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Content and Engagement in the AI Slop Era · The AI Ecosystem Podcast

• Bob Moore: Hey and welcome to another great episode of the AI Ecosystem Podcast. I am your co-host here, Bob Moore from Crossbeam. Lindsey DeFalco: And your other co-host, Lindsay DeFalco, also from Crossbeam. Great to be here. Bob Moore: Amazing. I'm I'm not working from my normal location today. I'm on vacation with my family and we brought as you can see our family hamster along. So if you hear a wheel spinning quickly behind me, just know that we've awoken we've awoken hamsty. Lindsey DeFalco: I love that the hamster made it on the family vacation. I was just telling Bob how many rodents I owned as a child, which I don't know if I want officially stated on a podcast. So I'll just I'll stop there. Bob Moore: Can I ask you maybe just one rodent related question, since I'm kinda new to the game, Hamstead is has been with us for six months here. what's your favorite like species? Like if you if you had a bunch, if you recommend Lindsey DeFalco: Hmm. Bob Moore: one, which one? Lindsey DeFalco: honestly my favorite was rats. Which which always Bob Moore: Great. You know, Lindsey DeFalco: always horrifies everyone. but they're really like chill they're like chill hamsters. So but I I just wanna be clear Bob Moore: Wow. Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: I no longer own any rodents. that was a a time period in my life as a child and if you have any more questions, you know, just reach out to me on LinkedIn. Bob Moore: Yeah, you're the president of the the rat lobby. it's really Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: really great. I'm learning a lot today. cool. Well we Lindsey DeFalco: On that note. Bob Moore: Yeah, we housed this for a seamless segue. we were chatting earlier about a topic that I think would be kind of fun and interesting to get into today, which we've we've teased at before in reference, but I want to like really sink our teeth into. Which is in a world where it becomes easy and less costly to build virtually anything that your heart desires from a technology standpoint, what we're also experiencing is the opposite effect on the marketing and awareness standpoint, which is how on earth do you get the word out, do you get distribution, do you get attention that lasts longer than the average attention span? For a new product or a new offering or a new concept in this world where like you can generate marketing slop quicker than ever, probably even quicker than you can develop products, and nobody's reading anything anymore. Cause they're just consuming information through agents digesting things and processing things, and you know, people that might be in your target consumer universe are very Easily distractable and attractable to other places to put their time because AI is creating a lot of them. So that's the topic at hand and it's relevant for us because we've got we talked about trace last time that we're gonna bring to market. Even this podcast, like we don't promote this thing. And maybe we can get into like why and what's holding us back. but yeah, am I am I missing any any of the broad strokes Lindsey DeFalco: I think another thing that I'll probably weave in there that's related is like kind of what we've learned creating content with AI over the past six months to a year. And you know, I was telling you one of the things that I often struggle with is like when to move the editing of a document or you know, a spreadsheet or a What's the word presentation? Like out of Claude and just start doing it yourself. and I think there's there's a lot there related to this. But yeah, it's like you know, you said no one's reading anything anymore. Is anyone writing anything anymore? And when does that actually matter? 'cause sometimes I think people want to read something written by a human and other times people don't care if it's if it's AI. yeah, I think that's a sounds like a good Bob Moore: Yeah. That's great. Lindsey DeFalco: good set of topics. Bob Moore: yeah, it's it's funny. I'm glad you brought that up about when the handoff happens because this literally happened to me yesterday. I gave a talk at a conference for techno, which is the national association of like venture capital organizations. Like there's a thing called Pact in the Philly area, which is like a consortium of local Companies and venture capital firms and others, and they lobby their state governments and they create events and programming for founders. And it's, you know, it's it's it's one of those great things. Well, there's one of those everywhere. There's one in West Virginia, there's one in Kentucky, there's one in Texas, you know, they're throughout Canada. So the people who run all these organizations get together once a year for this conference. So I spoke at this conference on the topic of ecosystem-led growth, and the deck that I wanted to build. I started in Claude and I gotta tell ya, like what I ended up doing at some point in time was just taking it over from Claude and completely redoing it myself. And not that it was bad Lindsey DeFalco: Mm. Mm-hmm. Bob Moore: or wrong or it did a great job of kind of following my direction, but a little bit of when you're actually gonna be standing in front of human beings and storytelling, there is something to be said for this very natural, almost conversational flow of ideas. That can only be created by like acting out the presentation as a human and saying, like, Lindsey DeFalco: Yes. Bob Moore: where does my train of thought and the natural course of this storytelling go? And also the like, I like to try to be funny in these presentations and find random little unlocks of anecdotes or side tangents to throw in to break up the monotony of of talking about a subject. And, you know. Maybe over time Claude will accumulate all those little anecdotes that I have, but in this particular case, it didn't know anything about you know, the funny random stories I wanted to insert into here and I just had to go and create those myself. so like that for me, that handoff, I I was better off just building it myself. And I'm sure that won't be true forever and I probably this is like my okay boomer moment and Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: you know, whatever. But I I did I di I did I did have that experience. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, it's Bob Moore: It yesterday. Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: it's funny, maybe this is just where we start with this whole thing. it's funny because I I will create a document and I'll draft, let's say it's some sort of, you know, memo or something, either internally for the company or externally. I'll draft it and I'm like, this is great. And then it's like I black out and three hours later I'm still editing it back and forth with Claude. And it's like a combination of the fact that it takes some amount of time for it to turn around a new paragraph. But every time I read it, I realize I haven't read it fully. And and and I'll be like, I I feel like I just wasted three hours because I could have written this from scratch in three hours. and I'm s I'm still kind of undecided on like whether or not the output is actually better. or if I just spent more time getting to, you know, about the same output output or maybe even a worse output. And I'm yeah, this is something I I do not feel like I have figured out. I think I'm getting. better at it and I'm testing a technique right now which is like Claude drafts it and then everything after that is just we'll go back and forth about maybe a paragraph, but like I have to edit it myself. and I'm I'm trying to see if that's that's any faster. And so far it's it's a little faster, but yeah, it's interesting 'cause it's like it I still think we're kind of figuring out like what it's what it's good for, what it's not good for. And then that yeah, the handoff moment. And the handoff moment is still tricky. Bob Moore: Yeah. I I'll tell you one thing it did very well for me was I had it build whatever this initial draft. I took over control and kind of rebuilt the thing, but my rebuilding of the thing was all about content and narrative and embedding the right images and whatnot without much regard for consistency in design and templating and font sizes. And I handed it back and I was like, this now has the content I want. Please don't mess with my content. But make it visually consistent. And it did do a a pretty brilliant job of doing exactly that. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Yeah. and I think honestly trying to figure out where the handoff point is is much better than the folks who don't have a handoff point. and I saw I saw something recently that it was like the trend of people walking through something and they're like, well, you know, Claude said this or Claude did this or Claude made this. and it's like that That shouldn't be part of our vernacular. Like it shouldn't be that we're just presenting something that Claude made. It should be that we have reviewed it, formed our opinion on it, modified it or not modified it, and that we're presenting it as our ideas. and I think one Bob Moore: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: of one of the biggest things I've seen this be the the hardest with is like prototyping. because, you know, Claude creates like an entire page and all these different features and functions and everything. and it's really easy to just be like, Claude did this, Claude did that. but then the next question is like, okay, well, what what's your opinion on what Claude did? and I think that like when we're talking about, ooh, to segue us into the broader kind of topic about how those impacts go to market, it's like, when when does that matter? Sometimes I think it's fine when you have just a an AI slot output if you're doing like a summary of a meeting. Who cares? Bob Moore: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Lindsey DeFalco: But then you know the craft of having content that people actually want to consume if they're going to consume it. that is the whole that's like part of the whole challenge with the with AI go to market right now. Bob Moore: Yeah. and this is this is where I feel like I was confessing to you earlier that, you know, throughout most of my career I have felt like the thing I want to do when I sit down at my desk most days is actually go tell a story or create a piece of content or if you look back in my earlier companies, I was so like loud and prolific on blog posts and creative research and really doing things that just are kind of designed to be organic content marketing that is creative and unique in nature. Lindsey DeFalco: Okay. Bob Moore: and it's been a really like important successful part of my like entrepreneurial journey is kind of like hacking the system of what attention gets paid to. To earn like basically creating like earned media style coverage for for my companies along the way. And we've done that for Crossbeam to a large extent. We've done some kind of guerrilla marketing stuff. Obviously, the book, the Ecosystem Like Growth Book, is kind of part of that. Like I sit down and and write some stuff and it turns into like a platform on which we can draw a lot of eyeballs in and convince people of our worldview. and lately I have felt so uninspired on that dimension. And I can't seem to bring myself to sit down and like write a five-page diatribe on something or to think about some novel take that I might have that could turn into a LinkedIn post that maybe will drive some engagement. And I think part of it is like I'm not convinced that people won't be convinced that I didn't just create some AI slop and put it out there. And like I maybe I should give myself more credit, but I I think that the slop generators have gotten so good that it's not that my work would be indistinguishable from what the AI would put out. It's that people won't even read far enough into my work to know the difference. Because they Lindsey DeFalco: Mm-hmm. Bob Moore: assume that everything that they're reading is somehow AI slop, or they're feeding it into AI to give them the Cliff Notes version. And I don't even know if that's true. Do I have hard data on it? No. Do I have like Some indication that like my last 50 LinkedIn posts perform worse than the 50 before it? No. it's just this gut feeling of the like it's not fun anymore. And there was a there was a dopamine rush that I would get from like creating this stuff and envisioning how people would consume it and react to it and engage with it. And some of them are hits and some of them are misses, and it is what it is, but you're in the game and in in this landscape. I feel less inclined to get in the game. And then it creates these knock-on effects where this stuff would start as organic writing or or blog posts or LinkedIn post or you know podcast recordings or whatever else. And then when they're successful, you parlay that into, okay, let's also turn that into a white paper. Let's also buy paid ads that'll drive people to it, because now you know that there's a certain engagement like vector associated with that thing that's gonna be successful. And If you can't knock down the first domino, then it kills all these knock on strategies as well. And you end up just being silent, which is also not good. Lindsey DeFalco: I think it's like you know, part of me when know we're talking about this is like who cares who wrote it? but then I also care who wrote it. Like when I'm reading stuff and I sense that it's it feels very AI generated, then I kind of lose interest or it's it's almost like I lose some respect for the content. Bob Moore: Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: and if it feels more you know human written then then I'll actually read it. And then there's also like I have a different bar for what I will read with my eyeballs or put into Claude. But the problem is is I think everyone has a different threshold for that. And there's probably people that are putting literally every written thing that's sent to them into Claude and being like, tell me what I need to know about this. so yeah, I think it's like an interesting like it's a real thing that not only is creating content very different and maybe feels like less exciting and creative than it used to, Bob Moore: Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: but also like you you have no idea who's actually consuming it in a meaningful way. Bob Moore: Yeah, it's a really look, I if I'm being like truly intellectually honest here, part of this is like ego driven. And it l the the part of it that e that is ego-driven is actually the old thing that has died a little, which is like if this thing goes viral, like my name's on it. and they're like I wrote this thing, I did this thing. It's benefiting my company. Internally at my company, I get to be a hero because I generated a bunch of sales leads and eyeballs externally. My credibility goes up, you know, my social capital grows and visibility grows. And that was like the a vehicle through which I built personal brand. and if it is this weird thing where it's like that channel is dying, I think, of like not like the longest form, deepest thought pieces, and certainly not the shortest form, like you know. Tweets that that certainly still thrive today, but something about this like middle of the road, let's express an idea, let's create an explainer for something, let's tie a couple of things together that haven't been tied together before, like white paper length kind of memo length concepts just don't feel as as inspired anymore. at least at least in my brain. And so that you know, there's a little bit of this like, this is all internal psychological motivation related stuff. There's also these externalities, which is like, okay, look, even if all that's true, Trace is cool as hell. Let's go talk about it. This podcast is cool as hell, let's go talk about it. Why Lindsey DeFalco: Mm-hmm. Bob Moore: does it feel harder right now to do that than it might have two years ago? and What are the things even available to us to create reach in that way? Like there's only so much you can get by screaming into the echo chamber on LinkedIn or on Twitter. You can buy ads. Like what I I I could talk like this 10 years ago, right? It's like, how does anybody get Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: reached anything? But I think my secret weapon has always been this organic engagement that I've always been able to drive. And I think that's the thing. Without that thing in the mix, I feel like defanged a little bit. and It's almost like there's a new era of experimentation and discovery that's gonna need to happen here. That's gonna be real work, in order to kind of crack the whatever the algorithm is now, that's some mix of agentic discovery and human behavior that's changed. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. You know what I just was reminded of when when you were talking about that is like do you remember when apps, like iPhone apps came out and like the app store? Bob Moore: Of course, yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: It was like there were so many apps. And then there was this like once it became really easy to make apps, there were a bunch of like shitty apps and there was just a bunch of like app slop. and I think that's what is also really challenging with attention right now is like anyone, you know, any Bob out there can make a some app and then try and sell it. And it's like the that's at least my my thing lately with new products specifically is you know, how much of this is actually interesting versus quickly reproducible, which we've talked a lot about that before. but Bob Moore: Yeah, yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: yeah, like the the noise in the market is is at a high mixed with the fact that like the noise in the actual way that people are promoting this is at a high and it's like it yeah, I I agree. It does feel even harder to figure out how to get people's attention. And I think one interesting thing I've noticed, which I think we've also touched on before, is like In a lot of ways this whole era is giving established players more power and leverage because they have the trust and they have this new unlock of moving even faster. And so you look at like existing content machines and they're just growing. and they're becoming even more popular because they already have this base of users and this trust and then they're able to generate even more, even more content. But for new players, it's I I think it it's it's even harder than ever. Bob Moore: Yeah. I think that's fair. You know, a an interesting way to get out of the hypotheticals here and maybe just do a little real world like workshopping thought experiment is look if you're listening to this podcast now, then it means that you're an OG true super fan. And we do have a couple hundred people to listen to every one of these. I don't want to make it sound like it's literally just like like my mom tuning in. and it has been growing. Yeah, Lindsey DeFalco: It's just you, whoever you are. Bob Moore: my my couple hundred bots, listen to this. but like we're gonna do something to start getting the word out more that this thing exists, of which we do literally zero right now, except the Crossbeam official account posts, and you and I occasionally will post, but only on LinkedIn, not not through other channels. And I think it's worth this question of like, what does the playbook look like to try and drive more engagement and audience? And I'll just I'll list off a couple things that are kind of like maybe old school playbooks and maybe we can talk through the way in which they get modified in in an AI world. so one of them would have been okay, you have channels through which you're gonna promote this stuff. You've got a company newsletter, you got a company blog, you have followers that exist on social media accounts, including LinkedIn. Every time you release a new episode. Find clips from that episode and and post and talk about it and try to drive people in, right? we've been doing that on LinkedIn. I don't think that we've been pushing it in our newsletter, if I'm not mistaken. Lindsey DeFalco: Mm-hmm. Bob Moore: I don't think we've done that. Lindsey DeFalco: No. Bob Moore: and maybe that's like a really, really easy slam dunk one. and we certainly haven't I don't think we have much of a following on other social networks, but we certainly haven't turned it into blog posts or white papers or like consumables that are like downstream from the from here. So these all like honestly and ironically feel like the things that would be the absolute easiest to do in the era of AI because like we're generating the content here in the transcript. These things could be created almost automatically. We can send things out through these channels where we have active audiences. do you think if we did that it might be incrementally successful or Is it at the point now where we're like screaming into the void? Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, it's like I think it's just the same question it always was, which is we can create as much content as possible, but how are you actually getting people to look at it? so my hackathon project did the, you know, blog creation from a from a podcast transcript. Bob Moore: Right, right, right, right. I remember that, yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, and and like cool. It's it's easy to hit a button that generates a generates a blog post from our transcript. it's easy to have a site that publishes all the all the blog posts and all the the podcasts, but like how are you actually getting people there? and then we just get back to this same like you know, yeah, is it using our existing audience by putting it in our newsletter? Is it trying to grow a new audience in addition to that? And it does like it is interesting 'cause it does feel it's like that's the classic questions. just but yeah, the content creation and the automatic of that is is just dead simple now. Bob Moore: Yeah. yeah, it's really true. this is probably you know, I I I want to also draw a line between posting on our blog, which I do think to a certain extent is like screaming into the void, and Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: sending something out to a newsletter list, which is curated and has some opt-in component to it and is made up of people that are probably to a certain extent predisposed to like consuming this stuff. and I I have to imagine that something like a podcast when it gets really big, it does so because of viral loops that get created that are independent of the mouthpieces of the people hosting it. Right. Like you can st it's almost like a cold start problem. Like you can kick start a listenership, but the reality is like it's either good or it's not. There's either product market fit or it's not. And when it's good, you don't have to make your own clips of it. People start clipping it for you and putting it out. People start engaging and having commentary with it. People start using it as a way to reinforce the points that they want to make because they're consuming it. And you just have to get people listening in order to make that really work. So it it it does raise an interesting point of maybe the most obvious things are to just go after existing engaged people and audiences. And I can think of a few things that are sitting right there in front of us that are so easy, which is A. I am personally connected to thousands of people through, not just through LinkedIn, but like through my own email. I'm not shy about emailing people, asking them to leave us a G2 review when they are clearly getting a lot of value out of our product. there's probably some kind of systematic campaign that I could run to ask somebody to subscribe to the podcast, listen to an episode, give us a five-star review, and have it like systematically drive that through my my contacts, my connections, even maybe the people that use our product, A. B, our own product itself gets like thousands or tens of thousands of people that like log into the product every single week. We push Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: all kinds of like new product announcements and other interstitial things. Like we could probably be using that to drive attention into the podcast itself to try to drive like more engagement, more subscribership. I would argue that it probably is good for retention and engagement of our customers anyway, because it it, you know, speaks to thought leadership and being connected to our brand in a bigger way. that seems like a big easy win. And then yeah, obviously like the newsletter is maybe like a little bit more of a passive touch. 'cause it probably goes to people's promotion tabs and who knows. but the open rates are not bad on on our newsletter. And it is like, you know, on a on a good day there's a hundred thousand people or so on that list. So like maybe maybe there is like a pretty clear strategy we could be running there. and distribution ends up becoming less the question and instead like retention or engagement becomes a little more of of the question. What what do you think? Lindsey DeFalco: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's I think those are all great distribution ideas. I think there's also like most the majority of podcasts that get really popular have guests because then they use their guests distribution channels and their you know, the guest popularity or just the status of the company that they come from. And I think that is that's a way that a lot of like podcasts that are trying to grow organically make it happen. there's only like a few I can think of myself that actually like have a no-guest policy that are wildly popular and they're not business podcasts. Bob Moore: Mm-hmm. Lindsey DeFalco: Giggly Squad, for anyone who listens to that is a big one. They Bob Moore: Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: they have a no-guest policy and they've become wildly famous. and they just talk about Whatever. but yeah, I think that's also just, you know, another thing to call out, like we want to advertise this thing. We could see if we can get someone on from you know, Claude. And then we have all these people that are like, Ooh. Yeah. Bob Moore: Yeah, and we probably probably could. we probably could pretty quickly. and I think that and we we in fact have for other pieces of content that we've done as a business. So like that's the other thing that you know, we wanted to get these first ten episodes or so out, I think so that we could have a baseline A of like you and I figuring out our right like cadence of interacting, but then also being able to show a guest like, hey, we're not asking you to be like guest one on episode one. This is actually like we have we have a a track record. This podcast isn't going anywhere. We have a built in listenership. We have all these channels. We'll promote it through. I think the main thing I that that I get allergic to with guests is and I've had it already happen here, is like certainly lovely people who I enjoy spending time with and collaborating with, I don't want to be guests on a podcast. And I get peppered with requests to like, Hey, can I be a guest? Put me on as a guest, put me on as a guest. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: I think it's just like it's it's there is some kind of magic to maintaining like a certain level of You know, there's like a quality to the content of what the person has to say and to the way in which they'll mix into the soup of whatever the conversation is here. and Lindsey DeFalco: Mm-hmm. Bob Moore: won't feel overly commercial or like they're plugging or or So I think that's a that's a thing to manage against is just needing to say no to a lot of people. and maybe that's Lindsey DeFalco: Mm. Bob Moore: why it's nice that like you and I can do a guest free episode anytime we want to. And now that we kinda have this running, it's like, look, if we don't have a guest that week, we don't have guests that week. We're not gonna force it and pull in some person who's been banging down our door, but maybe the world wouldn't enjoy hearing from at that moment, in order to to bring them on. I think that's a good piece. Lindsey DeFalco: And then we might not have time to talk about if I owned rats as a child, if we had a guest too. So we'd really miss out on a lot of good content. Bob Moore: Which is only, you know, probably gonna be like the highest engagement point of this entire thing. If anybody's gonna be clipping and making their own their own their own viral post out of this, it's gonna be rat content. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, maybe that should be my new fun fact. when there's a Bob, when there's a fun fact icebreaker, what's your fun fact? Bob Moore: fun fact icebreaker. Did you know that I was on an improv team? Lindsey DeFalco: Mm-hmm. Bob Moore: It's like the it's the least fun fact that everyone already knows. it's real. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, I don't know. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, that's pretty boring. That's it. You got you got nothing better for us? Bob Moore: look, you learned just now that I have a hamster. I think that's a pretty good throw that Lindsey DeFalco: As there you go. Okay. That can be your new fun fact. Mine is usually that I can ride a unicycle, but I cannot juggle. But I don't know, maybe it's maybe it's now that I underride as a child. Bob Moore: You can we get you a unicycle in Lisbon at our offsite for the talent show? You don't have to fly with one, we can probably rent one. Lindsey DeFalco: Every company owns it, yeah, maybe. Yeah. Bob Moore: yeah, all right. I'm gonna I'm gonna nominate you. we have a team talent show at the Lindsey DeFalco: Let's do it. Bob Moore: our off site this year in September. so we're looking for I always when I picture talent, I always immediately just picture things you would see at the circus. so Lindsey DeFalco: Perfect. Bob Moore: juggling, magic axe, animal taming, unicycles definitely fit right down the middle. Lindsey DeFalco: That actually that was the top question I got when I rode my unicycle was are you in a circus and can you juggle? and no, no to both. So Bob Moore: No to both, yeah. It's like you didn't you didn't complete the the side quest there when you picked up the cycle. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, I didn't. Bob Moore: well this is look, I Lindsey DeFalco: there's Bob Moore: think we're so here, let me ask this question. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: Okay, so all these things I think that we're landing on that are kind of dumb that we're not doing, and we're letting like the idea that AI is somehow screwing it up get in our way, all to me actually have to do with leaning on like high fidelity human to human relationships. Like we have the opt-in people of our newsletter, we have the personal relationships through emailing people, we have like the engagement that's happening from humans using the user interface in our product. what we're not talking about, and I tend to agree with is like paid ads or whatever. and by the way, we Lindsey DeFalco: No. Bob Moore: have guests, right? Adding adding guests who themselves have their own like human reach and networks and kind of like this multiplying effect, right? So we can do all the above and and probably will, and it's probably time to start doing that. There's a whole other category of stuff that has opened up, which is like AEO and like how many people are typing into ChatGPT every day? Hey, I'm I Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: really want to learn more about AI. I'd like to subscribe to Zim Podcast and AI. Which ones should I follow? And how do we get ourselves like mentioned in that? and like what are the criteria Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: for that? Like that I find super fascinating. We have a whole AEO like Tiger team inside of Crossbeam for everything but this podcast. Maybe we should ask them that question, to use some of the analytics Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: they use, but I wanna I don't know. Do you think that's actually a valid discovery method and and something we could we could work on? Lindsey DeFalco: yeah, I think very much so. I'm actually typing into Chat GPT now. and I'm gonna see what it comes back with. Bob Moore: Yeah, what's it wa I w I wonder, does it go to like the pot Apple Podcast like five star reviews or does it just like you know, Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: no? Lindsey DeFalco: This is what's funny, I'll let you know when it loads. But and I I asked a really leading question. I said I wanna listen to a podcast on AI and ecosystems. Bob Moore: Nice, there you go. Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: yeah, but it is like way back way back when when I was like, I gotta get continue to be educated on all this stuff, I asked Chat GPT, what podcasts I should listen to for AI and like what Bob Moore: Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: new content there was. I think that's something people definitely frequently do. I mean, we were telling people internally, we were like, if you want to learn anything, just go ask go ask AI about it. Okay, let's Bob Moore: Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: see. it says it recommends AI agents and the fight for customer data, which is on the A sixteen Z show. Bob Moore: yeah, talk about guests. I wonder Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, and then Bob Moore: people in here, yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: And then there's a couple other like specific episodes for like network effects, AI costs, and the future of consumer investing. The Kevin Rose show, hashtag ad. These are all A sixteen Z yeah, it's all from that same A sixteen Z podcast. Not just shows. Bob Moore: That's very interesting. Lindsey DeFalco: Other I'm gonna do top ten. Give me the top ten. Give me the top ten podcasts, not just episodes. All right, we'll see what this does. but yeah, I think that's like that's super valid. It's and this is like a the broader theme, right? Of like not only do people not use Google, but also a lot of people don't ask people, they just ask AI a question. and so it, you know, even though Bob Moore: Yeah, yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: network effects from a human standpoint are useful, like a ton of people aren't gonna be like, hey, what human that I know that knows Bob Moore, what podcast should listen to? Bob Moore: Yeah. yeah, it's interesting. 'cause I know there's been a lot like if you remember Notebook L which has gotten a lot of hype for generating Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: podcasts that I can only assume are just getting better and better and better and better as time goes by in terms of realism, and human like voices and tone, I don't talk to a lot of real humans in the real world that are actually consuming that content super regularly. I do talk to people all the time about what podcasts they're listening to, and no one ever says, like, I have notebook LM, give me a briefing every morning. I'm sure those people are out there, I'm sure you know, I'll get emails, the there's plenty of you, but the market for these like human hosted real human personality podcasts seems to persist, which in and of itself Lindsey DeFalco: Yep. Bob Moore: I find like a really interesting signal about humans just wanting to like I don't know, an LLM can't have a have a hamster as a pet or had rats growing up. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: Right. There is there is something about like just keeping the mystery of what the hell you might hear if you get a couple humans going together where you know you're just not gonna get that from a bunch of robots just cramming facts down your throat and saying ums and ahs and pausing in the middle of their sentences to to feel real. There's something about the the reality of these human hosts that that that keeps it real. and keeping it real is you know what I'm all about. So Lindsey DeFalco: This is this is actually interestingly, it's kind of like the like I was saying about I read an article and I'm like, is it AI the whole time? this is also a theme in like podcast and audiobook world. So I like listening to an audiobook the other day and I was like, I stopped it and I was like, I don't like this narrator's voice. And I went and looked it up and I was like, is it AI? And it's not. It's just this woman who sounds like AI. And so it's funny to me because like whenever we're talking about that, I'm like, Why do you care is the question. It's Bob Moore: Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: like number one, you don't like the quality of the content, which is a fair critique. Or number two, you're just opposed to consuming content by a AI and would prefer that it's created by humans, which is fully valid as well. but it is funny 'cause like we talk about notebook LLM getting, you know, better and better and there there are a ton of people who are always like trying to figure out if like books are written by AI or if like a narrator or podcast is AI and it's like, okay, but like why? And I think they're all valid answers, but it is just people have different reasons for caring. Yeah. Bob Moore: You feel tricked. You feel really tricked. there is a little if that happened to me, if I was like ten hours into an audiobook and I was like really enjoying it, I was like, This is the best audiobook ever, and then I suddenly learned that the narrator was AI, I think I'd have like a violent reaction. and Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: it it is, it's like, No, that can't possibly be. And I think I'd become immediately disinterested in it. and again, this is this is like probably one of those okay boomer comments where Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: You know, in my kids' generation they will never listen to an audiobook that was not recorded like in an AI voice. it's probably Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: just gonna be the case. But, you know, I'm not marketing to my kids right now, marketing to people who are midlife and in their professional careers and looking to consume content and they don't you know, yeah, they wanna hear like us talk about rats. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: man if this episode bombs and there's a lot of negative rat reviews, I mean I eat my words here, but I'm hanging my hat Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, you can Bob Moore: on. Lindsey DeFalco: you can blame me. the chat GPT returned and it's totally unhelpful because it knows who I am and that I work for Crossbeam and so it it was like excluding Crossbeam's own, the AI ecosystem podcast. Here are ten shows I'd recommend. And then I was like, Why did you exclude it? And it was like, You're right. I absolutely should have included it. It's number one. so I Bob Moore: Great. There you go. You gotta go in incognito mode or whatever whatever they call it. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, yeah, I'll have to I'll have to test that. yeah, I would be curious. Bob Moore: Well, Lindsey DeFalco: you're gonna wrap it up, right? Bob Moore: yeah, getting close. But what do you got? What are you curious Lindsey DeFalco: Right. Bob Moore: about? Lindsey DeFalco: yeah. I was gonna say I'm gonna I'm gonna I I'll I'll put this in my post. I'll actually post about this episode. I found a draft post where I posted about other episodes that I thought I hit send on, so that's how good I am at posting on LinkedIn. but for this one Bob Moore: Great. Yeah, same here. Same here. Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: but for this one, yeah, I think I'm really curious and I'll ask this on LinkedIn too about like asking our audience plus whoever, like how you actually consume content and what your actual opinions are on these things. So like do you immediately put content into you know, whatever AI tool you use and just like read a summary? do you have an allergic reaction to if something is written by AI or like you don't give a crap. It doesn't matter to you. like I'm curious what the general kind of consensus is within our you know our world here of people who are using AI on a daily basis. Because people who don't work in tech, when I'm hanging out with my friends who Bob Moore: Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: do not work in tech, it is just a completely different perspective on AI, which is a whole other fascinating non-AI ecosystems topic. But Bob Moore: Mm-hmm. Yep. I I almost feel like I consume it all day. I clearly don't have a problem with it. I think it's when I'm led to believe that it is a real person. and it turns out to have been AI or that it was like if I get an email from someone that I know, which does happen sometimes, and I actually think that it's for me, and it turns out to be part of like a like a campaign. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: I'm like, hey, what the hell? and I've been that guy on the other end, like, you know, promoting my book or whatever, sending, you know, automated LinkedIn messages and I get all kinds of real engagement and I feel a little dirty about it, or people are like, it's great to hear from you. Yeah, haven't talked in a while. Book looks cool. And I'm like, Thank you for being so kind. but when I'm on the other end of it, it's like if you get wise to the fact that it's like, oof, this was just like my my friend has me in a drip campaign, that doesn't feel right. And I think AI just makes that all that much more easy and maybe even harder to detect sometimes. Lindsey DeFalco: Mm-hmm. Bob Moore: and yeah, it creates it it feels disingenuous or it feels like there's deception there and you're spending social capital to subject people to that deception and that is like a double negative. it's it's a whammy, yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. And then, you know, to all your boomer comments, I wonder when that'll go away 'cause like I'm sure that every person writing any content these days is using AI to some extent. It's just like if you modify it twenty percent after that, does that make it yours? If does it have to be fifty plus percent? Like what you know, what's what's the threshold for what actually is yours if we're using AI to create everything? Bob Moore: Yeah. this is and look, I'm such a believer in the AI video production stuff. I'm Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: like it's it's it's emblematic of that. It's like I believe that you can still be exceptionally creative and you can be a creator and you can build something novel that is genuinely yours, despite the fact that every single pixel and every single piece of the audio waveform has been quote unquote generated by AI because that creativity comes in writing and directing and like many, many dimensions of film and TV ad and you know, whatever short form production. So if Lindsey DeFalco: Mm-hmm. Bob Moore: that is true, then you could probably make that argument about blog posts, you could probably make that argument about short form content, you could probably make that argument about tweets. like if you have an automated th there's there's no such thing as like a you know one of these systems without some kind of harness around it and like who's writing the harness, who's informing it, what data's in it. That is where the creativity comes into place. and I'm okay with that. And I think I'm I'm okay with allowing that and even consuming that stuff. But also I I'm not. and I think that's I think that's the rumor Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Bob Moore: in me. And I think that will for future generations or maybe even current generations that are maybe earlier in their career who will be less stuck in their ways than I am. they'll have a much higher tolerance for it. And maybe much less negative reactions to to being fed at Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Yeah, well if you think about like speech writers, right? Like no like famous people, like politicians actually write their own speeches. They deliver them. Bob Moore: yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: and they get credit for the words that are said and you know, some some people know that this who the speechwriter is and and all of that but Bob Moore: Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: it's like you know that's that's been a pattern for fur. I had this I had this weird situation a couple weeks ago where I'm I'm like talking to Claude going back and forth about something and then it had an idea. I'm using air quotes right now and I was like, that's a great idea but it's it's not my idea, is it? And I actually Bob Moore: Yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: And I actually went and I had somebody else at the company take the exact thing I said, give it to their Claude, and it did not come back with the idea. And so Bob Moore: Mm, yeah. Lindsey DeFalco: it's this weird, like and it felt so weird after that, because I was talking to people about it and I was like, well, I have this idea. And then I'm like, well, I don't have this. I mean, I do have this idea. And like it was my collaboration with Claude up until that point that, you know, generated it. but it is this funny like Whose idea is it? Can Claude have independent ideas? and it it's been very confusing to me ever since I've started thinking too deeply about it. Bob Moore: Yeah, it is. I'm I I'm I'm thankful for but maybe it's the only way it could work, how none of these companies, whether it's the foundational models or like even, you know, Suno, which you can use to generate songs or Google Vio that's making my silly videos or or whatever, none of these things are actually cloning claiming ownership over any content. Like you Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: build something using these LLMs, then it's yours. And that is the way the model's evolving and I think anybody that tried to do otherwise would probably get completely destroyed, both by competition that would do the opposite and by like popular consensus. so it does it it's like a creator's dream world. because you do the answer to your question is that is your idea. Like you did it. and that's Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: kind of weird. It's it's very, very much a weird feeling, but yeah, in the same way that like, you know, you can you can read a lot of Shakespeare and a lot of Russian literature and be inspired and write your own novel that's kind of interpolating the themes from those things you've picked up. Like you're just doing that at scale mechanically, putting your own lens on top of it and creating something that hasn't existed before but is like inspired or influenced by Instead of the couple books you've read, like the totality of all human knowledge throughout all time. I Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: think that's still if anybody owns any ideas ever, you own that idea. at least in the world we Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah. Bob Moore: But it's gonna really flood the patent system and the copyright office and it's there I Lindsey DeFalco: I I was gonna say I would I I would hate to work in bat and law right now 'cause I can't imagine all the questions that are being asked about this. that's Bob Moore: What a mess. There was also I think the other thing in fairness to all the authors out there, like there just today I saw the news of there's a one point five billion dollar settlement that Anthropic just paid out for all of the books that it basically harvested from illegal, Lindsey DeFalco: Yep. Bob Moore: pirated, copyrighted like materials and has been using in their training algorithms this whole entire time. and I'm assuming based on the fact that it's a settlement that they're gonna part of what they get is the right to just keep doing it. like this is this is the payout for them probably admitting no wrong and being able to continue. But yeah, I guess when I say it is your idea, it is, but also in the way that like if you had stolen that Shakespeare book and that Russian literature you know, off Lindsey DeFalco: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Bob Moore: the shelf at Barnes and Noble and stuffed it in your bag, it's like it's your idea, but it's a little dirty. and Lindsey DeFalco: Right. Bob Moore: but again, it's the world we're living in. I I I don't think we're going back as right or wrong as it might feel. Lindsey DeFalco: Look mm look at us ending up at the ethics of AI again at the end of this podcast. Bob Moore: Boom, stuck the landing. it's always a pleasure. Yeah, we will we'll start making more noise about this and maybe hey, if you're discovering this episode and going through the backlog, this is where it all began. whatever strategy and I apologize in advance if you're here 'cause I sent you an email or a LinkedIn and you thought it was for me. I sent five thousand of them. My bad. I owe you a Lindsey DeFalco: Mm. Bob Moore: coffee next time I see ya. Lindsey DeFalco: Great, awesome. great time as always and we'll see you next time. Bob Moore: All right, see you next time.