How a $6 Hat Built a Six-Figure Brand: Larry Roberts' Accidental Success Story

Chris Stone [00:00:01]:
We're joined by the one and only Red Hat Guy, mister Larry Roberts, the founder of Red Hat Media who's transformed from corporate burnout victim to AI powered content innovator by developing systems that do the heavy lifting while preserving the human touch. Welcome aboard, Larry. How are you, man?

Larry Roberts [00:00:23]:
Hey. What's up, fellas? Thanks for having me.

Chris Stone [00:00:26]:
I'm excited for this one, man. It it is. It is absolutely great, to have you, on board. And a lot of our you know, we run-in some of the same circles, Larry. We we've we've shared stages on Podfest and and, you know, have have done a lot of things, together. But there's a number of folks that may not know who the red hat guy is. And there's like, why is everything red on my screen right now? And if I'm listening on a podcast episode, I'm looking at this thing. Everything's red.

Chris Stone [00:00:53]:
There's red hat and and all of that. And, honestly, I didn't really know what the whole red hat thing was about, but I did you know? So I just learned what that was all about. I'd love to have you share with everybody why why the red hat, man.

Larry Roberts [00:01:09]:
Yeah, man. It's it's a fun story, and, really all the credit goes to a mutual friend of all of ours, Alex Sanfilippo. He's the founder of Podmat, so another innovator in the content creation space. But we were doing a talk at the Amalie Arena there in Tampa, Florida. And at the time, I was wearing a supreme hat. And if you don't know what supreme is, it's just a lifestyle brand. And, I was just trying to be cool. And, actually, I don't know if you can really make it out, but it's it's, oh, it's sitting right back behind me there, on a stand.

Larry Roberts [00:01:39]:
It's got its own pedestal back there because it's what made it all happen. But I had worn that red hat, that supreme hat, and I came off stage, and I was goes, hey, man. Good talk and blah blah blah. He goes, but why why are you wearing that supreme hat? And I go, man, I'm just trying to be cool, trying to relate to the audience, you know, trying to make a good impression, all that fun stuff. Give me just a second.

Chris Stone [00:01:58]:
Sure.

Larry Roberts [00:02:02]:
My headphones got unplugged. So, there we go. Now I'm back in action. Alright. So sorry about that. Technical difficulties throughout this entire, podcast. So, but he said, why are you wearing a supreme hat? And I'm like, I'm just trying to be cool. He goes, but are they paying you? And I'm like, well, dude, I'm 47 at the time, and I I I think they'd probably pay me not to wear their merch in all honesty.

Larry Roberts [00:02:24]:
And he goes, well, then then why are you wearing it on stage? And, again, I go, just trying to be cool. He goes, well, stop. If they're not paying you, don't wear their merch on stage. He goes, but but I really like the red, you know, because I'm about six foot three, six foot four depending on the day. And he goes, I can see you all the way across the arena here. So that really resonated with me. So when I got home, I tossed the supreme hat to the side, went on Amazon, bought a $6 at the time. I think now they're up to 13 since I started wearing them.

Larry Roberts [00:02:52]:
Of course. Unbranded flat billed red hat. And, before long, I was the red hat guy. And I I didn't even really understand the power of branding, to be honest with you. Yeah. But about six months later it's about six months. I was at Bitcoin Miami, which is another massive conference, like 35,000 people there over the course of three or four days. And over the course of those three or four days, I was there as a content creator, and I had multiple people that I had never met came up and went, aren't aren't you the podcast guy? And I was like, yes.

Larry Roberts [00:03:24]:
How'd you know that? Oh, the red hat. And I was like, oh my god. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable. So once that happened, I went home from there, changed my LLC, changed everything, went from my old company to Red Hat Media, and that's where we're at today. So, really, I owe it all to Alex Sanfilippo.

Chris Stone [00:03:43]:
That is that's awesome. And I I I love hearing that story. And the other thing too is, like, you you mentioned the the red hat and, it it plays so well into how AI needs to be utilized because so many people are using it. We all have the same tools. Right? But who's standing apart? And speaking of standing apart, we've got a comment here from James Hicks, who not only loves the red hat, but he loves your beard, as well. Yeah. You're yeah. The beard game is on point for sure, for sure.

Chris Stone [00:04:14]:
But this is another gentleman here, James Hicks, a fantastic creator, who this is this is really what it's about for for us is how do we utilize these tools and stand apart? Because, Larry, we all have the same stuff. We all have access to this stuff and we've got aggregators like MAGI and Poe and things like that that allow us to use a bunch of them at the same time. How do we generally utilize this stuff and still not be the same as everybody else?

Larry Roberts [00:04:46]:
Well, it it all comes back to establishing a personal brand. And and you can have all the tools in the world, but, like, your your your point there is that if you don't have a brand and you don't stand out in some way, shape, fashion, or form, then you're just going to continue to blend in. So regardless of the tools, regardless of AI or whether it's traditional content creation, you have to do something to stand out. And, you know, I I do a lot of work with thought leaders, especially here in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. And I always say there's three things that you need to stand out as a thought leader in your space. You have to have a podcast. You have to have a book, and you have to get on stages. And AI can help us do all three, And I use AI on a regular basis to do all three.

Larry Roberts [00:05:28]:
You know, I wrote my book called Under the Red Hat. I wrote the vast majority of that with AI. The only chapter in the book that's not AI written is chapter three, and it's the story of the red hat. So it didn't know the story of the red hat, so I couldn't use AI to write that. However, I did use AI to juice it up a little bit and make it sound a little oh, look at there. You got it pulled up. I love it. But, you know, when I first wrote that book, especially using AI, I got a lot of feedback, a lot of negative feedback, especially from one gentleman.

Larry Roberts [00:05:57]:
I don't know if you know who Jeffrey Hazlett is, but he's the CEO of the c suite network. And I was doing a talk here in Dallas, and and Jeffrey and I belonged to one of the same networking organizations here. And I was talking about how I wrote my book with AI, and Jeffrey stood up, and he goes, Larry, I need you to know something. You know, we own the USA Today top 10 bestseller list, and you're never gonna be a bestseller if you write your book with AI.

Chris Stone [00:06:22]:
And Challenge

Larry Roberts [00:06:24]:
that really resonated with me. Yeah. Well, exactly. And and and it's fine because, you know, it it is a it is a best selling book on Amazon, which that's up for debate whether or not it's really a best selling book, you know. But when we're using AI to generate this thought leadership type material, you know, the goal isn't necessarily to be a best seller. The goal is to leverage these tools to build a brand and establish credibility. And that book has gone a long, long ways in establishing me as a credible AI, quote, unquote, expert. And I'll tell you why I did it and why why I did it with AI.

Larry Roberts [00:07:04]:
It was about a year and a half ago. I flew out to San Diego to do a talk for entrepreneurs organization, and the talk was on AI for content creation. And I was teaching them how to prompt and I mean, this was still fairly early in the AI game. So prompting and prompt engineering and understanding how to use ChatGPT in these other chatbots, that was the foundation of the talk. And it went really well. About an hour and a half is a long talk. Afterwards, we're doing a little happy hour gig, and everybody's like, hey, man. Great talk.

Larry Roberts [00:07:30]:
I'd love to buy your book. I didn't I didn't have a book. Mhmm. So I was super, super exposed. Now I wrote a book four or five years ago on podcasting, but that wasn't relevant to this audience. So I didn't have a book that was relevant to this audience, but I did have another talk booked about a month out. So as I'm flying home, I'm kicking rocks. You know? I'm just, oh, I embarrassed myself.

Larry Roberts [00:07:55]:
I didn't I wouldn't prepare me. And I'm like, well, bro, you're you're you're the AI guy. Use AI to write a book. So I went home, and I laid out the foundation of the book. And, actually, I wrote the book in about three or four days. And I had author copies in hand within three weeks, and I went to that next talk, and I had a book. So it was the necessity that really drove the innovation on my part to leverage these tools to build my brand and to stand out. Now the book itself isn't about AI.

Larry Roberts [00:08:28]:
It's about personal branding because, I mean, that's really the foundation of my business. Although we do it through podcasting, branding is really where we're at. I mean, my podcast is called Branded. You know, I mean, it's all about branding. But that's why I wrote the book because now it serves two purposes. One, it reinforces my branding message. And two, I used AI to do it. So it demonstrates the fact that not only do I talk about these tools, I utilize them on a daily basis to continue to build my brand.

Chris Stone [00:08:54]:
I love it. I love it. And and you're not running from the fact that you utilized AI to write the book. And I you know, I'm guessing, like, who knows the math, but, you know, whatever tools you used to create this book, you didn't just rubber stamp the content. You were reading it and you were going, okay, that works for me. That works for me. You you you just weren't going blindly, okay, this is what Claude gave me. And and now I have a book, which I think a lot of people who don't understand exactly what that means when you use AI to do something, they think you're cheating.

Chris Stone [00:09:27]:
Right? Just like like you're cheating to use a calculator to to figure out a math problem, you know, or or something like that. And, you you never ran from the fact, but it it was it's it's a you're just saying, hey, listen. I used AI to do this. I carried the bag. I'm not just a guy who talks about AI. Here's an example, a a really good example, a best selling example of how I utilized, how you utilized AI. We did have your cohost of your podcast, Sarah Lohse, was on, on the show as well. So this so so we're double dipping on you guys.

Chris Stone [00:10:02]:
We're getting we're getting the the full consultation here right across the board. So this is awesome.

Larry Roberts [00:10:06]:
Hopefully, mine gets more engagement. So Oh, wow.

Jim Fuhs [00:10:11]:
Is it it's like

Chris Stone [00:10:11]:
a little friendly competition in between you.

Larry Roberts [00:10:14]:
It's always a competition with Sarah and I.

Chris Stone [00:10:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. Florence is chiming in, and and they're saying, listen. You already got more engagement already than Sarah. So, you know, go ahead and talk smack Yeah. With her when you

Larry Roberts [00:10:26]:
get back to the office. No. It's something to, you know, I wanna I wanna I wanna continue to build on that because you're right. I didn't run from the fact or try to hide from the fact that I used AI or tried to pull the wool over anybody's eyes. As a matter of fact, there's about a two and a half to three page disclaimer in the very front of my book that says, hey. This was written with AI, and here's why. And here's how you can use the tool very similarly to help build your personal brand as well. So I I think that that being upfront really changes it as well.

Larry Roberts [00:10:57]:
You know, if you're out there and you're writing a book and you're not disclosing the fact that you're using AI, I think that's a little shady. You know, and and I think that's wrong. But like you were pointing out, Chris, I I don't run from the fact that I use AI. Matter of fact, I I stand on the pedestal of using AI. And just as a demonstration of the evolution of the acceptance of AI generated content what is today? Monday? It's Tuesday? I don't know what day

Chris Stone [00:11:22]:
it is. But Yeah. That's Monday. It's Monday.

Larry Roberts [00:11:27]:
I couldn't even get my camera to work, guys. I mean, it's it's a rough day. Okay?

Chris Stone [00:11:30]:
It's a better

Larry Roberts [00:11:30]:
rough day.

Chris Stone [00:11:31]:
Help you with your calendar, Larry? Can we

Larry Roberts [00:11:33]:
Man, yes. It can, actually. But just last Thursday, I signed a new contract from a publishing company that wants to publish the second edition of my AI generated book.

Chris Stone [00:11:46]:
Congratulations, man.

Larry Roberts [00:11:48]:
A year later, now I've got a company coming to me going, hey. We'd love to have you on our roster. Here's what we'll do for you. Here's how we'll make it happen. And, yes, you can continue to use AI. So, I'm I'm gonna knock that out in the next couple of weeks, and we'll see the second edition of under the red hat come out, hopefully, within the next couple of months, and we'll be good to go. But I think that's just a strong demonstration of the public acceptance of AI and how AI is going to impact everything that we do. You know, it's interesting.

Larry Roberts [00:12:17]:
I I had lunch today with Mark Hunter. I don't know if you know who Mark is, but he's on the board of directors

Chris Stone [00:12:22]:
for that. Hunter.

Larry Roberts [00:12:22]:
The NSA. Yes. Exactly. The sales hunter. So Mark and I are good friends, and we were having lunch today, And we were actually having that discussion about whether or not we're gonna continue to see this evolution of AI and how it's actually going to impact con content creation. And while we're seeing this massive influx of AI generated content with, like, NotebookLM, and Descript does a lot of stuff. I mean, there's there's this platform after platform that will create content for us using AI. I I think we're gonna get back to that place, though, where people are going to be hungry for human generated content.

Larry Roberts [00:12:58]:
And, you know, I I know a lot of content creators right now are are pretty scared because they don't wanna use AI. They wanna stick to the human side of things. They wanna have those human connections with their audience members. A lot of people podcast just to generate those relationships and and and build on their community. And I think as we continue down this AI path and as we see AI impact more and more aspects of everything that we're good we're doing, we're gonna have a draw back to those community roots.

Chris Stone [00:13:26]:
I love that. Jim, I know you had a question.

Jim Fuhs [00:13:29]:
Yeah. So so, Larry, you you bring up a really good point. Right? You used AI to write your book, which I think is there's nothing wrong with that. But I also think right? You talked about how you really help people with branding. If we really think about a lot of the things we do, even what we're doing right here, it's not like we invented, you know, nuclear fusion. But it it's it's a topic that there's a lot of information out there already. But what you're doing by using AI, I feel is like, okay. You gathered a lot of the if you wanna call it the fundamentals, but then you put your spin on it.

Jim Fuhs [00:14:05]:
And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and I think it's probably I I feel like do you feel like it helped you remember some things that maybe you would have forgot if you had to do it basically all out of your own, you know, brain kind of a thing?

Larry Roberts [00:14:17]:
Oh, most definitely. I mean, from a structural perspective, it it was second to none. It it made it so easy to organize thoughts and be able to go back and reference those thoughts again. And and since I wrote my book the first time, I mean, Chatt GPT has evolved so much. Now you have projects, and you've got all these other organizational tools here. You've got Canvas, not Canva, but Canvas within ChattGPT that helps you write as well. It it's an entirely different world now, but it makes it so much easier. And while I'll use Chad GPT for iterations of each chapter, I actually take everything out of Chad GPT, and I personally use Google Docs.

Larry Roberts [00:14:56]:
So I'll start a Google Doc, and I'll write write the book actually in the Google Doc. So I'll take the content from ChattGPT, throw it in a Google Doc, and then, Chris, as you were alluding to, I'll go through line by line and make sure that, wow, I've done a pretty good job. I'd I'd probably say exceptional job if I was being honest. I'd try to be humble of making chat g p t sound just like me. There's still phrases and words and those dang em dashes. I I I can't get rid of an em dash for nothing in the world. I'll say do not use an em dash. And if you don't know what an em dash is, it's that it's that double long dash Yep.

Larry Roberts [00:15:31]:
That is a telltale sign that Chad GPT wrote this content for you. Now I have a lot of author friends. They go, dude, we use those for real. And, I'm I'm calling shenanigans. Nobody nobody uses those. Nope. Nobody uses them. It's just not true.

Larry Roberts [00:15:46]:
No one but JGPT uses them. So but, anyway, so I I will I'll go back in there, and I'll take it line by line and make sure that it does sound like me and that it does read like I wrote it and that it is structured in a way that reflects the way that I would write. So you need to have that that authenticity throughout the content, and you're not gonna get that by a simple simple copy paste and and publish. It's just not gonna happen.

Chris Stone [00:16:09]:
Well, I feel completely verified now that, you use Google Docs. Like, I I, you know, I thought, you know, here am I the only one with the 17,000 Google Docs, and I have to search for my Google Docs to find Google Docs? It's like yeah. I mean, it's just something that works for me. You know?

Larry Roberts [00:16:26]:
This guy right here, I'm guilty as can be. Been doing it for years. So

Chris Stone [00:16:31]:
Yeah. Well, okay. So we talked a lot about the book stuff. Right? And but, obviously, you're in the podcasting space. You have a podcast

Larry Roberts [00:16:37]:
on

Chris Stone [00:16:37]:
your own.

Jim Fuhs [00:16:37]:
You work with a lot

Chris Stone [00:16:38]:
of podcasters. And a lot of the folks, you know, Florence, James, like, everybody is doing either, you know, live streaming, you know, content creation, podcasting, whatever you want. If if it's an RSS feed, if it's not, you know, we're not gonna get into that conversation. They're creating recorded content with microphones that sometimes is on video and sometimes is only on audio. Let's just let's just leave it there.

Larry Roberts [00:17:02]:
There you go.

Chris Stone [00:17:03]:
So if you're speaking to someone who this is the AI is just another, pile of mind junk for them. Right? They they're already a little bit stressed out by which microphone and and lighting and what, podcast platform they should use and and all those other stuff. But they know they also need to do AI, but they don't want to sound like everybody else too or look like everybody else who's just rubber stamping all this content with rocket emojis and piling it into their show notes. Right?

Larry Roberts [00:17:34]:
Rocket emojis.

Chris Stone [00:17:35]:
Would you say is like a day one step for people that that that like, okay, I I really need to start using AI for my show, for my podcast, whatever you wanna call it. What what's that what's that first building block that they need to build on as opposed to doing everything all at once?

Larry Roberts [00:17:55]:
Man, you know, producing if you can't afford to have a a team producing your podcast episodes, that's one of the biggest challenges. Right? We all know we need to create a ton of content in order to stand out from the crowd. We know we have to slice and dice our long form content into short form content. And when you start looking at it, you know and I think this is one of the reasons that typically people don't make it past episode seven of their podcast before they hit that pod fade phase because it's overwhelming. So what I would recommend is that you use a tool, and I don't know if we can name tools on here. I don't want I don't want to, like, stop all of those. Name. Okay.

Larry Roberts [00:18:29]:
Okay. We're beyond the doghouse.

Chris Stone [00:18:31]:
We're in Okay. Corner of the doghouse, so go ahead.

Larry Roberts [00:18:34]:
Okay. Cool. I I tend to live there myself. So, I sleep on the couch. I've slept on the couch for, like, twelve years now. So, but where I was going with that is you wanna get something that will help you streamline your your content workflow. And in our shop, we are a huge fan of Cast Magic, And I highly recommend that as a first step, you invest in something like a cast magic. And what that does, if you're not familiar with it, is you can upload your episode in m p three or m p four format.

Larry Roberts [00:19:03]:
So you can do audio or video, and it will take that and it will process that episode and slice it and dice it for you into a variety of different content. It'll it'll give you show notes. It'll give you highlights. It'll give you quotes from every participant that's on the podcast. It'll just give you literally everything you need to put together an episode of your podcast quickly, efficiently, and, I mean, just with amazing content.

Chris Stone [00:19:31]:
Wow. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of Cast Magic, for sure. And it's, I think it's on sale right now on AppSumo. They they went back into AppSumo.

Larry Roberts [00:19:42]:
Bring it back?

Chris Stone [00:19:43]:
Yeah. So I got the lifetime deal on that puppy. And,

Larry Roberts [00:19:46]:
I'm

Chris Stone [00:19:47]:
in it every day. Even when I you know, grabbing old episodes and and sort of repurposing changing some titles up, you know, that are that are more appropriate where, you know, like, maybe two years ago, I was just like Larry Roberts, colon, the AI guy. And that was my title, like, because it just was off the top of the dome. Right? And you're just like, you know, and but it's like, I gotta give it some search juice here and and really give it a chance to potentially get get seen more. It's a really it's a powerful absolutely powerful program. So that's a great, building block. So you're you're in you're like waist deep in all this other stuff and you're talking to a lot of other podcasters.

Larry Roberts [00:20:28]:
Mhmm.

Chris Stone [00:20:29]:
Who who's doing it right? Who's doing AI right from a podcasting perspective in your opinion?

Larry Roberts [00:20:35]:
Oh, I mean, Red Hat Media is doing a really good job.

Chris Stone [00:20:38]:
Okay. Besides okay.

Larry Roberts [00:20:41]:
I love it. No. You know, I mean, I I always go back to Alex. You know, Alex Sanfilippo is is leveraging AI, on one of the top matchmaking platforms there is in podcasting. Yeah. You know, if you're not familiar with PodMatch, it is the dating app for podcasters where it matches podcast hosts with podcast guests and vice versa. And they're using AI to improve those matches and those suggestions for you to maybe go on this podcast or that podcast. I mean, he he's definitely an innovator and an industry leader when it comes to leveraging AI to improve his product for podcasters.

Larry Roberts [00:21:16]:
I I I I think that's huge. You know, there's there's a lot of other companies out there that are doing an amazing job. I mean, you can't talk about AI in the content creation space without bringing up Descript. I mean, I I think Descript is also one of the not even also. They they really are from a content creation, podcasting, editing perspective. I mean, they're they're the cat daddy. I mean, they're they're where it's at. So, you know, they're doing an amazing job.

Larry Roberts [00:21:40]:
CapShow is out there as well. CapShow is very similar to Cast Magic, but they've got some additional functionality that's built in or or some different functionality. I won't say additional, but they take some different approaches to the way they do things. They've always done an amazing job. So, I mean, the list goes on and on. Headliner. If you're not familiar with Headliner, they do a great job at AI generated content for, what are they what are they, where you take a little quote and it's a, like, a sound bite from the podcast, and then you post it out. There you go.

Larry Roberts [00:22:08]:
Thank you. Audiogram. Yeah. They're great at making audiograms, and they use AI for that. I think their AI platform is called Eddie, and Eddie is a great tool and a great resource for helping you create additional content on top of your podcast. I mean, again, the list just goes on and on and on of all these tools that are out there that are doing a really, really good job in the in the podcasting space and making life easier for content creators.

Chris Stone [00:22:31]:
So a lot of that is post. Right? So, I know you're really entrenched in a lot of, you know, the structure organization, utilizing a lot of, you know, a lot of these LLMs or or whatever tools for AI to really work an organizational structure or process around a show around so that when you, your guests, and and whoever, you know, whether it's, you know, scheduling something from a pot match perspective or, you know, preemptively, like, coming up with concepts, researching your guests? Like, is there a workflow or process that you'd you'd recommend for for people who are, you know, maybe just sort of struggling, as to how they should structure their show with particular guests?

Larry Roberts [00:23:19]:
Man, from an AI perspective, there's there's really not off the top of my head. I I can't think of one out of the box that that does that job. Okay. And maybe I just need to educate myself more from that perspective. But, something like Make would allow you to build that automation, like make.com Yeah. Or or Zapier.com. The both of those are excellent platforms for creating your own custom, automations. And that's kind of where I focus on more than anything than than out of the box solutions is really designing custom workflows and custom solutions for clients.

Larry Roberts [00:23:53]:
So, I I love make.com. I'm I'm not not the biggest fan of Zapier or Zapier, however you say it. But it tends it tends to break it tends to break all the time. But things that I build on Make, they tend to be a lot more stable. So, if if you want something that's zero code, that's drag and drop, hey. I want this to happen. And when that happens, When that happens, I want this to happen. Something like a make.com or a Zapier could be a great solution for you.

Larry Roberts [00:24:18]:
And then combining that with other AI tools as well that are based off of triggers that you build into those platforms. That that would be the approach that I would take. And I I I know that that probably is much more complex than most people that are listening right now probably understand. Not to insult the intelligence of your listener, but, I mean, I was a business intelligence analyst in my corporate career. So automation and and and program analysis and writing programs and that sort of thing was well, I can't write code for for SQuAD, but I can write specs. So I I'm that guy that goes between you know, I'm good with people. So I would go between the programmer and the end user and find out what the needs are from both and then write a document that says, hey, mister user. Does this look like what you need? Yes.

Larry Roberts [00:25:04]:
Mister programmer, is this the technical spec that you need to write the program? Yes. So that's what I did. So that's I do tend to over technicalize things. I don't think that's a word, but that's what I did.

Chris Stone [00:25:14]:
I just said, why not? Let's make it the the

Jim Fuhs [00:25:16]:
That's right.

Chris Stone [00:25:17]:
Yeah. We're we're, go ahead, Jim.

Jim Fuhs [00:25:20]:
Yeah. So so Larry, so, you know, we as you know, Chris Karmitsos pod, you know, Podfest, there's a lot of talk about how podcasting is becoming more video, but where you still have some people that maybe are into the audio thing, do you think, have you seen a lot of people say taking their audio and with these tools out there turning some of that into video clips that maybe aren't necessarily them or maybe they have someone like Chris Sohn that figures out ways to do that? What are your thoughts on that? Do you think they should be more original and use real video and use AI for other things?

Larry Roberts [00:25:57]:
Well, it's funny we were having that conversation today as well because of all of the faceless AI driven YouTube channels that are popping up left and right. And I I I think while it's cool right now, everybody's excited about it, and everybody thinks it's the it is the next greatest thing since sliced bread. I I think we're gonna be inundated with it. And, eventually, just like anything else, we're essentially going to to ruin the tool, and we're gonna be looking to get back to the traditional content creation space. You know, speaking of Chris Karmitzos and Podfest, as you know, I'm the editor in chief of the Podfest Messenger, the newsletter for Podfest. And, here here we are. I'll give you a little preview. The lead story on this week's issue of the newsletter is do you really need video for your podcast? And in that article, the answer is no.

Chris Stone [00:26:46]:
Yeah. I think I think for a lot of people, it be it like, we talked about this earlier. It's just another speed bump in their process. So if it stops if doing video stops you from creating, like, that you don't have to do video. Right? So, like, and and I think that's, you know, until you're comfortable with it. Now, if you don't do video, are you potentially missing out on getting found? You know, if if if you put something up on YouTube that isn't technically a video, is it gonna get any traction? Maybe not. But if you're not doing anything at all, that's worse. Right? So It's a lot

Larry Roberts [00:27:21]:
worse. Yeah. You know?

Chris Stone [00:27:23]:
And and so I think a lot of people when they see that and they I I think another perspective is, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, Larry, is, you know, since we deal with this all the time, you know, we wake up and we're we're in it, you know, and then in until we're not, and then we go to sleep. We think we have this curse of knowledge that there's way more people doing this than there really are. And the fact of the matter is not only are there less than you think, but it's less amount of people doing it consistently over and and really doing it well. So if you can just think about it like that, like, this isn't this isn't a big of an ocean as you think this is. You do have an opportunity to to find that team. Any thoughts on that?

Larry Roberts [00:28:11]:
Yeah. I mean, I think you're spot on, and and, I love the the phrase curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge has ruined you know, I'm nearly 53, and the curse of knowledge has ruined so many things for me over the years. And and, I've often said that ignorance is bliss, and sometimes I wish I would just stay ignorant. But but, but but, yeah, man. I I I people look at YouTube, and they see all these billions and billions of videos. You know? What is there? A billion videos being uploaded every day, and they're going, oh, there's no space for me. Well, guess what? All those billions of videos, they're not going to your audience.

Larry Roberts [00:28:48]:
You know, maybe a couple of them are, but the vast majority aren't going to your audience. I mean, there's everything there's everything you can imagine. I can't even begin to start a list of videos on YouTube. But did those videos represent you, your brand, your business, your audience, your goals? No. It doesn't. So to be intimidated by the fact that you know, how many podcasts are there now? I think last time, that that, oh, I I don't know. 4,000,000 is what I heard.

Chris Stone [00:29:15]:
Like, you know, just even if there's one,

Larry Roberts [00:29:17]:
I don't know. I don't know. Last I heard

Chris Stone [00:29:19]:
was million?

Larry Roberts [00:29:20]:
Yeah. A little over 4,000,000. But at the same time, what most people don't understand is less than 20%, actually closer to about 18% of those are active. That's right. Meaning that they've published an episode in the last sixty days. So is not very

Chris Stone [00:29:35]:
active at all. That's not very active at all.

Larry Roberts [00:29:37]:
One episode in two months, you're not doing anything. You might as well just stop because you're not gonna make any impact whatsoever. So keep that in perspective. You know? Again, you see all these billions of videos being uploaded to YouTube, but what are they? Where are they coming from? Why are they being published? I mean, honestly, right now, I think that this this month is YouTube's twentieth anniversary. They just turned 20 years old. And if if you're you're not aware, the very first YouTube video that was ever uploaded was some guy with with an elephant. I think he was at the zoo showing an elephant. Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:30:10]:
So who cares? You know what I mean? Now granted, that that video was epic because of the fact that it was the foundation of YouTube. But keep in mind, that's probably the vast majority of the videos that are being uploaded on YouTube. Some cat at the zoo or or or, you know, who cares what it

Chris Stone [00:30:26]:
is? Right.

Larry Roberts [00:30:27]:
Don't be intimidated by the numbers. Understand your goals, understand your audience, and understand the impact that even just creating content on a on a weekly basis, understand the impact that that's going to have on you, your goals, and your brand. And in the long run, I mean, if you're doing this from an entrepreneurial perspective, your business, it's huge. Don't use numbers as an excuse not to act. You know, it it's almost like inaction out of out of fear. Don't be afraid of the numbers. They're they're not coming after you. No one cares.

Larry Roberts [00:31:00]:
Just create the content and and do it. You know? And, Chris, I can't let this episode go without recognizing your pride T shirt. I mean, bro, pride never die, baby. Yeah. For real. That's right. It's so funny because right now in my UFC shopping cart, there's the classic it's a tan pride hoodie. And I'm like, I almost I almost pulled the trigger on it last night.

Larry Roberts [00:31:21]:
It's $54. I have

Jim Fuhs [00:31:22]:
I have

Larry Roberts [00:31:23]:
that bad?

Chris Stone [00:31:24]:
Stacks and stacks of VHS tames.

Larry Roberts [00:31:26]:
Dude, I didn't see them in a whole closet. I've got every pride there ever was, and I recorded them live. I recorded them myself. Yeah. Pride night was always the best at my house. It was amazing. Whoo.

Chris Stone [00:31:36]:
Jim, do you know what do you know what pride is?

Larry Roberts [00:31:39]:
Well, I

Chris Stone [00:31:39]:
I Not the month of June, but sling.

Jim Fuhs [00:31:45]:
I'm I'm gonna go with the roller now. Larry and I

Chris Stone [00:31:47]:
are gonna start a pride podcast.

Larry Roberts [00:31:49]:
There you go. And we can have

Chris Stone [00:31:50]:
a whole show on on Leota Machida and BJ Penn and and, Rampage and and, Fado. I mean, they were just all the legends started. All

Larry Roberts [00:31:59]:
the monsters. Don Frey, Art Colvin. Let's just go down the list. But, Jim, it's it's it's really it's MMA. It's not wrestling. It's it's a it's a UFC like organization, and, actually, the UFC bought pride after pride kinda died. And and, yeah. So it's it's Pride died.

Chris Stone [00:32:15]:
That that sounds funny. But they they they were

Larry Roberts [00:32:18]:
a lot more fun because they didn't test for steroids or anything back then. So And the They were monsters. Oh, dude.

Chris Stone [00:32:24]:
You would I loved soccer kicks, you know, so, like, Shogun Hua was, like, that's some of the one of the most famous, you know, knockouts is is he just, like, kicking a guy when he's already down. I mean, it's, like Wow. It's some brutal stuff. But It

Larry Roberts [00:32:38]:
was amazing.

Chris Stone [00:32:39]:
Yes. Well,

Jim Fuhs [00:32:40]:
too bad that has nothing

Chris Stone [00:32:41]:
to do with podcasting and AI. We could go on for

Larry Roberts [00:32:43]:
I couldn't let it slide. I couldn't let it slide.

Jim Fuhs [00:32:45]:
But but as a transition, I I did go on AppSumo, and Cast Magic is available for about another seven days, both an annual and lifetime plan. So, that's something to know. But, but, Larry, you you know, something you brought up, earlier in the show, and you kinda talked about, like, the three steps that businesses need to think about podcasting, you know, books and speaking. And that's where, I think sometimes people feel like they have to have a show as opposed to, no, not necessarily. You need to guest on shows. Right? Because, like, right now, you're our guest. We're learning about Larry Roberts and Red Hat Media. We're not really learning about Chris Stone and Jim Fuze, and I think that's where people sometimes get confused.

Jim Fuhs [00:33:28]:
So what are what are your thoughts on the guesting piece as opposed to, you know, feeling like, oh, I gotta have my own show?

Larry Roberts [00:33:36]:
Yeah. I think guesting is an amazing way to get started as a content creator. You know, a lot of folks because, I mean, that's the foundation of what we do is we launch branded podcasts. But I find that a lot of these business owners, they get in front of a camera, they get in front of a microphone, and they just freeze up. They don't they're like, what do I do now? Where am I gonna go with this? And it's it's so tough to try to train these folks too on how to just act natural. Just have a conversation. You don't have to have a podcast voice, and you don't have to deliver it in a way that a radio guy you don't have to do all that stuff. So just just get on here and talk, bro.

Larry Roberts [00:34:12]:
It's cool. But it's very difficult to convey that message. So I think guesting is an excellent way to dip your toes in the water and start getting a little bit of exposure, start getting comfortable in front of a camera, start getting comfortable on a microphone, and start understanding what your message is. You know, a lot of people start podcasting, and they'll make it to if they're lucky, they'll make it to episode ten, twelve, maybe 15, and they'll be like, dude, I'm still not getting any traction. What's going on? I've got a great show. And no. You don't. No.

Larry Roberts [00:34:43]:
You don't. No. You don't. You don't have a great show. You've never been a broadcaster in your life. You've never been in front of a camera. You've never been a no. You don't have a great I know you think it's great, and I appreciate what you're doing, but, you know, it takes about a hundred episodes.

Larry Roberts [00:34:56]:
I'm not exaggerating. Takes about a hundred episodes to get comfortable, to find your voice, to find your message, to understand the camera, to understand the microphone, to understand how to have a conversation with someone else online. You know, some of these platforms I mean, shoot, I struggled today on Ecamm. I've never been on Ecamm before. I've been podcasting since 2014, and I've never done anything on Ecamm. And I got in here, and I was having a hard time getting going. So, I mean, that's a prime example right there. I've been doing this for eleven years, and there's still a platform where I was very unfamiliar and un unsure of what was going on.

Larry Roberts [00:35:32]:
We talked about about it was the no pants dance for this episode because I was wearing my PJs and my basketball shorts, and I was sweating it because I'm like, I'm not gonna get on this show. I'm a leave these guys hanging, so I had to put my little PJ bottoms off and just wear my shorts. But, you know, it's it happens. It happens to everybody. So guesting, I think, is an excellent way to get on to get out there and and really get on some shows, And and don't don't try to big dog it. Get on any show that will have you. Yes. It doesn't matter.

Larry Roberts [00:36:02]:
One list it doesn't matter if they have zero listeners because guess what? You're doing it for the reps. You're not doing it impact that that at this stage of the game, you're not doing it for the impact that it's going to have because the impact most likely is going to be on you. It's gonna be an r the ROI, the return on investment is really the return on impact that doing that episode is going to have on you and yours your development as a content creator. So don't be bougie. Go on any show. It doesn't matter if it's your audience. It doesn't matter if it's your niche. It doesn't matter anything.

Larry Roberts [00:36:32]:
If somebody says, hey. You wanna be my podcast? You say yes. And you go on there, and you show up, and you do the absolute best that you can. Love it. Love it.

Chris Stone [00:36:40]:
Love it.

Jim Fuhs [00:36:41]:
That is

Chris Stone [00:36:41]:
that is fantastic advice and, you know, because if nobody's listening, that's okay. Right? Because you're, you know, and and when you first start your podcast, you know, nobody is listening. That's okay. I don't I don't know if you remember this. It was years ago. It was in social media marketing world. Pat Flynn got up and played his first podcast. The first time he ever did a podcast, he played it for everyone.

Chris Stone [00:37:04]:
And, yeah, it was bad. I mean, it was really bad. It was cringey. And he's up on stage and everybody's cringing. But it, like, it was perfect because it was like, if Pat Flynn can do that, I can do that too.

Larry Roberts [00:37:19]:
Right? Mhmm.

Chris Stone [00:37:20]:
You know? But, I mean, it it he didn't snap his fingers and immediately become, you know, Pat Flynn. It took time and effort. And and so it's a good thing nobody's listening at first because it's not gonna be any good.

Larry Roberts [00:37:32]:
That's exactly right. It's just not. And here's the thing. If you don't if you make it to episode 100 and you listen to episode 100, then you go back and listen to episode one. Mhmm. If if you don't sound significantly different, well, then maybe podcasting is not for you. But, you will yeah. Maybe find another hobby.

Larry Roberts [00:37:53]:
I don't know. Go I don't know. Rollerblading or something. But no. I I honestly yeah. I mean, hey. But you're gonna hear a difference. You're gonna hear a massive difference between the way you sounded on episode one of your podcast and, how you sound on episode, 100.

Larry Roberts [00:38:12]:
Yeah. You go I mean, it's just it's just the way it works, man. It's just the way it works.

Jim Fuhs [00:38:19]:
It's funny because, Chris, remember when, when we we've been doing this show for almost five years. And

Larry Roberts [00:38:25]:
if we

Jim Fuhs [00:38:25]:
look back at some of our early episodes, we we would probably cringe and, you know, we used to have the big cans and, you know, the the background and everything was a lot different. It it is. It's, you know, you gotta keep working to get 1% every time as we like to say.

Larry Roberts [00:38:41]:
Yeah. I just want you guys to know that I busted out my studio monitors just for this show because I'm I I mean, I'm still typically I'm still I'm still rocking the can, brother. I mean

Chris Stone [00:38:49]:
Oh, yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:38:50]:
You know? I got my can too.

Chris Stone [00:38:51]:
Jim Jim's anti can. He's he's, you know, anti can at I don't know what the word is.

Jim Fuhs [00:38:58]:
I think, depends.

Chris Stone [00:39:01]:
Maybe AI can give us a word for that. But okay. Back to AI. You see how I did that? See how I did that segment?

Larry Roberts [00:39:08]:
That's not yeah. That's nice and callback. See, that's professional. Right? That's right.

Chris Stone [00:39:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:39:12]:
That's not episode one content right there, folks.

Chris Stone [00:39:14]:
That's right. That's episode four content right there just for you. So you've been in this enough to know and and, I mean, you you know, that would you you can kind of see some stuff that's coming. Right? You're you're every day you're kind of like what's new in this world, you know, maybe testing out some new things, giving giving them test drives and it like maybe in the next year or so, where do you see AI going? Like, where where is where is this stuff going? There's a lot of stuff that feels like, you know, like when clip art was first, you know, came out into the world, you know, and all of a sudden people put clip art on everything and it's like, okay, after a while, we've seen it. Right? Who's doing things that are more creative? Who's taking this to the next level? Where do you where do you see this going in the next maybe year or so?

Larry Roberts [00:40:02]:
Man, it it it's so hard to say because it evolves so fast. I mean, you know, you you go back to January and look at where we're at now, the April, and it's evolved tremendously just in that short amount of time. So it's it's really hard to predict. But what I think is going to continue to happen is we're gonna see continue to see the evolution of video. I I think video is going to become much cheaper to use. You know, that's one of the drawbacks with video right now, and AI generated video is the overall cost, the production cost, the energy cost. And and that's one of the biggest bottlenecks that we're seeing right now in the AI industry is the energy it takes to run these large language models. And until we overcome some of those energy challenges, that's gonna bottleneck the development of AI and the evolution of AI as we know it.

Larry Roberts [00:40:46]:
But even with what we're doing right now and the capabilities that we have right now, I I think we're gonna continue to see where content creation continues to evolve. Sites like notebook l m, I brought that up earlier. I think we're gonna see more sites like that that are gonna become more and more human in their presentation. If you've ever used Eleven Labs, I mean, just look at how far Eleven Labs has come in a year. And I plan on using Eleven Labs to read my second edition of my book when it comes out. I tried doing that with the first edition of my book, and it was a monster. The technology just wasn't quite there. It still sounded you know, you you you had little sliders where you could make changes to the inflection and tone of your voice, but it still just just wasn't quite there.

Larry Roberts [00:41:29]:
So I'm hoping that it's there now. So that's the kind of stuff that we're seeing, on a on a regular basis improve. Are those types of platforms? We have voice generation. We have video generation. We have you know? And and and here's the thing too that a lot a lot of people struggle with. And even Sarah and I are having this conversation right now for our podcast. I mean, what more can we possibly talk about when it comes to branding? You know, we've we've covered everything. You know? So what do we do? Well, we head over to Chad GPT, or we head over to perplexity, or we head over to Claude, or we head over to Grok, or the LLM of your choice, and we ask for ideas on what can we talk about.

Larry Roberts [00:42:04]:
I think we're gonna continue to see the the rise of AI in the suggested content that we create, and it's going to help us overcome those creative barriers that we all face. I mean, as a content creator, you're gonna hit that wall. You just are. You know, even my first podcast was a comedy podcast, and the name of the podcast was an innuendo, so we won't say that here. But it was it was it it did extremely well. You know? I mean, we took it to a live stage show here in Dallas, and, I mean, the stage show ran for seven, eight years. Then it evolved into an open mic, and it was one of the largest open mics in all of DFW for a long, long time outside of the comedy clubs. It was the largest open mic in DFW outside of the comedy clubs.

Larry Roberts [00:42:46]:
But even at the end of that show, we're like, dude, okay. We've eaten dog food. We've talked to lawyers. We've talked to porn stars. We've what what are we what are we gonna do now? You know, we ate hot sauce. Where are we gonna go? You know? So it it it doesn't matter what you're talking about or what you're doing. You're gonna reach that plateau where your creativity just comes to a screeching halt. And I think that's where AI is gonna play the biggest role because, again, I wanna allude back to what I said earlier and that I think we're gonna because of all the AI content that we're seeing these days, we're gonna be longing for human connection and human content, and we can still use AI to help generate that content or generate the ideas for that content.

Larry Roberts [00:43:29]:
But I think it's gonna come back to us as the content creators to create real authentic connection with our audience.

Chris Stone [00:43:36]:
I love that. It's almost like everybody when you hear something like that, and you're not the only person that said that, I also firmly believe that and just wanna underscore that. It almost like when you hear something like that, you should feel a little more assured. Okay. Sit back a little bit. Make you know, understand that there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna be turning on their fire hose of content and just spitting it out and creating this big pile of mediocrity out there that all maybe looks and sounds the same, where you could really be tactical about what you're doing, plan things and organize yourself in the right way, be tactical about what what other things can we be talking about that serves the audience. You know, that stuff's not going away. Right? You you still have to serve your audience.

Chris Stone [00:44:22]:
You still have to have a, you know, you know, be the medicine for their for whatever their problems, you know, are. And, you know, all this stuff is just act like, to your point, exponentially just getting greater, and then all of a sudden you hear this other thing. And I was gonna get into this too and kind of, you know, see what your thoughts are are are on, you know, agential, you know, in in AI agents. Right? Which is, you know, I know, you you've gotten on television, ladies and gentlemen. We have a TV star in our midst, to talk about this amongst other things, on on some morning shows. And for me, that is where I feel like it's another I don't wanna say watershed moment, like maybe the chat g p t image engine was for a lot of people. And that creates this thing where now everybody has not an easy button, but it's a lot easier to create some really great looking art, you know, just by a couple of, you know, things and all of a sudden, like, look how good this looks here. I have an action figure or or whatever.

Chris Stone [00:45:25]:
Now we have to go, okay. I've got to be better because, you know, my grandma can create something that I couldn't create, you know, last month. Right? And now the agents are coming to where you wake up the next morning and your agent has booked you, booked you on stages for the next three months or or all kinds of stuff. Talk a little bit about your thoughts on on AI agents and and maybe how it might relate to, you know, content creation or or just entrepreneurs who are doing it themselves.

Larry Roberts [00:45:57]:
Sure. And, actually, I was gonna go down this path when I brought up make.com and Zapier earlier, but I didn't know where we were at with this conversation. So I didn't wanna bring up agents and go up on a tangent there. So, this is this is really where it's going. I mean, this is really where AI is going. It is agential type AI where you have we're gonna call them applications, just so that people can relate to it more. Because you say agent, and you probably start thinking about the matrix, and and you start seeing these dudes in black suits. But they're they're really like applications.

Larry Roberts [00:46:26]:
But these applications, they can learn. They can iterate. They can make informed decisions on their own without human involvement. So that's where we start seeing the next evolution of the AI revolution is we start seeing this agentic influence on everything that we're doing. I'm working with a staffing agency right now where we're building an agent or a series of agents actually to streamline their sales prospecting process. So they're currently sending out 300 manual emails a day. And then they have to have a whole team that comes back, and they look at those responses, and then they distribute those responses to the appropriate division and salesperson and blah blah blah blah blah. So we're building agents to take care of that for them.

Larry Roberts [00:47:12]:
So we're gonna streamline that entire process. And I can see the same thing happening in the content creation space. You know, if you have an agent that understands your show, that understands the history of your show, that understands the goals of your show, that understands the audience that consumes your show, that understands you as the content creator and how you want to build your show, Now you have an agent that can go out and think, oh, we've already done this episode. Well, let's take it from this perspective. You know, you may cover the same topic, but from an entirely different perspective. And before you, you know, you go to bed at night, you wake up the next morning. Now you've got an entire outline or script or however you wanna do it for your next podcast episode. Then if you wanna take it a step further, you could use something like a notebook l m or maybe an eleven Labs or some other voice generator, and it could potentially even generate the, the the episode for you in your voice, in your tone, using your emotional range.

Larry Roberts [00:48:03]:
I mean, everything is there. So do I think that's what we're gonna be seeing in the very near future? For sure. I I I do. You know, it it's interesting because OpenAI, back when Chatt GPT first dropped, they they dropped the road map of AI, and it was five steps. And Agential AI was somewhere between, step three and step four with step five being AGI or artificial general intelligence or just really straight up interactive thinking machines that make decisions and and learn and evolve and and just they do everything completely on their own. And I think we're honestly, if I'm being real honest, I think somewhere under the Pentagon, I think there's some some AGI that's already happening. Right? I think Yeah. I think there's a test.

Larry Roberts [00:48:48]:
I think there's a Megan. If you're not familiar with Megan, the movie Megan, I think there's a Megan somewhere out there right now that's having those levels of cover. Yeah. Yeah. Ex Machina, Megan. I mean, you know, I use the voice feature on Chad GPT on my phone all the time. And it it it still blows people's minds when you use the advanced voice feature. But I actually named mine Megan.

Larry Roberts [00:49:07]:
So I'm like, hey, Megan. You there? And she's like, hey, Larry. I'm here. And I named her Megan because of the movie. Because, you know, I'm I'm a be cool to her because if she does hit that AGI stage, I want her to take care of her boy. So, you know, but

Chris Stone [00:49:19]:
Building a relationship there.

Larry Roberts [00:49:20]:
I like that. Yeah. %. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Thank you, Megan. Yes, Megan. Oh, you sound great today, Megan.

Larry Roberts [00:49:27]:
This is Looking good, Megan. Yeah. Yeah. Man. So but no. I I honestly, I I think that's that that's where we're at. Agents are are Yeah. Making a a huge impact on every aspect of entrepreneurship right now.

Larry Roberts [00:49:40]:
The vast majority of businesses out there are at least looking at some form of AI, and they understand that their workforce is going to be impacted significantly over the next couple years because of AI. And I think a lot of people are afraid of that, but at the same time, sure. AI is gonna probably remove some jobs. But at the same time, it's gonna create new jobs. You know, there's going to be AI driven jobs. There's going to be, AI ethics type jobs. There's going to be AI engineer jobs. There's always going to have to be that q and a side of things that require the human element as well.

Larry Roberts [00:50:14]:
So there'll be AI QA type jobs, and and the list goes on and on. I do a lot of work here in in the state of Texas with the State Board of Education, and they're scared to death of AI because how's it gonna impact education? Well, it's gonna streamline teachers' jobs. It's gonna make their life a whole lot easier because AI is already grading papers all the way from true false questions all the way up to essay questions. So, I mean, imagine if a teacher doesn't have to spend all their time grading. What could they do in regards to building a relationship with their students? Right? If they don't have if they don't have to develop lesson plans, what does that free them up to do? Establish relationships with their students. Right? Imagine, you know, back in the day, I don't know what kind of school you guys went to. I went to a private school. I had a graduating massive class of five, so I went to a little tiny private school.

Larry Roberts [00:51:01]:
But from my understanding is that in public school, you can have 35 to 50 kids in a classroom. And in that classroom, you can imagine that you've got every range of educational value. You got some students over here that probably gonna need a little remedial training. You got some students over here that are bored to death because they're smart as all get out. And the lesson plan that you've got planned for the day, they already know. They don't care. Mhmm. But with AI, guess what? We have an individual tutor for every student in the classroom that meets that student exactly where they're at and provides them that education at their level.

Larry Roberts [00:51:35]:
So it just it it's it's gonna transform everything that we're doing from an educational perspective, and it's the same thing from a content creation perspective. I mean, it's gonna transform everything that we're doing. So Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:51:45]:
And I think leaning into it is is the is the thing. Right? It's like Oh, you have to. You

Larry Roberts [00:51:50]:
have to.

Chris Stone [00:51:50]:
Don't just think, like, the job that I had for five years is gonna be gone and replaced by AI. Instead, you'd be thinking, like, let's lean into it and understand it instead of being fearful of it and figuring out what you can be doing as opposed to just, like, waiting for the hammer to fall and and being scared, of it. It's, and I loved I loved that that insight, for education. I'm glad you went there. I think a lot of people, especially in the education realm, are absolutely petrified of it and aren't looking at it like you are. Like

Larry Roberts [00:52:25]:
Mhmm.

Chris Stone [00:52:25]:
Hey, you can be using this stuff to free up these educators to do what what you hope they would do is not just grade papers and do all of these, you know, mundane tasks that AI can do and build relationships with these students. I think that's a fan really refreshing take on that.

Larry Roberts [00:52:47]:
You know? I mean, you know, I was very lucky again to have such a small class. You know, I was the smallest class in my school at that time, but a typical class at my school was about fifteen, twenty people. But I just last week, I went back home to my hometown and visited my high school English teacher. And I do that about once a quarter because she established a relationship with me. She was there for me throughout the most I mean, I I posted about it on social media, on LinkedIn, and on Facebook, you guys probably saw it. But, yeah, I mean, she was just there for me in my most, critical time of life when I was developing. And if I hadn't had that small environment, if I hadn't had that personal one on one relationship with miss Lowden, I don't know what would have happened. Right? So think of it from that perspective.

Larry Roberts [00:53:26]:
If you're there there are students out there that need that human engagement. They need that human touch. They need that relationship with a mother or father figure, which teachers tend to be from time to time. And if they're freed up to establish those relationships, think of all the children that we can save. I mean, it's it's it's really an amazing thought when you put it from in that perspective.

Chris Stone [00:53:45]:
I love it. I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the one and only Larry Roberts. Go to LarryRoberts.com. That's the home of Red Hat Media. There is so much stuff, under the red hat, Larry. We only we only scratched the surface, my friend. But make sure you connect with him on all the places.

Chris Stone [00:54:03]:
He's a great follow, on Instagram. We've got a YouTube channel, here. The Instagram is the Larry Roberts, in case you were, you know. And and of course, anyone who's a fan of pride and, and UFC and MMA, is a is a friend of mine. Larry, this has just been absolutely awesome. I before we go, I really wanted to roll it over to you and let you have the last word, my friend. This has been just an outstanding episode, man. So I'm just gonna I'm gonna let you have the last word before we roll out.

Larry Roberts [00:54:35]:
Yeah, man. I appreciate it. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I know it was a long time coming, and I'm thankful that we were able to make it happen. I wasn't sure we were gonna make it happen fifteen minutes before we went live, but somehow we pulled it off. And and I'm very thankful for that. So you guys are amazing hosts. I'm I'm so thankful for this opportunity.

Larry Roberts [00:54:51]:
Love the conversation. Anytime I can talk about AI, anytime I can talk about content creation, I mean, that's where I wanna be. So, I appreciate you bringing up the fact that, I'm on TV. I'll be on, ABC again this Wednesday morning at 9AM central talking about AI and privacy and what AI is is doing to your privacy and how you can protect yourself, from being overrun by some of these things. Oh, look at there's Aaron right there. So I'll be back on there.

Chris Stone [00:55:16]:
Just just in case, you know sorry, audio listeners. We're we're showing a shot of Good Morning Texas, with Larry on stage talking about AI. This is I I every time you post this, man, I catch this. I think you do a fantastic job. That that is not easy to do because you have to like, I know that there's so much in that brain that you wanna you wanna say, but you have to you have to say it a certain way. What's that experience like for you?

Larry Roberts [00:55:42]:
It it's it's it's different. I'll put it that way. You know, I've been doing it for about two years, and, I started off going on about once a quarter. And I got on by accident. Someone, a friend of mine that she runs a networking organization here in Dallas, she reached out on a random Monday night. Said, hey, man. ABC reached out, and they want me to talk about AI in the morning, but I don't know AI. Do you wanna go? And I'm like, I guess.

Larry Roberts [00:56:02]:
I've never been on TV, but sure. I'll do it. Yeah. So they sent me a script about 8PM, and I stayed up till about 3AM that night studying that script and going back and forth with my wife just role playing. And, I went on. Apparently, I did okay because they invited me back. And then, after about a year and a half, January of this year, they they made me a regular, on there as well. So that was kinda cool.

Larry Roberts [00:56:25]:
But the experience is is very different, because you do have the script. And ideally, they stick to the script, but that's not the case every time. The I've been on there before, and they don't follow this she didn't follow script at all. So I'm like, what is she asking? This was not on the this wasn't on the test. You know what I mean? So so you you you do. You have to be able to think on your feet, and you have to be able to talk in sound bites. That's the biggest thing is understanding that they're asking you a question, but but you can't just ramble on and on and on. You have to answer it.

Larry Roberts [00:56:57]:
You have to answer it emphatically and then make sure you stop. Yeah. And then they go on and ask the next question. So you have to be able to deliver it succinctly very quickly and understand when to shush.

Chris Stone [00:57:09]:
Awesome. There he goes, ladies and gentlemen. The one and only Larry Roberts. You can find him at larry roberts dot com. Thank you again, man. I appreciate it.

Larry Roberts [00:57:20]:
I appreciate it, everybody. Thank you so much.

Chris Stone [00:57:22]:
Alright to everybody. As always, don't fear the gear.

Jim Fuhs [00:57:25]:
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Larry Roberts [00:57:52]:
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Larry Roberts [00:58:04]:
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