It's No Longer About Senior vs Junior

12 Mar 2026 · 15 min · 4 chapters

Ask about this episode

Ask anything about it. ChatGPT or Claude reads this page and answers with the times it was said.

Connect VO and ask about every podcast you hear, including the moments you saved. Add to ChatGPT · Add to Claude

In short

Marketing School Episode Notes: "It's No Longer About Senior vs Junior"

Episode Overview In this episode of Marketing School, hosts Neil Patel and Eric Siu discuss the profound impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the workforce and job dynamics. They argue that success in the AI age is less about seniority and more about one's ability to leverage AI tools effectively. The episode emphasizes the importance of judgment, strategy, and the combination of human skills with AI to thrive in the changing landscape.

Key Takeaways

  • AI Rewards Judgment and Strategy: Individuals who can combine strong judgment with AI tools will outperform those who rely solely on automation.
  • Risks of Lazy AI Use: Over-reliance on AI without adding personal creativity or strategy can lead to average results.
  • Human Skill + AI Advantage: The most successful individuals will be those who enhance their skills with AI rather than replace them with it.

Chapter Breakdown

  1. AI vs Experience in the Workplace (00:00)
  2. Discussion on how AI alters traditional workplace dynamics.
  1. AI and Future Job Displacement (00:26)
  2. Acknowledgment of potential job cuts due to AI, but optimism that most will remain employed.
  1. Companies Cutting Staff with AI (01:01)
  2. Observations about companies reducing workforce in the name of efficiency through AI.
  1. AI as a Layoff Narrative (02:22)
  2. AI being used as a rationale for layoffs, often as a marketing angle to improve stock performance.
  1. AI Brings Out the Best or Worst (03:22)
  2. AI can amplify both positive and negative traits in employees.
  1. Lazy AI Use Example (04:20)
  2. Real-life example of an employee relying solely on AI outputs, leading to mediocre results.
  1. Human Skill + AI Advantage (06:48)
  2. Importance of combining human creativity and strategic thinking with AI tools.
  1. AI Supercharging Top Performers (07:56)
  2. Top performers in the workforce will thrive by effectively utilizing AI.
  1. Who Thrives in an AI World (09:27)
  2. Characteristics of individuals who will succeed in an AI-driven environment.
  1. The AI Workforce Matrix (10:07)
  2. Analysis of a 2x2 matrix categorizing employees based on their judgment and AI usage.
  1. Teaching Teams to Use AI (11:46)
  2. Importance of training employees to effectively use AI tools.

Detailed Discussion Points

  • Job Cuts and AI:
  • Neil shares insights on founders cutting jobs and the narrative surrounding AI as the main reason.
  • They discuss how companies frame overhiring as a narrative to justify cuts, enhancing stock performance.
  • Examples of AI Misuse:
  • Neil recounts an example of a friend who provided only AI-generated content, showing how laziness and lack of creativity lead to poor outcomes.
  • AI’s Dual Nature:
  • The speakers articulate that AI can reveal the best or worst in individuals, emphasizing that motivation and proactive engagement are crucial.
  • The Role of Judgment:
  • The hosts introduce a 2x2 matrix to describe the workforce dynamics:
  • Dead Weight: Those with poor judgment and no AI skills.
  • Slop Cannon: Individuals using AI without judgment, leading to average performance.
  • Survivors: Those with good judgment but lack AI proficiency.
  • Turbo Brains: High-performing individuals who leverage both good judgment and AI tools effectively.
  • Future of AI in Business:
  • Discussions on how businesses need to adapt and train employees to utilize AI fully.
  • Mention of future software solutions integrating AI, simplifying processes for users.

Conclusion The episode concludes with a strong message about the necessity of adapting to the changing workforce landscape driven by AI. Individuals and businesses must prioritize learning and integrating AI into their workflows to not just survive but thrive in the future.

---

This markdown file serves as a comprehensive overview of the discussed topics, providing insights into the dynamics of AI in relation to job performance and the necessary adaptation strategies for success in the digital marketing landscape.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

The AI Shift: From Seniority to Skill

0:46 to 2:26

Discussion on the transition from valuing seniority to valuing AI proficiency in the workforce.

“It's about good with internet versus not good with internet.”

Job Displacement and Adaptation

2:27 to 3:55

Exploring the potential job displacement due to AI and how people can adapt to this change.

“The first is when your friend just said he's going to remove 20%, when you think about his company, I bet you if you just forget AI, he probably didn't need a lot of those 20 % anyways.”

The Impact of AI on Work Quality

3:56 to 6:28

Analyzing how AI influences the quality of work produced and the responsibilities of employees.

“AI brings out the best in you or the worst in you.”

Surviving and Thriving in an AI World

6:29 to 9:21

Identifying the traits of employees who will thrive with the integration of AI and those who may struggle.

“You guys probably obviously know where my opinion is on this based on how I'm talking.”
Hear the part that matters, and keep it.Open this episode in VO. Double tap your headphones to save a moment as you listen.
Get VO free

Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Eric Siu:Using only 20 % of your business data is like dating someone who only texts emojis. First of all, that's annoying. And second, you're missing a lot of context. But that's how most businesses operate today, using only 20 % of their data. Unless you have HubSpot, where all the emails, call logs, and chat messages turn into insights to grow your business. Because all that data makes all the difference.

0:23Neil Patel:I would know because I use HubSpot at my company. Learn more at HubSpot.com.

0:29Eric Siu:So we're not looking to fire people, right? Neither of us are. But Naval says this. So it's not about junior versus senior. It's about good with AI versus not good with AI. So I'm going to repeat that. It's not about junior versus senior. It's about good with AI versus not good with AI. And so when I look at, for example, let's just change this. Let's just change this quote. It's not about junior versus senior. It's about good with internet versus not good with internet. So if you use that quote for today, good with internet versus not good with internet, of course, you're going to want the people that are good with internet, right?

0:59Eric Siu:Just because they're, they're, they're, they're with the times. And now I look at this as kind of no different with that in terms of philosophy there. And so I think what is going to happen is there's going to be some temporary job displacement in the next couple of years. But I didn't, I think net net, most humans are going to, you know, be okay with jobs in the future. And not only that, all of these humans are going to have agents helping them, right? We're already starting to see that with our organization. So at the same time, though, I will say, Neil, I do get a lot of text messages at least once a week.

1:27Eric Siu:OK, from one founder saying like one founder messaged me this week. He's like, oh, yeah, we're going to cut 20 percent. This stuff is so crazy. I'm like, why are you cutting 20 percent? It's like, I don't know. I just don't need them. Right. I'm like, he's like, I actually wanted to cut 40 percent. I'm like, that's a lot of people. Right. And you saw you saw Jack Dorsey from Block cut 4000. So I am a proponent of helping our people get there. And I say that. Right. Like we want to help everyone. Like we want to bring everyone to drink the water, but we also can't force you to drink the water too.

1:56Eric Siu:And so you've heard me say this before. Like I want to shake people to help them wake up. Right. And I would say the good thing is I think people are starting to wake up now at my company. I don't know. How about yours?

2:06Neil Patel:Yeah, I think they've been awake on this stuff for a while. It's just, I think awake is the wrong word. I think you're starting to see more excitement within organizations. Forget the waking up. I think just people are more excited with everything that's happening. and they're starting to really adapt it because they're seeing everyone else talk about it and adapt it and no one wants to be left behind. But I have two comments to make. The first is when your friend just said he's going to remove 20%, when you think about his company, I bet you if you just forget AI, he probably didn't need a lot of those 20 % anyways.

2:41Neil Patel:Sure, AI is probably saving him some money, but I don't think AI is the only cause for firing those 20%. Would you agree with that?

2:49Eric Siu:I can't comment. I don't know.

2:51Neil Patel:Okay. Typically in organizations, when we see people cutting, people like using AI as a main reason. For publicly traded companies, at least, it is the best explanation because it makes you look better. And if you look at block stock, it went up. It's a great marketing angle. If you use a narrative that we overhired and we didn't need all these people because we didn't grow into it, your stock's going to plummet because it shows that you're not hitting numbers. And if you look at Block and a lot of other stocks, Block is not having the growth that they once had. You can see it in their quarterly earnings.

3:27Neil Patel:I can actually pull up their growth. If you look at Block's stock, it did go up quite a bit. I think it was like 20%, 25%. But their annual growth rate, if you look at quarter over quarter, is 3.65%. So they're not growing into all these people that they ended up needing. So you just end up cutting. But AI is a better narrative if you want a stock to go up versus your stock to go down. The second thing, my favorite AI quote is actually one that Eric came up with. AI brings out the best in you or the worst in you. And I'll give a prime example that Eric can relate to and everyone can understand here.

4:11Neil Patel:Everyone's worked with lazy people. I have a really close friend. I've told him this. Eric, you know one of my really close friends that I'm talking about who's somewhat lazy. You agree with the statement when I say he's lazy, right? And I've told him this, by the way, so I'm not trying to say this behind his back. I'm not going to mention his name because that would be rude. But I have told him this many times in his face and actually had a conversation with him about this, no joke, two days ago. Wow. So a mutual friend, not of Eric's, but of mine and his, hired him to work on their restaurant business.

4:47Neil Patel:And I was talking to that guy. And they're like, yeah, I'm working with him for a few months. I'm not going to pay him after that. I was like, so what happened? He's like, dude, he just keeps giving me chat GPT outputs. I was like, what do you mean? He's just like, we're trying to get more traffic and more business to our local restaurant. Luckily, we only gave him one location. I'm speaking as a person who owns a restaurant. And I'm repeating pretty much what he said. I'm paraphrasing. And he's just like, every time he does work, gives me stuff. You could just tell it's done by chat GPT. There's no creative strategy.

5:23Neil Patel:There's no real input from someone who claims that they've worked with in this industry. It just seems like mediocre average outputs. and his viewpoint is if we optimize for the average, we're never going to win. Everyone's doing the average because they all have access to these tools. And I personally agree with that. And in this case, AI is bringing the worst of that person. It's taking the person who doesn't want to do work in the first place and making them more lazy. And when I confronted the person and I told them and I gave them feedback, What do you think their response was, Eric?

6:03Eric Siu:Whatever. They were offended and whatever.

6:06Neil Patel:They weren't too offended, but they were with whatever. He's spot on with that. Eric knows them well too. And when he said whatever, he's like, well, everyone's using AI. So what else do they expect? Actually, you can actually consider that somewhat offended as well, right? Instead of taking the feedback and trying to improve, I'm not saying the client's right or wrong. That's open to people's opinions. I have my own opinion. You guys probably obviously know where my opinion is on this based on how I'm talking. But his opinion is that everyone's using AI. What else do they expect, right? And my feedback to him is I'm like, yes, but if everyone's using AI, they're getting similar outputs.

6:45Neil Patel:How is he supposed to beat his competition when they're all doing the same stuff as you? They need something more than that. They need something better. Beat AI. Beat Claude. Yes, exactly. and dude even going back to beat claude claude the company who created it and eric talked about this earlier they're telling people to bleak claude because they know if everyone's just using claude to do the work it's not the best and it doesn't mean you're going to beat the competition it doesn't mean claude sucks their own company's telling you to beat claude but to beat claude You need Claude combined with a human who's amazing.

7:24Neil Patel:It's not just a human who's amazing. You need Claude combined with that. In other words, you need an amazing human with AI. And, you know, I was talking to, or if you look at what Eric's been doing and talking about the examples he's been giving today, right? He's showcasing how he's growing faster with AI. But Eric has a lot of experience in marketing. so he's doing better when you combine both. I spend a lot of my time on M &A, finance. So I shared my screen today showcasing what I'm doing with AI to make better decisions on where to spend resources and where not to, to figure out what's gonna maximize my ROI for time spent.

8:09Neil Patel:And Claude's been able to help me create these reports that I can share internally. No joke, not in minutes, but call it in 10, 15 minutes, which is really fast and way faster. It would be for me to use Excel or talk to someone on my team and have me help out here. Right. And these are just small examples. Eric and I are also using A in many other ways. But when we look at our A players, an A player doesn't necessarily mean someone who has tons of industry experience. A player means someone who's going to grind it out, figure things out, learn, put in the hours. They could be junior, They could be senior.

8:44Neil Patel:But when people have the right mentality and then you give them AI, the outputs are just so much better and amazing. It's because they're not lazy. You give people who are motivated and willing to crank it out and learn and think with the strategic half, AI makes them so much better. It levels them up by multiples. The lazy people, they just get lazier and they just produce crap outputs.

9:09Eric Siu:Okay, so this is a... I'm going to close it out with this one, okay? Because I have to go to a webinar and I have to pee and I have to prepare and all that. Okay, so here's what I'm going to close it out on this piece. So take a look at this screen over here. These are the people that will not only survive in the workforce, but they will also thrive, okay? So you want to think about the people that will not only survive, but they will thrive. What we just talked about here, the people who will get fired in this AI world, okay? and this is if you think you're part of this like you should probably think about how you can you know survive and thrive so let's talk about this first people who do not have good judgment and do

9:44Neil Patel:not use it eric do you want to explain the image for anyone who's listening to the audio version

9:49Eric Siu:yeah that's what i'm doing right there neo just broke my clip i had a really good clip going

9:53Neil Patel:start with not does not have a good judgment i'm looking at i was doing that right now i was

9:59Eric Siu:Okay, okay. All right, all right. So I'm going to explain it, okay? So this 2x2 chart we've gone through before, okay? So these are the people that will not survive in this AI world. These are the people that will unfortunately be fired, okay? So the people who do not use AI and who do not have good judgment, they are considered on this 2x2 dead weight, okay? This is on the bottom left of this 2x2.

10:21Neil Patel:Now, let's say they do not have good judgment, okay? But they use AI, they become slop cannon.

10:26Eric Siu:So the person that Neil just referred to, he is in effect a slop cannon because he does not have good job. He's like, everyone's using AI. We should just use AI. Well, if everyone's doing that, then everyone's doing the same work and there's no differentiator. And thus, you should get paid nothing. Okay. Because it is a tie with everything else. Okay. All right. Now, in today's world, so the people that Neil likes at his company, people I like at my company, these are people who have good judgment. Maybe they don't use AI, but maybe they're very willing to learn and they're very all in. They just need some direction.

10:55Eric Siu:Okay. Great. these people will definitely survive. Now, the people that will thrive are the people that have good judgment and they use AI at the same time because then they become turbo brains, right? So we want everyone to become turbo brains. We want to give them the resources at our companies to do so. But also, if you have someone at your company, I'll be honest, on my end at least, the more people are willing and they're capable, great. But the people that aren't willing and aren't capable and they give a lot of excuses, they won't last very long because it's becoming more and more unacceptable and the AI is taking more and more away of their jobs because they do not want to use AI and they don't have good judgment.

11:33Neil Patel:Totally agree. And the key here, I know Eric has to end up going, is to help the people who have good judgment go from steady hands to turbo brains. So you got to educate and teach them. An example for this is, you know, I show the cloud code doing financial projections. We started teaching our financial team and having internal people who teach them how to use cloud code to do a lot of these financial projections. Also, they break down the errors that it creates because trust me, it's not perfect on the first run, sometimes not even the second run. And sometimes the numbers are off. Third, how to fix the errors and not just double check it.

12:08Neil Patel:And fourth, eventually NetSuite and accounting solutions and finance solutions will have it built in so they don't need to use cloud code. Maybe NetSuite partners with cloud code and built it in natively in it so it makes things easier. And that is actually where AI is going. We're not going to be using Cloud Code and ChatGPT for all this stuff. The software solutions we're paying for will adapt and just have this all built in and do it automatically. So that way you don't even have to spend the 10, 15 minutes or do any prompts. You just tick some boxes.

12:38Eric Siu:All right, guys. Well, I hope you enjoyed this. I need to go run to a webinar. Neil's going to go to bed. So I hope you all enjoyed it and we'll catch you next time.

12:51.

From the publisher

AI is changing the workforce faster than most companies expected. In this episode, Neil and Eric discuss how AI will reshape jobs, why some companies are cutting staff, and the real difference between employees who thrive and those who struggle in an AI-driven world. They explain why success is no longer about junior vs senior, but about how well you combine strong judgment with AI tools. You will also hear a real example of how relying only on AI can backfire. Hosted by Neil Patel and Eric Siu, this episode breaks down what it really takes to succeed in the age of AI.

Key Takeaways:
• AI rewards people with judgment and strategy
• Lazy AI use creates average results
• The best performers combine skill with AI

Chapters:
(00:00) AI vs Experience in the Workplace
(00:26) AI and Future Job Displacement
(01:01) Companies Cutting Staff with AI
(02:22) AI as a Layoff Narrative
(03:22) AI Brings Out the Best or Worst
(04:20) Lazy AI Use Example
(06:48) Human Skill + AI Advantage
(07:56) AI Supercharging Top Performers
(09:27) Who Thrives in an AI World
(10:07) The AI Workforce Matrix
(11:46) Teaching Teams to Use AI

More from Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

All 935 episodes
It's No Longer About Senior vs JuniorMarketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips · 15 min
Listen in VO