Alicia McKenzie (00:00.152)

how smartphones were for our kids now, that's gonna be how AI is for the children of the future. Every device, everything in the world is going to be capable of doing so much more than humans. But is that a good thing? Welcome to Married to the Startup. I'm Alicia McKenzie, a wellness entrepreneur and digital creator. Alongside me is my amazing husband, George, the CEO who's always ready for a new challenge.

We've been navigating marriage and running startups for over a decade, and we're here to share the real unfiltered journey with you. Join us for insights and candid conversations about integrating love, family, and entrepreneurship. This is Married to the Startup, where every day is a new adventure. All right, and we are back for episode number 35 of Married to the Startup. You already know who I am, Alessia McKenzie. Well, who are you?

maybe they're new and they don't know who you are. I don't know yet. I'm still working on it in therapy. I'm George. You're George. Mackenzie. Just George. Curious sometimes. Curious George. George of the jungle.

Just George.

Alicia McKenzie (01:06.542)

We're actually doing two episodes in one week because this week is super frothy with information and news breaks and all sorts of things that we just can't not talk about. So why not put it on the pod? I don't even know where I want to start. Where do I want to start? Let's start with the Rode acquisition. Rode as in R-H-O-D-E is owned by Haley Bieber, also known as Haley Baldwin.

founded in 2022 and in May of 2025 was acquired by Elf Beauty for $1 billion. So the deal will comprise of $800 million in cash and stock and then an earn out of up to $200 million depending on future sales and growth over the next three years. Now this is massive.

And it's so notable only because of the timeframe that this thing sold. It went from brand new, zero dollars in sales to being acquired for a billion dollars in three years. And what's really, really, I don't want to say unfair, but it's just, it's very atypical. And it kind of blows my mind that this amount of money is being thrown around in the beauty industry.

Yeah, mean, I don't know what the whole enterprise, what the serviceable market is, but I guarantee it's a gigantic number. It's probably every woman on the planet times what? $10,000? $20,000?

And one thing that is super impressive, so here's the thing, I get a little annoyed when Nepo babies sell massive companies for ridiculous amount of money. Yes, Nepo baby. that's, she's the... Yes. I get it. She's a Nepo baby. Let's like, let's call a spade a spade. But she went from $0 in sales to $212 million in net sales in less than three years. Now I do not care.

George McKenzie (02:53.922)

Napo, baby.

George McKenzie (02:58.285)

it is.

Alicia McKenzie (03:13.472)

what kind of Nepo baby you are or how you got this thing started. Like that is insane. And just wow. I mean, I feel like that's, that deserves props. Nepo baby or not, like being able to put a strategic team and plan in place to gross those kinds of sales is that's wild.

Yeah. So it makes me, I guess I have two questions, which I don't know the answer to. you do. But one is how involved was she in the company itself, like the operations and running of the company, or did someone come to her and say, or she said, Hey, I want to create a cosmetic line because X, Y, or Z did. And then they get in touch with an executive that has run one before or run a brand.

a division of a major cosmetic company and then they're just the face and helping create, you know, pick shades and do those things and do the marketing aspects with someone else's running the operational.

Yes, that's what it is. Somebody, there is a husband and wife team that are running the operation. So Haley serves as the chief creative officer and like head of innovation. So I guess it's her creative dream being supported by another CEO and another COO. And they're the ones that are taking what she's saying and putting that vision into action, into a strategic plan. So the co-founders are

Michael Ratner and Lauren Ratner, guess Sure, yeah sure they do

George McKenzie (04:39.82)

And they probably have a background in cosmetics. Yeah. I mean, I think in that aspect, it's probably, I would say less, I mean, I know she gets all of the attention and the articles because she's the name, but I'm more impressed with those two of being able to say, Hey, if I brought in a headliner with name recognition, right? I can go from, you know, I can get to third base day one where I can create marketing inertia.

which is like the hardest part in launching a product or launching anything is getting people to understand your company, understand your brand and want it. Right? So they're able to go from zero to a hundred overnight by having some celebrity, some influence or some name recognition that is associated with beauty and already has followers and people that want to emulate her and then say, okay, now go pitch the brand. And now getting publicity, getting

name recognition happens overnight because someone goes, road, oh, that's Haley Bieber's company. that's right. And then that's it. That's all you need. It's the peace effect. It's the Kardashian effect. It's name your celebrity here who creates their own tequila brand. how much do you think they're actually involved in the day-to-day operations or production or understanding it? They've got the name recognition. just bring that marketing, instantaneous marketing.

Which is fine, like nobody knows.

Alicia McKenzie (05:51.885)

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (06:04.718)

The one thing that really sticks out to me though is that Rode did this with only 10 products. Yeah

I mean, that's selling a lot of 10 products for 221 million. That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot.

$212 million in mass sales in less than three years. That's a ton of product. That's a ton of product, like direct to consumer only, right? This year is the first year that they're going into Sephora. Wow. I can't even wrap my mind around the amount of product that they were able to move in three years.

And I think that's the issue. You know, I've suffered from this, not to this degree, but this mindset. But I mentioned a lot of entrepreneurs that look at this and say, hey, I want to emulate that. I want to do that. And so unless one, you have a direct line to Beyonce or someone who's going to give you that name recognition overnight, you can't look at that playbook and replicate it. So I'll give you a prime example from, from, for me is as part of one of my, the last acquisition.

that they were taking direction or at least advice from someone who came from another cybersecurity company, which basically, I mean, they were trying to replicate a marketing plan, which really revolved around a celebrity, which is how they went to market. Their customer acquisition was really around the name recognition of one of the founders. So that is not a replicable

George McKenzie (07:33.666)

go to market. And it's kind of the same as, you know, I think entrepreneurs that read this and say, I'm going to be the next Hayley Bieber. I'm going to start my own cosmetic company and I'm going to go or judge myself on the 212 million in net sales. It's, it's not as easy as that would seem like, or getting down on yourself that, I've been turning this business for five years now and I'm generating 5 million in revenue. She had 200 and she exited for a billion dollars in three years. my God. I'm

I'm not successful, I'm not going to be successful. think it's hard to see those numbers and hear those stories and not want to compare yourself, but also look at it as, you know, they're starting at third base.

Yeah, it's like you can't even compete. can't. It's completely different game. it's like you're using a human person to play chess and then you're mad you can't beat the bot. Right. Like there's no competition there. And I think that's one thing that is is really important to just keep in the forefront of your mind that if you were trying to grow a company like don't even look at this story like it's just you're never going to get to that point unless you have a direct line like you said to Beyonce. Yeah.

It's just a different game.

George McKenzie (08:24.673)

Yeah, exactly.

George McKenzie (08:41.87)

Or it's going to take you a lot longer to build your brand organically, get the name recognition, and then maybe you have the Oprah moment where all of a sudden you go from some celebrity or someone recognizes you and you go from unrecognizable to table talk for everybody.

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (08:59.758)

And I don't want to say that you're never going to get there because look at Poppy, right? It Poppy 15 years and Poppy is the probiotic soda, the quote unquote healthy soda. But it took them 15 years to exit for 600 million. So it's not quite a billion, but it's still doable. Just not in three years. Three years is just...

Yeah. Most of the time it's that snowball effect. The snowball going downhill, which constantly generates more inertia, gets bigger, right? And that's how a lot of companies get to that size versus that overnight, some would say overnight success. I think to me, it's like, you know, we talked about it before, is that would you look at the Kardashians or Hailey Bieber and say, Hey, she's a self-made billionaire.

That is one thing that drives me so.

It's an interesting dynamic question.

And this came up because, what's her name? What's the Kardashian girl name? But she's not a Kardashian. Kendall, Jenner, no. Jenner, which Jenner was Is that not Kendall Jenner? No, I think it's Kylie. Is Kylie the one with the cosmetics? I don't know. Okay, so I'm I don't.

George McKenzie (10:05.88)

I don't keep up with the Kardashians.

I actually thought you were going to say cosmetics because you're a No, but it was Kylie Jenner who two years ago was on the cover of what Time or Forbes or some magazine as the first self-made billionaire under 30. Right? Is that what it was?

I don't keep up with that either.

George McKenzie (10:30.67)

Yeah, Forbes in 2019 at the age of 21.

Yeah, as the first self-made billionaire. That right there is enough to make me see red. Because, I love you for, like, all you've done and great. You've done so many things in 21 years, but you were so far from self-made. Like, it's almost offensive that you would use that term to describe yourself. There's nothing about you that is self-made. You were born into the Jenner family, who was tied to...

the Kardashian family, who was tied to Robert Kardashian, who was tied to OJ Simpson. Like it's just.

You're born in LA and you were connected to Paris Hilton and everyone else. just, I agree with you. think self-made, you know, maybe we need to redefine, but you know, could someone who came from that family ever be self-made? Cause I think everyone would think that if you came from this position in which you are privileged, if you come from a privileged position, I don't know why I'm braining. My brain's not working. When you come from this position of privilege where

Prevent.

Alicia McKenzie (11:31.935)

Because it's a Friday afternoon.

You have access to a lot of advantages that other people don't. Can you consider yourself self-made? Even if maybe you didn't get your daddy's money or your mother's money to start the company, which I imagine most people did, and you had your name to trade on, which most people would not have. you know, it's an interesting question. and then can that person, if you were born into that affluence and privilege and access.

Would you have imposter syndrome doing this company and saying that, you know, did I really do it or was it just my name?

So you wonder, do you think she actually believes that she's self-made? Probably. is that just something that Forbes came up with to make people ragey? Right? Is that just-

I'm sure, I'm sure it was, it got a lot of eyeballs and got a lot of clicks.

Alicia McKenzie (12:24.696)

Absolutely. is what? Right? It's like rage baiting. Like, can I piss enough people off that they want to look at this and come comment?

That's what drives media today.

George McKenzie (12:33.102)

Right. So what do you, that was the question I've had that discussion with friends of mine is like, so if you do that, where do you draw the line with self-made? is it, what if you weren't that wealthy, but let's say you were born in McLean and your parents were upper middle class and they were entrepreneurs and then you're an entrepreneur and you do something maybe 10 times bigger than what your parents did. Are you self-made? yeah. Or, you know, how much advantage?

I don't know.

George McKenzie (13:02.946)

would get you to a place where you wouldn't be considered self-made anymore.

That's an interesting question. actually don't know. So looking at our children, if they go on to start a company and that company exits for $500 million, would I consider them self-made? No, because they're growing up in a place of having seen their parents do something similar.

Yeah, I know, it's an interesting one to debate.

Alicia McKenzie (13:31.986)

they have had advantages that other people have not. Like, let's say you. I would consider you self-made because you came from some small town in Virginia with the only knowledge base was learned at, what is that group called when you're in high school? Future.

I an FBLA, future business leaders of America. Come on now. Yes. I think I won my region.

Right? Right? Right? So I mean, that is the knowledge that you had, but you took that and you turned it into a successful business, which then turned into another successful business. And then now we have kids and other businesses and other ventures, but those children are going to go on to have advantages. And they're starting from a place that we did not. So what I consider themself made,

No, I would not. But where... I don't know. I think that's...

Okay, good.

George McKenzie (14:33.646)

And then I would also reframe the, I understand that's clickbaity, but at end of the day, if you're a billionaire, you're a billionaire. It doesn't matter if you were self-made or not.

It's still, it makes me ragey. Like it just makes me, like it's offensive. Stop saying that. You're not self-made.

Yeah.

George McKenzie (14:50.52)

That's true. then back to the road.

And this isn't like to poo poo billionaire. It's like, great, I fucking love a billionaire. But don't try to make yourself feel better about being a billionaire. Just like, just lean into it. Like you're rich. Great. Go be rich. But quit trying to like put yourself in a box for no reason other than to be on a cover.

Yeah. Who knows? Maybe she didn't have any editorial control and they put the title to be whatever they want. But even back to the cosmetic sale, I feel bad for the CEO and his wife, the ones that were running, they got a tagline at best in the article when, I mean, maybe they don't care because they're clocking big checks.

It's entirely possible.

Alicia McKenzie (15:33.676)

they care? Do you think they care?

Not really. mean, I'm sure they knew what they were getting into, Like they had Haley Bieber on there for a reason and it worked. So as an entrepreneur, so you can A, find a celebrity to latch onto to help generate marketing buzz. Or you have to do it the old fashioned way and work your way around the base pads.

But giving props to where props are due, like hats off to the Ratners because this is

It's a meteoric, mean, to be able to generate, even in your celebrity status, you know, set aside, like just being able to get that many people to buy your product is impressive, no matter what the product is.

Yeah. Right. And Michael Ratner, like, he's been there since the inception. That means that he's had the vision and the formation and he's run the board. And the other co-founder is his... I'm assuming it's his wife. Same last name, but she served as the president. So hats off, because like that's... I'm just... I'm at a loss for words at how quickly this thing grew and sold and...

George McKenzie (16:28.046)

Yeah, or somebody. Maybe. But it's crazy.

George McKenzie (16:40.846)

So I wonder who's the next celebrity to have a makeup line or how many out there already do. bet you there's a ton.

Right? there has to be. I mean, you have Rihanna with Fenty. She's another big player.

Pick your own demographic and then get your cult leader for that demographic and go sell stuff.

Yeah. All right, moving on. So this is another conversation that we had recently, and that's about raising capital, but also deploying capital. So we're going through a little bit of a strategic planning phase and possibly thinking about investors and so on and so forth. But George has raised capital in the past or has gone down the process of raising capital and

I feel like you did things back then that you wouldn't necessarily do now, i.e. like I'm going to go raise $2 million and then where do you go from

George McKenzie (17:32.398)

Yeah, no, I think it's I you know valuable lessons I've learned not saying I'm the best at it or I know my breadth of knowledge is any deeper than anybody else's I just personal experience, you know at one point in my career that was a you know to steal your term, I think it was a very frothy market and the the sector that I was in and money was getting thrown around so

Naturally the my co-founders and myself were like, hey, let's go get some of that money. And what we learned really quickly is that, know, we didn't have a plan. Right. And that didn't stop us from getting offers with people to give us money. And it was more of, you know, what the fuck am I going to do with the money? Like, what would I do with it? How far would it get me? How much do I really need? What would the burn rate be and where, how would I come out on the other side to get.

the multiple that I'd need in the end to get a number I wanted in a liquidation event. So it was an eye-opener, like going through the interview process, a lot of questions and I learned a lot through that. But my biggest advice, and I think I was trying to give it to you is one, take money as late as possible. First, understand what it is you're trying to build or do, and then execute that plan and make it repeatable. And then...

Yeah.

George McKenzie (18:55.028)

Only go get capital when it's absolutely required for you to get to the next rung or get to the next phase. Like, Hey, I was able to bootstrap it and run and I got to an MVP of something. And now to take it from MVP to version 1.0, right? And here are the features and benefits that go from MVP to 1.0. This is how long it would take. And this is the exact amount of money I need to go from here to there. Then.

Yeah, then go raise money to get from here to there because now you know exactly how you would deploy the capital. You have a plan and then you know the value creation and hopefully the amplification of your value that that additional spend would get you versus try to go raise money for, and this is what I've heard a lot of people is, they get to something and how I need to raise money for sales and marketing. I need to raise money for sales and marketing, which late stage capital, sure.

Because lead stage capital is not one that's to come in and give you money to build something. They want something to already work and they just want to pour gasoline on it. Where early stage is more the opposite where, know, if I'm going to invest money and the risk is super high because this thing could flame out, right? There's just, there's probably a better chance of it going to zero than going to a hundred million. So I need enough upside. So it's got to be early on enough that you're

you're creating this new product or you're going from MVP to version one, there's a lot of value creation that will come and be a creative on my investment so that I go from investing $100,000 to it being worth a million dollars in six months because of the platform that you built with the money that I gave you. And, and I think some people just get infatuated with private equity or venture capital and they want to raise money and they want to go because they think by doing so that makes that

Yeah.

George McKenzie (20:47.97)

That is a check mark for success. When I don't believe that, you know, I think I would rather having done it for me, it's I'd rather not take money. And if I could at all costs and then taking money in would only be to get me on the journey that I want to be on. And then I can't get on that journey either fast enough or, or I'll miss the market if I don't go faster. And I need the money to do that because it's gotta be, you're trading a lot.

So you got to make sure that it's worth it. Cause if your goal is a moderate exit, can I get there on my own?

Absolutely.

Alicia McKenzie (21:27.694)

without taking outside capital. Exactly. So here's the thing. Let's say, okay, you've got a new company, they're two years in, and now they're needing capital. Let's say they need capital to develop a new product that is, I don't know, let's say like, I don't know, like a new AI community product. I'm just making this shit up. So let's say they're in development, but they ran out of money. They can't get the MVP off the ground without ingesting capital. Would you say you go friends and family route? Would you go like, what's...

What they in capital for?

George McKenzie (21:56.47)

Yeah, I guess it depends. the company, so company's pre-revenue, I'd imagine. Pre-revenue, so you basically have an idea. You've built Alpha or hopefully an MVP. Yeah. And then, or maybe you haven't, you just have an idea. Then it's, yeah, it's friends and family because they're the ones that are going to bet on you when other people won't. And that, I've never done that, but that's got to be an awkward conversation because you're asking friends and family for money knowing that there's a

Yeah, free revenue.

George McKenzie (22:25.89)

good chance that the money they give you will go to nothing. And I would say that other, this conversations I've had with entrepreneurs, especially the biggest conversation I've had with folks is that the hard conversation around your personal salary, like no one wants to give you money to pay yourself. Right. So, right. So don't think you're going to ingest capital and then raise your salary or start paying yourself. That's not what that capital is for.

chance.

Alicia McKenzie (22:55.448)

Yeah.

Someone wants to give you money to build the MVP, to go from MVP to version one. Not for you to take equity draws to sustain your family. That's the risk you're taking. And that's the hard truth that some people don't see is, want to start my own business, but I've got to maintain $100,000 a year salary because I have to do that to feed my family. They're like, well, know.

Yeah, absolutely.

George McKenzie (23:22.734)

Exactly, maybe it's not the stage in your life where you can do that. Or you have to find an alternative. Maybe there's other passive income ways that you can get your cost structure under control and you're gonna have to ride it or you're gonna work two jobs and moonlight building this thing on nights and weekends or all the hours you're at.

So that's really interesting. let's say that DPS happened right now. Would we be able to float for six months without a salary?

Yeah, I mean, well, if DPS hadn't happened already, yeah, probably not. It the right time for me because my cost structure was low. My risk tolerance was high and my ambition was high. I was willing to work as many hours as I needed and I was billing while I was building a company. So I was generating revenue for the company and taking a smaller portion than the revenue I generated in salary to reinvest and grow the company.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Like, I feel like...

Alicia McKenzie (24:02.163)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (24:19.99)

Right? So I think that just amplifies the fact that things happen when they're supposed to. Right? And that a lot of this is timing and a little bit of luck. Timing is everything.

Yeah. Timing is everything. Like in real estate locations, everything, business timing is everything.

No, but even for real estate, right? I bought my first property in 2009, and that was after the real estate bust, right? And I used an FHA loan to finance it, and it was 0 % down, and it was like a really tiny interest rate. And we were able to take that foreclosure and turn it into something, and you and I worked on it, right?

There was no outsourcing other than like we brought someone in to lay the carpet. We painted it ourselves, we replaced doors, we replaced the entire kitchen, appliances.

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (25:10.862)

And that was the start of our real estate journey, right? was complete. It was timing. Could we do that now? Maybe not because fucking interest rates are 7%.

a lot of the time commitment to do that stuff yourself.

Yeah, in our 20s, we, a lot happened when it was supposed to and it was a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work.

Yeah. And I think there's no underestimating the luck and everything and timing a market. Like personal example, you know, one of the companies that I ran, had, we were building an external attack surface management platform. We never really finished it.

My eyes just glazed over.

George McKenzie (25:50.35)

Well, we were building this platform and all the marketing buzz were like, hey, you know, this is the new wave. This is going to be the next wave. Next wave is coming for this industry and you know, we're building the platform to do this. And then, you know, we just could not get the momentum on the build side. We couldn't invest as much as we wanted to because we were bootstrapping it. And we were trying to raise capital, but we were kind of convoluted, unfocused in the company's

strategic direction, right? What do we want to be when we grow up? you know, trying to be a services company and a software company is just impossible. So we chose the services company. And it's funny because now, just now, like, I mean, everywhere, that's what I was talking to one of my, my former partners and he was at RSA and he's like, man, that EASM is everywhere, everywhere. We're like, wow, we were on it. You're on it. I mean, everyone has a great idea.

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (26:34.168)

Don't tell me.

George McKenzie (26:50.006)

Everyone thinks they know the market and they're timing it, but your ability to execute is all that matters. You could be third in the race with the idea, but you execute better and you're going to win. So you don't have to have the most novel idea and that idea doesn't have to be kick ass and something no one's ever done before. Maybe you just take something that someone's already doing and you can execute it better.

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (27:01.176)

For sure.

Alicia McKenzie (27:13.07)

Yeah, for sure. And the cream rises to the top.

if you provide value to folks and it's something that they need, want or desire and you can give it to them better than the other guy.

Moving on, this is the last thing that I want to talk to you and that's because I watched Sam Altman's TED Talk at TEDx. It was about chat GPT and AI and super intelligence. And my one biggest takeaway is that agentic AI.

buzzword, buzzword, buzzword.

Exactly. That's like, it's the one thing that we really need to pay attention to. So first thing, baby, explain like I am a 10 year old. What is agentic AI?

George McKenzie (27:59.458)

like a 10 year old. All right, maybe. Now just say, let's say, do you know?

Like a high schooler. Yeah. And this isn't for me. I just want to make it.

like a robotic process automation, right? When you're taking something like a repeatable task or a task in which they are an if then else, right? Like if this happens, do this. If that happens, do this. And being able to have AI understand that workflow and process flow so that it can take an input and understand what to do with that input and then create. It's right to say, hey, I want to go.

Yes.

Alicia McKenzie (28:32.952)

Yes.

Let's just say, I want to go on a trip to Jamaica and it goes, oh, she wants to go to Jamaica. She's probably going to need airfare. Let me look up airfare. Well, she didn't give me a date, maybe she wants to travel next week. Let me give her options for next week. She's probably going to need a hotel. What size hotel? She has five kids. It does all of these things and then spits back and answer. Solves problem. It's genius, right?

Yes. Yes.

George McKenzie (29:04.982)

Look at a human could do that instantaneously, right? On the conversation, get the gist, know what you're asking, can go off, let's say smart humans. But yeah, AI could be even better at it. And then you start to say, taking those types of tasks and having agentic AI be able to do it and take an output from, I'll use cybersecurity because it's easy for me to articulate. But let's say you do a vulnerability scan and it discovers

Yes.

George McKenzie (29:33.098)

Here are all the vulnerabilities, being able to take that vulnerability output, ingest it, understand what the endpoints are that have the vulnerabilities, understand how do you remediate the vulnerability, then go patch the system automatically. Give the report to the user or the system owner who runs that system, automatically sends the report saying, hey, here are the vulnerabilities you had. I deployed these patches. Here's your output. I updated your SSP. I updated.

created a poem, closed a poem, or I notified the system owner, updated some dashboards, did all these things. And by the way, I created and closed these tickets. You have the ticket metrics and did all this. Like, that'd be super cool.

Yes.

So I'm going to use a little bit of an easier example. Maybe, how about, let's go make me a reservation at the most exclusive restaurant in LA. Agentic AI could go out there and do that. And then it would come back and be like, we need your credit card number. Would you give it to them?

i would mean it

George McKenzie (30:38.382)

Yeah, I mean, would have it. In the future, it would connect to your Apple.

Yeah. Cow.

and have your Apple bill pay and it would just go ahead and do it.

But as of right now, it can't. So would you input your credit card info? Sure. Would you?

Yeah, think over time, I'm an early adopter to most things like we're 100 % elected to the house. I'm fine with

Alicia McKenzie (30:59.214)

I feel like, but even like Tesla, right? We adopted Tesla in what 2015, 2016? I know.

I'm kind of bored of it now. think its technological advantages are gone. It's not as far ahead of anybody else and its comfort still sucks and everyone else is caught up and battery life has caught up. So I think like the Mercedes, the BMWs, like the luxury cars have caught up on the technology and the battery side. So I'm not sure why I pay a premium to buy a Tesla anymore.

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (31:32.716)

You won't. You wouldn't. You wouldn't. So now you're going to pay for the technology and for the comfort. So I actually think we are getting rid of a couple Teslas in the near future. But back to the point, or back to the subject, agentic AI. Yes. How do you release something of this magnitude and maintain guardrails?

I think it's already out there and people are building their own. Yeah, there's tons of agentic AI out there.

But not in the general population, right? The early adopters are using it.

Yeah, mean, you just checked, you know, open AI has, you know, and it's newer models, it's doing some

You have to pay out of the ass for it. Yeah, what's what's the price?

George McKenzie (32:09.998)

The deep research and some of these others, does, it's the start of it. And then there's tons of, you know, free services. my view is that there's going to be the few winners in AI, to open AI. No, I'm saying these companies will win. It's going to be like, nowadays, most people wouldn't go out there and say, I'm going to start a, I'm going to start a software business. I need to go rent data center space and I need to go buy servers.

Things like that.

Alicia McKenzie (32:22.378)

Can you win AI?

George McKenzie (32:38.318)

I need to rack them and I need to buy firewalls. need to buy switches. need to buy notes. You're just going to go on and say, Hey, I need cloud resources. I'll get the server either via AWS, GCP or Azure. think AI is going to be the same thing. just, need AI. I'm going to leverage it to build my platform. So I'm going to get AWS bedrock. I'm going to get open AI, whatever your algorithm is going to be. And then that's what you're going to use. And you're going to build services on top of it. And I was talking to someone today and it's, it's what.

Yeah.

George McKenzie (33:08.3)

five years ago when you're talking about building cloud native apps, where the application is cloud native and built in containers and maybe it's serverless and all those things. And nowadays it's going to be an AI native app. I'm building AI native apps where it's natively using these LLMs as part of the application and you're just wrapping them together into a UX.

Does the speed of the development of these LLMs, does it bother you or is it concerning for you?

Maybe. I think it's, we've talked about this before, what does it do to humanity? know some, you know, one side of the coin is it's going to enable us, right? It's going to free us from remedial tasks. But I think sometimes the remedial tasks are what make humanity, right? Settle proper, but chop wood, get water. mean, those tasks are the things that feed our souls and we need to do them. If you remove all those things and we're just left, I guess, untethered, I don't know what would happen.

Who knows, or it empowers us to do 10 times more than we ever thought we could. I don't know. But it's consuming a ton of power right now and we don't have enough power in the compute to do it. So the more we add, the more power we need, unless we come up with cleaner energy, the more damaging that creation of power becomes.

I mean

Alicia McKenzie (34:29.07)

Yeah, one of the things that was said.

It's going to

Maybe we're already in the matrix. It's possible. But one of the things that I think Sam said was, I'm not quite sure what the meaning of life is, but I'm pretty sure it has to do something with babies. Right? And this is because you just had a baby. Yeah. Right. He has a baby. And they asked him, are you concerned at all about the life that your child will grow up in or the world that your child will grow up in? And his response was really interesting to me because I think I let you listen to the last little bit of it, but he thinks

how smartphones were for our kids now, that's gonna be how AI is for the children of the future. And that every device and everything in the world is going to be capable of doing so much more than humans. But is that a good thing? Exactly. that a good thing?

Right. You just think about generations in our household. Like I grew up in very much a keyboard driven generation. Right. I think you and our oldest daughter are on the similar in the tactile touch. It's a screen touch. That's what you are used to. Like I, I cannot type on a screen. need the keyboard keyboard. would keyboard a mouse above anything else.

Alicia McKenzie (35:36.526)

Yes.

Alicia McKenzie (35:47.64)

think the size of your fingers limit you there.

important mouse of the thing that is, that's what I grew up with. That's what I'm comfortable with. It's a form factor to communicate with computer. And then, and then our children, like Michaela, Ava, you're very, know, touch screens interaction is what you're most comfortable with. And I think that as it gets younger, even just how fast technology is moving, like Maverick, maybe Maddox to some degree, but Maya, like

We have very large hands.

Alicia McKenzie (36:09.388)

I can run the world from my phone.

George McKenzie (36:19.81)

voice is the way they interact. They're way more comfortable talking to something, having it answer them or give them feedback. And then even VR, like they love VR above like playing a switch. So it's just interesting how fast it's changed the way in which we interface with technology.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (36:40.014)

Do you know what this reminds me of? The Carousel of Progress. I love the Carousel of Progress, but you're right. If you've ever been on that ride, they go from having candles to having electricity to having ovens that you can talk to and then they accidentally burn up the turkey. It's a really cute ride, but that's kind of what we're living right now.

My favorite ride of all.

George McKenzie (37:04.396)

Just look at, I mean that took decades. Decades and decades. It's happening, it happens in not even a generation, right? It's so fast now. then AI is changing so quickly. And then, you know, if we can interface, like the next generation, it's more voice interfacing. You interface voice with AI, then it's really, you know.

you don't have any of that stigma that we have. And it's like the old folks when the elevator was first invented, they had an elevator operator in there to just hit the buttons. They provided no safety, but they were used to that person in there doing, moving the elevator. So the fact that that person wasn't needed anymore, that couldn't alleviate the fear of not having that person in there. So it's the same with us. Like we have that fear. Why would I give AI my credit card number? I would never do that. And then, you know, our...

Maya's generation will be like, no, that's my personal assistant. And of course it has my credit card. Why would I need to know that number? I just tell it to buy it and it buys it. No, 20 credits, whatever.

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (38:04.898)

Yeah, you're right. mean.

just comfort factor and that if AI and, you know, agentic AI and all these things come to fruition and it gives us the great outcomes and all these AI native applications leverage the platforms to, to better us, then maybe it won't be bad.

Pace of change is the only thing that is alarming to me because it is happening so quickly, right? Sam Altman said, and he said it in confidence to, what the hell is his name? Ted, his name's not Ted, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said that chat GPT went from, it's got 500 million active users weekly. And that number has doubled in the last, I think he said like four weeks.

TED Talk much.

George McKenzie (38:51.214)

Yeah, it just keeps doubling. I mean, just think about Chad GBT is what? Two years.

Is it two years old now? Something like that. feel like it's not even two years old.

It hasn't been long and it's just like, it's an incredible rate of change. what it's, mean, at first it was just a cool little chat bot to ask questions. Now it can do research papers for you. It can do analytics. can do, and then with the Gentic, it can start to replicate and replace.

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (39:19.798)

But you know what I use it for? I use it for a lot of KPI tracking. So I will have it create the spreadsheet for me and then I will just copy and paste and start populating data into that. Right? Like it's just things like that where I just don't feel like thinking about it, but it pops it in no problem and I delete what's not applicable and add in whatever I need. I'm starting to rely on it way more than I ever expected.

Market research, things like that used to take a lot of time and effort.

Just like just all it's crazy

So we'll, we'll see. think it's gonna, it's definitely, it could make us more productive, but it could also make us lazy.

I feel like a lazy person is going to be lazy regardless. And somebody who produces is going to produce.

George McKenzie (40:08.482)

But what is there to produce?

I don't know, innovation? Yeah, maybe. Maybe there's things that... It's kind of like... I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, right? I mean...

things that AI won't be able to do.

It's hard to imagine a future. can't imagine a future.

I can. Really? I don't know. Just like you can't imagine typing on your iPhone. I see. Maybe it's a generational thing. I think.

George McKenzie (40:29.238)

No, yeah, I can't.

George McKenzie (40:33.696)

Yeah, you could get to a point where it could definitely help humanity in a lot of areas where we're a resource constraint. And whether that be there's not enough people in that field or there's not enough access in areas, like it could solve a lot of those problems for us. But it could also create a lot of problems where people have a lot of time on their hands. And historically when people have time on their hands or idle hands of the devil's playground. But yeah, I mean,

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie (40:58.094)

What's the saying? Idol?

George McKenzie (41:02.904)

conflict and it's with power and access, right? I think it could enable people, right? The haves and the have nots, that gap could get bigger faster. With you compound artificial intelligence with supercomputers and quantum computers where you can crack any encryption in seconds, cybercrime becomes super easy. Warfare becomes easier because you could crack the encryption that, you

Yeah.

George McKenzie (41:31.51)

other countries are using for weapons control systems or whatever.

Way to put that out into the world, dear.

It's not uncommon or not unthought of.

I mean, have, I've literally never thought of that.

I'll look at some of the Google's quantum computer and some of the computations it can do. It would render like modern encryption algorithms usefully.

Alicia McKenzie (41:53.74)

Maybe this is why somebody stole my credit card information.

I doubt that. I'm sure it was put into a billion websites.

Exactly. For sure. For sure. Yes. Okay. That's all we have for today. Thanks for tuning in.

store that improper.

Alicia McKenzie (42:12.898)

Thank you for tuning in to Mary to the Startup. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, please take a moment to like, rate, and subscribe to our podcast. Your support helps us reach more people and keeps the conversation going. If you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover, drop me a message. I love hearing from you guys. Until next time. George out.