AI for guys like us, a real-world report | Ep 27

Paul Fattinger (00:04) Welcome to Guys Like Us. If you're new here, this is a space for the questions that start getting louder in midlife, the ones that move the needle from just doing well to actually living the good life. We deconstruct stories that shaped us from leadership and legacy to the deep friendships and late nights that continue to move us. No surface-level talk here, just some lightly decanted reflections on existential questions and champagne problems. And in today's episodes, are going to talk about AI of all the things that matter today. I'm Paul joining you from Vienna and across the Atlantic in New York City is my favorite friend and co-host, Mark. How's it going, my friend? Marc (00:47) Hello, hello. Was that a new intro we just did? I like that new intro. That's pretty good. Yeah. I think that's even better than old one. Who? Who? Which one? Yeah, well, obviously, but it wasn't my friend Claude was a Gemini. Paul Fattinger (00:50) Yes, indeed it was. Huh? Yeah? You know who wrote it? AI. No, it's my best new best Paul Fattinger (01:04) We will talk about this holy moly. ⁓ I'm talking a lot to this guy at the moment. But hey, before we dive into this, how are you doing? How's your week been? Marc (01:05) New best friend. Mm-hmm. Good. This is a perfect time to chat. is ⁓ three o'clock on a Thursday in New York. I had a great lunch with a old friend. But you know, the funny thing about this friend of mine, who's a former CEO of a fashion company, you know, we back in my old days, was pitching him work and he didn't hire us. But I kind of liked it. No, never hired us. Paul Fattinger (01:39) Yeah. He never did? I didn't know that. Okay, anyways, Go ahead. Marc (01:48) Oh, yeah, no, they never hired us. And I always kind of liked him as a leader. And then he said, you know what, you know, I'm sorry about that. Why don't we just go for dinner. So we went for a steak at Gallagher steakhouse, which I have to take you to it's like a kind of classic old New York thing. You know, the waiters were all white. They serve the martinis in the window. They're these aged steaks. And they're just crazy like that. Yeah, yeah, would love it. So we became friends. Paul Fattinger (02:02) Yeah. nice, let's go. Marc (02:15) We just liked each other. And you know, he was just in New York right now. And we just caught up over a nice lunch. So is that a nice filet mignon, nice glass of cab, some good conversation. So you're I'm in a good moment. Expansive. What about you? Paul Fattinger (02:24) Mm. Mm. ⁓ Nice, that's very nice. It's what is it now? 9 p.m. in Vienna. I'm drinking my soul balm tea again. I'm still on my hardcore diet. We're gonna have to make an episode about this. ⁓ It's crazy, ⁓ So I had my last meal by 6.20. All of this. So I am in this phase, right? I'm really focusing on that at the moment. I've had a very good and super productive work week, dinner with my kids. So I can't complain. It's been a very good week. Marc (02:34) Okay. Okay. got we've got two different energies on this podcast and kind of excited to go deeper. Cool. All right. I'm flying like a a like a bat out of hell. Paul Fattinger (02:58) totally yeah yeah yeah that's interesting yeah very interesting nice no and i'm chilled as ⁓ as you can be really super chilled just give me one second because again as i spilled some tea on my laptop before my mic is disconnecting so i can have a some fun to cut all of this shit. I hate this mug, why? Anyways, I'm back on the right now. Marc (03:29) Thank Dude. You're back. Paul Fattinger (03:43) Thanks How is it? You hear me shittily or is it? Really? Interestingly enough, it's not on my shore. Really? It's on this, Because I can't change it. Marc (03:47) I hear you perfectly. No, you're good. You sound good. Yeah. Now it's Slightly better. ⁓ ⁓ interesting. Paul Fattinger (04:03) I'm gonna do it on this today. AI is gonna fix it. Fuck it. Okay. All right. No, it's around, it's pretty quiet. Okay, listen, so, so we wanted to talk about AI today because I know it's a big part of all of our lives. I know also of yours at the moment. Marc (04:05) Okay, well listen, to be honest with you, it sounds pretty good. I think it's pretty quiet already, so you're good. you Paul Fattinger (04:25) I mean, lots of stats flying around. mean, it touches everybody's lives. think that's pretty clear. Right. I mean, we don't have to have to discuss and argue this. Some pretty crazy developments also. I companies spending. I researched this now and everybody read this somewhere. Do you know by heart how many billions Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon spent on AI last year collectively? Marc (04:50) Collectively, I think it's got to be in the 80 billion to 90 billion Paul Fattinger (04:57) It's 405 billion. All of them. There was one. There was one of them. One of them spent that much. And you know how much revenue they made with this? Marc (04:59) Okay, so I was off by, Oh wow. No. Paul Fattinger (05:11) Spot on. That's a bit of a 1 to 10 ratio, which kind of sucks, right, if you spend that much money. But what I found really interesting about this, that's about 1. something percent of the US GDP. And that is also about what was spent on the... ⁓ on building the rail infrastructure back in the wild wild west in the US. So that's kind of what it is in terms of GDP and that's kind of how it is feeling, right? So, but listen, it's such a big topic. We thought a little bit about how we can slice and dice this. we thought about folks, we thought about three sections. The first one being how guys like us, know, we always get these Instagram ads and they say, Marc (05:31) Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see where this conversation is going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Paul Fattinger (05:52) Don't use AI like a chat pod like every over 40 year old. Invest 10 hours a week to blah, blah, blah. So we're going to kind of talk about openly and yeah, how we use that stuff. And then the second one, obviously, as people and guys who are deep into the business world and, and and the professional world, how we think it affects our worlds there. And maybe we have some time to put our philosophical hats on and think about how this affects all of us, our kids and future generations. So yeah, that's what we're going to do today. So listen, I have a question. Marc (06:25) Nice, this is a practical one. Love it. Let's go. Paul Fattinger (06:32) If you walk me through a typical Mark day, how are you as Mark Winter using this technology on an everyday basis, getting up to going to bed basically? Marc (06:45) Yeah, outside of work. Yeah, outside of work. Paul Fattinger (06:47) Personally, I'd say, well, I mean, maybe what you but it's really what how you use it, you know, not how you see it being used, but what you do with it or do you use it at all or do you not or. Marc (06:58) No, I do. I use it. ⁓ I use it for practical planning around my kids, like what should we do this weekend, what's available in New York, like this kind of stuff. ⁓ Some travel recommendations. I don't use it for flights and stuff like that because I'm quite loyal to United, unfortunately, but it's just the way that it works. I think more about AI than I use AI at the moment in my personal life. Paul Fattinger (07:13) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marc (07:33) Work Live is totally different, but just from a personal application, that's it. Paul Fattinger (07:35) Okay, okay and what do you mostly use? there like a go-to app? Are you paying for anything? Marc (07:41) Yeah, I use Okay, let me back up the one great utility of it and I would say ⁓ My penny drop moment with AI is was with Claude and in writing So I think in previous podcasts we were talking about ⁓ You know how I write on the side written a bunch of television pilots etc like that and when I use if I want to play different scenarios for character arcs or Paul Fattinger (07:55) Mm-hmm. ⁓ Marc (08:09) Plot points or like tell me if like if I made it more of like a horror movie if I made more like a comedy like how would you do? Etc Claude's amazing at this and Paul Fattinger (08:16) man. And is Cloud better than other ones at this or did you just kind of get into this? Really? Marc (08:19) It is a hundred percent. No, I think no. No, no, I think Claude is yeah I find the way it writes and the way it defines character arcs are really good I haven't used Gemini for these yet, but between chap GPT Gronk and this and ⁓ Claude Claude by far And I want to share with you just the experience if I can ⁓ Let me pick a movie everyone knows ⁓ Titanic, okay, so like imagine like Paul Fattinger (08:34) And did you... Marc (08:47) Not that I Titanic, but imagine somebody that size like You can upload and you upload the entire Titanic script and you could do this today Uploaded Titanic's script and say give me four alternate endings where Jack doesn't die You know at the end of the movie the Leonardo Capri doesn't die in the end. What what happens etc and and We'll make it darkly comic. We'll make it romantic. Bop ba-ba and the power of this thing is Paul Fattinger (08:55) Yeah, easy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Marc (09:15) is so bananas that it will ⁓ spit out an alternate ending, I would say within 10 seconds. Four. Paul Fattinger (09:25) Insane. That's insane man. Not stupid. A dolphin comes and he swims away. Exactly in the Arctic Sea. So when you use it you uploaded your whole script into that right? And so it knows how you write? Okay interesting. Yeah okay. Marc (09:27) And logical, like what's not like, know, what if yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, Dolphin comes and like lifts Leonardo Caprio up and like, yeah, it shoots. Exactly. You know, another boat comes is all the dream. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Paul Fattinger (09:49) So I gotta say, I mean, I've been using it a lot lately and in terms of. Marc (09:55) I think you become extraordinary with it. You're really impressing me with the tools and your utility. Paul Fattinger (09:59) No, it's like, mean, one thing that happened that I moved everything to Gemini recently when they brought out their newest model and because I had worked with GROK quite extensively, I really liked it. To be honest, I had paid for GROK, Chet GPT and Gemini in the past, I would say, nine months. And I use GROK mainly for hard work and stuff and Chet GPT kind of became my, I would say almost my housewife GPT. I asked him for recipe. Marc (10:05) Mmm. Paul Fattinger (10:29) and when I cook shits that's how I ask GPT and then actually Gemini became so good at everything that I asked it to write me prompts for my other GPTs to transfer the contents of my chats to Gemini GPTs yeah and I have five Gemini chats now that I like that I pinned and that kind of that I really transferred one is about health and longevity and fitness so everything I eat and I do on this end Marc (10:45) That's fucking awesome. No way. Paul Fattinger (10:59) and now my dieting I talk to this guy all the time I was like this is what I ate what are my macronutrients what do you suggest for lunch when should I eat next this is the sport I'm gonna do I want to lose this much weight blah blah blah so I talked to this guy all the time the other one is about guys like us and clearly where Marc (11:14) Yep. Paul Fattinger (11:16) I upload every episode transcript, ask them for feedback and kind of also brainstorm the next episodes. And I don't know, I have one for work and so on. And I really, I've got to say in the last two weeks, I probably spend an hour a day on those things. I mean, almost obsessively. I mean, almost, I started working as my best friend at the moment. Marc (11:31) Wow. Except the ones you see every week to talk for 45 minutes, Paul Fattinger (11:43) Exactly, no, but I talk to German and more so it's I use it a lot for that not so much for writing emails to be honest and not so much for tasks that I do I mean, we talked about in the professional chapter there's a few things but I really use it to to kind of challenge my ideas And to get some you know, practical advice. I need a new cutting board. What should I get which? What should it be wood or should it be some kind of plastic? What is the most Marc (12:02) Yeah, same. Paul Fattinger (12:12) bacterial thing. Okay wood. What is the best wood? So you know and for me who loves to go into a rabbit hole this shit is like fucking addictive. It's bananas. It's bananas. Marc (12:21) Bananas. ⁓ Have you used it as your therapist yet? Paul Fattinger (12:32) I haven't but I know someone who has and who's had a phase of a very intimate and long conversation with with a judgey-pity and and this person told me listen man I mean the shit that comes back is much better than what most of my therapists have told me and I gotta admit it's probably true but I haven't. I haven't. Marc (12:57) I am. I'm tempted to do it. Just as just as an experiment. No, no, because no, have like, like a legit story, like a dear friend of mine, her boyfriend who's like going through some shit long term shit, right, finds it easier to talk to loads of therapists just finds it easier to talk to chai tt. And there's the we're gonna get that to version, you know, part three of our conversation. But I mean, ⁓ the utilities of this thing does not surprise me. Paul Fattinger (13:05) Do it. I it's not like you're shooting yourself up with a drug, you know. Yeah. No, I mean, I find it, you know, I thought about because Jeremy gave me a question to ask is like, share a moment when AI was too good. And I guess you kind of, you know, that it really freaked you out. And what you just said before about your script, I guess is one. Marc (13:43) Yeah. Paul Fattinger (13:47) to me is how flawless all the stuff comes back and how well it reacts to all the context you have. And you have to kind of tweak it. And I think that's really important. You have to tweak it because I think it still tends to be, least Jem and I, too ⁓ appreciative and too much kind of like telling you how great this idea was. So you have to tell him, listen, I mean, I don't give a shit about your opinion about my idea in case it goes against what I want. And you know my goals, tell me. Otherwise, you know, keep it short. So I think that's kind of still sometimes cumbersome and sometimes it loses some shit or forgets some shit and that really pisses me off. But it pisses me off like working with a junior, you know, that just came out of university and started working for me and I'm telling something and he's doing another thing. It's like, ⁓ it's very, it's very similar. It's very similar in that, I find. Marc (14:38) And you don't have to take your junior out for beers to make their, you know, lessen their hurt feelings after you've yelled at them. Paul Fattinger (14:42) Exactly, yeah. Exactly, it's like it's just a shut the fuck up. No, so I think for those things it's been really quite handy. I'd love to do more in my... but I don't have any tasks in my life that I'm... you know. Marc (14:59) I want a vibe code so bad and yet I don't know. Paul Fattinger (15:02) I did that also a year, like nine months ago. Marc (15:05) Yeah, I started to and then I forgot about it. And I think VibeCoding, especially with cloud code, has gotten way better. ⁓ But yeah, so now I just need to... Paul Fattinger (15:12) way. Also lovable obviously you know I mean it is a great app and I mean I've been there's another app on Google actually in the Google thing which is called Notebook LM which is great where you can just upload I mean it's insane you can just upload your stuff for our listeners right and and it's gonna you can upload 20 PDFs and then Marc (15:23) Hmm. Amazing. No notebook. I'm just insane. Paul Fattinger (15:34) tell it to make your 20 minute podcast as a summary so you don't have to reach through all of this or it makes your mind map and and I did that with our podcast but with all of our transcripts it's pretty fun I have to share with you like what are the topics we talk about you know all these things pretty impressive Marc (15:45) I want to see it. Does it tell us what our best episode is? That's what I want to know. ⁓ Paul Fattinger (15:53) I haven't, yeah, good point, yeah, good question. He's probably gonna not know how to judge, but okay, let's try, yeah. Marc (16:02) ⁓ Well, let's let's switch to part two this conversation so work Because this is ⁓ something I'm profoundly interested to talk about so I I mean outside of cloud. I mean I just or just the PC. I mean I can't remember ⁓ such a game-changing technology and one that has well has radically disrupted kind of my Paul Fattinger (16:07) I would say so too. How do you... yeah. Marc (16:30) everyday work when you start to master it, right? I just, I feel like, and I'll share more about the moves I'm making and probably in our next podcast or two, but like, you right now I'm a team of two that feels like it's performing like a team of eight, maybe 10 on some days. ⁓ Paul Fattinger (16:44) Because of the stuff you do with it. Marc (16:49) Yeah, just ⁓ everything from, hey, I'm going to record this conversation, it's going to take notes for it, right? And then I'm going to give it a framework to distill those notes in, right? And then I'm going to say, what are the big themes? And I'm going to take those themes and put them in something else. And stuff that would take, you know, in the consulting business, two, three people to do, you know, a good two days, you know, to transcribe something, find out big themes, et cetera. It's mine in 10 minutes. And... ⁓ That's insane. so we should be, and it's really fucking good and accurate. And I'm like, ⁓ there are a couple anecdotes and I still have to listen. I think there's a premium on experience and wisdom and doing the listening to say, hey, yeah, you got that Gemini, but Paul said this little funny nugget. I want to this in here or that. Paul Fattinger (17:21) Totally. I find that, sorry to interrupt you here, I find that the most difficult thing almost, that there is so much feedback and content coming that you really actually attentively read through that and give feedback and do it again. You're not tempted to just take the first best thing that comes out as like roll with it, but to really go and dig deeper and reprompt and re-ask. I find that that's challenging, especially for someone with my attention span. Marc (18:11) Yeah, I mean, it's well, this is actually what hints at the future to be honest. So I mean, you have the wisdom to understand that what comes back is not good enough, right? Your junior person doesn't. So as you go deeper and reshape the prompt faster, smarter, ⁓ find the right angles, and I'll give you example today, right? ⁓ I'm working on a bit of a kind of a workshop session. I'm trying to create some beliefs about the future for work. So what I mean by that is like some statements that say, hey, like here are 30 statements that we want to talk about the workforce in the future for AI. Are they true or not? And I gave some framework for Gemini to go deep, put out some answers that align to that framework, et cetera. And I was like, OK. They're kind of good. I'm like make it more provocative make them funnier like like how do we give some examples to push? Etc and then they unlock was like, okay Well, let's give it a time frame a three-year time frame actually a two-year fine time frame and compare the two between two and three years right and give me believe statements like that and now what came out of that was like, okay, this is 85 % there to 90 % what I want and now I'll know the human will push it further and that is a skill of prompting, know to not Paul Fattinger (19:08) Mm-hmm. Wow. I mean, you know what, yeah. Marc (19:32) like get through. Paul Fattinger (19:34) I mean, this is right at the intersection of those topics. And I had a meeting yesterday with a ⁓ partner of a big Austrian consulting firm that does mainly strategic advice for companies in AI. And he said what so many people have told me and what we are experiencing that we and the people a bit younger than us, and I kind of define it with I think people that have at least probably 10 years of work experience, or seven to 10 years of work experience, and that are good at their job and love what they doing, they can use this as an immense leverage to be better. And you were a great example. And he told me a very similar story about a guy, you know, who just came to them as a new partner alone without a team, actually. And only he took his five best guys and he used to have 40. He's like, I'm not going to hire anyone for right now. I'm just going to stay with this and see how much I can automate and then do they do a lots of, you know, software strategy, implementation products. Crazy. So, and I know I told you a story. Marc (20:08) Yeah. ⁓ Totally. Paul Fattinger (20:34) before but I love the story and I heard it almost a year ago already. It was a guy who worked in a marketing agency obviously one of the areas and industries that are you know with all the tax creation possibilities impacted in the beginning and he said I used to have five copywriters. I fired three and you know who I kept? I kept the most expensive and best one and I kept the cheapest one because the cheapest one is creating with AI all the text and the things and the oldest one selects and chooses and fine-tunes. And that was the perfect description of how it's gonna be and that is maybe for part three a scary one. But before we get to that, a question to you. mean you look, you you've seen so many industries in your life and in your work and you're looking at them now. And I know you think very hard about, know, what is AI going to do to those companies? Do you see any industry right now that is, you know, working very hard at this, some others that are completely closed off? You know, that's kind of my first answer. Then I have a follow on this. yeah, who? Yeah. Or who is really, you know, who do you see right now that is really jumping on top of this topic? And other industries where you are like, why the fuck are these guys not thinking about this? Marc (21:40) Like who's being most disrupted and then who is and then who's insulated? Yeah. Okay. Most obvious, I'll give the most obvious answers, right? You just look at the most profitable or exciting AI native orgs will tell you kind of where the disruption is happening the most, which is obviously illegal. It's happening in accounting. All back office HR, back office stuff, right? And we all kind of knew that as a, as a obvious kind of piece and where ⁓ So consulting, you're you're consulting, if you're in law, if you're in accounting, ⁓ anything that where you have rules based repeatable kind of tasks, ⁓ and your business models on time and materials, like you're fucked, right? Unless you have to shift that business model to outcomes, like you can't do ⁓ a time and material kind of thing. Paul Fattinger (22:49) Yeah, I mean, listen to jump in there. You know that right now I'm working for a company that basically sells time and material for software engineers. And we are in the middle ⁓ of starting, you know, working with Claude Code. it's again, all the senior programmers are like, what the fuck? This is great. I can do this shit alone now. I don't need someone else. Right. My most senior guy saying I just did a, you know, a proof of concept basically on the side. I just prompted it and I did my other shit. Then I looked at it again and did my other shit and it was done. Marc (22:56) my god. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hmm. Hmm. Paul Fattinger (23:19) I mean, within days, but still, you know, it's fascinating. It's fascinating. But I also find it fascinating how slowly companies adapt to that. Don't you? Because when I really look at what when you look at this, you think like, Jesus, this thing should be able to do everything. And then you look out into reality who has actually implemented it and really use it at scale. At the most I've seen companies that have implemented a chatbot that everyone can use that doesn't Marc (23:31) 100%. Paul Fattinger (23:49) send all the data to Google basically and that's great. I guess in Europe we are behind there because we have also lots of laws and regulations that are too stupid, stupid. Marc (23:52) Right, right. You have crazy privacy laws. I mean that's... Well, that's kind of my question here. like, because... Like, of course... I think the ones that are being disrupted are the ones that have the biggest promise for reinvention. It'd kind of interesting if lawyers were about outcomes. That'd be kind of cool versus time materials. Paul Fattinger (24:21) mean, in Austria they're not even allowed to do that, finally enough, by law. There is a law how and what they can charge for. And you know, like in the US you can say you get a percentage of the settlement. This is not legal in Austria. Marc (24:29) ⁓ wow. ⁓ yeah. Right, of course. Yeah, yeah, of course. You guys are a lot more civilized, you know, but you can see my chagrin here. But, you know, I think the adoption piece is really real because I people are just throwing money at it without really understanding. And I think this is is like the ROI is in workflow, right? And to do that, well, you have to understand what people's work is. The dirty secret is that most people don't know most leaders don't know what the directs do. Paul Fattinger (24:38) in a sense. Marc (25:03) because they don't know what their directs do, it's hard to identify what to automate. ⁓ with some exceptions, you know, kind of in the frown, everyone sees the promise. And so you have to unwind and get comfortable with ⁓ really mapping out flow and then being able to then, and by the way, then people don't want to tell you what their work is, which is part of the adoption piece. Paul Fattinger (25:25) I think there's two things there. Yes. think the first one is we talked about the two the other day. think the first one is the classical piece that we've always had when we did process optimization consulting, that you have to go and understand what people do and you have to find a certain task that has, you know, that is a transactional task that is repeated very often is the same case very often where you have volume, you know, very simple task and with high volume and that you can automate. Right. And, and we automated this shit already five years ago. Marc (25:42) Hmm. Paul Fattinger (25:55) 10 years ago with robotic process optimization and other IT stuff. It's not like this is totally new. So the kind of how do you detect that methodology I think is still there and still valid. I find there is a technical kind of thing where I think lots of where I heard at least that there are lots of problems is that in the end if you run probabilistic models that give you and you know it from your own usage right sometimes it tells you to use three eggs too many in a recipe and then the cake comes out shit right if it does that occasionally without any hint of when it does it or doesn't do it in a business process that's a problem. So it's actually not that easy to then really go in there and use those things off the shelf and tell them you know do this process and write a prompt and that's the other thing. But what you said before I find very interesting obviously the Marc (26:33) Mm-hmm. Paul Fattinger (26:48) how do you get people to work with you? Because if you go into a company and you come in and say, hey guys, we're going to use AI now. which basically means I don't, I think one of the bankers last year did one of these things. was a JP Morgan one. was like, Hey guys, basically only 40 % of you are going to work for us in 12 months time. Well, so have fun figuring out now, you know, what to automate. Who's in it, who's out. I mean, that's probably, you know, there's a very tough way of kind of introducing this topic. Marc (26:56) Ha Who's in and who's out? Yeah, exactly. ⁓ okay. There's, yeah, true. There's a, there's a higher order root cause here. So look, look, obviously where we are at the adoption curve is that everyone's going to be focused on, on cost for, know, versus like a, I'm drawing a hockey stick, you know, when we get to the growth phase of this. Yeah, yeah, it is. Paul Fattinger (27:28) Yeah, that's my next question. Find them soulless at the moment, those kind of projects. They're all about cutting stuff and... Marc (27:36) And here's the dirty secret is that while CEOs are asking or mandating cuts and optimization all sounds great, they don't know they're so illiterate in the technology itself. The literacy rate, I think of AI in most Fortune 500 orgs, I mean, I think if you took most people through, it would be appalling. And so they're making decisions about the future of their business without... and delegating, would say a lot of that to your chief digital officer, chief technology officer, who might be wonderful and skilled talented people, right? But would you really dedicate, delegate the future of your business to ⁓ technologists like that? I think you need to have a clear idea of what your org is going to become, you know? Paul Fattinger (28:22) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a super interesting question. And I actually also think for that we have had blueprints in the past. Because if we think about when really remember is when we started back into consulting after the NBA and around that time, we started with all this digitalization projects. That was the big shit back then. Right. And all the big consultancies built those digital transformations. Exactly. And what did you have? You had a CDO in every company, a chief digital officer. That was the big shit. Why was. Marc (28:33) Mmm. Right. All right. The digital transformations. Yeah, of course. Paul Fattinger (28:55) that because the people who actually had to know it, the people in the business who actually owned the process, the guy who did purchasing, the guy who did supply chain, the guy who did marketing, didn't know. So you had to put a sense of knowing somewhere and this is a very hard job because you have to go across all the lines horizontally without having any directs that you can actually tend to use XYZ and almost educate them of the possibilities that are out there. And years later, find 10 years later when you hire or when I hired I looked at leaders who had an idea of what was possible in their field who would actually have the idea what they what which process they wanted to automate then went to an IT another chief digital officer and told them listen man this is the process this needs to be simpler you know because that has to be simple because they understood first principles thinking that you know there is no way you need to do this by hand and then these guys get it done but it took 10 years for people to get you know basically Marc (29:41) Mm. Mm. Paul Fattinger (29:57) literacy in what is possible in the digital world. We had the same in a very short time with think with sustainability but that kind of died and that's another episode and now we have the same I think on a much bigger scale as you said again with AI where people just don't understand yet the possibilities and so you have to kind of inject it into an organization is my theory. Marc (30:00) Yeah, no, that's right. Hmm. Hmm. And I don't think they like the answers because I mean I've been poking at this for a good year now I'm sure you too. I mean you're in it, but even the most Sophisticated technologists who I speak to they're like look, know what gets in the way of a dot, know Like of all this is ultimately human beings like it's it's crazy. They're thwarting so much of the progress for both emotional reasons for fear-based reasons through like like actually the Systems inside our org are all fucked up. So we have to rewire. mean, there's just it's really it's really different I think than the digital transformation piece in a way because the human component in adoption is So essential to get real ROI Paul Fattinger (31:06) And that's why I wonder if there is going to be, you know, if there is going to be companies, I read the stat, I think there was a stat is a long already more than a few months ago, there was how many companies there are with an annual recurring revenue of over I think 10 million that didn't have more than 10 employees. Marc (31:06) And that's like before, before I was, it was like fucking flip the switch on, you know? Mmm. Mmm. Paul Fattinger (31:30) So companies, maybe also like yours, that started with this, they never even had people to deal with in the first place. They were like before they actually hired someone, they tried everything to outsource it to technology and this kind of technology. And so my question is, are we going to have really big disruptors in some fields that actually work like this ⁓ and do that? And I think there's going to be, on the other hand, some others are so protected, some industries that is going to be hard. Marc (31:34) Mm-hmm. Paul Fattinger (32:00) to do that. So that I find interesting. Marc (32:00) I yeah, look, I think when we grew up in business, know everyone, know, we always met those CEOs that were like we need to behave like a startup, you know, etc. I think the new version of that is AI native Like we need to behave like that and okay, so it's impossible to do that obviously because those are people who are grown up but what they mean is Flatter faster quicker decision-making less, you know Paul Fattinger (32:14) Yeah. Marc (32:30) greater ⁓ Automation obviously like like putting your brain towards the The most essential tasks of the business versus versus, you know mundane ones all fascinating moments and challenges But hey listen, let me ask you this What is the one like we could talk about this for hours, you know, and I'm just like curious like if there's a trend that you've seen in Paul Fattinger (32:46) But look at... yeah. Yeah. Marc (33:00) business, especially now in the business you're doing that you're like, wait a second, this you're either it gave you pause or you're like, this is this could be the ultimate game changer. Paul Fattinger (33:01) Hmm. Actually, the one thing I'm seeing right now is almost there is no middle way. I see extreme slowness, know, extreme slowness where I'm like, really guys in your industry, you should be much faster. And I see some things where I'm like, wow, wow, these guys are really doing it. This is really adapting. So and I see almost no middle way and I find that extremely interesting. Marc (33:18) Hmm. That's cool. Yeah. Paul Fattinger (33:38) Because I think there's a huge opportunity there for being fast. I think it's an arbitrage opportunity to be honest. I think it's not going to take long for others to catch up because it's going to come in standard programs and it's going to become a commodity tool in your business processes. The question is what happens if you are behind for two years? Marc (33:57) Sure. Well, on slow, know, it's funny to quote F1, which I talked about earlier this week, and which also really got nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. So maybe I was wrong. But there's a quote, yeah, it's not that good. there's a quote, you know, me see about slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Which I kind of liked. ⁓ I mean, it's a great movie line. can see where that goes in the car. But there's something. Paul Fattinger (34:02) Mm-hmm. Really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a great movie line. It's a great movie line. That's a nice one. Marc (34:24) It's something kind of kind of interesting about that for a large enterprises like like there's something something cool. I am Paul Fattinger (34:32) Yeah, but you know, I wanted to say before on the lesson, mean, this podcast wouldn't exist without this technology. It wouldn't exist because I mean, we where we record, which is in Riverside, which is a great piece of, you know, software on the web that we always pay for, but it enhances the audio when my mic is out like today because I put tea over my laptop. It gives you automated clips, you know, with the Marc (34:39) 100 % no and Paul Fattinger (35:02) best moments that they feel throughout the shit like this. It would take me hours to do this. And now it takes basically an hour a week. Yeah, it wouldn't be possible. Period. We wouldn't have been doing it. Marc (35:07) Which is bananas, I mean like I think what what no no no no ⁓ What I wanted to offer before we get the film well actually this is a nice bridge of the philosophical piece ⁓ So I was talking to a dear friend she used to be ⁓ The CMO of at Google X. They're kind of crazy innovation lab Way most fun out of that Paul Fattinger (35:21) Hmm Yeah, yeah, of course. Marc (35:37) And she's at this new kind AI native startup, you know, called, specializes in digital twins. Now this, that's the thing where I was like, ⁓ like, if they pull that motherfucker off, you know, for those who don't know, digital twin is basically, they will replicate your own kind of LLM, or create your own agent, you know, that duplicates you based on Paul Fattinger (35:45) Mmm, that's mind blowing. Mind blowing. Marc (36:07) And this is what this company promises to do is not just your output like here's the papers mark wrote and here's the power presentation seated your chats Your your slack stuff your fucking work text messages and your work, you know, so maybe they can get my crass humor back in there But the point is that By the way, and mark is always on right? So at this point like, you know in these large enterprises, I'm going to bed and Paul Fattinger (36:15) Bye, Yeah, that's how you live on forever. Marc (36:34) Or out to dinner and someone wants to reach me about a task that can just talk to my twin And you'll get the answer ⁓ I'm on vacation marks on vacations Well, this is the ethical piece so so I want to so that leads us into part three, by part two I was just thinking like It's yeah. I mean all the different mode like considerations on compensation alone right is to think about ⁓ Paul Fattinger (36:41) But even if you're even even when you're dead I'm so scared, give me goosebumps just saying this is so fucking insane. Marc (37:05) Like what am I uploading? Okay, is it everything to own not only just the output of my work? But what this product is offering to synthesize is the totality of my experience of working inside that company captured in chat who knows it'll be voiced no doubt at some point, right? I'll just then yeah, of course like get capture everything dadadada ⁓ and Part of the things I'm wrestling and so it's the first of bananas, right and and Paul Fattinger (37:22) course. Marc (37:34) the output for your best people to get, if I could get two Palo Fatangos on my team, ⁓ is it, am I paying you what, twice your salary? Paul Fattinger (37:42) I mean, we're back at, yeah, of course, of course. Marc (37:44) Yeah, it's like and The level of the premium on wisdom for this now If I was a real exact, know a 55 year old executive This gets really interesting, you know Paul Fattinger (38:00) You know, I mean, there's two things that come to my mind. The first one you asked me before would really, you know, when I see it would really surprise me. And the fact is that, I mean, I think I'm a... in a larger group a heavy user, but I'm still scratching the surface of what is possible and easily available to me. Yeah, if I look at you know, some people that I know that build different agents that they talk to each other to do something that work like a little company or build a little piece of software, it amazes me. I have no clue how that works. And then I hear this and it scares me. Marc (38:14) Yeah. Paul Fattinger (38:31) And I'm like, this is so insane. And then if you think about this and the robot, and if you put, you know, this this kind of, you know, Paul LLM into humanoid, I mean, you have Paul in the robot, which obviously everyone wants to have. It's going to sound like crazy. No, but exactly. Jesus, man, this is it. I'm going to talk to Elion. I'm going to hit him up with a message on X and tell him. No, no, no, but in seriousness. But do you think that Marc (38:47) Now you're the real Terminator that you've always sought to be. ⁓ Paul Fattinger (39:02) you know imagine this digital twin actually existed and and really think further imagine it existed you know inside a humanoid robot that could also make a face like I do and the hands and stuff but what about the gut feelings what about the goosebumps what about those feelings that or maybe we're gonna get this thing that you know even puts up your brain and that's also gonna be recorded No, but what I want to ask is like, maybe they don't catch that. Let's assume they don't catch the gut feeling. don't catch the... Marc (39:44) They won't for now. I think they can get- Paul Fattinger (39:46) For now, okay. And now, if you take that away from my experiences, from everything I said and done, you know, is that me or how, I mean, that's a philosophical question, all right? I mean, how much of that is, is that 90 % me? Is it, you know, just the output me? Marc (40:02) Well, yeah, so before, before, I want to answer that just before, but back up for one sec to add one anecdote to this digital twin company I was talking about. It's the first time I heard dark data. You heard this before? It's exactly what you're talking about. Dark data is like, is these tech bros language for like the Twitch, the Twitch you get when you smile, like the things you can't. Paul Fattinger (40:17) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Marc (40:31) Capture you know what I mean? First of all, it's so fucking evil sounding. It's the dark date I need to capture right that that that makes up that make that so I can completely fool you as I kind of capture your Make up the makeup of your soul Is ⁓ it's it's just astounding and we're we're we're basically living Blade Runner, you know or or close to in our lifetime Which is a crazy thing Paul Fattinger (40:36) It is, yeah, it's like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's crazy, but you wanted to... Marc (41:01) Yeah, so but back to the like, it you or is it not? I don't think for the business context that matters. You know, I think for the human like it everything is 90 % Paul Fattinger (41:09) That's very nice. Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe we put this philosophical one to the next one and just collect a few questions there. And I'd be really happy to see in our comments, maybe someone also having some questions there. I have a huge question mark about what you said before. mean, who is going to build the experience workforce in the future? And with that, I obviously have a huge question mark over the future. Marc (41:31) Yeah, of course. Paul Fattinger (41:37) of my children and what they are going to do with their lives professionally. And the third one is, you know, what's going to happen to all those people that are going to be without a job because their jobs are going to be replaced. And what's the kind of world we're going to live in? So that's kind of my top of whatever just came up with. Yeah. What about yourself? Without answering them. Marc (41:39) Mm. Just those, just those. There's, ⁓ there's no, no, no. All the, those are relevant. I I'll tell you what I'm meditating on, ⁓ this week, which is the idea of dignity. And I think about, which is 10 tends to your last question, you know, but also in the workforce, you know, we, we forget how much pride we take in our craft. in an NARA experience. And there's something like... Paul Fattinger (42:30) Yes. All of a sudden someone comes along that does everything better. Marc (42:35) Right, or this thing that suddenly, you know, and you have the, we're so lucky that you and I, Wayne, that think we're relatively smart, we're relatively successful at experience that we know that what comes back, we can still push it, you know? But man, for that 20-year-old, five-year-old, or that 35-year-old who's trying to learn on this stuff, you know, and knowing that what, Paul Fattinger (42:56) Mm. Marc (43:04) you're shaping or putting in, this machine is putting out better. I would never hire you. I'm sorry, 22 year old or 23 year old, right? Or I will only hire the most promising one of you, at a cheap level, whatever, you're a two copywriter or things like that. And so my brain goes to dignity a lot. And I think about craft and what it means because it's not just... Paul Fattinger (43:12) That's a tough one, man. Yeah. Marc (43:32) My friend casually said, yeah, we used to have gas lamp lighters and now we have electricity. know, it's like, yeah, but this is at a higher. No, no, no, no. Paul Fattinger (43:38) Yeah, it's not that easy. Yeah. And we're gonna need people to do other things and all of this. But still, yeah, I love the Dignity one because it's deeper. It's, it's, yeah, yeah. Nice. Man, that's a, that's a lot of other things to talk about next time. A lot of them, a lot of them. ⁓ Hey, but the one thing I took away from my own experience and obviously I had the benefit of, you know, having a sabbatical and having time, but it is really to go out and try and try and try and dig in. mean, and for me, it's obviously a gift because I love, I mean, I watched YouTube videos of how to axle model stuff 20 years ago. So, I mean, this is exactly down my wheelhouse. I wish I had more patience sometimes and more time, but there's so many fields and areas in every but is in everyone's jobs and lives right now to open yourself up to this technology, which especially I think for, you know, guys like us, girls like us and our age group. And what we do is just going to be an immense booster. And one more thing, I also 100 % believe in the fact that the companies that are leading this race right now are going to lead it in the future, which is a huge problem. mean, society problem, but as an investment opportunity. Although I think the stocks are inflated right now, it is I think a generational opportunity as well. Because the value these companies are gonna capture is gonna be insane. Marc (45:04) Okay, love that. Thank you for that. I agree with that 100 % and I'm gonna add one more thing about the opportunity just a different lens Whether you're super seasoned or you're young everyone's an intern and that's like like You know, like there's there's a level playing field here. Yeah, okay You have the guys like us saying that you know, have this experience, etc No, like in the end every time there's a new update. There's a release everyone's an intern Paul Fattinger (45:23) That is fun. That is super fun. Yes. Yeah. Marc (45:38) I think that's that you have to and the older guys are going to be tripped up by we're seeing that back to my earlier point of being interns And I think you've had the fun and delight of that discovery Paul Fattinger (45:45) No, I mean, sorry, we're going longer. But yesterday I heard about someone who was like, they got a demo of someone who did outside in company presentations, like amazingly, 30 page perfect, know, like consulting perfect. was a 24 year old bloke who looked like he just fell out of his diapers. You know, and they were like, what the fuck is going on? But hey, I want on a positive note, and I know we've talked about this, because to me, and I said before, and I think it's great what you do now in your work that you work on, not on how can I go and, and, know, reduce the workforce by introducing an automated AI powered process. But I understand, you know, you ask yourself the question, what happens to the purpose and the soul of a company, if you do all of this, right? And how, and how do you keep that? And I'd love to really talk about that in another episode. Marc (46:34) ⁓ Paul Fattinger (46:39) But what I also love is that everything has light and shadow and as everyone looks and all of the things that we consume are going to be more more created by ⁓ artificial intelligence, think, and we I think, we both think, people are going to crave things that are more human and a real life experience. Marc (46:57) 100%. Paul Fattinger (46:58) And I love that idea and I love the opportunity that this creates for things that are the absolute opposite of AI and robotics, that are being outside in the forest making a fire and grilling a rabbit you just killed. That's a very archaic thing, but you know what I mean, it's just to paint a picture. And I think the opportunity and the space for this and the need for this is going to grow. Marc (47:16) Ha! Paul Fattinger (47:26) And that's that I find very exciting personally. Marc (47:29) In a world of automation, human connection will be prized and loved and chased after for sure, for sure. Paul Fattinger (47:34) Yeah, yeah, Very nice. Talking about which did you meet an idiot this week or? Marc (47:38) fun. I did. I have, I'm gonna go for a twofer. I'm just gonna do mid one. So I, I subscribe to this, you you get a bunch, there's just like a bunch of wine lists. Do have wine lists in Austria? Like, you know. Paul Fattinger (47:58) Pro? I don't know. What do mean? Like, what is it? Marc (48:00) No Okay, so you've got you these guys like you have wine stores and then you have like let's call wine curators So these guys that like have all these relationships with all these wineries and you know, if you're lucky you're allowed to get on a list, right and Okay, this is this is great. Oh and especially like Napa Valley and stuff, you know Yeah people like compete and they on a wait list to get on the list and sometimes those wait list like five years to go on the list. Oh, yeah Paul Fattinger (48:15) Maybe we have that, but I never gave a shit. Yeah. Yeah, okay, okay. Marc (48:30) And I have dear friend who finally got, he's an idiot of the week because I feel sorry for him. He got, after years of just schmoozy, he got on the list, right? It's called like, I think it's like the Big Kahuna list, right? And do you know what the monthly fees are for this list? Which he had no idea, he just heard all his friends talk. Exactly. Paul Fattinger (48:53) No. A thousand bucks? And now he can't get out of it because he... Marc (49:02) A thousand bucks. Do you know how many bottles of wine he's getting for a thousand bucks? Paul Fattinger (49:07) Two. that's generous. ⁓ Marc (49:08) for a month. That's generous. was like, dude, you have to reject. And then he's like, I pulled so many favors to get on this list. I have to stay on it for like, ⁓ long period of time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, he pulled. Yeah, it's a it's a perfect. Yeah, exactly. Paul Fattinger (49:16) You're kidding me. Now he has to sell them on eBay to kind of make the money back. ⁓ my god. Okay. That's a great edit of the week. That's a great edit of the week. Man, I don't really have one. I thought about it today. I got to pick myself for my whole dieting and keto experiences, which we're going to have to make a podcast about it because I I have all the con I just have to ask, you know, Gemini for all the recap and all the learnings because that's also my terminator because this dude or girl I don't know of Gemini has absolutely, you know, perfectly led me through this journey, which has been quite an interesting physical experience, I have to say. So. Marc (49:39) ⁓ I want to hear it. Ha ha ha! Hmm. Well ⁓ My terminators are the waiters at Gallagher steakhouse, which are super old-school Yeah, super That's ⁓ Super old-school classy, you know, they're disappointed you didn't order a martini to start but they're like, okay next time, know, like, you know Pointing you gently what's on the good stuff not still pushy Paul Fattinger (50:00) It's them in a nutshell. You're terminated. Finally a positive review of Waiters, Nice, I like that. I'm not too pushy but still... ⁓ Marc (50:26) But they just want to give you like you want to leave perfectly and I think all of them have worked there. I think the youngest one has been, you know, ⁓ there are 15 years, you know, so it's like that kind of establishment. So yeah, I think you have those more in Europe, but but this old school kind of grisly kind of New York thing is awesome. Yeah. Paul Fattinger (50:37) I love that. I love that. I love this attitude. nice let's let's finish on that vibe man let's finish on the martini vibe yeah thank you guys have a great day ciao Marc (50:48) It's a good one. I wish you all a great martini and a steak. exactly. Have a great one. Bye.