The Power Connect

Kelleyton Wilson grew up in Oak Cliff, dialed a phone book to the D's to land his first job at a commodities firm, and spent years in rooms — capital markets, Microsoft financial services, some of the largest funds in the world — where he was usually the only one who looked like him. Today he's a multi-unit UPS Store owner, a partner in Sunnyvale's $120 million Gateway Park development, an owner of The Assembly House, a licensed minister, and a keynote speaker with a book on the way. He has zero interest in being successful, and this episode is about why. In this episode: Why "success" is the wrong goal — and the one-word substitute Kelleyton issues to everyone he mentors Every life on this planet, summarized in under a minute (Fred lost the bet; he owes dinner) Wills vs. trusts: what 20 years in estate planning taught him about what happens to your stuff "My grandparents had a drug problem" — how Oak Cliff and Reklaw, East Texas built the work ethic The custodian who outgave 99% of his congregation, tracked in a spiral notebook The coach who looked his grandfather in the eye and promised a degree — and the coach who wouldn't sign the release AQ over IQ and EQ: quitters, campers, and climbers, and why "some of you are lying" "I don't pay you to think, I pay you to know" — the year the pressure was real Why he'll take 10% of something over 100% of nothing, and how that built a restaurant, a wine bar, and a $120M development Marriage, on the record, old-school — and the grandfather who never remarried after 1988 19 years without an income goal: why he sets giving goals instead, and what happened when he 4x'd one Talent takes you there. Character keeps you there. The phone-book call that got a 19-year-old $15 an hour and a seat with the executives Permission to dream Connect with Kelleyton: kelleytonwilson.com | LinkedIn: Kelleyton J. Wilson Sr. Speaking inquiries: via kelleytonwilson.com The Power Connect — Where Talk Isn't Cheap.

In this episode:‍ ‍Why a venture firm's entire junior associate function now runs on an agent with a first name — and what that means for every entry-level seat in your companyThe San Francisco espresso machine repair shop that's about to run its whole operation on a custom system built in two weeks, off one day of trainingWhy $700 billion in data center investment and a 90% enterprise failure rate can't coexist forever — and what happens when they finally decoupleThe B-minus grade Itamar gives tech leadership on explaining AI to the public, and why that failure is manufacturing the backlash against itWhy "how do I build AI that gets me out of my job?" is the question the best founders now ask every single employeeThe hire-versus-build decision: how to tell which roles on your team should be a person and which should be a systemWhy AI still can't make the final call — the nuance problem that breaks statistical decision-making when the stakes are realWhat San Francisco's total concentration of AI talent means for everyone operating in Dallas, Austin, and every market that isn't the BayThe upskilling gap nobody is closing — not Washington, not the tech companies — and what that leaves business owners to solve aloneWhy the lawyer who hands 80% of the work to AI ends up with 5x the clients instead of no job at allThe 1999 parallel: what came out of the last infrastructure bubble, and why the wreckage produced Google and Amazon‍ ‍Connect with Itamar: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itamarnovick/Recursive Ventures: https://www.recursiveventures.com/‍ ‍Host Fred Davis leads business development at ForPsyte Talent Assessments — a lean startup pairing AI with 20 years of I/O psychology to build behavioral-based assessments for the people side of your business. Sharpen who you bring into the building, and find the stars already sitting on your roster. ForPsyte.com

The way your brand shows up in AI isn't random — and if you haven't figured that out yet, you're already behind. Justin Inman spent a decade at Google watching marketers miss the early windows on search, social, and mobile. Now he's built Emberos to make sure brands don't miss this one. As founder and CEO, Justin is building what may be the infrastructure layer for AI visibility — the operating system that tells you how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity are describing your business, and more importantly, what to do about it.In this episode:Why 90% of brands have at least one inaccuracy across the major LLMs — and why that number will hurt more as agentic shopping explodesThe "perfect storm" killing traditional organic traffic: AI Overviews cutting clicks while consumers quietly move their searches to chatbotsWhat "Share Prompt" is — and why Emberos thinks it's the metric that should replace Share of Voice in every marketing conversationHow Emberos re-genred a misclassified film from "violent thriller" to the correct comp in four weeks — and why that matters six months later when someone asks for a movie recommendationThe 12-to-18-month window that's closing: why brands that don't establish LLM visibility now risk being locked out of the conversation permanentlyWhy "push to publish" AI-generated content is poisoning the internet — and how Grandma's Blog became an authoritative ChatGPT source for running shoesBrand Orchestration vs. SEO hacking — the long-term strategy Emberos is building that connects PR, Reddit, social, Wikipedia, and earned media into one AI-visibility playThe Echo agent — Emberos's Q2 build targeting truth scores, hallucination rates, and compliance across regulated industriesJustin's read on what we're getting wrong about AI: why fear is drowning out the possibility that AI solves cancer in three yearsConnect with Justin:linkedin.com | emberos.comPowered by The Lead Ref — The Lead Ref is an AI-powered lead marketplace connecting customers with the right businesses — and giving providers exclusive, high-intent opportunities. No shared leads. No spam. No race to the bottom. AI-Powered. With a Human Touch. TheLeadRef.com

Jonathan Schaeffer has spent four decades inside the machine — and he'll be the first to tell you it's all an illusion. A pioneer in AI and competitive game-playing systems, Jonathan has watched this field evolve from hand-coded expert systems to large language models that can fool the world into thinking they're intelligent. Now he's building Kind — a privacy-first desktop AI that keeps your data yours, eliminates hallucinations, and cuts through the noise of the AI gold rush with something radical: trust.In this episode:Why the distrust of AI is earned — and what the industry got wrong by losing sight of the eight billion people it's supposed to serveHow Kind works as a privacy-preserving desktop AI that answers questions exclusively from your own data — with zero hallucinationsWhy Jonathan calls modern AI the "Harry Houdini effect" — and what chess, poker, and ChatGPT all have in common with magic tricksThe 2017 Google paper that set the stage for the ChatGPT revolution — and why Google didn't see what they hadWhy AI is just sophisticated text completion — and how that simple model produces both stunning results and dangerous hallucinationsDeep Blue vs. Kasparov: what 200 million positions per second teaches us about playing to your strengths instead of your weaknessesWhy "Artificial Intelligence" is a dangerous misnomer — and how anthropomorphizing these systems is setting society up for a reckoningThe nuclear technology parallel: why AI regulation can't afford to be reactive, and what proactive guardrails need to look like right nowWhat Google's AlphaFold and the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry tell us about where AI is actually winning — and why it matters to everyoneWhat we're getting right about AI: breakthrough science, protein analysis, and technology that will save lives at scaleWhat we're getting wrong: the race to the finish line at the expense of the trust that will determine whether any of this actually gets adoptedConnect with Jonathan Schaeffer & Kind: LinkedIn: Jonathan Schaeffer | KindPowered by The Lead Ref — The Lead Ref is an AI-powered lead marketplace connecting customers with the right businesses — and giving providers exclusive, high-intent opportunities. No shared leads. No spam. No race to the bottom. AI-Powered. With a Human Touch. TheLeadRef.com

Meghan Houle has spent 15-plus years pulling back the curtain on what's actually broken in recruiting — and nobody wanted to talk about it, because the big platforms profit from the dysfunction. Now she's done talking and started building. Meghan is the founder of CONCÉ, an AI-powered talent intelligence platform designed to replace keyword-filtered chaos with predictive, dynamic matching that actually gets people hired. Think Raya for executive talent — private, vetted, and built by someone who's placed careers worth millions the old-fashioned way.In this episode:Why AI is not replacing C-suite executives in fashion — and what luxury brands like LVMH teach us about the irreplaceable value of human experienceThe real problem with ATS: why 75% of applicants have no business applying, and why keyword matching is still how most companies make million-dollar hiring decisionsHow Meghan posted one job, received 1,000 resumes in seven hours, and realized the entire industry needed to be rebuilt from scratchWhy CONCÉ is built like Bumble meets Raya for jobs — no mass applying, no spray-and-pray, just intentional matchingThe proprietary data cloud and dynamic scoring engine that gets smarter the more companies use it — and why that institutional IP becomes a moatHow CONCÉ scales beyond fashion into healthcare, hospitality, finance, and any industry still running talent decisions on 1990 technologyWhy "closed mouths don't get fed" — Meghan's founder philosophy on asking boldly, building in public, and surrounding yourself with the right expertsWhat we're getting right about AI: efficiency gains on the low-lift admin that's been eating your time for decadesWhat we're getting wrong: outsourcing your voice, your creativity, and your point of view to a chatbot and calling it contentConnect with Meghan Houle & CONCÉ: LinkedIn: Meghan Houle | hirewithconce.comPowered by The Lead Ref — The Lead Ref is an AI-powered lead marketplace connecting customers with the right businesses — and giving providers exclusive, high-intent opportunities. No shared leads. No spam. No race to the bottom. AI-Powered. With a Human Touch. TheLeadRef.com

Steve Ancheta is a 16-year sales veteran turned AI founder who quit his job at 23 with $10,000 in the bank, a new house, a toddler, and a brand new marriage — and never looked back. Now he's co-founder of Zig.ai, an AI-powered revenue platform built to replace the chaos of disconnected sales tools with one intelligent system that learns how you work, not just what you do.In this episode, Steve breaks down why domain expertise is the only real moat left in the AI era, how Zig's compounding context layer changes the game for sales teams, and why he believes data centers are heading to outer space and the ocean.In this episode:Why the software moat has shifted — building is now a commodity, and domain expertise is the only defensible edge leftThe $2 billion cattle collar company that proves you don't need a Silicon Valley background to win with AIHow Zig sits between generic AI chat tools and rigid legacy SaaS — and why both sides are still wasting your timeWhat the "compounding context layer" actually means: an AI system that learns at the org level and the individual user levelWhy models are already killing startups — and the three things you must own to survive: data, workflows, and intelligenceThe AI volume game backlash: why mass email and LinkedIn outreach is already desensitizing buyers and why relationship is becoming the last true differentiatorSteve's bold prediction: data centers are going to outer space and the ocean — and why the energy and cooling math makes it inevitableWhy trades (roofing, HVAC, plumbing) are the sleeper wealth play of the next decadeThe batting average framework for lead quality: why closing one in three makes you an industry leaderWhat we're getting wrong: assuming AI will completely surpass human beings in every aspect of what it means to be humanWhat we're getting right: recognizing this is the most revolutionary technology since the internet — and it's not a bubble that's going awayConnect with Steve Ancheta & Zig.ai: LinkedIn & zig.aiPowered by The Lead Ref — The Lead Ref is an AI-powered lead marketplace connecting customers with the right businesses — and giving providers exclusive, high-intent opportunities. No shared leads. No spam. No race to the bottom. AI-Powered. With a Human Touch. TheLeadRef.com

Ken Troupe is a sports business veteran and co-founder of Sports Biz Advisors, working with teams and technology companies across professional and collegiate athletics. With decades of experience in ticket sales, relationship-driven revenue, and now sports technology consulting, Ken's seen every wave of "the next big thing" — and he's got a healthy skepticism about who's actually using AI versus who's just slapping the label on their pitch deck.In this episode, Ken breaks down what's actually happening with AI adoption in sports business, why relationship-driven sales still can't be replicated by bots, and where teams are finding real value (and where they're just chasing buzzwords).In this episode:Why only 18-19% of sports professionals are actually using AI tools — despite everyone claiming they areThe AI buzzword problem: vendors saying "we're AI" without being able to articulate what they're actually doingHow AI is making individual jobs more efficient (note-taking, email cleanup, content creation) before it tackles bigger organizational challengesWhy ticket sales jobs aren't going away: the human relationship factor AI can't replicate (yet)The hilarious story of a team that accidentally named their AI sales bot after a successful adult film starHow user-generated content platforms like Fanways are using AI to extract metadata (number of TVs at a tailgate, what beer fans are drinking) and feed it directly into CRM systemsKen's approach to AI in the classroom at SMU: use it to refine your original thought, not replace itWhat we're getting wrong: assuming everyone who says they're an "AI expert" actually knows what they're talking aboutWhat we're getting right: staying curious about how AI can drive revenue in a results-obsessed industryConnect with Ken Troupe & Sports Biz Advisors: LinkedIn & sportsbizbuilders.com & fanwayzPowered by The Lead Ref — The Lead Ref is an AI-powered lead marketplace connecting customers with the right businesses — and giving providers exclusive, high-intent opportunities. No shared leads. No spam. No race to the bottom. AI-Powered. With a Human Touch. TheLeadRef.com

Burak Karakan is the co-founder of Bruin, an AI-powered data analytics platform that connects every data source inside your organization and delivers answers in minutes — not weeks. Built by engineers who spent years duct-taping data tools together for enterprise clients, Bruin was born out of frustration with how long it takes businesses to get answers from their own data.In this episode, Burak breaks down why most companies are sitting on a goldmine of untapped data, why agentic AI is completely changing what's possible, and what the next phase of business intelligence actually looks like.In this episode:Why 80% of the value your business needs is already inside your own data — you just can't access it yetFrom 6 weeks to 6 minutes: what happens when AI collapses the time between question and answerThe "burger test" — why teams don't trust answers that come too fast, and how Bruin breaks that psychological barrierHow agentic AI differs from traditional AI — and why the ability to iterate changes everythingWhat Bruin's on-premise deployment means for enterprises that can't afford data security risksWhy the companies that think AI can't do something today will be proven wrong within a yearWhat's coming next: proactive analytics, autonomous campaign management, and AI data teams that never sleepConnect with Burak Karakan & Bruin: LinkedIn & getbruin.comPowered by The Lead Ref — the AI-powered business growth platform delivering exclusive, intent-based leads and targeted marketing campaigns with a human touch. We open doors to commercial and B2B relationships you can't access alone. TheLeadRef.com

Jim Spignardo leads AI enablement at Pro Arch, a deep Microsoft partner helping enterprises navigate the AI revolution. With a focus on practical implementation over hype, Jim conducts executive briefings for organizations trying to move beyond "what is AI?" to "how do we actually use this?"In this episode, Jim breaks down why most companies are still in the "second inning" of AI adoption, why Microsoft Copilot is quietly dominating the enterprise space while everyone obsesses over consumer tools, and the critical mistake organizations make when they skip the "what problem are we solving?" question and jump straight to tools.In this episode:Why AI hallucinations happen — and the dangerous reality that AI's first obligation is to make you happy, not tell you the truthHow Microsoft is playing the long game: building the infrastructure that powers their competitors while positioning Copilot as the enterprise AI front-endThe human skills gap that AI actually makes more important — why expertise matters more than ever, not lessWhy one skilled person with AI can now do the work of five, but you can't skip being skilled in the first placeThe real timeline for AI transformation: why it's going to take 10-12 years before we look back and don't recognize 2023What organizations get dangerously wrong about AI job displacement versus the actual "adjustment" that's comingWhy Pro Arch always starts with use cases and data readiness before ever discussing which AI tool to implementConnect with Jim Spignardo & Pro Arch:LinkedIn & proarch.com

Tyler Wells has spent over 25 years in software development — with stops at Skype, Microsoft, Twilio, and multiple startups along the way. Now he's channeling all of that experience into BrainGrid, a platform designed to solve one of AI's biggest frustrations: turning a messy idea in your head into working, deployable software.In this episode, Tyler breaks down why simply having access to Claude Code or Cursor doesn't automatically make anyone a developer, why context is king when working with AI agents, and what he and his co-founder discovered that became the foundation for BrainGrid.In this episode:Why non-technical founders still face real barriers even with powerful AI coding tools availableHow BrainGrid acts as an AI-powered product manager — asking the right questions to turn your idea into a detailed software specificationThe origin story of BrainGrid and the "aha moment" that started it allWhy Anthropic's models consistently outperform the competition in their evaluationsThe biggest daily challenges of building a product at the speed AI now makes possibleWhat we're getting right — and dangerously wrong — about AIConnect with Tyler Wells & BrainGrid: braingrid.ai & LinkedIn