How to Build a Remarkable Brand in the Age of AI | Seth Godin

Successful brands are built with your customers talking about you, not you talking about you. So some people, because that's where the money is, think

marketing is about spend, right? It's

not. Marketing is about creating the conditions for other people to eagerly spread your idea.

All right, welcome to the Entrepreneur Studio podcast. I'm your host, Chris

Studio podcast. I'm your host, Chris Allen, and today we have in the studio the one and only Seth Goden, and he's joining us virtually for an in-depth conversation on the future of marketing

and building brands that matter. Seth,

welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.

Well, thanks for having me. It's a

pleasure.

Yeah. Well, you know, you've uh you've spent decades, you know, working with brands and organizations to rethink how marketing actually works, but I think what we'd like to know is what are you

seeing today in this moment uh of how marketing may be changing and how some things may remain the same in the future?

Well, let's get our terms right because still 40 years later, people don't understand what marketing is. So, we

can't talk about how it's changing till we talk about what it is. It's not

hustle or hype or getting the word out.

It's not promo. It's not interrupting people. It's not even buying ads. Those

people. It's not even buying ads. Those

things worked really well in 1973.

That if you bought an ad on MASH, you were going to reach 70 million Americans all at once. It was bigger than the Super Bowl every week. And so you needed to make average products for average

people because it was average people that would see your ads. And the

internet completely turned all of this upside down. Permission is the idea of

upside down. Permission is the idea of delivering anticipated personal and relevant messages that people want to get them. Not spamming them, but being

get them. Not spamming them, but being missed if you were gone. And most of the time, successful brands are built with your customers talking about you, not

you talking about you. So some people because that's where the money is think marketing is about spend right it's not marketing is about creating the

conditions for other people to eagerly spread your idea.

So now to answer your question it's becoming really clear because in an era of AI in an era of too much noise and not enough attention it's almost impossible to hustle your

way to success. It feels like that's the only option, but it's not an option. It

doesn't work. Well, the reality is is it's all about people and about stories.

And that's one of the things that's been meaningful about the work that you've done is that's the thing that's not changing is people are still going to be the buyers. AI not anytime soon are they

the buyers. AI not anytime soon are they going to be the buyers, right? So, this

is about this is about people.

Yeah. When AI is the buyer, you're going to lose, right? If your if your business is built

right? If your if your business is built on answering RFPs and being the cheapest and you can be the cheapest and succeed, congratulations. Your job is easy. You

congratulations. Your job is easy. You

don't need any marketing help, right?

That Walmart grew and grew and grew because it's like we got average stuff and it's cheaper than anywhere else.

Come buy it. But that's not why you need a marketing department. You need a marketing department to sell things that people think are worth it that aren't easily measured. Things that are worth

easily measured. Things that are worth it that aren't the cheapest.

And when an AI shows up, it's hard to teach it that. So, it just goes and buys the cheap one. And if that's what's going to happen, you're going to race to the bottom, and that's not going to be good.

Well, I think uh one of the things about the storytelling aspect, uh that conveys a lot of value, right? How do you think in the in small business today that's

having to face this sort of technology challenge uh with adopting AI and learning how to use it and leverage it but also trying to have that people element? The story is the thing that

element? The story is the thing that kind of connects the dots. Can you just talk us through how a small business should be thinking about storytelling in their business? Well, here's the key

their business? Well, here's the key fork in the road with AI. The current

cycle is cost reduction. How can I use AI to use less people, spend less money, and you can't cost reduce yourself to greatness? So, that's quickly going to

greatness? So, that's quickly going to be replaced by the opportunity to use AI to make things better, to use AI to make your work harder but more valuable.

And where do we go when we want to tell a story? It begins with a simple

a story? It begins with a simple question.

Who do you want to help your customers become?

And then the second question is, what are their customers hiring you to do?

And they're probably related.

When you help someone get to where they want to go all along, you don't have to push very hard. On the other hand, if you're trying to persuade people who think you're wrong that you're right, you don't have enough time or money to

do that.

That's so true. uh how do you build trust in this in this uh sort of AIdriven world, right? Because you've

talked a lot about uh the philosophical operating system. How the bedrock of the

operating system. How the bedrock of the connection with people is trust. How do

you do that today? Yeah. So, what's a brand? A brand is not a logo. A brand is

brand? A brand is not a logo. A brand is a promise. It's an expectation. The

a promise. It's an expectation. The

example I like to use is this. If Hyatt

Hotels announced that they were coming out with a line of sneakers, we have no idea what it would be like. But if Nike announced they were opening a hotel, we know exactly what it would be like

because Nike has a brand and Hyatt has a logo. So you make a promise when you

logo. So you make a promise when you show up. And trust is super simple.

show up. And trust is super simple.

Trust is, do I think you're going to keep your promise? Did you keep your promise? So if you make audacious

promise? So if you make audacious promises constantly and you don't keep them, then you're the Wizard of Oz. I

don't trust you. But if you make real promises and keep them when it's hard, especially when it's hard, that's how you build trust.

Who do you think uh does that really well just in your experience? You know,

you got Nike that knows how to do that and deliver on their promise, but like just that layer of trust. Who do you think really does that really well than your experience?

So, think of a brand that you admire.

You just found one. Right. So, they

don't have to be famous brands. I just

bought a replacement for the glasses I'm wearing because my prescription changed and the company that used to sell them doesn't make them anymore. So, I bought them from this other company and they

came in just a little bit off and it was online and you know I was like I'm never going to to hear from them. 20 minutes

later they wrote back. We had two interactions with an optitian and they're going to make it right. So, am I going to trust them next time? Well, of

course I am. that is worth so much more than a Super Bowl ad that the opportunity when a customer raises their

hand and says something's a challenge.

It's in that moment when trust is on order, right? And if you say, "Well, due

order, right? And if you say, "Well, due to unusually heavy call volume, our phone trees have changed. Please leave a message and the AI will call you back."

you just made a very clear statement about your marketing priorities and about whether I can trust you or not.

It's a really powerful way to look at it. You know, um, you know, I've heard

it. You know, um, you know, I've heard it said that, you know, a company may own its brand, but the rest of the world owns its reputation.

Yeah.

And it goes really clearly into what you're saying. And the thing that's

you're saying. And the thing that's really interesting in a lot of companies is the marketing team is like, I own the brand. But I think you probably have a

brand. But I think you probably have a little bit different of a point of view about marketing's contribution to the brand and what the rest of the business is really doing to deliver on the brand.

So talk to us talk to us about whether get it wrong and where we get it right.

The first piece of business advice I got was in 19 81 when I got offer 82 I got offered a job two different jobs and I said to my old professor uh I want to

work for a marketing driven company because I'm a marketer. He said, "Do you want to work for a marketing driven company or a marketdriven company?" And

I said, "What's the difference?" He

George said, "A marketing driven company is run by the marketing department." A

marketdriven company is there to serve the market. So, let's think about, I

the market. So, let's think about, I don't know, a famous German car company that makes diesel cars. So, five

engineers and some accountants get together and they decide to come up with a scheme to write some code that will defeat the European emissions tests and

allow them to cheat. And it ends up being a huge scandal and cost them a billion dollars in fines. And the

question is, was that a good marketing move or not?

And cuz that's what it was was a marketing move, but the marketing department probably wasn't in the room.

Probably not.

So everything your company does that touches the market, how you design things, how you answer the phone, how much you charge, what kind of stuff you're dumping in the river, those are

all marketing decisions. And if you're not touching them, then you're not really in charge of the marketing.

So true. And that everything you just talked about is a team sport. And you

know, how do you think best uh like small businesses maybe don't have all of the team inside of their business?

How do you think a small business should think about that teamwork, right, at a small scale? And then it'd be great for

small scale? And then it'd be great for you to talk about at a larger scale how teams can better work together to really understand that the brand really is built as a team.

This is a great question. Um,

inside the organization, big or small, people are keeping track of something.

At an investment bank, they're keeping track of their bonus and how much money they made today. But that's not true at almost any other company. Mostly, we're

keeping track of what will I tell my boss. Will this get me in trouble? Is

boss. Will this get me in trouble? Is

this going to be a hassle? Am I taking a risk? What am I getting measured on? And

risk? What am I getting measured on? And

if you're relying on a false proxy, something that's easy to measure but not helpful, you're going to keep measuring it and you're going to go in the wrong direction. So, you know, back in the

direction. So, you know, back in the early days of of email marketing, if you had an employee who was walking out the door stealing laptops and staplers and

selling them, you'd fire them. But if

you've got someone on your team who's emailing large numbers of people to make the quarterly numbers work, you're letting them get away with it and it's costing you way more money than some

stolen laptop. So what are we measuring?

stolen laptop. So what are we measuring?

What actually happens in meetings? What

are we keeping score of? What question

do we ask? If you ask the right question, you will be amazed at how quickly the mission of the organization, its purpose becomes clear. And so, you

know, when I was talking about email marketing in the '9s and the in the 00, I encouraged companies to put up two big numbers on the wall where everyone could see them when they walked in. One number

is how many people subscribed to hear from us. And the second number is what

from us. And the second number is what percentage of them opened the last email we sent. If those are the two numbers

we sent. If those are the two numbers that everybody sees on their way in, you can bet people are going to change their behavior to make those numbers go up.

And when I was at Yahoo, the thing that wrecked the company was the stock ticker because there were 3,000 people who sat there all day long watching the stock price. And if they did something that

price. And if they did something that made it go up in one day, they did it more. And you can make it go up in one

more. And you can make it go up in one day, but it doesn't go up in one year if you're doing the wrong thing. I would

say uh because I've I've worked you know in public companies before and that tendency to hit that quarterly earnings number uh I mean it's a it's a tough one

to really operate a business and deliver on your your your brand promise when you've got to you've got to send a price out there. You've got to raise it up.

out there. You've got to raise it up.

You've got to you know do these things that really erode what you've been spending all this time as a marketer trying to do to help us show up authentic. show up that people can

authentic. show up that people can believe what we're doing that we you know I mean all of those kinds of things it's it's a real trap in a big way the me measuring the wrong thing.

Yeah. Well said. Well, just speaking of authenticity, what are some of the things like I'd love to give you I would love for you to if you if if it's something that you can do it this way because I'm basically asking for a

framework on the fly, but I'd love some this not that on maintaining authenticity uh in in your messaging and also on the maybe on the internal too. I'd love for

you to go like two more of this maybe not a lot of that.

Yeah. Well, for people listening at home, we didn't practice this. Um, but I was totally waiting for you to ask me about authenticity because authenticity is a croc. Authenticity is overrated.

Authenticity is a trap. Authenticity is

for your best friend. Authenticity might

be for your family. Authenticity is not for your customers. Because if your surgeon is authentically in a bad mood, you don't want them to do a lousy job on your knee implant, right? that if the

the server at the international house of pancakes, home of foreign food, if you go there and they're in a really bad mood, you don't want them to spill syrup all over you, authenticity is not what

you're asking for. You're asking for consistency.

Consistency is what professionals do.

Consistency is what we buy when we pay money to a brand or call a company or a small business. Consistency is what your

small business. Consistency is what your employees want when they get paid, right? They don't want the check to come

right? They don't want the check to come Wednesdays and sometimes on Fridays and sometimes be a little higher. They want

it to be consistent. So as soon as we can say and actors have no problem with this, right? George Clooney doesn't say,

this, right? George Clooney doesn't say, "Oh, George Clooney would never say that because he's not George Clooney. He's an

actor." Well, a small business says, "We're looking at a customer and we're saying,"We make these ballet slippers and we think they will help you." But

they don't actually do ballet. They're

60-year-old white guys with pot bellies.

They're making something for someone else. Empathy. So, what we're looking

else. Empathy. So, what we're looking for is the ability, the commitment to adopt a fake authenticity that is called consistency. to say, "No matter which

consistency. to say, "No matter which angle you look at us from, we're going to be like this. We're not going to talk about you behind your back. We're not

going to manipulate you. We're not going to sneak things into the contract when you're not looking. We're going to be consistently the people we say we are.

And if you want to go home and do some other weird thing, that's on your time.

But when we're here, we're consistently doing the thing we promised. And we

don't care about being authentic.

Great. I love this answer. And one of the things that uh I would say has been just in the past couple of minutes we've been chatting, the theme uh of bringing

that consistency to life really has a lot to do with being intentional about your culture. You got to you got to live

your culture. You got to you got to live by some similar rules to deliver with that kind of, you know, consistency. So

tell us the Seth Goden, you know, uh, sort of culture building, you know, advice of how we can do this better as businesses.

Well, I have it easy and I have it hard.

And the reason is because there's only me. I don't have any meetings because no

me. I don't have any meetings because no one goes but me. Um, but it's hard because that means there isn't anyone to

bounce things around with. So what I decided over the years as my organization got bigger and smaller is there is a role

named Seth Goden and it's not the person you might have dinner with. It's not the person you went to summer camp with.

It's the role of Seth Goden. The same

way Patagonia has that voice. There's no

difference. And so small businesses get hung up because small businesses are usually a bunch of freelancers who are working on their own hustling to make a

buck per hour. And so it feels like it's personal, but it's not. You're playing a role. So here's a great vivid example.

role. So here's a great vivid example.

Uh 25 years ago in my 100-year-old house, the heat broke completely in the winter when it only it only breaks in the winter. And I called four different

the winter. And I called four different firms to come replace the boiler, give us a estimate, whatever. First guy comes and he's not the owner of the business.

He is the technician. He walks into the house, he puts slippers on. I said,

"You're going to the basement. You don't

have to wear slippers." He says, "No, we wear slippers." And then he hands me a

wear slippers." And then he hands me a clipboard. He said, "While I'm

clipboard. He said, "While I'm downstairs, look this over. It's the

names of 25 of the people within one mile of your house and their phone numbers who have agreed that if you want to call them for a referral, they will answer the call.

Wow.

And when he got back up to the top of the stairs, I said, "You're hired." And

I canled the other three calls because this is all I wanted, right? All I

wanted was a firm that played the role of we are professionals and we care. Not

I'm a guy with a screwdriver and I'll say whatever I feel like. So we can act like Patagonia because we can say people are watching. Nothing's off the record.

are watching. Nothing's off the record.

Everyone's watching all the time. How do

we want to behave when we know our mom is watching or our customers watching or our competitors are watching? If we

always do that, we never have to worry about keeping our story straight.

That's amazing. One of the things that you've done a really good job uh at articulating over the years is, you know, obviously marketing uh demystifying marketing, right? There's a

uh I would say that there as marketers, you know, as a marketer myself, you know, there's uh some bad behaviors and things that develop reputations in different markets and things like that like you talked about with email marketing and some of the other things

that have that have gone out there. But

I think one of the things marketers struggle with is trying to differentiate and trying to do something meaningful or

or or say something remarkable in such a crowded world. And I love, you know, I

crowded world. And I love, you know, I just wanted to you to just do the purple cow, you know, sure, thing just to unpack that for everybody.

Yeah. We'll come back to differentiation in a minute, but let's talk about remarkable first. Early on, we talked

remarkable first. Early on, we talked about the idea that the word is going to spread because your customers talk about you, not because you talk about you.

Okay? What are they going to say? If you

don't give them something to say, they're not going to say anything.

They're not going to talk about some gimmick you had. They're not going to talk about how hard you're trying to put your kid through college. They're not

going to talk about how desperate you are for them to make cash flow. They're

going to talk about something that helps them. They will talk about something

them. They will talk about something that raises their status or gives them affiliation or them insider uh status.

If you give them that to talk about, they will talk about you and we can create that. So, in New York

City, there are 50,000 restaurants. And

if a restaurant shut, very few people would miss it. On Broadway and 90th Street about 30 years ago, they opened a restaurant called Carmines. It's an

Italian restaurant. Carmines did two things, maybe three. Three. One, they

served more garlic than it was reasonable to eat. Two,

they served portions that were twice as big as any other restaurant meant for sharing. And three, you couldn't get a

sharing. And three, you couldn't get a reservation unless you had a party of six or more.

As a result, when you went to work the next day, you had to tell everyone where you went last night because A, it was a party and b you smelled like garlic and c you had a great story to tell about how much insane food that they served

you. And then if someone said, "Well, we

you. And then if someone said, "Well, we should go back." You had to go find four other people to join you or you couldn't get a reservation. So built into the

dynamic of Carmine's restaurant is the engine of remarkability, the thing that makes it worth talking about. Most small

businesses say you can pick anyone and we're anyone.

And if that's what you're saying and you're hoping you're going to win some Google search, uh you're going to hold your breath for a long time.

I love it. Well, I'd say uh differentiation, right, is the is the thing that uh we're trying to do in a in a big way to stand out.

And I think one of the things that's been interesting with uh social media uh has made this idea of um I'm going to just call it personal branding for just

a second, a much more accessible thing than maybe you just have access to media. The the personal brands back in

media. The the personal brands back in the day, right, you didn't have access to mass media. it was, you know, print and and things and TV and maybe movies and and so

what's happening with companies is, you know, this idea that there are a few voices and faces that tend to show up to support these brands.

How important do you think uh the personal branding element within a company uh brand, how how can those sort of work in concert and where do they

sort of break apart?

Yeah. Um, well, I'd love to hear about some of the things that you're working on, but uh, the short version is everyone has a personal brand, and if you're not doing anything with it, well,

that's what your personal brand is. But

a brand is again, what do I expect when I hear from you? The magic of a human being as an avatar for a brand is human

beings are complicated. They have a lot of surface area. They can do things that are appropriately remarkable that a faceless brand has trouble with.

Downside, of course, you can't own a person and that person might let you down. And so, like, you know, when I was

down. And so, like, you know, when I was at Yahoo, the first few months I was there, they were delighted to have me going around uh being a personal brand

connected with this. But as the stock price went up and they decided to get more conservative, they said, you know, we don't want anybody to be the face of Yahoo. I was like, fine with me. That's

Yahoo. I was like, fine with me. That's

too much responsibility anyway. Um, and

so I don't think this really makes sense for a public company unless it's some, you know, crazy billionaire who owns a lot of the stock. I do think it makes a

lot of sense for smaller organizations to put a face on what they're doing, but that person has to understand it's not really them. It's someone who looks like

really them. It's someone who looks like them. Because if they try to do the

them. Because if they try to do the authenticity thing and talk about how much how annoyed they were when they dropped their kid off at school this morning, now it's not a person helping a brand. It's a brand giving a person a

brand. It's a brand giving a person a platform to just talk about themselves, which isn't the point.

I think um one of the things that's really interesting is when uh you have uh somebody being sponsored by a brand and it kind of goes wrong.

You know, when you have an internal person, at least they know they want to keep their job. The external person, you know, has that. Well, you know, I've I've heard um I want to talk about

social media just for a second because, you know, I'd say this this medium uh has I'd say grown in significance uh

even more. It popularity has been one

even more. It popularity has been one thing that social media was, but now I'd say as this medium has grown and developed, there's there's more significance to it. Um, and so one of

the things I'd love to just hear you talk about, you know, this idea of uh uh people and brands because what happens, you know, I I have I had a friend say it's the faces in your feed that slow

your scroll and you have this idea of corporations trying to participate in social media and they really really struggle and then you have the people uh that have all of

the voices and where all the influencers have come from. So what's your commentary on that? What's what's gone on with social media and the significance of it that's really

contributed to building companies?

Well, let's begin with this. I talked

about false proxies earlier. Mark

Zuckerberg really wants you to focus on certain numbers. Those numbers aren't

certain numbers. Those numbers aren't important to you. They're important to him. Making those numbers go up.

him. Making those numbers go up.

It's not your job. Right? You're don't

be an unpaid doobie for them. I have

400,000 Instagram followers. I didn't do anything to have that happen, but I, you know, if I post something about a new book, maybe 12 people on Instagram will buy it. The number of Instagram

buy it. The number of Instagram followers I have is completely irrelevant to the change I seek to make in the world. It's a distraction. Don't

focus on that because it's not why you're here.

Then the second part of it is making sure that there's no gap between the commotion you're making to get attention and the work you're doing to gain trust

as well as the work you're doing to cause action. So Wendy's has between 15

cause action. So Wendy's has between 15 and 20 people working on their uh social media accounts and they're sort of notorious for the way they throw insults

around on social media. Has it sold one Frosty? Has it sold one hamburger?

Frosty? Has it sold one hamburger?

Right. I'm glad they're amusing themselves. I'm glad they're getting

themselves. I'm glad they're getting paid to amuse themselves. But what's the purpose of Wendy's? Is that its purpose?

Is that what they want to do more of? So

then if so, they should start a talk show, right? But that's not what they

show, right? But that's not what they signed up to do. So we have to really be clear. Are you looking for awareness?

clear. Are you looking for awareness?

Are you looking for uh certain kinds of proxies? Or you looking for action? And

proxies? Or you looking for action? And

if you're looking for action, the answer isn't how do I get more famous? The

answer is how do I get less famous and more trusted? How do I create tension?

more trusted? How do I create tension?

Because tension is relieved by people taking action. Not how do I relieve

taking action. Not how do I relieve tension for people on the subway who are going like this and looking at more than 500 messages in an hour. Because none of those people are stopping and saying,

"Oh, look. The vase I've been waiting

"Oh, look. The vase I've been waiting for is on sale." And hitting buy. Every

once in a while, someone becomes a Kardashian, but it's probably not gonna be you. And we don't need any more

be you. And we don't need any more Kardashians. We already have the ones we

Kardashians. We already have the ones we have for sure. I I think uh you know, in

for sure. I I think uh you know, in building the brands of the future, one of the things that uh you know, you I think you were sort of saying it right there, maybe just to double click on it,

is that's the better versus louder, you know, kind of approach. What would you say would be some key things uh for just entrepreneurs to think about about

becoming better versus louder?

So, I was doing some research about a a business I did uh as a customer worked with years and years ago. It's called

Gajist. Gajist uh does more than $30 million a year selling wine. And the way they do it is there's an email list and if you're on the list, uh, you get an

email a couple times a week describing an incredible pros this find of a wine and you click a button and they add it to your box and then three times a year

they ship you whatever wines you've put aside.

And here's a business run by one guy with a few assistants doing $30 million a year in revenue with enormous amount of profit and so much leverage cuz he can walk into a winery that's struggling

and buy all their wine, right? Well,

famously, he sent a note and a press release out saying, "We're not taking any new signups. We're done because it's enough. Our goal isn't because he

enough. Our goal isn't because he wouldn't be able to keep delighting people after 130,000. He had 130,000 email addresses. He can't get enough

email addresses. He can't get enough great wine for more people. That's about

better, not louder. That's about better.

Those 130,000 people showed up and showed up and showed up. $30 million a year's worth. That's enough. And so when

year's worth. That's enough. And so when you have this bottomless pit for attention, this need to just one more click, when you got people who you're measuring on how much should they get

the word out, don't be surprised that you're starting to reach average people and average people aren't going to buy your software and average people aren't going to buy your book because they're average. They chose to be average.

average. They chose to be average.

You're looking for the other people, the ones who are going to talk about you, the ones who are going to challenge you to do better, the ones who are going to eagerly pay more for better. So when you pick your customers, you pick your

future.

I think uh a lot of what you're talking about is the acts that you take should have meaning. Uh and that meaning

have meaning. Uh and that meaning shouldn't have to be measured by the easiest thing to count.

Yeah.

It's a big a big part about it.

Um you know what what do you think is kind of the next the next evolution for marketing? Right.

you know, there's uh you know, you talked about email marketing, organic search was it for a while, paid social, you know, what are some of the things that you're you're sort of thinking about? And now I'm in tactics land. I

about? And now I'm in tactics land. I

get that. But like

what what do you think is sort of the the next evolution uh in, you know, marketing?

I'll tell you what it's not. It's not

tricking chat GPT to recommend your stuff to people by somehow inserting code and whatever. There are plenty of people want to sell you that today. They

have no clue what to do. I think when we add AI to the equation, many people are going to use it to just make everything cheaper and some people are going to use it to make it better to

invite somebody to be in a community to eagerly participate with a company. You

know, just to to brainstorm something I thought of two seconds ago. I can take pictures of my entire tool chest, the mess that is my basement. I can upload

it to a company that makes tools that I trust and I'm working on a project. And

now I can say, "Hey, I'll just put in I don't know the name of it.

Techlas. Hey Techlas, uh, I'm working on this and I can't find piece X and it has seen all my tools." And now it could say back to me, "Oh, it's right over there next to the the widgets." Or it could

say, "You don't have that tool. Would

you like me to get it to you by tomorrow?"

tomorrow?" The more I teach it, the happier I am.

The more I teach it, the more their brand is worth to me, the more likely it is that I don't go to Amazon and buy the cheap one. And the idea that a brand can

cheap one. And the idea that a brand can have someone standing right next to me doing a service for me that I want them to do is a whole new level of permission.

And eBay doesn't have permission with me like that. Quicken doesn't have

like that. Quicken doesn't have permission with me like that. very few

companies do because they're all skulking around in the background spying. AI will do some of that, but the

spying. AI will do some of that, but the real opportunity is to show up and be welcome and be missed if you are not there.

Wow. I think you uh uh probably just said one of the most useful uh ways of using AI that I would love. You know,

any project that you're working on, if it knows you that well, can make that recommendation. I mean, that's a that's

recommendation. I mean, that's a that's a pretty rad uh use of AI. You know, I I you've been I don't know, one of the things you said um in in our

our pre-con conversation was that you're like, I I've talked for 20 years, you know, I've I've done this a lot. I you

know, and that's why you said sort of the no rehearsal thing. Um

but you've said so many things and talked about so many topics. uh what's

kind of something new that you haven't really talked about a lot or what's sort of what's brewing on the edge of you know sort of Seth Goden's viewpoint.

It's really interesting to watch what causes people to glaze over a little bit and what causes people to get excited.

If you talk to people about straightforward fairly simple things they can do to transform their day. They're all ears, right? What'd you have for breakfast? I

right? What'd you have for breakfast? I

have this new breakfast regimen. But

when you talk to them about things that take a long time, evolution being a great example, their eyes glades over.

And AI is in both categories. AI is

here's a hack you can do today. Take a

picture of all your bookshelves. Now AI

knows where all your books are and you'll never scr around looking for where it is. It knows. versus

are you going to upskill in the future or are you going to be desk-killed? Are

you going to work for an AI which is going to be a really unhappy experience or is an AI going to work for you? And

if you're going to have AIS work for you, you better start hiring them now and learn how to be a good boss of an AI.

And so in the last few months, I've developed a bunch of really cool things with AI. Not my writing. My writing I do

with AI. Not my writing. My writing I do myself. Um, and

myself. Um, and it's fascinating to me that most of my peers and many of the people I talk to aren't doing that. And for $20 a month,

what are you waiting for? Because here

is this squadron of summer interns who work for almost for free. They're not

that good, but they're very eager. And

uh, if we can learn how to harness this power, then we don't have to be a victim. And I think that shift is right

victim. And I think that shift is right in front of every small business in any field I can think of. And small business people tend to be working too hard to

pay attention to what they ought to be doing next.

It's amazing.

Speaking of uh I think you called it um there's a sort of a long-term view and I I just want to think about just uh you you've had a the opportunity to look back on a lot of things and there's a

whole future ahead. Um and when you think about or look at the next generation of entrepreneurs. What do you hope that they choose to do differently than the generation before us?

Well, it's going to be heartbreaking if I uh focus too hard on what I'm hoping for. But the book, the book I wrote, the

for. But the book, the book I wrote, the song of significance, was basically about saying this. If you have enough technology to be listening or watching this, you won the lottery. You're richer

than the last king of France. Not only

that, but you have enough freedom to spend part of your day doing something like this. So why trade that in to

like this. So why trade that in to hustle for a couple extra shekels when you could do something that mattered?

And so when AI shows up and gives us all these leverage points, are we going to use it to come up with a dog walking service that's 1% better than the

existing dog walking service? Or are we going to do something that it doesn't have to transform the world, but it should transform someone? That we should show up in a way that people would be

glad we did. Because our job is not to do our job. Our job is to solve problems. to solve problems for other people, to make things better by making better things. That didn't used to be

better things. That didn't used to be true. 200 years ago, your job was to

true. 200 years ago, your job was to feed yourself or you would die. Now you

don't have that problem. We don't I don't know anyone who's starving to death and you probably don't either. And

so we're wasting this moment when we could be creating art and beauty and connection and possibility and also feed our families. I think that getting

our families. I think that getting tricked into thinking that your job is to make Chase Bank happy with your c with your bank account is a mistake.

Well, Seth, it was really awesome to get a lot of your wisdom, be able to help us all along, be able to help all these entrepreneurs along the way. Uh, I just appreciate you, you know, being willing to sit down and talk with us. Thanks for

joining us in the studio. This was our first virtual one and I thought it went awesome and appreciate you taking the time. Well, I'm glad I could be a

time. Well, I'm glad I could be a pathfinder here. Thank you for the work

pathfinder here. Thank you for the work you do and this was a great conversation. Thank you, Chris.

conversation. Thank you, Chris.

Absolutely. Thanks,

Absolutely. Thanks,