Artificial Influencer: Blitzscaling Ventures' Jeremiah Owyang on the age of AI influencers

Summary

The Speed of Culture Podcast: Detailed Summary of "Artificial Influencer: Blitzscaling Ventures' Jeremiah Owyang on the Age of AI Influencers"

Release Date: May 1, 2025
Host: Matt Britton, Founder and CEO of Suzy
Guest: Jeremiah Owyang, General Partner at Blitzscaling Ventures

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1. Introduction

In this episode of The Speed of Culture Podcast, host Matt Britton engages in an insightful conversation with Jeremiah Owyang, a renowned figure in tech and business strategy. Jeremiah brings his extensive experience as a former VC founder, CMO analyst, and public speaker to discuss the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on marketing, advertising, and the broader business landscape.

2. Jeremiah Owyang's Background

Jeremiah Owyang is a trailblazer in the tech industry with a prolific career spanning over two decades. As a general partner at Blitzscaling Ventures, he co-leads the AI Fund, which focuses on scaling next-generation AI-powered startups. Jeremiah has been at the forefront of every major tech wave, from Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 to the sharing economy and now, AI.

3. The Impact of AI on Marketing and Advertising

AI Influencers and AI Agents

Jeremiah delves into the emergence of AI influencers, emphasizing that AI agents are poised to become the new decision-makers in consumer behavior. He explains, "the decision maker in the next few years won't be humans. It will be an AI agent representing the buyer" (10:19). These AI agents can autonomously handle tasks such as shopping, utilizing personal data to make informed decisions without human intervention.

Disruption of Traditional Advertising

The rise of AI tools like GPT, Claude, and Perplexity is significantly disrupting traditional advertising models. Jeremiah highlights that these AI platforms deliver information without the intrusive nature of traditional ads, stating, "if that becomes the de facto standard that people will get information without marketing and advertising being interruptive, that is a big change" (07:30). This shift challenges marketers to adapt strategies to engage with AI-driven consumer interfaces.

SEO for AI and E-commerce Integration

Jeremiah introduces the concept of "SEO for AI," where marketers must influence the sources that AI agents reference. Additionally, he predicts the integration of e-commerce directly into large language models (LLMs), enabling seamless transactions within AI platforms. "By the end of this year, 2025, I'm expecting to see E-Commerce integrated right into LLMs" (08:17).

4. Disruption Due to AI Influencers and AI Agents

AI agents are not only transforming consumer interactions but also infiltrating the enterprise sector. Jeremiah notes, "Every enterprise SaaS company is rolling this out and there's a whole fleet of startups out there" (12:11). Companies like Salesforce and HubSpot are rebranding and integrating AI agents to enhance their service offerings, leading to rapid growth in AI-driven enterprise solutions.

5. Implications for Employees and Future Skills

Future-Proofing Careers

Jeremiah addresses the anxiety among employees regarding AI's impact on the workplace. He references a study showing a significant divide between executives, who are optimistic about AI, and staff employees, who are apprehensive. His advice for employees is clear: "If you are early on in your career, become a master as a user of the technologies, trying them out and then publishing your findings on an internal collaboration tool" (04:29). Embracing and mastering AI tools can position employees as valuable assets within their organizations.

Leadership and Soft Skills

Beyond technical proficiency, Jeremiah emphasizes the importance of leadership, community-building, and empathy. "Most of the best tech leaders, it's just not technical. They are business leaders" (21:13). As AI automates many tasks, human-centric skills will become increasingly valuable, fostering a premium on empathy and strategic thinking.

6. Jeremiah's Insights on AI Trends and Future Predictions

Blitzscaling in AI Startups

Jeremiah explains the core thesis of Blitzscaling Ventures, focusing on companies that exhibit natural growth and strong loyalty functions. He states, "blitz means lightning and scale means to grow. So lightning fast growth" (16:33). This strategy is particularly pertinent to AI startups that can scale rapidly without extensive marketing efforts.

Growth of AI-First Companies

With an "AI-first mindset," businesses are prioritizing the adoption of existing AI solutions before developing new ones. Jeremiah anticipates that this approach will lead to unprecedented growth rates for AI-driven companies, many of which are achieving unicorn status with minimal resources.

Human-Centric Responses to AI Proliferation

In response to the increasing automation, Jeremiah predicts a counter-movement where there is a heightened demand for human interaction in services. "People will want to be in person more often. People will pay for physical services and white glove human services" (21:21). This trend suggests a balance between technological advancement and the enduring value of human touch in certain industries.

7. Notable Quotes

• Jeremiah Owyang: "The decision maker in the next few years won't be humans. It will be an AI agent representing the buyer." (10:19)

• Jeremiah Owyang: "If that becomes the de facto standard that people will get information without marketing and advertising being interruptive, that is a big change." (07:30)

• Jeremiah Owyang: "Most of the best tech leaders, it's just not technical. They are business leaders." (21:13)

• Jeremiah Owyang: "If you are early on in your career, become a master as a user of the technologies, trying them out and then publishing your findings on an internal collaboration tool." (04:29)

8. Conclusion

The episode provides a comprehensive exploration of the evolving role of AI in marketing, advertising, and the broader business ecosystem. Jeremiah Owyang's insights shed light on the profound changes AI agents and influencers are bringing, emphasizing the need for both individuals and organizations to adapt proactively. As AI continues to advance, the balance between automation and human-centric skills will be crucial in navigating the future landscape.

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Timestamps

• [04:29]: Implications for employees and future-proofing careers
• [07:30]: Disruption of traditional advertising models
• [08:17]: E-commerce integration into LLMs
• [10:19]: AI agents as future decision-makers
• [12:11]: AI's infiltration into enterprise solutions
• [16:33]: Blitzscaling in AI startups
• [21:13]: Importance of leadership and soft skills in tech
• [21:21]: Human-centric responses to AI proliferation

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content segments to focus solely on the substantive discussion between Matt Britton and Jeremiah Owyang.

Transcript

[Matt Britton]

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[Jeremiah Oyang]

What else?

[Matt Britton]

Oh, it's tracking, in fact. Value surge alert. Trucks up 2.5%, vans down 1.7, just as predicted. Mm. So we gonna. I don't know. Could sell.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Could hold the power to always know our car's worth.

[Matt Britton]

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[Raj Panjabi]

Hi, I'm Raj Panjabi from HuffPost.

[Noah Michaelson]

And I'm Noah Michaelson, also from HuffPost.

[Raj Panjabi]

And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong? A new podcast that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

[Noah Michaelson]

Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right.

[Raj Panjabi]

And we're talking like legit, credible experts.

[Noah Michaelson]

Doctors, PhDs all around, superheroes from HuffPost and Acast Studios. Check out Emma. Am I Doing it Wrong? Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

If people are moving to that form to get information, where the information is being served up to you in the way that you want, sans advertising, that is a pretty significant disruption. Even Google, with Google Gemini, is starting to do that right on their own page because they don't want to be disrupted. So if that becomes the de facto standard that people will get information without marketing and advertising being interruptive, that is a big change. The advanced AI agents can self learn and improve over time and they can even recruit other agents. Now. What does this mean for marketers?

[Matt Britton]

To thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, brands must move at an ever increasing pace. I'm Matt Britton, founder and CEO of Suzy. Join me and key industry leaders as we dive deep into the shifting consumer trends within their industry, why it matters now, and how you can keep up. Welcome to the Speed of Cult up. Today in the Speed of Culture podcast, we were thrilled to welcome my friend Jeremiah Oyang, a trailblazer in tech and business strategy. A former VC founder, CMO analyst and public speaker, he's been ahead of every wave from Web two and Web three to the sharing economy. And now, of course, AI. Jeremiah is currently a general partner at Blitzscaling Ventures, co lead and AI Fund to help scale the next generation of AI powered startups. Jeremiah, so good to see you. I've been really looking forward to this.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

I am so excited to be here. Let's hit it.

[Matt Britton]

Absolutely. So, you know, obviously you've had a really prolific career and as you look back on your journey what do you think were some of the consistencies that have kind of stood the test of time as you've kind of entered all these incredible innovation cycles?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Thanks. Let's be retrospective. So tech waves usually have five questions to them. Five questions. Well, the first question is what is it? Number two is why does it matter? Three, how do I start? Four, what are best practices? And then five, how do I integrate it into my business? So I figured this out when I was a forester analyst because you have to publish certain types of papers depending on what is the number one question in the market. So I learned that at a early point in my career about 15 years ago. What is the question the market is asking about the tech? If you know the question the market is asking, then you can provide the answer and usually that results in business growth or personal satisfaction. You choose.

[Matt Britton]

So what is the question that people are asking right now?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Well, I'm focused on the AI market. I live in the Silicon Valley for 28 years. I'm in the heart of AI. We can talk about that. The question right now that people are asking is probably how do I start? That's probably what I'm hearing both on a personal perspective as well as business.

[Matt Britton]

I hear the same thing. So what do you tell them when they ask how you start?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Well, it depends. So right now I'm hunting for the best startups in the world that are solving these things and often some of these are enterprise class companies that will help marketers and advertisers. And then sometimes I'm looking at consumer apps that are going to help regular consumers make decisions on what they actually need. And it just depends on who I'm talking to. There's definitely some big changes coming to advertisers and marketers. We can talk about that in a little bit. This are some disruptions and opportunities. So it really depends on who I'm talking to and which corporation I'm speaking to or if it's to a founder.

[Matt Britton]

Now what about just employees in general? What are you finding in terms of. Because what I'm sensing is just like a lot of fear, fear of the unknown in the workplace. If you're an employee and you're junior to mid level and you want to make sure that your future proofing yourself for all these changes that are happening, what do you recommend to them?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So there was actually a study, I just saw it earlier this week and it talked that there's a divide between the staff, employees, rank and file versus the executives on their opinions of AI and executives thinks it's going great, AI is going great and organizations behind it and everybody knows what to do. And then the staff is the opposite. It's actually like a 20 point spread and the staff is like, it's not going great. We don't know what to do and we don't necessarily want it. Now what's interesting is most executives now don't take offense. You're an executive. I am too. They often actually don't use the tools, so they're probably going to rely on a junior staffer to actually show them how to use it. So that's your opportunity, if you are early on in your career, is become a master as a user of the technologies, trying them out and then publishing your findings on an internal collaboration tool and leading the lunchtime learning centric company which will get you into a spot to roll out campaigns. So that's how you need to be is the hands on leader that will shift you through your career. By the way, I did that when I worked at Hitachi Data Systems 100 year old company and we were just learning about the scary technology blogs, podcasts. So I did that like 20 years ago in my career. So I've been through this. If it's scary, you gotta lean into it. If it's uncomfortable, you gotta lean into it. So I do this. When I was really fat and overweight, I decided to get fit. So I did the scariest thing I could do. I signed up for a spartan race, an obstacle race, and I went and did it. As a result I got fit. So you gotta lean into things that.

[Matt Britton]

Are uncomfortable and in terms of obviously getting your hands on the tool and I completely agree with you. I find often it also should be contextual with what the employee does and what the company does, not just say, hey, I created a picture of a cat swimming in the middle of the ocean. You know, if you can figure out how to connect what's most important to a business with an AI tool to solve a problem of today, then I think you're gonna have a lot more resonance with the leadership.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

You're absolutely right. But I'd say start with the area of interest to you and then you move it into business. But obviously you don't need to show your cat photos to these cmo.

[Matt Britton]

So you'd mentioned marketing and advertising, how it's going to impact the industry that so many people that listen to this podcast are in. Let's talk about that first. Maybe some of the other industries where you're seeing disruption and how that disruption you see Occurring.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Yes. So we've already seen the data that people are already turning to GPT or Claude or Perplexity to get answers. Do you use any of those tools? Mat?

[Matt Britton]

Of course.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Of course. Now, I'm sure you've observed as a marketing executive, there's no advertisements on there. There's no sponsored sentences, there's no banners, there's no skyscrapers, there's no retargeting, none of that. Now, if people are moving to that form to get information, where the information is being served up to you in the way that you want, sans advertising, that is a pretty significant disruption. Even Google, with Google Gemini, is starting to do that right on their own page because they don't want to be disrupted. So if that becomes the de facto standard that people will get information without marketing and advertising being interruptive, that is a big change. It's a huge change.

[Matt Britton]

I mean, what's Google gonna do? Do you think that their core business is gonna erode? I mean, there's so many questions about that.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So I spoke about this at the Luma, like Lumascape conference in 2023 fall. Like, I was early to speak on this and write about this. Like, I was one of the first to talk about this. Like, that's what I do is I spot the trends and I write about the impact of business. Like, I've done this for five tech waves and this one is a big one. However, we will see many opportunities because Perplexity has said that they will offer up the ability to have sponsored sentences and sponsored answers.

[Matt Britton]

They're already rolling out an enterprise sales team for that.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Exactly. Also, there are tools out there like Brand Index from Blackshaw. We all know Pete Legacy CMO where they try to unravel. Why did that LLM spit out these particular companies in the recommendation?

[Matt Britton]

Interesting. So like an SEO for LLMs, if you will.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

You nailed it. It's SEO for AI. And you can also see the sources. You can ask for a source citation of these LLMs and see that. So you can observe which third parties do you need to influence. That's a content marketing and media play in most cases. And there's even more disruptions coming. So by the end of this year, 2025, I'm expecting to see E Commerce integrated right into LLMs at the bottom. So you say, I'm looking for a car or I'm looking for a CPG product. I'm looking for some toilet paper. The E Commerce integration will happen directly in there. It makes logical sense that will happen. So that will be yet another shift down the end of the funnel. So those are the things to think about that there's been a separation of the content and data layer from the presentation layer, which includes ads. And we're only able to consume if we want the content and data layer and we can strip away marketing advertisements. So good luck, marketers, more changes.

[Matt Britton]

And this will obviously only apply to some business categories. But in the realm of if you're asking Chat GPT to book a trip, which they already have actually with their operator tool, as you know, like Chat GPT could do a deal with a kayak who does the trip booking as part of their platform, or Chat GPT could just book the trip directly to the source. It's going to be interesting to see if they're going to create those partners, which they likely will. But I still don't know what that means for people who sell toothpaste and deodorant and shampoo, which, you know, the big CPG spacer or Kraft Heinz or those companies, how they fit in all this because they're the ones who typically advertise the most on the Googles and the world in the traditional digital advertising channels.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So that is going to happen. And right now most interactions are happening on the Internet are done by humans. I've done three investments. I'm at a VC firm, by the way, called Blitzscaling Ventures, based upon the famous book Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman, RLP and advisor, and Chris, yay, my friend for 20 years. So I'm very fortunate that actually Reid Hoffman reviews the deals before I invest. That is a huge advantage because he's the first investor in OpenAI and he's on the board of Microsoft and he made LinkedIn.

[Matt Britton]

So that's fascinating. So obviously Reid Hoffman's a legend in the tech industry and you're quickly becoming one as well. I should say Jeremiah, but in your seat. And you're seeing all these new and emerging companies like what has blown you away the most here in Q1 of 2025 in terms of the types of innovations that entrepreneurs are bringing to the table.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Right now the focus is on AI agents. That's here and now, and the startups that are providing those are growing very quickly. So an AI agent is an autonomous application, like a child can sense the world around it. It can read text, it can see the video and understand it, it can listen to and then it can determine its course of action. It actually thinks about what to do and then it completes that task. The advanced AI agents can self learn and improve over time and they can even recruit other agents. Now what does this mean for marketers? Every consumer is going to have a buyer side shopper agent that will go do the shopping for them. I've already invested in a company that's doing that and this means that the decisions are turned over to the AI. Now the AI agent may have ability to review your personal data such as your email, social network information, credit card, Amazon purchases, sms. Like obviously the level of trust in the business model needs to match. And I realize that tech usually gets this wrong. I totally acknowledge that they'll start to make those buying decisions for you. So marketers, what I'm trying to tell you is this, the decision maker in the next few years won't be humans. It will be an AI agent representing the buyer. And that applies to B2C and B2B even for long sales cycles. And that's a wild concept to think about. Now 15 years ago, you and I, we were going through the social media wave where we are telling the world that there's a new influencer town. Bloggers, YouTubers and now TikTokers and marketers and advertisers had to figure out how do they cater to them. And they figured it out. And what I'm here to tell you marketers is there's a new influencer in town and it's not a human, it's an AI agent. So you've done it before, you can do it again.

[Matt Britton]

Yeah. And of course AI agents won't just be in the realm of advertising and marketing. Like that's where we're seeing a lot of the automation and disintermediation of employees. Right. Like AI agents are going to infiltrate the enterprise. What are some of the other ways where you think AI agents are going to have a big impact?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Yes. So it's definitely happening in the enterprise. We've seen Salesforce rebrand as Agent Force, their big conference. We've seen HubSpot roll out Agent AI, a marketplace of AI agent functions from third parties. Every enterprise SaaS company is rolling this out and there's a whole fleet of startups out there. I've looked at Liza and Emergence and a number of other ones and we ultimately invested in Crew AI which is open source. And open source is a wild thing, Matt, because it spreads so fast. So cru, the developers are using this open source technology to make agentic systems in the enterprise and they're already in 50% of of the Fortune 500 and the company is only 15 months old.

[Matt Britton]

That's fascinating.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

I've never seen that level of growth before.

[Matt Britton]

Yeah, we're seeing these companies just take off like rocket ships because they do not have the limiting factors that technology companies have usually had, namely capital and the need to hire a ton of engineers. Right.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Oh, yeah, get this. And so crew has only 20 employees.

[Matt Britton]

Wow. And what is your take on some of these next gen coding tools like Cursor and Lovable? Do you think that that is going to be more of the future or do you think that's sort of like the first step? Is some of the larger Google, Microsoft type companies are going to enter that space?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Yes, they will. So I hear about Cursor, Replit and Claude, in that order from developers, as no code or low code. That's typically what I hear here in Silicon Valley. And those are becoming the de facto standard. And developers are at a very low risk of losing jobs because there's always been such a high demand. It's just that their level of output is becoming so incredible. And so there is a mantra here in Silicon Valley called the AI first mindset map. And this means if you have a business problem or a personal problem, you first check, is there an AI off the shelf that you can grab? Does it already exist? So use that. Now, if it doesn't exist, then you try to build it obviously using low code or no code. And if that doesn't work, then you hire somebody and it goes in that order. So we're expecting to see, and there's already companies getting close to this, like a dozen employees that are in the company's a unicorn worth a billion dollars. Like there's actually 20 in that list already. I've never seen this level of growth happen so fast. And the level of efficiency is incredible. Now this also means that we're going to see a variety of new marketing apps and advertising apps that will be very fast and efficient. And for marketers, you need to pay attention and lean in on this. You don't want to be caught behind on this because this is your career.

[Matt Britton]

We'll be right back with the Speed of Culture after a few words from our sponsors.

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[Raj Panjabi]

Hi, I'm Raj Panjabi from HuffPost.

[Noah Michaelson]

And I'm Noah Michaelson, also from HuffPost.

[Raj Panjabi]

And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong? A new podcast that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

[Noah Michaelson]

Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right.

[Raj Panjabi]

And we're talking like legit, credible experts. Experts, doctors, PhDs all around superheroes from.

[Noah Michaelson]

HuffPost and Acast Studios. Check out Am I Doing It Wrong wherever you get your podcasts.

[Matt Britton]

So you mentioned you know the name of your firm is Blitzscaling, and I did read Blitzscaling book by Reid. And what is the, I guess overall thesis of Blitzscaling? And obviously you kind of just alluded to it in terms of how quickly these companies are growing. But why is that especially pertinent to AI companies?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Yeah, so blitz means lightning and scale means to grow. So lightning fast growth. And there's two specific attributes. They're actually business strategies or product strategies that we look for. One, does the product have natural growth without marketing, advertising or sales? So we call that viral effects or product led growth or they have a strong distribution strategy. So Slack Box, Salesforce have at all had they spread through the organization or the consumer? Facebook, Instagram, Uber, Airbnb handle those things. So that's the first part. The second part is the loyalty function. So the actual function of loyalty typically is called the network effect. Whereas every new client, if it's B2B, the value increases for everybody else. So social networks, the value increases as more people are on the network. In Airbnb, the value increases as there's more hosts as our guests. So we look for those two features and then we do a scorecard, score the companies and we bring it to read for final review.

[Matt Britton]

Interesting. So I know that in the past you've spoken about how tech companies almost become like digital nations. So who are the big nations moving forward? Like who are the new superpowers and which empires you think are going to crumble? I'm going to put you on the spot here. And who will withstand the test of time?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So in today's political climate, I want to be very cautious about how I position this. So I don't want to equate any company to a nation or anything of that level, but let's call them ecosystems. So clearly there's the OpenAI, which used to be tightly coupled to Microsoft, but I can feel them shifting apart now. Anthropic is also a clear leader in that space as well. But then every tech giant is also moving really fast into the space. By the way, on Freeway Highway 101, which is the main artery connecting Silicon Valley to San Francisco, it's a one hour drive. By my count, one third of the billboards are about AI.

[Matt Britton]

And Jeremiah, I'm sure you remember in the early 2000s making that ride and it was yah, Alta Vista. I remember flying into San Francisco, renting a Hertz car, going down to ebay, trying to sell to those companies and it was littered. I just kind of get nostalgia just talking about it. And now it seems like it's happening all over again.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So that doesn't bode well, but we do need to remember that there's obviously some huge winners.

[Matt Britton]

Well, it didn't bode well in the short term, but look where we are today.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Yeah, Amazon, eBay, PayPal, like trillion dollar companies popped out of that. Apple had a resurgence, Oracle, like it happened. But obviously 99% of those companies failed. And that is also very likely here because there's over 30,000 startups according to the database. There's an AI for that dot com, of course, so you can go there.

[Matt Britton]

Oh, I had never heard that before.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Oh yeah, in our last like 17 minutes of talking, one startup's birth and another one probably died. So that's just like startup life. But the difference is now like the cost. And you mentioned this prior, the cost of starting these startups is very low. You just don't need a lot of resources. So it is quite the scene here in Silicon valley. There are 100 AI events per month, there's five per day and every weekend there's two hackathons. Each hackathon has around 300 developers building.

[Matt Britton]

And you're involved in it, right? You're throwing some of these events, correct?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

I do. I run an event called Llama Lounge. Only humans are allowed. I've tried to have llamas there, but the city said no. And usually it's 300 developers and VCs and corporate AI leaders that show up. So I've been doing that since May 2023. I like to be early to the market. Right. So I've been doing this for a while in this space and when you.

[Matt Britton]

See somebody that's really Talented in AI at a high level. Like somebody who could actually get in front of your firm. What types of skill sets do they possess? Because what I'm hearing from you is clearly not just being able to code. You obviously have to be somewhat technical. But when you see great entrepreneurs in this space, like what are usually have in common.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Yes. So most of the investment has gone to B2B. So these companies are selling to big corporates. Like the people that are listening to this amazing show. And they need to have business acumen, they need to be able to present, they need to show leadership. Some of the greatest entrepreneurs that we're seeing have the ability to command a room or build a community, or build an ecosystem. And that is not so much a technical skill as it is a leadership skill. By the way, I'm a father of young children I'm raising up in this AI world and I continue to try to teach them or even if they resist me. Like leadership is going to be important. Community and empathy. People say empathy is going to be so important in the age of AI, but they never say why. And the reason is, is because you can influence others and you can build ecosystem around you. So that's one of the major reasons in addition to being a kind human being. But the point is the best tech leaders, it's just not technical. They are business leaders.

[Matt Britton]

Yeah. And hearing from you is also the ability to storytell, piece things together. Like all that is really uniquely human and will never go away in the business world.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

It will not. And there's going to be a premium on humanity. So there's two interesting things happening. So as we shift more to one thing, there's always a counter reaction. And you track trends, you know this. So we do more AI, people want to be in person more often. And people are going to pay for physical services and people will be excited to receive white glove human services. So hospitality industry will only rise, experiences will only rise, luxury products will only rise if everything else is automated. Secondly, and this is a little bit of a dire topic, but as AI starts to automate many positions, the cost of the humans doing the same position drops. So labor costs actually will decrease, meaning you'll have more service providers. So there's no reason for a large company to ever truly get rid of customer care because it's not going to cost that much money for quality.

[Matt Britton]

Right. But does that mean that individuals will have to do more with less or that people are going to be paid lower salaries?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

AI will be enabling them in a hybrid way to be more Efficient and offer personalized experiences to each client. But the human will probably be paid less because there's going to be a higher supply of workers with that type of talent.

[Matt Britton]

Right. It's really interesting. I know it is scary to think about. Like, you know, I know that you're on stage a lot, as am I. And one common question I get after I speak is, what should I tell my kid? Like, you just talked about your young children, but I'm talking about parents with kids that are entering college and they don't know what to major in. Like, should they be an accountant or a lawyer? Or is AI going to render a lot of those professional services obsolete? Like, what is your take on where people should be focused right now to succeed in 2030?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So let's just take law, for example. We talk about this, we actually debate about this in our firm. So the founding partner, Chris believes that there's going to be a beyond decimation that's only 10% significant amount of lawyers. The demand for them will be significantly reduced because of AI, because it's just often matching paperwork and looking at paperwork and cross referencing data. Right. We already use AI at our firm to look at our legal documents before asking the lawyer. That's $600 saved right there per query. Right. It's like, why? However, litigation and strategy, that's still going to be needed. The human aspect and thinking strategic and logical and also ensuring patents, that's still going to be needed. So it depends what part of law. Obviously I'm leaning more towards leadership discussion. What's happening in court, the changes in the environment, like humans are needed for the strategic parts. And the same thing applies in marketing and advertising.

[Matt Britton]

Yeah. What about creativity? Obviously. And we're speaking here at the end of March. And ChatGPT rolled out an incredible image creation tool, I think just yesterday where the first thing I saw after I use it is like, well, what does it mean for Canva or like a Photoshop where, you know, people have had to learn these specific skill sets in terms of editing an image and now you could really just prompt it to get to almost exactly how you want to. We haven't really seen that yet. Like it was a year ago. We saw it produced humans with seven fingers on one hand. Right. And now look where we are today.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Yes, I saw it as well. And just for those who haven't seen it, you should Google it or perplexiate it, I suppose. And you could have it like the copy is correct on an image. It can start to do taglines, it can do schematics or products. Like, it's pretty specific. And this is the worst it's ever going to be at that. Right?

[Matt Britton]

All right. I use that phrase all the time.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So that is very scary. I think what it means is, what I know it means is, is that every advertiser and marketer has the opportunity to provide personalized content at every step of the journey for each person. And that's not something we've been really good at in the past. And now we can do that. So that's an exciting thing. So I was a speaker at the Creativity Creators Conference in Dubai in January and they're all very worried, but it actually means you can just be more efficient and you can roll out higher quality content. So the personalized content is where we'll be headed.

[Matt Britton]

Yeah. I mean, a lot of creators are also leaning into digital twins, including their voice and low tone and feel, so they can scale themselves in different ways.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Yes.

[Matt Britton]

So shifting gears, we wrap up here. First of all, for those who are listening and not watching, Jeremiah is an Airstream, which is a first. And I follow you closely on social media and I know that that was something that you had built during COVID would love to just hear the story of how that came to be.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So my wife and I were surprised and blessed the same time that we were having twins about six years ago. And this was before COVID and I needed a quiet place to work. So we got the Airstream and it is only for business. It stays in my backyard here in the Silicon Valley hills and it is a nice little business write off and it actually appreciated slightly. So it's a really good asset and I have this quiet place to work. So it is a 22 foot Airstream in my backyard that's owned by my company.

[Matt Britton]

So I've known you now, as I was prepping for this interview, I saw you actually wrote one of the blurbs for the back of my last book that I wrote 10 years ago. And it's just crazy how fast time flies. And there's people who you kind of weave in and out of people's lives during business. And you're one of those people. And one thing about you is you always do seem to be jumping on these new changes so quickly and figuring out how to leverage it in a variety of different ways. And this way you're doing VC work, you have your Llama Lounge, you're doing your speaking, you're doing consulting, all these different things. What is it about the way that you work, the way that you Prepare the way that you spend your time that enables you to so quickly pivot for these big moments.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

Yeah, so I'm not advising right now. My day job is VC and I have a salary. That is my focus.

[Matt Britton]

Well, I guess that is advising startups whether you invest in, but you're not advising.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So that is absolutely true. And I found that out the hard way. It's like, oh, man. Like, I'm on the board of like all these companies now. I didn't know that was going to happen in this way. So being in Silicon Valley has helped me a lot. And so I have a commitment that I attend three events per week. I mean, my whole career, I've always done that. I just with the community and I want to hear what's happening. And there's a certain archetype of a person that I follow and I watch and it changes per market. It's like not the same individual human, but it's like this early adopter, kind of nerdy man or woman, and they like to try things and I just see what they do. And if somebody else, the second person follows them and I see that adoption, I see that signal, and I just figured this out up. And so I try to be the second adopter of these trends and then once I see that, I immediately start writing about it and I host an event and I just grow it and then there's a network that forms. So I just continue to do that. Now in Silicon Valley, I've been criticized as being the late follower. So it's all in context. Like, Jeremiah just follows the cool kids. Like, I've heard that a number of times. I'm like, yeah, I do, but now I'm going to give you money, so be quiet. So it just depends on your state, like how you view the market and where do you deploy. So thanks for that question. It's been great to be here.

[Matt Britton]

Yeah, absolutely. So to wrap up here, our guests normally have a quote or a mantra that encapsulates their professional journey. What comes to mind for you?

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So my career Mantra for over 20 years has I want to be in this center of a couple overlapping circles. And so I figured out my career mission when I was 27. I'm way over 27 now. I help companies connect to their customers with new technologies. So companies, customers, new tech. And I am in the middle of that. I've done that in Web one, Web two, Sharing economy, Web three, AI, Tech, Wellness, and now AI. So I've done that over and over and over and over. I just know that's like how I want to serve and be part of the market.

[Matt Britton]

Awesome. Well, thank you for serving our audience today. It was an incredible conversation and so great to see you again and wishing you nothing but best of luck in these exciting times.

[Jeremiah Oyang]

So great to reconnect.

[Matt Britton]

Thank you all by gwe on behalf of Susie and I, we team. Thanks again to the great Jeremiah Oyang, General Partner of blitzscaling Ventures for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe Rate Review to Speed of Culture Podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Till next time. See you soon everyone. Take care. The Speed of Culture is brought to you by Suzy as part of the Ad Week Podcast Network and a Guest Creator Network. You can listen subscribe to all Ads Weeks podcast by visiting adweek.com podcast to find out more about Susie, head to Suzy.com and make sure to search for the Speed of Culture in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere else podcasts are found. Click follow so you don't miss out on any future episodes. On behalf of the team here at Suzy, thanks for listening.

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