Reading the Signs

Chris: Well, it's not like we're going live or anything.

Rob: Yeah, we clipped that.

Rob: Welcome back. We are on the road to Unbound and I uh mentioned this yesterday. You know what my favorite Unbound is?

Rob: The next one, baby. Tom Freaking Brady.

Rob: Is a keynote at Unbound. We're talking about the headliners uh that were unveiled yesterday. Casey almost exploded in the green room with excitement. Uh I'm glad she's still in one piece. So, I'm I would introduce I I didn't introduce anybody. I'm sorry. We are here with Kyle, George, Chris, Casey. You know who they are. You've been here for months now. We just changed the name, Road to Unbound. It's the same show. Formerly known as Inbound was the conference, formerly known as the Hubspot Helpline. Let's talk about these headliners and the speaker sessions. George, you were you were chomping at the bit. I'll let you start us off with your initial reactions.

George: Well, so first of all, you know, I know I'm going to get um some hate mail on some of what I'll say here just because um but not everybody is

Rob: Yeah, all hate mail to Chris at uh by the way.

George: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know how to do it. You know how to do it. Uh look, I'm excited about the lineup in general, okay? And there's some as we dive into this, like and we go through each individual human, you know, I'll I'll talk about like why. But I want to give you a little peek into uh the Thomas household because the Thomas household, there's this little bit of conversation about like who's going to go to Unbound, who wants to go to Unbound, who does or doesn't. And so last night I'm sitting on the couch and I go, oh, babe, by the way, you're not going to want to go to Unbound this year. And she's like, why is that? And I go, because one of the speakers is drum roll, please. Tom Brady. And she goes, that was that was basically her response. So, I know that one down. However, then I just put a slack earlier this morning to my daughters because of uh Cynthia being there and they love uh, you know, her and the movie and both movies, like we've been to them and so, anyway, not not to jump forward, but like the the whole Tom Brady thing was shocking to me at first. And then I was like, well, that makes sense. And then of course, Max was like, the goat. And I'm like, oh, oh God, okay, here we go.

Chris: This is how we bring it back to Boston, right?

Rob: Yeah, yeah.

Rob: Yeah.

Rob: It was a surprising choice.

Kyle: I'm I'm amazed that in the the lineup of speakers on the website, Tom Brady gets the first spot.

George: I yeah.

Kyle: And not Yeah. Cynthia Rivo. Like I Yeah. I don't know.

Chris: I mean, this is a football ready.

Rob: Oh my gosh.

Rob: I'm ready, baby. Favorite Unbound is the next one. I had to come representing Tom, the goat and uh his seven championships.

Kyle: So, who are you exploding to see? Is it Tom Brady?

Casey: Uh, no. I'm not exploding over Tom Brady.

Casey: I'm not I just don't really follow football. I but it definitely didn't like

George: Well, that's the question. Are we going to get are we going to get football Tom Brady or are we going to get like Kevin Hart roast Tom Brady? Like which Tom Brady are we going to get?

Kyle: I would think I am I am I'm not a person who follows celebrities and and and like inbound previously, that's what it was called. Uh every year it's like

George: Well, that was like

Kyle: Oh no. It's been inbound. In these past years, like at inbound the past several years, people will come and like I am amazed to learn that like Ryan Reynolds and Reese Witherspoon have business ventures. Like that's just not a thing I know, right? And they actually have really insightful things to say that are on topic. On the other hand, sometimes you get like uh Amy Poller who just like talks and is fun and is interesting in a fireside chat, right? And like looking at this lineup, I honestly don't know which camp these big names are, right? Is is Tom Brady just going to talk at Unbound about what it's like to win the Super Bowl multiple times or is he going to talk about like his uh TB12 Foundation or like

Kyle: And Cynthia is is is is it all going to be wicked? Is she going to talk about what it was like to play Harriet Tubman? Is she going to does she have a business venture I don't know about? Like I don't I don't know.

George: I will tell you and we'll again, we'll get into this, but to like just kind of bounce around a little bit. Um when I saw Mel Robbins on there, I was like, all right. Like, yeah, let's go. Like I was I was like, yeah, this this makes sense. By the way, also, like let's just talk about Yamini and Darmesh. Like the fact that because you never know if somebody's going to continue to show up on the stage. Like, you know, because I don't see somebody that I'd love to see on this first initial lineup, but uh the fact that uh we get more dad jokes and we get Yamini's amazing presence, but for me it was like Mel Robbins, yes, let's go. Uh I'm super excited. Tom Brady, what's going to happen? And then like, oh God, I think my girls are probably going to want to go to Unbound now. I might I might have just had to spend more money.

Chris: That's what I love. Like this is the next level marketing that's, you know, most of I think our like admin-based audience, like misses this part about like why who why would we want to hear from Tom Brady? Like that reaction, that both of those reactions. Like it's the difference often of people buying an inbound ticket or not.

Chris: Right?

George: What ticket?

Rob: Oh.

Chris: That was real good.

Rob: That was real good.

Chris: That's fair. That's fair. An Unbound ticket or not. And like often times once you get that conversion, now they're going to be open up to so much value. Meanwhile, if you've ever been to any of these, no matter who it is, we're going to get the Tom Brady because the Unbound organizers and executionists are good at what they do. We're going to get the Tom Brady that's relevant to us as as the attendees. And he's going to talk about, I would imagine, how many times he's failed, how many times he's been successful, and all of the lessons he's learned from his domain.

George: See, see, Chris, you bring up a really good point and actually you're giving me a and I'm going to use the I word because it's a flashback. You're giving me an inbound flashback to when um John Cena was one of the uh speakers and at first everybody was like, what is this? Like, what is this guy? And even him himself when he opened up the talk, he's like, I don't know why I'm here. I don't belong here. And then all of a sudden it was like the dopest inbound talk ever. And you're like, wait, bro, you speak Mandarin and you were sitting at the piano. Can we please rewind this in live time? Like, it was just amazing. And what'll be interesting is if we get another one of those where we're like, what the heck? Holy crap.

Casey: Did anyone know that Mel Robbins is speaking at Dreamforce?

George: Oh, no.

Rob: Oh, interesting.

George: I mean, Mel Robbins speaks in a lot of places.

Rob: We can forgive Mel. I mean, this it's Mel Robbins. She can speak wherever she wants to.

Casey: I was just I was curious what like I was just curious like what the lineup differences were and it I didn't expect there to

George: Well, I hope she wears like orange on the right day. Like and not blue on the wrong day.

Kyle: I think I I it I don't know. I don't follow Dreamforce carefully, but I I bet it's not uncommon for there to be overlapping speakers. I bet it's uncommon for the same year. But like uh we had John Cena, right? And then the next year

Rob: Not as the producer of Yeah, sorry to interrupt you, Kyle. We're we're now talking about Dreamforce. We can't do this. So, I'm going to interrupt I'm going to I'm going to interrupt you uh with love. I say with love. We cannot talk This is the road to Unbound, not the freaking road to Dreamforce. I have a thought-provoking question, okay? And it's I I was thinking about this. Chris went here, George went here. Quick Claude thing that I'd rounded it out. I I'd already had notes that was basically the idea is like, what what is Hubspot aiming to say with its speaker selection at these conferences with keynotes, right? Is there a theme? Is there a common theme for the last six years? So, if you think about the last six years of Unbound of now Unbound, but it was something else. Uh you had Oprah, I mean, in the last six years, Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee, Hassan Minaj, uh Barack Obama, Viola Davis, Dr. Jane Goodall, Reese Witherspoon, uh Andrew Huberman, Derek Jeter, Stephen Bartlett, Ryan Reynolds, Serena Williams. You have a ton of people where you'd say like, why are they speaking at a CRM like a marketing conference, right?

George: Yeah.

Rob: So, I ask, is there a theme? Like what is Hubspot trying to say year by year? And we have some Hubstorians on this call. So, it'd be interesting to do a flashback and and see like what they were doing at the time. 2021, own your platform. Is the theme. They have Spike Lee and Oprah. Like own your platform is the theme. You know what Hubspot was doing in 2021? Pretty interesting. 2022, connection is the strategy. From the keynote speakers. 2022 had uh Barack Obama, Viola Davis, Dr. Jane Goodall. Connection is the strategy. 2023, build like a creator.

George: Hmm.

Rob: 2024, disrupt your own playbook. 2024 had Ryan Reynolds, Serena Williams, Cara Swisher. 2025, so last year, stay human at scale. Is the theme. 2025, Amy Poller, Marcus Brownley, Sean Evans, Dario from Anthropic. 2026, resilience without limits. Sunni Williams, the astronaut, by the way, I one of her quotes is like, when it the sky isn't the limit, don't think of one. It reminded me weirdly of my pop culture brain going to mean girls and uh the limit does not exist, but resilience without limits. You think about Tom Brady's story and being the 199th pick and, you know, undrafted and having to fill in, just as the person I'm most familiar with. Starting to read the other people on here, their stories, this theme makes a lot of sense. So, I've talked for a while. Just want y'all to respond to that idea of is Hubspot trying to like help with a narrative by having certain people like thematically at a conference?

George: Well, I think the answer to that is yes, without a doubt. Like there there's a lot of um work and planning into to try to put into uh I'll use the word theme lightly, but to a theme, I think totally makes sense. And what's interesting is 20 uh what what do they say? Hindsight is 2020. Because Rob, if you would have asked me any of that, like as we were going through it, I'd have been like, they were good speakers, but but looking back, right? It's like, oh yeah, that was that that actually totally makes sense. Which then looking at this year, it's like, okay, totally makes sense. Like I can see where these bricks fall into the wall that they're trying to kind of build in this scenario of uh the other thing too, like but I think of like creativity. And by the way, let's just talk about like it's Unbound and like these people like I they're kind of Unbound.

Casey: I think that's yeah.

George: Like they they, you know, they've they've done stuff that most mere mortals, like they have the way I'll put it and then I'll shut up is, uh anybody that I look at on this screen is definitely living a life beyond the default. They are at another level, right?

Kyle: And Cynthia has sung about defying gravity and has defied gravity.

George: Yeah, yeah.

Rob: Wow. Boom. There you go.

George: Yeah.

Rob: Yeah.

George: Now if we could just figure out some way to tie in um footballs with not the right air pressure, then we would be

Rob: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, hot topic.

George: Oh, easy there.

Chris: Unbound. Unbound from the rules.

George: Yeah, Unbound from the rules.

Kyle: No, Kevin, you guys know Kevin, right? Like he wants internally at Hubspot gave like a 45-minute or full-hour presentation breaking down Deflategate and why it was a bunch of uh crocks and why uh Tom Brady was unjustly uh you know, accused of thing.

Rob: That's fun.

Kyle: I found it fascinating.

George: I love it.

Rob: Oh, man.

Casey: Yeah, I think I think Unbound is the theme. I mean, I think I mean, they just changed it, obviously. I mean, it's hard to it's hard to look at it any other way.

Rob: Well, that reinforces them making the name change. So, even that was a good idea. Unbound by rules, you might say, or gravity in a literal or musical sense of the word, uh convention like uh Jordy Hayes and what was John Cougar, Jordy Hayes, TBPN, like the people that uh that created that. They're also on there. Yamini, Darmesh are kind of consistently keynotes. Uh they should be. The concept of a thematic approach to what they're trying to say and do at the time. This year more more is more evident than others because of the name change of the conference and branding and all of that stuff. I just thought it was an interesting look back, especially starting with 2021 when I randomly I think that's the first year I went. And own your platform as the theme, right? That was right about the time they said, we're a CRM platform instead of just a marketing tool. Like as a to George's point, looking back that made sense.

Kyle: 2021 may have been the year we announced custom objects.

George: Yeah.

Kyle: That was 2020 or 2021 somewhere in there.

Chris: 2020.

Kyle: Was the 10-year.

Chris: Yeah. Um I mean, like Mel Robbins had one of the most impactful books that I listened to last year. Um and it was the let the let them theory. And reading here, like it's a self-help book about finding peace by accepting you can't control others.

George: Hmm.

Chris: Focusing instead on your own choices and boundaries. Um encapsulated by the mindset, let them, let them be who they are and let me let me focus on myself. When you're in the business of change management,

George: Yeah.

Chris: Like one of my biggest takeaways, she had so much scientific evidence in that book about how no matter there is zero scenarios where you can force another adult to make any decision. Like ever.

Chris: Right?

Chris: And that's a lot of what we do every day is you know, like once I listened to that, it's just like, okay, now what can I do to create the space for decisions to get made? Like it completely changed the way that I approached Hubspot onboarding and adoption and like how you're trying to get sales and marketing to talk to each other and like it's it's a completely different approach, but once you get yourself there, it's like, oh, all right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

George: So, I I want to I want to make sure that we hit the uh right arrow a couple times on the speakers because um obviously most of us have heard of Runway, right? And so the fact that uh Alejandro is going to be there from one Runway, I think is um cool. I again, pretty sure I think I know what that might be about considering from Runway. Uh however, I had never and again, I could live under a rock. I have never heard of Glean. Um had you guys heard of Glean and uh Arvind from Glean?

Kyle: So, I the only reason I've heard of Glean is because Hubspot adopted this tool sometime in the past year.

George: Okay.

Kyle: Um Glean is actually super cool. It's one of my my favorite things uh Hubspot has has rolled out recently internally.

George: Yeah.

Kyle: Um I I don't I mean, again, we were just going back to like how these speakers are selected and what they mean for the marketing of the conference. I don't know that Glean is a big enough name to have a draw because I had literally never heard of it before Hubspot started implementing it. But what it is is uh it's connected to all our different enterprise systems and it's it's a it it you can do chat or search with it. But all the time, I will be like, hey, I was talking with someone about this thing, where was that? And it will find like the slack message or it will find the Google Doc or it will surface the email. It's just connected. It's one search and chat connected to all the different repositories.

George: I feel like I feel like a lot of people need that in their life. Holy crap. Like and it it does call it says uh the work AI platform that connects to company data to help employees find, create, and automate work. Uh which is which is interesting.

Kyle: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah, I I first heard about it when we started talking about like unifying context and things like that. And we started asking questions like is Hubspot going to get to the place where it's where it's like, um, you know, hit this button and all of your all of your disconnected context and data will now be connected. Like as a part of the onboarding process. Uh and when we started talking about that, that's where I first heard of Glean because it's basically that's kind of what it does. Like tell us what systems you have in play and then we have a connector for that.

Kyle: Yeah.

Chris: And you'll be able to ask questions about the data from this one from this one place.

George: Hmm.

Rob: Yeah, they've uh I I think that the thematic whether you want to lean into that super heavily or just understand that that's what conferences, events have to do. I mean, even non-tech conferences have to have headliners that have some draw to what they embody and what they stand for. I since there are so many interesting people and Tom Brady is caught a lot of flack for Deflategate and sports and I have a football. I think one of the things, I pulled a quote because I wanted to defend Tom and I'm not even a Patriots fan. I don't live in Boston, but one of the things that Tom is known for is like absolutely maniacal, relentless preparation and resilience, right? The 199. He has a quote, things don't correct themselves, you've got to go out there and work hard to correct them. I'm bringing that up specifically uh as a shout out to the product theme. Like there are things that Hubspot is doing right now every day with I mean, Kyle can speak to this better than most. I know we all can, but like that is their approach that they live out every single day with how fast they're iterating. I saw last week, right? You know, multiple instances of people saying things about the product and Darmesh responding saying, it's better to ship, we're we're like, we're fixing it now. I feel a lot better about it. But like even that mindset of of somebody that is headlining the conference, things do not correct themselves, you have to go out and do it. Is something that Hubspot is actively doing like right now.

Rob: Kyle, your thoughts.

Kyle: Amen.

Rob: There we go.

Casey: Um, well, I mean, I feel like regardless, like it is hard sometimes as someone deep in Hubspot every day to make the connection between every year like with the headliners. It's hard to make the connection. Um, but all of all of the people have been really successful at something. Um, and they have been dedicated to whatever that they do, whether that is football, whether that's podcasting or um, you know, being an astronaut, that's super hard. Um, so I think there's just something to there's something to learn from everyone on this stage. Um, and I feel like it's often times for me helpful to hear a parallel story to mine rather than a direct because sometimes when you're looking at things that are too close, it's easy to poke holes in, well, that doesn't work for me because of this and that. But when you're looking at a parallel story, it's sometimes easier to see where where the lines do match up.

George: Yeah, one we haven't mentioned yet, which I think does make like a total um uh sense for kind of where we're at in the world, especially as the TBPN or the Technology Business Programming Network. So, John Coogan and uh Jordy Hayes. Um and again, if you don't know, it's known for its unfiltered sports center style Rob, this is right up your alley, brother. Uh sports center style commentary on startups, AI and venture capital. The show has been called Silicon Valley's new obsession. Here's what's fun about this. This sucker launched in March of 2025. And we're uh and we're uh what is it? We're in May of 2026. So, it's just it just had its first birthday. Uh probably still in diapers and it's caused enough buzz that they're going to be like an Unbound headliner. Like think about that. Like think about that world that we live in right now where you can have an idea. You can strategize and implement and execute and then all of a sudden, poop, you're somewhere where you maybe never thought you'd be.

Casey: When did the helpline launch?

George: Oh.

Rob: I was I literally was just thinking like, so BSN has a chance. Like TBPN, BSN.

Chris: Tell me there's a chance.

George: Oh, man.

Chris: We're on the right track.

Rob: We're we're going to make it there with our uh sub 300 follower count. We got it. Go subscribe to our.

Chris: See, Rob, it's proven. That's why we should do it. It's a proven strategy.

Rob: It's it's absolutely proven. But you have to have the right people. Like like make no mistake. All of these people here are like beyond outliers. And there's there's some consistent theme even to their human quality that is like resilience and like their attitude and effort at every single turn. All of those not just this year, but I feel like a lot of those people had the same message. It's interesting to me that none of these, not none. Fewer of of the headliners, like super headliners that I thought would be like tech or AI or technology specific. So, the story like Ryan Reynolds, celebrities, movie stars. The general appeal, I've said this for a while.

George: Uh careful there. Careful with that one. See, I get frustrated when people do that. Ryan Reynolds is a business like God with a little G. Like people don't know he's he's behind like 17 businesses. It's ridiculous. So, like he's a he's a movie entrepreneur like entrepreneur/guy that does movies. Like anyway, anyway.

Rob: George, it's like you don't even know me that I'm long-winded and trying to make my point. Yes, I understand like you said that earlier and you said, I I didn't know that Reese Witherspoon was a almost a billionaire. Right? Like several of these people that you think, oh, I saw them in a movie. What in the hell are they doing here? Tom Brady plays football. How can he be impactful? Guess what? He owns the Las Vegas Raiders. Co-owns like so.

George: Mountain, like.

Rob: Yes. So, so all of these people have like are very uh to use the cliche or like icebergs. I find it to be the same thing for the human side that George harps on all the time as he rightfully should, where on the surface we wear orange, uh we're Hubspot evangelists, insiders, admin, whatever you want to call us, right? But like Kyle is uh is writing a Joan of Arc musical. Like there's there's other sides to that. So, people Casey just said this, being able to see those types of elements present, almost the inverse in people that are speaking is massively like well done by Hubspot. Uh you should this is publicity at its finest. Like they put the advert out like here's who's going to and now we're having a whole show about it. Chris, you're the conspiracy theorist among us if I had to guess. So, I want to I want to reveal one thing to you from a quick Claude prompt and then have you and Kyle weigh in on it because Kyle has been uh Kyle's Kyle's been scheming on me uh in the top bubble there. So, I I ask, how closely, you know, does this arc, the thematic arc from 2021 to 2026 parallel the loop marketing playbook?

Chris: Oh my God, I can't believe you're going to go here. That's exactly where I wanted to take this.

Rob: So, it it's closer than you think, right? Like I went over those. So, one, like express, define your distinct voice, that was Oprah, 2021. Taylor, make people feel truly seen, connect. Amplify, meet buyers everywhere that they are, evolve. Iterate until you're unrecognizable. I I'll read this excerpt, which is mind-blowing to me. If you take just one thing, uh Yamini said this in 2025, from this keynote, it should be the amplify stage. This is how you drive growth in the AI era. The fact that amplify is the stage she elevated above all others and that the conference arc spent three years developing the thinking that would become amplify is either brilliant long-term programming or just an accidental proof that the concept is genuinely hard to teach. The other thing, Hubspot stage one of the loop is express and the express stage brands define their voice, tone and point of view. And their framing is AI urgent, give AI a clear style guide. Uh Oprah's message at the virtual conference, your gut never lies on your authentic voice. So, there are parallels even from loop marketing having been built essentially over the last five years to the thematic having not just like a theme per year, but mirroring exactly what they're putting out into the ether with loop marketing as we speak.

Chris: Yeah. Uh, I don't think I'm going to go that deep. I think that's more of a

Rob: I said it was a conspiracy, but I mean it is interesting.

Chris: Well, I think that's more of a threat of like you kind of create your own luck when you stick to the program of at the time inbound and this is the Hubspot culture and we're we're bringing in voices that match that culture and they say things that are going to be easy to build on later. Um, but what I was going to say in relation to because a lot of the program underneath this, a lot of loop marketing sessions, you know, this year. And if anything was evident from last year is that the mindset of the of the people around uh the loop marketing announcement last year, uh was not ready for loop marketing conversation. Right? And so now like as we've evolved, like you have to open your mind to doing stuff every day and moving at a speed, which most people are not used to that I see a lot of like I'm fine with saying there's a connection there and that's why I would love to like I'm the guy that likes to watch the director conversations that Disney puts up like behind the movie and just listen to the directors and actors talk about how stuff was made. I look forward to us having one of those conversations with the Unbound team and think about how they make decisions like this because I don't most people do not give nearly enough credit to how truly woven like every aspect of this event is.

George: Yeah, to be a fly on the wall to like listen to the meetings of the Unbound team uh would be super super interesting. They should make a like a documentary. 2027, there should be a behind the scenes documentary like an hour long movie that you could watch about the Unbound team and how they figured it all out.

Chris: Is there any kind of crowd sourcing that happens internally, Kyle? Like based on like what we should talk about or what the theme should be or

Kyle: No, so I I've been at Hubspot uh just shy of 11 years now. So, I've seen a lot of inbound cycles. Um and very early on uh so as long as I've been here, planning for each subsequent event starts as soon as the previous one ends, even before that, right? Because they have to lock down venues and dates and and some of these speakers take years to secure. Um but there used to be like an annual internal wiki post or just maybe one running one that surfaced annually uh asking for speaker suggestions. Who would you like to see speak at inbound for these sort of headline spots? And people would jump in and like, I just read a book by this person. Oh, man, have you seen what this person did? Oh, this person launched this really interesting company. Um but they don't crowd source like that anymore. I suspect what has happened is the the event has established itself in such a way and the team has built the required connections that they don't have to rely on the intuitions of frontline employees at the company anymore, right? They they probably work with like booking agents and agencies who are like, here's here's who's really generating buzz right now. And they could say like, hey, we have this idea for a theme, we're going to have these kind of topics, who who are the speakers that, you know, given the the constraints of timing and price range and whatever else we could get. And I imagine it's it's much more strategic and working with people whose full-time job is making these kinds of decisions than in the the early days of just like, let's see who which which Hubspot employees dreams we can make true come true this year, you know? Um, so.

George: Yeah.

Rob: Yeah. So, there is a theme. I like how you said that. George, uh Casey, anything to add or follow up with because I have an insane question to end this out with for today, but I'll let uh I'll let some final thoughts from the crew proceed that.

George: I don't think I have any final thoughts that are like mind-blowing. I will just tell you that um I'm excited about all of these featured speakers that they launched. Um for one reason or another. Um some of them selfish, some of them curiosity, but I I definitely will say this to me feels like maybe one of the dopest first feature drops, uh at least in like the last five to six years where it it emotionally did something to me when I saw these.

Casey: Um, I'm still holding out for Taylor Swift. I do feel like we got a step closer. Um, we're in the football world. Now, you know.

Kyle: And music?

Casey: And music. We're just we're inching a little bit closer and closer. I often say um that I just need Taylor Swift to be less popular so I can afford to see her more often. That is mine. Um my own selfish goal. But I think yeah, there's a great lineup. There's I'm interested to see what everyone has to say. Um I'm also I am really interested how loop um comes into the conversation this year. I think it's interesting to think that because it got announced on day one of Unbound last year, although it was discussed a lot, it was not featured in a way that this year I think that can and probably will change. Um and you know, after a year of sitting with it, people can see how it works in their own business rather than just kind of the shell shock shell shock is a little dramatic. Like other than being like, they changed the funnel, it's a loop now. What? You know, now people have a full year to kind of simmer on that.

Chris: Pretty close to shell shock last year from some people. Like they did not like what was happening and uh so I'm glad we're here. I'm glad it survived. Um and I think it's a great representation of loop marketing itself that the team get get together, put it out there, get some pretty harsh feedback from some of the the community and but they didn't rush to correct the record either and I think while many of us didn't necessarily understand that at the time, now that they're going hard here, it's it's clear there was some some strategic decisions made around like how to how to get this to land and you know, let's hear from everybody and let's kind of wait for the environment to evolve a little bit to, you know, push it more. But this comes from somebody from the outside. Uh just happy to see it. See it happen because I do think it's real imperative for most businesses to to implement if not it, something very much like it to support what businesses need to be doing right now.

George: So, I must say this in a little bit different way and then I'll shut up so you can ask your question, Rob. Uh what happened last year is somebody said, hey, this is what you do when you have a broken leg. And everybody in the audience looked at their legs and said, my legs ain't broken. And then they went home and three months later they said, oh God, I've got a broken leg and realized that somebody three months earlier had told them this is what you do when you have a broken leg and now they've got to pick it up and run with it.

Rob: I I genuinely don't know how to follow that. Uh so I won't. There will be some housekeeping items. Uh we want you to interact with content, especially if you're a speaker, Cynthia, Mel, come chat with us. We'd love to have you. We also have people that are involved with either speaking or planning or whatever. I won't give any spoilers or secrets away because I'm just not going to do that. But there will be guests, a guest uh coming up. So, that's exciting to have people that are more involved and not just the five of us uh talking about stuff. I will ask my question now. It's an over under. It's insane. So, feel free to cut this from the record if you do not like the question, but it's thought-provoking at the very least. Over under 1.5 years until one of the sessions, we'll say a headliner is given by someone who is not a human.

Casey: I'm going over.

Kyle: It's

Kyle: Anticipate is she was cringing so much in anticipation then I think we're all kind of like, oh, that's not as that is not as

Casey: It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Rob: Okay, good. Well, I I strive to have that effect of being less cringe than anticipated. So, win for me. Uh

Kyle: Was it?

Casey: Over.

Kyle: Last year, year before last, we had the guy from Disney with the robots.

Rob: That doesn't quite count. I mean, like specifically an agent.

Kyle: It's close.

Chris: Closer.

Kyle: Right. So, I'm just saying, will we see one in 2027 or not? That's basically your question.

Rob: Yes. It'll be under.

George: Wait, what what was the question?

Casey: George, feature.

Rob: George doesn't understand over under. Over under 1.5 years that there will be a like for the length of time it will take for an agent to give a session, we'll say keynote at Unbound.

Kyle: It's

George: I'm not going to answer this.

Kyle: I think this is what I do uh to get out of answering questions. So, I'll just lead with that. But I I want to I want to nitpick some of these definitions, right? Like uh for years now, other big tech companies, right? Like Google uh three years ago had a, you know, one of their keynote things where they had like a live their their agent did like a phone call to check the hours on some local business or something.

Rob: Is Hubspot not a big tech company?

Kyle: Well, what I'm saying is would that count? If if like during the product keynote this year or or like Darmesh, if he like had an on-stage conversation with an agent, would you count that? Are you saying an agent as a solo act? Ladies and gentlemen, now presenting beep boop bot who is giving a 45-minute

George: Well, and let's let's double tap on that. An agent on a screen or are you talking a robot? Because a robot agent is different than just an agent.

Kyle: You want to nitpick your question to death, Rob.

Casey: The question wasn't so wild, but this conversation has

George: Like like what Rob basically what you're asking us is, so, um fellow Unbound attendees, how long till R2D2 is the keynote speaker at Unbound? Like is that what you're asking?

Rob: Uh it's open for interpretation a little bit, but

George: Well, considering I considering the thing that drew me in in 2012 is let's do this in a more human way. The day that a robot comes out and I'm out. I'm out.

Kyle: Whoa.

Chris: Oh, man.

Rob: So, presented by uh Yeah, we look, it's been fun. George says he's not coming if Darmeshbot gets on stage. Uh that's yet to be seen. It wasn't announced yesterday. We'll see you back next week and uh looking forward to it. Chris, take us out.

George: Bye. See, I wanted to I want to hit the stop button, but I can't hit the stop button because I've got to say one thing and that's you said Darmeshbot and it immediately made me think of like the Steve Urkelbot from back, you know, like do you remember how