Marshall Goldsmith: Empowering Remarkable Lives Through AI

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. We are on a mission to make you remarkable. For his second appearance on this podcast we have today, Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall is basically the top dog, número uno, Kerri Walsh Jennings, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali. God, these are all sports analogies. I got to come up with some, Stephen Wolfram. Let's see, who else? Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, all those great goats. Kelly Slater, all goats. He's the goat of executive coaching.
Last time he focused on his book, The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment, as well as his revolutionary leadership advice. In today's conversation, we're going to discuss Marshall's aim to democratize leadership and enable people to learn through artificial intelligence.
In other words, Marshall is going to explain how he has achieved immortality. I would bet that this is going to be one of the more humorous, and it's hard to describe what you're about to hear. This is a conversation between two friends. We're both in love with artificial intelligence, and it's going to go all over the map.
His new venture is called MarshallGoldsmith.ai, and it lets anyone access his wisdom and expertise through a chat bot. There's MarshallGoldsmith.ai, and there's Kawasakigpt.com. Marshall is all about what he calls knowledge philanthropy. Basically he's using his technology to spread out his expertise so that anybody, anybody. You'll learn about that in this podcast, too. You don't have to be a 400,000 dollar client to get to Marshall's brain.
So, join me now with Marshall Goldsmith and also with some cameo appearances, brief as they may be, with MarshallGoldsmith.ai. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People, and here we go.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Why do you wear a green polo shirt? That's an important question. Inquiring minds would want to know that. Why do you wear a green polo shirt? I'm asking my friend.
Guy Kawasaki:
You're asking GoldsmithGPT.
GoldsmithGPT:
The New Yorker magazine years ago wrote a wonderful profile about my life, authored by Larissa MacFarquhar. In the profile, Larissa noted that I always wore a polo shirt. While I didn't actually always wear a green polo shirt, that's what she remembered.
Guy Kawasaki:
So in other words, we don't need you. We can just ask GoldsmithGPT and record the answer.
Marshall Goldsmith:
You didn't ask my friend here.
Guy Kawasaki:
My hearing is not good enough to tell, so is that your actual, a simulation of your voice or it's just a computer voice?
Marshall Goldsmith:
No, that's a simulation of my voice.
Guy Kawasaki:
So, how do you feel being immortal now?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Oh, I like it. I like it. It's been a journey.
Guy Kawasaki:
I am being somewhat facetious here, but conceptually we could go to GoldsmithGPT and have the audio play back to us and record it, and we will have interviewed you.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah, and it's smarter, nicer, and more articulate, but I'm funnier.
Guy Kawasaki:
I have KawasakiGPT, and I am also convinced that KawasakiGPT is better at being me than me.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Mine is a better version of me. I won't say it's better than me. It's better in some ways.
Guy Kawasaki:
If I can combine KawasakiGPT and MadisunGPT, I truly am immortal. I'm immortal and improved. I love this topic. We might go off the rails a few times in this particular episode.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Look, I loved our last session. I loved our last podcast we did. As I said, I was going to do my own podcast until after I did yours and I said, "I'll never do that because you're too good at it," so I said, "I'm not going to work that much."
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, Marshall. I don't know if I agree with the reason for your decision, but I think your decision is good nonetheless. Marshall, the hardest part of a podcast is not the podcast. The podcast is hard, but it's getting the audience. Now maybe you can magically send out an email and get a million people to subscribe, but I certainly can't do that.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Are we getting ready to roll now?
Guy Kawasaki:
No. We've been rolling already.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Oh, we're already rolling.
Guy Kawasaki:
So, listen. One of your books, I love this. What Got You Here Won't Get You There. So if you were to use that test, how does someone who believes that what got them there won't get them to the next level? How does that person optimally approach AI?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Well, I think AI is a great case study of What Got You Here Won't Get You There. Neither you nor I a year ago would've had a clue what we're doing right now with AI. So, this is a total surprise to me. On the other hand, this train has left the station. Option A, We can sit and go, "When I was a little boy, we didn't have them things," or we can actually make some good out of it. My vote is let's do something good here.
Guy Kawasaki:
Aren't you worried about the paranoid people who spend hours and say to The Washington Post, "Oh, I spent a few hours on ChatGPT, and it convinced me to leave my spouse and go live in Bali. Then it said, I'm going to launch a nuclear war." What about those horror stories that you hear?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Really, I am not an expert on those horror stories. In my elderly years I've decided basically if I'm not going to change it, I'm not going to worry about it. What am I going to do by The Washington Post? Absolutely nothing. What am I going to do about these horror stories? Absolutely nothing. How much worried am I? Don't really care.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. That works for me too, but let's say, okay, your kids or your grandkids or something, they're copywriters. They see their peers being replaced by AI. What's your advice to them?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Hey, my advice to them is, "Get with the plan." Look, the new world is the new world. That's saying, "I had a photographic memory for math and now they have calculators." Grow up. Hey, it's a new world. It's a new world. Just make peace. It is what it is. You can sit there and say, Back in the old days." Back in the old days we didn't have computers. You didn't have the internet. You didn't have a lot of things, so that's just the way it was. So I think to me, look, it's going to happen. Now how old are you?
Guy Kawasaki:
I am seventy.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Hell, I'm seventy-five, so let's face it. For two old guys like you and me, this is cool.
Guy Kawasaki:
I think it's the biggest deal since the Industrial Revolution, maybe bigger than the industrial Revolution.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Look, I love it. I am a total fan of this stuff. I have been trying to figure out how to give away everything I know for twenty years with total and abject failure up until now. I tried interactive video, which is clunky 3,000 dollar machines which didn't work. I tried computer programs that had branching and all kinds of nonsense. We're talking complete and abject failure here for twenty years. This thing has just gone through the roof in the last year.
Guy Kawasaki:
What's in the data set of GoldsmithGPT?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Let me give you a little history. My original goal, which by the way, my original goal was far too small. My original goal was that MarshallBOT, that's what his name is, MarshallBOT could answer about 80 percent of the questions you would ask me about as well as me or close. That was my goal. That is long gone.
Now what I have fed MarshallBOT is I've fed MarshallBOT about a million and a half words. What I do is it's everything I've ever written, videos. All kinds of stuff have been transcribed to put in this thing but knows me very well.
Then if you ask it a question, and it can't answer it, then I use the other bots to train it. So, what I do is this. Let's say how is your work related to something that MarshallBOT doesn't know? I will go to say ChatGPT or Claude or one of the other ones and they'll answer it. I will then review their answer. The parts I like, I put it into MarshallBOT. The parts I don't like I leave out.
Guy Kawasaki:
When you say you'll review, you mean manually?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah, manually.
Guy Kawasaki:
But couldn't people come and ask infinite questions like, "Explain to me astrophysics, Marshall Goldsmith?"
Marshall Goldsmith:
Well, a very good point. MarshallBOT doesn't answer questions like that. It doesn't do politics. If you say, "Who is Donald Trump," you know it says? "I don't know." It doesn't do politics, it doesn't do medicine, it doesn't do therapy and it doesn't do financial advice. So any question about what I do, philosophy, life, that kind of stuff, it'll answer, but outside of that, it's pretty good about having guardrails.
Guy Kawasaki:
I asked that a question and it said, "This is not in my area of expertise," which is the same answer that KawasakiGPT would give if it's not a subject I cover. Are you therefore very confident that it's not going to make shit up?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Ungodly good. The history of this is, it started out with what I knew, but it's gone way beyond that. What it does now is if you ask Marshall Bot, I'll ask it a question. For example, I just came back from India. How is your coaching philosophy?
GoldsmithGPT:
My coaching philosophy is deeply related to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, particularly in the areas of duty, action, detachment, and self-improvement. The Gita emphasizes the importance of performing one's duty without attachment to the results, which aligns with my approach to leadership and personal development.
I encourage leaders to focus on what they can control, their efforts and behaviors rather than becoming overly fixated on outcomes which are often beyond their direct control. The concept of Nishkama Karma or selfless action from the Gita is a principle I integrate into my coaching. It's about doing the right thing for its own sake, not for the rewards it might bring.
Marshall Goldsmith:
This goes on and on and on. So basically, I just came back from India. So again, in India, this is a Hindu philosophy. The Bhagavad Gita is a big deal. So if somebody asked me, "How's your coaching philosophy related to the Gita?" Boom, there's the answer, but the answer isn't trivial. The answer isn't trivial. The answer is good.
My daughter got me thinking about this. She wanted to trick it. "How's your coaching philosophy related to utilitarian philosophy?" I don't even know what utilitarian philosophy is, right? I have no clue what that is. All of a sudden, it studies utilitarian philosophy. It studies my coaching. It knows me, and it says, "Gee, how would Marshall answer that question?" It answers it as if it were me, in my voice in five seconds.
Guy Kawasaki:
So, at this point, do you believe that it's sentient?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Just depends how you define it. That's just a definitional argument. The answer is, depends how you define it. I know one thing. It's smarter than I am. Look. If you go to MarshallBOT and start asking your questions, and you actually thought I knew that much, I would be smarter than damn Albert Einstein.
Guy Kawasaki:
Marshall, you and I, we agree so much because KawasakiGPT has all my writing, all my videos, all that stuff. It has the transcript of every interview I've done for my podcast. So in a sense, KawasakiGPT is not just my brain, but it's 250 other brains because of the transcripts, so if I were to ask, "How do you embrace the grit mindset," it would have what my thoughts are plus Angela Duckworth's because I interviewed Angela Duckworth.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Sure. You interviewed me, so you could probably ask it. What's the relationship between achievement and happiness? It would answer it.
Guy Kawasaki:
And it would cite you. I got to tell you, Marshall. Every day once a day, I say to myself, "How the hell did I do this before?" When people ask me to write blurbs and forwards and contribute to journals, I go to KawasakiGPT to get the first draft.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Of course.
Guy Kawasaki:
You think that's cheating?
Marshall Goldsmith:
According to who?
Guy Kawasaki:
The Washington Post.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I don't know. My old mentor, Dr. Paul Hersey said, "Look, never argue about the definitions of words because people define words in different ways." Now, maybe The Washington Post would define it as cheating, and you wouldn't. I don't think it's cheating. If you had to write a report, and you went to the encyclopedia, is that cheating? I don't think so. This to me is the same thing. It's just a new world.
My daughter has to deal with this. My daughter is a professor at Vanderbilt and existential question, "Do you allow students to do this or not?" She basically said, "Grow up. Students are going to do it anyway." So option A, just get with the plan or option B, sit back and stick your head in the ground and pretend and just turn them all into liars. I don't know. They're going to do it anyway. Who cares?
Guy Kawasaki:
Now when I ask you this question, you'll know what my answer is, but at some level, does it just boggle your mind when you're told, "All it is is a large language model, and it's just using math to predict the next syllable and the next syllable and the next syllable?" You hear that explanation. You say, "How the hell does it seem so sentient?"
Marshall Goldsmith:
That totally blows my mind. Now again, I love this stuff, but I've got to say that part just blows my mind. As a coach, by the way, I use this with every client now. Every client I use this with my client in front of them. I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed to use this.
Look. One of my clients is Patrick Frias. Dr. Frias, he's the CEO of Rady Children's Hospital. They're merging with another children’s hospital. He's going to be a co-CEO. He asked me, "What's it like to be a co-CEO?" There aren't that many co-CEOs in the world. KKR has co-CEOS, but not too many, and a lot of them don't work.
So, I asked MarshallBOT what's it like to be a co-CEO? What's good? What's bad? What are your ideas? It was brilliant. Then he said, "I'd like to know more about this boundary setting idea. How about that?" Brilliant again. Then he said, "Marshall, do you have any ideas yourself on top of that? I made up some really weak crap.
He kind of patted, "Oh, your idea is good, too. Marshall." I'm sure he's thinking, "What a moron. I'll just ask MarshallBOT." Look, who am I kidding here? My ideas are about half as good as MarshallBOT's ideas.
Guy Kawasaki:
I mean, Marshall, seriously, in a sense it is immortality. Right?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Only I'd say probably a little better because again, I'm not putting myself down here, but this thing is way smarter than I am.
Guy Kawasaki:
I truly do believe that, too. So with my podcast, because I interview somebody every week, I add to the data set in KawasakiGPT, so that's fifty-two more pieces of data a year. If I ever stop being the interviewer, then Madisun picks it up. Then Madisun is good for another fifty years. We could go for a long time.
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's right, and why not? Now, does yours have audio yet?
Guy Kawasaki:
No. In fact, this is a good question. When I saw audio on yours, I sent a screenshot to the person who's doing KawasakiGPT, and I said, "How come I don't have audio? What's the story here?"
Marshall Goldsmith:
All right, get ready to get more jealous. What's coming down the road for me, first we had text.
Guy Kawasaki:
We're going to have the battle of the bots.
Marshall Goldsmith:
What's coming up next is video. You can see this green shirt guy that looks and sounds like me on video, but we're not done yet. What's coming up after that? Video in multiple languages.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, and I don't know about you, but actually you're seventy-five. I'm seventy. That could happen in our lifetimes, easily happen in our lifetimes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Sure. No, I think that will happen in my lifetime. I think it'll happen next year. The rate of progress on this stuff is astronomical. So, I got lucky. What happens to me is I'm coaching these guys that are founders of a company called Fractal Analytics, and I've got eight engineers in India working on this thing. They have donated the money behind this thing. This is expensive, and this thing is great.
So, it's very fast. Mine goes well beyond me, though. Mine goes way beyond what I know. Anything related to what I know, what's eerie about it is it knows me. It can study any question. It then says, "How would Marshall had he read all this stuff and knew as much as I do," which of course he doesn't, "How would he answer this question?" With almost 98 percent accuracy, it gets it right.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow, and you know what? It's never sick. It's never cranky. It's never hungry. It's never sleepy.
Marshall Goldsmith:
It doesn't swear as much as me. I asked a couple of my clients. "This thing is smarter than me. Is there anything I do different or better than it?" You know what they said? "It doesn't give me shit as much as you do."
Guy Kawasaki:
So Marshall, are you still a guest for a lot of people's podcasts?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Oh, yeah. I still do podcasts every now and again.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so it seems to me. I don't know if you do this, but it just occurred to me that you should ask the podcaster for the transcript so that you can get the transcript back and put it into your bot.
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's a good idea.
Guy Kawasaki:
Right?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I never thought of it. That's a very good idea. Thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
Hey, I'm a value-add podcaster. What can I say?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah. This thing is great. There's a guy named Stephen Balaban. Now this guy, he owns an AI company, so he was going to trick it. He said, "I was going to hire an executive coach, but I'm doing this Series C thing, and I'm a founder. It got really busy and I didn't even return his phone calls. I feel embarrassed. What should I do?" He put it in MarshallBOT as a joke.
MarshallBOT said, "Oh, I can understand that. This Series C thing is very important. I see why your founder is so busy, blah, blah, blah, blah." It gives him some perfect answer of what to do. He's an AI person. He goes, "I don't even believe this." He didn't even believe it himself. "I don't even believe this thing." He did what it told him to.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.
Marshall Goldsmith:
See, I think every medical doctor is going to have one of these. Come on, let's get real. Every medical doctor has got to have an AI bot. If they don't, they should be fired. You come in. "Look, I'm taking this medicine. What about that medicine? Is there a drug interaction?"
They answer this stuff off the top of their head. They don't know what they're talking about. Let's get real here. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How do you know? There are studies. There are computers people have. Why are you sitting here guessing?
Guy Kawasaki:
Also, if some brain specialist in Croatia wrote a medical journal article in Croatian, what's the odds of even a brain surgeon at Stanford Medical Center knowing that someone in Croatia just put this in a medical journal, right? Not in English.
Marshall Goldsmith:
They can't know that stuff.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah.
Marshall Goldsmith:
No, I think this is exciting. I think this is the new world. I feel just very happy to be able to be on the positive edge of this stuff.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, I still have one question, though, about this because if someone asks a question that you have not specifically talked about and you said that it knows what you would probably say, how do you draw the boundaries? If someone went to your bot and said, "What do you think of the leadership qualities of Donald Trump," are you saying that it would say nothing?
Marshall Goldsmith:
As soon as it hears Donald Trump, it says, "I don't know." It doesn't answer anything related to politics.
Guy Kawasaki:
But Marshall, I could make the case that politics is in great need of leadership, so why are you avoiding that?
Marshall Goldsmith:
You know what? Because I don't want to deal with it. There are twenty-seven hundred million problems in my older years. I've decided I'm not going to fix them. I'm going to delegate that to you.
Guy Kawasaki:
I hope you don't mean me, Guy Kawasaki. You listeners, right?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Let me give you my mission in life as an old man. My mission is try to help people have a little better life. That's it. If I can help anybody have a little better life today, you know what I'm doing? I'm declaring victory here. Those people I coach, I always say, "Now when I coach people, I say, 'Look, I hope I help you be a better leader,' but end of the day, I just want to have a little better life for you."
I always ask them a question. "Is that okay? Is that all right?" You might be shocked to learn that 100 percent of everyone I have ever coached no matter how famous and wonderful they are, you know what they said? "That's a good idea. That's a good idea. Let's do that."
Guy Kawasaki:
In a sense, you are exemplifying the principle of under promise and over deliver, right?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah. I'm serious. I'm not going to do everything. Peter Drucker said, "Our mission life is to make a positive difference. Not to prove we're smart and not to prove we're right." A lot of this arguing about stuff is, "Let's prove I'm smart and let's prove I'm right." If it's not going to help make a positive difference, why are you even wasting your time doing it?
Guy Kawasaki:
This is the gospel according to Marshall. I know the answer to this question, too, but at this stage of life, do you just no longer care that the bot can cannibalize you and maybe you're not going to get some coaching gigs or something? You just don't give a shit, and you just want to help the world?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Wait a minute. Do you know what my coaching fees are?
Guy Kawasaki:
I have no idea.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Well, I'd say I'm starting at about 400,000 bucks a pop. So do you really think anybody that's going to pay me 400,000 dollars a pop is going to sit there and talk to a computer? No. I'm not really threatened by this.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, so you're telling me that the entry point for getting coached by you is 400 grand?
Marshall Goldsmith:
That would be it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Madisun. Take note of this, Madisun. We're going to up our prices. Jesus, I just ask people to buy twenty-five copies of my book, and you're asking for 400 grand. What the hell? That's why you're Marshall Goldsmith, and I'm Guy Kawasaki.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Hey, whatever. You've been undercharging. Now I do a lot of work for free. For example, I'm working right now with the nice woman who's head of the DEA. I don't charge her money. I don't charge money to the children's hospital people or all those people. I do that for nothing. I have two fees, either nothing or a lot.
Guy Kawasaki:
It sounds to me like nothing or infinite.
Marshall Goldsmith:
What does it matter? If you're a multi-billionaire, the amount of money is irrelevant anyway.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't have that problem, so yeah.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Basically, I'm not threatened that I'm going to be replaced by my computer bot. The other thing is my computer bot has already answered 60,000 questions.
Guy Kawasaki:
How did you get the word out such that?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I'm just starting to get the word out, and basically it's already answered 60,000 questions. I can't answer 60,000 questions.
Guy Kawasaki:
How long has it been out?
Marshall Goldsmith:
It's been out for a little bit, but it's just getting better and better. We're just starting to release it right now to the world. The problem is I have so much demand that if I'm not careful, I can crash the system.
Guy Kawasaki:
You're going to be worse than crypto. Your bot is going to affect climate change.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Now the nice thing about me, though, it's all free. I'm not charging any money for mine. Now, are you charging money for GuyBOT?
Guy Kawasaki:
No, not at all.
Marshall Goldsmith:
See, you're a nice guy. You're like me. We're nice old men.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't know if I'm a nice guy or I just can't get away with it because I'm not charging anybody 400 grand either.
Marshall Goldsmith:
But you know what? We talked about this at our last one. I would tell you something. There's no amount of money in the world that would make you any happier than you are now.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's probably true. Yeah.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I can give you twenty-five million bucks tomorrow. You would not be one iota happier a week later.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't know about that, Marshall. Why don't we try that experiment?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I'm betting on it. You seem to me like a very happy guy.
Guy Kawasaki:
I am a happy guy.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I think you're a very happy guy. Common illusion is that somehow I'll be happier when I get money or this achievement or that achievement. No, you won't. Look at you. You seem like you got a very happy life to me. You got a nice life. You meet interesting people. You do interesting stuff. You've done good for the world.
What the heck, man? You got it all. All that matters in life is three things. One, do I have a higher purpose? You have a higher purpose? Two, am I achieving something? You're achieving something. Three, is it fun for me? You seem to be enjoying yourself.
Guy Kawasaki:
My life is complete.
Marshall Goldsmith:
There you go. What are you going to do with a few more bucks? You going to buy a bigger house or car or something? It don't make any difference anyway.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would buy a green Ralph Lauren polo shirt.
Marshall Goldsmith:
There you go. Now that's a worthwhile ambition.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, I have one last tactical question because we've covered it already, but why doesn't your answers put citations? Why doesn't it say, "This is where Marshall discussed this," so if people want to read more about a particular topic, your bot could point them to something?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I don't know.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm just curious. My bot does that better than yours.
Marshall Goldsmith:
There you go.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, my God. This is the odd couple 2024. We're like Walter Matthau arguing about bots.
Marshall Goldsmith:
This is all good. Look, this is the future. Now, have you seen the Apple Pro Vision yet? That thing?
Guy Kawasaki:
No. I refuse to look like a dope with that thing on.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Now here's what's coming. Ultimately, you're going to walk into a room and I'm there, and you can't tell the difference and you're going to be able to sit there and have a conversation with me and talk to me. It's going to seem just like the real me. It's coming. It is coming.
Guy Kawasaki:
I believe that. I look forward to that day.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Whatever. It's going to happen anyway. Option A, have some fun with it. Option B, sit back and complain. So, I'm going with plan A on this one. I think, look, you're doing good. I'm doing good. We're trying to help people. What the heck? Also, we don't have total control of everybody else in the world. I'm not naive.
Look. I wrote an article twenty-five years ago in a book called The Community of the Future, and I said, "Within twenty-five years, media addiction will surpass drug addiction and alcohol addiction combined as a social problem because of TV quality."
Now we're there. Media addiction is an unmitigated disaster in our society. I'm not naive. I know that. I know the downside on all this stuff. The reality is what am I going to do about it? Answer, nada. I'm not going to change any of that stuff. So my attitude is, look, I can sit there and whine about all the bad things that might happen. So what? I'm not going to change them. Let's do something good.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, but Marshall, what if everybody has that attitude about everything? "What can I do about pollution?" Nothing.
Marshall Goldsmith:
You mentioned my clients. My clients, if I talk to them and they start a sentence with but, I charge them twenty dollars. See, you would've lost twenty dollars right there when you said, "But Marshall." So I fine them twenty dollars. Every time I talk, I say, "No but or never. Twenty dollars." One guy, he's stubborn, so I'm talking to him. He says, "But Marshall." I said, "Twenty dollars." He said, "No, no." "Forty, sixty dollars." He lost 420 dollars in an hour and a half. What's your favorite charity?
Guy Kawasaki:
What's my favorite charity? There's a charity in Watsonville, California called Digital NEST. What it does is it provides training in digital skills to basically kids of Hispanic descent so that they have an alternate career path from agriculture to technology and other knowledge work.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I love it. You owe them twenty dollars for paying me back.
Guy Kawasaki:
If you give me the twenty-five million, I'll give it to them.
Marshall Goldsmith:
What is your thinking about this? Look, you and I are on the same path here. My view is I'm going with this thing. To me, this is the most exciting project of my life. For me, this is a lifetime. As long as they're willing to support this, I'm going to put my time and effort into this. I'm feeding this thing daily. I'm editing it all the time. I love it. What's the definition of legacy? Legacy is being there when you're not there. This is it.
Guy Kawasaki:
This is it.
Marshall Goldsmith:
This is it. The only thing about this is, again, no offense to me. It's better than me. I'm not putting myself down here. The reality is it's smarter than I am. It's not even a contest. It's another planet ahead of me. That's okay.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would make the case that when someone like you admits that something like this is better than you, not only is it sign of grace and humility. It's also a sign of just how much class you have. There's a lot of people who would never want to admit that a machine is smarter than them.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I mean, to me, how can you deny it?
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't know.
Marshall Goldsmith:
How can you deny it? The thing is just smart, right? It can answer questions I can't answer, and it can answer questions I can't answer quicker, better. The other thing is I don't have a photographic memory. I've written or edited fifty-five books, but I can't remember all those books I wrote and edited. I can't remember all that stuff. My memory, by the way, is not getting better.
This guy's memory is getting better. I don't say that to be modest. It's ridiculous to pretend otherwise. It's ridiculous to pretend otherwise. This thing is much more sophisticated than me. It answers in a much more thorough way than I do. It's okay. I'm not in a contest. I'm not trying to be smarter than a computer here. Come on, man. But I think it's hard for people just to grow up and face this, though. Let me ask you a question. Why do you think it's so hard for people just to say what I've said?
Guy Kawasaki:
Because they fundamentally lack self-confidence. That's why. I don't know what else to ask you. I know if I think of something to ask you later, Madisun and I are just going to go to your bot and ask and get an oral response. Then we won't have to call you back.
Marshall Goldsmith:
What's fun about all this is, look. I think for both you and me, it's fun. Look, it's fun to do things that kids are doing and young people are doing. What are you doing sitting around? What are you or I going to be doing anyway? Playing bad golf with old men at the country club and eating chicken sandwiches and discussing gallbladder surgery all day. This is much more fun.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would be watching Fox.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Here you go.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, twenty years from now, people are going to find this episode of this podcast. They're going to say, "Look at these guys back in 2024, these two old geezers. They figured it all out." They're going to say, "These people were so smart. Marshall Goldsmith and Guy Kawasaki leading the way at age seventy."
Marshall Goldsmith:
I love it. I love it. I had an experience the other day that was so totally positive. Some young guy says to me, "Do you know about this artificial intelligence? They call it AI. Do you know anything about it?" I said, "No, I don't know much about it, but let me ask my friend. I don't know much about it. Let me ask my little friend here."
Guy Kawasaki:
That is reminiscent of an old film with Tony Montana and he's saying, "Say hello to my little friend." Except it's a computer. It's not a machine gun.
Marshall Goldsmith:
The one thing I'm working on right now with MarshallBOT is I want it to be more human. What I'm working on is I ask it some questions. I insert some. If you ask it, "How many languages do you speak?" You know what it says? "I can barely speak the American version of English." I'm trying to insert a little bit of humor into the thing, so it doesn't just spit back all of these smart sounding answers.
So I'm going back through it now, and I'm answering questions verbally and I'm editing them. Look, the content, forget it. The content is great. The amount of improvement I'm going to make on the content is about that much. On the other hand, what I want to do is make it have more of a sense of humor, a little more fun, a little more easygoing, that kind of stuff.
Guy Kawasaki:
Poor Madisun. She's probably sitting there shaking her head like, "What are these two old geezers going off about AI? Oh, my God. I think we better end it now." Marshall Goldsmith and MarshallBOT, thank you very much. This has been a very entertaining episode. Twenty years from now, I'm telling you. People are going to listen to this and say, "My God. Those two people were so smart back then."
Marshall Goldsmith:
Hey, look. It is what it is. Thank you for inviting me. I always love talking to you. Madisun, what'd you think of all that?
Madisun Nuismer:
I thought it was amazing. You guys are better at using AI than me, honestly.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's not saying that much. FYI, Marshall.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Look, it's all good. Hey, Guy. You ever come to Nashville?
Guy Kawasaki:
No, I'm afraid. I'm a liberal.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Nashville is a liberal town. What are you talking about? Nashville is like Austin.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, okay.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Austin is in a conservative state, but it's a liberal town. Nashville is the same thing.
Guy Kawasaki:
If I ever get there, you will be the first to know.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Oh, yeah. Come to Nashville. I'll take you out. We'll go out. You like to sing?
Guy Kawasaki:
No.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Madisun? Left a good job in the city. I was working for the man every night and day.
Madisun Nuismer:
Every night and day.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, we can go out. I like to sing the karaoke songs. When I sing, I always get a standing ovation. You know what? I'm forty years older than the next singer, so I get a standing ovation when I make it to the top of the stage. I finish the song. "Oh, my God. He finished the song. Yay!"
Guy Kawasaki:
I hope you enjoyed this episode with Marshall Goldsmith and I. We're two friends, and we both love AI. I hope you're already on the AI bandwagon. I hope you're not standing in front of the bandwagon or under the bandwagon or behind the bandwagon. You need to get on this bandwagon because it's going to change the world. If you want to see some attempts at harnessing this power, look at Kawasakigpt.com and MarshallGoldsmith.ai.
Behind the Remarkable People podcast is a remarkable team of good old humans. These humans are Jeff Sieh and Shannon Hernandez on sound design. Tessa Nuismer in research, Madisun Nuismer, producer and co-author. Then there's Fallon Yates, Alexis Nishimura and Luis Magaña. We are all trying to help you be remarkable. Until next time, mahalo and aloha.