B (3:56)

Yeah, I was going to, I was going to point that out. Yeah, I was like, there's not, there's not a bunch of, like, C Suite executives with that same type of a title. You uniquely positioned yourself with like, like, with something that Naval Ravikant talks about all the time, which is your unique skill set, the thing that you can do that is significantly more valuable than the thing that anybody else can do, because it's a combination of 12 different skills built from a variety of different things that you've taste tested over the course of your career.

A (4:24)

Yeah.

B (4:24)

And then to add to that, too, I love, I've been obsessing recently about the, the willingness to embarrass yourself by starting over. And, and I think that's something that prevents a lot of people from from having a nimble career where they actually find the thing that they get to do that's really uniquely valuable that you have been able to find. It's because after the first version of their career, they, they, they start letting the tail wag the dog. They get bought into sunk cost fallacy and they're like, well, I'm 10 years into this thing and I got my degree here, so like, what am I gonna do? Start over? And it's like yeah, like, yes, yes. But you get to start over with like on the 20 yard line this time because you got a bunch of skills and you have a bunch of relationships and you know, a bunch of stuff to work off of from that point. I want to, I want to know from you first though, Anish, what, what was your intention in your career? Like if you, were you painting up, like, were you trying to go into politics, trying to go into business, was there a certain thing that you were really trying to do at that time?

A (5:23)

You know, at each stage there was a calculus because I'm an overthinker in this stuff. I had 10 year plans, I had 20 year plans. I had plans within politics, then media, then tech. But I would say, like, the thing that has stayed true has been a desire to live the fullest life possible and have the biggest impact possible. And I'd say early on in my career I thought that meant it was about me like being a big deal, having a big deal title, being a big deal just as a person, as a name, as a brand. And over time I've come to realize actually it's about the bigness of what you're trying to do, not who you're trying to be. And the bigger the impact you're trying to have, the less it's about you and the more it's about sort of this score skillset you bring, but to this broader effort where ideally even more and more people can be part of it. And it's going to play out over years or decades, it's not going to play out cleanly. And what's exciting is you have to sort of let go a bit as you sort of aim for that trajectory. You can't control the how the world responds to work, which is like the arena I'm in right now. I can't control how individuals everywhere, the, you know, 1.3 billion members on LinkedIn react to this. I can't control how countries or companies or societies or humanity reacts to this. But I can try and shape the trajectory of this moment of change with this unique skill set I've got and this unique position I'm in. And so I've always sort of chased that. Like, I want to just live life to the fullest. You get one shot. Is this person in this place at this time, no matter your belief about what comes after or what's been before. And, man, why not, like, live it to the fullest? And that's what's really driven me and allowed me to start over a bunch of times. Because when I left journalism, I could see that over the next few years, especially cable news, which is where I was at, the trajectory didn't look good for having impact as a reporter. The fundamentals, the market fundamentals of that industry were changing in politics, the ability to do big change to better the world was getting complicated by a lot of the divisions we're seeing in D.C. or across, like, different elements. Elements across parties and politics and then even in tech, until AI hit, it was like, okay, we're sort of entrenched in how work works and what tech tools are doing. But now it's this moment to rethink things. And so I've always sort of gamed out whether impact was going to increase or decrease wherever I was at over five years, based on the fundamentals around me. And I think that was a big reason why I took the big leaps, which were very risky but very easy at the times that I did them.

B (7:56)

Yeah, we tend to underestimate the upside and overestimate the downside. Most often I think that prevents a lot of people from doing that. And obviously you've been able to navigate that successfully, which has now led to, you know, like I said, Chief Economic Opportunity Officer is not something that exists in a lot of businesses. I would assume LinkedIn is uniquely positioned to be at the forefront of that because it exists within the realm of career and in the realm of professional, you know, development and things like that. Where did this. Where did this opportunity come about? How did you initially, you know, like, what was the conversation that led to, like, well, why don't we just create this new position for you because we want you to come here and have this impact in this business?

A (8:38)

Well, it's been a growth part for me because it wasn't a conversation that just started with, what's a position we can create? What is it called? What does it do? It was. And I think this is how things work, especially at bigger organizations and LinkedIn, which lives within Microsoft.

B (8:52)

This episode of the show is brought to you by Mars Men. So, look, guys, I don't know if everybody listening knows this, but a couple years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. And around that time I also noticed that my testosterone levels were dropping like crazy. And I know that some of it was due to the fact that my body was sort of in disarray. But then I also learned through this experience that most men start losing testosterone levels around the age of 30. And then it starts just getting worse and worse after that. About 1% every year after that. So what I learned during this is that basically your body makes testosterone, but a lot of it gets locked up and can't be used. So there's this protein called SHBG that basically handcuffs your testosterone. So even if your body's making testosterone, shg, SHBG locks it up so you can't access it. It's like having money in the bank, but your debit card doesn't work. So Mars Men is designed to help free locked testosterone so your body can actually use it. No synthetics, no needles, just real ingredients that help optimize energy, focus and strength. And since I started taking stuff like this, I noticed increased physical performance, especially recovery in the gym, which as I am getting older I'm starting to realize is a real thing. I, I have to like stretch a lot more, I have to like take breaks more, I have to have rest days and things like that and, and Marsman has helped me to be able to recover a little bit faster. Plus more consistent natural energy. It's different than having a cup of coffee or an energy drink or something. It's a steadier sense of drive throughout the entire day. It supports healthy T levels, energy and stamina with eight natural clinically dosed ingredients made in the USA and third party. Plus it's got a 30 day money back guarantee so there is absolutely no risk to you. Worst case, you don't absolutely love it and you get your money back. But over 91% of users report higher energy levels. Thousands and thousands of guys are feeling incredible results from this. So just check out the reviews on the website to see for yourself. For a limited time our listeners get 50% off. That's 5, 0 50% off for life plus free shipping and three free gifts@men GoToMars.com that's mentioned GoToMars.com for 50% off and three free gifts. When you check out after you purchase they'll ask you where you heard about them. Just please support our show and tell them that we sent you. That's mengotomars.com the world moves fast. Your workday Even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built Into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365 Copilot Biggest company I've ever worked for.

A (11:40)

So it's been a process of learning new math for me and a lot of it was just the work started to build in a certain way where by the time you get to a conversation about a role or a title, the it just makes sense given where the work has already sort of gone. So for me, you know, I've been at LinkedIn five years now. Pretty quickly after I joined our CEO, my co author Ryan, he was soon into his job as CEO and both of us bonded pretty quickly over what could LinkedIn do to bring skills to the center of how the labor market matches talent and opportunity. We both believe the labor market is one of the least efficient, least transparent markets humans have ever created. It's a lot of guesswork that goes into matching talent and opportunity, into getting jobs, getting promotions. And over time, a lot of that has relied on what we call pedigree signals. If you went to Princeton, if you worked at Google, you must be great, you're good to go. If you didn't, I'm not sure about you, you're higher risk. I don't know if you're going to get this opportunity. And we just always knew that that was leaving so many people out of the game of innovation, of creation, of building. So our attempt was really to move skills to the center through the platform and through a lot of what we were doing to build coalitions and kind of a movement around that. When AI hit, it was pretty clear we were in a moment of redesign. This is like a paradigm shift to work. So suddenly what we had been focusing on, how do we build coalitions and partnerships around skills at a company level or at a city level, it became about everything. And it took a minute for us to figure out and for the world to figure out sort of where this story was going. Because in the early days of AI, if you'll remember, a lot of it was sort of defeatist. There was a fatalism to the idea that AIs here and humans are done and LinkedIn is a platform, if nothing else, of people like where humans go at work, LinkedIn goes too. So we were not only Biased towards thinking about how could we use this moment to fix how people access work and opportunity, but also how do we make sure that humans are at the other end of this, better off, not worse off, because our platform is tied to our members and we're always member first in what we do. And so that sort of led to, okay, we need to start thinking, we need to have a point of view. We need to start talking to neuroscientists, behavioral psychologists, people that really understand the human mind, because we think the mind is going to move to the center at work for the first time in the industrial age, because the machine's been there for centuries now. What does that look like? What does that mean? How are humans processing a moment of big change? How do we help them push through fear, push through uncertainty? How do we help people know the specific steps they can take to get to better? How do we help everyone realize that there's something amazing happening right now, which is as work gets remade, agency is emerging. We're all going to have more control over our careers than we've ever had before. How do we get people to see that? And that all sort of led to this role and then within this role, the big project being the book, because we recognized we had to do some big plays to sort of shape where the global conversation goes and what the global response becomes. So it's a long answer, but I think it's instructive for folks who are trying to figure out how do they get to where they want to go. Once you get there, everything figures itself out in terms of title role, all that the work you want to spend your time on is really, what are the tasks of that job? What is the impact you're hoping to have in that job and developing those skills and those wins along the way.

B (15:02)

Tell me a little bit about the book. Just really quickly. I want to dive deeper on a couple of those things, but I want to make sure that we talk about that really quickly. Tell me exactly why you guys wrote the book right now. What are you. What are you hoping that people are going to take away from it?

A (15:14)

Yeah, the why is as simple as we wanted to help people, I think, you know, raise your hand if every time you read about AI you're more freaked out than before. You know, like every. Everything about the global conversation is charged. It's emotional, it's freaking people out. And a lot of it, maybe all of it or most of it, is just about AI. So we're sitting here admiring this problem that is this technology that's different than any before, that has capabilities that are emerging in new levels every day. And it's causing us all to just sort of hunker down, to pull back because we're completely unsure what to do. Like the one of the scariest places to be as a human is when big change has already happened and you feel unprepared for it. So the book is really meant to address that. It's not a How to AI book, it's a How to Human with AI book. And so most of the book is on human capability and the human response to moments of big change. And so part of what we try to do is explain it all. It's sort of like taking a really big view across the history of work and all the changes that are hitting and help everyone get situated in how S Curves work. Why it's understandable your brain is wired to fear change. And so you're afraid but unhelpful why some of the work we're gonna let go isn't great work. It's us being machine, like in the efficiency focus of the industrial age, and why we should get excited about where we go. But then it's really practical frameworks for how to think about your job starting right now, how it's changing your career starting today, how it's changing. We also look at companies, how are they going to change economies, how are they going to change? And then we end. You talked about naval at the start with a chapter before a 30, 60, 90 day plan for everyone called no one beats you at being you. And that really hits that point that you opened with that Naval talks about, which is if you find something that you are naturally good at that you can get paid for, that others find hard to do, that's your competitive edge. And that's why I think is everyone who's listening, especially to this podcast, thinks about AI. Think of it as how in this moment of change, with the tools of AI, can I make more money? Whether it's as an employer, as an entrepreneur, and a bunch of thoughts we can get into today. But the book really covers a lot of that.

B (17:20)

Yeah. The bottom line is every piece of innovation was met with this initial fear at first. And I actually pulled up this quote while you were talking there, because I think it was. I found it really fascinating. This was the president of the Michigan Savings bank advising Henry Ford' lawyer not to invest in Ford Motor Company in 1903. He said, the horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad. And like When I read stuff like that, it's, it's impossible for us to imagine a world where the automobile doesn't exist. But in their minds at that time, like it's, it's so difficult for them to picture the fact that because the automobile was so innovative, it made us build infrastructure to support the technology of the automobile being able to get us from point A to point B and now obviously has transformed what the topography of the entire country and the entire world looks like. But there was a point where people were like, ah, yeah, that's, yeah, that's just a fad that'll come and go. You know, there's always resistance to change is my point. Yet the people who tend to see the most success from the innovation are people who embrace it early and then say, we're human beings, we are the ultimate adaptation machine. And this is probably not going to be the end of us. It's probably just going to be another iteration of what work in life is going to look like. So why don't we just embrace the uncertainty full stop and just to be

A (18:45)

really populist in a righteous way. That is true for every single person listening. All of us are part of this species, humankind that is a exceptionally intrepid, adaptive, imaginative bunch. What we have done over the at least 40,000 years that we've had, this brain in terms of not just shape and size, that's like hundreds of thousands of years, but ability for really complex thought that allows us not just to build tools, but to tell stories that lead to things like the nation state or the monetary. To realize the future America needs, we understand what's needed from us to face each threat head on. We've earned our place in the fight for our nation's future. We are marines. We were made for this.

B (19:31)

AI is incredible. It can teach you how to fry an egg and even write a poem pirate style. But it knows nothing about your work.

A (19:41)

Slackbot is different.

B (19:43)

It doesn't just know the facts. It knows your schedule. It can turn a brainstorm into a brief. And it doesn't need to be taught because Slackbot isn't just another arc. It's AI that knows your work as well as you do. Visit slack.com meetslackbot to learn more.

A (20:01)

This ability for us all to organize at scale around some common vision and some shared desire of where we want to go, that's capability we all have. And so as you talk about those moments, and it's true for electricity, it's true for Ford and the automobile, it's True for the Internet, that sort of skepticism that innovators met. You know, Ford has that line. People were looking for a faster horse. We gave them something totally different. Now take that to a micro level. I mean, if you think about the history of humankind, very few people got to be a Henry Ford. And that is because of connections that got you capital that allowed you to build prototypes, test things, fail, but keep at it and not quit. So very few people got to really express human capability to its fullest in terms of imagining, creating, building. That's about to completely change. And that's like the key thing for everyone who's listening and how it connects to making money if you're an employee. The old math was get the degree if you could, get the title if you could. And based on those things, you climb the ladder. That math is done. The new math is figure out which tasks only you can do, which tasks AI can help you do better, which tasks AI can just take over to clear out some time in your day. And when you do that, you free yourself up for higher value work that's going to be about imagining, inventing at a small level, at a big level, stuff that only, you know, the world could use, stuff that only you believe could happen differently. And then you can extend that out to actually being an entrepreneur. And you don't need capital. A team, six months to test an idea. You can research a market, build a prototype, launch a landing page in a weekend. That's why we're seeing a spike on LinkedIn of people with the title Founder. That's what creators like you represent as a role model to everyone. It's not that everyone just suddenly decided to start a company. It's that the cost of starting a company has collapsed. And then when you multiply that out across all humans in all places, and you go from maybe the tens or hundreds of thousands of humans across history who've been able to do things like create the automobile, and you make it tens of millions of humans who are creating things at every level for their city, for their region, for the world. That's where I get most excited.

B (22:07)

Yeah, yeah, it's this. I. I have this theory. Anyway, I'm very curious to hear what you would think about this, because I'm just a dude sitting here podcasting for a living, so I want to. Want to get, you get your thoughts on this, but I. Really quickly, before we move on this other quote that I, that I pulled up a second ago, I wanted to. I wanted to read this one. This was Napoleon Bonaparte when he was told of Robert Fulton's steamboat in the 1800s, he said, how, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents? By, by lighting a bonfire under her deck. I pray you excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense. This is about the steamboat. And he was so in. A ship moves because of the wind and the sails and the canvas pulls the ship. And then, you know, then we got the steamboat and then the diesel engine and everything. You just. This is, this is very, very normal, I guess is what I'm trying to say. The, the skepticism that you're feeling, the, the fear that you're feeling. It's very normal. It happens to everybody. And this is Napoleon Bonaparte that we're talking about here. Like objectively, a pretty, pretty good leader. Somebody who, you know, was in command of a lot of people. And even he was like, nah, that's not gonna work, you know. So every new technology is met with this type of skepticism. Now the, the idea that I want you to talk about, I've had this, I've had this thought about. About what? The future.

A (23:26)

Just on that, there's one point I want to add. It's met with skepticism. And then even when people get that it's here to stay, it's met with incrementalism. And so I feel with AI in a lot of places, we're now finally moving beyond, is it a fad or is it real? Like, okay, it's real. And then it was. Is it going to change things overnight or over decades? Can I wait it out or do I have to get engaged? No, you got to get engaged. It's going to hit us all but at a company level. We've got in the book these stories of when the electricity emerges. Factories that just put the electric motors or the steam engines were and changed nothing else and saw very little if no productivity gains. It wasn't until you had sort of innovators who said, no, no, this is a whole new source of energy that allows for a whole new workflow, a whole new way of doing what we do. They tore down the multi story factory, they built a single floor factory, they gave workers their own motors. So you had to give workers more autonomy. That's our productivity surge to degrees that people hadn't seen. For your listeners, that means if you're using AI as a better search. Yeah, you're doing what the factory owners did who just put electricity where the steam engine is. You should be using these tools to completely reset how you work what you're Trying to do what you deliver. And so even if you push past the skepticism and you're like, okay, I believe this thing is real and I need to use it, then the next step is push back the incrementalism, because the first instinct is going to be to just kind of layer it in what you're already doing.

B (24:52)

Yeah. Using it for the existing application.

A (24:54)

Yes.

B (24:55)

And just replacing it with something else, rather than actually asking the question, how do we enable the whole business using this tool? Now, I saw a stat that came out recently that said, let's see, 88% of companies are using AI, but less than 1% of them are actually building with it. Like running autonomous AI agent systems that actually help them replace people in the workforce and make the systems more efficient and recovering revenue that's lost on their own without telling it what to do, less than 1% of companies are using it to that degree. To. To your point.

A (25:25)

Well, and even I'd say a smaller percentage are building beyond what you said, which isn't just, how do we make things more efficient? But in making things more efficient, building workflow around AI, how do we reinvent work around human capability and make it possible for the people we've got first? Let's help them know how to adapt. That's hard for humans and what they're adapting into. For the first time in our lives certainly work that's going to index more on our uniqueness. You just said, like, I'm just a dude with a podcast. You're like an N of one who does this kind of podcast in the way you do it. How do we help everyone have that feeling at work? And then how do we have them work together to create completely new ideas, new business lines, new ways of work within each company? That's what's coming. Like, the winners will have figured that out. I'm so much more confident that that's what's going to win. Then I have a company with no employees, and I'm crushing it in innovation with AI because AI isn't going to be able to create new. Whatever it creates, everyone can pull from it. And that's, like, early for us right now.

B (26:21)

Okay, so here's my theory anyway. I call it fractionalized entrepreneurship. Because if lever pulling can be outsourced to machinery, then my thought is that it sets the stage for more people to get in and build within a smaller context, but still to a greater degree than they would be able to earn in a job. Meaning that, like, I. I just think that we're gonna. We're gonna see a lot of people who are building these AI enabled businesses that has like it's them, it's a VA and it's mostly AI systems and they can do 480000 a year top line and $420,000 a year bottom line. And that's going to provide a better life than them trying to, you know, bust their ass working for somebody else and making 120k a year plus benefits or something like that?

A (27:08)

Yes.

B (27:08)

Are you seeing anything that's supporting that theory? Are you seeing something to, you know, the opposite of that? What are you saying?

A (27:14)

I think it's too early for us to know if this is where it goes. Because right now we're at a moment of belief. And so if we as individuals or societies or humanity believe that worse is coming, it makes it more likely that worse will come first. I still think we are going to get to a world where what you said is true. I believe fully in that. I would like us to get to that world immediately or as quickly as possible because that is how with this new moment for work, we expand opportunity, we create more jobs because we have more businesses, all of that. But we're really suffering through a belief moment right now, which is we've so shrunken our sense of what's possible for humans at work in the industrial age that it's taking a minute for us to realize, wait, we can be more than efficiency work. I can be more, I can launch a business or I can be a nurse who automates workflow and turns it into a product. At my company, a teacher who builds a tool her district couldn't afford. All of that, whether I do it as an employee or entrepreneur is going to create value. And that means there's going to be more mechanisms for people to build wealth. And we're just not there yet. But it's building. I think new business starts is what I'm most interested in. A real kind of, I think accelerant of that will be how investment works. Because we still are in a mode coming out of the industrial age where it's all about speed to scale production goods and services. You got a need to show that you can become a trillion dollar company to even get seed funding coming out of like, you know, the Silicon Valley era where people are able to build with less cost, which is what AI provides, but it's still not no cost, but much less cost and gain expertise with low cost. Because you can now use these tools to get smart on stuff that otherwise you'd hire a consultant or have to hire folks for that's when you'll start to see this thing taking off. And so I'm looking at the global south and rural America as examples where there's a lot of momentum to get new businesses going to create jobs. A lot of desire to help folks who are solo entrepreneurs or founders. And so you're seeing sort of investment start to back that in the building of tools to help them or the investment for them to go build. But if you are, if you don't know how to think entrepreneurially, if you don't have curiosity and creativity and the other stuff that goes into that, get good at it. Now it's going to become core to what you do at work. But if you're naturally inclined to that already and you're able to fail fast, you're able to learn quick, you enjoy doing hard things where you might lose more than you win, but the losses teach you and the wins matter more. Like, if any of that speaks to who you are, no matter what job you're in, you're about to have a run at it. And so get ready, have your idea, hone it, test it, try it. When we talk about the money to be made in this new era, I think you'll give up before you take your shot. If you think it's just the big businesses that are going to be able to make something here. It's hyper competitive actually at the big business level in terms of tool use. But there is more opportunity than ever before for every one of us to build, prototype, test and turn into a business ourselves. So feed that impulse if you've got it in you.

B (30:13)

The book is open to how to get ahead in the age of AI. This is written by the CEO of LinkedIn, Ryan Ruslansky, and then Anish and him, they worked on this book together. Because what I'm saying is there's a lot of people out there who claim to be AI experts or they claim to have done X amount of research, but when I see people who have access to the volume of data that guys like Anish and Ryan have access to that write a book about where this is going, that's a signal, something that we should pay attention to. So if you've not picked up a copy of the book yet, go pick up a copy of Open to Work. And I think everybody listening to this owes it to themselves, to their families, to their businesses, their employees to pick up a copy of a book like this. Because there's no avoiding it. It is here, you got to figure out how you're going to adjust to it along the way. Anish, thank you so much for taking the time to join us in the show. Where can people go to get some more stuff from you?

A (31:09)

Yeah, thanks for having me. And I hope everyone does get the book. Finds the book helpful, but really just go starts down a journey of greater control over their career and greater delivery of impact and fulfillment and wealth building and whatever goal you have. We talk in the book about defining sort of why you work, what you do that people will pay for, and where you're trying to go. And I just can't wait to see what all your listeners do and what humans all over the world do in this moment.

B (31:35)

Anisha, thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time. Like I said, I know you're a really busy guy, so we do not take that for granted. Everybody else tuning in, remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace.