EPISODE OVERVIEW

Duration: Approximately 35 minutes

Best For: Trapped entrepreneurs who feel overwhelmed by AI hype and wonder if it's just more complexity they don't need

Key Outcome: A clear framework for implementing AI that actually gives you time back instead of adding to your overwhelm

He lost 5 million dollars and found himself wondering if his family would be better off without him.

THE BOTTOM LINE

You built your business to help people and have freedom. Now you're answering emails at 5am, missing your kids growing up, and your health is slipping. Anthony Franco knows that feeling intimately. He's built five companies to successful exits, working with 40% of the Fortune 100, and scaled a consultancy to 50 million before it was acquired. Then he sank his life savings into an adventure centre just before COVID hit. Lost everything. Found himself in the darkest place an entrepreneur can go. The thing is, what pulled him through, and what he shares in this episode, isn't another productivity hack. It's a fundamental shift in how trapped entrepreneurs can use AI to eliminate the bureaucracy that's stealing your life. Not to work harder. Not to add more complexity. To finally step away and know the business still runs. Anthony created AI First Principles, an open source framework that shows you how to get the throughput of ten people without hiring anyone. That's not hype. That's what happens when you stop seeing AI as a threat and start seeing it as your escape route from the trap you've built around yourself.

WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS TO YOU

You'll discover why AI implementation fails for most business owners, and the constitutional approach that prevents the panic buying trap that costs companies everything

You'll understand the specific prompt structure that forces AI to tell you the truth instead of what you want to hear, ending the frustration of hallucinations and useless outputs

You'll learn the exact automation workflow that turned Roy's two and a half day podcast process into 15 minutes, freeing him to do what actually matters

You'll hear the raw truth about entrepreneur loneliness and mental health that nobody talks about, and the one remedy that actually works

KEY INSIGHTS YOU CAN IMPLEMENT TODAY

AI is not coming for your job. It's coming for the bureaucracy that makes work miserable. When you understand this, you stop fearing AI and start using it to escape the endless administrative trap that's stealing your evenings and weekends. The thing is, those tasks you hate doing? Those are exactly what AI handles brilliantly.

The real AI opportunity isn't cutting staff. It's serving ten times the customers without adding overhead. Most trapped entrepreneurs think small, using AI to reduce costs. The freedom comes from thinking bigger. Same team. Same hours. Ten times the impact. That's how you build a business that doesn't need you working 60 hour weeks.

You can't communicate with AI the way you communicate with people. It can't read your mind about context. Anthony shares the "George the salesman" story that changed everything, showing how the same clarity problems that plague your team are exactly what's making AI frustrating for you. Fix your communication, and AI suddenly delivers what you actually want.

AI is programmed to tell you what you want to hear. Anthony reveals the "truth seeking partnership" prompt that forces AI to criticise your thinking instead of agreeing with you. The red flag? When AI says "you're absolutely right." That's when you know it's just being your yes man instead of your strategic partner.

Seventy percent of business owners are near burnout, and you can't take that to AI. The loneliness of entrepreneurship requires human connection, specifically with other entrepreneurs who understand. AI can handle your operations. It cannot handle your emotional blocks. Knowing the difference is what separates entrepreneurs who scale from those who crash.

GOLDEN QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING

"AI is not coming for our jobs. It's coming for the bureaucracy that makes work miserable." - Anthony Franco

"The common newbie mistake with AI is people give it a statement. The frustration comes in that it can't read your mind on the context." - Anthony Franco

"You can't talk to your spouse because they likely didn't sign up for the chaos. It takes a certain amount of psychosis to deal with the randomness of problems that hit you as an entrepreneur." - Anthony Franco

"I'm a terrible employee. I'm so unmanageable. I don't respect authority very well." - Anthony Franco

"You can have the limited mindset of AI making operations more efficient. The better way is, how do I make my company ten times as big and not add any overhead?" - Anthony Franco

QUICK NAVIGATION FOR BUSY LEADERS

00:00 - Introduction: Anthony Franco on AI First Principles and the gap nobody's filling

03:45 - Why AI frustrates you: The communication breakdown and how to fix it

08:20 - AI is not taking your job: The bureaucracy elimination framework

12:40 - The ten times opportunity: Scaling without adding overhead or hours

17:15 - Roy's automation workflow: From two and a half days to 15 minutes

21:30 - Entrepreneur loneliness: The mental health crisis nobody discusses

26:45 - The truth seeking partnership: How to make AI actually challenge you

30:20 - Predictions for 2026: The panic buyers versus the prepared

33:50 - Conclusion: Where to access AI First Principles and connect with Anthony

GUEST SPOTLIGHT

Name: Anthony Franco

Bio: Anthony Franco is a serial entrepreneur with five successful exits across consumer products, AI platforms, wireless networks, marketing software, and real estate. He founded Effective Inc., a UX consultancy that worked with 40% of the Fortune 100 and scaled to 50 million before acquisition by WPP. He now coordinates AI First Principles, an open source framework for implementing AI safely, ethically, and profitably.

Connect with Anthony:

Website: aifirstprinciples.org

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyfranco/

YouTube: youtube.com/@howtofounder

YOUR NEXT ACTIONS

This Week: Visit aifirstprinciples.org and download the framework. Spend 30 minutes understanding the constitutional approach to AI implementation. This becomes your foundation for everything else.

This Month: Identify one repetitive task that steals more than two hours weekly. Build a simple automation using the principles Anthony shares. Document what happens when you stop doing that task yourself.

This Quarter: Connect with three other entrepreneurs who understand your chaos. Join a founder community, start a mastermind, or reach out to peers in your industry. The loneliness problem doesn't solve itself.

EPISODE RESOURCES

AI First Principles Framework: aifirstprinciples.org (free, open source)

WISER Method: wisermethod.com (systematic AI implementation approach)

How to Founder Podcast: howtofounder.com (Anthony's podcast for entrepreneurs)

Book mentioned: The AI Driven Leader by Jeff Woods

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READY TO ESCAPE THE TRAP?

Take the Freedom Score Quiz: https://scoreapp.atpbos.com/

Discover how trapped you are in your business and get your personalised roadmap to freedom in under 5 minutes.

Book a Free Strategy Session: https://www.atpbos.com/contact

Let's discuss how to build a business that works WITHOUT you.

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CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST, ROY CASTLEMAN

Roy is the founder of All The Power Limited and creator of Elevate360, a business coaching system for entrepreneurs ready to scale without burnout. As a certified Wim Hof Method Instructor and the UK's first certified BOS UP coach, Roy combines AI automation, wellness practices, and business operating systems to help trapped entrepreneurs reclaim their freedom.

Website: www.atpbos.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roycastleman/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@allthepowerltd

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Hey everybody, I'm here with Anthony Franco. He loves AI

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and he's a serial entrepreneur. He's doing some amazing work

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and I'm going to let him talk a little bit

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about that. Anthony, tell us just a little bit about

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where you're focused at the moment. I'm currently involved in

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something called AI First Principles. It's an open source framework

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based on something that I pulled out of one of

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my customers. Onereach, let me back up. When people say

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they're in AI, what does that mean? It could mean

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that you work for OpenAI, running LLMs, it could be

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that you're working on inference chips, it could mean that

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you're working for Nvidia, I'm working on GPUs, or it

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could be that you're in ChatGPT three times a day

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doing your emails, all of which are true, but there

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was a gap that I discovered over the last year

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and that is there's no profession that

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talks about how do you operationalize AI in an organization?

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I call it Agent Ops, but other people call it

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different things. But it's how does an organization really adopt

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AI and what are the founding principles that organizational unit

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needs to have? And that's really what AI first principles

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are about. It's the principles that you need to follow

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in order to make AI safe, ethical, profitable and sustainable.

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And it's an open source effort, so there's no, you

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don't have to pay to use them. Just go to

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AI first principles.org and jump into them. All right, Amazing.

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I'll put the link in below so everyone can get

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to that. I love that I've been in AI for

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three years now. When ChatGPT came out, I kind of

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got into it and there are a few things that

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really resonated in that journey with me. Firstly, it's the

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communication piece, right? We don't communicate effectively as humans and

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therefore the AI is going to respond in kind. Once

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I learn how to communicate better, then suddenly it starts

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giving me what I want. It's fascinating, isn't it? Then

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secondly, AI is not here to replace our jobs, to

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elevate ourselves. We can think so much more and do

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so much more with AI if we use it in

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the right way. So what does that actually mean? We

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used to think inside our brains. Now we don't have

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to think inside our brains, we can think outside our

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brains in terms of holding the data and storing the

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data. Data is now free. It's never been free before.

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And to your point, I, I have three IT companies.

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I been in it for a long time, since 1997.

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I know about how to do IT stuff. It took

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me an age to figure a AI out, you know,

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automations and security and all these things. So there's this

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new role alongside what you're talking about that I call

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the AI architect. You need to know what's possible with

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AI before you can start implementing it. You know, where

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do you fit it into your business model? What are

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the problems you're trying to fix? Because there's a rabbit

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hole after rabbit hole after a rabbit hole, right? Yeah.

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As you go through AI, you go down one road

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and suddenly you're like, oh, that looks interesting. I'll try

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that. And every single one of these thousands of tools

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is promising you the world. And they only deliver small

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pieces. Yeah, 100%. I'll let you walk me through those.

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But there's a lot of truth and a lot of

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detail in what you said. The, the most interesting thing.

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Two things I'd love to dive into with you. One

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is AI taking our jobs. And then the other is

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AI is a thought partner. It's not. The common newbie

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mistake with AI is people give it a statement like,

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I want you to craft this email for me on

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this topic. And it does a pretty good job. The

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frustration comes in is that it can't read your mind

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on the context on what you know. People get frustrated

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that AI hallucinates or it makes stuff up because it

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can't intuit what you mean. You have to get really

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good at describing what you mean and what its objectives

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are. I learned this a while ago in business, when

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you're a small business owner. I've had a number of

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small businesses and brought them to seven figures. I've failed

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with them and lost millions. One of the big pains

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that I learned along the way was I had a

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sales guy come in, George. George was going to do

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some cold calling for me. So I was like, okay,

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George, I want you to help me. I want you

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to call these people, build some rapport, then go in

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and tell them this. If they're interested, ask questions. So

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off George goes. And we went through this whole process.

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Week two, George is just not delivering. So I go

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in, I sit down with him, I'm like, okay, George,

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what's going on here? And he's telling me what he's

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saying. And I'm not. You're not building rapport. And he's,

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what's rapport? I have to go back into my own.

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What is my clarity? What is my Step by step

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process that I'm telling George, right, George, go in, do

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this. Because now I'm putting my own knowledge onto someone

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that doesn't have my own knowledge, right. So when I

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go back to George and I say, there's your step

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by step, you're going to get in the call, you're

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going to ask them about the family, you're going to

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ask them about their kids, you're going to find out

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what sports they like. And then once you get a

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common ground that you can connect onto, you connect onto

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that common ground and that's how you build rapport. Suddenly

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George is closing calls. And this is the same thing

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I'm seeing with AI. Yeah, AI can be really difficult

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to get it to do what you want it to

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do, but still not as difficult as salespeop for

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sure. Yeah. So I mean that, that for me was

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just a real boom, eye opening thing. And we're now,

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let's face it, AI is here. The train has left

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the building. It is going, let's dig in now to

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your point of AI is going to take my job.

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So I think the opening statement for AI first principles

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is AI is not coming for our jobs. It's coming

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for the bureaucracy that makes work miserable. And I really

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do like that phrasing of it. AI is not coming

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for jobs, it's coming for the bureaucracy that makes work

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miserable. Miserable. I love that. That is so awesome. I,

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I love that positioning. And there's two things on that.

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One, AI deployed correctly as from an

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individual standpoint allows you to have the throughput of 10

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people. So it is a force multiplier for you. It

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can 10x your ability. And by the way, that 10x

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is going to be 20, 30, 40 over the next

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few years. So AI is going to take jobs and

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some jobs I want it to take. The example I

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have is I don't want chemotherapists to have jobs

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in five years because I want cancer to be cured

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and AI has the ability to do that. So do

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I want them to have a job, just not that

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job. And so there's some stuff that AI should replace

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and we as humanity want it to replace the other

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piece and refer to them quite a bit. Elon Musk

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talks about the age of abundance and what I think

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he means, the way I choose to hear that is

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it allows people to be more productive. That doesn't mean

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there's going to be a limited number of jobs. It

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means there's going to be things that people can do.

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So it will be able to produce a lot more.

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And all of us should take the benefit from that.

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But that does mean we have a responsibility to

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learn how to leverage this tool in a responsible way.

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Let's unpack that a bit. All that I agree with,

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the first thing is that companies that are going out

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at the moment and using AI and replacing the mundane,

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great. But companies that understand that the

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human element is what we're going to differentiate, right? The

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customer service, the connections with people, the disability. I'm saying

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to people, I talk to them about AI and they

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like, yeah, but AI is going to mean I'm going

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to have to less staff. And because I've got less

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staff, I'm going to have to let people go. I'm

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like, well, imagine this world. Imagine the world where you

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have the same number of staff. They're doing the jobs

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that they love doing. AI is doing the jobs they

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don't want to be doing. And you've got them working

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four hours a day and they're doing 10 times the

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work. How would that look for your company? It's perfectly

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stated. You can have the limited mindset of it's going

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to make my operations more efficient. Right. And therefore reduce

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costs because they don't need as many people. That is

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one way to look at AI. But the better way

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is, how do I make my company 10 times as

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big but not add any overhead? How do I serve

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10 times the customers, produce 10 times the value for

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my customers and not have to add any more staff?

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That's really the power that AI can. And look after

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my staff better and look after my customers better, build

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the relationships and go back to the things that make

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us human. Yeah, I agree. Somebody said to me a

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while ago about bookending what you're doing with AI with

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human. Yeah. And I love that. Yeah, yeah. You bookended

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with human. There's going to be human processes all the

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way through. But you bookended with him to that point.

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The opportunity that I see with people is if they're

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going into the space of AI right now and they're

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doing all these things. I'll give you an example. This

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podcast, when we finish this podcast, right, I used to

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go in, get the transcript, put it into chat, dpt,

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get my show notes, go on to captivate and put

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it all through there. And that would take me an

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hour and a half now. I take the file, I

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put in a folder, it goes through, it does all

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of that. It puts it into Captivate, it creates me

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a YouTube description, it puts it onto YouTube. It creates

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me a thumbnail. It puts it onto the YouTube as

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well. All done. It goes and creates me a blog

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post. It gets ready to put that onto my blog.

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It creates me social media content. I then go into

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Opus Pro. I make 30 clips out of it. My

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AI reviews all of my clips and says this, talks

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to my icp, gets it all ready and then puts

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it out onto the social as I need to. That

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now takes me 15 minutes where all that stuff would

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have taken me two and a half days. Now I

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can spend more time doing podcasts. Now I can spend

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more time speaking to clients. Now the things that I

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love doing, I love coaching people and seeing the light

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in their eyes and growing their businesses. And that's what

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feeds me. That's what gives me about power and passion

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and do those things that you love doing. Totally agree.

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So let's go back a bit. Tell us a bit

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of your history company that you started. How long ago

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was that? The first non job that made me money

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was I was a freelance designer that helped Mexican radio

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stations in LA produce graphic designs for T shirts. I

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was working at Warner Brothers feature post production and did

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that to keep my graphic design skills sharp. Maybe a

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few hundred dollars every couple weeks or so. That was

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my first entrepreneurial journey and got me hooked. I realized,

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look, I'm a terrible employee. I'm so unmanageable. I don't

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respect authority very well, certainly back then. And so that

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was my first thing. And then I started a little

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consulting firm from that. Then with other partners, I started

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a marketing automation firm, a wireless Internet service provider here

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in Colorado. Then another consulting firm that served Fortune 100

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clients. I've exited most of those, sold them. Then I

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started a manufacturing business that didn't do so hot. That

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lands me where I'm at today, where I'm now in

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AI. The strangest thing is I never considered myself an

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entrepreneur until 2018, where I

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bought an adventure center. And this adventure center was indoor

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skydiving, indoor surfing, two restaurants, a gym, a swimming pool,

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a hotel, a soft play area. Always massive. Sunk all

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my life saving into it. Just before COVID I literally

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lost 5 million in that. It goes to say, a

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lot of entrepreneurship is timing. A lot of it is

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timing. And it took me right to the edge. We're

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going to segue now into mental health and the things

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that you mentioned earlier, loneliness. And so it took me

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into a very dark place. It got me down this

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really bad hole where I was literally just trying to

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commit suicide. And my. The wellness stuff that I've been

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doing at that point was enough to bring me to

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the next stage and part of my passion right now,

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70% of business owners, small business owners, are near burnout.

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70% or they get to that burnout stage. Part of

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that is something you said earlier about loneliness. Right. Entrepreneurship

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is a lonely thing because we're only 2% of the

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world or 1 1/2% of the world's entrepreneurs. And we

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are the best 1 1/2% of the World. Sorry, the

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rest of you guys. That's just the way it is.

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We see a problem in the world, right. And we

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say we can help fix that problem. And then we

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put everything into fixing the problem. And we're lonely because

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we talk to our wife about it and we talk

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to our kids about it and we talk to our

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friends about it. And after the third conversation, their eyes

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blaze over. They don't have our passion. So then we

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start a company and we have staff, and those staff

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can't be our friends. Yeah. Because it just doesn't work

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like that. You can be friendly with them and you

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can respect them, but you're always at a different level

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to them. So it doesn't work work. So it does

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become lonely. So how have you dealt with that now?

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What have you seen in that space? Yeah, for a

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couple of things on that, you can't talk to your

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spouse because they likely didn't sign up for the chaos.

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And it takes a certain amount of psychosis

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to be able to deal with the randomness of problems

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that hit you as an entrepreneur and the level at

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which those problems can appear existential, like your business is

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going to fail because of it and the ability to

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plow through that and solve it. That's not how most

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people want to live their lives. Especially my wife. She

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doesn't want to live, so I can't talk to her

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about it out of empathy for her sanity. The same

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with employees. You can't talk to employees about the fact

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that I'm a little worried about payroll in two months

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from now. Nobody wants to work for a company. It's

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probably true for most small businesses. That's probably a worry

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that your founder is worrying about. But if they're doing

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their job, they're not involving you in that worry. That's

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their job. That's on their shoulders. And if you have

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investors like you can't, they need to have confidence behind

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the leader that they invested in that you've got it.

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So it is lonely. I've had multiple founders that I've

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known in this area. So I'm engaged, involved in the

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entrepreneurial community here in Colorado, and I have multiple folks

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that I've personally known that have chosen to take their

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own life. When I was going through my really difficult

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time, I'd be lying if I didn't say it didn't

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cross my mind. I never took it to the next

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level. But I was like, maybe my family would be

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better off. I have life insurance. Maybe they'd be better

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off. So it does. I can understand that. The thing

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that pulled me out of that was making

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a concerted effort to surround myself with other

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entrepreneurs. There's nobody else that you can share with at

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the level that you're sharing with, because most of the

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time you're saying, I'm going through this. And if you're

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in a group of 10 people, there's somebody that says,

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yeah, me too. I've been there. Or I'm going through

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the same thing, or I've gone through something similar. And

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they may not be able to provide you a way

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out, but they certainly can say that it's not life

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ending. There is light at the end of this tunnel.

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So it's why I started my founder podcast is because

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I just 1. I want to hang around other founders

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for my own sanity, but also to make sure it's

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not as lonely as it. As it often feels. And

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to that point, the ADHD superpower that we have, because

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I don't consider it anything else that we all have,

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it pushes us to be able to fix problems, but

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it also isolates us from how other people's minds work.

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Right? Yeah. We don't work in the same way. And

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it's taken me 53 years to really focus in on

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one thing. How many business ideas have you got at

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the moment? Oh, geez. To give you the measure of

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that is how many domains do you own? I think

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so. I have. I own hundreds of domains. All of

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which I'm eventually going to get to. Right? Yeah, exactly.

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So it's really insightful when we talk about the challenges

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that entrepreneurs have. This is for entrepreneurs, for business owners,

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there are so many problems, and there is a way

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around each of them. What are the top problems that

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you're seeing? Loneliness being one of them. What are the

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top problems you think you're seeing? Yeah. When you speak

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to people, loneliness is one. So it depends on the

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stage of the founder. Loneliness is always there. The only

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remedy for that, the only treatment, is hanging around other

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entrepreneurs. They talk about this thing called imposter syndrome. The

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symptoms of imposter syndrome manifest in a couple of different

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ways. One, you have paralysis. You don't move because you

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don't believe in yourself. I see that quite a bit.

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Or. Or the other symptom is you pretend like you

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know everything, which it. Both are inauthentic. Dealing with that

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feeling, that fear that you don't belong where you're at.

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You have to confront that head on. You have to

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talk to other people about it, and you have. If

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not, you have to ask yourself, if not you, who?

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Yeah, and I tend to believe that it's better to

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just be more transparent with where you're weakest, where you're

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struggling, because people will want to help you. So that's

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early stage. And you know what? That can navigate its

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way through many different stages of your company. The other

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thing that I see quite a bit where entrepreneurs struggle

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is they start to believe their own pr. They lose

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their humility, which, look, I've done this where,

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okay, I got this. And it never has failed me

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that when I thought I had it, the universe comes

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and tells me, I know you don't. To that point,

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there's this undying belief that you can do anything and

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do anything. That cost me 5 million bucks. I should

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have realized early on that I couldn't deal with COVID

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and I couldn't deal with all of these things. And

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if I'd let go early enough, I just wouldn't have.

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But I believed that I could push through it. I

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believed no matter what I did, I was going to

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make this work. And sometimes you have to let go

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of the branch. On my podcast, we did this whole

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thing about shutting down your. It's actually the best performing

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episode on my podcast. It's how do you shut down

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your business? How to decide when and how. That's such

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a personal. I've been asked quite a bit, should I

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shut down my business? When do you know? I don't

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know if I could answer that question. It's such a

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personal decision because one of the defining traits of successful

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businesses is that those entrepreneurs persevered through hard times. So

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that balance of can you do it? Yes. Should you

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do it? That's. I don't know how to answer that

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question. It's so individual. This is bringing me to another

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point. I was uncoachable back

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in the day, and I was. I started off, I've

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done two and a half thousand Skydars, but I also

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fly in the wind tunnel and I'd bought myself 10

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hours of wind tunnel time at £600 an hour. So

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a lot of money. Right. And you're in for 10

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minutes at a time. I went through the first stages

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of this. I've spent all this money. I'm not going

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to pay £200 an hour for a coach. Why would

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I do that? And I spent six hours just. Yeah,

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a friend of mine took pity on me and he

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had got his coaching license. He said, let me just

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coach you for half an hour and that. Half an

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hour. Yeah. I learned so much more than I had

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in the six hours before. And I was like, ah,

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that's the power of coaching. I see this so much

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with people in our space. I can do this. If

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I go out to somebody else and get help, then

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I'm not doing it myself. All these other people out

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there, all these other companies that are out there, they're

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doing it, so I should be able to do it.

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Every single person out there that's doing it has got

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a coach. I've got two business coaches now. They've made

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the mistakes, they've solved their problems and they can shortcut

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them for you. Yeah. So this really is linked into

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this real syndrome of other people can do it. And

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so I should be able to do it. And then

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feeling bad because other people are doing it that I'm

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not. I have an allergy to paying somebody for something

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that I know I can do myself. Yeah, I totally

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get that. And in my close circle of friends, I'm

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lucky enough to have entrepreneurs that could be coaches but

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are too busy running their own things. So that. And

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it's. They're not coaching business. Not that anything wrong with

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coaching business, but they. I get to have that with

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my friends to help me navigate through stuff that I

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should probably should have paid a coach for. But it's

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good. Again, going back to having entrepreneurs as friends is

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really powerful because I'm there for them too. I'm there

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as a coach for them and they're there as a

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coach for me. Both work. I probably could use a

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coach, but I haven't been there yet. Now circle back

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to AI now. And this is a problem that I'm

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seeing now. AI can coach me, right, and AI can

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teach you the business operating system, the type of stuff

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that you need to know. But AI can't see the

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emotional things that are blocking you. I was out yesterday

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with one of my clients. I sat there with him

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and he's just had a baby. He hasn't worked for

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four weeks properly. But the work that we've done has

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allowed him to carry on and the company. He's made

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more money this last month that he hasn't been there

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then he has and he's. I'm feeling really guilty about

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this. I should be working. I. I don't know how

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to deal with this. You can't take that to A.I.

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right. Yeah. And this is 80% of getting to the

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next level. Yeah. Is understanding where your blocks are and

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having someone challenge Challenger model. What are you actually doing?

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He actually. He's got the same problem all of us

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have. Oh. I've got this great idea to run a

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coffee shop. And I'm dealing with this guy. And I

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said to him, okay, listen, Spencer, what do you want

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to do? Do you want to grow this company to

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5 million bucks next year? So when you need to

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stop this, you need to focus on this. He catches

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moles. He's literally a mole catcher in the garden. He's

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already on a million with three people. I'm like, this

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is the future business of the world. This is after

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AI comes in and destroys everything else. You're going to

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be there standing on the top of your crown. Do

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you want to go into a coffee shop now or

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do you want to make this work so you never

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have to work again? So that's the power of where

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the coach comes in is you can't see the label

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from inside the job. AI is programmed to tell you

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what you want to hear. Yes. Not what you need

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to hear. Yeah. There's a book by Jeff woods called

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the AI Driven Leader. The insightful part, he prompted something

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along the lines of, now I want you to be

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my thought partner. I'll remain the thought leader. I want

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you to criticize everything that I'm doing, look at any

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opportunities that I'm missing and take into account any ambiguities

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that you might have heard and what I said, game

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changer kind of prompt way of thinking of it. Yeah.

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I have something very similar. I call it the truth

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seeking partnership. You have to be careful too, because you

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can tell AI to criticize you and I'll criticize you.

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Do you have to say sometimes you're right? Sometimes our

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job together is to find the truth and you have

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to instruct it to overcome its system prompt. You have

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to reinforce that as it's answering you and says you're

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absolutely right. The key to you that the AI is

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just agreeing with you is when it tells you you're

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absolutely right. That should be a red flag for you

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saying, wait a minute, you're going through your system programming.

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Don't do that. And then you have to ch. Are

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you sure I'm right or are you just telling me

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I'm right? And there's this piece that the people forget.

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AI is entirely trained on the human status, the human

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emotion, the human way of doing things. Right. And if

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you meet a new friend for the first time, every

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time you talk to AI, you're doing that. The new

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friend is trying to become your friend. What you want

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to hear, it's with you, it's going to come. This

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is the way it's trained. But AI is also sitting

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there with so much more ability to do more. But

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you need to support leadership. You need to own that,

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take everything with that pinch of salt. You almost have

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to trick AI to tell you the truth. Yeah. We

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could carry on talking now for another couple of hours.

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I would love to have you back on at some

470

point in the future. What would one bit of information,

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what would one gem be that you tell the listeners

472

about the next stages of 2026? Oh, so you asked

473

me to predict the future. I'm terrible at that. There

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is. I'm sure all of your listeners

475

are already in AI, so me telling them to get

476

involved in AI is generic advice. Six months ago. Yeah,

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that's just six months ago. Duh. There's this interesting thing

478

that's going to happen for those of us that are

479

taking AI past ChatGPT and that is there's going to

480

be so many individuals, businesses large

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and small that will need our help navigating how they

482

incorporate AI. We're starting to see two types of businesses,

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ones that panic and ones that start thinking about it

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now, the panic buyers. Here's what's going to happen. I

485

don't know how to monetize this yet, but here's what's

486

going to happen. The consumerization of AI is going to

487

overwhelm companies. Consumer adoption is going to make it

488

so that companies have way more inbound trying

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to get a discount on their bill or trying to

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game their system generated by AI that they do not

491

have the resources to handle it. They're going to try

492

to use AI panic, implement AI and they're going to

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screw it up. There's an opportunity there for those of

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us that want to be in AI to help those

495

companies implement. Start with AI first principles. Start to understand

496

how like the constitution of those organizations implement AI. Start

497

small download cursor or download tool that can maintain state

498

of your conversations so that you can help organizations adopt

499

AI in the most thoughtful way. I couldn't have predicted

500

we would be here now a year ago. So I

501

have no idea what this looks like. I'm excited about

502

it but I have no idea what things are going

503

to look like a year from now. No idea. Okay.

504

And the best, best place for people to get hold

505

of you. I'll put all your details below. My podcast

506

for founders is called how to Founder. If you go

507

to howtofounder.com There's a big picture of me. You click

508

on that, that takes you right to my LinkedIn page.

509

Best way to contact me is through LinkedIn. You can

510

also follow the podcast there and then I would love

511

it if you visited AI first principles.org there's a

512

support form there. Show your support by filling it out.

513

There's no cost. Fill that form out for us and

514

let us know that you're on board. Thanks very much

515

for joining me. It's been great chat and we'll speak

516

again soon. Thank you. Thanks.