Letters of Intent

Pankaj Raval (00:04)
All right, everyone, welcome back to Letters of Intent, the podcast for dealmakers and risk takers. I'm Pankaj Raval founder of Carbon Law Group. Today we are joined by my co-host, Sahil Chaudry, the head of corporate legal here at Carbon Law Group. Sahil, how are you doing today?

Sahil (00:19)
doing excellent and I'm very very excited about our guest today, Tony Ringor He's a good friend of yours Pankaj for many many years and this podcast is gonna get me an opportunity to understand what all the hype is about. You know I've heard so much about this person who's your friend, he's a creative, he's a businessman, he's been prolific in his field and I'm really excited.

to get into your journey. So Tony, think I'm probably the right person to ask and kick things off. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey?

Tony Ringor (00:50)
thank you, Pankaj, and thank you, Sahil, for having me here on Letters of Intent. I'm very excited to be here. You know, as a kid, I was obsessed with comics, you know, like not just reading them, but making them. The process, like drawing in blue pencil, ink in black, then Xeroxing the pages and folding and stapling them into little books. I loved the storytelling, but I was also into the process. Later, that same instinct moved into computers.

scanning illustrator, Adobe Illustrator, learning HTML. It was about finding new ways to create and share. that mindset has really been with me ever since. I started in branding and advertising, art direction, working with clients across fashion, retail, music, and automotive, and then later moved into entertainment marketing and consumer products, focusing on video and motion. That path led me to Disney and eventually,

I started AreaLab when I was living in Amsterdam in Paris and then came back to Los Angeles. Over the years, I've moved through web, motion, social, and now we're entering the new era of AI, not just as user, but as someone helping others navigate those changes in terms of its opportunities.

Pankaj Raval (01:56)
That's wonderful. I love that. Thank you for that background. I mean, Tony, you and I have been known each other for a long time now. Helped you with different types of different So I've seen, your really, approach to creative, I must say, really unique and refreshing to see someone, you know, who's really operating at the top of their game, think about these issues and you think about it deeply. you know, I would love to talk a little bit about your time at Disney because

Obviously, it's a massive entity, it's massive company, I'm sure it is very cutting edge with a lot of the creative that they're doing. maybe tell us a little bit about your story with Steve Jobs. I'd love to hear, actually, I think, developed something or presented something to Steve Jobs when he was around. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that was like.

Tony Ringor (02:31)
sure.

Yeah, Disney was a really an education for me. And I the best way to imagine it is, one day I'm working at Disney, working away and my global head of creative walks into my office dead serious and says, clear your plate. We need to impress Steve Jobs, not your average Tuesday.

This was when Pixar was joining Disney and jobs had just become the largest individual shareholder. everybody make a good impression and no pressure, right? what he wanted me to do was to rethink how we use the video in presentations.

mixing motion graphics into keynote in a way that felt more like a film than a slideshow. And myself and my team were basically inspired by an inconvenient truth, but with less climate change and more pixie dust. The goal was to blur the line between animation and interface. So you couldn't quite tell what was software and what was video.

Pankaj Raval (03:33)
Interesting.

Tony Ringor (03:33)
So

after the big meeting, my boss called me from the airport and said, Steve kept leaning over during the presentation, trying to figure out what software we were using. Total poker face, right? But clearly intrigued. Unconfirmed, but I like to believe some of what we did make made its way into future versions of Keynote. And if not, hey, still we made Steve Jobs squint and I'll take that.

Pankaj Raval (03:56)
Yeah, amazing, amazing. story. And what year was this?

Sahil (03:58)
Wow.

Tony Ringor (04:00)
Oh gosh, this the mid 2000s, something like this.

Pankaj Raval (04:03)
The 2000s, okay.

Because I would imagine presentation would be a lot different today, right, with the tools we have. And now the way that we can generate video and animation with AI a few keystrokes. when you presented then you're seeing today, you there might be some influence in keynote that you had.

Tony Ringor (04:09)
Absolutely.

Pankaj Raval (04:23)
do you see what you're thinking? Do you feel like that has come to fruition in many ways and what he wanted? Or was something that maybe was too kind of pie in the sky?

Tony Ringor (04:31)
I think that ultimately it did have an impact our chairman at the time included, they really had a very way of communicating their ideas. And I think that really has come across, it's, guess the best way to say it is that it has become sort of

standard to the language now. if we, if we, you we, we watch like big presentations and big, big key note sort speeches, you know, it's sort of standard now the way that, but at that time it was not right. People were running around with bullet pointed slides and things of this nature, for large things. And, and now since that moment in time, people have really, really adopted a lot of best practices, and sort of

at every level, think.

Pankaj Raval (05:16)
Hmm. I love it. So you had to do this great time at Disney and then what inspired you to start AreaLab?

Tony Ringor (05:23)
I guess it was.

sort of our Glendale campus around 3 AM, if you can imagine this. And I was riding a Razor scooter down the hallway, half looking for snacks and basically half trying to stay awake.

I had just wrapped a leading massive project, an web app for Disney's global rebrand. It was designed to train thousands of partners and licensees around the world, and it had to unify everything. Mickey Mouse, Princesses, Toy Story, Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean, all under one brand vision and teaching people how to do this. That night, just finished this.

I was talking with another Disney artist and we were sort of, you know, reminiscing trading stories about our parents. And our parents both had different times, but both had moved from the Philippines to America to reimagine their future. And really this was like the spark. In a way, Area Lab felt like my same version of that leap.

I wanted something more, something that could cross borders, cultures, and platforms. had great friends at Disney around the globe who encouraged me, and I was already deep into video, motion design, and experimenting with early social media. So it felt like the right time to break away and build something on my own.

Pankaj Raval (06:35)
That's amazing.

Sahil (06:36)
So Tony, wanted to ask, what is the, every artist that we've spoken with has point of view that's been developed over the years and that's the result of experiences or influences and inspiration. How would you describe the creative point of view of area labs?

Tony Ringor (06:54)
Our mission at AreaLab really is to, is one of enablement, enabling leaders and teams to become future proof and augmenting the stories, augmenting how and what they create.

Pankaj Raval (07:06)
Okay,

Sahil (07:07)
so, you know, there are a lot of artists, I think, who are grappling with technology and whether they want to use it, whether it's compromising their vision, their artistic integrity, or whether it's not, whether it's augmenting and enhancing it. I think we're all exploring even from a legal side, you know, what is copyright, what is not, what is yours, what is mine, what belongs to AI. from our perspective,

Tony Ringor (07:23)
Yeah, I see.

Sure, sure, absolutely.

Sahil (07:29)
At Carbon, we embrace technology and AI. think it's inevitable and without using it, we're at a loss in terms of competing in the marketplace. How do see that and how would you advise creative teams to use AI in a way that will let them compete but also lets them express a real point of view?

Tony Ringor (07:35)
Absolutely.

Sure. this is definitely a heavy topic. I remember a few key moments that really hit me. My first text to image, my first text to audio using sketch to render.

As a creative, experiences profound. took some time. I ended up journaling and writing about them really just to make sense of it all. And eventually this turned into a short essay that I started to draft for a that I started to create called

shift command create that I'll be sharing soon on LinkedIn and sub stack. But in a nutshell, I'll kind of summarize what I got on paper after thinking about this topic. I really think that AI isn't killing creativity. It's setting it free, for a long time,

from the cave paintings and through our art history, only a few really had the tools to turn ideas into art. But now, anyone with a prompt can sketch, write, compose, or build. From my perspective, that's not the end of art, it's the start of something bigger. It's almost like myth of the lone genius is fading and the crowd is the new creator.

We're not replacing creators. We're sort of widening the stage, you know, from whether that is from, the Philippines, to India, to Los Angeles, to anywhere in the world, voices once shut out are now coming through loud and clear on, all of the platforms that we're seeing. AI doesn't make creativity. It unlocks it. And culture then that used to flow from the top,

Pankaj Raval (09:19)
Hmm.

Sahil (09:21)
thing.

Tony Ringor (09:23)
it spreads like wildflower, it spreads like wild fire now sideways, bottom up remixable, you know, a Tik Tok in Bogota and inspire a startup in Brooklyn. You know, it's sort of like the gatekeepers are out. The curators connectors and communities are in,

Sahil (09:35)
That's so

Pankaj Raval (09:41)
Mm.

Sahil (09:41)
That

is so true. we're experiencing these crazy moments and I wonder how these cultural moments play into a creative agency. For example, this whole thing with the CEO of Astronomer getting caught in an affair at Coldplay concert. On one hand, know, devastating for their families. On the other hand, what a remarkable cultural moment that overnight on our phones, we were all speaking about the same story and then people were remixing it, turning it into memes on

Tony Ringor (09:56)
Yes. ⁓

Yes.

Sahil (10:09)
TikTok, there's audio now, you know, people are recreating that scene over and over. Like there's something new happening that we, think we've never seen before.

Tony Ringor (10:11)
Yeah.

there's something new happening. Exactly.

We've never seen this before. It's not just a tech evolution. It's a creative revolution. If you let me go there, right, for society, you know, the tool, the tools are in everyone's hands now. and that's really where like, you know, I refer believer in communities and what happens next really is up to us by the future of creativity, I think is, is by creators for creators everywhere.

Sahil (10:27)
Yeah.

Pankaj Raval (10:42)
So you feel sounds like you're saying that, you know, the gatekeepers, the barriers to entry have been lowered for creativity, right? Which I think will unlock, yeah, it is interesting. Will unlock a lot of creative potential from people maybe who didn't have access, you know, from people in Bhutan, from, we might see the next amazing creator, you know, because look at like a great example is like this guy, Kabi, from I think Senegal and then he's in Paris. He became a huge name on TikTok.

Tony Ringor (10:56)
Absolutely.

Sahil (11:03)
All right.

Tony Ringor (11:06)
yes, yeah, yeah,

Pankaj Raval (11:07)
through these videos

Tony Ringor (11:07)
Yes.

Pankaj Raval (11:08)
where he didn't say anything. He just was commenting on other videos with gestures. And now he became the most famous, the followed person on TikTok. That would not have happened, right? We would have not known about this person 10 years ago, the tools weren't there. So it's an interesting, will say, nexus, which will lead us to our next question as to what's happening. And I use the word nexus because Tony, you recommended the book.

Tony Ringor (11:18)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Pankaj Raval (11:30)
Nexus by Naval and I actually started reading it about three quarters of the way through. But tell me a little bit about how that influences outlook or if you have any insights from that book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand information networks relevance of AI in the context of information networks, because I think he puts it in really interesting context, but maybe you want to give a little background too, which would be helpful.

Tony Ringor (11:36)
They're great.

sure.

Sure, absolutely. I think we should frame up one important point, which is that AI is deep in its technological hype cycle right now. It's both overestimated in the short term and massively underestimated in the long term. ⁓ So on one hand, it's oversimplified. When people talk about AI, they're talking

Pankaj Raval (12:11)
Yeah, yeah.

Tony Ringor (12:17)
about one small part of a much bigger field. There's a lot more going on than just the tools we see and use every day. Like when people talk about chat GPT or image or video tools, that's part of what we see. But AI also helps doctor spine diseases, power self-driving cars, run fraud checks at banks, et cetera, and even help streamers decide what shows to recommend. Most of AI is working behind the scenes, not just making pictures or writing stuff.

on the other hand, also it's, it's also fear, right? When people get scared of AI, they usually freeze or fight it, stop learning about it because it feels too big or confusing. Others panic and try to block it. I know a lot of folks that, that are in this zone, but fear really makes us miss the real point that AI is not going away. So the smartest thing to learn is how to use it in ways that help not hurt. So I.

I recommended that book, Yuval Noah Harari's book Nexus, because it really sharpened my view, not just about what it does today. It's about how it slowly rewires how we create, think, and make decisions. AI isn't only just a new tool. It's something that could change how people make choices, who has power, and how the world works faster than most people expect.

I highly recommend this book to everybody.

Sahil (13:41)
So note, like you were mentioning that it's changing the way we think, it's changing our consciousness, collective How do you then, because I know area labs, example, the kinds of solutions you provide, content creation, strategy, integrated two questions, what is the way you plug into the zeitgeist and

Pankaj Raval (13:41)
Amazing, amazing, yeah.

Sahil (14:02)
What are your observations of the zeitgeist right now and where we're going? Like in terms of attention span, in terms of tastes, are those changing?

Tony Ringor (14:10)
let's, let's break that question down, I think, into two parts. so internally at AreaLab I think, the best way to describe it I'm still developing this framework, but it's basically, it is enabling ourselves and augmenting our processes. so at one level,

there is a personal component to it. How we then, all intents and purposes, if you'll let me go here, how we then sort of become a cyborg or I don't want to use those terms, but we augment ourselves, enable, we expand our capabilities, right? I used a joke once and I said like,

Pankaj Raval (14:39)
Right.

Tony Ringor (14:46)
AI is like alcohol. It just enhances what was already there. Right. So if you were angry, and, and then also our processes. So, so let's take, what we do with it, internally at, at area lab. and we use it. So it really does begin with the person. it's there to augment the person and the process, not to replace it. let's take brand design, for example.

Pankaj Raval (14:51)
Hahaha

Tony Ringor (15:07)
take our typical flow, strategy, naming, voice, and LLMs, like they help us supplement visual explorations, dimensionalized look and feel, or sorry, the image generation models help us with our visual explorations. They help us.

Dimensionalize our look and feels faster. but not just faster and it's deeper. It's providing more iteration in less time, which brings up an important point. It brings up the human back into the picture, right? Because then we get into a zone of editing direction, right? and through this process, then we loop back, we loop back to LLMs. think

That's a lot of like a lot of the more advanced ways of using the technology is and I'm sure you guys have seen that in what you do. It's, taking things out of it and putting stuff back into it and looping with it. and so through this process, then from dimensionalizing look and feel, we loop back into LLMs for messaging and copy. Then we might.

prototype or finalize with video tools or vibe coding tools to show us how a brand can actually live across platforms. It's not really about skipping steps cheating or things like that. It's really about expanding the value of what we can create for our clients based on their resources augmenting their ideas and enabling their ideas as well as ours.

Sahil (16:27)
So on that note of your clients and what you do for them, I the clients you work with are huge. You're working with Netflix, NBC, Claire's, Voovclico. mean, you have these major clients. So we explored kind of your creative side. I'd love to get into the deal side. And how do you do, as an independent operator, how do you do deals with such large brands?

Tony Ringor (16:49)
Sure.

I think there is a complexity to this.

Pankaj Raval (16:51)
Tony,

Tony Ringor (16:51)
You know, we currently lot of folks in entertainment and a lot of folks consumer toys and a lot of very, talented people. it comes to the deal, it really, and I'll go, I'll bring it back there. Actually, it really

people and trust and building that trust. That is one thing that I think.

if I put it back a sort of ex

art was somewhat anti-social, you know, we didn't have the same, let's say classes that you guys did in business and in how to communicate properly. And I feel like really that is the core deals to is really people and trust. If that makes sense, you know.

Pankaj Raval (17:32)
Yeah.

Well, you actually raised a really there in the question about like communication, right? Because really, I mean, we're all in communication, whether it's in law or art or whatever it be. I mean, these are all different forms of communication in many ways, right? Like, you know, just because you weren't, maybe you're a little more introverted you were a little bit more to yourself, you know, and as an artist, but you communicate through your drawings and through your, you know, through your art, right? And through your comics and things like that. So illustrations.

I mean, it is interesting. think deal making and communication, right? Because I think you you can do to clients through visuals and through showcasing it. Illustrations, we oftentimes do it through writing. it is, I mean, I think for me, it's almost like a communicative medium, right? And what is the medium you choose? Yeah.

Tony Ringor (18:03)
Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I think to put back to the point about the deals, it really is about that, right? Like communicating these things in the times, you know, we've worked together. one of the key things I've learned with, with working with your group is, you know, a lot of times it was just not so disparate from the creative process, right? We, we sit down, we have to talk about and discuss these points sort of similar to a brainstorm, right? And we might.

sketch out the points before it lands in, in your world, perhaps legal language. And for us, perhaps it lands in a mood board or in a, initial We sort of batted around ether and then sort of sketch it out. And then later, then that gets executed and scaled into something that's more, final. Right. And I think there's something that we can't lose about that.

Pankaj Raval (18:59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tony Ringor (19:03)
as we move forward. I don't think we will lose. I think it's impossible to lose. We need that, right? That's probably going to become more valuable as we go.

Pankaj Raval (19:07)
Yeah.

It is interesting, because I critical thinking the process kind of creative intellectual development. It's all intellectual property at the end of the day that we're doing. You're creating intellectual property, we're creating intellectual property in different that process is really important. That's why even like in our firm, we talk about design thinking and we those design thinking principles practice of law, because I think that process

fundamentally very similar in terms of how you get to these ideas, how you get to these kind of innovative ways of approaching, whether it be, know, unifying all of Disney's assets into one, you website to bring together the party's desires for an operating agreement. it is You know, before we end, I want to also talk a little bit about GhostBridge. You talked a little bit about AI and, you know, marketing.

Tony Ringor (19:51)
Absolutely.

Pankaj Raval (19:57)
Tell us a little bit more about this initiative with GhostBridge and your

Tony Ringor (20:01)
You know, as have been using tools and developing ways of augmenting our processes, we started with a couple of clients that were in different, let's say, relationships with technology.

so alongside them, we're sort of developing currently is, this is probably one of the biggest frameworks. We always have to separate large impacts and societal impacts, and then there's sort of like our micro. And so this gets very specific to working

with marketing and what we're doing is basically with these two clients is developing a way for mid-size companies, small teams, in larger enterprises, and adapted. could probably work for startups and small businesses. but marketing teams that are smart, capable, but just overwhelmed by all the AI hype. and they know it's here, but they don't really know.

an entire way to use it that makes the team faster, sharper, and more efficient. Right. so, most of what we're getting out there right now is either way too theoretical, you know, which is thought leadership about the future of marketing or way too tactical, right? Like here's a prompt to write an ad, right? so what we're doing is much more grounded. go into a team and in about six to eight weeks

them build own internal AI or AI powered marketing systems means choosing the right tools, designing actual workflows. They'll use every day training the team to run campaigns with AI built into the process. at the end of it, walk away with a live content engine, a customized to how they work and to run with it. You know, no hypes.

Sahil (21:20)
⁓ interesting.

Tony Ringor (21:38)
No consultants on retainer. We're not going to turn down a retainer, but no, no chasing trends, more great work done faster and the framework to evolve it themselves. But we like to think of it like, you know, it's not consulting it's a capabilities transfer. And currently we've called it, we're calling it ghost bridge.

Pankaj Raval (21:41)
Hehehehehe

Sahil (21:41)
Hehehe

Wow.

Pankaj Raval (21:55)
Hmm.

Sahil (21:55)
Wow.

But that turns the agency on its head, right? Because agencies have historically run based on retainers and you're kind of arming your clients with this self-perpetuating system. That's it?

Pankaj Raval (21:59)
Cool, I love that name.

Tony Ringor (22:13)
But you know, I think we have to evolve, right? You know, our future, all our futures is about evolution. you Arealab won't exist in the same form tomorrow as it does today. But then again, it doesn't look anything like it did when I first started it either.

Sahil (22:16)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Pankaj Raval (22:31)
So, Tony, this has been really insightful. I know we could talk for hours. There's so much more to cover. We have many stories, we're talking about licensing expo and all these other things we've been to. But Tony, just so people learn more about you and even maybe contact AreaLab if they have needs, what's the best way to get in touch with you and...

Tony Ringor (22:35)
Thanks Mike.

Pankaj Raval (22:50)
and any closing thoughts also that you might have for our listeners.

Tony Ringor (22:53)
Sure. You can follow me or drop me a line on LinkedIn. I'm there as Tony Ringor That's spelled T-O-N-Y-R-I-N-G-O-R. I'll be launching the new content series in the next few weeks called, as I said, Shift Command Create, starting on LinkedIn and then possibly expanding Substack, and YouTube. If you're interested in learning more about our agency, AreaLab, GhostBridge,

our AI marketing sprints collaborating or partnering or working with us, head to arealab.la. Shoot us a note at hello at arealab.la. We'd love to hear from you. Maybe in the subject matter, I would put, you know, ghost bridge or, letters of intent. know, the last parting note, I think.

I'll divide it into two as we end creatives, I think we have to dream harder, imagine further, because impossible is temporary. And we have to think about all those projects that we've always wanted to build that we couldn't, that now become possible. And for my business friends, they like tips. And they wanted three tips.

Pankaj Raval (23:58)
Yes.

Tony Ringor (24:00)
on how they can actually benefit at work from AI and, and why you shouldn't fear it. I'll give them three tips One, turn what you're afraid of into an AI research topic. Choose your favorite LLM and research it. And then if you get hardcore, then use deep research. Go.

Pankaj Raval (24:17)
Yeah.

Tony Ringor (24:17)
Number two,

of things you want to learn, get better at, start threads on those topics. mine started with trying to learn how to run. Right? Like I was trying to figure out know, running, getting better at running. I'm not anything of an athlete at all, but like, that's how it begins. And, and third, which I think is the most important,

join a community, a user group, or form one at work. I just, as I mentioned to you offline, I'm a member of Artificial Intelligence Los Angeles. Shout out to them. They're an amazing group of people and I learn something new

Pankaj Raval (24:52)
Well, how did you find that group?

Tony Ringor (24:54)
It was really this principle of like, well, to tell you the truth, at some point you're like, am I going crazy with the things that I'm doing?

Pankaj Raval (25:02)
Hahaha

Tony Ringor (25:03)
And then you find the group, right? And then we're doing it too. It's a good a hundred people doing the same thing as you. So, okay, cool.

Sahil (25:06)
Man.

Pankaj Raval (25:10)
Yeah,

that's awesome. Fantastic. So Sahil, do you want to maybe provide some closing thoughts and we can wrap up here?

Sahil (25:17)
Absolutely, Tony. It's been such a pleasure speaking with you. I think you have given us a lot to think about and a lot of resources to look at as well in terms of how we're going to adapt and evolve with AI and also creativity, how we can maintain a sense of integrity while adapting to technology. I can't wait for our next conversation. So to all of us, to everyone out there who's listening with us today, this is Letters of Intent.

Thank you so much for listening and we look forward to the next episode.

Tony Ringor (25:42)
Pleasure to be here.

Pankaj Raval (25:45)
Thank you. Thanks Tony. I it.

Tony Ringor (25:45)
Thanks,

Sahil (25:47)
Thank you, Tony.

Tony Ringor (25:47)
Thanks.