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#58: Greg Isenberg on AI Co-Founders, the Multi-Preneur, and Why Anyone Can Build a Startup Now — Transcript

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  1. 0:00So I believe that this like builder
  2. 0:02distributor combo is
  3. 0:06is probably the most lethal type of
  4. 0:09person in the AI age because they they
  5. 0:13understand distribution. They understand
  6. 0:15how to capture attention and how to
  7. 0:17convert that attention [music] into
  8. 0:20uh revenue but they also understand how
  9. 0:22they [music] can drive value from a
  10. 0:24product perspective. The product has to
  11. 0:26be good and the [music] bar for good
  12. 0:29products is increasing and increasing
  13. 0:30especially when it comes to digital
  14. 0:32products
  15. 0:42>> this episode is brought to you by Google
  16. 0:44for startups.
  17. 0:46Today we're in Aventura, [music] Florida
  18. 0:48with Greg Eisenberg, one of the sharpest
  19. 0:50voices helping builders understand the
  20. 0:53next great [music] shift in startups,
  21. 0:54AI, and the internet. Greg's career has
  22. 0:57been built on one rare skill, seeing
  23. 0:59where the internet is moving before the
  24. 1:01market catches [music] up. He created
  25. 1:03Five, which was acquired by Stumble
  26. 1:05Upon, and he built islands, which was
  27. 1:07acquired [music] by Weiwork. That
  28. 1:08pattern recognition took him from
  29. 1:10founder to trusted adviser where he's
  30. 1:12met with [music] some of the biggest and
  31. 1:13best companies in the world helping them
  32. 1:15on their strategies around AI. Today he
  33. 1:17leads late checkout portfolio of AI
  34. 1:20native businesses powered by agents and
  35. 1:22internet communities through idea
  36. 1:23browser Greg's letter and the startup
  37. 1:26idea podcast. [music]
  38. 1:27He shared over 2,000 startup ideas and
  39. 1:30built an audience of millions [music] of
  40. 1:31followers. Hope you enjoy our
  41. 1:33conversation. We're in
  42. 1:36July 2026. What are the biggest shifts
  43. 1:40you're seeing in AI right now at this
  44. 1:43moment? I couldn't be more excited with
  45. 1:45like what's happening right now? So, I
  46. 1:47just spent all morning playing with
  47. 1:49Grock 4.5
  48. 1:52and I sort of I dismissed
  49. 1:55Grock. I was just like, "Okay, it's an
  50. 1:58open AI anthropic Google world." Like, I
  51. 2:01didn't I've never even thought about
  52. 2:02Grock. But I started playing with this
  53. 2:04model. I connected it to my Hermes agent
  54. 2:06which I mean we can talk about this
  55. 2:08sorts of stuff but I had this basic I
  56. 2:10gave it to my personal assistant and I
  57. 2:12had it basically
  58. 2:15running 247. I said here's a startup
  59. 2:17idea. I want you to go and, you know,
  60. 2:21build features for it, optimize based on
  61. 2:24analytics, do SEO, um, and do all these
  62. 2:28things and run while I was sleeping
  63. 2:31basically and in the morning this
  64. 2:33morning. And seeing how capable it was
  65. 2:36and how good it was.
  66. 2:39I mean, it's incredible. Like, I'm
  67. 2:41sitting here. We're at the 38th floor
  68. 2:44looking at the ocean and I have a
  69. 2:48essentially AI co-founder that's
  70. 2:50working.
  71. 2:51>> I'm paying it like the equivalent of
  72. 2:53like $2 an hour or something
  73. 2:56>> and it's
  74. 2:59super intelligent and it's creating a
  75. 3:01startup for me while we're hanging out.
  76. 3:04Mhm.
  77. 3:04>> I mean, it's hard not to be extremely
  78. 3:09excited about building companies right
  79. 3:12now with AI. If I'm trying to get
  80. 3:15started,
  81. 3:17a lot of people talk about the idea and
  82. 3:19then there's also
  83. 3:21going after a business model that's
  84. 3:22already working. Where do you like to
  85. 3:24start or where do you advise people to
  86. 3:26start? Do I start with coming up with
  87. 3:28the right idea or do I should I look at
  88. 3:30the world and see what business models
  89. 3:31are working and try to iterate off of
  90. 3:33something that's already out there? I
  91. 3:34mean, I'm a big trend guy. So, I like to
  92. 3:37see how things are changing in the world
  93. 3:41and based on that go and create
  94. 3:43something to feed that problem. The
  95. 3:46beauty about the world we live in today
  96. 3:49is all the trend data is out there. You
  97. 3:53can see what people are tweeting about.
  98. 3:54You can see what posts are going viral.
  99. 3:56you can see what the search volume is.
  100. 3:57You can see what people are putting into
  101. 3:58chat GPT and what the LLM visibility is.
  102. 4:03So, if you're able to harness that data
  103. 4:05and basically have your agents tell you,
  104. 4:09hey, there's an opportunity to go and
  105. 4:12build um you know, a software company
  106. 4:15for South Florida dentists and it
  107. 4:17probably looks like this and it has
  108. 4:19these features, then I'm going to go and
  109. 4:22do that because I've got a validated
  110. 4:25startup idea. Mhm.
  111. 4:26>> You know, when I was younger, I would
  112. 4:30like how I came up with startup ideas
  113. 4:32was would be like I don't know, you have
  114. 4:33a glass of wine, you go for a walk on
  115. 4:35the beach, and then and you kind of wait
  116. 4:37for this perfect moment and you're like,
  117. 4:40"Oh my god, I have this idea." And you
  118. 4:41write it down and you tell all your
  119. 4:44friends and and you fall in love with
  120. 4:47the startup idea. And as I've gotten
  121. 4:49older, I've realized that the businesses
  122. 4:51that have worked the best for me have
  123. 4:53been ones that have been validated based
  124. 4:55on data. Not validated based on like how
  125. 4:58I was feeling at 6:32 p.m. I had the
  126. 5:00wine was hitting me at a particular
  127. 5:02time. The sun was, you know, hitting me
  128. 5:04at a particular time and it just
  129. 5:06something hit like that. No, that's
  130. 5:09that's one way to do it. But if you are
  131. 5:12if your goal is to create a startup with
  132. 5:14the highest probability of success
  133. 5:16>> in the age of AI,
  134. 5:18>> I think the way to do it is to look at
  135. 5:21the trend data.
  136. 5:22>> So talk me through how you do that. So
  137. 5:24you're on you're on X. You're reading
  138. 5:27tweets post from the right people.
  139. 5:30You're what what else are you doing
  140. 5:32besides that? I mean, one way to do it
  141. 5:35is
  142. 5:37is exactly what you said, which is
  143. 5:38basically like you have a content diet.
  144. 5:41>> Yeah.
  145. 5:41>> You follow certain people on Instagram,
  146. 5:43you follow certain subreddits,
  147. 5:45um you
  148. 5:48you follow certain ex accounts, and
  149. 5:49based on what people are saying, you're
  150. 5:51able to deduce.
  151. 5:52>> You're kind of triangulating based on
  152. 5:53all these things.
  153. 5:54>> It's pretty manual,
  154. 5:56>> but you can do that, and it it works
  155. 5:58some sometimes.
  156. 6:00The second way is you connect a and this
  157. 6:04is you know we're getting into like a
  158. 6:06little technical but you connect an MCP
  159. 6:09to a codeex or a cloud code. Now what is
  160. 6:12an MCP? You know it's a fancy way of
  161. 6:15saying basically like an API or just
  162. 6:17plugging into another repository of data
  163. 6:22that is going to help you make that
  164. 6:25decision. For example, one MCP is the
  165. 6:29XMCP. So you can basically say you're
  166. 6:32using cloud code or codeex which are you
  167. 6:35know by codeex is by openai cloud code
  168. 6:38is by anthropic and they're basically
  169. 6:41this v this way to interact with those
  170. 6:43platforms. You can basically have it
  171. 6:47connect to X.com's MCP and you can say
  172. 6:50like you know every single day you know
  173. 6:52here's my niche give me trending you
  174. 6:55know tweets in these particular uh
  175. 6:58verticals and then you can have your LLM
  176. 7:01which is the super intelligence
  177. 7:03basically refine those ideas for you
  178. 7:06curate those ideas for you extract the
  179. 7:08pain points for those ideas for you give
  180. 7:11you new ideas based on on that and have
  181. 7:14it just send you a digest every single
  182. 7:16day.
  183. 7:17>> Um, and there's other MCPs you can use.
  184. 7:19You know, you can use I created my own
  185. 7:21MCP around startup ideas called idea
  186. 7:24browser. So, there's a bunch of MCPs
  187. 7:26that you
  188. 7:26>> people can just tap into that. Yeah,
  189. 7:28people can just tap into that. So, those
  190. 7:32are the two ways I would say like more
  191. 7:33manual first or more LLM first. when you
  192. 7:38talk and listen and what you're hearing
  193. 7:40people who are building trying to build
  194. 7:42a business who are trying to use AI what
  195. 7:44do you think most people are missing
  196. 7:46with the opportunity with AI
  197. 7:48>> I think a lot of people I mean it's July
  198. 7:512026 we've talked about it like if
  199. 7:54you're listening to this you've probably
  200. 7:56used AI
  201. 7:57>> sure but you probably
  202. 8:00have gotten some bad results from AI
  203. 8:03>> so the truth is
  204. 8:06AI I is only as good as the context you
  205. 8:09feed it. So what I think I think there's
  206. 8:13a lot of people that will have listened
  207. 8:15to this and be like, "Yeah, I tried AI
  208. 8:18to build a landing page and it looked
  209. 8:19ugly." Or, "I tried AI to come up with a
  210. 8:21startup idea and it was dumb." Or, "I
  211. 8:23tried AI to write a post and content and
  212. 8:27it sounded like AI."
  213. 8:29>> And that is because number one, you
  214. 8:32didn't give it the right context. You
  215. 8:34didn't connect it to the right MCP. You
  216. 8:36didn't say, "Hey, this is how I like to
  217. 8:39write and here's my framework for
  218. 8:43thinking about how I write or how I come
  219. 8:44up with startup ideas." And number two,
  220. 8:48you haven't shown them what does good
  221. 8:50look like. Mhm.
  222. 8:52>> So, when you hire a new employee, let's
  223. 8:55say it's a junior employee and maybe
  224. 8:57they're
  225. 8:58a social media manager, and their job is
  226. 9:02to write tweets and reply to tweets.
  227. 9:06If you're hiring this person, they're
  228. 9:07fresh out of school, for example, you
  229. 9:09might want to tell them, "Hey, this is
  230. 9:11what a super good tweet looks like.
  231. 9:14Here's what a good reply looks like."
  232. 9:16Yet, we we don't say that with LLMs for
  233. 9:19the most part. So the people who crush
  234. 9:22it with how to build with AI understand
  235. 9:25this context game and they understand
  236. 9:27this what does good look like game which
  237. 9:29in technical terms is called an eval
  238. 9:31which is means an evaluation. An eval
  239. 9:34basically says this is what good looks
  240. 9:36like
  241. 9:36>> and before you give me a result check or
  242. 9:41evaluate based on what I consider good.
  243. 9:45>> Yeah. such that uh like don't hand me
  244. 9:48something if it's going to be bad.
  245. 9:50Basically,
  246. 9:53this episode is brought to you by Google
  247. 9:54for startups. If you're building
  248. 9:56applications with generative media or
  249. 9:58considering it, Google just released a
  250. 10:00brand new technical guide on how to do
  251. 10:02it right. It's no longer just about
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  255. 10:11production using deep mind models like
  256. 10:13Gemini Omni and Veil. You can download
  257. 10:16the guide at go.gle/gen
  258. 10:20media guide.
  259. 10:23So recently I set up my whole workflow
  260. 10:27in co-work. I've got multiple inboxes.
  261. 10:30I've got all these social media accounts
  262. 10:33flowing in all of you know all this
  263. 10:35context around how I like to send emails
  264. 10:37and do emails. I've got all of my
  265. 10:38meetings flowing in from Zoom and other
  266. 10:41places. The whole thing took me like six
  267. 10:44hours to get set up and
  268. 10:48it it wasn't the most technical process,
  269. 10:50but it was still kind of a technical
  270. 10:52process. And I think when you say people
  271. 10:54aren't giving this their AI systems the
  272. 10:58context in some ways we just expect
  273. 10:59these things to happen because it seems
  274. 11:01like a some of it seems kind of obvious
  275. 11:03like don't send me a bad email. It's
  276. 11:06like you're exactly right like what is a
  277. 11:08bad email? You need to define that. But
  278. 11:10we kind of we kind of know what at least
  279. 11:13is a really bad email and sometimes, you
  280. 11:15know, it's it's spitting out really bad
  281. 11:16results. Do you think how far are we
  282. 11:19from that sort of
  283. 11:22s I mean slightly technical process
  284. 11:24being totally evaporated and just like
  285. 11:27the system's doing it or do you think
  286. 11:28like this is the way that if you're
  287. 11:30going to want to use AI properly in two,
  288. 11:32four, five years from now, you're still
  289. 11:34going to have to do all these kind of
  290. 11:36manual setups to like dial in your
  291. 11:38system. Is this just some way some thing
  292. 11:40you're just going to have to learn how
  293. 11:42to do and be great at and continue to
  294. 11:44refine over time or is it just going to
  295. 11:46figure it out? There's two types of work
  296. 11:49that exists. Yeah. Regular work and
  297. 11:52creative work. When it comes to regular
  298. 11:54work, for example, let's say SEO,
  299. 11:59you know, in the past, people have hired
  300. 12:01SEO agencies to do SEO. And what that
  301. 12:04meant was
  302. 12:06uh you had to create blog posts and you
  303. 12:08had to optimize the blog posts and you
  304. 12:10had to do a certain tasks certain set of
  305. 12:12tasks that were pretty binary because
  306. 12:15the result meant either you went up in
  307. 12:18Google, you went down in Google or you
  308. 12:19stayed the same. those tasks, those that
  309. 12:23work, those
  310. 12:26we're probably 12 to 18 months away from
  311. 12:30that being like pretty autonomous
  312. 12:33and
  313. 12:35is just going to do its own thing. The
  314. 12:37creative task like what we were talking
  315. 12:39about with tweets and maybe creating
  316. 12:42video content or branding or
  317. 12:46copywriting, things like that, there's
  318. 12:48some creative element that exists. when
  319. 12:51creativity is a part of it, even if it's
  320. 12:53just 1%. Um, there needs to be some
  321. 12:58human intervention. So, I think that
  322. 13:01from creative task perspective, we're
  323. 13:03never going to get to the place where
  324. 13:05this super intelligent thing is
  325. 13:08going
  326. 13:08>> reading your mind,
  327. 13:09>> reading your mind. There's always going
  328. 13:11to be place for art in society. And you
  329. 13:17can the counterargument to what I'm
  330. 13:19saying is is this. You know, you could
  331. 13:21say, well, if it's plugged into the
  332. 13:24human API, aka X and Instagram, like if
  333. 13:28you're getting all these posts from,
  334. 13:29let's say, MCPs and you're able to
  335. 13:30deduce what human beings want, can't it
  336. 13:34create creative on the fly? Um, and the
  337. 13:39thing about humans is we're we're kind
  338. 13:42of at least creative humans, we're kind
  339. 13:44of like punk rock and it's hard to pro
  340. 13:46it's hard to program that like punk rock
  341. 13:48nature to it. So I believe that and I'm
  342. 13:51a AI pled as it gets. Um,
  343. 13:55and I I advise the world's largest
  344. 13:58brands on the planet around, you know,
  345. 14:01getting their businesses
  346. 14:03to be AI native. So, I would be the
  347. 14:06first to tell you, hey, this is all
  348. 14:08going to be autonomous and creatives
  349. 14:12aren't going to exist. I see these
  350. 14:14people tweet, you know, you need to
  351. 14:18escape the permanent underclass and it's
  352. 14:20like I joke, I laugh at it cuz it's like
  353. 14:23there will always be space for
  354. 14:24creatives. Human beings will always be a
  355. 14:26part of it. That being said, the binary
  356. 14:29stuff will be autonomous for the most
  357. 14:32part. when you're talking to an
  358. 14:34established company or a team who's been
  359. 14:36working in a certain way for 5, 10, 20,
  360. 14:4150 years and now all of a sudden it's
  361. 14:43like this reinvention of work. What do
  362. 14:46you tell people to start to really make
  363. 14:50a significant shift in that way? Not
  364. 14:53just, hey, sign up for Chat GBT, but
  365. 14:55like change the way you work in an
  366. 14:58environment, in a culture that has been
  367. 15:00doing it a different way for a long
  368. 15:02time. It always starts with like, what
  369. 15:04would you do if you unlocked five or 10
  370. 15:06or 15 hours of your week back? You know,
  371. 15:08like you've got all these jobs to be
  372. 15:10done that you've been doing and what if
  373. 15:12you can automate 60% of it? What are the
  374. 15:14things that you would wish you can do
  375. 15:17that you don't have time to be doing
  376. 15:20today? And that's you you actually see
  377. 15:24people's face light up when when they
  378. 15:27hear that because they're like, you know
  379. 15:28what, I always wish I can do this thing,
  380. 15:30but I just find Yeah. Oh my god, I can't
  381. 15:33believe it's Friday already. I guess
  382. 15:34I'll do it next week and then it's
  383. 15:35Friday again and then it's Friday again.
  384. 15:37They never get to do it. So, I think
  385. 15:39what we're going to I think what we're
  386. 15:40there's this narrative that like all
  387. 15:42jobs are going away. Uh AI is eating our
  388. 15:45jobs. I think we're actually moving into
  389. 15:47a world where people are going to be
  390. 15:49more creative.
  391. 15:51And AI is going to take jobs away from
  392. 15:55the the stuff that's going to be
  393. 15:56extremely binary. So for example, I
  394. 15:59studied computer science in in
  395. 16:01university. So I dropped out, but I'm a
  396. 16:04trained engineer. Engineers now have
  397. 16:07this identity crisis because they're not
  398. 16:11programming anymore. I saw that Boris
  399. 16:13the guy who created claude code
  400. 16:15literally says that he hasn't like de
  401. 16:18touched he hasn't he hasn't created a
  402. 16:21line of code in like six months. So you
  403. 16:23have one of the most well-known
  404. 16:25engineers of our time not writing code.
  405. 16:28So what do you do when your identity is
  406. 16:33engineering and you can't write code?
  407. 16:36You sh you shift into a more creative
  408. 16:38aspect of engineering. Now he's
  409. 16:40reviewing code. Now he's designing
  410. 16:43systems. Now he's going on podcasts and
  411. 16:45he's talking about engineering and he's
  412. 16:47talking about cloud code. So going back
  413. 16:50to your question, um what do I what do I
  414. 16:53tell people who
  415. 16:55you know who have human workflows that
  416. 16:58are now moving to AI? You're about to do
  417. 17:01you're probably going to do a bunch more
  418. 17:05creative work. And if you're if you love
  419. 17:07creative work, you're going to love your
  420. 17:09day-to-day more. So in an age where in
  421. 17:13an age of abundance where so many more
  422. 17:16things and skills are accessible to so
  423. 17:19many more people what becomes the
  424. 17:22competitive advantage your creativity.
  425. 17:24Yeah. The most creative people win
  426. 17:27>> we're talk we're talking generally. Of
  427. 17:28course some people unfortunately are
  428. 17:31going to lose their job and aren't going
  429. 17:33to be creative like they're they're not
  430. 17:36going to be Boris in terms of like being
  431. 17:39Yeah. Not everyone can go on and talk.
  432. 17:41We can't just have engineering podcast
  433. 17:42from every engineer.
  434. 17:44>> No, no. But I do think that the ones who
  435. 17:48make the shift to being creative and
  436. 17:50learn to be creative are
  437. 17:54are going to love their their
  438. 17:56day-to-days bec I I think because a lot
  439. 17:58of people don't like a lot of the
  440. 17:59minutia that they do on a day-to-day
  441. 18:02basis. And that's sort of the unspoken
  442. 18:04truth about white collar work in
  443. 18:05general. like a lot of people are
  444. 18:07pushing buttons that if they were like,
  445. 18:08you know what, if I didn't have to push
  446. 18:09these buttons, I think I would actually
  447. 18:11enjoy it. Do you think that for somebody
  448. 18:14that wants to work for themselves, is
  449. 18:16the future going to be where they have
  450. 18:20all these agents building lots of
  451. 18:23different tools? Like, am I going to
  452. 18:24have 10 different ways that I'm making
  453. 18:27money and it's maybe $1,000 from each or
  454. 18:31am I like we've heard for so long in
  455. 18:34Silicon Valley, it's like focus, focus,
  456. 18:35focus. Put all your energy into one
  457. 18:37thing and let that compound. Is it going
  458. 18:40to be all the agents working in one
  459. 18:41thing or or is it going to be like, hey,
  460. 18:45have lots of ideas, have lots of things
  461. 18:46making a little bit of money for you and
  462. 18:49that's going to kind of build over time.
  463. 18:50I think that's the other part about this
  464. 18:53big shift around AI, which is this is
  465. 18:55going to be the golden era for
  466. 18:57entrepreneurship. If you look back, you
  467. 19:00know, hundreds of years ago, uh before
  468. 19:03the industrial revolution and things
  469. 19:04like that, uh people actually were more
  470. 19:08often entrepreneurs than not. This idea
  471. 19:10of you go and work for, you know,
  472. 19:12factory Henry Ford and and stuff like
  473. 19:14that is actually a relatively new
  474. 19:16concept. entrepreneurship, I think,
  475. 19:19because it it really does celebrate
  476. 19:21freedom and this idea of like going out
  477. 19:24there, forging your own path is a just
  478. 19:27such an incredible concept. Um, and I
  479. 19:30think that we're kind of like all that's
  480. 19:32new is old type thing. We're kind of
  481. 19:34going back to this era that we're going
  482. 19:35to have millions of people who are going
  483. 19:39to embrace AI. They might they might
  484. 19:41have been forcibly have to embrace it in
  485. 19:44the sense that maybe they get laid off
  486. 19:45from their job. Maybe they, you know,
  487. 19:49find an idea that they really like and
  488. 19:51they just can't stop thinking about it
  489. 19:53and they go do it. and that they're
  490. 19:54going to have multiple
  491. 19:57uh streams of income in the same way
  492. 19:59that if you look at the average creator
  493. 20:01who's making money uh today I often see
  494. 20:04like Tik Toks are short for uh reals
  495. 20:07where it's like let me tell you how I
  496. 20:09make $75,000 a month uh as a creator and
  497. 20:12like hooks you in. I'm like how does
  498. 20:13this person make $75,000? Then I go and
  499. 20:16it's like well I made $800 a month in
  500. 20:18brand in uh in affiliates. I made $6,000
  501. 20:22a month in uh X uh revenue share. I made
  502. 20:28I think that's 60,000 and only fans.
  503. 20:30Yeah, 60,000 and only fan. No, it's
  504. 20:32usually 60,000 of brand sponsorships.
  505. 20:34>> Okay.
  506. 20:35>> I believe that we're entering what I
  507. 20:37call the age of the multipreneur.
  508. 20:40>> So a multipreneur is someone who owns
  509. 20:42multiple businesses, multiple lines of
  510. 20:44revenue. I will say I think that you
  511. 20:47know like creators the multipreneur is
  512. 20:50going to have one product one service
  513. 20:52one business unit that you know drives
  514. 20:55the lion share of revenue but I do think
  515. 20:58that they're going to have multiple
  516. 21:00businesses and if you can have agents
  517. 21:01running it and you can create a high
  518. 21:03margin business and a whole system
  519. 21:05around it um I think that's pretty cool.
  520. 21:09You talk a lot about boring ideas and uh
  521. 21:13trying to go after things other people
  522. 21:14aren't thinking about. How how do I go
  523. 21:16about finding and identifying a boring
  524. 21:19idea worth spending a lot of time on
  525. 21:21fixing? I like boring ideas because
  526. 21:26I don't like so much competition. And
  527. 21:30the context here is I'm not talking
  528. 21:32about you know you're a Palo Alto guy
  529. 21:34now you know Silicon Valley you're
  530. 21:36thinking big. So, I'm talking about the
  531. 21:39ideas that maybe you can do a million a
  532. 21:41year, $5 million a year, $25 million a
  533. 21:43year, which for a lot of people is
  534. 21:46incredible. Yeah.
  535. 21:47>> Um especially if you make it a AI native
  536. 21:51businesses and you end up having a $20
  537. 21:53million a year business spin off $5
  538. 21:56million a year and you can sell that
  539. 21:57business for $20 million very easily,
  540. 22:01you know, at a 4x multiple. So, um I
  541. 22:06like boring businesses. I think there's
  542. 22:08not that much competition in it. Um
  543. 22:12that being said, um
  544. 22:16there's been increasingly amount of
  545. 22:18competition in boring businesses because
  546. 22:21people like me have been like
  547. 22:23>> talking about it,
  548. 22:24>> talking about it.
  549. 22:25>> Um I think though where there's always
  550. 22:28going to be opportunity is a boring
  551. 22:31business in your geography. So I think
  552. 22:34geograph you know there might be a lot
  553. 22:36of uh competition in South Florida or in
  554. 22:38the Bay Area or New York or whatever but
  555. 22:41I think in you know where I'm from in
  556. 22:43Canada or in you know other geographies
  557. 22:46where you can take these concepts
  558. 22:48localize the language that's another big
  559. 22:50piece of it.
  560. 22:50>> Um
  561. 22:52>> you know there's this there's a story um
  562. 22:56that I really like. So, I'm from Quebec,
  563. 22:58and in in Quebec, it is one one of the
  564. 23:02places where people drink the most
  565. 23:04amount of Pepsi
  566. 23:07>> on the planet. So, why do Quebecers
  567. 23:10drink Pepsi instead of Coke? And they
  568. 23:12did some research to understand why. And
  569. 23:15it has to do with marketing in a local
  570. 23:18language to people in a way that, you
  571. 23:22know, really resonates with them. So in
  572. 23:25the 1960s or something when KO came to
  573. 23:27Canada, they basically did all the ads
  574. 23:30across Canada or or when KO started
  575. 23:33marketing with television in Canada,
  576. 23:34they did all the ads in Canada and they
  577. 23:37were all the same. And when they went to
  578. 23:39Quebec, they speak French in Quebec.
  579. 23:41They just translated the the ads into
  580. 23:43into French.
  581. 23:44>> And it's a different culture. And what
  582. 23:47works in Toronto might not work in
  583. 23:49Montreal. So what Pepsi did was
  584. 23:52different. They hired a local agency to
  585. 23:54do it and they basically said we're
  586. 23:57gonna, you know, we're just going to do
  587. 24:00something specific to Quebec that's
  588. 24:02really going to resonate with them. And
  589. 24:04it's almost 65 years later, people to
  590. 24:08this day still drink Pepsi.
  591. 24:10>> So going back to in the age of AI,
  592. 24:13boring businesses. I believe that you
  593. 24:16know local localization
  594. 24:19marketing towards different geographies
  595. 24:22but being AI native there's a lot of
  596. 24:24opportunity there and localization is
  597. 24:27one of the first killer
  598. 24:31AI uh use cases that it solved. I felt
  599. 24:34like like we within my startup we had
  600. 24:37spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
  601. 24:39on building localization tools pre AAI
  602. 24:41and we just rebuilt them and in a matter
  603. 24:45of like 3 weeks and it is like in and
  604. 24:48it's all like translated in real time
  605. 24:50like it's incredible and I mean we had
  606. 24:53really smart people that were working on
  607. 24:54it before. It's like this is something
  608. 24:56that the the tools solve really well.
  609. 24:58It's a really hard problem that the
  610. 24:59tools like can really automate. You've
  611. 25:02talked about this idea of a builder
  612. 25:04distributor.
  613. 25:05>> What is that?
  614. 25:06>> Oh, well in the hai anyone can build,
  615. 25:09right? Like all if you can you don't
  616. 25:12even need I was going to say if you can
  617. 25:13speak English, you can build. But you
  618. 25:14don't even need to speak English. You
  619. 25:15can speak any language and you just
  620. 25:17prompt
  621. 25:18>> to build. How do you compete in that
  622. 25:20world? Well, the way to compete is if
  623. 25:23you understand distribution quite well.
  624. 25:26So if you understand how to create
  625. 25:28scroll stopping Instagram posts or
  626. 25:31videos that people like or um you
  627. 25:35understand how to use cling which is a
  628. 25:37video model to create like really
  629. 25:39interesting commercials um and then use
  630. 25:42that to uh connect that with meta ads
  631. 25:45and and start you know pumping ads then
  632. 25:48you have an advantage. So I believe that
  633. 25:50this like builder distributor combo is
  634. 25:55is probably the most lethal type of
  635. 25:58person in the AI age because they they
  636. 26:02understand distribution. They understand
  637. 26:05how to capture attention and how to
  638. 26:07convert that attention into uh revenue
  639. 26:10but they also understand how they can
  640. 26:13drive value from a product perspective.
  641. 26:15The product has to be good and the bar
  642. 26:18for good products is increasing and
  643. 26:19increasing especially when it comes to
  644. 26:21digital products. So you have to be able
  645. 26:24to take feedback, optimize, create
  646. 26:26features, have that loop. And so I'm a
  647. 26:30big believer in that type of person. Are
  648. 26:32the AI tools to the point where they can
  649. 26:35help you build the product and then if
  650. 26:38you feed feedback into them, it can sort
  651. 26:41of create the product and the features
  652. 26:45that your customers and users are asking
  653. 26:47for and then like deploy them and then
  654. 26:49get more feedback. like is that loop
  655. 26:51solved yet or is it still coming?
  656. 26:53>> This is a bit like in the minutia but
  657. 26:56we're going to go there. There's a term
  658. 26:59that actually uh Andre Carpathy and
  659. 27:03Peter Stein uh I think his name's uh
  660. 27:06Peter Stein Brener I think uh from
  661. 27:09OpenClaw the guy who started OpenClaw
  662. 27:11they've been talking about this concept
  663. 27:12called loop engineering
  664. 27:14>> and it's just basically this way to tell
  665. 27:17your LLM to just keep going and building
  666. 27:21on a loop
  667. 27:23>> and
  668. 27:25Twitter just went like completely
  669. 27:27completely
  670. 27:29uh just love this concept. To me that
  671. 27:32concept is it's interesting but it's way
  672. 27:34more interesting for business use cases
  673. 27:36not engineering use cases. So loops are
  674. 27:39actually really interesting in the
  675. 27:40context to what you were talking about.
  676. 27:43Say you're able to say you started a
  677. 27:46company you have a product
  678. 27:48and every day you can speak to 10
  679. 27:50customers. Well, in the AI world, you
  680. 27:53can actually speak to these 10
  681. 27:55customers, have meeting notes that get
  682. 27:58synced to, let's say, uh, Google Docs or
  683. 28:00Google Drive folder,
  684. 28:02>> and then you can set up a loop that
  685. 28:04says, look at this, look at every day,
  686. 28:07look at this docs folder, then uh, that
  687. 28:10customer feedback docs folder. see what
  688. 28:13people like about the product, see what
  689. 28:14people don't like about the product, and
  690. 28:16every day pick the most interesting
  691. 28:18problem to solve and create a feature so
  692. 28:21that I can review it and it'll go and do
  693. 28:25that on a loop every single day. Now, in
  694. 28:285 years or 3 years or two years, we
  695. 28:30might get to a point where you don't
  696. 28:31even need a human in the loop. You might
  697. 28:33have this autonomous
  698. 28:35company
  699. 28:37builder type of experience where you
  700. 28:41basically just you basically say like
  701. 28:43your goal is to generate revenue
  702. 28:46>> uh or your goal is to create retention
  703. 28:47or your goal is to uh drive virality. Go
  704. 28:51look at customer conversations every
  705. 28:53single day and go pick one feature to go
  706. 28:56and build these people. By the way,
  707. 28:58isn't that crazy? It's crazy. Like,
  708. 29:01isn't that isn't all of this crazy?
  709. 29:04Like, we we're all so numb to all of
  710. 29:06this. But like, I'm basically telling
  711. 29:08you that you can essentially press a
  712. 29:10button that every single day you're
  713. 29:13going to be able to drive value for
  714. 29:16customers. And all you're going to have
  715. 29:18to do is interface with customers, help
  716. 29:22customers, get them to tell you their
  717. 29:26problems, and then on a loop, you're
  718. 29:29going to have the world's greatest super
  719. 29:32intelligence at a fraction of a price
  720. 29:34that you would pay a team. We're talking
  721. 29:36about a dollar an hour, $2 an hour, even
  722. 29:38less.
  723. 29:39>> And you can have it every single day
  724. 29:41drive value for customers. And all
  725. 29:43you're going to have to do is we're sit
  726. 29:45there from your high chair in the 38th
  727. 29:47floor looking at Miami Beach and you're
  728. 29:50just going to be like, you know what,
  729. 29:51that's a good feature. Good job, Hermes
  730. 29:54agent. Yeah.
  731. 29:55>> Go and deploy this. It deploys it and
  732. 29:57then you drive value to customers lives
  733. 30:00every single day. Where in the past it
  734. 30:02used to take you millions of dollars
  735. 30:04that you had to raise venture capital
  736. 30:06for. You had to hire a team. There was
  737. 30:08just as many bugs if not more bugs. And
  738. 30:11now you're driving value every single
  739. 30:14day and making the lives of your
  740. 30:16customers happy and healthier. And
  741. 30:17hopefully you can even give them a
  742. 30:21cheaper product cuz now your cost
  743. 30:23structure is a 20th of what it used to
  744. 30:26be. How how amazing is that? I a few
  745. 30:31months ago I sat down with my son who
  746. 30:33works at a basketball card store and
  747. 30:37they have no inventory and so like
  748. 30:40management they have no software for it.
  749. 30:41So we're like, "Oh, let's let's just
  750. 30:42play around with one of the vibe coding
  751. 30:44tools and and see what we can build."
  752. 30:47And in a matter of three hours,
  753. 30:51I just like leaned back in my chair and
  754. 30:54I was just
  755. 30:56I like I was like my mouth was like
  756. 30:59gaping open. I I couldn't believe it and
  757. 31:00my you know my teenage son is like
  758. 31:02what's the deal? And I was just like
  759. 31:05when I 15 years ago when I first quit my
  760. 31:08job and started to build a company this
  761. 31:10exact same process took me six months.
  762. 31:13It took me three months to find people
  763. 31:16to build this with me and then it took
  764. 31:18them two months to get a first version
  765. 31:21out and then it took another month for
  766. 31:25me to give them feedback and then get
  767. 31:26another version out. And so like and
  768. 31:28that's that's where we are in three
  769. 31:30hours and it was like 200 bucks in
  770. 31:32tokens or something. That's the other
  771. 31:35people that's the other thing that
  772. 31:37people don't talk about this AI age
  773. 31:39which I think is so important which is
  774. 31:41in the past you needed to have graduated
  775. 31:45Stanford went to Harvard lived in
  776. 31:46Silicon Valley in order to create a
  777. 31:49startup tech startup that can scale.
  778. 31:53Today you can be anywhere. You can be
  779. 31:56anyone. You can be 15 years old or 85
  780. 32:02years old. And that to me is awesome,
  781. 32:06right? The fact that like when I wanted
  782. 32:09to start a tech startup, I had to move
  783. 32:11to San Francisco. I had to leave my
  784. 32:13family and friends and move to a
  785. 32:15different country across the continent
  786. 32:19to a place I knew no one. And I'm not,
  787. 32:21this isn't a boohoo story, but I to be
  788. 32:23honest would have rather stayed there.
  789. 32:25>> Yeah.
  790. 32:25>> Like, you know, but I had to go and do
  791. 32:28that and it was a fun experience and
  792. 32:30stuff like that, but at the same time,
  793. 32:32it's so cool that people are able just
  794. 32:34to wake up today and the limitation that
  795. 32:37people have is just their ideas.
  796. 32:40>> Yeah.
  797. 32:41>> Whereas in the past, there was all these
  798. 32:43societal limitations that were were
  799. 32:46placed. You needed a VC to basically be
  800. 32:48like, you know what? I like this. I like
  801. 32:51the school you went to. I like this
  802. 32:53product. I'm going to give you a million
  803. 32:54dollars. And you just needed the right
  804. 32:56VC at the right time to tell you that
  805. 32:59thing. And what kind of world is that,
  806. 33:00right? Like I hate that world because
  807. 33:02like to me that's a non-inclusive world.
  808. 33:05Yeah. They're they're gatekeepers.
  809. 33:08They're basically we're gatekeepers to
  810. 33:11uh to making dreams and ideas possible.
  811. 33:14Yeah. and and the gatekeepers now with
  812. 33:16AI, it's like democratized
  813. 33:18like who can do what because the
  814. 33:20barriers of entry are so much lower.
  815. 33:22Exactly. And I'm not saying like
  816. 33:24building a ventureback company is bad.
  817. 33:26I'm not saying like VCs are bad at all.
  818. 33:28You know, some of my best friends are
  819. 33:30actually VCs and and I've run
  820. 33:32ventureback companies and sold
  821. 33:33ventureback companies. So, I'm not
  822. 33:34saying uh it's a bad thing. What I am
  823. 33:37saying is it's no longer the only model
  824. 33:40for building these kind of companies. It
  825. 33:42is amazing that there's now this whole
  826. 33:44other set of opportunities that are now
  827. 33:47presented and you you know some people
  828. 33:50like pizza and some people like pasta
  829. 33:52you know and now the people who like
  830. 33:55pizza can go and eat some pizza and they
  831. 33:57can be whoever. Well, and the reality is
  832. 33:59the venturebacked model works for like
  833. 34:03less than 1% of all companies that are
  834. 34:07created. And of the companies that VCs,
  835. 34:10investors back, only like a very small
  836. 34:13percentage of the ones they back, and
  837. 34:15they're only backing like a small
  838. 34:16percentage of the ones they look at. So,
  839. 34:18we're talking about a very, very small
  840. 34:19group of people. Only a small percentage
  841. 34:20of the ones that they back actually work
  842. 34:23and return the money. And they know that
  843. 34:24their whole model's baked into that. So
  844. 34:27the vast majority of of anything anyone
  845. 34:30is building should not be that model
  846. 34:32like it because that model only works
  847. 34:34for this tiny fraction of people and
  848. 34:36companies and is having raised a bunch
  849. 34:39of money on a bunch of different
  850. 34:40companies learned the hard way that some
  851. 34:42of the things we've raised for should
  852. 34:44not have been venture back like we
  853. 34:46should have done this other model but
  854. 34:48like one of my companies the first time
  855. 34:49I raised was because this exact problem
  856. 34:52we're talking about like I had six
  857. 34:54engineers and I They had 300,000 in
  858. 34:57recurring revenue and the engineers were
  859. 35:00let's call them 100,000 each. So it's
  860. 35:02like the engineers are costing 600
  861. 35:04grand. The recurring revenue is 300
  862. 35:05grand. Like doesn't take a genius to
  863. 35:06figure out like the math doesn't work.
  864. 35:08It was like this golden anchor that was
  865. 35:10going to sink our entire ship. And in
  866. 35:12the middle of the night I had to be like
  867. 35:14I had to email anybody I could find or
  868. 35:16I'd ever talked to and say, "Hey, I
  869. 35:17think I got a cool concept. Could you
  870. 35:19back this?" But it probably was never
  871. 35:22going to be a billion-dollar outcome for
  872. 35:24anybody. In which case, if I could have
  873. 35:27bootstrapped it, I would have. But it
  874. 35:28was like, you know, just like the cost
  875. 35:30didn't make sense. Now today, if we'd
  876. 35:32had that same insight and we'd had maybe
  877. 35:34two or three of us
  878. 35:37engineering and building the product
  879. 35:39with these other things, supplementing
  880. 35:40it, like we could take it so much
  881. 35:42further and and maybe we could have, you
  882. 35:44know, you could you could bootstrap the
  883. 35:46whole thing. And that's how you build a
  884. 35:47real business, right? It's like it makes
  885. 35:49money like it it provides service
  886. 35:51customers like enough to keep paying for
  887. 35:52it or to pay more for it. They tell
  888. 35:54their friends, you know, that creates
  889. 35:55more momentum. You know, no VC is going
  890. 35:58to, you know, create customer traction.
  891. 36:00And you see, I thought when the social
  892. 36:02network movie came out in 2012, I was
  893. 36:04like, this is peak startups. Like I
  894. 36:06remember going to the movie and I walked
  895. 36:07out in the parking lot and I was like,
  896. 36:09that's it. Like this is like jump the
  897. 36:12shark. And then startups just exploded.
  898. 36:15But actually the the value of startups
  899. 36:17exploded and the the market size
  900. 36:19exploded but actually the number of
  901. 36:20startups getting created didn't explode
  902. 36:22but that is now that was like 2012 I
  903. 36:25think or 2011 now it's 15 years later
  904. 36:29and actually we see the like the app
  905. 36:32store um app submissions is like
  906. 36:34exploding people are like creating apps
  907. 36:36like crazy um you see the stripe numbers
  908. 36:39of new businesses that are creating and
  909. 36:40the number of businesses that are
  910. 36:41creating is exploding and I I mean, what
  911. 36:45else do you point it to other than like
  912. 36:46this age of abundance and opportunity
  913. 36:48that now has been unlocked with AI?
  914. 36:50Exactly. Like when I see the Stripe
  915. 36:52charts and stuff like that and the app
  916. 36:55store charts, it's exactly what I'm
  917. 36:57talking about around the age of the
  918. 36:59multi-reneur. It's like the cost to try
  919. 37:02an idea is now so small that if you're
  920. 37:06listening to this, you should probably
  921. 37:08try an idea. You know, like you should
  922. 37:11even if it's hey the goal of it of this
  923. 37:16endeavor is to get really good at cla
  924. 37:18code and that's my KPI or have a hundred
  925. 37:22just happy customers. Like you don't
  926. 37:23even need to do it to make money but
  927. 37:25just to like learn or you know it's sort
  928. 37:28of like playing an instrument. Like it's
  929. 37:30fun to learn how to play an instrument
  930. 37:32cuz once you master the instrument it's
  931. 37:34awesome. Yeah.
  932. 37:35>> And like I'll be honest, when you start
  933. 37:38playing an instrument,
  934. 37:40it sucks. It's you you're you're let's
  935. 37:44say you're trying to learn how to play
  936. 37:45guitar. You're listening to it and
  937. 37:47you're like, "This is horrible." Like I
  938. 37:48learned how to play guitar. It's like I
  939. 37:50used to hear myself playing guitar and I
  940. 37:51was like, "This is making my ears
  941. 37:54absolutely bleed." And you sort of bleed
  942. 37:57through how bad you are. And eventually
  943. 37:59you get to a point where you're playing
  944. 38:00like stairway to heaven and it's this
  945. 38:03magical moment. And that's how you're
  946. 38:04going to feel when you build an idea
  947. 38:06with AI. And that's kind of also what
  948. 38:09which what fires me up about people
  949. 38:12building not just to start a business
  950. 38:15>> but also just to learn. I have a friend
  951. 38:17in Dubai and he's really talented
  952. 38:19entrepreneur. He's raised some money for
  953. 38:21a startup, but he had this engineering
  954. 38:24team. Then he ran out of money and he
  955. 38:27couldn't raise more money and so he had
  956. 38:28to let his whole team go. And it's just
  957. 38:30him. This is like eight or nine months
  958. 38:32ago. And I spoke to him recently. I
  959. 38:35haven't talked to him in a few months.
  960. 38:36And he was like, he's like, "Man, eight
  961. 38:38or nine months ago, my whole team, I had
  962. 38:40to let them go and it was the worst
  963. 38:42thing ever." And I didn't know what I
  964. 38:44was going to do. So I just started
  965. 38:46learning how to claude code
  966. 38:50>> and he's like I've completely reinvented
  967. 38:53the whole thing. He's he's now this is
  968. 38:55like you know this is like you and you
  969. 38:58can do this too. He he he's like in the
  970. 39:00process of his company getting acquired
  971. 39:02for millions tens of millions of
  972. 39:05dollars. I mean this is this is says
  973. 39:08much more about him than anybody else.
  974. 39:09like I couldn't have done what he's
  975. 39:10done, but just that this is even
  976. 39:13possible. And he's like I'm like well
  977. 39:17when you get to this new organization
  978. 39:18like you can probably have a team. He's
  979. 39:19like I don't I don't want a team. Like I
  980. 39:22I'm doing everything. He's like okay
  981. 39:24like even everything is part of the
  982. 39:26sales process now. He's like hey all the
  983. 39:28docs for it they're all in this tool
  984. 39:30that I built. You can just go in here.
  985. 39:32He's like build his own Carter thing,
  986. 39:34you know? It's like everything now he's
  987. 39:35like so he's so self-sufficient. He's so
  988. 39:38self-reliant and like he can literally
  989. 39:42do anything. Nothing is stopping him. No
  990. 39:44one is blocking him. And anytime
  991. 39:46something comes up, he's like, "I'll fix
  992. 39:48that." Myself. And six or nine months
  993. 39:50ago, like he couldn't have said that.
  994. 39:51And I probably not everyone is as
  995. 39:54resilient as him. I certainly am not.
  996. 39:56But can we be 10 20% of that? Like yeah,
  997. 40:00you can you can be 10 or 20% of that.
  998. 40:03But like you said, like you just have to
  999. 40:04get out and do it. And I've interviewed
  1000. 40:06people. One of my favorite questions
  1001. 40:08asked now I was like tell me what tools
  1002. 40:10you're using. Um, I had an engineer
  1003. 40:12recently who asked for a big raise and
  1004. 40:14wanting to be called in an AI engineer.
  1005. 40:16And I said, "Screen share your cloud
  1006. 40:20credits. Let me see how much you're
  1007. 40:21using. Like, what are you doing?" And it
  1008. 40:23wasn't super positive thing for him to
  1009. 40:25show, which was not to make him feel
  1010. 40:27bad, but it was to then say, "Hey, like
  1011. 40:30let's improve. Let's change. What can we
  1012. 40:33do? Let's talk in two weeks, let's talk
  1013. 40:35in four weeks." Immediately, like that
  1014. 40:37day, like he started using AI more. they
  1015. 40:40started shipping more. Um, but I do
  1016. 40:42still interview people and they say like
  1017. 40:44I say like what tools are you using and
  1018. 40:46it is shocking to me but they'll say
  1019. 40:49nothing. Like I'm not I'm not using
  1020. 40:51anything. I'm like you're not using
  1021. 40:52anything. You haven't tried? No, I
  1022. 40:53haven't tried anything. Well, what are
  1023. 40:55you interesting about? What are you
  1024. 40:56reading about? I haven't read I I've
  1025. 40:58literally had this in interviews like I
  1026. 40:59haven't read any I haven't seen anything
  1027. 41:01that I'm interested. I'm like well then
  1028. 41:04you're in a bad spot professionally
  1029. 41:06because you've got your head in the
  1030. 41:08sand. Meanwhile, there's all these other
  1031. 41:10people like my friend Simon and others
  1032. 41:12who are like changing the way they were
  1033. 41:14completely reinventing the way they're
  1034. 41:16they're building products and services
  1035. 41:18and making money and like they're going
  1036. 41:21to win. those people were clearly gonna
  1037. 41:23win. And and so it's honestly it's not
  1038. 41:26it's not even surprising to me that most
  1039. 41:28people are still not
  1040. 41:32really diving into the tools because
  1041. 41:36the truth is it requires
  1042. 41:39I'm not going to say 10,000 hours but
  1043. 41:40like a thousand hours
  1044. 41:42>> really that much. I think there's the,
  1045. 41:44you know, thousand Eisenberg's
  1046. 41:45thousandhour rule, you know. Yeah. Uh,
  1047. 41:48you need to like really put yourself
  1048. 41:51through stuff not working. Um, pushing
  1049. 41:56stuff into the world, seeing how it
  1050. 41:58works,
  1051. 41:59>> you know, playing, reading about it,
  1052. 42:00studying, go watching other people, all
  1053. 42:02that stuff. It just takes time. And it's
  1054. 42:06sort of like, you know, going back to
  1055. 42:08like the guitar analogy, like how many
  1056. 42:10people like music? Everyone. Everyone
  1057. 42:13listens to music. How many people play
  1058. 42:15an instrument like a guitar? I don't
  1059. 42:16know 1% of people, 2% of people. Playing
  1060. 42:20the instrument is difficult cuz like I
  1061. 42:24like I was saying, you have to go
  1062. 42:25through this trough of despair for a
  1063. 42:28really long time before you end up
  1064. 42:30feeling good about it. There's instant
  1065. 42:33gratification when you use chat GBT. if
  1066. 42:36you ask it a question and you get
  1067. 42:38something back like you you sort of see
  1068. 42:40the value and it's it's obvious but
  1069. 42:42there isn't the same instant
  1070. 42:44gratification that you get for becoming
  1071. 42:46AI native which to me is you have a set
  1072. 42:50of jobs to be done and set of workflows
  1073. 42:54that you do as a human being and you've
  1074. 42:56now basically said hey in a world where
  1075. 42:59I'm managing 100 agents what does that
  1076. 43:02look like if those agents are fulfilling
  1077. 43:05the work and that actually is somewhat
  1078. 43:08complex, somewhat tiresome to go
  1079. 43:10through, somewhat difficult to really
  1080. 43:12like
  1081. 43:14fine-tune to a place where it's doing
  1082. 43:18good work. Put yourself in this scenario
  1083. 43:21for a minute. You're fired from your
  1084. 43:24job. You're told you're not employable
  1085. 43:27anymore. Your skills just aren't what
  1086. 43:30they used to be. You've got 90 days to
  1087. 43:35create something for yourself. It might
  1088. 43:38not be totally sustaining you ever every
  1089. 43:40every aspect of your life, but you've
  1090. 43:42got to start generating some income in
  1091. 43:44the next 3 months and you're starting
  1092. 43:47from scratch today. Where would you
  1093. 43:49begin? The first thing I would do is I
  1094. 43:54I say this uh often which is you know
  1095. 43:57marry
  1096. 43:59mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar
  1097. 43:59mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar
  1098. 43:59marry the niche date the product. So I
  1099. 44:02would pick a niche that I
  1100. 44:05love and I feel like I have some unfair
  1101. 44:07advantage in. Now someone listening to
  1102. 44:10this is might be like well I don't have
  1103. 44:13an unfair advantage in anything and it's
  1104. 44:16like everyone has some advantage to
  1105. 44:19someone else in the sense of you're from
  1106. 44:22a specific neighborhood. You went to a
  1107. 44:24specific school. You know these people
  1108. 44:26you you um you're you're
  1109. 44:30good at guitar. you're bad at, you know,
  1110. 44:32you're there's something unique about
  1111. 44:34you that that you your life experiences
  1112. 44:39have led you to this point and you have
  1113. 44:40that
  1114. 44:42that so I would figure out what my step
  1115. 44:45one would be figure out what my niche
  1116. 44:47is.
  1117. 44:48>> Step two is I have this framework I call
  1118. 44:51the ACP framework, audience, community,
  1119. 44:54product. And I believe that if you're
  1120. 44:56building a business in the AI age, you
  1121. 44:58want to build a business that follows
  1122. 45:00that framework.
  1123. 45:03Every business I starts as a X account.
  1124. 45:07It starts as an Instagram account. It
  1125. 45:09starts as a Tik Tok account. It starts
  1126. 45:11as an audience first. Because in the AI
  1127. 45:14age when you can build anything, the
  1128. 45:16mode is in a lot of ways the
  1129. 45:18distribution. So what I would do for the
  1130. 45:20first 90 days is I would make it a goal
  1131. 45:23to figure out what is the format that is
  1132. 45:26going to get my niche to
  1133. 45:31follow me. So on my Instagram for
  1134. 45:34example, it's like follow Greg Eisberg
  1135. 45:38for startup ideas in the AI age. That's
  1136. 45:40what like my bio says. So like that's
  1137. 45:43the that's my niche, right? What is what
  1138. 45:45is your niche? what you know that's the
  1139. 45:48that that's what I would be thinking
  1140. 45:49about and then a community which which
  1141. 45:52is once you have your audience you know
  1142. 45:54how do you convert a small amount of
  1143. 45:56them into an IRL or digital community so
  1144. 46:00that would be my second step and my
  1145. 46:02third step is once I understand this
  1146. 46:04audience once I I've gotten a few
  1147. 46:07hundred followers a few thousand
  1148. 46:08followers a few people in my community a
  1149. 46:10WhatsApp group you know a local meetup
  1150. 46:14then it's what is the product or service
  1151. 46:16I build for them. And that's not going
  1152. 46:18to take long. Like the building is only
  1153. 46:20going to take a day or something, right?
  1154. 46:21And then it's just, you know, for me,
  1155. 46:24it's prioritizing what's a business
  1156. 46:26model that makes sense that I think
  1157. 46:28people really need that's a a
  1158. 46:30painkiller, not a vitamin
  1159. 46:32>> that I think I can sell in a relatively
  1160. 46:35uh short cycle. And that's what I would
  1161. 46:39do. And I would wrap that around how
  1162. 46:42would I come up with the idea? It would
  1163. 46:43be a mix of uh what we talked about
  1164. 46:46around asking customers what they want.
  1165. 46:49It would be a mix around bringing in
  1166. 46:51MCPs like the XMCP and the idea browser
  1167. 46:54MCP and just trying a bunch of different
  1168. 46:57products to see what what could work.
  1169. 46:59>> What failure or apparent failure led to
  1170. 47:02a big success for you?
  1171. 47:04>> The first thing that comes to mind
  1172. 47:06honestly was
  1173. 47:10I basically I lived
  1174. 47:12I lived in this little neighborhood. I
  1175. 47:14think I must have been like I don't know
  1176. 47:167 years old and I was really into
  1177. 47:19baseball
  1178. 47:21and uh
  1179. 47:24I was really good at baseball honestly
  1180. 47:26especially cuz I was in Canada so like
  1181. 47:28no one's good at baseball you know not
  1182. 47:29that many people are good it's not like
  1183. 47:30in the states you know like people
  1184. 47:32people played hockey right yeah so
  1185. 47:34anyways I was pretty good at baseball um
  1186. 47:36I tried out for the team
  1187. 47:39>> and I played amazing like the try out I
  1188. 47:43just like I think Hey, you know, I don't
  1189. 47:45know. It was like I was at bat four
  1190. 47:46times. I think I got like three triples
  1191. 47:48and a single, you know, and I had a
  1192. 47:51smile on my face the whole time. I was
  1193. 47:52It was good teamwork. I, you know, I
  1194. 47:54left the try out being like, "Crushed
  1195. 47:56it. Crushed it. This was amazing. I'm so
  1196. 47:59excited." And it was like the first year
  1197. 48:02where we get our own jerseys. And I just
  1198. 48:04like pictured myself in these jerseys.
  1199. 48:07Walk into school the next day just like
  1200. 48:09with a little bit of swagger in my step.
  1201. 48:12Then I get a call that night from the
  1202. 48:15coach and he was like, "Sorry, you
  1203. 48:18didn't make the team."
  1204. 48:20And when I found out, I was like, "I
  1205. 48:23didn't make the team. Like, who took my
  1206. 48:25spot?" Turns out it was the coach's
  1207. 48:28son
  1208. 48:30made the team for the shortstop spot.
  1209. 48:34And he was like a year younger and also
  1210. 48:37just like a very he was a year younger.
  1211. 48:40when you're six and seven, that's like a
  1212. 48:42big deal.
  1213. 48:43>> Sure.
  1214. 48:43>> I learned a very valuable lesson that
  1215. 48:45day, which was
  1216. 48:47the world is unfair.
  1217. 48:50Um, sometimes you could
  1218. 48:53hit really well, do really well in life,
  1219. 48:56do all the right things, but sometimes
  1220. 48:58just the way the cookie crumbles
  1221. 49:01is
  1222. 49:02some gatekeeper somewhere does
  1223. 49:04something, some VC doesn't want to fund
  1224. 49:06it even though they said they'd fund it.
  1225. 49:08You know, there's a million things that
  1226. 49:10could happen in life and that are out of
  1227. 49:13your control. And that was such a
  1228. 49:17monumental
  1229. 49:18formative experience for me. What I
  1230. 49:22learned from it
  1231. 49:24was was that was basically just like
  1232. 49:27being okay with the fact that not
  1233. 49:30everything is in your control. What's a
  1234. 49:31lesson in life that's been hardest for
  1235. 49:33you to learn? Not everything in life is
  1236. 49:35is in my control. I mean, I think as
  1237. 49:38human beings, we want to control things,
  1238. 49:41right? Like what I love about using a
  1239. 49:44computer is that I can control it in the
  1240. 49:47sense I can tell it to do it certain
  1241. 49:49things and part of that makes me in the
  1242. 49:51flow state of like I feel relaxed when I
  1243. 49:55when I do it. I think human beings want
  1244. 49:57to feel relaxed. We want to
  1245. 50:00there's a certain amount of pressure
  1246. 50:02that exists when we are in a volatile
  1247. 50:06situation and I think we all want to be
  1248. 50:08away from that. So
  1249. 50:11you know I always say it's kind of like
  1250. 50:14in some ways you want to live your life
  1251. 50:17you want to live a light life and in
  1252. 50:20that sense like you don't want to feel
  1253. 50:22like you have all these like
  1254. 50:23dependencies and external pressures and
  1255. 50:25stuff like that. So that's been hard
  1256. 50:27hard to deal with. At the same time, you
  1257. 50:29also want to fulfill your potential. You
  1258. 50:32know, you don't want to do you don't
  1259. 50:34want to not do things because you're
  1260. 50:35like, you know what, that's going to
  1261. 50:37invoke a whole bunch of external
  1262. 50:39dependencies and like I don't want to
  1263. 50:41deal with like if that goes wrong. So
  1264. 50:44dealing with those two things has been
  1265. 50:46something that I I spend a lot of my
  1266. 50:47time thinking about.
  1267. 50:48>> What's a limiting belief that you still
  1268. 50:50wrestle with today? In my mind, I have
  1269. 50:53like two sets of inspirations. So, I
  1270. 50:57have like the the Silicon Valley greats,
  1271. 51:01like the people who built Silicon
  1272. 51:02Valley, the people the biggest
  1273. 51:04billionaires on the planet, the biggest
  1274. 51:06founders on the planet, the people doing
  1275. 51:07big things, the Jensen Huangs, the Mark
  1276. 51:09Zuckerbergs, those types of people. And
  1277. 51:12the other end of the spectrum, I have
  1278. 51:13like my, you know, my grandfather who
  1279. 51:16had like, you know, a small business
  1280. 51:18that, but he he he he led his life on um
  1281. 51:24his own terms. I you know I don't know
  1282. 51:26if it's a limiting belief being like I
  1283. 51:28want to own a bunch you know a bunch of
  1284. 51:31small businesses
  1285. 51:32>> but like I I I just what I deal with and
  1286. 51:36I'm not really answering your question
  1287. 51:37but I feel like the struggle I have is
  1288. 51:40deciding where on the spectrum I want to
  1289. 51:43be. So is that a limiting belief?
  1290. 51:46Perhaps
  1291. 51:48you could say that my limiting belief is
  1292. 51:51I'm not thinking big enough. Um, that
  1293. 51:54being said, I live a life that I love
  1294. 51:57and that I I think Virgil Abau uh used
  1295. 52:00to say like I live a life that makes
  1296. 52:03your 16-year-old proud.
  1297. 52:05>> Like my 16-year-old self is I think
  1298. 52:07would be extremely proud of what I've
  1299. 52:10accomplished and what I what I do on a
  1300. 52:11dayto-day. So, it's kind of like I don't
  1301. 52:13know where that's where do you feel
  1302. 52:15fulfilled?
  1303. 52:16>> Yeah. Yeah. There's a study that said
  1304. 52:18that like vast majority of people don't
  1305. 52:21live within their means. They don't live
  1306. 52:23within even rich people like really
  1307. 52:25really rich people who don't like a
  1308. 52:27large percentage of really wealthy
  1309. 52:28people still don't live within this
  1310. 52:31incredible life they created because
  1311. 52:33they're always trying to get more.
  1312. 52:35They're always trying to go for more.
  1313. 52:36And I I mean I struggle with this too.
  1314. 52:39And I mean I look I live in Northern
  1315. 52:41California. So you know what is enough?
  1316. 52:44And then what what am I like what's
  1317. 52:48right for me? And that's that's only a
  1318. 52:51question that I can answer. and what's
  1319. 52:52right for Mark Zuckerberg who I used to
  1320. 52:54live down the street from and I was
  1321. 52:56renting but he he owned he owns like
  1322. 52:59eight homes there. Um but I mean that
  1323. 53:02was like a very real every day would
  1324. 53:03drive home and I would drive past his
  1325. 53:04house and his security guard and be like
  1326. 53:08we live on the same street. I we sleep
  1327. 53:10we both sleep on a bed like we're both
  1328. 53:14breathing the same air but you know is
  1329. 53:17it enough or do I have to go be that?
  1330. 53:19And I think that's that's one of these
  1331. 53:21existential questions of life is just
  1332. 53:23coming to terms with who you are, who
  1333. 53:25you uniquely are and then like being
  1334. 53:27comfortable with that.
  1335. 53:28>> Yeah.
  1336. 53:28>> And coming to terms with that.
  1337. 53:30>> Yeah.
  1338. 53:30>> And if it's Grant Cardone, it's like
  1339. 53:34it's always like, you know, in our
  1340. 53:36interview, we spent a lot of time
  1341. 53:38talking about the yacht. He wants he has
  1342. 53:40he's like gunned for the question is
  1343. 53:42like could you just rent I mean you he
  1344. 53:44could afford to rent the yacht but he's
  1345. 53:45like really got to own it and like well
  1346. 53:48he's at the other end of the spectrum
  1347. 53:49right he's he's trying to do big things
  1348. 53:53and a part of that is like I don't know
  1349. 53:55him or or know him well but my my
  1350. 54:00what I've gathered from people who do
  1351. 54:03those big things is they there's a
  1352. 54:05certain lifestyle attached to it. It's
  1353. 54:07like I think it's like that's what's
  1354. 54:08right for him and actually like the
  1355. 54:11answer is like you could say that's the
  1356. 54:14wrong thing for him to go after but
  1357. 54:15actually I think for him it's the right
  1358. 54:17thing for him to go after because that's
  1359. 54:18how he's wired.
  1360. 54:19>> It's not really how maybe I'm wired or
  1361. 54:22you're wired
  1362. 54:22>> maybe. And you know it's sort of like no
  1363. 54:25one knows except Grant.
  1364. 54:27>> Right.
  1365. 54:28>> Right. So if he's if he's being if he's
  1366. 54:30being honest I mean I guess if he's
  1367. 54:31being authentic to what he's saying like
  1368. 54:33like and I think he is I think he's very
  1369. 54:36authentic to who he is like he is the
  1370. 54:38guy that you see and I've you've watched
  1371. 54:41and that I've listened to his books like
  1372. 54:43>> I don't know I spent two hours with him
  1373. 54:46he seems to be that guy I can only speak
  1374. 54:48to myself and what I've learned is the
  1375. 54:51most honest version of myself is the
  1376. 54:54version that you see today when I raised
  1377. 54:56venture capital and I was doing the
  1378. 54:58Silicon Valley thing. I was doing it
  1379. 55:00because I thought that that's what I
  1380. 55:03needed to be in order to be successful.
  1381. 55:06And then I realized that I don't I don't
  1382. 55:09need I can be whoever I think is
  1383. 55:11interesting, cool to myself, even if
  1384. 55:14it's uncool,
  1385. 55:15>> you know, I could just do things that I
  1386. 55:17think are interesting to me and make a
  1387. 55:21living doing that. And and that's what
  1388. 55:23makes me happy.
  1389. 55:24>> When someone says your name in 50 years,
  1390. 55:26what do you hope they say next? I would
  1391. 55:28say he helped me.
  1392. 55:30That's it. You know, if I can help
  1393. 55:32people, I want to serve people. Like I
  1394. 55:36always say like I live to serve.
  1395. 55:38>> And you know, on my YouTube channel or
  1396. 55:41on my podcast, like when people comment
  1397. 55:43stuff and they're always like, "Thank
  1398. 55:44you so much. Like I never knew this like
  1399. 55:45tool existed or this idea like changed
  1400. 55:47my life. I found an idea off your
  1401. 55:49podcast.
  1402. 55:50Now I'm doing 100k a month." And I
  1403. 55:52usually just respond like my default is
  1404. 55:54I live to serve. I think that if human
  1405. 55:56beings live to serve, you know, we live
  1406. 55:59in such a polarizing negative place that
  1407. 56:03in some ways that if we can live to
  1408. 56:05serve, I think the world hopefully would
  1409. 56:10be a little a little bit better. Outside
  1410. 56:12of family, who's the person you most
  1411. 56:13admire?
  1412. 56:14>> I don't know if I admire anyone.
  1413. 56:16I have respect for a lot of people
  1414. 56:20and I'm inspired by a lot of people.
  1415. 56:22admire like that feels like like it's a
  1416. 56:24muse, you know what I mean? Like I have
  1417. 56:26someone on a pedestal.
  1418. 56:27>> Yeah.
  1419. 56:28>> Um I I I wouldn't I wouldn't say I have
  1420. 56:31anyone.
  1421. 56:32>> If you could implant one idea into
  1422. 56:33everyone in the world, what would it be?
  1423. 56:35Live to serve.
  1424. 56:37Live to serve. If you can
  1425. 56:40if you can find something some like we
  1426. 56:43talked about, you know, marry the niche,
  1427. 56:46date the product. If you can find a
  1428. 56:47niche group of people that you really
  1429. 56:50care about and you can serve them and
  1430. 56:52add value to their lives,
  1431. 56:55to me that's a life worth living.
  1432. 56:57Hardest thing you've ever accomplished?
  1433. 56:58The hardest thing I ever accomplished
  1434. 57:00was is just being truthful to myself.
  1435. 57:03Like not getting We live in such a a
  1436. 57:06world where there's so much tension over
  1437. 57:09here, tension over there. Come here, do
  1438. 57:10this, do that. And I find it difficult
  1439. 57:15to
  1440. 57:17like put blockers on. Like you you I'm
  1441. 57:19sure you've seen pictures or seen horses
  1442. 57:22that have like blinders on and they just
  1443. 57:24like go run. Like to me that's been the
  1444. 57:27hardest in life to basically be like,
  1445. 57:29"Okay, I have these three goals in life.
  1446. 57:32Be an incredible father and husband. uh
  1447. 57:35say um you know serve 10 million people,
  1448. 57:4010 10 million entrepreneurs by giving
  1449. 57:42them ideas and tactics and stuff like
  1450. 57:44that and give back to my community um
  1451. 57:48from like a philan philanthropic
  1452. 57:50perspective. I just want to do those
  1453. 57:52things, you know what I mean? And
  1454. 57:54sometimes life has this way of being
  1455. 57:56like you should go over here, you should
  1456. 57:58go over here and I'm trying my best to
  1457. 58:00stay focused. Best advice for overcoming
  1458. 58:03hard things. the people that love you
  1459. 58:05the most. And it's interesting because
  1460. 58:07the people that love you the most, you
  1461. 58:09go to them the least for advice,
  1462. 58:13>> for example, like your parents, your
  1463. 58:16aunts and uncles, your cousins, the
  1464. 58:18people you grow up with, you know, I
  1465. 58:20think I wouldn't discount
  1466. 58:23those people's advice to help you get
  1467. 58:27you to where you want to go. It's really
  1468. 58:30smart. Actually, a close friend of mine
  1469. 58:33told me that one time that my dad had
  1470. 58:35told him that he didn't think I asked
  1471. 58:38for his advice very much. And I think it
  1472. 58:40wasn't something naturally like just I
  1473. 58:42done on purpose. I just hadn't thought
  1474. 58:44of it. And so I've started doing that a
  1475. 58:46lot more since they made that comment.
  1476. 58:48And I've it's been really helpful that I
  1477. 58:51mean it's my answer is the nonviral,
  1478. 58:54non-clippable answer that I think is
  1479. 58:56truthful. The answer that I could have
  1480. 58:58given you that would like go viral would
  1481. 59:00be like the people you grew up with just
  1482. 59:02because you live there, you know, they
  1483. 59:05they don't love you and you know your
  1484. 59:07parents choose your own family and burn
  1485. 59:10your bridges and and it's like picking
  1486. 59:13where you are on the spectrum, who you
  1487. 59:15truly are. Like the people you grew up
  1488. 59:17with are underrated
  1489. 59:19and that's my take on that. And that
  1490. 59:22doesn't mean you can't have people
  1491. 59:25uh you know you can't create a spectrum
  1492. 59:27of people you get advice from, people
  1493. 59:29who love you the most and people who you
  1494. 59:31admire or look up to. But I think that
  1495. 59:34we tend to model our lives after like
  1496. 59:37the aspirational people. And we don't
  1497. 59:40tend to model our lives around the
  1498. 59:42people who love us the most. If you die
  1499. 59:44and you meet God, what do you hope he
  1500. 59:46says to you?
  1501. 59:47>> You did a good job. And uh and how do
  1502. 59:50you measure your life? Probably by what
  1503. 59:52my family
  1504. 59:56says about me, you know, if if I mean,
  1505. 1:00:00I'm I'm a I'm a father now. I'm a year
  1506. 1:00:03and a half old and and assume to have
  1507. 1:00:05another one uh and a mom.
  1508. 1:00:09So yeah, you know, as you know, being a
  1509. 1:00:12dad like completely changes your how you
  1510. 1:00:14think about things and you really just
  1511. 1:00:16care about like what your your children
  1512. 1:00:19think about you and your your partner
  1513. 1:00:21thinks about you and what your family
  1514. 1:00:23thinks about you and that becomes
  1515. 1:00:26so important. Your last dying [music]
  1516. 1:00:28thought won't be, man, wonder what that
  1517. 1:00:31Sand Hill Road BC thought of me in that
  1518. 1:00:33pitch. Well, my last dying thought, I'll
  1519. 1:00:36have agents running a loop anyways. So,
  1520. 1:00:39I'll be, you know, hope I'll be making
  1521. 1:00:40money when I'm dead. [laughter]
  1522. 1:00:43>> Hey, appreciate you, man. Thanks for
  1523. 1:00:45having me.
  1524. 1:00:53>> Give it

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