Ryan Vet on Business Breakthroughs: How to Future-Proof Your Business in the AI Era

He introduced you to some of the stages.

Yeah, I appreciate it, Vincent, and it is a small world. Larry's a good, good friend. He lives right down the road from me here. But my background, like you said, it's been entrepreneurial. I spent a lot of time in the venture-backed startup world, and grew and scaled companies of all sizes. Some pretty big, some insignificant, and some didn't make it. That's just part of the nature of the business. But in 2021, I left that world from an operational standpoint and being in the day-to-day, either the president or CEO of these companies, and really started looking forward to what it was that I wanted to do with the next chapter in my life. And as I reflected on almost 20 years in the venture-backed space, I really realized there was an opportunity to help business leaders and entrepreneurs look forward into the future. And that's what I devoted a lot of my time and research and writing and speaking to, is saying, hey, I've had a lot of great experiences, happy to share those. But history repeats itself. There's nothing new under the sun. And at some point, as we watch, there's kind of a pendulum swing that goes back and forth. And how can we as business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors take that information and be more successful into the future?

Absolutely. One of the biggest questions I get, whether it's from meeting planners or even teams I work with, is the AI question. And I think there's a lot of people out there that proclaim to be an expert, and I am very bold in saying I am not an expert. I was writing algorithms on paper and whiteboards back in 2009 through 2019. So I have a little bit of experience, but nowhere close to an expert. And I think really what I try to help people understand when we look at AI is, AI is moving faster, it has wider reach than some other innovations. But we look at any innovation in all of modern history and we see the same acceleration pattern. So you see the automobile. The automobile broke us out of neighborhoods and made communities and cities, and then we could travel. You look at the assembly line, even that built the automobile, and some of the implications there. It put people out of jobs, but now people had to build conveyor belts and figure out systems and processes. You look at the computer and internet. So you keep going. And I think one of the most profound questions, and it was years ago that Jeff Bezos is sitting on a stage at one of his conferences for AWS, which is basically the server farm that runs half the internet. He's sitting there, I'm tired of people asking me what's the future look like. He instead says, we have to ask what's not going to change. And I think that's what's really important for us as business leaders. There's all sorts of new innovations that are always going to disrupt, and AI, granted, has touched more areas and has accelerated faster and been adapted more quickly than anything in the past. So that is worth noting. But at the same time, yes, it's going to displace jobs. There's no argument there, but it's also going to create whole new economies that we don't even know and can't fathom yet.

Yeah. I think the first thing, forget industries for just a minute and let's talk about a business regardless of the business. You've got to focus on your leadership skills and how you lead your team well, and how you serve your client well, because businesses can't exist without that. Businesses can't exist without customers or clients. And most businesses, not all, can't exist without team members. And so I think those are the two things that you need to focus on above all before you start figuring out, how do I use AI, where is AI going to interrupt? It's how can I make sure that my company is future-proof because we serve the people well. Once you do that, they'll adjust to the changes that come. So I think that's step one. Step two is, okay, let's look at the economies of efficiency that we can implement into our business today. And there's quite a few of those. So AI can take out a lot of menial, repetitive tasks. There's a lot of money being invested right now at certain levels of an organization that will get replaced, and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. The question is, if you replace that task, do you have to replace that person, or can that person now manage AI tasks and they actually accelerate their capacity 10 times or 20 times or 30 times? So I think that's something that's important, and I think it's forcing human creativity. We've already seen mass layoffs in the development space, mass layoffs in the design space, and video editing is right on the tail here. There's some new cloud co-work skills that have come out that integrate with Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro that edit multicam footage better than most humans and in a fraction of the time. So video editing is also next on the chopping block if you look at the creative services, and those are some of the most expensive things, development, design, and video. And if you're cutting those, that's going to allow cash in your business to invest in other areas. And I think you really need to figure out, okay, if we can repurpose these roles, where can we invest that cash into the future? Because the customers are going to expect more. The customers want that real experience. We saw an interesting trend in the United States here. Gen Z is actually returning to malls, to shopping malls. They're returning to department stores. Barnes & Noble, a popular bookstore, is opening 60 new locations, increasing their footprint significantly, because people want that in-person experience. Starbucks internationally has shut down a bunch of locations, but is focused on their larger locations, and is putting in comfortable seating and making it feel more like a living room, and they're investing a tremendous amount of money in that. So people still want to interact with human beings. And I think that desire is actually increasing more now. And so as you save money here, in certain repetitive tasks or creative services or the many places that we're going to be able to save money, the question is how can you invest in the people experience, because the people that focus on that first, the businesses that focus on that first, will ultimately win.

Ellen. Yeah, she'll be one. Yep. One.

Yeah. As my daughter.

I have three daughters and my eldest is the 17th of July, but she's 2018, so she'll be 10.

Hey, that's great. Yep. It's a good birthday. Good birthday. You know, you were asking, what do I want to do next? And I feel like I've been super blessed and fortunate to have done quite a bit, and I'm still learning every day. I think I'm learning more now the hard lessons than I was in the grind. But I think there's kind of three phases of life, and they're cyclical. Everything's cyclical. But the first one is you're grinding, and that's where most of us start, where we are just working so hard to get our break, to hit that next level, and we're just nose to the grindstone, grinding, grinding, grinding. That's phase one. I think phase two for many is growing, and not everyone gets there, but at some point you get out of the grind and you kind of have that growth where you're soaring a little bit. You're not not working, but it's just smoother. You've kind of hit those smooth waters. And then the final phase, once you've graduated, would be giving. And I feel like that's the opportunity that I have to be in right now. I love sharing the lessons that I've learned. And often when I share what I've learned, I reflect and I learn more about what I did right, and usually more what I did wrong on the journey. And so that's really where I'm at. I plan to continue down this line of giving, and writing. I write every week in my newsletter. And that's amassed quite a big following. It's grown over 20 times in the past nine months. So it's growing real fast, thanks to conversations like this and being on stages. And I just absolutely love the opportunity to be around and help people think about the future in a helpful way that's not scary necessarily, but also make them aware, because some things that we do need to be cautious of.

Plenty, plenty. I don't even know where to start. There are so many, and I would say for every one success you see, there's probably 10 or 20 failures behind that. You know, a really tangible example, and then I'll get into some concrete things that I've had to walk through, but for every speaking gig I get, I reach out to about 100 people to get three speaking gigs. So that means 97 failures or rejections. But I would say with the business world, it's true too. I mean, we've walked through everything from employee embezzlement to lawsuits for things that we didn't even do wrong. One lawsuit, the other company violated their contract, so they sued us. And they lost it in court, and they sued us again. So there's just all these things throughout, and I think the biggest mistakes that I look back, none of those things were fun. Mass layoffs because you're running out of cash, or you run out of cash and you can't deliver, because those are real stages that happen in businesses. People don't talk about that. They talk about when they make the nine-figure businesses, but no, there's times when you're not sure you're going to make payroll, and you're begging people to pull forward invoices and doing some really risky things. And so I think, you know, slow and steady wins the race for a long time in the venture capital world, and still to this day. And one of the reasons why I stepped out of it slightly is it's all about how much money can we put in so you can go spend all that money to hopefully grow. And sometimes you lose it all, sometimes you win it all. But I think the businesses that I see, and the business owners I love working with right now the most, are the ones who are really disciplined. They're like, okay, I'll use easy numbers, but I made $100 this month, and my payroll is $25. That means I have $75 left over. I'm going to save half of that and then invest the next half. And then the next month they make like $1, but they still have payroll at 25. Well, it doesn't matter. They saved. And the ones that are so disciplined, those are the ones that I'm actually seeing create generational wealth that lasts forever and ever and ever. And you don't have to have this big nine-figure, $750 million company, or even $10 million company. You can have a $3 million company that would allow you to retire after doing it for 10 or 15 years, but you do it for a long time because you enjoy it and it's not stressful. And so I think anyone that pursues money as their main measure of success ultimately fails. Not that money is bad, not that you can't pursue certain goals. You should have goals. But I think when money becomes the main thing, almost every time I see those businesses get in the stickiest situations.

Yeah. I think you're completely correct. And I mean, one of my, I had a goal at what age I would have a million dollars. I achieved that goal, and then a year after I lost it, because I kept pushing for the dollar. And money comes and money goes. But I think there's a lot of truth to that. It's when you take sight off of why it is you're doing what you're doing, I think failure is lurking around the corner. And the majority of businesses fail. I mean, we're talking about nine out of 10 worldwide. That's a significant number, and a lot of times it's running out of cash or getting burned out. But if you start a purpose-driven business and you say, hey, whether it's the food truck and I want to make the best hamburger, or I want to have the best customer service, or the fastest turnaround, whatever your purpose is in that food truck, do it and do it well and make that what you obsess over. And when you obsess over that one thing, you'll excel. But it's easy to get distracted. And I think social media does throw you off. You see these people that are flying on the jets, or these lavish five-star vacations and fancy resorts and butlers and all that at a mansion in the Caribbean or somewhere, and you think that you can do that. And yeah, you probably can, but you don't know how long it took them to get there. And most of the people that post that, I found, can't actually afford it. I have a membership-based business, and it's amazing the credit cards that bounce on their dues to be a part of that membership-based business, and they're the ones who are flying first class and all that. I'm like, but you can't even pay your couple hundred a month membership fee. So it's not always what it looks like.

You can, absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, I've spoken in person physically on four different continents. And then virtually, still four continents actually, but more countries virtually. But I think the majority of my research is primarily focused on the UK and Western Europe. The majority of my research comes from the United States, Canada, and then Australia and New Zealand. But when you look at my generational research, that's really where the body of work lies. And it's applicable across the globe. But you have to pick one data set. Otherwise your books and essays would be so long that no one would read them, to peel through all the data that I look at.

Yep. Yep.

I live in North Carolina.

Yes. Yes. That's the bad part about speaking. Everyone's like, oh, you go to all these cool cities. I say, I see the airport, I see the inside of a cab, I see the inside of my hotel room, I see an audience, and I leave. So...

I do. Yes.

Great question, and one of my favorite questions to answer. When I was in the VC world too, I was traveling a lot, so the travel is not new for my family. But one of the things that's really important is I'm always home on Sundays. I will not take anything that requires me to travel on a Sunday. My family knows that no matter what, I'm going to be there, and if not, they're with me. That's kind of the rule. So there is one guaranteed day a week that we are always together. We are always doing stuff together, and usually it's more than one, but that's kind of rule number one, is there are no Sundays where I'm not with the family. Period. Full stop. And then the other thing is, I have done more and more local speaking, and local by United States. I don't actually do much in North Carolina, ironically, but so I will do a lot of day trips. So I'll fly to New York for the day, or I'll fly to Orlando for the day, or Atlanta or Chicago. LA you can't really do it in a day, but I'll fly there and then redeye home. So, because I'm speaking for an hour or two hours, most of these cities I can get to, speak, and fly back, and that way I'm missing maybe one bedtime. And sometimes I'm not even missing bedtime. So that's really important. So even though I speak quite a bit, some of those are at the same conference too. So for example, I had a conference that wanted me to speak three separate times on three separate days, three different talks. I said, since they're each an hour, I can speak three times in one day. I'll be in and out, and that's it. And I also, different than some speakers, I charge per day. And that's very intentional. I could charge per session, but I know how much my day is worth, first of all, but second, if they want me for a second day, they have to pay the second day whether I'm speaking or not. And that will help the meeting to narrow down how long I'm there. And there's disadvantages to that. Professionally, it definitely stunts some of my ability to network or spend more time with the meeting planners or meet other people there. But at the same time, the most important thing is not business. It's family and the relationships that you have, because that's something that you can't buy.

Exactly, and it's afforded my kids the opportunity to travel. My oldest is only six, and he's been to 27 states I think and three countries. My middle, I think like 18 states, and also three countries. And then my daughter, not as many. But she's only nine months old, so she's got a little bit more time to catch up.

Right. Right.

It's fun. It's fun. It's good to keep the family center.

It is, yep.

It's looking at the current generations in society, from the silent generation all the way to Gen Beta now being born in 2026, and it looks at all those generations, what is going on in society and culture, how that impacts leaders, parents, businesses into the future. So it takes that lens and says, hey, kids these days have this problem, or people retiring this day have this personality trait, or this generation accumulates wealth but doesn't spend it. So how do you react to those different things?

It'll be one year next week that I've done.

One year.

Yes. Yes.

You know, I write, I try to write really good content as much as I can. Not all of them are home runs. But then I ask intentionally, people, to share it. I think that's one thing that I've learned. If you want someone to share it or subscribe, you've got to ask for it. And so I'll ask my most loyal subscribers, say, hey, I see your open rates, you know, 95% over the last two months, would you mind sharing this? Or who do you think needs to hear it? And I also narrate it too, so you can, if you don't like reading, which ironically, as much as I write, I don't prefer reading. So I will narrate it, and it's like a little audio book for each newsletter, and I think that gets a lot of traction as well.

Yeah, I do.

I do. It's just reading the newsletters is what the podcast is.

Yeah. So it works like that.

Correct. Correct.

I don't think so. I appreciate the opportunity, and I love always knowing how small the world is and how we can make an impact where we are, and it matters, the people you invest with, because you never know when Larry Long Jr. is going to be in Scotland.

Awesome. Thanks, Vincent.