How Can You Tell A Guru from a Genius?

He founded a company called Great Western Resources, which was an oil exploration company. It sold for $450 million. Ten years later, his next big great venture is hosting masterminds to insecure dudes that want to be less insecure. For $30,000, he's made $36 million selling these masterminds what he's known for buying a castle in Scotland for $650,000. Supposedly, that castle is worth 32 million. Today they use their own AI voice agent to raise $8 million without ever speaking to an actual investor themselves. For those that listen, last week we talked about a guy named Frank Kern that was a somewhat controversial Internet marketer. The guy who taught Cardone and Tony Robbins how to be Cardone. Grant Cardone and Tony Robbins. I got another guy for you today, Nick. And you know who he is, and you love this guy. You ready?

Okay. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I love gurus, dude.

You're a guru guy. Okay, you ready?

Yes.

Dan Pena. Tell me what you know about this guy.

Oh, my gosh.

Because I went deep.

It's been a while since I've done research on Dampena, but if you've ever seen any of these Instagram videos of the guys who are like pumping up the sales guys, you know, there's like a trend right now where they want the hardcore guys. Andy Elliott's like this Andy Elliot.

You got to have a six pack.

To work for me, bro.

Right? Take your shirt off.

Dan pena is. He's 70 years old, hard a, lives in Florida and is just always spitting the most dramatic.

He's actually 80 years old, believe it or not. Is he born in 45?

It's very much like Jesper can do it. What does it matter? You're lying. He wants. There's a quote of him on video. He's like, listen, this whole bitcoin thing, I know who Satoshi is. I can't tell you, but when it's going to. When it comes out, there's going to be a lot of instability. I know, I know personally who he is. Like, oh my gosh, these guys. Anyways, that's Dan Pena.

I'm glad you said that because I'm going to switch up the order of what I was going to talk about. And I'm going to talk about Dan Pena's predictions of the future, hosted on his own website, danpena.co.uk. you ready for this?

Still?

Still, someone needs to update the website. If you're listening to me, please go update the website. Dan told us that Trump would win in a landslide victory this year.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Dan also told us. So no one listened. Dan told you so no one listened. There's a YouTube video to click on. And the YouTube video has been removed. Okay. Not sure what that one was.

Bad link happens.

Dan predicted that Rick Scott would be our next U.S. president. So still holding out for that one? No, this was years ago. Still holding out. It could still happen.

Hey, he's. He's one for two. He's batting.500. That's a good batting average.

That's okay. Dan predicted that cybersecurity would be a hot deal. That's bold. That's a hot deal. What, you don't know what a hot deal is?

It's going to be a hot deal. Yeah, that's the bet. That's the best prediction you could make because it just. It covered. It's so broad.

So, hey, he's two for three, though. I mean, it's hot.

He's gotten 666.

He predicted that Iran and Syria would be flattened by the U.S. okay, I.

Mean, Syria is flattened. Wasn't flattened by the U.S. but, okay. Hey, it's geopolitical signs of the United States. He can't be an expert in everything.

And he predicted that the greatest Mexican drug cartel boss of all time, El Chapo Guzman, would pay for the border wall, and he obviously did. Right.

In his defense, he did. He cut a check. I'm pretty sure he. It might have been all cash. I can't remember exactly how he paid for it.

Huh. So that's Dan's predictions, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. So I'm going to give you a little background on Dan. Okay? You ready? Born in Jacksonville, Florida, 1945. He threatened to kill his teacher by dropping a glass aquarium on them. And he talks about this in all his mastermind seminars. You know why? Do you know why?

I don't know.

Because he was abused by him. But wait, there's more. Not physically abused, but he put a dunce hat on him and made him sit in the corner.

Makes sense.

Okay, so he threatened punishment. He literally went on a balcony over his head and tried to drop an aquarium on his head. And now he brags about it. Stable. Genius.

He's not even telling that story as like, that I'm reformed.

No, he brags about it.

It's, It's. It's literally a negotiating tactic.

Right.

It's like, then anybody who negotiates with him, like, this guy freaking drop an aquarium on my head.

Yep. So as I Tell you these stories. I want you to start thinking of some frameworks of Dan Pena that we can apply for the betterment of ourselves in society. Okay.

Okay. Again, you and I never talk about this stuff. I have a story for you after this that we did not plan for.

Okay. And I've got a boat. Wait, there's more. So how's that for a rehook? Okay.

Okay.

So he founded a company called Great Western Resources, which was an oil exploration company in 1982, supposedly. Now, there are very few details or quote, proof that he actually did these things, but we do know that this was a real company. As far as what his ownership was in it or if he founded it or not, no one really knows. It sold for 450 million ten years later.

Wow.

Yeah.

1986, $450 million. That's a lot of money. In 1986.

92. He founded in 82, sold it in 92.

Oh, okay.

But he was also ousted from that company. Details are blurry. Maybe 91, maybe 93. We don't know. But it was listed. This company was listed on the London Stock Exchange. That is provable. We just don't know what his ownership was in it other than what he's told us. Okay. This was given at a seminar, one of his many mastermind seminars that cost $30,000 to attend. My favorite quote is, if I leave here with anyone liking me, I have failed.

Okay.

Can you dive in on that for me? Oh, my gosh.

It's a reverse psychology sales tactic, right? Like, you're. You're anchoring people in the very beginning, and you're getting them to buy into the Kool Aid. Like, oh, yeah, I'm. This is going to be fricking hardcore. I'm going to hate him by the end of this. It's very good framing for the kind of summer that he's going to put on, right? Like, yeah, he's establishing himself as the authority. I'm the authority. You're gonna hate me so much by the end of this because I'm gonna freaking whip you into shape.

Right?

And the people who are on the receiving end are like, yeah, this is gonna be so good for me. Oh, my gosh. This is. This is. This is fantastic. Like, they're just in this reciprocal feedback loop that he's setting up. So anyways, yeah, nutcase, keep going.

So he's no $30,000. He's known for buying a castle in Scotland, age 39, for $650,000. Do you know what that is worth today? Or not what the castle is worth, but after inflation, 650.

I'm going to guess 1.5.

Extremely close. 1.4 and change. Okay, wow. Okay, so supposedly that castle's worth 32 million today. But I just think it's funny because he, this is like his claim to fame is that he bought a castle. And that's like, that's like buying like a three bedroom house in Palo Alto today, like at that price. Right.

That's bloody great. That's a great deal on a castle.

He renovated the castle and that's where he holds his masterminds, which he has been holding for 30 years now. So after he makes a half a billion dollars, he makes it is. That is Gene. After he makes half a billion dollars with a B, supposedly. According to him, his next big great venture is hosting masterminds to insecure dudes that want to be less insecure. For $30,000, he's made $36 million selling these masterminds. What? How do you know that is quite provable? Because he has two or three a year. He has 20 to 25 people per, and they're $30,000 each. So assuming they're all sold out and he's had that many per year for 30 years, $36 million. But don't you want to know what framework he teaches at this mastermind, Nick?

I would love to. Yes. What does he teach these people?

I'm in the business of saving all of our listeners $30,000. So you're about to get $30,000 worth of value from the trillion dollar man himself. And I'll get into that nickname in a minute. And it's the QLA principle. And it's. These are actually, Nick, in all serious. These are mind blowing principles that you've never heard or thought of before. So are you ready for these?

I'm. Yes.

Number one, you ready? Reshape your mindset.

Okay.

It's a good place to start your success. It starts between your ears. I'm gonna like sit for 10 minutes and let you think about that before I go to number two.

Because your brain's between your ears.

Very good. Wow. You got that quick. Number two, set big audacious goals. Wow. Have you ever thought of that? No. Like, I usually think to set really small goals.

You know, in his defense, that's actually, that's a pretty good. That's a pretty good thing to teach. Keep going.

It's good. Number three, build a dream team. Hire smart people. I don't think I've ever heard anyone Say that before. Number four, identify and acquire businesses. We're just like getting straight. There we go, we go. Like, be smart, make good decisions. Go acquire businesses. Wait, wait, what? How'd you get there? I think you skipped a few things.

No, no, it's like, it's like, all right, I have no money, but I financed everything to come to this mastermind. $30,000.

Oh, I'm going to get to the no money thing. Don't worry.

What's step one? Step one, got to get that grind set. Can do. I got that. Got that grind set. Step two, set big goals. Easy. I'm gonna be a billionaire. Okay, okay. All right, what's next? What do I need to do next? Step three, assemble a team. Step four, identify and buy businesses. Okay, I can't even pull forward to pay for the team. How, how am I identifying and buying these businesses? Exactly. Step five, cash out, refi, start a course, sell it to millions of people.

But wait, Nick, he does get more specific. He especially encourages first time entrepreneurs to acquire businesses.

Okay.

And they should be distressed, ideally, and underperforming.

No way. This is really.

This is a framework, I swear. Yes. Okay. Okay. Number five. Okay, you're going to finance this business with no money down. How? Seller financing, obviously. And government grants, clearly. Number six. Number six, you're gonna grow the business. You're just gonna grow it. You're gonna say grow and it's just gonna do it. Okay?

That's how it works.

Number seven, you're gonna create a money machine. I don't know why that wasn't step one. Honestly, if that was step one, it could have saved us all a lot of time.

Is it a 3D printer? Is that like what the money machine is?

Yep. Step eight of eight, repeat and scale. That's it.

Oh.

$30,000 in three years.

What would he do? What would he do? If you're coming to him, you're like, I want to join your course, but I can't afford it. And he's like, it's $30,000. You got to figure out how to freaking make this money. Okay, okay, okay. What if I sell or finance it, Dan?

There you go. We hold the note.

Step four, will you hold the note? Are you going to sell or finance it or what? No, no, no. That's not what this means. That's not what this means. But you're saying it's a thirty thousand dollar investment in my future, right? Like it's going to set me up for success? Absolutely. Perfect seller. Finance it.

Dan, do you know why he refers to himself as the Trillion Dollar Man.

I don't know.

Because people that have been through his course have created a trillion dollars worth of value. Before or after they went through the course? Before or after either one. Either one. Imagine how much value J.K. rowling created by selling hundreds of millions of copies of Harry Potter. Think about it. Think about all the money that those readers made.

Wait, did J.K. rowling go through it?

No, I'm just saying, like, that framework of, like, if you made money, if you shook my hand once and then you made a million dollars, I created a million dollars worth of value.

Is there anybody out there who's, like, admitted to going through Dan Pena's Mastermind?

Yeah, There are several YouTube videos of guys that went through it and make fun of the entire thing. It's quite hilarious.

Oh, really?

In fact, one guy started convulsing and urinated on himself and threw up on himself during the seminar. And Dan Pena made fun of him the whole time as it was happening from the stage.

So that's pretty funny.

Yep.

I mean, in Dan's defense, what's he supposed to do? Call? Call a medic?

I don't know. So what good can we take from these principles? In all seriousness, what is there to learn from? Like, why is he successful? Nick?

Well, before we get into that, I have a story for you.

Okay.

Sold. I sold a business a few years ago, and the people that were really interested in this business were private equity people. I got a lot of inquiries, a lot of people reaching out.

Right.

It was a good business. We'd grown it. It was profitable. It was great. We were exiting. One of the groups that reached out was Dan Pena's group.

And so they said, I think I remember this.

Yeah. Before the call I get, it wasn't even a sim. Right. Because, like, the sin is what the seller would send them.

Explain what a SIM is.

So a sim, cim. Confidential Infor Information Memorandum. Usually it's what sellers provide to prospective buyers to tell them about their business. This is how long the business has been around. Here are the key customers. This is how much money we make. These are the contract, like, just everything about your business that a buyer would want to know initially. And then you hop on a call and you kind of dive into more. Well, they sent me, like, a SIM for their investment team, and front and center on their investment team was Dan Pena. Right. So this is like, Dan Pena's fund. And I looking back, I'm like, I don't know if they were. Just if he was just being used as like, hey, this media.

He might not have had anything to do with it.

Well, I think he had something to do with it, but I don't know if it was his money or if it was like, I'll lend you my likeness and you leverage that.

Right?

Anyways, so I get that. And I'm like, I was going to not take the meeting anyways, but I'm like, dan Pen is involved. I gotta take that meeting, bro.

And this is after you had been down like the, the Instagram reels Dan Pena rabbit hole. And we've been sending him back and forth.

Yeah, I, I was calling you, I called you about this. And because I was so excited, I'm like, dad, Pen. So I take the meeting with their team. Dan. Dan wasn't on. Probably better if I was like, Dan Pena was on, but he wasn't on. I want you to guess how the negotiations went.

It was a joke. I don't know.

They went exactly like you would think a Dan Pena negotiation would go. Hey, tell us about your business. Well, we're doing about $6 million in top line, 1.5 million in bottom line. Market comps are three to three to five times. So we're looking between five and $8 million of a purchase price. You're not going to get that like initially out of the gate. You're not going to get that like what? Yeah, you're not going to get. Market's not going to pay that. Here's what we're willing to offer. A million dollars financed over X period of time. And seriously, and you stay on, but you can earn an additional $5 million if you grow this business to million dollar business and with Dan's brand and with our backing. And I was like, is this for real? Is this like just like that? I said on the call, like this.

This is for real.

Like, are you kidding me? Have you seen what Dan's done? Like, and that's, that's how this conversation, it was the weirdest conversation. They thought they could just come in bull in a china shop. And I'm sure that they do buy businesses like that. I'm sure there are some idiots out there who are like, okay, yeah, I guess I'll sell. But I was like, yeah, it went exactly like I would have thought a Dan Pain Hill led negotiation strategy would have gone. It was so dumb.

And tell us what that ended up selling for.

Well, I can't tell you the exact number, but it sold for the range that I, that I named in the, in the Beginning.

And it didn't take all that long.

No, it sold really. It was a great business. It sold really quick.

Yeah.

So some of these, some of these guys are like, it's just a spray and pray kind of tactic. What can we take from Dampena? I mean, I think there's a couple things. I think the reason I'm so obsessed with gurus is because I'm infatuated by this level of confidence that is irrational because I don't have it. I just don't have it. You have a lot more confidence in me. But. But, you know, but you are nowhere near that level.

Right.

It's these guys who have like this God level complex and they are so confident that reasonable people like us look at them and say, what he's saying sounds unbelievable, but he's so confident he surely can't be lying about it.

Right? It's not a lie if you believe it.

And in many. George Costanza said, in many instances, though, that fundamental belief and drive has created value for them. Like a perfect example of this. Jesse Tinsley, he texted me like two weeks ago, I'm gonna buy TikTok. Ho ho, ho, ho, ho. And I'm like, you just bought Bench. TikTok's like a $20 billion company. And then there was like, he just wills it into existence. Somehow. He gets a meeting with Mr. Beast. He's convinced Mr. Beast to help him buy. Like he's literally in talks. I mean, I haven't seen the talks, but supposedly he's in talks with the US government about buying TikTok because he just spoke it into existence. So I am infatuated by these people who have an unshakable belief in themselves. Many of these gurus use it for evil, right, because they're just like trying to extract as much value out of people. But it's also a very strong trait in some of the best founders and entrepreneurs. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk. Like these guys that have just gone on to do great things. This like self belief that is unshakable.

And you know what? Like, you only have to be right once. Like you could make these bold, audacious claims and be wrong every time. And then once you're right, that really carries more weight than any of the wrong predictions that you had in yourself or what you were building. Like Elon Musk, he went and he.

Just said, all right, I sold this company. I'm going to buy a castle in Scotland. Like, there's tangible proof that he can point to, to say like, yeah, I'm successful.

I got.

I got a castle. So anyways, I think the unshakable belief is something I admire and I'm both terrified of at the same time. It's true in some of these people.

It's like the fire fest guy.

Yeah, dude, that's a perfect example because so many of us fake it till we make it. We're like, nah, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna.

Adam Newman.

We work like Adam Newman made out.

Like, he made it until the day he dies. He could raise as much money as he'd ever want despite his history because of that unshakable confidence.

Elon Musk, like, you've read his biography. How many times did he promise a rocket was going to take off or that we can have full self driving or we're going to have robots on, like, whatever it is. He's promised all these things. And while he may not have hit every single timeline, look at what he's accomplished. Like, he's still able to point to some of these things. So again, it's a trait. It's a trait that I both fear and in admiration of.

You know, the big difference is because, like, Alex Bromozi makes a lot, if not most of his money from conferences. A lot of people don't know that. Okay, the dip. So, like, they're both making millions of dollars doing the same thing, but what makes one of them? I don't want to call him a fraud because I don't want to get sued, but he has a poor reputation. And the other one, Alex Horosi, arguably has a great reputation, despite the fact that he's making millions of dollars selling courses and masterminds and high ticket X, Y or Z. In my opinion, it's because one of them is very specific. Alex Hormozi. He's written books. His books are extremely tactical. You're gonna go to Meta Ads Manager, you're gonna click on this, you're gonna use Advantage plus, you're gonna use broad targeting. Don't tell Meta what your audience is. And like, it's very specific. Granular, because he's sat down at a desk for 18 hours straight and done all these things. Right. Whereas the other guy is just talking like platitudes that are super broad and high level.

Yeah, it's the difference between the steak and the sizzle.

Right?

Like, or the, you know, the bark and the bite. They both are salesmen. They both talk a big game. They both are like, I can change your life, blah, blah, blah. But I think one of them delivers more tangibly for the target audience that they have.

So video is cool. But you know what's better? Long form audio via podcast and my newsletter, tkopod.com go there to subscribe for free to my newsletter. It's one email a week, very tactical. And then go to my audio podcast, three episodes a week. Stuff like this. You're gonna love it. All free. No sleazy sales pitch. Tko Pod.

A lot of those sales gurus strike me as very motivational. Hey, this is the kick in the pants that you need. Hey, oh, just do it. Just freaking grow up and do it. You're being a little baby and that's needed for many people. But bro is very tactical. It's like you, yes, you're going to get the motivational thing, but if you go and you pay for his course or you go and you buy his book, it's also like, oh, that's a really good strategy. Oh, holy crap. Like that. You can scale a business this way. So, like, I agree with you.

It's.

It's in the product offering itself. And I think that that goes for any entrepreneur. You've got to be good at sales, but you've got to make sure that what you're selling is actually backed up by a good product. Otherwise you're going to get the first couple sales, and then you're constantly going to need to be churning through people. Like, there's a reason that Dan Pena puts out content that is divisive or controversial. It's because he needs his name out there enough in order for people to keep coming to his courses. Whereas Alex isn't necessarily putting out the controversial stuff. The word of mouth from people who've gone to his conferences or the word of mouth from people who are sharing his posts because of the goodwill is really doing the work, the legwork for him. And that, like, that's the type of business that you want as an entrepreneur. You want the goodwill to be doing the legwork. You don't want to just be. Nick Huber is an example of like, I worry about following down sort of this painting path.

Right.

It's like, well, I got views, I got clicks, but is that the best way? It is for him right now?

Yeah. Are you ready for the grand finale of this segment for Tai Bow on it? Yeah. So during this deep dive, I learned that Dan Pena will basically go on any podcast that asks him. And so I emailed his publicist and invited him on the Hold Cobras podcast segment. And I don't have a yes yet, but I'm confident I can get a yes. And we will have him on here and ask him all kinds of hairy questions. At least you will because you like the awkward stuff and I don't.

Look, if he's generous enough to come on and give us his time, I'm not going to be rude to him.

No, not rude. I'm just talking about like hard hitting questions.

Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, I will, I will ask him things and he'll probably, I don't know a lot of those guys. Like Donald Trump's like this. He can take a good ribbing. Like he's very conversational. But if he feels like you're attacking him and adversarial, that's when he's gonna start just like hitting back on things. Right. So yeah, I would be curious to see what he's. What like Dan is like in a conversational setting?

Well, I think one of the questions needs to be listen and you can use the Trump tactic. A lot of people are saying, and they are on the Internet, a lot of people are saying that you don't have $500 million, that you never sold this, but that you didn't have much ownership in this business at all. In fact, where you made most of your Money is the $3.3 million lawsuit settlement you got for wrongful termination. A lot of people say that. Do you have any hard proof, a document, any sort of evidence, because this was pre Internet that you actually made all this money to prove the haters wrong? And he's probably, I don't care about the haters. He's probably like talk around it. I'd be very curious to hear his answer to that. The second question is, if you're so successful in business, why do you make of your money selling courses? Why aren't you starting other businesses? See what he says there?

I probably wouldn't ask him those direct questions.

I guess I'll have to do it.

Would you? You can do it. I would ask him things like, because it's so foreign to me. How do you reconcile like not having the things that you say you're having while you're doing it, even though you've eventually achieved it. Right. It's like it's the fake it till you make it on steroids, where you're projecting this ultra successful person. But if somebody came in and actually audited you, they would look at it, sit down and look at it and be like, it's actually not true. However, you needed that level of confidence, like how did. How did you. I don't know. I think he. I know. I'm not sure he's been divorced. I think he might be.

I think he's been married the whole time to the same woman. Right, right, right.

So, like, I would ask him. I'd be like, does your wife look at you? And like, damn, that's not true. Or, like, how does that conversation. Like, that's. I would be very curious about that particular piece of it, because I could never do that. I would. I would never be able to live with myself. But I'm sure he's got his, like, his way of convincing himself that it's fine. So, anyways.

And we're gonna have to pay a lot of money to Muhammad to edit that episode because he can be. He can be a little brash.

That's gonna be so funny. All right, all right. AI idea of the week. I was listening to your conversation with James Camp where you guys are talking about AI, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was, like, an awesome conversation. But one of the things that popped into my mind as I was listening to it was, if AI is going to make it so much easier for us to do outbound, to, like, reach out to people and have agents that are having conversations, it's probably going to be a hellscape for you, the consumer, in the future. You're just constantly going to be getting inbound, inbound, inbound, like, people asking you for things. And I. So I started thinking about it not from the business perspective of going outbound and generating, but from the consumer's perspective and being inbound and filtering. Do you think that there's a space for AI products to be built that assign value to information that's coming in or that interact with the inbound, such that you don't actually have to interact with them?

My episode with James Camp was split into two episodes. Did you listen to both of them or just one? Did you hear this segment where we talked about AI calling AI receiving? Is that what you're referring to? Yeah.

And then you talked about agents just having conversations with agents.

Yeah, yeah, this.

But this is what I'm getting at is, like, I think that there's a lot of focus right now on business owners who's like, oh, you can develop your own agent. This is how you train them. This is how you do it. So it's almost like the AI business is a services business to help business owners get up to speed on AI. Like, I did this tweet. I asked who's making Real money with AI right now. There were some decent answers, like there were some fine answers, but mostly what I'm seeing is people are making money off of AI by selling services, educating on AI, right? Like, hey, I can help you automate something, or I can help you implement something, or I can help you understand something.

And it's time saving services.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they're consulting services essentially on educating you on how to use AI. And those are great services. But like actually having AI in your business, there are only a few examples. One of them was answering calls after hours and logging them into the CRM. I thought that was great because you, you can't always have people on, on call. One idea that I really like is this crush the memory stick that Eric Kaiser has. He's going to come on the podcast and talk about that. But, but by and large, the main use cases right now for AI are time savings and some automation, right? Anyways, but it's, it's, we're largely thinking about it from the business owner's perspective, because we are business owners. But I started thinking about it from the consumer's perspective and, and I don't have an answer, but I wanted to brainstorm with you on this. Like, how could you create, on how to create their own agents so that these agents can become time savings for them, so that they can become an agent that will have a conversation with another agent, right? Like, how do you get them to understand what information is needed to train these agents and these models? How do you get them to understand what they're willing to assign to an agent versus what they're not willing to assign to an agent? Like, because like I said, it's going to be kind of a hellscape if all of a sudden just agents can be reaching out to us all day. There's got to be like the defense from the other side that is answering these agent queries.

I look at this a lot like I think about cyber security. Like in the 80s and 90s, I feel like there's always, we're going to oversimplify it and call the good guys and the bad guys. Since the dawn of time, there's been a push pull between the good guys and the bad guys. Talk about cybersecurity. Computers come out, the Internet comes out. The bad guys, quote, were the party that was the most sophisticated at the time, right? So these early Internet companies kept getting hacked because frankly, randos on the Internet that knew more about how to hack, they knew more about it than the companies. And of course because the founders of the companies, they knew how to build a business, how to market a business. They didn't know how to protect their business against cyber threats. Right? But then as more time goes on, then cyber security becomes like Dan Pina. It's going to be a hot thing, right? Cybersecurity becomes more of a hot thing. McAfee comes along, the bad guys start helping the good guys, so to speak, and companies are. Are better protected against bad actors around the world. Okay? So that push pole becomes a little more evenly weighted. There will always be hackers. There will always be people defending again against hackers. But who's first? Right? I look at it the same way. In this, in this sense, the marketers and the business guys are first. We're first, right? So consumers are going to get beginning spammed first from people like me with robocalls and emails and texts until, as you know, enough months or years down the line when the consumers have enough tools to defend themselves against the marketers and the spammers like me and you. So I just think we're so early on in this that, yeah, for a while, it's just, it's going to be really annoying. And I'm also a consumer. The dark arts, right? Defense against all the marketers out there that are going to use AI to spam them with ads and sales pitches at all times.

Well, and the reason I'm, I'm talking to you about it in particular is because who are going to be the best people to think up ways to stop this stuff from happening? It's the same people who are going to think up ways to do this stuff, right? Like, it's. If you're sitting there and you're like, okay, this is exactly how I'm going, and I'm scraping data. This is exactly how I'm going, and identifying who a good lead is. You can think of the other side of the equation and think, okay, if I'm getting this information from here, how would I make sure my information is not included on this? So, so in my mind, the supplier and the. I don't even know what the right word is, but you're like, you're like, you're like the pharmaceutical companies, not pharmaceutical companies.

You're.

You're selling the disease and you're selling the cure.

Oh, you know, disease. Sell the cure. Yeah, there it is.

There it is. Yeah. Yeah. So that's more why I'm bringing it up is because if you're already going through the thought process of thinking, how can I Automate XYZ things. I think there's also the other side of the equation of, like, how do I stop those XYZ things from automating to me? And then in that. Is there something.

How can I detect, like, a caller that's AI prematurely so they don't waste my time? Right, yeah, exactly. Cause I think those solutions exist for, like, text and for things that were generated by ChatGPT. ChatGPT has their own product for, like, educators to use to make sure the essays weren't written by ChatGPT. And then there's a whole ton of rappers that do the same thing. I was actually doing research on this before this podcast. It's still insanely early. And I don't think that these mechanisms exist for voice or for video or for other types of AI generated nonsense out there. Like on Instagram, there's a. There's people copying my ideas that are using. What is it? Hey, Gender. What the. The video avatar creator.

I know what you're talking about.

But, yeah, they're using AI tools to have these AI people talk about business ideas on Instagram and they talk like this, and it's robotic, and if you look closely at their lips, it doesn't match. And you can, like, if you're looking for it, you can tell it's AI. But then I go look in the comments and nobody, not one comment is like, dude, this is lame. This is AI. This is like, nobody knows. They don't know. It's so early. And on Instagram, when you go to post a reel, there's a toggle button, there's. That says, like, AI. Like, tell us that this is AI and who would ever use that, right? Why would you toggle that? Why isn't Instagram detecting it? Should they. There was news about a month ago about meta creating AI avatars of people. Did you see that?

No, I didn't.

Oh, man. Let me talk about that real quick. Okay, because this is really interesting.

We talked about frameworks with AI last week, and I talked about kind of my framework as I'm looking at businesses. But I think. I think there's opportunity to go the opposite way. Like, I was talking to somebody about content right now in content, very popular to, like, quick, get to the point, zip, zap, zip, Camera angles, changes, whatever. But then you can go the opposite way. And like, all right, I'm gonna talk a little slower. It's gonna be a little longer video. And you're essentially, you know, zigging when everyone else is zagging. So there are probably businesses like that where everyone's thinking, oh, AI, AI. I'm going to go the opposite way. And it may not be as big of a market, but it could be a really great business.

Yeah. So Meta created these AI avatars, basically influencers. And there's a little. There's a little disclaimer on the profile that's like, I'm AI, but it's hard to see. So this was in a Mashable article. One of them was called Liv, and her profile says, proud Black Queer, Mama of two, and Truth Teller, Heart emoji, Rainbow Emoji, your realest source for life's up and downs. Let's chat. And then all of the pictures she posts on Instagram are all AI generated. She's not a real person. Her face. It's all AI generated. And they shut it down after like 48 hours. There was another guy. Grandpa Brian, a black retired businessman, and Carter, a dating coach. The discovery of these profiles led to an outroar on Twitter, Blue sky and Meta owned threads. There was 28 AI profiles, and it ended up deleting all of them because of the outlash backlash.

Were there videos or were these just like, Facebook pages?

There were Instagram and Facebook pages.

Geez louise.

And you can message them. They posted stuff. They would reply to your comments. And it's all fake.

Maybe that's a part of it is like, there's a package. You could help someone. You could sell to somebody to help create their own personal assistant. And you use something like, gosh, what was the software you used that tracked everything across your Mac?

Oh, rewind, rewind.

And it's like, all right, record your conversations for two weeks, and then we will take that data, put it into a system, and create your digital assistant. And maybe it's longer than two weeks, I don't know. Then what spits out is a digital agent that works on your behalf. That's your. That's your assistant.

Did you hear about that startup called BORDY that raised $8 million with AI?

No. Is that the one you posted about?

Yeah. They have this networking feature where AI will call you and, like, ask you questions like, my name's Nick, I live in Boise. This is what I do. And it's like, hey, I know just the guy for you. And they'll connect you with real people. It's an AI voice engine. And so they use their own product to raise $8 million without ever speaking to an actual investor themselves. Oh, my gosh.

Really?

Major asterisk. Like, I guarantee you, they didn't actually sign the docs and accept the wire. Before, like, I'm sure it was just like, yeah, we'll invest 8 million. We raised 8 million. You know, it was more of like a verbal thing, but still pretty crazy. What we're, what we're getting to. Yeah. Okay.

I've been, I've been doing this thought exercise that I think would be really interesting. AI is just advancing so fast that by the end of the year, supposedly we're going to have PhD level autonomous agents working on our behalf. Supposedly, that's, that's the thought. What I would do if I was anybody. I tried to do this yesterday, I'm trying to do it today as well. I just spend an hour and think, what would I do with somebody who had a PhD level of education that would work autonomously? What would that. Like, it could be your current business, it could be a business that you want to start, but what would that do? What would that free up and start thinking about how you would actually use them, even mapping out the processes. Because you know this, there's only a short window of time for you to take advantage of these arbitrages. Everybody's going to catch up at some point, but when they first come out, when they're finally available, if that's when you start thinking about how you're going to use them, what tasks you're going to give them, how they're going to communicate back to you, what they're going to do, what the metrics, metrics of success are, how you're going to communicate to them when you check in on them, like all of those things. If that's the first time you're thinking about it, then you're going to be three to six months behind people who are like you and I, thinking about it today. And we are going to be able to exploit the opportunities in that short window of time. And it is, it's going to be very, a very short window of time. So I would be thinking about like, okay, what would I do with somebody with a PhD right now? What would I. What would you do? How would you use them either to start a business or to grow your business or whatever?

Here's another framework that goes in line with that. Completely agree with that. Go to your, to your Chat GPT thread and ask it to tell you what all your, your prompts have been. I just did this. What are all my prompts in this thread? They're there. Okay, cool. I remember. Now start thinking of how can you productize your prompts? Because I was just looking at all these AI tools to prepare for this. And you know, my favorite meme is the format of the astronaut out in space looking at Earth, and another astronaut behind him with a gun pointed his head and it says, always has been.

Always has been.

Yes. So there's one that I saw, and he was looking at the earth, and the earth was like, split open, and it was cake inside. You know, like, is it cake? And the astronaut goes, wait, is it all cake? And he says, always has been. Okay, so I'm looking at. I'm looking. I know I'm looking at these thousands of AI tools, and they're. They're all wrappers, they're all chat GPT wrappers. And really, if you boil it down even more, they're all prompts. It's all prompts. Productize your prompts. So go ask ChatGPT what your prompts have been. Or go scroll and look at what your prompts have been. And then think, how can I convert that prompt to an agent? Or how can I convert that prompt to an app or to a tool, a product or a service? I was looking at this AI tool and they're download. They're getting thousands of downloads per month. It's an iPhone app. It's called Sugar Free. And all you do is you take a picture of an ingredient panel and you upload it and it's like, oh, yeah, this, this random ingredient here that's actually sugar. Like it's carbs, but it turns to sugar. Like these things that you've never heard of and you can't pronounce that sugar. That sugar. That sugar. That's literally one prompt. That's it.

I was gonna ask you. So I, like, I've been spending a ton of time on prompt Base. I thought it was super fascinating, and I've been taking notes of like, hey, what are all the prompts that I'm looking for that are not currently on prompt base? And like, I could make those my own prompts and sell them on prompt base. I think that's one easy way to do that. But these prompts are cheap. They're like between a dollar and five dollars. Maybe they're $20 if they're like very hyper specific, but whatever. But they're. They're cheap. When you go to buy it, it's like, you'll get 50 free credits with this purchase. Why would I need any credits if they're giving me the prompt? Don't I just put that into my own chat GPT? Or do I have to continually pay for the credit usage. Is it like a razor blade? Razors model?

I don't know. I've never used promptbase. I've never bought anything from it. Okay.

I may have to buy something just to see.

So take your prompt. You can sell it. Cool. Or you can turn it into an app, because it's just like, ChatGPT can do all of these things that these apps getting millions of downloads are doing. Doesn't matter.

It's 100. True. And, like, I've started getting way more into GPTs. Like, how many custom GPTs do you have?

Not a lot. Just three or four.

Three or four? I'm at, like, three. And it takes a long time to set them up. And I was talking to Zach today, and he was like, actually, that's not the best use case for G for GPTs. Like, really? And he starts telling me that, you know, what's actually a better use case for them and how to use them. And so I still think there's so many ways that we don't even know the best way to use this stuff, and it's because we can't spend 20 hours a day trying to figure it out. Mm.

Zach knows a lot more than I do about that.

He's doing some cool stuff, man.

He was at my house on Sunday. Was he? Yeah, we had him over for breakfast. They were driving to Atlanta.

Oh, sweet. No, hot Lana.

That's right.

All right, let's call it.

That's it. All right. What'd you think? Please share it with a friend, and we'll see you next time on the Kerner Office.