#208 - The One Leadership Trait Every Founder Underrates (Until It's Too Late) | Sam Eitzen

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Culture is like compound interest.

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You pour into it, you pour into it, you pour into it, and all of a sudden you realize, my
goodness, like this is wild.

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Like this is what I was trying to get to all this time.

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It just takes time sometimes to really start showing up in the bank account as it were.

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Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of The Necessary Entrepreneur.

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We should have just captured the last last 15 minutes that of the conversation that I've
had with our guests today, because it was great about world travels and all kinds of

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different citizenship and um if they're a spy family, all those types of things.

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But uh but but today's guest is Sam Eitzen, he's CEO and co-founder of Snapbar What
started as a simple photo booth business built alongside

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His brother has grown into an experiential marketing platform serving more than ten
thousand brands, including Microsoft, Google, and Toyota.

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Along the way, Sam's navigated multiple business pivots.

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What do you know?

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Survived the collapse of the events industry during COVID, earned a spot on the Inc.

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five hundred list, and helped transform Snapbar into an AI powered company.

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Welcome to two thousand twenty six.

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So raised in Morocco, fluent in Arabic, French, Spanish, Sam brings a unique perspective
on entrepreneurship.

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Leadership, resilience, and innovation.

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So Sam, welcome to the show, man.

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Yeah, the fifteen minutes was great conversation.

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So what I let's just jump right in.

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So I interrupted you because we were having a good conversation.

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And I just said, man, being a guy who's thirty eight years old, it at when you're fifty
eight, you won't want to admit age, but thirty eight's still young in my so I just said

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that no wonder all the experiences, parents from different nationalities.

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The all the countries that you've traveled to, already having a family, living in the US,
living in England at times, living being raised in Morocco.

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I said, someone who goes through all those experiences, you're guaranteed to come out like
you.

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And you laughed at that.

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Yes.

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But what I mean also is, is that you're gonna have a resilient mindset because you're
always in new and uncomfortable places and dealing with someone that maybe you haven't

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dealt before.

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And so I'm sure you'll talk about the complexity of that and we can go into it.

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But I'm sure that's built a resilient characteristic inside of yourself.

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Yeah, it has.

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So it I right before we started recording, I said, I agree with you, but.

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And the but is simply I think that that's absolutely the result you will get when you mix
those things together.

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Except that a lot of my friends are not like me, or a lot of the friends I grew up with
are not like me.

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And it was it I th there's different family, different personalities, different, you know,
experiences, et cetera.

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But one of the big things I really appreciate what my parents did is they put us into a
regular life.

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So I did not go to an American school.

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I was not homeschooled.

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I was not even in like a fancy private school.

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We were in Moroccan and French schools.

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Um, fr they have a lot of French schools in Morocco because it used to be a colony.

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I don't know about colony, yeah, French used to rule Morocco.

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And so that was something I think that really helped because I was forced to adapt to a
different culture, get it comfortable being different, feeling different, figuring out

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similarities, how to talk to people that are very different than you, etc.

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Some of my friends that were homeschooled, some of my friends that went to like the
American kind of schools in the bigger cities, whether they were diplomatic kids or

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military kids or whatever, didn't have as much of that experience.

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Most of their friends in Morocco were Americans or French kids or British kids or
whatever, and they didn't assimilate.

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And of course they still have incredible stories, and they many of them still turned out
to be incredible, interesting people.

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Um, but I think that some of the entrepreneurial kind of gusto that I have, some of what I
experienced was because I was kind of thrown into

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What some parents probably be worried about.

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I you know, but my parents were not, and and they felt that us kids could kind of figure
it out.

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And we grew up riding our bikes in the streets till really late and playing soccer.

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Our house was not a fancy house.

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We lived like amongst Moroccans.

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All of our friends were Moroccans.

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So I think that was a really cool experience.

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I don't know what you'd call it, but like immers immersion into a different culture and
really getting used to like being different and understanding how to adapt, I think was a

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big part of it.

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Do you think about like how that sets you up now for success differently in this new world
of technology where it's brought the whole world together?

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Do you think that's something that your parents they couldn't have projected this forward
thirty eight and forty years?

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No.

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But how are you benefiting now because of that?

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And then we'll go into it.

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Well then if we didn't if we didn't experience it, then what do we do?

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So that's two things together, right?

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So if you can wrap those together and let's go there.

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Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

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I think that it definitely played a part.

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And I don't think it's just me.

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I mean, my dad is in his 60s and he is learning how to use AI.

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And he asks my brother and I questions about it.

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So it wasn't it so not only and I, you know, naturally, like I think that like it's
something you pick up not only from your family, like being open to change, being able to

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adapt, not being worried about this like tidal wave of new information that's hitting you
every day.

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But I think honestly, just like

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The environment that you grow up in when you're used to constant, unpredictable change,
you become a little bit more comfortable with it.

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And you realize, okay, like you get good at adapting.

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And adapting doesn't mean you love it all the time or that you're really good at it.

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It just means like you figure out your place in this new world.

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You don't have to become an AI expert to have a place in this new world of AI, but you do
have to ha generally understand it.

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You can't be afraid of it or or overly paranoid that it's gonna ruin your life.

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You have to f make the most of it.

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And we did that.

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I mean, I am not a tech guy, even though I now run a an AI tech company.

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I don't know how to write code, even though now I kind of am able to write code using AI.

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Like, but we're learning, we're pivoting, adapting.

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And I think a ton of it is traced back to like my childhood, where I grew up, being
comfortable doing that in a lot of non tech situations of just like figuring out, okay,

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how do I get around the city?

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Don't know the language.

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But if you're paralyzed because you don't know the language, you're not gonna get
anywhere, right?

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You have to figure it out.

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And when I was a kid, it's not like Moroccans spoke a ton of English.

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I mean they do now.

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They're very smart people and tourism has like made it so that they speak all sorts of
languages.

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But like when I was a kid, not no one really spoke English or didn't feel like it they
did.

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And so you had to be like, All right, well I've got to learn learn the language.

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And I did.

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Like I I I spoke Arabic just at the same time that I started speaking English as a three
year old.

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Did you speak it because of your previous word immersion?

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Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.

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I I was not taught Arabic in the traditional sense because the di the street dialect I
grew up speaking called Derijah is not even written or read.

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They don't teach it in schools.

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So li I literally picked it up just hanging out with kids.

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Can you go to a lot of the Arabic speaking countries now and understand and converse?

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No, unfortunately.

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That's the crazy part.

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It's very different.

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So like I was just at the Belgium Egypt game, the World Cup game here in Seattle, and
there's some Egyptian guys sitting in front of me and they were speaking to each other and

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I could pick up like a couple of words every once in a while, but a lot of it I couldn't.

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And if I spoke in Deddy J, which I'm I'm rusty in now, I don't know how much th they'd
pick up some words but but wouldn't be able to understand me perfectly either.

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Hm.

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What's this idea?

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But what's funny is if you would have attempted to speak to them, they would have
recognized, they would have looked at you different.

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Yeah, yeah, for sure.

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So before the game, as we're walking to the game, I was I got a breakfast sandwich and at
this place in Seattle, and we're hanging outside the the the these doors to Fairmont

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residences.

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That just happens to be where this like breakfast sandwich place is.

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And a guy comes out and he's like, Hey, you guys want to sit in here?

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And he like, 'cause he can't get into these doors, we just wanted a place to sit.

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We're like, Yeah, sounds great.

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So we go sit in this like weird lobby of the Fairmont residences, and he says, You guys
here for the game?

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I say, Yes.

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I was like, Who are you rooting for?

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He says, Morocco.

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And I start talking to him Arabic and he's like, like what is going on?

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Like some he and he and he told me, he's like, You're you sound like Moroccan.

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Like you sound really good.

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And I I I do.

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I I'm r super rusty.

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Like it doesn't just come to my brain fluidly anymore.

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But when I speak Arabic, I uh you know, I mean, I don't know.

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It's like we would have an accent.

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You probably hear an accent with me.

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I don't hear it, but you you probably do.

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And so we're both speaking English.

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But you're like, wow, you speak it like that area.

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That's probably what he's talking about.

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Yeah, a hundred percent.

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And I do speak more like a Moroccan than most Moroccans have ever heard, just because
again, I grew up.

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It's not something that like if you learned Arabic today, if you applied yourself and
learned it, I think that you could get great at it.

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But you'd still probably sound different than me in a sense, right?

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Just because it wasn't like like your tongue didn't move that way when you were three
years old, if that makes sense.

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And that and it doesn't matter.

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And so I find I speak French too, Spanish less so I studied for a couple of years, but
it's similar to French.

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But when I speak French, same thing.

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Like I can roll the R's very well.

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And all my friends make fun of me when I say croissant, not croissant, you know, like and
it's just funny.

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Yeah.

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So what do we make in this world of business and human connectivity that when that person
felt that you were a part of who they were, you had a different interaction.

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Mm-hmm.

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Very true.

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And sorry, so the question being like how do you think that applies to translation?

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because I come from a sales perspective, right?

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You can make a connection with someone.

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I'm always looking for something that we have similar.

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Right?

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Something something you love, something from a family background, something.

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And it seems like when someone believes that about you, makes that connection, they like
you more.

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They're more open to doing business with you.

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But the same thing happened when that person realized this person, even though they knew
nothing about you.

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Yeah, that's right.

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This person they're similar to me.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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When you have shared experiences with other people, I think that that is a pretty powerful
point of connection.

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Actually, don't think it always has to happen.

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So like culturally, of course it happens, but like I I when I I was never a guy in sports.

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I don't know if you were, but like guys that were in sports, when they see their like
teammates from years ago, there's like this or or in the military, I have my f military

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friends, like there's this instant connection.

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There's this brotherhood.

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It's like

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We were in the trenches together, not literally, right?

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It might be the trenches of Morocco, if you can use that the trenches of a team playing
football, the tr literal trenches in a military situation.

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But that idea of like we were together, we kind of understand some of the whatever it
might be.

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Uh I think events do that to people.

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I think there's a lot of stuff.

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I mean, people make connections over loving the same kind of beer or wine or like

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I mean, right.

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And you can kind of like you're sitting somewhere and you're like, my gosh, they just
ordered my favorite cocktail, and now you strike up a conversation, you talk about your

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favorite bourbons or something like that.

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And it's like, look at us, we now have this like tiny little bit.

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Well, when that goes deeper than like we both like the same bourbon, I think it can be
powerful.

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There's like this implicit trust that forms.

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And in the world of sales and business, trust is massively valuable and probably well, I
would I would say Adam, I'm curious for your perspective, but like I think it's

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underrated.

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How much trust plays a part in business?

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I think people try to swab their way I don't know.

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I think people don't respect trust enough and how important that can be.

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You know how we make these big definitive statements?

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Like all of us, if you're in a leadership position, we're like this is the most important
thing.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And like and like a Jim Rohn, like the guru of self-improvement back in the day, he said,
the only thing that matters is your philosop your personal philosophy.

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Like that's a big statement.

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And so I say all that to say when you say I don't know what you feel about trust.

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I think it's really, really, really important.

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Like really important.

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I don't you know what's funny is someone said to me the other day, you know, when we're
trying to solve all these really fast problems now in 2026, sometimes it can feel like it

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is a pinball machine.

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But I actually said, hey guys, this isn't pinball, this is juggling.

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And you've got to keep them all in the air at the same time.

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And so pinball's one ball jumping around.

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But and so I say that to say trust is one of these pillars that, like, for example, we
opened up my real estate company opened up in Florida.

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And we opened up, we become licensed, we opened a little office, you put boots on the
ground, you do some business, you learn the you learn the topography and the geography.

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And then I look for the person to operate and build.

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And I just found a husband and wife team that are going to be the foundation of the real
estate company in Sarasota, which is on the Gulf Coast.

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And but I've known them for a decade.

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I've had business relationships with them, personal relationships with them, and I've kind
of been setting it up for the past two or three years.

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If you put yourself in a spot where you're just a really trustworthy person at every level
in life, you're not looking how's this relationship gonna benefit me.

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You're always looking like how can I put them forward?

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00:13:04,770 --> 00:13:06,410
How can I help in any way?

210
00:13:06,410 --> 00:13:07,871
Things change in everyone's life.

211
00:13:07,871 --> 00:13:12,393
And when they're looking for a good opportunity, if you're a business person that you have
it, they're gonna think about you.

212
00:13:12,933 --> 00:13:13,273
Agree.

213
00:13:13,273 --> 00:13:22,117
And they are ecstatic about doing and they what they said to me was um, because what I've
learned is you can do contracts and non competes and all that stuff, but when when you

214
00:13:22,117 --> 00:13:24,558
can't trust someone, none of that matters.

215
00:13:24,558 --> 00:13:25,188
Right.

216
00:13:25,188 --> 00:13:25,718
Yeah.

217
00:13:25,718 --> 00:13:31,266
And so what they said, they're fifty five now, and they said, Hey, we're giving you the
next decade.

218
00:13:32,952 --> 00:13:38,574
And I just know I don't there's not many people because there's you you would think your
best friend wouldn't screw you over.

219
00:13:38,574 --> 00:13:39,657
They can screw you over.

220
00:13:39,657 --> 00:13:44,426
But I just know that they're so trust trustworthy I can take it to the bank.

221
00:13:44,740 --> 00:13:45,313
Yeah.

222
00:13:45,313 --> 00:13:46,055
That's cool.

223
00:13:46,055 --> 00:13:46,911
That's awesome.

224
00:13:46,911 --> 00:13:47,405
rare, isn't it?

225
00:13:47,405 --> 00:13:50,264
What I just said is really really burnt in those situations.

226
00:13:50,264 --> 00:13:50,784
a hundred percent.

227
00:13:50,784 --> 00:13:51,215
Yeah.

228
00:13:51,215 --> 00:13:52,095
Yeah.

229
00:13:52,275 --> 00:13:57,228
I think I mean our business story is interesting and trust is a big part of it.

230
00:13:57,228 --> 00:14:00,921
And it's even just not even personal trust, which I think is very important.

231
00:14:00,921 --> 00:14:03,843
I mean, clearly more, but like even brand trust is important.

232
00:14:03,843 --> 00:14:11,898
So one it's one of the things that has like a it's why even though our company looks
nothing like it did 14 years ago, we still have the same name because I'm like, well, it

233
00:14:11,898 --> 00:14:15,930
might not fit perfectly with what we're doing now, like we thought it did in the
beginning, but

234
00:14:16,550 --> 00:14:18,455
People know that we don't screw them over.

235
00:14:18,455 --> 00:14:20,418
They know that our customer service is good.

236
00:14:22,284 --> 00:14:24,058
Like, well, this it helps.

237
00:14:24,058 --> 00:14:24,850
I mean, it really does.

238
00:14:24,850 --> 00:14:26,774
Like people trust the brand.

239
00:14:26,842 --> 00:14:28,424
Yeah, you you get to define what that is.

240
00:14:28,424 --> 00:14:33,418
Cause if I hear Snapbar before I know what it is, I'll start building like what do I think
it is?

241
00:14:33,418 --> 00:14:34,405
Doesn't matter what I think it is.

242
00:14:34,405 --> 00:14:37,269
If you build the narrative and the brand, you're gonna tell me what it is.

243
00:14:37,441 --> 00:14:38,292
Yeah, exactly.

244
00:14:38,292 --> 00:14:38,762
Exactly.

245
00:14:38,762 --> 00:14:44,276
And then people or you'll hear it from someone and it'll be in a positive light, not a
negative light, or whatever that might be.

246
00:14:44,276 --> 00:14:46,077
And it's the same thing for people.

247
00:14:46,751 --> 00:14:49,310
I I mean, yeah, it's the same thing for people.

248
00:14:49,310 --> 00:14:49,991
Right.

249
00:14:49,991 --> 00:14:56,126
There's vendors where you're like, Yeah, they might be a little bit more expensive, but
they're gonna get it done.

250
00:14:56,126 --> 00:14:57,666
They're gonna get it done right.

251
00:15:02,987 --> 00:15:09,843
And there's also like you very quickly hear about the people that, yeah, they'll get the
job done, but maybe they're late, or maybe this thing, or there's one person on their team

252
00:15:09,843 --> 00:15:13,876
that's very cantankerous, whatever the situation, like that kind of stuff travels quickly.

253
00:15:13,876 --> 00:15:21,282
You end up not wanting to do those builds, you know, don't want to do those events, you
get a little nervous about working with that client again, so on and so forth.

254
00:15:21,282 --> 00:15:31,050
And I mean, we've literally not pursued money that could have been in the bank with
clients because it's like, well, the last time we did this, everyone on my team hated it.

255
00:15:31,091 --> 00:15:31,905
Why like?

256
00:15:31,905 --> 00:15:34,957
Are we really gonna put ourselves through that pain again just for this kind of a kind of
outcome?

257
00:15:34,957 --> 00:15:36,353
Like probably not worth it.

258
00:15:36,437 --> 00:15:41,737
In the beginning though with you and your brother, when you're first starting a business,
don't you say yes to everything and take any

259
00:15:41,737 --> 00:15:44,125
we we d definitely did, yes.

260
00:15:45,293 --> 00:15:46,154
Yeah.

261
00:15:46,437 --> 00:15:47,337
Yeah.

262
00:15:47,378 --> 00:15:51,871
So the talk about this entrepreneurial journey about see if there's something we can take
away and learn.

263
00:15:51,871 --> 00:15:57,856
I touched on a little bit of it in the intro, but yeah, give us give us the the A to Z of
where you started, where you're at right now.

264
00:15:57,856 --> 00:15:59,487
See if you can do it in a couple of minutes.

265
00:15:59,649 --> 00:16:00,140
Yeah.

266
00:16:00,140 --> 00:16:00,500
Okay.

267
00:16:00,500 --> 00:16:09,757
Fourteen years ago, we stumbled into owning a photo booth unit, like an old school, not a
mall one, but like a wooden box that you you and a group of people would stand in front

268
00:16:09,757 --> 00:16:10,448
of.

269
00:16:10,548 --> 00:16:11,629
That became a side gig.

270
00:16:11,629 --> 00:16:13,010
We ran it for three years.

271
00:16:13,010 --> 00:16:17,474
Then we went full time, built our second one, looked like garbage, but whatever.

272
00:16:17,474 --> 00:16:18,735
We figured it out.

273
00:16:19,296 --> 00:16:28,459
Then built some more and eventually, like fast forward, we kind of went from like a uh
photo booth side gig to photo booth full time to

274
00:16:28,469 --> 00:16:35,464
And then kind of it was weddings to like parties to then like corporate parties, then to
conferences and the whole world of B2B events.

275
00:16:35,464 --> 00:16:37,999
And that's what we ended up in in 2020.

276
00:16:37,999 --> 00:16:45,572
We were one of the largest photo booth companies, or sometimes people call us like a photo
experience company, because sometimes it didn't even look like a traditional photo booth.

277
00:16:45,572 --> 00:16:52,597
And we do CS or Coachella or sporting events or your or Microsoft Conference or 200 person
medical convention.

278
00:16:52,597 --> 00:16:53,578
I mean, it doesn't matter.

279
00:16:53,578 --> 00:16:55,179
If they want some type of photo moment.

280
00:16:55,179 --> 00:16:55,740
We were there.

281
00:16:55,740 --> 00:16:59,523
We wanted to be the Starbucks of photo booth companies because events move around.

282
00:16:59,523 --> 00:17:06,770
And once you have a trusted relationship with a vendor in Seattle, why not use the same
vendor in San Francisco, in LA, in New Orleans, in Las Vegas?

283
00:17:06,770 --> 00:17:09,001
Problem is where you're not usually there.

284
00:17:09,001 --> 00:17:09,972
You're in Seattle.

285
00:17:09,972 --> 00:17:12,945
So that's the idea of the Starbucks of these photo experience companies.

286
00:17:12,945 --> 00:17:19,721
COVID wrecked that idea, or didn't wreck it, but it was very difficult to do that for a
couple of years.

287
00:17:19,721 --> 00:17:22,203
So we had to pivot a few different times.

288
00:17:22,479 --> 00:17:27,142
pivoted into a totally separate business called Keep Your City Smiling that did really
well.

289
00:17:27,142 --> 00:17:32,236
We got kind of went, I didn't say it went viral, but we were in the news, featured in New
York Times and Forbes and all this cool stuff.

290
00:17:32,236 --> 00:17:33,373
And that saved the company.

291
00:17:33,373 --> 00:17:39,591
It was like the bridge monetarily that we needed to not shut Snap R down.

292
00:17:39,591 --> 00:17:44,134
And during that bridge period, we built our very first piece of software.

293
00:17:44,134 --> 00:17:46,316
And that software ended up doing really well.

294
00:17:46,316 --> 00:17:51,189
It exposed us to this kind of a whole new world of opportunity.

295
00:17:51,189 --> 00:17:54,320
And we we went all in, we we burned the ships as it were.

296
00:17:54,320 --> 00:18:03,995
So we sold we got out of our offices, got out of our warehouse leases, we sold hundreds of
our photo booth units and basically wound down the entire logistics heavy operation,

297
00:18:03,995 --> 00:18:06,652
became a tech company at our peak in 2020.

298
00:18:06,652 --> 00:18:10,538
We were about forty-five people, now we're eight full time, and we really like it.

299
00:18:10,538 --> 00:18:11,008
It's fun.

300
00:18:11,008 --> 00:18:12,349
We're an AI company now.

301
00:18:12,349 --> 00:18:17,181
I can explain kind of what those platforms are if we want to, but how is the transition?

302
00:18:17,181 --> 00:18:18,497
Yeah, we we got all the time.

303
00:18:18,497 --> 00:18:21,208
I said we can go for another half hour, but I'll stay as long as you want to.

304
00:18:21,208 --> 00:18:21,867
Let's go.

305
00:18:21,867 --> 00:18:29,583
I thought so the software that ended up working really well for us w when everything
pivoted to online, right?

306
00:18:29,583 --> 00:18:32,605
Everything was online while we were all stuck at home during the pandemic.

307
00:18:32,605 --> 00:18:33,836
Uh events did too.

308
00:18:33,836 --> 00:18:38,739
So your regular event, your conference became a virtual conference and your whatever,
stuff like that.

309
00:18:38,739 --> 00:18:43,343
Well, we just built after a client asked us, hey, does any of your photo boot stuff work
on the internet?

310
00:18:43,343 --> 00:18:45,384
We said it got us thinking, what if it did?

311
00:18:45,384 --> 00:18:49,537
Like what if you could take a photo from your computer, but in a

312
00:18:49,569 --> 00:18:51,760
way that integrated with the virtual event.

313
00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:54,042
And we just called it a virtual photo booth.

314
00:18:54,042 --> 00:18:58,124
At the time there's this technology that just had come out a couple years earlier called
WebRTC.

315
00:18:58,124 --> 00:19:00,335
Won't get into it, but it just allows you to take a photo.

316
00:19:00,335 --> 00:19:03,387
It's kind of it's probably actually what's running this recording right now.

317
00:19:03,387 --> 00:19:05,708
The ability to in a browser.

318
00:19:06,589 --> 00:19:07,689
Exactly, right?

319
00:19:07,689 --> 00:19:11,541
And so our all our software did was change out the background, put like a branded overlay.

320
00:19:11,541 --> 00:19:13,242
You could add some props or some stickers.

321
00:19:13,242 --> 00:19:14,433
Then again, this was six years ago.

322
00:19:14,433 --> 00:19:18,357
It was like, cool, look, you just took a photo booth k picture from home.

323
00:19:18,357 --> 00:19:22,247
And there's three thousand of you at this virtual conference that's super boring.

324
00:19:22,247 --> 00:19:27,770
I mean, like again, remember I don't know if you were part of any of those during the
pandemic, but like my goodness, like this they're just like the worst.

325
00:19:27,770 --> 00:19:30,340
Sitting on your couch.

326
00:19:30,340 --> 00:19:31,170
Yeah.

327
00:19:31,231 --> 00:19:39,963
And we kind of fit into this like engagement factor because if you're consuming content
for three days at this conference, like they were just looking for anything that would

328
00:19:39,963 --> 00:19:43,294
make it interesting or fun or like experiential.

329
00:19:43,294 --> 00:19:45,194
And virtual photo booths fit the bill.

330
00:19:45,194 --> 00:19:47,435
So we had some of our best sales months.

331
00:19:47,573 --> 00:19:57,091
after this kind of product got some steam, and we realized, like just from a pure
entrepreneurship perspective, I was like, this was one of our best sales months ever.

332
00:19:57,231 --> 00:20:00,854
It took like five of us to run it, not 45.

333
00:20:00,854 --> 00:20:02,726
We didn't have any gear involved.

334
00:20:02,726 --> 00:20:04,497
We we sent them a link.

335
00:20:04,497 --> 00:20:07,910
They they opened it up on their virtual event platform.

336
00:20:07,910 --> 00:20:09,862
And that was it.

337
00:20:09,862 --> 00:20:11,753
Like we wouldn't have to be there.

338
00:20:11,753 --> 00:20:13,094
We didn't have to travel anywhere.

339
00:20:13,094 --> 00:20:15,446
We didn't have to deal with like staffing.

340
00:20:15,446 --> 00:20:16,257
It was just like

341
00:20:16,257 --> 00:20:19,528
The profit margins were through the roof compared to our old business.

342
00:20:19,808 --> 00:20:24,939
I kind of had this like moment of realizing software is the solution for everything.

343
00:20:24,939 --> 00:20:29,551
And this is before I actually got into building it and realized it has its own slew of
problems.

344
00:20:29,551 --> 00:20:31,061
But that was that was a fun moment.

345
00:20:31,061 --> 00:20:32,662
And that's kind of what got us down this path.

346
00:20:32,662 --> 00:20:41,974
So today we have two platforms and they're both originate in this idea that, like, from a
web browser, you can do a lot of stuff with photo, photography, video.

347
00:20:41,974 --> 00:20:45,643
Uh one of them is a product called Scale Headshots.

348
00:20:45,643 --> 00:20:46,794
And it's what it sounds like.

349
00:20:46,794 --> 00:20:52,117
It is for organizations to scale headshots, like like like physical headshots.

350
00:20:52,117 --> 00:20:59,933
But instead of you having that, you know, most people's headshots for badges, for a
website, for business card don't need like a professional photographer setting up a studio

351
00:20:59,933 --> 00:21:01,013
in this day and age.

352
00:21:01,013 --> 00:21:04,466
So that business um is it stands on its own.

353
00:21:04,466 --> 00:21:06,797
Um the brand stands on its own.

354
00:21:06,797 --> 00:21:11,881
And it's like we sell to HR admins and people like that that need to solve headshots at
scale.

355
00:21:11,881 --> 00:21:15,519
We got some, you know, we got clients with 40,000 employees in there.

356
00:21:15,519 --> 00:21:17,170
And it's kind of part of their system.

357
00:21:17,170 --> 00:21:18,760
We've got an API that they plug in.

358
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:23,351
And so when you're onboard in it, you get an invitation, take your headshot, then they can
tie it to your account.

359
00:21:23,351 --> 00:21:25,182
You get your badge printed, all that kind of stuff.

360
00:21:25,182 --> 00:21:30,143
And then on the flip side, this is kind of more core to our roots in events.

361
00:21:30,143 --> 00:21:37,406
We have what we call like an experiential marketing platform or uh what what other people
call like an audience engagement platform.

362
00:21:37,406 --> 00:21:40,399
Think of what photo booths do in the world of business.

363
00:21:40,399 --> 00:21:42,709
It's like it's three things.

364
00:21:42,709 --> 00:21:51,241
You go to a conference, let's say it's a real estate conference, because now that's the
industry you're in, and you walk up to some brand that maybe wants to get your attention.

365
00:21:51,642 --> 00:21:54,142
They say, Hey, Mark, check out this cool thing.

366
00:21:54,142 --> 00:21:58,493
You can turn yourself into like in a traditional photo booth sense, it'd be like, come
take a photo in our photo booth.

367
00:21:58,493 --> 00:21:59,994
Okay, maybe you decide to.

368
00:21:59,994 --> 00:22:02,144
in that moment, they're trying to capture your lead information.

369
00:22:02,144 --> 00:22:05,725
If it's a trade show, they're like scanning your badge or maybe their your email address.

370
00:22:05,725 --> 00:22:11,047
And then they're hoping, fingers crossed, that you take that photo that you took in their
little booth and you post it online.

371
00:22:11,047 --> 00:22:11,767
And you're like,

372
00:22:11,767 --> 00:22:14,198
Here I am at this real estate conference having a great time.

373
00:22:14,198 --> 00:22:14,669
Right.

374
00:22:14,669 --> 00:22:19,851
That's the dream, but it's like user-generated content's valuable in that transaction.

375
00:22:19,851 --> 00:22:22,212
If you want a photo, they get your lead information.

376
00:22:22,212 --> 00:22:23,553
That's the whole business model.

377
00:22:23,553 --> 00:22:26,915
So that's what we do now for experiential marketing audience engagement.

378
00:22:26,915 --> 00:22:35,115
We create all sorts of photo video-based products and some non-photo video stuff that gets
you to be interested, somehow in they interact with you.

379
00:22:35,115 --> 00:22:42,427
In that process, they get your lead information and you get some type of content that
you're incentivized or they can incentivize you to share to post online.

380
00:22:43,843 --> 00:22:50,356
Do you think that so now you've become a tech company utilizing AI?

381
00:22:52,327 --> 00:22:57,593
And but you've done it around what the original or n origin of your business was.

382
00:22:58,956 --> 00:23:04,662
Have did you hear recently what came out this week about the shoe company, Newbird?

383
00:23:05,204 --> 00:23:07,847
They are now gonna become a full AI.

384
00:23:07,847 --> 00:23:10,861
uh

385
00:23:10,861 --> 00:23:14,186
From all birds to smart bird, I think was the transition.

386
00:23:14,186 --> 00:23:14,558
Yeah.

387
00:23:14,558 --> 00:23:16,394
I I posted a meme.

388
00:23:18,659 --> 00:23:19,291
Is it new bird?

389
00:23:19,291 --> 00:23:20,704
I thought it was smartbird, but you're right.

390
00:23:20,704 --> 00:23:21,628
Yes, no, a hundred percent.

391
00:23:21,628 --> 00:23:24,575
And they're getting into data centers and yeah, it's wild.

392
00:23:24,878 --> 00:23:25,739
I mean

393
00:23:25,740 --> 00:23:27,171
it's so that's not even a shoe company.

394
00:23:27,171 --> 00:23:29,273
So this is the reality of two thousand twenty six.

395
00:23:29,273 --> 00:23:38,167
You took a brand that I mean, it was worth tens of millions, maybe a hundred uh a a high
revenue number, and they are completely

396
00:23:38,167 --> 00:23:39,109
We our business.

397
00:23:39,109 --> 00:23:39,850
Oh, sorry.

398
00:23:39,850 --> 00:23:41,343
Alders was like huge.

399
00:23:41,343 --> 00:23:42,093
I mean huge.

400
00:23:42,093 --> 00:23:45,641
At their peak, they were like four billion on the stock market, I'm pretty sure.

401
00:23:45,641 --> 00:23:46,562
Something crazy like that.

402
00:23:46,562 --> 00:23:47,283
Yeah.

403
00:23:47,329 --> 00:23:48,201
Yeah, it's crazy.

404
00:23:48,201 --> 00:23:50,695
And so what do we make of that?

405
00:23:50,695 --> 00:23:58,420
So you guys stayed within your business, utilized it to escalate their come their board
made a we're getting out of the business we're in and becoming an AI company.

406
00:23:58,420 --> 00:23:58,640
Yeah.

407
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:00,573
I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

408
00:24:00,897 --> 00:24:03,888
Well, okay, so I I I'm an Albirds fan, funny enough.

409
00:24:03,888 --> 00:24:13,773
I ne I think I might have owned their stock back in the day, sold it, but I think that
that was a move out of some version of desperation to save, you know, because they had

410
00:24:13,773 --> 00:24:23,917
plummeted, they'd cratered as an equity and p I mean, as you know, like in the world of
apparel and stuff, like brands go in and out of style very quickly.

411
00:24:23,917 --> 00:24:27,927
And so there was a period of time that everyone needed Alburns and

412
00:24:27,927 --> 00:24:29,408
That time is over, right?

413
00:24:29,408 --> 00:24:31,709
Well, I don't know what the new shoe is, but same thing happened.

414
00:24:31,709 --> 00:24:35,130
So I think part of it might have been desperation.

415
00:24:35,130 --> 00:24:39,242
But I here's where maybe but desperation is not necessarily always a bad reason to pivot.

416
00:24:39,242 --> 00:24:42,653
I mean, it's the reason we pivoted and it ended up being really good for us.

417
00:24:42,653 --> 00:24:51,317
And so I think the process that you go through, whether you're a four billion dollar shoe
company that has kind of hit h hard times or a tiny little startup that now can't do

418
00:24:51,317 --> 00:24:55,378
events is like, okay, well, what resources do we have available?

419
00:24:55,518 --> 00:24:57,259
What does our team look like?

420
00:24:57,333 --> 00:24:58,933
Where does the industry seem to be going?

421
00:24:58,933 --> 00:25:00,924
Like, where is their opportunity?

422
00:25:00,924 --> 00:25:02,775
What did we love about the previous business?

423
00:25:02,775 --> 00:25:04,125
What did we hate about it?

424
00:25:04,125 --> 00:25:04,545
Right.

425
00:25:04,545 --> 00:25:10,427
And you kind of put together this amalgamation of like data points of like, we c what we
think we can be pretty good at this.

426
00:25:10,427 --> 00:25:11,587
We hated doing that.

427
00:25:11,587 --> 00:25:13,488
Here's where the industry seems to be going.

428
00:25:13,488 --> 00:25:17,689
We're gonna get a ton of press about this because who's ever heard of a shoe company
turning into an AI company?

429
00:25:17,689 --> 00:25:18,709
That's like an asset.

430
00:25:18,709 --> 00:25:21,150
Just the fact that it's so crazy that people write about it.

431
00:25:21,150 --> 00:25:26,103
You put all this together and maybe you have some really good relationships with some
investors and and you know.

432
00:25:26,103 --> 00:25:27,133
I mean it's a crazy pivot.

433
00:25:27,133 --> 00:25:30,914
A lot of people made fun of them, but like crazier things have happened and they might
make it work.

434
00:25:30,914 --> 00:25:31,294
Who knows?

435
00:25:31,294 --> 00:25:40,737
I mean, they made the shoe company work and that was a pretty wild gamble on like what was
it, like New Zealand like or s whatever that was.

436
00:25:40,737 --> 00:25:46,869
Like so Yeah, I'm I don't I don't say desperation as a negative thing.

437
00:25:46,869 --> 00:25:51,090
I think desperation in hard times is like the mother of invention, right?

438
00:25:51,090 --> 00:25:54,331
Or I don't know if that's the actual quote, but like it produces some pretty

439
00:25:54,541 --> 00:25:59,797
Helpful thinking when you feel like, Okay, I can't operate normally, what do I have to do
to change things?

440
00:26:00,203 --> 00:26:05,757
Yeah, I I don't think if we take this to the the core reality of being a human, survival's
not a bad thing.

441
00:26:06,037 --> 00:26:07,378
No, not at all.

442
00:26:08,503 --> 00:26:16,527
What um can you now build three year plans and five year plans, business plans?

443
00:26:16,527 --> 00:26:17,919
Can you build these?

444
00:26:18,433 --> 00:26:22,096
I mean, I don't know who would be building that right now, to be completely honest.

445
00:26:22,096 --> 00:26:28,952
Unless you are like an Apple, maybe, but you know, and you know that you're gonna be
building the iPhone five years from now, okay, fine.

446
00:26:28,952 --> 00:26:29,472
We don't.

447
00:26:29,472 --> 00:26:31,590
We don't even have three month plans at Snapbar anymore.

448
00:26:31,590 --> 00:26:32,262
I mean, that's not true.

449
00:26:32,262 --> 00:26:35,745
But like generally, it doesn't go f far beyond three to six months.

450
00:26:35,745 --> 00:26:40,929
And we used to have l much longer plans, but things are moving so quickly.

451
00:26:40,970 --> 00:26:42,841
It's it's just kind of incredible.

452
00:26:42,841 --> 00:26:43,622
It's it's insane.

453
00:26:43,622 --> 00:26:46,574
I mean, we we are building products using AI.

454
00:26:46,620 --> 00:26:51,242
like vibe coding, but but not in the sense that vibe coding is like cheap and weird and
not working.

455
00:26:51,242 --> 00:26:52,773
Like our CTO is brilliant.

456
00:26:52,773 --> 00:26:54,153
He's talks on AI.

457
00:26:54,153 --> 00:26:56,724
He's got a YouTube channel with tens of thousands of followers.

458
00:26:56,724 --> 00:26:58,175
They listen to him about AI.

459
00:26:58,175 --> 00:27:02,557
And like he's built a very good system for us being able to contribute to the code base.

460
00:27:02,557 --> 00:27:10,951
And so we have three non-engineers at Snapbar contributing actively to the code base with
automated testing and he does minimal review.

461
00:27:10,951 --> 00:27:14,963
And like if I want to create a feature and launch it next week, I could do it.

462
00:27:14,963 --> 00:27:19,319
I mean I could create an entire sub product in our pla experiential marketing platform and
launch it.

463
00:27:19,319 --> 00:27:20,671
We just did that this past week.

464
00:27:20,671 --> 00:27:23,315
Literally had the idea, started working on it on Monday.

465
00:27:23,315 --> 00:27:25,056
It's in the code base.

466
00:27:25,237 --> 00:27:31,505
It has some refinement to do, but like a couple days, this would have taken us genuinely
would have taken us months and months to roll out.

467
00:27:31,505 --> 00:27:33,159
We probably would never have rolled it out.

468
00:27:33,159 --> 00:27:35,567
Yeah, you may not have allocated the r the revenue to do it.

469
00:27:35,567 --> 00:27:36,368
Yeah, no, no.

470
00:27:36,368 --> 00:27:36,679
Yeah.

471
00:27:36,679 --> 00:27:39,332
We're bootstrapped and we're we like being a small company.

472
00:27:39,332 --> 00:27:41,499
We definitely wouldn't have allocated the resources to do

473
00:27:41,499 --> 00:27:42,200
Yeah.

474
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:53,811
So what um what role right now, because you talked about your CTO, you talked about how
brilliant he is, and you could what role do you see AI agents playing in this?

475
00:27:54,567 --> 00:27:59,560
Yeah, well, I mean, agents are the thing that are building most of our products right now,
right?

476
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:09,689
So we the way that we talk about agents at Snapbar is not I mean, people throw the r the
word agent around a lot, but like i for anyone who's not like deep into the world of AI,

477
00:28:09,689 --> 00:28:12,611
just think of it like an a team member, an employee, right?

478
00:28:12,611 --> 00:28:13,671
That's what an agent is.

479
00:28:13,671 --> 00:28:15,102
They have specialized roles.

480
00:28:15,102 --> 00:28:17,934
You can ask them to do specific and different tasks.

481
00:28:17,934 --> 00:28:20,646
You can kick off a bunch of agents on a bunch of different projects.

482
00:28:20,646 --> 00:28:23,956
Just like if you're a manager, you can kick off a bunch of team members to work on a

483
00:28:23,956 --> 00:28:25,327
ton of projects.

484
00:28:25,828 --> 00:28:30,512
The clearer your instructions to an agent, the clearer the end goal, the better the
results.

485
00:28:30,512 --> 00:28:33,084
That's not unlike running a team of people.

486
00:28:33,084 --> 00:28:37,558
If you've if you've ever managed someone, that's pretty like it's good to be clear with
them.

487
00:28:37,558 --> 00:28:38,628
It's good to manage them well.

488
00:28:38,628 --> 00:28:41,180
It's good them to give them an end goal and what you expect.

489
00:28:41,206 --> 00:28:50,469
I mean, literally, like when you are using agents with Claude, you can, there's a new, you
know, you can click forward slash goal and define an end goal.

490
00:28:50,469 --> 00:28:52,390
And so before

491
00:28:52,390 --> 00:28:55,461
Mythos or no before Fable was banned by the US.

492
00:28:55,461 --> 00:28:56,674
I don't know if you heard about that, right?

493
00:28:56,674 --> 00:29:09,307
Like there was like this crazy um we were using it last week, and our CTO, who spent a lot
of time building out our platform, gave it a goal to find uh 50 bugs uh in the system, uh

494
00:29:09,307 --> 00:29:10,505
50 loopholes.

495
00:29:10,505 --> 00:29:13,047
T I and this c these can be tiny things.

496
00:29:13,047 --> 00:29:15,098
Uh and and the that was the goal.

497
00:29:15,098 --> 00:29:20,763
Like, well, it found 131 in the span of a five-hour stretch where it will like worked its
butt off.

498
00:29:20,763 --> 00:29:22,354
Then over the weekend it was

499
00:29:22,699 --> 00:29:28,354
you know, we we lost access, but we we've literally 131 bugs and we fixed them all
already.

500
00:29:28,354 --> 00:29:31,962
Like the the it is a lot of small stuff, but like it's pretty well.

501
00:29:32,018 --> 00:29:33,220
Why do you think they banned it?

502
00:29:33,220 --> 00:29:35,002
Because the concern of the banks?

503
00:29:35,002 --> 00:29:38,416
That's who came together a few weeks ago and they call it a late night meeting.

504
00:29:38,706 --> 00:29:39,146
Yeah.

505
00:29:39,146 --> 00:29:42,167
I mean, who knows what the real reasons are.

506
00:29:43,286 --> 00:29:48,269
I think I heard this guy that I really like online on LinkedIn explain it this way.

507
00:29:48,269 --> 00:29:49,869
His name's Nick Gray.

508
00:29:49,869 --> 00:30:01,553
He said the way to understand how dangerous some of these things are is like that you are
like imagine I'm a robber and I'm trying to do something harmful to you.

509
00:30:01,553 --> 00:30:06,452
Well, there's like a million different pieces to like my my my

510
00:30:06,452 --> 00:30:07,102
plan, right?

511
00:30:07,102 --> 00:30:13,125
And by harmful I mean like let's say I want to steal, uh I want to get access to your bank
account and drain all your funds.

512
00:30:13,346 --> 00:30:15,427
Well, but I'm not a hacker.

513
00:30:15,427 --> 00:30:16,588
So what do I do?

514
00:30:16,588 --> 00:30:20,430
Wanna be the first thing I do is I like track your car.

515
00:30:20,430 --> 00:30:21,710
So I put a little thing in your car.

516
00:30:21,710 --> 00:30:23,891
And so now I'm tracking where you drive around.

517
00:30:23,891 --> 00:30:31,245
And then and the next thing I do is I try to figure out like, okay, I need to get like um
I need to get like a a figure out what kind of lock he uses at his house.

518
00:30:31,245 --> 00:30:36,282
I'm putting together all these different pieces and I have to be so deliberate about it.

519
00:30:36,282 --> 00:30:45,821
And the end result, if I, for example, I mean I I'm speeding through kind of what he wrote
out, track your car, know your lock, get some type of like, you know, key fob that you use

520
00:30:45,821 --> 00:30:46,691
at your local gym.

521
00:30:46,691 --> 00:30:54,779
When you're at the gym, get into your locker, grab your phone, but leave your phone so you
don't cancel your accounts, but somehow get into your phone to like look at this and then

522
00:30:54,779 --> 00:30:58,692
on and on and on all these steps so that I finally somehow

523
00:30:58,738 --> 00:31:02,340
I'm able to brute force into your bank account and drain it, if that was even possible.

524
00:31:02,340 --> 00:31:08,714
Or or or let's say I knew you were into crypto, like this huge series of steps, all of
them by themselves, not very dangerous.

525
00:31:08,714 --> 00:31:19,860
Like me putting a tracker on your car doesn't seem like the end of the world, but like is
with like Fable or Mythos, like supposedly they were just so good at finding, say, 130

526
00:31:19,860 --> 00:31:21,791
bugs in this in our code base.

527
00:31:21,791 --> 00:31:27,774
All of them seemed small, but and we don't know this, we didn't ask for it to discover
this, but like what if.

528
00:31:28,276 --> 00:31:36,452
35 of those bugs could be pinged off of each other in a way that kind of allows for some
brute force attempt.

529
00:31:36,513 --> 00:31:48,002
When people supposedly, like it's you know, it was shut down because uh a team found out
how to jailbreak it, basically to get around some of the stuff that they put in place.

530
00:31:48,002 --> 00:31:48,683
Is that true?

531
00:31:48,683 --> 00:31:49,603
I have no idea.

532
00:31:49,603 --> 00:31:57,884
But the idea the the power behind some of these systems, what makes them powerful in
general, whether to code or to do nefarious things.

533
00:31:57,884 --> 00:32:06,499
Is that it it's not just like, that it can like go through and f that that that humans are
stupid and they couldn't find these bugs, but the AI is brilliant and it can.

534
00:32:06,499 --> 00:32:10,142
No, it's that like, yeah, humans can find a lot of the bugs, so can AI.

535
00:32:10,142 --> 00:32:21,999
But what takes humans a lot longer to do leave this very th fine thread between about
thirty five of them or something like that, and find this like mechanism of entry to a

536
00:32:21,999 --> 00:32:23,910
system that just

537
00:32:24,136 --> 00:32:25,267
would not occur naturally.

538
00:32:25,267 --> 00:32:29,951
Like we might all be able to look at the same data patterns, but that's one thing that AI
is.

539
00:32:29,951 --> 00:32:33,203
It's a pattern recognizable it's a pattern system, right?

540
00:32:33,203 --> 00:32:42,440
That's how it produces the words is patterns that you like are chat when when you're
chatting with it, it's predicting what's gonna come next based on patterns it understands.

541
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:47,284
That's the thing that makes it so crucial or so dangerous and and so crucial in certain
systems.

542
00:32:47,284 --> 00:32:49,960
And so yeah, is it true that it's

543
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:50,420
That's good.

544
00:32:50,420 --> 00:32:51,592
I do believe it's that good.

545
00:32:51,592 --> 00:32:55,356
What people were gonna do with it as a result if someone did jailbreak it, who knows?

546
00:32:55,356 --> 00:32:55,966
I have no idea.

547
00:32:55,966 --> 00:32:57,788
I'm sure there's so many other reasons.

548
00:32:57,906 --> 00:33:01,459
It's almost as if with that system, 'cause they'll continue refining it.

549
00:33:01,459 --> 00:33:02,820
There'll be more of them that come online.

550
00:33:02,820 --> 00:33:04,021
They'll be built privately.

551
00:33:04,021 --> 00:33:05,286
Nobody'll know they have 'em.

552
00:33:05,286 --> 00:33:07,905
Like that they go ahead and take two of them in the market system.

553
00:33:07,905 --> 00:33:12,228
The the issue is if those two aren't out, there's maybe a hundred private ones they don't
know about.

554
00:33:12,682 --> 00:33:13,122
A hundred cents.

555
00:33:13,122 --> 00:33:15,623
Yeah, but I mean it's it's just a matter of time.

556
00:33:15,636 --> 00:33:16,006
That's it.

557
00:33:16,006 --> 00:33:19,047
So it's almost as if with that system how I'm thinking about it.

558
00:33:19,047 --> 00:33:23,908
I wish we could remove politics away from all this, because when I invoke Elon, people try
to make it political.

559
00:33:23,908 --> 00:33:27,149
Until two years ago, nobody was making it political about the guy.

560
00:33:27,149 --> 00:33:32,471
And so but it's it's as if we all have we all we're all Elon with these systems.

561
00:33:32,831 --> 00:33:38,332
Because what if you heard Mark Andreessen talking about him, everybody says, What makes
these people so special?

562
00:33:38,332 --> 00:33:39,333
And he said something.

563
00:33:39,333 --> 00:33:40,923
I've been talking about this a lot recently.

564
00:33:40,923 --> 00:33:44,286
He said, Being around him, he takes the like

565
00:33:44,286 --> 00:33:56,754
Three most significant problems in his business and he solves them that we truly happens,
we all take six months to solve a big problem a lot of times.

566
00:33:56,754 --> 00:34:03,879
And so if it happens, the compounding factor of him solving problems, 152 problems every
year, are you kidding me?

567
00:34:03,879 --> 00:34:05,606
That's gonna outpace everyone.

568
00:34:05,606 --> 00:34:06,106
Yeah.

569
00:34:06,106 --> 00:34:13,945
And so using AI, maybe it'll allow us to all have the brain of Elon with all with all
social being nice to people, maybe.

570
00:34:15,139 --> 00:34:18,764
Yeah, I mean i the the guy is uh gifted in that sense.

571
00:34:18,764 --> 00:34:21,558
I mean I've I've I've observed him for a long time.

572
00:34:21,558 --> 00:34:29,618
I'm a big fan of the companies he builds, regardless of yeah, the political uh stuff that
he got into because

573
00:34:31,465 --> 00:34:40,972
As a kid, as a kid, man, like I just want to get back to this place of like your religion
and your politics, those things that you believe are irrelevant to me.

574
00:34:40,972 --> 00:34:42,713
Like, what are you doing as a human?

575
00:34:43,101 --> 00:34:43,381
Yeah.

576
00:34:43,381 --> 00:34:43,962
Yeah.

577
00:34:43,962 --> 00:34:44,683
Yeah.

578
00:34:44,683 --> 00:34:49,968
I mean and th they don't have to be I I I would say they don't even have to be irrelevant.

579
00:34:49,968 --> 00:34:54,492
They just don't have to like make you feel differently towards somebody.

580
00:34:54,492 --> 00:34:56,764
They are like 'cause they are relevant to everyone.

581
00:34:56,764 --> 00:35:01,990
But that's f like, just because something's relevant to you and not relevant to me doesn't
mean that all of a sudden we have this massive exactly.

582
00:35:01,990 --> 00:35:02,640
Right, exactly.

583
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:04,112
That's what I'm saying.

584
00:35:04,112 --> 00:35:04,436
Yeah, yeah.

585
00:35:04,436 --> 00:35:12,416
need to judge and so I'm like, you know what, guys, we need to play on our own little
sandbox here because if that's the world that we're creating, then they're gonna do it to

586
00:35:12,416 --> 00:35:13,367
us too.

587
00:35:13,768 --> 00:35:14,439
Yeah.

588
00:35:14,439 --> 00:35:16,441
I learned all sorts of stuff.

589
00:35:16,441 --> 00:35:18,643
I learned so much stuff from people I don't agree with.

590
00:35:18,643 --> 00:35:19,604
So much stuff.

591
00:35:19,604 --> 00:35:21,285
I love learning from people that I don't agree with.

592
00:35:21,285 --> 00:35:28,622
That's usually it's the best way to learn is actually from people that don't agree you
don't agree with because they have different perspectives and insights that you don't

593
00:35:28,622 --> 00:35:29,093
have.

594
00:35:29,093 --> 00:35:30,774
It's it's like growing up in a different culture.

595
00:35:30,774 --> 00:35:36,380
I don't love everything about every other culture on the planet, but there's a lot that I
do and you learn from it.

596
00:35:36,380 --> 00:35:39,302
And so I don't think yeah, I I don't know why.

597
00:35:40,148 --> 00:35:40,861
How'd you get there?

598
00:35:40,861 --> 00:35:42,306
Is is that what we're talking about?

599
00:35:42,306 --> 00:35:44,763
You have to have that ego death to get there.

600
00:35:47,070 --> 00:35:47,570
I don't know, man.

601
00:35:47,570 --> 00:35:49,732
I I I feel like I have an ego sometimes.

602
00:35:49,732 --> 00:35:51,153
I'm not the most humble person.

603
00:35:51,153 --> 00:35:52,592
I genuinely want to improve.

604
00:35:52,592 --> 00:35:53,845
I d I want to get better.

605
00:35:53,845 --> 00:35:55,376
I don't think I have all the solutions.

606
00:35:55,376 --> 00:35:57,738
I don't think like American culture is the best.

607
00:35:57,738 --> 00:36:00,119
I don't think my business is better than every other business.

608
00:36:00,119 --> 00:36:01,840
I don't think I'm smarter than every other person.

609
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:05,333
So because I genuinely think there's other value out there, right?

610
00:36:05,333 --> 00:36:09,956
I don't think any like I don't think that there's like some perfect standard.

611
00:36:12,030 --> 00:36:13,632
I don't think that there's like a perfect business.

612
00:36:13,632 --> 00:36:14,711
I don't think there's a perfect person.

613
00:36:14,711 --> 00:36:16,694
I don't think there's a perfect culture.

614
00:36:16,694 --> 00:36:23,461
So if that's the case, then there's a lot that I can pick up from a lot of different
things to create something new, something that I like.

615
00:36:23,461 --> 00:36:27,805
So like the culture of my family is probably very different than the culture of your
family.

616
00:36:27,805 --> 00:36:31,838
And I've kind of put it together with my wife and our kids, like to its own little thing.

617
00:36:31,838 --> 00:36:33,850
We have our own little family culture here.

618
00:36:33,850 --> 00:36:38,096
And might be and and it pulls from a lot of things that I like to that I like in

619
00:36:38,096 --> 00:36:46,299
literally other family cultures, different country cultures reason we travel a lot as a
family to try to like broaden our horizons and our our it's it's genuinely the reason I

620
00:36:46,299 --> 00:36:53,521
travel with my kids and we homeschool is because I wanted them to be exposed to like a lot
of different ideas, a lot of different businesses, a lot of different languages and

621
00:36:53,521 --> 00:36:54,970
cultures and people.

622
00:36:55,526 --> 00:37:03,804
I think that in this in the future, like that's gonna be if it's already important, I
think it's only going to grow more important because the world seems to be like

623
00:37:03,804 --> 00:37:04,847
More and more polarized.

624
00:37:04,847 --> 00:37:12,718
And so people that are able to like see past the polarization and actually like work in a
lot of different circles, I think it's going to be a superpower.

625
00:37:13,076 --> 00:37:17,792
So with saying all that, it it it allows me to go to ask a deep question.

626
00:37:17,792 --> 00:37:19,484
What really what matters?

627
00:37:20,394 --> 00:37:21,194
To me?

628
00:37:22,134 --> 00:37:22,866
It to me.

629
00:37:22,866 --> 00:37:24,198
Uh okay.

630
00:37:24,198 --> 00:37:27,140
So uh I happen to be a Christian, so my faith matters.

631
00:37:27,140 --> 00:37:30,383
I love my family, they matter a lot to me.

632
00:37:31,705 --> 00:37:42,334
my health matters a lot to me because it allows me to pr do things that I really care
about with my family with my kids, with my friends, with my family.

633
00:37:44,062 --> 00:37:44,962
Those things matter to me.

634
00:37:44,962 --> 00:37:47,964
I used to be incredibly ambitious about business.

635
00:37:48,144 --> 00:37:48,944
business matters to me.

636
00:37:48,944 --> 00:37:53,634
It's the way that I provide for my family, but I had a level of ambition that crippled me.

637
00:37:53,634 --> 00:37:59,195
I ended up becoming so obsessed with the success of the business that when it did well, I
was on Cloud9.

638
00:37:59,195 --> 00:38:09,424
And when it did poorly, I really struggled and ended up getting wildly stressed out and at
one point even had kind of like a panic attack back in during the pandemic when our

639
00:38:09,424 --> 00:38:10,504
business was

640
00:38:10,890 --> 00:38:14,572
plummeting very rapidly to its imminent death before we pivoted.

641
00:38:15,153 --> 00:38:17,584
And so I care a lot about business.

642
00:38:17,584 --> 00:38:18,735
Obviously I'm an entrepreneur.

643
00:38:18,735 --> 00:38:19,705
I love entrepreneurship.

644
00:38:19,705 --> 00:38:24,558
But like for me, yeah, I care a lot about those three first three things I mentioned.

645
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:25,413
Hmm.

646
00:38:25,413 --> 00:38:26,115
That's funny.

647
00:38:26,115 --> 00:38:31,730
That evolution, you never could have projected this being the thirty eight year old Sam
Coodjube in those moments.

648
00:38:32,306 --> 00:38:33,766
No, not at all.

649
00:38:33,967 --> 00:38:39,549
I'm a very different person today than I was when I was twenty eight and different at
twenty eight than I was at eighteen.

650
00:38:39,549 --> 00:38:47,672
It's like this evolution of who you are as a person, what you believe, how you think, what
you value in your family.

651
00:38:48,572 --> 00:38:51,353
My actions today are very different than they were at eighteen.

652
00:38:51,353 --> 00:38:53,444
You know, I'm not these I'm not the same person.

653
00:38:53,598 --> 00:38:57,274
So how would you mentor you have eight employees now, I believe, right?

654
00:38:57,526 --> 00:38:59,239
yeah, eight including me, so seven.

655
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:03,076
And technically one is two 'em are c co founders now, so whatever.

656
00:39:03,076 --> 00:39:04,306
There's eight of total.

657
00:39:05,095 --> 00:39:10,460
So how do do you think about this now being thirty eight and being so deep into this
entrepreneurial journey?

658
00:39:10,460 --> 00:39:13,283
Do you think about how you lead and mentor others?

659
00:39:13,283 --> 00:39:17,136
Because that could be the eighteen year old Sam and the twenty eight year old Sam.

660
00:39:17,672 --> 00:39:18,462
Yeah, 100%.

661
00:39:18,462 --> 00:39:20,923
Um, I think about it a lot.

662
00:39:22,123 --> 00:39:32,346
One of the things that um I sh I like the closest thing I've ever had to like a saying
that I say to my team, and I haven't said it in a hot minute, so thank you for reminding

663
00:39:32,346 --> 00:39:32,457
me.

664
00:39:32,457 --> 00:39:37,215
Uh I said it a lot over the course of the past five years when we were getting through
some really difficult times.

665
00:39:37,215 --> 00:39:44,290
Probably the hardest five year stretch was from 2020 to 2025, just because of all the ups
and downs and the pivots and the the team.

666
00:39:44,860 --> 00:39:49,111
like c we we would we I'd say culture is like compound interest, right?

667
00:39:49,111 --> 00:39:56,873
And anyone who understands compound interest like understands then where I'm going with
this, which is that you pour into it for a long time, not understanding, sometimes

668
00:39:56,873 --> 00:39:58,684
actually feeling like, gosh, this is a waste of time.

669
00:39:58,684 --> 00:40:02,655
I probably get things done faster if I was like say leading out of fear.

670
00:40:02,655 --> 00:40:10,117
Or with fear as a mechanism of of control, or with you know, greed as a mechanism of
control, or wh whatever the case may be.

671
00:40:10,117 --> 00:40:13,736
But culture like compound interest, you pour into it, you pour into it, you pour into it.

672
00:40:13,736 --> 00:40:17,378
And all of a sudden you realize, my goodness, like this is this is wild.

673
00:40:17,378 --> 00:40:21,481
Like this is what I was trying to get to all this time.

674
00:40:21,481 --> 00:40:25,934
It just takes time sometimes to really start showing up in the bank account, as it were.

675
00:40:25,934 --> 00:40:34,919
And so when it comes to mentoring, I don't see myself so much as like a mentor because I
still feel pretty young and some of my team members are older than I am.

676
00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:39,346
But I think a about it a lot is like, what kind of culture do I want?

677
00:40:39,346 --> 00:40:41,427
Again, I've talked about it as like in the country perspective.

678
00:40:41,427 --> 00:40:42,307
I talked about it in my family.

679
00:40:42,307 --> 00:40:43,567
I think about it in the business as well.

680
00:40:43,567 --> 00:40:45,858
Like what kind of business culture do we want?

681
00:40:45,858 --> 00:40:50,649
And in that process, like I've done a lot of work to try to make people feel very safe.

682
00:40:50,649 --> 00:40:58,042
Like genuinely not not like Sam's never gonna get upset at me or I could not be fired from
Snapbar but like safe as in like I'm honest with them.

683
00:40:58,042 --> 00:40:59,293
I want them to be honest with me.

684
00:40:59,293 --> 00:41:00,433
I really like them.

685
00:41:00,433 --> 00:41:04,754
I'm understanding of their humanity, of the fact that like I have days that I don't want
to work.

686
00:41:04,754 --> 00:41:08,007
They you know, just generally like make them feel safe, heard.

687
00:41:08,007 --> 00:41:09,779
Listen to them, like actually, if I can't.

688
00:41:09,779 --> 00:41:11,050
I'm not even great at this.

689
00:41:11,050 --> 00:41:16,955
Like I don't think I'm actually that great of a manager, but I've tried to create like
this culture of like that piece.

690
00:41:16,955 --> 00:41:20,888
But also at the same time, like we work hard, we innovate.

691
00:41:20,888 --> 00:41:24,401
We're not afraid to like burn the ships as it were and like jump into something new.

692
00:41:24,401 --> 00:41:33,248
I was pretty concerned when my co founder, my brother, who's a co founder, and then our
CTO who's brought on as co founder, we were like, We would we really want to get into AI,

693
00:41:33,248 --> 00:41:33,849
like deeply.

694
00:41:33,849 --> 00:41:35,600
Like we think that we should become an AI company.

695
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:36,841
This was a couple of years ago.

696
00:41:36,841 --> 00:41:38,552
When AI was first coming on board.

697
00:41:38,552 --> 00:41:40,674
Well, AI doesn't have like the best reputation, right?

698
00:41:40,674 --> 00:41:41,995
It doesn't take a genius to see that.

699
00:41:41,995 --> 00:41:47,497
Like there's a lot I mean, I think in polling, like it's there's more people that hate the
idea of it than like the idea of it.

700
00:41:47,497 --> 00:41:49,151
The the the CEO of Google, right?

701
00:41:49,151 --> 00:41:54,782
They just had all hundreds of students walk out on him in the yeah in in the in the speech
and graduate for set stand.

702
00:41:54,803 --> 00:41:55,563
Yep.

703
00:41:56,544 --> 00:41:58,404
It's a polarizing technology.

704
00:41:58,404 --> 00:42:01,885
Uh I was like, well, what's that gonna be like?

705
00:42:01,885 --> 00:42:04,466
But we think that this is where we need to be as a company.

706
00:42:04,466 --> 00:42:10,767
So how do we get the whole team to be just as not obsessed, but like really like AI native
as it were?

707
00:42:10,767 --> 00:42:11,538
Like we're going all in.

708
00:42:11,538 --> 00:42:20,100
We're really like our workflows are changing, our product is changing, everything about
our company is gonna change because we're gonna like embrace some of this AI technology

709
00:42:20,100 --> 00:42:22,791
and and hey, in the process we'll learn.

710
00:42:22,835 --> 00:42:25,286
Where it's lacking, it's not gonna go perfectly.

711
00:42:25,286 --> 00:42:27,217
But anyways, this was something I was a little bit scared about.

712
00:42:27,217 --> 00:42:28,287
Like, I wonder how this is gonna go.

713
00:42:28,287 --> 00:42:36,918
And it took time of just like not forcing people to use AI tools, which is like very much
the standard right now in corporate America of like, here you go, use this thing.

714
00:42:36,918 --> 00:42:40,312
I don't want you to do what you used to do, but like coaxing people into it.

715
00:42:40,312 --> 00:42:42,583
Some people didn't love the idea that I was like, okay, fine.

716
00:42:42,583 --> 00:42:47,505
Like, how about you just like take the worst part of your job, try to automate it using
AI?

717
00:42:47,505 --> 00:42:52,371
The worst part, the thing that you hate that you would love if I took off your plate and
gave to someone else.

718
00:42:52,371 --> 00:42:54,172
Just spend time trying to focus that.

719
00:42:54,172 --> 00:42:56,293
Keep doing the other stuff manually.

720
00:42:56,293 --> 00:42:57,753
And then they begin to experiment.

721
00:42:57,753 --> 00:43:02,285
And you you almost like begin to like, you know, baby baby steps, as it were, into this
idea.

722
00:43:02,285 --> 00:43:03,796
Like, okay, that's cool.

723
00:43:03,796 --> 00:43:12,540
Like now I understand the tool, but I mean, this is that's also like part of the business
culture, like not forcing people to do something, but like genuinely trying to like get

724
00:43:12,540 --> 00:43:13,700
them to understand the reasons.

725
00:43:13,700 --> 00:43:16,361
I don't know if you have kids, but like same thing with raising kids, right?

726
00:43:16,361 --> 00:43:20,905
You can force them to try really hard at a sport, or you can like

727
00:43:20,905 --> 00:43:28,433
try to grow a love for the game in them, which is gonna make them be a lot more interested
in what they are doing and how they're performing.

728
00:43:28,433 --> 00:43:36,371
Um, I've done this with I have a fifteen year old son, he's really into mountain biking
and he I used to try so hard to get him to work out.

729
00:43:36,371 --> 00:43:37,832
I was like, he he rides all the time.

730
00:43:37,832 --> 00:43:44,519
I was like, you gotta, you gotta like work out, strengthen your legs, like get your
fitness dialed that like from a cardio perspective didn't work.

731
00:43:45,427 --> 00:43:47,538
But you know, and and and I say try so hard.

732
00:43:47,538 --> 00:43:52,191
We were careful not to like push too hard on that because I thought I might he might end
up hate mountain biking.

733
00:43:52,191 --> 00:43:53,592
So I never forced him to do it.

734
00:43:53,592 --> 00:43:58,735
I would just try to I would ask him, I'd remind him, I'd I'd I'd try to even incentivize
him, wouldn't do it.

735
00:43:58,735 --> 00:44:02,117
But he kept but he he loved mountain biking, kept going.

736
00:44:02,798 --> 00:44:06,951
Then all of a sudden, like literally overnight, he like is using AI to build his own
workout plan.

737
00:44:06,951 --> 00:44:11,089
He's in the gym, he's going on runs, he completed a half marathon.

738
00:44:11,089 --> 00:44:19,433
And he's he's just like his progression like skyrocketed and and and placed he placed
sixth in the state in his cross country mountain biking in his category, not because of

739
00:44:19,433 --> 00:44:19,683
me.

740
00:44:19,683 --> 00:44:26,386
I mean I mean maybe I had something to do with it, but genuinely it's like because we
created this culture where like he still just loved mountain biking.

741
00:44:26,746 --> 00:44:28,557
Yes, we wanted him to to perform well.

742
00:44:28,557 --> 00:44:34,330
We thought that he could do better a lot of races if he had only followed our advice to do
X, Y, and Z, you know.

743
00:44:34,330 --> 00:44:37,871
Um I try to I try to do that in the company as well.

744
00:44:38,505 --> 00:44:45,238
Do you think that um I was just listening again to Ted Turner's biography or
autobiography.

745
00:44:45,238 --> 00:44:47,227
I was listening to it on Spotify or something.

746
00:44:47,227 --> 00:44:48,899
the guy who founded CNN.

747
00:44:48,899 --> 00:44:52,561
And uh right.

748
00:44:52,701 --> 00:44:54,732
Yeah, T A T and T, CNN, all of them.

749
00:44:54,732 --> 00:44:54,912
Okay.

750
00:44:54,912 --> 00:44:56,062
So yeah.

751
00:44:56,062 --> 00:45:00,604
But I was just listening to it again, and he talked that he was just like a hellraiser in
school.

752
00:45:00,604 --> 00:45:01,765
And different childhood.

753
00:45:01,765 --> 00:45:07,987
His parents would send him to like these military schools, and he said that for so long

754
00:45:07,987 --> 00:45:09,408
He was just anti the system.

755
00:45:09,408 --> 00:45:11,509
So he would do everything to break all the rules.

756
00:45:11,509 --> 00:45:13,070
He accepted the punishment.

757
00:45:13,070 --> 00:45:18,333
He he wore it as like a badge of pride that all the other students saw him having to be
punished.

758
00:45:18,333 --> 00:45:19,373
He didn't care.

759
00:45:19,373 --> 00:45:28,158
But something happened for him, his sophomore year, going into his junior year, that he
then wanted to do really well.

760
00:45:28,158 --> 00:45:30,739
And so he had to decide.

761
00:45:30,739 --> 00:45:35,934
And so that's the question here is how do you create the environment for your kids, for
employees, for partners?

762
00:45:35,934 --> 00:45:37,619
How do you create where they want to?

763
00:45:37,619 --> 00:45:39,590
That's the challenge we're all trying to figure out here.

764
00:45:39,590 --> 00:45:40,167
Yeah.

765
00:45:40,167 --> 00:45:40,647
100%.

766
00:45:40,647 --> 00:45:41,227
Yeah.

767
00:45:41,227 --> 00:45:43,788
I think any manager struggles with that.

768
00:45:43,788 --> 00:45:48,129
I think these massive companies like the likes of Google, Meta, et cetera, are struggling
with that right now.

769
00:45:48,129 --> 00:45:54,571
Like, how do you get tons of people to like adopt, you know, this new system, this new
way, et cetera?

770
00:45:54,571 --> 00:45:55,221
It's tough.

771
00:45:55,221 --> 00:45:59,032
I don't know if I have any of those answers, to be honest, but it takes time.

772
00:45:59,032 --> 00:46:03,613
It's again, I the compound interest thing is really real.

773
00:46:03,613 --> 00:46:04,674
It's like the best analogy.

774
00:46:04,674 --> 00:46:09,435
I can't I could come up with it because I have friends that work at Meta that work at some
of these big tech companies.

775
00:46:09,435 --> 00:46:10,075
And

776
00:46:10,075 --> 00:46:13,818
Very much right now, the way to get people to do what you want is fear.

777
00:46:13,818 --> 00:46:14,899
That's just what's happening.

778
00:46:14,899 --> 00:46:24,287
Like like I don't mean that they these these COs or anything are threatening, but like
even Brian Armstrong at Coinbase was like if you are not using AI tools, like you're gonna

779
00:46:24,287 --> 00:46:26,369
come s have a conversation with effectively.

780
00:46:26,369 --> 00:46:28,777
It means uh

781
00:46:28,777 --> 00:46:29,863
wouldn't that.

782
00:46:30,783 --> 00:46:31,383
You're not gonna be here.

783
00:46:31,383 --> 00:46:33,515
And I'm not opposed to that type of leadership, to be clear.

784
00:46:33,515 --> 00:46:36,815
Like, if you it you you like it's a very much a burn the ships type mentality.

785
00:46:36,815 --> 00:46:41,850
It's like I just think that if that's the only if that's the only option, fine, do it.

786
00:46:41,850 --> 00:46:42,980
Like that's what you need to do.

787
00:46:42,980 --> 00:46:48,874
A coach will come into a team and fundamentally changes the structure trajectory of the
team to get them to be champions someday.

788
00:46:48,874 --> 00:46:51,015
I'm not opposed to that kind of an idea.

789
00:46:51,315 --> 00:46:57,459
But the better idea, usually, the easier, the smoother option is to like build the type of
culture that

790
00:46:57,459 --> 00:47:05,565
br that that like surfaces these types of behaviors without you having to like, you know,
put a wrench into the system basically and like force it to happen.

791
00:47:05,565 --> 00:47:11,750
Because when you force anything to happen, there ends up being some casualties along the
way and it ends up being disruptive and on and on.

792
00:47:11,750 --> 00:47:14,012
And and it's not that you shouldn't or couldn't do that.

793
00:47:14,012 --> 00:47:17,414
It's just that I I like to play the long game in a lot of things that I do.

794
00:47:17,414 --> 00:47:19,317
Same thing with health, same thing with a lot of stuff.

795
00:47:19,317 --> 00:47:23,899
It's like try to I mean playing the long game is usually a pretty smart way to go.

796
00:47:24,051 --> 00:47:24,411
Yeah.

797
00:47:24,411 --> 00:47:24,953
All right.

798
00:47:24,953 --> 00:47:34,108
So as as we wind down here, I mean, I think I could sit here and riff with you for like
another hour, but as I as as we wind down, do you think there'll be a place for companies

799
00:47:34,108 --> 00:47:36,421
that aren't tech companies in the future?

800
00:47:37,139 --> 00:47:37,809
100%.

801
00:47:37,809 --> 00:47:42,961
In fact, I think that there'll be possibly for some types of companies an even bigger
place.

802
00:47:43,001 --> 00:47:47,503
I think you're gonna see like the craftsman movement, craftswoman movement explode.

803
00:47:47,503 --> 00:47:58,338
I think when you can use AI to fix things, build things, invent things on your own, and
then like make them a reality on your own, like you'll have all sorts of interesting

804
00:47:58,338 --> 00:47:58,888
opportunities.

805
00:47:58,888 --> 00:48:00,569
So I say that interesting.

806
00:48:00,569 --> 00:48:06,813
Like just because a company isn't a tech company, they can still use tech to do some very,
very manual things, right?

807
00:48:06,813 --> 00:48:09,004
That um I don't know.

808
00:48:09,004 --> 00:48:12,226
I it's probably never been easier to make your own jeans at home.

809
00:48:12,226 --> 00:48:13,247
Let's just put it that way.

810
00:48:13,247 --> 00:48:14,887
Now, do people make their own jeans at home?

811
00:48:14,887 --> 00:48:15,948
I have no clue.

812
00:48:15,948 --> 00:48:18,970
But I'd imagine that AI could teach you how to make jeans.

813
00:48:18,970 --> 00:48:25,613
And so I imagine that people making their own clothing, because people love to be very
unique and do super interesting things, is only going to grow, for example, as a trend.

814
00:48:25,613 --> 00:48:26,974
I'm sure YouTube will help with it.

815
00:48:26,974 --> 00:48:36,989
But also like, so I so I I generally I think that like this tech is enabling a lot of new
business ideas to become even more

816
00:48:39,143 --> 00:48:40,023
I don't know.

817
00:48:40,103 --> 00:48:44,217
It feels like the ultimate the ultimate leveling of the playing field.

818
00:48:44,285 --> 00:48:45,315
Yes, exactly.

819
00:48:45,315 --> 00:48:46,136
Exactly.

820
00:48:46,136 --> 00:48:53,218
I think if I was living in the United States of America thirty year hundred and more than
that one, two couple hundred years ago, and I was like going out west, right?

821
00:48:53,218 --> 00:49:00,280
There was like you compared to like, I don't know, seven hundred of the other families
going out west, usually it was like a pretty level playing field.

822
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:06,992
It was like you you know, there weren't if you were really, really smart, you were
probably gonna stay on the East Coast and run some business or work in finance or

823
00:49:06,992 --> 00:49:07,552
something like that.

824
00:49:07,552 --> 00:49:10,289
But like for the families that were just going out, it was like

825
00:49:10,289 --> 00:49:14,850
You kind of did whatever s small version of skill you had, and then you built on it.

826
00:49:14,850 --> 00:49:17,201
so maybe you were really good at like being a carpenter.

827
00:49:17,201 --> 00:49:19,582
Maybe you knew how to like raise cow, whatever.

828
00:49:19,582 --> 00:49:26,362
And you just kind of like lean into these things and you start this like equal playing
field because the access to information was pretty consistent.

829
00:49:26,362 --> 00:49:29,484
A lot of these people hadn't gone to school, you know, on and on.

830
00:49:29,484 --> 00:49:33,245
I think generally, like when you when information, which is what AI is, right?

831
00:49:33,245 --> 00:49:36,866
Intelligence is democratized in a sense.

832
00:49:37,486 --> 00:49:39,707
I I can tell from personal experience.

833
00:49:39,707 --> 00:49:41,108
I have fixed more things.

834
00:49:41,108 --> 00:49:42,957
I'm not a very handy guy, like mechanically.

835
00:49:42,957 --> 00:49:46,730
I fixed more things than I ever have in my life.

836
00:49:46,730 --> 00:49:51,272
From car issues to treadmill issues to dishwasher issues.

837
00:49:51,272 --> 00:49:53,743
I'm doing it myself now versus hiring an expert.

838
00:49:53,743 --> 00:49:56,433
Because I'm like, I don't know, I feel like I can.

839
00:49:56,854 --> 00:49:57,894
Why not?

840
00:49:58,114 --> 00:49:58,661
It's the emotional.

841
00:49:58,661 --> 00:50:00,317
I just think that's fascinating.

842
00:50:00,317 --> 00:50:03,528
Yeah, it's the I I just it's what I'm trying to eliminate the fear.

843
00:50:03,528 --> 00:50:04,448
It's here.

844
00:50:04,448 --> 00:50:06,089
People are gonna be using it.

845
00:50:06,089 --> 00:50:09,320
It just is the most efficient tool I've ever found in my life.

846
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:15,172
I just, you know, I was I was evaluating, I forget what I was doing last night.

847
00:50:15,172 --> 00:50:17,443
I don't know if I was using quad or if it was chat.

848
00:50:17,443 --> 00:50:18,573
I don't remember.

849
00:50:18,573 --> 00:50:25,245
But I compared the difference in cr business credit cards.

850
00:50:25,671 --> 00:50:26,631
Mm.

851
00:50:27,675 --> 00:50:31,358
And we had a conversation for probably two minutes about it.

852
00:50:32,339 --> 00:50:36,001
Used to that would have involved Google.

853
00:50:36,702 --> 00:50:38,724
Did I get to the right information?

854
00:50:38,724 --> 00:50:39,395
What's market?

855
00:50:39,395 --> 00:50:47,281
So it it probably reduced the amount of time that I collected all more information than I
was previously collected, because it puts side by sides.

856
00:50:47,281 --> 00:50:48,432
We're doing comparisons.

857
00:50:48,432 --> 00:50:49,824
And then even asks you at the end.

858
00:50:49,824 --> 00:50:55,297
It it comes up with a creative, intelligent question that maybe you didn't ask, like, hey,
are you interested in this?

859
00:50:55,378 --> 00:50:57,641
I was able to do in two minutes that.

860
00:50:57,641 --> 00:51:00,713
Probably would have taken me a half hour previously, maybe an hour.

861
00:51:01,814 --> 00:51:06,197
And if I'm applying that, see that could be used personally or in business.

862
00:51:06,197 --> 00:51:09,819
And if I'm applying that to my life, what I can do is two things.

863
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:15,083
I can use it to accomplish the same amount of tasks in a shorter amount of time so you can
enjoy your life more.

864
00:51:15,083 --> 00:51:21,177
Or you can significantly to your point compound your learning, outcome, business, and
production.

865
00:51:21,533 --> 00:51:22,123
Yeah.

866
00:51:22,123 --> 00:51:28,486
I think that there's gonna be a huge number of entrepreneurs in the future, greater number
than entrepreneurs than ever before.

867
00:51:28,486 --> 00:51:33,609
People are gonna find ways to start their own businesses, run their own businesses with
this type of help.

868
00:51:33,609 --> 00:51:37,551
And they're gonna have all these tiny niches of expertise.

869
00:51:37,551 --> 00:51:43,714
And it's just gonna be a lot less intimidating for people to do this kind of stuff because
business has always been some version of intimidating and risky.

870
00:51:43,714 --> 00:51:46,077
And with this intelligence layer

871
00:51:46,077 --> 00:51:52,640
leveling some of that playing field, of course you're still gonna, if you have the
tolerance of risk and if you have this natural instinct, then you're gonna probably like,

872
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:54,811
that's just gasoline to the fire, right?

873
00:51:54,811 --> 00:51:55,931
You're gonna do great.

874
00:51:55,931 --> 00:52:03,574
But but for the people that didn't, for the people that thought, I'm just gonna go for the
like standard company, 40 year career, not that that exists anymore, but you know, d the

875
00:52:03,574 --> 00:52:07,956
traditional ladder, I do think there's gonna more people starting their own businesses.

876
00:52:07,956 --> 00:52:10,357
And no they're not all gonna be tech businesses, right?

877
00:52:10,357 --> 00:52:12,998
I I think there's gonna be easier ways to discover those people.

878
00:52:12,998 --> 00:52:14,759
I think we're gonna be buying from

879
00:52:14,759 --> 00:52:20,867
More and more bakers and farmers and all this kind of stuff down the road versus just like
relying on a grocery store.

880
00:52:20,867 --> 00:52:21,408
don't know.

881
00:52:21,408 --> 00:52:22,489
I it's my prediction.

882
00:52:22,489 --> 00:52:23,390
I think it's very cool.

883
00:52:23,390 --> 00:52:24,041
It's very exciting.

884
00:52:24,041 --> 00:52:30,299
I love that thought that like there's just gonna be more and more opportunity to start
these things and then like

885
00:52:31,997 --> 00:52:32,689
Yeah, we'll see.

886
00:52:32,689 --> 00:52:33,479
I could be wrong.

887
00:52:33,479 --> 00:52:35,130
One so one more question as we wrap up here.

888
00:52:35,130 --> 00:52:35,973
I think this is important.

889
00:52:35,973 --> 00:52:39,527
I don't and I because I haven't heard most conversations get this far.

890
00:52:40,790 --> 00:52:47,559
How intelligent do we need to be individually, though, to know how to interact with what
AI has given us?

891
00:52:48,999 --> 00:52:51,181
Yeah, that takes a lot of discernment.

892
00:52:51,181 --> 00:52:59,337
Um I don't think yeah I don't even know if like how intelligent I don't know if
intelligence is the word in a sense, right, that I would like to use.

893
00:52:59,337 --> 00:53:00,649
Just problem solving to though.

894
00:53:00,649 --> 00:53:04,652
Like if someone would say is that person smart it's like can they identify a problem?

895
00:53:04,652 --> 00:53:07,117
Do you know what the truth is and then do you know what to do with

896
00:53:07,799 --> 00:53:08,320
Yeah.

897
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:08,920
Okay.

898
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:14,551
So I think that it's gonna boil down then to like how good people are at being curious and
asking questions.

899
00:53:14,551 --> 00:53:17,022
And what I mean by that is this AI is not perfect.

900
00:53:17,022 --> 00:53:20,113
It's getting better and better in some degrees, but it's still not perfect.

901
00:53:20,113 --> 00:53:26,625
So like the but the number there's a lot of people that will like read an AI answer and
just assume that it's gospel truth.

902
00:53:27,235 --> 00:53:34,345
there's some people that'll ask it to write an email, copy paste the email and send it
thinking AI is per this is this is the email that I should have written when it's not.

903
00:53:34,345 --> 00:53:42,236
doesn't s sound like them, doesn't sound real, doesn't doesn't communicate the thing that
they were trying to communicate in the best way that they could if they applied themselves

904
00:53:42,236 --> 00:53:42,868
a little bit more.

905
00:53:42,868 --> 00:53:45,189
Doesn't mean that you have to be super intelligent, right?

906
00:53:45,189 --> 00:53:48,740
But it does mean that you have to like be able or like you say problem solve.

907
00:53:48,740 --> 00:53:50,931
I said ask questions and be curious.

908
00:53:50,931 --> 00:53:57,843
Like don't look at what AI is producing and assume that just because it's very smart.

909
00:53:58,033 --> 00:54:01,524
It's better than what you know or understand about something.

910
00:54:01,524 --> 00:54:08,346
Like, I mean, I think we can all point to this, but like not all the smartest people in
the world do the best in whatever way you want to measure things.

911
00:54:08,346 --> 00:54:11,587
There's a lot of entrepreneurs that struggled in school.

912
00:54:11,587 --> 00:54:16,045
There's brilliant entrepreneurs that were dyslexic, that barely knew how to read growing
up.

913
00:54:16,045 --> 00:54:20,149
I mean, there's like you know it does not take a genius to like build something super
interesting.

914
00:54:20,149 --> 00:54:21,460
So intelligence is great.

915
00:54:21,460 --> 00:54:27,023
It's fa it's it's fantastic, it's a great leveler, but it does not like guarantee any sort
of outcome.

916
00:54:27,023 --> 00:54:29,896
Just because you have the intelligence of AI at your side.

917
00:54:29,896 --> 00:54:33,899
So I still think people are gonna need to be really curious about like, well, what's the
right question to ask?

918
00:54:33,899 --> 00:54:36,952
If you can ask it any question, what's the right question to ask?

919
00:54:36,952 --> 00:54:39,428
If you can write any prompt, what's the right prompt to ask?

920
00:54:39,428 --> 00:54:44,508
And then once you get an answer, you still have to be curious and ask the question, like,
was this the right answer?

921
00:54:44,508 --> 00:54:46,800
Because it's the same thing.

922
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:53,386
If I went out to like my smartest friends and asked three of them what I should do about
my business, three of them would probably give different answers.

923
00:54:53,386 --> 00:54:54,885
So who's right?

924
00:54:54,885 --> 00:55:01,741
I still have to like I still have to be the one that like curates all this intelligence
and turn it into like action.

925
00:55:01,741 --> 00:55:09,889
And so you know, people and there's already stories out there of like agents that or the
people with agents that didn't had didn't put guardrails and the agents are spending too

926
00:55:09,889 --> 00:55:10,670
much money.

927
00:55:10,670 --> 00:55:19,397
Or the business is saying, oh, use AI and the business didn't put caps on the spending
that and clawed and they're getting these hundreds of million dollar bills at the end of

928
00:55:19,397 --> 00:55:21,371
the month because of this token.

929
00:55:21,371 --> 00:55:23,772
maxing stuff and people are just using tokens.

930
00:55:23,772 --> 00:55:25,122
They're not using them intelligently.

931
00:55:25,122 --> 00:55:27,976
They're not being curious about how to use them or anything like that.

932
00:55:27,976 --> 00:55:38,823
And so I still s think there's like there's a massive amount of human kind of taste and
discernment that it is needed to like rein and harness the intelligence to productive

933
00:55:38,823 --> 00:55:39,613
ends.

934
00:55:40,095 --> 00:55:42,557
See, we need to still bring ourselves to an elite mind as humans.

935
00:55:42,557 --> 00:55:43,818
That's my word and my take.

936
00:55:43,818 --> 00:55:44,288
All right.

937
00:55:44,288 --> 00:55:48,142
So Sam, Sam from Snapbar give us the give us a final rift.

938
00:55:48,142 --> 00:55:52,607
Did we leave anything out about the message you're sending, about your branding, about
what you're doing with Snapbar?

939
00:55:52,607 --> 00:55:56,058
But think the the best format here is to learn who we are as humans.

940
00:55:56,058 --> 00:55:59,067
And if they like who we are as humans, maybe they dig into what our business is.

941
00:55:59,067 --> 00:55:59,872
But what what have we missed?

942
00:55:59,872 --> 00:56:00,712
Anything?

943
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:09,501
No, I mean I I am generally not the the hard sales guy or the one to say, you should
definitely like I think that if I said something that someone was like, that's

944
00:56:09,501 --> 00:56:10,833
interesting, then they'll go check it out.

945
00:56:10,833 --> 00:56:11,885
I love this conversation.

946
00:56:11,885 --> 00:56:13,266
I really appreciate it, Mark.

947
00:56:13,290 --> 00:56:14,233
Yeah, man, hundred percent.

948
00:56:14,233 --> 00:56:19,046
Thanks for joining and we went over a few minutes, but you West Coast folks, you're more
weighed back anyway.

949
00:56:19,476 --> 00:56:19,918
Yeah, man.

950
00:56:19,918 --> 00:56:24,155
I have Mediterranean lifestyle all the way, you know, about to head to my siesta.

951
00:56:24,266 --> 00:56:25,061
See, there you go.

952
00:56:25,061 --> 00:56:26,268
Hey, thanks for joining us, man.

953
00:56:26,268 --> 00:56:28,016
Much much much appreciation.