Prompt and Circumstance

Episode 13 -
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[00:00:28] Mike Richardson: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Prompt and Circumstance Podcast where we try to make sense. Of everything that's shaping up on the AI landscape and translate it into things that CEOs can understand. You always are better off to have a slow guy in the room, so I'm glad to be back.

Do you know how risky it is everybody, when you miss an episode of this podcast? I mean, it is a risky endeavor, and I listen to the episode of course, and I got disparaged a little bit, but not too much. Great to be back with my good friends here. Let's say hello everybody. Tom, how you doing?

[00:01:04] Tom Adams: I am great. It's great to be back. Great to see you, Mike. Uh, uh, from your many travels, we, we try and always, even before return on recording, try and figure out where you are in the world.

What, what, you know, rabbit hole. You have jumped down, so it's good to see you back.

[00:01:20] Mike Richardson: I'm back in my, at my desk and in my seat at list temporarily. Mark Redgrave. Good to see you, my friend. You've been all over the world. Come on. You've traveled more than I have globally. Where? Where? How are you doing, mark?

[00:01:31] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Good. Thank you. Great to be here guys. Um, hello everybody. Yeah, I'm London this week, so, uh, just for three days. So I've been in and out, but, um, excellent trip. So, um, yeah, but I've, uh, that's, I, I've started.

[00:01:44] Mike Richardson: you've been all over the

[00:01:45] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, I haven't been this year, but it feels like all my travels about kick.

[00:01:50] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Mr. Ryan Newman. How are you sir? You got a lot cooking these days.

[00:01:56] Ryan Niemann: I do, I do. And in the travel category, I'm getting ready to go to The Bahamas. So

that's my, that's my, yeah, I know you

guys tasked

[00:02:04] Mike Richardson: Pleasure, not

[00:02:05] Ryan Niemann: guys tasked me with a few things and one of them was taking vacation and

it's coming up, so yeah.

[00:02:10] Mike Richardson: alright. Alright everybody, well look. This time we're gonna try to tackle a big topic. We're gonna need our crystal balls for this one. The future of work, everybody. Now look, you guys have been on me for quite some time to get back into rep lit or lovable or something.

So I did some vibe coding last week

[00:02:30] Tom Adams: Oh.

[00:02:31] Mike Richardson: and I created a time machine. We're gonna transport each other out to several time horizons. Uh, we're gonna go out 18 months to the end of 2027. We're gonna go out sort of roughly five years to 2030. We're gonna go out 15 years to 2040. Now look, the app that I put together is still a bit glitchy

[00:02:55] Tom Adams: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:56] Mike Richardson: and sometimes getting you back is a little tricky.

So actually I spent last week in 2030 and it was really interesting and

[00:03:04] Mark Redgrave: because your, your, your wardrobe suggests you were back in

[00:03:07] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Yeah. Mark, I got bad. Mark, I got bad news for you, my friend. By 2030, all of your hair has gone. All of it. There is none left. Trust me.

[00:03:22] Tom Adams: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:23] Ryan Niemann: Yeah.

[00:03:23] Mike Richardson: excuse the glitchiness. Uh, we wanna talk about the future of work. Uh, we can talk about what we're already seeing in the rear view mirror, right? We've seen some big announcements in the last few days, weeks, and months of. Layoffs and things. Um, I happen to be, uh, on a Zoom call, uh, with my brother who lives in Australia.

Mark Redgrave, I think you know that. And his daughter has just joined. Uh, he, she left Amazon and she just joined, uh, an organization called Air Trunk. Which is in the field of hyper scaling data centers, and she is, uh, running their sustainability program. Uh, and anyway, in the conversation about all of that, he mentioned of course, that one of the most famous Australian software companies, Atlassian had just done a very big layoff.

Of a whole bunch of software developers and wrote a similar letter, wrote a similar letter online to the one that we saw a few weeks ago, um, from, uh, uh, block, I think it was, uh, and basically a similar theme. It was almost like he copied and pasted the letter and tweaked it a little bit. I'm sure he didn't.

Uh, but that's what it read like, so anyway, whether you want to look back a few days, weeks, or months, you wanna step out, uh, to 2027. 20 30, 20 40. Let's talk about the future of. Work. Who would like to start

[00:04:55] Tom Adams: Well, I can,

I'm happy to jump in 'cause I, I, I'm very practical about this, but, um,

I, I, I think I, I think for me in, in the next couple of years, I think it's gonna be a, what, what some might call a shit show. just, just the next little bit. Because, because

as,

[00:05:14] Mark Redgrave: French Tom, is that French word? Okay.

[00:05:16] Tom Adams: Yeah.

[00:05:17] Mike Richardson: A technical term. It's technical

[00:05:19] Tom Adams: technical term, but I, but I, I think, I think just the

uncertainty of stuff, let alone the geopolitical world that we live in, plus the reality that the jaw lays are happening.

Um, it, it's just a, I think the next three years, two and a half, 18 months is gonna be, we don't know what's coming at us. There's just gonna be a lot of interesting perspective that starts to happen that I think is gonna unfold. Um. And you know, that to me includes, in my opinion, the middle management squeeze, which is, uh, frontline workers I think are depending on how complex or whatever, uh, their job is, but I think somewhere in the middle that middle management squeeze.

The people at risk are not the doers or the executives. It's that layer that exists to summarize and coordinate and, um. Those kind of things. Uh, report, that's, that's gonna go away because of AI's capability.

[00:06:19] Mike Richardson: How do you want to weigh in on top of that?

[00:06:22] Mark Redgrave: I actually, 'cause when, when you sent this out a couple of days ago, Mike, and said, right, this is what we're gonna talk about. I was thinking about it and I like, so the conversations right now in media are led by jobs, right? Like the impact on jobs. I kind of feel, I. There's a much bigger thing happening here than jobs.

Right. And, and it's like, and I guess it's quite hard to articulate, but it's like jobs are gonna be lost. Some new jobs will be gained. We remains to be seen how that unfolds. Um, but I think all of us feel. Quite nervous about that because like we are talking about such orders of magnitude of efficiency through systems that it's like, it's hard to see that landing in a wholly positive place.

But the real shift, I reckon is not about jobs. It's like the shift is like the unit of work is changing, right? So, so for the last a hundred years, 150 years maybe, like we've organized companies around people and human capability. We've designed companies around that. But it's like now we are going into an era clearly where we will design companies around systems.

Right. With humans wrapping around it kind of Maybe So. 'cause it, 'cause it's like it's, and that's really fundamental, right? So, so, so we're gonna, we, we are cl in my mind, we're clearly going into a period where. Companies will be massive technical systems, which require some humans to operate. That is a completely different paradigm.

So that's where my head went Now, now between now and 2030, no, but like that, that's a grounding thought for this conversation.

[00:08:04] Mike Richardson: yeah, yeah. Oh, nice. Ryan.

[00:08:07] Ryan Niemann: Yeah, I think, uh, building on, on those comments, I, I think in the next, you know, let's say 18 months or so, um, you'll, you'll continue to hear. Headline stories about large percentage of, of layoffs and the like. And I think it's important to delineate 'cause I think there'll be equal, uh, rationalization on areas where AI does not a affect.

Meaning what are those roles and occupations that continue to have durability and require. Uh, individuals that, that aren't working with a AI day to day. And I think, you know, we easily gravitate to more, let's call it an information worker lens, 'cause that's what we do.

Um, but there are, there is a population of, of people and occupations where um, not only will it.

Potentially not affect in the short term. Now, you know, we're not talking long

term, but just in the short term, in the next 18 months. And I think we'll hear there's, there's still stories out there about where is AI not affecting these

roles and occupations? If you're coming into workforce, where do you go?

Where do you have longevity in your job? And I think, your, comment about those that are seeing. What's happening are adjusting their careers. Like

I had a very good career at a very large company doing great AI work, but yet there's another evolving space like data center build out and it's like, but when you say data center build outs, there's somebody who still has to stand up the facility, maintain the facility, uh, you know,

[00:09:40] Mike Richardson: The concrete.

[00:09:41] Ryan Niemann: Or the concrete, uh, you know, establish the power generation.

Maintain the power generation. So there's, there's gonna be an immense amount of, of occupations that will thrive, uh, that are just outside of our preview. When we, when we talk about the impact of, of ai, and I completely agree that I, there is going to be some. Population that is just gonna be able to run with this and produce not only more, but with higher quality velocity. And, and a, you know, that's that intellectual curiosity that's just like, just gonna be, we're gonna be amazed. And I think broadly, broadly, across. You know, your employee base, there's gonna be an expectation to be able to produce more,

which will translate into efficiency, which will translate into a percentage of reduction of, uh, people required and the

normal structure as, as Mark lays out.

[00:10:37] Mike Richardson: Yeah. I was on another podcast the other day with one of my members here that started the podcast. Yeah. Sorry guys, I sort of stepped out on you. Sorry about that. Um, uh, and he asked me, you know, he got me telling my whole story of, you know, going to college and then doing an MBA and all of that.

And, uh, he, he asked me about that very question, Ryan. Um, well, how do you look at. How do you look at the relevancy of MBAs and, and college degrees these days? And my kids are in there. Mid thirties now, my two boys, they've already said 100%, I am not gonna bother doing an MBA it. It's just not relevant anymore and it's too expensive.

And I suspect that if they were teenagers today, they would probably be saying, what's the point of going to college? I'll go to a trade school or some other form of professional school Get myself onto a track that is much less likely to be disrupted by AI anytime soon. So I think that's a really relevant, uh, point.

[00:11:38] Mark Redgrave: Mike, I, when, when I was in the UK this week, there was, um, I was just watching the BBT news, which is like the, the national broadcaster, and there was a whole segment on these really smart kids right, who have graduated and they were very, very articulate. People on this program who have had like, got good sort of first and two, one degrees, so very like, like, I dunno what you call it in America, but like high a, a, a cast degrees and they've had internships at really good companies and they cannot find work.

Right. And like, and I know this from our friends and colleagues that are in, uh, other, in, in UK and other places in Europe. It's like, this is starting to really land. Yeah. And, and, and, um. When I and I, for the life of me, I couldn't see who it was, but some kind of important AI commentator said yesterday, uh, on social media, he says, within three years, plumbers will be paid more than lawyers.

And I don't, did any of you see that article? And, and it was, and it was deliberately, it was deliberately sort of confrontational, but it's like he was dead serious. He's like, not, not trial lawyers, of course, but like, if you, if you are a, you know, like in a law firm doing bread and butter law work said plumbers will be paid more.

And so, so it's like this is, this is where it's headed. Right.

[00:12:59] Mike Richardson: Yeah, he's saying is the pendulum of supply and demand is gonna swing. Right? That's what drives price. And we're gonna be oversupplied with lawyers and undersupplied with plumbers. Uh, and so that's what's gonna happen.

[00:13:12] Tom Adams: that's what I wonder. What, and, and I mean, pulling those all together, what Mark said, which is units of work. the people who are sort of feeling out of place or displaced right now. I don't think it's, it's going, the real story is not as much technical as it is psychological.

Like try to come to terms with the fact that I was kind of. Even 10 years ago promised this career, if I just went and got my MBA, or if I just went to school and did this thing, I was kind of promised this thing. But in reality, what you're discovering, and I'm having these conversations too with my clients' kids who they put on the calls with me and say, they don't have a job, but they've got an MBA, what do they do? And they put them on me and I go, very frick. I don't know. Go, go become a, go become a plumber. Like,

[00:13:57] Mark Redgrave: Pod podcast host

[00:13:59] Tom Adams: Right. A

[00:13:59] Mike Richardson: Yes. There you go. Yeah.

[00:14:00] Tom Adams: we're like smoking it in terms of the revenue we make from this podcast alone.

I know Mike, I

know Mike's Mike's doing a lot of moonlighting on other podcasts, but us, we, we make the coin here for

sure.

[00:14:14] Mark Redgrave: Ryan's going to The Bahamas. I mean, seriously, we are like, this is it.

[00:14:18] Tom Adams: working.

[00:14:19] Ryan Niemann: I, I, I think it might be in the short term, you could, you could make a case that there's AI for enablement and efficiency with sustainability of that career. And then there's AI enablement and efficiency that we see that leads to displacement.

So, for instance, even though you're gonna become a plumber or electrician, I foresee, and there already are technologies out there that make doing that work. Uh, with computer vision and, and being able to leverage ai, you can do that job better. Like as an electrician, you can walk up to something where normally you would've had to call a master electrician and potentially get some guidance and coaching. You might be able to troubleshoot it and get much further down the road of actually solving. Fixing what have you or installing, uh, than you would've before. Um, what I think we're saying, like in the legal context is does that a, an AI enablement and efficiency ultimately lead to some displacement and reduction of demand? Um, and it's interesting that you noted the one potentially exception is a trial lawyer, right? and as I mentioned in the last podcast, I guess there's a movie coming out where we may not have trial lawyers anymore. There, it's just gonna be an ai, uh, it's gonna be a judge and jury by ai, right? So I mean. In thirties. Exactly. Yeah. So, uh, well, yeah, so yeah, I, I think it's interesting, you know, is AI enablement and efficiency.

What's the short term? What's the long term? What are those roles and occupations to lean into if you're coming into the workforce? And then on the other side is what is AI and enablement and efficiency? Uh, a agentic work in the light going to potentially displace, um, and, and drive to a lower demand And, and salary.

[00:16:01] Mike Richardson: uh, at this point, let's zoom out a little bit because you guys know, I wrote an article a few weeks back where I see a convergence between this AI driven disruption. And another big trend that we've already seen, and that is the move towards more portfolio careers, right? Where, you know, it used to be that perhaps in their sixties or their fifties or maybe their thirties, people pivot from a corporate career to a portfolio career.

And now we've got college graduates, right? As we just heard, really high quality college graduates, or MBA graduates or software developers. Who can't find a corporate job, right? Corporate career. And so they're already having to pivot to being freelancers, gig workers, you know, consultants, coaches, trainers, whatever, and starting portfolio careers.

I, I think that's just gonna be part of the trend here. And then the other big trend that, that fuels all of that as well as I'm reading a book right now. That I just came across, it was actually published, I think it was published in 2018, so it's, or 2020, so it's already six years old and think about what's happened since.

But the book I'm reading is called The Hundred Year Life. And basically the point it's making is that, um, kids being born today have more than a 50% chance of living until 104. In Japan 107. Uh, so even already more than a hundred years. And the old equation of a three phase life, education, career, retirement. the math doesn't work anymore because a 40 year career does not fund a 40 year retirement, and so naturally people are having to think about, well. I can't retire, and therefore how do I extend, you know, a phase four and a phase five where I'm going portfolio, I'm developing different income streams, I'm supplementing my retirement plan, et cetera.

And so I think when you zoom out a little bit, there's this bigger picture taking shape where. The future of work, the world of work and careers and lives is just gonna get turned upside down even more than we were already talking about by ai. Who wants to jump in on that and share some more thoughts?

[00:18:39] Ryan Niemann: I, I, I think that's spot on. If I were to give advice to somebody who's entering the career, uh, entering their career now, uh, and I don't know if I would, you know, even have to say it's post-college, like, or if, if you go to college. Um, and and the example of, I thought this was, uh, a great example of, uh. Uh, a student, let's say they were in high school, going around to their neighborhood, uh, taking pictures of homes, then using AI to create various paintings, right? So to interpret that photo into a watercolor painting and oil painting, uh, different perspectives or what have you. And then just knocking on the door and saying, you know, this is what I do.

Would you like me to make a framed copy? Here's what they cost, or what have you. Realistically in comparison with making 10 to $12 an hour. You know, if you sell a, a package together for a hundred bucks, you know, for minimal work using an iPhone that you're already in possession of a $20 subscription to something, uh, and a printer and, and you've got something, then you start the conversation of, would you like me to take. A family photo you have and I can make it also into, oh, well great, I'll, I'd like to do that for you as well. Then now you've got an expansion sale, right? And you're already up to 150 bucks or what have you. Just walking around the neighborhood is a better way than going down to a store, a big box store and, and, and getting a job.

Um, that might be a better path that starts you down the path of what is a portfolio career. If you could do that, could you also go to the local businesses down the block and take a picture and you meet the founder and you

say, you know, Mr. And Mrs. Founder, I, I took a picture of your outside. Would you like me to mount this?

And you can put it in your lobby.

Uh, you

[00:20:30] Mark Redgrave: Ryan I tabled that idea a few episodes

[00:20:33] Tom Adams: Right? you did.

[00:20:34] Mark Redgrave: And, and it's like, but it, but it's like, as a father of two girls who do not have that entrepreneurial confidence, okay. Like that, that's really hard for them. Okay. Like they, they just, they would.

They can't conceive of how to do that. Right. They understand logic logically, but it's like, so I think like while the four of us, I mean look, we've all, we've all been entrepreneurial, right? In our careers to date. It's like, it's just, it's what's helped define us. But I think a lot of people. this hustle thing, which is, which is a prerequisite, right?

Of everything you're describing. You've gotta have, drive, hustle. I mean, there's nothing like being hungry, right? To drive, to drive, to create, hustle. But, um, but, you know, I think this is, this is hard for a lot of people. So that's a balancing factor, right?

[00:21:24] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Yeah. And actually the, the name of the podcast that I was on with, with this member, he calls it from the grind up, and basically the theme is he's an entrepreneur, but his theme is everything is a grind, right? Everything is worth. While as a grind. And so he was asking me about my corporate career and the degree to which that was a grind.

It was a grind. My corporate career was a grind. I mean, gosh, I really like all of you. I really had to put it in. So whether you use the word hustle, mark, or grind, right, no matter which way, no matter which way you go, it's gonna be a grind. Right, and, and I think what Ryan is inviting, and I certainly do, is I'm inviting more people at a younger age, maybe not, you know, quite as young as college graduates yet to really be open to the possibility of a portfolio career.

I was at a, I was at a, uh,

[00:22:15] Mark Redgrave: don't grind. Mike. Just to be clear, gen Z do not grind.

[00:22:19] Mike Richardson: well they better learn how to,

[00:22:21] Mark Redgrave: They don't, they don't

[00:22:21] Ryan Niemann: Yeah.

[00:22:22] Mark Redgrave: that this is the, this is the, this is the generation that has more expectation and inbuilt entitlement than any generation before.

[00:22:36] Tom Adams: Uh, well, I, I, I think the challenge with all of this is that, um, we, we are trying to figure this out for ourselves. I think the grind even for all of us and the hustle is trying to figure out, like you did this week, Mike, how to actually use a tool like Lovable or Rept just to create a time machine. And I mean, that in

itself is a grind.

And um, and, but along with Mark's point, what I'm seeing from a lot of that generation is almost resistance to it. I mean, there's, there's my kids and then there's Ryan's kids, and Ryan's kids seem to be jumping into AI full steam and bringing it to their companies and stuff. And then I, I tend to see my kids going, uh, that's, that's you hustlers. That's for the hustlers. We don't want the hustle culture. Like that's

what I'm hearing from my,

my kids. They're going,

we don't want, we don't want to be crazy like you people.

And then, and then that's, that's happening in the context of this world that we live in with the uncertainty and the unknowns.

And so like, yes, there's both sides of this. And I think in the 18, that's why I said in the next 18 months, there's so much upheaval and it's not just work and it's not just tech, it's, it's. It's the way our, our people think about this, how we think about all this matters.

[00:23:57] Mike Richardson: So let's turn the dial on the time machine, right? And let's get ourselves out to at least 20, 30, maybe even 2040. I mean, what do you speculate about? What, what is, you just said Tom, how we think about this. How do you think about what might be the reality that we're in? When you all the way out to, you know, that whole next decade, what, where do you guys think we may be headed?

[00:24:26] Ryan Niemann: So. I think that the challenges that organizations are facing around adoption, uh, process redesign and the like, will continue in five years. There'll be demonstrable evidence and proof points of companies that have made it through that it will change roles. Like they'll just

be new nomenclature.

Taxonomy that we aren't. Currently using like the term agent boss and things like that, um, I think it'll have implications, um, for some sort of, I, I don't know if it'll be regulation advisory, like what you should and should not do and how much time and management of agent bosses is, you know. Allowed, uh, or, or advised if you will. Um, and I think, you know, talent development will material change. You need to, um, you know, in five years those entering the workforce will have been in it for, you know, five years. And, uh, those entering the workforce now have ai. Um, literacy.

Right.

And some of 'em do

not, not universally. There's still colleges and education is still getting their arms around it, but, um, they'll, they'll be, you know, clearer paths for prescriptive AI and AgTech enablement for the workforce in five

[00:25:53] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Yeah. Tom Mark.

[00:25:56] Tom Adams: Uh, I, I just see I, the related to what Ryan said, I see this. Concept. 'cause we talked blue collar and white collar. But I, I, I've got this theory that there's gonna be what we call new collar work, like callers we

don't even understand yet. Um, right. Like they're not blue or white. They're like,

[00:26:16] Mark Redgrave: I'm stealing that, Tom stealing that now.

[00:26:18] Tom Adams: they're purple, they're pink collar work. Um, you know, there's, there's work

[00:26:23] Mike Richardson: Pink slip.

[00:26:25] Tom Adams: there's work that becomes work that is human and, uh, machine translation, that ability to talk effectively to machines. Um, you know, that all of the stuff that comes with a change in culture means we change what the unit of work is.

We change the way we do the work, and I don't know what collar we're all gonna be wearing, but it's not gonna look like the collars we've had.

[00:26:47] Mike Richardson: Nice. Mark, you wanna,

[00:26:51] Ryan Niemann: or, or no color? Maybe It's no

color. There's

[00:26:54] Tom Adams: Or maybe there's no

Right, right. What's that

[00:26:56] Mark Redgrave: not wearing a collar today,

[00:26:57] Ryan Niemann: exactly.

[00:26:58] Mike Richardson: Collar. He's already ahead.

[00:27:01] Tom Adams: much mark mark's where Mark's going.

[00:27:04] Mark Redgrave: I, um, I, I kind of, I, I think right one in the not too distant future. One really big change we're gonna see is like this concept of, um, having. Like agents as workmates, which seems super weird for people, but like, I think that's gonna be really true really quickly. So we're gonna have people who are gonna be, uh, in teams or leading teams and members of their team will be a gentech operating, uh, you know, like units, which I think's, yeah, quite weird concept, but I think it's gonna happen really quickly.

Um. Longer term, I can only see one thing, which is a reduction in the need for people in companies. I can't see and, and everyone says, yeah, but we'll invent new roles. It's like, yeah, maybe, but like I can only see downward pressure. And on the 2040 timeline, Mike, if I'm honest. I think like society has some very significant challenges to wrestle with because I just can't, I just can't see it any other way.

And like we were talking about when I was in London, we were talking about universal basic income. Right? Which of course has been, it's been on the table for 30 years. Right. But it's like the problem is. Like, um, some of the people in the room had, uh, and my daughter was in London last year, but they're paying a thousand pounds a month for a room in London.

Right? It's two grand English pounds a month for a two bedroom flat in a not very nice part of London. No universal basic income in the, that could ever be contrived can handle that. So, so I'm like, and, and every cap we, we are lucky, right? We all travel to some. Wonderful cities. It's the same everywhere I look.

I don't go to cities where everyone go, so, so I'm, I'm just, this is what I sweat about because I think on the timeline, it's like society's got some really big stuff to deal with.

[00:28:49] Mike Richardson: You know, you guys know that I'm, I'm sort of curating, you know, every bit of latest research and data that I can find that, that plays back to this whole portfolio career track in a, in a LinkedIn group. And one of the things I posted there was this thing from Gartner. Where at least they said there will be no jobs apocalypse due to ai.

And they show two lines, right? They show a line of jobs lost because of AI and a line, a curve actually, of jobs gained because of ai. And yes, between now and sort of 2030, there's a net loss, but after 2030, at least in their model, they show a net gain. So that's really interesting. You know what I think about

[00:29:34] Mark Redgrave: The basis of what though, Mike? Like, like on on the basis of roles that are not yet defined.

Is that how they conveniently left

[00:29:41] Mike Richardson: new vocabularies, new concepts, new new, uh, tasks, kinds of work that we've just not even imagined yet. You know, new, new color, no color. Who knows what color kinds of work that we haven't even conceived yet, and,

[00:29:55] Mark Redgrave: And if past performance is an indicator of like they're right. Yeah. 'cause we've managed, haven't we like history shows like the human race managers.

[00:30:04] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Um, and, uh, you know, remember a few months ago we talked about the concept of a solo unicorn, right? Where people might get to unicorn status of, you know, valuation of a billion dollars with at least a very small team, if not, you know, one person team. I personally believe that as we get into the latter part of this decade and into the next decade, I, I believe everybody will become solopreneurs.

Because that will be the only safe way to be master of one's own destiny for a hundred year life. Uh, because, you know, we already see that if you put your faith in a corporate career, you are gonna be disappointed. Uh, 'cause the phone is gonna ring, you know, one day or an email is gonna come out, or there's gonna be a post in x.

That lets you know. That, uh, you just lost your job through, through largely speaking, no fault of your own, perhaps with the exception of, well, you've gotta stay on the leading edge of remaining relevant and you've got to adapt, adapt, adapt, and whatever those new jobs are that Gartner predicts are gonna gonna sort of somehow.

Emerge and surface and reveal themselves, you better be keeping up if not staying ahead of that trend to remain, you know, um, you know, to remain able to make an income. You are right, mark. Maybe there are maybe the world. You know, breaks down into two kinds of people, those who are willing to hustle and those who aren't and maybe will conceive new institutions for those who aren't willing to hustle.

But I suspect that more and more and more, um, young people will learn. There's no choice except the hustle. You will be hustling in some way, shape, or form.

[00:31:56] Tom Adams: I think the interesting concept related there though is what Mark referred to right at the beginning, which is the unit of work is changing and will change.

And so I think we don't really know what that means because it's not so much, will AI take my job and am I a hustler or not? It's what if fundamentally the unit of work changes and we,

we have robots and. Agents who just come along for the ride all the time. And I think what I hear out of Silicon Valley tends to be the pitch from is, you know, and if you listen to other podcasters who won't be named because they're rock stars, and then we want people to stay with us, um, is they talk about we're not having, most of us won't have jobs, and it's not about hustle, it's, we won't have jobs.

And there's this whole. Layer of that pitch that comes out of Silicon Valley right now out of the AI company saying, well, none of us will have work. I mean, we'll, we'll all be, we'll all be sitting in beaches with Ryan in, you know,

uh, and in all these really cool places, but that our, our machines will do the work for us.

[00:33:02] Mike Richardson: Hey, I wonder if we can still get flights. Let's join him next week. Let's go.

[00:33:06] Ryan Niemann: let's go.

[00:33:06] Mark Redgrave: we won't be sitting is in the Metaverse because, because

[00:33:10] Mike Richardson: Right.

[00:33:12] Mark Redgrave: Facebook announced this week that they were shutting the metaverse with an $80 billion loss.

[00:33:18] Mike Richardson: oh my gosh.

[00:33:19] Ryan Niemann: it.

[00:33:19] Mark Redgrave: So they've just, they've just written it off. 80 billion. Anyway, I digress. But yeah, we won't be sitting in the metaverse going, nice to see you, Ryan.

You look Well,

[00:33:28] Mike Richardson: let's dial the time machine back into the present. I, I think

[00:33:31] Ryan Niemann: Well hold, hold on hold on. Before you

before you do that. So, so think of this. So you wanted to go forward 15 years. 15 years from now, it'll be the first time that there's people entering the workforce where AI is a native layer to the way they

think, learn, and work.

[00:33:53] Mike Richardson: Yep.

[00:33:54] Ryan Niemann: So think of

that like there are students right now that you know

well, not students pre-K, and by they get into kindergarten, we'll

kind of get this education thing going. By the time they graduate in 15 years, they will have not known their personal life thinking, learning, or working without ai. And

so when we say your job will be gone or you won't be worried. I honestly don't know what that environment is gonna

look like.

[00:34:25] Tom Adams: right,

[00:34:25] Mike Richardson: They'll, they'll end up asking the question like, they, they currently ask about, Hey dad. Yeah. What's a fax machine? They'll ask, then they'll ask, Hey, dad. Yeah, what's a job? What, what is

[00:34:39] Tom Adams: right.

[00:34:40] Mark Redgrave: Yeah.

I think you're right though, Mike. I think you're right because it's like, so it's a, it's a paradigm. I mean, it's hard, it's hard for us to engage with it, right? Because it's like they're, they're gonna say, oh yeah, was your dad, did he have one of those stupid jobs as like CFO of Enron? You know? It's like, it's like, yeah.

Like he had a stupid job like that. Oh, that, that was so stupid. Why did

[00:35:02] Mike Richardson: choose Enron? That's interesting that you

chose Enron, right?

[00:35:05] Mark Redgrave: It's a

[00:35:05] Ryan Niemann: It was an interesting

[00:35:06] Tom Adams: bad choice.

[00:35:08] Ryan Niemann: I,

[00:35:08] Tom Adams: Mark's

[00:35:09] Ryan Niemann: I, I do

[00:35:09] Mark Redgrave: the

[00:35:10] Ryan Niemann: the, the interesting thing is if you double click on that, I do think the CFO of Enron's children actually have some interesting jobs. That's an interesting thing.

[00:35:20] Mike Richardson: All right, so let, let's, uh, let's dial the time machine back. Mark. While we were out there, I did notice you lost a little bit of hair already. I can see it happening real time before my very eyes here. So let's dial it back into the present.

[00:35:33] Mark Redgrave: not taking this personally, but next week, Mike, you're gonna get it, man. But anyway, carry on.

[00:35:37] Mike Richardson: So, um, you've, we've seen some announcements re recently.

What, what do you make of how those CEOs are sort of trying to thread the needle of the narrative they're trying to find and the story they're trying to tell? What, what did you make of that? Whether it was, you know, the, the block, what was the block guy's name? The CEOI forget. Um.

[00:36:00] Tom Adams: Black.

[00:36:01] Mike Richardson: Yeah, so anyway that, or Atlassian or others that you've seen, what are you making of how they're threading the needle with the narrative they're trying to, trying to thread with that?

[00:36:11] Mark Redgrave: I mean, we've talked about this before, right? I think some of the narratives are actually very good, right? Well, well conceived, balanced, um, I'm a big believer in clear is kind. So just call it, tell it what it is, right? So I believe, I, I think the thing that has shocked me is. We are in such a capitalist moment, right.

And the haves and the have nots, the, it's never been a wider split. And when you can triple your stock price by announcing a 50% reduction in headcount, we are in a really weird moment in time. 'cause it's like, like capitalist market says do it right. Which I think super like, yeah. Super weird.

[00:36:51] Mike Richardson: Yeah. To do.

[00:36:55] Ryan Niemann: Yeah, I like the comment. Clear is kind. Uh, I've been, uh. Impressed, uh, with the narrative that's been achieved and empathetically, uh, as an executive, as a leader, as a CEO, uh, it's a difficult time and, and if you're able to continue to press your company forward and you're of the haves and making progress and it pressing that forward, it's gonna be a difficult time.

Uh, you mentioned a number of articles, graphs, charts, that this'll change over a three year period of time and

we're in the messy middle, right?

Uh, until we, we break through on what that next narrative wave will be.

[00:37:34] Mike Richardson: Yeah.

[00:37:35] Tom Adams: I just think that everybody's gonna have to start making these kind of decisions and these kind of statements, whether you're a global conglomerate, whether you are. Uh, a small, small to midsize business that's, you know, full of staff, especially if they're more, uh, of the white collar persuasion. Uh, you're gonna have to, these kind of statements are gonna have to be made, and I think it's, it's what's coming in the next, you know, 24 months in, in my opinion.

[00:38:05] Ryan Niemann: the interesting thing is when you said that. Like you, you have to, as a leader, make these decisions. And if you take Mike's thesis of a solo unicorn and you couple that with Claude Claw, you may have to fire yourself and just let the Claude Claw go.

[00:38:20] Tom Adams: Just let it do it on its own. Yep.

[00:38:22] Mike Richardson: Solopreneurs, everybody. Solopreneurs. If you can turn being a solopreneur into a solo unicorn, you've done very well, that would be awesome.

[00:38:30] Tom Adams: or make your Claude bot your solopreneur and you just, you, you just feed

care and feed for the Claude Bot.

You know, just be its assistant. 'cause there's no

work then you're

already learning.

[00:38:41] Mark Redgrave: We did say before, didn't we? We did say before on a previous episode that like, AI adoption will not be democratic I feel like that's still a really important, you know, that's driving a lot of what we're seeing. Okay. It's, I don't think any of this is gonna feel very fair to anybody, honestly.

[00:39:01] Mike Richardson: It's gonna be, it's gonna be Darwinian, right? It's gonna be survival of the fittest. In fact, that isn't what he said. He said survival of the most capable to adapt. Right? Um, and so, you

[00:39:15] Ryan Niemann: Well that that is Darwinian.

[00:39:17] Mike Richardson: Yeah, exactly. So clearly we've always talked about adaptability for the last two decades. You know, we've used the word agility, right?

We've always talked about that with regard to enterprises and organizations and businesses. Uh, inside of that, we've always talked about. You know, leaders adapting their leadership style and the leadership approach. But now everybody, more than ever before, we're gonna talk about career adaptability.

We're gonna talk about life adaptability because it's just gonna be a crazy, crazy topsy-turvy wild ride. And you know, we've tried to step out with a crystal ball, but it's foggy as heck. We nobody knows. Nobody knows how this is gonna play out. Yet, you know, older people like us or younger people, there's, there's only, there's only one person who's gotta take responsibility for your livelihood and it's you.

And, um, so let's finish the way we normally finish everybody. Um, you know, we normally try to speak to the CEOs and executives on this call, on this, uh, podcast listening to us. Oh, by the way, I gotta do a shout out. One of our best listeners is just two miles away from me here, um, Greg Penny Royal at Wilson Creek Winery.

Every time I'm over there, he comes up to me and said, oh, great. Last episode. Loved it. So big. Shout out to you, Greg. Keep listening. Keep spreading the word.

[00:40:43] Tom Adams: shoutout. I've got another shoutout. I was on a coaching call this week with a CEO's, uh, second in command, and she says to me, I'm using Ryan's, uh, prompt. Thing in my thing, and this is giving me this result. Is that what it's supposed to do? And I went, oh my God, the universe is gone crazy because like, this is, this is somebody I like, I they're just an imp, not just, they're an employee of, of my client and they're using Ryan's prompt.

And I went, the world is a beautiful place.

[00:41:20] Mike Richardson: It's, it's, it's

[00:41:20] Mark Redgrave: in the post Ryan. Checks in the post man.

[00:41:22] Tom Adams: I

know.

[00:41:23] Mike Richardson: Alright.

[00:41:23] Ryan Niemann: I only

[00:41:24] Mike Richardson: the same way.

[00:41:25] Ryan Niemann: I only wish there was a way, and, and you know, there is a way, but not easily just to have like, where is this

going? Like, because she told somebody else who told their daughter, who told their friend

who. I bet I bet Ferris Bueller's

[00:41:39] Tom Adams: I, I know

Paris,

[00:41:40] Mike Richardson: unless he's having a day off, but maybe not. Um, so, you know, we need some kind of heat map that shows us that at all times. Right? Um, a sort of a radar scope of where, where we're pinging with new listeners. Anyway, uh, uh, shout out to Greg Penny, Royal Wilson Creek Wine, who, he's the vineyard manager over there doing really cool stuff, not least of all, by the way, with regenerative.

Agriculture that we just won an award for. So anyway, park that, whether we're talking to Greg or we're talking to

[00:42:08] Tom Adams: A, uh, was that a, uh, do we get paid for that

[00:42:11] Mike Richardson: That was a little commercial. Yeah, little

[00:42:12] Ryan Niemann: What Just happened here?

[00:42:13] Tom Adams: I hope because

[00:42:15] Ryan Niemann: I'm still waiting for the check from Snap.

[00:42:19] Tom Adams: right. Ryan's

for his trip this week. He's gotta pay for his trip this week. Come on.

[00:42:28] Mark Redgrave: This.

[00:42:32] Mike Richardson: Yes, it's, yes, it's, it was a round number. It was a round number that they gave us. Um, so anyway, back to where we were, this rowdy crew. You see what happens when you're away for a, a week, uh, finish off the way we normally finish off. So if we're a CEO executive or professional listening to this podcast, what on earth can we do to.

Step forward into this. What? What's an action that we can take? What do you recommend somebody does?

[00:42:59] Mark Redgrave: I've had my, so I'll start, I, so I was, I was in London this week Right. Doing, um, for a large international company doing what we call Mike as, you know, like operating model, like redesign. Right. And the whole point of that is exactly as the point you made before, which is like. The barriers to you moving forward with AI or with any big change initiative in your company is not technical.

is not technical. It is a human challenge. Right? And I still would really encourage everyone listening to just think about that, right? Because you've got some really important conversations to have with your leaders, with your staff, with your teams. Those conversations require people to reimagine. The company, the processes, their job, right?

We've just talked about that. So it's like you've got to, if I'm, if I'm a CEO, I need to find ways to engage my team in an open-minded growth mindset conversation about what the future holds. You gotta fix that before you decide whether to use open AI or Claude.

[00:44:07] Ryan Niemann: I, I'm gonna build on that. Uh, 'cause it's, it's related to. What I'd like to share as a, a call to action with CEOs. Yes, I agree. Um, I, I really appreciate BCG and their 70 20 10, which is really, it's 10% about what's happening with LLMs and everything. It's 20% about the technology and the like 70% about people. Right. And, and what came to mind was that previously. Let's go back a year or even during the duration of us doing this podcast, you'd almost have to go find that futurist that would actually tell you what's coming. think you can have a good, open conversation with the people in your organization, and they just need to tell you what they're already experiencing.

[00:44:55] Mike Richardson: Yep.

[00:44:56] Ryan Niemann: That's enough. Validation. You don't have to go find a futurist. You don't have to find,

you know, literally you can have a conversation across your organization and you're gonna get a good understanding of what's already happening and underway that with more formalization and investment and thought and making it a priority.

And, you know, marks, uh, make this a priority as a CEO. Get, get on a Friday call for a half hour, make it

a priority and talk about it and you can make progress that you wouldn't have been able to do, be previously.

[00:45:26] Mike Richardson: Inclusive of, you know, creating the safety so that they can also voice what they're afraid of. 'cause they're also seeing, they're also seeing the news, right? They're also seeing the speculation. They may be seeing some of these. You know, announcements from some of these CEOs posted on X, et cetera, and, and they know that if, if, if I'm not careful here, that could be me.

And so give 'em a safe place where they can voice those concerns and then turn that into the opportunity, Ryan, as you're saying, well, let's lean into this and get busy so that we can keep up and stay ahead to what, what would you throw on the fire

[00:46:00] Tom Adams: And the only a addition I would add is that, uh, the importance of also reimagining your life with it.

Like it's so, it's so easy to fix our companies and not fix

ourselves and, uh, to sort of push everything down. But, um, the, the challenge I keep running into is people who want their. They're companies to

figure it out, and they're not willing to do the work of, of exploring the, the difficult parts, trying to make sense of it.

Again, not the technology, but how the people, part of me that needs to figure out how do you, how do I use these tools effectively? How do I use the next layer of tools? What do I reimagine my life looks like when I have. A different work. Uh, basically what Mark talked about at the beginning, which I think is so important, which is what's, what's a unit of work for A CEO now?

Like, what's that look like? And can I reimagine that and build toolkit around that for myself?

[00:46:58] Mike Richardson: And I'll build on that. You know, what I've been saying for 3, 4, 5 years already is, it's not if you will have a portfolio career, it's only when you know, even if someone, you know, in the old days used to make it to 67 and they retire from their corporate career, um, you know, three months later they're bored to tears.

And they start asking questions like, I wonder if I could consult, coach, teach, volunteer, be on boards, et cetera. And what I say is, well, those are really cool questions. Just a darn shame you waited until age 67 to start asking them.

And what we're now seeing is people are asking those, needing to ask those questions.

Age 62. Age 57. Age 52. Age 47, all the way through to perhaps a 27-year-old, a 22-year-old. Is now having to ask themselves those questions of how am I gonna protect my livelihood going forwards? Because clearly, increasingly, I cannot rely upon the old paradigm of a corporate career or job to do that for me.

I'm gonna have to develop a portfolio approach in some way, shape, or form to protect my future. And so I just invite everybody on the call to just. Percolate on that. Just think about that and just, uh, let that rattle around in their minds and see what shapes up. So there we have at everybody.

[00:48:20] Mark Redgrave: right. One thing, I've just gotta get this off my head, 'cause since something you and Ryan said just a moment ago, it's like there's a golden rule for CEOs here around communication at difficult times, right? If you leave a gap. People will fill it with imagination and myth, right? So, so, great, great tip for CEOs at times like this, communicate with your people yet get into the conversation because avoiding the conversation is going to be much worse for you.

[00:48:52] Mike Richardson: Beautiful.

[00:48:53] Mark Redgrave: just something Ryan said, trigger that in my mind, because that's a golden rule of communication, right?

[00:48:57] Mike Richardson: if you leave a void in the story, they will fill it with their own story, and it isn't likely to be the story you wish they were telling themselves.

[00:49:07] Mark Redgrave: Hundred Uh,

[00:49:08] Mike Richardson: awesome. Very well said. There we have it again, everybody, uh, sorry Mark for the hair loss, uh, while we went on this journey.

[00:49:14] Mark Redgrave: Okay.

[00:49:15] Mike Richardson: Uh, but, uh, but you know, you still look very handsome, mark. Very handsome indeed. Another episode, everybody of the Prompt and Circumstance podcast. We look forward to having you with us next time.