388- Business Leaders Who Get Tech Are Dangerous w/Tim Elhefnawy

[00:00:00] Phil Howard: Alright, are we doing it? So you're coming in at a very special time where we have rebranded to. You've been heard. Why did we do that? After three hundred and eighty episodes, we realized something at dissecting popular IT nerds the past. We realized that something that everyone knows every single person subconsciously, whether they want to admit it or not, that nothing gets done in the company without it touching it. Big surprise, right?

[00:00:28] Tim Elhefnawy: Big surprise.

[00:00:29] Phil Howard: but there's one thing. There's one thing that that keeps coming up over and over and over again. And I think you are going to be a special guest to be able to do it, because you've been VP of sales in the past. And this one thing that keeps coming up over and over again is it's great that it has a seat at the executive round table, so to speak, but how much greater would it be to actually also be heard.

[00:00:56] Tim Elhefnawy: Mhm.

[00:00:57] Phil Howard: Any thoughts on that.

[00:00:59] Tim Elhefnawy: Well I think it's actually quite apt. when it comes to and again it depends on every different organizations maturity when it comes to technology and what their viewpoint is on technology. oftentimes you hear the whole spiel as if there's going to be all this planning and all this thinking that's going to go on to something strategic, and that's just not reality, and it's not reality anymore. And it's important that any IT leader, any technology leader in general embraces that because you have to also then not only be respected and heard and put out there, you have to put yourself out there to be effective at it, as well as provide the value to understand everything from the business use case to the tech. So to be heard, you have to offer that voice that's worthy of being heard just as much as they need to seek out that voice. So I think it's both pieces of that have to have to kind of be in everybody's mind.

[00:01:50] Phil Howard: Yes, it's it has to stop being this us versus them thing. we have to work together. But a lot of times it is speaking one language. Executive roundtable is speaking EBITDA and gross margin and flow through profit. And we're both after the same goal. But there's this translation gap.

[00:02:08] Tim Elhefnawy: well, it's all about what's the outcome we're trying to achieve. And then exactly what the path to that outcome. And sometimes people believe they'll determine that path. And then somehow technology is shoehorned in. And so much technology is right there from beginning to end as to how we're going to achieve the outcome. But we have to speak in though, in that language you have to speak in synergy with, well, you work backwards from the outcome, and it's all about whether it's process, people or tech, how you work that all the way through. And we as leaders have to just always have that mindset versus they came to us with a request for something or told us what to do with something. And sometimes we can we can say, just react and say no or that's not how it's done or whatever. Here's the tech. We miss the boat if we talk that way.

[00:02:55] Phil Howard: Okay. So If there's one thing that you wish executive leadership all around the world could hear from it, what would that be? Like, loud and clear. be whether it be about modern technology. What's the most important idea, I guess, that you wish every executive would understand about technology.

[00:03:14] Tim Elhefnawy: Well, I think there's kind of a different thread there. And that different thread is what every executive leader should understand about technology is how we employ it to achieve what the business is seeking to achieve, and that it is a not only a requirement, but often the catalyst for how we're going to achieve certain business outcomes. And so it must be thought of and included and be a part of the overall rubric of whatever it is we're thinking through. And just understanding that it's not a separate thing. It's not an add on thing. It's not a thing that comes later. It's part of what we're talking about. And if you understand that at its core, the conversations happen more effectively, more naturally, and we typically get better outcomes for it. The leaders who are more myopic and just think, to achieve that EBITDA number, we need to drive this cost down or we need to do this or we need to do that, and then somehow technology somewhere there to spit something out. And that typically doesn't get the result anywhere near as effectively.

[00:04:17] Phil Howard: Okay. So where are the technology leaders making their biggest mistakes?

[00:04:22] Tim Elhefnawy: I think it's not understanding that as well. I mean, it's one thing when you think about it from the lens of that operating leader, but when you look at it from the lens of the technology leader, if we're not engaging on that basis and learning the things outside technology in terms of the application, the use case, the business outcome, we're not offering the value we should be. Often we have to thread those things together and deliver a solution. And if we're just thinking about they got to tell us what or they got to bring us in here or whatever, and they don't really understand the domain we miss, we often miss.

[00:04:56] Phil Howard: So when you talk about understanding the domain. Do you think that a lot of IT leaders don't understand business challenges, and they're just solving whatever challenges thrown at them and they don't know enough to. This sounds a little loaded. They don't know enough to ask, is this the right challenge should be solving? And should we even be solving this challenge?

[00:05:17] Tim Elhefnawy: I think sometimes I've seen it a lot in my career, where leaders will go only oh so far, and that only going so far is to our detriment. And yes, it's not that they're not smart enough or capable or any of those things, but you have to be interested enough, and you have to be willing to learn about things that may just be outside the technical domain. So you can tie those threads together that I was mentioning. And I've met a lot of leaders who don't want to or don't have that energy to go that far. Then I've met some leaders who believe it's up to us to only deliver this piece of it, and that the other, the rest of it is on the business. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think of myself as simply I'm an I.T or technology leader. I think of myself as a leader who has a significant expertise in technology, and part of my job is to bring that expertise to bear so I can deliver for the business.

[00:06:20] Phil Howard: What point in your career, at what point in your career did you realize that or what happened that made you realize I'm now also a business leader, not just a tech guy? Maybe in your career, it was like I was a business leader. And then I realized, wait a second, I kind of like technology and I think I can do both.

[00:06:37] Tim Elhefnawy: Yeah, you hit on it right there. So in my career, I mean, I grew up on the, operations and commercial sides of the business first, but then whether my technical aptitude or whatever, I would always find myself participating very early on in my career, but then leading in technology. So for me, it became as especially as my career became more and more and more technology focused. And if anything, I would sit in meetings before I was in a technology leadership role, and I would hear the technology leader kind of opine about certain things. And it was just kind of like forest and trees and, you could see the disconnect in the room with what was being said versus what people wanted to talk about or achieve. And so I always I kind of I've had the do.

[00:07:23] Phil Howard: You have an example? Do you have an example? I need to hear it.

[00:07:25] Tim Elhefnawy: Well, okay. So I'll be careful to not name make believe.

[00:07:28] Phil Howard: We're just we make believe world.

[00:07:29] Tim Elhefnawy: Make some make up some stuff. But I was sitting in a in a meeting one time and we were talking about a necessary ERP conversion that we needed to make, and I wasn't leading that. ERP conversion was very early on in my career, and he had the head of it sitting there. and so you hear the CEO talking about the timing deal commitments that were made, what had to happen for us to make sure that we uphold to those deal commitments, and also the amount of money that was being spent on the legacy stuff, as well as the risk, because they were on an old version of the platform. So you're hearing all this stuff kind of come out. The business is talking about things that they have heard are going to be problems, and we were being given a constrained time frame to get the conversion done. And so.

[00:08:16] Phil Howard: Just out of curiosity, what was that time frame?

[00:08:18] Tim Elhefnawy: So we were given six months. Oh yeah. And so I'm on the project. Right. But I wasn't leading it. Well, it's actually a story there too, but because then I ended up leading it. But anyway. so but the IT leader is sitting there and if you watch their body language, they're getting agitated, they're annoyed, they're frustrated. Like you could see they hadn't even said a word yet, but you could see her body language was just not. Her energy was not in a good place. So after everyone kind of finished opining, CEO kind of went over the acquisition and all that stuff, the chief operating officer talked about their stuff, right. and then now it's the technology leaders turn to share their concern and share all that stuff. Take a deep breath. What did they do? They basically ignored everything that the CEO said about the why and the what. The operating leader with the why and the what and the reason. We have to get it done in six months and lead with it can't be done and lead with technical explanations of integration test cycles and this and that and blah, blah, blah blah, Which, yeah, if we're sitting in a room with a tech folks having conversations. Yeah, but in that room doesn't work. And what what happened after she finished speaking was just discord in the room. And then there were follow up meetings and there was things. But.

[00:09:41] Phil Howard: So how did they accept that? How did they hear that message?

[00:09:45] Tim Elhefnawy: Not well, because just like I was describing the body language of that leader, because I'm sitting there saying, oh, I, oh, this is not going to go over well, this is going to be a thing. This is whatever in my head. And then I'm just I know who the players are. Right. And this was very early on in my career. And so then it just starts to get into the what and the why and well, what if we do this and all that kind of stuff and it wasn't really very productive. But, the technology leaders mistake in that case was they weren't acknowledging, they weren't listening. They weren't understanding the business need. They weren't understanding the urgency. They were basically looking at it and saying, you're making this my problem. This is unreasonable. It's not solvable. Yada yada yada. So what was the outcome of that? Well, in the end, we finished in six months. In the end, we found a way to get there We found a way to do stuff. And you really didn't get full platform stability until probably about month nine. But instead of leading with the well, let let's talk about the case. Let's talk about what the risks are. Let's talk about how this impacts these different things that you. Chief Operations Officer and CEO brought up. We went with all this negative stuff. And I see leaders do that all the time. The art of no is an easy thing for us to practice in it. The art of yes is a lot harder or the yes, but with the risk discussion. And I see that very, very commonly.

[00:11:10] Phil Howard: So much to go. I want to ask you, do we say yes too often without thinking about. Is this in alignment with our business goals? That's a separate topic. Okay. Because I do think that it a lot of times is energetic and willing to say yes when they should say no. so I like to challenge the Department of No thing.

[00:11:30] Tim Elhefnawy: Yes. But right. There's a yes. But I mean, because, you can do anything. Okay. But in what timeline, what resource, but also what risk does it inject. What does it do to our environment. What benefit are we getting. Are we going to end up doing rework. Like there's lots of considerations. So have I seen immature leaders jump to yes and give no but yes because because what happens is they might be trying to please or they just feel like they have to. Mhm. But I also see a lot of IT leaders who don't know how to employ the art of no effectively. So it varies. So I don't think it's that we say yes too often, too quickly. There's, there's where's the maturity as to the what does it mean. And also what does it mean if I say yes to this and I have these other six things that are going on at the same time. So, so there's a lot of complexity.

[00:12:17] Phil Howard: Okay. So moving on to, build on this a little bit, you've got a playbook that you're creating a business a real business outcome playbook right. what would Tim Hefner's three steps be. This is like you're teaching a new tech leader. So you kind of started opposite, right. So you have that benefit to you. But like what would your three steps be to your your business creating real business outcomes. As a technology leader, what would your three steps be? Well, I don't care if it's five either. It could be five, ten, fifteen, whatever.

[00:12:48] Tim Elhefnawy: I appreciate you not limiting me. I think the very first thing that a lot of my team has been with me for a lot of years. So I spent a lot of time coaching and teaching. The very first thing that I teach is, well, we have to make sure we even understand what it is we're talking about. What is the ask the outcome? What is the problem? What is it that is even here for us to discuss? So if we don't have material understanding of it, we have a problem. Now, it's not only learning to ask questions and go through that cycle, but it's really creating real understanding of the use case, the outcome, the solution, just like I was saying earlier. But it's also, if you don't understand it or if you only understand pieces of it, you've got to be honest with yourself about that. And at that point, you have to also be honest with yourself about what is it you need to do to get enough of the education, so you can then create the understanding. Is there a research you have to do, or are there people you need to engage, etc. so in that very first piece I'm talking about of understanding, it's critical to make sure you get a complete understanding of what it is we are being asked for trying to solve. Once you have that, then I go into, well, alright, let's let's start trying.

[00:14:04] Phil Howard: Is there an example? Is there just like a simple example there?

[00:14:07] Tim Elhefnawy: let's say that the business has been facing some kinds of issues with let's say physical delivery of goods. And they say, hey look, we gotta solve this physical delivery problem. The current the current process we have isn't really working that well. And oftentimes, people will say, here's the solution or whatever. It's like, well, all right. Fantastic. Well, I need to really make sure that I understand the problem. I can't just take a snippet or a soundbite of conversation and make a bunch of assumptions around it and say, that's the problem I'm going to start Solutioning for. No, I need to go understand that delivery. I'll give you an example on something I worked on a long time ago. I was told on a physical delivery issue we were having X problem. So what I do, kind of harkening to my operational training, I go to gemba, I go see. So I go see. Well, I need to really understand this. Boots on the ground. I go look at it. I talk to the drivers. I talk to the customer. I make sure I understand it and what was sold to me was not the problem.

[00:15:12] Phil Howard: Mhm.

[00:15:13] Tim Elhefnawy: What was told to me was half truth. When I got into the detail and I started talking to the people who are most connected with it, I developed a really full understanding of what the issues were, were being faced with and not doing that, which often I see a lot of technology leaders think that that is not their job. I wouldn't have understood the problem. So if I went to my second step, which I'll talk about in a moment. I screwed up. I wouldn't have solved anything. I'd have had a failed project. I would have had all of those things. And I think creating understanding for ourselves as well as for others super important. Does that make sense?

[00:15:52] Phil Howard: It's still Franklin Covey that he probably stole from someone else. First, seek to understand. Sure. Yeah.

[00:16:00] Tim Elhefnawy: So? now I understand it. Well, now I need to effectively solution for it pre thinking before I start engaging the business and start talking about plans and things and often so much. What do people do. They throw the soundbite at you and say how fast? Yeah. Don't ever cave in to that. so we start solutioning for it. And when we talk about Solutioning, it's not a person sitting in a silo. Solutioning is different. You get the right folks together. You sit down, you walk through it. You come up with some high level estimates, some things. That way you can give feedback timely to the business because it's not about boiling the ocean and coming back six months. Say, hey, guys, I have a plan. Hey, let's sit down and start forming the outlines of the box. What are the outlines of the box look like? So understand.

[00:16:43] Phil Howard: First of all, please first define boiling the ocean, because we have this thing in the background, in our single source of truth that we're building over time. And it's it's the Urban Dictionary of IT terms. And boiling the ocean is would be a wonderful addition would be a wonderful addition like turning the Titanic. we have herding cats. We have boiling the ocean has to be in there.

[00:17:06] Tim Elhefnawy: Well, so the boiling the ocean concept and what it really talks about is like, if you were to take literally, what would we do if we boil the ocean? So number one, boiling the ocean is a little bit impossible. but beyond it being impossible, it means trying to very, very heavily scrutinize, go through everything, tank everything, just to make sure we got all of whatever it is. Right. Like that. That's kind of how I tend to think about boiling the ocean. One it's impossible, but people try it and try it anyway, and they try to do all of the pieces of it. Sometimes leaders want to, like, get perfection before they give feedback. And so I'll use that phrase. And yeah, that's not how it works in the real world.

[00:17:45] Phil Howard: Perfection before feedback. I'm loving this. You're gonna make me cry. I'm literally on the verge of tears. Step one was first, seek to understand what do we title step two.

[00:17:53] Tim Elhefnawy: So it's Start thinking, start brainstorming, start solutioning and make sure that you're doing that with the right members of the team. The third step, which I always say is really important, is you gotta read back like I.

[00:18:04] Phil Howard: Seek to understand, brainstorm with the team one mind. It can't be one. Together we all achieve more or further together, all these different things. Okay.

[00:18:13] Tim Elhefnawy: But then you got to read it back. You've got to be able to go back to the business, to the person, to whoever, and give them, number one, that confirmation that you understood and make sure that there is mutual understanding that's really key up front. Then you've got to be able to start talking through solution ideas effectively to give confidence that, hey, we might be on the path, we might have something here. And by going through that process, which also is a step I see people skip, whereas if yep, we got it, we had some light conversation. We go, right and then you have failed projects, you have failed initiatives. You you fail in the credibility test of being able to help the organization achieve its goals. Those three things. And I tried sticking to three. I could talk more, but but the three like I teach all of my leaders, you have to do that. You gotta understand it. you gotta spend time trying to solution it before you just give an answer. But then you got to give the read back. And that read back is super important because it confirms so much for all sides.

[00:19:13] Phil Howard: So it's like deep research, listening and understanding, Brainstorming Solutioning. Step three sounded like POC. Almost, But we really can't.

[00:19:22] Tim Elhefnawy: Get POC is probably after, right? I mean, the feedback is important. It's not. You're not reading back the results of your solution. You're reading back your understanding, what you've come up with, solutions and confirming the problem, confirming the outcome, confirming the statement.

[00:19:36] Phil Howard: Does this sound like we're on the right track type of thing? Yeah. Awesome. How has that led to? I guess it's like real business outcomes versus just kind of like a failed project. So that those are the three steps to, create real business. What part of your role fires you up the most?

[00:19:51] Tim Elhefnawy: Oh well. So where I guess my brain gets going the most is when I have to problem solve, when I've got to take these things. I mean, a huge part of my experience has been, unreasonable requirements and delivering on them. and it's a big responsibility. But coming up with those solutions, figuring out how we get to good, figuring out how we can bring the team along on that, figuring out how we organize all that and every whether it's a project or a fire that got started that we've got to go solution for, or it's some looming technical challenge. I mean, the solutioning part of all of that is what fires me up being the problem solver, being able to work with the team to problem solve it, and then delivering the outcome, that's the fun stuff. And then when you see the benefit of it afterwards, that's great. Although, people's memories are short so they don't remember, like the what the impact became. They always just now it's normal. And knowing that at the end of the day, a lot of the the good work that I and my teams have done is just in the general DNA of the business is a great thing. It's a great feeling.

[00:21:00] Phil Howard: Do you think a lot of IT leaders feel like they've reached tenure at some point? And they get there's this kind of this theme that's like when it's needed, when everything is broken and not working, we're indispensable. But when everything's humming like a well-oiled Tesla, we have this actual saying now in the new brand, when everything is humming like a well-oiled Tesla, we're a cost center.

[00:21:21] Tim Elhefnawy: Yeah, I think business leaders can get that viewpoint. I think as technology leaders, we need to maybe be sensitive to that thinking, but we can't be the ones thinking that way when everything's working well. networks up and operational, ERP stable and running and all that stuff. Yeah. We it's very easy to be taken for granted, but keeping the lights on isn't where we should be adding the most value. Keeping the lights on is is expected. it's just part of what it is. Right? But how are we advancing the business? How are we doing things. So that way this person's job is easier. How are we doing things to save cost? How are we doing things to create new capabilities? Drive revenue. Like if we as technology leaders aren't engaged with our cohort and our peers on that stuff, then yeah, you're going to be viewed as a cost center. And as much as we want to blame the business for thinking that way. I mean, I know we're we're we're we we have to be as much a part of the solution than to just see that it's a problem that's being created for us.

[00:22:28] Phil Howard: Yeah. I think there's this mirage that some people think, like you said, like that's not my job, or they've reached some sort of tenure and they don't realize that the business world demands gains. It's like we demand money in ROI and more numbers. And I think the more that IT leadership embraces this aspect of business, I think those are the those are the leaders that rise to the top.

[00:22:56] Tim Elhefnawy: Yeah, I mean, I think you've got to see that you are the business. You're not it.

[00:23:00] Phil Howard: What is a universally accepted best practice that you think is actually damaging?

[00:23:09] Tim Elhefnawy: Oh, that's an interesting question.

[00:23:11] Phil Howard: Like like, no, you have to do this. But they're totally wrong.

[00:23:16] Tim Elhefnawy: I have a hard time with that question. And I'll tell you why. I usually believe with a lot of accepted best practice, there is always a kernel of truth. And the issue isn't the best practice itself. It's how how black and white you apply it. they're like. So I'll give you an example. we'll talk about, environmental change management on like a CRM application and ERP application, whatever, whatever, whatever. And, like I'll have a request come through where somebody wants to add just a field on something affects no workflows, affects nothing, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. And it's really an easy thing. It's the kind of thing that, realistically, if I did it, it would take me 30s to do.

[00:24:02] Phil Howard: Okay.

[00:24:03] Tim Elhefnawy: But yeah. And you have to know the environmental architecture to make these kinds of calls. Right. But then I'll have an analyst who will spend hours and days doing rigorous regression, regression testing and rigor and having it fully go through Cab and do all this stuff for a field.

[00:24:22] Phil Howard: Mhm.

[00:24:23] Tim Elhefnawy: And I look at it and say, I understand it from a process perspective. But the amount of Waste that if you don't know how to navigate that, this should go left versus. This should go right on the path. We create a ton of waste. And so I'm always very mindful of my teams of saying and of course you have to be very thoughtful and careful about this. What I'm talking right now is heresy to some people. where do we judiciously apply these principles versus not. So we're not artificially slowing down business because we're just being overly rigorous in practice for certain things?

[00:24:57] Phil Howard: I think that's your business. I mind coming out because, I mean, how many business owners are, say, just go do it and you will learn because there's so many people that will take forever. Like, did I write this email right? Did I say this right? Did I say that right? you would learn if you just go, went and had fifty conversations, then you would learn how to speak. Right? You don't have to think about it so much. You know what I mean? Like, I got to make sure I have the speech or I'm going to be public speaking. I'm going to do this, I'm gonna do that. I got to do this. I got to think about that. No, just go do it.

[00:25:22] Tim Elhefnawy: No, I think you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. I mean, but that's the thing of it. It's like you sit down and you look at, well, what is the waste created? Now, don't get me wrong, I'll have business leaders approach me with stuff and I'll be like, oh, you're crazy. This is going to take this, this is going to take that. We gotta talk about this, right? We gotta slow down. Yeah. There are other cases where that's just not the case.

[00:25:42] Phil Howard: There's a healthy balance. There is. I think there's probably like a good CEO sports metaphor for this. So there's like a bit of like we have to sometimes just do things and not overanalyze it. so that's kind of what I meant by the healthy balance, I guess.

[00:25:58] Tim Elhefnawy: Getting the feeling and building the muscle memory versus just the intellectual capacity.

[00:26:02] Phil Howard: It's like, could you really go study it in a university for ten years and come out and go work in an environment? No. Like it's just not going to happen. You're going to have to like, be right in the midst of like the firefights and all of that. You have to have the late nights and all that type of stuff. What's something that most IT leaders strongly disagree with?

[00:26:20] Tim Elhefnawy: Huh? Well, I don't know. You can get three IT leaders in a room, and I think you'll walk out with four opinions on some days. I think there's often wide disagreement on a number of things, but some of it's a little bit, perfunctory, like you look at things like, well, what's best practice for, certain environments, what environments are better than one another? there's like when you get like, in my experience, you get a lot of us together and, it can very, very easily devolve into a unproductive session about a variety of topics. But in terms of like disagreement, it's often a lot focused on preferences, really. When you boil it all down, I prefer this versus I prefer that thing. I prefer this practice versus that. I prefer this tool versus that. And then when you really get down to it, it's a bunch of opinions. And so I think those disagreements typically center on that.

[00:27:13] Phil Howard: Okay then. Not. Necessarily what they disagree with. Then What's something in it? Leadership that the entire industry should just retire forever.

[00:27:21] Tim Elhefnawy: Oh interesting question.

[00:27:23] Phil Howard: Everyone's just going to be like, yeah, we gotta get rid of that. Coders. AI will solve all anyways.

[00:27:28] Tim Elhefnawy: Well, I think that's more of the apocalyptic. What will happen when the machines all code for us and do for us and tell us what to do. yeah. So I am kind of, I am someone who always believes there is value, even in old tech.

[00:27:43] Phil Howard: Okay.

[00:27:44] Tim Elhefnawy: I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or what, but when you start thinking about old tech and application of old tech and certain lessons that were learned and certain things that are lost in translation as you kind of move through things there's something where it's not about simplicity or sentimentality. there is something about this use. This could be done in this way easier than how we do it today. But we've kind of lost that in the name of, well, this thing is more efficient at these, at some of these other big important things. And so yeah. We could talk about this application should just go away or that application should just go away. But in terms of like actual real tech, I don't know. It's a hard one.

[00:28:24] Phil Howard: Okay. Then we're going to we're going to what preceded that, which was your prediction. So Armageddon AI Armageddon or not or bubble or whatever it is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't even have to be AI. It's just that this seems to be the massive, well, tidal wave of stuff. Eighteen months from now, I want to know what will everyone be talking about that people ignore today or whatever your prediction is eighteen months from now?

[00:28:52] Tim Elhefnawy: Well, I think eighteen months from now. So I think a few things I think oftentimes there is a prediction of how quickly things are going to change in the near term. That isn't reality. I often think that, hey, in the next year, two years, this is going to happen because this technology is going to go off the off the charts. I am a significant skeptic of that. In fact, if you were to look back two years and you look at some of the predictions there on AI and a number of things, they really have not come to pass the way people thought or predicted. Having said that, I do think people Underestimate when it comes to the longer breadth of things. When we start saying. Ten to fifteen years from now, what could that sea change look like? And I think people do underestimate that. And so and if you were to look back at. Historically over time. Yeah. Like if you look at the leaps in technology from the sixties to the mid seventies to the nineties to the mid two thousand, right, the leaps in between that type of time horizon, ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty years are more massive than we give credit for. And because we typically, I guess we're attuned to thinking about shorter term and shorter term turnover, I think, man, in two years, not all this is going to be gone and be apocalyptic. And in fact, most of the tools that are coming out now are so derivative of each other that again, there is an evolution in businesses to take advantage of these tools and become more agentic. But I think the bigger leaps are there in the ten to fifteen year horizons than they are in the two year horizon. And when I say leaps, I mean major change.

[00:30:36] Phil Howard: So your prediction is an unpredictable basically it's like not much is going to happen eighteen from eighteen months from now. In other words, there's not going to be this. So it kind of does beg the question of are we in an AI bubble with massive amounts of money being invested without the return being delivered? And what does that mean for us?

[00:31:01] Tim Elhefnawy: When I think of a bubble like the dot com bubble and or the housing bubble, or a lot of the bubbles that we can point to that historically, economically have been have been difficult.

[00:31:11] Phil Howard: Mhm.

[00:31:12] Tim Elhefnawy: If I'm thinking about it on those terms I really want to say no. Now why do I think there is some overvaluation. Yeah absolutely. Do I think that you have everybody kind of feeding at the trough of AI and as a result that's driving up valuations that that may not be as real. Well, just look at the statistics on failed projects. So yeah. But do I think kind of bubble as those. No. Because I think you're going to get a lot of really great companies that really get it right and really do create value for businesses. And how much of that rises to the top versus all the other stuff that kind of falls off? I don't think it's the same thing as when we think about a dot com bubble.

[00:32:00] Phil Howard: Some of the numbers, whether I'm accurate or not, don't quote me on this. Ninety five billion invested only producing twelve billion. What do we do with the other seventy billion?

[00:32:09] Tim Elhefnawy: Yeah.

[00:32:10] Phil Howard: So who cares? I can move the numbers around.

[00:32:15] Tim Elhefnawy: A lot of these articles, and it's like there's always a lens on it. And so I tend to think about it this way. It's like, you know, we think about, Amazon the early days, burning money.

[00:32:27] Phil Howard: Yes.

[00:32:27] Tim Elhefnawy: people have a lot of opinions about Amazon. But here's something to think about in terms of their evolution. One of the things that I give them significant credit for is their long term view, their long term investment. They knew they were burning money the way they were. They knew that they were building something that, they felt was going to be major for the world. They knew that they were doing a lot of things, but man, was that a lot of risk. Man, was that a lot of cash burn. And if we went back to the nineties and had the foresight to know what it would be today relative to all that cash burn.

[00:33:03] Phil Howard: Um.

[00:33:03] Tim Elhefnawy: I mean, so this is new technology, new environment, new application, new new The only way that that blows up in anyone's face is if it just doesn't pay off at all. And I don't think that's the case.

[00:33:16] Phil Howard: Bezos is my favorite example, by the way. He's by far.

[00:33:19] Tim Elhefnawy: Okay, good to know.

[00:33:20] Phil Howard: He had a Wall Street finance background prior. So. It was an interesting I think he knew the risk that he was taking.

[00:33:28] Tim Elhefnawy: Yeah, I still remember the old videos and the old, pronouncements of how Amazon was going to be dead and how. Oh, there's no way. Sell your stock. Right. Like all those in those days. Look at where where it is. But everyone likes to opine and talk about bubbles and talk about loss and talk about this and point out all the reasons, as if they're going to be the herald of the next great fall. Everyone loves to play those roles, and then it gets forgotten as things move on.

[00:33:57] Phil Howard: Doesn't get toys R Us and Sears laughing, clowning him does not get forgotten by me.

[00:34:02] Tim Elhefnawy: Excellent points, excellent points.

[00:34:05] Phil Howard: it's just amazing that he thought books. that's just a crazy insight. I just like books. We're going to do books online.

[00:34:15] Tim Elhefnawy: Well, like, it's one that's kind of timely with some of the news that's coming out this morning on Netflix. I mean, you remember Netflix back in the day. And Blockbuster and Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix and and wouldn't and all that good stuff. And news broke today if it's accurate that Netflix is now bought Warner Brothers. I mean you look at this stuff and you say when we talk about bubbles and things I think everyone likes to kind of wring their hands. I don't think so. I think there is going to be some loss. I do think there's some overvaluation with some things, just because everyone's trying to place bets and everyone's trying to develop stuff because they're being heralded to go do this, this, but there's going to be some great stuff to come out if that's going to present tremendous value.

[00:34:55] Phil Howard: I'm kind of with you. I don't think there's going to be this big, bursted bubble, but it makes for, viral posts on.

[00:35:02] Tim Elhefnawy: Yes, it does. When you get to post something that's like ninety five percent of these projects fail. It's like, well, let's analyze that, right? By the way, not every project makes it all the way to a production level, GA type release. And some things are you work on and you spend some money and it doesn't work, and you move and you iterate, and you try to iterate fast and realize stuff is going to work. Not fast. but that's my tendency.

[00:35:28] Phil Howard: What's the right approach to AI? Because I'm kind of with you on the we could analyze and check things forever. And what we found with AI was that we were in the hype engine three years ago with the podcast and like, hey, we're going to be able to use AI and and we're going to have it write all these articles based on the podcast, and it's going to create massive SEO, and we're going to do ten thousand articles a month or, some ridiculous thought. Right? But the more we iterated and played with it, we now have like an amazing AI use case based on it leadership, like a really amazing AI use case with a lot of whatever. Greg, if he shows some of it. This is Greg, my producer. Yeah. Greg the Frenchman. And, it is an eight and or whatever that is. Like, if I look at the map of what he has built over the last three years just from playing with AI, we are now able to really use AI first of all as an assist tool, but really take every IT leader, distill down everything from an episode, turn it into like really good frameworks and carousels and infographics and court cards and all this type of stuff, then send it off to it's kind of like pre-production work and then post-production work to shine. It's like, how do you make AI, not AI? How do you make AI not look like AI? And you do that by using real people?

[00:36:54] Tim Elhefnawy: I agree. I mean, what I heard you say is from all of those other inputs that are human derived, where you're going to create all this great enriched content, that's a different thing than just auto generated content from whatever. Like when you were making the comment about one thousand articles and whatever and all that. Yeah, yeah. Well, what happens when everyone's doing that? It just becomes slop everywhere. And that's what we're seeing is seeing a lot of that today. But what you just talked about is different. It's value add. And it's a connected process to something that originally had that value creation by people. And people talking about things that people might want to hear about that is different.

[00:37:32] Phil Howard: So that again, that the hype scale is real. But that's going to weed itself out for the people that still have the right intention. Sure. that want to do things right and, do things creatively. And because, I mean, I think it does, I think everyone knows deep down inside that that, what do we call it? What's, Terminator two? that, What's that? Yeah. Skynet. I think everyone knows Skynet. I if I had to predict Skynet real well, I hope you're right. I think some robots could, like, shoot some people and make some mistakes. I think we could have some, like, unfortunate deaths, but really, like, Skynet intelligence, like, becoming, conscious. Yeah.

[00:38:12] Tim Elhefnawy: Well, I guess the more interesting, the more interesting thread. They're like, when we're talking about AI, we're not talking Aggies, right? artificial general intelligence. That's not what we have. That's not what we're playing with. We're playing with, in my view, rudimentary AI tools at this point that are growing and getting better to help us solve problems and do things for us in a more automated basis. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But we're not talking AGI yet. Now let's talk a Skynet, an ASI, a superintelligence. For me, that's a scarier prospect, right? If we're talking in the in the land of science fiction. Because, when you think of an ASI, a superintelligence, well, if it's a superintelligence, it's smarter than us. Well, how do we figure that out? Right?

[00:38:54] Phil Howard: We have to give it AIS. We have to give it some level of it has to learn beyond a language learning model. First of all, most most humans learn by seeing, not by language. Anyways. So right now we're already kept to just a language learning model. So until we've given robots AIS, what else do we need to give them?

[00:39:13] Tim Elhefnawy: Well, you have to be able to understand and you have to be able to contextualize what you understand, to be able to whatever. And it depends on mission of the AI. But again a superintelligence. Now that's a scary prospect. General intelligence is already an interesting enough prospect, let alone a superintelligence that then perceives us as a threat and decides to wipe us out like Skynet that starts to get, you start going down a lot of rabbit holes with that one. Hopefully we'll never have to figure that one out.

[00:39:41] Phil Howard: No, no. Okay, so last thing. we have emerging IT leaders nowadays. They didn't have the they didn't have the, I don't know. What was your first computer?

[00:39:51] Tim Elhefnawy: Hewlett Packard, sixty megahertz.

[00:39:54] Phil Howard: Okay. But, a new emerging IT leaders, they didn't have the. dial up, I just I mean, it's just. Now we've got new guys. You have a team, you hire people, you've we've got to hire people. We got to find the right people. I think every IT director said the most important thing that they look for is curiosity. you have a different background than everyone from an operational standpoint. But What's one lesson that every emerging, growing up in it want to be? IT leaders should?

[00:40:20] Tim Elhefnawy: What everyone should know is that you should not allow yourself to be siloed into just technology technology. You may become the expert at. That's great. But learning business is just as important and you're going to be an incomplete leader without it.

[00:40:35] Phil Howard: Yeah, I agree, I think, it has the ability to pretty much take over the world, and it should be the IT leaders, the last man. It's kind of like, the like Highlander. I was talking with about.

[00:40:45] Tim Elhefnawy: How dangerous is a business leader who understands the market, the customer and the technology? How dangerous is that leader?

[00:40:53] Phil Howard: That's beautiful. That's the show quote. I don't know where that one. That's beautiful. I mean, that's someone that can wash cars. That's someone that come from a car wash. Tim, you've been heard.

[00:41:07] Tim Elhefnawy: Thank you. Phil.

[00:41:08] Phil Howard: Have a wonderful rest of your day.

[00:41:11] Tim Elhefnawy: Same to you.

[00:41:11] Phil Howard: Take care. Bye bye.