How AI Is Transforming Cybersecurity & Business | Ephraim Ebstein DSH #1244

Summary

Digital Social Hour: Episode 1244 – How AI Is Transforming Cybersecurity & Business with Ephraim Epstein

Release Date: March 18, 2025

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Welcome to Digital Social Hour, the podcast where host Sean Kelly engages in unfiltered conversations with some of the world's most controversial and thought-provoking figures. In Episode #1244, Sean delves into the transformative world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in cybersecurity and business with guest Ephraim Epstein, a renowned cybersecurity expert and successful entrepreneur from San Diego.

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Introduction to Ephraim Epstein

Ephraim Epstein, the founder of a flourishing cybersecurity firm, shares his journey of building a $30 million revenue business with 116 employees. His expertise spans IT, cybersecurity, and AI, driven by a mission to impact lives positively through technology.

Quote:

"I love being an entrepreneur and I love the business side of it. You know, IT and cyber and AI is kind of what we do, but it's more about the mission to impact lives through technology and help people positively and have a great time."
[01:08] Ephraim Epstein

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Pivoting to AI: Early Adoption and Strategic Implementation

Ephraim discusses his company's strategic pivot to AI about a year prior to the interview. While not among the earliest adopters, he emphasizes that the AI revolution is still in its nascent stages, rapidly evolving and poised to reshape various business landscapes.

Key Points:

• AI Integration in Business: Most businesses haven't fully integrated AI to replace or augment human roles, often limiting its use to creative applications like writing or image generation.
• AI's Potential Impact: Ephraim highlights the dual nature of AI advancements—both promising and concerning—particularly regarding job displacement.

Quote:

"The AI pivot was probably like a year ago. Okay, so I wouldn't say super early, but I think right now is still super early because it's moving fast."
[01:13] Ephraim Epstein

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AI Replacing Jobs: Opportunities and Challenges

A significant portion of their discussion centers on how AI is beginning to replace human jobs, even in sectors like fast food customer service. Ephraim expresses concern over the rapid adoption of AI, which threatens traditional employment structures.

Key Points:

• AI in Customer Service: Examples include drive-thru ordering systems replacing human workers.
• Business Pressure: Many business owners feel compelled to integrate AI to remain competitive, fearing obsolescence if they do not.

Quote:

"What do we do? And so as I was, you know, diving into AI, I wanted not just a feature set, but I wanted something that is like where is it actively adding revenue to the company or replacing a task that a human does... "
[02:37] Ephraim Epstein

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AI in Communication: Texting vs. Voice Interfaces

Ephraim differentiates between AI communication methods, highlighting texting as a more immediate and effective interface compared to voice. He anticipates that voice-based AI will reach optimal functionality within a year.

Key Points:

• Text-Based AI: Easier integration into business operations with higher accuracy in mimicking human interactions.
• Voice-Based AI: Currently not as reliable but expected to improve significantly soon.

Quote:

"But right now, texting, you can communicate via text with an AI and the majority, you know, the majority of people will not know they're talking to an AI."
[02:48] Ephraim Epstein

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Cybersecurity in the AI Era: Rising Threats and Real-World Impacts

Ephraim shares compelling anecdotes about the increasing sophistication of cyber attacks, particularly targeting sectors like healthcare. He details how criminal organizations, often backed by offshore teams, exploit vulnerabilities with alarming frequency.

Key Points:

• Increased Cyber Attacks: Businesses of all sizes are under siege, with less than 2% of cases seeing any resolution due to jurisdictional challenges.
• Impact on Industries: High-profile breaches in companies like MGM and Caesars highlight the severe financial and operational repercussions of cyber attacks.
• Legal and Enforcement Issues: The difficulty in prosecuting international cybercriminals exacerbates the problem, leaving businesses vulnerable.

Quote:

"The majority of it is only smaller businesses because they're easy, low hanging fruit."
[17:29] Ephraim Epstein

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Personal Experiences: Sharks, Freediving, and Business Resilience

While the conversation initially veers into personal anecdotes about Ephraim's experiences with bull sharks and spearfishing, these stories metaphorically underscore the themes of vigilance and adaptability crucial in both cybersecurity and business.

Key Points:

• Bull Shark Encounter: Ephraim recounts a harrowing encounter with a bull shark, illustrating the need for preparedness and quick decision-making.
• Business Resilience: Drawing parallels, he emphasizes the importance of evolving business strategies to withstand unforeseen challenges.

Quote:

"But right now, texting, you can communicate via text with an AI and the majority, you know, the majority of people will not know they're talking to an AI."
[02:48] Ephraim Epstein

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Building a Diverse Client Base: Lessons from Business Transformation

Ephraim narrates a pivotal moment when a major client decided to take operations in-house after going public. Rather than facing extensive layoffs, Ephraim orchestrated a strategic buyout, preserving most jobs and transitioning valuable assets, which strengthened his company's resilience.

Key Points:

• Client Dependency Risks: Reliance on a single large client can jeopardize business stability.
• Strategic Adaptation: By facilitating the client's transition, Ephraim minimized layoffs and redirected resources to diversify the client base.
• Outcome: Despite losing $9 million in recurring revenue, the company rebounded by surpassing previous revenue figures, showcasing adaptability.

Quote:

"So I went to them, I said, hey, how about this? What if we buy out of the contract now... It was a huge success story. So it reset us... we outperformed it. So, yeah, incredible stuff."
[10:45] Ephraim Epstein

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The State of Cybersecurity: Challenges in Enforcement and International Jurisdiction

Ephraim delves deeper into the complexities of combating cybercrime, particularly the challenges posed by international legal frameworks and the anonymity afforded by technologies like VPNs.

Key Points:

• Jurisdictional Limitations: Criminals operating overseas exploit gaps in international law, making prosecution difficult.
• Technological Evasion: Tools like VPNs hinder the ability to trace and apprehend hackers.
• Economic Impact: Successful cyber attacks result in significant financial losses for businesses, often outweighing the costs of implementing robust cybersecurity measures.

Quote:

"From a legal standpoint. From consequence. Yeah. Because a lot of these guys are probably international, so they just say, sorry, we don't have jurisdiction there."
[14:16] Ephraim Epstein

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Financial Literacy and Business Success: Personal Insights

Transitioning from cybersecurity, Ephraim shares his journey in financial literacy, which evolved alongside his business endeavors. He underscores the importance of education, mentorship, and self-investment in achieving financial stability and personal freedom.

Key Points:

• Early Financial Education: Growing up in a middle-class environment with parents who valued merit-based achievements.
• Business Failures and Lessons: Experiences with failed ventures, such as a CrossFit gym, provided invaluable lessons that contributed to subsequent successes.
• Continuous Learning: Emphasizes the significance of self-education through books and networking to enhance business acumen.

Quote:

"Everything that happens to me is my fault. And everything that happens, good or bad, is either because of me."
[45:56] Sean

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Advice on Embracing Failure and Building Resilience

Ephraim advocates for a positive mindset towards failure, viewing setbacks as learning opportunities rather than defeats. He references historical figures like Thomas Edison to illustrate the value of perseverance.

Key Points:

• Learning from Mistakes: Analyzing failures to extract actionable insights.
• Perseverance: Maintaining effort despite setbacks is crucial for long-term success.
• Mindset Shift: Adopting accountability fosters personal and professional growth.

Quote:

"So when I go again, instead of like letting the failure define them or stop them or make them have fear from going forward again, they take that and they say, what? What can I learn?"
[42:21] Ephraim Epstein

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The Role of Education and Mentorship in Business Success

Ephraim emphasizes investing in oneself through education, highlighting books and podcasts as cost-effective resources for gaining knowledge and avoiding common pitfalls in business.

Key Points:

• Education as Investment: Continuous learning through books, podcasts, and mentorship is vital.
• Practical Application: Identifying and applying "gold nuggets" from educational materials to real-world business scenarios.
• Resource Accessibility: Modern platforms like free library apps and Audible make educational resources widely accessible.

Quote:

"A lot of the skills I have now, I came up with learning a technical skill set because I was an IT guy. And then when I started a business, I had to learn things like sales, financial literacy, and leadership, and those were not natural to me. I had to learn those through books and other people."
[49:45] Ephraim Epstein

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Impact of Social Media on Relationships and Mental Health

The conversation shifts to societal changes influenced by social media, particularly its effects on relationships, socialization, and mental health. Both hosts express concerns over the diminishing quality of interpersonal interactions and the rise of superficial connections.

Key Points:

• Decline in Face-to-Face Interactions: Increased reliance on digital communication has reduced the prevalence of meaningful social gatherings.
• Mental Health Correlations: Social media usage is linked to various mental health issues, exacerbating feelings of isolation and dissatisfaction.
• Shift in Relationship Dynamics: High standards influenced by social media create unrealistic expectations, leading to higher rates of single-parent households and dissatisfaction in relationships.

Quote:

"There's a lot of negative consequences. And I think it's had a really bad effect on men and women."
[56:54] Ephraim Epstein

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Economic Pressures and the Vanishing Middle Class

Ephraim and Sean discuss the pressures of modern economics, including inflation and rising living costs, which contribute to the erosion of the middle class. They highlight the necessity for individuals to strive for financial success amidst these challenges.

Key Points:

• Inflation and Cost of Living: Significant barriers prevent younger generations from achieving financial independence.
• Shift in Economic Mobility: The middle class is shrinking, pushing individuals towards either wealth or financial instability.
• Responsibility and Drive: Emphasizing personal accountability and the drive to succeed as essential for navigating economic hardships.

Quote:

"I think it's, you have to have a drive to be successful because the middle class is going away and you're either going to be broke or you're going to be rich."
[63:54] Ephraim Epstein

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Final Thoughts: Embracing Change and Continuous Learning

In wrapping up, Ephraim encourages embracing change, continuous learning, and strategic adaptation as keys to thriving in both business and personal life. He reiterates the importance of investing in oneself and staying resilient in the face of adversity.

Key Points:

• Adaptability: Businesses and individuals must remain flexible to navigate the rapidly changing technological landscape.
• Self-Investment: Prioritizing education and personal growth fosters long-term success.
• Resilience: Maintaining a positive and accountable mindset ensures sustained progress despite challenges.

Quote:

"They [billionaires] lose it all and then they're billionaire again. I think Trump did. And you think, how is that even possible? But it's a skill set and they learned from it and they reapply it."
[43:27] Sean

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Connecting with Ephraim Epstein

Ephraim Epstein is actively engaged on social media platforms and is open to assisting individuals and businesses with IT, cybersecurity, and AI-related challenges. You can connect with him via LinkedIn and Instagram under the handle KingSpears.

Contact Information:

• LinkedIn: Ephraim Epstein
• Instagram: @KingSpears

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Conclusion

In this insightful episode of Digital Social Hour, Ephraim Epstein sheds light on the profound impact of AI on cybersecurity and business landscapes. From the nuances of AI integration to the escalating challenges in cybersecurity enforcement, his expertise offers valuable perspectives for entrepreneurs and professionals navigating the digital age. Additionally, his personal anecdotes and emphasis on resilience and continuous learning provide a holistic view of thriving amidst technological and economic shifts.

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For more insightful conversations and expert guests, stay tuned to Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly.

Transcript

[Ephraim Epstein]

Put my gun out. I was like, if he gets too close or he opens his mouth, I'm gonna have to shoot this thing. He like comes at me, turns right at like right the last second, shoots up to the surface and goes in. My buddy who was like chopping the fish up on the surface, he goes and like gobbles it and swims off.

[Sean]

No way.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. And I go up to the surface. Yeah. He was like, that was a bull shark. We need to get out of.

[Sean]

All right, guys, Ephraim Epstein here today from San Diego. Cyber security expert. Thanks for coming on, man.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, man. Thank you, Sean. A pleasure. I'm excited to be on your podcast. Yeah, I'm a big fan.

[Sean]

So for those that don't know you built a 30 million dollar business in revenue with 116 employees.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yes, sir. Yeah. So in IT, cyber security and now we're doing a lot in AI, so it's been a fun ride. I, I love being an entrepreneur and I love the business side of it. You know, I t and cyber and AI is kind of what we do, but it's more about the mission to impact lives through technology and help people positively and have a great time.

[Sean]

I love it, man. When was the pivot to AI? Were you on it pretty early?

[Ephraim Epstein]

The AI pivot was probably like a year ago. Okay, so. So I wouldn't say super early, but I think right now is still super early because it's moving fast. But the majority of businesses still don't have AI in the company, like actively replacing headcount or something like that. Right. They might be using applications to give them ideas on writing papers or creating images or video. But the way AI is going, it's. It's kind of sad and it's kind of scary in some sense, but it is going to replace a lot of jobs. You're already seeing it on certain drive thrus when you call and make your order, you're talking to AI and not really not a human yet.

[Sean]

Oh, I haven't seen that yet. Fast food spots.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, some fast food spots are adopting that. So that's a job, right? That's someone's job. But it's, you know, a lot of business owners are saying, hey, how do we bring AI into this business? We don't want to get left behind. What do we do? And so as I was, you know, diving into AI, I wanted not just a feature set, but I wanted something that is like where is it actively adding revenue to the company or replacing a task that a human does and where we've landed on is texting. So because the voice is getting there, it's not quite 100% there. I think it'll be there in about a year.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But right now, texting, you can communicate via text with an AI and the majority, you know, the majority of people will not know they're talking to an AI.

[Sean]

Dude, have you seen Apple's new AI update?

[Ephraim Epstein]

I haven't played with it yet.

[Sean]

What? Yeah, I need to update your phone tonight. It's in my text now.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I just got the update. I just haven't. I just haven't played with it yet.

[Sean]

Yeah. So basically when I open my messages now, you know how normally the text pops up.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yep.

[Sean]

Now, AI summarizes what they said and sends you a summary of each text. Yeah, it's nuts. It's so like someone could send a paragraph text and I will summarize it for you in like a sentence.

[Ephraim Epstein]

There you go. Yeah, so it's already, it's. The rate it's going is, is pretty insane. And I've already heard some of the AI voice stuff and I wouldn't say it's like 10 out of 10. You know, it's not a human, but it's, it kind of made me sad when I heard it because I realized the reason it made me sad is, um, it was with one of our partners. He's creating a voice and he was already like, it was doing solar sales in this case and I was listening to that and I was like, man, all those customer service. And I could have a full conversation. Right. About solar. All those customer service jobs. When you're, I don't know, call AT&T. Verizon. Big companies, small companies might not adopt it because they want to have high customer service, but the ones that don't care, I'm like, all those jobs are going to be toast in a few years.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. It's going to be tough for people.

[Sean]

I think in the long run it may be good because now it forces people to have higher skill levels.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. If you have a high skill level, there's going to be a lot of opportunity for you. It's the low skill people. So, you know, I guess if you're a young person, get good, get a skill.

[Sean]

Yeah. And learn a skill that can't be, I guess, duplicated easily by AI. But even podcasts, man. Holy crap. There's some really convincing AI podcasts.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I. He saw some of them pretty Google.

[Sean]

I think, has a podcast AI.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Yeah. It's Nuts. So even I'm thinking of ways to differentiate this podcast from just talking to people.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, I don't think it'll ever. I don't know, there's some things I think AI will never be as good as a human and maybe until it developed. Yeah, who knows?

[Sean]

Yeah, until it develops consciousness, it won't be able to replicate emotions, I think as well as humans.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Right.

[Sean]

So we got some years before that hopefully.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, hopefully.

[Sean]

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[Ephraim Epstein]

Exactly. Yeah, so, so that's, that's kind of what we've been doing on the AI. It's been pretty fun. It's been, it's been growing really rapidly and it's been, it's been fun. It's it, you know, we always, as a company, we have to evolve. And I realize that companies that don't evolve, you know, they're, they're usually left in the dust.

[Sean]

Yeah, I think that's a smart movement because if you're not using AI in any way, I don't know if that's going to be sustainable in the long run.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Probably not, unless it's just a blue collar job. But even then, you know, the companies that you know, maybe you go on the website, you ask a question, you're conversating immediately with AI versus a company that didn't have that going to have an advantage. You're going to take a bigger market share.

[Sean]

I mean, I've left banks because the wait time is like three hours.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Exactly.

[Sean]

You know what I mean? Like I'd rather talk to at least AI. So I could get some answers.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. If you can get the job done for you, you're going to be happy.

[Sean]

Yeah, absolutely. So you built this thing to over 100 employees. During that process, you were not a fan of dei?

[Ephraim Epstein]

You know, I. The way I grew up is we grew up. My parents always taught me to. To value people for who they are on the inside and merit. And so I've always. That's been really important to me. And. But I'm not on the DEI train at all. And I feel that the whole di. Well, now it's becoming unpopular.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But it was very popular. And there was a lot of pressure on companies to implement different DI things, even on the private sector. Remember when the whole Black Lives Matter thing happened? You know, everyone's posting the black square if you don't post it. Like, what are you saying about yourself? Right. And when I build my company, I believe in merit and, you know, results is, Is. Is the. The world rewards you on results. And so hiring the best person for the job, regardless of their skin color, I think that is a much better system than trying to hire someone just based on their skin color and trying to, you know, fit a certain quota in. And so I have a very diverse staff. In fact, my CEO and she's also now my business partner on a venture together. She's. I've been friends with her since we were 15.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. Her name's Natasha. Great friend of mine. Dear friend of mine. And she's black. She's a woman. And her being in the role has really nothing to do with her skin color or anything like that.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It's just that she's just amazing at what she does and she gets results.

[Sean]

That's how it should be.

[Ephraim Epstein]

That's how. That's how we roll.

[Sean]

That's why I like business. That's why I'm a fan of capitalism to a certain degree.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

I like conscious capitalism when the consumers are also benefiting.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. I mean, definitely, like capitalism has probably a dark side, which we've seen, but, you know, it is good to let the market decide and. And, you know, have. Have that freedom because, I mean, I feel like socialism is more broken than capitalism. They're both probably.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Got negatives to them.

[Sean]

Time will tell, right? Yeah, we'll see what happens. So when you. Because last year you did 30 million in revenue, right?

[Ephraim Epstein]

We did 30 million. Yeah. And we had a really interesting event. So the. In 23, we. Our company had never known anything but growth from the time we started in 2000. The end of 2012 was when I started it. And then in 23, we did 28 million. And I had a situation where I have a very large customer.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And they. They were going public. They had, they. They were. Nursing home operator made up over at that time, over 70% of our revenue. So a really bad place to be. But I love this customer because a lot of our growth, we. I have to give credit. Where credit is due is because of their expansion. And we got to go on that ride with them. But they said, hey, we're going public. And at this point, they're over 300 nursing homes.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Every single one we onboarded, we helped support. We went through every life cycle with them where we've helped them, where we were, everything, all their it, all their cyber security, to. To helping them hire their first IT director, to helping them build their team. And then in the summer of 23, they said, hey, you know, you're a great partner. We love you, but we're going public and we're going to take a lot of this in house over the next year and a half, which is when the contract was expiring. So I was stressed out. I was worried for the employees.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And because I was like, man, what's going to be painful? What if I have to lay off a lot of employees? I was scared. So what I did instead is I went to them, I said, hey, how about this? What if we. You buy out of the contract now, you hire basically these employees, purchase from us, in essence, a division of the company. We'll give you the ip, all the information, we'll give you turnkey, what you need from the IT side, make sure it's super successful. You take these employees with you. And it was great. It was great for them because they saved money on the contract. It was great for us because we made more on that sale than we would have in net profit from keeping the contract for a year and a half. And I saved everybody but three jobs. We had three layoffs. I helped two of them actually find another job after that. So it was really a net loss of one job, which probably had to go anyway, but it was a huge success story. So it reset us, unfortunately. So that was all positive. The only thing is now it reset us. We lost $9 million in recurring revenue. So my intention and my goal was in 23, I was like. Or at the. In 24, I was like, I want to do the same amount of revenue in 24 that we did in 23. So we had to basically make back $9 million in revenue plus and we outperformed it. So, yeah, incredible stuff.

[Sean]

Sometimes those setbacks are blessings in disguise. Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It was because we're a way better, stronger organization now. Right. More diverse in the client base. We had to get stronger in our processes and refined in what we were doing. Because when you have one really large customer, it's easy to get absorbed in taking care of them. And, you know, even though you're building processes, you know, they don't really get put to the same test. They don't get stretched as hard as when you have a diverse client base.

[Sean]

Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Which is the way it should be. So it was a blessing.

[Sean]

So our nursing homes, targets for these cyber attacks, I'd imagine, because it's an elderly crowd, people are trying to.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Oh, for sure. Yeah. For, you know, we were doing it as well as cyber for them. So, you know, it support is. They feel it immediately. If you can't print or can't, like, run a chart or run a med cart and do, you know, medical passes or something is a big deal. But cyber attacks are a big thing, and I think every business is just getting hammered by it because the reason it's such a big thing now is that these criminal groups, a lot of them run like companies, so there's a boss. A lot of them are overseas, and they have employees, and they staff employees, even give them, like, health coverage. They have an office they come into and they hire smart people, and they just work as a team to exploit legitimate companies and get money out of them. And it works. And there's very little consequences for them. You call the FBI if you don't have a case over a million dollars, they won't even. They just say, tough luck, call your insurance. Yeah. So it has to be. For them to even open a case has to be over a million dollars loss. And then when they start the investigation, as soon as they start doing some forensics, they see this is going overseas. Even if the group is in the United States, they'll connect overseas and then connect back.

[Sean]

Oh, vpn.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, vpn and all kinds of things. And then they're like, oh, we don't have jurisdiction there. Sorry, case closed. So that's why less than 2% there's any kind of resolution.

[Sean]

That's crazy.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. From a legal standpoint. From consequence.

[Sean]

Yeah. Because a lot of these guys are probably international, so.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sean]

Maybe the country they're in doesn't even care because I know there's a lot of hackers.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. They don't.

[Sean]

In North Korea Yeah, a lot of crypto hackers over there.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, exactly. They don't. They don't care. And they'll. We had a business owner, they cleaned out over $2 million out of his crypto. Holy crap.

[Sean]

They got his keys or how did they get it?

[Ephraim Epstein]

I don't know exactly how they did it. He was talking to us to see if. If we could help with them. He never actually ended up hiring us, but he lost it. I don't think he ever got it back.

[Sean]

That's terrible. Yeah. Crypto, once you lose it, you're not really.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, like really. What can they do?

[Sean]

I got SIM hacked once. That sucked. Have you seen that hack before? Yeah, that's like the worst. Because if they get your SIM card, they got all your texts and everything.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Everything.

[Sean]

Yeah. Your email.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. They can do multi factor authentication. Get in as you.

[Sean]

And there's a lot of carriers that really, I guess tighten their security when that started happening. Because they were getting sued.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

For allowing that.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, I know the MGM here, you're in Vegas. The MGM one was a really big.

[Sean]

That was a big one. $10 million or something.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Oh, it was more.

[Sean]

And they paid it, right?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, they paid it because that, the, the money that they were losing of not being operational was, Was more then, you know, I don't know how many millions they were losing per day.

[Sean]

Probably a lot. Cause you got the rooms plus the gambling people couldn't gamble.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, It's a big deal.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So the way they did that. So a lot of the hacks actually start with social engineering and that's exactly what it was. They hired a new IT person on the team and obviously MGM has a huge IT team, so he was like administrator. He updated his LinkedIn, so I'm assuming they just saw his LinkedIn, saw that he got a job at MGM. So they called the help desk pretending to be him, said, hey, this is John the new. Can you help reset my password? I can't get in. So the IT help desk group reset his password. They logged in as him. They now had access because he was IT administrator in the environment, had access to the server infrastructure immediately. It was. The group started doing multiple people working on it, started going through the environment, started staging ransomware, pushed it out, locked.

[Sean]

It all up nuts. And nothing ever happened to those hackers I believe I saw, got rich. They got rich. But nothing. Nothing trouble wise.

[Ephraim Epstein]

No, absolutely not. Now they got to probably have more money to hire more staff.

[Sean]

And they went after Caesars the next week, I believe. Yeah, Caesar's Palace.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And they own a bunch of casinos in Vegas. I don't know how that one went, but crazy.

[Ephraim Epstein]

They work. Yeah, it works. It works good. And, and it's not just a lot of companies think that or business owners just think, oh, it's the big companies that. Mgm, stuff like that. No, no, the majority of it, mgm, everyone knows it and it's big. So it made the news by far. The majority of it is only smaller businesses.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Because they're easy, low hanging fruit.

[Sean]

Absolutely.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Has your view of money changed over the years as you've made more and more?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, growing up, I grew up middle class. We weren't, we weren't poor, but we weren't rich at all. You know, a camping trip was vacation, right? Yeah. We weren't like flying on a yacht or anything like that. So, you know, we grew up with middle class financial literacy. And it wasn't until much later I learned financial literacy through, through mentors. And unless you're born into like rich parents that teach you this or unless you go out and find mentors, which most people don't do, you're really not going to learn it because you're not going to learn in school. So, you know, just how I invest, how I think about saving, everything about it has, has changed from a financial literacy thing. But also, you know, for me, experiences being able to do things, freedom is, is much more important to me than money itself. Money is just like the unit, the freedom unit to get it done.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

I bet you feel freedom when you're spearfishing.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I love that. Yeah. I was wondering if you could bring that up. Yeah, I love spearfishing. I love being on the ocean. We did this really cool trip this last summer. Lived on a catamaran for five days, sailing different islands in Fiji and got to do a lot of spear fishing. Was great.

[Sean]

I've never done it. It seems pretty fun.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It is fun. It's basically snorkeling, holding your breath, diving down. It's like hunting underwater, trying to get fish that way.

[Sean]

What's the biggest fish you've caught?

[Ephraim Epstein]

I got a fish that was close. I didn't get an official weight. It was close to £300.

[Sean]

What?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Holy crap.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, I'll show you a picture, dude.

[Sean]

So you need a down in Mexico. Shoot it in the head, right? That's how it that.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Ideally, yeah, ideally you shoot them in the head or get in the spine. Holy crap.

[Sean]

£300.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, it was close to 300 and it was funny. Two weeks later. So that fish I shot and we, you know, prepared it. I eat all the fish, so I had a lot of meat. And that fish was kind of tough because it was so big, so old, and people. It didn't taste bad, but it was, like, kind of chewy.

[Sean]

Yeah, you see that with lobsters, too.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So I kind of felt bad afterwards because we weren't gobbling it up like we did the other. The other meat. And about three weeks later, I was out again in the same area and I saw one. I swear this thing must have been 5, 600 pounds a fish. Yeah, it was. It looked like a Volkswagen. It was so big. And I could have shot him. He swam by me a couple times, but I didn't shoot him because I had already just shot a big one. We weren't eating the meat, and I wasn't there about killing it. And now, yeah, I let him go. But it was pretty cool. It was a really cool experience. It was a big fish.

[Sean]

I didn't know fish got that big.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, they get big. There's. There's some that are over a thousand pounds in those. Oh, yeah, tunas and stuff.

[Sean]

You see any sharks when you're out there?

[Ephraim Epstein]

You know, I do. I don't see them a lot. In fact, I had my first scary shark experience just this last summer for that. I had seen sharks, but never anything that was like that. I had any kind of adrenaline rush where I was scared.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Right. And in Fiji, we're trying to get dog tooth tuna. So we had shot this smaller fish and we were chopping it up and, like, letting it float out. And the idea was to try and get these because the dog tooth will come and eat it. So I was waiting for it. I was diving down. I was about. I think I was around 60ft at that dive, and I saw shark. There were sharks all over this down there in the South Pacific, but they're mostly reef sharks. And this was like, huh, that one's a little bit bigger. And most of the time when the sharks are around, I'll just, like, swim aggressively towards them and they'll just take off.

[Sean]

Really?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So if you act aggressive, they're like, oh, I don't want nothing to do with this guy.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So I was like, huh, that's a little bit bigger one. Maybe I should swim towards him and, like, intimidate him a little bit. And I start swimming towards him and he, like, when I start doing that, he was kind of going off to the side. He mute, like whips a U turn starts swimming at me.

[Sean]

No way.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, as fast as he can. And I, I remember it was like slow motion because he had all these little like yellow fish like swimming next to him. And I was like, man, I might, I put my gun out. I was like, if he gets too close or he opens his mouth, I'm gonna have to shoot this thing. He like comes at me, turns right at like right the last second, shoots up to the surface and goes. And my buddy who was like chopping the fish up on the surface, he goes and like gobbles it and swims off.

[Sean]

No way.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. And I go up to the surface and he was like, yeah. He was like, that was a bull shark. We need to get out of the water. And I had seen bull sharks in videos, but I don't, I hadn't dove the south. I dove a lot of Mexico, a lot of the Pacific. I've. I dove Indonesia and stuff, but I hadn't done like a lot of. I hadn't had a bull shark encounter yet.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So that was my first one and it wasn't till like after I was on the boat, I was like, oh man, that was kind of sketchy because.

[Sean]

You were just so in the.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. I didn't like feel scared in the moment. Moment.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But afterwards I'm like, man, that would have been. Yeah, that would have been pretty bad.

[Sean]

Dude, that's nuts. How big was it?

[Ephraim Epstein]

I wanna. He was fat. He was very fat. And he was, I want to say maybe 8ft with tail.

[Sean]

Damn.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Like that? Yeah. Maybe a little longer with the tail.

[Sean]

I wonder if your, your spear gun would have killed that.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Oh yeah, he would, he would. I would have.

[Sean]

Like, because sharks have thicker skin too, right?

[Ephraim Epstein]

It, yeah, the spear gun, it would have, it would have went through. Oh, he would have been jacked. He would have died.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Which is. I didn't want to do that either, but I probably would have lost a lot of that gear.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Bent up the shaft and all that kind of.

[Sean]

Damn.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

That is scary, man. Yeah. Bull sharks are one of the most aggressive.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. But that's if I have a shot, which I did in this case. Like, cuz he was coming straight at me. I mean, if he had come behind me or something, then I might be out of luck.

[Sean]

And he was solo.

[Ephraim Epstein]

He was solo. Yeah. So. So he said, okay, let's, let's stop chumming for now.

[Sean]

You see any dolphins or anything?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Cool. Yeah, I see a lot of dolphins. I've got a lot of sea turtles, manta rays.

[Sean]

That's beautiful.

[Ephraim Epstein]

You know, it's like a different world. It's. I love the ocean. I love being underwater.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And 60ft, you never know what you're going to see.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So it's exciting.

[Sean]

So you're holding your breath the whole time?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, just holding your breath.

[Sean]

That's insane.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Freediving. I'm really not even that good. I think my deepest dives are, you know, about 75ft. And I get kind of. I know I could go deeper, but I like to be conservative. I don't want to die. Yeah, a lot of free divers die.

[Sean]

I mean. Yeah, that's pretty deep.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Just getting down there probably takes like 20 seconds.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, I know a lot of guys. Oh, yeah, for sure. So if you're, if you're going at the, the right pace, should take you about 20 seconds to get around 60ft. If you're going kind of at a moderate pace, like meter a second, something like that.

[Sean]

You're also using energy to get down and up. So you gotta calculate that, right?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So it's all about just being relaxed and not feeling tense. So you just want to reduce your oxygen, use these really big fins, do slow kicks.

[Sean]

How long are you holding your breath usually?

[Ephraim Epstein]

A minute to a minute and a half.

[Sean]

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's not as long as I thought.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I'm picturing long once again. Yeah, there's guys I know guys that do two, three minutes. I just don't want to die.

[Sean]

That's where it gets risky, right?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, it gets risky. So you guys have shallow water blackouts.

[Sean]

Damn.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, it's a very common, common way for, for free divers to die.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So I, I think. And honestly, I don't think you get any more fish. Like most. The fish I've ever shot are within the first 20 to 30 seconds.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. It's usually on the drop. They'll usually come check you out. Sometimes it's a little bit later.

[Sean]

But, you know, I heard dolphins are really smart.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Really smart. Yeah. They're really cool animals.

[Sean]

Yeah. I'm fascinated by them. They can communicate with each other.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. In fact, there's, they're doing studies on orcas, Right. And the pods. And usually when they're born into a pod, that's like their tribe, their people, they don't leave and usually go to another pod. And they also, the language between the pod is almost like a human language. So the other pods don't really quite understand what they're saying.

[Sean]

Whoa.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But together they've realized that they can communicate together. And some pods Hunt different things. So it's really interesting. There's like some pods in California that they've now observed. They'll kill, kill and eat great white sharks. Other orca pods do not do that. There's a pod in New Zealand that knows how. They'll blow like stingrays and flip them over and they'll eat the stingrays without getting stung. What other pods don't do that. So they've somehow learned these things and they communicate it and they've learned it from each other, and it's kind of their thing. There's a pod down, and I think it's in Argentina. I might be wrong, but they're the ones that beach themselves and grab the seals off the beach. I don't know if you've seen it. It's pretty. Seals, like, hightailing it for its life, thinking it's on this, you know, almost on the sand. This thing will, like, slide out of the water, that. It's like, out of the water, grab it and then kind of like. Like start flipping around to get itself back. Only that. Only that pod does it. Or maybe one or two pods do that, but not the ones in California don't do that. And the ones down there don't eat sharks. It's kind of interesting.

[Sean]

Chiller whales, man.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, but dolphins are right in that family. Super smart. They figure stuff out.

[Sean]

What about octopus? You see any of those?

[Ephraim Epstein]

I have seen some octopus. They're really cool.

[Sean]

They're smart, too.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, they're smart. I. There's a cool documentary called My Octopus Teacher.

[Sean]

I heard about it. I didn't see it yet, though.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. I never felt so sad for an octopus because it goes its whole life and at the end, you know, of course, they only live, like, two years.

[Sean]

Oh, that's it.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So it's a short. So he goes with it till it dies at the end. And so I didn't know that. You're like. You're like, oh, my God, it's just. Poor little octopus. But then, of course, I go to the restaurant and I eat octopus. Terrible.

[Sean]

It tastes so good.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So tasty. I love it.

[Sean]

My fiance refuses to eat cephalopods, like squid and octopus, and I love it, but she thinks they're too smart.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So I can feel that with the octopus. But the squid. Yeah, you can eat those.

[Sean]

They're not as smart.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I don't know.

[Sean]

They're.

[Ephraim Epstein]

You. You know what the thing about the ocean is? Everything in the ocean dies a gruesome death from. So take the humans out of it. There's nothing that like grows old and just dies peacefully. Every turtle, right, even they get eaten by sharks.

[Sean]

True.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So you see turtles with their fins ripped off or, or sea lions will kill them. So everybody's killing everybody in the ocean and they all die. And if you're lucky in the ocean, you grow big, but then eventually you grow weak and then you get eaten too.

[Sean]

That's a terrifying life.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It's a terrifying life.

[Sean]

So yeah, imagine being a wild animal.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. Yeah, it's wild.

[Sean]

Yeah. Being human is pleasant.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It is. Yeah, it is, it is. So I love animals. I'm not all about killing animals. In fact, most of the time when I go out there, I'm very selective. I'm only taking fish that I need. So if I don't need a fish and I don't see one I really want, I just have a great time underwater. That's it.

[Sean]

That's respect, man.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

What else you do for fun, man?

[Ephraim Epstein]

I love traveling, I love skiing, I love backpacking, hiking, hunting, anything that's really outdoorsy.

[Sean]

Where have you hunted?

[Ephraim Epstein]

And so we do a lot of bird hunting with my brother. He's got a kennel. He, he, he trains and breeds bird dogs, French Britneys. And they're really cool because if you ever hunted with a dog, they'll, you know, it's, it's like a collaboration.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

You know, man and beast to, to get something and it's, it's a very cool experience and it's really addicting. And so, you know, the dog will find birds, point the bird if necessary, even help you flush the bird. And then if you can shoot the bird, then they'll retrieve it for you out of water. You know, if it's lost, they'll sniff it out, find it, bring it back. So it's a really fun experience. So do some of that. I've done some big game hunting is as well. Nothing crazy, just deer, boar, that kind of thing.

[Sean]

I've never seen a wild boar. I like eating them though.

[Ephraim Epstein]

They're good. They're good. And you know what's kind of crazy about wild boar is it tastes great. Tastes like pork. A little less fatty, but still fatty. But you don't get that heavy feeling afterwards.

[Sean]

So that's a good point.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So I was like, I've even bought, I started buying because I, I'll order beef and pork online, high quality, grass fed stuff. But I do a lot of wild game. I'll order wild boar as well because I don't get to hunt as much as I'd like. So when I have it, I eat it all. But all order wild boar, wild elk, venison, and you really feel great. And here's what I say about the wild animals, is they had a great life. It just had one bad day. Most of the farm animals haven't. Their entire life sucks.

[Sean]

Most of them, yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Most of.

[Sean]

Unless it's, like, a good farm.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, unless a good farm. So I like to support the good farms. I love what Switzerland does with their farm animals. They have, like, very strict laws. Like, cows have to be put out to pasture.

[Sean]

Really?

[Ephraim Epstein]

On the grassy fields? Yeah. So they can't. They can't, like, live in those stalls and all that kind of stuff.

[Sean]

So. Yeah, I hate seeing those videos. I hate that they come up on my Instagram.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. I hate it. Drives me crazy.

[Sean]

Yeah. It makes me upset, actually, because some animals are super smart.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Super smart. Yeah. And it's just. I mean, animal still has. They feel pain, they feel fear, they feel all those things. And so you gotta treat it with respect. You know, kind of think of, like, the way that Native Americans treated, you know, the animals that they hunted with respect.

[Sean]

Have you tried that deer from Hawaii yet? Yes, I need to try that.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Delicious.

[Sean]

I'm going to order some this week. I've been seeing it.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. Yeah. I got to go, actually, last year on Molokai with a friend of a friend, some local guys, so I got to stay at their house, got to hunt in Molokai. And that was a great experience.

[Sean]

Yeah, that is cool. I liked it. I've never been hunting.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It's fun, man. It's. It's. You know, it, it's. It's more hiking with a firearm. It really is hunting. But if you do get the right opportunity to take an animal, then you can. You get to. To eat it. And as long as you're respecting it. And it's. I think it's great.

[Sean]

Yeah, I'm big on nature, so I think I'd like it just being out there.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

You know, that's the one downside, I guess, of the city life. Being in Vegas.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, it's good to, you know. It's good. Well, the nice thing is you can. You can get. I'm sure you can travel anywhere you want from Vegas. Flight goes. Part of the world.

[Sean]

Yeah. We're close to Cali. Yeah. We got direct flights pretty much anywhere in the US I feel like.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. Yeah. So. So it's, It's. It's great. You know, it's a great thing to. It's very sustainable too, you know, So I encourage people that if they think, think they would like to do it, that they should give it a try at least once. You also, then I think you respect the food that you. I mean, I, I know this sounds silly, but, like, it bothers me to buy meat and have it go bad and throw it out because I'm like, that animal died for nothing. So even the way I think about grocery meat, I have a response. Even though I never saw that animal, I didn't kill that animal because I'm consuming it. I didn't want it to. I don't want it to die for nothing.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

You know.

[Sean]

Oh, yeah, I'm not big on leftovers.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Yeah. My mom taught me that growing up.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, same.

[Sean]

Yeah, same. You had to eat everything.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So I have dogs and they eat a lot of scraps if there is any left.

[Sean]

I feed my dogs raw meat.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It's great. I do too. What kind of dogs do you have?

[Sean]

Australian shepherd, super active, and then a golden mountain dog. Have you heard of that breed?

[Ephraim Epstein]

No. What are the. What is that?

[Sean]

It's half golden retriever, half Bernese mountain dog.

[Ephraim Epstein]

That seems like a cool dog.

[Sean]

Yeah, he's awesome. Shout out to Otis.

[Ephraim Epstein]

There you go.

[Sean]

Yeah, but no, I switched them to raw because they used to get, like, itchy and like sick a lot. Off the kibble.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. And the, you know, if you look at most of the. Not most, but I don't know what the percentage is. A lot of these animals are dying from cancer, a lot of them. And it's from, like, most of my dogs growing up all died from, you know, they get lumps and these weird stuff. If you go on the raw meat, you know, they're going to live way longer. You're going to have less vet bills, which is better. Yeah.

[Sean]

I think the average lifespan is one third of what it used to be for dogs compared to when our grandparents were having dogs. Yeah, they used to, they used to live 15, 20 years easy.

[Ephraim Epstein]

That's true.

[Sean]

Yeah. Now they live seven on average.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So if you, I'm sure if you just feed them the, the raw stuff, you're going to get that extra life. My one, my, my one girl, she's 15, German, short hair, pointer. And she's, and she's, she's still going strong, kind of half blind, half deaf, got arthritis, but she walks through the yard. She's always. She wants to explore constantly. I have to kind of temper her because her arthritis, but she's on the raw Food. And I think a big reason she's alive is because of that.

[Sean]

I love it, man. Yeah. I hate going to the vet, dude, because they give, like, 10 vaccines a year to them. It's crazy.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. I mean, if you can. I don't do the yearly vaccines. They get the. Every dog I've ever had just gets, like, the parvo kind of the puppy vaccines. And then after that, I just.

[Sean]

Yeah, after that, they keep pushing them. It's like, when does this end?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Same thing with the humans right now.

[Sean]

Well, yeah, like.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And you have all these crazy issues.

[Sean]

In humans, and they're on the fifth COVID vaccine now.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It's wild. I. I think the vaccine. I think just everything that's happening in the environment with. With. With vaccine, vaccines is one little piece of it. But, you know, you have, like, the plastics and just the air quality and water quality, just everything. And they try to say with the vaccines, well, there's no correlation to autism or whatever. Well, I don't think that the vaccine is maybe direct, directly causing the autism, but there's definitely a correlation. It's the same thing. Like, you could say gluten doesn't cause allergic reaction, doesn't cause whatever issues. But then you have people that are gluten intolerant. And I think all of that stuff is just. We're getting bombarded by unhealthy things constantly. And some people's bodies just cannot react.

[Sean]

100.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Right. Like, you have a bunch of little kids, you inject them with a bunch of vaccines. At the same time, there's bound to be issues.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And it's like you say, oh, well, was it the vaccine or was it the kid's body that couldn't handle the vaccine? And maybe some tolerate that. Tolerate it better than others, but it's. It's bad.

[Sean]

I mean, you saw it during the pandemic. Some people could not tolerate it. I knew a couple people that died.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

I don't know if it was directly from it, but it was right. Right after they got it. And it was weird. Like, they were super young.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So one of the guys that worked with us at the time held a guy, late 30s. He has a heart issue.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

From the vaccine 100. I forgot what it's called. Starts with an M, I think. But it's like where your. Your heart loses elasticity or whatever.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And that's terrible. Yeah.

[Sean]

He got all three or all four shots.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I don't remember remember. But it, like, they 100 ruled it down to the vaccine. I'm like, he probably for sure. I don't think that guy would have died. He was.

[Sean]

Oh, he died.

[Ephraim Epstein]

No, no, he would not have died from. From COVID Oh, right. If he got code.

[Sean]

Yeah, no, it was just. Now they're coming out. It's just like a cold, right?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, basically. Yeah. The people that were dying had. Overall, I'm sure there was exceptions, but overall, they were. Most of them were. Most people were overweight. Yeah, unfortunately. And most people had other health issues or they were old. But, I mean, when you're 80 or 90, you die from the flu or the cold all the time.

[Sean]

You die from a fall, too.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. You break your head. All kinds. Yeah. You're not moving.

[Sean]

I got it four or five times, Covid.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Really?

[Sean]

Yeah. The first time, I actually thought I was going to die. That was the worst. It turned into pneumonia. But the rest of the times, I didn't even know I had it.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It was like. Yeah, I got it for sure once, maybe twice. I didn't do the vaccine. And the. The one time, it was like I had one super bad day, like, where I was just laying there, couldn't even, like, look at my phone or anything. And then the next day, I was really, like, 50% better.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So fortunately for me didn't last that long. My brother got it. He was, like, in that state for a few days. And then we did the monoclonal antibodies.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Which.

[Sean]

The one they told you not to take.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. Well, no, that one actually was FDA approved. They were. What they were doing is they were, like, saying, oh, only at least in California, only if you're over, like, 70. And they were like, we don't have enough of it. So they're trying to. To regulate people getting it.

[Sean]

Got it.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But I kind of heard about it from. From, like, the Joe Rogan podcast and stuff like that, so. But here's the thing. You could get it if you private paid it. So all the people with insurance or without health insurance, you couldn't get your hands on it.

[Sean]

Got it.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Impossible. You private paid it. 2,000 bucks. You could get it.

[Sean]

Damn. It was that much?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, it was two grand. So I paid for it for my brother. My wife, she needed it one time, too. When she got it, she was. She was out pretty bad. And I mean, within hours, you were, like, already feeling, holy crap, better. And I was like, why are they not pushing this? They just wanted everybody on this vaccine cycle so bad that even though this was a good, proven treatment, this wasn't even, like, the Ivermectin or stuff. This Was like, yeah, it works, but we gotta limit it. There's not enough. Right. So it was that kind of thing.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But it kind of shows once again, you know, it's unfair, but if you, if you had the money to pay for it, you could do it. And so, you know, you know, going back to our conversation with money, it's not like, it's not that I love money, but being able to do something like that for a family member is important to me. It was important. So that's a big reason I like to, you know, make my business successful.

[Sean]

I'm with you on that. Provides a lot of comfort, especially mentally.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Right? Yeah.

[Sean]

Like, because I've been broke twice. I made and lost my money twice already. And I grew up kind of middle class like you.

[Ephraim Epstein]

How did you, how did you make your money back?

[Sean]

Well, this second time around, it's in the podcast. So I was broke. I lost everything during that crypto bear market. I was over leveraged. So that was three years ago.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Wow.

[Sean]

Yeah, I was way over leveraged.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Made a ton in crypto. Lost it all because I never sold. And then the first time I got way too excited about sports cards, there was a boom in sports cards.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So what did you learn that now you're gonna apply?

[Sean]

Both of them were just over leveraged and relying too much on emotions.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

You know what I mean? I. I turned my passion into, like, in a very emotional thing.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So are you gonna like, take that lesson now if you go into real estate or crypto again or something?

[Sean]

Yeah, I'm very more, very careful with investments now.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Because I realized because I'm in a seven year relationship, I'd get married this year.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Congrats, man.

[Sean]

Yeah. When I mess up, though, it's not just on me anymore. Like, it affects the whole family. I got two dogs, we got a house. Now you.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yep.

[Sean]

So I need to, like, be more responsible, basically.

[Ephraim Epstein]

That's awesome. I try to look at every. Cause I've had a lot of losses in business too. Like, I did a CrossFit gym and I was doing this while I had the IT business and it was super fun. But I lost probably in the. Probably a quarter of a million dollars trying to do it because on the side. And then I just ended up giving it away and just sold the equipment.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And I. I look back and I'm like, okay, but what did I learn? And there was some lessons I learned. So I basically bought myself a quarter million dollar of lessons that I do feel have made me successful in other Areas. And you know, I think the mistake a lot of people do is when they have a failure, they don't, they don't think, they don't like analyze it, take responsibility and say, what? What could I learn?

[Sean]

Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So when I go again, instead of like letting the failure define them or stop them or make them have fear from going forward again, they take that and they say, what? What can I learn? How can I try again? You know Newton.

[Sean]

Ah, sorry, Isaac Newton.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Who's is he who created the light bulb? Not New.

[Sean]

Edison.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Edison. He had like over a thousand times he failed on light bulb, but he just kept doing it. But every time he would say, okay, what did I learn? Do it again, do it again, do it again. So I think that's what you have to do if you want to be successful. And you never really fail if you don't stop trying. If you stop trying, that's when you truly failed. Otherwise, it's just a learning experience to. To the road to success.

[Sean]

Yeah. I actually had a guest on Yesterday or no Way Friday, and he was talking to like a billionaire. And he said the billionaire asked him, have you ever failed in business before?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And he was like, yeah. And the guy was like, good. I don't work with people that haven't failed in business before because they've never cycled.

[Ephraim Epstein]

They never cycled. Yeah. And that's why you see guys that, that are billionaires and they lose it all and then they're billionaire again. I think Trump did.

[Sean]

Trump did it, what, six times?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. And you think, how is that even possible? But it's a skill set and they learned from, from it and they reapply it. So.

[Sean]

Yeah, because if you've never had that financial failure, you're going to kind of have an ego about it and a false confidence.

[Ephraim Epstein]

You're going to have a false confidence and. Right. And then was your success, how much of your success was duplicable? Could you do it again?

[Sean]

Right. Because a lot of success is timing and luck too.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean]

You know, right place, right time. You see it in the AI industry.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sean]

Well, there's people that were planning to start AI companies five, 10 years ago, and they're calling that lucky. But was it luck or were they planning it? Maybe both. I don't know.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, I think the way I like to think about luck is it's a combination of. It's when preparation meets opportunity. And so if you're preparing and putting yourself in the way of opportunities, you know, you're gonna get lucky a Lot.

[Sean]

I agree.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

I think you can control your luck. I used to. When I was younger, I used to be like, oh, why do bad things happen to me?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. You know, does your mindset changed on that now?

[Sean]

Oh, yeah. Now when bad things happen to me, I'm like, okay, great, let me learn from this. I'm not gonna have a victim mindset about it.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

You know, everyone's dealing with shit.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. People that are very successful tend to not have victim mindsets at all, and they tend to take responsibility for everything. So they'll. They get in a car crash and they're like, it was my fault. Right. I should have left earlier. I should have. I should have done this. I should have done that. And you're like, well, that wasn't your fault. The guy did this. Right. But they don't ever want to be the victim. And they always try to say, okay, what could I have done to prevent this from happening? My house burnt down. But instead of being the victim, well, next time I'm going to add sprinklers to the roof or whatever.

[Sean]

Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So it's not to say that bad things can't happen that are out of your control, but just the mindset's completely different.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And I've tried to really take that and try to take accountability and responsibility. So everything that happens to me is my fault. And everything that happens, good or bad, is either is because of me.

[Sean]

I love that. That's something I've seen in the top entrepreneurs. When you study, like, guys like Elon, they do that.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Yeah, they all do that.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. So I. And I can't take credit for that. I've learned it from.

[Sean]

From.

[Ephraim Epstein]

From mentors, and I look at what other people are doing that are successful. I'm like, how can I make my success easy? And the easy way is to duplicate what someone is already doing versus trying to learn the hard way. So I've gotten a point in my life that I want to do the hard way as least as possible. Not to say that life is not hard, but if I can just copy what someone is already doing successfully, I can just follow in their footsteps. And I still have to do the hard work. I have to put the action, and I have to put the effort in, but I don't have to make the same mistakes. And I can, you know, make it easy on myself. They were as easy as possible.

[Sean]

Agreed. Was Robert Erjavec from Shark Tank someone you copied early on?

[Ephraim Epstein]

You know what? I like Robert Herjavec a lot, and I I would love to meet him.

[Sean]

He's coming on.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Really?

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Wow.

[Sean]

I'll text you that day. Maybe you could.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, maybe I'll come and sit in the lobby and just eat snacks and hopefully like, run into him. I, I, I, I hadn't studied him enough, and I don't know enough about how he scaled his business to be able to copy him, but he's definitely someone I would like to. And he, he's in the exact same industry. That's kind of where he came up from. Yeah, obviously I know some things about him, but I've look at, like, Grant a lot.

[Sean]

Grant card on.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, I love Grant. He was just here.

[Sean]

Yeah. Yeah, Brandon's been on, too.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Oh, Brandon's been on sharp. Yep. So those are a couple guys I look up to a lot. There's, there's some others that I, I, I even like Sam Waltman from Walmart. You know, I read his book and I took a lot of lessons. I remember I was, Someone said, you know, a lot of people pay a few hundred dollars for some Nikes. Yeah, but they won't even pay $10 to buy Sam Woltman's book. Crazy Walmart, right? One of the richest people of all, or at least for that time period. And I remember when he said, I was like, man, that is so true. Why don't I, why don't I do that? And so I bought his book and I read it and I applied a lot of stuff that Sam Waltman did.

[Sean]

And books are the best ROI of all time. And also there's free books now. There's an app called like, there's a library app. Forget the name, but I'll find it and link it in the video. But yeah, you get free books. Audible is a free book a month if you're on prime, if you listen to audiobooks. Yes, there's a lot of good free books on YouTube. But yeah, even if you're buying them, it's like 10 to 20 bucks.

[Ephraim Epstein]

People, you're getting that information directly from their brain and getting to download it into your brain, and people are not doing it. And so it's amazing. A lot of people are like, hey, how do I invest? And I know a lot of people are, you know more about this, but a lot of people invest in crypto, especially if they don't have money to put to assets like real estate when you're getting started. But I think one of the best things you can do it to invest in yourself is your education. Books is one of the cheapest Things you go to events, networking things, find mentors, but with books, you can get that information. And what I like to do is take a pen or a little marker, because most books I learned this from, I think it was a Tai Lopez podcast. I'm not, like, a huge fan, but I do like, some of the things he says, and one of the things he said is, like, most big books have a lot of fluff in them.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And there's just, you know, gold nuggets. Right. A lot of sand and gold nuggets. But they can't put, like, their three or four ideas on five pieces of paid paper and sell it to you. They got to put. Put stories in there and all that stuff. But I'll go with the pen, and I'll try and, like, underline, like, hey, what are the gold nuggets that I actually have to take and apply and try and get, you know, identify that within the book, and it helps me, you know, I, you know, identify the lesson, apply the lesson, and. And it gets my brain working on, like, how do I use this in my business or leading people? And, yeah, a lot of the skills I have now, I came up with learning a technical skill set because I was an IT guy. And then when I started a business, I had to learn things like sales, financial literacy, and leadership, and those were not natural to me. I had to learn those, and I learned those through books and other people. So, yeah, that makes sense. You can learn anything.

[Sean]

Yeah. Shout out to books, shout out to podcasts. You know, there's so many good ways to learn these things.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I love listening to podcasts. Yeah. You get so much information, and you're like, oh, that. That's interesting. I could do that. And you. You get that information for free. Almost like you met that person.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Training you.

[Sean]

I'm learning every single day, man. Like, when I have on a guest, I'm either reading their book, listening to their podcast, or both.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

When I'm preparing for episodes.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Well, I'm sure it's a big part of your success. You're. You're. You're up, and I don't want to even say up and coming. Now, now you have a name for yourself, and it's only growing. Growing. Right. Your star is rising. But how many people are there with podcasts? And what are you doing differently? Obviously, you're having good guests, but that's not it.

[Sean]

That's not enough.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I can see all the work that goes into making this happen.

[Sean]

No, that's not enough, dude. Because a lot of People have Grant Cardone on their show. He actually texted me yesterday, like, dude, the way you edit and, like, ask questions and converse is like, game changer.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And coming from Grant, that's a huge compliment. He's been on some of the biggest shows.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So were you observing other people and kind of like, because you wanted to create a. You came from crypto into podcasting.

[Sean]

Yeah. Which is a huge change.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Because the crypto space is a bunch of Internet nerds. Super introverted, which is what I was.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Right.

[Sean]

So to come into podcast, I was not naturally good at this. So like you said, I learned everything. Yeah. I learned everything from watching other shows, studying other guests, stuff like that.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Like that. You said you were introverted, but now you're doing this.

[Sean]

I mean, I'm still introverted, but.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, but I. You know, I think people will put themselves in boxes when they say I'm extroverted or introverted. Like, maybe you're not comfortable doing something, but it doesn't mean you can't.

[Sean]

Right. Yeah, I agree. Don't use it as an excuse.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Don't use it as excuse.

[Sean]

Just recognize what I guess you lean towards, but at the same time, you could toggle it.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. You had to put work in to make it happen.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And now you're. Now you're here.

[Sean]

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's like, okay, is my energy drained or not? After I talk to someone.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Okay.

[Sean]

That's kind of what I mean by introvertedness.

[Ephraim Epstein]

How do you feel at the end of the day after all these.

[Sean]

Depends on who's on. Okay, so, like, right now I feel great. You were great. And the guest before you was great. But sometimes there's a guess where I feel drained afterwards.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So do you think it's like somehow their. Their mindset or their energy, Something.

[Sean]

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure it out. Something with their energy, maybe their substance. Sometimes they talk too much. I'm still trying to figure it out, but I don't know.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I guess that. That shows you get so much exposure to so many people. It shows why it's important to pick who you're around with. Your friends and your free time.

[Sean]

A hundred percent.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Because that you're gonna be like them.

[Sean]

I mean, it's so true. It's so cliche. The five people that, like. It's. It's facts. I mean, you look at our friends when we were younger, and that's who we were at the time, 100%. And now you look at who's around us now, and there's a reason we're.

[Ephraim Epstein]

At where we're at. Yeah. So you have to. I mean, it's the same thing. Like, you're getting married. Right. Your friend set. When you're married, if you want to stay married, you got to pick people that have that mindset of you can't be hanging out with guys that are wanting to go do wild stuff and live this single life, because you're gonna just fall into that trap. And if you hang out with people that, like, value the sanctity of marriage and, you know, do things as a family, well, you're gonna. You're gonna.

[Sean]

I love that. Yeah. Most of my friends are in relationships right now, are looking for one, and they're committed, but I used to hang out with a lot of players when I was younger in college, and that's kind of what I gravitated towards.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, of course. And so you have to, you have to make. I think there's a big red pill movement right now for guys to, you know, and it's, it's in response to all the.

[Sean]

The feminism.

[Ephraim Epstein]

The feminism and all of that. But, you know, there's a reason that traditional values worked for centuries, and it's because they work.

[Sean]

I mean, there's so many studies on how children end up in a single parent household versus a dual parent household. Parent household.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And it's not good for the kid.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It's not good. It's really bad. So. And I feel bad for that. It doesn't mean that if you were born in single parent household, you can't be successful, but the propensity, the environment, everything is stacked against you now.

[Sean]

Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So, like, why do you want to handicap a kid if. If, if you can't? And it drives me crazy that when I see people that are parents and they'll divorce, they'll get. They have kids, and then they'll get a divorce because there wasn't even anything big. But they're not happy. They've grown apart, quote, unquote. I'm like, you have a kid, it's not about you or your happiness anymore. It's about your kid. Like, you're so selfish. You care about your happiness more than the success of your own own child.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Sad.

[Sean]

Yeah. I think it's situational, but yeah, overall, that's. I've seen that too.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. I'm not talking about extreme abuse or things like that. But you'll see, you'll see people that sometimes will walk away because they're bored from a relationship.

[Sean]

Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

With a kid. What are you doing?

[Sean]

I mean, it's a. It's a coin toss, they say, right?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

With marriage, 50. Divorce rate.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. Well, I think people are more selfish now. They're more worried about their own happiness and the point of getting married. You have to think about the other person's happiness and you have to think about the success of the family, the success if there's children, the success of the children. So your happiness really should kind of come in last.

[Sean]

Damn, that's a hot take for a lot of people, I bet.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But think about your grandma, your great grandma. Wasn't that probably her mindset?

[Sean]

I mean, our great. Our grandparents had like 10 kids. That was okay back then. Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So was your grandma or grandpa worried about his happiness or what was he worried about?

[Sean]

Probably the kids. I mean, baby boomer generation really spawned a lot of.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Families.

[Ephraim Epstein]

That was what the most important was. That, like, doesn't mean he didn't want to be happy or your grandma didn't want to be happy. But that kind of came in the last place.

[Sean]

Yeah. Yeah. My grandparents. Yeah, they put a lot of value on. On their family. I feel like, you know, you're seeing that less and less these days. For sure. I wonder if social media played a role in that.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, big time.

[Sean]

There's a lot of studies on mental health and social media. The correlation now, and I think we're.

[Ephraim Epstein]

All addicted to it, we have to use it for business.

[Sean]

I can't even watch a movie now without looking at my phone.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I can't either.

[Sean]

It's so bad.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I can't watching a movie. If I don't get caught within the first few, you know, 15 minutes, I turn the show or the movie off because my brain is like. Yeah, like the fast.

[Sean]

It's bad, though. When I was a kid, I used to love going to the movies. I was like, it would make my whole week.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It would.

[Sean]

And now it's like, I don't even want to go anymore.

[Ephraim Epstein]

That's sad.

[Sean]

You know, it's sad.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. There's a lot of negative consequences. And I think it's. It's had a really bad effect on. On men and women. You know, you see it, so many men are like, without relationships.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

You know, they can't even get a woman. The women are over getting this, like, influx of. Of attention. And now they think, you know, I only want this type of man because I see that type of lifestyle. And they don't even give an average man a chance.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But both are ending up unhappy.

[Sean]

Yeah. There's this Calculator that you type the salary. Have you seen this?

[Ephraim Epstein]

I've seen it, yeah. Illusion calculator.

[Sean]

Yeah. It's so wild. I was messing around with it and I think if you want to top like if you want to make meet a man that makes 100k and is over 6ft, it's like 1% or something.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Super low.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah. And so, you know, before social media, you know, if you were a woman or a guy you kind of worked in, you know, were in certain friend groups and they kind of met with other friend groups. But you, you know, maybe if you're a real outgoing person, you went to a lot of parts parties and stuff, you knew a lot of, you met more people, but you kind of would meet within that group and people would kind of like find each other. Right, right. And settle in. Now it seems for the women, they're getting so much attention from all over the world.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And you have these guys saying, oh, I'll fly you out or do whatever. It's crazy. Right?

[Sean]

It's nuts.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But, but that kind of messes that, that messes the mind up a little bit on, on, on both sides. Yeah, on both sides. So some guys can't even get a girl and then the, the, the girls get so much attention, they're like, okay, this is, this is, I'm not going to settle for anything.

[Sean]

Yes.

[Ephraim Epstein]

But now they're passing up a really good opportunity with maybe a really great guy and they might not realize it until they're in their late 30s or 40s and now the options suddenly have evaporated or less because they can't have.

[Sean]

Kids at that age.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Right. And now they're like, okay, now I'm ready to settle down. Now I'll give a guy a shot. But they're, you know, a lot of.

[Sean]

Guys are taken by that age. Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

They're taken. Or if they're trying to go like you said, that six foot six figure, who is he going after? And he's going to be probably going for, if you're a 40 year old woman and you're trying to go for someone in your age range, if you're not giving an average guy a shot, if you're giving, just saying no, he's got to make this much money and he's got to look like this and he's got to be charming, he's all this, well, the other women want him too. So now you're not competing with other four year olds, you're competing with 21 year olds.

[Sean]

Yeah, yeah. It's rough now.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And if you have trauma from relationships and all of that.

[Sean]

Which everyone does.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, everyone does. Men want some. They want peace. So it's not even about necessarily only looks. It's also like, oh, I'm going to marry someone that's not going to have a lot of trauma and give me drag that into my life.

[Sean]

Yeah. Because we come home after work, we don't want more issues. Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

That's. For me, that's so important.

[Ephraim Epstein]

So important. You want to have peace. You want to have a good. You just want, you know, peaceful, happy relationship. And so I am a proponent for people getting married younger.

[Sean]

You know, how young we talking?

[Ephraim Epstein]

I don't know what worked for our generations in the past.

[Sean]

Yeah. I wonder what the average age was in the past. Marriage. Feel like it was young, 20s or probably.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Now it's got to be 30s.

[Ephraim Epstein]

It's got to be 30s. Some people are pushing it to late 30s, and then they're trying to start families and it's.

[Sean]

That's rough. Yeah. And, dude, now people at the bars and clubs are just on their phone. But you don't socialize anymore, you know, I don't know.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Did you grow up going to, like, house parties and stuff?

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Okay. I don't know if you've noticed that, but there's not. Okay, maybe I'm a little old that I'm not getting invited, but I do have a lot of friends at younger ages.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And they just don't go to a lot of parties.

[Sean]

Really?

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, rarely. I'm not saying never, but I. I feel like there was a part party, like every weekend somewhere with a group of people, and now they're just kind of at home. And I think that's social media, because when I grew up, we didn't have social media. You were bored all the time. Like, people don't realize how. I even saw a funny little, like, reel on Instagram on people like, oh, I want to be back in the 90s. And then they're like, at home bored all the time. So you're bored all the time. So all you're thinking about is, I want to meet people, I want to go with my friends. Right. So what did you have to do? You had to go hang out, whether that's skateboarding, a party, you know, whatever you like to do. You're always, you know, trying to get your. I noticed a lot of young people are not even getting their driver, like, driver's licenses.

[Sean]

Really?

[Ephraim Epstein]

I was trying to get my driver's license the day I could because I wanted freedom. I wanted to go hang out.

[Sean]

That was a big deal as a teenager.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah, a big deal. And I've met so many people and don't even get their driver's license till they're like late teens, early 20s. And I'm like, that's late. I'm like, what, what the heck?

[Sean]

Well now Uber's out too. Before we didn't have that, but yeah.

[Ephraim Epstein]

You could, you could Uber. That's, that's for sure. But at the same time it's like they didn't have, we had such a drive to get out and be free.

[Sean]

Right.

[Ephraim Epstein]

And now, you know, people are not even, they're never bored. They're, they're, they're sitting. You go to the bathroom and you have your phone. Right. You're never bored. You're always entertained at all times with your phone.

[Sean]

And you're seeing a lot of kids stay at home now until their late 20s.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

I feel like when we were, I wanted to get out. I know my mom watches this, but I wanted to get out ASAP of my house.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Dude, I can't even, I, I, I, I swear to you, I cannot remember the last time I heard about like a couple like 18 year old guys turning 18 or girls and moving in together and getting an apartment. Everyone lives at home. And I know part of it is the inflation and the cost of living, but people stay at home. It's.

[Sean]

No, I wanted to get out immediately just to like be on my own.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Yeah.

[Sean]

You know, I don't want to live at home until I'm 30.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I know a lot of girls and guys and they're not that are in their mid to late 20s and they live at home.

[Sean]

Damn. Well, that's inflation I think too.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I think so. College debt, I think you, it's, it's just like you can't even get college debt. Can't even afford it.

[Sean]

Yeah, interest rates are crazy right now too.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I feel bad for people.

[Sean]

Yeah, it's rough.

[Ephraim Epstein]

I think it's, you have to have a drive to be successful because the middle class is going away and you're either going to be broke or you're going to be rich.

[Sean]

Yeah, it's going to be gone in our lifetime, I think.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Oh yeah. 100.

[Sean]

Well from, it's been awesome. Where can people find you and keep up with you, man?

[Ephraim Epstein]

You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Instagram, King Spears, my hand handle, email, cell phones. I love helping people with it. Cyber. Any kind of AI business challenge.

[Sean]

Perfect hit them up, guys, if you have any questions about that. Thanks for coming on, man.

[Ephraim Epstein]

Thank you. Appreciate it.