Systems of Business Podcast

Tony Gavin and Damon Simms
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  • Entrepreneurship
  • Weekly

Systems of Business is a weekly podcast about the people, processes and decisions behind businesses that work. Every business is a network of systems, some carefully designed, some accidental, and some held together by one person who knows where everything is buried. Each episode takes a clear-eyed look at one part of that network, covering topics such as people, operations, marketing, technology and growth.

  1. Season 1, Episode 12 Trailer

    Trailer: Software Bloat, Part 1: The Shiny Tool Trap | The Systems of Business Podcast - Episode 12

    Welcome to the Systems of Business Podcast. Every Tuesday at 12 pm AEST, Tony Gavin and Damon Simms cut through the typical entrepreneurial advice to talk about what actually happens when you build and run organisations. This week, we’re trying something different with a two-part episode about software, automation and the expensive habit of throwing technology at problems before understanding what actually needs fixing. In Part 1, Tony and Damon get into the shiny tool trap, lifetime deals, bloated SaaS subscriptions and the rush to add AI features to products that were already doing their jobs perfectly well. They also discuss why startups often need a spreadsheet more than a CRM, how software can create new costs instead of removing them, and why the first question should never be “what tool should we buy?” About the hosts: Tony Gavin: https://tonygavin.comDamon Simms: https://damonsimms.meAbout the Pod: Systems of Business | LinkedIn

  2. 2d ago

    Vibe Coding, Software Clones and Rogue AI Agents | The Systems of Business Podcast - Episode 11

    Welcome to Episode 11 of the Systems of Business Podcast. This week, Tony & Damon discuss: Vibe coding and building software for specific problemsWhether AI is destroying the moat around traditional software companiesWhy domain knowledge still matters when AI writes the codeRogue AI agents and insecure IoT devicesWhat happens when the technology we depend on simply stops workingAI is rapidly changing the economics of software development. Tools that once required teams of developers, significant budgets and months of work can increasingly be built for a fraction of the cost, sometimes for a single person and a single use case. Tony and Damon discuss the rise of AI-built alternatives to established commercial software, whether products from companies like Adobe and Microsoft are becoming easier to replace, and why paying for hundreds of features makes less sense when you can increasingly build the five you actually use. They also get into the limits of vibe coding. AI can produce impressive software, but if you don't understand what a good result looks like, it can just as easily build something fundamentally wrong. The conversation then takes a darker turn into Anthropic's research on AI models potentially becoming capable of self-replication across commercial IoT hardware, alongside the recent cyberattack that remotely manipulated refrigeration systems across hundreds of French supermarkets. That raises a much bigger question about how dependent modern life has become on connected technology, from phones and GPS to banking, vehicles and household devices, and how prepared any of us really are if those systems suddenly stop working. Systems of Business comes out weekly on a Tuesday at 12 pm AEST. Mentioned in this episode: Anthropic: AI models may be capable of self-replicating without access to a datacenter:https://www.anthropic.com/research/self-replicating-ai Reuters: Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and spoiling food:https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/french-supermarket-chain-intermarche-hit-by-cyberattack-150-stories-targeted-2026-10-12/ About the hosts: Damon Simms: https://damonsimms.meTony Gavin: https://tonygavin.comFollow the pod: Sytemsofbusiness.com | LinkedIn

  3. Season 1, Episode 11 Trailer

    Trailer: Vibe Coding, Software Clones and Rogue AI Agents | The Systems of Business Podcast

    Welcome to the Systems of Business Podcast. Every Tuesday at 12 pm AEST, Tony Gavin and Damon Simms cut through the typical entrepreneurial advice to talk about what actually happens when you build and run organisations. This week, Tony and Damon look at what happens when AI makes it possible to build software that once required entire teams, including clones of expensive commercial products and highly specific tools designed around exactly what one person or business needs. They get into vibe coding, why most people only use a fraction of the features in the software they pay for, and whether the moat around products from companies like Adobe and Microsoft is getting dangerously shallow. The conversation then takes a darker turn into rogue AI agents, insecure IoT devices and just how dependent everyday life has become on technology that most of us barely think about until it stops working. About the hosts: Tony Gavin: ⁠⁠https://tonygavin.com⁠⁠Damon Simms: ⁠⁠https://damonsimms.me⁠⁠About the Pod: ⁠⁠Systemsofbusiness.com⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠LinkedIn

  4. Oct 27

    Hot Sheep , Marketing Disasters & Reputation Management | The Systems of Business Podcast - Episode 10

    Welcome to Episode Ten of the Systems of Business Podcast. This week, Damon & Tony discuss: Marketing campaigns that go spectacularly wrongThe Streisand effect and the danger of trying to suppress attentionEvidence-based marketing and value propositions that actually hold upWhen provocative creative works and when it becomes a liabilityReputation management in the age of AIHow LLMs decide what to believe about people and businessesMarketing mistakes do not always start with bad creative. Sometimes the real problem is a claim nobody bothered to verify, a client refusing to listen to the data, or an attempt to control an online reaction that only makes thousands more people notice it. Tony and Damon get into the importance of testing what you think you know about your customers, why being memorable is not automatically the same thing as being effective, and how easily businesses can keep repeating approaches even after the evidence tells them something else works better. They also look at how reputation management is changing as people increasingly ask AI systems about companies and individuals instead of relying purely on traditional search results. Websites, social media, structured data, earned media and credible third-party sources are all becoming part of a much bigger picture. And, naturally, there is a surprisingly large amount of discussion about an extremely attractive green sheep. Systems of Business comes out weekly on a Tuesday at 12 pm AEST. Mentioned in this episode: The Spinoff's Article on Buck The Kiwibank Sheep: https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/03-10-2026/kiwibank-is-desperately-trying-to-stop-people-saying-they-want-to-f**k-its-sheep-mascot About the hosts: Damon Simms: ⁠⁠https://damonsimms.me⁠⁠Tony Gavin: ⁠⁠https://tonygavin.com⁠⁠Follow the pod: ⁠⁠Systemsofbusiness.com⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠

  5. Oct 22

    The Day The Internet Broke | The Systems of Business Podcast Special Episode

    Welcome to this special episode of the Systems of Business Podcast.This week, Tony & Damon discuss:The PHP2Shell vulnerability and its impact on the webZero-day exploits and the growing role of AI in finding vulnerabilities Whether the internet is becoming harder and more expensive to secureA critical PHP vulnerability exposed just how much of the internet depends on a relatively small number of underlying technologies.For website owners, the immediate issue is patching. The bigger concern is what happens as AI makes it dramatically faster to discover weaknesses in software that may have existed unnoticed for years.The result could be an increasingly difficult race between attackers, vendors and infrastructure providers, with security becoming a much bigger part of the cost of simply being online.Systems of Business comes out weekly on a Tuesday at 12 pm AEST.Mentioned in this episode:Jordy Meow, PHP2Shell: What It Is and What to Do on Your WordPress Site:https://meowapps.com/php2shell-wordpr...Anthropic, AI models may be capable of self-replicating without access to a datacenter:https://www.anthropic.com/research/se...https://systemsofbusiness.com

  6. Season 1, Episode 10 Trailer

    Trailer: Hot Sheep, Marketing Disasters and AI Reputation Management | The Systems of Business Podcast - Episode 10

    Welcome to the Systems of Business Podcast. Every Tuesday at 12 pm AEST, Tony Gavin and Damon Simms cut through the typical entrepreneurial advice to talk about what actually happens when you build and run organisations. This week, Tony and Damon talk about marketing campaigns that go badly wrong, the Streisand effect, and why trying to suppress attention can sometimes make a problem far worse. They also get into the danger of building campaigns around claims that do not hold up, why evidence matters more than a clever value proposition, and when provocative marketing is worth the risk. The conversation then turns to reputation management in the AI era, including how websites, social media, earned media and third-party sources increasingly shape what LLMs say about people and businesses. About the hosts: Tony Gavin: ⁠⁠https://tonygavin.com⁠⁠Damon Simms: ⁠⁠https://damonsimms.me⁠⁠About the Pod: ⁠⁠Systemsofbusiness.com⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠LinkedIn

  7. Oct 20

    Broken CRMs, Marketing Automation and Why AI Still Gets It Wrong | The Systems of Business Podcast - Episode 9

    Welcome to episode nine of the Systems of Business Podcast. This week, Tony & Damon discuss: Why CRM and marketing automation projects failThe hidden complexity behind supposedly simple softwareWhy AI assistants still need someone who knows what they are doingBusinesses are sold CRM and automation platforms with the promise that they will simplify sales, marketing and customer management. In reality, plenty end up paying for expensive systems they barely use, or automating processes that were already broken. Tony and Damon get into where these implementations go wrong, why choosing software before understanding the problem is usually backwards, and how quickly a slick demo can turn into months of frustration when the underlying technology, integrations and skills have not been considered. They also talk about AI assistants inside modern business software, how much friction they can remove, and why relying on them without understanding the system underneath can still create some spectacularly bad advice. The conversation comes back to a simple idea: before buying more software, work out what success actually looks like and what problem you are trying to solve. Pasted text Systems of Business comes out weekly on a Tuesday at 12 pm AEST. Mentioned in this episode: Small Business, Little Big: More Technology Won't Fix a Broken BusinessApolloAbout the hosts: Damon Simms: ⁠⁠https://damonsimms.me⁠⁠Tony Gavin: ⁠⁠https://tonygavin.com⁠⁠Follow the pod: ⁠⁠Systemsofbusiness.com⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠

  8. Season 1, Episode 9 Trailer

    Trailer: Broken CRMs, Marketing Automation and Why AI Still Gets It Wrong | The Systems of Business Podcast - Episode 9

    Welcome to the Systems of Business Podcast. Every Tuesday at 12 pm AEST, Tony Gavin and Damon Simms cut through the typical entrepreneurial advice to talk about what actually happens when you build and run organisations. This week, Tony and Damon get into why businesses spend thousands on CRM and marketing automation platforms only to end up with what is essentially an overpriced Rolodex, or worse, a much faster version of the chaos they already had. They discuss software demos that make complicated systems look deceptively simple, the hidden skills and integrations required to make automation actually work, and what happens when nobody stops to diagnose the problem before choosing the technology. They also look at the new generation of AI assistants appearing inside business software, why they genuinely remove friction, and why blindly trusting them can still leave you following instructions that are confidently, completely wrong. About the hosts: Tony Gavin: ⁠⁠https://tonygavin.com⁠⁠Damon Simms: ⁠⁠https://damonsimms.me⁠⁠About the Pod: ⁠⁠Systemsofbusiness.com⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠LinkedIn

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About

Systems of Business is a weekly podcast about the people, processes and decisions behind businesses that work. Every business is a network of systems, some carefully designed, some accidental, and some held together by one person who knows where everything is buried. Each episode takes a clear-eyed look at one part of that network, covering topics such as people, operations, marketing, technology and growth.

Information

  • Creator
    Tony Gavin and Damon Simms
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    24
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Tony Gavin and Damon Simms
  • Show Website
    Systems of Business Podcast