MicroVee: How To Win In An AI World — Use Fast-Changing Tech Before It Uses You | GaryVee x Alpha AI Podcast

0:00Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Gary V audio experience. On today's episode, we have another micro-v for all of you. In this one, we're sharing a conversation between Gary and Alvin Bowles, general partner of Alpha. Gary dives into why pretending to know AI is more dangerous than not knowing, how to approach AI without fear, and the importance of learning these new AI platforms. This episode is perfect for those who don't want to get left behind in a rapidly evolving AI age. Let's get right into it. There's this notion around artificial intelligence and people faking it like they know what the hell they're doing.

0:33Right. So most of the people that I'm on boards with are much older than I, less tech savvy than I, and their fear of disintermediation. Of course. That last part. But that's the thing. And so it's like, well, but nobody really wants to admit what they don't know. How do we actually move the needle to actually, one, bring people's guard down so they can actually leave their trepidation of what they don't know and just say, man, I don't know? And where are you actually staying intelligent on this shit? The real answer to the question is good parenting. You basically just asked me, how do we tone down the insecurity and rev up the humility of people that have achieved success often by posturing being political or just the luck of the draw, besides all the elements of their own hard work and things of that nature?

1:27It's a huge challenge. One of the things that's been fascinating to me in the journey of my career is I started in such humble places. and I wasn't around corporations until I was 35 years old. I didn't know anything but family business. Everything that we ever talked about was so practical. The first 15 years of my career, everything was so practical. Like, you know, marketing, which is my passion. My father, Sasha, cared how many bottles sold in a store. He didn't care if it would've won the award all this stuff today, it's perfect that we're filming this today. He wouldn't give a shit about an ad meter.

2:09He wouldn't give a shit about USA Today's top five. He wouldn't care about the Twitter. Right, he would be like, did we sell stuff? And did we sell stuff today? And can we feel that we've sold stuff tomorrow and things of that nature? With this conversation, because of Web 1, because of Web 2, and a lot of my career when I started to understand corporations and what you're talking about, with Web 2, social, and then with Web3, blockchain, and crypto and within them as they were iterating, it became obvious to me, I'm like, oh snap, some of the most intelligent, powerful, best, most accomplished people I know, when the new thing comes, they peacock and they don't know.

2:54It was shocking to me at first because I was so naive. I didn't grow up at good academic structure. I just didn't see it until well into my life. And all of it was based on the stuff that I do know well, which is human behavior. It was always, so about insecurity and humility. So, you know, for everyone who's listening, like when you are faking it, when you're a 57 year old or 40 year old or 12 year old or 90 year old, but like let's talk about boards or executives, cause that's what we're talking about here. When you're, please know something. And this is literally for the creme de la creme that I know are listening to this.

3:30When you're faking it, the smart 3 % know. Absolutely. Like, let's talk about our industry, the people listening here. Yes. There are a lot of people that are wildly successful in our industry, known. Absolutely. In the Marketing Hall of Fame, on the list, like, have big money, but are not as respected as they think they are. Correct. Because they are constantly bullshitting or building up their personal brand or things of that nature. By the way, everyone who's listening is allowed to live their life the way they're living it. I, in fact, even with, ironically, within the AI thing, because I've been so busy, you know me pretty well at this point.

4:13When the Web3 thing happened, because I'd spent so much time on it, because I'd crossed every T and I, I was outrageously loud. You were. I'm not very loud about AI. AI's been red hot for - For a minute. from 15 to 18 months now. You know this. I'm putting out unlimited content. People are not seeing a lot of AI content for me. They're seeing macro AI content. More about fear. Yes. They'll hear me say, people used to be scared to put electricity in their house because there was demons in it. Let's not do the same thing with AI. They'll see those things. But I'm not going deep into the modeling.

4:47I'm not going deep into my point of view about the news or the new app of this or what happened with Blue Sky. Or DeepSeek. Deep seek and like how quick, like I'm not jumping hard on that because I know I'm stretched in right now working on different things and I know where I'm at with AI. What I do do that I wish more people did is I'm in my journey of not being scared of it. I use it every day. That's it. That's it. I use it every day. I use many of them. The day I heard about mid journey, I used it. Let me see how to make a picture and a video. Absolutely. Perplexity, like I'm doing it, I'm using it, but there's people within my own, usually I pride myself of being like the guy.

5:27Literally when I say the guy, in Vayner, I am genuinely in belief that I know how to do social media creative to maximize reach better than even my experts within my own company. Currently there are many people, because I've sent them to go do the work, that are deeper in AI stuff than I am. And that's okay. I'm on this platform. I said yes to doing this interview. Correct. And I have the confidence and humility and comfort of being like, hey, I'm only a couple steps into my journey and I don't think I can go on a panel with same Altman even though I have the name status to be on one. The reason I'm saying no is because I'm not gonna contribute well.

6:08And I don't wanna go up there and just say a couple of fucking 50 words of just generic shit. Where am I? I understand. Where am I? I'm meeting with startups last week to figure out how to win the SCM on AI. I thought, because I know what happened with SEO, I was there when we went from yellow pages to search engines. I know search engines are in trouble. We all know, we're watching how we all work. Like I'm 49 years old, I'm in the business, but I got one for you better at Super Bowl. I was in a restaurant in New Orleans and four, three or four people were sitting at a table next to me in their 60s or 70s and one of them was explaining to the others why they need to use chat gbt and not google to search this is going to happen fast i mean it's happening so fast which is why people are saying like you've got to divorce your fear from it and to your point admitting what you don't know allowing people to actually you know educate you or your company or just experimenting with it part of the issue that people have is that they're not testing it well now you're going into my biggest issue well let's let's get into it my biggest issue in life is that most people are not practitioners.

7:20In fact, back to your former employer, I had a meeting in that office right across where a big dog within your company, she's no longer there as well, was starting to break down things for me and I literally had to stop the meeting and say, you don't know the platform. You know how to make a lot of money for the platform. Correct. But you do not know the platform. That's actually not how it works. And so, or how to get the best results. I know that you've been told as a sales individual what best practices are, that's wrong to the algo right now. So again, if anybody who's listening to this leaves with anything of value, download all of them and use the play with all of them.

8:02That is how you will have some level of context and then when you're ready to go all in, surround yourself with people that have actually done something. When the NFT thing was going on, one of the things I would have a lot of conversations with companies and different things and a lot of them would be like, but Gary, I heard this and I'm like, yes, but I did this and this is what happened and what you heard, let me show you what they did and what happened. Like I think a lot of this comes down to A, do your own homework. That goes back to downloading the apps and playing. Do your own homework.

8:34B, pay very close attention to who you're listening to. And I live both of these lives, but the way I lived the first one is what I'm most proud of. are they a talking head? We know a few of those. Or have they lived that life? I'm a talking head that only talks about the things that I've lived. Well, you're a practitioner and an operator and you're translating that to other individuals to bring them into this sort of conversation. There are many things I wish I was talking about. In fact, so this again makes, proven to pudding, I wish I was deeper right this second because I would be so happy putting out more meaningful content around AI because it would be good for me, my business, my opportunities, and the audience.

9:19But again, I haven't had the luxury to go as deep as I want to. But it's a smart way of doing this. A lot of this is about making sure, one, you're testing and test and learn, test and learn, test and learn, but also you're listening. And this is part of the challenge. That's the whole game. You don't have a galvanized group of individuals. There isn't a community, a safe place to be able to say, I don't know. Or tell me what you do know. And that's one of the things that would be interesting. what you're doing. That's what we're trying to do. By the way, why do you think I said yes? I love you, I love Steven, I love you guys, but I also really know what you're doing is gonna help a lot of my friends.

9:53And the community, at the end of the day, it was an interesting insight. Everybody's worrying about, is this gonna be evil? Is this gonna disintermediate people? Is this gonna make sure, some people are gonna be obsolescence, if you will, as associated with this? Of course. 100%. Of course. But by the way, everything's done that. Absolutely. The car did that. Correct. Electricity did that. I didn't walk here. You know what I mean? And by the way, there was an entrepreneur that bought 10 ,000 horses the day before Henry Ford's like, you know what? Right. That happened. Correct. Like, no one's crying for the people.

10:26I don't hear anyone when they're like, AI is terrible. I didn't hear any of you when the leading salesperson for the Yellow Pages lost her bag. No. Like, I didn't hear from you. When you guys, I don't hear from anybody when pop-up bagels comes and explodes and a local deli closes because they don't sell bagels anymore. I don't see the wah, wah. You just like your pop-up bagel. Correct. We need to not be delusional. Correct. Technology is undefeated. Always. And every time something comes up, it changes shit. But there's a way for it to coexist. I mean, I think about painting and the invention of the camera.

11:07It's another canvas in which to paint on. People still paint. it's always and. It's always and. And photography is a wonderful medium for self-expression. Both can coexist. Both can actually be in the same gallery and you can appreciate both of them for what they are. Look, I've been thinking about this for a while now and I may go there. There is this obsession with the word or when life is about and. I like that. You know? And I've been thinking about the concept of the power of and. I may quote you on that one. Please. That's a good one. It's one that really is like a big observation of my life.

11:46I think a lot about like why did things work out for me. A lot of improbability to like, you know, my circumstance. Not my macro circumstance of being a male. I mean my micro, like my truth, the truth of my life. And a lot of it is the obsession of and over or. And I see it in so many others. We are fixated on ore. We love black and white. Black and white makes people feel safe. It does. But life is gray as shit. It's so fucking new. It's why everyone's on tilt right now. Correct. It is not blue or red. It's always purple. And when you believe that it has to be blue and or red, you're fucked. And that's why everyone's anxious.

12:29And that's why the pendulum continues to swing. And that's why we canceled very effectively on the left. we're now canceling very effectively on the right. It's such a joke. That's the reason for our problems. Correct. Once you get to purple, and the problem is both sides are actually 100 % wrong. Yes. If you're red or blue, if you're black or white, you're 100 % wrong, because it is purple and gray out here, and that's what's gonna happen with AI. To leave with one last final point here. Absolutely. Just please go into maybe zone, everybody. I used or, but maybe's actually, ironically it's maybe that really triggers my success, that's the power of maybe, I don't say no.

13:09Which is why so much good has happened for me. But saying yes is also delusional how you lose as well. It's why maybe is so powerful. That is a fantastic way to end the sort of interesting thoughts around this thing. I think the piece of this is also just getting to be able to invest some time. Everybody has infinite amounts of time. And this is moving, it's moving so fast. And how can you pontificate if you haven't put in the work? Correct. By the way, this was social. I would talk to CMOs for the last decade. They're talking about things. I'm like, you don't know, you didn't do it. That's wrong.

13:42But think about all the conversations we've had at Cannes. It's like people running around and having these conversations, it's not real unless you've actually put it into practice, learned something, and likely failed at it. You're basically failing at all times until you're not. Correct. Life is just like walking and eating. The way we all watch, I wish all of us could watch our videos or our first attempts of walking. It wasn't successful. It didn't work out. You know, eating was all over ourselves and in our hair. And like, this is life. And it doesn't change from infant to where we are now.

14:15And I really, really, really encourage all of you, anyone who's listening right now, that is using this journey and consuming this content because you're in the camp of no AI. And it's, and going to, right away. And listen, you and I care about this stuff. But everyone's like, the AI is going to be biased. I'm like before you tell me about the world's problems, about race and gender, the world is always gonna have that. Why is that where you have 100 %? That's where you want immediately. It's very noble, but you know this, people are posturing to look good.