really
strange when they have to get
on a Google Meet, by the way.
I can't believe that's still a thing.
But when I went to Gemini and our
team went to Gemini, I said, "I
have a client that has a concern.
It's this group.
I need to figure out every single
instance this person ever talked
about this particular thing.
I need to have a, a, a way to answer
their question and their concern, and I
need to get this all together right now."
Um, and it searched our entire Drive.
It was connected to the Drive.
It was connected to our
meetings, and that changed me.
And I just started... I, going back
to my team and I'm like, "We pay for
Enterprise. We should try this tool,
and if it doesn't work, fine, continue
using Claude," like our writers love
Claude, our developers love Claude.
Um, um, my w- my wife
actually just loves ChatGPT.
I call it ChatGPT and the GPTs.
Greg Boone: ChatGPT.
Aaron Mazze: Uh, and, and so for,
for us to, to make that switch is
a, is a very almost emotional thing.
The- My wife said... We share the
same ChatGPT, uh, so we're in the
same account, and I was paying $200
a month for a while, but I stopped.
And she said to me, "It knows me."
And I said, "Yeah, I know that, but
there is actually a way for you to
export out all of those- Really?
... chat and just load it into Google,
Gemini, and, and start again.
And that f- and I think for her, she's,
she's still gonna stay in ChatGPT.
Um, but yeah, I switched to Gemini.
I know that might sound
crazy, but that's just
Greg Boone: my- No, it's not even crazy.
We're, we're a Google Workspace
company also, so, uh, Gemini is
our, you know, corporate model
if, if you, if you will, right?
But we still also, uh, recently we showed
folks how they can do certain things with
Claude, and you connect, uh, Claude to
your G Drive and your, your, uh, Calendar.
Um, I was asking Becky to do something
for me the other day on my calendar, and
I said, "Oh, never mind," and I just told
Claude Coworker to go do the thing, and
I, 'cause I didn't want- And it did it?
Yeah, it did in five minutes.
Yeah.
And I didn't want her to
spend an hour doing this thing
that was mind-numbing, right?
And so I called her before.
I was like, "Hey, I know I just asked
you to do that, but don't do it," right?
But anyway, the, uh... So it makes a lot
of sense once you start to understand
the power of a lot of these things.
And I thought that switching costs
was gonna be a lock-in, uh, with
memory too, but it's not as much.
Actually, probably weird, uh, Erica,
my, my co-host, her and her husband were
sharing an account at one point, and
then it starts to mix contexts at times.
Yeah.
So that's not a good idea.
Aaron Mazze: Oh, no, it's not.
So- You don't wanna share an account.
Greg Boone: Right.
So I wouldn't do that.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: So now I gotta ask
you then, uh- So what is the last
thing that you chatted with Gemini?
You gotta pull your phone
out or, or you gotta recall-
Aaron Mazze: Last thing
that I did with Gemini.
Um-
Greg Boone: And then I'm
gonna do the same with, with
Aaron Mazze: Robert's last chat ... um,
so, okay, I've, I have, I have, I have
probably the biggest thing that I've
been d- doing lately that I've done with
Gemini is I am asking it as an agent of
sorts to go out and do a task for me.
And recently, I know that, okay,
this is really kind of, it feels a
little random, but, uh, completely
unrelated to our work every day, but
it, it is related to the podcast.
Um, we really wanna upscale our
equipment, and I went to film
school, but I went to film school
so long ago that it was actually
film that we were using in school.
Uh, so one of the things that I wanna
relearn again is, like, well, what kind
of equipment should we be considering if
we wanna upscale our studio environment?
And so I frustratingly said, "You
are a, uh, recent film school
grad." I actually did the whole
thing where you give it a, a role.
Well- "Uh, you were hired on by a company
to go out and do the research to figure
out what kind of equipment you're gonna
get, and if you don't get it right,
the company's gonna be wasting a ton of
money, and you're gonna lose your job."
I said something like that, "And, um,
the biggest problems I'm having is
I can't spend more than 5, $6,000.
The camera can't overheat.
It's gotta be for this and that.
I don't know about the lenses.
I don't know about this and that.
So do, go do all of it, and when
you're done, I need to know exactly
which camera and rig I need to buy."
And it worked for about
out- like two hours.
It, like, went out and did all this
research, pulled all these things.
It pulled it down from Adorama.
Is that one of the companies?
Uh, I'm, uh, not a sponsor.
Uh, B&H.
It went to the, um, Panasonic websites.
It went to the Sony websites.
It pulled all this research
together, and I watched it working.
I would check in on it, and
when the report came back, it
did give me, um, an answer.
Does everybody wanna know the answer?
Um, and so for me, it
was- Tune in next time.
Tune in next time.
Uh, that for me, there was a, um,
a realization that I could have
wasted days and days and days, and
when it was all said and done, I
said, "Okay, I want that equipment.
Go figure out where to buy it." So it
connected me up with the main vendor,
the company to get the rig from, where
to buy the, the, um, all the accessories,
the lighting kits, and it put the entire
list together, and it said, "If you use
these coupons..." I was like, Greg, I
was thinking this would've taken me days.
If I told one of my team members
to do it, it would've taken
them maybe days, if not weeks.
So Gemini, it just, I mean, I ne- I
could've done that in OpenAI, sure, too,
but that to me was, like, a complete lift.
I was like, "Great. I don't
have to worry about this, and
now I know what I'm gonna buy."
Greg Boone: I mean, that's such
an amazing use case, and we always
teach people what we call the RGCC,
which is, uh, for a good prompt,
role, goal, context, and constraints.
Aaron Mazze: Exactly,
Greg Boone: exactly.
Right?
Give it a role.
Give it a goal that you wanna accomplish.
Give it the, the context, and
then give it the constraints.
You told it the price.
And I
Aaron Mazze: said it would get fired.
Greg Boone: And, uh- I
don't wanna lose my job.
Yeah.
But the, the reality also is that an AI
basic person would've just tre- you know,
treated it like Google search and said,
"Tell me the stores near me to go Or,
Aaron Mazze: or I need to shoot podcasts.
What's the camera for me?
Yeah.
Like give me the best.
It'll write the same thing.
The listicles, the listicles that
are out there probably saturating
the web with all sorts of falsity.
That people are game-finding.
Yeah.
And they're just going to basically
say, "Give me the top 10 cl- cameras
I need to buy under 5,000 bucks for
your entire set, rig and everything."
And, um, and it just gives them
an article reference link or
whatever the heck it would do.
And those feel like the situations
where like a person's buying a place
or a person's selling a place, and
if you ask AI the same exact question
for those two different roles, they're
going to give you the opposite answer.
It's just trying to make you happy.
So it's like, I didn't
want it to make me happy.
I wanted to save my job.
And that was a really funny thing.
Uh, it had to make a decision.
It was kind of funny.
Greg Boone: That, that's cool.
That's why I don't debate
with people about AEO anymore
when I try to explain this.
Like, you know, if you keep asking
the same, in the same context,
it's going to infer that you didn't
like the list and it's going to
just give you new names, right?
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: Like you, you don't understand
how these machines actually work.
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
Greg Boone: The thing I... That's awesome.
The, the one I, I, I use this quite
often is I, I know that I can get too
technical with certain terminology, and
someone was asking me something about
all of these very technical terms.
And so I was like, "All right,
here's what I would say."
Aaron Mazze: Yeah.
"
Greg Boone: Here's the level of which
I want you to communicate this back.
Here are the terms.
Give it to, if this was a
high school student," right?
And it helped me, you know, craft
the right, uh... I still wrote
the email and the response, right?
But it, it actually parsed out my overly
technical view because you asked me a
very technical thing, but I realized
that you don't want me to respond-
Aaron Mazze: In a
Greg Boone: technical way
in a very technical way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so it helped me actually have,
um, kind of bridge the gap in more
layman's, uh, terms, if you will.
And I do that, um, quite a bit.
But again, that's just
from a chat perspective.
I do a lot more with AI, but I
appreciate you playing Last Chat
and being on AI Voice or Victim.
Yeah, this- You are much
more, uh, AI savvy than I-
Aaron Mazze: Than you thought I was?
Yeah, man.
Well, you're doing some stuff where
you connect all the chatty bots, and
I got to learn how to do more of that.
Let's do it.
I appreciate it, man.
Thanks
Greg Boone: for all the time.
Thanks for joining us
on AI Voice or Victim.
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