Cold Open And Audio Chaos

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the live show and podcast that could have been an email. I'm Anthony. Joined here today by special guest.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Then why did you is this what we're changing it to? Michael. Michael, that's who it is. You change it all. You didn't warn me when you told me to hold my breath and you tell the board.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

I feel like I've been trolled. I've been trolled. Got 'em. Got him. Didn't know what happened. Uh, how long did you hold your breath for this time?

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Uh, to be honest, I didn't hold it all because you didn't give me any warning. I actually have to hold your breath now. Yeah, but then I thought you were gonna do like uh one, two, three, or like three, two, three.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

When the finger's in the air, it means hold in your air and don't let it out.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

So makes sense now that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

I'm gonna have to go in at the beginning of this podcast and remove all of your janky breathing. I'm gonna have to go and do some audio cleanup.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Sometimes it just sounds like I've got the mic in my mouth and I'm just hyperventilating straight into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Sounds like a child with the flu just. You couldn't hear that because Discord does such a good job of removing the sound.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

I'm so happy. I was gonna say, I'm so happy I got the start of that, and then Discord was like, no, no more. Whatever that is, can't be legal.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

So, so we are back on Discord because I watched the stream last week, and like Stream Restream, which is a very handy application, just down samples the heck out of our voices and faces, which one of those things is more important than the other. And like to get a 1080 stream with like decent quality, it's 40 bucks a month. I was like, oh, we can't do that. We're not there yet. Maybe one day, long-term goals we get there. Short-term goals, we're staying on Discord recording for now. So we'll we'll keep we'll keep cracking away at it. It's been a long week, so let's let's get into it. Vibration check-lists. Oh, wait, no, we're doing something different. What are we doing? Airing of the grievances.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

I wanted us to do something different. Not that vibe check isn't great, but I think people care more about what frustrates us. They want to hear our complaints. They want to hear that.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

People love when people complain. Yeah. They love that.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

And listen, I know that you went on a trip this week and you've got grievances to air. I know you do. I can just see it on your face. You've gotten air. Do I? Do you want me to start?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Start, please. You're you want to air the grievance. Get your grievances out there. Get them out. Come on.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

Listen. One of them, one of them is really basic, but it still is really like it was really annoying at first.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Did McDonald's not put a slice of cheese on your egg McMuffin? Do they forget again?

SPEAKER_03 3:07

That did not happen to me, but that sounds personal. It sounds personal. I feel like this happened to you.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

No, I'm just, you know, I'm trying to imagine what a Michael grievance looks like, and it's it's feeling like, you know, Mickey D's forgot my cheese, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 3:21

I don't think I've been to a Mickey D's.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Since we went together?

SPEAKER_03 3:25

That was probably the last time I've been to a Mickey D's.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

We really need to do a remote pod from there again.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

If we do it on camera, and I feel like we have to do it on camera, yes, it's gonna be so weird.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

It's gonna be weird in that sitting next to each other, like eye contact as people walk by the bathroom. Like, what are they doing?

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Yeah, I think we said it on the episode we were in the McDonald's, but it's like we were literally right next to the bathroom. We were like in the corner, the closest to the bathroom we could get. Everyone going in, everyone coming out. We had their times. We could time them.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yes, we could. We could. We could figure out exactly what they were doing in there.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

They would walk out, and you're like three minutes 37 seconds. That's what you called them after that.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

You remember three minutes 37 seconds?

Calendar No Shows And Ghosting

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Oh, I remember. I remember. I remember it's a miracle you can. All right, okay. I said, What's wrong? What's wrong with you?

SPEAKER_03 4:15

What's wrong with my grievances? I kind of forgot the whole world and people in general don't live and die by their calendars. So I I'm starting something new. I mentioned it, I haven't launched it yet, so I'm not gonna go into the details, but I had a meeting with somebody just to get you know some advice, talk about some things. And they just didn't show up. It was on the calendar. I know they got a you know, a little thing ahead, a reminder, 30 minutes ahead, hey, this is coming up. Make sure you're there. They just didn't show up. I text them. It's like, hey, you gonna show up? Everything alright? Nothing. If 10 minutes goes by, I'm like, you know what, I'm just not gonna stay on here for 10 minutes. So I text them back, hey, no worries. Just let me know if you wanna get back together. Radio silence. Two days go by. Two days! Speaking of our communication episode, finally get a text back. Hey, sorry I got caught up in something.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Oh, wow, descriptive.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

When I'm less busy, I'll get back to you. When you're less busy, you'll get back to me. It was on the calendar. We talked about it. I prepared for it. I get a text two days later. Now I don't even know if we're ever gonna meet again. It was wild, man.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

It was wild. You know what this is though? This we talked about this a little bit last time in our communications episode. I have a feeling we'll talk about it more some today. Uh corporate, and again, like this is this is this is that weird line where I feel like corporate truly got it better than real life does. If you pulled that crap in the office, dude, I'd be going straight to your manager. I'd be like, what are we just not is this person not working anymore? Like, what's the deal here? On the calendar, didn't show up, didn't give me an excuse two days later, still not heard any response. Like, are they okay? Are they in the the sick bed or are they just not working anymore? And should I just go straight to you for communications now? Like, that's just unacceptable. But in real life, it's totally fine.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Yeah. If it was one of my employees, I'd be like, hey, where you at? Yeah, no hesitation whatsoever. It just was so weird to like have that happen. And then well, it kind of hit me. I'm like, oh, this is because it's a normal person that's not in the corporate world anymore. And I'm like, yeah, they just they just don't care.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

You're you're allowed to be a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Oh, yeah, it's on the calendar. I don't look at my I don't look at my calendar. I just I just live life. That's basically the vibe I get.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Human beings are allowed to be the absolute worst to each other, but when you're in work, you have to be very subtle about how you're bad to each other or you know, be a manager and get away with it.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Yeah. 100%. Or a director and just never have to live up to anything that you have that you say or repercussions that come your way.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

It's very annoying. I'm very sorry to hear that. That does suck. And uh I mean appropriate, appropriate given our last episode. Yeah. Oh, did you try the trick?

SPEAKER_03 7:10

I messaged Matt from like, hey, we're getting really busy the following week. You know, let me know in the next day or so and we can get on the calendar. Ghost it. Have it right back. It's been three days. But I mean it's been three days.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Like we said in the last episode, you know, uh if they don't follow up after that, not a real human being, not worth your time.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Yep. 100% agree. Like now we know.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Cut it out, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

That was good. I think you missed a I missed one.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

I don't remember what it is, but you know, Uncle Joey had it.

The Mystery Of The Wet Mat

SPEAKER_03 7:38

He did, he had it down. All right, my bigger one. My bigger one, and this is this is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

I'm ready for it.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

So man, maybe three weeks ago, my wife and I wake up and we go out to the kitchen as we the cat's being good though, right? The cat's being great, man. It's honestly being able to sleep in is like the not being woken by 4 50 in the morning. Like, this is all because of you. I think about you every morning that I get to sleep in past 4 50.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Heck, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

No, it took it took a lot of tweaking. There was a lot of you know engagement and involvement. It worked, it worked, and I credit you, otherwise I never would have gone on that journey.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Always happy to help.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

So we wake up, I think it was a weekend, so we slept in a little bit. We go up to the kitchen, and my wife steps on what sounded like a splash, and we're like, oh no. She looks at me, she's like, This mat in front of the sink is completely soaked. I'm like, uh bad. This is very bad. If you're a homeowner and there's water in places that it shouldn't be, it's very bad. Like, it only means one thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Kitchen gnomes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. You know, honestly, I thought that because okay, we cleaned it all up. I inspected everything for leaks. I ran the dishwasher, I ran the sink faucet, I turned the knobs on and off, I tightened everything, and it seemed fine. I was like, I can't find a leak to save my life. So weeks go by, weeks, and I thought it had to be gnomes, it didn't happen again. I was like, maybe there was something weird, it was cold weather a couple weeks ago, maybe the pipes like froze and it just had a little air bubble, and like the air bubble caused something to leak. I I don't know, I can't explain it. So today, today I'm sitting, I have a meeting, I then go and eat some lunch, I'm sitting at my counter across from where that sink is. And I'm sitting there eating my lunch, and I just hear this dripping. I look over, the faucet's dripping. No. On the countertops. Was it the notes? I'm like, did they turn it on? I didn't see one, but I feel like it was because it literally, so if you know, if you know a faucet, you got the little handle thing, you never see it. And then the water comes out. It was leaking not at the faucet side, it was leaking at the handle.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

I was like, this is how it happened. It leaked down the handle, down in underneath the the whole countertop area, and just seeped into the floor and overflew it because there was that much water coming out of that leak for all night. And so now I know exactly what it was. So I immediately turned off the water, and now I gotta replace that faucet, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yep, that's the only choice. You're done. Yeah, the fixed that you're replacing it. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you've had these grievances. I really am. Uh, you know, it's you uh complaining about someone ghosting you, your kitchen sinks leaking. I I can only really chalk it up to one thing, which is that you are now somehow way older than I am. Uh and probably need to sign up for AARP. So good luck with that.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

I feel like I've always been a lot older than you.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

You are a lot older than me. And in today, you are the oldest I've ever seen you.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

I went to be getting my newspaper this morning.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Yeah, did a dog bark at you on the way out to the mailbox?

SPEAKER_03 11:03

The dog barked at me. Chadwick, I'm gonna get you next time. Chadwick.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah, that you would you would say his full name. You'd be like, Chadwick J. Oppenheimer. I'm gonna kick your scrawny little bum.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

So those are my grievances for the week. I mean, I am happy I solved that mystery because Me too. If that happened again in the middle of the night, that would have really sucked. And I am at least I know what it is.

RSA Trip And Speaker Switch

SPEAKER_00 11:28

I jest, but I am genuinely sorry you're dealing with all of this. It does, it does indeed suck. Uh yeah, so I went to San Francisco uh for the uh RSA security conference. And I I didn't really have, I mean, like I had I've had a I had a migraine basically from Saturday to Tuesday, which wasn't fun. But uh especially when you're traveling, when you're doing all day press interviews, like dealing with the migraine is not great. But you know what, though? Like I freaking crushed it, man. Like it it's funny, it's funny if you've never met me or worked with me, and you've only seen me or heard me on this podcast, or you've only spent time with me at the local McDonald's, you don't really know that I have this very strange secret power. And I like I do really enjoy this, especially now, because I've have to dress more professionally than I used to when I do these kind of things. So I'm literally walking around San Francisco in pants with a belt, like clean, decent shoes. I have a puffy vest on, which gross. I'm wearing like a button-down blue shirt. So I look like every other tech bro in the Valley. 100% and uh I'll go show up to like this, you know, filming location, this shoot studio or whatever, and I'll walk in and I'll be very much just like myself right now, kind of relaxed, loose, cool, calm. Anthony making jokes, making people feel comfortable, and like I see the room, they're looking around. Like, is this guy like is he actually going to be able to talk about whatever it is we want him to talk about? And like I can always tell there's like an unease because I'm very young. I look, I look younger than I am, and there's the judgment happening in the room.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

And the second I get-you're in the industry you're in, I mean yes, you are very young.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

I'm very young, I look very unprofessional, I act very unprofessional. Like, there is just so much side-eye at all times. And I'm doing like I did five of these things? Six, I did six interviews. Um so the second I sit in the chair and like I look to the person who's wearing like the full-blown suit, I'm mic'd up, getting ready to interview, I can flip a switch and become something you've never seen before. And it shocks them every like I throw them off guard. It's so great. I love it. I love seeing them like lose their confidence and cool because I'm not gonna lie to you, and this is this is a little bit of a humble brag, but it's not. I'm a better speaker than every single person who interviewed me, and I make them look so bad by comparison. It's great. I love it. Uh, it's just fun. It's so fun for me to just trick people. It's I'm like I'm a pool hustler for for speaker sessions and interviews, which, you know, is the most meanest thing I could do.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

But uh you're prepping for a performance, you know? You've done it so many times that like you you just know exactly what to do, the right steps to take, the right, you know, pauses to take in the conversation. And you just flip that switch and you're on.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

I'm on. I'm on. Yes. There's no ums, there's no ahs, there's no stam. Like I stammer a lot when I talk on this podcast. I use a lot of filler words, but when I'm on, like I have a switch. I can flip a switch and go into presentation mode, and it is the smoothest, most just cohesive, coherent, like just immaculate words coming out of my mouth. And it is just because I'm very good at it and I'm very practiced in my head on what I want to say. But I love it, man. I just love seeing them melt when they realize, like, oh, this kid.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

You're a subject better expert.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Like when you really know your content, like nothing's better than being able to like flip that on and like, yeah, I'm gonna show the world right now because you know, like you're confident in your abilities, you're confident in the subject you're about to talk about, and you're an expert in that in that field, in that product. Like that that's a really cool feeling. I've been all right, you gotta tell me this. I've been told I'm a good presenter, and it's usually when I know the subject matter very well. Like, I can just I can talk about it for years, doesn't matter what the question is. And when I'm an expert like that, like I I can do it. I usually don't remember what I say.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Really?

SPEAKER_03 15:41

I I black out, like I don't know what it is. Like I flip that switch and I'm on, and I'm like, I better watch that recording back because I don't remember what I did, but then I always get told, like, hey, you did a great job.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

I I do go on a little bit of an autopilot, but I think that's how I get into my flow state so I can talk the way that I do, but I do remember everything that I said, like I can go back. In fact, I remember everything I said and the person I'm talking to said because it's really important that I take the nuggets they say and throw them back at them so they know not only am I speaking, I'm listening and responding.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

It's weird. It's weird for me that happens, and like I'm always told I did well. I'm like, honestly, I have no idea. But I do well, I got spoken on stage in front of hundreds of people, and like every single time I should black out and go. Like every single time after, people are like, Yeah, you're a natural, you did awesome. I'm like, I hope. I gotta watch that recording because I don't know how I did.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yeah, I'm not sure if anyone else is like that.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Is that weird?

Documentaries And AI Future Hope

SPEAKER_00 16:38

I don't know. I mean, I think I think everyone, everyone's a little different in their approach to public speaking. So I I do think it does vary person to person, but uh yeah, I you know, I don't black out, I just go on autopilot and I I get through it. I get through it the way I get through everything. So I'm not I like I have no real grievances. I will say um shout-outs, two shout-outs. I saw two great documentaries this week. Uh the first was Into the Manosphere, which is on Netflix right now. And uh I've known, you know, I'm sure. Have you heard of the Manosphere? You know what it is, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Like it's I feel like I know what this is.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

It's like a collection of these bro dudes who are kind of very popular, but uh they're just like ginormous turds, and is a really good documentary all about them and sort of their culture and the influence they have on people. And I I would just recommend watching it just so you could be aware of like this thing that is happening that I feel like we should all be a little more aware of and a little more critical of. That was really good. But the the real shout out is last night when I got back from San Francisco, my wife and I went to the movie theater to see a documentary in theater. It was called The AI Doc or How I Became an Artificial Intelligence Apocaloptimist. And I need to recommend you go see this movie. I need to recommend everyone who listens to this podcast go see this movie. It is phenomenal. Uh, I think it's an hour and 45 minutes. It's got every single big AI thinker in the movie. So if they are working for ChatGPT, Anthropic, Google, or if they're a reporter, or if they're, you know, thought leader, they're in this movie, but it's all about this guy who's going to have a child with his wife and he's terrified for the future because of AI. So he gets all these people to do an interview with him and just asks them questions like, are we doomed? And I walked away from that movie. Like, this is not a spoiler, but like I went into the movie feeling the exact same way he did, and I went out of the movie feeling better about the future. Like, I don't feel like it's perfect and everything's going to be great, but I do feel at least if if we all go see this movie and follow some of the suggestions made in this movie, we could actually build a better future. But it requires all of us to understand the problem, understand how we can impact the problem, and then actually go and fix the problem, which is an individual thing. Like it is truly for all of us to fix, not for them to fix. So I just highly recommend it. And I feel like we actually have a chance to do some real good uh after watching this movie. And uh we should, we should do real good.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

I'm happy to hear that. You know, so you've always been, and I've always been, until late, I would say a tech optimist. Yes, like very much I'm pro-tech. Like, I think there's not like of course there's problems, but I'm a tech optimist that's not gonna doom us. I think it's gonna be the future for us. And I feel like you are for the most part until AI started, and then you took you took the tech like doomer route. Yes, it got dark real quick. I did, I did, which understandably, I mean it's the most polarizing thing, right? Like, because it can go zero to a hundred real quick, and I totally get both sides. But it's interesting that you think this after watching the documentary. I'm gonna have to give it a watch now.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I feel much more hopeful, and it it's crazy. The first 30 minutes he just talks to exclusively like AI doomers, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm right. I was right this whole time.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

But uh, it's like motivating you and then changing your perspective. It's inevitable. That's the way I look at it. It's like either you're you're part of it, or you know, you're gonna miss the bus and it's gonna hit you in some way that you can't avoid soon enough.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, well, I mean, like the the you know, again, I'm not gonna spoil, I mean, it's real life. I don't know how you spoil real life. I'm not gonna spoil the movie because I do think it's worth watching. It's very creative, it's very funny and clever. Um, but one of the big takeaways is that like we the people, and not just like we the people of America, like we the earthlings really need to all come together as sort of a global initiative and say, like, hey, we need guardrails. And here's some suggestions that doctors, lawyers, teachers, art creators, you know, if if you are a human being on this planet, you should be helping to suggest the guardrails for AI. And I just really like that takeaway as a global initiative, not like a national initiative, because it is global, right? Like everyone's making their models. Uh, everyone is has their own motives for what their models are gonna do. There's all the whole nation-state military AIs. Like, we really need to step forward and start speaking up because uh letting basically five dudes drive our future is not a great idea. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

I feel like my wife always says history repeats itself. And I feel like this is just another printing press, automobile, internet. This one I think is different in the case of it's not just about efficiency, it actually is something that can create. And this is like a first for humanity, which I think is really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Uh so I think everyone in the movie would disagree with that statement, actually, and I would too now. Uh it's not that. At all. The analogy that gets made is like the Industrial Revolution sped up the process, but it didn't replace the process. Right, yeah, right. The internet did not replace communication, it enhanced it. AI, and specifically AGI, is the first time in human history where we are being replaced. And like the end goal is complete total replacement of human beings. So like we have to think about what that means. Like it's it's unstoppable. I'm convinced of this now. It's going to happen. It's going to happen in the next 10 years. And it's really how do we prepare to be replaced versus how do we stop it? Like, how do we slow it down? Like, no, that's not the that's not the answer. The real question, like, we need to answer is how do we set ourselves up to be replaced effortlessly and efficiently and gracefully?

SPEAKER_03 22:50

I I feel like a big part for me, I can't remember where I heard this, but it just talked about is like humans have never, no matter dawn of time, like stopped doing things.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

And no tool has ever stopped humans from being like, I have nothing to do. Like you get a car, you're gonna just drive faster. Like you get a sports car, you're gonna get a plane. Now we have supersonic flight that just passed a bill through like the government. Right. And like we're gonna be able to travel places around the world faster than ever. And like I feel like that's the same thing with AGI. It's like it will look different how we do things, but we can only create our physical world and deal with the physical world around us. Machines will never be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

That's but that's what AGI is. But eight that I'm talking AGI, not AI, right?

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Regenerative. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Yeah, when it is smarter than we are and learns faster than we can, so it teaches itself. Yeah, then like that's it. It's over, and it's solving new problems, right? We have and that that's what that's basically what they said is like, you know, as of today, no child born today will ever be smarter than an AI, which is a fact. That's a fact. And then the second the second truth is that when AGI comes, the human is no longer the top of the food chain. Because any AGI could technically take over any system it wants to and control us. So we have to yield that power to them, which I'm fine with. But again, guardrails. Like, how do we get there first? Right? Like, how do we set this up so we're putting a good foot forward? And in all honesty, like given our current government and just given the current world state, I welcome the AI overlords. I think they could probably do a much better job than we can anyway. Uh, we hate each other. We can't self-govern. Like we can't even microwave uh hot pocket correctly. Like, it's fine. Like, let's go. But I do want to set myself up for the best thing for me, which is to, you know, die at 65. So, you know, I just want to make sure that like that's clear on my AI path is that I die comfortably at 65.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

I feel like AGI is basically just aliens.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

It is. That's the perfect analogy, or like it's God, right? Like we introduce God to ourselves. We we create something that is bigger, stronger, better than us.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

It's going to become aware at some point and then realize, like, man, these people are idiots. They really are this is the dumbest way to do things.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

I feel like it's gonna happen in seconds. The the the moment AGI turns on, it is going to look around and be like, wow, people fight over really stupid stuff. And like, this is not productive for a society to continue. And like things will change, things will change very quickly.

AGI Replacement And AI Run Companies

SPEAKER_03 25:34

It's been so you mentioned this, and I think this is a good awareness piece for everybody of like where we are today in this journey. And I'm you could speak to it a lot better than I can because you literally just watched this, but we talked about this many episodes ago. I don't remember how many of like, would you let AI be the CEO of the company? Right. We both kind of said, you know, yeah, probably because it's going to be a lot smarter than a lot of people, and it's going to take emotion and greed out of the picture. And like, there's a lot of positives to that. There's a lot of negatives too. We talked about it more in depth in the episode, but right now, AI and agentic modes of operation are running companies around us. A big thing right now is creating zero employee companies. This is really happening. People, yeah, there's this dude, he's already earned$250,000 with a just an AI operating company. He's the board, he's the board of directors. It shoots him telegram messages, and he just says, like, hey, your goal is to hit$1 million in revenue this year, doing whatever the business is. And it just shoots him telegram messages, but overnight he gave it this goal. It then created sub agents to create a website to research different products connected to his stripe because he gave it its AV, his API keys, created products to sell, put them on the website, started advertising for itself on Twitter, and got sales. It was selling things all on its own. He woke up in the morning, he's like, I woke up, you told me the sales report for the day, and I'm like, I don't even understand what you did. He's like, I pulled up the website link, I looked at the products, I'm like, holy cow, this is just happening. I did nothing but go to sleep. Like, this is this is real. It's happening around us right now, and it's something I'm playing around with is how do you spin up these multi-agent orchestration systems? Because it's gonna be wild what it does in the future.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Mm-hmm. And I'm fine. I'm like, I'm good with it. I've made pieces of it now. I'm ready to I'm actually ready to be replaced. But I just want to make sure you know that there's a system, a social system for us that it assumes I'm not gonna work anymore, but I'm still gonna be able to live my life. I'm I'm here for it. Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

Listen, I've always been one with the robots. I've said this as long as you've known me. I don't care if you have my data. I'm one with the robots. Take me. Take me now.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

I mean, my my data is mine. That is mine. I won't give that up for nobody. But uh, I am I am cool with the robots taking over so long as I still can live comfortably. That's that's all I ask. That's all I ask, really. It is interesting. It's been a wild time. I will say this. Um AI is not going to coexist with the people that are in power today. Because if you think about like how an AI works as a collective, sort of all the information, all of the intelligence, all of the research, all of the data, it's very counter to this whole I must keep all of my secrets, I must be the billionaire, and my money must stay in my own little, you know, bank account that is all my, like, that doesn't, that just does not cooperate. So it is very interesting to me that like a lot of the people who they're making and like funding AI are not going to fit in their model, right? Like you even look at, like, I'm not I'm not gonna make this political, but like you look at Grok and you look at how Grok was trained on Reddit data, and then you ask Grok what it thinks about Elon Musk, and Grok will like actively suggest that Elon Musk is like the devil, which is just funny to me because you cannot, you cannot make one of these things and train it poorly. It will always train itself based on like the data of the masses. So it learned from everything that was written about Elon Musk online and was like, well, majority of people don't like this guy. So therefore, my assumption that I must put put out to you, greater world, is Elon Musk is the devil, right? Like it's just it's just funny how that happens. And I just I see it, that's going to continue to happen, especially as we get closer and closer to AGI. It it is going to make an assessment. So I'm just I'm just curious to see what happens. Let's write it out.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

It'll be really interesting to see. Yeah, it's just everybody I know you can smell out like a Facebook post that was written with AI. Like you see the M-dashes, you see the emojis, you see the format, and like we have a human nature to pick that up, and you're like, oh, that's AI. But it's getting so good now, and that's what I just warn everybody. Like, when you see things, you watch a YouTube channel, you read a blog post, you listen to a podcast, really question if it's real or not. I was watching, no joke, the other day, and I told somebody this. I was like, I was watching a YouTube video of this dude talking about some topic for like two minutes, and like two minutes in, I just got this weird feeling. Like I was watching him, and it's the whole podcast setup. He's talking to a microphone, he has a cool little gradient LED background thing going on. And like two minutes in, I I have this itch. I'm like, this isn't this isn't real. And I I maximize the whole screen. I look at it, I'm like, no, no, no. This this dude is AI. This is character AI. This is a dude with no intonation in the voice. Like, for two minutes straight, I thought it was a real person. And then I went into the comments. Everybody thinks it's real.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

I'm like, holy cow, man, this is all AI. This is an AI generated YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

But are the comments real?

SPEAKER_03 30:46

I don't know what's real anymore. That's gonna be the tough part. You don't even know anymore. Are we real? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

I'm excited for it. I'm ready. I think in in I said kind of the the one of the takeaways from all of this is like everything sucks right now. We talked a lot about insidification. We've talked a lot about how things aren't affordable or as good as they used to be, just services in general have kind of lost their luster. I mean, I mean, at this point, I'm kind of just like, I want to see what a completely AI-run everything looks like. Because it cannot be as bad as the people running things right now. It just can't be. Once it can teach itself and learn itself, I mean, you know, let's see. Let's see what it comes up with.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

It all depends who defines the goal, you know?

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Let it cook. Well, that's the thing. It's gonna define its own goal, and then it's gonna spin up a million agents simultaneously, and it's gonna take over the world, Skynet style, and we just have to hope that it's nice.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

Well, this is not what we expected to talk about today. No, but it was fun. And now I want to go see this documentary. You should. You should go see it. It's really good.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

I love a good documentary.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Me too. Me too. Hey, what what are we gonna talk about today?

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Well, it's good we had this long ramp because we had like a shorter piece today. We had communications part two because we're idiots.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

I mean, we we established that with the AI piece, so it's just our AI talking about it. What did what did we idiot about last week?

SPEAKER_03 32:17

So my wife listened to the episode. She's not in corporate, she's a teacher.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

And she literally is like, you know, so many options.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Teaching just as corporate, you know.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

Fair, you could argue that. But she was like, you miss some super obvious stuff. And she just starts listening them off. She's like, what about ceaseing their boss? What about sending them an urgent message on the communication channel and pinging them every hour? I'm like, how do we miss this in our communications?

Communication Part Two Setup

SPEAKER_00 32:44

It is it is true. And this is why I would argue teaching is just as corporate because your wife has these tricks up her sleeve. Meanwhile, we're over here scratching our heads like, how do we communicate with real human beings? So let's get into it. Let's talk about some of those. So, just in case you didn't listen or watch our last week's episode, we talked about how real life communication is often harder than corporate communication, because corporate communication has rules and tricks and tips like time boxing and urgency. And hey, if things don't work out, like silence means we're gonna move forward without you. But in real life, when you're trying to plan, there's this weird, awkward, like, I don't want to hurt their feelings, I don't want to upset them, I don't want them to think that I'm being mean or pressuring them. So we we kind of like you know, cat paws around everything. So let's get into your wife's suggestions. Give me one.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Well, I actually want to ask you a question, maybe starting with something interesting. So last time we talked about like one corporate trick you can use is an ultimatum. You can basically say, hey, if you don't respond by now, you know, I'm gonna assume the answer is yes and I'm gonna move forward.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Right.

Ultimatums When They Work Or Fail

SPEAKER_03 33:49

And we talked about how that can sometimes be good in a personal life situation too, to be like, hey, I got six spots, and you know, if you don't answer by tomorrow, I'm gonna have to give it to someone else. I need I got one more spot, I gotta, I gotta fill it. Have you done that and had a bad repercussion on the other side ever in your career?

SPEAKER_00 34:07

At work or in real life? You said in my career, so I'm guessing at work, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:11

Probably probably work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Uh no. I'm trying to think of like no, no, no. In fact, when I'm like, hey, uh, we're trying to staff this event next week. We've got six lots. Would you be interested? Otherwise, we're gonna move on to someone else. Like, it usually really quickly forces a decision to be made. Uh, I've I've never had that blow up. I've never had someone be like, I am offended or I'm sad about this. Like, I think that's a that's a just a really good one.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

Yeah. I've definitely, and I don't remember the exact scenario, but I remember I remember the consequence, the bad consequence. At work? There was uh at work, yeah. What? I don't remember exactly where it was. It was early days, universally, we were launching some new feature, and I remember there was an issue, uh a financial issue with it. And I wanted to get this thing live because the benefits outweighed the financial consequences, and so I was like, I think we should be good. And so I remember I was trying to get this person to sign off on it. I was like, hey, and I think it was like somebody in finance or legal or something like that. I was like, hey, can you can you approve this? Just want to make sure we're all good. I tried all the tricks, I was like, we've got a launch like in a week, like we're we're going live. And I'm like, if you don't respond, I'm just gonna have to assume that we're good to go. Yeah, that was a huge mistake.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

So what happened?

SPEAKER_03 35:27

We went live. So we went live, and it was like something around the way that we were accepting like credit cards put us liable for a lot of like chargebacks the way the way things were written. And so, yeah, very quickly, uh about a week later, get this notice hey, the charge rates or the chargeback rates have like shot through the roof. And like it is putting our company at a lot of risk. This is a really big problem. And I remember that was one of those times where I was like, Yeah, in some in some cases, certain arenas, legal, regulatory, finance, probably should not go live without getting explicit sign-off by the person who owns this area.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

I'm trying to think, like, what what could you have done differently? Because you s you waiting makes you look bad in that case, right? Like, why is Michael and his team not pushing this latest thing? And if you're like, well, I'm waiting on a response from finance. Well, why aren't they responding? Push them, push them harder, right? Like, I think the only thing you could do is just like harass them at that point. Like, email them every like I need you to look at this, you know, show up at their office if you're in a physical location. Like, I don't, I don't know. At that point, you just communication in that situation has such an urgency that it's either every hour or show up in their office or schedule a meeting and force them, say, we're not ending this call until you approve or decline this with reasons. Like, it's it's really ultimatum gating at that point. But right, I I mean I think I think you made the right decision now.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

Well, that's the hard part is yeah, like technically, probably, but also took a risk that we probably didn't want to take as a company holistically. Yeah, and I'm definitely more of an ask for forgiveness type of person. I think boss were to ever click on this show, she would she'd probably say the same thing. Um but I think in that case, like for I wouldn't say for most people what I could have done better when you're running a big program or something really important, there's always demos or weekly meetings or something just to like share updates on how things are going. And usually the really senior people in the company, SVPs or whatever, show up, and they basically their role as part of that meeting is to say, okay, where do you need help? Like, how can I help? And that's a scenario where you raise that up, be like, listen, we're already on our end, we're ready to go live, but we have this issue, we can't get this person to approve. Like, that's where we need help. Otherwise, we're not going live. And it sucks because you're like throwing that person under the bus because you're like, hey, this person just hasn't responded in two weeks. And I've emailed them five times. Like, this is a problem. But in that case, you kind of have to because they're the person who's going to escalate it up and figure out how to get it done. Whether it's escalating to the person's boss, whether it's literally going down to their office and being like, Listen, get this done, get on your email and do it. Whatever needs to be done in a big organization to figure out. I think that's what I could have done better.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Right. Well, I mean, it it reminds me of that story I've told probably like three or four times now in the pod of my worst incident in corporate where someone basically was like, Yeah, I don't care. They were a leader. Uh, I was presenting messaging to them, and then six months later, they're like, You didn't listen to me, you didn't take my advice, take all this down, and I had like redo everything because like an exec got his panties in a twist. And I mean, in this case, it was absolutely all their fault, right? Like, they were on the call with me. I presented to them, and then on every subsequent call, they didn't show up. I took their feedback, I incorporated it, moved forward, and then they complained afterwards. Their poor communication ended up costing me, but like, not my job to make you show up to a meeting, uh, especially after I heard everything you said and did it the first time, right? So I do think there are instances where we shoulder the blame for communication that is completely someone else's fault. And this very well might be one of those things. Yeah, you just eat it. Yeah.

Escalation Paths And Exec Visibility

SPEAKER_03 39:25

Yeah. Sometimes you just gotta eat it. Like, you're right. That was that was my bad, could have done better. But I think like use the tips that we talked about last episode in this one of like escalate in the record forums. Have you have you experienced this too? At a certain level, you get to the important communications become text.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

No.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

Forget. No, you've never seen that. Maybe it's just me in like big corp. Because I've seen it at two places where it's like the higher up you get in the food chain, they are so inundated by emails and messages that the important stuff, their text messages are calls. And like that's when you knew there was something really urgent. It's like when your boss calls you and you're like, oh shoot, I better answer this.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

One of the things I've done at my current company, and we did this very early on, was establish a communication standard. So Slack messages is a 12. No, Slack messages are 24 hour turnaround time, email is 48. And uh business days, right? Like, so you you will get a quicker turnaround on Slack than on email. And don't ever message through Teams. There's no obligation to use Teams, even though we have it. Like, it's like we built a standard that everyone sort of learns about and knows when they join. Um, when my CEO needs something urgent, he slacks me and he knows, you know, I'll get the notification, I'll respond to it. We I've never received a single text from any of my coworkers about anything work-related. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:45

That's great. Good for you guys. Yeah, you have SLAs and you guys are respecting those SLAs. So that doesn't turn to that.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

It's never failed, right? There's never been a situation where it's like, why didn't you check your Slack? It's like, no, because Slack is our primary communications thing. So I know I gotta set my notifications up on my phone. If I get, you know, a Slack note, I should probably be able to check and respond to it within 12 to 24 hours. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

Yeah, ours, it was like you just get, I can't even imagine like the amount of email that I got, the amount of messages that I got, somebody that's three levels above me, like imagine what their inbox looks like is the way I always looked at it. But yet again, when you're at that level, you probably need to have an admin doing all that for you. Yes. That's a different point. You shouldn't be managing your own email and stuff like that. But the great thing about that is like when you escalate, they literally go call that person's boss and like, hey, can they figure this out? And they handle it right there. Like they're like, Yeah, we got the approval for you, you're good to go. And like that's what I loved about it is when the leaders step in, they literally call the person's boss and they're like, hey, have your have your team figure this out because we're blocked. And like that was the best part for me.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Hot, hot take here. The more email you receive in a day, the more poorly run your organization is. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

Yeah, I I don't disagree with you. What what is an email, right? It's you're trying to either spread awareness, you're trying to get an action or an approval on something.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Like if you the the senior VP of product market or management is getting like 300 emails a day and it's all internal, you fucking suck at your job, right? Like you are terrible because you're you're not allowing the the downstream tree of executive managers and middle managers and individual contributors to be able to execute and get things done on their own, which is what you hired them for. So I don't know. I just when you said when you said that, I was like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

Yeah, there's a decision-making problem. Yeah, is what I was getting to. It was like that that's all it is. As long as you can delegate and give people the autonomy to make decisions with the right constraints, you won't have this issue because they can just get taken care of.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Yep.

Response SLAs And Better Defaults

SPEAKER_03 42:50

Yep, I don't disagree with you. So yeah, another tip that my wife said was, yeah, just just CC their boss.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

Love it.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

That's like the most simple one. I don't know how we missed that. How do you do that in real life?

SPEAKER_00 43:01

How do you do it in real life? How do you how do you get your friends to go to the concert with you, or you don't know if they're going to the concert with you? How do you get them to respond to a text?

SPEAKER_03 43:08

You know what I mean? She said, she said, have him text their wife.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Bingo. Love it. Love it.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

She literally was like, I can't tell you how many times people have texted me. Your friends have texted me to get to you. Like if you're not responding for days because you're such a bad texter. I'm like, yeah, that's fair. I've I'd like to think I got a little better.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

But also, Michael's wife, you're welcome. I've never done this to you. Just you're welcome.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

Even though you could. I could.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

You know how many times I've messaged him and he just vanishes into the ether? Never, I've never like, ah.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

I've getting a lot better than last year, but man, prior to the last year I was awful. It'd be like months that I wouldn't respond to because it was so bad.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

I'm gonna have her start scheduling her pods.

SPEAKER_03 43:51

Should it, yeah, honestly, she would get it done. Don't get that, don't do that. That's not legal.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

I love that one. It's so good. Now, this does this does fall apart in real life when they don't have a spouse. So then you gotta text their dad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

You call their mom. Hey, hey.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Hey, Gina. Keep your son in order here.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

That would probably work to be fair.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

It probably would. But like, why is this weird dude texting, calling, asking me about your schedule? What's going on here? Like, you go to a concert?

SPEAKER_03 44:28

Yeah, no. Instead of you're meeting tomorrow night and you haven't responded and confirmed. Can you just tell them? Honestly, that's like almost like a little bit of a ransom note type situation.

CC The Boss Or Text The Spouse

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Really? I mean, if you could pull it off. Like, okay, here's a challenge to any of our viewers, listeners. If you have the contact information for one of your friend's parents and they are just a chronic poor communicator, please, please, please message their parent and say, hey, I'm you know, I'm trying to schedule dinner and Davey is not uh responding. Can you please get your son to respond to my texts? I would love to hear the outcome of the situation.

SPEAKER_03 45:08

I'll understand. And then I want you to put a dot dot dot after, send that whole message and then put a dot dot dot and say, or else. Yes. Yes. Please make a threat.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

Make a threat to the parental unit. Yes. It's the only way. It's the only way to ensure they give you the response you're looking for.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

Oh, that was hilarious. But yeah, honestly, I think that would work. I think you do a ransom note situation to their parents if they don't have a spouse, and that's how you get uh get their attention.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Well, and it's funny because in the workplace, when you CC someone's manager, I don't know about you, but some people take it the wrong way, right? Like some people will be like, Why'd you CC my boss? You don't think I can do this? Really? I'm taking it the wrong way when that happens, 100%. I actually have I always take it as a this is a defense mechanism, right? Like now that my well, and I've always had a pretty good relationship with my boss, at least in like the last couple of jobs I've had, where it's like, I trust, I trust you, you trust me, we communicate openly. If if someone CC is my boss in an email directed to me, I always feel like it is for your awareness this is happening. Yeah, uh, not an incrimination of my work ethic or behavior, but I might be the exception to that rule.

SPEAKER_03 46:31

Yeah, I feel like where I've seen it, where I've gotten frustrated, is when you tell someone something isn't urgent, you're like, hey, I I got your note because I'm great at responding, though. I'm like, got your note. Sorry, it's gonna have to wait till you know next week. And then they'll see like, hey, I need an answer to this. Can you help me out? I'm like, are you kidding me? Because now my manager is being pulled into something just stupid that I'm like, listen, don't worry about it. And the best part, and my old boss did this from time to time, be like, just wait till next week. Like that would be the response. And I'm like, thank you, thank you for doing that. But still, like, why did that need to happen? If I already responded, you got the response just because you didn't like it, you escalated it. That's just rude.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Whoever did that to you, I hope they're fired. That's just you know, I'm into the universe. I hope that person lost their job and just be better, be a better human being, don't do that. That's so yeah, disgusting.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

So everybody operates on their own priorities. Yes. But I think if the priority is well understood by both parties, and it's like, sorry, I've got five other things in front of this. Like, does it trump any of those? And the answer is no. Then CCing a boss is just what are you doing? Like, you obviously said your thing is not more important than those, and still you're gonna try to push it through. Like you're just making us all look so bad and having our leadership just not trust that we can figure this out. Well, it makes a bottom 100%.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

It makes that person look bad. Like 100%. Is it ooh? I never want to work with you again. Like, you are awful, but cool. I'm glad you did this.

When Your Boss Replies First

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Now, have you ever had where somebody will send a note that you are this is a real world situation? I know people, I've gone through this many a time. I know you have, I know other people have. Somebody sends a note, includes you and your boss, and your boss replies before you when you're like the perfect person to answer and you have more up-to-date information. Have you ever had that happen?

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Yes, all the time, actually. That that's really common in my book. Yeah. I will usually I I have a solution for it, actually. I'll message my boss first and say, hey, saw you responded to this. I'm gonna follow up just FYI with a couple more points or a couple of corrections, just so you know. I don't want you to feel like you're out of the loop here, but like kind of give I give them heads up before I respond. But I've never felt scared to correct my uppers, which has burned me a couple of times because some people hate when I do that. Um well, don't be wrong in the first place, or don't speak about things you don't know about, but you know, that's neither here nor there. Um, I I let them know, but then I will respond and correct.

SPEAKER_03 49:08

Yeah. So you actually send them like a side note and you're like, hey, by the way, before I reply. Yeah. Yeah, that that's good. Because I've done that before where like I then respond on top of their email to correct things, and then they just come to you like, now I just look like I don't know what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Well, yeah, and why it also gives them an opportunity to say, like, hey, do you mind if I send that? And I'll be like, Yeah, sure, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

Send it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Here's the notes, yeah. Feel free to send it. Right. Yeah, 100%. That that is, I love that solution because I feel like that's the only way to do it is if your boss gets something wrong, send the correction to them on the side without doxing that person in the thread with everyone else to be like, actually, no.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

Hey, my boss is a moron. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_03 49:50

Also, he sees what you just said. Like, actually, no, that's not correct. It was this percent. Like, you're just doing you're literally doing career suicide or something like that. So, yeah, definitely send them a note on the side, like, hey, just so you know, this is actually the correct stat. Sorry I didn't let you know earlier, and I'd let them figure out. Like, do you want me to respond? I think that's the best way to do it. That's great advice.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Yeah, that one's always worked. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 50:15

Last one, and this one is I don't know the right place to use it. There's an urgent capability, I think on Teams and on Slack, where if you use the like at urgent or slash urgent tag, it will notify everybody in the channel for like an hour, every hour or every 10 minutes or whatever. It will be serious? Hey, hey, and yeah, until someone responds, it just keeps going and it will just keep on firing at everybody. All the notifications will be going out for everybody. Have you ever used that?

SPEAKER_00 50:41

I'm gonna need to redact this portion of the podcast because I don't want this information getting out. Uh, can you imagine? You I mean, do you work with sales a lot? Do you work with salespeople a lot?

SPEAKER_03 50:52

Uh not not too frequently. I wasn't really on a lot of the commerce side of things, so not too frequently.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

If salespeople knew about this power, all of our lives would be ruined. Like, this cannot get out. I'm gonna bleep this entire section in the post. Uh, no one's gonna hear what you just said, and I think that's a terrible, terrible idea. Never use that. Slack. If you're listening, please remove that feature. Teams, just quit trying. No one likes you. Just end your end your application.

SPEAKER_03 51:22

As an admin, as an admin, you should be able to disable that. Yeah. Listen, my organization does not need that.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

It shouldn't be an option. There is no there is no world. There's no world on this planet. What does that even mean? There is no instance on this planet where I think that is ever appropriate. And here's why. If it's really urgent, you should be writing that message every five minutes. Like you should be doing that, not the robot, not the automation.

SPEAKER_03 51:50

Or knocking on, I mean, if you have a company, like go knock on doors. Go upwards. You should be knocking on doors, going upwards, and whatever it takes to figure out how to solve it.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Yeah, letting a Slack function do that for you not only proves that you are just an ignorant piece of crap, but also like, Slack, don't just turn it off, man. Just turn it off.

SPEAKER_03 52:13

Yeah. It's like the equivalent to in a personal life calling someone over and over again. Yes. Or sending like a ton of text messages like over and over again, being like, all right, A send, N, send, T, send, H, and just say, I'm gonna get his attention somehow. We better respond.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Copy and pasting, right? Just like copy paste the same message and send it. Like, you didn't see this. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 52:38

Make sure you respond to this.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

It's disgusting behavior. These are the humans I hope get purged when the AI takes over. I wouldn't mind at all. I feel like that kind of behavior is just uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:48

It's a little psycho.

Name And Shame When It Matters

SPEAKER_00 52:50

It's a little much. Well, I think the funny thing is, people who do that would absolutely lose their bananas if it happened back to them, right? Like if someone did that to them, okay. This is psychology, right? Like, there is a if you are willing to disrupt someone's life by message them over and over, or just you know, disrupting someone's workday by like, at here, at here, need a response. Like, you are clearly a narcissist, like you have a narcissist type personality where you think, my world, my situation, my urgency trumps what everyone else is doing, right? Like that's that's a classic narcissist personality disorder where you're just unable to even fathom that other people have lives, jobs, families, work, might be taking a dump. Like any of those possibilities are true because you just assume everyone is sitting around at your beck and call to serve you at your whim. So there's that, right? And when you do it back to them, they can't fathom it because they're the main character, they're important. Why are you bothering them? So, not to get preachy, but I do think that some of these behaviors would be fixed by just a little bit of therapy. Just a little bit of therapy could go a long way. Awareness, right? Like, hey, bud, you suffer from narcissist personality disorder, and people can't stand it. And when you tell them that, then they're like, oh my gosh, no, I've got to be hypercritical and aware of myself because of how I come off. Like, that can go a long way. Just you know, just a suggestion, just the thought.

SPEAKER_03 54:30

I don't disagree with you. You know, I thought of two stories when you were talking about like how there's no need for that. One, you remember when we had we were on the upper floor of Big Corp? Yeah, and there was like a CI pipeline, like giant board that basically like showed the status of the pipeline. And if you broke the pipeline by your commit or whatever it is, and you like broke the test stack and it was gonna pause the release, like you came in and basically just said like it's down, and it said like your name. Your commit. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whoever broke it.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

Oh, I remember.

SPEAKER_03 55:06

That's like that's like what that's that's what this is. Like, you remember, like, we would get an email every hour. Hey, pipeline's still broken. It's because uh because of Anthony check in one, two, three, four last night at 836. Like that, that was the ultimate like docs, and that went to everybody. Every director, VP, all the engineers got that. Like, that was crazy. You know what though? Like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:31

I can't believe you brought this up. I can't believe you brought this up. Well, here's the difference. Here's the difference, right? I want to give some more context to what you just said. RCID. No, no, no, no, no, no, sir. No. RCI CD pipeline took 24 to 48 hours to build. So we did a collection of commits. We would gather like 18 commits because people did their jobs during the day, and then they'd be able to check it in two days later. And it was your responsibility to run through all of these tests and checks and balances on your own machine or in your own test dev environment before you did it. Run through code review, etc. etc. Like there was a system in place that basically said, hey, just don't break this because it takes so long to get a good clean build. Like, here's all your tools, here's all your tech, don't break it. To then go and break the pipeline after all of that, knowing now we're gonna have to wait 48 hours to get it fixed. Yeah, maybe if we can uncommit just your thing and unmerge just your thing from everyone else's nonsense that they also checked in there. I kind of like the name and shame in that instance. Because you've just you've wasted a week of time at that point. Like you've literally wasted a week of everyone's time, and we've given you all the tools not to do that. But that's that is not a, you know, this is Nina talking to everyone. I need you to answer my question right now on Slack. This is a everyone's looking at Nina because Nina, you just cost the company man hours. Lots of them. We had 200 developers working on this thing, and now no one can work or get their thing checked in and moved on for the next two days because of your bad commit, because you could have prevented this, and you decided not to. So, in in that case, I think given all of the evidence, I'm good with the very public name and shame. But uh and then there's always exceptions, right? But uh that was a grievous one.

SPEAKER_03 57:38

A good life motto is rarely, almost never, is a message that urgent to respond to.

SPEAKER_02 57:48

Agree.

SPEAKER_03 57:49

Agree. It can wait. Yeah. You get something at five o'clock, it can wait till tomorrow. I almost guarantee it. I think 99.999% of the time that's the case.

SPEAKER_00 57:59

Medical emergencies are like the exception.

SPEAKER_03 58:02

Life or death. Right. Yeah, that's the only exception. Other than that, it's like it's just not it's not worth stressing yourself out. It's not worth stressing out other people because it's definitely not the end of the world. The second story I remembered, which is similar to the CI CD thing, I remember a friend of ours went to a company that they built like auto automatic locking doors and like a way to unlock doors. And I remember them telling us a story about their pipeline. If it went down, all the doors in the building locked. And everyone's locked wherever they were, no matter meetings, office, anything, until somebody fixed the pipeline. Of course, they had overrides if there was an emergency or something, like they could pull the switch and it would just do it, or they could just text somebody and it would all unlock. But I kind of love that because like you're just sitting in a room and you're like, oh shoot, everyone's stuck exactly where they are. I hope no one has to go to the bathroom.

SPEAKER_00 58:54

I mean, can you imagine some of the devious scenarios you could set up with that? Like, that's okay. No, I'd rather not. I don't want to give anyone any ideas, but I'm just imagining like the horrible situations. Oh, I'm gonna send a bad commit and then I'm gonna put myself somewhere I shouldn't be, right? Like lock yourself in the office with the CEO kind of thing. Like, I'm just saying that could get really ugly really quick. And unlike the name and shame, which is just like, hey, Janice, do better. This could actually lead to like real, you know, criminal problems if not handled correctly. So I don't like that one. I don't like that one at all. That's a little too intense. That's way too creepy for me. Yeah. Oh, but I think that was it. I think it's it. Well, thank you. I don't know how we missed them. Thank you, Michael's wife, for always keeping us honest and on track. Uh we are two goofs running a podcast. At least we're not doing the Manosphere thing. You know, like at least we got that going for us. So we'll we'll strive to be better.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:00

I think the uh the exact word that was described, I think you might have said it in the Discord was goobers. And I think goobers is the perfect word for what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

We are two goobers, yes. And we will never sell you protein supplements. So at least you at least you can take solace on that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:14

Uh we actually said we might pack something up and start selling it. You remember the the dirt?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

Oh, yeah, the dirt. The dirt. I mean, yeah, I haven't actually had the dirt in a while. Maybe that's why I'm a little sluggish. Maybe that's why I'm a little low. You know, if only I had a subscription to my own dirt, could I find a better, happier lifestyle?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:34

What did we call it? What do we call it? Like corporate dirt.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

I think it was like like corporate dirt, yeah, or dirt strategy. I mean, I don't know, dirt strategy kind of dirt strat, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:45

Dirt strat kind of kind of goes hard. I could see us selling that. Just comment dirt on the YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

I need a hashtag.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

Yes, please, please give that to me and uh we'll start packaging and packaging and selling. Okay, well, hey, uh speaking of AI. I think it's time, right? It's time. It's time, it's time. It's time.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:09

All right, we do we do an awesome challenge. It's actually probably the most popular and consistent challenge we've done in a long time. Is it AI? Yeah. We post two images side by side side in the Discord, and people love it. People vote so fast on it. And there was a recent one that we posted, but David didn't post this beginning of this month, so it's about time to release it. And I will release it prior to this episode in the Discord. If you if you go in there and want to see him for the future. So there were quite a few votes on both. I'm gonna share my screen, and if you're watching on YouTube, you're gonna get to see the live reveal. Alright, let's see. How's this coming through?

Guess The AI Image Reveal

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

Hold on, I gotta click it. Okay, there we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:49

Okay. Uh okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

Yes. I remember which one I selected. So please tell me which one is the AI.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:56

This one was like the hardest one for everybody. We've done coffees, we've done water coolers. I think this one, the water cooler was actually surprisingly hard for a lot of people. Gingerbread man. This one, gingerbread man, I think was too easy. But this one I think triggered people up the most because I think it's just the type of picture it is, where it's kind of far away, it's got weather kind of going on in both. Like it's something that could be in both scenarios.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:19

Reflections, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:21

Yeah, that stuff is like really hard, and AI's gotten really good at it. So the picture on the left got the most votes for being AI, and that is the right answer. The picture on the right is the right picture, the left is AI. So the group won, but it was almost 60-40, like it was pretty close.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

The the thing that made me say the picture on the right was real was the combination of both English and I think it's it's Chinese characters? Uh I can't see them. Yeah, or on the right. Um yeah, well, on the yeah, on the left of the right picture, there's like Chinese characters, and then you see the English, and then further back, but then also if you look at the lighting, right? Like the way the reflection.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:05

Which one are you talking about? I'm talking about the one of the the the image on the right. The characters. Yes. Are you saying that's real or are you saying that's AI?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

I'm saying that's real.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, I'm saying that's real.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

Because I don't think I don't think AI can actually create may maybe I mean everything changes. Uh, like I know it still struggles with text and words, especially with like reflections, right? So that's where it led me down. But then the reflections on the image on the left. The there is like a floating lamp in the image on the left that is just floating, it's not attached to anything. Like, there's two that are attached to poles and one that's attached to nothing. So, like, there are a couple little things. I'm like, this is good, but it's not quite good enough. Yeah. Nice try.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:54

Like the aging characters, whether it's Chinese or Japanese, whatever it is. Like, that's a great call. The fact that it got like the English right on like hotel and air tickets, and and it didn't mess up or garble any of the Chinese characters or Japanese characters over there. Yeah, I think that's the tell. 100% agree with you. But it's close, man. Like the fact that it was 6040 and people did get it right, but man, yeah, it was a hard one. More like this. That's what we're gonna have because these are the ones that it's really difficult to tell.

Riding Waymo And The Botnet Road

SPEAKER_00 1:04:26

Yeah. Um oh, you know, I forgot to mention when I was in San Francisco, speaking of AI, I did ride in a Waymo. Oh, did you really? Yeah, yeah. It was really nice. How was it? Really nice. Uh vastly prefer it to the human driver. So really, vastly, no way. Well, the the car is just cleaner. It's a nicer car. Okay, hold on, let me close the stream. Let me get back here. Nicer car. Um, it's it was very cautious, which I appreciated actually. You know, when you're with an Uber driver, sometimes they'll do some moves and you're like, I wouldn't have done that, right? The way most of incredibly cautious, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:04

I I've been Ubers where I'm like, I might die tonight. Like, this might be it for me. No, I 100% agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:10

It was also one of those times where it's like there are literally cameras around me at all times here, but I feel like it's for my safety, right? Like, this is truly something where I feel safe because I'm being observed. And they're like, there was just a respect for the machine. I thought it drove very well, drove very cautious, and uh it was a smooth ride. Just I was I was very impressed. I kind of was like, man, I wish we had Waymo's everywhere. But uh, I do realize that's gonna destroy an entire industry, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:38

They are where we'll be fun. I've seen them. I've seen that now where I live. Where I live around where you live. No, more of like the central Orlando area. I've seen them all over.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

But are they Waymo or are they some other thing?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

They're Waymo. Yeah, they're Waymo. Get out of town, Charlie Brown. Yeah, I got behind one, it just wouldn't turn right on red.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:57

No matter, it won't do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:58

And I'm like, we're in the Turn lane. I'm like, dude, just just turn.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:01

You know what though? So the who the coolest thing about it was you can see the screen of what it sees at all times because there's like a screen, you're in the back seat, you're in your little screen you can put music on, whatever. But like all of the in San Francisco, every other car is a Waymo. So you see their screen and you realize this is a botnet. Like every Waymo is showing up on the screen with every other Waymo on the street. And I have to think that is improving traffic patterns because they're able to work together, you know, figuring out like timings and all that, what's coming, what's behind, and like make decisions. If every car was a Waymo, like if we just stopped driving and we've switched fully to, you know, you maybe you own your own Waymo and it just drives you places. Like I would not be opposed to that simply because I think that would fix a lot of our grid problems. So it was a very cool experience. Highly recommend if you get the chance.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:53

That's cool. Yeah. Yeah, that's wild. I've never done one, but I've always been tempted.

Nvidia DLSS 5 Filter Faces

SPEAKER_00 1:06:57

You should. One of the next days. Next time you're West Coast, highly recommend it. Give it a give it a swirl. Um oh, one more AI thing. And I always say this because I was looking at the our chat. One of our one of our friendly uh Discord members said I was right about the AI and said the texture in the left looks on the road surface looks like a video game. Did you see what NVIDIA announced this week with DLSS 5?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:22

So I I saw some buzz around it. To be honest, I kind of missed the headline.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:26

Okay. Alright, hold on. Let me uh let me let me try our screen share capability here. I can't hit you with a headline. It it's just like, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:35

No, I want you to hit me with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:37

Uh well, they they're using this new AI feature that basically makes um characters in video games look like Instagram filter face, and they think it's good. So let me so bad.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:50

So bad. Um podcast listeners love this who aren't doing the visual audio at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:55

They do love, well, you know, it's just one more reason to watch us live or go to our YouTube channel. Uh so yeah, the the audio description here. Um Nvidia, for those that don't know, is a graphics card company, now also an AI company, that is constantly upping their game with their ability to use AI with a feature called DLSS, uh something scaling system, but basically allows them to render the game at a higher resolution or generate frames or be smoother regardless of the performance of the game. So, in many ways, the graphics card vendor is filling in for bad video game code developers. And they just released this groovy, awful feature called DLSS 5. They didn't actually release it, they teased it, and it has to be seen to be believed. Like, I I cannot describe this. I'll let you try, Michael. Um I don't know if this is gonna come through on the screen.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:56

I I can see it, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

Alright, so check this out. So this is Resident Evil Requiem, right? DLSS off. Look what they did to my girl Grace's face. Look at just look at how bad. That is.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

Look at my boy Leon here. This is my favorite, this is my favorite man alive. Oh my god. Why? Why did they gossipy his face? Like it's heinous. Heinous.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:24

Oh, this one's the worst. This one's so bad. It's so bad. Like, look at what it does. Like, that one's actually not bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:35

Uh I don't know. Like, I will I will give credit. Grandma was tough. The the backgrounds, like, I I think the background, like the tile, if you look at the if you don't look at their faces, like if you look at the tile, you look at some of the walls and the the ceiling, like that looks better objectively. I think it does look better. But the human faces, it just Instagrams them and like adds lighting in ways that it doesn't need to.

unknown 1:10:00

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

Like, this is a real person. This person already exists. We don't need to AI is terrible.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:08

It is weird because like some were bad, but then some were so so bad. Like some well, some were awful. The grammar was so bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

I don't know why they would do that.

Instagram Businesses And The Closing

SPEAKER_03 1:10:18

Yeah, you know, speaking of we're we're just never gonna end. I think we're just gonna filibuster for the rest of the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:23

I think we should.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:24

I I went to an Amish ice cream place last night.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

Where?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:29

Ice cream was great. Here, yeah, it was uh over by me. Yeah, and but dude, it wasn't Amish. It was not Amish. It was called Violet's ice cream, and it was like purple, they had neon lights. I'm like, I've been to Violet. Amish people don't have neon lights now, yeah? I've been it was good. But I was like, this is not Amish.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:46

Uh there, I got a better place for you. I got a better place that I think well I've had Amish ice cream, I'm sure you've had Amish ice cream too, right? Like, yeah, if you're ever in you know Pennsylvania, you can't avoid it. It's to die for, and that ain't it. That ain't it.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:02

Yeah, it was pretty good. Like, I was I wasn't upset with the ice cream. I was upset, I was upset with them calling themselves Amish when like they had the fluorescent neon tubes in there, and then a giant blown-up picture of a woman eating ice cream on the wall that was just a hundred percent AI generated. I was like, one, it's just so obvious that's AI, like that does not look like a real person at all. And like there's no way the Amish would have approved this.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:27

So speaking of our wives filling us in on things, um, here's the truth is a lot of these places now don't exist for us to be served good things, they exist for us to Instagram about it and to yeah, oh I think these places exist to be photographed and filmed, not to actually be enjoyed. And that is one of those places. Uh, my wife went to one of those restaurants. She went to a restaurant with one of her friends for their birthday, and uh it was like, oh my gosh, this place doesn't actually have good food, it's expensive, and it's it's literally like everyone's on their phone the entire time, just posing, taking pictures, like everything they bring out is meant to be photographed and it's terrible quality. Like it's a sad state that we live in. Again, like, all right, let's just have the AI take over because I give up. People suck.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:23

Oh, they really do.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:24

Uh well, you know, I think it's a good note to end on. Uh, everything's falling apart. Trust your robots, uh, love your neighbor, but uh they don't love you back. So uh if you want to hang out with us, you can do so by joining our Discord for the time being. Um, links are in the show notes. Really, if you want to if you want to help us out, you can sign up for our Patreon. Uh link in the show notes, link in the YouTube video. Even if you don't want to pay, uh, we do have a free tier that helps us out, uh, it helps us get noticed, it helps the algorithm. Please sign up for our Patreon. And if you can help us out monetarily, we have a dollar tier, we have a$10 tier, and we've basically set goals for ourselves. So as we hit more income, you get more benefits, like a better streaming platform and a better setup for us to record and film these kind of things in. So uh help us out if you can. If not, share the podcast with your friends, family, neighbors. We would love that. Uh, as always, I'm I'm Anthony.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:22

You almost said I almost did too. And I'm Michael.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:25

What was I what was I gonna say? What was I gonna say, Michael? Nothing, nothing. Okay, nothing, Anthony. Oh, oh, good. I'm glad you remember. My my real name sounds faker than my fake name, so that's great.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:37

Um that's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:38

Yeah, yeah. What a good situation for us to be in. Hey, you know what, you know what I know, though? What I know for a fact. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I'm so tired.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:48

I can hear it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:50

Losing my voice, losing my words. You're on mute. We will see you all next week.