The AI Numbers Are Getting Ridiculous (556)

Speaker A: I feel like this should be the Halloween episode.

Speaker B: Well, that would be appropriate given that it's going to air the day before Halloween. Yeah. So

Speaker A: Is Halloween the 31st?

Speaker B: Your thinking is as strong as ever, Joe. Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, then using the big, big brain on Brad. I'm using it. So are you, uh, are you dressing up? Are you. Have you dressed

Speaker B: up? You know, here's the. Here's the funny thing that we didn't even talk about, but. Ah. My wife and I talked about this last night. The last. And so I know the answer right off the top of my head because I literally had to think about it last night as wife asked me. It. It has been, uh, 45 years, um, since. Since I. Actually the last time I was 15 years old was the last time I dressed up for Halloween and it

Speaker A: was

Speaker B: to go to a part. And. And here's the thing. I was 15 and I was in that particularly sort of, you know, whatever sophomore in high school. I'm, um, the guy who doesn't give a shit about anything. You know, I was so cool. I was too cool for school. And so I was. I'm sure it was ironic, right? You know, I'm sure my costume for the party was something like I'm, um, normal guy. Get it? You know, like. You know, like. And I was basically in my regular street clothes. Right. You know, it's like. And I'm. I'm dressed up as normal man. You know, it's like.

Speaker A: Only you.

Speaker B: Sure. Oh, yeah. I was

Speaker A: way too.

Speaker B: Way too cute for my own, uh. My own good. Yeah. How about you?

Speaker A: I'm. I'm not. I'm not a huge Halloween fan. I've

Speaker B: never been

Speaker A: putting it lightly. I don't like Halloween. But you know that the good friend. Our good friend. Friend of this show, Kalinowski.

Speaker B: Oh, he's.

Speaker A: He has. He does his

Speaker B: wife are to. Their whole family is like into it. But

Speaker A: he does his. His Cali Halley party every year and has for as. Almost as long as I've known him. So we. We did. My wife and I did dress up this year.

Speaker B: Oh, and you went as.

Speaker A: And uh, with. Sometimes we really go into like. I've had a few years where I've really gone all the way and this one was probably not as much, but we decided, uh. My wife went as a pumpkin.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And I. And I went as. Peter. Peter. Get it.

Speaker B: Oh. Oh, no. Oh, God. Oh dear. Oh my. That took me a second. But it's really,

Speaker A: you know, it's

Speaker B: pretty good. It's pretty good.

Speaker A: But the sad thing is, is. Is our really good, our really good friends who also went, went and we met there. They went as the same thing. So we had two of the same costumes at the same party.

Speaker B: Okay, I

Speaker A: said let. And I said let's not mix up these couples. This is very important.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, no, I mean, you know, you definitely want to. Don't want to mix up. I mean, you're putting car keys into bowls and stuff like that. Yeah, like, you know.

Speaker A: All right,

Speaker B: yeah, well,

Speaker A: uh, let's do this show.

Speaker B: Okay, fine.

Speaker C: And now for your listening pleasure, here's Polizi and Rose covering the week of media marketing and digital content news. Take it away, boys.

Speaker B: Well, hello friends. Welcome to this old marketing proudly brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast network, the audio destination for that's right, business professionals. I'm Robert Rose and with me as always, my co host, my pal, and a guy who doesn't need AI to tell him how to describe his kids in three words, Mr. Joe Polizzi.

Speaker A: Oh, I. Wait, I heard who did this? Somebody did.

Speaker B: Marissa Mayer. Yeah, Marissa Mayer X. Yahoo. Well, current Yahoo and ex Yahoo

Speaker A: also. You know, what does she have to think it was. It, uh, it was something for school. Like what?

Speaker B: No, well, she's have, ah, she's. She's on her PR tour for her new AI company. Um, and again, great, great job to the PR company. They got her an interview with the New York Times. Um, and in, in that interview, she's describing a use case, uh, for her, you know, how, how, how she was inspired to create this whole AI company that she's got. And one of the use cases that inspired her so much was her. The school asked, uh, for the parents to describe their kid and in this case her daughter in three words. And she struggled, she struggled mightily with it, Joe. She struggled with trying to come up with three words. And so she went to her dazzle AI assistant and basically said how to. You know, and came up with animal lover, empathetic, and something else. I can't remember what the three words were, but basically. And she thought that was perfect. She thought that was just the most. And so she's getting drugged pretty hard on the Internet for like, um. Really you needed AI to tell you how to describe your kid? Three words? Yeah. Uh,

Speaker A: dazzle. Is that the name of the

Speaker B: dazzle is, I believe, the name of her.

Speaker A: Dazzle.

Speaker B: Dazzle.

Speaker A: That's the best we got. Why don't you put the name into the dazzle machine and say, give me three better Brands, brand names than dazzle.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh,

Speaker B: it reminds me of be dazzled. Like. Yeah, they're putting.

Speaker A: I'm like, where

Speaker B: are we? Yeah,

Speaker A: I mean, maybe that's what she was going after. Uh, maybe you're just gonna bolt on intelligence.

Speaker B: Sure. Yeah.

Speaker A: That's what dazzle. That. We're gonna be dazzled.

Speaker B: We're gonna be dazzled. Get it? That's

Speaker A: gonna,

Speaker B: uh. That's the verb of, of when you go to dazzle and you try and do it, what are you gonna do? I'm gonna be dead.

Speaker A: Is that what it. Is that what it does? It gives. It's. I don't. I

Speaker B: don't know what it does.

Speaker A: I didn't get my brain. I cannot. I didn't get any further

Speaker B: than the social media memes that were just dragging her pretty hard over this. I mean, it's where we are now with AI and for the most part, the use cases that, uh, we continue to be in this place where we think that the companies, the frontier models, the big companies, tech companies, the fang, as it were, the Magnificent Seven or whatever, your favorite way to group them all together is on how they're marketing. The concept of AI just continues to be just like, so off, you know, just. Just like, just don't get it. They just don't seem.

Speaker A: Yeah. I would agree in general. And we've had discussions on this show. I did happen. I was watching the World series.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And OpenAI had their. It was almost like a meta copy one, but it was the. There were two guys that couldn't see straight ahead. Couldn't see well straight ahead. And they were using their open AI to say, tell me what's on my plate before I eat it. Just so I know where the food's at. And tell, uh, I can't see this menu. Can you like, and like, doing the whole thing, like being a life assistant.

Speaker B: Yep,

Speaker A: it's. It's pretty good. It's pretty good to. Just shows you some of the potential. Well,

Speaker B: it's like the. It's like when Meta finally got, like, clued in and

Speaker A: when they did the glasses

Speaker B: and with the military guy. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker A: totally get it. So I, I don't. I don't think they're all doing the dazzle route. I think that.

Speaker B: I

Speaker A: think there is some. There is some intelligence there. But you are. You're like, you're. You're AI Curmudgeon. So you like. There's nothing I could say.

Speaker B: I own that URL, by the way. I still own that URL. AI

Speaker A: Curmudgeon.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What do you, yeah, you need

Speaker B: curmudgeon AI? I believe it is. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think you need to do something with that.

Speaker B: I might maybe

Speaker A: you uh, put, put up a. Very well spoken. The

Speaker B: funny thing is, is that in all my presentations and workshops and advice to my clients and all that kind of stuff, I'm, I'm not an AI hate. Like I love using AI. I absolutely, I use it every day. I use it in my client work. I use it in my, you know, to test my thinking. I, I actually find great use in the tool. I just, the, the overhyped part of it is, you know, I mean we've talked about this on the show as well. You know that the idea of, of where we are on the hype cycle, uh, in terms of what it can do and what it will do and what it should do is, is to me so overblown. It's like it. That we just need to take a breath. Right? I mean, you know, have you seen the, the recent memes going around about the, there's a whole bunch of new white papers going around about what, you know, what happens when the AI bubble pops and you know, all this, the, the level of, of economy and all that kind of stuff and it's just like it gets thinner and thinner by the day. Right? In terms of, you know, I saw a post yesterday where. I saw a post yesterday on um, on um, LinkedIn. It's like in all seriousness, the person, and we both know who this person is, was seriously proposing. They were like, you know, in with all the FUD messaging or in there, uh, because their particular company happens to solve this problem or perceive problem. We're saying things like what's going to happen when every bit of 100 of your shoppers are AI agents? What are you going to do? You're going to never. You're going to what? You're going to die. You know, and it's like I just uh, I want to throttle that person and go just stop. Just, just, just uh, that's just so. Not only annoying but just wrong. So

Speaker A: we're going to talk about some of this later. The issue that, the issue that I'm having is that most of the focus is being put on these low hanging fruit concepts like honestly,

Speaker B: problems that don't need to be solved. Right.

Speaker A: Well that are honestly shopping

Speaker B: is not a problem that needs to be solved.

Speaker A: It's not that. It's not that it doesn't need to be solved. I think it's, it's in, in the long term it's inconsequential. I think that if we look at where, and I'm going to talk about this in my rave, but I think where the opportunities are at in or in the scientific. Huge problems. Cancer and Alzheimer's and thing and pharmaceutical

Speaker B: drugs.

Speaker A: Those are, those are the things that we're going to solve. We're not, it's not going to be um, oh, uh, give me, give me three words to describe my kid.

Speaker B: These

Speaker A: are

Speaker B: just, these

Speaker A: are just things that are, we're just distracting us.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: It's these.

Speaker B: And

Speaker A: you know

Speaker B: what?

Speaker A: But I get that because it was the same way when web, when

Speaker B: I know

Speaker A: this whole thing again,

Speaker B: bookstores are gonna die. You know, it's

Speaker A: like ah,

Speaker B: music industry is gonna die. But

Speaker A: this is humanity. I don't, I

Speaker B: remember having serious conversations in 2000 and 2001 that the music in like literally the music industry would die. That mp3.com was going to kill, literally kill the music industry and there would be no more record companies, there would be no more distribution companies. It would all be free. It would all, it would just destroy artists. It would, you know, it was going to, it was going to kill everything. The entire music economy was going to die because of mp3.com and, and um, you know.

Speaker A: Napster,

Speaker B: Napster and all that stuff. Right? And it's like no. No. Yeah.

Speaker A: I think no is is your favorite word. And I, I, I have so many other comments to say on that, but I'm not going to do it. Hey, before we get started.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Can I promote my little.

Speaker B: Yes, please do you got a new newsletter thing?

Speaker A: I got my new newsletter thing that I'm working on. Yeah,

Speaker B: I've been working on it

Speaker A: for a while. I got a lot of help working on it. So

Speaker B: yeah,

Speaker A: I just launched this uh, 21 day challenge if you will. It's completely free. Uh, it's, you go to the tilt.com 21 and basically if you feel stuck in creativity in business and wanting to look for a new job or any, anything that anybody feels stuck out there in something, it gets, it helps get you unstuck so you sign up for it, it's completely free. And you will get a 10 minute thing to do every day that sort of follows the book but you don't need to buy anything so you don't need to buy the book or anything like that. And, and it really helps you kind of get out of a rut and start making that change. So go to um.

Speaker B: Is this

Speaker A: signing up

Speaker B: for the tilt. And then you get the 21 day challenge.

Speaker A: You get the 21 day challenge, and then you'll get the newsletter. And if you don't like the newsletter, then you could opt out. Okay. Unsubscribe. Super easy. I'm not gonna hound you. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's a, ah, it's a lead gen for the newsletter. Ultimately, if you're not subscribed,

Speaker B: it's called content marketing.

Speaker A: But I. But honestly.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: no, I get

Speaker B: it. I

Speaker A: just want to help. I just want to help people.

Speaker B: You're earnest idea

Speaker A: all. I've

Speaker B: always been earnest. Yes.

Speaker A: I'm just trying to make the world a better place. That's what my AI told me. And so, uh, it said. I said, why am I here on this earth? And it's a, Joe, you're here to make the world a better place. No matter what Robert tells you,

Speaker B: you

Speaker A: don't listen to him.

Speaker B: They said, that's a smart take, Joe. You're here to delve into the wonderful places that AI can take you. Joe,

Speaker A: this might be the smartest take you've had in the history of smart takes. And how did that land, Joe? How did

Speaker B: that land

Speaker A: you? You feel so good after you talk to the AIs, right? Was

Speaker B: it in a quiet room?

Speaker A: Give me five words to describe how wonderful I am. Anyways,

Speaker B: Anyway, we got a

Speaker A: great show Notes if you can't remember. It's thetilt.com 21. I'd love to get feedback on it. We'll see how it goes.

Speaker B: I'll

Speaker A: promote it for the next couple. I like it.

Speaker B: I'm gonna make sure I sign up for this. If we're a Tilt subscriber, do we go. Do we just get it or

Speaker A: you just get it? You just get it. Yeah, you just. You don't get two copies of the newsletter. If you just. If you want it, you just. No, you won't get. You won't get it. If you. If you're already a subscriber to the Tilt newsletter, you won't get this. You got to get it separate.

Speaker B: Oh, you're

Speaker A: not separate. I'm not just gonna. If you. I'm just gonna. Not gonna send it to subscribers because some people don't want it.

Speaker B: Oh, I see.

Speaker A: You might want. Yeah. So if you would just want to get the 21 day challenge and do this.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah,

Speaker A: go for it.

Speaker B: Okay, so it is separate. So if I'm a subscriber, which I am. Of course

Speaker A: you won't. You. I need to

Speaker B: Go sign up for that separately.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll probably. I'll put it in the newsletter. But, uh, so people know. But you won't just get it.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: yeah, I don't do that. I don't just force content down the throats of my audience.

Speaker B: You're here. I the world a better place.

Speaker A: That would be inconsequential. Anyways, we got a

Speaker B: story of my life is quite inconsequential.

Speaker A: All right. Fantastic RO show.

Speaker B: All right. We do have a fantastic. We're going to talk about anthropic released its S1 into the wind. It's red herring. Remember the magazine Red Herring back in the day? Yeah,

Speaker A: that was very popular.

Speaker B: Yeah, it was very popular during the early 2000s. Kids have forgotten about that. So they're a red herring. Their S1 is out into the wild and it's wild. Um, and we'll talk about that. Plus some of the data by the numbers from the New York Times about, uh, what's going on with AI Then Instagram is testing a feature film length content format. Uh, very interesting that. Uh, we'll talk about what that might mean for content creators on Instagram and the sba. The Small Business Administration, Dun dun, dun. Big News has actually launched a content creator category in their Small Business Administration sort of categories of small businesses. That's big. That's a big thing. We'll talk a little bit about that. Yeah. And then we'll talk about our winners and losers. Where I'm going to talk about the winner that is Apple Music and their new brand. Look. Uh, and Joe is going to talk about the winner that is. Well, speaking of the 90s, Mr. Paulie Shore.

Speaker A: I love. I love me some Polly Shore.

Speaker B: Okay, baby. All right then.

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And he was. I'm. I'm super interested in it because he's also been sort of blackballed quite a bit.

Speaker B: Well, yeah, he got canceled. Yeah, he definitely got canceled.

Speaker A: Can you say blackballed? You have to say canceled now. I don't know what you have to say.

Speaker B: I don't know. I, I can't. Uh, uh, I'm sure, yeah,

Speaker A: I'm sure I'll find out. I don't

Speaker B: know. Yeah, you'll get. You're gonna get email either way.

Speaker A: I do. I generally do. You can't say that. I. Well, I said. First of all, I did say it. Say if. I said if I'm not supposed to say it, somebody needs to tell me.

Speaker B: All right, then we'll get to our rants and raves where I'M gonna talk about the. I'm gonna rant a little bit, I think, on citations versus mentions in AI search and how people are conflating those two things. I, uh, think, you know, way that's not productive to marketing. And then you're going to talk about the golden age of science.

Speaker A: Here we go.

Speaker B: It

Speaker A: is coming. It's coming. We're gonna, we're gonna answer sciences.

Speaker B: I hope so.

Speaker A: Difficult questions with three words each.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. There you go.

Speaker A: Yeah. Brought to you

Speaker B: by Claude. All right, let's get going here with our first story, which is coming to us courtesy of the New York Times. The failing New York Times, according to some. Uh, and this is, uh, from the. Their morning letter, which by the way, if you're not getting. That's really good. Um, AI by the numbers, it says. And it's basically coming on the heels of anthropic releasing their S1. And the article opens up and basically says, which artificial intelligence firm will become the biggest company ever to debut on the stock market? Anthropic offered the opening bid on Monday when it releases plan to offer shares on the NASDAQ exchange. Basically, it's planned meeting. It's S1. The numbers are staggering. In the first half of this year, anthropic earned $16.3 billion. In that same period it lost 80.7 billion. We'll talk about that. Because that's a bit of an accounting trickery there, but we'll talk about that in just a second. But it's growing fast. Its potential valuation in the initial public offering is $2 trillion. Um, and for some reason the writer feels like he has to write all that out. Yeah,

Speaker A: he wrote all the zeros out.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: right.

Speaker B: Just. It looks impressive, I suppose.

Speaker A: Look at all these zeros. I

Speaker B: can put them next to

Speaker A: each other and it looks big.

Speaker B: It's hard to imagine, they say $2,000 billion dollars. The average U.S. household's income is $126,000. He says, uh, the household would need to nearly 16 million years to reach 2 trillion. And then only if it saved every single penny. A lot of words devoted uh, to that. Um, then they uh, talk through a number of AI stats, basically, generally AI stats, sort of the environment that we are, which are really interesting. For example, workers who reported using AI as part of their jobs in 2023, 30%. Now in 2025, 76%. Estimated number of American workers exposed to AI who may need to transition to new jobs, 11 million. It's a weird number, but we'll talk about that. Slowdown since 2023 in real wage growth for jobs highly exposed to AI, 6.7%. Also a bullshit number, but let's talk about that. Uh, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta are projected to spend on AI infrastructure this year. $700 billion. Not a bullshit number. That's probably even low

Speaker A: number.

Speaker B: Um, and so it goes through a number of things here. Ah, so I have a couple of thoughts on the S1 generally speaking. But uh, what do you make of these numbers here?

Speaker A: I think that um, when I talk to certain people, they talk about House. It's just ridiculous. Um, not only just how fast this group but that about the bubble. Are we in this bubble? Is this thing going to burst? Um, how, how can they be spending so much money? Um, it's uh, it's actually quite negative. Most of the feedback that I've been getting and I'm taking the. I probably am on the opposite side of you and I'm interested to see what you're going to.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: but I, I think that this company might be undervalued. I, I um, don't

Speaker B: 2 trillion undervalued.

Speaker A: I mean whatever it is, the numbers don't matter. Like I, I think, I think the impression that I get from people is like, oh my God, this is so hot. Such a young company. How can they do this? They're spending money like crazy, whatever. And I just remember, I just keep thinking about Amazon. I keep thinking about Amazon and the, how the, the smartest people in the world said they're just throwing away money, they're wasting whatever. How can. They're, they're, they're basically worth nothing because they're in so much debt and all these things. And then, you know, look at Amazon today. I mean, I mean this is, they're, they're one of the dominant five companies in the world. Um, and that technology and all the things that Amazon's building out around the consumer shopping experience is small, like itty bitty small compared to the opportunities that are ahead for Anthropic. And the thing that I, the thing that I like, I always think about Anthropic and Claude and AI as it comes to marketing because you and I talk about it every week because that's our jam marketing content creation. And then you remember that the most of the money and the world's greatest problems live outside and they, they can affect and are affecting every industry in every part of the world. So you don't know where they're going to ultimately get all this. Even though the revenue numbers are actually Quite impressive. That's, that's what I was thinking. Like, I mean, I know you. Maybe you want to go into some of the numbers of the S1, and some of it kind of seems, you know, you're doing some accounting,

Speaker B: well,

Speaker A: trickery or fudgery or whatever just to make things look good. But I think this is going to be my. What I think would happen is it's going to go out at a certain number, it's going to get the 2 trillion valuation, it's going to immediately sell off, and then it's going to shoot up incredibly high for a long, long time.

Speaker B: I think you're. No, I think you're right. And I don't think we disagree too much. Um, I'm not sure. I think they're undervalued. I mean, I read the S1. It's been a while since I've actually read an S1. And it's entirely what stood

Speaker A: out to you.

Speaker B: Yeah, I used to read them all the time. Like when the early 2000s during the, the IPO sort of frenzy of the dot com era. I was reading a couple of S1s every every week. I

Speaker A: think the first one I read was the globe.com.

Speaker B: oh, yeah, right.

Speaker A: And I'm like, okay, tell me where there's value.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, I have no idea. Why did this stock go to $92?

Speaker B: Remember stamps.com? they were, they were, they were just down the street from me when I was working at, uh, at U.S. webc. Ks down in the. Stamps.com, pets.com, pets.com,

Speaker A: uh, toys.com. i mean, you got the, the whole, the whole thing. But then for every one of those, you had an, you had an ebay and you had an Amazon and that's

Speaker B: exactly right. Yeah, that's

Speaker A: exactly right. You had the big ones. Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, okay, so the numbers that jumped out at me. So, yes, the revenue growth is the, is the, is the highlight. Right. I guess it's, you know, they. From 16.3, uh, for 1H20. 26.

Speaker A: 16.3 billion for the billion. 26

Speaker B: from the. 14

Speaker A: times. 14 times the previous number.

Speaker B: That's right. So that's real growth. Right? That's real growth. Now, whether they can sustain that or not, I don't know. Um, and that becomes the big question mark that we need to think here. Um, they actually turned a profit. They did turn a profit. Right. So they actually, in Q2 had an operating profit of almost a billion dollars. $974 million, according to my notes. Um, which is a big milestone. It's the only USAI company to report a quarterly uh, operating profit. Now the $80 billion loss is a bit of an illusion and what I meant by trickery here, it's not that they were trying to be tricky with it. It's basically the way it works is 72 billion of it of that loss is what is a basically non cash accounting charge because their valuation has skyrocketed so rapidly. Um, so they're, you know, they're, they're, they're trying to get to a $2 trillion valuation. So that valuation has gone up. Thus they had to take a non cash accounting, you know and I don't understand enough about accounting to know why they had to take it. But um, they, they had to apparently had to take this as a non cash accounting charge. Um, basically it's the cost of marking up their early convertible notes um, in terms of what they're going to happen when they go out and actually in this public thing. So like every S1 it has to be a full disclosure sort of thing. Um, the number that makes you blink really hard and start to wonder. And this is the thing that's going around social media I find which is the 600/630 something billion dollars in compute commitments um, to secure the infrastructure needed to grow at the level that they feel like they need to grow at. Here's the thing with that those hundreds of billions, $630 billion is getting spread across basically four companies. Broadcom, uh, SpaceX, uh, and Amazon Web Services and I think Microsoft is another one. Um, anyway that's ostensibly if you look at that that's. Yeah and there are lots of the uh, people that are out there talking about this. So I'm certainly not the first or the only one talking about this is the idea that this is ostensibly four companies trading a hundred dollar bill around in each of their hands whenever it suits them. Right. So it would be literally like

Speaker A: circular revenue going on.

Speaker B: Yeah, well it's you investing, you giving me a million dollars and investing in Robert Rose. So I give you um, a million shares of Robert Rose stock. Then I immediately start buying your newsletter content and all your stuff to just start paying you back for all of this stuff that I need. And you're so you're getting your money back in my buyer revenue stream instead of an investment payback. So you're getting this revenue back. You're also by the way because you're now, because my, I'm getting now revenue back from other people. I'm now getting a higher valuation, thus the value of your investment is going up. So you're not only getting a value in investment, you're getting your money back in the way of revenue. And you're basically just between the four companies. Whenever anybody needs to show the hundred dollar bill, you just hold up the $100 bill and you go, here I'm getting it.

Speaker A: And

Speaker B: it's the same money just trading hands and it's like there's not really. So what happens is, and this is I think the whole point of everything, right? Getting to our agreement or disagreement here. If demand stops, like if demand flattens and they don't keep growing into what they need to be a two sort of $2 trillion company and the demand for AI sort of flattens or stalls, then that comes tumbling down, and it comes tumbling down hard. Um, and so that's the worry when I see in this, it's like, okay, it's a high risk situation where how long can you keep that dollar bill floating around between those four, between when demand, you know, you're banking on tulips basically selling for a long time before, you know, before that happens. So that's my concern.

Speaker A: And I don't disagree with you about those four companies. I mean, you're absolutely right. But the uh, $132 billion in cash and equivalents, that's what stopped me. They have that, they have that money. 250 customers generated at least $10 million in revenue the preceding year. Uh,

Speaker B: right.

Speaker A: What?

Speaker B: That's, yeah,

Speaker A: that's incredible.

Speaker B: That, that is incredible. No, look, here's the thing. It's an incredible business, like full stop right now. Like it's a, it's an incredible business and if it, if, if tomorrow you, you, it went public and it was expected to grow at a value investment of say, let's say 2%, 5%, 13%, you know, some, you know, standard industry, you know, automotive industry, you know,

Speaker A: um,

Speaker B: manufacturing, you know, something like that, where you've, you've got a, a value investment over the long haul of, of you know, uh, Even double digit 1015 growth, you'd go, yeah, I totally get that. Right? But the promise here is that they're going to continue to double and triple all of this for it has to happen for like multiple years. And you just wonder if that is, you know, you start to wonder like, are they, are they Amazon to your point, or are they gateway computers? You know what I mean? It's like, I don't, it's hard to know which one they are. Right

Speaker A: now? Yeah, it's. Well, I'm going to bet Amazon because when I, you know how we always talked about when you and I started this podcast, we always said, like, oh, uh, content marketing is in the first inning, you know, over. Trying to make sports analogies. Yeah, we're just getting out of the dugout,

Speaker B: right?

Speaker A: This baby's just getting going. That's. That's where I think we're at in AI. We're like, we're just, we're just getting a sniff of it right now. Like, we haven't seen anything yet. So, yes, there's going to be, there's major, there's going to be major disruption that happens. But the.

Speaker B: Well, and I think that the interesting thing there is from a narrative standpoint that goes back to what we talked about at the top of the show, which is the, the narrative of things solving things like genome sequencing and cancer research and disease mitigation. And, you know, I was reading an article that seemed to be like buried on page 17 of the news, which is there's these new vaccines that they've now tested, um, that have been developed by AI, and they're starting to actually do some human testing on these things that, the vaccine itself, and for things like aids, where there's now AIDS medication, where they're sort of using AI to formulate new cocktail mixes, new vaccines, new ideas that might cure that. And it's like, uh, that's the kind of stuff that you go, okay, I can get my head around that. Right. It's like that, that as a world changer, is, is incredible.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, I'm hopeful just from what I've read, and we'll talk about some of this later. But something like a cancer, right? And you get, uh, you get, I mean, whatever cancer it is, I think in our lifetime, I think that will be solved for.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: I'm hopeful. But if you talk to the leaders, if you talk to Amade, I think he would probably agree with that. He's like, I think we have the possibility is there. There's no reason why we can't now solve for that.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: Well,

Speaker B: that's right. But here's the thing. Consumers don't pay for that. Right? Consumers don't, you know, consumers aren't downloading claw to their hard drive so that they can cure cancer. They're. They're downloading Claude so that they can solve three answers for their kids that school asks. Right. And so that's, you know, they're sort of in this weird Tight spot where they have to drive demand in the marketplace for regular people. But the actual most profitable and most advantageous uses might be very niche.

Speaker A: Okay, so, uh, and I'll lay this on you and then we can go to break.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What's Amazon's most profitable thing that they do?

Speaker B: Oh, Amazon Web services. Not even closed. Yeah,

Speaker A: businesses.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: it's business. It's not consumers.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So that, like we're talk. We always talk about the consumer application. That's not. That's not where

Speaker B: AWS is. Like,

Speaker A: that's it. So.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: yeah. So it's just. And I, I see the same. I have to remind myself, I get caught in the weeds of the way humanity are using these tools right now, which is like, you know, where you're trying to put the square into the box and I can't quite get it dropped, you know, that kind of thing.

Speaker B: It's the. I used to make this comparison all the time in my workshops. Like I would say, look, if you look at the total revenue of Hollywood feature films, television rate, the. The entire revenue, uh, you know, look at the entire ball of the entertainment business from a movie standpoint. Movie, television series, it's a content standpoint. It's less than a quarter of revenue from Oracle. I mean, so it's like

Speaker A: the

Speaker B: comparisons are. You just need to put it into perspective.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Here we go.

Speaker B: Okay,

Speaker A: here we go. Uh,

Speaker B: last

Speaker A: October ad. I've loved this one. I have to tell you, I've had the sneak peek at November's and I think that. I think the viewers are going to be quite happy with that one.

Speaker B: I think they are. I think we have more.

Speaker A: A little bit of

Speaker B: fans of this genre, as it were, of this milieu of music. But yeah, this is our last October. So. So say along to power Pop.

Speaker A: Here we go.

Speaker D: M. Well, we started up a podcast. Yeah, we thought it'd be a blast. Just two guys and a microphone. We thought the dream would last. No commercials, no distractions, just the pure and honest truth. And reality came knocking and it kicked us in the tube. All the rain came through on Monday and the power bill on Tuesday and by Wednesday we were begging anybody who would pay us. So we picked up the receiver and we said what could we lose? And our boy said, boys, we're hub spotting, man. We couldn't review Paying the bill, paying the bills. H She's the only girl for me. Spot up spot. Can't you see you're the only one for me? Every morning, every night. You're the reason we sleep tight, HubSpot. HubSpot, here I come. You're the sweetest of them all. Take our souls and take our pride Just don't ever leave us side.

Speaker B: Have you heard about this thing called AI search? Yeah. When a buyer asks AI for a solution like yours, does your business come up? Most companies have no idea and by the time they find out, they've already lost the deal to someone who did. HubSpot AEO helps you show up in those moments with the right answers that buyers are looking for. Before the first click, before the first form fill. That's the moment HubSpot AEO is built for. Check out HubSpot.com, the agenta customer platform for growing businesses. Are you going against the grain? Let me introduce you to the podcast Marketing against the Grain, hosted by Kip Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan and brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. If you want want to know what's happening now in marketing, what's ahead, and how you can lead the way, this is the podcast for you. Hosts Kip Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan share their marketing expertise unfiltered in the details, the truth, and like, nobody tells it to you. You can find Marketing against the Grain wherever you find your favorite podc.

Speaker D: Sam m.

Speaker A: I. I laugh at that. So the, the Take our souls.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, and take our pride. But just never leave our side.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: Is really good writing, Robert as that is fantastic. Chef's kiss on that one. And I just want to say this, and not that I'm picking a fight with anybody else in the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: But there ain't nobody doing it like this.

Speaker B: No. Nobody put

Speaker A: you. All you other ones need to step up.

Speaker B: That's right. Nobody.

Speaker A: Nobody. Nobody given their souls.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The HubSpot girl with the orange orbs. That's right. Does it?

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: If you haven't seen that, folks, go, go to our YouTube page.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Check it out.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's fun. It's. It's totally fun. Yeah. Nobody puts the care and feeding into the ads like we do. For sure.

Speaker A: And when I send it for approval, I know she doesn't. She doesn't know what to say. She's like, what is it?

Speaker B: Yeah. Right.

Speaker A: It's like, this is our ad and this is, uh, this is what we want you to approve. Here's the thing is, if you don't approve it, we're probably running it.

Speaker B: We're gonna run it anyway. Yeah.

Speaker A: I just suggest you approve this one?

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: because this is, this is what we've already gone with. That's

Speaker B: right. It

Speaker A: already does a great.

Speaker B: It happened, right? Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, here's like it happened, uh, like this.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: All right,

Speaker B: all right, let's talk about Instagram for a second here. Speaking of, uh, great content, um, this is coming courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter. The news here, Instagram is testing 90 minute horizontal videos. Oh boy, I'm already uncomfortable. Um, 90 minute horizontal videos and major play for podcasters and creators. Select creators in US uh, will be able to test out the new product on Monday, which could make the platform more of a destination for full video podcast. Uh, Instagram is testing this feature aiming at capturing a bigger part of the entertainment landscape, including the ability to play long form videos like podcasts and more on the platform. Starting Monday, Instagram will be launching a test of horizontal videos of up to 90 minutes with select creators in the US the product called Features, is aimed at podcasters, comedians and other long form creators with the ability to refer viewers to the full video from the short form reels on the platform, which are typically around three minutes or less. What you're going to be able to do now is you see a clip of a podcast that you love. You can just click and continue watching or watch the full video and you'll be able to dive in and see the whole thing because creators are going to be able to link these reels to their overall feature. The way I read that is different than now, now that I'm reading it out loud is different than I thought because I thought it was going to be cooler than what I think it is. Anyway, they've been testing the feature with creators in Brazil and have a plan to expand to tens of thousands of creators in the U.S. videos, uh, will be recommended to user Instagram's explorer, et cetera, et cetera. This comes as Netflix, Disney and others have been adding podcasts to their platforms. Uh, this is all about long form content. What say you, Mr. Content Creator Man?

Speaker A: You and I talked about this two years ago. We said there's going to be more of a flight to long content and we. So, I mean, not like

Speaker B: a prediction coming true for sure.

Speaker A: Yeah. Ah, not that we can read the future, but this was kind of a no brainer slam dunk prediction. Yeah,

Speaker B: this is, this is them responding to YouTube for sure.

Speaker A: Well, it sort of. So let's go Back to when YouTube launched Reels. Is it reels? What do they call it?

Speaker B: No, no, whatever

Speaker A: they call their shorts. Shorts. Shorts, uh, we were like, oh, let's see. But it'll probably be. And it's been incredibly successful for YouTube.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And so now, I mean, if you remember your history, Instagram launched, I think what it was called IGTV back in 2018 or whatever, it was 19 and that didn't work so well. But now I think we're in an environment where it's going to work. So they're just going to do the opposite thing. What YouTube went from form to short form. Instagram's going from short form to long form. They're gonna go head to head in the World Series of Love.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: She walked in. Oh, there you go.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's

Speaker A: another, there's another music style for you. Do a Little Prince and Sheena Easton.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I think that it's probably a long time coming. I have a feeling this is going to be very successful. When I read this, Robert, I thought m. Is this like we, you and I should create our own Instagram page that then leads to our podcast

Speaker B: to this. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: I mean, probably,

Speaker B: probably the answer to that is probably. And, and, and I think the, you know, when we get it, we can try it out. What I, what I was referring to when I was reading the article out loud now for the third time and, and just struck me M. When I actually had to say the words out loud. I thought this was going to be a situation where it would take a piece of long form content, automatically create however many reels, like four, five, six reels, and then basically use that as sort of seed content out there. So if you were watching for example, a three minute standup routine and you went, oh, I want to watch the rest of it, you would click on it or tap on it or whatever and you would go over then and it would just continue like where from wherever in the show it was, it would just continue from that point forward. You could then rewind or wanted. What I think it's going to do is basically you make the shorts as well as the long form and then if you click on it, you're going to the beginning of whatever the show is, which is less cool, I think. But fine, it's fine. But

Speaker A: I'll work it. Uh, yeah, I think that's. Those are smaller

Speaker B: though. If it

Speaker A: was

Speaker B: basically just continued to play. Right.

Speaker A: Those are income.

Speaker B: That's

Speaker A: what

Speaker B: so funny because that's what I noticed that in my own behavior. Right. On both Instagram and TikTok. TikTok especially like the TikTok video is, you know, you're Seeing some, you know, short scene from a movie or you're seeing some little, um, bit from a stand up routine or something like that. And you know, my feed is full of that kind of stuff. And so what I find myself doing is like, you know, I'm watching it and it's 90 seconds or something and then I'm like, ah, it's ended. And I, you know, I always swipe to go over to the whatever channel.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And see if there's a part two or a part three to continue the thing. And often there isn't. And so, you know, and you're like, I, you know, and now, now I'm going out now. Like, uh, now you've got my attention. But I often find myself going, oh, I want to watch the rest of that scene or I want to watch, you know, more of that. So I go to YouTube and I basically search. Right. So it's, it's, it's an interesting use case as I was reading it the first time. The second. I think it would be a cool feature to add to any of the platforms.

Speaker A: Oh, absolute, Absolutely. I was talking to some guy on, on Instagram and he was talking about, oh no, what we have to do with content is we have to put our content on every platform and just like anything, like almost like a little bit like Gary Vaynerchuk, but everywhere. And I said, yeah, but you have to have some base. You need some um,

Speaker B: kind

Speaker A: of long form newsletter, podcast, YouTube show because you want all those breadcrumbs to lead somewhere. If you just have breadcrumbs, where are they gonna. So you're talking about great breadcrumbs. Leads me somewhere. It's something significant that your long form content. And I said, I think some people get confused with. It's not breadcrumbs everywhere. Like you have to, at some, you. Dessert, dessert, dessert is great, but sometimes you got, you got to have a meal.

Speaker B: Did you see, um, did you see Gary Vee's latest thing?

Speaker A: I'm sure I did not.

Speaker B: And, and I can't, I can't vouch for the veracity of this because this was, came like third hand through a social media post that I saw. But they said something to the effect of that Gary Vee is now, you know, like he's saying if we produce 10,000 pieces of content every month, I want to be producing 100,000 pieces of content every day. And it's like, okay, you know, it's like,

Speaker A: you know, I, it's, it's funny as we're in um, the political season. I've been watching the way the politicians and some do like the Gary Vee approach. They're everywhere. And some do really quality pieces once a day.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And like, uh, is it John Ostoff is name

Speaker B: in Georgia? Yeah,

Speaker A: John Ostoff. I've been watching him, kind of the way he works his media.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And they like, they, they don't do it. They're not on all the podcasts. They're not everywhere. They're like creating one really good clip that goes out and then people share it. It's really, really good. I, I, I'm partial to that method. I'm partial to a little bit more of a strategic, uh, just like we, I've talked about with the trust portfolio. I don't want all my employees going content run, run amok everywhere. I would like to have some strategic guidance

Speaker B: that's right

Speaker A: at the end of the day. So as much as it's worked for Gary, I don't, I don't know if it's the right decision for every company to make sure. I would like a little bit more thinking behind it. And I think there's, hey, nobody knows. There's always different ways to do it, but that's the way I prefer it.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, no, agreed. 100%. Yeah, that's, it's, yeah. For most people. Thoughtful. And creating scarcity is, is, is, is more the idea. I mean, uh, you know, we talked about this before when we talked about creating the AI version of, you know, you, if you're in the consulting business or content creation or advice or coaching business. Right. Creating that AI version of you is just, all you're doing is, you know, you think you're democratizing access to yourself and scaling you, and you're not. You're just creating a lack of scarcity and therefore you're devaluing what it is.

Speaker A: How many people, how many thought leaders did that? And then

Speaker B: a lot of them did. Yeah. And aren't doing it now. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: No. Good. So. All right, speaking of the last one. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, just getting to the sba.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Announcement is really cool. Um, you know, it's kind of geeky for entrepreneurs, but it's basically the, we're going right to the source here. The SBA itself, uh, and the news release, uh, which came out, uh, looks like on, uh, the 10, uh, weird. 106. Uh, October 15th. Sorry.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, the. Today, the U.S. small Business Administration, the SBA, announced the first federal Small Business Classification guidance, specifically recognizing qualifying content creators within the SBA's lending and contracting framework. Following the SBA's recent small business size standards proposal, the agency clarified that the nation's 27 million creator led businesses are classified under NAICS 5121, Motion Picture and video Industries for purposes of SBA program eligibility. The clarification reflects the robust growth and evolving business models of America's creator economy. It's, this is, this feels like sort of a geeky procedural thing, but it's actually pretty big, I think, so that you can start getting SBA loans, you can start looking at classification, you know, getting qualified as a, as a, you know, as a small business, um, all those kinds of things. As a content creator business, you don't have to, you know, so many content creators I know have to. They either label themselves as consultants or as, uh, you know, selling product of some kind or that sort of thing. Now it can literally be, you're a little media company and I think that's, that's very cool.

Speaker A: Yeah. A hat tip to our friend and listener, Bernie Borges. Yeah,

Speaker B: Bernie.

Speaker A: Sending this on to us. We really appreciate it. Uh, uh, first of all, this is big. This is a big deal. I've been listing myself as a consultant for 20 years and I'm not a consultant. But we didn't know, like for tax reasons. I didn't know what else to put.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because it's not really on there now. It goes, it's going under you. As you said, motion picture and video industries. Fine.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But I don't know if that's like, it's almost like we're trying to fit it into this old defunct classification system of jobs, which is, that's what we have. And I, I don't, I mean, I'm just glad that they're listing it as a business especially because, uh, you're not just saying a creator, you're talking about a creator business.

Speaker B: Yeah, this

Speaker A: is like.

Speaker B: Well, I'm glad they're

Speaker A: out there.

Speaker B: Yeah. Ah, I'm glad they didn't put it under publishing

Speaker A: because of, uh. Why.

Speaker B: Because I think more and more of this is around video, around creating experiences that are multimedia in, in nature. And so it's not, you know, publishing is, is, is basically, you know, you're a magazine or a blog or a book publisher. And I think this, I think, I think it's the better choice. I, I totally agree with you that there should be a new hierarchy, a new taxonomy, as it were, for categorization, but, um, to reflect the modern business world. But, but if they're going to put it anywhere. I think motion pictures is the place to put it instead of, um, you know, instead of publishing.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, so, so just thankful that they're acknowledging the business model. So. Hey, we win.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: This is our last episode.

Speaker B: Yeah. We

Speaker A: finally did it. They

Speaker B: finally did

Speaker A: it.

Speaker B: They finally did it. All right, let's get to our, uh, our marketing Winners and losers where Joe and I pick a winner from the last week of marketing or a loser from the last week of marketing. Uh, let me go first because mine's really fast.

Speaker A: Sounds good.

Speaker B: Um, so I'm going to link in the show notes to a marketing Brew article uh, that talks about. So Apple Music, which interestingly enough I've stopped my membership of, but now I'm actually reconsidering. But we'll get to that part. But, um, Apple Music changed their mark, changed their logo and they created an animated and audio version as one does these days. You know, you think of Ta Dum, you know, for Netflix and those. So they created an audio version as well as a vis sort of animated version of the logo. And it's just, it's, it's the most Apple branding thing ever. And they, and the agency that did it and was behind it put a little behind the scenes, uh, of how they did it and what they did. Um, and you know, as a musician, I just thought it was super cool. I just thought it was really neat the way they did it. And so most of these logo changing logo stories sort of get like shat upon. Right. You know, immediately. The music. The mark is fine. The mark, the mark is lovely and it's great and it's doesn't need to do much but you know, because it's going to conform to Apple's standards and all that. But the, the little story behind it and how they came up with it and what they did for the animation and for the, for the audio version. It's just really neat. It's a really neat story. So I'm calling them a winner this week.

Speaker A: No, I love it. Uh, I was having a conversation with the family yesterday. I believed that they should come back out with the ipod like they should.

Speaker B: You're right. A

Speaker A: whole lot of, of non.

Speaker B: Yeah. Video nostalgia. Um, yeah,

Speaker A: go in it obviously WI FI enabled this time, all that kind of stuff. But the same device, I think it'll be a huge winner. But

Speaker B: yeah, especially like the ipod mini or those kinds. Oh my God, it would

Speaker A: go. Those are so collectible today.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah,

Speaker A: eat those up. Like,

Speaker B: I know a lot of people who have them, who've bought them like off of ebay and stuff.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: And just love having them because it's just a nice way. They're not cheap

Speaker A: because you can get a lot of money for them. I mean, they are.

Speaker B: Yeah. No, no. Yeah, they're, they're collector's items. Yeah.

Speaker A: So my, uh, my winner is our friend Paulie Shore. Uh, I know, hard to believe. Uh, but so anyways, that. And I just found. I read this article, this is in ihorror.com which I just, I don't even know how I found it, but I think it's great.

Speaker B: Is he wheezing the juice?

Speaker A: Oh my gosh. So Paulie Shore and, and our friend Nick Swardson, uh, created or, uh, were stars of a 14 minute horror comedy, uh, called Remain Calm.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And the whole idea is, is that I, and I didn't see the whole thing, but, but it's, it's a, ev. It's an evil guy that's after people who have anxiety. So if you stay calm, you're okay, but as soon as you get anxious, they can see you like they go after you. Uh, if you just watch the first bit, it, it's freaky. So first of all, it's 14 minute. They put it out. I don't know if their goal was to make a feature length film out of it, but what happens is it's got millions and millions of people watching it and now it's being shopped. So from the marketing standpoint, I absolutely love that. It's like you have an idea, make the short get some attention. It's the same thing for a self published author. It's like put the book out there, get some attention. That way, if you want to be traditionally published, that's the best way, the easiest way to do it, believe it or not, today, than actually finding a literary agent and going that whole thing. The, the other part about this is hats off to Paulie, who has been discounted in so many ways. You can't get on. I mean, I've seen some interviews with him. He just doesn't get asked to do things. He, he, he wants to do things. He said, oh, no, you, you're, you're done. As you said, canceled. Uh, but he was able to go a completely different direction here.

Speaker B: Trying to remember why he got canceled. I'm looking,

Speaker A: I forgot. Uh, it doesn't matter anymore. But, um, I think the point is, is that, um, sometimes when, I mean, I've thought about it for us, right? I mean, sometimes you And I need to go a different direction. We need to get out of that same. I think it's important for your career to do that, to try the thing. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I wrote a novel.

Speaker B: It doesn't look like he got canceled. Like, in the bigger scheme of life, it looks like he got canceled from a. A podcast or two. The Tony Hinchcliffe podcast, apparently. Well, I mean. Which is like getting canceled from. I don't know.

Speaker A: Tony get canceled. Well, Tony did not get canceled because he. He doesn't care about that kind of stuff.

Speaker B: No, I

Speaker A: mean. Anyways, anyways, hats off to the message.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Method. We can all learn from the marketing and also for. For Paulie. And I'm not a horror person. So when it got to like the two minute mark, I had to stop watching because I can't. It. I get scared of my own shadow.

Speaker B: Nice. But

Speaker A: I'm sure.

Speaker B: Well, you also don't like that. That weird

Speaker A: cringy stuff?

Speaker B: The cringy. The cringy sort of uncomfortable

Speaker A: thing like the

Speaker B: Threes. The Threes company misunderstandings thing.

Speaker A: Yeah. I can't. I can't watch Three's Company. Isn't that terrible? Yeah,

Speaker B: no, it's. It's weird. I. I know exactly the feeling you're talking about. Can you watch things like the Office or they're.

Speaker A: No, it's very tough for me to watch the Office. It's when. And. And. And, um. Dear Evan Hansen, so you know how wonderful that was on Broadway. So much kudos and whatever. Great. And I. I like. It was halfway through the first act of that, and I. I'm shrinking in my seat. I'm like, I have to get out of here. I have to get air, because it's all built upon a lie.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I said, oh, yeah, can't do it. Anyways.

Speaker B: All right, now let's get to our rants and raves and finish up with Rants and Race, where I go off and Joe goes off on a little bit of a rant, uh, or a little bit of a rave that makes us feel like we're Mercer or mayor trying to launch a new AI thing or that we're anthropic getting ready for 2 trillion dollar valuation. I guess. I don't know. I'm making this stuff up as I go. Um, would you like to go first or would you like me to go first?

Speaker A: I'll go first.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: I just. I'll put it in the show notes. It's an article from our friend at no Opinion. Uh, and if you're not, uh, familiar with that sub stack, uh, Noah does a great job with this and he talks about, uh, basically the way that I took it is maybe we're focusing on the wrong things with this AI and he's. And then goes into the idea that

Speaker B: maybe.

Speaker A: Well, you and I have talked about it even on this show.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: That, uh, if we keep our eye on the ball with what's going to happen in science, this could be really amazing. Um, and in a lot of cases, talked about the fact that a lot of the, uh, roadblocks in front of us from a scientific research standpoint are human beings, things.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And theoretically we don't have that anymore. We might not have that. Goes through some examples. It's really a thought. I think it's a very thoughtful read. Gives really good examples of it, about what the opportunities are to come where day to day, you and I talk about the, the, the drivel that is all the AI usages and the content and the marketing stuff. And we're like, hey, keep our eye on the ball. This, this could be a momentous time for humanity. It's just hard to see that. So I think it's a very positive article about what can happen, and I just want to send kudos out and I think it's worth a read.

Speaker B: That's fantastic. Oh, I, I mean, I, I've seen it and I subscribe to Noah's newsletter. Uh, it's a fantastic newsletter. It really is

Speaker A: really

Speaker B: better. Um, okay, very quickly here. I just. This is kind of promoting a piece that I'm going to come out next week. Um, I have been fascinated over the last couple of weeks over, you know, even as we talked about at the beginning of the show, some of the sort of hype and everything around what's going on with AI. But one of the pieces of hype that is happening the most, I think right now is this AI search stuff. Um, and I'm seeing vendors do this, I'm seeing teams do this. And it's really interesting, I think, to see the challenge that's starting to emerge over what we should actually do. Right. You know, and we've talked about this on the show many times, like, what should we do about AI search? And one of the things that I think is not helping the conversation is the fact that I see SEO agencies, I see tech vendors, I see marketing, you know, sort of gurus out there that, you know, are sort of lumping citations and mentions into the same bucket it. And calling that, you know, Basically lumping it all together to say, AI visibility. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of research. And in my article that comes out next Tuesday, um, I point to a lot of it because there's some great thinking going on here, primarily from our friend Rand Fishkin and Amanda Natividad over at Sparktoro, um, who have ostensibly written a couple of pieces now basically saying, is it even worth it? Like, are we just pounding our heads against, you know, the rocks? Right. You know, in trying to do this? Um, because is there any value in it at all? And they go through a whole bunch of, like, use cases and numbers and stuff like that. But what I wanted to really get to, because this is the part that I find myself continually working on with my clients, is the difference in approach of content strategy for citations and mentions. And it's just worth understanding the difference between the two, which is citations means that the AI is relying on your opinion, relying on your number, relying on your reputation, relying on your quote to answer a question or to provide information to someone who's asking about something. So in other words, you are actually cited. That's the key. A, uh, mention is basically you're just getting named in a list. What's the best Mexican restaurant in la? What's the best CRM system out there? You know, and you're getting mentioned. And there's, there's some wonderful, as I mentioned, thinking about this, but both of those things, what we have to remember is you have no control over the context of either. So in other words, looking at the number of mentions that you're getting in AI search is a, it's not only a meaningless number, it's actually probably a dangerous number. Because if you're looking at the number of mentions that you're getting in AI search and calling that a win, you don't know. So, and, and basically it's the same metric as share of voice, right? So how. What is your share of voice right now? And so we're making the same mistake with mentions, which is, how many times have we been mentioned in AI search? We don't know if it basically says don't buy from this company, and then lists us as one of the companies that you shouldn't buy from, that's an AI mentioned. And so if you just mentioned, like, you know, if you have a thousand mentions, the answer is why? Like, is it good, is it bad? And you need a human to actually go in and mention if that's true or figure out if that's true or not citations, on the other hand, are a better M metric for us because it means at least this AI is actually relying on us to answer a question. Again, you have no control over the context of that. The answer, the summary may be everybody says this, but these idiots are saying that. And then they cite you. That could absolutely happen and is happening, but at least they're getting your quote right. Right. And uh, if they're citing you, they're at least recommending you as a, as a source of an answer. They may be calling it the wrong answer, they may be calling it the right answer, they may be calling it the provocative answer, they may be calling it the best answer, but they're at least citing you. So the things to really search for in terms of value are the times that you're being cited for something, the times that they're relying, the AI is relying on you. Now all of that is to say that mentions can be good, they can be bad, citations can be good, they can be bad, they're different. The most important part of that is the approach is very different. Trying to create a content strategy that really optimizes against citations is very different than managing the, trying to get more mentions because one is standing apart. Citations is all about standing apart. And so it's going to be fewer as a, as a reason it's leading thought, it's different thought. So you're going to get mentioned fewer times, but you are going to get cited. More mentions is all about being included a part of you want to become a part of the best Mexican restaurants, the best CRM systems, et cetera. And the risk of course, with the context of each. So just a very different content strategy and understanding that nuanced difference is so important as we start to try and optimize against all of that, that

Speaker A: it's a good reminder. And it makes me think of Andy Crestadina's presentation at Macon where he said last year I gave a whole presentation on custom GPTs and that doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So just be careful. We're in a very fast moving environment where you may optimize for something that doesn't exist in three months.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker A: Content, interesting information targeted to a person that you're trying to build a relationship with.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's it. Uh,

Speaker A: you know, it's a, it goes back to the basics.

Speaker B: It's the basics, man, it's the basics. It's like, you know, I had, I had a client asked me the other day, they said, hey, we're getting all this pressure from our agency to change up our format of our press releases because, you know, we need to format them in a very specific way for AI LLMs and the algorithms and stuff like that. And it's kind of weird and all that kind of stuff. And they're like, how much should we be changing our website and our copy and our content to try and optimize for the algorithm? And I'm like, just go back and ask yourself that same question of what you would have done in 2014 against Google and how often you would wrap yourself around the axle of trying to get hero pages, hub pages, topic pages, pillars, content, this, this, this, that you were trying to do all these things. Keyword stuffing, you know, H1 tags, you know, all you were trying to do all those things. And then Google would come along and blow up that algorithm with something different, and then you would start all over again. The same thing is going to happen here.

Speaker A: It's so crazy. And there was this whole. For, uh, those of you that didn't see the php, um, issue that we had with the, uh, vulnerability that was found in 70% of the websites, I was talking with Michelle Martello and she handles, uh, uh, my websites, and she was saying, I'm talking to some of my customers about just creating flat files websites like we did in the late 90s.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: you take all the security bugs out of it. And I'm like, oh, my gosh.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah,

Speaker A: we've done all this stuff and

Speaker B: yeah, we're going back to. We're gonna go

Speaker A: back years ago site.

Speaker B: We're gonna go back to Dreamweaver in front page. Yeah,

Speaker A: we're just creating a PDF site now. It's like,

Speaker B: hey,

Speaker A: okay,

Speaker B: yeah, go back to Dreamweaver.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, geez. All right, what do

Speaker B: you got? Uh, is that Gary

Speaker A: Wilder?

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, I think it is. Yeah. Gary. Yeah, Gary. Not Gary Wright. Gary Wright is

Speaker A: right.

Speaker B: No, no, Gary Wright is, um. Ah, I think it's time to get ready to realize what I have become. Yeah, that's scary. That's scary, right? Anyway,

Speaker A: maybe we should just do a.

Speaker B: We should do a music episode.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes,

Speaker B: yes.

Speaker A: I want to do one.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.

Speaker A: Okay. That's a special episode. We have some coming up. We'll do

Speaker B: it. Oh, yeah, we do have a special episode coming up. What do you got this weekend?

Speaker A: Uh, oh, lots of things. Lots of family stuff going on. All good. But, uh, I am very interested in how my Cleveland Browns are gonna.

Speaker B: Yeah, look at them. Look at, look at those Browns. First place in The AFC

Speaker A: worst. The worst first place team you've ever seen.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: it doesn't,

Speaker B: uh, matter. It doesn't matter.

Speaker A: I do. I gotta say, I love this coach. I just. I just listened. He just. He's this regular person. And. And we went so. And nothing against Kevin Stefanski, who's now coaching for the Atlanta Falcons, but, uh, Todd Monkin speaks like a regular person. And Kevin Stefanski always seemed to be talking in ways you could never, uh, like, he was always holding back, so he would never give you the full story. Todd Monk is all in. Because I'll tell you whatever. I'll tell you exactly how I feel. And I think the. The players respond to that. They know exactly where they sit at all times. There's no. There's nothing to figure out. Everybody knows exactly what's going on, and it's created a better culture, which is hard to say because this locker room hasn't had a good culture for a long time. So. I see.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker A: And. Go Cowboys. Right?

Speaker B: And, uh. Go Cowboys. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. They've got a couple of easy games. There

Speaker A: are no easy games. There are no easy games.

Speaker B: Game. But they theoretically have two winnable games, put it that way. Coming up, they got the Cardinals and then the Colts. Um, so we'll see on Sunday. But I'll be on a plane. Actually, I'll be on a plane watching it. Um, because I'm headed off to marketing props. B2B conference.

Speaker A: Oh, you have to say hi to every. I'm not. Hi. If

Speaker B: everybody, anybody who's listening. Yeah, Please come up and say hi and say hey, then, um, I'm gonna be there on Monday speaking. And, uh, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing some really cool people.

Speaker A: Uh,

Speaker B: Laser will be there. See him? I'm seeing, uh, Mitch Joel, our friend, Ms. Joel will be there. Um, there's a. There's a. A number of people that we're going to see. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, before I sign off, congrats to all the Milwaukee brewers fans.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: congrats. Seven years of drought.

Speaker B: Huge.

Speaker A: Uh, hopefully, uh, the Guardians.

Speaker B: Did you see the. Did you see the quick interview with the guy? And they're like, what are you gonna do? And he's like. He's like, is this live, like, on tv? And they're like, yeah. And he's like, I'm gonna go get drunk. Like, the most perfect Wisconsin thing ever. Right?

Speaker A: Okay. I'm gonna have some cheese, and then I'm gonna get drunk.

Speaker B: I'm gonna get drunk.

Speaker A: All right.

Speaker B: All right. Very good. All right. Hey, thanks for hanging around, everybody. We do have a great special show for you next week as we're on the road and all that kind of stuff. So be sure to tune in for that. It's kind of an interesting special episode. Um, and in the meantime, remember, it's your story to tell. Tell it well. We'll see you next week on this Old Marketing. Hey, thanks a lot for making it this far in this week's episode. And thank you all for being a part of part of this old marketing. You can check out all the show notes of what we talked about today@thisoldmarketing.com and it's also where you can leave us a review or a voicemail. We need those reviews and comments on whichever platform you follow us on. And if you haven't followed the podcast, please go do that. And make sure you catch the latest and greatest episodes every Friday morning. We're on Apple and Spotify and all your other favorite podcasters, of course, but we'd love it if you went over and subscribed to us on YouTube. That's right, YouTube. YouTube. YouTube.com this old market. We'll see you again next week, folks, with another episode of this Old Market.