← The PM Podcast
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- [00:00]
Tony Martinetti
Podcasting is a start. You know, you. You engage people. You raise. I don't think we have to raise consciousness. I don't think that's an issue. I don't think awareness is a problem. But you engage people in activism. If we're not going to fight back, then. Then we may as well just lay down and surrender. And I'm not. I'm not ready to lay down and surrender. I'm not surrendering the nonprofit community, these 1.4 or 5 million vibrant nonprofits, the work that they do. I'm not surrendering that or any portion thereof.
- [00:33]
Jay Frost
Welcome to the PM Podcast, brought to you by Donor Search, the show that takes you inside the lives of thought leaders, innovators, and change makers in fundraising, philanthropy, and civil society. I'm your host, Jay Frost. A former attorney who walked away from law to find his true calling in philanthropy. Tony Martinetti has spent over 27 years helping organizations grow and thrive. He's the founder of Martinetti Planned Giving Advisors and the host of Tony Martinetti Nonprofit Radio, where he's been sharing expert insights and candid conversations with nonprofit leaders since 2010. In this conversation, we hear his journey from the A.V. club to a nuclear missile silo and from the comedy stage to podcasting and activism.
- [01:20]
Unknown
I do want to ask you about your high school because it seemed like you did everything then, and sometimes that frames what we do later. Were you on the radio station there in high school?
- [01:33]
Tony Martinetti
Are we recording? We are recording, right? Okay. Yeah. Good. Okay, good. Not radio, but tv. I was in the. I guess it would be the intranet, but this, of course, was 1976 to 1980, was my high school years. Yeah. There was a show that aired in the cafeteria during lunch periods, and I hosted it. It was called Sports Spot, which is very ironic because I don't know the difference between baseball, hockey, and soccer and basketball. One, I don't know. One of them has goals and the other one has stealing, and I don't know which is which. But in high school, I interviewed the coaches of the various teams and. And the. And the players for Sports Spot.
- [02:24]
Unknown
Maybe we can find a recording of something there. And. And I don't know.
- [02:30]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, I. I went back and looked, actually.
- [02:33]
Unknown
Really?
- [02:33]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, I. Some high school reunion. I talked to the ava. Now I was a member of AVA was the audio visual Aids. But you have to understand now, this is 1976 to 1980. We were unaffectionately known as Gavier.
- [02:53]
Unknown
Ah.
- [02:55]
Tony Martinetti
We were the backstage folks. You know, I knew how to thread a 16 millimeter movie projector. When the teachers didn't. And when the film broke, I knew how to repair it. The film with the sprockets down each side. I knew how to. I knew how to put that film back together and then resurrect the history teachers historic lesson by. By movie. And I operated the film strip projectors. And I was just going to ask.
- [03:23]
Unknown
You about the film strip. It's just up from film strip to 16 mm.
- [03:27]
Tony Martinetti
Yes. Where we had cassettes. You'd have a cassette with a beep. And that would advance the. That would advance the film strip. You. You all just. If you're under 55, I guess you'll just have to Google film strip projector. 16 millimeter film.
- [03:42]
Unknown
Transparency.
- [03:44]
Tony Martinetti
Transparent overheads. Overhead overhead projectors. So I was a member of ava. We were proud audio visual aids. But we had that. We had that moniker around us because we were. That we would then. It was not cool to be a geek. It was not cool to be a nerd in 1976. 1980. Now, now you geek out. You nerd out. Your people's LinkedIn profiles say that they're a digital in geek. That wasn't the case in the late 70s and early 80s.
- [04:19]
Unknown
And that. That disparaging moniker, as you said, that was for people who are growing up in this era, the LGBTQ era, where there is more open discussion about who people are and identifying themselves the way they want and living the lives that they should be able to live despite all the difficulties they may be they are encountering with government and so forth. But that time, the language was very different.
- [04:46]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, right. Then, you know, that was a. That was a disparagement. That was a. Yes. I can't think of the exact word, but it was. It was not an. Maybe not an epithet, but that's the word I was thinking of. But yeah, it was a disparagement to call us gay va. But we didn't care. We were proud AVA members. Audio visual aids.
- [05:10]
Unknown
Hey, I want to ask you something about that, because I had a lot of that experience myself when I was young because I did a lot of the art stuff, not the sports stuff. And so when I was in the public school system in Connecticut. You were in New Jersey.
- [05:23]
Tony Martinetti
New Jersey. Northern. Northern New Jersey. Yes.
- [05:26]
Unknown
So that was the kind of thing that would be thrown at those of us who were in the arts or in the AV Club or any of this kind of stuff. And it had nothing to do with band.
- [05:38]
Tony Martinetti
Band was another institution that was. I was not a band member, but was disparaged you may have been. Were you a band member?
- [05:45]
Unknown
Band, orchestra, chorus, theater? Yeah, absolutely.
- [05:49]
Tony Martinetti
What instruments or instruments did you play?
- [05:52]
Unknown
Percussion, mainly in school and then guitar. Yeah.
- [05:55]
Tony Martinetti
Okay.
- [05:56]
Unknown
Yeah. And drummers have their own, that's another thing entirely, is the way drummers are treated. But I wanted to ask you about that because sometimes when you're on the receiving end of some of that, especially if it's this kind of, you know, particularly gross disparagement, it, it can have an impact on us. It makes us more sensitive to others later. Do you, do you think that was true for you?
- [06:26]
Tony Martinetti
That's very interesting. You just, you know, my, you just made my synesthesia kick in. You know, I got, I got goosebumps. Synesthesia is when you experience something with one sense and another sense reacts. Like, I heard what you said and I got physical goosebumps. That's very interesting. I, I, that could very well be the root of my, I don't know, I've just always been sympathetic to folks who live differently, whether it's the way you identify gender wise or sexually or race or, you know, I have always been. So that could very well be, you know, I was, yeah, we were, we were mocked, we were disparaged. I mean, it wasn't, it never got physical or anything, but, you know, the kids thought it was jovial. My friends thought it was a laugh. You know, those of us on the receiving end. I guess my way of dealing it with it was to laugh at it, not to have a backlash. Seriously. So. Yeah, that's pretty insightful, Jay.
- [07:29]
Unknown
Well, I did want to ask you about the laughter part because that's a big part of your life. So do you trace that back to school as well? Telling jokes or is that even earlier?
- [07:39]
Tony Martinetti
No, absolutely, absolutely. Elementary school, I'd say like seventh, eighth grade. And then through high school. I was a craftsman in self deprecating humor, which meant I would do a lot of things that made people laugh at me. Not in an unruly way. I was a good student. I was on dean's list. You know, I was a good student. I got into a good college mostly based on the kinds of activities we're talking about, like extracurricular activities. I think that's what got me into Carnegie Mellon University for my undergrad. But, you know, so I was a good student. I was a B plus, a A minus student, something like that. So not, I wasn't an unruly student. But yeah, I would, in the parlance of those times, I would mock myself, I would make, I Would make fun of myself to get people to laugh.
- [08:41]
Unknown
Yeah, that's interesting because a lot of people tell jokes at others expense to get a laugh. Some people it's self disparaging and, and.
- [08:52]
Tony Martinetti
That has, that has been probably the beginning of a through line. I, I did stand up comedy for a number of years in New York City and a lot of that humor was also self deprecating. And I learned early in, so in these early years, talking about elementary school, high school, that if you make fun of yourself, nobody can complain. You're safe, you're always, you're always, always, always a safe target. If you're the target of your own humor, there's nobody to complain. You haven't offended anyone and I haven't.
- [09:29]
Unknown
Plus it's kind of a force field against others attacking, isn't it?
- [09:33]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, yeah. Now I mean I, I don't do political humor so that's never been in my, in my bailiwick. But you know, if you saw me do standup comedy in the city, you would hear me tell a story about unrequited love in seventh grade. Me and Lisa Maggio, which, very interesting as a, this, this could be a little digression if you want. In a turn of our times. I was slightly modifying that story and I was telling it in professional settings. I was opening conference sessions and webinars with it until one day I got a lot of comments about me being misogynistic and hating a seven year, a seventh grade fellow student, the girl who was not reciprocating my affection. And I haven't told that story in a non comedy setting since. But for years and years that was a perfectly appropriate professional opening to some planned giving trainings. But the times turned and it became a story of misogyny. And so it only took one time, one webinar of negative comments for me to stop telling that story. But that was a story of unrequited love. I reached out, I asked to date this seventh grade girl, Lisa Maggio and she didn't reciprocate at our seventh grade dance. So that's a bit that I used to do in stand up comedy. There was another one where I was in the chorus. You mentioned you were in the chorus. I was in the chorus. But I was singled out as, as a bad voice in the chorus, in public, in among the seventh and eighth grade chorus. I was called out selectively to sing a solo. And then I was offered the position of page turner for the piano player.
- [11:29]
Unknown
Oh wow. Who.
- [11:30]
Tony Martinetti
Because my voice was so my, my My solo audition. Not audition. I was already a member, but my solo, you know, had to. He heard a bad voice in my vicinity, and he asked me and a couple of others, Cheryl Sisto and Lisa Maggio. The same. Lisa Maggio. They used to be next to me. I was in alto. He heard trouble in the altos and asked each of us to sing a couple of bars. And he singled me out as the trouble that he heard. He brought me down from the bleachers and offered me the job of page turner for the piano player.
- [12:10]
Unknown
Did anybody ever complain about that story?
- [12:13]
Tony Martinetti
No. No. I'm the victim. It's. It's all about my bad voice in seventh grade chorus, seventh and eighth grade. So I was humiliated in front of a bunch of 8th graders because I was in 7th grade at the time. And by the way, I. I refused that job.
- [12:29]
Unknown
Oh, the page turning.
- [12:31]
Tony Martinetti
Oh, absolutely. I walked out. I'm not gonna. Not going to be Paige Turner for the piano player.
- [12:35]
Unknown
Wow. Well, that says something about you right there. You walked out and was. This was. School was an official function. They. They told you to take this job and you said no, right?
- [12:45]
Tony Martinetti
I walked out. I quit the. I quit the chorus in front of. In front of the chorus. They were all lined up on the bleachers.
- [12:52]
Unknown
I wonder if this kind of, you know, raised your riz or whatever the kids would say now in front of Lisa Maggio and anybody else that you may have had an eye on.
- [13:04]
Tony Martinetti
Could have. Could have. Well, you'd like to think it would. Would have increased my stock with them. I think that came before the incident at the dance, seventh grade dance. When I asked her to go steady with me and she turned me down.
- [13:21]
Unknown
Wow.
- [13:21]
Tony Martinetti
In favor of Albert Moran. That's the love triangle that my comedy bit was about.
- [13:27]
Unknown
Maybe it was really all about the page turning after all.
- [13:31]
Tony Martinetti
I wasn't going to take it. Even if Lisa had encouraged me, I wouldn't take it. I was offended. I was offended.
- [13:39]
Unknown
So, Tony, I. I mean, we're making light of this, but have you. You know, sometimes we carry these relationships with us our whole life. Sometimes they're just the stories, either real or apocryphal. They're a part of our narrative, but sometimes we actually maintain those relationships. Do you. Have you talked to, for example, Lisa Maggio later? You probably didn't talk to your choir teacher after. After high school, But. But have you maintained contact with her or the other altos, any of that?
- [14:07]
Tony Martinetti
Cheryl Sisto came to a reunion and we connected there. Yeah. Lisa has not come to Reunions. I think we are friends on Facebook, but the last time I was on Facebook was probably, I don't know, 12 months or something. You know, I'm not. So. No, I really have not talked to. I haven't talked to Lisa since. Well, we went to high school together, so I would have known her. And, you know, we. We were still friends in high school. Sure.
- [14:32]
Unknown
Yeah. I. I mean, I know we're spending a lot of time in high school, but sometimes it kind of frames who we become.
- [14:36]
Tony Martinetti
These are formative years. Absolutely.
- [14:38]
Unknown
They are formative years.
- [14:39]
Tony Martinetti
I'm grateful.
- [14:40]
Unknown
Yeah. But you. You. You grew up in New Jersey. What. What was your family like? How many, you know, kids in the family, et cetera?
- [14:48]
Tony Martinetti
It was me and my brother. He's five years younger. My dad was an elementary school teacher. Taught instrumental and vocal music.
- [14:58]
Unknown
Yes.
- [14:59]
Tony Martinetti
Yep. In the Ridgefield public Schools, when. I don't know if music is still taught, but he taught instrumental and vocal, and he used to go around to the classrooms for the instrumental music. He didn't have a dedicated classroom that people came to him. Students. And these are elementary school. I think it was kindergarten through fourth or fifth grade. Those are the grades he taught. But he would go around with his cart, and he had a box of instruments like tambourines and recorders. Remember the recorders? The little plastic. Plastic clarinets. They're not.
- [15:35]
Unknown
They still do in elementary school.
- [15:38]
Tony Martinetti
Tambourines and triangles. I can't think of other instruments that he might have had. Maybe harmonicas, I'm not sure, but definitely tambourines, triangles, and recorders. And he had a record player. And the kids would learn. And he would enter the classroom and he would say. He would sing, good morning, students. And they would sing back, good morning, Mr. Martinetti. And so he would learn. They would learn quarter notes and 16th notes through. Through that little. Those little phrases. And so. So that was my dad, elementary school music teacher. And my mom stayed. Worked in the home, the housewife, in the parlance of those times, until my brother and I both left the house at 18. And then she started a career after her career, raising us.
- [16:33]
Unknown
What was that career?
- [16:35]
Tony Martinetti
She worked in a credit union in mortgage lending.
- [16:38]
Unknown
Yeah. Wow, that's. Yeah, that's. And that's pretty formidable stuff. Before we move away from all of that. If your dad was a music teacher, was there much music at home?
- [16:51]
Tony Martinetti
Oh, yeah, I dabbled. My brother also dabbled. But we. We. We just didn't have the DNA. We didn't practice.
- [16:59]
Unknown
But it was in your ear. It was happening. At home. And.
- [17:02]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, dad would play records. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a record collection. We had a good stereo. Dad would play jazz sometimes at home. He was also a professional musician in a. In a band that did weddings and bar mitzvahs and, you know, bowling tournament dinners, things like that. Bowling league dinners. Yeah. He was a percussionist also, like you. His major. He went to Manhattan School of Music. His major was percussion. Oh, so he was a drummer. We had the drums. I remember helping my dad load his drum kit into the car when he would go to gigs for, like I said, weddings and bar mitzvahs and things. Bat mitzvahs. I used to help him set up his drum kit. It was. It was Ludwig. Ludwig. And he had Zildjian cymbals. And I just. I fell in love with all the stainless steel. All the stainless steel snare drum stand and the cymbal stands and the connecting rods that put the. The tom toms on the bass drum. Those. Those stainless steel rods and the hi hats. The hi hat cymbals. With the left foot, left foot with the high hat, right foot on the bass drum. I used to love to help him, well, move his kit into his car and then also set up his kit, you know, if he was going to rehearse at home.
- [18:21]
Unknown
Yeah. So you were kind of more just soaking it in rather than jumping in and playing yourself.
- [18:27]
Tony Martinetti
Well, I did dabble in playing, but there you are there again. I was backstage. Right. I was. I was a roadie. I was a roadie for my dad. It was backstage, Ava, again, you know, helping him set up. And then he was the musician. Yes. No, I did. I did dabble in music. First the clarinet and then I switched to drums. Those were both in elementary school. And I just. Like I said, I didn't practice.
- [18:51]
Unknown
You're not alone. I'm no longer playing percussion. But you. You have a lot of stuff going on then, in those early years in terms of being involved in a lot of things. So. Right. I mean, obviously it was doing the sports spot. That's great to hear. But also theater, I'm sure half dozen other things. But journalism, Was that a part of it, too, were you?
- [19:13]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, I was in the literary magazine club. You know, we published a literary magazine of poetry and short stories. Probably just once a year, I think. I think we came out with a publication, a small book. Small, soft covered book. Once a year of student all. I think it was all student submissions. Poetry's in short. Poetry and short stories. Yeah.
- [19:37]
Unknown
But no newspaper.
- [19:38]
Tony Martinetti
There was a School newspaper. I dabbled in that. I can still remember the advisor for that. Well, I remember the advisor for the literary magazine too. It was Nick Khan, my English teacher in high school. And then Rudin was it. Jerry Rudin was the. Was the newspaper. I. I only dabbled in the. I wasn't an active. I wasn't. I didn't have longevity in the school newspaper, but the literary magazine. Backstage. Ava. And then I was also sort of backstage for a lot of sports teams. I was the manager of the soccer team, so I carried the bag of practice balls and I kept all the stats for soccer team, also the basketball team. I kept stats for the basketball team also, as well as being team manager. I operated the scoreboard for the basketball team. I was the stadium announcer for the football team. These are all ironic because I didn't really know what I was watching, you know, but I heard people yell in the audience and so I would just repeat what I heard them say, you know, I knew. So that's how I got to affiliate touchdowns with football. I knew, you know, touchdown. And that one. I've kept that association.
- [20:48]
Unknown
I know those sound good.
- [20:49]
Tony Martinetti
Yes, I know those two go together. And yeah, touchdowns are good. So I was a stadium announcer for football. A lot of irony there. So I was the. I was the backstage, you know, like supporter type for football, soccer, basketball, wrestling. I was the. I was the gymnasium announcer for wrestling. Two points take down. Three points reversal.
- [21:16]
Unknown
What didn't you do?
- [21:19]
Tony Martinetti
I was treasurer for the ski club. Yeah, I was like the finance manager for the ski club. You got to collect money for all the trips to Vernon Valley, Great Gorge in New Jersey. So I did that. Yeah. A lot of clubs. Well, I told you the extracurriculars are what got me into Carnegie Mellon.
- [21:39]
Unknown
Well, okay, so take us to Carnegie Mellon. What did you decide to study after doing every possible extracurricular activity and still maintaining a good gpa. In high school?
- [21:48]
Tony Martinetti
I did some stuff. I was a member of a fraternity in Carnegie Mellon. I. I was a unsuccessful player on the soccer team. Actually, the. They did let me on to play the soccer, but I only played a couple of halves of a couple of games. I wasn't. I wasn't. The head. I was the keeper goalie, but second string second string goalie. And I'm still in touch. I'm still good friends with the first string goalie.
- [22:21]
Unknown
What were you studying?
- [22:23]
Tony Martinetti
Economics and information systems.
- [22:25]
Unknown
Why? Why that?
- [22:27]
Tony Martinetti
Economics. I just, I. I thought it was always a valuable degree. Valuable. You know, I always had an interest in social sciences. I was more drawn to social sciences than. What Carnegie Mellon is best known for, actually, is engineering and also dramatic arts. Very strong in dramatic arts. But I was neither of those. I was in the social sciences. I just, I don't know. Economics. I liked my microeconomics course in High School. Mr. Blum, I think it was, I'm pretty sure when Mr. Blum taught economics, I like, you know, I just. Business kind of appealed to me. The numbers behind business, the rationale, where to locate a business, how many, you know, how far, what do you look for in demographics, business location. And I think I even took a course at CMU on location. But yeah, microeconomics. And then. So I was in college, 1980 to 1984. Apple was emerging. You know, the Macintosh, the first Mac was somewhere in there. 82 roughly could be off on that. But I was, I was involved in sort of helping bring the Mac to CMU's campus, really. And Steve Jobs was our graduation speaker. 1984.
- [23:43]
Unknown
I mean, that must have been a college.
- [23:45]
Tony Martinetti
How many people did, how many people remember their college graduation speaker? Ours was.
- [23:50]
Unknown
I, I do. Because ours was Walter Cronkite.
- [23:52]
Tony Martinetti
Oh, well, yeah, another luminary, of course. Oh my God. We talk about Walter Cronkite's legacy and what, what, what news has devolved into. Yeah, but yeah, Steve Jobs, we. He was my graduation speaker.
- [24:10]
Unknown
That's, that's amazing. But you, you went from there and then you joined the Air Force. So help me understand that transition.
- [24:19]
Tony Martinetti
It was all economically driven. I was an economics major and I had to pay for college. Carnegie Mellon was beyond my dad's income and There were no 529 accounts at the time. So the deal with my parents was that I could go anywhere I want for one year and they would pay for it. And after that first year, I'd have to find a way to pay for it myself or do my final three years at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. And Rutgers University at the time was not the very prestigious university that it is now has since become. So I really did not want to go to Rutgers. So I applied for a four year Air Force ROTC scholarship. I got waitlisted. I never got the four year scholarship. So I was good. My parents were going to cover me for the first year at cmu, which was my first choice. And that was a rare, rare instance. I got my first choice. You know, how often does that happen in life? CMU was my first choice and I got in. And then I continued pursuing the Air Force scholarship and I got a three and a half year Air Force ROTC scholarship to Carnegie Mellon. So my parents were off the hook for the second half of my first year there.
- [25:39]
Unknown
You weren't really focused in on politics at the time. At least it didn't sound, it sounds like you weren't. That wasn't one of the things you, you kind of check marked. No, but that time, that was a very interesting time politically in terms of our relationship to the military. So I, I can understand you needed to have the resources to go to school. And how are your feelings about joining the military at that time, especially in the role that you ended up playing there. You were a missile combat crew commander. So it's. We're talking about nuclear missiles.
- [26:09]
Tony Martinetti
We are. I did that. You're right. Thank you for your research. You're, as they say in the Godfather, your people are very good. It was strictly a means to an end. I wanted to stay at cmu. I needed a scholarship. I also concurrent to applying to the Air Force, once I got to Carnegie Mellon, I opened an application with the army. I could just as well have gotten an Army ROTC scholarship, but the Air Force came through first. Maybe because I was waitlisted for the four years. So I got the three and a half year from them. But it could have been the Army. Yeah, those were Reagan years. Of course it was the Soviet Union. It was, I'm not sure we realized at the beginning that it was the waning years of the Cold War, but they were Cold War years. And from cmu, I went on, went into the Air Force to, to operate Minuteman nuclear missiles, the Minuteman 2 weapon system.
- [27:08]
Unknown
And there was a growth in, in, in our nuclear position. I mean we, we were amassing more weapons rather than the other way around. There was a discussion about the, you know, the Star wars systems. And I think this was around the time, at least when you were there. It must have been the day after came out, which was a really seminal kind of media moment for a lot of people focusing in on what the potential risks were of nuclear war.
- [27:36]
Tony Martinetti
These were the, this was the era of mutually assured destruction, which, which a lot of people called mad or madness. But we had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the Soviet Union many times over. Because at that period, you have to understand, at that period, the Soviet Union was our dire enemy. China was a very small economy and they were a huge nation. But, but economically, in terms of gdp, they, they just were not in the top three the way they are now. Not even close probably. So our enemy, our dire Enemy at the time was the Soviet Union. And we had enough nuclear weapons to destroy them and probably the entire earth and the Soviet Union had the same. So that's, that was, that was what kept us and kept them from launching an attack on us. Of course we had a, we had a policy of no first, no first strike with nuclear weapons. I think that emanated from the McNamara era. But that continued to be our policy. I couldn't even tell you who the Secretary of defense was from 1984 to 1989. Those were the. I was in the Air Force five years, 1984 to 89. Reagan was president. I don't remember who the Secretary of Defense was. Casper Weinberger could have been, could have.
- [29:05]
Unknown
Been, I don't know. So what was your role exactly? Were you in a silo or. For those of us who don't understand that world, what was, what was this like? What were you doing?
- [29:15]
Tony Martinetti
First you spent six months at Vandenberg Air Force Base learning the weapon system. Again, weapon system was Minuteman 2. And then there was a subsequent Minuteman 3. Folks may have heard of Titan missiles. That was an earlier system. So Minuteman 2 was a crew of two officers, a missile combat crew commander and a deputy missile combat crew commander. And what you said earlier was spot on. I started as a deputy and then I rose to missile combat crew commander in my five years there. And that crew of two commanded 10 Minuteman 2 missiles. So you, you'd go on a 24 hour alert. Yes, you were down underground in a launch control center. Lcc. Launch control center. That's where the crew of two were. Imagine an egg made of steel reinforced concrete like maybe 150ft below the surface. That's the launch control center. And that's where the, with a, behind a blast door that was probably 18, 20 inches thick or something with pins that retracted into the door and then expanded into the concrete reinforced shell. And that's how we entered and exited through this steel reinforced blast door on big hinges. You have to, used to have to manually pump the pins of the door to extend them into the shell and then to retract them to open the door to get meals. And then, you know, that's where we had computer technology which was, you know, we were counting kilobits, kilobits. You have exponentially more computing power in your, in your, in your smartphone. And we had commanding 10 nuclear missiles in the mid-80s.
- [31:05]
Unknown
Is that a job that you get used to doing it? Do you get used to closing that big 20 inch thick door and sitting there with your, you know, two guys who had their, probably guys at the time with their fingers on the button or on a key or something. Or, or, or, or are you in a state of perpetual kind of awareness and alarm?
- [31:26]
Tony Martinetti
You can't maintain a state of perpetual alarm for five years. No, it becomes routine. You have tests that you do and just to clear it up, it was keys. A lot of people think finger on the button, but we had keys. The deputy had a key and the commander had a key. And both keys had to be turned within three seconds of each other to launch any, any missile or missiles of our, of our 10. You know, the tests you send out to make sure that the network is operational, make sure that the missiles are receiving commands. Once in the 24 hour shift, you send weather out to the, each missile. We didn't know where they were targeted to. We, we knew they were targeted somewhere in the Soviet Union. We didn't know what, you know, city or anything like that. We didn't, we didn't have target information. We, we had launch capability. The, the missiles actually were remotely targeted. We, we couldn't, as I recall, we could not change the target. I don't think we could. A team, a maintenance team had to go to the missile and put a new targeting package physically in the missile. That's interesting. I don't think we were able, I don't think we had the capability to change targets. No.
- [32:41]
Unknown
Was it, were there any scary moments?
- [32:44]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, one time when I was a deputy and my commander, and this is a commander I'm still in touch with, we're still friends, we had a little smoke incident in the capsule. So you have to run the fire checklist. And we had to shut down the capsule due to smoke. I don't remember what ancient component was smoking, but we had smoke in the capsule. So there was that. But no, never, you know, like an increased defcon, which was a defense condition. You know, we were always in, I believe the Defcons went 1 through 5 at the time. We were always in Defcon 4, which was just one up from the, the lowest. Defcon 1 was like active nuclear war.
- [33:32]
Unknown
Yeah, but I guess I can understand you. You can't maintain this kind of state of alert for any length of time and still be human.
- [33:41]
Tony Martinetti
Right. You can't think about the awesome destructive power, millions of people potentially dying at your, at your fingertips. No, you're trained. You know, it's like anything in, it's like anything in law enforcement. It's like anything in the Military, you know, that has the, has a lethal capacity. You're trained to run checklists and take certain actions. When you are presented with certain inputs and you take those actions, you do them methodically and dispassionately because you trusted the, what was called the NCA National Command Authority, which was all the levels of control of nuclear weapons above those of those, the two of us in a capsule. So at our base, through the, through the, all the Joint Chiefs, through the Secretary of Defense, up to the President, you know, those are essentially the national command authorities.
- [34:38]
Unknown
Yeah. And probably the same structure today, at least in theory.
- [34:44]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah. Overall, I mean, the commands have changed. You know, there's no more Strategic Air Command. We were, that's what we were a part of, Strategic Air Command that doesn't exist anymore. But we also don't have ground, ground launched nuclear missiles anymore either. All those, all those silos and launch control centers and by the way, just a little jargon, where the missiles were, Those were called LFS launch facilities. So one launch control center controlled 10 launch facilities. There was one missile in each. Lf those have all been destroyed, filled in with, exploded, filled in with concrete through Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, through the salt. Remember the SALT era, SALT one, SALT two. And then they were open for overflight. So the Soviet Union could send its satellites over and verify that, you know, because they knew the exact latitude and longitude of every single site, just like we knew all of theirs. They could verify that they had all been filled in. So we don't have ground based nuclear missiles anymore.
- [35:48]
Unknown
When you think back on all that now, what did you know? What do you, what do you think about that experience? Because sometimes when we look back on something we've done earlier, professionally, we think, oh, I could have done this differently or that differently. But it doesn't sound like you could have done anything differently. But still the kind of awesome implicit power, if you had decided together, now is the time to within three seconds turn those keys or you had been asked to do so. Do you have feelings or thoughts about that? In retrospect?
- [36:21]
Tony Martinetti
I look back on my Air Force career. All five years were spent there. That was Whiteman Air Force Base in Warrensburg, Missouri, which is now the beat. Now it's a B2 base because we don't, like I said, we don't have the missiles. It's now the home of the B2. I look back with pride, you know, we were a part of something making me be a little teary, which, which I appreciate you because I think back very fondly I'm still in touch with a lot of Air Force friends. We've had reunions through the years, but in the bigger picture, we were a part of helping ensure peace between the two antagonistic world powers, United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
- [37:03]
Unknown
Kind of an understood balance. Yeah. Yeah, well, but there probably wasn't a lot of humor down there in the hole. I mean, I don't know. You didn't have an audience to tell jokes anyway.
- [37:14]
Tony Martinetti
No, that was. I guess that was a. And the audiences in Warrensburg, Missouri, if there was no comedy club there that I can remember, but they would not have appreciated my New York City based. You know, I grew up close to New York City, but call it New York City centric sense of humor. So no, there was. I don't remember. Yeah, I guess the Air Force, you know, I had matured, so I was no longer making people laugh by laughing at me. I had, I had, I had matured some and that was a bit of a hiatus on my humorous side.
- [37:50]
Unknown
So you decided to do something that has been the bane of most jokes throughout human history, which is to go into law. So you went out and got a law degree?
- [38:01]
Tony Martinetti
I did.
- [38:02]
Unknown
And then. And then of course embarked on this planned giving career, which I know we're going to talk about. But how did you decide to go from. From down there with, you know, the nuclear key, so to speak, to going to law school?
- [38:14]
Tony Martinetti
I always wanted a professional degree. I was not strong enough in math and science for an MD degree. I took the. What's the. What do you take to go to business school?
- [38:30]
Unknown
What's that, the. The GRE or.
- [38:33]
Tony Martinetti
No, gmat.
- [38:34]
Unknown
Gmat, that's right.
- [38:36]
Tony Martinetti
Graduate Management Admissions Test. At least then. I don't know what it is now. But you took the gmat? Yeah, my scores were middling. Yeah, not so good. You know, I wasn't going to get into a decent business school, so I looked in law and, you know, I don't want to make it sound like it was. It was, it was. Well, I guess it was the last choice. Medicine was never. I was never serious about medicine because I just was not good in the lab, sciences or math strong enough. So that was never really a serious contender. Business I was interested in, you know, I had the economics degree and information systems degree, which was kind of a managerial computer science degree at the time. Early. Early again graduated college in 1984. So that was my first interest, business. But then law was a close second and I did well enough in the law school admission Test to. I did not get my first choice of law school. Many law school admissions deans made it clear to me that I should go to Temple University School of. So many others decided for me that Temple was the place because that's the only one that accepted me. So that's where I went. Probably a dozen. I even applied to law schools where I didn't belong. I wasn't qualified for. But. So I thank many law school deans for leading law school admissions deans for leading me to Temple University.
- [40:03]
Unknown
And you must have liked the law because that became kind of your, you know, your career, one form or another. For. For years.
- [40:10]
Tony Martinetti
Loved it. Loved. I loved law school. I wish law school was four or five years instead of only three. I loved the study of law. The practice of law did not appeal to me. I only practiced for two years. I was unhappy. We could, you know, you're interested in this. So I. I sometimes wonder, if I had taken a different career, a different job right out of law school, would I have stayed longer in the law? The job that I took was at a big law firm in New York City. And I made a lot of money. And I found it turned out to be a very unpleasant way to make a lot of money. And I only survived in the law for two years before I left.
- [40:47]
Unknown
What kind of law was that that you were.
- [40:49]
Tony Martinetti
Medical malpractice and general liability defense. Defense. So defending hospitals and doctors and also. And so those are major medical centers in New York City and also defending mostly property owners, supermarkets, retailers against general liability means like trip and fall and slip and fall type actions or if somebody got more seriously injured or if there was some kind of an attack on their property. You know, we would defend the. The property owner.
- [41:17]
Unknown
So you loved law school. But.
- [41:19]
Tony Martinetti
But the job, the job that I wonder, if I had, would I have stayed longer in the law if I had taken was. I had an offer to be an assistant district attorney in the city of Philadelphia. I had done very well as an intern for the district attorney's office in Philadelphia. And I got an offer there and I turned it down. I took the. I took the lucrative job in New York City. I was going to be with closer to friends because we all grew up up in North Jersey, very close to New York City, Bergen Counties. So I went for money and friendships instead of public service. You know. And so I wonder. I don't. This isn't so much I regret the decision, but I wonder, would I have risen to elected office district attorney of the city of Philadelphia? I don't know.
- [42:13]
Unknown
Yeah. Do you think about that, about a different journey? Because you do.
- [42:17]
Tony Martinetti
Not too often, but you know, times like this, sort of, I get talking about it. Yeah. I wonder. I'm certainly, I would like to think I would have done very well, moved into major crimes and homicide or maybe sex crimes, you know, difficult litigation, but serving the public all, all in the, again, like sort of the Air Force, all in the public good. So, you know, I wonder, I don't know.
- [42:43]
Unknown
But you went out of that, out of doing that work. I guess defending these large institutional clients, doing well, but I guess not having a heart for that at all into this world of planned giving. So it was Iona was that first?
- [42:59]
Tony Martinetti
Iona was first. Yes. Your people are very good research wise. But before that I actually started my first business was attorney career guidance. I was helping unhappy lawyers leave the law.
- [43:17]
Unknown
Oh wow.
- [43:18]
Tony Martinetti
In today's, in today's, in the parlance of, of our times now I would have been a career coach helping lawyers transition to other careers. But in 19, so I graduated law school. 1992, two years, so 94 to roughly 97. Mid 97 or so. There was no such thing as a career coach. So I just called myself a career consultant. And I helped lawyers, mostly young lawyers, but some more senior, get out of the law into other careers. And that business didn't do all that well. I learned a lot of lessons in that business that I've applied in my plan giving consulting business. But it did okay. I was doing okay, but not, not great. I learned some lessons there.
- [44:09]
Unknown
What was the appeal? Were you kind of channeling your own experience and thinking people shouldn't have to keep doing this job that they hate or.
- [44:15]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, well, I needed, I needed to, I needed to make some money now. Now I got three. I got a law school debt. My parents did not pay for law school, so I had enormous law school debt and I needed to make some money and I hated practicing law, so I knew it wasn't going to be that. So I thought, you know, I, I always had a penchant for interviewing, interview skills, resume writing. I did some coaching on that in again, we weren't called coaches, but I did some work on that at cmu. I was, I was helping like grad students with their resume writing. I think something like that in the, in the grad, grad school consulting the grad school career office or something like that. So I, I had skills in preparing people for interviews and helping craft their cover letter and their resume for individual jobs. Not just one resume fits all but you, you craft each resume to the job that you're applying for. So you have 10 or 12 different resume versions and 10 and 10 to 12 different cover letters. You should. That still applies today. So I had a pension for it. So I opened a business, Attorney Career Guidance, on Lower fifth Ave. In New York City.
- [45:28]
Unknown
But that wasn't for that long, as you said. So I know you took the lessons for that and what you're doing today, but you pretty quickly went over into the nonprofit world, which is a wonderful place for those of us who love it, but it often isn't a very lucrative place. So how did you decide to make that decision? Decision? And, and how. Where did that take you initially those first few years?
- [45:50]
Tony Martinetti
The, as I said, attorney Career guidance was kind of lackluster performance. I was eking out a living, so I knew that was not really sustainable. And I had a friend who was a senior fundraiser at Iona College, and he was looking for a director of Planned Giving. And I made my pitch. And having the law degree and law experience helps, because you are talking about legal documents often. But. But I am quick to say you do not have to be an attorney to be very successful in planned giving. Fundraising, absolutely not essential. But if you have the degree, it helps. And so it helped me sort of bootstrap my way into director of Planned Giving at Iona College, which is now Iona University. And.
- [46:40]
Unknown
And you were there for how long?
- [46:42]
Tony Martinetti
Just a year, year and a half. I think about 18 months.
- [46:46]
Unknown
Oh.
- [46:46]
Tony Martinetti
Then I moved to St. John's University. Also director of Planned Giving. I. I had started the program in planned giving at Iona, and I also launched planned giving at St. John's University in Queens.
- [47:01]
Unknown
Okay.
- [47:03]
Tony Martinetti
I spent five, six. Five years there.
- [47:07]
Unknown
Okay, so you're basically going in, setting up the programs, running them. I'm sure, you know, having that experience, it must have changed. Not changed, but informed your view about what you could do inside that kind of institutional context. What. What was your feeling for it? How did that develop? Did you develop a passion for this? Is that because you, you share in many ways. You just talked about the coaching experience for lawyers looking to change careers. You talked about it. You talk about it all the time with your work today. How did you find yourself in this work? Was it this kind of coaching role internally with the organization, or were you finding a heart for it yourself and closing those gifts, meeting those people? What was it that kind of turned you onto it?
- [47:56]
Tony Martinetti
Yep, you just touched on it, meeting those people. I love the relationships with older Americans, folks in their 60s. Well, I'm in my 60s now, then in folks in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. I love those relationships. And I know how to build planned giving programs that will help those donors give to the institutions that they love and also naturally help the institutions themselves. And it's that synergy. When people who are passionate about a cause come together to that cause, the potential is enormous for helping future generations, which is typically what planned gifts are crafted to do. So maybe sort of planned giving was a vehicle to the relationships that I wanted, that I sought after. You know, you had to create a planned giving program in order to have a reason to talk to folks in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. So I, I gravitated to planned giving.
- [49:08]
Unknown
Why. Why the interest in talking with. With older folks at that time of your life?
- [49:13]
Tony Martinetti
Oh, oh, they're rich histories. They lived through the Depression, the Great Depression. They lived through world. Well, at the time, there were some who remembered World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korean conflict. You know, they've lived through adversity. They went to school when they were in college, when tuition was, you know, $8 a credit. They, they were all baby boomers. They lived through the Cold War, they. Periods of great economic prosperity in the United States Post World War II, the 40s, 50s, the turbulence of the, the civil rights era of the 60s, the, the backlash in the 70s. They lived through all this. They were, they were teenagers at, you know, they were teenagers in the 70s and at. Oh, what's the. Oh, come on, help me. What's the huge. The, the iconic music festival and Woodstock. They were, they were teenagers and, and they were in their 20s at Woodstock. I've talked to people who went to Woodstock. Just the rich history. The rich. The rich history of our elders. And it still, it still moves me. My, I'm. My synesthesia is kicking in again because I'm speaking, but I'm getting a physical reaction to it.
- [50:34]
Unknown
So, and so I, I hate to jump ahead, but that is kind of where you are for much of your career now. You, you do. I know you're doing a lot on the, on the coaching side, helping people set up programs, but you're spending so much of your. Well, the last. How many years now with. With nonprofit radio?
- [50:51]
Tony Martinetti
15 years. We're in our 15th year podcast. Yeah, but see, I want to help others have the rich relationships with donors and potential donors, even that I've enjoyed since starting in planned giving at Iona in 1997. So you're getting that six.
- [51:10]
Unknown
Also, you're able to interview people all the Time.
- [51:13]
Tony Martinetti
Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm back to Sports Spot.
- [51:18]
Unknown
I don't know how many elders you're interviewing though.
- [51:21]
Tony Martinetti
No, no more contemporaries. And many younger folks. Many, many younger folks. Smart. No, but. So I don't interview elders, but I have great relationships with a lot of my clients, donors.
- [51:37]
Unknown
How did that whole process get started? How did you start that? The podcast?
- [51:43]
Tony Martinetti
Oh, well, it is a through line from Sports Spot. You know, the backstage days. And then, and then I. So I like, I like the backstage but also stand up comedy. You know, if I see an empty mic, to me that is a lonely friend. I have to go up and speak to that mic. I. My heart, I do. I get rapid heart rate. That tachycardia, where maybe it's not formally tachycardia, but my pulse increases when I see an empty mic and a bunch of people.
- [52:18]
Unknown
Well, that's the thing about radio though.
- [52:20]
Tony Martinetti
I'm drawn to it like a lonely, like it's a lonely friend.
- [52:24]
Unknown
You don't always see the bunch of people though, when you're doing, you know, a podcast, a radio show. They're out there in the ether.
- [52:31]
Tony Martinetti
No, I don't see them, but I know they're with us. I'm channeling our 13, 000 weekly listeners in small and mid sized non profits. Yeah, I'm channeling them. I'm thinking, you know, what would I want to know if I was listening? What would I, what would I want Tony to ask though? I'm. I'm constantly channeling them is.
- [52:51]
Unknown
So when you started this, it was before the podcasting boom.
- [52:57]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, 2010. July of 2010 was our first nonprofit radio episode. So they were July of 2010. Yeah, yeah.
- [53:09]
Unknown
I mean who, who were you interviewing in that show?
- [53:11]
Tony Martinetti
My very first show was, I think I had a friend who I was doing, planned, giving, consulting with and might have been Claire Meyerhoff, who talking about marketing and she became the associate. She's still the creative producer of nonprofit radio. I have to shout out for Claire Meyerhoff because she had a background in traditional radio. She had been at a Washington D.C. station, WTOP, which I think still exists. She was on air talent for Is it. Yeah. Because you live in the D.C. area is top dog. Yeah. And then she moved to Sirius. Before it was Sirius xm, she had some time with Sirius. So she knew, she knew radio and, and she helped me a lot. And she remains the creative producer of Tony Martinetti nonprofit Radio. She was on one of my very, very early shows, if not the very first.
- [54:09]
Unknown
And when you're looking across that. Are there any kind of. I know it's an easy question, but I am curious if there are any favorites as you've interviewed people.
- [54:19]
Tony Martinetti
Oh, absolutely. There's the time that Beth Cantor said fuck on the show. That's a favorite. That came from an ntc. That was the nonprofit technology conference hosted by nten. That came from one of my NTC interviews with Beth. There's the time I was in studio for the first many years. We would produce the show at a studio in New York city on West 72nd street with the. That was Sam. Sam Leibowitz owned that. It was an apartment that he had converted to a studio. And then. So it was the time that someone almost had a heart attack in the studio because he. He was running, he was overweight. The. There was traffic and he got out of his cab and he ran several blocks and he came into the studio very, very flushed. So I was a little concerned he did not have a heart attack, but I was. I was concerned. Lots and lots of episodes with Gene Takagi and Amy Sample Ward. Gene is our legal contributor. He's on many times a year. Amy, CEO of N10. She's. She's our technology contributor. She's on many times a year. Lots of valuable shows with. With the two of them together, especially now in our political environment, but separately. Lots of very valuable shows with them. Lots of great shows from ntc. I love bringing the show to the exhibit hall this year. It happens. 2025. They're not calling it the exhibit hall now. It's the hub. But in years past, it was called the exhibit hall, and we'd be on the exhibit floor, often with a corporate sponsor. So we'd be sharing a 10 by 20 booth with the sponsor and do dozens of interviews at each conference for future shows. Those are all. Those are all great memories.
- [56:12]
Unknown
Well, you're making more of them every minute. I mean, every week. It's pretty vital. You're doing 50 shows a year, I think. Is that right?
- [56:19]
Tony Martinetti
That's right. We're coming up on show number 750 in July.
- [56:23]
Unknown
Oh, wow.
- [56:23]
Tony Martinetti
15 years. 15 years.
- [56:25]
Unknown
Congratulations. Thank you. But how. How has it evolved? And how do you imagine it evolving further? Because you and I have talked separately about a lot of what's going on. You've alluded to it a minute ago politically and how it's impacting the nonprofit sector. Maybe not always planned giving specifically, but you talk about a bigger range of issues. Much bigger than just plain giving alone.
- [56:46]
Tony Martinetti
Oh, absolutely.
- [56:47]
Unknown
So how is the show kind of growing with that evolution that surrounds it.
- [56:54]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, the show is in decline. I would say it's, the host is middling. I brought on an associate producer. It's not working out. The show's in line. Deep decline. So I would say the denouement was probably 12 months ago or so. That was, that was, that was our peak. No, I love, I just left. I just love doing non profit radio. I love picking people's brains for the benefit of small and mid sized shops. How is it evolving? Yeah, we're, we're more politically aware since last November than we ever have been. You know, it's, the shows are not so evergreen. You know, a lot of shows, the vast majority of shows in the past I could have replayed any time and I have sometimes when I needed a show from the archive. But more politically aware now. You know, shows that are not evergreen but are essential to do, we cannot ignore. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm a little, I'm a little turned off by some content creators in our community who are just seem to be ignoring, tone deaf to the, the political reality around us. And the threats, explicit threats to our nonprofit community. I mean explicit some, in some cases down to the organization like NPR and Planned Parenthood. But the sectors under threat, all foreign aid, all the, all the, all the foreign aid nonprofits under threat with the USAID freezes back and forth. And yeah, I'm dismayed by content creators who are not reacting to and supporting the community during the threats that are coming from the, this new administration.
- [58:48]
Unknown
Why do you think that they're not, they're not tackling it? And what impact do you think they could have if they made a switch?
- [58:56]
Tony Martinetti
Why are they not tackling it? And what impact could they have? I hope they don't fear it. Maybe they do. Maybe it's self censorship, but that's what authoritarian regimes aspire to. They don't want to have to crack down on your, on your speech. They want you to censor yourself. So I hope it's not self censorship. Maybe they feel it's not, it's not their bailiwick. You know, we're a fundraising podcast, so we're not going to talk about threats to fundraising and, and that are coming from the, from the administration. You know, it's outside our realm. I don't know. To me that's, that, that's a, that's a rationalization. I, I think, I think the community deserves, the community demands the support of all the members of the community and that includes content creators. So so. So big deal. If you're in a marketing. Marketing podcast, I think. I don't think you can be silent to the. To what's happening. We're getting some thumbs down. That's okay. That's okay. I still. I still stand by. I think the community is stronger when it remains together. And that's why you and I, along with Beth Cantor, are co hosting the Nonprofit Activist Coalition, because the community needs to stand together. I don't care. I don't. I don't care what. What named nonprofit is under attack. I don't care where it might be on a political spectrum. I would stand up for its rights. So if it's the National Rifle Association, I will stand up for its rights just as much as I'll stand up for NPR and Planned Parenthood. And so I think that's a disservice to the community when you ignore the reality that is just a maelstrom around us. I mean, it's every single day, multiple headlines per day. I think it's unfair to the community and a disservice to your audience. So do you think you're not active and trying to help the community while the community is under attack?
- [61:12]
Unknown
So do you think they could make a difference if they chose to start focusing on the stuff coming out of.
- [61:17]
Tony Martinetti
D.C. i believe yes. What came out of the shows that I've done is the nonprofit activist coalition that the three of us are co hosting. I thought we need to do more than just podcasting, but, yeah, podcasting is a start. You know, you engage people, you raise. I don't think we have to raise consciousness. I don't think that's an issue. I don't think awareness is a problem. But you engage people in activism. If we're not gonna fight back, then we may as well just lay down and surrender. And I'm not ready to lay down and surrender. I'm not surrendering the Nonprofit community. These 1.4 or 5 million vibrant non profits, the work that they do. I'm not surrendering that or any portion thereof.
- [62:07]
Unknown
You said you got some thumbs down on some of the things that you've covered.
- [62:13]
Tony Martinetti
Thumbs down came down. No, this is the first time. But that's all right. You know, I guess we're live. I didn't really realize. We're live streaming. We're live streaming.
- [62:22]
Unknown
No.
- [62:25]
Tony Martinetti
Well, I don't know where the thumbs down. Well. Well, I was.
- [62:29]
Unknown
It may be just zoom doing its magic. Oh. When we do something like this or like this, then thumbs up or thumbs down.
- [62:37]
Tony Martinetti
The Zoom. Is there an AI?
- [62:41]
Unknown
There is. So maybe that's a good transition. Right. Right there.
- [62:44]
Tony Martinetti
Well, you know what that AI. I don't. That's another reason I'm. I'm concerned about AI. It doesn't have passion. Yeah, no, there was a thumbs down over in your frame. Not that you did it. I know you didn't do it, but for a minute I thought we were live streaming.
- [63:05]
Unknown
It's my talking too much with my hands. But that's a really good transition because you said that when you graduated from college, your graduation speaker was jobs. Right?
- [63:15]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah.
- [63:16]
Unknown
So you had that impact and then you ran off and your career has gone lots of different directions, but you're interrogating in a very positive way everything and everybody. This is really what you do and what so many of us hear. The biggest question now has to do with. And all the questions have to do with AI in one form or another. And you just said, you know, screw that. So where do you think AI fits into everything we're talking about, whether it's government or the non profit sector, fundraising, specifically because it is coming for us. Even in the podcasting studio where you can notebook lm, you can generate a podcast automatically. What are your feelings about that?
- [63:57]
Tony Martinetti
AI is what I said. Yeah, yeah. Just to be, just to be clear, on the record, I'm concerned. I'm concerned about AI. I want to have genuine conversations with people. So you're right. AI can create a. Can create a podcast. I've heard clips. George Weiner, very smart tech guy, the CEO of Whole Whale, and I are heavily connected on LinkedIn, and he's not blind to the potential downsides of artificial intelligence and chatgpt, et cetera, and content creation by artificial intelligence. So he's not blind, but he's more optimistic about it than I am. I'm concerned. I'm concerned that we're going to seed our creativity. And look, artificial intelligence can create music. I think a composer staring at blank. Are they called staves? Did I learn anything from my clarinet lesson? Aren't they. Aren't the music. The music sheets? Are the.
- [65:04]
Unknown
Are they called staves on the staff? Maybe.
- [65:06]
Tony Martinetti
I don't know, the five lines. Maybe staff staves staring at a blank composition sheet or you and I staring at a blank word document, I believe that is. And needing to fill it for some purpose. That is the most creative act that humans do. And we are seeding that. That first draft, whether it's music or text or art, in, in. In all its many, many forms, seeding that most creative time to artificiality and reducing us to editors or, you know, highlighters on. If it's. If it's a. If it's an illustration or pencil drawing, we're now highlighting. We're copy editors of the text. We're whatever the analog would be for music composition. And. And that reduces. That reduces us. That reduces our role, and it. It seeds our creativity at the most creative point, staring at that blank word screen and needing to fill it, I think that's the most creative time, and I don't want to give that up. So I don't use AI for my first drafts, even though it'll save me time. Supposedly, you know, smartphones are supposed to save us time too. Do you have a. Do you have a bank of time that, that you've. You've put aside, you know, thousands. It should be thousands of hours by now. Had smartphones for what, 14, 15 years roughly? I don't know. We should have banks of thousands of hours that we're just going to retire on. I don't have a bank like that. They increase productivity, although we're now seeing the downsides of that in terms of isolation, depression among young folks, suicide, increased suicide rates among young folks who feel inferior to. To the. To the. The megastars on. On TikTok and Instagram. So we're seeing the downsides of that technology now, and I think eventually we'll see downsides to artificial intelligence. So I don't use it. I don't use it in my practice. I don't use it in my podcast production. That's it. I'm not. I'm not so sanguine as many of our colleagues are about the future.
- [67:32]
Unknown
Let me. Let me take you down another dark alley there, kind of wrapping up some of these thoughts, which is about comedy. You said that you did stand up. You have. It sounds like you're not doing a lot of it today, but one of the things that people talk about is the. With AI, that it has great utility and efficiency in some things, but it also doesn't necessarily have the same degree of empathy or creativity, you know, the ability to think in. In ways that might make us also not just cry, but maybe laugh. So you just said you're not letting AI write your first drafts of anything. When it comes to a world where AI is increasingly populating everything on our phones and our Facebook feeds. How funny is that? And what. What are you. Where are you finding the humor in the world, given that so much of our world is being automated at the service of this kind of efficiency.
- [68:31]
Tony Martinetti
Yeah, that's another great question. I, I haven't found humor in the artificiality of intelligence. I still find humor in just daily life. Listeners to the, to the podcast know that on Tony's Take Two, I often have tales from the gym. I talk about different characters there. This week we're talking about Mrs. Blood and Soil, a woman who refused to seed her territory in an aerobics class. Revisiting we visited with Mrs. Blood and Soil many months ago, but revisiting now because I just introduced myself to her. So I find humor in daily activities from the gym, food shopping. Yeah, there's, there's whimsy and humor all around us. I haven't seen it in artificial intelligence yet. Not because I'm so dismayed by it that, you know, I think it's all a tragedy. I don't think all of artificial intelligence is, is detrimental to us. No, not at all. Not at all. There is great value. I was just listening to a talking head talk about cancer research and artificial intelligence can spot trends, micro trends in, in hundreds of thousands of patient records to spot a potential, you know, for former, for future pancreatic cancer that, that humans do not have anywhere near the capacity for. So not only in medicine, but I see prompt promise with artificial intelligence. Yeah, I don't want it flying our planes. I'll never get on a pilotless plane. I'll never be a passenger in a driverless car. No, never, never even 30 years from now when I'm 90, I won't, I, I won't get in a driverless car.
- [70:31]
Unknown
Would you go to a comedy club with a comedian, less AI telling jokes?
- [70:37]
Tony Martinetti
No. Right. No, I would not buy one of the. What are these robot dogs now? That right? Artificial dogs. No, no, I, I'm too much of a believer in humanity and soul and neither of which, you know, artificial intelligence is. There's no humanity and it's has no soul. So I'm too much of a believer in, in the DNA of humans.
- [71:09]
Jay Frost
Well, that's it for this episode of the PM Podcast. If you would like to learn more about Tony's show, visit tonymartinetti.com Our thanks to our sponsor Donor Search, the world leader in AI and donor research for non profit fundraising. Our producer is Jack Frost and our theme music is Moving Out, Moving in by Jay Taylor and is provided courtesy of Epidemic Sound. If you like what you heard, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen. Check out our sister shows Front Lines of Social Good and How to raise and come back next weekend for another conversation with a leader in the world of social good. Until then, this is Jay Frost. Thanks for joining me.