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Why Middle Market Companies Have the Biggest AI Advantage · 10X AI with Julius Neil

• John Rudd: AI everywhere strategy nowhere so it's really If you don't say that, you should get fired. This is the biggest growth opportunity organizations have ever had. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Good day, everyone. Again, we have another episode here today with John Rudd He is a seasoned, investment banker, consultant, and now he is into AI. he has years of experience, I want him to elaborate on all these experiences, before we go into the book he has written about AI. So John, can you introduce yourself? to our listeners and viewers. John Rudd: Julius said thank you by the way for having me on. I really appreciate it. And I'm looking forward to our time together here. yeah, a little bit about my background is I am I'm kind of if you look at a big oak tree outside, I'm probably older than that oak tree. You know, so I've been on the planet for a while. back in the late eighties I was got involved in banking, little bank called I and G, out of the Netherlands. and I was involved in commodity finance there and actually kind of As part of that hit a recession along the way and a lot of my portfolio kind of went upside down. So I kind of became a workout officer for the bank. one of my companies that was in bankruptcy emerged from bankruptcy. It was an oil company. They hired me in as the CFO. And we went on an acquisition spur of a number of distressed assets that were on the West Coast. And we built that up to kind of the largest asphalt producer, you know, in the western United States. It was a really great experience for a young guy. And then I married a gal from Cleveland, Ohio. So Cleveland is what they call it's a it's in Ohio, which is a flyover state, right? So people in New York and people in Los Angeles have heard of it, but nobody's actually ever visited here. But I married a gal from there, so she wanted to go home. So I ended up in Cleveland, Ohio. And what's interesting about Cleveland is within 250 miles of Cleveland, Ohio, back in the 1990s, it represented about 70 or 70, 75% of all the manufacturing in the Was taking place in the United States at the time. And there was a big, remember in the 90s, what was going on in the United States is we had this transfer of manufacturing from the United States to to Asia in particular. But there was just, it was lower cost market. And as it was going on, there were a number of companies that were being impacted by that. And I developed a practice around, you know, doing turnarounds and workouts. As part of that, I'd come in as what's called. The chief restructuring officer, I might be the bankruptcy trustee, I might be the receiver, court appointed, that kind of thing. Or I was a consultant going in there providing, you know, kind of value. So it was very interesting time. A lot of really good people that you saw, maybe kind of at their most troubled time. So it was really a study in character. I learned a ton from it. And while that was very stimulating, my brother kind of tapped me on the shoulder. He was in Seattle. Involved in technology and asked me if I wanted to buy a tech business with him. So after kind of overseeing last rights of a number of companies, the idea to jump to the West Coast and do something in tech sounded interesting. We got in a company that was in the agile space. And after the Great Recession kind of hit what was a very small portion of our business, an agile consultancy and training, really kind of took off. It was the big growth engine for us. And we really just focused primarily. primarily on that, put our shoulders into it, built it into the largest pure play agile consultancy, we believe at the time, both in the United States, we had a greenfield in in India as well. And then Accenture, a large consulting company, reached out to us and asked if we wanted to have a strategic partnership with them. of course they wanted to do something a little more. They acquired us. we did a reverse integration, brought Accenture's agile practice into ours. I ran that for Accenture for a few years, and then the tail end of my time at Accenture, I was doing MA for them in the United States, helping them acquire businesses. then I tried. This thing called retirement, Julius? You know, I thought I'd be better at it. I thought I'd be better. I was kind of pretty good at a lot of things I did. I really failed at that. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. John Rudd: and then my my son and some of his colleagues, really, really, really bright, bright gentlemen from actually they came out of Microsoft, also Amazon and and a number of the big doing AI for the last seven years. Like, who's been doing AI for seven years? You know, these guys work. And they asked if I'd help them kind of start up their this company called LightSight, which started out a little bit around the consulting and turned into consulting and building. So what we do is help middle market organizations really build custom applications and you know help differentiate in the marketplace. So we've been doing that now for over a year and I'm having a ton of fun. And these Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: young guys at some point are probably gonna are gonna knock, you know, throw me off the boat. But but for for now I'm having a good time and and enjoying myself. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, so I'm just curious, after having all those years of very exciting career path that you have now and then stumbled from your brother and then from your son and then it's now AI, why write a book? What is the book? John Rudd: you know what's interesting? It's it's it so Julius, if you would ask me a year and a half ago, like, John, would you ever write a book? I mean, the answer would have been no way. I have no interest. I really don't have that much to say. But what what really spawned this is when we started up Light site, we're kind of creating some content, right? We wanted to kind of get our name out there a little bit, so create some blogs. So started thinking about the space and I started learning about it. And the parallels. Of what's going on right now in AI, when I look back at the dot-com, when I take the l look back at this, you know, advent of SaaS, when I look back at, you know, movement to the cloud, early day ERP, all of these technological changes that have taken place over time, there are so many parallels that have t that took place back then that I just saw these patterns and I said, my gosh. I'm just gonna kinda call these patterns out. And it was in the form of first of series and blogs and then, you know, ultimately I was able to package that into the book. you know, The Age of the Speedboat. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, so what is the, you know, I'm really, when you reach out to me about this book and that I saw, it's The Age of the Speedboat. What, why is it, why the title? John Rudd: Yeah, so the premise of the book and and also so I've I'm a guy who's been you know, I've certainly been involved in global two thousand, Fortune five hundred, however you want to say, the big guys. But the bulk of my career really has been more involved in small corporate and middle market companies. And you know, kind of having that background, seeing the struggles that a lot of those companies have gone through, and also now kind of having the technical background, there was always this just reality. of a middle market organization that they weren't in the driver's seats as it related to what technology was available to them. So what does that mean? What it means is that early days of ERP, you know, SAP, and you take a look at Oracle, those kinds of things, big ERP systems, hugely expensive. You know, if I'm a couple of hundred million dollar company, I'm not sure I've got the budget, you know, to bring that in. And if I if I'm gotten to the point where I can bring something like that in, that solution that they that that I'm I'm dealing with was not built for me. It was built for a much larger organization. So the reality is, is I've got kind of a very expensive tool that was built for somebody else. And then now what I do is I do makeshift. I got a lot of these things called Excel spreads that start popping up around the organization or you know, kind of go between so we'll do this part manually. So, you know, the the middle market may be full of the most creative and scrappiest kind of leaders out there. So they find a way. And I think what what it is is this technology thing is too expensive. Let's make it work for us and go forward. So now the advent of of of AI, what I'm seeing is the possibilities, these barriers to entry around technology have fizzled away. So the middle market now has the ability to not only step in and not only kind of be able to participate in technology, but I think there's a huge middle market advantage as it relates to this technology that the big guys can't compete with or won't compete with in the coming years. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: what do you think is the advantage of AI? So because you said that most of the enterprise model before was made for larger companies than the medium. And now in AI, where do you think is the advantage of AI? Is it in the middle market or is still are also the large enterprise models? John Rudd: Yeah, so the the s so I I I think what provided the large companies, the global two thousand the you know really competitive advantage over the years is now kind of a detractor. So when you think about an organization that has scale, it's got global reach, you know, it's we're in, you know, 107 countries. you know, we've acquired if if we need it, we'll acquire it. We're now, you know, the the accumulation of 17 different large organization organizations will all come together, different cultures, you know, matrix organization, those kinds of things. So now when you take a look at this AI and the fact that there's this market uncertainty, it's spiking because there's so much new technology that's coming into it. The ability for this, as I you know, kind of refer to these large corporate as kind of aircraft carriers to be able to move to the market movement is very limited. Because it's a large organization. There are multiple, multiple layers. And so if even if the CEO is really kind of hell bent, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it, to be able to turn that aircraft carriage very, very difficult. For so that's so the first advantage that middle market has is that you can pull your senior leadership together, you know, if you're you know, several hundred million, or you know, say south of a hundred million even, but you know, in that range of up to a billion to a couple of billion. And you can say, we're gonna go, we're gonna take a right. And you can take a right. So it's a little bit different to get the culture to follow senior leadership. That takes a little bit of time, but at least the organization can find a new vision and turn toward it. So that's advantage number one. Advantage number two is we find with AI, what's kind of really the important element? How does you know what makes this work? And it's this thing called data. Okay, so if I'm a you know a hundred million dollar organization, I actually kind of know where my dad is. You know, hopefully it's clean, you know, sometimes we help organizations kind of get it up to speed, you know, kind of the garbage in, garbage out. We that the everybody has to make sure that they are you know, kind of beyond that. But really I've got a few enough systems and I can actually get my arms around my data fairly quickly. So one is I can make a decision. Number two is my data is manageable. And then the big one is the cost to compute has dropped like a what used to be just a what would have been a huge portion of not just the IT budget, but the overall budget for us for a middle market company now is a fraction of what it was. So the the the you know we sit down with middle market leaders all the time and it really is kind of just a wish list. What would you want to do? Because we kind of can do anything right now. It's beyond, you know, belief. So I think those advantages, that speedboat, the ability to kind of be nimble and move around, make Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: you know course course corrections is going to be a huge advantage for these organizations organizations in the coming years. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: And then you mentioned about you, the light side started as you you, wanted to be, you know, advisory consulting side of the, of the AI, but eventually, you know, all their clients wanted you to build things, know, to build things for them. So how was that transition? How did you, you know, how did you manage to transition from consulting advisory to the, to the, you know, building of the mall? Yeah. John Rudd: Well, fortunately fortunately the core of our team had been building things you know, for Microsoft and Amazon and others Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Hehe. John Rudd: for for you know for a long time. So they had that skill set. and but the but the thing I think philosophically when we went, it's like what kind of organization do we want to do? What kind of value do we want to bring to the marketplace? Philosophically we thought it'd be better to teach people to fish. than to simply put them in a dependent relationship with us. Because we're we we you know these these guys you know and gals worked for large organizations and you know sometimes it doesn't feel as good Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: you know or you or maybe you don't see the value as as clearly and what the one of the real goals with this team is they wanted to see the value. They wanted to see the value at the client on a on a you know on a real basis. So again, the premise was let's teach them to fish. They'll have compensate, won't be dependent. But the reality is we're talking middle market. And middle market, I mean they cut to the chase, man. It's like, you know, hey, I got a problem. I understand what it is. I need help right now. And I don't have the technological capability to do it. So what we've done is we've really gotten into these relationships. We say, okay, let's do this. Let's let's kinda let's get you up to speed. Let's get it started. But We're really going to encourage you to now build internal capability. We can train your people. Heck, they can be part of our team while we're building until we transition, but you know, ultimately down the road, we'd like to look back at a number of clients and say, wow, they've got these great, you know, kind of IT or AI capabilities that we help bring to them. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, okay. So talking to the CEO of the middle market companies. So maybe you already heard this, that we're making tremendous progress with AI and then, but what if they're actually, you know, out of the sizing? I will copy, I will copy, you know, whatever's in your book, the Penske files. Right. John Rudd: Yeah, so Julius, do you know about do you know of a television show that's in the United States? It was an old one called Seinfeld. Okay, all right. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah. John Rudd: So it's it's certainly a reference at a lot of people see my age in the US, you know, I I I I'm Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah. John Rudd: I use the analogies that make sense to me. So without going into too much detail about about Seinfeld, there is a a show and there's an individual called George on the show, and he's kind of a he's kind of a moron and he's going through life just trying to cheat his way through. Anyway, he gets a job, an important job, and he's really not sure what he's supposed to do. He's kind of surprised he got the job anyway. And what they do is they hand him the all-important Penske file. It's like George here's and then his boss leaves out of out of town for vacation. So he's like, you know, at his desk looking at he has no idea what to do. So he sits there for a few days and finally comes with this great idea. I'm gonna take this file and I'm gonna alphabetize it. So that was that was the only value that he could bring, you know, kind of to what was going on. And ultimately, you know, he was found out as fraud. And the reason I bring this up in the book as an analogy is I really have seen this. I'm I'm involved with a number of private equity companies. so you know, kind of work with them and work with various boards. But the the tendency I think for portfolio companies in private equity, which is largely, you know, middle market, or often middle market, I should say, is to not want to disclose I'm really not sure what we're supposed to be doing. I'm not really know at this space. I've never really been here before. So what happens is there's kind of this, yeah, AI, yep, we got it. We got our hand. Because if I'm a CEO, I mean, my job is to show confidence. I mean, they hired me because I have all the answers, right? I mean, these are the things I think, you know, that people run through their mind as opposed to pausing and having a real conversation. With senior leadership and with the board, around, you know, this is a paradigm shift. This is something we've never seen before. So I'm gonna turn around and do the research and tap into my people in a way in which I can come to you with the right answer that's been co-created with my organization. And like I say, it's that's it's it you know, in 1957, if I was a CEO and I said, I I don't know. Let me go check with my people, I'd get fired. In Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Hmm. John Rudd: 2027, a CEO that says, I'm not 100% sure. Let me check with my people and get back to you. If you don't say that, you should get fired. So I think it's just it's too much for one person to be able to say, okay, I've got all the answers. We gotta tap into our organization. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, so that is the dilemma of this Penske file. John Rudd: Yes, yes. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: okay, so do you still experience this with your clients now that they wanted John Rudd: yeah. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: to have all the answers? John Rudd: Yes. yes. I think there's y you know it's interesting because it's we n we rarely walk into an organization that doesn't claim that they've got an AI initiative. And we rarely walk into an organization that actually has an AI initiative that's kind of worth its salt. so I think because there's that delta between what I Personally, I know about the space and actually what's going on in the space. There is a desire to kind of create action. But not necessarily something that's very purposeful with vision and with results. So a lot of times we just try to have the conversations with companies we work with. Okay, what is the initiative? But less around that. Let's talk about your organization, how it works, how do you differentiate in the marketplace? And let's see if there are some real opportunities around AI there so we can redirect into something that's going to be more vision focused for the organization. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: So most of the organizations that you work with, how do you, you how do you implement AI? Is it in one process or, overall process from end to end? John Rudd: Yeah, so there are I mean there are a lot of flavors right now. and let me answer this three ways. There is first and foremost the you know these agentic tools, right? You've got cloud and copilot and Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah. John Rudd: you know chat GPT. So we'll walk into an organization and it's rare As a matter of fact, I don't think we've gone into the example where there isn't large experimentation going on throughout the organization on these, you know, agentic tools. That's great. You know, people are kind of doing that. But what's lacking is that it's not really tied into a directive, it's not really tied into something purposeful that we're what we're trying to accomplish. So are no metrics around it. and sometimes it's even dangerous, you know, when you get into data sharing and those kinds of things. there's something called Called work slot, where all of a sudden Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: we can create all this good stuff, kind of mucks up the work, maybe a little bit sometimes, because the people that are creating all of these cool artifacts aren't even necessarily reading them sometimes. So, so what we try to do on kind of a first stop basis is just like let's boil it down to one or two tools. Usually it's one, you know. But maybe it's two. Maybe there are a couple of use cases where it makes sense. And let's get some governance around this, right? Let's just kind of put a fence a little bit around what's going on so that we're not doing anything that we shouldn't do and we're providing some training. you know, for the organization. So I'd say that's kind of like one area where we can help organizations get their arms around a little bit. Then there's what I would call kind of still SaaS based tools out there that are in the AI space, but they're not core to my organization. An example would be I have a call center as part of my operation, and I now want to look at, you know, really automating that process. I guess I could try to build it myself, but there are so many right now organizations out there that are building SaaS-based tools that are very specialized in this. It's not going to differentiate me anyway. So maybe what I do is I do a little bit of a tool bake-off and I find the right tool for maybe. And that would be a good, you know, kind of efficiency. program for my organization. The third piece, and this is really where the value comes and the most important portion, and that is what do I do which actually differentiates me from the competition? How do I do something? How do I do it better? Where are my dependencies? Where are my bottlenecks? Let me let me do a custom development of applications so that I can do more. I can reduce the bottle eggs. I can actually start to amplify my experts in a way that I haven't before. That's really where things start to differentiate. I'd say the the first one's table stakes. The second one doesn't get you above kind of the the the common denominator of your competition. And the third one is going to create differentiation. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, so you mentioned about the not very purposeful activities, right? So what does activity without strategy look inside the real company? When you come, you know, go there and see, like, everybody's moving, but there's no really purpose or goal going on inside the organization. John Rudd: Yeah, so there's we have we have I in my book I call it an Agentic Circus. You know, where there's know, there's Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. Okay. John Rudd: you know, it's like you just never know what you're gonna get, you know, in the in the in the three rings. But you know, some of the stuff's really awesome. So you'll have you'll find somebody who is in the marketing department that's just tapped into it very individually and is really getting really good good good data. And then you might have, you know, you know, somebody else that is creating reams and reams and reams of artifacts that aren't really working. you know one of the things we see internally is you know we might go into an organization AI everywhere strategy nowhere so it's it's really it's easy like I say to Provide the tools. It's easy to see action and excitement around it, but just like everything else, we want to be really purposeful in what we're doing. We want to make sure that we have everybody kind of organized and moving in the same direction around what's going on. And again, that kind of goes into here's the vision, here's where we want to go, here's you, individual, what your involvement's going to be and what we're expecting from you. On these a genetic tools, there have been a number of studies. I think the initial studies showed that there's a general productivity improvement in the 15 to maybe 30 percent. It's it keeps on going up, up, and up. So it you absolutely should be, you know, encouraging the organization to be experimenting with these tools as long as you got the good training, as long as you have you know the governance. But what you really need to do is what is it that you want to institutionalize with your organization? What is it? at the core? What is it that you do that you want to actually be able to build out and that's where I we really encourage people to build on their own build custom Julius Neil Buenconsejo: So, okay, so let's talk about what company should actually be measuring. So you already told, you already, you know, build on that. What should be built? What should be the goal? So what is it really that they have to measure when it comes to AI? John Rudd: Yeah, so it depends upon the use case. so so let's let's take a look at a couple kind of big use cases. So if I've got a a process and in my business season I'm I'm really got capacity constraint. Even if I'm a service business, I've got capacity strain. Manufacturing capacity street, distribution company capacity constraint. You know, so what I want to do is that is stopping me from growing my top line. So that would be kind of primary area of focus. And what I want to do, I'm gonna I'm gonna be looking at some type of a throughput metric to determine as to whether I'm actually, you know, solving that problem or not. and again, it gets very specific, you know, Julius, as you would imagine. So even if we have two organizations, you know, two manufacturings that are two manufacturers that are in the same business, we find that the metrics are very, very specific because the secret sauce is a little bit different, you know, within each of those organizations. But generally speaking, like throughput would be something that would certainly be a a value indicator that would make sense. If I've got If I've got raw materials in my process that are commodity-based. And I take a look at, you know, kind of historically the commodity price is going up and down, and I ride that up and down, and I've done the best job I can to either hedge, you know, against this, so I kind of do what everybody else in the industry does. But what I really have is I have three people in my organization that just know the market backward and forward. You know, these are the people that we don't make buy decisions. Unless we're talking to Sarah and Dave, because those are the people in our organization. Unfortunately, Sarah and Dave only have about 30 minutes a day to spend on those types of problems because they're spending most of their doing day doing other things. So really kind of cracking into the ability to start to we kind of we view it as a pyramid or a triangle where the top of the triangle is where these subject matter experts are most valuable, where their judgment is. Where the strategy is, but it's the least amount of time they use. So what we want to do is get that bottom of the mundane, the routine work, is start to eliminate that. That's where you know automation can come into play. So what we're doing is we're really starting to expand the capacity of these people in a way in which we now can actually expand the amount of revenue. So we've done is removing the bottleneck. Another thing we can do is market indicators. You know, are we taking things over w is it is it is it in foreign markets that we're purchasing from? Is there country risk that we need to do? Is there geopolitical information that actually impacts the price of what we have? But we've just never had the capacity to take that information in. Or maybe the channels to do it. So now what we can do is we can actually, through, you know, kind of a series of agents and through automation is start to tap into that type of information and we can start to tease correlations between some of these big macro things and what's going on. This is going to again enhance our ability to make these decisions. So in that case, a metric might be around driving down our cost of goods sold, you know, as a percentage of revenue. on a go forward basis. but a couple of examples there. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, so John Rudd: Yeah. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: how can a CEO, for example, if I'm a CEO of a company and then I ask you, hey John, can you help me with some of our AI initiatives? And then we started that AI initiative based on our initial assessments. And then we identified all these metrics that you're saying. How would I know that this AI initiative is already creating value for my organization while it is still being implemented? in my organization. John Rudd: okay, so two things. One is the actual there's an actual initiative to help your organization change to the type of organization that can execute on AI solutions. So there's an element of metrics which are the change metrics that you want to have in place. So if we've been doing something in a particular way, you know, it's a third generation middle market business and you know, kind of the Patriarch before me just said don't change anything. You know, now what we're doing is we're saying, okay, we got we're we've got to focus on this a little bit different. We're gonna try to become an organization that actually is changing that. As a matter fact, change maybe is going to be one of our core competencies. You know, the concept of a static world doesn't work anymore. So so part of it would be the metrics around making sure that we are actually taking those steps toward becoming a continu we call continuous innovation organization or one that's is comfortable with, you know. reading what's going on and making course corrections on an ongoing basis. Once you've actually got to that level of competency, then it becomes very specific. So We we try to kind of kill the concept of a project, meaning that, we're gonna put an AI project in place. There's gonna be a beginning, a middle, and an end. We're gonna do a lot of work and figure out, well, we'll put all this stuff in a box and then we're gonna make it, and then we'll be done, and then call me in five years and think. The reality is, is, is you wanna be able to build, that's why we like kind of teach people to fish, is you build that capability, and once you've got your infrastructure in place. You know, once it actually has been fortified to the point that it can be mission critical and something your organizational can depend on, then just constant feature releases. Where are those features coming from? They're coming from the market, right? They're coming from you know use cases internally. So anytime somebody develops a use case and that use case turns into something that we actually want to turn into now a feature that we want to build out, there should be an identified business value. And More times than not, it's not amorphous. It's it's very specific. So like I say, once you get through the change process, then with each feature, with each use case, Even if it is in summary form, there should be a look at what is the value. Why are we doing this? You know, why are we doing it? Where's the value coming from? sometimes the analysis isn't worth the effort because the feature can be, you know, kicked out in a week or in two weeks, but we should still have an indication to say, did that scratch the itch that we were hoping it would on a look back basis? Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, in your experience, just recently or maybe in last few years, in a year that you're doing this, which is more difficult to implement? know, people, the people or letting them jump into AI adoption or AI implementation or the technology itself? John Rudd: technology is really I mean, fr I'm not a technologist, okay, so that is full disclosure here. but Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, okay. John Rudd: the I think when before I knew about it, I kind of I don't think like a lot of us, you know, it's like, my god, this is magical. This is black or black man, I don't know, it's black mentioned, it's there's smoke should something's going on, but it's not even understandable. And a lot of times we want to distance ourselves from stuff that's not understandable. As I've gotten into it, and I try to describe it a little bit in the book, in a way in which I can understand it. it's not that, it's really it's it's not as kind of mind-blowingly. complicated. Now there's a lot of you know complexity associated with. Claude's new release or whatever it is. But the concepts behind it is there's kind of four different types of AI, you know, that we talk about. And then you find which of those AI tools you want to apply to the, you know, particular problem. And a lot of those things can be built out. And like I say, the cost of computers drop down quite a bit. So it's not as complex and complicated to build that custom as as it seems. and there are a number of options that are out there. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Can you for example about the metrics? Can you give me an example of a metric that looks very impressive, but actually it's really meaningless? John Rudd: Yeah, yeah. all right, so let's say I'm CEO of Company X and the board is saying, Hey, listen, I thought we were gonna talk about the AI initiatives this board meeting, you know, that you're doing. no, we got it underway. I'll tell you what, next quarter, next quarter I'm gonna come through. So okay, my let's say my group's on team, you know, Microsoft Team. Okay, let's flip the switch and get that copilot subscription in. Get everybody in copilot. Okay, everybody's on copla. Okay, now we're gonna find I found a YouTube video that teaches copilot. Let's send that around and have everybody do the YouTube video on copilot. And now what I want you to do, HR, is I want you to to track this. So of our 350 people, what we want to do is we want to identify of the 350 people that they all have an instance of the Microsoft Copilot. And we want to follow up and track and make sure that they saw that YouTube video. All right, so now I'm it's next quarter. The next quarter I come in and I say, yeah, we've really stepped up. We've got 350, all our entire staff is enabled. right now with agentic with an agentic tool and we are at seventy percent fully trained which is actually ahead of schedule because we thought by the end of the quarter we'd be at fifty percent. Someone's walking away saying, okay. They got it figured out. You know, they've got but the reality is there's nothing there. Sure, giving access to copilots, I generally say is a positive thing. And if you have governance, you know, like that, you know, that reduces risk, but it's not purposeful toward changing the dial on that organization. And five years from now, if that's really what constitutes success for their AI initiative, they're probably not gonna be around. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good example. So if there's a CEO right now who is contemplating about, you know, listening to us right now, contemplating about using AI in their organization. So, and they wanted to, for example, you know, there's a steering committee of AI in their organization that he wanted to convince, you know, okay, let's have Jude. and his team come into our organization to help us with our AI implementation or AI adoption projects. So can you give me three questions every CEO should ask or should tell the AI steering committee to be able to convince them that this is the right time and that this is the path that we are going to follow. John Rudd: Yeah, so I mean I think the first thing if the if you've first of all if you've taken the step that you've got an AI steering commit committee, you know, I'm gonna give you a give you a hand there because not a lot of people have gotten to that level. So what that tells Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: me is it tells me it's an organization that's taken it seriously. It's an organization that is trying to put the mechanics in place to do it properly and maybe pull kind of the folks together. So I think the first question to the CEO and the steering committee is what is the vision for where this organization is three to five years from now? You know, so that that is that should be answerable. It should be something that is communicated to the organization. There should be milestones along the way. That show that we're actually making progress toward that. And by the way, it shouldn't be done overnight. It should be done in a thoughtful manner. So yeah, I would I would first task that that committee. With kind of coming in with that high-level vision of where it is we want to be. And once that's in place, before you get to the roadmap, there's got to be a little bit of a self-examination around what do our processes look like? Where are the weaknesses? What are kind of the key use cases? Not the very specific use cases, but the key general like is there market information that we're not intaking into our process right now that we should? That's a pretty big use case. So, how do we get our arms around it? We'll figure that out later. But right now, let's just say that one of the things we're going to do with the advent of this new technology is we're going to pull market, we're going to pull that market intelligence in a way in which we never could access it before. We've got bottlenecks in our in our process. We're going to free up those bottlenecks. That's a big use case. Those are the types of things I would say at a first level of where do we want to go? What are the big use cases? And then you can kind of pin-pong. some milestones of taking progress toward getting there. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, going into your book, so I saw in your book that you cite the Bain research that 88 % of transformation failed to achieve the original ambitions. So why do you think this transformation keeps on failing when we have more technologists now, we have more consultants, we have more money than ever, and then of course some expertise than John Rudd: There's the old ad is which is culture each strategy for breakfast, right? I don't think that's changed. So I I it's you know, certainly when when I was in the at Solutions IQ in the agile space, we had a lot of tremendous successes with helping organizations kind of move the dial. And we had a lot of you know, kind of frustrating experiences as well. And so what you find out is What the CEO says matters, but it's not enough. And what the amount of communication involved in changing an organization or trying to shift a culture can never be enough. the other thing is if everything is top-down. Middle management, I mean, I'll tell you, the you know, the ability for middle management to stall an initiative is tremendous. Tremendous amount of power at that level. And what we would find is and rightfully so, and rightfully so, is a lot of middle managers would say, kind of not invented here. I'm not I'm not feeling it. And by the way, I've I've seen these transformations come and go. This is the fifth one. And I know exactly what to do. I smile, I nod my head, and I kinda wait it out. And over time it's gonna kind of it's gonna dissipate. So how do you get your how do you how do you tackle that? How do you solve that? Get everybody involved, you know? The the amount of information you can get from that middle management group and the people that work for them is tremendous. And why would you ever start to drive towards something without really finding all the information that you have available to yourself? So I think that's that the first step would be in in terms of cultural change, would be a cultural change in which you say, I'm interested, if I'm the CEO, I'm interested in what my people are saying. Saying is one thing, and then actually building an organization that allows upward mobility of information, those are mechanical things that you can put in place. And you can actually establish ceremonies and other things so you continue to encourage it. And again, you can never overcommunicate kind of this need and this desire and rewards, you know, for people that are actually willing to stick their neck out and say, hey, maybe we should be doing this. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, yeah. So most of the things that I, most of the experiences I had before is basically the same, You are right that this middle manager, they can be successful, your organization can be successful if the middle managers, you know, jumps in and it can also stall. They can also stall any projects that they don't believe in. So how would, for example, if I'm a CEO, how would I know if it's stalling in the middle? because I don't have that access to that information, I don't have that access to the people, the frontliners, but in the reports every month, they say this is what's happening, but in reality, it's not really successful. John Rudd: Yeah, so I mean it's a great point because I think there's a lot of times and I go I I always I always think of kind of traditional practices as how we did things you know before the advent of this acceleration in technology. And I think a lot of times there is a an initiative, a project. The CEO and the senior leadership. team says, okay, organization, we're gonna do X. Okay, so, and we're taking it seriously. And the reason the reason we're taking it seriously is what we're gonna do is we're gonna excuse me, we're gonna put a change management process in place. okay, what does that mean? What it means is that we're actually going to take a look at our status quo and we're gonna take a look at our future state and then we're going to Shift the organization through training and through consulting and through other items. And at the end of the day, we will have begun the initiative, transitioned, and then it'll be done, and then we'll go on and we'll be able to enjoy the efforts of that investment for years to come. That's where I think organizations falling on those that kind of traditional change management approach might be missing a little bit. Because we're in a constant change world, which means that I might have the greatest idea today as a senior leader. And I might we may want my organization to get there. But if what I'm doing is I'm shifting, I'm gonna spend the time and the money to shift and then wait, the market's changed. It's already changed on me. So really what I have to do is I have to start to take a look at building an organization where core competency. Becomes continuous change. We're an organization where we actually will read what's going on in the marketplace, understand what that is, and allow ourselves to actually change our mind because now we have better information today than we had yesterday. So back to the question of how would I know as a CEO or as a senior leader as to whether I am making progress aside from the metrics that I might build across the board is I want to hear things I want to hear about how we're changing today. I want to hear I want to hear how the plan that we put together no longer holds in this area and therefore we're making a real change. The other thing I want to hear is I want to hear where that idea came from. I want to hear that it came from, you know, where the rubber hits the road, where our people are talking to our clients. I want that information to be actually driving Julius Neil Buenconsejo: That's a great point. John Rudd: changes across the initiative. That's what I Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah. John Rudd: know I'm getting. That's what I know I'm getting there. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, that's good. So now I wanted to check your section three of your book. It's clearing the fog. I'm interested about this building AI you can trust. Can you elaborate on that? John Rudd: Yeah, I mean there's a there's a lot, you know, kinda that is that is captured in that. And I think the so so what's interesting with AI is it's hard to have a conversation about AI. Well actually I'll go back. Somebody somebody somebody'll ask me, do you like AI? You know, and it's like, well Do you like electricity? You know, it's kind of there and it's available. But what's interesting with AI is it's we're starting to hit some ethical boundaries, right? We're starting to hit some areas that are we using our customer data for things that we shouldn't? Are we using data from our people in ways that we shouldn't? you know, is the you know, so there's a Yeah, I think that people can sometimes get so focused on the business value that there's an element of damn the torpedoes, we'll do whatever we have to do. But I think it really is going to behoove senior leadership to always take a look back and look at it from an ethical perspective and ensure that what we're doing is right for our people, what we're doing is right for our customers. And what we're doing is you know, something that they'll be able to rally behind because they understand what we're doing is we're bringing pure value in. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, okay. And then in section four, the traps. So this one, I would like to ask you this. Sandbags are not a strategy. What does that mean? John Rudd: Yeah. so I had that came I was I spent half my time in Florida and I got hit with two of the hurricanes that that came by recently and which caused me to move out of the neighborhood. You know, I was Julius Neil Buenconsejo: You John Rudd: I had moved into a neighborhood on the water and when I moved in it had there in fifty years there'd never been any breach of water, you know. So don't Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay. John Rudd: worry, we're in a we're in a five hundred year flood zone. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: So got hit with one hurricane, eight feet of water in the house. and then eight feet, eight feet. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: 8 feet? Wow. John Rudd: And then I know. So but it's a it's a one in a five hundred year event, so I didn't have to worry again until twenty-four months later when I had three feet in the in the house. So I'm Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay. John Rudd: I'm like saying, Okay, I'm done. I'm done I'm something tells me maybe this isn't a five hundred year flood zone. Anyway, my neighbor, he was, he loved his place. It was, you know, he he loved the neighborhood, everything else. And he was he wasn't gonna move. So I was kind of talking to him just openly about this. You know, I said, listen, I'm I'm done. I, you know, I got enough. And he said, No, no, I'm gonna be good. And I said, What are you gonna do? And he said, you know, last time the problem was I didn't have enough sandbags. If I had more sandbags, Then there wouldn't have been a flood. So the idea that people are thinking about this as I can take the old tool set and kind of the the just like the hurricanes hitting that area, things have changed, right? It's no longer a 500-year flood zone. the technology has changed. I can't take the approach of I'm not going to focus on this as a senior leader. I'm not going to take it. seriously, there have been AI, there have been IT initiatives in the past. I've always been able to navigate around them. I'm not gonna worry about it. Just like it's not a 500-year flood zone, there's a paradigm shift going on. And this is the one. This is the one. I mean, you know, people talk about you know, this I'm a I'm I've been on the planet for a long time, Julius. And you know, Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Hahaha John Rudd: and people my age will talk about they'll talk about the real estate they should have bought. You know, I should have, you know, how much that money, you know, or the stock that they or the opportunity they should have gotten in, you know, I should have, Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. John Rudd: if I had done that, do you realize how much money I'd have today? You know, people love telling those stories. This is the one game. AI, this is the one. This is this Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: is the one you want to participate in. This is not the one that's gonna kind of go away and turn into something else. The organizations that embrace it, the organizations that transition. and differentiate themselves because of strength in this area, are the organizations that are gonna not only thrive, but they'll be the ones that are around. Organizations that don't do that, even if you're in what feels like a really low tech sector, trust me, it's coming. It's coming toward you. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, that's a very profound explanation. So another one that I would like to ask you is you already mentioned this about the data. So in your chapter 15 in section four, it says the data quality trap. John Rudd: Yeah, yeah. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Are you seeing this in most of the organizations that you're working with right now? John Rudd: I wouldn't say most of the organizations, but it's definitely it's definitely like say it's it's first stop for us, right? Is where's the data and what does it look like? there are you know people can say, hey, yeah, this is great. We've actually for the last 12 years we've been on the same ERP system and we've got all this data. We're super excited because now we can take all this data and go forward. And then a lot of times you start to look at it and you see that the quality of the data. I mean, it's one thing it's it's it's really kind of just the consistency of the data a lot of times, is that you've had two or three management changes that have taken place and different approaches into how they're storing things and you know, kind of how they're going forward. So part of it is just evaluating how much of what we have on an historical basis is usable. and so Where is it? Can we get to where it is? And when when we f when we get to where it is, is it actually something of value? And if you know, I would just I would just say to people out there that are kind of maybe a little bit nervous because they understand maybe their data's not exactly where they want to be, you know, that's okay, but tomorrow's a new day. So I mean, the first step in that process is how do we put in a you know, a program so that we've got consistent, clean data going forward. Because, you know, if you if you wait, that means it's another day of data that you didn't capture. So even if you can't rely as much as you'd like on the stuff over the last 10 to 12 years, make sure you can rely on this stuff for sure that on a go forward basis. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, and another thing is I've had experiences for over the years that a lot of the problems that organizations are solving are actually not the problem. Basically, maybe it's just a symptom. It's a symptom of the real problem behind that. So I would like to ask you about this wrong problem trap. How do you really know if the problem is the right problem that you're solving now in the organization? John Rudd: Yeah, so th I mean that's I I think that again that's c that's another classic kind of organizational issue is and I think it comes kind of from two things. It's that need for activity. We want to do something. And then there's gonna be kind of a lending approach. We're gonna follow it what we what what we think the competition is doing. well they're building this or they're building that, so let's do it. But before you kind of get into following the competition, maybe may not maybe Absolutely. What you want to do is you actually want to pause and say, What is this? Why is this technical? Because if you think about it, a lot of people are not bringing AI in because there's a problem. They're bringing AI in because there is an untapped potential that they know other people are accessing. So the best thing you can do is kind of pause, and that goes back to kind of this vision of where you want to be in those kind of big use cases, you know, that talked about is kind of get your brain wrapped a little bit around of these are kind of the core areas where I think AI could apply. And then it's the deep dive. And then it's jumping in, it's doing the process mapping. It is identifying, my gosh, bottleneck. my gosh. Do you know where the do you realize that do you realize the dependency here? Do you know if you know if Joe left? We're we're we're done. You know? So it's it's like those types of dependencies and w w when you go through that process, what pops out at you is kind of the obvious low hanging fruit. Start there. Make it easy. That's where you're gonna get your biggest bang for your impact, you know, buck on the on the front end. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, and this one is also a classic maybe, the success theater trap. Yeah. Yeah. John Rudd: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That goes so that goes back to what does the board want to hear? And what's actually going on, you know? And it's Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, yeah. John Rudd: the you know, it's it's being able to talk about everybody using it. It's able to it's it might even be able to give a stack of artifacts that you're able to create with it. But the the and and this does go back. This goes back. So if we think about large corporate Fortune five hundred. What do we find? Who are the people that are successful in large corporate? Well, there's a lot of really bright people, but there's also a lot of very political people that are successful in large organizations because they've understood that there is a path upward, and that path upward is to be able to demonstrate, irrespective of what the real results are, that good things are happening. So I think that's a default. you know, it's a it's a pattern a lot of us have learned, you know, as we've come up through the ranks. I kind of view it as an anti pattern myself, but nonetheless a lot of people will in if they're doing any initiative, AI or anything else, is they're going to bake a kind of a straw man success element into it. I gave the example earlier about what percentage of our people, you know, have been trained on a well, you know, does we really set a really low bar, you know. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: But what we've done is we can pat ourselves on the back in front of the board. So it's very tied to the Penske file, you know, concept. And that is Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: they're they're they're really kind of you know, hand in glove is kind of when I'm not I have that anxiety, I don't know what to do. What I want to do is not necessarily show that to the world. So I'm gonna create metrics that I can point to that say they're s say say I'm successful, even though they don't necessarily tie toward. organizational change or true success. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, that's good. So we're talking about the board. For example, somebody, CEO listening to us right now, and he will be presenting to the board. So what should the CEO put in AI's board slide? John Rudd: I think if you've got an articulated vision of where we want to go, I mean, I'm on I'm on the board of organizations. I I I mean that's what I'm hoping my senior leadership is bringing to the table is the you know the ability to have a vision for where's the market going, a vision for how we play, how our organization plays in the market, and a vision for how we can use this once-in-a-generation capability now with AI to actually move us to a point where we're going to be more competitive going forward. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: What's that one sentence a CEO should be willing to say to their board that most CEOs are afraid to say? John Rudd: well, I mean, I don't Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Ha ha! John Rudd: know, might be I I don't know, might be a little bit, you know, kind of ripping the band-aid off. but I think it would be for us to do this in a way in which it is going to be biggest bang for our buck. What we're doing right now is we are tapping into senior leadership and we are also investigating across the organization what the needs are. So that we can come up with a plan that is going to have a prioritized approach to making sure that we're going to actually bring that these initiatives are not only going to bring value, but they're going to bring a capability that allows us to continue to spin that value going forward. It's more in one line, sorry. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Jan, so imagine you are the CEO of like 100 million company and you've got limited capital, limited people, and then your competitors in your industry are moving fast. So you can make one AI-related move this quarter. What do you do? You can choose an industry. You can choose an industry type of company. So what's one AI-related move this quarter would you do? John Rudd: Okay. I'm gonna cheat. I'm gonna do a one A to one B. All right, I'm cheating a little bit. So my one A, I'm gonna Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay. John Rudd: go back to I'm gonna make sure that I've got I've got a fence around the agentic tools in my organization. I just Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. John Rudd: y y you gotta you you have to stabilize, you know. So in in in their if you don't, there's bad behavior going on in your organization and you just you you you can't afford that for your people, you can't afford that for your for your customers. So I think that's something that can be done, and it's not a huge, you know, it's not a high cost you know, associated. number two is I would declare to senior leadership that we are going to build custom solutions, and we're eventually going to build that capability ourselves. So one of the things if I'm a hundred million dollars and I've got an IT operation, my IT operation might be an an IT help desk plus, you know, maybe an Oracle team, you know, kind of Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: that helps with the, you know, the ERP system, you know, that I have in place. So to actually say we're gonna build capability, which is our own capability in this area, so we can build custom. That requires a number of changes in the organization and it's a bit of a cultural shift as well. So I would start that sooner rather than later. Even if I I I wouldn't I wouldn't suggest somebody goes out and buy you know hires eight engineers tomorrow. But what you do is you understand that the ship is now moving in this direction and we're no longer going to separate ourselves from from IT, but really centerpiece of what we do in our core competency has to be our capability to be able to deliver IT solutions going forward. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: That's a great insight from you. So before we go to the rapid 10 next round, our last part, I would like you to give what is your company doing. So if there's somebody, some CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs who are listening to this right now, how are you going to be able to help those companies, their companies, and how they can reach you? John Rudd: well lightsight.ai is the is the website. we are working with pretty much exclusively middle market at this point in time. we are like you say we're kinda we're we're very in in it for helping organizations out. I think everybody at LightSight really gets jazzed when we see these results that are taking place at the clients and the smile and the kind of those big eyes saying, I had no idea we could do this. This is, you know, and and we help them, but they do it. You know, so it's Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: you know, that's kind of cool. so yeah, I would say you know, you can inquire on the website, you know, to us. We'd love to talk to you. and doesn't cost you anything. You know, reach out to LightSight. We'll always we're always happy to have one, two, three conversations. we've given a lot of people a lot of direction. without having to write a statement of work. So we're happy to do that. Yeah. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: And that is good because it's free. So if you have an AI initiative or thinking about having an AI initiative, please contact John in the information he gave you and then he will be able to help you because they have this advisory team and then they will have also the technology team that will be able to help you and it's all for free. Okay, so we're going to John Rudd: Yeah, you'd love to talk hot butt. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: the final segment of our podcast, 10x, trapping 10x round, which I always ask all the speakers that I invite here. So what's one AI tool you actually use every day? John Rudd: Clawing. Absolutely. I love Claud. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: What's one task AI has already 10x or exponentially improved in your life? John Rudd: research. I used to spend days I I've got an idea and I always want to make sure I've got my you know, my evidence in the marketpla I I can do that research in in hours. No. It's amazing. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, okay, what's one human skill AI can ever replace? John Rudd: a situational judgment. You know, I I the it agents are great for a lot of things, but if if you gotta make a quick call and the situation's changing, I want a human standing next to me. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: If you could automate one annoying thing forever, what would it be? John Rudd: So many things, Julia. You know I can't say I can't stand tax tax prep, both at Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm. John Rudd: at company level and personal. I mean, it is just it is it is like pulling teeth for me and it seems like every quarter I gotta go through the same exercises, so Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, what's the biggest misconception about AI, right? John Rudd: The headlines talk about Headcount reduction, cost reduction. Everyone's gonna all the big corporations are gonna come in there and reduce their costs. If the C-suite of any organization is looking at AI as this big cost reduction reducer, they're missing the boat. This is the biggest growth opportunity organizations have ever had. And if you want to look at it in the most small value way, then you focus on cost reduction. So I'd say the biggest misnomer is that's where people's heads are, that's where the conversation is. The reality is this is the growth engine that everybody's been waiting for. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: So what advice would you give someone who wants to become 10x or improve 10x starting today? John Rudd: well I'll tell you what I you know kind of what I do. So we do this with our clients, right? As we go and we do the process. Where's your most critical process? We do the process walk with them, we help them identify. We, you know, kind of hear the solutions that can be eugenic, we put it together. Do that for yourself. Spend a week kind of just what do they do today? Hmm. What did they do, you know, yesterday? You know, where where am I spending my time? And then look at it from the eyes of what about if I was able to eliminate some of these routine items that I do on an ongoing basis? And I think what people are gonna find out is if you go through the effort of actually establishing that you know, kind of agentic network that you're gonna build around it, is you're gonna free up a lot of your time. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: So what would you tell your younger self about the future? John Rudd: depends upon how far we go back. But generally I think one of the things is this Agile thing kinda had it figured out. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. John Rudd: even though the you know kind of the the term agile maybe kind of l has lost favor over the last couple of years, but there's this resurgence Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Mm-hmm. Yeah. John Rudd: now. I mean agile was was I think kind of showed up largely because the market was changing too quickly and there was so much uncertainty that the old ways of doing things wouldn't allow for you know, kind of inspecting and adapting. Well, this agile thing, it turns out kinda, you know, maybe saw the future coming because those practices today are are are more important than they've ever been. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay. Okay. Okay. What's one book, podcast, or resource that shaped your thinking about AI or innovation? John Rudd: I actually mentioned this in my book too. It's it's Dan Pink Drive. it is it it and I this is really it's it talks about what motivates employees and how you can actually set up an environment which is gonna get g get it's it's not to get more work out of somebody, but just to get more production, get more passion out of people. And in aligning them with kind of something really important. That, you know, it's not like we need to drive revenue 10% more next year. And that's not, that's not motivating. But what is it? How are you changing the universe and how can you bring your people together so they can help to change the universe for you? So yeah, Dan Pink Drive, it's it really woke me up to the power of the people in my organization and how to try to tap into that. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, so if you had to bet on one AI trend that will be massive in three years, what is it? John Rudd: what we're seeing right now is you hear about vibe coding all the time, and vibe coding is it's kind of cool. But I think what we're seeing is where the business used to have an idea, I want to build something, and then there'd be the you know technologists that would build it, and you'd have requirements document in between. That's gotten a little bit shorter, a little bit shorter. What we're seeing now is this vibe coding is leading where the business, instead of saying, Let me write a document and tell you what I want. Let me just vibe code something and show you what I want. Can you build that? So I think three to five years from now, the bulk of communication between somebody who wants something for the market and those that are building is going to be in the form of a real prototype artifact based on vibe coding. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Okay, so my last question. What does 10x mean to you personally? John Rudd: I think, you know, it it it's like I said, I I was, you know, didn't know a lot about this space two years ago. I've learned a lot more. And then, you know, over the last year and a half I've really kind of leaned into it. you talked about what would you advise somebody who wants to, you know, got and get 10x themselves. I did that for myself. You know, where do I spend my time? I now find that I I actually enjoy you know I enjoy what I do, so I don't mind putting time in. I I you know, so it's that are it's that are golf and I'm not really very good at golf. So but what it does is the impact of what I generate and the value that I generate now is is 10x, what it was two years ago, just on being able to leverage those tools. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: I know for somebody who already retired and then came up, you know, again, working, I think that's already 10x. You know what I mean? John Rudd: Yeah. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: You already retired and you came, you came again and then so I still have to do something. I still have purpose in this world. So that's already 10x. It's really great. So thank John Rudd: Yeah, it's good. It's good. It's been fun. It's been fun. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: you very much for that masterclass of our discussion. was, I was really amazed of all the, you know, of the learnings from you. of all the decades that you have gone through. And I think even though it's more on the technology now and you're not on the technology side, you understood. You understood what is still happening, the fundamentals, the foundation in every organization that needs to be done. And also that book, for all our viewers and listeners, don't forget, the book is already out, right? It's already out? Yeah. John Rudd: yeah, the book is on so you can if you wanna read it, go to Amazon, Age of the Speed Boat, and if you wanna listen to it, go to Google Play. It's now available on video. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, so I already read that book. It's really great. That's why I wanted to discuss it in our our podcast right now. Go get that book. Thank you, John, for John Rudd: All right. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: everything. And thank you for, know, for your time and for for everyone who listened to us and, who are watching right now. Thank you for watching 10XAI. Remember the future. Yeah. John Rudd: Julius thank thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I love the questions and I really enjoyed the last hour. Julius Neil Buenconsejo: Yeah, yeah, alright. Thank you very much and see you next episode.