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Campbell's LEAKED Racist Tape, Burry vs NVIDIA, Gemini CRUSHES ChatGPT + AI PAC Goes To DC | PBD Podcast | Ep. 691
02:04:05
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A
Did you ever think you would make it? I feel I'm supposed I could taste sweet victory.
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B
I know this life, Adam.
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What's your point?
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B
The future looks bright.
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My handshake is better than anything I ever saw. It's right here.
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B
You are a one of one.
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My son's right.
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B
I don't think I've ever said this before. Okay, so we got a lot of stuff going on, folks. I don't know if you know this or not, but apparently they're telling us that Gemini from Google is better than Chad gbt. And we brought this up in a story yesterday and Thomas like, oh my God, you should see Gemini and what it does like. Wait a minute. If Thomas this excited about Gemini, what the hell is going on? We thought Chad GBT is putting Google out of business, but a lot of people are saying otherwise. And matter of fact, some people are even saying Mark Benha from Salesforce said that he will never ever go to chat GBT again. Who, who knows? This could be propaganda, marketing stories. But Tom feels the same way as well as some of these guys. We will talk about it. The next thing we're going to talk about is the fact that interest rates may be maybe lowering. There's some whispers. Who knows, it could be a real big movement. And we got a guy in house, Paul Barron, who runs the Paul Barron network. He's got a YouTube channel with a couple million subscribers we visited little over two years ago. And a technologist, crypto expert, investing. He helped take Microsoft into the Asia market many, many years ago and he runs his network today. He did a video yesterday specifically on what this interest rate means not only to everybody else as well as to crypto. So we'll see what that looks like. Paul, it's great to have you on here today with the rest of the smart crew. And then aside from that, Trump, Trump's record on economy actually has wins 10 things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. That's a Barons story. We'll cover that as well. Trump claims tariff income will skyrocket soon as pre tariff stockpiles are running thin. College grads in US no longer able to find jobs faster than high school grads. Brandon's got some thoughts on that. So does Tom. Tyson Foods to close major beef plants. Scale back operations as cattle supplies decline. I don't know if you guys saw the VP at Campbell Soup lost it. Trashing his own food. Trashing their own soup. I don't even eat this shit like that. It was pretty bad. Not a good look for the company. We'll play that clip for you. Want to get your thoughts on you know how to properly handle that? If you were running hr, what would you be doing next if one of your executives said that? We have a friend of ours here on Business Insider story. 93 years old and she is still job searching. Why older Americans work even if they're sick. A good resume and cover letter are no longer enough. These are creative ways for job seekers are get to job seekers are seeking to the front of the line. We'll cover that. And then Fed's daily backs December rate cut citing vulnerable labor markets. Got a couple of stories there. U.S. u.S. Employment trends improved in September ahead of shutdown. The year's biggest shopping week is here and it's bringing in the highest shopper turn turnout on record. Homeowners insurance costs could spike over the next two years. And by the way, that's not just California because of fires or Florida. That's across the board. And you should hear what this percentage looks like. Everybody who's a homeowner is going to want to do that. Michael burry, Defenses Nvidia criticism as company pushes back Amazon to invest up to $50 billion to build AI infrastructure for US government agencies. AI Super PAC launches $10 million campaign pushing uniform national policy. This is a very, very weird thing that they're doing, which when we get a little bit deeper into it and Tom breaks it down, you'll see why. The next one is some insurance don't want to cover AI errors. Here's what it means. You call an insurance company, AI customer service is handling you. They end up making a mistake. The insurance company says, I don't want to ensure the AI making mistakes. I will with human beings, but not AI that's turned into a lot of conflict. That's it's actually a very interesting story to cover. And then we got a couple other things that's going on here. Consumer confidence. That's the lowest point since April as job worries grow. And then builders cut prices and offer new home incentives as affordability gap shrinks. All right, Thanksgiving is tomorrow. The president yesterday was very apologetic for all the turkeys that got their pardons last year. Right. Rob, you were saying where he was, you know, so, so for some of you guys that are, you know, celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, we certainly are. We love it with the family coming over, we hope you guys have a happy Thanksgiving. But prior to getting into the stories, 2026 is around a corner. And for some of you guys that have a dream, you have a vision, you have Something that you get excited about. This is something I want to share with you that I was excited about for three and a half years. I kept telling my kids, one day, one day, I kept telling my wife, one day, one day, one day. And it all starts like this, with a decision and a plan. I want you to watch this video. Go ahead, Rob. So I want to show you something. For three and a half years, I would drive past this street and I would look at this property. 11 acres on the airport. One of the last property properties of its kind. I said, one day, I want to own this property. We eventually bought it. When we did, there was nothing here. I said, I want to build a soccer field here. Boom. We got a futsal soccer field, this hangar here. I said, you know what? For election night, why don't we do a live event? This turned into an event. The biggest live stream worldwide on YouTube, on election night, 2,000 people were here. I said, let's take that hanger on the other side. Let's turn it into a gym. Basketball, jiu jitsu, weights.
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C
Boom.
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B
Now it's a gym. Let's take that upstairs, which was a two bedroom for the pilots. Let's open it up and fit 51 employees there. Boom, we have that. Now I got a bunch of other things to tell you about that we got going on here. But everything started with a plan. If you're watching this yourself saying, pat, I got big plans as well. I host an event called the Business Planning Workshop. If you haven't yet registered, but you got big plans, click on a link below. Get registered. I will see you there. And by the way, keep this in mind, guys, the next 72 hours. It's estimated that people are going to spend a ton of money on Black Friday on many different things. Spend is one thing, invest is another one. If you got big plans for 2026, invest into yourself. Go register for this. I'll see you December 12th to go cover a 200 page manual so you can write a plan going into 2026. Having said that, let's get right into it. All right, so Campbell Soups, okay? When you're, you know, in a military, or maybe you're just a regular Joe, if you go into the average person's pantry, you're probably going to find some Campbell's Soup, okay? Campbell Soup executive allegedly calls companies product shit for poor people. Did you hear that? In secret recording. And this somehow some way goes viral and it's been a hot mess at Campbell Soup. Go ahead and play it, Rob. People poop I don't buy it's barely anymore so healthy now that I know what the in it even in can of soup. I look at it, look at me bioengineered me. I don't want to eat a a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer. You all right? So this is a recording from an executive that was secretly recorded during a meeting, according to a lawsuit filed in Michigan Wayne County Circuit Court Court. The suit, filed by Robert Garza, former cybersecurity analyst for Campbell Soup, accuses Martin Bali, the company's vice president and chief information security officer, of making the offensive comments during a meeting in November 24. Garza recorded a conversation which he said took place at the company's headquarters in Camden, New Jersey. Local 4 News Detroit reports in a recording. Obviously we heard what he says and that has now turned into a scandal. Garza, who began working for the soup giant in September of 2024, told Local 4 News that initially he had kept the recording private, but changed his mind and decided to report the comments to his supervisor. Tom, your thoughts on this story?
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A
Well, look, people pop off all the time about, about their job or they'll be in a conference room and pop off all the time. So one of the one cautionary tale is this. There's always someone in there recording with the phone. Just assume it is. So that's the first thing and set that. And so maybe don't pop off at work in a crowded conference room. You know, maybe speak in candor number one. Number two, maybe tone it down a bit if you're going to pop off. So I think those are the two lessons for everybody. However, the guy what was interesting about this is it's hard to pick up a can of Campbell's Soup and turn over the back and look at the sodium. I know I'm very careful with the canned soups that my mom has. My mom's, you know, 88. And if you look, yeah. And you look at the back, there's a lot of sodium, a lot of sodium in soup. And I'm not on a, you know, on the warpath for sodium. I'm just saying when you look at it, to preserve and to make the product that's in there, they use a lot of salt.
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B
Basically 600 milligrams. What was it, Rob?
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A
Yeah, 600 milligrams just in this can of spaghetti.
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B
And how much is 600 milligrams? Just to put that in perspective, it.
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A
Says 25% of the ingredients.
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B
So can you do me a favor and go to what should be the daily intake of sodium for the average person.
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C
I think that might have been what that percentage is for. Is the daily intake recommended.
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B
So the daily intake for sodium, they put right next to. That's 25%.
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C
So I believe.
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B
So 25% of the daily intake of sodium you would get from this, from.
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A
One little bowl of soup to make sense.
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B
23.
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A
Yep.
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B
American Heart association says 1500 milligrams per day and. Which is lower than most adults. 2300. So that 600 would be more than a third of what American Heart association thinks you should take. Okay, Tom, keep going.
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A
And heart disease is the number one killer of women in America. Not breast cancer. They're both terrible. But heart diseases and heart disease, hypertension, and sodium all go together. So one thing now Campbell's has got this light shining on their product that they didn't want. And this guy is probably going to lose his job if he hasn't already, if that's it. But it's just. It's just shocking to see.
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B
How do you handle that? I guess that's the more question. So, Paul, you. You've been in. You. You build the company, you've sold the company. You've worked at big companies like Microsoft. You know, you've done things. What do you think about this, and how would you handle it? What do you think should happen to somebody like this? Apparently, Rob, he got hired September of 2024. Or did that guy say that he had the recording from September of 2024?
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A
No, the. The recording took place November of 2024. So two months after he was hired.
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B
So two months after he was hired, this recording happened. Please, Paul.
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D
Well, I think you're dealing, first of all with a PR nightmare. The food industry right now is already on its heels. You look at what's happening on the retail side in the restaurant industry, which is usually the end game for a lot of this. And you look at McDonald's, which. Their stock is absolutely on fire right now. Why? Because we're seeing market pressures. But the biggest issue right now is around what's going on in food service in general. You've got a story here on Tyson. PR management is critical right now for Campbell's. A lot of these companies in the food service industry in most cases are already dealing with big problems in terms of challenges from the daily consumer. So I think this move right here is. Right now, it's going to be PR control.
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B
What do you do? Let's just say we are the C suite executive team. Say you're the coo, Tom, you're the president of the company and you know, we're sitting there in a meeting. This comes out, you see the video, it's live. What are we doing? What are.
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D
This guy's gotta go. This guy's gotta go.
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B
So number one, are we firing this guy?
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D
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
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A
Because there was also some things that haven't been played out that he made some comments about. He works in, you know, information security. It he made some comments about his Indian co workers. So combination of, dude, you're not supportive of management, you're not supportive of the product, this is the wrong way to do it. And you said something, things about coworkers, you haven't been here very long. I'm sorry, you're done.
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B
Did he really say that, Rob? Is that also in the recording?
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A
According to the recording, yes. This is what he said.
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B
Wow. Can you go. What is the other video that you had Rob of?
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A
I just have the news story of the gentleman that he made the comments to.
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B
Can you let you see this real quick? We have poor people who buys our shit. And that's just part of an over an hour long rant says former security.
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A
Analyst for Campbell's Robert Garza of Monroe.
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B
I don't. Okay, can you go back to the one line about what he said? So on the other article you were on, it says, I don't want to read it. You know, effing Indians don't know effing thing.
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A
Really unfortunate.
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B
They couldn't think for their effing selves. Okay, so this guy's fired. By the way, just so everybody knows, there's a couple of questions I got with this. Because this company, when you're looking at them, 20, 25 fiscal year, net sales, what would you say they did in net sales, Kim? $10.25 billion. This is not a small company. Their net, their operating net, their EBIT was 1.12 billion. Net income profit, 602 million. They employed 13,700 people. Question becomes, how the hell does a guy like this get hired at a company this big? And he gets through not finding out whether he loves the company, doing reference calls, you know, is this a miss on the hiring part in the HR department, Tom?
- [14:05]
A
Well, I think the CEO does three things. Number one, the CEO calls HR and says, he's gone, right? Yes, sir, he's gone, he's out the door, we're done. Good point. Two, I want a meeting with you guys about our hiring practices. How do we miss this? How do we miss somebody that pops off like this. What do we see in the references? What were there? I think that's what you would do, Pat. You'd be like, first things first, do this. Then the third thing the CEO is going to do is going to grab as many of the low sodium and the diet grade. When they all remember, they say low calorie and diet grade products and he's got to go to the microphone and say, Campbell's has been making stuff for a long time. Boom. Point one, heritage. Point two, our products are tested. Point three, we care about the consumer. Point four, take a look at these products we've been issued for low sodium, low calorie and things like this. We are there and we are with the trends in America. It's really unfortunate to have this, this, this light shine on us. Please have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. That's all the CEO can do. But the last thing he says. So it's the last thing that the reporters remember. He's got to go out there and talk about the products that they do have that have been moderated for today's dietary needs. But that first point, he's gone. And then afterwards, Monday, first thing, what would you be. It'd be Monday for this happened here. Monday, first thing, we'd be in the conference room with you doing an internal debrief on how the guy got hired. Yeah, but after we talked to the media.
- [15:28]
C
But it is kind of true though that like it is like very gross and unhealthy and probably like if you eat that every day, I would imagine that's you're going to be less healthy throughout the course of your life. And unfortunately is like one of the things that people that are poor probably migrate to because it's so cheap. I mean, what is it, like one or two dollars a can? So, yeah, like it is factually true that the lowest incoming, that the lowest income people probably buy that and it is true. They think that's unhealthy to eat that every day. So, you know, it's good to see it because I think people should do everything they can to avoid eating stuff like that.
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B
Like how much is a can, by the way?
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C
I think it's $1.
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A
Yeah, $1 down from 126. Well, this is Walmart, but yeah.
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B
Well, let's just say it's a buck just to calculate how many of these they sell. Okay. According to these guys, 27, 1% of the company's top line revenue is the soup product. Yep. What I mean, if we do them, do you see where this, they don't.
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A
Sell it for a dollar a can. They probably sell it for 60 cents a can to Walmart and to the grocery store. And the grocery store has it on the shelf at a dollar.
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B
Well, let's just for the sake of things, let's just say dollar. Okay. To make the math easier, 27% of $10 billion is $2.7 billion. $2.7 billion divided by a dollar is what? 2.7 billion cans.
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A
And divide that, let's say, by 400 million. The Mexico, Canada, US population, 6.75 cans.
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B
But, Tom, I don't know if we drink Campbell. Do you drink Campbell?
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A
Well, that would be one can of soup every other month.
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B
Have you had Campbell in the last 12 months?
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A
I don't think I've had Campbell's soup in the last five years.
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B
Have you had Campbell in the last 12 months?
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D
No, but I think you're hitting on something here, Pat, and that is that this might be an opportunity for Campbell's and especially for the food service industry. You also touched on something else that I think is important, and that is the systems and how they're hiring. And I have a little bit of inside knowledge. We had a business that was in the food service industry for almost a decade, and one thing is it's a very, dare I say, incestuous executive layer. There's a handful of HR consultants that basically manage all of, not only the Fortune 500 in terms of the food service side, but also the major brands. So a Brian Niccol, you know, a Scott Boatwright. Yeah, those guys are all going to these specific people. So there is a kind of a preset group of executives that are seeded into a lot of these major companies, including Campbell's. You look at Rich's Foods, you also have obviously what's going on at Tyson. But the opportunity here for Campbell's actually is a pivot.
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B
Yeah, sorry.
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C
I think it's opportunity for, like, food standards, too. In America. It's not that common that somebody who's not an executive will come out and say how gross their food actually is. Like, it's appalling. How low of a bar that lobbyists have lobbied for for food standards in America. Like, because even just like mass producing chicken, like, you ever see the standards of how cows and chickens are kept in those big industrial agriculture places? There's like even laws in place to prevent the media from talking about because of how bad it is.
- [18:32]
B
By the way, when you think about this, yesterday we had the. The head of the FDA here on the Podcast Marty Makari. Okay. And we talked about how they're going from the food pyramid, which came out in 1992, to, oh, five. And then they change it to my plate. And they're about to announce the new food pyramid that we have to teach kids and all this other stuff. And yeah, my plate is the latest one that they have. And one of the things we discussed is how much, you know, the food that we're intaking. The healthiest countries with food and the most unhealthiest countries with food. The top five healthiest countries in food, Rob. I think number one was Japan. Number two was Greece. Number three was. I don't know who three was, but I do know it was. Was it Australia and then it was Kuwait and then it was Israel. Okay. No, it was Australia. Israel was one of them at number five. I know that's a fan favorite for a lot of you guys. And then on the top five unhealthiest, number one country in the world in unhealthiest food was America. For the amount of processed food that we have, I do think this is a massive opportunity for them to do something about it. Because if they don't, the guys that are in right now, they're going to keep exposing them. This isn't good. This was a horrible situation for these guys, but this was definitely not a good thing for them. Yeah, they go, Japan has one and then it was Italy, Greece, Spain. Well, apparently Israel was five. And who was the unhealthiest? Unhealthiest was us, Kuwait, Saudi Micronesia and then Qatar.
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C
So Pat, by the way, sorry, think about what that does for the medical industry. We spent two and a half trillion a year on medical stuff. Like, you know, imagine how much of a factor this plays into that.
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A
For sure.
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B
But, but this, this was a accidental, dumb thing to do that exposes that 600 milligrams of sodium that people like Tom, Paul, Brandon and others are paying attention to. Let's get to the next story. Next story is this. Salesforce's Mark Benhoff says Google's Gemini 3 direct competitor charged Beatty just just blew past chat GBT. I am not going back. Rob, I think you got a clip on this. If you want to play in regards to the Gemini, go for it.
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E
Rob would be Mark Benioff in a gushing tweet last night. And with no offense to Benioff, he is great at selling a story, but he does have a history of showing up late and very loudly to some of the hottest trades. Now take his three biggest acquisitions, Slack Tableau Microsoft. All three were stuck near the peak of the SaaS multiple bubble. Remember Salesforce's first AI brandings? They were around language like Copilot and Einstein. Only after agents have become a buzzword in Silicon Valley did he go all in on it, joking that he would rename Dreamforce Agentforce. That was in 2024. And in case you forgot, he was also in on the Metaverse, pushing Salesforce as a trusted enterprise Metaverse partner in 2021 and 2022. Even launched NFT Cloud in 2022, which did not age well. So his praise guys for Gemini might not be the early adopter signal that Wall street thinks it is inside the ecosystem. This shift to Google has been happening for months. Benioff's post is hitting at the narrative going mainstream.
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B
Can you do me a favor? Can you while I'm reading this next part here, pull up the two charts that Brandon was talking about that he sent to us. So this is what he said. He said, holy shit Benioff on X. Have you Chad GPT every day for three years just spend two hours on Gemini. I'm not going back. The leap is insane. Reasoning, speed, images, video, everything is sharper and faster. It feels like the world just changed again. This is what he had to say. And then, you know, while you're going through some of the other stuff. Sam Altman, Shield Open AI Google's biggest rival in AI race congratulated company on Gemini 3 launch posting on X looks like a great model. Former Tesla AI director Andre Krapati said on X he had positive early impression of Gemini 3, calling it very solid daily driver potential and clearly a tier one LLM stripe. CEO Patrick Collison also waited on post posted on X. Gemini 3 built an interactive webpage summarizing 10 breakthroughs in genetics. Tom, you use Gemini, you came back and you were extremely ecstatic about it. What is the biggest difference between Gemini Perplexity and chatgpt?
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A
Well, I what I discovered over the last several weeks because I use all three, I use Perplexity also Julius by the way and I use ChatGPT and Gemini and I have Chat GPT and Gemini kind of side by side because I'm very interesting to see which is which as we look at agents for our business and things like that. And I because I want to be in the headwaters of it and I started noticing, I says wow, that's better contacts. Wow, that was a little bit wow, that was quicker. And sometimes I'll do them same by side by side. So I'm Only limiting bandwidth because I got two browsers open and I'm sitting there putting them side by side or the desktop app. And so I noticed it. And so what is happening is this is the same thing that was happening when processors, when intel was in a war with AMD on processors. And our processor is now, you know, 8 gigahertz, 16 gigahertz, 64 gigahertz, 4 cores, 7 cores and AMD. And then so you would go into Best Buy and there'd be a sticker on their fastest processor yet. And so people have been accustomed to technology, to having these leaps come through and it's just like TVs HD now, 4K.
- [24:11]
B
Oh wow.
- [24:12]
A
4K is so much better than HD. And that's what we're having. Competition is causing Google to say we are the big dog and we are driving hard. And Chat GBT's lead caused Google to say, hey, if you want to win the championship, you got to beat the champion. And so I think it's as simple as that. And then Google put a lot of its brain power behind it.
- [24:35]
B
Why do you use all three of them? Why do you use all of them?
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A
Because I want to see the comparisons between them and I want to understand it. And each one of them does things, you know, a little bit differently.
- [24:44]
B
Can you share with us when you say you use all three, so do you ask the same question, the same prompt and put it in all three and measure them against each other? Is that kind of how you do it?
- [24:53]
A
Yeah, well, I will do it that way and then I'll ask Perplexity for article indexes. And Perplexity has got this amazing way to, to throw out a ton of articles on it. So I'm not reading the synthesized part of it. I read the synthesize and then I read the articles. Whereas ChatGPT give us a prompt, Gemini.
- [25:13]
B
Give us a prompt.
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A
So I might, okay, Fed, I would say ask Chat GPT and then I ask, you know, Gemini saying what are the consensus odds or feelings about the next head of the Fed and whether there's going to be a rate cut in December because you can give them complex. So, and both Gemini and Chat GBT will give you summaries really quick. I'll go into Perplexity and I'll get more of an index on the back. And I look there, okay, that's the Economist, that's Financial Times, that's a journal. Okay, I got some heavy hitting publications who know what they're talking about or leaning this way. And so I kind of, I kind of look at it that way. Now if I'm going to look at numbers, you know, I'll, I'll throw numbers into Julius and I say, well, you put these government numbers in here and tell me what you think, you know, was going on with these Fred numbers and stuff. And, and then you'll have Julius go, you know, spin that around and give it to you in Python if you want. But that's how I got it.
- [26:10]
B
Rob, do you have it?
- [26:11]
A
Right now I have all three up. I have Gemini, ChatGPT and Perplexity.
- [26:15]
B
And so what are you asking?
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A
The same thing Tom said. What are the concep his odds are feeling for the next head of the Fed and if there will be a.
- [26:20]
B
Rate cut, can we just go for it? Rob, thanks for doing that. Just, just press, you know, every single one of them. Let's see what happens. So Gemini is the one you just did. The middle one is chat GBT and then is the last one, Perplexity.
- [26:31]
A
Yes. Okay, see Gemini, see how fast it was already going?
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B
Yep. So can you, let's see what it says. Rob, can you get rid of that blue on, on the middle one? Okay, there you go. So next reference on the chair. Okay. Keith, exit. Okay. Boom.
- [26:47]
A
And go to the bottom of Perplexity.
- [26:49]
B
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- [27:22]
A
That's as far as it'll let me go. No, no, there's a, is that a 10 or a 12 right there? See, it's a little at the bottom right there. Oh, see? So now I can go to the 10 sources really fast and, and it'll tell me instantly what it's.
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B
And what is it telling you? It's just giving you the main subtitle of what it is.
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C
Correct.
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A
And if I see in there that there's three very average websites or things that are basically, it tells me the quality of the data on one page.
- [27:48]
B
That's great. So that's fast, that saves time and then. So ChatGPT does what? ChatGPT actually breaks it down for you go a little bit deeper. What are the odds of a rate cut in 12-25-75 to 85% a rate cut and then he gives the odds and it gives you the source where it's coming from CBS and then why there's still big uncertainty.
- [28:06]
A
My read this is the chat GBT now synthesizing it go a little bit.
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B
Lower and then the sources that it gives you, it just looks different but it gives it to you as well. The sources. Right. That it's using. Okay. And then let's look at the Gemini. So we saw the speed with Gemini.
- [28:26]
A
Was faster, much faster.
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B
So the other contenders names Christopher Waller. These are potential replacements for Jerome Powell by the way.
- [28:35]
A
He's got, it's, it's got Hassett at the top of that and I think, I think happen to think that's correct from some people we spoke to.
- [28:42]
B
Yep. Likelihood of a December rate cut 25 basis point estimated to be 75 to.
- [28:48]
A
80% which wasn't the case a week ago.
- [28:50]
B
So which one would you rather like? Brandon, you're looking at this. Which of those three do you see a massive difference between the three on this example?
- [28:57]
C
No, but I haven't used Gemini yet. But just the, the fact that the word of mouth buzzes that so much better now. I'm definitely going to start checking it out. I mean the biggest deterrent for Gemini at first was the that kind of woke thing they did for a while where they had those goofy pictures that were unrealistic historical things or where they were trying to be diverse. So I, I didn't take it seriously at first because of that. But this is what we were talking about a couple weeks ago where Google like it felt like they, I was wondering why the stock price was it still at an all time high after that story came out where they were down from 99% search traffic down to like 90%. So I had a feeling something must been going on that like the market maybe knew that they're going to launch this because this saves them. I think like I think the future of online searches is going to be with the model like ChatGPT, Gemini, that type of model. So if Gemini is better than chat gbt then Google saved itself from losing that online ad revenue.
- [29:44]
B
Paul, what do you think?
- [29:45]
D
You know I'm kind of split on where these large language models are going. We use an LLM right now to track sentiment mostly in the finance side and we're finding a lot of inconsistencies so there's always a back check on it. I'm interested in Benioff Wise choosing Google Gemini over his partnership with Open AR already and I know there's a little bit of contention between Sam and him, but at some point we're probably going to see one or two winners on this. I'm still testing everything from Claude, Super Grok obviously. Perplexity. I use Gemini slightly. OpenAI I very rarely use just because of the, in my opinion, the quality of context that we've seen come out of it, not as good. But that was about a year ago. You know, we haven't seen any of the updates lately.
- [30:33]
B
Yeah, I wonder because when you look at the market this is, this is general delivery. So this is what right now Open Air still has it 12 months ago they were 90% of it six months ago declining three months ago. And who's the red? Gemini is getting bigger and bigger. Yellow is who, Yellow is kind of getting meta flat Deep Sea and then Grok is somewhat there and then where is Perplexity? Light blue. So is it fair to say it's OpenAI first Gemini to Deep Seek three competing with Perplexity. Is that a fair assessment to put those as a top four? That's what I would see.
- [31:15]
D
Yeah.
- [31:15]
B
But the market share is coming down on OpenAI's Got the, you know, early adopters advantage. But Tom, you seem like you want to say something.
- [31:22]
A
There's, there's one quick summary here. Most of us are using this right here in terms of a complicated analysis search. We want to search for something but we want analysis. That is only the tip of the iceberg really. What Benioff is talking about now he's got this partnership with OpenAI is who uses which market to power the agents that are inside their software that are doing advanced tasks for you. And so it's going to be back to my point about intel or AMD chip, which is faster and which is better. And this was all the discussion of Apple with Tim Cook's retirement. A not so subtle point was in that is that they is that Ask Siri is not nearly as advanced even as the least of the AI models and Google has not been shy about poking at Apple because of Android and Apple. Pat has not successfully picked a permanent high end dance partner to, to, to be the engine of the future for their AI and they've, they've actually done a poor job. So it's who's powering your agent and your tool set that you build, not just which is the fastest and best for analytical search.
- [32:36]
B
That's a good point. And by the way, go back to that couch thing you had up Rob, take A look at this best AI at the end of 2025 cow 83% Grok 9.
- [32:46]
C
Chat's not even on there.
- [32:48]
B
Yeah, Claude is at 5. That's interesting.
- [32:51]
A
This isn't market share. This is $9.7 million wagered $1 at a time on what they feel the leader is going to be. Similar to when Kelsey does elections. It's not who you're voting for. Who do you think is going to win in your city?
- [33:05]
B
What is winning?
- [33:06]
A
Well, if you ask, well, if I'm in California and you say, who do you think is going to win the state of California election? I was going to say begrudgingly, Kamala Harris. But if then in front of Walmart, you say, hey, I'm an independent pollster from wherever, from Siena. Who are you going to vote for? That's different. You see what I mean? And it turns out that the pulse of the crowd on who do they think is winning or who do they think is ahead has proven on services like Kalshi to be more accurate than the polling of what do you use? And so this says that apparently right now people are saying, hey, I think that one's going to be the best one. That's the feeling of the mobile chat's.
- [33:44]
C
Not in a position of strength financially, though. So does this kill them in a couple years if they start losing market share at this rate? Because, you know, they're operating at kind of a loss right now with how.
- [33:52]
B
Much they're having to invest, have such a massive momentum ahead of the game. That's what they have. It doesn't mean they can't lose. I don't know if. Just from that search we did, I saw a major difference between Gemini and Chat. GBT versus others. I don't know that if. Is there. Is it a 90% difference? No. Is it a 20% difference? Maybe. Is it an 8% difference? Probably. Is that 8% difference going to force Open Air to improve even more? Yes. So one moment like, oh, that's it. Google's going to be done. No Gemini. Oh, my God, ChatGPT is going to be done. Whatever update they're doing, these guys are brewing their next three updates. That's going to come and it's going to go like this. I think it's going to take about five years for us to kind of realize who's going to be the King Kong of this. And it's very, very early for this. I think so.
- [34:44]
A
Very, very early for this is why Eric Schmidt says, you have no idea what's Coming. And he had that quote just in the last two weeks.
- [34:51]
B
I believe it.
- [34:52]
A
I believe him too. I think that's a very accurate market assessment.
- [34:55]
D
You look at some comparisons on this. When I was an early young engineer in the pretty much the entry of the Internet, there was a couple of first movers on the web. AltaVista was one of the first. I remember pre Google, they lost their market position. So it's not necessarily an automatic slam dunk for open AI. And I think now with the pressure you've got. The other advantage that I think Sam has is he's got Jensen in his back pocket, which is, you know, that's going to be the killer app for sure.
- [35:25]
B
Yeah. I mean AltaVista bought a company who was a friend of mine back in the day shopping.com and back in the day shopping.com was like the place to go. When is the last time, folks, you went to shopping.com not shopping.com sold to all Amazon. Yeah. For I think like 331 million. Brandon, final thoughts. We're going to the next store.
- [35:45]
C
Yeah. Interesting thing though.
- [35:46]
F
Yeah.
- [35:46]
C
You bring up Nvidia. The Gemini's not using the GPUs from Nvidia. They're using, I think it was a TCU or a different acronym type of chip. So they're not dependent on the Nvidia chips the way everybody else is. So I thought it was interesting that they're using a whole different thing than where everybody else is fighting over for to build it.
- [36:00]
B
Well, I mean, if you go to Nvidia, Michael Burry, okay, comes out aggressive and you got Alex Karp, I believe, who is upset at him. How could you come out and say what you said about this? Okay. And it's a back and forth buried defenses in video criticism as company pushes back. Rob, I'll read this and then we can go to that video. So Burry comes out and says, you know, he's standing by his criticism after reports said that the leading artificial intelligence company pushed back on his analysis. Burry, who became famous for his bets against the housing market in 08, posted last week calling the company out compensation, dilution, stock buybacks. Nvidia responded by sending a memo to Wall street and analysts over the weekend to address such claims, according to Barron's report. In a separate post Monday, Michael Burry said the following. Nvidia emailed a memo to Wall street sellers side analysts to push back on my arguments. I stand by my analysis. Obviously the full analysis does not fit in a tweet. I will release on my timeline. The first post in the Heretic guide to AI Star supply side Gluttony is up now it is fairly a light read. The second in the Heretic series will be Heavier Lift. Every post of mine on Substack will have a follow up Q and A with five questions selected from the comment section on the post. Michael Burry's comments Later on they came back. You know they made their argument with open air. Nvidia plans to mess up $200 billion in the startup, which in turn will build data centers with millions of Nvidia chips. This is Nvidia dealing with OpenAI and then here's a clip that came out video for you and play this Rob.
- [37:41]
G
This fight is actually escalating. And I say that because Burry, who is the investor who called the housing crisis, claims big technology is cooking the books by depreciating AI chips over five to six years when they really burn out in two to three. By his math, that understates costs by roughly $176 billion through 2028. Depreciation is just how companies spread out the cost of equipment over its useful life. So if you say a chip lasts six years instead of three, you only expense half as much each year, which makes your profits look bigger. And that's the point Burry's trying to make. Nvidia pushed back directly though. The chip maker sent a private memo to Wall street analysts on the weekend that explicitly names Michael Burry and refutes several of his claims. Nvidia says it's nothing like the accounting frauds that Burry is comparing them to. The company doesn't use special purpose entities to hide debt like Enron did. It doesn't rely on vendor financing like Lucent, and it says over 90% of its sales come from profitable hyperscalers, government as well as enterprise customers. And this according to bank of America. The company also pointed to its free cash flow which hit 22 billion last quarter, up from 60% from the prior quarter. I know Michael Burry's number was different than that, but Burry fired back on yesterday saying quote, I stand by my analysis and will release on my Right there.
- [39:05]
B
So Brandon, thoughts on this?
- [39:07]
C
Yeah, I'm curious to see if they try to sue him for this because if, like that'd be the real tell. Because if they're saying that he's defaming them, if what he's saying is not true, then then why not sue him? And I mean that would open to discovery, but I, I think accounting is kind of like the law, where you could be like, really creative and like, wise with it. And I don't know, I don't think it's that crazy if they're doing this. It's, it's not like it's an Enron type of situation, but I think.
- [39:31]
B
Is that what he's accusing them of doing? He's making sounds like that.
- [39:34]
C
He's making it sound like that, but it's, it's a different situation. Like, what they're doing is a lot crazier with the, like, they were putting in all kinds of like crazy numbers that weren't even real. So.
- [39:44]
B
No, yeah, that $38 billion of debt that somehow they didn't put on their balance sheet. This is Enron back in the days, and it all of a sudden appeared to the public. Wait a minute, what is this all about? Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of companies were doing that at the time they happened to get caught. And we had Andy Fast at the CFO at one of our events four years ago, and it was telling that story. But this is a pretty big accusation.
- [40:07]
C
Yeah, I mean, I, I think things that are a lot look illogical, shocking. I mean, there's a lot of illogical things that like, would look weird to the ordinary, logical person with the market, with the economy and with how things run today. But I don't know, I, I would be more inclined to think he's definitely right if he, if he wasn't wrong the last couple times he made a big prediction. So, you know, his credibility went from like 100% to now it's down to maybe 50, 60%, maybe even less, some.
- [40:32]
B
People say, because he's got quite a few of them. So, Paul, where are you at with this?
- [40:36]
D
I'm kind of interesting or interested, I think, in what Burry's analysis is, because to your point, Brandon, is that. I don't know necessarily that it's a statement. It's probably more of an analysis which he would be protected from. But the thing that gets Nvidia out of this is just scale. And I think that's the real question is whether or not they can continue to. Again, this will get into even maybe some of the administration moves of allowing Nvidia sell more chips to China. But if they can scale, then they can cover up a lot of this depreciation lag that they're getting. And I was interested because I didn't know that they had done that. Tom, on depreciation, being able to ramp that out for a depreciating asset that long. Is that normal?
- [41:16]
A
Yeah, well, I don't know if it's normal in semiconductor, but I do know that there will be lobbyists in Washington and talking to fasb, Financial Accounting Standards Board, trying to get the law or the standard or the guideline one another. So the first point is, you're correct, it's analysis. Anytime an analyst gives an opinion, their analysis, it's an analysis. And the number of companies that have been pissed off at analysis all the time, that's a Monday, it's a day ending in Y on Wall street, right. There's some analysts that's, you know, that you know, is getting it in the chops from the company and then they turn around and double down on it. So a lot of times what's interesting, Brandon, is they don't pick on analysts very frequently like this because then the analyst doubles down and now you stay in the headline and you don't want to be in the headline. You want it to come and go. So number one, but number two, regardless of his accuracy, regardless of what it is, Michael Burry still matters. That's what you're hearing from Nvidia. Michael Burry says something. Now he's on Substack publishing a private newsletter that you can subscribe to as opposed to running the fund, the Scion Fund. And so you this means he still matters. Now the other side of it is if it is true that the depreciation is going six years on chips. Let me just show of hands. Who in here has kept a laptop six years?
- [42:41]
B
Yeah.
- [42:41]
A
Who has kept a mobile phone six years? Guess what? You're not keeping processors six years. You're putting something new on your desk and you're putting something new in your pocket or purse. And so if it's six years for semiconductors like this, you know, the reality is, is they may be depreciating items that have been recycled or disposed of in, you know, these specialty electronic dumps, which is a whole nother story about how that happens. But I find it to be very interesting. But Burry's not going to get sued. But Burry still matters and he was able to piss off one of the engines of the American economy, which everybody agrees. Can we not do this? We really need them in the mag 7.
- [43:24]
B
But by the way, is there a video of Jensen Wong responding to drop?
- [43:28]
A
I have not been able to find one. Let me.
- [43:29]
B
Okay. I'm curious if he did.
- [43:31]
C
Brandon, I was going to just ask you of curiosity, do you think it was smart for him to have Responded the way he did or does that almost make it look like he, like he was bothered by it? Like would you have responded to it.
- [43:38]
B
In Jensen situation Jensing for Michael Burry? Yeah, it's Michael Burry. You have to because the market is expecting him to react to it because so many people have made so much money on him.
- [43:52]
F
Yeah.
- [43:52]
B
And if it's just a regular guy that says something, whatever. But if it's a guy that has that kind of influence and in the past they made a movie about him and the market knows it's Michael Burry, even though he's been on a losing streak a little bit, you know he has to get up there and say something. You have to realize one thing about Jensen Wong that most people don't realize. This guy's a long term thinker. This is not a short term thinking guy. So if you play this clip, I don't know if you guys have ever seen this clip. This is him from 03, 22 years ago. What was the market cap of Nvidia to 22 years ago, Rob? 22 years ago when you didn't know Nvidia gaming? We didn't speak about Nvidia 22 years ago. 22 years ago is 03.
- [44:34]
A
Unless you were a gamer. Gamer knew the Nvidia video board. That was it.
- [44:39]
B
So it was a two and a half billion dollar company 23 years ago. Just to kind of give you some perspective on what it is, it is a $4 trillion company today. So if we take 4 trillion divided by 2 1/2 billion, you know how many X he has? 1600 X the valuation of his company during that time. Why watch him speak about his vision in O3? Go ahead Rob.
- [45:10]
H
I don't need to change the world overnight. I'm going to change the world over the next 50 years.
- [45:18]
B
50 years.
- [45:19]
H
I don't need to build a killer product overnight. I just need to build a winning product. And the goal of winning is so that you can play again. It's just like pinball. Okay? If you could just play well enough to get another game, you could be there for a long time. Most companies just need to realize that in fact this is a long road and that you can't build that perfect product. So once you do that then you keep the project's scope confined. You keep the project now simple. You have a long term vision but your project product definition is rather simple. You execute flawlessly on that because your people now can execute on a flawless, flawlessly on a simple plan. And you come back and do it again.
- [46:03]
B
What does that give you? That gives you a vibe of who? Stable, strong, long term thinking. I'm not just trying to make a quick pay. Yeah, I know we're going to be around for a while. We'll make adjustments, we'll get better. He sounds like someone that's just getting started. And by the way says 50 years, this is your 22. Which means what? There's 23 years left in the 50 year race that he's talking about himself. So I don't know, I think their mindset. Michael Burry is going to do what Michael Burry is going to do. He has to play because that's the game he's playing. And Michael Burry is not somebody that is trying to say something to be a shock jock to get in front of the camera. Matter of fact, try getting an interview with Michael Burry. He doesn't even want to call in. He just wants to say, read my stuff, read my paper, don't bother me. I'll let you know when I want to talk to you guys. Every once in a while, let me go back and hide and do what I'm doing. That's Michael Burry. Michael Burry is not trying to go to a restaurant and people stop at him and say, can we take a selfie?
- [47:04]
D
Yeah.
- [47:05]
B
That's not Michael buried. That's why Michael has the credibility that he has. Paul, any thoughts on this story before we move. Move to the next one?
- [47:11]
D
No. I love Jensen's statement there of building something that meets the market demand right there. I mean, because that's essentially what he did when he scaled from the gaming industry because he was building graphics processing cards and then leaping forward to what he's doing now with these advanced chips is, is amazing. He's our next Steve Jobs.
- [47:31]
A
Yeah.
- [47:32]
B
And. And it, and it looks like they're just getting warmed up. Okay. They're just getting warmed up. So. Okay, next story. Kind of weird what's going on here, but we're talking about some insurers. So your big insurance company don't want to cover AI's errors? What do you mean when you read this? What do you mean we don't want to cover AI's errors? Who's making the error? AI is making the error. Yeah. AI, we don't want to protect. All right, can you tell me a little bit more? Sure. As businesses hustle to incorporate AI in everything they do, their insurers want no part of it. Across the commercial insurance industry, new policies say they won't cover losses. Caused by Chatbots. Investors are shunning AI leaders and other momentum names. But if you look beyond Nvidia and the rest of the Magnificent Seven, there are actually plenty of winners. Health care has been a top performing sector. Investors seem to be embracing drug stocks, insurers and medical equipment companies again. Their shares have been beaten down as a result of worries about United Health earnings woes as well as how the regulatory environment in Washington will affect drug prices and approvals for new medications. According to Dow Jones Market Data, Eli Lilly is the best performing stock in the index this month, up more 20%. The company, which topped the trillion dollar market cap threshold Friday, has been a big winner thanks to the GLP1 drugs. But other top health stocks such as 3M Healthcare Spinoff and few other ones, they are all up more than 10% this month as well. Not 20, but up 10%. So Tom, can you unpack this to the average person, what do they mean they don't want to insure these AI errors?
- [49:16]
A
So yeah, there's a couple of things in here and the article was meandering between health care and insurance. So most companies, if you own a company, we, we need insurance, we need slip and fall insurance and what's called general lines or general liability. Then we also get, if we do contracts and we do a lot of white collar work, it says, you know, insurance and E and O insurance is errors and omissions and errors and omissions. In our business, like we make an error, we omit something and somebody sues us, we lose. That's what the insurance is about because we made an error and crashed the company car into a tree. Call the insurance company and say, hey, we made an error in omission and we've seemed to have run the company into a tree. And they say, well, I'm your insurance company and they go out and they pay for it. But what they're saying here is that AI is moving and by the way, you can predict it for underwriting insurance people have been, have got decades of information on common human errors that lead to problems where a company gets sued or gets fined and they have to reach to the closet and say, ah, I have an insurance policy to pay for this. And they flop that out on the table and the insurance company pays for it. So there's all this history to underwrite human error. AI is moving really fast. Air Canada plugged in a chatbot for, I believe it is for it was Air Canada plugged in a customer service chatbot and they apparently didn't put Sufficient guardrails around it. And the chatbot started self learning or doing something and it started offering discounts or it started doing things that were not within the realm of the solutions that it could provide people. And, and it got in big, big trouble. And so now the insurance company is. And by the way, AI works slower, fast, really, really fast. So humans don't make mistakes at this kind of scale. This is where AI can make mistakes at scale. So the number of claims, if you are, you know, chub and you're trying to insure a company, mistakes made at scale are hard to quantify. So it's hard to set a premium. So insurers, right now, do you remember when there was CyberSecurity INS Day one, you couldn't get it because there was all the ransomware to turn it back on. And what happened was the insurers temporarily said, I'm not covering that, I will not cover ransom. And then as there was more to underwrite, more to figure out, you know, how the insurance companies work, they come back and they say, now wait a minute, we can put a cybersecurity policy together. It's a different premium, a different price. We can underwrite this. What the insurers are saying right now is I don't know if I can underwrite mistakes made at scale. So day one, until I have enough to underwrite here, the answer is no. And there, and some of them are backing off. It's. I think it's that simple.
- [52:18]
B
Yeah. I wonder, because I think about it from two different places. It's kind of like, you know what deep fakes are doing, honey? Is that shoe with that girl? No, babe, that's a deep fake. No, it's not. That's a deep fake, babe. That's not me. Right. Okay. Hey, Mr. Mr. Incorporated, your AI told me that I'm going to get a 72% discount on this next Toyota I purchase. I never said that. Yeah, but your AI said it. Yeah, but we didn't say it. Yeah, but doesn't your AI represent you? So, so in one sense, companies are going to be saying, well, we really didn't make the mistake. This is an AI mistake. The audience may be forgiving, but I think that's a slippery slope on both sides. Right. Paul, what do you think about how I'm processing this? Because we're going to. We're headed in this direction.
- [53:06]
C
Yeah.
- [53:06]
D
I think the, the attorney has to basically prove one thing, and that is that the company that deployed the AI used an internal language model. If they did it means that that AI is building off of their own information. It's not a. It's not a public AI.
- [53:23]
B
So which is fair that that would be fair.
- [53:26]
D
I get that at that point they're liable.
- [53:28]
B
Brandon?
- [53:29]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think this is the biggest example or proof that AI is not quite there with things that are like, the most high stakes. Like if you're talking about health insurance and I'm having a chatbot tell somebody the wrong thing or misinform them, like insurance companies and under eyes remind me of kind of like the stock market, where the stock market usually knows what's going on and it's like the smarter side of something. And like insurance seems like they're kind of the smartest people knowing the risk of something. So it's like, to me, it's them saying that the risk of trusting AI completely with something that's got life or financial implications like this, that it's not quite there yet because there's some, you know, like, who's the liability on? Where's the information coming from? Is there regulations around it? Like, is the law up to date with it? Where they have, like, a framework around how to handle these things? So, no, that's not in place. But yeah, you're right. We'll get there. But I'm not there yet.
- [54:23]
B
Yeah, I would just. I would just be, because I would. If I'm sitting there arguing for both sides, what am I going to be saying for both sides, as I'm arguing from the business owner, I'm going to say, listen, this wasn't us. Yeah, but that's the language model you guys use that's aligned with your protocols and your, you know, standard operating procedures. It is. So then it is the company. So I do think it's a slippery slope. But this leads me to the next thing. AI super PAC launches $10 million campaign pushing uniform National Policy. What does this mean? Uniform National Policy, a super PAC backed by AI industry, on Monday launched a $10 million campaign to push Congress to craft a national AI policy that will override a patchwork of state laws, A group told cnbc. The campaign from Leading the Future will launch over the summer with more than $100 million in initial funding, signaling how the booming industry plans to leverage its wealth and power in the next years midterm election. There is a broad public demand for congressional action and a uniform national approach to AI, said Nathan Lerner, executive board director of Build America AI, the pacs advocacy arm. We are excited to have created this platform for Americans. Excited about the future of AI to engage their members of Congress and make a difference. The campaign will run TV and digital social media ads, plus organize 10,000 calls to lawmakers offices this week alone, According to a memo about the campaign shared with cnbc. President Trump appeared to be convinced already. He wrote on Truth Social last Tuesday that the U.S. must have one federal standard instead of a patchwork of 50 state regulatory regimes. Tom, is this a good thing, a bad thing, and who does it protect?
- [56:07]
A
Okay, there a couple points here. Point number one, the super PAC is brought by the industry. All right, so let's cross out consumer. The industry is worried about the industry. What are they worried about? This is exactly what the auto industry did when it didn't want 50 different states, EPA and when you went to buy a car, and I think it started like in the 80s, you notice that there were California cars and there were 49 state cars used to be able to go on the window sticker. And that was because California had different, different emissions laws. Well, what, what the industry is saying is, you know what? This could get expensive. I don't want to pay lawyers in 50 states to deal with 50 different laws. I want one set of laws. So the industry is screaming for it. But what they're going to cleverly do with the PAC is say that the public needs it. The public needs one law so the federal government can control it. But what really it is, is the industry wants it so that they can push their lawyers to one set of bills and then modify those bills so that the laws are the laws they want. So it's two things, expense for the company. I don't want 50 lawyers in 50 states. That's expensive for me. Number two, if all I have to do is worry about one bill in Congress, then I know that I've only got 100 senators I need to talk to and I only need 51 of them. And I know where to write the checks for campaigns so they can control it. So whenever you hear there's a super PAC from the industry, you always step back and say, okay, wait a minute, what are they trying to do? And at the end of the day, I don't see the consumer being helped in all this. I see the AI industry saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let's write the rules before we have 50 states of precedence. Because what they don't want is a lawsuit in Louisiana, lawsuit here, where the consumer maybe was victimized of a deep fake and I didn't have sufficient controls to identify it was a deep fake. You could have people wrongly accused of crimes and convicted. And so they don't want the states to be doing this. They want one set of federal laws and the super PAC's job is to do it, but to make us all think it's for us, the consumer, to protect us.
- [58:20]
D
Paul, I would be looking for. This happened in the crypto industry, actually, when you saw the crypto lobby get on their heels with a lot of the anti crypto regulation that was being forced in by the Biden administration. Coinbase basically started a program called Stand With Crypto and they published every politician's position on all those policies. That was terrible for a lot of Democrats, which started to flip. We started to see a bipartisan approach. I would be watching the companies that have a lot to lose in the AI industry and there are a handful of them that are out there that might pose a counter argument to this and try to go to exactly what Tom is saying, and that is put the consumer at the front, because that's how Coinbase did it with Stan, with crypto, they put the consumer investors, and you had millions and millions of investors, individual investors calling their congressmen at every state level, senators, house reps, etc. If that were to happen here, which is what I would be in fear of if I was running this super pac. Is someone organizing against it?
- [59:24]
B
Brandon, where do you have with this?
- [59:26]
C
I think it's bad news. I. I remember a couple years ago, I mean, yeah, two years ago it was like Elon Musk and Warren Buffett and a bunch of people saying that this is the equivalent, if not worse than, or like more serious than the nuclear arms race. Like, what's happening with AI and like, could we, any of us think of one thing in the history of the world that's ever gotten better when the federal government has gotten involved and made a uniform policy around it? I can't think of a single thing. So I think it's gonna, like, whenever you're farther removed from like the people, like you said, if it's like state by state, it's gonna be precise. It's gonna be like, like matching what the people from that state want. But if it's federal, it's going to be like this giant packet of laws that lobbyists. Right. That it's probably going to create new barriers of entry and regulation. So it's going to make it harder to compete in that industry. So. And then, you know, you have all the creepy stuff too, with what could be done with AI with like monitoring and tracking and who the hell Knows, like, what's getting written into the thing with that, with what the government's allowed to do in situations of national security. So, yeah, bad news. I don't like it.
- [60:26]
B
You know what it reminds me of? Yesterday, again, this goes back to the conversation we had with the Fed, the head of fda. We talking about the patent laws. Remember one time you and I did something with the patent laws, the medical patent laws that we have. I don't know if you listen to the conversation. I asked him, I said, what are we doing? Because these insurance companies are coming with a patent on a product that they have. Right. On a certain cure that they have whatever takes them a few years to get it approved. Once they do, they have seven or 12 years of monopoly to be able to price it out as much as they want. Then they can get lawyers to extend the patent for another 18 years and it becomes 38 years. And you see. Yeah. Now it's like the product is really worth 28 cents, but they're selling it for $5,900. The day the patent's done, it drops to $9 and everybody sells it. We came up with some ideas. And who did that to give themselves immunity and protection for competition? The lobbyists and the health care industry and the, you know. Right. Big pharma can talk about this is a way of them protecting themselves. AI and doing a similar things. To say, no, no, no, we're protected. And gradually knowing they're probably going to break a few things.
- [61:33]
A
Yeah.
- [61:33]
B
In a big way. And when they do, they kind of want immunity. Tom, am I reading that correctly on how they're using this?
- [61:40]
A
Oh, yeah. The. The industry will have. Well, take a look at what happened with vaccines. You know, what did the vaccine makers do? Right.
- [61:51]
B
They wanted to sue us for some.
- [61:52]
A
That's right.
- [61:53]
B
Six years or whatever.
- [61:54]
A
If you want me to run fast and you have to give me permission to make a mistake is what they said.
- [62:00]
B
Well, they did. They certainly made a lot of mistakes with that. But. Okay, let's go to the next story. Next story is Thanksgiving is here tomorrow. There's going to be a lot of conversations. I'm sure families are going to want to go together and sit down and talk politics all day and create a very peaceful environment. And I'm sure some of you guys are going to wear, you know, MAGA hats. I don't know. Some of you guys are going to wear. I'm with her. Your old shirts or Feel the burn. What was Kamala's campaign, Rob, Did Kamala have a campaign I don't remember what her campaign was.
- [62:31]
A
I don't think she had a slogan.
- [62:32]
B
Was it 107 days? I don't know what her campaign was. Maybe she didn't have a slogan. Right. But whatever it is, here's what Barron's we're not going back. Was that the campaign?
- [62:43]
A
Yes. And we fight, we win.
- [62:46]
B
When we fight, we win. What a horrible. By the way, you know how bad it is. At least we knew. Feel the burn. At least we knew. I'm with her. At least we knew. Hope and change. Nobody had a clue is we're not going back. Okay.
- [63:02]
D
Never heard that.
- [63:02]
B
All right, so Trump's record on the economy actually has wins. 10 things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. All right, so this is Barron's. What is Barron's talking about? While the President's supporters will claim that a stock market still near record highs the best proof that he is doing a great job. The author argues that the boom in AI investments has masked the scars of the most destructive economic policies. The tariffs are distortive. The tax cuts have been a blown threshold in the budget. And the attacks on courts, regulators and universities inflict long term damage on what really makes the US Great. Number one, European defense. Trump's tough love was critical in getting NATO member countries to finally commit to spending 5% their annual GDP on defense by 2032. It even forced Germany to abandon its beloved debt break.
- [63:56]
A
That's a win.
- [63:57]
B
That's a win. Number two Canadian competition. Trump's tariffs and hostility toward China Canada unintentionally forced Prime Minister Mark Carney to eliminate many of the internal trade barriers among provinces. That's a win. Number three expensing capital expenditure. Making permanent the practice of expensing capex all at once offers businesses a meaningful incentive to invest in their growth. More and more victories there next one deregulation Simplifying regulation Allow small businesses more time to focus on building their businesses stablecoins. The passage of the Genius act set forth a framework for the issuance of dollar linked StableCoins Putting the US at the center of the digital currency system. Supply diversification companies like Taiwan Semiconductors Manufacturing and Micron Technologies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in US semiconductor production. Saudi Arabia If Trump can get Saudi to finally recognize Israel, vast investment pools will be connected with the world's class innovation. East Asian security. Trump's recommitment to support Japanese and Korean defense with weapons and technology are welcome in counterweights to the uneven trade terms he has forced on these allies. Border control if Congress manages real immigration free form in a few years. Trump may deserve some credit for intensifying political pressures around this show. Last but not least, they put Argentina bailout on the list. Tossing a lifeline to President Milei before Argentina's midterm election seems to have paid off both politically and financially. Tom, what do you think about this list and what else would you add to it?
- [65:37]
A
Number 11, Truflation says that inflation is 2.4%. And the inflation didn't show up in horrifying ways after the tariffs were put in place on April 1st. Now, that doesn't mean that Americans don't need wage growth to help with the cumulative effect of inflation going back to the Biden administration. Americans do. They need wage growth. When we talk about the affordability crisis, that's not the same as saying, by the way, the reason you call it an affordability crisis, the Democrats. Because you can't say inflation is back to record levels. It's not. If you can't say that, then it's an affordability crisis. Remember when you're approved that it's not really global warming. Hang on. Climate, climate change. I'll just call it climate change. I'll change it. And so I think the president should get a lot of credit on the inflation side, I would add to that, and I think it's also pointed out is, look how much of this is international. And when people voted for a president that was going to say America first, but not America only, we're not going to just, you know, be an isolated little island here. Take a look at what he's done on the world stage. And a lot of things have been exposed. The Canadian counterterrorifs that were there in the first place, they have pulled back on those have been sitting there before Trump was in office. So it got Canada to say, oh, you're new tariffs. Hang on, hang on. Open your jacket there. Take out that piece of paper. You got those old tariffs, I want you to put those on the table, too. Oh, these, Sorry. And so getting Canada to do that, calling him the 51st state, the big poke and all the things he did, I think really the word for me was international and inflation. When I read this, and that's what I voted for. I voted for somebody not to be America only, but to be America first. And he's done that. And I see wars stopping. We don't even have the note on. There is an Asian conflict that was going on that he got stopped. So I really like what's happening. Is there more to do? Yes.
- [67:38]
B
Paul, what would be your top of the list? What's been the biggest victory?
- [67:42]
D
Yeah, the top of the list, I think, is the deregulation and also stablecoins, kind of back to back there. Stablecoins, of course, really open up the US dollar for basically exportation into the world. And what I mean by that is the fact that we're going to see countries all over that are going to have access to the US dollar via stablecoins that they've never had before. That in itself is going to be huge for the US government, mainly because of what it requires to backstop that Stablecoin. Those are U.S. treasuries. So that's going to continue to feed into the coming years. And we're just getting started. I mean, you've already started to see almost every bank in the US started to go into the ide of presenting stablecoins. Then of course, you see what Circle is doing. Tether, of course, even ripple to the extent of RLUSD and what they're doing. Those are big expansions, small business regulation, I think is impacting the economy. Unfortunately, Tom's right. I think the problem isn't necessarily in inflation. It is in the wage stalling of growth. And that's why people can't afford things. They're not seeing wage growth. And that's the probably the bigger issue here.
- [68:46]
B
Brandon, where are you at with this?
- [68:48]
C
So I'm thankful that we've stopped hemorrhaging blood from the country. You know, that's, I think Trump cauterized the wound. We were bleeding badly, we were dying and he stopped that. So that I'm really thankful for. But I can't disagree more that inflation is gone. Like I just sent around these four charts. Like we got the four biggest expenses in life from my opinion, housing, food, energy and a car. So where exactly is inflation down? Like, so we got consumers for food. That's food. Then we got next one.
- [69:17]
B
So stay on that one right there. So go back. So what are you highlighting here to the right? That it's gone up?
- [69:21]
C
Yeah, I mean like, so like we're saying that inflation's down, but no, like, like the food index is more expensive.
- [69:27]
B
From when to window from 2020 to 2025.
- [69:30]
C
Because I'm not saying it's his fault, I'm just saying that, like, it's not going down.
- [69:33]
B
No, but that's during COVID Right, so is that kind of.
- [69:35]
C
No, it goes up to 2025.
- [69:37]
B
No, I know, but if you see the massive spike on the top Right.
- [69:40]
A
Right, right after the COVID recession. Yeah.
- [69:42]
B
He's not in the White House at that time.
- [69:45]
C
No, I'm not blaming him for that. I'm not saying it's his fault at all. I'm just saying it's not down. Like, like the number is not going down.
- [69:50]
B
I see what you're saying. So you, you want to see that go down?
- [69:53]
C
Yeah.
- [69:53]
B
Okay, so let's see what the next one is. Wrap.
- [69:56]
C
And then houses, it's going down a little bit because interest rates are up and now we're bringing interest rates down. So my opinion is that's, that's going to go back up.
- [70:03]
B
Okay, what's the next one? Right.
- [70:06]
C
That is electricity, and that's a lot of, that's because of the data centers. And then last one, and that's cars.
- [70:14]
D
Which has been kind of this cpi.
- [70:16]
A
Take a look what happened when you print money to every asset class.
- [70:21]
C
Yeah, but so, I mean, I, I just think that it's not going to land well for people, for Trump to constantly say that inflation's gone, we did it, inflation's not here anymore. But, you know, like, people are still feeling that. It doesn't feel like much has changed when, like, you're, you're.
- [70:35]
B
Brandon, what's your solution? What do you do? Okay, you're an advisor. What do you do to lower down?
- [70:40]
C
So I, like I said a couple times, I think we need to create as many incentives as possible to, to build homes. Like, like create like a gold rush type of situation where you're, you know, subsidizing loans, low interest rates, not taxing home builders when they're building homes. Like, make it so insanely profitable to build homes and don't let corporations buy them. Like under the special program, these special circumstances, like only individual buyers says, like, we need 4 million homes in the next three years. And then I think you'll see the price of houses go down like maybe 30%. Which some people would argue that that's a bad thing, but no, I totally disagree that the price of real estate going down is a bad thing.
- [71:15]
B
Yeah. But the question becomes, how do you do it? Because there's incentives to what?
- [71:21]
C
So don't tax people who build a home and sell it. Like right now, home builders, it's not profitable to build a home and sell it. But if you don't tax them on it, then that's one thing. If you give them low interest loans, that could get people started in that industry that aren't able to do it right now. And cut zoning laws there's so many ways that you can make it cheaper to build a house. And I'm taking regulations out from cutting lumber from the forests in America.
- [71:43]
B
Tom, what do you say to what Brandon is saying?
- [71:44]
A
Well, I think that there's a, there's a lot of things in the housing market where that supply would help, and you're talking about a lot of those in supply. What would help affordability right now is, is drill, baby drill is going to help the Northeast for heating oil because of what's happened to the barrel of oil. But there's something else there, Texas and Oklahoma. Matter of fact, we heard the governor of Oklahoma speak very eloquently at a, at a Goldman event about behind the meter. And what the behind the meter program is, is, hey, if you're going to build the data center and you're going to immediately create amazing demand for electricity, then the electrical providers, the power companies are going to see demand go up. So the price is going to go up because they only have so much supply. So get behind the meter. The president could be the energy president, Pat, and reduce the cost of electricity for Americans right now by getting behind the meter program similar to what they do in Texas and Oklahoma. So when the data center comes online, it doesn't get subsidized electricity because the consumer's price went up across the street because they sucked all this data, all this energy into the data center. Hey, you build a data center for a period of time, you need to help the grid get bigger so we don't affect consumers disproportionately. And I think that's something the president could run executive orders on right now and get there's 13 energy districts in the United States and you could get all of those to play together.
- [73:11]
B
Paul, what could you say to Brandon specifically?
- [73:13]
D
I mean, I kind of agree with Brandon to a certain extent. I'm not necessarily on the real estate side of it. I look more on the debasement trade that we talk about a lot on our channel, and that's really just taking a look at other assets that could get consumers into a positive position in being able to kind of deal with this affordability, whether the Fed can get to a position where they reconsider the 3% mark, because right now they've been trying to hit 2%. It's not going to happen. I think they've pretty much accepted the point that 3% might be the new inflation number going forward for moderate inflation movements. But I think it really is getting the American consumer moving into other assets. And that most likely will offset the inflation scenario, which is the debasement trade.
- [73:59]
B
Okay, so how closely are you guys following what the governor is talking about of Florida for eliminating property tax? How closely are you following that? Are you kind of seeing where it's at? Rob, if you want to pull this up on what the governor has said, he's proposed adjusting property tax for the state of Florida to, you know, allow. He's trying to make it more creative. Are you following this closely?
- [74:24]
C
Yeah. Yeah.
- [74:24]
B
Okay, so maybe, maybe share with us what what he said so far, and it will be. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because if he had a state level, is trying to find a way to make things. He wants to eliminate property tax, and it would be the only state that doesn't have property tax and doesn't have. What do you call a state income tax. Right. It would be monumental for us to have that. The last time we had this was 120 years ago, 130 years ago, to have something like this. Right.
- [74:52]
D
Yeah.
- [74:52]
B
What could you say about what's going on here?
- [74:54]
C
So the one thing that scares me about a little bit, I mean, it's great for if you own a home, which, you know, I'm actively looking right now, and it. I like. So I'm seeing how much it costs in taxes per year for if you own a home, like, depending on the price and whatnot. But so imagine the, like, the rush it would create if he suddenly did this for people who have, like, extra cash and if you no longer have to pay taxes on a home. So, like, I'm a little bit worried for if you do that without creating an incentive to build homes, what it would do to the, you know, upward pressure on the price. So I think it would. It would drastically increase the price and value of houses if you're no longer paying taxes on it, because that's just, like, free money once you pay it off without, like, with some upkeep expenses.
- [75:29]
A
Tom. Well, there's an easy thing DeSantis could do on this and say, listen, this is for primary residences for. For residents, the primary residents for resident. And that if you are a, like, let's say Pat, you and I decide we're going to buy 10 homes together, we pull some money, put a bunch of down payments, get some loans, and we run 10 Airbnbs.
- [75:50]
D
Yeah.
- [75:51]
A
And we're in the Daytona area by the beach, and we're renting them out, happily renting them out to vacationers that want to come for a week at Spring break or a month in the summer, whatever it is. Well, we pay more property tax. That's what I'd say. You're operating a business. And the tax of operating business in Florida is this. And then have the residences, the individual people that are out there buying food and goods and services and are trying to make it on their home, they don't pay the property tax. Now you're incentivizing home ownerships and you're making sure you're clear about who should be the best beneficial home owner. Because guess what? In my example, Pat and Tom could live in New York and be operating Airbnbs with a property management company. And by the way, and we're doing it at a fair price, a very reasonable price. And people love that Our, our little homes that we do are well kept. We're running a good and fair business. However, that means also those homes aren't available for sale to residents here who are paying, you know, sales tax every time they go to the store and are supporting the local economy with their jobs or running a small business. So those people, resident residences. I agree with it. But people that own investment properties, Pat. No, I don't agree with it.
- [77:06]
B
Okay, so here's a video and Apollo, I'm going to come to you. This is him talking about it. This thing goes viral. Everyone starts talking about. He's got a point here. Go ahead, Rob.
- [77:17]
F
No, you should own your property free and clear. I think to say that someone that's been in their house for 35 years just has to keep ponying up money that, you know, that is not. You don't own your home if that's the, if that's the case. So, yes, of course I'd like to see people be able to owe, oh, free and clear. And it's interesting because it's like you, you know, if I go to Best Buy and buy a flat screen TV and put it on the wall, I got to pay a sales tax on it, right? But I don't keep paying tax tax on it every year. I mean, it's just not, that's not how we do things. It's like, okay, if you're going to tax something, you tax it at the transaction and then let people actually enjoy their free, their private property, free and clear of the government that they think is the vision. That's the philosophical insight. And if you think about our founding fathers when they were proposing the Constitution and one of the Federalist papers, I think it was, was Hamilton he's writing about because, you know, there was opposition to the Constitution. They were making a more powerful federal government than under the Articles of Confederation. And people worried about taxation. And they didn't have, obviously a 16th amendment, which eventually came on income tax. But basically you were not effectively allowed to do any direct taxation. It had to be indirect, meaning you couldn't just. I mean, you could theoretically just apply like a tax tax on land federally, but it'd have to be a portion among the states. So practically it could never work. So basically Hamilton saying, look, the indirect taxes are the most effective, efficient way to raise revenue for the government because they basically allow the individual to choose how much tax they want to pay based on how much they're consuming. And there's a security, there's a protection against excessive tax. And that reflects guard because.
- [79:04]
B
So Paul, he's, he's breaking this down to the audience. I'm going to play another clip here in a minute about a high school student that's asking him a question about this and he goes even deeper into it. But what are your thoughts on trying to pull something like this off? Because it brings $61 billion in property tax every year. Bring $61 billion and of which of which 43 billion of it is non homestead, and 18 billion to 21 billion of it is homestead. So more of the property tax is coming from non homestead than homestead. How do you address this issue?
- [79:39]
D
I'm in agreement with Tom on this in terms of doing it for residences in the state of Florida. Obviously he's got to go through the Florida constitution to get this done. The concern I have right now is going to be on the side of the homeowner's insurance. And as you know, path homeowner's insurance in Florida is one. Can you even get it? And then you're dealing with just absolutely astronomical rates. I just wonder if the insurance companies are going to start feeding more, you know, if we start to see less property tax, especially for a homeowner.
- [80:10]
B
Yeah, I mean, there's a whole story there. But this is the high school student. Just this last week, he asked this question at this event, Rob, if you want to play this clip. And the governor responds, yes, I'm a senior.
- [80:21]
F
Okay, good.
- [80:22]
B
So in the past year, we've heard a lot of talk about cutting the property taxes.
- [80:26]
A
I wanted to see if that's actually.
- [80:28]
B
Going to happen or what your policy is on that.
- [80:30]
C
Yeah, so.
- [80:31]
F
So the way property tax works in.
- [80:33]
C
Florida because people say, oh, you can't.
- [80:35]
B
Do property tax.
- [80:38]
F
We don't get any property tax revenue. I Have a surplus. I've tripled the rainy day fund. I've paid off out of 180 years of the state having debt, I paid off half of it just since I've been governor. We have millions of more people than New York, and our budget's less than half of New York's budget. Our budget's actually less than New York City's budget. They have 8 million people. We have 23 and a half. And yet new York City has a bigger budget than Florida. And that's before Mandami nationalizes the grocery store. We're at one clicking like we don't need any money. We run surplus. But I don't really have any more taxes at the state level I can really cut. We have no income tax. We've made all baby items tax free. We've done permanent back to school sales tax, holiday disaster sales tax. We eliminated the business rent tax. And so, you know, a lot of our sales tax, groceries. And so, you know, you want to be able to fester young people to.
- [81:37]
B
Be able to afford a home.
- [81:38]
F
They say the median age for buying a home now in the US is the highest it's ever been. I think it's in like the 40s to buy your first home or something. I read something crazy. If you're 20, you know, 28, married, with two kids already, you really don't have access to buying a home right now unless you're making, you know, you're in the top 1, 1% of income murders. And so I can, as you basically are an ATM for the local government. You know, you don't really own your home because if you stop paying the tax, they can take your home. So what we said is, is that's wrong. You shouldn't have to pay rent to the government. If you really want to own a home, that should mean you own it free and clear of the local government. So exemption.
- [82:22]
B
You can pause it right there. I mean, that's, that's a, that's a call out to a lot of local governments. That's a call out to a lot of different things. That's a call out to New York politics. That's a call out to a lot of different things. He's talking about. Brandon, when you hear your governor talking like this, as somebody who just turned 30 yourself, what do you think about when your governor speaking like this?
- [82:40]
F
I love it.
- [82:40]
C
I appreciate it. Gets me fired up. And he's totally right. I mean, the thing is, though, that it doesn't address part of the problem that he's mentioning there, like, with like the cost of it, the cost of the house initially. It's not like the taxes getting removed is going to fix that. I think it's going to make the cost of the house go up, actually. So. But I do appreciate deeply the spirit of what he's saying and the way he runs the state compared to other states. Like, I think other states might intentionally run themselves badly so they get money from the federal government. But. Yeah, no, I still think it could go full circle back to what I said before, where we need to like, put a ton of energy into finding out a way to make homebuilders build homes or incentivize them too, because that's how you fix the price side of things. But I definitely agree with that.
- [83:17]
B
Yeah. And so. So one of the things they talked about is, where are you going to go? Are you going to add a vat? Are you going to add a sales tax? He's like, no, we don't want to do that. Then what do you want to do? We're going to tax tourists. Like, let's just say the hotels and stuff that they're doing. And because 10 of revenue that they get every year, they're. The state's GDP is 10 comes from tourism. So if the room is going to be 300 bucks a night at a tax to it, 20% is what, $60. And maybe tourists would pay for it. Like, yeah, when you go into tourism, you're willing to splurge. We kind of talked about it yesterday, you know, with Stephen. They were having dinner. This conversation was kind of being brought up of, yeah, I'll pay for it. Tourists will pay for it. If I go, I'm in a splurging mode. I'll probably put. Spent some of the money there. But the question becomes, say he does that. Let's go there. Say the announcement is made. It's official. Homestead, Florida, no taxes. What happens?
- [84:10]
C
Ton of people move here.
- [84:11]
B
You think so?
- [84:12]
A
Yeah.
- [84:13]
B
Tom, what do you think happens? It's done. The only state in America, no property tax for Homestead if you live here, and no state income tax. What happens?
- [84:25]
A
Well, I think no state income tax. So if you're going to take another. What you've just done is increase the disposable income. For me as a citizen of Florida, and if I've got a 3% mortgage that I didn't want to sell in the first place, and now I'm not paying property tax, you've probably made me more likely to stay there and now put that savings in my pocket as a citizen, rather than move, perhaps, maybe. I was about to retire and I was thinking I was going to have to move from my house because the Social Security and maybe a small pension or a little tiny savings that I've got that I wasn't going to be able to afford to stay in my house, that it was paid off, but with the property tax and insurance going up, I was going to have to move out to a condo. I might stay in my house instead of selling it. Yep. What do you think?
- [85:14]
D
Well, I look at it this way. I think you're going to get the best of the best coming into Florida already. It was mostly the rich coming into Florida. Now, I think you could lure in Texas and Tennessee participants, who are really the only other two competing states, at least in the South. That would be potential for really great people coming in. And that means entrepreneurs, which could of course mean starting businesses. I think it starts to roll into the economy in other ways. Obviously, as a resident of Florida, I like the idea because this would keep me here as opposed to get me back into Austin or somewhere like that. That's another challenge that I think the state of Florida has to deal with.
- [85:51]
B
You've thought about going to Austin?
- [85:52]
D
Oh, yeah. Going back. Why to Texas? Well, I think for me, that was where I was born and raised, so it was. It's more of a home thing for me. But I like the spirit of Texas and what they're trying to do in tech. I haven't seen that in Florida yet. Granted, I love what DeSantis is doing. They attempted to do some things in blockchain and crypto here in Miami. And I like, you know, I like what the mayor of Miami has been able to do, but it just has not been the kind of advancements that we've seen in places like Austin.
- [86:21]
B
What would you like to see? What would you like to see?
- [86:23]
D
I think a tech innovation corridor or something that really amplifies tech. Especially now with AI, we need to move into investing in some entrepreneurs and in investing. And the problem, as you know, Patrick, finding real estate for a business in South Florida is very difficult. We've been trying to build a new studio. Trying to find that is just almost impossible. You have to find something like what you found, which is a gem. But getting into the idea of Florida becoming a tech state, that's a big concern I have right now. It's a real estate and investment state, which is fine. That's great. But I think the future is in tech.
- [86:59]
A
Yeah.
- [87:00]
B
So it'll be interesting because we were at a conference with Goldman last week and every speaker got up speaking about Texas. If there is a city and a state that could be the next financial capital of the world. The argument is Dallas, Texas, not Austin. Austin's different. But Dallas, Texas. Now, Austin is more like the San Francisco of Texas, no doubt. So they don't mind that. That's the idea they want. You know, there's a lot of people moving on Austin as well. Well, we'll see. This is the great thing about competition. The one thing I hear about what he's talking about is, you know, Rob, can you go on the Kalshee report on where 2028 presidential candidates are? If you go to 2028 presidential candidates on the Republican side, where is, where is DeSantis on that list? Can you type in somebody? Let's just see where Republican candidates. Where's DeSantis on that list?
- [87:53]
A
I think you just click more at the bottom there, right below Donald Trump. More markets.
- [87:59]
B
Look at where he's at. Think about it. So take President Trump out. That's the one. So you got J.D. rubio, then DeSantis. Okay, so Donald Trump. Great. Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's what happened the last week and a half. Glenn Youngkin. Okay, go a little bit lower. Don Jr. Fantastic. Ted Cruz, Tulsi Tucker Abbott, Kemp Massey, Haley Sanders, RFK Jr. Vivek. And then you got Gates, Donald Stefanik, Muskant, because I don't think he was born here. And he got Holly and he got a bunch of other names. So what I'm trying to say is DeSantis is on that list. DeSantis on that list. So maybe he's trying to show. And this is a story to come and say, let's make America Florida. Like, imagine if that's his campaign. Hey. And then he goes up and he says, why are you paying this for your property tax? You know how many people would get behind it? You know how many people? I mean, this could be a very interesting case study for him to come and present and then say, man, I wouldn't mind a guy like that coming up here because affordability, what's the chances that affordability is going to be a top three issue in 2028?
- [89:14]
D
For sure.
- [89:15]
A
100%.
- [89:16]
B
100%, maybe even number one. Right. But it depends. So. But regardless, if it's going to be affordability, he's doing that for the younger audience. That was a young group of kids, high school seniors that were asking him questions.
- [89:27]
C
Yeah.
- [89:28]
B
So he's trying to Show. I want to hear you out. I don't know, I think any kind of try to be a little bit funny and sarcastic and witty when he kind of said, well, you can't raise the taxes. I don't know, maybe he's doing some, you know, exercise to see if he can bring out his personality for this next day.
- [89:44]
A
Well, DeSantis matters. And the J.D. vance has taken the air out of the room. And every poll call, she's got him up there over 50%, so we know where that is. But it's very interesting. He's one of the next two or three names, which means he matters. And he's probably going to be in cabinet. And I would love to see him in, in Commerce or I would love, not really treasury, but I'd love to see him, you know, driving American jobs, Secretary of Commerce, bringing some of these good thoughts to the nation as a whole. And DeSantis matters.
- [90:14]
B
He's got to get closer to. And he already is. You're seeing good things with him and the President, his strategy. Someone's got to be in his ear in helping him really realizing how to manage that relationship. And you don't know what could happen. When was the falling out between Pence and Trump? Rob, can you find out the exact date of the following hour with Pence and Trump? The exact date? Do you know what I'm talking about? Because for the longest time everybody was thinking Pence and Trump are what? Buddy, buddy, what was the exact date of the falling out that a comment was made between Pence and Trump? So Trump gets in when? January 20, 2017. Right. Okay. Give or take. I think it was January 20, 2017.
- [90:59]
A
Was it like March after J6?
- [91:04]
B
So what does this mean? Nothing happened until J6?
- [91:07]
A
Yep.
- [91:08]
B
Okay, so that means till then they're publicly amicable. They were publicly amicable. He was speaking highly of him. So you have to also realize the unpredictable side of the President. If JD Makes one bad comment about him as the VP or whatever. So. Meaning this is, this is one of those things where all of a sudden, boom. The Wally Pip story. Wally Pips, the first baseman for the Yankees, all of a sudden he's sick. You know, something happens, he steps out. And this guy was a two time home run champion in, in baseball. And then the guy that comes and replaces him is a guy named Lou Gehri and doesn't leave for 2,000 days, whatever the amount of games that he play. A bunch of games. And nobody today knows Wally Pitt. But you know who, you know, Lou Gehry So I don't know. Politics is interesting and things can change very quickly. But I want to get to the next story, which Paul Barron commented on briefly earlier, and that is homeowners insurance. Okay, homeowners insurance costs could spike over the next two years. And this is across the board. Okay, homeowners insurance across the board. It could increase the next couple of years. So let's kind of go to the story here on what this means. We already hear stories with this when it comes down to Florida and Texas, Florida and California. But this one is across the board. Homeowners could see an insurance premium spike up another 16% the next two years due to an uptick in natural disasters and rebuilding costs. The average homeowner's insurance Premium expected to rise 8% in 2026, followed by another 8% in 2027, according to Real Estate Analytics. From projected an annual rate conference Totality's chief data and analytics officer John Rogers explained that these premiums have been rising dramatically over the last few years with some area C and double digit growth. Roger said that the Insurance now accounts for 9% of the typical US homeowners payments, which is the highest average on record of a person outlay in terms of principal interest and property tax and insurance premiums. Damn. 9%. Danielle Hale, chief economist of realtor.com told Fox Business that the higher cost of rebuilding, a reflection of both overall inflation and some housing supply chain specific trends, is driving these premiums higher. As the snow melts, the flowers bloom and the open houses are being scheduled in earnest, buyers might be eager to emerge. The average homeowner insurance premium is expected to rise 8% and 8%. He also Hill also said that more frequent disasters have resulted in more damage and increasing claims trends and insurance are trying to get ahead of it. Brandon?
- [93:51]
C
Yeah, this kind of goes back to what I was saying before, but it's, it's more than that. It's the cost of materials that don't need to be as expensive there. Like, there's a 40% increase in construction costs since 2020, since the pandemic. Like, why is it that we used to produce 80% of the cement in the world 40 years ago? Today we produce 2% of it. China produces 50% of it. Like, and cement's one of the biggest inputs in your building a home. Why is it that we have one of the, I think the second most lumber in the world as a country that like just sit in the forest like being trees and we, we like restrict ourselves from touching most of it. But we have a lumber shortage and lumber is the biggest input for building a house. You know, like, so we shoot ourselves in the foot in all these ways that make things more expensive. And, you know, there's a. No priority put in the trades anymore. There's a shortage of electricians, carpenters, plumbers. So it's a combination of those two things that are making it more expensive to build houses. And then obviously when the price of houses goes up and the cost of rebuilding a house goes up, then insurers are gonna have to make the premiums more expensive. So I think it's just like they're having to follow where inflation's going with housing and with the cost of labor and materials.
- [94:57]
B
Tom, your thoughts on this?
- [94:59]
A
Well, what has happened is more frequent disasters. We look only to California and everybody wants to go attack the insurance company, attack the insurance company. But look at what California has done to the, to the citizen poor. Forestry management and aging. PG&E electrical transmission equipment led to a summer of arcing and wildfires that were caused by this equipment. And there's this. When I say caused, this is according to studies and news reports on those studies that said PG&E was responsible for some of the hotspots. Now, I know that there is an arson that is suspected as being the issue in Southern California. So maybe that wasn't forestry cleaning up. Maybe the government had nothing to do. Oh, wait, wait, wait, they did. They drained the reservoirs and they defunded the fire department and they had inadequate sensing equipment. There was a whole list of things that led the fire chief to pick on the mayor, the mayor to tell the fire chief to shut up. And eventually I think the fire chief was relieved of duty or something. But it was all of this drama that happened there. And guess what happens at the end of it? The insurance company's got to pay a lot of money out on stuff. And so the insurance company comes back and says, wow, you know, our insurance company, we thought we were good in la. Our underwriting completely missed. We had smoking in bed, careless people, Summer bush. You know what we forgot to underwrite? State is a fricking idiot and defunds and drains reservoirs. If only we had done that, we would have charged people more for insurance because it's all underwriting. And so I think what happens here is the insurance is coming up, but what's happened to the consumer is the consumer has been let down by the governments that are supposed to a regulate the insurers through the Department of Insurance at the state capital of all 50 states, number one and number two, that are supposed to self manage themselves and run all of those systems and reservoirs and water supply and fire departments and brush clearing. And to do that, to protect the consumer on the other side. And instead now it looks like the evil insurance company. When the insurance company is just looking at there's more risk out there than I thought. So I got to raise the rates.
- [97:15]
B
Yeah, you can keep calling insurance companies evil as much as you want. You know what they'll do? They will leave. They're like, cops keep talking about cops are horrible people. Keep talking about how bad they are, keep defunding cops and see what cops will do. They'll stop being cops and they'll go do something else. You need insurance companies to protect the house because if shit hits the fan and you don't have any kind of protection, this is something that you're going to need. Right. I can't tell you how many times people would. I went to a story one, I'll tell you a story. One time I used to go to this restaurant called El Torito and the manager's name was Jacopo. Very nice guy. We love this guy. And my waiter who I used to go to, Sergio Serio. And he was my guy, he was at El Torrido in Encino, off of Balpoa and Ventura, right next to that dealership next to Stevie's. On the other side of Stevie's.
- [98:06]
A
Oh, near Johnny Rockets?
- [98:07]
B
Yes, next to Johnny Rockets, yes. Serio was the best. One day I talked to Jacopo, one of my guys. Tony talks to Jacopo and Jacopo is a good friend of ours. So he goes to his house to sell him insurance. And Jacopo has got a wife who doesn't speak English and they have three kids. And he says he's talking about having life insurance. He says, I see what you're doing. Because he asked a question. God forbid, if something were to happen to you, what would happen to your three kids? Jacopo says, I'm 38 years old, nothing's going to happen to me. I see what you're doing. That's a good line. Week later we go to El Torito and then Serio comes up and I see he's a little bit down. I said, you good? Everything good? He was older. Jacopo was 38, Syria was probably in his early 60s. I said, everything good? Says, you didn't hear the news? I said, no, what happened? Jacopo passed away last night. You got to be kidding me. What are you talking about? Yes. Boom. Goes to sleep, never wakes up. Wife, three kids. What does she do? Go ahead. What are you going to do? You're going to go create a GoFundMe? You're going to go tell family, all chip in 5,000 bucks at $100. How many people can do that? How often can you do that? The part with insurance is you need insurance. If he would have bought a quarter of a million dollar insurance policy, paid 40 bucks a month on a 20 year term because he's a younger guy, say 60 bucks a month, his wife would have gone $250,000. And what would have $250,000 done? It would have prevented her from having to marry the first guy that comes in. She would have been able to have a time to, you know, have dignity and be able to have the time to mourn. But no, because the guy said, I don't think she's going to need it now. Who knows what happens to those kids. They would have some money to go to college, do something for themselves. So to me, insurance is, you know, it's easy to take shots at insurance. It's easy to take shots at this industry until a disaster happens. Then the first thing you say is what? What do you ask your wife, honey, do we have what?
- [100:04]
A
Insurance.
- [100:05]
B
Insurance. And if she or he says no, then you say, holy, what do we do? So, you know, I pulled up a report here while we're talking about this and you're always wondering what states have the highest cost of insurance? Homeowners insurance. I also ask what insurance companies fully left. Do you know what state has the highest cost of insurance? Homeowners insurance. What do you think it is?
- [100:29]
D
North Dakota.
- [100:30]
B
You should be able to get it. It's not one of ours, but you should be able to get it. Don't look. Should be able to get it. What do you think it is? Think tornadoes.
- [100:38]
A
Oh, Oklahoma.
- [100:39]
B
There you go. It's number one. Okay.
- [100:40]
A
Yeah.
- [100:41]
B
Oklahoma is number one. Then it's Kansas. Okay. Then you have Nebraska, then it's Florida, then it's Colorado, then it's Texas, then it's Arkansas. California is not even on this list. Lowest cost of insurance is Vermont at the top. It's not even close how low it is. Okay. It's 830 to 840 a year on average for homeowners insurance.
- [101:05]
A
Wow.
- [101:05]
B
Wow is the word, right? We're all moving to Vermont, right. Okay. 830 to 840. Then you got Hawaii. Surprisingly so. I don't know why that's the lowest.
- [101:14]
D
Interesting.
- [101:15]
B
So Very interesting. Then it's Delaware.
- [101:17]
A
Well, they don't get typhoons.
- [101:19]
B
Yeah, I said when you go to Delaware, always protect your laptops, like don't leave them around. So Delaware. Then you got Alaska, which again is surprising. Then you got Oregon, then you got New Hampshire. So to me this, this is a, this is becoming a big part of the decision making process when you're buying a house with homeowners insurance. Paul, what are your thoughts on this?
- [101:38]
D
Well, Florida, you, you mentioned it. There is, Florida is having a hard time keeping the insurance companies in the state. So we live out here in West Broward. We've had to change insurance companies in the last 10 years six times because they just leave. So you're stuck with that kind of issue. And if you're dealing with any kind of real estate that's got value, it's even worse because getting those high net worth properties insured is almost impossible in the state of Florida. Tough and expensive.
- [102:06]
B
Very expensive. Very expensive. Brandon?
- [102:08]
C
Yeah, no, I mean, I still maintain that if we could drive the cost of like materials and labor down by providing more, a higher supply of that, I think that that's the thing that we can control. We can't control the weather, but we can control the amount of people that are like, have the expertise to build houses and we have the ability to control the cost of materials that you need to build houses. So like in terms of controlling the controllables, that's what I would attack if I was making policy about this. Because I, I, I'm with you. I get, I get why the insurance companies are doing it. I'm, I'm not outraged or shocked that they're doing. There's like following the prices of the homes and the price of materials and labor. So it's expensive to rebuild them. So yeah, it's, the price is going to go up. But there's a way to make it less expensive to rebuild them.
- [102:47]
B
Yes, go ahead.
- [102:48]
A
It says it's all about underwriting and the underwriters will look, you know, they're not there to kind of gouge. They're there to look at it and say, what is the risk here?
- [102:56]
D
Yeah.
- [102:57]
A
And if the state isn't protecting the citizen or if it's very expensive to rebuild, that goes into the cost. What is it going to cost us to replace a house that burns down? A friend moved to Hawaii. This goes back about 15 years ago. I don't know if it's still the case out there, but he says, guess what? I found out what my car insurance is next to nothing in Hawaii. And I said, really? I asked them, he says, that can't be right. I heard everything's expensive in Hawaii. Why is my insurance. You know what my agent told me? He says, sir, if they steal your car, where do they take it?
- [103:27]
D
Where do they take it?
- [103:29]
C
Wow.
- [103:29]
A
And he says, they can't put it in a truck. And, and where you were in California and drive it to Tijuana and then sell it in Mexico.
- [103:38]
B
It's just like, let me tell you.
- [103:39]
A
And the number of miles you drive in Hawaii. So there's a perfect example.
- [103:42]
B
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. By the way, you know, you know what is crazy about 17 years ago, 16, 17 years ago, I think nationwide or one of these companies we're doing business with came up with long term care product. And again, it's a lot of them that came up with it, but a handful of them really went strong in long term care. And we were selling it. Our guys, some of our guys were so excited about selling it. You're like, oh, my God, wait, you mean to tell me if I put this much money and something happens to my health later on, you're going to pay me based on these seven events that could happen? You break. It was all these different things that you had for long term care. Yes, we're going to pay this income for as long as you can't go back to work. It was like, yes, yes, yes. You're not even overcoming objections. People were buying it. Next thing you know, couple years later, insurance companies like, guys, we're shutting down this product. Not only is it not profitable, we are losing so much money. This is a massive risk. They put not only timeout, they got rid of it. And everybody left the space because it was like, oh, my God, do you see what they're doing? We got to create that product. Oh, my God. We got to, we got to put that product. Well, they're like, oh, thank God. Underwriting took a long time before the state approved our product because we watched what that insurance company was going through. I don't know what which one it was. You know, maybe nationwide was one of the players at the time. Everybody left and then those who said no, guess what they were saying. Hey, you remember that product you pitched me nine months ago? Yeah, I'm interested in that. I'm sorry, sir. It's gone. They're not even selling it. So the existing people were grandfathered in, but any new people didn't want to do it. I'm just telling you folks, be very, very careful trashing insurance companies because they will leave you. They will leave and go elsewhere. I. I bought my boat and my, you know, my insurance company told me, says, hey, you have to have a captain to, you know, manage the boat. Not. Not you, because you don't have a license. Yeah, for sure. So one day, I don't have the patience. My guy can't come out. I'm like, I'm gonna take the boat myself. So I take the boat myself and we're having a great time on a freaking intercoastal. We got into a couple accidents. If you remember that time. You were on one of them one time.
- [106:05]
A
Yeah.
- [106:06]
B
Remember that one time with this one? This boat hits our boat. What? And leaves the biggest scratch. I'm like, what the. What happened? Were you on the boat that day? I think it was.
- [106:16]
A
I don't want to characterize it, but I will. Two guys on us. Okay. Two guys in a small fishing boat. And both of the guys, let's put it this way, weren't from around here.
- [106:27]
C
Yeah.
- [106:28]
A
That basically got here rather recently. And they only had one motor operating. They come screaming under a bridge and apparently they don't slow down in time or they're not accustomed to their boat. And they squeeze. They actually hit the side of the bridge. Then they hit our boat. They go over there and there's a police.
- [106:46]
B
How bad's the damage?
- [106:47]
A
This is huge gash.
- [106:48]
B
Oh my God. Six foot gash on the side of my boat.
- [106:51]
A
But guess what? There was a police boat, a harbor patrol turns on his blue lights, comes over there. We're like, thank goodness. He looks at ours, he goes over them. He goes, yeah, that's two guys now. They even got.
- [107:03]
B
Oh, come on. He says, what do you want me to do? These guys don't have insurance. They just told me right now.
- [107:09]
A
And they only have one engine.
- [107:11]
C
Oh my God, that's ridiculous.
- [107:12]
B
And they don't speak it English.
- [107:14]
A
That's the not from around.
- [107:15]
B
So we found that they came from Cuba and they. No, I'm just kidding. That story just went a completely different direction. No, but you know what happened. No, I. I had to pay the $20,000 out of my pocket to fix that thing.
- [107:26]
A
Uninsured motorists on the water.
- [107:27]
B
But you know what happened with. With who's the big insurance company for boats?
- [107:34]
A
Chub.
- [107:35]
B
Chub Chubb. All of a sudden I get a letter, comes into my house with a picture, and they said, you posted a video on Instagram with you manning the boat. And there was no captain there. We watched a video. We are officially dropped your insurance from chub. I'm like, are you joking? No. So guess what? After that, every other insurance company saw that I dropped it. And then everything that ever happened to the boat, guess who had to pay for it. Yeah, I had to pay for it. What do they say about boats? There's two days of boat owners, two.
- [108:06]
A
Great days in the life of a boat owner.
- [108:08]
B
The day you buy it, Let me tell you, the day I sold it. We literally were celebrating. But here's the part. Secretly, I am, I am willing to own a boat and lose some money because the boat life is sick. There is nothing like it. That part I can tell you. All right, so folks, be nicer to your insurance companies. Stop trashing them, because if they leave, you will be screwed. You're going to need some of these guys to stick around. Geico, a few years ago in California said we're shutting down our 38 different offices that we have and we're leaving the state. You don't want that. You want a lot of insurance companies in your state competing for it. Now let's talk about career. Let's talk a little bit about career planning. College grads in the US no longer able to find jobs faster than high school grads. What? This is a Bloomberg. Did you just say college grads have a hard time getting jobs than high school grads? Yes, Bloomberg said so. There is no way this is a real story. Well, let's read it. What do they mean by this that folks from high school like are they worried you go to college, get brainwashed and you're not a good employee to hire? What are you talking about here? College graduates have historically found jobs more quickly than people only a high school degree, but that average has become a thing of the past. According to a new research from the Federal Reserve bank of Cleveland recently, the job finding rate for younger college educated workers have declined to be roughly in the line with the rate of young high school educated workers, indicating that a long period of relativity is your job finding. Prospects for college grads has ended up the this is by Alexander Klein saying this from the Cleveland Fed researchers. The study follows the latest monthly employment data released on November 20 which showed the unemployment rate for college educated workers continued to rise in September amid an ongoing slowdown in white collar hiring, fueled in part by investments in artificial intelligence. Young workers in particular have borne the brunt of the slowdown. The unemployment rate for people between the ages of 20 to 24 was 9.2, 2%, up from 2. Up 2.2% points from a previous year. In the report, they also showed that the job finding rate for U.S. college graduates between 20 to 27, defined as the share of unemployed who find jobs on a monthly basis, has been declining steadily since around 2000. Tom.
- [110:33]
A
So it's very interesting. There's also a study here. The most common phrase, you know, for in parental homes used used to be, how was your day? However, this year, you know what the most common phrase is?
- [110:47]
B
What's that?
- [110:48]
A
Get off my damn couch. So what has happened is you have 9.2% unemployment of the 20 to 24, up from 7.7.0. But let's go take a look. Why can't they find jobs? Pat, let's talk about college grad. A grad is not a graduation. So we turn to words. Talk number, scream. And here's the number. Guess what? Over the last five years. Pat, take a look at this chart of jobs. Are you ready? If people with business degrees, 18 to 19% of the degrees stem 17 to 18. Healthcare at 13 to 17, ladies and gentlemen, that's 52. I think that adds up to 52%, right? Yeah, I think so. 52%. Then we get down into social sciences and history, 8%. Psychology, 7%. Hell, that's seven out of the 9% unemployment right there. And then engineering, 7%. So let's put the engineering on the 52. We're up to almost 60% of a degree you can do something with. And guess what? In the last 10 years, this has not moved as fast as it needs to. Liberal arts is slowly coming down, but not slow enough. And so people with liberal arts degrees. Repeat after me. Would you like fries with that?
- [112:04]
B
Wow, you think so?
- [112:05]
A
I. I think that's. By the way, in a changing economy with technology, jobs, people say, oh, it's AI. It's AI. No. It's also a fact that there's a lot of liberal arts degrees that are still being pursued. And those people don't have like a 9% unemployment. It's closer to 16 or 17. Damn. As the people that are unable. It's like, Rob, let's go grab a quick AI on this. It says a percent of grads unable to find work. What's the worst major? And you're gonna find some shocking things or worst majors ranked. And you'll probably find five of them. And there's still tens of thousands of students just here in Florida. Those majors. Here we go. Here we go. Anthropology, 9.4%. Now physics computer engineering, don't understand those numbers. But commercial art and graphic design, fine arts, sociology, you've got the usual suspects on here. Your kid says, I want to go study this. You ask them a question. What are you going to do with that degree? Now I could see a poli sci major goes into law. That's a very common connection there. But the rest of it, people are taking courses and guess what? It brings the average down. So you find a high school kid.
- [113:27]
B
I got a question for you.
- [113:28]
A
To get a job easier than a college.
- [113:30]
B
So how many people have you met who have gotten a bachelor's degree and a master's in national security? I've never met anybody. But he did. He got a bachelor's na. Master's in national security. Question for you.
- [113:44]
A
Yes.
- [113:44]
B
Okay. You're a 30 year old. You're sitting with my son who is 15 years old. You're helping him with college planning. Straight up, he's just having a conversation with you.
- [113:53]
C
Yeah.
- [113:54]
B
He tells you, brandon, I would also like to go get a bachelor's and a master's in national security. What do you advise him?
- [114:00]
C
I would say don't do it. And that I do regret doing it. I mean, I, it helped me in some ways, but initially I want to go into the CIA, but I didn't know as much about the CIA when I first started college as I did by the end of it. And then by the end of it I ended college. Most qualified for jobs that I did not want to do. Like, I was like, like all my friends went to work for government, like nsa, CIA, Homeland security.
- [114:19]
B
All that your friends did?
- [114:20]
C
Yeah, like that were my class and stuff. And I'm, you know, I, I could have gotten all those things, but I lost complete interest in that.
- [114:26]
B
When did you lose the interest?
- [114:27]
C
During the 2016 election, actually, because I kind of saw like a nasty side of the government, like, and that's like my junior senior year. So that kind of flipped me and I went to the private sector instead and did like global security for a pharmaceutical company.
- [114:39]
A
There you go.
- [114:40]
C
But then I kind of re educated myself and I like, you know, like read a couple hundred books and like finance and banking and like all important stuff that like gave me different skill sets.
- [114:49]
B
So let me. If you went back to, went to school because you're an incredible student, the way you study and read is just absolutely so impressive on what you do. And I really enjoy the conversations with you, but what would you say these degrees would be worth my time and the investments? What would you say? Would be worth it.
- [115:06]
C
I'd say either STEM or a trade. Like, I was looking at some stats. Like there's like a 500,000 shortage of plumbers in the U.S. there's a couple hundred thousand shortage of H vac, electricians, carpenters. So either stuff like that, if you're not going to go to college or something like stem, like, would you have that would.
- [115:22]
B
Do you think an MBA is worth it from a good school?
- [115:24]
C
Yeah, I mean, if. Yeah, if you want to be an employee and like, it gives you, like, I think an average of $30,000 more per year that you end up making and it gives you a good. But I think there is like a handful of books you could read that'll give you just as much, if not more than an NBA faster, to be honest.
- [115:38]
B
Do you think an MBA is still worth it, Paul? Do you think an MBA from a good school is still worth it?
- [115:43]
D
I'm not big on where our education system is right now, at least on the advanced levels. You look at how Elon selects his engineers, in most cases, that's not the first thing he's looking at is what their graduate degree is. He's looking at their capability in terms of how they can manage code, what their ability is in terms of being managed. I think that's a big issue. And also I think timing is unfortunate for a lot of these grads because we are in a position where right now we in our own business have already started to reduce hires because of AI, and those are most likely business degrees that are coming out of college right now that I would typically put into a producer role, an analyst role that is being now replaced by AI. So that I would say, is hitting. I would agree with Brandon. Trades are a big deal because there is a huge shortage on that, which may lead to the numbers in the high school students actually getting more hiring opportunities in the future.
- [116:39]
B
So that's interesting. The other day I was talking to a Senior partner with McKinsey. Been with the company for 25 years. He's in the top 1% of 1% of partners at McKinsey does very well for himself. I said, tell me when you guys are hiring people who you're hiring from. Because if you read the old Marvin Bauer books, the firm and you read about the McKinsey way, they at one point, two out of the five hires they had were all from Harvard Business School and they were all about MBAs. And I'm speaking to him like, so are you guys still in that way of thinking? Is it still Going and getting Harvard grad. And. Well, he says you were having more success sometimes from bringing people in from University of Texas. So what do you look for? He says one sat about 1400 is what they look at. McKinsey number two was IQ math on your feet. Case study questions. How do you respond in a moment of pressure? So they ask questions in a moment and they kind of try to find a way to rattle you a little bit to see how you address it, but it's math questions. So you got a company that's doing XYZ and here's what they're going through. How would you handle this if they came up to you and they wanted you to do some engagements for them? Well, I would ask them this. I would ask him this. Okay. And then you give them answers. Here's probably what I would do.
- [117:48]
A
Pop up.
- [117:49]
B
Lazy. Oh, that's pretty interesting what he just said right there. And then last but not least, what they looked at, and this is very important for everybody that's watching. This is leadership and impact and non business activities. Leadership and impact, his words in non business activities. What did that mean? They valued military service, they valued public service. They valued that you're. If you were part of a fraternity, what did you do? What role did you play? How did you contribute back to society? Because they want to hire people that are good human beings that are for service. And generally when somebody wants to volunteer for a church or for charity or for something, you're coming from a place of service. So if somebody's watching this and you're saying, what can I do to position my kids to one day, you know, be able to get jobs? Maybe as parents, we need to do a better job asking case study type questions. You go to a restaurant, you sit down and you're in a corner like we went. We go to a restaurant, we were dead last night. And you come in and you're sitting, you're like, all right, do you like where the private room is at? Where would you put it instead? How would you cut this property? So then we would take a piece of paper and we would literally show where the bar is, where the bathroom is, where people are sitting, where the hostess is, where the private room back here, where the kitchen is. Okay, how would you do differently? Well, I think it needs to be different this way. Why is. Do you agree with them? No. What would you do with. I would put it over here. Why would you do that? I don't like the way that they have it set up. Maybe they need to have Two entrance. Why would you have two entrances? This is getting them to be asking and thinking and processing issues. And by the way, the more they think this way, the more you're getting them to be thinking like a consultant. Two weeks ago, we're in Newport beach at Pelican Hill. We did something we've never done before. At the end of our last day, these are CEOs doing between 10 million to half a billion top line revenue. Successful folks. These are, you know, they're successful all over the world. They're coming from Mexico, Canada, you name it, they're from all over the world. And the last day we said, how often do you work on your business versus in your business? Were you there with us? You would have loved it. How often do you work on versus in your business? Well, you know, I'm this, I'm that. I said, okay, great, let's see how good your brain is to say things like, have you thought about doing this? What if you did that? What would you guys. When's the last time you guys. How often do you go to this? Are you in that method of speaking to somebody or is it just in, in, in? What are our numbers? What do we have going on? How many compl do we have? How much business came through today? Which is fine, but that's in. So we took two businesses, say you're a roofing business doing 160 million a year. We put him with him. So he's got a mutual fund company with one and a half billion dollars of money under management. We put you in a group together, we gave you how we do our needs analysis front and back. So we're giving you something to lead you into the right questions to ask. But then we are having you judge him on how good of a consultant he was for you. And we took you and judge to see how good you were as a consultant to his company. Two completely separate businesses. You're in the roofing business, he's on the mutual fund business. And then at the end they're like, this guy just asked me a question that I never thought about before. We're going to do that. This person told me something about my partner that I'm being a little bit too much of a bully and an asshole. And the partner sitting in the room with him. It's like, I never thought about that. I'm going to have to change some of my ways. It was such a magical way of thinking. But to me, if somebody's watching this, wondering, well, college grads and high school, this. If you go to dinner with us. Like last Saturday night, we invited Tom's daughters to dinner with us this Saturday night. Tom and Kim were out there golfing and doing their thing and we go out to dinner and Bailey's sitting there and Brook is sitting there. I just go straight to Bailey and said, so tell me about what happened here. What are some of the off season players right now that should be signed? What do you think about this guy that your father keeps talking to me about from the Pirates, who is apparently the best pitcher in the league? He had an ERA of under 2, 1.7, 1.8, and he won the Cy Young. Unanimous, I think got 18 votes. Nobody else got a first place vote. How special is this guy? Pat? This guy's special. How special is he? Tell me why. Well, according to this, this, this is, and it should be these types of conversations. So when I sit there and interview somebody and I'm asking them in an interview, I'm like, I like this guy. This guy can think that way versus no. So if this is a muscle that can be learned for people to be able to process. So anyways, we are at the end of it. I got a meeting to go to in five minutes, but we covered a bunch of different things. Folks, folks, Friday we're doing a podcast day after Thanksgiving. I really didn't want to do it, but Rob, Adam, Vinnie, Tom are like, we have to do it. I said, guys, don't bring me out. You know, I don't like to work after Thanksgiving. But after begging and saying we have to do it, finally I said, fine, we'll do it. And Rob, I think we got people that are also willing to come out our audio and our guys are going to come out to do so. We're doing a full on podcast Friday morning, day after Thanksgiving, and we got some massive announcements that we'll be making on that day as well on Friday. But in the interim, tonight, tomorrow, whatever you're doing with your family, one of the best things I love about Thanksgiving is it forces us to be grateful. It forces us to count our blessings. And if there's one feedback I would give you, try for four or five hours during Thanksgiving to set aside your phone and talk to each other. Just enjoy each other's companies. That is my favorite part, where we just sit there and we talk. Yes, we're going to play domino. We're going to scream and talk. Yes, we're probably going to watch some football. Yes, we're probably going to watch a. My son's probably going to want to watch a scary movie?
- [123:48]
A
Yes.
- [123:48]
B
We're probably going to watch some stuff like that. But at the end of the day, be grateful. Have fun with your family. Just so you know, we're grateful for you whether you agree with us or you don't. And you come in. Yesterday I posted a video, the. The Florida Taxes video. And I was going in the comment section and, and I, I was watching some of the comments. People said, you know what, there's not a lot of things that I agree with pbd, but I love this video. And there's no regardless if you support or you don't support where you come in and tune into us. We're grateful for you. We appreciate you. We wish you nothing but the very best. Have a great and a happy Thanksgiving. Paul, it's been great having you on. Brandon, I know you're heading out to vacation and then Tom, you're doing your part. Rob and the crew in the back that does what we. What they do. We're grateful for you guys. God bless. We'll see you guys on Friday. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye.
- [124:34]
A
Bye.