What's the future of jobs in an AI-dominated world? We're diving headfirst into that question, inspired by none other than Elon Musk's dire warnings about AI rendering human labor redundant. As we grapple with the thought of a world with virtual intelligence, we delve into what it could mean for society if the majority of jobs became obsolete, and how that might redefine not just our economies, but us as individuals.
Picking up the thread on AI, we shift our focus to its application in the gaming universe, specifically Bethesda's Starfield game. We're exploring the dynamic interplay of humans and AI, challenging the notion that AI will replace us. Instead, we propose a future where AI is a tool that amplifies human potential, helping us achieve more than we ever thought possible.
Finally, we're offering some candid insights into the consulting field - a career path that's as challenging as it is rewarding. If you're a young go-getter contemplating a move into tech consulting, we've got some hard-earned advice for you. We're also drawing a comparison between financial advisors and consultants, exploring the implications of a mostly youthful consulting workforce. To wrap it up, we're talking corporate strategy, unionization, and the importance of finding work that fuels your passion. Prepare for a wild ride through this thought-provoking conversation.
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All the links!
Elevator Music by Julian Avila
Promoted by MrSnooze
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What's the future of jobs in an AI-dominated world? We're diving headfirst into that question, inspired by none other than Elon Musk's dire warnings about AI rendering human labor redundant. As we grapple with the thought of a world with virtual intelligence, we delve into what it could mean for society if the majority of jobs became obsolete, and how that might redefine not just our economies, but us as individuals.
Picking up the thread on AI, we shift our focus to its application in the gaming universe, specifically Bethesda's Starfield game. We're exploring the dynamic interplay of humans and AI, challenging the notion that AI will replace us. Instead, we propose a future where AI is a tool that amplifies human potential, helping us achieve more than we ever thought possible.
Finally, we're offering some candid insights into the consulting field - a career path that's as challenging as it is rewarding. If you're a young go-getter contemplating a move into tech consulting, we've got some hard-earned advice for you. We're also drawing a comparison between financial advisors and consultants, exploring the implications of a mostly youthful consulting workforce. To wrap it up, we're talking corporate strategy, unionization, and the importance of finding work that fuels your passion. Prepare for a wild ride through this thought-provoking conversation.
Everything Corporate Strategy:
All the links!
Elevator Music by Julian Avila
Promoted by MrSnooze
Don't forget ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ it helps!
Yeah, you will. Didn't ask for the hand. I said I'd make a podcast with you, not with Craig.
Speaker 2:Well, craig's here now, and he's here to record every single syllable that leaks from our mouths. Welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the podcast. That could have been an email. I'm Bruce and I'm Craig. Wait, you can't be Craig Craig's the recorder, I'm still post-Fresh Clark.
Speaker 1:I got to change my name because I've been hacked and I need to change it myself this time. Take control of my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you really need to own your identity and who you are. Post-fresh Clark, I can't keep calling you that. No, it's not as funny either.
Speaker 1:It just doesn't. You know, there's no alliteration. You know it's PFC. Maybe that's what I'll go by.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you need to become the manager, formerly known as post-Fresh Clark. Just keep adding things to your name and eventually then revert back to just Clark, like do the full cycle.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'll go the full LinkedIn strategy as well and I'll put in a little pipe and then I'll just start typing in my certifications. Why are you making?
Speaker 2:fun of my LinkedIn account, Clark.
Speaker 1:It wasn't specifically a targeted message, but it was targeted you felt that way and I'm bleeding.
Speaker 2:Now, vive, check, speaking of blood, how you doing, clark Vive check.
Speaker 1:You know I'm doing it pretty well. As you all know we talked about this on the last episode got sick, had some international travel. I actually just don't feel comfortable when I'm not in a routine. Like you know, it's really hard to, you know, keep everything in play just to be a human. You know, live your life, make sure dinner's on the table at night, make sure you're exercising, make sure you're drinking water. Yeah, yeah, it's hard when you're not in a routine. It is, and so I don't envy Don't envy at all People who have to travel for a living. No, it's got to be so difficult, and not only on your body but man, just trying to get in a routine. I mean, I guess maybe you form a routine while you're traveling, like that just becomes part of your routine. It's like, yeah, I've got my travel down pat, but it just sounds terrible being that inconsistent. I'm definitely a routine oriented person.
Speaker 2:Same, same and I'm like well, and the weird thing is like I like change, like working on different projects kind of doing a little bit of this, move on to the next thing, do a little bit of that, move on to the next thing. I don't mind change and variability in the things that I work on, but I do have preferred workspace, environment, and that's not hotel rooms.
Speaker 1:Agreed and I think actually it's interesting. You say that because I think novelty like experiencing new things you know we taught I think I might have mentioned this before being able to experience new things, different environments, changing things up is actually good for your health and your brain because you know, it kind of induces those flow states and that's why you know, like when you take a shower, especially when you're a developer, it's like, oh, I know how to solve that problem. I've been banging my head against the wall. You know, if we go for a walk and it's just, it's enlightening, and it's because your mind escapes the rhythm that you're in, it's able to break out of it and you're able to break through those you know roadblocks. So novelty is important, but I would not want to be doing that as part of my day to day work. Then I think you just are all over the place. Yeah, and that might be a little hint into the topic I'm going to bring up. Oh snap, you got a topic today.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Did I have a topic 30 seconds ago? Maybe not, but I do now.
Speaker 2:The people would never know See of our pants. Well, thanks for the vibe check.
Speaker 1:Well, I got my cue. Oh yeah, you have that vibe check, are you alive? Yeah, no no, I'm not. Oh Well, this is another episode of corporatestrategybiz. It's me and Craig. Now Bruce is dead.
Speaker 2:The ghost of Bruce. All right, I'm doing just fantastic. I went to, I got coffee this morning with frequent contributor and discord owner Alex Restrepo no way. And discord contributor Jonathan Brown. It's a nice time, Whoa Good time.
Speaker 1:Two, two. Yeah, good old friends, that is awesome.
Speaker 2:It's a great way to start the Friday. Good old friends, almost family. I wouldn't quite call them that, though, but you know, friends, we can. We can use that word Sure, why not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, blood brothers, I mean it's fine, yeah, brothers do blood.
Speaker 2:It only took the sacrifice of a small animal to get us there, but we're there now. I mean Craig's right there. So if I scare him off Actually, no, I could not Craig has made this entire thing so much better. We make fun of him. We make fun of little Craig. We do that little bear talking into his microphone, but he does the work.
Speaker 1:He does. He does all the hard work. Yeah, we disrespect him a little bit. Hopefully he doesn't become, you know, intelligent and understanding of what we're saying, because otherwise he'd be out of here and you would have a lot more work on your plate. Notice, I said you, not we.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I fully acknowledge you would be doing the work. Speaking of intelligence, that's a perfect segue into our news of the week.
Speaker 1:Everyone, throw up real quick at that transition. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I mean, what you're going to see is intelligent and, according to Time magazine, elon Musk had an interview and said that AI will eliminate the need for jobs. This is an interesting article. I'll make sure to post this in the Discord. We say we're always going to do this and I don't, but I'm actually going to do it this time. This is like the first time I haven't full on disagreed with the man, although he's building his own AI company, so I'm sure there's an agenda there. But you know, it's a nice interview between him and Rishi Sunic at Time magazine Super interesting because it is a less pro AI stance.
Speaker 1:Let me find the quote he said I'm really excited to hear this because I was listening to something and I mentioned this. I don't know why I'm on a Jensen kick with Nvidia, but he has a really interesting take on AI and jobs, so I'm really interested. I want to check out this interview, but I also have been curious what you're about to say, because maybe I have an argument in the other direction that Jensen's convinced me of.
Speaker 2:So here's a quote from the Time article when asked by Sunic about how AI will affect jobs, Musk predicted that human labor will become obsolete. He said I think we're going to see the most disruptive force in history. We will have something for the first time that is smarter than the smartest human. There will come a point when no job is needed. You can have a job if you want, a job for personal satisfaction, but the AI will be able to do everything.
Speaker 2:This is the most Elon, or whatever, I've ever heard in my life. You can hear his voice. Even though I tried to differentiate the reading from it, it's definitely there.
Speaker 1:It's just the way he talks. You just know it's him. You hear that and you're like this is the most Elon thing ever, and I mean it does feel like I assume the man has a level of intelligence.
Speaker 2:I assume he's smarter than me. I assume, sure, am I smarter than me? Sometimes I wonder. But here's the thing If you know anything about AI and generative AI and large language models, it's not smart the way that the matrix or terminator or any of the Hollywood movies would have us to believe that there's like a sentience and a conscience and an intelligent. It's not artificial intelligence, right? It's a little bit lower than that, like the word virtual intelligence is used a lot, and I think that's a better definition because it's not artificial. It's virtual yeah, not quite yet Right. It's like simulated, but not to the point of one-to-one human level intelligence.
Speaker 2:Do I think he's correct in saying that it's going to take over every single job on the planet, and jobs will be an enthusiast hobby that you'll have Maybe, maybe In the next, like 10, 20 years for sure, I don't know how quickly we get there, but I also think this is one of those things where the box has been open. Doing interviews like this and expressing this kind of discontent and concern doesn't really help anybody. I think we need to think about 10, 20 years out if there are no jobs, which you know. Right now, jobs are less and less interesting. We talk about this all the time in the podcast. They expect more of you. What does the world look like if we don't have jobs? What do we have to change in our economy and our governance and how we live our lives if 90% of the planet is obsolete? That's my question, and I think if the farm were interesting conversation than just it's going to take all our jobs.
Speaker 1:Well, you actually have the answers already in front of you from a Pixar film from many years ago.
Speaker 2:No, don't say it, wally.
Speaker 1:Wally. I don't need that in my life. That's exactly how our life would be. We would turn into fat little gremlins floating around in these little. I mean honestly, it looked pretty fun floating around in these little pods getting to do whatever you want. I'm honestly in. I'm not upset with that life.
Speaker 2:Float down the Gravitron lazy river of life and electronic in, or two.
Speaker 1:Well, earth is just getting absolutely decimated by our ignorance. Yeah, yeah. All the natural resources of the world is getting destroyed. That's the guarantee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what is?
Speaker 1:the CEO's take, so he had. I mean, that's this anti-quote of what you just said is basically what Jensen's angle is, and I love the simplicity of how he put this. He basically said AI will not eliminate jobs. If anything, it's going to generate more jobs. And the reason being is what have you ever heard in the history of mankind of you guys? As a company, you start making things more efficient and you just stop coming up with ideas or new things because you made things more efficient. That means your company just sucks because you ran out of ideas and your business is going to fail. But the smart businesses are just going to say oh, now we have more free time, we have other angles, we have other things we can do. Let's keep on building on that in the sake of capitalism. So he basically said yeah, if you are at a company that eliminates jobs because of AI, you're working for a bad company that doesn't have any more ideas.
Speaker 2:You know I like that sentiment but underneath it, part of me this is just my built in skepticism from all the way back to when Ronald Reagan was president and I was but a sproutling Do that math. The idea of trickle down economics was one that as long as the rich have money and are creating jobs and businesses you know they own the planet but they're creating jobs the economy will trickle down and everyone, even at the bottom, will reap the rewards for all the money being at the top. This whole concept has been just the greatest lie ever told to us, because I'm still waiting for the trickle. Right, when does the trickle come to?
Speaker 1:us. Well, I think it's all relative. I mean relatively, if you live in the Western hemisphere. Yeah, life is pretty dang good, you know, and it does kind of trickle down to us. You know, our nation has benefited because of it, but there's plenty of place around the world that you're just like, oh, this basic thing that I take for granted talking to you right now, I take for granted when people don't even have, like, modern internet connection at places or access to water. Needless to say that, you know, so it's like in some case, that's true because we've taken advantage of capitalism and, you know, these people have become billionaires. Our whole entire society's had to evolve because of it.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, when trickle down economics was pitched as the solution, a single earning income could afford a home in this country for like less than the cost of a price of a new Honda Civic. So you know it is a little bit different than it is.
Speaker 2:And then you know something. Actually, to go back to Alex Restrepo, coffee buddy, frequent contributor, discord owner, he actually mentioned something once in a conversation that has really stuck with me, and it was with all the new tools, ai, you know. We have internet, gigabit internet and all of our devices video conferencing everything. You would think that we would work less Because the efficiency should have gone up via all the tools that we have and all the improvements we've made to the way we work. I mean going back to the 70s, right, what did they have? How did they communicate paper? Everything had to be filed, with actual physical files and an object and an office, right, right, like all the human components to business that used to exist that have now just been automated away.
Speaker 1:Yep, and those are lost jobs. I mean, we're actually doing more, right, right right. It's like human nature you always want to keep doing more. So, even though there's this dream world, if you're sitting around doing nothing, that'll never happen.
Speaker 1:Oh, because you need us in co-optation with AI, well, I think our human nature will be okay. What's next? Like people aren't just gonna sit around and do nothing, oh, and so I think that's the whole thing about Jensen is like even if you could, because your point, you know, to this argument it's like okay, yeah, things, we've gotten more technology, become more efficient. We, in theory, should be doing less because we can get more done and getting paid more Exactly, but no one's sitting around doing less.
Speaker 1:You're actually doing more and you continue to do more, because that's human nature. It's why we built pyramids, it's why we learned how to fly, why we did all this stuff.
Speaker 2:Mark, we didn't build the pyramids. Let's move on.
Speaker 1:But no, it's actually a really good philosophical argument of like what AI is gonna do, and I can see both sides of it, but I think underlying, like human nature, is human nature and I don't think it's ever gonna cease to go in that direction. Maybe it will, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I can see it too. I hope you're right, and I think there's plenty of examples of AI just being absolute garbage. I mean, you know Slyte's tangent. I finally got around to playing Starfield by Bethesda they're big. You know the studio that made one of the greatest games of all time Morrowind, the Elder Scrolls and then Skyrim. Everyone knows Fallout everyone knows yeah, I'm a big fan and finally got around to playing it and boy is that game just a tremendous, boring disappointment. And I started doing a little bit of reading and they relied a lot on procedural generation AI to make the worlds, and it feels like a lot of the dialogue was procedurally generated as well, cause it's just not interesting, it's not charming, it doesn't feel human or fun, and if it was created by a human, maybe look at getting a new writer. But I can see how the human is still needed, at least right now. I mean, in time it will get better. In time it will get much, much better, and that's my concern is, eventually they're going to be better than us, just in our view.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it will change things, but I don't think it's any different than like how much we've had to change our lives by getting like a computer in our pocket. You know, Like I think it's just gonna become another tool and it's gonna become another asset, but we're gonna keep on, you know, excelling beyond that and coming up with more ideas to utilize it. I like your optimism.
Speaker 2:I'll stick with that. Maybe that's the way it is. It's like Elon's the negative side.
Speaker 1:Jensen is the positive side and it's probably truthfully, one way in the middle, or maybe Elon is actually. He's put that chip that he put in that pig in his head and he's actually just AI.
Speaker 2:Maybe that explains why he's starting to make sense.
Speaker 1:Maybe that would. If we watch his trends very carefully, you might be able to see it, I'm genuinely terrified. Would you put a chip in your head?
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not. I would. I would get a digital eye or maybe a digital eye. Ooh, I like that. It may be some minor modifications. Yeah, if I could like make my vision, you know, 2020 perfect. Laser zoom in 4K HDR that sounds cool. Perfect hearing, that sounds cool. Chip in the brain no, I ain't messing with the operating system. It's like you know. You never go into the registry in Windows. You don't go into the BIOS and start messing with stuff. I mean, I do, but most normal people don't. It's the same principle. You just don't mess with the brain. You can mess with the components, the drivers, the software, not the operating system. You don't touch that. I love it.
Speaker 1:I'm loving this conversation. It's great, especially because it's Friday afternoon and, speaking of things, you should mess with. I have the main topic. What is the main topic, clark? The main topic of this podcast? Because I don't think you've ever done it, you've never been a consultant. Almost, it's close, almost, really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were almost both consultants but didn't handle it, were we? Yeah, so I actually was a consultant for all of six months yeah.
Speaker 1:All of six months I was a consultant, and the topic I wanted to talk about today is one, giving the perspectives on consultants, but also two would you recommend that somebody become a consultant? Ooh, ooh, interesting, I think it's especially interesting.
Speaker 2:If you haven't, I recommend watching one of the later episodes, the latest episode of the podcast, one of the later episodes, latest episodes of John Oliver, who goes into McKenzie, who is a consulting firm that we have both worked with in the past. Yep, and if it was, Still do actually.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting, Very recently, funny enough.
Speaker 2:Oh. So cut from the bottom, give to the top, right, that's the strategy. Yeah, always. The resounding answer for me is it depends, because I think a lot A terrible answer, right, and I think consultants like McKenzie and many others are just the worst when it comes to actually giving sound, good business advice. But I'm sure they exist. I've not seen them myself. There are probably some great consultants out there. They can absolutely make your life better. But let's dig into it. What's your hot take, clark?
Speaker 1:So, and it really isn't my, I mean, is anything really your true own take on something or is it just an accumulation of stuff You've heard in the past. But anyways, I was. I'll tell my story. I was a consultant. I actually, after Departing the company we were at, you know, I was kind of looking at options, you know, and thinking about, you know, what are the next opportunities for me. And I had an opportunity to become a consultant, particularly a technology engineering product management consultant.
Speaker 1:And as I was thinking through it, you know younger let's say you know quite a few years younger you know what are the benefits of doing something like this. I mean one that pays pretty good To you, kind of gets. You have someone that is placing you somewhere, you know, on a client or at a company or something like that that you are doing a short-term stint at. So to me I was like, oh, there's a lot of benefits here, you know, I can get a lot of exposure. And, let's say, the client decides to drop us. It's not really me they're dropping. They're still gonna keep me and put me somewhere else, right, but they have to deal with all the business of it. So it'll be really interesting to. You know, jump in and get a broad perspective of different businesses, different industries, different roles and kind of build the different expertise very broadly. And so I started doing it. But then after six months I decided to make a change and become full-time and I don't know if I should share my learnings now, but I Think for me, you know, a consultancy is a very good thing to do, to gain a breadth of knowledge across many different things, but you don't truly get to deep dive. You know, it's like becoming 30 miles long instead of 30 miles deep Right, like you don't really develop an expertise because you're always hopping around and you kind of just get a general view of things. That might be helpful, you know, might be helpful to some companies, might be helpful in certain scenarios of some companies, you know, to bringing the consultants who have that experience of doing a merger or something like that and they can guide.
Speaker 1:But Ultimately it wasn't something that stuck out for me as a long-term benefit because and I think it's actually Steve Javi said this in like one of his interviews when he was talking about to students about becoming a consultant, and it really stuck with me. It's like I think it goes something along the lines of, you know, being a consultant, you become two-dimensional, you know. So you can see a picture, you can understand how the picture works. You know it's flat, but you can't smell it, you can't hold it. You know it's not three-dimensional, it's something that's just abstract concept in your mind that you can advise on. But until you truly you know, hold that thing, be able to taste that thing, you live with the decisions you make for a series of years and you know you reap the benefits, you reap the. You know the consequences and you have to live and own that and drive it.
Speaker 1:Then you aren't really becoming a valued professional in the world. You know you're just a per, another person who's talking about abstract ideas but you're not actually building anything. And so I felt that you know, especially because I first started as a product management consultant and A product manager, the whole thing is owning a product. You can't do that in six months. You know there's no benefit to that.
Speaker 1:You jump in, you give a couple, you know words of advice, you help guide people in the right direction and then you leave. That's not product management, right, like you never really get to see the full life cycle. So it's me that stuck for a long time of you know, I think the consultancy is really interesting when you're young because you get to see a, you know a vast range of things. But then you should really quickly I guess, jumping to my advice you should really quickly find something you're interested in and Go do it. Go actually do it, not being a consultant in it, but go live with it and, you know, go build something because that will make you truly valuable.
Speaker 2:So Let me ask you this, because it's interesting that you mentioned youthfulness, specifically being young and being a consultant. And To go back to that John Oliver episode also mentions how a lot of McKinsey consultants are. Are, you know, very post-fresh Harvard grads? Right, like there's? Just they're the freshest grads and they're all following the playbook, the strategy, the best practice, but very few of them have actual Functional experience. To get back to your Steve jobs quote you know, 30 miles wide, 30 inches deep.
Speaker 2:What is interesting to me is the issue with consultants like you were. The implying with Steve jobs quote is you don't have to live with the outcome of your actions. That's, that's my biggest problem with it and to it feels like there's no such thing as a good Consultant. Like if you think about financial advisors, right like, a financial advisor Looks at your business or your accounts, your bank, your stock, your 401k, whatever you got, and they will make decisions based on how much you're making, how much you're budgeting, and with the goal of, hey, we're gonna build you more. But in order for them to stay on with you, they have to continue to increase the value of what you have, otherwise you'll drop the financial advisor. It's a long-term engagement, right. It's like a relationship that continues based on profitability.
Speaker 2:A consultant is you give me six million dollars, I'm gonna give you six months of my time and give you a report that says fire your bottom 20% and give a bonus to your top, you know, top one. That does not read like a symbiotic relationship, like the financial advisor is, and Many of the consultants being so young, I think that if I had to a guest, the majority of them are young in their career. They don't have the experience now. On the other end, if you look at older consulting firms or people who you know, maybe they've retired from their job and now have gotten into consulting, are they plugged in to what's going on today and what needs to be done and how to best run a business? And again, if they're retired and not in the work anymore, are they useful? Right, that's a lot of thoughts, but that's no, it's it's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't disagree. It's kind of like there's no accountability, is a little bit of what you're saying. Right, I'm saying we're gonna hold you to this and we're gonna expect these outcomes. It's more like just coming in advise but at the end of the day, we're just gonna get rid of you as a you know, a Consulting firm If you don't get what we want.
Speaker 1:But to your point, it's like they often at least I've seen this in my history they often don't give you what they want and they give you stupid answers, like you just said, of just cut your 20%, do it from the top. They're like, well, we could have just done that, like that's not the answer we wanted. And I think that's like the lie that Companies get into is they think you know, bringing these big consulting firms will will fix their problems, and the answer is they likely won't. They're just gonna lead you to the answer either a you already knew, or B that just isn't helpful. And you're like, okay, yeah, we explored that. That's not even possibility.
Speaker 1:I Do, however, think there is value in one way. Lay it on me, you ready? No, I think. If they're, I think that well, well, you better be ready because it's coming at you.
Speaker 1:I Think that the usefulness of it comes into like a short-term task that just has to be done, that you don't necessarily have the bandwidth to do or the interest to do, and maybe, maybe that would be something around like auditing, right, if it's like a hardware audit, it's like, okay, do you really want to spend your team's time auditing everything or do you just want to hire some consultancy firm to work in that sort of capacity and, you know, do that laborious work for you so you don't waste your own team's time, so they can focus on other things?
Speaker 1:Right, I could see that, you know, being a useful thing. Or in the case of we want you to come in and you know we want you to build this piece of software for us and then we want you to get out, maybe that's a valuable, you know Engagement. But, to your point on, just like the consultancies that consult, they don't do actual tangible work and they just give you direction or advice, I think most of the time you're gonna be disappointed as a company with the results of that right, and I think what you're talking about is more.
Speaker 2:I would say that's less consultancy and more just a contract.
Speaker 1:Yeah, contract manager, it's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever, right, like you can hire consultants to do that kind of thing, but I think the success will come from the hired contractor. Yeah here's the idea.
Speaker 1:And some consultancies actually are service providers like that. So maybe that's why I'm kind of mixing together is a lot of the consultancy firms. Yeah, they do like strategic consulting, but they also do like contracts for deliverable piece of work, and I think the deliverable piece of work is much more beneficial to a company because you can hold them accountable.
Speaker 2:Hypothetical. You know I love doing this on this show. This is this is a Bruce hypothetical moment. I'm ready.
Speaker 2:What if, instead of paying McKenzie $6 million to tell you what you already are going to do because you like money, instead you do what you do to all of your employees and say, mckenzie, you're in the running with two other consulting firms and here is your key performance indicator, or KPI, that you have to achieve. Now all three of you have to build me a plan that will get me to let's just use an easy one you know, 15,000 new sales, sales closures in the next year. We'll take one of your plans and the one we take will get paid. The rest, sorry, pound sand. And if we don't hit that key performance indicator that you have set for us because we followed your model, then you don't get paid either.
Speaker 2:Now I think that's a much more fair way to do it, because if you come in and you're saying we're going to give you this outcome, you give us six million, that's. That's basically like the con artist, right, right, this used to exist in the Great Depression. If you've ever seen like movies, like the Sting, hey, I can turn this $10 into a hundred if you just lend it to me for a day. That's that's the consulting honestly feels like to me. That's the highway robbery of companies. There's a reason why McKenzie is so secretive is if they actually interviewed folks like you and I after working at places under their consultancy, we'd say, yeah, it got worse. And then they brought the matter for six million more dollars and it got even more worse.
Speaker 2:Why would you hire these people again? But they don't. They don't publish this kind of information. It all stays under the table and I think you make it a contest amongst the consultants and suddenly you'll just one. You'll see consultants drop off the map because they're just not a successful venture and I don't think many of them would make the grade Like I think.
Speaker 2:About this marketing consultancy we hired once which gave us three days of analogies about climbing mountains and surfing waves and how is that better marketers and I think I think we paid like two million something dollars for these people to come in and make analogies about surfing and climbing, and what a tremendous waste of time for the entire organization that was. And these people just make handover fist money. It's. It's upsetting. It did not help our marketing. It only pissed people off and hurt Al because it's like we could have done anything with this time. We could have done a lot more of that budget. I think we had a whole these people's feet at the fire. Make them, make them fight to the death and if they don't hit the goal that they say they can, don't pay him. Fair enough.
Speaker 1:Fair enough to your point. Yeah, it does make it hard to run a business like that, right, because it's like you could put in all this work and obviously that costs dollars on the consultancy front, and then you could just not get paid because your strategy actually doesn't work. But then it holds you accountable. It's better for the client to be like okay, you know. Basically what you're saying is, if I was a consultancy money back guarantee, right, and then you'd be slapping the desk and you'd be hitting your fist and you'd say I guarantee it, and you have a picture of Bruce swinging his arm across his chest.
Speaker 2:Again. Why are you coming after me so much in this podcast?
Speaker 1:No, it's a good visual. I actually think you're going to be the guy that's part of our logo, Holding up his hand pointing at the dollar. You will be that face.
Speaker 2:And I mean here's. The thing is, consultants are here to make your business better, right, like the entire business or the unit of business they were hired for. If that is not happening, there needs to be some kind of punishment for the people you paid. I love the KPI, you know analogy.
Speaker 1:And that's like we use that in product management all the time, of saying like this is our hypothesis, we believe it, because X, y and Z, and then you ship something and you learn do you hit those KPIs it? Or, or, if you don't, you know, you decide do we, do we persevere or do we? You know what's the other word pivot or persevere? Can't think on a Friday afternoon. But do you pivot or persevere? Because you're saying, hey, we're not hitting our KPIs, so let's try something else, or let's keep, you know, pound and sand until we get there to actually see if we can hit those KPIs. So I think it does hold you accountable and to make sure you're getting the, the value that you set out to achieve in first place.
Speaker 2:I mean, as an Italian American I can hardly advocate for the old Mafia 5050. I give you 50% of it now and 50% of it when the job is done. I mean that's fair right.
Speaker 1:The question is would you have three, four, five, six, seven, eight, seven, to have 350% to give to three different companies? And the answer's probably no.
Speaker 2:Probably no. And I mean you just do this with one company and say, hey, we're not going to pay the rest of this. If we don't have this KPI At least, then they'd have to do a little bit more work, right, yeah? And to your point, hey, you, you actually said this and I was going to comment, but I didn't want to interrupt a train of thought. You said well, now they have to do more work, the the irony is they're not doing any work right now. They're all showing up with playbooks and they're justAA same playbook across everybody.
Speaker 2:Everyone who hired this marketing firm has to sit through the same three days of stupid climbing and surfing analogies. Nothing changes. They just gotten positive reviews by the CMOs who've hired these firms because they probably you know their buddies and they went to Harvard together. But the end of the day, it's a waste of time and a waste of money. You actually have an API. You have to measure on 50, 50. Oh, I'm not getting my 50%. Maybe I actually do some research. Maybe I actually have to show a little bit different than surf climbing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as a client, I'll break up the lead pipe and start busting some kneecaps. You know that's what happens in the mafia, Listen not in the corporate world.
Speaker 2:Organized crime has not been as successful as it was if it wasn't for the understanding that goods have value and value must be paid. All right, very simple, oh simpler times I wish the corporate strategy consultants. We won't break the news now, but we might break your clients.
Speaker 1:I love it, but it was a fun conversation and I think you know the crux of it. Big takeaway for me I think when you're young, it's a good way to find out what you like doing and what you're interested in. Once you find that thing like, lean into that thing and do something valuable so you can actually, you know, feel that sense of fulfillment and also just gain some really good skills. So if you don't know what you want to do, give that a shot. I think it's a really good way to find out what you want.
Speaker 2:I do like that as sort of an educational takeaway. Right, it might not be best for the businesses, it might not be best for us, but a great way to go and learn. Good job, clark. Oh thanks, hey. Speaking of fulfilling, oh no, you know what it's time for. What's that? Everyone's favorite game show? What do you mean, hey Clark? Why?
Speaker 1:don't you go over to the corporate strategy.
Speaker 2:What do you mean channel on our discord?
Speaker 1:I'm in there now because I was, I would saw this on our show notes.
Speaker 2:You're ready.
Speaker 1:You're making me prepared for things I shouldn't be prepared for.
Speaker 2:You want to take a crack at it? All right. Which one are we doing?
Speaker 1:The most recent one. Well, I see Jack Black.
Speaker 2:Jack Black, what and what do you mean?
Speaker 1:Oh, no, no, I'm in the wrong one.
Speaker 2:You're in the wrong or sense.
Speaker 1:Well, no, we have a corporate memes.
Speaker 2:We have, we have corporate. I was looking at that. Ok, here we go. And then there's what do you mean? Which is based on the episode. We got a new meme from Restrepo. Actually, this is not new. This is in response to our unions episode with Keelan Austin Great episode. If you haven't heard it, go listen. What is this meme about Clark?
Speaker 1:Well, one, it's a month old, so we're awful, but we're going to get better at adding this to the segment every single episode. It's in the show notes now we can't miss it. So the picture is, you know, your typical. It actually looks like your old cafeteria of your nineties built school and basically it's like three pieces on the table. It's got two statements on the top. So eat their pizza and form a union anyway. Heck, yeah, I love nice, nice. Call back to that episode with Keelan. Yeah, it was super good. And Alex, thanks for posting the meme. This one basically says they want to eat it and have it too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's the right statement.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you know, I think a big, a big joke in the in the world of unions is hey, we have a budget to give you a pizza. You know we can't pay you more, but we can give you pizza. Don't form that union, otherwise the pizza will stop Right Like and it's.
Speaker 2:It's obviously not always pizza, but it's the whole way that corporations try to string you along the benefit that they won't be able to afford if you form that union and you know, like I said, go listen to the episode, because there are pluses and minuses on both ends, but the the one thing you missed. In that picture, clark, there's red vines up at the top right. I'm not you, but I'm zoom Red vines.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're right, those are some weird sodas too, by the way. I can't see it because the thing is right above it, but I think that's water these people organized. Oh well, there's a water bottle and there's some sodas and I don't know what those are. If anyone knows, call them out.
Speaker 2:But I'm just calling snacks Dr Pepper, Sierra Mist and 7 Up.
Speaker 1:Actually, that's probably a really good guess, so I'm calling that one that Dr Pepper, doesn't look like Dr Pepper. But I don't know what it could be, maybe a strawberry soda.
Speaker 2:Where do you think Dr Pepper got his doctorate?
Speaker 1:From the school of hard knocks.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, I didn't realize this was a 1920s vaudeville. Thanks, clark. Thanks for playing. What do you mean? Two are lovely audience. If you want to get in on the memory, be sure to join our Discord. Actually, this is. You're supposed to say this, clark. You're supposed to transition, but I'm doing it because I took the cheat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just stole my transition. It's literally color coded for me. Hey, ask me how we do this. Hey, how do we join the Discord? Oh, easy.
Speaker 2:You can go to our website, corporate strategybiz It'sbiz. Biz stands for business. If you want to stay in touch with us, either via the Discord, which is an awesome hangout, or you want to get emails us for topics, get our LinkedIn socials, whatever, you can do all that on the Contact Us page on our Discord.
Speaker 1:Well, but what if I want to be notified every single time there's a new episode, as soon as it's published?
Speaker 2:Oh, well, for that I mean Clark. I've heard there's a pretty cool email newsletter.
Speaker 1:Ooh Does such a thing exist. It does Head to the website. Fill in your email, sign up for the email newsletter. You'll be notified. The second a new episode is available. And also you've got all these. Oh, this one is actually supposed to be me. I thought you were just handing it to me. It'd be nice. We got all of our socials LinkedIn, instagram, youtube I'm not saying X Twitter and TikTok someday.
Speaker 2:Yes, we'll get there eventually. We have a plan. If the show notes show anything, it's that we have written things down and we're really getting down to business. Speaking of business, there might be ads on this episode and, if there are, thanks for sticking through them and listening to them, but we are currently a podcast that is completely independently run by me out of my pocket. If you want to support us and make that financial burden a little bit easier and don't want to listen to the ad, there's a support us link in the show notes. Feel free to click that and help out any way you can. Right now, it's a $30 a month expense for us. If we could get rid of that, the ads will also disappear.
Speaker 1:So everyone do like $0.30. And I think ads will go away.
Speaker 2:If everyone gave $0.10, old clock would finally be able to get his new knee.
Speaker 1:I can't wait.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he needs that new knee I do so check that out, if it means anything to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also share. Share us, however. You can Post on LinkedIn, post on social, talk to your friends at the water cooler. Let them know this is a great way to escape from your day to day. And give us a review. Reviews really help. We get part of the algorithm, the evil algorithm that AI is working on optimizing right now. Yes, and if you guys can give us a review, that would help immensely.
Speaker 2:It would. We had pretty strong numbers listenership in September and part of this is our fault. We didn't put out as many episodes, but October was kind of a week month for us, so if you could help share it with your friends Friends who love friends share corporate strategy, and friends who hate friends also share corporate strategy Just so you know. It's a best of both worlds situation. And yeah, newsletter yeah, that's it. Yeah, we got the whole thing. We did have a couple of rough handoffs. We'll get there. We will get there. So, thank you, as always, for listening. You, the listener, the most important person. You're the reason why we do this. So remember, don't boil the ocean. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and you're on mute. We'll see you next week. Get out of here, craig.