Can Trump Fire Lisa Cook? Rate-Cut Pressure, Jackson Hole & Apple’s AI
We open light... Amex perks, Saks talk, and Chris’ infamous “no flip-flops” code—then slam straight into the heavy stuff: a President publicly leaning on the Fed to cut rates and targeting Governor Lisa Cook over mortgage-fraud allegations. Can a President remove a Fed official “for cause”? We unpack the precedent, the legal gray, and why Fed independenceactually matters. Plus, Powell’s Jackson Hole comments and how a few words swung rate-cut odds—and markets—fast.
➡️ Then we zoom out: what politicized monetary policy means for investors, borrowers, and the election-year economy. Finally, a sharp turn into tech: Apple’s puzzling strategy (a thinner iPhone—really?) versus the real arms race—AI. We debate foldables, whether Apple will plug in third-party AI (ChatGPT or Google), and why the next big leap has to be usefulness, not just sleekness. Keywords you’ll care about: Trump vs the Fed, Lisa Cook, rate cuts, Jerome Powell, Jackson Hole, Apple, iPhone, AI.
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👕 THS MERCH: http://www.thspod.com
🔗 Resources:
Money grows on the tree of persistence. —Japanese proverb
⚠️ Disclaimer: Please note that the content shared on this show is solely for entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal or investment advice or attributed to any company. The views and opinions expressed are personal and not reflective of any entity. We do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided, and listeners are urged to seek professional advice before making any legal or financial decisions. By listening to The Higher Standard podcast you agree to these terms, and the show, its hosts and employees are not liable for any consequences arising from your use of the content.
Transcript
With the American Express today, one of the few perks that are really not the same as the.
Speaker A:As the platinum is that I get 250 bucks every quarter to spend at Saks Fifth Avenue.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And I am not a sax guy.
Speaker B:I can't tell you the last time I stepped foot into sax.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:There's not a single part of the experience that I enjoy.
Speaker A:I know people are like, oh, my God, like, personal shopper.
Speaker A:It's amazing.
Speaker A:I don't really want somebody following me around going, like, I feel like, what size you want to wear.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I feel like I know what I want.
Speaker B:I don't need somebody.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:In most of my shopping, I'm a guy.
Speaker A:It's online now.
Speaker B:Really.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, I really don't.
Speaker A:If I have to go in and buy something.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because you know, brand your brands and you know the sizes that, that already fit you.
Speaker B:You don't want to have to try something new.
Speaker A:I thought that until I bought these pants.
Speaker A:These are two XL because I want them to be baggy.
Speaker A:And I bought a large pair of another pair of pants that were bigger than these.
Speaker A:I'm very confused.
Speaker A:Very same brand.
Speaker B:No, we're having.
Speaker B:We're having this issue too.
Speaker B:Yesterday we bought Adam his back to school shoes.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Okay, so he wears size four, four and a half.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Now men's sizes.
Speaker B:Now that's weird.
Speaker B:Game changer for him, you know, gets access to way more shoes.
Speaker B:You know, go to the store and he's fitting into a five and a half for like, this doesn't make any sense.
Speaker B:Five and a half to four.
Speaker B:Like, this is the range.
Speaker A:You ever have somebody measure your toes when you're a kid and one of those, like, metal foot things?
Speaker A:I measure your feet.
Speaker A:Not your toes, your toes.
Speaker A:Because I got one long et finger toe next to my big toe.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Which always made my foot look bigger than it actually is.
Speaker B:The listeners have called you out for it.
Speaker A:I remember Elliot.
Speaker A:Yeah, I. I have good looking toes.
Speaker B:Pretty con.
Speaker B:You're pretty confident you do.
Speaker A:We're pretty confident there.
Speaker B:You do wear flip flops.
Speaker B:That's my.
Speaker B:That's my thing.
Speaker B:But by the way, we should introduce ourselves for the show before we get started.
Speaker B:Welcome back to the number one financial literacy podcast in the world.
Speaker B:Sitting in front of me is my partner in crime, Christopher Nahibi.
Speaker A:Probably worthwhile to note we talk about more than toes in the show.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Hopefully you're sticking around sitting across from me.
Speaker A:My partner in crime, the one and only in The OG Merch for the second episode in a row.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You notice that?
Speaker B:Thank you, my man.
Speaker B:And sitting behind the desk in the production suite, the Fijian himself, Regil.
Speaker B:What's up, Rajeel?
Speaker B:What's up, my guys?
Speaker B:Oh, there you go.
Speaker B:What's up, my guys?
Speaker A:A little short of six.
Speaker A:We are committed to getting regeal confident to say seven words this episode.
Speaker B:He's gonna do it consecutively.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Not in total.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:He's gonna be required to contribute a lot on this one.
Speaker A:He's wearing a pleasure shirt, so he's repping the brand.
Speaker B:So back to our toes, right?
Speaker A:Or my toes?
Speaker B:Yeah, your toes.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:This is my thing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Got guys that wear flip flops.
Speaker B:That's a lot of confidence just to be putting the toes out like that.
Speaker B:You got to be a pretty confident guy.
Speaker A:Let me first say, look, I don't care about anybody's opinion.
Speaker A:Where would you want.
Speaker B:Really?
Speaker A:That being said, I have rules that I live by.
Speaker A:Simple rules.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:If you wear pants.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Pants.
Speaker B:Any kind of pants.
Speaker A:Any kind of pants with open toed flip flops.
Speaker A:That's a no.
Speaker B:Minus one.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Minus one.
Speaker A:Black suits.
Speaker A:Weddings and funerals only, Right, Agreed.
Speaker A:Black dress shoes.
Speaker A:Formal occasions only.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Some people are like, oh, I wear black dress shoes with my jeans.
Speaker A:No, no, you don't.
Speaker A:Minus one.
Speaker B:Black dress shoes with their jeans.
Speaker B:Like denim jeans that look.
Speaker A:Yeah, because people see dress shoes as dress shoes and they're like, ah, black shoes are black shoes.
Speaker A:Brown shoes are brown shoes.
Speaker A:No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker A:There's occasions for certain color palettes.
Speaker B:I agree.
Speaker A:You're also colorblind.
Speaker A:So you're agreeing with me here.
Speaker A:Does make me feel all black.
Speaker B:Everything.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Even the Nike sign is black.
Speaker A:No, no, I get it, I get it.
Speaker A:Today I'm actually in a very earth tone.
Speaker A:I feel very Kanye today.
Speaker B:You're very.
Speaker B:Yeah, very earth toned, neutral.
Speaker B:We got.
Speaker B:We do have a show for everybody today.
Speaker B:No, we do, we do.
Speaker B:There.
Speaker B:There are some things that we do want to get into.
Speaker B:At the top of the show, we're going to get into Jerome Powell's comments over in Jackson Hole.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We're going to see how that impacts the markets.
Speaker B:That did do to the markets.
Speaker B:There's actually a report out by mit.
Speaker B:Did you hear about that?
Speaker B:About companies that have adopted generative AI that I was going to bring up on the show.
Speaker B:I want to get.
Speaker B:I want to get.
Speaker B:I want to get your thoughts on this.
Speaker B:I got.
Speaker B:I got a little something there.
Speaker B:And then we're going to dive into some personal questions.
Speaker B:Listeners have been wanting to learn more about us in the Fijian in particular because they don't hear enough from him today.
Speaker B:You will hear him.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:You will hear.
Speaker A:He faded out a little bit.
Speaker B:He didn't know where he wanted.
Speaker A:I'm going to give you three and a half on that one.
Speaker B:He didn't know where he wanted to.
Speaker A:Go, like, oh, stage fright.
Speaker B:Yeah, we'll get there.
Speaker B:So last week Jerome Powell had some comments which basically confirmed that the FOMC will likely, you know, have a rate cut.
Speaker A:He was very, as they say, dovish.
Speaker A:There's two different ways here.
Speaker A:Two different birds, right?
Speaker A:Dovish, soft, pretty, aw, hawkish.
Speaker A:Oh, running scared.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Dovish.
Speaker A:Cut rates.
Speaker A:Hawkish.
Speaker A:Keep rates the same.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Now that's what that means.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And before this little press conference that he had right over in Jackson Hole, the odds of a ray cut were at 76%.
Speaker B:Right after that meeting, immediately odds shot up to 89%.
Speaker B:Now, not a guaranteed sure thing, but I mean as close to one as you'll probably get.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm, I'm very confident we're going to see a 25 basis point rate cut this particular meeting.
Speaker B:And why this is such a hot topic right now is no secret.
Speaker B:We've talked about this on a lot of episodes, right?
Speaker B:The Fed's purpose, right?
Speaker B:Their dual mandate is price stability and maximum employment for the peoples.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Inflation is high and job.
Speaker B:And the labor market is strong.
Speaker B:No need to cut rates, right.
Speaker B:Inflation starts to come down to where we need it to be.
Speaker B:And jobs, the labor market decreases, okay, we need to cut rates, right?
Speaker B:But now we got two pieces of data, part of their mandate that are working in opposite directions, right.
Speaker B:The labor market we had that July jobs report came in at 73,000 jobs.
Speaker B:Typically healthy economy.
Speaker B:A hundred thousand jobs a month.
Speaker B:That makes everybody feel nice, warm and fuzzy.
Speaker B:The problem here is the prior two months for May and June, jobs were reduced down for a combined total of 250,000.
Speaker B:Only 19,000 jobs were added in May and only 14,000 jobs were added in, in June.
Speaker A:Let's not forget the former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics that reports these numbers lost her job over this.
Speaker A:The President fired her for it.
Speaker B:Yeah, fired her for it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And now, mind you, that July 73,000 number hasn't been revised yet.
Speaker B:Do not be surprised if that gets revised down and you might even see a negative number.
Speaker B:I'm not saying you will, but don't be surprised if you do.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So now the Fed's looking at that like, okay, well, we're about to have three months of poor labor market data, which is part of our dual mandate.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And although inflation did creep up a little bit under core inflation.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The headline figure remains stagnant.
Speaker B:So we have a reason to be able to cut rates here.
Speaker A:And more importantly, I think that the last episode we talked about how the White House is using a little bit of the media to push and execute a little bit on their agenda right now.
Speaker A:The President and his cabinet firmly believe the right thing to do is to cut rates.
Speaker A:Now, monetary policy, fiscal policy, very different things.
Speaker A:But it is generally speaking not the President's prerogative to influence the Fed.
Speaker A:As a matter of fact, they're supposed to be independent.
Speaker A:And yet you have a President that's been very open and clear about his desire to influence the Fed.
Speaker A:So much so that we did an entire episode, last episode on potentially firing one of The FOMC members, Ms. Cook, for tantamount to what Trump describes as mortgage fraud.
Speaker A:And I guess on a technical perspective, he's probably accurate or could be accurate based on what we know of the facts.
Speaker A:And today as we record this 25th of August, it seems as if he did actually fire her.
Speaker B:It's, it's, it's definitely inching closer, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:He released it on, on Truth Social here.
Speaker B:Trump says he's removing Fed Governor Lisa Cook sites mortgage fraud allegations.
Speaker B:This from cnbc.
Speaker B:Make sure we link this in in the show notes.
Speaker B:But he went on to say that, you know, there's been several occasion occasions that have been proven that she's provided false statements on one or more mortgage agreements.
Speaker A:Here you go, putting it up on screen.
Speaker A:No, look at this.
Speaker A:He doesn't need.
Speaker B:He's back in the black.
Speaker B:Yeah, look at him.
Speaker B:He knows what he's doing.
Speaker B:Christopher Trump has.
Speaker B:Trump has complained for months that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has not lowered interest rates, which is a big reason why a lot of people are taking issue with this firing.
Speaker B:What's going on?
Speaker B:What's going on?
Speaker B:This is a finance show.
Speaker B:Hold on.
Speaker B:Is it, is it not, is it not a financial saying to say we're in the black?
Speaker A:No, we're in the black.
Speaker B:What does that mean?
Speaker A:Red and black?
Speaker B:What does it mean?
Speaker A:Also, people confused.
Speaker B:People think it's red and green.
Speaker B:It's not.
Speaker B:It's red and black.
Speaker A:It's red and black.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Don't do this.
Speaker A:No, no, fine.
Speaker B:It's just, you know, okay, yeah, that's right.
Speaker B:So I mean, the only way he can remove a Fed official, as it says here, is for cause.
Speaker B:And technically speaking, to your point, I guess, I mean, this is going to set a whole new precedent, though, right?
Speaker B:Like what for cause really means.
Speaker A:Somebody made an interesting argument to me the other day.
Speaker A:I was talking to a pretty affluent individual who is very Republican.
Speaker A:And, you know, I hate it when the.
Speaker A:The crossing of politics and finance is where it's at today because we wind up spending a disproportionate amount of time talking about people who should not be influenced in the economy at all.
Speaker A:But that's the economy today.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And he was telling me that.
Speaker A:That he saw a material difference between what Trump was accused of doing before with mortgage fraud versus what she's, you know, accused of doing.
Speaker A:And I said, how so?
Speaker A:And he said, well, Trump didn't.
Speaker A:He paid back all the debt that he had.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Ultimately, he paid back everything, regardless of the position.
Speaker A:He didn't get any preferential treatment as far as rates go that we know of.
Speaker A:Whereas Ms. Cook here, the FOMC member, got a better rate presumptively as a result of this, quote, fraud.
Speaker A:And did.
Speaker A:Somebody did lose tantamount to money because she paid less to the bank she otherwise would have paid, whereas Trump paid all the money.
Speaker A:Now, he's a very big political proponent of Trump, but it's actually a pretty sound argument when you think about the differences.
Speaker A:True Social uses cookies.
Speaker B:This is.
Speaker B:Oh, this is.
Speaker A:You know, I've never actually been on Truth Social.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:They're getting a free plug right here.
Speaker B:Make sure we send them a bill.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B: nd the Federal Reserve act of: Speaker B:He posted this on Truth Social.
Speaker B:This is how she finds out.
Speaker A:No, I'm assuming he mailed it to her, right?
Speaker B:I mean, it says up there that he mailed it to her.
Speaker A:You know, this is actually a good time to.
Speaker B:No, bro.
Speaker B:He says he mailed it to her.
Speaker B:It hasn't gotten to her yet.
Speaker B:It's dated August 25th.
Speaker B:So he put it in the mail, but then also posted it.
Speaker A:I love their letterhead.
Speaker A:The White House.
Speaker A:Washington Gangster.
Speaker A:Just right.
Speaker B:Enough said.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Well, you don't need color logos in the White House.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:No logo.
Speaker A:Washington.
Speaker B:Well, what's the logo going to be?
Speaker B:The American flag.
Speaker B:Like what's it going to be?
Speaker A:Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's Unnecessary.
Speaker A:This brings up a valid point, something that bothers me a great deal about today and frankly about the FOMC and the President for that matter.
Speaker A:Why are all these people talking as much as they are?
Speaker B:We used to live showing the narrative.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:There's too much.
Speaker A:There was a period of time where the FOMC did not speak this frequently.
Speaker A:As a matter of fact, Jerome Powell held himself out at the beginning of his original tenure to be the most communicative FOMC head in history, which I guess sounds nice in theory because you want somebody who's communicative.
Speaker A:But in practice, he's moving the markets.
Speaker A:His conversation in Jackson Hole alone, as you cited, top of the show.
Speaker A:Move the needle.
Speaker A:Almost 20% greater in probability of a rate cut because of the words that he put out in society.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Using the traditional media to do that.
Speaker A:Here you have Trump sending a letter and then posting it on social media for the world to see.
Speaker A:What in the actual shit are we doing?
Speaker A:We're making a mockery of decorum.
Speaker B:And this is.
Speaker B:And this is the other part of what he said in Jackson Hole that I took issue with.
Speaker B:It's almost like he's speaking to the people.
Speaker B:Like, everybody in the room there is probably smart enough to, like, read between the lines and know that it can't just be relying on this one data point.
Speaker B:But this is what he said.
Speaker B:The FOMC is going to be primarily looking at the unemployment rate.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:We know.
Speaker B:We know that the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator.
Speaker B:It's looking at backwards data.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's not.
Speaker B:It's not looking at currently what's going on live.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So what.
Speaker B:What are the issues with the.
Speaker B:With the unemployment rate?
Speaker A:We need to stop being proactive with this.
Speaker A:Here's.
Speaker A:Here's what's happening.
Speaker A:We're moving the markets too much.
Speaker B:He's using.
Speaker B:He's using like these data points to whatever, just to spin whatever narrative he wants to run with.
Speaker A:But we don't need to spend narratives.
Speaker A:Here's my.
Speaker A:Here's my point is we get back to a point where somebody.
Speaker A:I don't know if that's the president or Congress or what somebody has to say.
Speaker A:The scp.
Speaker A:The summary of economic projections that the FOMC puts out quarterly.
Speaker B:Is it?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:So the next one should be in September.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That they put out, that tells the world what you were thinking when you made the decision.
Speaker A:That speaks for you.
Speaker A:You don't need to have press conferences and say all this stuff.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Just put out the summary of economic projections and let people read meaningful information that gives a synopsis of what's happening in the room.
Speaker A:And let's be clear here.
Speaker A:The Fed, the board of governors, it's a committee.
Speaker A:So they have minutes of the meeting.
Speaker A:Yeah, we can read the minutes of the meeting.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:This whole.
Speaker A:I need to have a press conference afterward to reinterpret questions.
Speaker A:I feel like there's no value here.
Speaker A:What are we doing?
Speaker B:I feel like they put themselves in a position now where you started to answer questions.
Speaker B:I look at.
Speaker B:I look at it like this.
Speaker B:A company that maybe doesn't take Q and A on an earnings call, right?
Speaker B:And out of nowhere starts taking these Q and A questions.
Speaker B:And then now, now people are looking to.
Speaker B:You started doing this.
Speaker B:If you stop, what's going on?
Speaker B:Why'd you stop?
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:It's very difficult.
Speaker B:It's very.
Speaker B:So it's like now you guys have started this.
Speaker B:You started a trend, right?
Speaker B:And now it's versus like, I, If I, if I tell.
Speaker B:If I tell my kids, hey, I'm taking away the iPads, or you can't watch YouTube until next weekend.
Speaker B:And we'll.
Speaker B:We'll see how you did this week.
Speaker B:And then every.
Speaker B:Every day, they come up to me and ask me for updates.
Speaker B:How am I doing?
Speaker B:We'll revisit the situation when I do that.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker B:I was like, yeah.
Speaker B:And you, you hurt yourself by giving them updates.
Speaker B:I said, we'll revisit the situation.
Speaker B:We'll see how you do at the end of the week.
Speaker B:I'm not going to, I'm not going to entertain this idea every day.
Speaker B:And you say, how am I doing?
Speaker B:It's been three days.
Speaker B:Can you.
Speaker B:Can I get it back now?
Speaker B:No, no, no, no.
Speaker B:Let's wait.
Speaker B:I told you when, when we're going to revisit the situation.
Speaker A:I feel like you're talking to me.
Speaker B:I feel like they lost control, right?
Speaker A:Of course they lost control.
Speaker A:100%.
Speaker A:You have a president openly criticizing you and firing your members on.
Speaker A:On social media.
Speaker A:You've had them walk through a construction site and observe and report and call out your spending as a proxy to try and fire you as the FOMC head.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker A:You've had him trash you in the media.
Speaker A:And again, this is not a political agenda.
Speaker A:This is just facts.
Speaker A:Okay, then at the same time, you've got an FOMC who has been way over the top, communicative, completely unnecessary, sensationalizing.
Speaker A:Look, life as it is today is sensational enough.
Speaker A:I Don't need you and everybody else making a mockery of the system.
Speaker A:There are certain things.
Speaker A:Can you imagine?
Speaker A:Well, I guess it's already happening.
Speaker A:The senators are already on social media commenting and putting stuff out there.
Speaker A:Everybody wants to be notable enough to have their words matter in a public setting.
Speaker A:And this is the problem with modern politics.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like everybody so badly wants their, their opinions and their words to carry weight.
Speaker A:It's like the people who don't want it are probably the best qualified to do the job.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because they're not doing it for the power, they're doing it to be efficient.
Speaker B:But yeah, you see, you see how these people are being treated now?
Speaker B:Like, why would I subject myself to this?
Speaker B:Why would I do this?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:Like I'm not going to be recognized for doing the thing that needs to be done.
Speaker B:Look, we all know what needs to be done.
Speaker B:We need to go through, we need, if we really want to think about the long term goals of everybody, not just ourselves in this current moment, but our kids.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You probably have to go through a little bit of pain to get this to right the ship.
Speaker A:Everybody, not everybody feels that way.
Speaker B:You don't think so?
Speaker A:No, I know so.
Speaker A:There.
Speaker A:I'll put it this way.
Speaker B:Do you think they think the, the affordability crisis, this just going to fix itself?
Speaker A:There are a lot of people in society who think, I have it, I want to keep it.
Speaker A:I don't really give a about the next generation because my kids will have it because I have it.
Speaker B:Yeah, but that's right.
Speaker B:They only care about their kids.
Speaker A:They're insulated.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:They care about their legacy.
Speaker A:The, the word legacy in traditional law and in Latin literally meant kids.
Speaker A:Your legacy was your children.
Speaker A:So yeah, I think there is a pretty big ethical divide in people really caring about the next generation per se.
Speaker A:I mean, think about all the connotation you've ever heard about somebody talking about a generation that comes after them.
Speaker A:It's always critical.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:No, I've never heard one person go holy.
Speaker A:That generation that came after me.
Speaker A:Oh, they're amazing, man.
Speaker B:True that.
Speaker A:They're always like, you don't know how lucky you are.
Speaker A:You don't know how tough I had it.
Speaker A:I used to walk up and down a hill both ways to get to school.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:In the snow, 15 miles.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker A:So I mean, it's just it, everybody has like this inner superiority complex and I think the people that have the wealth right now, and let's make no mistake about it, no, but seriously, though.
Speaker B:Like, these kids nowadays got it real good.
Speaker A:Oh, there you go.
Speaker A:I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker A:It's not just these kids, man.
Speaker A:I use AI all the time, bro.
Speaker A:Like, I, I, I, I've seen MRIs lately, and I don't know if this AI study you were talking about, but.
Speaker B:No, but go ahead.
Speaker A:I've seen MRIs lately of people who literally use AI a lot and those who don't, and they gave them critical thinking tests, and there is a visual difference in the way the brain is electrically lighting up.
Speaker A:And for those of you who aren't familiar with neuroscience, the way they gauge brain activity is how, how much electric current effectively is pulsating by your neurons firing.
Speaker A:And that's how they gauge how active certain parts of the brain are.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We don't really have a full complex understanding of the brain any more than we do as deep space.
Speaker A:We're getting to know more and more every single day.
Speaker A:Aliens might be real.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But when you start looking at these studies, it's changing the way we think.
Speaker A:But at the same time, I stop and I pause and I think to myself, but yeah, okay, cool.
Speaker A:We also said that about video games, and I, it was gonna make a whole generation of kids hyper violent.
Speaker A:And I don't know that we really have.
Speaker B:Well, the problem.
Speaker B:Yeah, the problem is parents have to still parent their kids.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like, just because they're playing these video games or they're being introduced to new technology doesn't mean you, you get to stop parenting your kids and feel like everything's gonna be the same.
Speaker A:I get that.
Speaker A:I'm not saying that you shouldn't.
Speaker A:But what I'm saying is, is we also have a tendency to hyper sensitize new ideas.
Speaker A:When a study that just came out not too long ago was that surgeons that play video games are actually better with their hands and have better surgical results.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:As, as a way of.
Speaker A:I mean, maybe it's the hand eye coordination element there.
Speaker A:I mean, we're really unclear on the rationale as to why, but it was a fascinating study.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I looked at it as most surgeon who play video games are generally a generation younger.
Speaker A:Mm.
Speaker A:So you're comparing older, more experienced surgeons with younger surgeons who probably just have better hand eye coordination by age.
Speaker A:So it could have been just correlation.
Speaker B:Correlation, not causation.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So the study about AI that I want to bring up, Brazil, maybe you can look this up.
Speaker B:Look up MIT report on generative AI.
Speaker B:Basically came out and said they did some research that 95% of the companies out there that have incorporated generative AI haven't seen a profit.
Speaker A:Generative.
Speaker B:Yes, I said generative in that.
Speaker A:Generative, not generative.
Speaker B:Sorry, I meant.
Speaker B:I said man.
Speaker B:Generative.
Speaker A:I just like to point out you're wrong.
Speaker B:Yeah, Generative AI.
Speaker B:And they haven't returned a profit on it.
Speaker A:I think that's probably accurate.
Speaker A:That's my fear of the market from a tech perspective is that if the Mag 7 is carrying the way in the stock market financially and AI, is that that new sensationalized term, the buzzword everybody's putting into practice.
Speaker A:And as a result, companies all want to say they're deploying AI to get that pickup in the stock price.
Speaker A:So they all do it.
Speaker A:Well, 95% of the generative AI pilots at companies are failing.
Speaker A:It does not surprise me.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:And we know that exactly to your point, the growth that we've seen in the Magnificent seven is largely in part due to the capital expenditures into AI.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So that's the scary part.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:So the conversation I was really starting to go around, like, okay, I know we kind of hinted at this sound.
Speaker B:This feels a little bit like the dot com bubble again, but with reports like this coming out, you're like, okay, maybe we're closer than we actually thought.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And so let me, let me, let me pose a perspective based question for you and everybody else.
Speaker A:The, the money that people are spending on AI is propping up the Mag 7 because everybody's trying to implement it.
Speaker B:And everyone's trying to.
Speaker B:Why everyone?
Speaker B:What everyone needs to really understand too is it feels like it's a arms race, like for all these companies that at the end of this one company will be deemed the company with AI.
Speaker B:And that's what they're all trying to get there and who can get there the fastest?
Speaker A:Which is interesting because Apple, of all companies is not participating.
Speaker A:And I, I know that Tim Cooks face a lot of pressure, some people even calling for him to resign at Apple in large part because they said that he's being unresponsive to the changing technological landscape.
Speaker B:Yeah, bro, this new thin iPhone, I'm not with it.
Speaker B:Like, what?
Speaker B:That's not doing anything for me.
Speaker B:You've seen this.
Speaker A:The iPhone.
Speaker A:17 air.
Speaker A:Yeah, like, here's what I want.
Speaker B:Give me something a little sexier.
Speaker A:I want.
Speaker A:What's probably gonna come out the next generation is the iPhone.
Speaker A:That's a normal sized iPhone.
Speaker A:You open it up, becomes an iPad.
Speaker A:I want that.
Speaker A:I don't need it.
Speaker A:But I want it.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think that's got value to me.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:And there's already patents for this that Apple has where you take an iPhone, you put it in a device, and that iPhone is your computer.
Speaker A:The device basically has a screen and a keyboard on it.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker A:That to me makes a lot more sense because the computing power that's on your iPhone these days.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I don't want to leave too, too far here from the AI speech.
Speaker A:Apple has chosen to sit out the AI race on some level.
Speaker A:They're looking to incorporate third party AI.
Speaker A:They haven't announced that.
Speaker A:There's clearly something going on there.
Speaker A:Tim Cooks alluded to it on a couple different calls where he's alluded to it being either ChatGPT based, possibly Google's AI infrastructure.
Speaker A:He's got a couple different names that are out there.
Speaker A:What's interesting to me is that we tend to personalize stuff and say, oh, Tim Cook, he's just missing the eight ball here, man.
Speaker B:It's all Tim, bro.
Speaker A:Or maybe he's got a very, very resourceful people around him and a team of resourceful people around him, and he's gone.
Speaker A:You know what?
Speaker A:This is not an economically viable end strategy for us to deploy.
Speaker A:And you look at Facebook hiring employees for 100 million, $200 million, paying unbelievable amounts of money because they believe at.
Speaker B:The end of this, I'm, I'm almost certain that we're going to see our first trillionaire for sure.
Speaker B:When this is all said and done.
Speaker A:I wouldn't doubt it.
Speaker A:But I also look at this and I think to myself, AI's got some value.
Speaker A:A hundred percent.
Speaker A:It helps me be more efficient every single day.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:The novelty has worn off for me and the efficiency has really become the focus for me.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, I don't look at it as, like this perfect solution to help me do everything.
Speaker A:Like, I'm not going to dump an Excel sheet or a Word document into it and it's going to give me that completed document, but I can go section by section in documents and get somebody to give me something the same way an analyst would so that I can exercise that professional level discretion in answering something.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But I've, I've seen it myself too, where you still need to fact check it.
Speaker B:It's not spinning out accurate information all.
Speaker A:The time, but the person who's able to fact check and prompt yes is always going to turn around a faster result.
Speaker A:Now is faster what you want.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:This all goes to an interesting place.
Speaker A:I don't think for a lot of jobs, the way people feel threatened, it's going to be as impactful.
Speaker A:But certainly if you're an illustrator, anybody who can prompt now can now illustrate.
Speaker A:And I've done this with a comic series that we have on the.
Speaker A:On the podcast.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Which I've gotten a lot of positive feedback.
Speaker A:Have you really?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Sharing a lot.
Speaker B:Yeah, really well, it's always been a person.
Speaker B:I can't screenshot it.
Speaker A:So what I did there, and I think we talked about this briefly in another episode, but basically what I did is I took a comic that I liked and tried to recreate that with a couple different versions, got something that was close to it, then made a color palette that I put onto the comic so that it has the same visual color aesthetic, knowing full well that you're colorblind.
Speaker A:And then I.
Speaker A:Once I found an aesthetic that I liked, I had a JSON code shot to me from ChatGPT.
Speaker A:Describe this in code.
Speaker A:This code.
Speaker A:Call me JSON.
Speaker B:Okay, got it.
Speaker B:Not to be confused.
Speaker A:I knew you're going to one of them.
Speaker A:I just didn't know.
Speaker A:There's too many Js out there.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:So it gives me this code.
Speaker A:So then all I do is tell it to, and I give it a photo and say, hey, here's the code.
Speaker A:Make it look like this, or, hey, I want to treat it with this code.
Speaker A:And then it spits out, and there's consistency and uniformity that I can now deploy.
Speaker A:And in order to get the aesthetic that I want.
Speaker A:If you're an illustrator in comics, you.
Speaker A:You got a real challenge ahead of you, man.
Speaker B:So Adam, my son, just recently transferred into a new school.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Started into the GATE program.
Speaker A:Congrats.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, I don't know.
Speaker B:We'll see.
Speaker B:He seems to like it so far.
Speaker B:First assignment, first week of school, teaching the kids how to prompt using AI.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker B:I was like, thank you.
Speaker B:Like, whether this.
Speaker B:Whether it's useful or not, it's a tool that he can definitely use to his advantage or to his benefit.
Speaker B:You know, as the years go on and the earlier he can be introduced to it, the better.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so my son has been doing this thing too, which is interesting because I like to.
Speaker A:So I spent the last Sunday.
Speaker A:Yesterday I spent the whole day playing video games with him.
Speaker A:Not because I really like the video game that he's playing.
Speaker B:No, I know.
Speaker A:But because that.
Speaker A:The Sunday before school started last week, and this Sunday, I did it twice because I really Wanted to watch what he does.
Speaker A:And he can fully read.
Speaker A:He's in first grade, he just started.
Speaker A:But he can fully read.
Speaker A:He can fully do math, but he uses features on the iPad that I don't use.
Speaker A:Okay, like, so I don't use voice to text, but he will.
Speaker A:And I'm like, son, you know how to spell that?
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:And he's like, it's just easier to tap the button and say, show me this.
Speaker A:And for him, he's playing video games, and there's like, he's playing Minecraft and he's looking for certain items.
Speaker A:So he'll go, show me a torch, and it'll bring up a torch, and he doesn't have to type anything in.
Speaker A:And he can keep his hands on the controls.
Speaker A:So now he's speaking the text, has his hand on the control still moving.
Speaker A:It's just.
Speaker A:I look at it and I go, okay.
Speaker A:So the way they're looking at things is different.
Speaker A:So I. I like the fact they're looking at AI in school for kids because it's important, but are they going to develop the critical thinking in order to understand?
Speaker A:Just because you can shortcom shortcut something doesn't mean you don't need to understand how it works, Right?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So funny.
Speaker B:Funny you say that.
Speaker B:So I was laying at night, I lay down with both my kids in bed before putting asleep, and that's when the conversations really start flowing.
Speaker B:They don't really like to talk about their days, but if there's a chance for them to stay up later, though, okay, I'll start talking to you.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Blackmail.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's what they do.
Speaker B:So I always use that time.
Speaker B:And Adam goes, dad, you guys got sponsors on the podcast, right?
Speaker B:And I'm like.
Speaker B:I'm like, no, not yet.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's a little bit of conflicts, but, like, you know, maybe someday.
Speaker B:He's like, okay, when you do.
Speaker B:He's.
Speaker B:He's like, let me give you some tips.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker B:Okay, yeah, give me.
Speaker B:Give me the tips.
Speaker B:He goes, do it like Mr.
Speaker B:Beast does it and not, like, how everybody else does it.
Speaker B:I'm like, what is.
Speaker B:And he's now parting in dissecting these things at this age where he says, he goes, if you're going to do something that helps you start a business, he's like, you want to start a business?
Speaker B:Let me show you how to start a business.
Speaker B:Use this app, right?
Speaker B:Like, because, dad, starting a business is cool.
Speaker B:Why wouldn't I want to start a business?
Speaker B:But if you say, hey, you know Next time you want to do some sports gambling on some underdog fantasy, use this.
Speaker B:He's like, kids don't really like that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:So my son's been watching on the weekends when we're doing this video game thing, he's been watching this YouTube channel about Minecraft.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:And the name doesn't matter.
Speaker A:I'm listening in the background while I'm playing with him from the other room.
Speaker A:So I can do things and multitask a little bit.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because, again, video games are not my thing.
Speaker A:And I hear the dialogue in the show.
Speaker A:It's a YouTube channel aimed at kids.
Speaker A:And he keeps talking about his friend Mr.
Speaker A:Beast.
Speaker A:He keeps talking about, I love the Feastables chocolate peanut butter flavor.
Speaker A:Which one is your favorite?
Speaker A:Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker A:He's talking to the character.
Speaker A:He's not using, like, referral codes.
Speaker A:It's not a clear sell.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But literally the entire episode, he's talking about, Mr.
Speaker A:Beast is rich and just.
Speaker A:And he has.
Speaker A:He likes nice things.
Speaker A:We're gonna build this house for Mr.
Speaker B:Beast.
Speaker A:Our friend Mr.
Speaker B:Beast.
Speaker A:And I realized about ten minutes into it, this entire thing is a commercial for Feastables.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:His product line.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:But I'm sitting here going, like, there's got to be laws here that are being violated.
Speaker A:Like, there's maybe there's disclosure in text, but these kids are young and impressionable.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You're not saying this is an ad.
Speaker B:Maybe it wasn't an ad.
Speaker B:Maybe it wasn't.
Speaker B:Maybe it wasn't getting paid because kids actually like hearing that kind of stuff.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, so, I mean, yeah, there are laws.
Speaker B:I mean, you do have to.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:There are.
Speaker B:You have to give a disclaimer if it's a paid advertisement.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:In text.
Speaker A:But a kid's not going to read.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:Here's the thing about YouTube.
Speaker A:And I don't know if you've seen this.
Speaker A:No one reads the show notes.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:The show notes are there for the algorithm for the platform, the SEO or whatever.
Speaker A:Very rarely does anybody use the show notes.
Speaker A:And people who put all these affiliate codes in their show notes, like, who's.
Speaker B:Gonna go, oh, my God, you know.
Speaker A:Billy has an affiliate code for Tums.
Speaker A:I'm gonna go get some of those Tums.
Speaker B:You might get a small, very small, like, percentage of, like, true fan base of, like, I'm gonna help them out.
Speaker A:Let's test it out with the nicest human being I know.
Speaker A:Rajeel.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Have you ever gone to somebody's show notes in a YouTube video pulled an affiliate code and used it.
Speaker B:No, I haven't.
Speaker B:That's not true.
Speaker A:That's the nicest man in the world right there.
Speaker B:He told me you used it for some.
Speaker B:What was it, Preparation H or something?
Speaker B:What was it?
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:You're gonna take that?
Speaker B:No comment.
Speaker B:I don't want to trouble guys.
Speaker B:No trouble.
Speaker B:No trouble this episode.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I know what you mean and I. I do agree, and it's just, it's just for the algorithm, but you're right, the kids and it could just be an advertisement.
Speaker B:It probably wasn't, because I've seen other podcasts where at the end of it they do just give a disclaimer saying, by the way, this is a paid advertisement.
Speaker A:Yeah, I guess the other problem too is very few people listen all the way to the end on anybody's show.
Speaker A:One of the metrics that we constantly track as, as podcasters is consumption.
Speaker A:What percentage of the show is consumed?
Speaker A:And we can tell you that on audio platforms that it's not uncommon for us to be well north of 75% of a consumption rate.
Speaker A:Most of you who listen to the show on audio platforms listen to at least 75% of the show.
Speaker B:I think anything above 60% is good.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's generally good.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, you know, 80, 90% on some shows, if it's a really compelling show and we go all the way to the end, great.
Speaker A:Usually some of the small chat, the true fans will stay until the end, but other, other people won't.
Speaker A:Consumption rates are really important, but there's a huge difference between the consumption rate on YouTube videos and the consumption rate on audio platforms.
Speaker A:And I have a theory.
Speaker A:YouTube videos, just like social media, that's are visible social media, it's.
Speaker A:It's attention media now.
Speaker A:It's not social media.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And when you look at the videos, even on YouTube, if you look at the.
Speaker A:The timeline in the bottom, they tell you the most watch periods.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because they know where the attention goes.
Speaker A:And most people are gonna try to stay in, grab the meat of what's being said, and they're gonna just cut out at the end of it because they don't want to know the end.
Speaker A:They don't want to see the call the action.
Speaker A:They don't care.
Speaker B:It's true.
Speaker A:So what happens is, is, is you start having everybody in TikTok started kicking this off, but you start having everybody curate zero gaps in conversation.
Speaker A:You start having people go straight into this is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker A:For you, this video, here's what I'm.
Speaker A:Here's what I'm doing.
Speaker A:For you, this video.
Speaker A:Here's how it can work for you, this video.
Speaker A:And then they're out.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's a shorter and shorter and shorter, you know, kind of time span.
Speaker A:Whereas audio platforms, people are listening because they know people, they want to hear thoughts, they want to hear dialogue.
Speaker A:And there's not like a visual stimulant.
Speaker A:It's got to stay to the end to know.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And there's so much content that people are following these days that it's like if, let's say they're listening to a podcast and they get to their destination.
Speaker B:Well, but they're not going to.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:If it was compelling enough for them to go back, great.
Speaker B:If not, they got, they got like three, four, five other shows that they're trying to get to.
Speaker B:So, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I'll be the first to admit there are lots of podcasts that I listen to where.
Speaker A:And somebody hit me with this recently, which is really interesting.
Speaker A:They said, you know, I don't listen to your show to hear guests.
Speaker A:Everybody's copying the Rogan model, but you're not going to get Rogan caliber guests.
Speaker A:But it truthfully, like, I'm not listening to the show to hear somebody else's story.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's very rare you bring anybody on that whose story I would know going into it.
Speaker A:So unless I'm really like, interested, it's probably a pass.
Speaker B:You know what I, you know what?
Speaker B:I, I was thinking about this after receiving some of those comments from the listeners.
Speaker B:The only other show that I've personally seen that did it a little bit different.
Speaker B:What that I thought was pretty cool and I wanted to get your take on this was back in the day, the Fighter and the Kid.
Speaker B:What they used to do is when they would bring a guest on, you're just part of our normal show.
Speaker B:Now we're gonna do our show and we're gonna, you're gonna give your takes on what you're seeing too.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So it's like they'll have a guest on whether it's a fighter or another comedian or whoever it is.
Speaker A:And yeah, see, I prefer that.
Speaker B:See, that makes that, that makes way more sense.
Speaker B:It's like, oh, now you get to have these guests on, to have takes on stuff that we normally talk about.
Speaker A:I recently had a guest on that side wasn't part of the, part of the recording and probably grateful for that for not being part of it.
Speaker A:Two great guys they have a business together.
Speaker A:Really interesting story.
Speaker A:But they were very stiff on the mic because they didn't want to talk about themselves and we decided not to air the show.
Speaker A:I'm probably going to air it separately where I interview each one of them independently or something like that.
Speaker A:But it just didn't resonate.
Speaker A:And I bet you if you ask those guys comments about, hey, how is the FOMC affecting your business?
Speaker A:As we go over articles, I'm sure they're.
Speaker A:They'll be more responsive.
Speaker A:Oh yeah, it takes a focus off them.
Speaker B:They'll definitely have a take on it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And it'll, it'll relieve them of like the pressure of, you know, wait, I'm.
Speaker A:On camera sitting across from.
Speaker B:It's like, I gotta table.
Speaker B:Yeah, I gotta, I gotta sell myself to this whole fan base that's listening.
Speaker B:So I don't know, that model to me sounds pretty cool and I'd like to get the listeners take on it.
Speaker A:All right, there you go.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, shall we get into the personal Q and A stuff?
Speaker B:Oh, the personal.
Speaker B:You got it.
Speaker B:Sounds like you got something lined up already.
Speaker A:No, I don't.
Speaker B:You don't?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:I figured I'd probably be the, the scapegoat for a lot of the questions coming across this way, but.
Speaker A:So given that there's been a lot of negativity in, in the news lately, we, we've tried to stay away from this perpetual negative news cycle where lots of bad things are happening and some of the data that's come out has been somewhat irrelevant.
Speaker A:You get a jobs report, it changes.
Speaker A:You get a lot of political rhetoric.
Speaker A:I don't want to talk about politics in the show.
Speaker A:I mean, we have to on some level, but at the same time it becomes this just twisted cycle.
Speaker A:Let's talk about some real stuff.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So I have, I've started a lot of businesses, most of which have failed.
Speaker A:One of the first businesses I started, I started what was originally kind of like a blog, Right?
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:Before social media, which is about my life, photos about my life, and I posted online.
Speaker A:Didn't really go anywhere.
Speaker A:I probably missed out of an opportunity, but I learned a lot, right.
Speaker A:I learned about how coding worked, HTML, I learned about blogs back in the day, which is a precursor to social media.
Speaker B:But how long after did you realize you learned a lot and it's still successful?
Speaker B:Because I know you said I start a lot of businesses and they failed.
Speaker B:At what point did you, do you, did you look back and be like, okay, you know, because you were doing this all during times when I'm assuming you had a nine to five.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, I was doing it tonight.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So it's not like you were banking on the income or the revenue to come in, so.
Speaker B:But yeah.
Speaker B:At what point did you feel like, okay, this was still a positive, a net positive?
Speaker B:Because I learned a lot.
Speaker A:Probably years later, I never really stopped to look at it.
Speaker A:It became so emotionally overwhelming.
Speaker A:And then the earliest days of having a blog, it was a website, Right.
Speaker A:I didn't have it behind a paywall and like that.
Speaker A:It was just a website.
Speaker A:People.
Speaker A:Anybody can go to it.
Speaker A:And I remember this is a true story.
Speaker A:So this is going to be sensitive for baby years.
Speaker A:I posted in a frustrating comment that I was so tired of the public criticism I was getting from people at the time that I just posted like this, just verbal truth diarrhea, right.
Speaker A:That at the time, you know, I was embarrassed of where I was financially, so I had a tendency to probably use a little bit of hyperbole.
Speaker A:I wouldn't call it lying about the accomplishments that I had at the time, because I wanted more.
Speaker A:And now I, you know, I have a lot of the things that I thought I wanted then.
Speaker A:And why do you think.
Speaker B:Why do you think you were embarrassed at that time, though?
Speaker B:Because I take it at that time, social media wasn't what it is now.
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker A:Look, I grew up with this very polarized, like, position with parents, right?
Speaker A:Like, my mom was from the Midwest, Oklahoma, and she came from a very poor family.
Speaker A:And to this day, money was never, like, meaningful to my mom.
Speaker A:And I support my mom.
Speaker A:She has one of my Amex cars on the corporate account, and I bought her a home, you know, car.
Speaker A:And in a lot of ways, I'm her retirement.
Speaker A:My.
Speaker A:My parents split up when I was.
Speaker A:I want to say I was 14.
Speaker A:And my dad really didn't pay my mom anything.
Speaker A:But in his defense, my mom didn't want anything, okay?
Speaker A:She just.
Speaker A:She wanted my father to love her, and it just didn't work out.
Speaker A:And there's a whole complicated backstory as to what happened.
Speaker A:But, you know, we went from my dad, who came to this country, became a janitor, owner, janitorial company.
Speaker A:And he had aspirations of being, you know, wealthy.
Speaker A:And he was in the mortgage business at the time.
Speaker A:And he later on kind of hit a curve of.
Speaker A:Of making a great deal of money and owning a large lender.
Speaker A:He lost it all at some point in time, which, ironically, when I was growing up, people would say, oh, you know, your dad was wealthy.
Speaker A:My dad never really shared any money with me.
Speaker A:And a lot of what he had looked like money but wasn't real money, and he lost it all anyway.
Speaker A:So there wasn't really the financial support that people, I think, think that there was.
Speaker A:My mom was super poor.
Speaker A:I mean, I talked about in the show before, you know, looking for change in the couch.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Two liter bottle of soda, chocolate bar.
Speaker A:My dad hit that, that cadence and became wealthy when we moved to Nelly and Laguna Hills and, and made a great deal of money and what is now a multimillion dollar home.
Speaker A:And this room had like, this house had like six rooms.
Speaker A:My room to get to it was through the, the pool, like the game billiard room.
Speaker A:And there's another room on the end that was mine.
Speaker A:And it was a big home.
Speaker A:But my mom came home one day, I lived with her.
Speaker A:My parents split up and my mom.
Speaker A:My mom said that.
Speaker A:That my uncle was there and that she was gonna move to Oklahoma.
Speaker A:She couldn't afford it out here.
Speaker A:And I knew at 14 that my mom couldn't afford to have two kids, my sister and me.
Speaker A:And then if I stayed with my dad, despite the fact that we didn't get along a whole, a whole lot back then, that it would give her a better financial future.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:That's a tough decision for a 14 year old to make.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, so I left with one suitcase.
Speaker A:So all I literally.
Speaker A:One suitcase full of clothes.
Speaker A:My mom took everything else that I own because she naturally thought that I would, I would not make it out here and go back home and I would move one suitcase full of clothes and my dad.
Speaker A:And years later, when I moved out, that's all I really had.
Speaker A:Still.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:You know, not to say that, you know, bad about my dad.
Speaker A:It's just I'm very minimal like that.
Speaker A:So when you grow up poor, but then you get in this, like, wealthy environment where everybody you're going to school with had like, cars and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Grew up wealthy.
Speaker A:And although my dad seemed to have all those things, he still was kind of adjusting and eventually, you know, did lose it all.
Speaker A:You grew up in this world where you're trying to, I guess, be normal like everybody else around you, but what.
Speaker B:You think is normal, what you think.
Speaker A:Is normal around you, but you can't afford it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I wanted those things.
Speaker A:I thought, okay, well, I'm intelligent, I should be able to get them.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But as you get older, you realize that intelligence is no proxy for wealth.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Unfortunately, I'll never forget, you know, Bill, my Friend Bill, the dermatologist.
Speaker B:No, I've heard you speak about him.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, Bill.
Speaker A:God, I hate, I hate to say this.
Speaker A:He had a bit of a drug problem when we were in college.
Speaker A:He was going through a lot emotionally, and I don't.
Speaker A:I don't discount him at all for it.
Speaker A:He's a brilliant man and genetically just a brilliant human being.
Speaker A:Indifferent.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:He would study my note cards from our biological sciences class and organic chemistry classes, and he would study still high on drugs from the night before and get an A.
Speaker A:And I would get like a C minus at best.
Speaker A:You just tell.
Speaker A:He was built for it.
Speaker A:I knew I wasn't going to be a doctor like I thought I was going to be when we were in college.
Speaker A:Bill's dad was one of the smartest, most articulate men I ever met.
Speaker A:And he was a stalker for grocery stores.
Speaker A:And he died one day outside of the grocery store, reading a book underneath a tree.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Really?
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker A:Brilliant man.
Speaker A:Probably could have ran any Fortune 500 company in the world.
Speaker A:Super articulate.
Speaker A:Almost like sociologically disconnected to the world because he just thought differently.
Speaker A:And you look at somebody like that and you realize that intelligence is not a proxy for wealth.
Speaker A:My.
Speaker A:My mom's brother is.
Speaker A:Was literally a genius.
Speaker A:And he had three fingers missing from one of his hands.
Speaker A:He'd cut them off on accident, on acts, just on three separate occasions, mind you.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But this is the same man who, when our car broke down by the side of the road, took a Folger's coffee can and a pocket knife and get the car started back up again.
Speaker A:He just fundamentally knew how things worked better than other people.
Speaker A:But again, also on the spectrum, if you ask my honest opinion.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I look at people like that, and as you grow up, you realize that intelligence and feeling like you should have more doesn't mean that you will get more.
Speaker B:That's true.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It just usually means that you understand the world better and you can see the.
Speaker A:The inequities in it better.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Make sense.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:For some people, I would imagine.
Speaker B:And you.
Speaker B:You hear that?
Speaker B:You know, they say that that stuff doesn't mean anything to me.
Speaker B:It does though.
Speaker B:It does.
Speaker B:It does.
Speaker B:And then it might be for.
Speaker B:For some of them, I don't want.
Speaker B:I don't want to give like a blanket statement, but it gives them a cop out to not push themselves to their full potential.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Maybe.
Speaker B:But you know, I think that.
Speaker B:And from what I've seen, just being in, sometimes as a young professional, going up and being put into Meetings that like, oh, this is my first time going into this meeting with these, with these, you know, C suite executives or, you know, and you're, you get, you're a little shell shocked and you're a little uncomfortable.
Speaker B:I don't want to say anything wrong.
Speaker A:Feel that way.
Speaker B:No, I don't feel that way anymore.
Speaker B:Because now, at least in these meetings now I know there are, there are another level.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:There's another level.
Speaker B:Reach.
Speaker B:I know, but it's the same concept where once you get in, you realize, oh, wait, these people have just been exposed to this longer than I have and they're just comfortable in it.
Speaker A:Most of them are acting as if.
Speaker B:Right, exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:There's very few people.
Speaker A:Tim Sloan former CEO, Wells Fargo I've spoken to him on a couple occasions and he's everything you would think of.
Speaker A:He's articulate, he's smart, he understands the nuances, the idiosyncratic details of a business.
Speaker A:And you go, okay, that guy should be a CEO of a big company.
Speaker A:But he also does it in this way where he talks to you, he cares about how you respond to him, he remembers things and you feel engaged.
Speaker A:Anytime you go into a meeting and you feel like somebody is so complex that you don't feel engaged, that is not a leader.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:If they can't connect with you on some level, then I would argue that there's probably a reason that they can't.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think that is the skill that isn't.
Speaker B:I guess it's the skill that I'm worried about most in like the younger generation of not developing with how much they're keeping to themselves and, you know, staying at home playing video games or, you know, just being more and more comfortable not being out actually socializing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Is being able to read a room.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And knowing what it is that everybody is looking for and how to basically grasp the attention.
Speaker A:But so many people never get that.
Speaker A:I know adults that, that have never going to get there.
Speaker B:It's because they haven't put themselves in that situation.
Speaker B:You're going to fall, right?
Speaker B:It's like the, it's like the guy that, you know, we all had like groups of friends that wouldn't never think about going up to a girl because out of fear of rejection.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But it's like, okay, no, you're going to get rejected, but you, you have to do it over and over and over again until you find your sweet spot and see, you know, what kind of guy you are.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:What, in what type of individual.
Speaker B:And I'M not just saying guys have to approach girls, but I'm just saying if you wanted to.
Speaker B:Same thing like going to job interviews, right?
Speaker B:You're not going to get the first job you interview for.
Speaker A:My brother in law who doesn't listen to the show, who I adore, I love him to death.
Speaker A:He has this tendency.
Speaker A:He'll only apply for jobs that he feels like he's 100% fit for based on the description.
Speaker B:Yeah, I definitely used to be that guy.
Speaker A:And that's always been kind of like a cringy pet peeve of mine because as somebody who hires people, I would rather hire somebody who's like 65, 70% of the way there, who also is a very good personality match to a team, than I would hire somebody who's 100 there in kind of like a 75 personality match to it, you know, and then if I feel like I can rely on you, you could be 50, I'll get you there.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And that's, I think, refreshing and something that a lot of people need to hear that there are people like you out there that are hiring that would hire people like that.
Speaker B:Because a, for one, most people, I feel like, get content in their jobs and they're only looking for a job again when they absolutely need one.
Speaker B:So they want to get the home run hit.
Speaker B:I want to make sure that if I'm applying, I'm gonna get it right.
Speaker A:See, I also don't like this part of corporate America too.
Speaker A:Rajille and I have been having this conversation about jobs a lot lately.
Speaker A:You still there?
Speaker A:You sleeping?
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, I'm still here.
Speaker B:And it's like some solid advice.
Speaker B:I feel like you guys are giving me an intervention right now for me too, bro.
Speaker A:Well, in his world, and I'm not going to over share your stuff for Jill, but we've been talking a lot about resumes and jobs and everything else recently.
Speaker A:And it kind of breaks my heart because I know how Jill's been at his job for a long time.
Speaker B:14 years.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you know, coming away from the bank, you know, we started it 17, almost 18 years ago.
Speaker A:It's still fresh.
Speaker A:For me, the wounds of coming to it was.
Speaker A:It was more hurtful to come to the realization that I needed to leave than it was to actually do it.
Speaker A:But at the same time, now that I've been away from it for so long, one of our colleagues had essentially retirement party after having left the company shortly after.
Speaker A:I did actually completely independent decisions, but certainly very close in proximity and in doing so it stirred up this interesting conversation where these people who hadn't seen me in a long time, who once regarded me as, as a C level executive in the company, one of the, you know, founders and everything else had come in and they're now free of HR in the confines of a corporate relationship, having conversations with me about how they feel at their jobs and the level of unhappiness that I heard from some people and the level of concern that I heard from some people.
Speaker A:You know, it's hard to hear because at the same time I felt that way, but I tried to keep it to myself.
Speaker A:I'm supposed to be a leader.
Speaker A:I'm not supposed to be sharing.
Speaker A:And to hear that they feel that way too, I feel like I let them down.
Speaker A:I feel like I should have stayed and endured to try to keep them happy.
Speaker A:The counter argument is you can leave, go build something else one day and maybe they'll have an opportunity to be happy working for you.
Speaker A:But Rajeel's story in that situation altogether made me.
Speaker A:We, we've lost ourselves in society.
Speaker A:And so that there's a generational gap difference whenever you hire people.
Speaker A:And I've seen it, the younger generation, they don't stay at jobs for anywhere near as long as the older generation did.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:Three to four years, in some cases two years on average.
Speaker A:They moved into other companies.
Speaker A:I used to look at that with a bit of disdain and now I look at it with a completely different lens.
Speaker B:How so you understand it now?
Speaker A:I understand it because corporate America, you would recommend it.
Speaker A:Companies aren't giving back the same level of multi year commitments anymore.
Speaker A:And so many people I know are afraid to leave their jobs.
Speaker A:That's the reason they're not leaving.
Speaker A:It's not because they love their job, their pay is awesome, they feel like they're valued.
Speaker A:It's because they're afraid to leave.
Speaker A:And that is not the reason you want employees to stay.
Speaker A:And somehow we've migrated.
Speaker A:I don't, I don't know what you guys think, but if I were to take a poll of all the people that I know that are in corporate America and I were to take a poll anonymously and say, all of you, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much does fear of losing your job play into your life?
Speaker A:I would venture to guess that most people are in the 6, 7 and 8 range.
Speaker A:Every single day.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker B:I mean, I don't think the labor market is as strong as the, the data is showing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So the fear of losing Their job is a. I think on average people.
Speaker B:It's taken people well over a year, on average to find a new job, which is a wild number to think about.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:But again, so having done this myself, I'm going to be very, very transparent here.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Before I left the company that I was at, maybe it was fear, maybe it was insecurity, I don't know.
Speaker A:I applied to jobs via LinkedIn and just anonymously, not using my connections, which I have a lot of, admittedly.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker A:Applied to Jobs for a long period of time.
Speaker A:You guys want to guess how many people called me back?
Speaker B:Five.
Speaker A:Okay, good guess.
Speaker B:I mean, I think I know the answer, so I don't want to say.
Speaker B:I mean, I say under five, not.
Speaker A:A single person called me back.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:In six months of applying.
Speaker A:And keep in mind, I'm a licensed attorney.
Speaker A:I've got 20 years of banking.
Speaker A:I've done capital raises, I've done all the things you can think of.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The resume suggests you're loyal.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The resume was looked at as a.
Speaker B:Week, so it's not.
Speaker B:It's not.
Speaker B:Look, it's not like, oh, this guy's an attorney and he's got all these different licenses.
Speaker B:This is just a pit stop before he moves on to the next thing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So if you think your resume is insufficient, I would say that that's not the reason.
Speaker A:And it comes down to the same core concept that we've all heard before.
Speaker A:It's who you know, not what you know.
Speaker A:It really, really is.
Speaker A:And getting a new job is not going to be done.
Speaker A:Yeah, you might have some.
Speaker A:Some luck and traction applying to Jobs online, but do you have any idea how much better you will feel if you talk to people in your network about a job and they help you get a job?
Speaker A:And most people, including myself, don't want to do that.
Speaker A:Ironically, when I share more than future about what I'm doing now and how I got here, you'll see how this advice is actually, ironically, what put me in the position that I'm in today.
Speaker A:But I am working on something new and we will talk about it and we'll talk about it in great detail.
Speaker A:I've got confidentiality agreements in place.
Speaker A:I got a bunch of things in place.
Speaker A:At least in through.
Speaker A:I want to say December, man, I.
Speaker B:Was about to say.
Speaker B:Sure, yeah.
Speaker A:And there's strategic reasons and legal reasons why I'm being a little bit cloak and dagger.
Speaker A:But I rest assured I will go full open kimono on the timeline going from Departing my last position to the new one at some point in time.
Speaker A:And it'll shed some light on a lot of the reason why no one should be afraid to change jobs.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Back to that conversation about people only applying to jobs that they're 100% certain that they actually qualify for.
Speaker B:You know, we've talked about this before.
Speaker B:How can I be expected?
Speaker B:Companies do such a good job at pigeonholing you into learning your job and not allowing you to wear multiple hats.
Speaker A:The easiest way to move up in any company.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Is to change companies to change.
Speaker B:And that's something that was.
Speaker B:Has always been told or shared or we've all heard it before.
Speaker B:But the only way you get the experience is if you trust me to do it based on my resume that, you know, I've been given tasks and I can learn it and I can do it.
Speaker A:And trust in corporate America only comes from necessity.
Speaker A:They need someone to fill a gap.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's rarely going to come from equity you've put in.
Speaker A:They go, you know what say deserves this?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:It's almost in a corporation.
Speaker A:You think about it too, as a fiduciary for a corporation.
Speaker A:I made a career literally out of finding people within the organization that I thought were good fits that weren't in the right place.
Speaker A:And there's one person in particular.
Speaker A:I adore her to death.
Speaker A:She was an admin for an executive.
Speaker A:She was sensational at the job.
Speaker A:I've never seen an executive assistant as talented as her.
Speaker A:And then I thought to myself, okay, that just means you're overqualified for the job.
Speaker A:No, no, no, no.
Speaker A:She said, I've only done this.
Speaker A:And I said, you're capable of more.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I put her in a role for facilities and said, I will help you.
Speaker A:You will be okay, and you're going to fucking crush it.
Speaker A:And she did.
Speaker A:And she's goddamn good at the job.
Speaker A:But I guarantee you there are people who will run into her on the street, remember her as an ea, and they're going to think, okay, she's an executive assistant.
Speaker A:This is what your skill set is.
Speaker A:This is who she is.
Speaker B:And they get labeled.
Speaker A:They get labeled, Right?
Speaker A:And there's even people, one person in particular that comes to mind who I'm.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:We do not get along whatsoever.
Speaker A:She was a babysitter for somebody, and she wound up later on becoming an executive.
Speaker A:To me, it is wildly unfair and inappropriate to label somebody as a babysitter because they started there.
Speaker A:Everybody had some.
Speaker A:Some job like that.
Speaker A:I was a Teller at a bank.
Speaker A:Right, okay.
Speaker A:And if somebody use their relationship to get a.
Speaker A:Get ahead, to get farther because they knew somebody, they had a connection to.
Speaker A:Networking.
Speaker A:That's how the world works, man.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:But to label somebody and say, oh, they only got this job because this.
Speaker A:Okay, well, you know how many jobs people have gotten across the world because they knew somebody who was in the right position?
Speaker B:Nepotism, bro, is real, even if it's not nepotism.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:If it's just a relationship, even.
Speaker B:I know, I get it.
Speaker B:But you just.
Speaker A:We can't, we can't label and demonize.
Speaker B:But if they, if they're getting the job done, right, and then we demonize.
Speaker A:The idea of like, oh, this person's only got that because they know this person.
Speaker A:Okay, well, you know what?
Speaker A:You didn't know that person.
Speaker A:And they do have that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:How.
Speaker A:Why aren't you leveraging your network the same way?
Speaker A:It doesn't make anybody less qualified.
Speaker A:Now if they can't do the job and they're failing at it, it's a different conversation.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:People have a real problem.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I'm very much guilty of this, of imposter syndrome.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Dude, I do this all the time.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:And it's like every time we turn.
Speaker A:The mics on, we go hot.
Speaker B:I'm like, shit again, back again.
Speaker B:But I have this feeling because I, I don't know, I like to consider myself someone who is very honest, especially like with his friends and his family.
Speaker B:And I treat my, My.
Speaker B:The people I work with like, as close friends because I feel like that's when, when you have a bond like that we all work well together.
Speaker B:And I would allow myself to talk myself out of situations to be like, yeah, like, I know I could probably push for this, but so and so is probably more qualified and I don't want to get it.
Speaker B:And then everybody look at me like, oh, why does he have it?
Speaker B:And you're just.
Speaker B:I'm, you're.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:You catch yourself talking yourself out of situations where.
Speaker B:Why not go for it?
Speaker A:I'm going to use names and I'm going to be specific.
Speaker A:And I'm probably going to get trouble for this.
Speaker B:Corrupt.
Speaker B:Calling out names.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, no, it's not, it's not necessarily bad.
Speaker A:Merlinda Coronado, who is our loan servicing manager, was our loan servicing manager at the bank.
Speaker A:She still works there.
Speaker A:I do not.
Speaker A:We started the bank around the same time.
Speaker A:She left for eight years and then came back.
Speaker A:She is sensational at her job.
Speaker A:She's great, probably the best I've ever worked with.
Speaker A:And when we started the bank, I, I was promoted to an SVP around the same time that she was a job and a qualification that she'd had before.
Speaker A:She had decades of experience on me.
Speaker A:And we were up in Ventura county, we were looking to buy a bank up there.
Speaker A:Myself, the then president, the cfo, the CEO and the chief credit officer.
Speaker A:And the night before, we all drank a lot.
Speaker A:This is the early days of the bank.
Speaker A:And we got very, very intoxicated.
Speaker A:And then I finally just asked the president and the cfo, I said, they were drinking wine and I'm drinking scotch.
Speaker A:And I said, guys, I don't understand.
Speaker A:I said, what?
Speaker A:I said, why am I getting this opportunity, you know, and why am I being put on the same level as her when she has all this extra experience?
Speaker A:And I knew it came off unfair.
Speaker A:And there were part of me, I could rationalize it and say, well, you know, I've taken on a little bit more assignment wise.
Speaker A:And she stayed in her box.
Speaker A:And I could rationalize it both ways.
Speaker A:And then the president, who did not like me, was not my biggest fan, looked over at me and said, throughout your career you will have people who stay in the same positions because they're happy, because they like it, or because they don't want to take on more for reasons that are sometimes completely unknown to you, might have to deal with your personal life and you will escalate to a point where you are in a position that you don't move from or you won't, but you can't look back on the people around you and use them as a proxy for how far you should go.
Speaker A:And I'm like, yeah, it's kind of heartless and one sided.
Speaker A:Like we're all a team, we all work together.
Speaker A:And what he was saying is, yeah, we're a team.
Speaker A:But certain players will get opportunities, they'll take advantage of it.
Speaker A:And maybe they're not the greatest player on the team, but maybe they got a better opportunity to shine.
Speaker A:Scotty Pippen versus Michael Jordan.
Speaker A:What would Scotty Pittman have done if he was on a team by himself?
Speaker B:I know, right?
Speaker A:And then flash forward, years later, I'm contemplating taking over an executive position and Merlinda and I have a conversation and she tells me, you know, the reason why I never got to that point, it's not because I couldn't have gotten to that point because I didn't want to deal with the bullshit.
Speaker A:And the politics and all the things that come with that, the sacrifices of my family.
Speaker A:And as a young kid who was ambitious, I heard what she was saying.
Speaker A:I could logically understand it and process it, but as an adult, looking back on it, God, that was such fucking good advice by her.
Speaker A:The shit that destroyed me and really tainted my perspective of corporate America was all the stuff she didn't want to deal with.
Speaker A:And before I left the bank, I went in and talked to her.
Speaker A:And I started off the conversation by saying, you were right.
Speaker A:It wasn't worth it.
Speaker A:Yeah, because I'm hated by more people than.
Speaker A:Than ever before.
Speaker A:Because I rose to a position that visibly people were always trying to challenge me and take me out on.
Speaker A:I was young people whose careers I did help along the way.
Speaker A:Some people were loyal, some people just took advantage.
Speaker A:People you think are your friends are not your friends because you're in a position of power.
Speaker A:You have people outside the, the business community who, who go, okay, you should be wearing.
Speaker A:I had somebody criticized me recently saying, oh, you, you're supposed to be all this successful guy.
Speaker A:You live in an 11 square foot, you know, townhome.
Speaker A:And it's like, why do you think that me having a big ass house is a proxy for my success?
Speaker A:Maybe, just maybe I'm conservative and you're an asshole.
Speaker B:I mean, look at Warren Buffett, bro.
Speaker A:You know, Exactly.
Speaker A:But we have these labels that.
Speaker A:And when you get to this point, you, certain, certain points in your career, you put targets on your back.
Speaker A:So we look at people and you think to yourself, okay, my colleagues, I don't want to take this opportunity for them.
Speaker A:But you say, don't know that you really are taking an opportunity from somebody.
Speaker A:They may not want that.
Speaker B:True.
Speaker A:They may not need that.
Speaker A:And I'll tell you right now, as a guy who unemployed, and I go to the gym, I wake up in the morning, take my son to school, I go to the gym with my wife, I come home, then I come here.
Speaker A:Yeah, right, I'm here.
Speaker A:Yeah, great.
Speaker A:We record the podcast nights, but I still get home to give my son a bath, get him dinner, do all that.
Speaker A:I'm spending more time my wife and my son now.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And yeah, I'm not some visible public trade executive, but I guarantee my wife and son are happier.
Speaker B:No, that's true.
Speaker B:And look, you.
Speaker B:You've been afforded this, this opportunity now, because you did take that, take that on for.
Speaker A:But I look at Melinda.
Speaker A:Yeah, I bet you she was a better mom during those years where I was being an executive Than I was a dad.
Speaker B:So it's funny you bring her up and I, I owe her actually a conversation too because I needed to thank her.
Speaker B:I've told, I've told somebody else this recently when, how I was pregnant with Adam on my first.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We had a big old baby shower at the office, right?
Speaker B:And it was, it, it was awesome.
Speaker B:Everybody, we used to do such fun stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah, everybody went all out and it was memor.
Speaker B:Super memorable.
Speaker B:I remember she stopped me one of those water cooler conversations and it was.
Speaker B:I, I literally give this advice to upcoming new parents because it, it resonated with me and it stuck with me.
Speaker B:Now look, he's 9 years old, going on 10, right?
Speaker B:You about to have your first kid.
Speaker B:You're going to want to give him everything that you didn't have.
Speaker B:Don't forget to give him the stuff that you did have.
Speaker B:Don't forget to give him the stuff that your parents did do for you.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:And that always stuck with me because yeah, we all look back and I think at, man, my parents really missed this up.
Speaker B:They messed this up.
Speaker B:I wish they would have done this better.
Speaker B:Easy to like point out all the flaws, but they'll stop for a second and think about what stuff are you grateful for, you know.
Speaker B:And I made sure to still do some of those things, right, like to this day, man.
Speaker B:My dad, unfortunately, he had his own business at the time, couldn't make it to every practice, couldn't take me this and that, right?
Speaker B:But guess he never missed a game though.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:Never once.
Speaker B:And something I never even thought about till way after the fact.
Speaker B:Like he was always there, always made sure that he was there, right.
Speaker B:Little things like that.
Speaker A:How hard is that now?
Speaker A:Like, do you.
Speaker A:I didn't realize.
Speaker A:So my, my dad came to one game, I played basketball and my mom came to one game and they were going through their own situation.
Speaker A:Mom moved obviously when I was 14, so she didn't see like the high school stuff.
Speaker A:But I look back on it, I know how hard that is.
Speaker B:It's so hard, man.
Speaker B:And especially now more so than ever because of, I mean just with work and where it is and you have, you know, both, both parents are having to work and especially now forget if you have two kids.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Managing the schedule is like its own separate job in and of itself.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Sanity.
Speaker B:And the games, the games now are even more wild.
Speaker B:But I mean this past weekend we enrolled the boy in, in a camp, right?
Speaker B:This Camp Jesser.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:This guy on YouTube that has 30 million subscribers.
Speaker B:And Adam got in and they needed coaches, so your boy decided to step up.
Speaker B:And I. I helped out coaching, bro, Let me tell you, these kids, it was like.
Speaker B:It would have been the equivalent of, I don't know, you're a little older than Jesus Christ.
Speaker B:But it would have been like if Zack Morris would have held a camp back in the day and we all got invited and how crazy.
Speaker B:Everybody would have gone.
Speaker A:Saved by the bells.
Speaker A:My proxy from my childhood, right, bro?
Speaker A:And back then, full disclosure, that was his generation.
Speaker A:My generation was way before you got Smurfs for me, dog.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:But like, a Smurf would have held.
Speaker B:A camp, dude, the level of energy these kids had, it was.
Speaker B:It was insane.
Speaker B:It was like as if Michael Jackson pulled up, right?
Speaker B:Like, everyone went absolutely nuts.
Speaker B:And kids were.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was an awesome experience, but just to be able to be there and, like, take it in and soak it in was.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was pretty special, man.
Speaker B:But yeah, to your point, it.
Speaker B:It's really hard to be present in today's day and age with everything that's going on.
Speaker A:So I look at the stuff that we.
Speaker A:That we think about, and I look at all the people on social media, Everybody on social media, even our president and our FOMC head and everybody else, they're not talking about being there for their families.
Speaker A:Everything is business at all times.
Speaker A:Everything you hear from these people is business at all times.
Speaker A:Your favorite influencer is your favorite influencer at all times.
Speaker A:And the.
Speaker A:How many parent influencers you know that go to jail for being bad parents?
Speaker A:Like, there's.
Speaker A:There's a number of them out there, right?
Speaker A:Like, it's just.
Speaker A:It's so hard to have balance.
Speaker A:But I think it starts with taking the pressure off yourself.
Speaker A:Taking up the pressure off yourself to.
Speaker A:To worry about other.
Speaker A:Other employees at your job.
Speaker A:To get ahead.
Speaker A:If you have to get ahead, and that's what you feel like makes you a better person, then so be it.
Speaker A:If you feel like making your family is a priority and you're risking your job for it, then I would say you need to find a better job or.
Speaker A:Or take the pressure off yourself and say, I'm not risking my family.
Speaker A:They'll understand, right?
Speaker A:We put so much goddamn pressure on ourself every single day.
Speaker A:And it's this.
Speaker A:It's progressive overload, right?
Speaker A:You get to this point where you just start loading little bits and pieces more and more and more, and then you get to this point where you look back and you don't Know where the years went.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker A:And even, I mean, for a lot of people who listen to the show, they're not parents.
Speaker A:Even if you're not a parent.
Speaker A:There are entire years of my life where I worked 16 hours a day.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I used to pride myself on being one of the first people in the office and leaving late at night.
Speaker A:And yeah, I made a good amount of money.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker A:But you know how many of my friends don't talk to me to this day because they didn't understand it?
Speaker A:I'm not saying that they're good friends.
Speaker A:We're on the same mental playing field.
Speaker B:Right, right, right.
Speaker A:But I, Those are the sacrifices that I made.
Speaker A:Would I make them again today?
Speaker A:I would not.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:There definitely needs to be a balance.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And to your point.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I remember, I remember going, going to college at UCI and I can't remember the course that I took, but it was the first day of class and it was like this, this triangle figure and it was like social life, good grades, sleep, pick two.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:In a way that's true.
Speaker A:During college there's a time and place.
Speaker B:For all that stuff, but that translates into the real world too.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like you have family, work, sleep.
Speaker B:Now think about your health and all these other things you got, you got hobbies.
Speaker B:Like, my wife and I are already having the conversation now.
Speaker B:We're like, like we, we each have our own independent hobbies that we would like to do and we'd like to do more of, but it's like, man, if we don't start doing this like now, it's not going, we're not going to do this later on in life.
Speaker B:We're not going to want to pick this up later.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Do you want to selling vintage jewelry?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:The night she focuses on that and she does it like three or four nights a week.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:We don't spend any time together.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Because that's fine.
Speaker A:Sacrifice you have to make.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Which is fine.
Speaker B:Like, I want to see my wife passionate about something that she likes.
Speaker B:And look, I'll step in, I'll do what I can to be a part of it and like, support and support.
Speaker B:But like, for instance, like for me, unfortunately, like, the hobby that I really, really would love to pick up is playing more golf.
Speaker B:Like, I actually enjoy playing golf.
Speaker B:Unfortunately, that hobby is not only expensive, but takes a. Sucks a lot of time.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:It's like four or five hours at a time.
Speaker B:And in order to keep up with it and actually be decent, you got to like you got to go and play often.
Speaker B:Otherwise, it's not like riding a bike.
Speaker A:I have always liked the idea of golf, but because of.
Speaker A:I know the commitments in time and execution, and because I have to physically be somewhere to do it, I've always ruled it out, and I still rule it out.
Speaker A:But I have a different proposition for you.
Speaker A:I know you like making video content.
Speaker B:Love it.
Speaker B:I really do.
Speaker B:Really, really do.
Speaker A:We have over there behind Regil, an entire cabinet stuck.
Speaker A:We have two drones now.
Speaker A:We've got five cameras.
Speaker A:You know, we've got the meta glasses.
Speaker A:You already have your own pair.
Speaker A:We've got all sorts of stuff.
Speaker A:I got the dji, The.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:The gimbal, like, camera thing.
Speaker A:We've got mics.
Speaker A:We've got shotgun mics.
Speaker A:We got all that.
Speaker A:You could do the entire Casey Neistat, come in, check out equipment, go make whatever film you want to make.
Speaker B:That's true.
Speaker A:You could do that right now.
Speaker A:And if you can't leave the house, you could literally shoot film around the house.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:With B roll and all that.
Speaker A:Kind of.
Speaker A:And that.
Speaker A:And you could, honestly.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I know that to me, that also is a hobby of mine that I enjoy doing.
Speaker B:I love making, like, the family content, the.
Speaker B:You know, of those.
Speaker B:I've recorded so many birthdays, bro.
Speaker B:I'm so far behind.
Speaker A:I know you posted me the other day, like, from, like, a couple years.
Speaker B:Ago, bro, Adam's fifth birthday.
Speaker B:And, like, I'm not even.
Speaker B:I'm not even editing them the way I want to edit them at this point.
Speaker B:How I was looking at me like, bro, he's turning 10.
Speaker B:You haven't made birthday number five.
Speaker B:Or Arya.
Speaker B:I've.
Speaker B:I've up to, you know, birthday number four.
Speaker B:Like, she's seven.
Speaker A:Why don't you give me some of the footage, bro?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's literally.
Speaker B:I'm not even doing it fancy.
Speaker B:I'm just clipping out parts and picking a song that they like.
Speaker B:And I would love to dive into it even more and hone in my skills, you know, add, buy some effects and have fun with it.
Speaker A:I've learned.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:You give me.
Speaker B:You give me access to the art list.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, that's.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:You know, mess around that.
Speaker B:Just, like, for some people, it'd be annoying trying to find the right sound.
Speaker B:Like, I like that.
Speaker B:I want to deep dive and find the right sound that I want for the video.
Speaker A:I don't actually spend that much time doing it anymore.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know, but it's like.
Speaker B:Like, if you had the time.
Speaker B:It would be really cool to geek out on it, right?
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:If I had the time, the stuff that I'd be able to make.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But for me, there's something so peaceful about playing golf.
Speaker B:And the idea, like.
Speaker B:I. I don't want to.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:No, not even that part.
Speaker B:Honestly, it's.
Speaker B:I know it.
Speaker B:Not for it to sound corny, but it translates so well to life.
Speaker B:You know, you.
Speaker B:You want to head this way.
Speaker B:You're aiming for this way.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:You hit the shot, right, and it goes that way.
Speaker A:Lifting weights is my golf.
Speaker B:No, no, that.
Speaker B:Which is cool too.
Speaker B:And I actually enjoy that too.
Speaker B:But this is like.
Speaker B:You aimed for this.
Speaker B:You tried it.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:It went far, right?
Speaker B:Now you gotta let that go to be able to hit the next shot.
Speaker B:If you keep thinking about that shot, that next one is going to be 10 times worse.
Speaker A:Regil, you golfing?
Speaker A:No, I'm not golfing ever.
Speaker A:Golf.
Speaker B:Mini golf.
Speaker A:Mini golf, yeah, it counts.
Speaker B:These courses are.
Speaker B:And some of these courses are beautiful, man.
Speaker A:They are.
Speaker A:But I had allergies as a kid, so I get on a golf course, I'm worried about, you know?
Speaker B:Why you.
Speaker B:Why are you taking a dump on my.
Speaker B:My hobby, bro?
Speaker A:I'm taking up on your hobby.
Speaker B:It sounds like you're taking a dump on my hobby.
Speaker A:Take a double on you.
Speaker B:Number two.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Two sides, one cup.
Speaker B:Christopher.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:It's an hour and 12.
Speaker B:You're gonna let this happen?
Speaker A:He's too.
Speaker A:He's too young to even know what that is.
Speaker B:No comment.
Speaker B:I was in middle school.
Speaker A:So you saw it.
Speaker B:I was in middle school.
Speaker B:I know where I was.
Speaker B:I know where I was when I first heard it.
Speaker B:See, what happened was, hey, that was.
Speaker A:An urban legend that made its way around the world.
Speaker B:That's wild.
Speaker A:That's like pre social media urban legend.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:For that.
Speaker B:To spread the.
Speaker A:They went viral before viral was counted.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:For that to spread like wildfire.
Speaker B:No pun intended.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's the original Bonnie Blue.
Speaker A:Bonnie poo poo.
Speaker B:Bonnie Blue crazy again.
Speaker A:It's attention.
Speaker A:It's attention media now, man.
Speaker A:Like, who can do the most shocking thing?
Speaker B:How is this real?
Speaker A:It's real.
Speaker A:I mean, I've.
Speaker A:I've seen.
Speaker B:You've heard.
Speaker A:I've seen statements on Twitter.
Speaker A:I've not actually seen any of her work.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:But I can tell you right now that I believe it's all true.
Speaker A:I don't doubt it all.
Speaker A:I just don't know.
Speaker B:My man's moonwalking.
Speaker A:No, no, no.
Speaker A:No, I.
Speaker A:Here's the problem for me is conceptually, I don't understand why anybody would want to watch that.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Like out of the watch, like the old school, like Showtime cinematics versions where there's a storyline and a plot and it was like normalized.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Cheesy.
Speaker A:Other than just like marathon sessions and stuff.
Speaker A:I just don't understand.
Speaker B:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:And then.
Speaker A:But they're making millions, dude.
Speaker A:Millions doing it.
Speaker A:And then at the same time, you're like, all right, well, if you're gonna do it, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's a, it's a tough sell.
Speaker B:Like, I heard.
Speaker B:I, I can't remember which podcast it was I was listening to.
Speaker B:And it was like, you're coming, like into a day and age where if like your kid comes up and was like, look, I can make tens of thousands of dollars this month if I just sell some pictures of my feet.
Speaker B:You're like, as a parent, you're like, no, absolutely not.
Speaker B:You know, and like, well, I'm an adult and I'm gonna do what I want to do.
Speaker B:And you're like, I mean, what do you, what are you gonna say?
Speaker B:Like, dad, I see you, I see you working as hard as you are, you're not, you're not making anywhere near this.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:I'm just selling some feet pics.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:And look, I'm not.
Speaker A:I, I get it.
Speaker A:I. I'm not saying that.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker B:What are you gonna do?
Speaker B:You can have the conversation of, like, have a little bit more self respect.
Speaker B:Like, I don't like that.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:That argument doesn't even really hold.
Speaker A:I don't know, man.
Speaker A:Some people on like, only fans are making life changing money.
Speaker A:It's really hard to argue.
Speaker A:I guess when they start, they're not.
Speaker A:It's just like a pipe dream.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:But, but you know, like, I get it.
Speaker B:It's a numbers game.
Speaker B:Yeah, I get it.
Speaker A:That's the crazy part about all the, all that stuff is this is a numbers game.
Speaker A:But the numbers are irrelevant now.
Speaker A:The only number that counts is how many views you get.
Speaker A:Everything else, like your follower count, irrelevant.
Speaker A:Your likes comments, irrelevant.
Speaker A:How many people see your content.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:But the thing is we, we, we have this weird, like, bent perspective because, like, if I say something goes viral, you think, like, millions of views.
Speaker A:What.
Speaker A:What's the biggest concert you've ever been to?
Speaker A:Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker B:Okay, so let's go with the Bad Boy reunion tour.
Speaker A:I'm sorry.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's what I would be citing right now.
Speaker A:Bad boy.
Speaker A:All right, fine.
Speaker B:Everybody loves Mario.
Speaker A:Are they selling Vaseline and baby oil or.
Speaker B:No, you're just getting that at the door, bro.
Speaker A:Can you imagine if Ice Cube opened up with no Vaseline, and then they went on.
Speaker B:Bro.
Speaker B:I saw an interview with.
Speaker B:What's his name?
Speaker B:O' Shea Jackson.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:He was, like, being interviewed with one of his friends on the podcast.
Speaker B:Like, how does it feel about, like, one of the songs?
Speaker B:Like, he's talking about your mom in this video.
Speaker A:Oh, that's not right.
Speaker B:That's disrespectful.
Speaker B:So disrespectful.
Speaker A:Somebody asked you that question.
Speaker A:They don't like you.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:They're supposed to be boys, too.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:You don't like it.
Speaker A:That's not cool.
Speaker B:That's wrong.
Speaker A:Unless o' Shea was like, listen, I'm gonna let you ask this question.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So Google or search.
Speaker A:Search how big the.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:The theater, stadium or.
Speaker A:Or whatever that was.
Speaker A:Whatever.
Speaker A:Whatever venue you were at.
Speaker B:Huh?
Speaker A:And how many people.
Speaker A:How many people it holds or just.
Speaker B:So I went to.
Speaker B:I went to that concert.
Speaker B:Weiss actually bought me tickets for him and I to go to that one where Kanye and Drake, like, basically, like, squashed their beef, and they had it at the.
Speaker B:Where's that in LA?
Speaker B:The Coliseum.
Speaker A:Okay, Coliseum.
Speaker B:That's like 90, 000.
Speaker A:Is it 90,000 people?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, but not all the seats were sold out, but, I mean.
Speaker B:Yeah, like, that's where.
Speaker B:That's where we were.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Which Coliseum?
Speaker B:Because the one I went to was in Oakland.
Speaker B:No, the Coliseum in la.
Speaker A:Just Google.
Speaker A:Los Angeles Coliseum capacity.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So there you go.
Speaker A:I can see up to 63, 132 people.
Speaker B:That's Oakland's.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Oakland.
Speaker B:That's B level, bro.
Speaker A:Then check out the LA Coliseum.
Speaker A:I'm going somewhere with this, so bear with me.
Speaker B:77,500.
Speaker A:77,500 for LA Coliseum.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Damn.
Speaker B:I would have thought it was close to 100.
Speaker A:So there you go.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Because they built that for the Olympics.
Speaker A:I think if a.
Speaker A:We have a reel that went 350,000 views for the Mark Zuckerberg one.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You filled.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Five stadiums.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker A:Of people who viewed your content.
Speaker A:And yet we go, oh, it didn't hit a million.
Speaker A:Yeah, like, that's it.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:Like, you're.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker B:Like, you're almost there, you know, Like a million.
Speaker A:Like 2 million.
Speaker A:Like 3.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:When you think about in the context of how many people are at those stadiums, because we.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We nominalize in.
Speaker A:Rationalize, like, numbers because they're irrelevant, but when you start putting the context of human bodies.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, granted, some bots looking at stuff like these numbers are big.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:If you can get a podcast like this one out and get 20,000 to 30,000 streams per episode.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:No, like, you're filling stadiums, bro.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's true.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:For long periods of time, too.
Speaker B:Not.
Speaker B:Not like a short clip.
Speaker B:That's 60 seconds.
Speaker B:We're talking at the average duration that they're consuming.
Speaker B:Is anything over, like.
Speaker B:Like, we talked about top of the show, like, 75 of the show.
Speaker B:I mean, that's impressive, especially when you're doing this.
Speaker B:This is, like, all organic from the ground up.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You didn't.
Speaker B:We didn't leverage anybody but sexy, Adam.
Speaker A:So sexy.
Speaker B:I know we said no guess, but, like, gotta come on the show.
Speaker A:Sal's been going through the whole religious, like, phase recently.
Speaker A:He's got that whole vlog.
Speaker B:That story.
Speaker B:His story where that encounter with the.
Speaker A:Homeless guy, you can tell it's, like, deeply emotional.
Speaker B:I mean, it's.
Speaker B:It's hard to tell him, like.
Speaker B:I mean, that that story was very compelling.
Speaker A:No, I get it.
Speaker A:And I think, like, he.
Speaker A:He's.
Speaker A:He's starting to get that mental similarity to Jordan Peterson in some way, where Peterson's more aggressive about it than Sal is, but you can tell logically they're coming from the same place.
Speaker B:There's this guy that made the rounds of all the podcasts not too long ago, Bonnie Blue.
Speaker B:I don't know his name.
Speaker B:Is he Dr. Oz?
Speaker B:He's a mentalist.
Speaker B:Is the clip that I sent you today when he was on flagrant.
Speaker A:Oh, I didn't get checked.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:He was.
Speaker A:Oh, is it the one where he got bleeped out?
Speaker B:Here we go.
Speaker B:But he also went on Rogan where he guessed Rogan's pin code.
Speaker B:That's this guy.
Speaker B:Have you seen this one?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:Oh, my God.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's impressive.
Speaker B:You hear a guy like that or.
Speaker B:These mentalists, bro.
Speaker B:They're the way they're able to read people and just.
Speaker B:And pick up on subtle nuances so quickly.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's unbelievable.
Speaker B:Somebody like that gets in front of you and back in the day when before you even knew what a mentalist was, it's like, it'd be.
Speaker B:And they told you that if they were.
Speaker B:If they came and they came and they're speaking on Behalf of God.
Speaker B:Game over, bro.
Speaker B:Yeah, I believe you.
Speaker A:How does one become a mentalist?
Speaker B:I mean, it stems from being a magician.
Speaker B:That's what, that's what he, that's what he did.
Speaker B:This guy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oz Perlman.
Speaker B:This guy's wild, bro.
Speaker B:You didn't see that?
Speaker B:You didn't see the episode where he was on Rogan?
Speaker B:No, he guessed Rogan's pin code live on the air and he guessed like multiple things that he would do later on in the show.
Speaker B:He said he prepped for it for two years.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was prepped for it for two years.
Speaker B:You have to watch it.
Speaker A:I will.
Speaker A:I'm fascinated by Oz the mentalist.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A: , born in: Speaker B:Yeah, he's incredible.
Speaker A:Long distance runner for marathons and ultramarathons.
Speaker B:I personally like the flagrant episode better.
Speaker A:But I mean, obviously the why a little more candid.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And the boys reactions, you could tell.
Speaker B:It's, it's, it's a hunt.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:You can't fake it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Oz promo did not win America's Got Talent.
Speaker A:He competed in season 10.
Speaker B:And he openly admits he's like, he's bombed before where he's, he's like, like his early stages and he's come up like he's made some wrong reads and gotten certain things wrong, you know, but that's the problem with what he does.
Speaker B:Like if.
Speaker A:See, I have no desire to want to do that.
Speaker B:To want.
Speaker B:What do you mean?
Speaker A:I would want to be able to read people, but I have no desire to want to like, call people out.
Speaker B:No, no.
Speaker B:What do you mean, call people out?
Speaker A:Because he's trying to guess people, like the only way.
Speaker B:No, it's a trick.
Speaker A:Yeah, you're reading social cues to get responses and then you're making educated guesses from the social cues.
Speaker B:Yeah, but it, like the way he's able to hyper focus on like your, your right eye twitch.
Speaker B:Right when I said that.
Speaker A:Oh.
Speaker B:And then he, he's able to guess, bro, this one trick that he did, he took a book, right?
Speaker B:And he just flipped the pages and he says, tell me when to stop.
Speaker B:He said, you go pick the book.
Speaker B:Go pick any book you want.
Speaker A:You pick the book.
Speaker B:And he, and he flips it all up, right?
Speaker B:He's telling me to stop.
Speaker B:All right, now pick a word from this book.
Speaker B:From this page.
Speaker B:Any word that you want.
Speaker B:Any word on here that you want.
Speaker B:And he asks like a series of questions and he basically figures out, oh, it's six letters.
Speaker B:Long.
Speaker B:It probably ends with it.
Speaker B:And within three or four seconds, he guesses the word that you picked up from the book.
Speaker B:It's fascinating, bro.
Speaker B:How do you do that?
Speaker A:No, it's fascinating.
Speaker A:I get it.
Speaker A:But I'm just saying, like, you know, eh.
Speaker B:Eh what?
Speaker B:Other than value, it's better than a card trick because a card trick's all sleight of hand.
Speaker A:No, no, I get it.
Speaker A:But at the same.
Speaker A:Some of those slide of hand tricks are impressive though.
Speaker A:You know, let's be honest, that's not a function like that.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Like, I can't.
Speaker A:I can't have that.
Speaker B:That's in the flick of the wrist.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I don't have the, you know, would you call it spear fingers?
Speaker B:There it is.
Speaker A:But yeah, I get it.
Speaker A:I'm a big fan of the mental acuity it takes to do some of those things.
Speaker A:But at the same time, I think that's a bet that's a better weapon weaponized in business than it is in entertainment.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Just personal perspective.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And they, they get into that on.
Speaker A:The episode that I can tell right now you're not wearing underwear.
Speaker A:Wait, wait, wait, you're gonna tell me you are?
Speaker B:Yeah, There you go.
Speaker A:Please, go ahead.
Speaker B:Yeah, the joke that I cannot say because we're chopping your fingers.
Speaker B:Yeah, I like that one right there.
Speaker B:We're gonna have to leave it right there, bro.
Speaker B:We both wanted to.
Speaker B:Hey, if, you know, if you know, you know.
Speaker A:Have you ever seen those two guys, their.
Speaker A:Their social media channel?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:So is it an actual podcast or something?
Speaker B:Was that just fake content?
Speaker A:These guys.
Speaker A:I don't know if it's an actual podcast, but it's a podcast setting and they have social clips on their channel.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I think they're Nigerian or African, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And one guy, the one guy in particular who does the snap the fingers thing, right?
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:He asked questions like the one I ran across today, which is equally as challenging, but I'm gonna try to get it out.
Speaker A:He asked the guy across from him and he does this like, slow way of asking.
Speaker A:He goes, if you are blind and you are missing a finger, does that count as a speech impediment?
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:Can't laugh at that, bro.
Speaker A:I get it.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But his questions are all like, based in fact.
Speaker B:No, it's true.
Speaker A:You know, you're like, wait a minute.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:I get it.
Speaker B:I see where he's going.
Speaker B:He's got a point.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:He ain't wrong.
Speaker A:He's.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:A lot of like, questions that, that are, and I hate to say it because they're, they're offensive because they, they, they appeal to like your social norms, but they're very thought provoking.
Speaker B:No, I know, I know.
Speaker B:My, my whole take on this.
Speaker B:And I'm not.
Speaker B:My whole take on this is if you're going to make fun of and make jokes, if a comedian is going to make.
Speaker B:Not because not everybody should be licensed, I feel like the.
Speaker B:Just crack jokes on whatever they want.
Speaker B:But if you're, if you're a comedian and this is what you do for a living and you're deemed a professional, the more jokes you can make about everybody, the better because it makes it more inclusive versus treating somebody, treating certain.
Speaker A:Like, you know, the best people doing this are the ones like Schultz and Chappelle that can do it in the context of a story.
Speaker B:Doing in the context of a story.
Speaker B:And Schultz is really good at making it silly.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If you can make something silly, then.
Speaker A:It'S like, okay, Chappelle's a master storyteller.
Speaker A:Like, he will, he will literally say something that comes off so sincere that you believe he experienced that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And in some cases he did.
Speaker A:But he can take this story, lead you down a road, and then he'll throw a curveball at you at the very end that makes you go ship.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know.
Speaker B:And this is.
Speaker B:Yeah, we were having a conversation about this not too long ago where it's like, Chappelle is widely deemed as like one of the goats.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:In that space.
Speaker A:100%.
Speaker B:And unfortunately, if you tell that to like, the younger generation and they go jump in and listen, watch this new stuff, they can't appreciate it because we have the whole, the history with Chappelle.
Speaker A:You're gonna.
Speaker A:Walking away for $50 million.
Speaker B:You can't.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That you write the whole Chappelle Show.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:All, all that, all the standup.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:They don't understand In Living Color.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Jamie Foxx was in Living Color.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Jim Carrey in Living Color.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:The Wayne's Family, Marlon Wayans, Damon Wayans, like, they all literally came from that show and was created by Keenan Ivory Ways.
Speaker A:And they don't realize that so many of the top tier, upright, even comedians that are now past their prime, that are even really acting the same way anymore.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Were at their upper echelons because Damon Waynes found them.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:And put him in a show.
Speaker B:Had an eye for talent.
Speaker A:Like people, people forget that Damon Waynes was in like blockbuster movies with, you know.
Speaker B:Damien Waynes was that was he.
Speaker B:Major pain.
Speaker A:Major pain.
Speaker A:But he was also in.
Speaker A:What's.
Speaker A:What's the one guy.
Speaker A:He's got dementia now.
Speaker B:Bruce.
Speaker A:Bruce Willis.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Remember the movie with Bruce Willis?
Speaker A:I mean, he was so many amazing.
Speaker B:But I remember back then he was doing a lot of a list stuff.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And he.
Speaker A:He lifted off all those careers.
Speaker B:You tell, you tell.
Speaker B:You tell somebody that has no history of context of comedy and Chappelle's the Goat and they go, listen to his thought provoking style of comedy now.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's gonna go right over their head and be like, bro, this guy's weak.
Speaker B:Get out of here.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's kind of what the evolution of Chris Rock was.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Pre slap rip.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Even it's bad when you can get slapped on national television and it still can't revive your career.
Speaker B:What is it?
Speaker A:Damn.
Speaker B:He's not trying to revive his career, bro.
Speaker B:Hold on.
Speaker B:I did watch his last.
Speaker B:The last special was good.
Speaker B:It was great.
Speaker B:It was a great special.
Speaker A:It wasn't great enough to get, you know, top tier, like, you know, responses.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because that's.
Speaker A:He's amazing.
Speaker A:I'm not taking that away from him.
Speaker A:I'm just saying, like, the public sentiment around him is not just.
Speaker B:I know Delia.
Speaker B:I know Delia was getting canceled for some stuff that he did not too long ago, but he recently went on a whole rant about, like, comedy.
Speaker B:Now you got all these.
Speaker A:There it is.
Speaker A:The last boy Scout.
Speaker B:Last Boy Scout.
Speaker B:Good job.
Speaker A:Great movie.
Speaker A:You have definitely not seen that movie.
Speaker B:Wow, look at.
Speaker B:I was born that year.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Look at.
Speaker B:Son of a. I was born that year.
Speaker B:You were watching movies already.
Speaker B:It's like, I was born that year.
Speaker A:God damn it.
Speaker B:I love you, man.
Speaker B:Good job.
Speaker B:I love seeing him in pain.
Speaker B:Equal opportunity right here, man.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So many movies he hasn't seen.
Speaker B:He's a sucker for a good TV show, though.
Speaker A:You said that last episode.
Speaker A:I heard that during.
Speaker A:When I was editing it.
Speaker B:No, he watches a lot of TV shows.
Speaker B:What's your favorite TV show?
Speaker B:Rajille, ever.
Speaker B:Oh, man, don't make me look bad now.
Speaker B:He's gonna say Rugrats.
Speaker A:What did he say?
Speaker B:Hit my ride.
Speaker B:That was a good one.
Speaker B:Hit my Right.
Speaker B:God.
Speaker A:Jeez.
Speaker B:Man.
Speaker B:Did the same thing to me back then when I said, oh, he's a movie buff, then he totally flopped.
Speaker A:Remember?
Speaker A:I like Good Burger, bro.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know they're revitalizing that, right?
Speaker B:They should, bro.
Speaker B:Kel.
Speaker B:Kel.
Speaker B:What happened to Kel's career?
Speaker B:Keenan blossomed with SNL Longest lasting member.
Speaker B:Member ever on snl.
Speaker B:I think he's got the longest career.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And Kel just flopped.
Speaker B:He just got stuck with orange soda.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker B:That was his thing, right?
Speaker A:No, no, I know, I know.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker B:Who loves orange soda?
Speaker B:Kel loves orange soda.
Speaker A:Kidding.
Speaker A:Anyone's topics.
Speaker A:Okay, I'm not gonna bleep you for a second.
Speaker B:Show has nothing to do with that.
Speaker A:Stop.
Speaker A:Good Burger 2 initial release 220.
Speaker A:Oh, it came out.
Speaker B:It already came out.
Speaker B:He didn't watch it.
Speaker B:He didn't watch it.
Speaker B:My bad, my bad.
Speaker A:They were reviving.
Speaker A:They revived.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:My bad.
Speaker B:All right, man.
Speaker B:Hour and 30.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Good job tonight.
Speaker A:Not bad for having no idea.
Speaker A:We're gonna talk about when we got the mic tonight.
Speaker B:No, we had an idea.
Speaker A:That's a lot.
Speaker B:We did a good job.
Speaker A:We're gonna be intellectually honest with people here.
Speaker B:Oh, come on.
Speaker B:With the.
Speaker B:The whole conversation around generative AI and MIT report and Jackson Hole.
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:I think it's.
Speaker B:It's important for people to hear.
Speaker B:And I am.
Speaker B:I am one of the people that are in the camp of.
Speaker B:I'm worried about the stock market being propped up a little too high with.
Speaker B:Oh, with how much money.
Speaker B:How much money has gone in.
Speaker B:I'm 100.
Speaker B:Like, I feel like if, let's just say Meta alone were to stop pumping so much money into their data spending for AI that in and of itself would cause a recession.
Speaker A:Dude, they're building nuclear reactors for their AI now.
Speaker A:Yeah, they're literally.
Speaker A:Google and Meta are literally looking to.
Speaker A:Because it can.
Speaker A:The algorithm and the technology and hardware behind it takes so much power.
Speaker A:Enough power to effectively power small cities.
Speaker A:They are literally trying to build nuclear reactors to power their AI.
Speaker A:We have.
Speaker A:We have now hit the point of terminator.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:Think how.
Speaker B:How much money they're dumping into this.
Speaker B:How much of that actually contributes to the overall GDP figure.
Speaker A:A lot.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:A lot.
Speaker B:Just pausing.
Speaker B:What they're doing would cause a recession.
Speaker B:A technical event of recession, although the definition was changed by the White House.
Speaker A:But listen, if you're from the National Bureau of Economic Research, you're like, say it.
Speaker A:You read this speech.
Speaker A:I'm not even.
Speaker A:President Trump gonna fire you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Can you imagine?
Speaker A:We've had two negative quarters successively of GDP growth, and as a result, we are declaring a recession.
Speaker A:Ring, ring.
Speaker A:Donald's calling me.
Speaker B:Donald's calling.
Speaker B:He's saying he wouldn't call.
Speaker B:He's saying.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker B:Can you guys use that same trick?
Speaker B:You did with the gross domestic income and average the two out, and we can just wipe it clean.
Speaker A:We did that for the Biden administration.
Speaker A:And there was white baggies full of white powder.
Speaker B:We can't do that again.
Speaker B:Nobody knows who it was.
Speaker B:I don't know whose it was Showed up there.
Speaker A:It was just there.
Speaker B:Feel like we know there's a lot.
Speaker A:Of cameras in the White House.
Speaker B:What's going on?
Speaker A:You're telling me the most secure house in the country.
Speaker A:And everyone's like, oh, this is bag of white powder here.
Speaker A:We don't know how I got here, bro.
Speaker B:Imagine trying to get away with this.
Speaker B:And you know what?
Speaker B:I'm not gonna do this.
Speaker B:I'm not gonna get us canceled.
Speaker B:Spirit hands.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Let's leave it right, too.
Speaker B:Let's leave it here.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:Say, boys, you got anything else for Jill?
Speaker B:Let's see.
Speaker B:Let's have a fun question.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:What was a minute?
Speaker B:An hour and 30?
Speaker A:Fun question.
Speaker B:I like fun questions.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:What was the funnest job you've had?
Speaker B:The funnest job I've had.
Speaker A:Is getting paid a prerequisite?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because if.
Speaker B:If it's not, it's the higher standard.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's pretty easy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:This is.
Speaker B:This has been pretty.
Speaker B:This has been pretty fun.
Speaker B:While getting paid.
Speaker B:While getting paid in ship.
Speaker B:I did get paid with a W2 merch.
Speaker B:Funnest job I've had.
Speaker B:Mine's kind of boring, but it's true.
Speaker B:I like.
Speaker B:I enjoyed being a referee.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:One of the first jobs I had was selling cell phones at Circuit City.
Speaker B:And it's part of the reason they went under or what.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:Fun fact.
Speaker A:You used to make way more money selling the insurance for the cell phone than you did the cell phones.
Speaker A:When you go in there that you buy all this insurance, protect your phone.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:Some of these guys in Circuit City selling cell phones in the early 90s were making like seven to eight grand a month.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:Just selling cell phones.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because there's this new technology that was now being put out to all the consumers, and nobody had it.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:Well, everybody had in their cars.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like the wired physical ones with these new cell phones, they were crazy.
Speaker A:And then when the plans dropped, my mom got.
Speaker B:Had that Motorola one.
Speaker B:Yeah, that one that was really popular.
Speaker B:Popular?
Speaker B:It was like the original razor.
Speaker B:Remember the razors back in the day?
Speaker A:I had both those, by the way.
Speaker B:You had the Motorola one?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You're old, bro.
Speaker A:The clamshell one with a metal case.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I had the.
Speaker A:I had the original Nokia.
Speaker A:I had the upgraded Nokia, the one that came out after the Matrix that slid in the bottom.
Speaker B:The original Kia that had Snake on it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I had that one.
Speaker B:So it probably has its battery life full.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:It's a badass phone, man.
Speaker A:Now I got AI powered drones.
Speaker A:It's crazy.
Speaker B:And we kids were having that, and they were texting each other in class.
Speaker B:Answers to the test.
Speaker B:Teachers had no idea.
Speaker A:No idea.
Speaker B:They didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker A:What is this?
Speaker A:Instant mess messaging across mobile devices wirelessly.
Speaker A:Now you try to tell a kid that you had to, like, call somebody from a payphone.
Speaker A:They're like, why, bro?
Speaker B:I seen that.
Speaker A:I had to explain a pager to my brother the other day.
Speaker A:My brother's 30, by the way.
Speaker A:I had to send a pager to him.
Speaker A:He was like, I don't get it.
Speaker A:Why would you.
Speaker A:Why would you have a code, bro?
Speaker B:I was trying to.
Speaker B:I was trying to tell this to a younger cousin or nephew.
Speaker B:I was telling him.
Speaker B:I was like, you know what we used to have to do?
Speaker B:There used to be this thing on the street called a pay phone, believe it or not.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:After basketball practice, the way I had to tell my mom, I'm ready to be picked up, I would call her 1-800-collection and it would ask you to say your name.
Speaker B:And your name would.
Speaker B:They would tell them, would you like to accept a call from so and so?
Speaker B:And then my mom would have to get.
Speaker B:Would get charged based on the call, right?
Speaker B:But I would say 1-800-collect my caller number.
Speaker B:And for my name, I'd say, mom, I'm ready to pick me up.
Speaker B:Smart.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:And you just gotta hope she answered the phone.
Speaker B:That's it, right?
Speaker B:She answers the phone.
Speaker B:Boom.
Speaker B:Next thing you know, she'd be there.
Speaker A:Damn.
Speaker A:Times has changed, right?
Speaker B:Kids don't know how good they have it.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:I'm not doing it.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Ready?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Good night, everybody.
Speaker B:Okay, bye.
