Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What I'm realizing is like when you take all of that stuff and boil it down like the greatest human technology is a story. So when I really dug into storytelling, like, okay, well, you know, raising money, I told a story. And it's what I'm trying to do is make sure that the stories never drift because I think that's inauthentic. Like if I have a story about myself and then the story I'm telling investor or a story I'm telling in sales, and if they're drifted apart, there's like an ethical piece of me that says, well, that's not authentic and I'm not going to be able to do it very well.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome to the off site podcast. I am your host, Jordan Gahl. This is where I team up with friends to catch up on our work and just as importantly, what's going on beyond the work. As always, this podcast is brought to you by Rosie, the AI powered phone answering service for small businesses.
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the offsite podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Gahl. I have my good friend on today, Mr. Henry. Welcome.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Thanks for having me, Jordan.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: So Henry and I have regular calls and we figured, you know what we should do, we should try to bring some of that out into this podcast. Henry, both of us have an interesting personal experience happening today. It's animating my day. I mean, I'm looking at the clock, like as soon as lunch hits, I'm going out on the town.
So for me, this is the last day of school. So this is the last day of third grade, fifth grade and seventh grade. So the house is buzzing, the town is buzzing, everyone's like, you know, freedom is right around the corner.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess hold my beer, right? Because so I have twin boys, they're 18 years old and today is their last day of high school. So we did the whole thing right, you know, nursery school, kindergarten, elementary school, the middle school, graduations, Covid high school. And it's not, it's kind of anti climatic, I'll say, because the school here, it's the way that they do it for seniors, is the last month is an internship. You go out and get an internship and you spend your last month kind of taking your AP exams, taking your final exams and doing this internship. So it's the classes kind of ended before, but today is their last day of their internship and both of my boys happen to be doing their internship at the school.
Very cushy internships, by the way, like working for the art teacher, working for the ceramics teacher and doing some fun.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Fun stuff, but that's a big deal.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Hugged him goodbye this morning and said, see on the other side. Snapped a picture.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Yeah, the last picture in front of the front door.
You know, we just. We just did it downstairs, but it doesn't feel nearly as heavy. Do you remember your. I remember my last days of high school.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: I remember pretty well. And I remember. Boy, I remember how naive I was. And I remember. You know, I also remember kind of when. When I was your kid's age, like the last day of school in elementary school, like, everybody would look at the clock and like, count down the last 10 seconds, you know, and stream out of the quarters and all that.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Wow. Now. Now, your kids, I'm assuming they're. They're kind of off and running. So you're not participating in their last days nearly as much as, you know, I'm literally going after lunch to the beach. There's a tradition here. Last day. We live in a beach town, Right. So last day of school, the whole town goes to the beach. That means there's hundreds of parents and kids. So you got to be there to kind of keep an eye on things.
So I'm. I'm fully parenting my 13 year old. She's kind of off and running, and I just check to find my iPhone. I know where she is, and I send her cash. You know, that's much easier. But for you, they're kind of. They're adults, man.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. We crossed the threshold a while ago, Right? So we crossed threshold from, like, physical challenge to intellectual challenge. You know, I would say probably, you know, right around that time. The 12, 13. Yeah, 13th time. So, yeah. So they're autonomous adults. Like, now legal adults can be drafted, right?
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Their own cars?
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Yeah, no, we. We gave them one. There's one vehicle that's not their car. It's another car in the family that gets that they're sharing.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: But you're not in the city anymore, so it's not like cars don't matter. I mean, teenage life in America is very wrapped up with cars, and the license is the same symbol of freedom as summer, as getting out of school and everything else.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Well, what's really interesting is, you know, my boys are identical twins, so it's always a constant science experiment. Right. Because they share the same DNA, and everything that's happened is behavior, not nature. Right. Whatever changes there are between them. So one of them got his license on the very day he was eligible.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Very American. Absolutely.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: The other one doesn't have his yet.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Okay, okay.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: So.
And he's going to school in, in Boston next year. So he's kind of like, you need it. I mean, he's going to, he says he's going to get it this summer because he has a job and I don't want to drive him to his job. But they had different paths and there's some circumstances that he just was like, I don't need this. Plus his brother drives him around and all that.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: What I like to think about sometimes and chuckle is that on my birthday when the first day I could drive on my own in New York, it was like 16 permit, 17 on your own. We partied the night before, right. And then woke up. And then my birthday's in February, it was always winter break, so it was no school. So we partied and had like everyone stayed at someone's house. I almost called it a sleepover. Business isn't like 10 year olds, right? And then we woke up and it was my. I had the ability, the right to drive. But here's the thing, I wasn't drunk, but I was not 100% sober from the night before. So I like to think the first time I ever drove, I wasn't 100% really right to drive. Which is, yeah, perfect. Perfect. Nice job. 17 year old me. Nice job.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Well, hopefully you learn from that experience, Jordan.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Oh, yes, yes. I'm 45 now and have internalized some of those lessons at least over the last 10 years.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the other thing though, you have to remember is, you know, our upbringing is so vastly different from theirs because, you know, everything's so compressed because of the Internet and connectivity and all that. You know, I got my license and, you know, I was with my mom, we got my license, we came home and I said, I'm going out with the car. And I took the car, you know, I was gone. Like they had no idea where I was or what I was doing.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: And see, in a few hours, you.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Know, like I, I can tell you exactly where my kids are right now. I don't, you know, I don't try and be that kind of parent. Right. Like, I try and, you know, make sure that they have autonomy and independence and all that. But the reality is like, you know, everything's tracked, the car's got it. You know, I know where, I know where things are.
So, you know, it's not quite like the. And that's why I think my other son hasn't really embraced it because it doesn't really represent the freedom that it, that it did to you and I, right?
[00:06:38] Speaker B: The detachment, the bird leaving the nest.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah, like, see you later.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Right, right. I don't know if I mind that so much with my daughters. I don't really want them going far.
I'm going to say a decent portion of my career ambition is being successful enough that as they get older and they leave the house that I can create a form of magnetic pull. Big houses for vacation pay, for friends and boyfriends to come with us. Like that, that gravitational pull that I don't know, budget creates is a legit motivating force for me because I've seen it, I've seen it play out. When growing up, my family did not have resources and watching other people, especially now, there's a very, very direct familial like advantage that creates like joy and great experiences. When you can just rent a giant house and just say all 20 people just come to this house and hang out together and yes, bring your friends and yes, bring your boyfriend and yes, they can come to Hawaii with us. And you know, so like that's a big motivator for me around like these, these types of experiences, just keeping, keeping them kind of close.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it, I mean it's no accident that the, the data says that the happiest societies are the ones where the families are kind of close together and they stay close knit and there's kind of the notion of a family compound. Right. Where people come in and out of. And so yeah, I agree. Like, you know, that's not really the American experience.
Right. So, so, you know, you have to kind of manufacture those things. And yeah, I think about that all the time because I'm about to be an empty nester. Like what is going to be the magnetic pole? I mean, it'll be money for sure.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: It's not right. It's not actually money, but it takes money.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Well, no, I'm saying is that, you know, my, my boys will be back because they don't have a job. You know, I'm paying for their college. Like they'll come back. But yes, I hear you like the, you know that I've heard some words say that the ultimate form of, of wealth is being able to go out to dinner wherever you want and not worry about the price of it because that's really a proxy for being with people that you love and having interpersonal human conversations and interactions, which is, you know, why we're all here. Anyway, so, yeah, we could find a way to create the poll. Like, okay, so we go, you know, I Love that. I would talk about my wife that all the time. Like, how do we do? Like, okay, well, you know, December is the time when the. When the poit. Our family goes to X place and we, you know, X beach or X ski area, whatever.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Do you have one of those, like, annual regulars We.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: We've done over the years. We've.
Because I've worked remotely for so long, you know, we'll decamp. You know, we've gone to Shelter island for many years.
We haven't done that in the last couple of years because of the boys activities. But I would just go and we would rent for a month, you know, and just. I would work there and the boys would do stuff. And we did that for many, many years and have many friends there. And I'd like to. To pick that back up again. But it. It also got, like, way more expensive during the time that we been doing that. And, you know, we need more room and all kinds of stuff.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Yes. And then the. The social aspect, they. They have other plans. Yes, that's right. It's like the more you can establish it as this thing that is.
There is no choice. There's no thinking. It just happens. This is what we do in July, and that's it. The. The better. We went to Northern Michigan for many, many years and now started going to the Outer Banks in North Carolina.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't love the Outer Banks, but. But it is a good time. But it doesn't. The point is a big house where we go and my wife's sister and her family and those kids.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: It's extended.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Yes, yes. It's two. Two families coming together and her. Her brother. So it's like three families, only two of them with kids. But it's on a regular schedule. And because it's so popular, you are booking it like a year in advance.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: And that's the part that removes any doubt, removes any optionality. It's just happening.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not a casual thing. You knew about this. It was. Been on the calendar for a long time.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Yes, Yes. I remember in college at Michigan, a lot of kids that went to school Michigan are from the Chicago area. Very close to where I am now.
And we went to a friend's, like, Wisconsin house. And it was the first time I came across the family compound that was. It was nice, but it's not actually expensive. It's in Wisconsin. There's plenty of land.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Right, right. But.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: But it was a pretty nice house with a tennis court, with a basketball court, with a big Field with a big lake, with a big sitting area outside for campfires. And then inside, there were like three or four bedrooms that were basically for the grownups. And then upstairs, they built these huge bunk rooms.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Oh, that's cool.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: Just like 20 beds in each room. And then all the friends and cousins would come. And that was the first time it lodged in my mind, like, oh, that's how you can manufacture familial closeness. Like getting the cousins together, growing up together every summer, even that just like once a year for two weeks creates a really strong bond. And then they. They talk more. They talk on the phone. They just feel closer.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: Well, and the nice thing about that, that direction is, you know, because. Because kind of what you're saying is instead of being super wealthy and owning a family compound. Right. That you hope your kids come back to, you're saying that there's much more of a pull when you have. You. You made the rental a year in advance. You have this commitment. It's this window, and you know it's going to happen.
So there's kind of no excuse to drop off, Right?
[00:12:29] Speaker B: Yep. All right, so we're talking about good goals, good reasons to work hard.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: That's right. Good reasons. Work hard. Yep.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: So, right. The thing about this podcast, the name off site, where it comes from, is this blend of, like, work, not work.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: So by coincidence, last week, Rosie, we did an off site. We went to San Francisco. Have you been to San Francisco recently?
[00:12:51] Speaker A: A year ago was the last time I was there.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: I think it has to do with the new mayor, but the city is looking spectacular.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: It is tough to describe. I don't want to go on like a rant, but it feels so good in that city. It's clean, it felt safe. Very, very few issues. Still, some issues here and there, but big public places with no issues.
No homelessness, no feeling of, you know, issues with safety at all.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Beautiful houses, beautiful parks, incredible scenery. Like, I've been there and I was there a few weeks ago to. To, like, get this partnership done.
So I kind of knew how good of a shape it was in. And then we planned this off site and. And all six of us went. And three, the. The three from Europe had never been to San Francisco, so it's like the engineers that have.
Yes. So I was like, clearly, I'm hosting, and I took it seriously and I made all the plans. But, man, it was great to see the city in that shape.
It was great to see how things that feel real pessimistic and hopeless. Can actually be turned around.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Let me ask you this, because when I was there, the thing that surprised me was similar. So I felt like, okay, well, I'm not seeing the, the terrible homelessness that I thought I'd see. I didn't, I wasn't seeing like the, the dirtiness that I thought I would see. What I saw was kind of like empty, you know what I mean? Like with the missing ingredient when I went was vibrancy. Compared to the previous times that pre Covid San Francisco. Like, so that was, that was my big surprise. It's like, okay, it's not like dirty. It's not, I'm not being, you know, tackled by drug addicts, but there's nobody around here. Like, I went to a coffee shop, went to a blue bottle coffee and you know, bought like some spectacularly expensive coffee, right?
[00:14:45] Speaker B: And it's pretty good.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: And like they were so psyched that I was there, you know, getting the coffee. There was like three, you know, I was the only one there. So, so, so was the in that year. Has the vibrancy changed in your opinion? Like the energy.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Yes, the energy got pulled back more toward the city than, than a year or two ago. Because you're, you're right, what you hear on the news and then you go there and you're like, okay, I, I've seen some not pretty things, but it's not a war zone. Right, but what happened, right? Everyone got driven out. Everyone decided, you know what, I'm just gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna close this office. We're just gonna go down to the Valley, we're gonna go to Oakland, something right now. Here's the thing. You and I, New Yorkers, there is no vibrancy like New York. So anytime a New Yorker goes to any other city, they're like, this is nice, but it doesn't have an electric current running through it at all times.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Yes, right.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: But the work cultural differences in San Francisco are fascinating. First of all, I get there, we met, we wrapped it into few days work with this new infrastructure partner that we're working with. You know, we're an AI wrapper. We unwrapped from one provider and rewrapped around another provider. And I'll talk more about that when I can. We'll announce it in a few weeks, that sort of thing. But we went and to work with them in, in person. It was like a perfect opportunity. That culture's different, interesting the way shorthand would be.
Very, very bright. 25 year olds, very focused on competing and beating the other group of very smart 25 year olds that are in their space.
Like, there is a financial motive, but it's like the competitive motivation is just as strong, if not stronger. Like, my motivation at work is to enjoy what I'm doing and make money for my family so I can buy compounds in Wisconsin. Right, right. These guys are out to win and beat the other team. And it's almost like the prize that comes with that is a little bit secondary. I don't know if secondary is quite doing it justice, but it really is very, very, very competitive in nature. Not surprisingly, you know, I like, hang with the other CEO, we go for a walk. And the amount of insider gossip and truth, really, it sounds like gossip to an outsider, but what you're getting on the Twitter timeline is the gossip and what you're getting there is the truth. How is this company that's. That, you know, looks like they're crushing it. Like, oh, they're destroyed, bankrupt, multiple lawsuits, and the entire team quit. You know, like, you know, there's so much information like that flowing around because it's, it's very, it's small.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: That's it. Because you're sort of describing, you know, New York finance, You know what I mean?
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Like, and I've always thought, like, what's their bonus? So how much did they get paid? Who blew up this deal?
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I've always felt like San Francisco, you know, and the Bay Area generally, like has the tech competitiveness. Yeah. Of over the last 15, 20 years. But, you know, it was always a little bit more laid back than any of the vested dudes roaming the streets of New York. But you're saying that. No, these guys are the, that, that class, that 25, 30 year old.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Young person is competing like a New York banker.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. That's right now. Now. And some of them are younger. Like, some of them, like there's a lot of skipping college and like being 21 years old in these companies and that's, you know, that's impressive. Like, we went out to dinner. We really felt our age. We went out to dinner with a few people on the team and we just kind of go around the table, quick intro, say hi to everything. And then it dawns on us like, oh, everyone on our team has kids and we're sitting at dinner with a bunch of kids.
Like, my daughter is much, much closer in age to the CEO than I am to the CEO. Which is.
Yeah, that's strange.
But we, we. It felt good that we were like, we're not competing with them. Like, we're doing our own thing and our company's built on their platform. And it was very. It's very like a healthy kind of dynamic.
Now I consider living in San Francisco when, when my wife and I did this big trip, you know, we checked out a few different cities at a. For a few months at a time, we lived in San Francisco. And one of the things we could not kind of wrap our heads around to fully adopt living in San Francisco was the presence of like a layer of do goodery in between the person and the actual motivations of the person. In New York, you're like, what do you do? That tells me how much you make, where do you live? That tells me your status. Like, it's just very straightforward. And you get into that conversation pretty quickly when you meet someone.
And it's not a bad thing. It's just kind of a very honest approach. This is me, is my motivations, here's my incentive, here's how I live. You know, it's kind of like out there, you go to San Francisco and people do not lead with that and they talk about what they're into, their interests. You know, there's like a few layers, but they're human underneath. And it's just as competitive, but it has a layer of. It's almost like, well, you know, getting to the next round and hiring this person like, adds a few layers to like, I want to be a billionaire and I believe I am going to become one. And I'm doing everything in my power to become one. But I don't say that in a direct way the way New Yorkers do.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: So I think what you're saying is they're kind of leading with the rapper piece.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: In New York, we're just. We go right to the cut, right to the, to the heart of the matter.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: They feel the need to make sure to state their motivations are more pure to make the world a better place. Like that. That, you know, that comes out of San Francisco for a reason. That that's really how people kind of present themselves.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: But what's interesting about that, I wonder, I wonder what the health of that kind of mindset is. Because when you're that age, and certainly this is true for me, I don't know if it's true for you, but, you know, I'm not in. I'm not in. Take over. You know, there's outliers that take over the world in their 20s, but I think for the vast, for the peloton.
It's all about acquiring this experience that allows you to be a much more effective entrepreneur when you're older. Right. Because then you really understand the heart of problems that you're solving.
You've been in some industry, you understand all these nuances.
And so when you just start, it's kind of a little bit of the tail wagging the dog. No. When you're that young and you've decided like you're going to tackle something and maybe disrupt, but you got to really understand the problem.
So do you miss out on that experience a little bit? Like, I think about this all the time because in other, not tech, but other kind of, or maybe tech in other industries, there's really a, like a succession line. Right. Like you pay your dues. Right.
You're in the trenches.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Right. Medicine being like the most extreme version of it, right?
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Very formal, rigid structure, legal or finance or. You know, and by the way, I will say that about New York. Like the thing about San Francisco though, that my wife and I did the same thing as you did. Like we were like, okay, well, inflection point during COVID and all that. But the thing that she's from the Bay Area and the thing that sort of shifted around the Bay Area is it. It used to be a lot more diverse.
It is kind of a one note tech town a little bit like, I don't want to. It's a very broad brush.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like LA is, you know, mostly Hollywood, but it's not all Hollywood. There's a lot of, a lot of interesting things going on. But Esta feels more dominated by tech than LA does by Hollywood.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Right. But I would say like if you, you know, in New York. The thing I loved about New York in my 20s is whoever you talk to, they were the very best of that in their space. Like, you're talking to the best artist, the best banker, the best dancer, the best designer, probably the best tech people and engineers. Maybe they're, they're out in San Francisco. But anyway, like the best of the best were there. It felt like the center of the universe all the time. And so you're among these people gaining, pulling in all of this great experience that I drawn all the time to be a better entrepreneur in solving problems. But if you're kind of like not doing that and you're just in the one note place and you're just absorbing other tech and tech and tech, like what does that set up, set up for you? What are you going to disrupt? You're going to disrupt the more tech.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Right. You're.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Maybe I'm overthinking it.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: No, there's something there.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: But I am advocating for rich life experience before you jump in and niche down on something.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Yes. Now, at the same time, one of the more attractive things around tech is to just ignore that rigid structure entirely.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: No one can tell you, well, you can't start a company and you can't pitch like you can do anything. You just launch a product, you can go out and raise money.
So that part's good. There is an element to ignorance, naivete. Just like walking into an industry and being like, I'm going to disrupt it. I'm 24 years old, I have no idea what I'm talking about.
But there does seem to be enough.
A combination of just blind ego is an incredible, incredible drug. You can really do anything on that.
And an ecosystem of investors, advisors, other founders that can partly convince you that you can do this and also help you actually achieve it. Because these companies that I met with and were talked about, they're doing it.
They're raising hundreds of of millions of dollars at billion dollar valuation. They're growing revenue like incredible rates.
Huge customers from the mainstream economy are adopting it like they are doing it.
So yes. You don't actually know what you're talking about, but it seems to be working. So who cares?
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess to your point, like, even if it doesn't work, and it probably won't for a lot. Right. Because that's just the stats, like that's an incredible experience unto itself. Right. To just, you know, fail really spectacularly at at some point is, is a rich life experience.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I was looking at the, the young CEO of the company that we're partnered with and I was like, I'm pretty sure he's got a much harder job than I do.
His job was complicated.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: And it was, it's infra you said.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Voiced AI infra. Great company, super fast growing, incredible investors on the path. You know, where our like pivot and like hiccup around. Oh rally didn't work. We still got some money to make. Let's go, Bill. Rosie. It kind of unlocked it reduced the pressure to stay on the seed series A, series B, series C path. It kind of gave us a little license to say you, we can get back on that path or we can get profitable or we can like at this point, we're pulling a rabbit out of hat. Well, whatever we do with this thing is a net positive. Like, you know, when I send Investor updates at this point, they're like, I don't know how you did this. This was like, definitely a zero. And now you're making it not a zero. And like, whatever, just keep going. Cool.
He does not have that luxury. It is clocks ticking, Clocks ticking. My investors are doing this. My competitors are doing that. I got to get to here by this time. It's really stressful. No joke. And seven days a week. Work seven days a week.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: I work seven days a week.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: Do you?
[00:25:47] Speaker A: I do. I work all the time. I mean, but, you know, it sounds kind of cliche. It doesn't feel like work all the time. Like I'm thinking through a problem. You know, it's kind of. This is what I want to do. I want to build, create value and be in charge of that.
And I'm trying to. My job is to be a great storyteller. That's what your job is too. And that's what this other guy's job is.
It's a lot of pressure. The story he's got to tell, what we're saying, is very much defined. He's in a.
And the difference in this AI tech that's different than it was before is that the creating a mode is harder. And if you're running AI infrastructure, I mean, that is a really hard mode to create. Like, I look at cursor, for example. Like, cursor, you know. You know, I keep. Keep thinking of Jeremy Irons in.
In Margin Call, right? Where he says, you want to be first. Do you want to cheat or you want to be. Whatever he says. But, like, they're first, right? So cursor's first. They're the first agent for devs. But I get zero stickiness. I use cursor. Zero. I. I'll use copilot. I don't care.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Like, the lack of stickiness is crazy in those tools crazy.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Like, I like the growth crazy and.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: The lack of stickiness crazy. Like, I don't.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: I don't.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: I don't know where that goes.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: And, you know, you made a decision to switch from one info provider to another, and like, that. You know what?
[00:27:04] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Like what. Like, what is your. What is their moat for you? I don't. I don't know. Like, are they. Is there some longitudinal data set that they get that you don't. I don't know. Like, it's hard. Like, that's why I think the pressure is really on for this guy.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: You're competing to become the commodity of choice.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: Okay. Is that like A fair way to say it because. Yeah, you know, early on, we just assumed that the voice tech was just gonna be really good all over. And that's not the thing. Maybe a year, 18 months ago, you could say our latency is better and we sound more human.
But that is so temporary. It's, like, obviously temporary. And so it has to be other things. That's right. I want to go back for a second. You mentioned the word storytelling. I want to. You know, we found ourselves a few years ago. We were in the same boat where we were bootstrapped. We were doing our thing. Now we find ourselves in a different place. Both of us have raised money.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: And the thing that you and I talk about regularly in our offline conversations is, you know, what to do with the company. Less so, like, who should I hire and what should we do next? But more, where's this thing going? How do I define that for myself, for the company, and for our investors of the market at large.
Where are you in your storytelling journey?
[00:28:23] Speaker A: Where I am in my storytelling journey is that I think I will spend the rest of my life trying to be a really good storyteller and probably never get to the point where I think or I'm happy with it.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: That's worth, like, dedicating a lot of.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: I think it is, like, you know, as I get older, like. And I think about, like, you know, I have a lot of sort of artistic ambitions. You know, I'm a photographer. I'm a painter. I've done a lot of things. And then generative art and things like that. And I do really love those things. I've sort of liked creative writing over the years, but I've never really felt I was good at it. I didn't really feel, as an engineer, that it was my lane kind of.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: But what I'm realizing is, like, when you take all of that stuff and boil it down, like, there's a, you know, the way that you and I communicate and the way that, you know, the greatest human technology is a story. Right. The greatest piece of human technology is a story. I would say the second greatest piece of human technology is a team of humans. Right.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Like the cooperation.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Yeah, cooperation. Collaboration. That's what we have over the.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: You know, that's why we win, even though we're fragile little things. Yeah. Yep.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: That we. Yeah. So when I really dug into storytelling, like, okay, well, you know, raising money, I told a story. And it's. What I'm trying to do is make sure that the stories never Drift. Because I think that's inauthentic. Like, if I have a story about myself and then the story I'm telling an investor or a story I'm telling in sales, and if they're drifted apart, there's like an ethical piece of me that says that's not authentic and I'm not going to be able to do it very well.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: Yeah, fair.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: So, you know, when I. When I think about, you know, I'm in the middle of a fundraising now, like when I'm telling a story, like I. When I'm talking to people, there's all kinds of things that they're thinking about when they're. Because they're talking to a million people like me and they're, you know, everybody's screaming at them and, you know, they've got kids and they've got problems and they've. They're thinking, you know, so you have to kind of break through with a hook and then you have to tell an authentic story. And I think probably where the tension is is that sometimes, like, the boring story might be a really good investment too. Right. So you have to kind of make.
I don't say what we do is boring, but I think teamwork is like a foundational, human thing.
And I'm talking about that in this age of AI and I have to make that compelling. And that means that, again, like, the story that I'm telling myself needs to really kind of align with the story that's. I'm telling you that I'm telling my employees and I'm telling investors.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: You know, one of the things, like, as you were talking, what. What I sensed, what I detected was an unwillingness to let the story just get too far away from reality. And I never know how far to go. You're not telling the story of what's happening right now. That's kind of like weaved into any conversation with investors, employees, someone you're interview, and a conversation with a friend. Like, yes, there's a part of it that this is. What we're doing right now is what things look like right now. But that is not nearly the most interesting part of the story.
What's interesting is, well, why are you doing that? Because where is it going? What's the point?
What are you trying to make true? What insight do you think is true that you are trying to get people to. What I have difficulty with is knowing where to put limits on the storytelling.
What I see, and I think what a lot of us see, speaking of San Francisco, some people are very willing to just let that rise well beyond the atmosphere. You know, what's his name? From WeWork. Like the most classic example, literally just tell the absolute biggest, craziest story you can possibly even come up with and just kind of let things work out and let people fill in.
Well, the lack of consequences lead people to rationally approach it that way.
Why not? There's no downside.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: You don't seem like myself. You don't seem willing to just, you know, just go completely crazy with the story and not care about its connection to reality.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: You know, one of the ways that I think about it is in the classic, you know, storytelling arc, you're painting a picture of the future, but you're painting a second picture, too. And it's, what's the world like if you don't do that? Right? Like, if you don't adopt our product or if you don't think about this process or you don't think about this tech, what does your world look like? And, you know, then you're getting into the other side of it. Some real FOMO and maybe some. Some fear and the other side of.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Part of the story.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Bullshitting, too. Right?
So. Yeah. So I think, you know, one of the ways I think you can keep grounded, though, is to do. Is to do both, right? Like, when you're painting a picture of the future, it's outcomes and consequences of not acting.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: You described it as a creative endeavor, right? You. You even linked it to your. Your art and your artistic endeavors. What I keep finding in the storytelling is that it's very creative in the conception of the story, and then it's very, very practical. Nuts and bolts in the telling of it. So I. I often tell people fundraising was like an acting job. Yeah, I had lines and I had stanzas. I had creative decision making around where to emphasize the words, the intonation. And that's very mechanical almost. But it's in service to telling the best version of your story. I mean, you could just tell me right now, like, why did you get into AI Voice? And I could fall into.
Before AI Voice came around, small business owners only had a few options. They could answer the phone themselves. They could let it go to voicemail, which everyone hates. Like, even that. Which everyone hates. Like, that's rehearsed, man. You know? Or they could hire a human answering service, and all of a sudden, AI comes along and creates a new part of the market. And that's why I'm attracted to. It's like, okay, that is boring. Coming up with it took repetition and mistakes and a hardening of the vision. Like, okay, now. Now I think I understand well enough that I can come up with the words to paint the picture for someone. Is that, like, counterintuitive compared to, you know, photography, painting, sculpture, creative writing?
[00:34:34] Speaker A: I don't think it's counterintuitive. I mean, when you're doing. As you're telling this to me, like, I'm thinking to myself, what is my. You know, because I'm doing that all the time. You know, this week was New York Tech Week, so I went to a Gartner event.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: You know, so I had a bunch of those conversations.
I had those beats, I had those stanzas. I would always talk about, you know, all the hype in AI is about individual productivity, individual teamwork, individual supercharging. What about AI for teams? And I would just, you know, launch into the whole.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Your lines.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Yes, into the lines. And, you know, sometimes, like, specific VCs, like, particularly, you know, the gatekeepers, they want to hear you are X for Y. They're just trying to, like, quickly put it right.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: Understand where. Where you are.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So I say cursor for teamwork.
I'm in. Right. So that gets me across the threshold. Then it's like I'm backed by the founder of Sapient Red Hat. Some legitimacy. I'm obviously a little older. I've had multiple exits. Like, you can.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: You are part of the story of.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: The story of getting in the door and. Because the story is about, why me?
Why now? Why this? Right. Like, and putting that all together. So, yeah, so I even forget your original question. But no, but this is it.
Me telling that story. But, yeah, it is different. But it has affected. What's interesting when you say that is. Has affected my approach to, say, photography, because now I look at an image or a set of images, and I say, what's the story I'm trying to tell here? You know, like, it used to be about aesthetics, and now. Now it's about.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Used to be just the most beautiful.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Photo or, you know, something I. There was a story there. I just wasn't articulating it to myself very well. Like, this composition, these lines or what, these colors, whatever it is. But, you know, now I think a little bit more literally and deliberately about it. Like, when was this taken? What was the light like? Why it was. Why it was like that? What is the meaning to me? What do I want the person to feel on the other end of it? Which is kind of like the heart of what we're talking about here, like, what do you want to walk? What do you want these VCs to walk out of the conversation with? It's very similar to a sales conversation. You want them to be excited and positive and want to learn more. Right. You want to earn the right to another conversation.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: That's an interesting way to think about it. It's what emotions are you trying to implant?
[00:36:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: In the other person, it's. I mean, maybe that sounds a bit too manipulative, but that's, I mean, that's what a conversation is, right?
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Two people going back and forth.
This is boring. I don't want to be in this conversation or I'm fascinated or it's my turn to talk or whatever that combination.
It makes me feel better to acknowledge the value in storytelling because I often have some guilt around the fact that we're a six person team. Right. Your team's not pretty big either.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: No, it's not.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: And I do the least work. I'm pretty confident in saying I'm the employee that does the least amount of work, but it's just different work. And because it doesn't look like output in terms of words and code does not mean that it's not work. And so I sometimes devalue my work because it's not this practical output.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: But let me ask you this, because we're kind of talking about improving as a storyteller and I said to you, I'll always have to keep improving.
I think you would probably say the same to me. Whatever it is, I'm going to keep learning. You're a person that's curious and keeps learning. That's why we probably have a human interaction because we share that quality, but it's not output. But you've thought a lot about those beats that you came up with when you were raising and how you think about the stories that you're telling. You must. You're working on that all the time.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it evolves. It evolves.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: It evolves. Like, are you doing anything deliberate? Like, have you ever thought about, okay, well, I'm going to go do Toastmasters or I'm going to go do or take a theater class or I'm going to, you know, like, like you've literally like looked at the getting like formally educated around this.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: Not so much. I think I absorb.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: You know, from typical sources like TV shows. Like, why do I. Why do I really, really enjoy this show?
[00:38:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: You know, andor recently really like lit a fire in my like TV consumption, which usually I'm like on the phone or on the laptop and I don't care.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: And.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Andor I was like, I'm fascinated by how this story is being told and visually it's beautiful. So I get some inspiration for that sort of thing. I don't know how I am intentional about some things and some things are just natural. Like I am in my role because I am naturally, I like doing what I'm, what I'm doing. And the way that comes out is I think the people that work for me know that they're going to hear some preaching, they're going to get a regular dose of we're on a call and maybe this isn't the best use of my time, but this is how Jordan thinks. He's just talking and he's explaining why we should do this partnership, but he's really working out his thinking what. And he needs to do it in this synchronous way and being remote. I have it in my own head. But really where it starts to really like meet reality and be formulated and be challenged is in my conversations with the people that work for me. And it might be a little bit annoying to them that sometimes we get on a call for 30 minutes and it's basically me talking for 25 minutes. But it's like I need it and they're participating in it and it evolves over time and it helps me, you know, with things like, well, why should our pricing be a certain way? Why should we be aimed at the SMB market, not go up market? And it's almost like I need to say it out loud and have these arguments and be challenged on them. It's really, really helpful for me. And it also gets buy in from the team because they hear my thinking out loud and how. I got to the conclusion the three.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Ingredients of a high performing team are trust, which the obvious trust usually via transparency.
The second is shared context so people understand the why. Then the third is a balance between accountability and autonomy. Right. So you know, not micromanaging but not just letting, you know, everybody run wild and going off and building the wrong thing. Right. So, but what you're talking about is shared. You're creating shared context. That's what you're doing. You're telling stories to the team. You're creating shared context. You know, it doesn't sound like maybe it's deliberate as you think, but. But that's what's happening and what's a byproduct of that is you're creating trust because people understand the why. They understand your thinking. Like this is how Jordan thinks about this thing. This is why I'm doing it. Because they're in their mind tracing it back to, well, why am I here, why am I working on Rosie, what am I doing? Like, where is this going to leave me in a year or two years or three years? And so when they understand that, and then that leads to the third part with accountability and autonomy, because that really enables the autonomy piece, because then you're working under shared context, you trust each other. So, I mean, what you're doing, what you're talking about there is just super highly effective teamwork happening on in a remote context, which is kind of cool.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: To hear, I guess. I don't think of it that way. I don't know if it's a combination of it coming naturally to me or just being in this position long enough that sensing that this is what's needed.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: Yeah. In some ways I think your instincts are right, though.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I don't pat myself on the back too much, but I, I see, I do see it. When I look back, I'm like, okay, no, no one ever quits. Okay, noted. I think if anything, the one thing I have to work on, all those things you mentioned is the accountability part because I have a tendency to be a little softer and hope that the autonomy does it. And then I kind of have to overcorrect on the accountability a little bit and throw a little bit of a. I've been asking for this for weeks. This is not acceptable.
And even that, though I say out loud and I say, here's what happened, we have been having these conversations and I have not been explicit in saying that this conversation is now a task that's on your plate that I expect to have by next week. I just kind of let it float and then later on I'm like frustrated that it didn't happen. And that's on me and I'll try to be better about that. And what I ask of you to manage me up is to say at the end of a conversation, is this just you thinking out loud or is this a task on my plate? So we're like working on that.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I think it's wonderful to hear that you recognize that and you're trying to self correct in a way and be better. You know, we talked about it before that this is now you're going to be a better storyteller. Right. Because you're going to be better at being explicit about shared context.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: My brothers and I have this thing so we used to work together. Right. We were like very, very tight.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: By the way, there are two.
[00:43:08] Speaker B: So the three of us total, I have two, I'm in the middle. Which I think is a very big unspoken factor in all of this stuff.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. In the ability to pretty quickly understand what someone needs to hear and kind of what I need to say in order to get what I want while they're still going to be happy about it. Like that is the role of a middle child.
Yes. Keep everyone happy, keep everyone from fighting. But also make sure to create space for yourself and get what you need. But you probably have to do it in such a way where you don't create enemies. Like that is like my personality to a T. That's, that's the role.
So we have this thing where we were very tight knit immigrant family. We came here and we ended up working together. So my two brothers and I, we had an E commerce business together. We also worked with my dad at some point. Like we worked together. And one of the things that when we kind of broke it up and said, hey, this isn't quite right anymore. We have different ambitions with different life situations. Kids, no kids. Let's, let's call it a day. We love each other more than we care about this, the business. So. And we did that a while back and it was great for everybody.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: But one of the things we said we did that was what we need to do is we need to get, go out into the world and show people, you know, basically our story and what we can do. So I often think about how do I bring this outward to make it bigger. We see some founders are really good at that. They're. They're not just good storytellers for their company. They're. They go out to the world and tell their company story and that can have this incredible impact that marketing or advertising or branding like just can't quite do. Is that like the ultimate version of storytelling where you can tell the larger market and bring them along for your company's vision? Not just inward. I feel like I'm very good inward. Have work to do outward.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: You know, it got me thinking, you know, I've been. Because I've been trying to be a student of storytelling as you might have, might have.
So you can tell. And so I was listening to Mike Birbiglia. He was on like rich roll and he was talking about storytelling and he attributes a lot of like breaking out from a. You know, I guess one. What you're saying. I think, I think kind of what you're saying is like, how do you have a. Be really good in a small context and have that work in a bigger context. Yeah, it makes sense. And I think what he was saying was the, the amount like the good storytellers of our generation, the Microbiglias of the world, like you know, the Dave Chappelle's, the Lucy K's, like they're there because like Microbiglia was saying like in a large part because of just the 10,000, the REL. The repetition they workshop over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And so by the time you're get. You're seeing the package thing, it's been, it's gone through so many iterations.
So I wonder if that's the, the key to what you're talking about is that you, you work out the same thing and in the smaller context so many, so many times that eventually just seeps out, becomes relevant to break out of those smaller contexts.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: I'll tell you one of the things that holds me back a lot when trying to tell the story outwardly. When I tell the story inwardly, it is a, it's effectively an exercise in formulating strategy.
So here's the story. Here's the most believable version of the story. Here are the arguments for this story being true, which is why we should be doing X, Y or Z. And I, I always end up with this apprehension around telling that story outwardly because it feels like a reveal of our strategy.
And I can't help but worry about that. I think I over worry about that. Yeah, but, but it prevents me.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really interesting point. I mean maybe the other way to think about it is there's a core story, but the audiences are different.
So there's elements of the story that get left in or don't get left in, depending on the context.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: Right. Who the audience is, is that outward? Is it inward? Is it to yourself? Yeah, I mean that's the tune investors.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: You know, like why, why do I care about listening to Henry or Jordan? Like what, what, you know, what's my motivation? And so yeah, thinking about audience, maybe that's, maybe that's the way to, to think about. I don't think you're strat. Like from what I know about you, your strategy is wildly different from like an outward market story. It's just kind of not. I mean like there's, there's a lot that's, that's probably similar there. I don't, I don't think I mean, unless you tell me otherwise, you would say it on this call. But, like, you know, there's not a wild differentiation. I mean, maybe there's parts of the story that haven't been told yet that. That maybe that's a way to think about.
[00:47:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to get at is, is I often convince myself that. That the story I have created leads to an insight, and that's. That's an advantage. The fact that I have come up with this story that I've come up with and other people have not, and that leads to an understanding of the product or the market, that's like an insight. And, you know, sharing that with an investor is like, oh, this person gets it and sees it differently from other people.
And then it's, well, do I agree?
[00:48:18] Speaker A: Not.
[00:48:18] Speaker B: And telling that to the employees internally is like, oh, we're onto something. Here's why.
I guess maybe my strength is that version of things. And then when you go out into the world, it's almost like I haven't done the work on telling that version of the story. Because that's not what I'm saying.
Yes. I'm after the insight. I'm after.
Why should we do X, Y or Z?
[00:48:40] Speaker A: Well, you and I are programmed, by being serial entrepreneurs, we're programmed to think about the unfair advantage at all times.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: Right. That's like.
Like, what is my unfair advantage here? Like, why. Why is this problem? Why me?
[00:48:56] Speaker B: Yeah, like, yeah, I convince myself it's because. Because of the insight.
[00:49:00] Speaker A: Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, you know, so you're following your instincts. You're the. You're the scorpion killing the frog in the middle of the. Yes, right.
You bring up a really interesting point. And I think, you know, the only way around getting better at the market story is to probably tell the market story more often. And I think maybe at the beginning of that, be very deliberate about how you're separating out an unfair advantage so it doesn't turn into a leveling of the playing field. Because we don't want that. That's where.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. How do you make that, you know, do it in an authentic way? And I think that's where a lot of people become inauthentic, where they say, well, yes. What do people want to hear? Yes. And what do I want to say? What's the market expecting me to say?
[00:49:41] Speaker A: And so on.
[00:49:42] Speaker B: Yeah, let's start wrapping up here. What else do you got going on? What are you working on right now? We have this big Set of projects we call Rosie 2.0. Right. That's like animating what we're doing internally. What are you working on?
[00:49:55] Speaker A: You know, again with Steady, I'm always thinking ahead on how we're positioning the product and our product roadmap, you know, effectively. What we're trying to do is solve for teamwork by, with real time context, distribution and AI and agents enable that right now. But when I look at our roadmap and you know, the things that we're planning for the future, it's sort of at odds with the SaaS model. And so I'm really thinking hard about, we could probably do a whole podcast on this, like just pricing and packaging in the, in the AI world and what that means and you know, doing sort of outcome based. It's just like cliche now. Outcome based pricing versus, you know, user based pricing. What does that really mean and what does that look like? Because I think one thing that I'm noticing, you know, we have challenges like every other SaaS company around, like when a company churns or something like that. And let's say it's because of budget, like there's some usually some IT person who goes and says, oh well, Steady was only logged into or used for X hours every month. But we've designed the product to get you in and out of there really fast.
We're not optimizing for, we're not like notion where you only get value when notion's in front of you or figma when you only get value in figma's in front of you.
We're running in the background. Our agents are collecting context and then like shipping you an email or sending you a slack. Like that's happening.
So measuring engagement in that traditional SaaS way. And that's how we're priced because we're per user just like everybody else. That's a mismatch right now. So I'm thinking very hard about being creative about how we deal with that and de risking things for our customers and thinking hard about how we can promise outcomes a week, in a month, in a quarter, in six months, in a year, in. This is what you can see. And if we don't do it, we don't get paid.
I think kind of like where that might be headed. But so yeah, that's, that's on my, that's on my mind right now.
[00:52:04] Speaker B: Tricky. The analogy for us is answering services traditionally have been priced by the minute.
[00:52:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:10] Speaker B: And that's a terrible metric.
Like the amount of minutes, you know, like we don't want to sell that way.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: And so the big debate in our universe is around are we replacing software cost or are we replacing labor costs? Because if we're replacing a piece of software that was 100 bucks a month with something 50 bucks a month, that's one thing. But if we are doing labor that would normally be $50,000 a year with a product that costs $50 a month, that's an infinitely better place to be.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:41] Speaker B: And so if you go to our pricing page right now, it does have minutes in the plans and I want to get away from that. The worst thing I ever hear in our support channel is do my minutes rollover. No. Because then they're just looking at us as commodity minutes. Yes, absolutely.
Yes. So I hear you on pricing being a big challenge.
[00:53:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't think anybody's figured that out yet. You know, Kyle Poirier Poyar, you know, has all his posts and even, even, like, you know, in, in. In Descript and stuff like that. Like I'm, you know, kind of like it's per user plus minutes, like compute. I don't know, it's going to be. It's going to be weird how this, how this shapes up.
[00:53:20] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like we'll give you access to our magic for X amount per month.
[00:53:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think probably that maybe the different. A little on, you know, your customer versus my customer. My customer, you know, is a big. Is. Is a bigger entity that has a buying process. Right. And so we got to work around that too. You know, they're used to buying things in a certain way and then measuring the value in a certain way. And so that's a big challenge, like to. And it's, you know, we're in category creation too, so we're building a coordination intelligence layer effectively. And that's a new thing.
So, you know, how do you price that? How do you educate? Like, it's. It's hard. So I know I took. We're taking the hard path.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, everyone's got their pros and cons.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:54:03] Speaker B: I spoke to Foundry yesterday that has a very, very similar set of problems around selling their product as Rally did, which is like, some people want to pay by the usage. Some people want a certainty of how much they're going to pay for the year. How do you get one to the other? How do you incentivize AES and compensate them based on that? When some people go this direction, some. So really, really, I just felt like, lucky. I'm like, oh, here, this thing's 50 bucks a month. Do you, what do you want it? Here's self serve, you know, but that's not perfect either.
[00:54:33] Speaker A: No, but, but, but I think that's the right direction because I think about like, how do I, could I just sell a site license? Then I'm not, you know, diddling around on, you know, per user and knocking sense off here and there. Like, I'm just like, here it is. And then, you know, then you get into labor replacement, right? Because then you're like, okay, well, yes, the cost of a full time employee or some kind of PMO office or whatever it is that's handling coordination the manual way. What does that cost you?
[00:54:58] Speaker B: We're in the middle of this positioning exercise with a position, a company called Fletcher, and what it forces you to do is sit down for, you know, hour and a half sessions, a few of them for two weeks, and really confront your positioning, what you're positioned up against.
They like to point toward the workflow. Not just like, here's what we do, but they like to put it in the context of like, well, what does this, where is this happening in the person's workflow and what is it replacing that? What activity in their workflow is better or worse or replaced or, or new?
And that has brought home some gaps around what we talk about. Okay, so think about what Rosie does, right? Answers the phone, right? Everything we do right now is like, you have voicemail and you have an answering service, and those are your only two options. And here's how Rosie is better than one, and here's how Rosie's better than the other. Literally on the homepage there's a little table and you can click between answering service and voicemail. And what we forgot completely is the actual workflow, what people actually do. The 90% is answer the phone yourself, right? And we just don't, we don't have any language toward that at all because we just skipped over it. We were like, what are we competing against? As opposed to what did people just do right now? They have no, they got to answer the phone themselves. Sometimes it goes to voicemail, sometimes it goes to an answering Service. But the 90% is, I got to pick up the phone. And it's like we skipped over it because we didn't, I don't know, empathize with them as much.
[00:56:34] Speaker A: It's also a product of this technology is so new and there's hype, so much hype around it too, by these, by the tech elite.
Sometimes that obscures, like the Real value that's happening on the ground with stuff like that, what you're talking about. So. Yeah, and I also think that labor replacement has a stigma to it, that it might be undeserved. But you know, because when you think about this, like I was talking about this with our head of product the other day, like if you have a designer build a design system for your company, you know, create the components that are composable and reusable and all that, that's labor replacement.
Software is labor replacement, like process automation is labor replacement. It's all labor replacement to a degree.
[00:57:20] Speaker B: So what are people so worried about? Is it just the acceleration, the leap?
[00:57:25] Speaker A: Well, I think in the tech world, in the dev world, like, you know, the headlines are very sensationalistic like AI is going to take your job, fire.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: Everybody, replace 600 people.
[00:57:36] Speaker A: And there is certainly labor that AI is replacing.
And when I say AI, I mean like a really great probability machine that spits out tokens and maybe you know, creates audio files. Like there's, that's what we're talking about here. Like, you know, this AGI thing and the notion of smart and understanding is just not true. In my engineer's perspective. It's an incredibly powerful probability engine.
[00:58:01] Speaker B: Whether it's words or code or art or ui, whatever it is, it's all.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: Based on the past. It's what's the next probable token that comes after this one, you know, for better or for worse and all kinds of prompting and stuff around it. But understanding, that's not there. Ethical considerations, that's not there. Like, you know, it's just not.
[00:58:19] Speaker B: Okay, I want to challenge you on this for a sec. Go ahead.
[00:58:22] Speaker A: Again, there's so much of software and automation that is labor replacement and it's designed to be so. So one way to look at this tech is that it's another evolution of that. It might be like a bigger step. It certainly is in some cases for really rote stuff, you know, drafting a legal agreement or something. I don't know, like, but you know, that's, that's the nature of humans and technology. We're constantly evolving this stuff and we're going to replace labor.
[00:58:50] Speaker B: I mean in the past that has always led to better things and good things and more outcome and more productivity and more wealth. Me too. A hundred percent.
[00:58:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: I do try to be open minded, you know, against myself, against that point of view. Yeah, we hear these little rumblings about like, you know, the, the people at the companies at the forefront of this technology and how privately they're very, very worried.
[00:59:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:59:19] Speaker B: And outwardly they're optimistic. And this is gonna be amazing. Productivity, boost the economy, everybody wins, the pie gets bigger. But privately they're like, build, build that bunker and you know, store your cereal and buy your ammo because things are gonna get bad. I like, cannot get myself there. I can't really see the doomer scenario. I have trouble.
[00:59:40] Speaker A: The cynic in me says that that's some really incredibly genius marketing.
[00:59:45] Speaker B: Right. It's like a wink, watch out.
[00:59:49] Speaker A: We need to regulate this. Very dangerous.
[00:59:51] Speaker B: That's right. There are companies that would benefit tremendously from regulation. And so if that is such a big motivating force that that has to be taken with a grain of salt. The, the doom and gloom.
[01:00:03] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean that, that gives me pause too. I mean, it's not lightweights that say some of these doom and gloom stuff. Like, you know, it's credentialed PhD folk.
[01:00:13] Speaker B: Right. There's, yeah, there's, there's credibility on, on that side of it or, or concern.
I just can't get myself to the, to the doomer mindset. What, what I do think a lot about is the world my kids are going to grow up in.
[01:00:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:00:25] Speaker B: And what a career looks like for them and what my advice would be for them and.
Yeah. Because I'm in a company right now that is definitely, definitely in danger of just being wiped out by innovation. 100% Google at some point is just going to be like, well, you know, now your Android has X and now your iPhone has an agent and you never have to pick the phone ever again. And oh, also it's, it can do some businessy stuff. And if you think like, okay, if that happens, I don't know, what do you do? Start a different company. But if you're, if you're young and you're like going into a career and that career is in danger of being kind of tossed aside with a few innovations, then you're going into the wrong career.
And it's that early career time period that's the most dangerous. So that worries me, that leap from, I'm an apprentice, I'm just beginning in this, in my learning process around this industry and this role in this career. And then a lot of the early stuff gets replaced by automation. And I don't have this opportunity to climb up the ladder and really get a sense of the industry and how this stuff works and where I like to be and what I'm talented at. And so that feels very strange. The early part of the career feels Very strange. Like, entry level years.
[01:01:40] Speaker A: I share that concern.
Like, how do you. What is the path is what you're saying.
But software has always been about abstraction, so I'm talking about the developer career path, for example. Software has always been about abstraction. And I remember when I used to do. Or I've still done this, like a whiteboard interview with a developer, I would say, like, draw me what happens to a web request. And so they've got to figure it out. Like, I'm not testing there. I'm not like telling them about syntax on code or something like that.
I'm really testing their ability to think. That's one of the great things that I learned as being an engineer and going to engineering school is like, really? That's. That was about four years of learning how to think.
We showed up for tests, everything was open notes. Because they never wanted to test you on syntax or rote memorization.
They're trying to make you into a thinker. They're trying to make you into.
[01:02:36] Speaker B: Good. Good for you.
[01:02:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:39] Speaker B: When did you go to school? You chose the right path in the right school.
[01:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I went to Tufts University. It was a great experience.
I was very privileged to be able to do that.
But I do think that there's.
Yes, I think there's some rote labor stuff that you kind of need to do in order to.
To learn the rest of the business or a career path or something like that. But I think.
I think it's going to get filled in by other kind of.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: It's like we. The hill of abstraction that we don't need to understand just gets a lot bigger and you sit on top of that instead of where we currently live.
[01:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's the. Probably the positive. More positive outline.
[01:03:18] Speaker B: I run an AI software company. If you asked me how an LLM works, I wouldn't want it to go out in public on this podcast, because I don't know.
[01:03:26] Speaker A: Right.
[01:03:26] Speaker B: But I don't need to know. Just like I don't have any idea at all how the water comes out of my faucet. I don't know.
I don't, you know, and that's fine.
[01:03:35] Speaker A: Right?
[01:03:36] Speaker B: But now, now that's moving upward. My wife and I often laugh. We have people come to the house H vac, like, where's my. Where's your boiler? I'm like, homie, I don't know how this house works. I don't need to know.
That's not where I live in the economy. That's not what I say out loud. But in my mind, I'm like, I. I genuinely have no idea how any of this stuff works. And I just appreciate that you do. And I'm. I'm going to focus here in the economy and specialize in figuring out how this stuff works over here, but maybe.
[01:04:01] Speaker A: Have the ability to go back to first principles and understand it. You do?
[01:04:05] Speaker B: Yes. Yes.
[01:04:06] Speaker A: Like, you could understand how the water comes out of the faucet. You could.
[01:04:10] Speaker B: Yes. Right. Like, right. Conceptually. And truth is, I think I understand a lot more manual stuff than most people. But you're right. That's effectively what education is.
[01:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:21] Speaker B: It's just being aware of where your limits are, how things work. If you don't know how something works, then you know how to figure it out. You can kind of work yourself backwards. You can kind of get just enough. Enough information to then connect things together. You can be aware that you don't know, like, all these different things. Have you ever heard the graduation speech by David Foster Wallace called this is. This is Water?
[01:04:43] Speaker A: God. Yeah, I come back to that regular, everybody. Yes, yes, yes.
[01:04:48] Speaker B: We won't go too far into it, right? But. Graduation speech by David Foster Wallace called this is water.
[01:04:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:04:55] Speaker B: Spectacular.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: Required listening.
[01:04:57] Speaker B: Yes. Just Henry. I feel like that's where we end, my man. That's on a high note. Reaching for the stars.
[01:05:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Cool positivity, man.
[01:05:06] Speaker B: Yes. Thank you very much for coming on. I hope you come back in in a few weeks.
[01:05:10] Speaker A: Appreciate that.
[01:05:11] Speaker B: And we'll keep rolling.
[01:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Great chatting.
