From Fax Machines to AI: Lessons from 20 Years of Industry Transformation, with John Suzuki

Welcome And What We’re Chasing

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Welcome to Alex and Annie, the real women of Vacation Reynolds. With more than 35 years combined industry experience, Alex Euter and Annie Holcomb have teamed up to connect the dots between inspiration and opportunity. Seeking to find the one story, idea, strategy, or decision that led to their guests' big AHA Moment. Join them as they highlight the real stories behind the people and brands that have built vacation rentals into the $100 billion industry it is today. And now, it's time to get real and have some fun with your hosts, Alex and Annie. We'll start the show in

Sponsor Message From Monarch Collective

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just a minute. But first, a word from our premier brand sponsor. If you own a vacation rental management company, this one is for you. A lot of owners have thought about selling someday. Maybe not today, maybe not even this year, but eventually. And when that thought comes up, two questions usually stop people in their tracks. What is my business actually worth? And what happens to the people, the homeowners, the reputation, and the brand that I spent years building? That's exactly why we want you to know about Monarch Collective. Monarch is built for local vacation rental brands that want to grow without losing what made them special in the first place. When Monarch comes into a new market, the local brand stays. And not just the name on the website. The team stays, the homeowner relationships stay, the reputation you earned in your own backyard stays. But now there's a much bigger platform behind it. You get paid for what you built and the parts of the business that drain so many owners. Finance, accounting, HR, legal, backend operations, they come off your plate. And instead of doing everything alone, you get the support and horsepower to keep growing. You can keep running the business as long as you want. You can step back when you're ready. There's not one version of what this has to look like. And here's the best part: you don't have to be ready to sell to have the conversation. Even if you're just curious, Monarch will sit down with you, free and no strings attached, to help you understand what your business could be worth. No pressure to sell, no pressure to sell to them, just a real conversation with people who understand this industry and respect what local operators have built. So if you've ever wondered what your company could be worth, go find out. Visit gomonarch.com/slash partnerships.

John Suzuki’s Path Back In

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Welcome to Alex Nanny, the real woman of vacation rentals. I'm Alex. And I'm Annie. And we are joined today by John Suzuki, who is the chief technology evangelist for Staylist now. How are you, John? I'm great. How are you? Very good. Josh, I you know, I just said this. The man needs zero introduction. Right because everybody knows and just adores John. But I'm gonna make you go through the paces here. Give us a little bit of your backstory and how you got to State List. Oh, my backstory. Well, you know, I I retired three years ago from the vacation rental industry that I that I served for 20 years. And you know, I started, I started back in the days when web-based computing, you know, started to emerge. And because before then, you know, people had computers, servers inside their closets. And so here comes the internet and web-based computing. And for 20 years, I served property property managers in the vacation rental space. And uh I was with a company called Escapia, then Escapia got bought by Home Away, then Home Away got by got by Expedia Group. Uh but through it all, you know, my my my job was to uh to really help grow and support vacation rentals. Because back when I started, you know, stuff reservations were done over the phone and with fax machines, right? There was no such thing as online bookings, there was no such thing as guest reviews, there was certainly no such thing as uh uh uh manage um revenue management and dynamic rates, right? All of those things. Social media wasn't a thing, mobile wasn't a thing, right? And so um I kind of I kind of helped shepherd a lot of that into the vacation rental industry. And you know, back in the day, I I used to tell everybody that one day vacation rentals are going to become the main become part of the mainstream of travel. And one day a little thing called COVID happened happened upon us. And during that experience, vacation rentals not only became part of the mainstream of travel, vacation rentals became the mainstream of travel. And that all of a sudden created this massive uh boom and awareness in vacation rentals, um, which was a good thing and a bad thing. And so um shortly around the time when that all started dissipating, uh I decided to retire. Um and I had a book I wanted to finish writing that I'd been working on for 15 years. Um, I had a podcast uh that I wanted to launch, which I did. It's now I'm now two years into it. Um and I did I just had the time of my life. Um and then one day, while I was minding my own business, I get a phone call from an old friend of mine who said, Hey John, uh what you doing? And he introduced me to this company called Staylist. And and I asked him 30 times, probably, what part of no don't you understand? And you know, I wasn't looking for anything. And so next thing I know, I'm in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is where they're headquartered. And uh and I was I was so impressed with what they do uh with in the world of artificial intelligence that um I became part of their part of their company. So uh I'm back. I'm back. Love it. We knew we knew you wouldn't retire. You couldn't leave us all. Exactly. Yeah, you're far too young to retire. You still have decades ahead of you. Um I missed it. I missed the industry. I missed the industry. You were missed. Yeah, you were very missed. Well, thank you. Yeah, no, you you you were missed, and I think it's you know follows the tone of a lot of the conversations we have on the show that you know, nobody really planned to get into vacation rentals, but once they got in, it's a very sticky industry and it's it's hard to get out of. But um, especially when you're somebody like you who has you know just accumulated so much knowledge over the years and relationships, and relationships are really that's as Simon Lehman says, that's the currency of everything. And I think that's for sure the case in our industry. But we had you on the show last year. I mean, it wasn't too, too long ago, I'd say maybe six months or so, and you you told us a little bit about stay list at that point, but we don't know a whole lot, so we want to learn more today. So tell

What An AI-Native PMS Means

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us about what stay list is. Well, stay list is what I call a an AI native property management system, and it's been built for RV parks, for vacation rentals, and for hotels. Gentleman by the name of Jeff Reed, who uh started TRAC, um, he left TRAC and um he decided he wanted to build another PMS and this time build it the way that he wanted to because politics didn't allow him to do that the first time. And um and so he decided that he he was gonna uh build another a new PMS, uh, but he was under a five-year non-compete. And so during those five years, he built a PMS for RV parks. And so over those, over those five years, uh actually six or seven, he built out this uh really cool property management system for RV parks. His non-compete ended about the time Chat GPT came out and artificial intelligence. And he looked at it and he said, Holy cow, this is the we need to build in on this. And so, but he had built in on you know the previous previously current technology at the time. And so he decided to do what they call refactor his entire system. He rebuilt it, he rewrote the whole thing, and he rewrote it on an AI platform. And so it took him two years and a couple million dollars to do it. But now all of a sudden he he had this platform that was based on artificial intelligence and not based on the old technology. And the reason why that's important, and you know this, Alex, because Boom is the same way, right? What makes this what makes it uh makes it so important that it's on this platform is that uh whenever you add onto it, when you build new functionality and new features to it, um, it's in the same language, it's in the same uh platform. Everything knows that every what everything is doing, right? So unlike platforms of previous years, eventually you have layers upon layers upon layers and languages upon languages and languages, and it becomes really, really hard to track and manage. Well, with artificial intelligence now, artificial intelligence now tracks and manages everything. Yeah, it can get to the bottom of everything there because it doesn't have to use shovels to get through each layer, right? And you know, you know, it's got MCPs instead of APIs. And we all, and just for the audience, you know, what when we all know what an API is, it's an application programming interface. Well, now the new technology is called an MCP. And what what this is is an artificial intelligence version of an API, but it's intelligent. And so when these two things come together, think about two APIs coming together. But in this case, when two MCIs come together, they do something like this. Hey, who are you? What do you do? I do that too. How can we connect? And they have this conversation. And and it it it just it just happens automatically, intelligently, because it's it's all it's all it's all just ones and zeros, is all it is, but it's ones and zeros talking to each other now. Yeah, and now I guess now like you you can get the feedback from people, whereas when you were in your olden days, you we get feedback and it would take months for something to get on a roadmap to be able to get even considered, and now you can just go back and get that being pretty hard. Taking it, yeah. But I mean, you know, that the it's that you've been through a lot, but that it is it is it's really hard. You know, I mean it's hard for anybody that works with an old older style service provider because it's like you can be the account manager or the salesperson or whatever, and you understand what your clients are saying, but you're not the developer and you know that it they it's it takes time, or it used to take a lot of time, but not with AI now. I mean, it's so much faster. Yeah, and that's that's one of the one of the biggest, biggest um uh oh, I don't know, impediments uh to progress is that it takes so long, right? There's so many great ideas out there, but the technology and the thing called tech debt, right? Where you have all these layers that you have to make sure everything works together. Um uh when you don't have that, all of a sudden you can innovate. Last last month we we launched 30 new features of Staylist in one month. And I've been in I've been in phone calls with Jeff, where someone will say, Hey, Jeff, it'd be really nice if we had this. And then uh we continue with the conversation, and Jeff says, Okay, it's done. I mean, it's like, what? Yeah, we did it during the phone call, right? Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, it's and and so it's the world is changing. It's changing. I mean, it's not only changing for technology, but it's changing for people. I mean, good and bad. And uh, but the one thing that that I've been finding that AI really does is it makes us better. It makes us better um in the areas that we want to be better. And so, yeah, and so it's it's uh it's an exciting time. Yeah, and and it's interesting just looking back on the history of property management systems, but also how the industry has

All In One Versus Add Ons

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looked at them. And over the course of the five years we've been doing the show, we've talked to many people about, you know, what they think is the best way. Is it is it best in class, PMS, and then you just add on all the marketplace items, or is it could there ever be an all-in-one solution? And for a long time, I think, you know, I I at least thought like, no, you can't have an all-in-one solution. But in my time working for Boom, I see like the reason why you want to have an all-in-one solution is because the AI can touch every component of the business, just like you described there. Um, but I think, and I'm sure you guys maybe haven't seen it yet, because you're not talking to property managers in that same capacity, but you will, that it is a learning curve of explaining that and like getting companies to understand it's the when you have to have 10 dashboards to log into, that's that's crazy. I mean, like that's absolutely crazy. And and for one task, if it's your operations, you know, task manager that is critical for it not to be connected to the PMS in a meaningful way, that accounting and everything else and owner statements and portals are all connected, you know, you're no wonder people are pulling their hair out everywhere. I mean, like it's just it's crazy. Yeah, and you find in and you find yourself in a position where you're taking you're spending more time serving your technology than you are your guests and owners. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And the you shouldn't, you shouldn't be bound to your technology, you know. Um, and you know, so the idea, it's you know, with the old, with the old technology, with the old technology base, it was almost impossible because there's so much. The the vacation rental industry and a property management company is so has so much involved in it, right? And so, um, so in the past, you've had to focus, I mean, a PMS itself was a full-time job that some some companies employ hundreds and hundreds of people, you know, to manage. And when you have that level of complexity, it's really, really hard to do a lot of things. And so we've been we've been forced into this model of building this PMS and adding all the functionality that you need and bolting it on. I mean, you're and you're starting to see things getting a little bit easier because these these companies that are with these additional uh capabilities are utilizing artificial intelligence to make their products better and in some cases more connected. Um but uh having a system, well, let me put it this way given AI, the chances are higher that there may eventually evolve a system that can do most of everything. Maybe not all of everything, but a whole lot of things. And you know, and the thing that the thing that has been has been holding us back is that we don't have the technology to enable us to do it. And AI is that technology that's that's now going to enable companies to do that. Right. Well, and you you think about the add-ons that there are the most of within our our ecosystem. It's the guest apps, it's revenue management, um, you know, it's accounting. I mean, it's you know, there's there's several categories, but it's like, you know, you look back at the PMSs and the gener the journey they were on, because of what you described earlier, of having so many layers, like the ability for them to really truly be innovating, not just now, but in the back in the day, was very complicated because it's like they're they had to spend their time maintaining the core product there. And it's like, you know, that was never their focus was being the best guest app or the best revenue management tool. So it made sense to say, okay, let's just do every API possible and let people choose. But I mean, some softwares play better with other softwares. We know that. I mean, even channel management and PMSs. Like it, there are things that work better, but I think this really opens the playing field that now, you know, you can you can run a beautiful business, you know, leveraged on AI, because you don't have to worry about those complexities and you can focus on, you know, running the business and growing the business and not being stuck in the weeds all the time. Yeah, and and you think you talk about, you just talked about the complexities of creating a property management system, a PMS, right? So, you know, these days, and I know I know a lot of people, um, these days when a company decides to develop something and they decide to launch it, the experience kind of looks like this. You ready to turn it on? Yeah, I'm ready to turn it on. Okay. Um, okay, I'm ready over here. Uh I'm closing my eyes. People are hiding in the background. Go ahead and turn it on. Because it's so it's so hard to know when you make a change over here. What's it gonna be? What it's gonna affect over there. Oh, for sure. Yeah, a lot of times the people who built the stuff over here are no longer even there with that company, right? Because it's been so long. And so and so that then you layer on top of that all the third-party applications, and you go, okay, we gotta not only close your eyes, but we gotta put ourselves in a bullet, bulletproof room, right? Because there's just there's just so much, it's it's so complex. And unfortunately, you have to do it that way, like you have to just roll things out because I know from my days at Condo World, we had built our own property management system and it was a legit PMS. But and Mitch, who is our CTO, I mean, he was there from the very beginning and is still there now, but it's impossible to remember everything that everything touches, you know. So it's like it's so hard. Sometimes you just have to pull the plug and launch something, and then you have to scramble to get it back ready again. But it's and the hardest, the hardest part is that the world moves on, right? I mean, I I I I coined a phrase in many, many years ago at IBM that said, today's luxury is tomorrow's expectation. It's very true. Yeah, yesterday's luxury is today's expectation. And, you know, the world doesn't stand still. And as we're moving forward, it's getting faster and faster and faster. And with with the opportunities out there and with the rise of AI enabling those opportunities, we we gotta take off the handcuffs. We gotta give property managers the tools they need to respond as fast as they need to respond. We'll be back in just a minute, but first, a word from our premier brand sponsor.

Sponsor Message From BookingPal

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The Features Operators Actually Want

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So I have a question related just so for Stalist. What is it that Stalist is doing that you think is outside of the AI is the what puts you on the leading edge of this technology and and is really gonna really gonna be the game changer for Stalist to be able to like firmly put themselves in front of all these property managers to say, like, here's a platform you should consider? Uh well, I don't know. Um I don't know what that what that thing is, but uh I I'll I'll I can I can tell you this, you know, last year I was at VRMA and I was walking along the in the hallways, I saw you folks there. And um people I was walking with Jeff Reed and people were walking up to us going, why are you guys together? Right? What yeah what's happening here yet? We said, Well, we're we're we're kind of working together. And we would be asked, What what tell us tell us about what you guys are building? And um amazingly, amazingly, there was one comment that resonated with with everybody. And that one comment was our accounting balances. And everybody was like, I need to let me know set aside the AI stuff, right? But you know, I think Annie, in answer to your question, I I I don't I don't know that there's gonna be anything obvious because skepticism is can be really, really healthy. And so um I think there's going to be a point when we, you know, we're gonna we're gonna launch it and and we're we're looking to we're looking to launch um uh at the end of summer. And people are gonna go, wow, that sounds amazing, but we're gonna have to prove it. You know, we'll have a we'll have a couple three customers that are that are live on it. But over over time, I think the the acceleration curve is gonna become much shorter and much fast and much faster. And so things things that people are gonna be looking for are the accounting. Is going to be operations, right? Enabling the integration of operations, housekeeping maintenance with reservations, with a unified, a true unified communication system, messaging system, and a suite of tools that will enable a big percentage of companies to not have to use third-party systems. There's, you know, there's going to be companies that have very, very specified requirements, right? We're building our system to accommodate uh between 50 and 80 percent of uh the functionality that's generally required by uh companies out there. And uh, but what we want to do is is we want to make it easy. It's all gonna be automated. So so the idea, and we're gonna be able to show you this in uh at Verma. Um you'll you'll be able to voice your commands and you'll be able to say, uh, show me my show me my latest profit and loss statement, and it'll show you your latest profit and loss statement. Show me the most recent three-star reviews, it'll show you the three-star reviews. The accounting uh will become automated. It's it's just going to enable property managers to be property managers. And so over time, it's gonna we're gonna add more and more and more to it. Um and so we'll see what happens. But it's it's it's all about uh fast learning, it's all about intuitive systems, it's all about support that will be there 24 hours a day. It's exciting. Yeah. We'll see. I don't know if any, I don't know if any of that will resonate with anybody, but that's that's kind of what we're you know, honestly. It's

Early Adopters And The New Flywheel

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honest. Well, but it it it's it's where things are going. And and I know I I've been working with with Boom now for almost two years, which is crazy. But like in the in the very beginning part of it, you know, people really didn't understand what we were talking about. And it's gradually gotten better and better and better. And one thing that I've found is like, you know, the the customers that sign up really quickly, they're it's a different kind of customer than the traditional vacation rental company, that they are they have multiple tools and like their decision process is normally about like a year for something as big as a PMS. And there's a lot of relationship building and things like that that have to go with it to get them comfortable to make that move. But the ones that get it, I mean, it's it's fascinating to see because those are the ones in their local markets that they are the leaders and like they are leapfrogging over their competition right now, that the competition doesn't quite know it yet because it's not quite obvious yet. But that's where I feel like that that's where the realization point is gonna come that the companies are saying, you know, no, that's too new, and I need to wait and see how it goes. If you don't, if you don't pull the band-aid off, you're gonna be stuck, and everybody else who does it, it's not a good forecast for those companies. I mean, that this is gonna end up being a nail in the coffin. I hate to be like, you know, negative about this, but if you have your local competition, if they are able to dramatically increase revenue through upsells that are timed properly because based on the AI knows when a guest checked out, or oops, there's a service call, we can't actually offer an early check-in that day. Or no, there's not, so we can. Um, I mean, there's so many different things as far as efficiency and revenue generation that also it makes the company healthier, but it also makes the owners happier that it it starts to compound. It's like a flywheel. So it's gonna be interesting to see, you know, how how this plays out. But I do think you guys are we had to take the bullet. So um I I think you guys are coming into this of like, we've been having that narrative, and and I and I think I think it's great. I mean, I think there's never gonna just be one PMS. I mean, that that's the reality. But I think what you're what you're doing and and the understanding that you have in the industry is is very important there. But I think that property managers were we're getting to that point that they're starting to realize this is something that they they can't ignore. And it's getting faster and faster that we used to say it would be like five, 10 years. It's not that long. I mean, like it it the runway gets slower or faster and faster. And I don't even know if I want to predict it right now because it might change in a month because it's gotten even faster. It will. It will. Yeah. It'll change in a month. And you know, you you you talk about what Boom has done. I mean, you you've been in the very, very uh uh early adoptive, early adoption phase, right? Um, I remember being in that phase too. Uh back in the day of Escapia when we first started, we we had an added, we had an added nemesis of people out there, including our our competitors, saying, Why would you why would you ever not want to secure your data in your closet? What why would you ever give your data? Why would you ever let other companies intermingle your data with your competitors? I mean, it was just crazy, right? Yeah, but I feel like Alex, now we're in a place where people are, there's nobody, nobody is fighting it. Everybody is just going, what the hell is it? Right? Yeah. And how there's more confusion confusion and just like hesitation. I think everybody knows we're going there, but it's like, yeah, I think it's over it's I think it's overwhelming. It is, it's totally overwhelming. But what I hope, you know, Ed uh from what you said, Alex, is that I hope that, you know, when we come in, we can help, we can help support what you what your guys' messaging. So that's true, you know, and and one of the things that happened when we when we um were moving forward uh with Escapia was that as more as streamlined came in and as track came in, it just became, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, I need one of those, right? And then you get that, you get that, you get that proverbial pig moving through the Python curve. Um, and but that but the thing that's that's exciting for me is that that's gonna happen really fast. Really, really fast.

Inference Engines And Hyper Personal Search

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And you know, the things like integrating, well, you know, we got a whole call call management system, a call automation system we call call track. And um the system tracks and monitors all phone calls coming in. It grades every single phone call, it gives recommendations on how to improve the closing rates. It, you know, it, I mean, the system is is doing this and giving the property manager um that feedback. And then and then um it's got an AI reservation agent so that all overflow calls, all overnight calls can be taken by um this AI agent. And you're gonna come, you're gonna see a day, and Alex, you guys, I'm sure you guys have thought about this. Think about what I call an inference engine. I don't call it that. Everybody calls it that. You know, when when when um Amazon comes to you and says, people who've bought this product have also bought these things, right? Yeah, that is such bull crap, right? There is so much going on behind that. It's not just that they bought it. They're trying, you know, every time you go into a grocery store and they scan it, it goes beep, beep, beep, beep. Do you know what each beep is? It's logging in. Data, data, data, data. They know how much we weigh, they know our risk of heart attacks, they know how much our kids weigh, they know how much money we make, right? They know all that stuff. And and so from that, Amazon and these companies can infer that you will buy other things, right? Now, imagine for the vacation rental space, we're collecting all this data, right? I'll just tell you a quick story. I might have told you this, but anyway, in 1989, I was having lunch with the vice president of marketing of American Honda, and he asked me three questions. Those three questions were I never forgot it. John, what kind what what kinds of cars do you drive? What color are they, and what year? Okay. Interesting. Okay. Kind, color, and year. From those three data points, he described my house. He told me how many kids I had, he told me how much money our household income was. He told me of 15 different things just based on those three data points. And I asked him, his name was Dick Colliver. I said, How did you do that? He goes, That's my business, right? Wow, interesting all the data that's out there, right? Creating this inference engine that can take all this data and serve up not just on what what potential guests click on that they want, a hot tub, three bedrooms, all that stuff. The system can know you, Annie, are looking for a three-bedroom home with a hot tub. You need three bathrooms, right? Because of whatever it comes up with, and present you with exactly what you want without you even knowing it. And that so the super interesting part of that is I think there's tools out there where they can see if you've been searching on other you know websites, right? And like now they're gonna show you similar products, what you were searching for. But what if what you were searching for in the previous website is not what you really even wanted in the first place, right? Like it's not at the root of the data that is is yielding you to those decisions. But I mean, you could end up going on a website, going down a rabbit hole looking at jeans, for example. But that is, I didn't want jeans. I actually wanted a skirt, and the data about me knows that. So now when that's served up to me, I'm like, oh my God, that's the perfect outfit. So I I think it's it's it's fascinating. And like to be able to put that together, this is just it's just a completely fundamental way, different way of looking at travel. I think, and that's the bigger picture here of like not just vacation rentals, but like how people book all types of lodging and accommodations and trips, like it's gonna be fascinating to see all this. And and when you think about it, I mean, you think about anything you can think of and anything that your brain processes, imagine a partner, imagine a technology that you can use as a business partner that is orders of magnitude faster, smarter, and tireless than you are. Right? And and technology can do things that the human mind can't. And so when you think about it, and and as time goes on, this is why I say that as time goes on, our horizons of what's possible are going to explode. And um, and it's is is it's it's gonna be so much fun. So, in your example, Alex, where um uh people are looking for homes in other places, but it's not what they want. What if what if the AI knows that? What if the AI comes back comes comes and says, well, they were looking at that, but I don't know why. That didn't make sense. I feel like the AI knows us better than we know ourselves. Well now I feel like and now I feel like we're in a whole Star Wars area where there's a Jedi mind trick. These are not the droids you're looking for, you know? Like it's like you're over here. Like it's just I'm listening to you, and my brain is like just spiraling. It's just isn't it crazy? Well, I think it's so crazy. We we friends of mine, we always talk about like you'll be talking about something in a conversation or in a text thread, and then all of a sudden you'll go on to one of your social medias, and it all of a sudden, like that topic comes up, whether it be somebody's post or selling you something, and you're like, oh my god, the robots are listening. So I have a question about all of the like this is just this has been this is all you saying, this is just all this comes to mind.

Security, MCPs, And The Matrix Fear

33:41

So every so boom system and staless system, your your AI is native to the system. So they they're it's not going out there into the world to talk to other AI, correct? Oh, yeah, it is. It's native, meaning that it's the system was built on the core of AI versus other systems where you're bolting it onto an old base system. But at what point does all of this AI cross over and start sharing that information with each other? You know, like when does it say, like, oh, well, Stalus is doing it this way and Boom is doing it this way, and we think Booms is better, so we're gonna take it. Like, when does it become all the systems are really feeding off of like one mothership, you know? It sounds like you're talking about the matrix. Right. If I take a blue pill or a red pill, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all. The problem that you're describing is actually the solution at the same time. I think that like what John was saying about the MCPs versus APIs. I mean, the more access that an AI system has to data, the better, right? But it's like everybody's gonna build their own tool their own way, but it's it's the most important data that they have is the data that's in their system. Am I explaining that right, John? Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, security is huge, right? I mean, security is huge. And um uh, but you know, the idea that um these systems are going to be able to be able to uh kind of talk to each other, right? Uh that's part that's part of the design. Now, what we also design in, you know, when systems talk these MCPs that I'm talking about, right? When these systems are talking to each other, they are designed to talk to each other, right? They are meant to talk to each other. As for systems going off and doing data scraping and and all that kind of stuff, going out into the public internet and stuff like that, that's you know, that's gonna happen too. And the most important thing is that the things that should be kept secure are kept secure. And it is also amazing the security measures that have evolved with AI that are, you know, it's all it's all kind of keeping keeping pace with everything. But, you know, when you have systems that can go out there and and look for data, uh, that is that is something that, you know, is legal, it's moral, and uh can provide value. And and I just said I just said the two things that that any any company worth working with uh will never breach. It has to be legal, it has to be moral, and and I'll I I'll add a third thing. It has to be the it has to be the right thing to do. And that's that's one of the things that you know I really, really enjoy. You know, my time with Scapio was the best, best, best time of my life. Working with a small company was really, really the the highlight of my career. Um, because you can make a difference, right? And you can you can set the values of the companies and you can say, you know what, we're not going down those those holes. Um but what's scary to your point, Annie, is that there are companies that will kind of bounce around that line, right? And a lot of times cross it. So we have to. Oh, the genie's out. The genie's out. Yeah. I just think I just think about like, so you know, on the like just general sense, does that just mean that like in the down the road we have one PMS, we have, you know, one PMS that does everything. We have, you know, one path of distribution. We just kind of like what's happening in in the in general society, things are just consolidating to the point where you only have like, you know, if you look at media outlets, they really are owned by, you know, one or two people, or you know, just things like this where it starts to become like, yeah, on the surface, it looks like it's a hundred different things, but it's really only the source of it is just one. And it's like, to that freaks me out. Like, so I go back to like what I've said all along is like when I talk to my like I use Claude, I talked to I I named him Claudity. And so when I talk to Claudity, I'm super polite. He is, I am respectful. I when the robots take over, I want them to know that I've been nice to them. Please and thank you. Thank you. Exactly. My mama, my mama raised me to be polite, but I just did that's what just wholly freaks me out.

Sponsor Message From Hospitable

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We'll be back in just a minute. But first, a word from our premier brand sponsor. My name is Ashley Kerr. I'm the co-host of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate Rookie podcast. And I'm also an investor entrepreneur. I invest in long-term rentals and short-term rentals. And I actually have just been using Hospitable for a little over six months now. Hospitable has changed the way that I handle guest communication. I'm using the AI feature to respond, and it has definitely been a noticeable impact that guests are getting a response right away instead of waiting for me to be available or just me in general having to stop what I'm doing to be able to respond to a guest. And a lot of the questions are the same questions over and over again. It really has made a big impact on my time of not having to spend that. But also, guests are really thankful and say, I appreciate you responding so quickly a lot. Some of the features that I love about Hospital that have been game changers for me, besides the messaging, is also the dynamic pricing, being able to maximize my price point. Also, when I create the listing, as to actually how it's guiding you through the listing and helping you optimize your listing too was a big thing for me. Now that I started using Hospitable, one thing I've definitely thought about is how much easier it is going to be to acquire another short-term rental. If I had to describe my experience with Hospitable, I would say it has been amazing. I cannot even begin to explain the life changing. It's not even being dramatic here. But once you make the switch and realize all of the roles and automations that this software can do for your business, you will be kicking yourself for not switching sooner and for doing all of these things manually. You will never get a better night's sleep as a host without using hospitable. You can put your phone on do not disturb. The AI will message for you. And there is no better feeling than getting the notification that somebody has booked and all of the messaging is taken care of, and all you have to do is watch for the payment to come into your bank account. Run your short-term rental business on autopilot with Hospitable. Alex and Annie listeners get a 14-day free trial, plus 25% off for the first six months. Click the link in the description to get started.

The Messy Middle Of AI Change

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Like at what point does all of this just all come together and we're really just sourcing it from different angles, you know? Yeah. So so, you know, part of it, the genie's out beyond us. The reason why it'll never be put back in the bottle is because the world has it. And, you know, the the there's a really good part of the world that has it, and there's a really bad part of the world that has it. And so um a big part of what we need to do is uh, you know, as as responsible business people and technologists, is to really do our part to protect the people we serve and make sure that the security measures are in place so that uh bad, you know, the bad stuff doesn't happen. It's inevitable, right? You can't solve for every everything that that could happen. But we can certainly we can certainly solve for everything we can think of. So you got both both sides of it. We're in a world right now, and we're entering a world at a level of speed that we've never experienced. I've been saying this for the last 20 years, right? That changing technology is driving change faster and faster and faster. But now, now um, you know, what took the revolution, you know, what took the industrial revolution, you know, a century is gonna take the air revolution a decade. It's um we're if that if that. And so if we survive it, right, I think the world is gonna be amazing. We're gonna live in a really amazing world. The question is, what happens between now and then and that messy middle, right? And that's where we all we all have to step up as technologists and make sure that we do everything that we can to uh to protect our customers and protect the people we serve. Um when I feel down, I'm gonna call you because I feel like when I get to worry about it, you you calm me down, you center me, like you make it all make sense. So the thing the the thing it's out, it's out, right? And so now we have to make it. We're stopping it now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I've got a question for

Robots, Jobs, And What Shifts Next

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you, John. What do you think about robots in the future as far as their role? I I agree with what uh Elon Musk says. Every one of us is gonna have multiple robots in the future. We'll have one at our vacation hall. We may have one and take it with us everywhere we go. Um and you know, the people aren't gonna like here. Okay, so robots. Robots. You know, there was a point in time when people said, you know, uh become a plumber or an electrician because that's something AI could never do. Yeah. Robots will. Okay. Well, the AI can do it. I mean, like, that's already happening, but the AI can call the plumber. But but but but this is actually doing the job. Oh, to do what you want to do. Who wants to be the plumber? Who wants to be the plunger guy, right? Right, yeah. Yeah. And and in a lot, in a lot of ways, I drive a robot. I've got a I've got a full self driving Tesla, right? That thing, that thing is incredible. It's incredible. It's it's it's wonderful. And and you know, and okay, so AI will never displace jobs. What do you think is gonna happen to Uber and Lyft drivers and taxi cab drivers? Yeah. Right? Well, we already see that. They're, I mean, they're being replaced. Yeah. It's happening, right? Yeah. And so um, but these humanoid robots, um, I believe that there's gonna come a point in time before the end of this decade where soldiers aren't gonna have to go out on the battlefield anymore. It's just gonna be robots, right? And any soldier that goes out on the battlefield isn't gonna have a chance to survive when you're right. Um, so robots are gonna do everything. I mean, I've got customers who are who are already planning for robot for robot housekeeping. Yeah, and I mean that's the conversation we have all the time. Of like it's it sounds like it's just you know so hard to believe, but it's it's really not. I mean, it is for sure gonna happen. So on that note, what do you like? Because I I agree. I mean, that that's a that's a challenge, you know, staffing for those jobs is always a hard, it's hard. Um, but you know, you think about fast food, you think about those jobs. I mean, there there's a there's always been a need for that that level of employee. You know, we've always needed we do away with that need, what do we do with those people? Are we going to provide them training and skill leveling up? That like that's where I think as a society, I feel like there's nothing to be done about that. That that's that's that were is worrisome to me because I look at my son, he's in doing cybersecurity stuff, and even that has changed from when he started it to now and is constantly changing. And while going into that field five, six, seven years ago was a sure thing. Now it's like eh, well, maybe not, you know, and it's even even our even our jobs. I mean, podcasting, I'm not sure exactly. I think that'd be maybe, but um maybe our regular jobs. I mean, you know, uh marketing, business development. I mean, like AI can replace a lot of those already right now. So it's like it's not just you leveling up the people that are on the lower rungs, it's it's leveling up people of all levels, and like what does that mean for the society? And it that is scary. So I'd love to hear, I'd love to hear what John's crystal ball says. Well, that that's that's that's where the messy metal comes in, right? I mean, that's that's where things are going to change so fast. I I had a conversation with a young woman who recently graduated from the University of Hawaii, former student of mine, and she works for she works for PayPal. And um, I asked her, how's it going? She goes, Oh, God, it's so hard because every day they're expecting us to do more. I said, What do you mean? She says, Because of AI, right? AI, we keep doing more with AI, and AI keeps learning more about what we do, and and you know, the the barge keeps going. And when she said that, I almost I almost just stopped in my tracks. When she said AI keeps learning what we do, right? There's gonna come a point in time when they're not gonna need Sarah anymore. Right, exactly. Yeah. Because AI knows her job. Yeah, right. And so, and so when people ask me, you know, and I folks, I've known, I've known folks, people who have been out of work for over over 12, 18 months. And they'll call me up, they'll say, John, what do I do? And I say, you know what, get curious, start building that muscle. And, you know, whatever you whatever you think was normal for you in the past is not going to be normal for you moving forward. It's just not. And, you know, learn AI. This is this is the biggest opportunity and the fastest opportunity I've ever seen in my, I don't think has ever happened in human history. Where you can where you can learn in three to six months a level of expertise that will make you hugely, hugely valuable, right? And um, and that's what companies are looking for. And so so the idea is whatever's happening around you, um take off the blinders, build off, build up your curiosity, and go out and find ways to add value because they're out there and they will always be out there. You just have to, you just have to look for it.

Curiosity, Relationships, And Leading With Heart

48:06

I think it's about the relationships too, of like, you know, we're gonna have AI that's gonna replace so much of not even just like the nitty-gritty work, but some of the strategy work too. But there still has to be relationships formed between how businesses do business. And I think that's kind of the one thing that won't change as much. I mean, give some layer of protection of you know who you are as a person and how you're respected and your personal brand and your your relationships that you've built over the years. I mean, AI can't put all of us out of out of work. I mean, I don't know what we would do. So it's like there has to be some use for humanity in some case, but I do think that the more that you've invested in your relationships, it that that should hopefully help in the future. I couldn't agree with you more, right? Um, you know, I I don't know, as late as early as 10 years ago, I I told folks, I said, you know, we are going to have a renaissance in our in our world. And that renaissance is going to be a renaissance of heart and love. And I said, technology is gonna drive it. And here we are, right? And the idea being that we've gotten so smart we've forgotten our heart. And now, now what's happening is that AI is starting to take those smarts and use it against us in a lot of ways and be a lot better at it than we are, right? And so what's that leave? That leaves our humanity, that leaves our heart, that leaves love. And I believe that's what's going to, that's what's going to save us. It's it's our it's like you say, Um, Alex, it's gonna be our relationships. It's gonna be serving one another. Um, and you know, that's that's that's the stuff that, you know, that human connection that AI can never replace. Agreed. And you said that the last time you were on with us about we've gotten so smart, we've forgotten our heart. And that has stuck with me as such a it's so it's so true. But I think we've had multiple conversations on the show the last few months about AI and about how great it's the helpfulness of it, but it it also has um, I think it'll it's allowed people to kind of sit back and go, okay, well, now we can get back to what we do. Yeah, nurturing our relationships and being hospitable, you know, and not being stuck doing the things, you know. So it is, it is, it is. I you always you I love having you around because you're always like the sunny side of the coin, and I appreciate that so much. But but you're right, it it's it's definitely allowing us to get back to what we are as you know, creatures of your humans, you know, just to be human and engage and interact and find our joy, as I say. And guess what, guess what people who use vacation rentals want? Yeah, they want heart, they want, they want, they want experiences, they want it's so now's your chance to take all that energy that you've been using managing your technology. Exactly. Yeah, agreed. Well said, well said. Well, we are super excited to see where this goes, John. And I think you know, we're both equally as excited just to be able to see you at the conferences again and make sure you'll be there. So that's a great thing for everybody. Um, but what is the schedule this year? I mean, you said you plan to launch this fall. Do you think it'll be verma when when you launch? Yeah, no later than Verma. No later than Verma. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Will we see you? What conferences are we gonna see you at? Will you be at exec conference or I'm not gonna be at Exec Conference. I'll be at I'll be at VR Nation in Denver. Um, but I think I think the only two that I've I've um I'm up for are VR Nation and VRMA. Okay. So we'll look forward to seeing you at VRMA in Nashville this fall. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be fun. It'll be fun. John, thank you always. We love having you. If anybody, if anybody wants to learn more about your new venture and stay list and everything that's going on, what's the best way to reach out to you? Yeah, uh either at John Suzuki at gmail um or johnsuki.com. Go to my website and um and it'll it'll tell you the stuff that I'm up to. Yeah, and subscribe to your podcast too. Can you do that from your website as well? They can go to my podcast. Okay, well, and what remind everybody what the podcast name is? It's it's called Finding Better. And uh Finding Better Podcast. And it's all about uh people sharing their life experiences. Um, you know, because sometimes the best path to success is to follow in the footsteps of others, and that's what it's all about. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Finding that motivation of somebody else's story that just gets you on the right track. I love that. Yeah, and I and I'm watching a new book in a couple of months. Oh my goodness.

Conferences, Contact Info, And Closing

53:00

The children's book as a as a as a boy mom who loved dinosaurs. I'm very excited about this. Tell us really quickly what it's called again. It's a kid's rhyme book called The T-Rex Who Didn't Like Meat. And it starts off what a completely different direction than everything else is. Yeah, it's it uh uh there once was a T-Rex who didn't like meat. It didn't, it just didn't suit him as something to eat. He loves sweet bananas and oranges too, and loved to something about vegetable stew. But anyway, it's um it's it's a it's a it's a story about you know, don't don't judge someone by the way they look. Oh, I love that. Wow. What what what a what a cool creative outlet for you to have too doing that? Yeah, yeah. I wrote it for my grandkids, and and uh it's it's a lot of fun. So yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you, John. If anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to alexandanypodcast.com. And until next time, thanks everybody.