Earn Your Leisure Podcast Summary

Episode: Where Should Investors Focus Now? AI, Finance & Business Strategies for Success
Release Date: June 12, 2025
Hosts: Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings
Podcast: Earn Your Leisure

Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Earn Your Leisure podcast, hosts Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings delve into the critical areas where investors should concentrate their efforts in the current landscape dominated by advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), evolving financial systems, and dynamic business strategies. Skipping over the customary advertisements, the hosts dive straight into a compelling discussion aimed at guiding both budding and seasoned investors.

Focusing on Problem-Solving Over Technology

[01:20] Rashad Bilal: "Where should, like this cohort of new people... Who graduate or study now focus in terms of AI intelligence?"

Troy Millings responds by emphasizing the importance of problem-solving rather than getting solely engrossed in the technology itself. He advises investors and entrepreneurs to identify valuable problems that businesses are willing to pay to solve, rather than chasing the latest technological trends for their own sake.

[01:28] Troy Millings: "I would say to focus on a problem to solve versus focusing on the technology tool."

Strategic Approach to Leveraging AI in Business

Millings elaborates on his strategy for integrating AI into business models by breaking down businesses into three fundamental layers:

1. IT Infrastructure: This encompasses data, computing power, networking, and software. AI's role here is becoming increasingly pivotal, especially with the shift towards cloud-based solutions and agentic AI.

   [02:20] Troy Millings: "In IT infrastructure, you know, this shift from cloud to AI to agentic, I mean it is uncovering lots of opportunities to go build companies to help businesses understand that and manage that scale, that, secure that."

2. Finance: Every business has financial operations, from moving money to managing accounts receivables and payroll. AI can significantly enhance these processes through open banking, cross-border payments, and embedded finance solutions.

   [03:41] Troy Millings: "When you look at finance, you know what's happening now, open banking, the globalizations, creating this need for cross border payments, there's this need for embedded finance."

3. People Management: AI's impact on workforce optimization involves training, upskilling, healthcare management, and overall human resource efficiencies.

   [04:20] Troy Millings: "You have to decide, well, how do you deal with your workforce, how do you upskill, how do you retrain, how do you deal with health tech?"

Opportunities in IT Infrastructure and Cybersecurity

Millings identifies cybersecurity as a continually evolving field with substantial investment opportunities. As new platforms emerge, cyber threats adapt, necessitating constant innovation in security solutions.

[03:46] Troy Millings: "Cybersecurity is an industry that's, you know, still hundreds of billions of dollars and it's been around for 20 or 30 years."

He underscores that cybersecurity remains a "gift that keeps giving", offering sustained opportunities for entrepreneurs to develop solutions that protect businesses from ever-evolving cyber threats.

Financial Technology and Embedded Finance

The discussion transitions to the burgeoning field of financial technology (FinTech). Millings highlights that virtually every software company is increasingly integrating financial functionalities, leading to the rise of embedded finance. This trend opens doors for innovative solutions that facilitate seamless financial transactions within various business applications.

[04:43] Troy Millings: "There's a saying that every software company is, is ultimately a fintech. Every software company needs to move money around. And so embedded finance is a huge area that we spend time."

Optimizing Workforce and Healthcare with AI

Addressing the people-centric layer, Millings points out the potential for AI to transform workforce management and healthcare services. With healthcare being a massive $4 trillion industry in the U.S., there's significant room for AI-driven efficiencies and innovations.

[04:43] Troy Millings: "Health care in this country, it's a $4 trillion industry. Yeah. And there's lots of efficiencies, inefficiencies there."

He advocates for leveraging AI to enhance training programs, upskill employees, and streamline healthcare services, thereby driving both employee satisfaction and business performance.

Building Sustainable Businesses through Recurring Revenue

Millings concludes by advising entrepreneurs to start by solving problems for individual customers and then scaling up. This approach not only ensures that the solutions are valuable but also helps in establishing repeatable and recurring revenue streams, which are essential for sustainable business growth.

[04:47] Troy Millings: "Go find one customer, solve it for and then another, and then another. And that's when you have a business, that's when you start to have repeatable recurring revenue."

Conclusion

The episode reinforces the notion that successful investment and entrepreneurship in the era of AI require a strategic focus on solving meaningful business problems across key operational layers. By prioritizing value creation and leveraging AI's capabilities in infrastructure, finance, and people management, investors can position themselves at the forefront of innovative and profitable ventures.

Notable Quotes

• Rashad Bilal at [01:20]: "Where should, like this cohort of new people... Who graduate or study now focus in terms of AI intelligence?"

• Troy Millings at [01:28]: "I would say to focus on a problem to solve versus focusing on the technology tool."

• Troy Millings at [03:46]: "Cybersecurity is an industry that's, you know, still hundreds of billions of dollars and it's been around for 20 or 30 years."

• Troy Millings at [04:43]: "There's a saying that every software company is, is ultimately a fintech. Every software company needs to move money around. And so embedded finance is a huge area that we spend time."

• Troy Millings at [04:47]: "Go find one customer, solve it for and then another, and then another. And that's when you have a business, that's when you start to have repeatable recurring revenue."

This episode of Earn Your Leisure offers a comprehensive roadmap for investors aiming to navigate the intertwined realms of AI, finance, and business strategy. By focusing on solving tangible business problems and leveraging AI's transformative potential, listeners are equipped with the insights necessary to drive successful investments and foster innovative enterprises.