Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome RVA to Inspire AI, where we spotlight companies and individuals in the region who are pioneering the development and use of artificial intelligence. I'm Jason McGinty from AI Ready RVA. At AI Ready RVA, our mission is to cultivate AI literacy in the greater Richmond region through awareness, community engagement, education and advocacy. Today's episode is made possible by Modern Ancients driving innovation with purpose. Modern Ancients uses AI and strategic insight to help businesses create lasting, positive change with their unique journey consulting practice. Find out more about how your business can grow at modernagentscom, and thanks to our listeners for tuning in today. If you or your company would like to be featured in the Inspire AI Richmond episode, please drop us a message. Don't forget to like, share or follow our content and stay up to date on the latest events for AI Ready RVA.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Welcome to another episode of Inspire AI, where we dive into the minds of trailblazers shaping the future of business and technology. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce a guest whose impact in the world of IT leadership and business transformation is nothing short of extraordinary. Barron Wright is a visionary technology executive known for optimizing customer satisfaction and engagement by designing innovative solutions that align perfectly with business objectives. With a track record of forging strong partnerships with industry leaders, barron plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between technology and business strategy, helping organizations achieve their boldest ambitions. Barron's expertise spans security, cloud and SaaS solutions, enterprise strategic planning, it infrastructure and business transformation, making him a sought-after leader in the technology space. But beyond his technical acumen, what truly sets him apart is his ability to build lasting relationships, mentor high-performing teams and drive innovation that fuels business success. Today, we'll explore Barron's journey, his insights on the evolving IT landscape and how technology leaders can drive meaningful transformation in their organizations. Please join me in welcoming Barron to Inspire AI.

Speaker 2: 2:42

Jason thank you so much and hello everybody. Wow, I'm hearing those words. I'm like who's this guy? Appreciate the warm thoughts there. Yes, thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 2:56

It is a little surreal being on a podcast, right? Well, thank you for joining us today. Baron, can you start out by telling us a little bit about yourself, your business, your interest in AI?

Speaker 2: 3:08

Yeah, Well, I'm a technology entrepreneur, that's for sure. I didn't even know it at certain points in my career, had the privilege of going to work in a systems integration kind of a managed IT firm back in the 90s, before they call it managed IT kind of a managed IT firm back in the 90s, before they call it managed IT. So I've been a technology entrepreneur most of my career. I am a husband and father of three. I enjoy off-road motorcycle riding, which I actually got to ride my dirt bike yesterday, which, well, sunday, and really is my escape and a great hobby, yeah. But my interest in AI really, from the from thus far, it's been personal productivity and I'm intrigued, really, really intrigued, at its impact in the software development landscape and how it's changing software. I think you know so much of of what what people are talking about. Talking about is lots of productivity and the personal productivity I know it has been for me, but I'm really joining other most world leaders and business leaders and knowing that what we are, what we're experiencing now, is truly like, you know, the revolution of the internet, you know, back in the 90s. So it's a great time to be in technology.

Speaker 2: 4:30

I definitely am optimistic, for sure, and you know, in terms of really AI for me actually helped me make a big helped feeling, helped me making a big business decision last year around my technology entrepreneurship like where I was headed. I had a big fork in the road decision last year. Ai was a great personal aid. I had a really great network of people that actually were helping me with an important decision. An important decision and then, in a lot of ways, ai, chat, gpt in particular, was kind of a friend and a confidant on the side that you could validate ideas and shape ideas and it really became honestly enough of an impact where there was like another person in my life and it was also in some cases in most of the case, actually, the great advice that I got from my network of colleagues was validation too. So I'm really really it's really exciting to be in a place of technology entrepreneurship and having this tool available. It's mind boggling but really exciting available.

Speaker 1: 5:46

It's mind boggling but really exciting. Yeah, it definitely elevates the human capabilities and I, like your your statement of you're an optimist about this technology gives gives me a sense that you know you see it as being a tool to unlock human potential, more than replace it, which is a great thing. It's very powerful. It supports our productivity in everyday life these days and I think it's a it's a great connection you made for yourself. It is another thing that you can fall back on and and leverage as a key partner in your life, yeah, which I think that's that's like step one for sure is making turning it into the most productive personal assistant. Yeah, yeah, so being able to leverage its key skills to do that is a major undertaking. It teaches you a lot about the AI technology and it allows you to expand your thinking beyond that. So that's great that you're there. Yeah, can you tell us? So what inspired you to start UMIT Technologies? What gap in the market are you addressing?

Speaker 2: 6:57

Well. So UMIT Technologies is actually a byproduct of the company that I founded, which was VectorPro. Vectorpro was my second entrepreneurial venture, so VectorPro was acquired by the Upper Mattapani Indian Tribe. So UMIT is an acronym for the Upper Mattapani Indian Tribe. Which the Upper Mattapani Tribe is a is a very much an entrepreneurial driven, tribally owned tribal nation Right. So the Upper Mattapani Indian Tribe received its sovereign nation status in 2019. And subsequent to that, has been growing. Various enterprises within the tribe has been growing various enterprises within the tribe. The tribe started a healthcare system which has been producing not only well-needed medical services for tribal citizens as well as the community in King William, but also is a revenue stream for the tribe to do other entrepreneurial things.

Speaker 2: 8:04

So from my perspective, I was happily running my managed IT firm. I have been in the IT consulting space most of my career. As I mentioned earlier, I was a business owner with five. We were a total of five partners. For about 18 years we were together. We were doing managed IT services as well as systems integration, cisco networking and Cisco VoiceOver IP was a big initiative back in the 2000s when VoiceOver IP was becoming a real thing and sort of changed the landscape of how businesses used and implemented phone systems.

Speaker 2: 8:43

So my journey took me to a place where I needed to start another business and I was out there looking. I'll never forget it, too, because I ship shaped my LinkedIn profile and dusted off the wealth, had a resume created, spent good money actually to have a professional help me write that, and because I had been a business owner Right, and you don't really do your own resumes when you're in that position and it didn't feel right. I was out looking for a job and, honestly, it just didn't sit right with me. I'm like you know, my true calling really did come out, like I really really liked the notion of a lot of people saying I want to go into business for myself so I can be my own boss. You know, you always have a boss. I mean, your customers are your boss, right, but it is something that there's a unique drive that the entrepreneurial spirit.

Speaker 2: 9:36

So Vector Pro was my second version. I was a sole proprietor. Just me kind of want to slow growth. The space that we fit is really was small to medium businesses. Giving them providing an IT leadership. Keep the lights on IT is a lot of what I like to call it, but also coupling that with you know what are some decisions that I should be making in my business.

Speaker 2: 10:00

Cybersecurity is a big thing. Outside of AI, one of the number one things that businesses are concerned about these days is cybersecurity and most people don't do it right. I mean, you can be spending millions of dollars on cybersecurity and there's still risk right, you can't make the risk go away. But the need that we were fulfilling at VectorPro was well-run IT with an enterprise mentality, well-run IT with an enterprise mentality, cybersecurity tools kind of built in and then fractional leadership. That kind of went all into a package. So you know about eight or 10 clients that I had that was in, that was, and I had two other employees in the business and then the tribe approached me and that the Upper Mattify tribe approached me to acquire the business but wanted me as a part of it. Right, the business wasn't big enough to just, you know, set into the sunset.

Speaker 2: 10:52

So UMIT Technologies was really that formation of an entrepreneurial tribal nation wanting to do more, more lines of business, and so we're capturing that spirit of entrepreneurial drive growth, and now I have a business partner that's funding growth in a really exciting time. Cybersecurity and AI is pretty much what we talk about today. Honestly, you know, the interesting thing about AI now is well, you know, I sort of put data in that same thing. Right, that's really ultimately what cybersecurity is protecting. Sometimes we think of it just as malware and viruses and things like that the classic defense.

Speaker 1: 11:38

But cybersecurity is also encapsulating data.

Speaker 2: 11:42

And AI has a really strong sort of a vacuum effect, like where is my data going? You know so that data governance in AI is a huge issue in IT infrastructure concepts, which you know sort of the day-to-day keep the lights on IT. I like to call it about how do I protect the data. You know I want to use chat GPT. I want to use Microsoft Copilot. Is my data safe? Most frequent question that customers are asking me now is my data safe if I use this tool?

Speaker 1: 12:14

So yeah, I would love to be a fly on the wall when you answer that. It's a great cross-section cybersecurity and AI and such a compelling backstory of how that happened. I guess it's quite a reminder that there are. You know, unexpected relationships can lead to meaningful transformations.

Speaker 2: 12:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:36

That's cool.

Speaker 2: 12:37

Yeah, for sure it does remind me Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 12:42

I'm going to tag on one little remark there because actually the backstory of the relationship there was one of my more difficult clients over the years in my career as an IT entrepreneur and a business owner and really a day-to-day technical practitioner I was a deliverer of technical services to my clients. Technical practitioner right, I was a deliverer of technical services to my clients. This person often I would leave their office often bewildered, kind of wondering where do I stand with this person? Just one of those kind of tough cookies that you know, hard but fair ultimately.

Speaker 2: 13:21

But one of those managers leadership leaders that was always had you kind of guessing a little bit on your heels kind of a thing and I honestly I never knew where I stood. I would leave the, leave his office, sometimes frustrated sometimes honestly demoralized, like wow, you know make a mistake.

Speaker 2: 13:34

Um, he was pretty hard on you when you made mistakes and things like that, but we always we were together 10 or plus years. Um, this person who I sort of want you know where do I stand with them actually was the person to who recommended me to the tribe. He's a tribal, he's a Native American upper Maniponite citizen and went out on a limb to refer me. So it is one of those things that sometimes even the most challenging people, difficult people, hard on you, people who are hard on you not to sound negative, but like those folks who cause you to think and maybe add some stress in your life, you know.

Speaker 1: 14:13

I could have easily just written them off.

Speaker 2: 14:15

And there was a part in me that actually kind of was questioning like wow, like you know, I mean I it was, it was, it was. It was truly amazing to have that type of referral. It's literally changed the trajectory of my life. Come from a person. It the the. Ultimately now, the question that I can answer is that all those years he did have a lot of respect for me. I just never quite knew it. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Some people have trouble expressing their feelings.

Speaker 2: 14:47

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:47

And you know empathetic ways. Yeah, yeah, and you know he's probably a business owner, maybe definitely a leader of the company, and took it very seriously.

Speaker 2: 14:57

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:57

So you know business is business to certain people.

Speaker 2: 15:01

Yeah, and then, but to literally have that.

Speaker 2: 15:04

So, man, man, I'm telling you that is a major life lesson to never burn a bridge even if you disagree with somebody, right, even if you part ways like don't burn the bridge, man, because you just have no idea. I went through transformation in my life. He went through separate trance. We were completely out in the universe, on totally different paths, and then the world brought us together just by a phone call. We crossed pat, I crossed a common, uh, you know person in both in our network. I was actually doing a sales call and, uh, that commonality brought me back to a phone call which started that. So don't ever burn those bridges, man. You just don't know what the future could unfold and it and it's an amazing place that we're in today.

Speaker 1: 15:46

So yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, you need your network Absolutely To grow your career. You cannot do it alone around here, absolutely. So all right, that's really a great add-on. Thank you for sharing. Can you tell us a little bit about how your leadership approach evolved with the rapid advancement of technology and, lately, considering the evolution of AI? How has it evolved?

Speaker 2: 16:13

Yeah, I don't think I would say my leadership has changed because I'm. I really am. I mean my leadership style changed on its own. We were talking earlier about just, uh, professional development books. I really am.

Speaker 2: 16:28

I wasn't always this leader, because I always have. I have been a natural leader, but I was oftentimes I wanted to be. It was, it was unintentional talents coming out and personality, but I often was, I was proud to be, you know, the guy talking the most in the meeting, or maybe you know having the best ideas, or being the center point of the guy who had the subject matter knowledge and so on and so forth. And you know that's one way to. That's leadership. That's not leading a team, that's leading you.

Speaker 2: 17:03

You know an initiative or a project or a sale, and so my leadership, honestly, like I had, my leadership has evolved to I am not the most important person on the team.

Speaker 2: 17:16

I have to lift others up right and it is that's a. That's a personal development that has just come with age and wisdom and hard knocks. I wish I had it earlier. So I would say the my, you know my career and these experiences and getting getting running into some brick walls, to having hard times, you know, losing a job and being faced with you know a really really do I want to go get a job or am I going to start this other business, kind of a thing those things really shake you up and has changed it. So lifting others up, being an encouraging leader, is really what I do now, and also now, though, we have this backdrop of AI and these game-changing technologies. So the encouraging part, lifting people up part I think now I'm weaving that into the day-to-day conversations of back to AI being a tool for personal development and a tool for efficiency, personal productivity. That's kind of how I weave it in, like making sure that people are using it to improve their lives in any way they can.

Speaker 1: 18:36

But, simultaneously.

Speaker 2: 18:37

You know how is your personal life or how are your hobbies. You know talking with employees about. You know their career aspirations. They're in a position where they don't love. If you don't love, at least you know 70% of your job. You're probably in a wrong position and there's always 30% of crapola that goes with a job.

Speaker 1: 19:01

So Dole sucking work. I like to say yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:04

But I do feel like that's kind of where I am. Um, I I don't, I don't, I don't think AI has quite, but we don't know right now. Like there is, there's something else coming quickly, um of of what AI. I mean kind of, uh, we're a Microsoft, we do a lot of Microsoft partner work, cloud service provider, so Microsoft's pushing, you know, copilot. It's interesting how that mixes in the world, you know, alongside ChatGPT, which is, you know, encouraging the use of and spending money on those licenses, right, I mean, microsoft the chat, the Copilot license is more expensive than your average, your day-to-day Microsoft. You know, microsoft the chat, the co-file license is more expensive than your day-to-day Microsoft productivity your Microsoft 365 license it's actually more expensive. So, being willing to invest in a technology tool that's there to make the people better, more productive, right?

Speaker 1: 20:02

Yeah, it's definitely a force multiplier. Yeah, it's definitely a force multiplier.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Yeah, yeah, and and uh. You know I every everything that you're saying there totally resonates with me. I even feel like our backgrounds are similar.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Prior to changing my worldview through enterprise lens, I was working for a small, medium business consulting firm in Dallas and it's's closed down since. It's called Tech Metrics and we were largely a Microsoft shop and we had our challenges with our customers and we each had to figure out our leadership styles in this organization. At the time, I was the guy that was a senior consultant and had the very, very much like I should be the center of attention, I should be the one speaking here. And you know, fast forward 15 years and you've got the idea of servant leadership as a primary goal in everything that I do. When I support someone or something, it's you know what, what can I, what am I here for? It's not me, me as the center of attention, but it's you know what can I do to add value to this situation or this person's life? And so, yeah, what you said really resonates with me and I really appreciate being able to reconnect with those feelings.

Speaker 2: 21:28

It has to be genuine too, though it can't just be the cat, the proverbial cat poster. You know the mission statement. I love that you remember that cat poster where he's like hanging on and like those proverbial missions that it has to be. You definitely have to believe it, you do have to believe it. You know it's even with a partner, a spouse, and you don't believe it, Right?

Speaker 2: 21:50

I mean it's yeah you just that, that that speaks into the power of change and personal personal development. We can change ourselves. So, yeah, that's been a huge, huge bit for me. Thanks for sharing that too. Yeah, it's cool.

Speaker 1: 22:05

Yeah, I love authentic leaders. That's that's important. And you get the sense after you've been around several flavors of leadership for long enough recognize when they're faking it, if you will All right, so tell me a little bit more about U-MIT Technologies integration business strategy and how does it drive innovation and efficiency.

Speaker 2: 22:29

Yeah Well, as I said, our kind of our go to market strategy is managed IT Right. So I like to call it the keep the lights on IT Right. You, everybody, needs a computer on the desk Mac or Windows. It's got to be managed, patch, cyber, secure, you know, blah, blah, blah. So there's that general sort of keep the lights on IT. We do that well actually. And what's amazing is when you do that well, nobody's really talking about all the fussiness down there. It gives you time truly to elevate your conversations. So part of our service delivery is also kind of a fractional leadership. We don't exactly call it well. I guess it kind of says in our marketing materials you know a fractional leader so, and we don't charge for those hours.

Speaker 2: 23:15

At some point if it turns into a big project or something like that. You know we have provisions, but hey, if I can have a seat at the table like myself or other senior members of the staff, if we can get a seat at the table of a management meeting, that where you're not fussing about open tickets and broken computers and you know all those things that that are just kind of boring it stuff.

Speaker 2: 23:40

that's where the really cool business problems come up. In fact, that meeting I mentioned to you earlier, uh, an organic meeting, evolved around, um, uh, the ceo of this, of this client, one of our clients, is just a really great thinker. He's very simple in his approach. He was just asking lots of what ifs and he had several members of the technology team myself being one of the having kind of that proverbial seat at the table, having kind of that proverbial seat at the table, and so what's really cool about having like a foundational, foundational role in doing that well and then being willing to extend ourselves into these leadership conversations. That's where we're seeing the wheels start to spin and there, and and business owners are asking a lot of questions. Honestly that I don't think there's very, there's no prevalent answers right now. Here's an example A lot of businesses now run on software as a service systems.

Speaker 2: 24:47

Right, they're industry specialized. We all know QuickBooks and things like that that are that are unique across. I'm sorry, you know they're across a lot of industries but then there's very industry-specific software platforms. This particular client that I'm talking about is in the medical transportation and uses a software system that does computer-aided dispatch or CAD software system that does computer aided dispatch or CAD, and so the CAD puts the trucks on the road to go pick up the patients and you know it schedules employees, so on and so forth. But they're they're a captive. That software, as a service system, has all the data. It's the ERP for the medical transportation company.

Speaker 2: 25:35

So fortunately it's a good software system, right, it works, but unfortunately it's a closed system. That it's. It is an ecosystem, its own ecosystem, and so how do you get information in and out of that? Um, you know you hear this phrase of api integration right, software systems being integrated with one another, but that's hard, it's clumsy a lot of times. So the conversation was well, I would like to have AI helping me answer my telephones and, you know, can it do a lookup and give a customer a ride. So you're starting to see what the Microsoft CEO has been speaking about, of the AI layer, these AI bots that are and this is now becoming common conversation amongst business leaders.

Speaker 2: 26:28

They're hearing the podcast and now they're asking these legitimate business questions to their tech teams and we don't have good answers because it's captive in this software as a service, you know, kind of a closed system. Right, the data is in the application. How do I bridge? You know how do I shim an AI layer in between them? So that's what I'm seeing a lot of like exciting ideas innovative leaders are coming up with these ideas.

Speaker 2: 26:58

And then, actually, unless you own your own software which most businesses don't right Most people have gone out to the software as a service. If you happen to be with a software as a service provider who's innovating with AI, well then great. Be with a software as a service provider who's innovating with AI? Well then, great, I mean. But if you're with one that doesn't have AI, an AI layer, you're kind of stuck with them because they also have a closed you know, a closed system. So what I'm seeing now, what's causing my wheels to spin, is like oh wow, how do I?

Speaker 1: 27:32

I mean for us as an infrastructure company.

Speaker 2: 27:36

We've put ourselves in the position where we have a seat at the table. Are these areas where I should be looking at for UMIT technologies as innovative opportunities, right? And do you even call it software development? Right? That's a whole you know, because can't the AI write its own software development? I'd love to open up that kind of conversation because that to me, is one of the most intriguing. But it's exciting and then all of a sudden it can also quickly turn kind of frustrating, because I don't know about you but when you see all these software systems. I was talking to a friend a couple of months ago and he was a business owner. He does, he manages apartments or you know, multilevel housing and so property management company. Sorry, I was having a hard time getting that out and he's like you know, he was counting on his hand and he went to two hands of all the software systems in his ecosystem.

Speaker 2: 28:37

None of them talk to each other, you know, and so I really think this, this AI layer, whether it's integrating software or is? It replacing software like that. You know the software as a service that we have of what we know today, because at this point now. I've been in enough conversations to see that it's a barrier, like we know the AI, we know it's there, business owners now are, and this particular guy that I'm talking about is willing to spend money, right, because he also knows that it's cost deferred.

Speaker 2: 29:10

Now, in some cases, this is the dangerous side of AI. It is job replacement, right, there is automation that can replace humans, but as a business owner, he's got to be looking at that too. Right, if his costs are you know, how can he optimize that business? So that's what I'm seeing a lot now.

Speaker 1: 29:30

Some of them are unanswerable questions now, some of them are unanswerable questions. That's wild. So you have a customer, they have some off-the-shelf solution, software as a service. It does not integrate with other systems. Well, api integrations that they have documented are outdated, kludgy, um. And to tie those api requests into some ai platform in order to make use of the data which is rightfully theirs, but exactly actually not. Yeah, yeah, um, yeah. So you know.

Speaker 1: 30:12

So many things come to mind here At this point. I would be looking for cloud-based technologies to replace whatever got them stuck in that world an Amazon web service package that does what they want it to do for their ERP. I'm not terribly familiar with ERPs, but I did definitely work with an ERP back when I was in the Microsoft server infrastructure world as well, in that consulting role I referred to, and it's not a friendly system. So I would say, yeah, we could go on and on, but if you could find a solution that's cloud-based and one in which that does integrate with other technologies very easily and this is forward thinking with the AI tech, then you might have a much easier set of circumstances to deal with a roadmap such as that. But it does take work to go from a data center co-located version of what they do as a primary resource of revenue to a cloud-based technology.

Speaker 2: 31:31

Yeah, what's interesting is I have a close relationship. We helped this particular client onboard into this system. It was a pretty long journey, probably a six-month journey, leaving another software as a service system going to this one. It is a better piece of software, there's no doubt there are lots of value has come from it. But it's that lock, that landlocked element. You know that. And they do offer some again, some APIs. They just take a long time read only copy of the data so you can get to the data, so on and so forth. So there's something there. So I was actually having a talk with this guy, right, this is the software as a service system that my client depends on and we got through some of the brass tacks of a couple incidents and what's the status on this, that and the other.

Speaker 1: 32:23

And I was asking him hey what's your strategy with AI?

Speaker 2: 32:27

Immediately, you could tell it was a Zoom call. Immediately, the count has changed. Oh, no, no no, no, no, no ai this industry. It'll never happen to this industry for 10 years. So here you had a company leader of a software company, whom, whom my client depends on, right and immediately it was oh no, no, no, we're different.

Speaker 2: 32:47

This industry is not going to be impacted by ai. It'll never. It'll never, like literally the words, like it'll never be there kind of a thing, like it'll never happen. And I go to say now, I'm never shocked, but I was kind of taken back Like, really you do? Do you really think that this industry is impervious from these forces that that are at work? Um, which you know? I mean, that's one way to do it right Put your head in the sand like an ostrich and just ignore all these forces and hope it doesn't impact your software. But here I am representing a client that's like trying to innovate, like you know, and Allroads led to this software.

Speaker 2: 33:32

So it's like like, um, yeah, it's it was a closed-minded perspective um which I was kind of shocked, actually a little bit, but I do you know nothing. Not much shock, see these days, but it was.

Speaker 1: 33:47

I was surprised I see, yeah, I would politely rebut that as well and say I get it. No, you haven't been exposed to those. You know the risks in that thinking yet, but it is a naturally disrupting technology and it is going to impact all industries. It's only a matter of time. Industries. It's only a matter of time. And so, you know, as innovators, we need to be thinking about the future before the future gets us and and you know, pulls us out of the sand.

Speaker 1: 34:23

I love the ostrich analogy. I always say that to people, and not to people, but about people that choose to look the other way and don't, don't accept the, the reality in which you know hate to say it, but is a well-framed one at this point, and if you're not paying attention, then you've got. You've got to, uh, start sometime. And whether it's a it's a friend that wakes you up to it, or a business, a bad business decision that wakes you up to it, or a business, a bad business decision that wakes you up to it, it will happen, so anyway. So tell me a little bit of an anecdote here, if you were to share some of your insights about some of the more exciting AI advancements you're looking out for and watching and seeing. How do you see them influencing business in the next five years?

Speaker 2: 35:19

Well, this notion of no code or low code or an AI layer the Microsoft CEO has been talking about, essentially, an AI layer, removing software as a service. We talked a lot about that, right, the closeness of a software as a service platform of businesses. Once you make a decision on one, you're captive to that. Well, what if you could? Businesses could write their own software in a cloud environment. Right, microsoft is going big in cloud, same with AWS. You don't need the software as a service or you don't need a team of programmers to to create the software that runs the business that makes a decision. That, to me, is absolutely profound. I mean the investments that. I mean Microsoft is a software company and to hear the CEO speak is truly profound, knowing that this entire layer they don't get it right and software changes as we know it could wipe out. You know an entire company, like you know a large software giant. So that's that's where we are and it is truly profound.

Speaker 2: 36:38

And when you hear business leaders saying they want to get more out of their software and then that ostrich software development company, right, saying no, we'll never, we don't need to do that, it'll never, it'll never happen, what do you think? You know those business leaders are going to go towards the no code, low code. Let me just tell my AI interpreter chat GPT. Let me just talk to it. I mean, who's to say you couldn't go home? You know, riding in your car and instead of listening to an audio book, you're having a conversation with your AI interpreter and it captures all these ideas and, honestly, this client that we've talked a lot about, he's an innovative thinker and goes into these places where he just has idea after idea after idea and that's a very possible reality pretty soon.

Speaker 2: 37:35

There's tools out there. I have a good friend who's actually coming to U-MIT Technologies, so we have our next hire is a really powerful business development leader, has experience in this space and has. He was. He was in a position of marketing business development, roadma mapping and then the really smart software developers were. You know, he was interfaced with funding and these were large, you know, multimillion dollar investments and started dabbling around with Replit, which is a no-code, low-code tool, which is a no-code, low-code tool, and here you had a business dev guy a biz dev guy Actually. They had used the tool for a couple of months and were able to produce real solutions, and they are not software developers. That's game-changing man.

Speaker 1: 38:34

That is game-changing, that's game changing man.

Speaker 2: 38:35

That is that to me is you know, truly the democratization of software. If anybody can have any software that they want, that's just. To me that's mind blowing. Now I'm sure it's terrifying for the software developers of the world. Right, that is one of those things that change the landscape of jobs in technology.

Speaker 1: 39:00

So yeah, yeah, it certainly is a bit scary. You know I manage software development teams.

Speaker 2: 39:09

Yes.

Speaker 1: 39:10

My company and you know no one's shaking in their boots yet, but we're, you know we're. We're thinking about how to leverage these tools and how to, how to build efficiencies with them and get to the to the creative spaces of software engineering. Right it's? It's interesting how we're having this conversation about no code, low code. There's another term for it, called vibe coding.

Speaker 2: 39:37

Okay.

Speaker 1: 39:38

I just very recently published a podcast episode on vibe coding.

Speaker 2: 39:44

Okay.

Speaker 1: 39:45

It gives a depiction of what it's like for software developers and what the decision matrix looks like for will it replace them, will it just enhance their abilities? And you know I won't give you any more details about it, but it's definitely worth a listen. I do believe that you know not to harp on this too much more, but I do believe that everybody's going to be capable of coding. You don't have to just be experimental and somebody in technology. At some point it will become so democratized that you can just speak to your computer and publish some new web app. Yeah, uh, you know I've experimented with some of those things and it it will write up an entire uh back end. For you know what it's worth to do. Anything you want it to.

Speaker 1: 40:40

Some of the coding programming. Well, some of the programming languages have to be really well understood. You can't tell it to go and code in like Erlang or something like that, because there's not a lot of data examples on it. But it'll do Python and Node and JavaScript and Java and Go very well. There's so many examples out there and it's so fluent in those things that I absolutely see it replacing a large portion of the developer role in the future. Now you can type in or even speak to a computer program like Replit. There's a Claude one that I've recently used, there's the Copilot. There's plenty of examples that will just build this application for you, and it's not going to be perfect because it needs time to be refined, but it's definitely making a splash and it's only going to continue getting more and more capable.

Speaker 2: 41:41

I'm sure that's a passionate topic for you, right being in the space and yeah, I look to the future.

Speaker 1: 41:48

I will not stick my head in the sand. I say this stuff is coming, and if I decide to not deal with it now, then I could easily be replaced by somebody who is willing to deal with it now.

Speaker 1: 42:03

Well, that's why you're here on AI, ready, doing this, challenging the mainstream or at least the non-innovative thoughts, so it's awesome that you're out here doing this and advocating for it yeah, this organization is definitely an advocate for the future and we want to embrace the opportunities and and shepherd those that are willing to to experiment and then also help those that aren't yet willing to experiment to realize the potential. So, yeah, it's great, it's great to be here. Yeah, all right. So, thinking about a little bit more in terms of how AI is becoming more sophisticated, what would you suggest for businesses to ensure that the human element remains a core part of the innovation and decision-making?

Speaker 2: 43:00

Yeah, that's an interesting topic because it is sort of the fear that we are going to be replaced, but at the end of the day, we're still here, right?

Speaker 2: 43:11

I mean, if you think about it, there is a point of being a human and interacting with other humans.

Speaker 2: 43:18

That's life, that's the life we know it and it's joyous if you can embrace it and find happiness and find your calling and find your quest and all these things.

Speaker 2: 43:27

So, really, the key here is we're at a transformative time and so we don't and especially if you've been around a little while on this planet we know what we know and how do you know what the future is holding? But you can feel it, the energy that's here we're transforming together, and so I've even said this to my kids you know there's a lot of I mean some, some of the job that you might do maybe hasn't even been invented yet. So I think that's what's truly exciting about what's happening. It's nerve wracking because it doesn't exist and so much unknown and there is disruption no doubt that's coming, and job loss, but then job creation right, that's coming, and job loss, but then job creation right, because industries I mean like, look at what you know, the frontier of where SpaceX is leading and Elon Musk at you know an interplanetary species. If that's not a lofty goal, I don't know what one what it is.

Speaker 2: 44:32

Right.

Speaker 2: 44:32

So then, okay, so do we. You know, are those lofty goals? Those are the things that are transforming and bringing new opportunities. So, as old ways die out, right, as long as that transformation is continuing on.

Speaker 2: 44:49

I heard it said in the HR space if AIs are just talking to AIs and analyzing things like, what's the point If the humans aren't a benefactor, we're here. I mean. So it is truly a resource for humanity and I think that's where we have to look at it right. So the Terminator and the self-sustained, the singularity event and all this science fiction elements, um, they're thought provoking, but at the end of the day, we're here, uh, and as far as I know, most people don't really want to go anywhere and they want better lives.

Speaker 2: 45:25

So I I kind of see it as a very practical. We are a species who knows how to survive. We've made it, we've we've completely mastered the planet, brought it to everything, to it for modern conveniences, and now we've invented this technology. There is some level of pointlessness if we let this thing reach out, reach to the point where it's making decisions on behalf of itself or arguing with like again, wait a minute, the humans are over here. We're going to have lives to live and do our thing.

Speaker 2: 45:57

So I see it as, in a lot of ways, for the fear mongers out there that are wondering is it going to take over, we're a really resilient species. I know I have a lot of grit, determination. This just got me to this point, you know, and I'm living the best life that I have in a long time, just by personal development, perseverance and grit. I'm just optimistic, man, that the innovators of the world, we're going to figure it out. We're going to mess it up. It's going to be messy we always do, you know, but but we also. The best is yet to come, I think, in humanity.

Speaker 2: 46:36

So maybe that's just the optimist in me, but that's just how I live my life and it feels really good.

Speaker 1: 46:43

So I'm sticking with it in the distant future where certain jobs aren't needed and there might be a time when we have universal basic income because there's just not a lot we have to do for ourselves. I'm talking about really far distant, but there'll always be people that want more in life than to be given a paycheck and to sit at home watching netflix all day, exactly, and I don't. I don't think that's that, that human nature is ever going to leave us. I think we're going to always aspire to be human. Humanity will always aspire to have do something more with its its purpose.

Speaker 1: 47:31

I use purpose intentionally there. Everybody has to find their purpose and you know, like you said a few minutes ago, if you're, if you're not waking up every day and and at least 70% happy with what you're doing, then you probably should be doing something else. You know that that that that makes me think about aligning to my purpose. And do I spring out of bed every morning? Yeah, most days I do. I'm extremely excited to fulfill my purpose, and my purpose is going to change a little bit as AI becomes more of a supporting tool. In my life, my life, I, I absolutely have seen the productivity that they claim it has and made tons and tons of my of of the work. That amounts to that 30% that I'm not super satisfied for. Uh, just disappear.

Speaker 2: 48:32

That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 48:33

You know, I can talk for a long time about what that looks like, but this is not my interview, right?

Speaker 2: 48:38

Yeah, that's a great testimony.

Speaker 1: 48:40

But essentially it is. It's only going to get better, and the sooner we embrace it, the sooner we can become creative technologists or better knowledge workers, in whatever field we're in. Right, it's, at least for the foreseeable future. It's only going to make us better. Humans is what I see.

Speaker 2: 49:08

So, cool.

Speaker 1: 49:09

All right, I'd like to wrap this up with my favorite question to my my guests on the show Barron, if you could tell us, if you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

Speaker 2: 49:27

I think it would be to inspire others. We talked about being a leader. That's lifting other people up and helping other people. I truly would like to develop that as my superpower be inspirational to others, cause it's just cool, like when you can and then you know, and maybe a combination of that is is teaching other, reminding other people that they have the power to improve their lives A lot of people just look around, it's, I think, it's, you know, I mean maybe even AI goes into that conversation in their head like the world's a crappy place and negativity and that's a.

Speaker 2: 50:09

it's a spiraling downward. So inspiration, motivation, because we, we, we started, started our, you know, just just our opening, some of our opening conversations about personal development, how much personal development. The motivational speakers, the inspirational speakers of the books that I've read, how much they've improved my life, yeah, um, man just and I actually I I have been that.

Speaker 2: 50:35

I've been taking the energy that I've been able to harness myself the positivity, the great things that have happened in my life and then improving others. So I think I'm doing that. I just want to get better actually at it, cause it really makes you feel good, like to help other people. It's it's pretty dang awesome. So that's what I want my superpower to be.

Speaker 1: 50:56

Yeah, it sounds like your superpower leads to you living your purpose out. You know you're living a life of purpose, helping others, lifting them up, showing them that the glass is half full. So I think optimism is your superpower. I think that's great and you know it's a it's a mindset that you're sharing here that does create real transformation.

Speaker 2: 51:34

So, yes, I love the energy I I feel like I could I definitely connect with your, your thinking yeah, it really is. Uh, positivity or negativity are contagious.

Speaker 1: 51:40

Yeah, man, well, it's been a pleasure. Baron, thank you so much for for working with me on the on the episode today. I've learned a ton from you. I know that we have a lot to talk about and in the future, so I'd love to stay connected. Thank you for your time. I know the audience will enjoy.

Speaker 2: 51:57

Thank you, Jason.

Speaker 1: 51:59

All right, take care.

Speaker 2: 52:00

All right, bye-bye.

Speaker 1: 52:04

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