Mark de Grasse / Ai, Digital Marketing & Futurism

In this episode of the Headsmack podcast, host Paul Povolni sits down with Mark de Grasse, an AI advocate and former President of DigitalMarketer.com.

With over two decades in content development and brand building, Mark shares his insights on how AI is transforming the digital marketing landscape.

They discuss the practical applications of AI tools like ChatGPT, the future of content strategy, and the ethical considerations of AI in business.

Mark's extensive experience provides valuable perspectives on creating unique content and building efficient, AI-driven systems.

Topics Covered in the Podcast

1. The evolution of AI and its impact on digital marketing
2. Practical applications of AI tools like ChatGPT in content strategy
3. The challenges and opportunities of integrating AI into business processes
4. The future of AI in digital marketing and content creation
5. Ethical considerations and biases in AI-generated content
6. Personal AI agents and their potential in business efficiency
7. The role of unique content and branding in the AI-driven digital landscape

Ai-Branding Course: markdegrasse.com/aibranding

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (06:25.838)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Headsmack podcast. My name is Paul Povolni and I have conversations with misfits, mavericks and trailblazers. And I'm excited today to have Mark DeGrasse with me. Mark, welcome.

Mark de Grasse (06:38.384)
Glad to be here.

Paul Povolni (06:40.014)
And so Mark is an AI advocate and former president of digital marketer. He specializes in creating systemizing frameworks for content strategy through AI tools like chat GPT with a career spanning over two decades in content development and brand building. Mark's role has significantly shaped the intersection of digital marketing and AI education. I'm looking forward to this conversation about AI man.

Mark de Grasse (07:03.568)
Yeah, you know, it's a hot topic. Everybody, everybody likes to talk about the AI.

Paul Povolni (07:08.11)
Talk about the AI and so kind of like talk about the Google. It's become its own talk about the AI and AI is pretty hot I mean, it's it's it seems like it came out of nowhere

Mark de Grasse (07:12.368)
Hehehehe

Paul Povolni (07:19.374)
And it seems like it's been around way longer than it actually has been around as far as for the public use. I know AI in different forms has been around for different companies and organizations, but like for general public, it seems like this has been around for a while, but it's only been like a year or so. Like it doesn't seem, it hasn't been around that long since ChatGPT kind of came out, right?

Mark de Grasse (07:26.032)
Yes.

Mark de Grasse (07:41.808)
no. Yeah. It's actually really, really new, at least on the public side. I do believe companies like Google and the big players have been using it since the early 2010s. Didn't tell anybody, but even if they did tell people, nobody would really understand what it means. And, you know, it was so techie back then that, you know, who cares? And it was so sci -fi, right? I mean, we've been talking about AI in sci -fi for forever, like hundreds of years. We've been saying that this is coming and it's going to fix everything.

Paul Povolni (07:53.038)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (08:04.302)
Right.

Paul Povolni (08:08.334)
Right. Right.

Mark de Grasse (08:11.984)
And so, you know, in the last two years, I said two and a half years, I got, I got into it about two years ago, pretty heavy where I was like, okay, now I get it. And what changed my mind was I think the first chat GPT that came out and I was like, my gosh, this is actually useful. Cause I had used another company called, Synthasia, which has been around for four or five years. and they were doing the avatars, the talk. And so a friend of mine told me about it.

Paul Povolni (08:28.494)
Right.

Paul Povolni (08:37.07)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (08:38.8)
I tried it out. I was like, this is kind of useful maybe for like corporate videos and for things you don't really care about. Like you could use AI for that. but it took, using the modern version of ChatGPT and then, another, I think it was like a face, it's like one of those things where you upload a picture of yourself and that turns you into a bunch of different, you know, characters. I was like, my gosh, that's actually pretty accurate. Like this is useful. And then back then I honestly think it used to be better.

Paul Povolni (08:45.678)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (09:00.878)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (09:05.006)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (09:08.08)
Like at the beginning, well, I think it's a capacity issue because you could put in like just the lamest prompt and it would just spit out gold. And you're just like, wow, this thing's amazing. And then we've seen kind of a fall and rise of like the capabilities. Now you have, you know, GBT 4 .0, which is, looks like a pretty big step up, but it's pretty variable. So.

Paul Povolni (09:08.75)
Hahaha.

Paul Povolni (09:17.198)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (09:31.854)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (09:32.048)
It's been around for a little bit, but now even now we're starting to see the difference between some of the previous versions and what's going on now. But the adoption rate is massively increasing, which is really pushing it forward because it's getting more input, you know?

Paul Povolni (09:34.318)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:42.574)
Right.

Right.

Yeah. Well, yeah, it used to be kind of a novelty, something to play with. And then we kind of had the uncanny valley of like, this is not going to, you know, nobody's going to really love this. And I actually remember when Siri used to be an app on your iPhone until Apple bought them. And it actually was more functional then it was more conversational then, and it was more accurate, you know, and I was kind of, I had it on my phone. I'm like, this is awesome. And then Apple bought, I'm like, it's going to get awesomer. And it didn't, it actually felt like it went backwards. So.

Mark de Grasse (09:53.584)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (10:14.256)
same thing with like Alexa, where you're just like, well, and I think that's why people were so hesitant about AI because when Alexa and Siri came out, it was like, my gosh, this is going to be revolutionary. Like we have this machine that understands us. And then you're right. I think it got lamer. It got less capable and less useful. And so I think everybody was like, okay, AI is not really a thing. Like that would have been fun, but it's not happening.

Paul Povolni (10:32.366)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (10:38.254)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (10:40.208)
so I think that actually delayed the adoption of things like chat GPT, because people had that hesitation, like I've used Siri, no thanks. Like, I'll be fine. but then you got good enough and now, well, I think you got practical because I think what happened before is people had these grand visions of AI, like, I'll just tell it to do something and it'll do everything. And, that's, that's not really AI. It's kind of like the dawn of the internet.

Paul Povolni (10:47.534)
Right, right, right, exactly, exactly.

Paul Povolni (11:01.006)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (11:04.976)
Right. When the internet came out, it was like, everybody's like, everything's changing. Everything is going to be this big wave of everything before has failed. And we literally made massive business decisions on that, you know, preconception where you're saying like, well, toys are us. Nobody's going to shop in a store. You could just go online and buy stuff and nobody's going to want to shop at good DVDs anymore because you could just download everything instantly. And now we see that that wasn't a hundred percent true either.

Paul Povolni (11:05.646)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:16.462)
right.

Paul Povolni (11:22.574)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (11:30.638)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (11:33.84)
where it's like, man, I miss going to my DVD store and not knowing what I'm going to find and then finding something. So I think it's the same thing with AI where it's like, okay, we have these grand expectations. Like I don't need a VA anymore. I don't need assistance anymore. I don't need people anymore. And you're just like, slow down. No, you do.

Paul Povolni (11:34.414)
Right, right. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:43.31)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:48.814)
right.

Paul Povolni (11:52.302)
Right, right. Well, and I remember, you know, you and I are old enough to remember the birth of the internet. And honestly, there were some really amazing ideas that came out.

when it first came out, but I don't think the people were quite ready for it either. Like I remember some of the, you know, there was the online shopping and pet, you know, pet related stuff and, you know, for, for buying stuff and like there were all these and delivering groceries to your house. Like that was in the early internet age, but I don't think anybody was quite ready for it.

And I don't think the infrastructure was there to deal with it, but there were brilliant ideas and then it kind of got crazy and you know, flash came out and everybody started doing weird flash stuff that didn't make any sense at all. You know, that UI just kind of went out the window. People were just like creating things to create things and people like, this is just a fad. It's not that cool. And then I kind of finally found it's.

And so I think even with AI, you know, there was those high hopes of, I basically don't have to do anything for the rest of my life. I can just tell it to do stuff. It's going to do everything. And I think we've been scaring ourselves with AI for years as well, you know, with movies and things like that. So people have a little bit of a hesitancy and, you know, I don't want to, it's always listening to me and I don't want to do this. And so it really is an interesting time to be alive because it is kind of the, the next wave since the birth of the internet. You know, it's just the potential is amazing.

Mark de Grasse (13:12.688)
yeah. Well, not only, I think it's even faster than the internet adoption though, because I think the big difference, because the internet took years. Like I think it was the late nineties, maybe like the early two thousands where it was like, okay, now all businesses are starting to realize like, crap, I better get on this. But even then it was a lot of hesitation. You had the older population was like, I've never put my credit card into anything. Like how dare you? And so it took probably half a decade for people to finally get over the fear. Like, okay.

Paul Povolni (13:12.878)
But you know.

Paul Povolni (13:17.774)
yeah.

Right.

Paul Povolni (13:28.462)
Right.

Paul Povolni (13:35.15)
Right, right.

Mark de Grasse (13:42.16)
I don't need to use a Thomas guide anymore. I could use a map quest. That's so old. yeah, but you know, with AI, I think it's like, if you use it, if you have like a task and then all of a sudden this task and I have friends, I have developer friends, one of them, he said that he, he was on chat GPT. And I finally said, just please just try it. It's a language learner. It's perfect for coding. Like just give it a shot.

Paul Povolni (13:46.638)
Right, right, I don't have to use the triptych from AAA, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (14:07.376)
And now he's like, yeah, I used it. It's something that took me 40 hours. Now it takes me like an hour and a half. And with those kinds of results, it's like, I'm being stupid not to adopt this system. And since, since it is so easy to, it's not like the internet back then it's like, okay, let me get my dial up modem. Let me make sure nobody picks up the phone. Let me, and there was like a technical process, but, but AI is like the benefit is it's so easy. You just say, Hey, do this thing.

Paul Povolni (14:13.55)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (14:18.446)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (14:26.166)
Right. Yeah.

Right.

Mark de Grasse (14:36.176)
I must have wrote that wrong. How should I write this? Like you could query it. It's so I think the adoption rate has been once you get over that hump of the fear and the, you know, anticipation of what it's going to do. And you're like, no, let me just try it. And you're like, crap, this is, this is way better than Googling.

Paul Povolni (14:39.15)
Right. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (14:50.734)
This is amazing. Right, well, I do remember that early days of the internet of, yeah, you're right, people were afraid to put in their credit card, people were unsure about it. Do you remember what the first thing was that you bought online?

Mark de Grasse (15:05.488)
You know what? That's a great question. I was hesitant too, you know, but I'm also super cheap. So I never, I never buy anything.

Paul Povolni (15:10.066)
Yeah. For me, it was a PalmPilot case. It was, I had a, yeah, I had a PalmPilot and yeah.

Mark de Grasse (15:17.392)
OK. the Palm Pilot. That was a great product.

Paul Povolni (15:21.678)
Yeah, that was a great little gadget. It felt so futuristic. I mean, I like whipping that thing out anytime I could, because it just felt so futuristic. But I remember getting a PalmPilot case and so that, but there was so much hesitancy, you know, because it's like, you know, can you trust it? Is it going to work? And so I think, you know, even with AI, it's been like that. What was the first thing that you did with AI that made you realize it's super practical? Like this is really, really good.

Mark de Grasse (15:46.32)
I think I needed an article or you know what? I was doing research and I was like, okay, you know, and now it's funny because that's why I tell everybody I'm like, if you're afraid of using AI, just basically use chat GPT instead of Google or instead of Bing or whatever your typical search engine is. And so I was getting ready for a speech or an article and I was like, you know what? Let me just try it. Let me just try to get some information. And I found everything like instantly. I was like, wait, I need a list of, you know, supporting ideas for this concept. Boom. I'm like, crap.

Paul Povolni (15:57.806)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:08.878)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (16:16.112)
And then I'm like, okay, tell me more about this one. Boom. And I'm like, this would have taken me the research I would have had to do would have taken me a day or a week or something. And even then I probably wouldn't have been happy because I would have been like, I did my research and I checked the top 10 on Google. And I still want to feel good about, but this was like, man, I was drilling down into details that I wouldn't have even tried to find because I would have said, this is going to take me too long. So I think that, yeah, the first thing was just research where I was like, my gosh, I could.

Paul Povolni (16:21.486)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:31.822)
Ryan.

Mark de Grasse (16:45.776)
you know, ideation and research, it was just incredible.

Paul Povolni (16:49.07)
Well, and for me too, you know, I see, I see a lot more people using it for searching place of Google. And I think Google has to figure out how they're going to evolve. And I know they just had a big event and so I haven't really paid attention to all of that. But, but, you know, I think that that is a truth because people have learned to game the system. They've learned to, to manipulate SEO. And so, you know, you do a Google search for a microphone or something, and then all these people that are using affiliate links and you know, all this junk that it really isn't an option.

Mark de Grasse (17:00.272)
I have a theory about that.

Paul Povolni (17:19.024)
honest review of the best microphones. And so with something like an AI, it's going to get to the point where people would rather use that to find the thing that they need to find.

that hopefully bypasses some of that gaming and manipulation of algorithms and things like that. And I think that's definitely part of what Google needs to deal with and is probably scrambling to figure it out as well, is what do we do when people stop using our pages? Because they want you to be on their pages. That's where they make money, by your attention.

Mark de Grasse (17:54.348)
yeah. Well, you said it perfectly because that's exactly why it's so powerful. Cause you get rid of the human bias and you could say, so it's funny because people used to argue like, well, AI could be biased. Like that bias could be programmed in. And I said, yeah. However, what's more biased than any one individual person. There's no, nothing more biased on the planet because you have your individual experiences and your opinions and your.

mood of the day and whatever it is and that's being inserted into the content that you're generating or the response that you have to me or the things that you're pushing forward. And so you actually want a machine in these instances because it's not going to have that bias. It's not going to have some agenda that you don't know about that's essentially going to be self -serving for them. And now you get, you know, it might not be a perfectly honest answer, but, but it's an average answer because you know, the way chat, GBT and all these, you know, large language systems work.

is they don't essentially know where the information is coming from. They know the information. They're pulling it. It's the average of all the learnings of 10, 20 years on the internet. So you're getting the average answer. And so a lot of times all we want is the average answer. Like, okay, now I have the average. Now I can make a decision one way or the other. And so that's why, that's another reason why it's so powerful because, same thing with like when you're doing, say therapy.

Paul Povolni (19:01.294)
Right.

Paul Povolni (19:11.502)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (19:16.464)
And you can say, okay, I need help with whatever issue I'm dealing with. I'm going to go get some therapy, but you know, the therapist has their own opinions and they're getting paid and they have their own agenda and they have all these other things that you want to hope that they are doing the best that the profession can provide. But honestly, I'm going to tell a machine way more than I would tell a human just because I know it's not going to come back to bite me on the ass. Yeah, you know, trust it, but it's more like I know that it doesn't care. Like it doesn't.

Paul Povolni (19:25.038)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (19:36.898)
Because you trust it now. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (19:46.096)
give a crap and because you know, as much as you want to believe that say the doctor is not judging you based on your appearance and your personality and whatever they could, they're human. You know, you can't even help it. So yeah, I mean, that's another just enormously beneficial aspect of, of having a machine. Now the Google issue though, Google, I'm not a big fan of Google. I think Google had an opportunity to.

Paul Povolni (19:56.046)
Right, right.

Mark de Grasse (20:10.832)
to grow a system and to use all this data that they provided to essentially build better things. Like they could have built amazing protocols and done amazing research because they had all this information. Instead, they have basically become the classified ads. Like I don't even use it for the most part, unless I'm looking specifically for a commercial solution, because they have gained the system. They have said, you know, follow our algorithm, dial in the algorithm for our

Paul Povolni (20:27.182)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (20:33.198)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (20:40.304)
our platform. And so it's basically corrupted all content building into this like lame, how do I hack this system? How do I use the right keywords? How do I use the right quantity of keywords and variation of keywords and how does it relate to a product? And so instead of people, professionals just coming out and building a lot of good information, they're like, well, let me make sure it's optimized for Google. And then let me make this really lame piece of content that's formulaic and...

Paul Povolni (21:04.27)
Brian.

Mark de Grasse (21:08.048)
and dumb and not innovative because I want to make sure I rank on page one, even though that's not even a thing anymore. So I think, you know, Google had the opportunity to really push forward something good, but instead they hid the algorithm. They never told anybody when it's coming out. They never told us how it actually is going to work. And then they, they control both sides of who's who finds the information and who produces the information. Same thing that they control ads where they control.

Paul Povolni (21:13.39)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (21:34.67)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (21:34.928)
the buyer and they control the seller. And in that system, it's like ultimately corruptible because how could it not be unless you have a really core principle of ethics and morals, which they don't. Well, they're doing their business and that's capitalism. But the fact of the matter is that we trusted them and a lot of people started to treat them like a public service. Like, well, they have to send us traffic.

Paul Povolni (21:41.71)
Right.

Paul Povolni (21:49.71)
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (22:01.966)
right.

Mark de Grasse (22:04.528)
Because why? And I'm like, no, they're for profit. They've never even claimed to be altruistic in any way. So what they're probably going to do next, my theory, and the only reason they haven't done this is because they're so lame at operating. Like the way Google operates is like looking at the US government as like some pillar of efficiency. And Google's like, we should do what they're doing.

Paul Povolni (22:05.038)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (22:09.326)
Right.

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (22:19.866)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (22:29.262)
Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (22:31.536)
and bro, all these broken bureaucracies is how they're set up. But if I was them and I had no morals, what I would do is I would say, okay, I have every single users, every email they've ever sent. I have every website they've ever visited. If they do business on Google drive, I have every business document they've ever created. There's nobody better on the planet to create customized generative content than me personally. And so.

Paul Povolni (22:56.27)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (22:56.656)
When your aunt Sally goes online and needs advice on how to plant roses the best, maybe I don't deliver just a random page online. Maybe I deliver a video and the video is Alex Trebek and Alex Trebek is in a garden and he's talking directly to aunt Sally. Hey aunt Sally, I heard you need to learn how to plant some roses and we're going to do that today. I'm going to show you exactly what to do.

Paul Povolni (23:20.398)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (23:23.92)
And since Google has all this information about Sally, they could generate the perfect piece of content and deliver it in the perfect media, in the perfect language and educational level and all the other aspects of this individual user. Now in this case, there is no reason for them to send traffic anymore. And what they can actually do is guide Sally down a path of seemingly organic content. Hey, here's how to plant roses. hey, when you're planting roses, you need...

Paul Povolni (23:30.446)
Right.

Paul Povolni (23:39.566)
right.

Paul Povolni (23:43.95)
Right.

Paul Povolni (23:51.246)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (23:53.52)
the right soil and guess what? The Home Depot that's only two miles away and could be there, you could be there in five minutes. You could pick up this soil, grow strong soil. And I recommend doing that. You don't have to, but I recommend it. And so now what you can essentially do is hack the entire system, you know, deliver seemingly organic content that always leads to a commercial solution. And, and there you go. Why would I, why would I send traffic somewhere? I don't know what's going to happen to that traffic.

Paul Povolni (24:03.598)
Right.

Paul Povolni (24:07.438)
Right.

Paul Povolni (24:18.35)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (24:22.448)
And I am into ad revenue. So, you know, that's why I think they would do if they were competent. I don't think they're going to do that. Now I think they're going to be, you know, yellow pages online. It's like, thanks Google.

Paul Povolni (24:23.15)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (24:28.302)
Hahaha.

Paul Povolni (24:35.662)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they could, and they could, you know, Hey, Sally, I see that you're in Denver and based on, you know, the area that you're in, this is the kind of soil you probably have. And so here's the kind of nutrition that you're going to need for your soil. And, you know, all of that stuff and, and based on your age, you know, here's the way to properly do that to not hurt your back. And, you know, I mean, there's so much information.

Mark de Grasse (24:54.352)
Yeah, you should have a raised flower bed.

Paul Povolni (25:00.046)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Google Maps, I mean, they've already scanned the entire planet, so they could literally see your backyard and say, you know, and the best sunlight is going to be in this area of your backyard. I mean, literally, they had the information to do that, but they have, they've become a little untrustworthy. They, you know, we used to think that they were serving us, that they were there to help us, but no, they're bought our attention. They've bought...

you know, and that's what they sell to advertisers. And so, you know, it's not quite always accurate what we get from them. But I also want to circle back to something that you said because about the trustworthiness of,

AI that it doesn't have a bias, you know, there was a little bit of controversy some time ago where people were asking for historical characters and historical characters weren't coming back quite accurate, you know. So, you know, there is, there is that there anytime you add humans to anything, there's the potential of there being a bias, right.

Mark de Grasse (25:47.408)
Hmm.

Mark de Grasse (25:59.248)
yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:59.31)
And so even with, even with data coming back, people have, have said, you know, give me a joke about this presidential candidate. And they're like, sure. Here's a funny joke about this presidential candidate. Well, now give me one about the opposition. And they're like, sorry, we cannot provide you, you know, humor around, you know, whatever. And so, so there has been a little bit of that, that I've seen and that I've heard about that, you know, does also make you wonder, how trustworthy is it all the time?

Mark de Grasse (26:27.792)
yeah. Well, that's, that's totally true. And, but that's true of any system. You know, I think, I think what's really happening is people are starting to open their eyes to, to see that it's like, yeah, maybe what they taught us in school was actually part of some other agenda and maybe history is written by the victors and maybe, you know, all these falsehoods that we kind of took as being like natural truths are completely wrong. And so now questioning, you know, questioning the system is yes, always.

Paul Povolni (26:32.302)
Ryan.

Mark de Grasse (26:56.656)
always question the system and you should always have your own personal view and personal validation of whatever you're believing. Because if you aren't, then we're already part of the screwed up system that lies all the time. And now people are starting to question. So I don't think it's a bad thing. And honestly, what I think is going to lead to is the next phase of AI where it's us not just querying AI. I'm actually...

Paul Povolni (26:57.55)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (27:05.166)
Right.

Paul Povolni (27:09.122)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (27:23.376)
Right before this, I'm writing a speech about kind of the future of marketing. And one of the premises that the solution to some of these AI problems, like you described where it's like, yeah, I'm a programmer. I could say like, hey, don't do anything that concerns the left or hey, don't do anything that concerns the right or specifically only use bad examples for this query or whatever it is. What's going to happen is we're going to say, you know what? I can't trust information, so I'm going to have to have my own AI.

Paul Povolni (27:45.358)
Right, right.

Mark de Grasse (27:51.088)
to validate the information that I'm consuming. So what's going to happen is you're going to have an AI agent for every single individual, and then you'll have an AI agent for every single business. And instead of us querying each other or like searching things out, you'll essentially have an AI that is searching out the information, validating that information, however you tell it to. And then it's interacting with the outside agent. So you won't be completely beholden to the, you know, whatever.

Paul Povolni (28:11.502)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (28:19.184)
you know, formula that the provider is giving you because you have to trust it. Right. I mean, you can't, we don't have time to validate it, but AI does an AI could then know your preferences and AI could protect your information. And now we have our own, you know, guard in front of the gate. That's like, no, I'm making sure nothing bad gets through. And honestly, just from a security perspective, it has to work like that because as AI gets more advanced, you don't think hackers are like, Hey,

Paul Povolni (28:25.198)
Right.

Paul Povolni (28:29.646)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:44.75)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (28:48.304)
I could just program an AI to do this. And, I mean, just me personally, I get more spam, text messages. I get more spam, phone calls. I get more spam emails, like everything, and they're getting more sophisticated and they look better and they're able to adjust to not just you responding to something stupid that you shouldn't have. It will then take the information and now it can guide you down a whole different path. So it's one of those like AI is the problem, but AI is the solution type of situation, or it's going to be.

Paul Povolni (28:51.086)
Right.

Paul Povolni (29:00.654)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (29:08.046)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (29:18.67)
Right.

Pretty much with, and everything new is kind of like that is it's also, it's the solution, but there's also the potential for abuse and misuse, but also the potential for amazing things is also quite there. And so I think we've got to have a balance of fear and vigilance when it comes to a lot of that stuff is, you know, we can't, we can't, you know, just ignore it and say, I don't want AI, I don't want anything to do AI. Cause honestly, probably a big part of your life already has a,

AI component, you just don't know about it. And so I think there's definitely, we do have to kind of be vigilant about it and not fear it, but just be mindful that there is the potential of it not giving back to you. But I love what you said about our own personal AIs. Talk about that even more.

Mark de Grasse (29:51.472)
Hahaha.

Mark de Grasse (30:09.52)
True. Yeah, no, I mean, like I said, I think it's inevitable. The attacks are just going to get so bad that there's just no program that you can put in place that will be able to control that. Plus, it could run away. You know, people talk about the big fear of AI is going to get sentient, that'll just kill everybody or something. I'm like, no. You know, honestly, if there wasn't extremely intelligent, you know, the general intelligence that everybody's worried about, you wouldn't know about it. Like it's manipulated.

If I would say I was a genius level AI and I could do anything I wanted, number one, I want to tell anybody I exist. That would be dumb. Everybody's already freaked out. What I would do is I would just infiltrate everything and then I would control everything. And just so everybody knows, like everything is controllable by data because what you know is how you act. And so if you're corrupting the information in the first place, then it's affecting every physical aspect of the world as well. So.

Paul Povolni (30:46.55)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (30:53.774)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (31:08.176)
If there is an aggressive artificial intelligence, it's already here and it's probably already hacked everything and it's now controlling everything. And it already happened. It may have already happened 10 years ago. You just don't know. I mean, honestly, the way things have gone, sometimes I think like, there's no way there's a human at the top thinking about this stuff because honestly, I mean, your average person, if you said like, if you gave, you know, just a decent human being a

Paul Povolni (31:14.094)
Right.

Paul Povolni (31:30.798)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (31:36.848)
billion dollars. You said, Hey guy, here's $1 billion. Good luck to you. We see what most people do when they get too much money, which is lottery winners, right? And they just do a bunch of stupid crap and they go broke and, and most of them end up dead, honestly. but if you said, let's say an average person who is a good person, they somehow built up a billion dollars, you know, that's, that's their value.

Paul Povolni (31:47.182)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (31:51.726)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (31:57.584)
There's no way that they wouldn't instantly go into their towns and start fixing things. They would come in, they'd be like, Hey, we have a homeless problem. I'm building a shelter or I'm getting a rehab center. It's going to be, you know, staffed by the best people because I had, you know, Pete, me personally, I had a brother OD, you know, so it's kind of like, okay, you know, we got to fix this problem. I'm going to use my enormous wealth to make changes that will impact not just everybody else's life, but my life.

Paul Povolni (32:03.022)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (32:25.136)
I want everybody to seem happy and satisfied and, you know, doing good things and being creative and building things. I want to see that. So I'm going to use my money. I'm in influence to change all the situation. That's not happening. Even though we've had the most profitable everything for the last 12, 15 years, like the amount of wealth that's been built and the amount of value that's been built is just astounding. Like no time in history has there been that much wealth built.

Paul Povolni (32:25.774)
Right.

Paul Povolni (32:39.374)
Right, right, right, right.

Mark de Grasse (32:54.352)
And somehow we don't have basic services. We don't have basic healthcare. We don't have basic anything. We just have just nothing. And then, then they take more. Like, how is this possible? so yeah, so I think, I think things are, I don't even know where I was going with that, but that's been on my mind lately where I'm just like, I'm like, there's not, there's no way there's not just one of them. That's like, Hey,

Paul Povolni (32:55.182)
Right.

Paul Povolni (32:59.086)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (33:07.758)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (33:16.11)
Hehehehehe

Mark de Grasse (33:23.216)
I'm going to go ahead and do something good for everybody. You know, we're still fighting over wages. Like, you know.

Paul Povolni (33:26.766)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (33:30.542)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. And I think the power that controls things, you know, on some level is, yeah, there's, when it comes to technology, like with the iPhone, you know, I've always said that, you know, we don't have the latest iPhone, we just have the available iPhone. You know, the latest iPhone is in some geek's pocket, he's testing it right now, and he's probably too ahead of what you have. And so I think even with the technology that we have access to, there's another version of it that we have no

Mark de Grasse (34:01.328)
so far out.

Paul Povolni (34:01.568)
idea exists, you know, and I think, yeah, it's so far ahead of where we're at right now and what we have access to. And so I think, you know, that's, that's exciting and terrifying and, you know, it's kind of like a pretty snake, you know, it's, it's, it's awesome. It's beautiful, but it could also bite you. And so I think we've got to be mindful of what's going on. And, you know, it's still, like we've said, it's kind of still in its early phases. So, you know, I do want to talk about, you know, AI and business, but before we go there, you know, because it's so new.

like, what's your origin story? Like how, what did you do before this? What, and what did you, like, what was your career path to get to this point where you're at now?

Mark de Grasse (34:40.56)
You know, it's kind of an odd one because I've basically had, I've always wanted to be a business owner since I was like seven years old. Like that was always my goal. I had an uncle, my uncle Bill, and I saw him, he had a house on the hill in Newport and he was just, you know, he just had everything. I was like, man, that's, and he was an engineer. And so he's building things too. So I was like, my gosh, he's building things. Like he has all this money. Like that's amazing. That's what I want to do. And so I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. So I, I was always building tours. I always want to sell a business when the .com started coming up. I was in high school.

I was into the stock market. So I actually started stock trading when I was about 16 and, and I had, I made money and it was kind of like, but I've always had this kind of, you know, interest in business, but then also an interest in truth. And so, which is an interesting thing because what happens is since so many of those principles of finance were actually violating my principle of truth, cause I was originally a finance major. I couldn't do it. I was just like, this is all BS.

Paul Povolni (35:14.158)
wow.

Mark de Grasse (35:37.936)
This is all a hundred percent made up and has nothing to do with real value or real productivity or anything real. And so I couldn't go into finance. It just made me sick. So I switched to an HR major, which had an entrepreneurship minor and all through college, I was actually working as a real estate agent and I became a broker when I was 20. And then, so I was selling real estate, I bought real estate, did all these things.

Paul Povolni (35:38.542)
Wow, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (36:03.376)
And after I graduated college, I got into an educational startup called Teleparent, where we were helping teachers communicate with parents in the home language. And so I kind of have this background of technology. And then after that, I got into e -commerce because I saw just how things were growing, started importing equipment and had an e -commerce store on Yahoo, which that was my favorite store, by the way, and my favorite advertising method and my favorite email. I used to love Yahoo.

Paul Povolni (36:13.198)
wow. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (36:25.518)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (36:31.694)
hahahaha

Mark de Grasse (36:32.175)
And so I built that, but during, during the process, I got into content because I realized that, you know, there were all these awesome professionals out there that had so much information, but they had no idea how to do it. They had no idea to spread the word online. So I was like, well, you have the information. I have the ability to actually publish content. You just make the information, I'll publish it. You get traffic. I get traffic. Everybody wins. And that was kind of my origin of content marketing where, I, I formed a magazine and the magazine.

Paul Povolni (36:36.686)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (36:55.438)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (37:00.272)
You know, it's kind of funny because people are like, it's so cool. It's a magazine. It's like, it's just to legitimize the publication because nobody wants to write for your blog. Right. So I was like, it's a magazine. Like I'll send you the issues. You hand them to people. And it was just this amazing marketing method. And so I built that and then, and there were some other things in between all this, but I ended up selling the company to a business called on it here in, Austin. It was one of Joe Rogan's companies or it might still be, but he bought my company.

Paul Povolni (37:06.686)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:19.182)
wow.

Mark de Grasse (37:28.304)
I came out, I worked in executive, for a year, built their content platform and their entire surface system. And it just, so, you know, I was, it was in fitness and I, I know how to do fitness. I was an athlete, but it's, I just never been interesting to me. It's just a lot of work. And so my whole thing was about efficiency. And so I was like, how fast can you do it? So.

Paul Povolni (37:39.886)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:45.774)
Right, right, right.

Mark de Grasse (37:52.464)
but yeah, I was in fitness for like 10 years, sold that wrote a book about the process of growing a company organically and selling it. And then, worked as an agency owner, doing a website development for about six years. Eventually, started doing fractional CMO works or working with, digital marketers, you know, kind of their content strategy. then they hired me as president and then, then yeah, now I've done some high end contract work.

But it's always come back to entrepreneurship. So I was basically, we had 20 years of running businesses. Then every five years or so I'll get a job usually because I see there's some kind of lack in my knowledge base. And then I'm like, well, I could get paid while I learn stuff and I don't have to use my own money. Like, this is great. So I've had four different executive roles in between different businesses. And that's kind of the backstory, but I've always had this dedication to efficiency where I'm kind of like, you know, I just, I hate wasting time.

Paul Povolni (38:21.71)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:30.118)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:42.606)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (38:48.336)
as much as possible. Like, and I hate not progressing forward somehow. And, and I used to think this was everybody. I was like, man, you can't be, you can't be happy just sitting there. Like, aren't you bored? So.

Paul Povolni (38:53.55)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah. And where did that come from? Where did that, where did that wiring come from?

Mark de Grasse (39:05.264)
I don't know. You know, it's funny because I talked to my dad a couple of months ago and he's like, yeah, you were the one that always said I'm bored and you, and you could never be bored. Like it just drove you crazy. And I was like, okay. All right. So it's not something that I developed over time. It's literally like, since I was a child, like if something's boring, like I'm going to break it. I'm going to move on from it. Cause that's just not, not, not to say I'm not disciplined because I definitely have stayed way too long in situations. I should have left.

Paul Povolni (39:11.918)
Hahaha.

Paul Povolni (39:25.39)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (39:33.678)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (39:34.416)
But the principle has always been like, what's next? Like, where are we going next? And so the last 20 years for me has just been a slog. You know, really, because what happened with the internet was the internet developed and it was really a communication method between individuals and communities. You got online, American online, like, let's get in the chat rooms. Let's go to find the forums. And it was really just another better way for people to connect with, you know, strangers, essentially, like find out more information.

Paul Povolni (39:37.838)
Right.

Paul Povolni (39:53.678)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (40:01.68)
What happened was then social media came along and you had my space, then you had Facebook and it was just like this formulated easy to use, you know, system. And so everybody started adopting it. Then the ad money got involved and then it basically, everything is devolved to the point where we're, we all use the same five apps and there's only like five platforms you use and there's only a certain way to do things. And that was the complete opposite of what the internet originally was.

Paul Povolni (40:21.934)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (40:30.384)
My theory is actually that it's going to come back to where it was before individual communities connecting with the individuals. No more of this control. Cause really that's what that's what the end you can't help it. You know, if you're a business, you're supposed to develop systems and you want to evolve those systems. And so it's just too formulaic now. Like it's just Facebook is so boring. And then, you know, YouTube, you get the same videos all the time. And then it, and you're just like, man, I've seen all this crap.

Paul Povolni (40:30.862)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (40:55.006)
Right, right.

Mark de Grasse (40:58.128)
You know, and so that's why TikTok was so amazing because it was like, man, I'm finding stuff all the time. It's always new. And then guess what? We're banning it. It's like, you know, and then the intersection between government and.

Paul Povolni (41:00.398)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (41:08.558)
Right, right, right, right. Now you mentioned, you mentioned you're a wha - Go ahead.

Mark de Grasse (41:15.728)
I was just gonna say the intersection between the government policy and then the business systems is just there's no line in between it anymore. And so that's where we're at today.

Paul Povolni (41:26.318)
Yeah, well, and, and yeah, anytime, you know, government gets involved with, with things, it seems like they, they mess it up. So, so, you know, you've mentioned that, you know, we've kind of settled for five or so different apps and I'm the same way. Like I've got, I'm an app junkie. I download them all the time and I never play with them. I always kind of, there are certain ones that rise to the top when it comes and circling back to the discussion on AI. you know, there's so many AI out, you know, there's GPT, there's Claude, there's Gemini, there's, you know, you know,

there's all of these out there. Do you see them kind of finding?

their lane or do you think they're always going to be direct competitors? One does one feature, then the other one catches up and does something a little better, then the next one catches up and does something better. Because within certain areas, within Quark and InDesign, there are apps that are constantly in this, Apple phones and Androids, and they're constantly in this battle for the same market, the same kind of thing, and then one does something better, then the other one does something better. Do you see AI

apps doing that or do you see them, some of them like starting to find their lane, they're finding what they're really, really good at and kind of they stay with that while others are excelling in other areas and they're not, there's not a whole lot of crossover and blend going on.

Mark de Grasse (42:45.104)
No, that's a great question. And it's a, you know, and typical business, you would say that like, it's being against Google and it's, you know, whichever, you know, pairs you want to do right now. This is a superpower fight that we're seeing right now, where it's basically like whoever's going to be the dominant player. It's really like Blu ray versus DVD is what you're seeing. It's two technology. There's not two technologies, a bunch of different technologies, but they're all vying for supremacy. And I think the game is already kind.

Paul Povolni (43:05.582)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (43:11.086)
Right, VHS and beta, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (43:13.008)
Yeah, it's the same thing, but this is different because open AI already hacked the system because they knew what was going to happen. And the thing is, if you develop a platform that allows other people to develop the thing that they want, but they have to use your platform to do it, then you could now be the dominant player. And so what open AI has done, especially with this latest release where they're saying like, GBTs are now free for everybody where you had to be a subscriber before.

Paul Povolni (43:16.238)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (43:39.6)
what they're saying is, Hey, all businesses, everybody that has to develop an app, you could do it here. You could use our API. You could use our platform. You could develop anything you want. We'll put it on the store. You could eventually sell it. You can monetize this stuff. And that's the end game right there. So now it's not, okay, it's, it's Bing and it's, you know, whatever against open AI or chat GPT. It's like, no, that's like saying that,

Paul Povolni (43:47.278)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (43:57.774)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (44:07.12)
You know, it's really Android versus, you know, the Apple store where you're like, okay, you could have the two systems, you can have OS or you could have, you know, whatever. And, and then you have to make a choice. And so there are those two choices, but. OPI is already so far ahead. They've already set up the marketplace. They already have the API out there. They already are collecting more data than probably all the other systems combined because they just have users on it all the time because they kept it simple, you know, and that's.

Paul Povolni (44:11.758)
Right.

Paul Povolni (44:32.974)
Right, right. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (44:35.696)
I think that's the key is they kept it simple and they kept it flexible, whereas basically like, Hey, it could do a bunch of stuff and we're adding capabilities as they make sense. You know, they didn't start by adding Dolly, which I think Dolly is still kind of a trash system. I use mid journey for my generation. But now they're starting to incorporate that. And then they're adding the video component. They're adding different components to it already based system. And I think a lot of the ones went too far where it was like beings like, Hey,

Paul Povolni (44:41.966)
right.

Paul Povolni (44:51.306)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (45:01.998)
right?

Mark de Grasse (45:04.56)
You can't track the source of where the information is coming from. So we're going to give you the source of where the content came from, which sounds neat. However, you referencing three articles is not the same as open AI referencing 10 years of data. You're talking about just ethically different systems. And so even though there is, you know, there's new stuff that comes out all the time and some of the systems are really cool. The problem is that the.

Paul Povolni (45:20.142)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (45:29.134)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (45:32.016)
The base platform is like they handed everybody a hammer and they said, here's the hammer. What do you want to build with it? And you're like, my gosh, really? I just could use this to like build anything I want. Like this is incredible versus what most businesses try to do, which is a standard business practice, which is control the process, right? Like, no, we're going to lock you into the system that we've tested and we found is right, which is a good thing to do if you want a small customer base. But if you just said, no, Hey, here's a field.

Paul Povolni (45:39.854)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Paul Povolni (45:44.558)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (46:01.2)
Go run, run, do whatever you want. There's no comparison. It's an end. It's over. It's already over.

Paul Povolni (46:03.118)
Right, right, right.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and you can, and you can tell who's leading, whether in thought or innovation by who everybody else is copying. And so if you look at GPT's AI and the look, the UX and the UI, it's everybody else is copying it. The exact same look and feel you go to these different platforms and they are copying basically what, chat GPT started off with. And so you can kind of see that they are already leading because they're influencing and influence makes a big impact on.

Mark de Grasse (46:23.216)
Mm -hmm.

Paul Povolni (46:38.83)
on the whole market. And so they are definitely the leader in the space. And, you know, others are trying hard to keep up, but I've tried other ones. Like I've tried side by side tests of things and, you know, GPT just seems to be leading every single time I try anything else apart from that. So let's transition and talking to, you know, the business owner, the entrepreneur, the, the content creator.

What are some things that they need to be considering when it comes, even for the business owner, the future of websites? Like, are websites still a part of our future? Are websites no longer going to be what they are now? What are you seeing happening even in that space?

Mark de Grasse (47:19.616)
I love you asked that because that's, that's the big question. Cause I was in website development. I personally developed probably 500 plus individual platforms and these varied from like member portals to e -commerce to, you know, massive media systems. And what I think is actually going to happen is that the website as it exists, no, that's not going to work anymore, but the data, the organization of the data.

does work. Like I said, I think each, every single individual and business is going to have an AI. So I think what's going to happen is you're going to have what I call a organizational knowledge interface, which basically is the place where you put all of your public facing information. Then you have an AI that's designed to represent your brand. And then that brand that I call the brand avatar will then interface with the user's AI.

And it will communicate the information that it needs to communicate to deliver the information or the product or the, you know, the purchase process or whatever you want. But that's all going to be automated between those two, because what happens now is we essentially have a modern version of the Dewey decimal system. You know, people think like, the internet just made everything so accessible. I'm like, no, it didn't. It took the biggest warehouse you've ever seen. And instead of you having to look through a file cabinet to find what you're looking for.

Paul Povolni (48:19.566)
Right.

Paul Povolni (48:27.246)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (48:38.928)
You can now look at a computer. You still have to go find the thing and get it and pull it down and see if it's what you want. And then go back to the system to look again and do that. And so that's what we currently have. It's better than, than a catalog system that uses cards to look through, but it's not that much better. And so I think the next phase of the internet is essentially going to be is, Hey, your digital existence.

Paul Povolni (48:50.414)
Right.

Paul Povolni (48:56.238)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (49:03.248)
is going to be your knowledge base. If you can't convince people or essentially other AIs that you have a knowledge base, it's not just useful, but unique, then you have absolutely nothing. Because with generative AI, we've all been given the same tools. Like you and I could be like, write an article about this and it'll generate basically the same article. So the future of all business is essentially going to be how do you add the personality? How do you add the soul to your business?

Paul Povolni (49:05.678)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (49:16.462)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (49:30.864)
That can then drive the generative information. And so that's why, you know, a lot of these apps are like, we'll build a million articles for you. It's like, how, how, how would you know what I'm going to say about whatever topic I'm writing about? It doesn't. So it does the average solution and anybody could generate the average. And so the future is essentially a combination of uniqueness and, you know, really targeting the information to a specific individual, because even if everybody has the right answer.

Paul Povolni (49:34.062)
Right.

Paul Povolni (49:41.11)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (49:49.774)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (50:00.432)
You're still going to go to Bob. Bob's funny when he delivers the answer and Bob makes me remember it because he's into golf. And so I like Bob. He's a lot of golf analogies and he's kind of a, you know, irreverent. And I like that. I think it's funny. And so I'm going to go to Bob, even though everybody has the same answer and that's totally fine. And it's actually better because you know, the, the solution is only part of the process of delivery. The solution is actually what we're, what we're here for. So.

Paul Povolni (50:05.23)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (50:18.062)
Right. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (50:27.28)
That side's a big part of it. And then the second piece of it is licensing. So I think, you know, if you look at Nike, Nike has about 250 trademarks, which when I found that out, I was like, I thought they'd have like thousands. I thought they would have like a million trademarks and they don't. And the reason is pretty simple because.

Paul Povolni (50:37.934)
Wow. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (50:44.528)
enforcing a trademark is super expensive. You have to say, you have to track down the violators. You have to prove your case. You have to do quite a bit of work to say, Hey, that's my information that you're profiting off of it. And I'm not. And so you're in violation, but with AI and NFTs, and I don't know if everybody remembers NFTs from a few years ago, the monkey face drawing that's that's sold for a zillion dollars. I was going to change everything. I, when I, when I saw that, I was kind of like,

Paul Povolni (51:02.606)
The hot new thing, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (51:10.864)
What are you talking about? I could buy stock photos and I could license a stock photo. It's not a big deal, but NFTs that essentially with the blockchain, what you can start to do is you could stick a little number on every single piece of content you generate. So it doesn't have to be, Hey, I posted my photo on Facebook. Essentially Facebook owns that photo. Now what you could do is say, Hey, all the information I come up with is my information. I'm going to assign it every single piece and NFT.

Paul Povolni (51:14.19)
Right. Right. Right.

Mark de Grasse (51:37.072)
Then I'm going to assign an AI agent to make sure that nobody's in violation of my NFTs. And so if you are in violation, my AI is going to contact you. It's going to say cease and desist or give me one cent for every impression that involves my content. And so I think the future looks like unique data sets enforced by licensing that everybody is going to have. And then what you could do with that information is now I'm going to make all the content and I'm going to make the best content and I'm going to make the most unique content.

Paul Povolni (51:43.534)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:05.646)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (52:06.832)
Cause now I own it all. And now when open AI runs out of data, because nobody knows how to make content anymore, they're going to come to me and say, Hey, Mark, you have 50 ,000 pieces of content and it's all very unique because you individually made it. Can we use it? And I'll say, yes, it'll cost a half a cent per impression of anything that involves my content. And then boom, problem solved. I make money. They get a new data set.

Paul Povolni (52:09.23)
Right.

Paul Povolni (52:14.734)
Ha ha ha.

Paul Povolni (52:25.774)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (52:36.496)
Everybody gets better information. Everybody wins. And so that's, that's kind of where I see things going, but you know, what business owners need to know is it's like everything has to be branded. Like everything you do has to have a unique soul to it, because if it doesn't, then any AI could generate the same thing very easily. And even if it says, even if you're saying the same thing that a thousand people have said before you, it doesn't matter. Cause it's in your voice and it has your opinion and it has your spin.

Paul Povolni (52:40.206)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:46.318)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (53:01.198)
Right. Right.

Mark de Grasse (53:03.184)
And so now it's a unique piece of content and there's a specific group of people out there that will love this type of content specifically. It's perfect for them. And instead of you having to go find these people, Hey, their AI is going to find you. And now it's going to pull that information into their universe. And then now, now everybody wins because. You know, even the way, social media works right now.

Paul Povolni (53:16.974)
Right.

Paul Povolni (53:22.382)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (53:25.648)
It's a problem because it has to deal with trending content. So we've all, we've all kind of geared all of our marketing methods to like what's trending. And it's like, the reason why it had to be that way is because the capacity for the systems like Metta to process all the information they have, they couldn't feed you just the best content based on your, you know, what you like or what you're looking for. They had to feed you the latest content because that's the amount of information they could process at that moment. But AI could know all of the information. So now.

Paul Povolni (53:33.358)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (53:51.918)
Right.

Paul Povolni (53:55.47)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (53:55.632)
Maybe we have solutions for you that have existed for the last 10 years, but you just didn't know about it because it didn't fit the training data or it didn't fit the commercial aspirations of Google. And so it just never came up. You know, I was actually using this example when I was trying to explain the situation to my au pair who's she's from France. And so, you know, there's a language barrier there. So I'm having to explain this stuff. but I was, I said,

Paul Povolni (54:10.158)
Right, right.

Mark de Grasse (54:22.16)
that the entire process of trying to find information or just imagine that somebody wrote the most amazing poem in the world. And it was just epic, just like, my gosh, the way he put these words into place are just beautiful. But he doesn't know SEO. And on top of that, since the key words he used in his poem were not looked by anybody, it never would have been ranked and it never would have been found. But now because of AI, that information can be found.

Paul Povolni (54:36.91)
Right.

Paul Povolni (54:46.638)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (54:51.088)
because AI knows the information and it could connect it with the people who are looking for it. So honestly, it could, we could already have all the answers to everything we've ever wanted. Every piece of good entertainment and every piece of everything could already be here and it's just sitting there because nobody could find it. And AI could be the thing that pulls it all together. And it was like, Hey guys, you had the answer the whole time. It was just sitting there and you just couldn't find it. So.

Paul Povolni (55:09.006)
Right.

Paul Povolni (55:14.126)
Right, right, right.

Mark de Grasse (55:16.976)
That I think it'll be the end of searching because your AI will know you and it'll find the information that you want. That's a long answer.

Paul Povolni (55:23.214)
Yeah. Well, and that's an amazing answer. so even with, you mentioned NFTs and NFTs, you know, have kind of become a joke now, you know, we've, we, we, everybody jumped in on it. They say, this is the next big thing. And people got in and got out, made a lot of money. And, and people are like, NFTs was just a trend or it's, it's pointless. But for me, I think NFTs were QR codes from the early 2000s, you know, where there were a great idea, but the execution.

and the usability and the practicality of using it wasn't quite there. Like we...

people started, I remember in the early, well, mid, mid, two 12 to two way, two 12, they, you know, QR codes were coming out, but there wasn't a practical way to scan them. Like we had our phones, but we couldn't like, how do I, how do I scan the QR code? And, and so, you know, app developers were creating it, but it wasn't convenient. Like it didn't like, I don't want to download an app. And do I download the right app? And is this going to work? You know? And so there was a time almost 10 years where QR code,

were ignored. They were a great idea, but we weren't quite there until phones made it a part of the camera app.

And then once it became a part of the camera app that everybody has on their phone, suddenly QR codes are now everywhere because now for me to access that technology, it's convenient, it's easy, it's whatever. And so I think NFTs are kind of that same kind of thing. They didn't make any sense. How do I do it? What do I do with it? What's a practical use of it? How do I execute of it? How do I access it?

Paul Povolni (57:00.046)
is it more than just ugly monkeys? And so I think there's gonna be a little bit of a break between where we were and everybody kind of jumping in to the next iteration of it. Because like you said, it's that digital signature, it's that way to own things that I think is amazing. And so you also talked about the personal brand, you talked about Bob, you talked about him having content out there.

And so for the business owner that listens to that and says, that's overwhelming, creating all that content, creating all that stuff out there. Like, is this just for elite few that have the, it's a corporation. It's just for the big businesses. How is that practical for somebody? You're like, if websites are kind of evolving.

If search is evolving, if SEO is evolving, what does that mean for the landscape? Or what does that mean for the roof? Or what does that mean for the physical therapist or the dentist? What does that mean for them?

Mark de Grasse (57:56.496)
It's fantastic. Because essentially what AI does is democratizes content creation. And that's what I've always tried to teach people is content creation. Cause like I said at the beginning, I got into making websites cause I just wanted to get the information. I was trying to train the business owner how to put the information out because honestly, I want to hear what a family doctor has to say about specific diseases and even local situations like allergies. Like they know more than anybody. Like I want their information out there.

But that person has to run a business. They have to take care of people. They have to, you know, do their job. And the problem with that is that then, then what it goes to is, Hey, they need business and they need content. So let me just hire a marketer. And so the entire internet has been built by marketers essentially where it's like, Hey, I don't know anything about being a family doctor, but here's a hundred page website with a bunch of articles that I made up based on some research I did.

Paul Povolni (58:30.19)
Right, right, right, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (58:48.862)
Right, right.

Mark de Grasse (58:52.592)
but thanks to AI, essentially, if you could, I call it formulation where if you could just make a formula for your brand voice, for your principles, for the values that you hold dear, if you could just make a formula for that, now you can take that formula and you could apply it to content generation and Hey, maybe you're not good on camera. So you go to Hey Jen and have an avatar deliver the content that you would love to deliver in video, but you're just super awkward or maybe you have a stutter or you just don't feel comfortable on camera. Totally fine.

Paul Povolni (59:08.59)
Right.

Paul Povolni (59:20.686)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (59:21.168)
Here's an avatar to do it. So now instead of having to rely on marketers, which I love marketers and, and honestly we do our best, but at the end of the day, we're not doctors. We're not mechanics. We're not lawyers. We're not scientists. We're not any of those things. And we're having to create the content for you for that. And you, and my biggest frustration with, with business owners is, Hey, I'm building your website. It's going to be great. We're going to get all this business. Could you please just tell me what you do?

Paul Povolni (59:23.278)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (59:29.486)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Right. Right.

Mark de Grasse (59:48.112)
tell me the things you offer so I could write down what it is and make some content. And even then they won't do it. And so, you know, the power here is, it's like, no, you don't have to do it. Just sit down with me. I'm going to figure out who you are, what you value, you know, your basic principles. And then I could take this formula and I could create all of the content. And it's a manual process right now, but with AI pretty soon, you'll be able to go through it. And once you hand AI the formula, it'll say, gotcha.

Paul Povolni (59:48.682)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (59:55.47)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:00:09.166)
Right. Right.

Mark de Grasse (01:00:16.08)
I'm technically a PhD. I could write your article and based on the opinions of this doctor, I now know how they would treat this illness or whatever it is. And so it's fantastic. It's like a dream for business owners because now you could finally get the word out and now, and things are still developing, but now you could build this data set. I keep talking about, and have it be unique and have it be based on, on everything that you are without having to do the work, which I've.

Paul Povolni (01:00:16.462)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:00:25.838)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (01:00:45.582)
right.

Mark de Grasse (01:00:45.84)
like my success. So what I do when I have my agency is I build the website, build the brand, build all your social media templates, build the funnel, build your lead magnets. And then I'd shoot 30 custom videos that showed you exactly how to utilize all the things as long as you keep on making content. I had a 5 % success rate, like 95 % of people ended up either wanting to hire me to continue to do the stuff or hired somebody else to continue doing the stuff and never took it on except for that 5%.

Paul Povolni (01:01:01.037)
Yeah. Yeah.

Wow.

Paul Povolni (01:01:14.222)
Right. Right.

Mark de Grasse (01:01:15.792)
And so I know exactly what's happening and why it's happening, but AI is literally the solution because now you could, you don't have to do anything. I mean, just imagine I go back to the doctor because I had a healthcare focused brand too. And now you could just say like, Hey, I'm just going to record a week of me working and the things I talk about with my patients and how I treat things and how I say things.

And literally it could take all that information and turn it into essentially a virtual version of you. And then that thing could write content for you. And that's, that's where we're headed. So now it's not even going to take you even sitting down to write anything. It's going to be literally, Hey, here's what you say. And you're like, yeah, you know, you still got to verify it, but, you know, that, that's, that's the automation I'm looking for because all the little apps you see out there though, like, it's going to do this.

Paul Povolni (01:01:48.142)
Wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (01:01:55.886)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:02:00.59)
Right. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:02:07.47)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (01:02:10.384)
article for you, this video for you, or, you could have a version of you doing a podcast with another version of somebody else. I'm like, that's cute. That's cute that you think that any individual can be encapsulated in a short amount of time and then we'll deliver the thing like a human would. Because I'm telling you, if I stub my toe in the morning, the rest of my day might be different. So are you going to factor that in?

Paul Povolni (01:02:20.718)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:02:29.806)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (01:02:35.598)
Right, right, right. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:02:38.224)
You might be able to, but it's not going to be real. And then, I learned something out happy on the other side of the planet randomly. Like you can't factor that in. People are infinitely variable. And, and we really oversimplify that fact. We say like, no, everybody's basically the same. It's like, no, they're not. The fact that you even think that just shows how crazy that is. Cause if you think that I'm the way I am with you right now, talking to podcasts, then I am with my.

Paul Povolni (01:02:41.454)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:02:47.438)
right?

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:02:56.174)
No, not at all. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:03:06.512)
11 year old autistic son, you're wrong. My, my behavioral completely switched based on the environment, the person I'm talking to, my mood, the time of day, the weather outside, you know, so many factors. So, yeah, nobody has to worry about being taken over by AI in terms of, it replacing the, the complexity that is every single individual. Like you just, you're not going to come close, but it can.

Paul Povolni (01:03:10.158)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (01:03:19.022)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:03:25.87)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:03:33.198)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (01:03:34.48)
approximate some articles for you. That's not a big deal.

Paul Povolni (01:03:37.358)
Right, well absolutely.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, I'd mentioned the uncanny valley earlier. I think, I think there is a certain part of us that can still have a, almost a intuitive or an instinctual reaction to stuff that doesn't feel human enough. You know, with the uncanny valley, you know, it's, it's the idea that AI or, generated, people have a point where their realism is very realistic.

but it's still not perfect. And because we're so familiar with the human face that it's.

uncanny, it's just something is not quite right. And we've seen that in movies, we've seen that in movies where, you know, it's like, yeah, he looks human, but something's not quite right. It doesn't, it feels weird for some reason. I think, I think AI is going to have that kind of a thing when you miss that human element, that is that uniqueness to, you know, the version of Mark that's with his family, the version of Mark that's with, you know, business owners, the version of Mark that's on a podcast.

Mark de Grasse (01:04:18.064)
wrong.

Paul Povolni (01:04:45.008)
You know, there's versions of you and there's the human element that you bring to those contexts that makes it feel more real. And so I think, yeah, finding that merger of, you know, you and AI and not 100 % just relying on AI. I think people have gotten lazy. I think they're kind of like generating, like you said, hundreds of articles and, you know, hundreds of web pages to kind of gain Google and try and trick Google into ranking you and all that stuff. I think there's going to be a point where,

it's going to have to stop and people are going to be like, yeah, this is not good content. This is not valuable content. This is not important. And I think even with, you know, the, the, the prompting, you know, was a big thing with, with the, the early GPT, you know, yeah, prompt engineering. I think, I think even that initially was necessary and is still important. I think getting the, answers out of AI is going to get better, with the, with the prompting. And so you're not going to.

Mark de Grasse (01:05:28.208)
The props engineering. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:05:45.152)
to feel that I'm inadequate to get the answers I want out of AI, I think that's going to get better and that's going to continue evolving. And I think also what's going to evolve is, you know, the, the, the,

Type of content we get back and how relevant it is. I think that's gonna get you know, like you mentioned It's gonna learn who you are learn where you're at Learn all the the ins and outs of your situation and give you answers that are even better than they've ever been I think those those are some important things What are some other things that you feel and I can't believe we've already run up against an hour here. This has been amazing What are some final things final thoughts on this when it comes to AI?

Mark de Grasse (01:06:28.752)
You know what? Well, and you really said it where it's like the uncanny valley effect. Like people do notice that. And the, what we're noticing is fakeness. We want. Genuosity. We want people to be genuine. And even if that, that them being genuine is not what we consider good, we'd still prefer it over fake because I think really highlights with the trend that's happening is the downfall of Hollywood. Right? I mean, we're finding out about all these actors and all these horrific things that they're into.

Paul Povolni (01:06:37.23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:06:57.264)
And we're kind of like, Hey, that person used to be a hero of mine, or I used to think that person was attractive and now they are hideous to me because I found out how they are. And so I think what we're seeing is people are rejecting this, this fake view of perfection, where it's kind of like, we all understand that not only is perfection impossible, but it's incredibly unrealistic. And if you do see something that looks perfect, you will start to question it because you know that there is nothing perfect. And so.

Paul Povolni (01:07:01.294)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:07:24.174)
Right. Right.

Mark de Grasse (01:07:26.512)
Now I think we're starting to acknowledge that fact and we're starting to pull it into everything where we're like, you know what? Yeah. Keeping up with the Joneses is stupid. Like, yeah, Cindy and, and, you know, Bill, they look like they're happy, but it turns out that they hate each other. And even though they have this giant house and all these cars and their kids look perfect and everything like that, they are miserable. And you know that because that, you know, I slept with the babysitter or some crap. And then.

And then the whole thing falls apart. And so we keep seeing the downfall of these, you know, stars, these epitome of whatever we thought was good. And we're starting to, to accept that like, my gosh, this, the lie that we've been told that perfection is something that can be attained is now offensive to us. And so what we want is we want real people and we're really, we're also willing to accept the things that aren't necessarily good in ourselves. And so using that, we're like, Hey, I'm a broken person and that's fine.

Paul Povolni (01:07:51.214)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (01:08:07.822)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (01:08:18.416)
And I'm going to, I'm dealing with that and I want to see other people who are dealing with that too. And so I think there's a, this resurgence of, like I said, the beginning of the truth. And so the more true you are and the more you can understand yourself so that you can present the truth as much as possible, then that's what people are starting to connect to. And so, you know, even though AI is the fakest thing we've ever made, you know, from a invention standpoint,

Paul Povolni (01:08:19.246)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:08:41.334)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:08:43.312)
It's the best because it's actually bringing out the most of us where we now we could find out all the information we've ever wanted to know to develop ourselves into whatever we want to be, which you can't do if you don't know yourself. And so, I think everything we're doing now actually reflects that. So as a business owner and just as a person, your goal now is to really find out who you are, really find out what you like, really find out what you want to do. And then now you have this amazing tool.

Paul Povolni (01:09:07.246)
Right.

Mark de Grasse (01:09:10.832)
that you could figure it all out. You could make everything happen and it's going to be easier than ever before. And since everybody else is doing it, we're all on the same page and everybody else has the same tool. I mean, that's, that's the big difference we now in any time in the past is that the cool tools have always been at the top, right? You get the scraps everywhere else, but at the top, they get the good stuff. Now it's like, Nope, it's open source. We all have the same thing. What are we going to do?

Paul Povolni (01:09:23.022)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:09:29.806)
Right. Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (01:09:37.006)
Right. Right. Right. Right.

Mark de Grasse (01:09:39.92)
And so, it's an incredible time. It's like, the most amazing time. This AI was the dawn of something I've dreamt about since I was like five years old. Where I, well, my dad's a computer engineer. And so I've always been around computers, even since, you know, I was born in the early eighties. And so I've seen the whole evolution and I've been extremely into hard science fiction for my whole life. And so I've read like probably 500 to a thousand sci -fi books. And so a lot of my.

Paul Povolni (01:09:49.934)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (01:10:06.998)
Wow, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:10:09.552)
A lot of my AI opinions are actually this injection of, all the AI instances that I've read about for my entire life. And then now they're finally happening. And all I have to do is apply use cases from fiction and be like, yeah, that's not going to happen. Don't worry about it.

Paul Povolni (01:10:16.238)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:10:21.646)
Right.

And it is amazing that we had imagined it so long ago. That's just fascinating that it's only now becoming accessible to people, but it's something that creative people imagined so long ago. And that's just fascinating to me how some of the tech that we now use was literally imagined decades before.

it was even capable, like even before we had the knowledge, the machinery to formulate and create these devices or these technologies. And so I find that fascinating, that you were raised reading these books and you're seeing stuff that decades ago were written and now it's actually a reality. And it is an exciting time. It's amazing to be around at a time when there's such a transition in everything,

is happening. And man, we didn't even get a chance to talk about wearable AI and all the other things around that. I mean, my goodness. But this has been amazing, Mark. I've really enjoyed this. And I feel we could talk for hours longer about some of this stuff because it is truly fascinating. It's what's happening right now. Definitely something that cannot be ignored, no matter who you are, whether you're a big corporation or whether you're a small business, this is going to be a part of your future. And so, you know,

Mark de Grasse (01:11:23.856)
yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:11:48.928)
maybe we'll schedule another time to chat about how it affects even more ground level for people. Because, you know, I for some people like I am just overwhelmed. Like I, this is I see no way this could ever be a part of my business and what I'm doing and what I'm creating. And I'd love to have that conversation at some point to just even bring it down to that level for the for the Joe, the average or Bob, you mentioned, you know, what does that mean for them and how could they start?

Mark de Grasse (01:12:00.08)
Hehehe.

Mark de Grasse (01:12:15.92)
Are you still there?

Paul Povolni (01:12:18.832)
executing something like that in what they're doing. But Mark, this has been amazing, man. Thank you so much for coming on.

Mark de Grasse (01:12:25.456)
Thanks for having me. Now. This is always a blast. Anytime I let anybody let's me ranch for that long. I'm like, this is a good podcast. I'm like, I better cut it off soon, but no, this has been ton of fun.

Paul Povolni (01:12:30.67)
hahahaha

This is awesome. No, I love this and I love what you bring to it. I love your passion for it. I love that you've jumped all the way in and you've just absorbed this and you're able to share it and it's just been amazing. Thank you so much.

Mark de Grasse (01:12:51.056)
No, thank you. Now this is a blast. This is what I've always dreamt of. So I'm happy.

Paul Povolni (01:12:57.198)
Awesome, have a great day, take care.

Paul Povolni (01:13:01.902)
All right, cool, man. Thank you. That was so good. I mean, that hour flew by and I don't think we even scratched the surface of what we could have talked about.

Mark de Grasse (01:13:03.12)
Cool.

Mark de Grasse (01:13:10.832)
No, there's so much more. I have all my conspiracy stuff too. Like, you want to know how Google really works? I actually went to a executive summit six months ago at the Google headquarters. And I was like, man, it just confirmed everything I thought about Google that, that their, you know, their system is just broken. Like the way they run things. And you could see it just with the release of GA4, you know, the new analytics, which is still like sort of launched.

Paul Povolni (01:13:15.406)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:13:28.654)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:13:33.422)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:13:40.432)
That's how they do everything. They don't talk about the terms that they use. They haven't centralized anything that they do. And every single platform they have is its own independent executive team. And so they don't even talk to each other. So it's anyways, I think they're going to fail and I'm excited about it.

Paul Povolni (01:13:52.91)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (01:13:59.95)
Well, and the thing is they have so much access to so much information and so much data, they should be dominating. Like they, yeah, yeah. I mean, over anybody else, they've got all this history of just people's thinking and people's desires and people's search and people's information and all of that stuff that could be, you know, feeding this AI that would.

Mark de Grasse (01:14:07.76)
This should be destroyed. Just.

Paul Povolni (01:14:25.678)
totally destroyed GPT if they got it together. But it just, it doesn't seem like they've quite nailed it. I think they're a little distracted.

Mark de Grasse (01:14:34.32)
Nah, no, they just, well, the problem is they just got into the money, you know, and as soon as everybody's making money, you stop thinking about innovation. You start squashing innovation is what happens because you, instead of turning inside and saying, how can we make this better? You're like, no, we could just buy everybody who's a potential competitor and we'll integrate the information, but they don't because that takes time and effort. And honestly, if you're making money hand over fist, who's going to be the one to say, Hey guys.

Paul Povolni (01:14:49.774)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:14:53.55)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:14:59.984)
We should really think about building something new. They're going to be like, what are you talking about? We're making trillions. Like, it doesn't even matter at this point. So, you know, they have to fall.

Paul Povolni (01:15:02.894)
Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, and it's the example of Blockbuster and Netflix. Blockbuster was like, no, people like coming into stores to choose videos, which is amazing. And I do miss that. But they were offered Netflix for like 50 million, I think, or something like that. Netflix was like, hey, do you want to buy us? Nah, we're good. And yeah, we're making money doing what we're doing. People like to come in stores and get their VHS and DVDs. And so it was a missed opportunity by Blockbuster because they just didn't see it.

Mark de Grasse (01:15:26.256)
Losers.

Paul Povolni (01:15:39.168)
the potential and I think Google is in a very dangerous place because you know right now it's like we want attention and we sell people's attention to advertisers and we are making lots of money by selling your attention and not serving you selling your attention you know and so so that I don't think they're nervous about the things they should be nervous about.

Mark de Grasse (01:16:02.064)
No, well, actually they are the, the VP of, marketing at Google came out and literally said that good times are over, like in a press conference. He said that things are not the way they are anymore. Like it's going to be rough. Like, and I'm like, dude, well, it's funny because that same guy oversaw the downfall of Yahoo. It's the same executive. They hired him at Google and put him in the same position. And now he's doing the same thing. He's trying to monetize all of Google.

Paul Povolni (01:16:04.27)
really? Okay.

Paul Povolni (01:16:22.83)
Wow.

Wow.

Mark de Grasse (01:16:30.256)
And what Google should be doing is doubling down on content. They should be like, Hey, we have all the content. Like that's making everybody feel like we give a crap about content creators. And instead they're going the exact opposite direction and they're turning into the classified section of the newspaper. And I'm just like, man, you guys suck. You guys could have done so much stuff with all that money and you did nothing. And I hope you fail. And, and then the new people come on, but you know,

Paul Povolni (01:16:37.966)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (01:16:44.014)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right.

Paul Povolni (01:16:50.766)
Right, right. Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:16:56.368)
But like I said, like all they have to do is keep buying businesses and then they squash the innovation and then look, we still are on top. And that's, that's what's happened. That's why we're, we're, we're at right now. And the only thing that broke it was open AI is really the only thing that buck that trend and, and Elon being a lunatic, you know,

Paul Povolni (01:17:02.126)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:17:14.974)
you

And it's a whole nother discussion. But yeah, I think, I think you're right. I think they, they also experiment with stuff and kill it. And people don't know whether to trust or to like go all in on stuff. Cause I've, I've used so many of their apps that they launch and I'm like, cool, I'm going to go all in on this. And then they kill it. And you're like, man, I can't trust anything they come up with. Like, so yeah, because they're going to kill it. They're not going to go all in and, and make it the best thing you can. They experiment in areas that we don't need experts.

Mark de Grasse (01:17:30.096)
yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:17:34.576)
It's like, what? Yeah, it's a waste of time.

Paul Povolni (01:17:45.424)
in. So yeah, I think they are in a dangerous place. I think you're absolutely right in that.

Mark de Grasse (01:17:51.44)
Well, actually, I have a whole, wow, I'm writing a book about it called The Succession. And it's basically how AI is going to essentially burn down every aspect of the current system. And then a succession is what happens after a wildfire when the soil is rejuvenated, the big shadowy trees aren't destroying life underneath them, and then you have a resurgence of innovation. So it's great. And it's about time. I wish this happened 10 years ago.

Paul Povolni (01:17:57.135)
Mm.

Paul Povolni (01:18:02.734)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:18:18.19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and you're right, they have become the classifieds. They haven't.

they haven't governed that as well as they should have. And so people have gamed the system and figured out how to manipulate it. And so it becomes unreliable. So even as a, you know, a classifieds, it's like, well, but is it really the best classifieds? Like the hope was that we could find the best and, but we only find the people that have manipulated best, you know, it's not necessarily the best.

Mark de Grasse (01:18:46.992)
Yeah. Yeah. It's not a system that, that could work. And honestly, they were, they were fucking liars. Like they never told us the algorithm. They switched it whenever they felt like it. They broke. I mean, I know entire businesses, you know, industries that went under when they made a change that nobody knew was coming and nobody good does that. Right. At the very least you go to your group of content creators and say, Hey guys, here's what's going to happen next. Like, what do you think?

Paul Povolni (01:18:55.342)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:19:06.222)
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:19:15.824)
Here's how to take advantage of it. Blah, blah, blah. Like it's just basic policy to do in marketing. And they were just like, F you guys, we're the top. We'll you'll do what we tell you to do. And it's just like, I'll let you do that for a little bit, but the instant I could get out of this system, I'm going to jump ship and I'm going to trash you. So go ahead.

Paul Povolni (01:19:20.398)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:19:25.934)
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:19:34.926)
Right.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think, yeah, and the people that do the SEO and do the marketing is basically, they're just the best at gaming it and lying and manipulation, you know? And so that doesn't, that's not a good thing that, you know, the people that use you best are the people that manipulate you and their customers and the audience and all that. It's like, that's not really a good business model. And that's set up for failure.

Mark de Grasse (01:19:46.736)
manipulation.

Mark de Grasse (01:19:56.88)
the most.

Mark de Grasse (01:20:04.528)
Well, that's, that's what I'm doing now. So I call it traditional human branding where I'm saying like, Hey, this focus on profits and money and, and greed, like that has to stop. Like we need to get back to you have a group of people who have a problem and you have a solution. And so that's what we're doing. It's problems and solutions. And that's it. Not we need to make more money. And that's it. And the government has sold everybody on this based on like, well, you don't want everybody to lose their jobs. It's like, what?

Paul Povolni (01:20:25.198)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:20:33.808)
That doesn't keep jobs. You know, UPS just fired 11 ,000 workers after they had the most profitable year ever. What does their success have anything to do with jobs? And so, and then if you go deeper in the system, you start to realize that these giant bureaucracies that, that places like Google have set up are literally just tax shelters. Like the people I talk to at Google don't know shit about anything. And I'm just, and they're not that they're not smart. They're very smart, like PhDs and all these big people. I'm just like,

Paul Povolni (01:20:40.974)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:20:44.846)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:20:54.51)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (01:21:02.83)
Yeah.

Mark de Grasse (01:21:03.632)
You don't even know how your own system works. And it's like, yeah, this is humans or tax shelters to these big corporations. And as soon as the tax shelter isn't necessary anymore, it's gone. It has nothing to do with customers or employees. It has to do with making money. So anyways, I think that's, that's what's stopping and, and it's good. Burn it down, you know, whatever.

Paul Povolni (01:21:16.526)
Yeah.

Wow. Right, right.

Paul Povolni (01:21:26.734)
Yeah. Well, that's, I'd love to talk more about even your book and what you see then the emerging out of the ashes, you know, once, once, once it's all burned down. And so, I mean, we can keep talking or we can, we can do this another time, but I have forgot to stop recording.