Shattering AI Misconceptions With Tiago Forte ![rw-book-cover](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xeEWzvg6Y94/maxresdefault.jpg) ## Metadata - Author: [[YouTube]] - Full Title: Shattering AI Misconceptions With Tiago Forte - Category: #articles - Summary: In this guest episode of Promptly Speaking, hosts Sara and Dan Roberts dive deep into the transformative world of AI with guest Tiago Forte, a renowned entrepreneur and best-selling author. Listen as Forte debunks common misconceptions about AI, reveals surprising industry applications, and outlines how AI can act as a thought partner rather than a simple task automator. From cutting-edge projects at a sugar mill in Guatemala to AI’s potential to reshape personal finance and recruiting, this episode is packed with insights that challenge conventional thinking and inspire new possibilities. ⏱️ Timestamps: 00:23 Meet Tiago Forte: Productivity Expert 01:04 Misconceptions About AI 03:33 AI as a Thought Partner 04:27 Accuracy and Citations in AI 07:33 Defining AI: A Mirror to Humanity 09:04 Fear of AI and Projections 10:38 Backlash and Sacred Cows 16:22 Adapting to Change in Business 16:32 Generational Shifts in Business 22:31 Global Technological Divide 23:12 Case Study: AI in a Guatemalan Sugar Mill 24:07 AI Adoption in Various Teams 24:36 Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up AI Implementation 25:12 Experimentation and Business Culture 26:57 Unique AI Use Cases Across Industries 28:57 Transformational AI in Small Businesses 32:13 AI in Recruitment and Candidate Sourcing 36:03 AI as a Financial Thought Partner 40:46 Finding Your AI Spark 42:43 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Tiago Forte: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@TiagoForte ⁠https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/⁠ Follow Sara & Dan: Sara: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/saralynneroberts/⁠ Dan: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/danroberts27/ Email: ⁠[email protected] - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeEWzvg6Y94 [Music] You're listening to Promptly Speaking, the podcast where we examine how AI is impacting the way that we live, work, and think. I'm your host, Sarah Roberts, and with me is my co-host and husband, Dan. Dan, do you want to introduce our guest? >> Yeah, Thiago, excited to have you on the podcast here today. TegoForte is a renowned entrepreneur, speaker, and best-selling author. He's built an empire helping people become more productive. He's created frameworks to transform how thousands and thousands of people are capturing, organizing, distilling, and expressing their knowledge. He's featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and many other publications. And he's at the forefront of helping people and companies navigate how human knowledge and AI collide. I'm really excited about this. >> Amazing. Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Let's >> Let's do this. >> Yeah. Thank you so much for being here, Thiago. >> Yeah. When we when we spoke, it seems like a long time ago now. Um you shared so many interesting topics, but one of the things that was really fascinating for me is the kind of misconception of what AI is, how to use it. And I'd love to have you share with our listeners what you're seeing um with your clients, the people you're interacting with what is the main misconception. >> Yeah, so many misconceptions. So maybe giving a little bit of context might be helpful. Uh we have this uh fiveweek program, this course that we teach. Uh we've just finished like last week the second cohort. So, so now there's been a hundred companies over a hundred companies that have gone through the program. So, everything that I'm going to speak to uh or or most of what I'm going to speak to has to do with what we've learned from that group of companies. And you know, you know what's funny is we also had a lot of misconceptions. It's a brand new field. like we we sort of put out this call for, you know, who wants to spend 5 weeks really immersing themselves and diving into AI and we had no idea what to expect and there were even some surprises in terms of who opted in, who joined, what kinds of companies, what sizes of companies and so we were just as surprised and we learned just as much. But let me see if I had to say what's a good one to start with a big misconception. I think it has to do with where AI is going to impact companies the soonest or the most directly. >> Um there's so much emphasis now on like task completion, >> right? And it's kind of understandable like everyone has grunt work. Everyone in the world from the most junior entry level, you know, person to the the biggest CEO has some percentage of their time that's grunt work. And we all can't wait to offload that to AI, right? >> And so you see this big emphasis on automation. What can AI automate, >> right? What can what can it essentially take over from what's currently on my to-do list? >> And there are some things it can, but but surprisingly not that much cuz like you get the simplest task like uh go online and pay my bill. AI cannot do that. And so by that test, it fails. It fails at one of the most what is to us one of the easiest tasks. you know, logging onto a website and paying a bill. >> Yeah. Uh, and so what we had to kind of do was shift people's mindset from like low-level task automation where AI is surprisingly not that capable to this other realm which I would describe as um as being a thought partner as thinking through possibilities, scenarios, decisions, making better decisions um testing out different pathways, different models, different business models, different pricing models, different go-to market models. um almost the way that you would use or or that you would work with either another leader or executive on your team, assuming that you're a leader, right? Like that that's sort of like uh sparring that you would do >> sort of testing out and iterating and developing an idea or a decision or point of view. Uh or if not internally, you would work with an with a coach with an external coach. That is where AI is the most powerful. How do you feel about some of the um like issues in citations or um accuracy when it comes to interacting with AI as a thought partner? >> Yeah, that's a that's a surprisingly big uh topic. Uh I say surprisingly because to to me I I don't um I don't think it's that big of an issue. I think mostly because humans also constantly hallucinate. >> Like I don't I don't get I don't get where this double standard comes from. You know, if you're working with with a human, any human, no matter their level of experience, you would expect them to make mistakes sometimes. >> You'd expect them to um to not site their sources. You'd expect them to sometimes have just biased or mistaken or out of proportion beliefs and views. I mean the whole gamut of human biases and we have we have mechanisms for correcting for this right all sorts of mechanisms from like in the midst of a conversation like oh are you sure about that like >> which I actually well either cla or chat GPT are the two that I'm working with the most right now but I'll ask like hey will you look at your answer and it'll say oh yeah I hallucinated that that's not correct um but uh this is a a fascinating topic for me as well because I recently um have been going through a lot of your videos, Thiago. You have so many helpful videos on YouTube and I'm signed up for your newsletter so I get all these tips and tricks and one of my favorite ones is um you can actually go into user level settings and tell it to do different things on every response. But one of them that you had suggested was um to actually specify the level of confidence that the chatbot has in that answer. And that has been fascinating to me because some of them it's you know high degree of confidence and it'll give me a percentage and it'll say why or why not which has been a game changer for me. >> Totally. Yeah. So, so you bring up a good point which is like you can think of it defensively like oh how do I make sure the AI is not misleading me and really for that you just use all the same things you do with humans >> but you're pointing to something way beyond that which is to think offensively >> um not offensively like to be offensive but in terms of >> something you can >> just in case >> there's something with AI that you can do that you absolutely cannot do with humans which is reach into their mind and tweak and shape their psychology. >> Like we're not talking about that. Like there's so many and what the video you're referring to there's like little different levels of control. You can do light touch small tweaks all the way down to really deep system level tweaks and you absolutely can't do that with humans. With humans it's >> you label people either trustworthy or not. It's very black and white. You have no control over what they say. With AI you do. >> Yeah. So, Thiago, how would you define AI? What is it? >> So, uh I think AI for me, I I really think of it as a mirror at at different at multiple levels. It's a mirror individually for the for the person, the individual using AI. It's a mirror at the level of the company creating the LLM because you see that every LLM completely reflects the culture of the company that created it. And then at the highest level, it's a mirror to humanity because what else could it be? It's trained on nothing but humanity's, you know, collective culture. So part of that too, part of being a mirror is generally every opinion that you have about AI is a projection, which is also true of humans by the way, but let's just limit ourselves to to LLMs for now. um everything it's it's a very fascinating thought exercise to every label or opinion or judgment especially judgment that you place onto an AI to just ask yourself how is that actually true of me or how is that a pattern that I tend to see everywhere and in everyone that I'm actually responsible for perpetuating or um or even what I'm how is what I'm perceiving in the the communication in this LLM really more about me >> really really What does it tell me about me which is just essentially taking responsibility for your communication which is just a valuable life skill in general. So h how do you sorry how do you take that into you know why people are so fearful of AI if it's just a mirror of ourselves of our culture of our company why are people so afraid because we're terrified of ourselves >> I mean I mean I I love I love thinking of this in terms of projections because that is a that is a a body of psychology ology and research and uh and therapy and and stuff that goes back a long long long time. So we know like why like just just the classic you know proven thinking on projections is you make a projection onto someone or now something when there's a part of yourself that you cannot face or you're not willing to see or you're not willing to accept and embrace. So it's easier to externalize it and then judge and condemn that aspect of what is really yourself and AI just amplifies that that process. >> What it really does is it brings projections from the realm of human to human relationships into working with a technology tool. Technology increases the spread of outcomes, right? It just does because some people use technology to save work, to save labor, including many kinds of labor that make them better people, while other people use technology as a form of leverage to accomplish more, faster, better, including making themselves better. >> Um, that's been going on for centuries and it's just going to accelerate, I think. >> Yeah. I want to talk about that video about that you posted about how to use AI to help you write and there was an insane amount of backlash. I want to I wrote down a couple of the comments. Do you mind me sharing? >> No, go for it. Go for it. >> Okay. These are some of my favorites. Um first one is I think I spotted a typo in the title. It should read how to create slop so you too can spend more time on your hammock. Uh, Thiago, I love you, but that video was insulting. You lost me today. And lastly, if AI is writing all your content now, content that you don't care enough to write yourself, why should I care? >> Yeah. >> So, >> some good ones. This was some some some punches. >> I know. I know. Um, wouldn't mind being in a hammock right now, though. >> Yeah. >> Going outside. >> Yeah. Um, but so what was your what was your first gut reaction to the backlash? >> Yeah. So, so that happened just a few weeks ago and I I sort of have been through in the weeks since they kind of I don't know if this it's the seven stages of grief or some related process. So, okay, there's a couple things. First, as a creator or any sort of public anything, you're just used to it. Yeah. >> I mean, it's just part of the game. You can't get around it. You can't avoid it. Even if you could avoid it, I don't think it would be healthy because those comments are a form of feedback. I think that is pretty important. Otherwise, you can just you you can become sickopantic with your own audience. You can say only things that they approve of, only things they want to hear, only things they already expect. It's actually quite healthy, I think, to have occasional bouts of uh of vitriol. >> Love that perspective. Um, and then a couple other things too is like I think it's important every time there's a new wave of technology or media or or art or whatever, it's always cringe in the beginning. >> It's extremely cringe, right? Like think back few years ago um if you were on Tik Tok early like the first Tik Tockers, it was extremely it was so embarrassing to be a Tik Tocker, right? Um, YouTube. This is almost hard to remember now, like 20 years ago, but it was so incredibly cringe to be a YouTuber. Yeah. You know, in the 2000s, now it's like you're a media mogul if you're on YouTube. >> Yeah. >> I mean, online dating was like that. Now it's like everybody meets people online, but oh my god, you met your boyfriend online, >> you know? >> Exactly. Every technology goes through the cycle. So, I think we're definitely in that phase of AI. Uh, it's embarrassing to use AI. It's corny. It's cliche. It's campy. It's low taste. It's low status. Um, which is some of what you're seeing in those those comments. You know, those are like highbrow comments. Oh, how dare you stoop, you know, stoop to this lowly lowly, you know, thing. >> But I again I maybe I've just like completely brainwashed myself to like see uh negative things as positive. But uh to me that just tells me that I'm in early enough. >> Yeah. I'm I'm like happy that I like being here in the cringe stage will then mean or or at least give me a chance that I can grow with it and it will grow so fast. I'm certain in a few years AI will be an art form right alongside painting and music and every other art >> form >> and I want to I want to be prepared for that. >> Yeah. Well, and it's almost like the backlash is that writing is a like kind of sacred a sacred thing that like oh well technology can't touch that and it's almost like well that's the last thing that we have so you know how dare you use AI for that. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Th this is so true that it's a sacred cow. It's a sacred cow that we put on a pedestal and started worshiping, you know, like in the Bible. And this is something I learned from my a big maybe the biggest influence on me, a writer named Veniteshra. He has a a blog called Ribbon Farm that I've been following for many many years. And he he every time he detects a sacred cow, he just goes after and just tears it absolutely to pieces. Not just because he I wouldn't say because he likes upsetting people, although that's often a side effect, but because when you tear down a sacred cow, there's tremendous insight behind that. behind us every sacred cow cuz usually you're you're not touching it. You're not looking at it too closely. You're treating it as inherently worthy or inherently good without really asking why or or if it's still relevant. You're just it's a black box that you're refusing to touch. When you open that black box, >> there's insights, there's realizations, there's personal growth, there's there's business ideas, there's future economic potential. It's a bonanza of value when you open up one of those sacred cows. It's less about um what I'm hearing right now is less about AI. It's just more about change >> and the fear that goes along with new things that are happening. I mean, think of >> like think of a child trying something new. They're afraid they're going to fail. As an adult trying something new, what happens if I am if I'm not great at this? What happens if I completely miss the basketball hoop and everyone laughs at me? >> Fear of the unknown. >> Yeah. It's it's no different now. And I'm I'm curious, you know, because I am very much in the business world, like how do you see this fear materializing or being different in the, you know, people commenting on your YouTube videos versus the clients you have and how they are progressing through these different stages of comforts and expertise. >> Yeah, I I think you're absolutely right. I think it is fundamentally about change. It really is about change. people's attitudes towards change, their relationship to change, their ability to weather change. Okay, so taking a couple steps back, what I noticed is um and this this is not an original observation, the generations, what you think of as generations are shortening, right? It used to be there was a paradigm shift in business. I mean, we know a human generation is every 30 years, right? And I would say actually probably go back a couple hundred years and business cycles, big paradigm shifts in business probably took multiple generations, >> right? You might do similar work or the same work as your parents or even your grandparents. >> Then in like the mid 20th century or so, it became like one business cycle per generation, right? Which which was sort of still okay because you would do more or less the same thing for your career, your 30 to 50 year career. Now we're seeing multiple generations within a single career, right? Um, where I really noticed this is like with online creators. I host a a mastermind retreat and I I do like conferences and a lot of like meetups and in-person things. And when I talk to an online creator who is even about four or five years either before or after me, it's a different paradigm. Like four to five years is the online business cycle at this point. Like I started my you know my self-employed career in 2013 right which was the era of long form blogging YouTube was already huge of course it was early days for podcasting it was kind of early days for social media it was the Facebook era you can just run down the list >> someone starting in 2018 totally different much less 2023 or 2025 totally different era whole different set of platforms that are dominant whole different set of mediums >> uh and so maybe as online creators, we're faster than normal, but even among the mainstream business world, it's got to be something like eight or 10 years per business paradigm. I don't know. What do you guys think? What What do you What do you see as the as the generational >> I mean, it's it's accelerating. >> Well, I mean, look at there. you know, I'm I'm a recruiter and um when I'm working with a client, I always have to get a sense of like what they think jumpy is for a candidate of like, you know, they need to be in each role for at least two years and maybe they can have one nine month stint in there, but everybody kind of has their threshold and that is also changing. Um, but it used to be that people would work for the same company their entire career and I mean you worked at Salesforce for eight and a half years and like that is jaw-dropping these days, you know. >> Yeah. >> But they did give six months pat leave and uh twice. Yeah. After we had the first it was like unless you're absolutely miserable, you are staying until the second kid. But um I digress. Yeah, I think even in individual careers, I I think that's a good thing given how quickly AI is changing everything that at least in tech, we're a little bit more used to big changes in our own careers, but this is like changing the way that we're that we think, the way that we create. It's changing the jobs that are available. >> I think the interesting thing I've noticed is this change is both the bottom up and top down. So it's coming from the bottom up because people can access it in their daily lives and they expect that in work immediately and the pace of change and progress there is so fast. >> But we look at where companies are placed, you know, if they're in major metros in LA or San Francisco, New York, they're two, three, four years ahead of the Rockies of the Midwest just because of where those people are. You know, we're in Denver. If you look at the Meetup groups and what they're talking about, San Francisco was talking about that two years ago. >> And so it's really interesting to see that it's not a across the board. Yes, everything is moving and accelerating, but it's accelerating at different paces. Um, you know, often times people want to come to the Midwest to slow down. They don't want to be in the rat race, but the rat race from the coast is pulling the center of the country forward faster than they are comfortable. Um, and it's creating, you know, again, back to a little bit of fear. It's creating a little bit of fear, anxiety about the unknown, about moving too fast, about changing the lifestyle they have created for themselves. Um, and I'm curious because because you work with companies of varying sizes from almost soloreneurs to many thousands of employees. um what are you hearing um about the the pace of change and what these people are doing internally to get ahead of it or to just sit in the uncomfortable pace? >> Yes. So, so, so let's talk about how businesses are adapting to this. So, I I think it's it's important to note that most people or companies don't make most paradigm shifts. >> They just don't >> they don't move to the new paradigm. Um I mean you know Thomas back in the day when he wrote the structure of scientific revolutions he noted this over 100 years ago I think it was he said most scientists never make the move from one scientific paradigm to the next. They just what what's actually needed to move to the new paradigm and it sounds brutal but that generation of scientists has to die. Once they die the new paradigm can arise. >> Sure. Like dang, right? >> People are just stuck in their ways and they have their view of the world and that's what made them successful 10 years ago, five years ago, so they're going to stick to their guns. >> Yeah. It's just it's human nature. We don't I mean we don't like change, period. Much less paradigm changes that cause you to completely question your most fundamental tenants. Like you guys, most companies have not even gone to the cloud. you know the cloud revolution that we were talking about 20 years ago, most people have not caught up with that. >> Yeah. >> And so different people and companies are moving are either being left behind uh to in some in some previous wave or they're advancing at differential rates like you said. And so we almost have this where like you go to another city like you said in the US or especially abroad and they are literally like in a different era >> technologically, culturally, socially, linguistically. It's like like oh my gosh like and it's not that's not to speak ill of them. It's just different places advance at different rates now. And it's like a whole another kind of cultural divide that we never had to deal with before. And you're seeing that in business as well. Like business is like my god. And it's so so now let's move to like what this looks like concretely. Uh it's it's not the ones you'd expect in many cases. Um like we just did a case study. I I flew down to one of the largest companies that participated in our program which was a sugar mill >> in Guatemala. Right. >> So I flew down there and I spent a day uh touring. There's like the like thousands of hectares of sugar cane and then there's the factory where they process it and then they have all these kind of subsidiary businesses like they they burn the sugar cane to generate electricity. They have like biodegradable like sustainability products they make like a whole bunch of different things. And you would not believe this this company in this you know ancient industry in this underdeveloped country. Um it's a also a protected industry. They don't really face competition. So you would think, oh, they have no incentive to innovate. They're adopting AI like you would not believe. I I sat in this conference room and the like half the day they had team after team after team. They probably had seven or eight different teams come in and present to me how they're using AI. >> That's so >> every single team every single team was embracing it to an incredible degree. So like >> why is that? Why are these teams so gung-ho? What's driving it? I don't I don't know fully. I don't know fully. It's not competition. >> I mean, is it >> is it coming from the top? >> Yeah, I would have to say based on what I saw and actually this this is a common pattern. Um, at this early it's kind of like at this early stage, um, the competition has not heated up enough >> where it's truly like adopt AI or go out of business, right? >> Like we'll get there. It's more like the founder or or owner is lighting a fire under everyone and sort of you're right like top down saying that this is a priority and that's driving all the adoption. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's uh it's fascinating with the companies that I talked to. Uh I feel like it's a philosophy. Some are very much we need to take this top down. we're going to figure out how we can move these levers to save make more money. Um, or it's, hey, I trust you all. Go figure out what works for this department. Go figure out what works for that department. Come to me with your ideas and we'll work on it together. >> Um, and I don't I don't necessarily think one way is better than the other. They're different. They adapt differently. Some might move faster than others. Um, but it's an experimental phase. The exciting thing for us and we're both in tech is that people are experimenting. >> Yeah. half this stuff is going to fail or more, but as long as we're not sinking tens of millions of dollars into them too soon, then it's a good way to learn. >> Yeah, I I I think that's right. I I think what you're seeing now is like people always talk about the importance of culture and, you know, business culture and all that stuff. Now, you're really seeing the effects of that because everyone says, "Oh, we're open to experimentation and, you know, blah blah blah all the the headlines." But now you're really saying, >> you know, which cultures really are bottom up, which ones do really have low power hierarchies where people are allowed to say things and do things, which ones, you know, are open to change, which ones like like this this is the the proof in the pudding now. >> Yeah. >> With AI, >> you know, one of the things I'm excited about for this podcast is to reach a broad audience and share it with people in construction, in >> communications, in hospitality, and all all across the board. And I know you work with a variety of different companies. I mean, you just talked about a sugarmelon in Guatemala that is not the marquee AI adopting company. >> Um, what what other uh industries or um unique use cases for AI have you seen that you said, "Wow, I didn't even think that was possible." But they've been in innovative ahead of you and and curious enough to learn. >> Yeah. Let's see the the people in our program. It's actually interesting. There's been two main groups kind of a clear like biodal distribution. Um there's the first group is like very small companies like one to five people often in consulting or some sort of like specialized professional service or they're selling an information product that >> recruiting. That's how well and that's how we got in touch with you was our your hockey uh teammate and my friend who's also owns a recruiting agency was in your cohort and he was like this this changed my business. >> Sorry to interrupt. >> Totally. >> No. So that's I mean that's that's a clear that's a clear archetype. Um they're small, they're nimble, they can adopt new, you know, tools like very quickly and easily. Um they're digitally native. They're usually remote or at least hybrid. Uh, and those were almost like the easy ones because they're kind of like us. They're basically just following what we're doing. >> But then there was another type of company that was much larger. I'd say like 50 or 100 headcount up to a few thousand >> and they're often in physical industries like manufacturing, like electrical, contracting, construction, uh, retail, uh, agriculture, stuff like that. uh who are mostly in person, have some sort of physical part of their business, are much older, have been around longer. They're usually either fully in person or hybrid. Um and those those are are interesting for different reasons. Um and have different use cases, right? So, let let me think of an example. So, so here's here's an example. Well, let me give you an one of my favorite examples of like a transformational initiative that is like quite feasible to do, but you can we'll clearly see how it can transform a business. So, let's start with we already talked about a big a big business, the sugar mill. Let's talk about a small one. So, this was a um a business owner who had an agency that did like engineering consulting, right? So they're like consulting on sizable construction projects and engineering projects and uh I think the owner's name was David. He looked at their process for receiving applying for and winning contracts, right? So think about the the typical process, you know, oh hey everyone, numbers are down. We need new we need new business. Okay, go out find RFPs. Okay, these are the RFPs. Okay, read through them. find the best ones. Okay, these are the ones like like you could just extrapolate that out to like not even days, weeks if not months of work, right? What David did is he got a folder with every contract they'd ever won in the history of the business, like 380 something contracts or something, which is a small amount of data for an LLM. That's easy. True, right? dumped that into a project and claw and said, you know, this is the the database of our winning of our winning uh contracts. From that point forward, every time an RFP came in, the day that they found the RFP, he would drop it directly into the project and say, "Evaluate this RFP and give me a probability of success." Right? 70%, 85%, 95%, which you could do in 30 seconds, right? It's like easy for an LLM. They only apply they they don't even try to go for the ones that have less than a 85 or 90% chance of success. Right. >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> That reminds me so much of uh well first of all was there more that you wanted to say about that use case because that reminds me a lot of a use case that I was using for my business. Well, just just one more step which is so once they have this very very short list of 90% plus probability of success RFPs, they just go now write proposals for each one of those that not only perfectly match all the requirements in the RFP but also draw on every single winning >> proposal we've ever made. How how can you not win those? That's like that's you're going to win every single one practically. >> Yeah. Yeah. And all in one day, that'll happen in like hours or a day at most. >> But sorry, before you go, I just want to share like, >> okay, >> the awesome nuance to that. And because I work at Glean and a lot of our competitors, they solve that problem all day long. But I haven't heard a single person say, "Score the probability of even spending another second on this RFP." >> Because it's not just the filling it out, it's the followup. It's everything that goes in afterwards. is is this worth our time? And I love that. It is such a a great use case, especially for smaller businesses where an hour of their time is so much more impactful than a company that has 10,000 50,000 employees. >> Sorry. Go ahead. >> No, it's okay. >> Absolutely. >> Um well, it just reminds me of my recent search that I did. You know, I I work with the client. I help them figure out who they need, what the criteria is, and then I go to LinkedIn Recruiter and I source the out of these people. I'll go through thousands of profiles over the course of a search, which can take several weeks. I'll maybe reach out to a hundred people. And it's very important to me that the people that I reach out to are almost guaranteed to be a near-perfect fit on paper because my time is so valuable. And so I thought, well, hm, how can Claude help me with this? And so I took all of my notes from conversations that I had with the hiring manager and the recruiter and the CEO. And then they also shared with me a bunch of profiles of candidates that had worked and not worked in the past and when they dropped out of the interview process. And I uploaded all of those to Claude, asked more questions about the profile. And then when I would come across a candidate that I thought would be a good fit, I would put them in or I would put a batch of maybe 10 and I would say, "Rank these and tell me why or why not why not they would be a good fit." And and I took it from there as well. the transcripts with the candidates. I put those in to help write the candidate summaries. I would also ask Claude to write the like little one to two sentence of like why I think you would be a good fit for this role when I'm reaching out to the candidate. And the amount of time that it saved me or being able to get on a call with the hiring manager and say, "Hey, tell me about um this candidate, this candidate, and this candidate so that I can like just quickly prepare." I I think the thing that really works there for you is you've already been doing this for years. Yeah. You know this inside and out. If I tried to do that, I'd be like, "Okay, LLM, large language model. Okay, AI, you know what you're doing better than I do. I'll just trust you." >> But you you you can't do that yet. And so it's really helpful for you in these areas you know really well. It's doing all the grunt work. >> Um but awesome use case. You haven't broken that down for me in quite that detail yet. Yeah, >> that was cool. And then also when I started hitting a wall with my sourcing, then I said, "Okay, give me a list of companies that I should source from that are, you know, this this type of business." And and that one that one I had to really tweak because they would give me stuff that's not relevant. But I mean, >> but ultimately you got some value out of it. >> Yes. Oh, a ton of value. >> Yeah. So >> ju just having the imagination to >> because you got to reimagine what recruiting even is, what it looks like, what the steps are. >> Um, every the nature of every of every form of work is going to change and and it's what makes it it would be easier if AI could just like be a super genius and just take over everything. I mean, it'd be hard in other ways, but I'm kind of glad we haven't called, but it's the nuance of what can it currently do, what can it not do, what can it do with some uh assistance from me and some oversight, what will it never be able to do, no matter how much oversight, that's that's where all the nuance lies now. So you talked at the beginning of this conversation about AI being a thought partner for for our listeners like how do you even I I feel like a lot of people when they when they first play with AI they use it like Google search um which I still do sometimes but I think that that is a bit of a leap to to from Google search to thought partner. what how how can you break that down for me or give me some suggestions of how to how to make that leap? >> Yeah, I have a good um a good example of this just from the past couple days uh which was looking at finances uh which might be a surprise because we've we've already sort of been taught to expect AI to not be good with numbers. That's that's already passed. It's excellent with numbers I find. And so like like it's fascinating to me, you know, look looking at so let's start it's was really both our personal finances and the business finances but starting with our own thinking back to how I've gotten financial advice over the years right like originally a decade ago when we started our careers we we did the classic you know financial adviser billing us based on what assets under management right >> so we didn't have a ton of assets kind of thankfully but um looking back I estimate We we definitely spent tens of thousands of dollars with her, probably in the realm of $40 to $50,000 over the years, right? And we would get on a call with her once, not even once a quarter, maybe two or three times a year, you know, and ask questions, which we sort of got ambiguous answers to. So that was the first era. Second era, we um followed Rammit Sati's advice and found um a financial adviser that just charges a fixed rate. I think it was like $2,500. And over the course of three or four calls, he built a whole financial plan for us. That's much better, right? Well, the past the past few days, this week, I got that plan that that guy created, all of our bank statements, a whole bunch of other documents that have essentially our entire financial life. And I have spent more hours in the past just few days asking a far greater variety of questions than I ever did across all those years. Like you would not believe how many scenarios, you know, like what happens if we move to this country versus that that country? What happens if we have another kid or if we don't um h how do we assuming there's a continued financial and political instability in the US? How do we reduce our exposure to the US dollar? Each one of these led down a whole path, you know, should we buy a new car? What are the implications of that? Should we rebalance our portfolio? I've realized that I have had in my brain a lifetime of questions. Yeah. >> That I just never had anyone that I could ask. >> They're just like pouring out of me like whole different life paths that I didn't even know we could if we could afford it. I'm now modeling multiple alternative scenarios with, you know, risk bands. What is the range of outcomes? What can I do to to to to raise the the floor of that band? like the sophistication and the and the the nuance that I'm able to think about with our own personal finances, which then also translates to the business. Like one thing I've discovered is I've been way too conservative with the business finances. Kept way too much in cash, way too much in savings, way too much in lowrisk things. We have like a three-year runway. That's that's stupid. That's ridiculous, right? And so chatbt is there telling me like you should really use your money which you have too much too much cash to take risks like invest in the business create new streams of you know new lines of business hire more people and I was like >> holy crap like that's a whole new horizon for me starting to challenge you. >> That's fascinating. Just a quick question on that. Uh, do you make sure to take out like bank account numbers? >> No. >> Do you worry about that? >> I don't I don't I don't know why. >> Okay. Well, um, >> great. >> Maybe I should I don't I don't think there was No, there was definitely account numbers. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I guess I guess I have a pretty low risk or I guess pretty high. I mean, just at being a being a content creator, I'm constantly talking about all sorts of >> Yeah. >> You know, pretty personal or private. >> Yeah. You broke down the finances of your book. Uh that what is it called? It just paid back its advance and so now you're >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's it's interesting. It's you're you're very riskaverse when it comes to your business, but totally comfortable with loads of kind of personal risk. >> Yeah. Um, so you know, we're coming up on time here today. We we've talked kind of started out with a little bit of fear. Um, some unknowns about AI. I've heard a couple stories of people who've had the spark of, oh my god, we should be using it for X, Y, and Z reason, and then the unlock of what this can really do for a business. Um, I'd love the opportunity for you to share something to our listeners. What is what is one thing they can do right now that can give them that spark that can give them not the unlock yet because that's unrealistic to ask about, but where can they find their spark? I mean, I think I think what you're calling a spark, which you could also call like an aha moment or mindset shifting moment, just comes from the first time you see AI do something that challenges your worldview, you know, that just makes you go, okay, that that wasn't just like a cool, you know, trick that changes the landscape of possibility. ility like this thing with my finances, my the literal way that I see the world, the landscape of possibilities, options, pathways, and also risks and challenges and downside is is fundamentally shifted like like really shifted. I'm considering entirely new life choices. My wife and I just the past few days have been discussing them in light of what we've learned. >> That's that's a spark. >> Yeah. And so, so what I would tell people is just try to find that and it looks very different. >> You know, it looks very different. I think it has to hit on something that is very important to you. >> Yeah. >> You know, the first time the the the workout buff realizes they can put in their workout tracking and get a highly customized, tailored, and adaptable workout plan that is way more customized than any app can ever give you. you know, the person who cares about food and they realize they can just take a photo of what's in their fridge and say, "Give me a recipe for something that is nutritious, easy to cook, and fast just based on what I have right here in the >> I love that example. I'm going to do that later." >> You got to You got to find the You got to find that use case. >> Yeah. Well, I I think that's a great place to stop. >> Yeah, Chug, this has been fun. All right. I learn something brand new every time we chat. So, I appreciate your time. >> Yeah, I'm just so honored that that uh you joined and um you're our very first guest. I don't think we could have picked anybody better. >> It's such an honor. Such an honor. I'm so glad you're you're embarking on this creative endeavor. It really is. I for me, things like this have been the most gratifying things I've ever done. >> Yeah. Uh I'm out of my comfort zone for sure. Sarah's done this a little bit before. Um but excited to see where this goes. Um, we talked about a little a little bit before, but I imagine you get this satisfaction a lot of, you know, if one person over the next year says, "That was awesome. That changed how I think, that changed my outlook, then that's a win." >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Absolutely. Yeah. I I almost I I I see it in a very mission driven way of like like who can we bring to the next paradigm? Who can we help make the jump to that new wave? >> Yeah. >> I don't think it's a matter quite of life and death, but it matters. It matters. It It really will change things for people, >> you know, if we can find someone who wouldn't have made the jump and help them make it, >> right? Well, I mean, that's exactly exactly why we wanted to do this because it just it's hard to find, you know, podcast or content out there that you don't have to be a technical person to understand. And so, um, thank you for all of those specific examples. And I think that's that's a great way to to spark ideas is like, oh, well, if they can do that, then maybe I'll do that with this. So, um, so this was this was so helpful. >> Thank you so much. >> Amazing. Thank you both so much for the opportunity. >> Awesome. >> Of course. >> All right. How do we how do we end it with our very first guest? >> Say, uh, subscribe. >> Oh, yeah. I know. Oh, I never do that. Yeah. Um, so I get so awkward in the beginning and the end. Forgive me. I'm going to cut all this out. >> No, no. We're going to keep all this in for sure. >> I'm the editor, so >> Yeah. >> All right. Well, the tune in every Tuesday for new awesome episodes. Hopefully, the rest will be just as good or maybe even better than Thiago. We're going to have a little bit of a competition here. >> Um, but please tune in. Um, and give us some feedback. Uh, let us know what you think. Give us some new ideas. And >> thanks for listening. >> Thanks for listening. >> Should we do our high five? >> Well done. >> I don't want to hit the water., Shattering AI Misconceptions With Tiago Forte, YouTube, 01k8rrexxn1v6dasq6299smdka.