Corporate Strategy
Corporate Strategy
119. We're Back and We Missed You!
Ever found yourself chuckling over the quirks of corporate life or scratching your head at the paradox of success? That's precisely where Bruce and I landed in our latest Corporate Strategy Vibes Check. As we pour out our trials and triumphs, from gearing up for major work events to contemplating the relentless demand success places on our shoulders, we also flip some classic sayings on their heads. Can these old adages really survive the heat of the modern-day corporate kitchen?
It's not all boardrooms and business attire; our journey through the tech scene has us dishing on the striking contrasts between the streets of San Francisco and the sunlit buzz of Mountain View. We take you behind the scenes of the RSA conference to marvel at Samsung's security innovations and kick around with AI-powered soccer stats that showcase the pace of app development today. And while Sterling brings sunny tales from Mountain View, we also navigate the darker side of tech hubs, pondering policy impacts on urban landscapes.
There's a heartbeat to this podcast, one that thrums with the support and camaraderie you all bring to the table. We laugh off the odd hiccup, like our merch link shenanigans, and send a beacon out for a social media wizard. Whether you're tuning in for your dose of corporate strategy insights or the unvarnished truth of our experiences, know that your listens, shares, and recommendations are the secret sauce to our host-funded endeavor. So, buckle in for more riveting discussions, and let's unwrap the next episode's gift together.
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lord, I forgot get in here you lovable craig. I forgot what craig sounded like in my mind. It's been so long. You know squid boy and uh, capitalist correspondent alex rostrepo know what craig sounds like, but literally no one else does I know, I still don't know how they, how do they, master this form of technology? You gotta start recording right after how do?
Speaker 2:they do it, but so yeah you guys want to know what Craig sounds like. You just got to come on.
Speaker 1:Come on, and what show would they be coming on, clark?
Speaker 2:CorporateStrategybiz. Sorry, I didn't mean to yell.
Speaker 1:I like that. That's where you went. You didn't want to take a stab at running the intro yourself. You're just like nah, we're going to go back to the website URL.
Speaker 2:Just wanted to scream the website URL into their ear holes. Thanks for screaming it. There are poor children sitting in the backseat of their car listening to this.
Speaker 1:There are, you know. I know this is a very child-friendly podcast and we want to be sensitive to the little ears that are developing.
Speaker 2:I'm already poisoning them with corporate culture. I feel terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, they got to get used to it, because they'll be slurping it from the fire hose soon enough. Hey, speaking of fire hoses, welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the podcast. That could have been an email. I'm Bruce and I'm Tom and you're on mute.
Speaker 2:We'll see you next week. Love you guys. See you later, that's it. You want to give a little vibe check? I mean we sound a little witty today. Why is that?
Speaker 1:I think we're a little different. It's been like a month since we've recorded a podcast. Yeah, you know what You've changed I have, so have you.
Speaker 2:You've gotten a month older, and so have I. That's pretty wild. It is wild how long it's been. But we're back and I'm excited to be back, because I've missed our corporate strategists and I've missed talking to you, bruce.
Speaker 1:Oh did you, I did. That's really good, that's really sweet of you to say we gotta bring each other up.
Speaker 2:You know it's been so long. We gotta remind each other there's good things in this world I would say I missed this in you.
Speaker 1:what else would you say? If it wasn't you, I would. I would say it, but uh, you're not going to say it. Okay, I'm not going to, but I would, I would say it. Should we do a little vibe check? Clark, I was born to do a vibe check. All right, Do it.
Speaker 2:You told me at the beginning of this podcast you.
Speaker 1:You told me at the beginning of this podcast you're barely alive. That's true. We're going to talk a little bit about what we've been up to during our topic of the day, but the vibe is I'm just tired, we've been busy is why we haven't recorded this podcast, as you'll soon learn, but I am currently in the process of I've I've finished one major event and I have another one coming up in a little under two weeks, and at that event we're also doing a big launch. And guess, guess who's responsible for, like, all of the work.
Speaker 2:So it's certainly not you, it's certainly not me, you already have enough on your plate.
Speaker 1:You would think so you would think, but I'm just a little tired. I'm a little tired, my brain's a little frazzled, so apologies if it's taken me a little bit longer to get to, uh, from point A to point B today. What? What I will say is I'm so excited to be through this event because after this it's kind of just smooth sailing for the rest of the year, like it's going to be. I've been in in rush mode for so long and post this. This is like our biggest super bowl thing we do as a company. It's going to be just like breathe deep in the back to normal air and I can't wait to be back to normal.
Speaker 1:So nice I'm just I'm vibing my way to get to a good spot. That's what I'm doing nice.
Speaker 2:How about you? I mean, there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. I see the light, I smell less.
Speaker 2:Things go so so well that it just requires you to work harder isn't that the weird like?
Speaker 1:isn't that the weirdest thing? If things go well, bruce may have to work harder. Yep, what the heck is that about?
Speaker 2:It's a blessing and a curse.
Speaker 1:Double-edged sword I don't know if it's a blessing Any more double entendres.
Speaker 2:Double-edged sword blessing and curse Two sides of a coin.
Speaker 1:Wait, okay, hold on Two sides of a coin. I've heard that many a time, but now that you've said it, is that what that means Two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 2:I mean maybe. What the heck, does that even mean Two sides of the same coin? Yeah, I've heard it many, many, many times before.
Speaker 1:If you, say that things are two sides of the same coin. You mean they are different ways of looking at or dealing with the same situation. It's the same. Economic and political reforms are two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 2:Oh, so at the end of the day, the meaning is the same. So double-edged sword is different because it means if you do well or you do bad, it's gonna still be bad for you. You're gonna cut yourself yeah you're gonna, you're still gonna get. You're still going to get cut.
Speaker 1:What was the other one? You said what else did I say? You gave me three, two seemed correct.
Speaker 2:There was three in there, but I don't remember what it was. Dang it Craig, remind us. He's not sentient yet. He'll get there one day. Have you been Clark?
Speaker 1:What's your vibes?
Speaker 2:About the same Time is just slipping past into the future In a good way. I mean, I guess Is that good, Like is time going by quickly a good thing? I don't know, I mean it's just happening.
Speaker 1:If you're suffering time, going fast is great.
Speaker 2:True, yeah, but if you're supposed to enjoy the moment, then time going fast sucks Like when you're on vacation.
Speaker 1:You know, oh, I hate when time goes fast on vacation.
Speaker 2:This is two sides of the same coin, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, that is two sides of the same coin. Dang Dang, good job.
Speaker 2:Clark Wow. You made it educational Either that made no sense or this made no sense at all. I have no idea which way it went, because we can't remember the three things I just said.
Speaker 1:We just lost like 20 subscribers in the vibe chat.
Speaker 2:They're like holy cow, are these guys on drugs? I wish I was, but yeah, yeah, you know it's, it's, it's good. I mean all good things around. I just wish time would slow down a bit. We're already in May the year's pretty much gone.
Speaker 1:Dang, it is May. You're right, the year is over, it's Christmas, like next month. It's wild, yeah, it is absolutely insane.
Speaker 2:I mean think about how fast they went Now. Think about how fast the end of the year Hopefully for you, not that fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm hoping it'll be that fast. I think it will slow down for me. Do you think it will slow down for you?
Speaker 2:No, Dang, no Foot's on the gas pedal. The fiscal year isn't going too great on my company.
Speaker 1:I don't think any company is doing too great fiscally.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What's the global state of the economy these days?
Speaker 1:I mean. So you know it's no secret that I'm a pretty big gamer, but I also like to keep up with like games, business and games news. And if you just look at the number of last year, the layoffs were unprecedented. I think it was like 14 000 individual contributors laid off in the industry last year but like we eclipsed that number in february this year and it's not stopping. Like big name studios Sony, microsoft they're shutting down little studios within their business.
Speaker 1:All these companies are reallocating and realigning and oh, gaming's not profitable anymore, even though it like makes billions of dollars, just because they can't figure out how to manage them. Well, it it's dire. Like my favorite hobby might be under great duress and there might be a few lean years coming up of of good things to play. But that's fine so long as the people get treated well. They're not, which sucks, so everyone suffers together. But yeah, the like fiscally, I think a lot of companies are just realizing the way that business used to be done does not cut the way that businesses run today.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of things we talk about in this podcast are starting to become more and more abundantly clear. Like burnout is real. You can't tax people to the ends of their wick to make a candle analogy and still get good results at the end of the day. And management doesn't know what they're talking about. So they're pushing directions, they're burning people out and then they blame the burnouts for the reason the product sucks and it's like no. Management has no idea what they're doing.
Speaker 2:It seems to be like a story. Yeah, everyone, come back to the office.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because that's going to be more productive to the office. Yeah, because that's going to be more productive.
Speaker 2:That's going to fix it. Yeah, that's going to fix it. Of course You're right, though it has been a rough couple of years since, I'll be honest, since COVID. Yes, since COVID, I think it's getting rougher. Yeah, it was like a boom right before COVID. Covid happened, and ever since then it seemed like it's kind of just going downhill slowly and steadily. Yes, it's not even that slow. That's the scary part. It's kind of like an avalanche, like it's just happening. All around us the walls are falling down pretty scary well it's.
Speaker 1:It's weird too, because you know, you know, the one time capitalist correspondent isn't here is, of course, when we're talking about the economy. But like the economy by the numbers is good right now. Right like even alex said this on a previous stream. Like the economy is good but the vibes are off and he's not wrong. Like if you go read any report about what a strong economy looks, like the economy is good, but like inflation's high. Just you know, jobs are being decimated, studios being closed, businesses just not figuring out their crap. Like inflation.
Speaker 2:So housing is crashing.
Speaker 1:It's very strange, strange. Yeah, it is strange I bought.
Speaker 2:It's like there's, there's money, but like where does the money go?
Speaker 1:yeah, you'll buy it yeah, like I, I bought a car a couple of weeks ago. This is not like a flex or anything like. We needed a new car badly, so we, we got a car and I could have paid it off, but I didn't want to because I'd rather keep some money and investments growing faster than the interest rate on the loan I took for the car. But it's like the amount I had to put down to get a low interest rate and the lowest I could get was 7%. Like that's weird, it's really weird.
Speaker 2:I can't remember if you and I talked about this individually or if I said this on the podcast. My wife bought a car in 2019, so pre-covid zero percent interest right six years six years didn't have to pay a penny. It's incredible. Yeah, now it's like lowest. You can get a seven if you're lucky if you're lucky, right it's.
Speaker 1:It's just bizarre to me how expensive things are, how high interest things are and at the same time, how good the economy is.
Speaker 2:So yeah weird stuff, weird, all weird. And I'm not smart enough to understand how this all works, so I kind of don't want to yeah, you know what? I don't know. If I want to go that far, is it better? Like is ignorance? Bliss here it might be we might have to have, uh, capitalist correspondent restrepo.
Speaker 1:Come on and walk us through the latest and greatest, but he's gonna hate. My Like is ignorance. Bliss here it might be. We might have to have a capitalist correspondent Restrepo come on and walk us through the latest and greatest.
Speaker 2:He's going to hate my point of view, he's going to be like you need to be informed. Don't be stupid, clark. You got to be informed, I'm just waiting for it, do?
Speaker 1:you ever feel like knowing too much is a burden?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's one of the reasons I don't watch the news. You know, like local news I don't. Yeah, because it's just it's like depressing with all the things around me. I get that, I just can't do it. Like people around me and like you know, obviously parents you know father-in-law, mother-in-law, like they bring up stuff on local news, I'm like I have no idea what you're talking about and I actually prefer that. That I keep it this way, because whatever you're saying right now sounds awful.
Speaker 1:See, I do like to stay abreast of the world around me and I didn't ask the question thinking about the news. But it's interesting, you went down that path. I was thinking, like at work they'll be like, hey, do you know how to use this utility? And it's like, uh, I could go learn, but I'm not going to because I don't want the additional responsibility. Right, like knowing can be a burden, it can just mean more responsibility for you, but like, absolutely can't be. You're also right going and knowing the news and just the state of the world, it's not a happy place. Lots of people dying everywhere, uh, from from war, disease, famine. We have such a small little view on everything. We're very lucky.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry we're in our capitalist hellscape, but uh, it's very true, yeah, and I'm sorry I went dark, I wasn't even thinking about work, but I am with you on your note as well. Yeah, yeah, it's like, yeah, I could probably go figure it out. And then you have to ask yourself but should I like, is that a valuable thing that I should be doing, because everyone's going to go to going to go to me to talk about this thing now is it a good?
Speaker 2:idea and in some ways, knowledge is power. It's a good thing. It can make you more valuable to the company, but in other ways, to your point. Then you became, become the person who knows, and when things don't go well with it or other people try to use it, and you're the expert it it's like man. This sucks, because I should probably help them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:More responsibility, I guess.
Speaker 1:A topic for a different day. Hey, speaking of news, clark, I got news.
Speaker 2:I got news for you and it's going to make you even more depressed than you already are.
Speaker 1:Are you ready? I mean, I'm still not depressed yet, but let's get there. Okay, we'll get there for sure.
Speaker 2:I always want to bring you down every time.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man so yeah, you have a favorite kind of.
Speaker 2:IM tool right Like in the corporate landscape. What would you say?
Speaker 1:your favorite is, oh, my favorite. My favorite tool is actually Discord, which you know we record this podcast day. We have the corporate famine. You can get there by going to our link tree in the podcast notes. But I guess if I had to pick a corporate tool, I'd pick Slack.
Speaker 2:Ooh, tough choice.
Speaker 1:Tough choice.
Speaker 2:Bruce, there's an article out here and you're going to hate it. What Slack Under? Attack over sneaky AI training policy. Excuse me, apparently, slack has been obviously getting on board the AI train because that's all I ever talk about in news and one of the challenges has been are they doing it ethically? Apparently, they have been automatically training all of their AI models on your chat data, the way you behave, the way you communicate with others and DMs and in channels, and you can't just opt out and they didn't auto opt you out so you could opt in. You're automatically opted in and the only way to opt out of them utilizing your data is to email them. The IM client Slack is saying I want you to email us if you want to opt out of our AI training.
Speaker 1:Firstly, my immediate response to this is you think this is bad, but you have not read my Slack messages. They should opt me out.
Speaker 2:There should be a filter that, once they get to a certain point of training, they're like all right, we definitely don't want this person's data.
Speaker 1:If I could give you a just one ray of hope, it's, you know, if you've worked with me before and you've messaged me on a platform. Good Lord, I write like a 12 year old and it's on purpose. I know how to write good. I choose to write terribly and sorry, slack, but that's the poison you're going to get from old Bruce here. Yep, it's just, it blew my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's scummy One because I love them. It's scummy I love Slack, but it's scummy that they don't make it like opt-in and we'll make your experience better utilizing AI and then they train on your data. You know they're just doing it automatically without really saying anything and then they're an IM client. So you think you'd put like a setting somewhere or make it really easy to like message, like we have Craig here, the sent you a chat bot and be like don't use my data, thanks. Instead, they're like you've got to email us. You can't submit a form to email us. You can't submit a form. You can't do it in the chat. Like the whole thing is you know that that could have been an email or that could have been a chat. Like they're literally forcing you to add emails even though they're in a or they're a chat company, which makes zero sense to me.
Speaker 1:This. This goes back to the conversation earlier of just like how weird things are right now. Because Slack I don't know if you know this, clark it costs $20 a head. Or it Slack I don't know if you know this, clark it costs $20 a head. Or it did like four years ago. I'm sure it's even more now with inflation. But like Slack is not cheap at all, like there's a reason why everyone forces you to use Teams it's because it was a package, although now it's going to be charged I'm positive they're going to charge less than Slack just to keep their customer base. Yeah, I can totally see that, that if you're breaking in that kind of cash per user twenty dollars per user to business you can afford to buy your own data and like not piss off your customer base at the same time.
Speaker 2:I'd also argue not only that, but like slack was kind of built off the community of people who kind of trusted it right, like they didn't want to go off the big stupid like microsoft link or all those other chats that were really awful. And like you and I started it at a company that we worked at. I mean, you really started, I kind of just hopped on the train, but you started it there and we love to credit, to clark, it's fun.
Speaker 2:I'm not jealous, I mean I I honestly can't remember all the history, but I remember that you piloted it and then everybody got on it super quick but it was great because it was like oh, it's so much more flexible, it's so much easier to use, it's way more fun, like it was kind of community driven in our company and the fact that they're doing this is just kind of going against those core principles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's unfortunate. It's especially weird just considering how darling they are amongst the industry and so many people like slack because it's not that kind of corporate, just disgusting utility that you. You know it sucks, you know it's using your data, you know it's just eating a copious amount of ram on your laptop and you don't know why. Like slack was never that utility and for them to do this is just. It really shows you you just can't trust a company. A company is not your friend and it never will be. They're a public company, right.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure they had you out a few years ago.
Speaker 1:I thought they got acquired by Atlassian, but maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 2:I'm double-checking right now yeah, went public via direct stock list Salesforce 2020. And then yeah, oh no, in 2019, they went public. Yeah, and then Salesforce. Yeah, Dang, Salesforce.
Speaker 1:So that explains it, that explains it. And that's another company. That again, like, talk about data, like, and here's the scary thing, so if Slack is willing to take chat data unknowingly from their end users, what if Salesforce starts taking sales data unknowingly from their end users? What if Salesforce starts taking sales data unknowingly from end users? Like, that's a huge breach of trust.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and think about all the consumers that they have access to. I mean, they're literally CRM, they're chat, they're everything, and so they literally have billions of people's information, and they're just training on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, like and that's the thing too is like if the ai uses that data, if it's machined learned on salesforce or slack data and that data is privileged and it accidentally, you know, learns something it shouldn't learn and then repeats it because it's just an aggregator at the end of the day, then that's's a huge breach of trust. I can see them getting sued to oblivion for that. Oh, absolutely Ooh, Scary stuff I still have to think about using Teams again, and here we are moving closer and closer to that.
Speaker 2:We need a new form of chat. I mean Discord might be the only safe one now yeah, I mean discord's great uh.
Speaker 1:Discord is invested by a couple of interesting companies, but as a property, I feel like it stayed the most true to itself. I did see that they might start doing ads and I'm curious what a discord ad looks like like. Right, if we're ever recording a podcast and an ad shows up in the middle and it's Discord, I'm going to be so mad.
Speaker 2:Craig just chimes in ad incoming Five, four.
Speaker 1:you have no choice but to listen to it, I will shoot my monitor and I know that doesn't do anything. But that's going to be the result. That's going to be the result of the ads.
Speaker 2:It's a dramatic action just because of that. I mean that would be a buzzfeed article if I've ever heard one man shoots monitor for discord ad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, I could see that.
Speaker 2:I can definitely see that I'm sorry for bringing it down, it's all good we had to bring up the news, we had to expose them for the scums they're becoming because of salesforce, you know even hearing that like.
Speaker 1:I have reached an interesting point in my psychology now where I don't get too upset about things anymore. I just accept them, I laugh and I move on, which might be the level of enlightenment that everyone wants to get to, just considering where we're heading as a society. So I'm good, the vibes are still good Enlightenment stages of grief.
Speaker 2:I mean, what's the difference, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, very similar when you actually think about it.
Speaker 2:Oh man, well, yeah, that's my news.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thanks for bringing that up, clark. I'm sure we're all better for knowing that now and we can all complain and send an email to Slack, because that's what we're all going to do. We're going to send them an email. If you're using Slack, send them an email, let them know I'm definitely going to continue to write like an idiot and let them enjoy my nonsense.
Speaker 2:That's what you should email and be like hey, I want you to keep track of my data, but, just as a warning, your models are going to get dumber by utilizing my data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I should email them and be like yo. I give you full permission to not only use my data, but to make your primary source of data. Please trust me. I'm a director of marketing. I write real good. You're going to want to use this.
Speaker 2:It's legit. The second they read real good. They're like nope.
Speaker 1:Cancel.
Speaker 2:It's on a list somewhere, I know it.
Speaker 1:Okay, we've been at it. We've been not here for a time, so I thought today's episode rather than respond to a comment. Also, I think clark and i's brains are just a little bit not in the mood to solve problems. I figured we should report back on what's been going on and what's up in our lives and what we've been up to, because clark's been on a trip, I've been on a trip and I'm actually curious to hear about your trip, clark, and I'm sure you're curious to hear about mine. So let's do a little hearty-duty recap.
Speaker 2:What do you say? Why not? We'll do a little catch-up live on the pod. I'm sure it'll be entertaining in some way.
Speaker 1:I'm so I'll go first, since I left first. Two weeks ago I trekked off to sunny San Francisco, nicest place on planet Earth where the streets are so clean you can lick them. And let me tell you, I went to the RSA security conference. I guess saying security is a little bit of redundancy, but I went to the RSA conference, which is a security focused conference, and I spent four days of my life there and it was. It was pretty good.
Speaker 1:For, for those that don't know, this is probably the biggest security event, at least in the United States. I'm assuming it's probably also in the world. The amount of people at this event every year seems to double. It takes up the entire Moscone Conference Center, not just the conference area but the floor below and the concourse hall behind it, under the street to the, to the south, like it's. It is massively huge and it's actually kind of cool.
Speaker 1:I've only ever worked conferences. This one I attended and it was mostly to talk to press and analysts about my company and what we've been up to, because we're not there, but I was there and when I wasn't talking to the press and the analysts, I was checking out the stuff, and security's gotten pretty wild from a consumer perspective or from a business perspective. We had Squidboy on as our last episode, talking about like how he is an ethical hacker and the kind of things he was going through and all I could think the entire time I was touring this place and talking to all these different businesses, is man like this, is it Like, if you need a direction to go career wise, and you're just like I'm willing to learn anything, I'm willing to do anything career-wise and you're just like I'm willing to learn anything, I'm willing to do anything. Go into cybersecurity right now, because the cost of some of these booths like the Microsoft booth, the like, the what is it? Oh, I'm going to the Cisco booth Like these are huge, massive booths, just wall to wall with screens and people working it and you can't move, like there's just a sea of people everywhere you look and they're all there to learn about new tools, find solutions and get information about cybersecurity. And it was just, it was a wild four days. I learned a lot, I saw a lot. I'll just share the coolest thing I saw, which was Samsung had a booth and I was like that's kind of weird.
Speaker 1:I don't really associate Samsung with cybersecurity, that's, that's screens and phones and it turns out that they've got this whole new thing where your phone, if you work at like a three letter agency like the NSA or the CIA, you can't bring your phone into those buildings. It's just because your phone listens. You know the, the, the being on your phone who I won't say the name, so doesn't activate. Your device is always listening, so you can't bring them in these places. They've created, in partnership with this other company, this case that you can put on a Samsung phone.
Speaker 1:They basically, when it enters a building like the CIA headquarters, the NSA building, it will cover the screen or cover the cameras, it will blast white noise into the microphone so google and siri can't hear you, and it will also, uh, cover all of the speakers so no sound can come out. So you could still technically bring your phone in with you but not collect information, spy or record anything, which is just super cool. And I had no idea samsung was so into like phone security and building devices that were sort of next level, you know, government level security. But spent a long time talking to the guy in the booth there got a lot of cool demos. It's a good time. It's very interesting conference that's very cool.
Speaker 2:I've always heard of it, but I've never been. It sounds like an awesome time. Do they post any of your like, like main talks or anything, online so that anybody could watch it, or?
Speaker 1:no. So that's the thing. I had the $99 pass, which got me the ability to like walk the floor and talk to people, but if you actually want to go to the keynotes or go to sessions, it's over two grand for one of those tickets and I was already spending 660 dollars per night at my hotel on the company dime. So it's like I'm not buying this pass just to go do some interviews and analyst talks, like that's just not gonna happen. So I don't know. I'm sure that they put some of the keynotes and a lot of the announcements and news out there, but it's. It's an event that you can get a lot from, even if you don't go, just because of the press cycle that happens after there. If you're like on bleeping computer or dark reading, they cover a lot of the various uh security things going on there. So even if you don't want to go to sunny san francisco with streets so clean you can lick them. It's definitely worth your time to learn about it.
Speaker 2:Please don't lick them. Yeah, I looked up their YouTube page and it looks like they do post a number of the talks Like I guess it's just companies, Tan Moon, gnostic, culminate, and then it just talks about that's their launchpad, I guess, and then they talk about, like the first AI breach. I don't know, it's cool stuff, it'd be really interesting. You know we'll post this, probably in the Discord or something, but you know, to check this out and to your point, I do hate that they have different levels of passes, so like, oh yeah, if you just want to walk around, it's 90 bucks.
Speaker 1:But if you want to actually listen in to anything, that knowledge yeah, it's wild, that's cool. No, you, you did remind me because you said the magic word. You couldn't take five steps without hearing someone say ai, but then, as soon as you ask them, like what they meant, everything's just just chatbot aggregator. No one's actually doing anything cool with ai beyond the bad people. Like that was the thing.
Speaker 1:Every single bad actor out there is learning how to do ai puppetry and use deep fakes and create really scary, accurate, accurate representations of, like, real people to attack companies, right. And then you look at these vendors and like, oh yeah, we were using AI, so you could. You could talk to our chat bot and ask us if a server's turned off somewhere. I'm like I, I could do that. Or I could just look at the monitor and see it with a click of the mouse, like what are you doing here? It was. It was kind of funny because, again, I think the, the bad actors are so far ahead of a lot of the big businesses when it comes to AI that A little concerning yeah, concerning Curious about that one yeah Right, well, with everything that's good, like someone will use it for bad.
Speaker 2:Curious about that. One yeah right, well, with everything that's good, like someone will use it for bad. Right. So to your point. Like it typically starts with, the people using for bad are like far ahead of the people using it for good or trying to defend against the bad, so it's certainly going to get worse before it gets better. Yes, well, very cool, and you didn't get sick or anything afterwards, you survived I have.
Speaker 1:I mean, we've talked about this before, but my ritual is, you know, you take a Pepto before you get on the plane, I mask up with an N95 mask for the entirety and when I leave my car to, when I get out of the airport, at my destination, like I'm not so, like I'm not so concerned that I wear a mask the entire trip, but I just feel like planes and airports are specific breeding grounds for viruses and bacteria. So I was not sick at all, I'm still not sick. No jet lag, no issue. Uh, I tell you I've gotten good at flying and the trip was fine.
Speaker 2:You're a pro. Yeah, you mask up. Well, I mean, it makes sense. You're literally going into a flying pod with recycled air and all those people sitting in close proximity it is absolutely just a pool of germs and disgustingness.
Speaker 1:So I don't blame you at all.
Speaker 2:I think it totally makes sense to mask up, and in hindsight I probably should have done the same. I didn't get sick, but now you have me thinking Are?
Speaker 1:you feeling it?
Speaker 2:No, I'm actually. I'm feeling fine, I'm feeling good because you got back when um, I got back. Let's see, it's saturday today. I got back thursday morning, okay, so you would definitely know if you're sick by now. Oh, yeah, for sure I'd be feeling it and I'm the type of person I look at someone who's sick and I get sick. So, yeah, I would absolutely be sick by now. But, um, I think I told you my concoction before I do like the uh, um, what's it called?
Speaker 2:the emergency or whatever it is like, the literally thousands of milligrams of vitamin c straight to your blood nice um yeah, I take that and then I pop in some zinc and normal multivitamins and I literally do that for like every single moment that I interact with people that's good that's the way.
Speaker 1:You just nuke the system. Did I hear you correctly that you said you got back Thursday morning?
Speaker 2:I did. You took a red eye, I did. It was for a special family event, though there was a new baby being born in the family. So, yeah, it was one of those situations like we don't know if it's going to happen and end up happening. It's like, ok, I'm going to hop on this flight and get home.
Speaker 1:Jeez man, Props to you. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it for anything in the world. It was a little rough.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to lie, but I'm a good plane sleeper. Actually, I'm kind of surprised. I've been talking to other people who I travel with and they're like I can't sleep on the plane at all.
Speaker 1:No, I'm in excruciating pain the entire flight, so falling asleep is very difficult when you know your back is screaming at you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fair enough, it's just uncomfortable for you. Is that the main reason?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like my shoulders just don't fit in plane seats, so I'm either getting hit by the drink cart or like the fact that I'm kind of trying to sit straight hunched you know, figure out this weird seat structure with my, my strangely large shoulders, it just hurts. I'll get these seething cramps in my upper traps. So no, I don't sleep, I just wiggle. I wiggle to stay comfortable.
Speaker 2:Are you flying on spirit or what? Because they have zero padding on their seats. I hope you're flying a better airline. Okay, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually I would say like the nice thing about planes like Spirit and Frontier is because they don't have the TVs built in Usually the seats have a little more cushion and they're a little bit more comfortable, but that could be psychosomatic.
Speaker 2:I think it's psychosomatic. I'm telling you, last time I went on a Spirit plane, it's like they just put a sheet of paper on the metal and that was your butt pad. It was awful.
Speaker 1:My butt's not the problem, though. That's the thing. Like I can, I can sit on anything. It's it's really the back that gives me so much issue and sucks, but you could sleep. That's a. That's a gift.
Speaker 2:I don't know what it is. It's the humming of the engines. The second I get in there, we started taking off. I'm usually asleep before we even take off and I don't even remember taking off at all. Are you kidding? You sleep the entire flight. Well, no, not the landing. I usually remember. I usually wake up like a couple hours in, especially on red eyes. I woke up like five hours of the six hour trip in, so I was out.
Speaker 1:Hey, I am so jealous, I'm so jealous.
Speaker 2:No, I wake up a little cramp, like your elbows hurt, your body hurts a little bit, but I'm just happy I got sleep. My mind needed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so where did you go? Yeah, so I mean for you you would say, generally a good trip. You sound like you enjoyed it, which I'm kind of shocked at.
Speaker 1:It's probably the best trip I've ever had to sunny San Francisco, where the streets go, where like the streets. Thank you, that's so clean so clean. Let me tell you the cleanest city on planet earth oh my goodness well good, I'm happy to hear it.
Speaker 2:Nobody uh tried to like lick your ear or, you know, steal your luggage this time, right so I saw a dead body, I also saw an active robbery why did you skip all this?
Speaker 1:in the story Because it wasn't important.
Speaker 2:RSA is more important than these crazy life events that happen to you. It's San.
Speaker 1:Francisco Clark. It's the cleanest place on planet Earth People dying and getting mugged on the street, but you can look for it. Day two I got up in the morning. I'm off coffee, but I did want some water. So I was walking to Starbucks, did see a lifeless body next to my hotel and you know, could they have just been in a drug-induced coma? Possibly were they not breathing. Yes, so I mean, you tell me I wasn't gonna hang around and find out?
Speaker 2:and because I'm the first call, you call somebody, you're just like, yeah, this is san francisco no, it's san francisco, like you don't.
Speaker 1:And this will make perfect sense when I tell you the next part of my story. So I'm walking back to the hotel with my cohort in crime, sterling, who's been on the podcast before and on our mentorship episode, no less. We're walking back and I see two kids like teenagers, in super baggy clothes, run out of the building with a bag and like AirPods are falling out of their bag, sunglasses are falling out of their bag. They're just running, literally run past some cops. They run past about 30 people on the street and it's like, oh cool, just a robbery on the way back to the hotel. But the cops don't care because as long as it's under $900, it doesn't matter, they don't do anything about it.
Speaker 2:This is insane. Yeah, you know what's wild. I went to San Francisco, I flew into SFO and I stayed in Mountain View, not in San Francisco, that's not San Francisco. And I had a world of a different experience than you did.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, not that far, it's like 10 miles it's literally when you, when you basically cross, when you're coming like from Santa Clara up into San Fran, you you've basically accepted the fact that you are going into escape from LA. But it's, it's not LA, it's San Francisco. That movie, it is a nightmare, hellscape. And you know I had a good time at the conference. But, like I've just accepted the fact that san francisco is hell on earth and like the amount of just disgusting behavior from, like the homeless people that mostly choose to be homeless, like they want to be there, uh, like I I didn't know this, but apparently the city voted about a few years back to basically open up their, their, their borders for homeless to come live there, and every like the majority of people voted and said it's okay. So most of the homeless in San Francisco aren't even Californians, they're, they're from everywhere else and they just came there to have a good time and do drugs. And they do.
Speaker 1:They certainly do, and you know, I'm sure there's a lot of them that are victims of addiction and need serious help, but no one cares and they continue to take advantage of the city. And there's just between that and the actual criminals who are breaking in. Like every car you walked on the street and like I would say, every 10th car has a broken window. It's just, it's just where you are. That it's just where you are. That's the place. It sucks, it's so crazy. Yeah, yeah, if you guys have never been there.
Speaker 2:California is just a wild place. You go down to LA and LA is exactly like how you're saying. My experience in LA is very similar to your experience in San Francisco, but Mountain View, beautiful, beautiful Would go back in a heartbeat. The weather was incredible. It was cool in the morning, like jacket weather. I went for jogs every morning and then in the afternoon the sun came out and it was like sunny with a cool breeze. The whole time I was there Trees everywhere. I was jogging. This is so weird to me, bruce, and I think it's just because of where we live now. But in the street six in the morning, there's people walking down the street. In the street six in the morning, there's people walking down the street. Everybody said hi to me. It's six in the morning. These are strangers in a city that I've never been to and everyone's being so nice and I'm like this is. I didn't say hi because that's weird, like we did that here. People look at you like you're going to try to mug me.
Speaker 1:Like what are you trying to do? Unacceptable behavior you can't be kind to. It was wild, but literally it's crazy, because those places are only a few miles apart and it's just so vastly different I I cannot recommend santa clara and mountain view enough just lovely places.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's wild, but yeah, you've not been there before. No, no, so I've. I've like flown through san francisco sfo a few times, but I've never like gotten out, seen the golden great bridge, anything like that. So this is like my first time spending some time in this area and I've obviously done a lot of work in LA and man, it's so much nicer.
Speaker 2:I was thinking through it. I was like I never want to go to LA again. Like, just bring me over here. It was incredible, but I'll tell you the reason I went. So I'm a super nerd and Apple and Google every year have their developer conferences and every year they post them. It's this cool production, like just the cinematography of it alone. They feature their technology. It's a lot of just hand wavy, you know, not yet released, you know, basically just trying to build a bunch of hype around their company. And I love it. I watch it every year and it gets me excited because I love that kind of stuff and I'm an Apple fanboy.
Speaker 2:This year I got the chance to go to Google IO and it's due to, you know, google Play partnership we have with my, my current company, and I actually got to go to the event and if you've seen Silicon Valley, the events that they go to is very similar to this type of event. It's like you get there, they have food and everybody's all excited. And they have food and everybody's all excited and they have these like drinks you can get that are all like green and vegan, everything and all that. It's like everything you would expect. They've got djs going off and it's like this is wild. This is like a tech nerd. You know fanboy rave. I don't know what this is, so you know the content if you've seen it already. It's just ai like that's, that's it.
Speaker 2:I could have summarized all of their talks in just two letters and it's just AI. Anything else that wasn't AI. They're like we don't really care. But no, it was a really cool event. I'm happy I got to go in person and I always enjoy the talks and everything, so it was fun.
Speaker 2:What was the coolest thing you learned? I would say not necessarily the coolest thing you learned. I would say not necessarily the coolest thing I learned, but just the way they're using AI. Like the things I got to interact with. They actually had something that was pretty cool. It blew my mind.
Speaker 2:So they've got this new model Gemini AI is what they're calling it. So Gemini is like taking over everything and they had a lab. So they set up like these pop-up buildings and you go into the lab and they have all these different like sets and areas that you can interact with their technology. So you can practice like training an AI agent and you can use data sets they give you or predefined for you. You can go in and use AI to like generate beats and music. So like you just turn knobs or type in random things and it will like create beats around it, which is pretty wild how fast it was working and the coolest thing was they actually had like a soccer goal set up like a life-size one, with some targets of where they want you to kick the ball, and the idea was AI would be watching, with cameras, and it would have like multiple sensors of where the ball was landing, the speed it was going and so on, and when you kick the ball, aiming for these things, it would actually analyze all that information.
Speaker 2:So they'd give you like three chances to try to kick, you know, in the right direction, hit the targets, all that good stuff. And then immediately after and no joke, immediately after you'd step to the side and a screen would come up that would have your scores on it. So it'd be like power, accuracy and style or something like that. So they'd score you and rank you based on everyone else that's already kicked, and then they would give you live audio coaching advice based on the inputs from a model they trained, a voice model they trained from one of the soccer coaches who like coaches in the Premier League or something. And then you can stylize your player card and they literally like print out a card for you to say like hey, clark, here is your soccer player card and has all your stats on there. It's stylized, has a link on the back. It was wild. It was wild to see that use of AI of how fast it did that and how personalized it was to the things that I just did.
Speaker 1:That's pretty sick. It was pretty cool. That is actually a very cool use of AI. And did you win? I did not win.
Speaker 2:I did pretty good. I actually did much better than I thought. So they have like corners all in the top right. I just aimed all for the top right. I never hit the thing, but I was in literally the same spot all three times. So my accuracy was like 99 and everything else was average. So I was shocked. That was consistent. That was the biggest shock for me, but it was super cool. And what else what? That was the biggest shock for me, but it was super cool. And what else? What else happened?
Speaker 2:They had a bunch of like talks and events and stuff like that and for me it just gets me excited to like go and build tech. You know that they're talking about because it's so easy these days. Like I don't know if you've ever built an app, bruce, but it's crazy how like fast you can get set up and like build a mobile app and integrate it with AI and how like fast you can get set up and like build a mobile app and integrate it with AI. And they did a bunch of talks on it and like a bunch of workshops and you're like I just went to a 45 minute workshop and I pretty much have like a working app on my phone. That's wild. So it's crazy how fast you know you can build technology with a little bit of understanding and some guidance from the experts.
Speaker 1:You feel like you can actually take a lot away from this and bring it back home with you.
Speaker 2:I do. It's not all applicable, Unless you're into Google's tech stack. It's hard to apply it, I would say, to a corporate setting unless you are set up on those tools. You know what I mean. But you can certainly take it back and just have fun playing with their technology and seeing the possibilities of what you can build. So it really helps open your mind and get you thinking about hey, how could I use AI, how would this be cool?
Speaker 1:That's super cool and I'm glad you got to go because I think, like you're in, my experience both highlights the importance of, when you're at a job or when you work at a company, being able to step away from the business side and go out and experience some of the educational side and seeing what other businesses do, the sort of mindshare that can come from conferences and enablement events. It's actually very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great networking as well. I mean, I met a few people. You kind of just talk to people casually and everybody's having fun and it's nice to just connect with people to your point outside of the realm of your own business. And it's nice to just connect with people to your point outside of the realm of your own business and it can be really good for you too if you're in the market and you're trying to make connections and I think that's one of the biggest benefits. It's like, yeah, you get to learn, it's pretty fun and not the worst thing in the world and you get to connect with others that could open doors for you in the future.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's exactly true, it's. I didn't even think about the networking side of things because I hate people, but you absolutely could use this to find not only, you know, new friends and mentors, but potential job opportunities as well. Right, absolutely?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's also worth mentioning. A lot of this stuff happens locally too. Like you don't have to go to california for a business event. There are lots and lots of. Every major city in America hosts these kind of conferences for for different reasons and rhymes. Do a little research and find the ones near you, Cause it's worth attending if you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah and just give it a shot. I mean, it's certainly if you can find something of relative interest to you or something that you have a skillset in there's. There's plenty of resources out there and some of them, like you, know what's crazy about Google IO as well. You don't have to pay for it. You just have to register in time or be a partner and you get a sign-in. So if you're quick enough to get into that registration, you can just go and you don't have to pay for any of it. They supply food and drinks and everything you need. But yeah, hotel rates were wild.
Speaker 1:Mine was like five hundred dollars a night oh, that's, that's a lot for mountain view, in all honesty, like I've never spent that much there. San francisco's different story. You just the six hundred dollar hotel I stayed out was actually the cheapest by a long shot. Um, most hotels were at least about a thousand a night, but it's not bad, for I mean that's.
Speaker 2:That's pretty high for mountain view yeah, yeah, I think it's just because all the there was another conference, I think, going on the other side of town, so I think they were all booked out because of that. But yeah, I actually I travel with someone who used to live in San Francisco and he's like, yeah, be wary of the hotel. Like you know, a four star where you live now might not be a four star over here. And I was actually pleasantly surprised. I surprised I didn't get robbed. Everything was good. They had breakfast in the morning, it was fine.
Speaker 1:They don't really rob you, they rob businesses, fair enough. I'm never afraid. When I'm in San Francisco, it's more what am I going? To see. That's going to be scarred into my retinas for the rest of my life. That's the fear, but it's not the rest of my life. That's the fear, but it's not the kind of violent crime against you. Now there are places you can definitely go and every city has that place where you could have violence done to you. Yeah Well, I'm glad you had a good trip.
Speaker 2:You too.
Speaker 1:You were there, how many?
Speaker 2:nights, two nights, two nights, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah like two nights so it was a pretty quick trip, yeah, quick trip well, great, uh, anything you didn't like I mean travel, you know, and diet I don't know. I don't know what it is. Just we talked about this on the previous episode or a couple episodes ago. I just don't know what it is about eating food. That's not my normal diet anymore. My stomach was just messed up really. Yeah, it's not like anything crazy. I mean, yeah, sure, I had a little worse than I usually do, like more carbs and that and stuff like that, but yeah, I just was not feeling good. Other than that, everything was fine telling you pepto on day one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go light every day.
Speaker 2:You're there, you can eat good food, but you just gotta go light on it. Yeah, you gotta like it's portion control, I think it is it really is.
Speaker 1:I think that's the issue I. I don't know about you, but I kind of I hate the whole. When I travel on the company dime I gotta eat it up kind of thing, like yeah, you could still have a good food. It doesn't cost like a hundred dollars a plate and you get served half of a cow like it's just, it's not. It's so outside of the normal. What you eat your body is going to throw a fit. So I always try to get something good. That's you know just what I need, not over the top, but it's helped a ton for me yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that I think the pep toe is a good. Next, because we talked about it before, something about like flying. Flying. It's like you're just, you know shining a marble, you know getting those edges off a stone. It just churns your stomach over and over again and then it's just slush.
Speaker 1:And that's how it happens. Hydration is key too, like hydrating before you get on the plane, after you get off the plane. It's important, keep that body lubricated.
Speaker 2:Keep it wet. Take a pause, drink a sip of water.
Speaker 1:I've already polished off my bottle. I was having some kombucha during this podcast. I'm just hydrated to the moon right now. I love it. I love you. Hey, let's, I don't think we have a meme.
Speaker 2:Do we not have a meme? Oh, you're right, oh, we do.
Speaker 1:We do, we do have a meme, we do, and I think it's my turn, is it not? I think it is too.
Speaker 2:But yet again, I'll be honest. I just try to get out of these as often as I can, so very much could be mine so we are playing a game called.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? It is a game you can play in our discord. If you want to join our discord again, all you have to do is go open up the podcast, look at the show notes, click our link tree and get in here. It's a great group of people and they provide memes for us to read out loud on a podcast, because that's how memes are meant to be delivered vocally with our mouths.
Speaker 1:So this one comes from capitalist correspondent actually, it's bourgeoisie correspondent, Alex Restrepo, and it is two individuals looking at each other. One says you're the best, the other says no, you're the best. And then the first one says no, you. And then the second one says I'm not, you are. Then the third one holds up a knife and says no, you're so amazing. And then the second one holds up a gun, points it to the first and says I'm not as amazing as you. And then they start stabbing and shooting each other and it's super violent and they're like just take my compliment, and the other one's like I'm not worthy. And then they jump out a window as they're falling to their death. One says I love you, and then the second one says I love you more.
Speaker 2:This is how we're going to go out, isn't it?
Speaker 1:This is exactly how we're going to go out.
Speaker 2:This is how Corpus Christi is going to die. This is how the podcast will end. This is the only way it ends. It is Flaming glory.
Speaker 1:It's a good one. It's a good meme. Thank you for sharing that and again, if you want to share yours, open the show notes. Go to that link tree easiest way to get access to all the things we do. It doesn't just include the corporate fam, which again, great place to hang, but it also includes things like our website. Our website. What else has it got, clark? Oh, you were transitioning.
Speaker 2:It's got our socials on there, which we're not really active on the socials we used to like. Yeah, why not? You'll know who we are. We were once on LinkedIn. We were doing like posts every single week. We were we did awful on continuing that.
Speaker 1:I think our bot also had a little bit of a stroke, because I don't think it posts the episodes anymore either oh, I thought we fixed that I think we fixed one of them. I think the website is fixed, but I don't know if the linkedin was fixed.
Speaker 2:Yikes hey, linkedin is always changing their apis. I blame them. I do too, oh, but yeah, in there. You can follow us on socials. You can hit our websites. You can find a link to join our Discord and get into the conversation. Post some memes.
Speaker 1:It's kind of quiet in there.
Speaker 2:We need memes, we do. What are we if we aren't voicing memes out of our mouths how they're supposed to be delivered?
Speaker 1:That's true. It's gotten quiet because we haven't been there, clark, and we promised we're going to be more active in the Discord now that we're both back safe and sound in our time zones that we're comfortable with. You can also support the show if you click that link tree, because right now this is a completely host funded podcast and you'll notice host is singular. It's me. I'm the one doing it. So if you want to help me out, you can support the show Anything's appreciated, and if you don't want to help us monetarily, then please share it with your friends, leave us a nice review and let people know about the good work that corporatestrategybiz be doing.
Speaker 2:You can also buy merch. I forgot that we had a merch store. Do you remember that, Clark? Those mugs are so cool. I still drink out of it a couple of times a week.
Speaker 1:That's true, and I just noticed that our late tree merch link 404s, so got to figure that one out. We're great at this thing, aren't we? We're so good, we're so good. This is literally why social media managers exist. This is why this is a paid position and it's for intelligent people that aren't. Clark and I? Yeah, agreed. Well, clark, as always, it's been a privilege and a pleasure getting to hang and spend some time with you, and thank you again to our listeners for joining us. If you made it this far, bless you and bless your ears. As always, I'm Bruce and I'm Clark, and you're on mute. We'll touch base with you next week.
