David C. Baker joins Adam Weil with a simple starting point: calm down, reset your expectations, and stop letting the loudest voices set your priorities. He’s seen plenty of industry “moats” come and go, and he puts AI in that same bucket. Real change, yes. A reason to spiral, no. What matters more is how leaders respond when the noise gets louder, and whether they stay focused on fundamentals instead of headlines.
From there, the conversation turns practical. David breaks down what new business looks like when you build it on purpose. Opportunity stays higher than capacity, so the gap gives you the freedom to say no. That’s what keeps you from compromising, discounting, or chasing work you never wanted in the first place. He also reframes positioning in a way that lands: it’s less about what you’ll take and more about what you go looking for.
Then we get into the part most teams feel in their gut. Great work is invisible to clients when they don’t have your eye. The kerning example says it all. What they do notice is how they’re treated. David makes the case that account management and project management are where trust gets built, and where it falls apart first. He closes with a grounded perspective on agency life right now: treat this as the normal, decide what you need from the business, and pick a firm size that fits the life you want to run.