Season 80, Episode 957: Guest: Rob Hersov: Everyone Has Value — The Culture Matters Podcast

This is the Culture Matters podcast.

Hello, Culture Matters podcast. I'm so excited to introduce you to our guest. Before I do that, here's a quote just for this episode. Happiness is 3 things. Something to do, someone to love, something to look forward to. Dermit Desmond, our great friend of the Culture Matters podcast, is back from episode 801. If you haven't listened to that episode, get your butts over there after this episode. Background, not just, yes, Harvard Business School, Goldman Sachs, investment banking, Rupert Murdoch, working in all these amazing companies, Marquis Jets Europe, Changing the world with truth to power and leadership by example. Investor, airport owner, apparently chairman of Invest Africa and so much more. Rob Herzog, thanks for coming on the Culture Matters podcast to talk business, life, leadership, and the subjects that matter. And if you haven't subscribed to Rob's YouTube channel or watched him on great pundits like Patrick McDavid. I was just rewatching that. Get over there and subscribe and take that— take a look at that. So Rob, thanks for coming back on the Culture Matters podcast.

Thanks, Jay. Good to see you again. I'm in chilly Cape Town. It's winter down in the Southern Hemisphere, and I just got back from a family holiday in Australia, 2 weeks on the Gold Coast up the Barrier Reef. And my wife's a New Zealander, so her family flew up, met us there. So I'm just back from 2 weeks there and it's a bit chilly in Cape Town even though it's nice blue skies.

That's amazing. And I— congratulations. I believe Dr. Kate had a pretty serious business, but MediHealth was that, or MediKids?

Well, MediKids became Jumo Health and she built it over a decade. It was based out of New York. It was London, then she moved it to New York and she had a big exit last year. So she's the sort of unicorn in our house and very proud of it. And she's working on her new health tech business now.

I want to ask about that and the core values that you— because that was a— you said on the last episode, I was re-listening to that last night, and I love that episode, by the way. I have to say, actually, my— I listened to it with my wife Jenna, and this is what she had to say. She said, I love Rob. Handsome, exudes power, doesn't demand it. Someone you want to follow. I swear I was writing this down because she was so powerful.

Wow.

Someone you want to follow. Charismatic, sweet, honest, intentional with his words, interested. I'm thinking I had to write it down. Smile when he talks. It's a little more inviting to listen to. That's what my wife Jenna had to say about you from listening.

Thanks, Jenna.

Podcast. So, I, um, uh, Jen has been such a big impact in my life, and, and our audience knows this. I'd like to know some of the core values, what you say, um, built that amazing company that Dr. Kate was, uh, you know, the founder of. Some of the core—

she's wandering around here somewhere, so I should try and drag her in to say hi. But she is, uh, what a woman, what an extraordinary person. You know, I just I lucked out. You know, she's from another planet. She's gorgeous and she's funny and she's intelligent. And she, you know, I think the hardest thing in life is to meet your soulmate. Everyone talks about it and it sounds like this impossible thing that no one actually gets right. And I have done it. I mean, I have met my soulmate.

I've— couldn't—

it's the greatest thing that ever happened to me in my life. And now I'll tell you a terrible thing. It's like there's a question you can ask at a dinner party that nobody answers. Nobody. And it goes like this. If you— if the ship you were on sank and you're on a lifeboat and you can only save one person in your family, who would you save? No one answers it. You can't choose between children, your parents, your wife, your partner, your husband. You know, it's— it's— It's just you can't answer that question. I can. And I've told my 4 children, I said, you're going to have to learn how to swim because I'm saving Casey. And I told them that. They, of course, think Daddy's insane, but it's true answer. And she's just— she's made me, made my life. And I, I fell in love at first sight. I'm not that spiritual. I'm not that religious. I don't believe in these sort of things.

And it happened to me.

So what am I supposed to think?

We have so many entrepreneurs listening to this, small, medium-sized businesses, and of course they're in relationships and the go-go phase of the business. What value would you say a strong relationship, spousal, has to do with the business? Because you've been an investor or worked alongside some of the most recognized business people in the world that that relationship, I believe even your father, right? He's 99 or 90 and what, your mom's 92. What, in your estimation, is the value of that, um, that bond as it relates to business, business value.

So it gives you confidence. It gives you the ability not to have to be looking in the rearview mirror the whole time. So I was born into a wealthy family of loving parents who are both alive and healthy. And you're absolutely right. Dad turns 99 in August. Mom is 92 in September. And they're in good shape, and I'm seeing them tomorrow night for dinner. I'm flying up to Johannesburg on a business deal, and I'm staying with them, and I'm going to have dinner with them. And, you know, having an extraordinary wife who supports you, you know, she isn't— she doesn't give me— there she is smiling at me, she's listening. She doesn't give me the full rein to, you know, make every investment, do mad things. You know, she cautions me, she reins me in, she She advises me. And now that she's had a successful exit, you know, she, she thinks she can boss me around on the business side too. But her advice, I value her advice. You know, we had a meeting yesterday. This extraordinary young man, Courtney Marland. Google him. C-O-U-R-T-N-E Marland. M-A-R-L-A-N-D. It's a Courtney without a Y. He's a 23-year-old South African. He's had 2 successful exits.

Wow.

He's an absolute genius. And he is the only South African chosen for Y Combinator in the previous batch. And Y Combinator is the absolute pinnacle of incubators. You know, they've got Uber, Stripe, you know, tons of unicorns and decacorns have graduated from Y Combinator. And this guy's Courtney Marland. I met him in November, December last year. Video. Then I met him in person and he was raising $500,000 for his AI business called Lyra. L-Y-R-A. Take a look at this thing. And, and I just thought, was so impressed with him. I said, you gotta come to my house and meet Katie. And he was moving to San Francisco at the time. So Katie and I met with him. He told the story of what he was doing. And I said, why are you only raising $500,000? He said, I only need that. And I'd like to get it from, you know, 5 different people who can bring value. And I said, look, I'm in, but I want to take half of that. And a month ago, he raised $5 million at a $40 million valuation in 7 months. In 7 months. So he's made us multiples of our investment already. I mean, we haven't exited, but he was telling us about his thoughts in parallel of an investment business. So we just committed a lot of money to it yesterday. But it was good to have my wife by my side listening, asking questions. You know, she, she gets it. She understands it. And to be able to have, you know, just a— not just a love partner, a wife, a mother, you know, soulmate, but to have a business advisory partner at the same time. It's extraordinary. I mean, it's the full package.

Consiglieri. Consiglieri.

Well, she thinks she's in charge. I think I'm in charge. It's a good balance.

And it's, it's amazing cuz I, I did want to ask you for the entrepreneurs that are listening, that desire to raise, uh, capital for their businesses, for their ideas, what, what should they be looking for? Right? If, if that on the other side of it, what should they be looking for in their—

Well, it does, it depends where their business is, you know, is it a p— is it an idea, piece of paper? Is it something that's already being built? You know, they've got a co-founder, a team. Maybe I can just give you the advice that I heard, learned yesterday from Courtney Marland about what Y Combinator look for. Y Combinator look for hungry entrepreneurs. And here's something that blew my mind. He said that more than 50% of the companies they back in Y Combinator are not Americans. I couldn't believe it. I said, why not? They said, because the foreigners, the South Africans, the Finns, the Australians, the Indians come to America and they are hungrier. You know, they're just a bit more desperate to be successful. And Y Combinator see that, and they like people that are hungry and going to work 24/7 and are going to focus and make it happen. I thought that was extraordinary, that I thought it would be a majority of Americans, but it's actually a more than 50% are non-Americans, you know, who come to town. They don't have buddies, they don't have a place to stay, they don't have existing networks. They have to make it all happen. They gotta hustle like crazy.

Hustle.

It reminds me, it's like an Elon Musk.

Well, we're like a Rob Herzog. I mean, I'm thinking about it's '85, you're at, uh, Harvard Business School, right? And, and you're thinking, I want to stay in America. Or was it the Hong Kong guy that led to Goldman Sachs, and you said, let me stay in America. So, you know, but what was your work ethic at that time? What type of intensity were you bringing to the table?

The reason you got to prove yourself—

I want the audience to know, I saw you work in person. I consider that work, and I was blown away. Like, you took over— I— you took over the room, like, when you were there, and I told like 7 people about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, but that's me though.

That is me.

That I'm— I am I'm fearless. When I see someone that I want to meet, I just walk up to them. I don't even— I have no fear.

I want to unpack it because it's priceless, I think.

Um, do you know, everybody, everybody goes to the bathroom, okay? There's no one that's so special they don't go to the bathroom, you know what I mean? And they all do what we all do. You go to the bathroom, you do your thing. But everybody's human. And it's quite funny that how many people who you perceive at the top don't feel like they're at the top. You know what I mean? So I'm very comfortable and fearless about walking up to someone and saying, you're an extraordinary person, or you're an interesting person. I need to be in touch with you. Please, can I have your email or mobile phone? You know, and you— and that millisecond where they look at you and go, okay, and they give it to you, or they don't. And you just— I just, I, I, rejection is irrelevant to me, you know. So there were extraordinary people at that conference. I made a point of getting up to them, talking to them, calling them, you know. They may have been walking in and heading to their table. I walk up and say, I'm catching you for 30 seconds. I'm Rob Hersov. I'm from South Africa. I do need to talk to you. It's really important. When can I do it? Well, can I have your mobile phone number? And in 95% of the time, they'll give it to you, or they'll say, well, come and talk to me now, or here's my assistant, you know, work through them. And, you know, I went through— when I went to the ARC conference, I went through the registration list of all the people attending. I actually went through name by name. There must have been— well, I think in the end there were 4,000 people. But I remember looking through the speakers first, you know, the delegates, the main ones, and going, who would I like to meet? Printing it out, circling the names and saying, right, I want to try and get to these people. I messaged them through the registration app. Some responded, some didn't. And then I thought, how can I meet them? And I made a point of asking, where's Konstantin Kisin going to be after he speaks? Someone said, oh, he's going to be signing his books. So just as he was finishing, I went sprinting out, found the table where he was going to sign the books, and I was fourth in line. Three other people beat me to it. But by the time I got there, there was a huge line behind us. By the time I got to him, I said, Constantine, I need to be in touch with you. You know, while he was signing the book, I want a picture with you. So it made him stand up. I need to be in touch with you. This is who I am. This is what I do. Give me your details. And that's when I got that interview with Dave Rubin, because he was sitting at the Sky News booth talking, and I walked up and said, you're Dave Rubin, aren't you? And he laughed. He said, yeah. And I said, Dave, I need to be on your show. This week I need to, and we need to talk about South Africa. And he went, uh, okay. And he called his guy over Phoenix and said, Phoenix, get a hold of Rob, let's work it out. And that's when I did that 10-minute interview with him, which he delayed, delayed, delayed, took 3 weeks to come out, and it went to 1.3 million views. Then it was a lot easier to get to the other people, and you helped me with Patrick Bet-David, and I'm really grateful for that. But everything connects, feeds to the next thing.

Yeah, well, you've inspired me. That's why I want to unpack that for the audience. Because let's say the audience maybe go back many years before you had accomplished so much. What would be a script or how to position oneself? Like, okay, this is who I am, this is where I'm from, this is what I'm looking to do. For you? Is it the certainty? Is it the tonality? Like, is it a combination? What would be your advice for our young entrepreneur listening to this that may, you know, lack?

Well, you've got to have it. You do have to know why you want to meet that person. Okay. Maybe they're immensely wealthy and you want to build a relationship because they can invest in a business. But you've got to try and think of what it is, the little hook, you know? And, and I, and it's really important when I get an email or a WhatsApp or a message from someone I don't know, and they say, I need 5 minutes of your time at most. I like that because it's being respectful. If somebody says, I want to do a catch up with you, or I want a coffee meeting, I like go, oh my God, what's it about? What's the agenda? If they go, I need 5 minutes max of your time on the phone, I'll probably give them those 5 minutes. Because it's not open-ended. It's 5 minutes. And I go, okay, hit it. What do you want? And they say, okay, I've got this business, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I say, okay, here's my email. Send it to me on email so I can send it into my team to have a look at it. But be respectful of people's time. They haven't got, you know, infinite time on the phone. I hate voice notes. If I see a voice note, I go, oh, do I really have to listen to it?

Because it forces that versus a text you could read very quickly.

Text, you can glance over it and you can see exactly what's happening. And you know what I do a lot is I do little video messages. There's a video note thing on WhatsApp which is limited in time. It's like 20 seconds or 15 seconds. And I get a video note from someone, I click, you know, they go, you know, you know, it's short, sharp, to the point. And then you see their personality. Nobody uses them like I do. I use them all the time. I do videos and video notes for people.

I've been using it.

It's a bit more fun than I've been.

I've been using your advice of taking a picture with someone and sending to them, and I think it's a great memorable— if you can unpack that, I think it's very helpful for our audience because I have used it and it's been— I think it's been very valuable. So what is that and why is it valuable for the other person in your estimation?

So, you know, for example, I'm at a conference, I run into someone We're having a chat. That person goes, oh, you're friends with Jay Duran? And I go, yeah. And they go, oh yeah, he's a buddy of mine too. I immediately say, come, let's do a photograph. I do a photograph or a little video, go, Jay, look at the two of us, we're thinking of you. Then I send it to you and you smile. You go, oh, these two guys make, you know, click, point of contact, click, keep in touch, click, nice, friendly, short. You know, hug. People like that. Or afterwards I'll send you a message, a little video saying, I ran into Mike Smith. What a great guy. He speaks so highly of Vijay. And you're getting a nice message. You think well of— you feel good about yourself because you got a nice message from someone saying, we spoke well of you. You know, connect the dots. And I do a lot of those. You know, the other thing, and here's slightly Tangential. If I say I will introduce you to someone or I will get that done, I do it. I take my phone and I write an email to self to do, you know, connect Jay to Mike Smith or send that contact detail to Dale on my to-do list and I get it done before I go to sleep. So when I say I'm going to do something, I do it. I absolutely do it. It's so important. People then know he's reliable, he'll get it done. They're just in the back of their minds, they know you do stuff when you say you do it.

Is that something you observed working with so many successful icons throughout your career?

Yeah. And I've noticed, you know, Mark McCormick, who founded IMG, the biggest sports rights group in the world. He's passed away. He wrote a book, What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School. And he had— he'd have a little notepad wherever he went. And he even had a dinner and he'd write down. So if you mentioned something, say, oh, I saw, you know, you know, a book, something like that. And he'll just write down. But the next day or that evening, that book will have arrived at my house. Like unbelievable. Wow. Those little things are so impressive. But in networking, maybe here's a message for the audience. All my life, I've been fortunate to be in a meeting in front of, working for, working with extraordinary people. Get their details, put it in your book, and write a little note. Met at the ARC conference, introduced by Jay Duran. Bang. You know, a little note. And then at the end of the conference, all the contact details, I'd send them a very short email saying, wonderful meeting you. Well done on your speech. As mentioned, I'd like to be in touch with you and this is why. Bang. Or thank you for introducing me to so-and-so. Really appreciate it. Boom. You know, it takes you 15, 20 minutes to get them down. Just short, sharp. People log into their mind, they like it. And then I have my Outlook database, it's 24,000 names. Oh, 24,000. No, no, I, from day one, I've been keeping people's details. Tons of the people in there are dead, passed away, changed jobs, you know, gone bankrupt, made billions. But in there are little notes. And it's weird because I was working on raising a $220 million Africa technology growth fund. And, and I needed to contact a whole lot of people or organizations that I hadn't been in touch with, in some cases for 10, 15 years. Okay. And I got all the names of the companies and that I needed to get in touch with. Some I'd never met before. So I needed to find a way to get in, which is not that hard. And the others I'd met, but maybe a long time ago. And it's amazing if you drop a nice note in, remember me, lived in London, now I live in Cape Town, I'm working on a few other things. I'd love to have a catch-up with you and talk to you about a deal that I'm working on in the following area. Would that be possible? Here's my new mobile number. 95% people, oh my God, Rob, haven't seen you in ages. Love to do it. Yes, send me the deal. I'll take a look at it. So I didn't send them a deal straight up, but I'd make contact and say, remember me, this is what I'm doing. You know, 2 paragraphs short.

Do you think the specificity, that gives them something?

Yeah, you just give them, you know, keeping in touch is a very hard thing to do. 23,000 people, it's not possible. But if you make a little impact, if you drop a note now and again, if there's some connection, some context, people remember you. It's amazing. 15 years, people go, wow, remember you? Yep. Love to be back in touch. You know, I'll give you a little example. I was in London a month ago, 5 weeks ago, and I went into a building, like a 5-story building, not a very big building. And each floor was a different business. And the company I was meeting was on the ground floor, but I was When I was waiting for the guy to come and get me, I looked at the companies on the other 4 floors, and at 3 of the companies, I knew those companies.

Wow. Okay.

So I looked over my book, who I knew at the company. I took a picture of the, of the list of companies, and I sent them a WhatsApp or an email saying, guess where I am? I'm in your building. Meeting the company on the ground floor. If you're upstairs, I'd love to come by and just shake your hand and give you a hug as it's been a long time. And all 3 of those people responded and said, oh my gosh, Rob, what a wonderful thing to hear from you again. I now live in Hong Kong, or, or I'm out for lunch, or then please stay in touch. That took me 1 minute to do those 3 messages, and I've reconnected with 3 extraordinary people. Just little things all the time. So I don't know if I sound like I'm insane for doing these things, but it doesn't take a masterclass.

I think a masterclass, we would not have met and think of all that's been created as a consequence. I think it's humility, though. I don't know. I'm curious your thoughts on that. Humility.

Well, everyone, you know, Rupert Murdoch, when I worked for him, he was really one of the common man. He was— if he was offered a knighthood, he would not have taken it. If he was offered Lord Rupert Murdoch, he would have said, no, I'm not interested. He treated billionaires, actors and actresses, and then the guy that opened the door and the guy that drove the cab and the guy that sold the newspaper, treated them the same. And there's an incredible poem most Commonwealth schoolchildren know it inside out. By Rudyard Kipling. If you— I'm sure a lot of your listeners will know it— if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can hold your soul when all men doubt you, but leave allowance for their doubting too. And it's a beautiful, beautiful poem, many, many different verses. And it basically says in one of the verses— I can't remember the exact verse, but it says it— If you can deal with kings and common people but treat them just the same, you know. And I learned— I kind of learned that from my dad and from Rupert Murdoch, you know. Everybody's human, everybody uses the bathroom, everybody has their own eccentricities, weirdnesses, fears, you know, disappointments, complexes. And if you deal with them decently, nicely, and politely, you're gonna get through to 95% of the people. 5% are gonna be those difficult, beaten, angry, upset people that just don't want to connect. But 95% will, and you'll get through to them. Just a smile, decency, politeness, shake the hand, look in the eyes, thank people, goes such a long way.

What have you seen in the best cultures that you've worked with?

So that, you know, the British culture in the, in the 1980s and '90s was very quite formal, polite, you know, very austere. American culture was much go-go. And I fitted in both. You know, I'd been brought up to wear a jacket and a tie and brush my teeth and comb my hair and say yes, sir, no, sir. I knew how to do all that. But also I loved the American culture where, you know, you, you could engage with these extraordinary people and say, this is what I want to do, or I'm so excited to have met you, or ask them questions that normally people wouldn't ask. And Americans are much more, much more open and friendlier. And, you know, it's, it's just— look, I think, I'm— I think America is the greatest country in the world. I think it's— you had the American dream is the greatest concept It's not a branding concept. It's a real concept on the planet. And I think America is going into its greatest era ever. You know, people who say, oh, it's the end of the empire are so wrong. America is getting stronger, better, and more extraordinary. And I'm telling— told both my older sons, you need to move to America. You need to be in America. Forget Europe. It's— it's finished. It's old. America is where it's at. And this Chinese friend of mine said to me, you know, he tells me that China is weak in deflation. Russia has no chance. He's pro-America, like, like more than I am. And he said, you go to Germany, you never become a German. You go to Japan, you can't become Japanese. But the day you move to America, you become American. He said, it's extraordinary. You know, he said, it's extraordinary. And then my sisters moved to America. You know, she's flying the American flag, you know, outside her house in North Carolina. You know, she's— she and her husband are full-on American now. You know, I love it.

That's where I'm recording this right now. North Carolina.

That's like Charlotte.

There you go. Yeah, we're in Raleigh. What now?

Raleigh.

You said Y Combinator. The feedback that the information you got was that half of these entrepreneurs came from other cultures outside of the US and were emigrating into the country. What other—

basing themselves in America for to build their businesses.

So something about their core values were getting the most out of this structure, most out of this system. We talked a little bit about the system on the first episode.

Oh, here's another thing. Sorry, I went off piece because you asked— I said what advice I learned from yesterday's meeting with Courtney on Y Combinator.

Yeah, yeah.

They don't like single founders. This was interesting. They like co-founders. Ah, they like, yeah, no, they prefer 2 people or 3, and particularly people that have worked together or been at, uh, school together, college together, you know, where they actually know each other. You know, one might be the CEO, one might be the CTO, one might be the CMO. It doesn't really matter. They like dual founders, not individual founders. I found that extraordinary. That most of their— 90% of their investments now are AI-related. But Courtney said you can go in with an AI deal, and once you're funded, you can pivot and do something else. He said they expect that. And, uh, I found that quite fascinating, that you're selling a concept to Y Combinator, they invest in it, and then you decide to pivot in another direction. And they said that 90% of the businesses they invest in do not look anything like the original business plan 3 years later. 3 years later, the company, if it's been a success, looks nothing like the original business plan that was presented. Because a good entrepreneur or good co-founders will pivot a business. You know, they'll get into the market, realize that they've got something's right, something's wrong. Pivot, pivot, pivot. So don't feel like you've got to come up with a fully baked, finalized business plan with the perfect concept because they're backing founders, not concept. And, and Y Combinator believes it's better to have a great, great, great founding team and a bad concept than a great concept and a bad team. Because in the end, you invest in people. That's it.

That's profound. I think on the venture capital side, right? It makes me think, because what's interesting about this, the— in the Berkshire Hathaway world, they will say the opposite. However, Charlie Munger bet on Warren because before, so like when it—

before it was a big institution, but they're buying businesses that have been around for 10, 20, 30, 50 years.

Yes, it's in—

so you can replace management. Yeah, it's no longer the founder's company that Buffett was investing in, Munger investing in. They, they bought into Coca-Cola and Procter Gamble and things like that, you know, up-and-running businesses. Funny enough, Buffett bought into NetJets. Yes. And NetJets was a single founder, um, what is his name? Great guy, Rich Santulli. I met him, great guy. And eventually Buffett fired Santulli and brought in a professional management team. So the Rick Santulli founding founder and founding team of NetJets had reached a point where Buffett goes, enough, gone. I've bought the business and I'm replacing you. But I think for Y Combinator, because they're incubators, pre-seed and seed, the founding team are fundamentally important.

And for our audience that is, let's say, on the investment side, right? Interested in participating in young entrepreneurs because one thing, is it true that in your track record you created what networks of investors and getting people together in this? So you have a lot of experience in this looking to do it, maybe bootstrap it themselves and get involved in small business, private business. In America, that's a burgeoning field, the private equity. Everybody I tell, every other person I talk to, oh, we're selling to private equity or we sold to private equity. What advice would you have for those investors that are looking for to deploy their capital? Do's and don'ts.

So everything, everything is AI. You've got AI is going to change the world more than the internet, more than— I was going to say more than the wheel, but I mean, that's not true. More than fire. But I think those are pretty fundamental. AI is going to change the world beyond recognition, more than mobile phone, more than internet, more than anything. This is the era of 16-year-olds and 20-year-olds founding businesses with no employees and no funding required that make $1 billion. And the AI cycle for businesses is way, way shorter. You're going to see businesses founded and sold within a year at a billion-dollar valuation. This is the moment. This is it. Get into businesses that are AIable. Because what's happening is, you know, there are companies like Apple that are going to be in serious trouble. Serious trouble. They're going to be, they're going to be other device manufacturers coming out very, very soon. They're going to be, um, you know, AI is going to change everything. And I'm so excited about it. You know, Courtney Marlin, the guy I'm backing, his business Lira could easily be a billion-dollar business by next year. You know, he's got incredibly fast ARR, average run rate, revenue run rate. I think it's the fastest growing of his batch at Y Combinator. And he's seeing businesses that are going to wipe out big giants that are, that have no idea what's coming. This is the most exciting investment era ever, ever. And, and don't think building businesses, a billion dollar business over 5, 10 years like you used to. You know, business funding, disintermediate some big business, sell, next one, next one, next one. You know, you're going to be shorter time cycles. The other thing is these businesses are going to require way less capital, particularly B2B. I would, I'd be very careful about B2C businesses because you always require a massive amount of money for marketing and product adoption. But the B2B businesses, you disintermediate big corporates, they buy you up, you move on to the next one. And you can do a lot of these businesses without investment because until very recently, the most important people were programmers, coders, developers. Now AI does it for you. AI writes code. So what are the— who are the key people? The key people are the crazy dudes with mad ideas. They now have the ability to put those ideas into action. And you don't have to be the winner in a sector. You just have to have enough clients and disrupt part of a sector to be hugely valuable. You know, Amazon, Amazon won the retail business. You know, Apple won the mobile phone device business. You know, they became the dominant animal. These days you won't have dominant animals. You'll have 20, 30, 40 different options in a different area. So there'll be lots of opportunity.

I had—

So exciting.

That— Well, and I'm— It is exciting. And it makes me think even of conversations we had in the past, you know, what technology can do. For the everyday person and their sovereignty. That I want to like, so if there's 20 million people, let's say incentivized not to work, but a percentage of them get a computer and can get on AI and start asking questions and get, you know, and making, you know, what experiments with very little overhead. I wonder what that could do to revolutionize or change the cultural landscape. And I asked this actually at the ARC lunch in DC, and it was kind of, it was, I didn't, we didn't really go deep, but maybe we could go deep here. But what do you think?

Which AI do you use? Which, what do you?

This ChatGPT 4.0, like, yeah.

Okay.

When I was preparing.

So, I'm using Manus, M-A-N-U-S. Manus. Okay. And Katie and I are using Manus, but I mean, Grok 4 is coming and they're all leapfrogging each other.

Yeah.

And Katie's in health tech and med tech. She said, which businesses in health tech and med tech haven't been launched yet that I should consider launching?

Oh, I love that.

And it came up with 20 ideas. It actually came up with the ideas of businesses that she should consider launching that haven't been launched yet.

Because it's aggregating all this data of what, where the void is.

And it works it out for you.

Unbelievable.

It is quite incredible. She's got this brilliant idea, a health concierge. I can't go into too much detail. I always tell everyone all my ideas because I reckon my idea, if someone else stole it, would never look like what I had envisaged it done by someone else. I just know my idea would look like this in 5 years' time. Other people take the idea and do something that— so I don't mind telling people all my new ideas, but she doesn't want me to tell this one. But she went to Manus and said, yeah, do a business plan for me. Here's the concept, one-pager. 30 minutes later, because it took a while, it had a 40-page business plan with financial projections, funding requirement, exactly who to hire, a go-to-market plan, a marketing plan, and a who she should hire in each position description in 30, 35 minutes. The whole thing done, boom. And it was very good. I just— where this world is going is mind-boggling, you know?

Mind-boggling. Yeah.

So I, I said, you know, there's Robben Island. You know Robben Island? You've heard of Robben Island? It's an island off Cape Town. It's like Alcatraz. Island off Cape Town. You can see it out the window. It's like a 4-mile swim or something. And it was where Nelson Mandela and a lot of the political prisoners were held for a long time. So it's Prison Island. And our government's looking at commercializing it, which is not a bad thing actually, make it tourist-friendly. So I typed into Manus, my AI, taking into consideration seasonality, weather, waves, tides, sharks, whatever, the Cape Town port and Robben Island. What ferry should I consider buying to take people step, get on, get off hourly between Robben Island and Cape Town? Within 5 minutes, had a 20-page report, listed the different ferry types, suggested 2 different types, where I can buy them from, how much they cost, how, how, how much it would cost to operate. I mean, just, it's like What's gonna happen to consulting firms?

I mean, you know, I was about to say they're gone.

They're gone. McKinsey, Bain, bye-bye.

Well, do you think that's an opportu— I wanna get your take on this.

Mm-hmm.

I'm looking at it as a massive take for the, the, the, the small to medium-sized business firms that is just, you know, someone with some chutzpah that is thoughtful that can help that founder ultimately, right? Think through these plans and problems. I think there's a disruption opportunity there and that, That's why I'm bullish on this platform, like this podcast. For example, I know everybody on the show. And I want your opinion on this, like the power of networks, like social networks, like actually—

Hang on a second.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Hi, it's Rob. I'm on a podcast. Who's that? Hey, Lazi, I'm live on a podcast with a million people. I'll call you. I'll call you back.

Love it.

That's actually a call I wanted to take, but sorry to the viewers.

No, no, it's— I'd rather keep it real, Mike. I think it is a massive disruption to those big consulting firms, but what are your thoughts on the small, you know, the independent person that is capable of asking those questions, that doing those due diligence to come alongside those founders? You think it's bad for the small shops, the little boutique firms, Or because I have my, you know, my thought is that it could be very valuable for them if they tee it up with podcasting, for example, or have actual like social networks. Because so I want your, you know, give it to me hard. What do you think? You think we're all kind of out of business?

No, AI is going to produce so many more new businesses. There's going to be a temporary interim disruption, but it's going to increase the economy by 10 times. They're going to be thousands of new businesses we never thought of. So take podcasting as an example. Let's, let's get creative. So I would— I shouldn't admit to this, but have you, have you seen Bigfoot?

Bigfoot? Yeah.

Have you seen the video vlogs on Bigfoot? There's this— and they're ridiculous.

It's like, oh yeah, okay.

It's like Bigfoot, the, this, the gorilla no one's seen that lives in the forests in America or something. Okay, there's vlogs on Bigfoot and they're addictively funny and I watch them all the time. It's like, but it's, they can only do 8 seconds of video at the moment. So they do 8 seconds, then do another 8 seconds and string them all together in a story. And I thought to myself, why don't I create 5 news anchors You're too young to remember Max Headroom, but Max Headroom in the 1980s was the first computer-generated animated avatar. And he was this cool— look up Max Headroom online. Okay, my WhatsApp picture's Max Headroom. That's Max Headroom. He's like a cool glasses, funky, speaks with this kind of weird thing, staccato. And I thought to myself, let's take Max Headroom from the 1980s. Let's create 5 cool characters, news anchors that are highly automated. So myself, you, anyone else could write the news for the day, and these avatars just tell the news. So you have an automated news service using avatars. Just write in the story and then they say it. If you don't have a Tucker Carlson or a Rob Hershov anymore. You have these avatars giving the news that are funny, crazy, funky, mad. That was my idea.

Was this— the Max Headroom is a sarcastic stuttering AI, like digital host? Yeah, created with— I asked the question on the, on the tool as you were talking, right? So instead of me having to go to Google and look it up and all this stuff, boom, there, I know who he is even though I didn't.

So a modern version of Max Headroom as a news anchor and 4 other anchors, and you just write the news whenever you want, or or speak it, and then it automatically goes and the news anchor's presented. I mean, it just simplifies the news delivery. It can be satirical, it can be funny, it can be factual. And the whole world is going to change. It's going to be, you know, you could have an avatar of you and I could have one of me that is, you know, working all day long on various things, communicating with people. And you can be in the background interacting or not.

I want to end on the emerge. So, you just did something revolutionary or you're working on something in Africa around gaming, right? There's Betfair in Australia. Is there something that you're working on in Africa? And I do want to urge the audience, go listen to the Colonel Chris Wyatt episode on the Culture Matters podcast because we had a great conversation. He's very bullish on Africa's future. I think you're bullish and leading some exciting change in Africa that the audience should go listen to, Colonel Wyatt. But I think if we could talk a little bit about that, because it's weird. All of a sudden, I started connecting with people all over Africa. I'm in this family advisors group in Africa now as a student.

Sorry about that.

You mean you're joining in? Great. Yeah, but there's a lot of people are bullish on the future of Africa. And there's this obvious battle between the East and the West over control of this resource-rich, culture-rich continent, right? So, just on that note, open loop for the next time you come back. What are you working on in Africa that's very exciting? Okay.

So, Africa's 55 countries. Wow. The 3 biggest economies are South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt. And the South African economy is the same size as Louisiana. So if you think about how complicated it is doing business, each has language and culture and regulatory systems. Africa is not for the faint of heart. So if you commit yourself to Africa and you're the big guy in Nigeria, the big guy in South Africa or Egypt, you're the big guy in Louisiana. That's the difference. So even though there are natural resources, there's incredible tourism and sun, it's a complicated continent. You do way better building a business in America because it's 300 million people, the biggest consumer market in the world. I said to my sons, I know you love Africa, build your business in America. I'm a big America fan, but we like living here, you know, and I'm building a betting exchange business I'm building Cape Town's second airport, which is an $800 million business. I mean, these things take a long time. I'm working on a massive Bitcoin mining business. And my newest business is a copycat of MicroStrategy, Metaplanets, and SmarterWeb, which is a Bitcoin— a levered Bitcoin play. I'm big on Bitcoin, by the way. And it's moving. Have you seen the price?

Yes.

Wow. I started buying at $50,000. It's now at $122,000. So I'm like, go, baby, go.

And you're saying it's a— the Bitcoin company is a combination of— you said MicroStrategy and what?

So MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor is the poster boy for Bitcoin. He has created this incredibly valuable business called MicroStrategy. More recently, MetaPlanet and SmarterWeb have done the same thing, and they've gone— their stocks have been the best performing stocks in the world. MicroStrategy, MetaPlanet, SmarterWeb, wow, 1,000% return. We're building the African Bitcoin Corporation, okay, listed on all the African exchanges, to do exactly that. And in many ways, Bitcoin is better designed for Africa than it is for the rest of the world because we have weak currencies, uh, disintermediation, regulatory problems, you know, payment problems. Bitcoin's the perfect solution for those third world and African problems. And we think if we can launch the African Bitcoin Corporation, ABC, it'll be an absolute home run. And my two partners, shout out to them, Stafford Marzi and Warren Wheatley are the geniuses. I'm just the lucky guy that happens to know them and be in the right place at the right time, which is not a bad thing to do. Right place, right time, and have the right partners. That's the same.

I want to make sure our audience understands you've given us the, the master class on how to actually be that person, and we're listening very carefully. If you're listening to this podcast, Rob, um, fastest way that someone can reach out to you and ask 5 minutes of your time, they want to invest your next business, or they want to— all right, yeah, reach out.

They've got to subscribe to your show. They've got to subscribe to your show and drop you a note, and I'm happy to be in touch. rob@hersov.com. Email's the best. Keep it short. Hey, Rob, here's my deal. Go ahead. roberthersov.com. Short email. Happy to have a look.

If you're listening to this episode, go check out episode 801 our friend, uh, Colonel Chris Wyatt. And, um, follow Rob, connect with him, reach out to me, and we will see you next time.

And they've got to subscribe to your channel, but subscribe to The Truth Report as well. I need to get the subscribers over 100,000. Truth Report.

And it's getting there. Subscribe to The Truth Report, and we will see you next time on the Culture Matters podcast. Rob, thank you.

Jay, come visit us in Cape Town.