AI agents can expand output and create new work

Transcript

From the transcript The Diary Of A CEO publishes with the episode.

1. 40:01

   What do you make of all these AICOs saying that it's going to transform how we work and there's not really going to be any jobs left? Well, it will transform how we work, but I think there'll be creative destruction. Like, you know, I went to school at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and right by Bloomington is Terre Haute, Indiana. Terre Haute, Indiana used to be the location for RCA Records, which then became CDs, right?

2. 40:27

   And then they made DVDs. You probably don't even remember that shit, right? I remember CDs and DVDs. Okay. But cassettes. Gone. Yeah. Gone, right? But it's not like there aren't people making money on music. And so there will be creative destruction. There will be new things that pop up that leverage this new technology that create different kinds of jobs. Is the path going to be painful for people?

3. 40:49

   Yeah. Just like the people in Terre Haute, Indiana. It's going to be painful. Because this technology feels so different because when you start to think about how much of our lives run... both on the internet, but just based on intelligence. Like driving is not something I considered would be impacted by AI, for example. And then now I'm experiencing, you know, I heard you talking about your use of AI agents, but I've got, I don't know, 25 AI agents on my phone now going through all of my stuff.

4. 41:13

   It's great, right? It's amazing. It's amazing. But you go, fuck, oh my God. But it's not smart. I hadn't read a nonfiction book in 25 years. And the only reason I had the time to do it was I had these agents, all the shit that I had on my to-do list that I would have to go search for this, read that, do this, Boom. My agents, just like I'm sure you use it for the same thing, right? All the tedious bullshit work that you didn't want to do or always couldn't get to or thought you had to hire somebody for.

5. 41:45

   Now you have an agent that does it. And your biggest decision to use GrokBot, to use Dot, to use Cowork. And then you try them all and you see they all give you a different answer. And then you have to use your brain again. Right. But you said that you would have otherwise hired people to do some of those things, right? Yes, that's true. But now I can get more done, just like you can get more done.

6. 42:09

   And when you get more done using your agents, you have better opportunities to use what you know to create other things. So I might have brought in an intern. and paid them $15 an hour or $20 an hour, whatever it was, now maybe it creates a new business idea. And with that new business idea, I need to hire people to do that. So I'll give you a perfect example of what I use agents for. For costplusdrugs.com, I'm trying to break the healthcare industry.

7. 42:36

   And there's these big conglomerates who I think are the real problem. And now I have an agent, every time they get sued, It comes to me and tells me. Every time there's a bid that they're bidding on, right, it comes and the agents tell me. And I can use the agent to create an email to send to the Open Records Act to get me copies of all those contracts. I could never have imagined doing before unless I hired somebody.

8. 43:00

   That meant I had to take the time to hire him and train them and manage them so it never got done. Now it gets done. And now I have other types of people that I hired to do it, do different things that are at a completely different level. And it takes less of my time to do all of that. And for your son, your son's 16, 17, just turned 17. When he's, when he's saying, dad, you know, You know a lot about the future.

9. 43:23

   You've been able to predict the future several times. So what should I be focused on, Dad? He's 17. My kids are 17, 20, and 23. The one thing they never say is, Dad, you know a lot about... fill in the blank. Never, never, ever. My oldest daughter, though, when she was at college, I told her she had to learn how to do agents. And she was like, yeah, whatever, whatever. And then I went and watched one of her presentations.

10. 43:49

    And she was like, yeah, I got an agent to do this. I got an agent to do that. I was like, proud papa, right? But yeah, but I tell them, you have to learn this stuff. Because if you don't, the person who does is going to be so much more productive than you are. If you have access to a smartphone or a PC or laptop at the library that has access to Clyde, Gemini, etc., There's no question you can't ask.

11. 44:13

    Does hard work matter? Yes, of course. You got to take the time to ask the question. You have to take the time to consume the information it gives you and get and learn how to ask better and better questions and get better at it. But people always talk about mentors and having access to a network. I never had any of that shit. Right. I just sat and learned and read and did it by reading. Now I don't go grab a book.

12. 44:37

    Right. I just go right to, you know, Claude or co-work and I'm like, fine, all about this and tell me what Warren Buffett thought about that. It's insane. What does the edge become in such a world where everybody has the same information? Because you've got to know how to take what you've read or seen and integrate it and apply it to what you're trying to accomplish. Right. Because it's cool, like, I can say, write me a business plan for this business.

13. 45:02

    And it'll create all the agents. It'll create the bots. It'll do all that stuff. But I've got to be the one to say, this is right, this is wrong, this is right. And then I've got to be the one that goes out and sells it or teaches the agents how to sell when we get to that point so that the business could actually work.