What if the difference between a hit song and a forgotten one has almost nothing to do with talent?
My guest, Benjamin Groff, has spent his career finding out. He's a music publisher who's signed artists like Ryan Tedder, Tiësto, Kelly Clarkson, and Kid Cudi, built Kobalt's first U.S. office from the ground up, and now runs his own boutique publishing company, Brill Building — which just landed its first Billboard Hot 100 #1 with Beyoncé's "Break My Soul."
Back in 2016, Benjamin and I had a conversation on a bus tour of NASA about whether AI would ever replace musicians. He was certain it wouldn't. By the time we got off that bus, he wasn't so sure. Nearly a decade later, he's now a private investor in the AI music platform Suno — and still finding tomorrow's biggest stars in the noise.
In this Get Yourself Optimized episode, Benjamin breaks down:
✅ How he still finds emerging artists before anyone else notices them
✅ Why data and virality metrics can't replace real taste and curation
✅ What 100+ years of "the new technology will ruin everything" panics — player pianos, drum machines, Napster, now AI — actually teach us
✅ Why 85% of success comes down to identity and mindset, not raw skill
✅ The Tony Robbins framework for why only "outstanding" work gets rewarded anymore
If you've ever wondered whether AI is coming for your creative career, this conversation will change how you think about it.
The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at getyourselfoptimized.com/571.