← Problems to Profit
Problems to Profit
From Startup to Mayor: Renard Johnson on Entrepreneurship, Business Growth & Fixing Broken Government
01:07:54
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- [00:00]
A
The number one rule in leadership is you have to be dangerous enough to be able to protect the people that you've promised to protect. Entrepreneurship is leadership. Okay?
- [00:09]
B
El Paso is open for business. We gotta make sure that people know that when they come here, that our city government and we are very receptive to businesses coming to our community.
- [00:18]
A
I saw something that we were like, the second highest tax rate in the United States.
- [00:24]
B
That's correct.
- [00:24]
A
What are the three things you're doing right now to build us up?
- [00:28]
B
You bring up a very good point. You know, there's a couple things that we're looking at. Number one.
- [00:36]
A
Hello and welcome back to Problems to Profit. Guys, I am so flipping excited. You know what? Fuck that. I am so fucking excited. This is an amazing day. Like, we are having an amazing day on purpose. I have a guest here and I'm going to tell a fun story about him, okay? He is actually my first political contribution so far, my only, but also my first political contribution. I got invited to a party fairly recently, late last year. And they were like, hey, we're going to support a guy that we want to run for mayor. Come meet him. You're a fairly big player in town. You're moving a lot of, you know, products. Like, you're. You're influential. You've got a social media brand. We want you to come and help. And so I go up to a friend's house up in my neighborhood and I go to this bougie party. You know, my friend literally lands a helicopter at his house when he drives home. He doesn't drive home, he flies home. And so it's not a party you say no to. But I called him and I was like, hey, you know, I've never made a political donation. Like, you know, what do I do? And he's like, ah, the expectations. Like, 2500. We want you to support our guy. Like, he's a good guy, but come hear him out. Like, don't donate if you don't believe. Come hear him out. And I go up there and I meet this guy who couldn't have been the guy they were talking about. He's heart centered, he's genuine, he's honest. I was probably a dick, okay? Like, I was hitting him up like, hey, poly means multiple and ticks are blood sucking arachnids. Like, that's the definition of politics. Politics. And I mean, even a large land developer I do business with was like, preston, what are you saying? Like, as we're standing there together and like, but he was no bullshit. And he cared. And I was so impressed that I wound up donating a little more than. Than maybe I should have because I got blasted all over social media. Like, the expectation was like a $2,500 donation. And I wound up donating much, much more. And the reason was a. He was heart centered and honest. So he totally tripped me up. And I was not ready for a politician to be a general, real human being, no bullshit person, a businessman who cared about his community, but also opposing a guy that I just felt was trash. Okay, like the guy he was running against. We'd had a big problem with a con artist and a development. And anyway, it was costing me close to 200,000amonth. We'd called a guy who was the city representative. I don't want to mention his name. He'll know who he is when he listens to this. I'm sure he'll hear it. And we called him up. My CEO calls this guy and asks him for help, and not only does he not help, which would have just been the bad thing to do, he could have helped. That would have been the right thing to do. He didn't only not help. He literally was so trashy, he gave out my CEO's phone number to everyone that called his office for months after that. And just, like, compounded this belief in me that politicians were pieces of shit. And here I am, standing at this party several months later, after solving that problem, horrible lawsuits, everything else. And I'm meeting a genuine guy, a business guy, somebody who's in the tech business, which is something I'm very interested in and excited about. Somebody who's doing things around El Paso, supporting the community and just an honest guy. And he's totally making me change my beliefs. And so, guys, without further ado, I am so excited to introduce you to now my friend.
- [03:51]
B
Yep.
- [03:52]
A
And my mayor, Mayor of El Paso, Renard Johnson. Thanks for coming on, brother. I'm so excited to have you.
- [03:58]
B
Well, wow, look at that introduction, too, in that story. Yeah, well, thank you for having me. But, hey, I got to share something on that story.
- [04:05]
A
Okay. Come on.
- [04:06]
B
We thought when you. When I first met you, met your wife, and you went in kind of hard. You went in a little hard.
- [04:13]
A
It's my nature.
- [04:14]
B
Yeah, yeah. And so you went in and we talked and. And you believed in me and you wrote the check. And I remember my campaign manager and my chief strategist, they were like, we think he made a mistake. I said, well, call him back and give him his money back and get the right Check. And then they called you, and you said, no, that's what I wanted to do. And when you did that, believe it or not, Preston, this is a tribute to you. You actually changed the landscape of political donations in El Paso forever. Because what you did is you opened up the doors for the big donors that wanted to give more, that it was okay to give more. So, I mean, you changed the way everyone thought after that day. So thank you.
- [04:57]
A
You know, I got so many lectures for that. I donate a lot. Like, I try not to measure my year in what I'm going to make. I try to measure my year and what I'm going to give. And I've never donated to politicians because I think most of them are scumbags, almost all of them are narcissists.
- [05:11]
B
And you told me that I didn't.
- [05:12]
A
Think 25 grand, which, I mean, maybe I shouldn't say that here, but 25 grand was my donation. I didn't think it was a big donation. Yeah, like, I donated much more to the air show. I. I put on. I. I put up close to a million dollars the year before, trying to bring events to El Paso and speakers to El Paso, trying to give back. And. And I got. I mean, nobody's ever lectured me for donating. It was my first time getting lectured for donating money to something I believed in. And. And the belief was like, I just want a good person to be the mayor. And I'd never been lectured for donating. It was amazing.
- [05:43]
B
And thanks for putting yourself out there, Preston, because again, you took the hit. You took the bullets, and people were criticizing you. I saw you getting beat up on social media. But in addition to you, my father has written me some significant checks, too. So it opened up an avenue or a mechanism for people that wanted to do more, to do more. So, again, hats off to you for taking the bullets and taking the shots and. And getting your butt kicked where you had to get it, get it kicked and coming through, you know.
- [06:13]
A
You know, it's funny. And just to tag on that, and then I need to get into your story, too, but, like, just to piggyback on that, it was. It was funny because the guy that had given out my CEO's cell phone number just to be petty. I mean, I would have loved to see the look on his face when he realized what happened there, but that's karma. She's a fickle mistress. He was reaching out, asking for a donation. Like, I guess he got a number from somebody who'd slapped my number from somebody who'd slam me on social media. Everybody was saying I wanted something from you. And to get ahead of that, you know what I put on, like, I could read the text. I probably still have it. I still. I was like, I don't want anything from you except for you to do a good job. Like, do a good fucking job for.
- [06:51]
B
The community and do the right thing.
- [06:52]
A
Do the right thing. I want nothing from you. I donated. Do the right thing, please.
- [06:56]
B
Yep, exactly.
- [06:57]
A
And you know, the assumptions that happen in politics, you know, it probably won't be my last political contribution because I'm hoping you're gonna run again, but it was definitely one of my most interesting donations ever. You know, I wanna jump in a little bit because you're not a politician, or at least not until recently.
- [07:21]
B
I'm not a politician, and I told you that that night. Yeah, I'm not a politician.
- [07:24]
A
I want to hear. And it's. You know, everybody loves judging a story from the ending, but when you hear it from the beginning and you get to see, like, what made a man who he is, that. That really goes with the nature of this show, which is problems to profit.
- [07:38]
B
Yeah.
- [07:38]
A
Okay. I'd like to hear not who you are today. We'll get there. Because I think there's a lot of benefit that entrepreneurs all over the country can. Can learn from. Not only the show, but maybe some people investing in El Paso, bringing their business here, like, hearing that there's ways to work well with government. But I want them to feel you the way I did. I want them to hear a little bit of who is Renard Johnson?
- [07:59]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [08:00]
A
So where did you start?
- [08:01]
B
So that's an excellent question. And, you know, I think it comes from the humble beginnings of my parents. And I've got to tell a little bit about them so you can understand who I am. So my mom was born in a small town in Louisiana, Monroe, Louisiana, in the 1930s, late 1930s. My father was born in Hickory, Mississippi, in the 1930s. They migrated up to Chicago, Illinois, and that's where they met. My father tells a story that he knows that his wife loves him because he's the only guy that picks up crap and she still stays with him. He was collecting sewer samples in the sewers in Chicago, Illinois. So my humble beginnings come from my father living in Caprini Green, which is some of the worst housing projects at the time in Chicago, Illinois. So anyone that looks up Caprina Green will know that they were some bad housing projects. So my dad comes from there. My mom's in Chicago they start having kids. Then they transfer to this place called El Paso, Texas. He's working for the government at the time. I kid you not, Preston. It almost cost my mom and dad a divorce. They left Chicago in the late 1960s, showed up in El Paso, and my mom's like, you took me from Chicago, Illinois, to El Paso, Texas. They ended up having, you know, a couple more kids. And I've got one sister and three brothers, and we fell in love with this beautiful community, and this became home. But you look at a guy that's working for the government and has five kids, he was barely making it. So I learned the humble beginnings from my parents. And my mom and dad have always been hustlers. My mom owned a record store, a hair salon.
- [09:49]
A
I have to say this, just even though I want you to continue, but it just hit my head, and sometimes I have to let this stuff out to be able to go. The guy that says, I won't take shit from anybody is nowhere near as tough as the guy that took shit from everybody, which was your dad.
- [10:04]
B
Absolutely.
- [10:05]
A
That humble beginning, that's where real greatness grows. That's so cool. Sorry, Continue.
- [10:10]
B
No, no, no. Yeah. So we get here, and he has five kids. He's barely making it. And then he takes a chance. In 1979, he retires. He's in his 40s, or he just turned 40. He retired from a GS job out of White Sands Missile Range and says, I'm going to start a business. My mom says, okay, I'm going to continue to work while you start this business. You know, you talk about eating spaghetti with hot dogs in it and every different way you can eat it. We did it. We did it. Government cheese. We had it. So, you know, we struggled in the beginning to get to where we are today. But those humble beginnings is what shaped me to who I am today. My father, I'll never forget this story. He took the door off the hinges in his bedroom and brought in cinder blocks to make his desk. That was his desk. And you know what? He did, too. And I hope your listeners can relate to this. My father would get up every morning after he got us off to school because he was the house die. He would put on a suit to go to work in the house because he had to put his mind there. He says, I have to go to work now, so I'm going to look that part, put on the tie, put on the white shirt, and go to work. And then later on that afternoon, he'd undress and go back to raising the kids. So the discipline that I've learned from seeing that as a young kid is the discipline that I have today.
- [11:38]
A
I think the word discipline, it's two words. It's the disciples line.
- [11:42]
B
Yeah.
- [11:43]
A
That's the line you walk as a disciple.
- [11:44]
B
Yeah, that's.
- [11:45]
A
That's. I. I love that story. That. That explains. I hadn't heard all that. Yeah, that explains so much. I mean, please continue. But that's.
- [11:52]
B
Yeah. So that. That's. And. And, you know, so. And then my father and mother, they wouldn't give us anything. You know, I wanted a motorcycle, okay? I wanted a motorcycle bad. He was like, great. You got to go out and work for it. You go cut lawns. I'll never forget, I used to be the guy. You know, here in. In El Paso, you know, we have the ability to put your lettering on your curb that's in front of your home so that the public respond or the responders that are coming to your home can see your address. So my father says, you know, you're going to paint numbers on the curbs. You want to raise money. That's what you're going to do. You're going to mow lawns, you're going to wash cars. And that's what I did.
- [12:31]
A
You want to hear something funny, Renard? Okay. Maybe I'm the dark side of that story. One of my first businesses, my dad, he loaned me the money to buy stencils and spray paint and tape, and I walked around lying to people that I was working for a fire department charity. And for 10 bucks a driveway, I would do your job. I mean, look, I mean, please don't put me in jail or anything, Mr. Bear, but I think I was, like, 8 or 9 years old. Like, it was. It was. No, I was older. I was 10 or 12 years old, but, like, I think I was making 200 bucks, 300 bucks a weekend. That was real money. And when people wouldn't take it, I would say, no problem. I'll do it for free. And they would all come out with money when you did it for free, and you were like, no, no, no, no. It's okay if you can't afford it. I got you, and they let me pay you 20.
- [13:23]
B
Exactly. Exactly.
- [13:26]
A
Wow. I love that. I love that you just told me that story.
- [13:28]
B
So you understand that story. And that's why I learned to hustle. I've worked at a go kart place. I've worked at McDonald's. I've worked at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Mounting Tires. So, you know, My hustle started at a very young age, and I was probably too young to be getting paid. I delivered firewood. You know, I worked those jobs that were hard and no one wanted to do. But my father always said, you're going to go out and work. You're going to work. Nothing's going to come to you for free. So by them instilling that into me, you know, and then, you know, things started to get better. In 1979, he started the company that him and my mom had. They grew that to a point where they wanted to sell it, and they wanted to reap the benefits of their hard work. So they sold their company, and they gave each kid a little bit of money. And I said, you know, what am I going to do next? I was offered a job to go to Washington, D.C. and I said, you know what? I'm going to stay right here in El Paso. I took my money, and I invested in a company. And the name of my company is Management Engineering Technologies International, Inc. And we are a defense contractor. And, Preston, I got to tell you this. I got to tell your listeners, you know, those are some of the darkest days in my life. I'll never forget that. I started with seven employees. I had no contracts. I had no revenue. The phones weren't ringing. It was very, very lonely. Very lonely. And I remember coming into the office, you know, because I had to keep some staff. I was working on a business plan. I was working on our strategy and working on a way to get us to where we needed to be. I'll never forget coming in the office, and I was turning off the lights because the electric bill. I was worried about the electric bill. I remember one day crying because I saw one of my employees get a new car. And in my mind, I was like, am I going to be able to keep them on in the next two weeks?
- [15:22]
A
People don't understand that. That. That fear. I've. I've tried to explain it, and I don't think there's any palpable way to do it. Leadership, I mean, entrepreneurship is leadership, okay? But, like, leadership in general, like, the number one rule in leadership is you have to be dangerous enough to be able to protect the people that you've promised to protect. The times that I stay up at night are when I look around, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, if it goes wrong, how many hundreds of people don't eat? How many families are not going to have food on their table next week because I made one mistake? People don't get that in the employee world, that's a critical thing. I love that you bring that up.
- [16:01]
B
You bring up a very good point. The sleepless nights, how are you going to make payroll? How are you going to pay the taxes? All of the things that as an entrepreneur, as an owner of a company that you feel and you take it with you. You know what, does it cause health problems? Absolutely. Does it raise your blood pressure? Yes, it does. You know, being an entrepreneur is lonely. It's damn lonely. And, you know, but it's so rewarding, too, at the same time. And I remember, you know, when I cried that day, I said, you know, am I going to be able to be open in two weeks? Am I going to be able to make sure that that employee is still getting paid? And fast forward, you know, at this point, I dumped a lot of money into the company. And my very first contract, after spending a million, my very first contract, guess what? It was worth $15,000. But you know what, Preston? I brought out the champagne and I celebrated.
- [17:03]
A
Heck, yeah. You have to. You have to. Because that 15 grand might have been one stair step on the staircase, but I guarantee it catalyzed the process.
- [17:13]
B
Yeah, yeah. It was a victory. And me and the staff celebrated. And I always tell my staff this, and they will tell you. I said, look, if I'm going to eat bologna, you're eating bologna. But if I eat steak, you eat steak. And they'll tell you that. I tell all my employees, if I'm celebrating, you're celebrating. We celebrated $15,000. Fast forward. I had those seven employees, and today we are very blessed. And I built a company to where I have close to 800 employees, and we do a significant amount in revenue per year, and it turned out to be everything we wanted and more.
- [17:55]
A
And you're not just. I mean, there's a lot of people that say, oh, tech company, right? There's a lot of people that have a chief technology officer. When you're a government contractor, you have a level of scrutiny, data management and reporting that most tech companies that are. That are going through the standard process have no understanding of. You guys are going through a level of scrutiny and compliance that it's not just tech, you know, and. And I don't know that I want to segue yet, because I'm not sure you're done with your story, but, like, you're like, the perfect guy to create your own version of, I guess, Musk and Trump's Doge Department of Government Efficiency. Because you understand government, you understand the scrutiny, you understand the checks and the balances and checking all the boxes. But you also understand the efficiency needed. Like. Like you bring this merger of government and business together. That's what I saw the first day I met you, because I didn't know you from Adam. I knew people that knew you, and you knew people that knew me, but we'd never met. And what I saw was I was like, okay, here's a brilliant guy that if he does what I think he can do, is the perfect intersection of the private sector and the government sector to create something resembling efficiency in the El Paso government, which I think is wildly inefficient.
- [19:13]
B
Yep. Yep. And, Preston, you got it. You hit it spot on. Because the way it works is, you know, government and municipalities aren't as efficient as private industry. So the being a defense contractor, this creates opportunity for companies like me. We're nimble, we're faster, and we're cheaper than a bureaucracy, and we're able to do things that most government agencies can't do. And I'll give you some specific examples. The men and women are war fighters in uniform. They sacrifice so much for us to be here today. But when you look at running a network operations, computer center, or security center, the people in uniform change. Often they're in and out of uniform, and they're being deployed and they're moving around. So that particular opportunity is good for a contractor. We provide consistency. We provide the people that can come in there, cyber engineers, all of the technology to run that facility. So we're a consistent piece of conduit that will run that opportunity. I say that to say, because that's what contractors do. And it's cheaper for us to do it than it would be for people in the military to do that. So contractors, for every war there's been pressing. There's been a contractor there in the war too. And most people don't know that. They think so. Whether it's testing aircraft or weapon survivability, shooting a 50 cal down the rudder of a Huey helicopter. So we do some really cool stuff.
- [20:58]
A
Well, there's a marriage between business and government that people don't know has to exist for government to function.
- [21:04]
B
Yes. Yeah. One can't exist without the other, but we're faster and we're more nimble.
- [21:10]
A
Well, let's look at one of the most efficient car companies on Earth. And people don't think about this. It's Tesla. Like, Tesla is a very. They have those gigafactories for a reason. Right. BYD passed them BYD in China. Is their version of Tesla. They skipped the innovation stage. They were able to copy off Musk's paper. And because government and business intersected better in China than they do in the United States, we decided to penalize our guy politically. Like. Like at least a few years ago, they decided to invest in their guy. And now BYD has passed Tesla. So, I mean, the intersection between business and government, as long as we keep corruption out, can be amazing.
- [21:49]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [21:50]
A
Like, and. And that's. That's what I saw. The other thing I saw when I met you that night we were outside. I don't know if you remember this, but I was making a joke about corrupt politicians. And. And I was referencing your opponent because I just found out that you were running for mayor and I found out he was running.
- [22:05]
B
And.
- [22:05]
A
And literally at the party, you said this to me. I hope I quote you well. You said, I don't need the money. I will not sell my soul. I'm going to win because I'm the right guy. The money helps, but I will never do a favor. And I listened to that as a guy there to donate money, and nobody was around. You weren't posturing. You weren't pontificating. There was no bullshit. There was no need. Yeah, you didn't have to say it. And you've worked in government anyway, like.
- [22:39]
B
Well, Preston, can. Can I touch on that? Because, you know, I came on early on in the pod. I'm not a politician. I'm doing this from a different place. And you touched on. I am donating my entire salary back.
- [22:55]
A
I saw that.
- [22:56]
B
To nonprofits. So I can't be bought. So people need to know that you can't get me to do something I don't want to do.
- [23:03]
A
I want to ask a question on that just relative to something else. And we'll get into the piece that I think adds value to the entrepreneurs because I think there are some great opportunities in El Paso. And even for entrepreneurs that don't come to El Paso, many of you on this show should reach out to him because ways that he can incentivize your business to come here. But if you get nothing else out of this, then you'll get how to work with your local municipalities, because all politics guys is local. But before we get into that, I want to dive into the desire to become a politician. Like, when you don't need it. We don't have to get into your revenue. I mean, I looked up more about you. I did my research before you came on the show. You didn't need this? Nope. You have everything you want. You're fine.
- [23:44]
B
I'm happy.
- [23:45]
A
You know, why are you going into a world that is toxic, that is nasty, that guys like me who just care about the future get yelled at for donating, for giving a contribution to? I've never experienced that. Why would you go into that world when you have everything?
- [24:03]
B
Yeah, and you know, this is a characteristic of all entrepreneurs. You know, you give your time, your resources and your money. And I've got two little kids too right now. I've got an 11 year old and a 15 year old, two girls. And I was at a point, Preston, in my life where the business turned 30 years old and I wanted to do more. I didn't know what the more was. I didn't even know how to describe that. I sat down with my father, I sat down with my girls and I said, dad wants to do something different. I told my father, hey, your son wants to do more. And he says, well, what are you thinking that more is? I said, I don't know. I said, but I want to do more for my community. And he says, well, have you ever thought about running in politics? I said, I'm like Preston, I don't like politicians, I don't like them. He says, well, you can be a change agent. And I listen. I said, well, what do you mean? He goes, you don't need the money. No one can make you do something you don't want to do. They can't buy you. So you can be a person in there that is doing it for the right reasons and I'm a spiritual guy. So I prayed on it and then I said, you know what, he's right. Talked to my girls and I came back and said, you know, I'm going to run for mayor and this is going to come across arrogant and it's all get out. I'm beyond city council. You know, I run a multi, multi million dollar company. And when I set my sights on something, was it city council or was it mayor? I said, I'm going to do mayor. You know, if I could have done governor or president, maybe I would have went that route. But I had to get my, my, my feet wet somewhere. So I said, you know what, I'm run for mayor. And you know, there was eight, eight people running against me, Preston. Three incumbents, three people that aren't really.
- [25:53]
A
There was probably one real one, but there was a bunch of.
- [25:56]
B
Yeah, there was a bunch of other. Yeah. And you know, for a person that is a non politician to navigate through that world. It was difficult.
- [26:05]
A
Well, and you weren't a social media brand. You weren't loud. I mean, well, respected within the community, but you weren't like. Like, loud.
- [26:13]
B
No, you.
- [26:14]
A
You. I mean, you came out of nowhere, right? You kind of Obama the situation, bro. Like, he came out of nowhere and won. Like, you're the El Paso Obama.
- [26:25]
B
I'll take that as a compliment.
- [26:26]
A
Hey, look, there's stuff I have against the guy, but there's stuff you better admire about everyone who's amazing.
- [26:30]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I had no name id. No name id. You know what? The business community knew me, which is good, because, you know, but Preston, I had been silently for years like you have. You have been doing this for years, helping so many and so many charities and so many efforts, but you haven't been putting your name all over it. You don't need to.
- [26:51]
A
I'm less silent now, but my way of getting louder is talking shit.
- [26:54]
B
Yeah.
- [26:54]
A
You know what? Speaking of that, when I. When I made that donation, I had a friend of mine call me and I said, look, the guy's great. In four years, five years, six years, Give him time. He'll be corrupt, too. That system corrupts him. And I was like, you know what? I think I'm going to consider him a friend at this point.
- [27:12]
B
Yeah.
- [27:12]
A
And I promise you, Renard, I will be the guy that calls you and tells you you are up.
- [27:16]
B
You. You.
- [27:17]
A
If you are not the man you are today, in four years, five years.
- [27:20]
B
Six years, take me and call all the stations right outside in the front and kick me right where the sun doesn't shine.
- [27:26]
A
Well, I don't think people need to, because you're willing to do this kind of stuff. Like, you're in. And here you are, you're not campaigning anymore. Now we're going to talk about what are you doing for El Paso. And. And, you know, it's not hard to look up what you want. Anyone can go on chat, GPT. It's pretty easy. You want to bring business to El Paso. You want to bring aerospace, you want to bring technology, you want to bring health care. You want to improve public safety.
- [27:52]
B
Yeah, I do.
- [27:53]
A
Like, you've actually listened to the people on things that are important. I do want to challenge you on one thing, because I haven't heard it enough. I want more entertainment in El Paso. What are we doing to bring entertainment to increase that lifestyle? And maybe I just haven't heard it.
- [28:07]
B
Well, no. So there's some things that we're working on that are Big for the city. But you talk about quality of life and Preston, I did it that night that I was at the event that we met at and I talked about a community and what we have to get right. And what we have to get right is number one, our school systems have to be functioning correctly. We have to make sure that our public safety is on point, that we're a safe city. I also talked about the quality of life. We have to make sure that we have quality of life. So those are a few of the things. And the other thing is healthcare.
- [28:46]
A
Can we jump into the school systems before we move on?
- [28:48]
B
Sure.
- [28:49]
A
I was, I was looking at some of the top rated school systems and there was one, it wasn't like number one, but it was on the list of top rated school systems. And, and it just makes me think. And, and, and I'm, I'm, I'm not liberal or conservative. I'm, I'm, I'm independent.
- [29:05]
B
You're you.
- [29:05]
A
I voted liberal and I've voted conservative.
- [29:07]
B
You're you.
- [29:08]
A
You know, I generally, I don't, I don't normally have great options to vote for, at least in the presidential election. So what I vote is for the least bad option. You know that like, I don't think a 78 year old did well four years ago. So I wasn't excited about a 78 year old this time. I just liked the other party less than him, so I voted for him. Right. But like, I look at this school system in Florida and they've got 2 million people in one school district. And then I look at El Paso and I, I look at our surrounding areas and when you look at like El Paso Independent School District, Socorro, you look at Canyon to. You look at. Yes, Letta, you look at like, like what do we have, like seven or eight school districts in the same size area where somebody else has one. And there's an obnoxious amount of bureaucracy. And like my mother and my sister were both teachers in the El Paso school district and others, and they hate the bureaucrats because the bureaucrats are for the bureaucrats, not the teachers, not the students. How do we solve some of the efficiency in our education system? Because it's inefficient to the point of stupid and our school tax is ridiculously high. I think it holds us back. And how many superintendents do we have to pay for if half of them suck?
- [30:18]
B
Yeah. So there we got an area that, that's an area for improvement, certainly. And, and you know, when you look at you, you know One of the things I campaigned on is, is our taxes are too high. And if you look at your tax.
- [30:29]
A
By the way, can we hug about that?
- [30:31]
B
Sure.
- [30:32]
A
Like, like, like, we'll hug one out later.
- [30:33]
B
Yeah, we'll hug it out.
- [30:35]
A
I agree, and I think El Paso agrees. Like, our taxes. I don't care about taxes, but I care about what I get for them. And that's why I'm so excited about you, is because I think you're going to bring efficiency to that.
- [30:46]
B
We are. And, you know, so the school district makes up over 50% of our tax bill. And we've got to do better. We have to do better because, you know, there's a lot of El Pasoans that are leaving on the weekends to go to San Diego, to go to Phoenix, to go to Dallas, go to San Antonio, go to Austin. They're spending their money outside of El Paso. I want you to spend your money here, but you gotta see what you're getting for your taxes. You gotta see something for your taxes. If you have some of the highest taxes in the United States and some of the highest in the state of Texas, you gotta show me something.
- [31:22]
A
I saw something that we were like, the second highest tax rate in the United States.
- [31:27]
B
That's correct.
- [31:28]
A
And I look at what we get for it. And don't get me wrong, this is not a criticism of you, because you just got in.
- [31:35]
B
I think you were like, 38 days ago. Yeah, I'm brand new now.
- [31:39]
A
Now we're working on cleaning it up. You know, when people talk about our country, I say we do not have a debt problem. We have an efficiency problem. And I've said that for years. So while I don't love the process that Trump and Musker, you know, going through, I love the exercise that we're doing, and I'm excited about you doing that here. And what's cool is I think you have a lot of the entrepreneurial community and everybody else, including me, willing to support you and add value anywhere that you need help to bring that efficiency. We'll get into trade schools and efficiency and lowering housing costs and all of that going forward as. But like, like, how can we make the school districts more efficient? How can we cut down on the bureaucracy? How can we raise our teachers pay without raising our taxes, creating a dozen new bonds and all this and, you know, just by cutting some of the waste.
- [32:29]
B
Yeah. So I think, you know, I wish I could say that, you know, I had a magic wand on how to fix that, but what I can tell you Is that you have to elect the right people for school board seats. And if you don't put the right people on the school boards, then you end up where we are today. Some of our school districts are in trouble, and some of them are going broke, and some of them are.
- [32:54]
A
They're in the news today.
- [32:56]
B
Yeah. Closing schools, and that doesn't help economic development in our city.
- [32:59]
A
What about instead of just elections? Because I feel like bureaucracy does a good job of protecting itself, like anything. Right. It's got a natural inclination towards survival. How do we create something that exposes the malfeasance?
- [33:14]
B
Yeah. And again, because then the elections are easier to do. And, you know, in a little bit of their defense, you know, you have a declining population. You have declining. You know, we're not creating kids as much anymore. And you have these schools where, you know, where you had, you know, 30 kids to one classroom, now it's down to five or six, and they're having to readjust their business model. But I say all that to say we have to make sure you get the right superintendents, you have to get the right people on the school boards, and we have to go out and vote. The problem is we don't vote.
- [33:45]
A
Well, we had very, very low turnout.
- [33:48]
B
Very low turnout.
- [33:49]
A
I don't think it's one problem. I think you have several problems that make up this pie. Like, it's several ingredients to make a pie, several ingredients to make a cake. Right. And that's one.
- [33:58]
B
You should see how many ingredients it takes to make a gumbo. It's a bunch. Yeah. From Louisiana.
- [34:03]
A
You know what? I was gonna. I was gonna tell you earlier, like, we. One of my favorite foods is gumbo. So, you know, that. That might be a new condition of friendship, man. I mean, like, I may need to bring in some of the gumbo I got you. It's rare to get a good gumbo.
- [34:16]
B
Well, my mom's from Louisiana. She knows how to make a roux. So anyone listening knows what a roux is.
- [34:21]
A
Don't threaten me with a good timer.
- [34:23]
B
You got it?
- [34:24]
A
Like, that is a new campaign promise that I'm holding you to.
- [34:26]
B
I kind of like that tagline, man.
- [34:29]
A
I totally distracted myself because you made me think of gumbo. Damn it. When it comes to bringing efficiency and working on ways to improve things and working on ways to just expose things, and maybe expose is the wrong word, because I'm not trying to create an attack and defend. I'm trying to create a transparent obligation on government because where the light shines, problems get solved. Right? What are you doing to kind of bring the light of day to the school districts and bring the light of day to El Paso in general? Because one thing I've noticed about El Paso, and this would solve for the birth rate issue, which everyone in America is having right now, we might have less of the birth rate issue than some areas. Okay. Thank God for the Hispanic population. I like to joke. I'm so Mexican, my last name's even brown. Thank God for the Hispanic population. You are solving our birth rate problem. We love you. But, like, like, bringing more talent into El Paso. Like, I hate the brain drain. I hate the fact that, like, people are sucking our talent out of El Paso. Like, if you bring talent into El Paso, talented people breed, too, and their kids will go to our schools. And that would solve the problem. Like, which is part of what you're talking about with bringing businesses, bringing this, bringing that, which is, you know, there's many ingredients to this problem pie. We're talking about. Like, I'd love to just hit two or three of the big initiatives, because let's. Let's. Let's step out of government. You're our CEO. You're the CEO of El Paso. El Paso is a business, not a government. What are the three things you're doing right now to build us up the top? I know you're probably doing 50. What are the top three that El Pasoans can hear?
- [36:00]
B
Yeah. So let's touch on a few of those. But I want to say the word bingo right now, because you just hit it. You just hit it. So, number one, there's a couple of things that we're looking at. Number one, and for the listeners, El Paso is open for business. We got to make sure that people know that when they come here that are city government, and we are very receptive to businesses coming to our community. We need to make it super easy for permitting. Super easy to work with our city government, super easy to work with our roads. I mean, everyone that works in the city needs to be customer service focused and work with just like we do in our businesses. If we had crappy customer service, we wouldn't be sitting here right now, you know, and as small businesses, well, the.
- [36:51]
A
Fact that it's coming top down, I can tell you, under the previous administrations, it was not customer service.
- [36:55]
B
Yeah, no.
- [36:56]
A
The fact that you're sitting here right now gives me hope that it is becoming.
- [36:59]
B
We are customer. You call my office. And you know what? I encourage you to call my office. The number one thing I tell them to do is you better be customer service number one. Because I'm an entrepreneur. I understand it. You got to listen to the customer. So we're open for business. That's number one. Number two, the thing, and we talked about this before, is El Paso gets a bad narrative. Okay. You know, with the border and the things that are going on. But I've got to tell you that we've got to change that narrative. And we are a safe city. We are in the top five safest cities in the United States, despite what you see on national news. I was just in Juarez, Mexico, yesterday. I was with the mayor of Juarez, Mexico yesterday, and we talked about. One of the things I'm excited about is me and the mayor of Juarez have talked about how do we recruit more businesses to the region. Okay. Whatever happens in El Paso happens in Juarez. And whatever happens in Juarez happens in El Paso.
- [38:02]
A
100%. People don't realize how good it is being part of a border town.
- [38:05]
B
We're connected. It's umbilical cord. We're connected. The same with Las Cruces, Sunland park, and some of the other surrounding areas. But the mayor of Waddus says, renard, we've got a great relationship, but now it's time to do more and for a mayor to tell me that of our sister city. And I said, so what's the. More we're going to get on the roadshow, we're going to go talk to some CEOs and tell them how wonderful it is to come.
- [38:33]
A
The CEOs are hearing this right now.
- [38:34]
B
Yeah, yeah, we're open for business. And you know what? We have some of the best robotics engineering in this region.
- [38:41]
A
Oh, gosh. I mean, well, I mean, you talk about, like, talent.
- [38:45]
B
Yeah.
- [38:46]
A
One, one of the things that people underestimate is the talent here. And, and you know, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to devalue our people, but the cost of talent here, I have businesses in other places, and for 120k salary that I pay in other places, I might pay 70 here.
- [39:03]
B
Yeah.
- [39:04]
A
Like the cost of the same talent in El Paso as you're getting elsewhere, which obviously more businesses come here that'll overall drive up. So you know who's going to benefit is the early actors. The early actors that come in and say, wait a minute, you can own a home here, a great home, a 35, 4,000 square foot home for 3,500amonth, 2,500amonth. Like, like, oh, my gosh, I can live in El Paso, get groceries, have a life. And you look, compare the cost of la, compare the cost of El Paso. If people actually did those numbers, they would take the 70 grand here over the 250 over there. Because at the end of the day, lifestyle is better. So for the businesses that are smart enough to look at our community, at least the early actors, I mean, if you do what I think you're going to do and you bring in 10, 20, 30 large scale companies over the next few years, the early actors are going to get the majority of the benefit.
- [40:00]
B
So you use the word early. I'm going to say early adapters because those early adapters that figured this out, so your listeners, if you have certain cell phones, if you have certain computers, they were manufactured here in El Paso. There is a company here that has thousands and thousands of employees that put together phones and put together servers and computers that you order online, but they're shipped out of El Paso. In addition to that, your televisions, a lot of that is right across the border from us. So the engineering, the robotics that we have in this region are the best in the country. And the early adapters that have figured that out are expanding in our region. We have so many Taiwanese companies right now, Preston, looking at doing business not only here in El Paso, but in Juarez because of what happened in the logistics and the supply chain. So we are open for business. If you're an early adapter and you want to get on this, the wave of El Paso and entrepreneurship, now's the time.
- [41:01]
A
Can I get ahead of a. Something's going to pop up in the comments because it's political narrative right now is tariffs, tariffs, tariffs. We're going to tariff Mexico, the world's going to end, blah, blah, blah. Right. Let me go ahead and answer that. Okay. I answered this a month or two ago and nobody believed me. We all thought the world was going to end. Regarding tariffs, like everybody's talking about Trump's 25% tariff that might hit Mexico, might hit Canada. Mexico and Canada immediately capitulated right after the tariff threat was there and Trump postponed it. And while there will be some tariff game going on, Mexico's economy is 1.4 trillion annually. Ours is 27 trillion annually. Canada's economy is 1.6 trillion annually. Ours is again 27 trillion. You add Mexico and Canada together, they're about $3 trillion. They're just a little bit over 10% of our total economy. So with the trade deficits we have, they don't have a choice. I don't care what Sheinbaum or Trudeau says. They're going to work with us. Trump's goal of effectively ending fentanyl coming into our borders was, was what the tariffs were about. Canada and Mexico are going to work with us. The reciprocal tariffs. Canada and Mexico are going to work with us. Hell, the eu, the European Union just lowered their auto tariffs down to equalize ours to avoid reciprocal tariffs. Guys, an economy of 1.4 trillion is not going to turn around and say fuck you to the economy of 27 trillion. Because they can't. Why? Because we do a third of their economy in fucking trade. Like we're about. It's like 400 and 500 billion in trade annually. We could cut off a third of their economy. We have the leverage due to the trade deficits. The tariffs are a non factor. They're a negotiating tool of the President. So for all of you guys that are about to post comments saying, oh, the tariffs, oh, don't move to El Paso, you're dead fucking wrong. The leverage game works. I mean, you know, agree or disagree, our President is actually creating a situation where there's going to be more trade and more sales, which puts El Paso on the map as one of the best places to do business in this country.
- [43:02]
B
Yeah. And we have a number of companies right now, Preston, that are already in the region looking to open up significant amount of manufacturing and businesses here. If you go out to the east side of El Paso, there's over a million square feet of industrial space already built ready to go. And you look at Sunland park and Santa Teresa area, there's millions of square feet of space being occupied. So we are primed in this region. Look, for your listeners, we got 362 days of sunshine. 362 days. Our weather's great. Our electrical grid doesn't go down. I could go on and on about the good things about El Paso. You have Virgin Galactic up to our north into our west, that is working in space. You have blue origins out in Van horn, which is 70 miles from here. So if you want to get to Space Aerospace from here, you have to come to El Paso. They figured it out. You need to be an early adapter. Come to El Paso. You know what? And for all your listeners, look me up when you get here. I will personally show you around this city. I don't have to convince you to come to El Paso. You're going to see it for yourself. This is a beautiful community. These are some of the hardest working people I've ever Seen. And, Preston, you're smiling because you know that some of your other places, no one works. They. The people here show up early and stay late.
- [44:33]
A
I know you're a guy that gets things done. Before you were mayor, I brought to you a situation that I was dealing with, which. Which was, frankly, a situation where bureaucrats were just not doing their jobs. And it was something that was affecting me. And you made one phone call, and I don't know that you did this. Okay. But I know the day after I met you, the people that weren't doing their jobs called me and said, hey, we hear there's an issue, which was either you or God, and they started doing their jobs. So you're a guy that gets things done. You're a guy that makes things happen, and you're not going to do anything that's outside of the lines. You're not going to do any favors, but you're going to make your team work. You're going to show up personally. When we met, you said, hey, before I donated, why don't I come out to your business?
- [45:23]
B
I did say that I'd be happy.
- [45:24]
A
To talk to your people. You did do that.
- [45:26]
B
Yep.
- [45:27]
A
I mean, I. I'd already donated. I didn't really give you a chance. I donated too quickly because I was impressed. But you did do that. And.
- [45:33]
B
And you did that with a lot.
- [45:34]
A
Of folks that didn't make big donations. Like, you're a guy that's out there finding a way to make government collaborate with business. And no different than our BYD example. BYD passed Tesla. Tesla was the biggest electric car company on Earth. And byd, the company that had government on its side, Chinese government. Wrong. Government. Past Tesla. Well, you want to go somewhere to work? Where are you going to go? How about where the government supports you? Hello. So can I jump into something else? It's a total swerve.
- [46:07]
B
Yeah.
- [46:07]
A
And I love that you're, like, inviting businesses to El Paso. I love that you're going to be bringing more entertainment, more lifestyle, more that. And you're inviting.
- [46:14]
B
Well, we got some. Something big we're working on, and I can't wait till you see it.
- [46:17]
A
Yeah. And we can't announce it here, but, like, we'll.
- [46:19]
B
We'll. We'll come back on the podcast.
- [46:22]
A
We'll come back after, because I want to give you the humble brag, but you're also. And this is just. This is kind of sexy. Okay. Like, I need to go over this. You're my first guest with security. How the hell is that man, like. Like, it was kind of cool. He shows up. We did the podcast at my house, and the police arrive. I'm sure my neighbors are like, what did Preston do? They start inspecting my house, and they start looking around, and then this like. Like, probably the biggest white guy I've ever seen. He's out there. You can hear me right now. Like, his arms are bigger around than my legs. He could kill me with a fucking napkin. Walks in. I'm like, oh, so Renard brought Delta Force. That's weird.
- [47:02]
B
So.
- [47:02]
A
So that's got to be new.
- [47:05]
B
It's new.
- [47:06]
A
How is that?
- [47:07]
B
You know what? So it's. It's taken me a while to get adjusted to this. And you know what? Here's a secret. I hope they can't hear me, but every now and then, I try to escape. Hey, I'm going to go to the bathroom. And I try to go to lunch. But these guys and girls that work for the Dignitary Protection for the Office of the Mayor, their sole purpose is to make sure that no mare under their watch gets hurt. And it's taken me 36 days to figure that out because we are such a safe city. And I'm a guy that, like Preston, I go to all parts of El Paso. It's a safe city. I go everywhere. But these guys are like, sir, you're not going to know when you need us until you need us. And then it took me a while to say, okay, they got a job to do. But, yeah, you're right. I mean, I've got a bunch of guys and girls that kind of follow me. I got to share a funny story. So the night we got, you know, I was sworn in kind of my inauguration. My daughters were here with me, and there was a dignitary protection that was with my girls. And my youngest one goes, dad, why do they have to come with us to the bathroom? You know, can I just go to the bathroom by myself? So it's different. It's an adjustment, but I respect their role. I respect what they do, and they are true professionals, and they train a lot. And we are lucky as a city to have such a great Dignitary protection team. And it's only been 38 days, but a lot of these young men and women that are working in that office, we are going to have friendships long after this, because I can already feel it.
- [49:01]
A
I love that. And I had to bring that up because it was. It was kind of cool. Like, I think you might be the coolest guy I know now. Maybe I'm going to hire security so that I walk in like that.
- [49:10]
B
It looks cool.
- [49:11]
A
I'm going to get your big buff guy to come work for me. And like, like, like enter a room.
- [49:14]
B
First and he's small. I got bigger than that.
- [49:16]
A
Oh my gosh, man. Like, dude, like, that guy's arms are big around than my legs. But I, I want to, I want to kind of jump into economics and I want to hit and honor the entrepreneurial class. Okay. Because I love what you're sitting here and telling me. Like, you're a guy that runs a government in a city that's been on the news many, many times, probably for some of the wrong reasons because of the border crisis and other shit over the last four years. You're saying things that are beautiful for the entrepreneur. And many entrepreneurs are going to hear this and they're going to say, wow, maybe I need to go and look at El Paso. Some entrepreneurs are going to be sitting there and saying, well, I, I'm not at a point where I'm ready for that, but maybe I can get something out of, how do I work with the government in my city? And entrepreneurs are a special class. Like, it's, everybody talks about jobs and I'm not knocking employees, but I think God created us in his image and I think employment is modern slavery. Like, no bullshit. Like, like, and I'm not talking high level employment where you're, you're a member of the team and you're a part of the, the group, but I'm talking low level employment. Like minimum wage is fucking slavery. Like, I think that's disgusting. Anybody that pays that is, should probably burn in hell. But entrepreneurs, they create opportunity. If they're good, they create jobs that are going to give somebody the ability to put their family into a great position, own a home, buy a house, invest, put their kids through college, all of this. And by nature of that, like, how much do we talk about jobs with just the Federal Reserve every month, right? Every time there's a Fed meeting every month, Every other month we talk about it. Entrepreneurs create that. And you are sitting here saying, entrepreneurs, I'm open to you. Yeah, I want to talk to you. I want to help you come to my market to create jobs. If I'm the CEO of El Paso, Renard Johnson, I want to give you the opportunity to build your business here, to employ my people. I'm sure you also want to give your people the opportunity to create their own entrepreneurial journeys. And I'm here to help you with anything I Can do with that in any way that I can support. I'm happy to deliver on. But I love that you're just bringing entrepreneurs to the table to create jobs and building the entrepreneur class, frankly, because you know what it is, You've lived it and you've done it, but with that, knowing that there's some. And this is. This is kind of a hook catch, asshole thing for me to do to other governments.
- [51:38]
B
Let's do it.
- [51:39]
A
Okay. But I'm going to do this to other governments.
- [51:41]
B
I know you are.
- [51:42]
A
I want you to give entrepreneurs a few things. They should go ask the government they're working with that would help them go out and build jobs and create opportunity and improve their market and improve their economy. That way, when they go do it, their government either helps them and keeps them or their government fucking loses them because they don't deserve them. And they come here and open here. What are three things entrepreneurs can go ask their municipality that you're happy to do, that others should be as well and may not be.
- [52:15]
B
Yeah. So one of, one of the things. Wow, you went in deep on this one, man. Sorry, you went in deep.
- [52:21]
A
Love you.
- [52:21]
B
Yeah, I appreciate you. So on this one, Preston, I've got to tell you what we're doing here and what we can do better, which will then in return, tell the other entrepreneurs what they should be expecting from their governments. So if you, if you're working or you have a business in your municipality, if you haven't seen your city come out and knock on your door and ask you what can they do first to retain you in their community? Second, expand. You come to El Paso because that's what I'm going to talk to you about. We haven't done a good job at that here because I'm sitting here with you, Preston, a business owner. And what I need to do is I need to make sure I can retain you because you can go anywhere and do business. I need to know what I can do to help you expand. I need to know what resources you need from your municipal government to do what you need to do to be in business.
- [53:17]
A
And I'm so glad you have. I mean, just the principles and character that you have, because, you know, nobody's looking for a special favor, but people are looking for people to do their job.
- [53:26]
B
Yeah. And Preston, you know what? We have the same thing in common. We want our community to do well. We want our employees to be enriched. We're in the same thing. I am very impressed with the city staff and our city manager they all know if you go right now, I will bet you a nice dinner whatever you want, you go right now. You talk to anyone in the city, what's the mayor's number one agenda? They're going to take economic development. And we're open for business.
- [54:01]
A
But I think that's you, Renard. I think leadership matters.
- [54:04]
B
Yeah.
- [54:04]
A
Because here's one thing I know with my business leaders are dangerous. It's the number one quality. My job is to be dangerous enough to beat the competitors, to keep my staff, my team, my customers safe. You're dangerous.
- [54:16]
B
Yeah, I am dangerous.
- [54:17]
A
And they knew that you were not fake. And I'm not saying the other guy was fake, but maybe he wasn't paying attention. Like the guy that before you, he was a good guy. Like I have nothing bad on him that I'm going to say because, you know, I didn't know him personally. I've heard lots of great things about him. But maybe in the last six months or a year when I were. I was dealing with my issue, maybe he was asleep at the wheel on that. I don't know. But you got in, everybody started working. You had the right people. But like any other employer employee situation, if the right people. People are there, but they're not managed and measured, are they going to do the job?
- [54:53]
B
Yeah. And I come from a. You know, in my personal company you'll be able to look up. In 2004, I made Inc. 500s magazine's fastest growing company.
- [55:05]
A
I already saw it.
- [55:06]
B
Yeah. And I looked you up. And you remember the company I beat out too.
- [55:08]
A
You look better in the suit today, though.
- [55:10]
B
Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's a nice suit, huh? So if you look at that 2004 ink 500 article, I beat out godaddy. So I understand high performing organizations. It's hard to grow 2000 and something percent. Very hard to do. But I understand it. And I understand taking people resources and pushing them. Pushing them and giving the tools they need to succeed. I also understand that you manage your high performers up, your low performers out. That's. I. I get it.
- [55:45]
A
You know, that's. That's a good thing. So you're willing to fire people that don't deliver?
- [55:49]
B
Yeah. Yes.
- [55:50]
A
So you mean you work for the citizens, not the bureaucrats.
- [55:53]
B
Yes.
- [55:53]
A
I love you. We'll hug after.
- [55:55]
B
Yeah. We got two hugs coming.
- [55:57]
A
No, three things.
- [55:58]
B
Yep.
- [55:59]
A
That an entrepreneur should ask. I. I totally swerved you and I. I create distractions.
- [56:03]
B
You already threw crap at me. You threw curveballs. You threw everything at me, what you got.
- [56:07]
A
But I'm beautiful. So I, I get away with, I get away with this.
- [56:10]
B
I'm not gonna say all that, but go ahead.
- [56:11]
A
Yeah. You know what? Your wife will get angry. So three things that an entrepreneur should ask their city government that you can deliver on. Hopefully theirs can too. I mean, I hope every municipality does great.
- [56:24]
B
Yeah.
- [56:24]
A
I hope this country does great.
- [56:26]
B
Yeah.
- [56:26]
A
But if this country doesn't do those three things, what would you do so that they can move here and come and benefit working under your leadership?
- [56:33]
B
So you're asking for my elevator pitch. Oh, my God.
- [56:37]
A
What brings businesses here?
- [56:38]
B
We are America's friendliest city, number one. I'm going to say that the people here have the best work ethic that you've ever seen. You're coming to an environment or a geography where the sun shines. 360. I'm going with 362. Maybe I'll do 363 days a year. And we are the best city in the United States for business. You have never experienced what your company can do until you come to a border town. There is over $100 billion that comes across this border. If you can't figure out how to stick your hand down and get some of that, I can't help you. There is tremendous opportunity in this region. I already talked about sending people to space.
- [57:31]
A
I can tell you this too. I've never reached out for the hundred billion dollars. I've had a couple opportunities to reach out for my piece of the pie. But what I've seen in you is you treat government like it's a partner to your productive citizens that are creating jobs. Whereas others treat it like it's a taxing authority, obviously, like no different than a church needs tithes, governments needs tax. That's a no brainer. Anyone that doesn't know that is an idiot. Okay? But being a partner rather than just a regulator is a beautiful approach.
- [58:06]
B
And you know, Preston, I said this earlier, but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, this is our community. This is where we raise our kids. This is where our families are. It's our responsibility, it's our charge to take care of El Paso. It's going to take all of us.
- [58:29]
A
Every city government's charged to do that. Not all of them do that. Everyone should elect an entrepreneur like that. Okay?
- [58:34]
B
And if they're not doing it, move to El Paso. That's what we're doing.
- [58:38]
A
So, so, so here's a question, because I'm, I'm loving where this is going. And. And I actually have one more thing that I want to hit before I ask you. How do entrepreneurs reach out to you guys? We in El Paso, and part of lowering the tax rate and part of creating affordability is understanding what is driving some of the stress. We've all watched the news, cnn, msnbc, fox, all of the fake news bullshit. Like, you should watch podcasts. You should watch this fucking podcast. You want real news. But we've all watched the bullshit fake news, okay? Whether it's conservative or liberal, with whatever their fucking sales pitches. We know they've all used this tagline of structural inflation. We all know that inflation, if we look at cpi, they remove three things. Food, fuel, construction materials, which is what's necessary in houses and cars, and food, fuel and construction materials is the three main things that a consumer fucking buys. So we're looking at consumer inflation and removing the three largest expenses. What makes inflation structural is that we've told everybody, and even though I'm glad you did, and I'm doing it, go be a tech entrepreneur, go be a teacher, go be a doctor, go be a lawyer, go be all these things. But what about become a plumber? What about become an electrician? Like if we add more plumbers, more electricians, more sheetrockers, more things like that, you know, on one hand we would solve for structural inflation. On the second hand, Renard, you know what we'd also do? We'd get ahead of all the threats that AI presents to us. Think about it. Everybody talks about AI is going to replace all the jobs. Oh, yeah, tell me AI is going to walk into a fucking house and wire my house. It's not. It's going to replace the jobs that fit on a 10 bullet point job description. If we bring mineral mining, if we bring labor, if we bring manufacturing, AI will affect earth. But you know what? I know if there's a ceiling fan in this room and you got 10 people standing in this room and somebody throws a pile of shit in the ceiling fan, the guy with the umbrella that knew that create the jobs that were actually relevant that AI couldn't replace immediately is the happiest guy in the room.
- [60:52]
B
Yeah.
- [60:53]
A
How can you and I, or you in the community create trade schools to bring back real labor to bring back real work, not the fake shit to solve for structural inflation to get ahead of what is probably the single greatest threat to employment on the planet over the next 10 years.
- [61:15]
B
Wow, you bring up the hard one now.
- [61:17]
A
Sorry.
- [61:18]
B
Well, no, this is good. And you already know this, but I spent a lot of my time around the Federal Reserve System. I am a former director of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. So I get inflation. I get our dual mandate at the Federal Reserve System. I think what we need to do here, Preston, is we have to get our kids excited about these different traits. For example, your ceiling fans and your plumbing is electronics now. It's not the same plumbing that me and you grew up on, where you can get a pair of vice grips and go fix something. Now you have to put computers through these things. Our kids don't know that. They're not excited about these industries, and they're not excited about how much money that these industries can pay. So I tell you that because if you look at the da Vinci robot in hospitals, it's all technology. It's all humans working on these robots. We need to make sure that our kids can get excited. But we have to go into the schools, Preston, with this to make sure that we can get them super, super stoked about going into these industry. A welder. If I'd have known what a welder makes, I probably wouldn't be sitting here right now. The amount of money they can make. These are trades that we need to really educate people on, because not everyone needs to go to college. Okay. You know, I. I mean.
- [62:49]
A
You mean they don't all need to be indoctrinated in some political bullshit. Some people can actually go produce.
- [62:54]
B
Nope. You don't need. No, you need to be the best person that you can be. Okay. Best person that you can be. There's a guy now, let them figure out who said this. But there was a guy that said, I can deliver your mail overnight. That was his thesis. He flunked it. Got an F. They're like, you're crazy. You built a hell of an empire. So, entrepreneurs, we dream and we dream big. We dream big. It's up to us to execute, though. And if you surround yourself with people that are negative, telling you what you can't do, get rid of that. There's some people that you guys know that if you win the lottery, they're still going to be unhappy.
- [63:37]
A
Mm. Happiness is a choice.
- [63:39]
B
Yeah.
- [63:40]
A
You know, I love the wisdom you bring to the table. I've talked to so many politicians at this point. You know, it's funny. I donated to you. I got blown up on social media.
- [63:50]
B
You did.
- [63:51]
A
And I've talked to about a dozen politicians since that have asked for money. No, I've given no one money except you, because you're the only one that has real Conversation. Yeah, and my total compliments for that, bro.
- [64:03]
B
Well, we speak the same language. We have the same goal. We're going after the same thing. Mean you make lives better, enrich lives. That's what we do.
- [64:14]
A
You want to talk about wealth generated for any city in America? You know what it is, right? Do you know that 90% of the population has about 95% of their wealth in their home?
- [64:25]
B
Yeah.
- [64:25]
A
Well, we go out and we encourage homeownership. We encourage success and creating just the regular American dream. Stability. Stay married, own your home, pay your mortgage. When you retire, you are actually wealthy.
- [64:41]
B
Yeah.
- [64:41]
A
By comparison to every country on Earth, every population on Earth, you're successful jobs. Create that. Entrepreneurs create those jobs. You're trying to go from the top, hit the entrepreneur, hit the jobs, benefit the families, benefit the children. Create that kind of reciprocal relationship. And, bro, just so you know, I love you for that. And I wanted to put you on this podcast so that people could hear the real you. The. No, I don't give a. About Max Grossman or Brian Kennedy. And I'm probably pissing people off locally by saying these names. You know, I'll talk to anyone, but I want to deal with real people that are actually solving problems. And, bro, I honor you for that. I hope all of you entrepreneurs out there are reaching out to your city, your city council, your mayor, and finding out not what you can do for them. Do that when you're rich as fuck, what they can do for you. And that's not a favor. That's their fucking job. So with that, we're not just the people here in El Paso who want to grow, who want to improve, who want to create opportunity and employment, who want to make people's lives better. Not just to enrich yourself, but also to create real opportunity for employees and also for those outside that are already successful, that want to expand or bring your business here. How do we reach out to you, Renard? How do we get in touch with you? Get in touch with your team, Grow by coming to El Paso or if we're already here, by working with you.
- [66:15]
B
Yeah. So again, my office is. We're customer focused, and that comes first. So you can reach out to us@mayoralpasotexas.gov that goes into our system, and whatever request you have, we will tackle it on a daily basis. I've got an incredible staff. Incredible staff that is from. They get it. They're from the private sector.
- [66:42]
A
Well, the big buffed white guy, my wife was checking him out, so I don't know if he's incredible, I'm a little jealous.
- [66:47]
B
Yeah, that's good thing I didn't bring the other guy so we'd be in trouble in this room. But, yeah, you reach out to us. You reach out to the city of El Paso, and we will do whatever we can to help you get started. And look, whether you want to bring a business El Paso or not, come visit us. Come experience the hospitality of El Paso. Let us show you around our beautiful community, and you will have a whole different perspective of who we are.
- [67:16]
A
I love that. All right, entrepreneurs, friends, business people. I had my mayor. I had a new friend on this podcast. What are you supposed to learn from this? Government should be your partner. If you are in a market where your government is not your partner, do you have to find El Paso is your market? No, that's not the point of this podcast. Find a market where your government is your partner. Now, I will tell you, El Paso is the best place to grow a business. I am living proof of that. And now it's going to get better. Thank you for coming on, brother.
- [67:50]
B
Thank you for having me, Preston.
- [67:51]
A
Y'all have an amazing day. On purpose.