Top Talent Left Zuck for Elon, Cloudflare’s Bold Bet, AI Pilots Keep Failing, and YouTube’s AI Advantage

In this episode #3035, Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss the AI talent shift from Meta to Elon Musk’s XAI, the challenges of adopting AI, and the tough truths of angel investing. They also explore YouTube’s Gemini AI updates and why managing talent with a focus on revenue and training matters more than ever. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES (00:00) Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg: The AI Engineer Exodus (03:01) The Harsh Realities of Angel Investing (05:57) Navigating the AI Landscape in Organizations (08:55) The Future of YouTube: Gemini AI's Impact (11:38) Hiring and Managing Talent in the Digital Age To suggest a topic, go to https://www.marketingschool.io. For more content from Eric and Neil, check out Eric’s Leveling Up with Eric Siu YouTube channel and Neil’s Neil Patel YouTube channel. Connect with Us: Single Grain << Eric's ad agency NP Digital << Neil’s ad agency X @neilpatel, @ericosiu Instagram @neilpatel, @ericosiu Drop Us a Review If You Enjoyed the Episode!

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Finding customer information shouldn't mean digging through emails, call notes, and spreadsheets. HubSpot's Starter Plan brings all of those details together, so it's easier to track what's happening with every deal, and what to do next. It pulls information from calls and emails. Then it gets to work, logging and summarizing them. Right after your call ends, HubSpot pulls next steps from your call notes and drafts suggested follow-ups. And it stays up to date for you, so you can build demand, win more deals, and spend less time on repetitive work. Your records, insights, and next steps are ready for you to act on. And you don't have to miss a beat searching for any of it. Try the Starter Plan for $10 a month. Learn more at hubspot.com. Elon Musk just stole 18 of Mark Zuckerberg's best AI engineers. So Zuck has offered his engineers $250 million each to stay at Meta.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  But Elon gave them something money couldn't buy, and they abandoned Meta. What do you think that was that Elon gave them that Mark couldn't?

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Shares in XAI at a really good valuation because Facebook is already worth a lot. So what are they gonna do, double?

• 1:00Speaker 00

  You're probably right on the shares, but here's Elon's response. So he said, "Many strong Meta engineers have and are joining XAI and without the need for insane initial comp." So the key word, "initial comp." Still great, but not unsustainably high. Also, XAI has vastly more market cap growth potential than Meta, and we are hyper merit-based. Do something great and your comp can shift substantially higher. And you've read about this on Twitter. He'll have like young kids going in. If they do amazing job, he'll promote them quickly. He'll pull in engineers from different areas. It's like, for example, actually, what of, I'm not gonna name names here, but someone I know is, a friend of a friend is married to a guy that came up with the chopsticks for SpaceX when they land, right? So you can imagine he's doing really well now. But that was just a scenario where he just raised his hand and said, "Hey, why don't we just..."

• 1:44Speaker 00

  Nobody could come up with a good idea on how to land it, and said, "Why don't we just use chopsticks, right?" He didn't say it like that, but that's what it ended up being. And so you know just about reading about Elon, it's very merit-based. The other thing too is with, when you work with Elon, you're working on something, the vision matters a lot, and you've seen like he's gonna, he's gonna sleep in the office. He's gonna do whatever it takes to get there. And he is right, vastly more market cap growth potential. Even more stock, but I think he paints a very compelling mission and vision. And when he's pulling in SpaceX engineers and Tesla engineers to do whatever it takes to build the Colossus factory. You know that this is the probably the best visionary founder of our time. Not saying that Meta is not interesting and Zuck isn't a great entrepreneur.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  But I think the fact, by the way, you want to know some of the last names of these people he's pulling in? Let me tell you, let me tell you, Neil, you tell me what kind of people these are.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Wait, let me guess, they're from China or India? If I had to take a guess on the two, probably more from China.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  You're right, you're right. So Xin Lei Chen specialized in multimodal AI at Meta. Qing Yao Twang worked on vision and video, okay, and Alan Rice. That sounds American to me, manage critical data centers. And so sometimes it's just not about, it's not about the initial compensation. I think the money matters a lot, but I think the the long term compensation and the vision and the mission matter too. And being able to work with a generational entrepreneur. Maybe the best one is is great because I do think Zuck's a generational entrepreneur, but I think Elon's number one.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I don't know how true this is, but speaking of these AI platforms, I was talking to a VC that was breaking down.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  What is it called? Anthropic or Claude?

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know which one's a parent company name is it? Anthropic's a parent company, right? And they were talking about their valuation was either seventy or a hundred or whatever. And they're just like, do you know how much some of these early investors made? And I'm like, I don't know, ten X, twenty X, thirty X. And he was just saying, and I don't know how true this is. He was saying, no, more like two, three X. And I was like, what? He's like, they raised so much money and with the warrants. It just makes it hard as an investor that's early to actually make a huge premium. And I was like, oh, that sucks.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Dude, you know what's funny? I bet your angel investment, let me speak to my angel investments. I'm like, oh, so and so a company raised at a, at a, at a billion dollar valuation or whatever. I'm like, oh, cool. And I'm like, I look at it, I'm like, oh, yep. My multiple is like three, four X on that, okay? And then like another company that I invested in, oh, damn it, the safe note was too high. Okay, so maybe, maybe it's still a six, seven X return, but it's. Like that. Okay. Um, and by the way, there's another company. Um, I invested in Lime. Okay. I, I, I thought that was gonna go to zero. Turns out they're, they're, they're driving a ton of EBITDA now, right? They're doing pretty well. I think it's like one fifty a quarter or something like that. I could be wrong. I'm like, oh man, I'm gonna make a lot of money on that. Nope. I'm gonna get like three X once they go public. Okay.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  And so, so it just goes to show you that, that the game of venture, angel investing, i- it's pretty harsh. Um, and if you're not gonna play full in, all out, you're probably not gonna win.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Dude, remember our dinner with Kellen at Avra, the Fuse VC guy?

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  So I met him up, uh, at Spago, like a few weeks ago.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  And we were talking about, um, uh, a company that, cause I, I'm an LP in funds. I don't do as much angel investing anymore, but I tend to just stick with being LP cause it's easier. And he knew one of the funds I was at LP and I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I keep getting reports from them cause they have so many companies and they made this fund. It, it's more than 10 years old, so it's pretty much won down. Uh, they just have a few outstanding investments. So I was like, yeah, I'm like this company here. I hope it's gonna do really well, cause it's a massive SaaS company that does well into the nine figures in revenue. I'm not talking about like a hundred million. I'm talking about well into the nine, for like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. And he's just like, no, not so much. I'm like, what do you mean?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  And he's like, dude, they, uh, and we both didn't know the exact amount of money they raised offhand and we didn't search it, but we both knew they raised over a half a billion dollars. So well over 500 million. And he's like, their churn is too high and their growth is non-existent. It's a flat company. And I was like, oh, you know, even though we were the first check in to that fund, there goes that money.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Uh, plus like, there's a lot of dynamics that we're, we're, we, people don't think about, right? All the, the, the rounds of dilution, liquidation preferences and all these things, um, bad market to go public in, right? Or you have a, you have a tough government on you as well, the Lasson administration, right? So, um, you just never know. And it's, it's just better to bet on yourself and it's better to bet on yourself without many other, um, outside influences. So when you have a board, when you have investors and things like, I think a board's actually good if you have an internal board. But when I think you have too many, um, winds of opinions driving you, I don't think you can make a proper decision on your own. And that's what caused a lot of problems for, for people, especially, um, right after 2021. It certainly did for me.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, no. And this is why I don't do much angel investing and I stick with my own business. I'd rather just run Google Ads or rank a site organically or, you know, build up a brand and just generate revenue that way. It's more control and the returns tend to be better for people like you and I. That's actually the best part about being a marketer because people have asked me a lot of times and I know you must get this question a lot. If you had to start all over again, what would you do if you only have like a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars? You must have answered that like a hundred times by now, right? I'm assuming you've got those questions a lot.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. You get that question on a podcast a lot.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm like, we're marketers. We would just start all over, launch a site.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  I would just do the same thing. Yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, so.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  It's a great skill set.

• 7:26Speaker 00

  I think, by the way, just to read, like, it's earlier in this episode, we talked about focus, but the problem with marketers is we know how to do so many different things to drive revenue. And then we think we're like God and we think we can do everything under the sun. And that is what ends up causing problems for us. You're actually much better acquiring all these skills, learning how to drive revenue and then just focusing on one area. And that's how things have gotten really big. But I read this tweet from Andreessen Horowitz. They tweeted this and I thought this is an interesting concept. So, you know, a lot of people, especially people, technical people, they think it's all about building the product, right? And the line here is really ultimately your job isn't to build a product. Your job is to solve a problem. So people in agency, they like to talk about the different service lines that they have and people in different service lines, they like to brag about that.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Or people that are different product managers for different types of products, they like talking about whatever product they have. But ultimately, that's not what matters. Your job as a business is to solve a problem and then you make money from that as a byproduct. So most companies, they avoid the messy and sexy work, but that's usually where the biggest opportunities lie, live. And you do the work that others won't. It's to solve problems and that's it. It's not about the product that you have.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Dude, the money's in the messy. People don't like the messy. They like the cool and sexy.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Yep, yep. And do you, here, you can pick one. You have this CloudFlare one that's interesting. This one keeps coming back, this topic.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  It's just like CloudFlare, their stock is doing decently well. I think they have like a 70-ish billion dollar markup. This isn't financial advice, by the way. And, and by the way, Eric and I don't want to give you any financial advice. Do whatever you guys want. Uh, CloudFlare just keeps pushing, "Hey, make your website a toll, pay for it." And the reason I believe CloudFlare is big on this kick is because they're afraid overall website traffic will go down, which will impact their earnings. So they want to be the toll road of the internet to save their business. That's my two cents. I don't think their business will ever go to zero, but that's my two cents on why they just keep doing this.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  Have you mapped out how much money they can make if, you know, 10% of the internet or 10% of their users went with paper? I don't know, toll?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Uh, can you repeat again?

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I'm just saying that have you, this CloudFlare thing, have you done the math around, hey, like maybe 5 or 10% of their users opted into this? Or websites did, how much money they would make?

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Uh, no. Do you?

• 9:59Speaker 00

  No, I haven't done it. I'm just wondering, because the fact that they're pushing it so hard must have meant that they've mapped it out. But I just don't think it's the way, it's too much friction for what it is. And you don't want resistance to happen on the internet when people are just trying to browse around freely.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yes. I also think their model is just going to screw up businesses and cause them to make less money in general.

• 10:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Dude, speaking of which, I had, it's funny, I, we were talking about WordPress, about how it powers 40% of the web. And you and I were talking about how a lot of this stuff is becoming for free because of Jason Lemkin's tweet. But- Uh, WordPress was like, um, automatic map mull and like he responded to one of my, my Instagrams. I'm gonna look for it right now, but um, I don't know, just that just brought it up. So let me see what he said. Go ahead.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  But I know a lot of people that talk about how WordPress is powering forty plus percent of the internet. It doesn't matter how much of the internet you're powering. All that matters is, is can you make money from powering forty percent of internet? WordPress does a decent job of making money, but not like Shopify. Shopify doesn't even power ten percent of the internet or five percent of the internet. It's a much smaller number, but look at their market cap.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. Anyway, it's too hard to find that, that tweet. Um, or that, that, that reel. So I'm gonna move on to the next one. You wanna pick the next one?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Let's go with the MIT report. Did you read that MIT report?

• 11:24Speaker 00

  I read that one, but the problem with that one is um, Ethan Molek. He, he actually looked at the methodology for that research and it was only on fifty-two companies or something like that.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Too small of a sample.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  It, the sample size is too small. So I'm like, okay, of course this thing's gonna get a lot of headlines because people fucking hate, sorry, people hate AI, freaking hate AI, right? Um, and so, sorry whoever heard me class, I meant freaking, but anyway, go ahead.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  They're in school right now, so we're good.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  Okay, alright, go ahead. You, you, you can shed some insight here.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  And sorry if your kids are listening in the background.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  But one, one thing I do agree with the report in, and they talk about how ninety-five percent of generative AI uh, pilots at companies are failing. Now, I don't know if that number is ninety-five percent for most people, or if it is uh, you know, fifty percent are failing. Uh, I, I, I do agree that a big percentage is failing. Does it mean generative AI is bad? No. Does it mean AI just in general is gonna fail and it's a fad? No. It just means most people in an organization, I think this is very true. This is what I got out of the report more than anything else. Don't know how to use AI effectively and you need training in an organization to teach people how to actually use it to do their job better.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Or you need to replace people with people who actually already know how to use it, so that way you don't have to train up your existing. I think the more realistic solution is you have to come up with some sort of training program to help all the existing people in the organization, because once you have too many people, it's not like starting from scratch. Starting from scratch, you can just hire people who are good to go from day one, but if you already have thousands of people, you gotta figure out how to train these people to use these products correctly.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  I think there are three types of AI people at a company. You have, let's call it FCA. Okay, so you have people who are fanatics, that's the F. You have Cs, these are the converts. And then you have people, A, these are the anchors. So let's start with the anchors first. The anchors are the people who are unwilling and these people that are dragging when it comes to AI. And these people don't like AI. Okay, those are people who need to rotate out of your company. Not financial advice.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Let's rephrase. Those are people you need to rotate out if AI can help them with their job. Like if their job is legal and only going to court. And they're just amazing at fighting and litigating and they barely use AI. But they have other legal people underneath them. You probably don't need to get rid of that person.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  Okay, then the converts are the people who are willing. But they just, to your point, they need to be guided. They need to be taught. And they need to be shown the light. And they need to be pointing in the right direction. So they're down to do it, you just need to show them. The fanatics, these are people that are talking about the latest thing. Oh, my God, this is happening over here. Oh, my God, check this out over here. They're trying all the new things all the time. These are, you want to, there's only a handful of these people in your company. These are the people that you want to bring with you. And we actually have a mutual friend that I was texting with the other day, Neil. What he does, and I think this is genius, and I'll probably do the same thing here. Is he has selected these fanatics and then he gets to, he takes them all on a retreat. Okay, and it's like the super exclusive thing. It's like, oh, my God, all these people, like, I want to go on that retreat. It's like the super like elite group. And then at that retreat, it's a hackathon where people are building things.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  They're only vibe coding things and people are sharing what's happening at the end. It's also a grounds for him to see who they might need to let go. Okay, because some people will make excuses that, oh, I just couldn't build this. I couldn't do this, I couldn't do this. He's like, oh, man, I can't have you anymore, right? And so he decides to rotate people out. But the point is, doing this hackathon, he's probably going to do them once a quarter or so. But it gets the best of the best together. And you get to break bread with these people. You get to build better relationships. And you just get these fanatics together and point them in the right direction. And then they'll start guiding other people. But this is no different than what Steve Jobs did back in the day where he had his top 100 people or top 150 people summit. And I do know there's some other companies right now that are doing that top 100. I think Coinbase does that too, where they have those people get together.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  And I think it's really smart if you get your top 10% of people together for this specific initiative.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I have one issue with the fanatics. And now I can see you. I have one issue with the fanatics. We have quite a few of those fanatics in our business and a lot of my friends' companies. And I've seen them publicly traded companies that have market caps 50, 100 plus billion. And I've interacted with a lot of them. The one, this isn't all the fanatics, but a lot of the people in the fanatics bucket. They always tell me how the latest cool thing they're doing and they say how this is awesome. They show me the work. And most of the people I talk to that are in the fanatic category, they're doing all this cool stuff and has no impact on revenue generation. Or saving money. All right. I'll give you one or those two, because that's the purpose of AI. Either make.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Make it so we make more money or make things more efficient. So we save money. Just as a business owner or executive, that's really what those two things people are looking at. So what I found really useful is that C category. What did you call the C category again?

• 16:13Speaker 00

  The converts.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Okay. What I found is a lot of the converts are, there's a lot of people in that category that understand the concept that things need to either make more money or save money. Um, they're just not as financially or tech savvy. And then having the fanatics help them be more efficient in those areas, we found to be a winning combination.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's helpful if you have converts, especially that are business outcomes driven. Because the fanatics are actually usually the, um, I would say not, not usually, but a lot of the fanatics are, are younger people. Um, in their twenties or so, and they're really excited about new tools and things like that. And dude, in my twenties, when I worked at different companies, I was always a new tools guy, right? Um, but now I think it's important for the converts or even people leading this, maybe if you're like executive of the company. You have to just constantly add, hey, this is really cool, but like what, what are the business outcomes that we're trying to drive to here? And just constantly setting it around that band. Um, and then if they look at you blankly, um, like we have had people who are fanatics that can't, they just for, for the life of them, they, they can't tie it to, to revenue.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  Um, if they can't do that, then they, they still can't be in this group and they still can't come attend this hackathon.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  I haven't met one fanatic yet that is over the age of thirty five. I know they do exist, but in all the companies that I've talked at and the teams I've met. All the fanatics tend to be thirty five or younger and to go more specific, most of them tend to be in their twenties.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and I mean, even beyond that, there's some, some of them are like in their late teens. Um, and then, you know, We have mutual friends that are hiring the late teens and these teens actually sleep in the office and they're like super fanatics. So.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  We have, we have one, he's early twenties, he's showing me all this cool stuff with AI. He's telling me like, if, if we don't do this in our company, it's gonna die, right? Really loyal guy, great guy, I love him to death.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  And he's showing me all this cool stuff. He's like, look how powerful this is. And for like six months now, I've kind of just been, tried to drill down one point to him. I'm like, you need to focus on stuff that either produces more revenue or saves on expenses. And we're talking about doing stuff for customers and I'm like, yes, but the customers are paying us to help them drive more revenue. I get it's traffic or leads or sales, but overall they're paying and they need to see more revenue in a profitable way. And it has to be more profitable than what they're doing before, or they need to save money. And I'm like, and, and some of these younger people, I really struggle for them to get that concept.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson shows how modern brands grow by removing the friction in their marketing and customer experience that pushes customers away every single day, often without leaders even realizing it. Each episode delivers practical insights, real brand examples, and conversations with marketing leaders, showing brands how to win with the new rules of growth, identity-driven marketing, cultural relevance, and frictionless customer experiences. Listen to Frictionless Growth Marketing wherever you get your podcasts. No, it's a, I just find that I need to repeat myself over and over.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  And if they don't get it, that's like, I don't know, the fourth or fifth time, then I, I'm probably moving on to like, talk with somebody else. So that's just how it is. Oh, you're wearing your watch today.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  Oh, you must be going to work or something.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  You do?

• 19:40Speaker 00

  I don't notice.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, even when we do a recording, they usually have a watch on.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't notice. Um, but.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Actually, no, probably I would say fifty fifty, but uh, when I have meetings or I'm going somewhere, yeah. Today I had a kids go to school, so I had meetings and stuff.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  Speaking of AI, did you know that YouTube, um, there's a guy, this guy named Rahme Ro. He's basically saying that YouTube is now an easy mode for new channels in twenty twenty five. So YouTube apparently made an update recently, so they now run it on a dual algorithm system. So they have the old model plus Gemini AI. So Gemini prioritizes viewer experience, relevance, fact checking and emotion for YouTube. Um, and so practical strategies now it's saying that you you want to use um, Google's ranking signals. Um, so it says, use, here, I'm just looking at it. Use Google ranking images and thumbnails, add factual details, names, dates, locations and descriptions. Match background music to intended emotion, encourage context rich comments by asking questions.

• 20:36Speaker 00

  So basically, it's what it's saying is these fast edits and all these things and the suspenseful music and all that. Um, Gemini can now detect that and that's not what it's looking for anymore. So Gemini is running quietly in the background, it's learning from videos, audience patterns. And after a year of training, Gemini now helps decide what YouTube recommends and ranks, working alongside the original algorithm. Meaning that there are two now, which is what I said earlier. Um, and they haven't really publicly announced it because they're still testing it. But basically, and I'll I'll wrap this up here. Um, so focus shift is now on viewer viewer experience. So unlike before, it's not about flashy editing or transitions. Gemini focus on individual viewer patterns, so what people have watched, what they're evolving to and what they're likely to watch next. And it creates a profile, right? And that means that if you're a smaller creator, you want to get into YouTube. Neil and I have been talking about YouTube um, quite a bit.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  Um, smaller channels can now compete with larger ones by tailoring content to Gemini's priorities. So haha, that means our marketing school YouTube channel should do better theoretically. And you know what's funny, Neil? My mom kept telling me, she kept asking me why I wasn't getting any views. I didn't realize she was talking about my um, my marketing school channel or our marketing school channel. Because each video before would get like twenty to thirty views and.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Really?

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, she, yeah, but like now it does better, but. The content that we have, I think if it's gonna go down this path, this algorithm, I think it's gonna do a lot better. So it says success depends less on entertainment value now and much more on how well the content matches what Gemini expects and verifies. So let's talk about this.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Keep going, I have to send this text. Someone screwed up on my headline. They just published my video on ChatGPT.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Now Neil's pissed, so I know how.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, not really pissed.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  So Neil's out of it now. So I just think my reaction here is that if you are, if people are watching deep content. So let's say, when I say deep content, like a screen share for thirty minutes or an hour or something like that, I've seen some people do it well. I know there's this guy, Wes McDowell, I think, he does these twenty to forty minute videos. And I like doing these screen share videos or I like talking for thirty minutes or so. And I think the thing to understand is that if you have a lot of people leaving comments under saying, I don't know why this isn't getting more views. That means your video is probably really good. It's just the algorithm hasn't picked up on yet. And if the algorithm's actually getting smarter, this means that smaller creators are gonna have a shot.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  And I do think my bet in the next six to twelve months, if this algorithmic change is true. The marketing school podcast channel is gonna grow a lot faster and it's about damn time.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Oh, that's good. Dude, what pisses me off, and I know this is a side tangent. My team publishes content, you know, some of the stuff we use contractors, I'm texting the contractor right now. And I said, use the title, rank number one on ChatGPT, my three step traffic system. And then the video is not doing well and then those do we see, they pick their title. It's ChatGPT, the new Google for traffic? And I'm like, guys, stop trying to like just do stuff that is like, oh, let me try to do something that's like a more evoking curiosity. And I'm like, dude, people use YouTube for educational. The video breaks out how to rank on ChatGPT. Let's just keep it simple.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  I just hate when, okay, so I run into the same problems that you run into, when instructions are given, instructions aren't followed. And then the thing is, I come back and I catch it later and I feel like I'm constantly looking behind my shoulders. Is that kind of how you feel?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, um, and I can't wait for the time where I don't have to do that anymore.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yes, same here.

• 24:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, cuz look, look, here's what I call out. So those of you that can't see the video right now, once this happens, it ruins your day. Like I'm looking at Neil right now and I know how like, cuz I feel the same way too. And I already know Neil's day is ruined for the next five to 10 minutes at least.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Uh huh, I'm pissed.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  And so I'm trying to.

• 24:18Speaker 00

  What's gonna happen after this?

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Camera, but yes.

• 24:20Speaker 00

  What's Neil's gonna do after this? He's gonna send them like a barrage of text messages. He's gonna get into it.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Already did. While we're on the phone, one, two, three, four, five, six, one, I counted six ones a screenshot. Seven, seven, uh, text messages while I'm recording a podcast and then just wait till London.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  Dude, can I tell you something? So, um, I was talking about this last week, but me, I've been used, I've been so impressed by YTjobs.co, so the YouTube jobs website. Cuz it literally, I think I told you this, but it shows you who verified, who they've actually worked with cuz the, the, the other channel has to verify that they work with them. So when people apply now, I have like, it was scored on like, um, like a purple diamond is like the highest rank and they'll show like gold star.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Back, I'm a little confused. There's a site called what? YTjobs?

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, this, this, this will help you, I think, with your situation right now. Cuz this is YouTube related? Yeah, a little bit?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what, what's the exact URL? I'm confused.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  YT stands for YouTube, so YTjobs.co, that's the website, okay?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  So it's not like a YouTube job, uh, website. It's a third party.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  It's a third party. It's not owned by YouTube, yeah. And, um, the good news with this website is all the creators that are applying to work for your company. Again, they are verified, whoever they say they've worked with, like, you know, this person, six million subscribers, 12 million subscribers here, and they have testimonials and things like that too. Um, and I'll ask them, I'll say, hey, if you're gonna apply for this show, show me three retention graphs, show me what you would do with this video. And the people that are serious, they'll do the work. And literally, we've had one editor that we've been testing. He is head and shoulders above all, all the editors that I've ever worked with in the, in the past. Um, and they just know what to do. They'll like be proactive about ideas. Send Loom videos and things like that where it's like, I feel like instead of looking behind my back, I feel like they're watching my back. You know what I mean?

• 26:05Speaker 00

  And this is no different than, you know, Neil, the, the, the way that I, I, I stole from you around hiring people who have at least two promotions at two different companies. These guys have it. And so you, you look for the people, the gold diamond, or sorry, purple diamond and the gold stars. Give it to someone on your HR or recruiting team and just post everything that you're looking for. All the problems that you're having right now. I think this site can solve a lot of it because there's all YouTube native people.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Oh, that's great. I'm gonna try this out. But yeah, li- li- li- little issues when people don't follow instructions. And this is my problem as a business owner or a manager. I'm really detail oriented. And the little things, if someone gets it wrong, they bother me and I don't know how to get over that. I just can't. It's not my personality and I expect everything to be done the way I believe it should be. If someone has a better way, show me data and I'm all for adopting a new way because I always want improvement. And I expect everything to be as great as it possibly could be. And if it's not, I just get irritated.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  I see. I don't even know if it's a detail oriented thing. I think it's a high standards thing because I'm six percent detail oriented on that personality test. I remember when I still had your, your, your profile, you're like ninety nine percent detail oriented. But I, both of you and I on that thing are ninety nine percent demanding. Uh, so I think it's probably part of the demanding thing.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I can see that you and I are both demanding. And by the way, I know I'm a hard person to work for. Right? This is why I'm not the CEO of a company because I know it just pisses a lot of people off every single day.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Well, same here, but I am the CEO. So that's, that's the problem, right? And I think you have to have very, very thick skin to deal with you or me. Um, but I, I.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know. We'll just leave it at that. Maybe that, that, that's it for another episode, but we do have like probably two, three more minutes. So is there anything else you want to cover before we, we head out here?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  No, but, but going back to the detail oriented, I mean, uh, being hard to work with. My CEO is detail oriented and he holds people to a high standard. But he does it in a much more finesse type of way to not. Piss off a lot of people culturally.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Well, I don't. I'm like a HR nightmare to work with, but I don't manage any direct reports. So there is no HR problems.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  Again, the Dharmesh, so Dharmesh Shah, co-founder, CTO of HubSpot and the Neil Patel way of not having any direct reports is the dream, I think. Because you can go in and fix whatever needs to be fixed, right? Whatever is broken, whatever's big. Those are the things that you want to be applying your leverage to, because those are the things that you can, you can affect the most that will have the big impact. You know, I will say that we have a new exec joining us in about two weeks or so. The good news is, have you ever worked with anybody that's Dutch, Neil?

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:49Speaker 00

  You know, Frank Slootman from Snowflake, he's Dutch, right? So I've listened to him talk before on podcasts, like this guy's hardcore, right? He's respectful, but he's hardcore. And so what's been your experience?

• 28:59Speaker 01

  People from Netherlands, right?

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Correct.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have office there. I don't know where.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  I've never seen it, but I've been there and met my team there, but I didn't go to the office.

• 29:08Speaker 00

  And what's their, what's their style, you would say?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  They're reserved. They can be direct, which is good. But I would say they're, they're still reserved.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're direct.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  A way of thinking.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  They're direct, they're, they're reserved, but they're also kind in the way that they're direct, right?

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  And so I think this, this should hopefully help shift the, the culture a little bit. Because right now it's like me driving a lot of the, the pressure, but I think to have, you know, someone who's very direct, but also very, approaches it in a different way is going to be good for us. So we'll see how it goes.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I'm not the easiest person like me. I'm more like I'll meet certain people in, in our organization or a buddy's organization or, you know, client's organization. And my personality is not the best and I know it's a fault. Like I'll tell people on my team, I'm like, this person's not going to work out. You should get rid of them. And I'm like, cut it. And there's like, you only met him for 10 minutes. I'm like, I already know. I'm telling you, it's not going to work out here. All the things you're gonna.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  And let me ask you. Let me ask you, because I do the same thing too, but I think I'm, I'm right a good percentage of the time, but not always right. So what percentage of the time do you think you're right on that call?

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Like more than 95% of the time.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Okay. I think mine's is more like 85, 90%, which is still pretty high, but I, I think I'm still wrong sometimes is my point. So.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  In the seven years of in business at NPD or eight years, I don't know how long, how many years. I only made that call one time where I was wrong and that person still stuck around.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, and are they still here?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  And the person stuck around because my, my executive team said, no, you're wrong. We've worked with them in the past. They're amazing.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  They just need a much longer ramp up time. I was like, okay.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  But, but, but you're okay being wrong too. Like it's actually, it's actually more convenient to be wrong.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  And they'll call me out and I'm like, yeah, I know I'm wrong. I don't care if I'm wrong. I don't care if I'm right. I just want growth. And if everyone said, Neil, you suck. You should just pick up trash all day long and we would grow faster. I'd be like, cool. I used to pick up trash and clean restrooms for a living. I'll do it again. If you tell me that's going to provide more growth, tell me what to do. I will gladly do it. I don't care what it is.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  Cool. All right, guys, that's it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe and we'll see you later.