This 9-Figure Founder Replaced His Whole Creative Team with AI | Nik Sharma

I think there is this kind of misconception now that with AI and people using AI quite a bit that were maybe not hard workers and that we maybe are seen as lazy or that we don't really push ourselves to get to that next step, which is not true at all. Me and my entire friend group are the biggest go-getters I think I know. And I kind of hope that in the future senior leaders maybe realize that we're a lot more feisty and gritty than I think they think we are. Hey everybody, welcome to Catalyst, the Launched by NTT Data Podcast. I'm your host, Tammy Sors. At Launch, we get to work with some of the most incredible companies and organizations to create digital products and experiences that improve lives, solve problems and make a difference. But the show isn't about us and about what we do, it's about people. The leaders making it happen and shaping the future. So each week I dig deep to find out what makes them tick, what drives and motivates them, and of course what they're most excited about right now in the world of technology. And I'm really excited about this one because today's conversation is going to be a little bit different from what we usually do on the show. My guest today is Emma Boyd. She's a recent graduate of Chapman University where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Magna Cum Laude, No Less, and Miners in Sociology, Law, and Liberal Arts. On top of that, she completed the Chapman University Honors Program. What I love about Emma is that she represents something that I find really exciting right now. A generation that grew up with all the technology is entering the workforce right in the middle of the AI revolution and is navigating all of that in real time. And I think there's so much we can learn from her perspective and I cannot wait to dig in. So Emma, thank you so much for joining me on Catalyst Today. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. You make me sound way more amazing than I think I get myself credit for. I will say that is true then because you are amazing. So you should give yourself all the credit. I didn't make any of that up. Thank you. Okay, so let's start with your story. Just tell us more about your journey and how you got to where you are today. What inspired you to go into Political Science, all that good stuff? Yeah, so graduated, like you said, with a Bachelor in Political Science. Hopefully one day that takes me to law school. So in the near future, I'll be right back to the beginning. Jump into law, my sophomore year of high school did mock trial, fell in love with puzzles and that kind of analysis of everything we were working on and jumped right into that. And then I love helping other people and getting to use different skills and putting that all together in laws, what's so incredible and what I fell in love with. And now I'll be starting a new job actually in little less than a week at a law firm in San Francisco, which does business startups and kind of integrates tech into that and everything in between. So I'm super excited and onto the next chapter. As you stumbled upon law, was it when you first got into the debating and all that good stuff? Or did you know early on that you wanted to do that? It was something I found later. So I actually was a little kid wanting to be a veterinarian for the longest time. And then I discovered debate in mock trial in high school and completely changed my mind and just jumped into that world. I was also the kid that everyone was sitting there saying, oh, you'd make such a great lawyer one day even though that was never on my radar. So kind of just all meshed into one. Amazing. So what is it about the debate in mock trial that like really lit you up that got you excited? I think the ability to kind of use multiple skills at once. You have to be an active listener, but also a really good writer and speaker because you're making arguments kind of on the go. I'm a very bubbly person. So I'm always kind of thinking on my feet and that's something that you definitely need in a world of debate and mock trial and law and things like that. So getting to kind of do that while also analyzing different puzzles of whatever case or paper you're reading is really exciting. And that was my jump in. So you also picked a number of minors. So talk to me about the minors that you chose. Sociology, I really wanted to have an understanding of kind of how different communities work going into the field of law. Obviously there are so many different areas, but just understanding how everyone interacts with each other's. I think such an important step in entering the legal fields. You need to be aware of the clients you're working with and the other attorneys you may encounter and everyone in between. So I thought sociology would be a great end to that. Law and the Rort is actually one giant umbrella minor that's pretty unique to Chapman. It's just a collection of different history and English and sociology classes that you take to kind of prep you for law school. And then the honors program was actually technically another minor. So I three and that is just interdisciplinary work of studying other people studying specific interests and kind of blending it all together. I love that. So you're definitely trying to unpack like the human side of it, which I absolutely love. What made you want to do that? Like just curiosity or you knew that that would serve you better as a lawyer or what was it about that? For me, I'm such a people person that I knew I wanted to kind of just understand the world I was going into. Obviously it changes so rapidly all the time. So I think I just wanted to understand the kind of minds and people behind the changing world and who I'll encounter later on. And I just thought it was a really great way to integrate that into what I was putting on doing and maybe see if that could help me once I got there. I'm going to take a guess that it will. Like that was a really nice bet to make. I have to imagine that understanding different communities, different people, different ways of thinking is going to serve you really well before I make assumptions. What kind of lawyer do you want to be? I think criminal justice or medical malpractice was something that kind of peaked my interest because it's not necessarily writing a wrong but kind of working toward a common goal for something maybe better. Obviously one person can't completely change an entire system but maybe one small step can lead to that in the future. So I have very big steps I think would be a simulator. I love that. I mean, you want to make a difference in the world and you want to like help people. And I mean, that's what I just heard from what you said, which is absolutely awesome. Okay, so you just finished school. It's literally been weeks and I think you got to take an amaze. Let's talk a little bit about the vacation that you took. Was that to celebrate being done? Yeah, it was just a big family vacation. We've done one every few years for the last maybe seven years now. We went to Scotland, Ireland, Croatia, and then London. Did you know you had a job waiting for you when you got back or how does your new job line up with that? Yeah, so I ended up landing the job back in April. So right before I graduated and I was slowly going through the process of onboarding and all that fun jazz and they were asking about a start date and they said they were more than willing to be flexible, which I really appreciate. That's amazing. So is it an internship or is it a long-term position? It is a long-term role. So I am officially a big girl now, which is the role they're having. So what is the role? What is the role that you're going into? Yeah, so I'm something called a practice analyst. Essentially, I'll just be helping attorneys with whatever research they may need on past or current cases. How that kind of can maybe help them in future cases, any research in between they may need or any other assistance I'm there to help. Okay, so you're coming into this job market right out of school. All of this, all the talk around AI is maybe we don't even need to hire recent college grads. Maybe people don't need to go to college anymore because we have AI, but here you are a week back or two from vacation and they had to wait for you to get back from vacation to start your new job. How do you think about AI in relation to that? Like are you coming in with them saying this is how you're going to use it or like where does AI fit into your mindset as you come into this role? I see AI as maybe a tool for contenting certain thoughts or pieces of work, but I definitely think that it's something that can take over at time. So I think for me, I try my best to maybe balance where I can. Obviously, like I said, it's a very rapidly changing area, especially coming into the job market that I did come into. So extremely grateful for the fact that that I was even able to find an incredible position and trying to navigate like I said, balancing it as a tool and not letting it take over. - Yeah, I mean, I'm in lots of conferences where we like to talk about Gen Z and what they think about AI and stuff. And so I think a lot of that is us guessing based on the people we have in our lives who were that age, but I'm just really curious, like how do you think about it? Just personally yourself, like how do you think about it? What aspects do you think about it? Like does it something that worries you? Is it something that excites you? Like what's just your overall feel for it? - I'm kind of an odd mix of feelings toward it. I was always someone who loved reading and writing in school. I know that's very rare, but it's just what I enjoyed. And I think once it really started to kick off, maybe my sophomore junior year of college, I got a little worried for some of my friends around me because it completely took over their writing. They just let it do the work and then they would just turn it in. And for me, I love doing the work. So I think I got a little worried, but I'm also excited for something that can maybe do some good. Obviously, like I said, condensing thoughts, integrating it into maybe things that would have taken days or weeks or even months and do a couple of hours is really time efficient, especially in an area like law, where you're always rapidly moving in multiple cases or workloads or happening at the same time. You can efficiently kind of chug through it all. So I think it's a really big mix of emotions, depending on where it's applied and maybe in what context we're discussing it. - How would you use it in order to maintain the creativity and the writing that you want to be able to do? So when you say it condenses, like what kind of prompt would you write to do that? - Yeah, so I use it for outlines. I've got a million thoughts happening at once, especially when I'm writing. So I would use it to help me kind of condense it into what I wanted to say in bullet points and then I would jump off of those bullet points so I would put a prompt, maybe that said, make a five to seven page condensed outline, including these topics of interest or this area. And it would spit out a bullet pointed outline and I would use that kind of as reference for my writing. I was never gonna outline thing anyway. So that was one of the ways I kind of used it to help condense on. - I love that because I think I always get frustrated when it tries to do too much for me. I ended up spending more time editing out the AI slop, if you will, instead of writing. And so I've flipped it. So I'll write something first, which is very sort of brain on fire, like just write, write, write, write, write. And then I'll use it like you said to from an editing perspective. So I might do a brain dump that way and then bring it back to like, okay, how do I turn this in? So like a cohesive thought that a narrative that blends, that's how I use it for work anyway. So you found a job right away. How are your friends fairing in getting roles right out of school? - It's definitely a lot of ups and downs. I have some friends who are in my position and have already actually started a new job and are off to the races. And I have some friends who are just unfortunately waiting through the waters of the current job market and the current state of everything. It's just a mix of where they wanna end up in their career and what they're aiming for. I have a couple of friends who do NGO work and that's been a little bit of a challenge versus one of my friends is currently working on an aftercare program and that was a pretty quick start. So I think it kind of depends. - Do you see anything that's like a recurring theme around who's finding work right away versus maybe who's struggling a little bit? - I feel like it's kind of like I said all over the place. Some of my friends, it's, I think people based like some of these positions are now just completely done by an AI platform or by or integrated program. You don't really need a new grad assistant to take notes anymore. And AI iscribed and do that for you versus it's kind of hard to maybe teach kids with the computer. So I think it just is person by person. Some of my friends have really embraced the AI world. One of them is actually working on her own AI platform and launching that into the world. So I think it's just case by case. - Well, you did a capstone project during your internship with Fabletics OS about AI and social media and marketing. So I love this. What was the project and what made you go there? Can you talk about it? - Yeah, so last summer I had an internship at Fabletics where I was a legal intern and in this program, it was me and maybe 20 other college kids. You're required to do a capstone presentation. Could be anything as long as it was related to whatever area you were working in. And I landed on AI in media and marketing because I was realizing how many different contracts I was working with that had an AI clause. So there were clauses that would say my likeness of whatever person we were working with or using as a model, their AI couldn't be used in any way for their image, their voice, their likeness. They didn't want AI music or anything involved versus others were maybe okay with an AI background or an AI markup in editing or something like that. And it was so consistent that I realized I wanted to kind of see what was going on. And I ended up finding that some companies, he was completely AI generated models to the point that one of them got put into a vogue magazine like a full print of just an AI model where others are so don't even want to use it. They just back away from it completely. And I kind of wanted to see not only how that works legally, but also maybe ethically again, what those clauses of using likeness or image, anyone can take my picture and just throw it into an AI and say make this girl really tall with whatever outfit. And that was hard for a lot of people. So I kind of landed on looking at the effects of that in the fashion industry, especially. - Well, we're your findings. - I found that the hardest part is once the legal standard kind of catches up and they figure out, okay, there's a way to monitor this without making it super tight. The next kind of progress of AI would start and new loopholes would be found in new corners and ways would be integrated. And then all of a sudden the legal field was now back at square zero and having to start completely over with standards and implications and what it meant from contract to contract. And it was just this constantly reoccurring cycle of we found a way and now there is no way, which was kind of just a crazy revelation within my project 'cause I thought it was gonna be super straightforward and it was not that at all. - Did you get any sense of like why or what the behaviors or attitudes were around the people who didn't want it at all versus the people who didn't care? Like did you do research that would have uncovered something like that? - I did a little bit. I talked with other people at the company that weren't in the legal office. So I talked to people that were in marketing, photography, they did all of the modeling shoots or maybe they worked with the lighting or design. I had a friend who was the design intern and I asked them what they thought about it and it was again, it was such a case by case basis. My friend who was the design intern was telling me she was totally okay with using its alb mock up but she tried not to use it because she liked to draw. So she really only used it to maybe put the portfolio together whereas one of the marketing directors that I worked with and got to be on set with one day was over the moon to use it for editing background and lighting and maybe putting music over it and using it in post and different areas. And so it's totally just different depending, I think on people's areas of interest or what they're doing. - How did that translate into the work you were doing there? - Yeah, so we have something called compliance guidelines, most, if not all companies have this, if there's social media or websites and it's just a guideline to make sure that everything is uniform that it's within whatever legal compliance and by the end of my project, I wrote a mock compliance guideline with the integrated use of AI. So explaining the kind of updated legal ordinances and compliance is that we needed to follow while also saying you can totally use it to make sure that we're not doing something we shouldn't be with AI. So I made a whole packet and then sent it to the other members of the legal team and then made a whole presentation on it. - It's interesting because we did research for my company starting with our employees. So if we're going to reimagine the way that we do work in launch, we want to make sure that we're designing the future of work around our people and what they want to continue to do and what they think AI should do for them. So similar to what you were saying about what you like to do. So let's not take away, in your case, the writing and the strategy. We want to use AI to do the things that you want to. But what we found is there was a different attitude around AI based on the generation. So someone who was more junior in their career was less likely to experiment, use AI and try it out. Then someone who was more senior and had a longer standing career. And it was really around like psychological safety and the understanding of like the more senior you get in your career, the more expertise you have, the more data may knowledge you have, the more seniority you have. And so there's less fear and like messing something up or doing something wrong. And then the more junior there start, you know, you're starting out in your career. And you're like, was this allowed? Should I be doing this? Should I not be doing this? Is it going to replace me? So I'm curious like if you saw any of those kinds of things. I actually even saw it before the internship in college. There were some professors that were 10 years and I loved them. I had them multiple times. But they were totally fine with using AI in their work and in their position for slideshows or lectures or study plans or what it may have been. But then when we would do the assignment, they did not want to stop saying AI at all. So there was a little bit of that disconnect even between my professors and myself for using AI and our own work. Like I said, obviously lots of people got around to using it. So it was interesting to see that instead of them allowing us to maybe embrace it and learning how to use it in different ways that it was a completely just don't even touch it. And it was not quite the same, but a little bit of a different attitude in terms of that as well at the internship. A lot of my colleagues who were also college students in the internship program were totally fine with using it because their position allowed them to. Whereas others maybe in the finance department or I had a friend who was a graphic design, they kind of stayed a little more away from it because it either made a lot of mistakes in their work or. It took them longer to actually figured out than it did to use it, whereas our mentors were using it a little bit more and integrating it a little bit more. So definitely that attitude is there across the board. I love that. So then the idea is like from a mentorship perspective, if you are more senior than making sure that you're using that to mentor guide coach others around ways that you're using it so that they feel more comfortable in using it. That's a really good tip for people who are listening. What about just attitudes overall just across your pier set like I know for me I've got some folks their anti AI they don't use AI for their work they don't use AI in personal life. So do you see that across your pier set as well? Yeah, definitely I have some friends that are don't even want to touch AI at all they are scared of what may happen or where it's going and everything in between so they stay as far away from it is possible. Whereas especially now that I'm back in San Francisco AI is everywhere with my peers as I mentioned one of my friends is actually making her own AI platform and totally embracing it. And asking a different platform of AI to code her other platforms code and then putting it in and totally jumping on board with the AI startups of San Francisco. So I think it just completely depends on the person and where they maybe are. Like I said San Francisco is very AI startup forward they are all about the AI integration and Silicon Valley and things like that versus I have friends in Oklahoma or Washington and they want nothing to deal with it. So I think maybe demographic of where they are also is a big part. I would imagine too that maybe there's sort of a political where you are politically as well I know that there's concern about you know sustainability concerns and some things that may drive someone who's a bit more around sustainability and climate more so than someone who isn't necessarily on that side of that spectrum. Yeah that's also especially being a political science major definitely something that I've picked up on and it's definitely an interesting conversation because people don't think about it sometimes because they don't realize that it's affecting other people but maybe not them. I think the biggest notice that I saw of the sustainability versus non sustainability conversation yeah those conversations are just interesting especially in politics classes of college because everyone has such different opinions that it's just bouncing off the walls ideas everywhere. I can imagine that the debates and mock trials potentially in college recently were pretty probably animated I guess they're probably always animated but it's been an interesting four years to say the least for my degree. I bet I bet so last time I saw you you were talking about you know maybe taking a gap year and maybe doing something in sports marketing and so one of the things that like I just love about you is like you're so open to trying and doing new different things so how did you land on the job that you have today like did the sports marketing not take its path or tell me about that. I kind of was just applying everywhere and anywhere I even kind of went back wild and applied to some F1 jobs out in England hoping maybe someone would take me on as an assistant or something crazy. Obviously those fill through that was kind of a long job but shoot for the moon and you land on a star so I just decided to kind of go everywhere and the sports marketing or sports in general is a little bit harder to get into if you don't have an in it's all about the network so. Can really find an in which is totally fine maybe it's out there in the foreseeable future but ended up just applying for this job because it matched my profile on LinkedIn add one of those green check marks and. I went for it and then I found out a friend of a friend knew someone at the company and I got to talk to them and just see about their career and. Talking to them got my foot in the door and then I kind of launched off from from there and I had a couple interviews and that was hot. I love that you said that you went buck wild you were like one of the most fearless young people that I have met do you think that's something you were born with is that something that you learned is that something your parents instilled with you like your confidence like even coming on the show. When I asked you you were like heck yeah I'll do it you know so and I've got grown people who are like I'm not doing a podcast with you so like you're just fearless so what is it tell me. I think it's a little bit of I think I was just born with it mixed with I think my parents instilled some of it in me I've always kind of been. A daredevil child I was the child that was always injured because I was jumping off of something or running as fast as I could and I would run into something part of it too was my parents just raised me to. Kind of dive in feet first and just see what happens obviously you can't predict the future but you can kind of figured out as you go and they instilled a very big part of. That in me and kind of learning that it doesn't necessarily have to be a spring but if you want to go fast you can go fast and if you want to. Take a break then you can slow down so. I think they taught me a lot of just going at it and working it out from there is there any way that that is backfire for you is there ever been a time where you were just like ooh I maybe went too far or as have you ever experienced anything like that. My mom and I joke about this all the time we're all sometimes act before I think or we call it ready fire aim so instead of maybe ready aim fire I kind of flip it I can't really remember super specific moment but there's only been a few where I maybe jumped in a little too quickly and then was kind of crawling my way back out going oh god why did I do that but it's always kind of worked until found me and so. We fix the kinks and we smooth it over I wanted to ask because you know as a more senior leader I get asked what would I tell my younger self all the things that I've known and like one of the things that I wish I had then that I do have now is that level of just confidence like I did push hard and I drove hard but I sort of masked not having the confidence that I felt like I needed and so. I just love that you're starting your career with that confidence so my coaching to you would be don't let any of those ready fire aim experiences slow you down because that confidence is going to serve you so well in your career and I love seeing it thank you I appreciate that. - Okay, so we have a lot of, we have senior leaders listening to the show and I'm just curious, what do you wish leaders in business, in your life would better understand about your generation? Now you get to speak for your entire generation, but what do you wish that they better understood? - That's a lot of pressure on my shoulders right now. (laughs) The biggest thing that I would say is that we are hard workers. I think there is this kind of misconception now that with AI and people using AI quite a bit and we've mentioned a couple times, just the changing worlds and everything happening that we're maybe not hard workers and that we maybe are seen as lazy or that we don't really push ourselves to get to that next step, which is not true at all. Me and my entire friend group are the biggest go-getters, I think I know. And I kind of hope that in the future, senior leaders maybe realize that we're a lot more feisty and gritty than I think we are and we're trying to keep the ball rolling. So I think that's the biggest thing that I would probably throw out there. - Well, do you have any bold predictions that you would make something you think is coming that your generation sees that maybe us older generations are missing? I think AI is going to take a very interesting turn. I've been seeing more and more reports that Gen Z is kind of all over the place with what they're thinking. So I think AI is going to still be very integrated, but I think it's going to maybe backpedal in the next 10 years or maybe stop progressing for a little bit once everyone gets to the senior level. So that's my prediction. Maybe that's a crazy prediction saying that technology won't progress, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. - I would translate that into maybe a little bit of the hype cycle of what AI is supposed to be able to do slows down a little bit and we get a little bit more pragmatic around what it can do. That's the way I interpret what you just said. - Yeah, you put it much more eloquently than I do. - No, that's not true. It's not true at all. I just put my lens on it. That's all. - Well, I so appreciate you coming on the show. It was so much fun to have you. I just like consume your energy. I couldn't wait to talk to you today. I was telling a friend of mine last night who knows you and I was telling you that we were doing the podcast and it just gave me so much energy to like see you when I'm gonna hang out with you. And so hopefully the audience got all that energy as well 'cause it's magnetic and it's amazing. And I just am super happy to have you on the show. - Thank you and thank you so much for having me. This is an amazing opportunity and such a fun podcast and a fun thing you're doing. So thank you so much for even thinking of me. - Amazing. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed today's episode. We'll see y'all back here next week. But until then, be bold, take risks and shine bright. (upbeat music)