AI, Influence & the END of Jobs? || The Future of Business with Samy Samandjeu #177

Welcome to the Homefront, everybody. This is Jeff Duden. If you grew up in a house where there were 20 homes in your village in Cameroon, if your mom left school at age 12 to support her family working odd jobs and eventually owned her own gas station, only to sell it all to move the family to France for a chance at a better and new life, if you studied economics in Spain and Switzerland and in the summer at Harvard and went on to found companies like Creative App, a fintech startup connecting influencers to commerce, your name can only be Sami Samanju. Welcome, Sami.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Happy to be here.

Yeah, it's great. Great to have you on. You're coming to us from the UK today?

Yes, actually today I'm in Germany, but yeah, my home, my base is London.

I would like to start at Influencers. And you have you started a talent business and you realized very quickly? I think the average age of a talent business owner was 72 years old. And you recognize that there was an opportunity inside of the talent and modeling and representation business to do things a little differently. And then that led to this creation of this creative app, which is a marketplace, I believe, for influencers. Can anybody be an influencer today? And what is your view of social media and influence as it relates to commerce and the opportunities therein?

I think it's quite incredible, this power that social media has given us to freedom to market ourselves, to tell our own story, to have a voice. And I think anybody today can be that voice, can market themselves and say, this is who I am, and will relate to that truth. If we step back a little bit and look at where does that come from. We have the radio, then we had the TVs and a big corporation at the monopoly on marketing. The celebrities they wanted to market, the movie stars they wanted to market, and then the iPhone come and this explosion of social media, which awakened a full new wave of creators who said, hey, us too have a story to tell. Us too have a story to share. Us too can build products and sell them to people who actually need them, develop solutions. So I really believe we are just at the beginning of the wave of. Back in 2014, 2015, when I started seeing that shift happening, it actually came from a friend of mine in school. He sat next to me and he said, hey, Sami, you're thinking about finance and you're studying all these numbers all the time, but social media actually is the biggest booming market and it's just day one. So I went into building a little API during the Summer school with my friends on the campus. And that API could scrape everything that has an in a bio. And back in the days what are the ads in an Instagram bios where the emails address of brands. So I say hey, get everything that was ad of brands based in Paris, France. And I will get those emails and automate a marketing mail out to those brands and I will say hey, do you want to work with this influencer in exchange of gifts? And back in the days I could only send 198 emails per day because after 200 Google will block you. So that gave me an insanely positive answer. 201415 Instagram it was just the beginning of that thing. So all these models who I was friends with in from, you know, going out in Paris, they started being like oh my God, you managed to get free clothes, free trips, free hotels from for this model. Can you do it for me? So I started to get close to them and I would go to their modeling agencies and say how does representation? All of them will send me the contract. And nobody has mentioned social media. And I was like wow, so you are taking ownership of the image rights and managing the image rights of these models in specific location. But the biggest location of all digital. You don't see it coming. How come? So what I did, I signed, I drafted a one page contract exclusivity. Only social media. You can do whatever you want for print advertising, merchandising, but anything that you do on social media goes through me. And these agencies because they didn't see coming were like oh no problem. Social media is not a real thing. It's going to fall. The incumbents always have to fight their position. So I understood them. But at the time I was still actually I was going in the library every day, using it at my office and started working from the library. I will never go to any classes. My mom just we had a deal. I'll just pass the exams and I will go and stay in the library and work. In the first year we already made a million and it was just the beginning. But today what is happening on the different with TikTok that is available with all these streamers so many more people have the ability to tell their stories. And more importantly, so many more people have can become free, financially free, take ownership back of their time and truly show who they are as a standalone human being and not anymore lay and put their trust and their faith in the future in the hand of their corporations. Because I think we have entered the age of liberations for all of us.

I saw some statistics late last year I was getting involved in a project and the market in the US I think was $27 billion in advertising dollars that was going to be spent on social media. And I think by 2030 it was going to be $50 billion or some incredible amount. It was going to eclipse traditional media, television, all of these types of things and people that have been early to it like yourself and then many of these ultra celebrities, some of which weren't celebrities for anything else other than social media, have taken real estate and captured it early. My question to you is, can you even own a business now and not be on social media?

It's virtually impossible just for one reason. It's people buy from what they know when they see your face. It's not anymore. We are not, we have passed the stage in society where we build brands names. Now we are in the age of personal branding. So you have, as you said rightfully, you need to own a real estate about who you are and what are your product and what you stand for. Because the first thing people do when they go on social media when they want to buy your product is to look into social media. And statistically right now the entire marketing and influencer space globally is worth around 250 billion. According to Goldman Sachs is shooting to 500 billion. So what does it say is 90% of Gen Z, they don't know the TV all the time. All their purchasing decisions come from social media platforms. If you, and that's simple because they don't have this time anymore to sit in front of TV and watch a movie for three hours. If you look at your statistic into Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, it's 60 seconds. The attention span of anybody on those platform. If your video, your content is longer than 60 seconds, nobody's watching it. Imagine TV shows. It's so hard, it's so hard to captivate the attention for someone for two hours, three hours. It doesn't happen anymore.

And if you're watching a television show when a commercial comes on that I can't fast forward through, I'm not watching it, I'm getting up, I'm using the bathroom, I'm going to go to the refrigerator. Like I'm not going to sit there and stare at the television where on social media the ads, they're invasive and they're, you know, they're incredibly invasive. They're right in your face. You can't get away from them. And the amount of impression for you.

They are for you. That's the, that's the biggest difference between TV and social media. TV is built for everybody. Those programs are built for everybody and anybody. But on social media, the algorithm are so good at understanding who you are, what are your subconscious triggers and what are your needs that every single ad that is feeding you, it's making you want to take that purchasing decisions. TV is totally ending. What we are going to see coming next, the personalization and even the streaming platform, what that playing around is you being able to directly purchase all the product that you see in the shows because they understand it's all about TVs there to market. How those TVs make money is to sell because they sell advertising space. It's all the same game.

That's right. Sami, I'd like to go back and just quickly through how you grew up. You grew up in Cameroon, a village of 20 homes, and then you moved to Paris, I believe, when you were five years old. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct. Actually, my story starts with my grandma. You know, she was a very brave woman. She was selling fruits in a store market. And when my mom was 12, she had a car accident, so she lost all her teeth. She couldn't sell her fruits anymore. And so my mom took the decision to stop going to school to support her family. And my mom started being hairdresser, doing all these small jobs. And in doing those jobs, she was doing the hair of very wealthy woman, especially here. My husband made that much money, My husband needs that much money. And she'll connect people. She'll become a great connector. Based on that, she made some commissions. And with those commissions, one day she saved all of them. Flew to Turkey without speaking a single word of English, flew to turkey, bought cathodic TVs. The big TVs was charming the soldier on the tarmac of the airport. And they would carry the TVs for her on the plane. So when she flew back to Africa, she started selling them to so many different hotels and. And those hotels she made so much money that she had an import and export business. And by 27, 28, she owned a gas station. She was just a pure hustler.

Where did she learn that skill?

I honestly.

Was it out of. Was it out of necessity? I mean, sometimes entrepreneurs. Yeah. Yeah. How many brothers and sisters drive me.

Personally, I have two brothers and one sister, so we have four. But it's literally my mom, the hustle. Even in my family, the way we actually left the country is that she wanted to start political parties and all these things. And she realized that she cannot do that in cameroon in the 90s. And she said, okay, I need to do more for my kids. 12 July 1998, we flew back. And I remember that date exactly because when I left where we landed in Charles de Gaulle Airport, France won the World cup against Brazil. So it's literally like my memories activate and I see people jumping the tarmac, celebrating and us, ourselves celebrating. Wow, this is a beautiful life. And literally the next day, she put us in a room with me, my, my two brothers and my sister Solange and say, listen kids, I bought flats for. And we're 70, 80, all my cousins were there. She bought flats for everybody in Paris, in London, said, we all start here from now. All the money she had ever saved. And she said, the only money I've left is for private school. Who wants to go to private school? Me and Lionel, we raised our hands. Lionel became a lawyer. Steve said, hey, I want to play soccer. He became a professional soccer player. My sister became a nanny because she was already older than us. And it was really the sheer will of my mom to want more for her family.

And how did you, what kind of student were you growing up?

A terrible student, because my mom told me what I knew about business. If you ever meet her, she. She would say that she planned my life for me because at school I had so much energy. To this day, this energy, this flame, this flame, this fire inside of me was already there. So imagine when you tell a 7, 8, 9, 10, 15 years old kid, hey, you have to say, sitting in a chair for seven hours, that energy is just like bursting out there. So I wasn't a good student. But my dad always told me, you just need to be good at math. The rest doesn't matter. History, books, every single prison rewrite history, you don't care about that. Economics, you'll see later. Said math, math, math is the truth that stays.

Yeah, I believe that to be true. So how did you. So you were. You went to private school and then somehow you ended up in university in Switzerland or in Spain. How did that work?

So the last year I'm in private school. I've been in boarding school my entire life almost. And because my mom was always traveling and my dad was back in Cameroon because he was working there. So the last year I realized that I was playing football. So I was also very good at soccer. And the last year I realized that all my classmates started really studying hard and starting talking about the future, what they will do. That's another proof, by the way, that you are really the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. Because in private school they block you into that circle of people who are building the future that envisioning what they're going to do next. Because if at that precise moment I was in public school, I will have definitely never focused on studying. But that last year everyone was doing so. So I was like, oh, nobody wants to play with me and hang out and do stupid things with me so let me do what they are doing so I will just focus on studying. And I managed to have one of the best grades in the school just because I have the same strategy. Always give me two months. My brain can absorb anything in two months, even if I've never looked into it. And from there I looked around and I went to the French Cacao is the trading, it's like the nasdaq. And I went into the website and I looked at the 40 biggest capitalization in France. 40 white men, 38 from the same school called Polytechnic. And I said, okay, that will never be me. So I don't click any category because I always add had the aspiration to be leading companies and businesses. So I started looking around at different countries and I looked up into the us, into Canada, into Switzerland and my mom said, hey, Switzerland is very close, we can come visit you. And I applied and because of my grades I was accepted. And I was like, yes, let's go to Switzerland for a new adventure. And I end up in one of the greatest universities in Switzerland or Commerce HEC in Lausanne. Basically.

What'S amazing as I continue to talk to entrepreneurs is the natural way that they look at opportunities and the way that they fail to see the risk and the downside and they fail to put self limiting beliefs on themselves. And it's, you know, you looked at the, you came from, you know, Cameroon and you move to an entirely new country and you, you make your way there and then you're like, where, where in the world would be the best place that I could go? And it's, I tell you, it's. I deal with a lot of young people now and they have a hard time opening their eyes to opportunities that are outside of it. Your mom must have been an incredible influence in your life. What was one or two things that she said to you over the years that stuck with you and made you who you are today?

It's not only something that stuck with me is my entire family started with my mom, but they called me since I'm zero. You are the chosen one. You are the Chosen one. You are the chosen one. To this day, my siblings, my nephews, now they all call me the chosen one. Just because they have seen me in my life facing incredibly difficult situation and getting purged so many times and managing to alchemize those situations into incredible outcomes. And because of. But they. Because they instilled in me that I'm the chosen one. So I'm willing to take those risks because I blamefully believe that that situation, I will turn it into something exquisite. But because they told me, life is a game, you have to play the game. And it's not about the card that you get dealt with is the. Is the how you play the card. So sometimes you believe that. You know, we'll certainly go through it later in talking about business, but it's never about you. It's like, we take things so personally, especially this generation. We take things so hard and be like, oh my God, I have to deal with this. But how do you reframe this into your brain and be like, how exciting. I get to play this game. How exciting. My business is failing. How do I get out of this? Oh, how do I deal with a negative situation and turn it into a positive. In French we have this saying that says, give me your mud and I will turn it into gold. And my mom always say, you are the golden generation, Sammy. You are here as a prophet to liberate us. So please go and do and be you and take the craziest risk you can take, because in some ways, you always make it work. So I did.

Was the first business you started, the talent agency?

It wasn't actually my first business. My first real business was because I've always been friends with way older people than me and in Bernard school. So my first business was in Switzerland when I was selling. So we had these crazy exams that were super hard, and the people above my grade would give me because I would play football, soccer with them, and they will give me all the past exams and I will combine them together, create a system to answer the questions super easily, and I will sell them to all the students. And when I left the last year to go to Spain for my third year of uni, I hired some of my friends who stayed and they were selling them to younger students and that financed literally all my crazy parties in Spain. That was an amazing business. But yeah, it was kind of my first steps into business.

And then how. What opportunity did you see in the talent model Agency to create that business?

So honestly, it was purely out of. I always say something that has followed me in my entire life is follow your highest excitement. That's my way to be. Because people say follow your passions and your highest excitement will allow you to turn anything that, any hardship that you face into something positive. You know, being an entrepreneur is being punished 100 times a day and smiling at those punches. But if you don't like it, if you don't, naturally you are not excited. You know, if you are burned out by something, it's game over. You can, you cannot even look at that thing. So for me, when I was at uni and all my friends were talking about all these finance and going to JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and all my friends were going into that direction. I had so many friends that love partying. I think I'm a charming person. So I've always been surrounded by all these amazing women and just as a friend because they would be, I would be a trustworthy best friend, a trustworthy brother to them. And I would come and I say, hey, I developed this algorithm. I saw the agencies, the modeling agencies weren't doing anything on social media. So I said, let me try. But literally I was just in the library at uni. First year we make a million dollar turnover. So it's not like I had a choice. It's like I went from being at the summer school at Harvard and going in the campus of MIT with one of my friends trying to code a little bit. And that software gave us so many clients and me answering to emails for one year. Why I'm still doing a master in investment management and finance in London in all this time already. It's a huge thing. And I'm like, wow, I cannot quit anymore because Now I have 50 models. I don't know what to do. I call my mentor who was a finance guy as well, he says, hey, why don't you open a company just because now you're going to pay a lot of tax. And next thing you know I am in Cannes. All the fashions, we quite chill and I have all these brands calling me back and forth and we have 300 talents in the books. It was just like life took me suddenly. Yeah.

And in that business ran for a time. And then tell me about how the dots connected to create creative app and where, where's the gap in the marketplace? And just for background, you know, I'm very familiar that there is a gap between creators. There's all these different levels of creators out there and there's, there's, you know, there's and, and you could basically categorize Them by number of followers. So you've got a certain number of this and then you got a. Another, you know, and as they get more followers, they get, they get more. They get there. There gets to be fewer numbers of them. But somebody like Ronaldo, right, will do like he can. If he does one post, he gets some millions and millions of dollars for every post that he'll do. You know, he might have a billion followers or something like that, right? And then. And then it goes down from there. And there's all these different levels and categories of influencers out there. Maybe it's regional or maybe they have a certain specific niche or product base that they'd be a good fit for. And there's really, nobody's really organized the ability to connect these different influencers to the different business opportunities. And then I also know that companies have a hard time dealing with these people because if they're not represented, then are they going to show up? Are they going to do it? Are they going to. Are they going to comply to the standards of the clothing or the product and all of this type of thing? So it's. It's a very fragmented marketplace now, connecting commerce and products with the right group of influencers. And there's a lot of opportunity there. Is that the space that Creative App desires to fill?

It's exactly that. You know, how did. How do we connect the previous business? In this business, it was faith, because Covid happened. The business expanded. And you know, when you're 24, 25, 26, you're full of life. So you're like, oh my God, now making 2 million now in aggregated over the space of three, four years, your business is turning over $10 million. And you're like, wow, what's going on? I need to skyrocket this so I can sell it later down the line or ask for merger, whatever of a transactional event. And you run and you realize that no, you have to look at the bottom line. And on that front, we burned. It just purely exploded in the air. And I was like, oh, my God, how. So you go from, you know, one manager, five managers, agents, 10. You have to open office in Paris, London, Milan, go at every single event with a crew of 300 talents. And it's just a lot. And you're. And we exploded in the air. And from that explosion, that bankrupt. It was so painful, man. So early in my life, 26, I was going to the stars. I was flying around, I was living the life. And I didn't realize that, you know, you Need a strong foundation in business, a strong system to operate and trade upon. So when that happens, I'm sitting there and I'm Jeff. I'm the luckiest man you will ever meet. So a couple of years back, maybe 10 years back, when I arrived in London, the first day I go to a nightclub, literally, because one of my friends from Switzerland said, hey Sammy, come hang out with us. And I go there and some guy come across the room. He's like, why are you, why all these women around you? I'm like, dude, I just arrived, I have no idea. I'm just vibing and these people are around me, I don't know anybody. And it's like, oh, come play soccer tomorrow with me. I go play soccer with him and it's the entire JP Morgan team, all the MDs and directors. So I'm like, okay, cool, I'll keep playing with them. They were 50s plus, so I was just running fast and scoring goals. So they all like me. And during COVID I sit down with this guy, Mark Antonio, and I tell him about all the issues my agency had, how I started studying the market. And I write thesis all the time. Another big recommendation I would give to anybody. Always write thesis your thought, your ideas and share them with all your friends across different topics. Because from that thesis, he loved it so much, he said, hey, you know what, let's try to solve it. And we spent six to eight months discussing, meeting out to discuss it. And at some point he left JP Morgan and investing 150, $180,000 to become my co founders and build the platform and say, hey, out of this experience, how can we take those learnings and you are running an agency, can you turn those systems, those processes, those way of booking, those way of connecting with clients into cohesive tech solutions? Because at the end you need to own a product. You go from a service to a product. So I managed to do that transformations with his help, with the support of our network. And we realized that exactly as you said today, today there is no marketing and influencer management. There is no way. It's the same job at every single agency management agency. And also they all have the same clients. So we said, hey, why don't we build the marketplace that also act as a CRM? So from a brand's perspective, it's a marketplace where they can go and find any, any creators and book them. But for an agency or creator, what is important to them? An agency or creator, what they like is to like, I have to negotiate with you after I've negotiated and signed a contract online with you. I have to create the content, I have to attend the event, I have to do the photo shoot, then I have to get paid and process and the payment has to be processed. So like that's actually a simple kind of product to build. And what we end up building, it's a fintech solution that where the brands comes and find you and wants to book you at the end. We also process the payments and you get paid automatically. So in one app, it works like almost a bank for creators where you can have all your jobs. Just like the link tree, you send the link to your profile, the brands go sign up and can go and book and book you. And you get paid automatically as soon as you're paid and you have a little card where you can then withdraw the money and use it. That's how it happened.

So when the talent agency bankrupted, the one thing a bankruptcy can't take away from you is your network. I can imagine that you had a deep network of people, famous people, talented people, creative people. Was that an asset that you were able to leverage into creative app to get your first people on there?

So, yeah, exactly. I had, I, I'm not gonna lie into saying that I kept all of them, some of them I had to lose because it's a, it's a pain that I also saw it as a very cleansing experience, I have to say, because it's. I took it honestly as a positive experience because it's putting back, it's tripping you down to all the things that you don't need. Because I had all these things and I had. My phone was ringing Monday, like Monday to Monday from all these celebrities, all these people. But I have to say, people love your job title. They love you for your job title, not for who you are. So it really pushed away all these people. But I'm. But the people who stay, the people who stayed around me and the people who managed to call me and check up on me, those people have managed to build upon them. So now the foundations are much stronger, much realer, and I feel way more fulfilled because I think that it was a period of my life that was needed because we found that I always say a hero, don't choose his suffering. That suffering is assigned to him to reveal his power without going to the service business and understanding how the business work. Because when you're the CEO, you understand financing, accounting, management, hiring all these different departments comes to you with that experience, I managed to activate my power into tech and Become a full tech guy just because that suffering was assigned to me. Without that suffering, if this business will have kept going, I will still be there and I will still run around and do all these parties. While now I have a much calmer life fulfilled and really focused into building systems for the next generation. So I use the people that I kept, I use the knowledge that I kept, and with that it creates a Beautiful new Semi 2.0.

All right, let's play into the future a little bit. Here's the landscape. You're operating with influencers, which is going to go to 50 billion in the US and 500 billion worldwide. Okay, so big market, that's one intersection. The, the other area where you're operating is you're with your next AI company, is you're operating in AI, which again is a massive opportunity. It's going to be more change in the next 24 months than there's been in the last 24 years. Business processes, creation, coding, all of these things are going to be happening. So you're operating in an influencer space, which is of which is huge and growing, and you're also operating in the next AI space. When you look at AI and you look at social media, what are some of the things that you see that other people might not at this point in time and how is it going to impact influencers? Are we looking at the last generation of models that we're ever going to have? Because they can. By the way, I talked to an AI person the other day on my screen and I couldn't tell that it wasn't a real person other than I knew that it wasn't a real person. So when you think about again, people that became famous as actors and people that came famous as influencers and business icons and all of this stuff, who's to say that the next great famous influencer isn't going to be baked up on somebody's computer in a faraway country and nobody will know that they're not a real person.

I love this question, Jeff. Can I share something on the podcast?

Yes.

What we have built is a couple of things in what you raised. First thing, AI Twin will be a thing. Everyone will have AI Twin, we'll have an avatar of themselves that go out there and do the job for them. So what we have managed to build is in 80 seconds now, I can create the picture perfect replica of you. And the second part of the solution we have built is that today what is very important in this world and what is an issue that stop AI from Going out there and cloning everything is IP rights. Your right of your face is super important. Yeah.

If you recreate me, there's a few things I'd like you to fix. Okay.

You're awesome the way you are. Don't worry, Jeff.

Well, just, you know, straighten. I need a little more symmetry. But go. But, but yeah, but so I mean I already have a clone and I, I uploaded everything into a clone to clone to a company and if I ask that clone a question, it will answer the question exactly as I would but more concise, more direct, more supported. It, it answers better than I would, but it answers as I would is. And, and so how long is it to everybody creates a twin that sits.

In meetings for them by the end of the year.

Okay.

That's how fast this will go. Because people don't realize in one thing the cost. So imagine when the cost of everything that you are producing is dropping to zero. And what we have. Oh, I think I can show you something. Cool. I think I managed to do it. Okay, you might have an exclusive here. Jeff, do it. So you have a preview of one of these.

Oh yeah. Here we go. Nice.

So on creatives app what we can do. So you have this entire ecosystem that allow you to work to collaborate with all your different clients, to collaborate with your management agency, sign your contract, but also you can create your AI twin. And what do you do with this AI twin? You put it to work because tomorrow what will happen? Are you going to effectively go to shoot? No, you won't go to photo shoot. What you will say is I want to be able to work with swimwear brands, makeup brands, all these brands. On the other side brands won't organize photoshoot, video shoot movies anymore. They will use platforms that will take the different avatars and pictures and measurements of all these different people and directly organize those photo shoot video shoot brands like ASOS, big brands, 80, 90% of their cost goes into production. We are going to very quickly walk into a world of pre production, pre ordering where people will see all these images with the face of all these different models and celebrities, use all those products and at the end directly people you will get paid. So you'll why it's going to be cheaper. Instead of taking six months to produce the content and organize a photo shoot, it's going to take five minutes and you are going to your avatar will be working for you because but only it will only work for the content creator will have a strong engagement rate and branding and image. Just like we are paying a Lot for movie stars, for Will Smith we can attract, we're not going to pay a lot of money for the guy that is, that doesn't have an audience. So today it's so important to take your phone, start recording every single day because that might be. And now I'm gonna move into next AI that might be for the next 10 to 15 to 20 years. The only way you make money. Simple fact.

Wow.

70% of the world run on service based businesses. So 70 trillion out of 100 trillion that the money the world makes is out of service businesses. But guess what? What will happen to lawyers, accountant, finance, real estate guys when while they are brushing their teeth, an AI agent can do the same job as them faster? And what will happen, what will happen to schools and universities when you spend 15 years mastering any programs and you, and you know, becoming a doctor. A doctor while you can inject in your brains in four minutes. PhD level knowledge. I have tried it, I have seen it myself in my eyes, with my friends. So what will happen to that? What will happen to democracy when intelligent systems run all the policies, the politics will become like the King of England. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the policies, they will be detected by machines. So for you as a, as a, as a, as a human, you have to ask yourself those questions and say if you rely on the governments to support you, you just have to look a couple of years back during the pandemic. How did they manage this? So how would they manage something that is that disruptive and so crazy that we really need to start asking all of us those questions. What's happening with the world? Where are we heading? We need vision, we need strong leadership and we need commitment to our building a future that is safeguarding everybody's interest. Because there won't be enough money, Money won't be a thing anymore. You need to be sovereign in how you create value in this world. And your image is the first sovereignty that you have.

That is frightening. And I share that belief and I've been having these thoughts and having these realizations about business models that simply won't need to exist anymore at some point or getting legal work done. I mean there's, there's so, there's so much human that is baked into everything that we do. But as agentic AI becomes more prevalent and I mean it just, it's, it's accelerating at an accelerating rate now. People are going to be much slower to adapt to these types of changes.

Yeah, you know, I don't agree with that. You know how it's going to play. This is how it's going to play. The CEO of company Y will sit there and his chairman will come and say hey, did you see that company X fired 80% of their staff and now it's powered by AI. They say oh yes, but I need to talk to unions. So maybe next year we say okay, you have three months to do the same thing. Otherwise I replace you with a CEO of company yes. Humans protect their assets naturally. We are always, we are fearful beings and we are reactive beings. The formal of understanding that other Companies operate hundred to 150, 200% better than yours with less headache less humans because you paid a fine. All of them will pay the fine without exception. Imagine the chaos in the streets. You think governments will do something we don't understand the government that is in place now. That's why for me, when I meet all of them during private dinners and have private demos all the time, I've seen so many of those products, Jeff. And it's so scary because right now people don't realize we are in like 1989 of AI just because AI hasn't entered the economy yet. Everyone talks about intelligence, they talk about ChatGPT, OpenAI but they're not the people that will win the AI race. They're just creating intelligence. It's like they're creating water. Who will win? It's the people that put the water in the bottle. So look at the different verticals, look at legal, look at real estate, look at accounting finance. So what will I and I will give you a secret that all the only few hedge fund managers start understanding and the file network start slowly understanding. The only way that intelligence will enter the market. Do you know how oh is through SaaS is through AI agents. So you're going to pay every month a subscription to have access in your system of intelligence. So what will replace all these legacy businesses, all this legacy real estate agency, all these legacy real estate accounting and legal firms. It's a platform like Creatives app for legal that will come and that will put AI to service clients. So imagine the scenario. That's what Edge Fund love doing these roll ups. You can acquire today legacy accounting firm that turned over $100 million. You start implementing a SaaS and you say aha. Now 5% of the service that we deliver our clients just need to go into this, this website, our website, click a button and it will drag the account for them. Then 20%, then 50%, then hundred percent. You don't need any more content and you will play exactly like that. So you will suddenly don't look so far as banking, you look at fintech, you have new bank in South America. In South America they're going to outcompete people like JP Morgan tomorrow morning. All these legacy investment banks and big banks, what they have is a lot of assets, they're sitting a lot of assets. But they are sitting on human capital to deliver and monitor those assets tomorrow. So the layer upon which they are built, humans will never out compete tech build up. So when super intelligence, AGI and all these things will come to life, people will already have the tech stack to leverage that technology. While others will have humans that will love to fire. And they will all look left and say hey, we need to acquire today. I recommend to any service business in this planet, go acquire a SaaS platform today or build your internal tech team and start building it. We call this, it's the first time in the history of humanity that we are entering at the same time a financial, societal, economical inevitability. Meaning there is a circle like this in the world. This called the AI portal, the integration of intelligence. No matter if it's Today, tomorrow, in six months, in 10 years, every single human being, services companies, anything we do will have to integrate intelligence. So the singularity point is the nearest we have ever experienced. When we enter that, that phase, how we deliver services, how we do things completely change forever. People who have not. You cannot compete against something that doesn't sleep, doesn't take work days, doesn't have kids, doesn't. You cannot compete as simple as that.

Where are you going to point with next AI? Because every industry is going to be changed permanently. So for you, where are you pointing first?

Well, I'm pointing towards adding value in creating revenue. So as I said, what I fear the most is people not being able to feed themselves or to create monetary or financial value so that they can be free financial security. For me, it's one of my main work and my main arc. How do I build systems that allow people to be financially free? And today we can already build the rails to build operational systems AI agents that will allow any companies to plug their data into let's say Shopify, Store, connecting to one of the platform will build and automatically you will communicate with all these clients, optimize the different shopping experience and you can build already those agents. But my global vision for next AI is to build an ecosystem of tools that for you imagine that that super app that could manage your finance for you, manage your sales, manage your post on social media, all These things right now you can really build. It's all about systems. And when you apply intelligence to systems, you can really today start building tools that give back human their time. Because for me we never came here to work. Work has been a product of the post industrial society for me and not for, for my assessment of my human experience here. We came to create, to love, to expand, to experience and to connect. So based on that I want to build anything that allow that work hasn't been a thing and you know we still just work in a society, a capitalism society. So you have to play the game to earn, to buy your freedom. That's the entire game that we're playing like. And because of that we are so competitive with one of other we want an order. But within the next 10 to 20 years we are going to go to that phase of buying back that time, each of us until society collectively decide that money shouldn't be a thing. We have to redefine value and value creation and protect everybody because people shouldn't have to suffer. Abundance has always been in this world. Abundance is everywhere. But we love scarcity because it makes us feel better about each other.

Yeah Sammy, when you use the word services being $70 trillion, those aren't necessarily services that are performed in a home or in a business. Those are services like accounting and just everything. I mean Apple service business, right. So a lot of that is that. But there are things that need to be done by humans today such as painting a house or fixing a pipe or we all, we all need somewhere to live. How do you see these changes impacting those industries and where are. If you.

If.

Well let me answer. I have a follow up question but let me leave that one with you right there in services that, that need a human person to deliver a product or service on site somewhere. Where are the opportunities in AI to what's. What's going to be the impact actually.

That three industries, three to four industries that will skyrocket wellness people are going to be so lost. Imagine the identity crisis when people realize that they are not the job title, they are not the number of people they manage, they are not even their name but they are the soul within. Imagine the soul searching journey so many people will go through. So, so many people will need more of the human, more of. Jeff, can we go on the walk? Can you talk to me about the craziest experience that you went when broke your heart? Because my heart is broken right now and I need just to understand that you, you also went through that and you survived you also went through that and you overcame like that aspirational part that finding yourself and finding meaning is going to be so important. Certainly the biggest industry in the next 50 years, then the tech industry is going to go through a phase of big high until the systems understand how to evolve themselves and monitor themselves and becoming better and then it's going to drop and then entertainment people have time, but the people, when they have time, entertain themselves. Sports is going to be huge. It's just the beginning of sports. All these sports team massively undervalued sport is going to be huge and monumental. And the fourth industry, as you rightfully said, is anything that robotic wouldn't disrupt. I don't want to mention anything because I still don't know how good robotic will become and how comfortable will people become with having robots all the time around them. I believe I'm a tech guy, so I love any robotic and textile but I don't, still don't know how the word will will take that part of service delivered by robots, you know? Yeah, yeah.

If you were advising another young person right now who's getting ready to go to university, what, what would you tell them to stay away from? And then what might you tell them to focus on?

Honestly, I would still tell them to go to university. Not because of the course, because personally I wasn't going to any classes. I love, I had my way of studying and my way of studying was purely to, you know, pass the exam. And university has been built kind of like that. Just you have to pass exams that don't mean anything. But also it gave me a way of reasoning, as you say in your book. What I absolutely love in discernment is that going to university give you that logic tree. So every time I have to take a good decision or any decision in my life, I go very quickly. I do the probabilistic tree in my head but at the same time I use my EQ to take the emotional probability tree. So I do the math probability and then the emotional way. How would I feel? Where would this lead me? Who would be around me at the end of the journey, whether it goes very well or very bad. So university gives you that and also build you the confidence because you know, coming out at 20 years old, 1918, 1920 from school, you are still a baby. Even in your reflection, in your approach to life. When you go to university you broaden that school is not there. People are underestimating the social impact and the social benefit of schools and universities. But it's much more about the social impact that your knowledge, because your knowledge are going to find out what you like, what you dislike and you're going to go all in on what you like. So first thing, go to university. Very important and we still work in a society that is based on which university you went through that you can avoid and it's a truth we live. And second thing, anything that you do today, use ChatGPT. That's the single most important advice. Stop being so anything that you do, ask ChatGPT first. Start interacting so well with this tool. Your teacher says no, he doesn't understand anything, but it's fine, still listen to him for the rest. But technology, we are day minus 500. So chatgpt every single day you have to send a message. Stop sending weird message as well that are misspelled. Just click correct the prompt correct and you add your message and you send it. Start using ChatGPT every, every single day and go to universities because your soul will be fulfilled, your experience will be richer and you might find the love of your life that you need, just like I did.

That's true. It happens, happens to the best of us. So in the future that you've laid out for us here today, I would say that your relationships and your networks have made an important impact in your life. Getting around mentors, getting around people, which is something that university will definitely help you start if you use it the right way. And then the other thing is it's creativity because the skills that are required. People would go for 15 years to learn how to code and it's just not required anymore. I think, you know, I've heard great coders and great business builders say I do it to keep my hand in it, but I don't have to do it anymore if I don't want to do. And those changes are accelerating at an accelerating rate. I mean we've, we are just like you said in 1989 of the AI revolution, but it's going to be 2050 here probably by the end of 26. I saw that even chat will, will, will exceed Google in the number of searches. So now you know the landscape. Who would have thought that? I mean, I can imagine what Google is thinking now, right? But they've got their own tools coming out. They're obviously ahead of the game. But like they, there's things that are, there are companies and there are, there are business models and there are practices and there are social norms that are going to be disrupted that people just didn't expect. And it's going to Happen overnight. Now we are adaptable, right? If you throw, you take me from a BlackBerry, which by the way, a BlackBerry was a telephone device. Sammy, that.

Are you familiar? Of course, I'm a big guy.

So, like, you know, you went from a black, you went from a pager right, to a BlackBerry, and then you went from a BlackBerry to an iPhone. I got it, I got it in a day. You know, you, you know, they say marketing leads the way. If you want to, if you want to drive a company, it's certain direction, you do it through the marketing. You, you lead a company to new business through the leads that you drive in the marketing. In technology, it's, it's the device that leads the way. Okay, so if you take away my old way of doing it and then you put an iPhone in my hand, I'm going to learn relatively quickly how to get done what I need to get done. And then if other, if other people are using technology and I'm going to stop doing things the way I used to do it. So I think to your point, we will adapt relatively quickly. The difference with AI is that it's not you having to learn how to do something new. It's you're not having to do it anymore. So what do you fill that void with? You have to, I mean, the, you know, social skills, interpersonal skills, and creatives are the ones that will rule the day. Because if you can't think, you know, we will only be. The boundaries that we will have will only be based on the limitations of our own thinking and our own creativity because you don't have to do it anymore. And it's, it's really interesting. So there's certain people that are wired certain ways, like yourself, I'm a creative that this is, this is our time to shine. And, you know, whatever we could dream before and whatever we could build before, as long as we incorporate, is now can be 10x. And for people that just want to show up and check a box and check out, you know, I'm interested as to what the world's going to have for those types of people. As many jobs get eliminated in favor of these technology tools.

You said it so perfectly. It will be two different lines. You will have a flat line where people, because they will do it for them, they will stop doing anything, they will become lazy and just stop. And the people like us who try, try, try, try, try and learn, learn, learn and learn is going to become exponential on our learnings. We're going to be able to apply faster and easier and by the way, I want to come back on two things you said amazingly. First thing, interpersonal skills are so important. When you go raise money, you are pitching all day, you are learning to tell stories. It's so important to articulate yourself, to have presence in a room. If you have never done that, you have never want gone to university, you have never faced a bad grade just because your presentation was terrible. How do you expect that people will vouch and believe in you? We remember stories. We are a population of people who humans are storytellers. So this is so important as well and certain aspect the people that you will meet. When I went from my old businesses to my new business, I lost myself $1.2 million cash. Like my bank account was like, wow. And I was 27 and I looked at this and I called 19 of my friends that I met at uni that was in class with me. They saw me Grind for 10 years. 18 investing in their business. So you have to University is a gift. Only if you make it a gift. Anything's life is a gift. The good and the bad. Your shadows are there to reveal yourself. You have to integrate your shadows into the light. Because that's the game. Never feel that is about you. Life is not even for you. It happens. As you as positive you are, as reflective you are, as engaging you are the word reflects back. So became engaging with all these tools, become reflective with all these tools and keep growing. Life is a constant extension, expansion of your being, expansion of your understanding. I thought, you know, sometimes I would be crying literally and figuratively about some exams because I had to wake up at 4am with one of my friends and we go to the library at 4am and we study all these things. And I would like never in my life I'll pass an exam. Look at me. Every two months, I spend literally four days every two months taking Google exams, Microsoft exams, IBM exams, all these exams on Coursera, on all these different websites, just because you know the word is going too fast. And you have to learn. I never coded in my life. Now I'm coding every day with this super easy just because the tool where I'm blocked somewhere I screenshot the page, I say, where am I blocked? Where is the mistake that I made? You recreate the new code. What? And you're not gonna take advantage of that, right? Like, dude, go out there, make money. Like, create. Abundance is the age of abundance. Scarcity is over. Take leverage. This.

Yeah, I, I tell people that you'll, in your businesses, you'll pay some People by the hour. You'll pay some people commission, but we as business builders and business leaders get paid by the conversation. And it's the quality of the conversations that we have, and it's the caliber of these conversations and it's who we're having these conversations with that change the slope of our line forever. And you have to be creative, you have to be thoughtful, you have to be bringing value to these people. But what else? What could be more exciting than that in life? What could you be more passionate about of what you started with is follow something that ignites you. I forget exactly how you said it, but like, you should do what your highest excitement.

Yeah. So important. And you know what? Because when you follow your highest excitement, you have those eyes, you have that smile. And recently I just went from hangouts with Richard Branson on his island, and I was then in, in Marrakesh with, you know, general magic back in 1989. Actually, they were the first. They were a spin off team of the entire of Apple and they built the Macintosh and some of them went on to building the iPhone and all these things. And I'm always invited to all those events. And these people are like always 30 to 40 years older than me just because I smile. I have a high energy. And I don't only talk about my fun and dancing around. I also have something to say. I also add and contribute to the conversation so that like, wow, here's someone that no matter what, would contribute to the energy of the room, not only physically, not only spiritually, but so also intellectually. And people love that. That's the kind of people they want to be around. If you only have. That's literally my secret. They asked me the other day, what do you like? Everyone was saying, oh, I brought my journal to this trip. I brought my wife to this trip. I said, I broke my smile.

Sammy. We're like mirrors. And the reflection, the reflection that people get back from us needs to be a better image than it left them with. You know, it's, you know, we, we, we go out and we have curiosity and we get, we get the advantage to go to great places and to be with great people and to have great experiences and then to get the best books early and to get those authors on this podcast and for me to get to talk to them. So. But if that died with me and if I didn't have the mechanism to share that with people, then it would be meaningless, right? Because so I have to, I have to be a mirror of a better self, a better image of the person than before they came in contact with me. So I've got to find a way to help them, to connect them with somebody, to change their view on something, to point them in the right direction. And that's what I love to do. I mean, at the end of the day, I love to be in these rooms and I love to be having you on the show here with us today.

Can you tell us to add something about that before you continue? I have to add something because I think it's very also important for this generation to understand. Jeff's team got in touch a week ago with me to organize this podcast. He already ordered my book, read entirely, came on, listened to my other episode. He doesn't have to do that. He's busy, have other things to do. He has only 24 hours, but it takes time to make sure that the conversation is rich, not only for himself, but for the. All the participants and you also listeners. And that's so beautiful. You, that's someone who cares. All you have to do in life is to care deeply, is to light up and look how engaging it becomes when someone's in front of you. Oh, my God, you care about me. You care about the human in front of you, you care about your listeners, and you can feel it in every single word. So just care. It's so beautiful. As an example, as a commitment and dedication, Jeff, that you are bringing to your podcast, and it's a real honor to be part of this show today.

Well, and thank you for you obviously look through my book discernment as well. So, and you know, everybody gets it, but not everybody takes a minute just to look through it. And even if it's just five minutes or 10 minutes and scanning it, you can get the gist of of what the book's about. So let's talk about your book for just a minute. Positive focus. Why did you write it?

I was in Cape Town with some of. My friend Alex Icon was on the pod recently. And where would all these mega celebrities, all these people and. And they all looked at me and I'm walking the street. I would go to a shop, people, I would walk in front of a shop with, with some friends. People will stand up on the shop, starting clapping me and I will enter the shop. Everyone want to take pictures with me. Not once, but so many times. So all these people started saying, oh, my God, Sammy, you are like so different. Like, we know we are famous and stuff, but you, you have a very special light and you have this energy where you transcend any, any field that you walk upon. And I started reflecting and I was like, why? And I went to Coachella 2, three months later and. And on my. I still at the agents at the time. And I was sitting there, I was like, oh my God, I outgrew this scene. I'm going to transformation inside of me. I don't know what's happening. And during the night, everyone will party, will come back at 3am and I started writing. I had this period of big downloads in my life. It happened very often recently. And I went back and I started writing, writing. In two weeks I wrote entirely the book. And it was the first time. This is, I think the first 32 years of my life were a period of self discovery, self mastery, understanding myself, which kind of value I want to embody. What are those roots of those values and how do I want to connect those values and respond to the world? And after the study, two years now, I moved and transitioned my being from self mastery to flow state. And now I understood that life is not about what I want or what I need. It's a beautiful dance. It's a tango. It's like whatever comes, I have to accept it. Because no matter what you believe, what agency that you believe you have, God's plan will always be greater that you wildest dream. Only when you stop living with resistance is the resistance that caused the pain, is the holding that keeps you there. It's when you release and when you understand that do your best. Wake up every single day with that smile. And this is understanding that that life will reflect as you that, you know, I literally went. But you know, to go through that phase and of understanding, to go through a phase of growth, I had to go through a phase of isolation, extreme loss. I ruptured my two Achilles tendon, but it sat me still. It was a beautiful season, Jet. He sat me still. I was in a hospital bed for the first time in my life for almost 18 months. And I had to reflect on life and say, what do I want out of this amazing experience that was given to me? And I started growing spiritually and I reached a point to understand that in order to reach that flow state. And I reached it. And now all these beautiful, you know, even what I told you about AI and all these things, literally my partner was next to me one day and I started having those downloads. I was picking, shaking uncontrollably. I was crying and I went the next day, Woke up at 5am, went on a walk in this park. And I understood all of it, it came as a big vision and I wrote entire line about what will happen into this world, what's the direction of the world and how all of this will manifest. And he gave the genesis to the golden generation and project Singularity where I explain how the world will shift and because the universe work in the way it works. One day a few weeks ago, I go to my friend's place and he tells me, hey, I'm going to visit Richard Branson on his island next week. Do you want to come? I say yes. I go to the island and I meet one of the guy that wrote a book about exactly that change. And before I read the book where it has been talking about this for 20 years, I wrote exactly the same words.

Amazing. Amazing.

You can't explain. Yeah.

Only if we sit in awareness with our eyes open can we calm the swirl and make sense of the clarity of what we're supposed to do with ourselves. You have to be receptive, you have to be open. You have to learn how to sit in awareness. You have to understand what matters and what doesn't in the things that are unique to you. And you can live a great life and you can make a great impact and that self awareness. And then the more time that you can spend in flow state just in your unique ability, in your unique area of brilliance and be operating within that. You don't. It's not about the hours, it's about the production. And so many times when I give myself a break and I get away and I let the universe organize itself, it will calm the swirl and I will get clarity around what I'm supposed to do and how I'm supposed to do it. And it doesn't take long to make great strides in your life. But you have to get all of the distraction. You have to find a way to get the distractions out of the way.

I fail to another advice from the generation. Stop the noise. Stop having people around you. At some point you need to lock yourself in a room. I'm always alone in my office. I cannot have people around me ever. Because I will just. Just walk around, sit there on the couch, open a book, turn the book, start drawing. And suddenly stroke of inspiration. I'll write incontrollably. I will start coding. Incontrolab. It's. You have to be aloneness is a beautiful gift because your thoughts are connecting. You don't hear the noise of anybody polluting your brain. You are one with the code. We are all part of this code. We are all the same. It's like my understanding or my assessment of what's happening in the world is that we all decided to come as souls and we all decided to play this game for one last time to cure humanity from all these traumas and all the data. What we have done with building Internet and the web is that we have built a web of data and information about all of us, us. And that's what's happening in the world right now. And all of us putting that data into the world is just to cure what will happen with the singularity. And all this transformation is that we're going to arrive to a point where I call it the golden generation. Because we are the one that liberates our kids and grandkids. Because they will never know what it's like to live in fear. They will never know what it's like to live in a world of limited resources. Because we are the one that get to build the rails toward abundance. We are the one that get to awaken. Right now, the entire world is at sleep. And we came, all of us, to experience all this pain and traumas and we think that is so personal, it is so real to us, but actually it's a common experience. It's to all of us suffering and we get to heal. That's what we are. The last mission of humanity is oneness. It's the Apollo moment of the world where all nations and humans are coming together as one. And say, just like the Apollo mission, wow, we have the tools that can liberate every single body from these systems of scarcity. Hey China, go to build the leg, the right leg. Hey usa, go to build the left leg. Hey Africa, go to build the soul. Hey Europe, go to build the style. It's us, we have it. What we are missing is that oneness. What we are missing is the togetherness. People. I always say I have three or four different passports. If they call me for war, I'm fighting for humanity, buddy. Don't call me because who are we fighting for? I'm fighting for my kids. My kids will have five different nationalities. My wife is. I'm German, I'm British, I'm Cameroonian. I grew up all over the world. What do you want me to fight for? That's where we are. That's where we sit. Borders. When we were going on horses. What are we doing? And I think it would just take some time for humanity to awaken to that truth that we are here to fight for each other. We are here to love each other. If we like, we keep loving that Division and stuff. It's great. And people tell me, oh, I love my, my difference. I love my great. Let's keep loving the competitiveness that come with all being different, all being in this capitalist society. It's going to take 50 years, but I will make sure that's why I believe that I came here to be a civilization architect and to build the railway towards what look like next. Because even if it takes 50 years, we just have to put the next step in front of the other. And eventually, if it's not me, it's going to be my kid. If it's not my kid, it's going to be my grandkid. That realize that dream and that awakening a society of abundance because we are there.

That is a bold and powerful vision and extremely well said. I've got two questions left. I've got a curveball and a fastball for you. And before we do that, would you care to share with people the best way that you would like them to get connected with you?

Yes. My Instagram. I am Sammy Sam I a M S a M Y S a m Reach out, send a dm Would love to connect with anybody.

Awesome. I am Sammy Sam on Instagram. All right, here's the curveball. If you needed to gun to your head, start a business in the next 30 days and it wasn't a business that you were currently active in, what business would that be? And this is a question that says where is the opportunity that you see that you have not acted on yet?

Communities. Building communities and wellness. Wellness. If simply, you know, the, the medication to the soul, mental, physical, spiritual meant any of it, all of them, it's just build, just focusing your time. And also because it doesn't take long, it takes a friend. Hey, let me message that friend to see how he's. Let me organize a walk. Let me organize. I have one of my friends that gave me the best line the other day said I'm not a hustler, I'm a matcha drinker. Start going around and drinking matcha with your friends and building that community of matcha drinker. Start having those discussions because now that you're having those discussions with one, you refer another friend and all together you go on that road. Very soon what all of us will need is to seek among the community and know that we are not alone. So many times when I was going to the office, hardest time in my life, the best, best thing that has happened to me is as you said, being able to call my mentors, being able to call the elders being able to sit with them and say, hey, I'm going through this. And they said, me too. You are not alone. And the aloneness that those tough experiences we're going toward will bring. Wow. We need a lot of people to. To just focus on making sure that human being stays at the center of everything that we build around. We are here to, you know, we prevail. We are the best, but we need to make sure that we mentally, spiritually, and physically, we remain in that position.

Perfect. Last question. Right. Right down the middle. If you had one sentence to offer somebody to make an impact in their life, what would that be?

When you're at your lowest, lowest. I was at my weakest point. My left Achilles and my right Achilles popped. I was playing football. Both parts. What kept me alive and what kept me going is simply one step a day. The. The lowest part is actually the pivot point in your life and whatever come after, you know, I was just visualizing, oh, my God. Wisdom makes the best thing in my life. And in order for you to reach the best thing in your life, do one step of the day. And have faith in the universe. I faith that God choose you to live this experience. God chose the best, best and highest, best version of you. So even if the craziest, most shameful, most painful, most incredibly bad experience that you are going through, believe that that experience is there to teach you something about yourself. And that God wants you to raise to your higher self because of that experience. Your shadows at what reveals you. So please don't give up and do one step a day. Just that one step a day.

Sami, you are a gentleman and an incredible thinker, and I have enjoyed this very much. Thank you for being on the home front.

Me too, Jeff. Thank you very much for having me.

Absolutely. This is Jeff Duden with Sammy, Sam, and Jew, and we have been on the home front. Thanks for listening.