Real Talk on AI from the Field- Part II | Brian O'Shea | EP: 05

Welcome to What the futr Podcast - where we dive into what’s next in AI, tech, sales, and the messy, brilliant human hustle behind it all.

In Part 2 of this What the futr Podcast episode, Sandesh continues his conversation with GTM leader Brian O’Shea, this time focusing on “execution”.

They unpack where AI is really landing first (agents), why safety and guardrails are non-negotiable, and how high-performing teams align messaging, product, and sales to pivot together.

Brian shares a candid view on quota reality (healthy teams hitting 65–85%), the adoption gap that keeps buyers clinging to familiar SaaS, and why conviction, “can we sell the hell out of this?”, still separates winners from the crowd.

If you care about building trust, shipping value, and leading teams through change, this episode turns big AI talk into practical moves you can make now.

Subscribe for regular episodes.

👉 Explore the platform: https://futrconnect.io

👉 Business inquiries: sandesh@futrconnect.io

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:06
Sandesh
Thank you for tuning in to another What the Future podcast. Now, in the first four episodes, we had four CEOs and founders from very promising early stage AI startups, and we learned a lot. One thing that we've learned is customer adoption is still slow, which is obviously going to impact tech sales. So got me thinking why is this?

00:00:21:08 - 00:00:41:14
Sandesh
I started talking to a bunch of people in my network and I was having some incredible conversations. So I was thinking, why not just transfer those conversations, but make it into a podcast and share it with others? This podcast will be a little more casual, it won't be as structured, and it'll give us the opportunity just to have a normal conversation with two two people in the industry.

00:00:41:16 - 00:01:04:09
Sandesh
So the first one is no stranger to the Silicon Valley. Brian OSHA, he's an incredible sales leader and I trust his opinion a lot. We're going to talk about everything from AI, startups, tech sales, and of course, humanity as well. Thank you for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed the show.

00:01:04:11 - 00:01:14:16
Sandesh
You got to change the game and I.

00:01:14:18 - 00:01:27:01
Brian
You know what used to be I got to go spin up a data center. I got to go buy some servers. Oracle software. EMC storage or NetApp. But you're a loser. Stack.

00:01:27:02 - 00:01:31:18
Sandesh
Oh, yeah. The Isilon and the company, the IP 4700 was so great.

00:01:31:20 - 00:01:34:02
Brian
I'm just. I'm just joking. But.

00:01:34:02 - 00:01:35:14
Sandesh
No, it's okay, it's okay. You're an.

00:01:35:19 - 00:01:59:16
Brian
Then it was like I could swipe a credit card to deploy some EC2 instances. Now it's like I can swipe credit card and you build. Also, I ran Tropic Gemini. It's like all I need is domain expertise. And I'm off and running. And oh, by the way, like the coding talks now, but the whole vibe connect thing, you do not need to be a developer to do that.

00:01:59:18 - 00:02:03:19
Brian
You know, lovable is like intuitive. So you and I could use it.

00:02:03:21 - 00:02:04:05
Sandesh
Right.

00:02:04:11 - 00:02:12:07
Brian
You know, like the cursors and augments and and windsurfing and pool side. Those are built for developers.

00:02:12:09 - 00:02:13:02
Sandesh
But. Right.

00:02:13:03 - 00:02:38:02
Brian
Lovable books are like you, me. And there's more and more of those tools come so I think, going back to the like, how who a great sales rep. Is that the reason why I brought up the pace of innovation and how easy it is to spin up a new, a new company is you're going to have 5 or 10 competitors pop up in a really short period of time.

00:02:38:02 - 00:02:56:21
Brian
So how am I positioning? How am I changing my positioning, how I'm making sure I'm bossing up competition? How am I making sure I'm setting my agenda and not other agenda that has to iterate all the time. So even if I have the best sales reps on the planet, I need to make sure that when we pivot, we pivot as a group.

00:02:56:23 - 00:03:23:19
Brian
And while we're doing AB testing, we're doing AB testing as grit and like that. That is one thing. Like any great sales organization and app, you know, BA, Oracle, EMC, NetApp, like all those legacy companies. And there's there's younger ones too, that the snowflake was a great sales organization. But time the when they make a change they pivot very quickly.

00:03:23:19 - 00:03:47:23
Brian
And I remember saying when I was at Pure Storage, we're competing against EMC, a $58 billion company. There was like 60,000 employees. They would pivot like that, like the messaging changed. The whole company changed the messaging. Now it was a bit ridiculous. They posted on on LinkedIn. But, you know, like they would pivot so quickly and in unison they would do that.

00:03:48:05 - 00:04:09:07
Brian
And I think it's just incredibly important that as an organization, sales, marketing products, they need to be an activity and you need to be able to do that faster than like literally, it can't be like weeks now as oh, oh my, not, I heard this and we need to we need to set a trap for this competitor. This needs to be part of contract.

00:04:09:13 - 00:04:30:05
Sandesh
Dude, I gotta tell it, you know, just trying to, you know, create a product, run future connect. It's been a challenge because the pace of innovation is so, so quick. It's it's mind blowing by the, you know, you have an idea and you think it's got legs. And then within six months you see a tool. You see what you can do.

00:04:30:07 - 00:04:51:18
Sandesh
Well. And all of a sudden it's, back to the drawing board, the where the value is moving to find that, you know, product market fit for all of these AI startups is extremely challenge. You got to be so agile. And that's why Silicon Valley does a great job, because you guys have a culture of accepting failure.

00:04:51:18 - 00:05:16:04
Sandesh
Like failure is like a little bit of a badge of this is how we get better. Now we know what's broken. If we can fix this, then we can get here. That is the mindset that we need. Where in the Midwest it's more conservative. It's, well, I'll pay the 5 million, but this better work. And if this doesn't work, you're going to lose your job.

00:05:16:06 - 00:05:40:16
Brian
Yeah, well, that's, I there is the in in California, in Silicon Valley sector where there is that frontier spirit everywhere. It's like, you're going to sell, sell fast. You know, you've heard a thousand different cliches, break or, move fast, break. Things fail fast. The, I'm a big believer that for a variety of reasons.

00:05:40:21 - 00:06:04:17
Brian
I mean, like in the most, some of the most conservative industries in the world, you're starting to see that seep in and, and thankfully, because of you, you start to see it in the most conservative industries. But, like digital, when you first hear about space where you like, how ridiculous is that? And now it's like, oh my God, it's a game changer now.

00:06:04:17 - 00:06:28:16
Brian
And another platform, by the way. You know, space being a platform, the, the, I just think it's, it's completely game changing when you see that and you're starting to see this in being broader aeronautics, like the car didn't fundamentally change until like 2012, you know, for a really long time, you didn't see any evolution. Like it was a very slow evolution.

00:06:28:16 - 00:06:55:11
Brian
Then. Then Tesla came around, there's a like, forget about the electric part that the the technology in the car is about so much since Tesla came out. And I do think, there's huge value to, to to that model of let's run a bunch of experiments and yeah, we'll sell us. And by the way, like that's why China is doing so, you know, each one of those mayors is competing with each other.

00:06:55:13 - 00:07:19:03
Brian
And so they're running all these different experiments. It was the equivalent of us, you know, every one of our governors felt like they're competing to be the next president. And so or the next vice president. And they were running experiments, not for political, party game, but for their own on, on like if they were doing that, they'd run more experiments.

00:07:19:05 - 00:07:24:11
Brian
And and that's why we're seeing incredible advancements in China.

00:07:24:13 - 00:07:57:17
Sandesh
Yeah. Yeah, man, we've already gone all around. We haven't even done an introduction, for you. But this is, this is great. As part of the thing I want to do, I learned some I learned a lesson after I did my first four podcast, which was. And there are great companies. But what I learned was there is still such a big gap from where the technology is or what the capabilities are, where these startups are, the ideas that they have, the problems that they're solving.

00:07:57:19 - 00:08:29:08
Sandesh
But I'm not seeing those problems with most customers yet. Right now I am seeing customers buying cursor or gong, you know, some kind of an AI type of a tool, a SAS product of some kind, right? Yeah. I think ultimately, like what you said about ServiceNow and Salesforce and Glean, I'm really big on glean. I, I see how like now a genetic AI can really impact those, those solutions.

00:08:29:08 - 00:08:50:00
Sandesh
And I think but the customers just aren't there yet. And then they'll get there in the start building at some point. I do think customers will build their own labs, you know. Oh yeah. Right now they just they just don't have the skill sets. They don't have the the buy in the use case, just the so much of it is and again, none of it is their, their fault.

00:08:50:02 - 00:08:50:21
Sandesh
Right.

00:08:50:23 - 00:09:10:03
Brian
Yeah. I think by the time the average enterprise gets to the point where they realize, like, okay, we have got to fine tune this with our data. Yeah, that process is going to be so refined that it's not going to be a massive engagement. You know, there's a number of companies, including my pharma company, that that helps with that right now.

00:09:10:05 - 00:09:33:00
Brian
But there will be a point in time but very near future where you don't need a really technical staff to do that. Right. I think it's still a fairly deep technical endeavor today. But you do see agent specific companies, having great success right now, selling into a lot of legacy companies, including, as we mentioned, healthcare airlines.

00:09:33:02 - 00:10:01:11
Brian
Rental car companies, you know, like very legacy type businesses. And and, Abby, you kind of dimensional returns like 60, 70% efficiency. It's been delivered. And I think that's when you'll start to see broader adoption. But I do think, we're not super creative. And the deployments today. Right. Like, you know, okay, we can we can reduce our, our reliance on our existing customer support team.

00:10:01:13 - 00:10:15:06
Brian
Okay. We can, you know, like do the transcription. I think there's areas and I'm not smart enough or creative enough to figure those out. But those. Yeah, 25 year old salespeople. You were you were crap on earlier that they'll figure out.

00:10:15:07 - 00:10:44:00
Sandesh
Well, no, no, I was not. By the way, I will tell you, I work with a couple, of these 25 year olds, and they are amazing. I really want to help them. And and to that point, you and I have had people that have helped us in their careers. There has been so many in our in our careers, there's been people that have introduced us to somebody or coached us on something or helped us in a project or a proposal, whatever it might be.

00:10:44:02 - 00:11:10:05
Sandesh
There was an assistant and there's a support group. There. Yeah. And I and that's what I want for, for the younger generation is like, build your relationships, build your network. You're 24, 25, 26. You're going to be working until two law. Trust me, if you want to have a good career, right, success, all that stuff, blah blah, blah, I'll tell you.

00:11:10:06 - 00:11:28:07
Sandesh
Yeah, you can just focus on that. But if you focus on relationships and building trust with people, building your network, building your brand of the kind of human being that you are, I think that's going to take you further. But again.

00:11:28:09 - 00:11:29:06
Brian
As long as.

00:11:29:08 - 00:11:56:14
Sandesh
It has been, oh, big time, big time. I mean, you know, like, look at this whole situation with you and me. Every time I come into the Valley, I gotta meet with you. Why? Because of the relationship, the trust. Even in this conversation, we don't agree on everything. But that doesn't matter. In fact, that gets me even more excited because that just means I have more opportunities to challenge myself and potentially learn something.

00:11:56:14 - 00:12:18:12
Sandesh
And how many times have I changed my opinion? Many, many times. I wish the 20 year olds can bring that curiosity to work and just get out there. Make yourself vulnerable. But they need some people to guide them and help them. And it can't be. So, how many meetings did you have today? How many calls did you make?

00:12:18:13 - 00:12:48:07
Sandesh
You know, I think I think we're we're focused on the wrong, wrong metrics. And I, and I understand the whole metrics thing. I'm all about the sales donuts. At the end of the day, if you're in sales, you gotta perform, period. But in a sales culture, it's not going to be a comfortable culture. This is not going to be a place where everybody's always happy and feels, you know, very, grateful for what they have and everything else that they should.

00:12:48:09 - 00:13:09:17
Sandesh
It's a hard gig and the numbers matter, but I think the human side of it needs to also be considered. One of the things I've been wanting to ask you. I have seen a few trends around this, and I'm not blaming you, but I you know, you are a sales leader, your entire career, so you probably have that.

00:13:09:19 - 00:13:41:11
Sandesh
Yeah. Yeah, you there's some culpability here, I think, I look, I'm sticking up for the other salespeople. Okay, good. I am there, so it needs to. Yeah, they need it. We need it. I need it. Why is, goals? Why have goals have gotten so high? Why is it that tech companies have sales teams that have less than ten, 15% of their account teams making their numbers?

00:13:41:12 - 00:13:45:23
Sandesh
What do you think has attributed to that?

00:13:46:01 - 00:14:01:01
Brian
Yeah, I mean, I, I would have to address those organizations one by one. I think a model that most is like a well-run organization is still trying to target 65 to 85%.

00:14:01:01 - 00:14:02:06
Sandesh
Of their.

00:14:02:08 - 00:14:17:01
Brian
Right. So many the 65 to 85% of your team should be, at or above plan and that you're doing that, you probably got right work fit. You probably have a good label, an organization, you probably have a good team.

00:14:17:01 - 00:14:21:21
Sandesh
And you probably have good people. You probably have good salespeople if they're if they're able to do that.

00:14:21:21 - 00:14:33:15
Brian
Yeah. And by the way, if 100% of people are, planning, you have, you know, hundreds or thousands of people that the, the quotas were. Right. So that if not everyone deserves it.

00:14:33:15 - 00:14:37:14
Sandesh
But that doesn't happen. That does not happen. Quotas are never too low.

00:14:37:17 - 00:15:01:11
Brian
I do think, you know, having set quotas at startups, it's really difficult. You know, I, not very long ago, I set, I came into one company and I set goals, thinking everyone's going to crush it. I rolled them out. The sales reps had one on ones with each rep. There's like, 12 reps on every single rep.

00:15:01:11 - 00:15:28:22
Brian
So I know I crushed it. And two reps, maybe two out of 12 turn. And so I for sure took some ownership. But it's really hard early stage company that the next company we change the goal scale team. I thought the goals were pretty aggressive. And then Adlon was smaller then, with two exceptions, but everyone was.

00:15:29:00 - 00:16:02:09
Brian
Most people were up. Now. Great product. Mark set early in the company. Company was scale like crazy. That's going to happen. Yeah. As long as, you know, like early on was really difficult. And then when there's a big of, you know, obviously it is if I steal the team from three teams A's and I sees the 15 teams end of the pandemic, like, you know, February of 2020, I went from three teams to 2010 or 15 and each other.

00:16:02:10 - 00:16:31:03
Brian
Yeah. Those those people were not going to make that up. Right. We're selling out a, data center first solution. So it is tough trying to thread the needle when you're trying to hit kind of the 65 to 85% metric. I do think most organizations have the right intentions. But yes, there is an, probably, way too much of a focus on how do we make sure we're getting that the right cost per quarter.

00:16:31:05 - 00:16:47:07
Brian
How do we make sure we're getting the greatest efficiencies out team? And instead of doubling down on the enablement, people are like, okay, we got to race for it. Yeah. So there are. I think, things you can do to make sure your changes is, showing the abundance if you.

00:16:47:09 - 00:17:13:15
Sandesh
Yeah. But you also hit on another piece, right. There's a we have this huge tech ecosystem. We got distribution, we got consultants, we got service providers, we got resellers, we got OEM software providers, hyperscalers. It is a very big market and being a salesperson in each of those is quite different. But depending on where you're at now, I've spent you know, I was four years at NetApp, but then, you know, 23 years now on the resellers side.

00:17:13:15 - 00:17:43:22
Sandesh
So that that's what I know. But what's interesting about you is like, you've so you have stayed on the vendor OEM side and you've always seemed to pick not always, but like you've done a really good job of picking winners and finding that next new great company. And maybe, I could be super wrong on this, but I really feel like it is so hard now to find that next great company.

00:17:44:00 - 00:18:21:04
Sandesh
I think there's less and less of them. I attribute that a little bit to, you know, you need something to inject the the market when, flash storage came out, you know, silly example. But look at what happened. Everybody transformed. Every cloud took a long time. But then look at how much is happening in cloud security. Security. You know, now the number one biggest threat to civilization took a little while, but then it got there.

00:18:21:05 - 00:18:43:10
Sandesh
So what is the next like? It is I but we're so early on it. So what would you say to a salesperson that is looking to potentially get into AI sales because of the buzz and the hype and the, you know, blah, blah blah? Like I hope you can bring some like level T to to that.

00:18:43:12 - 00:19:12:08
Brian
Yeah. So here's the way I think about it. Number one, I'm not smart enough to to know, who's going to leap frog who in the model world like and nor does anyone else because, you know, in in December of last year, Deepsea came out of nowhere and just had the best reasoning model in the world was the best, reasoning all the world that was open sourced from a hedge fund basically in China.

00:19:12:09 - 00:19:37:19
Brian
Yeah. And so and oh, by the way, virtually all of our open source, models, depending on which category you're talking about, are led by, by Chinese open source ones. So, we don't we just don't have that visibility. And I don't pretend to be smart enough to even know where open AI versus anthropic versus Gemini is. On the closer side, either.

00:19:37:21 - 00:20:13:19
Brian
What I do know is, you know, there's going to be areas where people are really successful, there will be infrastructure winners. And and you know, I like in that to the picks and shovel people. So in, you know, if you're going to move west during the gold rush, you can either, squat in a river with a pan or, sell them picks and shovels and, I would rather sell the picks and shovels and squat River, because you may get a big hundred gold, or you may just be end up with, with a bad back from wet feet.

00:20:13:21 - 00:20:41:19
Brian
And so what I think the infrastructure play is pretty safe. And obviously Nvidia is the ultimate infrastructure plan cleaning up. And I think there's going to be plenty of winners now and just the GPU space period. But the, the the other part is like, how are you going to make sure that people are deploying those? It you know, the first big iteration you're going to see in the enterprises is going to be on the agent side.

00:20:41:21 - 00:20:58:07
Brian
And, you know, I had a joke with one of my former coworkers for slack. What's in it? Right? Like they to be like, oh, is there's going to be agents everywhere. Okay, give me an example. And people would be like, a voice agent for your support. Yeah, that's all they would come up with.

00:20:58:08 - 00:20:58:12
Sandesh
Yeah.

00:20:58:14 - 00:21:21:03
Brian
Yeah, there's going to be. Yeah, exactly. There's going to be all sorts of, agents deployed doing menial tasks. You know, like UiPath was on the frontier of that, but now they're going to be even more sophisticated tasks, even taking first line support calls, doing outbound calls, you know, making sure you're coming to your appointment.

00:21:21:09 - 00:21:30:18
Brian
I got a call yesterday about a doctor's appointment. Make sure you're aware. Like that was a person. Like, why is that still a person that doesn't need. So.

00:21:30:20 - 00:21:32:03
Sandesh
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:32:05 - 00:21:50:11
Brian
And so I think a lot of that change is coming and it's coming to the enterprise. And we'll see that this year and next year. And so what do you care about? You care about like this is the bot going to go completely a so you need some level guardrails making sure it's going to stay within its bounds.

00:21:50:13 - 00:22:08:07
Brian
You want to make sure that people can't do what they're not supposed to do with that. And you also want to make sure that's not threat factor. So I think security is going to evolve credibly quickly. And yeah, we're starting to see that already. I've talked to a lot of those companies.

00:22:08:09 - 00:22:10:06
Sandesh
Big time.

00:22:10:08 - 00:22:34:05
Brian
So I think there's a lot coming down the pipeline, within the next call it 24, 26, 28 months, where you're going to be like, okay, we're starting to see the seep into, whether you're an insurance company, you're a, a tech company, a health care company, and like, you're going to see agents deploy. Yeah.

00:22:34:11 - 00:22:53:14
Brian
Like the whole reason I'm in the US is my dad was here to deploy a, a phone tree for IBM, for IBM was doing a phone treat for AT&T. I think that phone tree is still being used an entity. Right. And that was freaking six years ago. And so, yeah. You know, like, there's no reason ever out front.

00:22:53:14 - 00:23:20:23
Brian
Yeah. Yeah. So I think I think you'll start to see it very broadly, deployed in, a variety of different use cases. And I think that the number of use cases will expand pretty, pretty probably. Now, how do you find the right company? So. All right. So, the way I look at it and it's, it's never been harder because there's so many choices because like we talked about earlier, the barrier to start a company is so low.

00:23:21:00 - 00:23:46:17
Brian
And the abundance of, investments in these companies have never been so, so there's name a space and I'll tell you, like 7 to 10 competitors. So I always look at, like, what is the leadership team look like? What is the quality of the investment? Not just like, how much money do I work? They get it from what's a tracker good people like overall crews involved in the company.

00:23:46:19 - 00:24:03:15
Brian
Is the space somewhere where I can add value to, like, can I make a big impact? Day one. And, you know, the the most important thing for me. And I know right away, like, I knew the first time I got the pure storage pitch, I knew the first time I got the best time pitch, I knew the first time I got.

00:24:03:15 - 00:24:17:18
Brian
But that was a pitch I knew. Can I sell this shit out? And so if I can sell the shit out of it, I know I can teach other people and it shit out of it, too. Yeah. And so if you can have that conviction as a seller, I can sell my shit out of this. The people are great.

00:24:17:20 - 00:24:24:07
Brian
The money is good quality. You've got a way better chance than all the other companies out there.

00:24:24:09 - 00:24:36:13
Sandesh
And it's such a better way to sell. I, I always sell what I'm comfortable with that I can say this is a good decision for my client.

00:24:36:18 - 00:24:37:06
Brian
Yeah.

00:24:37:08 - 00:24:47:03
Sandesh
Where? And being a reseller, we have that opportunity. If we play our game right, then we can actually be an advisor to, you know, trusted advisor to our to our clients.

00:24:47:03 - 00:24:48:07
Brian
You're just a customer.

00:24:48:08 - 00:25:14:02
Sandesh
That's one. Yeah. Right. Absolutely, absolutely. And I love, love doing that. But what I am seeing is people are getting desperate man, for sales. Right. And it's like they'll say anything and everything and it's like, and I'm and I'm thinking, I'm asking the salesperson, hey, I saw the pitch. I heard how the meeting went. What's like the financial benefit for them?

00:25:14:02 - 00:25:29:12
Sandesh
And why would they invest in this if they're going to need to, you know, basically hire a different person with the skill set that they don't even have. And the answers are so bad. Oh, let me get my engineer, you know.

00:25:29:13 - 00:25:30:00
Brian
Oh, God.

00:25:30:01 - 00:25:32:10
Sandesh
You know, like, let's set up a meeting.

00:25:32:16 - 00:25:35:13
Brian
You're and you're should be the one. Oh, let's do this diet.

00:25:35:15 - 00:25:56:16
Sandesh
Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. So like. No. So this is where, like, the sales world has changed so bad. We want to. And I'm going to since you told me that we don't have to prepare for this podcast. I'm going to hit you with some tougher questions. I just want to see how you answer them. And I know some of these are really.

00:25:56:16 - 00:25:59:22
Brian
Tough, by the way, when we're starting, whenever we starting the podcast.

00:26:00:00 - 00:26:00:23
Sandesh
It's already started.

00:26:01:01 - 00:26:06:03
Brian
I know, can I freaking out about it? About like 30 minutes into it?

00:26:06:05 - 00:26:09:00
Sandesh
I'm trying to go for that Joe Rogan thing where it's just.

00:26:09:00 - 00:26:10:16
Brian
This smooth transition.

00:26:10:18 - 00:26:12:21
Sandesh
To get in. Do you know, let's do it.

00:26:12:21 - 00:26:13:21
Brian
I like it.

00:26:13:23 - 00:26:21:02
Sandesh
At this point. Everyone already knows you. Okay? You're a baller fucking Silicon Valley. Oh, I get it.

00:26:21:04 - 00:26:26:01
Brian
I give you the hard questions. I got I got to hear like these are you got me a little bit. Got my palms sweating. Yeah.

00:26:26:02 - 00:26:37:18
Sandesh
All right I'm going to start slow now I'm going to end a little more aggressive. And this is going to be like quicker answers. I bubble. Are we in one. When. Why in the hell are people talking about it.

00:26:37:20 - 00:27:05:03
Brian
Yeah there's definitely that bubble. And so I, I think so as a country we go from guardrail to guardrail. I have to like never more obvious than, you know, in the last. Five years. Six years, nine months. Yeah. We just go guardrail. The guardrail. California is even goes faster and Silicon Valley is the ultimate asset pinball machine.

00:27:05:05 - 00:27:29:04
Brian
And so everyone follows everyone else. Everyone's piling money into these companies. And so it's just there's so much for all that. It's like, if this looks good, I gotta jump into that, right? I missed I missed cursor, I got to get into I missed, you know, like so it's it's, Yeah. You're going to have so much of this as a result.

00:27:29:06 - 00:27:54:00
Brian
You get. And this this is not a new phenomena, right. Like if you look at the networking in 99, you had Jago and Cisco and like, all these companies, if you look in, in that the search engines of like early 2000 up until 2005, I mean you start ast year, you had being like, you had all these different search engines.

00:27:54:02 - 00:28:14:20
Brian
So it normally coalesces into 1 or 2 big winners. But yeah, I think it's just what happens is you're going to have this bubble, you're going to have these ten companies and these type companies are going to go away, and there's going to be two eyes right now. Right now, the the overall spend of those two might dwarf the spend of those.

00:28:14:20 - 00:28:49:05
Brian
Those ten. So you know, the bubble popped in 2001 and we were last with eBay and Amazon and like a bunch of incredible companies that called absolute juggernauts. And so that, you know, just because a bubble bop pops does not mean the broader ecosystem is impacted. I don't think you're going to feel like Chicago. I think a lot of my brothers and sisters in, in, and south of Market Street, San Francisco are going to feel it, but, they'll probably just change, go across the street to.

00:28:49:07 - 00:28:50:13
Brian
And so.

00:28:50:15 - 00:29:15:18
Sandesh
Yeah, the way I see it is, we should be grateful and thankful again. America, best country in the world. I know we got a lot of issues, but best country in the world. Look at how much money we've been able to invest into technology over the last 3 or 4 decades. You get all this money? Yes. There's winners and losers in 90% of startups fail, I get it.

00:29:15:20 - 00:29:35:18
Sandesh
Oh, look at the system that we have. The fact that we're able to raise that much money for to go to people and say, hey, I think you're really smart and I and I think you can create something. And even if you don't complete the accomplish everything that you're talking about, there's going to be some good out of out of what you're doing.

00:29:35:20 - 00:29:36:20
Sandesh
Okay.

00:29:36:22 - 00:30:03:23
Brian
100%. It's it is the great, I mean, the pace of innovation is only getting faster. And our ability like that is the thing someone told me a long time ago why Silicon Valley was, was so, so vibrant for for new companies. Well, you know, there's there's legal benefits here, right? It's much it's much easier to go start a company to, to go to EMC and join Pure Storage as an example.

00:30:04:01 - 00:30:05:14
Sandesh
Yeah.

00:30:05:16 - 00:30:46:10
Brian
There's, there's, incredible talent like, everywhere and just even leaving, you know, San Jose State has great, what's good engineering. Berkeley. Stanford. Like there's, there's, a great universities around here. And then all these people moving in and like, I, I joke with my buddies that I've moved away from the Bay area, and, you know, all races and backgrounds, and they're like, there's you just like, you just don't know how much of a chicken pot the Bay area is when you go to Tuscaloosa and you're like, oh my gosh, there's like two races here.

00:30:46:12 - 00:31:05:05
Brian
Yeah. There's like it's it's, you know, it's there's so much talent class here that's incredible value proposition. But there's also an extraordinary access to capital. Like if you got a great idea, you can go to Page Mill or Sandhill and you can get someone to start to you check today.

00:31:05:07 - 00:31:06:23
Sandesh
Right. Yeah.

00:31:07:01 - 00:31:08:00
Brian
Yeah, yeah.

00:31:08:00 - 00:31:32:23
Sandesh
So I've, I and I think part of what you're saying to bro is we can't shit on these startups for coming to market, but not being able to, you know, ultimately fulfill what they were trying to do. We need in my opinion, I think we need to keep encouraging that entrepreneurial spirit. And we need more people to become entrepreneurs.

00:31:32:23 - 00:31:52:02
Sandesh
And honestly, you know, I got kids. I'm, you know, I preach to them, hey, my dog, my daughter wants to be a doctor. Okay? I don't know why that baby, you know, you know, you might want to rethink that. If you haven't noticed, this, I think is going to be something.

00:31:52:04 - 00:32:08:07
Brian
I think, being a a, a doctor that understands how to prompt and understands how to leverage AI is going to be a doctor, and the world will need to match doctor five, ten, 50, 50 years.

00:32:08:09 - 00:32:25:17
Sandesh
Exactly. And you know, the part of that equation that changes to look at all these other Indian doctors, right? So many people went into medicine just because culturally it was like you kind of had to write like, you know, parents are pushing you that way. I didn't become a doctor, and the world is a better place because of that.

00:32:25:19 - 00:32:46:22
Sandesh
But, but before I would always wonder, are you becoming a doctor because you truly want to help people that you. When your patient comes in, what do you Siddiqui a human being and someone that you want to service and support and actually help them with their health and, you know, have some interest in it? Or is this how quickly can I get this patient in, go through everything.

00:32:46:22 - 00:33:13:09
Sandesh
Check check check. Okay. Boom. You're out. See you later. Get to the next one. I think what's hopefully to your point, I hope if we can operationalize some of that, that we can get more human to human like support. You know, that that would be great. And, and I think we need more doctors. We need more doctors.

00:33:13:15 - 00:33:32:15
Sandesh
We got too many people going into tech, you know, everybody's going. That's the other thing that's happening for salespeople before they competing with no phones. I'm one of them. Actually. I have a I an miss degree, but I was a horrible coder and no one should have hired me. And they did it. And you know that. That's good.

00:33:32:17 - 00:33:43:11
Sandesh
But, what was the point? I was making? Well, I just lost my train of thought.

00:33:43:13 - 00:33:47:16
Brian
Going in to become a doctor. Going to become an engineer.

00:33:47:18 - 00:34:10:06
Sandesh
Yes. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. Before you had all all these people that wanted to get into health care, and that's where, you know, we thought the money and everything was prestige and all that kind of stuff. Now, what salespeople are seeing is, yeah, we had people that are managing, you know, majored in communications or finance or, you know, marketing or something like that.

00:34:10:06 - 00:34:12:12
Sandesh
And they end up in, in sales.

00:34:12:14 - 00:34:12:20
Brian
Yeah.

00:34:12:20 - 00:34:44:20
Sandesh
Now it's a different ballgame. Now you have a different caliber of an education system that has brought these people into the sales force, into tech, which they maybe 15, 20 years ago, they wouldn't have gone this route. They would have done something else. Yeah. But now it's if you don't go stem like that's probably you are compromising some income potential and opportunities and everything else.

00:34:44:21 - 00:34:45:12
Sandesh
Yeah.

00:34:45:14 - 00:35:11:05
Brian
Yeah. I think everyone needs a touch of Stem in their education for sure. I, I do think the real value that you're going to see because of AI is you can add this incredible domain expertise. And if you understand how to leverage AI and that domain expertise, then you can go build a great differentiate solution. But yeah, I it is there's been a major shift.

00:35:11:05 - 00:35:22:12
Brian
I don't think that shift is anywhere close to being over. I, I yeah, I'm a techno optimist, but there are it is unsettling. Sounds janky. Second question. Yeah.

00:35:22:14 - 00:35:31:00
Sandesh
Yeah, yeah. All right. So that was the I, you and I air bubble. I actually I agree with you I, and I don't think this is a bad thing at all.

00:35:31:00 - 00:35:41:21
Brian
Like this is necessarily not that right. Like but yeah bubbles always happen when the next big thing comes. Yeah. I, I fortunately was not exposed to the Segway back though.

00:35:41:23 - 00:36:07:06
Sandesh
Right. And these things are hard to predict and everything else. But at the same time, we put so much pressure on being right all the time. Yeah. And it's just not, a realistic, expectation. So we're both on the same page there, and that's why I, I also don't understand why people are even talking about the AI bubble.

00:36:07:06 - 00:36:11:09
Sandesh
It's like, to me, it's so obvious. I, I'm done with that conversation.

00:36:11:09 - 00:36:36:05
Brian
I don't know why people feel threatened by. I think they just think bubbles pop and then then, you know, they think 2008 housing crisis. There's always bubbles, you know, like and, I think it's inevitably like there was going to be an AI bubble. There will be another AI bubble. I don't know how quickly the next bubble won't be able to probably be right on the heels of this, right?

00:36:36:07 - 00:37:00:10
Sandesh
Yeah. That's a great point. Great point. So part of that bubble, expectations go high, right. And then what is the real value? The trough of disillusionment. I still think we're in the hype part of the hype cycle. What do you make of the 11,000 employees from Accenture that were let go? And the Julie Suite, I think, is their CEO.

00:37:00:10 - 00:37:26:08
Sandesh
She's she made it pretty clear that. They have a new strategy now that they're going to be implementing at Accenture. And if you're not upskilling yourself with AI and you are not becoming an AI expert, she didn't say this way, but a kind of we don't need you. Like your value is really not needed. What do you make of that?

00:37:26:10 - 00:38:04:17
Brian
I think it's you were reticent to use email in 1990, or the Microsoft suite in 1990. Maybe you're okay. By 2000, you're out of a job. And so I think it's just a natural progression of things. You could be the best, stagecoach driver in the world. You just don't have a fricking job today except around Christmas, you know, like, you can go go work at Central Park for a few months out of the year, but beyond that, like the stagecoach business that the the blacksmith business, it's not that relevant anymore.

00:38:04:19 - 00:38:31:22
Brian
Right? So you've got to adapt to the times and adapt to the tools of the times. And I is that, you mentioned earlier, like dusty and like there's going to be a flattening of a lot of industries. I look at, the, the big consulting companies and I think they're, they're, they're going to have to adapt faster than anyone, you know, are they're very they're expensive.

00:38:32:00 - 00:38:41:16
Brian
They're bloated. And, you know, I met with most of them in, my last job, and I was like, wow, they are waiting on the AI, so thanks.

00:38:41:16 - 00:39:07:00
Sandesh
Yeah, yeah. One of my my initial view was like, oh, wow. I'm kind of surprised that the CEO of Accenture is taking this kind of position. However, what I think is going to happen as a result of this is think about if you're a competitor to Accenture, if you're McKinsey, you're Deloitte, if you're KPMG. Now, what's your response?

00:39:07:02 - 00:39:29:04
Sandesh
Because what Accenture is basically telling their customers is, hey, you want to work with AI and figure this thing out, work with us because that's where we're going. We're 100% on the AI train. So almost makes it. And, you know,

00:39:29:06 - 00:39:33:06
Brian
A requirement for the forcing function for everyone else.

00:39:33:08 - 00:39:53:11
Sandesh
And even if it's not like practically the right thing to do, you have to have this statics of it, like the sales part of it. You got if you are those big five, you got to be able to say, this is what we're doing with AI and we're and these are the investments we're making. We're bringing our costs down here so we can invest more here.

00:39:53:13 - 00:40:04:04
Sandesh
These are the things that are going to have to happen. Some of it is like a Fugazi to me because again, like how much how much demand is there right now for or AI?

00:40:04:05 - 00:40:32:11
Brian
There's demand for the value. There's there was before in like demand for the bots being checks. Now there's demand for driving value. But yeah, you got to pick the right people that you think are going to drive value. And clearly Accenture realizes the vast majority of people in the organization are not not and go out and get on them for making that having that that recognition now versus later.

00:40:32:13 - 00:40:56:04
Sandesh
Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm super excited. My, my the company I'm working for. Yeah. They, we just hired we just, acquired another AI company. I think it's like our third or fourth AI come, and that's where, you know, we're going to is all I like it. We're all in on AI, and it's so exciting. That's why I love being a reseller, because I get to be in the field with customers, with partners.

00:40:56:09 - 00:41:08:03
Sandesh
I really get a chance to have a sense of what's actually happening because that data in the field, bro, is the best data that that is the data you want.

00:41:08:05 - 00:41:28:12
Brian
Yeah, that's that is I mean, we talk a lot in kind of the sales leadership world. Really product we're at, about like what is your feedback? What how are you getting that signal? Well, the the the real signal you get. Right. Like, yeah. Are they willing to make that investment? And why are we on this?

00:41:28:12 - 00:41:29:06
Brian
No.

00:41:29:08 - 00:41:51:17
Sandesh
Yeah. Yeah. All right, so I got another one for you. This is a little bit trickier. Five years from now, unemployment rate 0 to 5, 5 to 10, 15 to 20 over 20%. Five years from now.

00:41:51:19 - 00:42:17:11
Brian
I think it will get bad and that'll get back. I do think, there will be, you know, we can get back to a, you know, 3 to 5% unemployment rate in, in the next 15 years. But, I would say if you give me an over under 5%, I would definitely say over in five years, I don't think we're going to get to 20%.

00:42:17:13 - 00:42:42:03
Brian
But I think having seen a few of these things, it typically drives more opportunity. But mass disruption, you know, you probably not feel now that you're one of the people laid off from Accenture, but those people are typically pretty impressive people that, you know, they'll be fine. If you're listening, they're working and you've been impacted, reach out to me.

00:42:42:03 - 00:43:01:07
Brian
I'll pick. But the, that I, I think generally speaking, the there will be an impact. It won't be a trivial impact, and it won't be super short lived. But I think, you know, in the long run, I will be an asset for, for employment.

00:43:01:09 - 00:43:16:16
Sandesh
Yeah, it's just part of the cycle. It's just got to embrace it. It's interesting to me, and the reason why we're doing a little pivot at Future Connect is people like you and I will. Silicon Valley is a whole different beast, but.

00:43:16:18 - 00:43:18:07
Brian
It's pretty exciting.

00:43:18:09 - 00:43:37:16
Sandesh
Yeah. Yeah, but but but that's why I, you know, I love it. I'm passionate about it. Like, I love change. I like new tech. But how many people and, you know, let's just say the U.S., we can say the whole world doesn't matter. Is it still the same thing, how many people are doing their day jobs, but then spending the time to learn about AI as well?

00:43:37:18 - 00:43:41:04
Sandesh
Right. I think very, very few.

00:43:41:08 - 00:43:51:05
Brian
I think a lot of people are doing that. I, I actually a lot of people that I talk to are doing it out of curiosity more than anything else. Yeah. But.

00:43:51:05 - 00:44:21:14
Sandesh
That's in the valley. That's in the valley. Or if they're in tech. If they're in tech. Okay. So, let's just take, for example, a doctor or an attorney or, a teacher or whomever, right? They have their day job, so they still have to perform 40, 50 hours of work. Now it's going to be the nerds like you and I like this whole weekend, I've been fidgeting with AI tools just to see how they work and what breaks.

00:44:21:14 - 00:44:41:18
Sandesh
And when it starts to loosen. And it's just it's it's my way of learning about it. I just don't see a lot of people going that way. And that's actually one of the things that I'm trying to promote is like, how do we help those people? Like, how do we cut through all this noise and all this crap and this tool and that tool?

00:44:41:18 - 00:45:00:20
Sandesh
And how do they know which tool? I mean, you just said multiple times today, tell me one I start up and I'll tell you ten competitors, right. So how does the average person then make a decision on which tool that they're going to use. And then how do they actually learn it. Give me the cliff notes of it.

00:45:00:20 - 00:45:23:19
Brian
Well it's typically first mover example right. The first one they'll use is the one that they all adopt. And but for the most part that's true. But yeah, then people coalesce around the better tools typically. But yeah, well most people are using OpenAI. And I bet you those lawyers that you were talking about earlier, like the vast majority of them are using OpenAI, you know.

00:45:23:19 - 00:45:51:04
Brian
Yeah, some of them, to their judgment, if they're not about checking sources because hallucinations are real. But, the, I think that people will find the tool. It's weird. I, I think I've told you this before, but my youngest started 16, and I said, are you still using ChatGPT? Oh, attach that. I really and I was gonna leave it at that.

00:45:51:06 - 00:46:12:13
Brian
She said it sucks at math. I use, Gemini for math. I use perplexity for just like, basic to you and I, and I use ChatGPT for, like, English type homework. I was like, oh, shit. She's like a root. So I think people are naturally kind of finding their way. Yeah, I don't think about I gotta use these tools.

00:46:12:16 - 00:46:35:23
Brian
I just use the tools. You know, I use Gemini a lot. I use perplex you lot. I use grok a lot. I use, but I think about like, I'm going to use it because I want to test one versus the other, but if I'm just asking a question and probably just using Gemini, I was right. And so I, and I use OpenAI, I hunt, but it's not because I'm trying to be on the cutting edge.

00:46:35:23 - 00:46:44:00
Brian
I don't use cursor love for any of these tools. Right, right. Because they're not right now. They're not relevant.

00:46:44:02 - 00:46:45:07
Sandesh
Yeah. Yeah. To to you.

00:46:45:13 - 00:47:04:20
Brian
Yeah. Yeah. But but, I think you'll find people, you know, Google's weird people at first. You know, you just stab that white sheet paper with Google on an empty box. Why people do like that? A lot of not non-tech people hate it. And it just became the way.

00:47:04:21 - 00:47:05:20
Sandesh
Yeah.

00:47:05:22 - 00:47:35:19
Brian
So I think I think people will naturally get there and I it's funny because, like my, like, our parents type age, I think it's a more natural adoption phase than our kids. Think about how our kids prompt Google like they know how to prompt Google with it. There's no class in school, right? They just know. And, yeah, like, you can speak more naturally when you're asking me a question or, open AI.

00:47:35:23 - 00:47:43:04
Brian
And I think that's, I think that's going to going to, broaden the adoption as a result.

00:47:43:06 - 00:48:08:06
Sandesh
That I think it has to I, I just feel that people are generation. There's a ton of people. I have so many friends and family, which I kind of want to be like, wake up, you know, like take a class, just go on it and just start learning, you know, like go mess with, you know, figure it out, ask ChatGPT how to use these AI tools and it will tell you how to use it.

00:48:08:06 - 00:48:10:09
Brian
Watch a five minute YouTube video.

00:48:10:11 - 00:48:33:03
Sandesh
Right? Just spend the time because what's going to happen? You know, what I worry about is, you know, our generation then being those people that are calling our kids and like, hey, you know, my thing doesn't work. You know, my my AI is all messed up, you know? And then, like, the kid has to come over to help us, you know, we shouldn't know this stuff.

00:48:33:07 - 00:48:46:03
Sandesh
And and in this situation with what's on the line with AI and cyber and everything else, we should be. Everyone should learn about AI and security, like everybody.

00:48:46:05 - 00:48:55:01
Brian
You know, it's it's not like sending. It's it's it's like people think it's like setting your VCR, which was terrifying. And it's not I got it wrong.

00:48:55:03 - 00:49:02:23
Sandesh
No, no, no. What was your homework? I was going to wrap it up here.

00:49:02:23 - 00:49:09:15
Brian
Yeah, let's. Yeah. I told someone I'd been a senior. I just looked up. I was like, oh, shit.

00:49:09:17 - 00:49:35:03
Sandesh
Yeah, sorry. Well, you knew this was going to happen. Yeah. So wrap it up, man. It's, it's so good to have these conversations. Part of the reason why I'm going to start doing these kinds of podcasts or content is I often have really great conversations with people like you. And after I'm done, I'm thinking, and how is so good?

00:49:35:05 - 00:49:46:03
Sandesh
I, I just I enjoyed it. I wonder if other people would just enjoy two people just shooting the shit about what they know. You know.

00:49:46:05 - 00:50:00:05
Brian
Even though it's just the two of us, I, I enjoyed, enjoy. I looked at last time the other day, you and I were catching up, and it was like I looked up, I saw an actually, I was like an hour and 15 minutes, like, I didn't think I had attention span. Yeah, it was great.

00:50:00:07 - 00:50:16:08
Sandesh
I know, I love it, I see, I love it like that is. And that's one of the things I've been kind of it's been good for me, good for my soul. Is that reconnected with so many people that just reached out just to say, hey, what do you think about I like I heard you're doing this like, is this a good company or whatnot?

00:50:16:08 - 00:50:34:23
Sandesh
It's like, hey, to me, it's all right. Yeah, I will tell you. But first you got to have a call with me and fill me in on how have you been? What's going on in your life, you know? Yeah. You know, like, I, I want those relationships. Yeah, sure. I want to keep those relationships happy to help anybody else.

00:50:35:01 - 00:50:38:22
Sandesh
But let's end with this. What is next for Brian? Okay.

00:50:39:01 - 00:51:06:04
Brian
I, to be it's to be determined. I actually, we'll be announcing something. That's a couple weeks, but, I can't catch it out, but I'm. I'm, I was resisting, jumping in back into the I space, but it's just, You know what? When when in in, the gold rush, you got to either pick up your shovel or your pants and and so,

00:51:06:06 - 00:51:24:01
Brian
I just couldn't miss out on this. I was I swore to my friends and family, I'm like, I'm not that. I go do an operator job again for a couple of years, if at all. But I just couldn't resist it. So I'm super excited to jump back in. There'll be a few weeks before I can. I can share that that.

00:51:24:03 - 00:51:38:08
Sandesh
Yeah. Hey, man. I can't wait. You haven't even told me. That's all. That's all good in the hood. I just I'm excited that you're staying within. I selfishly, for me, because I love talking to you about this stuff.

00:51:38:10 - 00:51:43:11
Brian
And so you can we can have the seller that's relevant. Relevant to your clients for sure.

00:51:43:13 - 00:52:01:06
Sandesh
All right, all right. Well, see, now you have to pitch it to me. We're going to debate it. We're going to you know, that's the fun part right. Yeah. When, when peer when the guys up here first came to me and they're like I got one controller, no snapshots, no replication. But it did dupes and it's awesome. Yes.

00:52:01:08 - 00:52:06:18
Sandesh
And it costs because 18 bucks a gig. Oh, you know,

00:52:06:19 - 00:52:08:20
Brian
We got there. I don't think.

00:52:08:22 - 00:52:16:13
Sandesh
You got there. So, that's the fun part. Well, dude, thank you so much, Brian, for, being on. You're going to be coming. It's I'm going to find your brother.

00:52:16:15 - 00:52:18:09
Brian
Every time you're off in years.

00:52:18:10 - 00:52:20:06
Sandesh
College is very much appreciated.

00:52:20:10 - 00:52:22:05
Brian
Barbara. Great to catch up, man.

00:52:22:07 - 00:52:23:23
Sandesh
You too. Man. Later. Bye.