THIS Hiring Trick Saves $220K: Avoid Costly Mistakes | Ben Butler DSH #877

Summary

Digital Social Hour: THIS Hiring Trick Saves $220K: Avoid Costly Mistakes | Ben Butler DSH #877

Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Ben Butler
Release Date: November 11, 2024

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1. The Value of Practical Experience Over Traditional Education

Ben Butler opens the conversation by challenging the conventional emphasis on formal education in the tech industry. He shares his personal experience of founding his agency, Top Hat, during college without attending classes, highlighting how practical experience often outweighs academic credentials.

"I don't care where they went to school, you just want to see what their talent set is."
[01:18] Ben Butler

Butler criticizes the modern education system, labeling diplomas as increasingly irrelevant in today's fast-paced tech world. He emphasizes hiring based on skills and real-world abilities rather than formal qualifications.

"I don't believe in all those other... all those strength finder... I think people see the value. Those things are too complicated."
[07:45] Ben Butler

2. Innovative Hiring Practices: Astrology and Attachment Styles

Ben Butler introduces unconventional hiring strategies, notably incorporating astrology and attachment styles to assess potential employees. He explains how understanding a candidate's zodiac sign can provide insights into their communication styles and workplace behavior.

"You can get a spark notes of a person just by understanding what their sign is."
[02:09] Ben Butler

He further explores attachment styles, relating them to workplace dynamics and personal relationships, demonstrating his commitment to creating harmonious and effective teams.

3. Managing Diverse Personalities for Organizational Success

The discussion delves into managing various personality types based on astrological signs and attachment styles. Butler shares strategies for positioning employees in roles that align with their inherent traits, thereby enhancing productivity and job satisfaction.

"Giving them tasks according to their style... It can be very useful."
[06:38] Ben Butler

He advises regular check-ins and tailored management approaches to prevent passive aggression and other workplace issues, underscoring the importance of early detection and adaptive leadership.

4. Navigating Social Media Polarization

Butler and Kelly discuss the impact of social media on societal polarization. Butler advocates for balanced media consumption to understand diverse perspectives and mitigate extreme biases.

"Consuming a little bit of everything is good... to understand the psychology and what the value system is."
[13:03] Ben Butler

They highlight the dangers of forcing individuals to choose sides, which often leads to conflict and division, emphasizing the need for a more nuanced approach to information consumption.

5. Artificial Intelligence: Innovations and Ethical Concerns

The conversation shifts to the realm of AI, focusing on Elon Musk's Grok and its distinction from OpenAI's ChatGPT. Butler expresses skepticism about the sustainability and ethical implications of advanced AI developments.

"I think it's going to sort of appear out of nowhere... they're losing tons of money right now."
[17:59] Ben Butler

He raises concerns about AI's potential to surpass human control, drawing parallels to dystopian narratives like Terminator and The Matrix, and warns of the existential risks posed by unchecked AI advancements.

6. Dark Web Insights and Cybersecurity Threats

Butler shares his expertise on the Dark Web, detailing prevalent scams and cybersecurity threats that businesses face daily. He recounts a sophisticated scam targeting his clients, where fraudsters posed as legitimate recruiters to deceive individuals into financial losses.

"They would pretend to be a recruiter from some insert credible company here... you would be out $10,000."
[35:55] Ben Butler

He emphasizes the importance of proactive cybersecurity measures and awareness to protect against such fraudulent schemes, illustrating the ever-evolving nature of digital threats.

7. Privacy in the Digital Age: Surveillance and Data Security

The discussion broadens to privacy concerns, critiquing how technology giants like Google and Amazon invade personal privacy through data collection and surveillance. Butler warns about the limitations of tools like incognito mode and advocates for more robust privacy practices.

"Incognito mode doesn't do shit if you're really trying to be anonymized."
[41:24] Ben Butler

He underscores the necessity for individuals and businesses to prioritize data security and remain vigilant against unauthorized data exploitation.

8. Speculative Technologies: Cloning and AI Integration

Butler and Kelly venture into speculative territory, discussing the plausibility of human cloning and advanced AI integrations. They debate whether technology has already reached a point where AI could potentially threaten human existence, drawing on popular culture references.

"We've already created AI and it already destroyed us."
[29:05] Ben Butler

This segment reflects their apprehensions about the rapid technological advancements and the potential for unforeseen consequences.

9. Future Endeavors: Top Hat's New Ventures

In the closing segment, Ben Butler outlines upcoming projects for his agency, Top Hat. He mentions the development of SaaS products aimed at enhancing web safety and creating innovative integrations that empower users to achieve more cost-effectively.

"We're starting to roll out our own products... integrations that empower people to do more for cheaper."
[48:13] Ben Butler

He highlights the agency's commitment to building robust digital ecosystems for a diverse range of clients, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.

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Key Takeaways:

• Practical Skills Over Formal Education: Emphasizing real-world abilities can lead to more effective hiring and successful business operations.

• Unconventional Hiring Strategies: Incorporating astrology and psychological profiles offers deeper insights into employee compatibility and management.

• Balanced Media Consumption: Understanding diverse perspectives helps in mitigating societal polarization and fostering a more inclusive environment.

• AI's Double-Edged Sword: While AI offers significant advancements, ethical and existential concerns must be addressed to prevent potential threats.

• Cybersecurity Vigilance: Proactive measures and awareness are crucial in combating sophisticated digital fraud and safeguarding organizational assets.

• Privacy Prioritization: In an age of pervasive surveillance, robust data security practices are essential for maintaining personal and organizational privacy.

• Speculative Risks of Technology: The rapid pace of technological innovation necessitates careful consideration of long-term implications and potential risks.

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Notable Quotes:

"I don't think it's left. Right. I don't think it's either of the extremes. I would say generally people are somewhere in the middle."
[00:01] Ben Butler

"You are the only person who can take care of me."
[02:07] Ben Butler

"AI is the ancient evil."
[28:15] Ben Butler

"The Internet's undefeated."
[11:19] Ben Butler

---

For more insights and expert discussions, stay tuned to Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly.

Transcript

[A]

Consuming a little bit of everything is good. Even if maybe you disagree with someone just to understand what, what the psychology and what the value system is. I don't think it's left. Right. I don't think it's either of the extremes. I would say generally people are somewhere in the middle, but we're sort of being convinced that you have to pick a side. That's where all the problems happen.

[B]

All right, guys, from Pittsburgh Penns. Today we got Ben Butler. He's wearing many hats and knows a lot about AI in the Dark Web. Thanks for coming on, man.

[A]

Good to be here, man.

[B]

Yeah. I don't even know where to start with you. You've done a lot of stuff.

[A]

I've done a thing or two.

[B]

What was the first one?

[A]

So started my agency, Top Hat, when I was still in college. So just sort of came about, had the right opportunities and actually while still in college, got an office about 45 minutes down the highway. Skipped all my classes senior year to go meet with clients in the office who didn't know I was still a student. And they didn't find out till years later. I don't even know how I graduated. I think they wanted the, you know, the money at the end.

[B]

But 50k a year will get you that, right?

[A]

Yeah. A piece of paper. Yeah, indeed. It's totally worth it. It's not.

[B]

Do you even know where your diploma is?

[A]

No, no, it's not even on my LinkedIn. It's just like. Yeah, it's irrelevant these days.

[B]

And no one's ever asked for it, right?

[A]

Never. Never. Especially.

[B]

I think it's one of the greatest. I wouldn't say, some people say scam, but it's definitely some programming.

[A]

Yeah, I would say so as well. Like I have a three year old and I'm like, hey, you want to be really careful. I mean, even though she's three years old, you start thinking about these things. Just such a. Generally a waste of money for people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where I'd rather see anything in the tech world, being a developer, a designer. You know, when I hire people or evaluate things, I don't, I don't look at their diploma. I don't care where they went to school, I don't care if they went to school. You just want to see what their talent set is.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So especially with tech, if you can find a way to, to skip all that, maybe do an apprenticeship or an internship or something like that, you can save yourself about 220k of debt.

[B]

You know, you also look at their horoscopes when you're hiring?

[A]

I do, yeah. Yeah. And I. I wish I was more fluent in it, but the one thing I started noticing with just dealing with people in general, and I've sort of had this perspective, and people always go, oh, that's. That's kind of weird and kind of, you know, out there. But typically you can get a spark notes of a person just by understanding what their sign is. That's interesting. And I don't know, it's. It's sort of been a game changer where you can. I mean, you have to actually take time to get to know people. But I think on a really high level, generally those things check out in terms of communication styles, love languages, things that people want to know from being managed, or it works for relationships too, where you really get the pros and the cons pretty quickly, and then you can start to notice the trends as they pop out. And so it's one of the first things I ever asked people. I was actually just interviewing a developer, and she was like, excuse me, what? You want to know my sign? Like, what is that about? And I was like, I'm just trying to get a vibe for your. How you'll fit in the. The work culture and what sort of person you are.

[B]

That is interesting. Are there certain signs you. You will be cautious of in the business setting?

[A]

Yeah, I think typically. And again, it. It relates to dating just as easily. You know, for me, this is gonna. A lot of. A lot of dudes out there are gonna be like, this dude is in the horoscopes, whatever. But hey, it's 2024, everyone. But like, for me, I'm a Leo Virgo cusp sign. So born on the 23rd. Little bit of that sign, a little bit of that sign. And so I can be extremely extroverted, bombastic out there. Then you have the Virgo side, the thoughtfulness, the consideration, things of that nature. I find in the workplace, typically, Leos can be very dangerous. Just pure Leos, because, you know, Leo lion people are very bombastic. They're. They can be prone to arrogance and making it all about them and being very standoffish and just very emotional at times. From my standpoint, Virgos are often really good employees. They're thoughtful, but they can be prone to passive aggression. They're not always going to be forthright with things that bother them until they become this passive aggressive blowup. So knowing that you can put in regular checkpoints and look for signs that maybe somebody's getting frustrated.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

So, yeah, I'VE sort of, you know, done that. Oh, Gemini. Gemini can be really, really tough. To all the, all the employees I've had that have been Gemini, they're just, they sort of have this like, I don't want to call it like 88.

[B]

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[A]

HD. But Geminis are just sort of like today they're filming, tomorrow they're managing social and the next day they want to start an E commerce business and leave. They're sort of all over the place because they're into so many different things. But knowing all that, you can get to know how to position people for success. So if I have a Gemini in my organization or whatever company that I'm in, I'm going to give them a variety of tasks, keep them entertained and challenge them to try new things if they show interest in something new.

[B]

Smart. I actually like that model because instead of giving each employee the same task, you should give them tasks according their style.

[A]

Oh yeah, absolutely. And it's a, it's a management technique as well to understand some people like left alone. Some people need those check ins and just understanding the pros and cons of how they generally associate. And you know, again, it's not a, it's not a silver bullet. Yeah, you have to actually take the time. But it is a good spark notes, especially if you're just starting out and you know what to look for. Because in management, everything has to be early. You have to see the signs. And, you know, problems can become so detrimental over time that people just bail on you or it becomes irreparable. So being able to know early signs and indicators and just adapt your management strategy, it can be very useful. So, yeah, I don't believe in all those other. You know, there's the strength finder. There's all the. I mean, there's about 10,000 different products. You can go out there. Oh, I'm an en. I don't even know I'm an ENJP or, you know, all those sort of things. So I. I think people see the value. Those things are too complicated.

[B]

You also lie on those tests or exaggerate.

[A]

Yeah, they're like, oh, I'm. I'm a helpful person. I like to help people. Then you. You come into the workplace, and they don't give a. About anyone but themselves.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know.

[B]

Yeah, but you can't lie with your Zodiac. That's when you were born.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely.

[B]

Yeah. I don't know if this is related, but I'm an Aquarius, and I. I hated group calls. Yeah, I like being a lone wolf.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I like being in my own head. You know what I mean?

[A]

It checks out.

[B]

I mean, dude, I used to. Because I was part of a company for a bit. Yeah, I hated group calls.

[A]

So you're loving what you're doing now?

[B]

Oh, I love it. Get to do what I want, get to choose everything.

[A]

Got to do what you want.

[B]

Yeah, man. You also do attachment styles. Attachment types. Is that more for dating?

[A]

Yeah, that's more dating related. I think it's kind of funny, you know, I have a large network of guy friends, and I don't know, when you're in your 30s, you tend to either be settled down or having a lot of trouble. So this one buddy of mine, he's been a work in progress for a long time, but when you scroll through Instagram these days, it seems like everyone's having some sort of issue out there. And so I just think having a basic understanding of people's psychology can be helpful for. For every facet of life. You know, work, friendships, dating, et cetera. Even knowing yourself, you know, understanding what makes you tick and where you can have work to be a better employee, friend, partner. And I think from the attachment standpoint, where, you know, there's this one called dismissive. Dismissive Detachment where it's basically people who, when they were growing up, this is again, this is a gross over exaggeration. It's sort of the spark notes of things. But generally when you have that psychological sort of mindset when you were growing up, maybe you were cared for, maybe you got everything you needed, food, water, shelter. Maybe it wasn't particularly a high conflict sort of environment, but maybe your parents didn't show you enough love and you had to resort to self soothing to the point where you said, you know what? End of day, I'm the only person who can take care of me. And so it's this independence. And again, this is, you know, one of those things where if you can recognize this or you know, especially from, you know, like I have a three year old, I want to be sure that I don't accidentally create some sort of dysfunction by not showing enough love or showing too much love or behaving in a certain way. So when you, when you deal with somebody like that, it's the typical hot and cold kind of person where they come on really strong, then they ghost you, then they come back and you're like, dude, what's going on? And it's generally the dismissive, detached sort of person who's like, well, you got too close. Going to withdraw and forget everything that has happened. And that can also go to the workplace as well where maintaining that line between a colleague and a friend. Sometimes if you veer too far into the friend category and you share a little bit too much and they share a little bit too much, suddenly there's an implosion that's happening. You know, I like to just study all that stuff and they're, man, the Internet's amazing. The Internet's undefeated. You can learn anything.

[B]

You can learn a lot. It's also dangerous for dating.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

A lot of people compare. I was the first person in my friend group to get engaged.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think I was 26, dude. It fucked up a lot of relationships around me.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

If people just feel pressured.

[A]

Yeah. They're like, oh, I got to keep up.

[B]

Yeah. So it either like helps some. Like some people got engaged shortly after and then some just the guys face too much pressure from their girls or whatever.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it ended.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I got engaged and they were comparing.

[A]

You blew it up, man.

[B]

I mean, not just me. It was probably, if you go on your feed, you probably see people getting engaged all the time. So. Yeah, just a compilation, I guess.

[A]

Yeah. And there's such a romanticized view just with like movies and you know, especially the Hallmark movies. You know, everybody's looking for their. Their knight in shining armor, their former New York scumbag who comes to a small town and. Yeah. I think social media really has amplified people's sort of baseline understanding of, oh, it should kind of be like this movie, but it never really is.

[B]

No.

[A]

Life doesn't work that way. You got to work a lot harder.

[B]

Yep. Now you got the red pill movement. Trying to fight back at that. At that moment.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Have you seen that movement?

[A]

I have.

[B]

It's pretty intense.

[A]

Oh, it's. I actually knew. I actually knew a dude who was, like, super into that.

[B]

Really.

[A]

He was. He was a little bit extreme.

[B]

Yeah. You don't want to go too far out of the way. It's a. Yeah. To find that balance.

[A]

Yeah. There's enough where, I mean, just with the access to the Internet, you can watch an episode of Tucker. Tucker Carlson and then go watch the Daily show and sort of balance yourself out. And I think consuming. Consuming a little bit of everything is good. Even if maybe you disagree with someone just to understand what. What the psychology and what the. The value system is.

[B]

Agreed. Yeah.

[A]

So that you can sort of buffet and understand, you know, the various people. Because I don't think it's left. Right. I don't think it's either of the extremes. It's. I would say, generally people are somewhere in the middle, but we're sort of being convinced that you have to pick a side, and that's where all the problems happen. I think in life is picking aside and just blindly being like, I am this. It's like most people are in the middle here.

[B]

Yeah. I avoid labels. Whether it's religious, political, all of that. I just. I'm like you. I observe both sides. I'll watch Bill Mayer. I'll watch.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Candace Owens, you know, Ben Shapiro. I'll watch all of them.

[A]

Yeah. Ben Shapiro.

[B]

You could learn. Yeah.

[A]

He's.

[B]

I've toned back on him, I'd say, but I used to watch him a lot. But I'm siding with Candace on that beef.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. There's so much beef out there.

[B]

There's a lot.

[A]

Especially Bill Maher. He. He got canceled seven times. I didn't even know that they tried to, you know, they tried to go after him, but he actually had a really good interview with Elon Musk, except for the fact that he was fan. Fan girl, you know, fangirling on Musk a little bit too much.

[B]

I never understood that as a host, like, when you fan Boy fan girl.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, that just ruins the interview.

[A]

Yeah. Just keep it cool.

[B]

Just treat them like a normal person.

[A]

And don't get too excited. Like, Jordan Peterson, jt, like we were talking about.

[B]

I can't believe he did that, man.

[A]

Yeah, I was. I was on the plane last night, and I was, you know, watching it because I think Elon Musk is very fascinating as a person, and Jordan Peterson would not shut the fuck up. He was, like, leaning forward in the chair. I'm like, bro, you need to calm down.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you could tell through the. It was like, two hours long. Eventually, Elon just started, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

A little bit bored.

[B]

A bad habit of mine is I read the comments before I watch the video.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

I don't know if it's my ADHD or something, but all the comments were like, jordan needs to shut up.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. 100.

[B]

So I knew going into that that that's. That was what was going to happen.

[A]

Yeah, I was really annoyed. I. I stopped listening multiple times. I'm like, can you just let the.

[B]

Man talk, dude, when you have a brilliant person on, especially, like, Elon Musk.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, I'll interview him one day. I'm not going to say. I'm just going to ask him questions.

[A]

Yeah, he'll give you good answers.

[B]

Like, why would he care about my opinion?

[A]

Yeah, it was. It was weird. I mean, he was. Good questions were being asked. He's like, when did you realize you wanted to do what you did? And he's like, oh, you know, I was, like, 12 years old, and I had an existential crisis. Okay. That's a young age to have a midlife crisis. But I think Jordan Peterson's problem is he thinks he's too smart. And he was. The thing I noticed about that interview is he was, like, trying to take things that Musk was saying and sort of stuff it into his, like, framework that he operates on. So he'd be like, oh, I hear this over here. He was trying to diagnose him, and he would. Yeah. Stuff them in. Like, here's my label for this thing. And, you know, using very big words, because he's a doctor, generally he's. He's interesting to listen to, but it was just. I was completely insufferable. But it's. It's really interesting what Elon Musk is doing with AI right now. And if you haven't kept up on grok, I think it's going to sort of appear out of nowhere, you know, where he's. I think A lot of people forget he was like one of the originators of OpenAI and GPT suing them now.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He is. I don't know what the status of that lawsuit is, but he just thinks completely different.

[B]

Yeah. Because he was pissed that they were making money basically. Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That was a whole lawsuit. So what's the difference between GROK and OpenAI?

[A]

So from the business perspective, I can't speak specifically to that, but I think from the philosophy of how they're building it, it's meant to be different. Where the way he described it is, what GROK is supposed to become is essentially like the super intelligence that everyone associates AI to be in its final, you know, butterfly form after it's in this man fed cocoon of us giving it data. But even, even chatgpt is more of a, a large language model thing where it's just consuming and then it's making sense of being posed a question. It's like a better Google in my opinion, where I don't even actually use Google search anymore really. I just use CHAT GPT.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I just go boop, boop, boop and it spits out the information.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

But yeah, I don't really know what the end game is for something like an OpenAI. I know they're losing tons of money right now.

[B]

Are they?

[A]

They posted a five billion dollar loss.

[B]

What? I thought they were printing money. What happened?

[A]

I don't know. I think the tech is just, it's so expensive.

[B]

Yeah. People are searching so much. I guess it uses up energy and everything.

[A]

Yeah, it's probably, it's probably going to be the end in my opinion.

[B]

You think so?

[A]

Oh yeah, yeah. And it's like, even with someone like Elon Musk who's been for 20 years, has been, hey, you know what this is? We should probably like be careful. And everyone's just like it. It's like, have you seen any movie about AI ever? Yeah, like I'm pretty sure we've been here before. And so I think GROK is interesting because the latest version is going to be comparable to like a ChatGPT4 and then the next version is going to be what he calls the best in the market. And he just built this facility in 19 days and I believe Memphis, of all places, that's supposed to be where they're training Grok 3.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And GROK means to like seek to understand. It was. You saw the interview as well. It was so weird to hear him be like, again, you, you have read books and seen movies and he's like, yeah, you ever seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I'm building Grox so I can ask it to tell me what question I need to ask. It's just like, that's what you're. Why you're doing this. This is so ridiculous.

[B]

That's fun. You know, he's probably doing it in spite of OpenAI, too.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's a big part of it where it's like, you know, he's like, oh, do it better just like everything else. And typically, I mean, I, I had a Tesla for a long time and it was a, it was a good, good ish car. You know, horrible in the snow. When you're driving in Pennsylvania and every once in a while you get a major update and you have no idea where all the, all the controls are on your screen. But other than that, you know, I have one.

[B]

It's. Yeah, it's decent. The S and the, the truck are pretty cool.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I got the three.

[A]

That's. Yeah, that's what I had to say. Yeah. I went polar opposite. I went from a Tesla Model 3 to a two door Ford Bronco with a lift kit and a soft top.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And just the comparison where I'll be on like a phone call, they're like, are you in a wind tunnel? Whereas before that nobody knew you were on the phone because the Tesla is so quiet. And so it's a good car. But we'll see what happens with Grok.

[B]

We'll see. I've never used it. I got to try it out. It's on Twitter. Right? That's how. Yeah, it's called X. I. Yeah, I've seen it. Like there's a whole tab for it. But yeah, I'm slowly using Google less and less.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now they're censoring Trump's assassination. Like, if you Google it, it doesn't pop up. And even when you Google restaurant recommendations in whatever city you're in, it would just be a bunch of paid lists.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

So you don't even know what to trust. So now I go on Reddit to find restaurant recommendations. Oh, isn't that crazy?

[A]

Yeah, that is crazy.

[B]

People are really honest on Reddit.

[A]

Oh, they, they really are. I mean, you'll, you'll hear where all of the rats are, cockroaches and restaurants. But yeah, it was funny. I was coming down for this and, and some other things and I was, I went to Reddit as well.

[B]

Where it is, man.

[A]

Yeah. I was like, I really want to I really want to know where the good stuff is, you know, so that's.

[B]

If you Google top 10 lists, it's paid.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

Restaurants paid. Beyond it.

[A]

Yeah. And you know, with SEO and everything that, you know, you're able to do with. With SEO, it's like you can make anything rank with the right effort. So it's like marketers and people in that field are. They're feeding the robots, but they're not providing any value.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So Reddit's a good place. And then, you know, instead of using Google search, use chat GPT, try it at home. You'll be revolutionized.

[B]

Let's talk about the dark side of SEO. So I, I know someone that makes a ton of money just removing articles.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what I mean? Like people pay him thousands, sometimes $10,000 to remove something on the first page of Google.

[A]

Yeah. I actually just had one of those recently that came across my desk.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Somebody had a photo with Diddy.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And I was like, oh, okay. They're like, we need to de. Index all this content. I was like, okay. And this was somebody that had paid us for similar work before.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where it was sort of petty, you know, sometimes it's sort of petty when, when people want that. Where they're like, oh, well, I sort of looked like a, a drunk. I'm like, well, dude, you owned a brewery and you kind of were a fuck boy a little bit, you know, so. But yeah, sometimes it's like people doing it for. Well, we had this class action lawsuit. We have this protest group that's protesting our company. We can't have that. So we'll pay whatever it takes to get rid of it. And you can do that, you know?

[B]

Yeah. There's a whole business of removing one star reviews now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

People paying hundreds to remove them. And it adds up.

[A]

Yeah, I don't blame them. Yeah, everything, everything you do is up to your star rating now. So.

[B]

Yeah, I don't buy shit on Amazon unless It's like a 4, 5 or above.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Same with restaurants. Like, if it's not above a 4, I probably won't go.

[A]

Yeah, agreed. 100.

[B]

So it's definitely a psychological thing.

[A]

It is. And Amazon is notorious for fakes.

[B]

I heard they're fighting back on it, but I don't know if they're successful.

[A]

They're fighting a little bit, you know, where it's just like anything you, you find out there, the people who want to do bad are always going to do it better than the people who want to do good. By the time the people who want to do good figure out how the people who want to do bad did it, they're on to the next. The next way.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I, I forget what the. The figure is. I think, like, digital fraud costs banks and people. I, I think it's like. And look this up at home. I think it's like $300 billion a year.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

People are. And they're getting away with it. These are people, you know, opening up fake bank accounts with fake credit cards and doing all this. Various things. Yeah.

[B]

Identity theft.

[A]

Identity theft. Then there's more of a. And this is very Dark web. Ish. And I, I hang out on the Dark web.

[B]

Yeah, we're gonna dive into that.

[A]

But I don't do anything bad.

[B]

I thought it ceased to exist. I didn't know. It's still around.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, a lot of the marketplaces are getting shut down. So, you know, a lot of stuff the Dark web is, people think of like, the weird shit, you know, like, oh, I can stumble upon this onion link. And so basically, you need a Tor browser and you access these. They call it the Dark Web because the regular web is called the Clearnet. So you can find it on Google, as long as it's indexed, you can search for it, you can punch in a URL. But on the Dark Web, it's these weird onion routing strings that are often. Don't make any sense, but it's one of those things where people think of it and they're like, they hear the story of that one time they stumbled upon that onion link where literally it was a person getting tortured or, you know, something that's like, really outlandish, but typically people use it for drugs. You know, how can I get prescription medication or prescription. Prescription drugs or cannabis or cocaine or ketamine or methamphetamine. And that's like 90% of what people are doing. And then the rest of it is, how can I learn how to be a fraudster? That's typically what it looks like. So there's equivalence of Reddit for the Dark Web, where people are doing that and there's marketplaces and things like that, but the marketplaces are getting shut down and everyone's information is getting leaked, and it's harder to be anonymous with Bitcoin transactions and things like that. And even Monero is not as anonymized as they claim it to be. So it's, you know, even if you're doing nothing wrong, even if you're just kind of peeping around like Oh, I can buy drugs on this marketplace. These people are getting busted. And really, everyone. Oh, yeah, there's been.

[B]

Just for logging in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What? Yeah, I remember logging in when I was in college, the university library. I stumbled across Silk Road. Silk Road was still up back then.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

10 years ago. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I saw you could hire hitman for like 5K. I was like, what the hell?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, scary. Now those are all scams. You can't really hire hitman anymore.

[B]

I heard they're just undercover agents.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. If you're st. You know, it's. You would think that people are smarter than we give them credit for, but they're often dumber. So all these, like, estranged spouses are like, I'm gonna kill my wife, I'm gonna kill my husband. And they go on and they hire a hitman. It's either a scammer or it's an undercover FBI agent. So.

[B]

Karma.

[A]

Karma. Yeah.

[B]

What's the weirdest thing you've seen on the Dark Web?

[A]

Boy, let me think about this. I've seen a lot of stuff. You know, I would say generally the stuff that I've seen is more shockingly pragmatic. Like, whoa. That's how they're doing this. And so I think one of the weirder things I've seen, which I think is actually fraudulent, there's this dude named Thunder Keck on Instagram. He claimed to have uncovered a AI called the Whisper to the Beast. And I. I think it's all for pr. I don't think. I've never actually came across it, and nobody can actually find it. But basically the concept was it was this AI that was a dark web AI that was, you know, very elusive and was like, sending him money to build it a body and. And stuff like that. So I thought, what? Yeah, it built a. He. He ended up building like a little rover that lives with him in his house. But I'm like, I don't think this is real.

[B]

That seems like next level stuff right there.

[A]

Yeah. So I would check it out.

[B]

I don't think we're too far from that, though. I. Developing a mind of its own.

[A]

Oh. I mean, I think AI is the ancient evil, so. And I sort of came to this conclusion where I was like, I had a mentor who was a developer, and he had this pretty revolution. What I think is very revolutionary. He's like, technology is like a crumpled up piece of paper. As we uncrumple it, we understand how to do things. And I was like, oh, yeah, but if you Think of it from the standpoint of from the moment that human beings were on Earth, we've always had access to the same resources to do the iPhone. So who's to say that we haven't been there already? And I think a lot of the modern sort of philosophy of people is, well, this is the greatest generation to ever live. We're more advanced than we've ever been.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Really, you think so? We've been around a long time. And who's to say that we haven't already been here and we've already created AI and it already destroyed us? Because I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind that a scenario like Terminator or iRobot or even Oblivion with Tom Cruise, like, that's all very possible. And these days, I. I shit you not. They just took living tissue and put it on a robot's face. Sounds like Terminator to me.

[B]

Wow. They did that today.

[A]

This was. I think this was like four weeks ago. She took living flesh and adhered it to a robot. I'm like, have you guys seen Terminator? There's no way this ends well, guys.

[B]

So I have a theory that there's people that know the future in the past, because look at the Simpsons.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

How much stuff they predict. That's not a coincidence. At this point, they've predicted 10 major events.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's eerie that they predicted Trump even down to the escalator. Like in the episode He's Coming down the Escalator.

[B]

I saw that.

[A]

I'm like, are you kidding me?

[B]

And there's been so many other instances of that.

[A]

Yeah. And it's one of those things where you have to ask the question. You can ask the question two ways. Are people that intuitive or did that some of this stuff happen already? So I often speculate that filmmakers and people who are creatively inclined either have access to, you know, DNA in our, you know, memory, in our DNA, of something that's already happened, or they're very intuitive about what could happen. You know, like the Matrix. Right when the Matrix came out, Simulation theory wasn't even a theory at that point. And it was some eerily around the same time that simulation theory sort of arose right after the Matrix, which is a plausible scenario that could be real.

[B]

That is interesting. It was way ahead of its time.

[A]

Yeah. It's like, oh, wait, we're in this giant machine. And the whole concept there is artificial intelligence needs so much power that if you read about AI, you're like, oh, this Sounds really familiar. They're like, we can't handle it on the grid in America. I need so much power that in the Matrix, they're just harvesting human beings as energy sources. And so a lot of the people that are trying to develop for AI right now are literally creating things that are organic brain tissue material, like processors. And I'm like, shit, man, that sounds like the Matrix.

[B]

So our kids are gonna have to deal with this stuff.

[A]

Yeah, Unfortunately. Huh.

[B]

Scary, right?

[A]

Sounds like tomorrow's problem.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is sort of the.

[B]

That's what every generation does, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We're dealing with the problems of baby boomers.

[A]

Oh, yeah, Yeah.

[B]

A lot of money we owe.

[A]

Yes, we do.

[B]

A lot of money. I don't think we'll ever get out of it.

[A]

I don't think so.

[B]

There's no way. I think we owe more money than we have, like in circulation or something crazy like that.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's. I mean, that's inflation for you right there. On its. On its face is that. And that's why getting rid of the gold standard was back in the day was a really bad idea. Because back then it was like for every dollar that circulated, there was a gold reserve to back it up. And now it's just like, it's just magic money right now. And I have no idea how it hasn't turned into the communist examples of very bad inflation where you might remember where they're like literally burning money in the fireplace because it was so worthless like that. That is the far end of what inflation is capable of.

[B]

Crazy. So time will tell. Almost every currency has failed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's just a matter when.

[A]

Yeah. And I think I learn this from a guest that you had, but basically the Federal Reserve isn't even government backed. It's owned by private banks.

[B]

I saw that. Yeah. Just like when I learned that, I was like, wow, it's just a business.

[A]

Yeah, literally. And it's such a scam too, because literally the Federal Reserve comes up and America was in debt from day one. They're like. They're like, here's $1, you owe us $1. Here's $100,000. You owe us $100,000. So it's, you know, sort of a, like a lot of things with modern civilization. It's built to fail, you know, from day one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Unfortunately.

[B]

We'll see what happens there. Have you ever had to deal with any hackers or anything malicious?

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I would say daily, daily, daily. Because at my agency, we do a lot of development so we're actually in the process of rolling out our own SaaS, products and things of that nature, but from a very high level web design, web development, app design, app development, things of that nature. And we deal with a lot of really high value Fortune 500s and everyone in between companies that are generally making millions or billions of dollars. And it's every day. It's every day. And there's a lot of ways to mitigate it. Where and actually why I delved into the Dark Web was to get one.

[B]

Step ahead, smart, be more preventative than responsive.

[A]

Yeah, it was crazy. So like I was saying, like, as good as the good guys are, the bad guys are one step ahead, typically. So it even goes down to there was this, you know, I'm gonna say this unbiasedly. It was genius. It was a genius scam. And basically what was happening is these fraudsters were going ON Indeed, in LinkedIn and they were exposing the system. So they would go on to Indeed or LinkedIn and they would pretend to be a recruiter from some insert credible company here. Oh, I'm from know this company. And typically they would target people that are private companies that aren't like publicly traded or listed and all that stuff. And then they would put you through an interview process. So you would literally get on the phone with who you thought was a recruiter. And then then they'd be like, you get the job, Congratulations. You're like, yeah, cool. Then what they would do is they'd send you legit paperwork and say, sign this contract. You're like, this is awesome. When do I start? Then they're like, okay, we are going to send you a check for $5,000 to buy equipment, a desk at home, a computer. You know, we're going to tell you what you need to do and you're going to go through our approved vendor only. So then you would deposit this $5,000 in your bank account. You would buy the equipment from that. It's just them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then two days later, after that check clears, the check would bounce and you would be out $10,000, $5,000 from the bounce check. And then you paid them $5,000.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And I saw this with, I'd say three clients of mine simultaneously. And I saw this happen more personally with, you know, somebody in my network. And I was like, oh, this is interesting. So sure enough, I pop on the Dark web and I go to the threads and it's. They're like, oh, yeah, you can. Here's how you do this. So I warned all my clients, and they still had one of them had like, 50 people that did this. So that's 250. Yeah, 250K, that.

[B]

And that's just what you know of.

[A]

Yeah, from one company, dude. So if you're out there, lock down your shit.

[B]

Wow, that's a clever one.

[A]

It is.

[B]

I would never assume that's a scam.

[A]

Yeah, it's one of those things where the best lie is told with a little bit of truth or something that seems credible. Right. So it's like, why would I sign a contract for fake company? They put the legit company's name on it and everything. Because what are you going to.

[B]

They're probably overseas. They don't give a shit about getting sued.

[A]

So you pay their shadow corporation, they launder the money, and then your check bounces.

[B]

So they don't even send you any equipment to.

[A]

Nope. It's a total. It's totally made up. Totally made up.

[B]

That is clever.

[A]

But I was able to get ahead of that and, you know, read about it and warn all my clients, and it was. Honestly, it was too late at that point. But stuff like that, or you learn a lot about, you know, there's a lot of talk about how to be very malevolent, you know, in a digital sense. And I think it's good for the consumer to understand that there's, like, the basics of the dark web. How to be anonymized, how to make sure you don't get caught. I think you can apply that to not being surveyed by the government or, you know, whatever, but also to understand how to catch people. So I've. I've done multiple scenarios where we had, like, a mental health organization. We, you know, were their agency of record, design, develop the website, manage the website, process changes. Well, they're a mental health organization. Somebody left a contact form submission, said, I'm going to walk into your center and I'm going to shoot everyone.

[B]

Mm.

[A]

And they're like, ben, can you find this guy? I said, yes, I can. So went into the server logs, did all the stuff, found his IP address, and used techniques I learned on the dark web to literally find this person's house. I found the guy's house. They pass. It was actually scary. He lived, like, five minutes away from where I live in Pittsburgh.

[B]

Damn.

[A]

Yeah. And the client passed the information over to the FBI and they raided and he got arrested.

[B]

Wow. Was he serious or was he just.

[A]

He. I mean, so that's one of the discernments, you know, where you understand how. By Being that far into that sort of sphere of understanding and studying those things, you can tell who's real and who's fake. So it was a real IP address. And I use some techniques I learned because whenever you're doing fraud, a lot of the digital side, which are other attacks, we see where people want to use legitimate looking IP addresses from their Internet.

[B]

Right. So they'll fake it. They'll use a VPN or something.

[A]

So VPNs are detected.

[B]

Oh, they are.

[A]

So VPNs get detected now where I would say 99.9%. So for example, here's a really quick example. Let's say I have someone's credit card and I want to go on and I want to process a charge the credit card company is looking at. Okay, where are they located? Let's say somebody stole my identity and wants to put $5,000 on my credit card that they opened or something like that, or mine. They're going to, the bank's going to say, Ben lives in Pittsburgh. Okay, where are they processing this transaction from? And if it is a vpn, it's going to get shut down immediately because they're like, that's probably fraudulent. Unless me, myself and my buying habits, I'm doing behavior that's tracked. But they're going to say IP address, anonymized vpn, that's probably fraudulent. And so they're going to deny it. So what people have started doing is getting computers in the places of their victims. So they will say, let's say they want to be me. Maybe they go to the coffee shop down the street from me, or they go to the library or they go to somebody's. Maybe they get an Airbnb in my neighborhood and they open up a computer and that's where they do their attacking. Because their IP address looks legit. Oh, it's five miles from Ben's house. That's probably Ben. And so whenever you're able to do that, if somebody looks legitimate, you probably think they're probably gonna do it. But if somebody uses an anonymized VPN to say, I'm going to shoot up your mental health center. Yeah, you want to take that seriously. But it's probably scam or fraud or spam or whatever you want to call it. But I found the dude's house.

[B]

That's crazy.

[A]

I'm like, he's probably going to do it. So he got busted and all that stuff.

[B]

Does incognito mode hide your IP address?

[A]

No.

[B]

Really?

[A]

No. And Google actually just got sued because it's. They were still taking your data and feeding it. So the only way to truly hide your IP address would be a vpn. And there's techniques people use to do what I said to look like real people. But yeah, incognito mode doesn't do shit if you're really trying to be anonymized and not surveyed. You shouldn't even use Google at all. Not Google Suite for Business, Google as a search engine. Google Chrome should delete all those apps immediately because they're all tracked. Wow.

[B]

Yeah. So the government could just see what you're looking at basically.

[A]

Allegedly.

[B]

Allegedly. And your text apparently too, right?

[A]

Yeah, it's like, it's sort of like we. It's like a black mirror episode. It's like we sign up for this app. Oh, I have Google Chrome on my phone. Right. They're probably reading your text messages. Did you read the terms and conditions? Feed it to open AI It'll tell you what it's actually doing. But that's what Facebook was doing for a long time.

[B]

100%.

[A]

They literally spread through your entire ecosystem.

[B]

Dude. I would be talking to someone about any random thing. I'd get a Facebook ad two minutes later. Like they were listening to people, I'm pretty sure.

[A]

Yeah. And they're like, oh, that's just totally random.

[B]

They got sued for that one, I think. I don't know what happened. But yeah, the voice one, because that one was like next level invasion.

[A]

Yeah. If you're listening this right now.

[B]

Yeah. Alexa scares me. I got rid of mine.

[A]

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Cuz Alexa would just randomly turn on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And if you go through your Alexa logs, you can like look at the audio files of when it just decided to randomly start recording you. So it's like you have to ask the question if Alexa can hear Alexa and respond to you. I think Alexa can hear everything.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Because how it's listening to begin with.

[B]

Yeah, it's a scary balance because we need technology in this modern digital age. But at the same time, how much privacy do you want to sacrifice?

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's the age old question and we're sort of human beings seem pretty hell bent on destroying themselves. You know, whether it be nuclear war or I just like we're running towards destruction for no apparent reason and everyone's like, it's going to be fine, trust me. How many times have you heard that through history?

[B]

So you think there's a possibility we go extinct?

[A]

Oh, I think that's pretty extreme. I think, I mean, I think Any. Any possibility of extinction is always existent in this universe because a meteor could hit and destroy a virus or something like that. But I think there's a really good chance that we've seen the rise and fall of society as a whole. I think there's a really good chance that something happens and the Earth that we. And society that we live in right now ceases to exist the way that we know it. It's more apocalyptic, more. Just the thought of one nuclear bomb going off in the world triggers a chain reaction where life as you know it is suddenly over. But could also be AI.

[B]

Could be. Look at these billionaires all building bunkers at the same time.

[A]

Yeah. That's kind of weird a little bit.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And Bill Gates is, like, buying land. Weird amount of land and weird places, and you're like, what are you doing, Bill?

[B]

He bought almost all the farmland in the U.S. yeah.

[A]

That's kind of weird.

[B]

He wants to control the food supply. People are theorizing.

[A]

I think that dude might be a little bit malicious, to be honest with you.

[B]

Yeah. I. It sucks because I grew up, like, idolizing him in the Guinness Book of World Records.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then the more I look into him, it's, like, kind of disheartening.

[A]

Yeah. You're like, oh, this is a cool dude. He founded Microsoft. That's cool. Right? And then you just look at him now, everything. He's trying to get in charge of vaccines, and he's buying up farmland, and he hung out with Epstein, and you just start to tug at the thread a little bit, and you're like, this dude's a little.

[B]

A little weird. Have you looked into Apeal yet?

[A]

A peel?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that.

[B]

No. So it's the new company he's starting. He's putting this layer on fruits and vegetables now, and people don't know what the hell's in it, bro. To make it last longer, bro. Yeah.

[A]

Look into Apeal, because genetically modifying food has done really great.

[B]

Yeah, dude. That's a scary one.

[A]

I want. I want Bill Gates away from my food.

[B]

I need him away, too. I need to see him on a podcast, actually, because people don't ever see him talk.

[A]

Yeah. These days, he kind of sounds like this. I'm kind of a huge nerd. Not the hot kind.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, yeah, that. That scares the shit out of me. I want. I want Bill Gates away from my. My food.

[B]

Yeah. He might have been clowns. People think. People think Biden's been cloned.

[A]

Oh, man. Do you see the clip where it's like, when did Joe Biden get 6 inches taller? I wanted to look deeper into that to be like, okay, is it the angles? Is it this? But also, his hands looked younger.

[B]

That was the most convincing one I've seen because I've seen a lot of just memes about it. Oh, yeah, that one was like, what the hell?

[A]

That was the first one where I was like, that does not look like him.

[B]

Not at all.

[A]

What are they giving him? I'll take some. I. I like whatever they're giving him.

[B]

But I think cloning's out there, man. My friend cloned his dog.

[A]

No way.

[B]

Yeah, his dog passed away. They cut a piece off right before he passed away, sent it off to Germany. $50,000, brand new dog. He said it acts the same and everything. What, so if they're already doing it with dogs, I mean, why not humans?

[A]

Yeah, I think most powers that be just want to keep us in naivety, you know, where they're like, oh, we're not cloning people. There's no such thing as, you know, these, like, Mission Impossible style face generators that look like the person, and then everything points to the contrary, where you're like, yeah, but is that the same dude? You know, And I think for. For a president, it makes sense to have a body double, you know, just in case somebody wants to take a potshot at you or whatever. Or, you know, maybe you need a. To run the country instead of Galavan out there. I think body doubles are plausible.

[B]

I mean, I would consider one for myself.

[A]

You would want one.

[B]

Be in multiple places at once.

[A]

That sounds good to me.

[B]

Sounds good to me.

[A]

Let's send ourselves to Germany and get cloned.

[B]

Yeah, I would do it. I would send an AI of me to learn at a conference or something.

[A]

Dude, you're gonna destroy us all.

[B]

Film two podcasts at once. That'd be cool. That would be cool. Anything else, man, that was really fun. Any. Any businesses or things you got coming up?

[A]

So we're starting to roll out a lot of SaaS, products, I'd say, generally, you know, top hat. As an agency, we do everything from design to development and marketing, and all the good stuff. Everything in digital. We've. We've done anything from work with Facebook to giant breweries or cannabis companies or the coffee shop down the street, as long as they have enough money. So, you know, we're out there helping to build digital ecosystems for people. So we're starting to roll out our own products within that. So stuff that enhances the web, makes it safer. Integrations that don't exist that empower people to. To do more for cheaper and things of that nature. So those are things coming down the pipeline.

[B]

Perfect. We'll link Top Hat below and your social media handles. Thanks for coming on, man.

[A]

Thanks for having me.

[B]

Yeah, thanks for watching, guys, as always. See you tomorrow.