Latest / Uphoff on Media Podcast / The Function and the Form

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The Function and the Form · Uphoff on Media Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Uphoff on Media, the audio edition.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Tony Uphoff.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Each week I write about the collision of agentic AI,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: B2B media,
• 0:09
  marketing and technology from the perspective of someone who's
• 0:12
  actually run these
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: businesses.
• 0:14
  This is the podcast version of my Substack publication where I
• 0:18
  take each post and
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: bring it to you in audio form so you can listen wherever you are,
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: whenever it works for you.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to read along,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: go deeper,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: or subscribe to the written version,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: you'll find everything at uphoffonmedia.substack.com.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get into it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is called The Function and the Form,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: a framework for playing the long game as the industry shifts beneath you.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: A few years ago,
• 0:44
  I started getting calls from young people in their junior year
• 0:46
  of college,
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  SPEAKER_00: friends of our daughter,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: classmates,
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  SPEAKER_00: people looking for a perspective on what to do next.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was glad to take them.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in and around the B2B media,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: marketing,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: and technology industries for more than 35 years.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: If I could save somebody a few wrong turns, I was happy to help.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: One of those conversations has stayed with me.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: A young woman,
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  SPEAKER_00: a high school valedictorian,
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  SPEAKER_00: Ivy League junior,
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  SPEAKER_00: internships at Google and NBC with job offers from both,
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: she reached out for some perspective.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: She was leaning toward NBC.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: When I asked her why, she said her parents felt it was the safer choice.
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  SPEAKER_00: They knew NBC.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was familiar, recognizable.
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  SPEAKER_00: I told her, you'll do well no matter where you go.
• 1:29
  What this really comes down to is whether you want to be a part
• 1:32
  of the past or the future.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: She thought about it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then she went into consulting.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've thought about that outcome more than she probably has.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't choose the past or the future.
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  SPEAKER_00: She chose optionality.
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  She intuitively understood something that took me years to be
• 1:48
  able to articulate.
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  SPEAKER_00: The institution itself was the risk.
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  At 21,
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  without having read a single business book about it,
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  she made an infinite game move.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: That instinct is rarer than it should be.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2026, the cost of not having it has never been higher.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers are not ambiguous.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with the data because this post is not about feelings,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: it's about facts,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the facts in B2B,
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  SPEAKER_00: media,
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: marketing,
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  SPEAKER_00: and technology are stark.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: 17,000-plus entertainment media jobs cut in 2025.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's an increase of 18% from the year before.
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  54,000 advertising,
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  PR,
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  and related services jobs lost in a single year through May
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  2025.
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  SPEAKER_00: 14,298 average annual media job cuts since 2018.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's nearly double the 7,305 annual average from 2010 through 2017.
• 2:47
  Informa Tech Target formed in December 2024 with 2,000
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  employees has shed roughly
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  SPEAKER_00: 500 of them by October 25.
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  SPEAKER_00: On the agency side, the story is the same.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Forrester analysis puts agency headcount down 8% in 2025.
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  The Omnicom IPG merger alone is expected to generate 750
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  million in cost savings
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  SPEAKER_00: and labor costs always lead the balance sheet.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: WPP, Dentsu, IPC, thousands of roles gone with more to follow.
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  SPEAKER_00: The jobs disappearing fastest are the ones that taught the craft.
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  SPEAKER_00: junior copywriter,
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  SPEAKER_00: media planner,
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  SPEAKER_00: demand gen coordinator,
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  SPEAKER_00: research analyst,
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  the entry-level roles that once served as the apprenticeship
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  layer of this
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  SPEAKER_00: industry,
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  SPEAKER_00: where you learned how audiences work,
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  SPEAKER_00: how campaigns are built,
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  SPEAKER_00: how buyers actually behave,
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  SPEAKER_00: are being automated out of existence first.
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  Anthropic's own research shows hiring of young workers has
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  slowed roughly 14% in
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  SPEAKER_00: the most AI-exposed occupations compared to 2022.
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  If you are early in your career in this industry or you're
• 3:56
  advising somebody who
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: is,
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  SPEAKER_00: this is not a cycle.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a structural shift.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: The map you were handed is of a city that no longer exists.
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  SPEAKER_00: A book about this changed how I think about all of this.
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  SPEAKER_00: I read Simon Sinek's The Infinite Game in 2019.
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  SPEAKER_00: To this day,
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  no single book has more fundamentally shaped and reshaped my
• 4:17
  philosophy about work
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  SPEAKER_00: and career.
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  SPEAKER_00: The thesis hit me hard.
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  We have been brought up in business to apply finite game theory
• 4:24
  to infinite games.
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  SPEAKER_00: Finite games have a fixed end point, agreed upon rules, and a winner.
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  SPEAKER_00: Infinite games have no finish line.
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  SPEAKER_00: The only goal is to keep playing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Careers are infinite games.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have been playing them like finite ones.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Infinite Game became my most gifted book for the next three years.
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  I revisit it often because every time I look at the career
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  decisions I've watched
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  SPEAKER_00: people make and the ones I've made myself,
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  SPEAKER_00: I see the same pattern.
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  SPEAKER_00: Someone optimizing to win the quarter,
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  SPEAKER_00: land the title,
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  SPEAKER_00: close the deal,
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  SPEAKER_00: and in doing so,
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  SPEAKER_00: weakening their position in the game that actually matters.
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  The valedictorian who went into consulting wasn't running from
• 5:03
  a decision.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was instinctively playing the longer game.
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  The parents who steered toward NBC were giving advice from
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  inside their own era,
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  advice that was entirely correct for a media landscape that no
• 5:14
  longer exists.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a failure of love or intelligence.
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  It's what happens when you use last decade's map to navigate
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  this decade's terrain.
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  SPEAKER_00: What a career in this industry actually is.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: 35 years with five CEO roles.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a framing that is held up through all of it.
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  A career in B2B media,
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  marketing,
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  and technology is not a series of jobs.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is a continuously developed capability to understand how buyers find,
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  SPEAKER_00: trust,
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  and act on information and to create value at that intersection
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  across media,
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  SPEAKER_00: marketing,
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  SPEAKER_00: and technology.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
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  Everything else,
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  the titles,
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  the companies,
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  the platforms,
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  the tech stacks is scaffolding.
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  SPEAKER_00: The scaffolding changes.
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  SPEAKER_00: The function doesn't.
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  The companies that collapsed in this industry were the ones
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  that forgot what
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  SPEAKER_00: functions they actually served.
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  They started optimizing for the advertiser or the algorithm
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  instead of the buyer.
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  The careers that stalled were the ones that attached too
• 6:15
  tightly to a form,
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  SPEAKER_00: a specific medium,
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  SPEAKER_00: a specific platform,
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  SPEAKER_00: a specific role,
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  SPEAKER_00: rather than the underlying function.
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  SPEAKER_00: Agentic AI is not changing the function.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is reorganizing everything around it.
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  The question for anyone building a career in this industry
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  right now is not,
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  will my job exist?
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  SPEAKER_00: It's, am I building towards the function or towards the form?
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's a framework for the three stages.
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  SPEAKER_00: The infinite game plays out differently depending on where you are in it.
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  Here's how I think about it across three stages,
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  and please use these as a mirror,
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  not as a map.
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  SPEAKER_00: Stage one, early career from zero to 10 years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Get close to the work.
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  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not the credential.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is the closeness to the actual work of understanding buyers,
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  SPEAKER_00: building audiences,
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  SPEAKER_00: and creating demand.
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  SPEAKER_00: The danger at this stage is chasing the brand name employer,
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  SPEAKER_00: the prestigious title,
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  the defined role at exactly the moment those institutions are
• 7:15
  most unstable.
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  SPEAKER_00: Get as close as possible to the actual work.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Learn the underlying physics, not the specific machine.
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's a set of diagnostic questions to ask yourself at this stage.
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  Can you describe in plain language how a B2B buyer actually
• 7:31
  makes a purchase decision?
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  SPEAKER_00: Not in theory, but in the specific market you work in.
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  SPEAKER_00: If your current employer disappeared tomorrow,
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  what capability would you carry out the door and how would you
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  describe it to the
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  SPEAKER_00: next person?
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  Are you learning from people doing the work or from people
• 7:47
  managing those who do?
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  SPEAKER_00: The honest answer is the former.
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  SPEAKER_00: Managers teach you how the institution works.
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  SPEAKER_00: Practitioners teach you how the work works.
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  SPEAKER_00: Only one of those travels with you.
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  Number four is your current role building a skill or executing
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  a process someone else designed.
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  SPEAKER_00: And number five,
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  when did you last do something at work that made you
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  uncomfortable because you
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  SPEAKER_00: weren't sure you could do it?
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  SPEAKER_00: The drift signal for you to pay attention to.
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  You are optimizing for the brand name on your resume rather
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  than what you were
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  SPEAKER_00: learning inside the building.
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  SPEAKER_00: The institution feels like the asset, it isn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: What you can do when you leave is the asset.
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  SPEAKER_00: Stage two, years 10 to 20, build something portable.
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  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not the next title.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is a reputation,
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  SPEAKER_00: a network,
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  SPEAKER_00: and a point of view that exists independently of any single institution.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is where Cynics Insight
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  lands hardest mid-career professionals in b2b media marketing
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  and technology have
• 8:47
  usually been playing a finite game competing for the next title
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  the next company
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  the next compound the infinite reframe asks what are you
• 8:55
  building that compounds
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  here's a set of diagnostic questions for those at this stage of
• 9:01
  your career number
• 9:02
  one if someone in your industry were asked about you by name
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  what would they say
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  SPEAKER_00: you are known for not your title not your company but you
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  SPEAKER_00: Number two,
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  SPEAKER_00: in the last 12 months,
• 9:11
  have you built any relationships that exist outside your
• 9:14
  current employer's org
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  SPEAKER_00: chart?
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  SPEAKER_00: Number three,
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  do you have a point of view about your industry that you could
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  defend in a room
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  SPEAKER_00: full of smart people who disagree with you?
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  SPEAKER_00: Number four,
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  SPEAKER_00: if your company restructured tomorrow and your role disappeared,
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  how long would it take you to land your next opportunity and
• 9:30
  what would that
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  SPEAKER_00: process look like?
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  SPEAKER_00: And number five,
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  SPEAKER_00: are the decisions you are making now,
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  SPEAKER_00: projects,
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  SPEAKER_00: relationships,
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  SPEAKER_00: visibility,
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  SPEAKER_00: compounding,
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  SPEAKER_00: or are they just getting you through the quarter?
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  SPEAKER_00: The drift signal at this stage,
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  every career move for the past five years has been toward a
• 9:45
  better title or higher
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  SPEAKER_00: comp with no conscious thought about whether it built something portable.
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  SPEAKER_00: The latter is the strategy.
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  SPEAKER_00: It isn't enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: And stage three, years 20 plus.
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  SPEAKER_00: Recognize what you actually have.
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  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not survival, it's accurate inventory.
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  Most senior operators in this industry underestimate the
• 10:06
  scarcity of what they have built.
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  Late career operators in B2B media,
• 10:11
  marketing,
• 10:12
  and technology have something genuinely scarce.
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  SPEAKER_00: They understand how buyers actually behave,
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  SPEAKER_00: how deals actually get made,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: how organizations actually change,
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  SPEAKER_00: not in theory,
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: but having been inside the room when it happened.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Agenic AI can automate the process of demand generation.
• 10:29
  It cannot replace the judgment about which markets matter and
• 10:32
  why and when.
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  SPEAKER_00: The diagnostic questions for the 20-plus veterans here.
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  SPEAKER_00: Number one,
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  SPEAKER_00: what do you know about how buyers,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: markets,
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: organizations actually behave that cannot be found in a report,
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  SPEAKER_00: a course,
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  SPEAKER_00: or an AI prompt?
• 10:46
  Number two,
• 10:46
  who calls you when they have a hard question and the hard
• 10:49
  decision to make?
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  SPEAKER_00: And why do they call you instead of someone else?
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  SPEAKER_00: Number three,
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  are you framing your experience in terms the next generation of
• 10:57
  decision makers can
• 10:58
  understand and act on or in terms that only made sense in the
• 11:02
  media and marketing
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  SPEAKER_00: economy of 15 years ago?
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  SPEAKER_00: Number four,
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  SPEAKER_00: what would you build,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: advise,
• 11:07
  or create if you optimize for the next 10 years of the game
• 11:11
  rather than the next
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: role?
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  SPEAKER_00: And number five,
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  are you giving advice from where you are now or from who you
• 11:19
  were when you were
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: most successful?
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  SPEAKER_00: The drift signal at this stage,
• 11:25
  you're describing your experiences in terms of institutions and
• 11:27
  titles rather than
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: judgment and outcomes.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: The instinct is to protect the identity you built.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: The opportunity is to deploy what is behind it.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: The real question isn't about AI.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Every version of this
• 11:41
  Conversational eventually arrives at AI and the conventional
• 11:45
  answer is always the same.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Learn to use it, stay adaptable, embrace change.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: That advice is true and useless in equal measure.
• 11:52
  The more interesting question is the one the valedictorian
• 11:55
  answered without knowing
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: she was answering it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not what tool do I need to learn,
• 11:59
  but what am I building that is valuable with or without any
• 12:03
  institution behind it?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: In B2B media marketing and technology,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: the answer to that question has been the same for decades.
• 12:10
  Even as every platform and format around it has changed,
• 12:14
  the buyers are out there.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: They need to find solutions they can trust.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Someone has to build the bridge.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: That function has always been to be part of that bridge credibly,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: durably,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: in a way that compounds over time.
• 12:28
  The response to my last piece made clear the economic pressure
• 12:31
  is real and widely felt.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: The question I keep getting in various forms is the same.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Given all of this, what do I do with my career?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is my best current answer.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: A career in B2B media marketing and technology is not a series of jobs.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is a continuously developed capability to understand how buyers find,
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: trust,
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: and act on information and to create value at that intersection.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: The function has been the same for decades.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: The scaffolding around it,
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: the titles,
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: platforms,
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: institutions,
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: the tech stack have changed repeatedly,
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: and it's changing again now faster than at any point in my career.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: The map hasn't changed.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: The territory hasn't.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Play the infinite game.