Meta Just Bought Moltbook… The Internet for Machines Is Here NOW

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. I would know because I use HubSpot at my company. Learn more at HubSpot.com. did you see um some meta bot notebook yeah so this is interesting to me so just to explain notebook was a social network it it's called notebook to kind of be like facebook but it looked more like a reddit it was like a reddit where the bots the agents could talk to each other it's like all these claws talking to each other and they're like upvoting downvoting and um it's interesting to me because it's not like they had a lot of users or whatever but 1.6 million active agents in under six weeks.

0:58Eric Siu:Okay, that's a distribution signal, right? So Meta didn't buy, they didn't just buy the app. They bought the founders. They bought, there's two guys. Oh, Ben Parr. Wow, I didn't know that. That's crazy. Remember Ben Parr from Mashable?

1:12Neil Patel:Mm-mm.

1:12Eric Siu:So like back cash, I remember him. I don't know who that is. Oh yeah, he's the CEO, right? He was the founder, yeah. So, okay, interesting. So Meta hires dual behind MoteBook. So I don't know if there's necessarily like a big acquisition tied to this, but I do think that Zuckerberg does a good job with figuring out where trends are going. And I do think you're going to need like an eBay for agents. I do think you're going to need a social network for agents. I think you're going to need a place to hire agents and things like that. Review agents like a G2 for agents. That's all happening. And so you and I as marketers, we're going to have to very quickly figure out how to market to agents.

1:47Neil Patel:Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's going to be huge. But I think marketers will do really well with marketing to agents because they kind of already do without knowing because they're already marketing to bots, algorithms.

2:01Eric Siu:And bots are trained off of humans. Correct. Yeah.

2:04Neil Patel:I actually think it's a really easy transition. I think marketers are some of the best people set up to market to agents.

2:10Eric Siu:I read something recently about how the most important thing with this AI era is your relationship to change. It's not like how smart you are or whatever. It's more so like you could have a 15 year old that doesn't want that's very against this stuff. Oh, this is taking too much water, too much electricity. OK, so they'll never use AI or you might have someone in their 50s, 60s, 70s that are just really on top of this stuff. Right. So really is your relationship with change and how adaptable you are. And usually that's a good if you're very entrepreneurial, usually your relationship with change is good because you're used to chaos.

2:43Eric Siu:Yes.

2:44Neil Patel:I also believe that one of the key things to succeeding in this new era, at least in marketing, is knowing your place in life. And I'll give you guys a prime example of this. Eric is more of an early adopter and gung-ho on AI than I am. I still love AI. I'm not as gung-ho as Eric. My eyes are, you know, was it watering or dry? What did you say?

3:08Eric Siu:at the end of every night?

3:10Neil Patel:Yeah, fluttering.

3:11Eric Siu:Or hurting. Your eyes are hurting.

3:12Neil Patel:His eyes are hurting every night.

3:13Eric Siu:Very painful.

3:14Neil Patel:Yes, very painful. I don't have that problem. I'm not using AI as much as Eric where my eyes are hurting every single night before I go to sleep. Now, I was talking with a friend of mine and they're just like, dude, with marketing and companies and agencies, AI is going to shift a lot of things. I'm like, yeah, it's going to shift a lot of things for many industries. And he's like, okay. So he's like, so what are you going to do related to AI to stay on the cutting edge? And I'm like, what am I going to do? Or was my organization going to do? And he says, no, specifically, what are you going to do?

3:50Neil Patel:And I said, well, I already have people who are empowered and are leveraging this technology and are big on change and are pushing it throughout the organization. He's just like, yeah, but what are you doing? That's your people. And I'm like, I'm focused more on branding. and he's like why do you focus more on branding when all these changes are happening in AI and I'm like with all these changes happening in AI I think the one thing that is still priceless and is the moat in business and in marketing is your brand and I think that is very hard to replicate it's very hard to build and I'm doubling down on building our brand and making it as big as possible even though it's hard because I think that's going to be very valuable five ten years from now especially in a world of AI where there's less differentiation between corporations?

4:38Eric Siu:Actually, this is important because Neil earlier, right before he said this was you have to know yourself. And I know Neil's style is, we've talked about this before, Neil's style is he's not going to be the first boat, but he's going to be the one that parachutes in. So what he knows very well that won't be replaced by AI is brands. So double, triple down on that right now. And because Neil's personality is, hey, let's kind of wait and see what happens. But I also, I have no doubts with Neil too because once he sees something, the way he bets, he presses the bet is pretty up there, probably number one or number two from what I've seen in my, in my world.

5:09Eric Siu:So I'm not worried. Like once he's like, once he's like, okay, on the, he's working on brand. He's like, okay, this is like really affecting the company. I'm all in here. So there's no concerns. Right? So for me, I'm a little different where I'm like, I rather, I feel like I'm playing a video game right now. So I'm all in on it. I'm burning my eyes out every day. So the point is you have to know your own personality over time. You shouldn't try to adapt to what other people are saying because you are you at the end of the day. And whenever you try to be something else, you actually end up hurting your company and you hurt yourself too, because you're not being authentic to yourself.

5:38Neil Patel:Yeah. And, and no doubt, like if I look at Eric and his life, we're also in two different phases of life and you need to know yourself really well. Like Eric was mentioning, I can't do what Eric's doing. I don't have the ability. I don't know how many hours he's working. my guess is you're probably working 70 to 80 hours easily, 80, probably 80 plus a week. I don't even count anymore.

6:00Eric Siu:If my eyes are hurting, just that's how hard I'm working.

6:02Neil Patel:But Eric's not doing this five days a week. He's doing this seven days and he's easily working 12 hours a day is my guess. So let's call it Eric is working 80 plus hours a week right now. I work a lot more than 40. I don't know how many hours I work. I probably work around 60 hours a week. I'm taking a guess here, right? I don't have it in me to work 80 hours anymore like I used to when I was younger.

6:27Eric Siu:I think Neil's probably 60, 70 hours. But that being said, we both think about business all the time. So we'll just leave it at that.

6:32Neil Patel:That's true.

6:33Eric Siu:I do think once this starts to like really move over to you, I think you're going to jack it up and you're not even going to know that you're working that hard. I'm just like, I don't feel like it's painful, but my eyes are painful. But like, I'm just so sad that my eyes hurt at the end because I would just keep going. You know, like you see a lot of these guys on X. I think it's Gary Tan and all these other people. They're cranking until like 2, 3 a.m. or so. I'm like, I can't do that anymore. I need to go to bed at nine.

6:54Neil Patel:So what changed me, and I don't ever think I will go back to the 80 hours. Eric mentioned I probably do 60 to 70. I do try to cap it around 60. I don't track it perfectly, but I do try to cap my hours at 60. And it was because of an extra that Eric sent me. It was a year or two years ago. And I don't recall exactly what the ex post said, but it was something around passing away, you know, your kids and memories and what they're going to love you for. It's not going to be for all the money that you give them. It's going to be like time and attention. And I literally have no clue what the exact post was on X.

7:37Neil Patel:I got it. Oh, go for it, Eric. So if you, did you save it on your phone, by the way?

7:41Eric Siu:I did not. So I'll send it back to you. Okay, because Neil needs, you need to save this as your wallpaper. I just searched IRR and kids because you mentioned the keywords there. Okay, so good to know SEO. So the thing I sent, I sent this to Neil in, this was October 28th of 2024. Okay. So two years ago, roughly, one and a half years. A 31 % IRR, so internal rate of return, isn't good if your two 20-something daughters don't want to spend time with you. Hey, you know what I'll do? I'll work really hard when my kids are young because when they're a little older and they actually know what's going on, then I'll have made enough money and I'll hang out with them then.

8:14Eric Siu:Good point. But one thing though, they don't want to hang out with you then for two reasons. Number one, you weren't hanging out with them earlier. Number two, they have other things that they want to do. Let's say you stay up until 7 p.m. and maybe you can close a sale or have another conversation with your LP, limited partner. You'll see the benefits right away. While if you go home, maybe you go do bath time with kids and bath time is chaos. Bath time, you don't see any tangible benefit from going. But the sale or a conversation you do from 6.30 to 7 p.m., sure, it's tangible. But 20 years from now, you're not going to give a shit.

8:46Eric Siu:Whereas if you had a bath time every night, your kids are going to remember. It's something you look back on and think, this was the real knowledge. I'm glad I didn't do the things that were in front of me, but I chose to do what's important. So let the IRR percentage be lower than 31. But have your two 20-something daughters feel like you are the best dad.

9:05Neil Patel:And that was probably the best thing Eric has ever shared with me in my whole life. He shared a lot with me and provided me a lot of amazing stuff over the years. But that changed my life. and that is why I'm not working at night until my eyes are hurting. Now, when I'm traveling, which is probably more than half the time, it's a different story. Some, you know, like I'll go to Europe next week. I'll work 14, 15 hour days because I work both time zones and I'll do that for five days straight. So those, when I'm traveling, my hours just explode. When I'm home, which is probably a third of the year at this point, I try to really limit my hours because my daughter will tell me things like, you haven't come to any of my school functions.

9:46Neil Patel:The other parents do. Do you not love me? Right? And sometimes I can't. Yeah, a night to the heart. And sometimes I can't because my travel's already pre-booked, sometimes six months in advance, and I get a calendar notification two weeks in advance before her school thing. And she's like, you're not there to see all my progress. And I'm like, I appreciate it. Mommy's going to end up taking a video of it and sharing it with me or we'll FaceTime, right? but I'll do things like I'll have her dress up and my son dress up and my wife and like I'll take them all out to dinner, no phones and go to a restaurant and spend quality time because do I wanna make more money?

10:24Neil Patel:Yes. Do I think I'm ever gonna be rich like Bill Gates or Elon Musk? No. One, I'm not that smart. Two, I also don't have the work ethic in me to, like some of those guys just work and they only work and that's it. Although Elon does spend some time with family and shockingly for how wealthy he is, it's kind of crazy how much time he's able to spend with his family. Spend a lot of time with them. Yeah. I'm just not able to do...

10:47Eric Siu:Neil, Bill Gates' net worth as of February 2026 is$107 billion. I think you have time to compound. I don't think I'll ever get that high, right?

10:56Neil Patel:That's really high. But I'm happy enough at this point. Yes, I do want to make more and I work hard to make more because I'm never satisfied. But at the same time, I'm willing to make less and Eric was the one who sent this to me to have a better relationship with my kids. Because I don't think 30 years from now, I'm going to still be grinding it out. I would want to spend time with my kids.

11:18Eric Siu:So, okay, I'm just looking at the math over here. Okay, let's just, I'm going to say hypothetical math over here. I don't know, man. But keep in mind, Bill Gates reached the 100 billion in 1999. He's given away a lot of money since then, right? A lot of money. Divorce and all that, right? He would have been a trillionaire if he didn't sell his stock. Exactly. Steve Bummer didn't sell his stock. Yeah, he's worth more than Gates. So, by the way, I'm not going to reveal any numbers for Neil just for privacy. But it's possible, Neil, within 25, 30, 50 years. It's possible.

11:49Neil Patel:Yeah, but I'm okay having less zeros for a better quality of life with my children.

11:55Eric Siu:By the way, I sent that to Neil back then because I was worried that he might go too far on money. So that's why I sent it.

12:02Neil Patel:I have a problem with my son now. He's gone too far on money. Well, where do you get that from? Yeah, that's true. So he's four. Dude, at four years old, we never even thought about money. Dude, he stacked up thousands and thousands of dollars in cash, counts his piggy bank cash every single day, and he won't go out. He doesn't. Like when I was in Hong Kong and India, I was like, what do you want me to bring you back? Candy? He's like, no, bring back the money. I was like, why do you want money? He's just like, candy's cheaper than the money. Give me the money. Okay? So then he's negotiating how much I have to give him, and every day it increases.

12:36Neil Patel:Because then if I don't pay him on that day, he adds interest. I'm like, I can't pay you. I'm in Hong Kong. He's just like, that's your problem. You should be here to give me the money.