Truth About AI, Work & Human Creativity ft. Andy Oliva | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

What this episode is about

The discussion centers on the transformative role of AI in the workplace and human creativity, highlighting Andy Oliva's insights on how businesses can effectively integrate AI technology to enhance efficiency without replacing human roles. Oliva emphasizes a collaborative approach, aiming to help companies navigate the complexities of AI implementation while focusing on augmenting human capabilities and improving job satisfaction.

Key takeaways

• AI isn't about replacing people; it's a Swiss Army Knife for worker efficiency.
• From fear to frontier: AI's greatest challenge is shedding its reputation as a job-stealer.
• Employers' dilemma: Layoffs are short-term savings, but AI-augmented employees forge long-term success.
• AI: The stepping stone from rote phone duties to revolutionary customer engagement enhancements.
• Beware buzzwords: Just adding 'AI' to your product isn't pixie dust for success.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Joe Shalaby (Host) · 19 min speaking
• Andy Oliva (Guest) · 31 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Andy O, Lucky Day Labs, AI calling, AI replacing humans
2. 5:00 – 10:00: OpenAI, Sam Alman, Apple Inc., Johnny IV
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Lucky Day Labs, chain of command, ChatGPT, Wells Fargo
4. 15:00 – 20:00: competition, Genius Bar, Google My Business, Luxury Presence
5. 20:00 – 25:00: competition, Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Power of Habit, Atomic Habits
6. 25:00 – 30:00: Lucky Day Labs, air conditioning, Attorney General, Chat GPT
7. 30:00 – 35:00: OpenAI, barrier to entry, software engineer, ChatGPT
8. 35:00 – 40:00: filmmaker, film festival, AI film festival, Chapman
9. 40:00 – 45:00: promotion, Elon Musk, corporate environments, country cultures
10. 45:00 – 49:13: Lucky Day Labs, Andy O, Lucky Day Labs Academy, Lucky Day Labs Academy

Notable quotes from "Truth About AI, Work & Human Creativity ft. Andy Oliva | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby"

• Oh, absolutely. Thank you. So, it we're a creative AI agency. And so, what that means in really simple terms is let's say your company is trying to figure out what to do with AI. Where do I go? Who.

  about Andy O · at 0:35

• Try and just be honest and transparent and frank with each other about it and lean into it. when I was at OpenAI's developer conference a couple months ago for tech or a couple…

  about OpenAI · at 7:33

• It's more like you're talking with a natural conversation like almost like a human not quite. So if you've used chat GPT and you've like talked and had conversations with cheap…

  about ChatGPT · at 11:01

• That had partners with various companies. So like I mean if you want to take Apple for instance, I was at the Genius Bar. So I was a it's called the Genius Expert. and so I mean you know what the Genius Bar is?

  about Apple Inc. · at 16:39

• I agree. Have you read any of the books on like habits like power of habit by Charles Duke is the atomic habits similar thing. that book I know people say this, that book legitimately.

  about The Power of Habit · at 23:38

• Like you gave an engineer example, right? So now like you don't have to be an engineer to make an app with lovable or claude or pick take your pick of OpenAI's codeex, whatever…

  about Claude · at 31:34

• Even saying I necessarily want this to happen. I'm just saying it is going to happen. So I saw a film festival as an opportunity to just sort of bring people together in the…

  about AI film festival · at 39:28

• To my LinkedIn Andy O. I will say part of that mission and that hope that I just mentioned to you Lucky Day Labs is starting an academy called Lucky Day Labs Academy. We're…

  about Lucky Day Labs · at 47:42

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Andy O — Person · Main guest / Founder · 3 mentions · first at 0:24
  Primary interviewee who describes Lucky Day Labs, AI strategy, product work, and community activities.
• Sam Altman — Person · Referenced expert / OpenAI leader · 25 mentions
  Mentioned as a speaker at OpenAI events; his presence underscores OpenAI's leadership and product direction referenced by Andy.
  Try and just be honest and transparent and frank with each other about it and lean into it. when I was at OpenAI's developer conference a couple months ago for tech or a couple…
• Sam Alman — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at 7:42
  CEO of OpenAI, mentioned in the context of AI development.
  Of AI hardware products at OpenAI. So that's exciting. But the reason I'm telling this story is when he was talking to Samman even he mentioned that he's feeling overwhelmed…
• Johnny IV — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at 7:45
  Former chief creative officer at Apple, now at OpenAI.
  Developer conference a couple months ago for tech or a couple week a few weeks ago for tech week they had Sam Alman and Johnny IV they were talking on stage. I don't know if…
• Johnny Ive — Person · Referenced expert / Design authority · 1 mention · first at 7:45
  Mentioned as former chief design officer at Apple now at OpenAI; used to emphasize the significance of OpenAI hiring high-profile design talent and building hardware.
  Alman and Johnny IV they were talking on stage. I don't know if you know who Johnny IV is right for people for listeners who may not know he was the basically chief creative…
• Arnold Schwarzenegger — Person · Referenced expert · 3 mentions · first at 21:48
  Mentioned in the context of competition and personal achievement.
  Motivated to keep up with it and then you did it. But if I were gonna say, okay, well, if you're competing with like Arnold Schwarzenegger, like you're doubled that way, right? You're never gonna get Exactly.
• Steve Jobs — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at 7:53
  Mentioned in the context of Apple's product design.
  Listeners who may not know he was the basically chief creative officer at Apple. He basically shaped Apple's products with Steve Jobs like we know them today. So big deal in…
• Elon Musk — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at 40:38
  Mentioned in the context of AI's future impact.
  Help society you know really excel. Now, you have thoughts that, Elon Musk is all over the place with what he thinks the future looks like with AI and, and some of his stuff is just kind of scary with his thoughts.
• Andy O. — Person · 2 mentions · first at 47:42
  And you can book a free call with me right there on the website or you can go to my LinkedIn Andy O. I will say part of that mission and that hope that I just mentioned to you…
• Sam Alman — Person · 1 mention · first at 7:42
  Developer conference a couple months ago for tech or a couple week a few weeks ago for tech week they had Sam Alman and Johnny IV they were talking on stage. I don't know if…
• Johnny IV — Person · 1 mention · first at 7:45
  For tech or a couple week a few weeks ago for tech week they had Sam Alman and Johnny IV they were talking on stage. I don't know if you know who Johnny IV is right for people…
• Samman — Person · 1 mention · first at 8:11
  That's exciting. But the reason I'm telling this story is when he was talking to Samman even he mentioned that he's feeling overwhelmed with the pace of AI innovation. So if…
• Peter Teal — Person · 1 mention · first at 23:17
  One of my mentors says the hardest and you know obviously Peter Teal his book zero to one. Zero it's a great book to one is the hardest thing to do. Mh.
• Jeffrey 71st – Miller, Charles — Person · 1 mention · first at 23:42
  I agree. Have you read any of the books on like habits like power of habit by Charles Duke is the atomic habits similar thing. that book I know people say this, that book…
• Charles Duhig — Person · 1 mention · first at 23:53
  People say this, that book legitimately changed my life, but I know Power of Habit by Charles Duhig.
• Daniel Conaman — Person · 1 mention · first at 24:15
  Cliche to say that people say that about books, but legitimately that book and thinking fast and slow by Daniel Conaman. I don't know if you've heard of it. if you pair those…

Books & papers

• The Power of Habit — Book · Primary recommendation · 2 mentions · first at 23:40
  Recommended by Andy O as a life-changing book on habits.
• Power of Habit by Charles Duhig — Book · Primary recommendation · 1 mention · first at 23:48
  Recommended by Andy O as a life-changing book on habits.
  By Charles Duke is the atomic habits similar thing. that book I know people say this, that book legitimately changed my life, but I know Power of Habit by Charles Duhig.
• Thinking Fast and Slow — Book · Primary recommendation · 1 mention · first at 24:15
  Recommended as a transformative book for personal development.
  Cliche to say that people say that about books, but legitimately that book and thinking fast and slow by Daniel Conaman. I don't know if you've heard of it. if you pair those…
• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Conaman — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 24:15
  Recommended by Andy O alongside 'Power of Habit' for personal development.
  Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Conaman. I don't know if you've heard of it. if you pair those two together or even Atomic Habits with Thinking Fast is slow, I think it'll help you a lot.
• Atomic Habits — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 23:42
  Mentioned alongside 'Power of Habit' as a book on habits.
  Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Conaman. I don't know if you've heard of it. if you pair those two together or even Atomic Habits with Thinking Fast is slow, I think it'll help you a lot.
• Zero to One — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 23:17
  Mentioned as a book on startups and innovation.
  One of my mentors says the hardest and you know obviously Peter Teal his book zero to one. Zero it's a great book to one is the hardest thing to do. Mh.
• Zero to One by Peter Teal — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 23:17
  Mentioned in the context of entrepreneurship and innovation.
  One of my mentors says the hardest and you know obviously Peter Teal his book zero to one. Zero it's a great book to one is the hardest thing to do. Mh.
• Thinking Fast and Slow — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 24:15
  Recommended by Andy O for personal development.
  Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Conaman. I don't know if you've heard of it. if you pair those two together or even Atomic Habits with Thinking Fast is slow, I think it'll help you a lot.

Companies & orgs

• Lucky Day Labs — Company · Company / Business focus · 8 mentions · first at 0:29
  The creative AI agency founded/led by Andy O.; central to the discussion as the provider of AI strategy, voice agents, and training (academy).
• OpenAI — Company · Referenced organization / Community host · 4 mentions · first at 7:37
  Referenced as a major AI organization: Andy attended OpenAI developer conference, mentioned Sam Altman and Johnny Ive, and serves as a forum leader for OpenAI community events.
• Lucky Day Labs Academy — Company · Educational initiative · 2 mentions · first at 47:51
  An academy by Lucky Day Labs teaching AI tools and software creation.
  I just mentioned to you Lucky Day Labs is starting an academy called Lucky Day Labs Academy. We're going to teach people how to what it's called Vibe Code with tools like…
• Apple Inc. — Company · Referenced company / Past employer context · 1 mention · first at 7:53
  Mentioned primarily in context of Johnny Ive's role creating Apple's design language; Andy references having worked at the Genius Bar (Apple retail) as part of his background.
• Wells Fargo — Company · Referenced example / Case example · 1 mention · first at 10:36
  Used as an example of a large company whose customers may react negatively to AI voice agents answering calls; part of discussion on suitability of voice AI per brand.
  So, a lot of people are when I call Wells Fargo or Bet My Bank, it's an AI agent. I hate it.
• Chapman — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 37:54
  Mentioned in the context of AI in education and filmmaking.
  Making is done and so there's a lot of new creators that are adopting AI filmm tools we were talking about Chapman earlier right they're leaning really heavily into AI they…
• Tesla, Inc. — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 11:12
  Mentioned in the context of AI technology in cars.
  GPT and you've like talked and had conversations with cheap chat GPT or Grock if you have a Tesla you can use Grock in your car like that it's more like that now. So, it's a…
• Luxury Presence — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 16:52
  Mentioned in the context of Andy O's previous work.
  Yeah. I worked at a company called Luxury Presence, right? So, I don't know if you've heard of them, but they basically help real estate agents with their online presence. Now, they're.
• GRC — Company · Minor referenced company · 3 mentions
  Mentioned once in transcript; context unclear/limited—likely referenced as another company type or acronym during discussion.
• Bet My Bank — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 10:36
  Mentioned alongside Wells Fargo in the context of customer service.
  So, a lot of people are when I call Wells Fargo or Bet My Bank, it's an AI agent. I hate it.
• Amazon — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 30:26
  Mentioned in the context of layoffs and AI impact.
  Isn't that kind of h I mean Amazon had some of the biggest layoffs. Facebook had huge layoffs. All these big companies had big layoffs. I mean was it AI the cause of those layoffs?
• Facebook — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 30:28
  Mentioned in the context of layoffs and AI impact.
  Isn't that kind of h I mean Amazon had some of the biggest layoffs. Facebook had huge layoffs. All these big companies had big layoffs. I mean was it AI the cause of those layoffs?
• Lovable — Company · 2 mentions · first at 31:39
  Like you gave an engineer example, right? So now like you don't have to be an engineer to make an app with lovable or claude or pick take your pick of OpenAI's codeex, whatever…
• OpenAI's developer conference — Company · 1 mention · first at 7:37
  Try and just be honest and transparent and frank with each other about it and lean into it. when I was at OpenAI's developer conference a couple months ago for tech or a couple…
• Bet My Bank — Company · 1 mention · first at 10:36
  So, a lot of people are when I call Wells Fargo or Bet My Bank, it's an AI agent. I hate it.
• Genius Bar — Company · 1 mention · first at 16:45
  Companies. So like I mean if you want to take Apple for instance, I was at the Genius Bar. So I was a it's called the Genius Expert. and so I mean you know what the Genius Bar is?
• Luxury Presence — Company · 1 mention · first at 16:54
  Yeah. I worked at a company called Luxury Presence, right? So, I don't know if you've heard of them, but they basically help real estate agents with their online presence. Now, they're doing AI automation, but I like.
• chat.com — Company · 1 mention · first at 34:16
  Oh, they have both sites. I think I think OpenAI spent like millions of dollars to get chat.com.
• chatgptt.com — Company · 1 mention · first at 34:23
• forum.opai.com — Company · 1 mention · first at 34:55
• Chapman — Company · 1 mention · first at 37:54
  Making is done and so there's a lot of new creators that are adopting AI filmm tools we were talking about Chapman earlier right they're leaning really heavily into AI they…
• Lucky Day Academy — Company · 1 mention · first at 48:18
  And so what I'm going to do with Lucky Day Academy is help guide people through that process, right? So they'll be able to make their own software.
• Anthropic — Company · 1 mention
• Chapman University — Company · 1 mention
• Dodge College of Film and Media Arts — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

• ChatGPT — Product · Referenced tool · 2 mentions · first at 11:07
  Discussed as a primary example of AI tools that are changing how people interact with technology.
• Lucky Day Labs Academy — Product · Primary owned · 2 mentions · first at 47:48
  Digital product by Lucky Day Labs aimed at teaching AI tools.
  I just mentioned to you Lucky Day Labs is starting an academy called Lucky Day Labs Academy. We're going to teach people how to what it's called Vibe Code with tools like…
• Vibe Code — Product · Primary owned · 1 mention · first at 47:55
  Digital product by Lucky Day Labs, part of the Academy's offerings.
  I just mentioned to you Lucky Day Labs is starting an academy called Lucky Day Labs Academy. We're going to teach people how to what it's called Vibe Code with tools like…
• Lovable — Product · Recommendation · 2 mentions · first at 31:39
  AI tool recommended for creating software.
  People how to what it's called Vibe Code with tools like lovable. And I found that people try like these AI tools to make their own software cuz they've dreamt of like making…
• Claude — Product · Referenced tool · 1 mention · first at 31:39
  Mentioned as an AI tool for creating software.
• Lucky Day Labs Academy — Product · Secondary owned · 1 mention · first at 47:48
  Mentioned as an upcoming educational initiative by Lucky Day Labs.
  I just mentioned to you Lucky Day Labs is starting an academy called Lucky Day Labs Academy. We're going to teach people how to what it's called Vibe Code with tools like…
• Grock — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 11:12
  Mentioned as an example of AI voice technology.
  GPT and you've like talked and had conversations with cheap chat GPT or Grock if you have a Tesla you can use Grock in your car like that it's more like that now. So, it's a…
• Genius Bar — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 16:44
  Mentioned in the context of Andy O's work experience.
  That had partners with various companies. So like I mean if you want to take Apple for instance, I was at the Genius Bar. So I was a it's called the Genius Expert. and so I mean you know what the Genius Bar is?
• Google My Business — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 17:24
  Mentioned in the context of online presence for businesses.
  Launch it for them, right? And I would support them and help them learn okay, why do you need to get Google My Business profile or why does your website have to look this way…
• Siri — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 33:36
  Mentioned as an example of voice technology compared to AI.
  You can have like a full conversation with it the expectation is now well Siri why can't Siri do that Siri's been around for like 10 years why can't I do that with Siri right some people say Siri's terrible right.
• chat.com — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 34:13
  Mentioned as a platform for interacting with AI.
• chatgptt.com — Product · Incidental mention · 1 mention · first at 34:23
  Mentioned as another platform for interacting with AI.
• Chat GPT — Product · 3 mentions · first at 11:07
  It's more like you're talking with a natural conversation like almost like a human not quite. So if you've used chat GPT and you've like talked and had conversations with cheap…
• iPhones — Product · 2 mentions · first at 8:43
  In this age right now where like we were maybe the past 10, 15 years where like technology, iPhones, apps were mature as an industry. And so like the territory was mapped so to…
• Lovable — Product · 2 mentions · first at 31:39
  Like you gave an engineer example, right? So now like you don't have to be an engineer to make an app with lovable or claude or pick take your pick of OpenAI's codeex, whatever…
• Chat GBT — Product · 1 mention · first at 6:54
  Many AI applications we got that we're paying for that we're subscribed to outside of chat GBT corporate chat GBT whatever difference that is than the general one. but we ourselves have, several.
• corporate chat GBT — Product · 1 mention · first at 6:56
  Paying for that we're subscribed to outside of chat GBT corporate chat GBT whatever difference that is than the general one. but we ourselves have, several.
• AI hardware products — Product · 1 mention · first at 8:03
  World. He's joined OpenAI now. he mentioned that they're building a family of AI hardware products at OpenAI. So that's exciting. But the reason I'm telling this story is when…
• Google My Business — Product · 1 mention · first at 17:24
  Launch it for them, right? And I would support them and help them learn okay, why do you need to get Google My Business profile or why does your website have to look this way…
• Google My Business profile — Product · 1 mention · first at 17:24
  Launch it for them, right? And I would support them and help them learn okay, why do you need to get Google My Business profile or why does your website have to look this way…
• air conditioning — Product · 1 mention · first at 27:49
  Just don't disclose it so you know Sure. And not that like I mean look we've got air conditioning We've got like relative security, right? Like we've got like plumbing and food…
• planes — Product · 1 mention · first at 28:00
  Like relative security, right? Like we've got like plumbing and food and the planes take off and the cars drive and I don't know, it's just like a kind of a miracle to me every…
• computers — Product · 1 mention · first at 29:27
  Adopt technology. That was the hottest thing. We had the internet. We had computers. We had iPhones. Like that was the cool thing to do when I was growing up. And for better or…
• OpenAI's codeex — Product · 1 mention · first at 31:45
  An engineer to make an app with lovable or claude or pick take your pick of OpenAI's codeex, whatever it is right now. how anyone can make an app. So if you're a software…
• voice mode — Product · 1 mention · first at 33:29
  Because clients are interfacing with like give you an example chatpt if you've used voice mode in chat GPT you can have like a full conversation with it the expectation is now well Siri why can't Siri do that Siri's been around.
• voice mode in chat GPT — Product · 1 mention · first at 33:29
  Because clients are interfacing with like give you an example chatpt if you've used voice mode in chat GPT you can have like a full conversation with it the expectation is now well Siri why can't Siri do that Siri's been around.
• chat.com — Product · 1 mention · first at 34:16
  Oh, they have both sites. I think I think OpenAI spent like millions of dollars to get chat.com.
• chatgptt.com — Product · 1 mention · first at 34:23
• forum.opai.com — Product · 1 mention · first at 34:55
• luckydaylabs.ai — Product · 1 mention · first at 47:34
• academy.luckys/weightlist — Product · 1 mention · first at 48:40
  Information doesn't get leaked in a database, right? So you can find that at academy.luckys/weightlist.
• cars — Product · 1 mention
• ChatGPT — Product · 1 mention
• Grock — Product · 1 mention
• OpenAI Forum — Product · 1 mention
• Siri — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

• Antifragility — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of systems that benefit from stress.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Cognitive Biases — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of systematic patterns of deviation from norm.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Cold Exposure — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of health and wellness strategies.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Compound Interest — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of growth principles.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Deep Work — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of productivity and focus.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• First Principles Thinking — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned alongside Stoicism as a thinking framework.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Incentive Design — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of structuring rewards and motivations.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Intermittent Fasting — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of health and wellness strategies.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Lindy Effect — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of longevity and durability of ideas.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Moore's Law — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of technological progress.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Network Effects — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of value increase with more users.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Pareto Principle — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of efficiency and productivity.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Power Law — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of distribution and scaling phenomena.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Second-Order Thinking — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of considering long-term and indirect consequences.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Stoicism — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of personal development philosophies.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• Zone 2 Training — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of fitness and health.
  Like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to…
• competition — Concept · 7 mentions · first at 18:55
  Sure. What do you think of competition?
• filmmaker — Concept · 4 mentions · first at 37:14
  So I'm sure like for maybe your listeners that don't know, a film festival is where filmmakers will have their film, they'll showcase it to like a selected audience of people…
• software engineer — Concept · 3 mentions · first at 29:54
  Were only seeing like the negatives of what it could do. And it was a very like fear and anxiety. software engineers are the biggest ones that hate it because they're like it's it can do my job, right? That shocked me. At first, I.
• film festival — Concept · 3 mentions · first at 37:00
  Got it. Now, let me ask you, you've hosted an AI film festival. What's an AI film festival?
• real estate agents — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 4:15
  People that adopt AI. And in my industry specifically, mortgage loan originators for instance or real estate agents, if they're using AI, they're performing at a much higher level than absolutely those that are not. And.
• phone tree system — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 10:54
  Don't get a human, you're pissed. Well, there's the traditional like phone tree systems that we've all used for the past, I don't know, two decades.
• chain of command — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 12:45
  That sort of thing. And so that to me is a signal that the feedback isn't going up the chain of command like it should.
• deadlifting — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 18:12
  Yeah. I did actually on Tuesday I broke my PR for deadlifting 300 lb.
• security — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 27:52
  Sure. And not that like I mean look we've got air conditioning We've got like relative security, right? Like we've got like plumbing and food and the planes take off and the…
• barrier to entry — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 31:29
  Their jobs were going to get replaced with AI. What I'm actually seeing is that like the barrier to entry gets lowered because of AI, right? So like you gave an engineer…
• controversy — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 33:55
  We'll see I look I've heard Apple is making lots of different improvements There's a whole controversy to that. So, but look, like that's what I that's what right? Expectations…
• promotion — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 43:10
  They won't fire me, but like they'll like maybe I won't get a promotion, right? Or like maybe they'll give me like a really hard project, right? So there's all these sort of…
• corporate veil — Concept · 2 mentions
• implicit incentives — Concept · 2 mentions
• kind candor — Concept · 2 mentions
• wars — Concept · 2 mentions
• voice system — Concept · 1 mention · first at 0:13
  Got to make sure you dot your eyes, you cross your tees, you can't like now if I go and I implement like a voice system for a company like I've got to make sure that thing is…
• signal from the noise — Concept · 1 mention · first at 0:54
  Figure that out. So, I'll come in. I'll help you figure out your strategy. I'll help you filter the signal from the noise. And then on top of that, I can even build it out for…
• AI voice agent — Concept · 1 mention · first at 1:17
  Really nice, clean, optimal way for your needs. Let's say you want to build something like an AI voice agent that when somebody calls your business, an AI picks up the phone…
• AI replacing humans — Concept · 1 mention · first at 3:54
  Pretty, everyone's pretty open about it is everyone's concerned about AI replacing humans. Everybody said talks about it, right?
• mortgage loan originators — Concept · 1 mention · first at 4:13
  AI. AI is enhancing those people that adopt AI. And in my industry specifically, mortgage loan originators for instance or real estate agents, if they're using AI, they're performing at a much higher level than absolutely.
• AI calling — Concept · 1 mention · first at 4:30
  Techheavy. And we use a lot of AI, whether it's voice agents, whether it's AI calling, AI routing, AI taking phone calls, AI helping with document preparation or document you…
• AI routing — Concept · 1 mention · first at 4:30
  Techheavy. And we use a lot of AI, whether it's voice agents, whether it's AI calling, AI routing, AI taking phone calls, AI helping with document preparation or document you…
• document preparation — Concept · 1 mention · first at 4:34
  Whether it's voice agents, whether it's AI calling, AI routing, AI taking phone calls, AI helping with document preparation or document you know requesting documents or you know following up with clients or milestones.

Places & events

• AI film festival — Event · Case study · 1 mention · first at 37:00
  Event hosted by Andy O to showcase AI's impact on filmmaking.
• Paris — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 35:07
  Mentioned in the context of an AI event.
  Event where they hosted a museum curator in Paris and they talked about how they're using AI to help educate museum guests as they go through the museum and inform them on, different art pieces, right? To we had like neuroscientists.
• San Francisco — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 35:57
  Mentioned as the location of OpenAI's office.
  Discussion there. I had the opportunity to go to an education guild summit at the office in San Francisco a couple weeks ago and that was just to collect a bunch of educators…

Sponsors

• luckydaylabs.ai — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 47:34
  So you can go to luckydaylabs.ai and you can book a free call with me right there on the website or you can go to my LinkedIn Andy O. I will say part of that mission and that hope that.
• LinkedIn — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 47:42
  And you can book a free call with me right there on the website or you can go to my LinkedIn Andy O. I will say part of that mission and that hope that I just mentioned to you…
• academy.luckys/weightlist — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 48:40
  Information doesn't get leaked in a database, right? So you can find that at academy.luckys/weightlist.
• SPONSOR: Lucky Day Labs (book a free call) — Sponsor · 1 mention
• SPONSOR: Lucky Day Labs Academy (waitlist) — Sponsor · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 going from an employee to a founder is now you're responsible, right? Like the buck stops with you, right? That's scary. Legitimately, you got to make sure you dot your eyes, you cross your tees, you can't like now if I go and I implement like a voice system for a company like I've got to make sure that that thing is well put together. Welcome to another episode [singing] of coffee.

0:23 Thank you very much. All right, Andy here. uh give people a quick 2,000 ft overview of what is Lucky Day Labs, what do you do, how are you changing the game in AI, and uh how can they benefit from today's show. Oh,

0:35 absolutely. Thank you. So, it we're a creative AI agency. And so, what that means in really simple terms is uh let's say your company is trying to figure out what to do with AI. Where do I go? Who do I listen to? What's my path forward? So, I help you figure that out. So, I'll come in. I'll help you figure out your strategy. I'll help you filter the signal from the noise. And then on top of that, I can even build it out for you. So let's say you need a new piece of software for your business that's running on AI. It's much more efficient, right? I can build that for you. I can design it in a really nice, clean, optimal way for your needs. Let's say you want to build something like an AI voice agent that when somebody calls your business, an AI picks up the phone and answers any concerns they have or routes them to the correct department, helps you schedule an appointment.

1:31 It's another example. My philosophy with what I'm trying to do is not replace people with AI. I'm trying to augment them and complement them and make their jobs easier and hopefully take the work that, you know, they don't find very fun or or fulfilling or meaningful. At least that's my my guiding philosophy. We're we're going through such a transformational period right now. It's hard to predict exactly what's going to happen. But from what I can see and my what my experience has been, I think um I think we're going through more of a a transformational shift and less like a everything's going to go away sort of shift. I think if you're like let's say a business and you want to replace somebody that has to babysit the phone all day and like answer the phone calls, if you if you're a business and you replace that with an AI, the next question is like what happens to that person, right? Do do you fire them? What

2:27 do you do? So, like if I'm going into your company, my re my recommendation to you is going to be like, look, like let's say you're paying 50k a year for that employee to basically just sit and monitor the phone, right? If you replace that with an AI, you can take that same employee and you can have them do other things like maybe if they don't have to spend their time and bandwidth manning the phones. Then they can improve your customer experience like two, three, four times to what it is and then that helps you get more clients, right? So that's sort of my philosophy in in it. So I would I I don't want to go into a company and say, "Hey, let's replace your entire team with voice AI, right? That's not what my general philosophy is." My general philosophy is how can we take and free up bandwidth for your team that you already have and then how can we find new creative ways that you can increase your company's

3:26 productivity or improve your experience for your customers with the existing employees that you have so that we don't get rid of you know all those employees that have jobs that have lives that need to pay their own bills sort of things like that. So I know that was sort of a long You know, right now the biggest concern with AI and this is pretty, you know, everyone's pretty open about it is everyone's concerned about AI replacing humans. Everybody said talks about it,

3:58 right? My philosophy is AI isn't replacing humans. AI is enhancing those that adopt

4:06 AI. You know, uh AI is enhancing those people that adopt AI. And in my industry specifically, you know, mortgage loan originators for instance or real estate agents,

4:18 if they're using AI, they're performing at a much higher level than absolutely those that are not. And

4:24 as a CEO of a company, we're very techheavy. And we use a lot of AI, whether it's voice agents, whether it's um AI calling, AI routing, AI taking phone calls, AI helping with document preparation or document uh you know requesting documents or you know following up with clients or milestones. The world of AI, we're just scratching the surface. This wasn't even like a word a couple years ago, right?

4:50 And now it's this is not just a buzzword. This is like, you know, the future. Yeah, I look like it is the future. Whether we agree with it or not, it's coming. And so my philosophy has been I need to help people prepare for what's coming because if they're not prepared for what's coming, then that's going to be really bad, right? Then that is the situation where like they're I don't know, the CEO of their company has to make a hard decision and say, you know, I've got a 100 employees. they don't know how to use AI and the company's going to go bankrupt if I don't bring in employees that do, right? I want to try and avoid that situation. I want to help those employees and those teams upskill and retrain as quickly as possible, as easily as possible to avoid like situations like that. So, however, we do have to be careful because there is a lot of like there is I've seen a lot of noise in the past

5:49 with like just because like a company puts AI on some like they say we did this AI thing like people are burned out with like hearing that as like even though like I don't think it should be a buzzword it has become that for like the layman person there is genuine value and benefits to be gained in AI for like the reason like an example I just provided earlier. But just be careful. Just because a company has the word AI on it doesn't mean it's necessarily like if you're a CEO of a company, just because somebody comes to you and they're like, "Hey, this is AI." You shouldn't like just immediately adopt it. If they can provide you like meaningful value kind of like how I did earlier, then that definitely I think you should look into that. Seriously.

6:33 Yeah. I mean, listen, there's a new AI application being created every second, right? Exactly. Yeah.

6:39 And you say you come into companies and help them drain the noise. There's a lot of freaking noise,

6:46 you know, around AI. What AI should I use? What AI? I mean, I don't know how many AI applications we got that we're paying for that we're subscribed to outside of chat GBT

6:56 corporate chat GBT whatever difference that is than the general one. Um, but we we ourselves have, you know, several.

7:03 Sure. And look, don't feel I I' I've found people feel guilty. I'm not necessarily you not saying you, but I've found people feel bad or they feel guilty or they feel ashamed about not being able to keep up with the pace of how fast things are going. Like all of these AI companies are releasing like groundbreaking products. It feels like almost every week, almost every day, right? And even even I have had trouble and like just you mentioned like having trouble keeping up with how fast things are moving. And I don't think we should be ashamed of that. I think we should try and just be honest and transparent and frank with each other about it and lean into it. Um when I was at OpenAI's developer conference a couple months ago for tech or a couple week a few weeks ago for tech week um they had uh Sam Alman and Johnny IV they were talking on stage. I don't know if you know who Johnny IV is right for people for

7:50 listeners who may not know he was the basically chief creative officer at Apple. He basically shaped Apple's products with Steve Jobs like we know them today. So big deal in the design world. He's joined OpenAI now. um he mentioned that they're building a family of AI hardware products at OpenAI. So that's exciting. But the reason I'm telling this story is when he was talking to Samman even he mentioned that he's feeling overwhelmed with the pace of AI innovation. So if that guy is feeling overwhelmed, don't like don't I tell people don't feel guilty, don't feel bad. We can be honest with each other, right? And so once we're honest, right, then we can just start sharing our perspectives with each other like you and I are doing right now. Like I'm seeing this, are you seeing this? What do you think of that? Have you used this? Have you tried that? Um we're not in this age right now where like we were

8:41 maybe the past 10, 15 years where like technology, iPhones, apps were mature as an industry. And so like the territory was mapped so to speak and you could just go to someone who had been doing something for five or 10 years and you could ask their opinion and they could give you the answer and that was good enough. We're not in that period right now. We're more in in a period where like it's like an explorator we're like exploring uncharted territory. There's of course a few there's principles that still remain true, right? and that are never going to change and have always been true. But there's a lot of things that are kind of unknown that we're going to have to figure out together.

9:19 So, let me ask you this. You know, we we talk a lot about AI replacing workforces. Which workforce do you think is going to go first [sighs] with AI innovation? I mean, you just said, I come in and I I I I come in and I use voice agents. Is it the Is it the receptionist? Is it the programmer? It

9:44 It's nuanced. It's tricky. We're in shades of gray territory. I want to avoid being in black and white territory because like So, let me give you a couple examples. So, like there are scenarios where like I could replace like a receptionist with an AI. Right now, my hope is that that receptionist will have will find other more productive, more fun things to do.

10:07 Yeah. Right. That's my hope. Right. At the same time, there's going to be companies and industries that don't want to do a voice AI for their business because it doesn't match their brand, doesn't match their culture, their customers won't be comfortable with it,

10:21 right? Like, and then there's going to be some industries where like they love it. Like, it's a good thing for a company. Like, if they pick up a phone and they call a company and it's like an AI or they're like, "Wow, this tech company, they they're really like tech forward." Do you get what I'm saying? So, I mean, a lot of people are like, "Uh, when I call Wells Fargo or Bet My Bank, it's an AI agent. I hate it." Right? We don't have a voice AI agent answering phone calls. Maybe after hours there could be like some something, but like you call a finance company, you don't get a human, you're pissed. Well, there's the traditional like phone tree systems that we've all used for the past, I don't know, two decades.

10:59 The the voice AIs are sort of different. It's more like you're talking with a natural conversation like almost like a human not quite. So if you've used chat GPT and you've like talked and had conversations with cheap chat GPT or Grock if you have a Tesla you can use Grock in your car like that it's more like that now. So, it's a much more rich, better quality experience, I believe, if it's done right. Like, and that's where I think having a good customer service background is really helpful. And that's kind of what my background is because like I've been on like those front lines, so to speak, of interacting with customers. And so I know the disconnect firsthand of like, okay, here's the BS of like what management is trying to do in their meetings and here's what the customers are like experiencing on the ground with the frontline employees and how to make that an experience that the customer will actually enjoy rather than

11:58 like sometimes what I see happen is and I have to be careful here because I don't want to get myself in trouble, but sometimes what I see happen here is like the a management team will have an initiative. They'll hire their customer service team. They'll create all of their policies. They'll teach the customer service team. The customer service team will go out and do it. And then the customer service team will learn all of this information. They'll get feedback from customers. But then like the customer service representative, their hands are tied because they aren't making product decisions and they're afraid of telling the management team what they really think because they're afraid that they're going to get labeled as like super negative or not a team player or or the manager will get mad at them, that sort of thing. And so that to me is a signal that the feedback isn't going up the chain of command like it should.

12:47 And so my philosophy is that in in a company the managers should be fostering a culture of transparency and frankness in a kind and candid and respectful way so that when customers have an issue that's where they're getting signal right ideally their representatives are talking to the customers acquiring all of the signal feedback of what should be done and how things should be improved. those customer reps should have feel like they can carry that up the chain of command and then the management has more information that's valid to go off of.

13:21 So I see now let me ask you this. Where does uh let's talk about where this all began. Where did you get the idea of starting Lucky Day Labs and what problem were you trying to start really solve for?

13:38 Sure. That's a good question. So, you know, I guess I never really I always wanted to start a company. You know, my family at different points before I was born, they were entrepreneurial as well, but it was just it's it seemed like this thing that was super far off in the distance, like I could never really do it. That was for some other people to do, you know, that was just not something I was meant to do. But I think that in the age we're living now, it's never been easier to start a business. And I have this background in the tech space like almost 10 years now at various different companies and startups and whatever. And people started coming to me and asking me sort of like my advice or my opinion or if I could do this or if I could do that. And it got to a point where I'm like, I just I got to just make this official at this point and start a company. And then the rest is history, I guess you could say.

14:36 But I mean, tech for me has always been fun. Like, ever since I was a little kid, like my mom showed me like home videos and I I was I was always like trying to figure things out. I don't know what it was. Um, but like I I I I look at technology like that as well. And I get frustrated when things don't work as they should from like a soft like a customer experience. Like you've had I'm sure you've had this. you call and you got to like argue with maybe like a receptionist or whatever because of some policy that didn't go right or you use some app and like there there may be bugs or whatever and it doesn't work like I don't I I don't like that like that I don't think it should be that way and and it's not to say the people that are making these systems aren't trying like they are trying to provide good experiences but there's there's always dynamics at play that might be limiting them and restricting

15:32 them. And so ICAI is a way to kind of unshackle these teams and these companies that, you know, before they were held back by something and now

15:41 What's ICAI? ICAI. Yeah. Oh, you said I see AI. Is that another acronym? Oh, did I?

15:51 I don't know. Maybe I did. Yeah. I I see AI. Do you see AI? Oh, no. No. I see. Oh, I thought I heard I heard I see you see AI as something.

15:59 I see AI. Yes. I see AI as something that can, you know, remove the traditional barriers that stopped these well-intentioned people from wanting to create a good experience but weren't able to for, you know, whatever. Pick your reason, right? So,

16:16 Got it. Yeah, man. So many acronyms with all these things going on. I'm like, I'm just keeping up. Like, is that a new company?

16:22 I know. I know, right? Let me ask you this because you've worked with uh Apple Sutherbe

16:27 Sir and you were in the tech development space for all these organizations. Um so I I've worked in I worked in different companies as a representative that had partners with various companies. So like I mean if you want to take Apple for instance, I was at the Genius Bar. So I was a it's called the Genius Expert. Uh and so I mean you know what the Genius Bar is?

16:52 Yeah. I I worked at a company called Luxury Presence, right? So, I don't know if you've heard of them, but they basically help real estate agents with their online presence. Now, they're doing AI automation, but I like realators from all of these brokerages you mentioned would come to me as a part of that company and I would like design their websites for them and give them branding strategy and SEO strategy and then I would actually design it and then launch it for them, right? And I would support them and help them learn like, okay, why do you need to get Google My Business profile or why does your website have to look this way versus that way? And like why should your brand present itself as this and who who are your customers and why would why are those your customers? All these sort of business strategy sort of things. And um I you know I learned a lot and and I did really well. I broke company records

17:47 multiple times. I'm very proud to say because early in my life I was not that kind of you know overachiever person. I I struggled in school. Um so it was just a really proud moment for me. Um I mean I'm you work out, right? So like when you go to the gym and you lift a weight that's like more than last time or last week, it feels really good.

18:09 Yeah. Right. Yeah. I did actually on Tuesday I broke my PR for deadlifting 300 lb.

18:14 Congrats. Good for you. It feels good, right? Yeah. And even though like it might seem silly like to some people that don't work out, like you can take that confidence and you can apply it to other areas of your life because it's something that you were able to improve on yourself. Like just you working hard at something.

18:31 I' I've gamified everything in my life. Every single variable in my life is like a game [snorts] now. Like there's just not nothing I haven't gamified.

18:40 Sure. Sure. I mean, I hope we don't get into like the Black Mirror world, but I do think that it's helpful to like gamify stuff sometimes.

18:48 I mean, because I'm always trying to get better at everything I do. And I'm I'm 44. I'm in a basketball league. I'm still trying to get better at basketball.

18:55 Sure. What do you think of competition? I love competition. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's part of gamification, right? Like

19:02 competition with other people. Competition with other people. Competition with myself. competition, you know, like in my industry, we have all the mega companies. There's four competitors. I try to, like I I discussed with you earlier, I try to distinguish myself from from my my top competition by, you know, a bunch of different uh things that are unique to me and my personal brand. Um, we we've gamified all of our top teams at our company, all of our top loan originators at our company, and kind of see where they're at with their production, and they could track what everyone's doing.

19:38 So, you know, and I I do that with pretty much everything in my life, whatever it is, you know, and same kind I I I instill that mentality sadly in my kids. I don't know if it's sad or not, but I they're always trying to get better at everything they're doing, too. So, I know I'd love to kind of peel this onion with you a little bit and I want to hear what you think because I think it'll be useful to me. So, I don't like competition

20:04 really. Yeah. I've never liked it. I don't know why. There were people around me in my life.

20:09 Were you an athlete? I played soccer, but even then I wasn't really competitive. Um, I was around people that were competitive.

20:18 But then you're okay with losing? No. No. Um, I mean, I like winning, too. Exactly.

20:26 But, okay, so this is good. I like that we're unpacking this. So, my thing is the reason I always I didn't like competition was because I felt like it was a distraction from whatever the goal I was trying to accomplish was.

20:38 There's truth to that, too. I mean, but to get to that goal faster, you need to have someone lighting a flame under your butt.

20:47 True. I I see that. My So, my thing is is I don't like to compete with other people. I like to compete with the version of myself from yesterday.

20:55 Yeah. And going back to what you mentioned earlier where you try to do better every single day.

20:59 Get better every single day. There you at the end of the day, and that is true that you're only in competition with yourself.

21:07 True. The only person you need to compete with is the guy in the mirror. That's the ultimate competitor

21:12 yesterday. Yeah. But but to get there, you need to have like benchmarks. Sure. you know, so I use my competitors. Now, there's things in my life where like I don't have competitors left, you know, like

21:27 Sure. So, so let me give you an example. Let me I want to hear what you think about this. So, like let's take you broke your PR record, right? Okay, that's you competing against your record yesterday. You set that bench for yourself, right? You set that standard. You were self motivated to keep up with it and then you did it. But if I were gonna say, okay, well, if you're competing with like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, like

21:53 you're doubled that way, right? You're never gonna get Exactly. So, like if your goal is to compete with someone else, like

22:01 you shouldn't like you're not Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's okay. Like the reason Arnold Schwarzenegger is who he is is because he's extraordinary. And there's tons of other examples. And so what I

22:12 Well, maybe I compete with him at this age that he's at now. But I mean, look like dude 75,

22:17 right? Well, we might be deadlifting the same way. Well, I don't know. He still looks pretty good for his age, don't you?

22:23 I know, but you know, when you're 75, you can't deadlift 300. I mean, he can, but

22:27 300's still pretty hard for him, right? So I mean look like for me the competition was a negative because I incorrectly at a young age I tried to compare myself with like unrealistic standards of competition and then it was like well why even get started like why even try because I'm never going to be at that level do you get what I'm saying

22:51 and so yeah sometimes competition is debilitating like I'll never get to that level like why even start

22:57 right but that's not Oh, of course you should try. Of course we should start. We know this now. It makes sense. Obvious when we say it. But

23:05 you know, I worry there's a lot of people that were like I was where they get discouraged and they don't even start. You know what I'm saying?

23:14 Um but it shouldn't be that. One of my mentors says the hardest and you know obviously Peter Teal his book zero to one. Zero

23:20 it's a great book to one is the hardest thing to do. Mh. It's like after one it's easy. Zero

23:26 to get to one it's like that's all the effort is is getting to the start a and then from there it's just consistency.

23:38 I agree. Have you read any of the the books on like habits like power of habit by Charles Duke is the atomic habits similar thing. Um, that book I know people say this, that book legitimately changed my life, but I know Power of Habit by Charles Duhig.

23:55 Do you like it more than Atomic Habits? I haven't read Atomic Habits because I was like I I looked at the summary. I'm like, this seems like the same

24:01 same thing as I don't know. Maybe there's new information but it's just a more modern version. Power of Habits is just older.

24:07 Sure. Um, but look, that that book changed my life. And I know that's cliche to say that people say that about books, but legitimately that book and thinking fast and slow by Daniel Conaman. I don't know if you've heard of it. Um, if you pair those two together or even Atomic Habits with Thinking Fast is slow, I think it'll help you a lot. Um it just sort of it was this huge unlock for me in terms of like my personal development and like what was possible and what was not possible because there were all these things in my life that just sort of held me back that you know there's this impression like you're some people are good at some things other people are good at other things and you're just born with the way you are and there's not much you can change and and those two books help me see there is a lot you can change there's some things you can't change like Arnold or Arnold Schwarzenegger

24:55 you're never going to lift as much as he did, right? But there's a lot of things you can change, right? Like, so I I encourage anyone to go read those books if they can.

25:04 Yeah. I mean, or just start with Chat GPT, like ask Chatt, "Hey, what's this book about?"

25:09 And then start there and you can go buy the book if you if it pies your interest.

25:14 Now, when you started uh Lucky Day Labs, like what were some of the bigger risks that you took to get this company off the floor? And uh you know what are some of the bigger risks you foresee coming in this world of AI?

25:28 Um look I think starting a company is really risky because if you're an employee and you've worked as a company there's this hidden thing that is taking care of for you.

25:36 Yeah. And that hidden thing, I'm sure you're aware, is like liability, right? When you work for an employee at another company, they're taking all of the liability and all of the risk, right? So, like if you if you do something and somebody's directed you to do something, then that's not really your fault. That's the company's fault. And then the company has to like pay for it or get lawyers for it or so on and so forth. Whereas if you're starting a company, the biggest risk is like going from an employee to a founder is now you're responsible,

26:09 right? Like the buck stops with you, right? Yeah. So that's scary legitimately, right? You've got to make sure you dot your eyes, you cross your tees, you can't let things slip through. Like now if I go and I implement like a voice AI system for a company, like I've got to make sure that that thing is well put together, right? I can't just be like, "Thank you, sir. have a good day, right? Like if you're working for someone else, like, oh, that's their problem. Maybe some people think, right? No, like it's my problem and I got to make sure that I'm not messing things up in their company, right? Because if I mess things up in their company, they've got bills to pay. They've got vendors to pay.

26:47 Like, they've got employees that have to have their own things to pay as well, right? So, but look, we have we have legal structures and things in place to help encourage entrepreneurs to be able to take that risk and get a little bit of shield like LLC's and corporate structures and things like that, which is good. I'd like it to be easier, but the fact that we even have that I think is a miracle like genuinely.

27:14 Yeah. Just some sort of corporate uh veil, right? I I'm constantly amazed at like working inside different companies. I'm sure you know this like you see working with other people even just like calling other companies how many things go wrong and I think it's a miracle that like society and civilization and culture exists the way that it does and more things don't go wrong yeah you're right a lot goes wrong but we we just sweep it under the rug or we just don't disclose it so you know

27:47 Sure. And not that like I mean look we we've got air conditioning We've got like relative security, right? Like we've got like plumbing and food and and the planes take off and the cars drive and I don't know, it's just like a kind of a miracle to me every day that that that's happening. So that's like my baseline, you know, I try to remind myself of. So

28:12 hey, that's we got Thanksgiving coming up. So that that spirit of thankfulness is always in the works. Let's, you know, let's talk about AI like what what do you think uh what problem is Lucky Labs solving right now in a way that feels exciting human and necessary?

28:31 So, two two different things right now that are really on my radar and are are bringing me the most amount of joy. number one, doing things like this and having like really frank, candid conversations with people like you and other people to help them sort through the noise and kind of comfort their fears. Um, I I find a lot of enjoyment out of that. Um, techn like AI has been a really unique trend that's been different than any other technological trend that I've seen in my lifetime. Yeah. When I was growing up, there were these two camps of people. I felt like maybe this is true, maybe this was just anecdotal, but there were two camps of people. There were people that were wanting to adopt technology and then there were the people that just wanted to keep things traditional. Okay? And most of the trend was people wanting to adopt technology. That was the hottest thing. We had the internet. We had

29:27 computers. We had iPhones. Like that was the cool thing to do when I was growing up. And for better or for worse, AI is the first time where even from people that are in technology and technology like literate and work in tech, they were like hating AI and they were only seeing like the negatives of of what it could do. And it was a very like fear and anxiety. I mean, software engineers are the biggest ones that hate it because they're like it's it can do my job,

30:02 right? That shocked me. At first, I thought it was just like on the surface like there wasn't any depth to it, but everywhere I went I I found that sentiment and I'm like, "Okay, I got to do something about this cuz I get where people are coming from. Everyone's afraid their jobs are going to get replaced." This was like two years ago. Everyone was afraid their jobs are going to get replaced. So on and so forth. I get the fear, right? I I was afraid too.

30:26 Isn't that kind of h I mean Amazon had some of the biggest layoffs. Facebook had huge layoffs. All these big companies had big layoffs. I mean was it AI the cause of those layoffs?

30:35 That's tough to say. It's really tough to say like why layoffs happen inside of these big companies. Unless you know someone that made that decision. I really don't think we're ever going to know. We can all summize and like kind of guess but I don't know if it we'll we'll truly ever know the real reason. But look, I think a a more accurate picture, if I was going to take a shot in the dark, would be the future is unpredictable right now because of the transformational moment we're going on, not only just AI, but like look, there's wars going on too, right? And so these companies are looking at the future and and they can't make the same like sure decisions that they could have made maybe in the past decade. And so they're adjusting their risk mitigation strategies accordingly.

31:18 So if that's just if I was going to take a shot in the dark, but look like [snorts] people were afraid they were going to their their jobs were going to get replaced with AI. What I'm actually seeing is that like the barrier to entry gets lowered because of AI, right? So like you gave an engineer example, right? So now like you don't have to be an engineer to make an app with lovable or claude or pick take your pick of OpenAI's codeex, whatever it is right now. how anyone can make an app. So if you're a software engineer, you're sitting there and you're like, "Well, what am I going to do?" Right? So that's where that fear comes from and I get it.

31:56 But it's true that it raised it lowers the barrier to entry and makes the the floor lower so more people can get in, but it also raises the ceiling of expectation at the same time. So it moves more like this or more like this, I guess you could say. So more is expected of that software engineer. So if you're a CEO, you want a prototype of an app in a day, not two weeks. Used to take two weeks, a week, right? Depending on the situation. Now it takes a day, two days.

32:35 It used to take months a prototype. Sure. Right. So now that means if you're a CEO and you're sitting at your company, you're like, "Huh, I can do 10 prototypes in a quarter, which means I can potentially take two or three times as many products to market or features to market as I could before, which means now I need more engineers, not less engineers, right? or I can certainly keep the engineers that I have because now people's expectation from software from customer experience is going to go up as well. Right? You're using this old phone tree system. You're not using like this AI that can just understand what I'm saying. I have to have these weird keywords that like to get to the right person. What is that? That expectation is not acceptable anymore, right?

33:25 because clients are interfacing with like give you an example chatpt if you've used voice mode in chat GPT you can have like a full conversation with it

33:33 the expectation is now well Siri why can't Siri do that Siri's been around for like 10 years why can't I do that with Siri right some people say Siri's terrible right

33:42 and I don't know why we can't do that with Siri why like that now exactly it probably will be on version 18 and 19

33:49 we'll see I look I've heard Apple is making lots of different improvements There's a whole controversy to that. So, but look, like that's what I that's what I mean, right? Expectations are raising, but it's also easier. So, I I I frankly think that it's like one of the best times to be alive if you can adopt this stuff. And the mo what's exciting about this that's even different than the past is you can talk in plain English. Anyone can go to chat.com and talk to jatgpt for free just as they would talk to their parents or their siblings.

34:23 Or chatgptt.com. Both. Yeah. Oh, they have both sites. I I think I think OpenAI spent like millions of dollars to get chat.com. It's crazy.

34:32 Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Um, now I want to talk about two things. One is you are the forum leader for OpenAI. What is the forum leader job

34:46 description? What do you do for OpenAI and how did you get that job? Sure. So, um I found a lot of people don't know this. So, if you go to forum.opai.com, you'll find that they have a forum there. So, they do virtual events, right? So, like there was a a virtual event where they hosted a museum curator in Paris and they talked about how they're using AI to help educate museum guests as they go through the museum and inform them on, you know, different art pieces, right? To we had like neuroscientists talking about how AI is helping them with their scientific research and helping move things along and increase the pace of research. And there's discussion forums where like someone can go and they can just have a discussion like the old school forum days I guess you could say or the classic forum days right. [snorts] Um and so my responsibility as a forum leader is just to encourage AI adoption in local

35:44 communities. So I'm in the if you see you go into the discussion boards you'll see me there. There's a virtual event you'll see me you know helping encourage discussion there. Um, I had the opportunity to go to uh an education guild summit at the office in San Francisco a couple weeks ago and that was just to collect a bunch of educators from across the country to sort of figure out what does the future of education look like with AI. So all of these are sort of like what I like to call humanities-based, artistic based, humanistic based approaches to kind of see how do we figure out this AI stuff together just by having conversations with each other and sharing what we're doing.

36:26 Um, so that's how I sort of see being a foreign leader as it's so I had to go through an application process, but I consider it to be more of a honor and it's a volunteer thing I do for fun. So it's not like I'm getting compensated for AI. It's still a tremendous privilege, at least in my mind, because like if someone else tried to go and apply to be a forum leader right now, they couldn't, right? they couldn't become a forum leader, right? So, yeah.

36:58 Got it. Now, let me ask you, you've hosted an AI film festival. What's an AI film festival?

37:05 Sure. Um, so I'm sure like for maybe your listeners that don't know, um, a film festival is where filmmakers will have their film, they'll showcase it to like a selected audience of people to sort of get their feedback or share like what's happening on the forefront of film making, right? So like before a film goes to theaters, it'll be presented at a film festival like months and months before that. you know a bunch of filmmakers and producers and directors will go to that film festival and they'll you know all sort of mingle and watch it and they're at the forefront of like film making as an art form right so I thought okay how could this apply to AI right AI is completely transforming how film making is done and so there's a lot of new creators that are adopting AI filmm tools we were talking about Chapman earlier right they're leaning really heavily into AI they have a really big uh storied film school at Chapman,

38:02 right? And so I as a part of the forum I started talking to a filmmaker there and you know the rest is history. I wanted to showcase him and a few other filmmakers that were in the forum and just to sort of showcase okay what does the future of work look like? What does the future of creativity work like look like in an AI world in a way that was like non technical that like everyone could understand in like a non-complicated like no jargon words sort of thing. Um because again like there was this controversy where people were afraid that AI was going to destroy art. It was destroying artists jobs and things like that. Now look, their fears are valid. like I'm not I don't want to gaslight people, right? Their fears are valid, but my philosophy again has been this is coming, so we have to prepare for it. So, if you're an artist, you're a filmmaker, you're a creative, I want to try and help show you how to use AI

39:10 in your existing creativity in a way that's still authentic to who you are as an artist and your perspective as an artist that's true to you, right? Because if you don't do that, I think the options are just going to be limited. Like just frankly, whe again whether I like this or not, like I'm not even saying I necessarily want this to happen. I'm just saying it is going to happen. So I saw a film festival as an opportunity to just sort of bring people together in the community and talk about that, showcase their work. So these are these AI filmmakers showed short films that they had made using AI. They talked about their process and how they did it and what their perspective is on the future and how it improved their creativity because the narrative at that time was that it was just it was destroying artists. It was destroying creativities. I'm like, "No, look, there's these artists like real like

39:58 legit artists here that are using AI in unique creative ways that like neither I nor other people nor themselves could anticipate."

40:09 I love that. I love that. That is amazing. That's cool that you are on the forefront of really shedding promise

40:18 to people that are like kind of like hopeless about it. Yeah. And that's where I think people like you are imperative is educating society on the true benefits of how AI is going to help society you know really excel. Now, you have thoughts that, you know, Elon Musk is all over the place with with what he thinks the future looks like with AI and, you know, and some of his stuff is just kind of scary with his thoughts.

40:51 Um, but, you know, as long as I feel like people leverage AI to help them raise their standards and raise their bar of productivity, I think that we're going to be in a good place. the people that use AI just to get lazier.

41:10 I mean, that's gonna, you know, which is because it's a double-edged sword. It's kind of a reality in some instances as well.

41:20 Sure. I'm using AI to help me just multiply. That's good. You know, and I hope everyone has that mindset

41:27 and those that do will dominate and those that don't will just fall by the wayside. Um let me just close up uh with a couple questions here now. What's your leadership philosophy when it comes to building and empowering you know the the various teams that you work with uh at the intersection of tech and art?

41:47 Sure. I mean at the for the the experience I have leading teams and when I've hired people for different things and this is based off of my experience like being led too. I think the single most important thing, especially now more than ever, my philosophy is to just lead transparently and with kind cander and foster that culture. Because if your teammate or this person you're leading doesn't feel like they can trust you to be honest with you to tell you things that they're worried about or things that they're afraid of or things that they're seeing then how are you supposed to lead right so I think that's one of the most important things and I think it's kind of tricky because I think working in corporate environments some of us might have different experiences in different company culture where, you know, the manager would like come into a meeting and they'd say, you know, tell me what

42:51 you think. And everybody just sort of just sits there and they're like, well, I know he's saying I should tell him what I think or her what I think, but he doesn't really mean that because if I tell him what I think, he's probably going to fire me or like he won't maybe they won't fire me, but like they'll like maybe I won't get a promotion, right? Or like maybe they'll give me like a really hard project, right? So there's all these sort of inhidden incentives that are at work in a company's culture that I think as a leader you just have to be aware of like just frankly like explicit incentives and implicit ex in incentives.

43:32 Explicit incentive is like I'm going to give you 100k a year as a salary. I'm going to give you x amount of dollars an hour. That's explicit, right? implicit is if I tell if I tell them what I think, you know, they're they might not give me a promotion, right? It's not anything anybody said. It's not written anywhere. It's just implicit that people could protect they could pick up on. Maybe it's not true like maybe but if they are afraid of that then it's true to them, right? and it's going to alter their decisions when they're working with you as as the leader. And when I say cander, I've heard people think that that means being rude. And this is sort of nuance. We're in gray territory here because different cultures like I mean like country cultures, right? They they take cander differently, right? And so if you're you're working in a company, you've just got to be aware of like how things are

44:29 in whatever culture or city or country you're working in. But like if you can like I would say try and teach your employees at least in your company to operate with kind cander and kind frankness and respectful frankness, right? Not just like blurting whatever comes out of your mouth, right? Because there's ways of saying things, we all know this. There's ways of saying things that are more respectful, less respectful, more rude, less rude, right? But I can still be direct with you and tell you what I'm thinking just in a respectful way, right? That's not rude to you, like if you're the manager or the boss or whatever, right? So, love it. Love it. Couple last questions.

45:18 What's a personal goal that you have for yourself and a business goal that you have for Lucky Day Labs? [snorts]

45:25 Good question. Look, my personal goal is to just try and leave things better than how I found them in life. I know that's sort of cheesy, but that's sort of the philosophy I like to lead with is whenever I get to a place I'm like, okay, like, can this be better? How can I make this better? Like, I don't I definitely don't want to leave things worse than how I got there, right? So, maybe move away from that. Um, so for Lucky Day Labs, I hope that, you know, I can continue to do what I'm doing now and I can help do as you said, right? Like help educate people around what's coming and how to prepare for it and make make things better. Like legitimately, I think if everybody like imagine how cool it would be if everybody just went everywhere and they tried to make things better wherever they went, right? I think that would be great. So like why not try that, right? like let's see if we can make things better. Like some

46:23 things like if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? But the things that are broken and I think there's a lot of things that are that have been broken. Why not try? So that's my hope that Lucky Lucky Day Labs will be able to to do that in some way.

46:41 I love it. I love it. Well, last question for you. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

46:48 Interesting question. Um, well, look, I know people have different I know people have different beliefs in terms of like heaven and and so so on and so forth, but like if I was just going to play with this this framing, I don't know what is God going to tell me or what am I going to ask God?

47:11 It's both ways. I don't know. I I'm I'd probably ask him like, "Hey, did I do a good job? What do you think? I don't know. That's probably what I'd ask him, but I don't know what he'd ask me." I guess I'll have to wait and see.

47:30 Hey, you've been a pleasure to have on the show. If people want to connect with you, how do they find you?

47:34 Uh, so you can go to luckydaylabs.ai AI and you can book a free call with me right there on the website or you can go to my LinkedIn Andy O. Uh I will say uh part of that mission and that hope that I just mentioned to you uh Lucky Day Labs is starting an academy called Lucky Day Labs Academy. We're going to teach people how to what it's called Vibe Code with tools like lovable. And I found that people try like these AI tools to make their own software cuz they've dreamt of like making software their whole life, but they've never been able to do it. And now they try to do it, but then they would hit these roadblocks where they like there was like things they didn't even know they had to ask like a question right?

48:18 And so what I'm going to do with Lucky Day Academy is help guide people through that process, right? So they'll be able to make their own software. they're going to be able to make their own app using these AI tools and teaching them like what the pitfalls are like security, right? Like so that users information doesn't get leaked in a database, right? So you can find that at academy.luckys/weightlist.

48:44 Sweet. Thanks so much, Andy. You've been a pleasure to have on the show. Make sure to connect with Andy O. He is the man. God bless, guys. Thanks for tuning in.

48:57 Trying to be.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Truth About AI, Work & Human Creativity ft. Andy Oliva | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby"?

Joe Shalaby (Host), Andy Oliva (Guest).

What is "Truth About AI, Work & Human Creativity ft. Andy Oliva | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby" about?

The discussion centers on the transformative role of AI in the workplace and human creativity, highlighting Andy Oliva's insights on how businesses can effectively integrate AI technology to enhance efficiency without replacing human roles. Oliva emphasizes a collaborative approach, aiming to help companies navigate the complexities of AI implementation while focusing on augmenting human…

What is mentioned in this Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby episode?

192 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Andy O, Lucky Day Labs, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Lucky Day Labs Academy, Lucky Day Labs Academy. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Truth About AI, Work & Human Creativity ft. Andy Oliva | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby"?

The episode runs 49 min; the transcript is about 9,115 words in 127 timestamped sections.

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