Josh's latest “great” idea: everyone at Vector should be using AI. In a human way. Whatever that means.
It was March 2026 and the mood had shifted from “you should try ChatGPT” to “agents, Claude Code, MCP — if you’re not across all of it, your team’s getting fired.”
Jess was at an Exit Five retreat where 100 CMOs were all asking the same question: what is AI actually being used for?
So, she came back and ran a comfort check. Scale of one to ten. Safe space. No wrong answers. Kelly humbly rated himself a 7. Jess respectfully disagreed (and immediately dropped her own score from 7 to 4).
Everyone else wished they were a 7.
By the end, Josh was walking back a Friday all-hands meeting quote that needed its own apology tour, and Vector was shipping an AI tool built to make marketers superhuman.
Hear how Jess got her entire marketing team comfortable with AI, what happens when sales calls start writing your ad copy, and why Josh thinks the future belongs to the most insecure employees in the room. Stay with him.
Get to the good stuff:
[00:00] Step one: everyone at Vector should use AI. Step two... they're still working on step two
[00:51] From "you should try this" to "your team's getting fired" in about a week. Jess and Josh clock how fast the AI panic escalated
[02:05] Jess talks herself through the AI threat model. The product's got a moat. The workflow's fair game. Josh: "Fingers crossed."
[03:37] Jess walks into a room of 100 CMOs, all asking the same question: who's got this figured out? One answer involves shutting an entire company down for two days.
[06:17] Kelly rates himself a 7. Jess immediately recalibrates herself down to a 4. Kelly builds a tool that skips the paraphrase and goes straight to what customers say on sales calls
[09:14] Jess keeps reminding herself this doesn't have to happen all at once. Josh's advice? One project. Then another. Nobody panic-builds the future by Tuesday
[11:40] Josh does the math on AI. It saves you ten minutes writing, costs you an hour checking. He calls it the AI tax
[13:36] Jess unlocks a new AI fear — marketers who've never had to write a bad first draft
[15:18] Josh's deal with AI: you can have the homework. I'm keeping the taste
[16:30] Time for affirmations. Buyer-manifestation energy only, no notes
[16:51] Josh revisits one of his all-time greatest hits: the "most insecure employees win" quote. The explanation has aged considerably better than the wording
[19:33] Jess is still figuring out what her job is now. Josh's advice: AI can wait five minutes. Your deadline can't
[20:56] Kelly's AI review is bleak: "Pretty sure I'm sharpening the shiv that takes my job." Jess would like to rewrite that story
[22:18] Mid-AI existential crisis, Josh decides it's the perfect time to pitch a book called The Future is Human. The title and cover are ready. Manuscript pending
[23:34] Josh's mentor helped write the Netflix culture deck. Her lesson: build a vision that survives whatever the world does next
[28:24] Jess's hiring request: web designer. Josh's counteroffer: AI
This Meeting Could’ve Been a Podcast is a Vector production.
Filmed and produced by Sweet Fish.
Editing by Handy Man Edit.
Show notes by Content 10x.
Music by Peter McIsaac Music.
