June 11, 2025 • 42 mins
A personal speech. A private AI summit. One powerful catch-up.
In this episode, Marisa and Steven reconnect in real life to reflect on two powerful weeks, from Marisa’s moving and bold speech at the UJA Marketing Leadership Awards in NY to Steven’s high-impact Alpha Board Forum in LA. Threading these two events with the larger themes of this season, the two talk about what it means to “stand up” - as professionals, as humans, and as leaders - in a time of exponential change. With candor and care, they examine how brand, identity, and humanity remain as essential as AI, agents and automation, while being unequivocal about the urgency with AI in “learning how to surf.” A thoughtful lead-up to the 2025 Cannes Lions and a powerful reminder that: how you lead is part of your brand.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, and thanks for joining us on Brand New from
the iHeart Podcast Network and Brand New Labs. I'm Marissa
Thalberg and.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm Steven wolf Vide. Great to see you so much
over the past two weeks. Marissa, it's great to see
us actually connecting, not just over Zoo but actually in
real life.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I know and I love that we decided to just
make this episode just us catching up because this is
going to be our second last episode to wrap this
season and then we're going to take a little summer break,
and it's our sort of synthesis of a lot of
amazing things that we've heard as we went down a
bit of entrepreneurs path with Gail cast and Mike, as
we've been like really trying to make sense, of course
(00:48):
with your expertise, but also with guests like Jim Lashinski
and Rashat on how the world is changing with AI
and what stays the same, what's different. And this is
also our lead up to going to can So we'll
make our final episode of the season kind of the
PostScript of that and what we together felt like we
heard and learned out there, because it's probably going to
(01:10):
be a bunch of interesting announcements and moments. But in
the meantime, you're right. In the past couple of weeks,
we've both had the opportunity to support each other on
each coast. No less I came out to you, you
came out to me in sort of major milestones, and
that's what makes I think both our relationships so special
(01:31):
and the power of showing up in our industry so special.
So we talk about yours first.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I was going to say, let's talk about yours first. Oh, okay,
but you know, it just happened, so, you know, kind
of last in first out. He's an accounting phrase. But honestly,
you had just I think a really important recognition done
by the UJAA of New York along with another friend
of ours, Marla Kappowitz. So kudos to her.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, but yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Gave probably i think one of the most pactful speeches
that I've heard in a very long time. And I
would say that just because you are my dear friend
and you know, podcasting partner in purpose, but I feel
that that speech was really important in a lot of
different ways. And can you just talk a little bit
about why you made the you know, kind of acceptance
(02:20):
speech the way you did FIR as well.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Thank you. That means a lot, And just to contextualize it,
the UJA stands for Jewish Appeal. First time I've been
honored in that kind of a cultural context, although it
was one hundred percent of marketing industry recognition and a celebration.
So as you mentioned our dear colleague Marla who has
(02:42):
just now kind of wrapping her tenure as CEO of
the four A's, which is basically the big industry trade
agency for the agency world. And then I got there.
Marketing Titan Award was obviously incredible honor. But as I
was thinking about what I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Do with that moment, I do know something about the
day which I did not known to kind of doing
some researches. I mean, they're the world's largest local philanthropy,
which is incredible. I mean they do not just support
Jews everywhere. They're also supporting New Yorkers of all backgrounds,
that's right, and so they help in so many different
ways mental health, you know, kind of jobs, combating poverty,
(03:18):
helping elders. So they just do an incredible amount of service.
So kudos to this org. But they have been doing
all these different kind of industry recognitions, and the one
in kind of marketing media was where you were honored.
So a little bit of context.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Thank you, really important and meaningful context, So thank you
for sharing that, you know. At the same time, it
just feels like I don't think I've really talked much,
if at all, on our podcast about that part of
my identity. I mean a little bit, maybe a tease
here or there, but it felt like those one of
those times where you have to decide, and I've decided,
(03:54):
I think more than once in my life, what's the
point of having a seat at the table or microphone
in your hand if you don't really try to use
it in a thoughtful way for good And sometimes people
really abuse that power and we know that. So for me,
it was just interesting to think about a Jewish organization,
(04:14):
even though, as you're rightfully pointed out, the good that
they do is so much beyond that, and then to
be honored for a marketing award at a time where oh.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
It wasn't just a marketing a ward, it was the
Industry Titan Award. Let's be very specific in the recognition,
So you are I'm just going to walk around and
be like she's a demigod. You know, she's a Titan.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Okay, I got to laugh, Okay, I want okay, yeah,
just get me a cape. But seriously, I just felt
like it's just been incredibly lonely to feel like the
hate and the crimes we've seen, like violence and murder
and just the past few weeks really again just against
(04:58):
people simply for being Jewish in our country, in this country,
and it is the absolute perversion of propaganda. And you know,
call it anti Israel, hate, anti and we've seen it
for decades and centuries, and to be honest, it deserves
to be framed as marketing gone awry, because that's what
it is. Did it feel scary to put myself out
(05:21):
there with that? Am I afraid some people are going
to hate on me for saying it? Now?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
And that was kind of the point. Is sort of ridiculous,
Like I think most good hearted people are a lot
more unambiguous about other forms of hate. I mean, and
I know I am like racism, homophobism, hate against Asians,
hate against Latinos, hate against women, I mean, any group
that has been subject to that. I think most good
(05:47):
hearted people feel fairly unequivocal in condemning it, and that
has not been the case with bias and outright crimes
against Jewish people. The propaganda machine has been billions of
dollars in many years in the making. And I made
my speech about that. So, you know, we talk a
lot about the best parts of marketing, and I've held
(06:09):
a responsibility in that moment to say, marketing is a superpower.
We can wield it for good, but can we just
be a little bit more cognizant that some people are
weaponizing it? And can everyone care? Not just Jewish people?
Can everyone care? It's just the most crazy thing that
you know, people are murdered coming out of an event
(06:32):
in DC, young couple peace activists, no less, and people
still don't condemn it, or they just say yeah but,
or they're afraid, Like that's messed up my humble opinion.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
But your point was was so profound because you were
talking about this kind of marketing, you know, kind of
narrative using that as the vehicle to really delivery reports,
which was was so well rain and it was a
really smart way to kind of communicate this. But the
whole idea of yeah but really just shows the excuses
that people have and look, you know, we're now at
(07:05):
a point that to get all you know, kind of
serious and heavy, because you know, we want this really
to be about business and kind of where things are going.
But this is tied to business because it is about
the misinformation.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Tied to marketing. It is it's misinformation.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
It's tide to marketing. But when I think about, you know,
the whole idea that you can't hold two thoughts at
the same time. Two things can be true at the
same time. Yeah, we can actually say what happened to
this group of people is bad and what's happening to
this group of people as bad as well. But I
think the whole idea of yeah, but it was a
very powerful way to kind of deliver that story. So
(07:40):
if folks get a chance, give it a listen. You know,
it's online, it's on my LinkedIn. But I'm just really
proud of you being vocal about it.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Thank you. And I think that's the other part that
I tried to make it about, is I connected it
to our podcast of course, and you were, by the way,
should acknowledge you're kind enough to serve as one of
the event co chairs, the honorary Coachair so thank you
for that. I mean, that's that was really meaningful tomorrowlin
to me. And you know, at the end, I connected
(08:07):
it back to what you and I talk about here,
and that brand brand new is as much about how
we steward corporate brands through business and because almost everything's brand,
but it's also about our personal brands, and you know,
what do we want to stand for? And I think
that's that maybe even the higher order message I wanted
to impart is there a lot of really really beautiful
(08:28):
values that come out of this culture. And it occurred
to me that those are the values that, without you know,
literally connecting the dots to that, that I just realized
are very inherent in me as a leader as an executive.
And the one round of applause that I got mid
speech was when I said, I just truly believe that
being a good human and doing what's right does not
(08:50):
need to be antithetical to being a successful executive. And
it's like, why is that so hard? Why has I've
struggled with, you know, making those two things come together,
not because I don't practice my values, but because sometimes
corporate environments aren't as wired that way. And I feel
so lucky to be an environment now where I feel
(09:10):
like I can be my best self, and that was
maybe one of the most special parts of that night
for me.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Well, even having your CEO there do your introduction.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
CEO Mark Rosen, who did such a beautiful introduction, I
was beyond moved and touched and strong representation from Catalyst
Brands to join that evening with me my company, which is,
you know, a parent company of all these great retail
brands that we have. So it was very special, and
thank you all of you who are still listening for
(09:40):
really considering this point of view and not going yeah.
But even as we're talking about it right now, I mean,
that's really all I ask. I'm going to get off
this and turn the tables to you because that's as
much as I feel comfortable saying. But then, of course,
the week before I was able to join you in
Los Angeles, and because you and I always make things
(10:01):
a family affair, I was able to bring David and
also my younger daughter, Avery, who worked the event at
your Alpha board.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
For US Ambassadors. Thank you Avery.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Okay, so now my turn to sound like I'm just
being flattering because it's you, But we go to a
fair share of conferences. This one was really great, Steven, you,
Alvin Bowles, the whole team that you've assembled, because the
level of conversation was so high. And I think that's
the interesting niche that you've identified, is everyone else might
(10:33):
be going bombs up, you're kind of going top down
and taking us from standpoint of what are boards and
most senior executives need to know? And my favorite were
some of the demos, so I hope I get to
learn more about those, but just really understanding how to
think about how AI is pervading all aspects of not
only business but governments, and then seeing some of the
(10:54):
cool stuff that's out there. It was an incredible day,
So well done, and congrats.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Thank you. It's I just think I'm at a point
where I can't go to another event and see kind
of bullshitters on stage. You know, there's all these kind
of consultants and Charlatan's out there and I get it.
You know, it's like this gold rush and we start
with the Internet dot com days, you know, kind of
Web one, we start with Web two, and we're seeing
(11:20):
it certainly now, but I just feel this is kind
of too important to have kind of the Charlatans out
there taking stage, and you know, there are lots of folks,
you know, we hear folks all the time, you know
that get on stage and there and they're just blowhearts,
you know, or they're fearmongerers, or they just like yell
at you. Those folks they make a lot of money,
(11:41):
but they're not really effective. And I don't think that's
really helpful to the most senior kind of executives in
an enterprise, whether it's the boardroom or it's in the
c suite. You know, you can't really do anything with
a SoundBite. You actually need to have frameworks, need to
have policy. You're a fiduciary, you need to have governance.
(12:03):
And I feel like if we could just kind of
cut out all the you know, kind of middlemen, if
you will, and really have operators, you know, kind of
the whole spirit of this was you know, for directors
by directors. You know, actually, you know, I'm on boards,
Alvin is on boards. You know, all of our team,
you know, they're kind of all at that level. And
then we actually bring our Alpha members, which again you
(12:25):
are one of them, for the Alpha Council, and we
actually have our kind of alpha members on stage being
interviewed by you know, subject matter experts, and then you
really bring in the tech ecosystem, you know, kind of
whether it's AI, data, emerging technologies, but kind of getting
these folks on stage so we could hear from them firsthand,
because I don't want it to be filtered. I don't
want to kind of go through an agency or you know,
(12:46):
someone that you know heard a room or or they
write a tweet or whatever it is, like, I want
to hear directly from them. And you know, one of
my favorites was hearing from Prem who is the CEO
of Stability AI.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
He was one of my favorites too. You have to
connect us. I need to talk to that guy some more.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
He's awesome. And for those of you that don't know Stability,
if you've done any type of text to image, don't.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Tell everyone about it though I want to about it.
Tech getting I'm getting, but.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
You know, text to image technology, it's you know, kind
of pervasive. Everyone uses it, but Stable Diffusion is the
underlying technology and it was actually developed by Stability AI.
They're the company behind it. You know, it's open source,
it's used by the journey, you know, everyone else you
know that's out there, and kind of Prem came on
after being CEO of Weta Digital, which you know, fun fact,
(13:35):
was the ex you know, special effects company that did
all the special effects for Lord of the Rings and
then Avatar because he was working with Jim Cameron.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
James Cameron, right, that was impressive.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
And then that company was sold and now Prem became
the CEO of Stability AI and he actually brought Jim
Cameron to be on the board along with Sean Parker
and some other folks. So they're really kind of morphing
this company into kind of an enterprise, you know, B
to B focused you know, full end you know, kind
of content video brand, you know, advertising suite to really
(14:08):
leverage AI to do all of the effects, to do
movie making, storytelling. And it was just so exciting to
see not just someone talk about it, but to actually
show it. And I think that's the thing that is
missing from all these things. Everyone knows now AI is
like a thing. It's important, but everyone's still just talking
about it. And I like to say, you know, you're
not going to learn how to surf by watching a PowerPoint, right.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I love that that really resonated with me. And also,
you know what, it makes it so clear to me
that the thesis of why you're doing this is the
same reason you and I were motivated to start this podcast,
which is we just didn't want the pundits getting to
own the narrative when we are the practitioners and we're
living it and dealing with it. And so let's take
a quick break and when we come back, we're going
(14:53):
to talk in practical terms again sort of in the
run up to Canoe and there are a lot of
announcements also, a lot of like what does this all
mean for careers, for people who are rising or mid
level in their careers or any stage of their careers,
what's our take on that When we come back, and
we're back.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And really excited as we are a week out from
can already you're seeing all of the announcements, Marissa, But
you know, one of them is you know, kind of
like the duh or you know, and water is wet
announcement is one that came out, you know, from Meta
talking about how they are going to be using AI
(15:35):
to kind of overhaul all their advertising and how they're
going to be effectively having everything be you know, kind
of programmatic AI driven and that's like not a surprise
that they're going to want to make key parts of
their business. But for some reason it's still getting headlines.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well it's already a big part of it. Yeah, I
don't know, because I feel like that's how we work
with metal Lot today. And again, here's back to my
point before the break about the value of this is
we are practitioners. Is you know, a meeting with Meta
team talking about how we're all what we're all are
you and you spend a lot of our dollars of
them as would be a surprise to no one, and
(16:11):
they are sort of espousing this idea that targeting is
basically dead because why would you target when ai'll just
tell you who to send your message to. And I
find that actually both intriguing and concerning because at what point,
you know, this gets into this sort of classic where
are we with this? And what are the roles that
(16:31):
require as you think about what we've learned from Jim
and are shot over the past few weeks, the humanity
in our roles, the judgment, the intuition, the ability to
connect the dots. Yes, I know you're the biggest voice
around how today is the worst DAYAI is ever going
to have again in terms of its intelligence, But there's
still this amazing case for.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
What's the shittiest that'll ever be? But sure, sorry, sophisticated
diplomatic version, you do, you clean up a lot of money.
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But it's just so interesting because we are navigating this
in the real world in real time, while still operating
businesses that many of which live in the physical world
and then the other dimension. When I think about the
types of questions you and I get individually and for
brand new is like, so what does this mean in
terms of navigating careers? So I'm going to use that
(17:27):
as a chance to throw it back over to you
because you are so in the middle of this now, Steven, like,
how do we not fear longer to the generations that
are rising up now in their careers and how do
we actually give good sound advice? Because there is going
to be plenty of room for the beauty of humanity
(17:48):
to influence work and business in the future. But it's changing,
and it's always changing.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
It's always changing, but this time it is different because again,
you're not just dealing with some type of technology. You're
dealing with intelligence, and we keep on trying to harp
on this. You know, the key, you know, kind of
headline is exponential. I keep trying to get people to
understand how to think not in a linear way, but
in an exponential way. And when you have something that's
(18:14):
called the law of accelerating returns with reinforcement learning that
things are going to keep on improving. But once it
hits this inflection point, it's just going to start to
go up on this curve and it's just going to
go vertical. And so that is not conjecture, that is
not hype, that is math. And I don't think people
understand the compounding effect.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Of this, okay, And so how does that not be
fear mongering?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
No, No, So I think there's a difference between fear
mongering and you know, giving sobering information. You know, we
were just talking about this, and you know it's certainly
you know a case friend of ours, you know, someone
that's in the the industry actually does announce, you know,
that she had cancer. So she's stepping down from a role.
You need to know this information. Yeah, it's not fun.
(18:59):
It is something that certainly scary, but I think it's
important to be very realistic and have a sobering assessment
of where things are. And so you want that diagnosis.
But then it's really all about how do you react.
And I think you could basically take one or two paths.
You could kind of crawl under a rock. You could,
you know, feel sorry for yourself, you could be depressed
(19:20):
about it, or you could actually go in the offense
and you can actually go into action and really try
to understand how do I actually leverage everything that I know,
my network, my skills, my intelligence and actually do something
with this. And so I think part of that is
really assessing where things are right now. And if you
know that this is going to go exponential, if you
know that certain things are going to be automated that
(19:44):
might be things that you do in your job today,
how do you get ahead of that? And I think
that is part of just kind of where we are.
And you started to hear the drum beat, you know,
I think the thing coming out of all the frontier labs.
You know, Dario Amidey, who's the CEO of Anthropic, He
came out, you know, last week or so, and kind
of in this interview with Axios spoke about how the
things over the next two to three years, maybe fifty
(20:06):
percent of all entry level jobs are going to go
away and we'll be replaced by AI And you know,
maybe it's ten to twenty percent of US employment in
general might be losing their jobs because of AIH.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
But so if we're calling that sobering versus fearmongering, hearing
the fifty percent of entry level drops go away is
a borderline stat for me, like, how do we make
this constructive in terms of so, what do you do
beyond thinking about keeping yourself educated, learning how to surf
to your point by surf and getting into it. I
agree with that completely, But where can we help our
(20:41):
listeners who are maybe earlier in their careers think about
positioning themselves. I to former ceo'd always say, it's all
about kind of shifting your sale to catch the wind.
So how should they shift the sales of their careers
to catch this wind?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The point with these kind of forecasts that a lot
of the folks are coming out with, and again it's
not just him, right, it's everyone that's kind of in
this space, everyone in the bay. They're talking about this,
and I don't know how much of it actually reaches
the headlines, but assume that they might be wrong on
the number, but directionally it is correct. And you know,
it's just a matter of time before some of these
(21:17):
things were they take a hold. So where do you
really have your strengths and your superpowers? And I go
back to trying to understand every single task And this
is some of the research that we're doing. And we
spoke a little bit about this break down the task.
So just take something as simple as marketing, right, take
that function right, and there's sales, and there's product, and
there's engineering and legal and finance at HR. But take
(21:39):
this kind of path, this career track of marketing and
break down every single task. And I think there is
a scale of things that can be automated and things
that probably can't be, or they can be, but they
still need to have a human in the loop, as
they like to say in you know, kind of model speak.
And the things that can be automated should be automated.
(22:00):
And by the way, this is not new, like we've
been talking about this thing for decades. I mean I
remember when I was at Data Logics doing this, like
literally back in twenty fourteen. I remember this at Akamai
is just the way that we're approaching software back in
nineteen ninety nine. Anything that can be automated will be
So if you have that as a mantra, look at
the task and the skills that you were doing in
your function, and if you are making it up in
(22:22):
content creation, if you're in a creative side of the
business right, or if you are actually in media planning
and buying, or if you're on the insights and analytics side,
a lot of the grunt work is going to be automated,
and even the content creation is going to be automated,
but it's still going to have to come from the
idea of an insight. And that's where I think the
(22:43):
humanity and the ability to have curiosity because the one
thing that I do think is going to be our strength,
and you're going to see more and more of this
is the premium on human superpowers. So if you think
about what cannot be replicated, for example, things that are
going to be in real life bringing humans together, it's
(23:04):
going to be harder and harder because the bar is
going to be higher and higher because everything is just
going to be so convenient and so many things are
going to be online, your agent's going to be buying
all your things. Like for you to actually go somewhere
and show up in person, it's going to be a
high bar. But when you do, you know that thing
actually matter to that person. And so I feel like
the ability for you to have human judgment, for you
(23:25):
to actually have the insight that is going to be
not apparent or it's going to be taken from all
this context that you actually have your insight. And again
there's still tons of bias in these things, so again
you still need to have human judgment in these things.
I feel like those are going to be the roles
those tasks, and even just understanding that let the automated
things go their way, but you are going to be
(23:47):
able to shape those especially when it comes to the
creator economy and you think about all the content creation,
the boom that we're going to see because these tools
are not going to be at the hands of not
just millions, but like hundreds of millions of creators, I
think that is really going to upend the way we
think about marketing.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
So two things to share back on all that in
terms of again me being in the corporate world. Now
I and thinking about one is I had this moment
this week or a couple of weeks ago where I
was trying to wrap my head around how to organize
how we might think about this at a sort of
an enterprise level. And it occurred to me that I
could make my own little basic framework to just start
(24:23):
the thinking and just to even like how would I
wrap my head around it? And I started playing with that,
and I'm happy to share that as just a first
thought is like on like sort of the top of
the grid, I started making like a row of columns
of where in this business and then on all the
types of parts of the business we really need AI
automation in the sense that it's going to be like
(24:45):
table stakes, so you better get there. Where would we
then want to maybe place some strategic big bets. But
then the important piece is I want to also then
say the next column is, and then where should we
actually because of that double down on different real world
(25:07):
human experiences. And I'm going to see if I can
do something with that. The related thought I wanted to
share is, so I was in New York on this
past week. I got invited to a dinner thank you
folks at publicis and notch and they had Malcolm Gladwell
speak certainly a podcast inspiration to me, among other things,
and he made a comment about AI. Of course he
(25:30):
was being asked about it that he thought and I
always love that he provokes thinking in different ways. And
his comment was everyone is talking about AI through the
lens of what it's speeding up, and he felt like
the advantages talk about what is it actually slowing down?
And I maybe it was just an inversion of the
same point that if we can automate it, anything that
(25:52):
can be automated, just like you say, what does that
free up in terms of our ability to maybe be
more creative, more thoughtful, well a little optimistic and maybe
a little not rooted in the pressures that people who
are trying to hit quarterly earnings and efficiency targets contend with.
But I actually think that's an important reframing of the
balance between what can then we even be more dedicated
(26:17):
to in our like that's the ideal state. I'm interrupting
myself as I say that that's the ideal state if
we can get rid of the like grunty parts of work.
And yes, that does have implications on jobs, but should
that free up our capacity for more creativity, and I
think that's what we've been talking about the past few weeks.
So I like the way he framed it, thinking about
(26:39):
what it allows us to slow down to do versus
speeding up. What do you think about that.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I feel like there's a different twist on that, because
the acceleration is it's only going to continue, and so
I think it's a little bit naive. I appreciate the
idea of slowing things down, and you know, it's just
not realistic. I mean, we're basically in a technology cold war,
and I don't think people have acknowledged it right like
(27:04):
between US and China. And there's a reason. And you know,
there's a really you know, kind of great book that's
just came out called Empires of AI, you know, highly
recommended by a report of that you know, has done
a lot of work for MIT Technology Review. You know,
they talk about the kind of the acceleration that we've
seen really coming out of not just you know, kind
(27:25):
of the chat Scheept moment in November of twenty two,
but really with the Transformer paper that came out in
twenty seventeen from Google, and you've really seen this race,
and now the catch out of the back. So between
the United States and China, you're really seeing this kind
of race to have the right worldview from their vectors, right,
(27:46):
the Chinese as well as the American And again everyone
else is just kind of caught in the middle, like
they don't really have to say because the stakes are
too high and they can't play in this game. But
basically the races are and so we're in this technology
cold war. And if that's the case, you cannot slow down.
You don't have the time. You really need to kind
of pausitive figure out what are you going to do?
But I come back to trying to understand that, you know,
(28:11):
question asked differently, I would say, everything is changing, but
what are the things that will not change? And I
think it's a different way to really probe back to
how we started this conversation. What are going to be
the roles? Where do you actually put, you know, kind
of a priority in the things that humans can actually
do really well, And understanding that if we're going to
(28:33):
go to a world where it's not going to be
today you know it's still janky, but in the next
twelve months it'll be better. And when you start to
see agentic AI really start to take off and you
start to and again it always starts with consumers and
enterprises are the laggards, right, But you know when you
actually have your own personal agent, because there'll be a
breakthrough over the next twelve months, I guarantee it. You know,
(28:55):
we'll do our predictions, but you will have an agent,
and that agent is going to do like all of
your flight travel and you know, restaurant bookings and you know,
all the mundane stuff that you don't want to do,
and that's going to be your agent. And then very
you know, natural next step is, oh, that agent will
actually become your personal shoper Marissa. It's going to buy
that really nice dress that you saw on an Instagram
(29:16):
ad or you know, on TikTok, and you're gonna be like,
you know what, get me that, but I don't want
to pay more than this price. And so you're going
to start to see all this kind of functionality actually
happen once you start to see that convenience and now
you actually before you know it. I mean, how many
subscriptions do you have right now for just not just
like streaming services, just like subscriptions in general. I'm sure
(29:37):
you have hundreds that you don't even really acknowledge. You
just like signed up and they're just going You will have.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
No I try to clean those up, I know, but.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
It's hard, right because they kind of multiply like rabbits.
You are going to have tons of agents and they're
going to be doing a bunch of stuff, and then
you're gonna need an orchestrat or agent because some agent
needs to orchestrate all those agents that you have in
your life. So that master agent that is going to
be the same thing for enterprises. So now what is
going to be that agent for that brand X y
(30:06):
Z you know, maybe it's a retail brand and that
agent's going to go and talk out to Marissa's agent. Right,
So you're going to see new types of jobs. You're
going to need someone to really design the persona for
that agent because your agent will become more important than
your app. Your agent as a brand will become more
important than your website.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Well, won't your agent live in your app as a brand?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
No? And again this is this is actually the really
exciting thing. And you know, we didn't really talk about
the eye popping six and a half billion dollar acquisition
of Johnny Ive's you know, hardware.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Startup, Johnny i V creative visionary for Apple. I mean, he.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
And his team, you know, they really set the design
language for generation right truly. But we're now at this
inflection point where you know, kind of this interface, you know,
this kind of I'm holding up by my phone, which
you know, if you're a listener you can't see. But
this iPhone, you know, is an incredible piece of technology.
But that form factor, that interface is actually now on
(31:11):
its kind of last days. And what you're going to
see now in a world where you have voice, you
are now going to see new types of devices. So
the rumor, and again it's a bad kept rumor in
the valley, everyone is talking about what this device is
going to be, and it's not going to be a screen.
It's going to be some type of you know, pendant.
You know, they're saying it's going to have a form
(31:31):
factor like a disk that you could wear, but it's
going to be you know, tied to chat schept And
because chatchipt now has unlimited memory, you basically will have
this recording device and it's going to record every single
conversation that you have ever, and now this becomes like
your second brain, and this is going to be tied
to your agents, and you will basically say, hey, I
(31:53):
was talking to Stephen last week. What did we talk
about Again, Hey, chatchapt can you remind me? And because
it has unlimited memory, will repeat back, Oh, these were
the things, and hey those action items and hey, you
really wanted to buy that dress. You now start to
see a new type of interface. And so I think
those are going to be the real exciting competitive modes
for our company. It's going to be your brand, because
(32:14):
in a world of answers, your brand has to stand out.
It has to be in the mindset of people of consumers,
and it's going to be user interface or user experience.
It's going to be that UXUI that will differentiate. And
it's probably not going to be an app or a website.
I think that's going to be really viewed as antiquated.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
That's hard to imagine. Just in the spirit of the
name of this podcast, We'll be back. I was in
a conversation with someone very senior from Google this week
talking about how it's all changing if people's search behaviors
and how search gets delivered, and then Ultimately, of course,
(32:54):
the monetization of that changes what does that mean? And
I think one of the key concludes is building a
brand will matter because you're going to have to want
to have intent for that, because that's how generative AI
is going to get trained to be. Like, you know,
I was thinking about one of our brand's, Brooks Brothers, like,
(33:15):
how does it get trained if someone's looking for a
great men's dress shirt, for example, to be like, well,
Brooks Brothers is where you should look. I mean, it's
sort of fascinating to think about all that.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
But even talking about search, right, I mean, we've already
seen the show up in the numbers. And again I
don't think people understand the monumental week that happened. And
we discussed this in our you know, kind of alpha
member meeting a bit. But the week of May nineteenth,
you literally had Microsoft build their developer conference and they
went all in on agents. And then you had the
next day Google ioh their big developer conference and they
(33:48):
went all in on AI because they have been behind.
But they just released like twenty five new products, including
their new video engine VO three, which is just incredible.
And now you see all these means where people are
doing like, you know, bringing like Bible figures to life,
and you know, it's just incredible the photorealism of the
video technology. And then on Wednesday you had the announcement
(34:11):
of you know, kind of Open AI buying Johnnie I's
company Io for six and a half million dollars, and
then you had Clawed four being released by entrap.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
I was just going to say an anthropic too.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Just that week alone, the you know, back to you
cannot think about this going slow the average I mean
you talk about like Moore's law being every eighteen you know,
to kind of twenty four months every you know, roughly
two years. The you know, semiconductor industry, you know kind
of metric of you know, improvements in silicon you know,
this is now plus or minus every six months improvements
in the foundation models. So this is just going to
(34:44):
keep on accelerating. And the piece if everyone hasn't seen it,
Andrees and Harwiz came out for a great piece called
how Generative Engine Optimization GEO is going to rewrite the
rules of search because when you saw that Google search
results have started to act, we decline because people are
going to chatchy bt R they're going to some type
(35:05):
of you know, AI driven you know, perplexity or claud
or whatever it is. Now it's not about SEO anymore,
and so how does your brand actually show up? It's
really going to be challenging for anyone in that seat.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
It's really challenging. And the people who are leading in
these companies are saying, by the way, I hope this
is honest when they say it, we don't exactly know
what to tell you to do.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
So they know what they're doing because they're trying to
figure it out because all the big tech companies are behind.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
They're figuring it out. So we're trying to figure out
when it's not clear and before we go to our
final you know, what's on your mind's question the week.
All of this is born out of the things that
we've been hearing from all of you and what we're
thinking about in real time and trying to make sense
of from our different chairs. But I think we have
to just help ourselves, help our listeners feel a combination
(35:57):
of you know, appropriate urgency because it's moving so fast,
tempered with confidence and optimism that like every other you know,
massive change that's hit our world through technology before it.
You know, there's always going to be winners and losers,
but there's we're always going to adapt, and we're going
to figure it out, and hopefully the good wines about
(36:18):
weighing the bad. That's going to be the big, I think,
existential question for all of us.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Look, I can't say it enough. This is the most
exciting as well as the most terrifying time. But we
are living through the most extraordinary technology, you know, kind
of invention in generations. And so I feel that if
you could really, especially anyone kind of in a marketing role,
start to shift their you know, kind of mindset from
(36:45):
oh I got I need to make the deck start
to think about how do I make the model behave
you were going to have such an incredible opportunity to
kind of really lead and help train and put the guardrails.
Like we are literally seeing the foundations of this new
platform shift happened right before our eyes. Every single day,
a new brick is being laid and for us to
(37:08):
kind of witness it, but more importantly for us to
help lead it. And this is where we need to
have your voice. We need to see everyone step up
and just help shape where this goes. And it's leaders
like you, Marissa, that are going to be in these roles.
A lot of our friends and colleagues, we want to
see them really step into a leadership role because at
the end of the day, you do have the funds,
(37:29):
you have the dollars, you have the budgets, and you
are in the c suite. So this is a leadership
opportunity for you.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
So now let's go to our question this week. What's
on your mind? Steven read it off.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
All right, we got a question from Mike, and Mike says,
I'm a recent grad and I'd love to know if
you were graduating, now, what's the one thing you would
do differently given all of the career experience you guys have. Now,
that's a nice burger, that's a nice little little morsel
to at chew on. Marissa, what would you say.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I'm going to be contrarian to the question that Mke
ass because I had an amazing liberal arts education, which
has been i think maligned over the past couple of
decades when everyone was sort of getting into oh, really
should go to school to code, and I think look
some of those jobs.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
By the way, that that's the first job that's been
almost one hundred percent autimation that I was.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Just going to say, and interesting strange validation. And this
goes back to my everything old is new again in
some ways. The skills because the world is so malleable,
the professional world is so ever changing right now, more
so today than ever. Is make sure you use that
(38:50):
college education to know how to think, to analyze, connect dots,
and to be a really effective written and verbal communicator.
Are the tools better than ever to enable that, absolutely?
But what have we been talking about. It's the human
intelligence and intuition and ability to ingest a lot and
(39:11):
think about where to make the next move that someone
else isn't thinking about. Including a large language model that
I think is going to create the agility for recent
graduates to position themselves in multiple ways for their future.
So I'm sure there's a million things I could say
that I want to do differently. But Mike, I'm going
to answer your question by saying that's what I would
(39:32):
do again, and the advice I'd give to someone at
your age now different answer I bet from you.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I mean, not necessarily, I do love the fact. I
mean I also, even though it was in economics, my
liberal arts background, I think was foundational for me. Yeah,
and I think Steve Jobs would agree, since he was
always a humanist and again, you know, kind of a
bicycle for the mind was always the idea behind putting
(39:57):
computers into everyone's hands. For me, I would say, it's
a little bit of where we are in this moment.
I think because all of the tools are there now,
I think it is incredibly important for every single whether
it's a recent grad, mid level, you know, kind of executive, senior, executive,
board director. I think everyone really needs to understand that
(40:21):
they are a brand. We talk about this a lot,
but understanding how to be a creator in this creator
economy and really start to carve out your niche as
a brand.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
That doesn't mean everyone should try to be an influencer, though,
because we know that's like a bizarre career ambition of
young generation.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah. I mean, again, the whole influencer thing, I feel
like that kind of jumped the shark. But I think
when you are a creator, I think it's really carving
out what is your voice. I actually loved having this conversation,
frankly with your two daughters, so because they are certainly
earlier in their kind of career development. But what a
great opportunity for them to start developing their voice, for
(41:06):
them to just go onto LinkedIn and just whatever their
topic of interest is. You know, it could be healthcare,
it could be tech, it could be consumer, it could
be retail, whatever it is, to start building that narrative
and having a point of view. And because all the
tools are out there, you could actually really start to
become the name in that space. And if you are
(41:27):
younger in your career, if you're a Gen Z, you know,
getting to be even Gen Alpha. I think about my kids.
You know, they're still too young to be online, but
at some point they could start to write about the
things that they know about, and that gives them a
certain level of power. They get to have voice, they
get to have subject matter expertise, and eventually that will
serve you well in whatever you do in your career.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
And so our answers are connected.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
When I was getting I think the first email address
at tough, when we had like time and they were
rolling it out, I think those were early days of
the Internet. But now I think be a creator. That's
my long window way of saying that.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Well, Steve, and I look forward to seeing you and can.
We look forward to coming back after and sharing what
we saw and what we learned. But that's it per now.
We hope, if you haven't already, you'll subscribe to make
sure you never miss an episode, and, as always, tell
us what's on your mind by emailing us at ideas
at brandashnew dot com. Thank you so much for joining us,
(42:25):
and we'll see you next time on brand New
Hi, and thanks for joining us on Brand New from
the iHeart Podcast Network and Brand New Labs. I'm Marissa
Thalberg and.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm Steven wolf Vide. Great to see you so much
over the past two weeks. Marissa, it's great to see
us actually connecting, not just over Zoo but actually in
real life.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I know and I love that we decided to just
make this episode just us catching up because this is
going to be our second last episode to wrap this
season and then we're going to take a little summer break,
and it's our sort of synthesis of a lot of
amazing things that we've heard as we went down a
bit of entrepreneurs path with Gail cast and Mike, as
we've been like really trying to make sense, of course
(00:48):
with your expertise, but also with guests like Jim Lashinski
and Rashat on how the world is changing with AI
and what stays the same, what's different. And this is
also our lead up to going to can So we'll
make our final episode of the season kind of the
PostScript of that and what we together felt like we
heard and learned out there, because it's probably going to
(01:10):
be a bunch of interesting announcements and moments. But in
the meantime, you're right. In the past couple of weeks,
we've both had the opportunity to support each other on
each coast. No less I came out to you, you
came out to me in sort of major milestones, and
that's what makes I think both our relationships so special
(01:31):
and the power of showing up in our industry so special.
So we talk about yours first.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I was going to say, let's talk about yours first. Oh, okay,
but you know, it just happened, so, you know, kind
of last in first out. He's an accounting phrase. But honestly,
you had just I think a really important recognition done
by the UJAA of New York along with another friend
of ours, Marla Kappowitz. So kudos to her.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, but yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Gave probably i think one of the most pactful speeches
that I've heard in a very long time. And I
would say that just because you are my dear friend
and you know, podcasting partner in purpose, but I feel
that that speech was really important in a lot of
different ways. And can you just talk a little bit
about why you made the you know, kind of acceptance
(02:20):
speech the way you did FIR as well.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Thank you. That means a lot, And just to contextualize it,
the UJA stands for Jewish Appeal. First time I've been
honored in that kind of a cultural context, although it
was one hundred percent of marketing industry recognition and a celebration.
So as you mentioned our dear colleague Marla who has
(02:42):
just now kind of wrapping her tenure as CEO of
the four A's, which is basically the big industry trade
agency for the agency world. And then I got there.
Marketing Titan Award was obviously incredible honor. But as I
was thinking about what I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Do with that moment, I do know something about the
day which I did not known to kind of doing
some researches. I mean, they're the world's largest local philanthropy,
which is incredible. I mean they do not just support
Jews everywhere. They're also supporting New Yorkers of all backgrounds,
that's right, and so they help in so many different
ways mental health, you know, kind of jobs, combating poverty,
(03:18):
helping elders. So they just do an incredible amount of service.
So kudos to this org. But they have been doing
all these different kind of industry recognitions, and the one
in kind of marketing media was where you were honored.
So a little bit of context.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Thank you, really important and meaningful context, So thank you
for sharing that, you know. At the same time, it
just feels like I don't think I've really talked much,
if at all, on our podcast about that part of
my identity. I mean a little bit, maybe a tease
here or there, but it felt like those one of
those times where you have to decide, and I've decided,
(03:54):
I think more than once in my life, what's the
point of having a seat at the table or microphone
in your hand if you don't really try to use
it in a thoughtful way for good And sometimes people
really abuse that power and we know that. So for me,
it was just interesting to think about a Jewish organization,
(04:14):
even though, as you're rightfully pointed out, the good that
they do is so much beyond that, and then to
be honored for a marketing award at a time where oh.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
It wasn't just a marketing a ward, it was the
Industry Titan Award. Let's be very specific in the recognition,
So you are I'm just going to walk around and
be like she's a demigod. You know, she's a Titan.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Okay, I got to laugh, Okay, I want okay, yeah,
just get me a cape. But seriously, I just felt
like it's just been incredibly lonely to feel like the
hate and the crimes we've seen, like violence and murder
and just the past few weeks really again just against
(04:58):
people simply for being Jewish in our country, in this country,
and it is the absolute perversion of propaganda. And you know,
call it anti Israel, hate, anti and we've seen it
for decades and centuries, and to be honest, it deserves
to be framed as marketing gone awry, because that's what
it is. Did it feel scary to put myself out
(05:21):
there with that? Am I afraid some people are going
to hate on me for saying it? Now?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
And that was kind of the point. Is sort of ridiculous,
Like I think most good hearted people are a lot
more unambiguous about other forms of hate. I mean, and
I know I am like racism, homophobism, hate against Asians,
hate against Latinos, hate against women, I mean, any group
that has been subject to that. I think most good
(05:47):
hearted people feel fairly unequivocal in condemning it, and that
has not been the case with bias and outright crimes
against Jewish people. The propaganda machine has been billions of
dollars in many years in the making. And I made
my speech about that. So, you know, we talk a
lot about the best parts of marketing, and I've held
(06:09):
a responsibility in that moment to say, marketing is a superpower.
We can wield it for good, but can we just
be a little bit more cognizant that some people are
weaponizing it? And can everyone care? Not just Jewish people?
Can everyone care? It's just the most crazy thing that
you know, people are murdered coming out of an event
(06:32):
in DC, young couple peace activists, no less, and people
still don't condemn it, or they just say yeah but,
or they're afraid, Like that's messed up my humble opinion.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
But your point was was so profound because you were
talking about this kind of marketing, you know, kind of
narrative using that as the vehicle to really delivery reports,
which was was so well rain and it was a
really smart way to kind of communicate this. But the
whole idea of yeah but really just shows the excuses
that people have and look, you know, we're now at
(07:05):
a point that to get all you know, kind of
serious and heavy, because you know, we want this really
to be about business and kind of where things are going.
But this is tied to business because it is about
the misinformation.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Tied to marketing. It is it's misinformation.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
It's tide to marketing. But when I think about, you know,
the whole idea that you can't hold two thoughts at
the same time. Two things can be true at the
same time. Yeah, we can actually say what happened to
this group of people is bad and what's happening to
this group of people as bad as well. But I
think the whole idea of yeah, but it was a
very powerful way to kind of deliver that story. So
(07:40):
if folks get a chance, give it a listen. You know,
it's online, it's on my LinkedIn. But I'm just really
proud of you being vocal about it.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Thank you. And I think that's the other part that
I tried to make it about, is I connected it
to our podcast of course, and you were, by the way,
should acknowledge you're kind enough to serve as one of
the event co chairs, the honorary Coachair so thank you
for that. I mean, that's that was really meaningful tomorrowlin
to me. And you know, at the end, I connected
(08:07):
it back to what you and I talk about here,
and that brand brand new is as much about how
we steward corporate brands through business and because almost everything's brand,
but it's also about our personal brands, and you know,
what do we want to stand for? And I think
that's that maybe even the higher order message I wanted
to impart is there a lot of really really beautiful
(08:28):
values that come out of this culture. And it occurred
to me that those are the values that, without you know,
literally connecting the dots to that, that I just realized
are very inherent in me as a leader as an executive.
And the one round of applause that I got mid
speech was when I said, I just truly believe that
being a good human and doing what's right does not
(08:50):
need to be antithetical to being a successful executive. And
it's like, why is that so hard? Why has I've
struggled with, you know, making those two things come together,
not because I don't practice my values, but because sometimes
corporate environments aren't as wired that way. And I feel
so lucky to be an environment now where I feel
(09:10):
like I can be my best self, and that was
maybe one of the most special parts of that night
for me.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Well, even having your CEO there do your introduction.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
CEO Mark Rosen, who did such a beautiful introduction, I
was beyond moved and touched and strong representation from Catalyst
Brands to join that evening with me my company, which is,
you know, a parent company of all these great retail
brands that we have. So it was very special, and
thank you all of you who are still listening for
(09:40):
really considering this point of view and not going yeah.
But even as we're talking about it right now, I mean,
that's really all I ask. I'm going to get off
this and turn the tables to you because that's as
much as I feel comfortable saying. But then, of course,
the week before I was able to join you in
Los Angeles, and because you and I always make things
(10:01):
a family affair, I was able to bring David and
also my younger daughter, Avery, who worked the event at
your Alpha board.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
For US Ambassadors. Thank you Avery.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Okay, so now my turn to sound like I'm just
being flattering because it's you, But we go to a
fair share of conferences. This one was really great, Steven, you,
Alvin Bowles, the whole team that you've assembled, because the
level of conversation was so high. And I think that's
the interesting niche that you've identified, is everyone else might
(10:33):
be going bombs up, you're kind of going top down
and taking us from standpoint of what are boards and
most senior executives need to know? And my favorite were
some of the demos, so I hope I get to
learn more about those, but just really understanding how to
think about how AI is pervading all aspects of not
only business but governments, and then seeing some of the
(10:54):
cool stuff that's out there. It was an incredible day,
So well done, and congrats.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Thank you. It's I just think I'm at a point
where I can't go to another event and see kind
of bullshitters on stage. You know, there's all these kind
of consultants and Charlatan's out there and I get it.
You know, it's like this gold rush and we start
with the Internet dot com days, you know, kind of
Web one, we start with Web two, and we're seeing
(11:20):
it certainly now, but I just feel this is kind
of too important to have kind of the Charlatans out
there taking stage, and you know, there are lots of folks,
you know, we hear folks all the time, you know
that get on stage and there and they're just blowhearts,
you know, or they're fearmongerers, or they just like yell
at you. Those folks they make a lot of money,
(11:41):
but they're not really effective. And I don't think that's
really helpful to the most senior kind of executives in
an enterprise, whether it's the boardroom or it's in the
c suite. You know, you can't really do anything with
a SoundBite. You actually need to have frameworks, need to
have policy. You're a fiduciary, you need to have governance.
(12:03):
And I feel like if we could just kind of
cut out all the you know, kind of middlemen, if
you will, and really have operators, you know, kind of
the whole spirit of this was you know, for directors
by directors. You know, actually, you know, I'm on boards,
Alvin is on boards. You know, all of our team,
you know, they're kind of all at that level. And
then we actually bring our Alpha members, which again you
(12:25):
are one of them, for the Alpha Council, and we
actually have our kind of alpha members on stage being
interviewed by you know, subject matter experts, and then you
really bring in the tech ecosystem, you know, kind of
whether it's AI, data, emerging technologies, but kind of getting
these folks on stage so we could hear from them firsthand,
because I don't want it to be filtered. I don't
want to kind of go through an agency or you know,
(12:46):
someone that you know heard a room or or they
write a tweet or whatever it is, like, I want
to hear directly from them. And you know, one of
my favorites was hearing from Prem who is the CEO
of Stability AI.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
He was one of my favorites too. You have to
connect us. I need to talk to that guy some more.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
He's awesome. And for those of you that don't know Stability,
if you've done any type of text to image, don't.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Tell everyone about it though I want to about it.
Tech getting I'm getting, but.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
You know, text to image technology, it's you know, kind
of pervasive. Everyone uses it, but Stable Diffusion is the
underlying technology and it was actually developed by Stability AI.
They're the company behind it. You know, it's open source,
it's used by the journey, you know, everyone else you
know that's out there, and kind of Prem came on
after being CEO of Weta Digital, which you know, fun fact,
(13:35):
was the ex you know, special effects company that did
all the special effects for Lord of the Rings and
then Avatar because he was working with Jim Cameron.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
James Cameron, right, that was impressive.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
And then that company was sold and now Prem became
the CEO of Stability AI and he actually brought Jim
Cameron to be on the board along with Sean Parker
and some other folks. So they're really kind of morphing
this company into kind of an enterprise, you know, B
to B focused you know, full end you know, kind
of content video brand, you know, advertising suite to really
(14:08):
leverage AI to do all of the effects, to do
movie making, storytelling. And it was just so exciting to
see not just someone talk about it, but to actually
show it. And I think that's the thing that is
missing from all these things. Everyone knows now AI is
like a thing. It's important, but everyone's still just talking
about it. And I like to say, you know, you're
not going to learn how to surf by watching a PowerPoint, right.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I love that that really resonated with me. And also,
you know what, it makes it so clear to me
that the thesis of why you're doing this is the
same reason you and I were motivated to start this podcast,
which is we just didn't want the pundits getting to
own the narrative when we are the practitioners and we're
living it and dealing with it. And so let's take
a quick break and when we come back, we're going
(14:53):
to talk in practical terms again sort of in the
run up to Canoe and there are a lot of
announcements also, a lot of like what does this all
mean for careers, for people who are rising or mid
level in their careers or any stage of their careers,
what's our take on that When we come back, and
we're back.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
And really excited as we are a week out from
can already you're seeing all of the announcements, Marissa, But
you know, one of them is you know, kind of
like the duh or you know, and water is wet
announcement is one that came out, you know, from Meta
talking about how they are going to be using AI
(15:35):
to kind of overhaul all their advertising and how they're
going to be effectively having everything be you know, kind
of programmatic AI driven and that's like not a surprise
that they're going to want to make key parts of
their business. But for some reason it's still getting headlines.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well it's already a big part of it. Yeah, I
don't know, because I feel like that's how we work
with metal Lot today. And again, here's back to my
point before the break about the value of this is
we are practitioners. Is you know, a meeting with Meta
team talking about how we're all what we're all are
you and you spend a lot of our dollars of
them as would be a surprise to no one, and
(16:11):
they are sort of espousing this idea that targeting is
basically dead because why would you target when ai'll just
tell you who to send your message to. And I
find that actually both intriguing and concerning because at what point,
you know, this gets into this sort of classic where
are we with this? And what are the roles that
(16:31):
require as you think about what we've learned from Jim
and are shot over the past few weeks, the humanity
in our roles, the judgment, the intuition, the ability to
connect the dots. Yes, I know you're the biggest voice
around how today is the worst DAYAI is ever going
to have again in terms of its intelligence, But there's
still this amazing case for.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
What's the shittiest that'll ever be? But sure, sorry, sophisticated
diplomatic version, you do, you clean up a lot of money.
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But it's just so interesting because we are navigating this
in the real world in real time, while still operating
businesses that many of which live in the physical world
and then the other dimension. When I think about the
types of questions you and I get individually and for
brand new is like, so what does this mean in
terms of navigating careers? So I'm going to use that
(17:27):
as a chance to throw it back over to you
because you are so in the middle of this now, Steven, like,
how do we not fear longer to the generations that
are rising up now in their careers and how do
we actually give good sound advice? Because there is going
to be plenty of room for the beauty of humanity
(17:48):
to influence work and business in the future. But it's changing,
and it's always changing.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
It's always changing, but this time it is different because again,
you're not just dealing with some type of technology. You're
dealing with intelligence, and we keep on trying to harp
on this. You know, the key, you know, kind of
headline is exponential. I keep trying to get people to
understand how to think not in a linear way, but
in an exponential way. And when you have something that's
(18:14):
called the law of accelerating returns with reinforcement learning that
things are going to keep on improving. But once it
hits this inflection point, it's just going to start to
go up on this curve and it's just going to
go vertical. And so that is not conjecture, that is
not hype, that is math. And I don't think people
understand the compounding effect.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Of this, okay, And so how does that not be
fear mongering?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
No, No, So I think there's a difference between fear
mongering and you know, giving sobering information. You know, we
were just talking about this, and you know it's certainly
you know a case friend of ours, you know, someone
that's in the the industry actually does announce, you know,
that she had cancer. So she's stepping down from a role.
You need to know this information. Yeah, it's not fun.
(18:59):
It is something that certainly scary, but I think it's
important to be very realistic and have a sobering assessment
of where things are. And so you want that diagnosis.
But then it's really all about how do you react.
And I think you could basically take one or two paths.
You could kind of crawl under a rock. You could,
you know, feel sorry for yourself, you could be depressed
(19:20):
about it, or you could actually go in the offense
and you can actually go into action and really try
to understand how do I actually leverage everything that I know,
my network, my skills, my intelligence and actually do something
with this. And so I think part of that is
really assessing where things are right now. And if you
know that this is going to go exponential, if you
know that certain things are going to be automated that
(19:44):
might be things that you do in your job today,
how do you get ahead of that? And I think
that is part of just kind of where we are.
And you started to hear the drum beat, you know,
I think the thing coming out of all the frontier labs.
You know, Dario Amidey, who's the CEO of Anthropic, He
came out, you know, last week or so, and kind
of in this interview with Axios spoke about how the
things over the next two to three years, maybe fifty
(20:06):
percent of all entry level jobs are going to go
away and we'll be replaced by AI And you know,
maybe it's ten to twenty percent of US employment in
general might be losing their jobs because of AIH.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
But so if we're calling that sobering versus fearmongering, hearing
the fifty percent of entry level drops go away is
a borderline stat for me, like, how do we make
this constructive in terms of so, what do you do
beyond thinking about keeping yourself educated, learning how to surf
to your point by surf and getting into it. I
agree with that completely, But where can we help our
(20:41):
listeners who are maybe earlier in their careers think about
positioning themselves. I to former ceo'd always say, it's all
about kind of shifting your sale to catch the wind.
So how should they shift the sales of their careers
to catch this wind?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The point with these kind of forecasts that a lot
of the folks are coming out with, and again it's
not just him, right, it's everyone that's kind of in
this space, everyone in the bay. They're talking about this,
and I don't know how much of it actually reaches
the headlines, but assume that they might be wrong on
the number, but directionally it is correct. And you know,
it's just a matter of time before some of these
(21:17):
things were they take a hold. So where do you
really have your strengths and your superpowers? And I go
back to trying to understand every single task And this
is some of the research that we're doing. And we
spoke a little bit about this break down the task.
So just take something as simple as marketing, right, take
that function right, and there's sales, and there's product, and
there's engineering and legal and finance at HR. But take
(21:39):
this kind of path, this career track of marketing and
break down every single task. And I think there is
a scale of things that can be automated and things
that probably can't be, or they can be, but they
still need to have a human in the loop, as
they like to say in you know, kind of model speak.
And the things that can be automated should be automated.
(22:00):
And by the way, this is not new, like we've
been talking about this thing for decades. I mean I
remember when I was at Data Logics doing this, like
literally back in twenty fourteen. I remember this at Akamai
is just the way that we're approaching software back in
nineteen ninety nine. Anything that can be automated will be
So if you have that as a mantra, look at
the task and the skills that you were doing in
your function, and if you are making it up in
(22:22):
content creation, if you're in a creative side of the
business right, or if you are actually in media planning
and buying, or if you're on the insights and analytics side,
a lot of the grunt work is going to be automated,
and even the content creation is going to be automated,
but it's still going to have to come from the
idea of an insight. And that's where I think the
(22:43):
humanity and the ability to have curiosity because the one
thing that I do think is going to be our strength,
and you're going to see more and more of this
is the premium on human superpowers. So if you think
about what cannot be replicated, for example, things that are
going to be in real life bringing humans together, it's
(23:04):
going to be harder and harder because the bar is
going to be higher and higher because everything is just
going to be so convenient and so many things are
going to be online, your agent's going to be buying
all your things. Like for you to actually go somewhere
and show up in person, it's going to be a
high bar. But when you do, you know that thing
actually matter to that person. And so I feel like
the ability for you to have human judgment, for you
(23:25):
to actually have the insight that is going to be
not apparent or it's going to be taken from all
this context that you actually have your insight. And again
there's still tons of bias in these things, so again
you still need to have human judgment in these things.
I feel like those are going to be the roles
those tasks, and even just understanding that let the automated
things go their way, but you are going to be
(23:47):
able to shape those especially when it comes to the
creator economy and you think about all the content creation,
the boom that we're going to see because these tools
are not going to be at the hands of not
just millions, but like hundreds of millions of creators, I
think that is really going to upend the way we
think about marketing.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
So two things to share back on all that in
terms of again me being in the corporate world. Now
I and thinking about one is I had this moment
this week or a couple of weeks ago where I
was trying to wrap my head around how to organize
how we might think about this at a sort of
an enterprise level. And it occurred to me that I
could make my own little basic framework to just start
(24:23):
the thinking and just to even like how would I
wrap my head around it? And I started playing with that,
and I'm happy to share that as just a first
thought is like on like sort of the top of
the grid, I started making like a row of columns
of where in this business and then on all the
types of parts of the business we really need AI
automation in the sense that it's going to be like
(24:45):
table stakes, so you better get there. Where would we
then want to maybe place some strategic big bets. But
then the important piece is I want to also then
say the next column is, and then where should we
actually because of that double down on different real world
(25:07):
human experiences. And I'm going to see if I can
do something with that. The related thought I wanted to
share is, so I was in New York on this
past week. I got invited to a dinner thank you
folks at publicis and notch and they had Malcolm Gladwell
speak certainly a podcast inspiration to me, among other things,
and he made a comment about AI. Of course he
(25:30):
was being asked about it that he thought and I
always love that he provokes thinking in different ways. And
his comment was everyone is talking about AI through the
lens of what it's speeding up, and he felt like
the advantages talk about what is it actually slowing down?
And I maybe it was just an inversion of the
same point that if we can automate it, anything that
(25:52):
can be automated, just like you say, what does that
free up in terms of our ability to maybe be
more creative, more thoughtful, well a little optimistic and maybe
a little not rooted in the pressures that people who
are trying to hit quarterly earnings and efficiency targets contend with.
But I actually think that's an important reframing of the
balance between what can then we even be more dedicated
(26:17):
to in our like that's the ideal state. I'm interrupting
myself as I say that that's the ideal state if
we can get rid of the like grunty parts of work.
And yes, that does have implications on jobs, but should
that free up our capacity for more creativity, and I
think that's what we've been talking about the past few weeks.
So I like the way he framed it, thinking about
(26:39):
what it allows us to slow down to do versus
speeding up. What do you think about that.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I feel like there's a different twist on that, because
the acceleration is it's only going to continue, and so
I think it's a little bit naive. I appreciate the
idea of slowing things down, and you know, it's just
not realistic. I mean, we're basically in a technology cold war,
and I don't think people have acknowledged it right like
(27:04):
between US and China. And there's a reason. And you know,
there's a really you know, kind of great book that's
just came out called Empires of AI, you know, highly
recommended by a report of that you know, has done
a lot of work for MIT Technology Review. You know,
they talk about the kind of the acceleration that we've
seen really coming out of not just you know, kind
(27:25):
of the chat Scheept moment in November of twenty two,
but really with the Transformer paper that came out in
twenty seventeen from Google, and you've really seen this race,
and now the catch out of the back. So between
the United States and China, you're really seeing this kind
of race to have the right worldview from their vectors, right,
(27:46):
the Chinese as well as the American And again everyone
else is just kind of caught in the middle, like
they don't really have to say because the stakes are
too high and they can't play in this game. But
basically the races are and so we're in this technology
cold war. And if that's the case, you cannot slow down.
You don't have the time. You really need to kind
of pausitive figure out what are you going to do?
But I come back to trying to understand that, you know,
(28:11):
question asked differently, I would say, everything is changing, but
what are the things that will not change? And I
think it's a different way to really probe back to
how we started this conversation. What are going to be
the roles? Where do you actually put, you know, kind
of a priority in the things that humans can actually
do really well, And understanding that if we're going to
(28:33):
go to a world where it's not going to be
today you know it's still janky, but in the next
twelve months it'll be better. And when you start to
see agentic AI really start to take off and you
start to and again it always starts with consumers and
enterprises are the laggards, right, But you know when you
actually have your own personal agent, because there'll be a
breakthrough over the next twelve months, I guarantee it. You know,
(28:55):
we'll do our predictions, but you will have an agent,
and that agent is going to do like all of
your flight travel and you know, restaurant bookings and you know,
all the mundane stuff that you don't want to do,
and that's going to be your agent. And then very
you know, natural next step is, oh, that agent will
actually become your personal shoper Marissa. It's going to buy
that really nice dress that you saw on an Instagram
(29:16):
ad or you know, on TikTok, and you're gonna be like,
you know what, get me that, but I don't want
to pay more than this price. And so you're going
to start to see all this kind of functionality actually
happen once you start to see that convenience and now
you actually before you know it. I mean, how many
subscriptions do you have right now for just not just
like streaming services, just like subscriptions in general. I'm sure
(29:37):
you have hundreds that you don't even really acknowledge. You
just like signed up and they're just going You will have.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
No I try to clean those up, I know, but.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
It's hard, right because they kind of multiply like rabbits.
You are going to have tons of agents and they're
going to be doing a bunch of stuff, and then
you're gonna need an orchestrat or agent because some agent
needs to orchestrate all those agents that you have in
your life. So that master agent that is going to
be the same thing for enterprises. So now what is
going to be that agent for that brand X y
(30:06):
Z you know, maybe it's a retail brand and that
agent's going to go and talk out to Marissa's agent. Right,
So you're going to see new types of jobs. You're
going to need someone to really design the persona for
that agent because your agent will become more important than
your app. Your agent as a brand will become more
important than your website.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Well, won't your agent live in your app as a brand?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
No? And again this is this is actually the really
exciting thing. And you know, we didn't really talk about
the eye popping six and a half billion dollar acquisition
of Johnny Ive's you know, hardware.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Startup, Johnny i V creative visionary for Apple. I mean, he.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
And his team, you know, they really set the design
language for generation right truly. But we're now at this
inflection point where you know, kind of this interface, you know,
this kind of I'm holding up by my phone, which
you know, if you're a listener you can't see. But
this iPhone, you know, is an incredible piece of technology.
But that form factor, that interface is actually now on
(31:11):
its kind of last days. And what you're going to
see now in a world where you have voice, you
are now going to see new types of devices. So
the rumor, and again it's a bad kept rumor in
the valley, everyone is talking about what this device is
going to be, and it's not going to be a screen.
It's going to be some type of you know, pendant.
You know, they're saying it's going to have a form
(31:31):
factor like a disk that you could wear, but it's
going to be you know, tied to chat schept And
because chatchipt now has unlimited memory, you basically will have
this recording device and it's going to record every single
conversation that you have ever, and now this becomes like
your second brain, and this is going to be tied
to your agents, and you will basically say, hey, I
(31:53):
was talking to Stephen last week. What did we talk
about Again, Hey, chatchapt can you remind me? And because
it has unlimited memory, will repeat back, Oh, these were
the things, and hey those action items and hey, you
really wanted to buy that dress. You now start to
see a new type of interface. And so I think
those are going to be the real exciting competitive modes
for our company. It's going to be your brand, because
(32:14):
in a world of answers, your brand has to stand out.
It has to be in the mindset of people of consumers,
and it's going to be user interface or user experience.
It's going to be that UXUI that will differentiate. And
it's probably not going to be an app or a website.
I think that's going to be really viewed as antiquated.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
That's hard to imagine. Just in the spirit of the
name of this podcast, We'll be back. I was in
a conversation with someone very senior from Google this week
talking about how it's all changing if people's search behaviors
and how search gets delivered, and then Ultimately, of course,
(32:54):
the monetization of that changes what does that mean? And
I think one of the key concludes is building a
brand will matter because you're going to have to want
to have intent for that, because that's how generative AI
is going to get trained to be. Like, you know,
I was thinking about one of our brand's, Brooks Brothers, like,
(33:15):
how does it get trained if someone's looking for a
great men's dress shirt, for example, to be like, well,
Brooks Brothers is where you should look. I mean, it's
sort of fascinating to think about all that.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
But even talking about search, right, I mean, we've already
seen the show up in the numbers. And again I
don't think people understand the monumental week that happened. And
we discussed this in our you know, kind of alpha
member meeting a bit. But the week of May nineteenth,
you literally had Microsoft build their developer conference and they
went all in on agents. And then you had the
next day Google ioh their big developer conference and they
(33:48):
went all in on AI because they have been behind.
But they just released like twenty five new products, including
their new video engine VO three, which is just incredible.
And now you see all these means where people are
doing like, you know, bringing like Bible figures to life,
and you know, it's just incredible the photorealism of the
video technology. And then on Wednesday you had the announcement
(34:11):
of you know, kind of Open AI buying Johnnie I's
company Io for six and a half million dollars, and
then you had Clawed four being released by entrap.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
I was just going to say an anthropic too.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Just that week alone, the you know, back to you
cannot think about this going slow the average I mean
you talk about like Moore's law being every eighteen you know,
to kind of twenty four months every you know, roughly
two years. The you know, semiconductor industry, you know kind
of metric of you know, improvements in silicon you know,
this is now plus or minus every six months improvements
in the foundation models. So this is just going to
(34:44):
keep on accelerating. And the piece if everyone hasn't seen it,
Andrees and Harwiz came out for a great piece called
how Generative Engine Optimization GEO is going to rewrite the
rules of search because when you saw that Google search
results have started to act, we decline because people are
going to chatchy bt R they're going to some type
(35:05):
of you know, AI driven you know, perplexity or claud
or whatever it is. Now it's not about SEO anymore,
and so how does your brand actually show up? It's
really going to be challenging for anyone in that seat.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
It's really challenging. And the people who are leading in
these companies are saying, by the way, I hope this
is honest when they say it, we don't exactly know
what to tell you to do.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
So they know what they're doing because they're trying to
figure it out because all the big tech companies are behind.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
They're figuring it out. So we're trying to figure out
when it's not clear and before we go to our
final you know, what's on your mind's question the week.
All of this is born out of the things that
we've been hearing from all of you and what we're
thinking about in real time and trying to make sense
of from our different chairs. But I think we have
to just help ourselves, help our listeners feel a combination
(35:57):
of you know, appropriate urgency because it's moving so fast,
tempered with confidence and optimism that like every other you know,
massive change that's hit our world through technology before it.
You know, there's always going to be winners and losers,
but there's we're always going to adapt, and we're going
to figure it out, and hopefully the good wines about
(36:18):
weighing the bad. That's going to be the big, I think,
existential question for all of us.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Look, I can't say it enough. This is the most
exciting as well as the most terrifying time. But we
are living through the most extraordinary technology, you know, kind
of invention in generations. And so I feel that if
you could really, especially anyone kind of in a marketing role,
start to shift their you know, kind of mindset from
(36:45):
oh I got I need to make the deck start
to think about how do I make the model behave
you were going to have such an incredible opportunity to
kind of really lead and help train and put the guardrails.
Like we are literally seeing the foundations of this new
platform shift happened right before our eyes. Every single day,
a new brick is being laid and for us to
(37:08):
kind of witness it, but more importantly for us to
help lead it. And this is where we need to
have your voice. We need to see everyone step up
and just help shape where this goes. And it's leaders
like you, Marissa, that are going to be in these roles.
A lot of our friends and colleagues, we want to
see them really step into a leadership role because at
the end of the day, you do have the funds,
(37:29):
you have the dollars, you have the budgets, and you
are in the c suite. So this is a leadership
opportunity for you.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
So now let's go to our question this week. What's
on your mind? Steven read it off.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
All right, we got a question from Mike, and Mike says,
I'm a recent grad and I'd love to know if
you were graduating, now, what's the one thing you would
do differently given all of the career experience you guys have. Now,
that's a nice burger, that's a nice little little morsel
to at chew on. Marissa, what would you say.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I'm going to be contrarian to the question that Mke
ass because I had an amazing liberal arts education, which
has been i think maligned over the past couple of
decades when everyone was sort of getting into oh, really
should go to school to code, and I think look
some of those jobs.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
By the way, that that's the first job that's been
almost one hundred percent autimation that I was.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Just going to say, and interesting strange validation. And this
goes back to my everything old is new again in
some ways. The skills because the world is so malleable,
the professional world is so ever changing right now, more
so today than ever. Is make sure you use that
(38:50):
college education to know how to think, to analyze, connect dots,
and to be a really effective written and verbal communicator.
Are the tools better than ever to enable that, absolutely?
But what have we been talking about. It's the human
intelligence and intuition and ability to ingest a lot and
(39:11):
think about where to make the next move that someone
else isn't thinking about. Including a large language model that
I think is going to create the agility for recent
graduates to position themselves in multiple ways for their future.
So I'm sure there's a million things I could say
that I want to do differently. But Mike, I'm going
to answer your question by saying that's what I would
(39:32):
do again, and the advice I'd give to someone at
your age now different answer I bet from you.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I mean, not necessarily, I do love the fact. I
mean I also, even though it was in economics, my
liberal arts background, I think was foundational for me. Yeah,
and I think Steve Jobs would agree, since he was
always a humanist and again, you know, kind of a
bicycle for the mind was always the idea behind putting
(39:57):
computers into everyone's hands. For me, I would say, it's
a little bit of where we are in this moment.
I think because all of the tools are there now,
I think it is incredibly important for every single whether
it's a recent grad, mid level, you know, kind of executive, senior, executive,
board director. I think everyone really needs to understand that
(40:21):
they are a brand. We talk about this a lot,
but understanding how to be a creator in this creator
economy and really start to carve out your niche as
a brand.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
That doesn't mean everyone should try to be an influencer, though,
because we know that's like a bizarre career ambition of
young generation.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah. I mean, again, the whole influencer thing, I feel
like that kind of jumped the shark. But I think
when you are a creator, I think it's really carving
out what is your voice. I actually loved having this conversation,
frankly with your two daughters, so because they are certainly
earlier in their kind of career development. But what a
great opportunity for them to start developing their voice, for
(41:06):
them to just go onto LinkedIn and just whatever their
topic of interest is. You know, it could be healthcare,
it could be tech, it could be consumer, it could
be retail, whatever it is, to start building that narrative
and having a point of view. And because all the
tools are out there, you could actually really start to
become the name in that space. And if you are
(41:27):
younger in your career, if you're a Gen Z, you know,
getting to be even Gen Alpha. I think about my kids.
You know, they're still too young to be online, but
at some point they could start to write about the
things that they know about, and that gives them a
certain level of power. They get to have voice, they
get to have subject matter expertise, and eventually that will
serve you well in whatever you do in your career.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
And so our answers are connected.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
When I was getting I think the first email address
at tough, when we had like time and they were
rolling it out, I think those were early days of
the Internet. But now I think be a creator. That's
my long window way of saying that.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Well, Steve, and I look forward to seeing you and can.
We look forward to coming back after and sharing what
we saw and what we learned. But that's it per now.
We hope, if you haven't already, you'll subscribe to make
sure you never miss an episode, and, as always, tell
us what's on your mind by emailing us at ideas
at brandashnew dot com. Thank you so much for joining us,
(42:25):
and we'll see you next time on brand New
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