Josh Steimle's Linkedin Analytics

I'm seeing a lot of posts about AI ripping off the work of artists. This will only accelerate, and we'll hear more complaining. I think the complaints are fair, but unproductive. Here's why... Imagine you were a musician one or two hundred years ago when recording technology was becoming a thing. "How dare they even think to record me!" you might say. After all, you've lived all your life in a world where musicians played live, got paid to play live, and there was no other option. The thought of recording might feel like a threat. To think that someone could pay a mere $10 and then listen to one's music whenever they wanted, as much as they wanted, might feel like theft to someone whose music could previously only be heard live and in-person at a much higher cost. Of course, in hindsight, we know that music recording allowed musicians who would never have played outside their hometown to become world-famous, impact more people, and make a lot more money. Ironically, it's come full circle such that music stars today make more money from touring than from music sales, but without recording and the mass distribution of music that wouldn't be the case. "Yes, but if AI is ripping off artists without attribution or compensation then that's not giving artists a new way to make money, it's just stealing!" I'm not saying it's a perfect apples to apples comparison, but I think there are similarities. The first similarity is that AI is an unstoppable force. Fight it, and you'll lose. The second similarity is that there is almost certainly an opportunity here that's much larger than the perceived downside. Perhaps it's that a proliferation of AI-generated art will increase the appreciation of and demand for art generally, and that will in turn increase the demand for human-created art. Perhaps AI will assist artists to find more customers, faster, who will pay more. I didn't even know what Studio Ghibli was until yesterday when AI-generated art in the Studio Ghibli style began appearing everywhere. Now everyone knows about Studio Ghibli or will know within a day or two. Do you think that's going to decrease or increase demand for Studio Ghibli's products and services? But the important thing to understand is that we don't know exactly how things will play out. There will be great opportunities for artists (and entrepreneurs, business leaders, authors, musicians, and anyone else) who embrace AI that none of us can see right now. You can try to stop the wave and get knocked over and dragged under, or surf it and have the ride of your life. What will you choose?

I'm tired of dealing with banks for business debt financing. If you've got $250K or more you can lend, and you'd like to make a 20%/year return on it, let me know.

If you're an entrepreneur, what's the #1 thing you need help with right now? Maybe I can help, maybe someone I know can help, maybe someone I don't know will see your comment and can help.

What's the vibe you sense these days in the business world, at work, professionally, etc.? 1. Things are good and getting better. 2. Things are bad and getting worse. 3. Not sure, waiting to see where things go. 4. Other? 5. The world is crazy but what are you gonna do, sit around and wait for something? Gotta get on with things, regardless. It's the 5th one I feel like I'm seeing a lot, maybe with some of #1, but more of a "I'm cautiously optimistic." You?

Greatness can be taught, but not everyone is ready to learn.

Are you a tortoise or hare? Or how much of each? The ADHD side of me is the hare. I will have spurts of creativity and productivity where I get six months of work done in a week. On the other hand, even when I'm slow, I never stop. I never give up. I keep on grinding away. So I can't say I'm either the hare or the tortoise—it depends on what I'm doing and what day it is. Overall, I'd say I'm probably 80% tortoise and 20% hare...maybe. I'm not sure. What about you?

This is not an America-first thing, but tell me what you think about a dev outsourcing firm that only uses US-based programming talent. This was an idea born from my own experiences outsourcing dev work overseas. Over the past 25 years I've outsourced to the Philippines, India, China, Bulgaria, Romania, etc. I've paid high and I've paid low. I've recruited directly, and I've gone through agencies that promise the best and brightest. I've worked with individuals and firms. Nothing ever worked for me. In fact, most times it blew up in spectacular fashion. On the other hand, I've had great experiences hiring developers in the US. The only catch was that they cost more, but in every other way the experience has been ideal with rare exceptions. Since there's no cost-savings that can make up for an unsuccessful project, I gave up entirely on outsourcing dev overseas. I'm sure it works for some people, but I'm done dealing with it. I suspect there's a segment of other companies that are also done with it, which is why I'm working with the dev team at MWI to create a new dev firm called Built, which will offer dev services (starting with WordPress) on a fractional basis. So if you have a marketing agency and you do websites, but it's a here and there type of thing and you don't want to hire someone full time, you can hire half a WordPress developer through us. If you have a self-storage company and you need to build a new enterprise website in the next 8 months, but you don't want to hire a team of full-timers nor do you have the time to find the right team anyway, we'll give you a team for that duration and they'll already have experience working together. And we promise that every developer who's on your project is based in the US—we won't be outsourcing it overseas at $10/hr and then charging you $300/hr for inefficiently provisioned time. Thoughts?

"I may not be fast, but I keep going." I run trail ultramarathons and this is what I tell myself when I'm out in the mountains. It's also what I tell myself in my business and other areas of life. I have a few other variations: "I may not be smart, but I keep going." "I may not be smart, but I keep learning." "I may not get there first, but I'll get there." I once ran a 70K race with a guy who did it in 8 hrs. It took me 14 hrs. I was slow, but I kept on going. I didn't get there first, but I got there. I have a business mentor, who's seven years younger than me, and much, much more successful financially than I am. He's always telling me how stupid I am and what I'm doing wrong and how I need to change (in a polite, kind way). When he tells me something I slap my forehead, say, "Oh, duh!" and then I think, "I may not be that smart, but I keep learning and I keep going." These are simple things to say, but they help me. Do you have things like this that you say to yourself that help you to keep going and keep improving?

As an entrepreneur, would you rather land a new deal for $50K/month or save $5K on office space? The only right answer is, "It depends," although I think a lot of entrepreneurs would immediately jump on the $50K/month deal without thinking it through. What does it depend on? 1. How profitable is the deal? If you're making a 10% profit on the deal, you're breaking even with the $5K you stand to save on office space. Except if you're saving money, it doesn't require you to do any work. Not that it's like landing a $50K deal and not having to do any work (then your profit would be ~$50K). If your margin is 20% then it's a different matter. 2. Do you suffer any negative consequences from whatever action saves you money on office space? 3. Are there any positive or negative externalities from landing this new client? Will they increase budgets and become more profitable in the future? Do they give you a foothold into a new industry? Will they be a great case study? Or are they difficult to work with and will make your team frustrated? It's true you often can't save your way to success—there are only so many costs you can cut, whereas there are virtually no limits to growing revenue. But without a short term, there is no long term, so don't underestimate the potential benefits of saving in the short term.