Pod Insights Hot Smart Rich with Maggie Sellers Reum Gossiping about Alix Earle’s Empire and 5 AI Trends You Need To Know About Now About this episode Have you ever wondered what Alix Earle, AI, and Gen Z’s ‘Absurd Era’ Reveal About the Future of Business, Entertainment & Influence?
Black Friday flopped. Booking.com became sexy. Dancing With the Stars is now a full-blown creator pipeline. And the average influencer? Officially over.
In this week’s episode, Maggie and Katie break down the cultural chaos shaping 2026, from unhinged micro-trends to the new class system emerging from AI… and why the myth of overnight success is the most dangerous lie online.
They explain:
Why Black Friday felt flat even as it broke records
How tweens and micro trends reshaped consumer behavior
Why cultural relevancy beat traditional product launches
The travel planning study every woman is sending her partner
How Booking dot com became the most unexpected breakout brand
The creator to reality TV to entrepreneur pipeline
Why business shows struggle on video while Shark Tank still wins
The new rules for storytelling in business and education
The top AI predictions for 2026 and the HSR point of view
Why Gen Z will become entrepreneurs by necessity
How micro companies and tastemakers will shape culture
Why human imperfection will become a trust marker
Why analog living is emerging as a new luxury
Chapters:
01:00 Black Friday was underwhelming but record breaking
03:00 Why cultural relevancy beat product drops
05:00 Tweens and absurd micro trends
06:00 The travel planning attractiveness study
08:00 Why Booking.dot com finally became cool
10:00 Dancing With the Stars and the new creator pipeline
11:00 Alex Earl, Brooke Nader, and the reality TV effect
13:00 Why business shows fail on video
15:00 Shark Tank works because it is emotional, not logical
17:00 What brands get wrong about content
19:00 The new rules of education and entertainment
20:00 Breaking down the top AI predictions of 2026
21:00 Gen Z forced entrepreneurship
23:00 Micro companies and the rise of taste makers
24:00 Personalised education and the end of the classroom
26:00 Human assisted services becoming luxury
27:00 The death of the average influencer
28:00 Trust premiums and human proof labels
29:00 Analog living becoming aspirational
31:00 Using AI to evolve your business
33:00 The myth of overnight success
34:00 Mashki’s decade long rise
35:00 Build to sell or build to keep
36:00 How founders should think about public building
38:00 Privilege, backlash, and the messy middle
40:00 Vulnerability as a competitive advantage
42:00 Why creators struggle to pull back
44:00 Sharing outcomes versus sharing in real time
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Maggie Sellers Reum? If you're starting a business, there are certain things that are so fun to think about. Y'all know I love a mood board, so everything that relates to the creative, the name, the brand, the website, the vision board. But then there are the things that make you pause and ask, am I even doing this correctly? Or do I even want to be doing this? Like forming your business, getting the right documents, keeping your personal information private. This is where our sponsor, Northwest Registered Agent, is so helpful. They're a one-stop shop for founders who want to launch and legitimize their business without turning it into a giant admin spiral. They help you form an LLC or a corporation, act as your registered agent, and give you tools like a business address, operating agreement, website, phone number, professional email, and free guides.
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1:33 Maggie Sellers Reum? I actually don't think this should scare people. I think we are in this era where people hear about AI and all of the terrible things that are happening. When I read this and gave my POV, I got really excited about this.
1:44 Speaker 02 And the reality is, AI is not going anywhere. Get in the sandbox and get your hands dirty and figure out what is going to work for you, or your brand, or your job. Because if you don't, it's the same thing as not being pop culturally relevant. You will be left behind. It's not an if, it's a when.
2:04 Maggie Sellers Reum? In case you missed it, you're allowed to be hot, smart, and rich. So let's get into it.
2:15 Maggie Sellers Reum? One, two, three. I got my clapper back. Katie Sellers, are you ready to get hot summer rich?
2:21 Speaker 02 So ready.
2:21 Maggie Sellers Reum? Let's get into it.
2:22 Speaker 02 Let's get into it.
2:23 Maggie Sellers Reum? So you're back on the mic.
2:24 Speaker 02 I'm back. I'm here. I'm in LA like again, which is fun.
2:28 Maggie Sellers Reum? After crazy travel weekend because we both got back after American Thanksgiving. Which, tell us the truth, in Canada, does the world stop like it does in the US? Even though you guys don't celebrate?
2:40 Speaker 02 I did not receive one email.
2:42 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah.
2:43 Speaker 02 From anyone in our business on anything for almost four days, which I was like, oh, you know, this is going to be time I can, I can catch up on work. And then I was like, you know what? If everyone else is chilling, I'm also going to take a chill.
2:55 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah.
2:56 Speaker 02 So it was a good break. What about you?
2:57 Maggie Sellers Reum? Well, I feel like this year, American Thanksgiving, Black Friday was very underwhelming, which was the first year I felt that in a very long time. You can speak more to it from your experience at Missouri, but like I didn't feel the need to shop like I usually do. I didn't feel the same discounts were being given, the same spend. And interestingly, as the reports have come out, that's actually a consistent thing that across the US people felt, except for what market do you think?
3:25 Speaker 02 Like country?
3:26 Maggie Sellers Reum? No, tweens.
3:27 Speaker 02 Oh, tweens.
3:28 Maggie Sellers Reum? Tweens have just taken over everything, but so they had crazy shopping numbers. And I feel like this is the theme of this year is two truths can be true at the same time. So even though I thought that Black Friday was totally underwhelming and I didn't feel the need to shop, they still hit the numbers out of the park. So Shopify reported that $6.2 billion in total sales were made on Friday, which is up 25% from last year, even though I didn't feel like it was that amazing of a sale. And then interestingly, did you look at some of the top trending products that they reported?
4:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, I love when Harley posts these updates because I go and specifically look at the products and the brands. And I pretty much knew every brand name except for Goose Creek I had never heard of before.
4:10 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yep. So there was ALO with like a crew neck pullover, Cozy Earth, which we just found out about with sheets, Merit Beauty, which shocked me.
4:18 Speaker 02 Well, I think Whitney, which we'll maybe talk about later, did her collab with them immediately leading into Black Friday. So I think that could have been a big draw for them.
4:28 Maggie Sellers Reum? Base, Brooklinen, Ilya Beauty, Caraway Home, these are all names that we know and love already. But I completely agree with you. I think the brands that played into the cultural moment leading into Black Friday actually did it the best. Whereas in years prior, the best was brands independently dropping new products that consumers didn't know about yet. I saw that on a lot of brands that we talk about on this podcast and I completely washed over the marketing. Like it has already been done. And so it just shows you how quickly pop culture is moving nowadays where it's like you need to think of new things. So what's worked for the past five years doesn't necessarily work moving forward.
5:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, the winners this year were cultural relevancy and hooked on to that. And that's what propelled them versus to your point, like a new product launch. It kind of gets lost in the noise.
5:13 Maggie Sellers Reum? Well, and the other person I thought won incredibly well was Goldfish.
5:19 Speaker 02 It was so cute.
5:20 Maggie Sellers Reum? But it plays into again, the big thing of this year, which was like bag charms and little boo-boos and this obsession with little mini things and oversized items. So I feel like we are moving into the era where because there is so much noise, it's either like the crazy outlandish, like how big can it get? Or it's almost toning it down and being like so tiny and micro. And that is where the obsession lies with Gen Z and millennial consumers. So for the people that are listening that don't know about Goldfish, they had not done the Macy's parade in almost a decade. And they had a float made very quick actually to the time of the parade, which usually these things take months. So the team at Macy's is working for 18 months ahead of time to prepare for the next parade.
6:02 Speaker 02 So they've planned next year's already.
6:03 Maggie Sellers Reum? Already. Yeah. And only a few weeks ago, Goldfish came in and was like, we want to create the smallest float ever. It is 49 times smaller than the average display. And it measured only eight inches tall and 14 inches long. And look at the ripple effects that it created.
6:22 Speaker 02 It's the rule of absurdity. It was so absurd that it was so tiny, but that's the only thing people are talking about or care about.
6:28 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah. But can we talk about what else is absurd?
6:31 Speaker 02 Yes.
6:31 Maggie Sellers Reum? People's travel behavior.
6:34 Maggie Sellers Reum? So I made a video probably three months ago that was like, hey, can we just talk about plane etiquette? Like, you cannot be playing your sound out loud on a plane, listening to a movie, getting up before people in the rows in front of you are like, where, where has the common sense of the decency come? And it has taken a whole new level because on the busiest day of the year, two days ago, US officials rolled out a campaign called the Golden Age of Travel, Starts With You.
7:04 Speaker 02 Oh, wow.
7:05 Maggie Sellers Reum? And it is all about trying to change the mind shift of Gen Z and millennial travelers that have now come to airports in pajamas, are bringing like bags of stuff, are just like treating the airplane as if it's their home versus a place where you're sharing communal space. And it couldn't have come at a better time because travel is one of the categories that people are spending on, people want to get away. Did you see the study that booking.com just put out?
7:33 Speaker 02 I'm obsessed with it because I'm one of those women who would find it more attractive.
7:37 Maggie Sellers Reum? So I just saw the study that 93% of women say a partner who plans travel is attractive, even more attractive than having a good body or a good paycheck, even foreplay.
7:52 Speaker 02 I mean, it's definitely one of those things where it's like, okay, honey, if you can orchestrate an entire experience from start to finish and I don't have to think about it and be in my feminine, like, it is very attractive.
8:05 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah. I have been very blessed in my personal relationship that my husband has always planned travel. But it is interesting because I have this conversation a lot with ambitious women. It's like I've been in other relationships where that wasn't the norm and really across our dynamic, like booking restaurant reservations, like leading our family is what I would call it. And I always would have these conversations behind closed doors, which was like, pick your heart. Like, when you are an ambitious woman, it's hard either way, whether your husband is like the dominant alpha that's telling you what you're doing, because that's the role that we so often take during the workday. And so... Learning how to almost take that mask off and enter into that femininity is is a skill that took me a very long time to learn.
8:48 Maggie Sellers Reum? But then the other hard is like you constantly are the one that's leading both at your job and both in your personal life. And so it's interesting to see this report come out that's showing that like 93% of women want that. And the more interesting insight that I have is like, we are in 2026. My prediction is we are moving into an era where data matters more than anything. Human interaction matters more than anything, but I think if you think about product efficacy, right? And what people are looking for in categories like skincare, or baby, or beauty, they want clinical studies, they want product efficacy. It's not about the branding anymore. It's about what is the actual product?
9:29 Maggie Sellers Reum? And so it's really easy for those companies to be marketing based on the clinical trials. It's a lot harder for tech companies to do that, to prove product efficacy. So I actually loved the insight that booking.com took it upon themselves to run this study, then build an entire marketing campaign out of it. And is now able to use this data to be able to influence real decisions. And I don't know if you've seen it on TikTok.
9:56 Speaker 02 This guy books?
9:57 Maggie Sellers Reum? This guy books.
9:58 Speaker 02 I'm obsessed with this guy books.
10:00 Maggie Sellers Reum? It is so good. And it's like, one of the things that I think has actually cut through the noise. And for me, like booking.com is not sexy, but they made it sexy.
10:07 Speaker 02 They've made it sexy. And like the real life data, to your point, they've done a really good job of entering the race of like, what is real? And that's gonna be so important heading into next year. There's so much fake online, so much created content that's just like schlop. And they really cut through the noise. And honestly, like, I could see it winning an award for like, best marketing campaign of the year. It was iconic.
10:31 Maggie Sellers Reum? Did you send it to your husband?
10:33 Speaker 02 Well, I was in the midst of traveling to come here, so I haven't yet, but I will be sending it to my loving husband tonight.
10:40 Maggie Sellers Reum? All the HSR girls that are listening to this, send this to the mail in your life and let's see what happens.
10:47 Speaker 02 And I think just to bring it back to like, for the entrepreneurs out there who are looking for a way to cut through the noise and to do something creative, think about doing something like this. Like you can create your own viral moment.
11:00 Speaker 02 Even if it's not put into your lap and like plan for things where you can plant seeds, do some background work and then make a moment out of it. And I think that's exactly what booking.com did. Like they weren't sexy and now everyone's talking about them.
11:12 Maggie Sellers Reum? Literally everyone. They were on and I heard about it through CNBC and it was like, I think the head of PR that was going on and talking about the segment and it completely cut through all of the Thanksgiving, Black Friday marketing.
11:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
11:23 Maggie Sellers Reum? Genius. Okay. We really need to talk about Dancing with the Stars.
11:28 Speaker 02 Oh, yes.
11:29 Maggie Sellers Reum? My favorite topic. Transparently, I'm not a huge reality TV person.
11:33 Speaker 02 I am.
11:33 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yes. So we have two people sitting in the chair. One who sees it trickle down in short form content. So like, I love watching the dances on social media. I love following the vlogs, but like I'm not sitting down to an hour long Dancing with the Stars.
11:47 Speaker 02 It's two hours.
11:48 Maggie Sellers Reum? Two hours. Sorry. I think it's important to talk about because it's such a long running show. And I think for the last two years, they have really had a completely different trajectory with product market fit as it relates to the creator economy that is growing.
12:03 Speaker 02 Hmm.
12:03 Maggie Sellers Reum? The brands. I actually saw something this morning. I wish I could take credit for this, but there was a prediction that we are about to see product placement into Dancing with the Stars because of how much of a chokehold they have on the American consumer, which I actually think is not far off. But I really want to talk about this season, the pipeline from Dancing with the Stars into reality show into entrepreneur with the creator economy growing. First of all, from a diehard fan, were you devastated about the outcome?
12:39 Speaker 02 Going into watching this season, I didn't think I would be disappointed about anything, but at the moment where it was 11:00 PM Eastern Time and Alex Earl did not win, I was actually deflated. But then when you like, think about it back from a business perspective, it's like Robert Irwin has way more followers and part of it is a popularity contest. So like, you probably could have predicted that he was going to win, but I really felt for Alex because I think she like, gave it her all, was the most improved and I, yeah, I was deflated.
13:10 Maggie Sellers Reum? I think it'll be even more interesting to see what she does next. There's a lot of different ways that I think that she could take it, but.
13:17 Speaker 02 One of which being, I just saw in one of her videos, she's like allegedly saying, I'm now going to be moving to LA. Like this is where it's going to catapult me to the next part of my career and. She's like, I didn't miss Miami when I was gone, which is kind of concerning to say because my entire life is there. But I think it goes to show sometimes getting out of your comfort zone and going and doing something new, whether you're a founder or you're the girl on the marketing team or whatever, mix up your environment and it like your life could present a whole new opportunity to you. And that's exactly what it's doing for her.
13:51 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah. I also think just to pay credit to where it's due, like Brooke Snyder was really the first person that we have seen take the show and make it pop culturally relevant.
14:01 Speaker 02 Yes.
14:01 Maggie Sellers Reum? And I think the really important insight that will lead us into what I'm very excited to discuss with you is like, why business shows don't work is Brooke Snyder goes on Dancing with the Stars. Like, I didn't really know much about Brooke Snyder before. I knew she was a Sports Illustrated girl. I had no idea that she was divorced. It then catapulted her to her own reality TV show with her sisters, which just got announced, season two, it's coming out. Mary's obviously been on the podcast. It's been one of like, the most downloaded and enjoyed episodes.
14:31 Speaker 02 And well received.
14:32 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah.
14:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:33 Maggie Sellers Reum? And, I mean, I love what Mary's doing. I love that she's building a tech company. And it's just like, kind of has a big bow around all the things that we talk about, like content, commerce, community, culture. And the reason I bring that up is it's really interesting to think about this pipeline, right? You go on to an existing world. So you enter into Dancing with the Stars world. The, all the networks are then watching that to be like, who are the breakout stars? Who are the people that perform really well on reality TV that is hitting the mass American consumer?
15:04 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:04 Maggie Sellers Reum? Now, let's build a world around them versus taking the risk. And it's like, an investment, right? It's such a de-risked thing to go and see who America already loves, that I am predicting the next move for Alex Earl is a full reality show.
15:19 Speaker 02 Totally. Like, hands down.
15:20 Maggie Sellers Reum? Hands down, it is going to be following her, her entrepreneurial journey, already taking what she's doing on the vlogs and making it something that is on a much bigger scale with a production like a Hulu or a Netflix behind her. And I'm so happy that Love Thy Nater just got renewed for season two. I have been thinking, and something I talk a lot in behind closed doors with executives and people in the HSR ecosystem is like, why Dancing with the Stars, Love Island, Love is Blind, takes over pop culture and is almost like, You can't ignore it.
15:52 Speaker 02 No.
15:53 Maggie Sellers Reum? Everybody, every brand is playing into it. Like if you are not paying attention to this, you are dead in the water as a brand.
15:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, you're missing an opportunity.
16:01 Maggie Sellers Reum? You're not just missing an opportunity, you are not going to be relevant anymore and you ultimately could fizzle out as a brand. The best brands like Poppy this weekend, I don't know if it was timed, but they released their campaign with the Nader sisters. That was the huge promo for 30% off of Poppy on Amazon. This is a Pepsi owned brand.
16:20 Speaker 02 Brand.
16:21 Maggie Sellers Reum? They are going after these Dancing with the Stars, reality TV show at the moment that they are announcing a huge thing. And it's got me thinking a lot about what I've been talking about behind closed doors, which is like, why doesn't the same thing happen for business shows? Why is Shark Tank the only show that has lived on for five, 10, I don't know how many, I think it's like 17 seasons now?
16:46 Maggie Sellers Reum? Why is that the case?
16:47 Speaker 02 It's an interesting question. And actually, as we've been thinking about it and researching it, it actually makes so much sense. But as someone and women who are, and I think this is what you and I have gotten trapped into the mindset of like, oh, well, we're smart and we care about CAC and like the brand strategy deck and the pitch deck. And everyone would want to see like someone in business working on those things. And then you take a step back and you're like, is the audience that's watching Dancing with the Stars or Love is Blind, they really could care less. They care about the personal emotional connection and the tension of personal relationships. And that's why these shows like Dancing with the Stars, Love is Blind work. And business shows struggle because
17:32 Speaker 02 they don't have the components of a story arc.
17:34 Maggie Sellers Reum? Well, and that's why I dissected Shark Tank to like almost putting it side by side with the Love is Blind and the Dancing with the Stars this past weekend. Like this is what I do for fun. And it's interesting because even if you think about the stakes in Shark Tank, they're actually not logical, they're emotional. So there's like the founders who are kind of positioned as the underdog. And then you have the Sharks who are billionaires and or millionaires who have built a very specific careers. We're talking Kendra Scott.
18:02 Maggie Sellers Reum? Mark Cuban.
18:03 Speaker 02 Alison Ellsworth.
18:04 Maggie Sellers Reum? Right.
18:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
18:05 Maggie Sellers Reum? So they're known and there's a clear character. There's clear tension between the characters. There's a clear winner and a loser in every single segment.
18:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
18:13 Maggie Sellers Reum? And there's clear.
18:14 Speaker 02 Or there's the dynamic of I have multiple offers and then the power shifts back to the founder. What am I going to choose?
18:21 Maggie Sellers Reum? Right. Which goes back to this whole idea of what we talk about on the show. Power, money, like feminine. These are all characteristics and themes that are brought in through Shark Tank, which is why it has survived as long as it has. Whereas I feel bad saying this, but like, cause I actually know the winner of the show on brand. It, it just didn't hit like it just fell flat. And it was this huge hype around these two huge executives that were going to be bringing in all of these amazing people and brands and doing this marketing competition. And at the end of the day, those stakes still felt logical. And the character that that show was highlighting were the brands,
19:01 Maggie Sellers Reum? which unless you've built that relationship with your consumer to feel like almost a personality, it's never going to have the tension and the stakes that a show like Shark Tank or Dancing With The Stars has. And so it's interesting to think about where the world is going in terms of education, content, community, because for us, we fundamentally believe the consumer is evolving past the like, I just want to be in, you know, that la ti da stage of like.
19:31 Speaker 02 Escapism.
19:31 Maggie Sellers Reum? Escapism. They want to be educating themselves. They want to further who they are as a person financially, emotionally, personal development. But how do you actually do that when you know the formula of what works?
19:44 Speaker 02 And I think it comes down to knowing what format works for delivery of what topics. Right. And that was something else I think we uncovered was. Business shows don't work on video because to get someone to sit through and watch a 45 minute episode of something takes a lot of work. And when you don't have any of the hooks or the emotional connection, it's just like, even I'm who, you know, not to toot my own horn, but like, am accomplished, work in the business world. I choose to sit down and watch Dancing with the Stars over on brand. And that says a lot about the human brain and what it takes for me to actually relax. If I want to listen to educational content, like Hot, Smart, Rich, it's a podcast. And like, I can listen to it on the go. I can pause and start. I get
20:28 Speaker 02 soundbites. And I think it's, it's the evolution of the world we're in is really thinking about delivery of what topics in what format is going to work for the people who want to consume it.
20:39 Maggie Sellers Reum? So and how can you touch pop culture quickly in a way that if your brand isn't resonating as like a personality, how can you work with those people that are? And it's like, poppy comes up time and time again for us as someone who keeps doing it, right?
20:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:53 Maggie Sellers Reum? And it's interesting because like, it does make sense why Alison is going down the shark tank route and not necessarily trying to go down the route that like Ashley Graham or Emma Grede did with a business show that didn't end up actually meeting the mainstream.
21:03 Speaker 02 Yeah.
21:04 Maggie Sellers Reum? I kind of think that leads into these predictions that Greg Eisenberg.
21:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
21:09 Maggie Sellers Reum? So for those of you that don't know Greg Eisenberg, he is a hilarious B2B creator in a non-hilarious way.
21:17 Speaker 02 One of my faves, actually.
21:18 Maggie Sellers Reum? You really have to understand his humor. But so this past weekend, he put out 48 predictions of AI for 2026. Some of them are relevant for HSR, some of them are not. So how we're going to do this segment is Katie's going to read out the predictions that we identified. I think there's like eight or nine that are the most relevant for HSR. And then I am going to give the HSR POV on them. I actually don't think this should scare people. I think we are in this era where people hear about AI and like, all of the terrible things that are happening. I actually think, when I read this and gave my POV, I got really excited about this and where I think this is all going. So let's start with the first one.
21:56 Speaker 02 And the reality is, AI is not going anywhere. So this is like, Get in the sandbox and get your hands dirty and figure out what is going to work for you or your brand or your job. Because if you don't, it's the same thing as not being pop culturally relevant. You will be left behind. It's not an if, it's a when. So for our HSR angels, the first prediction, the great resignation yields to the great not hiring.
22:22 Maggie Sellers Reum? So my thesis on this is that this is already happening. And what that will actually turn into is Gen Z will become entrepreneurial by force, not by inspiration. It's not like they're going to, every single person in Gen Z is going to want to be an entrepreneur, but it is going to happen because there aren't the same job opportunities that happened for us when we graduated. They are going to have to start their own companies. And so I think there will be a lot more micro solo entrepreneurs that are then leveraging AI to actually run their business.
22:54 Speaker 02 Okay, so the next, the keyboard starts becoming seen as an old niche input device.
22:59 Maggie Sellers Reum? Eventually, yes, but there is no way that we are getting rid of your computer, your iPad and your phone this year. And interestingly, I just got my first pair of Ray-Ban Meta Glasses. So when I was at the WhatsApp office, actually like did a whole tour of the new ones that you can't even get yet. And yes, people are starting to implement these devices into their everyday life, but we are not in 2026 going to see the keyboard become obsolete. The one thing that I do actually think will happen though is that writing thank you notes and physical communication between people will actually become much more important. So like people will bring a notebook to meetings and then their AI glasses will translate that into a note for them where like they aren't being distracted on their computer.
23:44 Maggie Sellers Reum? They're able to actually be more in the meeting and use the technology to further how they can stay engaged without having to do it themselves.
23:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, I can definitely tell for me. I am using my keyboard less, but more intentionally for things that really matter. So the AI tools that join my meetings or the my use of voice notes and dictation has like gone through the roof, which has actually been transformative for the way that I work. So I agree, it's not this year, but I can see it's starting to reduce and becoming more impactful in certain ways.
24:18 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah.
24:18 Speaker 02 Okay, next one, which is maybe about like Gen Z having to be more entrepreneurial, but is that micro companies will explode in volume and weirdness. And I love the word weirdness.
24:30 Maggie Sellers Reum? Well, I think to further that one, it's that there's going to be these tiny online tribes that become the real career path is Greg's prediction. My rebuttal to this is like tastemakers will become so much more important. And I think now with everyone having the ability to share their ideas, I don't think you can teach taste. And so I think that yes, like it will be an impact to not only the companies that are built, but also the creators that actually come to the surface in 2026. It'll be based on taste, not necessarily volume of things that you're producing because everyone will be able to produce so much content. It will be really based, I think even less on speed, but more on POV.
25:10 Speaker 02 Mm hmm. And how people create things that allow you to feel genuinely fulfilled in your life and people will resonate with those types of creators.
25:19 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah.
25:20 Speaker 02 Okay, next, and I actually like really think about this as a parent of a young child. Personalized education unbundles the university or just the education system in general.
25:30 Maggie Sellers Reum? Absolutely. I could not agree with this more. I think even looking back where I am, like I wish that I wasn't pushed into having to go to college at a specific time and a specific curriculum. Like I just didn't take advantage of it to the way that I think I could have. And it was really interesting at a dinner I was at in Miami this past weekend. There was a couple at the dinner that had had a huge profile piece about them in the New York Times and they called the creator the Tony Robbins of influencing because they have started to build an influencer school to learn how to be an influencer. And interestingly, the reporter asked to bring on a Stanford educator that teaches social media, has like under 2,000 followers and kind of gave a like critic of what they're doing and kind of saying like, oh, well, they don't have a Stanford degree and they're
26:14 Maggie Sellers Reum? not actually going to school and taking a curriculum. And the two founders at the table of this new generation of school was like, That's just so old school. Like, I don't even know if our kids in the future will finish high school based on where education is going. So I completely agree with this. I think people are learning through AI much better than they would even being in a classroom of a thousand people at a university campus.
26:37 Speaker 02 Well, think about a college degree takes four years to complete. Think about how fast things are evolving in four years. You could start a program and at the end of four years, a job that you think you might have could no longer exist, or a completely different field has popped up. And so I like, I really think about it for my son where I'm like, does even a classroom model of grade one to grade 12 even work anymore? Like, I just don't know. And it'll be really fascinating to see.
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28:33 Maggie Sellers Reum? Homeschooling.
28:34 Speaker 02 Okay, next one. Human in the loop becomes a luxury feature.
28:39 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah. Speak to a human, interestingly, will become the new luxury. I don't know about you, but when I'm calling customer service and I can't speak to a human, it is my biggest frustration. It will become a class tiered system like airplanes are, which based on what zone you are in, is when you board, how much luggage you're able to bring on, that will become, in my opinion, with Greg, that will become the new service-based class system.
29:04 Speaker 02 And I want to give props, actually, to Meta. I had to, I launched a support ticket recently, and the very first step after a live chat of what was your issue was immediately someone called me.
29:15 Maggie Sellers Reum? Oh, wow.
29:15 Speaker 02 A real person. And her name on the chat was, "Hi, my name is Atlas. I'm gonna give you a call." And in that moment, I was like, "Oh, Atlas, I must be talking to AI, and AI is going to call me," which I thought was insane. And then a woman actually called me, and she was like, "No, my name is actually just Atlas." But I was like, I really wasn't sure how the interaction was.
29:39 Maggie Sellers Reum? That's what they told you, that that's probably still AI.
29:41 Speaker 02 But it might have been AI. But it made it feel like a very personal
29:46 Maggie Sellers Reum? Experience.
29:47 Speaker 02 Experience. And I left it feeling, "Wow, Meta called me and I spoke to a human." So, yeah. Okay, next. The death of the average influencer.
29:58 Maggie Sellers Reum? It's gonna resemble what's happening with the K-shaped economy currently. There's like, no more middle class completely. So, I think 2026 will leave two classes of influencers. There's like, the iconic, and then there's almost like the fully automated influencer, which, just to skip ahead a little bit, there is a prediction down here that we're gonna see the rise of the authentic influencer who can prove that they're human. So Greg's prediction was like, "We'll actually switch from blue checkmarks to human-generated badges so that people can actually tell what is AI and what is human." And so I, I think the same thing will be true with the influencer and creator landscape in the future. There will be the influencers and creators that are real and human, and those will be the top 1%. The charismatic,
30:40 Maggie Sellers Reum? the people that build community, that have legacy brands that are being built underneath them. The middle class of influencer will die off and then there will be like fully not human generated influencers, like AI generated influencers.
30:52 Speaker 02 And the ones who will win will be the ones who have charisma and personality and can engage people in person.
31:00 Maggie Sellers Reum? Right. Which brings me to Greg's next point, which is trust premium explodes. So another badge that I think will actually come in not only with creators, but also in different products and brands will be no AI touch this. So you'll be able to actually share with your audience when you're leveraging AI and when you're not. And the human imperfection, and someone said this to me, that's really resonated where they were like, your little isms, Maggie isms, they called them, the dyslexia, the like, kind of stumbling over your words sometimes. It makes you so relatable because otherwise people could just look at you and be like, not relatable, you know, but what makes you human is that you do make mistakes. You do
31:42 Maggie Sellers Reum? fumble over your words. You sometimes say something that like is a shock value thing and don't edit that away because that is actually where the next generation of creators are going to lie. And even with the one that I was with this weekend in Miami, who will be on the podcast shortly, she's been doing this for 10 years. And the moment I started following her and I told her this was like after she had her first child, when she finally posted with roles for the first time.
32:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:06 Maggie Sellers Reum? And I was like, that, I had known who you were and I didn't follow you because you were just so unrelatable. As soon as you became vulnerable online and you showed what it was like to be human, I immediately followed and have followed for the last seven years, right?
32:21 Speaker 02 She's a, when that episode comes out, she's a great one to study of if you want to go into a career of being a creator that has longevity, this guest has done that and has evolved so many times and reinvented herself so many times and is genuinely real and relatable, even though it's an unrealistic circumstance of her life.
32:41 Maggie Sellers Reum? Totally. And then the last one is really just the rise of the analog status. And I love to see this one because Caitlin, who came on our show was talking all about the rise of analog. So I have a whole episode for people to listen to, which is from a sociologist of Harvard who talks about like really helpful patterns that you can break if you are addicted to your phone and social media because analog is the new luxury going offline. And I think what we're about to see in 2026 is aspirational, slow living in an AI world. So we'll see the rise of creators like Ballerina Farms and Paige Lorenz and all of the people who are living completely out of the city. I think other things that will be huge, film cameras, handwritten notes, like acoustic
33:22 Maggie Sellers Reum? instruments, they will all signal something that AI can't replicate, which is like that human
33:29 Speaker 02 Connection.
33:30 Maggie Sellers Reum? Connection and friction. So I think it was just interesting to go through other people who I really respect and kind of give our POV. There was also a lot that I didn't necessarily agree with, which is why I didn't feel like talking about them here. I would encourage everyone to go and read his list of 48 AI predictions. And then just get curious, like what I would actually do with our transcript of this podcast is like go and put it into chat GPT that knows something about you and then figure out like where are the opportunities that I can adjust my current business, whether it's actually like a D to C business, a tech business and/or a creator business that you're building and help AI with these predictions, figure out what are some things new that you can try next year. I think that's the way, if you are one of those people that hasn't been leveraging AI
34:14 Maggie Sellers Reum? is like take people's perspectives and POVs that you really enjoy and get chat GPT to know who you are. Cause now chat GPT for me is like one of those things that they know HSR so well, the tone of voice, the things that we talk about. I can say, how would HSR respond to this? What would I do to implement these things in my business? And it will come up with a list of 50 things that I can try. Not all of them are going to work, but it is inherently a helpful thing, especially if you are one of those solo printers listening to this show that doesn't have a team, doesn't brainstorm with people, like let that be chat GPT.
34:47 Speaker 02 We would not be where we are in our business, honestly, without the computing power of chat GPT and the admin stuff that it does for us. And I think I, in the, the book I'm reading still Diary of a CEO on audiobook that I'm constantly listening to. The like getting 1% better every day, which is the Toyota manifesto of like how they do their manufacturing plans. Like if you can implement step changes 1% every day, within one year, all of a sudden you're like $100 if you improve 1% every day, ends up being like $270 by the end of the year versus if it degrades 1% every day, it's $2.10 by the end of the year. So for
35:29 Speaker 02 people who are like, well, you know, I don't really know what I'm doing. It's like just start. And if you get 1% better every day in this vein of AI, like you could be the person who, you know, completely explodes and takes advantage of it and changes your life.
35:45 Maggie Sellers Reum? That's why I think I loved this part of Amy Peterson's episode when she talked about social media creates this world where you're chapter one, you're comparing to other people's chapter 10s. And I think one of the things that social media has normalized, which is so not normal, is this overnight success. It does take compounding growth, right? And one of the people that I think highlights this really well are the Meshkei founders. So allegedly, because there is only one report that has come out with this, so this is all alleged, the founders have been building this business for close to a decade. Allegedly, they just paid themselves $22 million in a dividend. It is a privately held company, so I'm not exactly sure how this newspaper, The
36:26 Maggie Sellers Reum? Australian, actually got a hold of these results, but let's just assume that this is true. So revenue was up 50% and interestingly, 62% of that came from overseas market.
36:37 Speaker 02 Which I have seen it explode in the US.
36:40 Maggie Sellers Reum? For sure. And that was kind of the whole point of me bringing this up was like, Meshkei feels like it's only become really relevant in the States over the last two or three years. They started hosting a lot of dinners. They're working with a lot of US influencers. They just recently came on to ShopMy. But it is not a story of a two-year build that has then been flipped and sold. And I think, interestingly, not to take it back to Miami again, but like at dinners, it's interesting talking to people who are interested in building consumer brands. And I think we see so much of this in the world, right? Like, I love Susan Yar and I'm so happy she's been on the show, but like that is the anomaly, the three-year turnaround, right? That is not the norm. And so I love seeing Meshkei one, if this is true, like take liquidity
37:22 Maggie Sellers Reum? without having to exit their business and still maintain control, because I think that's a whole other thing is like, sitting down and mapping out. You know, this is like a little HSR tip, but the people we were at dinner with were asking me like, "Okay, if you were to start a brand today, like, what would you do?" And I think this might be controversial advice, but I would actually figure out the first thing is like, "Do I want to build this to build for the rest of my life? Or do I want to build this to sell? And if the answer is the latter, it's actually not thinking about the white space in the market today. It's thinking about the white space in an acquirer's portfolio. And so it would be interesting to think about if you look at an Elf, or you look at a Alta, or you look at a Estee Lauder, L'Oréal, what are white spaces in their portfolio?
38:06 Maggie Sellers Reum? Because over the next three to five years, those are likely the businesses that they're going to be acquiring, right? Can you be the first and the fastest to get to market and become an attractive acquisition for them? If it's the former of, "I want to build this to have a brand like the Meshky founders, who are taking money off the table, they love this, it's something that they're doing for their whole life." That is a completely different approach to building. And it's one in which I would absolutely never take venture capital money to do. But I think that was my advice to them, was like, "Go and map out what this brand's goal for you is, and then build accordingly." And I actually, this morning, signed papers for an acquisition of a company that I have been involved in for three years.
38:48 Maggie Sellers Reum? Side note, I was the only woman on the cap table, which was very fucking cool.
38:52 Speaker 02 This is a Dancing with the Stars doing the little like, "Yeah, so good for you."
38:57 Maggie Sellers Reum? It was one of those things where it's such an amazing thing to see a company get that in that short period of time, but again, it is the anomaly, it is not the norm. And I think nowadays, I was talking to the founder, and it's like, he was saying, "I just don't want to build in public, like, I am not the founder that's going to build in public. I am not the founder that's also leveraging AI in the way that I think you need to now to build a company that is going to sell for like that hundred million dollars or a billion dollar exit." Which is an interesting thing I've seen on social media this week, is like, "Should you or should you not build in public?" And I think the brand that is being tossed around a lot is this Meadow Lane, which has been under a ton of criticism. I hate to say it, but like,
39:41 Maggie Sellers Reum? It is what has built the brand Meadow Lane. So for those of you that are listening that don't know Meadow Lane is a gourmet grocery store. The founder Sammy, he has built this grocery brand that is like the air one of New York City in Tribeca. On social media, the highs, the lows, opening week, there was a ton, a ton of backlash from actually very unsafe practices like uncooked chicken. Mis-marked allergy information. All of my friends were sending it to me being like, can you imagine if this was marked as gluten free and you ate it? Like, that is horrible.
40:14 Speaker 02 Because he has no operational experience.
40:17 Maggie Sellers Reum? But neither did Matt Corin when he launched Freshy. And we went public when I worked there. I completely disagree. It was sent around our WhatsApp chat. I'm sorry, I disagree. I think every founder needs to build in public now. And the video that was sent in our WhatsApp was around food is not a brand and a category that you should build in public with because it is human safety. So is every category that you're ingesting supplements, even beauty to a certain extent, you're ingesting into all the different particles of human, right? I, of course, think that like measures need to be taken to make sure those things don't happen again. But should he not build in public because he's opening a food category? No.
41:01 Speaker 02 No, and I think it goes back to like A16Z introducing new media, that entire arm of their venture capital firm is to first create distribution for founders. And let's be honest, A16Z is not just investing in direct to consumer creator brands, if at all anymore. Like they are investing in also deep tech, AI, machine learning. They could have invested in this, but whatever. They're saying the competitive advantage for founders is having distribution and building in public. And they're making it a mandate to be able to build that in for new founders. So like, it's about getting it right. And understanding for this guy Sammy, it's like,
41:41 Speaker 02 The public perception of him online already, based on like privilege and the life that you were born into and like bringing that into the fold, I think like, it's all about the messaging and how it lands for people. Cause I think there was a component as well of people just feeling like, oh, in this world of privilege, you cut corners and people didn't like that. And that's what they're hanging on to versus if it was like, building from a place of being genuine about what the struggles were to get it off the ground.
42:10 Maggie Sellers Reum? But didn't he do that?
42:11 Speaker 02 I don't really, not to the way that I think it could have been done. I think he built in public that was like, look at me in my grocery store in New York City and it's going to be so amazing. And I think because that was the messaging rather than being vulnerable about truly what was going on behind the scenes.
42:30 Maggie Sellers Reum? I think right now, the through line that I'm seeing in culture and in brand marketing is like, we are in the messy middle right now. We are in the middle of, you hear on the one hand, people like Lucy Guo saying like, when I was fundraising or trying to sell my business, you are not putting online the hardships of building the brand. That is the old world of building a company. We have now been introduced to this way of vulnerability and relatability and understanding what's actually going on. And it is the messy middle because the brands that are going to put that out likely will suffer. And I actually give my portfolio company a lot of credit, Christine. She is very open about the highs and lows, both in her personal life and in the business.
43:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:07 Maggie Sellers Reum? And maybe that has hurt her because the oligarchs of the industry, the gatekeepers are not used to seeing that. So the people that are deploying series A, B, C, D, it is changing though. And hence your point on A16Z. I think for founders listening to this, that feel caught between two hard places of like, where do I push? Where do I not? I lean more towards what we just said about AI predictions. The future is vulnerability. It is about. How can you show your humanity, your human side? So even if things are going wrong and you might miss out on opportunities, like I even think back to myself, being told by someone that worked at KKR not to send an email invitation with my name at hot smart rich.com. Hot Smart
43:49 Maggie Sellers Reum? Rich is the competitive advantage. The brand built the world. If I had been scared and had pulled back of like, oh my God, I'm not going to get the respect of X, Y, and Z. I wouldn't be in the place that I'm in today. And so I think the hardest thing for anyone, whether it's your personal life or your business is when you are in that messy middle and you don't actually take the risk to take it all the way and learn something and you just play it safe. Once you've explored a little bit, I think you have to go for things in the world today, fully and like all the way through, or you're actually going to end up not learning the lesson that you're being taught right now.
44:26 Speaker 02 And I think focusing on the what of what you're going through and not necessarily always the nitty gritty details or like the struggle that's actually going on. It could be, you know, I'll just use Locker as an example. The what is there are copycats and it annoys me. Like the details, and I'm not saying Christine does this, but like for founders who are thinking about like, what do I share? What do I don't? Share the what? Share what you're going through and how it's impacting you. But you don't have to go into the nitty gritty of like spilling the inner guts of what's going on in your business.
44:58 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah, absolutely. I think this is also related to creators, right? Like this is why there's been such pushback on Alex Cooper where it's like, she started her brand being this person that like let the entire audience in. And it was like, she uses the words herself. She took advantage of her life and shared that and almost like exploited it in her words. And then when there was a time where she wanted to pull back, that's where the audience was like, wait, what? We've built this relationship with you. We're expecting X, Y, and Z. And now we don't get that. And so I think now, especially as we talk about these AI predictions and where things are going, getting into this line of business, like you have to be prepared to answer those questions to the level that you have. It is very hard as a creator to one day be like, I'm now all of a sudden going to pull back. And we even saw that with the creator that I'm gonna have an interview with in a few weeks.
45:44 Maggie Sellers Reum? She was a vlogger. She then was like, you know, my kids are getting older. I kind of want to pull back, got to a podcast and then has now realized like, actually, the audience really misses the vlog. I need to get back to that format. It is very hard as a creator to pull back different areas that you once have been open about.
46:01 Speaker 02 I mean, it's the same in anything. It's even like, think about if you are a manager at a company. If you give too much to your employees that you've hired and you share too much and they think that you're friends. If you have to pull it back and then like, give someone feedback or discipline them on something, they're like, wait, I thought we were friends. And the whole power dynamic shifts and is off and it's the same for creators. If you give people things and you exploit your life, you expose whatever, and all of a sudden you don't, they're like, can I trust you anymore?
46:31 Maggie Sellers Reum? Yeah.
46:31 Speaker 02 Do I relate to you? And so it's all about like, what you share and when, and that can still be curated. Sharing real moments, but it doesn't have to be everything right away until you figure out what you're comfortable with.
46:44 Maggie Sellers Reum? Well, that's actually a lesson I've learned about myself. Like, my way of sharing is to go through it independently and then share the outcome, not the process. And that's actually a huge lesson that I had over the last two years of creating content was like, I am so emotionally vulnerable, as I think a lot of creators are. And that's what makes us great creatives. But what you do need to determine is like, are you that person that is going to be able to come on and share it in the moment? Because there are creators that are like that. And then there are creators that go through things and then share it after. And I just have self diagnosed as like, that's what I'm like. So don't even push the boundary of trying to share in the moment, because that doesn't ever work for me.
47:22 Speaker 02 And then understand what it will do to your life. If you build an entire career about being a creator that shares, oh, like I'm crying in the moment over something, that's what people come to expect. And then you can also never turn off.
47:32 Maggie Sellers Reum? Never. Yeah. Katie Sellers, thank you so much for coming on Hot Smart Rich. Now that you're back, I know the Angels really missed you.
47:39 Speaker 02 I miss the Angels.
47:40 Maggie Sellers Reum? And I can't wait to hear what they think of this episode.
47:42 Speaker 02 So excited.
47:43 Maggie Sellers Reum? Thank you guys so much for listening. Make sure, if you can, that you rate, review, subscribe. And we can't wait to see you next week with an amazing interview that you guys are going to love.
47:52 Speaker 02 Bye.
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Previous The Queer Eye Star Behind "The Biggest Celebrity Brand Failure of All Time!" Jonathan Van Ness Next How I Built Hailey Bieber’s Favourite Beauty Brand In My 30’s (They Thought I Was Just Pretty!) Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated