Supered Man: Rob Jones on Comedy, Creativity, and Navigating with or without AI
Welcome to the inaugural episode of the AICHE AI Curious Human Enthusiast Podcast! In the kickoff, host Erich Starrett sits down with the endlessly creative and infectiously funny Rob Jones—a man who’s brought humor, audacity, and a unique curiosity for AI into every corner of his career.
Rob Jones shares his unconventional path from behavioral psychology and firefighting to taking the B2B SaaS world by storm—first with viral LinkedIn parodies and now as a passionate product evangelist at Supered. Together, Erich Starrett and Rob Jones explore what it means to be “AI curious,” how humans can partner with AI without losing their creative edge, and the ways technology both challenges and frees us to focus on what truly makes us tick. Along the way, you’ll hear personal stories about learning from mistakes, the power of good humor, and why being unapologetically human may be our greatest asset in a world saturated with automation.
So whether you’re here for the laughs or to dive deeper into the ever-evolving relationship between humans and AI, this episode is packed with insights, laughter, and a fresh take on what it means to be an engaged, curious human in the age of AI. Let’s dive in!
About our guest:
Rob Jones, Brand Evangelist – Supered⚡
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-jones-%E2%9A%A1%EF%B8%8F-a9878bb1
Rob always knew his knack for translative thinking and communication could make a difference—so did his employers. Recognizing his strengths, they whisked him away from the grind of client schedules and CRM logs, and into a new creative role. Now, Rob spends his days crafting engaging content, conducting interviews, making videos, and shaping the narrative of his company. His biggest challenge to date? Rewriting the company’s story from the ground up—a task as demanding as it was rewarding, and one that showcased his true talents.
Transcript
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the aiche a I
Speaker:curious human enthusiast podcast with none other than Rob Jones,
Speaker:who if there is a human being that's leaning into his given
Speaker:gifting of comedy, of just
Speaker:amazing audacity, of being
Speaker:funny, of being creative and leveraging AI in the
Speaker:journey, this is the dude right here. So it's awesome to have
Speaker:him here in the studios with us. To kick off the new year,
Speaker:Rob and I finally crossed paths face to face
Speaker:at this little event we were now about to get into the
Speaker:third year of called Southbound. So we got a little bit of history
Speaker:ourselves and went from fanboy following him
Speaker:on LinkedIn to watching him continue to rise. And
Speaker:these days, he's moved on from Rev Partners, but not too
Speaker:far over to Superd, where he's evangelizing
Speaker:product, which dude, you've been evangelist since birth. I
Speaker:think you've just chosen what the next thing is. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker:more yourself before you're. We dive into the
Speaker:aiche kind of thing. How about that? Yeah,
Speaker:my. I've. So I was at RevPartners.
Speaker:Matt Bolian is a guy that was a co founder. He
Speaker:co founded Soup co founded. He's done both.
Speaker:I've known him for 31 years. We grew up down the street
Speaker:from each other. Yeah, I beat him in chess, I beat
Speaker:him in baseball, I beat him in every ping pong, everything.
Speaker:And then he went to West Point and London School of Economics. And
Speaker:did you know he was in the military for seven years in
Speaker:military intelligence. And I, as somebody, I
Speaker:graduated one spot ahead of him in our high school class, by the
Speaker:way. So I don't. This is, this is very far background, but you know,
Speaker:you are cur. AI curious human
Speaker:enthusiast. I hope you're enthusiastic about the background.
Speaker:Anyway, so you're first to this podcast too. So just saying.
Speaker:Right. Oh, I gotta set a high bar then. Okay, so let me, let me
Speaker:do about 40 more minutes of backstory. No, we.
Speaker:I'm just saying you beat Bolly in here just as you have by that much
Speaker:everywhere else. That's right. I'll skip ahead through all the boring stuff. So
Speaker:I was. I've done everything, man. I went to school for behavioral
Speaker:psychology. I was a behavioral therapist at Whitfield, which is
Speaker:the setting for Time to Kill in Mississippi. I
Speaker:have four kids. I was. I was doing that. I was a
Speaker:firefighter for five years. I was a residential account executive and manager
Speaker:for a telecom in Mississippi. And then I got into SAS
Speaker:almost by accident as a really kind of like A part time
Speaker:intern, I think I. Matt challenged me to start
Speaker:posting videos and doing, you know, he was like, you know how you used to
Speaker:make those songs and, and parodies? Can you just try a couple of those for
Speaker:LinkedIn? Matt encouraged you to do that first?
Speaker:Interesting. The third one I ever made because I
Speaker:started off with some like Rob Learns Rev Ops or,
Speaker:or something. The third one I ever made was a full house parody
Speaker:and it went, I mean, from, by all accounts,
Speaker:like LinkedIn viral. Yeah. And, and Matt told me that
Speaker:was my new job. So that's how I got into this and got started.
Speaker:I since have done sales. I've done. I was an
Speaker:interim sales manager by the way. Would not trust me to do that again. I
Speaker:love sales. I understand it's one of the hardest
Speaker:jobs in the world. I decided
Speaker:that my translative ability and my communication
Speaker:skills and the way that I position things were more valuable and the
Speaker:powers that be agreed. And so they said, we're getting you out
Speaker:of having to follow a schedule and talk to people and you know,
Speaker:and log stuff in the CRM and we'll get you into making, you know, content
Speaker:and doing interviews and making videos and, and you know, writing
Speaker:a narrative. I think the, the most, the
Speaker:hardest marketing or product task that I've done so far was
Speaker:recently and it was rewriting a narrative for the company. So.
Speaker:Interesting. So you used your gift to turn around and
Speaker:inspire others to log into their CRM and figure
Speaker:out what happens next. Right. I just think if you can't
Speaker:laugh at yourself and some other things, then what are you
Speaker:doing? So I think humor is an effective tool. And I've
Speaker:been told I'm. I don't agree some, my kids don't think I'm funny. But if
Speaker:it helps and it helps, you know, increase awareness and gravity to what we're trying
Speaker:to do, then I like pointing people in the direction of my
Speaker:teammates who are all, you know, super competent and capable. Well, I love
Speaker:that bit of your backstory too about sales management because it provides credibility.
Speaker:Exactly what you said. You can say, hey, this is hard. I get it.
Speaker:I've walked in those shoes. I'm here to help. But not just
Speaker:I'm here to help. I've walked in those shoes. I'm passionate about making
Speaker:it more fun, more accessible and bringing that
Speaker:whole world to you, the world of CRM. And maybe we'll sneak in a little
Speaker:bit about what super does specifically in that world in a little
Speaker:bit. But in fact, maybe in this first question, which is,
Speaker:hey, Rob, what does AI, curious human
Speaker:enthusiasts mean to you? Is it personal? I mean,
Speaker:I heard the behavioral undergrad that you talked
Speaker:about, that's really interesting. I'm wondering if that, if that phrase, you
Speaker:know, what that says to you about you and maybe the world these days.
Speaker:I love acronyms. I read this as
Speaker:ache. Like heartache or tummy ache. Breaky.
Speaker:Yeah, it's just neurons overlapping. So,
Speaker:yeah, I think if you're not curious, then you're not exposed
Speaker:and you're living under a rock. I think Nico Lafakis,
Speaker:who is, he's at Smoke Signals now, he, he,
Speaker:he is brilliant. I did a, like a, a session with him and
Speaker:I just like, what is, what is an ll? What is AI like? Tell me
Speaker:the difference. Just Eli5 explain it to me like I'm 5.
Speaker:And he said, imagine the smartest person you've ever met,
Speaker:but 10,000 times smarter and quicker. And that's what we're, that's
Speaker:what we're dealing with here. Even if it's wrong, even if it hallucinates, the capability
Speaker:is, is about that. And so if you're not
Speaker:curious about that type of potential,
Speaker:then, then I, I just don't know what to say
Speaker:anymore. I feel like I was literally reading some statistics before
Speaker:this and 99 of people, according
Speaker:to, you know, whatever the pollster or the, the website was, have at least
Speaker:heard of or are aware of AI.
Speaker:55% of US adults use AI regularly, which means
Speaker:once a week, 27% use AI frequently, which
Speaker:is like daily or multiple times daily. So I think the
Speaker:rage, the current number from:Speaker:million. And:Speaker:Wow. You see the investments from big companies like Meta and Google
Speaker:and everybody else, you know that are doing that. So there is,
Speaker:there is a, I'd say like the highest of ceilings.
Speaker:But figuring out how to use it and create
Speaker:standardized outcomes is the tie into super AI
Speaker:is amazing for that specific individual user in a lot of
Speaker:cases. How do you take that and allow for
Speaker:more productivity, more quicker speed to value
Speaker:whatever it is, whatever application it is, and be able to standardize those
Speaker:outcomes across a team. That's what I'm curious about. And
Speaker:where super leverages AI is being inside
Speaker:of your CRM and walking along with you in the
Speaker:journey and leveraging different data sources.
Speaker:I'm assuming, including AI, GPT, third
Speaker:party bringing into, is that part of the element as well or is it
Speaker:all intelligence based on your CRM? And not bringing
Speaker:anything externally back in in the journey. Super. Currently, I think
Speaker:we're an outlier here. Does not leverage AI, not in the product.
Speaker:Oh, interesting. I didn't know super is a. Is the
Speaker:process layer. So everything is either wrapped in AI or has an AI layer
Speaker:or powered by AI or whatever. SuperD is the
Speaker:process layer that the best way I've invented. By the way, I'm gonna test this
Speaker:on you since it's your first pod. And here we go. Here we go.
Speaker:Super is the. If you think about process or organizations
Speaker:or the act of doing things. Yeah, it's. It's very much like the three
Speaker:branches of government. You have legislative, you have judicial, and you have
Speaker:executive. AI is unbelievable at
Speaker:legislating, not making laws, but creating things.
Speaker:So I need a blog done. I need 10 blogs done. I need a
Speaker:thousand word document done. I need ideas for marketing copy or whatever.
Speaker:I need you to build me a sales process based on unbelievable.
Speaker:AI is also very good at ranking things, which I would
Speaker:say is judicial. Why is this not good? What's wrong?
Speaker:Critique this. Make this into a. As close to
Speaker:a 10 out of 10 blog copy as you can, whatever that is.
Speaker:Yeah. Is very good at ranking things. AI is not yet very
Speaker:good at enforcing behavior.
Speaker:Not, not very good at all. I had a very long conversation with Claude the
Speaker:other night and it put a bunch of prompts on my calendar
Speaker:and has yet to follow up with me about any of them. So super functions
Speaker:as the executive branch. It makes sure that you're doing
Speaker:what it is that has been set forth and what the expectations are.
Speaker:That's my last super plug. But you did ask and I think that's a pretty
Speaker:decent metaphor. I like it. That's, that's well done, man. So
Speaker:let's, let's shift back to Rob. So what were you made
Speaker:for? So what do you feel is the given gifting
Speaker:you bring? I snuck a few of my own opinions in to this big
Speaker:blue marble here. As a human being, your unique talents,
Speaker:passion, purpose, wiring you've uncovered personally and
Speaker:professionally that makes you tick and that you share with the world.
Speaker:I can answer this in like one of three ways. Which way do you want
Speaker:one first?
Speaker:Okay. When I was a child, I had
Speaker:behavior problems. I went to a psychologist, I
Speaker:tested off the charts. I was like mensa level iq. So I have,
Speaker:it's probably shrank a bit over the years with kids and you know, college and
Speaker:all that. But I, I'm, I'm a, I'm a decently smart Guy.
Speaker:So that's one of the gifts. I have found that my most effective
Speaker:application of that is listening. And more
Speaker:from college and the experience as a behavioral therapist in listening
Speaker:and getting people to open up. And I can create
Speaker:bridges of understanding using metaphors and using whatever
Speaker:translative ability that I have. That's exceptionally
Speaker:powerful in marketing when you're trying to position to different subsets of
Speaker:people with different interests, different personalities, different goals, different pains.
Speaker:So listening and then being able to translate back what I heard and value
Speaker:and connect that with things. Pretty good at that. The third
Speaker:way I was going to say is I am a jack of all trades,
Speaker:master of none. I play. I'm very good at, I am pretty good
Speaker:at almost anything that I try. I just
Speaker:am not an expert at anything at all. So
Speaker:I'm, I'm very well rounded, but I'm not, I'm not going to be like a
Speaker:global thought leader in, you know, macroeconomics or,
Speaker:you know, I'm not going to be on Billboard Top 100. You know, nothing like
Speaker:that. Love it. Well, I'm surprised you didn't throw the creative,
Speaker:creative aspect, creativity in there because, man, you've got
Speaker:a ton of it, brother. I think that, I mean, there is
Speaker:inherent creativity in being able to translate things quickly
Speaker:to people. The executive branch metaphor was kind of,
Speaker:I mean, as on the spot as you can get. I thought of that
Speaker:before this meeting, going through the list of questions and how do I. How do
Speaker:I explain this? So, so that is. It is creating
Speaker:understanding from shared bodies of
Speaker:understanding. Well, and, and if anyone on the,
Speaker:in the podcast audience hasn't watched one or three hundred
Speaker:plus of Rob's video, what are you up to now? I saw you throw a
Speaker:number out. There the other day. I was like, what? I got some more to
Speaker:watch. It's. It's close to like
Speaker:300 now. I've done 150 like songs. So like
Speaker:parody songs that I really enjoy doing. I.
Speaker:In Q4, we had an initiative to launch this BSTN
Speaker:network, which is a sales and tech network and we did
Speaker:60 minutes of original content a week for 12 weeks. So that's, I
Speaker:don't know, let's just say a thousand videos, something like that. Crazy,
Speaker:man. Love it. So catch up folks. You're on a little bit behind.
Speaker:Great way to kick off your:Speaker:once. So administrivia. Rob,
Speaker:a word we love to throw around here at the
Speaker:Aiche. Well, I'll go abbreviation since you like
Speaker:them, which is basically the life sucking repetitive
Speaker:tasks that consume us as humans and that
Speaker:we here believe that AI can serve us in getting rid of
Speaker:all that stuff so we can focus on those given gifting items that
Speaker:we were just talking about. So just curious both
Speaker:personally and professionally, we've already gone a little bit into the super.
Speaker:What's one specific piece or task of
Speaker:administravia that you've successfully
Speaker:handed off to AI and or helped others do so
Speaker:and what has that freed you up to do more of?
Speaker:I'm not really sure I have some thoughts on this by the way. Administravia. Love
Speaker:the word. Wasn't sure it was a real word. It is. So thank you for.
Speaker:I learn something new every day. I made it up 20,
Speaker:30 years ago. It's stuck though. It is very good.
Speaker:I, I was, I was a bit confused but in your prompt you had
Speaker:like definitions and, and things. So I appreciate that. Life
Speaker:sucking repetitive non creative tasks that consume human time. So a couple things
Speaker:here if you care to hear them. One is very
Speaker:much. I'm a former athlete, also CrossFit coach. We played baseball up
Speaker:until college. If you, if you don't find a way to enjoy
Speaker:that part of the process then,
Speaker:then I don't think you'll be as successful as you could be. The,
Speaker:the practice and the. That is mundane and repetitive.
Speaker:Having an appreciation for that I think is healthy. And
Speaker:so there's a lot of new territory and new things I have to learn with
Speaker:this role. So I haven't used it to automate much
Speaker:if any of that out of the way yet because I enjoy
Speaker:the trenches, I enjoy failing. I enjoy having
Speaker:to do it so that later I can be not only appreciative of that
Speaker:but also there's. There's another athletic type of phrase
Speaker:that's Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. So you
Speaker:can, you can use it to administer, to get rid of some of the
Speaker:administrative. If the administrator. If you know that it's going to be
Speaker:done exactly the way you want every single time. What I use it for currently
Speaker:is a starting place. So here's an
Speaker:idea. Here's what I think. Where am I off? I use it almost more as
Speaker:a, an intellectual partner and
Speaker:specifically I don't know if you've used Suno. Yeah,
Speaker:musical talent is not administribia. I just don't have it. So it'd be more
Speaker:of a. I can sing, I can write really well.
Speaker:I have a good sense of music. I just can't play the
Speaker:xylophone or whatever these instruments are. So I use it for
Speaker:more like creative exploration than currently than for getting rid of
Speaker:administrative. That's great. And what about in. In a
Speaker:professional like Suno is professional for
Speaker:me. Oh, that's true. That's funny. I thought about it that way.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean over both. That's very true. I like it.
Speaker:Canva, cap cut, auto caption stuff like that's more common. I
Speaker:mean something that people will probably take for granted is something that's like Grammarly.
Speaker:So instead of me having to go pick up a dictionary and remember how to
Speaker:spell words like administrivia, it autocorrects for me. That's super
Speaker:time saving being able to
Speaker:organize things a little bit better. But as far as
Speaker:I would have to hear some other good examples to see if I needed to
Speaker:start exploring AI to replace those certain things.
Speaker:Got it, got it. So this one might be interesting
Speaker:because it sounds like at least in the product
Speaker:that you are supporting super, you haven't fully brought AI
Speaker:in. You're just kind of wrestling it. Right. And helping
Speaker:people guide people through AI powered
Speaker:tools. But one of the key phrases that
Speaker:I gravitated towards early on, years and years ago was
Speaker:human in the loop, which is part of what really started this whole
Speaker:AI curious human enthusiast. Like of course there's got to be a human in the
Speaker:loop. We just can't hand this over to the robots. But we took it up
Speaker:a notch here at AICHE and came up with human AI
Speaker:sandwich, which the mantra is be the bread. What do we mean by
Speaker:that? It's the human starts the entire process, brings in
Speaker:the creativity and then partners with AI
Speaker:in the sandwich. Making the meat, the condiments, the creativity,
Speaker:back and forth, iterative, possibly even multiple different AI sources.
Speaker:But at the end when you're delivering it, packaging it up, and you mentioned this
Speaker:a little bit earlier, that human being able to take
Speaker:all of that, make something of it, that's going to land well
Speaker:and possibly if it's a business to business transaction
Speaker:with the needed empathy for that specific human being to deliver that
Speaker:sandwich, so to speak properly. So we're a human
Speaker:AI sandwich kind of shop. Where does that land with you and are there things
Speaker:that you do stop gaps that you've used? What
Speaker:philosophy do you adhere to when bringing AI into what you do?
Speaker:Human in the loop is a. Is a good one. I have a lot of
Speaker:ideas on where in the loop and how much a percentage of the loop the
Speaker:human should be. It's to me, a lot closer to last mile. So human sandwich
Speaker:is good. One of the things that agents kind of
Speaker:I'd say pseudo solve is inspiration, right? Like AI
Speaker:Claude LLMs, you think of GPT, it requires a prompt, it requires
Speaker:inspiration, it requires some task. That's what it requires.
Speaker:So human has to do that. And I think that
Speaker:like, can I pull every source and
Speaker:like aggregate research as quick? No, I can't do any of that. To me, that
Speaker:sourcing thing, I'll go back and answer the question. Sourcing things and research
Speaker:and finding all of that is one thing that I 100%
Speaker:hate. I'm not very good at it. So AI does a lot better job of
Speaker:that. Yeah, yeah, but. But it still needs a human
Speaker:currently. I mean, some have a really funny story. I think there's
Speaker:a question about an oops moment with AI coming up.
Speaker:Not to, not to spoil it for the listeners, but I have a really good
Speaker:one there as a tease. But it still requires
Speaker:like that branch of. Of. Of the
Speaker:judicial branch of like, is this good? Is this exactly
Speaker:what I had hoped? Are there errors? Or is this
Speaker:hallucinate? You know, hallucination is a popular word. So
Speaker:humans are, are judgmental for better or worse and they're editors by
Speaker:nature. So if you can have inspiration pretty consistently,
Speaker:you can leverage AI to do kind of the heavy lifting and typing. I mean
Speaker:AI can type billion words a minute, whatever.
Speaker:If you can use it to do that. And then you're the purveyor of value
Speaker:of like is this good? Is what else needs to happen.
Speaker:That's how I. That's how I currently leverage it. That's how I think people are,
Speaker:are making more,
Speaker:not just more use cases from it, but getting more value
Speaker:out of it. They eliminate the giant time consuming part. They
Speaker:look at our finished product, format it differently, make some
Speaker:corrections, some edits, and then it's ready to go.
Speaker:Love it. So you were seeing the future. You cued this one up
Speaker:and you can take it one of two or both directions.
Speaker:So an AI aha. Or three,
Speaker:a moment when AI surprised you either delightfully or
Speaker:disastrously. So
Speaker:everything from Suno is amazing. It's unreal how
Speaker:quickly that works. Almost all of the music that I've
Speaker:created with that has delighted me in a very good way,
Speaker:I would say more professional, even though that is
Speaker:professionally being able to
Speaker:actually Vibe coded a website
Speaker:over the break. So that was unbelievable. You know,
Speaker:just getting Vercel and GitHub set up and connected. Taking
Speaker:a prompt that I had for BSCN putting it in and saying, make a website.
Speaker:You know, it had a couple errors, but eventually, you know, in 20, 20 minutes,
Speaker:there was a website that had BSTN videos from YouTube as a
Speaker:playlist and had a bunch of other stuff that was pretty amazing. And then I'll
Speaker:show one so the, the podcast listeners won't get this. Here is a horrible
Speaker:one. GPT has like this cartoon and
Speaker:animate filter now. Yeah. And we were doing that with the kids over the
Speaker:break and I asked it to just make all of them look a little bit
Speaker:sillier. There's a picture of my son. Oh my God,
Speaker:he got hit by the car. It is nightmare fuel. So. So, you
Speaker:know, it's close, but that was. That was a very unpleasant
Speaker:experience for the whole family. Yeah. Still haven't slept. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:He looks like. He looks like the woman from Total Recall whenever, you know, she
Speaker:gets exposed to the mars air. Yeah.
Speaker:It's crazy. I love it. That's funny. So
Speaker:certified human being in a world that's getting
Speaker:noisier with all this omnichannel. I'm going to call
Speaker:it AI Automation abuse. I like to call it spraying and
Speaker:praying. But it's S, P R A I N G and
Speaker:P R A I N G. Right. It was spraying and praying was
Speaker:bad enough decades ago. Now AI is doing it
Speaker:all on its own. What's your go to move
Speaker:in? Communicating both on LinkedIn,
Speaker:on. In interpersonal relations with
Speaker:saying, hey, I'm a human versus AI. And do you see
Speaker:that as a trend? Yeah, you're right.
Speaker:Spraying and praying is good. Spraying and praying is what it looks like.
Speaker:That. Yeah, it's. That is becoming more ubiquitous.
Speaker:The seeking to. It's my
Speaker:water notification. New Year, New Me.
Speaker:Yeah. Seeking to. To create value without
Speaker:reciprocity first. So. So a lot of the. I mean in the world that we
Speaker:live in, there's. Everything is more. Feels more transactional. It
Speaker:can feel more predatory. Hey, saw this post. Here's an offer that we have or
Speaker:here's a plate. People that. That are in the
Speaker:B2B world know there is some agenda behind that.
Speaker:So the way I've gotten away from this and I hope to get back to
Speaker:it, the way that I choose to be unmistakably human,
Speaker:one is. Not. Letting
Speaker:a conversation virtually because I'm a remote worker end after a
Speaker:comment. Right. It feels like shouting into the void. So
Speaker:continuing conversations as much as possible whenever they're relevant.
Speaker:Also not being afraid to tell stories and
Speaker:show failure. The one thing about AI Being the smartest
Speaker:entity, being what system ever created is that there's this
Speaker:air of perfectionism, which is actually dipping people's trust a bit
Speaker:lower with the photos and things that are created now.
Speaker:There is a very real, too good to be true type of vibe with
Speaker:AI, which is insane because we have some pretty amazing video
Speaker:editors here that make things without AI, just
Speaker:them using animation tools that are real and people.
Speaker:There have been a couple comments like, oh, that's not very good. It was AI.
Speaker:It wasn't AI. That was so. So being able to
Speaker:show like some cracks in your armor or failure or being able.
Speaker:Being willing and able to share struggle creates camaraderie.
Speaker:And that's very human. I also think that
Speaker:the thing that I had gotten away from is gifting content. So I
Speaker:used to still, we did this a lot for inbound. We did it after
Speaker:Inbound and then we had Q4 and all that. Giving something
Speaker:away, making something and giving it to somebody with again, no
Speaker:expectation of return or reciprocity. It, to me is very human
Speaker:because it feels like there's a what's the catch? And the catch is
Speaker:I just legitimately think that the purple collar guy who I met
Speaker:at Southbound, I'm going back to for a third year, you deserve your own
Speaker:anthem and I made this Suno song. It doesn't cost you a dime. I
Speaker:don't need you to share it necessarily on public. You know, that type of thing
Speaker:I think is as close as I've gotten to, you know, being able to
Speaker:showcase that well. And. And you nailed one of mine for you
Speaker:is you are. And you've even proven it right here in this
Speaker:podcast. You're so humble and transparent and
Speaker:willing to share that so openly that
Speaker:you've been through some rough patches. It you look like you're just the
Speaker:happiest damn guy on the planet and have never even run into
Speaker:a bus, brother. And the more that you share transparently
Speaker:so openly, Even in your LinkedIn posts, you always share that level
Speaker:of humanness that so many of us, even way before
Speaker:I, were so prone to try to be the Facebook
Speaker:family and have everything be perfect. And I'm grateful for that about
Speaker:you because you really. You're a thought leader out there. A lot of people
Speaker:like follow, watch and look up to you, brother, myself included.
Speaker:So please, please stay true to that as you don't even need me to say
Speaker:that. You always do. I appreciate it. You're. You're one of two people
Speaker:I would consider to be not. Not just a thought
Speaker:Leader, but a thinking of others leader. Pete Vomicil. I don't know if you've crossed
Speaker:paths with him. He. He's Mr. Open to help bright spot in people's
Speaker:feeds. Having that type of approach and perspective, especially
Speaker:in a increasingly disconnected and remote world, I think is
Speaker:really important. And so if you can, if you can be a thought leader by
Speaker:thinking of others, then I think that's just another,
Speaker:another thing that would make me want to connect with you as a human. I've
Speaker:also said you don't have to be a top mind to be top of mind.
Speaker:So sharing that I posted about this yesterday. It's like I just had
Speaker:two weeks off for the holidays and realized how much I take this job for
Speaker:granted. In the fire service, it was 24 hour shifts, 48 off.
Speaker:Do it again. There were no holidays. Like you got lucky if your
Speaker:day, you know, got skipped. So, so that's,
Speaker:to me, that's not. It's more like outward
Speaker:radical candor towards the public than it is transparency. I don't have
Speaker:anything necessarily that I can brag too much about
Speaker:or that I'm too afflicted with. You know, I've got family
Speaker:and health and got a job and, you know, all of that. So
Speaker:if it comes off as being helpful and transparent
Speaker:and leading with thought, then I, I'm shocked. And I appreciate it.
Speaker:It certainly does. You can't help it. It's just who you are and
Speaker:grateful for your feedback, man. You have no idea how much that means to be,
Speaker:to even be in your top 30, let alone three.
Speaker:Top two, baby. I love you, man. Back at
Speaker:you, by the way. And so we land with this. We gotta land
Speaker:on the future, right? Which to me, the future's like next
Speaker:Wednesday. Everything's moving so quickly.
Speaker:But we gotta work our AI letters in. So it's a future so
Speaker:bright. V R A I G H D, right? Question mark? Is it
Speaker:right? So in three to five years, again, I've shown
Speaker:my cards. I'm an AI curious human enthusiast.
Speaker:I believe that humans will continue to win the day. And a lot of these
Speaker:folks that are being let go and replaced 100% by AI,
Speaker:that's going to come full circle because humans are going to crave even more
Speaker:humans. But for you, like in three to five years, how do
Speaker:you envision AI and human beings coexisting at work,
Speaker:at home, locally, globally? What do you think that might look like?
Speaker:Yeah, BSDN's New Year's episode featured a character called
Speaker:Sastradamus that Prognosticated
Speaker:a bunch of stuff. I bought the T shirt. I don't know if you saw
Speaker:my comments on that. I love it. Yeah, it is. That was
Speaker:a fun one to do. I. I mean
Speaker:your guess is as good as mine is is my real answer. But if you
Speaker:wanted me to predict it, I almost think there's one of two options. One is.
Speaker:It. It feels more likely. Just like with the Internet and everything else.
Speaker:That was a huge trend and people dumped a lot of money into it. It
Speaker:will take off and then it'll die down and then people will fix it and
Speaker:we'll figure out ways to utilize AI in
Speaker:very philanthropic, meaningful, human centered
Speaker:ways. Unless we want to become Skynet and Terminator
Speaker:franchise. The other
Speaker:way I think is that.
Speaker:Sounds insane. It's not that AI would do anything
Speaker:weird or take over or blow up the world or doomsday scenario,
Speaker:but there are some very real and scary. Just like with any
Speaker:social media or phone or dopamine use, there's some real scary like
Speaker:neuroscience data about the usage of AI.
Speaker:Where do you learn how to learn if you just have something that
Speaker:does it for you? Right. So a species not in two years or
Speaker:three years, but in 10 to 15 years that never learned how to
Speaker:struggle, never learned how to learn, never learned how to write. People are forgetting how
Speaker:to write cursive now and that's. It's a
Speaker:slower death, if you will. Yeah. As like my second option. But
Speaker:if it becoming too reliant on anything, I
Speaker:don't think is. Is great. Right. Unless it's, you know, like your wife, family,
Speaker:whatever. But being too reliant on something that is the ultimate
Speaker:dopamine. Hit it. It's
Speaker:all. It would almost be like an epidemic of AI as a drug. Like
Speaker:destroying the human's ability to think creatively and be inspired and
Speaker:have insights of their own. So I don't know when or if
Speaker:that'll happen. Hopefully not. But I think shying away
Speaker:from the usage of AI and contributing to.
Speaker:There are so many good use cases with medical breakthroughs and being
Speaker:able to diagnose faster and be able to triage and all
Speaker:sorts of stuff like that, that's where AI and humans would
Speaker:be symbiotic in their
Speaker:relationship, like mutually beneficial one where
Speaker:we rely too much on thinking for us or doing all
Speaker:the work for us or making decisions for us. That to me
Speaker:is scarier, probably less likely as an outcome.
Speaker:But you know, I'm not Sastradamus, so. You might be, you might
Speaker:be. Well and for me I mean, again, all transparency,
Speaker:even pre AI ish. At least the
Speaker:boom. I can. Can't read a fricking map or know where the
Speaker:hell I'm going without my gps. It scared the crap out of
Speaker:me. My. My car GPS goes out because it's connected my
Speaker:iPhone. I'm like, I don't. I live in a neighborhood. I don't know how to
Speaker:get to my daughter's softball game or what, Right. I'm
Speaker:like, we weren't. Paper map. Those still exist. I mean, they still do.
Speaker:I saw a Rand McNally atlas, and I had to stop and think about that
Speaker:for a minute. It had been decades since I had seen an atlas.
Speaker:Yeah, I remember the days of printing off 10 pages of mapquests to go to
Speaker:the beach and. And just following them. Yeah,
Speaker:right? That's hilarious. Well, Rob, it's been an absolute
Speaker:pleasure. I can't wait to see you. Quick commercial to the
Speaker:crowd at southbound, was it 16th of
Speaker:April. I'm doing that off the top of. The head day after
Speaker:tax day. Great reason to celebrate. There you go. All the.
Speaker:All the crazy money you got back from the government. Come spend it
Speaker:with Rob and I. It'll be a super time,
Speaker:guaranteed. I see what you did there. Hey, hey,
Speaker:Rob. Any final parting shots from my. My
Speaker:favorite man of parody parting shots?
Speaker:I would say there is no
Speaker:substitute for intentionality. So whatever you're going to do, be
Speaker:intentional about it. If you're going to go all into AI and struggle and fail
Speaker:and learn and experiment and do whatever, then be intentional about it.
Speaker:There's one thing. This is the kind of messaging positioning I'm trying
Speaker:to figure out now, which is you just mentioned
Speaker:maps and being able to lean on and leverage things that now have just become
Speaker:ingrained in part of your. You're not even like, daily habit, your
Speaker:existence. Like, if you don't have your phone and gps, that's a problem.
Speaker:So it would be almost like a challenge to try doing one
Speaker:thing like analog manually. Is that the right
Speaker:word? Maybe once a week. Just like even cooking
Speaker:for me, right? Like, we got a little egg bite maker and I was
Speaker:gonna just, you know, hey, do you beat. How do you do this? I read
Speaker:the instructions. I actually set it up myself and
Speaker:cooked four of the best little egg bites I've ever had. So that was
Speaker:a win today. It lets me know I'm still human and not just being run
Speaker:by AI, which is. I think
Speaker:that's the scary part right now. A lot of stuff is powered by
Speaker:AI, like apps and tools and whatever. When we become that way
Speaker:is the real worry. And so we
Speaker:end up on the deck of the good ship Wally, fat and unhappy
Speaker:and little floating carts. Of all the movies to, like,
Speaker:possibly be true, Wally is not one I thought would
Speaker:be it. But, I mean, we're. We're a couple years out, maybe. I hope
Speaker:so. At least. 13. Let's go. Awesome
Speaker:brother Rob. Well, thanks again for joining us here on the podcast, and we'll see
Speaker:you soon in the atl, my friend. All right, Eric. Thank you, man.
Speaker:Welcome. Until next time.
Speaker:And be the bread.
