Transcript

His Team Is Called AI BS and Yes, It's Real

From Pretty Funny Business · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 38 min · 7,550 words · 173 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "His Team Is Called AI BS and Yes, It's Real", an episode of Pretty Funny Business published August 11, 2026 (38 min, about 7,550 words). It mentions 17 people, works and ideas, including Josh Lukin, Lauren Aquilino, Sydney Mulligan, LinkedIn, Workato.

What this episode is about

A candid conversation about self-identity, humor, and the tension between trash-talk bravado and self-awareness, featuring playful banter and segments from Izzy Trash with guests. The discussion explores how people label themselves, grapple with inner voices, and navigate authenticity with humor.

Key takeaways

  • Self-awareness is the new rebellious badge; trashiness gets a nuanced, self-checked reboot.
  • Trash identity surfaces when unsupervised; character is defined by the crumbs under the chair.
  • Workato’s ‘AIBS’ team name becomes a running joke about mispronounced genius—and nursing as destiny.
  • Birthday chaos reveals priorities: cake can be motive, and cannily reversing adults into kids’ antics.
  • The real punchline: ambition, humor, and occasional miscalculation make you unexpectedly relatable.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Josh Lukin, Sydney Mulligan, AIBS, Workato
  2. – 10:00: Redding, United, Workato
  3. – 15:00: Mopsapalooza, Onyx Tattoos, United, Austin
  4. – 20:00: Bubble gum cigarettes, Calf tattoo, Austin
  5. – 25:00: Bubble gum cigarettes, LinkedIn
  6. – 30:00: LinkedIn, AIBS, ADHD, Bubble gum cigarettes
  7. – 35:00: LinkedIn
  8. – 37:39: LinkedIn, Josh Lukin, Bubble gum cigarettes

Notable quotes from "His Team Is Called AI BS and Yes, It's Real"

  • Hello and welcome to Pretty Funny Business. I'm Sydney Mulligan.
    about Sydney Mulligan · at
  • Yes. Yeah, I work at Workato. I lead our AI business solutions team, which we came up with that name and then realized when we shortened it down that it makes a great acronym.
    about Josh Lukin · at
  • And so what my team does is go in with our Workato customers and help them, make more of a plan and identify these are going to be the impactful things that you can do.
    about Workato · at
  • It's actually Redding Airport has the best coffee shop in any airport ever.
    about Redding · at
  • Anyway, so we met I remember meeting you for the first time. So, I was going to say this confidently and then I just backtracked, so just in case I'm wrong.
    about Mopsapalooza · at
  • And that is the story of how we ended up with way unlimited bubble gum cigarettes for the rest of the year. And how you ended up You personally how you.
    about Bubble gum cigarettes · at
  • Not shaming you on that. That is not an indicator of trash. But you did hold the time to be make Josh LinkedIn influencer. Like that's what it says on my calendar.
    about LinkedIn · at
  • What you're talking about when you say number two, what if I had said yes to that? I should have just said yes.
    about ADHD · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Josh Lukin — Person · Main guest · 3 mentions · first at
    Guest interviewed about leading Workato's AI Business Solutions (AIBS) team, conference experiences, LinkedIn presence, and personal anecdotes (tattoos, travel).
  • Lauren Aquilino — Person · Host · 5 mentions
    Co-host and founder of the show; engages guest, provides context and episode framing, and references EMMIE Collective background.
  • Sydney Mulligan — Person · Host · 2 mentions · first at
    Co-host of the podcast; facilitates interview, provides commentary and banter with guest Josh Lukin and co-host Lauren Aquilino.

Companies & orgs

  • Workato — Company · Guest affiliation / Company discussed · 3 mentions · first at
    Employer of Josh Lukin and owner of the AIBS team; central to Josh's professional role and examples of customer work with AI.
  • United — Company · Referenced airline (travel anecdote) · 5 mentions · first at
    Josh describes his United status and how it affects travel upgrades on short flights from Redding to hubs—used to illustrate road-warrior life.
    Well, they upgrade me to the first-class seats on the like tiny flight from San Francisco to Redding every time cuz no one else has status.
  • Onyx Tattoos — Company · Tattoo studio (case/example) · 2 mentions · first at
    Austin-based tattoo shop associated with Jay James and Jules; responsible for tattooing Josh at MopsaPalooza and later studio visit.
    For the listeners, Onyx Tattoos is the tattoo shop that Jay James owns. Wait, his name's Jay Oh, that doesn't feel right. His name is James. Jay James. Anyway,.

Products & tech

  • AIBS — Product · Business focus / Team name (Workato) · 2 mentions · first at
    AIBS (AI Business Solutions) is the name of the team Josh leads at Workato; it is a recurring conversational anchor (team name, jokes about acronym).
    And so what my team does is go in with our Workato customers and help them, make more of a plan and identify these are going to be the impactful things that you can do.
  • Bubble gum cigarettes — Product · Marketing collateral / anecdotal prop · 9 mentions · first at
    Used as a playful marketing collateral and anecdote (workcation, candy cigarettes trend), provided comic relief and community lore for hosts and guest.
  • Calf tattoo — Product · Personal anecdote / physical product (tattoo) · 3 mentions · first at
    Josh's calf tattoo (cow on calf) is a memorable personal story used to illustrate conference spontaneity and community connections.
    You decided too quickly. What do you mean that you're just going to get This is a real tattoo. This isn't a temporary tattoo. You're going to lay down and get stabbed with a needle like a hundred thousand times.
  • Three tattoos — Product · Personal detail · 1 mention · first at
    Reference to Josh or a participant now having three tattoos—used to show progression from one tattoo to multiple.
    Yeah, and I don't know what level of addiction you've hooked me on now, but now I have three tattoos.

Concepts & topics

  • ADHD — Concept · Core topic / Personal context · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as part of Josh's self-description and context for productivity, attention, and tools (CoWork, systems).

Places & events

  • LinkedIn — Place · Platform / Topic · 12 mentions · first at
    Discussed heavily as the social platform where Josh posts professional content, struggles with post style, and where hosts reference the podcast's LinkedIn presence.
  • Mopsapalooza — Event · Setting / Conference (origin of tattoo anecdote) · 2 mentions · first at
    Conference where Josh got his first calf tattoo at a tattoo booth; used as backdrop for booth/marketing discussion.
  • Redding — Place · Origin city / local airport anecdote · 3 mentions · first at
    Josh lives/travels from Redding; hosts discuss one-gate Redding Airport and local coffee shop as part of travel anecdotes.
  • Austin — Place · Tattoo studio location / travel context · 3 mentions · first at
    Location of Onyx Tattoos and where Josh returned to get another tattoo; Texas event references.
    From the tattoo from the Onyx Tattoos in Austin, Texas, where You went back there?
  • MOPs-Apalooza / Marketing Ops — Event · 2 mentions · first at
    That doesn't feel right. His name is James. Jay James. Anyway, he was our tattoo artist at Mop 'n' Glow Palooza. We know him because his wife Jewels is one of our consultants…
  • IHOP — Place · Setting for anecdote · 4 mentions
    Referenced as the place outside of which hosts practiced smoking a found cigarette — part of the humorous 'cigarette' anecdote.
    And in the parking lot outside IHOP, I had someone who used to smoke teach me how to smoke the cigarette. I took one drag off the cigarette and gagged and then I was I'm all done. I DON'T WANT THIS.

Full transcript with timestamps

It's a real tattoo because I came up and they're the tattoo booth and everything and I see the calf. I'm like, I've been thinking about getting a calf on my calf. This is perfect. It's meant to be. I'm like, yep, this one. I'll do it. And like, you decided too quickly. What What do you mean that you're just going to get This is a real tattoo. This isn't a temporary tattoo. You're going to lay down and get stabbed with a needle like a hundred thousand times.

Hello and welcome to Pretty Funny Business. I'm Sydney Mulligan. I'm Lauren Aquilina. And today we have with us our best friend Josh Lukin.

Hey. As part of our Izzy Trash series, of course. Josh, do you want to make an early prediction? Do you think you're trash? Do you identify as trash?

Identify as trash. You know, I wasn't born trash, but I do identify as trash now. I've grown into it over my life, I think. So, I'll do my best though to defend myself not being trash, but you know.

Okay. So, you prefer to be happy trash. I prefer. I prefer, but like there's that there's that like voice inside my head. I don't know if everyone has it. It's just like constantly asking this question over and over again. So, when you tell me about this, it's like, oh yeah, I I ask myself that every every morning every night before I go to bed. Is it true?

You know, Josh, I actually think that's working in your favor because I think people that are genuinely trash never wonder if they're trash.

Yeah. You need the self-awareness. You need the that self-reflection to be like, am I? And then and then there's that other voice inside that I think like some previous lifetime I was a golden retriever or something and it was just like just be a good boy. Like be good. Do the right thing. Like part of me is like, yes, eat that burrito off the table. Like no one's here. No one's looking. But then the other person is like, no, do it. Control yourself. Do the right thing. Don't be trash. Be nice to people. Yeah.

Character is what you do when no one's watching. Your true trash identity comes out only when no one's watching.

When you alone in that room, leaving your protein bar crumbs all the way under your desk chair, that's how you know if you're trash or not.

She's talking about me, by the way, not Josh. We wouldn't do that to him. No. I have a few things to say to Josh. Number one, happy birthday.

Thank you. truly am baffled that this is what you've chosen to do on your birthday, but thank you so much for being here.

Are you working today? Uh this is the extent to which I'm working today. Okay. I'm taking off the afternoon.

meeting to record this podcast on your birthday is what's holding you back from being able to leave your home and do whatever you want on your birthday.

Oh wait, like look, I this birthday I'm I'm turning 37. Like what's happening on my birthday is my daughter has a friend who happens to have the same birthday as me. So, for my birthday I'm taking my daughter to someone else's birthday party.

Well, at least you'll get cake. Oh yeah, I'll be there pretending like oh this cake is for me, yeah.

Maybe you can just like kind of sneak up behind the birthday girl and blow out the candle with her. That would This is a test. Are you going to do that?

He's thinking about it now. He's thinking about it now. Which which which answer yes or no is the trash answer? I feel like I can't tell.

I think if you don't know, that's telling enough. Blowing out an 8-year-old's birthday candles, I think that's

Eight. Yikes. I've been here longer than you. This is my birthday. 29 MORE YEARS FOR ME.

I LIKE I LIKE TO THINK you are going to do that, man. Yeah. Um Josh, do you want to introduce yourself? Because I don't have like a nice little bio for you. Hi, I'm Josh. I'm 37 today.

Yeah, there there we go. Um I work at Workato. Yes. Yeah, I work at Workato. I lead our AI business solutions team, which we came up with that name and then realized when we shortened it down that um it makes a great acronym. Um

Wait, what is the name? Oh, when we shortened Just it's the AIBS team. We're in charge of all

the AIBS. Is that too close to ass? Is that what we're saying here? No, the AIBS team.

It's got to somehow say ass. THAT'S THAT'LL BE THE NEXT TEAM NAME, I think. AIBS [clears throat] team. You know, I think that the AIBS team is a good example of one of those jobs that if that's the job that you say you have, then you have to become a nurse.

I agree. There's a nursing shortage, and if your job is AIBS, then sorry, it's not anymore. You're a nurse now.

I could I'd be down to try. I don't think I would make it through the like education requirements, the whole academic thing, getting through the

No, no, not my thing. Why not? Um You're a smart guy. I'm a smart guy. I can take tests. It's like the the consistency, the Maybe I'd try again. I'd try I I figured some things out.

You're 37 now. Did you try to go to nursing school already? No, no, no. I tried to I tried to become a mechanical engineer and then

Oh, oh, wow. Well, that's really hard. Not that being a nurse isn't hard, but I think that maybe mechanical engineers hard in an intense school way that I think nursing has a different education application.

I don't know. I I knew some nurses in the nursing program when I was in college, and they were like they were like in the library at 4:00 a.m. You know, like they were working very hard to study and pass their tests and get through the

what, Josh? We don't know because we've never been to the library at 4:00 a.m., but there might be just a goldmine of dopamine in there.

HOW WOULD WE KNOW? COULD [gasps] Uh do you know I this is not where I thought this podcast was going to go, but never is truly. But I met someone who told me that the reason that there is a nursing shortage is because there is a shortage of nursing school.

I believe that. That like they can't that there's not enough teachers and schools to teach all the nurses that are needed. And so like that's why people who are typically applying for the programs have to like wait.

They like can't even get into the programs cuz there's not enough spots. Right.

They want to be a nurse, yeah. Wow, that's crazy. Maybe that's what we need to be disrupting, you know? Maybe we need to like create a different path to education for being a nurse.

Yeah, cuz I guess like not only is no one teaching they don't want to teach to be a nurse. Yeah, no. I cannot I cannot do anything medical related. Are you kidding me?

You know a lot about the medical system now. Yeah, in my head. Oh my god, what? Needles?

What? IVs? Yeah, I don't think I could do that either. I don't even like to touch raw chicken. So what is the AIBS at Workato?

Yes. So Trash. what we do Trash. No, so a lot of what we do is work with Workato customers. And so what keeps me on the road all the time is going to customers, going to conferences, going to these things

meet with people. And the the whole thing is that right there's so much you can be doing. Everyone wants to be doing more AI. That's like been the theme for what 18 24 months now. Everyone in their business they need to transform with AI. Um and so what my team does is go in with our Workato customers and help them, you know, make more of a a plan and identify these are going to be the impactful things that you can do. This is how you go about doing it. You can't just build something and hope people will use it. You also have to teach them what you build and do internal enablement and all of these different steps that go along with it.

Um If you build it, they will also need enablement and training. Yes, yep. They will not just come.

They do not. They're not baseball ghosts. I don't know what You're a real road warrior. You are on the road a lot. I know.

I am. Do you have like crazy airline status somewhere? I do, yeah. What airline is it?

United, yeah. What kind of special fancy things does United do for you? Uh well, they they upgrade me to the first-class seats on the like tiny flight from San Francisco to Redding every time cuz no one else has status. It's great. They offer me orange juice before the 30-minute flight. There's not even time to go into the air and be like, "Here's your Here's your

No one else gets a drink at all, and he gets one. Are you mostly just traveling to San Francisco?

Uh a lot of San Francisco, but like usually So, I'm United status because United has the flight from our tiny one-gate Redding Airport to

airport? One-gate, yeah. You get You can get there You You can't If you get there early, like if you're a get-to-the-airport kind of early person, you sit outside and wait for security to open because security doesn't even open until cuz only the like 45 people that are getting on the tiny plane there, yeah, need to go through security. So, yeah.

So, what How How long before your flight do you arrive at the airport? Um I still get there entirely too early. Like, I get there like 30 minutes early, and it's like still like 30 minutes before

you board or 30 minutes before you take off? I think Okay, I probably get there like I aim for 30 minutes early. So, to go off on a tangent,

Wee! I cannot I cannot get anywhere on time. I have to either be very early, or I'm late.

Yeah, that's Yeah, I'm familiar with that. Uh on time is a myth. That no one gets anywhere on time. It's uh uh So, I aim for 30 minutes early, which means I have to get there like 45 minutes early, and then I get there I'm like, "Oh, okay. Let me just I'll wait to open the security. I'll go get my coffee.

No lounge in the one gate airport, I assume. It's actually Redding Airport has the best coffee shop in any airport ever.

Awarded by Draft Lucas Incorporated. Awarded by Draft Lucas, and I am an expert on this. I've been in many airports, and I have drank a lot of coffee. Um but yeah, we have our like local like Theory Coffee like craft local roaster, and they are the one that opened the like there's only spot for one

Yeah. anything in the terminal. And so, they're there, and so you can get like Like good coffee.

You order like a double espresso, and they give you like a little tonic next to it, and you like drink it out of these tiny cups

Elegant. Yeah. Very fancy. Better than they're doing in the first class on the United flight to San Francisco, apparently. Yeah, but Josh, I have the same problem. So, I fly United as well, and I have the same problem being in like a non-hub uh city is that like I only get ever upgraded like back to my house because everywhere else I'm always just flying to is a hub. And so, like I'm competing with the whole world. You know what I mean? Like I'm not competing with people that are going to DC. I'm competing with people who are going to DC and then everywhere.

Everywhere. Yeah. Everywhere else. like, "You're never 45 on the upgrade list." I'm like, "I put so much money on this United card. How is that

possible?" Like no, you got to be like there's people who are just like flying from DC to San Francisco and back. Like they're like, "I need to get to San Francisco for this day meeting." And then that's like how they're building up the status. Like

I mean that'll never be me. You can tell they're really important cuz they're still they're still on calls like up until someone like looks at them and is like, "You're You have to stop talking to phone."

hearing everyone. Yeah. They they are trash. I can say. I am a a Delta girl. Um I'm in a Delta hub. I don't know if maybe New York's a hub for many things, but it's definitely Delta hub and uh I have discovered the more I've gotten upgraded to first class that they're really keeping the worst people on the plane there. I'm having like the worst seat neighbors of my entire life in first class. And it's the people that are like literally on their phone until the flight attendant makes them come turn it off. I had one guy that was like talking about the flight attendants to me.

And I was like, "Why do you think that I am your confidant for this information? I'm on her side, actually." Anyway, so we met I remember meeting you for the first time. So, I was going to say this confidently and then I just backtracked, so just in case I'm wrong. Um at Mopsapalooza 20 23.

The first tattoo booth. First tattoo booth, where you got your first tattoo, I think. And I remember you saying like, "I've always wanted to get a tattoo of a calf on my calf." And you did. And you did. I also believe you were maybe one of our first people tattooed at all. I will say also we had a flash a flash sheet. It's difficult to say. And so the fact that there was a cute cow on it is kind of funny and random.

Fate. It was meant to be. Yeah, it was it was it was totally there. Yeah. And I remember I remember that because I remember just people being so shocked and like, I forget if if it was if it was already you who was saying it or what, but just like, "It's a real tattoo." because I came up and there's the tattoo booth and everything and I see the calf. I'm like, "I've been thinking about getting a calf on my calf. This is perfect. It's meant to be." I'm like, "Yep, this one. I'll do it." And like, "You decided too quickly.

What What do you mean that you're just going to get This is a real tattoo. This isn't a temporary tattoo. You're going to lay down and get stabbed with a needle like a 100,000 times.

Did it hurt? Yeah. Yeah, like tattoos hurt. Not Yeah, but it was your first one. Were you like surprised it hurt more than you thought it was going to?

It hurt less than I thought it was going to, actually. Cuz yeah, like I feel like that there's there's this like perception out there like tattoos really hurt and you're like doing it for a long time and all this. And so then when I was like, oh, it's like it's just like a lot of bug bites over and over and over again or something, you know?

Wait a minute. And they were small, you know? There's And they were getting it filled in. It's pretty quick tattoo experience by design.

Yeah, and I don't know what level of addiction you've hooked me on now, but now I have I have three tattoos.

I think that's a reasonable pace for what? Three years? So that's one tattoo a year. That's

23, 24, 25. All right, you still got time for this year. Did you get one this year already?

I did get one this year. You got to get another one to keep up the pace. From the tattoo from the Onyx Tattoos in Austin, Texas, where

You went back there? Went back there, yes. for the listeners, Onyx Tattoos is the tattoo shop that Jay James owns. Wait, his name's Jay Oh, that doesn't feel right. His name is James James. Jay James. Anyway, he was our tattoo artist at Mop 'n' Glow Palooza. We know him because his wife Jewels is one of our consultants and also a friend of mine for a very long time and they own Onyx Tattoos in Austin. She's been on this podcast before. She's lovely. Trace her back to season one or two. Um well, that's incredible. I'm so glad that you went back to his studio. Did he tattoo you again?

Yeah. Was it him that tattooed you again? Uh it ended up being someone at um his tattoo parlor because some things that came up when we were there and I was like, okay, well, then I got um someone else there, but yeah, went back again. That was that was that was other part of like why I was like so ready because I had known Jules because she had been like a Work It Out customer. I had like met with her, we'd done some stuff, and amazing person like you have Yeah, talk to Jules for more than 5 minutes, you'll be like, "You're the most amazing person that's ever

Yeah, listen to the podcast episode. We're like, "You're the most interesting woman in the world."

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um and so then it was like, "Okay, now it's they have the calf tattoo. It's literally Jules's husband. She's We've talked to her about her tattoo parlor in Austin before. I don't know when I'm going to be able to get to Austin to get a tattoo from her, but from her husband." I was like, "Oh, he's right here. He's right here in in the heart of Disneyland."

Okay, wait, why were you in Austin? Did you go back for work? And then you were like, "While I'm here, I'm going to go to Onyx?"

Yeah. Okay, cool. So, in our very brief, um very, very loose agenda that I pulled together for this, I did comment that you're a carny. And And Sydney asked if I was really going to say that, and I said, "Yes, because I That's what I call everybody. It's what I've called people for a long time that are on like the trade show the trade show circuit." Um early on in my career, I was more like on the demand generation side of things, and so I would be in the booth a lot more, and I'd be like, "It's always the same people in the booth. We're carnies.

We're like this traveling circus all together at our different like games that we're trying to get people to play."

You come here and set up the Ferris wheel, but it's a tattoo booth. Yeah, but it's really cool to like be at go to all these events and see the same people and like really get to know them and

Yeah, cool. So, you're one of our carnies. You're one of us. Well, and to be fair, if you're trying to like think of your booth gimmick and what you want to like the more like a carnival game it is, the more success you'll have. Like,

if you had darts and people had to like throw and pop balloons to like get a chance to win some Beats headphones or whatever it is, like you'll have a line all day.

Yeah, Fabio. I don't know if I would get a tattoo at a carnival though. I Well, you did. If your marketing tech stack is basically a haunted house of random automations and abandoned salesforce fields, marketingops.com is your new happy place. Templates, advice, a job board that doesn't suck, and a community of humans who get it. Honestly, it's like therapy but cheaper. Sign up with code PFB10 for 10% off paid membership. Your stressed out marketing up self will thank you. There was another time that we got to hang out with you that Sydney and I were talking about.

The last time we saw you, I think. Last We saw you in San You were in San Francisco, right?

Yeah, I came to your San Francisco. The one before that. It was We threw it for you.

Obviously. It was your birthday party a little early. Um but you were in New York and you had just come off a red eye from San Francisco, I think, and it was We were like, "You know what I want to do as soon as I step off this red eye flight? Talk to Lauren and Sydney."

Yeah, I was like so impressed. You were like your hair was wet. I don't even want to talk to me when I get off a red eye flight. You're like, "I just took a shower and came straight here." We were like, "Do you How can we help?"

How can we help you? What do you need? Are you okay? It's super interesting this story because I have I have like I remember coming to your San Francisco party.

Well, yeah, you know, we do the red eye thing. It's just like, "Oh yeah, the brain My brain's still turned off. It's going to wait until I get a full night's sleep."

Yeah, you were like, "I trust it happened. It sounds vaguely Sounds like something I would do."

You know what, the best part of not having memory was then like a couple days later going into my laptop bag and being like, "Why do I HAVE CANDY CIGARETTES?"

I FORGOT I FORGOT WE GAVE YOU THIS. Sounds like something we do. This is so strange. What is my life?

Yeah, that was a big marketing collateral for us in 2025 was candy cigarettes. So it was our year of candy cigarettes. We uh yeah, at the end of last year we did a one of our workcations where we go to Put-in-Bay Island in Lake Erie and at the gas station ahead of time they had candy cigarettes and I bought a pack and then passed them out and we were like, "This actually so fun. Felt really good."

As a bunch of losers who don't smoke, this was We felt never felt so more cool than having these candy cigarettes.

So then I think you were like ahead of the trends, too, because now I'm seeing like bubble blowing cigarettes on like TikTok ads and stuff. I was like,

I have the bubble blowing cigarette. Don't worry. Um but yeah, then we not cool, but pretending is smoking.

Smoking is cool. Pretending is cool. Pretending is cool. Actually smoking is cool again, but I'm not cool enough to smoke despite my best efforts. I I don't like it. So it's just bubble gum and bubbles for me, but So we had those candy cigarettes and I think it was like a oh, it'll be fun to have these candy cigarettes when we go on the island, but instead we ate all the candy cigarettes in like an hour. And then

we got onto the island and we're like, "It's okay, guys. There's like a candy shop here and surely they have candy cigarettes also." And not only did they have candy cigarettes, they had a display of like three big boxes of candy cigarettes. And I was like, "Great, we'll buy a carton." And I get to the checkout and I'm like, "I would like to buy a carton of candy cigarettes, please." And he like went and got it out of the display and whatever. And then he opened it and I realized that buying a carton of bubble gum cigarettes is not a thing.

I am now buying 36 boxes of bubble gum cigarettes that he's scanning individually, which was embarrassing because I then realized that that was way too many bubble gum cigarettes and I certainly did not need to buy the box. I couldn't buy the box. I was buying all the boxes inside the box.

Right. And that is the story of how we ended up with way unlimited bubble gum cigarettes for the rest of the year. And how you ended up

You personally how you you got those bubble gum cigarettes. Also, the bubble gum cigarettes were disgusting and had so like I don't think they're making those anymore. I think they've been in that window since the 70s.

You get like three good chews and then it's trash. Yeah. Immediate trash. Yeah. It was bad.

It was also the best. And then at Mop the Palooza we brought them and Lady Effington was smoking and we were passing them out. And then God intervened and left me a pack of real cigarettes on a table outside the elevator. They were there for me. The elevator doors

The elevator doors opened and I was like, "There is a pack of Marlboro Lights right here."

You abandoned them. So I took them. I opened them up. There was one missing. It was someone's worst day and my best day.

I was like, "Guys, look. LOOK." AND LIKE I'M LIKE LITERALLY IT'S LIKE I'M 12 years old and I found a pack of cigarettes. I'm like, "Guys, look. Look at my cigarettes. EVERYONE LOOK. IT'S IN MY BAG. I TOOK IT." And I was like, "Please, will someone teach me how to smoke the cigarette?" So I did what you're supposed to do when you want to smoke a cigarette, which is at 10:00 p.m. we went to IHOP and in the parking lot outside IHOP, um I had someone who used to smoke teach me how to smoke the cigarette. I took one drag off the cigarette and gagged and then I was like, "I'm all done. I DON'T WANT THIS."

AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE story to this same timeline is that Sydney does in fact have the bubble cigarettes. And when we were in London, uh I went to the bathroom and she was hanging out with my daughter, who is 11, and she showed her the bubble cigarettes and had her smoke them and was like, "Marina,

Let me teach you how to smoke cigarettes." But it was so funny because she said, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to BLOW A POT."

SHE SAID, "I'M BLOWING POT." And so I'm like, "Mom, I'm blowing pot." Yeah. So Sydney was like, "Ah, the kids are all right."

I'm so glad you're calling it blowing pot. That's That's exactly the understanding of blowing pot that I want you to have at 10 years old.

Mom said that was our CIGARETTE MARKETING CAMPAIGN. I TOOK ALL THESE VIDEOS OF HER BLOWING the pot and I was like, "Now you can never run for student council."

So funny. All right. So when um I asked Josh if he wanted to be or to actually Josh maybe asked us if he wanted to be on this podcast, which is not a first time. I'm not shaming you on that. That is not an indicator of trash. But you did hold the time to be make Josh LinkedIn influencer. Like that's what it says on my calendar.

And so I maybe wanted to um run through some of your LinkedIn posts that we think could or couldn't be [clears throat]

to do an up or down on trash for the LinkedIn posts? You know, I don't think we need to do that. But Josh is really fun person to follow on LinkedIn. He is one He's a LinkedIn carny and

he says Aren't we all LinkedIn carnies? Yes, we are. When I say carny, I mean one of us.

I I think I need to update my AI LinkedIn photo to have a mullet and maybe some face tattoos. I don't know.

You have an AI LinkedIn photo? Oh, I mean no, that's my real picture of me. You kind of look like Oh, wait. You kind of look like Maui from afar.

Maui as in It is kind of giving Moana. It is kind of giving Josh meets The Rock.

Just a little bit. I would say that you if you are the leader of the AIBS team that should be your LinkedIn photo.

I'm trying to stay on brand here, you know. Exactly. All right, so Josh has hot takes such as this. Josh checking in, CT stands for cowboy time, right? See you in Texas if you're going to the Workado MCP training on Tuesday. I'll be there at 7:45 a.m. Cowboy time.

Cowboy time, that's funny. Not trash, approved. It's because it was in Texas, right?

Yeah. Cowboy time. I like that. He's got a cow on his calf. Yeah. He is a cowboy. He's literally a cowboy. We actually made him a cowboy two times. The first time when we put a cow on him and the second time when we gave him the cigarettes.

Yeah. Nothing is more cowboy than having some bubble gum cigarettes. He needs a hat.

Yeah. That's going to be number three. I'll give you this hat. You've seen my tiny little pink sparkly cowboy hat.

Yeah, yeah. That's coming. Next time I see you at the carnival, that's going to be for you.

Can you hot Can you hot glue a little like pin to it so I can has a spoon It currently has a spoon hot glued to it. Will that do?

That will work. Yeah, I think it's going to work perfectly. We'll figure it out.

That'll do. I have so many questions about why there's a spoon on it. Why is there

I don't think we have time for that. All right, next hot take. [gasps] Next hot take. I think Claude CoWork has done more to help me stay on track and focus than Adderall did for me. Although probably the skills and structure I built for myself while on Adderall are the foundations for the second brain system that is making CoWork work so well for me as an assistant device for my ADHD.

You know, I read this post already when you posted it and what I enjoyed about it was that it felt like you came to LinkedIn to make the first sentence post and then you talked yourself out of it while you were doing it and you were like, "This is such great news. CoWork is better than Adderall. Adderall is canceled. Only CoWork." And I was like, "But wait. What? I needed the Adderall to do the CoWork." Right. And he's like, "Wait, but while I think about it, is CoWork now on Adderall?"

Right? It was an ADHD side quest within the post. It was an AIBS. Mhm. I'm going to I'm going to let you in on a secret. I think every single one of my LinkedIn posts starts with ads. I have one thing to say and by the time I finish posting it I've gone off on some other

I got to post. Cowboy time. Oh, also I'm going to be in Texas for this event. You should come to it. And cowboy time.

Cowboy time. That was the important part, right? Was it that or was it that you were like, "Ah, I got to make a post about this event. Blah blah blah blah blah. CT. CT." Cowboy time.

BUT I GO AND I TRY AND PUT professional posts on LinkedIn. By the time I finish writing them though, they look like every LinkedIn post that I hate reading in my feed. And so then I have to I just

Delete delete delete cowboy time. Yeah. Make make re-scrolling LinkedIn at least a little more fun. Like what I don't know why people are on LinkedIn and when they are and what they're trying to do, but they're probably not there to read 100 SDR LinkedIn messages and open up someone's like giant post that says, "I learned out everything about how to use AI and I know all of the secrets. Comment secrets and I'll not send them to you."

AI BS. You know what the name of this episode's going to be? Make LinkedIn cowboys again.

Maybe just not again. Maybe just like make LinkedIn cowboys. Yeah, make LinkedIn cowboys.

Make LinkedIn cowboys. or we call them ninos. Poor ninos todos. Cowboys, ninos.

In Spanish, obviously. All right, two more. My daughter wants to implement a Actually, Sydney, he could be talking about you here. My daughter

Am I his daughter? My daughter wants to implement years older than me. My daughter wants to implement a dinner suggestion box. Not because she wants to suggest dinners, but because she wants to judge the suggestions and pick the winner.

I loved this post. I respected your daughter greatly for it. She's amazing, yeah. And she I came back from the trip. She has made the dinner suggestion box. It's there. She's turned a tissue box into a dinner suggestion box and it's a great staple of our house.

And then she reviews them all and goes, "Trash, trash, not trash, trash, trash."

She's like, "No, we're we're going to have macaroni and cheese." Um this You know, I'm having a similar experience with my children right now, which is that I decided that as a great act of distributing the mental load in my family that I was going to have every member of our family select a dinner for the week. So, I'm not doing all the meal planning. Everyone's planning one meal. And then I'm hoping that as they get older, this graduates into them preparing the meal that they've chosen for the week. The problem is that my children are four and seven. So, every week my son picks pancakes and my daughter picks cheese.

Cheese? Just cheese. She was doing mac and cheese and I was like, "We can't have mac and cheese every week, man." And she was like, "Okay, just the cheese."

Just the cheese then. Does that end up as a charcuterie board? of morph it into cheese cheese dinner, which is charcuterie dinner. And been a big hit. Everyone loves cheese dinner. It's great for a night you don't want to cook. So,

Yeah. I recommend pushing your daughter into the Don't just announce the problems, but be part of the solution. She's old enough.

No, she does she does a good job. She she she likes to be in the kitchen with me and help me cook and do things. She's more into cooking the things that are going to end up being like desserts, like when

Respect. banana bread banana bread huge mistake that I It's like bananas were getting old on the counter. I'm like, [clears throat] "Ah, let's just look up a banana bread recipe, make it." Made it. Turned out pretty good. Everyone likes it. Now, I haven't confirmed this yet, but I'm pretty sure my kids are eating all the bananas except for three and leaving three bananas to get all old and then they're like,

That's kind of cute. Yeah. We're we're in the grocery store with three like bananas going bad. They're like, "We need more bananas." I'm like, "We have bananas at home." They're like, "No, those ones

been earmarked for a future night. "However many However many bananas we need plus three."

That banana budget has been allocated for Q4. Yeah. All right, last post. And I need to know, well, anyway, you'll know. There are two types of regret in my mind. So, what I need to know is which one are you feeling right now? One, ugh, I should have said no to this. Or two, what if I had said yes to that? The first type seems to come and go. I got through it and the regret passes, but the second type has a way of lingering in my daydreams. I mean, obviously you said you should have said no to this. Right?

I should have said I'm feeling that regret fully now. But that's the thing like I'll only have to feel this regret now while I'm recording it, again when it gets posted on LinkedIn, another time when someone's like, "Hey, I listened to you and heard all of your takes on that." Um so, sure.

thing about having ADHD is you have very poor object permanence. So, anytime this is happening directly, you can just forget it happened. Yeah.

Here I am thinking I'm going to like help people out and be like, "No, just go for things. Say yes to things. Like, at worst it'll you'll have a little bit of regret and move on." But then everyone else who doesn't have ADHD is like holding on to that like one embarrassing moment when they said yes and should have said no. Like No, no, no. I I

Meanwhile, I'm still here thinking back to like a time in middle school when I had my friends were like, "Hey, we're we're going to start a metal band. Do you want to like be our singer?" And at the time I was like, "No, I'm learning to play drums. Like, I I don't I'm not a singer. I'm a drummer." And now I'm like thinking back I'm like, "Oh my gosh, none of us knew how to do anything. None of us were qualified to be in a band at all."

thought you were about to say that you were the singer for their metal band and that was your regret.

No, I regret that was going to be a new a new video for us to uncover in the depths of your computer files. what you're talking about when you say number two, what if I had said yes to that? Like, I should have just said yes. I should have been the singer of the metal band.

and saw what happened. And maybe I would have been terrible and it would have blown away. They were all terrible. In fact, I later I do have like a there's YouTube videos out there somewhere of me as a drummer in my like high school garage band.

Nice. Playing at our our our stuff. And it's great. We didn't become famous. We didn't successfully do anything music career related, but it was fun.

you now. Look at you now. Look at me. You're the chief officer of AIBS. Well deserved, may I add.

Thanks. Thanks. I made it. I have a career of of strong BS business solutions BS that I've been working on. Mhm. Mhm.

Well, Josh, thanks for joining us, especially on your birthday. Is there anything else you would like to tell the world? Is there anything you wanted to come on this podcast and say?

Oh, man. What What Why am I here? What did I come on here to say? I think I had a message. Uh I'm running for office.

A message from the king. MESSAGE FROM THE KING. I I I DO THINK AT ON THE THEME OF AIBS, like just all everyone who's getting excited, you're excited, you're using AI, it's doing something cool, don't post it on LinkedIn yet.

Sassy. Share it with your friend first. Share that idea over bubble gum cigarette, but it's not yet for the carnival.

It's like this it's it's a little bit too easy to make bad content now with AI, and so just it's okay. Just don't. Make bad content with your human brain and post

Totally agree. LinkedIn post like mine, you know? Totally agree. Take us on a meandering ADHD tale. I would much rather read that.

Yeah, see, you know. I'm going to flag you saying the word real one more time. And you're like, you're actually not real, right? That was your take. You're the least real thing here.

It's It's trying so hard. It's just It's just It wants to be a real boy. It doesn't know. It's just guessing.

It doesn't know. It's just guessing. Well, Josh, happy birthday. Thank you. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me on the straight. Is Josh trash? Um Josh is trash in the same way that we are trash, which is that we are fun and a little chaotic. We do some trash things, but we're not trash on the inside.

That's what I think, too. I I'm going to give Josh a hard like if I had to give a yes or no, you're a no. No trash.

Not trash. Okay, good. I feel so relieved. You do some trashy things, like get a cow tattoo on your calf at a essentially a garage sale booth. You know, like

we had we we had bought most of that not that not I mean, that was health code approved, but you should know everything else except for the tattoo booth was bought at the dollar store about 5 minutes before we had set up. So, that was trash of you, but not It was trash of us, too. So, you're in good company. All right, thanks, Josh. Good luck out there, little podcast.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "His Team Is Called AI BS and Yes, It's Real"?

Sydney Mulligan (Host), Lauren Aquilina (Host), Josh Lukin (Guest).

What is "His Team Is Called AI BS and Yes, It's Real" about?

A candid conversation about self-identity, humor, and the tension between trash-talk bravado and self-awareness, featuring playful banter and segments from Izzy Trash with guests. The discussion explores how people label themselves, grapple with inner voices, and navigate authenticity with humor.

What is mentioned in this Pretty Funny Business episode?

17 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Josh Lukin, Lauren Aquilino, Sydney Mulligan, LinkedIn, Workato, AIBS. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "His Team Is Called AI BS and Yes, It's Real"?

The episode runs 38 min; the transcript is about 7,550 words in 173 timestamped sections.

More from Pretty Funny Business

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated November 2, 2026.