Latest / Auto Collabs / AI Is Only As Smart As Your “Regular-I” with Bob George | Auto Collabs
Transcript
- 0:00This is the very first podcast that I'm wearing this new sweat- this new hoodie. Oh, I'm so mad. And if you, you haven't seen it yet, Michael- I'm annoyed. I'm enraged. Hold on. I gotta, I gotta bring the desk down.
- 0:11Okay. I'll do the description. It is... If you are not watching, it is the most dope More Than Cars logo on a sweater, full chest like the kids wear, with it on the arm, too. It looks dope.
- 0:26We'll probably have them in the shop at some point. You can't- Can't buy it yet. Only Paul gets one 'cause he's near the printer. That's exactly right. Paul looks happy. Michael looks enraged.
- 0:36[upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs. None of that has anything to do with the fact [laughs] that we're talking with Bob George at iPacket today. Uh, I'm excited- He'd want one of these, too.
- 0:53Maybe I'll send him one and then he and I will be the only two that have one. You probably would. You'd be like that. I mean, we're close, right? He's in Burlington, Vermont. It's cold up there.
- 1:00We know that he, he was, like, super ground floor with dealer.com, so I can't wait to talk to him about that.
- 1:04Because anybody that's been through that, I don't care whether you like dealer.com as an entity, as a website, or whether you love them, whatever it is, if you've been through that, if you've seen the growth of a company- You did the thing.
- 1:18Yeah... you've done the thing. It doesn't matter. Yeah. It's unreal. It is. I mean, think about how many people will never get that type of experience. Like- Oh, yeah...
- 1:27most people's claim to fame is they were, like, person 200 that signed up for Facebook, you know? But, like, he was, like, within the first- Pretty good...
- 1:3680 employees of a massive- Who, who, who, who was 200 at Facebook, by the way? I mean, I was- Yeah... pretty early, I will say. I was lucky. I was, like, going to college when it opened up- Yeah. Yeah...
- 1:47and all that stuff. But yeah. Yeah. We, we gotta dig into this. We got questions to ask this man. I'm asking leadership questions on this one.
- 1:51E- either way, either way, we hope you enjoy this conversation with Bob George. [upbeat music] All right. We're hanging out with Bob George. Bob George, two first names. Thanks for hanging out with us today.
- 2:07[laughs] I... It's not, not the first time I've heard that. I actually have three first names. Never, never before in your whole life. Right. Never. Never before in your whole life. All right.
- 2:15You gotta, you gotta start with this because you are in, you are in the hotbed of what I think is, like, the technology ecosystem for auto started.
- 2:25I, I'm, uh, there's probably other people, like Reynolds, that would claim otherwise, but, like, the technology as it started today started in Burlington, Vermont. And you were on the ground floor.
- 2:36Was that your for- first foray into auto? Yeah. I, um, I had some automotive journalism background. And I- Really?... I, I met Rick Gibbs, uh, you know, one of the founders, of course.
- 2:47And he said, "Hey, do you know how to write?" I said, "Yeah, I can do that." "Do you know what SEO is?" "Uh, yeah, I probably can learn that." "All right. When can you start?"
- 2:55And it, uh, probably wasn't that simple, but it wasn't far off from there. And so- Yeah... came on to dealer in 2006. Um, probably 80 employees back then.
- 3:04And honestly, I, like a lot of people, I just grew up with the company. Um, grew through different roles. We, we founded the product management function, um- Mm... a couple years in.
- 3:15'Cause basically what happened is the founders couldn't do it all themselves anymore. They needed people to assign the work to, to go do it. So- Mm-hmm... we built out this product management function.
- 3:23And I, I stayed for a long time, man. I went through both acquisitions through Dealertrack, through Cox, and- Oh, wow...
- 3:30um, you know, it wasn't 'til the end of '24 that I, I changed jobs and came over to iPacket, um, which has been great. But yeah, so it's been a... And I've never left Burlington. I moved here after college.
- 3:42I'll stay here for a year, and that was 22 years ago. That- What? [laughs] 22 years ago, like, I, I can relate to that. That's kind of my Syracuse story. In like, I'm not- Yeah. Why...
- 3:53Yeah, I'll just go there for a minute, and then roll. Oh, yeah. But yeah. There's a girl in a band. Yeah, how long could it be? Now I have four kids and, you know. Yep. [laughs] I grew up in, I grew up in Ithaca.
- 4:02And so I was focused- Oh, yeah... on getting out of Central New York. I gotta get away from this place. Yeah. And Vermont is basically Ithaca. But it- Just a little north... right. It's, it's, it's on a lake.
- 4:11It's a little farther north. Yeah, you got it. [laughs] I, I'm curious, I gotta ask you this. I gotta scratch this itch. 80 employees to how many employees today across this ecosystem? I mean, when we...
- 4:24At probably the peak in Burlington, Vermont in that office was something like 1,100 to 1,200. [laughs] And now, now it's kind of dispersed. With Cox, it's a little different- Yeah...
- 4:33'cause there's, like, cross-functional. It's, like, it was always kinda hard to figure out exactly- Right... who, who lived where. But yeah, I mean, it was quite a...
- 4:39When we were hiring 200 people a year for three years in a row, that was... I, I had a great workspace, and then I didn't have much left. So, um- [laughs]... we ran out of space quick. Okay.
- 4:48Before we move on to iPacket, this is what I wanna, what I wanna know. What, what professional wisdom can only be gained in a company that's growing that fast? What did you guys learn? Hold, hold on. I'm taking notes.
- 5:04So, you know, you know what's interesting, is I didn't know this until a lot later. And that was that everybody in the company, including the founders, including all the executives, we were all just learning together.
- 5:18Like, no one really knew what to do, you know? Hmm. There wasn't necessarily a playbook for it.
- 5:24And, you know, when, when you're younger in a company, you kinda look up to your leaders and think they, they know exactly what's going on. And I've talked to them later on.
- 5:30They said, "Look, we were all learning together. We, we were just-" Yeah... "rolling with it." I mean, growth, you can't predict it.
- 5:36And, you know, I think it, that, that leadership group in particular had a lot of humility around, "Hey, we're, we're just trying to figure this out. We got something good here. We're gonna run with it."
- 5:45And, and what was cool is we need all of you, you know, the full team to, to get it done. Hmm. That's such a interesting... Because you do. When, when you have a leader in front of you,
- 5:59you, you, you almost expect them to be, like, years or light years- Mm-hmm... ahead. You're like, "Oh, they must have ultimate wisdom- Mm-hmm...
- 6:06because they're called the CEO, or they're called the senior XYZ, or they're, you know?" But a lot of times it's just, like, enough steps ahead. Yeah. We're seeing that actually right now with, like- Sure...
- 6:15the advent of AI. Yes. Right? It's like-If someone's an AI expert, they're just, like, just enough steps [laughs] ahead that they're- Mm-hmm... just in front of you, right? It's very similar. It's so interesting.
- 6:26Um- You know, Bob, Bob, what is your pr- you know, as we talk about that, it's, it's something we as a company have been going through- Mm-hmm...
- 6:33um, and any company that is in software, any company that is in communications,
- 6:39any leader anyway, I don't know that everyone throughout the organization feels this urgency, but anyone who's in leadership and has been through the cycle of technology at least once
- 6:50kind of has this feeling, and it's a real, it should be felt this way, is that the world feels like it's on your heels right now. Mm-hmm. And so how, how do you think through and process through that feeling?
- 7:03'Cause I know you feel it. Yeah. What are you doing right now? What is the mentality you are trying to, like, push out through your team and the people around you?
- 7:10So, like, to maybe make a little distance between you and the world on your heels. Totally. I, I, I know that feeling well. Just, "Hey, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll take it. Yep, I got it. I got this."
- 7:21And then w- w- what I've kinda learned is people become attracted to the people that carry because they feel c- safe around them, you know? Like, those- Mm...
- 7:30and so what I really, I, I used to always have this saying, I, I just wanna scale my anxiety out to everybody else.
- 7:35Not, not too much, you know, but enough that everybody kinda feels the same What, what you mean is urgency. calm. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like- A healthy version of, is, is urgency. Exactly. Exactly.
- 7:45And I think, you know, it's, it's a little cliche, but it truly is communicating to your team why we're doing what we're doing.
- 7:52You know, and not saying, "Hey, I need you to do this by Friday," but, "Let me take a minute to explain to you what's going on, why this matters so much. Here's what I think can happen if we do it.
- 8:01Here's the outcome if we don't do it, and here's some of the risk." Because I think within people, people are always looking for, like, intrinsic motivators. Mm.
- 8:08And when you're told, "Just go do this," without context, sure, maybe I'll do it. I'm a good employee, right? But if I know why, I'll probably do it better than you asked me to do it because- Mm...
- 8:18I thought of something else that as, you know, as a leader, you're bouncing around 50 different places. Yeah. If I can focus.
- 8:24And- So, yeah And the most important part of, I think, what you just said is that when people understand, start to understand, like, how you think and why you're processing stuff, ideal state- Mm-hmm...
- 8:34something comes across the pike, they notice it now because they're thinking and they're activated, and they, you know, they stave off whatever it is and it never even gets to you. Mm-hmm. Yep. Right?
- 8:43Like, that's ideal state. But if you just raise order takers within your company, right, it always requires you or being around to give the order. Mm-hmm. Scale critical thinking, scale- Ah...
- 8:53the urgency, just like you said.
- 8:57How, uh, after being with a company so, so long and going through these, like, changes and a f- fast growth acceleration to kind of, like, getting back into a growing, scaling company, thinking about, you know, developing products on top of something core.
- 9:14You- Mm-hmm... you've been on with iPac. How did you s- transfer, like, that knowledge and almost hit a little bit of a reset button- Yeah... as you came on board into a new role?
- 9:24One, one of the things I did is, stepping into the company, you know, I was kind of founding the product management discipline here. Um- Mm...
- 9:31it was that same moment at dealer.com, um, kinda different level in the company. And so the, the first thing I did is I kind of... I, I assumed I was gonna be a jack-of-all-trades for a while, until I built a team.
- 9:43Like, I was writing features again for engineers, you know, doing QA plans, that sort of thing. And, and some of it was, you know, I did so much of that in my early days at dealer.com that I still had the skills.
- 9:54It was nice to see it. Like, I was a little sore and rusty, and I ached a little bit, you know, 'cause I'm older now. But, but I could still do the job. Mm. And now I'm kind of building out a team.
- 10:02And it was actually very,
- 10:05um, it was really good for me to run those fundamentals again before building out the team, the product team, the UX team, because I had to go do the, the motions again and live it, and I wasn't just dictating what to do.
- 10:18I had done it recently. And so that was- Mm. You know, uh, Cox, I had a big team and I had a lot of people I could connect with, and so much there is just moving information around.
- 10:27Here, there's a lot of that too, but it's also, you know, you're swinging the bat again. And, eh, shoulder's a little sore. I better work that out. And you, you get the reps again, you know, and you feel good. Mm.
- 10:36You're like, you're like, "I'm out there. I'm not as fast as I used to be, but I'm out there." [laughs] It's, it's very interesting. I actually remember. It was similar for me going from, like...
- 10:44I, you know, I spent 12 years in retail auto, and all the stores that I ever worked for had been at minimum around 10 years. I think the l- the shortest one was 14. I had been at a store that was 14 years.
- 10:56But all the other ones were, like, 60-year-old companies- Mm-hmm... that had, like, HR processes and legal teams, and all, all the f- you know.
- 11:07Like, oh, the sales team is rocking it, you know, and all this type of stuff. And then you go down and you're, like, in startup mode. And it's like- Mm-hmm... "Oh, wait. We have to, we have to make that document?
- 11:17Oh, hold on" [laughs] you know? [laughs] And it's very similar. You're, you're saying, like, "I'm founding this little-" Right... "like, micro entity within a, a larger entity." Mm-hmm.
- 11:25And I love the mindset that that brings. Were you able to kinda, like, reinstill that same kinda mindset
- 11:33c- across the team in, in some way, where it's like, "Hey, because we're standing this up, we also have the ability to refactor over here potentially"? Have you seen gains in that, in that world? Yeah.
- 11:44You know, I've been lucky over the years to have really good engineering partners, and I, I've have experienced the same here. My engineering leadership team is really strong.
- 11:54The r- the core infrastructure of this product is really good. It kinda scales, I won't say infinitely, but there's, they built it in a way that's really durable.
- 12:02And so I, I've spent a lot of time with the team kinda looking at not just, "Hey, we're gonna pump a bunch of features out," but, "How are we gonna scale our product to, to meet the demand of the industry?"
- 12:14You know, you, people pulling window stickers. Like, we, we need to make sure we can do that, not a few a day, but thousands a day, you know? And, and so-Um, that's been a good...
- 12:24Again, the, the closeness and the connectivity to the work has reminded me that so much isn't just, "Hey, this is what we're doing, and it's cool," but kind of how we're doing it as a system, and then setting ourselves up for the future with, with new product.
- 12:38Yeah. I'm curious to know this, based on what you're saying. You talked about scale, but I'm also hearing, um, problem-solving, right? I mean, the- Mm-hmm...
- 12:47foundation of a, of a business is to find the problem and solve it. Mm-hmm. In an industry as complex as automotive, and when you look inside of a retail operation and the million and one problems that they have,
- 13:00how do you determine from your vantage point in what you're developing and what you guys are building, the right pro- th- that it's the right problem that you're selling- Yeah... solving for? So
- 13:13I've been looking at, we, and we've been looking as a whole at what is the real kind of competitive differentiator of iPacket, right? Because you...
- 13:22There's a million tools out there, AI tools and other things, that promise, "Well, you don't, you don't need any of this old stuff. It'll... We're gonna re- we're gonna revolutionize DMS. We're gonna revolutionize CRM.
- 13:31Communications of..." "A, a thing of the past, you know? It's all-" Right..."conversations now," that sort of thing. Um, so I've been really obsessed, and our team's really been really obsessed with, I call it regular I.
- 13:42You know, there's AI, then there's regular I. [laughs] And it's, like, surfacing that... Yeah, it's like sur- it's not my first time I've used that joke, but it worked. No. It's a good joke. Um- You...
- 13:51Well, however many times you've used it- Yeah... you should accelerate the adoption of that. It, it kills every time. Uh, it was- Yeah... nailed it. So, so find the regular.
- 14:00Like, the raw material because, 'cause it, 'cause you guys know, like, all these, all these tools out there that promise the world, they're only as good as the raw material and foundational data that they're built on.
- 14:12Mm. And so rather than kind of putting the cart before the horse and say, "Hey, we have this amazing thing that can solve all these problems," well, is it built on the right foundational data?
- 14:21Because if not, it's inherently flawed. And the problem is, is that AI, they're too confident. They, they tell you exactly... They'll be exactly wrong and definitively wrong. Mm-hmm.
- 14:29And so, um, you know, to answer your question, we, we look at dealer efficiencies, of, you know, how they're, how they're working in their operations, consumer pain points.
- 14:38A lot of the stuff you've, you've covered in other, you know, podcasts that I was watching in prep. And I was thinking, however, all of these really do depend on that raw material.
- 14:47And that's where iPacket, having collected window stickers and structured that data for the last 13, 14 years, it's this amazing treasure trove of raw material that, that is really unmatched in the industry. Mm.
- 15:01What is it that consumers actually want? When they, when they, when they- Yeah... buy the car, like, what... 'Cause, 'cause you all reverse engineer, I feel like anyway. I don't...
- 15:11I'm, I'm assuming you think about it this way. You, you reverse engineer the psychology of the buyer, and what they want, and what they wanna see first, how they wanna see it. W- what is it?
- 15:22I, I think- How would you position it? Yeah. I think it comes down...
- 15:26It, there's a lot of different things you could throw out there, but I think at the, the core, consumer wants to know, "Is this the right car for me, and am I getting a fair deal?"
- 15:35It doesn't e- they don't even need to get an amazing, you know, great, save money. But, "Did I buy the right car, and did I get a good deal?"
- 15:42And I think if you leave feeling that way, and then experience it after the fact, you're, you're pretty satisfied with the transaction. Yeah.
- 15:48I guess there's re- now that you mention it, like, getting a bad deal and realizing that feels bad. Mm-hmm. But what actually feels worse is, "I think I bought the wrong car." Oh, yeah. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. Right?
- 15:59That feels way worse. I've never had that experience, but I imagine that, like, a day or two in, you're like, "I think I bought the wrong car." That's gotta- Yeah. You'll, you'll see...
- 16:09I mean, we, we bought a Ford Expedition. We have a lot of kids, too, like you. And, you know, I see them on dealers' lots f- with 800 miles, and the backstory, "Oh, the person didn't like the steering wheel.
- 16:17They traded it in." Yeah. I'm like, "Did, did they drive it?" [laughs] Nope. Yeah. It's bigger than they thought. "It's the biggest vehicle you can buy." Right. Right. It's hard, hard to park.
- 16:26Well, actually, it has a good turning radius. But- Why did I think a 1998 Saturn ION Coupe would cl- qualify for classic plates? I mean, those, those are getting cool again, though. That's the thing.
- 16:36They are cool, that's for sure. All right. I wanna double... I, I wanna go... Y- you said, like, "Did I buy the right car?"
- 16:42And I think right now, and, and we, we definitely wanna talk about this, you all are releasing a product- Mm-hmm... that has a bit of that.
- 16:49But, like, drawn back to the dealer, my, my, my old operator used to say, like, "Your money's made in the buy." Uh, or things like, "You gotta find the right inventory."
- 16:58Uh, that inventory is, is so much of, of marketing.
- 17:02And with all of the pressure on slimming new car margins, still a reduced inventory levels, low, low levels on EVs, and, and the accelerated pressure to affordability, buying the right cars at the right price, putting the right inventory on your lot is at an all-time, like, high requirement.
- 17:21Mm-hmm. What's... Talk about, like, where you saw the pain point and how that led to the product enhancement that you guys are bringing out. Yeah, yeah. We're, we're launching the product iPacket VALU.
- 17:32And the pain point there is it's exactly what you talked about. It's, you know, you think about, like, take a, a Mercedes, a GLE, and what's the range of MSRP window sticker on those things, right?
- 17:44Probably mid-60s up into... Do they get to 90? Probably, right? Like, you can spec those things out. Look at the big trucks, you know, they're 60 to 110.
- 17:52And so a big problem we're solving here is looking at that orindo- original window sticker data so dealers can validate at the time of appraisal, when they're pricing, exactly what their vehicle has in terms of build, and then relative to the comparable vehicles on the market, where we've also pulled down those window stickers.
- 18:12So we've seen cases where, you know, a dealer's gotten in that high-spec GLE and priced it like a medium window sticker car and left $5,000 on the table. Mm.
- 18:21Or vice versa, they've overpriced 'cause it's a base model, and they're wondering why they're not getting the money, and they're putting more advertising into it, and they're like...
- 18:28Well, you, you were overpriced from the beginning.'Cause it's, you, you didn't understand the, the, the details of the vehicle. And of course, this stuff can get input in IMS systems, that sort of thing. But
- 18:38we're pulling it directly from the OEM, structuring that sticker data, and verifying vehicle options, packages, original MSRPs. And then I talked about raw material, the regular I piece.
- 18:49That's, that data is then what's used to power iPacket value and, and all of iPacket as a whole. You know, that core raw material that we know is good. Mm-hmm. Hmm. [laughs] Paul's, [laughs] Paul's- I'm, I'm thinking-...
- 19:06I'm gonna buy my next car. [laughs] I've been doing it wrong all the time.
- 19:13Um- Well, you, you know, it's funny, we, we, we have a consumer facing element of this too where we actually put it inside the packet and show the consumer, "Here's the dealer's price, here's the, the market value.
- 19:23And then the difference, here are the comparable vehicles nearby, so you can help, you can make your own decision too.
- 19:28You can see the odometer, you can see the original sticker, you can see the price, you can see the percent of the MSRP." Right? Like, we're used to that in the new world of leasing- See, I'm, I'm going back-...
- 19:38used vehicles... to AI because, like, when the very first day that GPT enabled shopping mode and it started asking questions, and I was, like, doing it on a car- Mm-hmm...
- 19:48the very, like, one of the things that it was, that it presented to me was structured data about the vehicle's features and its relative price in the market.
- 19:58And so when I think about, like, what's the structured data available and what's the, what's, how a GPT or how Gemini- Mm-hmm...
- 20:05or how Claude or any of these models can understand what's going on on a dealer's website with the structured data that's available, market comparisons- Mm-hmm... is this car really what they say it is?
- 20:16What are the features that I'm look, you know, I'm looking for the one with these types of features. Having that, that surfaced in structured data- Mm-hmm...
- 20:24is gonna be, like, ridiculously important because the move is agent in commerce. It's coming whether we like it- Mm-hmm... or not. And whether or not, I, I, I think this is gonna be similar.
- 20:33It's not like, "Oh, we have agent in commerce, so people are gonna buy cars through..." It's the same conversation with digital retail.
- 20:40No, they're just gonna complete more of the purchase because they're gonna be closer to the point of purchase- Yes... 'cause they understand the data more, right? Yeah. I- That's the agent in commerce thing, I think.
- 20:49Well, and I think with our, our capability, too, of sourcing the data directly from the original sticker, we're cutting out the human error piece of, "Hey, does that car have the panoramic roof?"
- 21:02"Uh, yeah, I think it probably does." Right? Like, I don't, it's on the other lot. I haven't confirmed that. And so- Yeah... when we, we're trying to essentially do the groundwork for the dealer first.
- 21:11So d- then when they can layer on whatever they want on top in terms of, of tools. But again, their core, and I, it's like I can't say it enough, that core raw material you know is good.
- 21:22I've, I've been thinking about this. Y- y- you've seen that meme where, like, the guy's in deep in thought and there's just, like, all this, these math equations floating on the screen. That's how I feel right now.
- 21:33Mm-hmm. Deep in thought. Because I'm like, you know what's really interesting about this too, is, well, first, there's actually a compliance issue that this helps mitigate.
- 21:41If you were to go to Google right now- Mm-hmm... and just type in, "Can I trust the dealer's information?"
- 21:48You're gonna see Reddit upon Reddit upon Reddit forum of customers perpetuating the negative stigma that exists in dealers- Mm-hmm...
- 21:57where it's like, "I don't know if I can trust, 'cause it's different here and it's different there." Yeah. What you're talking about here gets rid of all of that.
- 22:04It actually levels the playing field, and it puts the dealer back in a position of being able to build trust and authority in their local markets.
- 22:11Um, but you also think about dealers from an operational perspective who are v- very concerned that they are putting out the right information that matches state regulations and federal- Mm-hmm...
- 22:23reg- regulations and the language and all these sorts of things. So you're getting in front of that. And then the third thing I'm thinking about is, what's interesting about AI and just versus I,
- 22:33is anytime something new and emerging comes out, we find dealers in a position where they are validating their position that they are needed in the market. And this- Mm-hmm...
- 22:44makes that a stronger argument because it's like, "We're not looking to replace you." I think when the internet first came out and we didn't know what to expect.
- 22:52Actually, let's go before that, when we got rid of horse and buggy. [laughs] You know, it was like, at every milestone in our evolution, technology-wise,
- 23:03dealers find themselves somewhat advocating for and/or fighting to validate the position that they are needed in the market. We happen to be advocates for the dealer body, and we love- Mm-hmm...
- 23:14what they do to contribute to our way of life. I'll just put it that way. This validates that again. It's like, "Hey, we're not actually looking to replace with new and emerging technology.
- 23:25We're actually looking to fortify your position in the market as somebody that builds the community, builds people's lives, provides freedom." And we, you know, to Kyle's point, just so happens to do it,
- 23:37uh, faster and more efficiently. So these are the meanderings now that you've- [laughs]... brought my... I'm gonna be laying in bed tonight, arms- Good... behind my back like this, thinking about this, Bob.
- 23:48Um, this has been a pleasure, man. We could go on and on and on about this kind of stuff. We are, I, I mean, I speak for the three of us. We're super fascinated by new and emerging thought processes and thesises.
- 23:57So we're glad that we're able to catch up with you today, Bob. Thanks so much for joining us on Auto Collabs. Yeah, thanks so much. I look forward to coming back. Didn't even get into Vermont and s- your sporting-
- 24:09That's okay. We'll do that again... hobbies. You know. [laughs] I, hey, I got, I got five kids, you know, and live in Vermont- [laughs]... and yeah. All right, you're the man. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, take care.
- 24:19[upbeat music] H- how many people do you know actually whose first name could be their last name and their last name could be their first name? Oh, you're still on that.
- 24:30I am because-No, I, I, I couldn't help but going back to the phone book days where I'm like, his name would be George Bob in the, in the phone book. Yeah, but Bob's not really, it's more like- I don't like any last name.
- 24:42First name's not too much... if it was Robert, it would be more difficult. I don't know. So we're not really getting to the bottom of this. Hey, look- Well, first of all, this regular eye is not a-...
- 24:50all of this stuff is a regular eye. I, I wanted, I, we didn't get to double click on regular eye. Artificial eye versus regular eye. Okay. Yeah. Track with me here. When does the trailing root knowledge go away?
- 25:07So- Mm... right now, the speed of creation is so fast because we still have a depth of, of rich depth of root knowledge. Mm. Window stickers are root knowledge. Your thoughts, my thoughts. Paul wrote a book.
- 25:21You wrote a book, Michael. I've got a bunch of LinkedIn posts. I, you know, like, the root knowledge is deep. When do we get out of net new created root knowledge? Uh, there is none.
- 25:36How does that impact our ability to, yeah. I think there is no net new created root knowledge. And the longer I'm in business and the longer I'm a human and a father and a person, I realize
- 25:48same principles, different application. Oh. Mm. Over and over and over and over again. Well, here, here's the, here's the spider's we- the Pandora's box of that all, because perception is not reality.
- 26:01Perception is one's reality. And as long as there are eight billion people with their own one's perception- [laughs]... then there is net new perception of knowledge. Oh, context is everything.
- 26:15Is that what you're saying? There you go. Oh. Yeah. Because, like, everybody's gonna have a different experience with that same root knowledge. Yeah. And contextualize it differently. We should start our own podcast. Oh.
- 26:25We should talk about this. [laughs] What would we call it? [laughs] Regular Eye. [laughs] Regular Eye. Regular Eye. [laughs] We'd have to, we, we would have to give Bob some royalties. Bob gets- We would have to...
- 26:38Bob, Bob gets, no, he gets to be a guest commentator frequently. Yeah. Like- Easy... oh, rank the Regular Eye. Well, listen, I hope you had as much fun as we did on this episode.
- 26:46Uh, thank you very much for just spending some time with us and making this a part of your rotation.
- 26:50Um, we work really hard to get it to you, and, uh, we appreciate your thoughts and feedback and be a part of this conversation.
- 26:56So on behalf of Kyle Mountserre, Michael Cirillo, and myself, thank you so much for joining us today on Auto Collapse. Smash the share button. Button, button, button, button.
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- 27:20If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
- 27:27[upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collapse. [laughs] Welcome to Auto Collapse. [laughs] Why are we recording? [laughs] Are we rolling yet?
- 27:45Not yet.