Rashad (2:51)

For real.

Troy (2:52)

Yeah, man. He loves it, though. Yes. Shout out to. To the NFL season that kicked off all my Giants fans. Ah. Don't ever come to Washington thinking you're going ever.

Rashad (3:03)

Aaron Rodgers didn't look that bad, game one.

Troy (3:06)

No, he did look crazy. Shout out to Magic. Magic. That's one.

Cheryl McKissick (3:13)

Shot.

Rashad (3:13)

How you feeling?

Ian Dunlap (3:14)

I'm good. I'm good, man.

Rashad (3:16)

You got on a custom. What you got on?

Ian Dunlap (3:18)

I'm not even sure who sent this, honestly, but, you know, part of my. Part of my merch packages, so I salute. Thank you.

Troy (3:26)

Not sure.

Ian Dunlap (3:27)

I'm not a tag. It didn't have a tag on it, so I couldn't really.

Rashad (3:31)

To the creator of the brand just AI his voice. Yeah.

Ian Dunlap (3:36)

This has happened before. DM me. And then next show, I'll give you a shout out because I definitely want to give you a shout out, but, yeah, you know. Yeah, man. They've been giving me a lot of merch. I don't buy clothes no more.

Rashad (3:46)

Smart move. You shouldn't have to.

Ian Dunlap (3:49)

That's a fact. Economic. That's the economic decision. Everybody like, yo, the assets over liabilities. I'm not buying these clothes.

Rashad (3:58)

Close the liability.

Troy (4:00)

Yeah, there can be very quickly. You start looking at that bottom line every year. It's like, hold on.

Rashad (4:05)

For what?

Troy (4:06)

We got to make some better decisions here.

Ian Dunlap (4:08)

That's a fact. But shout out to all those designers, man. It's a lot of. It's a lot of brands out there that's doing their thing. Appreciate you guys.

Troy (4:13)

Oh, justice.

Rashad (4:15)

Coach, you got a package coming to your P.O. box, if you don't mind.

Ian Dunlap (4:18)

Oh, I gotcha.

Troy (4:20)

Yo, shout out to little. Little fit or little fat. They got this brownie company. They were at Invest Fest. They were trying to get these brownies to us. They were delivered to my house yesterday. My kids ran through them. Shout out to y'. All. I will be ordering more. I'm gonna send you your package. Pause. Not really, right?

Ian Dunlap (4:38)

A little bit.

Troy (4:39)

Yeah. I got some for you. Yeah, we ordering more. Shout out to y'. All. Incredible. Incredible. Yeah.

Ian Dunlap (4:45)

Okay. We got a big week. Earn your leisure. Well, first blackout, 10:00 Eastern Standard Time. We got the good brother, D1. He gonna be joining us. That's gonna be a spirited conversation. Of course, we're gonna cover the young thug conversation, which I think is the most important interview the last 10 years for our culture. I'll explain why on Blackout if you're interested.

Rashad (5:05)

That is a hot take, but I'm with you. That was Shout out to business guys. Shout out to Charlamagne. I forgot.

Troy (5:13)

Yeah. Shout out to Bank. Shout out. The Scream was. I know was producing that episode. Shout out to Scream.

Ian Dunlap (5:18)

I watched the whole thing.

Troy (5:19)

That's the whole team.

Ian Dunlap (5:21)

Three hours.

Troy (5:22)

I saw some of it. I don't know if I. When I started it, it already was, like, I couldn't go back.

Ian Dunlap (5:28)

I watched the whole thing. Like I said, I think it's the most important interview for the last 10 years for our culture.

Rashad (5:32)

And I'm explaining a lot of lessons in there.

Ian Dunlap (5:34)

There's a lot of lessons that I'm not seeing on. So I'm seeing on social media just the, you know, the messy. Yeah, the messy nonsense. But there's a lot. When you start to peel back the layers, I'm like, okay.

Troy (5:45)

I. Yeah, there's some grown man in there.

Ian Dunlap (5:47)

It's a lot of it.

Troy (5:48)

A lot of grown man.

Ian Dunlap (5:49)

So we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna be talking about the state of hip hop, the culture. We're gonna talk about D1, you know, we're gonna talk about the Drop My Flag challenge. Shout out to Hocus four, five.

Troy (5:58)

Yo, salute, man.

Ian Dunlap (6:00)

Salute.

Troy (6:00)

Shout out to Styles P. Shout out.

Ian Dunlap (6:03)

To Styles p. Your boy Adam 22, weighed in on.

Troy (6:06)

I'm not gonna let him say your boy, Ian. I'm not gonna let him say your boy. I'm not gonna let him say yeah.

Rashad (6:14)

And Trump invading Chicago and the gds and bds. Got something to say. Stop.

Ian Dunlap (6:20)

Yeah, we gonna shout out to Vic.

Troy (6:21)

Mensa shot Town Zone.

Ian Dunlap (6:23)

But we got a lot to talk about. And then Thursday is a big episode. Magic Johnson. We gonna release the Magic Johnson footage from Invest Fest.

Troy (6:34)

I watched it.

Ian Dunlap (6:35)

Still undecided on the time we might do. Six o'. Clock. Right through nine o'. Clock. What do you think? What time you think we should do?

Rashad (6:40)

I think not. Prime time. Nine.

Ian Dunlap (6:42)

Nine o'? Clock.

Troy (6:42)

Yeah, I watched it.

Rashad (6:44)

I watched. Kids would be in bed.

Troy (6:46)

It's okay.

Rashad (6:47)

What time does the Steve Harvey interview? Air analytics.

Ian Dunlap (6:50)

That's what I'm trying to trace back.

Rashad (6:52)

To whatever that was.

Troy (6:53)

I think we did not.

Rashad (6:54)

I think so.

Troy (6:55)

I think we did not.

Rashad (6:56)

Me and Xander was up late watching. Yep.

Troy (6:58)

That was crazy. That one went crazy. I remember watching it like, yo.

Ian Dunlap (7:01)

Yeah. And made the decision. 9:00 clock on Thursday. Magic Johnson. Invest Fest conversation. A lot of gems. A lot. A lot of gems. So, you know, we got, we got a jam packed week this week. So, man, have your alarms ready. Set your, set your bells, whistles, all of that. And today we got a special guest, Cheryl McKissick.

Troy (7:22)

Yes.

Ian Dunlap (7:23)

One of the most important entrepreneurs for our culture. We'll talk about, you know, her new book, but you know, the family that built America as far as sixth generation of, of construction. And she's one of these people that's LaGuardia Airports on her resume, I think. Harlem Hospital. Yeah. It's crazy.

Troy (7:41)

Six generations, man. That's, that's just different.

Ian Dunlap (7:43)

It's crazy.

Troy (7:44)

That's the real sustainable wealth and generational wealth.

Ian Dunlap (7:47)

We gonna get into it. She's one of these. She's one of the, she's one of the ones for sure.

Troy (7:51)

Yeah. And Ian, shout out to you for pulling up on us for our Invest Fest VIP virtual call last week. Oh, that was incredible, man. That was fun. Yeah, the feedback's been crazy. We got another one this week with our, our boy Austin. He's going over everything in the world of crypto on Wednesday. I might pop in that class just because I'm trying to learn. But yeah, man, everybody, the feedback was like you said, you set off a fire inside of people's spirit. They were like, yo, we need that old vibe back. Bring it back, Ian, bring it back. So we appreciate you, man. Shout out to everybody that was in the class. Everybody took advantage of all the stuff that was dropped at, on, on last Thursday, man. Incredible.

Ian Dunlap (8:31)

This Thursday VIP series continues. Austin, 7 o', clock, 7:30. We're doing crypto. Crypto, 7:30, 7:30. Like I said, we got Wednesday.

Troy (8:40)

He's Wednesday. He's Wednesday.

Ian Dunlap (8:41)

I said Wednesday.

Troy (8:41)

You just said Thursday.

Ian Dunlap (8:42)

Wednesday, 7:30. We got a four part series, so that'll be part two for all the VIP ticket holders for Invest Fest.

Rashad (8:49)

Yeah.

Ian Dunlap (8:50)

Disclaimer.

Troy (8:51)

Yeah, y' all know how this works, man. Do your own research. Our content is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It's very important to do your own analysis before taking any financial advice based on your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a professional, connects with or independently research and verify any information that you find on our show and wish to rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise continue to do the research. Share the research, give credit when you find out where the research came from. Let's build wealth. Let's build our portfolios. Let's build our community. Love is love. Oh, wait. This message Brought to you by the good brothers. I earned your leisure. And the good brother, Ian Dunlap, the massive investor himself. Two stock Shakur. Hey, Patrick, man, we gotta bring them names back, man. Every, every week it was a different name. I love them. They're. They're pretty funny.

Rashad (9:41)

Stock club call tomorrow, Tuesday at 5pm Central. The replay of my Invest Fest performance, which everyone is saying to my best, is in. Telegram prices will be out Friday at 9pm Central. Tune into the interview with Magic at Thursday because Magic put a lot of pressure on me before I went on stage. My lord, if I made you money, please put yes in chat. Let's have an amazing show.

Ian Dunlap (10:05)

All right, so let's talk about the tech dinner. Trump brought all the tech CEOs, they had dinner, hot mic moment when Mark Zuckerberg pretty much said, like, you know, what numbers did you want me to tell? Pretty much like, you know, he's just making up numbers on the spot. Whatever Trump told him to tell, he was going to say it. So what's, what's, what is this? What does this mean for, for everything?

Rashad (10:32)

We talked about it on the show before and I talked about it at Invest Fest, but if you want to know who the winners are going to be for the next four years, they're all at the table. I know it was a big kerfuffle when he said, what number did you want me to announce? I hate the quote, but you're right, nobody bigger than the program. So he was checking with Hefe to see, yeah, hey, boss, what number did you want me to allocate so I can make sure I stay at the seat at the table? Even Tim Cook got up there and was very jovial. And his interaction with Trump because he realized being outside of that wall of protection is not good. And it made me immediately think back to when we went to the White House, who we saw, CEO, Visa, etc, and what the Democrats could have done better to have their table set. And if they would have led with the economy and with Americans earning more, they probably would have done better in the election. That's a whole nother side of the story that we can't tell. But the players that were at the table are the ones that are setting the race for returns over the next four or five years. So oftentimes you don't have to look. And guess what the 52nd best tech company is going to do. The ones that are there, that's the all star team. Those are the ones that are going to lead. Those are the ones that you have to invest in.

Troy (12:00)

I would agree with you almost 100%. Almost 100.

Rashad (12:04)

Ian and Troy have a beef two weeks in a row.

Troy (12:07)

No, because what you're saying is 100. What you're saying is true. But there was a omission of people who were not there for sure. So I'll start with the people.

Rashad (12:16)

Lisa wasn't there, right?

Troy (12:18)

Lisa was there. Lisa was.

Rashad (12:20)

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. Who wasn't there. That should have been.

Troy (12:23)

I'm gonna run down the list of the people who were there. So you had Zuckerberg, obviously for Meta, Tim Cook at Apple, satire from Microsoft. Bill Gates was there. Sam was there. OpenAI.

Rashad (12:34)

Chamath was there, or shot to Chamath, but he was.

Troy (12:38)

Greg Brockman, open AI president. Sundar was there from Google, Sergey was there from Google. Safra Katz was there from Oracle. Lisa was there from amd and Alexander Wayne, we talked about him with him and Meta. He was there from scale AI. The people who weren't there. Elon Musk, big omission number two. Jeff Bezos was not present. And the guy who has the company with the largest market cap in the history of the world was not there. Jensen Wong.

Rashad (13:08)

He was busy.

Troy (13:10)

He might have. So when we say like the, the ones that'll move, they're gonna be like, wait, well, Nvidia. Nvidia. It will be moving the market. And we can't. So the, the part that is interesting is the, the submission, I think. Right. So leaving. But when, when Mark was caught on the off mic, he was like, I was caught off guard. I didn't know what to say. Even though they had already admitted that they were going to allocate a certain amount, the numbers became even more staggering. He says 600 million. 600. I'm sorry, billion. Billion by 2028. Right. We're in the third quarter of 2025. Well, that's in two and a half years. They're saying 600 billion Apple, 600 billion Microsoft, 80 billion annually. OpenAI didn't even, they didn't even say a number. They were like, Oracle's here. You already know the 500 billion dollar investment that we said into to Stargate. The level of commitment that we're talking about. The focus is America, America, America. I can't say it enough. If we're talking about where the money is moving, if they're going to keep having conversations about AI and infrastructure and technology and innovation and these American companies are coming to the table. That's what we have to put the money.

Rashad (14:27)

The infrastructure investment is Needed because most cities cannot handle the capacity the data centers and AI need. That's the other part in Quantum that people don't talk about. Most cities can't handle the power grid constraint that a quantum computer would cause.

Troy (14:47)

Right.

Rashad (14:47)

So.

Troy (14:47)

Right. This isn't just a GPU conversation.

Rashad (14:51)

No, no.

Troy (14:52)

A CPU conversation. This is about large scale infrastructure. This is why when we talked about meta building in Louisiana and the scale of what they're building is impressive. Right. But that scale comes with companies that have to build it for them. Right. It's the reason why when we talk about what they're doing in Ohio and what they're doing in Tennessee and West Virginia, all these states that you're like, wait, we've never traveled there. Whoever they're building infrastructure. This is where the money's going. Right. And what the next. And that's why last week when you said energy will have his day. Energy definitely will have his day. Because these things need to power it. And so when we, when they're saying these large astronomical numbers that you're like, wait, 600 billion. That sounds crazy. It's not just for the actual GPU or the technology.

Rashad (15:35)

Everything, all in.

Troy (15:36)

Exactly.

Rashad (15:37)

Yeah. Also notice everyone at the table is finding some way to collaborate with each other to minimize the downside. There isn't tension there. How they used to be like the Stargate project. AI Quantum. Our battle is against China. We need all of our best in bright. This is like financial avengers right now. China could be Thanos. We need every hand on deck to help prevent us from losing this AI war. And then we talked about the job market being terrible.

Troy (16:14)

Can we bring up the elephant that's sitting in that room though? Who's really in power, private sector or government?

Rashad (16:23)

It's always been private sector. Sean talked about this endlessly.

Troy (16:30)

The wrong number at that table. While the mics are on, what's the repercussion?

Rashad (16:36)

Well, you don't get to sit at the table no more. Dates over.

Troy (16:39)

Maybe sanctions, maybe court hearings, maybe Senate hearings.

Rashad (16:44)

And they, they keep my boy in the Senate.

Ian Dunlap (16:46)

I don't think. I think that. I don't think anybody's more powerful than Donald Trump. Donald Trump, he's the most powerful person in the world.

Rashad (16:54)

Well, hold on. Time out.

Troy (16:59)

Of. You go ahead, man. Yo, watching that.

Rashad (17:06)

He's a great business. He gonna make you. He gonna offer upsell. You sure that's the number you want to go with, right? Business lesson in it. Two tiered offer. Yeah. You can come in at 500 million if you want to But I think.

Ian Dunlap (17:19)

He'S the most powerful person in the world now being the most powerful person in the world doesn't mean that there's other outside influences that are not powerful. Doesn't mean that there's in shadows that are not powerful. Doesn't mean that there's aren't. You know, it's not like he could just do anything that he wants to do. But on a player ranking he has more power sliders all the way up number one per person. He has more power than any other.

Rashad (17:42)

Person and he wills it how a person in power should. I hate to say it, but it's true.

Troy (17:51)

I don't even know if should. It's just been unprecedented. Last week we, I mean we were in the chat. His son became a billionaire on his own. Like nobody was even talking about this right from their crypto ipo. This is unprecedented. But it begs if you don't say the right thing at the table like you said that you won't be in that room. And then what happens to the the business in shambles.

Rashad (18:15)

Tim Cookler, he brought that 24 karat gold Van Cleef set it right on the table.

Troy (18:23)

Lisa sue ain't miss a meeting yet.

Rashad (18:25)

Yet close.

Troy (18:29)

Stay close at all by any means.

Rashad (18:33)

If this is the energy source and we've seen with Elon, even though things in Xai could go right, he probably would have been closer to hitting that trillion without the marks of Tesla set if he had stayed close to Trump.

Troy (18:51)

He still might, still, still might do it.

Rashad (18:53)

Those are some lofty targets, but it's possible.

Troy (18:56)

Yeah, the, the messaging is interesting too. When the it was originally a tech luncheon that was going to be held in the Rose Garden and the idea was it was Melania's initiative to have kids learn about AI and how we can use it and be innovative in that. And that was the original pitch and I never heard anything about that after the meeting actually took place and it was happening. It was like she was there. But what happened to that part?

Rashad (19:23)

I heard that David Saxon ch kind of re engineered some of the ideas there. But the dinner ended up working incredibly well and it's good to see tech working in hand inand with government to make sure we don't lose this race to AI. We can't lose this race. We're losing in every other category. Job market is in shambles, cost of living is too high. Politically and educationally we're behind. We can't lose this war. And I wish the Democrats would have done the same thing to Be honest.

Troy (19:57)

Sit at the table. Yep.

Rashad (20:01)

Didn't listen.

Ian Dunlap (20:03)

It's a fact. Last week we put the post up about Broadcom. So let's talk about Broadcom. I know on the, in the post we talked about how the option call. Yeah, so explain, explain the whole Broadcom option call. The whole thing.

Troy (20:24)

Yeah. So Broadcom is, is a company that we've been in for the past three years, done plenty of option calls on them. I know a lot of people who inside EYL. You were in the 155 call in, in August of 23 when they announced earnings and it pulled back and I said great, we're going to grab the 175 call and go out further. So we've been in this company from a shareholder standpoint, obviously the option standpoint. But this, this is a company if you, if you watch this trajectory and you watch Nvidia, it's been, it's been running neck and neck with it. Right. In terms of continuous growth. Now Nvidia has pulled back a little bit but again it becomes one of those cases where it's good, good enough and it's great, great enough anymore. And when you shoot up 79% and you shoot up 59% quarter after quarter, that doesn't really sting the same the way they did when they went up 212. I'm talking inside of the AI data center infrastructure. But all signs have been pointing for, for Broadcom to have a blowout quarter. It actually did that. And this is the one time at 4:30 when you were watching, you're like, why is this pulling back? They're beating on every single number, being on every single number and then you hear this, wait, they have a 10 billion dollar customer which still has to be identified. But I think I have a good.

Rashad (21:36)

Clue on the same page on this one for sure.

Troy (21:40)

Yeah, I think we have a good clue. But they did something very interesting and I think people in the world of business should actually study this. The GPU market has been dominated by a king and that is Nvidia. And we know that. Right? And when they talk GPUs, it's the first thing that's been brought up. Every time we talk about Broadcom, we talk about connectivity, right? Connectivity from an infrastructure standpoint and from an IP standpoint, Broadcom said, look, we're not trying to compete with you. In fact, we're going to be the connective tissue for this entire space. And so they built accelerators and networks with Silicon Valley and anything in that compute world. So They've coined the term xpu. So if you haven't heard that, write that down in your notes. Xpu, not gpu, not cpu, which AMD has, has done really well and kind of kicked Intel's back in. They've coined xpu and why xpu, that means across any processing unit. So that means it works in GPUs, it works in CPUs, it works in F PGAs, TPUs, NPUs, DPUs, anything that has silicone design and has compute for acceleration, they are the connectivity partner, right? And so that $10 billion partner that helped the bottom line revenue. The fact that they have helped open AI to design their own chip that is going to be in mass scale in January of 26.

Rashad (23:15)

Hello.

Troy (23:16)

That helped the bottom line. And so when we're looking at this and we always talk about Catalyst events, what are the Catalyst events? Well, is there infrastructure that's happening? Is there innovation that's happening? Do they have earnings report happening? All those things have lined up perfectly. So when we're like, all right, this is a call we're going to go in. This is a company that we've already stacked. And I talked about why we're stacking, right? Stacking means, all right, I have a call at 155. The stock price went up. I'm going to grab a 175, right? It went to 220. All right, I'm grabbing another call at 220. I might be in the money, right? That means at that the actual stock price or below it, right? Or I might be out the money slightly. We've been stacking Broadcom this entire time. And so when this Catalyst event happened, earnings last week, it was like, oh, perfect. And so I saw plenty of people grab that 310 call. They grabbed it a lot closer to the expiration date, right? They grabbed it in October and November and shot up 200, 300% in 24 hours. Right? Like, I like mine slow and steady. I had the January, actually December 27th call for 310, which is fine. I'll take my 40% in 24 hours. But I know that's going to gradually go to 20 to 60, 80, 100, 200%. And so we're very strategic. So when I'm saying stay low and keep priring, that's what I'm talking about. Get all the research, be strategic and be precise. And when you do those things, these are going to be the type of returns.

Rashad (24:43)

There's two really good brand lessons here. The XPU move is really Good, because you want a company that you invest in to be in a category of its own. And Rashad, maybe we can talk about this from a Brandon standpoint. Secondly, if you're not a king, be a king maker. So Nvidia is a king. They can't beat Nvidia being a king. What can I do? I can help a king of sand now partner with open AI for whatever tech hardware project they have coming out. If they are the infrastructure or the sales of that company and they elevate them, they allow themselves to rise as well. But from a brand standpoint, Rashad, can you touch on how important it is for a company to be unique and not a copycat of another?

Ian Dunlap (25:27)

Yeah, it's vitally important. You gotta, you know, have your own pathway blueprint. As far as you know, the best brands in the world are memorable for a reason. So you know, from a marketing standpoint, from a user experience standpoint, from just every, every thing that you can think of. So separation inside the space I think is vitally important. Apple, when you look at Apple, you know they're not the only company that makes cell phones, but they have a unique way to position themselves where it seems like it's Apple and then it's everything else. Because there's a lot of Samsung, the Samsung phone, the Google phone, they're all in the same green. They're all green. Like we don't really look at it. It's not looked at the same as like the iPhone, the iPhone stands alone and then every other phone, every other those Android type devices and there's a lot of them but they all kind of get lumped in together. So yeah, you got to stand out. That's important.

Rashad (26:29)

You gotta hit a market that no one else is hitting but really important. And for a while Nvidia was a king maker as well. If you look at the space, go back to 2019, AMD was in lead but Nvidia was connecting and making gamers lives better. And then it was personal computer market, then they hit a different gear. So and also with Broadcom they, they are not appreciated enough because they remind me a lot of Tim Duncan. Like fundamentally sound, not the most exciting, but they just put up numbers every quarter. So yeah, continue to hold for long term too.

Troy (27:10)

That, I mean what you're saying is vitally important. And both of you, I mean having the separation is, is one of those determining factors. We don't want to get lumped into the mix of like we're trying to compete with Nvidia.

Rashad (27:21)

Nope. Don't compare me to anyone. Amd, intel, Nvidia. No, we're separate from all.

Troy (27:27)

If have a semiconductor, we can help accelerate and we can help with the connectivity for that. So that means that you can work with the amd, you can work with, with Texas Instruments. Right. You can, you can do all those things because you're just the connection. And that is a game changer. We like the 310 call. Seems funny now that the, the, the, the stock ran up to 350.

Rashad (27:49)

Yeah.

Troy (27:49)

But it's like, you know, all the signs on the wall and I don't see a slowdown, to be honest with you. I don't, I really don't see a slowdown because again, we're talking about where we're at in terms of artificial intelligence and the, the use case for the semiconductors. We're talking about GPUs, but like yo, I'm shout out to Google again. I know we talked about them last week.

Rashad (28:10)

Yep.

Troy (28:11)

Waymo was their product and when we started, they own it. So when we're starting talking about AI and semis inside of the auto space that it hasn't had its moment yet. It's gonna have a moment. They just announced they had 250,000 ride shares last month. That's a record for them.

Rashad (28:33)

Yep.

Troy (28:34)

They're about to have a moment. And if there's connectivity inside the auto space in terms of AI, well, now you can see that customer base. But I, I had a great conversation with somebody in the tech world, an exec, and I think we've, we've come to a conclusion because when most people heard the $10 billion customer that was anonymous, most people thought OpenAI because that was their partner. When I did the research, they already announced the open a partnership in January. That wasn't something new. This feels like it's something new. And if we're talking about the hyperscalers, the Metas, the Amazons, the Microsofts of the world, there's one company that hasn't partnered with anybody yet.

Rashad (29:12)

Do your research, go to OpenAI and ask who could it be. Also hyper concentration, going back to that term again, it's really good to have a client that pays the lion's share of revenue. If you manage the revenue.

Troy (29:26)

Right, right. That we would not. That was Nvidia's case. Yeah, they got three customers. But hey, those things, look how much absorbing them out of my.

Ian Dunlap (29:40)

Okay, all right, well, let's hit the like button and share. Let's talk about the US economy. So is the US economy already breaking down with only 22 jobs added in August and unemployment rising. Are we headed so but then also also this is an interesting stat that we put on the EYO page as far as the article is concerned that.

Troy (30:05)

Oh the labor market for the first time. Yeah.

Ian Dunlap (30:09)

Okay. So there are more Americans out of work.

Troy (30:14)

Yeah.

Ian Dunlap (30:14)

Then there are jobs open for the first time since April of 2021. So okay, this is pretty disturbing situation. You know when it looks when it there's the latest bureau in July job openings dropped to 176,000 dropped 176000 to 7.1 million while the number of unemployed people rose to 7.2 million. So simple supply and demand here and says a lot about the times that we're in. But does this paint a broader picture of a downturn in the economy or is it just something that we're going to have to deal with as far as people not being able to get jobs because it's a new world that we live in.

Rashad (31:10)

It's a new world and it's a lot of it has been caused by the macro issue of the mismanagement of the debt of the United States of America. Even the United States taking a position in intel and other companies over the next three or four years. It's interesting that there are buying into companies acting like a venture capital company to pay down the debt and entitlements like pensions and Social Security. That's really scary. And on top of that combination of AI is taking a lot of the jobs away. The part that's really scary to me is how much they're revising down. So when I see that they're revising in a month or two a hundred thousand dollar jobs. I mean excuse me, a hundred thousand jobs. That is incredibly scary to me that the numbers are being reported one way to meet whatever demand is needed and then a month they're correcting and there's an error of 125000 jobs. I want to be very clear the job market will not be good for the next three or four years.

Ian Dunlap (32:17)

I mean will the job market ever be good? Well this also goes back to a conversation that Tabitha Brown had. We could talk about it on blackout but she was we can't even have it here. She encouraged Tabitha Brown encouraged shout out to Tabitha speaker and good person. She encouraged paraphrasing entrepreneurs to get a job if that if your business is not working. And that's. That created a whole think piece.

Troy (32:44)

Well there's why the thing piece.

Ian Dunlap (32:46)

There's no Job.

Rashad (32:47)

Maybe I'm out of tune.

Ian Dunlap (32:49)

There's no jobs that you can get in today's economy. Not to say there's no jobs, but that is, it's difficult to get a job. So that's what I was saying before. Even on black I remember I was saying like I, I, there's a lot of people that don't work that are not even rich but like, like there's a lot of people. The, the, the number of people that don't work that's still surviving is high. What are they doing for money? I'm not 100 sure. But it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a lot less. Like okay, the, the whole thing with. Even when Gary Vee was saying like you need to start selling things online, online shopping is a big thing on Tick Tock when they say like okay, Vlad 10F says that you have to start investing because you know that's going to supplement income on a certain level for you know, it's not high paying jobs or just not jobs period. Like we have to have a real conversation that we're headed in the. The New York Times or Wall Street Journal posted a good a post about how black, black people specifically are finding a harder time to get jobs. They interviewed a black woman who was saying that, you know, she wanted college, got a degree, the whole thing and now she feels like she's been cheated.

Troy (34:07)

Yeah, the, just to add to what you just said, because I want you to finish that point. The, the number of unemployment black women is at the highest levels since that, that same metric, I think 2020, they're actually 3% higher than the national average.

Ian Dunlap (34:23)

The gig economy. At a certain point we have to really start having uncomfortable conversations when people say like okay, just get a job. There's no jobs to get. There's no jobs to get. So how are you going to get a job if there's no jobs to get? It's very difficult to get a job that will pay you enough to maintain a lifestyle worth living in today's economy. So entrepreneurship on a certain level is not really a luxury, it's a necessity.

Rashad (34:55)

Yeah.

Ian Dunlap (34:55)

Or commission based job or the gig economy or investing. You have to find alternative ways to make money than the traditional way that we was taught. As far as go out and get a job, that's not even possible. A lot of that's. If there's more people that need jobs than there's actual jobs, that means that somebody's not getting a job. A lot of people are not A lot of somebody's on you possible to get a job.

Troy (35:22)

How. How strategic do you think the timing of all this is? Right. You have a president and an administration that is at the Fed chair's door every day, every day being critical of lowering rates. Lowering rates. When job numbers come back like that, what is the inverse reaction? Rates are going to be lowered. Right.

Rashad (35:44)

But how much longer can we lower rates?

Troy (35:48)

This is short term. Short term. Right. Like so now September becomes nearly 100 chance after those job reports were revised and now it's 22,000. If less people are working right, then there's not as much money out there. Rates are going to get lowered yet I don't know how many times they can lower it. Right. It went from a quarter percent to now maybe half a percent. Who does that help? That helps people who invest. Right. Because you're going to see money become cheaper. Tech, tech companies for sure will benefit from. Because the cost of labor is going to go down. The cross for merchandising is going to. Infrastructure prices are going to go down. That's going to help do. Which is why what Vlad is saying, and I said it all week last week, like you have to.

Rashad (36:30)

Yeah. It's not even optional anymore.

Troy (36:33)

But it's something both.

Ian Dunlap (36:35)

I think you can't invest if you don't have money. That's important. You can't invest what you don't have. Yeah, that's important. And that goes back to sidebar, the Little Little Baby situation. This is one final part that we left out from young thugs when he's. When he's talking about P cutting Little Baby up the deal. This is important to understand for all the entrepreneurs out there. One thing that the great late Irv Gotti told us that was very important is that you can't sell what you don't own. One key component that young thug failed to mention, and he kind of contradicted himself on that interview when he said that Little Baby doesn't own his masters. You can't sell what you don't own. He didn't even have the option of selling his catalog because he doesn't own his catalog. So that's a great point. When you're in business, you need to understand you can't sell what you don't own. That's important.

Troy (37:25)

Yeah. He said he also owns 50 of Guns Masters.

Ian Dunlap (37:28)

Yeah. But he said, he also said never made no money. That's bad business.

Troy (37:31)

Yeah.

Rashad (37:33)

Too much emotion. We'll talk about it on Blackout though.

Troy (37:35)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rashad (37:36)

I'd have Been collected if that. If you're not pulling up to my mama house, I think so did you.

Troy (37:40)

Two things here, two things happening. The labor market is slowing down. But is the economy.

Rashad (37:47)

The labor market, I'm be clear, is in a correction, it's in a crash.

Troy (37:52)

That's fair, is in the correction but the economy is not in the correction. So what this is, this is now goes back to the. I know we go like we used to debate this all the time. Are we headed for a soft landing or is there going to be a correction for the economy?

Ian Dunlap (38:09)

Neither, because it's not directly correlated anymore.

Rashad (38:14)

Two different ones.

Ian Dunlap (38:15)

It's two. When you have, when you have artificial intelligence that can do the job, the company is still making money.

Troy (38:20)

There you go.

Ian Dunlap (38:21)

So the, the ship is still running. What's going to happen is that you're going to have a lot of people that's going to have to start figuring things out.

Rashad (38:31)

And the tough part is okay, let's say they drop interest rates dramatically. Stocks will go up. Tech would do even better. They're not going to hire more. The capex is going to go up into AI but there are, there are.

Troy (38:44)

Sectors that will be affected. If people don't have the capital to purchase, then obviously you can. Housing will be affected, retail will be affected, all those will be affected for sure. Tech, different tech.

Rashad (38:57)

Tech would be okay of course but my thought is to even and this is way above my pay to grade Federal Reserve or anything in St. Louis, we aren't planning 10 years at a time. We're being too emotional. Like if you're going to have a rate cut because they keep saying 100 and then it doesn't happen. We need to have a nominal rate for a 10 year period so everybody can plan accordingly. Even with the tariff thing, when you say okay, I'm gonna enact tariffs and then 90 day extension, not everyone is able to adjust on a fly. Some of these things are going to take a year to set in. But there's a tale of two economies. If you're making 200, 250 and up versus if you're at 80 and lower, those are two different economies and they're not managing well. For those who are making less than 85 a year and the impacts that it's going to have, I've never seen disparity. The people that I know that are doing well are having blockbuster quarters. The people that are not doing well are having some of the worst years I've seen since 2009 and 2010. I've never seen that. At least in 2009, when the market was tanking, everybody, everybody was affected. Now it's like a sub 100,000 a year recession. And if you make more than 2,000, you're having a boom cycle. I've never seen that.

Ian Dunlap (40:30)

Yeah, it's a necessity to invest. It's a necessity to figure things out. As far as people say, okay, you, everybody can't be an entrepreneur. That's not actually true because even if you don't have a talent or business, you can, you could become a real estate entrepreneur and buy homes and then be an entrepreneur that way. Like there's, there's things that you can be an entrepreneur that don't. You, you don't necess. You don't necessarily have to have a media company. You don't necessarily have to open up a grocery store. You can literally become an entrepreneur through real estate. That's just one example. I could think off the top of my head that doesn't require any set as far as like, okay, I'm going to need to be famous. I'm going to need to have, you know, a certain lot of luck and different things that nature, I mean, luck always helps. But you gotta find a way to make money. And there are ways to make money. That's necessities in life still. But it's only going to get worse. This job thing is not going to get better, it's going to be worse.

Rashad (41:39)

And I want to be real. No one is coming to save you. Most companies don't care because they're only focused on their bottom line. They're trying to make sure that they don't go out of business.

Troy (41:48)

Well, not the, the hyperscales don't. They're looking at it like, you're not even my customer. Right.

Rashad (41:55)

That's another conversation.

Troy (41:56)

Yep, you're not my customer. And so there's even less care. And we'll leave some of the conversations that we have for private. But I'm thinking in terms like you brought up tariffs, which is interesting because the Supreme Court may rule against Trump and say that the tariffs were unconstitutional. And so does that now become a catalyst event? Because those tariffs that were collected from companies, I think Bezman said that half of it might have to go back. So all those companies are going to have 50 of the money that they were paying in tariffs. Could this be a catalyst event that we didn't see coming?

Rashad (42:28)

It'll be a minor, unfortunate. I don't think it would be a large scale one, but just the timing of it the thing that I don't like about American business is that a lot of things are planned two to four years out the same way that the government is running. When you look at other countries, okay, when you guys go to Africa, let me. Because you guys have been way more than I have. Are they talking about two years or 20? That's the other two and 20 conversations we gotta have. We are so short sighted in all of our planning. Even in sector rotation what company is really thinking quarter to quarter. We are, it's part of the reason why we have so much fracturing of economy, education, quality of life when other countries are thinking long term and their plan is just to beat us in the long term. So when we have the conversation about maybe you need to look at living abroad, sometimes we get pushback. But I'm like the cost of living here and even some people I know who are doing well, they're like this is unsustainable. If the current rate of inflation remains the way it is for the next 10 years, it's going to be impossible to live in a major metro city. Like I have real estate agents who've messed me. Like I don't, I mean it's great for me but I don't know how these a three bedroom home in a city can go for six and seven hundred thousand. That's nineteen hundred square feet.

Ian Dunlap (44:01)

You're going to start to see a full fledged revolution from a people standpoint, political standpoint. This is why somebody like the man Donnie, he's going to win it. He's going to become the mayor of New York City and he's a self proclaimed socialist because people don't care. That socialist word is not something that's scaring people. What's scaring people is not being able to put feed their family or having some sleep. So you're living in a city like New York City where the average one bedroom rent is almost $5,000.

Rashad (44:30)

Crazy.

Ian Dunlap (44:32)

The, the wealth disparities at an all time high.

Troy (44:34)

Insane.

Ian Dunlap (44:35)

So it's not sustainable. So of course they're gonna, people are going to start to rebel politically and they gone and, and they're gonna. Socialism is something that's going to, to have a rise in America because if, if you, if you can't participate in the economic economy as far as capitalism and you, and you're not benefiting from it, then the next option is to adapt some level of socialism so everybody can have some, some comfort.

Rashad (45:07)

Scary times. Oh, I keep saying it. I know the indexes at scale are going up. But if you look at the Russell 2000, there isn't a company 30 through 2000 that I would make as a primary investment. I wouldn't have said that probably eight years ago. Scary as hell. So you must invest. There's no option, no punishment.

Troy (45:35)

There's plenty of address. You have to, you got to. Yeah, I'm with you.

Ian Dunlap (45:39)

What about gold? We seeing gold hit all time, record highs after record highs and just keeps going up. And once again, this is something Mike Novogratz last year he was mostly all his money was going into bitcoin, crypto and gold. And he was saying that the reason why was because of, you know, governmental factors, inflation. He laid out a whole reason why he thought that gold and, and crypto would do well as the dollar falls. Gold has always been a safety and then crypto is the new, you know, alternative to the dollar. He felt like as far as government spending is going to have to keep increasing, which is going to keep devaluing the dollar, which is going to make bitcoin stronger and also make gold stronger. And yeah, gold has definitely lived up to that prophecy. So it's up 36% year to date. Are we in for a generational bull run and could this even go past traditional stocks as far as investment returns are concerned?

Rashad (46:44)

I think so. The bull run, of course, yes, has been happening. Any advancement in gold and bitcoin is a declaration that the dollar and the American economy is not doing well. Deficit spending for 2024 is past where it was in 2023. It's not where it was in 2020, but we're getting close. That number keeps getting higher. Once again, debt to GDP ratio keeps going up. I know people talked about the United Healthcare investment, but the amount of capital that Buffett still has on the sideline is alarming. And then that Buffett indicator is at one of the highest points has ever been in history. So even ahead should not be up 34%. That tells you how much fear there is in the market about what is to happen. And for the first time in my life you have Ray Dalio, Vlad Tennis, Sam Altman Bezos on Twitter giving investment. I've never seen a billionaire class give the public an exit strategy or investment strategy on what to do. That is a sign of the times. I'm not here to scare you. I'm here to tell the truth. Things are scary and I don't know what could be done to reduce the deficit even in half.

Ian Dunlap (48:13)

Gold or bitcoin? Which one?

Rashad (48:18)

Christ, do you love me at all? Or no.

Troy (48:22)

Do both.

Rashad (48:23)

Half and half if I have to allocate accordingly. Rashad.

Ian Dunlap (48:30)

Both.

Troy (48:30)

Okay, that was both. That was the first point.

Ian Dunlap (48:33)

Well, before. Before I get off that point. The reason why I asked you this question is because for conspiracy theorists out there, do you find it interesting or suspicious that a kilo of gold is almost the same price as one bitcoin and it's been tracking that way for the last five months. Do you find that suspicious that their own a kilo of gold right now is $115,000? Bitcoin is a hundred and twelve thousand dollars. One hundred and thirteen thousand dollars. They're almost neck and neck and they've been neck and neck for a long time. Because when people see that. Once again, this education for the audience. People see the price of gold they're saying is three $600 but that's per troy ounce. Not destroy. But that's how they measure it. And that's a small. That's a small right coin of it. But the brick, like when you watch the movies and they have a brick of gold, that brick gold is 115 000. So is that just a coincidence?

Rashad (49:29)

You said kilo. My brain just fried. So I. I don't believe in any. Okay. Every year there are trillions of data points that are printed in every market. I don't believe in coincidence at all. It is a I paired hedge for sure. Because you can't have disparity and question for the audience. How much is bitcoin up year to date? Like even the hedges have a correlation with how far they will pull away from each other. Otherwise it won't be a hedge. It's like the American deficit spending is at a certain level and if you look at the chart of American deficit spending it is on par with how the bond market looks. There are no accidents. Even a Microsoft sub c cable being cut. There are no accidents.

Troy (50:24)

So I just wanna. So when you said you agree, you're agreeing that that gold will dethrone stocks as the top asset I could Bitcoin. Okay. All right, all right, all right.

Rashad (50:36)

Not the ones that I picked.

Troy (50:37)

No. All right. I misheard you. I saw. Thank you for the clarification.

Rashad (50:42)

Okay. My brother's on the same page. Ish. When you ready to come on and had a debate about stocks and real estate. You're more than welcome, my brother.

Troy (50:47)

I love you dearly.

Rashad (50:50)

Yeah, I think a wipe down.

Troy (50:53)

I think in our episode with well Austin he was talking about the. The future valuation of bitcoin surpassing the Valuation of what gold is for sure. Because you see rise on the wall.

Rashad (51:09)

With a hard asset, it's a lot harder to adjust the return basis to be what you need it to be.

Troy (51:18)

Yeah. And is it there's going to be a cap on the amount of bitcoin that exists.

Rashad (51:25)

Yeah.

Troy (51:26)

Right. Supply, demand.

Ian Dunlap (51:29)

Robin Hood. Shout out to great America.

Troy (51:34)

Shout out to Vlad.

Ian Dunlap (51:35)

Great American success story. So Vlad Tenf real. The real Vlad by the way is basking in glory right now. Robin Hood, if you look at is is one year, nobody's really talking about that but it last year it was $19 and now it's, it's $115 and then in two years it went from $10 to $115. So when you look at a company like Robin Hood who had troubles for.

Rashad (52:10)

Sure.

Ian Dunlap (52:12)

A lot of people were counting them out, said that you know, they couldn't recover after the whole gamification. Yep, 500 in the last year. In the last 12 months, Robin Hood is up 500 insane in one year.

Troy (52:28)

Yeah, there's a great correlation.

Ian Dunlap (52:30)

So what's the deal with Robin Hood going forward?

Rashad (52:33)

I think it's a great insight about leadership and the founder being tenacious. I've always said that the character of the founder is really important in the company and I have to give him a lot of credit. The last time we saw him in Miami, this one thing I'm always looking at is temperament. He remained cool under pressure, he remained optimistic. And then once we got on the floor and got to see some of the developments they were having, I'm like they are cooking. I like when an entrepreneur just continues to make the business great. And even though they went through tumult for a year or two and went through all the slander of the gamification part because that was really. The brokers didn't like how many users they were putting on their platform. If we can be honest, that's what that really was about because all of them sell data to hedge funds or prop firms. But he's did a great job at turning the business around, getting them more focused, making the platform better. And usually the broker space is not one that I like a lot but for this to be a fintech play, it's a really good one. I have Robin Hood by end of year getting possibly to 13668 and very promising future. They should be like in a 290 range. If they stay at this pace in like a two or three year period.

Troy (53:58)

They they again you got to give Vlad and his Entire team, a lot of credit.

Rashad (54:04)

Yep.

Troy (54:05)

They listened to the critique and they didn't shy away from it. They actually leaned to it, leaned into it. When people were talking about institutional investment and seasoned investors, they said, there's a group that we cater to that are really changing the market. And that was the retail investor. Whether it was because they made it easy to invest, whether they were. Because it was gamified, it worked. Right. And then once he got them, they said, all right, well, these aren't just re. The average retail investor. The average retail investor has 7, 500. We're talking about young adults in their twenties that have 10, 15, a hundred thousand that they're investing. These. These are seasoned investors at this point, and they've been with Robin Hood for five to six years, and now they've made a platform that, I mean, it's as professional as any other brokerage. I think the other point that while we've seen that increase, especially over the past year, is they're a fintech company that's adjacent. Right. With the evolution of bitcoin. Right. And so they've made it. They've made it a easy for the average person to invest in the cryptocurrency space. It becomes very tough. Right. If you don't know Coinbase, it's like, all right, what do I do? But you can do it on Robin Hood.

Rashad (55:17)

Yeah.

Troy (55:18)

And so the fact that they have that. The fact that they've changed conditions on 247 trading, when brokerages were like, no.

Rashad (55:24)

We'Re never doing that, staying away from it.

Troy (55:25)

Oh, my gosh, why would we ever do that? Right? No, they, they listened to their audience and they said, all right, these are some key points that our audience, this new retail investor, this revolution of retail investors. This is what they want. Let's put assets on it that they can trade. Let's add options to it, let's add futures to it. Let's add different technology that makes it easier for those people who may not have been introduced to this 10 years ago. They're here now. Let's make this the best experience for them, and they've nailed it. And that's why you've seen the, the, the stock run up. Being added to the S P is a big deal. I think Caesars got kicked out, right? Caesar's Entertainment, long overdue. Caesars got kicked out. It's a big deal, man, and it's well deserved. And we got to watch it. We were with him four years ago at Robin Hood's headquarters. We sat down with him in Miami at their conference. And all he kept talking about was this is what's coming next. This is what's coming next. He was looking ahead. He talked about predictability and how those having predictability and having different ways to actually bet. And I guess, I mean that will kind of be like futures.

Rashad (56:29)

Yeah, it'll be future. You guess of events.

Troy (56:32)

Right. The election was something that we talked about. It was like, oh, wait, they. They've got something here that nobody else is doing. So. Yeah, well deserved.

Rashad (56:40)

Yeah, they've done an amazing job just as staying focused and the innovation cycles there have been incredible Robin goals. And we're not just saying this because he's a friend of the show because you guys know, like if, if the company isn't good, I'm going to clearly say it. But they've done an incredible job. They these last two years of listening to which I've always said listen to the criticism.

Troy (57:01)

Yeah, they've done it. Yep.

Ian Dunlap (57:04)

That's a fact. Thank you to Robert Smith for. He gave us a book. He wrote his first book on Martin Luther King. It's called Lead Boldly. So he sent us copies of the book.

Rashad (57:19)

I love that.

Ian Dunlap (57:22)

Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

Troy (57:23)

Great.

Ian Dunlap (57:24)

Robert Smith, check out the lead boldly Seven principles from Dr. Martin Luther King.

Rashad (57:33)

Got you. Okay.

Ian Dunlap (57:34)

Vitally important. Robert F. Vitally important. Also do remember doing an nil event on September 21 from 2 to 5 at Westchester Community College is free for anybody that would fit the bill. As far as that, you have an athlete that's in high school that is showing signs of they could potentially be in that pool in the future. Vitally important. Parents are welcome too. And bring in an NFL agent. Shout out to my guy, Greg Barnett. Bringing the head of NIL for Boston College, Daniel Abrams. And also one of the top entertainment lawyers, actually Cameron's lawyer, Matt Middleton, he's coming as well. And then somebody from Morgan Stanley will be speaking. Then we have another financial advisor speaking put together. Yeah, for sure. And it's free. Community. Give back.

Rashad (58:37)

Gotta keep giving to the community.

Ian Dunlap (58:40)

That's a fact. So you can go to my Instagram, the link is in my bio. But yeah, that's an important topic these days, man. A lot of kids making a lot of money. And you know how that go. You think when you're making money, you think you're going to be making it forever until you realize you're not.

Rashad (59:01)

Agree. You got to stay paranoid. You have to stay paranoid.

Troy (59:04)

You got only way.

Rashad (59:07)

Even Howard Stern show got canceled on Sirius. I never thought I'D see today.

Troy (59:12)

Did it?

Rashad (59:13)

Yeah.

Troy (59:14)

Oh, wow. That's a billion dollar contract. About 500. Back to back.

Rashad (59:21)

Back to back, yo. Not, not a bad gig. But after 20 years, they say wrap it up.

Ian Dunlap (59:26)

Wrap it up, my boy.

Rashad (59:28)

Interesting.

Ian Dunlap (59:29)

It's been real. Okay, okay. All right, let's talk about. Before we bring our guest on, let's talk about Apple, the iPhone 17. There's some, there's some talk that this, it may not get a lot of attention, but this might be something that has real useful updates and really, you know, beneficial from a user standpoint. So, like what? I don't know.

Rashad (60:09)

I'm not here to today.

Troy (60:12)

Nah, nah, I'm. I got sickness. I got. No, I got you. I got you. Here. Here's the thing. This is the thing. All right.

Rashad (60:20)

This is the thing is.

Troy (60:24)

Let'S try this again. At some point, right? Like I'll use us, for example. Like, I think shotgun is the 13. I think I got the 14. We skipped the 15, we skipped the 16. At some point, there is a model that is going to make us say we need to have the newest model. Now this, the AI intelligence thing, the Apple intelligence thing obviously did not work. Well, it did not, admittedly. At some point that cycle is going to come back. We just don't know what the product is, what's phone it's going to be, but the cycle is going to come back. Here's what they have at their, their wheelhouse. They have 1.5 billion people that have bought an iPhone. It's a lot of people. Now, everybody didn't have the 16. Great. Everybody has. At some point they're going to have an innovation. And this is why I said do the research on who is partnering with who.

Rashad (61:21)

Yep.

Troy (61:22)

Who's making whose chips, who has sat out. Right. Who's waiting for the infrastructure. At some point there's going to be a technology that's, hey, we have to have that. That, that phone has it. We need to have that. And I don't. Maybe it's a 17, maybe it is, maybe it's not. But it will happen because that cycle of rotation is a product of having a, a good moat when it comes to consumer experience. Right. The reason why we didn't get a new phone is because this one's good. The reason why you don't get the iPad is because the last one was great. The reason why you didn't get the MacBook. Right. But at some point there's going to be technology that says, all right, something substantial has happened. We need to change our cycle. We need to get that product. That's my firm belief which is why you've kind of seen the stop which was consolidating around 200 to 206 it it spiked up the the case with with Google obviously helped it that they didn't have to they can have to sell off Chrome but they can still partner with Google in that sense.

Rashad (62:19)

Yeah.

Troy (62:20)

Their time is coming man. It's too big to feel.

Rashad (62:24)

Apple 17 has a dual video recording with a possible mechanical aperture for why no one gives a about this Joe I'm. I'm. I'm being honest. Great. I know y' all keep putting out. If that's the case you should have acquired DJI or you should acquire blackmagic. If you want to be a camera company you have the foldable phone that's a Samsung knockoff from three years ago. That's not innovation. Ecosystem matters yes. Moat matters yes. I'm always keeping my pulse on when sentiment change either in my personal brand and the companies that I love. I for two years I have not had one person out of all the thousand people that I met. Thousands of people say I'm looking forward to a new Apple anything more people care about stream mafia thon than they do this 17 I'm waiting to December and if y' all get a call it's reflective on me and enjoy Dunlap Enterprises and Red Panda llc. Troy, Rashad thank you Leisure not Mike Cool. No one wants this stupid ass phone that you keep reselling. No go innovate in December before Christmas. I' ma say it. If we don't get a change in the if we don't get a reimagining I'm going to say who I think CEO should be.

Troy (63:56)

I'm with you on that man. I just want to let you know I'm with you but at some point it's gonna happen. It has to happen, right? What happens?

Rashad (64:02)

The phone has to get better.

Troy (64:04)

The product has to get better. It can't be hey there's a new there's a new sensor. Oh we got liquid glass. I'm with you. These things aren't we don't they're not.

Rashad (64:13)

Revolutionary of exponential growth and Sam has done a great job. When they put out the the most recent release at 5 it was because you had too many different going back to most they have too many skus of chat GPT4 you had reasoning, you had logic. You I want one that works they put out GPT5 right. Apple keeps having incremental updates In a world of tech that is having exponential growth every three months and they're behind. Siri works worse now than it did four years ago.

Troy (64:49)

Yeah, they're. They're behind. Right. If we look at Google's product, I just saw this commercial for the 17 where you can now delete a person out the picture which is, I mean that's Samsung tech. Yeah, they, they did that three, three years ago.

Rashad (65:03)

And to everyone who says, well, Apple usually lets the innovation cycle happen and then they reimagine. I know, I had an Apple too. You have to. I'm the one that made the Apple investment lit in our community. They need to be a leader in innovation and tech or they are going to eventually move down to 7th and market cap. Market cap. Because if open AI puts out a good hardware project. Back when y' all didn't make that rel and I keep talking about it, the relationships that Steve Jobs had and Tim Cook had was not a great one. You can see it in his leadership. That's why they've almost erased everything regarding Steve Jobs at Apple with the exception of him being in that theater. Tim is not a product guy, he's an operations guy. That's why he doesn't have a product guy. That's why the dividend came in as a result of tam da da da. But the products are not great how they used to be.

Troy (66:07)

This is true.

Rashad (66:08)

I don't need more megapixels for. I mean the only thing girls love it. You get all the megapixels make put some AI in the phone that we can use.

Troy (66:18)

Yeah, that's the technology I'm speaking of. It has to be something. So we'll see. One thing, we got to have a conversation on OpenAI and we always talk about relationships and we talk about the power of relationships. What OpenAI is starting to do is maybe right. When you see the reports of Stargate and we covered that and how Microsoft got cut out the deal on Stargate and Oracle stepped in with SoftBank. When you think about their relationship. Well, Sam's relationship with Elon and how that turned out. When you look at their recent announcement with them creating a platform that is going to use artificial intelligence to help in this job recruitment and job complex. Yes.

Rashad (67:12)

Well.

Troy (67:15)

Specifically to combat LinkedIn which is.

Rashad (67:17)

A Microsoft company which has not been utilized the way that it should. And one way to tear apart a company is to have me and my cronies attack the businesses at different points. If you look at open AI, open AI is what iOS should be what's better open AI or iOS now you got Johnny and Sam teaming up for the hardware now if we find another person to combat ecosystem and onboard and they're so lucky that Chamath did not get that free Facebook phone ID off in 2013.

Troy (68:01)

What's the hardware product?

Rashad (68:04)

I don't know. I don't know that but it's subsidized.

Troy (68:10)

That's, that's, that's, that'll change things.

Rashad (68:13)

Yeah.

Troy (68:16)

I mean obviously it's, it's incredible. It's the most widely used when people think AI is the first I would argue it's the first thing that comes to people's minds at the forefront of people's minds absolutely don't have the hardware product which maybe they don't need to maybe that they don't think that's something that but at a certain point you.

Rashad (68:33)

Start getting at a certain point if you can converge them because.

Troy (68:38)

All industries it's not just hey we're coming we're trying to make everything efficient. And if you're in a way more.

Rashad (68:45)

Efficient and better when the economy needs it more than ever, the businesses need it. Think of the subscription revenue just hypothetical if they launch in the healthcare to just with diagnosis or diagnosis alone.

Troy (69:00)

Yeah. I was watching Mark Ben off, you know Salesforce CEO y, you know watch their stock drop 12% and that was, I mean three years ago. I'm, I'm like hey Salesforce. I believe in Salesforce. And they have AI. They're using AI it's just that it's not as efficient, it's not as fat as as what everybody else is using. Causes a problem. Right. If I can create agents, do I need a mega cap company charging me a certain fee? There's you know, I mean their clients are huge. But at what point do we say like hey we can actually scale this down and be more efficient with the.

Rashad (69:37)

Spend or Apple could even deal with Microsoft did that's how Microsoft got the investment do a young thug did invest in the next best thing. But just collect your payment 10%.

Troy (69:49)

What are you doing? 30. Right. The service business is booming. Service business keep it keeps us. Keeps it alive. Right. The what got us here was the phone. The regionality of it.

Rashad (70:02)

Life cycle of everything. Even when like going back to keeping things copacetic in your partnerships which Sam is doing a great job at. When I ask, hey how long we gonna do this? Also I'm watching that clock of life cycle of shows. You gotta keep your eye like I think Apple got so comfortable with that treasure chest, it's. Oh, nobody could knock it. Even the too big to fail America's about to fall. You don't think Apple can fall to 10th?

Troy (70:33)

Yeah. I mean the treasure chest has, has gone down in. His value was at 134 billion. At its peak, I think we're down to 106. Yeah.

Rashad (70:42)

Inflation and not deploying the capital.

Troy (70:45)

So yeah. And you haven't acquired anything.

Rashad (70:50)

So other than my criticism, go spend the money. Go buy Anthropic or something.

Troy (70:54)

We're gonna get the. They're gonna ship us to the 17 first after with all this. They're gonna ship it to 17 to say, guys, test the product and tell us.

Ian Dunlap (71:03)

All right, well, with that being said, let's bring up our guest. All right, so we have Cheryl McKissick. Daniel. And we actually interview Cheryl probably like two years ago for Earn your leisure. She's been in Invest Fest twice recently. She was at Invest Fest this year and just has a new book that came out. Congratulations.

Troy (71:29)

Congrats, congrats. First and foremost, the black family who built America.

Rashad (71:35)

Hey, that's a great title.

Troy (71:37)

Yeah, yeah.

Ian Dunlap (71:40)

So if you're not, if you're not familiar. So Cheryl is the CEO and president of McKissick and McKissick and it's the oldest black owned and woman owned construction firm in the United States. Six generations, right?

Cheryl McKissick (71:57)

You're calling that into existence. In existence. Because there is a sixth generation that I'm working on.

Ian Dunlap (72:05)

Okay, so five generations.

Cheryl McKissick (72:08)

Yeah, I'm fifth.

Troy (72:09)

Yes.

Ian Dunlap (72:09)

So five, five, five generations. And they kind of give you some perspective of some, some of the work that she's done. John F. Kennedy International Airport, might have heard of it. Terminal 1, the new Terminal 1. JFK. Beautiful, beautiful. Barclays center and Atlantic Yards, Pacific park, including Long Island Railroad, Vanderbilt Yard, relocation, Fulton Fish Market, Mega Evers College, Harlem Hospitals, new patient Pavilion, Coney Island Hospital, campus renovation. I mean, very, very impressive resume.

Troy (72:52)

I don't know too many resumes that sound like that for sure. I mean most people frequent these places. They don't really think that's part of their portfolio. So kudos to you.

Ian Dunlap (73:02)

So, you know, we're going to talk about your book. We definitely have to talk about, you know, construction, Today's economy, challenges, different ways to get in. But first, for the people that may not be totally familiar, can you give us the history of your family in construction dating back, I believe it started even during slavery.

Cheryl McKissick (73:25)

Right, right. We go back 230 years to 1790, when the first descendant of our family came to this country. His name was Moses McKissick the First, and he was taught the trade of making bricks. He was in North Carolina as a slave. His son, Moses McKissick II, was a master carpenter and a master builder. And he also was in North Carolina until the slave master gave him away as a wedding gift to the Maxwell family, who lived in Spring Hill, Tennessee. And that's how we got to Tennessee. And then shortly after emancipation, he moved to Pulaski, Tennessee. And that's where our first company started, which was McKissick Contractors, and that was Moses McKissick II. His son, Moses McKissick III, is my grandfather. And he and his brother became the first black licensed architects in America with license 117 and 118 in the state of Tennessee. And they worked all through the south and the Northeast. And then the company was passed down to my father, who was William D. Barry McKissick, another architect. And when he became ill, my mother took over. And now I run the company. So I am fifth generation in this company. And I have to say, after it was over 200 years, that Moses McKissick the first laid his first brick. And Here we are 200 years later, an unshakable pillar in a country that is dealing with questions that we've answered already around equality, equity, opportunity. And I feel that the McKissick and I write about this in my book. We stand as a mirror for America and a beacon. Amira saying, black professionals, we've been around for so many years, but yet we've been ignored. You just said, who built this? Well, we did. We're a beacon because we are exactly what happens when perseverance meets purpose. And so all of this is in my book, the Black Family who Built America. And so that's our tagline. We proudly say, who built this? We did. Because black Americans really are like the hidden figures in this country who have contributed so much. I mean, we actually did build America.

Ian Dunlap (76:07)

And then talk about. But just follow up on that, because that's. How are you able to scale the company from starting during slavery to doing JFK Airport? Like, that's important, too. Like, talk about that scale, as it's one thing to have a generational business, but it's another thing to have a generational business that's actually growing over the course of time.

Cheryl McKissick (76:29)

Yes. So, you know, when I think about it, how we were able to sustain slavery, Jim Crow, prejudice in the deep, deep south, and to be able to do that over a span of 200 years. I think about the fact that, number one, ownership was important to our family. So just being able to have ownership, and that's what I love about what you guys are doing at Invest Fest. I meet so many people who want to be owners in their own lane of something, and I think that's paramount when you're trying to create a legacy. Also, I think we adapted, but we didn't lose our identity. We always made sure we provided excellent work and in the perspective and in the area that we were supposed to. But at the same time, we came home to our black community and took care of our black community. We built black churches. We built colleges and universities. These are some of the tenets that I think that are extremely important. You know, as you grow in business, you also have to lift others up with you. If you stand by yourself, then that's a problem. You're easy to knock off. But if you bring in a strong foundation, which is what we try to do other contractors, subcontractors, architects, engineers, then we have a base from which we can draw upon and each other. We can all work together as a network as opposed to an individual. I think that is extremely important. And education. Education is key. With each generation of the McKissicks, the education and the knowledge grew, and. And that was also a sustaining factor for our business.

Troy (78:34)

This is incredible. I want to get this right. So you credit your family success with the five Ps, right? Perseverance, preparedness, persistence, productivity and prayer. Talk about how those show themselves throughout generation to generation and how you implemented it to. I mean, the valuation is probably starting with a B at this point. How has that prepared you and gotten you to this point?

Cheryl McKissick (78:59)

Well, the projects are at a B.

Rashad (79:02)

Okay?

Cheryl McKissick (79:03)

That's for sure. You know, perseverance is getting up every day in the face of adversity, period. I can't tell you the number of rooms I've walked into as the only female and definitely the only black female. And I talk about this all the time. The first time I ever went to the New York Building Congress, a sea of white men in suits, 500. And, you know, I don't think they thought I had anything to contribute. They were like, who is this lady? I mean, I don't even think they noticed me. And I. I thought to myself, well, how am I going to make it in New York City if this is. These are the people that I have to generate revenue from. And so persistence is getting up every day saying, I am going to live my dream and I'm not Going to let anything stop me. And I think the McKissicks have done that in every generation. Productivity means just that, you have actually produced value. And we have done that. I feel that we have documented the black experience in this country through our buildings, through the universities that we've built, the hospitals, the schools. And so that's, to me, is productivity. The other one is preparedness. We talked about education, drawing up on your own experiences and becoming a better professional with everyday professional development. And you guys deal a lot in all of this with invest, fest, and it's all true. And the other, I forgot, what's the fourth one?

Troy (80:57)

Well, we got prayer still and we got preparedness idea.

Cheryl McKissick (81:03)

Preparedness, productivity, perseverance, persistence. And I switched that one out a lot. And say purpose. Because now I say, you know, if you wake up every day with a purpose on your mind, a God given purpose, then you will achieve it. Now, prayer is the one I added because some days that's exactly what I need, prayer. I'm in constant contact saying, you know, lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable unto you. Not to anyone else, but to you. And if I do that, then I know I've accomplished what I've needed to accomplish for the day. And so Those are the five Ps, and they have shown up everywhere in the McKissick legacy. And with each generation, we often talk.

Rashad (81:59)

A lot about generational wealth. But in terms of generational wisdom through the five generations and preparing for the sixth, what lessons are you passing down so that they can continue for the empire to stay afloat? And what are the systems that you guys had in place to pass down these lessons decade after decade and century after century?

Cheryl McKissick (82:22)

You know, when the McKissicks were coming along, it was a different day. And parents were able to train their kids by having their kids look at them. They were the models. They set the tone. Our community set the tone. The world that we live in now is much different. And, you know, I find it to be much more of a struggle to pass this information down to the next generation. Even my daughters, because they're influenced by so many other avenues and, and there's so many other resources for them. I, you know, just going to college and trying to figure out what degree to get is difficult today with my daughter in George Washington, she could choose from 100, 200 different degrees. And I remember sitting down saying, this is a mess. I mean, I don't know what half of this stuff is. And so it was a Different day. So I think it was easier to pass it down then. Now, um, it's just consistently telling them, consistently showing them that owning your own, you have, it creates a destiny for you that's different than everyone else. You get to be the architect of your destiny when you own your own. But a lot of times they have to go out into the world, they have to work for other corporations, they have to see that there is a glass ceiling that they're bump your head. Yep, yep, there's a glass ceiling above your head. And look at the leadership of the company you're in. And do you, does it look like you? So then what are your chances of getting there? I'm not saying you can't do it. Heck you can. I just heard, you know, that more than likely I am going to be the chair of the building congress that I entered into over 30 years ago and didn't think I would make it, but it took 30 years. So, you know, sometimes you just, they have to go through it, you know, and, and they have to understand that what they see on the Internet, you know, these little clips of people are at their brightest and, and greatest moments, but then they'll see a year or two later these people have a complete crisis and they break down. And so that's real life. We all go through it. And so sometimes, you know, I don't know, the Internet has just given us too much to think about and, and, and a lot of it is not real. So we got to get to what's real.

Ian Dunlap (85:14)

On a technical side, obviously you have very large scale projects. So a lot of these projects are being funded by like government. Right. And everybody knows sometimes the government doesn't always pay on time. So cash flow management, right? Like how, how are you able to, to float that? Like what's, what's the importance of cash flow management in your, in your business? To make sure that the subcontractors, the workers are getting paid, everything is moving efficiently, even if the, the payment schedule, something might be off as far as, you know, working with your partners.

Cheryl McKissick (85:49)

Well, here is what I say to owners because it has worked well for me. You've got to build a balance sheet. You know, those first few checks that come in are not for you to spend, they are for you to put away and build a balance sheet. You have got to have cash in your company to be able to borrow cash from the bank. And then being able to borrow cash from the bank is expensive, especially these days. So you want to just build up as much cash as you can. And that's what I worked hard to do over the years. Also I have a system in place with my team on collections. Being able to collect money. Yes, the government sometimes is a very slow pay, but if you develop relationships with the people in procurement, then you know, they can push your payments along and get you paid faster than others. I mean, everybody knows. I'll ask them what's king? And they'll say cash is king because it really is. And so we have built up a balance sheet over the years so that we can, you know, withstand any of the issues that we may experience from slow pace. And, and now, you know, we probably, I would say 50% of our work is now private industry. JP Morgan Chase, you know, Loop Capital with Magic Johnson at Terminal 1, which by the way is a $3 billion. $3 million, 3 million square foot new airport. And so they tend to pay much faster.

Troy (87:42)

I mean, the portfolio is, I mean, impressive. It would be an understatement with the infrastructure need that America is facing over the next five, 10, 20 years. I mean, you could, you could put a time on it. How do you go about choosing what pro, which projects you're going to get involved in? We were here earlier talking about the data center revolution and the infrastructure that's going to be needed there. You talked about the airport and you talked about the hospitals. How do you go about seeing, all right, this is where we're headed in terms of construction and engineering when you're about to make it the next deal, right?

Cheryl McKissick (88:16)

Yeah, that's pretty much my role. I continuously research our industry. I follow the capital dollars and where it's going. Data centers are huge. And we are a part of the new Micron data center that's being built in upstate New York. Upstate New York. It's really a microchip manufacturing plant that the Overall cost is $100 billion. Yeah. And we are working on the first phase. That's $10 billion. And so now when you think about data centers, what, what do they run off of? Electricity? So then that's going to be the next infrastructure problem that we're going to have. And so that's where I'm looking now is. But of course, this administration.

Rashad (89:23)

As you know, challenges.

Cheryl McKissick (89:25)

Well, yes, because we needed offshore and onshore wind to supplement our resources for energy. And now we're going to be set back three or four years, maybe five or six years because the administration has now put all of those projects on hold. I mean, in New York, we were just beginning to get some off the ground and They've been put on hold. I sit as a advisor with National Grid and we know how close we are to using and depleting our supplies, especially during peak hours. And right now there's a mandate in New York state that by 2030, all buildings have to reduce their carbon input by so much. Demand for electricity is, is huge and we have to work that out. So that'll be our next frontier when it comes to capital programs.

Troy (90:30)

Can I just ask a follow up just in terms of timetable for the average person listening?

Rashad (90:35)

Right.

Troy (90:35)

We hear data centers. How long does it take to actually get one on grid and up and running?

Cheryl McKissick (90:41)

Well, it depends on how big it is. I mean the data center is really a big warehouse with computers in it. And so it's simple construction, but they're just huge. It's more of the cost also is really what's going inside of the data center. But you know, they can 21 months, 22 months, two years, a data center can be up depending on how big.

Rashad (91:09)

It is from a development and construction standpoint. Why do you think infrastructure in America has fallen behind so much? And if you had a president that would listen, what would you do to course correct us? Because one of my like you just illustrated the energy demand is so high. I don't know if we'll be able to sustain that for what is needed. Can you talk to us about that challenge and what you would do if you were in the Oval and you got a president that listened what we could could be done to fix the issue that we're running, running into?

Cheryl McKissick (91:41)

Well, you know, infrastructure is not a beautiful building that, you know, speaks to the heart of people like 270 park, which is JP Morgan Chase's corporate headquarters. It is the state of the art, beautiful building with billion dollar art. So you walk in, you feel a certain way. Infrastructure is the subway you get on, it is the train you get on, it's the bridge you cross. So people don't even think about, they just take it for granted. So I think, you know, as a whole we have to, you know, people have to understand the need for infrastructure. It wasn't until Biden came to LaGuardia and said this is like a third world country. New Yorkers would have kept going into those terrible places and, and not really think anything about it until there was a focus put on the fact that we needed better infrastructure. And so I think infrastructure just naturally takes a second seat because people don't think, they don't realize that they need it. The tunnel between New York And New Jersey, if that collapses, oh my God, that will affect our gdp. I mean that is crucial. And we couldn't get that off the ground for 30 years. I mean the tunnel project is not new, but we finally under Biden were able to get the gateway project started. And yeah, it's expensive. That's the other problem with infrastructure. That's $20 billion two years ago. It might be 25 billion now. And so infrastructure is expensive. People don't care about it. And so it's difficult for many politicians to sell it.

Ian Dunlap (93:42)

So talk about as far as 50. You said 50% is government, 50% is private. For your business, what's the difference between the private working with the private sector, working with the government? Pros and cons on both sides. And then also the last part of that question is on the government side, how do you navigate different administrations? Republicans now anti dei like, you know, like just talk about that difference between working with the private sector and working with the public sector.

Cheryl McKissick (94:15)

Well, the government is just more regulated. There's a much more red tape. There are many more buyers that you need to satisfy. You have a procurement office, you have the politicians whose district a project is in. You have governors. It's just many buyers. When I say buyers, people that you have to sell your services to actually get a process. And the whole procurement process is much longer. You know, you go through the rfi, the RFP and then the presentation. So you know, it could take six months to a year. You could be, you know, pursuing a project. And so the government just does things much slower. And it's, it's more regulations around it. However, at the end of the day, you know, you're getting paid, it might be late, but the money is guaranteed. So that to me is a positive. On the private side, it's less red tape. There usually is competition, but sometimes there's not competition. Sometimes it's a developer saying to a architect or a contractor, I saw your work, I like it. Or we have cigars together, so let me just hire you. And so it's more relationship based. And you know, you don't have this political buyer and the procurement buyer, you just have the owner. And that is why I stress ownership so much to our people, because more owners need to look like us and they will hire us, like Magic Johnson and Jim Reynolds from Loop Capital. You know, it's just an ecosystem that just naturally happens when you have black ownership or should naturally happen. Let me put it like that. Not, not everybody's created equal.

Troy (96:22)

This is true.

Cheryl McKissick (96:24)

So how Do I navigate the politics? So my father, when I was growing up, he would say, okay, here is the person I would like for mayor. And on election night, that's where I'm going. But if the other person wins, that's where he was on election night. He said, I'm an Afrocrat, I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican Afrocrat. And so he's a chameleon. And, and that's how you have to be. You know, it was, it was a different day. Republicans and Democrats had respect for each other. And so you could easily go between the two, because if you were a Democrat, you could still find that 50, 60% of what the Republicans were doing you agreed with. Yeah, right. And if you're a Republican, you could find at least 50%, 60% of what the Democrats were doing you would agree with.

Rashad (97:27)

But today it's a different climate.

Cheryl McKissick (97:30)

It's just hard. It's just hard. Yeah, very hard. So I am so happy that I live in New York City, that I, you know, live and move and operate in New York City because we seem to be our own little conclave. Am I concerned? Yes. New York uses a lot of federal dollars, a lot of federal dollars, and any day we could be just like the state of Florida. So we opened an office in Florida three years ago, four years ago, and recently they suspended their mwbe minority women owned business program because they're trying to get funding from the federal government for the Orlando airport. And they were only going after 35 million. And the administration said, do you have any DEI programs? Because if you do, we can't give you the money. So that could be coming our way.

Ian Dunlap (98:35)

And how did that impact your business?

Cheryl McKissick (98:40)

It has not impacted us yet because there was a procurement that happened right before that that we won with a very large company, aecomp, at the Orlando airport. But then it was canceled. So we're going through a procurement right now. But we did recently win two schools in the Orlando area. Honestly, I think the people who are the political buyers still understand the positives around diversity. And so they're really, they're still trying to figure out how to bring it in without calling it that. So it's under the table, you know, because people operating with the same mindset that diversity programs are good, but they can't say it's a diversity program.

Troy (99:44)

You talked about the, the meeting earlier when you weren't in the room and you didn't feel seen by your counterparts. I wonder, as you navigate through this and obviously throughout your career, it starts with, obviously, Moses McKissnick, down to you. What strategies have you used to combat, I guess, discrimination in a male dominant industry? Right. When we think of engineers, when we think of developers, typically we're not thinking women, and we're definitely not thinking black women. How have you navigated that so gracefully?

Cheryl McKissick (100:17)

You know, it's, it really is what you do. Let your works speak for themselves. I can tell you all day long, I am a contractor with integrity. I, I have a balance sheet. I can afford the projects that I'm working on. But until you actually work with me, you do not know. And I actually remember my mother in Tuskegee University when she went to the dedication of a building, and the president of Tuskegee said, you know what, Ms. McKissick, I told you I wanted operable windows in this building and not one of them opened. This is the south. We're going to suffocate. And my mom looked at him and said, we're going to take every window out and we're going to change it and make it the way it should be, because it's our mistake. And that's integrity. I learned that way back then. And she continued to work for Dr. Payton for many, many years after that. And so it wasn't until these individuals actually start working with me, and maybe they did start working with me because there was a 10% minority woman owned business goal. And they figure, okay, well, out of the bunch, maybe Cheryl's the best because at least, you know, she has a history. But then when you begin to actually do the work and having to, you know, bring quality staff to a job, making sure you don't have any scandal around your name, you know, I, I never paid people under the table for a job, but I did pay my taxes. Let me say. Nobody's getting away with that one. You better pay your taxes. Because I saw over the years, if they got one, if we made one mistake as a black firm, we were ostracized. Yeah, that was it. I mean, I just saw it over the years and it could be not even true, this, the, the rumor or whatever is out there about a firm. But I have seen black firms come and go as a result of maybe not paying union dues or, you know, whatever. But for me, whatever it took to, to do the right thing is what I've done. I feel like excellence is the loudest protest you can have.

Troy (103:03)

I love that.

Rashad (103:04)

From a client acquisition strategy side, what are like, two of your favorite ways to acquire clients on the private and.

Cheryl McKissick (103:10)

Government Side acquiring clients is building relationships before you need them. Okay. And with people who are sitting in the room with those clients that are going to say something good about you when you're not in the room. And to me, that is what I've always worked on. When we won the Atlantic Yards, the Barclays Arena, Forest City, Radner was the developer and a guy named Bob Santa was over the construction. And you know, I was introduced to him by some black politicians who said, listen, we've got to have McKinsey involved with this. But he still could have said no because he didn't know me. So he called up the president of another large construction firm, Jim McKenna and Hunter Roberts, and said, do you know Cheryl McKinsick? Well, Jim and I had a 25 year relationship. Jim's like, hire her, she's good. You know, I wasn't even there. They, they were talking among themselves. And so, you know, it's about relationships, building the right relationships. Even if you don't even think you need to a person, you do, you do. And so everyone I meet, I, I can't, I don't take it for granted because I don't know what our interaction is going to be because every time there's been a game changer or any positive outcome in my business, it's come through somebody.

Ian Dunlap (105:00)

Speaking of issues, I want to let you talk about the book, but I just had another last question. As far as the skyscraper that Don Peebles was, was, was working on, and I know that you were his partner as far as on the construction side, it was going to be the only black owned skyscraper in New York City and installed. So what's the status of that now?

Cheryl McKissick (105:26)

It doesn't look like it's going to happen. We were not selected as the developers. We're not going to let our dream die though. With that, there needs to be a skyscraper in Manhattan that's owned by black people. You know, to me this is black solidarity. And we came together as a team and we will continue to see what we can do to do that in New York. But what it has done is created interest around the United States. You know, in Atlanta, I love Atlanta. Atlanta would love to have us there. And so we're looking to see where we can build Affirmation Tower in other cities, but still continue, continue with our dream to have it in New York City.

Ian Dunlap (106:19)

Was it disappointment?

Cheryl McKissick (106:21)

Big disappointment. And a lot of money put into that pursuit? You know, we had to pay our architects, our engineers, we had to pay media. I mean, it was pr. It was A lot of work and effort that we put into that project and we were not selected.

Troy (106:42)

Well, that's unfortunate, but. Right. You are the black family who built America. So I wonder, as you look at the portfolio, is there a project that has been completed that just feels so symbolic, that represents the family's legacy? Is there one or is it just a combination of all of them together?

Cheryl McKissick (107:03)

Well, yeah, there is. There are several. But right now I am so proud of JFK Terminal 1 and what it represents. JLC, which is the joint venture between Magic Johnson and Luke Capital, they worked on LaGuardia. They were owners at LaGuardia, but they had a small percentage. So, you know, they weren't really running the project. So when it came around. And of course now they've proven themselves, right, because they finished LaGuardia. So now here we go with Terminal 1 and they team up with the Carlisle Group. And now they're. They're able to dictate because now Andrew Como had, had been mayor and he said, I, I mean, governor. And he wanted 30% ownership to go to minority owners. And Jim and Magic Johnson were right there to do that. And they had raised billions for their infrastructure fund. And so this is the story of just, just black economics empowerment. Because Jim called me up, he's like, cheryl, you know, we need for you to be our program manager on this project. And our role is to get as many minority and women on this project businesses as we can. And so now that's your role. And so now we're way over a billion dollars in spend for minority women owned businesses. And it's setting a trend in New York City that, you know, 30% could be 40%, the numbers are growing. So now that we have casinos coming online, which, you know, the construction dollars for the casinos are even more than the airports. We're striving for more than 30%. And you know, that that is a trend that Magic Johnson and Jim Reynolds set. So I am very proud of that project. We have worked at colleges, black colleges, historically black colleges and universities. And, you know, those to me are extremely important because they're more than brick and mortar. We are also showing young black people that, you know, you can go to these places and build confidence in yourself and know that, you know, this is a safe haven for you. And so those, those projects to me are extremely important. Important. Barkley arena was important. You know, when Jay Z came out on the floor and he's like, you know, we could never do this. Brooklyn, Brooklyn. And we did, we did. And some of the Women that I worked with to secure that project, like Bertha Lewis. It was just amazing. And the same in Philadelphia. There are various projects there where, you know, you, you corral a whole political community to become a part of it. And, you know, I have fun doing it, but they, they're. They're precious.

Rashad (110:36)

My final question for you. For all the entrepreneurs that are watching tonight that aspire to be where you are, what's like one or two finer pieces of advice you can give them in this journey.

Cheryl McKissick (110:49)

Oh, wow, that's a good one. I love the fact that I have kept my identity. I don't let anyone define me. I define me. And I know that when I'm in that place that I can definitely bring value. And I think that's really important. You've got to be secure in who you are. And it doesn't happen in your 20s and your 30s, unfortunately, it takes time to get there. So be, Be okay with the journey and the process to come into your own. Just don't ever give up who you are.

Ian Dunlap (111:37)

We want to thank you for joining us. Before you leave, tell us about the book. What can, what can they expect from reading the book? Where to purchase it, the website, all the information.

Cheryl McKissick (111:47)

Okay, so the book is about 230 years of experience, legacy in this country. It talks about ownership, generational wealth, family. It is, and it's an easy read and it's fun. A lot of great stories. You can buy this book where books are sold. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Simon and Schuster. Please follow me. On social media, I am Heryl McKissickdaniel. It's my personal social media. And then my company is mckissick.com. please, please support.

Rashad (112:38)

Please support.

Troy (112:39)

Yes, absolutely.

Rashad (112:40)

Very important book.

Ian Dunlap (112:42)

The name of the book again.

Cheryl McKissick (112:44)

The Black Family who Built America? Two years of Daring pioneers. Yeah, I wanted to make a statement. You know, as you said earlier, people don't even think about who built this when they walk in to any structure. They just don't even think about it. And. And we should, because a lot of times we built it. Wall street, everything.

Rashad (113:10)

Yeah.

Cheryl McKissick (113:11)

So this isn't just about the McKissick family. It's about black people. So who built it? We did.

Troy (113:19)

Amen.

Ian Dunlap (113:20)

The White House.

Troy (113:22)

Yeah, all of it.

Ian Dunlap (113:24)

Even Chicago.

Cheryl McKissick (113:28)

Chicago.

Ian Dunlap (113:29)

The. The whole city. As far as the division for that, that was a black man that actually laid out that. That vision for the city. And it's one of the most beautiful cities in America. Probably. Probably the most beautiful city. If you really look at the downtown on the water, it's very, very well put together, so.

Cheryl McKissick (113:45)

Beautiful city.

Ian Dunlap (113:47)

One of our best, for sure. Definitely. Well, thank you for your time. And shout out to Charlemagne, too. I know it's on the Black Effect imprint, right?

Cheryl McKissick (114:01)

Charlamagne. He's been terrific. You know, it's under his imprint at Simon and Schuster. But, you know, Charlemagne not only printed my book, but he has put his entire structure behind our book. And he's also worked with Don Staley. You know, he's working with Angela Rye.

Rashad (114:22)

Yeah.

Cheryl McKissick (114:22)

He's getting out his books that are so important.

Ian Dunlap (114:26)

Sure.

Troy (114:27)

Love it.

Ian Dunlap (114:27)

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Troy (114:30)

Did you. Did you listen to the Mary J vinyl that we sent over? Did you get a chance?

Cheryl McKissick (114:34)

Absolutely. I love Mary J and Michael Jackson. Thank you so much.

Ian Dunlap (114:39)

No problem.

Troy (114:40)

No problem.

Cheryl McKissick (114:40)

I have mine up on my bookshelf like you.

Troy (114:44)

Love it. Love it. Always good. Always good.

Ian Dunlap (114:47)

Thank you.

Cheryl McKissick (114:48)

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Ian Dunlap (114:52)

All right, Ladies and gentlemen, an absolute treasure.

Rashad (114:55)

Great person. Great. Get the book, please. Amazing title.

Troy (114:59)

Go get it.

Ian Dunlap (115:00)

Yes.

Rashad (115:01)

Please support Red Panda. Go get the book. Kudos to Charlamagne as well.

Troy (115:06)

Yeah. Every time we. We've run into. Sir. We've had the privilege of running into a bunch of times. Sat with down with her a few times. I always learned something new.

Rashad (115:15)

Every time.

Troy (115:15)

Every single time I'm. Oh, and it could be at. I mean, I remember we. We ran into each other backstage at a concert, and I'm just like, just listening to her talk. I'm like, oh, I learned something new. Like, hearing her talk now about data centers is like, it was very key because it's interesting. We were saying, follow the money. Follow money.

Rashad (115:32)

Absolutely.

Troy (115:32)

Even in terms of infrastructure, like, they're watching, like, all right, where's the next place the infrastructure is going to be?

Ian Dunlap (115:37)

Boom.

Troy (115:37)

There's a space there. Energy to be the next one. I mean, we've been right spot on. And that was confirmation. A true gem.

Rashad (115:44)

And also relationship and reputation. Like, it's not because you can't chart it, but that is so important because the next thing that you're going to walk into, someone's going to have to vouch for you. Like she said, when you're not even in the room and a lot of deals are broken down or don't come to fruition. If they're reputation, it's not great. You have to treat every person like they are. You're a. Or star client. I just think it was a great reminder of that lesson as well.

Troy (116:11)

Yeah.

Ian Dunlap (116:12)

Yeah, for sure. Infrastructure is important. I mean, look at even the subway system And I'm in New York. So that's, that's what really makes a country. The difference between a third world country, first world country. The, the advanced is infrastructure, bridges, highways, road, roads. These are things that's, that's vitally important. For sure.

Troy (116:34)

Can we give one one time, like a huge shout out to Magic Johnson?

Rashad (116:39)

For sure.

Troy (116:40)

I mean, his name keeps coming up and you. The, the role that he plays and the doors that he. These are the things that people don't know about, they need to know. Like, yes, obviously a legend in the world of sports entertainment, but an absolute hall of famer in the world of business.

Rashad (116:56)

An honorable person, full of integrity. Those, those things matter a lot.

Troy (117:02)

I mean, incredible. I watched him yesterday. He went from the Commanders, which he has ownership in, to I think the Orioles were playing the Dodgers. So he watched that and then he ended the night at the, the women's soccer league, I think the D.C. spirit, which he has ownership in. He went to all of those just yesterday. All of those he has ownership in.

Rashad (117:26)

Gotta go check on the investments every day.

Troy (117:31)

All the.

Rashad (117:32)

Being a silent partner. No, no, go check on everything.

Troy (117:34)

Just check it on my investments.

Ian Dunlap (117:36)

Magic Man. Yeah. That episode with Magic comes out Thursday, 9 o'. Clock. And yeah, after it comes out, I'm.

Rashad (117:44)

Gonna give it a week. We gotta have a conversation about. About top one of all time.

Troy (117:49)

Oh, okay. Special. Special.

Rashad (117:52)

If you were not there, it's one of the best talks I've ever seen in my life. Greatly appreciate that delivery and how much you can feel his love for people. Doing well.

Ian Dunlap (118:04)

For sure. Classic. Classic. For sure. So real estate makes the world go around. You know what else makes the world go round?

Rashad (118:10)

Barbers.

Ian Dunlap (118:10)

And with that being said, I will be speaking at the Barber convention. I did it before Las Vegas. I'm excited to be back in front of the barbers and entrepreneurs. And I'll be speaking with the owner, squire.

Rashad (118:26)

You know that. Oh, that's tough. Okay.

Ian Dunlap (118:28)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. That's one of the ones, man.

Troy (118:31)

So that's Dave, right? Yep. Yeah, shout out today.

Ian Dunlap (118:34)

Yeah, they're good, dude. So, yeah, we're gonna be covering a lot of different topics, you know, as far as the barber industry, entrepreneurship, investing. So the Barber Expo, September 28, you can go to LV Barbara Expo.com. once again, shout out to the Barber Expo. I actually spoke there before and you know, the barbers, I always had a high level of respect for barbers because that's, that's the entrepreneurship in the community. Those are the entrepreneurs that, you know, was the first level of entrepreneurship.

Troy (119:06)

Absolutely part of the community.

Ian Dunlap (119:08)

Yeah. You gotta. You employ people. You got the rent, you gotta schedule. You got that. So it's like, you know, that. That's one of these. These occupations that have lasted the test of time and until robots start cutting hair.

Troy (119:22)

Yeah, I mean, that's what you commune.

Ian Dunlap (119:23)

It's essential. They were essential workers. Even during COVID barbershop became essential workers.

Troy (119:31)

It's the one place you know somebody you gotta go, you gotta go mandatory. They're gonna see you.

Rashad (119:36)

There's out there. My Lord.

Troy (119:38)

That's a fact.

Ian Dunlap (119:39)

All the barbers, man.

Rashad (119:42)

Send blessings to Pedro on the passing of his father. Sorry, my brother. Love you dearly. To my gu.

Troy (119:55)

Okay, yeah, man, it's been a real one. Happy birthday to all the Virgos out there. I know we got.

Rashad (120:04)

It's a lot of Virgos.

Troy (120:06)

And yes. Coming up, right?

Ian Dunlap (120:07)

September 14th.

Troy (120:08)

Yes. This week.

Ian Dunlap (120:09)

Two chains.

Troy (120:10)

Two chains. Swiss. Happy birthday to Swiss. Spoke to him the other day. That was an interesting conversation. Yeah. Shout out to boo. Shout out to boo. That's my guy. Yeah, good conversation. Yeah, yeah, good conversations, man. But yeah. Happy birthday, everybody. Celebrating your birthday this week. Thoughts and condolences to everybody that is fighting or challenged by something this week. I know everybody went back to school. We talked about. I think in the group chat, we talking about health and how important that is. But I encourage everybody. I just did my annual. Last week. Everybody just go get. Check in on yourselves, man. You. You might feel great and your internals might tell you a different story, man. So it's vitally important that you do that. I encourage everybody to do that. Men, we need to do it more. Yeah, man. I'm just spreading love, man, just because I've seen a lot of people that are close to us have their health deteriorate really quickly. Yeah. And it's unfortunate, especially when we still feel so young. You know, like, I still feel very young, but we are getting a bit older. And so we just need to be more conscious about that, men and women.

Ian Dunlap (121:20)

Oh, speaking of that, that's another topic that we gotta talk about on Blackout. When Vladimir Putin and I'm said to immortality around the corner. And then also when GJ Ping said that in this. In this decade, the 150 is going to be the new. And that was an interesting perspective that he gave. We'll talk about it. But Vladimir Putin said immortality. G.J. ping said, you know, realistically, 150. These aren't just regular conspiracy theorists. That's in the news they're talking about.

Troy (121:55)

They're trying to make it happen.

Ian Dunlap (121:56)

Yeah. No, it's not even trying to make it happen. They have information that has already been provided to them that it's going to happen 100 like.

Rashad (122:04)

And what would the cost of it be?

Ian Dunlap (122:05)

These are one of the. These are two of the most powerful people in the world. They. They. They're privy to information that none of us have.

Troy (122:10)

Who.

Rashad (122:10)

Who.

Troy (122:10)

Who will be. Who has access to it? That would be the first great point.

Rashad (122:14)

And the cost of entry would be.

Troy (122:16)

Yeah, the new credit is investor.

Rashad (122:19)

Hello.

Ian Dunlap (122:20)

We're gonna talk about that on Blackout, though. That's. That's a. That's a good one to talk about on Blackout. We got D1 this week. This week for Blackout as a guest. Tune in Wednesday. We're gonna talk about the young thug conversation. We got a lot to talk about.

Rashad (122:31)

There's a lot to talk about.

Troy (122:33)

Yeah. All right, man. Y' all be good to each other. Love is love. Tap in. Make sure y' all invest. Make sure y' all invest. Make sure y' all invest.

Ian Dunlap (122:42)

Me call my Meek Mill.

Rashad (122:43)

Call my phone.

Troy (122:44)

That's it. No, we work 5 million.

Ian Dunlap (122:46)

Said he want 5 mil for the short film album and book. The label's not putting it up.

Rashad (122:53)

Exclusive rights, please me Easy, easy.

Troy (122:58)

Phone call. That's a phone call to me. Shout out to Speed. I saw you was in New York. He was in Wall Street, Einstein. Hey, yeah, yeah. I saw Pete out there showing them yo buy the Apple stock. Yeah, it was dope, man. But that's what you got to do. You got across the age demographics. You got to make sure that people understand the importance of what we're doing here. So shout out to him. Shout out to Kai. Shout out to Punga, my boy with their mafia.

Ian Dunlap (123:27)

Who Queen Flip.

Rashad (123:29)

Oh, my God. God. I talked to him yesterday.

Ian Dunlap (123:31)

I want to see you body slam nobody.

Troy (123:32)

Nah, nah, nah, nah. No more parades.

Rashad (123:36)

Yeah, Queens elevate.

Troy (123:37)

Camera kept rolling too.

Ian Dunlap (123:38)

Hold your head. Hold your head, man.

Troy (123:40)

Gotcha. Yeah.

Rashad (123:41)

Y' all be call tomorrow, 5pm Central. And if you want to know how to get rich from the market, go to ein invest.com. join the stock club.

Troy (123:48)

Do it.

Rashad (123:48)

Prices will be out Friday at 9pm Central.

Troy (123:52)

Love is love. We out.

Rashad (123:54)

Peace.

Troy (123:54)

Wednesday. Peace.

Cheryl McKissick (123:58)

Wix. It's where website creation meets AI. And where your boldest ideas become real. It just takes one platform to build a site that looks great and does everything you need it to. And it just takes one person you to start taking care of business like a 10 person team with AI tools for creating an entire website from scratch or testing new ways to make money. WIX is there with you from day one. Try it out now@wix.com this is the.

Rashad (124:25)

Story of the one as head of.

Cheryl McKissick (124:27)

Maintenance at a concert hall, he knows.

Rashad (124:29)

The show must always go on.

Cheryl McKissick (124:31)

That's why he works behind the scenes, ensuring every light is working, the H.

Rashad (124:35)

Vac is humming, and his facility shines.

Cheryl McKissick (124:38)

With Granger's supplies and and solutions for.

Rashad (124:41)

Every challenge he faces. Plus 24. 7 customer support.

Cheryl McKissick (124:44)

His venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or just stop by Grainger.

Troy (124:50)

For the ones who get it done.