Where Should Investors Focus Now? AI, Finance & Business Strategies for Success

Summary

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

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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.

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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."

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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?"

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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."

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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.

Transcript

[Rashad Bilal]

Earners. What's up?

[Troy Millings]

Look.

[Rashad Bilal]

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[Rashad Bilal]

Where should, like this cohort of new people.

[Unknown]

Who graduate or study now?

[Rashad Bilal]

Where should they be focusing in terms of AI intelligence?

[Unknown]

I would say to focus on a problem to solve versus focusing on the technology tool.

Right?

So find a problem that someone's willing to pay to have solved. Think of it as a valuable problem. It's a lesson I had to learn in grad school. In grad school, we were solving these very hard, difficult problems, but they were not necessarily valuable ones. They were not necessarily, you know, you're solving a theorem that's been sitting around for 30 years, but no one necessarily wanted to pay you to solve that there. Yeah, but if you go into a business and an enterprise like, okay, what problems do you have that I can solve that will be valuable to you? And it's usually around helping a business increase revenue or decrease expenses.

Right.

And that way you're delivering an roi. You look at the work I do in technology, as you mentioned, I've been doing it for a long time, but I don't do a lot of work around consumer technology.

Right.

It's a very big space, very important space. That's not my specialty. What I tend to understand is, give me a business and let me find a problem within that business that I can write software to solve for them. And I tend to think about that across three layers, no matter what Kind of business you are healthcare business or a manufacturing business. There's three things that most businesses have in common. One is they have a layer of infrastructure.

Right.

You have, you have data, you have compute, you have networking, you have software, you have a layer of IT infrastructure. Then another thing that most businesses have in common is the next layer is finance or the money. The money has to move, you have to pay bills, you have to get your account receivables, you have to pay payroll. And so there's a layer of finance in every business. And then lastly you have people and you need to care for and optimize your people. So you have training, you have upskilling, you have health, tech, healthcare. And so I tend to spend my time looking at those three layers within a business and finding problems to solve and seeing how software is disrupting things within there. So 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.

Right.

Cybersecurity is an industry that's, you know, still hundreds of billions of dollars and it's been around for 20 or 30 years.

Right.

It is the gift that keeps giving in many ways because every time there's a new platform, the cyber criminals will spend their days and nights trying to figure out how to break it. And so that creates lots of opportunities, to your point, for the next generation of entrepreneurs. 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. You know, 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. And then lastly, software around the people as AI disrupts many things. 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? I mean we look at health care in this, in this country, it's a $4 trillion industry.

Yeah.

And there's lots of efficiencies, inefficiencies there.

Right.

And so there's room for improvement around healthcare. And so I tend to say don't go focus first on the technology, focus on going to find a problem that you can solve. 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.

[Troy Millings]

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