Yeah, it's not a little different. You know, I think even if you took out 90% of the hype, you've got a capability that is twice as big as electricity. If you believe we can change the narrative. If you believe, we can change our communities. If you believe we can change the outcomes, then we can change the world. I'm Rob Richardson. Welcome to disruption. Now. Welcome to Disruption Now. I'm your host and moderator, Rob Richardson. As always, please like subscribe.
We're here at 1819. We're honored to have them as a sponsor with me, a special guest, Pete Blackshaw, who is the founder of Brand Rank I. Also, he was the former leader of CentriFuze which is the central ecosystem here in Cincinnati. And before that, I think he did stuff with Nestle and was just doing things in digital innovation. So he's been innovating and disrupting for a while. Pete, great to have you shake. It have you? Yeah, I mean.
So, Pete, you know, you this is your second startup, right? Like, what made you jump into the startup world again at this point? In both instances, you know, I was in a moment. Yeah. kind of an inflection point in the digital world where you just knew that a disruption. Yeah. You know, as you would put it, was upon us. And, you know, I struggled on the, I think, trying to convince myself that it was hype, shiny new object.
And as I use the tool myself, which has been personally transformative, I concluded that this was the time to take the plunge. And it's a little bit scary. You know, my age, two kids going to college, but I concluded that I would never forgive myself if I didn't. You know, take a shot at it. Right. There's some I'm working on an idea that I'm particularly passionate about. So you can kind of align a historic moment with the personal passion. You know why not.
And then the other thing I was just thinking about was I just think, you know, I expertise is going to be sell demand. There's no there's no downside if you jump into it because you're going to learn ten times faster in startup mode. You may come out with no cash. You may come out of failure. It happens technically. But there's going to be a lot of opportunities, post that experience. And so for me, it was an acceptable risk. And but I'm really excited about kind of shaping the space.
So, hey, I've been around for a long time like, you know, so but it was obviously generative AI that really kind of sparked you. What do you see as this moment? Like, I know a lot of people always say this is going to change everything. And at many moments in time. And there's been a couple times where that's been true. but this time feels a little different. I want to get your perspective on how you think AI is going to shape and change business in our world in general.
Yeah, it's not a little different. You know, I think even if you took out 90% of the hype, you've got a capability that is twice as big as electricity. And I often say this is as much twice. As big as electricity. Yeah, I really I really believe that. and I've often said that, you know, I think one of the biggest historic moments was a big print and printing press. Yeah. You know, all the knowledge was kind of stored in the hills with the monks, you know, and that liberated everything.
It was almost like social media on steroids. Right. And, you know, this is, I mean, this is like intelligence that's highly accessible, right? It is iterating at a scary pace. so facet policy can't keep up with it. none of us can really kind of keep up with it. And we're not really sure where it's going to lead. And there's always a dark side of technology that we need to be on top of. That's why you and I are taking, a proactive and important lead on responsible AI.
but yeah, this is absolutely huge. I mean, just think about it from a, you know, businesses are going to be transformed. there will, in fact be a lot of job dislocation. That doesn't mean net jobs will go down. But a nice way of saying job lost. Yeah, but but but I think as leaders we have to get really in front of what the workforce could look like. Yeah. You know, what does it mean to copilot with this new capability? And what does it mean to say bye bye to a certain industry?
But hello to a new one. This is where universities play a really big role. Universities can also be part of the problem if they don't kind of get in. If they don't. Evolve. Yeah. That's why I think this kind of this island of the future 1819 digital futures is really, really important at this critical moment in time. But it's big. It's it's it's going to change everything. Yeah. I, I have I'm obviously pro innovation across the board.
You know that of course I do have concerns because, I think this I think this is different than past technologies. So past technologies have been sometimes industry specific. We've had we've had very little data on, you know, general purpose technology. The internet was a general purpose technology. so that's one example. There's not many. I think AI is a general purpose technology where it's not getting rid of or modernizing one industry.
It's not the Luddites where it's just like across the board. It's across the board. Right? It's like we've gotten to the point where we're think Mark Cuban said this. We're automating automation, and we don't know what that looks like in terms of the job, in terms of the workforce, in terms of what it looks like. It's a to your point, it's ever changing. And systems and, businesses and everyone else have to adapt quickly. So I like to hear from you like what is your what is your biggest concern.
That business that people aren't realizing about AI real. And then we can talk about the biggest opportunity. Yeah. Well the the biggest concern is if people are going to kind of miss the boat and they're and when you're not kind of in front of it, you know, you get a little bit brash and reckless and maybe you, pushed the wrong policies out of fear and paranoia. And that's understandable because there's a lot of unknown. Yep. I've been since the very day it came out.
I think this can cut in a couple different ways on the access and equity side. There's a part of me that believes that knows that this is a revolution in access. And so therefore, if we get ahead of the curve, we could redefine the rules of access for entrepreneurs. I've co-led workshops with minority small businesses where these tools have allowed these businesses, which have not had access to a lot of resources, tools and the like to kind of get a lot of them up front.
The job issue is almost moot at the small business level. AI gets complicated at the big level. It gets complicated at the white collar level, it gets complicated at the service level. And that's one area that I think is disproportionately represented by minorities and that's where and we just got to get in front of it. Yeah. You know, and this is where I think leadership is. I agree with that. Important I. Think.
And I would say I would give credit to the state of Ohio, kind of both sides of the aisle, I agree. Or, you know, thinking ahead again, I think that's why you're creating. These absolutely. Innovation hubs and the like. But we have to shape the dialog and we need to yeah, we need to. You want a little bit of paranoia right. I think that keeps people on guard. But we also have to help people see possibilities. I mean, what makes me different? Well, not different.
I think you're I, I probably put you in the same camp. Yeah. You know, I'm an urgent optimist. Yeah. So I too. I see possibilities. I'm not a total cynic. I'm not on the dark side of Armageddon, you know? But. But I recognize that if you want the optimism, you have to get it. But the urgency of cannot you. And then this is what we're kind of doing right now. Yeah. What happens if we get it wrong? Listen, I think it's going to be. It'll probably change the political environment.
You know, you've just got a lot of polar extremes in the marketplace and the political environment on both sides. And I think where there's fear, there's division and, where there's the unknown. and so, yeah, this could get really ugly. And, I think, I don't think we've, you know, we've dodged a few bullets with a couple of the strikes that have taken place. You know, I think the Hollywood thing landed, you know, it landed.
You know? Yeah. You know, and I think they kind of found that the hybrid model, but, yeah, it could get there could be some industries that really, create a lot of, political instability and absolutely just got to get in front of it. And I think there's going to potentially there's some, you know, some racial issues. We're going to have to be really sensitive, like who is helped and who is not. And this is where we need to be really attentive to, you know, the different sectors.
I thought McKinsey did a really good job about four months ago, looking at which groups will be impacted or not, but they also had a they kind of same thing we said earlier. Like if we're proactive when we lead that we can get in front of it. Yeah. so I, I agree with that completely. And I, we already have data on the issue, like, we, we know what, what algorithms do without any type of thought process guardrails. That's what social media became.
And that's the that's how we got we these are part of our human nature for on is we have these part of our human nature. To be prejudiced against others is part of our human nature. To, de-emphasizing is sometimes to do things. These things it depends upon, what we want to emphasize and unfortunately. Right. You know, a lot of the algorithms focus on outrage and conspiracy. So those things tend to divide.
And they do that not because they're trying to focus on those things, because their goal is singular. Is algorithms are rules. And all rules, are written in different ways. Correct. All rules manifest themselves in dial. That may be correct a little bit to the right or a little bit to the left. In fact, this is kind of the heart of what we're trying to measure. As part of my new startup. And we are when we just need to be hypersensitive to where we think the dial needs to.
Yeah, to sit in a way that it, positively impacts, the economy, consumer. Just have to be aware, you have to be aware that there could be issues. Oh no question. Right. Like and that's what it gets to because they, it's it's algorithms are rules. But you know AI is also the maybe you're training on the data and it's it it's going to reflect what you input to it. This is which is why it's so important, which is why it's so important to be inclusive.
So but tell us okay, but you entered into AI wanting to solve a specific problem. What? What got you up at night? What problem are you trying to solve within with using AI as a tool? Because I tell people it's not the technology is the problem you're solving. So what problem are you solving?
Well, let me take a step back. So I came to Cincinnati after eight years in Switzerland, leading digital work for NASA, and had a chance to, go all over the world and really kind of see the digital revolution sure place in different ways. And so I came back to Cincinnati to lead this startup accelerator under funds to really kind of grow the local and economy.
And in the process of trying to figure out, like where we could lead a big believer that internet economies where there's a concentration of talent, technology and capital, yeah, have kind of an outsize advantage. And so the areas that have been not just keeping me up at night, but actually making me want to go to work. Yeah. Or areas like sustainability. Sure. Or resilience supply chains. That was a big theme that came out of Covid.
a lot of things on the health front, but and then and then as the AI stuff started to develop, especially in the last 18 months, thinking a lot about the power of responsible AI, could a region that has really good consumer credentials. Again, you got the world's largest advertiser here, the world's third largest retailer here, and the whole ecosystem that supports that. So could we leverage those consumer chops credentials to get in front of these very complicated issues?
And moreover, could we cultivate a lot of entrepreneurs that would want to be the problem solvers or the heroes in that area? And I found myself as a pretty loud cheerleader. Let's do it. And then and then I kind of got to that moment of truth. And I just said, I'm just going to do it myself, you know, give up this really big salary and, be part of the solution and is a whole nother element of wealth creation. If you're successful.
And, but and what I've been thinking about, you know, the areas that I get excited about is really the collision of AI and sustainability. So I actually think I'm a, I, I do lose sleep about the world, not kind of keeping up with its, its carbon commitments. And I think AI is a huge, opportunity to kind of move that ahead.
And some of my inspiration has come from local companies like 80 acres, where they use 99% less water because of the way they use artificial intelligence, you know, and so there's some inspiration. So I think as we get smarter, the use of AI, AI plus sensors, I mean, we could dramatically change the green landscape. And I would like to see it cultivated, you know, here in our backyard. Yeah. So it sounds like you were working to be an entrepreneur, but, like, you decided the best way to do that.
You had to go. Actually, I've always I've always kind of worked. And I was thinking about this the other day. I've always worked in like, five year cycles, so I was always get everybody thinks as a P&G veteran, I was only there for like 5 or 6 years. And then I, you know, after we got interactive Marketer the year I left to do a startup and then I did the startup was a bit of a slog. It took us a while before we got sold to Nielsen, but then I went to Nestlé and then I went.
Startups are usually a bit of a thing. Is just kind of a hybrid between big company and startup. There are elements of that. We're kind of pretty big and bureaucratic. The other parts that we're kind of startup nimble. Yeah. And now I feel. Very like I those probably sounds, but it feels very corporate some time. But go ahead. That's my opinion. Yeah. I mean it sparks a big debate.
I mean, listen, we have a store front for services, but we also work with corporates and we're trying to figure out how to, you know, how to unlock that startup corporate connection. And it's a lot. Of hard challenges. Yeah I know and it's hard. Because there's different cultures. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Now what's different today. It's like again you have to exploit the moment. There's always moments where the organization need to be. It needs to be stimulated.
And I think AI is a moment where startups might have a chance to kind of get in the door, because there's a lot the big cows don't really fully understand. And I'm hoping that I'll be one of those folks that does get in the door, because I'm bringing an outside in perspective on a very, very fast evolving, world. It's just very, very hard to move fast in an organization.
And organizations are really good at like bottling up their learning and everything about disseminating and executing against the learning. But now in the world, generative AI, you got a whole different playbook that's being developed. Yep. So real brand rank. yeah. Trade this. Like what? Again, I can go back to that question like what is brand rank seeking to do? So I'll tell you all great ideas. Start with a big insight. Yes. And it's like that. Oh. Like moment.
And for me, I was like you and everybody just playing around with generative AI. And I started to do searches on sustainability. And I would ask questions like, are campus diapers sustainable or is Unilever's Dove brand sustainable? And I was shocked how granular and size the responses were. And in some cases, some of that data would come from the brand websites. But, you know, generative AI is a weird way.
Imagine like a blender that just kind of takes best available knowledge, puts it in a blender, and then pours it in a mold that you then access. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And that that's a really good metaphor doesn't really change. Now you can you can change the how you can say, give it to me as a Jay-Z rap or give it to me as haiku or to me as a sonnet. But the what? It's like one shot. What? Yeah. And and I thought to myself, and it was funny because I typed in our Pampers sustainable.
And it was interesting because they said they're trying but they're not. And here's the reasons and here are some alternatives. And I thought, wow, that's like that's like that's like implicating for brands. Yeah. That's like a whole different level. So I just thought so that the light bulb went off. I thought, you know, maybe there's a business model in creating kind of a Nielsen ratings of AI search results, helping brand builders understand where they stand in this world.
And then could you use the, I'm a really passion about digital marketing, right? I kind of missed the role of being chief digital officer. You know. You do that well. Yeah. Yeah. But but I think that's at the forefront of change. And what I've noticed is that a lot of brands have gotten really lazy about not lazy. It's just I don't think they are even aware that they're not serving consumers at the level that they should in this environment. So for example, like what? What is. Stagnant?
What is what is generative? I really done it's raised the bar for giving you answers with minimal friction, correct. And with shocking levels of detail and a willingness to continue the dialog. Yeah, right. I mean, you can just keep going. You can. And it feels like you're talking to a really smart best friend. And brands are really bad at that. Yeah. I mean, you can go to most brands from you know, whether it's Unilever. I mean, there's a bunch of them. I get names.
I don't piss anybody off locally, but but yeah, if you go into their, their FAQs or their brand sites, you know, you're not going to get a lot of information very, very little. So you're more likely say I'm going to learn about Pampers on generative AI. The problem with that is that that narrative often is counter to the brand's desired narrative. So what we're doing is we're kind of metering it and we've run thousands of searches, to really help brands understand, you know, how they stack up.
And then we're benchmarking it versus competition, and then we're putting a lot of consulting on top of it. Like it's not enough to just say, we metered your brand. It's like, here's what you need to do. And this gets tricky. Like to really win. In a world of generative AI, you have to market to algorithms. You have to understand how. How do you market the algorithm. Well this is important. So we just put out a white paper called Brand Vulnerability in the age of AI search.
And there's something that's called algorithmic anchors okay. And so has some similar areas of search 1.0. But in generative AI there are clear anchors that disproportionately influence what is being said about you. Okay. So I'm. Looking at Rob Richardson. Okay. It's probably going to be one of your algorithmic anchors is probably going to be you see content. Okay. Yeah. The legacy of leadership here. It's shaped your brand.
And I would say what you see is on a scale of 1 to 10, I probably give them a 7 or 8 in terms of marketing algorithms. So your content has a good chance of getting to those algorithms. Okay. Brand websites are very, very if they're done right, right are very important algorithmic anchors. But it's not just the websites, it's how you build it. So for example, I was meeting with someone from, Kroger the other day. Okay. And Kroger's actually doing some pretty good work on zero waste, zero hunger.
I really I, I've read all their reports, but I noticed they weren't getting enough credit in like the AI algorithms. And I suddenly dawned on me that they put most of their best data in PDFs. Oh, well, that'll do it. Okay. And so, you know, it's not a, you know, like a fake engine to get it's like in a PDF. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh. They're like they're only getting a fraction of the ROI on all that work. Think of all that work. Think of all the Rodney's speeches.
Think about all those hundreds of employees that have kind of toiled to kind of get those statistics on the table. And then when you got to the last mile of helping the consumer to understand it, you put it in a file that the algorithms don't understand. And so I think, you know, we're almost trying to figure out scorecards that make it easy for brands to see, this is what I need to do to get full credit. Okay. Now, in some cases, you won't get full credit because you're not sustainable.
You might be dishonest, you know? And again, the algorithms will go to town on you and that respect. But I think generally. Speaking, how are they going to know you if you're dishonest? Like, how would they. Oh, well, because they're looking at a lot of sources. I mean, I'd say the brand websites are clearly the most the biggest cheerleaders for their. Well, they're. Biased. They say, okay. Right. Yeah. I mean.
It's an advertising. Vehicle. Exactly. But I mean, why is the New York Times suing OpenAI for 20, $40 billion? Yeah. It's taken they know that they're source of truth. This is being thrown into the blender. It's very hard for people to see the attribution, but they know it is weaving in old New York Times articles are pretty harsh about brand. I mean, they just kind of speak the truth, right? Right. And there's other sites. It could be Wikipedia.
Google just spent, what, $40 million to license read it. Yeah. So that stuff's getting weaved in. Ratings and reviews are creeping into it as well. So. So one thing that we're, working on, and I can't get too specific, but I will say that this institution is helping our thinking. Right. A lot is really trying to develop some science around those sources of attribution, like what are those anchors and how do you get really precise?
And I would love for, Greater Cincinnati to be a true hub for search analytics, AI, search analytics. And it's going to take some work, but I think we can figure it out. And I think the universities are a big are a big part of that. But I think every brand needs to understand what is disproportionately impacting. Their their search results. What would you say is your top three advice just 1 to 1 of the top three things brands need to do in the age of algorithms to protect their brand identity.
Some of it is old fashioned guidance. I mean this you got to listen and these are different signals. So in the same way that you would listen to a consumer in a focus group or listen to website data or listen to social media conversation, you got to listen to these new search dynamics. Yeah. And that's we're kind of providing a tool that helps them listen. And then they need to they need to act on it. I mean they need to disrupt.
Yeah. And and I mean we're trying to provide a data set that makes it easier to disrupt. In most cases, data leads you to incrementalism. Exactly. We're kind of saying you've got a long way to go. So brands need to move faster. Your website sucks. It doesn't. You know, the websites don't pay attention. The algorithms don't pay attention to it or you know, and yeah, so we're trying to and then and then you got to follow up and you got to be really iterative.
Like like I would say, you know, if you look at our web, our, our online site, we say today brands need to think and act like algorithms. It doesn't mean we're all going to become bots, but we have to understand how these our whole future is going to get dictated by this stuff. But we can get in front of it, we can partner with it. But we got to understand what it is. And I think that's critical for everyone. Tough question here.
What happens is the algorithms know us better than we know ourselves. This is we're going to well they will they will I mean, you know next year you're probably going to be interviewing yourself as a joke, right? You know two faces of Rob. That'll be interesting. Now the interest. Yeah. That might be, so I don't know. It's going to get really tricky. And we're going to have to really reboot not only brands. We got to reboot training. Yep. We're going to have to.
I personally think gearing up to shake up the universities to think differently. Okay. Through all of it, I mean, think about it like with generative, I got Socrates in my pocket. Yeah. I mean, it's like an incredible learning experience. It teaches math. It never forgets anything. Yeah. It's like and so the potential for personalized education is huge, but there's gonna have to be give and take at the university level, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean. It's going to be. Tricky.
It isn't like how. Will Neville Pinto lead? I mean, I you know, I've even wrote a letter to him once. I said, dude, like this is your this will shape your legacy more than anything. Full stop. I'd say the same thing that John Mueller at PNG or Rodney at Kroger. This is like how you manage this is critical I agree. You know. And if you know that there's going to be, you know, job shakeups, how do you get in front of it? How do you start thinking about the new jobs? How do you manage expectations?
How do you turn it into a positive? And it sounds romantic, but it's going to be tricky. It's going to be really, really tricky. It's, you know, before we go on to, to our talk to our other points, there's one line I read from you about customer service, about customer satisfaction. It's very important, I think, even more with algorithms, because I think you said this is that if you have one successful customer, they tell three people, if you have one bad customer, they sell 3000.
And now algorithm. That was. My book, right? Right. Yes. That's your book. Yeah I see and algorithms. Now you can add to that. You give one good customer. Maybe you'll get six. You give one bad customer and you get 3 million because information can really just iterate on itself much faster. Well, I think the key Rob, is it you need to understand how to balance automation and intimacy. oh. That's good. Okay. What the important. So I'll say more like.
So I lead, when I was running digital at Nestlé, you know, one of my number one initiatives was implementing Service Cloud across all the markets. You know, and the market I most admired was in China, and it was the, I think it was the Wyeth nutrition brand. And I see when I go to China, I would just spend time in the call center. Yeah. And it was interesting because they were really good at balancing Artemis, automation and intimacy.
In fact, they were very good at converting, like, moms to e-commerce opportunities. And I use WeChat, which is like their version of. Facebook. Instagram, and, and they would kind of do it at scale and they money and they wanted to automate a lot of it.
But other times, if they knew there was an upsell opportunity, they would, you know, they would have folks, you know, doing the chat and kind of work it and then or if a mom had a complaint about their child, then you automatically defaulted to a human. And so I think there's just a balancing act on how do you get the benefits of automation. And I think some of that could get really good.
I mean, if you can automate a friendly bot or a boy and they're just answering questions, but with the with the happy face, I think that can be a big benefit. But there's anything that's on, the negative side or the sensitive side or the product has poison or whatever, then you want to immediately go to a human. And I think it's going to be really important or. Helpful for lots of other stuff. Yep. Yeah. Like so and I so I, I don't think people should over romanticize 100% automation.
I think you just need to find the right balance to do it right. And it's the same thing with the certain things we like on the airline, where we can kind of get automatic alerts and other cases just get on the damn phone, for crying out loud. And they know. And there's a calculus that says if they completely ignore Pete when he really needs us, he's going to go to he's going to go from Delta to American.
Exactly. You know, so. Now, what would you tell young people nowadays in this in this state, there's been more tech layoffs, I think, than we've ever seen since the you and I went through the, the ourselves. But the.com, burst and bubble, there's, there's a lot of tech layoffs. It's a, it's a it's a very shaky time for people that are in tech, that have been in careers that have always been thought to be untouchable. Right. Yeah. Oh big time.
What do you say to, to, to those emerging in their career at this time? Like, what advice would you give them at this moment? I mean, number one, just eyes wide open. Yeah. And it's funny, my daughters, an incredible one of my daughters is this incredible artist. And when you're talking about she's only a sophomore and we were talking about real college and, and I was actually rattling off a number of design schools, including, you see, staff.
And it was funny, like she was like, you know, hey, is all that going to be real? It was very perceptive. It's sort of like, you know, isn't that going to get kind of automated by and you know, some of it well, but a lot of it won't. And I think we're going to have to remind our young people that we're also in a renaissance of creative confidence. Yeah. Like my I'm sure you feel the same thing. Like my creative confidence quotient has gone up dramatically.
Absolutely. Because I've got all these help. Absolutely. I am you know I'm writing better with a little bit of help. I'm taking sometimes scatterbrained concepts and turning them into like beautiful concepts that are kind of like and. I definitely, I think concur with that. And I think everyone's got artistic qualities are probably severely under leveraged. Yeah. So we need to figure out like how do we almost like bring more creativity in the world using those tools.
But we're going to have to lead that thinking. But at the same time, we may have to tell the programmer that programing as we knew it before is not going to be as critical. Yeah. I mean, you've got the CEO of Nvidia basically saying, all this obsession with teaching every kid to be a coder is nuts. And he's the head of Nvidia. Yeah. And so now prompts experimentation. How do you turn rocks over? How do you test and learn? I mean, I think we're in a renaissance, right?
I mean, I have written, I kid you not, maybe I'm a bit of a freak, but since I discovered generative, I probably written 100 business concepts all the way down to, like, images. Yeah. I think my last team thought I was crazy, but I am like a real entrepreneur. And it's like. And like the things that when I was at P&G, that would take like months to kind of get I'm like literally like doing like overnight. Yeah. You know, I wrote a concept this morning before I came here for a new product.
and so that it's to some extent like the ideas and the concepts that we have in our mind can be formalized and laid out. And I think we just got to teach the young people to do this. Like all the great businesses I know, I actually. I agree, I have a of a bit of a slight. Yeah. take on that a different take. I would say that you can do those things well because you also have some training experience like. Right.
Like say like you, you have these so like, so I want to and I still think there are skill sets to learning how to program, but I do I can I completely agree with this. Creativity has to be a part of what you do. You have to can't be one dimensional in anything you do anymore. Like it is not. It is not going to be. So my advice would be you don't be one dimensional, right? Can't just say people want to go in sometimes say, I just want to do this. That world is done. Like you work. To your point.
I mean, think about some of the things that you typically learning university like critical thinking, right. How to interrogate. Now that's as relevant. It's always you're going to be constantly interrogating the bots. Yep. You know and it's going to be a long time before the deep fakes go away or the hallucinations. And what is real, what is not, what is a logical sequence of dialog.
And I think these, you know, we may find that the things we always wanted kids to learn at universities are going to be amplified in this world. Zach. Highly. I wait when I don't say like I've got Plato in my pocket loosely. I mean, this is a highly dialectical process, right? I mean, you're going back and forth like 20 times more than you would. But you have to know, but you got to know how to do that. Well, but that's a skill. And I think that's that's a skill.
You might find that some of the universities go back to some of the basics, right. Just to kind of get. Something, but like, oh, communication. Everybody doesn't know how to communicate more people are going to have to really know how to communicate. It's very important. I also believe that creativity is going to be highly important still. you know, I think we're both at a more creative moment, but at the same time, I think we're, as a society less creative than we've ever been. Right?
I think about like musicians, for example. Like, I just like it. And this doesn't make me feel old, but I look at the music now and there's nowhere near the, musical input. And I think this started a while ago. Right. But, like, think about what Michael Jackson even original rappers did. They told stories, they put things into him. Now you can automate things, but it's not as good quality. People still like originality.
So I think the age of artificial intelligence, like, one of my friends, Lisa Fancy Flowers, he's actually in the crypto world and she's in the AI world. She said, in a world of artificial intelligence, you need authentic intelligence. We are one of one. You can only fake talent so far, right? Right. And I sometimes I felt artificially more musical than I really am. But, you know, you still have to have the foundation of talent. You do seem like. They help you amplify. It's not. That's my point.
Like the tool should be seen that way. And I think people are still. To your point, you mentioned earlier when you talked about I never heard it's phrased this way, you know, making sure you had a mixture between automation and intimacy. I look at that same way, like authenticity and artificial Intel. You need to have authenticity. Absolutely. And that's what's going to differentiate. What I love about what Kendra and, and Helen are doing. Absolutely.
I mean, that whole human in the loop, it's a big part of our model. Like it's interesting, like I am. I'll give you a good example. So we're, putting out reports that are very data based, but throughout the report, you can click a button and there's Pete in the studio explaining how to use it with all of Pete's passion and authority. And it's really called data theater. Yeah, I've got to get myself an avatar too. I got to do that. But, you know. But it's real.
It's real me because I, you know, data alone is not good enough. Sometimes. I'm always trying to channel my, you know, guilt tripping Italian mother to kind of get people to, like, act on the data. Data alone. Won't get. Hacked. And again, it's, it's that balancing act that we need to perfect. And it's the human in. Yeah. Data is guidance is not determinative. You have to it's something you can use as a map. But it won't. It won't. It won't mean anything if you don't use it.
Yeah. It's not the things where we've been told to do because rationally it's right. Yeah. Eat your peas. Yeah. It's like, you know, it's like every study will tell you it's right that you need, like. Yeah, mom to say goddamn Jesus or you're not, you know. Yeah. I mean, we're not we're not rational people, so it's. We're good to go. so, I want to get to a few kind of, like, questions that I ask people. So you have a committee of three to advise you on life, business, whatever you want.
Tell me who these three people are and why. I really admire John Pepper, the former CEO of P&G. I think he is just, he continues emailing him this morning on me, and he's the type of person. If he asked me to do something, I'd say how high or jump. And he's consistently there and just always kind of wise, ethical, Kind of, stem. You know, there's some, you know, I want isolated to one individual, but there's some folks from my Nestlé experience. So I just really, like to bring to the table.
And I think a lot of, you know, family members are always there. So many respects. so you got one. You play. You know what? You know what? It used. Oh, I need to think a little bit harder about, you know, just because you might say I'm leaning on. I'm for certain things. I'm fine on my kids. That's fine. And that's a good that my daughter Layla is like a source of incredible insight. So my daughter Sophia, my son Liam, and, you know, you have to, like, be humble to know what you don't know.
And almost there's a certain innocence and. Yeah, world that they see. And so, but I, you know, I generally try to, you know, listen to a lot of signals. About what you don't know. That's great. May I ask you the opposite of that question? Yeah. What do you know for sure? The Oprah question. And I know that I don't know, I kind of still Plato or Aristotle, but, you know, I'm pretty humble about the fact that there's still a lot, and, and that, you know, knowledge is, real quest.
It never entirely just kind of an end point is, I'm really fanatical about standing. Kind of guided everything I've done. And to some extent, a lot of that is in the and, say, trust your inner. Yeah, that you're probably going to find all sorts of great business ideas and the like. All right. What's an important truth you have that very few people agree with you on? It's always a fun one for me. And I would say goes back to what I said before, I think, you know, the
trust your inner consumers. I gave a Ted talk on it. I think, I think we does that sometimes. And I think what specifically is that is the belief that people agree with you on any I don't understand. Tell me that something in what do you mean? Like what's an important truth you have that most people may disagree with. Some people may disagree with that.
It's almost like because I'm I've always believed that if you if you trust your inner consumer, you're almost bringing more of an outside in activist perspective. Okay. I think in business sometimes. What does that mean to trust your inner consumer? So basically means, so I've always been, I give a Ted talk called the Work Life Advantage, and it was all about how the things we do in our personal lives and digital really inform how we become business leaders.
So you've got to do social media yourself. It'll kind of teach you about the power of iteration. you need to walk the talk, need to, Yeah. You just, you know, you need to become a good e-commerce shopper to really speak with authority when you're managing a team about winning with Amazon. And so it's like try and you also, you know, as consumers are pretty damn critical. Right. And sometimes we let it out. We're kind of, you know, we get we get really angry.
We tell 3000 and so but that journey is what makes us really sharp. Now why do I feel like I'm qualified to go on a startup if I a million startups do an I? Honestly, I've been I've been trusting my inner consumer. I'm using this stuff like 100 times a day. I see a future that others don't because I'm channeling my consumer side. And I think that's always going to be my source of truth, my source of motivation. And, and I would I don't think that that truth will ever go away. All right.
Final question. What does success look like for you or your business or yourself in five years? And I want to make a big it's funny, I'm not I want monetary wealth, but I'm not motivated by it. I'm very motivated by feeling that I did something in me out of positive sounds like lofty and idealistic, but it's just where I am in my day. It's like I if people read my epitaph at their give speech at the funeral and they don't say that I really moved in it very thoughtfully.
I'll be yeah, I'll be really disappointed wherever I am. And, yeah. So I just, I want I want to drive real impact. I've always been that. I mean, I, I, I grew up, I wanted to be governor of California, and I've, I started and to some extent I've almost. You and I have that in common. Yeah. Yeah. Planted feedback. My first business was a bit of a, stick it to the man. Yeah. It also had a business side to it. So I've always like blended that, you know, drive impact, build a great business.
And to some extent I feel like I'm doing that now because I like the idea of accountable. Like, don't talk about sustainability and not do it right. You know. So I'm kind of blame it on the I bought say you're lying or you're greenwashing, but I like that. It's like, you know, because I think it also drives drives to better outcomes. It might speed up companies to actually meeting their green commitments or realizing they can't go slow. Right. You know, so those are the things I really like.
Yeah. People stop being a pleasure, man. Yeah. Thanks for all your leadership. That's fine. Thank you. And.